Things I've Noticed

Writing One For The Team, For The Champions

One of my most loyal readers, (let's call him Dave), has been disappointed in me for not writing about a significant event in our lives.  At least it's significant from the perspective of our recreational sports lives).  We are the champions.  It's that simple.  Now, most of you may not have heard of our volleyball team, (The Hi-Risers), or of our league, (The Detroit Stay and Play Social Club's Wednesday Intermediate Southfield Sand Co-Ed 6's Volleyball League).  But trust me, it was a challenge.  We are a team consisting of players of varying volleyball experience that range in age from early 20's to late 40's and are represented by various ethnicities and occupations, but we all have one thing in common...  We like to win.  (And we like to drink the free beer we get from the league when we do win a match.)

We were possiblly not the most talented or physically fit team, but during the regular season, we didn't lose a single game.  Being down in score never got us down as we just kept coming back.  During the finals, we lost the first game convincingly, but our attitude kept us from getting down.  We won the second game in a tough match through some scrappy play and more grit than the sand we played on.  Great sets and digs followed mixed in with some good blocks, good hits, and occasional wicked serves got the job done, even after making some mistakes.  Our skills complemented each other very well.  The heat, humidity and biting bugs made conditions worse for all of us, but Game 3 was no contest as Amy, one of our ace servers led us to a convincing 15-2 win with 13 straight points!

Winning the championship also got us snazzy long-sleeved champions t-shirts which you can see us wearing in the picture below. 

This pic is also located towards the bottom of  http://www.myspace.com/spscdetroit

Now Dave, I'm expecting a comment from you.  Here's to winning the next indoor session.  We're off to a 3-0 start.

+ Atul

Write Me A Story (Or At Least The End of One)

Vincenzo is up this week to do our weekly Roundtable post and he wants you to follow up the beginning of his intriguing story with a chaser, (a literary one, not an alcoholic one).  So have a visit to his blog "Chasing Vincenzo" and add some creative sparkle.  The picture of the bird will make more sense once you visit his blog.  Think of it as inspiration.

+ Atul

Deal or No Deal Game Spreadsheet

My prior post about the television show "Deal or No Deal" here led to a Google search that showed my blog and the person searching happened to be a teacher.  He emailed me and asked if I had made a spreadsheet for the game so that he could use it with his kindergarten class to teach them about statistics.  I made it last night, spending much more time than I should have, but it turned out well.  I did it for the kids, (and because I'm a spreadsheet nerd).

Download deal_or_no_deal_final_atul_patel_v2.xls

Click on it to download it and as it opens, you'll see a box that asks about macros.  Enable the macros.  Then follow the directions on the spreadsheet.  It's quite spartan in appearance, but if any of you want to spruce it up, feel free.

+ Atul