lakers fever

I am not really a big NBA fan, although I used to
cheer for the Chicago Bulls -- the reason why I had to
ask Don & sassy to bring me to the United Center (Home
of the Chicago Bulls) to have my picture taken with
Michael Jordan's replica.

The LA Lakers fever though have totally caught me and
I just couldn't help it. Specially now that they have
just won the championship against the Indiana Pacers.

I stayed home. Even if I wanted to go to the Staples
Center -- a couple of blocks from where my office is
--and watch the game, no can do (read: wala akong
magagawa. hahaha) the tickets have been sold out since
God knows when.

I am still home alone. My cousin and her husband are
still in the hospital. Their son -- my 10-year-old
nephew -- fell off a 60-foot cliff last saturday. It
was a really, really tragic and freak accident.


Francis, my nephew is a member of the Rockies, a
Little League baseball team. They were the champions
for this season and they planned a potluck party /
celebration which was held at the San Gabriel Canyon.
There was a river there and my nephew was going there
but he became off-balanced and he tripped and he fell.
The paramedicas later told my cousin that my nephew
was lucky he was still alive.

They told her that the height of the cliff that he
fell from was 60 feet. He didn't have any broken
bones nor major bruises. He had an 8-stitch wound on
his chest and the only major problem was the
lacerations on his liver. He's so skinny so his
internal organs were the most hurt after falling off
from the ravine. He stayed at the ICU of the LA
Children's Hospital for almost 36 hours.

It's 12:00 midnight and I just turned off the TV. The
celebrations around the Staples Center just became
violent. Unruly fans just torched two police cars and
two SUVs. Golly, how crazy can you get. It's very
embarrassing especially when the foreign and
international press pick that up.

The police seemd to be not doing their job but as I
found later, it was a strategy. They didn't want to
be confrontational. They didn't want the LA Riots in
1992 happen all over again. But as some newscasters
mentioned, what image is the city of LA projecting
then, specially now that the Democratic National
Convention -- which will be held at the Staples
Center... which I will cover, thank you very much --
is just two months away.

Oh well, that's their problem.

Looking Forward to the Lakers' Parade on Wednesday