BillyStyle

Hot diggity dog am I ever excited! I haven’t mentioned it since lottery day on here, but the NBA Draft is Thursday! Word just got out that my Blazers plan on picking Greg Oden with their very first pick overall. I think that’s good. I’ve been kind of torn between him and Durant, just like everyone paying attention to the draft. But my first idea was for them to pick Oden, and it still feels to be the best pick.

Over the past month I’ve read just about every kind of comparison of the two players. The general consensus is that both will be franchise players. Most seem to think though that Oden will be more likely to be the key element to a championship team, while Durant will be an individual superstar. I didn’t know this until today, but in Greg’s basketball life (since 3rd grade I guess), he’s only lost 17 games. That’s just crazy. He’s such a presence that any team he’s on is leaps and bounds better. Having a guy of his size and ability in the paint gets in the other team’s head and really alters the game.

So hopefully this won’t be another Bowie before Jordan thing, but ya never know. They do have 4 second round picks to play around with too. I’ll be watching the whole time. Go Blazers!

I now hold a 2-0 lifetime record in the game of horseshoes. I was at a barbeque tonight where a horseshoe pit was set up. I decided it was about time I give that game a shot. I’ve just never been around when people are playing it. Strange, it’s a game that’s interested me since it involves throwing things to a precise spot.

Anyway, I started off pretty poorly. My teammate (we played in teams of 2) was scoring quite a bit, so I think I scored only 3 or 4 points, but we still won. I then got a new teammate and we fell behind by 8 points I think. We crept back in and got the victory, scoring just one point on every turn I think after that, and ending with my first ringer!

All in all I had a good variety of shots. Plenty of misses, one ringer, a leaner, and a number of very close tosses. It’s pretty fun. I can see myself possibly playing horseshoes when I’m a crusty old man and can’t do anything more physical than that.

Well it was a great weekend. I don’t know why I waited until now to report on my trip, but that’s just how I am. Friday I flew into Portland early enough to head over to the track with my Dad to see some of the action. We saw some warm up runs of the different car series that were there at the track. The other series were Mazda MX-5 (souped up Mazda Miatas), Star Mazda (240 hp open wheel, rotary engine cars), and the Atlantic Series (300 hp open wheel cars, like the minor league of the Champ Cars). Also on Friday was a drifting exhibition. That was fun to watch. Just like last year, the cars came fish tailing all around the track at pretty high speeds. On some corners, the better drivers just locked in their drift and got those tires heated up so much that a huge cloud of smoke came billowing out from under the car.

Saturday was interesting. It rained the whole day, but all track activities went as scheduled. For some reason, my allergies kicked in full speed, even though I always figured rain knocked the pollen and nasty stuff out of the air; apparently that is not the case. So it was a cold, wet, pretty miserable day, but the cars on track were still fun to watch. There were some spinouts and a couple of minor crashes we saw due to the rain. The Atlantic Series had a race completely in the rain, and it was actually a great race with a great pass near the end by the eventual winner.

On Sunday the weather had cleared up a bit and provided great conditions for a day of races. After another good Atlantic race, the Champ Cars lined up for their first ever standing start. Typically in Portland, there will be a crash in the very first corner of the race because it is a sharp 90 degree corner. There were no incidents this time, and the pole sitter, Justin Wilson, led early in the race. The standing start seemed to be safer and more fair for the race leaders. The race went on without any yellow flags and no cars even dropped out due to mechanical failure until the very last lap, where 2 cars stopped on the track, still not too sure why (I haven’t watched my recording of the race yet).

Justin Wilson led for a good while, but then Sebastian Bourdais did what he always does by passing the leader, only to take the lead over in impressive fashion for the rest of the race. It was the 100th Champ Car victory for team Newman-Haas (that’s Paul Newman for those of you who aren’t into racing…I’m surprised if you’re still reading this here), which is quite the historical mark. Sebastian Bourdais has now won 24 of his 63 career Champ Car starts. Yeah, he’s pretty dominant.

Well here in a few hours I’ll be on my way to the Pacific Northwest. It’s time again for the Champ Car race in Portland, Oregon. I’m pretty excited for it this year. The Champ Car series has been on hold for almost 2 months, just due to the schedule, so the drivers will be ready to go again, and I’m more than ready to see them gun it out again. I was able to see them this year in Las Vegas, and those new cars are incredible.

I’ve been going to that race in Portland with my Dad for 22 years now, it’s a great event. This year the Champ Car series has been pretty unpredictable, with the exception of Sebastian Bourdais, who has been his usual dominant self. Some rookies and second year drivers like Will Power and Robert Doornbos have been very impressive.

Last year’s Portland race featured AJ Allmendinger impressively commanding the race to capture his first career Champ Car win, which ended up being the first of a 3 race winning streak. Now that AJ sold out and went to the dark side of racing, there’s not a favorite underdog to overtake Sebastian. I’m hoping that Graham Rahal will continue to do better each race and begin to have a career like his father, Bobby Rahal.

With however the race goes, I’m plenty excited for the trip. I just quit my job at Blvd Home Furnishings yesterday, and things are good!

Woohoo! I’m excited for this finals match up between the Spurs and Cavaliers. I don’t like the Spurs, although they are a solid team. The Cavs are fun to watch, and they beat San Antonio both times the two teams played this season, as well as the time before that in the previous season. Cleveland is a pretty big team, and they can slow teams down surprisingly well. I think Duncan will have his hands full with Ilgauskas, Gooden, and Varejao.

I’m really just hoping to see LeBron dunk over Tim Duncan again like he did here.

In hopes that Cleveland will win their first title in their first trip to the finals, I’m going to predict Cleveland in 6, just missing winning it before their home crowd by one game.

Holy cow!!! I screamed so loud when the #2 pick was announced (Seattle, making Portland #1) that I’m surprised no glass in my house broke. They had a 5.3% chance to get the #1 overall pick, and they got it!!! Last year they had the best chance to go #1 and didn’t get it. That draft was much more spread out talent-wise though, and they still managed to get Brandon Roy, who ended up being the Rookie of the Year.

My prediction: The Blazers’ playoff famine is over! If they don’t win a championship by 2012, something’s fishy. I imagine they’ll take Greg Oden. GO BLAZERS!!!

Today has been great! The NBA Playoffs started, they’ve been great so far. There was an Indy race earlier. Even though it is the lesser of the 2 post-CART era leagues, it was enjoyable. And tonight, UFC 70 is on Spike TV free of charge because it’s outside of the US! The weather outside has been perfect all day but I’ve been inside watching TV. Just thought I’d throw a post up here for all that, not too sure why. Maybe because I’ve been stuck inside most of the day (I did buy some milk and stuff) and felt like reaching out to the world.