The Only Thing That Changes Is The Tail Number On The Flight

After having such a wonderful time in Denver, it was back to the day-to-day grind, being back in Orlando. I'm glad I left on the day I did because as I type, it's back to blizzard-like conditions in Denver and the airport is out of commission. It snowed pretty hard on Christmas day too. Everyone is always saying "I wish it would snow of Christmas" or "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" is crazy! I have no want nor need for snow, my blood is too thin for that now, I've been in Florida too long.

Being with family is so important to me, I got to see my brother for the first time since last Christmas. He'll be graduating this May from UNLV, with a double major. Graduation for him, oddly enough on his birthday, hopefully I'll have a chance to see him there. My nephew Khamari is getting so big too. One thing that I was so grateful for was the fact that my mom has seemed a little more happy with everything. I think that it's because she has raised up almost three college graduates and productive members of society on her own. I do believe a major part of her happiness lies with her "beau" Harold Johnson. I am so happy that she has found someone who seems to have only her best interests in mind. Every time we talked, he wanted to talk about bettering her and her life. I've known him for quite a while, his son and I ran track in high school together. I was telling my mom that I remember back in the fall of 1999 when I was a senior in high school, Harold was coaching at South H.S. and he voted me to be on the All-League team. Not even my own high school coach or athletic director did. I lead the State in interceptions with 11 and had over 70 tackles at the safety position, but my own school wouldn't even vote for me, a rival coach did, and that was the only reason I was a part of the All-League team. I don't know why I tend to remember all of the negative things that have happened far more than I remember the positive things, maybe that's what is the driving force behind me. I'm just glad that things in her life are looking good because she deserves it.

This Christmas vacation was the last break I will get for quite a while. Brooks unleashed the beast on us at practice today, which I knew he would, I am down for the count! I need to load up on my protein because I know I'm going to be hurting in the morning.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE, FROM THE GOOD PEOPLE AT DAVIDOLIVERHURDLES.BLOGSPOT.COM!!

Let's not forget the true meaning for the season. I won't be opening too many presents, but as I have gotten older, I have bought in to what people say all the time: "It's better to give, than to receive". Merry Christmas.

In Denver For Christmas Action!

I've been back in Denver for a couple of days now and I've had a wonderful time. I was in dire need of this six day break too. Practice has been very tough, I'm sure Brooks had it that way so that we could get the work in before everyone went their separate ways for the holidays.

I didn't pass go, I didn't collect $200 before I was back at the dentist the first morning I was here. We definitely don't need a repeat of last summer when it comes to these teeth. Nothing was wrong though, which is a plus. I have become a poster child in my house in Orlando of not procrastinating on seeing the dentist. Big Aub's mom hit him with the "you remember what happened to David last summer" guilt trip to get him to schedule an appointment.

I'm having a great time hanging out with my family and friends, I hadn't seen my brother since last Christmas, so we've been having a ball. Of course my nephew is getting bigger by the day it seems.

One of the highlights of my trip so far was getting to see my Nuggets in action against the Houston Rockets. K hooked us up with some great seats, it was a hell of a game too. We pulled it out by one point in double overtime. K and his brother DJ were going for the Rockets and had a whole lot to say during the game, but afterwards they had the serious "church mouth" (meaning they were quite for those that don't get it). 'Melo and A.I. are killing this year, all I hope for is that we don't catch a first round exit out of the playoffs again for the fourth straight year.

I plan on getting in two workouts while I'm here, I got one in on Friday and I was hurting. I forgot about this thin air up here. I did the treadmill workout because it was snowing and it was tap out city for me. I plan on getting another one in on Monday.

I don't have too much of anything planned, I'll probably go out tonight, it's a friend of mine from Howard's birthday, so we'll see what's up with that. I've had all my Christmas shopping done for well over a month, so I'm not worried about that either. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy some of this good home cooked food (but not too much), and rest up because it's going to get even more serious out on the track when I get back.

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got our first win of the season today by beating the Baltimore Ravens 22-16 in overtime! I'm doubly happy because the Ravens are Joel's favorite team and now I'm talking all kinds of trash for the rest of the week! I've been running around the house yelling and screaming and I've broken out in a all out sweat, so I'm bout to hop in the shower. GO FINS!!!!


