Tag: family (Page 10 of 80)

Weekend Notes: School Visits and Tennis

July 11, 2022 / DB

A pretty boring weekend around our house. I wrapped up Stranger Things. M went to a concert. But other than that the weekend proper was pretty low key for our family. We had great weather so we spent a lot of time just hanging out around the pool or on the back porch.

College Visits

Thursday M and I took our second trip to Ohio to visit a college, this time going to Oxford, home of Miami University. We went with one of her best friends and her dad, who is a Miami alum.

He had warned me ahead of time that Oxford is in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t lying! Maybe there’s a main highway that connects the city to Cincinnati or Dayton, but coming from the west you pretty much have to take these little, two-lane county roads to get there. On one of them you even go through some Amish/Mennonite country. It feels very isolated.

We headed over early so our driver could give us his tour before the official one. Miami has a beautiful, traditional campus, lots of red brick buildings and green space. Despite being roughly half the size of the University of Cincinnati – MU has about 20,000 students total – it feels like the bigger school just because the campus is more spread out.

The main drag of town is right next to campus. You literally go from the president’s home to a fraternity house to a red light to several blocks of bars and restaurants. We cruised around this area a bit, popped into some shops, had some lunch, and headed back for the school tour.

Our tour guide was great. She was smart (Biomedical engineering major with two science-based minors), funny, and did a fine job showing us what we needed to see. There was a lot more walking than on our first two visits, though. Where at UC they played up football and Xavier basketball, Miami presents itself as a hockey school, complete with a tour of their hockey arena. I was not expecting that! The arena was filled with kids who were attending camp.

I’m already a little numb to the tour presentations even after just three. You just get a different version of the same pitch tailored to highlight each school’s strengths. I kind of wish M had specific academic interests so we could do an engineering or business school focused tour rather than these general ones.

M might be numb to them, too. Or maybe it was just the presence of her friend, because it seemed like they were talking to each other more than listening/observing. Although I should give her the benefit of the doubt and figure she was able to take it all in while having a constant conversation.

I saw two big bummers about Miami. First, the sheer difficulty of getting there. While it is right at two hours from Indy, same as the Cincinnati schools, because the final 30 minutes are on county roads, I have some worries about travel if we needed to get there in the winter. Second, while they provide some tuition relief to all students, they aren’t nearly as generous as either UC or Xavier. It isn’t Notre Dame expensive, and we told M if that’s where she really wants to go we can make it work. But it is the most expensive school, after various forms of tuition relief, she plans to visit. Since the school didn’t wow her, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.

What could be an issue for M is how the sororities don’t have their own houses. You still live in the dorms or off-campus housing. Each house has a “suite” where they hold meetings, but they don’t have a true house to call theirs. I guess it all goes back to the old zoning rules that stated any house that had more than X unrelated woman was considered a brothel. You’d think they would update those rules. Also I had to explain to all of my girls what a brothel is.

Oxford is a cool little town, one truly built around the university. I’m not sure it would be much more than a couple traffic lights if the school wasn’t there to anchor it. It is a nice combination of elements: neither tiny nor large; excellent academic reputation; large, beautiful campus; not too far from home but still away.

I think M enjoyed the visit and will probably apply to Miami, but it seems like UC remains her favorite of the three schools she’s visited.

If you follow sports you know the school is always referred to as “Miami of Ohio” to avoid confusing it with the University of Miami in Florida. My favorite shirt I saw – that I totally forgot to take a picture of – was one that said “We were a college before Florida was a state.” That checks out! Miami University was founded in 1809 while Florida gained admittance to the Union in 1845. Crazy!

Wimbledon

Wimbledon used to be a huge part of my late June/early July sports routine. But that faded long ago. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and watched more than a few minutes of a match, even on championship weekend.

Sunday I caught most of the men’s final, between Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios. That was mostly because of how entertaining Kyrgios is. I’m reluctant to use certain terms to describe his behavior because I genuinely do not know if he has mental issues or if he is just one of those super hardcore competitors that loses his mind a little on the court and is basically normal off the court.

Regardless of the cause of his conduct, watching him is a wild ride. Moments of absolutely sublime tennis. But when things go sideways, they go SIDEWAYS. He argues with the umpires. Screams at himself. Berates the people sitting in his box. Complains about people in the stands. Famously, in his round of 32 match, he pushed right up against getting into a physical altercation with his opponent.

You never know what you’re going to get and it makes for thrilling, if sometimes uncomfortable, viewing.

The final had it all. Punishingly powerful tennis from Kyrgios to win the first set. Shots that showed astonishing athleticism, skill, and courage. And then him losing it mentally when he blew two games he was a point away from winning, one a break opportunity at 0–40, another a service game when he was up 40–0. He got a warning from the chair umpire, and engaged him in long diatribes during changeovers. He treated the people in his box like they were responsible for his errors. He described a woman in the stands he believed was heckling him as looking like she had had “about 700 drinks.” It was amazing.

Naturally Djokovic, who isn’t quite as steady as Roger Federer but seems eternally composed in a championship match’s biggest moments, let Kyrgios work himself into a tizzy and then pounced. His 7–3 win in the fourth set tiebreaker was deceptively easy, as Kyrgios seemed mentally checked out by that point.

It was a fine way to spend a Sunday morning.

Holiday Weekend Notes (Heavy With Cooking Content)

July 5, 2022 / DB

We’ve reached the midway point in academic summer, an occasional always highlighted by our family’s July 4th celebrations.

This year’s was a little lower key than recent ones. We had no out-of-town visitors this time, so fewer cousins, aunts, and uncles running around. It was as hot as it’s been any recent year, so it was probably good we had at least 10 fewer people in the pool this year compared to the last three.

Our family gathering was on Sunday this year. This was a big moment for me as it was my first time really using my new Traeger smoker/grill. I’ve used it a lot for pretty standard grilling, but this was my first true smoke. In fact, it was my first real smoke in at least a decade, back to whenever I got fed up with the idiosyncrasies of my old electric smoker.

For the holiday I first smoked an 8+ pound pork butt. I read a bunch of different recipes to prepare mentally. Consensus was it would take me 10–12 hours to smoke the pork, and I also wanted to do some chicken after then wrap up with grilling some hot dogs. So my plan was to get up at 5:00 AM to start the process.

In all that planning I forgot one thing: to set my alarm. Fortunately I awoke with a start right around 1:00 AM Sunday and realized I never turned the alarm on. You know how that goes, though. Even after setting my alarm I was waking up every hour or so to check the time just in case. That alarm went off as planned but I was a little wiped when I came down to take my fully-rubbed slab of pork out of the fridge.

After sitting on the counter to warm, it went into the smoker at 6:00 with the temperature set to 225. The smoker temp held pretty steady all day, although once the sun really got hot it ran about five degrees warmer than set. I spritzed the pork with apple juice every hour until it hit 160°, right around 12:30. Then I took it off, triple-wrapped it in foil, and put it back on.

If you’ve smoked you know the time between 145–165° is the longest time of the cook, as the moistures begin pulling from the center and fights the cooking process. That was the case Sunday. It seemingly took forever to get over the 165° hump, and I was sweating whether it would be ready in time for a bunch of hungry people. Fortunately once it got to 170° it took off like a rocket and I removed it at 4:00 when the pork hit 202° and threw it into a cooler to rest for an hour.

