I’ve noticed this a lot lately especially before the season started when they were writing about the spots remaining on the team roster. They kept saying there were three guys competing for one remaining spot on the roster (Jamario, Juan and Luke) when in reality there were two spots and three guys. If that was confusing to me, a fan of the game, I can imagine a casual reader would probably have stopped reading two sentences in.

So when I read the gross misrepresentation today in the Star, I thought I had better get my thoughts out there. If you read the “Run ‘n’ gun” story about the Warriors in today’s Toronto Star Doug Smith mentions the Warriors as being the highest scoring team in the league and he cites them as averaging 116.3 points per game (and giving up 109.3 points per game):

“How do you prepare for them?” Mitchell wondered about the Warriors, who average 116.3 points per game but give up 109.3 per outing. “They’re not going to run but two or three plays. As a coach, you like to be able to prepare.

Immediately I was confused because I thought the Utah Jazz were the highest scoring team in the league. With a 1-6 record I was perplexed at how the Warriors could be scoring that much more than their opponents and have only won one game. Hmm, did they win one game by 40 and lose the rest by one point? Were they counting last years stats? What gives?

I didn’t have to look very far to see the errors in Doug Smith’s ways…directly to the right of the article is a game preview showing the Warriors GIVING UP a league-worst 116.3 points per game, but scoring on average 109.3 points per game. Ahhh, now that makes sense.

I know the story was probably written late last night and with all the big events happening today, maybe nobody read it over, but man o’ man…that was just un-acceptable. The average score was a critical fact for the theme of the “Run-n-gun” story. Now 109.3 points per game is still a run-n-gun team, but it is a lot different than 116.3 ppg. Dougie boy, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Sidenote: I checked some more papers, and the Sun reported that the Warriors are indeed the highest scoring team in the league, so I’m trusting that two papers wouldn’t get that fact wrong. After the Raptors held the Jazz to 92 points in the loss on Wednesday, their ppg must have dropped.

Moon is looking good, but the true reason for this post (besides being impressed with Jamario’s performance at last night’s game in their loss to Utah) is my attempt to use the NBA.com’s widget. Sadly this widget that would have shown his up to date stats directly on this page does not work in WordPress.

I’ll have to settle for an action shot and some news about Jamario from around the web.

He’s starting to make some waves (and bad puns) in the NBA circles, the folks at NBA.com have him at 6th in the rookie rankings and did a long, but not very funny, writeup of him in this weeks rookie report. Here’s an excerpt:

After seeing the 6-8, 205 pound forward put on an impromptu dunk-a-thon during layup lines while covering the Raptors game against the Celtics in Rome during Europe Live last month, a couple things were clear to me at the time:

A) This guy should be in the All-Star Slam Dunk Contest
B) Nothing against Andrea Bargnani, but I’m looking at the most exciting rook north of the border since he-who-must-not-be-named
C) When I do eventually give him love in the Rookie Rankings, I’m going to make like a Denny’s menu author and title the column “Moon Over My Rankings” in his honor

The slightly edgier dudes over at ESPN.com’s daily dime actually have Moon ranked 4th just below Harford. Although in NBA.com’s defense, their rankings didn’t include his game last night. Here’s what they had to say:

4. Jamario Moon, Raptors: Moon defends, hustles and can finish. He may be the small forward Toronto’s looking for.

All good stuff. Now if the rest of the team can bring it like Jamario is, we will actually win more games than we lose.

So, this blog is setup for easy comments, and is a great place for us all to “collaborate“.  I’ll start it off by saying I will be driving up on Saturday and stopping off for some golf at Kananaskis Ranch Golf Club.  Let me know if you want to join us (we have 5 tee times booked for 9 holes).

Naama will also be driving up on Saturday for a Spa day at the Rimrock.

Who needs a ride, and who wants to share a room?

