Hate missing Thanksgiving

Hello Everyone,

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with family, friends and whoever you celebrate it with. This is always a tough time for me over here missing thanksgiving. It is the one Holiday where pretty much the ENTIRE family gets together. This has been the third thanksgiving in a row missed and it doesn’t get any easier. This Thanksgiving was a little more special as my Aunt got married on Saturday. BIG congratulations to her. I’m very happy for her! Also my brother is getting married on December 4th. I really wish I could be there for him on that great day. It is a very private ceremony and then he is having a big wedding in a year! So I will just have to act like it never happened until next year




The week was not all bad. I was invited to Phil and Stina’s house for a thanksgiving meal. This is the same family that invited me to Christmas dinner last time I was here. They live about 30 minutes outside of Sodertalje in the country. Their house is right on a lake. They are such a nice and generous family. To go out of your way on a family holiday to invite two Americans over to taste a little bit of home is pretty neat. They had a very typical thanksgiving meal as well, Turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, broccoli, some mushroom thing that was great, and PUMPKIN PIE (my favorite). Their youngest of three sons, Lucas, is trying to attend college in the states next year. He plays with the younger team and is 6’11”. He will be a very good college player.

Besides getting a great meal this week I also found out that my MRI was negative. I still have some slight pain in the hamstring, but was on the court today shooting and moving around. I’m very pleased that I should only be out another week instead of the 6-8 I thought I was going to be out. I have been driving about 15 minutes to receive treatment on the leg. I will continue to do that for a couple weeks. We are also trying to get an appointment with a guy that coach calls (chinaman). Apparently he thinks he can perform some Asian magic which I have no problem trying.

The team split this week going 1-1. We dominated our home game by 20. It was the away game at Solna that really made me miss being out there. They are first in the league and we had them down by 17 going into the 4th. The team just froze after that. They hit 5 or 6 deep threes and we started missing easy shots and making terrible turnovers. We really need someone to calm them down and keep the poise which I think I would have been able to help with. It was miserable sitting on the end of the bench and watching that. We are so close to running off 5 or 6 wins. We need to stop talking about it and make it happen though. Hopefully I will be back playing next week!!

Until Next Time!

This is BC gone for now

Mishaps & Setbacks

Hello Everyone,

Well as the title suggest this was not the best week! I had a lot of different things go wrong, but that is life can’t all be good! It started pretty small with my oven going out. I thought I tried everything to fix it myself like check the fuse box, shake it, and turn it on and off. None of those things seemed to work and I forced to call Leanna (she is like the team mom, will talk about her later) to see about getting it fixed. It was on the weekend so I didn’t know if they would be able to get someone over to look at it or not. She was and they were here in less than an hour. Talk about service, I would like to see a repair guy show up within a couple hours of your appliance going out. After an extensive amount of repair work (about 5 minutes) he plugged it back in and it worked! I’m guessing I left it on and the safety kicked the plug out. I never really thought it could have been the cord since I don’t move the oven. Another life lesson reinforced, always check the simple solution first. I think I was taught or heard that lesson before.

This was only the start, as the next day I woke up to a puddle of water in the kitchen. The freezer decided it wanted to defrost itself. I hate when those machines get a mind of their own, just wait till year 3000 when they will be running us. Anyway they sent another repair man over to look at it. I must also mention this was last Sunday. I’m not sure if I just got special treatment because I can’t speak Swedish or if they actually work on that day. Again, try to get a repair man in your home on a Sunday in America! This time I did try to plug it in, but it was not the problem. The guy said it just died and I needed a new one. That is hopefully coming on Monday (22nd). Now on to the painful stuff.

I was washing dishes and the glass broke on me and slit my finger. It was pretty deep and bad. I thought I was going to need stitches.I called Leanna, she lives right across the street and she was prepared with some butterfly stitches. This is a good time to talk about her. She is the team mom. She does a ton of stuff for us and it is all without pay. For example she has come over 3 or 4 times with a meal for me. It makes me feel a little homeless when I answer the door and she is standing there with a plate of food, but trust me I’m not complaining. She makes some awesome meals. She also leaves cookies in the locker room all the time. I mean there are a number of other things she has done, but of course I just focused on the food part. She is just really unbelievable. I wish I had one of her every season over here!

