D's Notebook

Tag: holidays (Page 6 of 19)

Weekend Notes

December 23, 2019 /

Last week was wild and wacky, which kept me away from my blogging duties. I’ll share some notes to try to get caught up before Christmas.

Family News

I’m very much a creature of habit. I can adjust most of the time. But when things get too out of whack, I do struggle. Last week we had four different schedules for five days of school. That really messed with my head and I was never sure what day it was or where I was supposed to be.

Monday and Tuesday we had one schedule: M on her finals schedule of 8:30-noon and C & L on a two-hour delay because of snow. (More on snow in a bit.) Wednesday C&L were back to normal but M only had one final, so I picked her up just after 10:00. Thursday M had her last two finals while C&L were on a regular schedule. And Friday M was home while C&L had 1:30 dismissal on their final day before break.

Oh, throw in that I squeezed doctor appointments in on Tuesday and Wednesday and a volleyball practice for C one night, and I felt like I was constantly coming and going.

The in-laws also arrived Wednesday night, which added another layer of complexity to things.

Fortunately everything worked out well. M did fantastic on her finals. I only nearly forgot about one thing on the calendar, remembering at the last minute that M needed to be somewhere on Friday.

Now we are in full Christmas vacation mode. Which means a lot of sitting around and doing nothing. M was complaining to me Sunday evening that she was bored. I reminded her that she’s not four anymore and she can control her social life by calling her friends and seeing if anyone wanted to go do something. I can’t wait until next Christmas when she’ll be driving.

Speaking of that, she wrapped up the online portion of her driver’s ed course Thursday after she completed finals. Depending on BMV hours this week, we’re going to try to go her get permit Thursday or Friday.

As I said, the in-laws arrived Wednesday. My brother-in-law who lives in Boston arrived with his family on Friday night. They are staying with one of his sisters. Saturday afternoon they came over, along with another of the locals and we had a mini-preview of how chaotic the holidays will be. There were four little ones running around with our girls. Well three running around; one is just learning how to sit up so she was pretty stationary.

The final out-of-towners arrive from Denver on Christmas night. That’s right, S’s entire family is in town this year, the first time everyone has been here in three or four years. We’re hosting a couple events, along with serving as the meeting point for an evening out. Saturday we’ll also be having some of S’s aunts and uncles and cousins over, pushing our head count well over 30. We have a big house, but I think it will be jam packed that day. Fortunately it looks like it may be close to 60 the back half of the week, so we may be able to kick on the outdoor fireplace and use the porch area for overflow.

Oh, last week’s snow. We got nearly eight inches from three snows over about 36 hours. Luckily both nights the snow stopped well before rush hour so the roads were at least so-so by the time we had to head out. C and L used the gentle slope of our front yard to make a slide for their sled. Once it got good and icy they could ride for about 50 feet before the up-slope slowed them down. It’s been over 50 the past two days and our lawn is slowly emerging.

One final big thing on the family front over the weekend: S had LASIK surgery Friday afternoon. Her eyes aren’t nearly as bad as mine, but as she approaches 50 she’s noticed both some changes in her prescription and less comfort while wearing her contacts. So she got them fixed (hopefully). I’m jealous, as my weak corneas mean I am not a candidate for the surgery. Otherwise I would have had it years ago. I wish I could still wear contacts but my terrible-ass eyes won’t even allow that anymore.

KU

I tried to write about KU hoops a couple times last week. Each time I prefaced it with the need to get some words out before they lost to Villanova. What a genius I was, seeing that L in advance!

That was such a frustrating game. For the first 10 minutes it felt like KU was much better and should be leading by 10+. There was the sense that if they could just get a couple deep balls to go down, they would pull away. Alas those shots never came, Nova righted the ship and forged an ugly 23-all tie at halftime.

With Marcus Garrett going out late in the first half to injury and the Wildcats getting hot early in the second half, I was ready to turn it off and go do other stuff.

But then KU got tough, clawed back, made some huge plays in the last four minutes, and seemed to have control of the game. Until Devon Dotson had the biggest KU point guard meltdown since Elijah Johnson in the Sweet 16 against Michigan. Going brain dead and getting picked from behind and giving up a layup, missing a huge free throw, and not closing out on the game-winning three. He had a chance to atone by forcing a Nova turnover, but ran terrible offense on KU’s two chances to score.

I was downright angry after the game. Not at Devon. Just at the general stupidity that went into losing the game. And to, once again, Villanova being the tougher, better team when they play KU. Those dudes aren’t flashy, they’re almost never pretty to watch. But they always freaking make plays.

Oh well, a one-point road loss to a ranked team in December that will hopefully highlight some areas the guys need to work on isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Culture & Media

Finally, there were two big nostalgia events for my generation this weekend: the release of The Rise of Skywalker and Eddie Murphy hosting Saturday Night Live. I’ll break those out for another post.