May 5th, 8p.m. “[Crisp crisp, crunch crunch] Oh. my. god.” -Naama

May 5th, 9p.m. – 12a.m. “I [drawing heart] you. Seriously.” – Naama

May 6th, 1a.m. “Goofdoo fudioflof &8slhg*?” – Naama

May 6th, 1:30a.m. “Seriously, i really love you.” – Naama

May 6th, 2:15 a.m. “Do you want to go home and throw up, or do you want nachos?” – Naama, to Claudine

May 6th, 3a.m. “Hey you! In the boa. Get over here!” – Random guy

1. What is this Friday Party you speak of?

If you don’t live in Calgary, chances are you got an invite to the out of towner’s party on Friday night with your invitation. This is going to be a sweet event, that’s not to be missed. Here are the deets:

Location: Naama’s parent’s place (a.k.a. Riki and Ariel’s) in the south end of Calgary, the address is: 9940 Patton Road SW, Calgary, AB. A map showing the easiest way to get there in purple is shown below:

Date and Time: Friday June 22nd, 2007, starting at around 6:00 pm.

Dress Code: Naama calls it “dressy / casual”. I would say most people will be dressed fairly nice, but certainly no need for a suit and a fancy dress. Plus, you will be penalized if you look better than the bride and groom!

2. And What about Saturday?

For Saturday night, we are going to do some mingling and eat snacks at the Rundle Lounge in the Banff Springs Hotel. Everyone is welcome, and I am sure people will be hitting the town afterwards to enjoy themselves. People will be dressed fairly casual, i.e. nice jeans and a halter top (only kidding, but hey if you got a nice tan, by all means!)

3. Where is Everyone Staying?

I know there are already a bunch of options on our website, but if you are wondering what people are doing, here are some examples:

• My mom booked a condo in Canmore to stay there with her family – Canmore is a nice option, it is beautiful and really only about 15 minutes from Banff
• A lot of the family and friends are staying at the Rimrock – obviously a great place to be, but not everyone is staying there
• Joe and some friends booked a condo in Banff near Banff avenue – really, anywhere in Banff is good since it is such a small town and there are frequent (and free) shuttle busses up to the Rimrock throughout the day and night

4. What is the Attire for Sunday?

The wedding is officially semi-formal. I will be wearing a black suit (but not a tux), but if you want to break out your tux, by all means. However, same rules for the Friday party apply, if you out-dress the Bride and Groom you will be beaten by the crowd in the Horrah!

Inner Monologue Levi: don’t look too excited don’t look too excited

Naama: ” That is so great, oh my goodness you guys are going to have such a good time!”

Inner monologue Naama: Be cool…  be cool… don’t seem nervous or upset, block out immediate mental image of last week’s CSI where the prostitute drugs the straying husband and steals all his money. You are way too calm and collected for that ….you are the laid back girlfriend … that’s right.

So maybe that wasn’t exactly how it  happened but I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a few moments of …shall we say… uncertainty after I dropped the boys off at the airport on Friday. I mean a stag in VEGAS! It cannot possibly get more debauchery-filled then that. So how do you cope? How does the calm cool collected bride-to-be refrain from becoming the ultimate cliche? More importantly, how does the guy…. go to Vegas, party like a rock star and still come home in his partner’s good books?

Truth is most of us girls look forward to the weekends of freedom as much as the boys do. It gives us an opportunity to do all the things that make the men a lil’ coo-coo. This past Sunday  I committed the ultimate weekend crime, I spent a great deal of the morning and early afternoon lying in bed and talking on the phone. A travesty in Levi’s mind but a perfect Sunday morning in mine.   A large portion of the weekend also went to doing extremely girly wedding stuff which I won’t share because I have too much pride to admit my love of china, stem wear and lace. Levi…well, he  seemed to have spent the majority of the weekend drinking and gambling. And again… he won’t share because ….(insert cheesy Vegas tag-line….i’ll start you off…”what happens in______ “)

An important discovery which I will share however, is that Levi and I actually consciously decided that we would not call each other while he was away and truthfully, that was the smartest thing we could have done.  A few well placed text messages mostly having to do with the Raptors crushing victories over the Bobcats and the Pacer’s let us know that one another was alive and well.

So not only did Levi come out looking cool and not weighed down by his ball and chain, but, I did not get woken up by late night drunken phone calls because Levi felt he “had to call”.

