Sooo....haven't updated in 5 months, but I'm still here. A few key updates:

--Finished my first year of grad school with one more to go. Things are going well. I'm submitting things to conferences/journals, and writing my thesis. All in all, I'm right where I should be.

--The debaters did well at nationals--two teams break at NPDA and one got to quarter-finals, and we had a team in the 3rd elim at NPTE, so a pretty successful run.

--Jessica and I are still happily engaged and I'm wearing her down on the "let's just go to vegas" front.

--My dad died in May. It sucked.

--I went to Holland for the 2010 IDEA Youth Forum, and it was great. Seriously, one of the best debate experiences of my life!

--The Blazers spent their full MLE on Wes Matthews, a sparkplug of a 2nd year player from Utah who's compared to Batum a lot. Love the signing, love that he makes the Jazz worse.

--Our buddies Tim and Megan moved to Florida and we're looking for two fun replacements.

I'm working out now, and it's awesome--I'm feeling better every day. However, what's fun about my gym is that it's connected with the Pyramid, where the 49er basketball team plays (along with other sports I don't care about). I've been to a couple of games this season (which I guess is over now, so last season), and I must say, I love going to a D-1 school. ANYWAY, when I was at Willamette I used to check out a basketball and go shoot free-throws for half an hour just to clear my head. When I was getting my membership at Frog's Fitness, I asked if I could do something similar here, you know, since the gym is in the same building as the basketball courts, and I was laughed at. "We're in no-way affiliated with CSULB." Really? See, I was confused by the giant, floor-length windows overlooking the CSULB basketball team practicing. ANYWAY (really this time), last week I was doing some leg-lifts and I ended up watching a really competitive scrimmage of the 49er men's basketball team, and it went right down to the wire, with a 5 point run in the last 20 seconds for the "black" team to win at the buzzer with a corner three. It was easily the best game I've watched in person, and they didn't even know they were being watched. Like I said, I like going to a D-1 school. GO BEACH!

It's been too long, internet. My last update was almost four months ago. Seriously, how is that even possible? Anyway, here's what's happened in my life since then:

--Jessica and I got ENGAGED. It's worth mentioning that in addition to being the most meaningful and awesome relationship in my life, it is now the longest. So, yeah. When people ask about when we're getting married, my answer is "whenever Jess agrees to Vegas." I'm 49% serious about this. The things I hate most in the world are, in order: cross-eyed children, parades, and things that are really about other people but pretend to be about you (graduations and weddings are the biggest two examples, though I suppose funerals also count). We'll see. Maybe next Summer. The lesson, as always--take relationship advice from Beyonce Knowles.

--I applied for and was accepted to be a trainer at the 2010 IDEA Youth Forum in Zeeland, The Netherlands. This means I get to participate in the most intense, awesome and important debate camp in the World. It also means I get to go to the Netherlands for basically nothing this Summer. Yay, debate! To review, this will be the fifth country I will have traveled to for debate. Nerds win.

--Graduate school is awesome. I love teaching, I'm learning a lot from and have developed good relationships with a lot of brilliant faculty members, and I'm finding more and more ways to make meaningful contributions to the speech and debate team.

--David and I went to see the Blazers-Clippers game in LA, and I'm planning on going to one more in LA next month! For the record: LOVE the Camby trade. GO BLAZERS!

--I have a gym membership and I'm working out 4-5 days a week now. Yay for being (sort of) healthy.

I promise to post more often! Hugs!

Yesterday evening I went to library in search of some books for a paper I'm writing on the Rhetorical lives of Tiberious and Caius Gracchus. Since most of their speeches haven't survived, I was left to find the best collection that remains, a translation from the historian Plutarch. In my search, I came across a series of books that were old. Most of the books I walked out of the library with were published in 1909 in England, with frayed edges and water marks in places. The books in my backpack were around during two world wars, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and various natural disasters and historic events throughout the world.

In 1909, someone not unlike me got their book published, and 100 years later, a graduate student they never met, who their children and grandchildren never met, walked out of a library in Southern California with their words. I couldn't tell you who my great-grandfather was on either side of my family. That's probably a depressing commentary on me, but I don't think it's that unique, either. Relationships, even close ones, fade away as generations pass. Knowledge, though, lasts at least a little longer. There's a form of community in graduate school that I hadn't experienced before. I am a scholar, and I hope to be a master in my field. If I'm very lucky, I hope to one day write something that someone I'll never meet, who my children and grandchildren will never meet, will carry out of a library half a world away at 10:00 PM on a Tuesday night, relieved to have finally found just what they need.

My greatest political hero, the man I admire most in history, is Andrei Sakharov. If you don't know who he is, Sakharov was a hero of the Soviet Union, the man who was primarily responsible for bringing nuclear weapons to Russia, who then became one of the biggest opponents of their use, leading the perestroika and glasnost movements that ultimately brought down the USSR after his death. He spent almost three decades in exile where he and his wife Yelena were harassed, threatened and intimidated daily by KGB agents.

But, right before he was exiled, Sakharov went on vacation to Crimea, not far from where my site was in Ukraine. While on the beach with his family, a man came up to Andrei and shook his hand, telling him that he was proud to be a Soviet man like him and that he agreed with a letter Sakharov had signed (along with many other concerned scientists) against the use of nuclear weapons.

Two weeks later, that same man who had embraced Sakharov on the beach voted, along with the rest of the Central Committee, so send the Sakharov's to Siberia indefinitely. Yelena was furious when she found out, screaming and throwing things, while Sakharov just sat in his kitchen quietly. Finally his wife yelled at him, "WHY AREN'T YOU ANGRY? This man betrayed you! Don't you hate him?" Sakharov replied, "I'm not angry...I'm thinking about it."

The easiest thing in the world to do is react to something with emotion, to punch back. It feels good, and sometimes people will love you on for it. But, the job of statesman, of true leaders, is not to react, but to think. To consider.

I believe Barack Obama has shown a willingness and ability to do that, highlighting not only his tremendous potential for greatness, but also why he won the Nobel Prize today. Do I have my frustrations with his administration? Absolutely. Would I vote for him again? Yes--because I think it's what Andei Sakharov would do.

It's a series of difficult but do-able goals. I like my friends and what I'm doing, teaching in particular. Hope all is well with you all. Also, the Blazers start playing soon. Yay!

Jessica and I are in Long Beach and everything's awesome. Don't worry, our new city is not on fire. In fact, when I mentioned that fear to everyone in the first class I taught yesterday, everyone laughed, so I guess it's no biggie. The weather has been pretty hot, but we've set up a pretty effective series of fans in the apartment that work fairly well. Speaking of the apartment, it's perfect for us, and we keep accumulating furniture from various people (including our neighbors, who, when moving in a new couch, literally knocked on our door and gave us their old one).

School's been good, if challenging. Since I'm new to the discipline, they'll be some growing pains, but I'm confident that I can handle it with the help of my supportive friends/fellow grad students, and the professors who are all incredibly smart experts in their field. It's a lot like Peace Corps Training in that there's so much work all the time that you never really finish, you just stop reading at some point. The teaching is going well, too--teaching college seems to fit. I make them laugh a lot, and they come to class and do their work. Everyone wins.

As for the speech and debate team, I've already been blown away by home talented and dedicated everyone is. There are about 15 coaches. 15! The most I ever had before this was 2! And most of them have done really well at nationals!!!! Like, won national titles and been in multiple final rounds!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone Basically I'm surrounded by the freaking Navy SEALS of forensics, and I'm just trying not to be Private Pile. The kids are amazing, too, and I fully expect a fantastic year.

Jessica's working now, too, which is great, so everything's going well. We already have a few "wow, we're really living in LA, this is awesome!" stories, and our friends Tim and Megan, who've been absolute lifesavers (in both the candy and ocean senses) are really adventurous so we'll probably have a few more this year!

Anyway, I love and miss you all.

Me: You know what tomorrow is?

Jessica: Umm...packing?

Me: No--it's the weekly "time to get hammered and watch 'more to love' on ABC!" night!

