D's Notebook

Tag: travel (Page 1 of 12)

More Hoops Notes

June 24, 2025 /

A day later I still have a lot of Pacers thoughts. And I still need to catch you up on a very busy weekend. So this may turn into two posts, depending on how long I yap about the first topic.

Pacers Followup

I became a Pacers fan when we moved to Indy in 2003, but they have never been at the top of my sports fandom rankings.[1] Although they have climbed a lot over the past year! Still, when they lose I’m not as mad or upset as I am when KU loses, or when good Royals teams have lost. So I was a little surprised how emotional I was when Tyrese Haliburton went down Sunday. For the Pacers season to end like that was devastating. To get so close and then it end not just because the other team was better, but because your best player’s body failed him was a massive gut punch. I was kind of in shock when it happened, saying “Oh no,” over and over when he hit the crowd, hoping he would get up.

But it really hit me after the game was over. Seeing Haliburton on crutches, waiting for his teammates as they walked to the locker room was tough. We invest all this time and emotion into sports, and it becomes a huge part of our lives when a team goes on a run like this. I know Haliburton is a mega-millionaire, as are most of his teammates. And no one “deserves” a result in sports. But in those moments it feels grossly unfair.

That said, his injury made the actual loss easier to take. Although they fought hard, the second he went down, most of us knew the Pacers had no chance to win. It was sudden and resolute. A loss is a loss, but something about the drama being stripped away made it suck less. It shouldn’t matter but to me, at least, it did.

I found it funny in a morbid way that some people accused the Pacers of gamesmanship for the way they reported Haliburton’s calf injury after game five. Like they were exaggerating to throw the Thunder off. Add that to the list of weirdness in the conversation about Hali.

Big props to Rick Carlisle. I did not appreciate what a great coach he was until this year. He coached the Pacers when we first moved here and had one great team, and another that was poised to be great until it flamed out in epic fashion. At the time it felt like he was just doing what everyone else is the league did: play power basketball based on toughness and size and defensive excellence.

He won a title in Dallas, but that was a year when the playoff bracket opened up for a variety of reasons and riding one of the best players in the world going on an epic hot streak.

I was not super excited when the Pacers hired him for the second time in 2021. That was because I had no idea of the coaching journey he’s gone on through his career, always open to new ideas and perspectives, learning to match what he asked his teams to do to the talent they had. The past two years have been the culmination of that. A year ago the Pacers were this insane offensive team that couldn’t guard a high school roster. In time Carlisle made adjustments both in set and what he asked his players to do. To their credit, they bought in. Eventually, when the team got healthy this year, they settled into a withering style on both ends. In retrospect, as good as that system was for the regular season, it was perfectly suited for the postseason, where half the goal is just to wear down your opponent over seven games. Podcaster Zach Lowe said Monday that he spoke to a player who faced the Pacers this postseason who told him that the Pacers are an awful team to play against.

Carlisle also seems like a genuinely curious and empathetic human being. I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate him sooner.

Also deserving of credit are the players for buying into Carlisle’s system. It is based on constant motion, on pressuring all 94 feet, on fighting over screens rather than switching or going under. Basically killing yourself every minute you’re on the court. That only works if everyone buys in. It took some time – Pascal Siakam has admitted he had no idea how fast the Pacers played and how much he’d have to improve his fitness to fit in when they acquired him a year ago – but eventually that happened. In the process it unlocked players like Aaron Nesmith, TJ McConnell, and Obi Toppin, who had struggled to find their NBA footing. And it elevated Andrew Nembhard from role player to starter.

And props to Kevin Pritchard and Chad Buchanan for deciding to build around Haliburton’s unique skill set. A lot of front office’s are reluctant to buck trends or ask players to sacrifice for the greater good. For at least two seasons it has worked for the Pacers.

The Pacers made an interesting trade a week ago, swapping some draft picks with New Orleans. It was an odd time to make a deal, in the middle of the NBA Finals, but it was primarily viewed as an effort to unload picks this year when the Pacers are facing a salary crunch. It didn’t seem super important at the time but they also re-acquired their first round pick next year which had been traded around a few times. With Haliburton out for the coming year, suddenly that looks like a great move. I think the Pacers should still be decent next year, mostly because they play in the Eastern Conference. But swapping the #23 pick this year for one that could be in the teens next year seems smart. Hell, depending on other roster decisions and the health of other players, that could turn into a very nice pick/trade asset.

Ah what to do this summer. Myles Turner is a free agent. There are not a ton of teams that have the need nor salary cap space to sign him, which may reduce his value. The Pacers have said they would love to keep him, but to do so will push them into luxury tax territory for the first time in franchise history. He just turned 29 and seems to be declining just a little. With Hali missing next year, is it worth the cap hit to keep Turner around and hope he can still be as effective in two and three years as he enters his 30s? Tough decision. I think I would lean to letting him go, as emotionally painful as that might be to a guy who has spent his entire career in Indianapolis. But is a reduced Turner in ’26–27–28 better than trying to develop some young guy over that same span? Seven footers who can shoot the 3 don’t grow on trees.

That choice is tougher since the Pacers have no backup centers under contract. They lost their two opening day backups in the first 10 days of the season to achilles injuries, and playoff role players Thomas Bryant and Tony Bradley should be third options at best.

Do you move any other pieces to clear space to keep Turner? Bennedict Mathurin has two years left on his rookie contract. As much as his change-of-pace is perfect off the bench, I’m not sure he totally fits in with what the Pacers want to do when their starters are on the court. With Haliburton out, will Mathurin defer to players he probably thinks he’s better than? I like his potential but the fit has always bothered me. This could be a sell high moment for chemistry alone. Or maybe Carlisle relishes the chance to make adjustments that cater to Mathurin’s skill set.

