Ball Hogs Have Problems Hogging the Ball

(For Immediate Release)

Pismo Beach, CA -  There was another sold out crowd gathered at Judkins Arena tonight to watch LEVEL continue their quest for basketball glory.  However, it was apparent that some members of the crowd were confused when entering the arena.  There was a rumor afloat that the gym was hosting a modeling shoot.  The confusion was quickly cleared up when they realized that they were here to see a shooting model.

Kasey “Do They Call This a Zone” came out of the gates with a hot hand, knocking down long range jump shots early and often to give LEVEL a comfortable lead.  It was quickly apparent that the zone defense featured by the Ball Hogs was not up to the task of stopping the high octane LEVEL offense.  Getting into the zone-busting action in the first half were Tom “Chief Executive Offender” and Troy “I Miss My Beard.”  When LEVEL did miss its outside shots, Aaron “The Rebound Baron” was there to clean up the mess.

In the second half, LEVEL showed why some are calling them the best defensive team the league has seen since the late 80s.  The defensive effort was spearheaded by the pestering 30-something backcourt defense of Paul “I Just Took Your Wallet” and Miguel “I Just Took Your Pride.”  A number of steals by the two guards led to easy points on the other end, proving once again that good defense leads to a better offense.  The tough LEVEL defense led to some frustration on the part of the Ball Hogs, causing the Ball Hogs to set a handful of illegal screens late in the game then went uncalled by the referees.  Hank “The Pulsating Forehead Vein” Wethington let it be known that LEVEL did not appreciate the illegality, leading to a quick apology from the Ball Hogs.

Miguel capped off his MVP night by feeding a fastbreak alley-oop pass to Phil “I Believe I Can Fly” that brought the crowd to its feet and the Ball Hogs to their knees.

“When Miguel threw the ball up to me, I didn’t have much time to decide between my 360 and my windmill dunk,” explained Phil.  “I decided to go with my windmill.  Judging by the crowd’s reaction, I made the right choice.”  To see more high-flying antics, you can catch LEVEL play the Stuntmen next week.
(AP)

(For Immediate Release)

Pismo Beach, CA – With the fog setting in over the coast and the sun going down, two of the top teams clashed in Pismo Beach for sole possession of first place in the Arroyo Grande men’s league. With someone consuming large amounts of garlic for lunch, the starting 5 contemplated if they were going to be able to take the court with the awful stench that was emitted during warm ups.

In front of a crowd with standing room available, LVL and Splash Down started out in a shootout, with Tom scoring the first 5 points of the game to match Splash Downs fire from behind the arc. The intensity continued to rise, with the game growing more and more physical. Splash Down was taken by surprise when player/coach Hank ripped off his suit and tie and checked into the game. Confusion by Splash Down’s team ensued and led for open offensive opportunities for LVL. Elbows the the face, jabs to the gut, and technical fouls fueled the fire for LVL to hold a comfortable lead after the 10 min mark.

With 3 seconds left on the clock in the first half, Justin threw a 3/4 court alley-oop from out of bounds to Kasey… the ball ended of getting wedged in between the basket and the backboard for a jump ball call but the play drew some more momentum for LVL going into halftime. Kasey injured his shoulder on the rim during the play but x-rays were negative.

Justin Drives to the Hoop

The second half proved to be an even tougher battle, but LVL kept its commanding lead with Aaron and Ryan dominating the boards down low. Around the mid-way point of the second half, Splash Down’s attempt to chisel away at the lead was extinguished when Miguel whittled his way into the lane for a couple jumpers and a finger roll off the glass. Phil, Greg and Troy came off the bench and put in solid minutes to secure the victory in the final minutes.

When the lights tuned off and the crowd went away, LVL availed to extend the Central Coast’s longest men’s league winning streak to 13 games, and notched its 3rd win the of the season.

The “Wolfpack” rallies on.

(For Immediate Release)

Arroyo Grande, CA – The D2 division looks like a temporary starting point for the defending champions, LEVEL. It quickly became apparent that the off season moves for the team would pay off and only make the team stronger as they jumped out to an 11 to 0 lead before the Ball Hogs called their first time-out. The LEVEL team, lead by Kasey and Miguel, kept the ball moving to the open man, where Tom and Justin had easy looks at the basket. And when the ball didn’t go in the first time, Aaron was their to clean up the boards. “This starting five looks unstoppable,” said returning Manager Hank. “I think they’re ready for the Golden State Warriors. They’re just not on the schedule this season.”

LEVEL closed out the first half with contributions from the bench, where a highlight reel assist from Ryan and a fast break from Phil had the stands on their feet. The second half saw LEVEL establish a 20 point lead, and the starters making way for the rest of the team. Coming off the bench, offensively, Steven, Carlos and Troy kept the ball flowing through the hoop, while defensively, Greg, Ryan and Hank held the Ball Hogs to a 15 point second half. The game was never in question and LEVEL closed out a well deserved victory.

Next week, LEVEL will face the Stuntman as they continue their march for a back-to-back championship.

