NH Stake Basketball Champs

Well, this is hardly anything to hang your hat on, but last weekend, my home church ward asked me to play in a stake basketball tournament in Exeter, NH. Although the tournament had started the week before, I wasn't able to play due to being in New York City. Well, we made it to the losers bracket after going 0-2, but we still had a chance if we won all our games.

We won our first game of the day by 2. We had a pretty good lead at half-time, but nearly coughed up the game.

Game 2 we won by about 6, I think. I got myself kicked out with about a minute left in the game for saying a few, um, R-rated words after nearly getting tackled by an opposing player. I thought some of the wives would be upset at me (being that kids were all around), but later learned afterwards that they thought I was right! Go figure.

The Lawrence team was the team to beat in the tournament. They were 5-0 and eager to play their next door neighbors. Well, long story short, we beat them by 12. I don't think we had a guy on our team younger than 29. I don't think Lawrence had a kid on their team older than, say, 24. It was good to beat the young guys!

Although the competition was nothing to write home about it was great just being a little competitive for a while and playing with good teammates. I heard Regionals are in March.


It's only a coincidence that I'm the only one wearing a dark shirt in the picture. We had jerseys during the game, anyways.

Needless to say, three basketball games in one day takes its toll on the body. to say my body ached on Sunday would be an understatement. 29 is hardly old, but my legs are well underway from disobeying what my mind tells them to do.

ID Me!

With winter going nowhere soon out here, I've taken the opportunity to do some inside cleaning projects. I never thought I'd live in Methuen again anytime soon, but living back in my childhood home gave me the opportunity to rummage through some of my old stuff from yesteryear. I've scrounged up some of my ID's from over the past few years. I'm getting old quick!



I still remember the day I got my license. I was a junior in high school, playing football, and this picture was taken on a Friday afternoon right before we played Haverhill High School. I'm actually wearing my white football jearsey, as was tradition on game days.


This was a alien resident card when I was living in Japan, 1998-2000. We were told to always have this on us, but I don't remember ever having to show it to anyone.



One of may BYU IDs I had. I think I lost about a half dozen or so. You had to be completely shaved before they took your picture. What other school do they make you shave your facial hair daily!?!


My AZ license. Gotta love the expiration date. Their licenses are good for 40 years!!!



My current license. For some reason it still have my high school height on it - they never even asked me my height or weight.

I don't know where my UTAH drivers license is.

My sister, Elaine...

Since moving back to my hometown of Methuen, I've taken on a few self-given projects around the house. A few months ago, I was slaving in the attic installing some recessed lighting, and made a rather interesting discover. After removing a nailed down floor board, I found this letter:

I actually showed Elaine this letter the last time she was up from DC, and she doesn't remember writing it, but still had a chuckle at her young self.

Dork.

New York, New York

My friend Hannah was going to be in NYC for a business conference over the weekend, so we decided to meet up there and go site-seeing and catch up. I had been to NYC a few times before, but was still eager to see the hustle and bustle again. For the last few years, Hannah has been one of my closest friends and continues to be despite living on the other side of the country, in sunny, warm, perfect weather (I could go on here), Arizona.

I left Saturday via Lucky Star Bus (yeah baby!). The bus ride itself was long and boring, besides the part where the girl next to me threw up into a plastic bag. I'll skip the details. I got into the Big Apple in the early afternoon and spend much of my afternoon just walking around and seeing some new sites as well as some I had seen before in previous trips there.

My Saturday night was an experience. See preceding blog below.

Some random things I observed about the city and of myself:

1. There are alot of Chipotle's restaruants there. My favorite place to eat! I think I could literally eat one of their steak fajita burritos everyday for the rest of my life. If you have never eaten their burritos, I highly suggest them. If you don't love them, you should get your brain checked out.

2. I enjoy people watching. Sure, I love to see the sites and sounds of New York, but just walking the streets and seeing some many different types of people and hearing a myriad of languages being spoke at every street corner was amusing.

3. I'm pretty sure you can get some stuff cheaper in NYC than anywhere else. I stopped into a handful of stores including Gap, Banana Republic, etc. If you shop the sale racks (or the welfare racks as I like to call them) you can get some great deals. And don't be ashamed to buy from the welfare racks - I shop them exclusively. I refuse to pay full price on stuff myself.

4. Street vendors don't wash their hands. My mom would faint.

5. New Yorkers are generally nice people despite all the negativity that surrounds them. I saw a handful of good deeds that even small town America would be proud of.

6. New York is a big city, but still a pretty good walking city.

7. I felt bad not calling my Uncle Craig to let him know I was there. He lives right in Manhattan (I think?) and I don't see him that much.

Here are some pictures (in no particular order) of the rest of the trip:


Me and Hannah as Rockefeller Center. We thought about going ice skating, but Hannah figured she would save herself the embarrassment since she had never been on skates before.


In Time Square.


Before Hannah arrived I took a stroll down to the financial district and then to the water front, where I saw this - the US Airways plane that landed on the Hudson River a few days back. This almost goes without saying, but it was surreal to see a plane right off the pier.


The present day scene at where the World Trade Towers once stood.


I took a tour of the 9/11 memorial. It was a fitting homage to the people who lost their lives that day. Between the videos that were playing, the pictures of those that were lost, and remembrances written by loved ones, you could only feel compassion and humility. This was my first time seeing this memorial. Well worth the visit.


A steel girder from the wreckage of 9/11. This simple piece of architecture seems to tell a little piece of the story by itself.

I happened upon a small film shoot going on in the financial district.

