Breaking Down Hylton

Point Guard.

Good points:

• Good ballhandling skills. Can dribble with both hands, through the legs, around the back pretty easily.
• Pretty good at penetrating and getting a shot off. While not blinding fast or able to jump amazingly high, very good at controlling the ball and finding the basket.
• Fair amount in the offensive repertoire: scoops, lay-ins, reverse lay-ins, hook shots.
• Good ability to jump far. Can't jump all that high, but there's hang-time. This allows for some pretty decent & sometimes creative finishes near the basket.
• Knows the game well-where teammates will be/should be. How to run an offense. Positioning. How to shoot for percentage (e.g. close to the basket).
• Good passer.
• Very accurrate on mid-range jumpers.

Challenges:

• For someone this size, surprisingly not all that fast. More specifically, not all that quick, in a first step or reacting to anothers' first step. In terms of the game you like to play (slashing to the basket), this is a major boner.
• Not able to jump all that high. Definitely a hinderance in getting shot off. Would venture to say that with more speed & a better vertical, you'd be very difficult to stop. Of course, I guess who couldn't say that?
• Love of attacking the basket can lead to getting into the lane without any idea of what to do, which leads to getting in trouble and getting blocked a decent amount.
• Flying directly in the face of the infamous "perfect form" comment, jump-shot shooting form is far from it. Jump-shot, most of the time, is a bent-arm sort of flick of the wrist that doesn't look quite right.
• Effort vs. return equation historically way off balance. Much too much needless energy expended in futile actions as a result of some kooky notion it is the "honorable" way to play. Would behoove you to give up the outside shot more often, let the crazy bounces go out of bounds, and not race off after fast breaks on the 15% chance the guy will miss the layup. You probably won't get the rebound, anyway.

The City in my Blood?

Just talking with Mixdorf about a seemingly recent upswing in violent crime in North Minneapolis. On the surface, it definitely seems like just another of the many compelling reasons to high-tail it to Zephyr Valley.

On the other hand, I wonder if despite my oft repeated claim that I am "not a big city person," if I have actually slowly become one through the years. In addition to (and perhaps as a result of) celebrating it's wonderful and diverse offerings, do I actually feel obligated to stand with it through its assorted challenges? There's something that ties me here, and it's not just the opportunities to indulge my newfound cultural elitist fancies. It;s something more under the surface. I must sit and scratch awhile.

Camden Civic Theatre: The Above Broadway Players

I started in on a theatre class last night-a guy here is trying to kick-start theatre for the north side of Minneapolis and is starting to get people involved through this project, which is supported by the Minneapolis School system's community ed program. I've been feeling the ache from being out of acting too long, and interested in finding out if there really is a "use it or lose it" component to the art. I felt like I was a pretty good damned actor at the end of the 80s, but haven't really done it in an official capacity since then.

Last night was a lot of getting to know each other and a few improv warmups, then readthroughs of a couple of possible one-act plays we might take on. It was a lot of fun and felt pretty natural, though character acting is not really done best on a blind read-through. Definitely looking forward to the next meeting/rehearsal though, where we'll figure out what the next performance is going to be.

Breaking Down Gibbs

I'll make sure he gets this.

Power forward, power forward, power forward. Though you does have a pretty good history guarding centers.

Good things:

• Through the years, you have learned to take those areas of the game which are most effective (not necessarily the flashiest) and work them to your best advantage. Your game is really built on your strengths, rather than wasting time on that which you don't do well (unless it all goes out the window-see challenges, below).
• The anti-Mixdorf. You realize the shots fall better when you're closer to the basket, and you're not afraid of working to get the ball in closer, even if there's not much working room. You're not afraid of contact; in fact, meeting a little resistance can fire you up. You have a powerful upper body and you use it, to re-use a word, effectively (though see challenges, below).
• Kind of related-you definitely have a "game-face." You're all about business. You'd rather not chit-chat; you're not on the court to make friends, but to win ball games. It makes you really focused.
• You're hands are amazing on defense. Lightning quick, you are able to wreak havoc on ball-handlers-even guys much smaller than yourself.
• While maybe not to Cory's level, you have a bit of the ability to "smell blood" and take advantage of situations.
• For someone we wouldn't necessarily classify as quick-footed, you'd developed a remarkably quick spin move right next to the basket. Couple that with your penchant for a little contact in there, and it's a pretty tough move to stop.
• Generally-really good stamina. A big part of this is just that you play with a lot of guts (e.g. you're willing to endure a lot of pain).
• On the contact thing, you're really good at bodying up on big men. For big men that don't love contact, it can completely take them out of their game. I've seen you absolutely shut these "gentle giants" down.
• Little turnaround fadaway that, if it's falling-can be very tough to stop.
• I think when a big man is good at catching passes and not bobbling them away, you say their hands are "soft." You have "soft hands."

