Merry Christmas and a real treat

The benefit of living in a timezone that's ahead of someone else's: You get to wish them happy holidays first.

Merry Christmas to all souls reading this blog.
And to the subset who are also volleyball lovers, enjoy some volleyball but with a twist.

Panathlitikos News

I know you've all been waiting to hear news about what could be considered as the most important game in our league.
Wait no more. My Christmas gift to you arrived slightly early. So please enjoy, but do so responsibly. The last thing I want is crazed groupies posting comments non-stop.

The match with Polygiros was a true derby!
It was a war!
It was the culmination of months of training.

We lost the first set. Our game was sloppy and our defense on the serve was U.G.L.Y. No alibi...



We won the second set.
Lost the third set.
Won the fourth set.
Cliffhanger...

Cliffhanger still...

Y.A.C.F ...

We won the fifth and final set.
Kudos to the team, we were losing 4-9 in this last set and then came back to win 15-13.

It was a good 3-2 match...
We made lots of mistakes, were stricken by several injuries, but we delivered.

Why all the rant for a game? How can it be so important, you ask?
Our win sort of guaranteed at least second place in the B Regional league. The best two teams advance to the next level. So next year we should be playing in the best regional league, A Regional.
Above that, there's B National, A2 National, A1 National. The A Nationals consist entirely of professionals and indeed they are quite far away. Even B National is very tough to get into.

We are now aiming for first place in B Regional. It will be tough, but it's possible.


Disclaimer:
Polygiros has nothing to do with gyro, the food.
In case you were wondering, it's a place, a small city to be more precise...

Panathlitikos News

Panthlitikos won 3-0.
The opponents were not very good. I believe their team was formed this year and it kind of showed. I'm sure they'll present a better face next season.

After the match we all went for food as the game marked the end of the first round.

The second round begins next week, and we are playing a good team. It's the only team we've lost to so far... It was the game where we were winning 0-2 and then lost 3-2.
This time we have the home-advantage. Also, continous training has brought our players very close. We've each learned our roles much better and we work together now.
The only downside: A few recent injuries have fallen upon our middles. Can we pull this off without them?

Stay tuned for next week's results...

Panathlitikos Wins Once More

Panathlitkos won again, this time against Nestor.
We lost the first set and then came back to win 3-1.
Our first set was very sloppy and that explains the loss.
I didn't get to play this time.

Panathltikos' win comes with some extra good news. Our championship has officially been extended. There were supposed to be 2 rounds of 6 matches, but now there will be 3.
More volleyball, now that's what I'm talking about!

What say you?

Would cars have two headlights if we didn't have two eyes?

Let's Celebrate

A celebration is in order!
The PostgreSQL community has released a new version (8.2) of their amazing DBMS.
A press release describing the new features can be found here.
Bravo to the world's most advanced open source database (and in my opinion the world's most advanced database, period).

Lego Boy

Yesterday marked yet another win for Panathlitikos. We got a solid 3-0 with all sets finishing near the 25-15 range.

I couldn't play cause of some weird small pain in my knee. The pain surfaced two days ago but it's slowly going away.

I certainly hope my rate of injuries (Injuries/Month) decreases, lest I get assigned the nigh-hilarious nickname "Lego Boy".