D's Notebook

Tag: school (Page 2 of 13)

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 6, 2022 /

I’m guessing this was our last ever four-day Labor Day weekend, at least on the academic side of things. St P’s generally (but not always) gives the kids Friday and Monday off, while CHS just takes the actual Monday holiday off. Who knows what M’s schedule will be this time next year, but she won’t be here, so that means the remaining girls will be on the same schedule for the final holiday weekend of summer in 2023.

L took advantage of her extra day by doing some work for us and family members to earn some money. She’s been drafted as the St P’s football team videographer/photographer and has been saving up for a camera. With a final push over the weekend she was able to order it.

Her first project of the weekend was mowing her aunt’s yard, which she has done a few times. I followed her around with the trimmer, which is too big and too temperamental for her to use. As I was trimming I felt a white-hot heat on my right forearm. I dropped the trimmer, thinking it was in the process of blowing up or something. But I didn’t see any smoke and it started right back up.

“Well, shit,” I thought, “I think I just got stung!”

But I hadn’t seen/felt anything on me or seen anything fly away. I looked around and then noticed, on my nephews’ swingset/playhouse, the biggest wasp I had ever seen crawling around. I got a fly swatter from inside the house and nailed it. Seconds later several more Big Ass Wasps emerged from under the decking and I fled before they could get me.

Fortunately my sister-in-law had a couple cans of wasp/hornet killer. I unloaded one on the nest I could see poking through the frame and left her instructions to hit it again when the wasps returned for the evening.

Not going to lie: the sting hurt like hell. I don’t know if I’ve ever been hit by a wasp before, but this fucking hurt. Even today, Tuesday morning, the area is all swollen, red, and itchy. I’m not sure what flavor of wasps these were, but I’m just going to call them Murder Hornets because they were so big and the sting was so painful. Still, happy to take one for the team rather than one of my nephews.

IMG 5531

Don’t fuck with the Murder Hornets

Friday night was one of the more interesting sports following nights in my recent history.

I had the US Open up on the TV, watching Serena Williams’ final match that began at 7:00. At 7:30 the Cathedral game began, and I pulled up the audio on my phone. And at 8:00 KU kicked off their season on ESPN+, which I had on my MacBook Air.

Super Sports Fan #1 here!

It was a bit chaotic keeping track of everything, but I managed, selectively muting as conditions warranted.

I should probably write more about Serena’s loss. I think of my life not really hitting adulthood until right around 1999–2000. That made Serena the last athlete from my extended childhood or adolescence or whatever who was still active. Just another sign that we are getting older.

Props to her for such an amazing career, for coming back after having an insanely difficult pregnancy and childbirth experience, and for going out on her terms. I couldn’t believe she was still playing doubles with her sister Venus on Thursday. I think that effort clearly affected her in Friday’s match. Then I realized that she just wanted to play with her sister one more time and was willing to sacrifice her singles match for that opportunity. When you’ve won everything there is to win, you get to pick how you say goodbye.

Cathedral fell behind 13–0 but then ripped off 35-straight points for a 35–21 win. The game was three hours away so none of the girls went. The Irish had a ton of injuries going into the game, so played a number of kids who had not played the first two weeks. This week they play their big-time rivals BC, who are ranked #1 in 3A and just lost the the #1 4A school on the final play of the game.

KU rolled Tennessee Tech. Which should be expected, and I know non-KU fans are making fun of us Jayhawks for being excited about the win. Never forget this is KU football, a program that has found a way to do the un-doable for decades. Pounding an overmatched opponent is never a given for Kansas, and while one or two more wins is likely the max we can hope for this year, at least we checked off the easy win.

The team looked better, with more playmakers on defense than I can recall. But they still lack depth and things will be very different this week against West Virginia and pretty much every week for the rest of the year and the competition keeps getting tougher and tougher. But this game was the baby step we needed.

Saturday we headed up to S’s aunt and uncle’s in the morning. They live on a lake and offered to take the girls out to ski. M took a brief run and had no issues. L tried but could not get up. C was annoyed about having to wake up early on a holiday weekend and stayed in the boat. We took a nice trip around the lake and got off the water just before rain moved in.

Later in the day L had a basketball game. They were playing a team they’ve played many times. That team plays and practices all year, and added another good player since our last meeting. We were down 13–0 to start then went something like 5–22 from the free throw line and lost by 15. L alone was 1–6 from the line. She was 0–4 from the floor but had three rebounds, three assists, and three steals. She hit one shot that came after a foul was called away from the ball and was super annoyed by that. I was super annoyed she was missing so many free throws after all the practice shots she put up over the summer.

