D's Notebook

Tag: school (Page 1 of 13)

Weekend Notes

October 14, 2024 /

Kind of a quiet weekend for us on the personal tip. Plenty of other shit to review on this gloomy, chilly Monday morning.

Northern Lights

Since we live inside the city’s light dome, we weren’t able to just walk out and see Thursday’s northern lights. I was able to get a couple shots, using a long exposure, that showed a bit of the colors.

There were tons of amazing pictures from not too far from us. It definitely would have been worth my time to get off my ass and drive 30 minutes or so to get a bette naked eye view of them. But did I? Nope, despite seeing northern lights being on my bucket list.

Interesting Times At School

CHS parents got this text last Tuesday afternoon.

Screenshot

When the girls got home their eyes were big and they were talking fast. Apparently they were nearly in the midst of all the fun.

C said as they exited campus and headed west, they saw a car that had been pulled over by the police take off through the intersection she had just passed through to the east. Moments later they heard a bunch of loud noises as that car collided with several others that had just come off of campus. That proved these fools weren’t super criminals. Traffic around CHS during dismissal is a true nightmare. It can take you 15 minutes to travel a quarter mile if you hit the lights wrong. Yet these geniuses decided they were going to use that moment to evade cops.

A few of girls’ friends who were behind them got videos of first the car taking off, then the driver and his passenger sitting on the curb in handcuffs.

Word was they were arrested on drug and weapons charges. Awesome.

Two years ago M and C missed driving through an intersection by St P’s where there was a road-rage shooting by about five minutes. Now C and L missed get smacked by a criminal by literal seconds. They’ve obviously been saying their prayers, and/or their dead grandmas are looking out for them.

Royals

Well, it wasn’t unexpected, but after snatching game two in New York, the Royals couldn’t win either of the games at home and lost to the Yankees in four games. Another one-run loss and a two-run loss to end the season. It was pretty much all that was great about the Royals this year – the starting pitching with the bonus of an improved bullpen – and all that was not right – a woefully thin lineup that struggled to score to begin with, but had an even mightier challenge when Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez weren’t hitting.

The Yankees didn’t blow them out and the Royals didn’t embarrass themselves. Playoff baseball, especially the first two rounds, can be super flukey. That benefited the Royals in 2014. Their special blend of Royals Devil Magic did not make an appearance in this series.

Still, a surprisingly fun season. They got me at least partially interested in baseball after falling out of love with the sport because of how management handled the most recent labor stoppage.

It is probably too much to ask for the starters to be as good in 2025 as they were this year. The bullpen was bolstered late in the season and became a weapon, so pitching in general should continue to be a strength for the team. Now if management can go find a bat or two to plug the many holes in the lineup, we could be cooking with gas next year.

That said, surprisingly, the AL Central could be one of the most competitive in baseball next year. Cleveland is in the ALCS. Detroit had an amazing run late in the season and pushed Cleveland to the bring in the ALDS. The Twins fell apart late but entered the season as preseason favorites. In other words, even if the Royals make smart decisions to improve their roster for next year, there’s no guarantee it will be enough to return them to the playoffs.

KU

Hey, no Jayhawks loss this week! You never know, KU could always find a way to lose in a bye week.

It’s been kind of crazy to see how the teams that have beaten KU have done after knocking off the Jayhawks. Illinois is 5–1 and ranked. UNLV is also 5–1 despite their quarterback checking out. A week after beating KU, West Virginia went to Oklahoma State and destroyed the Cowboys before losing to Iowa State this week. Then Arizona State pulled a massive upset beating Utah this weekend. Only TCU has looked worse after beating the Jayhawks.

Mostly that doesn’t mean shit. Anyone who has watched KU this year has seen how flawed they are, both on the field and from a schematic/coaching perspective. Still, four of their losses have been by a single score. The TCU game was a single-score game until the closing minutes. As many issues as the Jayhawks have had, a few breaks here and there and they could easily be 5–1. While I think us KU fans would be waiting for reality to set in, we would feel a lot better about things.

This week brings Houston, and KU opens as favorites. Get a win and it doesn’t necessarily turn the season around, but it could at least change the vibes. Lose this one? Man, things will get ugly.

In totally unrelated news, Purdue fired their offensive coordinator last week. This week they went to Illinois. The ESPN boxscore was all messed up, but I believe they trailed by 27 in the second half before scoring 30 straight points to take the lead. They gave up a tying field goal at the final gun, then failed to convert a 2-point conversion and lost by one in OT. All from firing their OC. Hmmm….

CHS

Friday night Cathedral took on Southside Catholic rivals Roncalli. This was once one of the best rivalries in the city. Before the tournament success factor was introduced, the teams played in the same class and were often either in the same sectional or regional. In our first few years living here, they always face each other in the playoffs, and the score was usually something like 10–9 or 14–13. And Roncalli often won.

But Roncalli, aside from a 4A state title two years ago, has been kind of crappy since their legendary coach retired a while back. CHS beat them 42–0 last year. This year it wasn’t much better, a 35–6 Irish win. A CHS receiver made an insane catch for an 84-yard TD. He dropped two other sure touchdowns on easy balls. The only RHS points came on their final drive with a running clock and facing the CHS reserves.

The #5 Irish are now 5–2 with a big matchup at 7–1 #6 Warren Central to close out the regular season.

The sectional draw was last night. CHS gets the school across the street from us, who will be 0–9, to open. Then a likely matchup against presumptive 9–0 Lawrence North for the sectional crown. CHS has ended LN’s season the past two years.

Halloween Shit

Both the girls had friends over Saturday to carve pumpkins, eat fall foods, and have fun. Tough to get a shot of all the pumpkins but they look nice on our front porch.

Worth mentioning that L had a young man over she’s been hanging with for the past few weeks. He’s a nice kid. They were joined by another couple. Those four stuck to one part of our house while C and her group of ten-or-so seniors stayed in another part. Seemed like everyone had fun. Once things got going S and I kept to our room to stay the hell out of the way.

Closing Time

We closed the pool on Friday. It was sunny and 80° when the guys were shutting it down, the water still at 78° despite me not running the heater in a week. I think you call that perfect timing. Of course, the girls hadn’t been in the pool since August. I had been using it, but as I’ll share tomorrow, I haven’t been able to get in for a week or so, meaning we closed it a week late. Since I wasn’t running the heater I didn’t mind.

Then Sunday morning S and I first cleaned up the leftover pumpkin messes from the girls then stored away all the pool furniture and other summer goodies into the pool house for the winter. Our pool deck is now naked. Appropriately it was super breezy and gloomy while we were doing that, and 15° cooler than the day before. This week looks super fall-ish, although another warm-up is forecast for next weekend.

Colts

The Colts couldn’t get it done against pathetic Jacksonville a week ago, but did enough to win against the equally pathetic Titans this week. Man, Will Levis is fucking bad. Anthony Richardson, who sat out again, may end up being a bust. I’d rather have a dude that can only play every third game than Levis, who throws some of the worst balls I’ve ever seen. Maybe he figures the game out and turns into a solid QB eventually. But watching him Sunday, I was glad the Colts passed on drafting him a year ago.

The crazy thing about watching the Colts is that if they could ever get healthy, they really should have a plus offense. They have two really good receivers in Michael Pittman and Alec Pierce. Josh Downs showed Sunday that he might be better than those two. And AD Mitchell has loads of potential although he has a long way to go. Old Man Joe Flacco gets them the ball just enough to be dangerous. If you can keep Jonathan Taylor on the field, easier said than done, you have terrific balance. Of course, you can’t keep him on the field and there is no decent backup. The O-line has improved, even losing one starter for the season.

