I love this thing

I was playing on the lottery simulator some more today, and came up with these scenarios. The one I posted yesterday is the most likely, with us staying at the 13 spot and maybe nabbing Westbrook. (I said sad yesterday, but only because I wasn't thinking clearly. Westbrook could be perfect for us.)

Here are the basic ways it could fall, with Portland getting one, two, three, or 14. Yeah, everything else could be different, but I don't mind any of these four options. Here are the pictures, the initial picture is the way the lottery worked out, and the second picture is the potential draftee. Kudos galore to Chad Ford and ESPN for doing this every year.

Time waster? More like time betterer

One of my favorite ways to spend time is back: the NBA lottery simulator at ESPN. This is the most common result for Portland. Sad.

Save OUR sonics

No, I'm not a Sonics fan. But I do love the NBA. And I love the city of Seattle. And the Pacific Northwest is my home, even while I've been away from it periodically since 2000. Tomorrow David Stern, NBA commish, will be in Portland. He's doing an online chat...

I butchered that opportunity. Stern did the stupid chat today. I need to pay better attention. I wanted to organize a bunch of people to pester him with Seattle questions and questions about his friendship with Clay Bennett. Instead I'll just have to rely on the fans in Portland who are planning on showing him that people outside of Seattle care about the situation. I hope they do it, and do it well.

SAVE OUR SONICS. SAVE OUR SONICS. SAVE OUR SONICS.

Not a tumblr

I drove back from Phoenix today. It was a decent trip, especially because part of it included a phone conversation with my friend Luke and another part had a phone conversation with my brother. It's always good to talk to either of them. The weekend as a whole was great, mainly consisting of me playing Rock Band with various people. Saturday I played the game with a bunch of great kids that go to SCA. It was fun to be around high school students who like me and are clear about thanking me for the effect I've had on them. Last week was pretty much the opposite of that at school, so it was nice to get that affirmation in Phoenix. Sunday I played the game at Adam's house with a bunch of Adam and Phil's friends who were over for a birthday party. That was nice, too: hanging out with adults that are around my age.

I didn't get anything done for school over the weekend, but I've already gotten some of it done since getting back, and that's good. Sadly, I'm more excited about the end of the school year than I am about anything except maybe Chicago with Luke over spring break. I'm nearly positive that I'll take off after this year. That makes me sad but is also a little relieving.

The other thing I did in Phoenix was watch the NBA All-Star game with other NBA fans. That was fun, especially because of how well Brandon Roy played. I loved seeing him fill up the stat line and help the West come back at the end. My group of Suns-fans/friends had fun with me and how connected I was to Roy's performance. Really, I had no personal investment in it, but I certainly felt and acted as though I did. In addition to watching the game, I got to talk to them about the trades that have been flying around. Seriously, I applaud the Hawks for making the move to get Bibby. I hope that works out for them. And as a Blazer fan I'm glad that the Dallas deal finally looks like it is actually going through. I'm happy to have the window of another Western conference team closing soon, and Kidd closes the window sooner than Harris would have.

Oh, and Kinsey, one of the students from SCA, insisted over the weekend that I should join the ranks of those with a tumblr (her, Luke, and a few other people I like), but I refused and continue to refuse. Hooray for blogger.

Valentines day? Really?

Usually I don't care much about St. Valentine's day. I told many of my students today that they should celebrate it as they celebrate any other saint's day (which of course, for most of them, means to not celebrate at all). But as I've been sitting here outside It's a Grind checking online sorts of things one last time before heading home I saw a girl inside the coffee shop. She's cute. She's in the corner, with her laptop and coffee. And I heard enough tripe today about going out with girlfriends and such that it made me notice her more than I might usually. Of course, I'm not going to do anything about it but post it here. But still...St. Valentine's day.

A disgusting habit

I thought of this a while back, but my current circumstance reminded me. I'm considering a smoking habit. To say it better: I'm thinking about developing a smoking habit. I don't mean one of those three-packs-a-day addictions, but something more along the lines of once a month or so. And I'd rotate. This month I'd sit down some evening with a nice cigar and burn away the stress that's been building. Then, in a month, I'd have a couple nice cigarettes. The month after that I would stuff one month's worth of worries in my pipe and smoke it – along with some fine tobacco. No one in my family liked this idea very much when I told them.

My present circumstance made me remember this because I'm sitting outside It's a Grind, reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and partaking first-hand in my current vice – coffee – and second hand in this proposed new vice – tobacco. I'm enjoying the combination immensely.

I put this video up instead of a picture of It's a Grind. The 33 second mark is the part that has to do with the post, but sometimes I feel like I'm part of the whole thing, just from being in California.

Oh, and if there are people who read this because they want to read about sports, which had been my main topic for a long time: my apologies. Maybe I'll write about the Jim Zorn departure from Seattle soon, or spring training for the Braves, but since the Blazers have been down it's hard for me to write about them, and they're my favorite sports subject.

Moleskin (but I'm not Luke)

I bought some cashiers the other day when I was at Barnes and Noble with my parents. So far I've put two things down, but I'll share them here.

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Apple stores bring out the worst consumer part of me. I'm all eyes, hands, fingers, envy, greed, and customer. Book stores do that to me too, but it doesn't feel as bad because desiring a book feels infinitely healthier to me than desiring a nifty trendy technological gadget.

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I can't wait until next summer, when I have a legitimate summer without school. I don't know what I'll do, but it's going to be fantastic.

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Lastly: I got my truck yesterday. It's nice to have a vehicle again. Very nice.

A lot can happen between posts

Since I last posted something here a lot has happened. Last Tuesday I tried to destroy my shoulder during soccer practice. You might wonder how that could happen, since I’m coaching. Well, all of us coaches participate to some extent during practice. At the time we were scrimmaging, and I was playing in goal. One of the girls had a breakaway, so I rushed out of goal to close the angle and try to force the ball out of her possession. She did a good job of taking the shot, and the ball ricocheted off my legs and up. I scrambled to my feet to secure the ball before someone could score off the rebound. But the girls have been learning well, so two of them were right on it as it careened back down. Knowing that I couldn’t get to the ball before a shot, I tried to dive in front and towards the ball, hoping to block the shot. Instead I succeeded at landing on my forehead and my shoulder, arm outstretched. Incredible pain shot through my right arm. Our head coach took a look and decided that the shoulder wasn’t dislocated, and I was able to stand up. But I wasn’t able to rest the arm at a comfortable or even normal angle. My arm was positioned in a grotesque manner, slightly bent in and hanging out in front of me. Then instantly it was different. My arm seemed to have a muscle spasm, or some other involuntary movement, and shook itself out, landing in it’s proper resting place. It still hurt pretty badly, but no where near as badly as it had.

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That was Tuesday. My semester grades were due on Thursday morning, and I didn’t have them finished before then. I got up at 4:30 that morning to go to work on finishing them, and got them turned in on time. We have a grade, a citizenship mark, a work habits mark, and a spot for a comment. We are required to put one comment for every student. After we turn in the paper sheet we get a printed packet of everything that we bubbled in order to verify what we put for each student. As I checked the sheet, I was surprised to see the grades missing on the front page of students. Then the next. The grades ended up being absent on every page, while every other mark was there. At least I didn’t have to write everything back in by hand, but it was pretty amazing that only one section didn’t register with the scantron.

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The rest of the week went okay, with Thursday night providing a highlight as LOST returned to TV. But then came the Super Bowl. If it turns out that the Patriots really did some of the other things of which they’re now being accused, in addition to the illegal filming that I think is commonplace around the league, then I might turn on them. But otherwise I think they are a pretty good picture of the way a franchise should run, and I think that deserves a trophy. I also enjoy seeing impressive records, and 19-0 would have been the most impressive. Add in my hatred of the Giants and Eli Manning, and I was quite disappointed with the outcome on Sunday night. Quite disappointed.

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Oh, and this is most likely the vehicle I'm going to buy soon. (Clicking will download a pdf with the specs for the truck. If you don't want to see that, just look at the picture.)

There [was] blood

Today was the last day of the semester. As such the students had a minimum schedule – basically a half-day – and teachers got the afternoon to finish semester grades. Needless to say, I didn’t do hardly anything and have a ton of work before I can turn my grades in in Thursday morning.

