A very good read on how companies and their marketing departments produce loyal customers. I contend there’s more to it than just the branding push by companies, but it does help to explain why dorks like me are slaves to Apple (Or Nikon or Volkswagen or Nike or…) I’m glad my wife didn’t read anything along these lines before she let me buy my first Mac almost six years ago.
Last Friday M. attended a birthday party1 at one of the many local bounce places.2 After bouncing for awhile, then eating pizza, cake, and ice cream, the host mom handed out tokens for the arcade area to all the kids. While I was helping M. earn some tickets so she could get another cheap, plastic toy to take home, I noticed a Pop-a-Shot. Except this Pop-a-Shot didn’t look like the games I remembered.
It appears that the dust has settled, for the time being, in the great college conference realignment of 2010, so I can finally try to put some thoughts together. I’m not promising anything particularly well organized or original. Consider yourself warned. What a strange couple of weeks it has been. There were multiple times during that span in which I stopped reading any e-mails, message board posts, Tweets, etc. that had anything to do with what was going to happen to the Big 12.
Notice some changes around here? If you haven’t, you’re not paying very close attention. Why the changes? Read on, friends. Welcome to Phase 3 (or is it Phase 2?) of Del Boca Vista, errr. the development of TBB.1 To quickly refresh, over a year ago I took full control of the blog, moving it off of a hosted service to a domain and server space that I owned. I also dumped the easy blogging platforms2 for Wordpress, which offers me more control over the granular details of the blog.
Time for a girl update. A big event has not gotten its proper blog treatment: M.’s “graduation” from kindergarten. I use the quotation marks because A) kindergarten graduations are kind of silly to begin with and B) she’s not really done with kindergarten. Let’s get the event out of the way first. Her class put on a fine performance for family and friends. They sang songs, showed off artwork, recited their lines to a couple poems, and received diplomas.
I’ve lived in Indiana for nearly seven years now. In that time, I’ve been to three Notre Dame football games, an Indiana basketball game, a Purdue football game, a Colts (preseason) game, and a Pacers game. I’ve also watched high school basketball players like Josh McRoberts, Eric Gordon, Michael Conley, and Greg Oden. My Indiana sports resume had two glaring omissions, however. I’ve yet to go to a Butler game at Hinkle Fieldhouse, and I’ve never been to an Indianapolis 500.
They’ve got me. Every online retailer I’ve ever purchased a good or service from has me in their clutches. There is no escape. Each morning when I first check my e-mail, chances are there are at least three, and often as many as six, messages from various retailers offering up fantastic discounts on things I might like. The Gap. Banana Republic. Old Navy. Eddie Bauer. Borders. Amazon. The KU Bookstore.
So, not the greatest sports year at my noble alma mater. A series of fights between the football and basketball teams. A football coach forced out because of abusive behavior. A football team that fell apart, lost seven-straight, and pissed a chance at a division title away. A basketball player, who was already in the doghouse, decided to shoot his mouth off during the season. A stunning early loss in the NCAA tournament.
The school year is almost over, but it’s never too late for the teachers to ban items from the classroom. M.’s class has been overrun by the scourge of our times: Silly Bandz. For the non-parents, or parents of younger kids, Silly Bandz are basically colored rubber bands that have been molded to the shape of kid friendly objects: pets, dinosaurs, zoo animals, etc. Kids wear them as bracelets and trade them with friends and classmates.
I’m pleased to report that M. has improved her soccer game over the past few weeks. She’s still no Mia Hamm, but at least she’s doing some positive things during games. Tuesday night she even had an important milestone. Last weekend she mastered the concept of getting back on defense. Unlike her earlier attempts, she was racing back towards her own goal each time the opponent took possession, then trying to at least get in the way as the ball approached the net.
A few blog minor blog updates. At times (OK, quite often) I like to imagine that I have a huge number of regular readers. Dozens, hundreds perhaps. I like to fantasize that they check in regularly not just to get updates on the wacky things the girls are doing, but to see what else I’m reading and writing about. Thus, I like to believe that any time I make minor tweaks to the blog, lots of people all around the world are noticing and wondering about the meanings behind the changes.
I’ve refrained from writing about the whole Big 10 expansion / Big 12 dissolution thing until something actually happens. But with all the rumors this week, I figured it was time to tack a crack. 1200 words later, I wasn’t making a logical argument and hadn’t come close to completing my thoughts. So how about this: it will suck if Missouri and Nebraska go to the Big 10. I have no great love for the Big 12, since it’s always seemed more concerned with keeping Texas happy, but I do have love for all the Big 8 schools.
One of my (many) sisters-in-law completed her first half-marathon last weekend, running the Indianapolis Mini Marathon in atrocious conditions. Her accomplishment got me reminiscing about my own running milestones over the years. Completing the Chicago Marathon in 2001, a half-marathon in 2000, and my first triathlon in 1999. But my favorite was much further back than that. In the spring of my first-grade year, my parents separated for the first time.
I recently discovered the site How I Met Your Motherboard, which features stories of first computer experiences. Interestingly, one of the stories mirrors my own. Seems like perfect fodder for my own blog post, no? People occasionally ask me why I’m so nutty for Apple products. I think part of it is because of when I got my first Mac: just as I was leaving the corporate world, becoming a father, starting down the path as a stay-at-home parent, etc.