But that defense? Woof. They make just enough plays, especially against a shitty team like Tennessee, to make you think they might be decent. But they aren’t decent at all, even allowing for missing important players up front and being too thin on the back end.

Feels like a season that ends in 5–7 wins and puts them too deep into the draft to get a player that can immediately plug a gap next year.

Fall Break

It’s appropriate the weather has finally changed, as this week is the girls’ fall break. They are in school today and tomorrow, then off the rest of the week. We are traveling to Denver to visit our family out there. It looks like we will have a 20° temperature swing while we’re out there, too, so packing could be tricky. Obviously a lot more about this next week.

Weekend Notes

March 4, 2024 /

A relatively laid-back weekend, although some of that was unexpected, so a quick post to get the new week started. No, I did not buy a car.

Jayhawk Talk

Another road loss, although the game at Baylor was chalked up as an L to begin the season, so no real harm. Kevin McCullar came back and looked decent. He still can’t hit a 3 and missed two makable layups, so maybe he’s 100% healthy? He was certainly rusty, so maybe the outside shot comes back if he can stay on the court.

KU battled well, coming back multiple times to take the lead. Baylor just did not miss in the last 5:00, or when they did there was a 100% chance they were getting the rebound. Still, the Jayhawks blew a couple possessions in crunch time that could have kept it close to the final buzzer.

The most concerning thing was Johnny Furphy getting absolutely cooked on defense. He’s generally been fine on D, balancing bad possessions with decent ones, his length making up for bad footwork and his lack of strength. But, man, the Bears put him insolation against either smaller or longer players and worked him over. KU fans immediately requested that film be sent to every NBA GM to show that he isn’t ready to be a pro yet.

Illness

Sunday was supposed to be L’s first “training camp” for her travel program. She had to stay home, though, because she tested positive for Covid Friday after school. She felt pretty bad most of the weekend but was acting better Sunday evening. She’s like a Covid magnet. She told us it seemed like everyone at school has the flu. I’m guessing those kids parents don’t test them for Covid anymore like we do.

So far no one else is the house has got it. I guess it was good for her to get it out of the way two weeks before spring break.

She has her school team end-of-year gathering tonight then first official travel practice tomorrow night.

School Calendar

She and C have reached the silly part of their school year.

Wednesday C takes the SAT, so she only has half a day and L gets to stay home and eLearn. They get next Friday off going into spring break. The week after spring break they get Good Friday off, then Easter Monday the following week. Finally CHS announced two weeks ago they are elearning on eclipse day, April 8.

The next time they have a normal, five-day school week is the week of April 15. And then the school year is almost over.

Weekend Notes

January 8, 2024 /

It was odd walking downstairs this morning. We put all the holiday decorations away Sunday, so this was the first time since Thanksgiving I was greeted by a dark main floor. C said our family room looked “emo” without the decorations yesterday. I’m not sure if emo is the term I would pick, but it does always take a few days to get used to the tree, etc being packed away for another 11 months.

It was also a strange morning because S is back in the office on Mondays for the first time in years. I’ll share more about that in a future post.

We had a very busy Saturday followed by a pretty lazy Sunday. Some notes…

Back to School

L had games Saturday starting at noon. After her JV contest, S and M left the gym and headed to Cincinnati to drop M off for her second semester. Sunday was the normal move-in day, but she had a greek leadership meeting that began at 9:00 Sunday and needed to go back early. I forget if I mentioned last fall that she was elected as social chair for her house, thus her presence was required at this meeting. She’s already working on planning their formal this spring. UC lovingly added $40 to our bill for her moving in 24 hours early.

I guess move-in went well. Someone working in her dorm told S that Sunday was going to be crazy, so it might have been worth the $40 to avoid that rush.

M ended up getting straight A’s first semester, which was a terrific start. Right before she came home she added Marketing as a major. She figured that’s a better path to a job right after graduation than psychology, which would likely require graduate work. She’s debating whether to do a double major or shift psych to a minor.

While she starts classes today, her sisters got to sleep in one last day. They begin their two-week J term tomorrow.

Snow

We got our first real snow of the year Friday night/Saturday morning. Probably 2” of heavy, wet stuff at our house. I got up and pushed it aside just to make sure the driveway didn’t turn into a sheet of ice. Our forecast this week looks miserable. Rain and/or snow almost every day, and potentially a major storm next weekend.

As a weather geek I love watching how the forecast changes this time of year. Last night one forecast predicted between 15–20” of snow from Thursday night to Saturday morning. This morning it had switched to mostly rain and just 2–3” of snow. I imagine it will change multiple times before the storm finally gets here.

Jayhawk Talk

You’re not going to believe this but I missed the first half of the KU-TCU game watching L play. It’s uncanny how often that has happened this year. Fortunately I got home in time to see most of the second half.

I guess that was fortunate? I might be getting too old to handle games like this, and I’m afraid the entire Big 12 schedule this year is going to play out similar to Saturday’s game. Almost every team plays really good defense. There don’t seem to be many pushovers. The next two months are going to be brutal.

It doesn’t help that this KU team seems to be missing something. Not just the shooters that would open so much up for the offense. There’s another mysterious “something” that isn’t there. It’s far too hard for them to score, even with two first team All American caliber players and one of the best distributing point guards in the county. It’s like the parts almost fit perfectly, but grind against each other just enough to keep them from reaching their potential.

I mean, it would be cool if someone on this team could hit a few 3s every night. Even then I think something would be off, though.

Let’s get this over with: the intentional foul called against Ernest Udeh when he elbowed Hunter Dickinson was 100% the right call. I wasn’t sure in real time but watching replays it’s clear Udeh threw his elbow with intent rather than as a function of trying to grab Kevin McCullar’s truly horrific pass. That said, I’m shocked it was called. There seemed just enough wiggle room for the refs to decide it was a play-on rather than foul since it hadn’t been whistled immediately.

I have no issue with TCU people being pissed about it. I would be, no matter what the replay showed. But I’m already done with Fran Fraschilla’s interpretation of the play, knowing he is going to mention it 8000 times between now and the end of the season.[1] God forbid KU wins the Big 12 by a game because he is going to talk about that single play incessantly. Props to Seth Davis, Seth Greenberg, and Jay Wright for countering Fraschilla’s nonsense.

Fraschilla and the other haters didn’t mention the awful foul called on KJ Adams with about 2:00 left that gave Emanuel Miller two free throws and TCU a two-point lead. I think the Hoops Gods made the call against Udeh to balance that shitty foul on KJ.

(OK, aside time. Fraschilla is truly a putz. For some reason about ten years ago he decided to become the voice for the anti-KU element of the Big 12. He holds onto borderline calls that go for KU like a psychopathic fan.[2] He often parrots lines that clearly come from other Big 12 coaches. Any time there’s a close call in Allen Fieldhouse, you can hear his energy level rise and the eagerness in his voice, like a Jan. Sixer talking about how the election was stolen.[3]

His comments Saturday were even more bizarre since he casually threw in his opinion that Dickinson traveled on his game-winning basket, as if that was another egregious miss by the officials that the entire world saw. It was such a strange observation that CBS’ Seth Davis tweeted back with a clip of the play, showing Dickinson clearly taking a dribble as he shuffled his feet before tossing the shot in.

