Live to Love, Love to Live

I love watching my dog Maddie fighting herself in our mirror. She is the funniest little dog. Well, I caught it on video, check it out friends. No explanation needed.

Someone sent a picture of me scoring on Fifa via twitter. I was very excited to say the least. I only scored once in college and do I foresee scoring in the MLS or pros, hmmmm, yeah maybe, but it may be some time. What if I do score? Ha I will freakin' freak out haha. I am gonna run over to our supporters section jump into their arms (picture this in a movie, slow motion) while I am getting doused with beer and hugs I will simply mouth out, again in slow mo, I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U-G-U-Y-S...haha...and then run back on the field while replaying that moment for the next week in my pre-dreams before I actually fall asleep.

Needless to say, do you think I ever want to score a goal...hmmmm. But, for now I will have to relish scoring on Fifa and looking like an old man. This year I will be careful not to shave my head like I did last year. Well, because they made me look 45 with a shaved head, I really do not think my receding hairline is that bad and I still think I look pretty young. But, according to Fifa I am on my way out I guess.

Oh yeah and I was so excited to know that I went up about 8 points in the game. I am fist pumping in the air like a Jersey boy right now. So, for all of you who play me at forward or score or goal with me, I secretively love you in my heart. For right now I will settle with old man Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies scoring one for the giffer.

And those are my memoirs haha.

Last year it was brought to my attention that our supporters section created a shirt for me. Am I happy about it? Yes, I am, but it is funny in a way because it is almost sacrilegious. haha. I mean, I definitely am a supporter of the Big Man upstairs, my homeboy JC. Which makes it a little more weird for me, because being on the same cross He died for us on... I am very honored by the fans for it, but I am definitely not worthy. I know it is all a big compliment and I thank you all. Now all we got to do is start some kind of tradition between me and the fans, but we will get to that later.

Now getting to what recently has been brought to my attention and that is this year's shirt they made for me. Now, this year's shirt rocks. It is graphically well done. I mean the picture on it actually looks exactly like me and it is a clever slogan. I applaud whoever did this year's version. Both pictures are below. The only thing is that this graphic implies, I think, that I am fast. Now, that is cool because I never have envisioned myself as fast, I mean I can hold my own, but if people view me as fast that is exciting for me.

To break it down for you, my dream is to have a super power and that power would be super-duper speed. I could run across water, I would have super keen senses because my mind would have to keep up with my speed, my body would be extra durable because my body would have to withstand super-duper speed.

Sooooooo, back to reality. I appreciate the shirt.
Now, I will start our Crew fans off and friends of mine with a suggestion and if you read this send a suggestion of your own and we will all decide on which tradition I will do before, after and during games for one fan or them all. For my suggestion I propose that someone, only one person, can buy me a medium in one of these two shirts and send it to our training facility, I will provide you with the address. I will sign it and write a special message to them on the shirt and wear it under my jersey during the game. Then after the game we will have a specific place for you to be so I can come over and take off the shirt and give it back to you with it signed, worn, and a special message of my own to you.
Let me know below what you think. Peace my brothers and sistas. Oh yeah by the way you can get these or any other Crew supporters shirts at www.skreened.com

On back to our trip to New Orleans. I hope you all enjoyed the "dagwood", I did. All in all it still tasted great. I kinda want to make a rap out of it. haha. I know, I know save my sick skillz for another time.

After our clinic where I perfected the log roll, Emily got a 28 mph shot from a kid, Jared found a sick vantage point for videos, Jared Montz showed the kids how sweet soccer bowling is, and Katie did an amazing job at registration and clean-up.
We then brought them inside and had them sit down and listen up. Jared montz gave is famous "Believe in it" speech, encouraging the kids to go after their dreams. Then he passed it on to me and I did my famous rap that incorporated a sick b-boy breakdown then transitioning into a windmill on the ground. Ha I wish I did that, maybe next time.

I talked to the kids about how I grew up being the youngest child in a single mom household. How I went to sleep and woke up hungry most days. Also, that trophies and awards have no real importance. What we should desire for people to remember us by: is our kindness, work ethic, generosity, and most importantly love we give to others. I gave a jersey of mine to a player that was not the best, but exemplified those qualities the most.

