Miracles

Probably most of you know that last Friday was Good Friday, the day that Jesus was crucified.   A likely lesser number know that it was the 7th day of Passover, the traditional Jewish commemoration of the escape of the Jews from Egypt. The juxtaposition is no coincidence, of course … Jesus was a Jew and the last Supper was a Passover Seder.  Although I have never converted to Judaism (something about a ritual circumcision … just a tiny knick, the rabbi said), I do join my wife Muri in not consuming leavened bread grains of legumes.  To be honest, some years more than others.  I am a bread addict and I admit, sometimes I indulge in sneak treat when I’m out alone.  Not this year.  Now, in case you are not Jewish … or never took  some comparative religion in school …. you may have never tasted Matzoh, the unleavened cardboard (er, bread) that we eat instead of real bread during Passover.    For me, eating too much Matzoh is like drinking a bottle of Kaopectate with breakfast.   My digestive system stops working and I lose my appetite … and by Friday breakfast time I was dying for carbs.   I decided to sneak off to McDonald’s for a sausage McMuffin with Egg,

Me and LeBron

I ran my first marathon in 1983. I had been running regularly for several years and had recently hooked up with a lunchtime running group of five or six runners of which I was easily the slowest. We ran a standard course of about 7 miles and someone would always push the pace at the end. I began to get faster and my weekend runs got longer. One of the noontime runners, Fred, asked me if I wanted to run the Long Beach Marathon with him. We began to increase the length of our weekend runs and when I was logging over twenty miles on my Saturday run, I sent in my entrance fee. The Long Beach Marathon was known as a good beginners marathon, a primarily flat course that ran largely along the coast in March which usually meant cool weather. The plan was for Fred to run by my side to keep me moving at a reasonable pace and keep me out of trouble. The best-laid plan failed when he got sick at about the seven mile mark and told me to go ahead. It was a beautiful, cool spring day and I got into the spirit of the middle-of-the-packers, talking to other runners and visiting with spectators out to cheer us on.   At 22 miles, I was right on pace for a three and a half hour marathon.

That Smell

I suspect that anyone who keeps an eye on the news, even an occasional eye, knows what happened in the NBA this week. In a recording of a conversation with his girlfriend, the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Donald Sterling, made clearly racist statements that ignited a firestorm in the media. Current and former players immediately called his attitudes unacceptable and demanded his removal as an owner. The Clippers … and other teams as well … engaged in silent protests before their playoff games and sportscasters, particularly the TNT team of Shaquille O’Neil, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley, called for his immediately removal as owner. Doc Rivers, the Clipper’s African-American coach, strongly hinted that he would not return as coach if Sterling remained as owner.  There were rumblings of player boycotts of the playoffs. On Tuesday, the new commissioner, Adam Silver, moved decisively, suspending Sterling for life, fining him $2.5M, and moving to have him removed as owner. The sports world celebrated the demise of a bigot and the leadership of Adam Silver in saving the league, Charles Barkley describing it as a Great Day .

Only One, Really

Today, I found an article in GQ Magazine Online about Valeria Lukanyova, a woman who has become a human Barbie doll through plastic surgery and extreme dieting (Follow the link with extreme caution … she is very creepy).  It seemed a natural for a curmudgeonly post but I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half trying to nurse Two Thoughts on Tuesday out of it without success.  The problem is, of course, that I have Only One, Really:  My UConn Huskies won the Men’s Basketball National Championship, beating Kentucky 60-54.   The odds for UConn finishing as the champion were 100-1 … if only I’d bet a few bucks.  The game has been over for hours and I’m still thinking about how close it got toward the end and how the announcers kept talking about Kentucky’s last minute come-from-behind victories.  Why is it that announcers always seem to be rooting for the other team?  Why do I get too excited to watch sitting down?

Monday Smiles – 3/31/2014

March 11, 2013, New York Times: Left Behind, UConn Ponders Starting Over Again – As the gradual deconstruction of a proud conference occurred over the past decade and concluded in recent months with raids by the Atlantic Coast Conference and the announced mass departure of the so-called Catholic 7 basketball universities, Connecticut has become the most successful of athletic institutions left standing in a manipulative and almost diabolical game of musical conferences.

March 8, 2014, Connecticut Post: Huskies look to regroup after embarrassing loss – The UConn Huskies only have a few days to figure out where they would will spend their March Madness.  If Saturday’s embarrassing loss to No. 11 Louisville — 81-48 in front of a sellout crowd at the KFC Yum! Center — is any indication, it won’t be on a basketball court.

Flopperoos

I’m having a very busy day with my vocation … engineering … so I thought I’d skip my avocation … blogging … for Thursday, but I found these videos from the NBA Easter Conference Finals that are just too funny not to share.  Today, the NBA fined LeBron James of the Miami Heat and David West of the Indiana Pacers $5000 for a rare double flop:

Monday Smiles – 1/28/2013

Most of my adult years, I have been a Green Bay Packers fan, even though I was born and raised in Connecticut, lived on my own in Boston, and first lived in Rhode Island after getting married.  There is no reasoning behind my choice of pro football teams … it is a result of the contrarianism of my youth.  Everyone in Connecticut seemed to be a New York Giants fan so Older Eyes (Younger then) decided to root for the Giant’s rivals at the time, the Packers.   If you come around Bud’s Blog frequently, you probably know that I am a (big) Lakers fan, which would seem to make sense, since I live in Socal and until this year, there was only one functional pro basketball team in L.A.   Wrong.  I became a Lakers fan in college when everyone in my fraternity rooted for the Celtics.  My roommate, Jon (also a contrarian) and I therefore chose to cheer for their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers.  So, I’ve been a Lakers fan for almost fifty years.

Something Amiss

There is something amiss in the Universe.   Perhaps the little known 13th sign of the Zodiac, the Joker, is in the night sky.  And maybe the moon is in the 13th house and Saturn is aligned with Uranus.  You may not be able to tell from wherever you are but it sure seems that way here in Los Angeles.  My USC Trojans, who were ranked Number One in the preseason polls, have lost three (three!!) games.  OK, that’s happened once or twice before.   But we (that’s the traditional sports-fan-who’s-never-played-football we) are ranked lower in the polls than our crosstown rivals, the UCLA Teddy Bears … er, Bruins.   USC is only a 3 1/2 point favorite in Saturday’s Cross Town Rivalry Game, a game that USC won 50-0 last year.  And this game means something: the winner will go to the Pac-12 Conference Championship.