I think the no-phone call clause should be manditory for all stags/stagettes to ensure a peaceful and pleasant reunion. Oh and guys…. ALWAYS always bring home a present. That helps a lot too.

The Rimrock

After the debacle that was the Silver Tip, Naama took the bull by the horns and found the perfect spot for our wedding. Since that time, I had a chance to check it out and I must say I’m pretty pumped. The Rimrock is a special place (the only hotel I’ve ever been to where you have to DOWN an elevator to get to your rooms…and trust me, the rooms aren’t underground). I think every room has a spectacular view and the area where we are going to have the ceremony and reception will suit us perfectly.

The Band

After going back and forth on a number of bands in the Calgary area, Naama and I really latched on to Zeev Berger’s idea of having something a little different like an Afro Cuban band. As it turns out, there is a band based out of Calgary that plays afro cuban music and is available next June. I’ll keep the name of the band a surprise for now, but I hope everyone is ready to bust a move – latin styles. Announcement: T-roy will be leading a latin dance training session just past noon on Sunday in front of the pool…this is not to be missed.

The Pre-Party Party

Otherwise known as the out-of-towners party is close to being finalized. It will be Friday night in Calgary…that is all I can say now, but everyone from out of town will have a place to party on Friday night. Stay tuned…

The Website

Yes, the all important website has some fresh updates. The colors have been changed to match our wedding colors, check it out…ooh la la. If you go to our home page, you will find the all important countdown to the big day.

And Everything Else

Of course there about 100 million other things that Nams is diligently getting done when she’s not writing her PhD thesis, but hey, the important thing is we have that countdown clock on our website. Without that, we should all ask ourselves, where would our wedding planning be? Nowhere I say, nowhere.

I know I am not alone! I have a large group of primarily female friends who openly admit to spending hours obsessing over the perfect hotel room for the best deal. Searching every possible website, some even going as far as to report on the quality of hotel rooms to certain member-based websites (you know who you are). So what is it about shopping for the perfect room? Is it the desire to get your money’s worth? To ensure that the bathroom is not in the hallway, or the bed isn’t as hard as a board? Or is it merely an issue of controlling every last possible detail of your hard-earned vacation? I believe it is a combination of all of the above. Regardless of the reason, and since I fancy myself a successful and consistent on-line booker, I thought I’d spend a bit of time giving some hints to those newbies among us, especially since many of you will be shopping around for hotels in Banff for our upcoming nuptials.

The first stop I recommend is www.tripadvisor.com. Trip Advisor’s motto is “get the truth, then go.” Well that is exactly what they offer, they are a website that individuals can join, or browse for free and search information on hotels. The website gives ratings on the quality of hotels all over the world, based on member feedback. You can get an idea of what a hotel does or does not offer, many members post real pictures from their trips of the hotel rooms and provide detailed (often scary how much time people have on their hands) accounts of their stay. Not only that, trip advisor also gives you an idea of the average room rate, and provides a search engine based on date, availibilty, and quality of hotel. It has booking links to expedia, hotels.ca, and orbitz along with a few others. I highly recommend checking out any hotel on trip advisor before booking! However, keep in mind that standards vary between individuals so focus on the average score, not on one persons posting if they had a terrible or overly wonderful experience.

So, after carefully and obsessively reading all the feedback onTrip advisor you narrow down a few hotels that suit you! What’s next, well check out the prices of course! I often go to sites like expedia, travelocity, or hotels.ca to see what sort of availability there is and also what prices they are offering. But don’t despair if the prices seem too high, there are still options. The first thing to do, which many people forget, is to go directly to the hotels website, often their prices are slightly cheaper then the larger sites like expedia, not to mention there is no service fee. I recently looked in to booking a hotel in Montreal over the May long weekend. I searched and searched and ended up with an amazing deal on a beautiful hotel in Old Montreal based on a special directly off the hotel website. Often these deals will have certain rules, such as no cancellations etc. But let’s say you have tried all these options and still can’t find a hotel in your price range….what’s next?

