The beautiful weather this week launched a flurry of spring sports action throughout the area, and this very pleasant side of nature uncustomary in mid-April has inspired more than my opinions on sports.

In the spirit of a wonderful week of spring sports weather, haiku will be today’s lead-off batter.

Haiku is a form of poetry comprised of three lines: a five-syllable beginning line, a seven-syllable middle line, and a five-syllable ending line. This format, its origins in Japan, tends to be about nature.

Nice climes this past week

Then reality returns

Hoosier State spring sports

I enjoyed this past week’s weather immensely. It was a welcome break from the status quo among recent spring sports seasons. I still have my Carhartt jacket on the coat tree, and I have a feeling I’ll be using it once next week and a few times the following week.

Lakers are tiresome

Too much airplay on the tube

Grizzlies, please beat them

The Lakers won an ugly play-in game against a Minnesota Timberwolves squad with some notable talent that is hampered by its collective low basketball IQ. Although the Lakers have LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the Memphis Grizzlies have their full roster, and should finish the Lakers.

Change playoff format

From Seven games to five games

NBA first round

The first round of NBA playoffs is all about ticket revenue, because it certainly isn’t about competitive basketball. Most seasons the opening round tends to result mostly in sweeps, and gentlemen’s sweeps (where a team wins a series four games to one game).

I know I won’t get my wish of a best-of-three opening round, but could we possibly have a best-of-five opening round?

Watching XFL

It’s an NFL lab rat

But offense sputters

I like some of the experimental twists the XFL offers its fans and viewers, and I also enjoy how the TV product shares mic’d up athletes and coaches. The offenses, however, mostly sputter their way through four quarters.

I’ll just watch more rugby until August.

Shaq made up a word

It’s dismantilization

Challenged by Barkley

Shaquille O’Neal changed the word dismantle to give a six-syllable name to its state, for lack of a better explanation. Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, although it was around 1 a.m. Eastern Daylight time Wednesday, were awake enough to call him out right away.

The rest of this is for people who do or do not write, because I strongly believe everyone should write.

I jot notes everywhere. I don’t say to myself, “I’m going to write my column right now.”

Instead I just get around to writing the column because it’s getting close to my deadline, not because I’m going to go from rough draft to final draft in one slice of time int eh entire week.

I’ve decided to start jotting more notes in a single binder instead of scribbling them everywhere else.

The book pictured in today’s column, Ten Apples Up On Top by Theo. (sic) LeSieg, contains the original pages of the book, but the original binders were removed and replaced with plastic spirals, and several blank, non-lined pages were added to create this notebook.

This was one of my favorite children’s books, and when I saw it in a shop in July, I had to have it. I waxed nostalgic as I re-read a story (silently this time) I recall reading aloud to my older sisters at least 54 years ago.

To give you an idea of how scattered most of my notes are, I’ve just begun to use this lineless notebook, so it sat around for months.

With this said, I’ll share how I put a column together. This notebook is one of the handy-dandy tools for my process.

I might jot down contact names between numerous non-sequiturs popping into my brain when I don’t have time to devote a deep dive on the issues, but I don’t want those thoughts to disappear, falling victim to the early stages of short-term memory failure beginning with middle age.

My home office has sheets of notebook paper saved because only one sentence, topic, or thought is jotted down regardless of how long I get around to revisiting the penned note.

I don’t use a pencil because I don’t want to erase anything. I want my bad ideas to be visible. They’ll either stay bad, or they’ll grow on me.

Folks, most of us will likely go to my grave without publishing a book, hosting a podcast, or getting up on stage for a stand-up comedy routine.  This doesn’t mean you and I don’t have something interesting to say about the subjects among our interests.

Every note is important. I’ve prepared 800 to 1,000 words of copy to express an opinion whose genesis was two sentences from prior days or weeks of notes. I’ve also gleaned just one or two sentences apropos for my column from pages of scribbled notes.

Sometimes I try to put effort toward a topic or event fresh or relevant during the same week I write the column. Other times, I am unapologetically self-indulgent, discussing what might only matter to me regardless of the week’s hottest takes or biggest sports stories.

In the latter cases, if I make a connection, it’s like finding money while prepping my laundry for the washer.

Originality? Does everything you or I write need to be original?

I might have sailed (maybe) uncharted waters less than a handful of weeks since I was assigned this column in November 2020. If you or I sit down with pen and paper waiting for something original to come to mind, most of us will not put a drop of ink on the page.

Jot down the thoughts in your brain, anyway. If the content is personal and sincere, your thoughts are original. If you dive deep, it will be more personal, and more creative as a result.

I intentionally showed a photo of my notebook referring to Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon. He elaborates on art and writing being less original than we perceive it to be much in a more intelligent delivery than I’m using.

I’ll leave you right there, folks. I have the last day of our wonderful weather break to enjoy this morning at the Tiger Softball Complex.