Juneau, AK. The Windy City?

So I am here in the state capital of Alaska. I was hoping to go out to a glacier and see some Juneau stuff. But to my surprise, it is blowing about 30 to 40 mph out and raining. This does not want to make Matthew go outside. So luckily I have enough stuff to keep myself entertained in my room. The boat ride was ok. It was very choppy and rocky because we were in the open water. I talked to the lady at the counter there and she said usually it is worse than this, I then said well thank goodness it is not. I have never slept so much in my life. I slept all night the first night (because we left at 9 pm) then slept a good portion of the next day. I think I was only up for 4 maybe 5 hours. I took some motion sickness pills not because I was feeling sick but because I was feeling weird. I think I was just frustrated with the constant up and down and side to side of the boat and just wanted to couple of minutes of a break. But anyway I slept the whole night of the next night too. Then last night in the hotel room, I did not get to sleep until 3 am and woke up at 9 am, I am surprised I slept that long. The next boat ride is in between land so the water will be calmer, they say the boat wont even rock that much at all. The weather, or at least the wind, is suppose to get better tomorrow so I well go explore Juneau then, but for right now, today, I am fine with staying inside. I am very excited to get home and mainly I need to give Emily a break. I am more than willing and ready to take over for a while. Unfortunately I will be all over the place as we need to go to St. Louis to pick up her car, then I need to do a lot of stuff at Rock Island Arsenal, then are stuff gets here, then March 2nd I need to go back to Rock Island Arsenal, plus get a job. But I am ready to do that as long as I am with my family. Plus I miss the kitties. So in just a short week or so, I will be home and ready to make another road trip to St. Louis.

Last Aces Game

Well tonight was my last Alaska Aces game. It was a very good game played by both teams and the Aces ended up sweeping the 3 game series and they are looking awesome. Emily and I had such a great time over the past couple of years and we even got to see the playoffs in 2005-2006 season which the Aces brought home the Kelly Cup. After that we met great people and had the best time. If there is anything Emily and I have 100% in common it is hockey and that is one of the many reasons that I love her. After the game was over there was an auction for the game worn jerseys because it was the 50th Statehood for Alaska night. The most a jersey went for tonight was $3500, that is the most that I have ever seen and it was Josh Soares of all players. This guy is the best in the ECHL. I am not saying that because he is on the Aces but because last year with the Aces he played 61 games and got a total of 81 points. 36 goals and 45 assists. That was enough to make him All-ECHL last year but for whatever reason he did not make it in the AHL this year. So far this year for the Aces he has played 10 games and has 10 goals and 8 assists and has scored a point in each of the 10 games. Anyway I think the cheapest a jersey went tonight was around $1600 and that is still about the same to more than what I have seen. But I am going to finish the season with the Aces through the computer. I will be both watching and listening to the games on the computer. All at the same time, we will be attending Quad City Flames games and sitting around the arena trying to find where we will hopefully be sitting for the 2009-2010 season. The season tickets are actually cheaper than the Aces Season Tickets. Both Emily and I are very excited to be apart of the AHL league now and next season because it is a step above the ECHL so it is better hockey and a step below the NHL. We are excited to meet new people and make new friends at the hockey games. Although there will not be anyone better than the friends we made at the Aces games. They brought us in and treated us like family. Craig actually invited us out for Thanksgiving and we felt very honored that he did that. Anyway, thank you to the Aces and thank you to the friends we met, Emily and I had the best time and will never forget any of it. Go Aces and now Go Flames!!!

Victoria Vs. Aces Game 3

This game was a classic. It went into a shootout, had two "brawls", and was a gritty and tight game. Just like playoff hockey. This is one of the first "brawls" I have seen in real life. I say "brawl" because it was kind of a brawl. A brawl to me equals all players on the ice fighting, a bench clearing brawl is when all of the players are off the bench and on the ice or where ever fighting. Anyway, at this point both teams are sick of each other and Victoria is frustrated. I really wish that the end of this video that things really would of got out of hand. One of these days I will see a brawl and a goalie fight, we all have goals. Here it is:

Later on there was a scrum and you almost have to watch it twice just to get everything in. Not much really happened in it but some stuff did, I really need to start watching them in real life instead of a camera but I love bringing these videos to everyone. Here is the scrum:

These next videos are of the shootout. I think I did a better job filming this one. Our goalie this time is our #1 goalie, J.P. Lamarouex (weird last name, spelling is probably off). This guy is a rookie in the pros and is awesome. He is the leading goalie of the ECHL with wins. Anyway, he has some awesome moves to make stops and you will see them, I think there is one though. The last shooter in the second video is Fillion, he was with the Aces for years and he left to go play in the European Hockey League. There the pay is non-taxable and that's were a lot of players who are not happy go to, they get paid better and whatever. Anyway, Fillion trys a move on J.P. but fails and looks stupid. At the last save when they win, people stood up to fast as Emily informed me that, that was the first time she has seen a goalie do a summer salt after winning a game, I did not get that on video but it is kind of funny watching the team high five each other after they win. Here they are:

Victoria Vs. Aces Game 1

Wow, its been a long time but I can finally start posting again. I have a lot to catch up on so bare with me. The last series the Aces had was at home against the Victoria Salmon Kings. These two teams are evenly matched which made for a great 3 game series. I am only going to talk about game 1 and 3 because game 2 we forgot the camera. Victoria came in on a 15 game winning streak and the Aces were horrible. They were in a slump for about a month. Game 1 ended in a shootout. Here is a video of a fight and I would believe this is game 1. Like I said it has been along time I cant remember. The fight was a heat of the moment, Lloyd is Victoria's agitator and Burt for the Aces is the captain and is not afraid to throw down. Here it is:

