12-18-2011

I know I keep talking about the importance of engaging my audience and keeping them informed with my struggles to get back above the rim. It seems that every time I think I have a spare moment to write or video log, I end up doing something else, like eating a bean and cheese burro from America's Taco Shop, or taking a nap, or watching the "Social Network", which was phenomenal by the way (although the best movie I have seen in a long time is "The Town" but even then it might be because of my man crush on Affleck). I need to be writing more, and I need to be eating less. For the most part, I have been abiding by these rules, sometimes I slip, sometimes a hot woman (hi Mandy) visits from Oklahoma and you end up eating chips and queso. I am in the same spot, more or less, I was a year ago, physically and athletic wise. I am here and I think I am ready to try again.

Let me preface this last statement with a story about my friend Mike and I during our freshman summer of high school. That year we were members of the freshman basketball team who went undefeated (which at the time was the first team to do so at BCP). Mike was our starting power forward and I was a combo 1-2 guard who came off the bench. The season was a blast, and I worked harder than I ever had before, so when summer came around my dad and I built some homemade plyometric boxes to help improve my vertical leap. Mike and I painted a "PT" on each box, which stood for Psycho Training, and each day in the hot Arizona summer we were going to sweat it out towards greatness. Well, that lasted a week and I never made it to the Varsity team. Although, I did get a technical for dunking in warm ups the following year on the JV (which by the by is the premise for this little journey).

That summer I killed myself for about a week, maybe 10 days, and then I resumed a life of Nintendo, pizza, chasing girls, and being a lazy teenager. The reason I bring this up is because of how it correlates to me being a dad. I am in the early stages of being a father. I had a decent freshman year, and as I started my sophomore season with Henry I began to cruise. Cruising isn't going to cut it, and although I have a team mate I can rely on or who will even let me coast, it just wouldn't be fair to let her carry the load.

You see there is not a day that goes by where I don't regret choices I made in the name of laziness during high school and college. I will never know what could have been, but I am able to control what I will be. So check me out, keep me honest, keep me focused, and let's see what I can do today and tomorrow because yesterday is over. The real journey begins with this post, and I will try my hardest to get you every single detail of what Abby, Kohen, Chloe, Henry and I go through.

Charlie dunks on 12-18-2011, my 33rd birthday.