Weekend Notes

A cold, snowy weekend that was pretty lazy when we weren’t braving the weather to clear our driveway.

Weather

The big event of the weekend was the massive winter storm that blew through the eastern half of the US. The snow started at our house around 4:00 Saturday afternoon and didn’t stop until nearly 6:00 Sunday night. Based on the maps I looked at, we were in the 11–12” range. Bloomington got over a foot. The area where our old lake house is got closer to 15”, which has to be a nightmare on those windy, hilly, rural roads. The entire area is pretty much shut down for at least today.

Saturday I got our snowblower started but was not convinced it would actually work. The last time I used it, two years ago, it would start but not actually throw snow. Yet I let two summers pass without it getting serviced. Idiot.

Naturally when we made our first pass at the snow Sunday morning the auger stopped moving as soon as it hit snow. I changed the tension on the control lever with no change. After some Googling my guess is the auger control belt needs to be adjusted. Which I could probably figure out but was not going to attempt when the windchill was sitting right at 0°. So we spent over three hours shoveling over three shifts, which included helping our older neighbors a bit. The first round wasn’t too bad, as S and I were all bundled up, the snow had paused, and there was no wind. I didn’t get cold at all, although my glasses were frozen most of the time. In two hours we got almost all the driveway cleared.

The next time we went out to help the neighbors there was a breeze and you really noticed the cold.

I went out after dinner to get rid of the two additional inches that fell during the day. It only took 45 minutes or so, but was the coldest stint of the day. It was worth it, though, as there is a much more significant breeze this morning and the windchill is –11.

CHS is closed today. IU is closed today. M’s co-op told her to work from home. S’s office is even closed, although she is doing video visits all day. In our family text thread I joked that I was taking the day off, too. No one else found that funny.

I am actually off to the airport this afternoon, taking my sister-in-law to the airport. Watching the news this morning the highways were a little dicey in some areas, so hoping five hours will give crews time to get them cleared better and I’ll have an easy shot to IND and back.

Now we get to sit around and hate on winter for a while. The low temperature every night this week will be well below zero. This snow isn’t going anywhere for at least a couple weeks.

HS Hoops

A disappointing week, in multiple ways.

Tuesday the 3A #7 Irish took their 13-game winning streak into the game with undefeated 4A #3 Center Grove. Our girls didn’t match the energy they had a five nights earlier in the City championship game and were down 11 after one period. That was game, as they tread water from there but never made a big run, losing by 13. We let their best player score 17 in the first quarter. Only foul trouble slowed her down as she finished with 28. She’s a D1 recruit and is super solid in every way, a fun player to watch. Friday night she dropped 38 on a top 5 4A team.

We had games scheduled for both Friday and Saturday nights, however each was postponed due to the weather. With this week being the last of the regular season, we are scrambling to either reschedule one of those or find a replacement so we can have a proper senior night. We have a road game scheduled for Tuesday that will likely get played, but as everything is up in the air around Indianapolis right now there is no guarantee.

The worst disappointment, though, was L’s health. I mentioned that she took a shot from a BC player in the City championship game. I undersold that. It was an intentional forearm to the back of the head after the play ended. We missed it in real time but when we saw the video a day later, we were shocked. L just guarded this girl to the baseline where she lost the ball. No contact, no foul. Then this girl came back and delivered a shot to L’s head as she walked away. A ref was standing five feet away and didn’t do a thing.

L said her head hurt all weekend but didn’t complain too much, so her idiot parents didn’t do much other than tell her to keep taking Motrin.

Tuesday she texted me after school saying that she had failed a concussion test before the CG game. Freaking great.

She tried to go to school Wednesday and Thursday, but had to come home after an hour. She made it through the whole school day Friday but didn’t feel much better. Her symptoms stretched into the weekend. She was supposed to go in to get re-evaluated this morning but her sports medicine doc’s office is closed so that has been pushed to Tuesday.

I’m not going to say much more about the incident itself, and how higher ups are handling it. I will say the girl that hit L came to our house Wednesday to apologize. They are friendly which made it even more outrageous.[1] I told L her relationship with that girl and her feelings about the incident are hers to determine, but I wasn’t super fired up to trade pleasantries when she was here. I stayed in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner. I respect her for coming over even if I don’t think she seemed super affected by her actions. Certainly not as affected as L.

Jayhawk Talk

Another good week for the Jayhawks. Mostly.

A closer-than-needed win in Boulder on Tuesday. I missed it because of the stupidly late start and just went back and watched highlights. CU is not good, and we tried to blow the game about three times. But road wins are road wins.

Darryn Peterson rolling his ankle was not a good thing. Predictably he did not play Saturday. This seemed like a legit injury. His weird leg issues for the first two months of the season have burned up any leeway fans give him for injuries, though. With a full week off now, I imagine he’ll be back for the BYU game Saturday. And then worry about him doing too much against his old rival AJ Dybantsa and hurting himself again…

Anyway, Saturday in Manhattan was looking dicey. KU was clearly the better team, but just couldn’t seem to put the Wildcats away. The lead would balloon to 10, the K-State would hit two 3’s and it’s back to a tight game. As the game moved into crunch time Peterson’s absence was especially notable, as the offense really seemed to be bogging down.

Then the Jayhawks played a magnificent final five minutes and turned the game into a rout. Melvin Council Jr. was terrific. Flory Bidunga dunked all over KSU. Bryson Tiller might have played his best game of the year. The KU scoring line was very weird. Five players in double figures. The other two players who got minutes each scored zero. Feast or famine, I guess.

KU got through the easiest part of their Big 12 schedule 5–2. Those two losses really should have been wins, and will cost them dearly. The next nine games are absolutely brutal. As weird as it sounds for KU fans to say this, 4–5 would not be an awful result over this stretch. 5–4 would be great. I guess we’ll see how healthy DP is, whether Tiller can continue his good play, and if the role players will not fade against the league’s top teams.