I’m not sure if Fraschilla has cracked after years of being yelled at by KU fans, if Bill Self pissed him off/froze him out at some point, or just because he is famously close with a couple current/former Big 12 coaches, but it is clear his emotions affect his analysis. At least when KU is involved. Which is fine if you’re a middle-aged blogger. It’s not when you are the main color commentator for an entire conference.)

Anyway, KU is 13–1 but I don’t think many KU fans are feeling great about the team. We were extremely fortunate to beat TCU. There are about 18 tough-ass games ahead of us just to get through the conference season. To be clear, I don’t feel bad about the team. They just aren’t as good as we hoped and the path to reaching the pre-season goals of Final Four caliber team seems pretty daunting.

Colts

What a terrible ending to an unexpectedly inspiring season by our local football eleven. Actually that’s what our soccer team is called so I should not be cute and just say Colts.

This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, a season in which rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson took his lumps and got acclimated to the NFL, with the idea of competing for a playoff spot again next year.

Richardson was surprisingly good, until he got hurt multiple times and ended up needing season-ending surgery. Gardner Minshew shook off some early rough games and often found ways to make just enough plays to win. After a lengthy hold-out and a brief injury absence, Jonathan Taylor returned to anchor the offense. The defense improved as the season progressed.

The Colts won a couple games they shouldn’t have. They lost a few they shouldn’t have. They benefited from playing in the thoroughly meh AFC South.

It was perfect their season came down to a de facto playoff game against Houston, at home, on Saturday night.

The result felt appropriate for the season, too. A couple dumb coaching decisions by Shane Streichen, who seems like a solid coach but like so many “innovative” coaches, occasionally tries too hard to be cute. A couple meltdowns by the defensive backfield. And then the inevitable Minshew mistake. This time is wasn’t a brutal interception on a potential scoring drive, but rather missing a wide-open back on fourth-and-one in the red zone with less than two minutes remaining.

There’s been a lot of debate about the play that did the Colts in, with a decent contingent of folks trying their hardest to say it wasn’t Minshew’s fault. I’m sorry: that was a TERRIBLE throw. He wasn’t pressured. Tyler Goodson was wide open with blockers ahead of him. At minimum it was an easy first down. The way it was set up there was a decent chance Goodson was going to tie the game and give the Colts the chance to take the lead on the PAT.

It was a perfect play call and 10 Colts did their job. It was Minshew who choked.

Now it’s on to 2024 with, hopefully, a healthy Richardson and Taylor behind him to start the season. The Colts weren’t a good team this year, so there are a lot of areas that need improvement if the want to be legitimate contenders next season. Regardless, the 2024 cycle begins with some genuine optimism about what is to come.

NFL

I’ve been saying all year how weird the NFL is. One week you think a team is dominant, the next they lose a stupid game against a weaker team.

So how do you pick the playoffs this year? The Niners and Ravens seem to have separated themselves in each conference. But do you trust Brock Purdy? Lamar Jackson’s shit hasn’t worked in the playoffs so far in his career, is this the year that changes? I think the Cowboys might actually be the favorite at this point. I’m going to need a few days to ponder on all of it, though.

  1. I think it started when Kelly Oubre wasn’t called for pushing off on an offensive rebound in 2015. It came against Oklahoma, where Fraschilla’s son was playing at the time, and I think something in his brain snapped that night. That game was in mid-January and, I swear, Fraschilla mentioned it every time he did a KU or OU game the rest of the season.  ↩
  2. Ahem. I know. You don’t need to mention pots and kettles, men in the mirror, etc.  ↩
  3. Pretty sure Fran subscribes to that conspiracy, too, based on some of his Tweets, so it all fits together perfectly.  ↩

Wednesday Notes

December 13, 2023 /

A good, old fashioned notes dump like the old days.

CHS Lockdown

There was a lockdown for about an hour at Cathedral yesterday. Apparently someone called 911 claiming to be inside the school with a gun. About a million cops showed up and no person with a gun was ever found. We live in wonderful times, friends.

Our girls seemed more annoyed that they had to stay and finish the day after the all-clear than worried/scared by the threat.

Visitor/College Break

M’s roommate from UC came for a quick visit Monday and Tuesday. She lives in Toledo and M visited her last summer for a weekend. Because of her holiday schedule she was only able to come down for about 24 hours. But M showed her around our area and introduced her to a few high school friends, although they mostly hung around with other UC kids.

A funny thing about M’s friend group at school is one of her best guy friends grew up less than a mile from our house. He went to the rival high school and never knew each other, but they had mutual friends. The past several days their local group has been gathering either at his house or ours.

It was a little weird getting M home last week. My first thought was, “OK, it’s Christmas break!” Then I realized her sister had almost THREE full weeks of class left before they were done for the semester. M did a lot of sitting around that first week, but most of her friends are back in town now and her social activity has started to pick back up. She’s also done some babysitting and has several days blocked off to watch either nephews or other kids between now and her return to school next month.

Holidays

M’s arrival has messed up my mind regarding the holidays in more ways than one. I was a little surprised to realize Monday we were two weeks from Christmas. The first half of the Christmas season seems to have raced by. I think a lot of that is because of L’s game schedule, which has kept us very busy the past two weeks.

Anyway, it was a bit of an alarm to make sure I am focused over the next two weeks to get all my holiday movies and shows knocked out. I haven’t watched Elf or Christmas Vacation nearly enough (one full time each, several partial viewings thrown in as well).

Sports Illustrated

Man, what a mess. An American icon that has been crumbling for years likely had its final downfall a week ago when it was discovered that the magazine was using AI to both write articles and labelling those articles with AI-generated writer names and headshots.

SI was an integral part of my childhood, and then remained essential deep into adulthood. The arrival of each week’s new volume on Thursday was one of the biggest moments of your kid week. My copy remained in the folder I carried to class until it was dog-eared and nearly memorized, not replaced until the next one came.

Magazines everywhere are dying. It feels like SI could have survived as it was generally more of a high-level view of sports, one which can still be relevant in the Internet age. The magazine, and its publishers, have made about a million bad choices in the past 20 years, though, and it was already an insignificant blip on the sports journalism map before this scandal.

And then they gave the Sportsman of the Year award to Deion Sanders, which seems absolutely asinine on every level. Given how ultra-commercial his whole deal is, my first thought was that he, or his publicists, paid for the honor. Or exchanged it for access. Something classic SI would not have engaged in.

Should he have been in the issue somewhere? Absolutely. But whatever waves he made this year were more because of the work his handlers did to create his story and image than anything he actually did. Many people had a bigger impact on the sports world than Deion.

As one college football expert said recently on a podcast, Deion deserves immense credit for what he’s already done at CU. But the fact is that team got worse each week of the season, there was all kinds of internal turmoil in the program, and Deion proved that if he really wants to deliver on all the promises he’s made, he has a lot to learn about coaching and running a power conference program. That expert has confidence that Deion is capable of making those jumps. But you can’t give a student an A+ for a project that was turned in incomplete missing required elements.

Memorial Stadium

The first phase of demolition at KU’s Memorial Stadium started on Monday. I loved all the people who made comments long the lines of “It was a dump, I watched a ton of bad football there, but I also have a lot of great memories there.” Very true.

In my first game there in 1980 I saw Dan Marino. I was there for the Tony Sands game. For Monte Cozzens. For Eric Vann’s 99-yard touchdown run.[1] Two wins over Oklahoma. I also sat through ice storms, bitter cold, blazing heat, and gusty winds while the Jayhawks were getting housed by Nebraska, OU, and others. When I lived in Lawrence, I was there damn near every home game.

