The knee, pre-surgery

With that said, I am having arthroscopic surgery on my right knee. I’m told it’s “minimally invasive” and that after the 2 hour procedure I will literally walk out of the hospital on my own feet (I’m sure with some kind of limp). What does “minimally invasive” mean anyway when they tell you they’ll be drilling two holes into your knee, driving little cameras into them and cauterizing your torn tissue with a lazer? That’s “minimally invasive”? It’s not a comfortable thought at all but since I’ll be sleeping through it I guess I should just let it go. It’s fascinating how common these surgeries are now and how fast people, especially athletes, get back into their lives. I suppose focusing attention on my own surgery is less about the operation and more about how big of a wimp I am when it comes to the thought of me being splayed open .

The part I'm having touched

I can see it now. I’ll walk out with the wrong leg worked on, I’ll never walk the same again and will have to stop playing basketball, stop hiking and switch from drums to guitar officially. Sigh. Ok, my Woody Allen moment is over. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the other side of this.

And so, in the end, (at least from my citizen’s view) he was left to scramble on where to stick the Beavers since it was clear the Timbers would play at PGE Park exclusively. Worst of all, the time was running out and no solutions could be made on where the Beavers would play. And so, traditions that were established, kids who actually emulate some of these guys, and all of the fun of being in a mid size ball park in the middle of Portland were all thrown out.

As a baseball fan, I will admit that a Beaver’s game is NOT MLB. But it IS a fun time with all the trimmings of a big league game. Good food, great intimate ball park, and the 7th inning stretch. The seats are affordable and it’s a great way to spend an afternoon. My son and I started to go to games over the last 3 years and it’s become a quasi family tradition now. Thanks to Merritt and his business partners, these traditions for THOUSANDS of Portland families are now being shipped to Lake Elsinore, California (??!!) for the 2011 season.

So Merritt, thanks. Thanks a lot. It’s tough to understand how Portland couldn’t accommodate both teams but we’ll never know how now. So with that, I’ll give you the final 7th inning stretch we’ll experience in Portland for a LONG time. Good show dude, you suck.

PS – The Beaver’s slammed Las Vegas in this game 6-2. Just sayin.

RUN CMD

Number 1: Playing basketball at the local LA Fitness, and playing street ball are as different as speaking German and Spanish. The 4 of us (Gerardo, Chris, Jack and myself) had been hooping at LA Fitness near the office, every week since May of 2009. Not to get prepared for this tournament, oh no..that came organically out of the thin air. We play because we like it and it’s a great way to stay in shape. We also play with some other LA Fitness members and by and large, our games are friendly. They get intense sure, but nobody fouls aggressively or makes dirty plays. Boy, fouling….was that an eye opener at the Street Jam. We got mugged in the 3 games we played. By the time we were playing our last elimination game on Sunday morning (8/1/2010) we were giving it back too. But in the end we got out street balled by the competition. We just weren’t seasoned at street ball enough.

Number 2: Playing in the “Under 6′” category doesn’t mean anything. In fact, I could have played with Latvian midgets and the refs wouldn’t have called anything. We played a team that had 2 dudes who were at LEAST 6’2″. I’m sorry, but that’s just not a fair playing field. Why bother having categories? And yes, it did make a difference. In the end, their height advantage was evident on the boards. And it still pisses me off. Was their height advantage a game breaker in the end? Probably not. We COULD have hustled more, played more scrappy but it was really tough to overcome that jumping disadvantage. All of us are 5’11″ and we plain old got “out thugged” by the height and constant jersey grabbing. But that’s for another point…..

Number 3: …..Which is, hey Portland Trailblazers Street Jam 3+3 tournament referees….WHAT THE HELL IS A FOUL ANYWAY? Ok let me get this straight…I stand straight up, jump in the air with the shooter, make contact because HE jumped into me and I am guilty of fouling? But then on the next possession, my teammate (Gerardo) goes strong to the hoop, gets hit mid air on the ball and arm and get’s sent crashing to the blacktop, but that’s called a block? C’mon. What rule book are you people calling the game from? And by the way, while we’re on it, why didn’t the 2 refs in ANY game we competed in ever talk to one another when they disagreed on a call? Who’s call was right in the end anyway?

Catching a breather

A great read here on the season preview.

Kobe owned the game, the rest of the crew jumped on his back and my man D Fish dropped bombs at the right times.

Denver is clearly an animal of a team though and this is going to be a long series.

Have fun.

And he should know a thing or 5 about good D having been with Phil since the Bulls days.

Check this insightful article out with Jim from True Hoop today.