Aches and Pains

Due to the physical nature of my job as an electrical engineer, the bumps and bruises are starting to pile up for me. Well actually, it's more from playing ball and lifting, but anyways, my body has been feeling beat up lately.

I've had this twinge in my elbow that I feel every once in a while when I shoot a basketball. A nagging pain in my collarbone that acts up whenever I lift something heavy, so I haven't been able to work out in weeks. Rolled my ankle playing ball this weekend, which had me limping around like a cripple for a couple days. And whenever I sleep funny, I wake up with a stiff neck and/or a sore back for a day or two.

In a lot of ways I feel like my car. A few years ago I was brand new, at the top of my game. Once in a while I'd get a minor scratch, or a bird would crap on me, but nothing that a little washing and Z5 polish couldn't take care of. But eventually, the scratches started getting deeper. Dents and dings started appearing out of nowhere. Overall, I'm still capable of high performance, but signs of age are becoming apparent. And you know these things aren't going away anytime soon.

The only difference between me and my car is, I use more expensive towels to wash and dry my car.

*****

If any of you use the internet to get driving directions and look up maps, might I recommend you check out Google Maps at least once. Specifically, type in your destination and origin, and click on the "Satellite" view. It's pretty cool, they use the pictures taken from space and zoom in on your route from above.

At the same time, it's a little scary to think that the government (or whoever it is that runs these satellites) has a pretty clear view of anything people do outdoors. Google doesn't let you zoom in all the way, but I heard that these satellite photos are capable of seeing license plate numbers at their highest resolution. Beware of Big Brother!

It's Time

I've put it off for too long. It's been 3 years since I graduated college, 2 and a half since I started working. And now, finally, I have decided to start looking for a house. A place to call my own.

Haven't worked out all the details yet, but basically my goal is to close on a place within 2-3 months from now. I think I'm shooting for a townhouse that's within 10 minutes of where I work.

I guess I've been feeling the push to become a homeowner for a while now, only I always procrastinated and tried to avoid the responsibility. When I first moved in with Brian at the townhouse in P-tine, my plan was to live here for 6 months to a year before looking for my own place. Obviously, that didn't happen.

All along though, I knew it was the next major step for me to take in my life. It's dumb, but for the past few years I avoided putting my savings in any long term investments, because I figured I would need as much cash on hand for a down payment as possible. Before I knew it, I'd piled up a pretty significant chunk of money in my checking account that was just sitting there, unused and earning no interest.

It wasn't until I did my taxes last week that I forced myself to think more seriously about where I am in life, financially, career wise, and perhaps more importantly, maturity wise. I'm one of those people who takes forever when it comes to making big decisions. It's not that I fear responsibility, but sometimes I want to know exactly what I'm getting myself into, and what's going to happen, whether that's reasonable to expect or not.

In this case, I've waited long enough and it's become pretty clear to me that now is the time. I'm 25, my job seems pretty stable, and I think I've saved enough money for a decent down payment. So no more excuses.... time to find me a house.

*****

Unrelated note: After going through all the pictures I saved on my computer throughout this past season, and a few I took of my own, I decided to make a little slideshow of them to remember this team by. I've already emailed it out to some of you out there, a privileged few who I thought might like it, but it is a big file (10 MB) and some of your email addresses have bounced back with errors. Also I tried to avoid sending to anybody's work email address. So if any of you guys didn't receive my original message, but are still interested to see my little project, let me know and I'll figure out another way to get it to you (Illini fans only). It's nothing spectacular, but I thought people who followed this team might enjoy watching it as I enjoyed making it.

For the second time in less than 2 weeks, Illinois and North Carolina both made it to the Final Four, and North Carolina came in 1st. Except this time, instead of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, it was the Miss USA competition. Same difference I guess. We all thought the Illini were the "team of destiny" this year, but looks like North Carolina was the "state of destiny" all along. Those a-holes.

Speaking of pageants, I read this story in the news last week about some lady who won a pageant for the disabled, but was later disqualified because she wasn't "disabled enough". Apparently she was seen walking without a wheelchair and someone decided to strip her of her title. Even though she had muscular dystrophy, could only walk for short distances occasionally, and had a heavy limp when she did walk. The runner up refused to accept the title out of protest on behalf of that lady. What a messed up story.