The post-Finals discourse has been interesting. At least in the pods I listen to and the articles I’ve read, it’s been as much about how this Pacers team captured the attention of the NBA world as the Thunder winning and potentially kicking off a dynasty. Some of that was because of Hali’s injury, but it was also an appreciation of how ridiculous the Pacers were over the last two months.

I also think it’s funny that there is a lot of hate for the Thunder among hardcore NBA fans. How can you hate a team from a small market that just won their first NBA title? There are complaints about their playing style (the constant fouling on defense combined with the foul hunting on offense), their lack of interesting personalities, their whole “we do interviews together” bit, the way their front office has both stacked up tons of future drafts picks and lucked into some good players they may not have deserved, and the fact the franchise was stolen from Seattle. I say wait until they’ve won another title or two before you start hating them. Every franchise should want to be like the Thunder.

Kid Hoops

OK, L had a very busy week last week. Also a concerning and frustrating one.

Last Monday she had a PT appointment that went very well. Her activity got amped up and she got through the session without any pain. She was cleared to play up to 20 minutes per day for the coming week.

Wednesday night we were back at action in the local summer league. She played about five minutes in the first half against an experienced, tough team and held her own. Then she never came back in. I was keeping score so couldn’t see if she was having an issue, so I wondered if maybe the coach was saving the rest of her minutes for game two. After the game she said she was having intense pain in her foot and could barely walk.

Oh shit.

Fortunately the pain was on the opposite side of where her surgery was. She was wearing new shoes and I wondered if that was the cause, but she claimed they fit her fine. She managed to play a few minutes in game two but was still struggling. We also lost both games and the girls got a long “talking” to after the second one from their coach. I put talking in quotes because there was a lot of yelling.

Friday morning they got on a bus and drove down to Lexington, KY for a team camp at Transylvania University. Calling it a camp was a little silly: this was just an excuse to play up to eight games in three days. There were no skills sessions or anything.

I told her to let me know how things went Friday, but never heard anything. I didn’t know if that was good or bad.

I drove down Saturday morning and when I walked into the gym, she was on the court in their first game of the day. That seemed good. When I reached our other parents they said she had just scored on a nice layup. She had another one later.

After the game, though, she came up and was limping badly. Still opposite of where her surgery was. She was beside herself and eventually dissolved into tears. I told her again that I really thought this had more to do with her foot struggling with overloading because of rehab and her new shoes than anything serious. I also said if she was in that much pain she did not have to play, and would be happy to talk to her coach about it. I think that was part of her worry, talking to the coach.

They had three hours until their next game so she went back to the dorm to rest while us parents went downtown for lunch. I checked in on her an hour later and she said she would talk to her coach on her own. After she messaged me that the coach was nice about it and told her it’s more important to be healthy in the fall than now.

When I went back to the gym for game two, L looked much happier, like a weight had been lifted. She ended up sitting out the rest of the games over the weekend. We’re going to give the foot a few days to heal and then try going back to her old shoes to see if it is just a fit issue. She doesn’t have PT this week but when we go in next week we’ll see if her therapist has suggestions about getting everything to fit properly.

As for the team, they played really well. In fact they won the “tournament,” which was great given they were down to seven players after L sat out. If our best player, who wrecked her knee a week ago, had played I think we would have destroyed all the teams we played. None of them were very good. But it was a good chance for the girls to learn how to fill roles they haven’t filled before. A couple of L’s classmates who were not very good last year played really well over the weekend.

Sunday’s game were rather strange. The games Friday and Saturday were all 20 minute, running clock halves. Sunday’s first knock-out round had 16 minute running clock halves. And then the semifinals and finals were both “overtime” games: played with a five minute clock that stopped on dead balls. I’m not sure if this was to save the girls after already playing so much or because they needed to gym for something else at 1:00 PM.

We won our first OT game 4–1. Then the championship game 7–4, the other team hitting an uncontested 3 at the final buzzer.

Us parents thought this whole concept was a little silly, but our coach told us after it was actually great from her perspective. It gave her a chance to work on late-game stuff that’s often hard to replicate in practice. You can tell girls there are 2:00 left and you are down two, but there’s no real pressure there. These two OT games were pretty sloppy, partially because everyone was wiped out, but also because you could tell the girls felt that pressure of the clock.

Lexington

Just being down there one night, and watching a lot of basketball, I didn’t get to spend much time exploring Lexington. One of the other dads and I decided to watch the Independent League Lexington Legends play some baseball Saturday evening. We got into the stadium for $11, got a burger and beer for another $12, and enjoyed about four innings of mediocre baseball before we ducked out. Pitching at this level is suspect, and it was already 5–2 Legends when we took our seats in the third inning. When we left in the seventh, it was 15–4. Lots of bad defense, too. But it was a really nice night at the old ballpark.

Rupp Arena was only a half mile from the Transylvania campus and my plan was to walk over in one of the breaks. But it was approximately 999° all weekend, and I didn’t want to die of heat exhaustion in Kentucky. We drove by on our way out of town and it was as had been described to me many times: a massive, nondescript building on the outside that is attached to shopping and hotels. There is a large parking lot across the street that I was hoping I could pull into to at least take a quick picture. But even on a Sunday morning with no activities scheduled, the gates were down and I was going to have to pay to get in. I’m sure it’s nice on the inside. But it has zero character on the outside and is not in the middle of campus. Allen Fieldhouse it ain’t.

  1. I actually wrote nearly 1000 words on my history as a Pacers fan and decided none of you wanted/needed to read that.  ↩

Weekend Notes

June 16, 2025 /

A full, fun weekend that had healthy doses of sadness and even a little fear.

