Ric Bucher is the senior NBA writer for The Mag. We talked him into sending us a Pulsecard from his travels.

Here's a tip from an itinerant road warrior: get your shoes shined at the Denver airport. You start by sinking into a deep-seated, ultra-comfy wingback chair. They clean the shoe leather with lanolin, follow with top-grade polish (no Kiwi here, friends), melt the polish and open the leather pores with a mini-blow torch and buff with pantyhose ... Oh, and avoid National Car Rental in Philly. Last time I waited 25 minutes for the shuttle bus, and this time it was 20 minutes before a car became available (at 1 a.m.) ... I ran into agent Lon Babby (of Tim Duncan-Grant Hill fame) after the Sixers-Cavs game the other night. Babby drove up to Philly from D.C. to check in with client Andre Miller, who marked the occasion with a horrendous game. Babby jokingly groused that Miller scored as many points (3) as his agent drove hours to see him.

Philly sideshow: classic beat-writer battle between Daily News' Phil Jasner, your basic Oscar Madison in a rumpled tweed coat and sweater who has been covering the team for decades, and the Inquirer's youthful Stephen A. Smith, who wears dapper dark suits, crisp white shirts and carefully knotted ties ... I followed the Cavs to Milwaukee, which has the most eclectic cab drivers in the world, from grandmothers in chartreuse housecoats to lamb-chopped middle-aged guys wearing black leather chaps and chapeaus ... I'm renting a car this time so I can drive over to Chicago to see how B.J. Armstrong and his wife Jennifer are faring with two-month-old Oscar. I got to know B.J. during his stint with the woeful Warriors. One dividend for a beat writer covering an awful team -- season-long commiseration with the stand-up guys forges lasting relationships. Cavs guard Bimbo Coles, who knows B.J. from that same Warriors' team, says fatherhood has changed him. I'll let you know.