Chicago native and WNBA Sky Owner MICHAEL ALTER has much to be thankful for this holiday weekend. That includes his eldest son graduating from college in Amherst, Mass., as well as his daughter’s high school graduation celebration back in the Chicago area. There is also the small matter of the WNBA opening its season. Alter's club will be front and center to start the '13 campaign in a nationally-televised game on Monday that will feature highly-touted draft picks in Sky C ELENA DELLE DONNE and Mercury C BRITTNEY GRINER.
REGALIA READY: My son is graduating from college this weekend. He goes to Amherst College in Massachusetts. Graduation is Sunday so we’ll be there a couple days, spend some time with him and his friends. My daughter is coming Saturday to join us with the grandmothers. We’ve gone pretty regularly. He is the assistant coach of the women’s basketball team there (they’re D-III), so we went down a lot for games. But this weekend we’ve got some nicer restaurants that we haven’t been to yet. Normally, we go with sushi because college students can’t afford sushi. So they’re happy -- at least my son -- when their parents come and their friends and we all go have sushi. But the places we’re going this time are relatively new places that are sort of organically-grown, healthy, foody kind of places that I’ve heard were really good.
SAVE THE PAGE: I’m just finishing a book, JAY BILAS’ new book “TOUGHNESS,” which is really about mental toughness. I will probably finish that on the way to Amherst. Then on the way back, I’m going to start PHIL JACKSON’s new book, “ELEVEN RINGS.” I’m not very technologically savvy, so it doesn’t take much for me to tap out. I do have an iPad, however, which I do like. I’m sure I underutilize it tremendously, but it’s a nice little thing. I prefer the physical books, but not always.
BIKE PATH: I’m into commuting more than I am into cycling. I ride my bike to work, so when I don’t ride is usually on the weekends. I need to have somewhere to go. So I ride to work every day, pretty much all season long. If I need to go somewhere for errands or whatever, then I’ll ride my bike. But I don’t go riding. It’s about 8-9 miles each way, so it’s a nice little distance. It’s not crazy but it’s enough to get a decent workout and actually, I think it saves me a lot of time.
SLEEP PATTERN: Sunday nights after dinner is kind of my chill time. So I’ll take my calendar and my notebook and think through the week, watch something stupid on TV and just try to clear my head a little bit. The one thing I do on the weekends as often as possible -- I usually do it once a weekend, try to do it twice -- is take a nap. Maybe an hour or so, usually around 5:00pm on the couch. There’s a favorite spot, I usually have the TV on something that I’m not that into. I’ve been doing this since college actually, but it has come and gone. When my kids were first born, I could nap with them. Then that napping went away for a long time. Now that my kids are older and not around, I’ve been able to reinstate my naps very happily.
HOLIDAY HEYDAY: We need to get back in time to watch our season opener on ESPN on Monday afternoon. I’m not overly superstitious. Having not been to the playoffs yet, I haven’t had a lot of success with anything I’ve done in terms of superstitious luck to the team. So everything is kind of a new beginning. We’ll have to see. If something starts to seem like it’s working, maybe I will make that more of a mandatory thing. I try to avoid wearing a tie as much as possible. I definitely won’t have a tie for graduation. My daughter is also graduating from high school so after the game there’s a little graduation BBQ at her friend’s house. Technically her graduation is next weekend, but we have a graduation party for her this weekend.
