• A Little Trip

    By the time you read this, we should be several hours from home in the Family Truckster – a.k.a. Swagger Wagon a.k.a. Daddy’s Blue Van – heading south. We will pass near Cincinnati, go through Lexington and Knoxville, then turn east towards Asheville. We will spend Friday night visiting with friends there and then continue southeast Saturday until we can…

  • Storm Chasing

    A long-winded, semi-diary of last night’s storms in Indiana. Crazy week. If I’m not mistaken, the bulk of my regular readers have heard tornado sirens and taken cover at some point in the past 72 hours. Hopefully all of you made it through this insane weather safe and sound. Last night was our turn to get Mother Nature’s hammer. To…

  • Sounds Of The Game

    Piggy-backing a bit on my post about cloud-based music systems last week, my baseball post for this week will focus on the changing broadcast technology of the game. I first became a baseball fan in 1978. But I really went head-over-heels for the game in 1980, when we moved to Kansas City. Suddenly I could listen to every single Royals…

  • Smoke And Fire

    I’ve wanted to believe Lance Armstrong for a long time. I know I’m not the only one. Each time there was a new allegation claiming Lance had, in fact, benefited from various banned substances and procedures during his Tour de France reign, I held the company line: He had been tested over and over and over again through his career…

  • The Cloud

    In recent weeks both Amazon and Google have launched cloud music services. Persistent rumors have it that Apple will follow suit sometime soon. Throw in a wide-range of independent streaming services and we may be on the verge of the next digital music revolution: the age of cloud storage, high speed broadband access, and the ability to stream our music…

  • Five

    We are in the midst of some crazy times in our house. S. was away at a work conference for a couple days. She now works eight straight days. I have a couple work assignments coming up, and really could be working almost every night if S. was not. C. finishes school this week, M. next week. Next Friday we’re…

  • Bond

    Did I jump off the Bond Bandwagon? Nope. Between watching the Royals most nights and keeping up with my Thursday shows, it’s been tough to watch movies lately. My slight reluctance to tackle the next Bond movie didn’t help. I remember hearing, when I was a kid, that some people thought George Lazenby was the best Bond ever. Back then,…

  • The Future Is Now

    You would think I learned my lesson already. I was unreasonably excited about Josh Selby’s arrival at KU last fall, and downright giddy the day he debuted against USC. That didn’t work out so well, after the first five games or so. Four years ago, I was pumped for Alex Gordon’s arrival in Kansas City. That excitement quickly disappeared and…

  • 2:21

    In case you missed my recent ramblings about my training schedule, I ran 13.1 miles Saturday. It went pretty darn well, all things considered. First, the important thing. Not only did I finish but I did so in 2:21. So I was slow, but that was expected. I was pleased to break 2:30, although it was another sobering reminder of…

  • I Wish I Could Quit You Manny

    We all have our sports weak spots. There are those who think Pete Rose did nothing wrong. Giants fans embraced Barry Bonds when the rest of the baseball world shunned him. I guess there are a few people out there who think Roger Clemens isn’t lying. And then there’s Manny Ramirez. I’ve written many times over the years about my…