Jessica: You're not allowed to watch that show.

Me: What? Why? I really want to support their movement, both in the political and exercise senses.

Jessica: What you just said makes you a terrible person.

Me: OK, so let me get this straight--you watch the little people on TLC and love every minute of it, but when I want to watch the big people on ABC, I'm an asshole? Welcome to hypocrite town, population: you.

Jessica and I bought a car today--a 2009 Hyundai Elantra! Talk about making real-life, adult decisions! We checked our budget (about a dozen times), and decided that we could afford the investment. Our piece of mind about car reliability (the Volvo we were driving wasn't looking very stable), plus how awesome the car was in general, made up our minds. We got a pretty good deal on it, too, so our payments are totally reasonable. I realized during the test drive that it was the first car I had ever driven that wasn't old and busted, so it was really, really nice! We also lined up an apartment in Long Beach, and we're planning to drive down in about a week and a half. Road trip! :-)

Sorry I haven't updated in a while--I've been busy working and lining up stuff for Long Beach. Jessica and I are moving down there in a few weeks and we're super excited. If you want more of my awesome, swinging hilarity, please check out my basketball-related posts on http://2ndroundreach.com/. I'm "T-Mac" in the twitter feed, also.

Here's my post about why the Raptors can suck it, here's my long winded and angry rant at Blazer GM Kevin Pritchard, here's my 2009 Draft Day Quiz, here's my 2009 Playoff Awards, and my first collumn about the Orlando Magic fast break. My collumns go up every Tuesday, so if you like basketball and my sense of humor, check it out. My collumn tomorrow is really funny.

During the three months of pre-service training in Ukraine, my training cluster had several visits from the medical office to give us inoculations, supplies and some general health lessons, the most memorable of which was the sexual health lecture. Lasting several hours, it was as explicit and comprehensive a sexual education class as you can imagine, complete with a mandatory rolling of a condom on a rubber penis that we all had to do before we could be officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. The intensity and frankness of this lesson (and the subsequent availability of an unlimited supply of condoms and birth control pills) felt almost a little desperate, leaving us all with the notion that we were important people and our choices actually mattered. After all, the government was investing a lot of time and money in us so we could do a specific and important series of jobs, so this attitude made sense. We were valuable resources and the Peace Corps had a vested interest in protecting us, even from ourselves.

That lesson stuck with me, and I imagine that it had a similar impact on other PCV's because, despite having a very large number of (sexually active) volunteers, the PC-Ukraine program had/has almost no one leave the service for sexually-related issues (STI's, pregnancy, etc). My point is this, though: why on earth shouldn't the same sense of desperation and intensity be applied to every single high school sexual education class in America? The conditions are similar, after all--lots of time/money being invested in the students (tens of thousands), the risks are tremendous since so many are inevitably sexually active anyway, and the correlation between comprehensive sex ed and lower pregnancy and STI rates is clear. It's like we were only worthy of receiving complete and accurate sexual education (and the needed birth control to functionally follow through on those teachings) because we were important Peace Corps Volunteers, which is just silly--every teen in America is just as important and deserves that same treatment.

A few weeks ago I was at a restaurant and needed to pee. It had been a while and I had had several beverages, so I was ready to have one of those Austin Powers pees that lasts 3 minutes and involves me putting my hand against the wall. However, when I got into the men's room, there was a problem. See, in the one and only stall someone was having violent, loud, offensively smelly diarrhea (did I mention this was a Mexican restaurant? Does that help explain it? Think a bad reaction to 8 pounds of chips and salsa) and the one and only urinal was apparantly broken and wouldn't flush, though that hadn't stopped what I could only assume were dozens of men from pissing in it anyway. So, I was left with decision--wait out that guy with dysentery or add my contribution to the bright yellow urine pool and probably get spash-back piss on me and my clothes, plus hepatitis.

Life is all about the tough choices.

In the end, I chose to just hold it and wait for the sweet salvation of my home toilet. I made it, though it was a photo-finish. The best bathroom stories always are.

Jessica hadn't ever been to Seattle, so last weekend we decided to go visit our Peace Corps friends Katie and Kelly, who are universally some of the coolest cats you'll ever want to meet. Kelly likes Asian stuff and Katie likes to say the phrase, "or it gets the hose again," so we knew we were in for a good ole' time. Being responsible adults, we took the new(er) car we were driving/being given by my super awesome aunt and uncle to a mechanic for a trip inspection the day before we were planning to leave, and he topped off the fluids and told us that everything was fine.

*cut to creepy behind-the music theme* But then, on our drive up, everything changed.......

We actually made pretty good (OK, average) time up to Seattle considering that it was rush hour on a Friday, but after having driven 175 miles from Portland, the car stopped working about 5 blocks from Katie and Kelly's place. When I tried to drive, the car wouldn't go forward...I put the pedal to the floor and it barely moved, so I swerved off into a parking lot and called AAA. After waiting an hour and a half, a super-nice tow truck driver showed up and he took me (Jess went ahead to our friend's place) to a repair shop about 2 miles away, but not before a mean parking lot attendant showed up and demanded 10 dollars for parking in his lot EVEN THOUGH MY CAR WAS BEING TOWED AWAY BECAUSE IT WASN'T WORKING.

The more concerning problem(s), though, was the fact that I was starting a new job in Portland on Monday morning and I absolutely couldn't miss that first day. After talking with the mechanics on Saturday morning, they said they knew it was a transmission problem but that they couldn't fix it until Monday when the "tranny guy" (hehe) showed up. That meant that I had to leave Jessica in Seattle for a few more days and take the train back Sunday afternoon (which was fantastic--Amtrak is amazing and totally beats the crap out of Ukrainian trains!!!).

The bill came out to be about $900, of which I'm paying $300 and my super nice aunt and uncle are paying $600. We were considering just leaving the car in Washington if the bill was any more expensive than that, but it turns out that it's easier to commit a double murder and get away with it than it is to legally abandon or sell a broken car in Washington. The logic was, "well, we can pay 6oo bucks to dump the car there or pay 300 more and have the car." So, Jessica is road tripping it back to PDX tomorrow norning (in the car) and I'll be glad to have her home. All in all, she will have gotten to see a lot more of Seattle than she had planned, but all things considered, it didn't end as badly as it could have.

I got up at 7:00 this morning to watch the Scripps National Spelling Bee Semi-Finals. This is my favorite time of year, I love this stuff. It's the only thing that would make me toggle between a Blazer playoff game (during the commercials or course). My prediction is Kavya Shivashankar and Sidharth Chand is the finals. Kavya has been in the top 10 the last three years, which is the Spelling Bee equivalent of eating 100 hot dogs in 10 minutes or something, and Sidharth got 2nd last year in his first bee, and you KNOW he wants to get that one back. There are even places where you can BET on not just who will win/lose, but on how many syllables the last word will have, whether it will be a noun/adjective/verb, if a kid will faint and/or throw up and if a parent will start screaming...I would post the link here but since the Bee has started, they stopped taking bets (of course). When in doubt, back the Indian kids to do well. Think about it--good news comes in threes. 1) The Assassination of Pakistani Political Leader Benazir Bhutto, 2) Slumdog Millionaire winning all those Oscars, and now THIS. JAI HOOOOOOOO!

Quick edit--First, I don't actually think Bhutto getting killed was good news. It was a joke and it wasn't even that funny. So yeah. Also, I wrote a short story about Spelling Bees three years ago. Enjoy?! http://cliffgardner.blogspot.com/2006/02/bee-all-you-can-be.html

Nothing bothers me more than bike riders who roll around Portland with a huge sense of entitlement. We’ve gone out of our way to make PDX as bike-friendly as possible—there are huge bike lanes, places to hang bikes on public transportation and lots of well-established bike paths, and I’m not against any of these efforts. It’s a good thing to encourage people to bike places for a myriad of reasons, and I understand that, and for the most part, bicyclists are awesome. However, far too often, bikers ride through traffic, cut through intersections and turn lanes with no regard for anyone else, and act as though they deserve to do whatever they want on our roads--this attitude has got to change. Bicyclists need to understand that they are part of a larger community of commuters just trying to get places and they are not entitled to treat other people with such disrespect. Riding a bike does not make you better or more deserving of human decency than anyone else, and it's time that more Portland bikers got that through their heads.

