D's Notebook

Tag: Indianapolis (Page 1 of 6)

Weekend Notes

September 30, 2024 /

Another weekend in the books. This one had some familiar elements, yet was still quite different than other recent weekends.

Helene

The biggest event of the weekend was the remnants of Hurricane Helene kind of ruining our weekend. That’s overstating things. Other people had far worse weekends than we did because of the weather. But it was cloudy, breezy, and muggy at best all weekend. Off-and-on drizzle all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then about five hours of pretty intense rain and wind Friday evening as the biggest waves from the storm blew through between 5:00 and 10:00 PM.

We were very lucky. Our power blinked a few times Friday night, but never fully went out. Which is a miracle given that the line that feeds our house runs through dozens of old trees that are growing into/against it. I was sure at least part of the line had pulled loose at one point, as we kept getting little waves of partial outages. But we made it through. Lots of people around us lost their power for much longer than a few seconds.

We desperately needed the rain, so that was welcome. TV said we were somewhere between an inch and inch-and-a-half of rain for the storm. Normally when we get any significant rain our sump pit in the basement will make lots of noise as it fills and the pump ejects the collected water. It had been so dry here none of the rain made it to the pit and our basement remained eerily quiet.

Driving and walking around Saturday and Sunday there were tons of big trees and limbs down in our part of the city. Lots of power crews working to repair lines. We just had one small branch come down in our yard, along with lots of leaves. Again, very lucky.

We have friends who were not so fortunate.

Parents of one of S’s best friends live on Anna Maria island. We spent our first day of spring break this year at their house while we were waiting for our rental to open. Friday night they had water waist-deep inside their house. Our friend lost contact with them overnight, and she was freaking out. Fortunately cell service came back up Friday morning and they were safe. However, they likely lost everything they own inside the house.

S also found video of the place in Siesta Key where we are going for spring break this coming year. It took a lot of water damage. It is a high rise, so we are hoping our rooms aren’t on the first floor and got through without any damage.

She also has an old friend in Asheville, NC which is apparently in terrible shape because of flooding. S sent her a text and got a response, but no real word on how they are doing.

High School Football

Cathedral picked a great week to have a bye. I’m sure the coaches weren’t thrilled to have a hole in their schedule, but they were able to avoid having to deal with the weather.

Most games here Friday were postponed to Saturday. But some foolish schools decided to play. The worst of the storm was going through right during game times Friday. At their peak, the winds were gusting to around 70 MPH. Oddly there was no lightning associated with the storm, so most games that started just kept on going through the worst of it. A couple games kicked off then stopped when the power went out.

Although the Irish were off, I did have football plans for the night. Our friend Coach H was bringing his team to play NC, the school across the street from us. That game was moved to Saturday morning, so I walked over and watched with Mrs. H. Poor NC entered on a 32-game losing streak. Coach H’s guys did their job and easily extended that streak to 33 games. It was fun to catch up with Mrs. Coach.

The Jayhawks

As the season continues to go down the toilet, I can step back a bit and react from a distance. Noticing things like it’s interesting how you can be mad about one thing during a game, then afterwards realize you should be mad about something else completely.

During the loss to TCU Saturday, most KU fans were steaming about a series of replay reviews and calls/no-calls that went against KU. All were very close, but in the heat of the moment they all seemed horribly wrong.

After the game, though, it was clear KU didn’t lose that game because of the refs. They lost, mostly, because on three massive plays, they missed a total of 187 tackles. They let what is basically a fullback run a punt back over 80 yards for a touchdown. They had the TCU QB dead in the backfield only to let him slip away and complete a pass that not only secured a massive first down, but turned into another score when tackles were missed on the back half of the play.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes is taking most of the ire of KU fans because his offense seems unimaginative and predictable while former OC Andy Kotelnicki took his super-fun offense to Penn State and is doing amazing things. And Grimes deserves that ire. His offense is dumb and his play calling at times infuriating. Not giving the ball to the best running back in school history one time when you have first and goal inside the five is just stupid.

But the defensive coaches need to take their share of the blame. They haven’t figured out a way to either get consistent pressure on the quarterback or cover receivers downfield. There are far too many big holes for receivers to get open and run freely. On top of that, this team tackles terribly. It’s like they don’t practice it.

Last year’s defense often played bend-but-don’t-break football. This year they break early and often. They had three take-aways Saturday, and should have had at least one more. And still gave up 38 points.

Honestly, I think you can summarize this year compared to last like this: last year, KU got nearly every break. This year, the Jayhawks are getting none. Watching games, you always expect something to go wrong. I think the players feel that, too. Which means things can get rougher as they lose faith. You know what I always say about KU football and things getting worse…

Colts

Hey the Colts with an impressive win, dropping 27 on the allegedly fearsome Pittsburgh defense. Twenty of those points coming after Anthony Richardson, shockingly, left the game with an injury. Old man Joe Flacco can still fling it. The defense was incredible early and made a couple huge plays late to hold off the rallying Steelers.

