Tag: Indianapolis (Page 5 of 6)

Wrapping Up The Week

January 30, 2009 / DB

It was a busy week here. Let’s try to catch-up.

First, we had the sixth biggest snowstorm in Indianapolis history. They measured 12.5″ at the airport. I had 10.5″ at our front door, although I think we might have had another inch on top of that based on how things looked away from the house. Of course it hit during a week when S. was on the day shift, so there was no sleeping in and letting the snow fall. I got the driveway cleared out just in time for the plows to come do our street. They saw me and did a good job of keeping our drive entrance clear, and S. had no trouble getting out of the neighborhood or to work. I’m just glad the previously flat tire on the snowblower held air. Shoveling that much would not have been cool.

We had a snow day on Wednesday, then school was delayed today. On top of that, S. got called into work (for the first time ever) Wednesday night because of an illness. So the girls and I had some quality time together. We reached the point where they got to watch whatever they wanted on TV as long as they left the baby and I alone for awhile. I was able to get the big sisters out in the snow Wednesday afternoon. They loved it, although C. seemed to think that since there was so much, she needed to swim through it. She kept getting down on her stomach and crawling through it. Perhaps she’s part penguin?

While we were busy hunkering down under the snow, the Royals went out and did a good thing. They signed Zack Greinke for four years. Others have written more and better than I can about the contract, and there is a little debate about how good a deal it is for the Royals, but I think it’s a great move. Sure, there is a lot of risk in the deal, but I think both sides enter it with some risk. Given the recent history of the Royals, they have to accept a little extra risk in order to get deals like this done. Now, if Gordon and Butler can round into form, Crisp rediscover his Cleveland persona, and the top prospects in the minors continue to develop, this is a franchise that has every chance of competing in the division in two years. A couple of Dayton Moore’s moves this off-season have been curious, at best. But getting Greinke signed makes up for a lot.

Of course, since these are the Royals, something is sure to go wrong.

Super Bowl: Don’t like either team, don’t know who to pull for or against. I have a feeling things are going to get ugly, though. The Steelers might kill old man Warner, which would bring on the high comedy of seeing Matt Leinart on the field in the Super Bowl.

You may have noticed something missing from the blog this month: no Reader’s Notebooks. I’ve been struggling so far. Part of it is out of a desire to read more lengthy books this year. I only read one or two books than were longer than 300 pages last year. But I think I also needed a break after doing 54 books in 52 weeks last year. Anyway, I’ve read one book so far, but it took forever to get through. I’m working on a bigger one that requires more effort, and am just getting a few pages a night knocked out.

And with that, happy weekend.

A Day At The Races

May 19, 2007 / DB

It was a, how shall I put this, fast paced Saturday for us. First, I ran my second 5K of the year in the morning. The last race I ran was longer than 3.1 miles, and this one might have been shorter because I came in at less than 27 minutes, and I wasn’t running hard enough to clock that good of a time. Oh, and I’ve been running like once a week, so it’s not like I’m on some great training regimen that cut my time down. It was a fundraiser for a local middle school, so I think there were more kids running than adults, which ended up being mildly annoying. I had at least three kids stop right in front of me and turn around to see where their friends were. One girl did it four times, and if she hadn’t been like 4’4”, I thought about plowing her over to teach her a lesson the fourth time.

Then, in the big excitement of the day, I finally made it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. S.’s hospital had an event that they gave us tickets to, so we got a sitter and headed out to the track. I’ve been by the Speedway once or twice, but never actually in it. When we drove under the track and into the infield, I was amazed at how big the facility is. From watching the race, you know it’s about a mile from one end to the other, but when you’re actually in the middle of it and can sense the space, it’s pretty amazing. We got to the track just as it was opening for practice and qualifying, so right away we could hear a car zooming around us, taking 40-odd seconds to travel the same distance it took me about 20 minutes to run earlier in the morning.

When we got over to the pit area, this year’s Flavor of the Month, <a href=”http://www.sports-wired.com/women/Milka_Dunno.html”>Milka Dunno</a>, had just emerged to talk to the press after her qualifying run. She was all smiles and waved to everyone. We were probably 30 feet away from her, but behind two rails that kept the riff-raff out, and about 30 media people who were crowded around her. I got a couple poor pictures of her. A sister-in-law had gone to Friday’s practice session and said Milka was hugging people and taking pictures. I was really hoping for a hug.

