Schulha brought this pic to my attention. Can you find 75 music band references in this picture???


i'll post what i found in the comments section.

Noone will ever be as smooth as mike...check this out: http://www.yourdailymedia.com/media/1132744938

Some Random Thoughts

We took this weekend off from volleyball. 6 whole days without playing volleyball actually! I think this was a great idea. I know my body feels a lot better because of it, especially my shoulder. So now we can look forward to our match next weekend against PVC. I think that they are probably the lowest caliber team in the league...I don't know how they beat DHG 3-0... I don't know how everybody beat DHG so easily...but thats another matter entirely. So ya i'm pretty confident that we will walk all over them. For those of you betting on Nordic Bet, I think that we are a guaranteed money maker. Well thats what I thought against DHG too though, so who knows.
There is actually a good matchup worth watching this upcoming weekend...Marienlyst vs Gentofte...i think. Both teams have players who are injured so I don't know what kind of lineups will show up for the match. I don't think that Gentofte will be strong enough to stay with Marienlyst's faced paced offense if their brazillian sensation is not playing. I predict that Marienlyst will take it in four sets.

We only have three matches left before the xmas break! The months are just flying by here! We have PVC then Aarhus twice. I am looking forward to playing Aarhus because they are the only team I haven't played against yet and because the word on the street is that they hired a new player. I'm not sure but about this but I have heard that their club president at Aarhus is a little bit pissed off at our club. He is mad because we protested our upcoming Pocal Match against them. They won the coin toss or draw or whatever it was that gave them home court in our match. This meant that they were supposed to give us a choice of dates on which to play the game. He gave us our choices after the deadline that was decided in advance. We had a small debate at practice to decide whether or not protesting was an appropriate thing to do. The general consensus was that if the situation were reversed, the other team would do the same thing to us for sure. So, we protested and were awarded home court. I guess this is a pretty big deal for our club to host this match. I think its like the first time in a long time since MVK has been in the semifinal of the Pocal. Anyways I'm looking forward to it for sure!

On the other side of the world...congrats to the Bears for taking down those crazy christians 3-0, 3-0. I always like to see the bears winning, and I really like seeing TWU losing!
I would also like to congratulate the Thompson Rivers men's volleyball team for chalking up their first CIS victory! I am a little confused as to how they won the match while making 31 service errors! yes I said 31. In only 4 sets!

Completely random question: Why is beer so damn cheap in Germany?? We just got 3 flats of beer for 90kroner...thats 18 bucks canadian. Thats 25 cents a beer!!!

And now for something totally random...

someone help me out here:

If someone is born deaf, he has never been exposed to spoken language in his life, does he still hear an inner voice???

I could be on crack here. Does anyone know what i'm talking about here... you know your inner thoughts...your inner monologue...whatever you want to call it...would this hypothetical person hear 'it'??

Maybe he only imagines images instead or sees sign language??
I think that it is necessary to have exposure to spoken language in order to 'think it'. Our brains are not capable of experiencing something we have never learned about. Its like the legend of the natives who could not see Columbus' ships approaching in the distance on the water. They could not see them supposedly because they had no knowledge that such things existed.

MVK 3, Holte 0

It was far from pretty, but we managed to take care of business tonight against Holte. Going in to tonight's match the word on the street was that Holte was the best of the "bottom" teams. I think that they might have been missing some players or they were just having a really bad game. We didn't really play a great game...but we didn't play poorly either. I think we pressured them just enough in each set to make them fold. Overall, the match had a relaxed feeling to it. This could be attributed to the fact that Holte has apparently secured a place in the slutspil and I think that early on we showed that we were the better team. Both teams just kind of put it on cruise control and the match was over in time for me to get home to watch 90210....i'm lying...i actually didnt get to watch 90210...but still the match was fast!

