Posts

Posted on

Utah Jazz

A friend of mine may soon show up in Kenny’s neck of the woods. Tyler Smith, a former Penn State basketball player, just made the Utah Jazz’s 18 man training camp roster (the Jazz camp doesn’t start until Monday and the roster won’t officially be announced until then).

Tyler is from the Chicago area. He played for Lake Forest High School graduating in 1998. He played four years at Penn State graduating in 2002. For the last few years he has been bouncing around the hinterlands of the pro basketball world pursuing his dream of playing in the NBA. Last year he played for a team in Peru.

Somewhat unbelieveably he’s close to making his dream happen. Tyler is the last guy you would ever expect to be an NBA player. Not only is Penn State not known for producing basketball stars, Tyler wasn’t even a star on PSU’s team. He didn’t become a full time starter until his junior year when he was the fourth leading scorer on the team (the team was pretty good though – making it to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAAs).

As a senior, Tyler was the third leading scorer on the team averaging about 12 points per game but the team was really bad (we went 7-21 and the coach was fired at the end of the year). Tyler’s list of Penn State basketball awards consisted of winning the team’s Scrappiest Player and Unsung Hero Awards at their post season banquet not exactly the type awards to build you an NBA portfolio (actually he also was a three time Academic All B10 player but academic awards don’t get you to the NBA either). On top of that, he was white man’s disease, i.e. he can’t jump.

He is a smart gutty team player though. He was a 6’8″ power forward at Penn State with a soft shooting touch. He’s worked very hard on his jump shot and can not hit it pretty well from NBA range.

His saga of how he wound up with the Jazz is pretty interesting. As I said Tyler played in Peru last year but foreign basketball contracts are strictly on a year by year basis. Tyler went to a west coast open tryout camp last month where he played exceptionally well. At the camp, he was invited to hang around for a second week for a tryout camp that a bunch of Chinese teams were having. Chinese teams are allowed to have two foreign players on the roster. Tyler excelled at the camp and was named to the camp’s all star team. Then came draft day when the Chinese teams held a draft to populate their squads. As a result of his camp, Tyler fully expect to be drafted in the first round. Nope. In fact, he slipped all the way to the 2nd pick of the third round. Bad news, because only players in the first two rounds get those guaranteed Chinese contracts. Tyler was extremely disappointed.

Right after the camp was over, Tyler was called aside by Rick Barry (yup, the Rick Barry) who was running the camp. Barry told him that the Chinese teams were under orders from management back home to bring in big black guys not white one. So Tyler is a victim of racial discrimination. However, that’s when the good news happened. Barry told Tyler he thought he had NBA level skills and would make some contacts to see if he could arrange a tryout. True to his word, Barry called a couple of days later and said he had arranged a tryout with the Jazz. Tyler went to the tryout last week with three other guys and at the end of the tryout Tyler was signed to the Jazz’s practice squad.

He doesn’t have the team made yet (the Jazz are taking 18 players to camp but can only keep 15) but he’s got a chance which is more than he thought just a month ago.

So Ken, if you see a tall white guy that looks like this:

tell him you are a real relative of Uncle Larry.

Posted on

I’m dead

evidently.

A week ago Saturday, I ran into a couple of my old college roommates, “Doc” Scarborough and Dave Hannum, down at the Tavern after the football game. In the course of our conversation, Doc said to me “Well, it’s good to confirm with my own eyes that you’re still alive”.

When I gave him kind of an inquisitive look he said “Didn’t you know that the Penn State Alumni Assocation published an obituary notice about you in their magazine a few months ago?” Doc added that he was shocked to see it and had emailed Dave about it. Dave replied back to him that he had just seen me a few weeks before and that I looked “remarkably healthy for a dead guy”.

That comment got me thinking. I hadn’t remembered getting the Alumni magazine recently and I had just received a bill from the Alumni Association for annual membership fees even though I am a paid up lifetime member. I jokingly told Doc that maybe the Alumni Association had killed me off to void my liftime membership so they could get me to rejoin.

I called the Alumni Assocation to get to the bottom of the issue last week. They told me that I had received the “dues notification” because I wasn’t flagged on their records as being a lifetime member. When I complained that I’ve been a member for over 20 years, they went into my detailed records and where able to find my payment so they adjusted my membership status.

When I suggested that perhaps the “obituary notice” might have been the cause of my getting dropped from the roles, the representative responded that my old roommate must have been mistaken because there was no indication on my record that I was deceased. When I replied that while I doubted that he had made a mistake, I couldn’t confirm it because I hadn’t been receiving my issues of the Alumni magazine. The rep offered to send me the last few back issues.

