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CINCINNATI-I know I rail against some of the absurdity of government jargon and lingo, but here is a quickie against my own trade. See the start of this posting, with Cincinnati in caps? That is called a dateline. It means I'm writing this while in Cincinnati, but it doesn't include a date. Wouldn't location line make more sense?
Enough journalism insider jokes. For the first time since its inception, EF'M has hit the road. Obviously, this is the start of a roving blog.
I'm in the 'Nati for the weekend to run the 33rd annual Cincinnati Mini Marathon & Heart Walk. (All proceeds, $1.2 million, went to the American Heart Association.)
This also is home for me. I grew up across the river where I also attended high school, so this trip also was probably my final homecoming before we leave for Hermosillo, though we will stop here en route.
It was good to see my friends, even though we watched the University of Kentucky Wildcats lose in the Elite Eight of the Tourney (which concludes my NCAA basketball coverage until next March) and visit my family.
And then, of course, there was the run...15 kilometers up and down hills along the river (the Ohio, for the geographically-challenged) on Columbia Parkway. I hadn't been training the way I should've been, but was happy to finish in about 1:22 (haven't checked official results, yet).
Some day, I'd like to run a marathon, you know, just to say I ran a marathon. (Historical side bar: Lots of people run marathons, but I wonder how many know how the very first marathon ended? Let's just say the runner [there was only one runner] didn't fare particularly well. He ran the distance, yelled "Nike" [translation, "Victory," well played shoe company], and died. Why do so many people feel the need to do run this distance?)
I don't know how much running I'm going to get to do in Hermosillo. When the summer rolls around (let's call it June-August), I'll have 80 reasons not to run. Those reasons are the average low in Fahrenheit during that time of the year. Also, the thought of running through a country I don't know, where they speak a language I'm struggling to learn and where my gringo-ness will stick out potentially making me a target, I might need to find some alternative way of exercising.
There is a country club, and I don't mind running on the treadmill, but I've never tried running further than a 10k on a machine. It gets too boring to run much longer than that, in my opinion.
No doubt, I'll figure something out, but this is one of those lesser known challenges/sacrifices we make in this lifestyle.
And now I'll be signing out from Cincinnati.
I realize most of you don't care about college basketball, the Naranjeros or the comparing and contrasting of Mount Vernon and Monticello.
I knew this when I wrote those pieces, and the general lack of comments left behind after them confirmed this.
Yet, I'll continue to post occasionally about college basketball, particularly after the University of Kentucky Wildcats win the championship in a couple of weeks, my experiences watching the Naranjeros when that day comes and whatever tourist destinations inspire me to write.
Sorry, but it is going to happen. Part of my rationalizing for this kind of decision making is that I'm selfish. To borrow from our good friends at The Perlman Update, "I write because it's cheaper than therapy."
The other reason I selfishly write about topics I know you don't care about is that if this blog gets boring to me, then I won't post as often, or at all. Also, blogging will feel more like a job, which will result in some poorly written postings that I'm throwing together for the sake of writing something.
I came to this realization after several incidents where Natalie would suggest something that happened would make for a good blog posting. Maybe it would; maybe it wouldn't. But I didn't find those events to either be interesting enough to me, or within the scope of what I try to blog about, chiefly what it is like to be married to a foreign service officer.
One of my favorite sports columnists, Bill "The Sports Guy" Simmons of ESPN, oftentimes will write about the NBA. If I read any of these columns, which I usually don't, I skim through them quickly. Other Sports Guy readers complain he writes too much about the NBA, and I was inclined to agree. I'd much rather read his thoughts on baseball, football or popular culture.
It wasn't until turning down Natalie's blog-topic suggestions so many times that I gained a little appreciation for what Simmons must deal with on a daily basis from a larger audience. Sure, it might be a good idea, but I'm going to write about what I want to write about because if the topic isn't interesting to me, then how can I write it in a way that is interesting to anyone else?
So keep writing about the NBA, Bill Simmons. I likely will continue to ignore those columns, but if writing those columns means you will continue to write fascinating, well-thought and entertaining columns about topics I do want to read, then by all means.
And so I ask you to be patient with me on some of my interests, so that when I do finally get around to writing about something that is of consequence to the larger Expat Friends of Mine (EFM) community, it will be a better piece.
Ever wonder the origins of some of our common expressions?