I smoked some chicken breasts next. Bone-in would have been best, but we had a freezer full of Costco boneless breasts that I decided to use. I always brine chicken that I plan on grilling to keep it moist. I just forgot about that step in all the other activities of the day, so the chicken came out a little dry. It also didn’t help that I kept the heat very low and then cranked it at the end when the chicken didn’t seem to be progressing. But it’s good with some sauce and we’ll have quesadillas and/or barbecue chicken pizza with it this week.

I turned the Traeger off at 5:45, so 11:45 of total cook time.

All-in-all a pretty successful first experience. I got lots of compliments on the food. The rest of the family added some tasty stuff to the spread and it was a fine family holiday meal.

I did have to take two naps during the day. One 20-minute nap after the meat went on at 6:00, and another 30–40 minute one around 11:00 because I felt like a zombie after the tossing-and-turning from the night before. The second one, and a Cherry Coke Zero, seemed to do the trick.

The rest of the day was solid. As I said, it was hot. We drained and replaced some water in the pool to try to cool it and that dropped the temp a whole degree. But the kids didn’t seem to complain. We had the five local nephews here and they had fun splashing.

Everyone was winding down in their own way well before our planned 10:00 fireworks, so we did them a little early despite it not being dark. We bought our standard, $35 at Target package of fireworks. That was good enough for the kids. Waiting for the year when one of the boys asks why they aren’t bigger and we explain how Aunt S is a pediatrician and hates fireworks and if they want bigger ones they need to ask their parents to take them someone else.

We had planned on having some friends over on the Fourth for another hangout, but Covid hit their house so that fell apart. We sandwiched our Sunday celebration by cleaning out the garage and power washing the driveway on Saturday (L helped power wash) and then cleaned out the pool house and added some new shelving to it on Sunday. There was a trip to Lowes in there. Exciting stuff!

Now it’s suddenly July 5 and I’m already thinking about making sure we order any new school clothes early enough for them to arrive by August 10 and 11 when the girls go back to class.

Travel Hoops Wrap Up

June 27, 2022 / DB

Travel basketball came to a disappointing end for L over the weekend.

Her team lost in the semifinals to a squad they had beaten twice this year. That team went on to win the championship by four points. So it was right there for our girls and they blew it.

Saturday’s pool games were two very different contests. In the first we played a team we beat by 10 two weeks ago. They are super big, very physical, but not very good.[1] They make the game ugly, and our girls don’t like ugly.

We were in control the entire game Saturday but just couldn’t put them away. We held on to win by seven. L was cold, just scoring two while tossing up a bunch of airballs from 3.

Two things to note. It was approximately 800 degrees in the gym. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but the AC was not running and it was very hot and steamy. We were down two girls – to be fair the other team only had one sub – and several of our girls looked like they were going to puke after the game from the heat.

Also, we were missing our most physical player. She’s not a mean girl, but she’s one of those kids who gets a nasty look on her face and battles constantly once the game starts. We missed her in this game.

In game two we crushed a poor team that only had five players. They forfeited their first game because they didn’t have even those five to the gym in time. L bounced back and had seven in this game, including a steal and layup, a long two (that was really a 3), and a 3 (that was really a 2). Refs were having trouble with the 3-point line. Might have had too much sweat in their eyes to see it.

Sunday it was on to play the team we beat twice in Bloomington two months ago. We crushed them in that first game, then they had a lead on us for most of the second game until we pulled it out late. That big win was deceptive, though, as our best player went on a personal 12–0 run that turned a comfortable lead into a blowout.

I think that game killed us Sunday.

We led 13–9 a little over halfway through the first half. Then we gave up an 11–0 run going into halftime. That run stretched out deep into the second half and eventually we were down 30–18 with about three minutes to play.

Then we suddenly started hitting 3’s and getting steals. We got it down to two with 20 seconds left and our best free throw shooter at the line for two. She missed both, but thanks to a lane violation got to shoot her second again and made it. Down one.

We stole the inbounds pass, had a shot inside that got blocked, and then were inbounding under the basket with 15 seconds left. Instead of hitting our best shooter, who was wide open in the corner, we threw it inside where the ball bounced around and eventually ended up in the defense’s hands. They missed a free throw and we couldn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

Just a bummer of a loss. Our girls were slow to rebounds and loose balls. The other team, to their credit, found some zone defenses that we could not solve. I think having our missing starter would have helped, but I can’t guarantee we would have won had she played. We are probably the better team, but they were the better one for those 32 minutes. And then they went and beat one of our program’s other 2027 teams for the championship. Our girls really wanted to play their sister team for the last trophy of the summer.

L scored five in the semifinal. She blew by her girl for a layup to start the game and she hit a 3 during our run late. She started all three games but she was not on the court late in the game Sunday. She sat the final few minutes when our coach played our two “bigs” together, which he usually will not do, because it seemed to turn things on the defensive end.[2]

Thus ends L’s first year of travel basketball. I think it was a personal success. She is definitely a better player than she was when she started with this program last fall. A year ago the only way she could score was to get to the basket. After lots of work she’s finally developed consistency and confidence in her jump shot and become more comfortable playing off-the-ball. She’s played against higher level girls and held her own. She made some new friends. It also helps that she’s still growing. It was a pretty solid season.

Today she is off to the Cathedral camp. She doesn’t love camps, but we agreed it was time to go to the one run by the coaches she’ll be trying out for in two years so they get to know her. After that we have six weeks to really crank it up on our personal workouts. We both have a list of goals and are working on a plan on how to get her better for when CYO ball starts in September.

I say this as a compliment, not to be mean, but they all looked like big, farm girls. They’ve been wrangling small animals their entire lives. Skinny, suburban girls don’t phase them. ↩
I say “bigs” because our entire team falls within about a 2.5” height range. These are just the two girls who are most comfortable playing inside. ↩

Miles on the Odometer: College Visits and Weekend Hoops

June 20, 2022 / DB

A long post about a long few days.

Thirteen months into my Audi lease I was in great shape, milage-wise, about 1000 miles lower than where I should be. I pretty much wiped out that deficit over the past few days.

Thursday M and I drove to Cincinnati to take her first college campus visits. We toured the University of Cincinnati and Xavier.

UC is a popular spot for Indy-area students as it offers nearly in-state tuition to most Indiana grads. Xavier always looks to bring in kids from Indianapolis Catholic schools, and is known for being very generous with scholarships. Seemed like a good way to knock out a couple schools on her list in one day.

M really isn’t sure what she wants to study yet, so we didn’t meet with any academic folks. And as her first visits, she had nothing to compare them to. But she loved UC.

It is a much bigger school than I realized, well over 45,000 total students with an undergrad population around 33,000. The main campus is a very tight, two square mile property near downtown. It has some older, traditional college campus buildings, but much of the campus is either brand new or recently renovated, giving it a very modern feel. The football stadium is smack in the middle of campus. You can literally look into it as you’re walking to class.

I think she liked that combination of opportunities that come with having such a large student body without the large physical size of the typical Big Ten campus. She has some friends with siblings at both UC and Xavier, so has heard the area around the UC campus has lots of cool restaurants and shops. It can also get sketchy pretty quick. I thought it was interesting how our tour guide played up the fact that UC has its own police force, the Cincinnati police patrols campus, and there are emergency phones all around if you do ever run into trouble. I guess that’s good info to have, but it also does as much to reinforce the narrative that it isn’t the safest campus as reassure parents that their kids will be safe.

