‘Tis the season of tiny tots with their eyes all aglow. Thus, some words about the girls. OK, over 1000 words. It’s been awhile. The big sisters are especially excited about Christmas this year. It’s all clicking for M., and C. has reached the first level of understanding. We’re doing the Elf on the Shelf thing this year, so every morning involves a frantic search through the house to find Elfie, as they named their Elf.
Another 2000s music retrospective, this time focusing on some of my favorite albums. Not meant to be comprehensive, it’s more an accounting of albums I both enjoyed this decade and which have stood the (brief) test of time. There are plenty of other worthy albums from the decade that probably should be included, but these are my favorites. While there is a clear winner, and probably a clear #2, these are presented in no particular order.
I don’t want to overgeneralize, but I think my family’s college football experience in the late 70s and early 80s was typical of many midwesterners. We all pulled for our teams, hoping for the best,* but when late November rolled around we chose sides and watched the Nebraska - Oklahoma game with great interest. I recall the 1979 Orange Bowl especially fondly, as my uncles sat on different couches, split into Husker and Sooner groups, watching the rare bowl-game rematch between the Big 8 powers.
Pulling out the blogging shotgun and trying to hit multiple targets in one post. KU Football Coaching Search I’ve remained quiet on this largely because it’s been mostly quiet from Lew Perkins' office, which seems to be the way he likes it. But it seems like a decision is going to be made shortly, and Jim Harbaugh is the key. If he works out a deal to stay at Stanford, Lew starts working his list.
I read a lot of books this decade. I love putting together lists at the end of arbitrary periods of time. Seems like a perfect excuse to share some of my favorite books I read over the past ten years. Please note that the focus is on the date read rather than the date published. There are a few in here that were published before 2000. So, in no particular order, a few of my favorites.
Done. I finished David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest late Sunday night. That’s three months to knock out roughly 1100 pages, for those of you keeping score at home. It took me about two months to get through the first half, and I flew (relatively) through the second half over the last four weeks. For comparison, I started Bill Simmons' The Book Of Basketball this morning. I’ve already knocked out 120 pages.
Some extended weekend. Here, in 2000 words or less, is a summary of how your trusty blogger passed the holiday. We were hosts for the local family this year. It sounds daunting to say that we fed 17, but when you factor in that we are a family of five, hosting 12 people isn’t really that big of a deal. Certainly not in my wife’s family. With only three of my sisters-in-law and no brothers-in-law attending, it qualified as a small gathering, I think.
Something meaty for you to chew on, should this be a short week for you. If not, tuck it away and save it for a day when you have time to read about my 30 favorite songs of the decade. 30 - “Love Steals Us From Loneliness” - Idlewild 2005. This band started out the decade gangbusters, a rocking outfit from Edinburgh. Their sound morphed, becoming more poppy, radio-friendly, etc. Eventually it kind of sucked.
Finally. Remember how I mock complained about always getting assigned to games that ended up being blowouts, often at the expense of the team I was covering? That was a bit of an exaggeration, but it seemed that more often than not, I was asking a coach questions about a loss than a win. Things have been a bit better this year. I was lucky enough to follow a good soccer and excellent tennis team, which made things interesting.
I keep a small file on my computer with topics I might like to write about. Get an idea, add it to the list, and when time allows and inspiration strikes, I bust something out for you. Over the weekend I made a single word addition to the list: Mangino. After another fourth quarter collapse against Nebraska, I got to thinking about the pressure that was mounting against the KU football coach and how appearances matter.
The buzz this morning is about a certain coach’s certain curious decision late in a certain game played in a certain midwest city last night. I don’t want to talk about that (the decision). I want to talk about Reggie Wayne. Lost in the columns pouring forth this morning is my man Reggie’s catch for the ages that completed the Colts comeback as they beat the Patriots 35-34 last night.
As you probably know, I’m annoyed by small things at times. A current example: in this week’s hype-fest for the Patriots-Colts clash Sunday night, ESPN’s Josh Elliott called Peyton Manning’s career “incomparable.” As Amy Proehler and Seth Meyers would say, really? My dictionary offers two definitions for incomparable. 1 - without an equal in quality or extent; matchless 2 - unable to be compared; totally different in nature or extent
One day recently I heard The Spinners' “The Rubberband Man” while running errands. That was a song I grew up on, since my parents were very much into the early 1970s soul sound. But I recall it most fondly because of former NBA player Paul Pressey. While Pressey played his college ball at Tulsa, he earned the nickname “Rubberband Man” because of his dunking abilities. This was back in the day when dunks were simple and you earned a nickname simply if you dunked often.
I’ve been remiss in not recommending ESPN’s 30 for 30 series. I’m a few weeks behind, but with the exception of the Baltimore Colts band episode (which I accidentally deleted after watching only 20 minutes), I’ve enjoyed every episode so far. Last night I watched Muhammad and Larry, an amazing piece about the 1980 Muhammad Ali - Larry Holmes heavyweight championship fight. It’s one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen.
I should have known it was going to be a bad football weekend when, while watching some NBA action Friday, I noticed the ESPN scroll said that Bob Sanders was out for the season. Then again, I really should have expected that at some point before the playoffs, right? I probably watched less of the KU loss to K-State than I’ve watched of any KU game in the past four years.
