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Tampa to St. Augustine via Gainesville

Tuesday 2 July 2024

We left our lovely hotel room with an incredible view to head to St. Augustine for the second half of our Florida vacation. It’s the second time we’ve been to St. Augustine as a family, the third time for the kids and me. That is to say, we really like St. Augustine.

Along the way, we made perhaps the most important stop of the whole week: a few hours in Gainesville. What’s so special about Gainesville? Well, it has a fantastic Korean restaurant, as we discovered for lunch. And rocker Tom Petty is a Gainesville native. But neither of those was the real reason we went to Gainesville. Our primary motivation has to do with our daughter, who is going to college in about a year. Going to college in about a year. Her number one choice of colleges: University of Florida, which is located in — guess — Gainesville. She wants to study bio-engineering, and Florida University has one of the best programs in the nation for that.

So we stopped by for a tour of the university. I tried not to talk too much or take too many pictures. The Girl remained relatively quiet during the tour. But we came away with a positive impression: the parents are happy with some of the safety programs the university implements; the Girl is happy with the college as a whole, especially one of the enormous chemistry labs we got to take a peek at.

Afterward, we headed to St. Augustine and our lovely Airbnb spot: a bungalow in an absolutely beautiful part of town. Walk to the end of the street, and this is the street we see:

Yes, that’s a peacock taking a stroll down a Live-Oak-lined street. It’s positively bajkowy.

Lovely houses as well. And the peacock? They’re from Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, an ethnographic museum literally at the end of our street.

We weren’t planning on visiting any real attractions while in St. Augustine, but since it’s just down the road, we’re thinking we might. We’ll definitely visit the Cuban coffee cafe down the street.

A games night rounded out our evening: our Airbnb has several entertainment options, including a ping pong table. Poor K gets knocked around in board games, card games, and our front-yard badminton games, but she really knows how to play ping pong.

“Don’t worry,” she assured us, “I’ll take it easy on you.” And proceeded to trounce us all one after another, beer in hand.

Orlando 2024 Day 4

Friday 28 June 2024

The girls won their first game but lost their second: the same story. They were up 22-19 but had several moments of trouble and ended up losing 23-25 in the first set. In the second set, they had a 12-9 lead but lost it, tying at 12, before dropping the second set 20-25.

And thus ended the third and final experience with AAU Nationals in Orlando.

Orlando 2024 Day 2

Wednesday 26 June 2024

Yesterday there was a team from Texas who, I believe, lost all their games in straight sets. L has been there: she’s been on teams that leave a tournament day without a single win. The Texas team was up 11-8 at one point, but our girls rallied and beat them.

Today, it was more of the same: straight-set victories for the first two games, including a brutal second game with sets that were 25-10 and 25-11. “It’s good to be on this side of that score,” I said to another parent, “but we’ve been on the other side, and I know how that hurts.” It does a real number on your self-confidence, and soon, the bad mistakes (like the ones they were making: hitting serves out and sloppy serve reception) pile on each other. They reach a point that essentially, the team is just as much beating themselves as being beaten. Again, we’ve been there, too.

The final game was a bit of a different story. In the first set, the girls were quickly down 2-7, but the pulled it together and ended up taking the set 25-19. The second set started out much the same, but once again, they were able to pull back and then take the set 25-21

Today was Pink Out day, when all teams wear pink uniforms and I guess thinking at least in passing about the fact that women (and a few men) die of breast cancer every year. “Believe there is hope for a cure,” one shirt reads. It has a certain religious ring to it, but it’s antithetical to the whole enterprise of looking for a cure. While it is science and not faith, belief, or hope that will cure cancer, I understand the implied optimism in the shirt, certainly a critical element for anyone fighting cancer. One of the players I noticed yesterday is clearly just after chemo. A strong female outside hitter without a single hair anywhere on hear head, she stood out in more ways than one. Perhaps the pink encourages her. Hopefully.