When we were done with the official tour we walked into the Fifth Third Arena where the basketball team plays. There was a boys camp going on and, I swear to God, as we walked through the kids were all chanting, “Let’s go Kansas!” The best we could figure was the camp was divided into groups with names of different college teams, and the Kansas squad was going through drills while the other kids encouraged them. Or they knew I was in the building!

Outside the main doors is a statue of Oscar Robertson. There we found a recruit taking a picture in front it. He was a 6–5 white kid so probably not a high level recruit, but it was kind of cool to see the coaches walking him around. I got a pic with Oscar when the kid was done.

Our tour guide kept making a big deal about how UC is a football school now, which did make me chuckle to myself since that was not the case until a couple years ago. And there were signs and shirts everywhere celebrating UC’s admission to the Big 12. KU playing two hours away from my house isn’t the best reason to send my kid there, but it’s not the worst, either.

Again, this was M’s first college tour. I think she was a little too impressed with some things that were new to her. She thought the dorms were amazing, and we didn’t even see the high level ones. She thought the Bearcat Card, the debit card that works all over campus and at a few off-campus businesses, was the coolest thing ever. I didn’t tell her that I’m sure every school has their own version of that. She’ll probably think other schools are copying off UC when she hears about their payment systems.

After lunch we drove the six miles to Xavier. As I said, there’s a strong connection between Indianapolis Catholic schools and XU. We know a lot of people who went to Xavier or are there now.

While we parked in a big garage at UC and had to walk a few blocks to our meeting point, at XU we just pulled into a small lot in front of the admissions building, like parking at Walgreen’s. I think that immediately turned M off a little, as it didn’t seem very big or special.

The tour was fine, but I could tell she wasn’t into it as much as UC. Afterward when I asked her thoughts, she told me XU felt like a bigger version of Cathedral, and she didn’t want to repeat that experience for the next four years. (Xavier in in the 7000 student range.) I certainly understood that.

Everything about our visit reflected that size. We were in a group of 10 or so kids plus parents at UC. At Xavier we shared a guide with one other girl and her dad. It was a pretty quick walk around campus, and the buildings all seemed a lot older and smaller. The dorms were both far less impressive than UC’s and reminded me of the dorms I lived in at KU. I bet these were built in the 1960s like those old Daisy Hill dorms (RIP McCollum Hall).

I really liked the Jesuit educational concepts that Xavier is built upon, especially their embrace of social justice and a requirement that students do things outside the classroom to make the world a better place.[1] But M can do that at any school, with or without the Jesuits.

Where UC really pushed how they are a football school (now), Xavier plays up how they are a basketball school and the excitement about Sean Miller taking over the program. Our guide took us into the Cintas Center, where a girls camp was in session, and asked if either of the girls liked basketball and M shook her head and pointed at me, “I’m not but he is.” This day wasn’t about me so I just smiled. The guide took the bait, though.

“So what team do you follow?” she asked, I’m sure expecting me to say IU, Purdue, or Butler.

When I told her I went to KU she got excited. “I picked them to win my bracket this year!” I liked her a lot!

Xavier likes to throw money around. If M hits certain deadlines in the admissions process and goes to a local event, the day she is admitted to Xavier her tuition will be basically chopped in half through a series of scholarships.[2] I’m not sure she’s interested enough to pursue any of that seriously, though.

We bought t-shirts at both schools, as Cathedral seniors are allowed to wear college shirts all year instead of uniform shirts. Even though she’s lukewarm on Xavier, she was excited that they also gave her a shirt, so she ended the day with three she can wear to school.

It was a hot day for touring campuses, but I think it was useful. I joked that she was ready to commit to UC right away, like a football recruit overly excited about his first visit, but cautioned her to take some more visits and start learning more about the academics of all the schools she is interested in.

When we got home we nailed down four more visits for the summer. We will go to Miami (OH) and Purdue in July, IU and KU in August. She’s doing KU as a favor to me on our Kansas City trip, but claims she has an open mind about it. We are visiting Miami with one of her best friends, whose dad went there and will serve as our unofficial guide. Marquette has been on her list, but I think if she’s not serious about Xavier there’s no need to waste time on Marquette (although it is 50% bigger than XU). She’s kicked around a few other Big 10 schools, but hasn’t formally moved them onto her list or asked me to look into visits.

It’s pretty crazy to realize how fast this is happening. She just took her first visits, she’ll be sending out applications in a few months, and likely have an acceptance letter or two by Christmas.

Thursday was a long day. I got up at 5:30 in order to be at UC before our 9:00 tour. Friday morning I almost had to get up even earlier for my next trip.

L’s team played in a tournament in Knoxville, TN over the weekend. Originally we were scheduled to play at 11:00 Friday morning. As we had already booked our hotel for Friday and Saturday nights before the schedule came out, we were going to have to get up at 4:30 AM to make it down in time. Luckily the tournament took pity on us and moved things around. We left home at about 8:30 and drove back to Cincinnati, then south through Lexington to Knoxville. Along the way we dodged severe storms. We had to drive through one heavy storm and then through some exceptionally gusty winds. Friends who were 30 minutes behind us had to pull off the road for about 45 minutes because the rain they were in was so heavy.

We made it to the convention center just in time for our first ass-kicking of the weekend. The first three teams we played were all very long, athletic, and just way faster than us. We actually hung with the first opponent for about 10 minutes. Then a girl hit a 30-foot bomb and it kind of destroyed our girls. We were down 10 at halftime but lost by 34. That same girl hit three other 3’s, two of them from NBA range. You just can’t guard that when you’re also struggling to contain girls who are bigger, stronger, faster in the other four spots. L didn’t score in that game.

In game two L hit a 3 to put us up 17–14 just before halftime. The rest of the game was a 30–8 run. Unfortunately we scored the eight points. We just got out-physical-ed and hustled again, and the girls seemed to give up at a certain point. L had seven points, all in the first half. She had a sweet move where she faked a girl, blew by her, scored, and got fouled. Then she missed the free throw. And she got busted by the same move two times on the other end.

Saturday we lost our final pool game by eight. We trailed pretty much the entire contest but put a run on them late to make it interesting. L grabbed a rebound and went full-court to lay it in and cut it to four with just over 3:00 left. A possession later she faked a girl, took two dribbles, and pulled up for a wide-open 15-footer that rimmed out. We never had another chance to cut it to less than four again.

We went to lunch and worried about whether we were going to lose our afternoon bracket game, which would mean we played a late game Sunday. Our girls seemed kind of down and lacking confidence. We hoped we were just in a hellacious pool and that even though we were the #4 in a 3–4 matchup, we would get a weaker team than the ones we played.

We were definitely better than our first tournament opponent. But we seemed rattled by the pressure we faced in the first three games. This team was throwing light pressure at us and we kept getting called for traveling, throwing the ball to the wrong girl, or dribbling into traffic. Just dumb errors made because of indecision. Fortunately they couldn’t score, either. We were up five at half and then something finally clicked. We went on a 30–5 run in the second half to win easily. L had a weird line. She was 0–4 from the field but had four rebounds, four assists, and three steals with no turnovers. She was bummed she didn’t score but I pointed out her other stats and told her she still made an impact on the win.