Weekend Notes

December 16, 2019 /

There were some happenings around our house this weekend.

The big event was M’s first true high school dance on Saturday, her winter formal. As you would imagine, this has involved several weeks of preparations both for her attire and who she would attend the dance with. And then the direct prep dominated our Saturday morning and afternoon when she got her nails and hair done.[1] She ended up inviting three friends over to get ready at our house then take pictures and ride to the dance together. That had a touch of drama as girls jumped in and out of that group because they either got dates in the last week or had other things pile up and limit their availability before the dance. But she ended up with a good group. Prep went well, the dance was fun, and she seemed to have a really good time.

That prep on Saturday did mess up one of her sister’s schedules. I never looked at the calendar Saturday morning like I normally do to get a lay of the day ahead. Thus I totally forgot C had her first volleyball practice that afternoon. I went out with S and L to do some Christmas shopping in-between M’s appointments and when I came home fell asleep watching basketball. I woke around 3:00 and C came down and told me we had missed practice. Fortunately this was the first practice, games don’t start until late January, and attendance is pretty spotty until we get through the holidays. I did feel bad, though, and apologized to her coach. Not sure if this is typical treatment of the middle kid or I should have saved this for L.

So this isn’t really weekend news but we did gain a new nephew on Wednesday. He surprised us, coming about a month early. Fortunately both he and mom are doing great, although he’s going to be in the NICU for awhile and we won’t be able to meet him until he’s released.

This was obviously unexpected and I was charged with picking his three-year-old brother up from preschool when my sister-in-law went to the hospital Wednesday. Little R has been around me a lot, but not a ton this fall. And it’s the first time in probably six months that he’s hung out just with me. Thus he had a confused look on his face when I picked him up Wednesday. As soon as I told him we were going to go pick the girls up he got a big smile on his face and jumped into my arms.

Same thing happened Friday when I picked him up from daycare. His cousin had already left and he had a meltdown over that. He was still wiping tears from his eyes when I showed up. When I told him the girls were in the car, here came the smile and he went running toward the door to see them.

I guess the girls are more popular than Uncle D these days.

Aside from those two big things, it was a fairly quiet weekend. We did a little holiday prep, as family begin arriving for Christmas later this week. I’m putting off much of the cleaning and arranging as long as I can.

This is the girls’ final week of school. M has finals today through Thursday. Her classes only run from 8:50-noon all week, with two finals per day excepting Wednesday when she only has one and finishes at 10:15. She’s nervous but seems pretty well prepared for everything.

A little wrench got thrown in our plans when the first big snowstorm of the year hit overnight. We got the call from St. P’s announcing a two-hour delay just before 6:00 AM. Fortunately there wasn’t enough snow to push CHS back more than the hour they were already starting late. We got between 3–4” of snow, which with the size of our driveway was enough for me to bust out the snowblower before S left for work. Good thing I made sure it was running on Saturday! We’re supposed to get 3–5 more inches of snow later today, so I’ll likely be using it again soon.

  1. The nails were one of her Christmas presents.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 9, 2019 /

It’s Monday. That means some of my patented Weekend Notes are in order!

Service Hours

M, C, and I went to a local food pantry to volunteer Saturday so they could earn some service hours. They were sent to man the produce table, while I spent the first two hours running the door where people waited to have their eligibility status checked.

Upon check-in, people received a paper ticket with a number and then waited in the lobby. I ran the ticker that showed what numbers could come up and get in line. Then I checked to make sure people were in the right spot before they went into the office for verification. Simple, right? Well it was, it’s just as with any line, people would get anxious and begin lining up before their number had been posted. Some people complained about that. Others would try to barge in line because they had, say, 150 and 210 was on the ticker. I did my best to be gentle with folks, telling them to please go to the end of the line, they will get through just fine. There were a number of people who did not speak English well, and they were sometimes a challenge.[1] A couple people asked me to straight up throw people out of line. I wasn’t doing that, I wasn’t going to yell at folks who were getting in line early. It was a cold, December morning, no one in line wanted to be there. I was polite and friendly to everyone and asked people to be patient. It was way more stressful than I expected, but I was thankful most of the people were indeed understanding of the process and I had some nice conversations with a few people in my two hours at the door.

Once the crowd died down they released me and I joined the girls. They had an interesting job. The entire pantry is set up like a grocery store and the clients are allowed to “shop” for their food. For most areas there is a steady supply of bread, cereal, whatever, and they make their selection. The produce table M and C were at, though, was a feast or famine table. Workers in the back would bring a big rack of produce up, the girls would set it out, and it would disappear quickly. Then they’d sit around for 10–15 minutes until another cart came out.

Both girls had worked with me at another food pantry before, so they were aware of both the service the organization provides and why people are there shopping. I wish they had a job that would have kept them busy the entire time rather than sitting and waiting, but it was still a good experience. It’s an extremely humbling experience. This is one of several food pantries in Indy and it was packed. I reminded the girls of that, and that a lot of people who need food assistance aren’t able to visit these pantries.

