Today I'll be heading out to Lancaster, PA for the first soccer tournament of the year. I love these weekends away. Not only do I get to spend the weekend coaching my favorite game in the whole world, but I also get to spend time with some of the finest people I know. I have been blessed to not only have the greatest girls on my team but also the best group of parents around.

These weekends are not only about the competition and doing your best to bring home a championship, but it also gives the team a lot of time to bond and become a special group. People who are against organized sports will never understand this concept.

There is an inherent good in competition. There are life lessons to be learned from both winning and losing. Winning teaches you that you can take real pride in your accomplishment. If nobody kept score and every game ended in a tie, what incentive would you have to work hard? Losing teaches you that you need to continue to work hard, and that there is always someone out there who is willing to outwork you.

Life lessons aside, I just love spending time with my team. I still remember the pure joy I had as a teenager playing in these tournamnets, and I love to see that happiness in my players today!!

Let's Go RED DEVILS!!!

I woke up this morning, looked outside, and realized that I am going to be a bitter human being for the next 4 months. IT WAS SNOWING!! Those that know me well will attest that I really dislike snow. Heck, I'll even go so far as to use the word "hate" when it comes to this stuff. This is not something that has come about just recently. This stems back to my childhood.

I grew up in a small town just west of Erie, PA right on Lake Erie. It really is a beautiful place...for about 5 months out of the year. I spent 25 years of my life in a region of this great land of ours where the possibility of snow existed for 7 months out of the year! This is not what I call a paradise. I can vividly remember seeing 24 inches of snow fall in a period of 4 hours. Let's face the facts about winter folks...it's dark, it's cold, it's wet...sounds a lot like a prison camp.

There are other circumstances about winter that make my skin crawl also...THE HOLIDAYS!! I have a serious problem with the holiday season. Call me a Scrooge, call me a pain in the ass. I cannot stand the holiday season. It's not the Holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's that I don't like. It's the being around people that I can't stand. I detest Holiday parties. I don't want to have dinner with 50 relatives from any side of the family, be it my wife's or mine. I don't want to go through the same old "How are things?", "How's married life?", "Did you find a job yet in your field?",...I've always stated that I would rather send 50 copies of a press conference type statement with someone to pass out to everyone at the dinner answering all of thier boring questions.

I always get flack whenever we host Thanksgiving here at the house. My wife loves it, don't ask me why. She loves getting up at the butt-crack of dawn, and cleaning the house top to bottom. She loves to bust her hump getting everything ready for the upcoming pending disaster...and I always have to help. I usually begin my complaining about 5 minutes into everything. By 20 minutes I'm sent away like it's a punishment. This is what I wanted in the first place.

Now, everyone is told the time we will eat. I set my watch by it. "Dinner is at 4PM." is what I'm told. But, without failure, dinner will always be 2 hours after the set time...no matter what time we announce! Everyone has to come over and pack into the kitchen. It's like rush hour on the subway. 30 people in a room built for 4.

Now is when I begin my strategic planning. Every opportunity I can think of to disappear to my room, I find. I have a bathroom in the master bedroom, and I seem to develop a VERY weak bladder during Thankgiving. I've found out that folks leave you alone if you go to the bathroom. In there is a battery operated radio that I tune to the football game. I'll make at least 15 bathroom trips until dinner is ready.

Now I eat like a starving man who hasn't had food in two weeks! I'm done with my dinner within 7-10 minutes flat. There, the purpose for everyone coming over is finished as far as I'm concerned...I sat at the table with the family and ate. That's what was asked of me, my job is done. I now go to the bedroom and plop into my recliner in front of the T.V. until the last freeloading vagrant has left my domicile.

Like I said, I become very bitter. I don't want sympathy, I don't want people to say "I feel your pain.", I just want to be left alone until the weather gets warmer. My dream is to build a house in the woods where the temprature during the day will NEVER drop below 65 degrees. It can get as cold as it wants to at night, I'm sleeping anyway. I also do not want another house within a 2 mile radius of mine.

I guess it'll stay a dream until I win the Powerball!!

After the recent tragic events that took place in Lititz, PA I have been thinking about the future when my daughter becomes a teenager and begins to date. I know that my wife and I agree on certain rules concerning my daughter dating...but I realized that there need to be rules for these young gentlemen who will want to date my daughter...I pondered over this and came up with my 10 rules for dating my daughter:

Rule One: If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two: You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three: I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, In order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four: I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate: when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five: In order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early."

Rule Six: I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven: As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight: The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which feature chainsaws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine: Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a pot-bellied, balding, middle-aged, dim-witted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten: Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy outside of Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

Since this is my first Blog post...let's start with a little introduction...My name is Jay Burbee and I am 34 years old. I am married and I spend most, well, all of my days with my twin children Trevor and Kaylee. I live in Upper St. Clair which is a suburb in the south hills of Pittsburgh, PA. I am also a soccer coach and hold a U.S.S.F. National "B" coaching license.

I am what you would call a right-wing conservative. I believe in "One nation UNDER GOD", free enterprise, hard work to get what you need, no hand-outs, and I will tell you that the Constitution of The United States of America states that we are entitled to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness...it says nothing about a home, a job, and free health care!!

I believe that after the events of 9/11, there should be profiling done at EVERY major airport, train station, and bus station. EVERY terroist has been an Arabic male between the ages of 18 and 35...quit scanning my Grandmother when she gets on the plane!!

I think the left-wing, red diaper dooper babies should quit whining about the cost of gas...if you pinheads would allow us to drill in ANWAR and open new refineries in this country we could produce an estimated 1 million barrels of oil per day!! Not to mention all of the new jobs that would be created.

I think the designated hitter should be outlawed in Baseball. I think instant replay should be banned from Football. I think Terrell Owens should get a job at McDonald's handing out fries in the drive-thru window until he realizes that the game is way bigger than he is!!

I think anyone convicted of First Degree Murder and sentenced to death should be shot that same day. Why do my tax dollars have to keep these wastes of space alive for 6 years of appeals? I think EVERY state should have thier prisoners out cleaning the highways in the old "chain gang" style.

I think anyone who gets thier political views from actors, singers, models, or any other entertainers is an idiot...do you REALLY think these folks are in touch with reality?? If Sean Penn or Jeanenne Garafolo want to go to Iraq and be human targets, let them. They have no talent anyway.

Well, that's enough for now...anymore and your brain might explode!!