D's Notebook

Reader’s Notebook, 10/29/24

October 29, 2024 /

The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve thought about re-reading The Lord of the Rings for several years and finally pulled the trigger. Which was dumb. Given how focused I am on nostalgia, memories, and anniversaries, I really should have tackled it last year, the 40th anniversary of the first time I read it. In fact, that’s how I spent the fall of 1983, working through these four books as a couple friends did the same. So much for symmetry.

I honestly can’t tell you what triggered me to finally jump in. I was waiting on several books from the library and had a lull. We have all the LOTR books in our one remaining bookcase, so I’m sure I had seen them at some point and they made an impression. On the last Saturday in September I checked to see if they were available via ebook at the library and most were.[1] I checked out The Hobbit and The Two Towers and put holds on the other two. Thus I snuck one book in between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring but basically spent the last month pouring through these four classics.

This was at least my third time reading the series. There was the first time in seventh grade, a mid–90s re-read, and now. I’m not sure if I squeezed out another effort sometime between the first two.

So it had been 41 years since the first read, I’m guessing 27 or 28 since the second. Plus I saw the movies when they came out roughly 25 years ago. Naturally, as I worked through the books lots of details came back to me just before I got to those sections of the stories. I forgot how much influence classic Greek epics had on Tolkien’s writing, surely as much as traditional British writing.

As easy as it is to make fun of people who go all Star Wars on LOTR, they really are great stories. It was fun to pick up moments that have influenced more modern works. As I read The Two Towers I sure felt connecting points to the general arc of The Empire Strikes Back. When The Ring comes to its final fate, I immediately thought of the final moment of action in Die Hard. Plus plenty of general points that pop up in modern stories.

I’ve said many times how I am intrigued by the concept of sci-fi and fantasy, but really struggle to connect when I occasionally take a stab at those genres. I’ve always thought some of that was because of how well Tolkien crafted his worlds and stories, and that nothing else made sense to my mind. There is some general, fantasy silliness in his books, at least to me, the non-fantasy fan. But the stories do hold up well, other than some casual racism. I bet some uptight parents even think Tolkien was kind of woke for the moments when he had women assert that they had the right to fill the same roles as men. All that makes it worth devoting a month that could have been spent on other books working through stories I’ve read before.

My biggest criticism is there was too much detailed description of this mindless march or that one. Too much detailing of every tree and plant the Fellowship saw, or spinning out history that doesn’t have a great effect on the core story. So many names of kingdoms and blood lines. There was some juvenile laughter on my part about how often the Hobbits place their heads in each other’s laps to take a nap. The stories could be tightened up just a bit. But they are supposed to be epic quests against absolute evil attempting to take over the world; you have to allow some space for Tolkien to stretch shit out.

Now the question is will I watch the movies again? My To Watch list is probably longer than my To Read list. Right now it doesn’t look like Peter Jackson’s movies are on any streaming platforms we pay for. I would imagine we’ll either re-up with Max at some point, or they’ll land on Prime or wherever eventually and then I’ll load them into the queue.

  1. Old man eyes. I stick to my Kindle unless I have no choice. Especially this time of year when I can’t read outside very much in bright sunshine.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 28, 2024 /

These summaries are usually heavy on the sports. After a weekend like the one just passed, that is problematic. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, good happened for teams I follow over the past three days. Just a reminder that sports are terrible and I’m dumb for letting them hold such large sway over my life and mood. You people who waltz blissfully through your days without being affected by the result of a game have it right.

So, I’ll try to keep these brief.

KU Hoops Exhibition

No Hunter Dickinson, no Rylen Griffen, no Shak Moore. So you couldn’t expect too much facing a hungry Arkansas team in John Calipari’s first competitive appearance as the Hogs’ head coach. You know what, though? It would have been nice if the guys who did play didn’t, mostly, play like ass. If juniors and seniors weren’t totally out-played by freshmen and sophomores. If this more athletic lineup that could shoot actually looked athletic and hit some shots.

You can’t read too much into these exhibitions, especially when KU’s roster was limited and there was the added significance that this one had to the home crowd. And, honestly, I think Bill Self wanted the team to play poorly so he can show them how far they need to go. I guess we’ll find out in two weeks against North Carolina whether the message was received.

KU Football

Lucy + Charlie Brown = the KU football experience.

A dropped touchdown pass. Fielding a kickoff at the one yard line and stepping out of bounds, followed immediately by a safety and then a Kansas State touchdown thanks to a short field. A missed PAT. Not being able to get a first down in the closing moments, K-State kicking a long-ass field goal, then not being able to recognize/deal with the Wildcats blitzing on every down of KU’s final possession. Then, the saddest moment in recent KU football history: Jalon Daniels fumbling while valiantly-if-hopelessly scrambling to try to keep the game alive.

All of this was 100% predictable to anyone who has been a KU football fan for decades. In fact, we should start printing BINGO cards of random stupid shit just to track the impressive ways the Jayhawks find to blow games.