The rumors last week that KU is looking to play some of their home games at Arrowhead in Kansas City next year are interesting. I think they realize the team has a chance to be even better next year, and don’t want to play games in front of 20,000 in a stadium that is under active renovation. Sell a bunch more tickets to bring more money in. Maybe rope in some new fans, or re-energize KC-area fans who stopped making the drive to Lawrence at some point during the Lost Decade. And potentially get the stadium renovations in Lawrence done faster than expected and be ready for the 2025 season. I don’t think you move all the games to Arrowhead, but it makes sense to play a few of them there if the Chiefs are open to the idea.

Andre Braugher

Such sad news that Andre Braugher has died. What an amazing career. His two biggest roles, as Frank Pembleton on Homicide and Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, were two wildly different characters. It was shocking to see the same actor who portrayed the hyper-intense Pembleton make amazing comedy as Holt. He made it work.

  1. Never understood why these announcers called it a 98-yard run.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 23, 2023 /

It was a pretty good fall break/long weekend around our house. It included another trip to Cincinnati, a new family toy, and a variety of news on the high school sports front. Let’s dive into the details.

CHS Fall Break

C and L were off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for their fall break. L had basketball practice all three days and the weather was crappy, so we didn’t do much. Our pool guy was supposed to show up Thursday to close it for us, but it rained so much he didn’t make it. He’ll now be here Tuesday.

Aficionados of my fall break posts will not be surprised that we went up the block to Walgreens and got flu shots on Thursday, which is a bit of a tradition. The girls also ran around with their friends a little bit. L got to go the final Pacers preseason game of the year Friday, sitting in the front row behind the basket. She got pictures with Cavaliers Caris Levert and Donovan Mitchell after the game, which was pretty cool. One of her friends accidentally dumped a bottle of water on Levert when he slid into them during the game.

UC Family Weekend

We drove down to Cincinnati Saturday morning for Family Weekend. The Bearcats were taking on Baylor, but I doubted the girls would be interested in an entire game between two bad teams so we opted to let M do her greek life tailgating thing and picked her up right after kickoff.[1]

We headed to the Findlay Market area and ate some pretty solid barbecue. While we were eating I could see L whispering to her sisters and they were all laughing. When I asked what was so funny, so said, “This is way better than Oklahoma Joe’s.”

Then M lost it, “LOOK AT HIS FACE! HE IS SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU!”

I mean, it was good barbecue, I won’t lie. But if she wasn’t just messing with me I may have to disown her.

While eating we ran into some Indy friends who sent kids to both St P’s and CHS. I’ve sat with the dad at multiple football games this year. Their oldest daughter is a senior at Xavier and it was her sorority’s parents weekend. Small world.

We went downtown to check into our hotel then walked down to the riverfront and visited the Underground Railroad Museum. It was fascinating. They suckered us into getting a membership since that is cheaper than five individual day passes. That’s cool because I definitely want to go back and spend more time there. Not going to name names,[2] but some folks in my family tend to breeze through museums where I like to take them in slowly and get into the details.

Back to the hotel for some down time. I watched football while all three girls took naps. Then we headed back to the dorm so M could change and grab her high school bud who was joining us for dinner. A’s parents couldn’t make it for the weekend so we made her an honorary B girl for the night. We went to Sacred Beast in the Over-The-Rhine district. It was quirky and good. And we sat in a booth next to another group of folks we know from St P’s and CHS. Twice in one day! So odd.

We dropped M, her friend, and C back at the dorm and returned to the hotel for the night. C was going to spend the night with M since her roommate was gone and get a taste of college life. Seems like that went ok, although C’s back was bothering her and M dropped C off after a couple parties, locked her in the room, and went back out. This might be the moment to point out that despite being sick for 87 consecutive weeks, M apparently doesn’t miss a chance to go out.

Sunday morning we got the girls then headed back downtown for breakfast at the tremendous Maplewood Kitchen. One of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had. And we got there just before the rush hit and were able to get a table without too long of a wait. By the time we left the line was out the door.

After eating it was back to campus so M could show us around. We got to see her sorority house and meet her pledge mom, J, who is awesome. M had told us a lot about her but meeting her made it all click. They are VERY similar, but in a good way where it works. We made a stop at a bookstore so both C and L could get some UC gear, ran into Target to get M a few things, then headed home. We were back in our house in time to see the second half of the Colts game.

Cincinnati is cool. I’ve been to one Reds game in my 20 years in Indy, and that was a quick in-and-out for a day game. I forget where but I had heard plenty over the years about the geography of the city, but until you see it, it doesn’t really make sense. It is a river town, like Kansas City and St. Louis, so all the roads are kind of fucked up based on that alone. Then it is built into some serious bluffs that rise straight up out of the Ohio. Parts of it look kind of California-like just because of the rapid increase in elevation. It is definitely more St. Louis than KC, as it feels a lot older than my hometown. Even then Cincy has a very distinct feel from the Lou. I imagine I’ll get to know the city even better over the next few years.

New Toy

We made the trip in S’s new vehicle, a Kia Telluride. It is very, very nice. Her lease doesn’t end on her Grand Cherokee for a few weeks, so we kept the Telluride in the garage for the first few days we owned it. She got it early specifically for this trip, so M could bring a friend (or two) if needed since we again have a seven-passenger vehicle. I drove the entire weekend and loved it. Between having a kid in college and another joining her in less than two years, when my Audi lease is up I’m going to have to do some serious financial downsizing. I dig the Telluride enough that a smaller Kia SUV will likely be in the running.

High School Hoops

I mentioned above that L had basketball practice last week. To answer the obvious question, yes, she seems to have recovered from her concussion.

Monday was the first official day of practice in Indiana, and she was cleared to return that day after taking a week off. Her coach did keep her out of scrimmages, though, just to avoid contact for a little longer. L said that made practice boring but I reminded her she didn’t need to get hurt again and then miss weeks of the season.

Wednesday was roster day, when the girls learned what team they would be on. We kind of knew what to expect, but it was still a little nerve-racking to drop her off, run to the grocery store to grab a couple things, then wait for her to come out.

Options were freshman, JV, varsity, freshman-JV double roster, or the JV-varsity double.

Each player had a one-on-one with the coach where they learned their fate. She texted me about 45 minutes in asking if I was there. I said yes, but she didn’t come out for another 20 minutes, which concerned me. But when she came out she was with a few older girls who I knew would make varsity, and they were all laughing.

She got in the car, I asked how it went, and she just said, “Fine.”

“Well…what did you get?!?!” Jesus, this kid.

She made the JV team, one of only three freshmen to make it. When I asked her what the coach said to her she said that L had done a great job in preseason camp, was already a leader in the program, and she expected that she would get some varsity minutes this year. So not double-rostered but the window is open to play up. My expectation/assumption is that she will be the starting point guard for JV. The head coach had the girl who will start as PG for varsity guard the hell out of L all preseason to get her toughened up for high school ball.

Pretty cool! I was pumped and told her I was proud of her. She kind of blew me off, because this is what she expected, but I think she was pleased on the inside.

Thursday night she had four of her friends over, all of whom made varsity. She knows how to get in good with the older girls.

The first game is November 7. Practice goes up to 2.5 hours this week, plus they have JV and varsity scrimmages against another school Wednesday.

Other CHS Sports

The football state tournament began last week. Class 6A gets a week off before their tournament begins, so no game for CHS. The Irish open sectionals against an 0–9 team this Friday.

