We had pancakes today for dinner and they only held me over for a couple hours and now I’m really hungry…

So going back to my story of basketball. I learned a little at a time about the game and I would have loved to play with other kids at school. In elementary school though for some reason they would put up hoops, but never had basketballs in any of the class rooms, just those dumpy playground balls that don’t work for playing basketball. So I would play dodge ball, kick ball or the infamous four-square. I do remember looking at the hoops when I got to the big kids’ side and wanted very badly to play.

Another layer to my basketball knowledge was added in 5th grade. I had a teacher named Miss Winger, who insisted on calling me Agnus for some reason. She was weird, but we all liked her because she was funny. She was also a huge fan of the Utah Jazz. It was due to her and being in her class that I discovered the NBA. I am quite sure my dad watched Jazz games long before this time in my life, but I payed them no heed. Miss Winger started talking about some guy called the “Mailman” and another called “Big T”. At first they sounded like wrestling names my cousin would spout off about, but she would go on and on about the team. I’m sure she was a season ticket holder and basically stalked the team because for parent/teacher conferences if we came along with our parents she would let us choose from her collection of lesser collectables. I went once and I chose an autograph from that “Big T” guy. I think I lost it pretty quickly, but I haven’t ever lost the desire to follow the NBA. I really don’t care about college ball, too sloppy and clunky. The NBA is the best ball players in the world, why anyone would not want to watch the best level of competition for a sport escapes me. Sure they make tons of money, and it was a mind-blowing realization when I found out that people actually got paid to play ball. How often are people obsessing about how much a star in a movie makes for that single film, that is generally more than a professional athelete gets for a whole year, and actors can have several films in a year. Basically anyone in the entertainment industry has the potential to make people obscene amounts of money, which may not make sense when a teacher makes close to what the US government considers the poverty level. The thing is though in the US what we consider poor is ridiculous anyway…

Wow that was a tangent, shouldn’t do this at 1:30 a.m.

Anyway so I figured out that I would be a Jazz fan for life. I still am, but I do miss the days of Karl and John running pick-and-rolls all over the league. The next thing I remember about things basketball-wise was one day a sub at school asked everyone to share something about themselves and I said I was a Jazz fan. He then mentioned something about Jerry Sloan taking over for Frank Layden. He asked me what I thought about that, um, really? I was a kid, what did I care about coaches. I saw the players when I watched, I never saw a coach hit a shot or dunk on someone’s head.

Now the next thing I really remember in my basketball world was a night just after I turned 12. I went to a church activity and after the young men played ball. I was so excited, it was my chance to play with the big guys. I didn’t figure on scoring a lot but I did know something I could do. I had watched John Stockton do something plenty of times that I wanted to do. This was to sneak up behind a guy dribbling the ball and pick the ball off mid dribble. So the first trip down the court on defense that is exactly what I did. I did this same thing 4 or 5 more times during the night and all of the sudden I had a reputation. These guys, many who were 4 or 5 years older than I was knew me as a theif on the baskeball court. That right there re-enforced in my mind that I should spend every moment possible playing basketball, and from that night forward if anyone in the group that was playing that night was dribbling the ball while I was on defense they were on the lookout for me.

Now for my sketch of the day. This time is a Gry’ot which is another type of thing from my story. Heather put up a sketch too and she put me to shame…

So if you know me, you should know that I like basketball. Well I don’t just like it. I don’t have an exact count of all of my thoughts I have ever had in my life but if I did and tallied them all up I think that thoughts about basketball could very well out number thoughts on any other subject. When there are those times when my mind is free to wander and I have no immediate need to think about anything I will always find my way there some how. It may be a thought on how I want to be in better shape so I can play a little more like I used to back when. It may be remembering a play from one of my favorite players in times past. It may be trying to visualize how my jump shot or twisting layups look to other people. Anyway I think about it a lot, though not as much as I did growing up. I have more things to think about now and more, more good things. But this post is the beginning of a story about just something I thought about today in regard to the game I like.

So I was 8 years old. I started cub scouts, I don’t remember much about cub scouts because we didn’t have leaders all of the time when I was the age when I would have been in this program. I don’t know really that I learned much from scouting, I did learn how to tie a bowline knot with one hand, so if I fall down a cliff and someone throws a rope down to me and I can only use one hand to tie a knot in the line (since the person throwing the rope wouldn’t be able to do it for some reason) I could tie that knot so I could be pulled up. That’s good thought, right?