Trip to Hamburg
(I know the picture doesn't go with my rant here at all but I couldn't resist posting this classic photo of Tip-in)

So Aaron, Erin, Chad, Jacob and I made the trip down to Germany last night to watch the Ostbeck Cowboys play vs. Wuppertahl (i don't know how to spell either name) in the Bundesliga. The drive down was only about 3 hours total with a quick stop for food at a gas station half way...so it was no big deal. We arrived at the gym just in time to catch the last five minutes of smashing warm up.
Pre-match I had expected this to be an ok matchup. I have played against the cowboys a couple of times and have seen them play at our tournament. They are not a spectacular team, but decent overall...lacking slightly in the mids if anywhere. I had never seen Wuppertahl, but had heard that they were the top team in the Bundesliga. They have a canadian guy who plays on the national team and two of the top younger players from Denmark. I expected them to be really good.
The disapointment began right from the first point. The match started with a missed serve from the Wuppertahl rightside (we couldn't figure out why the danish guy doesn't start over this guy) and then the next play the mohawked power hitter from the cowboys tried to sneak a smash completely outside the antenna for a kill. Ostbeck continued to put on a horrible smashing display. As a team, I guarauntee that they hit for a negative efficiency. Wuppertahl didn't have to do much to beat them handely 3-0. The match was never close. Wuppertahl didn't really impress me though. I guess its hard to impress in a match like that...but still I expected big things from the top team in the Bundesliga.
The only thing that didn't disapoint me was the atmosphere and everything besides the actual game. The gym wasn't very big but they filled stands with people. During warm up, the music was pumped so loud I could hardly hear myself think. They actually had two referees and two officials doing the lines!!! I hadn't seen that for a while! The players were announced one by one by an announcer and the home team ran out under a spotlight wearing cowboy hats. I think the most impressive part for me was how the crowd behaved. Ostbek is a new team to the Bundesliga and are third last in the league and yet they still somehow have a packed house of fans who stood up the whole time chanting and banging their drums. THIS WAS JUST A LEAGUE GAME! Here in denmark if you had a top team versus a bottom team playing a league game you would be lucky to get a quarter of the fans that were half as loud. Back in the CIS, we would get just as many fans probably but they would just sit in their seats and watch the match quietly, clapping for big rallies only. This was a blowout of a match, with two teams that are not even close to each other in the standings and no real rivalry between them, and yet the fans were on their feet the whole match! I don't understand! How does this happen?? I don't think you can attribute it to the calibre of volleyball. The bundesliga is a higher level than here in denmark for example, but I don't think that it is so much that the average fan would even notice the difference. So where does this passion come from?? It must start from a young age...the kids are brought up with a different attitude...i don't know!
anyways i'm starving!
peace out

Another victory for MVK

So we beat Marienlyst yesterday in a tight 5 set match. With this victory we are the only undefeated team left in the league. Marienlyst was forced to play the match without the help of their starting setter, Jordan, due to a shoulder injury. I think it would have been a different game for sure if he was in...but I don't want to speculate as to what could have happened if he was in because we'll never know what would have happened. Both teams played well and we came out on top. One thing I noticed was that we had some difficulty closing out sets...most sets we had leads at around 15-18 points but then slowly let them back in the match. Overall though I was very pleased with our play as a team, I think that our level of play is slowly getting higher and higher.

After the match I met up with some buddies from Canada (and one from the
USA) that made the trip up to Denmark from Holland to watch our game and party with us.
I'm still a little hungover from last night so needless to say it was a good time!

I am too tired to write anymore in this post!
peace out

Books
Has anyone read any good books lately?? I'm always on the lookout for new books to read, especially now that I have a ridiculous amount of free time! So if you have any recommendations, leave a message with the book title and maybe why you liked it. You can leave a message on here or just email me...Whatever works for you.
Here are a few titles that I have enjoyed lately:

"From the corner of his eye"- (I think that is the correct title) by Dean Koontz - I just recently reread this Koontz classic. I really liked the characters who could "see all the ways things are"...I can't remember exactly how he put it....but it was really interesting how Koontz mixed some quantum mechanics into this story.

