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| Saturday, December 27, 2008 |
| Mandatory New Years' Resolution Post |
Will Take Work on a Daily Basis
- Finish organizing my photo collection (~17,000 photos). Get at least 1/4 of the way through tagging, rating, and eliminating duplicates.
- Get a real start on organizing my old design/writing work files.
- Create a good organizational system for ITP work files.
- Rate 40 days worth of music.
- Average one blog post every 3 days.
- Stay on-budget every month.
- Make some babies~!
- Use my 'power tower' (ugh hate the name) Christmas gift. I have yet to determine actual numbered goals. Get more sexy! This involves about 45 minutes of workout per day in 10, 10, and 25 minute sections.
- Eat well (almost no corn syrum, limited sweets, good snacks like carrots and nuts, more but smaller meals, drinking 2.5 litres of water a day).
- Take 4,000 photographs, including 400 5-star photos. Post the best to Facebook/Flickr.
- Consistently shoot 80% on freethrows.
Will Take Work on a Weekly Basis
- Create a home inventory for insurance purposes, including all photos, reciepts and serial numbers.
- Finish Ignition. This means professionally mastered and with a new website to promote it.
- Start re-learning piano and/or theory (haven't set up specific goals for this yet).
- Go on at least 25 hikes or other outdoor excursions.
- Consistently (at least 2x a month) do little things for my wife that would make her want to date me if we weren't married.
- Stay connected to friends via Facebook. Use it to get together with friends while we're still young and sexy.
- Get a good, highly-productive routine going at work that encourages me to take carpal-tunnel saving breaks and keeps me alert through the day (this relates to the eating and exercising).
Will Take Work on a Monthly Basis
- Begin to learn PHP in depth, preferably through classes that work pays for...
- Set up a long series of doctor's appointments to check for just about everything one can be checked for, to deal with any problems I might have before they're problems. That is - abuse the fact that I have a job with semi-decent medical care.
- Work on some way of respectfully resolving some core differences of belief between me and the in-laws.
- Get out of town 8 times (including at least 5 to family).
- Read a book a month.
- Reaquaint myself with all the outdoors knowledge I had as a Boy Scout.
- Learn to properly tune up my car.
One-Time Events:
Winter:
- Pay taxes by Valentine's Day.
- Visit my co-workers in San Francisco (I work from home 700 miles away and have yet to meet them).
- Use our new toboggan.
Spring:
- For the Prius: Replace scratched rear turn signal assembly.
- Redo my homepage/portfolio again in such a way that it all actually works.
- Create "A Ninja Wedding"
- Create the Impulse Nine TF2 frag video
Summer:
- Get to a water park.
- Write a short (20-page) religous-political treatise.
VW Work:
- January: Scrape off all the tar board from the floors and put down rust-preventing primer. Install aluminum side panels.
- February: Install floor drains. Put down floor lining. Install side brush bars. Install larger brake fluid reservoir.
- March: Create map pocket and cup holder in side panels. Install fire extinguisher holder.
- April: Install Dynamat (weather permitting).
- May: Buffer time.
- June: Begin working with simple fiberglassing by making rear trunk covers.
- July: Replace all the wiring with Jordan, adding circuits for all the new stuff to be installed later. Add gravel guards. Replace turn signal. Install air horn.
- August: Powdercoat rims, bumpers, brush bars, gravel guards, and door panels.
- September: Buffer time.
- October: Replace rims and tires. Raise rear suspension.
- November: Install new headlight system.
- December: Replace door and window rubber.
Labels: basketball, doctor, exercise, food, hiking, holidays, Internet, Leelu, money, mp3, music, organization, photography, Rachel, resolutions, team fortress 2, To-Do, work, Yoshimi |
posted by Steve @ 9:38 PM  |
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| Saturday, November 22, 2008 |
| Fighting Entropy |
Rachel and I moved into our current place about a year and a half ago; Previously I hadn’t managed to keep a place for more than a year. So for the first time in a decade, I've been living in the same place long enough that I actually have to fix things I've installed – and dust!
