Electronic court training?

A few months ago, I saw an ESPN segment talking about how NASCAR drivers were using video games for consoles from, say, EA Sports to help them get prepped for races - the level of realism had reached such a level that they could drive through the virtual track and get a good idea of what they would face on the real track. I actually think that playing NBA 2K2 on my PS2 has helped me improve as a basketball player.

I've been playing through an 82-game season as both the Warriors and the Spurs, dealing with rotation minutes, injuries, and how best to execute offenses and defenses. I created realistic fascimiles of Mike Dunleavy and Manu Ginobili to basically give each squad their 2002-2003 roster, and about 2/3 of the way through the season, the Spurs are 65-1 with Duncan averaging 24 ppg - 11 rpg - 6 apg - 3 bpg, Robinson 18 ppg -6 rpg, Parker 18 ppg - 13 apg, and Ginobili 18 ppg - 6 apg - 5 spg (the one loss was due to a problem saving the season which forced me to allow the computer to simulate one game). I only recently started playing as the Warriors in mid-season, but after inserting Arenas and Dunleavy into the starting lineup they haven't lost, with Dunleavy averaging around 21 ppg - 11 apg - 5 rpg with 3 threes per.

The fun thing about playing the game is that I can watch and get used to offensive and defensive sets without actually being out on the floor. By forcing me to keep my eyes up and scanning all the players, I find that I've actually improved my court vision in real life. My instincts for moving without the ball, making backdoor cuts, and hitting players with passes right off of screens have improved in the last year or so. Not only that, but it seems that I've gotten more used to running the pick and roll and reading the defense, deciding quickly whether I'll be open for a jumper or if I can hit the cutter with a bounce pass. On defense, studying the schemes of the good defensive teams has given me some pointers on where to position myself to better provide help defense for my teammates. Who'd have thunk that I'd get this much out of a used video game?

'Course, I'd never use this as an excuse to play more in the virtual realm. Yeah.

Snapshot

Just spent a weekend up in the Santa Cruz Mountains with the church at our annual summer retreat. As always, good time of rest and fellowship... didn't have as much time for reflection as I would have liked, but I can always find time to do that here. Spent most of my time with the youth, where we invited Hideyo to come and teach from the Word on who, when, and where to worship - basically encouraging the youth to seek after God in all things, since many of them have grown up in the church and sometimes seem to fall into the perception that the experience of God is limited to within its walls.

The yearly basketball game between the (now college-age) guys vs. the older guys was intense as ever - first to 12 by ones, win by 2, ended up with a final score of 19-18 - after a while no one could make two consecutive shots. I didn't play all that well on offense, since I almost never get to play with two highly effective post men - I'm used to playing with one, feeding the post and then either cutting to the hoop or spotting up for a jumper, but with two around the hoop, I couldn't quite get into a rhythm of movement and ended up standing around most of the time. At least I had plenty of energy to expend on defense.

There was also a definite spiritual focus on expanding our mindsets to attempt to grasp images and scenes of the work God is doing around the world, ranging from the indigenous church in Mongolia that grew from church plant to a highly effective missionary sender, to the Mozambique multi-ministry reaching out to orphans, landfill people, and a whole host of other people. It's always refreshing to see images and hear stories of brothers and sisters around the world worshipping God in ways that we can only begin to appreciate.

Philosophical question I've been pondering lately - is it better to live with a failed attempt or the what-if from never following through on that attempt? I'd like to believe in the former but I think my life's pattern has generally been the latter.

No longer under one roof

This past Saturday, my bro moved out to head off to lower Manhattan to attend NYU law school. He packed relatively lightly, since his California wardrobe will need to be augmented significantly once the East Coast winter hits, so his room looks relatively similar to the way it did when he was living here, giving the illusion that not much has changed... but I guess in one sense it's the end of an era.

I think that my family was uniquely blessed in being able to have all four members under one roof for a little over a year after my bro graduated from college - working, studying, playing, eating dinner together, watching TV... it's been a very different experience living at home this time around because we were kind of living together as peers, as opposed to the clear-cut "hierarchy" of parent-child that you basically have in high school. Now that he's moved out and I'll eventually move out, we won't really have that experience of one family under the same roof again. I'll miss the good times of watching sports and talking poker with Dave, plus getting together to go through Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. If you're reading this, dude, I'm praying for you. Study hard and take advantage of little opportunities to serve in the city!

Yet another wedding

Also this past Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending Frank L's wedding to Melissa F. Frank was my first small group leader from AACF my freshman year at Berkeley, and he's a very solid guy - he patiently put up with and facilitated the hard questions that I asked as a young believer and helped me build a spiritual foundation in the Word during our weekly Bible study meetings with the entire group. Since finishing up at Berkeley, I've also had the opportunity to periodically get together with him and a few other guys for dim sum every few months. He's probably one of the more unique guys I know... many of our dim sum conversations would inevitably end up on Frank's fascination for boar hunting, and back at Cal he had a predilection for buying cultural weapons with odd names off of the internet, like tribal clubs and such.