As for today’s pictures, I focused on the setters, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. In a lot of ways, their the brains of the whole team: they read the defense, make quick adjustments, and then decide which hitter to set based on perceived weaknesses in the opponents’ defense. Their sort of like the steering wheel of the team, or the neck. “Brain” seems to take something away from the other players.

In truth, all the players are completely critical. If you don’t have good defensive specialists, you won’t get a good pass to your setter. If you don’t get a good pass to your setter, or if your setter is not on her game, you won’t get your hitters in good position to attack. If the hitters are attacking, you won’t be scoring (except from opponents’ errors and blocking, and the occasional well-placed lob to the empty back corner from the setter or a DS).

As for the evening, it was games, games, games:

Orlando 2024 Day 1

Tuesday 25 June 2024

The girls won all three of their games in straight sets by convincing margins. They often start like that; fingers crossed they continue like that.

Afterward, sushi

Southern Exposure Tournament 2024

Sunday 2 June 2024

The Girl came home with three medals this weekend: two for track and a third for the volleyball tournament, which they won for their age group.

“I think I’ve gotten more medals this year than all other years combined,” the Girl said as we walked to the car.

It’s good to see your kid meeting with such success. Losing builds character, that’s a certainty.

But every now and then, it’s good to just see them dominate.

The team’s MVP, our power-house middle hitter

First Summer Meet

Saturday 1 June 2024

It became apparent from the start that this was our first summer meet.

“These folks came prepared to camp out here all day,” I texted K.

High jumpers

In the end, it was a fairly successful day: second in high jump and second in jav.

Spring 2024 Tournament Day 2

Sunday 5 May 2024

Today was the final day of our short spring tournament. They boys played their hearts out, and they had a good time — the results (0-1-2) weren’t as important.

It was a bittersweet afternoon, though: it will be the last season this team is together. There are always some new members each season, but this team has had a little core for the last three seasons, and now it’s all over. Several of the boys (E included) will be too old to play on the fall team, and the coach won’t be working with U12s anymore: he’s moving up to the 18s travel team.

Coach M was a great coach, the only coach the Boy really wanted to play for, and we’re going to miss him.

In the evening, we went on our first ride of the season.

Except for L: she doesn’t like cycling, which is a shame.

Sand

Saturday 6 April 2024

The Girl and the son of our dearest Polish friends — two kids who always argued when younger — played in a short sand volleyball tournament. L had just finished up a track meet, winning the high jump and placing second in the javelin, so she was a bit tired, I thought.

“No, I’m fine,” she insisted.

Youth…

Tournament Day 1

Saturday 16 March 2024

We had our first of two tournaments during this spring break week today — at least, the pool play was today. Our girls are the number 4 ranked team in the tournament, and they were the highest-ranked team in their pool. They faced off first with a team from Myrtle Beach and dispatched them quickly: 25-12, 25-9. The Myrtle Beach team, ranked 18th in the tournament, just didn’t seem like they had their act together at all.

After a short break, they faced their second opponent, a team called Xcell, ranked 22. Our girls finished them off in straight sets as well. During the next break, the Myrtle Beach team played the second-highest-ranked team in our pool, a team from just north of Charlotte. They lost the first set 17-25 but won the second set 25-22. They dropped the third set 13-15, and I found myself thinking that if a team we beat 25-12, 25-9 took a set from the team from Charlotte, we shouldn’t have too much trouble with them.

After another game, our girls faced off against them, the two undefeated teams in the pool. The first set was close for the first ten points each or so, but then our girls started pulling away and ended up winning 25-19.

The second set, our girls started falling apart a little, and then a lot. Soon, they were down 6-13. K was watching a stream of the game from home, and she went to the laundry room to do some work. Our girls decided to get some work done as well and went on a 10-1 run. From that amazing 16-14 comeback, they just kept plowing ahead, winning in the end 25-20. That means from 6-13 to the final 25-20 result, our girls went on a 19-7 run.

So they were the only undefeated team in the pool. They’ll start tomorrow in the early afternoon.

And the shocker: I decided not to take a camera today and simply enjoy the moments.

