Suzanne and I each had extended gift-wrapping sessions today. Autumn couldn’t help but be a curious and mischievous kitty all throughout. So it wasn’t surprising that her busy day ended up with her curled up amongst the new landscape.
Well, my hopes for a 1-1 road trip against two of last year’s Final Four were dashed this afternoon. The Aggies lost 65-62, but blew a chance to tie the game in the final minute.
This was the first ever regular season network appearance for Texas A&M in basketball. That’s astounding, but just shows that basketball has historically not been the focus for our athletics program. The fact that they were there is a testament to how far Billy Gillispie has advanced the program. I don’t know how long he will stay, but it will be fun to follow his career; the guy can coach.
That said, there were lots of mistakes today. As I said Tuesday night, the defense is pretty much ready to roll. The offense once again seemed discombobulated. At times, dribbling seemed to be difficult today. For whatever reason, they had a tough time getting it into their big men down low. I’m not quite sure why that was, but good teams will definitely do that to you. At this point, my biggest concern is guard play. Law has been inconsistent. And leadership and decision-making at the point seems to be lacking.
But for all of those short-comings, this is a team that should show well through the regular season and do quite a lot in March. I believe its really early to assess how good this team can really be. I know that they are nowhere near as sharp as they were last year. Hopefully, these two games, though losses, will help them later in the season in terms of strength of schedule and maturity.
And now to conference games…
Thanks to the FSSW network, the A&M vs. LSU game was available in its entirety last night. This was the first opportunity I’ve had to watch my team play. Unfortunately, the results was a disappointing 12 point loss.
My observations:
And so my hopes for a 1-1 road trip now rest on a victory at #1 UCLA on Saturday. Suffice it to say that I won’t be relying on this game to make my weekend. Let’s just keep it close, boys!
Google Earth has updated their Kauai satellite detail to the extent that we can now see the little beach peninsula where we got married. The aerial view of the surf pattern is amazing!
The latitude and longitude coordinates are listed in the post title in case you want to surf there in Google Earth for yourself. This discovery was made tonight as we are officially hearing the island call to us. Photos and aerial views are nothing like being there, but fun nevertheless.
My lovely wife gave me the gift of 10 sessions with a personal trainer for my birthday. I’ve now completed those 10 sessions and have some positive results to report.
First, let me say that I was a bit fearful of this experience because I’ve never had someone control my workout. I’ve managed to get myself in pretty good shape on my own, but always knew that I didn’t work out particularly hard. When you work with a trainer, you pretty much submit yourself to their plan an philosophy. In my case, this means not taking too many overly long breaks. The goal is to get some aerobic benefits from the workout as well.
I must say that after many workouts, I was pretty whipped. Its amazing what you can do in an hour. In reflection, you can look at it and wonder what was so hard. Its the absence of breaks and the better technique, I think. Though I’m only working out for an hour, its an optimized hour. Curiously, the amount of weight in my reps is not as high as I have done on my own.
So what have my results been? A loss of only 2 lbs so far. However, a loss of close to 5% of body fat which translates into a probable loss of 10 lbs of body fat. Don’t do the math on that or you’ll know just how puffy I have become. My legs, well known as my best feature, have actually shrunk in size; what little fat I carried there is for the most part gone. My waist and my mid-section are down and inch respectively. My chest has increased in size about 3/4″.
To me, these results are quite remarkable given how poorly I’ve managed my diet in the past two weeks. With a more disciplined diet, I am quite sure that the next round of results has great potential. However, the Holidays are a terrible time to tighten the diet. Wish me luck!
Its a great time to be an Aggie alum. The football team earned a spot in the Sun Bowl on December 28th against California. By my estimation, that’s a much better Bowl Game than Texas received. Texas gets to drive 60 miles to San Antonio to play in the Alamo Bowl. So sad for them.
But I may be burying the lead. The Aggie basketball team is ranked 6th this week! Last week they were ranked 9th which was their highest ranking since 1959. They are ranked higher this week than traditional basketball powers like Duke, Connecticut, and Kansas. And higher than last year’s National Champion Florida.
Tuesday night they visit #11 LSU and then four days later they visit #1 UCLA. These are the first two road games of their season, so its hard to tell how they will play. This is truly trial by fire as you could not schedule a more brutal back-to-back couple of teams and environments. I’m hoping for one victory, but would be delighted with two. If they get two, I will be absolutely beside myself and be looking for a #1 ranking.