Apparently he met his wife in China while he was there on business and she was studying there as an exchange student. Ironically, according to some of our old Cal buddies I sat with at the banquet, he could be heard lamenting these frequent business trips to China as preventing him from being able to meet anyone here, so God providentially arranged for Melissa to show up where he least expected it. I guess it goes to show that no matter how "unique" you might be or what your circumstances are, God can be very creative in the ways that He chooses to bless His people.

Art imitating life

Funny coincidence on the way in and out of work today... there was an unusually high number of accidents on the freeways resulting in stuck traffic (aside: how do you LA people deal with traffic like that every day?). While idling on 680 north, these lyrics came on from Switchfoot:

And millions of faces are looking for movement / 'Cause everything's stuck and everything's frozen / And everyone's broken / And nobody moves and everyone's scared that the motion will never come / This is the incompletion / Stuck in a line

Quick takes

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. Some more extended ruminations to come, but here are some quick hits...

One of the funnier things I've seen lately: Bear passes out after guzzling 36 cans of beer. I love the picture of the happily unconscious ursid (correct wording?) conked out with its head on its paws. Go Bears!

On the one hand, it is patriotically distressing to see Team USA struggle so much at the Olympics; on the other, maybe this will have a similar impact as the Pistons beating the Lakers in reminding basketball players and fans that it's about team play and not And1 individual talent.

Team USA members whose stock has risen in the Olympics: Duncan, Iverson, LeBron
Members whose stock has dropped precipitously thus far: Carmelo, Jefferson, Coach Brown

Somewhere in the last quarter of this year I need to: study for GRE, take GRE, get letters of rec, and apply to various grad schools. Unfortunately, I'm at work every day till 9-10 pm. Anyone who took the GRE have tips for things I can do at work, like websites with lists of words to memorize?

Currently listening to Eric Clapton's classic "Unplugged" album. I originally bought it for "Tears in Heaven" (still have to learn to play that), then let it sit collecting dust for a few years, and recently began listening to it again. That's the beauty of buying critically acclaimed albums - even if you don't get into them initially, pull them out after some time has passed and your musical maturity has grown... and it's like you have a brand-new album.

On compliments I've received...
Best compliment: "No matter what you do, I think you'll turn out okay." - Dad, while doing father-son hike to top of Half Dome ~soph year in college
Unexpected compliment: "One thing about Bob is that he's very teachable." - Ben T, at AACF 2000 end-of-year banquet
Weirdest compliment: "You know, you have really pretty hands." - Amy T, my NYC missions sub-team co-leader while riding on the subway

Rivalry on the small court

I have kind of a Roddick vs. Federer competitive rivalry going with one of my coworkers at the table tennis table (Federer and Roddick are currently the #1 and #2 ranked men's tennis players in the world) . Federer has won many of the Grand Slam titles the last few years and has already solidified himself as one of the best all-around players of all time, while Roddick is the young gun with immense talent but is also much more mercurial. I'm basically in the Roddick role and he's in the Federer role. In our daily to every-other-day table tennis matches (side note: ping-pong is a recreational pasttime, table tennis is a sport), I'm able to use my variety of spins and tricky serves to win a fair number of easy points, but I'll also give quite a few away on unnecessary chances or inconsistent hitting, while he's honed his strokes to build a solid, powerful, consistent game. Our matches are usually fairly entertaining, and if I'm "on" I can win, but he probably wins 70% of the time right now due primarily to my inconsistency - similar to the Federer-Roddick rivalry in real life. One day I'll put it all together.

Incidentally, serving in table tennis is a lot like pitching a baseball. Some people have more spins/pitches, and the real key is to keep your opponent off balance by changing spins, speeds, and locations. Similar to how a pitcher will use his fastball to set up a breaking ball, I'll often throw in a fast serve in the midst of my slices and sidespins to break up the tempo. You also need to read the opponent's stance - whether he's "on tilt" (borrowing a term from poker) and anxious to smash something, whether he's favoring his forehand or backhand, leaning forwards or backwards, etc. It's a fun diversion from work.

Quick weekend recap

Watched "The Bourne Supremacy" last Saturday... I think I liked the first one better. You could see what was going on.

In the evening, hung out with Byron, Maria, Joy, Mike P, JT, and Maria's sister playing cards where Mike introduced us to a "new" version of Big 2/Deuces/Revolution/Rich Man Poor Man where, instead of having everyone finish playing all their cards, you are accorded points for every card in your hand when the first person finishes. First to 50 loses. This changed strategy quite a bit as you no longer needed to worry about having to play all your cards, you could be content with getting stuck with 3-4 singles since you ditched the rest of your cards. We christened the game "Big Ditch."