Thanks to recommendations from Rich and also da Goods, I bitTorrenttified myself some episodes of South Park and The Office. I didn't know how fast those guys who make South Park can pump out an episode, they already had one making fun of the Terri Schiavo stuff that was going on in the news the past few weeks. As for The Office, some people told me it was hilarious so I decided to watch a couple episodes. It was pretty funny, everytime I see the boss, I think of when he played the retarded guy in Anchorman.

(By the way Anuj if you need help setting up bitTorrent call me or email me. I *might* be able to help.)

Monday was the first time I have seen the show "Stump the Schwab" on ESPN. Couldn't believe how much that guy knows about sports trivia. I don't think I could ever do what he does, even if I spent all day every day watching games, catching every showing of Sportscenter, and studying sports almanacs. Either way, it's fun watching him dominate all the contestants and make them look silly.

Britney Spears is pregnant.

A Return to Normalcy

Now that a couple more days have passed since the college basketball season came to an end, I realized that while losing the NC game was sad, a much sadder thought is that Monday was the last time we will ever get to see Luther, Jack Jack, Roger, and probably Deron play. I'll even miss Nick Smith, a little.

Other schools can have their top recruits who play for one year jump to the NBA, but I honestly don't want that for the Illini. Thinking about how we fun it was to watch these guys develop as a team for the past few years, and then see the success they had this season, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Anyways, I think I'm finally done talking or thinking about college ball, until next season is in sight. It's time to move on. The last few weeks I have done pretty much nothing outside of eat, sleep, work, and think about or watch the tournament, so as you might imagine, there are things I need to catch up on.

First order of business is definitely to do my taxes (I know, they're due in less than a week). I gotta figure out whether I should try one of those programs, or just do it by hand like I've done the past couple years. People have told me TurboTax is a great program, but I guess I've never really understood the need for a program. Maybe if I had more deductions, had more investments and assets, owned a house, then I would understand. But so far it's been pretty straightforward for me, either use the 1040EZ or the 1040 and the directions seem to make sense. So the hard part is getting all my documents together and just finding some time to do it without interruption.

I heard Britney Spears and her husband are going to be in a reality series on UPN. Sounds interesting. Never thought I'd say this, but I think she should just go away and retire from the public. Did anyone else know that she has a new song and video out on MTV? I didn't know until I saw it a week or two ago. Take my word for it, the song is pretty terrible.

It's weird when I see the MLB scoreboard this season and all of a sudden there's a team called the Nationals. I mean, I knew it was happening since the move was announced last year, but still I get a little confused.

I received and replied to my first ever wedding invitation this week.

I finally figured out how to set up and use BitTorrent on my computer, but I don't know many sites that have good stuff for me to download. Anyone who has recommendations for me is encouraged to share.

TBS has been showing Road Trip a lot lately. Yet another movie that makes me miss college. Whatever happened to Tom Green? "My bum is on the Sweee-dish...."

Been listening to the Killers album a lot lately and I like it.

Hate to say it, but it's pretty clear Shingo Takatsu is not gonna last very long this year.

And finally, a coworker sent me some jokes about engineers which were somewhat depressing and disturbing to me because they are surprisingly close to the truth. Here are a few of them:

1. To the optimist, the glass is "half-full". To the pessimist, the glass is "half-empty". But to the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

2. A pastor, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting 15 minutes!"

The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"

The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greenskeeper. Let's have a word with him -- Hey George, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greenskeeper replied, "Oh yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

The group was silent for a moment. Then the pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my opthamologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

3. An engineer was crossing the road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."

The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it, and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want."

Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it, and put it back in his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter with you? I told you I'm a beautiful princess, and that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The engineer replied, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

Illini 2004-05

With last night's loss in the National Championship game to North Carolina, the 2004-05 season officially came to an end. A look back at this season follows.

In my mind, the story of this team actually started way back in 2003. At the time, Dee Brown and Deron Williams were freshmen with bright futures ahead of them. Brian Cook was graduating, but one of the country's top high school players, Charlie Villenueva, had verbally committed to our school for the next season. We also had underclassmen by the names of Luther Head, Roger Powell, and James Augustine who were developing into fine players as well. This was a team on the rise, poised to do great things in its future.