Of course what really sucks about all of this is Saturday’s game was right there to win. Change any two of those moments above, the Jayhawks break their 15-year losing streak to the Cats and maybe save their season. But it’s KU football and, well, you know…

That weird, winning percentage list of KU’s losses this year now shows that a team has a roughly one in 50,000 chance to go 0–6 based on the Jayhawks’ highest win probability moment in each game. Wild. And infuriating. KU has now lost by six, three, four, eleven, four, and two points.

Colts

Sunday might be the moment that broke the Anthony Richardson experiment, at least temporarily. It started with the usual stuff. A gorgeous, 69-yard TD pass squeezed in between over a dozen bad balls (He was 2–15 pasing in the first half). Easy throw after easy throw bungled, with the occasional beautiful ball downfield mixed in.

Then, in the midst of a key drive in the third quarter, after scrambling madly on consecutive plays, Richardson tapped his helmet and went to the sidelines before a third down play. Oh no, another injury.

But, wait, he wasn’t injured. He was just exhausted after running for his life on consecutive plays. So he checked himself out of the game.

Yeah, this is not going to go over well with Colts fans.

It didn’t matter that Richardson returned on the next series and threw three of the prettiest balls you will ever see, one broken up on a great play, the second dropped, the third caught and initially ruled a touchdown before review put the ball at the one. Folks here are going to see the wild inconsistency and add taking himself off the field like a middle schooler and lose whatever patience they had with Richardson.

The Colts have been losing close games. The playoffs should be in reach. Joe Flacco may not have the long-term upside AR has, but he also doesn’t miss the easy throws and make the huge mistakes the starter makes. Eventually the Colts will make the switch, it will likely be too late, they’ll punt the Richardson referendum down the road another year, and the front office will be facing some serious heat over their jobs in the winter.

The Colts have now lost by three, three, four, and two points.

Pacers

Whoa.

Destroyed by the Knicks Friday night. Not a surprise. You knew New York would be out for blood after last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals, in which the Pacers anhiliated them on their home court in game seven. Tyrese Haliburton scoring more than zero points would have been nice.

Then losing to Philadelphia, who was playing without both Joel Embiid and Paul George, at home Sunday. That’s a much bigger deal than losing to the Knicks in a revenge game. We had family over so I missed almost all of this one. Hali missed two free throws that would have tied the game late in overtime. He’s not off to a great start.

I am officially Concerned about the Pacers. They travel to Orlando tonight, not a team you want to face when you are struggling. Then they get Boston, at New Orleans, at Dallas. They better tighten shit up quick.

Fever Coaching Change

This isn’t necessarily a bad moment for me personally, but the Fever announced Sunday morning that they were not bringing coach Christie Sides back next year. She got a lot of heat early in the season, when the team looked disorganized and confused. But then she got a lot of credit when the team rounded into form and made a playoff run.

Normally I would think her dismissal had to do with player dissatisfaction.

However, the Fever hired a new president and GM since the team exited the playoffs. Because of that, I think this is more just a philosophy deal, a disconnect between Sides and her new bosses. Like half the league has fired their coaches in the past month, which seems a little weird.

IU

Oh, I guess I owe S’s Hoosiers some props. They destroyed Nebraska a week ago, while we were in Colorado, and that was the first moment I thought they were legit. Saturday, after hosting ESPN Game Day for the first time, they took care of Washington to go to 8–0 and sit tied for first in the Big Ten. An absolutely astounding turnaround. And in the perfect year, with the expanded playoff.

They travel to Michigan State this week, host Michigan next week, then have a bye before they go to Ohio State. Two-and-one and a home playoff game is very much in play.

Big Moments

It is sad that the two best sports moments of my weekend came from teams I don’t really care about.

Freddie Freeman’s 10th inning, walk-off, grand slam homer in game one of the World Series was an incredible moment. I was thankful I switched over just in time to see it live. Glad it happened to the Yankees, too.

Then Washington’s Hail Mary to beat Chicago Sunday was also fantastic. We had this game on, but with family over I could only keep one eye on it. Seemed kind of wild up until I was finally able to sit down and watch for the last minute or so, which took that wildness to another level. I legit screamed when Noah Brown caught the tipped ball for the win. Our neighbor is a Bears fan. I should check on him.

Halloween Fiestas

L and her man went to a party Friday night. She dressed as Catwoman, he as Batman. They were cute. They couldn’t stay long since she had practice early Saturday. I think they were both fine with that, as neither of them are into the party scene much at this point. I’m not a prude or anything, but I legit don’t understand how so many parents let high school kids go wild in their homes.

Saturday one of S’s sisters and her husband hosted their annual party, which is much more small kid centric than it used to be. Or at least our kids are bigger now so we’re not in the target audience of the gathering. We made an appearance, ate some chili, laughed at the little kids’ constumes, had a drink or two, then left when the pumpkin carving nonsense started. When our girls were the little ones that always seemed like when things went a little off the rails. A couple of our nephews were already trending towards problematic when we were walking out.

Friday Playlist

October 25, 2024 /

“Halloween I & II” – Cloud Nothings
Happy Halloween!

“Dance Now” – Girl and Girl
If I had gone into a coma in 1983 or 1984, woken up this week, and this was the first song I heard, I bet I wouldn’t have realized I just slept through 40-ish years. All kinds of Eighties goodness in here. Another great Aussie band to add to our collection. If S and I ever make it Down Under, she’s going to be bummed that I just want to go to clubs and watch indie rock bands.

