Can't Stop!

OK another annual audit at work this weekend has been completed successfully it seems. Now if I can only stop wanting to count everything, every where I go. You get into that counting mode and sometimes it just spills over into the home life. You're just walking around and suddenly realize that you been multiplying, subtracting and carrying over the one. Then if you're me ..... you feel the need to recount that which you've already counted. Multiple times even. Because I fear that I lose focus at times and maybe all those other counts were wrong. I trust my results for about ten minutes and then the doubting begins.

But I guess it all helps to keep the mind active. Because I'd much rather rust then fade away as Neil Young once sang. Or was it the other way? No, I'm pretty sure that rusting is better.

March Madness

"Did you fill out your bracket?" ..... I heard that question several times this past week. I never seem to get around to it. Hell there's 68 teams involved. I maybe have an semi-informed opinion on five or six. Anything else would be guessing blindly.

Some fill out multiple brackets. Guess they aren't all that committed to some of their choices. But then how could you be? Not with the usual amount of strange and unexplainable occurances that take place in the tournament each year. One might as well just flip a coin. Heck, a number one and number two seed have already been knocked out and the round of 32 isn't over yet.

I'm of the opinion that all the teams seeded anywhere from three to fourteen are pretty much equals anyway. And on any given day any of them are capable of knocking off most of the one and two seeds. I don't think seeding matters all that much. It's an advantage but not as much as it's made out to be. They still have to win the actual games. The main factors in my mind? ..... A team needs to be playing well going into the tournament and get on a roll or be lucky enough to get a few games close to home where they can get a sizeable group of followers behind them.

Watched the postgame locker room speech to his team by the Georgia State coach, Ron Hunter, after his team had been knocked out of the tournament. Loved what he had to say.

A Sudden Realization

I probably have in my collection, 50-75 books of poetry by various authors. To the best of my knowledge, all but one of those books are works by male authors. I'm not sure why that is. When searching in bookstores, I'll generally open up a book to three or four different poems and read the first three or four lines of each. If the words havn't touched me in some way by then, I move on. It's probably not a huge revelation to say that appently, men express themselves differently than women.

I can't explain what it is that I respond to. I just know it when I come across it. I feel it!! There's an emotional connection.

Road Trip

A short road trip yesterday to Corvallis via Independence and Monmouth. Re-visiting my youth. It's been years. Happy to say that I still knew my way around. The old, once often traveled roads hadn't changed much. And I've managed to get lost in much smaller towns. A downtown record store was my main destination. Not to forget, Togo's. What other reasons could there be for a guy like me?

Hoops Heaven

Currently taking place, my favorite time of the basketball season (make that second favorite after the NBA playoffs) .... Conference tournament week. Even moreso than the "March Madness" playoffs. During each individual conference tourney it seems that there are upsets and buzzer beating shots galore. There's players that you wouldn't expect, suddenly making big contributions. Each team has some sort of crowd representation so in any game that stays close, there's a constant back and forth of crowd emotions instead of it being mostly one sided when there's a team playing on their home court. Where on television, 500 people can express the emotion and feel of 10,000 cheering supporters at a home arena. There's more of the, "anything can happen" feeling with the conference tournaments. Also more desperation on some teams parts and minds, as it's their last chance for the season, to make it to the "Big Dance." It all combines for fascinating viewing.

Observations From the Couch

• Soccer game, professional variety, crowd cheering wildly, television commentators raving .... about some guys foot work with the ball leaving the defender looking overmatched. BUT he didn't go anywhere!! Didn't gain an advantage for himself or anyone else. Didn't accomplish a thing. And the defender stayed between him and the goal the entire time. So what's the big deal? I could always dribble a basketball between my legs and behind my back as well when I wasn't going anywhere and no one was pressuring me. But I guess you have to have something to cheer about 70 minutes into a scoreless game.  
• End of the first half of the Duke vs. North Carolina basketball game. The ESPN sideline reporter is scurrying across the court in high heels in pursuit of a interview. I had several coaches in my playing days that would have been screaming at her to get off the court while she's wearing those damn high heels. Scuff marks you know. 

Blazers Win!!!

Blazers tonight were looking dead for most of the second half but came back from ten down to tie the game in regulation then win it in overtime. I marvel at things that you see on almost a nightly basis in the NBA. Both individual and team performances. Players can be having the sort of night that would demoralize most people then suddenly explode in the final moments showing that nothings gets them down for long. Just incredible ability and just as importantly, incredible confidence!!

If It Were a College Class It Might Be: Life 301

Lunch yesterday with my best friend from childhood. Talking about a wide range of subjects but like usual it gets to our parents at some point. His Father, my Father and Mother all who have passed away. Tonight though, I can't help but think that one of us is likely going to have to attend the other's funeral at some point in time. Do all friends eventually go through this thought process as they grow older?

Possibly this thinking was brought on by watching on television, bits and pieces of the Celebration of Life that took place yesterday in Portland for Jerome Kersey. In seeing Darnell Valentine talk about his friend. Those early and mid-1980's Blazer teams sometimes seem like they are just a few years removed. I tend to think of them as from different ...... well not eras but different periods of the Blazers history. One period that preceded the other. I forget though that some of them were teammates for a few overlapping years until they start sharing their stories.