CHS had three other teams playing Saturday, two of which could affect how quickly L gets to at least sit the bench in a varsity game.

The girls soccer team was playing in semi-state, a week after knocking off the #1 team in Indiana. Two varsity basketball starters are on the soccer team, and if they won and made it to State, those girls would not be eligible for the first two basketball games of the year.[3] The volleyball team was playing in the regional round, and if they advanced to semi-state next week that would knock another varsity basketball starter out for two games.

Unfortunately – except for basketball, I guess – both teams lost. Soccer lost 1–0 to the #11 team (CHS was ranked #6), and #4 volleyball lost in five sets to the #6 team (they would have played #5 Saturday night if they won the morning match). So bummers there.

Boys soccer balanced that a bit, getting a 2–1 win to advance to State. But our girls don’t really know any of those kids so would have much rather one of the girls teams won.

Colts

LOL. That was an insane game, and I missed the entire first half which was apparently totally off the rails. If I was fully invested I would be pissed about the second pass interference call on the Browns’ final drive of the game. I wonder what that Twitter user I mentioned last week, who likes re-tread white quarterbacks more than first round draft picks who happen to be Black, thought of Gardner Minshew turning the ball over four more times this week.

  1. (Speaking in a Troy Aikman voice) Folks, I gotta tell ya, the Bearcats might really stink. They may well be 2–9 when the Jayhawks roll into town Thanksgiving weekend. Which means I probably just jinxed KU into an L. Idiot.  ↩
  2. My wife.  ↩
  3. In Indiana you have to participate in ten practices before you can play in a high school game. Even if you are coming from another varsity sport, which is super dumb to me. Those kids are in shape.  ↩

Weekend Notes

August 14, 2023 /

Lots of lasts and firsts over the past seven days. Let’s see if I can get through them all without getting too wordy or emotional.

First Week at CHS

L had her traditions orientation last Sunday evening and then a half-day schedule walk through on Wednesday before Cathedral began the school year on Thursday.

When we picked her up from the traditions orientation and asked how it went, her response was, “Fine. I have a new potential boyfriend.” Good grief. I believe she and this young man were up talking late into the evening the next night. A year ago this kid refused to wear contacts when she wasn’t playing basketball, had braces, and kept her hair pulled back at all times. Now she’s always in contacts, the braces are off and the teeth look good, and she is super proud of her curls. In fact when she got her schedule and saw that weight training is her first class of the day 3–4 days a week, so got upset because “my hair isn’t going to look good after weights.”

It was very odd for her and C to head off to CHS together without me being involved. I had a mental clock constantly ticking Thursday and Friday, making me think I had to be somewhere at a certain time. I imagine that clock will tick for a few weeks until my brain re-wires itself after 16 years of school year drop offs and pick ups. And right about the time I adjust, L will start basketball workouts either before or after school and I’ll start driving at least one way again.

Early last week M said to me, “You finally get to sleep in now!” I shook my head and said, “Uh, no I can’t!” and nodded at C, who started laughing. C is now the responsible sister for driving herself and her sister to school. She is also the hardest of our kids to wake up. Thus it will continue to be my job to make sure she gets out of bed. Since she parks in the junior lot, which is much more chaotic than the senior lot M parked in last year, she is leaving about 15 minutes earlier than they left last year.

Put all that together and I’ve been getting up in the 6:20–6:30 range through three days, compared to the 7:00 that was my standard wake time last year. Oh well. Allows me to knock out my blogging responsibilities sooner in the day. I’m sure all my friends who have had jobs their entire adult lives feel really bad for me not being able to sleep in every day.

You know what else is weird? This is the first time in nine years we don’t have any kickball practices/games when the new school year starts! Not sure what I’m going to do with myself with no games of any kind until mid-November.

Week of Lasts/Goodbyes

Lots of lasts for M over the past week. A week ago Sunday was her final time working on Sundays for her aunt who is a personal chef, a job she’s had for two years. C took over this weekend.

We had the in-laws over for dinner on Monday. M had a couple other dinners with either aunts or friends. Lots of friends dropped by to say goodbye, which meant plenty of tears. Friday her core group all stopped by to say goodbye together. We cracked up when her one friend, who is not emotional at all, came bouncing down the stairs with a smile on her face while the other four girls were all in tears.

Moving Day

Saturday was move-in day at UC. We rented a minivan, dropped all the seats, and filled it up, then had the back of S’s Jeep Cherokee full as well. Seemed like a lot of stuff to me. We also made C and L go with us. For the record I was against this, although they did help us get unloaded a little quicker than we could have done with just three people. After that they were just kind of in the way, but I guess it saved us having to do sister goodbyes at 7:30 AM.

It was raining in Indy when we left but we got ahead of the storms as we drove down. We were able to pull right up in front of M’s dorm and were almost completely unloaded before the rain hit Cincy. It was pretty gentle until after we had everything out of the cars and I had moved them to a parking garage, so none of us nor M’s stuff got soaked.

This was the early move-in day for people going through rush, who have other early commitments, or are local and just wanted to drop their stuff and go back home until the official move-in date. I can’t imagine what it will be like later this week when the bulk of the students show up. Seemed like there were a ton of people there already. Later in the day you couldn’t get anywhere close to M’s dorm and folks were hauling their stuff several blocks. So glad we were early and missed that.

You may recall M was not pleased when she got her dorm assignment. I told her to suck it up, living in a crappy dorm is part of being in college. But after seeing her room, I’m on her side. It’s not great. I swear it feels older and smaller than my old, small crappy dorm rooms from the early 90s. I’m not convinced it got a very good cleaning after its last occupants moved out. There are also very few electrical outlets, which seems weird for modern times. Hope the girls are careful with their extension cords.

You can see the basketball arena from her window, which is kind of cool. The Bearcats come to Lawrence this season, so KU may play there in the ’24–25 season, depending on how the new, new Big 12 schedule works out.

We arrived three hours before her roommate, so we had a chance to get M’s stuff in and organized on our own. We took off right after her roommate arrived so didn’t see first hand how they divided up the space. The pictures M sent us make it look like they got everything in and arranged ok. The roommate brought a rug, which might have been the best contribution of all.

Rush activities start Monday evening. I’m sure it’s going to be a stressful week for all those girls. I don’t know if M has any preferences. There is not a chapter for the house her mom was in at IU, so she can’t do the legacy thing. The greek system at UC is a little different than at your traditional state schools. Some houses don’t actually have physical houses, and others are quite a bit smaller than their sibling houses at IU or Purdue. I think at some houses you don’t move in until you are a junior. I don’t have my head around the details. I just hope she lands somewhere with good people that makes her happy. And I hope the next few days aren’t too rough on her. Classes begin on the 21st.

Between the rain, us being all sweaty and gross, and the emotions of saying goodbye, we didn’t take a single picture Saturday. I had to ask M to take a few so I have a record of her arrival at college. As of the time of this post, she hasn’t seen me any but promises to.

Oh yeah, the emotions. I wish someone would have warned me.

I kid. Everyone I know who has taken a kid to college warned me. I still wasn’t prepared for the wave that started to hit me while we were eating lunch, knowing that we would be leaving without her soon. Yikes. The goodbyes were hard and I was kind of a mess for a few hours afterward. Glad that L rode home with S, and C slept in the back of the van all the way home.

We’ve sent a kid off to college. Crazy.

Loaner

In addition to the minivan for the trip to Cincinnati, I am also driving a loaner from Audi again. The rear tailgate on my Q5 has failed for the third time, and it is taking a few days to get parts in.

