Still Alive

And nothing to report. I'm a bit tired, haven't really restarted my training schedule yet, and extremely cold. But I'm not going to get the heat on my van fixed this winter, I can tell.

I've been watching the Seattle basketball team lately, the Seattle SuperSonics. It certainly helps you enjoy a team of a sport you aren't particularly fond of when the team is doing really really well. I've had a slight aversion to basketball since high school, when I was tripped into timing the boys Junior Varsity games. I'm not sure if I've told that story on my blog yet.

Anyway, the Sonics have been playing well, but their success is based on three aspects of their game, one of which is a risky one. The first one is rebounding. They manage to get control of the ball after a shot better than the other team. The second is free throws. A team that doesn't consistently make their free throws just doesn't win games. The third is three-point shots. That's the tricky one. When you are on and your players are making those shots, every other aspect of shooting improves because the defenders on the other team have to guard you on the outside as well as on the inside, which makes it easier to get inside and make those other shots. But if you stop making the shots consistently, then you end up giving the ball to the other team more often than needed, and you will lose. I personally have always enjoyed it when teams are willing to take that risk, so I guess that has lent a bit to me enjoying this season of Sonics so far.

In any case, actively wanting to watch a basketball game is a new experience for me, and has surprisingly brought back some of my few good memories of high school, along with a set of ... amusing... memories related to timing basketball.

Tomorrow ought to be a better day. Until then, here's a shot from the local library. There's another bear inside the library that I'll get a picture of someday, looking out at this guy who must've drawn the short straw to always be out in the cold.