My senior year in high school, I was dunking.  My hands were too small to palm a basketball firmly enough, so I had to build up the ability to get high enough for both hands to be above the rim.

Let me step back a bit.  We had a new coach my senior year.  I was also spending half days at high school and the second half at a Laurel Business Institute pursuing an associate degree.  On those days that we had basketball practice right after school, I’d either have to miss practice, or show up really late.

Now, most adults have the student’s best intentions in mind.  Like in soccer, my coach didn’t penalize me for missing practices.  He knew that I wanted to play, and I was the kind of guy that would work extra hard to make up for it in a game.  My basketball coach did not share the same view.  Sometimes, my teammates would agree with me that our coach had something personal against me.

Flash to an early season game at Charleroi.  We’re doing our warm-up lay-up drill and I’m feeling pretty energetic.  All of us are always trying to get as high as we can.  In my mind, I didn’t know that it was considered a technical foul to dunk in warm-ups.  I also didn’t do a flagrant, hanging from the rim, kicking my legs, aggressive, spectacle of a dunk.  I just tipped it in the basket.  The ref didn’t like it though, and immediately blew the whistle.  Everyone was confused.  That’s probably the only pre-game whistle anyone will ever hear.  The other team was awarded 2 foul shots, before the clock started, and they made them both.

Our coach was livid.  At half-time, the locker room “pep talk” included references to everyone having to make up for my mistake.  When we came back at the end of the game, having lost by 2 points (the equivalent of the 2 foul shots)  The coach specifically said we lost the game because of me and even physically pointed at me.

I didn’t get to play that game, and many games after that.  Had I been given the chance to prove my worth, I’m confident my season would have gone a lot better than it had.  I think that coach was one of the first people to confuse me with their ridiculousness.  Logically, without those foul shots, that just ties the game.  Even in practical terms, to say I caused our team to lose the game, without me actually participating in the game, seems wrong if not just simply unfair.

Anyway, I dunked my senior year of high school.  If you don’t believe, go ask the old coach. I bet he blames his short lived coaching career on me dunking.

Here’s an update on some Hill District projects:

YMCA: This is going in 2 blocks from my house on Centre Avenue. It is currently slated for an early 2012 completion. Should be awesome to have an indoor basketball court and pool so close! Also, it’ll be one of the city’s largest green certified buildings. Post-Gazette

Grocery Store: Shop ‘n Save has committed to putting in a full service store (FINALLY!). It is scheduled to be completed in November of 2011. This is going to be 3 blocks from my house. Post-Gazette

Consol Energy Center: The new home of the Pens will be opening with Paul McCartney on August 15th. On my walk to work, it’s looking just about done from the outside. still some paint, shrubs, and lights to finish though. It’s on its way to being the highest LEED certified sports center in the nation. http://www.consolenergycenter.com/

Connelley School: At the upper corner of the Mellon Arena’s top parking lot, there’s this old school that has been closed due to asbestos. Now, there’s money to convert it into a place for green start ups and research facility for Pittsburgh Green Innovators. Seems like a pretty cool thing.Post-Gazette

Pharmacy: Duquesne has announced they’d open a pharmacy in the Hill. I’m not sure exactly which store front it’s going in, perhaps the old Carnegie Library Space? That might be too large though. It is slated for later this year. >Post-Gazette

Cambria suites Hotel: The hotel in between the Washington Plaza apartments and Consol Energy Center is close to being structurally done. It has all the blocks in place, now just time to brick it up and put some windows in and finish the interior. Looks like it will open in December 2010. More & pictures

Kaufmann Auditorium: Right next to the Hill House, they’re making a bunch of modernizations and upgrades to this auditorium. Plans also include an outdoor amphitheater. link

Dinwiddie Street: Not sure what all is included here, but they are tearing down a bunch of abandoned houses and blight. I think they plan to build new houses, but maybe it will be apartments. I’m watching the HDCG for updates.

So, I’m trying to transition over to itunes (version 9) after being a hardcore winamp user since the late 90s.  Winamp’s keyboard shortcuts are the cat’s pajamas though, and I’m missing them tremendously.  Specifically, the shortcut to jump to a song.  Hit "J" and just start typing in a title or band and it dynamically searches for you.  It’s great when you can’t remember who sang a song and you just remember the track name or vice versa.  Nothing like that in itunes, and surely not as simple.

I also miss the visualizations of winamp.  I loved having that in a mini window.  Infact, plugins alone are lacking dramatically in itunes.  It’s weak.  I want skins!  that’s one of the main reasons why I have a jailbroken iphone.  I don’t like your interface, Mr. Jobs.  LET ME CUSTOMIZE IT.  I AM A UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE.  I AM THE ALL SINGING ALL DANCE CRAP OF THE WORLD.

