Basketball and Cultural Differences

Today's song is: With a Little Help from my Friends  .. Joe Cocker

I am finding the cultural differences between Thai and Canadian basketball players a little bit frustrating.  Thai male bball players don't consider bball a priority. School comes first which makes sense, but so does spirit week activities and Robotics trips to Japan and many other activities.

I currently have 16 players on my roster and on any given practice (2 a week) I have 7 or 8 players out. Starter or sub, it makes little difference. However, come game time I am likely to have 14 players show up.

In Canada I always had the rule, that if you missed the practice before a game then you did not play during that game.  If I tried to impose that rule then I the team would get clobbered by the opposition. The level of play is quite high and the teams are well coached. The other teams actually have offensive and defensive systems in place, but that may be a function of having the same coach in place over a number of years.

In my case, I am having difficult getting offensive and defensive systems in place due to practice participation.  We are good at running and gunning but do not play defense very well or run anything on offense. Our length of possession is probably 10 seconds out of the potential 24 seconds. We also shoot the ball poorly. Last game we shot 27% and most of the missed shots were in the paint with no rebounder in position.

Despite the above, we won our first game 46-27 and lost our second game 66-64 with us being up by 1 with 24 seconds to go and the other team ran their offense, reversed the ball and hit a trey leaving us 2 seconds and a hail Mary shot.

The frustrating part for me, is that we could be really good!  Spirit week is over but exams start soon, but I hope to get our systems in place.

In the meantime, I am adjusting my expectations  ...

Family life is good. Jaidan is back in nursery school (9 am to 3 pm) and I am enjoying being busy with basketball. My buddy John just got married and his Thai wife hasn't stopped smiling since  :-)

My buddy Harvey arrives from London for 3 months on the 30th. He is staying in the same apartment building as me. My buddy Ashley and Bridgett arrive on January 4th and they too are staying in my building for their first month of 5 in Thailand.

TTYL

Vietnam War

Today's song is: Just let it roll from song to song ...

Wow, 11 days since my last post.  I have been very busy with coaching basketball, 3 days a week. I have a 90 minute commute to get there, a 90 minute practice, and a 70 minute commute back home.

However, no excuse, updates soon  .. in the meantime, a good read ..

After the Vietnam war some vets arrived in Thailand ...

https://youtu.be/QTJcV3B6iEk

TTYL

Things of Value

Today's song is: 'Ring Dang Do'  .. Sam the Sham  .. Seriously

The last few weeks have been illuminating.  I started coaching high school basketball and rediscovered my love of coaching young people. Young people this time around is an International School High School Boy's Basketball Team. I feel rejuvenated and I look forward to each and every practice. Unfortunately, along with the practices, comes the games and despite a winning percentage o 88% I have never enjoyed the games over the past 30+ years. It's sort of like teaching, I always enjoyed the teaching, but always felt the testing and marking just reinforced what you already new for the sake of accountability.

There were two other incidents this past week which reinforced my understanding that people, not things are important. My longstanding Maurice Lacroix watch that I purchased at Harrods's in London, England has finally quit and at $100 a tuneup I have decided to let it die.  After all, the time is on my smartphone and just a press away.

The other incidence is that I lost my $2,000 eye glasses on my way home from Soi Cowboy (no, I was not drunk) while carrying Jaidan on my shoulders. I will not replace them with another $2,000 pair but will use my $350, 5 year old short focus computer glasses and my Jimmy Choo sunglasses for UV protection while walking about.  What I give up is the 'one glasses does all' focus and UV adjustment what the $2,000 gave me. At first I was upset set, but then I realized that the master of all is not as good as dedicated glasses. That, and the fact that I do not miss the snob appeal  :-)

I repeat once again, 'Things are not important, people are important'. It is better to wake up in the morning with a warm body beside you than a pair of $2,000 specs on the night table beside you!

Once you begin to divest yourself of things you begin to realize how freeing it is. The old adage, 'You can't take it with you' frees the people you left behind the task of getting rid of, or liquidating your stuff.

Here are some pics of where I coach.  Just a normal gym class in progress, along with the weight room.

Sorry about the blurry pics but you get the picture :-)

TTYL

Street Food

Today's song is: Top 2016 Pop  ... Good for Dancing Around the Kitchen  ...

There is an abundance of street food available in Bangkok and it is often cheaper than going to Big C and buying the food and cooking it yourself. All the vendors I know visit the market each morning and buy fresh for the day's cooking. I have never been sick after eating street food which is more than I can say about Paradise Island in Disney world or the 5 Star Marriott in Langkawi, Malaysia.

