Okay, I need to go on record as saying that I think the trade for Shaquille O’Neal by the Miami Heat is a bad idea. Shaq is still the most dominant player in the NBA, true. He can still take a team to the conference finals by himself. And I liked the deal when it was Odom, Grant, and a 1st round pick being sent to the Lakers. But now that instead of the pick they’re sending Caron Butler I don’t like the trade. Not that Butler isn’t untouchable, or that he’s better than Shaq. But we’re giving the Lakers a lot of our team from last year. We’ll have Shaq, Dwyane Wade, and Eddie Jones in the starting lineup for sure. But then who will join them? I think we’re looking at a potentially devastating trade here. We had a pretty good team last year. If this deal goes through, and it all but has already, the Heat will make it to the conference finals for only the second time in team history. But when Shaq leaves, and he’ll leave soon, the Heat will be left with nothing. Jones will be soon to follow as he too is getting old. Wade can’t carry a team for 5 years on his own, but that’s what he’s going to be asked to do, assuming he sticks around after Shaq leaves.
Now back to our regularly scheduled blog entry.
As I was talking to Kristen last night she actually fell asleep. Great. That’s a blow to the good ol’ self-esteem.
I read more in Daws today, though each time I do I’m convinced that I’ll never actually finish reading the book. It’s really interesting, and I like it a lot, but it’s so long and detailed.
I want to include a part of an email that I got from my former roommate Andy Larkin a couple of days ago. He’s been at the Navigator National Collegiate Program in Colorado Springs. Here’s one of the stories he had to tell.
Last Wednesday we climbed Pike’s Peak…it was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. That might have been because I played Frisbee, football, and a full court game of basketball all afternoon the day before. But it was amazing anyway. We started up the trail at about 6:00 in the morning and got to the top at about 12:30. 21 started out and only 5 of us made it. I don’t know why but I was one of them. I’d say about 5 miles in of 13 I was sore enough that I seriously thought about dropping off the lead group and waiting for the next one, but I decided I could make it to the half way point 7 miles up where we ate lunch. It turned out the next group behind us was 20 minutes behind so I stayed with the group I was with. When we got up past the tree line it started to rain, then it started to hail, and then sleet, and finally snow. It was really coming down too, thunder and lighting included. There was one point while we were hiking that we heard this loud buzzing sound and couldn’t figure it out. A few bends later saw a metal sign for a canyon which was buzzing like a live electrical wire, we figure it had been struck and stayed as far away as possible. By that point we were in 3-4 inches of snow and I don’t know how we would have made it to the top without God’s grace. There was a hiker ahead of us whose foot prints we were following, and without them we would have had to turn back, because the trail was utterly invisible. I seriously think it could have been an angel, because people in our group saw him once or twice and he couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes ahead of us but when we got to the top we were the only hikers up there, and since the roads were closed the only way down was a railway that hadn’t gone down the mountain in about an hour and 15 minutes. Whether it was or not I just thank God that he was faithful, because if we didn’t have the tracks we would have had to turn around a mile from the summit which would have meant another hour and a half of snow and then 3 hours of rain…the other 16 people had to hole up in a shelter for half an hour at the tree line and got soaked the whole way back down. That probably wouldn’t have been good and I don’t know how well me and the other guy who had played sports the day before would have done having to trek another 12 miles back. At the summit we sat down and got some hot chocolate, they had free refills which was amazing and also tried to dry our shoes and socks out with the hand driers in the bathroom, but to little success. From there we had to figure out how to get down the mountain. The original plan was to get a friend to drive up and pick us up or hitch hike, but the roads were closed so really the only options were the train, which cost 16 bucks, or walking which was impossible at this point, visibility outside was 20 ft and snow was coming sideways instead of down. So we had to figure out if we had enough money to pay to take the train. During this whole dilemma the some ladies who were sitting behind us asked if we needed some help getting down, they offered to put money in our pool if we needed. We told them we would probably be ok and talked with them a while about being with the Navs and about our hike and stuff. Before the ladies left one of them handed us $80. She said she really liked the Navs and even though we told her that we did have enough money, wanted us to have it anyway. So it paid exactly for all 5 of us to get down the mountain. Looking back at the day I’d say God really revealed himself in several ways first in the fact that he provided a guide to lead us up the mountain, in the fact that we made it despite 6 inches of snow by the time we reached the summit, lightning, and hail, that he provided a way down free of charge, and that He provided the strength and will to make it the whole way up. Its amazing how God even uses free days to teach amazing lessons about his faithfulness. It was definitely an experience I won’t forget.
I’m really happy that Andy is learning so much. He wrote a really long email, but this story stuck out to me. I really miss the crazy Asian. It’ll be good to see him in August.
