As you may recall, one of our own here at Emptywheel, John Gundrum (known here as “Gunner”) received a lung transplant about a year and a half ago>. Well, things have progressed quite nicely for John, and this weekend he has travelled from Ann Arbor to Wisconsin to participate in the National Transplant Games:

“You appreciate life like you wouldn’t believe,” Gundrum said. “A lot of stuff just isn’t important anymore, but little stuff is important like seeing my little nephews.”

At the end of the month, Gundrum plans to join about 1,500 other organ transplant recipients from around the country in Wisconsin for the U.S. Transplant Games.

Sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, the weeklong event features athletic competitions between organ transplant recipients. In the last games held in 2008, more than 1,300 athletes and more than 5,700 families of organ donors or other supporters attended.

“The big draw is a lot of participants want to show the success of organ donation and that, after going through something like that, it’s possible to perform successfully and live healthy productive lives,” said Michael Steigmeyer, spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation.

John will be competing in bowling, golfing and table tennis, and that is just way cool. Go Gunner!

Find out how to become an organ donor in your state.

Okay, there are actually a lot of things going on out there in sports land, including NFL training camp starting to crank up. Probably the most important news so far is that Childress went down to Kiln Mississippi to visit his once and future Geezer Quarterback and ended up on a nocturnal armadillo hunt. That is some kind of fun. Kind of like coon huntin, which is explained fully by Jerry Clower in the attached video.

Baseball is starting to hit the compelling part of the season and the trading deadline is at hand. And, more importantly, the lads in the Circus are ripping up Hungary this weekend with Sebastian Vettel looking very fast again.

So let loose and trash it up!