“Serial Killer” – Sunflower Bean
Maybe I have Eighties on the brain this morning, but I hear some big mid-80s vibes in this tune, too.

“Baseball Bat” – French Cassettes
Happy World Series week! Also good fall-times music.

“Positively 34th Street” – Japandroids
The J’s farewell album came out last week while we were away. I’ve spun it several times this week and enjoy it. Definitely not to the level of their legendary Celebration Rock, but not many albums are. I do like how the second half of the album softens their sound just a bit, notable on this track. It’s not acoustic, coffeehouse music by any measure, and it still has that big push that fuels so many of their songs. But it’s only played at 7 or 8 instead of 11, which suits their age well.

“Happy Again” – Phantogram
New Phantogram tracks will always get run from me. This one, about being optimistic and embracing the day, seems oddly out-of-touch with the world we live in. But maybe in a couple weeks things will be happier and clearer than they are at the moment…

“Why?” – Red Giant
Talk about hard to Google, this band took some work. Then I laughed when I got their bio because every site that has written about them clearly just uses the band submitted info, as they all reference how leader Dave Simpson is a guitar prodigy and YouTube celeb, including the same number for his YT follower count. Anyway, this song about being bullied and bouncing back, is solid. It sounds like if one of those turn-of-the-millennium bands like Seven Mary Three or Fuel or whoever tried to make a Buffalo Tom song.

“Purple Rain” – Prince
Man, sometimes I am a complete idiot. I spend an entire year on a special project where I play videos from the greatest year in pop music, and somehow skip right over one of my favorite songs ever made. Now, in my defense, when I pick a video each week I’m only looking at the space between numbers 30 and 40 in that weeks Billboard Top 40. Thus, I missed that “Purple Rain” debuted in the Hot 100 all the way up at #28 the week of October 6, the same week Hall & Oates’ “Out of Touch” popped into the Top 40 in its second week on the chart.

Thankfully this week I finally checked out the video of Sturgill Simpson performing “Purple Rain” – guitar work is fine, I just can’t get onboard with that voice – and decided to seek out Prince performances. This is the first one I watched. It is WILD. I could easily do a 3000-word breakdown of it. Instead I’ll just share it with you and remind you that you can read more of my thoughts on Prince’s best song here.

Pacers Thoughts

October 23, 2024 /

The new NBA season kicked off last night and the Pacers begin play tonight.

When we last saw them, the Pacers were making a surprise, fun-as-hell run to the Eastern Conference finals. They could have easily won three of the first four games against the eventual champion Celtics, but were instead swept aside. Their run was fueled as much by injuries to key players on Milwaukee and New York as by the play of the Pacers themselves. Still, they had a legit shot at the NBA Finals.

So, healthy Tyrese Haliburton (hopefully), Paskal Siakam has been through a training camp with the team, the role players have another year of experience. The Pacers should be better, and thus, challengers to the Celtics this year, right?

Not so fast. The Haliburton-Siakam combo will likely become one of the best two-man options in the league. And Hali makes everyone around him better. On the offensive end.

The Pacers didn’t do a thing to improve their defense woes in the offseason. I guess they’re hoping a little more attention from the starters and effort from the bench players will help on that end of the court? Or that last year’s first round pick Jarace Walker will be ready to step in and guard just about any spot on the court.

Only problem with that is the Pacers veterans have all showed themselves to be mediocre and indifferent, at best, defenders. Hali, as much fun as he is on offense, is a truly terrible defender. It’s almost like he’s trying to be bad he is so woeful on that end of the court. Worse, Walker continues to struggle to translate the defensive stopper game he showed in college to the pro level. To start the season, at least, he seems buried deep on the Pacers bench rather than stepping in as a starter or even top guy off the bench.

Another issue is that the Pacers can’t be much better on offense than they were last year. More likely is that they are still very good, but regress just a hair. Myles Turner seems to have peaked a couple years ago. If his game slips another notch this year, that could be a killer. Outside of Hali and Siakam, the roster is filled with guys who will go off one night, then struggle the next. The beauty of their offense last year was that there weren’t too many nights when more than a couple players were struggling. Can they match that effectiveness this year and always count on 3–4 guys to be locked in on the offensive end?

There have also been some tweaks to NBA rules interpretations that are designed to slow down the breakneck offenses that have dominated the league in recent years. That’s not good for Indiana.

Those are all Pacers issues for the coming season. Outweighing them is the fact that the top of the Eastern Conference will likely be better than last year. The Celtics are the rare defending champ on an absolute mission to destroy everyone in their path. New York is better. Philadelphia is better on paper, although the health of Joel Embiid and Paul George will always be in question. If Milwaukee can keep their starting five healthy they will be right there with the Celtics and Knicks. Orlando is young, getting better, and made a great free agent signing over the summer. Cleveland had horrible injury luck last year. If they avoid that and make a smart trade, they should be in the mix for a top four seed. Then you never know what kind of devil magic Miami will come up with.

