Why There's No NBA

It’s called a lockout. It means the NBA will not allow any players to work until they agree to certain labor terms.

To make things simpler, let’s picture a simple company with employees. There’s a labor agreement set up that dictates that employees get certain benefits like medical, car and house loans, 13th month pays and bonuses. Now let’s say that the labor agreement has expired and the company must work with the employee union to come up with a new labor agreement – what benefits to keep, what benefits to remove and what benefits to add. Until a new agreement has been ratified, no one can work – employees won’t earn salary and the company sits still.

The company tells the employees that the company did not earn much and proposes to slash some of the benefits and lower the salaries of the employees to break even. The employees counter by saying that their salaries and benefits should not be reduced just because the company made bad decisions in running the business. The company comes back and tells the employees that it is not negotiable and that they must agree to less benefits and a lower salary. The employees say they will agree to only a very small salary decrease but things should pretty much the same on the employees’ end. Company says that’s not going to happen, let’s just not work. Employees agreed. Both parties walk away.

So here we are, the NBA locked out the players and all employees so essentially, there’s no NBA. That means no games until they ratify an agreement and right now, they are so far apart and too stubborn to budge.

So what are they arguing about?

#1 Money – Of course they’ll argue about money. Remember, the National Football League also had a lockout this year but it was resolved on time. The difference: the NFL is making lots of money, they just need to agree how much each side gets. The NBA says they lost money last season and most of the teams are in the negative. The players are saying that the NBA did make money last season (the NBA experienced an increase in revenues compared to last year) and that the NBA is just using accounting magic to tweak the numbers their way. Hey, I did daily reporting before… numbers can and will be tweaked.

#2 Salary Cap – Each team is given a max amount of money to pay to its players. Teams are allowed to go beyond the salary cap but will have to pay extra to the league. The owners now want a “hard cap” which means you can’t go beyond the salary cap even if you’re willing to pay extra. This means rich teams (LA, NY, Chicago) cannot stock up on talent and overpay players. Remember, some teams cannot afford to pay extra and with everyone else overpaying players, you end up with a bad roster and at the bottom of the standings. With a hard cap, teams are not encouraged to overpay players anymore and that’s why the players don’t want it.

#3 Salaries – Meet Carlos Boozer, starting power forward for the Bulls, virtually plays no defense, aging, often injured, decent scorer and rebounder and the Bulls will pay him 80 million dollars for 5 years. The 5 years is the max length of contract anyone can give and in order for the Bulls to outbid others, they had to offer their maximum available. If he gets hurt (and he will), the Bulls are essentially tied to the contract and will still need to pay him. The league wants to get rid of this scenario by having shorter max lengths in contracts and opt out clauses if players could no longer hold their end of the deal. To no surprise, the players don’t want these either.

#4 Revenue Sharing – It’s basically pooling the income of all teams then giving each a fair share. It’s the players’ answer to the claims that some teams are losing money.

#5 Bragging Rights – For the past labor negotiations, the players have always been the winners. That’s why you have such favorable benefits for players and the players don’t want to lose any of it. The NBA commissioner has made it clear that he doesn’t want to lose to the union yet again.

#6 Age Limit in the NBA Draft – Remember when you were a kid and you wanted a toy so you grab the one you want and grab an extra toy and ask mom to buy both. Mom would tell you to buy only one and so you put down the extra toy (and do a good “sad” acting job) and just “settle” with the one you want. This is the extra thing that the players union is fighting for but don’t really care about. The problem is, the owners are wise to the players’ tactics and this will probably go down the drain.

As of Oct 12, the first 2 weeks of the NBA schedule have been cancelled and we don’t know when a deal will be finalized.

Oh well.

2011 Chicago Photo Walk

A photo walk is where a group of photographers walk through a certain area, take pictures and share ideas. This year, world famous photographer Mike Lao led his flock through Grant Park and the Museum Campus on a cool sunny day. I brought my Nikon D300 and a wide angle lens since I’ll be taking landscape pictures. Jaye brought a point and shoot because she’s like the Chuck Norris of photography, the landscape adheres to whatever camera she’s bringing.

I’ll be sharing some of my photos below as well as explain my composition thoughts and techniques. Feel free to comment or ask stuff. You’ll also notice my photography style: I love colors, I love shooting animals and other woodland creatures, I love weird angles and I rarely take pictures of people.



