Season Finale

This whole blogging thing is rather odd. Anybody that has access to the Internet can stumble across your blog on any given day. You can write whatever you want. You can piss people off. You can make friends. You can have a good time writing something that in all likelihood, one about 3 people will ever read.

I like blogging. This is a statement that I rarely wrote this year. I hardly ever found the time and motivation to sit down and actually write something. Sometimes I complained that this whole blogging thing was wrong. But I think that I am better off for blogging. I discovered a whole world where anyone can say anything, then anyone can comment back and say anything. It’s a unique, never ending cycle that gets you caught up in your opinions and thoughts.

I think that I explain myself in my Why I Blog post. I like to blog, I just didn’t on a consistent basis this year. I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t have the motivation to actually follow through. It was one of those things where I could either go play basketball for a bit or do a blog post. More often then not, I chose basketball.

I think its pretty cool to have a blog. It’s kind of like a status symbol in the age of technology. “Yeah, I got a blog, what about you?” Not that I determine someone’s level of coolness on whether they have a blog or not. When I look back at this, I’m going to be pleased that I had a blog. I think its going to be here forever, so I can tell my kids to go read it if they want to know what their dad was like when he was in high school. Or maybe by the time I have kids, blogs will be outdated, just like the way my dad always tells me he never had a phone, or a computer, or an iPod thing. All I know is that I like being able to post a video, then talk about it and tell people to go watch more of them and give them the link to do that. Technology is an amazing thing, and I am glad to have been a part of it. I think that I will continue my blog. Not with the 3 posts of 400 words a week, but in my own terms. I will continue to post when I feel like I have something that needs to be said. Hopefully there is some regularity to it, but I can’t guarantee anything. 

Spiece, Part 2

The title of third best AAU team in the country is rather hard to come by. You truly have to be amazing to be considered nationally, but to be third, it’s hard for me to imagine. The team is Boo Williams from Virginia, and I believe that they deserve every bit of that ranking. So for us white kids from Iowa, we don’t have very much hope warming up across from 6 foot 10 inch monsters that are stronger than our whole team combined and have a 35 inch vertical. It’s intimidating to find out that their point guard is going to North Carolina to play. And it’s very intimidating to find out that he is not the only D1 player on the floor, or the bench for that matter.

But we held out own. It was the fourth game of the day for each team, so everybody on the floor was dead tired. This made it possible to scrap for baskets and stay in the game. It was nothing spectacular, but we managed to keep Boo Williams in reach throughout the first half. With about 1 minute left before halftime, we hit a three to put us up by 1, our only lead of the game. Then they made a basket right before the half, so we were only down by 1 at halftime. This is not bad (actually it’s great) for us. We were expecting to be down by 40 by halftime, so only 1 point was refreshing. But our fatigue, and their talent, took over in the third quarter and they got about a 15 point lead by the fourth. They didn’t expand it much after that, but there was no way that we were going to came back from any deficit.

So this team was pretty amazing. After the game, we were sitting around and our coach came over and started talking about them and what they were. He started to name off the kids and the schools they were going to. As I mentioned, the point guard is going to North Carolina, another guard is going to Duke. One of the big men is going to Wake Forrest, and another is going to Texas. All the others are getting recruited by ACC and SEC schools and will end up playing D1 basketball somewhere. My team, on the other hand, has a couple of good D2 players on it, a couple of guys going to college to play football, and a couple more that might not go play anywhere. So overall, we held our own, and I am proud that I can say we earned the respect of team Boo Williams, third ranked AAU team in the country.

Spiece, Part 1

This past weekend I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana for a basketball tournament. The tournament is called Spiece, and attracts teams from all over the nation. It’s a pretty cool experience and I think I was seen by a few college coaches, so that’s always a plus.

The Spiece field house is amazing in itself. It has eight full sized courts with shot clocks and the time on each backboard. But the courts are not what is so amazing. As you walk in to the field house, you go through a hall with memorabilia. There are signed pictures and posters hanging on every inch, from floor to ceiling of each wall. There are posters of Bobby Knight, Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, and the 1986 Indiana National Champions. But my favorite is the signed picture of Bobby Knight throwing the chair across the floor. Once you get past this hallway, you go into this open area. This area has more posters on the walls (these are life size though), and it has jerseys hanging from the ceiling. Some jerseys are signed, but all are from people that are well known (to say the least). They have everything from Patrick Ewing’s Knicks jersey, to Kevin Garnett’s Timberwolves jersey, but my favorite is David Robinson’s Air Force jersey. Let’s just say that there are few places like this, and I enjoy it every time I go.

But the field house is not the reason that I go to Fort Wayne. I go to play basketball. This is some of the best AAU basketball, and a lot of these teams could beat D1 schools…easily. This year, there were about 20 pools of four teams each (just in the 17 and under division, there were equal, if not more, in the younger divisions). The three pool play games were on Friday night and Saturday morning. In our Friday night game, we won by forfeit because the team was too far away to wait for them to arrive. This game would have been difficult for us to win anyway, so it was probably good that we didn’t play. On Saturday morning, we lost our first game, but won the second easily, so we ended getting first in the pool, miraculously. Our third game of the day was the first of bracket play (its single elimination from here), but it was another very average team, so we won again. This put us into the round of 16 (not bad for us Iowans) going against the third ranked AAU team in the country. Let me tell you about the last game…tomorrow.

Swine Flu

This swine flu thing is really starting to get on my nerves. Everybody is worried about how this could turn into some big epidemic, and how it could kill thousands of people. The media is over hyping this to death. I think we should take a chill pill and get over this.