KC Trip

As mentioned Friday, I headed back to Kansas City for the weekend to attend the memorial service for Jack N, the father of one of my closest friends. We’re at the age where these are happening more frequently, but no matter the circumstances they are never easy. It was a fine service and honored the deceased in a way I think he would have appreciated.

That was the reason for the trip. I obviously did more than just attend the memorial.

I flew in Friday afternoon, my buddy Dave picked me up, and we headed directly to Joe’s Kansas City Barbecue, where I knocked out a jumbo Z-Man, fries, and a frosty Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat. Joe’s never disappoints.

On our way to Dave’s house, which was my home base for the weekend, we stopped at a liquor store. I was thrilled that they still had some Boulevard Irish Ale not only in stock but in the cooler. Where it was once kind of easy to find in Indy before St. Patrick’s Day, it has disappeared in recent years. An unexpected bonus!

That evening Dave and his wife had plans, so I took my Irish Ale to John N’s house. Despite having just returned from an overseas trip and planning for his dad’s services the next day, he was gracious enough to invite me out not just to visit but so I could avoid having to watch the Pacers game in a bar. I figured KC drinking holes would lean heavily towards the Thunder.

Anyway, John and his family and I had a good conversation while watching a little of the Royals game and all of the Pacers game. More on that in a bit.

Dave let me borrow his car, a 2019 Audi Q5. Fitting the theme for the weekend, it was like being with an old friend! I found it interesting that despite being just two years older than my Q5, his drove very differently. I’m no mechanical expert but I think his engine was tuned slightly differently, making it feel smoother than mine had been. However, his media screen was not touch capable, so I drove myself a little crazy trying to tap the screen to have Siri read texts to me without any success. There’s your mini car post for the month.

Saturday morning Dave and Maureen took me to Gram & Dun for brunch. I ate what was, without a doubt, the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever had. It was amazing.

After the service and reception, our friends the Murrays hosted a small gathering, which eventually moved to Waldo Pizza for dinner. I’m almost positive I had not been to Waldo Pizza in 22 years, so that was excellent.

Saturday also just happened to be the 22nd anniversary of the day S and I got married in KC. It was kind of wild to be back there, sadly without her, when that day rolled around. I was pleased to hear the lady who guided us through our pre-marriage classes is still active, and our good friend Ann remains close with her. I was also glad that it wasn’t 102° like it was the day we got married.

Sunday morning Maureen, despite it being her birthday, made sure to send me off with a wonderful breakfast. I was on the mid-morning flight back home. When the weather is right, there may be no easier trip in the world than flying between Indianapolis and Kansas City. Two new airports that are super easy to navigate and don’t get super busy. I was door-to-door in exactly three-and-a-half hours. Had I driven, I wouldn’t have been to St. Louis yet in that time.

One other travel note, the Racing Louisville FC women’s soccer team was on both of my flights. Apparently there are no direct flights between the ‘Ville and KC, so they must have bussed up to Indy. They lost to the KC Current Saturday evening. I did not mention the result to the players who were next to me in the boarding line Sunday.

I know a lot of the people I saw this weekend are readers of this site. It was great to see you all, although sad it took a funeral to get me back there this summer.

Pacers

Man, the NBA Finals were on the Pacers racquet, to use a tennis term. Up 2–1 in the series and leading by 10 points late in the third period, with Obi Toppin going to the line for two free throws. I had a bad feeling when he missed both, which turned out to be a key moment in the Thunder coming back to even the series at two games.

I watched the entire game, as already noted, at the N’s house. And while I was paying attention, we were also catching up. So my attentions were, at best, split 50–50 all night. For example, the play when SGA pushed off, traveled, and then got an and-one that gave OKC the lead barely registered. Had I been watching that play at home in my normal seat, I would have been screaming and yelling, possibly punching things, and maybe had to take a walk outside. For sure I would not have been able to sleep after the game. I shared this with a non-KC friend and he said, “That might be the healthiest move: force yourself to watch games with people who will make you unfocused on the result and less stressed.” Only took me (almost) 54 years to figure that out!

You hate to say the series is completely over after how good three of the first four games have been, but the Pacers have certainly blown their advantage and put themselves in a tough spot. At least they get to come back home for game six regardless of what happens in Oklahoma tonight. Never count them out, but they are running out of chances.

HS Hoops

It was an open recruiting weekend for high school sports – there were a bunch of college softball coaches on my flight Sunday who had been in Kansas City for a big tournament – and CHS played four games in an annual event here in Indy. Friday they went 2–0, including waxing a team that beat them last year and has one of the best rising juniors in the state. She scored 30+ but our girls kept the rest of the team in check. L didn’t play much in the first game, but got in for most of the fourth quarter of game two. Her travel coach was there and sent me a picture of her inbounding the ball. I shared it with S and she noted that L’s legs are back to being the same size! She’s got her muscle back after the weeks of cast and boot.

Saturday S went to the games and sent me some good updates. That might have been the highlight of the weekend; I’m not sure she’s ever sent me updates before! L played a little more, and a little better in each game. She got to the rim and scored while faking a defender in one. In the other, she scored, got fouled, and swished the free throw.

They beat a good team in the morning game, and then played the team they lost to in sudden death overtime a week ago in game two. We were waxing them, up almost 20, when things got bad. Like seriously bad.

S sent me a message saying our best player had suffered a “devastating” knee injury, probably tearing her ACL. S said the girl was screaming, other players were looking away, and it was just a terrible situation all around. A little later she updated me that it seemed like she had actually dislocated her knee, and the on-site trainer had popped it back into place. OK, 😱🤮

Then another five minutes went by and S texted me that one of L’s best friends had just broken her finger and left the game.