This picture is from Grant Park includes four elements of design: shape (the sculptures against the sky), form (the shadows), line (the shapes seem to gravitate to this point in the center of the photo) and color (contrasting blue and a very dark red). I placed a big empty space in the middle to highlight the sculptures by shooting low, extremely low – I took this with the camera almost flat on the ground. The effect? The sculptures seem taller (as tall as the buildings) and I minimized the strong green color off the picture.



There are two ways to shoot this picture of the Metra Train going through Grant Park: shoot horizontally (landscape) to get a good picture of the city skyline or shoot vertically (portrait) to highlight the train and the tracks. The horizontal picture is fine but you get too much empty space on the lower left and lower right parts of the picture (and empty space is boring). Since I don’t like having too many subjects on a picture (overwhelms the brain), I took a picture of the train and the tracks with just a little skyline. I wish the sun cooperated just a little bit though.



This is the pedestrian bridge over Grant Park and it highlights one thing: shape. I was waiting for the guy on the lower right to do an interesting pose but he just scratched his nose. Oh well.



This is an apartment near Field Museum and I wanted to shoot it with something in the background or foreground. If I shot a picture of the building alone, it would look like an ad for a spare apartment there or something so I included something very near (the plants), something very far (the sky) and something in the middle (the trees). The sunlight and the shadows also added some color contrast.

Ah squirrels, one of my favorite subjects. I sat down beside this tree and a squirrel came by to ask if I had food. I checked my bag, pulled my camera and took his picture. I said I had food and so he waited. I asked him to come closer, he did and I took more pictures. He asked for food and I said all I had were a lens cap, a spare battery and a tripod. I said I was sorry, I took his picture again and he climbed up a tree. Composition technique? None. Shooting strategy? Learn your camera’s “machine gun” shooting mode, aim fast and talk to squirrels.



On my way to the campus, I saw Louvre aiming his camera at this broken fountain with water just gushing senselessly. I asked what the heck he was doing and he just said “birds”. “Birds?! There are no birds!” then two birds landed from a tree and had a drink right in front of his camera. He took a couple pictures and since I wasn’t ready, I had to swing my camera across my body, turn on the camera, adjust the focus and all these jerky movements caused the birds to fly away. Louvre wasn’t happy and we waited for more birds to arrive. Composition lesson: Ask permission from your friend first before taking pictures of his bird.

One more thing, when taking a picture of something or someone who’s looking at something else either on the left or right, add some empty space for them to look at. In this picture, the birds are looking at the right and so I included half the canvas for them to look at. You don’t need to include the actual object they’re looking at, just some empty space will do.




For the two photos above, shoot the subject in a frame within a frame. The bird is framed by the leaves while the Shedd Aquarium is framed by the silhouette of nearby trees. Wedding photographers often use this technique (with a wide open aperture to emphasize bokeh).

I was on the fence with this picture but the silhouettes are just so striking and the texture effect of the water is interesting. Note that this was taken from an overlooking site and so to have a flatter lake, I had to shoot again as low as possible – this means lying down on my belly and lowering my camera almost into the water while making sure I was balanced and I wouldn’t roll into the lake. This is a little advanced so take note. The angle of the leg corresponds to the shutter speed and aperture of the camera. If you’re shooting with a smaller aperture, the leg needs to be raised higher and vice versa. Very… Advanced… Technique…

The skyline picture is more challenging than you think. First, you need to shoot in manual. Never trust your light meters at this point. Second, you need to be there right before sunset and right after sunset so you have pictures of the skyline against a blue sky and against an orange sky. Third, use a timer to reduce shaking. Fourth, use your mirror delay (where the camera opens the mirror then waits one second before opening the shutter). Fifth, use the lowest ISO possible. Sixth, active your noise reduction option on your camera. It means there’s a bigger gap in between shots but really, who cares? You’re not in a hurry right? Seventh, bring a tripod and secure it either by hanging your bag on the tripod or keeping your tripod as low as possible. Eighth, stay away from your camera while it’s shooting on a long exposure. Remove the strap around your neck and don’t hold the camera or the tripod because that would just shake everything. Ninth, shoot multiple pictures. Even with the same settings, the wind will be blowing differently with every shot and that would make each picture different. Tenth, keep an eye on your gear!

Segway!

That my friends, is a Segway.

