Still Around...

Yes, I'm still alive. Once the school year ended, I kind of subconsciously decided to take a break from the blogosphere. For the past month, I haven't written any or even read any of my regular bloggy friends' posts. But I feel ready to get back in the game, so expect regular posts to show up. You haven't really missed out on much. It doesn't seem like much has happened. I've been a total bum lately, but I needed it. Now I'm just bored, so I should have plenty of time to blog.

School's Out for Summer

Cue Alice Cooper...

Monday was my last day of school until August. I've spent the week sleeping in, catching up on errands and chores, and... well, not much else. The end of the school year is always such a relief, but now that it's here, I'm like, what do I do with all this free time?

I had planned to spend a good part of the week at my friends' pool, but the weather didn't cooperate too much.

I suppose the highlight of the week was the clash of the two undefeated teams at softball on Tuesday. It was my new Broadway Monkeys team versus my old Knox Jocks team. It was quite possibly the ugliest game we played all year, and I think we had more errors than runs, but somehow we came out on top 15-13. Monkeys extend their streak to 8-0!

Let's see, Wednesday was totally forgettable.

Thursday was a drag too, until I had dinner and watched Gran Torino with Dan. Excellent movie -- go rent it if you haven't seen it yet.

And that's about it... I'm still waiting to hear something from Columbus. I'm hoping that will happen soon. I only have until July 11th to cancel my contract here in Cincinnati.

This is Pride Weekend here in Cincinnati. That should be fun and give me something to do.

Yeah, I really am going to have to find some stuff to occupy my time this summer. Any ideas?

Whirlwind of a Week

The last few days have been really hectic and busy, and I've got a couple more crazy ones ahead before I get a breather. The end of the school year is always a little crazy, especially since I'm trying to pack up and sort through my room with hopes that I'll be moving a lot of my stuff north to Columbus here soon.

Saturday night I caught up with a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in a while at my friend Scott's housewarming party. He just recently bought a home out in the Anderson 'burbs. It's a beautiful house that he pretty much had redone from top to bottom with mostly new everything, and it turned out amazing. There was a nice group of about 20 people there that hung out for the evening and we had a great time despite the hail and tornado warnings.

I had to scrape myself out of bed early on Sunday morning with only about four hours sleep to head to Columbus for the day. I had a nice breakfast at First Watch with my friend Robert before heading over to Berliner for a day of softball. Our first game was against the other QBar sponsored team, The Homewreckers, who we really wanted to beat, as they ended our winning streak two weeks prior. Thankfully, we did just that and quite handily too. I hit my 3rd(?) homerun of the season (mind you, when I say homerun, I just mean that I hit it over their heads or in the gap and run really fast -- I don't put them over the fence). The second game was against Otero's, who we thought would be a much easier game, but they led most of the time and had a one run lead going into the 7th inning. That's when we decided to bust it open and scored six runs, pulling it out in the end. Afterwards, we made the requisite QBar and Score visits before I sadly had to head home to Cincinnati.

Yesterday began the last week of students at school, and last night was graduation at the Cintas Center on Xavier's campus. This was my fourth year of reading names from the stage, which I simultaneously love and hate. It's really nice to be there on the stage and read the names of my graduating seniors, watching them smile as they walk by. At the same time, being on stage in front of 4,000 people isn't really my thing. Everything went off without a hitch, and it was a happy night. It kind of makes me feel like a proud father (or big brother maybe) to see all of my "kids" on their special night.

Now, I just have to get through the rest of this week, and then come back on Monday for the last teacher work day. Tonight is a softball double header and tomorrow night starts sand volleyball (I think). Busy, busy!

NAGVA Nationals

The inaugural season of my volleyball addiction has now come to a close. I've been playing volleyball for about five years now, but this was the first year that I made my way through the NAGVA tournament circuit (don't read into that too much; I was a very good boy). Dealing with being single over the past year (one year this month!) has been a challenge, and it seems that my most reliable coping mechanism was just staying busy, mostly with volleyball. I suppose there are worse ways to fill that void, eh? So I made started with the Cincinnati tournament in the fall and moved onto New Orleans, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, New York, Cleveland, and ended it all with NAGVA Nationals in Chicago this past weekend.



