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Back to DAL from ATL

Well, my Florida/Georgia tour has ended and I’m preparing to re-enter the real world tomorrow. I figure I should capture some of the highlights from ATL, so here goes.

I had a great time hanging with my pals and just layin’ around. Mostly, it was good to see many of my friends from UF and also to spend time with all my buddies that have moved to ATL. I went to the Peach Bowl and watched the Gators get waxed, but at least I had decent seats and went with several of my good friends. While the game wasn’t too exciting, it was fun to make fun of the drunk guy behind us and mock the lady he was with. Apparently, his special lady friend thinks it’s ‘bad coaching’ if Leak slides short of the first down marker because there are three defenders about to crush him. Yes, lady, a ‘good coaching’ decision would be for him to just continue running right for the defenders so that if he makes the first down, it’s his last play of the season.

After the Peach Bowl, I went to a friend’s New Year’s party and had a great time. There were plenty of funny people there and I had some good conversations. Also, it was great to drive people to the other side of Atlanta at 5 am by using terrible directions supplemented by the guy in the passenger’s seat saying to his buddy on the phone, “Well, we’re at this place that reminds me of Batman one.” and “This looks familiar. Let’s try this one.” about a random apartment complex in the middle of nowhere.

Back on the bike

So, the best part about being home is that I can finally get back to working out. I start a basketball league in a week and I haven’t touched a basketball in at least two months. I have a lot of work to do so I’m ready to run Point when the league starts.

Today at the gym, I was riding the bike and reading (as usual) when a guy sits next to me and, in a thick European accent, says, “Quite a reading selection there.” I looked down to realize that I’d brought a copy of Entertainment Weekly and also The Art of War. I guess those aren’t generally read simultaneously, but I like to go for variety in what I read.

I’m going to shoot around now.

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Back on the East Coast

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, but that’s mostly because I’ve been so busy traveling and such. I’ve been in Florida for four days now and I’m having a great time. Of course, I’ve done a lot of eating and sitting around, but I’ve also spent a lot of time with friends and having a great time.

There aren’t too many details to share because most of my trip has been simple relaxation and vacation. Today, I went to a Florida basketball game, which we won handily. It was fun to see our younger guys get some playing time and I thought we playe pretty well. We definitely need to work on our offense and our consistency, but we could be in good shape by March.

In a few days I’m heading to Jacksonville for Christmas. I’ll be seeing my family and some Jacksonville friends and hopefully meeting with a couple friends to talk more about the short we’ve been very, very slowly writing.

The following week, I’ll be off to Atlanta for more visiting and also to go to the Peach Bowl and hopefully see the Gators beat the ‘Canes.

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I can’t believe it

For the first time since 1986, the Gators won at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee. This after we fired our coach in October. After last year at Gainesville, I couldn’t be happier that we knocked up the 8th ranked ‘Noles. Looks like the refs weren’t there to bail them out this year.

Of course, I’m becoming more and more unsure of my support for the school’s decision to fire Zook. At first, I was really supportive (I just felt like we weren’t going forward, even in our third year since we hired him), but now I’m realizing he may have his best year yet… and with a young team that is a dead ringer for SEC Eastern Division Champs next year.

I guess now we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Since Spurrier seems to be headed for South Carolina, it seems likely we’ll get Urban Meyer from Utah. Or at least we’ll pursue him. The guy seems to know what he’s doing and his offense will fit very well at UF. It’s so Spurrier-esque it’s scary.

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Florida: Days 9 through 11

Well, my last few days in Florida were relaxing, but fun. On Friday, we went out to Newberry for a baby-back-ribs fix and then watched Miami beat FSU again. Obviously, I take great pleasure in seeing the ‘Noles beaten again and it was even better that FSU could’ve iced the game with a late fieldgoal if only it hadn’t been blocked. Before the game, I predicted they’d go for something new and different since “wide left” and “wide right” were becoming sort of cliche. They didn’t disappoint.

Saturday, I went to the first Gator football game of the year and it was a route, just as everyone expected. I actually left near the end of the third quarter because we’d already been there about four hours thanks to a rain delay. We ended up winning 49-10 and, although we didn’t look perfect, all of the problems I saw can definitely be corrected by some well used practice time this week. I can’t wait for the Tennessee game on Saturday night.