Sunday we had the local family over for our annual Labor Day gathering. It never got too hot or humid and the rain held off, so it was a pleasant day around the pool. I stay the hell out of the pool when the nephews take over. It’s more fun to drink and watch than constantly babysit your kids so they don’t sink.

Monday was your standard, lazy Labor Day. I watched some tennis – Frances Tiafoe upsetting Rafa Nadal was obviously the highlight, a truly enjoyable match. I was bummed Danielle Collins lost, but we don’t need to go into details about that.

(Another quick aside about tennis: Nick Kyrgios beating Daniil Medvedev Sunday was also entertaining. Not sure I’ve ever switched my opinion on an athlete as quickly as I have about Kyrgios. I thought he was a lunatic who needed to be shut down at Wimbledon. Now I think he’s one of the most entertaining, compelling, and interesting players on the tour. Not sure I necessarily love him, but I do root for him to stay in tournaments because they are a lot more fun with him on the court.)

I read a lot, we did some shopping as we prep for our next big trip, and we did some cleaning around the house.

Otherwise a pretty chill holiday weekend.

This morning we were socked in by low, thick clouds. When my alarm went off at 6:50 and it was still pitch black my first thought was, “Did I sleep through a month and it’s October 6?” Just a tangible reminder that summer is over.

Blog and Weekend Notes

August 16, 2021 /

First day of the new school year with all three girls in class, which I guess makes this the first day of “fall” for me. Seems like I should get into a better groove about posting here than I did most of the summer. I have a few works in progress, but I think I need to do a better job of translating thoughts in my head to text on the screen.

Every now and then I’ll go back and read some old blog posts. I find it funny how much more I posted back in the old days of nearly 20 years ago. Any half-formed thought often got its own post. Some of that was simply because the first year of the site’s life, I was also working from home. In a position I did not love. With no coworkers within 500 miles of me. So there was a lot of dicking around on the Internet to avoid doing actual work, which translated into blog posts when something amused or outraged me.

There were also The Kid Years, when each day of parenthood brought something new and exciting that I felt like I had to share with the world. Those taper off as your kids hit double digits, and again when they hit high school. Thus I have less material from the girls’ lives these days, too.[1]

I’ve wasted plenty of space over the years talking about sports, current events, etc. Lately it feels like I’m more focused on pop culture, though, between music, books, and what I’m watching posts. Which is fine. It’s obviously how I spend my free time.

Recently I’ve realized some of those blogging gears that used to turn so freely in my mind now grind and fight against each other just a little. Ten years ago I couldn’t wait to write 2000 words about some KU-Iowa State game in January. Now it feels like a chore to do so, and I find myself less eager to get to the keyboard to bang them out even though I have more time than ever to do so.

My joints also ache a lot, I can’t run as fast as I once could, and even a minor change in my regular workouts can cause days of pain as my muscles revolt. It’s all part of getting older, I guess, including having a different passion for sharing thoughts with my friends.

This isn’t some grand announcement. Trust me, the blog will live on! It’s more an acknowledgement of the blogging version of low testosterone, I guess. Sometimes actions that came easily in your 30s and 40s just require a little more effort in your 50s. In this case, it’s purely mental effort, thankfully. And I hope by sharing this realization with you, it will help me find some techniques to get beyond this little mental lull I’m having.

The girls all had fine starts to their school years. Today was the first day that M and C rode to school together. I was going to sit them down and give them some ground rules. Like, “M, don’t be bossy. C, don’t distract your sister while she’s driving. Communicate in advance if you need to be at school early or stay late.” Etc, etc, etc.

But S told me last night that C suggested to M that they make a shared playlist to listen to. They would both put an equal number of songs in and alternate them so it was even. M thought it was a great idea. So did I. Thus I decided to save the lecture. I’m sure it will be needed at some point, though.

It is really freaking weird for two of my kids to be riding to school together in a car neither S nor I are driving.

L said their homeroom teacher, who is new to St P’s, let them pick their own seats. So she ended up with two of her best male buddies in one desk pod, with her three closest female friends in the pod next to them. We’ll see how long that lasts. She said they almost got kicked out of Spanish on the first day because her one buddy would not stop talking the entire time. Cracks us up that he talks so much because everyone else in his family is very quiet. He must do the talking for them all!

She also had tryouts for St P’s basketball Saturday, because CYO sports schedules are dumb. She said she played pretty well. She’s hoping to make the 7th–8th grade A team. She’s worked hard on her game all summer, but it’s all been drills and shooting. It is a totally different thing when you’re on a court with other players. She should find out what team she’s on in a week or so.

  1. Never fear, kickball season begins Wednesday!  ↩

End of the School Year

May 24, 2021 /

We have reached the final week of the 2020–21 academic year. It’s kind of hard to believe the year was as “normal” as it was.

