Sunday 8/28/16

I always thought Tracey would make our local newspaper before Tommy. The picture above was on the front page of the 8/14/16 Sports section. The boy in the back row looking away from the ball is Tommy. I was thrilled not just because Tommy made the paper but because this event, Dream Soccer, is a special needs soccer event with three age groups, and the group above are the kids I coach. In fact, I am probably just out of range of this picture. Trying to tell the kids to turn around because they are headed to the incorrect goal.

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Meanwhile, Tracey made the sports page today for exactly the reason I expected he would. He scored his first high school goal for his soccer team yesterday. He is a senior, but has primarily played defense so hasn't attempted many shots in the first three years.

Of course, it helped that the statistician who calls in the scores to the newspaper knew that it was his first goal at the high school level and added a tidbit to the paper. Because the statistician for the soccer team is me.

Sunday Scribbling addition (Allison's video)

This is what my daughter made when she was on vacation:

She said, "That took forever!"

2015 Copeland Newsletter

Scott was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum in October (this used to be referred to as Asperger’s Syndrome). Work remains the legal caseload, which means he handles the cases going to court for non-payment. In June he gave a presentation to the Benefits Plus unit (about 50 people) on how to read the child support computer system. He was recently named to the AFSCME negotiating team for pay raises as part of his work as a steward. He was the statistician for Tracey’s high school team for a second season this fall. He was the transportation for Tracey to attend soccer tournaments in Gatlinburg TN, Raleigh NC and even Xenia OH. Scott’s favorite movies this year are Mad Max: Fury Road, Brooklyn, and Spotlight.

 

Laura experienced Ohio State’s second football national championship of our marriage in 2015. Laura should be back yelling at the TV when the Buckeyes against Notre Dame on New Year’s Day. She and Scott attended a series of documentaries in Columbus over the year all on the autistic condition. She remains an avid fan of watching Netflix television, and of Bones and Limitless on actual TV. She remains the household technician, and the coordinator of all medical appointments Tommy (and a few others, as well).

 

Megan, 23, is struggling to find herself emotionally. Early in the year her Nana fulfilled a promise by taking Megan and Allison to Universal Parks Florida to experience the Harry Potter worlds there. Megan spends a lot of time online She remains a voracious reader, making use of her Kindle. Her favorite reads are history and mystery. She has also been trying to write her own fiction, and outreach of the fantasy games she has played online.

 

Tracey, 16, experienced two different soccer experiences. In the spring, he played for Ohio Galaxy, a team now ranked in the top ten in the region after an undefeated regular season and four tournament finals. His Springfield High School team in the fall won two games in his junior year. (Although most of his close friends at high school are from the team.) He completed his third summer in Upward Bound. He is a member of student council at school. He escorted the principal’s daughter to this fall’s Homecoming Dance. He has already seen the new Star Wars movie three times. He got his driver’s license in December, so finally he can drive himself to soccer practice.

 

Tommy, 14, saw last year’s teacher finally retire and replaced by Miss McCaskey, a teacher who knows what she is doing. So life at Roosevelt Middle School is fun again. At home he is rarely seen without his I-Pad playing clips of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer, and The Backyardigans and laughing frequently. He also has become a fan of the movie Frozen, and enjoyed The Peanuts Movie in a theater. This was his third Dream Soccer season with his father as his coach.

 

For Allison, 12, this was the year of Doctor Who. She zipped through all the seasons on Netflix, and found two fans at school. She also dressed as a Doctor for Halloween. In December she joined a fan group in Columbus of which one of Scott’s co-workers is a long time member. She is now in seventh grade at Roosevelt Middle School.  In the summer she was in a production of Seussical Jr, and journey with Aunt Karen’s family to Myrtle Beach. Allison is still busy earning merit badges in Girl Scouts.

 

Our count of cats is now three. Winnie and Lulu, who were born in 2014, were joined by a third girl, Gizmo. Winnie is our climber and explorer. Lulu is our most social. Gizmo still has a kitten’s energy and clearly idolizes the other two.

 

Meow.

 

Back and better than ever...

... at least I hope (and apologies to Mike Greenberg for stealing his line).

It has been almost a year now. I have a new computer. The dinosaur I had been on has finally been sent to the graveyard. I am hoping that now that I have a laptop this will help me to post more often. I have wasted a lot of time trying to write the perfect post. But as always, the best way to write is simply to write.

