More rugby photos

As always, click on these for larger versions...







































That was a "try," the rugby equivalent of a touchdown.


This is the guy who scored that try (although he's clean-shaven now)


And this is his boyfriend (you can also see him in that last photo with the ref)

Rugby is a great game, but being the photographer for a gay team makes it that much more fun. I just wish we could make it to more of the post-match drink-ups! :)

More rugby photos

Okay, we'll leave it there for now.

On another note, regardless of your religious beliefs, let me wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Rugby photos

Time for my favorite type of post: rugby photos!

I'm going to stretch this out into a few posts, mostly because our schedule won't allow me to make it to another match for a number of weeks, so I need to savor this set! :)

Here we go...


You should see the build on the Gotham guy in this shot. Woof!




I know. Hard on the eyes, isn't he? He's even an Aussie, so you get the added bonus of that lovely accent!










He just threw the ball back in. This is one of the sweetest guys you could meet. One of my top choices for husband material, if I were in the market. :)

Okay, that's enough for today. Much more to come!

Distractions

While shooting rugby photos yesterday on Randall's Island (that's one of those little islands east of Manhattan), I saw a couple of things that I found interesting.

This building is one...



Anyone know if that's Rikers Island? I think it might be. I know, who cares? Well, my curiosity has me going.

And then there was this ship (or is it a barge?)...


Front of the ship


Middle of the ship--and I guess that's the name of the company that owns it


Back of it and the tugboat pushing it

The part that has me curious is that little red light and whatever it's mounted with. See it? Near the front? (Yeah, I know. Not front... bow.) Here's a closer look...


Closer look at the light

If you click on that last one, it will give you a hi-res version, so you can have a closer look. Any idea? Think it's some kind of device Homeland Security put on there? Or maybe it means Tinkerbell is on board. Just wondering.

So if anyone knows, please tell me. With that said, don't worry. The real rugby photos will be showing up soon. Here's one to whet your appetite...


And this sure is worth clicking on for a closer look!

If only Marc were here

If not for the absence of my husband, it would be an almost perfect morning.

Marc had to be out the door around 5:15 this morning. Yes, on a Sunday. He's in charge of "external affairs" for his hospital, and they're apparently taking part in a car show today. I didn't ask him exactly what's going on, but I know he has to be there.

So we went to bed early last night (around 9:30), and, not to sound like an old man, but that was pretty nice. I woke up when Marc did (4:15am) but then went back to sleep. Then I slept 'til 7:something and "napped" until about 7:45. Finally, feeling better rested than I have in too long, I got out of bed and started taking care of a few things.

I put the dogs out. Then we went downstairs for doggy breakfast. While they ate, I transferred rugby photos from the camera to the desktop computer (I'm blogging from my getting-too-old laptop that I keep by the TV) and began going through them, only getting through about 1/16th of them before the kids were done eating. Then it was time to go out again. They're not ready to deal with that favorite subject of a certain Canadian until they've had their breakfast.

By then it was almost 9am, so I turned on the TV and put on CBS to catch one of my favorite shows, CBS News Sunday Morning. The VCR is set to tape it every Sunday, in case I sleep late and don't get to watch the whole thing live. The way our house is, I can watch from the kitchen, and that's what I did as I made breakfast. I made myself an omelette & buttered toast and poured a glass of the all-the-rage cold-brewed coffee that my hubby prepared yesterday and left in the fridge. It all made for a lovely breakfast, and, by the way, that's some fine coffee.

After breakfast, I did the dishes, washing the frying pan, cleaning out the sink and loading the dishwasher, and now I'm watching the rest of my favorite 90 minutes on TV. After that, I think I'll go shower, get dressed and go do some book shopping. Then perhaps I'll get back to work on the rugby photos.

One funny thing this morning. Bernice is giving me grief about her seating arrangements. She has gotten used to being able to spend her days on the couch or in my chair, as she has had the run of the place for several months now when we go to work (since she's getting a little stiff in her middle age, we decided to let her stay up here while we're out, and the other two can stay downstairs on their dog beds). Since Marc's not here, she figures she should be on the couch, but Marc left work spread out on the couch, so I won't let her up there. When I told her to stay off the couch, she headed for my chair. I told her to stay off that, too, so she started heading back to the couch. And I stopped her again, so she went right back to the chair. At this point, I started an argument with her. Yes, that's the level of my insanity. I was arguing with a dog.

She stared at me like I was just being cruel, while I shook a finger at her, saying, "You get to use the furniture when we say you do. It isn't yours. Daddy Marc left his things on the couch, and that [pointing to the recliner, so she really got my point *sigh*] is my chair! You can sit in my chair when I'm not using it, but I get to use it when I want. So go pretend you're actually a dog and lie on the carpet!"

Since then, she's been staring at me. Every time I look up, she's staring at me, trying to will me to come to my senses, get my butt out of her chair and let her relax properly.