Again, I refuse to judge Richardson until the end of the year. But, man, he threw a couple more just incredible balls in the first two drives of the game. Then he got destroyed on two different QB runs and had to leave the game. Will Levis was the other option for the Colts to draft a year ago, and he looks like a disaster at this point, so I think AR was the right choice. It feels like he’s always, always, always going to be a massive risk-reward player, though. He’s got some Joel Embiid in him where even when he does the right thing, he manages to get some total freak injury. But, again, I’m not judging him yet.

Oh, would you be surprised that there were a series of incredibly inconsistent calls by the refs in this game? They both helped and hurt the Colts. Between this and the KU game, I’m about done with football refs. Looking forward to basketball refs ruining my life in about a month.

Royals

The Kansas City Royals are in the playoffs! One year after losing 106 games. What a turnaround, and totally unexpected. I would have been thrilled if they got close to .500 this year. If not for a bad September, the R’s would have been well over 90 wins in 2024.

That stumble to the finish doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for the Wild Card series with Baltimore. But the playoffs are all about pitching and the Royals have three solid starters, when they are on, plus the bullpen has been terrific for the last month or so. If they can just find a way to string together some hits again they have every chance to advance. A Royals-Yankees divisional series would be fun for us old folks.

I expect these playoffs to be much less stressful for me than the Royals’ runs in 2014 and 2015. I’m less invested now, the games move quicker, I drink less than I did a decade ago, and I have lower expectations. I still need to add sunflower seeds to my shopping list so I can recreate some of the magic from those two Octobers.

Weekend Notes

December 4, 2023 /

Jayhawk Talk


What a game Friday night between #5 KU and #4 UConn! Since this is rolled into a Weekend Notes post, I’ll chop my thoughts up into chunks tied to the four quarters of the game.

Opening tip to 10:00: This is awesome! The Jayhawks are unbeatable! UConn are frauds! The crowd is AMAZING! Why is Jason Sudeikis hanging out with Sue Bird?

10:00 to Halftime: OK, that could have ended better, but we still have a seven-point lead. And most of UConn’s points were unreal makes at the end of the shot clock. We’re fine, but we need to get the offense back into gear.

Beginning of second half to 10:00: This team sucks. Bill Self is an idiot for not recruiting more shooters. Why is DaJuan Harris playing so bad? UConn isn’t even full strength and they’re going to beat us. I hate this game and sports in general.

10:00 to final horn: What a team! What a win! I love Kevin McCullar and KJ Adams! This was an incredible game and I would have been fine losing it because it was so well played. Bravo sports!

Then I proceeded to stay up another hour watching all the postgame interviews. That put me in bed around 1:00 AM. 9:00 PM tips are dumb. Especially on Fridays.

The Huskies are super tough to guard because of their motion and actions out of it, and KU shut them down for the first ten minutes and last 5–6 minutes. That was an incredible defensive performance. UConn’s comeback was largely fueled because only the KU starters could keep that level of intensity up, and it cost them on the offensive end.

Still a lot of questions about KU’s ability to score, but you toss them aside for a few days after a win that fun.

A bonus to the night was parents of a couple UConn players bitching about their seats. They claimed KU put them in the upper row. Once the game started and you saw two rows of UConn fans right behind the bench – the exact seats you often see Big 12 player parents sitting in – it was obvious someone in Storrs decided that the parents needed to take the upper level seats in their allotment while more important people got the cool seats. Typical entitled east coast BS. Besides, there isn’t a bad seat in Allen Fieldhouse. Even if you have to lean under a beam to see the court.

College Football

OH MAN, WHAT A MESS!!!! AND IT’S GLORIOUS!!!!

I don’t have a huge beef with how things shook out. You can make legit arguments for six teams, and with only four spots, someone is going to get screwed. Obviously a huge bummer for Florida State. It absolutely sucks to go undefeated in a Power Five, err four, errr three, Power Whatever conference, and get the shaft. Michigan and Washington were awarded for doing exactly that. FSU gets the shaft because their quarterback is hurt, which seems like an odd decision point. If you take Alabama, you have to take Texas, who beat Alabama convincingly in Tuscaloosa. Georgia had their shot and blew it.

It was garbage how the biggest topic of last week was not the games themselves, but the hypothetical that the SEC would get left out. Actually my beef was more with some of the horseshit logic used to carve out a spot for an SEC team. The SEC commissioner suggested that if you throw out Texas’ win over Alabama, Bama was actually the better team. Which, first off, is debatable. And then THERE IS NO BETTER DATA POINT THAN A HEAD-TO-HEAD RESULT. Until it threatens the SEC’s spot in the championship playoff. That’s when you throw it out.

The commish also suggested that the SEC deserved a spot simply because of history. There’s no doubt the SEC has dominated college football this century. That means nothing for this year. Georgia doesn’t get extra points for being two-time defending champs. Bama doesn’t get a bonus for being the best program in the game since Nick Saban took over. The playoff is about the games played in the last four months only.