The Pacers could be exactly as good as they were last year and win fewer games because the East is tougher. Any fall off will be more pronounced because of that strength of competition.

That might seem pessimistic. It’s not meant to me. The Pacers will still be one of the most fun teams to watch, which goes a long way in the NBA. They are firmly in that group of teams in the East that could finish anywhere from 3rd to 8th. The difference between those positions should be razor thin, a game or two separating multiple playoff slots. And as home court means less in the NBA than it once did, as long as you avoid the play-in games, you’re in good shape.

I think there is a lot of Midwestern, provincial exuberance about this team that is a little over-the-top. Just because the Pacers made the conference finals last year doesn’t mean they are the second-best team in the East entering this season. Even more than last year, they are going to have to earn whatever playoff success they get this season.

D’s Notes

October 22, 2024 /

A few other notes from last week/the weekend plus life in general.

Health

I’ve had a couple longer spells of irregular heart beats lately, so the week before we went to Denver I wore an event monitor again. Just like the first two times I wore one, I had zero issues, so it wasn’t really helpful. Plus it made it hard for me to sleep since I’m a stomach sleeper. And you’re not supposed to get it wet so I couldn’t work out very hard or take full showers. And it itches.

There are way worse heart issues than what I’ve got, but I think this is all pretty dumb since it is so random and never fires off when the docs are keeping an eye on me.

Football

A mostly good weekend for my teams, although I wasn’t able to follow any of the games very closely.

Friday #5 Cathedral dropped their regular season finale to #6 Warren Central by 8. Sounds like it was a good game, with CHS jumping out 14–0 then the teams trading the lead in the second half. A 5–3 regular season for the Irish. Class 6A gets a bye week before starting sectionals next week. CHS will play across the street vs 0–9 North Central, then most likely play the new #1 team, 9–0 Lawrence North.

KU finally got their shit back together, although Houston being really bad helped. Every time I checked the score while we were walking around Boulder KU was either scoring or Houston was turning the ball over. Seems like the Jayhawks played well, most importantly Jalon Daniels, who had his best statistical game in two years.

Just in time, as KU has K-State, Iowa State, and BYU the next three weeks, the top three teams in the Big 12. What better moment to flip the script on this season?

The Colts won an ugly game against a banged up Dolphins team. We were home for part of this, although I wasn’t paying much attention as we got settled and unpacked. This team just isn’t that fun to watch at the moment.

WNBA Finals

I barely watched the WNBA playoffs after the Fever were eliminated, only checking in on games for a few moments here-and-there. Which is partially on me, partially on the league for agreeing to a TV schedule that often had its games going up against the NFL. Not super smart.

I did turn on the fourth quarter of game five of the Finals Sunday night. What a shit show! I was somewhat amazed at how bad the officiating was while watching the Fever this year. Each game had objectivey terrible calls, and replay reviews that sometimes had indefensible conclusions.

It was no surprise to me that the championship may have come down to an absolutely atrocious call in which the refs bailed out Breanna Stewart and then somehow upheld the defensive foul after Minnesota challenged it. Stewart hit two free throws, Minnesota missed a wide open 3 to win, and then New York won in overtime. The refs also failed to call a clear foul against New York that cost Minnesota a basket and should have put the Lynx on the line late in regulation.

I’m not saying the game was rigged because that’s dumb. But I understand all the anger flowing from Minnesota after the game. Anyone who has watched the WNBA all season was not surprised that the biggest game of the year featured calls this bad. The quality of officiating is going to be a major growing pain for a league that has more eyes on it than ever.

World Series

Oh goody, Yankees-Dodgers. There’s a lot of star power in the series, for sure. But I haven’t watched much of the playoffs since the Royals went out. I doubt I’ll spend a lot of time with this series. It is kind of crazy it’s been 33 years since these franchises last matched up in the fall classic.

Wildlife Fun

Monday morning as I walked to the gym I noticed what seemed to be a couple big piles of garbage in our yard near the busy street we sit on. This isn’t unusual. Fools are always throwing garbage from their cars. We get tons of fast food bags, beer cans and bottles, plus other random stuff. I made a mental note to grab it after my workout.

An hour later I was walking towards said piles when I realized I should have investigated closer to get out of the morning sun glare. One pile was part of the front corner of a car, including the headlight. Ten feet away was a dead deer.

Yikes.

How the fuck do I get rid of a deer?

Fortunately the city of Indianapolis has an app where you can make service requests. I wear it out in the winter reporting potholes. For the most part it seems to work, although it can take them a while to work through my list in the worst of the winter.

After enough digging I found a section where you can report dead animals. Deer was even included in the dropdown box where you identify the carcass. Midwest, baby!

I put in a request and hoped they would get to it sooner than they do potholes.

I left the house to run some errands this morning and when I returned our dead deer was gone. My tax dollars at work! I guess it could have been some hillbilly who saw a way to fill his freezer for the winter, but I’ll give the city credit.

C said she had heard an impact around 1:00 AM Monday morning and by the time she looked out her window the car had left and it was too dark to see the poor deer. Hopefully it went quick.

Comet

I might have missed the full northern lights a couple weeks ago, but I did not miss the chance to see Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, the brightest comet we’ve had since 1997.