All right back to the cut and dishes. Fortunately for my readers this has now opened up a position. Since the option of getting a mechanical dishwasher isn’t going to work I’m offering a paid position to someone who wants to be my personal dishwasher. When I say paid you won’t be making a lot and I can’t offer any insurance. Now I know this doesn’t sound like a great gig, but hear me out. You get a free room, I’ll provide the food, I will also provide the internet and cable (thanks to the kings), and save the best for last you will have great company (ME)! It would be pretty much like college all over again except replace the classes with dish-washing and the occasional dinner you will have to make! I mean the more I type the better this is sounding. Just let me know if I have any takers and we can work out the details.

We had our first game in two weeks last Friday. It was in Boras which is about three hours away. The road trips continue to surprise me every time. When I played at Butler, you knew what to expect every road trip. You were going to leave the day before the game and practice at that gym, then you would go to the hotel, have shoot around the next morning, then leave after the game. It was the same routine every time. I don’t think I have had the same routine on an away game since I have played overseas. Granted a lot of clubs don’t have the resources that the colleges do. For example this road trip we left the day of the game by train. It was about a 2 hour train ride to some town (the landscape on the train rides is beautiful by the way). Then we got off the train and hoped on a bus for another hour. Once we arrived in Boras 4 players hoped in a taxi while the other walked to the restaurant for lunch. Then we all walked to the hotel. We then took taxis to the game and walked back after. Again I’m not complaining about any of it, I just find it funny the many different ways trips go over here.

In the two weeks leading up to this I had some of my best practices and I was really feeling in shape. Then on Thursday I hurt my hamstring in practice. It wasn’t terrible but it was painful. I really didn’t want to sit out the game after the hard work leading up to the game and also because we already had two important players also injured. I tried to play in the game and was alright in the first quarter. I could definitely tell I wasn’t 100% as I was having trouble keeping up with some of the players. Then in the second quarter they were on a fast break 2 on 1 and I went to jump to block the shot and came down with some terrible pain. I was not able to play at all in the second half. In hindsight I wish I would have just sat out the game for I may have made it worse. I have always had trouble sitting myself out, but something I will need to get better with. I have an MRI on Monday (22nd) to see if I tore it or how bad the injury is. No matter what it says I will be out at least 2 weeks and at most 7 weeks.

We ended up losing the game by 1 with three starters out. We had a few things go wrong at the end, but we could have and should have pulled that one out. We continue to show our youth on the floor. I am the 4th oldest guy on the team with the oldest player 28. That is extremely young for a professional team. I think we play harder than any other team in our league, but that doesn’t always get you wins have we have seen with our 2-10 record. We will continue to work hard and fight to get some wins.
I’m trying to stay positive through this experience as I know there are far worse things going on in the world than me sitting on the sideline with an injury. It just is very stressful when you work so hard to get somewhere and then you experience a setback like this. This is sort of the worst time this could have happened with us playing 9 more games before Christmas. I will get the results of the MRI and then we have a couple people I am going to be working with to treat and also rehab the leg.

Until Next Time!

The European Hotel



European Hotel after Americans check in





This is BC gone for now

Hello Everyone,

This week was a very uneventful week. The game we had was rescheduled because our coach had to attend some coaching thing in Chicago. We actually had a couple days off from practice to rest up and mentally prepare to attack these next 10 games before Christmas! We need to go 7-3 or better to really have any chance of making playoffs. It is very doable and I think we are making strides as a team to get there.

With my off time I was able to catch the opening game for Butler! They had their hands full with Davidson and I was pretty impressed with how well Davidson played. Butler is going to get the A game of every team with their ranking. Butler got off to a slow start, but nice to see them fight through that and pick up a nice win. It only gets tougher from here. I think the play I was most surprised by was when Mack attacked the bucket and almost dunked the ball and picked up the foul. I didn’t know he had that in him, but if he attacks like that all season he is going to be tough.

