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Archive for the ‘Ranting and Raving’ Category

You are the wind beneath my typing fingers

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Side note — see my favorite film from the last year. It’s available on Kanopy, the free streaming site offered by your local library!

This is probably the spot where I should put on a suit and slick my hair back, televangelist-style.

Looks in closet … no suits, lots of shorts.

Looks in mirror … no hair, or at least not enough to get that lush Jim Bakker or Kenneth Copeland ‘do going.

See, a receding hairline is why I don’t have that indoor/outdoor swimming pool, with mansion attached, yet.

Anyways.

I won’t take much of your time. Or offer any miracles, ala the fancy-haired dudes rambling on your Grandma’s TV at 3 AM in the morning.

The facts are these:

Spring sports for Coupeville High School teams start Monday, with the first practices for softball, girls’ tennis, track and field, and baseball.

Games begin about two weeks later.

This blog writer has been there, freezing his tush off on the prairie in “spring” weather since 2012.

Varsity, JV, C-Team, middle school, little league, community sports, I cover it all and you can read about it all for free.

We’re pushing 12,000 articles about the sporting life in Cow Town.

But if I’m going to make it through another season and make a run at a 13-year anniversary this August, I need your support.

WordPress wants its annual $107 in mid-March, and I don’t have it.

I also don’t have the money to get the oil change on the car I’ve been borrowing since my own Xterra melted down and joined all the other vehicles I’ve sent to the great auto wrecking lot in the sky.

And I’m fairly certain the landlord’s cats are eyeballing me.

“You’d better not mess with our ability to get wet food, slick!”

So, here we are again.

If you’d like to see the blog make it through another spring, I’m asking for your support. Whether it’s $5 or a new indoor/outdoor swimming pool, everything helps.

If not, I understand.

There will be a time at some point where I will have to hang up the keyboard and go back to a job that likely requires wearing pants. That’s life.

I leave the decision in your hands.

 

To keep Coupeville Sports chugging along:

 

PayPal:

https://paypal.me/DavidSvien?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

 

Venmo:

David-Svien

 

Snail mail:

David Svien
165 Sherman
Coupeville, WA 98239

 

In person:

The ol’ Mafia-style handshake

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Pants? I have to wear pants??

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , on November 16, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Pants, the bane of my existence.

I’m at a crossroads of my own making. Again.

On the one hand, Coupeville Sports, in year thirteen, is racking up its best numbers.

With a month-and-a-half left in 2024, I’ve already topped my previous best for visitors to the blog in a given year, and I’m on target to surpass my record for most page views.

Together, we made it back from the dip caused by the pandemic, and interest in my ramblings seems at an all-time high.

Which is great, since I do like to ramble.

Overall, this is story #11,653, and I appear to be fairly unique in what I’m doing, at least in Washington state.

On the other hand, as we reach the end of the fall sports season, a time when I should be excited because basketball — God’s Chosen Sport — is set to tip-off, I am struggling.

Thanks to you, my readers, the last time I had a “real” job was about a decade back, when I was still trying to balance the blog with working in the dish pit.

Which never really worked.

I tend to go zero or Mach 200, and the blog only really took off after I focused all my efforts on churning out three-plus stories a day, unencumbered by the dinner rush conflicting with kickoff.

Since leaving Christopher’s on Whidbey, I have survived, paying my bare-bone bills — rent, propane, internet service, electricity, and gas for whichever hunk o’ junk I’ve been driving — while never going much beyond the moment.

That I have survived 12+ years doing this is nothing short of amazing.

The school district has never given me a penny. It’s all been you, the readers.

But I’m not sure how much further I can go.

I’m 53 now, my Xterra decided to stop backing up yesterday — right after I pulled into a parking spot at PC — and there is no world in which a small-town sports blog is ever going to turn a profit.

So, I have two options at this point.

One, basically come begging (again).

Like this blog? Want it to make a run at 12,000 stories? There are options:

 

PayPal: https://paypal.me/DavidSvien?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Venmo: David-Svien

Snail Mail: 165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA 98239

In person: Try not to hit me in the face if you’re throwing quarters.

