Recently in Sports Category

We had so much fun going to Rockets games last spring that we ended up buying a 14-game season ticket package for this year. Our friends Meryl and James got the same package and we even got seats right next to each other, so it will be a fun season. Last night was our first game of the season, and Jose has been giddy with anticipation all week.

It was a good game, and the Rockets led most of the way until Kobe Bryant turned into the machine that he is and won the game. (It didn't help that the Rockets couldn't so much as LOOK at him the wrong way without getting called for a foul.) I'm pretty sure the only way to effectively guard Kobe Bryant is to kick him as hard as you can in the shins or hope he breaks an ankle. And neither of those things happened last night.

The Rockets did take it into overtime, and in the end lost by a measly ONE POINT. The most frustrating part is that the Rockets had the ball with 24.7 seconds to go, down a point, and didn't even manage to get off a shot. 24.7 seconds and you can't even attempt a shot? So frustrating.

I think the Rockets are probably a better team this year than we gave them credit for. Without Yao, and yet again with Tracy McGrady, there didn't seem to be a lot of hope that the Rockets could really be competitive against the toughest teams in the West. But after wins against Portland and Utah and a near-win against the Lakers, I'm thinking it may not be a bad season after all. They won't win the championship, but at least they'll be reasonably competitive. They've just got to figure out a way to maintain a high level of play in the closing minutes of the game. Last night at the end, the Lakers marched forward like a well-oiled machine (a well-oiled KOBE machine) while the Rockets just sputtered out.

On the way home, we heard that the Yankees won the World Series. So it wasn't a great day in sports if you root for a team that doesn't have a bazillion dollars and arguably the best player in the game.

Jose has rediscovered his love for the NBA, so we've been going to a lot of games recently. And I've got to admit that I enjoy the games as well.

It reminds me of when I was in the 5th grade, and the Hornets became Charlotte's first professional sports team. The entire city went basketball-crazy -- not exactly a surprising thing in the already basketball-crazy state of North Carolina -- and we watched the Hornets games religiously. One night I even ripped one of my braces brackets off my front tooth while I was wildly cheering with a blanket in my hands. The blanket caught on my braces, since my mouth was wide open cheering, and bam -- we had an 11:30 p.m. emergency meeting at the orthodonist's office.

ANYWAY, I digress.

We went to a half dozen games last year, so a week ago we decided to just buy a 6-game package for the rest of this season. As a bonus, we will now have access to playoff tickets should the Rockets make it there (they're likely to make the first round at least). The games are really fun, and now that we've been to enough games I know all the guys on the team.

My favorite guy on the team is Shane Battier. He's my age, so I remember him from when he was at Duke, who of course played Georgia Tech on a regular basis as part of ACC conference play. With three family members having graduated with degrees from UNC, I know I'm supposed to call his alma mater "Dook" and all that, but hey, my dad went to Duke for a few years too. As a middle schooler, I wanted nothing more than to go to Duke. So I like Duke. And I like UNC. Deal with it.

ANYWAY, I digress again.

I like Shane Battier. He completely shut down Kobe Bryant when the Rockets played the Lakers last spring, which was awesome to watch. Everything I have seen of him in Houston, both on the basketball court and off, indicates that he is both a great basketball player and a great person. But he's more of a defensive player than an offensive guy, which means he doesn't get a whole lot of attention. In fact, the Rockets TV announcers often comment on how his job is to go out every single night and defend the best player on the other team -- not an easy task. That's why it was so cool to see this lengthy article in the New York Times today about Battier, "The No-Stats All-Star."

It might be time for a #31 t-shirt.

Now that it's over, I can safely say that the whole baseball postseason this year was pretty boring. The only series that I found interesting were the Indians-Yankees and Indians-Red Sox. Not coincidentally, those were also the two series that weren't sweeps. Unless it's your team winning, sweeps are boring. There's no mystery, there's no magic, and by the time game four rolls around, the losing team has pretty much given up any hope of actually winning the series and are playing just for pride. Which apparently isn't as motivating. There are 7 postseason series each year; this year, five of them were sweeps. In the last four years, the World Series has gone like this: sweep, sweep, 5 games, sweep.

B-o-r-i-n-g.

As a side note, I also love that ARod and his agent chose yesterday -- in the middle of game 4 -- to announce that he would not exercise his option with the Yankees. And by "love," I mean "hate." What an a-hole thing to do.

