Day 44 – Birth certificate?

I just spent about an hour (while the boys further destroyed the house all around me) attempting to register Samson for Fall soccer.  Actually I registered several weeks ago, but right before leaving on vacation got a notice that this year I need to provide proof of age.  So, I made a scan of Samson’s birth certificate and attempted to upload it to their site only to find out it has to be a pdf.  I then spent several minutes attempting to convert the document only to find out our laptop does not have the right stuff to do it.  I next e-mailed the document to Doug at work who converted it and sent it back.  I attempted to upload again only to find out it has to be less than 2MB and it was 2.4MB.  Of course again I can’t shrink it at home, so took a picture of it on my phone and e-mailed to Doug.  Still waiting to see if he can shrink it. 

This is ridiculous.  First of all, how did I get so technologically behind that I can’t register my kid for soccer?  I spent the last 20 years of my life working at a computer, but I guess in reality I always had a helpline or tech dude I could call when I could not get something to work.  I wonder how much one of those would cost to keep on retainer for home stuff?  Second, why can’t they take my word for it that my kid is 6?  Since when did 1^st grade soccer become so competitive that we have to double check birthdates?  Like I’m really going to try to pass him off as 4 so that he can be the all star on the field or I’m going to register him with the 8 year olds so he can get the crap kicked out of him?  The same soccer association that will allow me to coach a team without any type of background check will not believe me when I enter my child’s date of birth!