It’s been a long day at work, and I ended up spending a few more hours last night getting things sorted for a couple of meetings on Monday. This was the dark and stormy sky as I drove along highway-2 into Snohomish.

A little picture of domestic bliss in the Kean household, two happy cats fast asleep on the sofa.

I am a big fan of the longer evenings, it was 6 or so before I got out of work tonight after a long, but productive day. Best part (actually, second best behind the fun evening) was that it was still light out when I made it home. It may have still been raining today, but we are edging closer to the summer.

This LA Galaxy bugbear is starting to get old. As is the “lots of chances, but unable to put it away” storyline that defined a lot of the sounders 2010 season. Don’t get me wrong last night was an entertaining game of football, obviously not happy with the result but Seattle played well enough to have won. For the Sounders there are way more positives than negatives to take out of tonights game.

One more thing, it felt good to be back in RBP. It was rather wonderful to spend a couple of hours in The Pyramid with friends, a couple of pints of really good IPA and a great burger. Then to the game. There are a few changes to what’s going on, biggest is the Ninkasi Total Domination IPA is on tap in Qwest Field this year (this is a big deal), if I’m going to spent $7 on beer it needs to be a good one.

Other than the beer situation, other big news was of the day broke just before the game when the Sounders announced they had agreed to end their association with veteran striker Blaise Nkufo. A big surprise as he looked effective last year. It seems there is a disagreement between himself and Sigi about how he should be used.

I do hope it’s not going to become a trend; Ljungberg had issues with Sigi last year. I think they were wider than just how he was being used, but it does cause me to maybe question how the organization is dealing with the higher priced, experienced designated players. If it really is a problem with the players rather than the leadership inside the team then perhaps they will think again before signing a mid 30’s European star in the last couple of years of their career.

Having said all that, even with hindsight I do think Ljungberg was the right player. He gave this team instant credibility when he chose Seattle over the Premier League. In that first year he did a lot of this team on and off the field. However his clear displeasure and frustrations at some of the younger players became more and more obvious.

To the game, as I said the result is disappointing, but it’s the start of a long year and the schedule for Seattle was not fair as they go to Red Bull Saturday.

Nkufo was replaced by O’Brian White, starting his first game for the sounders after a move from Toronto and hopefully greener pastures. White had a busy night and had a couple of good chances, both set up by through balls from Zakuani. With 20 minutes left to play White put the best chance of the night wide when the Galaxy keeper (backup Josh Saunders) made one of his rare mistakes and was out of position.

Zakuani did not look at full speed all night and while the conditions were miserable and hardly conducive to good football, he did not look 100% when he had the ball. Of the other new boys Eric Freiberg looked good, he seemed to be everywhere and covered a lot of ground during the game. His touches forward were typically good and he had some quality linkups with Montero.

When he is playing well, Montero is electric to watch, but he does need to start putting balls in the back of the net to warrant the $800K he’s being paid as a DP this year.

It was a tight game and there was very little in it between the two teams. The midfield possession game was very close and fun to watch. Alonso and Freiberg were in the middle of everything for Seattle.

The defence is as solid as expected; JK Hurtardo and Jeff Parke may be the best center defence pairing in the league. Leo Gonzales and James Riley had license to move forward to fill in space as the midfielders supported the forwards. In all it looked like a well prepared team, it’s just the finishing that was missing.

For LA Beckham is clearly getting on a little, for a start the first 5 yard burst of speed is long gone and he does not scare defenders the way he used to. However the precision passes are still there and he still wants the ball for his specialty; set pieces. I’m sure his value to he team as a whole goes beyond his role on the field, but he is not what he was even a couple of years ago. 

I’m not a fan of Bruce Arena. He has a very well drilled team, they know what to do in any situation. Unfortunately that is shut the game down once they get ahead on the break. An LA is very good at that and that tactic was very evident at Quest.

Saturday is New York, two of the toughest games straight away for Seattle is a tough way to start the year. There are 33 games left in the year, lots of football left to go.

March 16^th update – It’s a month late and took the threat of legal action, but she actually made February’s payment (and the late payment penalty) to the loan she took out. It’s not much as the March payment was due today, but it is unquestionably a baby step.