Unfortunately, that season was cut short when the team lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament to Notre Dame. It was a painful loss, no doubt, but that would soon be worsened when our coach, Bill Self, decided to leave Illinois and take the position at Kansas. To make matters worse, Charlie V decided to take that opportunity to change his mind and leave us for UConn.

Meanwhile, our existing players undoubtedly felt abandoned by their coach's sudden departure. This "team on the rise" was replaced by a team that was lost, confused, and in complete disarray. This was the team that Bruce Weber inherited when he took over as the new head coach of Illinois basketball.

It wasn't long before things started to unravel for Coach Weber. Off the court, he had to deal with Luther Head's multiple brushes with the law. On the court, he had to deal with a team that was generally reluctant (if not wholly unwilling) to learn the things he was trying to teach. Things got especially bad when we got blown out by Providence, and then got even worse with embarrassing losses to Purdue at home and at Northwestern.

The lone bright spot in the midst of all this was the emergence of Deron Williams as a bonafide star. While the rest of the team was struggling, Deron was making giant strides and significant improvements to his game under Weber's coaching.

Perhaps it was Deron's success that finally convinced the rest of the team to accept Bruce Weber as their coach. Or maybe it was the humbling losses to Providence, Purdue, and Northwestern that woke them up. Maybe Weber's "funeral for Bill Self" was the real clincher, who knows?

Whatever it was, at some point during the 2003-04 season, Dee Brown, James Augustine, Luther Head, and the rest of the crew finally came around and embraced their new coach. And the results were a thing of beauty. The rejuvenated Illini closed out Big Ten schedule with a 10 game winning streak, then made it to the final game of the Big Ten Tournament before losing to Devin Harris and the Wisconsin Badgers. We then made an impressive showing in the NCAA tournament, blowing out Cincinnati to make the Sweet Sixteen before losing to a Duke team that was loaded with NBA talent (actually, isn't that phrase redundant by now?).

When the 2004-05 season started last fall, the team merely picked up where it left off, returning all 5 starters. We beat a few scrub teams to warm up, then in our first game against a respectable team, dominated Gonzaga. That game was immediately followed by a showdown against the (then) #1 team in the nation, Wake Forest.

In a season full of highlights, that Wake Forest game was definitely one of the best memories for me. I remember feeling so hyped for the game all day, and finally turning on ESPN's broadcast to see Assembly Hall draped in a sea of orange. Then the game started and the Illini put on a show for the nation. Fast breaks and a barrage of 3-pointers pretty much put the game out of reach by halftime, and we just coasted from there.

After beating Wake, the national polls placed us at #1, but we still had doubters. As the season went along, we continued to roll, but that didn't stop the naysayers. Dick Vitale insisted that Kansas was better than us. Digger Phelps said we couldn't win on the road against a good team, and predicted we would lose to Wisconsin and Michigan State. Other analysts pointed to our lack of inside presence, and believed North Carolina was better (more on this later).

It didn't matter. We kept winning, whether it was at home, on the road, neutral site, whatever. We ended Wisconsin's long home winning streak when Jack Ingram brought us back with 2 huge threes in the second half, then took down Michigan State at Breslin when we made something like 12 shots in a row. Soon, the thought of an undefeated season crept into our minds as the wins piled up.

Still, the media kept talking us down. The Big Ten was down, they said. Illinois needs to lose a game before the tournament to refocus, they claimed. The Illini are this year's St. Joe's and Stanford, due to go down early in the tournament, people predicted.

Eventually, we did lose a game, this coming in the final moments of the regular season at Ohio State. In the grand scheme of things, the details of that loss are quite inconsequential, but I dedicated a previous entry to it nonetheless. See here.

The weeks following the Ohio State game up until today feel like a blur of basketball, beer, blue and orange. First came the Big Ten Tournament at the United Center, which was my first chance to see this team in person. After beating Northwestern in the first game, Coach Weber's mom died, bringing a somber tone to the following game against Minnesota. The predominantly Illini crowd at the UC gave Bruce a standing ovation when he was introduced, and there was a moment of silence for Dawn Weber, which was nice, but there was still a game to be played. The Illini went on to beat Minnesota, and then Wisconsin the next day to win the tournament.