I also was able to confront the student today about taking my iPod. I didn’t know how I wanted to do it, and I’m not sure it went well. I asked if he had found the book he was looking for, and then I asked if he had found my iPod. He was confused, and so I explained why I thought he might have found it. Then he had a decent explanation as to why I thought what I did. I wouldn’t have thought he’d steal from me, but then I did think that, and now I’m not sure again. More frustrating than losing my iPod is the dilemma of knowing whether I should believe him or not, and if not how I should pursue things. If I hadn’t broken my external hard drive with all my music on it this wouldn’t be as big of a deal, since I still have my iPod nano. But a lot of music that I like was only left on my old clunky classic white iPod. Still, I’ll get over it.

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I’m sitting here waiting for the bus to pick me up and take me to Rosa Parks station, where I hop on the blue line south to Long Beach. We were supposed to have a soccer game this afternoon, but because of the deluge these last few days the game was postponed until Monday. It’s nice to be getting home early for the second day in a row, but I’m disappointed that the girls didn’t get another chance to play this week.

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And now I’m on the 124, heading east on El Segundo. The ability to blog and commute really is one of the best things about having an inoperable car.

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Last night I watched “There will be blood” with my roommate Eric. It was as good as I had hoped. The story of an oil man and his thirst for money and success was compelling, and just as timely now as I’m sure it was when Upton Sinclair penned the book. P.T. Anderson did a great job bringing it to the screen, and I realized that there is one main aspect of his films that I really really love. Despite writing and directing movies that aren’t billed as “scary” or “funny,” Anderson creates scenes that fill me with dread or entice me to laugh. I was surprised last night by how many times I laughed out loud, and I was equally surprised by the number of times I cringed in fear, anticipating the next event. Daniel Day Lewis made me completely forget that Daniel Plainview was a character. Instead, I was drawn into his world, perplexed by his evil and buoyed by his success. The actor who played the young H.W. Plainview was also fantastic, inhabiting the character so fully that it seemed as if the actor must have had the same physical limitations as his character.

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I wrote that last paragraph from the blue line before stopping to have a conversation with a coworker for Compton Unified. He works on HVAC stuff. I have my ID badge on and he initiated the conversation because he saw it. I enjoyed that part of the trip even though I usually enjoy being silent on planes, trains, and buses. I’ve been writing this part on the 191b, heading from the Del Amo station to my stop at the intersection of McHelen and Wardlow. The 124 picked me up on El Segundo at around 3:25, just to give you an idea of my commute.

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The Blazers play their first home game in two weeks tonight at the Rose Garden. That seven game trip seemed pretty long, even if it only lasted twelve days. I’m excited for the six game home stand that is beginning this evening. The opponents in this stretch are all teams that I expect to beat, starting with Houston. Part of that expectation is because I have so much confidence in the team now, but I think part of it also has to do with some of the teams coming in being the sort of weak team that can’t hang with a good team at home. And we’re the best team at home in the NBA. That’s right. Portland has the best home record in the association. I might try to watch the game tonight, but it depends on what my roommates are doing.

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This has been as long a post as I’ve written in quite a while, and I’ve rambled more than I have in a while too. The bus is about to make the last few turns that take me to my stop, then it’s just a four or five minute walk to my house. That makes the total commute right around an hour.

A new post? YES!

Today I had a brand new experience as a teacher: I realized that one of my students stole from me. Some of the people who read this – maybe even both of you – might believe I should have expected it, but I disagree. Because the transmission in my Volvo is nearly destroyed, I’ve been commuting on public transportation for the last two weeks. This has actually allowed me to catch up on the podcasts to which I subscribe. That means I have my iPod with me all the time. Yesterday after my last period I rushed off to get to the soccer game I was coaching. In the process I left my iPod on a sort of hidden corner of my desk. The room is always locked from outside, and I was not at all concerned that the custodian might take it. I also left my laptop on my desk. When I came back from the game I didn’t even think about the iPod, because I was getting a ride to the train station with another teacher/coach, and because the downpour during the game had left me completely soaked.

Once the train started taking me south to Long Beach, though, I did think of the iPod. I didn’t think of it again until this morning, when I checked my stuff to make sure I had left it in my room. And then I thought of it when I got to my room. But looking around, especially where I thought I’d left it, I found no trace of the iPod.

I was frustrated by that, but didn’t worry about it too much. After school I saw the custodian who cleans my room and asked him if he’d seen it. He said no, but that he had let a student in to find a book he’d forgotten. Then he described the student. I knew precisely who it was, because the student had come in that morning to “check” for his book.

It’s not my personality to assume the worst of people, and usually I would think that he really was just checking to see if his book was in my room. But instead, I think he was covering his tracks a little bit. And that’s frustrating. I’m going to seek him out tomorrow, because he wasn’t in my class today.

One last note: I’m trying to get a better schedule figured out so that I can use my commute time to write blog posts. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but this is the first one I’ve actually composed on my way to or from school. It feels good.

(One last note: my iPod was of the last generation before they all went color. That's right, the kid who stole my iPod will probably not find a market for it, because it is completely obsolete.)

Happy New Year

I'm listening to the game in Utah right now. The Blazers are going for 14 straight. Today has been a mess of a day, with me trying to figure out what's wrong with my car. There is something messed up with the transmission, which I thought was just the fluid, then thought it wasn't, but now I think it might be again. Then there's the debacle with my tire. The way the Ducks destroyed USF today was pretty good for getting my mind of the other stuff, but not completely. But if Portland can pull out this fourteenth win, well, the car worries will fade at least for a little while.

My brother Stephen and I showed up at the Rose Quarter box office around 4:00 on Friday to pick up the tickets for the game. While we were there I asked about tickets to the Sunday game with Philly. The woman at the window told me that the three levels of tickets we would have been willing to buy were all sold out already. This was on Friday afternoon. That was disappointing and also pretty cool.

We stayed around so we could get into the arena early and explore a little bit. Even though I had been to games in the Rose Garden, this was the first time I really walked around much. There were a few cool exhibits, particularly some stuff celebrating the championship team from 1977 and the finals teams from the early 1990s. Once we got to our seats we realized that dad was stuck next to a particular type of fan. This was a 30 or 40 something year old man, pudgy, with a beard. He was talking during the game to the players and coaches. Yes, talking. And he was saying some amazing stuff. "Nate, get them to play 'D.'" Stuff like that. At halftime dad moved over and sat on the other side of Stephen.

I was hoping that the rest of the crowd would be crazy, but I was kind of surprised that it was a little subdued. Well, it was subdued until the latter part of the third quarter. When the team really turned it on the crowd got rowdier, and that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed being part of the "M-V-P" chant during Brandon Roy's free throws. Most of the time that chant started in one of the other cheap sections. But there was one time that the chant was nearly automatic throughout the crowd, and it was pretty exciting. It was that sort of thing that happened often at the end of the game, and it was great to experience.

Two notes about the game:

1. Martell Webster's game didn't look very good on offense or with his stats, but I loved watching him play. He was hustling, he was working hard on both sides of the court, he was rebounding, and I just loved it. Outlaw and Jones are great too, and they really do give us a pretty formidable trio of small forwards. But I love Webster.


2. Brandon Roy had another ridiculous layup in this game. I don't know if the highlight is floating around anywhere, so I'll just describe it. He got the ball at the top of the key, saw an opening, and took of for the hoop. As he took off, one of the Timberwolves stepped into the lane. I think it was Al Jefferson. Roy would have been called for a charge had he continued going up that way. So he didn't. He changed the axis of his body. Imagine a clock, with the ball as the center. His body rotated from six o'clock to around 7:30. He continued gliding through the air, and finished the layup softly with his right hand. It was beautiful. We all went nuts.


3. Alright, I know I said two, but since I'm actually putting this up long after the streak ended tonight, I'm including this part. LaMarcus Aldridge decided to show up on offense tonight. For real. He had a career high. And even though we lost, it was good to see the kid put the ball in the hoop a lot. I think that will continue this season some, but I am fairly certain he'll be doing this sort of thing consistently in the next few years.

That's as much as I really have about the game from the other day. It was great to see, and I'm glad we ran the streak to 13. Now it's important to see how the team responds on this road trip.

Christmas Day running diary

5:05 pm Here I am, sitting in the house I helped my parents build, on Christmas day, getting ready to watch the first Blazer game of this win streak. I just said “this” win streak, because I believe that the streak will continue tonight.

5:08 pm I love the stat they just showed. Portland is the best team on Christmas day all-time, and Seattle is the worst on Christmas all-time. While I was typing that the Blazers got three offensive rebounds and finally put their first points up.

5:10 pm Beautiful steal by Martell. It’s good to see him working hard like that. Now he needs to get both of these free throws. Nope, one-of-two. We need to start pushing it inside and stop relying on our poor jump shooting.