I've never really had to worry about that before. Whatever arrangements Rachel and I had, it lasted at least the six months between when I did it and when I moved.
I put up some lattices by the basketball hoop to keep the basketball out of the street. I put up some Christmas lights on a light detector to light our side path at night (it’s completely dark otherwise, and we never use the front door). Of course, the majority of the work we’ve done has held up and works fine… but I can’t help but be surprised and amused that I’m a bit excited at the notion that I have to clean up after myseslf.Labels: basketball, house, work |
| posted by Steve @ 6:08 PM |
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| Friday, October 03, 2008 |
| Phoenix Suns Scrim '08 |
As long as Steve Kerr is the GM of the Phoenix Suns, the team plays a public scrimmage here in Tucson at the U of Arizona (Kerr is an alumni). I live in Tucson. How convenient.
I got there quite early and got a seat in the third row (which is just elevated enough to be a better spot for photos than the front row). I may consider seeing if I can sit in the front on the ends of the court next time - it's not the best place to see the strategy and the game, but it's a great spot for photography.
From a fans' perspective, the most interesting thing was watching the (many) new guys on the squad. Several are there just for training camp, but it served as a good introduction since I haven't been following the various transaction news this summer and hadn't really heard or seen anything about these guys.
 One nice thing about sitting so close to the action is that I got a chance to see a lot of the equipment that they use to play music, to see the announcers, and generally see how the stuff worked. One bit of software I didn't expect to see controlling the music during the game: Winamp. Really.
There is another benefit to being near the press side - there is a mat that players will periodically wipe off their shoes with before coming into a game, so I got to see a lot of the players come up very close and get some decent shots of them. Being on the bench side also allowed me to see a lot of the coaching being done.
Robin Lopez is a  very big dude, but he seemed to be enjoying himself and in particular seemed very interested in learning from coaches and other players.
 Labels: basketball, Suns, University of Arizona |
| posted by Steve @ 11:43 PM |
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| Wednesday, April 30, 2008 |
| A Relationship Complicated by Heartbreak |
The Phoenix Suns have become one of the best first-round exit playoff teams in NBA history, and notched yet another 'great' series (along with many others that were usually lost), and afterwards my wife and I sat down and had a talk about the Suns. In particular, she pointed out that during the playoffs she would constantly ask her co-workers how the Suns were doing on a game day - not because she especially cared about the Suns (she likes 'em fine but not the way we do), but because she knew that when the Suns lost big games, she had to go home after work and do some psychological damage control on her pissed/frustrated husband.
Put it this way: I have drunk alcohol to comfort myself exactly twice: once because I was wrongly fired from a good teaching job out of malice, and once just after Game 1 of this playoff series, which was a thriller, but ultimately was a loss.
This is no way to treat your wife, or yourself, and it needed to change.
I've determined that in order to be a Suns fan, you have to have a bit of emotional distance from this. This is true of anything that one can be emotionally invested in, but can't do much if anything to actually control: politics, pro sports (i.e., not ones that you're actually playing in), the accomplishments of others, etc.
Games can be exciting, but I have to learn to let it just wash away, after every disappointment. I'm 27 and I've been following this franchise since I was seven or so (1987) - and at this pace I'll have ulcers by the time I'm 30.
The truly maddening thing about the Phoenix Suns are always an A-minus team. They're consistently an exciting, playoff-bound team with realistic hopes for a title. In fact, the Suns have the 4th-best all-time winning percentage of all active teams:
- Los Angeles Lakers (.618)
- San Antonio Spurs (.595)
- Boston Celtics (.587)
- Phoenix Suns (.556)
Of course, there are 34 championships between those four teams in 62 years - a little over half - and none of them belong to the Suns. I suspect that the Spurs very recently overtook the Celtics because the Celtics just plain sucked for about the last 10 years until Kevin Garnett's arrival this year. The Suns hold the record for most playoff appearances without a championship (26 of 40 seasons). In fact, they're in the sixth place (of 30+ teams) for how often they're in the playoffs, and the newest team on the list:
- Lakers 54/60 (90%)
- Sixers 44/59 (75%)
- Celtics 45/62 (72%)
- Spurs 28/41 (68%)
- Pistons 40/60 (66%)
- Suns 26/40 (65%)
The lack of an NBA salary cap for a long time is a big reason that the teams from L.A., Philadelphia, Boston, and Detroit have such high percentages. San Antonio and Phoenix were born within a year of each other and went through similar growing pains to post very similar winning records, except of course that San Antonio is a bunch of assholes. (I'm bitter, but I'm not alone.)