We repaired to the suite were the hospital crew was set up, ate some lunch, and kept an eye on the TV to see when full practice, and a track full of cars, would start. Our suite was at track level, and behind pit row, so we couldn’t actually see any action from where we were. When 11 cars hit the track, we raced out (get it, raced out?!?!?) and grabbed some seats to watch. I’m no fan of auto racing, but I have to say it was very impressive both seeing and hearing the cars shoot by at 220 miles per hour. We were sitting just past the start-finish line, and from the time the cars got about one-third of the way down the front stretch, you couldn’t hear the person next to you. I can’t imagine how loud it is when NASCAR racing is going on. I tried to take some pics, but the cars are just too fast to capture with a basic Canon digital camera. Luckily, I got a few vids, low resolution which look pretty crappy when funneled through YouTube. But here’s one.

We watched for about 20 minutes, went back to the suite, then used our garage passes to wander around all the team garages. We timed it wrong, and hardly saw any cars out of the garages or drivers wandering around. There was a constant crowd around Danica Patrick’s garage, but no signs of her. I once heard a woman ask one of the crew members who was hanging around, in a whiny tone, “Is she in there?” And there was Danica gear everywhere. It’s pretty impressive how popular she’s become without ever winning a single IRL race. All day I kept thinking of last week’s The Office and wanting to put Kevin to work on a Danica vs. Milka list. Now there’s a productive use of time!

We headed back to our seats one more time to watch Al Unser Jr. wrap-up his qualifying run. The old timers are very popular, and he got a huge ovation when he qualified. On our way out we went down to track level, just behind pit row to watch from there. With all the people who have pit access, and the flat sight lines, you literally only see the cars for an instant as the shoot by.

It should go without saying that there was excellent people watching. Lots of silicone-filled racing groupies. Lots of women who were dressed like groupies but really should not have exposed any skin. Lots of folks who, well, just come from a different world than a suburban boy like me. Not saying they’re bad people, just very, very different. And everyone was very nice, regardless of how they looked or where they came from.

It was very cool, I will admit. However, I can’t imagine watching that for three hours. You can only see a portion of the track from your seats. I’m sure if you do it enough, you develop a system for figuring out what’s going on, but if something important happens on the half of the track you can’t see (and that’s if you have good seats), you have to rely on the TV screens to figure it out. It’s like only being able to see half the field in a football game. “What? There was a fumble?” Just a strange sensation. And on race day, with 33 cars spread out over the length of the track, I don’t think you could talk to anyone for the entire race, which would be maddening. I would like to go to a NASCAR practice, I’ve always said that, just to experience the sounds of that kind of racing. And I will happily accept if the hospital does this again next year. But I don’t see me sitting at the Speedway for an entire race. But another notch in my famous places in Indiana visited list.

First Snow

December 9, 2005 / DB

Between 7-8″ in our driveway. Hours of shoveling fun. Remind me why I didn’t buy a snowblower when I still had a job.

Strangeness Is…

November 16, 2005 / DB

Leaving a restaurant after having dinner on November 16 to the sounds of tornado sirens blaring. Odder still is the temperature dropping from the mid-60s to a wind-chill of 18 over the course of 10 hours. All of Indianapolis will have a hacking cough within three days.

Hail Storm

April 24, 2005 / DB

Friday afternoon was a little intense. One of S’s med school friends was in town and he stopped by with his girlfriend, who is originally from Nebraska. They were preparing to leave around 5:00 and as we opened the door to let them out, pea-sized hail starts falling. They decided to wait out the hail, so we went back inside and continued to talk. A couple minutes later, I thought I heard something and shushed everyone. Sure enough, the tornado sirens were going off. Astute readers may recall that as I learned in our first week in Indiana two years ago, sometimes they turn the sirens on here even if there’s no hint of a tornado. So I flipped the TV on and sure enough, there’s a tornado warning for our county. The four Indiana natives (plus one baby) head for the basement. The Nebraskan and the Kansan (that would be me) rush to the windows to start looking for funnel clouds. Maybe I am a nerd.

It was raining and blowing far too hard for a tornado to be in the neighborhood, so as soon as the hail passed, our guests left. We were still in a warning, and according to the weather people speaking breathlessly on TV, the offending storm was within a few miles of our house and headed right towards us. Terrific! I dig storms and all, but now that I own a house, I’d prefer if they avoided my neighborhood.

The whole tornado thing ended up being a dud. Nothing was ever spotted on the ground, and although the worst of the storm indeed went right through our neighborhood, there was never any need to head for cover. What we did get, however, was the most intense hail storm I’ve ever been in. I’ve been in some hail storms that dropped massive stones for 30 seconds, or a minute. Friday we got quarter-sized hail, non-stop, for between five and ten minutes. Along with it, massive, tropical-storm like rain fell straight down in sheets. At one point, we couldn’t see the houses next to ours it was raining so hard.