Watching the team and coaches celebrate by cutting down the nets was a great moment as a fan, but it was only a precursor to the things to come. The real tournament was coming the following Thursday in Indy, where I was once again able to watch the team play live. For details of the trip see here. As far as the games went, nothing too spectacular happened but the Illini took care of business so it was all good.

The next challenge was an interesting one, with a matchup against Illini Nation's enemy #1, Bruce Pearl. I wasn't able to go to the game, but again, it was all good as the team got a victory that night and moved on to the Elite Eight against Arizona. I had decided to get tickets with Andy and Scott, splitting the Thursday/Saturday sessions at Allstate with Andy.

So Saturday was my turn to go, and what happened at this game ended up being one of the most incredible and memorable sports experiences of my life. With a trip to the Final Four at stake, the Illini took the floor to face a hot Arizona team featuring the best shooter in the country, Salim Stoudamire.

The game went back and forth for 30 minutes before Arizona went on a run and took a 15 point lead. With 4 minutes left in the game, the score was 75-60 and things looked very very bleak, to say the least. Other than Stoudamire, we weren't stopping anyone on defense, especially Channing Frye and Hassan Adams, and on offense our guys looked tired and tentative. As I sat there watching my team get blown out on essentially our home court, thoughts started running through my mind about our great season coming to an end and falling short of the Final Four.

Then, we hit a couple threes, get a couple steals, and before I know it, we're back in the game. All the while, I'm completely stunned that we even have a chance to win the game. But when it was 80-77 and Deron hit a three to tie it from the top of the key, I couldn't help but jump up with the erupting crowd at that exhilirating moment. A few minutes and a lot more heartstopping plays in overtime later, we came away with a victory. Off to St. Louis!

When it was over, I was speechless in amazement at what just happened. It was easily the best game I have ever seen, and made that much more special because 1) the season and a trip to the Final Four were on the line and 2) I was there to witness it in person. Even more gratifying was watching the team and coaches cut down the nets after the game, with an all-orange crowd still buzzing about the win and cheering them on.

Honestly, after the Arizona game, and making to St. Louis, I felt like I was "playing with house money", for the next week it was like I was walking on clouds. It was weird, before the next game against Louisville, I almost didn't care if we won or lost, because of everything the team had already accomplished and all the joy it brought to me as a fan to watch it.

Of course, I still did want to see them go on and win the championship, and finish one of the greatest seasons of all time with a bang. I watched them beat Louisville pretty handily, setting up a showdown with the team everyone thought was more talented than us all year, UNC, which looked pretty impressive in dismantling Michigan State.

So the whole season came down to this one game. The beauty of college basketball, and the NCAA tournament. There's plenty of articles today about the game so I won't go into all the gory details, but suffice to say it was a tough loss for the Illini and Illini fans. We missed a lot of shots we normally make, but North Carolina earned the win. In the end, they just had too much firepower and we came up just short.

Did the game prove all the analysts right, when they talked about the Tarheels being better all year? Maybe, but I don't know if you can say that from one game. Not saying they are or aren't, but again, if we just hit one of those open threes near the end of the game, it's a whole different story. Roy Williams himself said something after the game like "if we played them 10 times, who knows what would happen?".

Did Sean May's dominance prove the analysts right, when they said we had no inside presence? Again, I don't think that was proven in this game. I doubt any NCAA team could have stopped Sean May last night, or the past few games for that matter. There were some shots he made that were just sick, you gotta just give him credit for being a monster on the floor.

Anyways, those are debates for another day. No sour grapes here in losing, the fact is that UNC beat us fair and square last night and they deserve to be the champions after that game.

As for us Illini fans, it was a fantastic run and by far the most enjoyable season I have ever experienced with any of the teams I root for. Not winning the championship will hurt for a while, but I can't be unhappy with all the great things about this season that I'll remember for the rest of my life. The last game may have been disappointing, but the season as a whole definitely was not. Just in writing this blog and recalling all the memories I went through with the team, makes me realize how lucky I was to even be a fan of the Illini throughout this historic season.