If you don't know, I'm the funniest Twitter person alive. Check me out at www.twitter.com/notalentclown, you'll be glad you did. What I like about twitter is that I can update my account from my cell phone, so the world doesn't have to wait to get hit in the face with my giant, swinging hilarity.

There's been a pretty big void in my life since all my favorite shows ended for the season. I was watching (and making Jessica watch) the Tudors, The Office, 30 Rock, The Girls of Hedsor Hall and The Tool Academy every week. Now all I'm left with is The Duel 2 (Evan's going to win, FYI) on MTV, plus whatever movie is on BET, Spike TV or random On Demand channels X, Y, Z and John Stewart/Colbert the amazing. Normally I would feel super guilty about watching this much TV, but after going 2 years without any real form of entertainment and considering that I'm about to start grad school where I presumably won't be able to watch much of anything, I think I'm allowed. Three cheers for technology.

Finally, I want you all to know that I've put on lots of weight since I got home from Peace Corps. I'm weighing in at 161 pounds right now, which for me is HUGE. When I was at Willamette, I weighed 115. For most of Peace Corps, I weighed 125-130. That was about 6 months ago. At this rate of 5 pounds a month, I'm going to on season 16 of The Biggest Loser in a few years--I'm even practicing my flabby arm thrusts of victory.

The (somewhat) bad news is that all of this weight gain is coming while I'm running between 5 and 10 miles a day, which just confirms my theory that my body does what it wants and no one can stop it. I spent about 3 years doing everything I could to gain weight and was completely unsuccessful, so it stands to reason that the opposite would also be true. The good news is that I've consulted multiple (internet) doctors and my Body Mass Index is still within the acceptable range (though just barely) and everyone seems to like this "filling out" I've done since I got home. Still, feel free to make fat jokes at my expense, I really don't mind.

Gotta go watch The Duel 2 now. LET'S GO EVAN!

I'm writing this from beautiful Southern California, where it's 70 all year and no one cares about anything. That's not true, it's not always 70. Seriously though, people care about the Lakers, which for me is like living in Occupied Paris. ANYWAY, here are things that I've learned along with the rest of society this week:

1) Don't show teenage hoo-ha in yearbook photos. It's bad news bears.

2) From TLC, it looks like Jon probably cheated on his wife (and all 8 of his kids because he hurt them too), and Kate might have even cheated on him. I've been saying for a while that Jon looks like the most miserable man in the world. Look at it this way--10 years ago, Kate (who is seriously cute now) was probably a straight up hottie when Jon, who is kinda funny looking, married her. My point is, whenever there's this big of a difference in attractiveness in a relationship, there's usually a catch. For Jon, it took a while, but the catch ending up being him having absolutely no choices anymore and living with someone who's hobbies include nagging, singing songs about school buses, and more nagging. OF COURSE it was wrong for Jon to cheat on his wife. It was stupid and horrible...and also one of the five more predictable things to happen in the history of reality TV. Just saying.

3) Darius Miles is a tool. The last holdout from the Jailblazers era got busted for weed, driving with a suspended license, and for general asshole behavior last night. He's also, apparently, the reason OJ Mayo is acting like a spoiled tool. Great move, Memphis. I hope it was worth it.

4) Pam might be preggers. I for one can't wait for the baby names episode next season.

5) Brandon Roy made the all-NBA 2nd team and was invited to try out for the Olympic team (along with Greg Oden and LaMarcus Aldridge). He was also the youngest person on the all-NBA list. THE FUTURE IS NOW. We have one of the top-7 best players in the league, and my argument is that we can't have a "well, just wait until they get better, they're so young, just be patient" attitude.

Look at it this way--when the Celtics got KG and Ray Ray two Summers ago, everyone thought the team was built more for 2009 more than 2008 for a myriad of reasons, and the attitude was, "we're going to win in 2009 so anything we get with these guys this first year is just a bonus." Well, every Celtics fan is really happy they won it all last year because KG snapped his knee in half and it looks like he'll never be the same. My point is, in the NBA, YOU NEVER KNOW. What if Brandon Roy hurts his knee(s) again? What if LaMarcus opts out in two years because the Sacramento Kings want to give him max money? What if Rudy decides to play for a team that runs more, like New York, or just go back to Spain? We have a great roster now but we can't afford to wait for these guys to mature. The Blazer front office needs to make some big moves this off season to put us in a position to win a championship next year. Everyone in Portland needs to have a win-now attitude while we still have a championship window.

6) Long Beach is amazing! I love everything about it--the location, the team, the coaches, the facilities, the program. The next two years are going to be fun, hard, challenging, exciting and amazing. I can't wait!

7) Twitter is fun. I've updated...a lot...in the past few days and I'm really enjoying myself. Check me out at notalentclown.

8) I'm really hoping to be a special guest on the321podcast because, as a spelling bee enthusiast, I feel I have a duty to tell as many people as possible about the upcoming competition.

9) Star Trek is great. I saw it twice and loved it twice. The hot green chick was one of Charlie Wilson's assistants, FYI. Seriously, IMDB that. When I texted my friend Hillary, who's from Iowa, about Kirk being from her homeland, she replied with a gruff, "Of course he is! EVERYONE knows that!" Um, no, actually--most people don't know that. Iowans really like their Star Trek, I guess. BTW, did you all know that at the Iowa State Fair every year there's a giant model of something out of butter? Last year is was a butter Shawn Johnson, the Olympic Gold Medal-winning gymnast. This year, I'm hoping for James T. Kirk.

10) I am happier now that I've ever been. Life is great! P.S.--Jessica is amazing.

My friends over at the321podcast were discussing the neo-Nazi twin band Prussian Blue and how their music is, you know, genocidal, but how they were still pretty attractive (or at least they will be in 7-8 years). I've put some thought into this...a little too much thought, as you'll see...and I've realized this problem is both bad and difficult to fix. It centers around a simple question: are you allowed to be attracted to hot women (and men, although I focus on women--think Prussian Blue if they're 24) if they are dropping n-bombs and quoting from the Prodigals of Zion all the time? Obviously, there's nothing worse than genocide and racism (at least I hope there's not). However, if someone is really, REALLY hot, are there any ways around this huge roadblock? I say yes, and I've created a 4-part set of guidelines, listed below, to help you through this tricky situation. Here is your guide to guilt-free sex with bigots:

1) The bigot must be really hot. As will be explained later, this relationship has to exist ONLY on a physical level. Talking to the bigot is discouraged, because conversation will only remind you that they want to kill all of X race. If they're not hot, and I mean Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's love child hot, then don't bother, it's not worth it.

2) Your relationship with the bigot must be temporary. This little racist isn't your girlfriend, fiance or wife. This is not a regular thing. The goal here is to form no attachments whatsoever to the Hitler spawn because the more time you spend with them doing relationship things, the more likely it is you'll have to listen to their Mein Kampf poetry or, worse yet, you'll start to actually consider their arguments. No drives to wine country with the chick in the Klan Hood for you. A good rule for this step is to not sleep with the bigot more than ten (random and irregular) times, and if she expresses any feelings for you at all, it's over.

3) Your entirely-physical relationship with the bigot must be one-sided. You don't want the n-bomb dropping girl to enjoy herself at all. AT ALL. Your goal is not to give her any pleasure whatsoever while ONLY satisfying yourself, and ideally she'll want to take a shower immediately following these encounters (use your imagination). Anything that makes her life better would only seem to reward her terrible behavior, and that's obviously a backwards-step.

