Every month, I like to write a Letter From the Heart (LFTH) to let you know how things are going. Here's what's up for this month. And for a bigger version of any picture, just click on it. Also, I’m adding some links to the letter so you can get more info about the subjects if you’re interested in learning more. The links are either highlighted in orange or underlined in blue.
Wow, it’s been another great month and the first thing is to mention will be the last thing that happened. My parents visited me this past weekend from Dallas along with my cousin Henry from Uganda. We had a great time and I got to know another member of my ever expanding (to me) family tree. There were a few cool parts to their visit and that’ll dominate this month’s letter.The first is that my parents got to meet some important people in my life including my partner Jameson Rodgers and a number of folks from my church when we all got together at Home Town Buffet. My parents love to eat at those buffet places and it was an easy way to get together and have a chance for people to get to know each other better. That way, my folks got to know the people I always tell them about on the phone.
Few people I know personally have a bigger business vision than Jameson. Also, in the past two years, but more importantly since I’ve been attending P4CM Church, nothing has had a bigger impact on my life than Christ and my church family and it was wonderful for my family to meet some friends from there as well as attend Easter services with me. They could see personally where that impact that many have recognized is coming from. See if you can figure out what P4CM stands for by the way. I’ll give a special prize to the person who guesses it correctly.
Another really cool event surrounds the other main thing you know me to be doing, basketball. I’ve been known to say that my life consists pretty much of work, church, and playing or coaching basketball. Anyway, a good friend of mine, Brian Murphy, is on the board for the John R. Wooden Award and for the last two years I’ve been volunteering to help with the Special Olympics exhibition game that has become one of the events surrounding the Wooden Award weekend.
Well this year, I told him I’d help out in any other way that I could and he called me up last week and asked me to pick up Kevin Durant’s parents and grandmother from the airport. He ended up being the first freshman to win the Naismith and Wooden Awards for the best college basketball player award. Anyway, they had so many bags that his Mom and Dad took a cab and followed me and Kevin’s Grandmother to the Downtown Athletic Club where they stayed. I got along really well with Grandma and she was such a nice lady. I did give a little jab about SC beating Texas and Dad reminded me that Kevin did score 30. He also let me know that Kevin’s brother is playing next year at Towson and is better than Kevin so you heard it hear first.
The next day, we all went to watch the Special Olympics games and I was the scoreboard operator. My
parents sat up in the stands with the Durant family and my Mom told me they had a nice conversation. My friend Brian made an amazingly generous gesture and took my family’s trip to a whole other level when he got us four tickets to the Wooden Awards live broadcast on CBS along with passes to a VIP reception afterward. If anyone Tivo’d it, I forgot to and I would really appreciate a copy of the program if you could get it to me. I forgot to set the ol Tivo. If you remember a beautiful pink jacket on a woman in the back row, that was my beloved mother. Everyone loved her jacket at the event and made complimentary comments, not the least of which was me.
Then at the VIP reception, my Mom got a priceless souvenir when she had all of the players there sign her VIP pass along with photos with all of the players. The other finalists that were there for the men were Alando Tucker of Wisconsin, Acie Law of Texas A&M, and Greg Oden of Ohio State for the men as well as Candace Parker of the University of Tennessee for the women. Candace won the Wooden Award for the women and man was she visibly in phenomenal shape. The pictures I have and what you see on TV don’t do her justice. By the way, that priceless VIP pass should be on eBay sometime around when Kevin Durant and Greg Oden go one two in the draft. I’ve included a couple of the special photos here, but check this link http://tinyurl.com/ypzgox to see all of the photos. It’s pretty cool. By the way, Kevin reminds me of and kind of looks like my fighter pilot cousin Amara Mwesigwa.
The biggest thing I took away when I talked to these guys and their parents was that even I forget that these are just people like you and me. 
Granted the players are phenomenal athletes and about to be multimillionaires, but when I innocently asked Oden what he has planned for the summer, he said well I still have to make my decision. Just then, he didn’t look like the guy on TV who looks 30 and dunks on people like they talked about his mother. He looked like a 19 year old kid really struggling with a life-changing-in-ways-we-can’t-imagine decision to make. And for all of the pressure and attention that these kids and families have put on them, they were so humble and nice. No matter what you see on TV, I got to know some very nice people. these are just people like you and me.
Other than that, while my family was here, we caught one of those double decker bus tours in Hollywood. I learned stuff about Los Angeles on that tour and I intend to take every visitor on that tour from now on. It’s a heck of a better tour than the nickel tour I give. Again, I got to know another cousin. As you know, my family is spread out all over the world and as an adult, I’m getting to know more of my extended family and as an added benefit this time, my cousin Henry’s sister is dating another Ugandan gentleman out here in Los Angeles and through him I’ll have the chance to hook into a Ugandan community out here. Cool, huh?
One other cool celebrity basketball event that happened to me happened a couple of weeks ago. I play hoops starting at about 7 am on Saturdays and Sundays and one day we needed one more person for our last two games and who comes in but Wood Harris who plays Avon on HBO’s The Wire. He was decent and we beat them once and they beat us once. He came out there in jeans, a wife beater, and some boots and ran two games with us.
Speaking of hoops, in the NCAA tournament the Trojans did better than I expected and with OJ Mayo you better watch out for the Trojans to be good in two sports now. And in my pool that I ran the winner was Jason Sacher, a University of Texas alum. It was a close victory, but a victory none the less. Yours truly came in dead last. I’m never running a pool again, at least until next year. coming in next year, you better watch out for SC in two sports now.
And as far as how Raisin in the Sun is doing, she’s fitting in just fine. In fact, since I’ve been writing this letter, she’s been walking back and forth across my lap. We’re good buddies now. She only took one day to not be afraid of my family when they came. In fact, she came and greeted my Mom in her bed one night and scared the heck out of her! My mom is sure she was there to steal her breath like cats do in the movies so I ran Raisin out of the room.
Other huge news, Isaiah learned how to ride a bike! Check out the video click here. He's got the riding part down, but he's still gotta work on the stopping. And look at Sam laugh a little too hard at the stopping system.
Business is going well and growing steadily. We’re working on a number of purchases, we have a couple of new listings and my good friend Tim Jordan referred himself for a refinance loan. I know in this market, a number of folks will want to refinance some adjustable rate loans and our company is definitely here to help you with that.
I hope all is well and make sure to get those taxes done. It’s just about time for us procrastinators to get started...on an extension.
TQ Senkungu
310-930-8068
1 comment:
Check your email. I left you an invite.
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