Quick update

So its been quite some time since my last entry but things have been somewhat busy I guess you can say. The weekend of 9/12-14th was a fun weekend. We had a tournament at our gym that weekend and played 3 games. Although we lost all three I was satified with our performance for the most part. I left straight from my game on Saturday to go to Mexican night!! We held it over my friends Micah and Jessica's place and had a lot of people over to just hang out. We had taco's, margaritas, and other mexican specialty's so we all had a really good time. I love mexican food and whenever I get a chance to get some I'm all over it. Last week was pretty good and I am continuing to try and stay on task and do what I need to do on and off the court. I've been hitting the weight room and trying to get a little cardio in as well. I HATE cardio but I know its needed so I do it anyway. I'vd really gotta set myself up a plan and go with it while Im in there because right now Im just winging it which is not good. I am trying to put together the perfect workout for me because I know what exercises feel good to me and which ones feel like they are doing nothing for me. Now I've just got to put all those together and do it. Gotta go now but Ill update shortly....

From Good to bad in one Weekend

Let's see where do I start?? This weekend was a pretty long weekend that had some good and bad parts involved but all in all I'm just glad it's over. Starting on Friday my teammate Tim Giver and his wife Katie had their wedding here in Luxembourg. The main part of the wedding was just for close family so we weren't invited to that part but the reception was afterwards at 5:45. The reception was held at this beautiful castle called Bourglinster. Here in Luxembourg they have a lot of castles that date back to the 1200's and before so its really cool to be able to go inside of these historic places and experience somewhat what they experienced back then. This particular castle is only used for special events. They drove up in this fancy older sporty looking car and then the fun began.(Pictured above) Once we walked in we were greeted by the waiters with glasses of champagne and fancy little snacks. Everyone was gathered in one area and we just mingled with each other and sipped on champagne. That lasted for about two and a half hours or so and then the dinner portion of the night began. The crowd was once again cut down to a select few since everyone wasn't invited to dinner but luckily I was included in that group. I was at the wedding with my friend Elizabeth since neither of us wanted to go by ourselves and she too was invited to dinner. Dinner was extra fancy but unlike many fancy dinners the food was still really good. We had a 6 course dinner yes you read correctly six course. It took us about 3 or 4 hours to finish everything which was pretty long but that's the way things are done here. We had a fancy dessert that was really good and that I'd never had before so that was a good experience.(Pictured) As the night went on the DJ was playing some really dull music so not to many people were getting out on the dance floor. After a while I'm not sure if someone said something to him but the music got better and sure enough I had to get out there and show my stuff!! That was the most fun part of the night when everyone started getting out there on the floor and just letting it all out. The first part can always be a little tough for me because I am always subconsciously thinking people are looking at me and laughing because there is this big black guy out dancing but after I get in the mood I could care less. Thankfully my fears were put to rest when I began to get compliments on my dancing. Who knew?? I love dancing and wish I could dance like the people I see on TV but I'm not to sure that will ever happen. I like to think that I have pretty good rhythm and good coordination which is really all you need to look good on the dance floor even if you are making stuff up as you go. After hours of dancing I'm sweating like an animal and must take a break. Around 3am things began to wrap up and I had to get home because we were leaving for a basketball tournament in Graveline, France the next day. We left at 12pm and it took us around 4 1/2 hours to get there. We traveled on a mini bus which was all we needed because we were missing about 4 0r 5 of our guys because they were not able to make it. I knew this weekend would be pretty tough because we were playing teams that are in higher leagues than us and we were missing 3 out of 5 of our starting 5 and were playing with a lot of young guys on my team. Nevertheless, we still went out and played our best for all 3 games even though we lost them all. We didn't get beat nearly as bad as some of my teammates thought we were going to and in the end I think it was good experience for some of the guys who don't normally get much playing time. It also allowed me to put more confidence in my teammates as I had to rely on them a little more since I didn't have the normal go to guys I usually have. On Saturday night I literally got 1 hour of sleep because I could not sleep on these small beds they had us in and the next day I felt it. My body was in pain the whole day and I had to play through that pain for two games but after the last game I was just excited to be able to head home and be able to sleep on the way back. Well my plans were put to rest because on the way back everything was going as planned but the whole weekend it had been raining really bad. On the highway a car hydroplaned in front of us, slammed into the median, and we had no choice but to hit him. The whole bus was sleep at the time but as the brakes were slammed on everyone woke up and many were able to catch the end of the accident. Thankfully no one was seriously injured but it took forever for the whole thing to get cleared up. The police took like an hour to get there than we had to go somewhere off the highway to try and figure whose fault it was which they never revealed. Then we find out that our bus is no longer drivable and we have to find a way to get everyone home. My coach drove separate than us and so did another representative from our team so we somehow squeezed everyone in those cars except for two people who had to wait until a wrecker arrived from Luxembourg which was 2 and a half hours away. Needless to say that night sucked. Finally we arrived back in Lux 5 hours after the planned time, still with no sleep, and body aching to no end. I slumped over in bed and slept until I could sleep no more. Good thing coach canceled Monday practice so we could try and recoup a little bit. Well that was my weekend, the good and the bad, but a new week has begun and who knows whats going on this week. We should have some pretty good weather this week so maybe Ill try and take advantage of that we will see. Well that is all for now but stayed tuned for more coming soooooooon....................

