Texsox

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:29 PM) Wow, I've never even heard of 12" fast pitch softball for guys. Yep, we it is played down here. Wicked s***.

Those were the two that I was looking at. Both are marketed, it seems, as beginner SLRs, but I am failing to see where they lack for my use. Last summer when we were in Maine I was frustrated with our pictures. This summer we're heading up the Rockies and I want to be better equiped. I do miss my old Cannon film camera. I shoot about a roll a year just for old time sake.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:46 PM) Tex is probably more of a Joe Friday kind of guy. Must have been before my time.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:44 PM) Nash Bridges all the way. That's solid.

I love the off season. I actually spent a moment or two thinking about Don Johnson. Miami Vice was a decent, and entertaining show. The warm pastel colors and pink flamingos made me think of spring in a much nicer way than thinking about this team heading into spring. I'm just not feeling the excitement yet.

I am beginning my quest for a digital SLR. I will be shooting mostly landscapes and travel photos. Any recommendations? I have been really happy with Canon SLR, but my point and shoot is a Nikon and I may look closer at them.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 09:19 AM) They certainly aren't, and I know from experience as part of my job is checking ID's. However, when they "busted" me, I was stone cold sober, and they still treated me like trash. I wasn't too happy about that. No doubt some cops go into dick mode right away when they know they are checking IDs. I worked checking IDs in a Wisconsin border bar when the drinking age was 18 versus 21 in Illinois. We only saw the cops when they were pissed at us for something, or there had been another crash of drunk kids coming back into Illinois. But you know the attitude you get at the door, I couldn't imagine being a cop and wading into that.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 30, 2012 -> 08:48 PM) Expound? It may expound a teenage boy

QUOTE (gatnom @ Feb 1, 2012 -> 01:53 AM) Yeah, they usually come around every once and awhile after 9 when the bars are required to have only 19+ year olds inside. The cops are usually complete dicks about it too, as if they are pissed off that they have to waste their night busting a bunch of drunk college kids. It's not like we drive their economy or anything. The fines are getting kind of out of hand too. They were up to $320 when I had one last semester. They don't need to be dicks about it. I am certain all the drunk college kids are polite and respectful while they have their IDs checked.

Lonesome Dove got me hooked. I just finished Streets of Laredo. I decided to read them in the order of written, not the internal chronological order. So this novel completed the time line. It was the second written, but fourth in internal chronological order. I liked how he finished up the characters. Nothing too outlandish. I am still a little surprised I was sucked into a western novel. That's a first.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 06:42 PM) That sounds like it's straight from an after-school special, or at least Lifetime. I happen to believe what I do makes a difference. As do all of the coaches I work with. Why else would we spend so many after school and weekend hours coaching? I don't believe the benefits of sports are only for the better athletes.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 05:46 PM) And all of that useless, extra work could have been avoided with a few simple words. You're cut because you aren't good enough. Go train on your own and try again next year. It is only useless, extra work if you do not believe sports makes a positive influence on someone. If you believe participating in sports makes a positive impact on a young person, it isn't useless. Not even close.

Would switching from laws where (in a given state) that all sex between a 21 year old and a 17 year old was illegal to a law where it is only sometimes legal be an improvement? I just don't see how that would work. Having a jury decide what is, and isn't, consent, on an individual basis, is unworkable.

It probably isn't a good thing for teachers of any level of hotness having sex with students. I'd be interested in hearing the arguments for and against having the same age of consent for males and females. At first glance it seems wrong, but it makes sense when reading the comments in this thread. Would 15 for guys and 17 for women or some such thing be a better reflection of reality? And how to take hotness out of the equation? If she wasn't a hot cheerleader, how many opinions would change? But yeah, I have to agree with most here, at 17, and with her? Yeah, the only problem would be convincing my buddies we really did do it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:47 PM) Don't have enough money for coaches or for teams to actually give people who want to participate an option of actually doing so? Cutting events back to save money on travel time? That's just sad. They would have been cut. There is no official league for a D team in our district. Our AQ hustled up games for these kids. Trying to twist this into a negative makes me laugh.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:41 PM) The city and state's taxpayers should be embarrassed by what you just wrote. Why?