M has to earn half of her 15 service hours at one place, so we will likely be back again as she earned 4.5 hours Saturday.

We laughed at how a couple people asked the girls if they were twins. They certainly have some similar facial features, but they’ve never really looked much alike.

I also got in a lengthy discussion with one of the regular workers about the state of politics, our society, and the world in general. He was a very nice, smart, thoughtful man and our politics mostly lined up. But he was also really into conspiracies. I’m kind of looking forward to being an old guy who believes in the strangest possible explanation for things. Hell, there are plenty of people in this country right now who are way younger than me and believe in things that have no factual basis, so I really don’t have to wait I guess!

College Football

I napped through much of the Big 12 game, which was the most entertaining of the conference championship games. I’m kind of shocked that Baylor hung in until the end, especially since they were down to their third-string QB in the second half. I was not shocked that their third-string QB, who is a freshman, looks better than any quarterback KU has had since Todd Reesing left. Jeez…

Wisconsin got a lot of us excited in the first half and then laid a big turd in the second half of the Big Ten game.

The final CFP rankings made sense. I honestly think there’s a top three this year and Oklahoma, or Baylor or Georgia had they won do not belong in the playoff. Let Ohio State and Clemson play for the right to meet LSU in the title game. I’m a big LSU fan for the next month. I don’t think OU has much of a chance and hate the other two schools. Although I am pulling for Ohio State in their semifinal because I’m sick of Dabo Swinney’s whining.

Family Christmas Gift

Our washing machine died last Monday. It looks like either the bearings or transmission was failing, as I found water and transmission fluid on the floor after I did a load Monday. I scheduled a service visit but after doing some research learned that the likely repair, if possible, would run us at least $400. Since every big box hardware store had huge sales last week and most washers/dryers were 30%-plus off, we bit the bullet and purchased a new set, which was delivered Sunday. The old ones really weren’t all that old, maybe seven years. But these new ones are sooooo much quieter. After a cycle with Maytag appliances and a number of issues, we’re back with LG, who we had used previously and had no issues with. Hope these work out as well.

NFL Sunday

Man, the game of the year in New Orleans, I guess, with the 49ers pulling out a last-second win over the Saints. I did see the last 90 seconds, which were pretty eventful. But I missed most of the game because the Colts and Buccaneers were putting on a low-key great game in Tampa. That game was filled with great plays and back-and-forth scoring, like the game in New Orleans. It was also played very much how you would expect a game between two mediocre teams to be played. There were so many mind-blowingly bad plays by both teams. The Colts forced four turnovers yet somehow still looked utterly lost on defense most of the day. It kind of summed up this year’s Colts team. The potential is there, but they constantly shoot themselves in the foot. And now I’ve officially won my bet that they will not win 10 games this year.

  1. Mostly Spanish speakers, but there were several people who looked and sounded like they were from West Africa, a few Middle Eastern people, and a few Asian people.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

December 2, 2019 /

It was an enjoyable holiday weekend at our house. Some highlights…

KU Hoops

I’ll break this out later, but the KU-Dayton game on Wednesday was a fine beginning to the holiday break. That game is an argument for why college hoops is better than college football. Two very good teams going toe-to-toe in the season’s earliest weeks and a loss does not kill you for the rest of the year. Then again, in football that game has tremendous impact and meaning where in basketball, it’s just another in a series of fun if largely meaningless contests that come in the lead-up to March. So it’s a wash?

Coach K

While on the subject of college hoops, we had one of the greatest upsets in college basketball history Tuesday, when Stephen F. Austin went into Cameron Indoor Stadium and beat Duke. Now SFA is not a bad program. They’ve made the tournament a number of times in recent years and have even won a couple games. But this is Duke at home to an unranked, non-conference opponent. Shit does not happen. Ah, it happened, though, and in an especially satisfying manner with SFA collecting a loose ball and going full court to win at the buzzer.

And then Coach K told a reporter that on the day of the game, he was suffering from a minor health issue and “wasn’t himself.”

What. A. Dick.

He just has to casually roll this out to not only take away from SFA’s win, but also make it all about him.

Proud that I’ve thought he was a dick since 1986.

Turkey Day

For the second-straight year we walked one of the local races as a family. We were joined by a few other members of our family and some friends and walked the three-ish miles on a chilly morning.

We hosted the meal, but only had 13 this year, which is a pretty easy number to prep for. We did a large turkey breast, which for the first time ever I prepped with a brine. It turned out pretty good. I also did my standard Giada dressing, a corn soufflé, and some dandy mashed potatoes. We went way outside the box this year and eschewed the traditional pumpkin pie for a pumpkin cheesecake instead. It was real, real good as the kids say.

