8/23/09
Just finished my two week training camp in Serbia! I am about an hour away on getting onto the bus and driving to the airport and flying to Ukraine. There I will get to see where I will be living, the gym we will be playing our games in and basically the surroundings of my life for the next 9 months. I am very excited and can’t wait to just get settled and make my place as homey as possible. Knowing that Jake is less than a month away of coming out is also awesome to look forward too.
Each day of the training camp gradually got harder and harder, but it was very nice because I was able to ease into what turned out to be a tough last couple of days. I am amazed how fast the practices go by though because they only are about and hour and 45 minutes or 2 hours and that is nothing compared to coach Floyd’s 3 hour practices!!! I got my shot right on the last couple a days and was shooting really well, and able to get to the rim pretty easily, which has made it much tougher to guard me. It is really nice be able to get to the rim when I want, if only I could finish like Lebron James haha. Playing with a bunch of unselfish guys is very nice too, the ball movement, floor spacing, and overall game just fits my style very well. Lastly, my mom and her hold side of the family (Father was a dentist and her brother had front teeth knocked out playing pick up ball) will be so proud to know I have worn a mouth guard every workout, and actually have gotten used to it!
I am also stoked to be getting a little change in pace of food. I have no idea what they will serve us in Ukraine, but going to the grocery store and picking out what I want will be awesome because I am tired of the same thing almost everyday here! I can’t complain too much though because I have not had to pay for one thing over these two weeks and already collected my first month’s check, definitely the best job I have ever had. Getting paid to play basketball, workout, travel the world, watch movies and talk with friends on the internet via Skype or Facebook is as awesome as it sounds.
Last week I knocked out season 5 of Entourage and this week I watched season 1,2,& 3 of Wildboyz from MTV. I can’t get over how funny that show is, I have probably watched it like 10 times, but it still gets me laughing out loud and rolling around at how dumb, idiotic, and funny Pontius and Steve-O are. The show has the perfect combination of wild stunts, funny jokes, and outrageous amounts of nakedness haha. I only watched 1 movie this week, Fired Up, a lower class Wedding Crashers like movie, and I think it’s hilarious as well and the girl, Sarah Roemer, from it is so fine (same girl from Disturbia). I was able to meet a group of girls that are staying at the hotel who are pretty nice, don’t speak much English, but we play Uno the card game and it is really funny because there is a lot of smiling, laughing, and awkward staring because the communication is a little lacking to say the least. However, it is a really good time and we play about an hour a night.
Last night I went to a club, Verdona, in Zlatibor and it’s unbelievable. Not much dancing like in the states, but tons of drinking and smoking cigarettes. The girls are amazingly beautiful, it definitely competes with Incahoots, only difference is girls smoke all the time and that’s a huge turn off to me. However, their eyes continue to amaze me, its like a greenish-blue I have never seen before.
Another random thing about Serbia is they have a ton of stray dogs and cats. There are packs of about 12-15 stray dogs that just run around the mountain and woods, all different breeds and mixes. They stick together, but just run around wild and wake us up every morning barking and fighting right on time at 7am. Made me think, how sweet would it be to have a dog in Ukraine, technically I could too in my apartment. Jake would be around to take care of it as well. A lot of work I know, more of a sweet idea now than actuality, but I am going to have a discussion with Jake about it for sure.
Also, the swimming attire in Serbia is hilarious, they where the Daniel Hackett specials (Italian PG on former SC team) or tight booty shorts for swim trunks, such a no homo thing. I stick out like a sore thumb at the indoor pool with my boardshorts on!
It has been was cool being a pro athlete over here as well because they have a heavyweights camp, just like the movie with Ben Stiller, where we are staying. The hotel is packed with kids 10-18 years old running around and going up to all the basketball players asking to take pictures with them and signing autographs and asking for their MySpace page name haha!
Finally, my beard is at an all time dirtiness for me. I have been growing it for a full month now and it definitely has some hangtime to it. We will see how much longer I can let it go along with my hair, trying to come back in December and look like Tom Hanks from Cast Away LOL!
Each day of the training camp gradually got harder and harder, but it was very nice because I was able to ease into what turned out to be a tough last couple of days. I am amazed how fast the practices go by though because they only are about and hour and 45 minutes or 2 hours and that is nothing compared to coach Floyd’s 3 hour practices!!! I got my shot right on the last couple a days and was shooting really well, and able to get to the rim pretty easily, which has made it much tougher to guard me. It is really nice be able to get to the rim when I want, if only I could finish like Lebron James haha. Playing with a bunch of unselfish guys is very nice too, the ball movement, floor spacing, and overall game just fits my style very well. Lastly, my mom and her hold side of the family (Father was a dentist and her brother had front teeth knocked out playing pick up ball) will be so proud to know I have worn a mouth guard every workout, and actually have gotten used to it!
I am also stoked to be getting a little change in pace of food. I have no idea what they will serve us in Ukraine, but going to the grocery store and picking out what I want will be awesome because I am tired of the same thing almost everyday here! I can’t complain too much though because I have not had to pay for one thing over these two weeks and already collected my first month’s check, definitely the best job I have ever had. Getting paid to play basketball, workout, travel the world, watch movies and talk with friends on the internet via Skype or Facebook is as awesome as it sounds.
Last week I knocked out season 5 of Entourage and this week I watched season 1,2,& 3 of Wildboyz from MTV. I can’t get over how funny that show is, I have probably watched it like 10 times, but it still gets me laughing out loud and rolling around at how dumb, idiotic, and funny Pontius and Steve-O are. The show has the perfect combination of wild stunts, funny jokes, and outrageous amounts of nakedness haha. I only watched 1 movie this week, Fired Up, a lower class Wedding Crashers like movie, and I think it’s hilarious as well and the girl, Sarah Roemer, from it is so fine (same girl from Disturbia). I was able to meet a group of girls that are staying at the hotel who are pretty nice, don’t speak much English, but we play Uno the card game and it is really funny because there is a lot of smiling, laughing, and awkward staring because the communication is a little lacking to say the least. However, it is a really good time and we play about an hour a night.
Last night I went to a club, Verdona, in Zlatibor and it’s unbelievable. Not much dancing like in the states, but tons of drinking and smoking cigarettes. The girls are amazingly beautiful, it definitely competes with Incahoots, only difference is girls smoke all the time and that’s a huge turn off to me. However, their eyes continue to amaze me, its like a greenish-blue I have never seen before.
Another random thing about Serbia is they have a ton of stray dogs and cats. There are packs of about 12-15 stray dogs that just run around the mountain and woods, all different breeds and mixes. They stick together, but just run around wild and wake us up every morning barking and fighting right on time at 7am. Made me think, how sweet would it be to have a dog in Ukraine, technically I could too in my apartment. Jake would be around to take care of it as well. A lot of work I know, more of a sweet idea now than actuality, but I am going to have a discussion with Jake about it for sure.
Also, the swimming attire in Serbia is hilarious, they where the Daniel Hackett specials (Italian PG on former SC team) or tight booty shorts for swim trunks, such a no homo thing. I stick out like a sore thumb at the indoor pool with my boardshorts on!
It has been was cool being a pro athlete over here as well because they have a heavyweights camp, just like the movie with Ben Stiller, where we are staying. The hotel is packed with kids 10-18 years old running around and going up to all the basketball players asking to take pictures with them and signing autographs and asking for their MySpace page name haha!
Finally, my beard is at an all time dirtiness for me. I have been growing it for a full month now and it definitely has some hangtime to it. We will see how much longer I can let it go along with my hair, trying to come back in December and look like Tom Hanks from Cast Away LOL!
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