Obviously our girls were a little shook by all this, and tried their hardest to blow all of that lead. L got a lot more minutes and admitted to me later she was not ready to handle the ball against pressure yet. Glad I missed all of that.

But our girls hung on to go 4–0 for the weekend.

We don’t have an update on our star. S was concerned that despite just being a dislocation she could have also torn ligaments as well. I guess we’ll find out soon. That’s a serious bummer for her and our team. And our other injured girl will have surgery on her finger and be out the rest of the summer. The girls have 10 games this week and just eight healthy players, one of whom is still rehabbing her dumb foot and not in full basketball shape yet.

I thought summer was supposed to be fun.

Oh, and L was up in the air trying to block a shot when she got sideswiped by a teammate and knocked to the floor. She has a massive bruise on her hip and actually got some whiplash when she hit the ground and her head snapped back, so her neck is super sore and tight.

It might be time to get her some golf clubs.

US Open

With the travel I did not watch as much of the US Open as I normally would. I was home in time to see the wild final three or four hours Sunday, which included a long weather delay, a moment late in the tournament when six guys were tied for the lead, some epic meltdowns and classic US Open destroying the best golfers in the world stuff, and then JJ Spaun rolling in a ridiculous 60-foot putt to ice his first major victory. Conditions had eliminated most of the best and best known golfers, but the final two hours were a lot of fun to watch.

Royals

They stink.

I’ve not written much about them this year. I’m not watching them as closely as I did the back half of last season, but I am tracking scores each night. There have been a lot of bad Royals teams over the years. This one may well be the most frustrating because they get good-to-great starting pitching almost every night and just cannot hit the ball. It doesn’t matter whether I check the score early or late, I’m almost certain the Royals will have no more than two runs, and most likely none. It’s really uncanny how poor they are at scoring. I guess this is balancing how great they were last year at getting runners in scoring position home.

Spring Break 2025

April 7, 2025 /

Home after a nearly perfect week in Siesta Key, FL for C’s senior spring break. This might have been the easiest spring break we’ve ever had. In nearly every way you can assess it, things went as well, or even better, as we could have hoped for.

We were on one of the B Team breaks for C’s class. The largest group trip was to a resort in Cancun. After doing the huge, overseas, resort trip two years ago with M’s class, C was not interested in all the drama that came with it. Plus she’s less social than M, so did not feel the need to be in the midst of the big gathering.[1]

There were somewhere between 40–50 of her classmates in Siesta, roughly 30 of those in our loose group that stayed in a series of resorts and condos that were all clustered together in the center of the Key. Three of C’s friends stayed with us. Or, rather, we had two rooms at the Sarasota Surf and Racquet Club, one for S, L, and I, and the other for C and her friends. I have to admit this arrangement made me nervous in the weeks leading up to the trip. C’s room was not only separate from ours, but in a completely different building.

C and her roommates did great. As far as we know, there weren’t any incidents, they didn’t annoy any of their neighbors, and no one got arrested. Seems like a success.

There was one bummer for the week, but it wasn’t related to C or her friends. L was all fired up that she would be running around close to normal since she was in a walking boot rather than a cast. Her first night trying to hang with friends quashed those thoughts. Turns out when you don’t put any weight on your foot for five weeks, you aren’t immediately able to walk normally again. Plus strolling around in an aircast is not comfortable at all, at least at first. She was too slow and sore and ended up coming home early upset because she couldn’t keep up with the group. She largely spent the rest of the week with us. I felt sorry for her but she kept insisting she was fine, and told us her perfect break is getting up early, reading all day, and then going to bed early. I think some of that was deflecting, but it is true she’s not really into the party scene yet. Fortunately one of her best friends from middle school who goes to Bishop Chatard was just down the beach and insisted L come out with her a couple nights.

That was an interesting aspect of our week. While there was a decent number of Cathedral families there, Siesta Key is where Chatard’s seniors almost all come each year, staying right in same area we were. There wasn’t a ton of interaction among the seniors that we saw, but the younger kids were definitely crossing lines. And we saw tons of St P’s families.

Speaking of St P’s, early in the week I saw this older dude, shaved head, sitting near us without his shirt on, showing off his impressive tattoos. I pointed him out to L and said “Hey, that looks like Mr. H!” the principal at St P’s the first four or five years we had kids there. There were always rumors that he had a bunch of tattoos from when he lived in Japan, and that he always wore long sleeved shirts so the kids didn’t see them. Making this comparison funnier was that the dude was vaping.

Well, next day we got a text from another St P’s/CHS parent that said “OMG! I just saw Mr. H on the beach and he was vaping!” It was him!

Turned out he was staying in our complex with one of his kids and some grandkids. He walked around all week without a shirt on and we caught him vaping any time the little ones weren’t around. Later someone said he stays there every year. Kind of crazy to pick a spring break spot where you know tons of families from the school you used to run always go. Especially since we didn’t see him interact with a single person outside his family.

The weather was nearly perfect all week. It only rained once, and that was a downpour Saturday night just after we returned from dinner. Otherwise hot, sunny, and breezy every day. Just what you want from spring break.

Most nights we ended up hosting a dinner in our room for C, her roommates, and then any friends who were tagging along. There was a Taco Tuesday dinner on the beach for most of the CHS families at the complex next door.

Our only big outing was Wednesday when most of the CHS crew went on a sunset cruise together. Here’s where there was an obvious difference between C’s trip and M’s. In the Dominican Republic two years ago, kids were getting WASTED on the afternoon booze cruise. The drinking age there is 18, and the kids were openly killing rum punch as soon as the bartender handed it to them. S had to help a couple kids out who were in really bad shape.