Tuesday I drove about 10 minutes north to a park where there are no lights and a clear view to the southwest. I was able to see the comet as a bright spot and smudge with the naked eye. A three-second exposure with my iPhone got a much better view.

Still not nearly as bright as Hale-Bopp was – one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen with it’s bright tail streaking across a good chunk of the sky that summer – but I’m still glad I got to see it.

Fall Break 2024: Colorado

October 21, 2024 /

To celebrate the glories of CHS fall break, we took the girls (well, C and L) to Denver to stay with S’s sister and her family for a few days.[1] We hadn’t been to Colorado since Christmas 2017, although we were scheduled to spend spring break there in 2020 until, well, you know…

We flew out Wednesday evening, returned Sunday morning/afternoon. Other than heavy fog causing us to sit at the gate for an extra 40 minutes before leaving Denver, we had no travel issues.

Thursday we headed down to Colorado Springs. Our first stop was a drive through and quick hike in the Garden of the Gods. I doubt these rock formations are quite as amazing as some of the more famous ones in Utah, but they also make less sense because they are far more isolated.

We were just a little behind schedule, thus the short hike. We went to the Broadmoor estate for lunch at the Golden Bee, which was very good.

After lunch we hit the Cave of the Winds Mountain Park for a cave tour. That was kind of freaky, especially for tall people. The girls were laughing at me after saying I was ducking way more than I needed on the tight passages. I told them it’s hard to get a 53-year-old, 6’2” body scrunched into a sub-four foot opening gracefully. We were most amazed by how and why people explored these 150 years ago. There is a part of the tour where they turn the modern lighting off and illuminate a large cavern with the type of candle-lamps they used in the 1880s. You can’t see shit. Maybe that’s how they explored so deep: when you can only see a few feet ahead you don’t realize one misstep could lead to a cold, lonely death.

The Broncos were playing Thursday night so we ordered pizza and stayed in to watch that. Mountain Time is pretty good for sports.

Friday we stayed in Denver. First we picked up our nephew, W, from his school, which had a half day. He’s a freshman at a Catholic school of about 725 students, and was able to give us a little tour. Then we hit the trendy Washington Park area to explore a bit and have a fantastic lunch at Perdida Kitchen. By far the best biria tacos I’ve ever had.

As a huge bonus we have good friends from Indy who are in the midst of a family relocation to Denver. One of S’s best friends from high school, K, who also happens to be L’s godmother, has two daughters who have taken nursing jobs in Denver. Because K and her husband are kind of crazy, after making a first visit to move the girls over the summer and falling in love with the city, they decided to rent their own condo for a year. K has been working from Denver off-and-on for the past month. Her husband C, who teaches at CHS and has our C in a class this year, has been coming out for weekends. He had promised us he would teach long enough to have his goddaughter in class when she is a senior, but we wonder if that’s still in the cards as they really seem to like Denver.

Anyway, we checked out K & C’s condo. Their daughters both have smaller places in the same complex. One was sleeping off an overnight shift so we only got to see her sister’s place.

Fun and kind of random.

Rain was moving in so we cut afternoon plans to walk around Wash Park more and instead checked out the Cherry Creek mall. Holy shit! Who knew there were still megamalls that were full of good stores? The girls spent a ton of time picking out clothes at Zara. After standing around letting them select and try on stuff for nearly an hour I finally discovered there was a Lucid showroom that I could have been hanging out in.

For our family activity that night the dads decided it was time all our kids watched Anchorman. None of them liked it as much as the dads did. Oh well…

Saturday we had to get up early to go watch our nephew play football about 30 minutes north of Denver. This is his first time ever playing football and he loves it. In the C game, he rarely comes off the field, playing a linebacker/safety hybrid on D and as a receiver on offense. He had a great tackle on defense and pancake-blocked a kid on a screen pass, which was awesome. However his team got blasted so that kind of sucked. Especially since it was early and cold.

Now, I could probably write 3000 words about this part of the game, so I’ll try to be brief. W’s team was down 26–0 in the third quarter and had done nothing on offense the entire game other than punt or turn the ball over before they connected on an 85 yard TD pass. However, one of the sideline refs threw a flag because W’s coaches ran onto the field and blocked the ref’s view during the run. Even though this ref had no call to make on the play. I see/hear sideline warnings called in pretty much every CHS game I’ve followed over the past seven years. The refs throw a flag, a sideline warning is announced, they pick up the flag, the play counts, and if it happens again there’s a penalty.

Maybe the rules are different in Colorado, but there was no warning Saturday. In a C game that was a blowout, a ref took away MHS’ only good play of the day. Even if I had no interest in the game, this would have been an insane call.

Well, as you can imagine, the MHS parents were not happy. One dad in particular, who was already an asshole before this call, cranked things up to 11. Or 111 actually. It was embarrassing even as a non-MHS parent how he would just not stop. My brother-in-law was ready to fight this guy because he was being such an idiot. The coaches came over and told him to shut up. The athletic director of the home school came over and asked him to pipe down. But he kept going. Literally 20 minutes of yelling before he finally took a walk around the track. Then when he came back he complained loudly to all of us again.

