Car Luck

Posting this because my daughter had some extremely bad luck last week when she was rear ended by another car and basically totaled her car.  She also received a concussion and is having back pains so, awesome time all around.  Yes it could have been worse and I am grateful that it was only as bad as it was, that she didn't have any major injuries, I just hope that the injuries she has are not long lasting or life altering.  That being said, it got me thinking about all of the car luck Sophie and I have had and how this fits right in.  You see we are not very good at the "art of the deal" [what up pres?], and with this car we felt we got a super good deal on because it was an older person's car that was going into assisted living, it was garage kept, and had a little over 30k miles for a car that was 14 years old was a really good deal.  Especially for a first car for my daughter.  And she loved it.  For about 6 months.  And that is the end of the "good luck" run.  Now I know what you are thinking - "surely at some point there have been some things break your way".  And the answer to that is - not really.  So let's just recap how we got here...

When I was 16 my parents got me a car.  I paid half and they paid half, but I didn't have any say in what the car was.  And it was a Chevy Celebrity.  Brown.  About 70k miles, but ran well, just didn't not look appealing to a kid that had Lamborghini's all over his wall.  I had it for about 3 years and traded it (Spring 1997) for a Hyundai Scoupe or S Coupe however that branding was supposed to work.  2 door, Red, sunroof, just a massive upgrade and I picked it out.  Right after I got it, I watched my best friend's Dad back right into the driver's side door.  I was in complete shock.  Granted in the 27 years since I can just bring it up and he feels bad, but honestly water under the bridge.  Got the door repaired and drove the car until I was out of college.  During our college years Sophie had her car she got with her graduation money.  A white Pontiac Lemans.  Good little car.  She blew the engine up outside of Barnesville, because she didn't realize the importance of oil changes.  She does now.  I think she just replaced the engine in that car and then eventually traded or sold it off and bought a Blue Ford Escort.  The Escort was super common back then, just a 2 door or 4 door work horse car to get from A to B.  So when we got married those were the 2 vehicles we had - the S Coupe, and the Es Cort.  Well we wanted to upgrade a little so we got a Chevy Prizm.  I know what you are thinking "wasn't that the Geo Prizm?"  And yes it was until the late 90's when Chevy bought Geo and just slapped the bad bow tie on literally the exact same car.  Fun fact the 1997 Prizm was the exact same body type, interior and engine as the Toyota Corolla.  We sold the Escort to her Mom and Dad for $1.  You might think such a gesture would put you on a path of increasingly good luck with vehicles but don't be fooled...

Eventually the S Coupe would have some mechanical issues and then a weird braking problem and we traded it in for a Chevy Metro to be my work car.  And also just my car.  And also just an incredibly massive down grade.  We had or were in the process of having our first child and the Prizm was just not about that family life.  It ran fine, but we traded it for a minivan.  Initially we wanted a certain Ford Windstar and we were set to get it, but the dealership screwed up the tax information and the resulting payment so we settled for a slightly reduced price Windstar.  It was ok. Nothing to write home about so to speak, but this was our first "big" vehicle, so we were excited.  Unfortunately now we had entered into the dreaded 2 car payment zone.  The Metro sucked.  No cruise, we upgraded the radio, but the car was still the worst car I have ever had, sorry Metro. The back didn't even have rear defrost which is surprisingly not good when you live where we do in the winter.  After the Metro though anything is an upgrade and the Chevy Cavalier was definitely that.  Pretty sure I picked up two speeding tickets in that car as it either didn't have cruise control or I just didn't use it.  Somewhere around here we added to the family, maybe even before the Cavalier and had Peach.  Needless to say, any transport with the kids during this time was done with the van.  That is until around 2008 when we needed to go to Florida for a wedding and we were going to drive, but the Ford developed a cracked block.  Like the Friday before we were leaving.  Oh you could drive it and it may be fine or it could blow up after 10 miles - that is what we were told.  So, not going to try and take 2 kids and my 80 year old mother to Florida in that in the summer. We ended up trading in complete desperation for Dodge Caravan - white.  Hey it made it to Florida and back, so mission accomplished.  You know if we still didn't need a vehicle to last as long as possible.  And maybe "possible" is just a few years anyway as the Dodge seemed to develop some electrical issues that kept draining the battery and made starting the car an adventure every time.  So we had to get rid of that car.  Ironically we went back to A and B Kia that sold us the Caravan (they were the only place open that late on a Friday), and when the sales guy talked to us he told us how we needed to get out of that car.  Fun.  Of course we needed out of that car, we didn't know when it was going to start and it seemed to be draining batteries like it was it's job.  So since they helped us out before our trip, we wanted to do business with them again and they got us into a Kia Sedona mini van.  And it had the built-in TV, which was great, and individual seats for the kids so they didn't have to be next to each other. Alas it had a fatal flaw...

It turns out a very slight hill covered in snow would stop the Sedona.  This was unfortunate as we experienced this coming back from church one snowy morning trying to get into the garage.  Other than that the Sedona was great.  Great for driving, great for the kids, just not great in inclement weather.  So back to A and B we go and this time we upgraded to the Kia Sorento, sometime around 2014 / 2015, because it was a 2015 Sorento.  All wheel drive, full size SUV with a 3rd row of seating.  Surprising how often the 3rd row has actually come in handy for transporting the kids and their friends or larger groups going to an outing.  The seats also laid down so it provided decent capability for hauling stuff, pretty much anything but dirt.  Alright back to my cars...

Yes I call them "my cars" because I drive them to work and put a massive amount of miles on them.  The cavalier did good for about 4 / 5 years.  It had a leaking tire issue that was driving me nuts and I traded it in for a Subaru Impreza.  Now I reallly did some shopping this time, test drove about 9 cars to find something good for me and at a decent price.  The Impreza had all wheel drive, a moon roof and aux feed that I could plug my phone in, and didn't have a review below 3 stars.  Plus CDs were still around then so it had the CD player and was just probably the best car I have had and I should have driven this one into the ground, but I started to get gun shy when a car got to around 120k miles.  That's usually when they would turn into a pumpkin and I didn't want to get caught in a bad situation.  That was probably the wrong thinking with this car though. I thought I would trade it in on another Subaru,  a Legacy this time, but when we went to the dealership the car was out for the weekend by one of the people that worked there.  Patience should have prevailed here and I should have waited to get the car until after the weekend but sometimes I look at a situation and say "let fate decide" and I felt this was fate telling me not to get this car.  So we went up to Straub and I drove a Hyundai Tuscon.  Kind of an upgrade to a small SUV, car drove fine, had blue tooth, but started out with an air conditioner issue.  They were kind enough to let me drive the Impreza until it was fixed, but that probably should have been a sign.  the Tuscon did last until around February 2022, when the engine just took a dump and I couldn't keep oil in it.  I missed my daughter's basketball game and had to take a day off work to look for another car.  At this point the Sorento was paid off, the first time we had actually paid off a car.  So we looked for another "good car" and the Sorento would become my work car.  We ended up trading the Hyundai in for a Jeep Compass.  So we still had one full size SUV and one compact SUV.  This was during the pandemic so vehicle prices had jumped to astronomical levels and we were just kind of screwed.  The Sorento was the first fully new car we had owned and it seemed better that knowing everything the car had been through rather than getting a low mileage used car that could have really been put through it's paces by someone else, so we wanted to go the new car route again and unfortunately the Compass was about the only new car around.  Sophie hates it now.  That is about the long and short of it.  The front collision turned off about as soon as we drove it off the lot, and something has happened to the information center and the rear differential housing has had a leak.  The brakes always squeak when you back up and they have looked at them several times.  I like the heated steering wheel and remote start, but yeah kind of stuck on this one.  During the last 3 years we also got the car from my Mom for Sampson.  A 2003 Olds Alero.  I always liked those cars and was a little jealous when Mom got hers.  It had about 70k miles on when he got it, but it was waaaaaaay better looking than the Chevy Celebrity I had when I was 19.  Now we really need this thing to stay running.