But in Florida the kids obviously couldn’t drink openly, and you weren’t allowed to bring anything onto the boat. We did end up buying C and her roommates a round of daiquiris, as did most of the other parents. A bartender told us they hadn’t sold this many daiquiris in weeks, which made all us parents laugh out loud. There was a line of parents buying 4–5 drinks each and no questioning about where they were going. Our kids all behaved. Only a few of them had more than one drink, but several got on the boat with quite a few in them from the beach. But there were no incidents.

Late in the two hour cruise S, L and I were downstairs where it was less crowded. C came down to check in and got a text from a friend upstairs that the bartenders were carding kids. S ran up to check and it turned out they were just taking the drinks from kids who couldn’t produce an ID. Again, hilarious. They sold drinks and made tips for 90 minutes and then in the last half hour made kids dump them out before we got back to the dock. Fair enough.

C had a drink and wasn’t being very careful about hiding it. The downstairs bartender came over and asked for her ID. Again, when C couldn’t show her one, the bartender politely took the drink and that was that. Seems like they were chill because the kids were being chill.

The last time we went to Siesta Key the police were pretty hardcore on the beach. We know a couple Indy kids who got arrested that year. We only saw one group of kids get hassled last week, and those were idiot sophomores from the other Catholic school who had a case of beer sitting in the midst of their circle in broad daylight. The deputies hassled them for a while, then took the beer and told the kids to disperse. As far as we know no kids were arrested in our little area all week.

The travel part of the week was about as easy as you could imagine this time of year. We flew out of Indy in the afternoon and there were no lines. I had to wait less than five minutes to pick up our rental in Sarasota. We also had an afternoon return flight. When I walked by the rental counter after turning in our van, there were lines similar to our visit three years ago, when people were stuck waiting for hours and we eventually bailed and ordered an Uber. There was literally no one in front of us to drop bags or in the TSA Pre line. Our flight was delayed 15 minutes, but we ended up landing right on time. I’m a little nervous that this means our next trip will be plagued with issues.

We missed some big weather at home. Wednesday there were tornado warnings in Indy. After our sunset cruise we had the girls back to our room for an evening snack and many of them were either getting texts or calls from their parents back home, who were all in their basements. That was followed by massive rain, which continued into the weekend. We ended up getting over 6” of rain in our part of town over four days. No issues at our house. The sump pump kept pumping and if the power went off, it was only briefly. Just some limbs down in the yard to throw into the trash dumpster. Everything is super green, though, and trees and plants are starting to bud/flower.

So pretty awesome we are going to have hard freezes the next two nights.

One of the best things about the week is that we got to spend time with the parents of one of M’s best friends, who we hung with in the Dominican two years ago. Their middle daughter and C are casual friends, so we don’t get to see them as much as we did with the older sisters. We tried to avoid what was going on in the world while we were relaxing, but they have the same perspective on things as we do, and also have three daughters, so the dad and I especially spent a lot of time talking about the state of things and what it means for our girls as they become adults. The dad also drives a Rivian, so we talked about cool cars, too. It’s a shame their third daughter is two years younger than L and we won’t get to travel with them again in their senior years.

We always enjoy going to Publix when in Florida. We did make three trips there over the course of the week. That was even with ordering some stuff ahead of time, that we picked up on our way to the resort Friday, and having an Instacart order from Costco get delivered that night as well. That all went fairly well. Some of the fruit and vegetables were crap, a big reason I’m usually fine going to the store on my own. All our bread was also moldy in about a day. We figured they take the stuff off the shelf that’s about to expire and save it for delivery orders.

We didn’t spend a ton of time in the car, but did have to run girls somewhere, pick up food, etc each day. On our drive from the airport we found a cool, old school hip hop and R&B station. It played almost exclusively songs from the ‘90s. We kept it glued to that station and enjoyed it throughout the week. Despite spending just a little time in the car, we managed to hear “Poison,” “Hey Ya!” and “Don’t Walk Away” four times each. Not that I’m complaining.

So we survived the middle kid’s spring break. She and her friends lean to the Good Kid side of the spectrum, but you never know when you go away, there are lots of kids around, and alcohol is involved. We are thankful they all respected us and their parents enough to keep the nonsense to a minimum.

The seniors have just five weeks of classes left, with two shorter weeks in there because of Easter. Prom, National Honor Society, graduation activities, and grad party season are all right around the corner. The next two-plus months are going to be busy, but fly by quickly.

  1. Since Covid our spring breaks have been: Anna Maria, Siesta Key, Punta Caña, Anna Maria, Siesta Key. We are NOT going to the DR again next year, but will likely be out of the country.  ↩

Weekend Notes

December 2, 2024 /

A long, extra-stuffed Thanksgiving weekend is in the books. Let’s run through the highlights.

Thanksgiving

For the first time in ages that we’ve been home for the holiday,[1] we did not host the local gathering on Turkey Day. One of S’s sisters and her husband opened up their house to the family. It was nice to not have to clean before and after, run around wildly the morning of, and hope that we hadn’t forgotten anything as we started serving the food. We provided mashed potatoes, Giada’s dressing, a meat and cheese tray, and pumpkin pie. That took a couple hours of prep, and I had a moment of panic when I wasn’t sure if the potatoes were going to be ready in time. In general, though, a much lower stress Thanksgiving than we’ve had in a long time. And we got to come home, get into comfy clothes, and crash on the couch instead of the hours of dishes afterward. Thumbs up all around.

College Girl

M came home Monday afternoon and was here in time for dinner. She went back mid-day Sunday. It was nice to have her home. She had only visited once this fall, so S and her sisters had barely seen her since summer. She has one week of regular classes before finals begin next week. She’s still not sure of her exam/project schedule, but should be home for Christmas break a week from Friday. Classes are going well. She’s eager to be done with financial accounting and never think about it again. No CPA accreditation in her future.