5:12 pm Just after I said that, Roy hit Przybilla for a nice dunk. It’s good to see the vanilla thrilla throwing it down like that.

5:15 pm Steve Blake is getting a lot of open looks and needs to start hitting those shots. And now the Blazers have given up the lead. They need to calm down a little bit.

5:16 pm Boom. Webster drills a three pointer off a kick out from Roy.

5:19 pm I just checked the Blazer station, but for some reason the picture n my parents’ new TV is way better on ESPN, so I’ll continue listening to these announcers instead of the Blazers guys.

5:21 pm Great pass by Channing Frye, good finish by Roy, but he can’t get the and-one. Fortunately the Sonics are terrible at rebounding and throw it out of bounds.

5:23 pm Jarrett Jack doing what he does well, driving to the hoop. And wow, Wally Szczerbiak just hit another three pointer. Thankfully Frye made a jumper. Other than the opening jitters, this has been better game than the Miami-Cleveland game this morning. That game was terrible. I expected that it would be, but still. Eww. The Lakers and Suns, on the other hand, played great basketball. That was fun to watch.

5:27 pm Did you see Roy juke Durant out of his shorts a few minutes ago? That was great. And then Brandn just rose up and put it through.

5:28 pm Sergio Rodriguez is looking good in his quick stint for Roy right now. El Mago making magic happen.

5:30 pm That first quarter wasn’t great, but 24 points for each team isn’t bad when we started so poorly.

5:32 pm Apparently there’s a new American Pie movie, and guess what: there are girls in it, and it’s about sex. Man, that sounds hilarious.

5:34 pm Jack just made another great drive. He is really good at that. And Travis Outlaw is great at shooting over anyone. He just elevated to drain that jumper.

5:36 pm WOW. Beautiful pass inside from Rodriguez to James Jones, and Jones THREW that down. As the announcers just noted, the second unit for this Portland team has been playing so well and they’re doing it again today.

5:38 pm That was a terrible call. They just called Jeff Green for the charge, but Channing Frye pushed him. Boo. Oh well, I’ll take it.

5:44 pm Jack has eight now, which is great, but Szczerbiak just hit another three.

5:45 pm Collison just completed the three point play to tie the game back up. This really does look like better basketball than the first game today.

5:48 pm Apparently Greg Oden had some sort of surgery on his knee before the season started. I also just found out that he’s supposed to be good. Man, just imagine what this team could be like with him back. (Oh, and Przybilla just made both free throws. He’s improved that aspect of his game so much.)

5:50 pm That was a terrible foul call. Przybilla played great defense on that, but they called him. Lame. The ball never lies, then Przybilla gets the rebound and gets fouled. That worked out.

5:53 pm Blake just missed another open jumper. Blech. Roy then comes back with a good drive-and-dish to Przybilla, but he was on the baseline. And now another terrible foul call when it should have been a travel.

5:57 pm Durant just made his first really pretty shot. That was nice. Of course, on his next play he traveled.

5:58 pm Blake finally hit a jumper. This one was behind the arc, where he has been shooting better than everywhere else on the floor.

6:00 pm Jarrett Jack is filling in nicely for Roy, who is in the locker room after getting hit with a Chris Wilcox elbow. We need to come out really strong in the second half.

6:02 pm At halftime we’re ahead by two, after having a pretty poor first half, so that’s not too bad.

6:06 pm Scott Van Pelt is a genius. “The Boston Three Party.” I love it. Although seeing Garnett, Pierce, and Allen do the Three Amigos salute was the best part of that commercial.

6:18 pm Red Bull is shameless. Geez. “Start with practice and work our way back to theory.” I’m sure that’s how my friend J-Lew studied biology in college.

6:21 pm Wow, Jon Barry just made two great jokes.

6:24 pm Ugh. This is a rough shooting game. R-O-U-G-H.

6:25 pm Jon Barry just made a joke about streaking and Will Ferrell in the movie Old School. This guy is culturally relevant.

6:26 pm Roy is starting to hit now. And there is LaMarcus Aldridge. Pretty basketball right there with that turnaround by LA.

6:30 pm There was a beautiful play by Roy and Przybilla, once again highlighting the progression of the big man’s offensive game this season.

6:31 pm FAST BREAK POINTS!! Portland has so much trouble getting those, it’s good whenever we can find some.

6:34 pm ESPN just showed a great stat: Portland didn’t have any field goals in the last five minutes, even though they just went up by ten. I think they had the wrong team there. Oh, and Roy is playing really well right now.

6:36 pm Brandon Roy. Brandon Roy. Brandon Roy. Brandon Roy. (I think he must have just heard that he didn’t win his third consecutive western conference player of the week. He has 11 points in the quarter.)

6:41 pm The Sonics just made their first field goal in 12 attempts. Portland has been playing pretty good defense. And there Channing Frye knocks down another jumper.

6:43 pm Kevin Durant, everybody! He just tripped over the ball and himself. No ceiling, right Bill Simmons?

6:44 pm Durant just absolutely swatted a runner by Jack. I change the tone of my last comment: now it’s slightly less smarmy.

6:47 pm Sloppy play right there by Jack on defense.

6:48 pm Shades of old Travis Outlaw on his last ill-advised jumper and poor defense/foul on a Jeff green lay-up.

6:50 pm The second unit didn’t look as good at the end of that quarter, but they’re still up by eight. Brandon Roy was so good during the third quarter, and that was great to see.

6:54 pm Nice steal by El Mago to start the fourth quarter.

6:57 pm The Sonics are shooting well again, which is tough for us.

6:58 pm I’m really excited to see Roy come in and take over the fourth quarter, but it’s also nice to see Channing continue to make those mid-range jumpers.

7:04 pm Channing Frye just nailed another jumper. That is soooo good to see.

7:08 pm Jarrett Jack just took us shopping. It was fine until one of the announcers said that Jack is a “single male addicted to retail.” Yikes.

7:12 pm The Blazers are taking far too long with the ball, and waiting until the end of the shot clock. It’s making for some pretty ugly basketball right now.

7:16 pm I really don’t like this “wired” thing the NBA is doing now. It doesn’t really seem to add any insight, and it’s mainly just annoying.

7:18 pm It’s nice to see Jack having another good game. The same for Przybilla. He has 16 rebounds. Once again the team is getting it done by having various people step up well.

7:21 pm Well, we didn’t play that well again today. It is exciting that we keep winning when we’re not playing that well.

7:23 pm Neil Everett just said that the Blazers may never lose again. I’ll end this on that note...(merry Christmas)

A birthday blog (a day late)

Stephen and I are driving right now. We left Roseburg this morning a little after 6:00 and have been driving since then. When I say that Stephen and I are driving, I mean that I drove for a while and now he is. I’m not trying to write this post while holding the wheel.

We just finished the last episode of The Basketball Jones podcast for 2007. Again, to the few people who read this, if you haven’t yet subscribed to that podcast on iTunes, you should. They are fantastic.

Yesterday it took me an hour and a half to get caught up on all the online coverage of the Blazers after their win streak reached 10 Friday night at home against the Nuggets. They now have the longest win streak of anyone in the NBA this season, and once again they had to come back from being down by seven at the beginning of the fourth quarter. On top of that, the game was decided in the end by a Brandon Roy block of a Carmelo Anthony jump hook and a Travis Outlaw swat of a Linas Kleiza desperation three. It’s good to see guys stepping up in the fourth quarter, and those two have been doing it consistently throughout this winning streak.

All the coverage and the win really were the best things about my birthday. Not that I didn’t enjoy yesterday, but just that I am so excited about how this team is doing. Stephen and I were talking about it in the car, and it doesn’t make sense that everyone is as surprised as they are. Surprised? Yes. But this surprised? I don’t think we should be. Yeah, we traded away our leading scorer and rebounder. Yes, we have the third youngest team in the history of the association. Sure, we’re without the number one overall pick from last year’s draft and the guy many envisioned as the savior of the franchise. But the hallmark of this team is their chemistry and how much fun they’re having together, with everyone contributing. We couldn’t have expected that when the team started playing together five weeks before training camp? Shouldn’t we have foreseen this type of beyond-their-years-maturity from a bunch of guys who chose to get together, without pay, more than a month before they had to? I think so. And yes, that still makes this really surprising, but not completely surprising.

My battery is about to run out, so I’m shutting the computer down for the rest of the trip. But I wanted to share a little post-birthday thanks to the team for making it a great one, and a little Christmas cheer to anyone who makes sure I have a few readers.