Good sermon on Sunday from Pastor Dennis Low, formerly of 5th HOC, about spiritual transformation. Mentioned an idea from Dallas Willard called the "Triangle of Spiritual Transformation", where he highlights three items instrumental in spiritual growth - the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, spiritual disciplines, and daily circumstances. We mature and are sanctified as we live out our faith in light of these three, and spiritual disciplines is the area where we can really focus and be active in taking a role in God growing us.

Being remembered

Two Sundays ago, as the youth group sat in a circle around the garage sharing thoughts and memories from and with the graduating seniors, I found myself taken back in memory to the days when I was getting ready to leave the safe confines of South Bay suburbia for the unique environs of UC Berkeley. Each of this year's seniors had plenty of shared experiences that they'd enjoyed with their friends, and listening to them reminisce reminded me of how much more significantly sheltered and shallow I used to be when I was their age.

A while ago, I flipped through my senior year yearbook from MVHS. Amidst the old photos and articles, I read through the notes and comments from friends and classmates. The profoundly depressing thing was that 98% of the comments I received were about: 1) my scholatic ability (i.e. "We were in all the same AP classes... you're a smart guy... good luck at Berkeley, don't become a hippie!") or 2) my love for sports (Warriors, Giants, etc.). Even looking at the memory book the youth group put together for me (as they did for all the graduating seniors), I could detect another two common themes: 1) how tall I was (I was relatively tall during high school, too bad I just stopped growing) and 2) my goody-two-shoes nature in Sunday School (memorizing verses and the like - this was what I thought being a Christian was about at the time).

From page to page, I could sense some deep-seated regrets in me rising to the surface... being so insular as to not take advantage of having friends... investing overly much in studies rather than people... sure, it's not like high schoolers will necessarily be all that deep in their sharing, but the cold fact was that I had a significant lack of memories and experiences with friends. More than that, because human beings are by nature social creatures, I was also somewhat behind in my own journey of self-discovery and striving for personal depth due to my inability to relate well with other people. I was remembered for some very shallow things, and that depressed me.

I like to think that I've grown some since that time. Learned some things about myself, who I am and who I am not. Did my best to build some friendships and invest in people. More than anything, I've had the blessing of meeting Jesus and turning myself over to Him to be shaped into the unique Christ-follower He initially created me to be. I hope that if I'm to be remembered for anything, that would be it.

Two Sundays ago, as the youth group shared memories, thoughts and laughs together, I breathed a quiet prayer for those seniors - glad that they had the chance to be remembered by their friends for who they are and what they've done. But more than that, I hope that in the coming years they will gradually know more and more the One who brings meaning to life, and that they would be remembered for that faith over any other memory.

The state of Olympic basketball

Irony: In news reports following the shellacking Italy gave the United States Olympic basketball team in an exhibition game Tuesday morning, one indication of the Americans' lack of seriousness and preparation was that in the pre-game warmup, several players spent time practicing half-court shots rather than reviewing offensive and defensive sets or practicing plays.

Then, Allen Iverson wins Wednesday's exhibition against Germany with a buzzer-beating half-court prayer.

In all seriousness though, rewatching both exhibitions has shown me that this Olympic USA team is not very well constructed. Too many athletes with too few team skills and lack of basketball IQ. Perhaps the greatest sense of poetic justice was watching the end of the Italy rout, with the announcers remarking on how it was the worst loss ever for American basketball in international competition, and then ESPN2 then came up with its following program... the And1 MixTape Tour. In other words, just as everyone was asking how this apparent decline in American supremacy had occurred, a major culprit showed up on screen. When young basketball players are eschewing fundamental coaching, team practice, and defense in favor of dribbling tricks and high-flying dunks, of course you're going to see a dearth of skill at the "highest level". Take Marbury for example. Legendary NYC baller. Not a very good point guard. MixTape supreme, but that doesn't mean a whole lot when Italy's point guards are going around you and flipping in layups a la Nash or Maravich. Despite the presence of my favorite player, Duncan, on Team USA, I have major reservations about our country's ability to defend its gold medal this year.

To revisit the "Would the '92 Dream Team medal in the 2004 Olympics?" question debated on the 5824 blog (scroll to 8/2 comments and 7/28 post), I have to stand by my belief that even though a 41-year old Jordan is still sublime, the '92 team would not medal this year, for one primary reason: they're too old to get after it on defense. It's clear that other countries' teams have improved significantly on offense, particularly in perimeter shooting, and a fair amount of good defense is athleticism to get to the ball... and Jordan et al have lost too many steps. They'd probably - undoubtedly - be more effective in the half-court offense than the 2004 Team USA though.