Challenges (to my recollection):

• Like all of us, you can be streaky. Unlike most of us, you sometimes seem completely unaware when you are on a downturn. As in, continuing to ride a particular shot into the ground as your consecutive misses mount 8, 9, 10, 11...
• Related-when you get down, you tend to think that only the long shot can get you back in the game. Usually, that's the beginning of the end.
• In your intensity and willingness to initiate contact, you will sometimes repeatedly enter a gray area that is probably but not definitely an offensive foul. You create space with your shoulder or elbow right next to the basket. Whether it is actually a charge every time you do it I cannot absolutely say for sure. What I can say is that can make playing basketball with you at those times about as much fun as getting your dick caught in a zipper.
• Those lightning-quick hands sometimes slap. Not a detriment to your game, since we don't foul out, but not all that fun for being on the receiving end.
• You KNOW the pick and roll well. In fact, I've played with you when you've used it. But it seems that very often (especially in 2 on 2) the team concept sort of goes out the window. Not even in being selfish or anything, but in sort of spacing out being active when your teammate has the ball. Kind of just standing around at the top watching, while they get doubleteammed down in the paint. Being more continually active on offense without the ball is something I think you could work on.
• While you protect the ball well, your ballhandling skills seem to be pretty limited. You have no left, I know for sure.
• Your vertical is not very high at all. You can hardly be faulted for that, but it's a challenge. And it results in you not really using much of a jump shot in games. I think that hurts because, in order to not get blocked, almost any shot inside the free throw line has to be a turnaround and/or fadeaway.

Breaking Down Cory

I originally tried to post this right after the Mixdorf one, but the post bombed out on me. Haven't been able to get in at Big Buy since then-hopefully, that's not the new step internet treachery by my workplace. Would certainly be the last straw.

But on the the breakdown...

I've definitely played less with Cory than with either Pat or my brother, but this will be to the best of my experience and, admittedly, not drawing on any changes to your game in the past couple of years. But I do picture you as a 2-guard (shooting guard). Somewhat of a scorer's mentality, relative to a "run the offense" mentality.

Good stuff:

• Able to get "in a zone," where you are nearly unstoppable (though see bad points, below). This happens, in particular, when things are going well and you are in the lead. Actually a very underrated ability-that of being able to step on an opponent's metaphorical throat when you've already got him down. Something Duke does in to 16th seeds. It is human nature for 95% of us to get lazy and let our guard down when we get a big lead. Not so for Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, or Cory Levendusky.
• Very good at playing the "back to the basket" game. Kind of working back and forth until getting good position, then hitting a nice little baby hook or fadeaway, either of which is relatively high percentage and very tough to block.
• Fast, with also a very quick first step. If you get your man beat, you're in for a score. You also have a good ability to finish with a reverse layup.
• Considering that you didn't have much of a background in your three favorite sports growing up, your ability to master the fundamental skills (in basketball, shooting, dribbling) to the extent you have is nothing short of phenomenal. Obviously, your learning curve is a lot less steep in the last number of years, but you didn't really do much of anything until college, and then you really were a natural. If you really think about it-it's amazing.
• Slightly related: considering you don't do much cardivascular exercise, your ability to play for long periods of time is extraordinary. Not something I'm sure I could do. Sure, you bitch a lot, but somehow you keep going.
• Surprisingly good at shot blocking. I don't think you're vertical is all that high, so it must be timing-which would be related to "being a natural" (above).
• You have a good sense of where teammates are and are good at keeping moving in the offense (e.g. moving without the ball), rather than just standing around at the top.