Although my wife doesn't agree, I argue that the "A-minus" syndrome is actually much worse than being a Chicago Cubs or Arizona Cardinals fan. With those teams, any foray into the playoffs (if they make it into the playoffs at all) is a huge and great thing. Hope rises for a championship, certainly, but to an extent you can be happy just knowing they got as far as they did. Suns fans can't take much satisfaction in being a playoff team because they're always a playoff team. They've missed the playoffs twice in the last twenty years. Even the years they they were out, they weren't terrible (36-46 and 29-53, the former record being good enough for this year's Eastern playoffs). For fans of perenially mediocre teams, there's also the added bonus of having a community of loser-lovers that has grown up around the team. With the Suns, every year has high expectations. It's emotionally untenable.
That's not to say the Suns haven't done me some good, in the NBA, in the Phoenix community, for basketball in general, and even for me personally.
- I have learned to evaluate my own likes and dislikes through this team. In the mid-nineties, I had a huge falling-out with someone who was a Bulls fan. He liked Chicago because he was from Chicago. I decided that was a stupid reason to like a team: what if everyone on that team was a jerk? I thought about this for years; pondered the nature of how where you were born can influence your behavior and how stupid that is. I decided I like the Suns because they're a class act. Not only the current team, but historically the Suns have valued good people, who care about their communities, and even the rebels - Barkley, Shaq - were only bad boys because of their passion and the game. Barkley was acutely aware of it: "I am not a role model." You'll never find a Dumas or a Bowen on the Suns for long, if at all.
- The Suns inspired me to play basketball once during high school, and now again in my adult life. Steve Nash in particular has inspired my current run, knowing that he has roughly the same body type as I do, but has worked on his body and his skills with maniacal intensity. His work ethic inspires me, in practicing my free throws, and also in my music and work.
- I suspect Suns' Charities is one of the reasons the NBA Cares came about in 2005. I don't know if the Suns organization was the first NBA franchise to make charity an integral part of its existence, but I do know it was a good model for the rest of the league to follow when it wanted to clean up its image. Kevin Johnson and A.C. Green, in particular, come to mind as extraordinarily community-minded people. Both are still doing community work and I heard Johnson is even running for mayor in his hometown.
- The Suns have been a point-guard franchise for about twenty years, now. We've had roughly half of the truly great point guards in the last twenty years on our team at some point or another: Kevin Johnson, Jason Kidd, Stephon Marbury (in his prime), Steve Nash, Joe Johnson, Dennis Johnson, and Sam Cassell have all been Suns. I'm a big believer that the game of basketball is best when it is about movement and flow. I believe in my core that things like hack-a-Shaq, intentional fouls, dominant centers, and 70-point games are antithetical to what Naismith wanted: an athletic, skill-based game.
- As a web guru, I appreciate the absolutely ludicrous amount of work that the Suns put into their media. They post thousands of hours of video on their site, have players and staff blog occasionally, and even created a MySpace-like fan community site called Planet Orange. That willingness to explore technology - and spend money on it - in the name of the fan community is impressive.
Ultimately, I'm glad to be a Suns fan. It's a relationship complicated by heartbreak and disappointment but made healthy by the sense that the organization keeps its head up. It continues to have faith in a pure vision of what basketball is and should be; it has faith in its community and despite the escalating cost of games and inaccessibility of the players, makes real efforts to connect to its community.
