A few assorted notes for the middle of the week.
Election Night
A little less traumatic than a year ago, for sure. The result I was most interested in was the vote on the new airport in Kansas City, which passed overwhelmingly. There’s no doubt that KCI needed a facelift, but I’m among those who still love it. It’s the most convenient mid-sized airport I’ve ever been to. You can literally get dropped off at the curb and be through security, at your gate, in less than 10 minutes if conditions are right. Compare that to Indianapolis, where you have a 10-minute walk just to get to security. And then likely another 10 minutes to get to your gate. And IND is a small airport!
That said, I’m all for my hometown building a single-terminal airport. IND is really nice, and when you throw out the unique KCI, it’s comparatively very fast to get through. Hopefully Kansas City will follow Indianapolis’ lead in building something that has space for the future but keeps the middle-sized city compactness to it.
Colts
Andrew Luck’s season is over without it ever beginning. There are rumors – some substantiated, some disputed – that folks within the organization are calling out Luck for his inability to play – well practice – with pain. Let’s not forget it was the Colts who built a terrible offensive line in front of Luck that forced him to flee for his life or get pummeled on every snap. Let’s not forget it was the Colts who, likely, mismanaged several of his injuries over the past two years. I understand frustration with an injury that seems to be defying what the medical experts forecast in terms of recovery time. But there doesn’t need to be any throwing of Luck under the bus.
Oh, IF he comes back healthy next year, he’ll begin the year having just turned 29. And the offensive line will still be shit.
We thought we had the next Elway when the Colts drafted Luck, and a worthy successor to Peyton Manning. It’s looking more and more like Luck’s career will mirror Archie Manning’s that Elway, Peyton, or even Dan Marino. Moments of brilliance but ultimately disappointment at a missed opportunity.
KU Basketball
I watched their exhibition game last night. Kind of sorry I did. They did not look good at all in the first half, only mildly interested and lethargic. My first thought was they had been run really hard in practice on Monday and were suffering. The mantra the past couple years for KU hoops has been “this team has less margin for error than in the past.” That’s even more true this year. We’ll see how they look when the games count, but right now, on November 8, I think this could be the year the Big 12 title streak finally ends.
Sick Days
We had our first sick kid day of the year yesterday. C stayed home not feeling well. Ironically she had the first sick day of the year last year, also on November 7. I know that because of a Facebook post from that day. S suggested she watch A League of Their Own and said Madonna was in it. C’s response, “Who’s Madonna?” I guess I’ll go ahead and mark her down for absent on 11/7/18.
Leaves
What a weird fall. Hardly any leaves fell early. Colors changed quickly and a bunch come down last week. But we still have trees that are normally bare right around Halloween that are full of leaves. It’s made for easier gutter cleaning than normal. And we only spent an hour blowing leaves at the lake Saturday, although that may have much to do with my finally investing in a gas blower instead of S and I using two electric blowers like in the past.