My most prolific period was in the early 90s when I wrote for my college newspaper. Part of that was having deadlines. There was a period where I knew each Monday there would be 10 column inches to kill and I needed an interesting topic to fill. Some of those columns were terrible and showed the rush. But some of them were my best writing.

So we'll see.

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Dear 99.9,

You are the only Contemporary Hit Radio in Dayton. You like to advertise you play "all the hits".

Is the following a hit? A song which is currently number 18, It is from a number 1 album, and a number 1 movie. It is nominated for an Oscar as best song.

And yet, I have never hear you play Idina Menzel's "Let It Go". Why is this?

Are you morons for not being able to recognize a hit or liars for saying you play all the hits?

Just wondering,

Scott

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We'll see how much more I post this week. Probably not much, as I am currently feasting on the Winter Olympics for the rest of the week.

Christmas Newletter

Copelands 2011

Below is the active roster of our family, and the events of their year.

Allison, age 8. She is in the third grade at Snyder Park. Allison remains our resident artist, and is still spending much of her free time creating crafts and artwork. Her best friend Emma and her are now wearing matching "best friend" necklaces. She remains an active Brownie and is still doing art classes. Allison just took a big step (for her) towards adulthood: she got her ears pierced.

Tommy, age 10. He is classified as a fourth grader. His school time in 2011 has been notable by his fascination with a classmate named Madelyn, who also does not speak and is in a wheelchair. This summer meant a camp experience for the first time, at a special needs camp on the western edge of the county.. Tommy is in his fourth season bowling. Tommy also enjoyed our season passes at The Beach, where he was now tall enough to go on the big slides.

Tracey, age 12. Tracey is now in the seventh grade at Hayward Middle School, where he made the honor roll his first quarter. About two weeks before Christmas he fractured his collar bone. He currently is wearing a brace to straighten his shoulder and will not be paying winter soccer this year. In less traumatic news, he still enjoys playing video game, mostly with neighbor Isaiah;. Soccer meant a final season last spring for Springfield Thunder with his father as head coach, and then a fall season for the Dayton Dutch Lions, where by the end of the season he was playing the entire game as one of the team's two center defenders.

Megan , age 19, and as you can see with the enclosed picture, now an alumnus of Springfield High School. She is currently a first year student at Clark State University, pursuing her lifelong dream to be the female Indiana Jones, since training to be a Jedi is not offered. Megan remains a voracious reader, and is especially proud of her Star Wars books collection, which is about to hit triple digits.

Laura, age 41. She continues to be a fulltime mother. This especially means dealing firsthand with Tommy's regular and irregular appointments. With her kids, she most often reads with Megan and does crafts with Allison. She remains an avid sports fan, but the less said about her football teams the better, although the Ohio State basketball team is looking good again this season.

Scott, age 43. The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. After coaching Tracey in the spring, in the fall Scott dropped two years down and switched genders and coached a new team of U11 girls to a second place finish. The winter season has meant 8 am Saturday morning games. As a film buff, he was moved by The Tree of Life and The Descendants, and in the sleeper category recommends Win Win. Most of all, he's thankful The Muppets are back.

I have avoided politics and religion in the newsletter in past years, but here goes. I deal on a daily basis in my job at the Clark County Department of Jobs and Family Services with clients who are struggling to make ends meet. Instead of government addressing this problem, in Ohio we have a governor who would blame low funding on supposed greedy government employees like me while in Washington our "representatives" are more interested in partisan bickering than solving the problems of everyday people. The jobs disappeared for a lot of my clients in the past decade and the supposed safety net gets cut back every year. I don't have any answers here, but every day I have questions. In a country where so many people identify as Christian, I find it sad that help for the poor and sick, the genuinely needy, seems to be in short supply. In the days were we celebrate the birth of Christ, my Christmas wish is that more people try harder to truly live His words in their deeds, not just in empty promises.

Christmas family newsletter

Welcome to the newsletter of the Copelands of 2010. The picture enclosed with this letter was taken at the big event of our year: the marriage of Scott's sister Karen to Carl.

Below is the active roster of our family, and the events of their year.


Allison, age 7. She is in the second grade at Snyder Park. Our resident artist is now at Springfield Art Museum twice a week, and did summer work there as well.. She is also active in Brownies, allowing even more craft making time, and yet a lot of her free time is doing some form of art work. Her other favorite activity. is her new DS game system, especially her Little Pet Shop game.