They have strength of conviction in their work and in what is right; in small ways, through that, so do I.Labels: basketball, community, heroes, Internet, life, sports, Suns, zen |
| posted by Steve @ 4:09 PM |
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| Saturday, April 19, 2008 |
| Potential Awesome |
The Phoenix Suns' championship run begins in a few hours. Barack Obama has his shot at sewing up the Democratic nomination in the next few weeks. I'll be talking to my landlord about possibly setting up a rent-to-own for my first home. I'll be bringing my car back home and driving my own car for the first time since October, in preparation for the final stages of its restoration.
There is so much potential for joy in my life in May, it's ridiculous, and I have almost no control over any of it.Labels: basketball, cars, house, Leelu, Obama, playoffs, Suns, Volkswagen |
| posted by Steve @ 9:54 AM |
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| Thursday, April 03, 2008 |
| The NBA is crazy |
I am pretty pessimistic about the Suns' usual treatment by the referees, especially during the playoffs. In general, I gauge exactly how bad calls were by how reporters not named Coro react to the game (although Coro often agrees with his fellow press; we're lucky to have him). TrueHoop is epecially good about this. A few things about the Denver game were mentioned around the press:
TrueHoop on the Nuggets game:
This one was also high-scoring like the game the night before, but it wasn't as fun. Lots of referee intervention including an apparent ejection for laughing, phantom fouls on both teams, missed calls, and some sad missed Shaquille O'Neal free throws On Dan D'Antoni's first-ever technical (from Coro):
When Suns assistant Dan D'Antoni got his first technical foul in three NBA seasons Monday, official Joey Crawford told the scorer, "Technical foul on (Mike) D'Antoni's brother, whatever his name is." He already has more than assistant Phil Weber, who has yet to get one in nine years on the bench. The East Valley Tribune has also noticed:
Complaining about a string of no-calls on Leandro Barbosa drives to the basket with referee Monty McCutchen near the end of the third, Dan D’Antoni tried to continue the conversation with official Zach Zarba when the third quarter ended — only to be hit with a technical foul by McCutchen from about 60 feet away.
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Gordan Giricek said all he was doing was trying to stop a three-point play. Amaré Stoudemire waved his hands in disgust at a call. Raja Bell swears he was just laughing. But it all added up to four more technical fouls for the Suns in Tuesday’s 126-120 loss to the Denver Nuggets, pushing their total to 11 in just the last three games. “It’s been a pretty expensive week,” center Brian Skinner joked. Make that an expensive six weeks. In the 23 games since Shaquille O’Neal joined the team, Phoenix has been “teed up” 26 times. That's averaging more than one a game. You know... it's not like we have Ron Artest (assault) or Bruce Bowen (kicking) or Ginobili (whining) or 'Sheed (sheer intensity) on our team.
Stoudemire is more aware than most of not keeping your cool & staying on the bench means.
Nash is as gentlemanly as you can get.
Giri? Seriously?
Dan D'Antoni? Really?
GRANT FRIGGIN' HILL?
Raja also did point out that the last time an official t'd someone up for laughing, he was suspended. Odds of that?
I don't like the idea of whining about refereeing in general, but it's to the point where I think even the relatively neutral national media is starting to wonder what is going on. I'm ardently anti-conspiracy; I am pretty sure this is a problem of perception that the Suns are a 'soft' team.
Isn't it about time Dwayne Wade got the same leniency that Pat Burke would?
Finally, it should be noted that I'm a bit amazed and pleased that Amare suddenly is in the referee's "OK" book. You don't shoot 20 free throws if the ref hates you. The other shoe should drop around the first round, I bet.
Of course, the Suns aren't the only team getting screwed by uneven or indefensible calls. The Toronto Raptors got screwed in spectacular fashion by the refs:
ESPN replay
They don't really go into the details, but here's what happened: Toronto had the ball with 0.5 seconds left on their side of the court. T.J. Ford got a beautiful alley-oop to win the game, but it was called off.
The reason was because the shot clock started early. Also, 0.5 is plenty of time to do an alley-oop; if you can turn around and do a jump shot legally in 0.3, and an alley-oop in 0.1 (according to the NBA rules), 0.5 should be no big deal. What's worse is that there was .8 of a second left when the ball had finished going through the net on the previous play that tied the game.