So that kind of brings us to the "good deal" we got on a car.  It was a 2010 Volkswagen Jetta that had 33k miles, had been garage kept and actually had blue tooth and heated seats and we got what we thought was a very generous price.  We paid straight up for the car and had 3 vehicles that were paid off and one that wasn't.  Now the Jetta is totaled about 6 months later and the Sorento is fast approaching 160k miles.  Well over the limit of what I fell comfortable with.  Kind of feel like I'm on borrowed time with it, and I know there is some work that needs done to it, but it is still driveable right now.  The next step though is replacing my daughter's car and hopefully that is taken car of with the insurance money.  I'm more inclined to take a loan out on my 401k (pay back at 8% over 5 years, but it is my money not making the bank rich here) and go that route.  At any rate this kind of fit our luck better than just getting a super good deal and driving the car for 5 to 8 years and getting value out of it.  Nah that wouldn't be our luck...  But don't get things twisted, I am very grateful for all that we have had and continue to have and we have been very blessed and we are blessed that Peach wasn't hurt worse.  

Update, we are still looking for a car, but the Sorento is gone.  Traded in for a Sportage for Sophie and I'll take the Jeep for now.  Car rental runs out Saturday (may make a separate post on how horrible Nationwide Insurance was to deal with) so the clock is really ticking.

New 5k PR

Achieved this last month, but the new PR is 25:08.  Soooooo close to finally breaking 25, but more work to do apparently.  Got this at the last Mustache Dash in Moundsville.  A very flat course, which helped and the weather was really good.  I won't call it ideal, but it wasn't scorching hot for sure.  Normally this race isn't a true 5k.  It was about 2.4 one year and 3.6 last year.  Mostly due to the laps being 1.2 miles, but this year they moved the start and on the last lap had you reverse course.  My mentality coming in wasn't to set a PR because it was never a true 5k.  But I did take it easy the week before and was able to actually run the entire race, which was a first.  Anyway still work to do, need to lose about 15-20 pounds. I keep telling myself the diet will kick in this week, but stuff keeps happening so the diet hasn't happened yet.  I have been doing more resistance training, but I think I need to get back to doing some core specific work at least twice a week.  Still have a couple of shots at sub 25 this year, but it is going to take some luck and planning.

Stack Update for June - 2024

Just to update the stack for June, I have found some CoQ10 and started taking daily.  Found a bottle on sale for essentially $8 / month so that seemed like a good deal to start.  Early feed back seems pretty good.  I was taking separate in the afternoon, but decided to combine with my morning pills. I found out after getting it and doing a little more research that the -Xol version is the desired state versus the -none version of the chemical. 

Also I found some collagen peptides. Started with the Walgreens version and have been taking for about 4-5 day.  Found I could mix with my morning water and it was fine.  I tried to mix with V8 + EVOO and it did not mix at all.  I've also added it to my Casein shake at the end of the day.  A little early to tell if there are any benefits to the joints.  Dare I say pickleball and early morning push ups have taken a toll on the shoulder.  Trying to back down the effort on arms a little in the short term to help the recovery, but hopefully the work is strengthening things.

On a side note, I went with Sophie to the Sam's Club and they had a nice selection of CoQ10 and collegen peptides and at more favorable costs.  If this initial June run goes well, then Sam's could be the supplier of choice going forward.

 Forward looking, still eyeing PQQ and Astralagus to add.  The astralagus should be a telomere lengthener or telomerase activator.  Telomeres are essentially what determines how long we make it.  Every time a cell divides the chromosomes get a little shorter on the ends until there are just too many copies made and the cells stop dividing, then you die.  This is the Hayflick limit which is currently around 120 years, and this is based on no hard living or outside influences decreasing that number.  

Still not a doctor, so not advising anyone to do this.  Always seek professional medical advice😉

The Current Stack 5/2024

So I have been running for about 8 years now and I have gradually picked up things along the way.  The one constant is I have been taking a daily vitamin.  Yeah that is about it.  My Mom had a stack of supplements she took everyday, but I never really got into it until I came across Bryan Johnson and what he was doing and that lead me to Dr. Jeffrey Gladden and his podcast.  So I have been binging that series and listening to what the different supplement interactions are to increase longevity and general health and doing some research on my own.  Anyway at this point here is what I am doing on a daily basis.  (DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional and this is not medical advice, this is just a record in time of what I am doing and I hope to report later on the effects).  Current Age - 46.

1 tab molecular hydrogen - 1st thing in the morning at least 30 minutes before breakfast.

1 mutli vitamin - Still hanging in there

500 mg turmeric  - with black pepper included

4,000 iu Vit D

50 mg Zinc

300 mg ashwagandha or however you spell it - cycle 3 weeks on 1 week off, 300 mg at night too

1 Heliocare capsule - helps with sun, potential for DNA repair, made with plant extract from South America

1,600 mg Beta alanine X 2 - taken twice daily with meals during the week 

2g-3g Creatin - just started this

250 - 375 mg niacin - trying to get the flush effect 2x per week right now.

6 oz of V8 - yes the juice

15 ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Bryan Johnson special, but not his brand

15 ml Apple Cider Vinegar 

Also drinking 1 muscle milk per day and drinking a Casein protein shake at night on days where I did a physical activity to help recover.  I've been hitting the sauna as much as possible too, to help with recovery.  There have been some studies out of Finland that 20 minutes at ~180°F x 4 times per week would result in a large percent reduction in all cause mortality and heart related deaths.

I've been monitoring when I start certain things and how I have been feeling.  Just finished 4 weeks of activity over 500 minutes (counting vigorous activity as double effective using Garmin technology) and 5 out of the last 6 weeks with a week that was at 635 minutes of activity including everything from mowing grass to running to pickle ball and basketball and even swimming. The 635 week is probably the highest I have had in about 20 years, as is at least the highest I have had since getting the Garmin.  My physical state seems pretty good, but I may take a little time and recover some this week and keep activity down some, but still hit the sauna.

The things I'm looking at picking up are CoQ10 & PQQ and a detox / AMPK cycle.  The CoQ10 should help with ATP production and the PQQ helps to rebuild mitochondria.  For the detox cycle, looking at Spermidine, with rapamyacin, Fisetin and Dihydroberberine.  I think the Spermidine and Fisetin could almost be taken on a daily basis, but the rapamyacin and Dihydroberberine both should turn off mTOR and activate AMPK.  From what I understand mTOR is kind of a build up phase where cells and muscles are building, but the AMPk cycle is the end of cell lifetime and theoretically if you did a "clean out cycle" mTOR is off and this AMPk cycle runs to kind of clean the junk out.  I haven't tried this yet, but I think it would be bad to do during a muscle building or training cycle.  Maybe before you start a cycle of building or some type of weekly cycle where the AMPk is activated during a down period or at night after a lighter day or maybe the start of a fast.  Also on the radar is collagen peptides.  Seems like they are good for the skin and maybe some tissue issues like for ligaments or tendons.

Why has the gas gone out of the EV movement?

