In hibernation

This blog is in hibernation until next season. We didn't win anything good because we lost in the second round of the play-offs. Oh well, the season was a fun one. Now, I can focus on my joggling and my euchre playing and kickball and becoming the worlds most famous cosmetic chemist.

Playoffs? Next week.

Since the only thing that anyone is talking about these days is the weather...I feel it's important to note that due to the weather, the Urban Tribe could not play last Thursday. Oh wait, was it the weather or was it the lack of coordination by Chicago Sport & Social in announcing that it was canceled?
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMMM...
The weather line had not been updated for over a week, the mailbox was "unable to accept messages" and someone didn't return the poles for the south court! What is one to do? A few of us made the trek to the courts by way of car, bus, taxi, train, etc, but it was all for nothing. Despite the return of the sun at exactly 6:30 pm, the courts weren't ready. But that's probably because the Sport & Social people were sending out an email to everyone at 6:40pm -- I guess they live by cliche "better late than never!"

The Shauertes, Romanowskis and Lisa represented the Tribe at Goose Island instead, where Shannon had to order "more beer" to cool her buffalo sauce stinging tongue and Lisa had to dissect every word of an email sent to her by a cute boy. At this time, a decision was made that the Urban Tribe would return to the kickball field this fall led by GM, Mark and Coach Perry. Stay tuned for more details and the tryout schedule!

(P.S. sorry about the photo, ladies, but I knew I'd get the boys attention at least!)

Seeeeervice!

This is my first blog ever and I now feel accepted to this new high-tech geek club - ha! The Urban Tribe played their little hearts out tonight and won 2 out of 3 games with our special guest player, Chris from Alberto-Culver. Each player on our team had accurate and consistent hitting, you can tell we are going to shine during the playoffs!

As for the second-half of the evening we all went to a new location for our victory food and spirits. This location was Four Farthings Tavern. The night was beautiful and we enjoyed our drinks while we waited for them to call our table. 20 minutes turned into 30 and then the guy that took our named disappeared too! We sat down soon after that to see that we were very under dressed to be ordering $30 steak dinners or fancy seafood dishes. Our five pieces of bread and small glasses of water arrived and were quickly consumed. After additional 20 minutes of waiting we had not even seen our waiter which caused us to get up and leave. So as you can see from the title of this blog, and as you hear Perry scream before each serve, this Urban Tribe blog was about "Service" or lack there of.

P.S. We all ended up going to Blue Line Tavern and enjoyed our great dinner and drinks while watching Poseidon Adventure on the TV. See you at playoffs!

Deer and Clothing in South Carolina

Hello Urban Tribe! After eight sunny days, 2000 miles, and one fabulously read (but not well written) book we’re finally back. Sorry to hear you weren’t able to pull out a victory in our absence. Hopefully this week we can turn it around.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to do it sans Shannon. As some of you might have heard Mayday McKenzie had a little mishap.

It was another beautiful day in Charleston, South Carolina when we set out on the fresh-cookie warm asphalt trail for our final bike ride. Thirteen minutes into the twenty minute ride, I looked up ahead and saw a slender, white-tailed deer bound across the trail. It passed over the road in front of us, stepped up to the banks of a still pond, awkwardly bent its stiff front legs, and began lapping.

As we approached, the deer calmly looked up in our direction. Birds chirped, the sun shone and the serenity was only enhanced by steady hum of the rubber tires grooving on the black trail surface. Sensing no danger, the hornless fawn drew its head back to the water.

But before quenching its thirst further an obnoxious black SUV came sputtering down the road. Little Bambi looked up again but with eyes opened wide. Her head frantically darted back and forth.

As I passed, the deer began to sprint across the road. But its hooves on the street started skidding and clicking. She stalled in place looking as if governed by the laws of physics found in cartoons. When she regained her footing she became an uncontrolled train barreling down a track.

And that track led right to Shannon. I looked back to see the brown battering ram crash squarely into her. The impact sent her flying into the wooded trail border along with the black wire bike basket and her sunglasses. As the criminal critter fled the scene, I skidded to a stop to aide my fallen bride.

Shaken and dazed, she stood up and began picking the foliage out of her hair. Even after being run over by a deer, Shannon likes to look good. After a few minutes of stunned silence Shannon attempted to complete the ride. But with her sore shoulder and overall weariness she couldn’t continue. A family of fellow vacationers drove by on a golf cart and kindly gave her a ride. Alone, worried, I rode back to the hotel towing the riderless cycle at my side.