One of her friends who goes to the College of Charleston begins finals today. That just seems cruel.

College Football

Was this the wildest week of college football ever? Some huge upsets. Some great games. Most importantly, it seemed like there were about 50 games that included some kind of brawl. Fighting in sports is generally stupid, but in this case I approve. Nothing like some good, old fashioned hate to wrap up the holiday weekend.

Regarding the planting of flags on the opponent’s field, I’m 100,000% for it. Rub that shit in. Pettiness is always good. If you don’t like it, don’t lose the game. Take your L like a man instead of starting some punk-ass fight about it. Then go plant your flag on your rival’s field next year.

Of course now we’re going to get all kinds of dumb rules that ban flags on the field, postgame interactions, etc, etc, etc. Sports are dumb. The people that run them are dumber.

KU

I have three games to cover in this section, so I’ll pull them out for their own Jayhawk Talk post.

Colts

I missed most of the Colts game as we were watching a couple of our nephews yesterday. S and I helped the boys with their homework. I had the four-year-old and his pre-K stuff, which involved identifying letters and coloring them a certain way and coloring, cutting, and pasting a series of pictures of puppies so the matching ones went together. S assisted the second grader with his reading and answering questions related to his stories. Some of that was in Spanish, which she does not speak. The rest of us may or may not have laughed at her behind her back.

I was finally able to flip on the Colts game late in the fourth quarter. I saw Anthony Richardson throw three-straight balls that sailed into an area where no one could catch them. It looked like the Colts were going to lose to the lowly Patriots.

Then AR threw three-straight amazing balls. Of course, two were dropped by his receivers. One buried itself into the receiver’s chest so he couldn’t drop it. The Colts tried to screw it up, but converted three different fourth downs on a 19-play drive, including scoring on fourth-and-goal, and then converted the two-point conversion to eek out the win. Although the Pats came up just short on a 68-yard field goal that would have won the game. Not sure if winning is good or bad at this point. Somehow the Colts are still in the playoff picture. I still think getting a top 10 draft pick would be better than chasing the postseason.

SNF

I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve it, but for the second time in a couple weeks we got a prime time NFL game played in snow. Last night’s snow in Buffalo was a proper snow, too, although it looked like it had really dumped earlier in the day. When the Colts played up there in a foot of snow a decade or so ago, that may have been the greatest NFL snow game ever. I didn’t have a ton of interest in the game and was tired after a late night Saturday. But I stayed up deep into the fourth quarter to watch the majesty of football in a driving snowstorm.

Pacers

They might, officially, stink. Losses to Detroit and Memphis, after leading by 19, this weekend.

High School Hoops

Three nights of CHS basketball over the last week.

Tuesday the JV beat WC by seven. This was a wild game full of swings and runs. Lots of horrible calls. One ref was so preoccupied with a WC dad in the stands that he kept screaming at people sitting at the scorer’s table to get him out of the gym. I have no idea what that was about. I hadn’t seen the guy he was yelling about do a thing, and our athletic director didn’t seem super motivated to remove him.

Wednesday was varsity night. For the first three quarters, our girls played the best they had played all season. As the lead jumped up to 23 I leaned over to the dad next to me and said we seemed to have turned a corner, getting tougher and playing smarter since that respectable loss to 4A #2 a week earlier.

Guess what happened next?

That’s right, I jinxed those poor girls.

They lost their minds and blew 17 points of that 23-point lead. Mindless turnovers. Passivity on offense. Missed free throws. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. To top it off, late in the quarter, when our coach really should have been clearing her bench because we were up 15+, there was a loose ball that our freshman starter dove for. Her head cracked against another player’s knee and she went down, not getting up for several minutes. When she was able to walk she looked dazed and had a huge goose egg on her temple. Based on her injury history, we are worried she’s going to miss an extended period.

We held on and won by six but ruined all the good feelings in the process. At practice Friday the girls got to watch film for 90 minutes. All of that film was from the fourth quarter. Which is kind of funny when you’re not the one watching it.

Saturday we drove down to the Louisville area for another boy-girl, JV-varsity doubleheader. These are usually cool, but I was bummed the games were scheduled that way. While I was being a good dad watching the JV girls in the auxiliary gym, there was a terrific boys game in the main gym. In the all-class, coaches poll, JHS was #2, CHS #4. Which would make JHS #2 in 4A, CHS #1 in 3A. We peeked in a couple times and JHS was always up by 6–8, but the Irish made a run and ended up losing by two.

The varsity girls lost by 10. They were down just one at halftime but foul trouble and lack of depth because of the injury killed them in the second half.

The JV girls played really well for three quarters, but like their varsity sisters three nights earlier, fell apart in the fourth quarter and let a 15-point lead get down to two a couple times. We ended up winning by six but it was way too nervy. You know what would have helped? A point guard who takes decent care of the ball. Hopefully we get one of those back in about a month.

Travel

Louisville is two hours away, so we did end up traveling for the weekend. This was my first trip in the Tesla in cold weather. Sub-freezing temps make the battery less efficient and cause charging to take longer. Which meant my brain had been spinning for a couple days on the best way to handle the logistics for this trip.

My plan was to leave home with a 100% charge and then stop at the Supercharger in Columbus, IN, a little over an hour away, on the way down to get back up to 80%. That would give me several options for the return trip.