"Blink" - by Malcolm Gladwell - Its a book about how we 'thin slice' the abundance of information that we are constantly bombarded with to from quick decisions. I found this to be a really nice light read. There wasn't really anything mind blowing in this book, but Gladwell presents a bunch of really interesting scenarios and facts. I found the section on facial expressions to be the most interesting chapter.

"The rule of four" - by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. This book is definitely playing off the success of Dan Brown's books, but still worth the read. Its a sort of mystery that is centered around this ancient text that isn't what it appears to be. Their writing style is totally different from Dan Brown's. It reads less like a history lesson and more like a story. I actually didn't really like how the last quarter of the book went....but overall I would still recommend it.

"The Tao of Physics" - by Fritjof Capra. This book was the inspiration for the title of my blog as you can tell. I really enjoyed this one. It is a comparison between modern physics and eastern mysticism. It took me a long time to read it, but it was well worth it. I found some sections to be especially difficult to read because I have zero experience in physics. There are so many fascinating concepts that really made me question a lot of what I believe. I recommend watching the movie "What the bleep do we know" either before or after reading this book...it talks about some similar topics without the eastern twist.

anyways that's all I have time to write about now....So ya hit me up with some suggestions!
peace out

Random Sunday thoughts

So MVK is one step closer to the Pocal championship after Friday nights win over Hvidore. It wasn't a pretty match but we managed to pull it out 3-0. Hvidore actually came out pretty strong in the first set. Their young power hitter hit and served well for them. We seemed content to just do enough to win in the first set. Maybe we were distracted by their annoying clapping cheer after every point they scored. We picked up our game in the second set and Hvidore's hopes seemed to be deflating with each point. I can't remember anything memorable from the third set... Except for the MVK hooligans in the crowd with their vulgar chants...Well at least I think they were vulgar...I don't really know what they were saying. They were loud and sweet though!

After the match we were exposed to a relatively new Danish tradition...The Jule Bryg. I had heard that this was going to be quite the celebration. I guess every year around this time the beer companies release a new Christmas beer and everyone flocks to the pubs to drown themselves in it. We went to bo's apartment first to knock back a couple cheaper Jule Bryg's before hitting the pubs. Next we hit up Holmes for a few more rounds. I thought that the crowd at holmes was pretty normal...I thought it would be packed in there...Maybe it was earlier...We didn't' get there until pretty late. After a few drinking games and lots of push ups (thanks to Korsback), we headed down to good ol' Buddy Holly's. There were quite a few people there for a Friday night..but it wasn't packed. Overall, I felt that this tradition was a little too hyped up, but I still had a good time. In my opinion the Jule Bryg's that I drank tasted pretty damn good. They tended to be pretty dark beers with quite a bit more alc % than normal beer. My favorite one was the Albani pilsner Jule ol that Soren brought back from Germany.

I am looking forward to this week very much because of our big matchup this coming weekend vs. Marienlyst. It will be interesting to see how the recent coaching changes will affect their play. I don't suspect it will do much this soon after the change. I have heard that Jordan, their setter, could potentially be injured with a separated shoulder. That could have a profound impact on the match, but I think that their backup setter is good enough to fill at least most of the void if Jordan is out. As for our side, I'm looking forward to a good week of training. Hopefully we can get more than one middle player out to practice! I think Chad would rather just coach during practice instead of having to play middle during all gameplay. The match this weekend is in Odense, so they will have the homecourt advantage. I have been to their gym on one other occasion to watch their match vs. Aalborg. The roof is a little low and is shaped in an upside down 'V' if I remember correctly. They didn't have too many fans out for that match and I don't imagine that will change for our match. Basically as long as we get a good warm up in, I do not see their homecourt advantage as much of an advantage at all. Overall, in my biased opinion, I think we have a slight advantage in this matchup, but it is still really anyone's game for the taking. I think it will come down to which team deals best with runs by the other team. Its gonna be a mental toughness battle!
Anyways I have to jet...Risk awaits!
peace out