This was a little celebration going on in Chinatown that I stumbled upon. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but I think it was a celebration for a new store opening up.

Time Square

The NYC Public Library.

Self-portrait in my hotel room.

31 Dates in 31 Days...

...is more of a punishment than an opportunity, if you ask me.

Right before my trip to New York, my friend Lumina suggested I go on a blind date in NYC with her friend Tamara, a recent Columbia grad and journalist/writer for the Good Morning America show on CBS. I'm always game to meet new people in new places, so I quickly agreed. Plus, I didn't have any solid plans my first night in town.

Tamara (pronounced like 'camera') recently turned 31 and came up with this over-ambitious (crazy?) idea to go on 31 dates with 31 different guys in 31 consecutive days, none of which could exceed $31. All 31 dates would be "blogged" about on her website, made especially for this project. At that point, we (the dates) would seemingly be know by our number, rather than our name, even though names are, of course, mentioned. Why someone would purposely put themselves through this is beyond me. She has ambitions of writing a book about her experiences. I was number three.

I really had nothing to loose. I knew it might be the only time I really ever see her. And, c'mon, I definitely had no plans to fall for a girl that lives four hours away.

Before I go on to tell my experience, here is her story, straight from her blog:

3 Point Shot - Chris
Saturday, January 17, 2009
17Jan2009 Posted by Tamara


My friend, Lumina, warned me about him.
"He's hot, Tam. You might end up liking him."
Check.
And checkmate.
I hustled, zig-zagging my way around Penn Station to meet Chris outside Madison Square Garden. He had travelled all the way down from his home outside of Boston and I wanted this avid sports fan to do something special in the city. So some tough detective work helped us track down a cheap pair of tickets online to the Knicks v. 76ers game.
I was on the phone with him trying to figure out where he was.
"I'm standing outside wearing a white hat," he said.
From half a block away I spotted him. His stature struck me from afar. Quickly I came up to him and he drew me into a tight embrace.
This guy knows how to play the game well.
We made our way up to the nose-bleed section and found our seats among the packed coliseum. It was a close game but neither of us was really paying attention. Instead we sat and talked about... well, everything.

He makes sacrifices for his family. He still plays baseball. And he cuts through the bull quickly.
Chris is really easy to be around.
I found myself telling him things that I haven't told some of my closest friends.
**Time Out**
Look.
I know that's not the way to play the dating game... starting out by pouring out your most embarrassing thoughts, sharing your biggest fears about marriage, and letting him see more than just "me on my best first-date behavior." I know I played all my cards too early.
But I felt like I was in a no-lose situation.
Chris lives four hours away. He knows I'm dating, well, a couple dozen other guys or so. I wasn't sure if anything would ever happen with him.
But the truth is, I'd like to see him again.
The Knicks seemed to be giving too much up too. They kept losing possession in the last quarter. Any time they'd score three points, the fans would scream.
"Threeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!"

Chris and I kept pushing further. Sharing more than we probably should have. Crossing conversational boundaries most people wouldn't. Stepping out of bounds I typically don't when first meeting.
So I'm not sure how well I did there. Did I commit a true dating game violation? Was this a technical foul?
The Knicks lost.
By ten points.
Looks like everyone wasn't on their game.

Before you go on, I must mentioned that Tamara, being the person she is, talked very highly of all her dates (so far), so don't think anything highly of me. That is , for every girl that might put me under the category of "good guy," I'm sure there are a handful that would just as likely put me under "douchebag." And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Tamara was a class act. We did, indeed, talk for hours about everything. We mostly talked about being single at our age in the Mormon community and the challenges it often presents. If you are Mormon, no explanation is necessary. If you aren't Mormon, no explanation would really help. It's just a strange sub-culture you would have to experience to really grasp. I guess being a "menace to society" wasn't as bad as I thought (sorry, another Mormon reference there!). I couldn't believe how often we saw eye to eye on, well, just about everything.

The Knicks game was fun. I was shocked to learn that you could actually get tickets for $10 to a sporting event in New York. That's unheard of in Boston, a city the doesn't compare in size to NYC. Not that I'm proud that Boston has exorbitant ticket prices, but along those lines I'm glad we don't whore them out for $10, either. Did the Knicks stink that bad? I guess so. Either way, it played to our advantage to get cheap tickets. Hell, $10 was about my limit to see the Knicks, the doormat of the NBA for the last 10 years. ! We did talk nearly the entire game. For a short while, I was pretty sure some of the surrounding people we going to say, "shut up, we're trying to watch the game." But nothing.



As mentioned previously, the Knicks game was only $20 for the pair of tickets. We still had $11 more dollars at our discretion. We agreed on hot chocolate - the Mormon coffee. The local Dunkin Donuts would do. The hot chocolate somehow turned into Diet Pepsi (my drink of choice). I don't even remember how long we were there chatting at our run-down table in the back, but I'm pretty sure that if there we no such thing as Sunday morning, we might still be chatting.

Tamara taught me a new word, "biscuit." No, not biscuit in the tradition food sense. This term is a perfect description of those young girls who are light and fluffy on the outside, but inside lack substance. They are generally the young twenty-somethings that go to local community college, or beauty school and have never really ventured out to make much of their lives. They live off daddy and expect hand-outs and refuse to take any risks in life. We all know people like this. There is nothing wrong with them, they are just annoying. Ok, maybe there is something wrong with them. I've always just used a long descriptive to try to explain these girls, but now "biscuit" will suffice. Thanks for the new word, Tamara!



I'm glad I made a new friend.

Her website is below and updated daily. I highly recommend following the madness.

http://31datesin31days.com/