A promo came up for Segway tours and so Jaye and I (and a couple of our Pinoy friends) got some tickets to try it. We couldn’t care less about the tour itself, we just wanted to ride a Segway.

A Segway is a two-wheeled personal transporter which is self-balancing and has a top speed of around 12 miles per hour. It’s three times faster than your average walking speed. Jaye is curious about the self-balancing part since it has two wheels and is structurally unstable. I’m curious about the top speed.

We were at the Segway tour shop on time and the first thing the guides handed out were accident waivers. It was two pages long and requires a ton of signatures. It had all these complex contract terms but basically it’s saying “If you fall off and get hurt, it’s your own stupid fault, now sign here.”.

Next they’re going to scare you about the 37 dollar fee you need to pay in case your Segway gets a flat tire -- Don’t get it. For starters, that just doesn’t make any sense. Why would I need to pay more if your own equipment breaks down?! If I was a photographer covering a wedding and my camera breaks, why would I charge that to the client? The guide goes on by telling you that “yesterday, we had four incidents of flat tires” and recommends that you get the 3 dollar flat tire insurance. Even so, the tires are a little worn but you’ll be riding along pavement the whole day so I doubt you’ll ever get a flat unless you purposely run over a porcupine.

They fit helmets on you then give you your Segway but before you can ride, there’s an hour-long training session on how to use the Segway. We had two guides: one was a pleasant gentleman who was a nice person to talk to, is taking up theater, loves the art museum and took his guy date to this one place (you get the idea). The other guide was an annoying jerk.

The annoying guide tried to be funny while explaining the basic Segway controls and that just made him a lot more annoying.



We had our Segways lined up on the grass during the orientation. Yup, that's a homeless guy. Welcome to Chicago!




When the good guide was teaching me, he saw that I was wearing a Harvard shirt.

Guide: “Wow, you went to Harvard?”,
Me: “Yup!”
Guide: “What did you do there?”
Me: “I bought this shirt.”
Guide: “Haha! Oh I get it! So you just visited.”
Me: “But I really went to M.I.T.”
Guide: “Oh really? How was it?”
Me: “They didn’t have any M.I.T. shirts.”
Guide: “Hahahahaha!”



Then he paused, smiled and looked at me and all I wanted to do was zoom out of there. In an instant, I already knew how to maneuver a Segway.

Riding a Segway is tricky and scary at first since you don’t turn the handlebars and you need to use your body angle to move or stop. Leaning forwards causes it to go forward and leaning backwards causes it to stop. You need to fight this natural tendency to pull the handles to stop and push the handles to move. It’s not like riding a bike or a scooter so first time riders may be shocked at first especially with the ultra-sensitive controls.

They gave us two things to remember:

One, we should not bend our bodies forward such that our tummies are hitting the handlebars. Tummies should not hit the handlebars. Uhhh, good luck to me.



Second, we should always ignore that circle speedometer thing in the handlebars. No one should look at it since it distracts riders. The good guide comes by and repeats that rule to me:

Guide: “That circle thing, from now on, it’s never there, got it?”
Me: “What circle thing?”
Guide: “THAT circle thing! (points at it) From now on, forget about that ok?”
Me: “What circle?
Guide: “THAT ONE! (taps on it) It’s never there ok?”
Me: “I don’t see a circle thing”
Guide: “THIS CIRC… oooh wait, you smartass!”



The good guide then tells us to follow him as we take a tour around Grant Park. I whirred behind Jaye and tapped her on the shoulder. The other guide suddenly appeared beside me and warns me that I shouldn’t pull Jaye because if I did, she would fall backwards and I would then fall backwards and cause all sorts of mess. I was just tapping Jaye. I didn’t pull her. I think he’s just fighting so many lawsuits from customers who fell off before to the point that he’s becoming over protective. I don’t care, he’s still a jerk.



We went around the museum campus with the good guide describing certain landmarks and the annoying guide barking reminders such as “NO PICTURE TAKING WHILE RIDING THE SEGWAY.” and “NOT TOO FAST! NOT TOO FAST!”. It was still bearable at first but when one of the other riders fell off the Segway (he turned too fast, sending him face first to the pavement and giving him a nasty, bloody gash on the cheek), things just went from bad to worse. The guide was now stricter and we made a beeline back to the shop.

