Give Him The Ball!!!

For almost my entire life I have been a fan of the NBA. You don't find enough NBA fans in this part of the country, but I love it. I started off by watching Michael Jordan deal out finals losses to the Utah Jazz way back in the 90s. Now I am partial to Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. As in any sport, there is always that team that you hate. You hate to see them do well, you hate to see them win. For me, this has always been the Lakers. I tend to root against the teams who are over-hyped and over-covered by ESPN. In the NFL it's the Cowboys. In college football, it's USC. In the MLB, it's the Yankees and the Red Sox. And in the NBA it's the Lakers.

Star power is a big reason for these media favorites to get the attention they do. For a long time I hated Kobe Bryant. He was and is a great player, but I hated his attitude. He was a bad team player, always wanting to take every shot. He couldn't get along with Shaq, and he was arrogant. This always rubbed me the wrong way, and when Shaq left for the Miami Heat, I delighted in the years when the Lakers struggled. I was glad the Heat won a championship for the sole reason that Shaq did it before Kobe did.

While I'm still no Laker fan at all, I think I'm starting to come around on Kobe Bryant. I still don't really like him, but I think I'm starting to understand him better. I read a poll in Sports Illustrated the other day where they asked other NBA players who they would want taking the last shot with the game on the line. Like 74% of them said Kobe Bryant. That is a huge number, especially with all the stars in the league. No one can deny the talent that Kobe has, even if his attitude isn't the greatest. And when I really think about it, if I was that good, I would want to take every shot as well. If the team lost and I didn't get the ball enough, I would probably be upset too. Now, Kobe is showing that he is even growing out of this. Today I heard a statistic that said something like the Lakers are 29-2 when Kobe takes less than 20 shots. Instead of trying to be the superstar among a group of 5 good basketball players, he is actually playing within the team. And the Lakers are probably the favorites to win it all this year.

It has been said that in sports a real superstar has to want the ball in his (or her) hands when the game is on the line. When it's the 4th quarter and there are only 10 seconds left on the clock with no timeouts, the greatest players always want to be the ones to take the last shot. Anybody who ever watches the Lakers knows that the ball is going to Kobe. If you are Phil Jackson, Jack Nicholson, or any other Laker fan you want the basketball in Kobe's hands. And if you're Kobe Bryant, you want the ball in your hands. You want to be the one who puts up the shot, with everything on the line, and either succeeds or fails. You are the one who is willing to risk the pain of defeat and failure to achieve victory.

As I was watching Barack Obama's address to Congress tonight, I kind of felt this way about our new president. You would almost think he's crazy, because he looks way too comfortable and calm to be in the situation he is in. He inherited a nation fighting two wars with an economy that's going in the toilet. We have an enormous national debt, and across the world our reputation has sunken very low. Partisan divides are running deep in Washington; and while the Republicans and Democrats fight over what should be done, people are continuing to lose their jobs.

Tonight in his speech President Obama looked confident and he highlighted some key directions that the nation needs to move in order to improve things. He talked about the stimulus bill that just passed and how it will create jobs for the economy. He said that healthcare needs to be made more affordable, and even claimed to aggressively pursue a cure for cancer. He also wanted to make it easier for Americans to go to college, which is a huge deal for me. Among other things, he also said he would reduce the national debt by half by the time his term as president is up. Remember, this is not on the campaign trail. He has been elected. He isn't trying to get more votes this time around. These are actual goals President Obama is trying to acheive.

I knew that Obama was ambitious, anybody who runs for President of the U.S. is. But this is beyond even that, and this is one of the main reasons why I am so comfortable with him being my president:

He wants the ball.

When it's the fourth quarter and the game is coming down to the wire, he wants the ball in his hands. He's not afraid of being the man sitting in the highest office in the land when disaster strikes. He's not worried about the pressure. No, he is confident in his ability to make the shot.

I can't tell you how many times I have watched a Lakers game, or at least the highlights of a Lakers game, rooting for the other team, and then watched in disgust as Kobe Bryant sank a 3-point, game-winning basket as time ran out. He literally does it all the time, and I can't stand it. But that is what makes him so great. He wants the ball in his hands when it matters, and so many times he delivers. Barack Obama hasn't done a lot yet. He has only been in office for a little over a month. But it's not hard to see that with the financial crisis and everything else going on with our country right now, he wants the ball. He wants to be the one taking the shot. And for the man who will be leading the country on into the future, that is one quality I like to see.