The Atlanta board is basically saying that the refs made the decision to waive the shot (not their scorekeepers, the same people who spectacularly botched the Miami-Atlanta game that ended up being replayed). Either way, though, they got screwed pretty badly.
Plus - as a Suns fan, this is extra-painful, because the Suns own Atlanta's draft pick. This game made it all but certain that they'll be in the playoffs, and out of the draft lottery.
Again, I don't like conspiracy theories, but there's a clear pattern here. The NBA desperately needs transparency, the use of challenges (like in the NFL) and to learn that following the letter of the law absolutely is foolhardy at best when it does not serve the game. Obviously, an incorrect rule should only be modified with care and procedure, but on the other hand it should not just be ignored...
Labels: basketball, conspiracy, Suns |
| posted by Steve @ 9:51 AM |
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| Thursday, March 06, 2008 |
| How to Work |
It took me 27 years to figure out a work regimen that actually keeps me coherent for an eight-hour stretch. Of course, until this year, I didn't have a full-time desk job, so I didn't really need it, but I struggled with focusing for more than 3 or 4 hours before this. I really wish I had actually spent some time with this as far back as high school, but I never quite did bad enough for myself to force the issue. It's something I think should be taught in grade schools: how your own rhythms work.
I am one of the types that benefits from taking frequent, short breaks, because the longer I focus on a problem, the more tunnel vision I get. Every time you make a change in web design, you are probably effecting other changes, and if you don't zoom out a little to realize what those other things are, you can do a lot of damage.
The extra bonus of this is that, by taking those short breaks, I can shake out my hands and focus my eyes on a distant object to rest them, so I reduce the strain on them as well.
My current work regimen goes like this:
Work for 3 minutes, then a 30-second break (which can be skipped if I really need to finish something). Every hour, take a 10-minute break. I use this to do dishes, run the laundry, and if those are done, play basketball (practicing free-throws, jump shots, around-the-world, 3's, or dribbling). That gets my blood flowing again, and surprisingly, I come back to the desk a lot more awake and focused. I'm aided in this by Workrave, which actually locks my computer at breaks.
The temptation to slack by checking blogs, comics and so on is especially keen when you spend your whole work day online. Bookmarks are especially easy to click on. Probably the biggest gain in my productivity besides the 10-minute breaks has come from using two Firefox profiles. Firefox profiles allow you to have a completely different set of bookmarks and plug-ins from your current profile. I have two Firefox profiles: work and play. Play has all my webcomics, blogs, and a lot of cool little plug-ins. Work has far fewer plugins (all web design related), and zero bookmarks. Just not having the toys staring me in the face helps immensely.
The only thing I haven't really been able to do is find a way to offset the after-lunch malaise without a load of caffeine. I have started making smaller sandwiches, and that helps, but I am absolutely sure that the U.S. would be a happier place if we went with the Spanish workday, with a siesta. Also, the jury is still out about whether or not 20-50 minutes of light basketball is going to be enough of the health and weight effects of having a full-time desk job.Labels: basketball, design, exercise, slacking, webcomics, work |
| posted by Steve @ 12:22 PM |
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| Sunday, March 02, 2008 |
| Public Speaking |
How good a public speaker is Barack Obama?
The only difference between an Obama speech and music is a good hip-hop loop. It's unreal.
The skill involved in delivering hundreds and hundreds of speeches, without "um," or awkward pauses is tough enough. But the way he can do so with grace and, indeed, rhythm akin to music is unreal.
Not only is he able to deliver these messages in a beautiful way, but he also is delivering several thick books' worth of information in them - all memorized. He rarely looks at his notes. He doesn't even have notes in his interviews, but is able to deliver that same tone and nuance.