I don’t buy into the conspiracy theories floating around that ESPN wasn’t about to let their future partner the SEC get left on the outside. It is, though, another blow to college sports that a lot of folks are buying into those theories this morning. I think it’s just a super flawed process that had no clear outcome that would have been fair to all. However, you don’t have to be a conspiracist to have known there was no way that it would be Alabama and Georgia who would get screwed in the process.

Mostly I got fired up because the SEC nonsense actually had me wanting Texas to win Saturday so they could put the squeeze on the SEC. I guess KU gets a cut of the Texas CFP payout, so that’s cool. But I’m all about Washington for the next month.

KU Bowl Game

KU goes to Phoenix to play UNLV. Which is kind of weird since the teams will play week three next season in Lawrence.

Seems like it should be a high scoring game, which is how all bowl games should be. I probably just cursed it into being a 17–14 penalty-fest.

Jayhawk fans are now holding our collective breath that no key players decide to sit the game out as they prepare for the draft. Which is dumb. For us fans, not the players. It’s dumb because this game is basically meaningless. It will be cool if KU wins its first bowl game since 2008 and gets its ninth win. Grand scheme of things, though, this is just an exhibition and if Devin Neal or whoever decide they’d rather protect themselves for their pro career, its just a bummer, not something to lose sleep over.

Colts

The Colts remain in the playoff hunt thanks to a truly stupid win in Nashville. Were this not already a pretty long post, I would dive into the details. I mean, the Titans punter got flipped completely upside down and that was NOT the play he might have destroyed his leg on. Let’s all just accept it was a stupid game in every single way and move on.

Holiday Vibes

We went to a Christmas party briefly Saturday. We hung out for maybe 90 minutes then bugged out. It’s not that it wasn’t fun. We just didn’t know a ton of people and weren’t super in the mood to mingle with strangers. Also, S and I both realized we couldn’t hear shit. Everyone was crammed into two connected rooms and our old people ears just were not working at all. S had a long conversation with a lady and I could only catch snippets of it because they were operating in the 5’1” to 5’4” airspace and my ears being a foot higher just could not keep up. I don’t think my hearing is terrible in normal settings. But, man, put me in a crowded room and it goes to shit pretty quick.

M has her last final tomorrow morning, so I’ll be picking her up around noon. We keep telling her that is super early, and our finals always went much deeper into December. I swear we usually wrapped things up at KU right around December 20. UC did not have a fall break, which I guess helps.

Her roommate is already done and went home yesterday. M also has some friends who have a final this Friday at 5:30, which seems like kind of a dick move.

This Weather Is Bullshit

April 26, 2023 /

After an amazing first two weeks of April, we had the inevitable backslide. I shouldn’t be surprised.

Last week was back-and-forth until Thursday night, when a cold front rolled through and sucked all the warm weather away with it. Monday morning it was 28. We had several chilly, gloomy days where it felt more like mid-November than mid-April. Although the sun is out right now – and will roast you if you are sitting in your car waiting for you kid to get dismissed from school – the thermometer barely made it to 60 this afternoon. Tomorrow is supposed to be 67, but that will bring another crash with more nights in the 30s and days in the 50s. It looks like we will be several days into May before we reach normal temps again.

The real pisser to all of this is that we opened the pool a week ago. When we were in the midst of those two weeks of way warmer-than-usual weather, the girls begged me to open it. I put them off at first, knowing the warmth wouldn’t last. M told me, “I literally don’t care about school anymore so I will swim every day.” So I sent our pool guy a message asking him to come by if he was in our area.

He said there was a chance he could make it Friday, April 14, but if not then he would be out the next week.

By last Thursday night he hadn’t arrived so I texted him saying that it looked like the good weather was done for awhile, could he slide us to the first week of May.

He shot a message right back saying he would be at our house the next day.

So they opened the pool on a day when it was in the low 50s.

The water temp was 59 when they kicked the pump on. I ran the heater all weekend until I got it into the 70s, then backed it off and am letting it sit in the high 60s until the girls tell me they want to swim. Nope, M has not been in the pool yet.

Anyway, pool is open, and we’re back to lighting money on fire until it gets too warm to run the heater. I had to turn on the deck jets on for a few minutes last thing Sunday night and first thing Monday morning to make sure those pipes didn’t freeze. Almost as much fun as owning a boat…

Weekend Notes

August 15, 2022 /

Some catchup from the last few days.

Shots Fired…Literally

Friday night we had our old neighbors from Carmel over for dinner. They like to rib us about moving from Carmel, which has little violent crime, to Indianapolis, which like most big cities has some issues. I joked that we hadn’t heard any gunfire from our home in over a year.

Later that night I was in bed, asleep, when I heard one of the girls talking to S. I rolled over and M and C were standing there. I heard them say something about hearing gunshots and police being outside our house. My eyes popped open and, indeed, there were flashing lights reflecting off the trees in our backyard.

