1. World Cup - I'm not a soccer fan. Not by any means. I don't understand the fascination with the sport, and I'm tired of people trying to argue it for me. I've thought about it a lot recently, and I think the problem is that the beauty of the sport is hidden. It's a guy running a couple hundred feet and cutting someone off with a perfect angle. It's a great pass that happens several seconds before a goal is scored.
I just don't have the patience to get into a game that ends in zero-zero tie. And I know soccer fans will argue that baseball fans go crazy for a pitchers duel and hockey fans love a zero-zero hockey game. I'll argue that, in both examples, you can point to a specific person (either the pitcher or the goalie) doing a great job. In soccer, it's the little things, and I just don't care enough to invest that much.
That being said, I'm your regular American guy, and I'm interested in the American team in the World Cup. And in our huge game today, I decided to go up and watch about 25 minutes of the game while I was at work.
And I'll admit that World Cup soccer is kinda fun to watch if your dog is still in the fight. And while the American team isn't the best team at the tournament, they have a lot of fight in them. They held off England, came back against Slovenia, and they dominated against Algeria. And despite the fact that they were owning the game, they were still tied going into stoppage time.
And it could've been time for the US to just give in. The referees seemed against them, and things just didn't seem to be going their way. A goal in stoppage time was improbable, and they could've held their heads high by exiting the tournament without losing.
But they fought and won. And not only did they advance to the next round, they won their group and earned a favorable draw. I'm not going to say that I know anything about the other teams because I'm not sure I know anything about our team. But I assume that playing Ghana is better than playing Germany. And I assume that playing the winner of Uruguay/South Korea is better than playing Argentina.
It's fun to be involved, though. And as long as the US is in, I'll be watching. After that, no promises.
2. As I've said a few times, I've recently gotten into tennis. I still don't watch a lot of pro tennis, but a coworker was looking at Wimbledon scores and mentioned a really long game. I looked, and it was the 50th game of the set.
I'll take a break from the story to mention that I played 20 games of tennis last week and had to get a massage to alleviate some of the soreness. So they played way more than me, and they weren't anywhere near done.
So I wasn't able to see any of this match, but what these two guys did was so impressive. As it stands now, they're still tied...at 59-59. That's right, they played 118 games and didn't decide anything. They broke the record for most games in a match...just in this set. In other words, no two tennis players had ever played that many games in one match...and these two guys played more in this one set. In addition to playing four other sets.
And what was really impressive was that the game was never that close to ending. Each man got 59 turns to serve, and the serve was held every single time. John Isner never had to play a break point, and Mahut only had to play three. In 118 games. That's just amazing.
I got home and saw some of the replay, and they both looked pretty tired at the end. And that's reasonable since they played tennis for ten hours today. But what was amazing was the fact that they got so many aces at the end of the game. Yes, both players were too tired to go and get a good serve, but it was still impressive that they kept hitting the right spots. A lot of the serves were great, no matter how tired the opponent was. And they were still over 100mph, despite hours and hours of serving.
Each man probably served 400-500 times today. I can't believe they're not both having surgery on their rotator cuffs.
But neither man would allow himself to lose. Neither wanted to quit. And neither let up in 118 games. I wish I'd been able to see, and I can't believe that one tennis match will take three full days to finish.
3. On an extremely lesser note, Carter Bloodcare came to our office today to have a bit of a blood drive. I've wanted to give blood for a while because I have a good blood type, but I haven't been able to for one reason or another. So when I saw that they were doing it, I made a note to find time to go downstairs and donate.
And when the time came, I went down and followed through. I filled out the forms, answered the questions, and passed all the tests they give you. I sat down and extended my left arm to give the blood.
And that's where the problems started. The man asked me to squeeze my fist to allow him to find a good vein. I did, and he couldn't find it. He tied off my arm a bit and had me squeeze some gauze and still couldn't get a good one. So he tied it off even tighter (uncomfortably tight, by the way) and finally was content.
After a couple of minutes, he asked his supervisor to come in and look. Apparently the blood was coming out but not fast enough. She saw that my arm was turning a different color because of the tube around my arm, and she removed it. As the color returned to my arm, I felt a little better.
But the a machine started to beep. The supervisor came back. I asked if there were issues, but they didn't say much. A few minutes later, they decided that my arm wasn't giving enough blood. And instead of waiting for the bags to fill or using my other arm, they just gave up. I asked about what was wrong, and they simply said my body fixed the hole in my arm..the platelets did their job.
But what really sucked was the fact that they couldn't use my blood. I don't know how close they were to finishing, but it seems odd that they couldn't use any of the blood. I know that a gunshot victim might need more blood than I provided, but they didn't want to take it just in case?
So I went through all of that for nothing. Now I have a decent bruise on my arm that grossed Ashley out, and no one is going to be helped because of my donation.
Now why did it not work? The platelet answer makes sense, and I guess it wasn't anything bad or they would've warned me. But I guess it could've been something else - maybe I have some kind of healing superpower.
Oh wait...I was sore after 20 games of tennis. Probably not.
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