BLAZERS: Early Practices & Remarkable Dunks

The team is already congregating and practicing together - a month prior to camp officially beginning. This can only mean good things. Greg Oden is showing signs of promise. Channing Frye, who spent the previous weeks guarding Amare Stoudemire and Dwight Howard at USA select team practices in Las Vegas, said of Oden: "That kid is a monster, just a monster. He is so strong. He has no idea how strong he is. He doesn't even realize it. He was just throwing me around."

Martell Webster had a monster throw down Monday. With LaMarcus Aldridge playing tight D, he crossed over and threw it down. One on-looker called it "The most remarkable dunk this practice facility has ever seen." With a comment like that, I imagine it was a nasty one-handed Tomahawk thump. Martell is usually mentioned as a shooter, but let us not forget he has mad hops and, when his confidence allows him, can be pretty impressive inside the paint. He still has LOTS to prove, but he is still showing that he has potential to hang with the big boys one day.

Enduring to the end

“…we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things.” - 13th Article of Faith

I spoke in our ward sacrament meeting this week. The topic was "enduring to the end". I shared an example that I thought was very interesting. The story is of Donald Crowhurst, who in 1968 entered a sailing endurance race - to circumnavigate the world in a sailboat all by himself. The route was to leave England heading south in the Atlantic ocean, hang a left at the Cape of Good Hope (tip of Africa) and sail through the "roaring 40's" and "furious fifties" at the bottom of the globe - thousands of miles of endless storms and dangers, then hang another left at Cape Horn (South America) and back up to England. It takes more than 8-months to make the journey. No stopping.

To make a long story short, while the other racers were going through their trials in the roaring 40's and furious 50's, Crowhurst was reporting his coordinates as record pace, and would likely win the race. In actuality, he hung out in the Atlantic ocean, stopped in South America for repairs (stopping was against the rules) and appeard to plan to return to England 'posing' as the winner of the race. His boat was eventually found, but not Crowhurst. His logs suggest that he eventually went mad as he had a hopless decision:

1) Turn back, and risking humiliation and financial ruin.

2) Go forward, assuming he will not survive the challenge.

3) Fake winning the race, and live the rest of his life knowing he faked it and wondering if his deception would eventually be found out.

My analogous point is this: Do we act this way sometimes? We know where we SHOULD be. We may even 'fake' like we're there. But is our heart really there? Are we enduring (as we promised Father before we came to this earth) as we know we should? Or just hangning out, fretting about the journey and actually making things harder on ourselves in the long-run.

I wrote this poem to cap my thoughts:

When in life, hard times we face,
In this we trust: Eternal Grace.
We fight the fight, and try our best,
‘til we find one day, we’ve passed the test.
So work the work, you’re here to achieve.
This above all, always believe.

A letter from Mormon to his son Moroni at the end of the Book of Mormon:

"And may the grace of God the Father, whose throne is high in the heavens, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who sitteth on the right hand of his power, until all things shall become subject unto him, be, and abide with you forever. Amen. " (Moroni 9:26)

Quaker Oats - gender specific?

We had a heart-felt debate Sunday morning during breakfast before church. Topic: Gender of the person on the Quaker Oats package. What do you think?

Emery is firmly in the "it's a female" camp. I had never thought of it that way before. Moriah says it's a guy. Kids make you laugh sometimes...figuring this crazy world out.

BLAZERS: Fred Jones trade addressed

So many developments in Blazers basketball this summer. #1 draft pick Greg Oden will be fun to watch develop. I was also extremely excited to see the team move top scorer, Zach Randolph for 3 primary reasons: 1) He is a knucklehead and an embarrassment to the team off the court. 2) He is not a #1 option on a NBA contender. 3) LaMarcus Aldridge needs his minutes. Aldridge is going to straight blowuptuate this year.