Here is another video that I thought was going to amount to a good little scrum but ended with nothing but it is going to show you some of the stuff that was going on during the 3 game series:

And finally here is the shoot out. The goalie for the Aces is Marek Schwarz. He is in Alaska from Peoria because this year he has not been so good as he could be. I like Schwarz in fact he is my favorite goalie. He has played a few games in St. Louis. But recently he had went back to his home in Russia somewhere and basically quit the Blues organization. That is a shame because the Blues cant keep goalies healthy and one of them just got injured which meant that right after Schwarz left, he probably would have been called back up, who knows. But just for your information Manny Legace (I think that is how you spell it) is on his last year of his contract so next year hopefully he will be gone and the Blues can get someone better, he sucks. This one is a little shaky because the Aces had a chance to defeat the 15 game unbeaten streak that the Salmon Queens had plus it was the start of the Aces getting out of their slump so that makes Matthew a very excited fan:

Cats

This whole sending the cat home thing is more frustrating than it is hard to do. Don't get me wrong, it is easy to send the cats home, really it just cost more than anything but not as much as it is frustrating. I got a spot reserved for them on the same flights as Emily will be on. Now the weather we have been getting up here has been a high of -5 all the way to the low of -30 and I have no idea what the wind chill was but the cats will not fly out if the weather is 10 or an lower than that. So we have to have a health certificate for the both of them to fly home but they have to be no more than 10 days out or I have to get new ones after the 10 days are up and they are not the cheapest things in the world. So what I did was I have a Vet appointment set up for the Saturday before the 19th (so the 17th) so if they cant fly out then since I am still up here till the 4th of Feb. then I have that many more days to fly them out when it warms up. Also when I was on the phone with the lady, she was real helpful and really nice but when I told her the size of the kennels (both the same) she was like that is bigger than normal. This kennel situation was really stressing Emily and I out because the kitties have to be standing and their ears not touching the celling. We couldn't find any kennel that was small for kitties without their ears touching so it had to be big. Maybe if the FAA was not a bunch of a-holes than this process would have been easier but if there is one thing I have learned in the past 6.5 years in the military and the job I was in, it is that nothing is easy when dealing with jets and FAA and Uncle Sam. So now we can start dealing with the economy. One thing after another but if there is one constant it is Hayden. This kid is one of the best things in my life that always makes me smile when my stress needle is tacked out. When Emily went off to work last night, Hayden and I were doing back flips and he was sharing is pacifier with me and standing all over the place and just being Hayden. Oh and of course we were talking to the kitties, the both of us. Plus we were banging things together to make noise. I love this kid to death. I will miss my family for the 4 weeks that we will be apart. But look at what I have to look forward to when I finally get home. This ends the mood swings of Matt. Go Aces!

Sick

Boy I tell you there are some things that make me sick. Lets start off with the flu. Apparently I had received the flu from someone that was the tummy flu, I don't need to say anymore. It was a really long night and I was miserable the next day. Weak and tired and just crummy. Another thing that makes me sick is our housing people. I attended a briefing today that gave us a carpet history report. Which in this carpet report tells us how old our carpet is and how much it is to replace it or just some rooms it tells us how much that would be. And according to Alaska renter people or whatever, if the carpet is over 86 months old then they have to replace it and all we have to do is vacuum. Our carpet is 54 months old so it makes it cheaper to replace and we have to shampoo it which doesn't bother me but holy crap, if they don't like how the carpet looks then we have to replace it when we know it is good and blah blah blah. But there is actually good news because we have some Hayden pee on the floor were he fired away at us but little spots like that they will not have to take the whole carpet out, but if Emily and I were using the carpet instead of the toilet than they would have to replace the carpet and the padding and we would have to pay for it. But little stains they treat somehow and we don't have to pay for it. Also, if there is anything wrong that we missed cleaning up then the maintenance crew has to come in and fix it at $4o an hour, I want to work for these people if they are making $40 an hour. I might as well sell everything and tear down the house and build a new one so everything is clean, buy new appliances, blinds, everything. They are so nit-picky, it makes me sick. But Emily and I are very confidant we can get the whole house done by the 22nd. Emily has already done a lot and I have starting tackling some stuff like the washer. They want us to take the lid off completely and clean the crap out of that. So stupid. But I got that cleaned to the point were I have to just wipe it down before the inspection. And the list goes on and on. We will probably have to pay for the blinds because if something is not cleaned to "their" standards which is above Gods standard apparently, then we have to pay for them to get cleaned. Anyway that is my rant and rave. We will get it all done and it will be fine. Go Aces!

4th of Feb.

Well I found out today that I will be leaving Alaska on the 4th of February. I am not super excited about it but at the same time I am excited because: I get to play some hockey in outdoor rinks before I head back to a place were there is no outdoor rinks. Also, I will be able to attend 3 more Aces games. I will find other stuff to do in the time I am not doing those things. This should put me home around Feb. 15 on a Sunday. This is all kind of weird because when i left tech school I arrived back home on Valentines Day back in 2003. Oh and back on the subject on me playing hockey, this translates into me playing hockey by myself. No big deal really, I just shoot the puck against the boards and it comes back to me like a pass. I really keep myself entertained out on the ice. Also during this time I will be able to watch the X-Files series again but this time I finally have the first movie on DVD and Emily got me X-Files 2 movie so I can watch those in order. Its the nerd in me. And we found out that out of no coincidence the Kitty's will be on the same flights as Emily. I think she is going to try to get her flight into Moline now instead of Cedar Rapids, that way she can take the kitties to their new "home". Anyway, that is about it. I will leave you with a funny clip I saw on some of the forums I read. This is how you should not fight in hockey and make sure you turn on your audio, the commentators make fun of him as well. It comes to find out that I dont know how to put a video from you tube on here so here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvxfXgFtiLU