Day: April 28, 2025

Another very busy weekend for us, mostly revolving around C’s senior prom.

We kicked off the weekend by going across the street to watch the #1 high school volleyball team in the state, FHS, play our local squad. “What a weird way to spend a Friday night,” you might say to yourself. True, true. We have good friends with a senior on FHS and we’ve been meaning to see him play for a couple years. We couldn’t turn down a chance when he was literally across the street.

After a sluggish opening set in which they had to come from behind to win, FHS trounced the school our property taxes support in the next two sets for an easy win.

NFL Draft

You all know I hate the NFL draft. So many words wasted setting up and breaking down an event when Sure Things routinely bust, and No Names routinely become All Pros. It’s all a crapshoot, but we break it down in more detail than we do the policies of people running for office. “Maybe if we focused more attention on…”

The Colts did ok. They got their tight end in Tyler Warren. Will any of the quarterbacks be good enough to get him the ball, and will the offensive line, which they didn’t do much to improve, be able to protect whoever is taking the snaps?

There was another big story from the draft. But since I didn’t watch a minute of it, I can’t really get into the lunacy of how this story was treated by people inside the NFL media and, bizarrely, by the most attention hungry near 80 year old in the world.

I think the whole Shedeur Sanders thing is weird because I listened to exactly two podcast segments previewing the draft and in both of them there was a clear indication that he was slipping, for whatever reason. One previewer flat out said he would not be a first round pick. And once Sanders didn’t go early, I think there were a lot of teams that might have admired his skill and potential but had no interest in bringing all the drama that would come with picking him into their quarterback room. Especially since, at that point, he’s probably starting as QB3. All I know is he didn’t look that good against KU and neither of the two DBs who basically shut down the CU passing attack, two short passes that turned into long gains excepted, didn’t get picked. Where’s the outrage in that, I ask you????

Prom

OK, onto the biggie.

I missed the fun of C’s junior prom as I was in Cincinnati with L for basketball. Which is where I would have been again this year had L not had surgery. Or, more likely, I would have spent part of the weekend in Cincy but been back in Indy Saturday evening. I’m not sure I would have survived missing two prom nights in a row.[1] Anyway, I was indeed here this year.

On balance it was a good night. C went with a buddy, as did most of the folks in her group of 11. We hosted them before prom for pictures and food, put them on a bus for the event downtown, then had them dropped here afterward. After changing they went to a big post-prom party about a mile from our house. I collected the girls from the bash at 1:45. All of them were able to walk on their own and other than being VERY chatty in the seven minute ride home, seemed no worse for the wear. One of the girls even noted how we had a “fun” conversation when I was driving them around Siesta Key a few weeks ago. I appreciated the self awareness and humor.

Picking up from the party was a scene, man. It was in a very fancy neighborhood. One P. Manning used to live a couple blocks from the host’s home when he was still a Colt. When I pulled onto their narrow street, there were cars parked unevenly on each side. It’s basically a one-lane road, so this made it extremely stressful driving through. In the dark. With drunk kids stumbling around. There was one gap that I could not have had more than a couple inches on each side as I squeezed S’s Telluride through it. I made it. Somehow.

So I’m almost to the house, C knows I’m coming and is supposed to be rounding up the girls spending the night at our house, and I see this kid on the side of the street. He looks at me and kind of waves his arms to get me to stop. I come to a halt, roll down the passenger window, and he leans in:

“Hey Mr. B. Do you want me to go get C for you?”

It was the younger brother of one of M’s best friends. I thought that was hilarious. It was pitch dark, I was driving my wife’s car, and he somehow identified me. Apparently he does not drink, which could have been a factor. I texted his dad Sunday morning to both pass along my thanks and tell him how impressed I was.

I think I got C and her crew right in time. Big packs of kids were wandering the streets. Car alarms were going off. Kids were parked up on very nice lawns. I guess there had been a late flood of students who were not invited and had just been turned out. We didn’t hear about the cops coming, but it would not have surprised me if they showed up shortly after we left.

The kids had great weather for pictures. The prom itself was apparently pretty fun. C’s group all got along, which given they are all a little flakey/squirrelly, was a minor upset. Last year her date, again just a friend, acted like an asshole to her all night. This year she and her date seemed to get along fine.

Just two bummers on the day. Like last year, she had a meltdown when getting her hair done earlier in the day. I didn’t have to experience either episode directly, just had to be the target of S venting after. We agreed that at some point we are going to suggest that when she’s ready, C should elope rather than go through all the stress of a wedding day. If getting her hair done to hang out with friends for a few hours cranks up her anxiety, I can’t imagine what prepping for a wedding will do to her.

The second bummer was Sunday morning, when I came downstairs, I found the large box of Jimmy John’s that had been leftover from the pre-prom part of the night had been taken out of the fridge by the girls and left on the counter all night. There was about $60 of sandwiches in there, and I planned on getting into them on Sunday. I wasn’t willing to play the food poison lottery so, not without anger, tossed the box into our trash dumpster.

I guess the important thing is we survived prom weekend and C, other than being totally wiped out Sunday, seemed happy with how things went.

Another item, and a big one, checked off of her senior year list.

Pacers

When we got back from volleyball Friday the Pacers-Bucks game had just gone to halftime, with the ‘Cers leading by 10.[2] They hit the first shot of the second half to go up a dozen and then the bottom fell out. Horrible shots, terrible passes, curious coaching decisions, Bennedict Mathurin losing his mind momentarily when the game was still close. Tyrese Haliburton letting his home state crowd get in his head. OK, Giannis and Gary Trent, Jr. were going off. Trent hit nine 3’s. NINE. But the Pacers had the game in control and totally fell apart all on their own. Still, up 2–1 in the series.

That set up a pivotal game last night. Which I did not watch, for three reasons. 1) I was operating on about four hours of sleep. 2) I had to get up extra early Monday to take L to PT. Most importantly, 3) Tip off was at 9:30 PM Eastern. WTF????

Apparently I didn’t miss much. Dame Lillard blew out his achilles early. When he went down, so did the Bucks’ chances, as the Pacers played terrific ball for another easy win.

Three-one with the series coming back to Indy and Dame done for the series. Both sad and indicative of the world we live in that the first 20 minutes of Bill Simmons’ podcast Monday morning were about where Giannis plays next year.