Happiness=FUNLV

There are a lot of things in this world that make me happy: a Mighthy Mike and banana shake from Scoopers, sleeping in on the weekends, my job (most days, when I don't have something flying by my head and I am not being told to "Fuck off!"), and especially coaching. I couldn't teach if I didn't coach. None of these takes me to my "Happy Place" though. My happy place is watching the unlv rebels lose. I don't care what it is that they lose in, seeing them and their fans miserable makes me happy. Last night, our coaching staff took our volleyball teams to watch unlv play byu at the Cox Arena at unlv. It is an interesting crowd because of the large Mormon population in vegas. Many of the students who are attending unlv would have gladly gone to byu if they would have had the grades to go there. The crowd was about evenly split between cougar and rebel fans. One of the most interesting and amusing signs was from one of the rebel fans using the CTR acronym to say, "Choose The Rebels." Not being Mormon, I am not exactly sure what the code word CTR stands for, but I know it has to do with wearing a ring a promising chastity until marriage; I have to remind half my team to take their rings off before every game. Anyway, back to the game and being happy. Obviously unlv lost, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. What made it even better and what makes me smile even wider (and maybe makes me a little more loathsome of unlv is how they lost. The rules of volleyball have changed a little in the past few years, but basically in college they play to 30 with rally scoring (every serve is a point, you don't have to serve to score anymore) , you must win by 2, and they play best 3 out of 5. In games 1 and 2, unlv led 29-28 with the serve before losing 31-29. The third game, same thing, but they ended up being ahead 30-29 and 31-30 before losing 33-30. Additionally, they had to make some big comebacks to even put themselves ahead in games 2 and 3. They ran off 7 or 8 straight points with some really great hustle plays, heart, and determination (I may be a hater, but I always appreciate great play and effort, part of sportsmanship that is disappearing from athletics, but that is another topic). There were definite momentum shifts within the team and within the crowd. Everyone believed that unlv would win those games. And then they didn't. To see the crowd deflate made me happy. Is there something wrong with me because I have such hatred for unlv and their fans? If there is, I don't want to change. I will not take whatever pill that they make to help me reduce my symptons of Rebelhatus. The rush I get from seeing the silver and red go down in flames outweighs the side effects that any of those pills cause. Proud to bleed the Silver and Blue, which leads me to my second, shorter part:

Monday, for those who are living in vegas, the Lady Wolf Pack volleyball team travels to Cox Pavillion for a 5 pm match against the same choke artists I watched Saturday night. I would love to be there to see them win for the 5th or 6th consecutive time (can't remember off the top of my head) but I have a match of my own to coach and won't be able to make it.

Saturday, the big game. The battle for the cannon. I never thought I would see the day that our running game and our defense would be what wins us games, but obviously ault has changed some of his thinking (some for the better, some he still needs work on). For those of you who make it to the game, stop by the alumni tailgater and we can harrass rebels fans together.

Worlds Worst Security

One of the things I have found about living in Vegas is that I tend to have a lot of visitors. Some people I see more living in Las Vegas than I did when I lived in Reno. People like to come here. Last night, a friend of mine from Reno and I were at the Hard Rock when some people started getting into a disagreement at the Circle Bar. It was loud and there was a lot of "Fuck You!" and the like going on while guys were "Chicken Dancing" with each other. This went on for a good two or three minutes while one guys friends were trying to separate things and the other guys girlfriend was trying to pull him away. It was a pretty big scene. No security showed up. As the guy with the girlfriend left, he grabbed some other guys beer (bottle of Corona, change you latitude) and threw it in the direction of the guy he was having issues with. He instead hits the biggest dude at the bar. The beer did not spill and this guy obviously was not fueled by all of the fire because he just sat there and ignored everything. Even after a beer bottle flew across the bar, no security. The guy who was the owner of the now spilled beer ran over, pissed off, and yelled something racial towards the couple. The guy lifts his middle finger and retaliates with some more colorful verbiage and the girl now runs, jumps, and launches a loogie at the guy. Still, no security. Not taking the spit lightly, the guy crying over spilled beer jumps over the rail and gets in the couple's faces. The girl has her boyfriend in a choke hold and is holding him back. Then, out of no where, she reaches around and slaps the beer guy. At this point in time, they have moved their raucous over to the craps tables and are bumping into people throwing the bones and really creating a scene. Despite the fact that there are about 6 croupiers and a couple of pit bosses watching, no one is doing anything and there is still no security. Finally, a cocktail waitress who is about 5'2 gets in between them and tells them to knock it off andleave. The couple leaves and the beer guy returns to the bar, presumably to spend another 5 bucks for a new Corona. After everything is finished, security arrives. They talk briefly to the beer guy and a few other people, but nothing else happened. After that, a security guy patrolled the bar about every two minutes.
There are some political parallels that I have drawn from this incident, but I am going to keep them to myself. I shared the metaphor with my friends as the incident happened and we had a good talk about it.