Here is an example of a rather large BBQ fish dusted with rock salt for 120 baht. I also added a dish of noodle soup (just add water) for 40 baht.

and my favorite beverage, a jug of Singha for 200 baht

at Country Road, Soi Cowboy with Thavorn, Jaidan, and Ploy

TTYL

Saturday Night

Today's song is: Take a Bow  ... Rhianna

and Firework  .. Katy Perry

I had not been out and about for quite some time so I headed off by myself to play some pool and did manage to make it to Soi Cowboy but waylaid. I stopped off at Fanny's and bought a Heineken for my long time friend Sa who runs a food cart for girls working Cowboy. While there, a young Indian man sat down beside the girl who was chatting with me and ordered a coffee. Strange  ...

I was joking around with the girl who I know quit well and eventually asked the man if he was new to Bangkok and indeed he was. It turned out he has spent much of his time in England and was well versed in Europe and England as well as India.

He was quite personable and even knew about Russel Peters so we included him into our conversation. He was intrigued with me being an exPat and asked me if he could accompany me down to Country Road.  I said okay and we headed off to find all the pool tables busy so we sat and listened to the band.  After awhile I suggested that the band at Hillary 2 was much better and we jumped into a taxi and caught an early set.

Of course a trip to Nana is never complete without a stop at Twisters and Billboard and the Jacuzzi girls. After a drink in each bar I suggested that Cowboy would be awake and busy now so we jumped back in a taxi. Normally I would take a motorbike but the bandits were asking for a 100 baht for the trip when they usually charged 60.  I guess they figure they can gouge as it is high season.  The taxi was $50 baht whereas the motorbikes would have been 200 baht. It really helps to have a guide your first couple of trips to the LOS.

Back at Cowboy, we visited the Dollhouse and then Crazy House. Crazy House is just plain crazy at times. The door bouncer wanted 500 baht from my new Indian friend to just enter the place. I voiced my displeasure and he eventually relented and let him in.  It turns out he was acting on his bosses orders and the Boss would rather discourage Indians from enjoying Crazy House. I find that Crazy House has less and less of an appeal for me.

After one drink I decided to head home as I had promised Thavorn I would be back into 2 hours and I was gone for 5.  We exchanged LINE id's and I suggested next time he is back in Bangkok to give me a call.  He was most appreciative of the tour and education I gave him.

TTYL

Basketball ..

Today's song is: We are the Champions  .. Queen

On Tuesday I headed out at 11:115 am to get to the International School that I was to start coaching at. Apparently practice starts at 3:15 and I was not sure how long it would take me to get their. I knew the best I could do would be 60 minutes. I decided to have fun with it and walked up to the nearest BTS station and took the BTS to its terminus. That meant a 20 minute walk and another 15-20 minutes on the BTS.

I left the BTS and knew I would have trouble with the last stage of the trip which was a taxi ride that should take 25 minutes. I flagged a cab and got in and handed the taxi driver a perfectly clear Google map with the route highlighted. Now I was quite aware that most Bangkok taxi drivers can not read a map. He looked at it and nodded and immediately drove past the first turn he should have made and then thought twice about it and pulled over.  He then spent more time with the map and I pointed out the two major roads he would be driving on. He realized he missed the first turn and would have to pull a u-turn asap. That took 10 minutes and I decided to bring up the route on my smartphone so I could tell him when to turn. I told him drong pai (straight ahead) until Google told me to turn left and I told him leo sai (turn left) and then on the last left turn I repeated leo sai and we were there.

So there I was, at the school at 1 pm with over 2 hours to kill. I got my visitor's pass and went to the office to track down the Phys'ed director who turn out to be a great guy. He gave me a tour of the facilities which were better than most high schools in Canada and then we headed off to 7/11 for a coffee which I took back to the phys'ed office where I spent the 2 hours chatting with the 3 phys'ed guys and watching a couple of gym classes.

At 3:15 I awaited the boys who slowly trickled in and I started the practice at 3:30 with introductions and then down to business. For a first practice, with an unknown team I felt it went okay and we called it quits at 4:45 because I had to track down the school van that would take me back to the BTS so I could take it back home.

The van left at 5:15 so I figure I can quit practice at 5 pm from now on and easily make the van.

I am having a great time planning practices and reminiscing on past teams.

I will take some pics at the next practice.

Meanwhile King Arthur flies in on Thursday night from Vegas, Harvey get in on November 30th from London England, and Ashley and his girl friend arrive Jan. 3rd from Ottawa Canada.  Should be lots of fun over the next couple of months.

TTYL

If it Looks Like a Duck ...

Today's song is: The Duck Test  ..

CNN has their usual panel of 'experts' talking about the wacko who drove the rented truck down the bike path in New York City. The experts state it is so difficult to identify these lone wolfs. What a bunch of crap. Just look for a loser with an unkempt beard, wearing white pyjamas, hanging out in Muslim mosques.

I know, if I was sitting behind the rental desk at Home Depot and this wacko came in to rent a truck, it definitely would have set off warning bells. BUT, the politically correct will lecture me on the dangers of profiling  .. get over it  .. it is not the blacks, the Hispanics, or the white privileged committing this carnage .. quack quack  :-)

TTYL