To be very clear, it was not normal. There were all kinds of mandates and limits and headaches compared to what our girls had done every year before Covid hit. There were lots of bumps along with way, especially with C’s grade at St P’s. As we are almost done I won’t get into the details of those, but it’s the first time we’ve had any serious problems with school administrators. And, of course, the county sent everyone home for the final month of classes of 2020 as Covid rates were skyrocketing.

Even with all of that, though, it feels like the girls had a fairly normal academic year. I don’t know that they got everything out of the year they would have gotten if schools had operated under 2019 conditions. But I also don’t think any of them are going to be lost next fall when they advance to the next year’s worth of course material.

C’s final day of 8th grade is tomorrow, with graduation slated for Wednesday.

L’s final day is Thursday.

M begins finals tomorrow and will have half days of exams through Friday.

It is Awards SZN at schools. C will learn if she was nominated for and receive any awards at graduation.

M earned an award for the most outstanding AP chemistry student. We don’t really know if that means just in the four classes her teacher has, or across all sophomore AP chem courses. Regardless, she and her teacher FaceTimed me last week so they could share the news with me. That was fun.

She also got notified a week ago that her PSAT score qualified her for a recognition program. She asked for help going through the paperwork to apply for it, and as I was reading through I noticed something odd about the language. In the first paragraph, it mentioned that it was intended for Hispanic students. Later on it stated that the award was specifically designed to highlight students from underserved communities. We were pretty sure the white girl who drives a new car should not be up for this award.

We had her check with the sponsoring teacher the next day, who confirmed this was a mistake. We are guessing M got confused by some of those demographic boxes as she registered and clicked White-Hispanic rather than White-Not Hispanic.

What really made us laugh, though, was that an hour or two after it was confirmed that she was not eligible, she got a message from her counselor praising her for her accomplishment and offering to help her if she needed any assistance completing the application. Right in the subject line of her message it mentioned the name of the award: College Board National Hispanic Recognition Program. We don’t know if that means the counselor didn’t read the restrictions for the award, or just assumed that maybe M is a super pale Hispanic girl and didn’t want to question things.

Oh well, her PSAT score was still pretty good.

L won the girls Leader in Me award for her grade last week. Parents were notified if their kid was going to win something, so I was able to attend the ceremony. She was surprised when she saw me sitting in church as her class filed in. It’s always fun to surprise your kid that way.

C’s class got robbed of their traditional trip to Washington, D.C. A few schools in our area still went to DC, but St P’s pulled the plug fairly early due to uncertainty about what would be open.

Instead the plan was to go to Cleveland and visit the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, spend a night at the Kalahari water resort, then a day at Cedar Point. C was pretty ok with this, as she loves amusement parks and roller coasters.

However, for some reason the Cleveland stuff got cancelled because of some weird Covid restrictions. We really don’t understand why, but the Hall of Fame and other sites in Cleveland that were used for the NFL Draft were put into a three week shut down and made unavailable to visiting groups. C’s class would have visited over two weeks after the draft so everything should have been thoroughly sanitized by then. Very strange.

The day in Cleveland was replaced with a morning at the US Air Force museum in Dayton then the trip up to Sandusky for the water park and Cedar Point.

C had a good time. She said the museum was kind of boring, and the parks mega crowded. She had to borrow money from a friend to fully fund a fast pass so she didn’t spend the entire day in line.

At least they got to go somewhere.

C gets a whole week off before starting her freshman year with summer school gym next Wednesday. She’ll be up bright-and-early for the 8:00 session for most of June. She will then get six weeks of sleeping in before high school really starts.

Summer is coming up quick. Our pool house was (finally) completed a little over a week ago and the landscaping installed last week. We’ve already had a couple small pool gatherings and anticipate this summer being a lot busier than last since we are comfortable inviting more than one family of guests at a time. I’d better start getting those summer playlists updated.

More Snow Day Ramblings

February 17, 2021 /

Our girls are all back in school today. Quite a few area schools either delayed or cancelled again, but we are on a normal schedule.

The mechanics of snow days are very different now than they were for my generation. Remember having to sit by the radio or TV, breathlessly waiting to hear your school’s name be read out, or to see it scroll across the bottom of the screen? I recall several days where I was ready to go to school – dressed, bag packed, coat on – and stood in front of the TV until the last possible moment to see if “Raytown Consolidated School District No. 2” suddenly popped up.

Now? We get automated calls, texts, and emails as soon as our schools make a decision. You can go to any number of media websites to browse the entire list at your leisure. Sometimes those messages come at 5:30 AM and you can sneak into your kids’ rooms and turn off their alarms, leaving a note that school has been cancelled.

