You can tell when I am in a zone for basketball these days: I run into, over, or through at least two of my teammates.
Tonight, one of the teams did not show, so that meant our team played the other team twice, in 20-minute games. Which each got 2 wins for the other teams forfeit, but we really needed to work to get any other wins — 20 minutes is quite a bit of a push. The first game we lost as we had a slow start, but more importantly, a slow finish; they pulled away with three free throws to make it 17 to 12. Second game, however, we shut down their drives to the baseline, and topped them by a score of 12-4. Also, in the second game, I really had another good game. I played for about 10-8 minutes at first, and when I can out for my break, I was really tired. Probably the most winded I’ve been in a long time. But, it was great, because I was a monster on defense, using my height and size really well. In fact, I don’t think anyone I was covering ever scored, so that was pretty nifty.
I also jumped into a pick-up game with some guys from work yesterday, and played for about 90 miniutes (60 total playing time, really) and again managed to do fairly well.
It’s worth a thought if I might have missed out on playing basketball in high school, but honestly, I really don’t think so. The big difference between now and then is that I have the motivation to do this, and that only really came about because I was hit by that damn car and broke my leg. As I was grunting my painful way back to recovery, it wasn’t until over a year later that I got clearance to try any sports, and I swore to take full advantage of that. Also, I think a big difference is that rec leagues are more relaxed and fun, whereas playing competitively probably wouldn’t have been quite my thing. Here you can make some mistakes and generally shrug it off. In more structured programs, you get benched — assuming that you even see any playing time.
In any case, summer leagues are signing up, so I’d better grab a few sports. Laura T from work actually is on a soccer team, so I think I’ll try signing up for that. I’d also like to do another basketball season, and maybe football. Just anything to keep playing outside. 
[ S H E I L D B R E A K ! ! ! ]
So I finally got my 1st byline! The marketing team at work has put out the calls to writers for articles we could send out to various print and online publications, and after a slow start, I wrapped up a short opinion piece concerning the role of reality within games:
http://www.develop-online.net/news/37615/OPINION-The-designers-need-to-forget-reality
It’s nice to finally get something up and in “print,” and I definitely own Tina at work a big thanks, since she’s the one who is contacting all the possible locations for publication. Now, the trick is whether or not I can maintain a steady pace of articles. I have a couple of ideas for more, but the question is whether or not they pertain enough to the business/industry. I’ll need to write up the basic ideas and bounce them off Tina to get her feedback.
If nothing else, though, this was really nice.