Highlights and Pictures

Hey everyone! How are you all doing? So I finally am writing another blog. Its been a pretty busy week for me. Again I spend most of my time at the gym practicing or getting treatment done. We had a full week of practices preparing for our next game vs Le Harve. They are a good team with a 3-1 record. We are playing at their place on Saturday. I will update the blog on Sunday again and let you know how the game went. But, I wanted to put some highlights from our game and a couple game pictures as well. Again for the people back home the commentating is in French just to give you another heads up. So you can practice up on your French :)! To view the highlights you have to click the link below. I am going to try and be able to get the video highlights placed directly on my blog page in the up coming posts, but I need to talk to people that work in our office so I don't get into trouble with some copyright restrictions. Hope everyone is doing well back home. Miss you guys and I am trying to keep up with everything that is going on. Remember, don't be afraid to give your boy a shout I can always enjoy some company via emails, messages, facebook, twitter, etc etc! Enjoy the pics and video. Take care and as always God Bless! (Joshua 1:9)

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/

BCM vs Rouen

Hey everyone! I hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday. I have had quite a busy day today and I am finally having time to fill you all in about our game last night. Today, I went to Belgium with my teammate J.K. Edwards and his family. We went to a city call Antwerpen, Belgium which was about an hour and forty five minutes away. It was nice to get out of the house this Sunday afternoon and check out a different city. There is a lot that a person can do in this city. They had a zoo, aquarium, tons of different stores, and plenty to eat. We walked up around the city center and checked things out. I am glad I went and it definitely passed time quickly this afternoon.

But back to the game last night. We ended up winning 81-65. We played great team ball and we finally started to improve our defense. It was nice getting another win under our belt and it was a great win overall for a team with 5 guys scoring in double figures. We really moved the ball well amongst each other which made it a fun game to play. We took an early lead into halftime but Rouen came out with a lot of energy and starting knocking down some outside shots which brought the within 6 points in the 3rd quarter. That was the closest they would come and we stretched it out in the 4th quarter and ended up winning by 16 points. As I said before we played well together as a team and did a pretty good job on defense, now we have to start preparing for next weekend. Our record stands at 2-2 now and we play next Saturday vs Le Harve (who is 3-1). Our fans here are amazing and very enthusiastic. Our gym gets to be so loud at times that you can't hear your own teammate calling out a play or hearing your teammate talk to you on defense. It is a great atmosphere to play in and it always gets me pumped up when we have a lot of fans at our games.

Well I am going to end the night over here watching some football and relaxing a bit. Hope you all have a wonderful night and I am looking forward to writing a blog later this week. Goodnight and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Mid-Week Update

Mid-Week update letting people know how things are coming along over here in France and if anything else new or interesting has happened over here. Things are going pretty well over here in France. I am continuing to stay busy everyday with practice and treatment. I typically try to get hot and cold treatment a couple times a week and get my legs stretched out after every practice. That tends to help me recover a lot faster and I feel a little more refreshed if I continue to make those two treatments a habit. If you were wondering what a hot and cold treatment is, it is when I would start sitting in the hot tub for a couple minutes and then I would jump into an ice bath for a minute or so. I would do it back and forth 3 times. That treatment helps flush your legs out and helps them recover faster. So between practicing, getting extra shots up at the end of practice, and recover treatments I am spending a lot of time at the gym. Give you a little heads up about this weekend. We play Rouen, Saturday at 8pm. They are 0-3 however they have been losing some close games so it should be a good game. We are 1-2 and definitely looking forward to trying to get another win under our belt. Should be an interesting game that I am looking forward to. I will update you on how the game goes on Sunday.

Outside of basketball I spend time watching the TV series LOST online (kind of addicting). I also read the Bible and some books that I brought with me from back home, and sometimes I watch ESPNAmerica. Its like ESPN back home however I don't get sportscenter, and a lot of time the games that come on don't come on over here till 3 or 4 in the morning. But at least I can watch something that I am familiar with. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and dropped 130 euros which is around $192 USD. That sounds outrages doesn't it, but what I have noticed is that groceries are very very expensive over here. So that is were a lot of my purchases go too. But since it is just me over here my groceries tend to last me a week and a half to two weeks.