The people at Hertz surprised us with an unusual ride last weekend. That’s right, we rocked a Nissan Cube in Kansas City all weekend! When we got to the appropriate spot in the Hertz parking lot, we looked at each other, and then around, unsure if we were in the right location. We double and triple checked the number. We looked to either side to see if maybe a Focus or Corolla was sitting there, and that was the correct car.
The latest installment in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries is a funny look at the origins of fantasy sports: Rotisserie Baseball. I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons the AV Club reviewer enjoyed it: while the idea of fantasy sports appealed to me, I must admit I was more in love with the books that explained the game. I remember first noticing the original Rotisserie baseball book sometime in the summer of 1985.
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M.’s first soccer game was Saturday. As with her first practice, it went about as well as we could have hoped. She wasn’t the fastest player on the team, nor the best, but that fit our expectations. After trailing the action for awhile, she finally got in the mix and even managed to gain possession a few times. It was a tough day for soccer, at least if you’re five. After a week of warm days, the temperature dropped 20 degrees and the winds were howling at 20-25 MPH.
M. had her first soccer practice Wednesday night. It went about as we expected. She was a little tentative, but active. Her team of eight is split evenly between boys and girls. A few of the boys and one of the girls have some skills. M. will get comfortable and get more into it in time. But at least she wasn’t crying and refusing to participate like another girl. The first game is Saturday.
There was a situation I ran into a few times before I became a parent that I never really knew how to handle. It always involved a child who had an older sibling who was either learning to read, or had just mastered reading. I would say to the younger child, “Let’s read a book,” and that child would soberly respond, “I can’t read.” That response always took me aback; I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to encourage them, reassure them, ignore it, or what.
I made my first-ever visit to Cincinnati’s Great America Ballpark on Thursday to catch a Cardinals-Reds matinee. Good times all around. We cruised down I-74 and arrived in Cincy just in time to hook up with some friends who just happened to have a pocket-full of extra tickets. I’m pretty sure you can’t beat $20 for three tickets on a day when you can pick your seat. With only about 13,000 people in attendance, we were able to sit with our friends who had front row seats down the right field line.
Evil Gail’s comment on my Butler post brought up an interesting point: as with last year’s Missouri team, it was hard for me not to like this year’s Kansas State team. Rival or not, I like teams that have a personality/style, play hard, and have players that make big shots in important situations. This year’s Wildcats fit that description to a T. I don’t think I’m the only Big 12 fan out there who will admit I was wrong about Frank Martin.
So I guess I can watch the Final Four now. Traditionally in the years when KU goes out of the tournament early, I stop watching basketball. When I was younger, it was pure pouting. My team wasn’t playing anymore, so I was taking my remote and going home. Now it’s more to protect my circulatory system. I don’t need to watch Northern Iowa miss seven free throws and shoot 25% from three point range against Michigan State.
When I was a kid it would have been among my greatest dreams to have one of the players from these little cardboard rectangles walk into my world, big as life. What I didn’t realize is that I’m the kind of fan who needs distance. Duane Kuiper « Cardboard Gods This quote serves two purposes. First, it allows me to link to the always excellent Cardboard Gods site, specifically to a Joe Posnanski-centered post.
She was not the cure for cancer And all my questions still ask for answers There is nothing like someone new This girl she was nothing like you Like many fans of Frightened Rabbit's amazing 2008 album The Midnight Organ Fight I was worried how they would follow it up. It was obvious that they were a band of great talent, centered around the lyrics and vocals of Scott Hutchinson. However, Organ Fight was so intensely focused, it was natural to wonder if the magic would still be there when they moved on to other subjects.
Some weekend. Two days in Kansas City to honor a good friend who is getting married in about a month. Plenty of good food* and good times. A spring snow storm that made travel treacherous Saturday night and the weekend extra memorable. A dicey Sunday morning in which I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to be in any condition to fly home. (Oklahoma Joe’s, Gates', and The Peanut.) And then the bad, a certain basketball game in Oklahoma City.
A little more stressful of a start for KU than I had hoped, but a W is a W. And perhaps their early struggles last night will get them focused in on Northern Iowa. Now for a post that’s been sitting in the drafts folder all week. I’m getting to be old enough that I can start pining for the good old days. Of course, it’s weird to think that to my generation the good old days took place in the 1980s.
Hardest year ever to make picks. Because of the parity that college basketball has seen this year? No, because I don’t have a feel for any of these teams. Usually, right or wrong, I can look at the brackets and have a feel for each team. I like this team’s style, dislike that one’s. I think that team is peaking, this one is toast. That coach is a tool. Etc.
If you think I have some thoughts, you thought right. I think. Let’s just get this out of the way: someone at Duke called in some serious favors. It’s one thing if they had earned the top overall seed to be rewarded like that. But there were reasonable voices who said, on Sunday, that Duke was not deserving of a #1 seed. The way their bracket looks, I’m surprised the committee didn’t do a last second switch and move some games to Greensboro or Charlotte, too.
A quick update on local basketball. First off, EHS fell one game short of taking their first regional title in 59 years. They won their Saturday morning contest in overtime,* their third straight one-point win, but dropped the championship game by 12 points. Still, a great year for a school that hadn’t had a winning record in ten years. They return almost their entire team, so I’m looking forward to following them again next year.