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry its been sometime since my last entry but nevertheless here it is. So whats been happening since my last post?? Honestly, nothing super exciting has happened but it was a pretty good week anyway. Last week began my journey of trying to eat somewhat healthy and not just eating frozen pizzas, mettwurst's, bratwurst's, and the other unhealthy things. Don't get me wrong now those things are still in my refridgerator they just aren't used as frequently thats all. I went to the grocery store and racked up on salad making materials and other healthy foods to stock the fridge and realized its going to take a little more work to prepare my food than normal. I'm used to turning the oven on, throwing a pizza in, waiting for 15 minutes and boom its time to eat! Now to prepare a salad I have to cut the tomatoes, carrott's, peppers, eggs, and so on up and I even have to make the salad dressing! It's normal over here to make your own salad dressing rather than buying it in a bottle. They don't sell to many bottled dressings first of all and you would be better off making your own anyway. Its also heathier. I had some old ranch in my fridge from the states that had been there since last year and I just decided to throw away because they turned my fridge off while I was gone so I wasn't sure that stuff was still good. Also, it doesn't make much sense to me to make a healthy salad and top it off with unhealthy ranch dressing although it does taste good. Well we will see how long this health binge lasts!

Basketball is going well and my team had a scrimmage game in Belgium this past weekend. I know I'm supposed to always think the best but I admit that I went into the game thinking we were going to lose badly since the Belgium league is normally pretty strong. We played a second division team from Belgium and to my astonishment my team played really well! The other team was bigger than we were and had some pretty deadly shooters but in the end we held our own if not better. We ended up finishing the game with a tie. The opposing team was down by 3 points with 4 seconds to go and they hit a three to tie it up at the end of regulation. Unfortunately I'd fouled out about a minute and a half before and could only watch from the sideline. The other team decided they didn't feel like playing an overtime and we ended it there since it was only a practice game anyway. This weekend we have a tournament in France where we will be playing some first league teams and France's league is one of the tops in Europe so it will be extremely hard for us to compete with them not to mention we will be missing three of our startes for the tournament. It will be good exercise maybe to good and definitely a challenge for us but its all in preparation for our season which starts the beginning of October .

Once I returned from Belgium later that night I went to hang out with one of my friends in a spot downtown. That was pretty fun and we stayed out pretty late and I didn't end up getting to sleep until around 5am. I didn't go home since I knew I was going to church the next morning and me driving all the way home just to come back to church right down the street didn't make since to me so I slept on the couch at my friends house. Four and a half hours later my busy day began again. I woke up went straight to church which lasted until about 11:40 or so and had to leave directly after that because my teammate invited me over for lunch at 12:00. I was a little late in arriving but everyone was just sitting around talking and relaxing outside since Sunday was such a beautiful day In Luxembourg. When you have days like that you have to take advantage of them because here in Lux it rains all the time and the weather is always fidgety. We ate outside in the backyard and had a good time and later we decided we would play a little beach volleyball at a court about 15 minutes away. We all got suited up and made our way to the court and what did we see??? Somebody was already there and we couldn't get on until they finished! Well after waiting for 5 minutes we just decided to try and challenge them against us so that we wouldn't have to wait any longer and that worked. At first it was really laid back and the teams were mixed with boys and girls. So one time my teammate set me up and I went and spiked it pretty hard against the other team and the girls started saying stuff like geez we are ladies!! I think they were joking but at the same time I felt kinda bad so I back off a little bit with my spiking and my hard serves. My whole team started to back down and soon after we started losing and the other team seemed like they started playing more serious. Well if anyone knows me they know I hate losing so we had to turn it on again and no holds barred. We too had a girl on our team so they couldn't make any excuses. After a while both teams were playing hard and it was a lot of fun and in the end we won. We talked to them after afterwards and introduced ourselves and just chit chatted for a while before I realized I had to leave once again for the next part of my day....Poker. I jumped in the car and headed to the other side of town to join a poker game which had already started and I was late to but had them just post my blinds until I made it. I got there in time enough where no major damage had been done. I was playing pretty good until I went all in one time with Ace King and a guy called me with a pair of sixes. I wasn't to nervous until one of the guys that was playing folded and showed me he had one of the aces that I needed. Well without having to say anymore I lost and I left there going home finally around 9:30 that night. Ahhhh finally able to relax and take it easy for a while only to realize I dont have any clothes and have to wash. I don't know I guess thats part of life.

Right now Im headed to practice and have to cut this entry short but Ill try and keep you guys updated on anything thats happening. Sorry no deep thoughts for this entry but maybe next time who knows?? Well until then................