The most ridiculous example of this was during a recent interview on Cleveland TV. The interviewer first asks about NAFTA, and he debunks a rumor about his campaign. Then, he was asked to name two things he could do as President immediately (i.e., without Congress) after being sworn in. He could've said, "get out of Iraq," but instead he had a more nuanced response involving a meeting about the Chiefs of Staff. He also (admirably) wanted to tell his Attorney General to review every executive order to examine which are necessary for national security. Not breathless rhetoric about restoring American rights, but a thoughtful response about what he would do and how.
Then he gets a question about NASA. Incredibly, he had a finger on the nation's pulse: it's been stuck in place, needs to review its budget to make for more effective innovation, and starting to plan for manned flights deeper into space in order to grab the imagination of the people again.
His third question was easy enough, about whether there would be a divisive campaign between himself and McCain (he didn't think so).
Finally, he was asked about the basketball trade between Cleveland and Chicago, and he gave a pretty detailed analysis of the Chicago Bulls' and Cleveland Cavaliers' position in the NBA.
No "um," no awkward pauses, no notes, and no half-cooked answers. Why can't all politicians do this?Labels: basketball, english, Obama, people, space, television |
| posted by Steve @ 11:44 PM |
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| Monday, August 27, 2007 |
| Basketball quote of the day: Shaq v. Yao |
It wasn't long ago that Shaq was rather dismissive of Yao Ming, both as a player and as a person.
This general lack of respect began in Yao's rookie season when Shaq said "I look forward to breaking down that mother [expletive]'s body" and culminated with The Diesel's now-infamous "Tell Yao Ming, 'ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh'" quote.
Yao's response: "Chinese is a difficult language."
Totally swiped from: BasketbawfulLabels: basketball, insults |
| posted by Steve @ 5:06 PM |
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| Tuesday, August 14, 2007 |
| Baseball in Phoenix |
I visited my family this last weekend.
It was good to get out of the house. Nice to see the family. Awkward to admit that we had given away the dining room table that we inherited from the grandparents. Grandpa seems to believe that the furniture he bought us is indestructible.
He's half right, actually. I think the couch we got (and are forever upholstering) would outlast most nuclear blasts. But then, it was built in the '60's.
I have been assured that the fact that I haven't heard any repeat stories from my grandparents in a few years entirely stems from the fact that I don't see them as often. I don't mind, though, even if/when they are. Grandpa actually knows what he's talking about usually, even if he is stubborn. I fully expect to be at least as stubborn when I'm in my 80's. Seems like a perk of getting old to me.
After an awesome barbecue dinner (I arrived at around 7; it takes an absurd amount of time to fight through traffic in both Tucson and Phoenix), I considered going home but was persuaded to stay another day. It was the first time I had been detained in Phoenix for a reason other than a broken vehicle in quite a while, and that was refreshing indeed.
The next day, I got a chance to sit down and hang out with Steve & Tanya. It's rare I get the chance, mostly because they live in Russia, but also because usually I only see them at family gatherings where the conversation is strictly PG. I live in a very liberal town and while I wouldn't call myself liberal or conservative, I'm much more conservative than my grandparents.
Back when the presidential election was up in the air over Thanksgiving, I decided to declare that I was, in fact, an adult at the dinner table and asked my grandmother what she thought about the election. She said, "The weather's fine, Steven."
Steve's perspective is that of an international businessman and he's generally a conservative in the old-school, balanced-budget/not-insane type. I picked his mind quite shamelessly. I also managed to get Tanya's new PDA (a Palm like my new phone) to check her email. Unfortunately a lot of it was in Russian, and I didn't have time to get a language pack.
 To end the day, we went to a Diamondbacks game at what used to be the BOB (Bank One Ballpark) and is now Chase Field. It's just down the road from the Suns' home arena, what used to be AWA (America West Airlines) Arena, but what is now US Airways Center. Which can be abbreviated U SAC. Say it out loud.
Nice.
Anyway, I've now watched a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, a Sidewinders game in Tucson, and a Diamondbacks game at Chase Field.
Chase Field is huge and impressively has a retractable roof. Unfortunately, only about half of the people in the stadium - which had 33,121 people in it - can read the score boards. There's a huge one on one side, and a pair of teeny ones that are too small to be read by humans from the other side of the place. Thankfully I had my awesome camera and could zoom way in, take a picture, and see what it said on my camera. This shouldn't have been necessary. But it did give me a rare instance in which I could both (A) give my camera a true test of its abilities and (B) out-gizmo my globetrotting uncle.
