Friday Playlist
The new music really started flowing again this week. At one point my folder of songs to review was crammed with more than 40 tracks. Trying to work through those means a lot of songs got only one play instead of several. As I type this nothing is really planned out for where this playlist will go, so I guess…
Reader’s Notebook, 1/15/26
I started 2026 with two books that were recommended from a couple sources I trust. With mixed results. American Sky – James Grady This novel landed on the best non-fiction list of Steve Donoghue, a poster of tremendous and voluminous year end lists. Thus I was really excited to get to it, described as a muscular, coming-of-age story. It left…
Wednesday Catch Up Notes
A very good Tuesday night in our house. First, the Irish began the City tournament with an expectedly easy, 33-point win. Next, as a nice surprise, KU pounded previously unbeaten Iowa State. Can’t ask for a better evening than that. Rather than dive into those games, I’ll instead share a post I’ve been sitting on for nearly two weeks. I…
Weekend Notes
CFP My goodness! I expected IU to beat Oregon. But like that? A complete ass kicking, the type you expect Alabama or Georgia or Ohio State to put on some feel-good-story team that got a bunch of breaks and stumbled into the playoffs? No, no way could the Hoosiers do that to the Ducks, a team loaded with five star…
NFL Playoff Predictions
Every four weeks for the past four months I’ve shared some brief thoughts about the NFL season. The common theme was I had no idea what was going on, as teams took turns looking good for 2–3 games then looking terrible. Following that trend, as I look at the playoff bracket, I am befuddled. How the hell am I supposed…
Friday Playlist
“Gold Paint For Blue Skies” – Peter Matthew BauerFormer Walkmen lead singer Hamilton Leithauser released an excellent album almost exactly a year ago. Here his former bandmate’s latest sounds like it easily could have been a Walkmen song. I can’t help but wonder what it would sound like with Leithauser on vocals. “Rule 31” – Radio Free AliceI love this…
Hoops Notes: Overtimes For Everyone
A wild couple nights of basketball that included three extra periods to resolve two games. Because of that, a rare mash-up of college and high school notes. Jayhawk Talk From the verge of a disastrous 0–2 Big 12 start to an exhilarating win that didn’t really answer the questions thanks to a pretty amazing three minutes Tuesday night. KU’s defense…
Reader’s Notebook, 1/7/26
My final four books of 2025, which ended up being my most prolific reading year on record. Appropriately, and I’m not making this up, I read 67 books last year. Honest to God! SIX SEVEN!!!! Cross, Sanctuary, The Devil – Ken Bruen Three more entries in Bruen’s brilliant Jack Taylor series, read over roughly a week. Somehow they are getting…
Fitness Update
A few more catch up posts I need to crank through before we officially turn our backs on the old year. The final quarter of 2025 ended up being my worst workout stretch of the year. Not a huge surprise, as the weather turned, I had a couple weeks of foot pain, I spent several days shuttling C back-and-forth as…
Holiday Break Notes
Shut down the blog for nearly two weeks and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m sure none of you want to get back to work anyway, so consider this a public service on my part. Holiday Stuff It was your standard Christmas around our house. I spent nearly all Christmas Eve day prepping, making five casseroles for Christmas…