4) Some side-efforts must be taken, both during and after sleeping with the bigot, to reject her specific bigotry. For example, if you decide to have sex with the Prussian Blue twins in ten years, you can do so while wearing a Star of David condom (do those exist? If not, throw in your copy of Schindler's List or put on your headphones and listen to an audio book of Night by Elie Wiesel while you're being intimate with them) and then later, donate 50 bucks to the Shoah Foundation or something. If you're sleeping with the daughter of the KKK's Grand Dragon, throw on Ruben Carter's boxing rob and go for it, and then write a big fat check to the United Negro College Fund 20 minutes after you're done. This way, no one can accuse you of actually subscribing to their twisted logic just because you're having sex with them.

Bottom line: These guidelines aren't perfect. It's unlikely that anyone in the racist community would actually fit/put up with all 4 of these steps, and finding such a person could very easily be like chasing your 100% white whale (actually, I forgot about step 1 for a second, so never mind, bad analogy). Still, I believe that if executed as suggested, these guidelines can obsolve you of any guilt you might have over sleeping with Megan Fox if she had a swastika tattoo.

In the fall of 2005 I applied to 18 law schools. 18! Of those, I was accepted by exactly three of them, and received virtually no financial aid from any of those schools...I can't say I blame them since based on my LSAT score(s), I was as smart as Corky from Life Goes On. Still, going from the financial aid offers I got, even the schools that let me in weren't exactly eager to have me on board, presumably because they thought I would start a fire or something.

My point, though, is that had I gone to law school three years ago, I would be graduating next month with, at best, $50,000-$75,000 of additional student loans (on top of my 25K of undergrad debt) and struggling to find a job in one of the worst economic climates for lawyers in history. Side note--as a Peace Corps Volunteer, my student loan debt actually went down 30%. Somewhere up there, JFK is smiling and nodding happily, possibly while hammered.

ANYWAY, flash forward to the fall of 2008, when I applied to six different Communications graduate programs. While in Ukraine, I really missed speech and debate and teaching public speaking, and I realized that I was over-thinking things--I'm happy teaching and coaching, so why not keep doing that? It seemed simple enough--my rationale was/is, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel--if I'm happy doing something, then I should keep doing it. Thankfully those suspicions were confirmed when, based on a pretty good GRE score, solid recommendations from awesome folks, and loads of teaching/coaching experience, I got in to all six of the schools I applied to, receiving great financial aid offers.

In the Fall, I'll be getting my Master's Degree in Communications from California State University-Long Beach (for a shocking little amount of money), and coaching/teaching as a graduate assistant. I'll also be living with an awesome collection of people (my great friends David, Kristen and Megan will hopefully be living in a giant house with Jessica and I). In short, I'll be doing what I love, surrounded by the people I love, and I couldn't be happier. Personally, Professionally, Economically, Socially...in every measurable way, not going to law school was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Two days ago, the Portland Trailblazers clinched their first playoff birth since 2003, when Scottie Pippen was on the team. For a Blazermaniac like me, this is obviously a huge deal, compounded with the fact that this is my first year back from isolation in a land where I didn't own a TV, but it didn't matter anyway because nobody cared about the NBA. However, what I didn't realize until yesterday was the extent to which all of Portland is on the same page on this one.

I'm judging at a speech tournament in downtown Portland, right on the waterfront, and I've had some pretty big holes in my judging schedule which have enabled me to take long walks by the water. It's been unseasonably warm the last few days, high 70's/low 80's (and if that's not a great analogy for this team, I don't know what is--beautifully awesome much earlier than we expected or had any right to ask for), and the stretches by the waterfront were packed with people. Yesterday, it seemed like every other person I saw was sporting some type of Blazer gear, and since I had my Blazer hat on, I exchanged dozens of smiles, compliments on attire, and exactly 8 fist-pumps or high-fives with total strangers (including one homeless man who really liked Brandon Roy).

If there's one thing recent history has taught us, it's that sports can bring people together and help in ways that are both important and difficult to quantify. After 9/11, people saw how the Yankees helped get NYC through the worst parts of their grief, and when the Hornets returned to New Orleans the year after Katrina, people felt like they could start living their lives again--that it was ok to enjoy things. I've always liked the movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance" because it demonstrates this point--at the worst part of the great depression, a local boy does something amazing in golf and it gives everyone hope again.

Right now, Oregon has double-digit unemployment. Our schools are in crisis, our state health plan--once a model for the rest of the country on providing health coverage to the poor and children--is on the verge of collapse, and millions are out of work and scared. But I'll be damned if I didn't see hundreds of people on the waterfront yesterday pumped about the boys in black and red making the playoffs again. Thank you, Rip City.

You know you've been watching too much college basketball when something like this happens. So, last night I had a very vivid dream in which I was working as a technician in a college computer lab at the University of Connecticut. I know it was UConn because at some point, AJ Price kicked down the door and tried to take half a dozen laptops (which actually happened). I tackled him in my dream, and woke up with a start to find that I was fiercely hugging Jessica in a tackling-like grip. She slept through it, and I was a little freaked out. Needless to say, I'll be really happy when the Final Four finally happens this weekend.

In other news, and I'll write more about this later, I'm now a 49er! I've decided to attend California State University-Long Beach in the Fall, and I couldn't be more excited about it. For more information about CSULB, please consult this informational video.

This morning I woke up early (10 AM on a Sunday is early) to watch the Blazers-Hawks game with Jessica on TV. Now, Jessica enjoys NBA games for very different reasons than the one(s) I do. The cheerleaders, the blimps that fly around the arena dropping coupons, the t-shirt gun, THAT'S what brings her to the Rose Garden. Anyway, at the last game we went to see (Blazers v. T-Wolves), our seats were right behind the basket and during the 2nd half, the Blazer cheerleaders walked around and handed out inflatable bangey things designed to distract opposing teams while they're shooting free throws. Needless to say, Jess has lots of fun with those, and she took them home. That led to this exchange today, when the game wasn't going well for the good guys:

Jessica: *Bangs plastic flappers together*

Me: Damn it! Stupid Joe Johnson.

Jessica: *Bangs plastic flappers together*

Me: Mike Bibby....Mike Bibby....

Jessica: *Bangs plastic flappers together*

Me: We needed to today, Greg. We needed you.

Jessica: *Bangs plastic flappers together*

Me: Jessica, ENOUGH! Just because we're watching a game on TV doesn't mean you get to pretend we're sitting under the basket. Just stop.

*15 second pause*

Jessica: *Bangs plastic flappers together*

Me: Gaaaaaaaa!

Recent road losses to the Spurs, Rockets and Nuggets have made it clear that the Blazers lack a certain veteran toughness and what I like to call "the crazy factor," i.e. the refusal to be bullied. I have a solution: Latrell Sprewell. He solves all of those problems right now. Here are some reasons why this is a brilliant move:

1) He's good. Anyone remember how awesome he was? He can shoot and defend. If we bring him off the bench at small forward, we can keep his minutes to maybe 20-25 a game so even if he has lost a step with age (he's 38) or if he's not in great shape, it'll be ok.

2) He's a proven playoff performer. Remember that time he carried an eighth-seeded Knicks team to the finals? Blake is the only guy on our team with playoff experience--we could use some of that, especially if we end up with a 6-7-8 seed and need to climb up the back of the west bracket on the road.

3) He's crazy, but not too crazy. The Blazers tend to get pushed around a lot, especially on the road against good teams--see the latest Denver disaster for evidence. If the toughest guy on our roster is Joel Przybilla, we're not scaring anyone in April/May. Plus, since our team is currently made up entirely of nice guys, even if Spree went off the reservation so to speak, which I think Roy/Aldridge/Nate would prevent as much as possible, the damage would be minimal since he wouldn't have anyone to be crazy with. Spree acting up in Portland would get the same reaction as someone swearing in church.

4) He'll play hard every night or go back to sleeping under a bridge. This would also serve to keep his craziness in check. Just to prove this point, I'm in favor of signing him to a series of ten-day contracts to see if he measures up. If it works out, we can sign him for the rest of the season at the fairly-cheap veteran pro-rated minimum, which is something like 1.5-3 million. If not, cut him and we still have ten games before the playoffs to get back into rhythm/un-do any damage done by Spree. My point is, it's pretty much all up-side for us.

