On the Sidelines (or Sleeping) with Dan Sousa: Post No. 300! Single Parenting and Websites Don't Mix

On the Sidelines with Dan Sousa
A personal blog by VivaLoudoun editor Dan Sousa ... who rambles on, so you have been warned

So I guess the "Sleeping" with Dan Sousa in the title of the blog is going to drive the wrong type of traffic to VivaLoudoun! There is a reason for it ...

You see, this week my wife (known in our household as She Who Actually Earns Paycheck) Sharon is on a business trip to Brazil this week ... a city I have never heard of ... Curitiba. (I know what you are saying, Gov. Sanford took a "drive on the Argentinian coast" and my wife goes on a "business trip to Curitiba" but she sent me a text the other morning saying she had been travelling for nine hours and had yet to reach her destination.

Dan, excuse me ... but you were attempting to explain the "Sleeping with Dan Sousa" title and now you are talking about your wife being out of town ... should we send social services over to your house to rescue your two boys?


Whew, thank goodness for that voice in my  head (it always come out in bold and in italics in print!) so to get to the point (rambling ... rambling) I'm doing the "Single Parent" thing this week with a big help from my 17-year-old who is super mature and big help.

With volleyball playoffs, I've been wanting to do a lot of work at night after returning from contests but my 9-year-old and the World Series on TV is a tough combo to beat. First, my son is a big, big sports fan (shocker, huh?) and he begs to "fall asleep" to the World Series ... in my bed of course as he does not have a TV in his room.

At age 46, however, gone are the days that I can "lie down for a second" after 9 p.m. ... I might as well take laughing gas because I can go from counting Yankee runners crossing the plate to counting sheep in a heartbeat ... soon, I'm waking up at 2 a.m. and my bed is overran with not only my 9-year-old sacked out but now two kittens (they are a year old at least ... not sure when you become a cat ... there isn't like a ceremony or anything) are curled up in bed as well. The website will have to wait until morning!

Post No. 300: Yahoo! This blog is post No. 300 and we didn't start VivaLoudoun until mid-August and didn't really get the ball rolling into September ... a lot of people still don't know about us so spread the word ... we are betting that we have had more coverage of all prep sports, not just football, than any other Loudoun-based media outlet this fall ... and it will only get better as more coaches and parents and players find out about us!

Post and Peeler: Here I complained last week that I didn't really think that the T.J. Peeler "thing" warranted a lead story in the Post preps section (considering how anemic their Loudoun coverage has been since their Loudoun online section folded its tent ... I would view it differently if they had solid coverage out her but when they ignore a dozen good stories to focus on one controversial story ... well ...) and then they go and put the story on A1 ... wow, move over Afghanistan ... take a backseat health care reform ... we got "chest-bumping" to talk about.

(Not that it wasn't a good story by Paul Tenorio and we must say we surely miss his top-notch coverage out here and find the swimming thing not a good use of his writing and reporting talents but love that he got part of the Redskins gig. Talk about your future sports journalist rock star ... we think we will see Paul on ESPN before he hits 30).

Overall, however, as the Post used to say in its advertisements ... "I don't get it."

Coverage Ahead: Photos Wanted! We can't be everywhere at once so if you "cover" a game with your camera (no likely better than mine) and want to share your photos with VivaLoudoun and even sell them via our SmugMug site ... just email us. We are offering all photographers access to our photo site and between now and the end of the year, any photos you sell ... you can keep 100 percent of the profit!

Our plan this week is to cover the Dulles District volleyball doubleheader at Loudoun County Thursday night as well as chat with the Raider linebackers on a feature story for football. Look for that on Friday. Then on Friday we are headed to Stone Bridge to see if the Bulldogs can wrap up a 9-1 season and yet another outright Liberty District title! On Saturday it is the Dulles District volleyball finals at Loudoun County ... perhaps a LC vs. BR Part IV?!?

Of course all of this is subject to blackout ... er, Dan Sousa falling asleep before making an event!