The another shortcut key I’m missing is queue.  In winamp, I could click a song, hit "q" and winamp would play that song next and then go right back to where it was on the playlist.  As far as I can tell, there is no way to do this.  That’s based on forum posts through google that date back to 2003, and Apple still doesn’t listen to their users.  How they crap do they have such product loyalty when they don’t listen to their users?  cough cough mindless droids  cough cough.

I feel like winamp was a baseball.  Intricately laced, tight, filled with strings and cool stuff and was pretty solid.  Itunes is more like a basketball.  It’s bigger, bounces better, but it’s filled with a lot of air.  I guess I’m the anti-michael jordan in this analogy?  Whatever, Apple is refusing to play ball regardless.

I’ve always been a fan of rooftop decks.  The optimal place for a roof top patio thing would be on a sky scraper/condo building, but I’ll take what I can get.  Maybe I’ll use this desire for a roof patio to go along with my love for open lofts.  You know, the ones where the elevator comes right into the apartment?  No walls, just huge space, exposed steel rafters, HUGE glass windows all around, and nice hardwood floors.  Basically, I want to play basketball in it.  I would love to get some moveable walls and re-arrange the whole apartment and layout whenever I wanted to.  That would be great.

After my parents split, I got to have a day with my dad by myself.  Thursday nights.  I normally had a boy scout meeting then we’d go home and watch the simpsons.  Sometimes, we’d take a drive out past Malden crossroads and up a hill to the left past a church to a dead end road and watch route 43 being built.  We actually watched roads being built a lot together.  I remember taking Serah and Nathan to watch them build an on ramp from 43 to interstate 70.  I dunno if the smell of freshly poured concrete is my second favorite smell (behind the aroma of a tobacco pipe) because of the nostalgic quality or if it really is just something I like.  I always liked watching the bobcat dig out the basement of my dad’s house and the smell of the concrete mix the guys used to build the walls and floor.  But back to those Thursday nights…those were sacred.  I can’t think of any bad times on those nights.  I got to hang out with my dad and do something we both enjoyed.  He tried, I know he did.  Sometimes, we’d even go and play raquetball at the YMCA while serah and J’aime would run or play basketball.  I think that if our relationship would have kept going, we would have had some good father-son talks watching roads being built.  We never left that dead end road though.  How metaphoric…

I walked over to the North Side yesterday to play basketball at the Allegheny Center Alliance Church and I walked through the Allegheny Center mall…That place is like walking through the set of 28 days later.  There’s no one there.  Stores are empty.  THIS IS A MALL.  I felt like I was walking through some sort of quarantined area, and it’s 4 o’clock in the afternoon!  The whole area is just dead and creepy.  It’s totally wild to see such a big area completely abandoned.  Even the old Carnegie Free Library has a sign on it that says "Closed indefinitely."  That’s nuts!  What happened here???  It’s almost like this area has a dark secret in it’s past and no one is talking about it.

Maybe all the development on the North Shore will revive that place.  The Steelers are in talks with a west coast developer to bring in some sort of venue/entertainment complex next to Heinz Field.  You’ve got Don Barden’s casino going in.  Another hotel going in by PNC Park.  The North Shore connection with the T to be finished in 2011.  If I were to make a prediction, I’d say that once the river front of the North Side is developed in the next 5 years, the West End/Station square side is going to BOOM.  When I say BOOM, I mean it.  The attraction of that side of the river(s) is that there’s nothing there right now.  Developers will be able to plan huge buildings, not worry about closing roads and such, and have a clean canvas to work with.  I haven’t heard anything about that Pittsburgh maglev project for a while either…

When I was around 7 or so, my parents decided to split.  I don’t remember particularly why, but it was decided that J’aime and I both needed to see psychiatrists as a result.  Actually, I don’t remember if J’aime started at the same time as I did or not, all I know is right around that time, I started seeing Cindy.  From memory, she was in her 30s, dirty blonde hair to her shoulders, not too over weight, but not overly attractive either.  Anyway, I’d go see her, I think once a week, and she had this black garbage bag (in retrospect, you’d think she’d have a better storage solution) full of toys that she’d let me play with as she played with me and probably used mind tricks to have me reveal my feelings.  I was actually pretty open to this, and want to say I grew pretty attached to meeting with her.  Heck, it was surely better than beating my forehead against the door frame when my parents started fighting…(again on retrospect…perhaps that’s why they sent me to therapy??).  I have no idea how long I saw Cindy, but I remember that she came to my graduation ceremony one here.  She sat right in the middle of the room, right pews, first seat in.  I still remember walking down and being so happy and surprised to see her.

Somewhere along the way though, Cindy decided to get married and move to Connecticut or some other New England state.  It was sudden and unexpected, but perhaps that was their plan.  I remember crying at home once; crying to talk to Cindy.  I can remember my mom trying to find her number in the phone book or some way to get in contact with her.  I don’t think we ever did.