However, the Supercharger in Columbus was not working. So I drove straight through, arriving at my destination with about 45% charge left. While we ate dinner I explored different options on the Tesla app. It kept trying to send me to Shelbyville, IN, which would involve taking a big right turn on the way back to Indy. It would also have me arrive at the Supercharger with about 5% charge remaining, which was way too low for my tastes with the temps dropping and snow falling. As much as I hated to go the wrong way, it made the most sense to cross the river into Louisville proper and go to a charging station about 10 minutes from where the games were. By the time the game ended, even the Telsa app was sending me that way. I think it was too cold to make it to Shelbyville.

So when the game was over I got L some Chick-Fil-A and we went to Kentucky to grab some electrons. Earlier in the evening the estimate was about a 10 minute charge to get home. By the time we got there, it was cold enough that it took us about 25 minutes. This was a 250 KW charger. Because seven of the eight chargers were being used and the falling temperature, mine maxed out at 85 KW, and was usually much lower than that.[2]

We left the charging station at 10 PM, arrived home just after midnight with about 13% of the charge left. If it had been warmer I would have been comfortable going under 10%, but being new to cold weather EV driving, I wanted as much buffer as I could have.

L didn’t mind. She had her iPad and watched shows both while we charged and on the way home. I was able to pull up the Texas-Texas A&M game on Hulu while we charged. And we lucked out with the snow. Early forecasts had called for 2–3” of snow in Southern Indiana right when we were driving. It was definitely snowing hard while we charged, but still mostly melting. And we drove out of it pretty quickly once we headed back north.

We got the Christmas decorations up across Friday-Saturday-Sunday. The calendar says December. Ten days after pushing 70 we are stuck in the 20s and 30s for most of this week. The holiday season is officially here!

  1. We missed 2021 and 2022 while traveling to Hawaii and Italy.  ↩
  2. Not to get too deep into the details, but you will rarely get the full listed power from a charger. Many elements go into what your car can pull, including how many other cars are charging at that location, weather, the temperature of your battery, and how charged your battery is. In general, you will pull more power early in your charge, and as the battery fills the rate will slow dramatically. The analogy I heard when I was car shopping was a theater filling for a movie. When the seats are all empty, people flow in easily. But as it fills and it’s harder to find an open seat, the people searching for one have to take more time to select one. Same pouring energy into your battery.  ↩

Fall Break 2024: Colorado

October 21, 2024 /

To celebrate the glories of CHS fall break, we took the girls (well, C and L) to Denver to stay with S’s sister and her family for a few days.[1] We hadn’t been to Colorado since Christmas 2017, although we were scheduled to spend spring break there in 2020 until, well, you know…

We flew out Wednesday evening, returned Sunday morning/afternoon. Other than heavy fog causing us to sit at the gate for an extra 40 minutes before leaving Denver, we had no travel issues.

Thursday we headed down to Colorado Springs. Our first stop was a drive through and quick hike in the Garden of the Gods. I doubt these rock formations are quite as amazing as some of the more famous ones in Utah, but they also make less sense because they are far more isolated.

We were just a little behind schedule, thus the short hike. We went to the Broadmoor estate for lunch at the Golden Bee, which was very good.

After lunch we hit the Cave of the Winds Mountain Park for a cave tour. That was kind of freaky, especially for tall people. The girls were laughing at me after saying I was ducking way more than I needed on the tight passages. I told them it’s hard to get a 53-year-old, 6’2” body scrunched into a sub-four foot opening gracefully. We were most amazed by how and why people explored these 150 years ago. There is a part of the tour where they turn the modern lighting off and illuminate a large cavern with the type of candle-lamps they used in the 1880s. You can’t see shit. Maybe that’s how they explored so deep: when you can only see a few feet ahead you don’t realize one misstep could lead to a cold, lonely death.

The Broncos were playing Thursday night so we ordered pizza and stayed in to watch that. Mountain Time is pretty good for sports.

Friday we stayed in Denver. First we picked up our nephew, W, from his school, which had a half day. He’s a freshman at a Catholic school of about 725 students, and was able to give us a little tour. Then we hit the trendy Washington Park area to explore a bit and have a fantastic lunch at Perdida Kitchen. By far the best biria tacos I’ve ever had.

As a huge bonus we have good friends from Indy who are in the midst of a family relocation to Denver. One of S’s best friends from high school, K, who also happens to be L’s godmother, has two daughters who have taken nursing jobs in Denver. Because K and her husband are kind of crazy, after making a first visit to move the girls over the summer and falling in love with the city, they decided to rent their own condo for a year. K has been working from Denver off-and-on for the past month. Her husband C, who teaches at CHS and has our C in a class this year, has been coming out for weekends. He had promised us he would teach long enough to have his goddaughter in class when she is a senior, but we wonder if that’s still in the cards as they really seem to like Denver.

Anyway, we checked out K & C’s condo. Their daughters both have smaller places in the same complex. One was sleeping off an overnight shift so we only got to see her sister’s place.

Fun and kind of random.

Rain was moving in so we cut afternoon plans to walk around Wash Park more and instead checked out the Cherry Creek mall. Holy shit! Who knew there were still megamalls that were full of good stores? The girls spent a ton of time picking out clothes at Zara. After standing around letting them select and try on stuff for nearly an hour I finally discovered there was a Lucid showroom that I could have been hanging out in.

For our family activity that night the dads decided it was time all our kids watched Anchorman. None of them liked it as much as the dads did. Oh well…

Saturday we had to get up early to go watch our nephew play football about 30 minutes north of Denver. This is his first time ever playing football and he loves it. In the C game, he rarely comes off the field, playing a linebacker/safety hybrid on D and as a receiver on offense. He had a great tackle on defense and pancake-blocked a kid on a screen pass, which was awesome. However his team got blasted so that kind of sucked. Especially since it was early and cold.