I am super sore today after yesterday's half marathon. My hips, and left hip in particular, seem to have taken the worst of the beating. It was a little uncomfortable to even lay on my left side in bed last night -- unfortunate since lying in bed and watching the last inning of the World Series required laying on my left side. I gutted it out ;) but turned the TV off after only a couple minutes of the celebration. I fell asleep instantly, exhausted from getting up so early and not having gotten a nap during the afternoon.

I realized yesterday afternoon while getting a haircut -- I was daydreaming while the woman took tons of time blow-drying my hair, which always looks great, so it's a pity I don't ever have the time or patience to do it myself -- that though I signed up for the 25K on November 11, I am now going to be out of town that weekend. I'm less concerned about losing the money and more concerned about when to reschedule a 15 mile run. I'm heading to Seattle to visit my sister and see her new house, and I really don't want to have to worry about a 15 mile run while I'm on vacation, so the best option seems to be to push the 15-miler back one week and just do it on my own. Less fun that way, and I'll miss getting to see everybody at the race, but at least I won't have to do all the loops of Memorial Drive!

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself at the airport that Jose flies from after he finished a short hour of takeoff and landing practice with his instructor. He's getting very close to taking his final checkride, but with the shuttle mission going on and him working the night shift, he was hesitant to tackle anything new in his sleep-deprived state. Instead, he flew just for some practice. When I drove up, I found him lying in his car watching the planes. He looked so happy that I couldn't help but smile. I joined him and we stood on the edge of the taxiway and watched for almost another hour as planes took off and landed in a sizable gusty crosswind. It was windy, but absolutely gorgeous otherwise. This kind of weather is what makes Houston bearable -- it is so outrageously beautiful outside that it's easy to overlook the fact that you just suffered through six months of hot, humid summer.

This is Mission Control at daybreak. It looks even darker at 4 a.m. Obviously. As I walked in this morning, it occurred to me that I have not seen 3:30 a.m. in quite a long time. Perhaps not since college. And then I was certainly seeing 3:30 a.m. as the end of a day rather than the beginning.

During the last mission, I made fun of Becca because she was working the middle-of-the-night shift and for a week or more, all her blog entries talked about was how tired she was. I suppose I should apologize to her now, because the truth is this: when you're tired, pretty much all you can think about is how tired you are. And how good it would feel to sleep. And how comfy your bed is at home. And how tired you are. Did I mention tired?

I had class last night so I didn't even get home until after 10:00. My best efforts got me in bed by 10:45, but it took a half hour to fall asleep. At 3:00 when my alarm went off, I was surprisingly awake...but that lasted for about 15 minutes. Although I know I'm destined to end up with crappy hours in the future when I start working rendezvous and supporting some part of flight other than ascent, this is the first time I've had to deal with these hours. And after only two days, I can't think about anything but sleep.

Oh, and baseball. I can think about baseball. Speaking of which, why wasn't there a game last night? This post-season schedule seems totally bizarre to me. Have there always been this many off days? I know four of the six series have been sweeps, but it seems like there have been more off days than on days. ESPN.com had a commentary about it today, something about wanting the World Series to start mid-week for ratings. Everything is about ratings. I bet MLB is just loving the prospect of a Cleveland-Colorado World Series. I'm excited about it though. From the start, Rockies-Indians is what I was hoping for. Two underdogs, two teams that haven't seen October in a while. Even Manny says it's no big deal if the Red Sox lose. What a wacky guy.

In summary: I'm tired.

Man. Did the Mets choke or what? A meltdown of epic proportions.

Not that it matters, as I think the National League has little chance in the World Series this year. The entire league is weak. No team won more than 90 games, while each of the four AL teams won 94 or more. I know that's not a huge difference, but it feels big. Or maybe I'm just jaded from watching the NL Central -- aka the worst division in baseball -- all year.

I did take in the final Astros game of the season, and the final game of Craig Biggio's career. The Astros had nothing to play for (except avoiding the 90-loss mark, which happily they did with a 3-0 win), and neither did the Braves, so it turned into solely a celebration of Biggio. Video tributes, standing ovations from the sell-out crowd, flashbulbs popping, and a lap around the stadium slapping hands with the fans. It was pretty cool to see and I'm glad I was there.

He hit a double in the first inning and later scored, raising his career hit total to 3060. He didn't get on base again, but got the loudest cheers when he came to the plate for the last time in the 7th inning. I'm not even a lifelong Astros fan, having adopted the team only after moving to Houston -- but I got a little teary. It's just so cool to see a player who stuck with one team for his entire career leave on his own terms and say goodbye to the fans that have watched him for anywhere from two years to twenty.