I raced downstairs as C told me what she had heard and seen from her bedroom window, which looks out the front of our home. She said at 11:30 she heard a bunch of gunshots then saw a car make a quick U-turn on the main street our house sits off of.

When I got downstairs there was a police car blocking that street directly in front of our house, about 200 feet from our front door. Half a block down there was another police car, half a block beyond it a third. We could see police officers walking around with flashlights as if they were searching for evidence. Soon we saw them placing little evidence markers on the road. This was going on literally within shouting distance of our house, we’re talking 400–500 feet.

This was no bueno.

M must have been watching a lot of police shows lately, because she made the observation that no one must have been hit/hurt because there were only three police cars and no ambulances. I thought that was a pretty astute comment from a privileged kid like her.

As we watched the activity in the street, I pulled up the history from our front door camera and rewound backwards. Sure enough, at exactly 11:30, the quiet night was interrupted by a serious of gun shots. Seconds later you could see the lights of the car making the U-turn in front of our house. But no other cars ever appear.

The cops did their work for about an hour then left. It was a little hard to go back to sleep after that excitement.

Saturday morning I checked Nextdoor and saw a post from one of our neighbors. They had gone out and talked to the police when they first arrived. Based on what the cops found, they were assuming it was just a single car shooting into the air rather than shooting at another car, someone in a house, etc. They found 12 shell casings, which seems excessive to me. But I’m not a gun person. Maybe that’s a normal thing to do on a Friday night. Thankfully it doesn’t seem like the bullets hit any homes and, since it was 11:30 PM, there weren’t any people out doing yard work, grilling, or just hanging out as we had been doing a couple hours earlier.

There wasn’t a thing about the incident on the news Saturday. There were at least two murders in Indy that night, so some idiot emptying a clip on a dark street without any injuries didn’t move the needle.

An unsettling reminder of the world we live in.

Oh, L slept through the whole thing. And S didn’t get out of bed. I believe her comment to the girls was, “Tell your dad about it,” and went back to sleep. Apparently they are less affected by nearby gunfire than the rest of us are.

Fan Girling

The night before the first day of each school year, CHS seniors gather to TP the Hill. They take thousands of donated rolls of toilet paper and throw them over all the trees that line the main entrance to campus. Then on the morning of the first day, the students like the street and greet families by tossing toilet paper at their cars. It’s a mess, but it’s fun.

Wednesday night I volunteered to help serve food at the picnic before the TP-ing. I was given the highly coveted task of handing out hamburger buns. It was fun to see some kids I hadn’t seen since middle school, and to be greeted by M’s many friends. I even had a nice interaction with her boyfriend.[1]

If you are a college hoops recruiting junkie you probably know that, by one measure, the top senior in the country is in M’s class. He showed up, surprisingly, wearing a Team USA t-shirt (from a camp he was cut from) rather than any gear for Michigan State, where he recently committed. When he came through the line I offered him a bun, he accepted, said “Appreciate you,” and moved on.

A few minutes later M came running over.

“I saw you Fan Girling when X came by!” and made a face like I was starstruck.

I shook my head, “I was not ‘Fan Girling’, I just gave him a bun. And I’m disappointed he didn’t comment on my hat.” I was wearing my KU national champs hat. Not sure if he even glanced at it.

Anyway, I thought M accusing me of Fan Girling was pretty funny, even if inaccurate. I figure it was payback for me making fun of her Harry Styles obsession. Which is fair.

Hoops Tryouts

L had her tryout for the St P’s team Saturday. She said that she barely got to play. They mostly used her to set up other people so they could see how they played. She understood why – the evaluators know who she is, what her game is like, and that she had another tryout the next day – but was still bummed she didn’t get to ball more. That season starts in about a month.

The Sunday tryout was for a Cathedral-sponsored team that will play in the gap between the CYO season and when travel ball picks back up in March. She is excited to play with some girls she met at camp in June, and to learn from the high school team’s staff.

Her travel team jumps back onto the court this coming week, playing in a two-month Back to School league. She will re-tryout for that program in two weeks, although she will stay on the team she played for this past year. It’s just a way to get another $30 out of families.

Her (likely) final kickball season starts on Tuesday.

So Long Oooey Pooey

This weekend Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis announced that it was splitting into two schools. IU will take over most of the campus and call it IU-Indy. Purdue will still control the engineering and computer science programs, likely as an extension of the West Lafayette campus.

The reason given was simple: branding. While IUPUI billed itself as offering the best of both schools, no one really got it. And the name was endlessly mockable. I guess this will help them get more applicants/enrollees?

I did most of my graduate work on the IUPUI campus, but don’t have any real connection to the school. I doubt many people have strong feelings about the split. I think we will all miss the name, though.

