A reminder: buckle up

... and don't drink and drive...
I wrote this on Friday about a friend of mine. And since I have nothing new to share with you about my life, it's all you get today ...

Oh, and a big shout-out to my boy Jumbo, who turned 29 on Friday. Big up, short stack...

Anyways, here's the story...

DRIVE TURNS INTO FIGHT TO STAY ALIVE

Bruised lungs. Eight broken ribs. Bleeding on the brain. A skull fracture. A shattered leg being held together by steel rods, screws and plates.
No, this is not a sports column. This is a get-well card.
And some would say, a cautionary tale.
Scott Zummack is a gifted athlete. He was a three-year starter at wide receiver and go-to guy for the Okanagan Sun back in the mid-1990s - he ranks ninth on the team’s all-time touchdown list with 20 - but I knew him as a quicksilver midfielder in the men’s rec soccer ranks.
He was sneaky fast, and loved setting up his teammates more than scoring himself; though, when the need arose, he could do that, too. There was one four-goal game that had the 32-year-oldÕs two young sons bouncing in hysterics all over the sidelines like they’d been drinking Red Bull.
But now, Scott is lying in the intensive care unit of Kelowna General Hospital, barely concious and only occasionally recognizing the people closest to him.
Sometime early Tuesday morning, Scott was a passenger in his friend Byron Paulson’s Jeep TJ, driving down Okanagan Centre Road in Lake Country. Byron lost control, skidded across the road and flipped his Jeep into a ditch.
Neither were wearing seatbelts.
Byron ended up in a crumpled heap 30 feet down the road, later dying in hospital from his injuries. Scott survived, but was injured so extensively that doctors induced a coma because drugs couldn’t block out the pain.
Byron’s jeep, now sitting in the RCMP impound lot, isn’t the crumpled mess one would expect from a fatal accident.
Its front end is moderately damaged, but the rollbars prevented the top of the Jeep from caving in on the driving compartment.
Seatbelts would likely have protected both of them from the crash that left Byron dead and Scott in hospital.
It will be a long time before Scott is back out helping with his son’s soccer team, the U-7 Lake Country Wolf Pack, or even until visitors are allowed in to see him at KGH, as the ICU is off-limits to all but family.
Byron, who was 34, will be laid to rest Saturday at the Springfield Funeral home.
Scott faces a long road to recovery. Whether he will be the same athlete again depends on how well he responds to rehab. Doctors performed surgery on his leg on Wednesday, inserting rods into his lower leg and plates into his ankle.
If only one person reads this, I would wish that it is Scott, so he knows that he’s got friends outside the walls of the hospital who are pulling for him. The antiseptic walls of KGH and pastel-coloured suits of the hospital staff are all he will be seeing for a long time, an experience tough enough in itself.
But the scars from the accident and surgery will be with him forever, as will the emotional ones that come from a traumatic experience which could have so easily been prevented.
But as those remnants persevere, so, I hope, will his friends.
n J.J. Adams is a sports reporter with The Daily Courier. His column appears here Fridays. To contact him, e-mail jj.adams@ok.bc.ca.

Gooood LAWD almighty!!

Gooood LAWD almighty!!
Originally uploaded by smoove_J.

Josh Smith. 19. Reppin for 'Nique (the Human Hightlight Reel), and the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA dunk contest.
All I can say is: Nasty.
I'm doing the gas face just LOOKING at that dunk ...

The ROOF! The ROOF! The ROOF IS ON FIRE!

We don't need no water. . . cause beer and Courvasier will do...
I'm down at my boy Dounia's comedy show last weekend in Vancouver, trying to catch my breath listening to Damon Williams crackin on some small-bootied Asian girls sitting in the VIP section, when all of a sudden, there's a huge commotion in the seats underneath the balcony where I was sitting.
"Her HAIR is on fire! I can't believe it," Damon screeched into the mike, grabbing the cameraman at the same time. "Dude, THAT is what you should be filiming."
Some poor Macy Gray lookalike with too much product in her frzzy hair got a little too close to the lights, a candle, some dude smoking a blunt, or something, cause her head was a-flamin.
The people in the booth with her were dumping their drinks all over her in an attempt to put the fire out. The whole club, with about 500 people in it, started to reek like burnt hair.
Classic.
It was funnier than the show, which was pretty damn funny, by the way. I have to hand it to Dounia - it was a professional, well-run production.
All the BET cats put on a good show, even hanging out with the crowd afterwards.
Here's some pictures from the October show he put on... The afterparty was cool, too ... I ended up outside at one point, chillin with a couple hip hop artists and Mary Jane. Justin, bless his little mini-Taye-Diggs lookalike azz, chilled with us too, even getting in the burn of the night.
On me, too. He's growing up so fast ... it brings a tear to my eye.
The next day was Valentines, so I picked up my girl from the airport, and took her out for a romantic dinner in White Rock, followed by a night of monkey-like acrobatic love-making at a hotel.
OK, OK ... so we basically watched TV most of the time .. But it was Blind Date: Valentine's Edition. I couldn't miss that...
I hooked up with Miceal, Trev and Dounia for lunch the next day, after a "fun" day of shopping on Robson with Christa. I had no idea there were so many gay men working retail down there...
Anyways, that's it for now ... I'll holla atcha lata.
PEACE

This week's (British) sign of the Apocolypse

Well, at Least He Won't Be Fathering More Fans...

LONDON (Reuters) - A Welsh rugby fan cut off his own testicles to celebrate Wales beating England at rugby, the Daily Mirror reported Tuesday.
Geo11ff Huish, 26, was so convinced England would win Saturday's match he told fellow drinkers at a social club, "If Wales win I'll cut my balls off," the paper said.
Friends at the club in Caerphilly, south Wales, thought he was joking.
But after the game Huish went home, severed his testicles with a knife, and walked 200 yards back to the bar with the testicles to show the shocked drinkers what he had done.
Huish was taken to hospital where he remained in serious condition, the paper said.
Wales's 11-9 victory over England at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff was their first home win over England in 12 years.