Fun with titles, huh? Turns out the EV movement is slowly losing steam.  In my opinion there are multiple reason for this.  Turns out the cost effectiveness of driving an EV is probably less than most people anticipate.  If you can't home charge, owning one is even more inconvenient.  It could take 15-45 minutes to fill up at a charging station and the price per mile is eerily close to regular combustion vehicles.  I think the early adopters were kind of sold on the idea that this was 100% the future and oil was going away, but here is the thing - oil and its derivatives are used in lots of stuff.  Most projections had the peak of oil productions hitting in 2027, but after Covid it looks like the peak may have gotten pushed back.  I guess at that point there would be some alternative technologies that had matured to the point they could compete economically with oil and eventually oil would be pushed back.  Here is the thing though, there are a lot of businesses that depend on oil for their success.  So as much as the EV cars wanted to end oil, turns out you need it for tires, plastics in the cars, roadways... and all the sudden the need for alternates beyond cars becomes a little more obvious.  Also the infrastructure of the country is not centered around EV's, so you have to change all that as well.  The early adopters were willing to fall on the sword so to speak to be at the tip of the spear and drive the change forward, but now the EV's look like more of a novelty act and less sustainable.  Part of this is due to the pandemic.  The inflation that happened during the pandemic and directly afterwards having driven (no pun intended) car prices through the roof and consequently insurance.  Insurance has gotten completely out of hand because people are driving around houses that you have to be insured against incase you get into an accident.  And if you have one of the cars that is priced like a house, your insurance is even higher.  So the EV's kind of fell into this trend, instead of being the new technology that weasels it's way into the market by being affordable and pulling the masses into the tech, they have been leading the charge (pun intended) in raising prices.  I think the legacy car makers in the U.S. kind of detected this market shift when they were jumping in with both feet and have quietly gone back to focusing on ICE based cars.  For makers like TESLA and Rivian and the like there is no other option.  They have to produce electric vehicles that can compete with ICE cars and be more affordable.  If they are just a niche in the luxury car market, which is kind of where they have ended up, there will be no wide spread acceptance.  The only way for electric car makers to push the issue in the future is to come up with an affordable version of there vehicles that can get in the market at less that $25k new.  If they can't touch that market then they are just a novelty at this point.  And novelties are not going to shape a movement. The 1st quarter of 2024 was the first quarter that Tesla had year on year quarterly sales decline.  Partly an indicator of the market, but also an indicator of how the love for EV's has waned in recent years.  Oh there are issues in cold weather, and charger accessibility, and range anxiety, but the pricing has now greatly outpaced the benefits of the car and the negatives of ownership are more pronounced.  It has resulted in a general feeling (imo) that the EV revolution won't be ready for 2027 and probably not 2028 either, at least not in the U.S. In the emerging markets of China and India the EV is almost more feasible because they don't have the existing infrastructure of combustion vehicles so no great change over.  

So what is the path forward?  Well people have to be interested in the EV.  This change can't be driven (pun also not intended) by the manufacturers or the government.  I mean if this is the future it would make sense if the government switched to EV's. State vehicles, maybe even cop cars and what not.  They could install charger stations at the base, save on fuel charges and help develop the market by being an advertisement everyday.  Unfortunately politics are at work here (not really a pun, but kind of) and the government will never adopted a non-union made vehicle even if it makes total sense and is for the betterment of society as a whole.  And that is the impasse we are currently at my friends. Either someone takes the hit to develop the infrastructure, lower the price of the vehicles, or makes the vehicles so mainstream they are unavoidable or the whole thing limps along at the 10-15% market share that it has until change is forced by a lack of oil.  But here is the kicker, as long as these other countries opt for electric, we can push out the combustion engine life and oil will still be needed for the other products. If we only had "flying EV's"...

Worst Coach of All-Time

I know what you are thinking and no, this is actually reserved for the coach that I had my senior year of high school.  I use the term senior year here loosely as I could only manage being part of the team for 4 games.  Gather around kids and hear the tales of de-motivation, lack of organization, general incompetency and nepotism.  So it started back in 8th grade when I experienced the worst teacher of my academic career (this dude flat out hated me from the jump for some reason, I mean I'm a likeable guy, right?) in industrial arts.  Industrial arts you say, that must have been a sleeper class for an A, huh?  Not exactly.  You basically had to copy drawings with an industrial layout, that had dimensions and different things, think your basic floor plan, and that was the class.  Literally nothing to this class, and I end up pulling a D.  No idea why, don't remember, just glad to be done with that class and this moron forever.  Well as luck would have it the head coach of the basketball team, decides that he is going to go to another school to coach one of the good players from our team that is transferring.  Don't blame him, he had made a really deep run into the playoffs before and Beallsville was about to experience a serious drought on talent.  So we get new coaches for Freshman year and guess who gets named to the reserve coach role... yep you guessed it the one guy I thought I would be done with.  Fortunately freshman rarely played JV and mostly just played Freshman team.  So that is what I did. Nothing spectacular about the year.  Sophomore season starts and reality hits home. Now that Freshman year is over the only option to play is varsity or JV.  Well the varsity team is pretty well set with seniors and juniors and maybe one guy from my class getting some reserve run and that is about it.  I'm buried deep on the JV bench and am not enjoying the game at all.  Now a little background here - my parents were waaaay older than most peoples parents, at this point 62 and 69 years old and they were not athletic and never really cared about sports, even when I played when I was younger.  My Dad did make a basket for me when I was in second grade though, and when I say "made" he literally went into the woods, cut down a tree, and built the backboard out of wood with home made supports and put it in the ground next to the car port.  This was awesome by my Dad and something I was shooting around on as much as 38 years later, but that was about all he could do for me, he couldn't teach me fundamentals, couldn't coach a team couldn't even play me one-on-one really.  So now that I'm deep on the bench with no way off and no real way to improve I faced a difficult decision.  You see I had always liked basketball, enjoyed playing with my friends, enjoyed shooting at home (because during the summer there was literally nothing else to do, I would just practice for an hour, come in the house to cool off, then go back out for another hour later), but now it was unenjoyable to do. I don't remember the specifics, but I would say I was pretty out of shape and about the height I was in 8th grade.  Side note: I was always tall for my age, but I hit that last growth spurt early and now everyone is catching up, also I was the youngest in my class, so even though I'm a Sophomore I started the year at 14.  That's right go ahead and project that out.  Side Side note: Mom started me in school early (I believe because she wanted me out of the house ;) j/k ). 

Ok, back to the story.  So I quit my Sophomore year.  I don't remember how many practices or games or if I played any games, but I remember coming out to the truck after practice one day and telling my Dad that I was going to quit.  He did not put up a fight.  Like I said my parents weren't into sports, so not having to pick me up every day was probably a blessing to the them.  Anyway I came back out for my junior year.  I broke my wrist fairly early in the season, running a sprint retreat.  A sprint retreat is one of the worst drills I have ever done and couple it with a dusty gym floor it is basically the perfect recipe for me to break something.  I was out for the requisite 6 weeks before returning to play JV. I don't remember much about this season other than at one point on the road at Hundred High School in WV (it's named Hundred because that's how many miles it feels like you drove to get there) at the end of the game we won and I asked how many a player from the other team had because I felt like I played good D.  The coach said 6, and that it was a good idea to keep track of who we played against to keep track of such things.  This was the coach I couldn't stand BTW, but that did seem like an obvious thing that a coach would do, foreshadowing perhaps. The rest of Junior year was uneventful until tourney time and the final varsity roster was put together, me being a junior I figure I would be added for deep bench duty, but was passed over for a freshman that at that point hadn't played a whole lot of varsity if any, but was a golfer so the JV coached liked him better automatically since he was also the golf coach.  Now to be perfectly fair, the kid was probably a better athlete, but that really stung.  I shouldn't have had any lofty goal of playing after that, but I was dumb and didn't understand the system, also no one told me anything to work on or what my game was lacking.  But that is likely due to them not knowing what my game lacked either.  

