• Not Quite Elite Enough

    So yeah, the purpose of my weekend visit to Louisville ended up sucking quite a bit. That didn’t mean the whole weekend was a bust, though. There are quite a few stories to share, so I think I’ll split this up into two or even three posts to keep it manageable/readable. Let’s start with the game and KU going out…

  • A Very Sweet Day

    Sweet 16 day has arrived! I woke up with a little nervousness, but with a bigger feeling of excitement. As I always say, this is the best week of the tournament, and it is much easier for your mind to contemplate bigger scenarios when there are a maximum of four games left in your favorite team’s season. Of course, being…

  • Street Photography 101

    Last week C marched in the Indianapolis St. Patrick’s Day parade, as is custom for third graders at St. P’s. It was a fabulous day, especially compared to when M marched two years ago. It was bright and sunny, in the mid–50s when the parade began, and eased into the low 60s by the time it ended. Two years ago,…

  • First Weekend Madness

    Some first weekend of the NCAA tournament! There are no great surprises as we glance at the sixteen teams still standing. When Gonzaga and Syracuse are the lowest seeds still playing, you can’t really call them Cinderellas. But there was a lot of fun in getting to this point. First, my Jayhawks. A nearly perfect first weekend. Which means nothing…

  • Let’s Go!!!!

    You know, for all this talk about how wide open this year is, I find myself agreeing with all the folks who are not going out on any limbs in picking their Final Four. I think a lot of that can be explained away rather easily: while there were no dominant teams in November, December, and January, in February and…

  • On Witches and Wizards

    For several years I’ve been trying to get M to read the Harry Potter series. She loves reading to begin with, and is especially fond of lengthy series, so it seemed like a perfect match. However, each time I recommended the books to her, she said she wasn’t interested. I would point out other kids her age, or even younger,…

  • Tourney Time

    Yep, I’m frightened. Sure, there’s the normal fright that comes this time of year when you support a school that has been a top-four seed for nearly two decades and has a number of early flameouts over that span. There’s the hand-wringing that fans of every school go through when they begin breaking down the bracket, sure that their favorite…

  • ⦿ Friday Links

    A pretty light edition this week. (Update: have a sick kid at home for the fourth time in two weeks, so was able to read/add a couple more articles while watching Scooby Doo and Despicable Me 2.) To begin, more love for Bill Self. I’m sharing these now since we’ll all be bashing him in a couple weeks when KU…

  • Friday Playlist

    https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/6x2aonwNQhz7CaXy2s9qr0   “The Boy In the Bubble” – Paul Simon. I acknowledge Simon’s place in music history, but his songs never really connected with me. They were my parents’ generation’s songs, not mine. This is the one exception. I’ve always loved it and crank it up any time I hear it, as I did earlier this week on SiriusXM’s The…

  • The Local Celeb

    We have a star in the family. My wife appeared on the local noon news yesterday in an Ask the Doc segment. Her topic was kids and sleep, one that was especially timely given the time change this weekend and the state reading test that all third graders begin on Monday.[1] It was a fairly quick three-minute appearance, but it…