Yard Work

Weeds are a never ending battle in my yard. I used to be a huge fan of the rain, loving the smell and the coolness it would bring with it. But after owning a home for several years, I really hate when it rains because that allows all the weeds in my yard to grow out like a jungle. I don't know if it's just my yard, but it seems like I get a lot more weeds than everyone else in the neighborhood will get. This first picture on the left shows the northern side of my yard and the house next to me is raised slightly higher then mine, creating a slope that runs downward to my house on this part. I think that allows even more water to trickle down and so the weeds here usually grow quickly and are quite humongous.

Now I could go out every weekend and spray to try and control my unwanted foliage, but let's face it, I'm either too busy or too lazy to want to have to tend to something so tedious and frustrating on a weekly basis. So I've decided to embark on a little project that will hopefully pay off in the long run: tarping the yard. My friend actually had some leftover landscape fabric for when he did the same thing to his yard, so he let me have the rest. This next picture on the right is of my backyard where I am testing out the fabric. There's a nice little section that I've already cleaned up and starting tarping. If it proves to be effective, then the goal is to eventually tarp as much of my yard as I can or at least get all the areas where the weeds grow out of control.

If you ask me, I think every house's yard should be tarped when it is built for the first time and my for my next house it will be a huge requirement. I just hate weeds so much and I just don't want to be out there pulling and spraying! This last picture to the left shows the section I completed today. Knowing me, this project will probably take me a while to complete since I'll likely only work on it during the weekends or maybe if I have some free time after work. It won't be easy to complete since it's basically a one-man show, but hopefully all my hard work will be worth it!

DIE WEEDS DIE! And that is not German for "The Weeds, The!"

Finally a Champion!

Last night was the finals for the IBM Basketball League. We had not lost in the double elimination tournment and the team we were playing we had beaten already. If we won the first game it was all over, but if we lost, we would play a second game to determine the champions.
The first game was really close in the first half at 23 a piece, but they played a better second half than us and we could not come back from a 10-point deficit. I didn't do a good job on their best player, Jay, and he burned us for 22 points in the game. With about 2 minutes left in the 1st game, our captain Jose wanted to stay in the game and keep fighting. I evaluated the situation, thinking that it was more important for him to get rest now since we'd really need him for the second game.In the second game, we ran out of the gates fast, changing our game plan to attacking the rim and getting inside. In the first game, we were a jump-shooting team, which led to them not having to really move around on defense and it didn't help that our treys weren't falling. So the next game we really attacked the basket with guard penetration and it led to several easy opportunites. It also might have helped that the other team was starting to get tired as well.We led the entire second game, but towards the final 4 minutes, things started to get ugly. It was really getting physical and fouls on our team were being called left and right. It got to the point where 3 of our 7 guys fouled out of the game, forcing us to play with 4 for the remaining couple of minutes. Fortunately for us at that point, we still had the lead and it was basically a free-throw shooting contest. On the other hand, we weren't knocking down these pressure free throws...missing about 7 of our 10 last free throw attempts, which really gave the other team a chance to steal this one from us. But we continued to play hard with what he had left out there and secure the championship! Jose played a great game pouring in 25 points...maybe the rest he got at the end of the 1st game helped prepare him for the 2nd game.By the end of the second game, we were all dead-tired. My legs were completely dead, my body was hurting, and I actually started getting muscle cramps from being out there defending such a tough player all night long. When the game ended, I was more just relieved from the game finally being over rather than jumping around and celebrating. Today it has started to sink in that I have finally gotten that trophy in this league! It was a great a season, but I'm really looking forward to the rest and relaxation before next time!From left to right: Andy, Richard, Jose, Tony, Dan, Darren, Tommy.

The IBM Basketball Finals!!!!

Back in February I told you about the IBM Basketball League starting up again. Well, we're actually well into the double-elimination tournament now with the finals being decided just last night and you'll be happy to hear that yours truly is headed there!
The road to the finals wasn't easy. First of all, our team is not big to begin with. The only player we have over 6' is my friend Dan and he's not a guy that takes up a lot of space on the court; he's more the tall and lanky type. Most teams will likely have at least two players over 6' or a handful of stocky guys who fill up the lane. Speed is our game and we rely on good outside shooting to win games...we're like the Golden State Warriors of this league haha. On this team, I'm the MVD (Most Valuable Defender). Although I have a killer 3-pointer and can create my own shot, my biggest value to the team is on the defensive end. I'm usually called on to guard the best perimeter player, which is usually the other team's best offensive player. We struggled during the regular season as we were still searching for our offensive chemistry and tinkering with our defensive gameplan and entered the tournament as the 5th seed with a 3-4 record.

Our first game in the tournament went well. I held their scorer to 10 points and the other offensive player on their team was held in check to 11 (nice work Dan). Our team walked away to a comfortable 49-38 victory.

The second game was pretty tough and close the whole way. I guarded their top player and held him to 11 points, but this game basically came down to the last shot. We had the ball with about 20 seconds left and one of our shooters - Darren - made a tough shot along the baseline to put us ahead by 1 point with 4 seconds left. They were unable to make the half-court heave to win the game and we squeaked out a win against the #1 seed that had been undefeated up to that point.

The third game we started out of the gates really slow, scoring only 18 points in the first half. In the second half, we all turned it up a notch and played more aggressively. I also caught fire and single-handily put together a 9-0 run where I knocked down three treys in a row to help get us back in the game. However it once again came down to the end. With 12 seconds left we were up by 2 and their best player made a tough shot to tie the game with 2 seconds left. We quickly called timeout. In overtime, our games are determined by free throws: whichever 5 are on the court at the end of regulation, those 5 will shoot free-throws and then it's just whichever team knocks down the most of their 5 free throws. During the timeout, I pulled out Dan and myself (I had been struggling mentally at the line to knock down free throws all season). It turned out to be the right call though as we went on to win in double-overtime! Me holding the best player on the opposing team (arguably the 2nd best overall player in the league) to less than 20 pts was the goal: he had 18 for the night.

So now it's on to the Finals match. What's so great about being here this year is that nobody in the league expected us to be here due to our lack of size. For my captain Jose and his good buddy Tommy that he's played alongside for 8 of 9 years, it will be their first ever Finals appearance. For me, it will be my 4th appearance in 6 years, although I have been denied the Title in my other 3 attempts. :( We'll play the team we played the second game of the tournament, whose only loss this year was to us. It won't be easy because of their size, but the championship game is played on a full-size regulation court instead of the small-court that we usually play on, and that will only help our quickness and allow us to really spread out the floor with our 3-point shooters. We'll also have two chances to put them away since we haven't lost a game in the tourney yet and it's double elimination. Hopefully we won't need to play that second game....

Wish me luck for next Monday, the 10th of May! I'll try and provide some pictures and hopefully I'll be bringing home a trophy as well! :)