Like when someone gets seriously drunk at a party, the fun factor decreases exponentially. Ride a little too fast, they shout. Run over a small rock, they shout. Check the pictures on your camera, they shout. Lose you place in the line, they shout. Sneeze, they shout. You get the idea.

Good thing the tour was about to end anyway. We skipped a couple areas because of all the delays in the training and that “balentong” incident. Was it worth it? Yeah, riding a Segway is such a unique experience and if you’re new to the city, it’s a pretty decent tour… just make sure you get a good guide (and if you do… tip well).

Aurora aka Chicago Premium Outlets

“MagAuaurora kami!!!” is a statement said with a deep sense of happiness. Aurora is the city where the Chicago Premium Outlet mall is located but we call the mall “Aurora” for some reason. For me, it’s the best outlet mall near the Chicago area and here are my 10 good reasons why it rocks:



#1: The Union Station
Unless you’re renting a car, going to Aurora means going to the Union Station to board the train. If you saw “My Best Friend’s Wedding”, the chase part was filmed here. The big, cavernous hall just looks awesome.

…except if you missed the train which leaves right on time. The next train should be leaving in 2 hours which gives you time to watch “My Best Friend’s Wedding” off your iPod.



#2 The BNSF train
It stands for “Burlington Northern Santa Fe” but we call it the “Aurora” train. I have no idea why it’s called Burlington Northern Sante Fe because it doesn’t stop at Burlington, Illinois and there’s no town called Santa Fe here. Travel time is 1 hour 20 minutes and it gives you time to relax and revisit your shopping list.

…except if you’re sharing cars with noisy children or smelly people… or both.

#3 The Mall Layout
For some reason, other outlet malls were built like a skewed “X” (Kenosha) or an “S” (Gurnee Mills Mall) which means there’s a lot of walking back and forth. Aurora is shaped like an “O” which means it’s easy to return to shops you skipped earlier (especially if you’re the type of shopper who compares prices from different stores first before buying anything). It also means you can go around the mall a second time if time permits.

…except that more access to shops means that that ugly, expensive shirt you saw earlier now looks nice and cheap. You end up with more purchases than intended.

#4 Nike
Remember those days when you traced your foot on a piece of paper and send that to your relatives in the US? Yep, that practice is still alive only this time they scan it, post it on Facebook then tag you. Nike is an ultimate pasalubong place if you’re patient enough to browse through all their goods.

…except some of the shirts are made in the Philippines which bears the question, what’s the point?



#5 The Food Court
They have 5 restaurants in the food court: Ranch 1 which is a poor man’s Chick-Fil-A, Villa Fresh Italian Kitchen which is a poor man’s Sbarro, Asian Chao which is a poor man’s Panda Express, Maki of Japan which is a poor man’s Asian Chao and Great Steak which is a poor man’s Quizno’s.

…except you won’t really mind the taste when hunger strikes in the middle of your shopping trip.



#6 Vendo Machines
They have lots of vending machines for drinks and snacks. They have some on each corner of the mall and some hidden ones behind unmarked doors and none of them are overpriced. They also have credit card readers so you can use your credit cards when purchasing these drinks.

…except when the machine asks you to swipe your card five times then displays a cryptic error message making you wonder if the machine placed a hundred dollars on your card for a Pepsi it did not dispense.



#7 Lacoste
If you REALLY want a Lacoste shirt, this is where you buy one. It’s not available in other stores and the Lacoste store in Michigan Ave has virtually no discount whatsoever.

…except when you examine the stuff they have, you have to admit that whoever supplies those stuff at Greenhills did a great job copying these. It’s hard to tell the difference between the fake one and the real one without checking out the tag. Maybe you can just buy the crocodile logo and staple them on your shirts.

#8 Izod / Van Heusen
These stores stack two to three discounts on top of each other, which can really bring down the price (a collared shirt for ~ 5 to 12 dollars). Their shirts are of excellent quality and you can’t have enough of these especially if you wear them to the office.

…except if you suck at math. They may have a 60 dollar shirt that has a 70% discount stacked with a 20% discount and an additional 10% discount. That’s 60 dollars down to 18 dollars down to 14.40 dollars down to 12.96 dollars. Computing all these puts a huge stress on my brain and if you spend too much time in the store, you end up computing everything else. On the way home, I found out that bus 533 discounted is actually bus 373.1.

#9 Aeropostale
You gotta love Aero since it’s a store where you can buy those “pamparami” shirts and pasalubongs. Clothes are decent, the styles are hip and their prices are the lowest among all clothing stores in the mall.