The one thing I did get from scouting was from being a new cub. Right after I turned 8 it was time for an army of boys to hit the streets, going door-to-door to sell tickets to the scout-o-rama (in scouting if you put hypens and an “o” in the middle of it, that makes it extra special – camp-0-ree, scout-o-rama, etc). This is an expo where each chartered organization in the salt lake area come together and put up a booth displaying some strange part of the world of scouting. So I too took my packet of tickets and went out with my dad. Upon looking at the packet I saw something awesome. Included in the information for the boys selling these tickets (we were always told to focus on the money-saving coupons that would save much more than the cost of the ticket) there was something meant to motivate all boys to sell these things to give everything they had in an effort (f-word?) to earn the fabulous prizes there for the taking. The thing that caught my eye was the special “Launch Day” prizes, for those who sold a certain number of tickets on the first day. If I sold the 20 tickets in my packet in that first day I could win myself a basketball. Now I had no idea that this rubber globe could be bought for $5 or less at the local Whatever-Mart, I just knew I wanted one for some reason. I still don’t know why. Maybe it was the fact that it said “Official Size and Weight” and the word ”Official” struck me for some reason. Or maybe it was just that all boys like to play games where you use a ball. As far as I can remember, up until this point in my life I had not played basketball. I really hadn’t played many of the ball sports (football, baseball, soccer, jacks). I know I did play with a whiffle ball in the yard some times and I did want to get into my dad’s golf clubs and take a whack at a golf ball to see how far down the street I could hit the thing. But I had not played this particular game 8 years into my life.

I believe I told my dad I wanted to sell all my tickets, so he helped me the best he could and we sold all of them. This meant I won my prize. I’m not sure how long it took for me to get this prize, but I do remember the day I got it. One of the cubscout leaders dropped it off. It wasn’t in a box like the many Spalding and Wilson balls made from the various synthetic leathers are. It was just the loose ball, covered in rubber like a set of Good Year tires. I remeber feeling the pointy stippled texture of a brand new ball and well I wanted to use it right away. I wanted to learn how to play this game. It interested me. It really did.

Well my dad did something for me that brought me a lot of happy times, and a lot of frustrating and painful (physically) times. He taught me how to play basketball. He bought a rim and put a wooden backboard up on our house. My older sisters didn’t really like this, because their window was right under the hoop, so in order to play we had to put a big heavy wooned door over the window on the outside so that the window wouldn’t be broken. I thought this was awesome though. 

I don’t know how much I really played at the beginning. I do know I started shooting underhand (granny shots) and that before the sad sad day when the wind blew that first hoop down I had started to shoot overhand. I do know that I liked playing from the very beginning. I just liked playing.

This story will be continued…

Now for something from the present day.

The other day Heather posted THIS. A series of on-liner (or so) thoughts. Here are mine:

 If I were going to school now I still would have going into an arts field, but I probably would have going to the Art Institute of America, which would have given me a more intense art education, cost a lot more, and I still probably would have ended up doing design for things like self storage facilities. So timing can be a good thing.

I wrestled with Cooper today, which I need to do more. But that boy can take everything I throw at him, and me throwing him and just comes back for more. I want to be as relentless as him sometimes.

I would like to take Aleksia and Cooper and put them next to Oliver and Ella at the same age. The conversation between Ella and Aleksia would be amazing and would merit like 50 billion views on YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube I once thought I would have no use for it, I was wrong.

Every winter we seem to get a sickness in our house that just goes around and around for weeks. I’m just glad that this years version is not filling our house with vomit like last winter.

I really don’t like Josh Groban, his voice is about like fingernails on a chalk board for me.

I don’t think about it much, but sometimes I wonder what I would be like if Heather and I hadn’t found each other. Pretty much I’m sure I would be a worse version of the person I am now. Not that I’m great now, just better than I would be otherwise.

Even before I was a freak about basketball I loved drawing. After both I realized I like cooking. I have had day dreams about doing animation for Disney or other studios, and of course I have (as mentioned above) day dreamed about basketball as a job. I only thought about cooking, that is one way I know I am doing that best thing I could be doing (since basketball wasn’t really an option).

I posted a sketch of an eye the other day. It was Heather’s eye. When I told her it was hers she said “I thought it looked familiar”.

I harrass Heather a lot, I’ve done it for more than 10 years and she still seems to be surprised by it sometimes.

Teaching primary is a lot like teaching as a missionary, except the primary children understand a lot more about the gospel than katolicy niepraktikujace (non-practicing catholic).

Speaking of non-practicing catholics. Why call yourself that? If you don’t really do what you’re supposed to in order to be something are you actually what you claim to be?