The one bad thing that is tough to deal with is only playing 1 game a week. That is when things can get monotonous throughout the week. However, we start up the EuroChallenge in November so we will be playing Tuesdays and Saturdays, something I am looking forward to. Thats it for now I will let you know how the game goes on Sunday. Oh yeah and one more thing....I have time on my hands some days so don't be afraid to hit me up on my blog, twitter, or facebook. I always enjoy a message from people since I'm all by myself over here, makes me feel connected still hahahaha. Take care and God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

BCM vs Le Mans (game #3)

We had our third game of the year last night vs. Le Mans. Let me just say that it didn't go very well. We got beat by 20 points 75-55. I personally had 5 points (0-4 FG, 1-4 3FG, 2-2 FT, 5 Rebs, 4 Assists, 2 Steals). It was a rough game for our team in terms of trying to get something going. If we ever started to get a little momentum it quickly turned in the other teams favor due to us turning the ball over or referee's blowing their whistle. I'm not a person that says things about the refs being good or bad but it was a very physical game and let me just put it this way, they let a lot of things go during the game. You gotta give credit to Le Mans they played well together, executed pretty well and capitalized off of our turnovers. They are a good team and so you have to give them credit for how they played. We sit at 1-2 overall in our league tied with 4 other teams at 1-2. Our next is at home vs. Rouen on Saturday Oct. 24th. I apologize this is so short and to the point but if you know me personally you know how I feel about winning and losing and how much of a competitor I am, so what I'm saying is I'm not a "happy camper" right now. But something positive to look forward to is another game next Saturday. We have to continue to get better during practice and hopefully things will start falling into place for us and we can get some back to back wins under our belt.

It is 2:05 p.m. here right now and we didn't get home from our game until 5 a.m. last night so I am going to take a little nap. I will try and find some video from this game and post it later this week. Otherwise I will write another blog sometime this week and keep you all updated on things here in France. Hope everyone is enjoying there Sunday's back home, let me guess: church, football, football, football haha! Talk to you soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9)

Townhouse, Car, Etc

As I said in my previous blog I was going to show you a couple pictures of

what my place and car look like so you can get an idea of how I am living. The townhouse that I live in is a tw0-story, three bedroom place. On the main level I have a living room (where I have a couch and T.V), dining room (where there is just a table for eating purposes), a kitchen, small bathroom and a garage for the car. It isn’t that big of an area for instance, when I sit on my couch I can see my dining room and kitchen all in one view. But, I don’t need that big of a place since it is just myself over here. The upstairs to my place has three bedrooms and a bathroom. Again there isn’t a lot of area upstairs but there is definitely plenty of room for just me. One of the bedrooms upstairs is empty while another has just a bed in it and there is my room where I have a bigger bed and closet space. Overall, I really enjoy the place I have over here and I really couldn’t ask for anything better. A couple of miscellaneous things involving my apt: there is NO carpet anywhere (everything is either tile or wood), my garage connects with my kitchen, my garage is where my washer and dryer are placed, and there is no central air or heat (there are heaters in every room that you have to turn on manually). Those are a couple of things that I found interesting in my townhouse.

My car is a four door foreign style car (don't even know the name) and it is an automatic. Apparently over here there are hardly any automatic cars and everyone usually drives manuals. It is a nice little ride that gets me from A to B equipped with a radio, CD player, heat, etc. There is a funny story involving the process of me getting a car. At first since I told them I haven't driven a stick-shift for along time they said they would get me an automatic, so I was cool with that. Well like I said earlier automatics are hard to come by so it took a little longer than normal to get a car. So they gave me a smart car right away!! Now I don't know if many of you have seen a smart car or have actually been inside one, but WOW was I scared driving that around. It is the smallest car I have ever been in and when I drove to go some where and it was windy out I could actually feel the car moving side to side from the wind. I was literally afraid that if someone

were to hit me while riding their BIKE that I would be the one with all the injuries haha! But, finally they got me a normal car and I wasn't so scared to be driving around the town. I will let you guys figure out which picture the smart car is :)!

Well, that is a little bit of what my living area is like and what my car looks like. As I said before I am really happy with how the team has set me up with such a nice place to live and a car to drive. Tomorrow we leave for an away game vs Le Mans. We play Saturday night at 8pm. I will let you know how the game was and all that jazz in the next post. Hope you enjoyed learning about my living arrangements and I will talk to you again soon. God Bless (Joshua 1:9).