…except if you hate crowds and long lines. Aero has great stock but they’re all over the place. The store is always packed and so be prepared to shop Greenhills style.

#10 The 533 Molitor Bus
This is the bus that takes you from the mall to the train station. It arrives on time and leaves within a minute. It’s probably the place where you get to talk to everyone else on your shopping group for the first time since you arrived.

…except, it has a shorter window which means if you’re late then you need to start improvising on how to make it to the train station on time. It’s like a stressful episode of the Amazing Race.



Worth noting:

Oakley, has a 10% chance every holiday weekend of having a sale on good sunglasses. Yes I checked, none of them is labeled “Oakey” (without the "L")
Starbucks, the only place that has free wi-fi. Oh, and they have coffee too.
BCBGMaxazria, the shop would have been nice if I could pronounce its name.

Coach, it’s amazing how long the line is just to enter this shop.

Soldier Field and Da Bears

It’s the NFL preseason!!! Star quarterback Jay Cutler!! Super speedy Devin Hester!!! Defensive monsters Brian Urlacher and Julius Peppers!!!

Yep, none of them played… that’s the NFL preseason foryou. It’s like going to a U2 concertwith Bono sitting on a chair on stage playing U2 songs off his iPod.

So why watch an NFL preseason game? Simple:
1 regular season ticket == $130.00
Arn != rich

A couple of hours before the game I was at Marshalls picking up a Bears jersey. I was choosing between a $30 Cutler jersey or a $9 Anderson jersey. Cutler is the starting quarterback for the team. I have no idea who Anderson is buthe’s only 9 bucks so I bought his jersey. I went home and showed it to Jaye.



“Who’s Anderson?”, she asked.
“I dunno… Gerald?”
“Is it safe to wear that? Did he do something to the Bears fans? Why would his jersey be on clearance? Boozer sucks and his jersey is still being sold at 40 dollars!”

I had to Google him up… fast. Yep. Anderson. Mark Anderson. Good rookie player. Released by the Bears last 2009. Played with Houston in 2010. Signed recently with New England. His jersey is on clearance since he’s been gone from the team since 2009.

Ok good. I wore the jersey and showed it to Jaye.

“Is that… see through?”

Apparently it was. Good thing I had another Bears shirt.

We took the red line to Roosevelt then walked a mile to the entrance. It didn’t help that it was 30 C with no wind (for the sake of comparison, the temperature was colder in Manila at 28 C… of course it was raining like crazy but still…)




Almost everyone was wearing a Bears jersey and I was looking around for anyone wearing a #97 Anderson jersey. Nope, none, nada. Jaye told me that no one in his right mind would probably wear an Anderson jersey. I disagreed so we made a bet – we’ll eat somewhere nice depending on the number of people we see wearing an Anderson jersey:

5 people = Fogo De Chao
4 people = Chili’s
3 people = Go Roma
2 people = Portillo’s

We agreed to eat at McDonald’s if we only see one guy with the jersey but I was confident enough that we’ll be eating that night at Fogo (endless steaks!).

When we reached Soldier Field, first thing we bought was a small bottle of Coke for $4.75. That’s two hundred pesos! After paying, my brain automatically played mom’s “MARAMING BATANG NAGUGUTOM” speech I heard oh so many times as a child.

We reached our seats which was probably somewhere in the stratosphere. I had to duck to make sure the weather satellites don’t hit us. Despite the high seats, I’ll admit it’s still a good view. I’m still able to watch the game as well as take this picture of the whole stadium without an ultra-wide lens.







As expected, none of the stars played which was perfectly fine since all we really wanted was to see was Soldier Field from the inside and complete the Chicago sports “grand slam” (watch the Bulls at the United center,watch the Sox at US Cellular field, watch the Bears at Soldier field and watch the Cubs at Wrigley). Sorry Chicago Fire, I haven't converted Jaye to a soccer fan yet and sorry Blackhawks, you also play at the United Center.

We didn’t really followed the game but we did glance occasionally to the field whenever what’s-his-name receives a pass or passes the ball.

Soldier field is huge and… metal. It looks like a mixing bowl from far away andit still looks like a mixing bowl from the inside. There are huge screens on both ends of the fields and it’s impossible to ignore those box seats up above for the rich people (each ticket costs around 300 to 800 dollars!).

