D's Notebook

Tag: pool

Weekend Notes

May 6, 2024 /

Kid Hoops

Teenagers are funny. One day they are on top of the world, the next everything is shit.

That might be a little dramatic but it kind of sums up the weekend for L’s travel team. Saturday they played great, winning their two games by a combined 22 points. They should have one the first by 20+ – they got to a running clock midway through the second half – but turned sloppy and let the lead slip to single digits before stretching it out in the end. We had a girl score 22 points in this game.

In the second game was the third against this team this season. Game one was a one-point win. Game two was a two-point loss. Saturday our gurls controlled most of the game. They had a 10-point lead midway through the second half. Again, they got sloppy and let the other team come all the way back to tie. But then we controlled the last 3–4 minutes of the game to win comfortably by eight.

Things were clicking Saturday. L wasn’t great scoring – 0 in the first game, 4 in the second – but had four rebounds and three assists in game one despite battling some light headedness that caused her to miss much of the second half. In game two she played great defense, was getting to the rim, and was a little unlucky to miss two makable layups while making two tough ones.

Then, Sunday, in the game to make bracket play, our girls just looked lost. We played another slow-ish, patient, tough defensive team. And we shrunk from the challenge. They let the other team get soooo many rebounds and loose balls. We got a tough whistle in the first half and it seemed to make about half the team afraid to dig in on defense.

We trailed by ten about five minutes into the second half. Each time we tried to mount a comeback it was undone by a missed blockout, a failure to get back on the break, or a missed layup. We strung a few shots together and finally got a real rally together, getting it to four with the ball with about 5:00 left. Then we fell apart, losing by 14. In the closing minutes we gave up at four completely uncontested layups when they broke our pressure and the girls who were playing the back line didn’t stop the ball.

On the ride home L was pissed. I saw her yelling at people after one of those unguarded layups. She said she was mad because only four or five girls play hard on every play. She was mad because we have two or three girls who are almost guaranteed to turn the ball over if they end up with it. And she was mad that our tall girls don’t rebound. “That’s the only reason they are on the team and they just stand there and watch.”

It was kind of awesome. She had a decent game, scoring six but not doing anything else in the boxscore. She played really good defense, again, and was solid when she was running the offense. I think she was also frustrated because she knows if she scored 10–15 points, she could really lay into people.

Weird that they were so good Saturday, and so bad Sunday. I know the other team had something to do with it but our girls just did not seem engaged or willing to fight. Again, teenagers.

Kid Tennis

C got to play her three matches of the high school tennis season over the past 10 days. They went about as well as you would expect for a kid who never practices.

They lost match one a week ago, 6–1, and I have no idea how they won that single game. The other team must have felt bad and given them a game on the scorecard because I don’t remember them dropping one. Then she played two matches last Wednesday at the school across the street from us. These were eight game, single set matches and she and her teammate lost 8–3 and 8–6. They should have won that second match but C’s partner seemed checked out, totally ignoring balls that were hit right at her. I was ready to yell at her but since it is JV tennis just quietly fumed and asked C, “What was up her ass?” when we got home.

Oh well. Not sure C enjoys it as much as M, but I’m glad her back condition has improved enough where she can get out and move around without complaining about pain.

Pacers

Hey, they did it! After dropping a massive turd in game five – getting crushed by the Bucks who were playing without Dame and Giannis – the Pacers controlled almost all of game six, blowing out the Bucks in the last 14 minutes or so of the game, to advance to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the first time in six years.

Kind of crazy how consistently good the Pacers were the first 10–12 years I lived here, brawl years excepted, and then how mediocre they’ve been since that. Nice to have them winning playoff series again. The Knicks aren’t in the best of health, which makes them a decent matchup if the Pacers remember to play defense.

I missed almost all of game six, although I was about a mile from Gainbridge Fieldhouse. We went to a fundraiser for a program a friend of ours is on the board for, hosted at Victory Field during an Indianapolis Indians game. We were up in a terrace, so spent more time socializing and eating than watching baseball. That was a bummer because it was a nearly perfect night for baseball. We also missed the top pitching prospect in the minors by two nights.

I did try to keep my eye on the big TV out in the lobby that showed the Pacers game. It got a little awkward when they brought all the attendees into the lobby to hear the spiel for the program, which supports a trio of Catholic schools that serve kids from some of the worst economic parts of the city, and the muted TV was directly behind all the speakers. You could tell who the hoops fans were by how we shifted our bodies to follow the action.

A Trip to Miami

M and two of her high school friends jumped in a car and traveled to Oxford, OH to visit two of their buddies who attend Miami. Miami still has another week of school, so it was the perfect chance for people to visit. M said she saw several friends from high and middle school who were also visiting Miami pals.

She had fun. She still thinks Oxford is too small. But she was impressed with how it has more bars than the area of Cincinnati around UC. Glad she’s focused on the important things.