Holiday Vibes

I went out with some other dads on Tuesday night. When I left L was watching Elf on the couch.

Friday the tree and decorations went up, so the house is looking festive. That evening L and I did our first viewing of Christmas Vacation of the season. She’s watched parts of Home Alone multiple times already.

I’m off to a fairly slow start to my Christmas music listening routine. I expect I’ll round into form quickly since this is a quick Christmas season.

HS Football

It was state championship weekend here in Indiana.

C went with a friend to watch Chatard win the Class 3A state title Friday night. I tried to get her to wear her Cathedral sweatshirt, but she refused. The team that knocked Cathedral out in regionals ended up wining their second-straight 5A title that evening as well.

On Saturday, I watched my boy Coach H lead CHS to the 6A state title in a very entertaining game. They had a 20–3 lead going into the fourth quarter but needed to recover an onside kick and then convert two huge third downs to kill the clock and close out the 20–17 win. The game was beginning to feel like the state title game 11 years ago when the same two teams played and CHS blew a 19-point lead in the fourth quarter. This was was even more impressive since they were down to their third string quarterback by the fourth quarter due to injuries. This was Coach H’s second state title as a head coach.

College Football

Whoa doctor, the Iron Bowl was a good time! There were so many “Oh shit!” moments in that game. It was an utter delight for a relatively neutral, if generally anti-Bama viewer.

Most of the other Saturday games kind of sucked. Was there any doubt that Ohio State was going to lay some wood on Michigan? They should just stop playing the game and save everyone the trouble. And Fox really needs to stop calling it the greatest rivalry in college sports until Michigan wins a few again. Wisconsin-Minnesota was decent for a half, especially in the blowing snow. I bounced around the other games, but none were terribly compelling.

KU Football

Welp, about as bad a way to end a season as anyone could have hoped for. KU looked thoroughly uninterested in putting out any effort against Baylor. It was not realistic to think KU had a chance, but after some close calls against Texas and Iowa State earlier in the year, I sure hoped the Jayhawks would at least still be in the game, I don’t know, more than three minutes into the contest.

It was easy to get bummed out about the ugly close to the season. Given how the other nine years in the worst decade in the program’s history went, this felt like more of the same. Fact is, though, that for most of the season KU looked much better prepared and coached than they have since 2009. They lost four games by one score. Make a play here or there and steal just one of those and four wins feels like great progress. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s going to take a couple years to get back to mediocre, if Les Miles can in fact do that.

I don’t ask for much for Christmas but a quarterback and some linemen would be high on my list this year.

Pics

Sunday we planed on taking our family Christmas card picture. S got the girls up early and took them to a salon to get their hair styled. We had a beautiful outdoor display picked out to take photos in front of. And then a 45-minute trip to the salon turned into 90 because M has so much hair, and by the time we were ready to take pics, mixed snow and rain was falling. Not ideal for styled hair.

So we adjusted on a the fly and went to the local mall where we lined the girls up on the opposite side of the giant tree that Santa was greeting toddlers in front of. We snapped off some pics and were done in about 10 minutes.

Afterward the girls commented on how easy that was. To which S and I said, “No shit! We’ve been trying to tell you this for years!” Soooo many thoroughly terrible picture taking experiences because one kid or another was in a shitty mood and messed it up for everyone. Soooo many tears from the girls and yelling from us. I’d like to think we’ve turned a corner and all family picture experiences will be great from here on. I seriously doubt that is the case, though.

Colts

Yep, think they’re about done. And looks like I will get to collect my beer bet with my friend who insisted back in September they would win 10 games.

Outnumbered

November 18, 2019 /

There are moments when the lack of respect I get in my house is unbelievable.

Example: yesterday S and I used the relatively warm and dry afternoon to put up some outdoor Christmas lights. Part of our post-pool construction landscaping was adding seven Norwegian spruces to our backyard to provide some privacy. We decided to add them to our holiday decorating by wrapping them in Christmas lights.

(We also have five new Norwegian spruces in our front yard, but they are over 250 feet from the nearest power outlet. While lighting them might be more pleasing to passersby, it would also be a lot more work, so we stuck with the ones in the backyard. Plus the ones in the back are visible from all the rooms inside where we spend most of our time.)

It took 90 minutes or so – the tallest of these trees is just 8’ so there was minimal ladder use – and turned out pretty well. We had the lights on as we put them up to make sure the spacing was right, everything worked, etc. As it was a dreary day and L was playing at a friend’s house, we decided to leave them on until she got home so she could see them. Then we would turn them back off until after Thanksgiving.

Well, I decided that and said something to S about doing exactly that as M walked by.

“NOOOO! Leave them on!” M yelled at me.

“But it’s not even Thanksgiving yet and you know my rule,” I responded. “No Christmas decorations, Christmas music, or Christmas movies until after Thanksgiving.”

“THAT’S STUPID!” she screamed at me. She was a bit of a beast this weekend but her reaction still seemed a little over-the-top.