Those back issues arrived this weekend and I just got a chance to go through them. Sure enough, in the issue from last March, there I appear in their “In Memoriam” section.

What’s interesting is that I’m listed with our old Rolling Meadows address even though I’ve never lived there. What’s doubly interesting is that, even though I haven’t been getting the Alumni Magazine, I’ve continue to get all sorts of other mailings from them. Also, their online information about me has been correct because I check it every now and then. Strange indeed. I doubt I’ll ever get to the bottom of how it happened but I will be asking them to correct my obit.

Posted on

Showered with Gifts!

Last month (I’m a little behind in blogging), Andrea and Shannon threw a beautiful shower for Dawn. About 25 friends and family members enjoyed a Saturday luncheon (fabulous food) at the Metropolis Ballroom a few blocks from Dawn’s home. Baby Bean is going to be the best dressed little boy in Illinois!

Last evening (from 10:00 PM until 2:00 AM) we spent at the emergency room. Dawn’s leg had cramped up and been numb since about 5:00 PM. Her doctor was concerned that there might be a blood clot. An ultrasound of the leg showed nothing, so they sent her on her merry way (still with leg pains). She has a month left and I fear her doctor may put her on bed rest. Her pregnancy has been fabulous, so maybe she has just pushed herself a little too much. She loves to shop everyday and she probably should not be doing that (for more than one reason).

I’ll keep you all posted of her progress!


Posted on

Marilyn & Steve / BBQ & Bocce


Had a nice visit and small BBQ party with Marilyn and Steve yesterday. A few friends, a couple kids, lots to drink and more Pulled Pork.

Bocce and croquet, too.

Posted on

My recovery continues

Played 18 on Friday with no problems with the knee during the round. It was a little sore Friday evening but nothing too bad so I decided to play in the senior club championship afterall.

Seedings in the tournament are by handicap following the defending champ who gets the #1 seed. I was seeded seventh which meant that I had to play the #2 seed, the lowest handicapped player in the tournament.

I played as well as I have in a long time and had my opponent on the ropes for most of the match. I opened up with a par and a birdie and quickly went up 2 holes. My opponent fought his way back and managed to tie the match by the seventh hole when he executed a beautiful sand save for a par. I failed to get up and down from about three feet off the back of the green when I missed a five footer for my par.

On the eighth hole, I went one down when I was overly agressive on a downhill 12 footer to win the hole. I slid about four feet past the hole and missed the comeback putt.

My par on nine evened the match when my opponent failed to get up and down from the back fringe of the green. I wound up shooting a 41 for the nine.

Another par on the par three tenth put me one up when my opponent once again failed to get up and down from off the green. The next three holes were all halved with a bogey and two pars so going into 14 I still held onto a one hole lead.

The 14th is a long par five and I laced a drive just into the right hand rough while my opponent wound up in a fairway bunker so I felt comfortably in control. He did manage to advance the ball about 150 yards with a decent recovery shot. I good lie but a downhill stance but as I swung my right foot slipped right out from under me. I only advanced the ball about 40 yards still in the rough. I was about 250 out but the ball was sitting up in the rough so I decide to take an aggressive cut at the ball. Bad move. The ball went off of the toe of the club deep into impenetrable brush and trees to the right. I had to take an unplayable and the hole was basically lost right there as my opponent made par.

That evened the match up but my confidence was gone. I staggered over the next three holes with a bogey, double bogey, double bogey and my opponent went par, bogey, par to close me out 3-1.

All in all, I was pretty happy with my play though. For 13 holes, I was just six over, which is as well as I’ve played in a long time. Plus, the best part was that the knee held up just fine so it looks like I can get back to my normal 5 rounds or so a week.

Posted on

Passed another milestone

Our men’s golf league plays on Wednesday nights and I hit the links for the first time since my surgery. After an extremely shaky start I settled down and played the last few holes ok. I had a dreaded case of the hooks for the first three tee shots and I think it came from a subconscious fear of transferring weight to my left side. Once my mind accepted the fact the knee wasn’t going to hurt everything started to turn around.

Further evidence that my recovery was going well was that I didn’t have any additional inflamation this morning when I woke up. I’m going to try a full 18 holes tomorrow and assuming that things hold up OK, I’ll play in the club championship starting Saturday.

Updates will follow.

Posted on

UncleLar mWow VI – That Girl Emily

Haven’t done any mWow’s in a while but when I ran across this one I thought it deserved a link.

It just goes to prove that there’s nothing like a women scorned.

That Girl Emily is a blog by a “29” year old woman who was cheated on by her husband. Shortly after she started her blog she found out about his philandering and detailed her revenge in her blog. She got him back pretty good and I almost feel sorry for the guy. She was a communications major in college so she actually writes pretty well and the whole saga is quite entertaining.