It's like a bonus... part 2
Some more highlights...

Providential timing
After a full day of fun on Sunday, I was looking forward to sleeping in and relaxing today, but God apparently had other plans for my morning. I got a call Sunday night from Tsolmon and Sebastian, two Mongolian international students that have been coming to my church, who needed a last-minute favor in driving their friend to SFO at 6 in the morning. It was a real blessing being able to serve them in this way, while not needing to suffer by going to work on 4 hours of sleep. If I hadn't taken the day off, it would have been a lot harder to volunteer, so I'm glad God gave me the opportunity. Apparently they've been talking about Jesus to some of their visiting friends, and I think there's an awesome opportunity for our church to train and commission native workers and missionaries who will be effective for God when they return. Pray for them.

Hoops
For the first time in quite a while, I had the chance to play ball on a weekday. Headed out to Fair Oaks Park with Eric, Andy H, Ben T, Caleb, Hideyo, and a few other folks and had my best game in a while. I'm beginning to suspect that playing in the cool of the evening rather than under the blazing Sunday afternoon sun has a psychological boost to my level of play, since I don't get tired as quickly and am more willing to run. I was pleased with my cuts and passing, and made the majority of my open jump shots, and in general felt better than I have in a while. I want to bottle up this feeling and use it again and again in the coming weeks...

Success!
Gained:
- new basketball shoes from Foot Locker
- 2 pairs cargo pants
- 1 pair cargo shorts
- 1 tie (on loan from uncle)

Can you believe that ties can cost anywhere from $40-$100? Madness!

Things I didn't get to do this weekend that I originally wanted to
- wash the car
- study for the GRE
- do some more writing

Back to the daily grind tomorrow... but wow, taking this day off was a great idea. I have to do this more often.

It's like a bonus... part 1
Last week I decided to take today (Monday) off from work to rest, and knowing that I had a 3-day weekend in front of me had enormous psychological benefits. Here are some highlights...

Let there be acoustic instrumentation!
A few months ago, based on reviews, I began to get into the music of Nickel Creek, a young bluegrass/pop trio out of San Diego, made up of violin (Sara Watkins), mandolin (Chris Thile), and acoustic guitar (Sean Watkins). I've always been a fan of acoustic music, and based on their debut CD alone, they're probably some of the best on their instruments in the world. Last Thursday I had the opportunity to head up to the City to see them in concert at The Independent, where they're touring with the former lead singer from the popular early 90's band Toad the Wet Sprocket, Glen Phillips. The four of them were backed up by former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and Los Lobos drummer Pete Thomas.

Granted, I haven't been to too many concerts, but this one was clearly the best in terms of musical performance. I have never before seen fingers flying that fast across fretboards or picks striking strings with that level of precision. The musical style ranged from the mid-tempo acoustic rock from Toad, to upbeat instrumental bluegrass numbers to minimalistic jazz/blues-influenced pieces. Despite the fact that I only knew perhaps one-third of the songs played, I thoroughly enjoyed sifting through the intricate layers of melody lines and futilely attempting to identify how some of the musicians ornamented basic chord structures that I know to make the music sound more full and intricate. I'll definitely be looking them up next time they come to town.

There is a louder shout to come
The last several weeks, our church has been blessed to hear accounts from both long-term and short-term missionaries that we support from Africa, China, and Taiwan. It's amazing to hear the stories of prayers being answered and lives being changed (both the missionaries' and the people they serve). Overall, this is reinforcing in me a desire to go on short-term missions again sometime soon - I'm currently thinking in the first half of 2005. We'll see what happens...

Fare thee well
Yesterday (Sunday), the legendary 5824 house bid farewell to founding member Danny, who is heading down to LA to learn how to use the legal system to bring about world peace. As with all things 5824, the guys (JLau, Cal, and Danny) went all out and hosted 50-some odd people for a bbq. Good food (Danny's 3-hr slow-cooked ribs were snapped up in perhaps 5 minutes), good company, and a handsome 5824 T-shirt to boot... can't ask for much more than that on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Had the chance to catch up with many old college friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, participate live in the hotly-debated "Would the '92 Dream Team medal in the 2004 Olympics?" discussion, and laugh hysterically at questions like "Would you rather drink a cup of spit or eat a cup of boogers?" and "Would you rather use someone else's toothbrush, or eat food particles from someone else's used floss?"

Lots of good memories at 5824 with the guys. We'll see what happens with the house community moving forward, but as for Danny, our loss is SoCal's gain... at least for the next three years before he moves back up here again. Heheh...

In the evening, got to hang out with the Canaan youth kids, who prepared a rousing sendoff for the graduating seniors. Listening to them reminisce about childhood stories is inspiring a post that should show up in the near future.