He can set us Spree at last. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. But seriously, think about.

Last night, after the another dramatic come-from-behind win against and inferior team at home (aka operation "give Thomas a heart attack" part 9), Jessica, who had half-heartidly watched yet another game with me, had the following converation:

Me: Jessica, I'm going to ask you a question, and based on your answer, an increasing amount of good things will happen in your life.

Jess: OK, shoot.

Me: Name as many members of the current Portland Trailblazers team as you can.

Jess: Oooh, Brandon Roy, Greg Oden, Joel Prizbilla the vanilla gorilla, heeheeha!

Me: Yes, annnnd?

Jess: LaMarcus Aldridge, Travis Outlaw, daaa duuuh duuuh...weeedeedeedeeee....duuduuu--

Me: Yes, his name is Outlaw, I get it. Anyone else?

Jess: RUDY! RUDY! RUDY! And Seeeergio. Oooh, and Nicolas Batuuuuuum!

Me: OK, setting aside your entertaining mnemonic devices you use to remember the foreigners, you're missing two more. I'm give you a hint--he spells his name incorrectly--

Jess: Jerryd Bayliss!

Me:--yes, and you're missing our starting point guard.

Jess: I don't know what a "point guard" is.

Me: Fair enough...he's the other white guy.

Jess: BLAKE! STEVE BLAKE!

Me: Wow, great job! Who's the coach, for extra credit?

Jess: Nate MacMillan!

Me: Someone gets a massage!

Jess: YAY! Aren't you proud of me?!

Me: Yes, very much so...I'm going to let your ommisions of Michael Ruffin slide because we just got him in a trade, and Shavlik Randolph because he's annoying.

Jess: Thanks? Start with the shoulders.

Me: Okie Dokie!

Larry Miller, the owner of the Utah Jazz, died recently after a horrific battle with Diabetes that resulted in both of his legs being amputated. It's important to recognize that he was a very good NBA owner. The Jazz had something like 13 fifty-plus win seasons during his tenure. Stockton to Malone, and now Williams to Boozer, made basketball great in Utah for a quarter-century.

However, it's also important to note Larry Miller's role in something else--a gay teen suicide epidemic. While I was typing that, a gay kid killed himself somewhere in the United States because he was persecuted by homophobic bigots. Suicide is the leading cause of death among gay teens. Consider this, from Larry Miller's Wikipedia page:

"On January 6, 2006, the film Brokeback Mountain was pulled from Miller's Megaplex 17 theater at the last minute after Miller learned from a radio reporter that the film featured a gay romance. Other R-rated films, such as the comedy Grandma's Boy and the violent horror film Hostel were still allowed to be shown. As a result, the business was accused of exhibiting bias against homosexuality. The cancellation brought international attention to the theater. The Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Utah and other gay rights groups urged its members to avoid patronizing Miller's various businesses. Miller later explained the cancellation, saying that he was concerned about "getting away from the traditional families", what he called "a very dangerous thing." Miller noted that several individuals purchased automobiles from his dealerships as a form of support for the decision."

Clearly, Larry Miller is both powerful and not-okay with gay folks. In fact, his decision not to show "Brokeback Mountain" in his theatres clearly made him a leader in the fight to persecute homosexuals. It's not that gay and lesbian teens are just naturally more depressed and prone to taking their own lives--they're teased and harassed every day at schools, in locker rooms and at churches. Violence, and the threat of violence, are common. It's a terrible thing to live in fear every day of your life for who you are and for many kids, suicide seems like the only way out.

In the state of Utah, which I imagine isn't the most accepting for GLBT kids to begin with, hosting the movie "Brokeback Mountain" was a beautiful opportunity to show the straight community what it feels like to be gay, and to live with that fear. More importantly, though, it could have demonstrated to those terrified gay kids I mentioned that there's nothing wrong with who they are--that they're not sick, or broken, and that there are other people like them out there going through the exact same things. This would have saved lives.

Instead, Larry Miller chose to react like a cafeteria room full of 6th graders instead of a smart, civic-minded, "moral leader" that he claimed to be. I have no problem with people praising his ownership of the Utah Jazz. However, most articles haven't stopped there, instead choosing to trumpet his moral leadership and claim that he was a great man for the state of Utah. Larry Miller wasn't a great man. You're not a great man if you, as a pillar of your community, pursue a policy that causes teenagers to kill themselves.

I hope Out Magazine buys the Jazz.

This week began with me exhausted, walking into my room after a long weekend at the OSU tournament, to find Jessica sitting on my bed reading. She had flown across the country to surprise me by moving in, and it was one of the best moments of my life. YAY!

Anyway, we went to the Blazer game last night against the Grizzlies and Rip City improved to 4-0 in games that I watch in person, although operation "give Thomas a heart attack" was in full force as we almost blew a home game to an inferior team, again. So far I've seen the Blazers KILL the Heat with David, eek out wins against the Bucks and Grizz with Jess, and pull away late against the Wizards with Rebecca. Maybe one of these days I'll go see the boys play against a contender.

The big news is no news--Kevin Pritchard didn't make a move at the trade deadline beyond a salary cap/trade exception move for Michael Ruffin (WHO?) which will likely just result in us getting another pick in what's looking like a pretty solid 2009 draft class. I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was really hoping for a deal--by all accounts, the Blazers could have gotten Richard Jefferson, Caron Butler or Gerald Wallace (not to mention Vince Carter, who would have MURDERED our chemistry, more below) without touching anyone in our big three. All three of those guys would have been upgrades at the small forward position and would have potentially pushed us to the 2nd round or better this year.

However, there are several reasons why I'm behind this "no-move" move:

First, there's reason to think that with the current economic conditions in the league, if this many teams are this desperate to unload their guys now, it will probably get even better (or worse, depending on your perspective) this Summer. That means the Blazers can get better guys, or at least the same guys for less (imagine Butler but without touching anyone in our top SIX? It could happen.), if we just wait a few months and then unleash Holy hell on the league next year, regardless of how the rest of the season plays out.

Second, there's no reason to believe this team can't get home-court and advance a round this season, as currently assembled. The Blazers haven't had their best guys on the court a whole lot this year. Oden's missed a lot of games, Blake went down for an extended stretch, and B-Roy even was out for a handful, not to mention that our best perimeter defender and reliable three-point threat, Martell Webster, has played about 2 games this year. If we get everyone healthy at the same time, and if Nate figures out how to use Bayliss well off the bench, the Blazers are a good team. Add to that the fact that our schedule is slightly better than the rest of the West, and the recent stumbles of New Orleans (trying to unload TC), Houston (T-Mac out for the year) and San Antonio (Manu's out for 2-3 weeks), and there's no reason to think that the future can't be now.

Third, everyone just needs to trust that Kevin Pritchard knows what he's doing. Like, seriously. I remember when everyone hated on our front office when we made all those deals in the 2006 NBA draft. Bill Simmons compared KP to a drunken college kid trying to assemble an NBA Live team a 2 in the morning. BUT, look at how it's turned out: we got Roy and Aldridge out of that draft and we're the 4 seed in the West at the all-star break three years later. He's a good GM. This will be ok. Everyone just needs to relax.

Fourth, chemistry can't be over-rated. This really matters in the NBA, more than in any other sport (with possible exception of QB to WR in football). Last night when Darius Miles was introduced, I was booing so loudly that my tonsils hit him in the face. You know what? He deserved it, but really what I, what WE--the whole crowd was with me on this--were really booing was a concept. AND IDEA. The idea that we can just overpay for selfish assholes and everything will be ok. It won't. Rider, Z-Bo, even Damon Stoudamire, were right there with Miles on the Blazers' wall of shame, and I'm glad to be done with them--I think we all are. Teams that don't have guys like that tend to over-achieve. Look at those Magic and Rockets teams from the mid-90's, or even Dikembe Mutumbo's Denver team. It's worth it to cheer for the nice guys because they'll do better, and even if they don't, you still feel better about yourself in the morning. We have one of those rosters now, and I want to see how far we can go without throwing in another dude after we've spent the last three years learning how to play together.