Thanks for the memories indeed.

OMG.

We had tickets for tonight's game. But Jen's parents are in town and she has a 4-week-old. Jason had a late sim at work. Jose is on his way to Corpus Christi for the weekend.

I had no one to go to the game with. So I sold our three tickets.

Three people sitting in our seats just saw Craig Biggio go 5-for-6 to not only hit #3000, but also 3001 and 3002. And then Carlos Lee won the game with a walk-off homer. But not just a homer. A walk-off grand slam.

And I sold our tickets.

I can't believe I missed this game.

Mom decided that we needed to do a least one educational/historical activity while she was in town, so yesterday we headed over to see Battleship Texas. It's docked (probably feet deep in silt by this point) right off the Houston Ship Channel and next to the San Jacinto Monument. While I'm sure this area of town was much different years ago when the Battle of San Jacinto took place, it's now devoted solely to making funny-smelling and probably toxic materials. Nothing like going to see a historic landmark nestled amidst chemical plants galore. Anyway.

As we learned, the Battleship Texas became the first memorial battleship museum in the country in 1948. It was commissioned in 1914 was, at that time, the most powerful weapon in the world. It saw action in both world wars, even though it was a pretty old ship by 1945, and was part of D-Day, as well as the battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Only one person was ever killed in battle onboard, and the ship was surprisingly unscathed in both wars. It was decommissioned right after WWII and had been scheduled for use as target practice, but the people of Texas managed to buy the ship and bring it here in 1948.

It was a cool ship, and fun to visit. The big disappointment was that the engine room was closed -- the engines are National Engineering Historic Landmarks and we wanted to see them. But the rest of the ship was cool enough. A couple of the anti-aircraft guns on the deck still move, so Jose and I had a lot of fun aiming the gun and shouting things like "fire in the hole." Enjoy the photos...

I'm not sure that I can take much more of the Astros. Last night's game, though they managed to eke out a win, was the perfect example of the exercise in futility that their season has become. After losing the first two games of the series, they were up 7-3 in the 8th inning. But Rick White and Dan Wheeler each gave up 2 runs, and the game was tied. In the top of the 9th, the Astros somehow managed to score another 2 runs to make it 9-7 -- which Dan Wheeler promptly ruined again as he was inexplicably left in the game and gave up 2 solo home runs. The Astros somehow managed to score another 3 runs in the 10th to make it 12-9, and finally the bullpen was able to hold onto a lead to win the game. The worst part? Dan Wheeler got the win. The win! He got a blown save, and a win. What a chump.

After Biggio gets hit # 3000, I'm not sure how much more there will be to see this season.

I didn't look at the news all day, so I didn't find out until right now, when J told me that Andy Pettitte resigned with the Yankees because, reportedly, the Astros wouldn't offer $14 million to counter the Yankees' $16 million offer.

AAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHH and SIGH.

Admission time: my preparation for the half marathon (in five weeks) has sucked. My longest run is the slow 11-miler I did with June and Erica a month ago. Other than that, my longest run is a 10K, and my most recent long run was the 8.33K I did at the 25K relay almost three weeks ago.

The 11-miler was done at a slower pace than my normal long run pace. The 5-6 milers were done at what would be a great race pace for me, but I've got to be able to maintain it longer.

So my dilemma is as follows: how the heck to do I effectively prepare to cover the distance in anything less than 2:30 in five weeks, while also accounting for the fact that I can be quite the lazy one when it comes to motivating myself to get out the door, and for the fact that life is busy?

Comments and suggestions more than welcome.

In the meantime, everybody cross your fingers that we get some good weather at Cape Canaveral tonight! I've been working like crazy for the past couple days following Marc around and doing everything he does, but if the weather doesn't cooperate, we don't go. And at the moment, the weather's not looking great for a shuttle launch...

All season, there was too little. For the last two weeks, it was too late. Cardinals look to win the division by 1.5 games. Season over for the Astros. The worst part is that they beat themselves today with errors; the game should have been tied 1-1 in the 9th! And leaving 12 men on base -- UGH.

I can't really say the Astros deserved it. In fact, the entire NL Central is pretty mediocre. The Cardinals won the division with a record of 83-78. Only 5 games over .500? That usually does not equal a division win.

Still, the season has ended for my team. And that is sadness.