On to Senior year and the redemption arc... or not. My high school was very limited in sports offerings for kids, for fall it was Football or Golf, Winter was Basketball or wrestling and Spring was Baseball although they did start a track team my Senior or Junior year.  Anyway since cross country didn't exist (I feel like I could have been decent at this in High School) my friend and I did some running before school a couple of times to get into shape for basketball since we didn't play fall sports.  Granted we played as much as possible for being in a rural area without a whole lot of opportunities to just go play, and in all honesty I was probably in the best shape of my life up to that point.  One other thing to note in this story is that I was 16 at the very beginning of my senior year of school, and there were actually about 3 other people that were in a similar situation, I turned 17 in the first month, but by Ohio rules I could have actually played high school sports for another 2 years.  Not that it makes a difference in coaching, but in the timeline of things, being a young senior isn't optimal for sports success.  So the season starts and I don't remember the exact time frame (sorry it's been 30 years), but me and another guy were brought into the coach's office.  He sits us down and proceeds to explain to us that we probably aren't going to play.  Actually matter-of-fact that we were not going to play.  Now this is a small school (~45 kids per class), so cutting kids is something that is almost unthinkable, but making it miserable enough for people to not want to play is completely an option.  Didn't say it was a good option, but yeah as a coach you could do that if you were so inclined, and this guy was definitely inclined.  Keep in mind, this is his first head coaching gig in basketball at the high school varsity level and there are no guarantees that this team is going to be great or how many games we should win, so why just tell 2 guys who have played basketball for 10 years and are hungry to get on the floor that you don't need them?  You don't know if you need me.  And that is the crux of the whole thing, a coach that comes in with that much hubris, with exactly 0 wins to his name is basically doomed to failure.  I realize this now, but it took a while then.  So even though I was told I wouldn't get in, I still remained optimistic that if I got in a game I could show something and then the PT would grow.  Well after 4 games I had gotten in about 2 minutes of a 40 point blow out (scored 2) and that would be the extent of my varsity basketball career.  "Okay", you say, no big deal, what was the record after 4 games...0-4.  At one point one of my buddies and a couple of football players got to be on the court together, as the "hustle team".  Unfortunately they never told the guys that was their job to run around and cause turn overs and run outs, so they didn't do that, they just played normal basketball.  It's one of those things you think back on and wonder why they even said that out loud after the fact it didn't work.  Would I have made a difference in those games... short answer is no.  I was no where near good enough to make up for the train wreck on the bench, but I could have at least had fun.  

 So after 4 games me and my other friend (not the one who was told he wouldn't play, one that actually played some) decided to quit.  This was actually the point were pay-to-play had to be paid, but since I wasn't actually playing and $45 seemed like a lot back then, it seemed like the perfect time to cut bait.  And since my friend was walking out at the same time it seemed right.  At that very moment when we walked out and declared to other people we were done, something happened that I'll never forget.  The head football coaches son told my friend that he should not quit, but that I - "Yeah you should quit". And the delivery was even more heartless than it reads.  Here was my interpretation of this exchange - here is someone who played wide receiver for his Dad and got all the recognition in football because he would run the deep patterns and my friend would run all the short patterns and take all the hits over the middle, and this coach's son who had been coddled in football, and given a starting spot in basketball was telling me I wasn't good enough.  GIVEN A STARTING ROLE.  Little emphasis there.  There was no try out for starters there was no shuffling the starters around to jump start the offense/defense - nothing, and this guy didn't have to earn anything.  It was disheartening to say the least but indicative of the kind of person he was and the kind of leader he was - aka not a leader.   Okay, so you had a coach that didn't like you, never gave you a shot and made you want to quit, that doesn't mean he is a bad coach.  No that alone would not him a horrible coach, the fact that he would not win a game the entire season (0-21) and lost to an 0-8 team at home kind of seals his fate as a horrible coach.  Needless to say this guy was one and done, but it just so happened that the one corresponded to the one year senior year that I had.  

It was incredibly disappointing from an athletic standpoint, but I have always enjoyed basketball, still do.  I fixed my shot after high school and have become pretty decent at diagnosing shot inefficiencies and how to correct them.  I also understand defensive positioning now and help coach in the church league for K-6.  Would I ever tell a kid "you can't play"? No.  One you never know what a kid is capable of truly until you put them in the game situation.  Two, that sucked horribly when I was in school.  I don't know if it was personal or not, but it became personal.  I would rather build a kid up and even if I thought someone was terrible at the sport and I eventually got them to the point they could play in a Varsity game, then I would have really thought I did a good job as a coach.  Not this guy though, oh and one time he brought in a rope that he used to string up deer (still had blood stains on it), to illustrate visually ball-rim-you principles and how it always made a triangle. I remember this because he put the rope through the hoop, but the concept makes no sense, which makes all the sense now.  The actual concept is called Ball-you-man for off ball defense, and positioning your self between the person you are guarding and the ball, while keeping your back to the basket, but that was well beyond this guy.  Think that's all for this one, hope you never run into anyone this bad both tactically and as a person.

20 Years Already

Hey, blog's been around for 20 years already, pretty sweet.  Be sure to like and subscribe.  Sorry wrong app.  Be sure to click on adds and leave comments 👍. 

Fun with time

If you think of time as a "base 12" operation (number wise it is still base 10 numbers but bare with me) it makes a little more sense.

There are 60 seconds in a minute or 5 - 12 second groupings.

There are 60 minutes in an hour or 5 - 12 minute groupings

There are 24 hours in a day or 2 - 12 hour groupings.

7 days in week - you got me there.  Biblical I guess?

but 365 days is real close to 360 days or 12 - 30 day groups or 30 - 12-day groups

For a day there are 1440 minutes or 120 - 12 minute groups.

Maybe a week should be 12 days... with a 4 day weekend... come on science this sounds way better.

Merry Christmas 2023

I was kicked by my Mom on Christmas day.  Yes a 94 year old woman in a wheel chair wanted to physically strike me because I wouldn't take her home.  But home is gone, sadly.  She isn't able to give herself the medicine she needs, nor is she able to make meals for herself, let alone a wheel chair being unable to make it through the hallways in the old house. The last 2 years have been a really sharp decline and it is so heart breaking to look in her eyes and see nothing.  She is a shell of her former self and it hurts being able to see her and know that there is just no way back to the way she used to be.  It also hurts when she kicks me.

New 5k PR

The new 5k PR is 25:15 set in 2022.  No new records so far in 2023.  I won't say that I have plateaued, but I definitely haven't got to train like I want to.  I have been doing more strength stuff though and even though I'm not getting the mile I feel like a stronger runner.  I just don't have the endurance... so I probably need to run more miles.  Well I have a couple of races left this year maybe, so I might be able to pull off that sub 25.

The Anti Hustle

Well there is a new term out there called quiet quitting and it is basically the antithesis to the Hustle mentality.  The let's do more, learn more and take on more responsibility mentality has given way to the "I'm good" mentality and I understand completely.  You see my family is full of hustlers and over achievers - people that started their own business, traveled around the world, gone back to school to get more and more education, and for the most part I followed similar paths. I took one of the hardest under grad majors in college, was willing to work whenever for my employers (including being locked in for 12 days once), go wherever was needed and learn what was needed.  All in the hopes that I would continue to ascend the ranks.  However, my ascension was a dealt a critical blow earlier in the year.   The plant manager was relieved of their duties and several people in the plant had mentioned that I should take the position.  I pondered on it, and long story short I decided that for the people that worked there and for my own benefit  - if I was going to work another 20 years - that I should go for it.  The bad news is that I was never offered the position.  Never interviewed. Never even asked what I thought should happen and I am the most senior person now at the plant.  Instead someone was brought from a completely different country, who was already a manger at another plant, and given this plant.  Within 3 months the production manager was fired in the name of "safety" and I vehemently disagreed with that decision.  So now I have gone from potential plant manager to person who doesn't get asked about any decisions that affect the plant.  And who gets most of the fall out... me. Unfortunately when people get fired they take all their experience and knowledge with them, and simply replacing a body doesn't replace the skills.  So 6 months later I'm still at the same job, basically zero prospects to improve my position as I've learned first hand and facing a decision.  And here is where things get tricky.  If I no longer like my job should I look for another job?  The problem is if I leave the hustle starts all over and quite frankly I am over the hustle of it all especially if there is nothing to gain at the end of the day.  My mentality has shifted to - what do I need to retire and it is actually a much more welcome idea than what do I need to accomplish to move up the ladder.  Heck I don't care about the ladder any more.  The only bad thing is if I keep doing my job as effective as I have been other people will continue to look good and benefit from my work.  Not a huge fan.  But by the same token I can't sink people because the would wind up sinking me.  So this no hustle mentality is really a fine line of push the ball down the field, just don't let it go backwards and use your position to fill your goals outside of work.  Don't make work your goal.  So what if you get a promotion, get moved up.  Are the making statues of you?  Are they writing books?  Who's reading those books or looking at your statue?  If it isn't something you truly enjoy, then why do it?  Well I need that money, yo. Right we still need to be employed and as awesome as it would be to just walk in and hand in the notice you really can't just quit to do nothing.  At least not with a family.  So can I eek out an existence here, not ruffle feathers, and just get to the finish line?  I mean once you come to the reality that your not going to be the CEO and I have no desire to be the CEO, you have to be content with what you are doing, but content isn't happy.  The bad thing is after you get to this point I don't know that you can be happy working.  I have a ton of other things I would rather do - run, work on my house, make trips.  I for sure don't want to miss anything my daughter is in, especially not for this place.  I don't want people to lose their jobs, but I also don't want to work myself to death.  The biggest  thing that I have noticed in the last 6 months is that no one is really interested in helping me.  People just want stuff from me.  But I want stuff for my self.  Mostly I just want to be free to do what I want to do, novel idea right?  If I start somewhere else the hustle comes back, which I wouldn't mind the hustle if it was something I really wanted to do.  Just right now, after 22 years of work and 5 years of education, I'm good.  I don't want to learn a new facility and new rules, I just want to focus on me and my family and what I want to do away from here.  If I could announce pro games and make a living I would do that.  I started doing high school last year and the response has been really amazing.  I have fun, and I find myself thinking about announcing stuff rather than other things.  It has been a welcome distraction from the stuff I have been dealing with for my mom and the work stuff.  Don't get me wrong, I am glad that I hustled as much as I did and I grateful to have a supportive wife that didn't complain and let me do what I had to do without making me feel bad.  But I feel bad about missing opening days, missing my son run in a local race or the first race of season.  I've been taking time in the morning to complete breathing exercises, do some yoga and lift some weights and I feel better about myself doing that than getting to work 15 minutes earlier.  I mean I'll put my time in, but with a phone I get messages and e-mails 24/7 so sometimes it is hard to switch off, but I try to only respond during work hours unless it is an emergency or one of the people who has helped me.  Well I that's enough for now.  I'll check in later and let you know how this new mental approach works.  Also sorry for the long paragraph, there should probably be a break in there somewhere...