Challenges (in my recollection):

• As the counterpart to getting in a zone, when it rains it pours. Once you're get down, you can begin a tirade-laden, hot-and-sweaty spiral down into despair and failure. You wear your frustration on your sleeve and thus send out perfume-scented invitations for your opponents to enter your head. A very difficult thing to do, when shots aren't falling, is to concentrate on those things that you DO have control over: defense, decision-making, effort, and positioning-all of which can get you back in the game. You have gotten better at this over time (and maybe in your time being a teacher, your patience and frustration tolerance have been elevated to new heights), but it is something I recall you struggling with throughout our history of playing.
• Defensive positioning. Maybe it's too high of a stance, or not cutting off the angles, but for how quick you are, you can be driven around. Sometimes your footspeed helps make up for it somewhat, but you'd do yourself a favor by hitching up your shorts and widening your stance (though it wears you out faster), cutting off the driving lane, and giving people low percentage shots if they want them.
• Rebound positioning. You tend to sort of watch shots go up and run to where you think the ball is going, and then just waiting to jump for it rather than getting a bead on where your opponent is and then driving that ass back at them.
• Those shots you take often are pretty high percentage and work well for you, but overall you seem to have a somewhat limited offensive repertoire (drive to the right, outside shot, back your way in). I think I big part of this is that almost all of your experience has been playing in real games or one-bounce, rather than just sometimes taking a ball out to the nearest hoop and working on different moves, footwork, and shots for countless hours, something the rest of us have done. I think if a couple of moves you really want to do aren't working, this can lead to extra frustration-you don't feel like there's a lot you can fall back on.

Breaking Down Mixdorf (a reprint)

I do picture you as a small forward, though I think your 2nd best position is center (albeit a smaller one).

Good stuff:

• Shot blocking.
• Other defensive "hands" things. One of the reasons why you're a pretty good small forward. You can pretty much keep up with people, and if you can't you have pretty good timing and a good reach for defense.
• Good mid-range shot (though, as with any of us, you can be streaky).
• Pretty good "post" moves.
• The prototypical "good-passing big man." You "know the game"-where you should be, where your teammates are likely to be, and you get the ball to them where they want it.
• You're in good physical shape, endurance-wise.
• You're pretty coordinated, from a basketball standpoint.

Challenges. In my recollection:

• You tendoversell the perimeter fake.
• You tend take outside shots with no teammates in rebounding position.
• You seem to not be that interested in contact. Not necessarily bad for the health of all those playing, but possibly makes you a little less effective in the post. Perhaps another argument as to why you're more of a natural "3" than a "1."

Two Birds with One Stone

Lucy's big issue is going down for naps & for the night. She's had a tradition of nursing to sleep so it's always kind of been Sharon's responsibility, unless she happens to be gone. Well, birthday number two is approaching, and I thought Sharon had borne the burden about long enough, so I offered to start alternating nights with her from now on. With Sharon in the house, it is absolutely impossible for me to get Lucy to go down in the bed. However, just this last weekend (during Daddy-Daughter Day), I hit upon the most amazing of solutions. When it was nearing time for her nap, I told her daddy was going to go for a run and that we'd go in the stroller. She loved the idea and a nice 2 1/2-3 mile run was about perfect for her to zonk out. Came back with her totally asleep and was able to shower up & then get a bunch of other stuff done.

This was a landmark moment, seeing as she has actually been an impediment to going for runs up to this point (through cold weather, darkness in the evenings, etc.). Now, with daylight savings in effect (or out of effect or whatever), this is a tactic I can use in the evenings as well. Last night was my first run at night to get her down and it worked like a dream.

The Most Recent Daddy Daughter Day

From a daddy-daughter day on Saturday. On our walks, we always stop for a bit on this little concrete dam and do a little phenology. Usually this includes looking for birds, looking in the water, and closing our eyes and naming off all the things we hear. In the picture above, Lucy is ready to move along and look in the creek for ducks. She is wearing tiny little hiking pants and a long underwear top with little dogs that glow in the dark.

Still Looking for a Focus (out Boston way)?