Eventually the game ended and a lot of the fans in our section were already long gone. No one cared what the score was but apparently, the Bears won. The crowd was nonchalant as they walked out towards the exit. None of that “YEAAAAHHH WE WOOOON!! IN YOUR FACE CLEVELAND!!!” stuff. It was more like “yawn… I need to go home and cut my toenails.” look.

That’s the NFL preseason, a fraction of the ticket price for none of the excitement. At least whenever they show Soldier Field I can say “Yeah… I’ve been there. I watched the Bears. That Anderson guy is one heck of a player.”

Oh, where did we eat? Home… with a plate of Lucky Me pansit canton… apparently I'm the only idiot who bought an Anderson jersey in all of Chicago.

2011 Chicago Air and Water Show

It’s the second largest festival in Chicago where different aircrafts perform stunts along the Lake Michigan shore. Admission is free so all you need to do is go to the beach and look up. There are also boats and other watercrafts really, who cares?

Jaye and I camped underneath the Grant Statue in Lincoln Park with my camera, a couple cans of Coke and some Ding Dongs. I know the event is held a half-mile away on the North Avenue beach but the statue has plenty of shade, it’s not crowded and it has a good unobstructed view from the side.

Before anything though, have this song playing on the background… you know, for effect.

First up was the Aeroshell Aerobatic Team on their North American T-6 Texan planes from the WWII era. They’re a fun group to watch as they twirled and looped around the sky.

By the way, I’m using a telephoto lens completely zoomed in so I often lose track on where the planes are (too fast, too much smoke). When that happens, I zoom out, adjust the focus then zoom back in however most of the time, I get pictures of birds flying by instead of planes. They look cool anyway so I posted them with the planes.

Next was a yellow plane from Matt Chapman Aerobatics who was probably drunk the way he was flying his plane.

Then came this red helicopter who dropped someone into the lake. It was hovering just on the top of trees from where we were so it looked like a big red bee.

Then came a huge refueling plane from the air force. I wasn’t happy with it. I played the “Top Gun” game from the family computer and they have this part where you need to refuel your jet through this refueling plane and I never got it right. I ended up running out of fuel and Maverick needs to crash into the ocean, game over. I hated that game (and yet I want to play it again now).

Next came a black plane which basically did the same things they yellow plane did earlier. Yeah, yeah, I know, I was expecting too much but I guess after watching Transformers, I was expecting either (1) one plane to transform and land on North Avenue beach, (2) guys flying down on wingsuits or (3) Victoria Secret models.

Maybe #3 was not as far fetched as I thought. There was a group of ladies from GoTopless protesting on top of the North Avenue bridge and their aim is to seek equality for women to go topless like men do in public places. I didn’t see them though… uh… I heard it from a friend who… er… uh…

Oh look! Navy SEALs!

Then came a short break which gave me time to reload a new battery pack, delete blurry pictures and reset my settings. While fiddling through my camera (and not using my zoom lens to view the North Ave bridge), a black dot whizzed through the sky followed by a sonic boom. That thing was fast. I could barely keep it in my view.

The red Oracle plane, the Oracle Challenger III came out and immediately wowed everyone with even more complex maneuvers. I’m guessing the pilot (Sean Tucker?) is flying the plane using command lines that he types while inside the aircraft. Well, at least it’s stable. The Microsoft plane would have hanged and ended up somewhere in space.

Oh, it drew this. Jaye asked me what it was. I said it was an arrow pointing to the heavens. She didn’t believe me.

It also drew a duck.

Next came the Golden Knights. Wasn’t Vince Vaughn part of this flying team?

Finally came the main course, the US Thunderbirds! You can miss everything else on the show just don’t skip this one. They came out from the west side which surprised everyone then performed several stunts drawing oohs and aahs from the crowd.

There’s one where they flew really close to each other.

There’s also the upside down trick.

They flew in synch with each other and looked like one big single aircraft from afar. It reminds me of that school of fish that Dory and Marlin met in Finding Nemo.

After the last Thunderbirds stunt, everyone started to make their way out of the North Avenue beach. Finally, the event is done and Jaye and I couldn’t be happier. They held their practices on the same spot a few days earlier and it was sonic boom after sonic boom… it was disturbing Jaye at work and me while playing NBA 2K11.

I still wished that one plane transformed into Starscream while in mid air or something… oh well.