I drove up on Thursday morning and arrived at my friend Jeff's mid-afternoon. Jeff is a good friend who was lucky enough to get transferred to Chicago from Cincinnati almost four years ago, and he was a lifesaver for me this weekend because staying with him not only saved me hundreds of dollars, but he was considerate enough to have an apartment just one block from where my teammates were staying and eight blocks from the tournament. On Thursday evening we headed out to the registration party and then took off for Boystown with the requisite stop at Roscoe's before ending the evening at Cocktail. A mini-highlight of the evening was the celebrity sighting of Mario Cantone, the actor who plays Anthony on the Sex and the City series. Not a huge deal, but just one of those things that don't seem to happen in Cincinnati.



The tournament started on Friday afternoon, and, boy, did it start out rough. We went 0-8 in our first round of pool play, which is exactly what I didn't expect to happen. It's not that we played terrible, but we just didn't seem to be able to get our heads out of our asses. We actually had the lead at some point during a majority of the sets, but we just couldn't finish it. To be fair, two of the three top finishers in the tournament were in that first pool, but that's still no excuse. Our stellar performance gave us the #34 seed out of 35 going into Saturday.




I think we were all too deflated to go out on Friday night so we just stayed in Mike and Bob's hotel room and drowned our sorrows with vodka and microwave popcorn.


Saturday was a big turnaround as we went 6-2 in day two of pool play, including a defeat of the #1 team from Friday. Our combined record of the two days was still only 6-10, which gave us the #24 seed going into bracket play. We had to play our first round on Saturday afternoon against the #9 seed New York High Class (who went on to finish 2nd in the tournament). We played them really close, but they pulled it out in the 3rd set, winning 16-14. That loss meant we were done for Saturday and would start out Sunday trying to dig our way out of the loser's bracket.



Coincidentally, Memorial Day weekend in Chicago is also IML (International Mr. Leather), and a couple of my teammates decided to initiate me into the world of leather by taking me to Touche and Jackhammer on Saturday night. They both had harnesses and had brought along a leather vest for me to wear. I'll just say that it was definitely an experience -- a mixture of hot/sexy, gross/ugly, and weird/silly. Sorry, no pictures of that evening are available -- thankfully!


Sunday morning started with a win over Minneapolis 4Play before losing to New York Kinky Sets (who we had defeated the day before) and bowing out of the tournament rather ungracefully -- not that we were bad sports, but we were very disappointed that we didn't do better. Baltimore Disturbia (with their four BB players) went on to win the B division.



Even though we didn't have a very successful tournament (we finished tied for 17th), it was still one of the most fun weekends I've had in a long time. My Cleveland Synergy Invaders is such an amazing team to play with -- not only are they all strong players who help make me better, but they're an incredibly cool group of guys too. I heard Doug is retiring on us, so hopefully that's a vicious rumor. We'll definitely miss Ms. Jackson (Tom) who's been bumped up to BB -- maybe the rest of us will get to join him there soon. This was my first NAGVA Nationals, and I can't wait until the next one in Portland, Oregon for 2010. Hell, I can't wait until next season -- only a little over three months until Labor of Love in Columbus over Labor Day weekend!

Two Years Running...

Tuesday afternoon at our school's academic awards ceremony, I was honored for the second year in a row as the "Most Influential Teacher" by the graduating seniors. Sometimes being a teacher means that the "thank yous" and "good jobs" are few and far between. And we all know that doing a exceptional job as a teacher doesn't mean a bigger paycheck or any promotions like you find in other careers. Of course, those things are nice and I wish being a teacher was more like other jobs, but it's kudos like this that really do make me forget that stuff, at least for a little while. I sincerely love my job, and I really enjoy my relationships with my students. It's very rewarding to know that they see that and like me too. =)

Going for the hat trick next year! (Oh wait, hopefully I'll be teaching somewhere else...)

Nice While It Lasted...

My two softball teams started out on a crazy tear going 4-0 and 3-0, respectively, so I had ivory tower hopes of any undefeated season. My Columbus QBar team even had the prospect of a no-loss season made sweeter by the promise of an open bar at the end of the season if we could pull off the 20-game win-streak.

Sadly, the dream came to an end on Sunday when we flubbed up both games, tying with Score 11-11 and losing to the Homewreckers 9-5. What a bummer. No 20-0 season and no endless supply of booze at Qbar. I did hit a triple though. =)


The good news is that my Cincinnati team, the Broadway Monkeys, kept our winning streak alive defeating the Elements Salon team 20-5 on Tuesday night. We've begun the season 4-0 so far! Maybe that team can go undefeated.

