Court & Sport — 28 hours

Two work days, 28 hours, just under 500 total miles driven, five assignments, two bags of throat lozenges, one box of kleenex, three diet Dr. Pepper's and a piece of black forrest pie. Yep, my birthday was busy, like always it seems to be.
Last year I wrote about my crazy exploits surrounding me working out of town on my b-day, but this year I think I may have that beat.

It began at around 11 am on Friday when I drove up to South Bend for the arraignment of Martin Jones, the man accused of the execution style shooting of a state trooper last weekend here at the beach. The first thing that became noticeable to me was the fact that Jones didn't seem to mind being there, as he smiled, smirked and had little chuckles to himself throughout the proceedings.

His lawyers look sharp and had to argue a few items before the judge as the prosecution wanted to raise the bail amount. 
I don't know if the smiles were a nervous thing, an embarrassed thing, a confidence thing, or some other thing, but I don't know that I've ever seen anyone in a position like his doing that. But I'll guess we'll see how his mood maintains when they go to trial in April.

Once I was done at the court house I was on my way up to the Tacoma Dome to get some pix of Nakasha Custer, an Ilwaco girl wrestling at the state tourney. However before going I needed to email the top photo to my boss so that he could get it online. After my BlackBerry crashed from being accidentally unplugged from my macbook usb port it took way longer than it should have and slowed me down considerably. That mixed with the usually crazy traffic near Fort Lewis and south Tacoma I was running a bit behind. Custer was supposed to wrestle her second round match around 5 p.m. I walked in the media entry at 4:42 and was quickly made aware that my credential was not there. I had to walk to the other end of the dome and sweet talk my way to a pass, assuring them that I only needed it for one match and would return it in about 25 minutes (I wouldn't even need it that long). As I was doing this I could hear her being called on deck. I walked down to the mat and received a text from my friend Jeff in the stands at 4:50 that said: "perfect timing what a pro" right as I was shooting Custer as she walked out for her match. She won with a pin in less than two minutes. She had a brief exchange with her coach, and that was it. She would end up taking fourth in state the next day, the first female wrestler to place at state in school history.

After returning my temp credential and getting back to the car I had an hour or so to get to Tumwater for the IHS boys game that started at 6:30. Of course it was rush hour on I-5 and things were slow going again — it took the better part of an hour to go 30-some miles...

But I made it with a couple mins to spare and set up. I liked this one cuz its nicely lit and kind of indicative of the style of play in the game.
Also got a pretty good ouch shot, haven't gotten one of those in a while. 

The gym in this school is pretty big and there was more than 15 feet of out of bounds space behind each basket. I set up sitting about 5 feet back, giving the refs ample room. However during the middle of the third quarter a dude who works at the school tells me I have to move and wants me about 10 FEET behind the line. Did I mention that I'm working with the worst cold I've had in years? After giving me no reason other than "I say so" I pretty much had to go off on the guy, which has become a true rarity for me these days. I told him that since he was not representing the WIAA or the refs association he really didn't have the authority to tell me where I could be or not be and since I know the WIAA regs for shooting playoff hoops (be at least three feet from the out line) I felt that he was being completely unreasonable and I sat back down where I was before after telling him "No, I will not sit 10 feet behind the line, you are being unreasonable!" I don't know if I had that crazy sick dog look in my eye or what, but he steered clear of me the rest of the game (though our discussion cost me the better portion of the third period of the game). 

The next day it was east again, this time to Centralia for back to back Naselle games in the afternoon. I took the kids with me as Ness was at a bridal convention hocking her wares in Seaside. I dropped the kids off with their aunt in Olympia and they went rollerskating, which they both enjoyed tremendously.

Anyway, the Naselle girls won in a blow out and my pix weren't that good, though I liked this one of Kitzman — and it worked it good for the package we did in sports as she and Austin Burkhalter (below) were named MVPs of the Pacific League the other day. Austin's mom Susan was a lifesaver on Wednesday night when I shot a game in Montesano and was at the apex of this cold and she had a bottle of Advil in her purse, thanks again, definitely made the drive home easier.

This last one was a pic from the game gallery on the sports blog that I liked, it has kind of a Where's Waldo feel to it I think.
Things don't get any easier this week as the tourneys continue, and I could end up going to potentially 6 more games... at least this cold is finally easing up, a little bit anyway.

-DKM