I forgot to mention

When I did that quick update on Roy I forgot one important note: he missed practice yesterday with the flue, and said that he was playing tonight at around 70%. That certainly isn't the same sickness MJ played through in The Flue Game, but to do what Roy did while being a little under the weather is pretty good. Especially for a second year player. Oh, and that second year player really is making a very strong case to be Western Conference Player of the week for a third straight, and then conference player of the month. If he keeps this up, he'll be battling with Aldridge and Outlaw for most improved for sure. Here's the box score for your perusal.

(Trying to settle nerves and calm expectations...)

I love listening to these games online, but I really need to get league pass when I come back after Christmas so I can watch them.

Brandon Roy is awesome

With three and a half minutes left in the third quarter, Roy has 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 7 assists. Oh yeah, and his shooting line is this: 8/11 from the field, 1/1 from the line, and 3/5 from behind the arc.

Dumping it all on you

I should really be grading quizzes right now, but I have too much to blog about.

Firstly, I have a lot of links to put up. Some aren't as new, and I forget where all of these were found, but it's just a ton of Blazers stuff.

Seriously, here we go:

This is a surprisingly good take on the team so far, something that surprised me even more because of where I found it. Yeah, that's some bias creeping in, which is too bad. This is really just one of the articles I've read that has the best perspective.

This is from the Toronto Star, and is only in a sidebar:

A scout said last week something along the lines of "in two or three years, no one's going to want to play Portland." Well, no one wants to play them now, either. The Blazers rattled off their seventh win in a row Sunday and the Raptors get them tomorrow night.

I don't think I agree with much in this article by Lang Whitaker over at Slam, but I'm happy to have people around the country arguing about Portland at all.

I really enjoyed his article about the winning streak. It's from a blog put out by the Washington Post, with this post being written by Michael Lee. I enjoy the stories that come out of DC, partly because they're good, but also because they write about the Blazers thanks to the Steve Blake connection. Because of that, they have a good focus on the role players for the Blazers, and that's been the main reason for the streak (other than Roy and McMillan, of course).

This is just another one talking about how good the Blazers have been during the streak. And this one is sort of similar, from Hoopsworld. Oh yeah, this one is from RealGM, and talks about how Portland has won all these games, too.

This might be my favorite article link of the day, because it provides a ton of insight into how the Blazers have done this, focusing on the development of Travis Outlaw (with a little Martell Webster thrown in).

Now for a few a/v links.

I called in to The Basketball Jones last night on my way to pick up my roommate Eric from the airport, and today I made the podcast. You should listen to the whole thing, but if you just want to hear what I have to say, go to the 15:45 mark. Oh, and you should just subscribe to their podcast on iTunes. It's great.

My second a/v link is to an interview Brandon Roy did with Jim Rome. I hate Rome, but there's a point in the podcast that is amazing (oh yeah, it will open up in iTunes, sorry about that): Roy mentions that Pritchard asked him what he would think of them signing Steve Blake before they did it. He also asked who they should draft, but that seems like less of a big deal to me. Roy was asked before they made a move for a free agent (a move that has looked pretty good so far this year, despite what many said about it).

And the last link I'll put here, even though I'm embedding the video. Kelly Dwyer is doing awesome things on Yahoo! Sports. So visit his blog.



There you have it. Now I'm going to listen to the Blazers' attempt at number nine. Down by two, 6-4, as of this second.

Kelly Dwyer puts everything in perspective

This quote was too good not to include in a post. It's from Kelly Dwyer's blog on Yahoo! sports.

Not many NBA teams could lose enough games to grab the first pick in the draft, trade its leading scorer and rebounder, lose said number one pick for the season to injury and still roar out of the gate by winning half of its first 24 games. This is a special team, and there's no point in pushing Aldridge back into the lineup too soon just to sustain a surprising turn of mediocrity.

When he puts it that way, I can't even deal with how giddy I get about the team now and the team of the future. These kids are special, and I love being a fan. Less than ten minutes until tip-off against the Hornets to go for eight in a row. Here's hoping...

Oh yeah, and how great s it that Roy won his deserved second straight player-of-the-week for the western conference? I'll tell you how great: really really great.

I'm trying something new...

Here it goes, press play if you want to hear the first attempt. Here's a link to some people who do this very well.

Look! A widget!

I put a widget on the sidebar to the right so that people will vote for LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy. So only use it if that's how you're going to vote.

I kid, I kid. Vote for whomever you want. But even with the poor stretch he had, I think Roy deserves your consideration. And I'm voting for Aldridge everyday because I'm a homer.

Brandon Roy is good at basketball

Understatement? Yes. I was trying to embed the highlights from NBA.com, but had no luck. Instead you'll just have to click this link or the title of the post to see Roy look the way Wade is supposed to.

The signing bonus

I think I wrote about it here, but even if I didn't, I know I told most of my friends: I received a "signing bonus" for coming to teach in Compton. For some reason I remember it as $3,500 bonus per year for up to three years. Apparently I remembered incorrectly, as I went in today to actually sign for it. The sheet says that the bonus is for $11,000, but spread over four years. Oh yeah, and it's on condition of staying at least two years. So I had to sign today saying that I wouldn't apply for any other jobs or take any other jobs before my second year is up. So I did. And the whole time I was reading the fine print, I was trying to figure out if it was worth paying back later to have the money now – you know – just in case I decide to leave after one year. And that still seems like a distinct possibility. I did decide that it was worth it, because I have enough bills now that it will be good to get a little extra money in early January. That feels especially true since I just paid a bunch of those bills. Medical bills are a pain. Oh yeah, and on the sheet it said the bonus was a "recruitment" bonus, but I really know that I'm more like a star athlete than most of you, what with my signing bonus.

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart

I received my paycheck today. I deposited it shortly after receiving it. I will be paying my rent for the month tomorrow. Even with all that, I'll have more money in my bank account than I have had for a long time. Usually that wouldn't do much to make me happy, but considering the predicament I've gotten myself into, that's a good thing. I still owe several doctors and the hospital and ambulance company from this summer. In fact, I'm probably slightly delinquent on payments to them. In addition, I haven't finished registering my car in California, which means I probably owe some late fees and need to get that finished. Oh yeah, and I need to start my insurance coverage down here. I'm pretty glad my brother's car is down here for me to borrow when I need it. You know, like now. I also just paid about $900 to fix several things that were wrong with my car, which was part of the reason I hadn't finished taking care of registration stuff yet. Then there's the student loans that I thought were in a grace period. Nope, that only happens once. I owe some back payments there, too. So it's pretty good that I have this current surplus, so that I can try to take care of this stuff. Of course, lastly, I still owe my parents money for all the cash they put into my move down here. If I totaled it up, I certainly owe more than I have. But I can actually make a significant dent in most of it, and that is a place I haven't been for a while. Which is why, for the first time in a long time, I'm really excited to have some money.

The title of this post is a quote from e e cummings, and it's fantastic.

Pollution, in three easy installments

I am now in Roseburg, the place I still really consider home. I drove over last night from Bend, mainly because I didn't want to add three more hours onto the already long drive back to LA. I had no intention of coming over here when I decided to drive up for Thanksgiving, but I am happy that circumstances became such that coming over made sense. I like it here, and I miss it here. This place really is home to me, and being here is relaxing and refreshing. I'm sitting in MyCoffee, which is conveniently named. It really does feel like my own personal coffee shop. I walk in and they get ready to make me something new and creative, and they usually don't charge me for it. Even when I was living here I would get treatment somewhat like that. I've just been catching up on religion news I had missed during the travel, and now I'm getting ready to figure out how to spend the rest of the day here at home before beginning my drive back "home" tonight. One thing that has been emphasized to me in this quick trip back (again) is how much I enjoy the small community and the real interaction with people I grew up with in Oregon. I was frustrated by the façade of goodness in the midwest, and I'm often bothered by the pace and haughtiness in California. There are certainly things to complain about in Oregon, but those things don't bother me nearly as much as the others. Having said that, getting involved in the smaller community at my church in Long Beach has done so much to make me more comfortable there, and I am very glad that I started putting in the effort. Whether I end up n southern California for the long term or not, the similarities between that small group of people and a town in Oregon will be part of the reason any amount of time spent there is really good.

I think I already said this in a post, but I felt the need to say it again, mainly for my own sake.

I can't wait to pollute the environment for 12 straight hours again starting tonight. Driving to and from Los Angeles is terrible.

Time with family

I'm in Oregon again this weekend. I drove up with my friend Michelle starting Wednesday at around 5:30. We got to Sisters, Oregon,
around 9:30 on Thursday morning. The trip was disgusting. Michelle was surprising her family, who came over from Roseburg to have Thanksgiving dinner with some good friends. I was glad to help her do that, especially because it reminded me of my junior year when I flew home to surprise my family at Thanksgiving.