Consider the Boston chapter of Architecture for Humanity:

www.architectureforhumanity.org
http://afh.meetup.com/29/about/

"Welcome Back" to an Old Friend

My plans are to have (make?) a little more time for myself over the lunch hour at work, going forward. It is with promise in mind that I felt the urge to do a few headlines.

http://headlinescoalescence.blogspot.com/

I think the golden years really were when there were co-writer comments, and I would propose this:
- The former staff take up the torch again and do some headlines, just like old times.
- Maybe shoot for a couple-times-a-week pace, so the reader(s) doesn't feel that (t)he(y) has to check in amazingly often or fall behind.
- Once again make comments. Just enough so that the writer doesn't feel like he's headlining to the void.

For anyone that was never a regular reader, I recommend jumping on board for a funky, obscure-reference-laden adventure of a lifetime.

Welcome to the World, Little Elsa

Congrats to the Johnsons-definitely looking forward to some future play-dates.

http://ablogofhisown.blogspot.com/2005/03/ladies-and-gentlemen-i-present-to-you.html

Zen Where you can Find It

A few years back, I moved from semi-regular Yoga to regular meditation. I still do a little Yoga from time to time, but a particular writer on the general subject suggested an unnecessary link between contorting your body and freeing your mind. Also that there was this notion in Yoga of clearing your mind. Meditation, he argued, had to do with opening up your mind and welcoming all of what you are into that space. In other words, don't worry about pushing thoughts out of your head. Find a rhythm to them, rejoice in them, and just relax. The type of meditation he talks about we have all experienced just by happenstance, though we have probably just attributed to being spaced out. Just getting lost on a thought, or being taken in by the peacefulness or beauty of something you come across in life.

Anyway, a couple of great moments in recent days:

The first was driving down to Waterloo for the weekend. Lucy sleeping in the back, Sharon half-sleeping in the front. Me driving. Full moon, so bright that it was making the remnants of snow over the countryside glow blue, and actually casting long shadows of telephone poles across the road. u2's Joshua Tree was on the radio and I had just picked up a medium cup of coffee to go. I enjoyed an amazing state of peace & contentment that lasted for basically the length of the album.

The second was yesterday. Got out for my first run of the spring over my lunch hour. It was around 60 degrees and sunny. I've really not been out a whole lot recently, but this was spectacular. The sun was just strong enough to warm my cheeks, and I was surprised to find how comfortable and easy my stride was, even though it had been on the shelf for a few months. Signs of impending spring all around, I took a loop through the Wood Lake Nature Preserve, lost myself in the soft thudding of my feet and my rhythmic runners' breath and emerged a happy man.

The Road To...

The Final Four.

Wonderful, wonderful, and again wonderful.

Hope all my (dozens of? hundreds of??) readers had the chance to check out possibly the best weekend in the history of televised basketball with three overtime games out of four played to send teams to the Final Four.

In my new sports lease on life, where my mood & lifestyle are no longer locked in so fully to a particular team, and I am just plain not watching so much, I have found the sports being much more fun & interesting to watch. Whether taking the opportunity to sit down with a micro-brew and watch Monday Night Football, or happening to tune into a Big 10 regular season basketball matchup while cleaning the house on a weekend, they are much more enjoyable as a spice of life, rather than as bread & butter. Funny how, in a year where I put in less effort to my tournament picks than ever before, I have gotten such a thrill out of the event. Then I was treated to this last weekend. I didn't see every second of every game, but I saw the parts that mattered. For once the drama of the later rounds exceeded that of the early rounds.

Huzzah for the Spartans & Illini, representing the much-maligned Big 10 in fine fashion!

Who'd a Thunk?

Searching for the phrase "placemat cartography" turns up zero results in Google.

NEWS FLASH: T-Clog Deserves Biggest Ass-Kicking of All Time

He's a mixer, he's always been. Don't leave him alone with your wife or your best friends, or there's no telling what mischief the man with the mile-wide mean streak might wreack.

So, I confronted Gibbons with the disturbing news I had gotten from Cory about him going out bar hopping all the time with college kids, only to find out 1) He's been to a bar about 3 or 4 times since being in Terre Haute 2) He has NEVER gone out and done anything with kids that are still in college and thinks (like me) that a guy his age doing that would be kind of creepy. He was like, "Man, why would Cory say that? But that's what Cory does! He's a mixer! Well, since he opened the door, how about this:" And he proceeded to tell me how he left Cory alone for five minutes with Trista and when he came back in the room she was all worried cause Cory had told her I was going away to live in a hippie commune in a house made of straw. Again, why does Cory do this? Forget Boromir. Forget Sam. Don't forget the internal battle of Goodboy and Badboy and remember that, given a chance, NAAASTY things will transpire, and suffering and pain will follow.

