| Tsai-ko Autobiography: Addahknowsports |        |
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| Name: Geri (last name withheld) High School: McKinley Tsai-ko Lunch Size: N/A Tsai-ko caricature: first row, 4th from left Other: |
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From the Warrior Beat blog July 9, 2008:
ST's Intro:
Iceland is green and Greenland is icy, and someone who uses the handle Addahknowsports really is very knowledgable. Addahknowsports, the better half of the Addaknows, is smart, funny and a stickler for dart rules (DO NOT STEP ACROSS THE LINE). Meet Addahknowsports:
Just call me Addahknowsports
I never imagined I’d be writing an autobiography for a football blog the reason being I don’t really know anything about sports. Growing up I never especially liked contact sports as I have a very low tolerance for pain. Hated P. E. in school. Dodgeball…yuck. Volleyball…sprained my fingers every time I played. Basketball…got hit in the head a few times too many. So growing up, I simply avoided them. Although my parents dragged me to high school football games when I was young, I never went to a football game when I was old enough to attend high school. When I got to college, I did buy student season tickets my first semester there, but didn’t know enough about the game to appreciate it. Instead, I gravitated to other non-contact activities.
I enjoy the outdoors and growing up on Kauai, I had my full share. Every day after school and before it got dark was spent playing with the other neighborhood kids. We rode our bikes, climbed trees, traipsed through the cane fields and scooped up fish in irrigation ditches in the valley. I have very strong memories of going fishing up the river with my family in my dad’s little boat or at the pier. My mom would always meet up with us at some point with musubi, chicken wings and carrot sticks. Good memories.
Today, I still love the outdoors, I love science, I love to design and create. Growing up with a mom who was an art teacher as well as an artist, I was ingrained with an appreciation for the visual arts. I am good with my hands (Tsaikos, if you make any wisecracks about this remark, you will feel my lead hand and foot) and enjoy creating things sculptural. Everything is a medium with which to work and every experience is an idea for creation. Within the last few years I have embraced glass as a medium and create jewelry and miniature sculptural pieces.
My Oddah Half
After I graduated from college with a degree in art, I went to work at a sign company in Kalihi. It was there that I met addahknowjoe. He had a passion for life, a deep compassion for people and a penchant for sports. Although I could not fully appreciate his love of sports, I could appreciate the sense of humor that accompanied the detailed stories of his youthful sports days. One of our first activities as a couple (which had I also not had a decent sense of humor could have ended it right there) was when I asked him to spend the day and go around the island with me. He told me no, but never said why. Later I found out that the 49ers were playing and he wanted to watch. He confessed later that it was a really tough decision, but when his favorite team started losing and couldn’t bear to see them get spanked, he turned off the tv and called to say he would go riding with me. Talk about being confused.
He enjoys going to high school football games especially if an outer island team is in town to play. Most times I (reluctantly) get to accompany him. Once someone gave me tickets to a UH vs Notre Dame football game. He cheered ’til he was hoarse. I fell asleep through two rounds of “the wave”. A-joe is very patient and is always willing to explain what is happening in the game.
What’s a Tsaiko?
In December of 2006, a-joe asks me to go with him to a football blog party. Oh no, not again! He told me it’s not just about football, it was about people who are sharing their lives on-line and this is the first time that they were going to meet face to face. Reluctantly, again, I said okay. I didn’t think I would have anything to say. At the party, I happened to sit next to WreckinEyez and across gigi-Hawaii. I met a lot of very nice people despite me being very quiet and shy. And I thought that was the end of that.
Then one day last year, he asked me if I wanted to go to Vegas… My eyes lit up! …to watch a football game. Huh? Are you kidding me? But I went anyway. I never regretted a moment of it. I got to meet a wonderful bunch of people who were so excited about the same thing. The excitement was electric and the camaraderie was infectious. I got to hear Rich2176’s career adventure, got to ride with 99club who shared his stories, I got to sit next to Brew808 who drew me in even more with his quick, no-shame-just-say sense of humor, and I got to make friends with this awesomely incredible bunch of people…which leads me up to today.
Since that (memorable for me) UNLV game in Las Vegas, I have met more Tsaikos and Tsaikettes. Thanks to the foresight and planning skills of the Tsaiko Ohana, I have participated in activities that have included but are not limited to numerous Cattle Calls, Tsaiko-gates, EIS meetings, Karaoke Calls, movie night, darts (which feeds my affinity for projectile-related things), craps, eventually pool and bowling and poker, the Five F’s with fishing included as the sixth F. Finally, thanks to ST I am addicted to this dang blog. lol.
We are on the threshold of the anniversary of a living, growing entity born out of passion, commitment and a basic love for ones’ fellow (wo)man. I am honored and humbled to be a part of this. I have learned in life that you are never too old to learn something new. I want to understand what my newfound friends see in UH Warrior Football and possibly connect with my husband on a new level. I hope in the future, I will be able to contribute perspective and insight of my own and give back to what you all have given me.