The final option, which although slightly risky can be very rewarding. Recently, Levi and I headed down to Boston for a fun weekend getaway with some friends. Well, for some reason Boston was booked solid and we couldn’t find anything for less then 300 to 400 a night. Since we were not too picky about where we stayed within the city, we decided to try out Priceline.com. This website at first glance looks like your typical travel website, where you enter in particulars such as date, general hotel location (downtown, airport etc) and then they give you all available options. BUT what they offer that other sites do not is a special added feature, at the bottom of the page or sometimes in between listings is the following:

BEST DEAL – Name Your Own Price^® and Save up to 50% GO

So using this feature, you basically enter in what class hotel you want, where and when and then YOU list a price that you are willing to pay. I know for Boston, I entered in as low as $25 to see what i could get, unfortunately i didn’t have much luck at the price point with a four-star hotel but you can keep going higher until something works. The catch is, you have to take what they give you, so start with 4-5 star hotels and work your way down. If you have no luck, Start again with 3 star hotels and low price points and work your way up. This is a great last minute option and you can get some pretty amazing deals. We ended up with a BEAUTIFUL hotel room listed on expedia at $450 USD a night, for $199 USD a night right in downtown Boston. Not too shabby!

Anyway, if you are a bit more flexible give it a try, you have nothing to lose and it’s a great shot if you are booking at the last minute.

**** If you do find a good deal, pass on the information through this blog or at least to Levi and I because it would be a lot of fun if everyone stayed at the same hotel.

That’s my little tidbit of knowledge if you have anything to add let me know!

Happy holidays everyone!!!!

Check it out…man o man is the East ever bad.

This past summer we made a special trip out west to scout out venues for the big day. We went to a bunch of hotels in Calgary, checked out a few in Banff, drove all the way to Kelowna BC to see a winery and finally ended our search at the Silver Tip Golf Club in Canmore. As soon as we saw the place and the phenomenal view, we knew that this was the place we wanted to get married. It appeared to fit the bill perfectly. We met with the person in charge of weddings at Silver Tip (her name was Jessie, but I think I’ll give her the name “Yessie”) .

So, since there was a lot of construction going on at Silver Tip, we had a lot of questions and Yessie was very attentive to our concerns and gave us a ton of reassurances about everything. We had questions about the size of our party, where the ceremony would be in case of bad weather, where people could hang out for cocktails…and Yessie had answers for everything. Will this building that is far from finished be ready by next June in case of bad weather for our ceremony? YES! Is this room big enough for possibly up to 200 guests? YES! Can that gawdawful gazebo on the “10th” hole where our outdoor ceremony was to take place be moved? YES! Wow, how sweet, how easy was this wedding planning going to be…we we’re all hooked up…and Yessie had us convinced that Silver Tip was the place for LeviAndNaama- 2007!

Can you guess what happened a few short months after our meeting with Yessie? Yup, sure enough, things changed. When we contacted Silver Tip last month, Yessie had moved on to a new role at the organization and we had a new person in charge (let’s call her Naoway even though I think her real name is Shelly).  Well, after Naama’s first call with Naoway, the once rosey outlook we had with Yessie was quickly darkening.  The indoor option was highly unlikely to be finished in time, there weren’t enough chairs for our outdoor ceremony and new ones wouldn’t arrive in time, there wasn’t enough space in the reception area for dancing after dinner without shifting things around, and on top of all that the costs for everything increased.  As you can imagine, the panic started to set in, albeit a controlled panic, because in reality our wedding was still 7 months away, but we really needed to get the location sorted out asap.

Westjet to the rescue!  Luckily, some last minute deals on flights were available and Naama took it upon herself to jet to Calgary to get this all sorted out.  Within a few days, everything changed, but we think its all for the better.   So the location has changed, its now the beautiful Rimrock Resort in Banff, the date has changed, it’s now a week later -June 24th (coincidentally the same day as Gay Pride and Jenn Kicis’ birthday!).  Nams and I are happy that we are now dealing with seasoned pro’s at the Rimrock and we are hoping there will be no drastic surprises like a Yessie turning into an Naoway.  Little surprises I think we can handle.