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Car blues lightening up for now

Well, I took my car for a second opinion today. Turns out the problem wasn’t a “cracked lower intake manifold” (or whatever), but a leaking thermostat housing. Price difference? About $400 American. So, for now, my car’s running fine and I’m just hoping it’ll last me about 6 more months. I’m definitely counting my blessings right now.

Busting fingers

About a month ago, I jammed my left thumb. Last Saturday, I jammed my right index finger. Of course, I was immediately concerned that the index finger would slow me down a lot (it’s surprising how difficult it is to shoot with a busted index finger on my shooting hand), but it seems my concerns were misplaced. Today, as I was playing some three-on-three at the gym, I hurt my thumb again as I was getting a rebound. It’s really sensitive and doesn’t seem to be healing well. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of injury that’s not a big deal until it’s re-aggravated somehow. What I mean is that I could probably play the full game this Wednesday and never know the difference… unless someone nonchalantly bumps my thumb, in which case I will suddenly be in a lot of pain and not a very effective point guard. I’m trying to decide whether I’ll sit Wednesday so I can rehab the thumb, but I’m afraid my stupidity and stubbornness will win out and I’ll end up playing.

I’d really like to be 100%, just to see what I can do. I’m in better shape than I’ve probably ever been, I’m at a good weight, I have pretty good strength and my fundamental basketball skills are definitely better than ever. But I can’t seem to be injury-free long enough to find out what all that means. Very frustrating.

I guess a positive note is that the ankle problem that was hounding me for a couple years seems to be totally gone–it’s back to 100%. Last time I turned it was back in December, right before I came to Dallas. It hasn’t felt this good since April ’02.

Old school video

Tonight, I was looking for a CD that a friend wanted to borrow when I found a copy of an old video that I think was from Fall ’01. It was neat to watch because it was a bunch of my good friends and I playing in a church league game. It was great to see them and interesting to see how slow-paced the game was. I had 24 points–half of which came with 3 minutes or less left and when our team already had a 10-point lead–but I didn’t play a stellar game by any means.

Mostly, I was just glad that my friend didn’t mind spending the game taping instead of watching and chatting with her friends. It’s one of the few videos I have of myself and I happen to be playing ball with a few of my best buds from school. Excellent.