Travel Chronicles chapter 109

So this video got flagged on Youtube because I go a little in the weeds on vaccines.  Here's the thing, after a certain point of census in theory, when you push things out to the real world the theory gets replaced by data.  And for any data references I have mainly been using the Covid tracker over at World o meters - COVID Live - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer (worldometers.info)  They have all the data as far as new cases and deaths and it seems to track pretty closely with Johns Hopkins stuff but is a little easier to navigate for me.  So just basing some things from that DATA and drawing some conclusions besides the feel good stuff coming from the "consensus" I see that there was a spike in cases in late summer which is odd because more and more people had been getting the shots and as you go on the cases should become less if the vaccine works.  But there was a funny little caveat that they included with the vaccine that it wouldn't stop the spread, but would decrease the chances of death and severe illness.  Ok fine.  But normal vaccines stop stuff.  Polio vaccine - stops polio, small pox vaccine - stop small pox.  Covid vaccine - doesn't stop it necessarily.  And you can see that in the data.  But when you mention that it doesn't stop it and cases are still going up despite increased vaccines you get a warning for "misinformation" even though by all accounts the data says the vaccine is minimally effective against spreading it and there is absolutely no way to verify how sick someone would have gotten without it.  Would they have died? You honestly don't know.  I had Covid, I was sick for about 5 days. Never had a fever, never had the muscle aches, lost taste and smell and was tired.  That was it.  The big question to me from this video is why didn't we work on cures for the infection? Any time someone suggested something they were met with ridicule and venom - oh antibodies won't work just get the vaccine, invermectin is for parasites etc. I'm not saying I have the cure, but when there is only one solution for a global problem that seems ludicrous to me.  Anyway here is my back door attempt at this even though blogger is google and youtube is google.  Enjoy.

LOL it's too big.  Ok have to find another way.  hang in there.

Definitive Marvel Movie Rankings 1-25

So after the release of Shang-Chi I have decided to sit down and rank the Marvel movies in a definitive list.  This is the end all be all list for how the movies should be ranked.  Qualifiers - this is more about the story of the movies and how they relate, a little bit is recognized for nostalgia and more credit is giving for the movies that did the heavy lifting early on without a whole lot of cross over potential.  Here we go...

25) Thor the Dark World - face it, if you were going to rewatch any Marvel movie this is near the bottom.  How did they even get the ether into a stone?

24) Hulk - No jokes, not the same Hulk as the rest of the MCU.  There actually is a lot that may make it out of the this film - Abomination, Thunderbolt Ross, but as of now not a whole lot came out of this movie - including Edward Norton.

23) Iron Man II - First sequel of the MCU but gets kind of scattered in the story.  does introduce Black Widow.

22) Thor - Watch it again.  This movie just doesn't hold up. The kiss is cool though.

21) Black Widow - Ruined Task master, B.W. character was already dead, just severely mistimed. More of an origin story for her sister which no one asked for.

20) Captain Marvel - This movie would have been better if it wasn't all flash backy.  Also she comes off as a bit of a Mary Sue.

19) Guardians Volume 2 - Kind of a crazy story, I know it is comic booky, but the story is just so darn creepy.  Plus the first one was so good, but hey baby Groot.

18) Captain America the first Avenger - Let's face it, it was an origin story, the big bad was meh.  Cool stuff with Tony Starks dad, but does the time line fit for that?  Tony was born in the 70's so for his Dad to be working on stuff in the 40's would make him like in his 60's when Tony was born.  Oops.

17) Ant Man and the Wasp - Kind of required reading for End Game and a nice introduction of the Wasp, but who was he fighting here?  Everyone kind of ended up on the same side and Ant man ends up in the quantum realm.

16) Iron Man III - No real connection to the other films, depressed Iron Man isn't that fun to watch.  Kind of reminds me of the 5th Harry Potter film. Necessary, but you may not watch it again.

15) Dr. Strange - Crazy visuals, but an origin movie.  B.C. is awesome and embodies Dr. Strange, but the big bad - Dormomu ? is a little under developed. 

14) Avengers Age of Ultron - It's important to the future of the MCU, but fighting a robot doesn't have that satisfying feeling.  But hey Vision.

13) Black Panther - Once again this is about the Movie itself.  Michael B. Jordan is kind of the star of this movie and he is the bad guy.  The rules are a little confusing for the suit and how the power is transferred but BP is cool and the action is on point.

12) Captain America, Winter Soldier - Another Cap movie and coming to the realization that Bucky wasn't dead. Black Widow is in this one too.  Could move up, hey on your left.

11) Ant Man - Cool comic book character, more on the comedic side which a comic book movie should be.  New Powers and Hank Pym who is so crucial to a lot of Marvel Lore.

10) Spiderman Far from Home - No real cross overs, Sony takes a little better care of the individual character movies cause they have to, plus they are building the sinister 6. A little disappointing with the actual lack of a super big bad, but Jake G is pretty good here.

9) Shang-Chi and The Legend of the 10 rings - If you like choreographed fighting this is top notch for Marvel.  Like the story - it is a comic book movie after all, and I feel like he is going to be the leader of phase IV and what Marvel does going forward.  New Iron Man.

8) Iron Man - The original, started it all.  Character made it through and was instrumental to the whole story.  Probably not the best movie, but the importance and what it allowed is unmatched.

7)Spiderman Homecoming - Like I said Sony does a little better job and after the 3rd reboot of Spiderman I think they finally got it right, plus the Iron man cross over is awesome.

6)Avengers - The first team up movie, first look at Thanos, but no Spidey keeps this one down a little bit.  But still a great movie.

5) Thor Ragnarok - Let's call this the perfect amount of Hulk, hilarity and team upness. Asgard gets destroyed, Thor losses an eye real consequences.  Odin dies and the reference to Point Break never gets old.

4) Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 - The only Marvel film that was so good I had to see it twice it the theater.  The first real infinity stone movie, Thanos featured prominently, talking tree and racoon - how can that go wrong.  Also killer sound track, just everything about this movie is great.

