Linx and Pix
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My basketball website has been very busy. To date, we have had 600,000
visitors. Many of them send me email. The fun part is that the email
comes from all over the world, English speaking or not. Some email I
need to translate on-line. It really makes you feel in touch with
everyone everywhere.
This was taken in May...
The picture, not the car.
The spring was really snowy. Check out my frozen
convertible. The kids had to play their first baseball games in the
snow. Really! Below, Brett is playing, 15 snowflakes to the right.
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Steve's News and the Sports
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All in all, it's been a pretty good year. I still have a job and I
get to coach basketball with kids I really like, so life is good. I
really miss my boys, though, while they are at school. Like many, many
things, it's just like my mom said it would be. Its just taken me 30 years to
better understand my parents.
A lot has happened, so I'll just cruise through this
chronologically. In January, Brett and I celebrated our birthdays
together again. They are only five days apart. And then, there's Grandma
Hazel's birthday... and Shelley's ... and David's ... all that and the
Super Bowl, too. Its a busy month!
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18 plus 48 equals many candles ... !
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I was named as the head
coach for the Bartlett Boys C Team Basketball Team which I took
as quite an honor. I enjoyed working as an assistant to Steve
Stansbury for two years, but after the experience of being the
head coach, I must say I love that role. The age group that I
coach (9th and 10th graders) is the best. The kids are really
coachable and full of enthusiasm and are willing to learn
something. Its the age (for boys, anyway) right before they
decide they know everything. |
Anyway, my crew was really inexperienced, so we lost several of our
early games. That was painful. But, once they learned to play and trust
each other, we started winning. We won 8 of our last 9 games. The last
five victories were decided by one basket. The excitement we shared is
hard to describe. I felt as nervous as any coach could
feel.
In the spring, I coached many of the same kids in a 6 week BCI
league. The kids took third and we had a lot of fun.
During the summer, we went to Brett's baseball games, except for the
six week gap in the middle of the summer while he was in Germany. His
high school team did very well. Brett showed how well a pitcher with
control can do by holding his opponents to under one earned run per game,
the best in the league. He couldn't have done that without his teammates
who were much improved over recent years. At the end of the summer, in
the American Legion season, Bartlett finished second in state. Nobody
could remember how long it had been since the kids went that far.
I took a business trip to Reno in May. That's right, a business trip.
It was a network security conference and I was due for some training. I
actually went to all my classes. I spent the next weekend in Las Vegas
with Jane, Marguerite and Mark. Then, I flew to Bartlesville, Oklahoma,
Phillip's headquarters for more training. For entertainment, I went to
watch some softball, and guess what? They needed a player so I got to
play in a doubleheader. Lots of fun, but I later needed two cortisone shots
to repair my throwing arm.
Before Brett left for college, we built a new shed. It is featured on
the front page of our newsletter. It was fun having Brett to help and
talk to for hours. I feel proud of it. I also built a small deck next to
the shed.
My basketball team this year is looking good. We're not playing good
yet, but we will. I couldn't ask for a better bunch. Sometimes I wish I
could be 15 and playing ball with them, they're that fun to coach. We
lost our first game, 52-50 and won the next 55-49.
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