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:26 PM) That's different. If there are numbers and the school budget allows it then absolutely that is a great idea. Fact is however, that extra teams frequently can not fit into budgets or generate enough interest from kids and coaches. If kids want instruction you can create after school activities to provide it. Frankly, kids who have little to no experience in a sport should not be expected to be able to compete with kids who have worked hard to make themselves already good and/or are just gifted at it. What you did sounds like a perfect solution. Budgets are a concern. The uniforms were shared and we couldn't always get appropriate games for them. Our athletic coordinator "took one for the team (coaches)" and coached them himself, saving the school a coaches stipend. They only had one referee working their games. To save on travel time, they also played a shorter game. We do budget for football A and B teams and boys basketball A, B, and C teams. Girls volleyball also has a C team, but IIRC basketball stopped at a B team. Track is a zoo.

I am assuming that most people here believe sports have a value and make a positive impact on people, especially on young people. There are so many great lessons that are learned when you participate in a sport. Why then would anyone advocate for limiting that experience? We should be in the business of promoting sports and working towards having more kids participate, not less. There isn't nearly as many lessons to learn in being cut as there are in being made part of a team and participating. The value of sports on a person's development should not be limited to being cut from a team when you are nine or ten years old.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) You are into the ages where real competition should be happening. OK. Do you really believe there is value in the competition for kids who are nine and ten years old?

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:38 PM) You should see cuts if necessary, not for the sake of it. If a kid isn't good enough, I agree with the first, question the latter . . . Good enough to receive instruction? Good enough to learn sportsmanship, hard work, and teamwork? Last year our turnout for 7th grade basketball was so high we put together a "D" team. Those kids had a blast. I was lucky enough to help out with a couple of their practices. For some of the kids, it was their very first time playing basketball. It was great to see how much they improved by the end of the season. We had close to 60 boys playing basketball last year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:29 PM) That is 4th/5th grade, and I am happy with it at that level. It is also the time you should start seeing some cuts. Why should you start seeing some cuts?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:23 PM) By middle school, you absolutely should have winners and loser. Of course, but at what age should you be telling a kid you are not good enough to play this sport and go home? Our philosophy is middle school is their first chance to play on a "real" team. They come in raw and we have to develop their talents. We use middle school as a training ground for our high school programs. We feed them lots and lots of kids, well versed on the systems we play, how to be a good team mate, how to be a champion 168 hours a week. Yes, we have middle school winners and losers, but we do not make it our primary focus. It is better for me to send 20 soccer players with basic skills with knowledge of our system who won five games than 15 who won 12. Somewhere in those five players that would have been cut could be a late bloomer who makes significant contributions.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:10 PM) It is sexist to believe females should not be allowed to play alongside males in sports? Yes. Define: Sexist: discriminatory on the basis of sex (usually said of men's attitude toward women). A better question might be, is it always wrong to not allow men and women to play alongside each other? There we may have a much different discussion. We could split the sports into contact and non contact sports. We could look at sports with mechanical equipment like NASCAR. We could look at ones with fine motor skills like pool versus gross motor skills like shot put.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 02:57 PM) If I'm never going to get a chance to play I might as well be a waterboy in that case..... I'm assuming your talking about highschool in which case I'd rather play on the JV team than sit on varsity and if you aren't good enough to play on JV you probably need to take up a different sport/hobby. All levels. Our teams do not start until 7th grade. And many do choose to quit rather than continue to attend practices. But you would be surprised how many keep playing only in practice. We dress out about 80 for a football game, play maybe 50 or 60, but there are more on the roster. The point is, we believe the coaching we provide should be available to any eligible student. That there are positive and important life lessons that can be learned in practice. The ugly side here is coaches do not like "sharing" players and there is a lot of pressure to be a one sport athlete and prepare year round for that sport. Especially if your sport is football.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 11:19 AM) I don't think kids should be cut from sports teams, at least not until jr high but I hate the idea of completely disregarding winning/losing. I was a kid not too long ago and I wanted to win and hated losing and the sport would be very dull if those werent important factors. I was only in the town public leagues but end of year we still had a playoffs and whatnot once we got probably in 4th or 5th grade. In my school district we have a no cut policy. No one is ever cut from any of our squads. BTW our varsity football team just won our district for the 4th or 5th year in a row. Notice you aren't guaranteed to play, or even wear a uniform on game day, but you are never cut.