Class Reunion

I haven't been updating due to being back in Memphis working on the Hiplate...this is Phase 7 for those that followed my previous posts recapping my experience with the project. However this past weekend I was able to attend my 10 year high school class reunion. It was a weekend full of travel but I think it was worth it. Friday night I flew from Memphis to Detroit, drove to Ann Arbor, picked up my wife, and then drove up to Pigeon. Saturday my parents and I were able to take Dem to the Farmer's Festival so she could experience some more of Pigeon...it was a lot of fun. Then that evening I went to my reunion, which was a lot of fun. It was nice getting to see and catch up with old friends. I really like my class and wish I could have talked with more people, but a little is better than none. After the reunion Dem and I went and watch the Pigeon fireworks with my parents, had a drink at the Pigeon beer tent, and got a little sleep. Sunday was church, a drive back to Ann Arbor, a little relaxing at home, few hours of sleep, and then right back on a plane to Memphis.

High School Sports

I showed a couple clips from my high school sports awhile ago, but what I really wanted to find was the only clip I have of me on the news...I think I was on it at least three times but only got a tape of it once. Sadly my copy got eaten by the machine when I went to digitize it...but luck would be on my side and my parents had a copy of it. So everyone can breath easy knowing that you are going to get to see this famous clip.

Also on that same tape was some video taken by my uncle Gerald at a track meet of mine in Bad Axe (I love Pigeon but Bad Axe is a great name for a town). I had a copy of this but it too was consumed by the hungry, hungry VCR at Michigan. The meet certainly wasn't my greatest showing since its clear from what non-competing people are wearing and the flags blowing it was very cold and windy. However, I'm still glad I have some footage of me competing in high jump, discuss, and sprint relays (this much have been junior year because I was slow). I'll share the clip of me clearing 6ft in high jump...it illustrates a few very typical things about when I jumped; (1) I had no form or method on my approach, (2) I often would restart my jump because it didn't "feel" right, (3) I would only restart once and jump no matter what on the second attempt, (4) always missed once or twice at a height, and (5) I usually made it on my third attempt at heights up to 6ft.

1999 Coming Home Game

I needed to take a break from the family home videos since I am currently in the Berne 4th of July program part of the tape. There is some great moments in there, but it's kind of long and after awhile of watching it (with no audio) you get kind of bored. So today I decided to spent some more time on my high school sports stuff. I'm not digitizing too much of the tape because if its lost it isn't the end of the world for me, but I did keep some highlights from our Coming Home Pep Rally. Highlights included the "pep talk" given by our point guard (lets just say he was better know for his basketball skills then his speeches), the dunk competition (highlights below), and interviews by my couch and myself before the big game (also below).

The first video shows the highlights from the 1999 Laker Dunk Competition, which I actually won...though competition wasn't exactly super strong. You maybe able to guess this from the highlights consisting of a kid jumping off another's back to dunk and me dunking while still in jeans.

Another gem that I found on the tape are these interviews of my coach and I before the big game. I think as much hype as can be generated for a Thumb high school basketball game was created for this game. We were playing a top 10 team in the state for our Coming Home game (its like Homecoming for basketball...for those that have never heard of it before) and from what the old folks around Laker country say it was the second largest attendance in memory. They had these interviews with all the seniors on our team and our junior point guard, which basically they are all as sweet as my interview.

Old Glory Days

In the digitizing of the family videos I've finally got to my sports television debut. At that point in my life baseball was the best sport in my mind and played all the time. I also sported some pretty sweet Tigers wrist bands and a Tigers t-shirt (I believe that shirt is now a rag somewhere). In the video I struggled with the starting pitcher (mom), but when the relief pitcher (dad) came in to the finish the game I had more success.

However in the closing moments of the game a similar play occurred, but this time dad made a heroic effort and got me out at the plate...though I did make a strong case that the tie goes to the runner.

I've also begun work on some of my sports tapes. They are actually in much worse shape then the family home video and probably will lose some of the videos. However today I managed to capture a couple highlights from our big game with Reese my senior year. The video below captures my best offense-to-defense sequence (at least that is on tape).

Also from that same game I was able to get the biggest assist of my basketball "career" (I'm using the term career here very loosely...typically career's result in the making of money). Basically the team we were playing was ranked in the top 5 in the state and we weren't ranked at the time. We had been down by like 10 points with about 5 minutes left in the game before we went on a scoring run. If I recall write at the point of this play we were down by one point and after it we never let Reese score again...oh good memories (I'll choose to forget that this same team later breaks our 17 game winning streak).