I think kids today still wait in anticipation of the announcement. But that moment of revelation seems to have a less mysterious quality than back in the 1980s.

The whole eLearning thing obviously makes snow days very different than in my childhood. I remember a few occasions when everyone knew a big storm was coming and teachers would give us a couple days of assignments and encourage us to take all our books home so we didn’t get too far behind. That work was generally put off until the evening before we went back to school; there was no working on them during school hours. That time was meant for playing in the snow, watching TV, playing video games, or otherwise taking advantage of the pause in our educational lives.

Covid has obviously changed snow days, too. Not just because eLearning is an option, but also because the girls are used to being home. After spending the last 10 weeks of the ’19–20 school year and about a month of the first semester of this year at home, I don’t think it feels special to them to spend a Monday-through-Friday at home. The distinction between weekday and weekend has been blurred somewhat.

When we were kids, though, snow days felt like magical departures from the norm. Once I was nine or ten, my mom left me at home to fend for myself. I had general rules of “Don’t break any bones, kill myself/someone else, or get into a situation I’m going to regret mom finding out about,” but otherwise could do whatever I wanted.

I remember taking full advantage of snow days, making detailed plans for the day. Yep, I was one of those kids who still got up early rather than slept in just so I could get to work on my list of activities. Whatever my weird hobby of the moment was would get some extra time. That could mean rolling up some new D&D characters, listening to shortwave radio stations I would not normally have a chance to hear, or just playing Pitfall for three continuous hours. I would make elaborate lunches. Or as elaborate as I could manage with what was in our cabinets and my meager culinary skills. There would be the inevitable neighborhood snowball fight. Good days were the ones when a football game broke out somewhere on my block. There was nothing better than football in the snow, diving for balls and making tackles while landing in piles of the fluffy stuff. Of course, this came with the danger of breaking my glasses, which I did once when they flew off my face and got crunched as I was thrown to the ground.

When I got to high school and either had friends who could drive or could drive myself, this meant a bonus trip to the mall. The food court would be charged with extra energy as kids who would normally be at school cruised around and checked each other out.

The first time I had a chance to do this was shortly after we moved back to Missouri from California. My mom took me out to show me how to drive in snow, and I had to earn her approval before I could go to the mall. Monday I took M across the street to drive around in the high school lot so she could get her first snowy driving experience. Anti-lock brakes, traction control, and all-wheel drive sure make it easier to get around safely than the Oldsmobile I learned to drive in. Of course, with Covid, she didn’t rush to the mall to meet friends immediately afterward, but rather just came home and got back to chatting with them on her phone.

Snow Day

February 16, 2021 /

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

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

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

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

IMG 3098

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

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

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

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

A (Gradual) New Start

January 4, 2021 /

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holiday Weekend Notes

November 30, 2020 /

Well, today begins a new phase in our home’s daily rhythms. C and L are now eLearning through at least mid-January, joining M who has been home for two weeks. Hopefully the expensive Internet access we pay for holds up; our signal likes to drop in the middle of the day which should make for interesting moments when three girls are all in virtual classes.

When I picked C and L up from their final day of classes last Tuesday, L said it felt like the beginning of Christmas vacation. In a way I guess it is. Seems like things have gone fairly well with M’s eLearning. We are hoping that St P’s has used the past five or six months to have a good plan in place and the next five-ish weeks of class can be fairly normal.

It was a long holiday weekend. Let’s get caught up.

Smart devices

I’ve long been intrigued by smart hubs, plugs, lights, etc. But I always held off because I both didn’t see their utility beyond the fun factor, and with a wife who isn’t super tech-savvy, I feared the moments when the devices didn’t work properly and I wasn’t around to troubleshoot.

I knew the new Amazon Echo devices would get a price cut last week, and the moment they dropped, I ordered both an Echo with premium sound and an Echo Dot.

The Dot came first, on Tuesday, and I got it working in the office. I also ordered some smart plugs and got my reading lamp working via Alexa voice controls. The Echo came on Wednesday and…was a royal pain in the ass to get working. While the Dot connected to our home network easily, the Echo struggled. I spent a few hours Wednesday resetting things, moving them around, trying to tweak our network, etc to get it to work. Finally I was successful but it seems like it doesn’t love its network connection.

So I now have the Echo in the office for better sound and to control the lamp. I have our Christmas tree on a smart plug that we use Alexa to turn on and off. And I have the Dot in storage for future use.

Thanksgiving

Our Turkey Day was normal, but different.

The past several years we’ve participated in a huge Drumstick Dash, walking as a family with about 10,000 other people.[1] We had no interest in doing that this year, so instead joined some of S’s high school friends and their families as the walked through their neighborhood. It was a nice way to socially distantly see some friends and burn a few calories.

