The men Rangers lose to Stony Point 3-1

The Vista Ridge Ranger team took to the field today with a slim chance to stay in the playoff hunt against Stony Point.  Whatever chance they had quickly vanished as Stony Point built a 3-0 lead and made it stick for most of the game.  The Rangers had a few chances and managed to add a consolation goal with 45 seconds to go in the game.  The boys will face Westwood on Monday night in their last game of the 2009 season.

Lady Rangers celebrate senior night

On a very cold, wet, and generally nasty night in central Texas, the Lady Rangers paid tribute to the class of 2009 with a 2-1 victory over Stony Point.  I didn’t take pictures as it was just too nasty to get the camera out - but I did take some pictures of the half-time festivities.  In a tradition that started with the school’s first graduating class (2007), all of the seniors recorded a message to the team that was played during halftime.  Most of the girls reflected on their memories of their time at Vista Ridge and encouraged their teammates by calling out some of their “special” gifts and talents.  Like all seniors that have gone before them, this was a very special group of girls.

Lady Rangers needing win lost to RR 2-0

The Lady Rangers entered the game needing to win 2 of the last 3 to qualify for the playoffs. With their backs against the wall, the Lady Rangers played lights out for most of the game, but still lost 2-0 to the Round Rock Lady Dragons.  The 1st half belonged to the Lady Rangers both offensively and defensively.  But as it sometimes is in soccer, they just couldn’t get it in the goal.  They entered halftime tied 0-0.

The 2nd half began as the 1st ended with the Rangers continuing to apply the offensive pressure.  Just when it looked like the Rangers had the momentum, Round Rock got a quick transition goal when their forward got behind our last defender and out ran everyone to put the 1st goal on the board.  The Lady Rangers continued to fight and still had chances on what seemed like countless corner opportunities.  With 15 minutes in the game, Round Rock put the game away when their midfield connected on a ball that was just a little tall for our goalie.  To the Rangers credit, they never let up and fought all the way to the end.

The Lady Rangers will return to action Friday night at VRHS where they host Stony Point.  This will be senior night where the graduating class will be honored at half-time.

a win against Round Rock to keep pace with Cedar Park for the final playoff slot.

Men’s Rangers tie Round Rock 1-1

The Vista Ridge men’s soccer team went into Dragon stadium trailing by 2 points for the 4th and final playoff slot.  Although they defeated Round Rock in earlier district play, this game was back and forth with a slight advantage to the Rangers offensively.  But on one of those nights where you might have a slight advantage, the Rangers failed to capitalize and came away with a 1-1 tie.  Click on the picture to see all the game-time photos.

Happy 18th Hannah

Hannah turned 18 yesterday and we celebrated it as we have for 4 previous years.  Hannah invited her closest buds over and we went to Tokyo Steakhouse.  Hannah swears they have better steak than mine (don’t believe it) and she loves the same old routines.  You know - how do you make “egg drop” soup, or watch the “butter fly” or the Japanese choo-choo.  Bob and Susan came with Audrey.  She loved the fire and banging drums when the staff sang happy birthday.  After dinner, we all headed back to the house for a birthday cookie.  Hannah got to finally open her present from us - a set of diamond earrings that went immediately into safe keeping and then the cubics that her mom’s going to let her wear!

Hard to believe my baby girl is all grown up and will be headed to Texas Tech next year.  But like her sister, I am real proud of her as she’s turned into an absolute terrific young woman.

The Laird boys are growing up fast!

On Saturday (3-7-09), Jill, Katie and I went to San Antonio to visit the Laird family.  It had been a few months since we saw them back before the holidays.  What a ball.  Wes and I went and shot guns while the girls hung and did their thing.  We met later in the afternoon to watch the boys play flag football.  What a hoot.  I forgot how much fun it was to kids play just for the fun of playing.  Wes hadn’t seen Katie in a few years - she’s a little bit different.  She was 15 at the time and had just driven us to Alabama to visit them at Christmas.  She’s now 19 and to say she’s blossomed is an understatement.  It was funny to watch Katie tease Austin at dinner last night about being her boyfriend.  He might have played shy, but he was eating it up!  It was a clear reminder of just how fast all of our kids have grown and how quickly these 2 young boys are turning into 2 fine young men.

Anyway - we had a ball.  And something we’ll definitely be doing alot more of after we get Hannah settled at Texas Tech later this year.

Lady Rangers fall to Cedar Park 3-1

In the rubber match between these 2 squads, the Cedar Park Timberwolves beat the Vista Ridge Lady Rangers 3-1.  This was a must-win game for Cedar Park having entered the game in 5th place - just out of playoff contention.  For the Rangers, it was a must-not-lose game to ensure they kept their 3rd place spot with a great shot of making the playoffs.  Cedar Park struck 1st with less than 12 minutes gone into the 1st half.  They built up a 3-0 lead before the Rangers were able to notch one when Alex Ancira scored midway through the 2nd half.

