Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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.
Monday, November 16, 2009
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.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
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
Friday, November 13, 2009
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.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
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.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
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.
Friday, November 6, 2009
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.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
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.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
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.
Monday, November 2, 2009
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.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
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.
Friday, October 30, 2009
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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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.
Monday, October 26, 2009
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.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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.
Monday, October 19, 2009
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.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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.
Monday, October 12, 2009
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.
Monday, October 12, 2009
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.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
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
Thursday, October 8, 2009
What a waste. One of the great pitching seasons of the past 20 years blown on a team that lost 97 games and had to rally in September to earn a tie for last place. Worse, they were so bad that they’ve put what should be a shoe-in Cy Young award for Zack Greinke in danger by their inability to hit or field the ball. Not exactly the progress I and other Royals fans were looking for last spring.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The feature in this week’s Sports Illustrated is about Kenny Washington, the man who broke the NFL’s color barrier in 1946. There’s a great sidebar covering the Washington Redskins' refusal to sign black players until 1962, due entirely to their virulently racist owner George Preston Marshall. There is a fantastic picture in the article, which unfortunately is not in the on-line version. But the image is described below. American Nazi Party members, with no evident sense of irony, demonstrated in D.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Weird weekend. No work, but a 3.75 hour KU game kind of messed up Saturday, and then preparations for hosting some friends Sunday afternoon/evening kind of wiped out all the day games. So this will be very heavy on KU, a healthy dose of Colts, and a few random thoughts on the other games. KU - Southern Miss. Closer than I would have liked, but I think it’s a solid win.
Friday, September 25, 2009
It was kind of a tough week. The weather sucked for most of the time. All three sisters were fighting colds and/or fevers much of the time. Especially in the hours after school, they were extra cranky. Also, we’re in the midst of some renovations in the house, requiring me to be home all day. Thank goodness for Thursday night TV! NBC might suck the other six nights of the week,* but they are once again bringing the heat on Thursdays.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Drama in Lawrence! Idiots. That was my first thought, and remains for the most part, my assessment of <a href=“http://www2.kusports.com/news/2009/sep/23/witnesses-report-second-altercation-between-basket/">the nonsense</a> that went on in Lawrence earlier this week between members of the football and basketball teams. The quick version, if you don’t want to follow the links, is that apparently a young lady changed her affections from a member of one squad to a member of the other, creating some bad blood between the old suitor and her new beau.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Have I mentioned that L. is walking? Sucks to be kid #3. We’ve seen it all before. Actually, the reason I haven’t shared the news is that she’s pretty sporadic about it, and really only took more than 3-4 steps at a time this weekend. But her first steps did come about three weeks ago, making her the youngest B. girl to be uprightly mobile, beating C. by a week.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
An abbreviated weekend football summary. We had guests in town over the weekend, plus the late finish to the Colts’ game Monday threw things off. Saturday was another big day. When I checked the local paper in the morning, there were no fewer than 13 interesting games set to air that day. When I say interesting, I don’t necessarily mean competitive. Tulsa-Oklahoma was interesting, for example, but I did not expect OU to have much trouble.
Friday, September 18, 2009
A quick catch-up post. Wednesday night may have been my worst night as a parent. The cold M. and C. brought home from school has hit L. hard, and by late Wednesday, she was tired, cranky, sick of having her face wiped, and every cough made her start crying. So I took her to bed in this state, expecting the worst. Between 8:00 PM and 5:00 AM, she slept for approximately 90 total minutes.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
A big weekend for football. Things got started Saturday afternoon, when I headed to Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis to cover my first high school game of the year. On paper, it appeared to be a blowout and, well, the paper did not lie. As usual, the team I was covering was the underdog and got their behinds handed to them. But they’re young and looking for silver linings in every cloud, so the coach was very helpful and full of useful comments afterwards.