Joel is so sick right now, he said he's about to write a personal letter to the Baltimore Raven's front office demanding the firing of Brian Billick. Everytime he comes to my room, I put on the Miami Dolphins fight song, I have also changed his ringtone on my phone to the fight song.

I Am Legend

The house went out last night and caught Will Smith's new movie "I Am Legend" and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Smith is one of my favorite actors and I like all of his previous material, but when you do a movie, basically by yourself, that's when you know you've made it as a bonafide superstar. I'll give it 5 stars, the only downside was we wanted to hit the 9:00 show, but that show was sold out, we had to wait until 10:10 and we had practice this morning at 10am. 10am is when I'm generally just waking up, I'm so tapped out right now, I thought I would just get this post up before I tapped.

Is It A Black/White Thing? The Release of the Mitchell Report

Well with Major League Baseball's release of the Mitchell Report, the shocker has to be the name of Roger Clemens being involved. Roger Clemens is "white" America's superstar in the same sense of Brett Favre in the NFL. Now I am interested to see if the media and the public will take Roger Clemens to town the same way they have Barry Bonds over all these years. Will they want to put an asterix next to Clemens' 300 wins or 4,000 strikeouts? We will see, but I think that somehow this might not get as much attention as Bonds. I say that because as I sit here and watch ESPN, it is being spoken about, but so far there hasn't been massive coverage dedicated solely to Clemens like there was for Bonds. I do firmly believe that there are double standards in American media coverage of athletes. I'm pretty sure that if it was released that it was Barry Bonds instead of Clemens, the media would be KILLING him and condemning him to jail. It is early on, so we shall see if people are asking if Clemens now belongs in the Hall Of Fame or if they try to crucify him as well.

Even Osama Don't Want It With D.O.!!

In only my third day off in the past 2 1/2 weeks of practice, Big Aub and myself decided to head out and go "bust our guns" Call of Duty 4 style. We hit a local gun range and had a fun time out there. We were using Glock 9's, and in the scoring, Aub out pointed me 173-162 in a controversial finish, I'm still protesting the score. We had a great time out there, but I see how Heratio catches those guys on CSI: Miami so easy, with all the gun shot residue and DNA you leave behind.

I'm off again tomorrow, we have a time trial on Friday, so Brooks is giving us some time off to be fully rested for that. The only thing I have planned for tomorrow is to find myself a coat for when I go back to Denver, because it's snowing and freezing out there!

"Money" Mayweather = G.O.A.T.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is my favorite boxer of all-time, and the display he put on last night was classic. It took him his standard 3 to 4 rounds to figure out what his opponent is going to try to accomplish for the night. I was calling a TKO in the 8th round but it happened two rounds later. I don't know what fight Howard Letterman was watching to have the fight scored the way he did. I definitely didn't think that Hatton's corner would ever throw in the towel, that was a shock.

Anyone who actually thought Ricky Hatton had a shot at defeating Floyd simply falls in to one of three categories: 1) You were watching too much 24/7 on HBO, 2) You're a Floyd Mayweather hater or 3) Both.

I like Mayweather because he is a polarizing figure. I like the flash and the trash talking he does, it's mainly entertainment, but most people don't and they allow that to cloud their judgment when it comes to the battle between the ropes. He said it best when he was on HBO, "I don't put my life on the line everytime I step in the ring just to drive one pickup truck, throw darts and drink beer." I don't blame him because if it were me, I would be enjoying the very finer things in life too.

His performance last night directly relates to what Brooks constantly tells us. Mayweather dominates the critical zone of his fight, the same way Brooks is coaching us to dominate the critical zone in our individual races. When it gets late in the fight, you can see that Floyd is the better conditioned boxer and he executes his game plan the best. If you watched 24/7 on HBO, you could see that Hatton seemed to have a lot of confidence, but at the end of the day, it's not about confidence, it's about competents and no one cares how you feel, it's about execution. Floyd Mayweather demonstrates that above all better than anyone in the game right now.

Brooks also tells us that the best indicatior of future behavior is past behavior. I don't know what people saw in Mayweather's past performances that led them to believe that he couldn't prevent Hatton from attacking his body the same way he neutralized De La Hoya's much ballyhooed jab. I hope that last night is his last fight because people don't want him to stop until someone knocks him out and I hope he goes out on top, that's a privilege that a lot of athletes aren't afforded.

