The 4th of July Holiday in America for Once

Monday, June 29 -

Monday July 6, 2020

The week started off with some sad news . . .

Former Europe Warriors Right

Tackle and Coach Luis Rodarte

was entering a hospital in 

Mexico City

Luis played for our first Senior Warriors team back in 2017 in his native Mexico City and then helped coach our Offensive Line with our U19 team later that same year in Texcoco, Mexico just outside of the nation's capital. On both occasions he proved himself at all times to be just a GREAT person hence whenever any body asks me about him, my standard, heartfelt response has always been "I love Luis Rodarte!"

It is with much sorrow that I tell you the that doctors recently discovered a tumor in Luis' head. He was operated on twice at the start of the week and his doctors are optimistic on his recovery over the next few months.

As you can imagine, his family could use any financial aid that readers can give them. The photo above gives the information about the special account in his name that has been set up at the BBVA bank.

Please reach out if you can, GRACIAS!

Luis the Senior Player

Luis the U19 Coach

Speaking of American football . . .

Reeled in one more time

Good friend Bart Iaccarino of Barcelona's Pioners L'Hospitalet has opted to hire me to be his team's Video Analyst for the 2021 season.

I know that I said that my EuroBall coaching days were over but this coaching job is a bit different.

Thank's to the revolutionary HUDL platform, the Pioners will just upload game and practice footage to HUDL and then I will start my work from the comfort of my home office in Camarillo.

I think that this will be a good way to stay active in the game, plus I may need to make a visit to Barcelona for a week or two to check things out.

The Pioners also signed

Honza Rauš

Honza is another of the great young men that I have met through the Europe Warriors program.

Honza the Player in Chihuahua

Honza the U18 Coach in Vienna

Honza the whimsical Women's OC

in Mexico City

All in all,

It's GREAT to be a Pioner!

A deep, theological

conversation with Mary

The end of Mike's

Fourth of July March

As some of you may recall, our son Micheal is an American Civil War re-enactor.

On Saturday, the Fourth of July, he decided to don his Union uniform and walk the last ten miles  to our house to get a feel for what it was like to march back 160 years ago in heavy wool clothing and non-Nike shoes.

Mike and Mary

Jacob got into the act too

Mike may have a future

in Italian cinema as well

Laurie helping Mary ice

our Fourth of July mini-cakes

News from the internet . . .

Especially in Fillmore

Unfortunately, true . . .

Wear the damn mask and

practice social distancing

Once again,

unfortunately, true

More great reasons to be a

Varese Skorpion!

Interesting flowers seen

on Monday's walk

The decade of the 2010s

was a tough one on Rams fans

The AFC East, other than the Patriots, was historically weak.

Don't get too tight on the turns!

Thoughts of Italian

wine turned . . .

. . . to memories . . .

. . . of incredible lunches . . .

. . . and incredible markets

ENOUGH!

I'm going shopping tomorrow

Reading Is FUNdamental!

ACTION PACKED!

A huge body count in this 25th installment of the Jack Reacher series.

Life and crime in Sicily continue

to be of interest to me

Another Week During the Pandemic

Monday - Sunday,

June 22-28, 2021

A few weeks ago I stated on this blog that I was going to continue to post daily as these were historic times.

Unfortunately, with our self-imposed continuing personal lockdown, it is also a time of repetitive boredom sitting at home watching TV, reading books and basically staying in our home.

The weekend updates about the newest spikes in the Coronavirus pandemic in the USA confirmed that we were doing the right thing. Wearing a face mask and social distancing really is not that hard to do people!

Thus, I submit to you the minimal doings of the past week not day.

Portugal joined the growing list of EuroBall countries

cancelling their 2020 season

Laurie incorporated the fresh vegetables

that our neighbor George grew in his garden

to a delicious risotto dish Wednesday night

On Thursday, I joined RB Coach

Cristian "Bumba" Bianchi and the rest of the Skorpions

staff for our final webinar meeting of the Spring

These Thursday morning meetings have been extremely enjoyable, at least to me, in having the opportunity to talk American football with a coaching staff that worked hard with me to make the Skorpions better the last three seasons.

Little Mary came over to the house and

boldly tried to befriend a lizard in our garden

A phone call with Mike D'Antuono led to his

getting us instantly hooked on this intense Netflix

series direct from Madrid with excellent dubbing

Our Leader

Saturday's trip to the supermarket

showed that the only shortage was still

found in the paper products aisle

At Lombardo's Italian Market, I decided

to cook pasta for dinner Saturday night

Some sweet wine while cooking helped

Ingredients are the keys to culinary success

First, sauté the vegetables

Then grill the sweet Italian sausage

Add the pasta sauce and a couple of SECRET

ingredients and let it simmer

Laurie set the table

mangia,

Mangia,

MANGIA!

Have I mentioned that Laurie loves

to work in the garden?

Headband?

I just had to don a headband to keep the hair out of my eyes on Sunday when Mary and Jacob came to play with me in our backyard.

Reading Is FUNdamental!

An in depth tome on the roots of

American football in Europe

If you are a EuroBall fan like I am, then this is a must read.

In my opinion, it does beg for a Volume 2 with a deeper look at the growth of the game all over Europe in the last 20 years.

One of my favorite crime writers

ruminating about several unrelated

but interesting topics

Father's Day Weekend

Friday-Sunday,

June 19-21, 2020

We enjoyed a good weekend, at home of course, in large part because of the grandkids.

It all started on Friday with our last Coaches Exchanging Zoom meeting of the Spring that started back on April 1st. At that time, we were a group of European and Mexican coaches whose seasons were in limbo and wanted to use our down time to improve ourselves.

After nearly 30 of these wondrous meetings, I think that it is safe to say that we all did learn a thing or two in these great meetings organized by Jesús Sanchez and Bart Iaccarino in Spain. 

Our final speaker was Alvaro Salazar . . .

. . . of Mexico's Tec de Monterey Borregos

talking on his RPO system

RPO stands for Run-Pass Option, the thing in American football today

He was organized and explained things . . .

. . . clearly and thoroughly

It was a good way to end our sessions together.

Speaking of American football and EuroBall . . .

The Huskies get a Verbal Commitment

from the Wonderful World of EuroBall!

On Friday it was announced that German native Maurice Heims, a Senior DE at California's Santa Margarita Catholic H.S., has verbally committed to play his college football at the University of Washington!

In 2019 he came to America from Germany to study and play for a year or two. That experience has led to a free college education, awesome.

He'll be a high school Senior in 2020 if we ever have a season.

On Saturday night, grandson Jacob had a sleepover with us.

A two day Monopoly game saw me as the

eventual two day winner!

Sunday was Father's Day in the USA

I had two presents to open, the box behind my head held a turntable to once again be able to play all sorts of vinyl 45s and LPs from our 1950s-80s collection.

As for the smaller present I'm opening here, it was . . . 

. . . a Rams Flag for the front yard!

Princess Mary joined us on Sunday

She started this video as a budding Paleontologist

but ended it as a Dancing Queen

I had a good day with Mike but missed Andy a lot

Our neighbor George has an overflow

vegetable garden and we are the thankful

recipients of his bounty

In news from the net . . .

C.

Spain finally cancelled their 2020 season

after first postponing it back in March

Still so TRUE!