I turned to S for support and she shrugged and said, “I think we should leave them on, too.”

This is how my efforts to create family traditions are rewarded: I’m yelled at and told they are stupid.

I should add that L watched The Grinch Saturday night.

Nobody listens to me, nobody cares. The B girls have apparently declared war on my Christmas traditions. I guess we should give their gifts now and sleep in on Christmas day.

Other weekend notes:

Cathedral lost in the regional round of the football playoffs. They had a 10–7 lead over the #1 team in the state, had first and goal late in the third quarter, but could not punch it in and then missed the field goal. They quickly gave up a touchdown, fumbled and gave up another touchdown, and then it turned ugly. They lost 35–10. A great season that ended with about 12 minutes of bad football.

The Oklahoma-Baylor game Saturday was crazy fun to watch. Well, I only saw the second half but had followed the first half online and through the texts from a friend who was attending the game with his daughter who goes to BU. Probably should have seen the Baylor meltdown coming, given how they had been lucky to get to 9–0. OU was just dominant in the second half, which is real testament to their players and coaching staff. They could have easily said, “Screw it,” and packed it in.

Feel bad for Tua.

We watched some of L’s classmates win the B2 league City championship Sunday. It was a tight affair through three quarters, St P’s led 4–3. They ripped off eight unanswered points to take home the trophy. Some of us were joking about how big every basket would be when the fourth quarter started. When St. P’s scored their first bucket of the run, one dad turned to us and said, “Well, that should do it,” and we all laughed. Youth basketball kind of sucks.

On the way home I asked L would she rather have been on the A team and had to play the really good teams and lost the way her team lost, or have been on a B team, scored more points, and won City. Without delay she said the A team.

Weekend Notes

November 4, 2019 /

As has become routine, a quick-ish rundown of what went down over the weekend.

Halloween

OK, not technically the weekend, but worth a few words about how the girls spent Halloween.

M went to a friend’s house to hang out and watch movies.

C, along with most of the girls in her grade, dressed as Dalmatians. They didn’t quite make it to 101 but you get the idea.

And L dressed as Robin from Stranger Things and joined two friends who were dressed as Dustin and Steve from the show.

The big thing was that this was the first year ever our girls did not trick or treat in our old neighborhood. Last year we were still trying to sell the old house so we went over to turn on lights, put a car in the driveway, and then hang out with the neighbors. This year C and L were in separate neighborhoods near St. P’s, hanging with school friends.

Although I missed the annual dad chili cook-off and sitting in the driveway and drinking, it was nice to drop the kids off, come home for a quiet evening, and then go pick them up when they were done. We only had one group of three trick or treaters at our house. That was mostly because it was snowing, the windchill was in the 20s, and kids were not spending a ton of time outside.

World Series

Again, not officially last weekend. But that was some game seven, with the Nationals coming back to win with a 2015 Royals-like, late-inning rally. I’m still in a little shock that the Nats were able to pull off the upset. It will be interesting to see if they’re any good next year, between having the oldest roster in the league and a number of free agents to be.

L Sports

Basketball on Saturday. A nice win by eight over a team that was a good match. She scored one basket.

Soccer on Sunday, a makeup of a game that she was supposed to miss. She was kind of reluctant to play, we think because of getting hurt in her last soccer game. But she ended up being very glad she went. They won 5–1 to clinch first place by two games. She had an assist and then, finally, a classic L goal. She had a defender on her heels, faked her both directions until the girl turned her hips, cut the ball inside, flicked it outside to get an angle on the goalie, and then finished. She raised her hands and threw her head back, as if she, too, was saying, “Finally!” This was her only goal that was from her work this season, rather than a tap-in or from the penalty spot. Think she was glad to know she still has it.

Royals Hire Mike Matheny

Not happy about this. At all. His one, glaring weakness in St. Louis was his inability to handle young players. That’s what the Royals need right now, someone similar to Ned Yost who can nurture the young prospects as they begin working their way to the majors.

But I also thought Ned was a bad hire and he clearly learned from his failures in Milwaukee, although he was still driving us crazy deep into 2014.

So I guess I’m open to being surprised if Matheny ends up working out. Doesn’t mean I have to like it right now.

High School Football

Friday was week two of sectional play. Cathedral had a bye in week one so it was their opener. On a cold, clear night they ran up a 38–0 lead before halftime, played the sophomores through a running-clock second half, and advanced 38–13. M and C really wanted to go, so I bundled up in my ski trip clothes and sat through it. Thank goodness for that running clock. This Friday they play the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year. That team has won eight straight games so it should be a good game.

KU Football

One of the most reliable things in fall is KU coming off a big win, there being excitement around the program, and K-State kicking their ass and sending us Jayhawks back to reality. Bill Snyder may be gone but the math remains the same. For now.