Finally, I hope it's a very long flight home for the Hatton fans back to the England. After they came over here and booed the entire National Anthem, if you didn't have a sense of patriotism when Mayweather knocked Hatton senseless in the 10th, I don't know what's wrong.

The Life and Times of D Dot Oliver

I've been out of commission as far as the blog goes, so to all of the people that read this, the three maybe four people, I would like to issue an apology.

Things have been going great lately, training has been moving smoothly, no injuries, but I have had to tap out of practice a couple of times because my shins were bothering me, I know first hand that that's not a problem you want to have long term, so I always call it a day when they flare up. I've had a couple of 'indicator workouts' and I am a little ahead of the pace I was on at this point last season, so that's a plus.

The house has been off the hook too, a lot of comedy there. One of the more recent debates at the house was over the dishes in the kitchen and we had it last night. Let me give you the background on it. Aub and myself always wash the dishes we use as soon as we get done so they don't pile up. Snake and Joel on the other hand do them when they feel. It came to a head because it was getting out of hand and we had to call them to task on it. Snake didn't have very much to say aside from the obligatory "those aren't mine" statement, but Joel, if you know him, you know he's going to want to debate about something, so his argument was basically this, first came the "those aren't mine", then came the "those are Marisa's" (she's been gone for well over two weeks) then the "well I let them pile up because I want to run the dishwasher". Me and Aub then stated that running the dishwasher a lot will run up the utilities bill. Here's the dialog:

Joel: I don't see why we don't just put them in the dishwasher and run it, sometimes I pull out a fork and it still might be dirty.

D.O.: You get dirty stuff out of the dishwasher too.

Aub: Hey, none of us run for the paralympics, we have two hands and two strong biceps to wash the dishes when we use them. Plus I don't think we should be running up the utilities, running the dishwasher is not needed, if there were no dishwasher the dishes would still find a way to get done! (I started dying laughing when he said this)

Joel: Well Aub, you run up more electricity than everybody because your room is bigger than mine and you play Xbox 360 all the time and that is not needed.

(Here comes the funniest, most bass actwards thing I have heard in a while, part 1)

Aub: How do you figure I use more electricity?

Joel: Because your room is bigger, when you turn on the light it has to light up more square-footage in your room than mine!

(I lost it at that point, I was in the living room giving myself cramps I was laughing so hard.)

D.O.: The dishwasher runs up a lot of water as well.

(Here comes the funniest, most bass actwards thing I have heard in a while, part 2)

Joel: Well you and Aub have your own bathroom with a shower, so you guys use up more water.

D.O.: What?! I always thought that rather you take four showers in four different bathrooms or four showers in the same bathroom that it was all the same, what makes this any different?

Joel: Because I own a condo in Ohio, I know.

D.O./Aub: You got it then.

That's just a piece of our most recent conversation, but we went on to debate about when we should change the air conditioning air filter to what temperature the a/c should be on. It's always fun and I can't wait to do it again.

Today, I had a surprise waiting for me after practice, (drum roll please) USADA (U.S. Anti-Doping Agency) was sitting in my living room waiting for me as soon as I walked through the door. I was hoping it was for Aub or Joel, but I knew it was for me. When you see them coming you have already resigned yourself to the fact that you are going to be here for a while. It's sort of like those Snikers commercials, the "Not going anywhere for a while" campaign.

Anyone that knows me, knows I usually will go to the bathroom maybe three, four times an hour sometimes, so I shouldn't have any problems with this. I must have performance anxiety when they come around or something because this drew out for close to two hours.

I had already used the restroom right after leaving the weightroom. The bad thing about it was they came to the track but we had already left to go move some weights around and they neglected to come to the weightroom like they usually do. The guy told me he didn't think we would be in there so he didn't check.

I always come home and want to hop right in the shower after a workout, so as I get ready to get undressed, he came in and told me he had to watch, so I then was like, well, it ain't that type of party so I'll just have to wait. Everything went smoothly after that, add in another debated topic about Snake not having a valid excuse for missing practice today, but I need to send him a thank you card, because if he wasn't at home already, he couldn't have let the USADA people in and they wouldn't have been able to get to me, therefore they would have hit me with another missed test.