  1. It is official, she has used the term around us.  ↩

Snow Day

February 16, 2021 /

Our long weekends got a little longer thanks to about nine inches of new snow yesterday. C and L were home Friday and Monday thanks to St P’s traditional President’s Day break, while M was just home Monday. All are eLearning today, although L had her assignments done in about 40 minutes and is currently playing Fortnite.

This was the biggest snowstorm we’ve had something like seven years.[1] It was nice for it to happen on a day when the girls were already out of school. We didn’t have to leave the house and could just sit and watch it slowly pile up. Mondays are S’s half-day so she was able to make it home before the roads got too nasty.

For awhile it looked like we could get well over a foot of snow, so just getting 9” seems like a bit of a letdown. It was still plenty to have to move this morning. Fortunately the snowblower worked after not being started for over two years. It took about an hour to get the driveway and walk cleared off. I’m not sure if that was too much for the machine or the snow was different across the street, but when I took it over to help clear our retired neighbors’ much larger driveway, it refused to move any of their snow.

In our backyard the snow of the past three weeks has made it nearly impossible to see where the pool transitions to deck and vice-versa. A crew has been building a pool house for us and that project has been frozen – literally – for two weeks because of the cold weather. They have piles of materials that are buried in the fresh snow.

IMG 3098

Somehow, for as cold as it has been here the last two weeks, we’ve missed the worst of this cold spell. I know I have readers in Texas, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska who have had much colder temperatures than we have. Tomorrow morning our low is supposed to be 0, which will be our lowest low of the year. We’ve had lots of days in the high teens and 20s, but none of the air temps below zero so many of you have experienced.

It’s been crazy reading about the weather in Texas, especially. I have a few friends down there who have been sharing their experiences. A couple have been out breaking up ice in their pools, because Texas pools don’t have covers or heaters. One friend lost power for most of yesterday and her home was down to 48 degrees when service was restored. And the whole rolling blackout thing that several states are going through blows my mind. I’ve never heard of those in the winter before. Nutty times.

The good news is that the sun is out, and its warmth is making the areas where snow has been cleared melt completely to reveal the concrete/asphalt underneath. I think that means it is officially pothole season! The forecast says it may actually get into the 40s early next week. It’s probably too much to hope for, but perhaps these past three weeks have been our winter of 2021 and more moderate days are ahead.

  1. Indy officially had a bigger storm just three years ago in late March. But I don’t think our house got the 10” that the airport got.  ↩

A (Gradual) New Start

January 4, 2021 /

Families in Indianapolis got an early Christmas present about two weeks ago when the county health commissioner said that schools could return to in-person classes beginning today, rather than waiting until Jan. 19.

St P’s normally starts the Tuesday after New Year’s Day, so today is a mini-virtual day with the kids having a few light assignments but no actual classes. Then they will be back the classroom tomorrow.

CHS will begin virtual classes tomorrow and return in person next Tuesday. They have an extra week’s buffer knowing high school kids were probably together on New Year’s Eve (M hung out with four friends who all come from families that seem to be keeping safe, although five girls spending the night together is probably not strictly a super-safe event…)

I think the girls are all happy with the change. I certainly am, although my fear is that this will be a short-term routine and schools will return to eLearning sometime between now and spring break.

This has certainly felt like the longest Christmas break ever, since the girls have all been home since before Thanksgiving. Not being able to do normal Christmas break stuff made it feel even longer. There were some friend hang-outs, but they were much more sporadic than they were a year ago. We didn’t go out to eat at all. Other than one car trip to look at Christmas lights with a couple nephews, we didn’t go to any holiday events. Family events were obviously much more scaled back. Fingers crossed that being in school is safe, but we all needed a change in routine after seven weeks home together.

Lots of content in the queue for this week. There are sports to discuss and a metric ton of media I consumed over the past month to review. My Friday Playlist pool is overflowing.

Hope all of you had good New Year celebrations, your families are healthy, and your homes are starting to return to some normal rhythms.

A Hunch Proved Right

December 9, 2020 /

My Christmas spirit is at an all-time low. I don’t think I’m alone in that this year, nor do I need to explain why. I’ve only watched a couple Christmas movies, I’m not reveling in Christmas music every waking hour, and we’ve had a couple hard discussions about what our family Christmas gathering plans should be.

But one thing has made me happy this season, and that is the life of a local radio DJ.

The same station has been “Indy’s Christmas Station” for something like 15 years now. It is a generic “hits from all decades” station, the kind that you hear in countless waiting rooms and businesses over the course of the year. It is also the station that plays the old American Top 40s on the weekends, which is normally the only time I listen to it voluntarily.

But from Thanksgiving to Christmas, it is my default. I play it in the kitchen, it’s my first choice in the car, etc.

A few years ago I mentally wrote some imagined biographies of the various DJs I heard during the month I spent with them.

The mid-day lady was active in her church and approximately 800 different crafting groups. She worried about some of the songs her program director made her play, so she always tried to include an inspirational message before she spun “I Want Your Sex.” She was worried about her daughter going to college, and prayed every night that she didn’t make poor decisions that would sidetrack her life.