Okay, she's going to win. Time to finish this blog post, so I can go shower and Bernice can claim this chair as hers! Her stubbornness always seems to win out. :)

Paws? In rugby??

We had a rugby match today (and I will be posting some photos in the coming days). At the match, I was briefly confused by the referee.

Last year, they changed the specifics of what the ref says when there's a scrum. Not that the change would have much relevance to non-ruggers, but it was changed to, "Crouch. Touch. Pause. Engage."

Then, either early this year or late last year, came a directive (which I think was at the World Cup level but was adopted at all levels of rugby) that the "Touch" and "Pause" parts were to be said as one. I believe this was to avoid issues with varying delays being caused by different refs.

So now it's "Crouch. Touch-Pause. Engage."

I knew about this but had forgotten it until today. So I'm standing near a scrum, camera in hand, when I clearly hear, "Crouch. Touch paws. Engage."

Did he say, "Touch paws"? Thank God I said it to myself and didn't go up to anyone and make a fool of myself (although I've certainly been good enough at that in the past!). It took a few scrums for it to click in my head. Until then, I was one confused boy! I've heard people make comments about the ruggers being animalistic, but "touch paws" was going a bit too far!

He'll never change

I just read that our illustrious President said to the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, when Mr. Vaile asked about Iraq, "We're kicking ass." Well, how regular guy of him.

Will this man never display any class at all? Is Mister Nookyoolur's vocabulary so stunted that he can't speak to world leaders more eloquently than that?

There's no reason to be surprised, after living with this laughingstock as President for six-and-a-half years, but I really wish he'd make more of an effort. The damage this man has done to the reputation of the United States is beyond measure.

Don't go, Larry

I think I made my feelings about Larry Craig quite clear in a prior post.

Now comes word that he may try to stay in his Senate seat. Well, good. First of all, he'll be a gigantic, ongoing headache for the GOP. More importantly, he can stay and serve as a reminder of the hypocrisy of his party. My favorite contrasting example, to truly illuminate the extraordinary hypocrisy of the Republicans, is David Vitter. Vitter is a senator whose name is in the phone book of a DC madam and who, after this news broke, admitted to having committed "a very serious sin in my past."

Honestly, I don't care if he was into screwing hookers. That's his wife's issue. In her place, I'd start by taking a golf club to him and then divorce him and take every penny, but I digress.

The point is that Vitter quite clearly cheated on his wife and broke the law. Again, I wouldn't care, except that he's getting a pass from his fellow senators, while Larry Craig is being crucified when he never even got to first base in his quest for sex. The problem for him is that he was looking for sex with *gasp* another man.

Larry Craig is a hypocrite, and so are all of his former buddies in DC who are pretending to be such moral people when the truth is that they have the morals of a snake! (and I apologize to any of the snakes who may read this and will, no doubt, feel insulted)

Oh, by the way, the reason I don't care, in principle, if Vitter was having sex with hookers is that I really don't think it should be a crime. We'd do much better to license prostitutes, require regular testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and tax the business. Talk about sin taxes! We'd make a mint. More importantly, STD rates would drop, police would be freed up to handle more serious matters and the women who work as prostitutes could do so in a safer setting (as opposed to street corners and flophouses where they often face violence). If brothels weren't such horror-inducing establishments in this puritanical country, prostitutes could work in brothels where security could be provided, and the whole business would be safer.

While we're at it, let me add one other thing that will keep me from being elected to office at any time in future. I think it's time to legalize marijuana. It still should be a crime to smoke it in public. I've never even tried the stuff, and I don't even like having to walk through cigarette smoke on the street, let alone pot smoke (if I don't want to smoke it, I shouldn't have to breathe it). With that said, I really don't care if someone wants to get high on pot in the privacy of their own home. Don't expose kids to the smoke, either, since that would be unhealthy, but if you want to smoke it yourself, why are we wasting money trying to stop that? Really, like the cops can ever stop pot use anyhow!

A relaxing weekend

For the first time in about a month, we're having a nice, low-key weekend. Don't get me wrong. The past few weekends were fun, with friends or relatives staying with us each weekend. We enjoyed every visit, but it was time for a quieter weekend.

So we spent most of yesterday just spending time together and then finished the day by having dinner with two of our favorite people.

Today, we also took it easy, only venturing out when it was time to head over to my brother's house to hang out and have dinner. I took the camera, but I wound up taking very few photos. Most of the ones I did take were done at the direction of this young man...


Our nephew Owen

And what did he want me to shoot? Photos of his dinosaurs, of course...



But I still managed to get a few photos of Owen and his brother, Quinn. Here's one of Quinn...



And another of Owen



And here we see Uncle Marc swinging Owen around, like a good uncle should...



I did some nephew spinning, too. All in all, a very nice visit!