When the hail finally abated, the ground was completely covered with the stones. As I write this on Saturday night, there is still a pile of it outside my office window. Our deck had so much hail on it that not only could I not open the back door, but all the seams in the deck wood were sealed with it and the rain was just pooled on top of it. With all the bright green leaves floating in the mess, our deck looked like a particularly offensive mint julep.

We had another round of heavy rain and winds later in the evening, then Saturday the weather turned frigid. We had snow flurries throughout the day and even snow covering some surfaces Sunday morning. All after over a week of near-80 degree weather. As always, when it comes to weather, the midwest sucks.

Big Night For Indy HS Hoops

February 4, 2005 / DB

Tonight is the big matchup between Carmel and Lawrence North. Or, for the hypesters, Duke-bound Josh McRoberts and future phenom Greg Oden. Hoops fans will enjoy the references to past matchups of top flight talent in Indiana history. The game is on TV on tape delay. I’ll try to remember to record it and share my thoughts next week.

Super Bowl Prediction:
New England 28
Philadelphia 17

All I Want For Christmas Is A…

December 22, 2004 / DB

…snow-blower. The great Christmas storm of aught-four has yet to reach our neighborhood. Unless you have to be out driving in it, it’s frustrating to be sitting on the couch, watching inches of snow pile up just a few miles south of your house on TV while nary a flake falls at your home. We’re supposed to get ours this afternoon and evening, but will be fortunate to get 4-6″. About an hour south, they’re looking at 12-18″. Lucky bastards. You see, the more it snows, the more likely the neighbors with snow-blowers send one of their kids over to clean off our drive. If we just get a couple inches, I’m going to have to take my ass out in the cold to shovel tonight/tomorrow.

More later today regarding Christmas lists past. Be thinking about some of your favorite gifts over the years.

Holiday Weekend Kickoff

December 20, 2004 / DB

I would imagine some of my regular readers will begin disappearing in the next few days for shopping and traveling in preparation for the holidays. Other more occasional visitors may stop in more often thanks to the free time the holidays provide. Happy holidays to all.

The big news in Indy today is the new stadium/convention plan which was officially announced this morning. If approved, a retractable roofed stadium will be built just south of the RCA Dome in time for the 2008 NFL season. The deal will satisfy the NCAA and keep the Final Four coming back every five years, will allegedly get at least one Super Bowl visit (I say one only, if any, as cold weather cities aren’t loved by the NFL), and keep the Colts in town for 30 years. I watched part of the mayor’s news conference today and was most impressed by the fact the agreement with the team has no outs in break the lease. Any sports fan knows teams can easily break leases anytime they want, but it does provide some measure of comfort and security to a city that is tenuously holding onto its franchise. In recent years I’ve become more and more wary of stadium deals that are primarily funded by the public. Several cities have built new stadiums entirely with private dollars, so I get frustrated when people automatically say it can’t be done. It most certainly can be done. The Irsay family is kicking in $100 million of the $500 M estimated cost, but also get back $48M for naming rights and lease elements at the RCA Dome they’ll be giving up. If they keep resigning players to ridiculous contracts, I suppose it will even out. Keeping the Colts here is a good thing, I think, and with the first generation of life-long Colts fans coming into adulthood with the ability to buy season tickets, hopefully a fancy new stadium with 20-25K more seats will be full on a more consistent basis than the current stadium has been in some years.

What’s this I hear about Johnson County making noises about building a new football stadium and luring the Chiefs across the state line? I think that’s delicious, just because it would set off a whole new round of cross-border nonsense. People ask me why Indianapolis has been able to do so many things in the last 15-20 years to improve downtown where KC has failed. The answer is simple: no state line dividing the population (and to a lesser extent, no river diving a municipality’s tax base either).

Like most fans of the mighty University of Kansas Jayhawks basketball team, I’ve begun my annual vigil for Wayne Simien’s health. He needs to be healthy in March, so I’ll gladly exchange a few games now to ensure he heals if that means he’s not dinged up in two months.

I discovered Saturday that M. really can’t relax when she’s trying to sleep on me during a game. Apparently I get pretty tense, which she senses. Shocking, I know. That was a downright pathetic performance by KU though, so I think it was understandable that I would be worked up. Did they all go out drinking before the game or something?