(Pics coming soon)

Monday Recap

We're entering the home stretch here at school with only four weeks left in the year. Things get much easier for me next week, as I teach mostly seniors, and they'll be done at the end of next week. After that, I'll only be teaching one class a day, which is really nice one way, but it does make for a really long day. At any rate, I can't wait for summer break to get here.

I had another insanely hectic weekend, and even though it makes for a really rough Monday morning since I didn't really have any down time to recuperate, it was still a great weekend. Friday night, I headed south to Garrard County to visit with mom and dad. I hadn't been there since Christmas, and I thought I should go visit since I wouldn't be able to be there on Sunday. The trip down was a nerve-wracking trek through torrential monsoons, and what should've been a two hour and fifteen minute commute turned into a four hour pain in my ass. Though I suppose I should count my blessings that I didn't end up in Oz with Dorothy Gayle. About fifteen minutes from my parents' house, while driving down Hwy 52 between Richmond and Paint Lick, traffic came to a dead halt. I figured it was just a bad wreck because of the wet roads, and after sitting there for half an hour, I pulled a u-turn and drove back to Richmond to detour through Berea to get home. What I didn't find out until the next morning was that a tornado had touched down, and wreaked havoc up at the top of the ridge, just around the corner from where I could see. Evidently it did some pretty serious damage, destroying a dozen homes and killing two people. Kind of scary when you think about it considering I couldn't have missed it by much and it was only about ten miles from my parents' house.

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After spending Friday night and Saturday morning with Mom and Dad, I drove back up to Cincinnati to meet up with my friend Kevin who was visiting Cincinnati. Kevin and I grew up just down the road from each other and have know each other since 1987 or so, but I hadn't seen him since he graduated high school in 1993, two years ahead of me. He and I recently reconnected on Facebook and thought it would be fun to hang out and reconnect. We went and sat on the patio at Rock Bottom on Fountain Square for a couple hours, then got ready to head out to Adonis for the evening. It was a lot of fun to share old stories and compare our similar experiences with growing up gay in that kind of environment. And of course it's always nice to exchange juicy gossip too. I'm looking forward to hanging out with Kevin again soon.

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Sunday morning, I got up early to drive to Columbus for softball. Q-Bar continued their winning streak by winning both games, first defeating the Switch Hitters, then Axis. We went down to Q after the game and sat on the patio for a couple hours, then headed over to Score where most of the other players go after games. Last week, I was really good and left for Cincinnati about 4:00, but this week, I wasn't so responsible. Let's just say that I didn't leave Columbus until 8:30, and it made for a painful Monday morning. Summer will be here soon enough so that I won't have to worry about that.

I just booked a ticket to Key West for the week of July 4th with Doug and Randy. We had such an incredible time when we stopped there on our cruise last year, and I can't wait to spend a whole week there. Somehow I'm thinking that will be a crazy week.

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NAGVA Nationals in Chicago is just over a week away. I'll be staying with my friend Jeff, who conveniently lives just a few blocks from where we'll be playing at Navy Pier. Again, super excited for that. I can't wait to play with my Cleveland Synergy Invaders -- we're gonna go all the way!

Open Lines

So I've been single for right at a year now... and I'm not sure the end of bachelorhood is anywhere in sight, which isn't exactly great news for me, but I can handle it. Anyway, this being my longest period of singledom in more than a decade has led to a lot of reflection and grow (yeah, as silly as it sounds, I've tried)? I mean, the demise of my last relationship couldn't have been to anything that I did or didn't do, right? So then what went wrong?

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about something that I was hearing a lot last spring: "You're a terrible communicator." At the time, I thought it was crap. I'm an open book. I don't mind sharing anything. Due to the fact that my family doesn't like to talk about ANYTHING even remotely uncomfortable, awkward, or too revealing, I've always tried to "fix" that genetic flaw that I grew up with.

But that critique has stuck with me over the last year. And when I consider that issue with some of my faltering friendships here in Cincinnati (although there are other issues at hand), the communication thing keeps gnawing at me. Do I have a problem with communicating?