We had a fun team dinner afterward. The girls were in high spirits and the parents were relieved.

Sunday morning it was back to the convention center for our semifinal. We were playing a team from the south side of Indy, which was kind of funny. On a court next to us two of our program’s fifth grade teams were playing each other.

We started great and had an early 7–2 lead. Then we hit a cold spell and were down six at halftime. That deficit stretched out to 10 midway through the second half. But our girls, for the first time all weekend, fought through the adversity and started clawing back into it. We hit a long 3 with about 3:00 left to tie it. With 14 seconds left we hit two free throws to tie it again. But the other team smartly spread our defense, put the ball in the hands of their best driver, and she hit a layup with four seconds left to give them the win.

We were bummed and happy. Bummed that we lost, but happy that our girls fought hard to come back. And also happy we wouldn’t have to stick around for another three hours for the championship game.

L had a decent weekend. Other than that one game, she didn’t score much. She was a combined 3–7 from the free throw line and hit just the one three. But her shot looked good. I took some pictures at various times and showed them to her after we got home. I wanted her to realize her form is good, she just needs more reps to add consistency. Her knees were barking a little but she looked quick all weekend. Most importantly, she was generally on the court when the team played its best.

Our drive home was long. There was a lot more traffic than Friday, but at least no storms. The approach to Cincinnati is a mess of construction, and it took us a good 45 minutes to go about 15 miles. There was an accident 30 minutes outside Indy that had I–74 crawling. But we made it home safely just in time for a Father’s Day dinner at home with S’s dad and stepmom.

Next week is the final tournament of the official AAU season. I think L is looking forward to some time off.

The lady who did the admissions presentation called the Jesuits “Catholic hippies.” ↩
They explained the process like this: apply by October 1 and get $500, which repeats for four years. Go to a Xavier event in Indy, get $1000, which also repeats for four years. Then your acceptance letter will include a scholarship that will range between $15,000 and $26,000, also good for four years. College tuition is a weird racket. ↩

Weekend Notes: Basketball and Gatherings

June 6, 2022 / DB

Nothing but hoops and parties for us this weekend.

L’s basketball team was supposed to have the week off before their final push of the season. They got invited to play in a tournament at the last minute. Because of our schedules, she could only play in the Saturday games, which worked out just fine.

In game one we were down by nine at halftime. The other team didn’t seem more talented than us. But they were super-well coached and were just dicing us up when they had the ball. Our girls all looked a step slow.

Then in the second half we turned it around. We led by as many as five before a mini-run cut that lead to one with under a minute to play. We had two girls combine to go 8–8 from the line over the final 50 seconds to ice a seven-point win. A really good performance by our girls.

L looked the best she has looked since her first injury a month ago. She scored five, but the headline is she hit the first in-game three-pointer of her life. When we were getting scorched in the first half she let fly from the right wing and banked in a three. Still counts. Next possession she was open from the same spot and launched again. This shot was better: on a better line and with better form. But it was just short and caromed away. Not sure she’s even hit the rim in a game before on a shot that wasn’t a heave at the end of the half/game.

Game two was an easy blowout. We were up by 24 at halftime and didn’t allow a point in the second half. Not exactly a strong opponent. L had a more completed game this time, scoring four with two rebounds, two blocks, two assists, and a steal.

Without her, her teammates lost by 10 in their bracket game Sunday. Probably good she was unavailable because her knee pain was kicking.

The real story from the Saturday games, though, was some of the parent behavior in the gym. The game behind us in the morning was called off with nearly 11 minutes left because of a parent. We were told later that a mom was on the court screaming at the refs in the first half. They ejected her, but she refused to leave. So multiple people who run the tournament/facility came over to try to get her to leave. The best they could do was get her to move to another court. Then her daughter got hurt in a freak play and she went off, charging the court again. The refs, despite it being an eight-point game, decided that was enough and called the game off. Ridiculous.

On our way to lunch between games we heard shouting in the parking lot. I looked in the direction of the noise and just saw some kids, so thought they were just boys being loud. When we got to lunch another parent from our team said she called the police. Turns out there were two dads screaming at each other, one who said he was going to “fucking kill” the other guy, and being held apart by kids. Not sure how I missed that.

During our second game we heard that a girl two courts over got fed up with her coach, the game, or both, cussed him out, and walked off the court in the middle of the game. Like the ball was in play and she just left.

A great day for youth sports.

We had two graduation parties this weekend. Saturday we went back to our old ‘hood for the neighbors’ oldest daughter’s party. We saw a few old friends, talked with the folks who bought our home (and marveled at the landscaping work they’ve done), and caught up with one old neighbor we haven’t seen in a couple years.

The highlight of that was the guy who bought our house telling us his raccoon story. You may recall in 15 years we constantly had raccoons, normally moms and babies, under our back deck. We had two raccoons die under the deck and a third raccoon die when he fell from a tree with a branch that came down during a storm. Basically raccoons out the ass. The new owners ripped out that old wood deck and put in a stone porch that has no crawl space beneath it, so problem solved, right?

A few weeks back he was in his basement getting some stuff from storage and noticed some mouse droppings. He put out traps and caught two mice in the first night. He decided to investigate the crawl space to see if he could find where they were coming in. When he shined his flashlight around he found a momma raccoon and her babies huddled in the far corner. There is no barrier between the crawl space and the utility closet, and then just a door between that and the rest of the basement. He didn’t think the raccoons had made it beyond the crawl space but it sure would have been easy for them to do so. And his mother-in-law had been sleeping in the basement the night before. Egad!

We used that utility closet as a playroom and toy storage area for years. There were times when I thought I heard things rattling around back there, but always assumed it was either my imagination or sounds echoing through the various pipes and vents that ran in and out of the room. There may well have been something snooping around back there at some point!

An exterminator who trapped the entire family so the crawl space is raccoon-free now. The current owner said he found an exhaust vent that appeared to have been chewed through by mice and guessed that was the entry point for all the critters. He patched it up and hopes he’s done with animals in his home.

Sunday we went to another grad party and saw several folks we hadn’t seen in some time. At both parties we were taking notes for next year when it is M’s turn to go through this.

Holiday Weekend Notes

May 31, 2022 / DB

The first weekend of the summer is in the books. We were busy.

M and C finished classes on Thursday. Unless there’s a surprise coming we don’t know about, they both had really good semesters with just one B between them and a handful of A+’s. And now M is a senior. Yikes!

I took C to finally get her driver’s permit on Friday. She wrapped up the written portion of driver’s ed over a month ago, but, for a variety of reasons, we never made it into the BMV. She’s still a month or two out from taking the in-car portion of the class because of a backlog in the system, but we can start working with her and getting those hours logged.

Friday was also L’s last day of school. She was bummed because rain last week ruined a lot of the end-of-year, outdoor activities that St P’s kids usually get to enjoy. And now she’s an eighth grader. Yikes!

Saturday night C had nine friends over for a late birthday celebration. They swam and took 10,000 pictures then sat around the fire pit and commented on each other’s social media posts. As kids do, I guess.

Sunday was Race Day. Thanks to some brisk ticket sales the IMS allowed the race to be shown live locally, if only on Peacock Premium. Which, thanks to being Xfinity customers, we have. I didn’t get to watch a ton of the race, as we were prepping for our evening plans, but seemed like a good race. Better, it was an absolutely perfect day for all the folks who were at the track.