Just an ugly loss. Pushed around on both sides of the ball, Carter Stanley playing his worst game of the year, and not converting when they had chances to keep the game close early.

I didn’t expect to win. I was hoping we could keep it competitive, though. There’s been progress, but still a long way to go.

Colts

I was at L’s game when I heard groans go up. I looked at my phone and saw that Adam Vinatieri had missed another field goal, this one that likely would have won the game. So two of the Colts’ losses are directly on him and his misses. He gets credit for winning last week’s game – although his misses in that game made the game-winner necessary – so he’s still trending to the bad side. It might be time, Adam. It might be time.

Of course, none of that matters if Jacoby Brissett is out long-term. Brian Hoyer was decent yesterday. But if the Colts have to rely on him for multiple games, I think winning my bet that the Colts will not win 10 games is back in play.

Belated Holiday Wrap

May 29, 2019 /

A quick holiday weekend wrap up.

It was a strange Memorial Day weekend. For the first time since 2013 we were not at the lake. As the weekend got closer, it kept feeling very strange not to automatically have plans and to not have people asking us, “You going to the lake this weekend?” As other friends went off to their own lake homes, and as the temperature and humidity climbed, I did have a few moments of wishing we still had the house. Especially since L and I were right down the hill at camp Thursday and Friday.

Ahh, but then I remembered all the reasons I was so for getting rid of the lake house even before we bought our new home here and any regret quickly fell away.

We had a pretty laid back weekend at home. Saturday evening we had some of the local family over for a cookout. S and I are really enjoying her sisters having two and three year olds. Not that our girls don’t have their issues. In fact two of them got into it during our gathering Saturday. But with teens you yell at them, take away their phones, and send them to their rooms. With two year olds, however, they just keep sucking the life out of you. S and I tipped our drinks to each other a few times as one parent or another was getting frustrated by a toddler that wasn’t listening to them. Our only jobs are to make sure the kids don’t get into any dangerous situations and don’t get any food or drinks near our new furniture. The rest is on the parents.

Sunday was race day in Indy. We did what people in Indy who don’t go to the race do: projects around the house while listening to the race on the radio. I remember how weird I thought that was when I moved here. “You listen to a car race on the radio?!?!” Now it’s a regular part of my Memorial Day weekend. We were cleaning gutters when the Air Force flyover circled over our house twice, which was pretty cool. Later in the evening we went out with our old neighbors at a very cool area in Carmel. I swear, Carmel has gotten like 80% cooler in the 11 months since we’ve moved.

Monday L and I went out in the morning to play some golf. Well, she played foot golf while I played nine next to her on the pitch-n-putt course. The course was very wet since it has rained about 97 straight days here, so she struggled in her first attempt at foot golf. I told her to kick low line drives so they would roll, but the first time the ball hit the ground it would quickly get water-logged and come to a halt. She “kicked” a 40 or something like that. She’ll do better next time. It was also her first lesson in golf etiquette, which she didn’t always get. When I told her the ball farthest from the hole always hits first, she took that very literally. She thought I should walk behind the green and see how far my ball was from the hole before she kicked her ball that was short of the green. Luckily after a couple holes she caught on to the concept of ready golf.

Monday evening we went to a party for a nephew’s third birthday. He’s the first of the local boys to turn three, and his two younger buddies were both there. The birthday boy was very happy to share the unwrapping of his gifts with his cousins, which was a good thing since I’m not sure everyone understood it wasn’t their birthday, too. There was a lot of grabbing of bags and taking things out and then playing with new toys before the birthday boy even got a chance to see them. There were also some tears when gifts were taken away and given to the birthday boy. Again, S and I laughed and laughed, and got the hell out when things looked like they were spiraling out of control.

Summer has not begun for us. M is in school until Thursday. C and L go through next Tuesday. The schedule is stupid this year but, I must admit, I voted for it 18 months ago. Of course, I thought we would still own a lake house at the time and figured an extra weekend in August is better than one in early June. I’ll know better next time…

Season’s Greetings!

March 20, 2019 /

You may have noticed something very important was missing around here last holiday season. Yes, I never linked to the newest edition of The Hater’s Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog, the annual gut-bust of a read. Good reason for that: Drew Magary, the mad genius who puts those together every year, suffered a sudden and major health issue last December.

Fortunately he has returned, apparently in good health, and realized the phrase better late than never applies to internet parodies as much as anything else.

So, for your reading pleasure, here it is:

The 2018(ish) Hater’s Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalog

The “(yes, THAT Roy Shvartzapel)” line made me laugh the hardest.

Weekend Notes

January 22, 2019 /

Our holiday weekend was both busy and lazy.

We watched one of our two year old nephews from Friday night through Monday morning. He’s a really good kid – smart and funny and loves being with the girls – but you do kind of forget how exhausting that phase of life is. The repeated questions. The bizarre mood changes. The out of nowhere finickiness when eating. The failure to grasp basic logic. We love having him but it’s a relief to pass him along after a few days rather than face his barrage of Two-ness constantly.