Pool

Our pool is scheduled to be opened today. Probably two weeks too late given how the weather has been. We’ll see if the heavy rain holds off long enough for our guys to show up and get it cranking.

I did the second power wash of the season to get all the pollen and crap off of the cover yesterday. The water didn’t seem super cold, so I’ll be interested to see what the temperature starts at when they turn the heater on. Last year it was 57. As warm as it’s been lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s in the mid–60s. Which means the heater might get the water to a swimmable temperature before the filter cleans out all the crap that has settled into the water over the winter.

Tuesday Notes

September 12, 2023 /

I have some assorted items that have been sitting around for a week or two that aren’t big enough for their own post. So you get back-to-back Notes entries.

Kid Hoops

L is in her third week of basketball workouts at CHS. The first two weeks were before school on Wednesdays and Fridays. She’s been getting up before 5:00 on those days. My alarm is set for 5:19 but I generally hear her banging around and wake up well before that. We are out the door around 5:35. I don’t mind that, but I also don’t love it.

This week they added a Monday night workout to the schedule. That will continue until the third week of October when official practice can begins, which I assume will be every day.

L said they’ve gone well. A lot of scrimmaging and basic shooting drills so far. This week they are supposed to pick up the intensity a little and start working on a lot of defensive drills. She’s also supposed to get a survey where she assesses her own play and then goes over it with the coaches.

For what it’s worth she’s been hanging out more with older girls from basketball than with her fellow freshmen, and we’ve been giving her shit about that. Two weeks ago she went to the football game with freshmen and she yelled at us, “See, I hang out with freshmen too!”

Her first travel tryout for next year was this past Sunday. There were nearly 100 girls there for all the high school teams. I talked to her coach from the past two years and he said the organization has been poaching good teams from other programs, which accounts for some of the numbers. I don’t think that will have an impact on L since she won’t be on an elite team. It made for a pretty packed gym, though.

Swimming

I’ve been swimming a lot for the past six weeks, give or take.

I can hear you. “No shit, dumbass. You have a pool. Why wouldn’t you be swimming?”

I’m not talking about just getting in the pool and splashing/floating around like I normally do. I’m talking about swimming laps and turning it into a workout.

I’ve never done this in my life. Mostly because I’m not a great swimmer and never had the courage to get into the pool at the Y and bang out some laps.

Fortunately the swimmable part of our pool is only about 30 feet long and it’s not too complicated to turn into a lap pool. After a few weeks of doing it maybe once a week for about 10 minutes, since mid-August I’ve been doing it 3–5 times a week for closer to 20 minutes. I’m not going to pretend this is some awesome workout. I swim one way without taking a breath, pause to suck in some oxygen, then head the other way. I’ll do this four or five times, take a minute break, then repeat. Each time I finish my Apple Watch tells me I’ve set a new record. Even starting from zero, I’ll take that as a sign that I’m headed in the right direction.

My hope is the weather stays warm enough that with the occasional boost from the pool heater I can keep doing this for about another month to continue to build some endurance. Then we’ll see if I’m courageous enough to transfer it over to the Y and swim public laps. I’m a little frightened of both the rules of etiquette at the pool and needing to stop and rest way more often than the other people swimming.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying a different workout that reduces the stress on my always aching joints. And might as well keep using the pool as long as it’s open.

Pickleball

I also played pickleball for the first time ever last week. I picked it up pretty quickly had a great time. It was quite the workout. I’m sure it being a hot, humid night helped. I went with my old neighbor to the church where he’s a pastor. They converted an unused basketball court into two pickleball courts last year. We had seven guys last week, so a nice rotation that allowed you to sit out a game and cool off when you lost.

Not sure if I’m going to turn into one of those Pickleball People, although I have added that group’s weekly meeting to my calendar. And I bought my own racquet? paddle? this week.

I’m sure I’ll keep you updates on my exploits should they continue.

College Recruiting

You may remember me mentioning Marcus Adams Jr. about a month ago in my summary of KU’s summer. He was the recruit from California who reclassified into the senior class in April and committed to KU. When he announced that he would be a Jayhawk, he admitted the reason he picked KU over UCLA was because KU’s NIL program paid better.

From the time he committed there was a lot of weirdness about his situation. There were rumors he might actually go pro instead of enroll at KU. He took longer than the other new recruits to arrive on campus, but that was chalked up to the California academic calendar. Upon his arrival, there were almost immediate rumors that he was struggling in pickup games, and worry among the coaches that because he played at a lower level of high school ball, his game wasn’t ready for a Power 5 conference. As those rumors began popping up KU was suddenly recruiting another long wing who could play this coming year (Johnny Furphy).

Adams lasted about a month in Lawrence before announcing he was leaving. He landed at Gonzaga, but three weeks after committing there changed his mind again. Now he is enrolled at BYU. For a kid who thought Lawrence, KS was “too country,” I’m excited to hear about his experience at a school run by the Mormons.

