Sleep Apnea - I know I self - diagnosed this, but I've all the symptoms, including fatigue from lack of sleep, waking up at 3am to take a leak, deep set eye bags again from lack of sleep, waking up in a sweat every so often at night (because my lungs were struggling to breathe), and finally the most damning of all, dreams of drowning. The particular recurring dream is fairly vivid. I am on a white sandy beach with some rocky breakwater hills in the distance, which I investigate. While doing so, I enter small caves and whatnot, and before I know it the tide is coming in strong, so strong that I cannot go back to the sandy beach. I struggle to climb higher, but the strong waves start lapping at my feet and upward. At this point I assume I wake up.

Scoliosis - which isn't a big deal for the most part, but of course becomes a nuisance and actually starts hurting when I gain weight.

High uric acid - runs in our family. The fatter I get, the higher that gets, and it affects my kidneys, which eventually produce kidney stones. I've already suffered a gout attack twice. It is not fun.

So you see, being me isn't fun, that is, if I don't control my weight. Hence, those Gold's GCs we scored are a gift from Heaven, telling me I should take better care of my sickly, overweight ass.

Today I did a few drills at the basketball court, because I couldn't go to Gold's (it really is way too far, requiring a 40 - 60 min bus trip, and no i dont wanna bring my car). I did a few basketball drills where you put the ball on the floor near the hoop, hop and skip alternating lateral steps around the painted area, pick up the ball and power layup (bounce the ball hard with both hands then shoot it), then put the ball back on the floor and do it again the opposite way. It's supposed to help your lateral moves obviously, plus your concentration because you can sometimes forget the count and forget to alternate. And when you miss, you start counting over again. I did 5 sets of 10 of those.

I also did 5 windsprints, which were more like windwalks. At the end of these, I was sweating and panting like crazy, and the humid weather (there were rainshowers coming), didn't help. I looked like I took a shower in my clothes.

Then finally I jogged the way back to the house, and I promise you going up our steep hills is no joke.

So the point of all this is not to impress upon people of my monk - like discipline and make people think I have a magnificent physique (I am overweight by, oh, probably 30 pounds). The point of this post, I think, is that I need to convince myself that working out is good for me, so that when the time comes (and oh yes, it will come), when I am too lazy to walk let alone do windsprints / walks at the ball court or go to Gold's, then I will again have desperate dreams of drowning whilst holding on to dear life by a rocky hill, the ocean's angry waves crashing against, and eventually, taking me.

Yeah I think that's the point of this post. I will go to sleep now, I'm dog tired.

Not only that, he doesn't even apologize, merely replying after I texted him about it that it's been relisted and it'll be back in a few days. Yesterday he then texted to remind me of payment, after which I said 'sure, just put me in your calendar (so it wont happen again) ok?', to which I got no reply. EXCELLENT service right there, don't you think? Especially considering I sent a fair share of business his way when I was still in the web design business. I'm just glad this is just a personal blog and not a critical service like the Exchanges. If I were still hosted at his service (he was my first host), I probably would've made a personal appearance to wherever he is in Laguna.

Anyway, to better things. Yesterday was my first basketball game in a long time and I felt good if it weren't for the lingering effects of my cold from the past week. This after I thought I'd come to actually 'retiring' from playing. Credit Gold's Gym for not hurting as much afterwards, which isn't to say I don't hurt now, except it's a good kind of hurt instead of the 'oh my God I'll never walk again' type of hurt.

Not only that but instead of just resting my tired, old bones I feel good enough to go to the gym tomorrow. I'm looking forward to the bike with the back support (as opposed to another type of bike without one), which helps old fogeys like me with back and knee issues. I wanna pound that thing for at least 30 minutes cumulative, interspersed with weights and stretching to help stamina and generally work some weight off if such a miracle is at all possible.

In a perfect world, all I'd do is gym in the mornings, hit golf balls all day and analyze basketball games for a living, dispensing my loads of crap wisdom towards my waiting, loving mass of worldwide fans. Yeah, the more I think about it, that's exactly what I'd picture a beautiful world to be. Considering I get to go to a Class A gym regularly and dispense my opinion on basketball (logic - deprived or otherwise) on a regular basis, I can't complain. I just need to work my ass on getting a sponsor or two for BallEx and maybe I can work on the golf part.