When I finally met her in our room, she was comfortably recovering. Her shoulder was sore and we were still pulling grass out of her hair hours later.

It’s been three days and the soreness hasn’t left. Unfortunately, that means she won’t be able to aid us in our bid to break our volleyball slump. She’ll be there to cheer us on and hopefully be back to her breathtaking bumping next week. And Bambi…well one can only hope she avoids bikes and Broncos in the future.

Click here to contact the most famous cosmetic chemist.

Swept Again

Well, it was an interesting day to say the least. It started off with black clouds and thunder rolling into the Chicago area which prompted me to send an email to the team to check Sport and Social Club's weather line. But it was all for naught, as the sun was out by afternoon and our game was back on. We would have been better off if it wasn't.

At about 7:00pm, I get a call from Brian's wife, Robyn, that their garage is broken and they can't get the car out, so Brian's out. Tough luck because Mark was at the Sox game and Shannon and Perry are on vacation this week, and even though Lisa got one sub, that left us with only five. However, our sub asks a girl on the opposing team to play and now we have six, much to my dismay. I don't mind getting subs, but when it's from the team we are playing against, it kind of makes you wonder if they purposely miss some hits. I shouldn't talk though...she was better than me tonight. I think I was like 1/7 on the serves. I couldn't hit that ball over the net to save my life. Speaking of saves - Sorquist (now Schauerte) and Tom did a fabulous job of collecting points - at least the few points we got. Tom spent a large amount of his time digging us out of the sand and Sorquist's quick reaction hits saved us many times. Lisa's serves also garnered some much needed points.

The biggest points of the night were points of frustration. These were the usual not calling for the ball and surprisingly, the score. Sorquist got feisty and yelled at the other team when they didn't announce the score before each serve. But even her attempt to drive some competitiveness into the game couldn't help us - we got swept...again. We're hoping next week we can break the streak.

The end of the evening was perhaps the most shocking. After the game we went to Bar Louie and were enjoying our beverages on the patio in front when we heard a screeching of tires and turned around just in time to see a guy on a Harley Davidson with no helmet collide with a minivan. The sound was excruciating and the smell of burned rubber even worse. Lisa and I hid our eyes, afraid of what we were going to see when the spinning bike came to a stand still. Sorquist kept yelling at us to call 911 and many people jumped up and ran to the accident. The guy was moving. There was a lot of blood and a family of five emerged from the minivan. Let me tell you, the City of Chicago responded none too quickly to the accident. It probably took them at least 10 minutes to get an ambulance on the scene. The good news was the guy on the motorcyle was moving. Having front row seats, we all vowed to wear helmets in the future, even on our mountain bikes.

Volleyball tips - Something goes bump in the night

Even though last week's game was our first loss of the season and we are team of seasoned veterans, this bit of instruction just might be helpful.

Click here for some tips on bumping.

Hopefully, the dance floor won't be the only place we bump well.

It was bound to happen

Alright, so today was a bit of a tough game. The weather was a bit lousy and our play, well...let's just say we were unlucky and maybe just a tad bit off.

It was extremely unlucky that the wind was playing havoc with the ball. Our arms would be perfectly positioned to bump the ball to the middle setter when suddenly a gust of wind, spawned by the mighty Apollo himself, queered its course leaving us futilely flailing at the vanishing sphere.

It was also unlucky that our voices would yell out for the ball only to find our possessed arms deviously laying helplessly at our sides. Fiendish flippers!

The serve was our bright spot today. Most all of the balls we hit went floating over flawlessly to the other side of the net. But the opponents were tough. It was as if Karch Kiraly was right there with them. They got to every ball that was even close. And they even got lucky with some balls they had to dive for. It's a wonder we scored even half the number of points we did. In the end, we fought valiantly but lost 0 games to 3. It was our first loss of the season.

I for one am glad we only had to play three against these titans. But I can't wait to meet them in the playoffs. This is where the Tribe shines. Regular season is for playing. The playoffs, that's for winning.

Mayday (Bad Girl) Mckenzie and I won't be attending next weeks match-up. I know it will be tough but you guys can beat Oooooohhhhh!! Nice name. Do you think they were trying to get noticed by Oprah? Go crush 'em Tribe.