My point isn’t to throw shade at Adams, which far too many have done. Recruiting is a hard deal and kids who are 17/18 are placed under tremendous pressure in the process. They don’t always end up making the best decisions. Which is why I think one-time free transfers are important.

No, I want to throw shade at the people around Adams. When he did interviews while at KU he seemed super young. There was always a deer in headlights quality to him. I don’t want to say immature, because I have no idea what his behavior was like. It just seemed like he wasn’t super comfortable in that moment. Which is fine, not every freshman can relax when someone sticks a camera in their face.

But given how he’s committed to three schools in something like five months, I’m beginning to wonder if he, in fact, is not mature enough for the moment. I feel like the people around him should have known this going in. One of the pressures on high school athletes is to get their pro clock running as quickly as possible, and often that pressure comes more from their handlers than themselves.

Maybe Marcus Adams is going to be fine, both athletically and emotionally at BYU and my points are silly. The evidence so far, though, suggests that maybe the people who are helping to guide him through this process should have spent more time evaluating his maturity level than his game, and kept him in high school one more year so he was better prepared to select the place to spend his college years. There are worse things than waiting a year to start making money off sports. Especially if that year of waiting improves your odds of long-term success.

NFL

One final note about the NFL, and Monday Night Football. What a bananas game! I was out picking up L so missed Aaron Rodgers destroying his ankle or achilles or whatever. I just saw all the Tweets saying it was the most Jets thing ever.

And then the freaking Jets came back from 10 down to win the game in overtime, forcing four turnovers, making one of the greatest catches you will ever see, and getting a walk-off, punt return TD. Nuts.

The Football Gods have been punishing the Jets, for some reason, ever since they won Super Bowl III. This seemed like the year when they might finally shake that off. They have a fearsome defense that is going to fuck up a lot of teams. Even if Rodgers couldn’t play at an MVP level anymore, he was still an above-average QB, which might have been enough to win 2–3 games in January with that D. Now? This whole season is going to be a gigantic tease for Jets fans. I almost feel sorry for them.

Weekend Notes

May 8, 2023 /

This weekend was certainly slower than the previous one. Doesn’t mean we didn’t pack a few things into it, one of them rather momentous.

On the Road

The family checked off another big milestone when C passed her driver’s test and got her license on Saturday.

It has been a bit of a struggle with her; she was first eligible to get her license the week of Thanksgiving but wasn’t close to either being ready or having enough hours behind the wheel then. She was very anxious about the entire process and it was a chore to get her into the car on a regular basis. Where M was one of those kids who couldn’t wait to get her license, C was part of that cohort that saw no great motivation to get hers ASAP.

As recently as January I was worried that she would ever get it. She wasn’t driving very often, and when she did wasn’t making much progress in her skills. In March something clicked and it all came together, her ability improving quite a bit and those normal, new driver mistakes getting fewer and fewer. She still made me very nervous, or even yell at her, at least once per drive. The other moments were much better, though.

It is tough to grab a weekend test time around here and last weekend was the first chance to get one on the books once we thought she was ready. On the way to her test some other young driver pulled right in front of her in a roundabout. She braked correctly but just sat there. I reached over and punched the horn so the kid knew about his mistake. “Use your horn if you need to, babe.”

When we got to the BMV the test guy was walking out with a lady. They were gone for about half an hour, so C had an idea of how long the test would take. After she left I nervously tried to read, without much success. I checked her location every few minutes to see where they were. After only about 15 minutes I noticed they were only a few blocks away. As they passed the BMV I said a silent prayer, “Please keep going. Please keep going.” But they turned back into the lot.

Damn. That seemed way too quick and I wondered if she had done one of the automatic fail errors. When she walked back in she had a blank look on her face that I couldn’t read. The tester waved me over to his station and when I got there she whispered, “I don’t think I made any mistakes but he didn’t say anything.”

Seconds later he said, “Well, you passed.” Come on, dude, we don’t need to drag it out. Tell the kid how they did right away!

The only bummer was C didn’t realize that she would be taking a new picture and freaked out a little because she wasn’t prepped for one. The nice lady helping us with that part of the process told her she can come back and amend her license with a new picture down the road. I guess that means we’ll be paying for another license but since she thinks she looks like a criminal in the picture she took Saturday I guess that’s worth it.

We immediately violated all the rules by letting her drive a friend to dinner Saturday. I was, again, nervously tracking her location but she made it there and back fine.

Two teen drivers in the house now. Which means the first fight about who gets to use the car isn’t too far down the road.

Kid Hoops

A 1–2 weekend for L’s team, and we were fortunate to get that win.

In our first game we trailed by 14 early and were getting pummeled by their big girl. This girl was ginormous. I’m guessing 6’3”+ and very wide. She wasn’t super athletic but had a bunch of old-school post moves, long arms that helped her get any rebound, and she was blocking every shot in the lane. I know she scored 24. I’m guessing she was very close to a triple double with blocks.

Our girls made a run early in the second half to make it a game and it bounced between a 2–6 point deficit most of the half. We hit a couple threes and took a four point lead late. That got down to one with about 40 seconds left, us inbounding at half court.