That evening we had friends over for dinner and swimming. I don’t think I’ve shared that we got a Traeger grill a few weeks back. This was my first time showing off my skills for others. I cooked steaks and shrimp. While I’m still getting used to the differences between the Traeger and a gas grill, I have to say these were some of the best steaks I’ve ever made.

C went back to our old ‘hood with her buddy to spend the night. As they left they were talking about waking up early to watch the sun rise That made all the parents laugh, as both C and her friend will sleep all day if you let them. They showed us, though. They pulled an all-nighter and went to a local park to take pictures as the set came up just after 6:00 AM. Apparently there was an old lady there getting her morning walk in and she came over and checked on them. She was worried they had spent the night in the park, which also made us laugh. Anyway, in this case, Kids 1, Parents 0.

Finally, Monday we hosted a sixth birthday party for one of the local nephews. It was another near-perfect day, warm but not humid with a refreshing breeze. The first time this season all the nephews have been in the pool together.

S was also on call all weekend, which meant she had to go into the hospital in the morning to do rounds. Between her getting up, the cloudless mornings, and the early-rising sun, I was still awake before 7:00 most mornings. At least the girls can sleep in. I either need to get more motivated to do things early in the morning or insist on us finally getting some drapes in our bedroom.

Weekend Notes: Prom and Sports

April 25, 2022 / DB

Prom

We survived our first prom weekend with pretty much zero drama.

Well, I should say prom night was pretty easy, but there was plenty of drama leading up to it. M found a dress quickly and easily, got it altered well ahead of time, and had most of the basics squared away several weeks ago.

But the planning for prom night itself was a little tense. That’s only because the plan was constantly evolving and those changes were often presented to us as “Here’s what we are doing now,” instead of “Is it ok if I do this?” M’s choice in how she opened these conversations caused most of the tension. But teenagers are gonna teenage, I guess.

She was in a group of nine couples, eight of which were just partnered up for the night. She was going with a kid we had heard of before, but they were not/are not dating. We met him for the first time at the pre-prom gathering and he seemed like a good kid. S and I were laughing at how comfortable he seemed in the whole situation, intent on having fun, where a couple of the other dudes looked exceptionally uncomfortable in their formal attire and perhaps feeling stress about the night in general. One of M’s best friend’s dates looked like he might puke from nervousness.

One of the families hosted a big gathering for kids and parents, complete with a professional photographer, a chartered bus, and a big dinner for all. It was awfully nice of them to do that, and I appreciate families that have this in their DNA.

Pictures went well, the kids ate, got on a bus for the dance, and we took off to watch L play basketball.

One other element of the pre-prom gathering that was fun was that a former local/regional celebrity was in attendance with her daughter. I won’t identify this person, other than to say she used to appear on TV commercials across the midwest hawking hot tubs, pools, spas, and outdoor furniture, among other things.

I told a few friends that this person was at the gathering, and they insisted that I get a picture. Which was a little awkward because for much of the evening I was standing 10–15 feet from her in the kitchen/dining area. Her husband is also a lot bigger than me and I didn’t want a confrontation if he saw me trying to take surreptitious pictures of his wife. If S had a few drinks in her she might have made it happen. But we were both sober and not pushing any boundaries. Which is kind of a bummer.

I must say, whoever does the plastics work for her family does very good work, for both mom and daughters (chef’s kiss GIF).

We gave M more freedom than she’s ever had, but still limited her compared to several of her friends in what her after-prom activities would be. There was a series of three parties that we knew of. We gave her permission to go to one and then S would pick her and a couple friends up sometime between 1:30–2:00. We know some of the other kids were bouncing around parties, which seemed like a terrible idea, even if parents were driving (and we weren’t sure parents were driving).

M and her crew got to our house at about 2:30. They didn’t sleep super late before heading out for breakfast, then she went to a pool party with a bunch of other prom kids Sunday afternoon. She crashed around dinner time for a bit, but I could still hear her FaceTiming with friends when I went to bed.

She seemed to have a great time and was pleased with how everything went. That set a pretty high bar for future prom nights in this house.

LB Hoops

As I said, we ducked out of the parent portion of the pre-prom party (holy P’s!) to watch L play ball.

We missed the first game of the day, which her team won by 36 and she scored 8. We got there just in time to watch game two, against a team from Evansville with a couple tall girls, one of whom was probably the best player they’ve faced all year. She could score from anywhere, handle the ball, and got any rebound she could get her hands to. She was a load.

We were down by as many as 10 midway through the second half but our girls worked incredibly hard and only lost by 3. The players and parents all left thinking that was a great step for the team, playing against a bigger and better team and staying in it until the final horn. L scored seven, including two long jumpers from the left wing that helped kick off their second-half run.

We got home at about 10:00 Saturday night and had to be back in the gym at 8:30 for a 9:05 game Sunday morning. AAU life!

Game one was against another team with size, but these girls were kind of trash. Yet they uglied-up the game and made our girls afraid to shoot inside. We were up 14–10 at halftime after they banked in two 3-pointers late in the half.

I’m not sure what our coaches told our girls at half, but they played like KU against Miami in the second half of their game. The final was 36–15. We just ran them off the court. It was fun to watch. L scored four.

On to the semis, where we faced the team we lost to Saturday again. The seeding in these tournaments is dumb. The tiebreaker is points allowed. So another team that played two mediocre teams Saturday and went 1–1 got the two seed because they gave up 44 total points, where our girls, who played the best team in the tournament and thus gave up more points, was seeded third. Strangely the first place team gave up 30 more points than the second place team.

Our girls flipped the script a little Sunday. They led from the beginning. It was never a big lead – constantly bouncing from tied to +4, but it always felt like we had the Evansville girls on the back foot. We hit a 3 with about four minutes left to go up four.

And then things kind of fell apart. Not that we got blown out or anything. Just that we made a ton of bad passes and errors both unforced and forced. We missed some easy shots. We let them get multiple offensive rebounds. We took two absolutely terrible shots that didn’t need to be taken. And we just kept missing free throws, going 2–14 for the game.

We lost the lead, tied it, got the lead back, lost it again. In the end we lost by two. Unlike Saturday the girls were really down about this one, because they knew they let it slip away. But that’s a good coaching point and area for improvement. The Evansville team won the championship game 49–11; our girls were the only group that challenged them all weekend.

L struggled scoring in the semifinal, going 0–2 from the line and 0-fer from the field. She missed a tough, contested layup on a run-out late, and then had another layup where she did everything right – was in the perfect spot on the play, made the perfect cut, went hard to the rim, jumped at the correct time off the correct foot, put the ball up off the glass – and it just rimmed out. She was super frustrated after the game. But she battled when she was in there, getting a couple big rebounds and playing solid D. It just wasn’t her team’s day.

Other Kid Sports

M finally played her first tennis match of the year Friday. She got moved up to JV #1 doubles somehow. And she actually did ok, which was surprising since she refused to take any lessons over the past year. They lost 6–2 but every game competitive unlike many of her matches last year.[1] I wouldn’t say she’s made leaps, but she gets her serve in most of the time and can hit the ball halfway decently on returns. Good enough to win a few points in JV, even against a better team.