Vista Ridge will play host to 3rd place Round Rock Tuesday night in a must-win game as they are now tied for 4th with Cedar Park for the final playoff position.

Something to Consider

For any of you that know me, you know that I lean conservative, but I’m not a partisan.  And that I vote for democrat or republican - it’s whoever is the best person.   And I normally don’t bring it up politics as people get emotional.  And you all know that I struggle with people that think only with their hearts.  I believe you have to use BOTH equally.  So to say I get agitated when people simply form their opinions based on others or what the news feeds us and don’t spend time to think about it is an understatement.   Our right to vote is a privilege that many brave men and women sacrificed for since our founding fathers did so over 200 years ago. I think it is worth their sacrifice for us to truly think through the issues before we cast our ballot.

So over the past few months, I’ve watched the debates go back and forth about taxes.  We do have a problem in this country between the have and the have nots.  On the surface, it sounds right to say “tax those rich guys”.  They can afford it.   But the question is, will it produce results without the unanticipated consequences we have seen so many times in government policy?  So with that - I offer a simple scenario below for people to think about and really see if the current administration’s strategies make sense.

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In a college classroom, there were 100 students.  After mid-terms, 5 of the students had an A, 25 had Bs, 30 had Cs, 30 had Ds, and 10 had Fs.  Since the professor didn’t want to fail anybody, he came up with a great idea.  What if the folks that made As and B’s would give up 10 to 15 points  on their letter grades at the final to the kids that were doing poorly.  That would bring the class average up and ensures nobody fails - right?

Sounds good, but let’s see how the students think.  The A students thought why should I hump it to make a 95 when the best I’m going to do is an 85.  So I’ll just back off and make a B since I’m going to be capped anyway.  The B students thought about the same - no reason in busting to try to get an A when I can’t, and besides, I’m going to lose a few points too if I’m a borderline A student, so I’ll cruise and settle for my B.  The C students didn’t care - there might get a few points increased but not enough to matter.  The D students were excited.  They would likely make a C without any more effort.  And the F students were really stoked.  They didn’t bother showing up the rest of the semester and they had a D locked in without doing anything.

So at finals, the class average went down.  Seems as the points everyone was counting on from the A students were gone.  The points the B students contributed were smaller since an 80 was an 80.  So with less points to give away, here’s what happened.  Since the F students figured they would pass anyway and failed to show up, their grade averages were really bad and it required more points to get them to a D.  That left fewer points for the D students to bring them up to C’s.  The teacher ran out of points to be able to help all the D students up to get a C.  As is usual, the C students finished with a C.

So it was true that nobody failed but the class averages actually got worse.  And the bottom performers were still at the bottom after exams.  There were just no more As. In the end, what sounded like a great idea failed to produce the desired results because of normal human behavior.

Now imagine this - what would have happened had that teacher put bonus points for the A and B students to tutor with the the failing students?  But the bonus points were CONDITIONAL on the poor performing students improving?  What if the poor performing students that improved their letter grade by 1 got and extra 5 points to the next higher grade? (like going from a D to a C and getting a 75 instead of a 70).  Do you think everyone would try a little harder?  Do you think grades would improve?  Do you think there would be even A and B students?  And do you really think the folks making Fs and D’s a the beginning would really care if the higher-performing students got even better grades?

Using my photos

It’s come to my attention through some of my auditing software that there have been some illegal downloads of my photographs.  Suffice it say, I’m not happy.  I post pictures on my website as a convenient way of sharing what I shoot.  Galleries that provide free downloads are denoted with an asterisk (*) at the beginning of them.  The rest are meant to be viewed on this site and may not be downloaded or used without my expressed written consent.  For a copy of my usage policy - please click here.

I offer downloads for a small charge to help offset the cost of this site and the equipment I use.  You may not see it, but there’s alot of time that I spend, particularly on sports shoots, weeding through the shots that I take and then cropping the ones I do keep.  To date, I’ve only embedded my copyright logo at the bottom so that the web displays are mainly of the photographs.  If forced, I will begin putting digital copyright protection in all photos. This will make the photos less viewable.   I hate to do this since most people are not trying to game the system or in my view - cheat me.   If you’ve downloaded work without my permission, I ask that you go back legally through the web and download the prints you want. Please keep in mind that copyright laws are enforceable and can result in fines or jail time or both if I chose to take legal recourse.

Thanks to all of you that are playing by the rules.