Today has been one of those fascinating days that makes life so interesting. Friday my lawyers got a letter from my ex with a few questions and the usual money stuff to go along with identity theft. It just goes to show once again that if you use money to keep score you can do some very strange mental gymnastics to justify what you are doing. It’s very strange to watch. There was an additional call today with further information.

I spent an hour with my lawyer this afternoon going through the questions and our next steps to finally dispose of some rather pointless claims. Of course most of them are around money and I’d like to talk about a couple of them tonight.

This is the woman who said “I need you to make the mortgage payment in full for the house at the beginning of November. My regular unemployment benefits ended this last week and there is a lag while the federal extension paperwork is processed.“

She was fully employed when she wrote this e-mail.

She then agreed in writing to pay the $1140 to me in full by November 15^th. Any one want to guess what happened when the 15th rolled around?  Yep, nothing.

She does not want to pay her bills, and that’s what it is, but like all these things there are consequences to one’s actions. When her ex-husband did things this she condemned him as a total deadbeat. It was the same with his inablity to provide insurance for their kids, he was a deadbeat, and again I have these quotes in writing if she wishes to contest.

We are going to look at one more money thing tonight, my ex’s definition of “community debt”. On June 10 she with drew $14,000 from a joint account. She made the payments in June, July and so on through to November. Not only did she make the payment, she then promptly took out the principal to get the account back to a balance of -$14K.

This carried on until December when she decided she did not have to pay it anymore. I covered it in December and January, but after talking to the bank, having them follow the money trail they see it’s not my problem. She really is setting a big hole for herself. The money trail is easy to follow, it’s clear who created the debt and spent the money.

Unfortunately for her she has a very different definition of “community debt” from the law in Washington State.

So back to the letter to my lawyer, it said in part “I also requested that your client refrain from harassing by posting stories about her and her children on the internet and that he remove all past postings.”

For those of you following this story over the last year or more may see the hypocrisy in this request.

First, I’m rather insulted, I’ve never told stories. I give my opinion; tell things how I see it and today I very clearly stand behind everything I’ve written. She has been free and happy to accuse me of all sorts of things both in person and on the internet, from who I’m sleeping with through to abusing her children (remember she is a mandatory reporter, yet never reported it… Hmmm, full of shit? Perhaps). Not only was she happy to do this when it suited her she also had no spine and close to do it largely anonymously and even have other people do it for her. If you want to know more, I’ll get around to providing a few links some time.

She visits this site most days, on Feb 12th she spent an hour and visited 58 pages on this site. I would have thought she had better things to but, but apparently not. The following day I did removed all postings that name her. After getting some legal advise they will be moved back to public when I get the time.

If anyone knows how google works the more you search for a certain term (in this case her full name) and link it to a particular result (in this case my site) the higher that site moves up google’s rankings. One of my ex’s friends (hint as to who it is: they own a Blackberry) searches with her full name every day, almost without fail. In January she searched using that term 56 times. It’s almost like it’s deliberate to wind her up. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen and it’s coming from one of her friends. I have a very comprehensive suite of analytics that record these things.

Last year our lawyers discussed issues with threats being made against me, she said I’d made some kind of unspecified threats against her and my lawyer proposed adding language to the restraint along the lines of “disturbing the peace of the other party, via the internet or otherwise”. She turned this down and refused to sign, as it was put to me at this time “apparently the complaints she had against you were not a big deal”.

The more we look through the paperwork and what’s going on the more holes we find in her arguments. The inconsistency and so on makes it all very difficult. I’m very lucky to have a lawyer who deals with it, who just takes care of it. Thanks Lorna.

Nothing I’ve had to say tonight is a story, nothing is fabricated, I can prove everything I have said here and once again stand behind everything I have said.

I had to quickly run into Everett today to sign a couple of legal things, very entertaining story that I’ll share soon. I parked up on Whetmore and wandered in to see my lawyer, I noticed a couple of pieces of art I’ve not seen before. I am a big fan of public art, I think it does much to enhance Seattle and with the huge changes for the better in downtown Everett it makes sense to have it here. There is more about the Everett Art installations here.