The last time I got a loaner it was an A5, which was a lot of fun. How privileged of me was it to be disappointed when they gave me another Q5 this time? And the same trim level as mine? Mine has better (ventilated) seats but otherwise it is the same car, just newer and white. I did let M drive it Friday when she took me to pick up the minivan. I’ve never let her drive mine, so it was kind of a special treat before she went off to school.

Flory

Finally a big time Indiana recruit picks KU!

My Saturday sadness was balanced somewhat by the commitment of Kokomo’s Flory Bidunga to KU late in the evening. He is currently ranked as the #1 center and #5 player overall in his class. He is the highest-rated recruit to commit to the Jayhawks since Josh Jackson. By one measure he is behind only Jackson and Andrew Wiggins as the highest rated KU recruit ever. I would submit that there are at least three recruits who would be rated above him if modern recruiting rankings existed when they were seniors.[1]

I have been paying attention to him since last summer. He had just been in the US one year, and led his high school team to a surprising semi-state run in the state tournament as a sophomore. His summer team played Xavier Booker’s team, right after Xavier had been named the #1 player in his class. A local reporter was at the game and tweeted out updates. Bidunga just destroyed Booker that night. He had nine dunks and out-played the alleged best player in the country.

I didn’t expect KU to be in the mix – they never really have been with studs in Indiana – but I was hopeful.

Then this past spring there were rumors that Bidunga might reclassify and enroll at KU over the summer. Apparently he is tight with the Adidas folks and that promoted the rumors. Rumors he quickly quashed, insisting he was going to play his senior year and try to win a state championship.

However, KU seemed to be in the lead because of the Adidas connection. Until this July, when all the recruiting “experts” decided that Duke was his most likely destination.

When Flory announced he would be committing this week, there was another rush of predictions for Duke.

Until Friday when a bunch of those same experts flipped their predictions to Auburn. Which seemed…odd. But do you ever really know with teenagers and recruiting?

Then he picked KU, which made me wonder if people around him were intentionally giving bad intel to the recruiting gurus.

Just a good reminder that you should never read too much into these predictions. Bidunga was going to Duke, until he wasn’t. Mackenzie Mgbako was going to Kansas…until he picked Indiana. Don’t believe anything until you see the kid put on the hat.

As for Flory, he led his team to the state finals last year, where they lost to undefeated Ben Davis. He had 19 points, 11 rebounds, and five blocks in the title game. He holds the unofficial Indiana records for most dunks in a game, 11, and most consecutive field goals made, 32. He’s only 6’8”–6’9” so it’s not like he’s Joel Embiid or Udoka Azubuike. He is a ridiculous athlete who has very good post fundamentals and tries to dunk everything. He doesn’t register as a one-and-done player because of his size and the lack of variety to his game right now, but Bill Self did tell him he could be as good as Embiid so, again, you never know.

The big bonus is he seems like a great kid. He is always smiling. He always plays hard. An IU friend of mine who has seen him play a bunch texted me saying, “He is going to be awesome in Bill Self’s system.” A reporter asked Flory Saturday what he would like KU fans to know about him. His response was that he is a good person who treats people well, and it would be great if people knew that.

Love this kid already!

I may have to attend a Kokomo high school game or two this year. Hopefully they come down to Indy a few times.

  1. Raef LaFrentz, who was generally #1 or #2 in his class, Danny Manning, and Wilt Chamberlain.  ↩

Thursday Notes

January 26, 2023 /

Snow Day

We had the first snow day of the year yesterday. It was kind of a dud. The storm that was supposed to drop 5–8” of snow here could only muster about 2.5 inches. As the storm was expected to hit right at the morning rush, most area schools had either cancelled classes or jumped to e-learning well before bedtime Tuesday. M and C found out they would be home Wednesday while they were still in class Tuesday. St P’s didn’t call it until about 10:15 PM.

That was still probably the right move, as the roads were not great right when high schoolers would be driving and younger kids would be waiting for buses. But once the heavy snow ended, it was a letdown to still see grass poking through in our yard.

The real bummer was that the snow that fell was very wet and heavy, making it difficult to move. It was too thick for the snowblower and too heavy to pick up with a shovel. So L and I spent about 30 minutes struggling to shove it off the driveway. Even that was tough, since if you pushed snow for more than 10 feet it compacted into big lumps that didn’t want to roll any farther. But it was good for snowmen and snowballs! Once we were done L spent about two hours at a friend’s house playing in it.

She was upset she didn’t get to use the snowblower, though. Ours broke two years ago, then I gambled, and won, by not getting it fixed last year, a season we avoided any big snows. I got it fixed before Christmas and she was fired up to get a chance to use it.

After nearly a month of relatively mild weather, looks like it’s going to be more typical of winter here for the next few weeks. Not super cold, thankfully, but lots of chances for snow. So L may well get her chance to unleash mechanized fury on some snow.

She was done with her school assignments pretty early. Or maybe it’s because she’s been getting up at 5:30 AM lately that she was done so quickly. Her sisters slept much later but were still pretty much done with their work by mid-afternoon.

I spent most of the day and evening reading a very good book. I started it late morning and was done by 10:30. You’ll hear more about that soon.

Twitter

Twitter has been a huge part of my life for 12–13 years now. I can’t remember exactly when I signed up; my current account was not my first so its 2011 start date wasn’t my true introduction to the service. I just remember that was when I listened to a lot of tech podcasts, and they were all raving about the platform, so I logged on pretty early in its life.

My experience with Twitter was always through using some of the great Mac and iOS apps that were made for it. Tweetbot and Twitterific were the two I used most, although I know I dabbled with others over the years. These were great because they were much more user friendly than either the Twitter website or the official apps. As the company moved into areas like promoted tweets and advertising, these third party apps kept those out of my feed. Until two weeks ago, I had never seen an ad in my Twitter feed or Tweets the company thought I should see based on their algorithm. And I could completely avoid the For You feed.

When Tech Karen suddenly shut down access for third party apps two weeks ago,[1] I suddenly had to see how most Twitter users live. And it sucks. A hostile interface that is constantly pushing things on me I don’t want, and forgets changes I’ve made in my personal settings to reflect my interests. It’s pretty much the same way that Instagram has gone from one of the best and most enjoyable platforms to one that shows me more ads and Reels, which I never asked to see, than photos from people I choose to follow. Only Twitter has Nazis and people complaining about Furries and constant suggestions that I need to gamble on sports.

Because of all of this, I’ve been using Twitter less and less. I still check it a couple times a day. Where it was once my default time waster, I have reached the point where I often realize “Hey, I haven’t looked at Twitter in 12 hours.” Because my feed was so carefully curated, I got a lot of good info out of it without being weighed down by things I didn’t have time for. So that’s a loss. But I’m realizing it may not be as big of a loss as I feared it would be when Tech Karen took over and began tearing the company apart like the toddler he is.

I’m hoping that TK either bails and someone else saves Twitter, or some other service pops up to replace it as my favorite virtual water cooler. I’ve signed up for Mastodon, which a lot of techies are jumping to. But it seems very weird and not functionally ready to scale to the size of Twitter so I’m not spending any time there. I guess as long as the people I get the most value from on Twitter remain there, I’ll keep checking in occasionally and tolerating its many issues. And hope that if/when it is saved, rationality will return and third party apps will be allowed again.

  1. Based on lies about violations of their policies and with no communication for nearly two weeks after the fact.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 9, 2023 /

It’s back to semi-normal today. L returned to school after her Christmas break. M and C still have one more week of J-term, so they go in a little later and get out a little earlier. But all three have to get up in the mornings again.