The younger guy who covered evenings was stuck in a format he hated, but it was a paycheck and he had no ambition to look at other stations/markets. Plus his girlfriend had missed her period so he might just be stuck in Indy permanently.

The afternoon shift was handled by an older guy who had a big, jolly voice. I decided he and his wife were former porn stars now living semi-anonymous lives in the Midwest. They lived pretty boring lives but every now and then he thought about those old days, and the wild shit they did in the 1970s.[1]

And for the morning drive DJ, I really filled in the details. He was single and enjoyed watching the Colts and Pacers with his buddies. But he also enjoyed hanging out with the ladies in his cul-de-sac and watching The Bachelor and the latest Hallmark movies while drinking fancy cocktails. And sometimes he caught himself staring through his windows at the neighbor’s private chef, an Argentinian named Raul…

I felt kind of bad about that last one – which is probably why I never posted it – but it made me laugh.

A year ago I was listening and the morning DJ mentioned something about getting engaged recently, and how he had a post about going ring shopping on his blog. As soon as I got home I pulled up the station’s website, found his blog, and looked for the post. I let out a triumphant shout: the pictures showed him shopping with another man! I was right!

Oh, and good for him, of course!

From what I’ve heard the past few weeks, they got married not too long ago. Which, again, good for him/them! Even in 2020 it can’t be super easy to live a public life in the Midwest and be open about being gay. I would imagine he/the station get emails and calls of annoyance and protest anytime he mentions his husband. And I bet some folks have switched to a different outlet. But fuck them.

As happy as I am for him, I’m also more that a little pleased that my imagined biography for him was kind of true. And I wonder how closely my others are to reality. It is little shit like this that has provided a spark this season.

  1. This was obviously the one I’m most proud of. Later I found out he is a legendary DJ because he was one of the first blind DJ’s in the country. A blind porn star is a niche I didn’t know existed!  ↩

Racin’

August 24, 2020 /

I swore that I had written a detailed breakdown back in 2004 of my first Indianapolis 500 weekend living here, which until this year was the strangest Indy 500 day of that era. Alas, after checking the archives, I found I wrote way more about the crazy weather that day than about my experience on my first race day as an Indiana resident.

Yesterday was way stranger than 2004, which just featured tornado warnings as the race was ending. But, then again, everything is way stranger this year than any other year, right?

For starters it was super weird having the race in August. It just didn’t feel right. The entire month of May in Indianapolis revolves around the race. There is the Mini-Marathon, which includes a lap around the track, early in May. There’s the Grand Prix race, a recent addition but a nice warmup. Then there’s qualifying weekend, Carb Day, and the slow build up to race day itself. Once the calendar flips from April to May, the entire area has a different vibe that you can’t miss even if you don’t care about the race. Houses have checkered flags hanging from their porches, their mailboxes, or along their fences. You see people in certain industries associated with the race driving cars that are stamped with the race’s logo. The race is inescapable.

All of that was lost with the delay to August. I know I wasn’t the only person who, a week ago, said, “Oh, the race is next weekend?!?!” Even with qualifying and practice it still did not feel like the same buildup of energy and attention that comes in a normal year.

No spectators at the race was weird. I’ve only been to the race once, which was enough for me. But it is a normal part of life in Indy to know which of your friends are going, where they are sitting, if they have a “secret” route to the Speedway that cuts 15 minutes off their commute, etc.

And then the ending of the race was weird and disappointing. A single-car crash with five laps to go forced the race to end under yellow, robbing us of a potentially epic ending. Sure, the yellow finish could have happened in any other year, but it happening seemed extremely appropriate for 2020.

It was also strange for the race to be shown live in Indy. That only happened once, a couple years ago on the race’s 100th edition, when the Speedway was sold out weeks in advance. Normally Indy residents listen to the race on the radio – to what is a shockingly good broadcast – and then watch the replay in the evening if the race was exciting. But this year, with the stands shut, we were able to watch live on NBC with the rest of the country. I had the TV out by the pool on but had to duck inside soon after the race began to avoid the heat. It was funny to peek outside and get a five-second preview of what was about to happen thanks the to difference between getting the signal over the air versus via cable.

Normally the race-day flyover circles around the metro area as it times out its approach to the track properly. Last year a group of military planes of mixed vintages flew directly over our house twice before heading to the track. So I was very disappointed that the Thunderbirds didn’t come over our house. I could hear them once, as they veered away from Speedway and then back toward it, but could not actually see them.

As with every modified sporting event of this summer, I was thankful the race happened and hopeful that next May will bring a return to normalcy at the track and around our city.

With the exception of while we were away in Captiva, we have not eaten in a restaurant since early March. We finally broke that string Saturday, going out to lunch at a spot that we used to go regularly before we moved. We were hoping to sit outside but only two of the tables had umbrellas and those were both filled, so we took a booth inside. Which ended up being fine, as it was fairly early and there were only two other groups inside. Fitting the theme for the weekend, it was weird. You want to support locally owned places that are struggling to stay afloat. But I’m also not super excited to make dining-in a regular activity again just yet.

