Ryan Morlok’s Blog

First game of the adult rec hockey league last night. The “Individuals” (a name that doesn’t really reflect the team aspect of play) came out shooting last night winning 7-0 over the opposition. Ok, I’ll grant you that they were a team of girls (should have seen that one coming with a name like “Hot Tamales”), but after playing against Sarah and her friends when I go home to Minnesota, I realize that I’m bad enough at hockey that sex doesn’t matter — a win’s a win. The Hot Tamales actually had a couple guys on their team, but they were mostly composed of the UIUC women’s club team — they even wore their same jerseys. Next week we’re up against the formatable Ice Dogs who, ironically, are actually a roller hockey team that moved to ice for this league.

If you’re not aware, I’m currently on my Lenten no-pop kick, which could just as aptly be described as my Lenten drink-a-ton-of-tea kick. No big deal, it’s a yearly occurrence. The problem this year is I’m making a lot of that tea at work. We have a microwave in the lab, but the problem is the RPMs of the turntable in the microwave don’t jive well with my preferred tea-heating time. It turns out that my 3 minute warming time leads to almost exactly xx.5 revolutions, where xx is some number I don’t know. “Why is the a problem?” you may ask. Because I insert the mug with the handle facing the door, and when I go to take it out, the handle is facing the back of the microwave. Every time. Very annoying.

Just got back from my first hockey practice for the league I’m playing in this spring. League might be a bit of an overstatement — it’s 3 games + playoffs, though for $20, that’s still not too bad. Team seems like a perfect fit. I’m right around the average skill level, though the rest of the league could be better. I’m on the team composed of individuals who didn’t have a team of their own, so perhaps the more serious players are on other teams.

Got to try out my new skates for the first time. I have no idea what they are (they’re Mission something or others). I’m sure Steve can tell you their entire life story, from the basis for all the technologies in them to the quality of the deal I received at Hockey Giant, but honestly, I just don’t care.* I seem to be able to hold my outer right edge a little better, which is nice, and my feet aren’t killing me when I get off the ice, which is great.

Regardless, it just feels great to be back on the ice.

*haha, I know I can make jabs at Steve because he doesn’t read this blog — to which Shoe will now promptly point him to give rebuttal.

Last night we had a series of large storms involving tornados. There was some reasonable damage in town, though it could have been a lot worse. My understanding is there were actual tornados within the county, and the sirens went off in town as well (not sure what the rules are for when the sirens go off here versus Minnesota — in Minnesota they like to set them off at the first rain drop to warn the news anchors to get to the field and report about every downed twig).

In any case we lost power last night from 7:30 p.m. to midnight. Internet connection was still down this morning, though that could have been due to needing a router reboot on Dusty’s end (not sure if it’s up yet). Katy was stuck in a Wal-mart for the duration of the storm, and was unable to check out her goods — which annoyed her considerably, as she had just spent an hour shopping. Good times all around, I spent most of the evening reading programming books by candle light, just like my ancestors used to do.