One of the super annoying things about travel basketball is that the rules are never the same tournament-to-tournament. Some weeks you play 14 minute halves, others 16. Occasionally 20 minutes with a running clock. Some weeks it takes five fouls to foul out, others six.

This week you didn’t start shooting free throws until there were 10 team fouls. The other team only had six at this point. Despite our struggles with their pressure, their coach decided to start fouling intentionally. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Four straight times until we went to the line.

This was super dumb. I can’t stress this enough. One of the worst coaching gaffes I’ve seen.

On three of those inbound passes we almost turned it over. If the coach had told them to trap first and then foul, they likely would have been able to get a steal. On one play I guarantee the ref would have called our girl for traveling but since the coach was screaming at him to call the foul he did. She was so worried about getting us to the line that she didn’t give her team a chance to play defense. If they get a stop they could go down, run a good play for their big girl, probably get a basket or put her at the line (she was 4–5 from the line), and then force us to get a shot up.

Oh, she only had six players. One of them fouled out in this sequence.

When we finally went to the line we missed – of course, we shot like 25% from the line for the weekend – but we got a stop and steal on the other end, then they fouled us again. Which was that player’s sixth foul. They played the last 30 seconds of the game with four players because their coach was super dumb.

We again missed the free throw but got the rebound, scored to go up three, and survived a last-gasp three to get the win.

Thank you, Ohio coach!

We got smoked by some very athletic girls from Wisconsin in pool game two. They led by 24 at one point, we got it down to seven late, but lost by 14.

Then in our bracket game we lost by 10. Again, we trailed by 20 by whittled it down to four. Our girls loved digging holes and then trying to get out of them.

A pretty crappy weekend for L. She hit a 3 right before the halftime buzzer of the first game – that’s her thing now – but rolled her bad ankle about 30 seconds into the second half and didn’t play again. She rolled it on her own, didn’t trip over anyone else or do it as a result of contact. Even with the light brace she was wearing she immediately went down and hobbled off at the next dead ball.

Not a lot of swelling but it is very sore and now we have to figure out how long to hold her out to give it a chance to heal. She wanted to play Sunday but I told her if she rolled it again, she was not only putting the next two weekends in doubt, but would put all her June activities with CHS in jeopardy.

We tried to get her a Steph Curry-approved brace Sunday, but the one we brought home seems defective so I have to return it and find another. We’re also going to keep her in a light brace at all times and do some home rehab once her pain level goes down. I badly sprained my right ankle my sophomore year of high school and it was never the same. I hope she hasn’t inherited my bad ankles along with my bad eyes.

Kid Soccer

I believe I mentioned that L signed up to play on the St P’s soccer team, which is an eighth grade tradition. Between her previous ankle issues, the weather, and basketball conflicts, she was only able to play in two games.

In the first she had one chance to score but took a terrible shot – with the outside of her right foot from the left side – from way too far away from the goal. A dad near me asked, jokingly, “What kind of shot was that?”

“A shot by a kid that hasn’t played soccer in four years,” was my response.

In their final game last week she had another good chance to score, took a great shot from the right side…and one of her teammates ran in the way of it and blocked it for the defense. I’m not sure that it had a chance to go in but it would have made it on-goal.

After the game we were parked by the St O coach and she came over and asked L, “Do you play travel? You’re a really good player.” That pumped up her ego more. She seriously told me two weeks ago she thought she could make the CHS team. I laughed at her and said, “Maybe if you quit basketball and play soccer all summer.” Then I reminded her that she told me her team was trash (it was) and not to get too excited about dominating practice.

Oh well, she had fun playing one more time even if she wasn’t the same player she was back when soccer was her thing.

Pool Season

We finally shook that cold spell and the girls were in the pool a couple times over the weekend. M had friends over Friday night and two of the local nephews took advantage of it on Sunday. I hate to jinx it but if it stays as warm as the next 10 days look, we might be able to keep the heater off except for that quick boost right before the weekends when people are coming over.

Now it will probably be in the 30s next week…

This ‘n’ That

June 16, 2020 /

Before I get to some more notes on what’s been going down around here, a quick warning that I’m going to be doing some of my patented “jacking around with the blog” over the next few days. I’m hoping I can do it in a way that doesn’t prevent you from finding the site when you look for it. If not, my apologies and it should return soon.

Pool Troubles

After a year of pretty pain-free pool ownership, we finally ran into a hiccup. I believe the pool was closed most of last week; we may have swam on Monday but didn’t open the cover again until Friday evening. When the girls opened it up it was cloudy, beginning to turn greenish, and stinky.

Hoo-ray.