Last week I had to get up to make sure C was up, so my alarm was 7:15 instead of my normal, school-day 6:55. Still, it was a little weird coming down this morning and finding the house dark instead of two Christmas trees already turned on filling the living room and front office with their soft light.

We took all the holiday decorations down Saturday. Since they went up earlier than normal and stayed up a little longer than normal, this was our most decorated Christmas ever.

We all have dentist appointments this afternoon, which wraps up a busy run of visits to health professionals over the past few weeks. I’ve been to the orthodontist three times, optometrist, sports medicine, MRI center, physical therapy, and had my annual physical.

I’m good, all that middle stuff was for C. She’s been having back pain for a few months, and even resting it plus a few visits to a chiropractor last fall didn’t help. Walking around in Italy was awful for her, and she was generally miserable at the end of each day, and progressively worse as the week went on. We finally got her in to a sports medicine doc three weeks ago. X-rays were clean but her MRI showed two interesting things. First, she has a bulging disk, the likely cause of her pain. Second, she is missing a vertebra and one set of ribs. That diagnosis got S into super medical research mode and she found about 4–5% of the general population has this issue. Weird!

The sports med doc said while there’s no research that would definitely tell us the bulging disk is directly tied to the lack of that vertebra, she also said it sure didn’t help. She also said it likely cost C an inch or two of height, which makes her topping out at 5’2” while her sisters both made it to 5’4”-ish make sense.[1] She took some teasing for that.

She started physical therapy last week and will do that for a month or so, with the hopes that helps her avoid anything more invasive to correct the issue.

Big 12 Hoops

Another crazy-ass weekend in the best conference in the country. Three teams are tied for first place at 3–0, all three getting there on the strength of two road wins. KU is not a huge surprise to be in that group. Kansas State and Iowa State, though? HUGE surprises. These were picked 8th and 9th in the preseason polls!

I think it’s too early to draw broad conclusions about any team. Especially in a conference like the Big 12. The Wildcats and Cyclones might be mid-tier teams a month from now. But they are off to great starts, and those road wins are huge bonuses in a conference that will likely be tightly bunched much of the season. 14–4 is always my default answer for what it takes to win the Big 12. Could this be the year that something like 12–6 guarantees you no worse than a tie?

More Jayhawks-centric talk later this week.

Pacers

The Indiana Pacers were expected to win right around 20 games this year. They just played their 41st game of the season, the exact midpoint of their schedule. After grabbing two more close wins this weekend, they stand at 23–18, good for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

It’s been a remarkable first half. They are hella fun to watch, as my friends in Cali might say. Tyrese Haliburton is a legit All Star, and plays with a joy that is infectious. Buddy Hield leads the league in 3-pointers made, connecting on nearly 20 more than the second-most prolific shooter. Rookie Bennedict Mathurin is going to be a star. Second-round pick Andrew Nembhard could be one of the steals of the draft, an ideal backup to Haliburton who can also play next to him. Aaron Nesmith is beginning to show why he was a lottery pick two years ago.

But the biggest surprise is Myles Turner, a player most expected to have been traded by now. Turner is playing the best, most complete, most inspired ball of his career. I’ve always thought he was a little immature and disinterested in doing the hard work it took to be a star. At least for now he seems fully invested. To the point where the Pacers have made him a contract extension offer, attempting to capitalize on the big chunk of salary cap space they still have open. Turner has, for now, said he’s not interested.

That will set up an interesting game of chicken. Can the Pacers really trade their second-best player when they are in the running for a playoff spot and far too good to have a realistic shot at the #1 pick if they suddenly decide to tank? Can Turner turn down more money than any other team will be able to give him next summer no matter how badly he wants to end up in LA?

A year ago I would say the sides will come together and find an agreeable extension before the trade deadline, and Turner will quickly get injured. He’s always getting injured, and it would be just the Pacers’ luck for that to happen after they lock him up.

I think the Pacers’ luck has changed, though. So I think they either re-sign him and he stays healthy, or they can’t agree to terms, he plays out the year, signs with another team over the summer and that inevitable injury pops up in training camp. Meanwhile the Pacers use all their cap space to plug some other holes and immediately turn back into the solid 40–50 win team they usually are.

cLots/NFL

What a finish to the regular season! The cLots began the season with that humiliating tie in Houston, one that required a furious comeback just to get to overtime. They ended it with an even bigger embarrassment, losing to the Texans at home in the final minute of the game. Houston had a 10-point lead three times, but the cLots rallied to take a seven-point lead late in the fourth quarter. The Texans, who should have been satisfied with the loss and the #1 pick in April’s draft, for some reason decided to play full-out, converting on fourth and 20+ two different times on their final drive, including the touchdown that cut the lead to one. Then they went for two and the win and got it.

Amazing!

In the process they allowed the Bears to jump them for the #1 pick. The Texans’ owner was on the sideline after the game and he seemed to be the only person not celebrating. A few hours later he fired coach Lovie Smith. I like to think Lovie and his players knew what was coming and the final drive was a big Eff You to ownership.

The L could be good for the cLots. The Bears don’t need a quarterback, so perhaps they will entertain flipping that pick for Indy’s #5. Or at least that’s what speculation is around here. The Bears can certainly use the top pick to select someone other than a QB, and the cLots will have to hope either they can get a decent candidate in their fifth slot, or focus on one of the teams between them and Houston to swap picks with.

***UPDATE***
I heard at least four times yesterday that the cLots’ pick will be #5. Turns out they snuck into #4 thanks to Denver’s win.

I don’t know. It sure feels like the cLots will be stuck at five, reach for someone who is not ready to be an NFL QB, and remain mediocre, at very best, for the foreseeable future.

Not that I’m convinced either Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud are sure-things. Maybe it’s better not to pick them.

  1. And L is still growing.  ↩

Catching Up

December 1, 2022 /

A few things happened either before or while we were traveling that deserve a few words.

Youth Sports

The Friday before we left, St P’s had an assembly for the two girls basketball teams that made it to the City finals including L’s team. She still refused to hold the trophy. I laughed. It was a nice way to end the season.

That was also Semi State Friday for Indiana football, featuring Cathedral’s rematch with Center Grove. The windchill was in the 20s, it was snowing for much of the game, and we had shit to do to get ready for our trip, so I stayed home and listened on the radio. M still went. She said it was the last game of her high school career, since she would miss the potential state championship game, so she felt an obligation to go. I appreciated the dedication. She also said she might only stay for part of the game because of the weather.

CHS jumped out to a 10–0 lead after two possessions and seemed to be firmly in control. Then they gave up 33 straight points. Yeesh. 33–10 final.

M ended up staying for the entire game. I had coached her two weeks earlier on how to interact with her boyfriend if/when the Irish lost. She was way ahead of me. “Oh, none of us are going down on the field if we lose. It will be bad.” I think she and the other girlfriends indeed stayed away from the players after the ass-kicking was complete. She refused to even look at his messages after she got home because she was sure they would make her cry.

So 10–2 playing two levels up from their natural class with a crappy offensive line that forced their stud QB to scramble for his life all year. Not too bad, but it sucks to go out that way. CHS loses several important players – three of them are Power 5 recruits – and will stay in 6A for at least three more years. So M might have had the best run anyone in our family will have with a regional loss, two state titles, and a semi state loss.

