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I put a curse on Greg Oden

Last week Portland basketball collectively sighed when news broke that Greg Oden would miss his rookie season following knee surgery. Oden was the number one pick in the draft this year and Portland fans had all their hopes riding on him. It didn’t take long for pundits, local and national to begin making comparisons to Sam Bowie, the chronically injured center that the Blazers took ahead of Michael Jordan in the 1984 draft.

Funny thing is, I made that comparison on the day that Oden arrived in Portland, well before he had even injured his knee during summer league play. Was it a prediction or did I put the whammy on him?

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 1841
Weight lost: 40 lbs.
South Beach days in the last week: 4
Hours of sleep last night: 6
Hours billed last week: 40
Aches & pains: right wrist, lower back
Current reading:: 2107 Curious Word Origins, Says & Expressions by Charles Earle Funk, The Book of Totally Useless Information by Don Voorhees, Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire
Recent listening: News from Lake Wobegon, This American Life, KBOO Bike Show, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Fresh Air
Recent viewing: Monk, Dead Zone, Countdown, Sky High, Dead Zone, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Gimme Friction Baby, Guitar Hero II (XBox 360)
Recently accomplished: mowed lawn, cleaned cat boxes, swept garage, can recycling, trimmed hydrangia, pulled blackberries, foam recycling, Salvation Army, magazine recycling, can return, groceries, salary presentation, doctor appointment, CPAP appointment
Imperative To Do: RMA old Tivo drive, sift through inbox, post office, finish garage, freecycle gorilla shelf parts

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Crime in the City

Monday evening, Joshua Walker was shot where I get on the MAX at Burnside and 162nd. This is just the latest in a series of violent crimes happening near there prompting the local constabulary to schedule a press conference. I hope they come up with a good solution because the number of incidents lately has been shocking:

I have seen stories of other incidents on the nightly news, but I wasn’t able to find all the stories online. The Gresham Outlook’s story includes comments from many local residents.

Update 9/13: dieselboi over at MetBlogs weighs in

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Lunch in the square

Starting on Thursday, I am going to start a weekly tradition for myself: lunch in the square. Every Thursday at 12:30, I’ll be getting lunch in Pioneer Courthouse Square and eating it on the steps where I can do some people watching. Consider this your open invitation to join me. I’ll be the one in the tie-dye t-shirt, at least until it starts raining.

Update 10/4: It started raining so look for the guy in the yellow rain jacket.

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Syracuse at Iowa

Tivo has a great feature called “wishlist” that helps you find shows that match the criteria you provide. I have one wishlist that shows me any upcoming programs with the word “Iowa” in the title or description. This lets me keep abreast of of my beloved Hawkeyes during basketball and football seasons (the only sports that really matter). How delighted I was to find that DirecTV had added a channel called the Big Ten Network to their line up and that the Hawkeyes would be playing Syracuse there Saturday night and they will be visiting a special place to Aegis the senior care center.

This was the first Hawkeye football game I’ve seen this season. Here’s a few thoughts I had during the game:

  • This quarterback, Jake Christensen, had a terrible first quarter. Just when I was about to write he was throwing high or behind his receiver every time, he threw a perfect pass to his tight end for the first touchdown of the game. Despite that, he still threw some pretty ugly passes throughout the pass and his receivers saved his ass a few times.
  • I love the “jailbreak screen” play. Along with the full-court press from the Tom Davis basketball years, it’s among my favorite Iowa plays. When they do it right, it’s so unexpected and takes place in the middle of the field.
  • It’s hard to believe both Sims and Young are still in the backfield. It seems like they’ve been playing for this team for many years. Let’s just assume they are seniors and they are playing legally.
  • Sure enough, Christensen overthrew his receiver in the second quarter and it resulted in an interception. Is he this inconsistent all the time?
  • Come third quarter my interest has waned. I suppose I’ll skim the fourth quarter since the scrubs will be playing for the rest of the game.
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Deadly hearse


Deadly hearse
Originally uploaded by rynosoft

Before I left for work this morning, I read this story of a couple who killed themselves and their little girl with carbon monoxide poisoning yesterday. As you might imagine, I have a personal interest in carbon monoxide suicide so I rode by on my way to work. I was surprised to find that they had set out their trash and recycling before going through it.