Small lake (that I never noticed) behind the complex
Mystery building with mystery chairs near the tournament complex

Orlando Return

Monday 4 March 2024

The girls spent the weekend in Orlando at the — guess! You’ll never guess — Sunshine Qualifier volleyball tournament, and K was sending me pictures the whole time, but I neglected to post them here.

“This might be the last time you’re here,” L told K when K was talking about all the food options there, “so enjoy it!”

Last time K is there? Well, I am taking her to Nationals in Orlando in June, but what about next year?

Truth be told, this might very well be the last club season for us. If L doesn’t get a volleyball-based scholarship, there will be very little motivation to spend the time and money next year. Does this mean she’s giving up on her dream? Not really—academic scholarships have always been more likely (the girl is ranked 11 in a class of 400+ students) and she’s never experienced anything other than success in school. I think her lowest grade of high school is a 94 or 95.

Soccer

Saturday 2 March 2024

A 2-0 win, so now the team is 1-1-1.

Spring 2024 Soccer Season

Thursday 15 February 2024

We’ve begun yet another season of soccer. We managed to get the Boy with the same coach he had last season, which made his day; several of the same boys rejoined the team as well, which made his day even more.

Monday Thoughts

Monday 12 February 2024

School Thoughts

We received a new student on our team today: a fifteen-year-old boy from Central America who doesn’t speak a word of English and has not been in school since the first grade.

I have reservations.

I’m not fussing about any extra work entailed by having such a kid in my classroom. I’ve already got two complete-non-speakers and a fourth kid who barely speaks English. My reservations are about how effectively I can really help these kids. They are, of course, in my lowest level classes, which means there are a lot of behavior issues in those classes. I’m supposed to create a new curriculum for these boys because they’re so low with their English that modified materials don’t do anything for them in my class. In science, yes. In math, certainly. In social studies, a qualified yes. In English class, though? It’s impossible just to modify the curriculum. This newest student is illiterate in his first language: I can’t modify my curriculum that includes standards like “Determine one or more themes and analyze the development and relationships to character, setting, and plot over the course of a text; provide an objective summary” and “Determine the figurative and connotative meanings of words and phrases as they are used in text; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies texts.” You can’t do this with pictures. Besides, I struggle teaching the native speakers these things because of their low motivation — teaching a non-English-speaking student with the aid of pictures? Not going to happen. So I’ll have to invent a curriculum for these boys.

Is that type of teaching really in these boys’ best interest? Wouldn’t a part-time immersion with classes like gym and art coupled with a couple of direct English instruction courses be more effective? The people at the district office downtown will say, “No, the data don’t support that.” But I think that’s bullshit. I know from my own experience in Poland that dumping me into an environment where I didn’t speak the language without any direct language instruction would have only frustrated me, and that’s with me being 22 years old at that time. If I were only 14 in such a situation — forget it.

Parenting Thoughts

The Boy’s church league basketball team had their last game this evening, which sadly they lost 22-30. It was a tough season: they went 1-8. But it wasn’t the losing that bothered the Boy so much; it was the unsportsmanlike conduct so many of the players on the other teams exhibited. Tonight, for example, there was one boy who screamed at every shot attempt our team made in an effort to distract our boys.

I had some choice words to say in texts to K about this kid’s behavior.

“Just keep your cool,” she gently reminded me.

“Of course — he’s just a kid,” I replied. But that type of behavior doesn’t come from nowhere. Either his parents never tried to correct him because they saw nothing wrong with it, or they actively encouraged and/or taught him to behave like that.

Were I to coach such a kid, I’d tell him and his parents, “Look, if you do that, I bench you for the quarter. You do it again, it’s for the rest of the game. And every time after that, it’s for the rest of the game.”

The Boy’s inherently empathetic outlook on things means such behavior would never enter his mind. Was that something we had to teach him? I guess we did, but I don’t remember doing so, and I suspect his empathy would lead him not to do that even if we didn’t explicitly teach him that.

Win

Saturday 27 January 2024

The Boy’s team finally got their first win of the season today, and the Boy scored.