Highlights from Game 2

Here is a link with a couple of highlights from our intense home opener last Saturday vs Chalon. I apologize if the link doesn't work I am not a high tech computer guru haha! But, I think it should work. Let me know if it doesn't work and I can try and change it. Oh yeah and just a heads up the commentary is in French, ENJOY :)! More updates to come later this week with some pictures of my place, car, etc.

http://www.bcm.deltafm.fr/index.php?id=2211

Video #1

Update from France

Hey everyone.. I wanted to give you all an update on how things are going over here in Gravelines, France. We had our second game of the season last night which was also our home opener vs Chalon. It was an amazing and very intense game that came down to the wire. It was back and forth throughout the whole game neither team being able to extend the lead significantly. It all came down to the end of the 4th quarter when Chalon hit a shot to go up by 2 points with 8 seconds to go. We called timeout and set up and high screen and roll with myself and our 5 man J.K Edwards. I caught the ball at half court as J.K. (our 5 man) came up and set a high ball screen at the top of the key. I refused the screen and took it to the basket and scored a left handed contested lay up with 4 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime. We jumped out to and early 5 point lead in OT but Chalon had a lot of fight in them and they ended up going up by 1 point with 19 seconds left. We had the ball with 19 seconds to go and we really couldn't get a good look when one of our other guards Yannick Bokolo drove to the basket and made a great wrap around bounce pass to J.K. who laid it in with 4 seconds to go and putting us up 1 in OT. Chalon ended up not getting a shot off at the end of the game and BCM Gravelines came away with a win. As I said early it was quite an exciting game and our fans were so crazy I just loved the atmosphere. I am really happy that our team got a W and we are back to 1-1 in our league. Hopefully we can continue to build off of this win tonight. Thats pretty much the exciting news in the basketball world over here in France.

Off of the basketball court, things are going well. If I am not at practice I am usually relaxing watching some episodes of Lost or catching the Twins games. I have ESPNAmerica which is nice because I can catch the latest sporting news The only bad thing is that the Twins games come on over here so late with the 7 hour time change it is difficult for me to catch the end of the games. I continue to make my own breakfast, lunch, and dinners. I need to start getting creative since I really just rotate between: pasta, chicken, and hamburger. However, my teammate J.K. Edwards invites me over to his house to grill and eat with his family quite often which breaks up the routine. I am definitely thankful for that family. But basically what I'm saying is I MISS MY MAMA'S COOKING haha! Any ideas for some dinners please don't hesitate to give your opinion haha :).

All in all my life over here is great. I'm enjoying the basketball side of things but I am also loving the opportunity to live and experience a different country. I will give you another updated later on this week and give you more details about my townhouse and my city. I'll throw some pictures of my place in as well in the next blog. Take Care and God Bless!

Hello from France

Welcome

Hello everyone!! So I decided to setup a blog for people that want to stay in contact with me and so I can keep people updated on how things are going over here in France. I am currently living in Gravelines, France. The town that I am living in is located on the northern coast of France right by the English Channel. It is a small town which is 20 minutes from Dunkerque, France. I am living in a three bedroom townhouse which is about 5 minutes from the gym.

Before I go any further I want to tell you that my high school coach Matt Addington did the amazing design work for the blog. He is unbelievable and very creative when it comes to designing webpages and also photography. Matt is a professional photographer and I would highly suggest if you want wedding photos or senior pictures that you get in contact with him. You can check out his stuff on his website or Facebook Page. So I want to say thank you Coach for helping me get this blog started and always following me throughout my career. You were a heck of a coach but an even better person!

On the basketball side of things I am playing in the ProA League here in France for a team called BCM Gravelines. You can check out our website and it's especially interesting if you're fluent in French. There are 16 very competitive teams in this top league. We played our first game this past Saturday. We ended up losing 80-73 to Paris. We didn't play well as a team and I personal didn't play that well, but we have another game this Saturday that I am really looking forward to. I will keep you updated on everything over here in France. Take care and talk to you soon!

You can also follow me now on Twitter...BenWoodside. Just another place I can keep you updated.

A Few Photos

Well I am going to call myself new to this blogging thing, but it will be a great way to keep in touch with many of you and give you a glance Inside My World here in France.

A few photos for you from some of the early season.