After that we hosted most of our in-town family, 15 in total. We lucked out with the weather. It was dreary and occasionally a little misty, but it was also about 50 with little-to-no wind. We had our outdoor fireplace and a fire pit lit, with seating areas for all. As our guests arrived we opened all the windows in the main floor of the house to keep the air moving. Between the ovens and stove and the people, our house stayed very toasty. And it was just warm enough outside so we could all eat al fresco without our food getting cold.

Now I guess we wait and see if anyone gets sick over the next two weeks to see if this was a success or a disaster.

I’ll tell you what was a success, though: my bird. I cooked the hell out of it this year. I was on the verge of overcooking but got it out at the perfect moment when it smelled and tasted awesome. Between that and the fires outside, it smelled like I had cooked it on the grill. Really, all credit goes to Whole Foods, where I got this year’s bird. It was the first time I got a brined turkey and I think that will become my routine.

High School Football

We made it through a full season of high school football in Indiana. The state title games were on Friday and Saturday. Saturday were the more important ones to us. BCHS played for the 3A title game in the afternoon, with several St P’s kids playing important roles. M laughed when she saw several of her classmates on the sidelines and getting their championship medals after the game.

The last game of the year was the one we cared about most: Cathedral vs 7–5 ZHS, a school that got hot at the right time and ripped through the top half of the north bracket. CHS had been beating the snot out of people all year. They only had one loss, by four points, to the undefeated team that won the 6A title Friday. Their only close win was a three-point victory over the team that won the Ohio large class title game 44–3. We figured the championship game would be another blowout.

It was, then it wasn’t, then it was.

CHS got up 22–0 without looking very good, but then ZHS worked their way back into it. They cut it to seven and had the ball a couple times but could never get the tying score. In the third quarter the Irish got a 75 yard touchdown pass, a stop, then another quick score and put the game away, winning their 13th state title 46–28.

M chose not to go; none of her friends were going and fans were limited to sitting in small groups of reserved seats, so there wouldn’t have been a proper student section. Instead she sat on the couch and watched with us, telling us which players were nice and which ones were quiet and which ones were dating which girls. That was almost an entertaining as the game.

C did go with a friend. The highlight for her was seeing two freshman girls get in a fight over a boy. She and her friend got bored and left early. She walked in our door just as the game was ending, which was kind of funny.

M was excited that she gets to buy some state champions shirts now, so she understands the true meaning of being a sports fan. She was also bummed that it happened in a year when she was only able to to go two games. Most of the fall she sat in her room while I listened to the games and texted her scoring updates. Another thing Covid has ruined.

Still, good ending to a great year. Last fall I went to almost every game, driving M and her friends around the metro area. This fall my routine was to listen to the games on the radio as I hit golf balls in the yard or dicked around on the Internet. I guess I need to find a new Friday pastime now.

Decorating

As is our tradition, all the holiday decorations went up Thursday. The girls did most of the tree decorating, which was a nice change of pace.

S and I had put the lights on our outdoor trees three weeks ago, on a Sunday when it was nearly 80. With the little nephews around on Thanksgiving, we decided to turn those on Thursday. The four-year-olds did a countdown and I flipped the switch, much to their delight.

KU Hoops

The KU-Gonzaga game was right during our meal prep and eating time, so I recorded it to watch later. When I saw the final score and read a summary I decided not to just delete it. But I was encouraged by what I read later in the evening. Everyone said that while KU struggled on defense, their offense showed some signs of real potential. Lots of parts that would likely fit together better after several weeks of games. Oh, and Gonzaga is really freaking good. Their game with Baylor Saturday is going to be a must-watch.

I did watch the St. Joe’s game Friday. And I was super-frustrated through the first 30 minutes. As you would expect from a team that has so many newcomers and no true point guard, KU just could not get into a flow on offense. And defensively the looked totally lost.

Until Bill Self put in redshirt freshman Dajuan Harris for the first time midway through the second half. He’s skinny, not super tall, and hardly a burner bringing the ball up. But the moment he stepped on the court, the game changed. He made a couple great defensive plays. He made a couple terrific passes. He got Marcus Garrett off the ball. Everything was smoother with him in the game. It went from a frustrating, one-possession game to a blowout in about five minutes.

KU plays Kentucky here in Indy tomorrow night. Well, they are scheduled to play. Both Gonzaga and St. Joe’s have reported positive Covid tests since they played KU. So we’ll see. More KU hoops thoughts later in the week.

That’s about it for our holiday weekend. It is spitting snow this morning and the windchill is supposed to be in the 20s all day. The girls are all in front of their devices getting educated. It’s not the worst day to stay inside.

Hope all of you were able to celebrate the holiday in a safe and healthy manner.