 While my camera could make out the 1st baseman's number, it was just a few meters shy of being able to make out the name. Considering the guy must've been a quarter-mile away, that's not shabby. Also, the players were all in the shade, so it's possible it could've resolved the name if I didn't have to have the ISO so high.
On the other hand, the ratio of food booths to attendees was about 4:1 (for you hard of mental math, I'm exaggerating to the tune of saying that there are 8,250 food vendors in the arena; a more realistic ratio would have been 4.5:1). The lines for food weren't nearly as bad as at a Suns game for this reason.
Actually, since I saw a few Suns games last year, I was struck by how different a Suns game is from a baseball game. I am once again reaffirmed in my belief that baseball games are picnics in bleachers, and that's great. Though, I think Steve was right - it's right expensive when soda is $5 for a cup.
 After the game, I wandered around the downtown area a bit with my camera. I didn't realize how much I enjoy doing that sort of thing. Eventually, one day, I'll be able to take pictures of people without feeling weird.
I also bought a nice bookshelf for Rachel from IKEA on the way back. With a little luck, we'll have our living space arranged before the month is out; our last place took 10 months.Labels: basketball, family, Phoenix, sports |
| posted by Steve @ 1:08 AM |
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| Friday, August 10, 2007 |
| No, really, next week. I swear. |
This week's been pretty productive on the settling-in front, so maybe, just maybe, next week I can settle into the 'routine' Rachel and I agreed on - not to bore with the details, but it allows time for me to work on regular work, freelance work, working out, and working on my album. A lot of work, but it's all gotta get done.
So far, it has been foiled by school, summer school, the truck, and moving - formidable forces, really.
Of course, now we have the party (parties) we're planning, and the place isn't really finished - it's just inhabitable. But it's now or never, really...
I've also just about finished consolidating all of my old MySpace blogs onto here. Once they've been reformatted and updated, I'll link to my old Okinawa journals on my homepage as well. Most of my 'let's update the homepage' boredom/energy has been directed towards back-filling this blog, so hopefully I'll make my photo gallery on the homepage nextLabels: basketball, house, Ignition, life, party, photography |
| posted by Steve @ 1:30 AM |
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| Sunday, May 07, 2006 |
| Random thought no. 22: I love this team |
I've been a fan of the Suns since I was a kid. I sort of dropped off midway through college, though, and have picked up in the last 3 years.
And I'm happy to say that it seems that when I'm paying attention, they do really well.
Now, I'm pretty ecstatic about their Game 7 Ass-Whoopin' of the Lakers. I admit I would probably have preferred a 4-0 sweep, boy, the Suns are sure aware that they're in Playoff ball. And what a series, too! Anyway.
I just have to keep in mind that, well, it would be pretty miraculous for the Suns to get to the Finals (much less win them). They don't really have a center. At all. They're always playing against people who are like 6" taller than them. It's amazing they've managed to keep their opponents below 200 points, if you ask me. So while my enthusiasm and hopes are not in any way diminished, I have to mentally prepare myself...
So the fever has hit me so bad that ... well ...
So Rachel asks me to make Mac and Cheese for dinner.
And I think, I ought to make some juice, too, because I'm a good little husband. And I decide on grape juice purely on the merits that I made a meal that reflects my Suns' colors.
I ... I think I've lost my mind. But it's all in good fun. Mostly.
 Currently listening:
Music for Our Mother Ocean: Mom 3
By Various Artists
Release date: 17 August, 1999  Labels: basketball, food, obsession, Suns |
| posted by Steve @ 11:58 PM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me:
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I know what's going to happen tomorrow and it is this:
After work I will go to the bar, order a beer and a cheeseburger, and watch the Mariners game, because I'm so fucking bored of this primary fight and I'm saving my energy and attention for talking shit about McCain once we eventually get a nominee.