Covid Chronicles, 5/13

May 13, 2020 /

I’ve felt a lack of enthusiasm and motivation the past few days. School is winding down. M is done Friday. C and L are done next week. Assignments have already dried up and they’re just running out the clock. A few teachers seem to have checked out, too, which makes it tough to motivate the girls.

The news has devolved further, making me less and less interested in paying attention to what’s going on, and making my blood pressure rise when I do check in. I’ve starting to clear out my Twitter feed of some accounts that I very much enjoy and inform me simply because the stories they share are so infuriating.

The weather doesn’t help. This has been a wacky spring, full of swings back-and-forth. Which is what Midwest springs are supposed to be. But they’ve seemed especially wild this year simply because the nice days feel like moments of bliss and relief while the nasty days you can feel the walls creeping in on you.

Fortunately some of that may be changing. After today, we appear set for a long stretch of days near 80. It will likely rain several of those days, but at least it will be warm.

The crew was just here to open the pool. I’m guessing the girls will be jumping in the moment the heater has run long enough to make the water tolerable. It was 57 degrees last time I checked, so it may take awhile to get there.

L had a quick get together with her class Monday at a park. The motivation was so they could present their teacher with her year-end gifts and get a chance to see each other. Despite the cold, damp, raw day, we spent nearly 90 minutes there, mostly because all the parents were talking. The parents did pretty well with the social distancing. I’m not sure the kids did.

I think I mentioned this last week but every moment like that comes with very strong, mixed feelings. And then after the fact you wonder if it was worth it. It seems like being outside is the best way to safely interact with others, so I’m not super worried about it. This does seem to be how things are going to be for the foreseeable future, though: trying to balance safe and sane, hoping for the best in the process.

Normally S does not watch a lot of TV. Her evenings, in the past, were generally filled with hours of charting. She would come home, eat dinner, crack open the laptop, do one to four hours’ worth of charting, then go to bed. She has one show she watches, Outlander, and she’ll run through those seasons pretty quickly after they drop then re-watch them. There’s the occasional movie but otherwise she is not in front of a screen for fun very often.

Until the past two months. She has been extraordinarily busy at times, some days filled with 12 hours of conference calls and associated work. But she also has almost no charting and, after those first 2–3 weeks, the calls slowed down and actually left her with free time. (Worth mentioning that the calls are picking back up as her system tries to figure out the reopening process. This may be more stressful than the shutting down process as management is pushing for changes that no one seems happy about.)

That’s a long lead in to sharing how I think she’s watched more TV than any of us during this break. She’s plowed through a bunch of shows and movies. Most nights, and some afternoons, you can find her with her laptop and my headphones, laughing at whatever is currently amusing her. Often she’ll try to go to bed but can’t shut her brain off. I’ll come up an hour or so later to find her in bed, watching a show on her phone in the dark.

This break has sucked for all of us, but she’s had the most stress and responsibility throughout. I’m glad she’s found an outlet that allows her to check-out for a bit and actually have some fun.

Amazon delivery seems to be approaching normal again. There are still regular items that seem to be taking more like a week to show up, but more and more things show a delivery window within a couple days.

I’ve started gaming the system a little. Whenever I have a chance, I’ve been taking the second tier of free delivery that pushes arrival back a bit, but offers a credit for digital services in exchange. If I’m going to be buying more Kindle books than normal, I might as well collect some coupons to reduce that cost!

Indianapolis/Marion County just announced phase one of their reopening process. Restrictions begin lifting Friday. Restaurants can reopen to outside seating only next Friday. Man, I have no interest in being inside a restaurant any time soon. Not sure I even want to sit outside of one. I feel a little bad about that. The restaurant business is a tough one in good times. I’d like support locally owned places and their staffs by getting food and drink from them, tipping the wait staff, etc. I am not keen to be in any enclosed space with a bunch of strangers, though. I think we will be sticking to carryout for quite some time.

Covid Chronicles, 5/5

May 5, 2020 /

It feels typical for this stage in life here on earth that anytime there is good news, it is heavily balanced by awful news.

The worst, early hot spots are all calming down. Italy and Spain are taking steps to return to normal. The New York City/State area are trending in a positive direction. Across the US, many restrictions are being relaxed.

All that is countered by the brutal reality that we are likely moving back toward normal too early and too quickly. There is also heavy evidence that Covid–19 is just beginning to attack the more rural parts of the US, where healthcare is much more difficult to come by and, theoretically, its impact could be much worse without a medical support system to aid those who fall ill.

And then there are the numbers. You can choose to follow the model you want to, but they are all changing. And even for those of us who understood that this wasn’t a six-week event, who listened when physicians and epidemiologists and other experts warned of second and third waves, getting a whiff of normalcy only to be battered by the reality that the worst is likely still to come was a tough way to begin the week.

