playing for change

from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

no man fly in the house of mutombo

for those who are not familiar with dikembe mutombo or dont care for basketball much, here is a bit of a background. mutombo is a 42-year-old, 7-foot-2-inch basketball player who in a playoff game a couple days ago hurt his knee and had to get carried off the floor in a stretcher. the oregonian quotes dikembe:

I'm going to need surgery. For me, basketball is over. I cried so much about it when I was laying on the floor.

his basketball career is now over. he is basically a basketball and humanitarian legend, and has had a tremendous impact on the basketball court, where he is one of the best defenders and shot blockers of all time, and in the republic of congo, where he has invested millions to build the first modern hospital in 40 years. heres an excerpt from his wiki page:

A well-known humanitarian, Mutombo started the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to improve living conditions in his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997. His efforts earned him the NBA's humanitarian award in 2001. For his feats, The Sporting News named him as one of the "Good Guys in Sports" in 1999 and 2000, and in 1999, he was elected as one of 20 winners of the President's Service Awards, the nation's highest honor for volunteer service. In 2004, he also participated in the Basketball Without Borders NBA program, where NBA stars like Shawn Bradley, Malik Rose and DeSagana Diop toured Africa to spread the word about basketball and to improve the infrastructure. He also paid for uniforms and expenses for the Zaire women's basketball team during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. Mutombo is a spokesman for the international relief agency, CARE (relief) and is the first Youth Emissary for the United Nations Development Program.

In honor of his humanitarianism, Mutombo was invited to President George W. Bush's 2007 State of the Union Address and was referred to as a "son of the Congo" by the President in his speech, Mutombo later said, "My heart was full of joy. I didn't know the President was going to say such great remarks."

also announced yesterday, mutombo became the only player to win the j. walter kennedy award twice.

this morning, as i was sipping on my morning coffee before heading to work, i came across this post on truehoop. it got me thinking, how is it that this man, a basketball player who i have never met once in my life, who all i know about is from reading articles about him and watching him on tv, can have such an impact on me personally. it made me tremendously sad to see him get carted off the floor, and it makes me really sad that hes not going to be playing anymore. its like i have some sort of an emotional attachment to him, and i dont even know his full name. (found here: Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacque Wamutombo.) i felt i needed to do my part for him, and so i decided to share his story here. and it makes me even more sad, because my friend pete had the chance to get his signature a couple of weeks ago at a warriors - rockets game, but he elected not to.

on a more humorous note, if there is one link in this post you should click on, its this one: the history of the finger wag. here are a couple of excerpts:

At just age 4 in the summer of 1970 in the sweltering heat of a Zairian summer, Dikembe first wagged his finger, a day that will go down as the day sports taunting was invented. He wasn’t sure what he was doing at the time, unaware that this move would become his trademark and forever change sports. He was just mimicking his mother, who was scorning him for playfully hitting one of his brothers. Dikembe would continue this throughout his childhood, laughing gleefully whenever he was punished with this gesture from his mother.

...

Dikembe utilized the Wag off the court as well. During his freshman season, the infamous Sex Mutombo incident went down. What incident? Mutombo allegedly entered a Georgetown bar and when people turned to look at him he yelled, “Who wants to sex Mutombo?” What most don’t know about this story is that as ladies approached him during the night, Deke gave a stern Finger Wag to any hefty girl who approached, stating “No fat chicks sex Mutombo.”

UPDATE: hes now officially retired from basketball.

to theme or not to theme

ive been spending the last couple of days trying to figure out if i need a theme for this blog, and if so what it should be. as much as i like it when i stumble across a random blog and from the looks and description of it can tell immediately whether its worth my time or not, i have decided that what i share here is mostly for me (and close friends) and i really dont expect to have any other audience. therefore i dont think its necessary to be so clear cut regarding what i write about. i like the idea of having the flow of posts here evolve into what it eventually becomes, maybe somehow mapping the evolution of my perception of ideas and everyday issues (or atleast the part i am comfortable sharing.) i like to keep things informal, as i have always hated feeling pressured to write and update. this is my playground. i do whateva i waant!!

so dont expect anything big, anything groundbreaking.

about a month ago maybe, when i was waiting at the student machine shop at the basement of the etcheverry hall for my turn to check out a mill, i came across this gem of a quote pinned to the side of a cabinet. i dont know if this sounds weird but i got this overwhelming sense of satisfaction, like holy crap thats so cool. and i still love it every time i look back at it, mostly because of how it felt the first time i saw it:

I'm glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.

- mark twain

Testing...

from brevity. just so my first post is not a boring '1, 2, 3...' :D