Sunday, I went to church and then packed up and started heading home. A couple of my friends in Gainesville took me to Starke (half-way between Gainesville and Jacksonville) to eat lunch at Sonny’s and then they passed me off to another friend who got me the rest of the way to the airport. My flight home was uneventful (my favorite adjective for describing plane rides) and I got in about 9:30 last night. Since then, I’ve been laying around feeling absolutely exhausted and trying to get some things done around my apartment.

I’m really surprised how tired I am and I hope I’m ready for work tomorrow. I just realized that, before my 11 day trip, I worked 16 of 17 days consecutively and the last 4 days before I left were jammed with shopping and last minute preparation. Basically, I’ve been going for 3 weeks straight and I’m looking forward to doing nothing this week.

Acting trudging along

Since my coach left for LA and I’ve been out of town, I haven’t been working nearly as hard on my acting as I would like to be. I’ve been doing a little reading, but I haven’t been practicing, training or signing up for showcases and such as I should be. I feel like a real slacker. I guess the good news is that in three weeks I’m headed to L.A. for five days and part of that time will be spent getting my stuff together for acting. I’ll be getting headshots, meeting with my coach and hopefully doing a little networking. I really need to turn up the heat and get serious and I’m starting to feel a sense of urgency. Mostly, I feel I should always be moving forward and I haven’t been doing that lately (at least not at a pace I’d like).

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Coasting along

I haven’t posted much recently because I haven’t done much recently. My basketball team played our 7th and final game of the season on Wednesday and we won by about 20. I probably played my best game at Point Guard, although I didn’t have many points to prove it (I think I finished with 7). Our team played well and it’ll be interesting to see how we do in the playoffs starting Wednesday. Fortunately, our first game is against another team that we beat by 20 (and they ran 10 guys to our 6), so hopefully we’ll win again and continue working on a team strategy that will work for us. So far, it seems to work with me at Point because I do a good job of bringing the ball up, but also because it allows the other guys to play in the positions where they’re most comfortable (wings and post).

Online Poker

Next week, I’ll probably start playing a little poker online for real money. I think I’ll initially stick to playing “Sit N Gos”, which are basically one- or two-table tournaments where the top four places finish in the money. Because I feel more comfortable and confident in tournaments, I figure I’ll start with these to build up my bankroll before I start playing cash games. Above all, I’ll be playing only with the money I’ve put into my account for the next month. In a month, I’ll evaluate and decide where to go from there. If I’m up, I’ll just keep playing online. If I’ve lost the cash I allotted myself, I’ll have to decide whether to try again or find another hobby.

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Current Competition Compilation

Well, after the tournament a couple weeks ago, I started playing in a home game with a few of the guys that were in the tournament. Last week, I didn’t do so well. I lost 30 bucks in 3 hours (it was a 20-dollar buy-in) and just didn’t seem to be able to win a hand. So, I thought about it all week and decided upon a strategy that I thought could be used to beat this home game. It’s simple: I don’t raise before the flop (there’s simply no point in trying to drive anyone out before they see the cards in this game), I slow-play almost everything and I’ll play drawing hands only if it’s really cheap to draw. This week, I won 35 bucks, so I made back what I lost last week and then 5 bucks bonus. I only played about 6 hands in 3 hours, but that’s because I just didn’t need to play any more than that.

I’m probably going back next week and I’ll see if the strategy is legitimate or if I was just experiencing the large swings that come with a loose aggressive group of players.

Basketball: Game 6

Well, we’re now 3-3 after starting 3-0. We lost badly tonight, 51-29, or something like that. I only scored 5 points, but that’s about my share since we had 6 guys. We just couldn’t execute in offense and we got outplayed. However, I felt I played pretty well. I certainly could’ve shot better and put up some more points, but I ran Point Guard for most of the game and I did it pretty well. I was playing very aggressively because they were playing a high 2-3 zone. That meant there was a huge soft spot about 18 feet out, all the way around the arc. I felt like I was finding open men and making passes to set them up for open looks, but we simply couldn’t hit our shots. I only had one turnover and probably 3 assists, but that assist number really should’ve been higher.

