Tuesday, October 22, 2019
I had a Reaching for the Stars post lined up for today, but one huge sports story has me skipping to throw down some sports thoughts on your heads. Kansas - Missouri Basketball is Back Well this was a total surprise. I have a few birdies out there who occasionally drop hints that big news is coming. None of them shared even a whiff of this coming out before last night’s announcement.
Monday, October 21, 2019
We are one step closer to being done with fall sports. L played her final soccer game of the season on Saturday. They won 3–1 to push their record to 4–1–1, including four-straight wins. It was kind of a bummer day, though. Early in the second half she was standing near a defender who was trying to clear a ball and took an absolute blast in the back of her head.
Friday, October 18, 2019
“Hail, Hail” - Pearl Jam A bit of an odd music week for me the past few days. I’ve hit the point in the calendar when I set asdide new music I dive into my Favorite Song list for a bit to start whittling it down to a manageable number before the final push to rank them for the year. Ah, but this year ends in a nine, so there’s also a Decade list to work on.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
As we get deeper into October, the opportunities to play golf in the midwest are rapidly shrinking. I have played twice in the past couple weeks, both rounds worthy of brief breakdowns. First, as the title suggests, I have now carded a lifetime best of 92. In fact, I shot 92 in each of my last two rounds. Which, given where I started and what my goals are, is pretty great, right?
Monday, October 14, 2019
It was a nice, semi-relaxing weekend at our house. No sports, thanks to fall break. C was supposed to run at the City meet, but her foot pain never fully went away so she chose not to run. Kind of a bummer end to her season. M had finished her cross country season a week before. We are proud of her for sticking with it, as it was a very tough and humbling experience for her.
Friday, October 11, 2019
“Cusp” - Youth Group. After a decade away from recording, the great Australian jangle-pop band Youth Group returns with a brand new album today. I’ve not listened to it yet, but I’m loving the sound of the first single. “Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)” - Bombay Bicycle Club. BBC hasn’t been on hiatus as long as Youth Group, but when their new album comes out in January, it will be their first in nearly four years.
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Each year as we pass through October I enjoy the memories that pop up in my Facebook feed from Octobers past. Specifically the Octobers of 2014 and 2015, when the Royals were keeping me up late so many nights as they won two-straight American League pennants. Then there were the memories from years after the R’s run, when I joked about not thinking I would still stay up late to watch baseball when, in fact, I was staying up until 1:00 watching more crazy, extra-inning games.
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
A bit of a change-of-pace for this entry. The focus will not be on one song, or a couple songs, but rather an entire chart. This countdown was from Memorial Day weekend, 1988. In it, Casey counted down the top new artists of the 1980s. Which seems a little strange since there was a year-and-a-half left in the decade. But in the spring of 1988, Casey’s reign as host of AT40 was about to come to an end.
Monday, October 7, 2019
I feel like I’m not much of a bragger. I’ll toot my own horn on occasion, but I like to think I pick my spots and am not annoying about it. I also know that bragging inevitably comes back to bite you in the ass, so in addition to making you look bad, it’s just tempting fate. Example: just a week ago I was bragging a little about how I’m not allergic to poison ivy.
Friday, October 4, 2019
The Hood Internet presents 1979. OK, a video after all. And this is right up my alley. The Hood Internet has taken 50-odd songs from 1979 and put them together into this wonderful mix. Even better, the next four weeks will feature videos from 1980–1983. Yes, I’ll be sure to share them as well. Happy weekend!
Friday, October 4, 2019
A few songs for your Friday. “Shining Down” - Jesse Malin. Malin is an artist who has been on the periphery of what I like for a few years now. He’s worked with Ryan Adams, and that influence comes through rather clearly on this song. “Get Lost” - Queen of Jeans. Love the vibe of this track that is about moving on. Feels perfect for the day that fall finally arrived in Indiana.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
It’s been a couple weeks, time for a quick-ish golf update. I have played three times since I last checked in; two nine-hole rounds and my first 18 of the year. On the 9’s, I shot 52 and 48. On the 48 I actually played the entire nine without losing a ball, which may never have happened. I should note that on one hole I blasted my drive way right and figured it was gone.
Monday, September 30, 2019
This was a lost baseball season for me. The Royals were shitty. For the first time ever, the MLB apps performed erratically at best, occasionally not at all. It was hard enough to find motivation to watch/listen to a bad team. When the tools that provide that access don’t work, you stop making the effort. Which is a shame because putting in the time in the bad years makes the good years even better.
Friday, September 27, 2019
A very special playlist this week. I don’t know exactly what it was, but something this week made me think back to September 1989, when I was in my first month as a college student. It must have been a song, because I immediately started mentally flipping through the music I was listening to back then. I realized that the fall of 1989 might have been the time I listened to the widest range of music.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
I’ve casually mentioned a few times over the years that I have some contacts that are semi-insiders to what is going on with Kansas athletics. One of those contacts had been warning me for months that whenever the NCAA decided to officially weigh in on the Adidas-FBI issues, it was going to be worse than anyone expected. The NCAA officially spoke yesterday. And on the surface, it was indeed worse that most people expected.
