Orlando Castillo

Here are the Candidates.  Gallardo gets my vote.  

If you've ever dealt with poison ivy, you know it can be a pain to get rid of.  After I moved out to the Hill Country, I "discovered" poison ivy by accident while cleaning up leaves and brush in my yard.  I didn't even know I had touched it until a couple of days later when my arms and chest developed a pretty bad rash.  This was from scooping up leaves (and poison ivy apparently) into the wheel barrel with short sleeves on.  In New Mexico, where I'm originally from, I never experienced poison ivy so I wasn't all that familiar with it.  Please note that I am not an expert when it comes to poison ivy, so please do some more research before trying to get rid of poison ivy.  You'll find some good information on the Texas A&M website.  Below is my experience with poison ivy.

The stuff in the photo above is just a little of the poison ivy I've found in my yard this spring.  I've had it in my yard before, but not to the extent that I'm seeing it this year. 

Here's CCLeague Pro for download for anyone who wants to try it out.  As I said before, the project is pretty much defunct (for now) so I will no longer be supporting it.

Since November 2007, I've been working on a web-based system that requires Java and JSP.  Before that, I worked almost exclusively with PHP.  In both cases, applications were (and still are) developed for the web.  So far it appears to me that web development with PHP is quicker and cleaner.  However, this is from the perspective of someone who is fairly new to Java so that is probably not a fair assessment.

Here are the scores from the last weekend's MLS action, if you haven't already seen them, and how they compared to my predictions:

CLB 2, DC 1
My prediction: United 3-1 Crew 

TOR 1, RSL 0
My prediction: Salt Lake 0-2 TFC 

NY 1-1 NE
My prediction: Revs 0-0 Red Bulls 

SJ 2, COL 0
My prediction: Earthquakes 1-3 Rapids 

LA 2-2 Houston
My prediction: Dynamo 3-2 Galaxy 

KC 1, CHI 0
My prediction: Wizards 2-3 Fire 

DAL 2, CHV 0 
My prediction: Dallas 2-1 Chivas USA 

My Week 4 record: 3-4

Here are the Week 4 highlights.  Enjoy. 

Donovan and the Galaxy should have been up 3 goals before Toronto struck.  How do you miss 3 easy goals and play with a 300 year old defense and expect to win?  I'm not even a Galaxy fan but watching them gives me heart burn.  Gullet, give up on those old guys in the back line and start using some youth.

And if Guzan starts letting in more goals in the manner that he did Saturday, he can forget about playing in the EPL.  Hope Aston Villa wasn't watching. 

Here are the highlights from Week 3 including the Galaxy and Chivas USA.

I finally have a local pro team to cheer for starting in 2009.  Go Austin Aztex!  It's not MLS, but I'm still pretty happy that we're at least getting a USL-1 team which is the equivelant of AAA baseball.  Hopefully this will go a lot better than the last pro team that tried to start up here in Austin.  I can't remember the name of the team or even what level they were to play at because they went defunct before they ever really got started.

I've been keeping up with MLS a lot more the last 5 years.  In that time the quality of soccer on the field has really taken off.  Its still not on a consistent level with the EPL and other top leagues but I believe the top MLS teams could easily compete with mid to lower table EPL teams - and that's with a very small $2.2 million salary cap.  MLS seriously needs to think about at least doubling that figure.  It would make it easier for MLS teams to add depth.

Even though I've been keeping up with MLS for some time now, I still don't feel like I have a team to cheer on.  Yes, there is the Houston Dynamo and FC Dallas just 3 hours away.  But, I'm a 49ers football fan - can I really cheer on any team from Dallas?  And Houston... well, its Houston.  I have not visited Houston much and I don't have much of a connection with that city.  However, the Dynamo are back-to-back champs.  I was hoping for a MLS team in San Antonio and for a short time a couple of years ago it looked like they were heading towards getting a team, but that never really got the support from the community and the San Antonio City Council.

Well, at least I have my Austin Aztex to cheer on.  Hopefully you other Austinites will get out there and cheer them on as well.  Its good quality soccer at the USL-1 level and it will be a good, fun outing for the family. Visit the Aztex online to find out more.

As for MLS, if any other MLS fans are out there reading this, perhaps you can give me a reason to pick your favorite team as my favorite team to cheer for?

UPDATE: CCleague can now be downloaded from here. 

The good news is, yes, I am still planning on posting the link to my CCLeague Pro Soccer CMS as soon as I do some cleaning up.  Perhaps by next week it'll be ready.  The bad news is that it's pretty much defunct and I'm no longer supporting it.  Thanks for the support everyone has given and I'm glad everyone has found it useful.  However, I just don't have the time to keep it up to date and secure.

I'll be sure to let everyone know when its ready for download.  Have a good weekend. 

Here's the schedule for this weekend's slate of MLS games.  Its going to be a busy Saturday and will end with Amado Guevara's Toronto FC visiting Beckham's LA Galaxy.

Saturday

Chicago Fire at San Jose Earthquakes
4:30 p.m.
FSC, FSE

Chivas USA at Columbus Crew
7:30 p.m.
DK, MLSLIVE.tv

Colorado Rapids at New England Revolution
7:30 p.m.
DK, MLSLIVE.tv

Houston Dynamo at Kansas City Wizards
8:00 p.m.
HDNet

New York Red Bulls at FC Dallas
8:30 p.m.
DK, MLSLIVE.tv

D.C. United at Real Salt Lake at
9:00 p.m.
DK, MLSLIVE.tv

Sunday
Toronto FC at Los Angeles Galaxy
TeleFutura

Highlights from Week 2.  Enjoy!