Bottom line: I'm trusting KP on this one, and I think the rest of Portland should to.

It looks like the Blazers are making a strong push for Amare Stoudemire, offering LaMarcus Aldridge, Jerryd Bayliss and Raef's dead body/expiring contract. Setting aside for the moment the loss of Bayliss (a promising rookie who frankly we won't miss much when Blake comes back), I have so thoughts on the LaMarcus/Amare swap.

Reasons why this is a good move:

1) On paper, we're a better team. LaMarcus' ceiling is Amare's basement, statistically speaking. Stoudemire can defend (a HUGE problem for the Blazers), rebound (one of LaMarcus' big issues), and score almost at will. He's good enough to win multiple titles and MVP awards, and everyone has their own "OMG did you see Amare destroy the Spurs/Mavs/Rockets BY HIMSELF" story?! Portland can win a title if Amare is their 1st or 2nd best guy, and even the Lakers would have to be concerned about a possible post-season matchup with us.

2) He brings experience to a team that desperately needs it. Amare has loads of playoff games (or at least a lot more than anyone on our current roster) under his belt, even making the West Finals once (I'm not counting the season where his biggest contribution to the Suns was being a walking "What Not To Wear" episode on TLC for a team that also made the final four). For a team that apparently wants to win now, this is a good thing.

3) Greg Oden, this is Amare. Have fun. Oden's defense has been great (seriously, 6 freaking blocks against NY?!), but his offense, while improving, is still terrible when he's not dunking. Amare's ability to move around the basket and create his own quality shot 9/10 times down the floor would probably be a good thing for GO to watch every night.

Reasons why this could be a disaster:

1) Amare is an emotional infant and locker room cancer. I just finished reading "7 Seconds or Less" chronicling the Suns' season that Amare' missed after knee surgery (more on that in a second). In it, there were about 75 examples of how Stoudemire's constant need to be the "alpha dog" in the locker room, EVEN WHEN HE WASN'T PLAYING, caused the team headaches. I don't think he'd be willing to defer to Brandon Roy and certainly not to Greg Oden. Our chemistry (which has been one of our strengths) could be seriously messed with if this happens.

2) Seriously, another one of these guys? I feel like we just got clear of the last of these stupid "bad character guys" in Miles. Why is everyone so willing to wade back into the murky waters with this Amare jerk who only cares about himself/his stats? It's like we just got released from prison and we're back home 3 hours later and someone is offering us cocaine. DON'T DO IT! REMEMBER HOW THAT ENDED LAST TIME! I think everyone who is strongly behind this trade should watch game video's of Isaiah Rider going 1 on 4 in front of an empty Rose Garden.

3) Do you really want our top three guys to have histories of serious knee problems? Seriously, HOW DOES THIS SOUND? Do we really want our front court to be dubbed "the micro fracture twins" and to hold our breath every time we hear a balloon pop thinking that it might be Brandon's knee? The upside is tremendous, I get that...but the downside is pretty much the worst thing to happen to the northwest since Damon Stoudamire decided to wrap his weed in aluminum foil and stroll through airport security at PDX.

Bottom line: I think the Blazers have to make this trade for two reasons.

1) We can't let Raef's contract expire and NOT take advantage of it. The Blazers don't sign overrated jerks (no offense, Raef) to big deals anymore. We're not going to get an opportunity like this again. Considering that Bosh and Wade probably aren't leaving their current teams and Lebron is headed to NY (if he's leaving Cleveland at all), the 2010 free agent market is fool's gold, and our best shot at getting another quality player is by trade. That means Amare. I love this Blazer team--LaMarcus especially, who's always been my favorite--but we have to admit that the team we have now isn't going to win a title, even if we wait 4 years for everyone to mature and keep improving. We can win a title if B-Roy is our 2nd best guy, but not if he's expected to do everything like he is now. If we wait, we'll end up sinking max money into LaMarcus, Roy and Oden and be a 6-8 seed in the west for a decade. We need to make a move now if our goal is to win an NBA title, which I assume it is.

2) LaMarcus is gone anyway so we might as well get someone in return. A few weeks ago, ESPN the Magazine has a big article that explained how emotional LA is. In one example, he didn't really talk to Brandon for six months because he thought he has been snubbed for a dinner invitation. My point is, he's not going to take these, "Aldridge at the center of trade talks" stories very well, and come 2010, he's gone. Kevin Pritchard has burned this bridge for us by letting it leak that we're willing to trade him (as opposed to Oden and Roy, who are untouchable), and that slight won't go unnoticed. That, coupled with the fact that we won't offer him as much as, say, Minnesota or Memphis, means that he's gone next Summer whether we like it or not. The only difference is if we replace him with an All-Star. I say we pull the trigger on this one, as much as it kills me.

I know my stance on reality shows that make fun of people/characteristics that I hate is pretty clear. I've been tuning in to "The Tool Academy" ever since it came on a few weeks ago, and with only four tools left, I want to make something clear: the remaining tools are still assholes. Everyone one of them. They're only "winning" this "competition" because other people were somehow more obviously toolish, so it's like the producers have faced a Sophie's Choice for tools. I can't wait to see how this is going to shake out.

That said, MTV might just have one-uped VH1, because last night I watched "The Girls of Hedsor Hall." It's basically a female-tool academy, only in England. I don't know what it is about the United Kingdom that makes most Americans assume it's citizens are automatically more dignified, but clearly that's what the creators of these shows are going for. Even TA's therapist is British. Last night on the season premiere of TGOHH, a British "Lord" called told one drunken American girl that she looked like a horse. Naturally, hilarity/fits ensued. Obviously, I'll be tuning in every week.

In other news, I've spend a large portion of my time lately thinking about potential trades the Blazers could make between now and the February 19th deadline. Personally I'd rather just stand-pat this year and see where we're at, especially once we get Martell Webster back to spruce up our perimiter defense and three-point shooting. There's only one problem--Raef's expiring contract that we can't afford to not take advantage of. I'm really glad Kevin Pritchard is our GM because I have no clue what I would do in this situation.

I turn 26 today. *High-Five!* Wow. I'm fighting the urge to not sound like that guy from "Garden State" who's all, "I'm only 26, it's not like I have to figure out my whole life right now." Actually, things are going really well over here at camp T-Mac. I'm coaching not one but TWO squads that I love, and I'm dating an amazing woman who loves me loves me loves me, which is always good. Plus, I've got one of THESE and it's totally changing how I run, which is good because I can afford to lose some weight (I've gone from "healthily filled-out to "dangerously overweight" in the two and a half months since I've been back). The next few months are going to be really exciting, so I'll try to keep the 2 of you who read this blog updated.

I'm going to be coaching for Pacific University again while serving as the Assistant Director of Forensics for the rest of the season! Yay! This is great for about 400 reasons and I'm super excited about it. However, this does create a little wrinkle in that I had already committed to judging at some tournaments for Willamette. For example, this weekend at Western Washington, I'll be judging all the debate rounds for Willamette and all speech rounds for Pacific. The madness continues:

Traveling with: Willamette.

Staying with: Pacific.

Breakfast: Pacific.

Dinner: Willamette.

Don't even get me started on which team I'll be hanging out with in between rounds. I'll hopefully have enough ballots that I won't have much time for those somewhat awkard exchanges. In somewhat related news, I'm just about finished with my last bit of grad school stuff so I should know where I'm going soon. OH, and the Blazers are going to kick the crap out of the Bobcats tonight. Just FYI.

This is the best show I've ever seen. The Tool Academy on VH1 is amazing. If I were to make a list of things that really, really bother me, I'm not sure what the exact order would be, but I can say with confidence that the following things would be included:

--Parades

--Cross-eyed children

--Super-macho, chest-thumping guys

--Girls who date super-macho, chest-thumping guys

--The Los Angeles Lakers

This show combines two of those things. The Tool Academy exists entirely to make fun of jerk guys and their idiot girlfriends who put up with them. The dudes are exactly who you would expect--emotional 6th graders and total losers who are completely unaware of how, well, toolish they are. Their girlfriends are arguably even more entertaining since every guy on this show has done or said about 15 things in the first two episodes that would have been automatic, global-killers for their "relationships" if the girls had any self-esteem whatsoever. I love it. LOVE IT. Try it.