On the corner of Wall and Colby was this piece by James Madison

So to the quote of the day, I was on the phone with a friend tonight and she said “I’ve need to go, I’ll call you back I have to call the jail”. My life if so full of wonderful moments and quotes like this. I love my life.

The ground around the house is saturated, it seems like it’s rained almost constantly for the couple of weeks, and before that it was snowing here.It would be nice to have the sun peeking through to go with the extra daylight in the evening. The picture is of the rain pounding on the window in the office at home.

I went to at the RedHook brewery in Woodinville to meet for lunch. Even when it’s wet there are still usually legions of cyclists there, it was an indication of how bad the weather has been that there were only 6 bicycles chained up outside on a Sunday lunch times.

It’s been months since the opening date was announced. There are 17 other sides in this league, and out of this 17 it’s LA I wanted to see come into Royal Brougham Park to open the season.

There are a number of reasons for this wish. First and biggest is it’s payback time for last autumn’s playoffs, that’s obvious. Second is they humiliated us 0-4 last year in our home. It was a woeful Seattle display, but LA did what good teams do and dispatched us comfortably. The performance in HDC last July was not much better; I’m looking forward to the chance to seeing that particular wrong put right this July.

Lastly, but not least, I think LA was the best side in the League last year and if Seattle wants to be taken seriously as a contender then they have to beat the best, and I think the best is LA.

On Tuesday night the rest of the league will be watching. Loose and it’s not all over, win and the Supporters Shield is not ours. There are a lot of games to go and nothing will be won or lost on Tuesday night, but this is the opening game. This is Seattle’s chance to make a statement on national TV, win and the rest of the league takes a little more notice of Seattle.

Getting some revenge for last year in a full and loud RBP in a nationally televised game that has the potential to show that in 2011 Seattle is about more than full stadiums, sounding good and having bra straps on our shirts. It will show we are here to compete with the best in the league.

Tuesday night I’ll be taking part in a game day tradition that goes back to the first football league game in 1888. I walk to the stadium with the optimism and anticipation of a new season. Every team is level, no one has lost a single game yet; every supporter thinks that we can win it all, we can mow down all those put in front of us. Anything can happen.

I think we have the players, I believe we have the coach; I have no doubt about the supporters. Maybe this is our year; maybe we can win it all.

I love the feeling of walking from the concourse, through the tunnel towards my seats and into the lights of the stadium. Looking to my right and see the ECS already pogoing, taking in the noise, atmosphere, seeing the familiar faces as I walk up the stairs. It’s game day and there is no place like it.

Friday turned into a rather long day at work, but then Friday night rolled around and once again I am reminded about how wonderful the people I choose have in my life are. I’m not sure when the last time I was up until 2:30 in the morning was, it’s been quite a while and I paid for the excesses today.

A quite wonderful time was had. I admit that when I took my 5am conference call for work I was questioning the wisdom of staying up until the early hours. But on reflection feeling like a zombie for most of Saturday was well worth it. I really do have some wonderful people in my life and while I certainly pay a price now for staying up into the early hours, it was awesome. Now I just need to remember to change the clocks tonight, as tomorrow morning is the Calcutta Cup from Twickenham on BBC America. to complete my dream weekend would be for the rain to stop long enough for me to get some stuff done in the garden,

We went into Alderwood to grab a couple of things on the way out tonight and there was a long queue out the Apple Store (the one store in the mall that I can keep myself amused in) and around the corner, almost into the mall.

Then I remembered, the iPad 2 was released into the wild today. as is typical with most cutting edge items, the second version learned a lot from the limitations of the first. It does have a faster processor, a little more battery life and so on, lots of incremental upgrades. I like it a lot more, but will probably not be getting one any time soon.

For me the MacBook Air gives me a similar level of portability with a proper OS, iTunes and still allows me to have Angry Birds from the ap store on it. And following the idiom, it was the second generation that had everything I wanted and all this for $150 more than an iPad. Yes, the battery life is considerably shorter, but even economy class on most aircraft have PC power outlets now and I’ve not found it an issue. I’m very happy with my choice.