 

Or two, grow up, go trim the beard before it truly becomes a full winter depression masterpiece, and return to having a “real” job.

Which would mean shutting down Coupeville Sports. I struggled to do both at the same time the first time around and wouldn’t try it again at this point.

So, I sit and ponder, and one thing is obvious … they’re going to want me to wear pants and not shorts, aren’t they?

Always with the pants.

“PAAAANNNTTSSSS??????”

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Look how they massacred my boy!!

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , , on November 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Whoomp! There it is..

“Hit the gas, Harold!! The feral cats have hammers and they’re coming for us!!”

What do you mean the mailman won’t deliver now??

It’s the most dangerous intersection on Whidbey Island.

If you’re a mailbox.

Trying to live as a receptacle for bills and political ads?

Don’t park your tuchus where Sherman Road drops down to meet Madrona.

Three times now … THREE TIMES … someone operating a motor vehicle has hit the mailbox serving 165 Sherman, otherwise known as Coupeville Sports World Headquarters.

The first time, the tourist with the too-wide turn stopped to apologize and arrange to pay for the damage.

The second time was an Island Transit bus, and SPOILER ALERT, Island Transit has yet to make good on its promise to repair the damage.

Now, as of Thursday night, I’m pretty sure this mailbox is finally down for the count.

Did Moron #3 stop? No, they did not.

Did they scratch up their vehicle nice and good? One certainly hopes so.

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Your donations fuel my typing fingers

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , , on August 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Your donations? My typing fingers? A match that equals that moment when a feisty banana meets a box of cinnamon-flavored awesomeness.

As business plans go, it’s a humdinger.

I call it the “smash your head against a wall over and over again and wonder why you’re no closer to that indoor/outdoor swimming pool with a waterfall in the middle” than I was when I adopted said plan.

When I started writing this blog, publishing my first story Aug. 15, 2012, I was mad and sad — ticked that the previously independent Coupeville Examiner had been sold to the Dark Overlords of Black Press up in Canada.

Over time, Coupeville Sports morphed into something else.

Together (with me doing most of the work and you, the reader, providing key financial support), we’ve accomplished a lot.

There’s a Wall of Fame in the Coupeville High School gym now, documenting decades of accomplishments in a public way that current athletes can see and use as inspiration.

We’ve held 101- and 50-year anniversaries for the CHS boys’ and girls’ basketball programs, respectively, bringing back numerous former Wolves for one more night in the spotlight.

We saved the athletic trainer position at the school, after it was foolishly slashed as part of budget cuts — funding one of the most important employees any district can employ.

For six days shy of 12 years, we have joined together to provide Cow Town with a unique service.

I have yet to find another blogger in Washington state doing what I am doing, at least at the depth I am doing it.

I write almost every single day, even during the slow months of the summer.

At one point I published for 303 consecutive days, then got busy working for my sister on her property in Freeland, and let an afternoon slip by. The landlord’s cat will never let me hear the end of that one…

Coupeville Sports covers high school athletics, varsity and JV. It covers middle school and elementary school and community activities and events, as well.

It goes well beyond sports at times, which pleases some folks and pisses off others.

Good thing it’s a free blog then, and each person can choose whether to read it or not.

And that “no pay wall” philosophy has been there every step of the way and will remain ever so, from day one to whatever day turns out to be the last.

That’s 11,396 articles and counting.

As we near the start of another school year, I am faced again with the eternal quandary.

Even with my very limited bills, can I make it through nine more months?

That “business plan” I mentioned earlier certainly makes it trickier.

The ads you see on the blog were sold for the life of the site, so some folks have gotten a month or two out of them, and some have gotten 12 years.

If nothing else, it means when a random South Whidbey School Board member or two try to harass my advertisers and call for a boycott, they’ve already lost before they’ve begun — the money is long gone, just like those board members spines.