Makes me look forward to high school basketball cranking back up here in Indy!

We did not stick around for the JV game since W only played on kick coverage. Instead went took the 30 minute trip up to Boulder. I had never been there before so was excited. The only bummer was that the Flatirons were socked in with clouds until right about the time we left in late afternoon. While we were waiting for W and his dad, we walked around campus and downtown. Campus was deserted, it must have been CU’s fall break, too, so it was pretty lifeless. After W and my brother-in-law joined us we had a really good lunch at the West End Tavern on Pearl Street.

Our girls seemed to like Boulder. It is pretty funny to see the juxtaposition of these rich college kids – it’s over $60K/year for out of state students – with all the grungy, anti-establishment-ness of the full timers. And then it’s also a quasi-tech town. Just a lot going on. That’s true of any college town. Boulder is next level, though.

Then it was back to Denver, finally with clear views of the mountains from the car, for a chill evening. We had a very early flight home Sunday so focused on visiting while we watched football and got packed.

C had a cold the whole time, which was a bit of a bummer. My body is trying to decide if I’m catching it this morning.

Fun trip. We didn’t get the best of what Denver has to offer because of the clouds, but it’s easy to see why so many people flock there from elsewhere. Of course, with that comes a much higher cost of living than in the Midwest. Recently S and I have started thinking about what is next for us, in the 5–10 year window when the girls start cycling out of school and she can think about retiring from medicine. Where we end up will depend on where the girls land; we’d like to be centrally located if they spread out. We are both Midwesterners at heart and have a hard time seeing ourselves in certain parts of the country.[2] But Denver would be cool. Especially with family already there and some good friends with one foot out the door in that direction. That’s a long way away, though.

  1. Originally M was going to join us. But it was homecoming week at UC and as house social chair, she had a lot of important activities. Plus she had a big math test from 6–8 PM Friday. Who gives tests on Friday evenings?!?!  ↩
  2. Pretty much any red state not in the Central time zone.  ↩

Reader’s Notebook, 10/16/24

October 16, 2024 /

Going to fire off three quick summaries of recent books before we head to the airport.

Middle of the Night – Riley Sager
The Only One Left – Riley Sager

I was not at all familiar with Sager’s work, but when I saw Middle of the Night pop up on multiple lists of must read new books over the summer, I jumped on it. Wise choice.

It is an excellent, spooky, freaky, fun mystery revolving around the disappearance and presumed death of a young boy in 1994 and his best friend’s efforts to cope with that loss as an adult, and then deal with weird coincidences that pop up 30 years after the disappearance. It pushes up against the supernatural, but eventually the causes for those seemingly unexplained incidents are relatively mundane. Except for one element…

Lots of twists and turns, especially in the final 20 or 30 pages, when Sager fakes the reader this way and that. Highly satisfying.

After that, I put a ton of his old books on hold and The Only One Left was the first to pop up. You can tell it’s from earlier in his career. It is less subtle and more in-your-face at times. That final stretch, where he offers several solutions for the mystery before the final reveal, is less elegant than in Middle of the Night. But it’s still a cool story, in this case about a 50-year-old murder mystery that has a shocking story that has been hidden in plain sight for those decades.

Cold Shot – Mark Henshaw
This is book two in Henshaw’s Kyra Stryker & Jonathan Burke series. After stopping a secret Chinese weapons program in the first book, here they are investigating a connection between the Iranians and Venezuelans that seems pointed at producing nuclear weapons for one or both of the rogue nations. Henshaw has been described as a modern Tom Clancy. That fits. He doesn’t go into pages-long descriptions of weapons or technology, but does find a way to still provide a lot of detail about such things without derailing his story for too long.

Solid plot, lots of action, the good guys win. What else do you need?

Wednesday Playlist

October 16, 2024 /

A special, early playlist this week, as we are headed to Denver later today to visit family over the CHS fall break.

“Tell Me Why U Do That” – Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge
So Grace Bowers is some kind of prodigy. She’s still in her teens, has had an endorsement contract with Gibson guitars for four years, and is already putting out music that sounds like this.

“Clueless” – Beach Bunny
If Taylor Swift was a decade younger and made indie pop, it might sound like this song.

“Catholic Dracula” – Wild Pink
WP’s Dulling The Horns is one of my favorite albums of the year. This song is appropriate for the season.

“Ridiculous Thoughts” – The Cranberries
Speaking of the season, with it finally getting chilly and some days have a more gauzy look to the sky, that means I’ve been listening The Cranberries.

“Circle” – Big Head Todd and The Monsters
For people my age, BHT is probably the first band you think of when you think of Colorado. Currently our weekend plans include a trip up to the band’s home base of Boulder, although weather could alter that. Anyway, their Sister Sweetly was one of those 20-or-so albums that 90% of kids who went to college in the early Nineties had in their collection.