Well, I've figure out that, yeah, I could be a lot better at it. Not because I don't want to share or refuse to, but I do have some other quirks that could make it seem that way. I've realized that I need to be more assertive and proactive and not WAIT until someone asks me what I'm thinking or what I want. While I really am an open book, it's not someone else's job to pick my brain constantly. I should share more freely. I do tend to be way too passive at times, and whether we're talking about a boyfriend or just a friend, it's not fair to always expect them to engage me. I think that's one of my big issues with my friends -- I always wait for them to call me or invite me to do something. I very rarely initiate anything.

So my new goal is to communicate better -- with everyone. And to be more assertive, outgoing, forthright, open, and demonstrative. Help keep me honest. And thanks for "listening." =)

A New Beginning

Didn't I say something about starting to blog more? Okay, we're starting a new month, so I figure it's time to get back on track with the blogging.

Time to catch up a little:

Last weekend was the North Coast Invasion Volleyball Tournament in Cleveland. I drove up on Friday and spent the weekend staying with my good friends Mike and Bob. They're part of the Cleveland team that I sometimes play with, but I was playing with my Cincinnati team for the tournament. We finished Saturday 6-2, even though we should easily have been 8-0. We were the #7 seed on Sunday, but pulled our typical Cincinnati stunt and played like crap, getting eliminated after 3 matches and ending up 9th out of 18. Even though we didn't do as well as I would've liked, I still had a great weekend. Doing so many NAGVA tournaments, you start to see the same faces at the tournaments, so it's really cool meeting new people and making friends. Plus I had a great time hanging out with my Cleveland boys, who finished 2nd (if I had only been playing with them that weekend!). I'm going with them to Nationals at the end of this month in Chicago and cannot wait!
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Softball also started this past week. I'm now officially a Broadway Monkey, and it was such a different atmosphere on my new team. I'm really good friends with a lot of guys, and I'm very thankful for the much needed change. It will be a great season. We started off with a 20-1 win over Blue Bar, and yours truly was 4-4 with a double.


The Columbus league also kicked off their season this past weekend that started with a pub crawl on Saturday night. The festivities started about 6:00 for me, and I was going full speed until about 1:30, so let's just say for the next pub crawl I need to work on pacing. Can you say mess? Luckily I don't think there are any photos to prove anything. So much fun though...

I'm playing with QBar again in Columbus, and we started off with a two wins in our doubleheader against Otero's and the Grizzlies. My batting wasn't great (maybe something to do with the previous night) at 3-7, but I did hit my first homerun of the season!

So other than still not hearing anything from any schools in Columbus that's about it. I better start getting some bites soon; I'm getting nervous here...

It's Just Me

Wow, I've been a lazy ass with my blogging lately. I guess that comes from a mixture of sloth, apathy, avoidance, and who knows what else. There is a lot going on with me, but I guess I'm just not comfortable writing about some things on here. Or at least not sure how to express some things in a way that I'm comfortable sharing publicly. Of course, some bloggers don't hold back at all, but I still feel the need to censor a great deal. And I think I'm okay with that. In lots of ways, I'm just in a holding pattern until things sort themselves out. Well, enough of that.

I've got a buttload of applications sent into Columbus school districts, and there are a half dozen or so openings actually posted, but I've yet to hear from anyone. One of the sites say that they will begin interviewing in May, so I keep telling myself that everyone is holding off until then and the calls will start pouring in next week. We'll see.

With the break between the volleyball and softball seasons, I've had a lot more down time during the week, which I've basically used to be a couch potato. I have to admit that I've rather enjoyed it. I cleaned out my DVR cache for the first time in months.

I've made the pivotal decision to abandon my old softball team for the Broadway Monkeys. It's a move that I've been contemplating for several seasons, as most of my close friends play on that team, and I'm sure we'll have a blast playing together. Not to mention that we'll kick some serious ass. The downside is that I've given up my regular role at shortstop and will probably just be a utility player for the Monkeys, but I'm versatile like that, ya know. I figure that if I'm moving to Columbus this summer, then these are the guys that I want to be around if I end up making a special trip down just for a softball game. Tonight is supposed to be the season opener, but I think the rain is going to spoil our fun.

Speaking of softball, Saturday night was the season kick-off party at Yadda Club in Covington. Check out a couple pics below.

This weekend is the North Coast Invasion volleyball tournament in Cleveland. I'm staying with my buds Mike and Bob even though I'm playing with my Cincinnati team. No doubt it will be a lot of fun. I'm taking Friday AND Monday off, using my last two personal days of the year, so stayed tuned for an update of how the tournament goes!