We then gave out Imazine watches for the kids. They are these sweet and sporty watches that the kids can wear no matter chill or play (www.ionwatchusa.com). We also were able to bring soccer balls, basketballs, pumps, school supplies, and soccer gear for the kids.

We bought a bunch of the stuff at a Kmart shopping spree the day we got there. Super fun shopping for kids that do not recieve many things that often. We ended with some pictures and we signed some autographs for them. We also asked them to sign posters of ours just in case they become famous one day.

It was an amazing clinic and an even better experience for the Filleo Staff. There is nothing better than giving your energy, efforts, and money to help those less fortunate. We were all made to do this.

But, after all this we ended up going to Drago's to eat. Whoooohooo so good. They have chargrilled oysters that are soooo amazing. I had a shrimp po boy and it was good. But, these oysters were some of the best food I have ever had. A must do if you go down. Then we had a little bedate ( this is how I pronounced it, I know a bedate is a toilet that cleans a yuuhooo). Umm a beignet yes that is it. It is a fried piece of dough. Honestly I dig a funnel cake much more, sorry New Orleans folk.

Check out the video below, and yes I actually let them do this to me, I do not know why. By the way he blew powdered sugar on me, a whole lot of it.

So, this past Monday the 18th, I experienced the "DagWood". It is a very large sandwich known to Columbus, Ohio natives as a monster of a deli sandwich. The Ohio Deli and Restaurant was on Man vs. Food this past year on the Travel Channel. What this guy does on this show is to try and defeat food challenges that 99.9% of people cannot defeat. Well, I got a little ambitious and tried to take it on.
I mean come on, this thing is so big. But, the kicker is not eating the sandwich. In order to win this challenge you have to eat all the french fries on your plate also. Now I think i could have forced that ginormous sandwich down,but to put all those fried fench fries in my stomach would have put me in line with meeting an old friend named 'Ralph", multiple times. So, getting to how far I got, haha, I feel like such a sally. But, I only ate half the sandwich and about 10 fries. Once I realized I could not do it after half, I did not want to put myself through the pain in trying. I mean look at the picture what would you do? If you think you could do it, tell me why and what evidence you have that warrants such a case, comment below.

On January 9th at the clinic we had some funny kids. Let me tell you about some of our stories.

Here I am preparing the kids for sharks and minnows and I was trying to get them to learn how to dribble in different ways. I am telling the kids to dribble and do different kinds of cuts and fakes and then I tell them to sit down. Romalis is one of the older kids of the group- the kid with the blue socks and in the front of the first pic...Romalis chimes in as we are sitting down, "I ain't fit for dis." His timing was impeccable as it was completely quiet and the rest of the kids seem to wait on his funny words. The kids and I just busted out laughing!

Next, and the funniest of all the comments. Emily, oh sweet Emily, oh so pure in heart, haha. She had Romalis's group and she said they were being very silly, in her words. Well, at one point she yelled, "Keep your balls to yourself!!" and the kids were rolling on the ground repeating what she said to each other. You could imagine a woman coach saying that to a bunch of 13 year olds who are already off in their own world. Well, even if you are not 13, it still makes me laugh every time. Thanks Emily for your awesome story and all your help!

Waking up in the morning was pretty hard. Yesterday was pretty exhausting and well when you walk outside and it is 28 degrees it is not fun either. I mean, come one, we came to New Orleans for a Filleo Project. We were not planning to come here for a nice beautiful trip, we came to help the kids. But, in the back of our minds we did think, "Sweet! We get to spend a few days in New Orleans in warmer weather." Well, "Earth to Jed!" it is not warm out here- it is freezing!

I was glad though that the day started with a laugh. Jared Emily Montz who were our drivers and host family were having trouble with the defroster. When they tried to turn the dial to defrost the dial broke and they could not defrost the front windshield. So, we are sitting there watching Jared and Emily use their hands and rags to wipe the windshield down so he could see while he was driving. They are not used to cold weather at all. We fixed it with pliers the next day though, atta boy RadioU Jared.