KU Football

I saw a few moments of Texas’ destruction of KU while we were eating at O’Hare. That was the most predictable result of the season. Texas had been hearing for a year about losing to KU last November, in contexts that often had nothing to do with football. Not sure even if KU had been completely healthy they had a chance in that game.

Last weekend I went to bed knowing KU was already down two scores to K-State. Didn’t seem like a game to fall asleep on the couch to. From a summary podcast I listened to sounds like it wasn’t a total destruction and the margin, once again, largely due to self-inflicted errors. Now three weeks or so to get healthy for a bowl game.

The big KU football news came mid-week when KU announced a contract extension for Lance Leipold. That was huge news. Sure, the bloom is off the rose a bit by going 1–6 after starting 5–0. But the most optimistic predictions for this year had the team winning four games. The Vegas over/under was 1.5. Leipold got them to six wins and a bowl game, something that might have been on the table next year for the sunniest of KU fans.

When the final contract was announced this week there were a few interesting notes. The buyout is pretty manageable for any bigger program that really wants him. From Twitter I gather there was some mocking of the clauses that allow Leipold to opt out if the construction projects on the stadium and practice facilities don’t begin by a specific date next year. To me those were pure window dressing, another sign that these projects are, indeed, finally happening.

There’s still a lot of work to do. The defense fell apart over the last two months and needs a lot of help, perhaps even a new scheme. The schedule is a little tougher next year, with Illinois replacing Duke.

You would think most of the big names would return with Lance guaranteed to be their coach, but you never know these days. Jalon Daniels is the big key. He seems like a kid who loves KU and playing for Andy Kotelnicki. NIL can change that in an instant.

For programs like KU the big carrot of a bowl game isn’t just the chance to play an extra game but also that extra month of practice you get. Between that and hopefully another good year in the transfer portal, the chance is there for Leipold to really begin to build something next season.

I know, I know. KU football fans should never get their hopes up. I’d like to think times have finally changed.

KU Hoops

I didn’t see a minute of the Bahamas games. Because of time zone weirdness I was awake for a couple of them. But I was in Italy, for crying out loud, and these were games in November. I was not going out of my way to find them.

Getting humbled by Tennessee sucks, but the Vols currently have the best defense in the country, and KU is too reliant on Jalen Wilson at the moment. I’m not going to get too concerned yet. It would be nice if we figured things out before December 17 when Indiana comes to Lawrence.

MJ Rice breaking out Monday night was a nice bonus.

Higher Education

L got her acceptance into Cathedral last Tuesday. No surprise but it was still fun. Her Golden Ticket package was in the mail when we got home; this year the gift was long Irish socks. We get to go pick up her Class of 2027 shirt and yard sign next week.

M also got a message that she has been granted direct admission to IU’s honors college. She was surprised by that since she didn’t think she had even checked a box on her application that she was interested in the program. She’s a little torn on that path. She doesn’t want to take all honors courses in college as she’s only taken one or two per semester in high school. And she doesn’t want to live in the honors dorm but with the “regular” population. We have friends who have a freshman in the honors college and we told M to reach out to her and get her perspective before she made any decisions.

Holidays

I did not listen to any Christmas music until we got home. In fact, as we were leaving the parking garage at O’Hare M said, “Once we get on the road, can you find some Christmas music?” That’s my kid.

We got a jump start on our holiday decorating. We put up some of the inside decorations a week before we left. I put lights on two trees three weeks ago and planned on not turning them on until right before we left. When he had that snowstorm a couple weeks back it seemed like the right time to flip the switch on those. And we decided to go ahead and put up our tree over a few nights the week before we left. S said there was no way she would have the energy to do it upon our return. I was good with that plan.

Oh, and I watched the Cheers “Thanksgiving Orphans” episode that Friday before we left. After 36 years it remains the greatest 22 minutes of televised comedy ever.

Wednesday we had our belated, mini Thanksgiving dinner. Based on requests from the family, I made green bean casserole, Giada’s dressing, corn soufflé, and sweet potato casserole. My plan was to smoke a turkey breast. Which I tried to do. But since the windchills never got out of the 20s yesterday, the bird wasn’t close to done at meal time. We waited half and hour and it still wasn’t ready. So I let it keep smoking and dinner was just sides. Which isn’t a bad thing. Once the turkey came off it was really tasty, so leftovers should be good tonight.

Weekend Notes

October 23, 2022 /

Fall Break

A pretty boring break for us, as we have trips ahead of us.

M went up to Ball State to hang out with a friend of hers. Apparently they went to a few parties Friday night, but I tried not to hear too much about that.

Normally we get our flu shots over fall break but I couldn’t wrangle all the girls together at the same time to knock that out efficiently. The Walgreen’s nearest our house, which is where our insurance works, has temporarily stopped doing shots, so that’s an added bummer.

KU Football

As has been the case so often this year, I missed the best part of the game because of basketball. The part I saw Saturday against Baylor was pretty stinky. Seemed like Same Old KU in the first half. Then, as soon as I left the house, the Jayhawks rallied to at least make it interesting.

I guess the good thing is this team does not seem to quit, no matter how poorly they play in the first half. The bad thing is these first half holes have been dug in nearly every game.

The bye week comes at a good time. Seems like there’s a chance Jalon Daniels could be back in two weeks. A couple of the other injured players could use the extra week of rest, too.

But with the strength of schedule left, finding that sixth win is getting harder-and-harder.

Kid Hoops

L started play with her Cathedral team this week. They had only practiced twice, and several girls – including L – missed last week’s practice. So I figured the first week would be rough.

The fall league schedule is two games every other Saturday. The first two opponents were 7th grade teams from L’s travel program.

In game one we were up 9 midway through the second half, but the other team threw a trapping press at our girls that they couldn’t handle and they gave it all up, losing by two. Worth noting L was not on the court when they were blowing the lead. I’m not saying we win if she plays. I am saying she’s a better pure point guard than the girls who were turning it over every possession.

Game two was against a better team. It was never really close and we lost by 19. I think the coach realized her error in not playing L for that long stretch of the first game, as she played the entire first half then deep into the second half before getting her first break. Didn’t help much on the scoreboard but at least we got the ball across the ten-second line.

No concerns about the play. They need more time to work together. They were also missing a couple girls Saturday. I don’t know how good those girls are but it would have been nice to have nine bodies instead of seven when playing back-to-back.

Of the girls that were there, L has played with four of them. Her best friend is on the team along with three girls they played with last winter. One of the new (to us) girls is big, pushing six-feet. She can really rebound and affect shots. But she’s like a lot of girls her size, her age: she’s very awkward and it’s a real mess when she tries to score. The offense, what there was of it, was not very focused on getting her the ball. I think the coach should find ways to set her up for easy looks as they get deeper into their time together.

Colts

Yep, shitty again. Or at least Matt Ryan is. I’m afraid he’s toast and the Colts were, once again, snookered into hitching their franchise’s fortunes onto the performance of a player who is well past his prime. Even when he gets time, his throws look weak and off-target. Maybe he’s just hurt and can be salvaged but it’s really hard to win in the NFL when you have a creaky QB playing behind a line that struggles to protect him.

Crazily the Colts only have one divisional game left on their schedule. If they get their shit together they are going to need lots of help to win the division.

Weather

Phenomenal weather the past few days. A little breezy, yes. But up near 80 during the day, not too chilly at night. These are the days you wish for this time of year. If only we could get a little rain. Indy is one big pile of blowing dirt, dust, and leaves, and everyone’s cars look disgusting. It’s not worth taking them to the carwash, because within five minutes they’ll be covered in a thick film of muck again.

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