“No More Lonely Nights” – Paul McCartney
It’s kind of crazy how big Macca still was in the early ’80s. Three Number Ones and another #2 in the first four years of the decade. Plus the Beatlemania road show was keeping the Fab Four’s music as relevant as it had been since its initial release. This was his last, biggest hit of not only the Eighties, but his entire career until that random, regrettable Kanye West partnership nine years ago. Written for his film project Give My Regards To Broad Street, it features Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour on guitar. Both the movie and soundtrack got terrible reviews, but this song did ok, peaked at #6 in the US, #2 in the UK. It landed at #38 this week, just its second week on the Hot 100.

Weekend Notes

October 14, 2024 /

Kind of a quiet weekend for us on the personal tip. Plenty of other shit to review on this gloomy, chilly Monday morning.

Northern Lights

Since we live inside the city’s light dome, we weren’t able to just walk out and see Thursday’s northern lights. I was able to get a couple shots, using a long exposure, that showed a bit of the colors.

There were tons of amazing pictures from not too far from us. It definitely would have been worth my time to get off my ass and drive 30 minutes or so to get a bette naked eye view of them. But did I? Nope, despite seeing northern lights being on my bucket list.

Interesting Times At School

CHS parents got this text last Tuesday afternoon.

Screenshot

When the girls got home their eyes were big and they were talking fast. Apparently they were nearly in the midst of all the fun.

C said as they exited campus and headed west, they saw a car that had been pulled over by the police take off through the intersection she had just passed through to the east. Moments later they heard a bunch of loud noises as that car collided with several others that had just come off of campus. That proved these fools weren’t super criminals. Traffic around CHS during dismissal is a true nightmare. It can take you 15 minutes to travel a quarter mile if you hit the lights wrong. Yet these geniuses decided they were going to use that moment to evade cops.

A few of girls’ friends who were behind them got videos of first the car taking off, then the driver and his passenger sitting on the curb in handcuffs.

Word was they were arrested on drug and weapons charges. Awesome.

Two years ago M and C missed driving through an intersection by St P’s where there was a road-rage shooting by about five minutes. Now C and L missed get smacked by a criminal by literal seconds. They’ve obviously been saying their prayers, and/or their dead grandmas are looking out for them.

Royals

Well, it wasn’t unexpected, but after snatching game two in New York, the Royals couldn’t win either of the games at home and lost to the Yankees in four games. Another one-run loss and a two-run loss to end the season. It was pretty much all that was great about the Royals this year – the starting pitching with the bonus of an improved bullpen – and all that was not right – a woefully thin lineup that struggled to score to begin with, but had an even mightier challenge when Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez weren’t hitting.

The Yankees didn’t blow them out and the Royals didn’t embarrass themselves. Playoff baseball, especially the first two rounds, can be super flukey. That benefited the Royals in 2014. Their special blend of Royals Devil Magic did not make an appearance in this series.

Still, a surprisingly fun season. They got me at least partially interested in baseball after falling out of love with the sport because of how management handled the most recent labor stoppage.

It is probably too much to ask for the starters to be as good in 2025 as they were this year. The bullpen was bolstered late in the season and became a weapon, so pitching in general should continue to be a strength for the team. Now if management can go find a bat or two to plug the many holes in the lineup, we could be cooking with gas next year.

That said, surprisingly, the AL Central could be one of the most competitive in baseball next year. Cleveland is in the ALCS. Detroit had an amazing run late in the season and pushed Cleveland to the bring in the ALDS. The Twins fell apart late but entered the season as preseason favorites. In other words, even if the Royals make smart decisions to improve their roster for next year, there’s no guarantee it will be enough to return them to the playoffs.

KU

Hey, no Jayhawks loss this week! You never know, KU could always find a way to lose in a bye week.

It’s been kind of crazy to see how the teams that have beaten KU have done after knocking off the Jayhawks. Illinois is 5–1 and ranked. UNLV is also 5–1 despite their quarterback checking out. A week after beating KU, West Virginia went to Oklahoma State and destroyed the Cowboys before losing to Iowa State this week. Then Arizona State pulled a massive upset beating Utah this weekend. Only TCU has looked worse after beating the Jayhawks.

Mostly that doesn’t mean shit. Anyone who has watched KU this year has seen how flawed they are, both on the field and from a schematic/coaching perspective. Still, four of their losses have been by a single score. The TCU game was a single-score game until the closing minutes. As many issues as the Jayhawks have had, a few breaks here and there and they could easily be 5–1. While I think us KU fans would be waiting for reality to set in, we would feel a lot better about things.

This week brings Houston, and KU opens as favorites. Get a win and it doesn’t necessarily turn the season around, but it could at least change the vibes. Lose this one? Man, things will get ugly.

In totally unrelated news, Purdue fired their offensive coordinator last week. This week they went to Illinois. The ESPN boxscore was all messed up, but I believe they trailed by 27 in the second half before scoring 30 straight points to take the lead. They gave up a tying field goal at the final gun, then failed to convert a 2-point conversion and lost by one in OT. All from firing their OC. Hmmm….

CHS

Friday night Cathedral took on Southside Catholic rivals Roncalli. This was once one of the best rivalries in the city. Before the tournament success factor was introduced, the teams played in the same class and were often either in the same sectional or regional. In our first few years living here, they always face each other in the playoffs, and the score was usually something like 10–9 or 14–13. And Roncalli often won.