About all I ever do is give it the occasional chlorine shock, so I started researching online for possible causes and solutions. While the pressure gauge on our filter was fine, I did notice that the pressure from the jets in the pool was much lower than normal. Saturday morning I backwashed the filter for about ten minutes and then the pressure seemed to kick back up to normal. I took a water sample into a pool store and everything read as fine except for the chlorine. If there was a clog in a line somewhere that reduced the pressure, that would also prevent the filter from cleaning the water properly and sending it through the chlorine tab dispenser which stabilizes everything. Throw in a week of sun and warm temps, and you have a recipe for growing a small pond in your backyard.

We dropped a case of shock in on Saturday, added more each of the past two days, along with some clarifier, and are close to normal this morning. By Sunday the water was at least blue again, if still cloudy. Monday afternoon you could finally see the drains in the deep end. This morning I would say we were at 90% of normal.

Kind of concerning but a good reminder that we still have to keep an eye on the pool on the days we’re not using it.

Trips

Our trip to Hawaii is officially off. The state extended the travel restrictions through the end of July and our resort remains closed. We’re still working to get full refunds for everything, but with flights cancelled and the hotel shut down we anticipate everything working out.

We went ahead and booked a place on Captiva Island that same week, along with flights to Ft. Myers. If travel clamps down again, we can make that drive, although I swore I would never drive that far again after our last trip to Captiva. Hopefully we won’t go 0–3 on 2020 trips.

Golf

I’ve played golf twice in the last three weeks. Both times I played like shit.

When I was playing often last fall although I still sprayed the ball around, my tendency was to hook irons and slice woods. I played 15 holes last night (it got too dark to see on 16 so I walked in) and everything was going to the right. Irons were bending right and woods were big, majestic slices. It was very frustrating, as a slice was a part of my past shitty golfing life and I thought I had left it behind. Saturday I went to the driving range and it was borderline embarrassing how poorly I was making contact.

I videoed myself taking some swings at home over the weekend and that was super humbling. You think you have a mental image of your swing and then seeing it blows that all up. My coach is out of town for a couple weeks so I’m not sure I’ll get to meet with him before my brother-in-law from Colorado, who plays between a 4 and 5 index, visits and we head out together. I warned him that he may not want to play with me.

AFL

I accidentally came across some Australian Rules Football Saturday morning. I had no idea their season had re-started or that FS1 carries their games. I saw the final minute of the Port Adelaide-Adelaide rivalry match. I checked the program guide and saw there were matches on later Saturday night and early Sunday morning. I watched probably two-thirds of the evening match. As it was in the mid–80s, when ESPN turned it into a cult sport in America, Aussie rules footy remains awesome.

Covid Chronicles, 5/19

May 19, 2020 /

I’m not sure if it is time to transition the title of these assorted notes posts back to how I labelled them before March. Not everything in these is about what is going on with Covid anymore. At the same time, our lives are going to continue to be pretty boring for some time and much of what I share here will be affected, at least indirectly, by the state of the world. So for now they will remain Covid-tagged.

Sunday was C’s 14th birthday, which gave us a chance for our first quarantine celebration. We had some friends and family drive by to honk, wave hello, and toss gifts to her. We were dodging rain all day but it worked out pretty well.

After that we had our old neighbors over for a dinner celebration. The girls all got into the pool. Pools are safe! Or at least that’s what the initial studies suggest. I might be cranking up the chlorine level a notch or two higher than normal just to make sure. If we could just keep everyone from getting too close from each other when they aren’t in the pool. Both M and L had a friend over to swim on Saturday, but there was plenty of other hanging out during those visits.

Again, we’re going to have months of stress about what the proper way to socialize is. I tend to think small groups are ok, but should we be masking everyone up while we’re together? When we were running M’s friend home Saturday we passed a backyard party where everyone was seated six feet apart. If only kids understood social distancing with friends as well as they do with strangers.

As I said, the pool is open. It took until Saturday for the water to get up around 90 degrees where we like it. But it was warm enough Friday evening that the girls all jumped in for awhile. Now if we could just get this stupid cut-off low to pass us so the nice weather of last week could return.

We had a bunch of lawn restoration work done last week, right before the rainy weather hit. I’m really hoping the deluge of the past seven days hasn’t rendered all the new grass seed unable to germinate.

I recorded Sunday’s charity golf match that featured Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, and Matthew Wolf. I was glad I recorded it because it allowed me to fast forward through the many slow spots. Even with the FF button in high use, it certainly had stretches where it was veeeeeerrrrry slow.

I was most excited to see Seminole Golf Club on TV. It has never hosted a televised event before, and the golf architecture geeks I follow think it’s an amazing course. One of those experts says it is a near ideal course because if you are a good-to-elite player it will really challenge you, while if you’re just a normal player you will have a good chance to shoot what you do on your home course. Not that I’ll ever have a chance to play it, but that was a comforting thought.

Sadly much of what makes people love the course doesn’t really translate to TV, and the broadcasting crew didn’t go out of their way to explain what is so cool about the course.

The golf was kind of crappy, too. You could tell the guys were rusty. DJ barely looked interested. And using the Skins format just doesn’t generate a lot of excitement. But Skins is easy to understand and made sure both teams earned some money for their charity of choice, so I understand the decision.