But the weekend was mostly good. The big bummer was our expected snow storm came through about 12 hours later that initially forecast, and by the time we could get him outside to play the windchill was in the single digits. So we only took him out for about 10 minutes, made a slow lap around the house looking for icicles, and then went back inside.

M went on her first ever ski trip Sunday, down to a hill near Cincinnati with a group of other middle schoolers from North Side Catholic schools. She had a great time. She had never tried skiing before. Late in the afternoon she sent us a video of her zooming along rather nicely. All without taking a class. She had a great time and is excited to go to Colorado some winter and try skiing with her cousins.

As for sports, I’ll save the KU stuff for a post later in the week. Our nephew-watching duties cut into my football viewing time a little on Sunday. I actually slept through most of the first half of the Rams-Saints game and then turned the TV over to the kids while I made dinner. I started getting texts about a terrible call and then it took me five minutes of searching before I could find the remote to switch back to the game. It was after that game ended before I finally saw a replay of “The Call.” Man…that was brutal. How many bullshit DPI penalties do you see every game and then they let that go? Utterly amazing. If I was a Saints fan I would probably still be rioting.

I kept the TV on while we ate dinner and had one eye on the game. But somehow I missed that Greg Zuerlein’s absolute bomb of a field goal was for the win. I muttered “Wow,” between bites of taco lasagna, thinking it was just a great kick. Then I saw Rams running on the field and realized the game was over. That was a wacky, wild game.

For the Pats-Chiefs game, I watched the first two drives then had to run out to pick M up. By the time I was home it was halftime and I just had this feeling that A) the Chiefs would get back in it but B) the Patriots would manage to pull it out.

My football picks generally suck but this one was right on!

For most of the third quarter we were watching a movie with the nephew before bedtime. But I was able to sit down and give the game my undivided attention roughly mid-way through the fourth quarter. Which was the perfect moment to pick things up. With about 5:00 left I – semi-jokingly – texted a couple friends saying there would be four more scores in the game. I was wrong; there were five.

For an non-partisan viewer, those final five minutes plus overtime were fantastic to watch. And the best part was Tony Romo calling every damn play before it happened. I don’t get how some viewers are put off by this. And I don’t get why no other analyst is as good at it as he is. Does he watch more film than them? Are they told not to do it, as he apparently was told by CBS for part of this season? Or does he just have a gift no one else has? It was an amazing football game taken to another level by his insights.

I’ve heard plenty of bitching about the NFL’s overtime rules. In general I agree with those complaints. The overtime rules are already tweaked for the playoffs since you play until there is a winner. Why not make a second minor tweak and say that both teams get a chance with the ball, regardless of how the first possession plays out? Ending the season based on the whims of a coin toss seems counter to what the NFL is all about.

Then again, every sport is somehow compromised by its overtime rules. Soccer is strange, with different tournaments having different rules. College football is dumb. Basketball likely gets it best: add five minutes and keep playing. But team fouls also carry over, so you begin overtime with teams generally being overly penalized for every foul. Playoff hockey is fantastic: add a fresh 20 minutes and repeat until someone scores. But while those extended overtime games are often breathless viewing experiences, the play can get very choppy because of exhausted players.

I’ve heard some folks say the NFL should just go to a fifth quarter in the playoffs. Add ten minutes, play it out, and if someone is ahead at the end you have a winner.

I think the fairest way is to ensure each team gets at least one possession in overtime and then sudden death kicks in. No need to play out the last three minutes if one team kicked a field goal and the other scored a touchdown.

Anyway, another January disappointment for Chiefs fans. Another January of listening to Patriots bullshit. How long until pitchers and catchers report?

Weekend Notes

January 7, 2019 /

It is the last day of Christmas vacation in our house. It might hit 50 for the third-straight day, but no one seems real interested in getting outside and doing something. Probably has something to do with me telling everyone their rooms need to be cleaned up before anything else gets done today, and no one is moving all that quickly to start cleaning. C does have a volleyball practice in a bit, but other than that looks like one, final, lazy day to wrap up two-plus weeks of them.

So let’s look back at the weekend.

KU

Man, that’s about as shitty of a weekend as I can remember for KU sports fans. There were the big events: Udoka Azubuike getting ruled out for Saturday’s game at Iowa State because of an injury suffered in practice Friday, the Jayhawks getting run off the court in the second half by the Cyclones, and then Sunday’s announcement that Udoka is done for the season.

And then two smaller events, one of which that is, really, bigger: Gary Woodland getting caught by the red-hot Xander Schauffele and losing the Tournament of Champions by one stroke and former KU football great – and father of a current Jayhawk – Kwamie Lassiter dying of a heart attack at just 49. Seriously, there was a lot of bad texting amongst my KU friends this weekend.