Take, for example, the famous ninth cloud, a place we like to find ourselves. Why is cloud nine so desirable? According to the wiktionary, the 1896 edition of The International Cloud Atlas defined 10 types of clouds. The ninth cloud was the cumulonimbus, which rises to 10km making it the highest of the clouds.
I had a pretty good view from a cumulonimbus yesterday during the 12-hour orgy of college basketball yesterday, better known as the first day of the first round of the NCAA tournament. DeVaughn Washington, (in the picture below) also got a pretty good view from a cumulonimbus when he skied high on this alley-oop, fastbreak dunk in the second half last night.
There were great games with great finishes and four overtime periods, but the climax for me (pun intended) was watching the University of Kentucky pound their first round opponent, East Tennessee State by 30 points most of the game (100-71 final) at the same time that Ohio University kept Georgetown pinned to the ground for 40 minutes to win 97-83.
Let me re-iterate. Ohio University, the 14th seed in the Midwest/St. Louis bracket, who was 22-14, beat a third-seeded Georgetown team that beat Duke, Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh, among other highly rated teams. Georgetown was ranked 14th and 15th out of 330-something teams in the AP and Coaches' polls, respectively, as recently as Monday. In the RPI, which is a computer-mathematics-based rankings, Georgetown was 7th; Ohio was 94th.
On second thought, maybe the cumulonimbus isn't high enough in the sky.
Watching this game, I ascended to the lesser known 13th cloud, the trifectus-nimbus. Ohio knocked down 13 three-point shots on only 23 shots hitting an absurd 56.5% of them.
Just a notch higher is the 14th cloud, the victorious stratus. Not only was Ohio the 14th seed, but they poured on 97 points for a 14 point victory. That set a new record for the largest margin of victory by a team with a seeding of 14 or higher. No other team in this category ever scored a double-digit win.
Still higher, and as of today the pinnacle cloud, is the 32nd cloud, the advancitous cumulonimbus. Ohio's star guard, Armon Bassett (that link takes you to Sunday's posting which has a picture of Bassett dunking in the MAC championship game), tallied 32 points, and as a result, Ohio advances to the second round, the round of 32, on Saturday against Tennessee. Then we'll see if I can get lost even higher in the clouds.
Saturday evening through Sunday evening, let's call it from 6:30 p.m. Saturday to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, have been a lot of fun, yet sobering as well.
I haven't posted in a few days as I have been in college basketball-induced stupor, watching my teams win the SEC championship as they were supposed to, and making an improbable run to win the MAC championship.
Being a native Kentuckian, being a UK basketball fan is a birthright much the same way being a Packer fan is to Green Bay. And while I never attended the University of Kentucky, the UK Wildcats have always been my No. 1 rooting interest in all of sports.
As an Ohio University alum, however, I took the greatest amount of satisfaction watching my Bobcats run through the Mid-American Conference tournament by beating three of our biggest rivals, and doing so as the lowest seed ever to win the MAC tourney. (To the right, Armon Basset, our best player, ices the game in overtime with a slam dunk in the closing seconds.)
Consequently, on Selection Sunday, always one of my favorite days in the year, I watched as UK got a 1 seed, which puts them on the fast track to the Final Four and a shot at the school's eighth championship. And I also got to see Ohio get paired against heavily favored Georgetown as a 14 seed to play Thursday in Providence. (The wheels already turning in my mind on how I can get to Providence...I love March Madness, and I love cheering for the underdog, unless that means cheering against UK.)
I was planning on writing exclusively on college basketball, but then came the news this evening about the slayings in Juarez. (An unrelated side note, the AP reporter who wrote this article is someone I went to Ohio University with and worked with at The Post, the university's student-run newspaper. Nice work, Phil!)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that despite the travel advisories, I wasn't too nervous about driving to Hermosillo. Sunday's news was more upsetting.
In the past, I'd always tell people that while yes, the Mexican border is dangerous, it has been mostly drug cartels targeting each other. Americans largely were not getting harmed. Sunday changed that reality.
While there are many unknowns about what happened at this point, there are several levels of scariness about the news.
For example, what if this was some sort of retaliation for a Mexican getting denied a visa by the consulate office. That is by far the scariest scenario. Less threatening, but still upsetting is that the EFM who was slain was a corrections officer in El Paso, and maybe he was the target.
Lower on my personal threat level is the cases of wrong place, wrong time and that it could have been a case of mistaken identity.
Regardless, thoughts and prayers go out the families of the slain and to those who live along the border. Be careful, be safe, and good luck on making your decision about the temporary withdrawal to some where away from the border.
