Weekend Notes

What a weekend. S and I were actually social three days in a row! That’s a record or something. Thus I’ll break it down a little differently than normal.

Getting Out Of The House

Friday we went to a fund raiser some friends were hosting for a lady who is running for secretary of state here in Indiana next year. On our way over we were wondering if we would know anyone else there. We were pleasantly surprised to see some old St P’s friends as soon as we walked in. We figured the wife had similar views to ours based on some of her Facebook posts and should have known the husband was down, too, based on the industry he works in. Still a fun little surprise for us all. Later some other friends walked in and really blew our minds. Afterwards S and I decided the husband of that duo may have just been along for the ride, but the wife was super into the cause.

I’m not going to get into the details of the event much. This candidate seems promising, but there are so many impediments to her even getting her party’s nomination that I fear the tremendous amount of work she’s committed to over the next year will be for naught. Props to her for stepping up and making the effort to try to change the course of our state.

Saturday was the annual Halloween party one of S’s sisters and her husband host, always a good time. We watched their nine-year-old for the afternoon so they could focus on getting ready. It was a cool, cloudy night, so perfect for eating chili and standing around a fire. As we realized a few years back, having older kids means we can sneak out just when all the little kids start crashing from too much sugar and running around and screaming. L did none of those things.

Then Sunday we went to lunch with some good friends at a new (to all of us) restaurant. It was good to catch up and the meal was fine.

After we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon packing all the deck and pool furniture into the pool house for the winter. Then we did some final reorganizing of our basement. I believe I mentioned a couple weeks back that we had been waiting on a quote to turn part of our unfinished area into a home gym. That quote came in, we accepted it, and we are hoping to get started in the next week-to–10 days. Thus we needed to complete the clean up and consolidation project we had been doing down there in preparation. Now hopefully the project starts when it is supposed to.

KU Hoops

While we were at the event Friday, KU was playing an exhibition game two hours south in Louisville. KU looked bad in exhibition games the last two years as preseason #1, so I wasn’t too broken up about missing this one. Then I got a text saying Darryn Peterson had scored 24 points in the first half. Holy crap! And KU was up on the #11 Cardinals by double digits. Since it was an exhibition I couldn’t find a running score anywhere online. By the time we got home the game was in the final two minutes and KU was effortlessly breaking UL’s press and then hitting free throws after getting fouled to close out a comfortable win. Apparently DP barely played in the second half because he cramped up? And other than him, no one really shot the ball well? When I watched I did see Bryson Tiller and that dude seems super athletic and understands how to rebound. Color me cautiously optimistic for the coming year.

KU Football

Rats.

Not sure why I got my hopes up. Although to be fair to me, I didn’t really think KU would beat Kansas State. But when I saw they were betting favorites I wondered if that crappy start to K-State’s season was lingering. When KU forced a fumble on the opening kickoff and scored five plays later, I was feeling pretty good about things.

Those good feelings went away quickly. The KU touchdown probably should have been reversed on review, but thankfully there wasn’t a conclusive camera angle showing that Jalon Daniels was fumbling before he broke the goal line. Then KSU quickly answered and took over the game. I turned it off at the end of the third quarter tired of seeing a team that was seemingly unprepared despite having a week off, tired of Daniels making terrible decisions and awful turnovers.

This team can still make a bowl game, and I think even a crappy one would do a lot for the health of the program going forward. The offensive line is too inconsistent, which forces Daniels to scramble too much, which leads to those bad decisions, plus he’s too physically limited to do what he could do three years ago. The team lacks a true #1 running back, the receivers are also inconsistent, and the defense too young and too thin to control a game.

I remember when I used to say I just wanted KU to be mediocre with the occasional good year sprinkled in. So I remind myself that things could be worse. A lot of years at this point in the calendar KU was 1–7 or 0–8, not 4–4.

At least IU and UC won again, so the rest of the family is enjoying football season where I’m wondering when the basketball team plays again.

Colts

I missed much of the Colts game while we were doing our work outside and in the basement. Every time I glanced at the TV, Jonathan Taylor was galloping into the end zone again. That guy is good. 7–1 and the next two opponents are terrible on defense (Steelers) and a general mess (Falcons).

Pacers

The Pacers opened their gap year with a bang, taking the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder to double overtime before losing. Andrew Nembhard suffered a shoulder injury in the first half, leaving the Pacers without a true point guard for most of the game. And Bennedict Mathurin fouled out in the first overtime. Not sure how they made the game so competitive.

After Sunday night’s loss to the T-Wolves, the Pacers are 0–3. Nembhard is out indefinitely, Mathurin missed Sunday’s game with an injury, and Obi Toppin had to leave Sunday’s game early with his own injury. Of the 18 players under contract, only nine were available at the end of their game in Minnesota. And they still only lost by four.

Less than a week in they are handling this season perfectly. Lose a lot, get into the lottery and hope you can grab one of the three franchise players at the top of next year’s draft, then welcome Tyrese Haliburton back next year and take off.

Other Stuff

Brian Kelly gets $54 million because LSU fans are mad they are mediocre? Being either a Fortune 500 CEO or big time coach are the only jobs in the world where you can utterly fail and get paid massive amounts of money to go away. I wonder if all the politicians, talking heads, and billionaires who have been screaming about kids getting paid to play college sports will say a word about Kelly failing at his mission and being rewarded for it.

I’m on quite the hot streak with my baseball viewing. Each time I turn a game on, something big happens. I tuned in right as Shohei Ohtani was taking over the NLCS. I literally turned the TV on 30 seconds before George Springer’s home run gave the Blue Jays the lead in game seven of the ALCS. Friday I flipped to game one of the World Series in time to see the Blue Jays’ nine-run inning that busted that game open. And Saturday I was going back-and-forth between games all evening, but landed on baseball just as the Dodgers hit two home runs to take control of that game.

I think Dodgers and Blue Jays fans should be making it worth my while to tune in when their team comes to the plate as the series moves forward.

Friday night was a bye week for 6A and 5A in the Indiana state football tournament, so Cathedral will start the postseason this coming Friday.