South Carolina in many ways is a poor man’s Oklahoma State, which caused me much worry. Thankfully the Pokes don’t come to Lawrence for awhile so there’s time to improve.

It is still difficult in some ways getting over the Roy Williams era and coming to terms with the Bill Self era at KU. Under Roy, if we fell behind by ten points, you always knew exactly what the team would do to try to respond, and see quickly whether they were going to be successful in coming back. Since Self does different things each game, I never have any idea if we’re going to be able to right the ship before it’s too late. It’s an unnerving feeling after 15 years of comfort. At the same time, I trust Bill a lot more to examine what’s going on in the course of a game and react with ways of attacking the other team rather than just running the same 12 plays over and over.

Speaking of horrible games, the first 25-30 minutes of the Indiana-Missouri game yesterday should be erased from all tapes and never viewed again. I’m not sure how many top 50 recruits were on the court, but I think the argument can be made that never has so much talent played so poorly. My Mizzou friends will appreciate the fact I kept my wife from calling any of you when IU got a 17 point lead. Her occasional interest in sporting events gets the best of her when her alma mater actually plays well. I reminded her of IU’s 18 point lead against MU a year ago and how that game ended up. Good old IU didn’t disappoint, did they? I was disappointed that Mike Davis showed some restraint and didn’t charge after the officials following the no-call on Bracey Wright’s last drive to the hoop. He did give the refs the Mike Davis Face, though.

Was Spencer Laurie in the game just to injure someone? That was a nasty elbow he threw at Bracey’s nose.

I think the announcer on the IU network had someone from MU/the Laurie family sitting next to him peeling off $50 bills each time he mentioned “beautiful new Mizzou Arena”. He literally called it beautiful each time he mentioned where it was being played. I don’t doubt it’s a good looking facility, but did he have to say that every time? Get a thesaurus and throw some other adjectives at us!

I worked on a number of posts over the weekend. If I survive the mall later today, I’ll try to get some more posted.

Too Much, Too Soon

December 10, 2004 / DB

I think it’s safe to say last night’s broadcast of the Lawrence North – Poplar Bluff game was a bit of a dud. It was certainly an entertaining game, but that’s not why ESPN decided to show a high school game. They wanted to see Greg Oden go off. If Tyler Hansbrough also happened to put up huge numbers, all that much better. While both players had good halves, neither played like LeBron James did two years ago. And therein lies the problem. I’m not against high school games being shown nationally, but I do worry about the risk to the players. For the hyped up stars, you run the risk of being called overrated or a bust nationally if you don’t perform as expected. What about the 5’2” 105 kids that are on every high school roster? Do we need to see their shots blocked into the second balcony? What LeBron did in his ESPN performances set the bar unrealistically high for everyone that follows. With all the pressure these kids have on them already, I wonder if it’s worth it to heap more on their still growing backs. I’m sure all efforts will be made to get Lawrence North on national TV again before Oden leaves.

Hansbrough is a total stud. He also has the look of a crazed killer in his eyes. I think he’ll do nicely with a coach like Roy Williams, who demands complete buy-in to the system. I think it’s safe to say he started the game a little ticked that he was barely mentioned in the lead-up to the contest. Can’t say I blame him.

Thank goodness Oden got loose in the second half and gave viewers what they expected, five dunks. That’s the curse of being 7′ tall and so young. People expect you to dunk all night. He could have scored 40, but if he did it on hook shots and jumpers, people would have called him soft. He is a joy to watch, though, because you can tell he cares about being part of a team and, like most 16 year olds, his game is flawed. As much as I enjoy watching great players, I also enjoy seeing someone like Oden who has so far to go to become great, but you can see the learning/developing process taking place.

Biggest impression from watching the game was how tall Oden is. I think people who regularly watch basketball lose perspective of height. We’re so used to 6’8” guys running around that they seem to be normal. Guys who are 6’4” seem short, even though I’d be looking up ever so slightly at them. Seeing Oden stand next to guys who were 5’7” or so put into perspective how huge the kid is.

Tonight’s local broadcast includes Duke-bound Josh McRoberts from right here in Carmel. M. cooperating, I hope to see him healthy for the first time since I moved to Indy.

