Getting ready to get an evening jog in but thought I would send off a quick blog. Another great sunny day in OKC. I'm not sure when we last had rain but it seems as though we are going on 2 weeks now. I have to be careful with my comments as I don't want all of my family and friends back home to think I am now anti-Seattle but waking up to sunshine each day just makes the day that much better. I miss all of you but I really do not miss the grey fall weather.
Had a good time on Sunday. Went for another run at Lake Hefner and the weather again was outstanding. I then went to a local bar/restaurant with some of my current Thunder/former Sonics co-workers to watch the Seahawks. I only saw the 2nd half of the game but that was probably just as well. Hard to believe that they are continuing to struggle.
After the game I went home to take care of a few things and was then planning on meeting up with Thunder Equipment Manager Marc St. Yves to watch more football. Marc sent me a text message saying that he was hanging out downtown with a couple of our former Sonics co-workers and that I should head over. The Houston Rockets were in town and a couple of them are former Sonics colleagues (player Brent Barry and coach Jack Sikma) so we were hanging out with them at the Bricktown Brewery. I am very anti "name dropping" so I better clarify this one. As many of you know, I'm not as into the whole "hang out and around the player" thing like many people are but Brent and Jack are different. Of all of the players that were ever on the Sonics while I was there, Brent was always one that went out of his way to blend in when not at the arena. He was often a regular at Jalisco's after games and was just one of the gang. Jack's son Jake was a superstar employee on the Sonics Promo Crew for around 4 years up in Seattle and they are just really good people . I remember being nervous about having Jake join our staff way back when because I was afraid I was going to get some kid who thought he could get away with anything since his Dad was a coach and former player but Jake turned out to be the complete opposite. Jake is a super cool, grounded guy that I enjoyed working with and hanging out with after games so I think of Jack as being "Jake's Dad" more than I do about him being a former player or coach with the Rockets. It was really good to see both of those guys as I now treasure running into familiar faces more than ever.
There were only about 10 people in the bar when two guys at another table got up to leave and our server said goodbye to them. She then turned to us and said something like "not every day we have basketball players and country music stars in here". Turns out one of the two men was John Rich of Big & Rich fame.
We then headed out to a smaller bar that had some live music (a group of 3 older guys that sounded a lot like ZZ Top). We were watching these guys play when all of the sudden John Rich and a small group of people walked in and sat about 10 feet away from us. He stayed around for about 20 minutes and then just got up and left. His "crew" waited for about a minute to see if he was going to come back and when they realized he wasn't, they also got up and followed on out the door. Just another Sunday night in downtown OKC :-)
Yesterday we had our home game against the Rockets and the "Gamenight" program that we hand out at the entrances to our fans ran an article on me. It was a very nice article and something I will treasure, even if it does have four pictures of me looking fat. I've lost 5 pounds since I've moved down here but the pictures tell me that I need to lose more.
I do have to laugh a little when I think about these articles. I know that big picture, what I do is much less important to the success of the organization than what others are doing but I do understand the intrigue in regard to reading about a guy that packed up and moved 2000 miles to follow a part time job. I can't help but sometimes wonder what people think when they read about a guy like me. I'm sure there are those that think "good for him, way to follow your heart" but there are certainly others that think "what kind of a person relocates for a part time job, this guy must be nuts". Ultimately it doesn't matter but I still wonder. I'm continuing to enjoy the journey.
Best wishes to everyone!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment