• An Eventful Week

    Last week was a little out-of-the ordinary around our house. As I mentioned a couple times, we were on nephew duty all week. One of my sisters-in-law was matched with another baby boy for adoption and had to go to Florida to pick him up. It was a last-minute deal, so while she hoped to only be down there a…

  • Kobe

    So where was I? I was enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon after joining friends for a birthday lunch for my wife. I was watching golf – the Farmer’s Insurance Open was extra interesting this year since the hotel we stayed at in San Diego last summer bordered the course – and scrolling through Twitter when the Tweets began hitting. There…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6CI01EFpeeP4BoBWwBTGyK?si=GIelrZt2SFSIuLxPuIBvPA “Dance of the Clairvoyants” – Pearl Jam It’s been seven years since we’ve had a new Pearl Jam album. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Their last couple albums were uneven at best, teetering toward mid-life mediocrity at worst. A new album is set for a spring release, and we got the first single this week. It’s different, which…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 1/23/20

    I started 2020 off with two excellent reads. Midnight in Chernobyl – Adam Higginbotham This is, quite simply, one of the best works of non-fiction I’ve ever read. It is a highly detailed, yet brisk, accounting of the 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Soviet Union. Higginbotham provides quick summaries of just about everything that…

  • Stupidity

    I sure picked a good night not to watch the KU game. Between having the nephew around, C having volleyball practice, and the early start time, I decided to record the KU-K-State game, follow the score, and watch it later if needed. For most of the night that seemed like a good decision. After a slow start, the Jayhawks waxed…

  • Weekend Notes

    It’s probably a good thing today is a holiday and most of my Kansas City friends are probably just now going to bed after celebrating the Chiefs’ AFC title overnight. I say that because I didn’t see much of either game yesterday, so I don’t have a ton to say. I saw a decent chunk of the first half of…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5RTUCbIvPfEeb6BwAWoXw7?si=sqRYJzZgSn6IiHhDKKNMBQ “Cheap Regrets” – The Districts Looking through my Liked Songs playlist in Spotify and my iTunes library, I don’t know that I’ve ever listened to this band. Apparently this song is a departure from their usual sound. I really dig its blend of modern dance, classic disco, and indie rock. “It Helped” – Yakima When I think of Scottish…

  • Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 35

    Chart Week: January 15, 1983 Song: “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” – Sammy Hagar Chart Position: #27, 6th week on the chart. Peaked at #13 for two weeks in February/March. One of the disappointments of the iHeart Radio Classic American Top 40 channel is that only so many of the old countdowns have been digitized and, thus, countdowns are…

  • CFP Championship Game Notes

    I thoroughly enjoyed the CFP national championship game Monday night. Well, I enjoyed everything about it except a certain politician’s appearance before the game (I switched away just as L was yelling at me to get him off the screen) and how the game was an example of the biggest problem with college football today: four hours to play a…

  • Weekend Sports Notes

    What a weekend of sports! Hoops and football gave us plenty to discuss. KU Hoops I guess Baylor had to win in Lawrence eventually, right? For a decade Scott Drew has been bringing ranked teams into Lawrence. Some years they kept it close until very late. A few years they probably should have won. But KU always made the plays…