  1. This year’s race was first broken up into smaller waves that left at hour-intervals and eventually cancelled.  ↩

Weekend Notes

November 16, 2020 /

Several significant events in our house over the past few days. Let’s get caught up.

School

When I picked M up from school last Wednesday she had a weird look on her face. “Everyone says school is shutting down after this week,” she exclaimed. Apparently each day a few more kids were not showing up to class either because they were Covid positive or were quarantining because of close contact with a positive person. At least one teacher had tested positive as well.

Thursday the mayor and county health commissioner had their weekly Covid press conference. Numbers were rising at an alarming rate. What was most concerning was that the age group with the highest positivity rate was high schoolers. Because of that, all Marion County schools, public and private, were being ordered to move to virtual schooling no later than November 30 and to remain virtual until at least January 15. This makes sense given the numbers, although pretty much everyone agrees kids aren’t getting sick because of what is going on at school, but what they are doing outside of school.

S is home on Thursdays and we speculated how long each school would last.

St P’s answered first: they are going to try to make it to November 24. However, since that announcement two of our basketball teams have had to drop out of the city tournament because a fifth grade player and her dad that coaches the eighth graders were both positive. Luckily C wasn’t deemed to have close contact with the girls on the 8th grade team so she can remain in school. We’ve heard of several other St P’s students and a teacher who have tested positive since then. Not sure the odds are great we make it to Nov. 24.

CHS was quicker. Right after dismissal Thursday they announced that Friday would be their last day of in-person classes.

Our girls have mixed feelings about this. M was the most bummed, primarily because she is the most social and has a need to see her friends face-to-face. I think C and L are kind of excited about getting out of school for awhile and a little fearful about getting sick, so they were generally ok with it. Until they realized this wipes out all the in-school Christmas traditions. I didn’t mention to C that I’m starting to worry about whether her class will be able to take their trip to Washington, D.C. in the spring, too.

Strangely some of the schools in surrounding counties with much higher positive rates than Marion County are staying in session for the time being. I figured the freshly re-elected governor would start cranking down restrictions and guidelines again, especially since this outbreak seems much more widespread than the first two. It’s not just big, urban counties that are struggling this time, but counties all over the state. He seems to have caved, though, to the nut jobs on the right who think that asking people to wear masks is some massive intrusion on their rights. He has yet to announce any new guidelines for schools outside of Marion County.

So, M is home today and will be for at least two months. Hopefully C and L can get through seven more days before they are stuck at home with me through the holidays.

Automobiles

After last week’s car shopping catastrophe, S spent the week looking online for a new Jeep Cherokee. She did some back-and-forth with a sales guy all week before she locked in on the one she wanted Saturday. A few more emails back-and-forth and we went over at 4:30 that afternoon to pick up her new ride.

It was, by far, our easiest car buying experience ever. Neither one of us likes all the rigamarole that goes into purchasing a car, but she has even less tolerance for all that BS than I do. Saturday we walked into the dealership, waited about 30 seconds, were escorted back to the office, she signed paperwork for five minutes, and we walked out with the keys. Since she has had two Jeeps in the past they didn’t even have to show us how the car worked. They just waved goodbye and sent us on our way.

Perfect!

So now we have three cars. I guess since M won’t leave the house to go to school for two months we don’t have to worry about a school parking pass just yet.

Kid Hoops

Sunday L’s team played their opening game in the city basketball tournament. We were playing the team with the giant that beat us two weeks ago by 16. We spent an entire practice Tuesday working on a special defense to counter a press-break play they used against us the first time. At practice Thursday we had our tallest girls guard me so we could teach them how to deny the post on the 6-footer. We worked on shots that would be open in their zone. We felt prepared and ready.

Then about an hour before the game we found out on of our three tall girls would miss the game because her brother was sick.

Great. None of our girls are anywhere near as big as the giant, but losing a body hurt.

We started out down 7–0 and the head coach and I were both muttering under our breath on the bench. We started down 12–0 the first time and sure seemed to be on that track again.

But our girls got their shit together and clawed back into it. We were down three at halftime. We cut it to one twice in the third quarter, but St L kept stretching it out to +5.

As we began the fourth quarter we told the girls that they were playing great and made a small adjustment on defense. We preached to them that if they kept being aggressive we could win the game.

Our girls played their best quarter of the year. They were flying around on defense. We were actually making smart, quick passes on offense. We were looking to take shots even when the big girl was blocking them. We even hit a few of them. We made it a one-point game three times but could not get over the hump.

We were down three with about forty-five seconds left and had our best player going to the line for two shots. We called a time out because she looked wiped out. We made another change to our defense and our head coach did the perfect thing. She said, “After M makes both free throws, here’s how we’re going to guard them…” This was HUGE because W was something like 1–12 from the line up to that point. No exaggeration: she had missed at least 10 free throws.