Tommy, age 9. He is classified as a third grader. He moved to Fulton school this year to remain with Miss Stoll for the fourth year. His big achievement over the summer was becoming potty trained. Tommy is in his third season bowling. Without a doubt his favorite adventures this year were the family trips to water parks, outdoor in the summer to The Beach, and indoor in the fall to the Great Wolf Lodge.

Tracey, age 11. He is in his last year at Snyder Park, in the sixth grader. . He has just finished his ninth season in Springfield Thunder soccer. Tracey's spare time is consumed with playing video games at any free TV he can find, frequently at Isaiah's (his friend next door). Tracey also experienced his first official rock concert this year, when his father took him to see Weird Al Yankovic (in the tenth row, no less).

Megan, age 18. She is a senior at Springfield High School. Yes, a senior. She is preparing to go to Clark State in the fall on a scholarship she earned in the seventh grade. Her hope is to do something in archeology. She did make the "advanced honor roll" for the first quarter of this academic year. She also made the difficult decision to leave volleyball this year, knowing if she did make the team this year there would be little playing time for her. Megan remains a voracious reader, and is especially proud of her Star Wars books collection, which I believe numbers about 6192

Laura, age 40. She continues to be a fulltime mother. This especially means dealing firsthand with Tommy's regular and irregular appointments. She continues to follow the Ohio State Buckeyes, who once early 2011 will conclude its football season in the Sugar Bowl, and as of this writing is ranked 2 in basketball. She continues to follow the Cleveland Browns, who at least aren't the Bengals. With her kids, she most often reads with Megan and does crafts with Allison.

Scott, age 42. Work is tough working for an under funded agency (11 years now) and dreading further budget cuts in the coming year. The big change for Scott this year, after six seasons as an assistant coach for Tracey's team, saw the team split in two and Scott promoted to head coach. He had a lot of new players, and converted Tracey from a defensive specialist into the team's leading scorer. Scott's first season coaching indoor begins in January and spring will bring a second season of head coaching. As a movie buff, he most loved (like most of the critics) Inception and The Social Network, but in the sleeper category highly recommends Flipped.

Proud son

http://www.readthespirit.com/explore/2010/01/592-10-new-years-resolutions-great-books-for-2010.html

Why am I including this link? Because one of these books was written by my father, Warren Copeland. I am so thrilled to see him get credit for what I believe is a great book.

Reboot

As I approach the new year, and make my resolutions, along with the annual one to lose weight, is a reolution to actually update this blog more than once a month. I've been trying to write the perfect reviews, and for someone who hasn't regularly written in more than a decade, that hasn't worked out so well.

That stops at the beginning of the year. I am working on my first ten best list in years, and will try to finish it by the end of the year. Three hints were in the newletter I just posted. Not four, as Slumdog was last year's film, but I didn't see it until after last year's newsletter was sent.

So now Plan B: I will post something on every film I watch. It might be a sentence, or a paragraph. But it's going to be more rambling, more free form, than I have normally written, because in order to write well, first I need to write, and grow back into the magnificent writer I once was. (Yes, that is sarcasm.)

And as for my other resolution, I used our Wii fit today, for what the machine told me was the first time in 308 days. 244 pounds. I have work to do on that resolution, too.

Christmas family newsletter

Allison, our family resident artist, is now 6 years old. She is in the first grade at Snyder Park. She is in a Friday program at the Springfield Art Museum. Arts and crafts remain her greatest interest at home as well. She does not share her siblings' interest in sports, having played soccer in the spring and enjoying the playing in practice much more than the actual games. Her favorite entertainment is Disney princesses as well as the fairy world of Tinkerbell. She also watches Shaun the Sheep most mornings with Tracey and Scott.

Tommy is 8 years old and classified as a second grader at Warder Park, and in his third year in the special needs class at that school with Miss Stoll, who is fantastic. Tommy still feeds overnight through a tube in his stomach, and he has been having problems with that stomach tube lately. The doctor says it is all in his head. He is in his second season bowling, He enjoys watching the family play with the Wii, especially when it is bowling or Mario Kart Racing. His favorite shows remain Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go.

Ten year Old Tracey is now in the fifth grade at Snyder Park, and just recently performed in the holiday concert in the school choir. He has just finish his seventh season in Springfield Thunder soccer, with a first place finish in the spring and a .500 season in the fall. His indoor soccer team is currently leading the league. Tracey enjoys watching Survivor and The Amazing Race with his father, playing video games, especially with his neighbor Isaiah, and spending weekend time with grandpa.

