Walking with a couple of teen girls the other day, they started making fun of some guy’s running form who zipped past us. Being the adult, I immediately tried to explain why they shouldn’t make fun of how people run. I told them how I went running earlier that day and people were laughing at me.

After much probing, they found out why. “Um…I don’t know how to tell you this. But maybe they weren’t laughing at the way you were running but about what you were wearing.”

I don’t know. I think I looked pretty hot running in Central Park the other day…

So…looking at my schedule, early May looks like the easiest time for me to run a half-marathon. The two that look the best for me are in Eugene, Ore. and Tacoma, Wa. Whichever one I do, I’d like to fly into either Seattle or Portland and out of the other…

In the meantime, though, I thought I’d get a little input from you, dear readers. Any advice on which city is better? Or better yet, have you run one of these and can tell me which route is better/more scenic?

So if you’ve got a second…

Yep. That’s how I spent my Saturday after Thanksgiving.

And I wonder why I have a cold now. (But still feel like crying every time I think about the game.)

Am just recovering from a rather long night of full-court basketball, which I hadn’t played in about six years.

I feel so old.

I tried to curb my homesickness the other day, too…I noticed that the restaurant right next to my apartment building had “St. Louis-style” toasted ravioli. Um, yeah, not so St. Louis style. I swear, no place else in this country knows what t-rav really is.

Although while traveling, foreigners struggled to grasp the fact that not all Americans were white, I think just a quick glance at our Olympic contingent surely proves that we are a country of immigrants.

Seriously…take for instance that men’s gymnastics’ team…Artemev, Bhavsar, Estrada, Hagerty, Hamm, Horton, Tan. Even the names on that small team captures the diversity of our country.

If only we could have gotten the whole world to watch NBC these past two weeks…

After a stressful, pimple-inducing week, a night watching the Cards play at the “old” Shea Stadium, is pretty much the perfect thing to relieve me from being the “nervous, dyspeptic” person I was becoming. Fourteen innings that stretched into the next day can mean quite a night. But walking away with a Cards win…totally worth it.

Man, I love baseball.

Wednesday I went with some old MU sports geeks to see the premiere of Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a documentary about high school basketball stars on the verge of NBA stardom. Directed by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, the film centers around one of their games at Rucker Park in Harlem.

Sounds like a winner for a sports nerd like me…so why no love? Well, for starters, musician Yauch clearly considers himself more of a music man than a filmmaker, which makes for a pretty awful movie. I mean the end of the movie spent yards of film on music credits…detailing every mix in there, but does little to acknowledge the majority of the film clips used in it. Speaking of those clips…most were grainy Internet cut-and-paste jobs that not only make it nauseating to watch on the big screen but also — even before the credits started — left me with little faith that their makers got the same credit (or pay) that the musicians did for the film.

And the actual story? Well, I like documentaries. OK. I REALLY like documentaries. I love how they take the audience on a journey, and we get to see, hear, and feel what another person (or animal) sees, hears, and feels. But this movie doesn’t do that. This movie has no journey. And the whole thing was shot with just a week of following the guys (according to an AP article)…hardly the time it takes to really get to know a subject. Instead, we just get to hear that a court is famous, see some kids playing a game, and hear others talking about how hard they think their life must be (um, hello…”show don’t tell” is a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to laying out a good story…why didn’t Yauch just SHOW us how hard their life must be?)

It got a lot of hype at the film festivals, and even the premiere drew its fair share of coverage (of course it probably helped that a few of the guys in it were going to be starring in the draft the next night and were in attendance for the big showing). But still, I have to say, it just wasn’t good enough. Fun to watch in the way that I’m sure it was fun to see Jordan play pro baseball…but all the time knowing that someone should just stick to his day job.

Out of all the years I’m out of country for a Final Four, I’m sure glad it was this one.

When I see others’ souvenirs, I’m always a bit amused as to what people buy or where they’ve been.

At the hostel I was staying at here in Cape Town, there was a Japanese guy who had these Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees stickers on his suitcase. Being a hippie-kind of guy, he made it hard for me to imagine him at a Bulls’ game. Another Japanese guy who spoke VERY little English had on a Brooks & Dunn shirt from Madison, Wisconsin. Try as I did, I could not imagine this guy with his rather tight and high-waisted pants at a Brooks & Dunn concert in Wisconsin.

But you know, I don’t actually know these people. Maybe old boy is a really big sports fan. And other old boy could really put me to shame with his Boot Scootin’ (Boogie).

I mean, I always find it quite funny when new friends are surprised by seemingly normal things to me…like that I drove a truck, that my parents are white, or that I was born with 12 toes. (OK, kidding about the last one)