After the time out she went out and knocked them both down and we were down one.

They broke our press and we realized we needed to start fouling and fouling often, because we only had three team fouls. As we were yelling at our girls to foul, St L threw a bad pass, our best player grabbed it, went full court, and actually made a freaking lay-up to give us our first lead. The greatly reduced crowd was going nuts. L was on the bench – because we had sat her to rest and everyone was playing awesome – and she was going nuts.

St L called a timeout with 15 seconds left, inbounding in front of their bench. We told our girls to stay back, force them to shoot jumpers, do not let the big girl roll to the basket. Naturally in the crush of bodies the big girl got a little daylight, they tossed the ball to her, and she banked one in with 10 seconds left. We got the ball up court but lost it out of bounds. We couldn’t get a steal on the inbound pass and the game was over.

So close!

Our girl who missed all the free throws was in tears. But the rest of the team all had excited looks on their faces. They knew they had played their asses off and played really well. “If we had a seven footer, too,” yes, she said seven footer, “we would have won that game!” the head coach told them. They all laughed. We told them that was the best they had ever played and that we were super proud of them. Even though we lost, it was a highly satisfying end to a season in which we had played really poorly over our last three games.

One other funny note from the game.

We have a dad who is very loud. He is a real pain in the ass. He’s had a few issues in the past and is not allowed to coach at St P’s teams anymore. His voice stands out in a normal gym. In a lightly-filled Covid gym you hear everything he says.

During a timeout early in the fourth quarter one of the refs tapped me on the shoulder and motioned me away from our huddle. “Oh shit,” I thought, “he’s going to ask me to go tell Loud Dad to pipe down.” That’s the last thing I wanted to do in the closing moments of a tight game.

But he surprised me. “Hey, what kind of shoes are those?” He asked nodding toward my shoes. I was wearing Adidas spikeless golf shoes that are my every day shoes. I told him what they were and where I got them. “I wear these everywhere, they’re super comfortable.”

“All right, I’m going to check those out, thanks.”

I told him I thought he had heard me say something on the bench and was telling me to pipe down. We both laughed.

That, my friends, was a first.

An Annual Rant

October 22, 2020 /

Man, I hate fall break.

I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted about this before. But as our girls are on fall break right now, it is on my mind.

A year ago at one of L’s soccer practices I was making sarcastic comments about fall break with the dad who I had coached with for a few years. We agreed fall break was dumb and messed up youth sports, which should always come first. Again, we were being sarcastic. L’s head coach overheard us and made a comment about how fall breaks are a great chance for families to spend time together. I felt like kind of a jerk, and I’m pretty sure he wrote me off as one at that point.

To me, fall break serves no real purpose. What the hell do we need a break from? The weather is about as good as it gets in October. It’s not like we’ve slogged through three months of bitter winter and need a mental break. As I type this is is pushing 80, there is no humidity, and it is beautiful. Fall break never falls right between the first and second quarters, anyway, so it’s not like it’s a true academic break. Fall is a warm and happy time of the year, where late March/early April is one when everyone needs a chance to check out and go someplace nice or just sleep late for a week while we wait for spring to arrive.

Having kids at a Catholic school complicates matters. None of the schools are on the same fall break schedule, so girls basketball gets stopped for three weeks to try to avoid having to reschedule games. Some Catholic grade/middle schools follow the Catholic high schools’ breaks, but even those can’t get on the same schedule. Cathedral is off today and tomorrow, as is St. P’s.[1] The other north side Catholic high school has the entire week off. Meanwhile, a few other Catholic grade schools follow the schedule of the public school district they fall into. Not sure why the archdiocese can make so many invasive rules regarding schools but not force us to take fall break the same damn days.

Both St P’s and CHS sent out messages asking families to be smart and follow social distancing and masking guidelines if they travel this week. The video we got from CHS was all but begging people to make good decisions. “We’ve made it this far, please don’t fuck it up,” was the unstated message. They flat out pointed out that relaxing this week could prevent the football team from winning a state championship next month. Oh, and other sports too. But don’t forget football. I like that they were honest about that.

Along those lines, two schools in Indiana have already forfeited their football sectional game this weekend because of quarantining. One team was undefeated and ranked third in class A.

I feel for the players of all fall sports. Kids are generally stupid and will do stupid things. I bet this fall a lot are thinking about the implications of them being the one who introduces the virus to their team and wrecks their season. There’s enough stress about winning and losing, grades, and other high school bullshit without worrying about going to see your crazy aunt who thinks covid is a myth and then being the reason your team forfeits their playoff game.