The broadcast was mixed. You have to grade on a scale, because this was done with a short lead-up, a limited production crew, on a course not designed to make TV easy. I think they could have used a few more cameras. I heard they had six. I think they could have put in some more that were fixed at tee boxes and greens that would have allowed them to miss fewer shots. Not having shot tracer for every tee shot was a big miss. And there were some issues with the announcers being in three different locations. The Bill Murray interview was flat bizarre and difficult to watch. I muted the entire time a certain politician called in. Jon Rahm was a pretty good interview, and I could have used more of him. That said, with so much dead time to kill as they players moved between shots, I think they could have spaced out these conversations better so they weren’t talking over the action.

Everyone involved gets credit for making the attempt, though. It was good to have some live sports on, even if flawed.

I finished The Last Dance last night. I think I’ll need to break my thoughts on it out from my monthly media list and share them here soon.

M wrapped up her freshman year last week. Unless something changes before final grades are posted, it looks like she carried a 4.21 GPA through all four quarters. Pretty good! I’m glad she’s tapped into her mom’s academic genes. I never got straight A’s in high school because of 1) math and 2) I was lazy. She was the only student in her English class to get an A on her research paper without having to re-write it, so maybe she got some of my skills, too.

She knows her sophomore year will be tougher. She’s adding three honors classes to her load, but they are all liberal arts rather than science courses, so I think she’ll do fine. She’s excited to be taking photography. I may be as excited about that as she is.

Now we just start hoping that her sophomore year is mostly normal. We are hearing rumors from other schools about mixed plans that may involve kids coming into school in rotations/waves, so only a certain percentage of the student population is in the school at the same time. I don’t see how that helps the teachers and staff, though, who will need to be at school daily. Perhaps they will be in masks and other protective measures will be take.

I kind of laughed that M said she was bored last week, when she still had a couple days of class left. I wanted to say, “Wait until next week when you have nothing to do at all!” Saturday she asked us, “What can we do today?” Normally that means where can we go to shop/eat. It was hard not to snap at her, “We literally can’t go anywhere!”

We found out last week that St. P’s will be making some adjustments in the fall. All we know is that instead of a 6th–8th middle school group, the 7th and 8th graders will now be considered middle schoolers while the 5th and 6th graders will be labeled as “intermediate” students and sharing teachers. We’re not sure what the mechanics of that will be, especially since those four grades, along with the fourth graders, all share a hallway. S guessed, based on what she’s heard from other schools, is that they may adjust how the classes change periods, have lunch, etc so fewer kids are in the hallway at one time. But we’ve received no details yet, so we’re not sure.

I know I do not envy school administrators right now. No plan seems like a good plan. I know private schools are facing pressure to have kids back in real class. We’ve heard several parents say “I’m not paying X-thousand dollars for an entire year of eLearning.” Which I totally understand. This pressure comes on top of knowing you’re probably going to lose some students because their families can’t afford private school tuition due to personal financial issues. It’s just a damn tough time.

L is not excited at all about the changes. There were a couple teacher changes that came with this reorganization and she may have to spend time with two teachers she doesn’t like very much while two she was hoping to get have moved away from her grade. She’s lived a charmed life with teachers, always getting the one she wanted and generally getting along well with them. She needs to toughen up and get over it!

Weekend Notes

September 17, 2019 /

Some belated weekend notes.

HS Football

Friday was M’s first football rivalry game, as Cathedral took on Bishop Chatard. St. P’s is usually evenly split between those high schools, so it is always an emotional matchup. CHS was ranked #4 in 5A, BCHS #1 in 3A.

CHS won by 10 thanks to a big fourth quarter. They were down 21-17 going into the fourth but got an 88-yard TD pass and a 76-yard TD run with consecutive interceptions on defense after each TD.

I’d love to tell you it was a great game. But we got to the stadium a little late and all the seats at the rather small stadium were completely filled, so we stood on the track the entire game.1 We could only see what was going on when the plays were inside the 10 yard line directly in front of us.

M was happy that she is 1-0 against her old classmates.

KU Football

I had pretty much put Friday’s game against Boston College out of my mind. I would be at the high school game and wouldn’t bother keeping tabs on what was sure to be another blow out. What genius scheduled Boston College anyway?

So I was shocked when I got texts at halftime telling me that KU was actually ahead. I was even more flabbergasted when I saw that Carter Stanley had thrown for three touchdowns. Our Carter Stanley? I was sure my boys were playing tricks on me until I confirmed the score on ESPN.

And then the Jayhawks went out and played even better in the second half to get an easy, 24-point win.

This makes no sense. Apparently KU looked tough on both lines, made smart calls that were converted on offense, and basically made BC give up in the second half. Amazing.