Since being here, though, I've been thinking about something else that has to do with my family. For a long time I've thought that getting married and having children would be something that, if I do it, will happen later in life. Many of my reasons for putting it off in my mind have to do with not wanting to rush into things, or not being ready, or other sorts of things. I don't know for sure what they all were. But I realized something while hanging out with my grandparents and seeing my cousin with her two little kids. I want any kids I may have to know their great-grandparents. I am really happy that I have some memories of two of my great grandfathers. They're not really clear memories, but I'm still glad to have them. Well, my remaining three grandparents are also fantastic. I hope that any kids I have will get the chance to know them and remember them. But the more time that goes by, the smaller the possibility that will happen. As annoyed as I am when I see my cousins who already have kids, and how disturbed I am to think that they can't provide for them very well and that they're being raised around a lot of ignorance, I envy the time those little kids get to have with my grandpa and grandma. Any kids I have will most certainly get less time with their family. And that is really too bad, on a personal level and on an intellectual level. I think it is important to know the people and history from which one comes, and it is harder to know that stuff without having actually experienced some of those relationships.

So that's been running through my head a lot since arriving at my grandparents' house on Thursday morning.

Depressed? Yeah, but really just homesick.

I was just about to blame LA for how bad I feel right now. I mean, I feel depressed as Hell. I was sitting here, recalling the same feeling from the other time I lived in LA. That lasted all of five weeks. But as I grabbed some napkins to scribble on I remembered another time when I had done that. It wasn't in LA, either. In fact, it was in Portland, one of the places that I thought could solve the problem of feeling like this. The feeling might just be loneliness. But it's a loneliness that is given to me by cities, and it's a loneliness that only gets the chance to settle when I have no connection to a real community. Sure, I have some good relationships here, but that isn't enough. I need actual community, which is far different from just having a few friends – even good ones – or being around a lot of people.

I wrote that last night in this very coffee shop. Then this morning at church I decided to proactively take steps to change things. I introduced myself to a few guys who had been here for music last night, and then went to their small group. It was good. Then I went out to lunch with them. It reminded me a lot of the group of friends I got to interact with when I stayed with my friend Michael in Stanford two years ago. Hopefully I can grow to become an actual part of that community for as long as I'm in Long Beach. Even if I end up back in Oregon next year, it will be good for me to have the connection with people while I'm here, as evidenced by my scribbled realization on that napkin last night. Even with that, though, I still miss the community in which I've invested so much of myself already. I was trying to find the right Wendell Berry quote to show how I feel, but instead I'm going with this one, which shows part of why I feel drawn back home

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.

I can most certainly learn from those around me here, but there is something much more forceful about learning from people who have already invested in me.

Injuries are my favorite

Let's get it out of the way: many teams in college football dealt with bad injuries this year. That's part of what has made the season so crazy. The reason I was so happy with Oregon's season mainly had to do with how the team fought through a bunch of their own bad injuries. There really is no excuse for losing a very winnable game, but when Dixon went out it felt like the season just ended. The most frustrating thing is that it seems the coaches knew he had a torn ACL. As much as I can't stand Brady Leaf, game planning for a game quarterbacked by him would have been far different from the plan with Dixon at the helm. And did they seriously think that a week and a half of rest would be enough to bring Dixon back from a torn ACL? Again, we should have won anyway, or we should have won the Cal game to take the two-loss prospect out of the picture, but was still really painful to lose the Heisman front-runner.

---

Nearly as painful as that game was the one that happened Friday night between Portland and Philadelphia. We went into Philly and took care of business for a little while, but something just happened. It was gross, and I only read the box score and recaps. Aldridge and Roy were both golden, which is great. But really, it hurts the team if only those two can produce. But the theme of this post is injury, not anything else...

---

...so I'll talk about the big Blazer injury news that's been floating around these last few days. Greg Oden is a BEAST. When I say beast, I mean a beast like this:The stories are talking about the fact that Oden has put on 30 pounds since he was drafted. Maybe I should just quote the rest from the best coverage of this story, in Jason Quick's blog.

And get this: A high-ranking Blazers source told me that Oden today still has the same body-fat percentage (7.8 percent) as he did when the Blazers drafted him, yet he has gained nearly 30 pounds, bringing him near 280 pounds.

Translation: That's 30 pounds of muscle that has been attached to his upper-body (he hasn't been able to do any lower body weight training because of his knee surgery).

The body fat thing is crazy. A lot of the stories out there mention that Nate McMillan wants Oden to back off a little, and his reasons make sense. McMillan wants Oden to look more like this:The difference in these two pictures might not be as obvious as many would think, but most probably remember the difference: Karl Malone had tons of muscle. There was so much bulk on his upper body. He was huge. David Robinson, while big, was lithe and cut. He was scary, but not because of how big he was. He was scary because he was in better shape than anyone else on the court. With Oden having a surgically repaired knee, McMillan thinks it would be better if he took a little of that weight back off so as to not increase the risk of injury on the knee. I agree, but it's also really exciting to see how committed to everything Oden is. I mean, he's maintained the fat percentage even though he can't hardly work out, only lifting weights. This kid is willing to do everything he needs to do.

The main reason I bring this up is that I might have finally come around to the "blessing in disguise" take on the Oden injury. In addition to Aldrdge being the focus of the offense down low and having to deal with the focus of the defense and Roy dealing with greater pressure, this actually does give Oden a chance to build muscle and work on his game and do other things before facing NBA competition. It also builds even more his desire to dominate, since he has to just sit, watch, and wait for an entire season. Man, injuries really are my favorite.

Two quick posts in one night

I didn't plan to do this, but I'm listening to the Blazers game against the Pistons right now, and I couldn't help it. I'm also watching the game cast, and it's ahead of the radio broadcast. This made me think about switching over. The reason I don't? The Blazers are playing great basketball right now, and it is way too exciting listening to the crowd go nuts as the announcers tell me what I know already happened. Some quick in-game notes:

1. Jarrett Jack is fantastic for this team off the bench. It's great.


2. Przybilla is great. He's one-for-one from the floor and two-for-two from the line so far, to go with six rebounds and one block. Oh yeah, it's only the second quarter, with five minutes left. And he just set another huge pick. I love it.


3. Rasheed Wallace is great, and I still love him.

That's it, time to go home soon and watch HOUSE, M.D.

Really not much to say

Going into tonight's game, Portland has won three straight, including a win over the Mavericks. They're 3-3 in the first six games, and all six games have been against teams from the consensus best conference in the NBA, the southwest. One other thing to note, before ending this short paragraph of excitement, is that Dallas' only loss before we beat them was to J-Lew's Hawks. So the two youngest teams in the league have that going for them.

He's becoming my favorite NBA player

Thanks to TrueHoop for posting a link to this.

Mad Dog

When I saw the headlines today about Greg Maddux re-signing with the Padres, I had caught a quick case of nostalgia. Somehow I missed the "Padres" part in my initial reading of the headline, and I wondered if he would be heading back to Atlanta to re-join Smoltz and Glavine. And I was really excited for a few seconds. Then I realized that the story was about him signing the deal with San Diego, and then I realized that it's probably better to not try to just relive the '90s. But for that second, I was ecstatic about the thought of having those three guys in the rotation with Hudson next year, with all the young guys battling for the number five spot. Well, unless Hampton actually comes back. Then we could have the best rotation from the turn of the century.

---

I only have a few things to say about the Oregon game on Saturday. The first thing that struck me was how much better I thought we looked against Cal and USC than we did against ASU. Maybe that's not true, but that's how it looked to me. The second thing that struck me was how dominant our offense was when we got into a rhythm. That offense looked unstoppable when things were going right. Sure, most teams would probably say that. But it reminded me of the Seahawks attack in 2005, back when Tobeck, Hutch, and Walter Jones just decimated defenses and Alexander was able to run all over them. Of course, that opened things up for the passing attack. That was exactly what it felt like watching Dixon and Stewart march all over the Sun Devils on Saturday. The last thing that struck me was how truly annoying LA fans are. I was watching the game at a sports bar here in Long Beach, and it was excruciating. The USC fans were really obnoxious as they watched the Trojans steam roll Oregon State. It made me wish even more that I was either at Autzen, with my family, or watching anywhere else in the world.

I don't think those things actually struck me in that order, I just listed them in order of importance.