We pull up to our event at an inner city school and see a sweet soccer field that has the new turf on it. Also, there are about 30 kids playing on it. I immediately thought I was in the movie "The Big Green." The things these kids said only added to my perspective, oh what a laugh, but I will get to that later.

The night before our big event Jared Montz had us all sit down and we planned out the event to a "T." It took a couple of hours, but we thank him for wanting this event to go as smooth as possible, which it did.
We set up the table and all the kids start to bring over their registration forms we sent out to them. We thank God so much because come six days before the event we had 0 kids registered, yes ZERO. But the day of our event we had around 30 kids show up. For an event planned with few staff and little time it was a HUGE success. We brought them all in and separated them into groups. We had stations for the kids to go to every 12 minutes. Then at the end we would play a big scrimmage.

My station was sharks and minnows. It's my favorite because I love the "log roll." Yes, it is a sweet technique in this game. All the kids get on a line and they have to dribble across to a line that is about 20 yards away. The curve ball is that you have to get past the shark-- ME. I had to kick their ball away and I did that with the "log roll." I would get on the ground and stretch my hands and legs as far as I could go and roll at the kids. There was only one kid who beat this dangerous roll and he flicked it over me and ran. Touché my friend! Touché!

We also had a shooting station with a radar gun that showed the mph that the kids kicked the ball. This was a huge hit, thanks Emily. Jared Montz did a fun passing game that he made into soccer bowling; I never had seen it before but will use it now, thanks Jared. Then a volunteer named Grant helped with World Cup. That is a game where each child gets a partner and those teams pick a country they will be named after. They then try to score against the other teams on one goal, let's just say "CHAOS" but still very fun chaos.

We then ended with a scrimmage that was pretty crazy because the field was 40X25 and we played 11 on 11. Well, I kinda cheated and threw on a couple extra kids and played 13 on 11, that may be the reason why my team won 2-0, sorry Jared...

Here are some pictures from our clinic, I will have a video of the clinic posted in the next couple of days and part 2 of our day Saturday to follow after that. Thanks for spending time with me.

This is a highlight video from our first official Filleo Project Day. Hope you enjoyed our day there, because we certainly did. Thank you for all your support, appreciate it. There is a snippet of info in here with what happened in New Orleans when Katrina hit. There is a lot of video of the houses there. I wanted everyone to see how there is still so much work to do.

On to lunch now and a little break. I’m thinking Chipotle, Pei Wei, or maybe Quizno’s. Check that iPhone, and Oh snap! There are none of those in New Orleans. Haters. So, we end up getting the next best thing: KFC/Tacobell. We had some good rest and well some decent food.
We met up with T-roy and he gave us, in his words “I have something sweet for you J, it is a fame glorious job of packing up a library in trailers and moving them to the new school.” After some funny moments at the RSD (Recovery School District) he took us to the High School where the trailers were. We found Miss Celeste packing up her books. We ended up taking the next four hours packing, organizing, taping, and labeling books in boxes. We had Katie color coding everything with the dewy decimal system. Shoot whatever that is, still trying to figure it out.

We were able to finish Celeste’s entire week’s worth of work in four hours. They have been in these trailers for some time now and apparently she is moving from a small 800-900 sq. ft. library to a 4000 sq. ft. library. There are pictures before we helped and pictures after.
I have also put at the bottom Celeste’s email that she sent me on Monday when she came into work and saw what we did.

“Jed...thank you, thank you, thank you so MUCH. I walked into the library this morning, and I couldn't believe how amazing it looked in here. I can't stop smiling! I am so excited right now- because I can actually think clearly enough to get some serious work done now that everything is in order. Setting everything up in the new library is going to be a cinch now. If ya'll ever come back to the city, please come by our new school and visit!
Please thank everyone who was here- I remember all of you, but I'm terrible with names- Jed; your wife, the teacher and graduate student; Jared Montz & Mrs. Montz, (whose mother is a librarian); The radio personality from Radiou...(was his name Jared too?). Please let everyone know how thankful I am for all of the work that was done here last week, and also how much easier my life is going to be because of it...I feel like going out and doing something nice for somebody!”