He stood around the edge of the court shuffling his feet and muttering nonsense, while everyone watching was jeering and having a whale of a time. I called him again and again to come over, to just stand beside me so he could hear what I'd say, but he didn't come. Finally he along with my other players left without me. I patted the other player on the back, I think his name was AJ, and I told him he was a good boy. Coming together after a fight, especially a silly basketball one (they are all silly), is a good sign.

I think I've been doing my part for these kids, after coaching them on and off for two years we've come up with this:

We've already had several early morning practices, and finally I was seeing traces of improvement. Not a whole lot, but enough to get them ready for the start on the 12th. I've pretty much resolved that I'd do everything I can to teach them (what little) I know. Truth is, if I could manage to parlay even half of how much I love the game to them, I'd have signed it all off as a success.

But turning your back on me? No no no no no. They're gonna have to look for a new coach.

As if I'm not busy enough.

Ack, no matter. The game has given me so much, but it has also taken so much as well. I would've thought that I'd have stopped learning now, years after the times when I was any good, and when I thought I could've contributed the most. If anything, I've learned playing it is essentially a selfish thing compared to coaching it. Consequently if there's any reason why I'm not interested in playing it anymore, its because teaching it, coaching it and sharing it is a thousand times more fulfilling than playing it.

So there. Lesson learned. And more to come, it seems. At any rate, all basketball talk aside, if and when those boys need me, they know I'm just a knock on our door away.

I was having a haircut at said neighborhood barbershop when he started giving me a vigorous neck rub, a sign anyone who regularly goes to such places knows marks the end of the session. It felt great so I asked if he does massages, he said yes mentioned p200 and off we went. Now I've tried all sorts of ultra posh massages at so many places and even expensive home service types already, but this one made me feel like I wanted to knock my head for all that wasted money. Manong twisted, gripped and kneaded my back, arms and legs like so much pliant dough. He used his rough fingers (made smoother by some cheap lotion. Mental note: bring my own next time) to find knotted up veins jammed with toxins and proceeded to attack it with the force of a vise grip over and over until it softened and passed through. To the uninitiated it would have felt like complete torture, but I knew what he was doing. The last time I went through anything like that must have been more than a decade ago, when I was still playing for a team that had a guy like manong masahista slathering myself and my teammates with buckets of what seemed like ben gay, but was 10 times worse - and stung to high heavens, and then used the same tortuous procedure that makes you swear and spit in pain as if you were being knifed.

I tried to bear it as well as i could, trying to focus on the black and white TV blaring Eat Bulaga in the corner. Whenever it started to hurt again, especially when he was doing my knees and lower leg area I even goaded him to try harder even if I was already seeing stars from the intense pain. Of course I consoled myself by knowing that whatever evil stuff that was stuck in my veins was finally letting loose, and as proof, hours and even a day after I was manifesting the result of toxins coming out my body (I wont get into details as this is a family blog. ahem.)

And now, the result. I played what seemed like a full hour of basketball, 3 games end to end and I did not hurt like I normally do. Sure I was slow and definitely not as effective as I'd wanted to be, but at least I lasted while the young un's were starting to sit down. Obviously this serves as a starting point for better performance later on.

The next step is to have another massage (thank God for it being cheap!) so he can finish off whatever else is left in my veins to finish off. It's not gonna hurt as much as the first time, and in fact, the ultimate goal is to keep having the same treatment until it doesn't hurt at all, even if he grips with all his strength. As of last time he wasn't even trying hard, and I was twisting in pain. But as he keeps kneading it'll feel better and better until finally no pain at all.

Such is my faith of having a body that produces toxins. I'm gonna have to deal with this for the rest of my life. But it's ok I guess as long as I got guys like Manong Masahista around.

First and foremost I'll go right out and say that it is a terrific piece of work. Carlo Ledesma and Mel Lozano obviously put in a great amount of time and effort in this, but the most important factor that they brought is the one thing that previous and current coverage of basketball in the Philippines consistently fails to deliver - and that is soul.

Read the rest at Ballex!