We had a little Christmas in November. We received winter jackets and other gear (sweat suits, polo, and practice gear) this week. If you couldn’t tell by the picture I love the jacket. It is one of the warmest I have had. It will come in very handy in this land!

I will no longer be asking for reader participation ! It was very depressing only seeing three comments and none of those comments had a restaurant for me to check out! (Thanks for the comments though) Don’t get me wrong I don’t need comments to know who is reading this, just thought it would be nice to pick the brains of some of the readers! And yes this is a guilt trip:)

Welp very short and very boring post, but I will leave you with a funny clip from the office! In case you haven’t seen it! (this is special for you mother)



Until Next Time!

This is BC gone for now

Where is the sun!

Hello Everyone,

Well I have now been here close to four weeks and I may have seen the sun 4 times! Winter darkness has continued to creep in as well. It starts getting dark around 4 or 4:30, and it also snowed twice last week! Nothing that stuck, but enough to make me envious when I’m watching the colt’s game and seeing the sun come through Lucas oil stadium. I had some PR to do this week at a school. We shot with the kids and handed out some tickets to the games. Of course it was outside and on one of those days where it was snowing! I lost my gloves on our last road trip so I couldn’t even feel my hands rebounding for the kids. They didn’t seem to mind that I was throwing some bad passes they were just happy to be out shooting!

I found a new edition to the town of Sodertalje. They now have 2 subways! The great thing about subway here is they still have the stamps. I have made two trips and both sandwiches were pretty good! The foot long here is closer to $10 and defiantly over that if you get the meal. The only thing missing from their condiment line are banana peppers. Tapco, the Italian restaurant right in front of my apartment has quickly become a favorite on the list again. Their pan pizza rivals that of pizza hut, and they have a secret sauce. I don’t even know how to describe it, but I will try anyway. It is similar to like garlic butter and an alfredo sauce. They also have killer lasagna that reminds me of a place back home in Reynolds, Indiana called USA restaurant. You may be asking yourself right now why he is telling me this information, well I had a thought. Since I love food, I wanted to use my blog to help me find great food spots. So I’m asking my readers this week if you know of any “hidden gems” like USA restaurant and tapco to leave me a comment with them! It can be anywhere, the states, Sweden, heck even Canada, may be there one day. (Grandpa you are only allowed to list 5, because I don’t want you using your whole day just writing all the restaurants you know!) So here is a picture of the all you can eat pancakes to get your mind rolling!!

BASKETBALL

Well we split this week 1-1, which we can’t do that too many times. We need to get rolling and put together a win streak. We play hard and we play with a lot of effort but that is just not enough when we go against the top teams in the league. It was enough when we played Jamtland which is the last place team.

We hoped on them 19-2 in the first quarter and coasted to the easy 20 point victory. Even that game showed are youth, just playing even with them the rest of the game and not having that killer instinct. I had a pretty decent game scoring 17 with 3 steals 3 boards and 3 assists. Again that is a team we are suppose to beat we need to start getting some wins against top teams.

We played the first place team on Saturday and just did not come out ready to play. I got off to a bad start going 0-4 in the first quarter and having two fouls early on. I was brought here to be the man and I defiantly need to play better than I did Saturday. We had our chances had it within 3 late in the game, but just couldn’t get over the hump. We also had 22 TO and missed 11 free throws. I’m very surprised we had a chance. I finished with 8 points, 4 boards, 2 assists and 1 steal. I also was 0-5 from three. They were good looks just missed them. I also tweaked my knee in the second quarter. Hopefully it is just a hyper extension.

The good thing is we have two weeks off which will hopefully give us a chance to get better as a team and also give me a chance to get in better shape and heal whatever I did to my knee!