I'm just finishing up an east-coast visit to see Jessica--we fly back to Portland tomorrow, yay! On my way out here, though, I was flying from Portlant to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Boston. I got to the PDX airport at 6 pm--I was on the red-eye--only to find out that my flight from Atlanta to Boston the next day was cancelled, so they put me on another series of flights for the next day. That meant that I had to spend the night at the Portland airport since I couldn't get there the next morning in time to make my flight because the trains don't run that early. It was largely uneventful since I took one of those 5-hour energy drinks which didn't make me "wired" as much as it prevented me from closing my eyes for 12 hours. I de-linted my sweater and read Team of Rivals all night. Fun times.

Anyway, the next day, they put me in first class to Atlanta to make up for bumping me the day before, which was ok. I wasn't that impressed, honestly. The food was better and the bathrooms were nicer, and mostly what struck me the most was that the rules just don't apply to you in first class--I stood up whenever I wanted to and didn't buckle my seatbelt EVER. The movies were free too, which was good. I watched the new Batman movie again and I'll say this--Heath Ledger is TERRIFYING when you haven't slept in 36 hours.

The only other thing worth mentioning was who was in the seat next to me--a woman with an 9-month-old-baby whom she nursed 7 times in the 5 hour flight. She also pierced the baby's ears, which I'm not a fan of. If you're still nursing, I think it's probably too early to subject your child an unnecessary piercing. Anyway, the second I saw Jess in Boston I told her that I accidentally cheated on her, again. Between this, the strip club that I, hand-to-God, ACCIDENTALLY walked into the other day, and the beaches of Ochakiv, that's three seperate occasions that I've seen boobs in the last six months that weren't hers. I still feel slighly guilty.

We lost, bummer. Still, good showing by LaMarcus. There are four teams that should get into the playoffs without much effort--the Lakers, Hornets, Rockets and Spurs. Since it will take 50+ wins to get in again this year, I think there are five team that will be fighting for those last four spots--Dallas, Utah, Denver, Phoenix and Portland. BTW, if any of those teams didn't get in, I would lean back in my chair and go, "WOW, holy crap, ____ didn't get in? We really need to re-work the seeding system in the NBA!" 

Anyway, I think Denver gets in because they've been playing really well since they got Chauncey Billups, a tough, experienced, pass-first PG who makes everyone, and more importantly Carmelo Anthony, better. Utah probably gets in, too, because when healthy, Williams is one of the best point guards alive, the Delta Center is really tough to win in, and Jerry Sloan is a HOF coach. Phoenix probably guts out 50 wins, too, since they're playing really well now that they've got another scorer in Richardson. 

That leaves us and Dallas. Now, the Mavs are good. They can go to Dirk when the offense stalls and Terry can attack the rim and shoot with the best in the league. Plus, Rick Carlisle is an underrated coach who knows how to match up against the other team better than anyone in the league, which makes them a tough team to beat, as they showed in the Rose Garden last week. Still, they've got no depth beyond Dirk and Terry, and Jason Kidd got slower while I was typing this. 

The Blazers have a pretty good schedule for the rest of the way--slightly more games at home, and slightly more games against bad teams than everyone else in the West. We played a really tough opening schedule to start the year and we'll be rewarded for it down the stretch. We're a playoff team right now, especially once we get Roy back, and we've just got to excecute down the stretch.

I just moved back in with a host family. The Pro's:

--They're really nice

--It's across from my school so I don't have to walk 30 minutes in the morning and I can sleep in

--It's right by the good internet cafe that's open late so I'll have regular internet access

The Con's:

--They have an out-house

--My room doesn't have a light, only a lamp

--Did I mention the out-house?

Whatever, I only need to deal with it for 28 more days. I love you all and I'll see you soon!

I'm in Kiev doing some final close-of-service medical appointments for a few days, and yesterday I got a call from my regional manager. He told me that there was a huge gas explosion in my landlord's apartment building, one floor below where he and his wife live. Sadly, one person was killed. That also means that my landlord will be moving into my apartment for the last month of my service, and I'll be moving...someplace. Right now it's looking like I'll either stay with the family of one of my 10A students, Sasha, or in a hotel. Still, I'm only here for about a month more, so it won't be too bad. It's just a shame that my great luck with apartments had to end so close to my being done here, and in such a sad and horrific way. See you soon!

Less than 40 days left...I'm really excited to come home, and kind of sad to leave. Lately I've been:

A) Getting a new toilet--I was without one for 3 days. DON'T ASK.

B) Watching the Boston Red Sox from here in my first post-season as a Sox fan, and wearing my Sox hat all around Ochakiv.

C) Teaching an ADORABLE group of 5th graders who love life and my lessons.

D) Making plans for back home.

E) Lamenting the recent rash of injuries that hit the Portland Trailblazers.

F) Obsessively looking at polls on www.pollster.com

Miss you all, see you soon!

The falling dollar continues to frustrate me. So, inflation in Ukraine is INSANE, like 25%, and despite Peace Corps best efforts, our living allowances just aren't keeping up. I went through mine by the 16th of the month, which made me feel guilty because I thought I was spending way to much money and was being irresponsible, but then I thought about it, and I wasn't buying anything extravagent. I was buying FOOD. That's it. My diet consists of eggs, water, bread, sausage and cheese. I rarely eat anything other than that. Yet, I spent all my money in half the time.

So, I've had to take out several cash advances on my credit card (almost 100 USD so far), and today I went to the ATM for another one, only it was declined. I was in a PANIC, since I literally have no other money...maybe a few Griven in change...and our new allowances aren't due for another 3-4 days. So, I called my bank, and they said that what I was requesting was below the minimum required balance, despite the fact that I had taken that exact amount out two other times in the past week. So, to review--the dollar fell even more over the weekend and gave me a heart attack.

I really, really like Olympic basketball, and international hoops in general. So much so, in fact, that during the 2006 World Championships in Alaska, I stayed up until 5 AM watching the games live, and it was so brutal to watch Team USA go down in flames to a Bronze Age Civilization (Greece) running high screens that I screamed repeatedly and woke my whole family up. So, when the 2008 Olympics rolled around, I was more than a little excited about it and more than a little annoyed that no one in Ukraine seems to care about USA basketball. To their credit, sword fighting and Judo are more than adequately represented on Megasport, but for the life of me, I couldn't watch any of the games live like I could back home. If I were in America, I would have been able to watch us beat Lithuania, Argentina, Australia and China, but instead I just had to pace outside an Internet cafe waiting for it to open up so I could read the highlights on ESPN.

With the gold medal game looming, I decided to distract myself by going to a lake with a bunch of friends. However, when we got there, it started to rain--POUR, actually--and we ducked into a beer tent that miraculously had satellite TV. I was beside myself with joy while watching the first three quarters of the game, and also a little nervous that Spain was keeping it close. However, after the 3rd quarter ended, the Ukrainian men in the tent started to applaud--like they thought the game was over--and took the remote away from me. As I tried to explain that there was another quarter left and Team USA only had an 8-point lead, and THIS WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT BASKETBALL GAME EVER, to my horror, they changed the channel so they could watch the Independence Day Parade in Kiev. Now, with the exception of cross-eyed children, there is nothing in the world I hate more than parades, and this didn't help. I sat there, seething, as they cheered the Ukrainian army marching down the center of Kiev, and as my friends--a group of 8 women who were honestly cheering for Spain for most of the game just to get a rise out of me, making them the least-appropriate people I could have possibly watched the game with--tried to get me to calm down. The parade ended 8 minutes later and I got to watch the end of the game, though, so it wasn't all bad. Bill Simmons wrote a column about it here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3575385.