When it comes to running, I can’t say I enjoy it yet. However, I can say that sometimes it’s the only thing between me and a bottle of Jack. I’ve gotten to the point in my runs, where I can get into a grove. Ok, on most runs I can get into a grove. After the Miracle Miles 4 Kids, I just kept going. I still needed my “graduation” 5k for the Couch to 5k program and I’m running at the Arroyo Grande Strawberry Festival this upcoming weekend. My goal has been to still run 3x per week for 3 miles, but I’m only averaging 2 runs per week. As many have commented on my Facebook posts, at least I’m out there. Some highs: I completed my longest run yet at 4 miles back on May 6th. It felt great. I was surprised I was able to do it and more shocked that it wasn’t as hard as I thought. But then there’s the lows. I had my worst run since starting the program just one week later. I couldn’t complete the 3 miles, not only stopping to walk, but just plain unable to finish. It wasn’t due to an injury or muscles, just a will. I’m still excited about running, but need to think of a new goal after the 5k this weekend.

I can’t say I’ve posted to much about my being a Lakers fan, but if you’re reading my blog, you probably already know that. What you didn’t know, is in that I became a fan when I was 8 years old… Magic Johnson’s rookie year. Yes, I’m a true fan… I was a fan even during the brutal years of Van Exel and Divac. But it does make it easy to be a fan when in those years they’ve won 9 championships! However, with as much as I’ve loved the Lakers over the years, I’ve never been to a game. That changed thanks to a vendor at work.

I was in LA for the 2nd game of the Suns v. Lakers last Wednesday. As you can imagine, it was awesome. Not sure how to put it all into words, but it was great. The seats were amazing, the game was incredible, and getting to take time off from work was just icing on the cake. I can say though that I would never fork over the cash for those types of seats. Even where we sat, the game is more viewable on my TV. Don’t get me wrong… If you offered me tickets to see another game, I’m there… I just won’t pay for it myself. I did have to go with my boss, which made it interesting since he isn’t a Lakers fan, but even that was good.

So yeah, work. Blogging about work has always been pretty much off limits. For one thing, people whom are mentioned, even if not by name, may read it. I’m emotional and don’t always have nice things to say. Secondly, future employers may read it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put my name into Google and stumble upon this blog. And finally, we all have jobs, and most of the time, we’re not happy about them, so who wants to read another complaint about work. Heck, if you’re out of work when you read this, then maybe you say to yourself I should appreciate what I have. Which, is true.

This past month though has been a struggle. I’ve been challenged and pushed and didn’t always come out of it the way I wanted. I spent many days agitated and frustrated about what I had to do, often just to appease someone. In the end, everything worked out the way I thought it would, but getting there meant a return to 60+ hour weeks. Looking behind me now, I can be happy I’m done. I know I did a good job and I even learned a few things about myself. There’s some more challenges to come, but, hopefully, I can take some of these lessons and make the journey a little nicer.

I was tasked yesterday with creating a rewrite rule in apache to handle a URI query that need to change for a site. This ended up being an exercise where my head was bloodied from banging it against my desk. Of course it didn’t help any that the client that needed this gave us hardly any time to accomplish it. Read on for more info.

Here’s what the original URL looked like:

http://www.somesite.com/locator/person.aspx?blahId=12345

the new URL should look like:

http://www.somesite.com/locator/cool_person.html?id=12345&people=1

OK, so the first part is pretty easy.

RewriteRule ^/locator/person.aspx(.*) /locator/cool_person.html$1

That would work if the blahId was used instead of just id and if I didn’t need to add &people=1 to the end. After a little playing around, I broke up the URI query and created a QUERY_STRING Condition, then created the rule:
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}    ([^=]*)=(.*)
RewriteRule (.*) $1?%2
RewriteRule ^/locator/person.aspx$  /locator/cool_person.html?id=%{QUERY_STRING}&people=1

Of course, my plan was to break arpart the URI into two pieces, but you have to be really careful with RegEx… it can be really aggressive. My testing worked. The rewrite did exactly as expected and I sent out an email to my work team beaming with pride over creative solution…

Then it went live, and nothing worked as expected. Due to the aggressive nature of my rewrite condition along with the proceeding rewrite rule, the next rule was catching the new URL coming through along with the  URI query and reprocssing it. Of course, I wasn’t expecting it to. My testing environment, since it wasn’t even remotely similar to the production one, didn’t catch this problem. The final solution was to not be so greedy with the condition. My coworker came up with the fix while I was out:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI}    ^/locator/person.aspx$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING}   ^blahId=([0-9]*$)
RewriteRule ^/locator/person.aspx$ /locator/cool_person.html?id=%1&doctor=1

As the rule was much more selective, it didn’t screw with the rest of the site. By only looking at the single query string we wanted, we get the desired result set in %1 without rewriting the whole URL just to be reprocessed by the next rewrite rule.

I hope this helps someone out there, as my original fix was assisted by a good google search.