We're coaching basketball...

Saturday started with basketball and ended with basketball, just the way I like it.

The Pronghorn Bulldogs, my beloved team of fourth graders, ended their season with a loss, albeit a well-played one. It was 9 a.m. and just the beginning of a very long day that wouldn't end until a champagne and beer-soaked celebration of my friend Jamie Matson's 23rd birthday at 2 a.m.

After the game, the team went to the enormous house of one of my player's parents, where we ate — get this — waffles with ice cream and frozen strawberries on top. Talk about sugar mania. The kids were of the wall. But thanks to the steady hand of a Mormon mother (she kept saying that having raised five kids makes her ready for any situation) the boys eventually settled down and watched "Like Mike", starring Little Bow Wow.

I bowed out not long after the movie started, but not before I handed out certificates of participation, then received a signed basketball from the team and $45 gift card to Applebee's from the parents. Not bad for a mere volunteer.

It was just the beginning. Once I left the massive — 5,000 square feet? — house, it was off to Super Wal-Mart for a boogie board-like sled to take to the Big Horn Mountains. With sled in hand (and soon in Honda trunk) Angela and I met up with my colleague and comrade recherché, Brantley Hargrove, to head for the hills.

We had a blast and some spectacular wipeouts over the next couple hours, before heading back down to Buffalo, where we had mochas as tasty and chocately as the mountains were snowy and scenic.

Once we got back to Gillette, I was back to basketball. With our regular sports reporter at the state wrestling tournament, it was up to me to cover the Camels as they finished out the season with a decisive, if narrow, victory over cross-state rival Natrona County. Hadn't done that in three years and never on a real tight deadline. I wrote the story in 45 minutes, although there is one kind of confusing paragraph I'd like to have back.

Still, a good effort for what really was my first game recap since I've been at the News-Record.

All in all, a great start to what has been a refreshing weekend thus far… I think I might go for a jog around the neighborhood later.