I'm going to give a shout out to my lil brother who has taught himself how to play the guitar!! I think that is pretty cool and I am a little jealous because I have no music ability at all!!

Until Next Time!

This is BC gone for now

Every time I open my FRIDGE!!

Hello Everyone,

Man, Every time I open my fridge here it makes me miss home. Not the kind of miss that you want to hop on a plane and go home, more of an appreciation for how nice I had it in the summer. I had my choice of Gatorade, green tea, orange juice, fruit juice, grape juice, Kool-Aid, lemon aid and the occasional Michelob light. Yes, they do have many of those drinks here and actually I might even say the apple juice is better here. The problem lies in the big hill I must climb to the store. Anyway let’s get back to the topic of appreciation! I never really gave a proper thank you to my parents for housing me this summer. It is a unique thing when you build more of a friendship with your parents and really enjoy hanging out with them! So anyway THANK YOU!!!


There was a basketball camp this past week during a fall break for the students. We had to work 2 days for a couple hours. I learned the Swedish word for “substitutions” because the kids did not understand me when trying to sub them in an out. This club is pretty good about doing promotional things for games which we are usually involved with in some way. It is nice to get out and do some different things while putting a smile on kid’s faces.

This week was not a very good week on the court for the kings. We lost both games, one at home and one on the road. We just are not playing well defensively and it is hard to win games when you don’t defend. Coach actually read the stats today and it is not something you want to hear. We are last in almost every category defensively. Unless we figure out how to fix that we will stay at the bottom of the league.

I went from one extreme to the other in the games. The game at home against Sundsvall was horrific. I shot 1-8 from the field and finished with 3 points. I just could not get anything going. Too many games like this is what gets you sent home!!! The team didn’t play all that bad, but again defensive mistakes just killed us. They have a player on their team that played for the kings last time I was here and is a friend of mine. It was fun to go up against him the whole game, but wish I would have performed a little better.


The other game was in Gothia, which was about a two and a half hour train ride. This is another thing I can add to the list of things I have done. My first train ride to a game. I must say not a very big accomplishment, but still comes off the list. The hotel was called Scandic Crown, and the inside of the hotel reminded me of an embassy suites. We had our pre game and after game meals there. The pre game meal was excellent. They had some cheesy potatoes and some kind of fish. It looked almost like salmon patties, but the fish was not salmon. The after meal was just meat sauce with some bow tie noodles. I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but many places in Europe put ketchup on their pasta. Sweden is one of those places, I’m one for following the crowd when it comes to food so I also did it, and it was pretty good, but I could probably put ketchup on anything and like it. In fact I think I used to put it on my broccoli (just a random note about me).


The game was in a different gym then their normal home gym which was fine with me. Their normal home gym is on a grey rubber floor. The gym we played in reminded me of an old boys and girls club gym. We got off to a horrible start. We were down 18-2 after the first 3 minutes. We pulled within 4 by the end of the first. They pulled away at the start of second half and ended up winning by about 20. Again defensively we are just not stopping anybody. They shot over 50% from three and 60% from 2, you are not going to beat anybody giving up those kind of numbers.

I had a really good first quarter and got my shot going. I finished the game with 21 points on 3-8 from 2 and 5-10 from three for 21 points and 3 steals. I defiantly could have made a few more of the 2’s. I haven’t been finishing well lately and I have not been getting to the free throw line. Two things I will be working on improving. They name a player of the game for both team and I was named it for our team. They gave me a 2 GB flash drive, a nice thermos, and 2 lottery tickets (I won 50 Krowns).

We have 2 more games before a 2 week break, we defiantly need to get these two wins to go into the break with a little confidence and then try and get better.

Hopefully everyone had a safe and fun Halloween. It is called “all saints day” here in Sweden. They put lights on the tombstones and they go and visit them at night. I live right across the cemetery and it looks pretty nice all lit up. They do dress up, but it is more the night life crowd. I don’t believe they pass out any candy either, but I’m not entirely sure on all the customs for this day.

Until Next Time!

This is BC gone for now