Because of prom a lot of girls were unavailable for Saturday’s match, so M was given a chance to move up to varsity for #2 doubles. But since junior class officers had to do prom setup, she had to decline. That was a nice ego boost, though.

The varsity team had a great week, winning three matches, including two over ranked teams. I don’t think they were ranked last week but should be this week.

C has run in two track meets after having two rained out. She’s run the 100 and 200 both times. Her times are faster than her CYO times, but there are A LOT of fast girls in high school, even in three-team meets. She’s generally run a later heat and been pretty far back in the overall standings.

I think she’s a little frustrated by that. Still, she enjoys being on the team and is always in a better mood on the days she has practice compared to the days she just comes home and takes a nap after school.

I must say, I would be happy if we could have a track meet when it wasn’t 52 and windy. Those were the approximate conditions for both of her meets so far. The 200 usually doesn’t get run until 7:30 or so, at which point it gets pretty nippy.

There were 26 matches, so everyone played a single set of no AD tennis. TWENTY-SIX!!! Good on the coaches for making sure everyone gets a chance to play. ↩

Weekend Notes

April 11, 2022 / DB

That was a weird weekend. No big sports of any kind. No basketball or football on the TV for the first time since Labor Day. No kid sports.

Sure, I watched some of the Master’s, but we were often busy during the peak watch times so I wasn’t able to give it a ton of attention. Plus it wasn’t a super interesting tournament this year, so when I did sit down to watch, I did not feel compelled to remain seated for hours.

Baseball has begun, but I’m in one of my baseball moods right now and not ready to dive back in. Out of protest at the owners’ bad faith during their lockout of the players, I cancelled my MLB.TV subscription rather than let it renew annually as I’ve done for at least a decade. A few days later MLB automatically put all accounts on hold pending a resolution to the labor conflict. But I still felt like I got one over on them, withholding my $120 on my terms.

I have yet to go back and re-up.

A big piece of that is the dishonesty and unfairness that the owners built their entire lock-out argument on. They wanted to prevent the players from taking their fair share of the revenue pie in a moment when said revenues are skyrocketing.

And as soon as an agreement was made, MLB started trotting out all these new ways that baseball will be broadcast. Each of which is a new revenue stream for owners but which also makes it harder for fans to see their favorite teams. National broadcasts that wipe out local broadcasts and require a subscription of some kind to see. Added to a refusal to adjust the existing, ridiculous MLB blackout rules, these are just another example of how hostile to fans ownership and the MLB office are. Throw in that it’s damn near impossible for a family with more than a couple kids to take the entire household to an MLB game without dropping $500+ and I can’t help but be soured on how the game is run and where it’s headed.

My little protest won’t mean a thing to any organization’s nor MLB’s bottom lines. But it’s hard to get interested in a game that really doesn’t seem interested in the fans in any way other than finding more ways to get money out of us.

Of course, if the Royals are playing well in a month I may cave and start watching again.

We did have one big family event on the calendar this weekend: M got inducted into the National Honor Society. The ceremony was Sunday afternoon and we drug her sisters along with us. They were thrilled. We told them we expected to do this again in two and four years for each of them, so no pressure.

That was the first moment in a big month for M. Prom is two weeks away. She has a dress, a date (a friend, they are going with a large group), and as a class officer is responsible for setting things up the morning of the dance. We’ve also told her to get serious about what colleges she wants to visit so we can start making plans to get on those campuses between now and September.

Planes, Marbles, and Automobiles

April 4, 2022 / DB

Events have lined up so that it makes the most sense to combine what should have been two posts into one today. I’ll try to be as brief as I can to both get it out and make it readable.

Spring Break ’22

Spring Break in Siesta Key, FL was largely a success. The weather was mostly good-to-great. We had the pleasure of spending time with a few sets of good friends. The girls all had friends close by for at least parts of the week. Our location was ideal – a block from the Village, Siesta Key’s central dining and shopping area – and our house served its purpose.

M brought one of her best friends with us and she stayed through Thursday. They had a couple good friends on the island and we rarely saw them other than when they came home at night and before they left in the morning.

C didn’t have any friends close, but one of her besties was up on Anna Maria, and she came down for a day, then C went up and spent the next day with her.

L had a few friends about that she kind of drifted in-and-out with throughout the week.

L’s godparents were staying not too far from us, and we spent three days with them on the beach. Two of their adult kids drifted in-and-out for parts of the week.

Our old neighbors – who we have traveled to Hawaii, Mexico, and Captiva with – flew into Ft Myers Wednesday and came up to spend Thursday with us.

There were also about a million Indianapolis Catholics on the island, so we were constantly running into people we knew.

Ahhh, I mentioned a few rough spots.

The winds were outrageous Wednesday and Thursday, while Friday morning was rainy. We still got decent beach time in each of those days.

When we arrived last Saturday the line for rental cars was massive. I stood in it for about 20 minutes when a guy came over and told us he had been in line for four hours and while he had been checked through, he was still waiting for them to give him his keys. He claimed there were two people working the desk and had to run back-and-forth to the lot to grab keys as cars were turned in and cleaned.

Who knows if that part was true, but the four-hour wait looked legit. Since we just had a reservation but had not paid, we decided to bail and get an Uber to our house. Two problems: we had M’s friend, which put us at six people and we couldn’t find a ride that would take six plus luggage. Second, only S had the Uber app on her phone and the network was fried, so my download was going to take hours.

We reserved the biggest car we could find, then asked that driver if he could hook us up with a second.

“I can call my brother! Is that ok with you!”

That was indeed ok! Especially if he let us pay cash.

Turns out they were two brothers from Colombia and thoroughly delightful. They got us where we needed to be and I had a great conversation with Mauricio over the half hour trip.

Monday I Ubered back and waited less than five minutes to grab a minivan for the rest of the week. If we didn’t have to take C to Anna Maria and bring M’s friend back to the airport, we could have skipped it. But it was nice to have.

That was minor compared to our issues getting home.

You may have heard Southwest had some issues this weekend (and may still be struggling). We got to the airport early for our 1:35 PM flight. Grabbed some seats near our gate. And sat and watched as we heard rumors that Southwest flights were having issues getting out while also watching the radar that looked completely awful just to our north. Soon the entire airport was on a ground hold because of that weather.

But our plane had made it in from St. Louis, and we watched a fresh crew walk onto it. Once the airport reopened, we would be good.

Or so we thought.

We waited for four hours before our flight was cancelled. Along with every other Southwest flight that had been sitting around. Sarasota is not a huge airport, but there were at least five completely full flights that just got taken off the schedule. Ticket counters had lines hours long. We heard there were also massive waits for help on the Southwest phone line.

As we sat around and tried to figure out what to do one of L’s friend’s moms texted me. “Mallory told me your flight got cancelled,” the text read. “We have a big SUV and I think we have room for all five of you. Do you want to ride with us?”

Yes, we did want to ride with them!

They were down in Ft. Myers, so it took some back-and-forth to figure out a plan, but they arrived about 90 minutes later, we piled all our shit in, and headed north.

We’ve made the spring break drive home from Florida at least twice, and know how much it sucks. I have to say, we totally lucked out. We drove through some weather for an hour or so, then some heavy fog for about an hour after that. But otherwise it was clear sailing all the way to Indiana. We had to make a brief detour to avoid a big slowdown near Seymour, but otherwise never wavered from our course or hit any stop-and-go traffic at all. It seemed like any other Saturday night, not one when a quarter of the country is making the same trip.