3) Captain America Civil War - Airport sequence, Spiderman joins the MCU and Black Panther shows up for the first time.  Avenger on Avenger crime is real, and the cracks in the team that are left at the end of this movie allows Infinity war to happen.  Cap fighting Tony at the end, this movie does have a lot of memorable scenes.

2) End Game - Real consequences are finally delivered on.  It kind of undoes a lot of Infinity War, but we say farewell to Tony, Cap and Black Widow.  Well sort of Black Widow as she had the stand alone movie after this. But there was a ton of pay off, and it was well done. Also fat Thor.

1) Infinity War - A super hero movie where the bad guy wins. So much to finally payoff in this movie, the last big team up and all of the infinity stones are finally put together from 22 other movies.  Just so much build up to this movie that it was almost impossible to fail and there were real consequence for some - basically just Vision (and even he came back on Disney+ so who knows).

Travel Chronicles Chapter 21ish

Talking about collective consciousness, different brain wave states, and how to get in the zone and postulating that perhaps being  in "the zone" is a link to the collective unconsciousness. 

New 5k PR

Picked this up on Sunday -

Didn't feel too bad afterward, and my average heart rate was 163 or so which was about 15 beats below my average when I ran in July, and this was about 1:30 faster.  The weather was about perfect though, maybe a little on the cool side, would have been good to have running sleeves instead of running with a long sleeve shirt.  Less sun though probably helped keep the heart rate down.  I was also probably 5-7 pounds lighter than I was in July so that should have helped.  Still need to drop about 20 more pounds, that should help get the time down more especially if I can hold on to muscle.  I think what I am doing is working just a matter of grinding some more and putting work in.

Travel Chronicles Chapter 12

It's Chapter 12, even though I say 11.  Today we talk about morning routines.

My routine if I had time and wasn't rushed for anything:
1) Wim Hof Breathing.

2) 10 min. meditation
3) Cold shower (start warm and end cold)
4) Breakfast or skip this step for now
5) Yoga
6) Quick weight lifting

Travel Chronicles Chapter 11

Talking today about weight loss and a couple of things that have helped me lose 30 lbs. over 4 years and 17 lbs. over the last year.  TLDW:
- Be honest with how many calories you are actually in taking.
- Use more calories than you intake, but don't starve yourself.  Your body will actually burn up muscle first if you aren't using the muscles and preferentially hold on to fat (crazy right, come on body do what I want).
- Any weight loss is going to starting by changing your routine.  I hate the word diet, because those are temporary.  You got into the situation you are in because of how you are eating and how you are living.  If you want to lose weight and keep it off you have to make a lifestyle change.
- Fat comes off easiest with aerobic exercise or exercise where the heart rate is in Zone 2 -3. A high heart rate will push you anaerobic and it will just burn up glycogen stores.

 Part B Subset ii

Travel Chronicles Chapter 10

Travel Chronicles Chapter 9

Travel Chronicles Chapter 8

Travel Chronicles Chapter 9

Travel Chronicles Chapter 7

Travel Chronicles Chapter 6

Travel Chronicles Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Part 2 subset A

Travel Chronicles Chapter 4

Did China lie...

Travel Chronicles Chapter 3

Remember the #Hawkeyes

My Upward basketball season has just ended and this was one of the best teams I have had as far as kids listening and doing things and they just played as a team.  It was so heart breaking the way the season ended, we lost by 2 to the number 1 seed of the tournament and we were the 5.  The kids were in tears, Peach was in tears, I totally didn't cry.  I was close but I was just so happy with how hard the kids played that no matter the result I couldn't be upset.  You see  it was the second game we played that night, during the week and we did everything we could.  The game ended for us on a turnover well 2 turnovers actually as the game was tied with 30 seconds left and some how they other team got the ball and the best kid on their team got a free layup with 10 seconds left.  So I called timeout, and told we were going for the win, we were going to shoot a 3.  So I drew up a play where a kid would dribble left and hand it off to another kid and he would shoot it.  Well the one kid came up to early and the other kid threw it off his back and it went back court for a violation.  The moral of that story is - practice a desparation 3 point play so that the kids aren't caught off guard in the last 10 seconds of the season.
This team was special and I wrote a while ago about how a team becomes a special team and while I'm not sure how or when it happened this team definitely had that, and I wanted to foster that and keep it going as long as I could.  I have coached or assistant coached the last 8 or 9 years in upward, coached some civic basketball, and learned a lot along the way from other coaches and on-line and I don't think I could have got as much out of a team before this season.  I never really coached before 10 years ago, but have coached all the way up from T-ball, baseball, basketball, and even some flag football.  I do enjoy helping kids get better by teaching them what ever I can, but Upwards is a special kind of challenge because practice time is limited.  I had one other team that I felt somewhat comfortable yelling out plays, but this was the first time I ever accomplished it at the 3/4 level.  Not saying they executed the plays perfectly every time, but it kept me involved in the game and I think they got better at things as the season went on, and started expecting things.  Maybe I'm more organized now, but there was a feeling of something kind of organic and you could tell the kids were buying in.  We didn't really have a go-to-scorer per se that I could just get the ball to and say go get me a basket.  A lot of points came from our defense were, we would get a turnover or rebound and push the ball, but if we had to run a play or get someone a shot we did.  One game we came out and hit 3 or 4 jump shots early in the game and sometimes that is fools gold because jumpers don't always fall, especially in 3rd and 4th grade.  The well dried up.  I think we scored 10 in the first half total, after having 8 in about 3 minutes.  Then we got down 10, at 20-10 in the last period and some how, some way we managed to score 14 points and win by 4.  That was the last regular game before our Upward tourney and we had won 3 in a row.  One thing about Upward though is that sometimes you can get behind in the rotation if teams don't have the same number of players, and it is especially disadvantageous if you have more players.  I won't get into the details but basically if you have 8 players they play evenly, and if a kid was out one period he has to play the next period.  By having 8 kids you ensure that your best player is out at least 2 periods.  Well the first round of the tourney we play a team with only 8 kids, and they were all boys.  Usually that is a rotation loss.  But for the tourney we could manipulate the roster and I spent about 2 hours tinkering with rotations so that I didn't have all 3 girls on the floor at once (boys don't like to pass to girls at this level for some reason, so this would give them at least 2 options to pass), I had one of my two designated in bounders on the floor at all times, and I had my best lineup going into the last period.  That was the first time I have seen a team of 8 beat of team of 6, 15-14, 5 seed over the 8 seed.  And the other team had a chance at the end just one of our players made a great defensive play and stopped a layup.
So the next game we were matched up against a team that had a similar number of wins, but also had 9 kids.  This resulted in a rotation loss for them.  That is as simple as I can put it.  I think we won like 27-21.  Then we played the number 1 seed that same night, and if we had played them fresh I feel like we would have won instead of playing with an hour of rest after the first game.  We played a box and one defense, that we actually installed the game before after halftime.  It wasn't great but man was in effective.  We lost by double digits the previous time we played and this time we lost by 2 and had a chance to win at the end.  That is all you can ask for.  And I really can't stress that with limited practice time, how hard it is to install a defense let alone a gimmicky defense, but that just speaks to the specialness (not sure about that word) of this team.  I wish we could have gotten one final team picture, but everyone was kind of upset so it was definitely understandable that we wouldn't have wanted our picture taken.  The number one seed did end up winning 18-13 over the number 3 seed, so we definitely gave them a better game.  We were also down in the rotation 8 kids to 7, so their best player only had to sit out once, and they only had one girl.  Sometimes Upward doesn't get all of the fairness check boxes just right, but every once and a while you get a team that just comes together and can almost overcome any deficit.  Hope next year is just as good, can't wait.  Here is a picture of me and my main man Charlie.

