No Pain, No Gain........

Throughout my career I have been fortunate to not suffer from any major injuries (knock on wood) that took me out of a lot of games. In college I never sprained an ankle, I had a nagging plantar faciitis in my right foot, my sophomore year I had off season surgery but never missed a game. For some reason this year I had a few minor injuries that put me out of commission. Once I got over one injury another always seemed to follow. Here is a few pictures of the injuries I suffered this season. As my dad used to say "No pain, no gain"....

The first of the injuries, a broken nose....

Two elbows in one game. ER knew my first name....

Sprained ligaments in hand...

Second degree ankle sprain. Some of the bruising is from Meso Therapy.

I also suffered a calf pull in my left calf that sidelined me for a couple games. This year was a first for me, I've never had so many minor injuries in a season but in the end we won a championship. I just had to build my pain tolerance up to get there.....

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud

NFA

I love you Pops!

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud

Happy Mother's Day & FInals 1-0

The Finals have finally begun. Yesterday we won the first game in a best of 5 series 77-65. It was a great game from start to finish. We did a good job of holding them to 65 points and probably could have done a little better if we didn't allow so many offensive rebounds. I'm sure we'll correct our mistakes for the next game. After the game the junior club had a BBQ so we were invited to join the tent festivities and enjoy the ribs they cooked. Surprising they weren't that bad. Our next game is Wednesday, wish us luck so we can get home earlier...

I spent my day off swimming at planet and hanging out at a lido by the lake. After the lido we walked around downtown and to my delight they had a car show/display going on, so all the downtown alley ways were filled with cars on display. I think my favorite of all of them was a Charcoal Grey Bentley GT that was going for 330,000 CHF!!!!!

Happy Mother's Day Momz and Roch! Also to the rest of the wonderful Moms in this world. May this day bring you great happiness and all the gratitude in the world because you all deserve it. Picture above is at brunch, Mother's Day '06, in Santa Clara, Ca

Until next time............................................. Love

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud

Semifinals...

Sorry I've been slacking a lot on my blogs this year. Currently, all I got on my mind is knowing I have a few weeks left until I return home. When that's not on my mind, it's Lele & Rvca (Who's not a pup anymore). When that's not it's In-n-Out. When that's not it's Mexican food. When that's not it's Shasta Lake. When that's not it's BBQin' out back. When that's not it's spending time with family and friends. When that's not that it's...............You see what I'm getting at especially this time of year.

We just advanced to the finals. In the semifinals we faced a familiar foe, a team we had already faced 5 times, 3 times in the regular season, in the League Cup semifinals & in the Swiss Cup Finals, winning 4 of them. Monthey is a talented team and difficult to prepare for because a lot of what they rely on is creativity in the flow of their offense. They tend to break off plays and create opportunities for themselves one on one and also for their teammates. In other words they're very unpredictable and erratic at times. We won the first game fairly convincingly 91-71. We had a very energetic 1st quarter, they made a run early in the second half but we were able to hold them off. The second game we won 88-75. I was a little disappointed in my contribution this game or lack there of but I could of cared less because we got the W and a 2-0 lead in a best of 5 series. Game 3 we hit the road looking for a sweep. We were down by 2 at half time and once again I didn't make much of a contribution mostly because I got in foul trouble. We blew them our by 30 points in the second half winning 77-49. The nice thing about sweeping these guys is after our 1st win the main sponsor of our club took a break from his busy business schedule and stopped by to present us with a proposition if we swept them. Lets just say my pockets are full and my pant sag is a little lower than normal Lol.

Right now we have 8 days until our next game and we're still waiting to see who our opponent is. We have a morning shoot around on Saturday and Sunday off but the weather isn't supposed to be the greatest the next couple days, so I'm a little bummed. I can't complain too much though for the most part the weather has been great this year. My first year here I remember 2 practices getting cancelled because our cars were snowed in. Anyway, that's all I got for you nothing new to share, still have the same ol' routine: eat, sleep & play. Actually I do have some news, my dad was recently inducted to his high school's hall of fame. Pretty cool honor. I hope all is well back home. I love and miss you. Until next time........................................ Love

P.S. What do you think of the hair?

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud

Updating to update...

It's been a while since my last post. I don't really have much to write about. We're in the Quarterfinals of the playoffs and my days are filled with walks downtown in the improving great weather. Today was 82 degrees! I'm going to just list a few things that have been going on the last week or so, obviously nothing to exciting just citing my daily activities...

- Most of the my walks downtown lately are to a pastry shop in the center where I people watch, study a little Italian and then head back to the apartment to internet surf/ relax. Here are a few things that caught my eye:

Now that the weather is nice people are starting to get a lot of use out of the paddle boats and sailboats. This is a picture of a Ferrari paddle boat. It, like most Ferrari's stood out when compared to it peers.

This photo is of a group of kids learning how to sail. Something I'd like to add to my bucket list/things I've done before list...

This is picture of a Breitling Jet in the middle of the shopping area in the center, which some teammates and I found very impressive to get the jet in the spot it was located.

I had to change vehicles again. I'm on my 5th car of the year and this time I received a Nissan Micra. This is probably my favorite of the bunch because it has a radio that works LOL. The the first car shown is an old school Mercedes that was parked outside of the Louis Vuitton store downtown. No that the weather is nice I'm starting to notice a lot more classics being driven around, especially convertibles.

The last month or so I've been researching places to rent for the summer while I am home for 3 months. After getting a Skype tour of Carp & Abby's new casa it makes my taste in places go up a little LOL. They have a sweet set up there in Brisbane. I'm really looking forward to having my own place especially with the new addition of Rvca. I can't believe how big he has gotten. I can't wait build a relationship with him. I hope he likes running...

I hope all is well back home. I love and miss you. Until next time................................... Love

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud

Inspiring stuff...

I'm always looking for new ways to better my enjoyment of what my dad liked to call the journey. I love hearing about success stories. I try to take a piece of each story and put my own twist on it and call it mine. There are so many stories out there even the simplest of them can change someone's outlook on life. I've recently come across 2 quotes both of which inspired me in different ways. The first came from a friend of mine (Kenny Frank), who was kind enough to send it to me after he saw it on this kid's Facebook wall. His father is currently going through chemo therapy and is a good friend of Kenny's dad. It read:

- "I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week."

The second quote I stumbled upon came from one of my closest college friend's blog (Tim Lynch). It read:

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Lastly, another friend of mine (Pat Flanagan) emailed me a video that aired recently on CBS's 60 Minutes about a high school coach (Bob Hurley) with a history of success both on and off the court at an inner city catholic school in Jersey. I highly recommend it. Here's the link below.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360940n

Inspiring stuff if you ask me. I hope all is well back home. I love and miss you more than you know. Until next time......................................................................... Love

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud

Special Thanks...

I'd like to give a special thanks to Polpharma for posting on their team website about my team's Swiss Cup Championship last week. Last year every blog I wrote they posted on the team website which was a great way to reach out to the fan base there in Starogard Gdanski to say thank you for their support. They were a huge reason for our success last year (Finished 3rd in the PLK). So thank you for checking in on me and wish you guys the best of luck in the playoffs. Until next time....................... Love

"Enjoy the Journey"

Love

Bud