People are worried about this flu because it has a little flu from pigs, birds, and humans all wrapped into one. It is airborne, and is possibly lethal, just like the regular flu. The regular flu kills about 30,000 people a year in the United States. This new swine flu, 1 person dead in the U.S. Wow. I’m scared. I have a 1 in 300,000,000 chance of dying because of the swine flu. There is a greater possibility of getting eaten by a shark while looking for shells on the shore of Lake Michigan (not really, but still, you get my point (I hope)). So overall, to say the least, I am not worried.

I would be worried if I lived in a third world country, with no proper vaccine or health care or treatment. If I lived there and the swine flu came along, I would run away. And this is where the media should be focusing their attention, on the terrible conditions in which the people are living who catch the swine flu. This is where the real story is at. I feel sad for people who can’t take care of the simple flu because they don’t have the right treatments while the generous and benevolent United States hoards all of the flu vaccines.

The thing that actually worries me the most, since I don’t live in a third world country, is how the virus mutated so quickly. The virus went to a pig and a bird and is now in a human and it contains parts of the flu from all three. This shows that viruses can evolve and mutate quickly and efficiently. This is where the real problem is at. When the swine flu starts to show resistance to the drugs used to treat it, then there is the possibility of an epidemic. Then I will be scared because it won’t be too far off in the distance when other viruses and bacteria start to develop resistance to the drugs that treat them. I know that it is happening now, but it is happening rather slowly. If this swine flu was to evolve that quickly to resist drugs that were just introduced to it, then I will be worried. But until then, I’m just going to sit back and watch everybody get all worked up over nothing.

100 Days

People have been talking about how Obama has completed 100 days in office. It is a huge deal to the media for some reason. So this is my thought on the whole matter:

People give Bush 8 years to screw over the nation, but they only give Obama 100 days to fix it.

Let's grow up, and let the President do his job and get off his back. We obvioulsy had a lot of patience with Bush, so let's show some maturity and show some patience with Obama

Bugs

With the new spring weather finally starting to take hold, I am getting worn out of school. The warm weather outside make it close to impossible to stay inside, which teachers seem to make us do a lot. I hate sitting in a boring class while looking out a window to the magnificent warm world outside. It makes me mad. I just want to go lie in the grass and take a nap, what’s so wrong about that? (everything if you’re a teacher)

Like I said, the warm weather is finally starting to come around on a regular basis. This means that baseball is starting, school is ending, and the bugs are coming back. I loathe bugs. I wish they would disappear and never, ever come back. They are annoying, they are persistent, and they are always places that you don’t want them to be. I can’t stand them. They get on my nerves and stay until I am finally able to find some way to kill it. But it seems like there is an endless supply of bugs, so there is always another one willing to take the dead ones place, kind of like the Chinese army.

And this would be one of the few reasons why would continue to live in Iowa. The winter kills all the bugs, so there is a time of relative peace if you can stand the negative temperatures. The winter in Iowa is bug free, and it is fabulous. I love walking my dog and not having to swat at the millions of bugs revolving around my head (if my boots aren’t filled with snow). I love not having to chase a bug that followed me through the door around the house (if my feet aren’t frozen from the tiles). I love it (if you interpret love as I can’t wait for warm weather, but I still hate bugs). But when the spring weather brings around heat and water, the bugs multiply. It is almost an instant change. One day they are completely gone, and the next there are more then the entire human population of the world. If you are lucky, you might catch a warning and see one or two a day or so in advance of the outburst. And this is why I hate spring, bugs. There is no way to avoid them, there is no way to kill them all. They are always present, they are everywhere. I can’t stand bugs. 

Making a Very Difficult Decision

Making decisions can be difficult. Making decisions about food can be even more difficult. When I am at a restaurant the one thing that I choose off the menu is the thing that I am going to spend my time eating, so I want it to be the best possible choice. I don’t want to waste my one opportunity on something that I will regret later, so I truly have to think about what it is I want to eat on that particular occasion.

The first thing that I take into consideration is what I’m in the mood for. But this is usually taken care of by the choice of restaurant anyway, so I don’t have to think that much about it. The second thing is how hungry I am. The answer to this is usually “very” so there is a good chance I am looking for something with a rather large portion. But if the place seems to have good deserts, then I might consider a smaller meal so I can enjoy the desert to the fullest. But after I take in those thought, I basically am open to anything. So that is my decision process at a restaurant.

I guess one could call me a true American because I really like a good hamburger. Actually, I could be called a hamburger connoisseur. If we are eating at an American restaurant, I am likely to get the hamburger. I have tried hamburgers from all over, and I have tried many different hamburgers, but there are a few that always outdo the rest. So here’s a list:Best Fast Food Burger: Culver’s Double Butterburger with Cheese

Best Expensive Burger: Beckett’s Traditional Hamburger 

Best BBQ Burger: Granite City’s BBQ Hamburger with Cheese

Best Overall Burger: The Starlite Room’s ½ pound Super Burger

Then after I enjoy my hamburger, I like to have some desert. This is the decision that always gets me. I can never decide what to get because most of the time it all looks so good. I want to have a little bit of everything, but I can’t, I have to decide on one. When I'm in a predicament like this, I usually go with whatever has the most chocolate in it. The hardest place to decide what to get for desert is Hickory Park. This place carries Blue Bunny Ice Cream, and its desert menu is larger then the regular menu. It’s actually kind of like heaven.