Travel Chronicles Chapter 2

Travel Chronicles Chapter 1

Adult Convo with the boy

So the whole basketball thing for the high school is kind of blowing up and multiple parents are writing letters and voice their overall displeasure with the coach and his staff.  Shocker right?  So I have written a letter as well and I wanted to talk to Sampson first before submitting it.  So we talked and he read the letter and it was a good talk.  I talked about how I had to quit my senior year because of coaching, and that maybe we are just destined to never play a senior season.  He has played well though when he played, but a lot of lessons were learned from my time to help prepare him, where I had no help growing up and neither parent played sports so sports were not very important in my household.  Anyway he said he hated last year and he only gave the coach a second chance this year and kind of everything from last year was confirmed and he doesn't want to submit himself to the verbal abuse for another year, which I totally understand.  He is in a little different situation from me, the coach pulled me and another kid in at the beginning of the season and basically said we weren't going to play and we were wasting our time.  So after 4 games (all loses) and playing for a total of 2 minutes (scored though), I could see the writing on the wall and ended my season there.  It was also a pay for play school so rather than pay to sit, I left before having to pay.  Sampson's situation is actually entirely different, after getting some varsity time last year as a sophomore he started some as a junior and was the 6th man, he just can't get by the yelling and swearing and demeaning behavior of the coaches.  I completely respect his decision and wanted to make sure he was done and he laid out a good case for being done.  I told him to never say never, but in this case there is no glory or record to obtain so it is far better to spend his time doing something else.  Maybe next year he can help me coach Upward.  Even though I had some horrible experiences with basketball and it gets me again here with my son, I still enjoy the sport, enjoy watching it and enjoy helping so that kids get a chance to play.  Now the old Hawkeyes are still in the playoffs but as the 5 seed so we got some work to do, but hopefully we can get that dub in the first round and then get another dub an hour later.  Go Hawkeyes!!!

Ugh

It's hard to describe that feeling were you have been gut punched and feel horrible about things, but the thing that caused the punch also creates a lot of doubt and questions.  So it is just like "I have to deal with this, but how."  So that is where I am right now, my boss or ex-boss was relieved of his job duties yesterday and he was a good boss.  I have had 5 bosses in my professional life, and he was definitely in the top 5.  Pretty easy math there.  Actually maybe I have had 6 bosses, but one was for around 6 months so not sure that counts, anyway he would still be top 5.  Honestly I wouldn't want to rank my bosses, but he was good.  I think Dale Clark is probably at the top of the list because he was very smart about what he was doing and always treated me well and allowed me to succeed and gave me opportunity to prove my self and improve myself.  Columbian Chemicals was an underrated stop on my employment path for sure.  Anyway today feels like there is a cloud hanging overhead.  Worry and uncertainty rule the day and thinking about what has happened has left me feeling very weird about my future and how things are going to be handled.  Just ugh, about the whole situation, about who is going to take over, about how much more work this will be, about how this may not have been completely thought out...

Season 7 continues...

Andy is now the new boss. 🙁  But funny thing is, two days in and Andy hasn't even mentioned the promotion to anyone working there.  The announcement was sent out in an e-mail.

Season 7

I figured out this weekend that my professional life is currently in season 7 of the office.  Michael has left (although, not by his own accord this time) and now we are leaderless.  I can only hope that Andy is not put in charge here, and if Andy is put in charge that there is a least an ass tattoo in the future that we can all enjoy.

Finally Over!!

Is it just me or is it a horrible thing to celebrate the end of your kids season, maybe his career?  Well that is what happened on Friday.  You see I try not to live through my kids, but I want them to be happy more than anything, so when something makes them upset I want to see them get that out of the their life.  And that is where this season of basketball comes in.  The last two years really have been a horrible experience and Sampson has had to work his way up from the freshman team / reserve team to the varsity team without anyone really helping him or a coach really seeing the potential in him.  Which is unfortunate as the kid has achieved quit a bit athletically and has settled into a couple of sports, but he hit a couple of home runs over the fence in Bronco ball, he won the summer swim title for boys when he was 12, and he is a regional qualifying cross country runner in high school, ran a sub 5 minute mile in track, plus all the stuff he has done for basketball.  But he isn't crazy tall and he isn't an exceptional leaper, but that is about all he isn't.  As far as basketball is concerned he can pass, screen, shoot (when he is allowed), and is probably better on defense that anyone on the team from the aspect of position and hand placement.  He does have freakishly quick hands if you want to give him that, but it is hard to quantify those. Anyway he worked to get to varsity and I think he thought there would be some relief if he was playing just varsity and it didn't turn out that way.  In a way it was almost worse.  Last year he was the 7th man on a team that only went 6 deep.  But he played reserve and practiced as part of the white team.  So he was in line for a tongue lashing every once and awhile, but managed to stay out of the spot light most of the time.  As far as screwing up in a varsity game, well you have to be in to screw up, and the only time he got in a game at Shadyside he actually did pretty well and knocked down a 3.  But that was the only time all season he played in the first half and netted only 10 varsity quarters all season, no where near enough to letter apparently, even though he did all of the off season varsity summer leagues and varsity practices all season.  So that is a little ridiculous because if you aren't going to reward a kid with playing time, then at least reward them for the time they put in.  But not this coach.  This is where the problem is, and I have talked about it before.  How do you make a kid hate a sport they have been playing for 10 years?  Yell at them everyday in practice and never tell them they do anything right.  And the problem isn't that it is just him getting yelled at, it is everyone gets yelled at in practice.  There is no level you can ascend to in order to get away from the wrath and that is what I think he realized this year.  That even if he did start, even if he was a focal point of the team he was still going to get yelled at and berated for every little thing he did, so he has had enough.  Which is a damn shame because I have put a lot into encouraging and building him up over the last 10 years and this next year should be his best on the basketball court.  Plus the time his mother has put in at the concession stand and doing basically everything for the parent organization over the last 4 years.  But I honestly don't feel bad about him not wanting to play because it has been that miserable and that is terrible.  How can a coach make a kid want to walk away from something they have done for the last 10 years and how bad is it that I don't want him to play either.  I mean I felt good when this season finally ended and I know how competitive he is and how much he would love to play as deep into the season as possible, but the practices are so brutal and there is no glory in anything they are doing so being done is the better option.  How sad.  I'm competitive too, and when they step on the court there is some questioning of how bad do we want to win vs. how bad do I want this season to be over.  The last game of the season was kind of the high water mark for poor player development, talent evaluation and just overall spitting in kids faces from a coach.  There is one senior that starts and has been in the system for 4 years, there are 2 seniors on the bench, one that did all of the off season stuff same as Sampson and one that was injured the previous football season, so he was restricted medically but his brother played so he was there basically.  Anyway the one senior plays and Sampson is now the 6th man even though he was told he would start based on match-ups which I guess were never in his favor the rest of the season.  The last game he only plays 6 guys, now granted it was a 2 point game at half time, but right after half we commit 8 turnovers in the third.  At some point Sampson came in, but he was the only one.  The other two seniors never came in until there were 40 seconds in the game and Sampson and the other senior had fouled out.  40 seconds. And you know what the coach posts on the way home on the bus:


Seniors you will be missed.  Apparently they were already missed because he couldn't find them to get them in the game.  Now the bad thing is the senior night game (which the seniors should have started but didn't because that is another thing this coach doesn't get) the guys played a good bit and at one point 3 senior boys (minus the starter, I mean why wouldn't you put all four seniors out there at one time for a nice moment, but no he couldn't do that either) where on the court together.  And they won by 38.  So don't you think that would register that the more rest the starters get, the fresher they are at the end and just in general during the game and the more engaged the team is and the better they play.  I mean if the abuse in practices was leading to this display every night I could kind of justify it, but it was a fluke game, a one off, that will probably never be repeated for the rest of his tenure which I hope is over actually so that Sampson would get to play his senior year.   I know you never say never, but at this point right now I hope he doesn't play and I hope 4 seniors that were on varsity and about 3 other players don't come back so he realizes you can't treat people like that.  Especially when IT ISN'T WORKING.  You have to see that the results you get are from what you put in, and we were 13-11 and probably should have won another 4 or 5 games and still been playing, but not the way this team was coached.  1960's offense, no transition, and only one kid is allowed to shoot and he only shoots 30% on a good day, makes no sense.  Maybe God can intervene some how, I hope so.