I think I was done with head doctors for a while, until I went to see Mark.  Mark was a mid 20s guy, slim, tan, wore a thin gold chain, and pretty energetic.  I remember thinking his wife was pretty attractive, so he must have been some sort of lady’s man.  He was cool.  Probably too cool for me.  He talked about playing basketball one day with me, but we’d play waste basketball in his office instead.  I think i saw him for a while, and it was good having a guy to talk to, but like i said, I think he was just too cool and energetic for me.

I know I’ve been to at least 1 other therapist, Rod, but he was more like a family therapist that we all saw at times.  Although I do not have the scientific pleasure of being objective and can only rely on introspection, I feel that shrinks were a waste of time and money, at least for me.  Therapy, by that I mean an act, hobby, or some sort of interaction or escape is invaluable though.  Legos — Therapy.  Guitar — Therapy.  Driving long distance – Therapy.  This blog — Therapy. 

I want a really long black top drive way.  I think i’d like the house to be back in the woods a little bit, but I always loved houses that sit far from the road ominously.  Not too much of a wind in the road, but maybe an S shape to it.  Something that kids can sled ride on though.  Which would be a hard thing to do if I put in a heated driveway, but that’s what I want too.  I love the look of white snow trimmed up to the black driveway, and naked trees dotting the path.  Almost morbidly dark and mysterious, but that’s what I like about winter.  I also want a nice sized paved area next to the house/garage, enough for a half court basketball game.  I also want a cul de sac like how you see in the old english movies, just a big loop and maybe some sort of fountain in the middle, but a decent sized area in the middle so that you can put some benches or something.

GAD! I’m broken. Andrew Bonnell emailed me friday and asked if i’d play basketball for his church league on saturday, and i was excited to accept. I haven’t played for so long, but i was making shots in warm up, i started, made a few points, some good plays, but i wasn’t “in the zone” yet. Not until the 3rd quarter did i start getting my rhythm back. At one point, i got a burst of energy, made a quick steal, went down for the dunk, but when i landed, i mess up somehow. To be honest, I don’t remember what exactly happened. I don’t know if i landed funny, hit the wall first (it was close to the out-of-bounds), landed but then tripped, i have no idea. All I know (now) is that there is a loose bone chip in my ankle, i have a splint on, and I’m going to see a specialist later this week who will probably put a caste on me. ugh. I have never been so disabled. I am going to have crutches for at least 6 weeks. Even colorado’s spill last year was fine compared to this. bright side – Dr. said probably no surgery needed, and I have a handicap accessible bathroom with a rail by the tub and a removable shower head, so that should make this easier, and i also get to park in the primo spot at work.

speaking of colorado though, i was planning on going out again march 10-18th. That’s on the rocks now. I won’t have time to go skiing in prep beforehand now, and my muscles are going to be weak, and that’s assuming i’m out of my caste by then. So i guess i’ll have to wait and see what the specialist says and see how the healing goes. effing blows. I also wanted to go to vegas over that same time frame, splitting time between the two, so i guess that’s kinda up in the air too. I posted 2 pics of my ankle in the gallery. I also wanted to start volunteering at the hill house in some manner, but i don’t know if i will like this. bah! I say bah!

glad i took the semester off from school. lost my Pitt ID though…so that sucks since i used it to ride the bus for free now and then, and i used it for penguins student rush…and i fear robert morris won’t give me an ID since i’m not registered this semester…we’ll see. I wish i could just find my pitt ID.

been spending time with a female as well…we’re getting to know eachother still, but i’m excited. She hasn’t signed the waiver yet, so i can’t say too much.

So i had a pretty big day today.  basketball til noon, ate lunch with 2 friends, watched some 3 on 3 tournament action, saw the soulpatch show, saw phantom planet play on bigelow, i tried calling you adrienne.  thought you might enjoy that, i just wanted to let you know that.  so then out to eat with more friends, then see some acapella groups sing, then “guys night” at a cornerstoner’s house til midnight.  good day.  gotta work in the morning though.  bleh. 

looks like me, bob, and maybe fuji are going to go see andy in delaware the weekend of the 24th.  that should be wild. 

still looking for another roomate for emily and myself. 

serah still doesnt answer my AIM messages.

today, the government gets to steal an hour of sleep from me.  they should be so proud.  they get my money this week from taxes, and now they are getting my time.  bitter?  me??  no way.

Deirdre has a volleyball tourney down in baltimore this coming weekend, and it looks like everyone is going to try to meet down there or something, Kathy is going to Philly, (Philthy) so i have nothing to do down there, and i have to work anyway, so i am just going to chill up here.  maybe play some guitar, seeing how much i need to practice after tuesday.  Well, nothing really else noteworthy, didnt really do anything else but hang out on campus today.  so, i will leave you with everything you want to know about breakfast cereals.