Game two wasn't as good

I know we didn't win that first game against San Antonio, but we played really well. There were good signs not only for next season, but for the rest of this one. Something happened between Tuesday night and Friday night. What it looked like was that Portland forgot how to play basketball in those intervening days. I listened to part of the game last night, and watched most of the ESPN gamecast too. I summed the game up for my brother almost the same way Dave at Blazer's Edge summed it up. I said this to Stephen: we were terrible, but three individual players did really well. Brandon Roy, James Jones, and Sergio Rodriguez were all pretty good. Unfortunately, that's a pretty low percentage of the people on the team. Especially since only one of those guys is a key cog in our attack right now.

Having said that, Sergio's performance is the encouraging thing for the future. Sergio played only 12 minutes, but he had eight points on 3-5 shooting, two rebounds, two assists, and one turnover. He hit one of his two three point attempts, and provided a great spark – as always.

Martell Webster actually had another decent game, which is pretty good. And Travis Outlaw was okay. So having those three young guys do well is a good sign for the future. But again, that future is hard to look at as we lose by twenty to the Hornets. Ugh.

---

In better news, the Ducks take on the Sun Devils today, and that is exciting. There's a nice little story about my friend Scott's older brother Brett, the assistant equipment manager for the University of Oregon, in the hometown paper. This week was also the first time in a while that I got to see a lot of great coverage of the Oregon team in national publications. I received my Sports Illustrated and ESPN the magazine with articles about Ducks in them. Plus, ESPN had stories about Oregon all over their website. Try this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. That's six different stories plugging the Ducks on the ESPN site. Pretty impressive.

How could I have forgotten?

Umm, I just watched the video that sits below this text. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, and I think people around me thought I was a little loopy because I was giggling like a little kid who has heard the best poop joke ever. Watch the video, then keep reading.


Somehow, as soon as Greg went down I forgot that he was on the team. In fact, somehow my mind just latched onto Taurean Green and Josh McRoberts as our only rookies this year. And technically they are. In my head I keep thinking about the value that we got out of the draft, because our two late picks are guys that should end up contributing at some point, even if that contribution is just making the team better by working hard in practice this year. But those aren't the only two guys we got in the draft. Nope. We also drafted Oden and Rudy Fernandez. Well, we actually traded for the rights to Fernandez, but I'm still considering that a draft pick. I don't know how many people remember this post, but I'll reference myself for fun:

Now for the reality check: as much as I was thinking about winning every game while reading the various accounts of the game, there's no way we'll even win more than 35 games this year. So that's what I want, along with some payback from the bouncing balls for us getting the fourth pick last year. Then we can still draft Oden and build on what happens this year...[then I put pictures up of what I thought would be the starting line up of the 2009 NBA champion Blazers]...
PG Sergio Rodriguez
SG Brandon Roy
SF Martell Webster
PF Zach Randolph
C Greg Oden

Once again I'm impressed with how well I predicted the season and the lottery on the opening day of the season last year. What I'm more impressed by, though, is that at the time I had no idea how good LaMarcus would be, and how soon he would be that good. I was always a big advocate for Randolph, especially because of the stories about how hard he worked. Henry Abbott of TrueHoop said this in June:

Scottie Pippen once told me that Randolph works harder than any teammate he has ever had.

I mean, that makes Zach a harder worker than, umm, Michael Jordan, right? At least in Scottie's opinion? Well, Nate McMillan was quoted in an article last week by Jason Quick of the Oregonian. Here's the whole section from Quick:

"I've never seen a starter in this league work like he does," McMillan said after a recent practice. "And it's every day. I mean look..."

McMillan pointed to Aldridge, who was shooting on the far side of the practice court, shirtless, his sweat-soaked jersey off to the side.

In that same article Quick included this piece:

And Bobby Medina, who is entering his 11th season as the Blazers' strength and conditioning coach, said Aldridge's work ethic in the weight room reminds him of former Blazers great Scottie Pippen, whose maniacal workout regime is legendary.

Let me use some logic here that I've been teaching my geometry students. If Scottie, who was known for how hard he worked, said that Zach worked harder than any teammate he'd ever had, and then Nate McMillan, who played in the NBA for a while and has coached a few years, said that he's never seen a starter in this league work like he does, then by the transitive property, McMillan must be suggesting that LaMarcus also works harder than a certain MJ. Throw in the fact that Medina compared LaMarcus' habits to Scottie, whose original statement set the table for this argument, and I think we can at least be certain that Aldridge is going to continue improving for a while.

Alright, I think that took me off subject for a second, so let's come back: I've been so focused on Aldridge, Przybilla, Roy, and Webster, that I nearly put Oden and Fernandez completely out of my mind. In that clip above this text we see Aldridge and Oden finding each other with really good passes. Sure, they don't finish very many of them. And sure, it was in summer league. But it was also within the first month that the two had played together. They were already playing like that and they'd only been together for less than a month. The reason that's really scary? The way the Blazers played against San Antonio on Tuesday and all the news from camp and the preseason have allowed me to focus on the team this year, instead of what they'll be when Oden gets back. That reminder of what they looked like with the two bigs together for just a second is the glimpse I need to get me absolutely excited again about next year. Regardless of a new draft pick, or some trade, or even another free agent signing, next year should bring the two best picks from this year's draft to the team. If Webster plays like this all season, Outlaw continues to be a great sixth man, Przybilla is consistent with his resurgence, and the expected guys step into the roles we envision for them next year, we only have one question mark in our nine man rotation next year. Seriously. We have a front court that includes Webster, Aldridge, and Oden in the starting unit, with Outlaw and Przybilla supplying relief off the bench. We have a great Ginobili-like sixth man in Rudy Fernandez, spelling our team leader SG/PG Brandon Roy. The only real question is who starts at point guard, and if it's Roy, then who ends up as the combo guard giving breaks to Roy and Fernandez. But PG is the position we still have perhaps the most potential. Now do you understand why I'm giddy? This team will surprise people for some wins this year. But next year? We won't surprise anyone, we'll just beat them anyway.

I just nearly giggled to myself again, that's how exciting this is.

If I end up back in Oregon anytime soon because I get sick of LA or teaching down here is just too much, I plan on making as many Blazer games as possible. In fact, if I end up in Portland, I'm going to get season tickets. Being there for the dynasty will be even more fun than writing about it is now. And writing about it now is pretty fun. I can't wait...fortunately, while I have to wait for that, I don't have to wait to see the NBA's youngest team come out hard against every team this year.

I'll end with a quote from the Basketball Jones podcast yesterday, as they spent most of the time they were talking about the Blazers/Spurs game focusing on Portland:

SKEETS-The Blazer specifically – you can really tell that this team had been practicing and playing together all throughout the summer.
MELAS-Hell of a point Skeeter, hell of a point.
SKEETS-Could you not?
MELAS-When did they get into Portland? They got altogether earliest of any team in the league, right?
SKEETS-Maybe May.
MELAS-Yeah, May. Early June. It was frickin' early.
SKEETS-It was early. It was early.
MELAS-And they looked frickin' good.
SKEETS-Yeah.

They go on about Portland for a while longer.It's nice to have NBA people talking about the team again because of good basketball reasons. Oh it's nice.

A bunch of grading

This morning I took my brother to LAX at four o'clock. Our dad was working on the siding of their new house last week and went down with the ladder. When he landed his elbow was wrenched with the weight of his fall and tore his rotator cuff. Because of that, and because they're hoping to get the house done by Thanksgiving time, they bought Stephen a ticket and he flew up there today. He'll be there for about a month. After I dropped him off I went to the school, but since I didn't feel very well and had a ton of stuff I needed to get done, I set my room up for the day and called in for a sub. So far today I've finished a lot of what I needed to do, but not all of it. Hopefully in the next hour I can get more done while watching football before Chuck comes on.

I was really sad to see my brother go this morning, for these reasons:

1. Even though he isn't around that much down here, what with not having a job yet to solidify his schedule and his girlfriend and best friends living a decent distance away from us, I'm still going to miss him while he's completelygone for a while.


2. I envy him for getting to go back up to Oregon, even if it is to work on the house.


3. I might have been a little sad just because it was so early in the morning.

---

Tomorrow is opening day in the NBA, and I am really excited about the Blazers-Spurs game. I don't want to let myself get too excited, but I do think that a lot of people will be surprised by the Blazers this year. I can't wait for that.

De-Oderant.

Once again, I don't think that preseason really means much. Tonight Portland played a bad team that didn't have it's best – or at least, most hyped – player. But I still take several things from the game, judging by the box score and the play-by-play.