Megan turned 17 in October. She is a junior at Springfield High School, and was on the advanced honor roll in the first quarter. She played JV volleyball for Springfield this year, playing the back line and once again excelling at serving. Her biggest activity at home is reading, especially if the book features vampires, wizards or Wookiees. And yes, she was there again for the opening night if the Twilight sequel New Moon.

Laura continues to be a fulltime mother. This especially means dealing firsthand with Tommy's regular and irregular appointments. She continues to follow the Ohio State Buckeyes, who once again won the Big Ten in football and play in the Rose Bowl this New Year's Day. She continues to follow the Cleveland Browns, who once again tried her patience. With her kids, she most often reads with Megan and does crafts with Allison. Along with Tracey and Scott, she also became a regular viewer of the TV show Chuck.

Work has been tough for Scott this year. Budget cuts year after year have really hurt the ability of the Clark County Child Support Agency to do its job. The first layoffs in 15 years occurred this year. Scott's original caseload 10 years ago was about 500 cases. He now shares a caseload with two others numbering 4803. Physical health has also been a struggle, with knee surgery needed but currently delayed due to needing to better control his diabetes. On the positive note, he continues to be an assistant coach for Tracey's soccer team, rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals as they won their division and the Pittsburgh Steelers as they won the Super Bowl, and saw great movies such as Slumdog Millionaire, Up, Precious, and Adventureland.

Family adventures this year included a weekend in the Hocking Hills of Ohio with Scott's extended family and seeing Disney On Ice in Dayton. Extended family news include the first girl cousin on Laura's side (parents Emily and Nathan) and the engagement of Scott's sister to Carl (wedding next June).

Who am I and what am I doing?

So what is the plan with this blog? First, I want to get some practice writing, just because I want to write for the pleasure of it. In high school and college, I wrote for school papers. I wrote for a small paper here in Springfield. But I haven't written this decade. And I want to get that muscle working again.

The idea is to start watching more movies, especially classic older movies, and writing on what I watch. In the past month, I've watched mostly recent movies, and not written anything. I still hope to write on what I've watched recently. But I would like to mix it up a bit more.

In 2006, I put together three "need to see" lists of 1,000 films each, none of which I've seen. The films were from the period through the year 2000. For the years 2001-2007, I've added 100 films to the list. So now I have a list of 3700 films. And last month, I saw the 22nd film from the lists. I will never complete the task, but I sure would like to pick up the pace.

In addition, my other list is all the Disney films up to the year 2000, as I put no Disney films on the "need to see" list. I want to see how many of these films I can watch, most of which with my kids. They are the studio which most intrigues me.

I have more to write, but now I must leave to go stare at some men who stare at goats. Maybe I'll even write about it.

One month later...

Well, that didn't work. One month without a post. So what happened?

1. I am just wrapping up a three week battle with bronchitis, which has wiped me out.

2. I am worn out because my birthday was last Thursday. (By the way, I was born on the same date as Sam Rockwell, so happy 41st birthday to him too.)

3. Most recent movies in theaters did not interest me.

4. I was too torn up from the St. Louis Cardinals being swept from the baseball playoffs.

5. I've gotten really good at a pinball game I have for my Playstation and have spent many hours playing.

...all of the above are true, yet none are the real reason I haven't posted. I haven't written much in the past ten years, and am trying to find my sea legs. And once I locked up trying to write the BEST REVIEW EVER of Where the Wild Things Are, I resorted to my old problem of: if I can't write it perfect, don't right it at all.

So now I try again.

The wrong week

What was I thinking! This was the wrong time for me to try to start a blog. It's not that my daughter's volleyball season is coming to an end, or that my son's soccer season has a month to go, or that my other son's bowling season just started. And it's not that I haven't been doing regular writing for ten years, so I am a bit rusty.

My idea was to watch movies regularly, but I did not realize that wasn't the week for that. Because this is the week that PBS ran a 12 1/2 hour documentary on the National Parks, and I watched it. That chewed up most of my time.

I wanted to get started this month, but this may have been the wrong week. So I'm already in catch up mode. I've seen two movies this week, one (cough) mini-series, and had three other posts I want to make. I'll see how many of the six I can get up today.

Edited to add: This week doesn't bode well either, as my favorite sports team is the St. Louis Cardinals, they made the playoffs this year, and the playoffs start this Wednesday.