Spot Starts

Whelp this season continues to get worse.  Definitely the least enjoyable season I have ever watched my son play, but part of that, well actually the whole thing is coaching.  He got to start 2 games in a row due to suspension and he was told that he would be in the starting lineup depending on situation, but...  It seems coach has found someone else to start and he is back on the bench.  It's cool that he got the start, but we lost both games, on the road.  That may play a small part in it, one game an opposing player scored 50 points, and E guarded him for about 21 of those points, but they were pretty much all jumpers, most off the dribble and sometimes he had 2 or 3 hands in his face.  He certainly deserved the 50 (well actually 49 because one of the officials called a 2 a 3).  The second game we lost by 40, and I called it 12 minutes into the contest, sadly.

The other team ran and ran like crazy and we never got back.  Now to me that is game plan, you have to know how a team wants to play going in, and try and take away what they want to do and we didn't.  So we lost.  By 40.  This was actually the OVAC first round and we ended up as the 3rd seed, which was a little surprising, but Sophie was upset because now we have to have a concession stand on Friday.  I mean it's like we didn't realize there was more work on the line for Sophie, come on boys you could have played harder.

Anyway so now we are playing at home against the Team that E got his first start against (see earlier post).  This time however, he won't start.  Not because he hasn't played well or done his job, but well I don't know why.  Last time we were missing the tall kid, this time our point guard is out, but we won last time and if you were going to give him the start then, wouldn't it make sense to start him now?  Honestly this season is so hard to figure out, but I knew he wouldn't start.  And it isn't like him starting the last 2 games is the difference, the other kid who would start also started the last two games due to suspensions.  I'm guessing we lose by 5, E says it will be over double digits.

Update: we lost by 6, but were down 12-1 after 1.

Back to the Bench

Welp that lasted all of two starts.  Now one of the boys who was done for the season may not be done and as much as I want my son to start, I don't want to sound like someone down playing another person's motivation or ability to play or the risk, but... If the answer to what you have done to yourself is to have something surgically repaired, putting it off for the glories of high school basketball may not be worth it.  Now there is something to be said for gutting it out and I could understand if we were undefeated and had a shot at all the championships and stuff, but we are 9-7 right now, can't win the buckeye 8, probably won't make the OVAC top 4, and in all likelihood unless something drastic with the coaching philosophy changes we are probably headed for an early exit in the sectionals.  So unless you were playing for a scholarship or maybe a school record, which I don't think either are on the line, it's probably best to pack it in and call it a career.  Now would I tell my own son this. abosolutely.  There is basically nothing to be gained and a life full of potential pain or limited range of motion in one arm on the line.  You only get to do this life one time, and you only have the body you were born with so you need to take care of it.  That is my advise, just kind of unfortunate what has happened and how it might play out.  E has also had an ear infection and missed the last game so he might have gotten bumped from the lineup anyway.  Hopefully he can still play and contribute.

Update:  Well the boy with the injured arm is done, but not without the coach asking him to stay.  Insert eye roll.  So E missed one game due to an ear an infection and the coach held him out the entire first quarter even though we were losing 12-6 at one point.  Must have been concerned for his well being even though the boy with the shoulder problems missed 2 straight games, and came right back into the starting lineup and played probably about 25 minutes.  Oh and the one kid who missed a week and a half with ham string issues came right back to the starting lineup and played damn near every minute of two back-to-back losses of 30+ and 20+.  Honestly I have no clue what this guy watches during games and his main assistant is about a joke.  Oh the game we were behind, when E came in we went on a 7-2 run and got the lead, now he didn't score, but tell me that he didn't make a difference.

Defensive Basketball Tips

So I saw a video on line and while I agree with some of the concepts there are other that I think are wrong.  Defense for basketball is one of the hardest things to get right, but oh what a difference it can make if you understand defense.  For one it is difficult to practice, everyone can dribble and shoot on their own but no one works on defense by themselves.  A lot of times we give credit to people for being "good" defenders when they are simply very active and maybe even fast, but don't necessarily use correct or good technique.  Plus how often do you hear when watching a game that a player is a fantastic positional defender?  Not exactly the flashyist comment is it?  So let's start with the very basics.

BASICS

See the ball - never turn your back to the basketball especially on defense.  good offensive players will take advantage.
Try to keep your back to the basket.
Stay between your person and the basket.
Bend your knees and keep your butt down, hands out when in a stance.
Slide your feet - basically don't cross your feet or a good offensive player will go right by you.

So that is what I try to get my elementary kids to do to start with.   If you master these concepts you at least aren't a space cadet on the defensive end.  So then how do you become a "good" defender?

MODERATE

Talk - always communicate with other players about where the offense is and any screens.
Ball - you - man - This concept keeps you in a position where one - you see the ball and the person you are guarding, and two - you are in a position to defend a pass to your person.
Know personnel - this is a little higher level concept, but if you are guarding a shooter you need to be close to that person if they are away from the basket.  If someone is not a great shooter you don't have to guard them that closely away from the basket.  This will also determine if you need to try and get over screens (good shooter) or can go under a screen (bad shooter).
When trying to block a shot be the second person off the floor.  If you don't do this you will constantly be falling for fakes and be out of position.

HIGHER LEVEL STUFF BUT REALLY SHOULDN'T BE

When guarding a right handed player you should challenge a shot with your left hand.  This is a concept that is lost on players or never taught to them, but makes sooooo much sense.  If you try to block a shot with the right hand on a right handed player, your entire body has to rotate or slide over to where you are no longer if front of the player.  If they faked the ball and you bit on the fake they will be able to go left with very little resistance because you are horribly out of position.  This is why left handed players have an advantage because their instinct is to block the shot with their strong hand and it happens to line up with right handed players, so they are able to stay in front of the offensive player the entire time without getting badly out of position.  Sometimes it is hard to tell if a left handed player is good at defense, because they have a natural advantage.
Never try to steal the ball from a good ball handler when the ball is in their hands.  They are too good at dribbling and by waving your hands your feet will stop moving or you will get off balance and they will expose you.  Be patient against a good ball handle and be content to make them work hard or travel the furthest path to the basket.  "You reach, I teach" is a favorite motto of good ball handlers.
Keep your hands at ball level.  If a player is dribbling you don't have to worry about blocking a shot so your hands shouldn't be up in the air.  You should be worried about them passing the ball, though.  If they are dribbling hands should be out, palms up.  If they have the ball in a triple threat, hands should be out to the side preferably with the hand to guard the shot forward towards the ball handler.  If they raise the ball to shoot or pass, the defenders hands should go up.  If they have already used their dribble, you can move in extremely close so that passing angles are taken away, just don't get beat on a back door or give and go, you still have to stay on balance and in front of the offensive player.
When there is a lot of distance between you and a ball handler you should flatten out.  If you have a shooting hand forward (and by extension a foot forward) a good offensive player will attack the front foot to get you to open your hips.  So if you don't give them a direction they have to pick a direction and you can easily slide over and take a charge if they drive at you.  Ideally by being flat (both feet the same distance from the ball handler) the ball handler will stop their forward progress and you can assume a more natural defensive stance.  If they are still coming at you while flat they will have to take a much wider path in order to make it around you without charging.  At that point you should have help or be able to easily drop back to pick them up. Always start to their strong hand and if you can, keep the ball centered on your body from a position stand point.  This is where quicker defenders have an advantage.
When guarding the ball prior to a dribble keep the foot forward that matches up with their shooting hand.  So for a right handed shooter you want your left foot towards the shooter, but outside of their stance or at least outside the ball.  The reason for this is, if they still try to drive right, they have to go around your foot which will give you a chance to drop your hips and still be in front of them on a drive.  Ideally they will be forced to go left, but if they pull up for a shot you will be directly on their shooting hand.  The key thing here is to not switch which foot is forward with out the ball handler committing to dribbling in that direction on a hard drive.  If they are just sliding right or left you want to slide with them but still in a position to challenge the shooting hand.  Why move your right foot forward to keep someone from going left if they shoot right handed?  They will be able to shoot right over top of you because you aren't in a position to block or challenge the shot effectively.