Filleo and what we are about is more than a shirt and it is more than the services we bring. We are a unified body of people who stand for One Cause and who live for One Love. This email makes us at Filleo so happy, not as much because she is so happy and thankful for what we have done, but because of her last line.

“I feel like going out and doing something nice for somebody!”

If our love is contagious we have done our part. We hope and pray that people will catch onto our love and do something with it.
I replied to her, “Remember to pay it forward, as you already are being a teacher, but all we ask is if you could do something special for someone else.”
We hope you will join us in pursuing a life of love each day towards others.

So, this guy Troy aka T-roy did a great job in setting us up in places that needed help. He is from The Recovery School District in New Orleans. This video is one of many quotes that made us laugh when we were around him.
Check out his website at : http://www.rsdla.net

What a great trip! Filleo, my non profit organization, just got back from our first project community service outside of Ohio. We went down to New Orleans and it was such a rewarding trip. This project was two years in the making. We flew in and Jared and his wife, Emily picked us up at the airport. They were our hosts for the trip and we had such a great time with them!

For one, always remember when you buy a ticket online for Delta, United, or one of these airlines that charges for baggage that it costs that much more. If it is the lowest price on expedia or another website it still may not be if you add the cost of the bags. I was like, "Dang yo! What is up with that?!" It makes me think of the Southwest commercials and how smart the guy that made those is. These airlines should just put it in the ticket price. Man, what a bummer. I say this because we had a box of shirts and other stuff to take down so it ended up costing like an extra $90 just for the trip there.

Well, to get back to our trip, I was so thankful to have my wife Katie on the trip with me, and having Jared from Radio U was a blast. Jared took care of the video footage and was a master at getting in my face with the camera, especially my eye. Weirdo yes, but I get that a lot. Do you think so? Haha.

On Friday, January 7th, we met a guy named Troy (T-roy) who helped set us up with our activities for the day. He works for the school recovery program in New Orleans that helps with the schools that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Okay now, if he made up a rapper name for himself do you think I love the guy, ummmmm yesssss. This dude was awesome. Here we are coming in on Thursday and he finally emails me back that morning, (he forgot we were coming) and his e-mail starts with the letter “F”…That’s it, that is what he put on the email to start. He writes the way he talks, that’s my boy. Well, we took some sweet footage of him also. Organized? Not so much... He was genuine and honest for sure, which is an awesome quality. When Jared Montz () asked him if he liked his new website he responded saying, “It’s F’in Beautiful!" Thanks Troy, you were a hit!

We went to read to some elementary school kids who are attending school in trailers while a new school is being built.

These kids were awesome. Jared started us off with a book about a silent cricket. He did a great job by not helping the kids to figure out what a cricket sounds like. Haha. Try right now to do a cricket noise and see what comes out. I am trying right now and it is making me laugh because I have no idea, this is awesome. But, the kids ended up doing pretty well at it.

Then my wife Katie read a book called “The Day Joey’s Boa Constrictor ate the Wash.” It was a great pick-me-up. Well, let's just say they thought a snake was as cool as me getting a superhero party for my birthday, yep that sweet. They recited most of the book with Katie. They loved knowing it and following along. A job well done wifey, that’s my girl.

So, I come up next to read. If you had to guess any book I would read what would it be about? No, not magic, but great guess. Soccer, well definitely not, come on. Dancing- yes dancing! That was what my book was about. The book was called “Giraffes Can’t Dance.” Before I read I told the kids, “Now, every time I say the word dance I will point at someone and they have to get up and spontaneously dance.” So, we end up getting through the whole book with pretty much everyone dancing. We got spastic jigglers, shakin’ it like salt shakers, the robot (yes a kid tried the robot, awesome), Michael Jackson wannabe (he did the moonwalk, coolest thing I have seen from a kid), and then we also had a kid trip and fall and still go on with the show while on the ground. Yes, I do have video of this and yes I have attached it for everyone to see. Oh yeah by the way at the end I told everyone that they had to get up and we all did a spontaneous dance together.

Then we did something that was chill and we just helped them correct their English test in groups for the next hour. Lunch time, meant a break for lunch for us, and a break from typing for me.

Round two from New Orleans to come in a couple days or less.
Fun day so far? It was sweeeetttt.