Man ... I'll be glad when this middle-aged crazy phase gets over with.

Last week, I rode my motorcycle into work a couple of days. One of those days, coming in late to make up for some evening hours I had worked, I pulled into the Kidd Jones here to grab a Subway sandwich.

When this truck backed out of one of the parking spaces, I decided it would be wise to stop and give the driver plenty of time to get out of the space and headed in the correction direction.

Word of advice ... don't tap the front brakes on a motorcycle too hard.

In this case, I tapped them just hard enough to leave myself standing straight up on the parking lot, both arms locked down straight, holding the motorcycle by the handlebar grips (while simultaneously holding down the brake and the clutch levers), with the motorcycle tipped far enough to the side that I was feeling its full weight.

Now, my bike has an 1800cc motor, so it's not light once you get out of the top "V" of balance where it feels like a bicycle. And I don't exactly have the forearms of a weight lifter. My biceps are OK, but my forearms, admittedly, are kind of skinny.

Now, I knew I could remain in that locked position for a while, keeping the motorcycle from laying all the way down ... and the good thing was that I had it stopped and not moving ... but I knew that I couldn't get in a better "leverage" position to get it back straight up and that I was eventually going to have to drop it because of the weight.

So I went ahead and dropped it.

And because I didn't want to drop the bike on my foot, I stepped off and away from it quickly ... but a bit too quickly because I hit the "dirt" - or the concrete in this case.

Knees first.

Actually, left knee first, followed closely by my right knee.

I'm happy to report that the right knee feels fine today. The left knee is another story.

I'm learning that I don't heal as quickly as I used to. That left knee got a bit of "road rash" (a scrape) about the size of quarter. That's no problem. About four inches below the knee, it looks slightly bruised, but not bad. Unfortunately, under the skin at that point, there's nothing but bone.

So, as I write this, five days later, that "bruised" spot is still stabbing me all day long. Guess I mashed bone on that fall.

This "getting old" thing is getting old.

You can laugh if you want. Even my family laughs at me all the time.

End of basketball season

By the time you read this, all the basketball teams will be through with this year's schedules.

I got in at the tail end of it all, but have had a blast covering the few games I've been to.

The Bearettes hit a tough streak at the end of what was a really nice season, looking at their final record. Twenty-four wins ain't something to sneeze at.

I learned in the past few days that Coach Griffin hit the 800-wins mark for his coaching career last year.

Wow! Do the math some time. At 25 wins per season, EVERY season, that's 32 consecutive seasons of 25 wins to hit 800.

And covering the boys and girls games these couple of weeks was a good way to start learning names.

Let's see ... off the top of my head ... there's Ryan Smith, Tristain Warren, Sabrina Bradley, Synola Harmon, Trey Volentine, Haley Crist, Jordan Flynn, Naomi Scott, Zack Bailey ... I think I can go on for a bit longer, but I won't bore you.

Although I promise you those names came straight off the top of my head ... I didn't even look at the list of players I typed up with uniform numbers.

I guess typing up all those "who scored what" lists contained in some of the articles is paying off.

Facilities here

I've been impressed with the facilities you folks have put together for the kids here ... and I haven't even been to the football field or field house yet.

The gym is great ... plenty of room for the fans, the cheerleaders have space just off the court, the lighting is good and it certainly projects the crowd noise.

Gotta have home court advantage.

The baseball and softball complex is set up just right.

It having been a while since I'd been to a game, I had forgotten how I used to make sure and park my vehicle pointing away from the field ... so that if I left while a game was in progress and had to turn on my headlights, I wouldn't disrupt play with my lights shining in the players' eyes.

When I went to the softball game here Monday night, I forgot that and was parked pointing toward the field. Fortunately, the fields here are built on a level higher than the parking. So my lights basically hit the short hill in front of me and not the field.

Concessions are convenient and those "chicken rings" sure are good.

The fields looked to be in great shape and the netting that circumvents the fencing is a nice safety feature.

The scoreboards are just right as well ... not too flashy and they gave all the needed information.

All in all, what I've seen of the facilities here so far is very good and much appreciated.