Appropriate that it came the same week nine years after Turner Gill’s first team beat a ranked Georgia Tech team the week after losing to an FCS team. So I’m not getting too excited about it. But it does show that maybe Les’ shit is working. There was a lot of good national run for KU over the weekend. That’s Les’ task for this year: generate some buzz and turn it into signing good kids in December and February.

Other Weekend Sports

I’ll save the kid sports for another post. Saturday night S, L, and I went to the Cathedral girls soccer senior night. It was also CYO night so L wore her summer camp shirt and got to do some stuff with the team. We have friends who have a daughter who is a senior. She’s always looked out for L at camp. She made sure that she grabbed L when they were lining up the starters with kids to walk onto the field with. L had a big grin on her face while she stood there with the team during the national anthem.

Unfortunately CHS lost in a really competitive 3-2 game. We also saw the end of the JV game, which was a win. L’s teacher is the JV coach so she was sure to check in with her as well.

We had people over on Sunday for the last pool party of the year. Most of the dads sat in front of the TV watching the Colts get a big win in Tennessee. That’s how you win road games: contain on defense and make just enough big plays on offense. The city is in a bit of a tough spot trying to figure out what to think about Adam Vinatieri’s second-straight terrible game. There was lots of speculation that he would announce his retirement on Monday, but that did not happen and Frank Reich pronounced in faith in Vinatieri.

It’s kind of crazy he has hung on and been this good, this long. It is equally crazy if he basically lost it overnight. Once again, Father Time is undefeated.

1. Strangely, CHS does not have its own football field. They traditionally play their “home” games at one of two public school fields. BCHS has a stadium, but because they are smack in the middle of a neighborhood, they went 20 years without a home game until last year. You would think the two schools that have won the most state titles in Indiana history would have better facilities.

New Toy

June 26, 2019 /

Not sure what I did, but somehow I messed up the site and new posts are not showing up. This was supposed to hit yesterday. Apologies, because it is big news!

Well, I guess it is time to spill the big news of 2019: we put in a pool. It’s a real nice above-ground model that we think adds a lot to the first view you get when you drive onto our property…

I’m kidding. We really did put in a pool, that was no joke. But it is not an above ground one. Although I saw an ad just after we signed the contract with our pool guys that offered an above ground pool package that was normally over $5000 for $999. That’s quite a deal!

Enough jokes. How did we end up with a pool? Now that’s a funny story, too. Sixteen years ago when we were shopping for our first home, S had a strict no water on the property policy. When she worked in the ER as a resident she saw kids who were drowning victims and it really affected her. If we could see water from the house, whether it was a pool, retaining pond, or neighborhood lake, she turned around and walked out.

She obviously got over that some since we owned a lake house for six years. But that’s a little different as the expectation is that everyone is on high alert at a lake, our kids were not toddlers when we bought it, etc.

Anyway, when we moved a year ago we started looking at the amount of land we have and wondering how we could use it. The bulk of our land is in front of our house. We have 200+ feet between our front door and the main street we face. It’s not ideal land, as there is a gully that collects water about 40 feet from the house, with either side of the yard sloping into it. Although we’ve added a few trees, it is also pretty wide-open so whatever you do out there will lack privacy.

Behind the house we have about 70 feet until we hit the property line. Much of that was filled with old apple trees, remnants from a small orchard that originally grew in this area. A pool was the first and obvious choice for that area, but we had that no water policy that got in the way of that.

We had other things to do anyway, like furnish the house, make some upgrades to the interior, etc. so we put the land use ideas on the back burner.

Until late January when S looked at me one night and said, “I think we should look into putting a pool in.”

I looked at her like she was crazy and said, “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s expensive, it’s a hassle to maintain, and you’ve never wanted to have water in our yard.”

Solid comeback, I thought.

But she explained how with the girls getting older, it’s harder to keep them from drifting off into their rooms and devices when they are home. We had promised that moving closer to their school friends would give them more chances to entertain, and this would help with that; our home would now be a place where their friends wanted to go to, at least in the summer.

I shook my head and went back to reading or watching basketball or whatever I was doing. S didn’t say anything else.

Because she knew what she had done. She was now in my head. And she knows I don’t like spontaneity but rather want to think things over multiple ways over time before I come to a conclusion. Whether I liked it or not, I started thinking about her arguments in my idle moments.

Sure enough, a couple weeks later, I said to her, “So this pool idea…” We talked it through a little more and soon after I messaged a few friends who had put in pools in recent years to get feedback on their contractors. Within a week or so I had appointments set up with two pool companies plus landscapers to come take a look at our land and talk through ideas.

The first pool quote was the cheaper of the two. That company also couldn’t even think about starting until August at the very earliest. The second company was pricier, but they were scheduling jobs in April. I told that guy to get me something to sign ASAP. He happened to grow up right down the street from us, and when I was ready to give him his deposit check, he sent his dad who still lives there over to collect it. That was a nice touch.

The day before we left for spring break he came back and laid out the location of the pool with twine and spray paint for the city permits. When the girls got home from school that day, they could look out and imagine where it would be.