The thing that continues to hearten me is that a majority of Americans seem focused on doing all they can to protect themselves and their families. Most people think localities that are opening are moving too quickly, most Americans are reluctant to jump back into eating in restaurants, shopping in malls, attending sporting events, and doing other things that require us to squeeze many people into confined spaces.

Of course, there is a vocal minority of people who feel the opposite. I’m honestly not sure what to think about the groups who have protested in various capitals over the past week or so. I think some of these people are motivated solely by partisan politics, seeking to make noise in order to support the president and to disparage those who oppose him. I think you could throw out any Trump-approved issue, or subject that they viewed his opponents as using to weaken him, and they would show up with their signs and flags and assault weapons, claiming their freedoms are being threatened. The fact they are arguing against preventing the spread of a deadly virus just makes them look dumber than they normally look.

These people are easy to dismiss as nut jobs.

At the same time, I think there are genuine concerns within these groups that go beyond who holds what office. Moments of heavy government action are also moments that require a vocal opposition. This was true in the Vietnam era. It’s true today.

However, that message is undermined when they, or members of their flock, call Covid a hoax, start resorting to blame rather than seeking solutions, and seem more interested in grinding government to a halt than adjusting the government’s efforts to assist more toward their desired path.

People can be afraid of government overreach. They can be concerned about their businesses being destroyed because of shut down orders. They can feel that their voices are not being heard. They can present all of these grievances peacefully.

Showing up in large groups without masks, calling people childish names, while toting guns around and acting like those aren’t a threat of direct violence on elected officials needlessly complicates their arguments, turning them into emotional shouting matches instead of moments for true political discourse.

Restrictions began relaxing a bit here over the weekend. Indianapolis remains locked down for at least another week, as Marion County in the hardest hit in the state. We did allow M to visit a friend for a few hours Saturday. Then we went to our old neighbors’ for a fire pit that evening. Afterward I realized while the parents were being pretty good about social distancing, the kids were acting like kids: sitting near each other, throwing balls around, sharing phones, etc. After six weeks I think all the parents thought that the kids needed a release. I don’t think any of us were interested in being hyper vigilant about their distancing efforts. Sunday, though, I was re-thinking the entire thing.

I guess I’m likely not alone in that, and many of us will be going through those same mental battles for months ahead. We need to get out of the house, to see people, to do things in order to remain sane. But it is tough to know where the lines are and how rigidly we need to be aware of them. If two families haven’t left the house is six weeks, are we all safe? What about when another kid shows up and we have no idea how strictly her family has been locked down?

Along those lines I was part of a text thread last week that included several parents in C’s class, wondering what everyone’s thoughts were about getting kids together once shelter in place was lifted. The thread began on S’s first day back in the office, and since we had not had this discussion yet, I didn’t chime in until the evening. Throughout the day there were no other responses, either. Once I did share our opinion, mentioning that I had waited to talk it over with S, the rest of the group suddenly came alive. I had to laugh at how everyone was waiting to hear what the doctor said before they said anything. Or at least it appeared that way.

C’s class had an assignment a couple weeks back to send a letter to a classmate. She sent one off and received a couple. M quickly jumped on the idea and sent a whole stack of letters out. She sent so many I had to brave the post office to buy more stamps. She’s received a few back in the mail, had a couple dropped off at the front door.

I thought it was a pretty sweet little moment, as kids these days – kids these days! – don’t really use the postal service for communicating with friends very much.

Two weeks ago I went to exchange our backup propane tank for a full one. I went three places and each was out of new tanks. I did some quick searching online and found that there appears to be sporadic propane shortages. As soon as I got home I ordered a Weber charcoal grill.

It arrived last Monday and I’ve used it twice. I don’t think I’ve used a charcoal grill since college. I have some work to do to get my technique locked in. Despite using a chimney starter I don’t feel like I’m getting my coals hot enough. But I’m enjoying the experimentation. And the added flavor that comes with cooking on charcoal rather than gas.

Finally, after I took my shower this morning and came downstairs, L told me someone had been knocking at the door and standing there for several minutes while I was upstairs. I checked our security camera’s history and saw a young guy did come to the door, knock twice and wait before leaving. He had a logo-ed hat on and was holding an iPad, so I assume he was selling something. Exterminator services love to hit our neighborhood for some reason, so that would be my guess.

My first thought was that it was kind of strange to be knocking on stranger’s doors trying to push a product or service in the age of Covid. But what was really strange was that homeboy was not wearing a mask. I get how it would be creepy to walk up to someone’s door unsolicited with your face covered. But how on earth can you expect a stranger to open the door for you with your face uncovered? He didn’t have a mask pulled up over his hat or slung beneath his chin that could have easily been pulled over his face when the door was answered. Nor did he have one in his hand.

If I had been downstairs I most likely would have ignored him anyway. The lack of mask reduced that chance to zero.

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