1. LaMarcus is who we thought he was. This kid is a stud. 31 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists, with only one turnover and one foul. He did that on 12-19 shooting from the field, and 7-9 shooting from the line. It doesn't matter that he did it against a terrible team in the preseason, he's been doing it for a while. He's the real deal.


2. Brandon Roy is still rusty, missing half of his free throws. But he showed all of the things that make me compare his intensity and clutch-ness to his airness. This is what Roy did in the last six minutes:
   
   
   1. He made an 8-foot jumper to get the game within four at 92-88.
   2. Then he made a layup to put it at 92-90.
   3. Then he made a layup after a Sonics bucket to put the score at 94-92. After another made shot by Seattle, he hit a 12 footer to make it 96-94.
   4. After the Sonics got one free throw, he made two clutch free throws to bring Portland within one at 97-96.
   5. Then he hit an open Martell Webster to get the assist and tie the game after another Seattle score. That tied the game, and after that happened the Blazers never trailed again.
   6. He got another assist by giving the ball to Aldridge for a dunk, putting Portland ahead 103-101.
   7. He then missed the second of two free throws, missed the shot after Aldridge passed him the ball, rebounded his own miss, and drew another foul. He missed the first one, but made the second. Even when he wasn't clutch, he was still making clutch plays.
   8. He then missed an 11-footer that would have put Portland up by four, got his own rebound, and then passed it out to Webster for another assist as Webster drilled another three.
   9. He then made another layup to keep Portland's lead 110-105. The last point was made by Steve Blake when he made only one free throw.
   
   I love Brandon Roy.


3. Martell Webster is still bringing it. He had 19 points, once again shooting over 50% from the field and from downtown, hitting three of five. He only got two rebounds, which is disappointing, but he did have three steals. I like him as the starter at SF this year.


4. Travis Outlaw did exactly what I want him to do off the bench. He played 25 minutes, had 13 points on only nine shots (which is a much better number than what he usually puts up). He had five rebounds, two steals, two blocks, and no turnovers. If these two guys can man the starter and sixth man roles like this during the season, the team looks good.


5. The worst note from the game is that only one point guard seemed to do well in the game. That one? Sergio Rodriguez. He had five points on two of four shooting (1-1 from three), three rebounds, two assists, and no turnovers. He did that in only twelve minutes. It's still disappointing that JJ and Steve Blake were less than stellar, but I love Sergio and I'm happy he did well.

Again, I know that this was only preseason. It's still nice to see my guys doing this well, though.

(The title of this post was one I came up with before we won the draft lottery, as I was considering the options that weren't Oden or Durant. De-Oderant. I didn't think I would get to use the term again once we won the draft lottery. Too bad I was able to use it because neither of them played in this preseason game, but I'm glad I got to use it anyway.)

With guns put back away...

Today I had a meeting with the math coach and the principal to talk about my professional development goals for the year. It was a really good chance to tell them how I was feeling. Of course, in the midst of that I found out that the gate to the fields would have gotten me into my room after all, so that I could have gotten all that work done on Saturday morning. Yeah, I wasn't too happy to find that out. Even though that's true, the weekend was still really nice, mainly because I didn't feel guilt about not doing any work over the weekend, since I thought it wasn't my fault.

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I've never been more excited for college football than for the NFL. Ever. Not even during seasons when the Ducks were okay and the Seahawks were terrible. But this year, with the combination of Oregon being amazing and Seattle being not-so-amazing and the absolute craziness of the college season, I've found myself much more interested in the college game. It could have a little to do with how poorly my three fantasy teams are performing as well, but I think the competitiveness in college this year has more to do with it. Oh yeah, and cheering for the best offense in the country. I mean, Oregon rushed for 465 rushing yards and 39 first downs against the Huskies in Seattle on Saturday. They ran the ball 62 times, and 25 of those runs were for first downs. They attempted 30 passes, and completed 14 of those for first downs. They averaged 7.5 yards per rush as a team. Even though Washington is bad, that's just amazing. It reminds me of what the Seahawks did in 2005 when the offensive line made defenses give them the entire field. And that's what's been said about Oregon's performance: the line was unstoppable, which means that it doesn't matter what guy is running behind them. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have one of the best running backs in the country and a sneaky Heisman candidate at quarterback behind them. In fact, if Dixon had four more yards passing, one more yard rushing, and not thrown a Hail Mary interception at the end of the first half, he's looking at a game with 200 yards passing, 100 yards rushing, a better than 60% completion rate, and two total touchdowns – one in the air and one on the ground. Those are great numbers. We have USC and ASU at home in the next two weeks, and if we can keep the offense rolling and get the defense back to where it had been the last few weeks, we should be looking at the final three weeks beginning to think about BCS championship plans. Crazy. Oh yeah, and the Oregon basketball team should be coming back stronger this year than they were last year. It's a good time to be a Duck.

After four pre-season games

As most everyone says, the pre-season means very little. Very little. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't continue to use it to build my ridiculous dreams of what the Blazers might be able to do this season. As much as the pre-season doesn't mean much, there are still quite a few signs of great improvement for the upcoming season.

1. In four games Martell Webster is averaging 19 ppg, 4.25 rpg, 1.5 apg, 1 spg, 0 bpg, and 1 topg in 32.5 mpg. Those are pretty good numbers, especially because one of the knocks on his game is that he's had a hard time just getting into the flow of the game. A lot of the comments abut his performances have said that he's been doing a great job of getting involved whether he has the ball or not.


2. In four games Travis Outlaw is averaging 13.25 ppg, 5.25 rpg, 1.25 apg, 1 spg, 1 bpg, and 1 topg in 29.25 mpg. Those numbers aren't too bad either.


3. Those last two points lead to this one: the SF battle, which was supposed to be a three man battle that many thought would produce no one really good, has turned out to be the best for both young guys. If we can get production even close to that from these two guys in the regular season, things will be fantastic. I mean, between the two, if I adjust for the rigors of the regular season, I suspect that the SF position could give us these numbers: 28 ppg, 8 rpg, 2 apg, 1.5 spg, 0.8 bpg, 2.5 topg. That's pretty good production from our small forward position, and that's with me adjusting things for declining production. But if things work out the way they should, Roy and Aldridge will actually open the offense up so that the small forward can contribute even more in the offense. So that's encouraging.


4. The PG battle has also been more than healthy. In four games Jarrett Jack is averaging 10.25 ppg, 1.25 rpg, 4.25 apg, 0.5 spg, and 2.25 topg in 25.25 mpg during four games. In three games Steve Blake is averaging 7.67 ppg, 3.67 rpg, 3.67 apg, 0.33 spg, and 2.67 topg in 23.67 mpg. In four games Sergio Rodriguez is averaging 4.5 ppg, 1.5 rpg, 4.75 apg, 1.25 spg, and 2 topg in 14.5 mpg. And in four games Taurean Green is averaging 7.75 ppg, 1.75 rpg, 2.5 apg, 0.25 spg, and 1.5 topg in 16 mpg. I didn't factor the field goal percentages into those stats, but regardless, that's a pretty good point guard battle and line up. Also, as Dave at Blazer's Edge pointed out, there are really two sets of point guards there: the duo of "true" point guards, Blake and Rodriguez, and the duo of "shooting" point guards, Jack and Green.


5. The two biggest question marks before Oden went down were PG and SF. Those two battles are going really well. But when the number one had surgery, the bigger question became center. Well, Joel Przybilla seems to be filling that nicely. His numbers, in four games, is averaging 2 ppg, 9.75 rpg, 1 bpg, 2 topg, and 3.25 fouls per game in 22.5 mpg. It would be nice if he were contributing more offense, but that's not too bad. His rebounds are fantastic. His blocks will improve with more minutes, his turnover numbers are pretty good, and his foul numbers are also better than they have been. Channing hasn't done too much to make the center situation seem great, but it's encouraging to see how well Przybilla is doing.

All of those things are great signs to me that the regular season will be better than most people think, especially if LaMarcus continues to do a great job and Roy gets back to form when the season starts. The offense has been firing on all cylinders, something no one really expected from a more up-tempo style with a core of young players. Anyway, that is one of the things keeping me going through the tough school year. Nine dears until the regular season starts.

With guns drawn

That's how the police would have approached me, apparently, had I tried to get into school this morning. The title of this post, I mean. That's what my colleague Mariano told me as I was talking with him in front of the school. I asked a secretary as I was leaving yesterday if I could get in this morning, and she said it would be open from eight until noon. Wrong. After she confirmed that, I left a bunch of things in my classroom that I was going to get done today. But instead they're just going to sit there until Monday morning, which is not good. That means I need to try to get to school even earlier on Monday than I normally would. Boo to that. So instead I took care of some car things this morning, specifically a long-overdue oil change. Now I'm catching up with a TV show that I think I'll like, Dirty Sexy Money. I've only seen part of the premiere, but it sounds pretty good.