And anyway, like the “no pay wall,” I’m not reneging on the “you don’t have to renew your ads if you don’t feel like it” part of the “business plan.”

The first advertisers had no clue if the blog would last two articles (like my long-forgotten rival South Whidbey Sports) or 11,396 articles — they took a huge chance on me and should be rewarded for their willingness to possibly light their money on fire back in 2012.

At this point, 12 years in, if you were going to advertise, you likely already have.

Someone out there may surprise me, and if so, awesome. If not, well it’s all part of the “plan.”

I’ll get by (or I won’t) thanks to readers who choose to donate to the cause.

If you’re interested in going that route, there’s PayPal:

https://paypal.me/DavidSvien?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

There’s Venmo, where you can find me at David-Svien.

There’s snail mail at 165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA, 98239.

Or there’s in person, Mafia handshake style.

From those who have donated publicly to those who have donated privately, I thank you.

Who knew this thing would make it to Year 12, and possibly beyond?

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Brother, can you spare a dime?

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , on May 10, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Your donations keep the unique thing that is this blog alive.

As far as I can tell, no one else in the state of Washington is doing what I am doing.

Not in Seattle or Bellingham or Yakima or in some far-flung outpost where the seagulls outnumber the humans.

Here, in Coupeville, on the prairie, in the middle of a rock in the water, I write about EVERYTHING sports related.

High school, middle school, varsity, JV, dog shows, pony shows, taekwondo and auto racing, and much more.

If I don’t track it down myself, I’m easy to reach through Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, at davidsvien@hotmail.com or at a game.

If your child lives in Coupeville, and their sporting accomplishment isn’t being written about, that can be quickly changed.

I played three years of tennis at Tumwater High School, and never once saw my name in The Daily Olympian, ever, even when I played #1 singles (and got torched by a foreign exchange ringer).

Here in Coupeville, your 6th grade child finishes 44th in a middle school track race, their name, their time, and the fact they set a PR, is on the internet that evening, or very early the next morning.

That is not happening anywhere else as far as I can tell.

You play a game and it’s on the road, chances are you may get to read about it while still on the bus ride.

And, as you read this, I have published at least one article a day for 249 consecutive days.

Most days it’s more than one, of course.

We’re in May, one of the busiest times of the prep sports calendar, so it’s more like 3-5 articles a day right now. Every day.

The last time someone checked Coupeville Sports and didn’t find anything new was September 4, 2023.

And, despite the name of the blog, anyone can tell you I long ago gave up limiting myself to sports.

Robotics, theater, academics, budget battles, and much more.

I rarely say no, and, like I said, I’m easy to reach.

The blog is heading towards its 12-year anniversary, which arrives August 15.

Can I keep my daily streak alive and make it to 365 consecutive days?

Only time will tell, as somewhere out there a surprise storm probably lurks, ready to kill the power on Whidbey for a day and snap my run.

Through this all, it is important to remember I have no connection to the Coupeville School District, and it has never given me a cent.

There is no pay wall on this blog, and never will be.

Since my sponsorship ads are good for the lifetime of the site — the other day one decision which also will never change — I largely killed that revenue stream a long time ago.

So, how do I survive?

By keeping my bills very low — no streaming, and the only reason I have a cell phone is my sister pays for it so she can have access to her babysitter.

And by the grace of my readers, and their donations to the cause.

Each time I reach the point where I think, “This is probably it, the moment when I need to face reality and go back to the regular work force,” I get just enough to carry me through.

I was 41 when the blog started, and my birth certificate claims I’m 53 now, and a day spent weed eating reminds me (and my back) why I should probably have planned out my life better.

So, this is a longwinded way of getting around to reality.

If you value Coupeville Sports, if its continued life matters to you, I need your support.

You can donate through PayPal at:

https://paypal.me/DavidSvien?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

Or through Venmo, where I’m listed under David-Svien, by mail at 165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA 98239, or in person, Mafia handshake style.

To anyone who chooses to support me and my ability to continue writing, my balky back thanks you.

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