Dynamo...Dinos...Dynamo...Dinos...Dynamo...Dinos...

Dynamo will get their 2007 championship rings Saturday night before the game against las chivitas, but, to my continuing irritation, I will be absent from the ceremonies.

Dynamo have played three games at Robertson so far this season, and despite this being my first year as a season-book holder, I have been to exactly one of these, a frustrating 0-0 tie against Saprissa in CCC play. The other two have been a win over CSD Municipal and a tie to the candystripers.

Now this weekend, with a turnaround and major support necessary for the Orange, not to mention the pageantry and palaver of a ring ceremony (and the replicas being given away to the first 5,000 fans), where else would I be but at Robertson Stadium? The lads need me in full throat. I need to be there. I have one ring on my keychain from last year and now need the second to complement and give me solace during these bad stretches. Of course I'll be there, right?

Uh, no. I will be with my son's second grade class camping at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas. It's a great trip. Did it with my older son three years ago. Been looking forward to going back ever since. Beautiful park. Great fossils. Actual dinosaur footprints!! Saw the schedule two months ago. Wound up praying for the freakin' Nile River to come crashing down on those footprints. Instead got this weather report here. Woohoo! No rain. Damn it all to the Pleistocene!

The other game misses were to an already-schedule spring break trip and a similarly already-scheduled weekend away with the wife. All three times (including this weekend) I have tried to get out of these previously-scheduled events to go to Dynamo. All three times I have failed miserably in the face of withering domestic pressure and, to be sure, my reasonable expectations of my own behavior.

Now does this make me a bad father and husband? I am uncomfortable with the thought, but I think it must on some level. I write all of this not so much to share my whines with the blogos at large, but to serve as a kind of warning for all of those out there whose family is about step on your footy, whether you know it or not. (Dan Loney, I'm lookin' at you.)

The fam trumps the footy. It's an ironclad rule. So to be somewhat ahead of this curve, in addition to the season book Mister3D and I share in our prawn sandwich seats, I have dipped into the college funds to get my boys their own 10-game packages. By bringing them into the misery early, I have three votes for at least 10 of the games this year. It's an expensive proposition to be sure, and it begins with next week's game against Colorado, but it does arm the Orange contingent with three votes for at least a dime's worth of games.

Though of course, as with Hill, math is not my forte. I just looked at the domestic arrangements and realized that the wife has, gulp, four votes.

Uh oh again.