Speaking of pretty good, last night I went to see The Darjeeling Limited with my roommate Eric and our friend Beau. A review of it in The District – Long Beach's weekly art/entertainment magazine – thought that it fell apart when the brothers got off the train. I disagree with that strongly. Once again it seemed to me that Wes Anderson does his best work when he is focusing on the most painful of human experiences. The rest of the time the movie was funny, but when the brothers were really confronted with tragedy and forced to look at their own lives and actions the movie got that much better. All the acting was really good, but I was especially pleased with Owen Wilson and Adrian Brody. Wilson was better than normal, and I think Brody showed me that he really is that good. I wasn't as happy when I walked out as I was at the end of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, I didn't think the whole movie was as insightful as The Royal Tenenbaums, probably my favorite Anderson movie, and I didn't think it was as funny as Rushmore or Bottle Rocket. But it might have done the job of combining those things that a fifth movie from an idiosyncratic director should.

Isn't stress fun?

Monthly. That is now the goal for the updates on this blog, although it will probably be a little better since the NBA season is nearly here. I listened to part of the pre-season game last night between the Blazers and Clippers. It was great to see the final lines, and even fun to hear what was happening for a while. I really don't think the game means much, but it was still nice. There are lots of websites with good coverage of the game, and I don't have the energy to try to do any better. Dave at Blazer's Edge has done a great job of listing these articles, so check that out if you want to read the good coverage. The important little comment I have is that we did a good job of punishing a team missing most of their best players, but we did so while missing our best player and another that most of us think will be one of our best players, if he isn't already. So that's important.

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School is rough. I'm still trying to figure out how to be a "disciplinarian," which is getting in the way of trying to figure out how to be a better teacher. The most pressing issues are probably related to making sure that my students understand what's going on despite difficulties with English, since that seems to be one of the main problems. The other problem that consumes me, but that I haven't done much about yet, is still figuring out how to make my lessons much more engaging so that the students who are disruptive will find less reason to act that way. I'm trying a lesson tomorrow that uses ads to teach logic and reasoning. We'll see how that goes. I didn't go today because of feeling pretty bad and needing to catch up with stuff. That's the second straight Thursday I've missed at school, and I don't like that one bit. Hopefully my body starts healing soon, and then I won't feel the need to miss school.

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I went in to the doctor last week to get the tingling checked out, and ended up with several x-rays and two different MRIs. Then they called me on Saturday and had me come back in on Monday to take a few more pictures. Since then I haven't heard anything though, so I'm not sure what's going on with my body still. I do need to schedule my physical therapy, which the doctor prescribed before the extra shots were taken on Monday. So that's what's going on right now. More to come in a month probably.

Straight outta Compton

I haven't written anything on this blog in a long time. Wait, let me see that better: I haven't written anything in a long time. I feel like the teaching is taking away some of my mental acumen. I do like my kids, but some of the cultural things are sooo hard to overcome. For instance: it has always been the case, even when teaching, that I need between 33 and 74 apologies per day. I just say things that are wrong or come out wrong or are heard wrong. In many places this is no big deal. But for most of the students I teach, a lot of their identity is wrapped up in not letting anyone say something to them or do something to them to hurt their image. So if they even think that I've done something to insult them, it is really hard to come back. Really hard.

Another thing that seems cultural: understanding what types of questions are appropriate to ask a teacher in class and what types are not. All students everywhere push the boundaries, but a lot of these students haven't learned what those boundaries are supposed to be. Hear me well on this: when I say "cultural" I'm not referring to race or ethnicity, rather the city/street culture that exists in south central LA. As I've said, I really like my students, but being raised in multiple rural towns in Oregon – as much as I don't like to admit that Roseburg is rural – and going to college at Wheaton didn't exactly prepare me to interact daily with kids from Compton.

Because of some of the differences, and because I'm getting walked all over, I'm instituting some new rules and procedures next week. I hate doing it, but it really does have to be done. I also realized that I need to put more effort into my lessons. My professors at Oregon espoused the belief that 99% of class management can be taken care of by having engaging lessons, and I still believe that's true. So it feels a bit like a cop-out to be planning to put in more rules instead of just making sure that my class sessions are engaging for all students. The problem is that so many students are keeping class sessions from happening the way they should that I can't tell yet how engaging my lessons are. And that's why I have to give in and start focusing on classroom management techniques for a little while. I give a hearty "boo" to that, but it's happening nonetheless.

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One thing that is always enjoyable is answering questions about the Blazers poster/pennant/figurine in my room. A lot of the students think that Portland is just terrible, and they always have been. It's funny for me to hear that perspective, so I've been sharing with them about the 1977 team and the teams from the early '90s with Clyde and the gang. The figurine I have on my desk is actually Drexler, and I won it last year in the Blazer's Edge contest by scoring exactly 22 in my picks for one of the games. (Thanks Dave.) Most of the students don't really care, with just a few mentioning how good Kobe is or something like that. But a girl in my first period class mentioned the other day how excited she was for training camp to start soon. I couldn't even be mad she meant Lakers training camp, because it was so nice to have someone in the room sharing my excitement for the imminent NBA season.

And I really can't wait for the season. I mentioned this to a few friends already, but after overcoming my grief about Oden's surgery, I'm even more excited about what the Blazers might do this year than I was before. On Mike Barrett's blog today he posted the interviews he did with various players and members of the management last night at the organization's annual company picnic. Listening to all the things the various interviewees had to say made me giddy. James Jones said some things about how talented this team is and how unselfish they are as a group. This from a guy who played in Phoenix with Steve Nash for a few years. Jones knows unselfish, and he knows talent. Sure, his opinion is biased toward his new teammates, but he didn't have to say something so glowing. Players put things in less glowing terms quite often. To hear LaMarcus talk was great too. And Przybilla, with his emphasis on how hard he knew he needed to work this off season, was one of my favorite interviews. It's all really good, so if you have the time and want to join me in some excitement about the upcoming NBA season, give them a listen. Barrett is always good about getting stuff like that up for people to check out. I'm still waiting for Casey to put the up the Quick Chat on Oregonlive, since I couldn't listen to it live the other night. That one is usually really insightful too, since Quick is a great beat writer and keeps his pulse on the team really well. I can't wait to get some sort of hook-up that gets me into a Blazer/Laker game this season at the Staple's Center, just so I can be there when Portland surprises the LA – well, faithful isn't the right word – celebrities by showing how good they are without the best pure center to come into the league since that big guy that used to play down here in purple and gold.

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Last note: I had a chance to go with a colleague of mine to the UCLA-Washington game tomorrow night at the Rose Bowl, but I'm going to my friend Michelle's soccer game instead. I'll have other opportunities for UCLA games, and I wanted to see the soccer game pretty badly. But it still took a little while for me to decide to stick with my original plan, since I haven't been to the Rose Bowl since Oregon's loss to Penn State in 1995. Enough for now. I'm going to go get some ice cream from Cold Stone, maybe, and then head back to the house. Hopefully the quantity of words in this post makes up a little for the lack of posts recently.

By the way, if you were wondering who else other than Ki-Jana Carter played for that Penn State team, let me remind you: Kerry Collins was the starting quarterback, Bobby Engram (yes, that Bobby Engram) was the number one receiver, Kyle Brady was the starting tight end, and I'm sure several good linebackers. By the way, Collins won the Maxwell and Davey O'Brien awards that year, finished fourth in Heisman voting (where Carter finished second to Rashan Salaam), but was not the best quarterback in the game. Danny O'Neil from Oregon was player of the game in a losing effort and set Rose Bowl records with most passes completed (41), most attempts (61), most yardage (465), most plays (74) and total offense (456). I remember how awesome he was live, and that was a big deal for a little kid watching his team face the Nittany Lions in the Granddaddy of them all. Oh yeah, and Joe-Pa won FWAA coach of the year honors that season, but Rich Brooks – yes, that Rich Brooks – won the Bear Bryant award for Oregon in his last season before going to coach the Los Angeles Rams.

A few videos by way of other blogs

This is crazy.


I guess Bargnani is really good. Watch this pass a few times. He's really good. It looks like he might have a little Sabonis to him.

USA basketball is good again, but once they made everyone feel really terrible. Especially a certain Michael Jordan. That guy could play.