We broke ground on April 30. Originally he said three weeks for the entire project. We figured there would be at least a week’s worth of delays, but that still had us done by the beginning of the summer. The first few weeks went great, right on schedule. We were on the verge of pouring concrete in mid-May and then the Spring 2019 Deluge hit: constant rains made us lose an entire week. They poured the deck just before we left for San Diego, and our hopes were that when we got home we would arrive to a filled pool that was ready to use.

But it kept raining and they were only able to lay the pool floor base while we were away.

There were more weather delays, a materials SNAFU that caused another week’s delay, but they finally put the liner in and filled the pool last Wednesday. As the final two water trucks arrived, another huge storm moved in. Fortunately it came late enough in the day that the pool was basically done. Thursday they finished putting the cover on and dumped some chemicals into the water. Friday they fired up the pump and heater, gave me the quick, basic tutorial on what to do, and dropped the green flag to use it.

Today landscapers are back for their third time, doing their (hopefully) final day of work. Our yard is a complete mess. Our very narrow street has been a disaster between large trucks with trailers and contractor pickups taking up space and mud, gravel, and construction remnants everywhere. The two houses nearest us have had parts of their yards torn up by all the traffic. I’m sure everyone who lives down the block hates us. It will likely been months before the remainder of our backyard isn’t a big mud pit.

It’s been a pain, there have been numerous annoying moments along the way, we broke our budget (shocking), but we have a pool and the girls seem happy. As I wrap this up I’m sitting on our back porch while M and L swim with friends. That was the goal, which makes all the trouble and expense worth it.

Fun Day At The Pool

July 9, 2007 /

Posting as I listen to the new Crowded House album…

We took the girls to the magnificent, opulent, new city pool here in Carmel Monday. I think the city spent something like $800 million on it (slight exaggeration) and still has the nerve to charge residents to use it. Anyway, it’s loaded with all kinds of stuff: a kiddie pool, a lap pool, a hybrid pool that is for bigger kids and feeds into a normal pool, a dive and slide pool, a lazy river (which of course was not working), and then a huge water slide. Pretty snazzy, and any of you out-of-towners who visit us in the summer months will be taken there, since it’s cheap entertainment and a way to show off our tax dollars at work.

The girls reacted predictably. We spent the majority of our time in the kiddie pool, which gets 18 inches deep at its deepest, and has a little slide, some fun water toys, and small fountains off one side. C. lunged into the pool, waded all over, cheered for other kids as they went down the slide, and spent a ton of time in the fountains. She would get sprayed in the face, scream with delight, and go back for more. More than one mom at the pool commented on how well she walked in the water and how she had no fear. “Remember these moments when she’s racing cars one day,” said one mom. In short, C. loved it and couldn’t get enough. She even fell asleep on the way home from all of her hard work.

The big sister, on the other hand, had her usual issues. Didn’t want to get in the water at first. When she would get a drop or two splashed on her, she would freeze and cover her head like she was under attack. Refused to go down the slide, although she did start to climb the stairs on her own once but scurried back down as soon as some other kids got near her. And generally played the role of the worrier who can’t relax. We met some friends, so she had a couple kids her age to play with, but that was mostly out of the water. She finally got brave near the end of our time at the pool, and would take a long lap all the way around the pool, and then walk through the water to the corner where we were sitting. It’s still frustrating that she can’t relax and really enjoy things, but I’m starting to relax myself and realize that eventually she will get over these fears and allow herself to have the same kind of fun all the other kids are having. I just have to learn the art of patience while she is going through this stage.

The Deep End

June 7, 2007 /

We took the girls to the in-laws’ pool today. It was a pretty good demonstration of how different my daughters are. M., nearly three and a two summer veteran of the pool, threw a couple fits because she didn’t want to get into the water. When we finally coaxed her in, it took her forever to relax and have fun. When she was in the water with me, she wrapped her legs and arms around me, clinging tightly, and always had a nervousness in her voice. She’s the worrier. We forced her to get her face wet at the end – I taught her how to hold her breath and we went under together – which resulted in screaming and the end of her pool fun.

For C., this was her first trip to the big pool. I think we may have put her in briefly last summer, but she was too little to remember. Keep in mind, on bath nights, M. yells at us not to get her eyes wet while C. dumps cups full of water on her own face and head. C. was clamoring to get into the pool as soon as she saw it. We got a little inflatable boat she can sit in, and she wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted to get out and swim. Unlike M., when I took C. through the water, she was constantly trying to get away from me and do it herself. As I held her flat on the water, she intentionally dunked her head and then laughed. She made happy noises and loved it when I tossed her up into the air and caught her just as her body hit the water. When my mother-in-law took her underwater for the first time, she popped up with a shocked look on her face, and for about five seconds we weren’t sure how she was going to react, but they she figured out she was fine and tried to get back in the water again. She’s the risk-taker.

Funny how different people with common DNA can be. One of these trips we’ll take the camera or camcorder and get some video evidence of this behavior.

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