I hope everyone is doing well.  Everything is going well over here.  We had our first preseason games this past weekend in northwestern Germany against two first division teams.  Both games resulted in a loss.  The first game was close and the second one was not close - I'll leave it at that.  I think we played alright despite only practicing one time with the whole team before the weekend.  We only practiced once before because we had a few players on the national team who were gone with games and a couple guys were injured.

Yesterday we had our first preseason game at home against a Belgium team.  We had a lot of turnovers and lost a fairly close game.  It was great to play in front of our fans.  There was a modest turnout, but I can't wait for the gym to be full for the regular season games.  We are not where we want to be as far as our playing standards go, but the season is young and we will get there.  

I don't know if you all remember my experience in Austria my first year playing when I helped a woman jump start her car.  Well, I almost had a chance to reminisce that moment.  I was walking home from practice and I saw an old man trying to start his car, but his battery was dead.  I went up to him and asked if he spoke English and he said he did (I couldn't really understand what he was saying, but he could understand me).  I asked if he needed help but he said he called help already.  Inside I was hoping I could help him out.  Then I would hopefully have a great story to tell all of you, but somehow it's just not as exciting of a story when the other person speaks English.  That's the thing about Holland.  You can go up to someone and just start speaking English no matter what their age, and they know exactly what you are talking about - definitely different from the other countries I've played in.

I should also tell you that our place has a dryer AND a dishwasher.  Pretty impressive, I know.  I've never had a dishwasher (unless her name was Mom :) so that was great.  The dryer is really great to have since we have to do laundry every other day with practice gear.  This way we don't have a sock graveyard in our bedrooms and living room, as my buddy Tyronn would say.

Hope all is well.

Take care and God bless,
Mike

Come one, come all

Hey again,
I'm still trying to explore everything I can do with this blog.  To the right you can submit your email to get a message every time I write a new post.  That way you don't have to get annoyed every time you check my blog and I haven't written anything new :)  If you have a Google account or the like you can become a "follower" as well.  Once again, thank you for your support and I hope that makes it a little easier for you.

All the best,
Mike

Let's ride

I hope everyone is doing well back home and for the followers here in Europe.  It's already been a week since my last post and I figured I should keep you all updated.  Everything is going fine here.  We don't have the whole team here yet.  An American guard is supposed to be coming in tomorrow and three other players are playing for the national team so they won't be in practice until later this week.  We won't have much time to practice together before our two preseason games in Germany this Saturday and Sunday.  All we can do is give it everything we have.

If you haven't checked out my pictures of the city yet you can click on the link to the right.  I haven't explored the whole city yet so I will have to do that in the future and take more pictures.  It really is a beautiful city though.  It's not too crazy of a city, but it seems like there are always people about...especially riding their bikes.  There are more people on bikes than cars I think.  Leiden is the definition of a bike-friendly city.  There are specific bike roads along the main road for the cars.  Even the round-a-bouts have designated bike lanes.  There are bike-riders of all shapes and sizes, young and old.  I even saw bike pooling.  A girl was riding her bike and her friend was sitting on the rack in the back enjoying her ride and smoking a cigarette.  I told one of my teammates about that and he said that was completely normal here.  It's just interesting to see the different ways of life.  I'm blessed I get to experience it.

If I don't write before this weekend, I will write after our games in Germany.

Take care and God bless,
Mike

The adventure continues in Holland

Hello family and friends,

It has been long overdue to write on my blog.  And yes, number 43 is overseas again.  Although I think I am number 9 this year.  Just a side note, that is the first number I had in organized basketball back in 4th grade at St. Anne School.  I know you all appreciated that tidbit of info :)  I will inform you all briefly about this summer.  Andrea finished her Master's degree in clinical mental health counseling and is now working full-time counseling where she had her internship.  It is challenging work, but she really enjoys it.  I helped remodel a house for most of the summer hanging sheetrock and painting.  It was a blessing because it was paying work and I still had time to work out.  In a nutshell, that is what our lives in Maine consisted of this past summer.  It was a fun season out there, but as always, it went way to fast.

Well, I arrived today in Holland.  This season I'll be playing for Leiden.  The city is located between Amsterdam and Rotterdam.  The flights went well and it sure was nice to only have one connecting flight.  I met most of my teammates, the coaches, and many of the supporting staff.  The club was very welcoming and I believe it will be a smooth transition.  I hope to get some pictures up of the city and where I live as soon as I get settled.  I will also write more soon - I'm going to try and get some sleep to get on this time zone.  As always I appreciate your support.

Here is a link to the team website and a little article they had of me.  I hope you will be able to translate the pages.

http://www.eredivisiebasketballleiden.nl

http://www.eredivisiebasketballleiden.nl/index.cfm?act=actueel.bericht&bericht=1599

Take care and God bless,
Mike