• Catching Up

    A few things happened either before or while we were traveling that deserve a few words. Youth Sports The Friday before we left, St P’s had an assembly for the two girls basketball teams that made it to the City finals including L’s team. She still refused to hold the trophy. I laughed. It was a nice way to end…

  • Stats

    November 2022 Beatles – 48 Gang of Youths – 33 Congotronics International – 31 John Mellencamp – 29 Pearl Jam – 26 Complete stats available at my Last.fm page.

  • La Nostra Avventura Italiana, 2022

    What follows is an epic, old school breakdown of our Thanksgiving week trip to Italy. I spent almost all day Sunday working on it, so I hope it is coherent and interesting. I’ve broken it into sections so you can read in chunks or skip around as you like. Departure/Chicago The trip began a little ominously. I woke up feeling…

  • Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 80

    Chart Week: November 20, 1982 Song: “Heartbreaker” – Dionne Warwick Chart Position: #28, 7th week on the chart. Peaked at #10 for two weeks in January 1983. Dionne Warwick has had an amazing career. Hits upon hits, all kinds of notable and interesting personality quirks, a side-career that kept her in the public eye, becoming Twitter famous, and most recently…

  • Reaching for the Stars, Vol. 79

    Chart Week: November 23, 1985 Song: “Separate Lives” – Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin Chart Position: #3, 8th week on the chart. Peaked at #1 the week of November 30. (Note: To tide you over during our Thanksgiving vacation, I’ve scheduled a couple posts to drop while we are away. I’m hoping all goes well and they appear on time…

  • Friday Playlist

    I’ve pretty casually mentioned a couple times that our family had a trip to Italy planned. The time for that trip has arrived. Tomorrow morning we will drive up to Chicago, hop on a flight to Paris, and hopefully end up in Rome by early afternoon Sunday. Over the next seven days we will be exploring Rome, Florence, and Venice.…

  • Kid Hoops: Denied

    L’s team came up short in the City championship game Thursday. It was a tough, defensive matchup between two teams that knew what their opponent was trying to do. The difference was St O got to the basket more than we did, and hit a couple big threes to stretch out a lead on their way to a 30–20 win.…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 11/17/22

    Five Decembers – James Kestrel I cheaped out when I bought my Kindle and got the one that has “special offers,” a euphemism for constant advertising on its sleep screen. All so I could save $50 or whatever. This book was often featured in those ads late last summer. I’ve found a lot of the books that Amazon pushes are…

  • Jayhawk Talk: Winning Ugly Is Better Than Losing

    Nothing like a (very) late game on a Tuesday night to get the real college hoops season started! First, although I got many texts asking this question, I should clarify that I did not go to the KU-Duke game last night. This is the first non-Covid Champions Classic game played in Indy I have not attended. The first two times…

  • Surviving, Advancing

    Two down, one to go. L’s team won their CYO A League City basketball semifinal 35–20 Monday night. It wasn’t as easy as the final score makes it look, though. When she woke up Monday her left knee was still swollen and sore from whatever happened to it Saturday. She had already taped it up and was hobbling around when…