Breaking the Code

Finally got around to digging into The DaVinci Code. Friday night I started the book, and couldn't put it down till I forced myself to at 3:30 am the next morning, with only about 40 pages left.

Wow.

Don't want to totally spoil anything if someone (Cory?) thinks he might read it someday, but there's a number of what sort of seem like earth-shattering assertions made about the truth of Christianity as it was intended (pre-Emperor Constantine in A.D. 1011, who made radical changes to the religion in order to appease a Catholic Church that was getting more and more influential). Anyway, it is kind of crazy yet affirming for the that the way Jesus is depicted from accurrate historical records and in many of the other 70-some odd gospels that were eliminated from the Bible is a lot more in line with the great spiritual leader that it SEEMS like he should be to me, rather than the figure he has been made out to be in popular culture for the last few hundred years, a distortion/interpretation that has played a major part in driving me away from the church, both intellectually and in conscience.

I am very interested, when this book is finished, in trying to seek out some academic-oriented reading on the subject.

School for the Liberal Elite

Don't know whether I mentioned this, but the Montessori school called and finally had an opening for Lucy. We went in for another visit and were again really impressed with the facility (little kid-sized everything right down to the toilet) and the staff (all Montessori-trained and really good with the kids from what we can tell). Sharon took Lucy in for a couple of sessions to ease her in, but it looks like we wouldn't even have needed to do that. Lucy is in love with the place-limitless little constructive toys, activities, and crafts to keep her engaged-she doesn't want to leave the place. The more we've learned about it, the more we are psyched up about the Montessori philosophy-letting kids explore at their own pace, where their interests take them. Needless to say, we're really excited about when she starts, which will be Friday the 1st of April.

One funny thing that happened there yesterday. Understand-there's near-limitless funny things that happen with respect to The Girl, almost none of which I ever relate (to my own discredit). Anyway, this is not necessarily any more funny than anything else, but is just something I happen to be thinking of at the moment. The kids had just finished having a snack on their little plates, sitting on their little chairs. Lucy said, "all done!" and got up. Being a good girl, she pushed in her chair and started to walk away. She then noticed a little piece of something on the floor, and picked it up. Not sure exactly what to do with it, she put it on the plate of the little girl next to her, then walked off. Apparently, the instructor and Sharon both got a chuckle from that.

Lousy Smarch Weather...

Alternate title: This will be the death of the hobbits!

Twin Cities expecting 8-12 inches of snow over the next half-day. I came in super early to avoid morning traffic, and will shoot to get out of here around 1:30.

Like usual, the snowfall will be far heavier down in the Rochester (& Zephyr Valley) region.

Hops

Not sure if it's simply not having played basketball much in the last year or the fact that I go up six flights of stairs at least once a day or a combination of both, but yesterday when I was shooting around on my goal I decided to jump for the rim. I grabbed the son of a bitch off a two-footed bound.

Earth Mother with a Twist

Maybe a bit of a step back from all the life-changing blogs and back to more little daily life observations and such.

I was just remembering a conversation I had with PMix about how I thought sometime it would be cool for Sharon to start wearing those long sort of flower-patterned skirts. Seemed kind of consistent with her personality. Mix commented something like, "Yeah, she's kind of the earth-mother sort-that would make sense."

Well, one aspect of 95% of the earth mothers that I didn't consider. There is an aspect of their free-spiriting femininity that still clings to a fashion sense. When I suggested the idea to Sharon, she was all for it, except that somehow the dress would have to match t-shirts and/or a sleeveless REI fleece vest. Kind of funny. It's not that Sharon is opposed to nice clothes, it's just that she approaches it kind of like me-she never thinks about it until times of necessity, and then just gets by on the bare minimum requirement (now a FUNCTIONAL, performance wardrobe-that's an entirely different matter in the Hylton household).

Anyway, one of the many things that endears her to me (perhaps the first part of the "why I love my wife" series).