Book reviews! I just finished my 80th book in Ukraine (although about 25 of them have been read in the past three months since my computer stopped playing DVD's), and here's my top 5: 1) In Cold Blood. In the running for best book I've ever read. Amazing. I can't believe I hadn't read it until now. 2) Lenin's Tomb. This book was the most eye-opening about the former Soviet Union I've ever read. A must-read for anyone at all interested in this part of the world. 3) Under the Banner of Heaven. A great read about Fundamentalist Mormons and the LDS church in general, with a fantastic debate in the back between the author and an LDS representative. 4) East of Eden. Steinbeck is great, as always. I remember loving Of Mice and Men but wishing it were about 600 pages longer. Well, this is it: Steinbeck at his best and by the barrell. 5) Theodore Rex. A terrific biography (# 2 in a trilogy) about Teddy. I couldn't put it down. If you like Presidential Bio's, this is for you."

In college, I was one of the biggest opponents of the Greek System of fraternities and sororities on campus, to the point where in the eyes of many people, that's all I was know for. I had my reasons, some more valid than others, but a lot of it had more to do with me than with the Greeks on campus. Those of you who know me well know that I had a girlfriend for 3 years of college and I've come to realize that that relationship kept me from having a typical college experience on some levels. In my head, the only reason to go to parties was to meet girls, and I already had a girlfriend, so they were effectively pointless. Plus, I was dealing with a lot of issues involving alcohol use, and in my mind, ANYONE who drank even moderately was terrible.

Obviously, that was silly. I've come to this, though--if I had it to do over again, I would have seriously considered rushing Phi Delta Theta or some other fraternity, mostly because I would just have had a really good time. Peace Corps has been for me in many ways what college should have been--relaxed, productive, fun and valuable. Add to that the fact that most of my really good friends in Peace Corps were in frats and sororities in college, and I've come to realize that most of my stereotypes about the Greek system were just inaccurate. Mostly, my views of the Greek System were based on the fact that I just didn't like feeling excluded, and a lot of that had to do with the sort of person I was when I was in 22--immature. One of the best things Peace Corps has given me is the maturity to relax and enjoy myself. For that, I'm grateful.

I've had a great summer so far. Three awesome camps in the bag. Now I'm going to be working on other stuff for the school year and talking myself into thinking the Blazers can contend this season. It's not that tough. We lost (in as much as a 41-41 season can be considered losing) last year because of a lack of size, a lack of leadership, and spotty point guard play. Now we had Greg Oden in the middle, we're a little bit older and we've got two new point guards in Rudy Fernandez and Jerryd Bayliss...on paper, we're good enough to make the playoffs and maybe even win a series or two, especially in the run and shoot western conference where you need to be fast and have good three-point guys, and we've got a glut of fast foreign dudes and loads of shooters (Blake, Roy, Outlaw, Jones, Bayliss)...and it's only going to go up from there. Plus, even if something's not working and we need to make a move, we're more loaded with prospects, draft picks and cash than any team in the league (which also means we can make a serious run at any one of the roughly 458 great free agents who will be on the market in the next two years). I've picked a great time to come home from Ukraine, GO BLAZERS!

By no small miracle, the computer my parents mailed to me got here in one piece and it (mostly) works. The only thing not functioning at the moment is the disc drive, which is a small but crucial part of the laptop since it was "de-fragged" before it was mailed and many key programs are gone. Because I can't use the CD drive, I can't upload (and subsequently use) the software needed for my camera, iTunes, Microsoft Office or, obviously, any movies. That means that the laptop is mostly used to play solitaire and watch the same five episodes of "Lost," which my sister downloaded at some point and somehow managed to survive the great purge. Let me say this--there is probably no show in the universe that is more confusing when watched out of order by someone with no prior history of the show than Lost. I have absolutely no idea what's going on. None. I am, fittingly enough, lost. Anyway, I'm off on another 22 hour train ride tomorrow to visit some friends before making my way towards another Summer camp, so I might not be blogging for a while. Just know that I love and miss you all.

Camp 50 is 80% over and going really well. I've discovered that if you fill your camp with awesome people, it pretty much runs itself. I invited all my really good friends in Peace Corps to come and work as teachers or "team leaders" and the fact that I try and surround myself with smart, funny folks really has paid off. I'm really busy pretty much all day, and I can't be everywhere at once, but because all the PCV's are great, that hasn't mattered.

Today, for example, I had to run some people across town to the train-ticket office so they could get their tickets home from camp, and we got back about 20 minutes late, only to find that the kids had eaten their snack and were playing Ultimate Frisbee with 6 PCV's during their free time before their next lesson. Later, I was a little late getting back from buying materials for the relay-race activity, only to find Dana and Ravi (two team leaders) organizing a human-knot team-building activity. Needless you say, I love having such awesome friends.

Tomorrow is beach day when, after a day of lessons, we'll be going to the beach and building sand castles. BEST SUMMER CAMP EVER! I love and miss you all.

I watched game one of the NBA finals the other night, and after Paul Pierce went down with a phantom injury, his coach Doc Rivers said this: "like the guy from South Africa said, 'adversity is something you can get over.' This is why we play all 12 guys" This is funny for a few reasons:

1) Doc Rivers, a black man, didn't know Nelson Mandela's name.

2) He mis-quoted him. What he was going for, I think, was, "The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail." So, not even close.

3) You should never play all 12 guys on your roster, much less in game one of the NBA finals. Most coaches just get a set 7-8 man rotation of their best players and just play them a lot so everyone knows what their roles are and what they need to do. Mixing minutes hurts the team in the worst way and kills everyone's confidence. So, he's a terrible coach.

4) Can you imagine Kevin Garnett deciding to assert himself even more for a rebound because of any inspirational quotation, even if it's perfectly delivered? The guy is so jacked on Adrenalin he can't see straight.

5) Doc Rivers was honestly serious when he said this. Wow.

High comedy. It was by far the funniest thing I've ever seen a coach do. If the Celtics win the NBA title, and they very easily could because they're up 2-0 on the Lakers, it will be the greatest achievement ever in professional basketball.

My computer died last weekend. It had a good, long life. Since it was a 2002 Dell Inspiron Laptop, it had long outlived any realistic expectation that it keep working, especially since it was probably never designed to be a home entertainment center, which is what I was using it as. However, despite understanding completely why it finally moved to that farm up-state, I'm still really annoyed. Me not having a computer means the following things will be very difficult, if not impossible:

1) Uploading pictures, not to mention retrieving all my old photos that aren't on facebook already.

2) Charging my iPod shuffle in a USB port, not to mention changing the songs on there or getting to the hundreds of dollars in MP3 files in my iTunes library.

3) Typing up...anything. This includes closing out my grant for Camp 50, writing articles for PC newsletters and doing my Description of Service "essay" in a few months. Thankfully, I had already saved all my important documents (my resume, my Camp application/information) on my Flash drive, so not THAT much stuff is lost, but still, it's really annoying.

4) Watching any of the 50+ movies/TV shows that I have.

I will miss having a computer and that's probably going to be the first thing I buy when I get back home.

Almost done with school. This is the first full school year that I've taught in Ukraine and I'm frankly glad that it's over. Not that I don't love my kids (I do) or my school (it's awesome), but I just need a break. So, with that in mind, I'm going on a work-related series of trips all over the country, visiting friends who will be working with me at various Summer camps in the weeks and months ahead. I hope to catch some NBA Finals games at some point, too. I also spent 4 hours a day last weekend at the beach. Good times. I love and miss you all!

1) My Partnership Grant was FULLY FUNDED!!! That means that "Camp 50" WILL HAPPEN next month, yay! Thank you all so much for the support.

2) Barack Obama dominated the Oregon Primary! I didn't arrive at my decision lightly, but his speech on race, along with Bill Richardson's endorsement and his plan to make Community College free swung me to the Barack camp, and I couldn't be happier that my home state came through.

3) The Blazers got the 13th pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, despite not needing a lot of help next year. More good news for basketball in the Rose City!

I love and miss you all!