The last few games, our biggest weakness has been simple offensive execution. We just didn’t put the ball through the hoop, and we had plenty of opportunities. I really hope we can get back on the winning track before the playoffs in a couple weeks. Until then, we have one more regular season game against the first team we played. I expect we’ll win, but it’s hard to say with this team. We’ve shown that we can be very inconsistent.

Time to sleep.

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Game 5 a better loss

We lost the fifth game of our league season, but only by one point, 45-44. We played pretty well both defensively and offensively, but just didn’t hit the one shot we needed to win. Basically, we made the mistake of starting in a 2-3 zone and they outscored us by about 12 while we were in the zone. Then, we went man (for about the last three-quarters of the game) and outscored them by 11–one short of what we needed to go to OT and two short of the win.

All in all, it was a good game and we played well. I did alright, but mostly was a quiet contributor tonight. I was pretty pleased with my performance, but of course I’m kicking myself for not hitting one more shot.

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My team’s collective ego got a boo boo

Last week, we won by 20-something. This week? Lost by 20-something. The main factor: the guys we played were just more experienced and a lot more aggressive on both offense and defense than we were. We flat got outplayed. I had my worst game in a while. I scored four points–same as in the first game–but I did it on something like 14 shots or so. I missed several easy lay-ups, didn’t have any 3’s and couldn’t get 5-foot jumpers to fall. My teammate said I (and we as a team) were playing scared and I think he may be right. As I think back, I missed some easy shots, but they were shots that should’ve been a lot easier. I wasn’t jumping too hard on lay-ups and jumpers because I was trying for a quick release to avoid getting blocked; my 3’s were falling short because I was shooting too high and quick to avoid getting blocked.

We were caught off guard because they played very aggressive defense. They only had five guys and we had seven, so we figured we could “run ’em”. Well, since they had at least one guy who played Division 1-A basketball, they were in pretty good shape and weren’t intimidated by a fast-paced game. Ironically, our team totally forgot that we beat a ten-man team by 20 last week and we only had six guys.

Anyway, it was humbling, but it was good to see what we need to work on in practice and throughout the season. We’ll probably see this team again in the play-offs and I think we’ll be more ready for them this time around.

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Game 3 much better

Tonight was the third basketball game of the season for our league team. We saw a dramatic improvement from last game to this in pretty much every aspect of our game. We played better defense, executed better on offense, had more transition buckets because of our defense and we opened up the floor with good perimeter shooting.

Personally, I had a great game: 17+ points, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 rebound and 0 turnovers (that I can remember). This was a huge improvement over the last two weeks when I averaged 3.5 ppg. I knocked down at least 3 3-pointers and 4 2-pointers and I might have had 2 more points or so.

That being said, I need to improve my ball handling. I ran Point for most of the game and, although I didn’t have any turnovers, it wasn’t pretty at times. The other team pressured me a few times and I wasn’t pleased with how I responded. Usually, I found a good pass to make to bail myself out, but I hoped I would be more capable of handling the ball on my own. As the line says, 0 turnovers, but there were a few close calls. Also, I need to work on my attitude. We were winning by about 20 and I was still upset when I didn’t get a foul call and I was first to jump on a double-dribble by the opposing team. I just thought I got too wrapped up in the game and I wasn’t having enough fun.

The end.

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Much better for Game 2

We played our second game of the season on Tuesday and I think we played significantly better than we did in Game 1. Our passing was virtually non-existent in Game 1 whereas we used it very well in Game 2. We ran a faster-paced, up-tempo style offense that suited us very well and we dominated the boards, which gave us a lot of second-chance points. We ended up winning by 13, which was the margin we held for pretty much the whole game.

Personally, I could’ve done a lot better, but I didn’t play poorly. I made good plays, but had trouble finishing around the basket. I only had 3 points on a 3-pointer early in the game. After that, I was all steals and passes. The good news is that I had a lot of chances for points inside because my team was passing well. Normally, I play better around the rim anyway, I just wasn’t getting it done last night. I figure if we keep playing the same and I remember how to finish, I could easily average 10 points a game from here on out. That ain’t bad for 18-minute halves with a continuously running clock.