With three adult drivers we just passed off to each other and never stopped for longer than it took for eight people to use the bathroom, fill up with gas, and grab some snacks. We rolled into our driveway exactly 15 hours after we left Sarasota, which is pretty great time!

We heard lots of other people were driving back Sunday and traffic was its usual, awful spring break self. We are super thankful that our friends ignored the texts they were getting from other people looking for a ride and reached out to us, and that our drive home was uneventful.

So that was spring break 2022. Siesta Key certainly felt more traditionally “spring break” than anywhere we’ve ever gone before, between its packs of kids roaming around, more open drinking, and less stringent rules. Anna Maria, where we stayed last year, is getting more crowded, but still has a strict 10:00 PM noise curfew and more families with small kids than high school and college kids running around.[1] We would have loved to take our house from last year and plop it down on Siesta Key.

Jayhawk Talk: Marble Time

For the tenth time in history, and sixth time in my life, the Kansas Jayhawks will play for a national championship tonight.

I have vivd memories of most of those days, mostly of being unable to concentrate at school or work, or that I had a stomach bug in 2008 and watched KU win while in pain and with my head on a pillow.

I wonder how I will remember today years from now, or if being nearly 51 means the game will be imprinted into my brain much differently than the previous five.

I would love to set up tonight’s game with a recounting of KU’s cathartic win over Villanova in Saturday’s national semifinal.

However, as part of our travel issues Saturday, I didn’t see a minute of that game live. The Sarasota airport is tiny, and has only one restaurant/bar outside security. And that place was not seating anyone because they were closing.

Down in the baggage area, where we waited for about two hours after our flight was cancelled, there were no TVs at all. And because there were thousands of people flooding the cell network, I couldn’t get any sports site to load to even do a simple game cast, let alone watch CBS video of the game. I chatted with or waved to a handful of other very nervous Jayhawks looking for a way to follow the game.

So I relied on friends texting me at every TV timeout with score updates. I have to say, that’s a pretty stress-free way to follow a game! Especially when your team jumps out to a 10–0 lead and never looks back.

Our ride arrived with about 6:00 left in the game, just as Villanova cut the KU lead to six. We made a quick stop at Chick-Fil-A then I was given the first driving shift. While I ate my dinner. In a driving rainstorm. Fortunately we had a couple long red lights before we hit I–75 and I knew KU that had basically closed out the game before we got on the road.

It was the most anti-climactic Final Four game of my life. Well, I guess Villanova blowing us out four years ago was pretty anticlimactic, too. But this time I wasn’t feeling the full, pure joy I would be feeling had I watched live. I couldn’t really celebrate until we stopped in Valdosta, GA and I was able to catch up on texts and Tweets.

I did watch the game after we got home. What a performance! Ochai Agbaji found it again. David McCormack played the best game of his career. KU was fantastic on defense. DaJuan Harris and Christian Braun both hit some huge and timely shots. Jalen Wilson continued to destroy people on the boards. It may have been a reduced Villanova team, but they are still a bitch to play against and never stopped playing hard even when down 19. If KU had slipped up, they were fully capable of winning.

So much to be excited about after that game. But also so much to worry about, like the odds that Ochai starts 6–6 again, that Dave can play like that against Carolina’s bigs, that DaJuan will drill 3–5 3’s, that Jalen can do his rebounding thing against UNC, that we won’t leave Brady Manek open for 3’s, etc.

But I LOVE how this team is playing. Carolina presents some tough challenges and are playing as well as anyone in the country. In fact, over the last 10 games, UNC and KU are the two best teams in the country according to one statistical measure, with nearly identical offensive and defensive effectiveness numbers.

Maybe Carolina’s athletes are too much for KU, and having just beaten Duke they play free-and-loose and run the Jayhawks out of the building.

But they also have a first-year coach and just won a massively emotional game. Can do they bounce back and be as focused tonight?

I keep getting vibes off this KU team. The way they act on and off the court. Before, during, and after games. They way they keep picking each other up, with a different set of guys being the stars each night. I love how Bill Self has embraced the moment, saying it’s time for KU to make runs like this and finish them off. I love how the national narrative has become that this year is about finishing what the 2020 team was unable to do thanks to Covid.

I feel like this is their night and this is KU’s year. It’s been 14 years since they grabbed all the marbles. Anthony Davis and company kept KU from doing that again in 2012. I think Ochai, DaJuan, CB, J-Will, Big Dave, Remy, and Mitch get it done tonight, winning one for Jayhawks everywhere, and for Wilt Chamberlain, who came so close against Carolina in 1957.

Rock Chalk, bitches!

The night C stayed up there she said one of her friend’s parents got a $75 fine for having kids out on the balcony after 10. They weren’t drinking or smoking, just hanging out, making a little noise. Along with the fine came a warning that a second offense would mean they get kicked out of their home. They don’t play on AMI. ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

January 17, 2022 / DB

A lot of sports notes from the weekend. I should probably split this into a couple different posts. But it is a holiday and we all have a little extra time. So one extra-large post it is!

Kid Hoops

L played in her first-ever AAU tournament over the weekend. Or rather it was a “shootout”: a one-day, round-robin event focused more on getting teams games than declaring a champion.

Her coach told us that this was just a chance to get the girls together for the first time and get a feel for the roster. Seven of the ten girls played together last year. The girls haven’t had a proper practice together, just some light work at the end of their program’s twice-monthly, age-group training sessions.[1] Making it even more fun, L’s team is a 7th grade B team and this was an 8th grade A shootout. The coach stressed not to worry about the results, this was just about getting the girls on the court.

L had been really impressed with her teammates after their training sessions. After the most recent one she came home raving that all the girls were good and, most importantly, all of them knew how to run the offense. It drives her nuts that half the girls on her other team – let’s call them Jr T’s to differentiate – don’t run the plays correctly. We had a talk about playing time last week. She claimed she was fine not playing as many minutes for a chance to play with better players. I was glad that was her mental state. I told her if she doesn’t start and/or play much, that will give her the motivation to work harder to improve.

Her squad had three games Saturday. First game we played a team that was at least mixed with seventh and eighth graders. But their eighth graders were big. BIG. L had played against some of these girls in CYO ball before and I’m pretty sure they smoked us then.

We had eight of our players for game one. L’s St P’s buddy started, as she is our tallest player, but L was on the bench. The game started ugly. The other team pressed the hell out of our girls and we could not break it. We were down 8–0 or 10–0 before we even got a shot up. L checked in and didn’t help much, mostly because she didn’t get the ball. Another girl played lead guard spot and was not used to looking at L for help.

L played one shift without doing much. She came back in with about 5:00 to play and we were down 15–0. She got the ball in the deep corner, went baseline, and threw up a little floater than she has gone about 1–50 on this academic year. This time she swished it and we were on the board. She had a little grin on her face as she ran up cord.

A few moments later she got ahead of the break, received a great pass, and laid it in. In the last minute of the half, she got open on the wing from about 15 feet and drilled the J. It was 21–8 at half and L had six of the points, going 3–3 from the field.

She started the second half. She wasn’t as lucky this time, missing a tough layup, having a short jumper blocked, and badly bricking two free throws. She seemed to be meshing with her teammates more, though. We lost 43–20 but, again, expectations were low. She was pleased after the game.