S. and the girls have a new evening routine. She opens up her computer, pulls up the YouTubes, and they watch fun music videos. The vids run the gamut from our favorite kid music singer Laurie Berkner to the Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce. Their favorite song, though, is Miley Cyrus' “Party in the USA.” No surprise, I think most girls under the age of 10 would say that right now.
Thank goodness the World Series is over. I watched a total of five minutes of the six games. Just couldn’t take A-Rod and the Yanks winning. It made me sad that Pedro couldn’t get it done last night. It’s always disappointing when a guy who was as good as he was loses it. I was hoping for one last classic performance from him. The one upside to the Series was how it brought up discussion of Willie Wilson and Willie Mays Aikens.
In lieu of the regular Reader’s Notebook entries I provide monthly, it’s time for an update on my progress with Infinite Jest. I won’t lie: it’s been a slow go. And I’ll also admit for all the excitement of beginning the book in September, I was also kind of dreading it. I’m used to reading books that fall in the 250-400 page range. Books I can knock out in 36 hours if conditions allow, or more likely inside a week.
I’m thinking about using my next check from work to print a few hundred of these to distribute, randomly. How To Use An Apostrophe It reminds me of the days when I worked in a warehouse. After paying my dues and working there, oh, for five years or so, I moved to the night shift and got to spend a lot of time driving a stand-up forklift around.* One of our duties was to replenish the stock pulled by the dayshift.
As you might imagine, I've been thinking about the last ten years a lot lately. I'm nothing if not a sucker for the end of decades, since they are loaded with opportunities to make <em>best of</em> lists, consider the ways life has changed, and in general have an excuse to remember the past. What I've been struck by while thinking about the 00s is how fast they've gone. Seriously, it seems like just yesterday we were preparing for the big Y2K meltdown.
Halloween was a success. Well, an <em>A-</em> I suppose. Mostly good with a few of the standard issues that are known to plague the holiday. Our girls went as Dorothy (M.), the Wicked Witch of the West (C.), and the Cowardly Lion (L.). “Big fans of the Wizard of Oz?” you ask. No. In fact, our girls have never seen the movie, although we’ve read part of the original book. Two of M.
The end of October. That means one thing for school-age children: dressing up as their favorite saint for All Saints Day celebration. Well, thats what M. and C. did this week, since they attend a Catholic school. C.’s program was Thursday. She went as Saint Catherine, who helped sick people. We dressed her in a rather minimalist costume consisting of the teacher-suggested pillow case smock and a veil. To help the sick people, she took her Fisher Price doctor bag.
Below is a link to an article I think all parents should read. It addresses a very important subject I think many of us have some fears about. An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All To be clear, there is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that has largely been removed from vaccines since 20011) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems.
The travel gods were with us, for the most part, and we had a successful trip to-and-from Kansas City over the girls' fall break. First, our biggest thanks to our many friends who cleared their schedules, opened their homes, and loaded up on Boulevard Wheat to spend time with us. While the large number of kids under six running around both Friday and Saturday nights meant our adult conversation to kid chasing ratio was approximately 1:3, we still enjoyed seeing everyone.
Crazy few weeks here en La Casa del Blogger. I believe I’ve mentioned that we’ve been doing some renovations over the past two months. Well, I took my first shower in our completely remodeled bathroom Tuesday morning. We’re still waiting on some lighting and a mirror, but we’re almost done. But we’ve had contractors in the house for the better part of eight weeks, which has thrown us all off our games a bit.
Another weekend where I was super busy and I watched hardly any football. Perhaps I should just call these weekend wrap ups rather than football reviews. So we’ll knock the football out first and move on to what else I did this weekend after. A very disappointing weekend for the Jayhawks. I was working Saturday night, so I was only home in time to see the last 20-25 minutes of the game.
Maybe I should move the family to remote northwest Australia. It seems like there’s exciting stuff to write about there. This is not necessarily safe for work, although it is from an allegedly legitimate news source.* No oral sex, says ute crash waitress ”It may have looked bad when police first arrived as my girls were hanging out all over the place. I also had a $5 note wedged between my boobs so they probably just assumed I was a sex worker or something and he'd already paid me.
A book a week? Big freaking deal. Try a book a day. Our Towns - For Nina Sankovitch, a Book a Day, Every Day In a time-deprived world, where book reading is increasingly squeezed off the page, it is hard to know what’s most striking about Ms. Sankovitch’s quest, now on Day 350, to read a book every day for a year and review them on her blog, www.readallday.org.
Please join me in celebrating Hispanic heritage month. This week, it’s all about el futbol. A long weekend for el futbol. There was a game of some interest to me Thursday. However, given the math, which seemed to require that I pull for Missouri to beat Nebraska, I stuck with Must See TV and didn’t watch any of the Deluge in Columbia. Friday, that weather moved into our area. Fortuitously, that just happened to be the night I was assigned to cover my first Friday night futbol game of the year.
When I hear about people staying up all night to play video games these days, it kind of makes sense, since modern games offer so much depth and possibilities for play. Looking back, why the hell would we play Atari all day? Those games sucked. Need proof? Check out Atari’s 1978 catalog. Things only got slightly better before the 2600 faded away nearly a decade later. A look at the 1978 Atari Catalog