For all my angst and hate regarding fall break, I must admit that this year, I think our teachers absolutely need a break. We are not 100% happy with how our kids’ teachers have handled this year. A few are flat out being dicks in class every day. The smallest transgression will set them off. There are daily text threads amongst parents to compare notes and see if whatever that day’s drama was is worth sending a note back to the teacher and/or principal about. At St P’s especially, where they are shorthanded and attempting to cover extra classes, some of the teachers seem particularly short tempered. I know teachers are looking ahead to the coming months and worry whether the measures that have kept our schools open in the fall will still work in the winter. Again, a whole level of stress on top of the normal one. I’m glad all the teachers get a long weekend to, hopefully, decompress a little.

I still think the two days St P’s always takes for fall break should be moved to Thanksgiving week so the kids get that entire week off. That’s a great time for a break.

It was nice to sleep late today, though.

  1. This was M’s week: Monday normal virtual day. Tuesday bonus virtual day. Wednesday bonus day off for selling all her raffle tickets, something 95%+ of students do. Then official break Thursday and Friday. C and L are out of school today and tomorrow.  ↩

Of Classes and Sports

August 31, 2020 /

Two full weeks into the school year and we’ve had our first major change. Beginning today, and for the foreseeable future, M will be home on Mondays. In Thursday’s normal parent newsletter, the CHS principal announced that the entire student population would be virtual and on a fixed schedule on Mondays.

Several reasons were offered, but the one that seems the most compelling is to give all the kids the same experience at least one day per week. A number of fall sport athletes have left school on their own over the past couple weeks. We’ve heard this was organized by coaches in an effort to keep their players healthy through the season and to avoid having to quarantine players as the playoffs approach for sports like soccer and volleyball. I don’t know what the percentage of kids out of school right now is, but it is apparently significant enough where the school wanted to attempt to level the playing field at least one day each week.

We found it interesting that as rumors about athletes leaving school began to circulate an email came out saying that was not appropriate and laying out the reasons for and conditions under which a student should switch to virtual schooling. Apparently that had no effect because I’m pretty sure the entire volleyball team is home schooling.

I find that tactic pretty funny as it does not seem like kids are getting infected at school. Masks, social distancing, smaller class rosters, and constant cleaning seem to be knocking the virus down in the buildings. Several groups of students have gotten sick after being at parties or gatherings on the weekends. Seems like the coaches should be saying “Keep your asses at home on the weekends,” instead of “encouraging” their kids to eLearn until the first quarter ends. Or the parents. Or whoever was pushing this idea.

So M is home today, checking into her classes each hour. At least she gets to go back tomorrow.

We received another email from CHS last week saying someone in one of M’s classes had tested positive. But, the email insisted, they were confident that M had not been within six feet of this student and there was no need for her to be tested or quarantine. We were encouraged to keep an eye on her, though. When she eats we keep asking her if she can taste her food, which seems to be how a lot of young people first realize they may have been infected.

Other big CHS news: they are, arguably, the hottest football team in the state of Indiana two weeks into the young season. They have been ranked #3 in class 5A in the first two polls. They may move up this week.

In week one they absolutely pounded a pretty solid 6A team. Then this past week they played the other CHS, the defending 6A champions (currently ranked #2) and the school we support every other week because of our good friend, Coach H.

Our CHS dominated the first half statistically but were very lucky to have a 20–13 lead at halftime. The other CHS had a pick six on the last play of the first half wiped out by an illegal block penalty.

In the third quarter things got ugly. Our CHS forced three straight three-and-outs and scored touchdowns after each one. 41–13 at the end of the third quarter. The other CHS got some scores in the final quarter to make it 44–28. It was still a pretty shocking score. I think most people expected a close game in which the other CHS pulled it out. They had also looked very good, especially on defense, in their first game.

Our CHS might be really, really good, but it is early. They play their traditional stupidly difficult schedule; they have games against a couple good Ohio teams, play the defending 3A state champs, and play the current 6A #1 and heavy favorites to win that class in November. Who knows who will be healthy when the playoffs roll around, plus there’s that pesky virus who could take out an important player at any time.

M has been disappointed that she hasn’t been able to go to a game yet. Tickets are limited based on the facility, and since CHS doesn’t play a home game until September, her chance of going has been reliant on how many of the CHS tickets get turned over to students, and then if she can claim one before they’re gone. Hopefully she can go to a game as we get deeper into the season.

CHS games are always on the radio, so I listened to week one’s game. Then last week’s game was the game of the week on local TV, so I was able to watch it. I think M took a nap the entire time. So much for school spirit…

We are also a couple weeks into kickball season. Our schedule has been busy, so I’ve not had a chance to catch up. Both girls have big games tonight so I will aim for getting an update out tomorrow.

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