Okay spoiler alert – for those of you pacing the floors wondering if we won the whole tournament I’ll spare you anymore agony – we didn’t!

Actually we got knocked out in the first qualifying match 18-21 and 19-21 (ugh!). I guess it could have been much worse but I really thought we should have won that match.

I hadn’t played more than 3 times this entire Summer and I was making some really stupid mistakes on easy serves. Usually my passing and ball control is pretty good but I must have been pretty nervous because I shanked a bunch of balls. Really I played more to “not lose” than to “win” and that’s not like me.

Though in consolation I did get 3 or 4 service aces, couple big digs and a few kills out there. Here’s a little game footage.

And check out a couple of the game pics here:

Notice AL-B and I sporting the limited edition Internet Lifestyle jerseys. I had so little time to prepare but I thought since InternetLifestyle.com is sponsoring us we need some shirts. I used Zazzle.com and got my stuff delivering within 2 days. Pretty impressive. The funny thing is I didn’t double-check AL-B’s last name and only put one “n” there in Hannemann. So we used a handy sharpie the night before to make a quick change.

The promoter from the AVP Cincinnati event loved our story about coming together on IM and joining up for this tournament. He suggested I make a $1000 donation to buy tickets for local Special Olympics athletes to come watch the tournament. It was a great idea and that’s exactly what I did.

Actually Al-B and I both share the same views about giving back. He runs the “DIG for kids” charity and I promised I’d support that this year. In fact, we made a deal for next year (if it happens again) that I’ll make it really fun and do something like donating $100.00 for every point we score, $250.00 for every dig I make and something crazy like $5000 for every block I make. Hopefully, I’ll get to redeem myself in another tournament next year.

It was pretty interesting walking around the event and having Al-B keep being asked who his new partner was when I was standing right next to him. The other guys didn’t even consider I’d be his partner until he pointed me out. You should have seen the double-takes.

I did feel sorta, kinda like a pro for a little bit and the experience was very cool. The night before the game I stopped at Walgreens to pick up some ACE bandages to wrap my knees since I have two partially torn ACLs. I really didn’t need to do that since as a pro I had a full-on medical and therapy room there at my disposal. I got the best tape job of my life there. Wish I could hire those guys to come to my weekend pick-up games.

Official AVP Pro?

And here’s the commissioner of the AVP, Leonard Amato, welcoming me into the fold (his signature is on the yellow & white beach balls):

And as the newest AVP superstar I get to hang out with my new best friends Kerry Walsh and Misty May, Olympic gold medal winners (Check out how much taller Kerry is than me):

Overall, it was a very cool experience and glad I was able to take off at the last-minute for it.

I briefly mentioned this in the last post but #2 on my “BIG List” of stuff to do, have or experience was “Play semi-professional beach volleyball”. I really didn’t think it would happen but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to write it down. Well, Al-B said I would be technically be considered Pro now (even though I wouldn’t consider myself one). Here’s me in my official “Player” badge (zoom in) with Al-B and then another pic with Dan from volleyball.com

Another time – I want to share a little more about the “BIG List” and why I think it’s so important.

Now since I not only got this one checked off (but went above and beyond) I decided to add a few more to the list on the plane ride home including another sports one of “Get my name engraved on the Stanley Cup”. Hey – why not? Let’s throw it out there! Part of my list is up on InternetRoadTrip.com and I’m now up to 91 items – which I’ll probably post most of them here at some point.

There’s really no harm in writing down your own “BIG list”. What do you want to be, have, do, experience, etc? If you feel brave enough post 10 of them here.