The loss to Iowa State was miserable. Despite playing terribly, KU was still in a good spot with 1:00 to play in the first half. It was one of those “If they can survive the next minute, get into the locker room, make some adjustments, this is anyone’s game.” Then then gave up a bad and-one, followed by a bad possession on offense and a 3-pointer by Iowa State that, effectively, ended the game. The second half was brutal. Iowa State, who I had read was not a very good 3-point shooting team, hit just about everything they threw up. The KU defense seemed only mildly interested in guarding anyone and in the last 10 minutes often stood and watched while ISU had a glorified shoot around.

So a bad loss on paper, but in the grand scheme of things, it was just a single loss. One I had chalked up at the beginning of the year, a belief that was reinforced when Udoka’s injury was announced before the game. KU had a lot of work to do to get better, but Bill Self is always able to adjust and get the best out of whatever his mix of talent is. As long as Dok didn’t miss more than a couple games, KU would be fine, although the Big 12 race would clearly be a dogfight.

And then the Udoka news broke Sunday. This will sound dramatic to all you non-KU folks, but the season is over. In a season after a Final Four appearance, and in which they began a national title favorites, the loss of Udoka from an already flawed team means all the lofty goals of November are trashed. The Big 12 streak will end and KU will be fortunate to get to the Sweet 16.

If KU could suddenly find an elite shooter who had immediate eligibility I would hold out hope that they could right the ship. But this team’s fatal flaw is that it has zero reliable outside shooters in an era where you need multiple guys who can hit the 3. There’s no getting around that.

Some people have been saying today, “Well, if Silvio De Sousa gets eligible, that changes things.” He’s not getting eligible. If it was going to happen, he would have been cleared by now. I’m sure KU is doing everything they can to get him cleared, but that ship has sailed. He should head to Bosnia, or wherever Billy Preston went last year.

That’s not to say this is a terrible team, or that I will not still watch every game with great interest. In fact, this season suddenly becomes pretty much stress-free. Knowing the Streak will end this early in the season means there’s less pressure on the next 16 Big 12 games. Losses on Big Mondays won’t mean I’m awake until 3:00 AM replaying what went wrong in my head. The Big 12 race will suddenly be about KU being spoilers rather than favorites. Knowing they don’t have a chance to make a repeat trip to the Final Four should make March games much more tolerable to watch.

It all sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.

Colts

As KU was losing in Ames, the Colts were hammering the Texans in Houston. As I understand it only a pass interference penalty and a tipped interception kept the Colts from leading 35–0 before halftime. I was switching over during commercials enough to get the gist of the game without all the details. As impressive as the Colts performance was, I do temper my enthusiasm a bit knowing they were playing Houston, the biggest frauds in this year’s playoff field.

Now it is on to Kansas City for a very, very interesting matchup. The Chiefs should be healthy favorites; I give the Colts about a 10% chance of winning. As good as the Colts’ defense has been this year, they’ve not faced an offense like the Chiefs’. But the Colts’ suddenly stout running game makes an upset not entirely out of the question. Get a lead, start pounding the rock, convert third downs, anything can happen. Not that the Colts have ever beaten the Chiefs in the playoffs before, so there’s really nothing for my Chiefs fan friends to worry about Saturday…

Other Football

I caught parts of the other three playoff games. I’m really not sure what Seattle was thinking on offense, although I’m not an expert on these things. I laughed at all the people who were saying “No one wants to play the Ravens!” a week ago after the Chargers pounded them. I did see that stretch at the end of the third/beginning of the fourth quarters when the referees somehow managed to totally botch three consecutive plays in at least five different ways. All those guys should be done for the playoffs. And the last couple minutes of the Eagles-Bears game were simply fantastic for neutrals. What an ending!

Spidey

C, L, and I went to see Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse yesterday afternoon. It was really, really good! I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’m not into movies based on comics,[1] nor was I a comics fan when I was little. I do recall owning some Spider-Man comics, though, and recognized the sense of humor that was unique to them in the movie. L has always been a Spider-Man fan, so she really enjoyed it. As we were walking out, we saw a little guy, maybe four, in his Spider-Man costume. She had the same costume when she was younger and I bet she would have worn hers if the movie had come out back then.

Weather

I think M is the only one complaining about our mild weather. She was supposed to go on a middle school ski trip yesterday to some hills down near Cincinnati, but with it being well over 60 down there, the trip had to be postponed for a couple weeks. She was most annoyed about having washed dishes for a month to pay for the trip. “If it doesn’t happen, I will have washed all those dishes for nothing!” she whined. I let the comment go, lest she think it through a little more and demand cash in exchange for her services.

Back to the grind tomorrow. M and C will get their volleyball schedules soon. We’re counting down the days until spring break. And after the first semester wraps up next week, M will be in her final semester at St. P’s.

  1. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the modern Marvel or DC movies other than Ant-Man.  ↩
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