Monday, September 23, 2019
First off, obviously there are some changes here. I finally got everything moved over to my new site host and, hopefully, functioning properly. There’s still work to do: I need to pick a new theme that I like, I’m having some trouble getting footnotes to work, and the Markdown text language I’ve been writing in for years doesn’t seem to be converting properly, which is messing with my head. Ten years ago when I was constantly messing around with how the site looked and worked, those fixes were easy.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Let’s see if we can get everything working this week. open.spotify.com/playlist/… “The Borders” - Sam Fender. Fender’s debut album finally hit the shelves last week. It’s pretty solid, although no songs match the lead single, “Hypersonic Missiles.” Still, there are several really solid songs. A few of them make it clear he’s been listening to the War on Drugs. This song is the best example of that, filled with Granduciel-esque guitars.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions, 1983 and 1984 - Duane Tudahl This book has been on my list since it first came out a couple years back. At some point I got the Kindle sample and loved the chapter that I read. I just kept putting off diving into it because it seemed like such a big ask, spending a couple weeks reading about every day that Prince spent in the recording studio over 1983 and 1984.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Some belated weekend notes. HS Football Friday was M’s first football rivalry game, as Cathedral took on Bishop Chatard. St. P’s is usually evenly split between those high schools, so it is always an emotional matchup. CHS was ranked #4 in 5A, BCHS #1 in 3A. CHS won by 10 thanks to a big fourth quarter. They were down 21-17 going into the fourth but got an 88-yard TD pass and a 76-yard TD run with consecutive interceptions on defense after each TD.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Few things in the world are more enjoyable to non-golfers than stories about golf. Below are 1300 and change words about my trip to the course yesterday. Feel free to skip if that’s not your bag. After weeks of hemming and hawing, of hitting the driving range and the pitch and putt course but only thinking about playing real golf, I finally bucked up and hit the course yesterday.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Chart Week: April 10, 1982 Songs: “We Got the Beat” - The Go-Go’s; “I Love Rock ’n Roll” - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Chart Positions: #2, 11th week on the chart. Would spend three weeks at #2. /#1, 10th week on the chart, fourth week at #1. Would spend seven weeks at #1. A two-fer, as a tidbit I heard on this countdown connected with some trivia I had heard awhile back and was hoping to eventually write about.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Crap. Once again I’ve fallen behind on accounting for my books. It’s not like I’ve been blowing through them, either. I’m still on, roughly, book/week pace. But it’s been taking more more like 10-12 days to knock out most of these. The bigger problem is I had four straight books I had on hold at the library come in, so I’ve been trying to bear down and get them all knocked out in my window of opportunity.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Last week kind of sucked. I had the worst cold I’ve had in years, and it totally wiped me out. I think I slept most of the day Wednesday and spent the next four days coughing constantly. Friday and Saturday I had a headache that no amount of ibuprofen or sinus medication would knock back. My night time attempts at sleep were interrupted by coughing, a sore throat, or general discomfort that kept me from sleeping for more than an hour at a time.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
It was a good holiday weekend for the family and I. It started with, as I mentioned in my Friday Vid post, 36 holes of pitch and putt golf. Later I met our friends the B’s from KC, along with Mrs. Coach Hebs, for lunch at a spot I had never been to before. Friday night we watched Coach Hebs’ team win their home opener in a rout over the team Cathedral beat in week one.
Thursday, August 29, 2019
What is the oldest piece of clothing you own? Before you throw out a Christening dress, First Communion dress, or some other thing from your childhood that you’ve saved to pass down to a future generation, allow me to narrow it down a little more. What is the oldest piece of clothing you own that you can still wear? For me that’s easy. I still own two items that I bought in my first weeks as a student at the University of Kansas in August, 1989.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
A couple other firsts I need to share. Friday was M’s first high school football game as a student. I think the night may have set an unreasonable expectation for the next four years. CHS played Noblesville, a large, suburban school that generally isn’t very good at football. It was an utterly perfect night, in the low-70s at kickoff with a steady breeze, into the mid-60s by the time we left.
Monday, August 26, 2019
I have lived in Indianapolis for 16 years. Saturday night was the third biggest sports night in the city over that span. 1: Colts beat Patriots to win the AFC title in 2007 2: Colts beat the Bears to win the Super Bowl 3: Andrew Luck announces his retirement This may seem like weird ordering to outsiders, but the vibe in this city after that AFC title game win was way beyond the mood two weeks later.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Fall sports have begun. Right now we are actively involved in five sports, with another to begin tomorrow. Joyous times. The fall kickball season started last Monday. We have nine teams at St. P’s this year, and got off to a great 7-2 start on opening day. The two teams to lose? My girls’ teams. C’s team, which I’m helping to coach, gave up four runs in the 7th to lose by one.
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Chart Week: August 21, 1982 Song: “Love Is In Control (Finger on the Trigger)” - Donna Summer Chart Position: #12, 9th week on the chart. Peaked at #10 the week of September 25. My goodness this was a great week! As I was listening to parts of this countdown, song-after-song jumped out at me. I would waver about a song to write about and, five minutes later, here came another one that sparked more memories and made me want to write about it.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
A busy start to the week, but hopefully things will begin to slow down during the day and I can transition some of the thoughts in my head to the screen. Speaking of this site, I’m about to undertake some fairly major, behind-the-scenes changes. I’ve been having issues for months with my hosting service. There were lots of little issues, some you may have noticed, others you may have not. Those were bugging me a little but I figured they weren’t really worth fixing.