However, as part of the transaction on draft day, I was disappointed that Fred Jones was to be part of the collateral. We picked up a solid player in Channing Frye - and additional space allowed the James Jones acquisition, but Fred was one of my favorite players. I was glad to see someone in the media finally address the issue. Mike Barrett took the issue straight on in the comment section of his blog. Well thought-out analysis:

"No one wanted to see Fred traded, and it was unfortunate. I talked to Dan Dickau after the trade, and he was surprised because he was told, by his agent, he and Freddie weren't even part of the original deal that had Zach going to New York. Things changed, and when the Knicks changed their demands, Dan and Freddie had to be moved to make the deal work. If you were the GM would you have let a demand that Fred being involved in the trade be a deal breaker in something potentially as big as this? I'm not saying you're wrong if that's the case. But, that's what it came down to. There are tough choices that have to be made in this business, and that wasn't an easy one. And, as much as I like Freddie, and I got to know him personally, to get Zach moved, and get Channing Frye, and James Jones here, I still make that trade. At the end of the day, Pritchard's job is to put this team in the best possible position to win a championship. Second guess the moves if you want, but the goal can't be questioned. The true value of that deal is what it will mean financially for the Blazers summer after next, when they're going to be way under the salary cap and in a position to go after some big-time free agents. That's why this deal was so important. I know how much Fred did for the Ducks, but should that outweigh the goals for this Blazer franchise in the future? Really, one has nothing to do with the other. As badly as Freddie wanted to be here, I'm confident he understands this business. It's not like Pritchard and his staff went out of their way to ruin Freddie. They helped him get out of a situation in Toronto he wanted to be out of. When the Blazers won the lottery it changed everything, and that's what it boils down to. Oden's acquisition gave them opportunity and flexibility, and certainly changed the direction of this team for the better. When an opportunity came to move Zach and bring in the people they did, it was too much to pass up, even if it meant trading a guy like Freddie, who they were not looking to move."

Melissa's BYU Graduation

"...learn wisdom in thy youth.” – King Benjamin (Alma 37:35)

We traveled to Utah last weekend to attend graduation ceremonies and celebrate Melissa earning her Bachelor’s degree from BYU. Her parents even made the trip from Washington to attend as well. I am so proud of her. Not only is she beautiful, kind, caring, smart and sophisticated…she has the BYU degree to back it up. She left college shortly after we married due tp pregnancy and so I could pursue my career in the Northwest. She subsequently (and amazingly) supported me while I worked full-time and struggled through a grueling 2-yr MBA program as well. I am so glad she decided to go back to school and finish her degree. Education is one of the few things we get to take with us out of this life. Not only that, but I believe it’s vital in a family setting. A great thing about the timing of her graduation this year is that our kids got to attend mommy’s graduation. How many children get to experience that? What a great example she is. Melissa has worked so hard to do this. Many long nights and meeting at the library after work while daddy takes the kids. Hard work pays off.

“...they had been taught by their mothers.” (Alma 56:47)

Congratulations, Melissa! We love you.

Daddy-Daughter Campout

We had a great weekend at the coast this weekend. It was the Daddy-Daughter campout for our ward. I got to take my 3 lovely little girls, set up our tent and have a blast at the coast with some good friends. Life is great. Around Pacific City, Oregon we can take our cars out on the beach. How cool. We took our mini-van in some spots we probably shouldn't have and got awefully lucky to only get stuck once. Some fine souls in a Jeep 4x4 were kind enough to pull us out...then we couldn't get the strap un-hooked from the chassis. I cut it with a knife, and the remainder is still dangling under the car. I'm not quite sure how I'll eventually get that out. War-wound, I say.

So, looking at the photo collage here, you see the loveley ladies we were blessed to spend the weekend with. My little ones, Brooke, Moriah and Emery. Lilly and Isabella Gentile along with their cool dad were crazy enough to ride in the same car with us. Not sure that was wise on their part, but we sure loved it!!!

The middle-right picture is Moriah and Brooke being "Mermaids", burying their legs in the sand. Bottom-left cracks me up. They found a dead sea-gull on the beach, so they buried it and the picture is when they insisted that they have a graveside memorial complete with prayer. Bottom-middle is the huge sand-dune on the North side of this beach. Those specs on the hill are people. If your resolution was good enough (click on image for larger), you'd see Moriah in the middle of that hill with sand in her eye. Michael Gentile was kind enough to sit there with her for a good 15 minutes or more while trying to help get sand out of the eye while she screamed like a...well, like a little girl. She got sand stuck in her eye at least 3 main times on this trip. Poor kid. Apparently her eyes are sand magnets. The hill's a pretty tough climb, but the view from the top (bottom-right picture) is well worth it. I highly recommend Pacific City. Great weather like we had is a key element as well. I recommend that, too. :-)