This is the longest post I’ve ever written I think it’s too long…

So I wil end with the Sketch-O-Day – Today we have a Gry’ors, something that exists in my story I’m trying to write

So, people are getting laid off all over the place. The place where I employed (as opposed to working freelance, which I do as much as working for someone else) just went through a round or lay offs. Other people I know have lost their jobs. When I heard about the people that have lost their employment it makes me really and truly sad. I have been laid off before by a .com company that was going under. I have lost my job 2 weeks before Christmas. Regardless of the time though it is never a good time to lose your job.

As for now I am not in danger of losing my jobs (freelance or otherwise). This I count as a blessing. One reason though is that at my regular job I have learned enough that I could step into about 95% of the positions here and do the job as good as anyone in the company. This is the makeup of my department, we are a group of versatile people who can do a myriad of things. Also though there have been those who have moved on to other places that has kept us from risking a loss. In this I have thought today about those with whom I have worked at this place that have moved on. I started here and the job I do now was going to change the whole company. Everyone was going to touch what I was working on in some way. Or that’s how they talked about it anyway… Well shortly after I started at this company one of the people I worked with, who had similar responsibilities left. No matter, I took over doing what she did and I could easily handle the overflow. Then the guy incharge of the whole operation left, he decided to go off to Hawaii and surf. Neither of these people were replaced, instead someone else was plugged in as a bandage and I once again stepped in and took over with no one there to support or direct me. And it was about this time that I started to wonder why I didn’t take the job offer from some other company a few months before, even though my current company matched their salary offer. I really think things would have been very very different, but who really can say…

So now I am still here, still doing pretty much the same thing, and having people around me leave either because they are scrambling to find another place to work or they no longer have a job at all. And as I see those in my department leave because they choose to and have found something else to do I wonder why it is that I didn’t take the other offers I was given. But then I realize that this place needs me and for now I need them too. I am going to be completely self employed some day, not just half-time. Working where I do now lets me build on what I really want to do, and even though there are other things I would rather be doing with my time than what I have done for almost the last 5 years I know that the pay off for my patience will better than just a more exciting job. And I am glad that I went into the industry I am in because I’m good at it.

I really hope though that those who are facing the uncertantity of being unemployed that you will some how be taken care of. I hope that help will come, like it did for me and my family in our rough times. And I am sure that we will yet have our own rough times and I just hope that the help will be there when we have our own.

So it’s now 2009, and there are a lot of people spewing gloom and doom out in the world. Some are worried about the new President, and I’m heard some pretty absurd opinions about the man. This is what I know right now about him though, he is my president and I believe in this country. A lot of people felt it was time for a change, and this is a government for the people – by the people. That has been undermined in a lot of ways and I think that a lot of what this country is struggling with right now is in part because of this. Special interest, corruption, etc. I just really hope we have the right man in the white house of those who were running, and the fact is we’ll never know how it would have turned out otherwise. What is really infront of us is a job to do. It’s something that won’t be easy, too much credit hanging over the heads of the whole country. There are the fuel and energy issues, which will require a huge undertaking to resolve. There are the conflicts in other countries that we need to take care of in a correct way. There is the huge problem with the housing industry and there are 3 huge auto makers that are facing the possibilities of bankruptcy. Unemployment is high, people lose their jobs every day. Unemployment is pretty high, but if you know someone who lived throught the depression, ask them how that was. Yes we have tough things to face, but not any tougher than what generations before us have come through. We are not facing a war where millions of people die. We do not have the depression of the 1930′s. We are not all dieing off due to the plague. We do need to be smart though and do what we can to dig in. What that means for each person, I’m not sure. It may mean being thankful for your job and doing it well so that when an employer has to face the reality that it cannot keep all of it’s employees then you are the person they just can’t let go. It may mean being industrious and stepping out and starting a business of your own, rather than depending upon someone else for your pay check – this may be scary, but ask those who founded this country how it felt to go to war against one of the most powerful countries in the world. It may be volunteering your time or helping a neighbor or family member who is facing difficulties due to these struggles. That is for each person to decide. The real thing is though, I feel anyway, is that we all have been very complacent and comfortable in what we have been doing in this country and we need to stop doing that and get out and do something for the good. One act may not seem to change everything, but what if you had 300 million acts? That will be noticed.

Now I feel that 2009 has the potential to be a very good year for me and my family, I hope it will be for you. Let us not all become victims to fear and sit there while the walls crash in, but do something to make sure the walls get stronger.