Following an hour break and quick trip to Chipotle, it was back on the court against and all–8th grade team from Terre Haute. These girls were even bigger, and better. Everyone knew where to be on every play. They would get an offensive rebound, whip it to an open girl behind the arc, and she would drain the 3. Or the girl with the ball would draw the defense and then hit a cutter with no one on her. We lost this game 62–11 and it really wasn’t that close.

L started and again scored six points on a layup, a jumper, and two free throws. She also rebounded pretty well despite their size, made a couple nice passes, and even blocked the shot of one of their biggest girls.

Another hour off before the last game, against another big, all 8th grade squad. These girls looked super impressive warming up. Just as big as the previous team but more athletic and with a couple fast, small guards.

That team did not play to its ability. Or our girls just figured something out. We only had seven players for this game and they looked gassed at times. But they played hard, never trailed by more than 15, and closed strong to only lose 46–37. L started and scored seven this time, including a nice and-one that she cashed the free throw for. She also missed the front end of a one-and-one in the final minute putting her at 3–6 from the line for the day. She rebounded her ass off, probably her best rebounding game ever.

Her St P’s buddy – her name also begins with L so I need to come up with a way to identify her – had a nice basket at the hoop that she converted despite getting mugged. After the ref called the foul, L ran over and shoved her buddy, and sent her right into the girl that fouled her. That girl was not as excited about the play as our girls were. Fortunately L started laughing so there was no drama.

So a pretty good first day with the new team. L went from sitting the bench to starting five-straight halves. I’m not sure how good the two girls we were missing are. One of the other dads told me the coach had told him whoever started the third game would be his starters going forward. Who knows how that will work and when this team will play again, but I was proud of L for at least putting her name in the mix.

She struggled a bit in the half court sets. But, to be fair, most of the team did, even the returning girls. There was a lot of two girls standing in one spot or someone away from the ball bringing their defender to the ball instead of away. That will get worked out in time. When we got home I showed her videos of Kansas and Golden State running their weave offenses so she could understand how to pass in those sets. She kept bounce passing rather than tossing or handing off since she had never seen that kind of motion offense before.[2]

She proved to her teammates and coach that she deserves minutes. In fact, this was probably the best she’s played this school year. By my math she scored 28% of their points for the day. On the way home she noted, “It’s kind of weird I played better against 8th grade teams than I have against 7th grade teams.”

I’m hoping she can take that confidence and apply it to her Jr T’s team, which is all seventh graders from several Catholic schools. She was super frustrated about her play after their game last week. They play again tonight so we shall see.

Her AAU team may not play again for awhile. Most of the girls are on some kind of school team at the moment. They’ll have skill sessions and light practices every two weeks. The coach said they won’t really dive into things hard as a team until March and most of their play will come over the summer.

There was also a sixth grade boys shootout going on, and they played on the other courts and between L’s game. Those games are nuts. It’s all pressing and running flat out and chucking threes. Some of those kids are insanely talented, light years beyond what anyone I ever played with or against in sixth grade could do. I’m usually pro fast-paced offense in all sports (see below), but this was a little much. And those games are sooooo sloppy. Most of the coaches are psycho. Another check in the Better to Have Girls Than Boys column.

Orthodonture

L got her top braces put on last week, so these were her first games with them in. I asked her orthodontist if she should wear any kind of protection. Neither of her sisters played a contact sport when they had their braces so I never worried about it. He said you can get special guards, but he didn’t think it was worth it. At her games Saturday I noticed more than half her team had braces, and no one was wearing a guard. OK, then. I broke my glasses multiple times, and had to get stitches once when the frames sliced my eyebrow open, playing middle school ball. Teeth were never my issue.

KU

I missed the KU-West Virginia game while sitting through all the AAU ball. I did get the nervous texts from friends about the Twitter rumors that Remy Martin was out for the year. Wouldn’t be a college sports season without some kind of off-the-court drama.

I won’t get into the Remy stuff for now since it seems confusing and a little over-the-top at the moment.

I followed the score and then watched the recording on Sunday morning. That was a great performance by KU, likely their best of the season. It was, I think, the first time all year three players have balled-out at the same time. Who would have guessed that David McCormack and Jalen Wilson would be two of those?!?! I don’t think West Virginia is as good as their 13–2 second coming in indicated. Still, to hammer any Big 12 team by nearly 30 this year deserves a few minutes of satisfaction.

And on a day when Baylor lost their second-straight conference game, and Texas Tech also lost. A week ago it looked like Baylor would run away with the league. They might still do that; when healthy they are probably the most complete team in the conference. But, as Kansas State beating Tech and Iowa State being a couple shots away from being undefeated show, the Big 12 is going to be an absolute meat grinder this year.

I like that the conference is good, but I hate the way it is good: with seven or eight teams playing insane defense. That turns games into ugly slogs that are hard to watch. I guess that’s a good thing for the tournament, as playing non-conference teams will seem like a breeze after getting worked over by Big 12 teams for nearly three months. I certainly won’t complain if KU somehow comes out of this with another conference title, since that almost guarantees a one or two seed in the NCAA’s. I do reserve the right to complain about the aesthetics along the way. Especially if KU turns into a pumpkin in four or five of these games.

NFL Playoffs

The only game I watched much of was the Niners-Cowboys game, which was awesome as a neutral. The final, what, 18 minutes, were just tremendously stupid and entertaining.

Long-time readers will recall that I grew up a Cowboys fan, but have deserted them a couple times in my life. It’s been 12–14 years so I fully abandoned them because of Jerry Jones’ nonsense. But two of my college buddies I constantly text are Cowboys fans so at least watch their games these days so I can keep up with the conversation. I do enjoy watching the Fighting Jerrys lose, though. Especially in painful manner.

That was about the most painful loss possible. Get down big, early, at home. Get a break or two that allows you back in the game. Do some dumb stuff along the way. Then have your final shot to attempt to win the game taken away in a truly unique way. Running a quarterback draw with 14 seconds left and no timeouts, then watching the clock run out while the referee sets the ball has to be one of the five dumbest ways to lose an NFL game.

As I said above, I’m generally pro-offense, and enjoy all these wide-open offenses that make football so entertaining. But do we have to label all these coordinators and coaches as geniuses when they are constantly getting in their own way by trying to be too clever? Dallas converts a fake punt and then keeps the punt team on the field to try to confuse San Fransisco and ends up with a delay of game penalty that means their next fourth down is too far to go for it. And the Niners send a tackle in motion on a fourth and inches, which caused an illegal motion penalty and forced them to punt and give Dallas one final chance to win. Neither play was remotely necessary, and just examples of coaches thinking “Hey! I’ve got this great look no one has ever thought of before!” And using it in a high-stress situation that it has never been practiced under. Just dumb all around. And terribly fun to watch since I did not care who won.

I’m no expert, but the Bills-Chiefs game seems like it could be pretty good.

We didn’t put a ton of research into picking a travel hoops program. We just asked a parent we knew where his two girls played and signed up there. But L’s program just had their first “graduate” commit to a D1 program. And it was a doozy. A high school junior who is ranked in the top five in the country committed to UConn two weeks ago. Girl must be a badass if she’s committing as a junior. I’m expecting nothing less than a full-ride for L now. ↩
I even sent her a GIF of KU running it and told her to watch it five times a day. ↩