Sickness and Music (pretty much rambling)

So if you are one of the people who is subscribed to my twitter or if you are a facebook friend or even a real life friend, you probably know that I am sick and have been since last Friday. What I call "The Perfect Storm" of disease hit me and this photo shows what it did better than words can tell.

I probably shouldn't have drank that Pepsi from 1999. We found it at work, among some items that some folks had donated. It was a 1999, bottled, Elvis-edition Pepsi still sealed and full. Joseph said he would give me a dollar to drink it. I asked for more, and we finally settled on two. I wouldn't normally do these things, but at work I get so bored I will do lots of things just to make the day go by. The deal was for me to drink half of it in order to get the money. I actually drank almost all of it, to prove my manhood or something. I told Joseph to take a sip but he wouldn't do it. Wuss.

The next morning the Pepsi from the last millenium caught up to me at the same time as a sinus infection. The perfect storm of disease had hit and now, almost a week later, I still am fighting it off.

Which hasn't been fun because the week has included two tough history exams, an informative speech, and a rough draft for a poetry essay that needed to be written (but hasn't yet). Normally, I would be complaining; but if something like this doesn't happen at least once a semester I think I would try to pinch myself so I could wake up from my dream. College is just like that. Stuff goes wrong at the worst time and you either rise up to the occasion or things get messed up. It's one of the hardest lessons learned for many students.

And so this week I have been fighting through my assignments while also trying to keep my nose blown and my body hydrated. I've been trying to make sure to take all my pills at all the right intervals, before or after the right meals. I haven't seen a lot of improvement since Friday when the food poison finally went away (I won't say how). Now I'm just kind of tired and my face hurts from all the sniffling and coughing. I have been laying down so much that laying down is even uncomfortable. I had to miss church tonight and I didn't want to. Tomorrow I have an essay rough draft due and I haven't even started it. And this congestion doesn't seem to be going away.

Just a few minutes ago I did something that I don't really do all that much anymore: I got out my guitar and just started playing some of my favorite songs. I wasn't practicing for anything. I wasn't preparing any songs for church. I just picked out a couple favorites and played them for the sheer joy of being able to play my favorite songs and sing along to them as well. And my mind began to wander back to days when I made music a much bigger part of my life.

I have been leading worship songs for church since I was in the 11th grade. Before that I played drums in a worship band. At the same time I played drums in a rock band with some friends from that same church. A few years later, after I started college, that same band (with some member changes) started playing local shows. They were very small, but if we kept at it we might have gone somewhere. Of course, everybody had their own ideas about how they wanted things, and we eventually went our own separate ways. But we had some good times.

Ask anybody who plays music and they will tell you, there is something about cranking the amps up, banging on the cymbals, and as a unit of band members playing a song that you love. That's a feeling you can't get by playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It's a reward for the hard work and practice. There is something about taking a solo, or coming up with a great riff, or a sweet drum pattern.

I miss it, and as much as I like sitting in my room strumming the 6-string, that's not enough. I'd like things to be a louder, and more full. I'd like to feel the energy in the room when you have the guitars, bass, vocals, and drums all going at the same time--and I want to be in the middle of it.

Either way, I've noticed that there is one place I go when I'm sick, lonely, down, or whatever else. I always go to my guitar. I don't know why that is, but I always go there and it makes me feel better. Today, with all the coughing and hacking, the public speaking assignment, the feeling of wanting to be anywhere else but on this same couch, it's no surprise that that's where I found myself once again.

Yes, it's another video

Hey everybody, sorry for all the non-original posts I've been putting up lately. I'm really going to try to get back to writing something eventually. This video I couldn't pass up because it seems so funny in light of the recent news regarding A-rod and Michael Phelps. Enjoy!

Best. Video. Ever.

Road Blocks

Tonight, after I got home from work, I spent about an hour of my time typing out a blog only to scrap it in the end. This has been happening a lot lately and I'm not sure why. My drafts have gone up from 90 to 103 in the past month while my posts have hardly increased at all.

I would like to get some thoughts down, but I keep hitting road blocks. My ideas don't make sense or I don't write it clear enough and am too lazy to clean it up. Maybe I'm taking this too seriously.

Either way, while I am dealing with said road blocks, I offer you this nugget of brilliance by my favorite author Donald Miller. He's got a book coming out late this year, and I can't wait. This blog post reminded me why I'm such a fan. Hope you enjoy!