Or the Jazz revealing that their efforts to clone Karl Malone and John Stockton were successful and the statues out front were actually incubators for these clones. While they make this announcement they show video of these NBA iron men in their cloned form breaking free their bronze prisons ready to take the floor to mop up the floor with the current version of the NBA that is not equipped to deal with the physical side of the game the bring and thus surrender to their superior will…

Or Kobe hits his head so hard he forgets where he is and starts launching shots at the wrong basket…

None of this happened and even though Deron Williams is as good as it gets for a point guard there is something missing around him. I would say that the Jazz I grew up watching that featured John and Karl would beat up on the Jazz team of today just because they always had a true 1-2 punch and whether it was Jeff Hornaceck or Jeff Malone there was alway a third option that was more reliable than any third option on the team now.

You see it may be a good thing that on any given night anyone on the team can step up and push the team over the top to a win, but that also means that on a given night you have no idea who to rely on, well unless that person’s name is Deron Williams, the only consistent threat on the team. And although Deron will have bad nights you can write those off as just that, a bad night. If Carlos Boozer or Paul Milsap has a quiet night that is just that it wasn’t his night to be on. This team needs at least 2 more players that has 72 consistently good nights a year and only 10 write-off nights. Maybe I am being hard on these guys, but that is my right as a fan since I don’t get paid millions to play basketball and I have played most of my life and understand the game well enough I know that if you really really really want to push things you can and become more consistant and that is lacking from this team. They may have bought into Jerry Sloans system and make the extra pass, but what happens when you do everything right and the guy with the best shot just misses?

All there is now is to see what happens in the off season. I don’t know what will happen. Most of me wants to see Carlos Boozer playing somewhere else and all of me does if they can use him to get better in some what, not that that is likely.

For the most part the season was about what I expected, a pretty good team that wasn’t able to get past the Lakers, and the  team as currently constituted probably won’t ever be able to do that, it needs more height and athleticisim, but what NBA team doesn’t want that?

Deron will be Deron, but until he gets a couple of other guys around him that are better second and third options than Carlos Boozer and Memo/Andrei/CJ/Wesley Mathews this team will be a second-round-and-out team. Deron by himself is good enough to get a team to be that but you get a true big man and some better shooters around him and this team could really be good…

Oh well it’s not in my hands I just have to watch and hope things go the right way.

So now I have 3855600 pixels of display area sitting on my desk.

Aleksia and Cooper think it’s magic that I can move a window from one monitor to the other and back.

But anyway I liked playing mr fix-it today and having the thing actually work when I was done, oh and the whole repair cost $8.00. Who knows how much it would have cost to have the manufacturer fix it, probably wouldn’t have been worth it.

So the Utah Jazz traded Ronnie Brewer for a player who is yet to be determined (a draft pick). Some trades happen and you just shrug. Some happen and you feel betrayed. Some leave you in disbelief. This is what I wrote in reaction to hearing about this on ESPN:

“Wow, I’m going to miss Ronnie. I’m a big fan. Not that he’s a franchise player or anything, but he could bring some excitement. Reminds me of the days when the Jazz would trade Blue Edwards or Ty Corbin. This team really isn’t chasing a banner anyway so I guess if they can save some money they have to do it. I understand, but the pure fan in me doesn’t want to see guys go who I like. Good luck Ronnie…”

As a fan we aren’t always rational. We think that certain players shouldn’t make mistakes. We get upset or excited about things that are silly, but I just really felt like I did when I was a kid and that one guy who I liked for reasons beyond what he brought as a player left the team.  I don’t know how he’ll do in his new situation, but he is one guy I will follow…

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 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

Sundiata Gaines on a 10-day contract hits a game winner over the Cleveland Cavs. Now that’s awesome, kids grow up dreaming about things like this…

Then after I returned my cart and was passing behind a van a family came out of the store. They were maybe 2 steps out of the store when the wife decided for some reason she HAD to hit the button to open the automatic lift door on the back of the van. This door hit me, while I was carrying Ella to the car. Seriously people, what the crap are you thinking. the good thing though was that I didn’t have to yell at this woman. She got an ear full (rightfully so) from her husband. I heard him go on for the whole walk from the store to their car, and he continued after I had buckled Ella into the car and drove away.

Well here’s  the sketch:

“It has tingly goodness” – Guess who said that and about what. If you guess right I’ll give you a prize.

If you had to think of the ultimate animal (non-human) living on earth today what would it be? Well unless your answer was the platypus you were wrong. It hatches like a reptile, and if you look at it from front to back it starts out like a duck and then quickly changes to a beaver. To finish things up it is a venomous mammal. How many of those are there? Not a lot, and not only does it produce venom, it uses a spur on its leg to stab things for injection, like some kind of marsupial ninja. Just thinking about this because the platypus comes up a lot in our house.

Speaking of crazy creatures, here’s a little sketch of a creature I wish existed. A flying turtle. I think that would trump the platypus.

Now that I’m not a primary teacher I feel really displaced on sundays. I know I can go to the grown-up classes and sit and listen, but I have taught primary a lot in my life and it’s what I know as church. I find myself wishing that some teacher or othere didn’t show up so I can actually have a place to go. And there are some people wishing they could get out of primary…

Today’s sketch is a cute little robot I came up with a few months ago and redrew, making some adjustments (he used to have legs instead of the unicycle wheel). He’s great for Cooper because I can just make copies of him on the good old All-In-One HP printer and he has something to color. I have to keep the original hidden or he’ll end up all black (Cooper colors every thing all in in black).

So this getting back to drawing thing has been fun. I don’t know that I can come up with good sketches every day, and I already have one that’s kinda weak up (Robot Wizard). But I realized that I’m not that bad at sketching, when I sit down and get in the right mind for it. I’m not saying I’m the best by any means, but I can draw stuff I like to look at.

Today’s sketch-o-the-day is a character I created in my brain about 12 months ago. I have been writing about him and his world in hopes that I can eventually come up with a book. Not really because I’m looking to come up with something other people would spend money to read, but really as a project to challenge myself. And if it turns out everyone in the world wants to read it all the better… His name is Rani and he’s got some adventures ahead of him, I’ll post a bit of the writings in the future when I have something worth sharing.

So I read “The Wite Mountains” this week, it’s the first in the “Tripods” series of books. I read it in 8th grade and every time I thought about it since I really wanted to read it again. It is a good book and goes fast so if you’re looking for a book to read I recommend it, and then you can go on and read the other books in the series. It’s really good if you like stories about the human race under the control of aliens, and eventually overthrowing their invaders. One good thing about it is that even though it takes place in the future and was written over 40 years ago, since the aliens send the human race back to the middle ages it is kind of a timeless book. It doesn’t have things like flying cars for the future humans, just a struggle for freedom.

Red delicious, that is my favorite apple if you were wondering.

Oh, I am working on my actual professional site, if you didn’t know (http://www.robharrisdesign.com) I think I’ll put up a screenshot of where it’s going and if you feel like giving some feedback I’d be happy to read it.