But Roncalli, aside from a 4A state title two years ago, has been kind of crappy since their legendary coach retired a while back. CHS beat them 42–0 last year. This year it wasn’t much better, a 35–6 Irish win. A CHS receiver made an insane catch for an 84-yard TD. He dropped two other sure touchdowns on easy balls. The only RHS points came on their final drive with a running clock and facing the CHS reserves.

The #5 Irish are now 5–2 with a big matchup at 7–1 #6 Warren Central to close out the regular season.

The sectional draw was last night. CHS gets the school across the street from us, who will be 0–9, to open. Then a likely matchup against presumptive 9–0 Lawrence North for the sectional crown. CHS has ended LN’s season the past two years.

Halloween Shit

Both the girls had friends over Saturday to carve pumpkins, eat fall foods, and have fun. Tough to get a shot of all the pumpkins but they look nice on our front porch.

Worth mentioning that L had a young man over she’s been hanging with for the past few weeks. He’s a nice kid. They were joined by another couple. Those four stuck to one part of our house while C and her group of ten-or-so seniors stayed in another part. Seemed like everyone had fun. Once things got going S and I kept to our room to stay the hell out of the way.

Closing Time

We closed the pool on Friday. It was sunny and 80° when the guys were shutting it down, the water still at 78° despite me not running the heater in a week. I think you call that perfect timing. Of course, the girls hadn’t been in the pool since August. I had been using it, but as I’ll share tomorrow, I haven’t been able to get in for a week or so, meaning we closed it a week late. Since I wasn’t running the heater I didn’t mind.

Then Sunday morning S and I first cleaned up the leftover pumpkin messes from the girls then stored away all the pool furniture and other summer goodies into the pool house for the winter. Our pool deck is now naked. Appropriately it was super breezy and gloomy while we were doing that, and 15° cooler than the day before. This week looks super fall-ish, although another warm-up is forecast for next weekend.

Colts

The Colts couldn’t get it done against pathetic Jacksonville a week ago, but did enough to win against the equally pathetic Titans this week. Man, Will Levis is fucking bad. Anthony Richardson, who sat out again, may end up being a bust. I’d rather have a dude that can only play every third game than Levis, who throws some of the worst balls I’ve ever seen. Maybe he figures the game out and turns into a solid QB eventually. But watching him Sunday, I was glad the Colts passed on drafting him a year ago.

The crazy thing about watching the Colts is that if they could ever get healthy, they really should have a plus offense. They have two really good receivers in Michael Pittman and Alec Pierce. Josh Downs showed Sunday that he might be better than those two. And AD Mitchell has loads of potential although he has a long way to go. Old Man Joe Flacco gets them the ball just enough to be dangerous. If you can keep Jonathan Taylor on the field, easier said than done, you have terrific balance. Of course, you can’t keep him on the field and there is no decent backup. The O-line has improved, even losing one starter for the season.

But that defense? Woof. They make just enough plays, especially against a shitty team like Tennessee, to make you think they might be decent. But they aren’t decent at all, even allowing for missing important players up front and being too thin on the back end.

Feels like a season that ends in 5–7 wins and puts them too deep into the draft to get a player that can immediately plug a gap next year.

Fall Break

It’s appropriate the weather has finally changed, as this week is the girls’ fall break. They are in school today and tomorrow, then off the rest of the week. We are traveling to Denver to visit our family out there. It looks like we will have a 20° temperature swing while we’re out there, too, so packing could be tricky. Obviously a lot more about this next week.

Friday Playlist

October 11, 2024 /

“Much Ado About Nothing” – Waxahatchee
A leftover track from her most recent album that got a proper single release this week. In a very Pearl Jam-way, this as good as most of the tracks that made Tigers Blood. I nominate Ms. Crutchfield to be our queen.

“What About The Children” – Gary Clark Jr. with Stevie Wonder
Not a bad pull for a guest by Mr. Clark, huh?

“Slugger” – SASAMI
We have a fantastic new entry in the Crying In The Club Bop hall of fame.

“Grocery Store” – Enumclaw
A very difficult song to search for, as the engines want to tell you about grocery stores in Enumclaw, WA. Maybe it is hard to find info on this song because it has a very 1995 vibe, from before the days when Yahoo, Alta Vista, and eventually Google would change our lives.

“1995” – Starflyer 59
Speaking of 1995, why not segue straight into a song that doesn’t just sound like that year, but is named for it?

“Brakes” – Onsloow
OK, one more. The lead singer of this band sounds a lot like Juliana Hatfield, who was kind of a big deal in 1995 or so.

“Penny Lover” – Lionel Richie
I had another song picked out for this week that I like a lot more than this one. I realized this morning that other song does not have a video. And there is a ton of great trivia behind it. So I’m going to tuck it away for a future RFTS post and shift to this, the final single from Richie’s massive Can’t Slow Down album. Over 13 months or so, Richie released five singles from the album, all of which landed in the top 10, two of which topped the chart. This one peaked at #8. Not my favorite song, nor one of my favorite artists. But as Lionel was a huge part of the legend of ’84, he deserves some run here. It cracked the Top 40 this week at #38 in just its second week in the Hot 100.

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