The above link is to the last blog post but the blog really should be read from the first post on so just here which is the first post in the blog, then click on the July archive (or here) remembering to read from the bottom up.

I don’t know what sucked me into the blog – maybe it’s because my ex’s name is Emilie. But the first few posts are just Emily rambling on about herself and her husband with a few hints about their boring sex life when all of a sudden she finds out hubby is cheating with her best friend. Then the fun begins.

She starts out saying:

They think they can just walk away from this. Their games have been played for the last month. Months? My games are just starting. They don’t know what kind of shit they’ve just stepped in. Flies everywhere. I have friends in high and low places. It’s time to call in some favors. It’s time to draw up my own games. It’s time for them to feel what I’m feeling. Everyone reading this blog will have front row seats.

and she wasn’t kidding.

She even includes photos of some of the things she did:

How about packing up her husband’s porn collection and sending it to his parents – just a classic.

Hope you find the blog as entertaining as I did.

Posted on

Why this picture?


I’ve been using a version of this photo that I have on Facebook in my profile on Blogger. Evidently, Blogger has installed new software that limits the url length of your profile photo to 64 characters and my Facebook link exceeds that. When I inser the photo in this post, it gets uploaded to Gary’s Blogger server and I can now link my Blogger profile to the photo on Gary’s server.

FWIW – the girls, from left to right, Vanessa Fiore, Ashely Schlosser, Susan Kim, and Taylor Baker, are all students hired as Bacardi girls here in State College. They appear at various bars and functions here in town to promote Barcardi products (usually not quite dressed as well though) and were doing such at the martini contest.

Now that that is out of the way, here’s a complete recap of my surgery todate.

The surgery went exceptionally well and everything was super…. but only for about 24 hours.

The surgeon was right. I was able to walk out of the clinic without any problems. I even stopped by the golf course Thursday afternon and went to the Spikes game Thursday night. Friday morning I woke up with a little soreness behind the knee but nothing that was at all a problem. I was even telling people that my left knee (the one that was operated on) was feeling better than the right one (and that was the truth).

Then all of a sudden things changed.

I was crawling on my floor. monkeying around with one of my backup computers, and then got up. Getting up was a little awkward because the knee didn’t have a lot of flexibility. I didn’t particularly notice anything pop or pull as I got up but as soon as I put weight on my left leg, the knee hurt like hell. The knee quickly started to hurt and swell. I pretty much became immobilized – I couldn’t put ANY weight on the leg at all without excruciating pain shooting through the knee. I very quickly put myself to bed (the only moving that I would do around the townhouse was confined to inching along on my hands and butt). And the pills didn’t seem to do much to help the constant pain in the knee. My ambitious plans for the weekend suddenly went all to hell.

For the next 24 hours I really didn’t get much sleep.

Things started getting better by Sunday. The constant pain started to come under control and I could switch my pain medication from Vicodin for pain to ibuprofen to address the inflammation in the knee. I was also frequently icing the knee to try to control the swelling. By late Sunday afternoon I was able to get around the townhouse pretty well by leaning on things and using my walking golf cart (bottom floor of the townhouse only) and a seven iron as crutches.

Today was even better. I’ve been able to find a couple of comfortable positions in bed so I can sleep well. The swelling in the knee has come down considerably. The knee can pretty much bear my weight without any shooting pains. I can now walk around the townhouse without having to hang on things to maneuver. I no longer have to butt hop up and down my stairs as I can safely scale them one step at a time. I also no longer need to improvise crutches (although I am continuing to use the seven iron as a cane – more of an emotional support than anything). And most importantly, I was finally able to stand up long enough to take a shower!

I’m going to try to start bringing my life back to normal in the next couple of days. My stitches come out Wednesday and my objective is to make our men’s golf league Wednesday night… as a spectator only. I’ve given up on my original plan to play – my playing plans are to be ready to play Wednesday a week with maybe a practice round that Tuesday. I’m bummed that I missed the Spikes games this weekend but the way that they are playing I evidently didn’t miss much. I do plan on making the Spikes game this Thursday though.

That’s where things stand at the moment.

Posted on

Tennessee Vacation


More photos (not a lot) can be seen here.

Posted on

A Narrow Escape

We had some crazy weather here in NH on Friday night. Severe thunderstorms paired with winds at 55+ mph didn’t mix well with the repairs being made to Portsmouth’s North Church Steeple. The entire steeple and the scaffolding came crashing down at about 6pm. No one was injured and my car narrowly escaped being completely totaled. Check out the video on this newscast. My car is BEHIND the Jeep that was ruined and next to the black truck.

http://www.wmur.com/newsarchive/9595276/detail.html