Indy Sports News

December 9, 2004 / DB

Yesterday was some day for Indianapolis sports fans. The Colts made a major statement about the future of the franchise. There was continued fallout from the Pacers-Pistons brawl. The Indy 500 suddenly got a lot more interesting. And Mike Davis was up to his old tricks. Thoughts:

The big thing that jumps out at me from the resigning of Marvin Harrison is that the Colts now have close to $60 million guaranteed to two players, have another major free agent to worry about, and several B+ level free agents they need to resign this off-season. Oh, and they continue to play in the smallest stadium in the NFL, which they had difficulty selling out before this season, and have a stadium plan in front of city and state leaders that has been met luke-warmly by many. Resigning Harrison and publicly stating a desire to keep Edgerrin James tells me if the Colts and city can’t get a new stadium deal wrapped up in the next 12 months, Los Angeles football fans can start looking forward to having a team again relatively soon. Even with a new stadium, I’m not sure this city can support an NFL team to the level the team needs to bring in enough revenue.

I have no problem with any of the charges filed by prosecutors in Detroit against Pacers and fans from the riot last month. Even if found guilty (Why plead the charges down when there are civil suits to be filed?) none of the players risk serving any jail time because of the charges and their lack of prior offenses. I think this is a good way of furthering the messages to all professional athletes to keep their asses out of the stands no matter what.

As for the Indy 500 getting more interesting, the Letterman-Rahal team hired on 22 year old Danica Patrick as a driver for next year. Anytime a major team like this brings in a rookie driver, it’s a big deal. The Patrick addition is doubly interesting because she’s a woman, and triply interesting because she’s, well, quite attractive. I think we can all agree that people in the public eye should not be judged by their physical appearance first. They should be allowed to let their actions as entertainers, athletes, politicians, whatever be the first thing they are judged by. But it sure doesn’t hurt to be a tasty little treat. It’s worth noting that despite never winning the 500, Sarah Fisher has been voted the most popular driver in the Indy series for several years in a row. By all accounts, Patrick is a better driver than Fisher, and she’s attached to one of the most powerful and popular ownership groups in the sport. Throw in the fact she’s a looker and open wheeled racing may finally have found a way to compete with NASCAR! I found it amusing that on the local news I watched last night, the sports anchor didn’t say a word about Patrick’s off-the-track qualities, but left it for the John H’s favorite female news anchor to say, “It’s safe to say she’ll be turning some heads at the track next year.” Who’s in for tickets???

When Mike Davis finally makes good on his annual threat to leave IU or gets fired, I’m really going to miss him. There’s no doubt he’s the most bizarre and entertaining coach in Division 1 basketball. Whether he’s denigrating his players’ talent (the legendary “Help is on the way!” comment), their work ethic (claiming they don’t practice hard enough), or accusing them of mutiny in veiled terms (Saying he doesn’t understand why they don’t run the plays he draws up in the huddle late in games), no coach has a more interesting way of discussing his team with the press. (He reminds me a lot of Elvis Grbac and his “I can’t throw the ball and catch it,” nonsense.) He’s completely lost his mind and charged onto the court. He constantly puts his story ahead of his team’s. He’s just utterly fascinating.
After last night’s loss to Notre Dame, Davis continued to impress. The story of this season for the Hoosiers has been the brutal schedule they face. They’ve lost to North Carolina, UConn, in addition to the Irish. Saturday they play Kentucky. They then travel to Missouri and still face a tough Charlotte team in Bloomington. The new Athletic Director has taken great pains to let everyone know the previous AD is responsible for the schedule. (Last week, he even announced that the previous AD had been attempting to schedule Kansas and Arizona this year.) The schedule is tough enough. Coupled with a team that just wasn’t very good last year and a large number of freshman players, it was difficult to imagine the Hoosiers winning much this year. And Davis has let everyone know about that every chance he gets. His comments last night were especially odd, though. He looked at Saturday’s opponent and said, “You see Kentucky play North Carolina and then come back and play Morehead State. That would have been great for us to do. Now, you win by 25, you win by 30, and you get a chance to let guys play and develop.” Who the hell is he kidding? IU beat Indiana State and Western Illinois by four each. How can he say they would beat Morehead State like a bad high school team. I think the Hoosiers will get much better as the season goes on, because they do have some very good players in the freshmen class, but they’re not beating anyone by 30 points this year. Well, maybe Purdue who are brutal as well. I’m not sure who Davis thinks is going to agree with that statement, since pretty much all IU fans hate him (Except for my wife, who like politicians she doesn’t care for, just says, “It’s a tough job and I wouldn’t want it.”). I’m hoping for another Kentucky whooping Saturday just to see how Davis reacts.

Oh, and the Colts signed Martin Gramatica to be their kick-off specialist. Sadly, he won’t be kicking field goals unless Mike Vanderjagt gets hurt. I wonder if little Martin will celebrate wildly each time he gets a touchback off of his kickoffs?