Now, I could probably write 3000 words about this part of the game, so I’ll try to be brief. W’s team was down 26–0 in the third quarter and had done nothing on offense the entire game other than punt or turn the ball over before they connected on an 85 yard TD pass. However, one of the sideline refs threw a flag because W’s coaches ran onto the field and blocked the ref’s view during the run. Even though this ref had no call to make on the play. I see/hear sideline warnings called in pretty much every CHS game I’ve followed over the past seven years. The refs throw a flag, a sideline warning is announced, they pick up the flag, the play counts, and if it happens again there’s a penalty.

Maybe the rules are different in Colorado, but there was no warning Saturday. In a C game that was a blowout, a ref took away MHS’ only good play of the day. Even if I had no interest in the game, this would have been an insane call.

Well, as you can imagine, the MHS parents were not happy. One dad in particular, who was already an asshole before this call, cranked things up to 11. Or 111 actually. It was embarrassing even as a non-MHS parent how he would just not stop. My brother-in-law was ready to fight this guy because he was being such an idiot. The coaches came over and told him to shut up. The athletic director of the home school came over and asked him to pipe down. But he kept going. Literally 20 minutes of yelling before he finally took a walk around the track. Then when he came back he complained loudly to all of us again.

Makes me look forward to high school basketball cranking back up here in Indy!

We did not stick around for the JV game since W only played on kick coverage. Instead went took the 30 minute trip up to Boulder. I had never been there before so was excited. The only bummer was that the Flatirons were socked in with clouds until right about the time we left in late afternoon. While we were waiting for W and his dad, we walked around campus and downtown. Campus was deserted, it must have been CU’s fall break, too, so it was pretty lifeless. After W and my brother-in-law joined us we had a really good lunch at the West End Tavern on Pearl Street.

Our girls seemed to like Boulder. It is pretty funny to see the juxtaposition of these rich college kids – it’s over $60K/year for out of state students – with all the grungy, anti-establishment-ness of the full timers. And then it’s also a quasi-tech town. Just a lot going on. That’s true of any college town. Boulder is next level, though.

Then it was back to Denver, finally with clear views of the mountains from the car, for a chill evening. We had a very early flight home Sunday so focused on visiting while we watched football and got packed.

C had a cold the whole time, which was a bit of a bummer. My body is trying to decide if I’m catching it this morning.

Fun trip. We didn’t get the best of what Denver has to offer because of the clouds, but it’s easy to see why so many people flock there from elsewhere. Of course, with that comes a much higher cost of living than in the Midwest. Recently S and I have started thinking about what is next for us, in the 5–10 year window when the girls start cycling out of school and she can think about retiring from medicine. Where we end up will depend on where the girls land; we’d like to be centrally located if they spread out. We are both Midwesterners at heart and have a hard time seeing ourselves in certain parts of the country.[2] But Denver would be cool. Especially with family already there and some good friends with one foot out the door in that direction. That’s a long way away, though.

  1. Originally M was going to join us. But it was homecoming week at UC and as house social chair, she had a lot of important activities. Plus she had a big math test from 6–8 PM Friday. Who gives tests on Friday evenings?!?!  ↩
  2. Pretty much any red state not in the Central time zone.  ↩

Weekend Notes

August 19, 2024 /

An Unexpected Trip

What started as a boring, uneventful weekend ending up being surprisingly fun.

S worked full time all weekend, filling in for a hospitalist who is on maternity leave. She had like 1000 babies to see,[1] so was at the hospital until 5:00 Saturday, nearly as long Sunday. Because of that and the girls being tired after their first full week of school, we just sat around and did nothing on Saturday. I read. I swam. I watched some TV. I napped. And repeat.

Saturday evening I was monitoring the Royals-Reds game while doing some other stuff around the house. I knew my buddy O-Dawg, who I lived with for a year after college and now lives in Cincinnati, was at the game. When Dairon Blanco hit his second home run of the game, I texted O. His response:

“i got a ticket 4 u 4 tmrw”

Um, ok.

Totally out of the blue, at 7:30 the night before the game. Classic O-Dawg.

I had a couple things on the calendar for Sunday, but quickly made some adjustments, cleared it with S, and told him I would be down.

So Sunday morning I hopped on I–74 to see the Royals in person for the second time this season.

It rained off-and-on during the drive, which was an omen. I made very good time and had to wait about 30 minutes for O, his daughter, and her boyfriend to meet me at Great American Ball Park. Twice in that half hour it lightly rained.

O arrived, we got to our seats, which were terrific – section 129, row T, even the pitcher’s mound behind the Reds’ dugout – and started catching up.

We tailgated together at last fall’s Iowa State – UC game, but hadn’t really caught up in over a decade. My readers who know O won’t be surprised to learn he hasn’t changed much. It was tough to truly have a conversation because he was constantly spilling stories out. So you just sit back and listen and laugh and try to have something to say when he takes a breath.

For the first inning or so it was exactly what you would expect from an afternoon game in Cincinnati. We were wiping the sweat from our heads as our necks got crispy. Then the rain moved in, escalating from sprinkles to a decent downpour in the bottom of the second inning. That burst turned into a 45 minute delay. Once the game re-started, it felt more like football weather, cool and blustery. It rained again in the 7th, complete with some thunder and a warning that we should leave our seats, but the umpires never stopped the game. That was nearly disastrous as, with the Royals up 4–0, Sam Long loaded the bases and gave up a run when he clearly had no grip on the ball, but Lucas Erceg came in and shut the door to preserve the lead.

Then the clouds moved out, the sun reappeared, and it turned into a nearly perfect day. The Royals scoring four in the ninth to stretch the lead to 8–1, and 28–3 for the series, was the cherry on top.

There was one more cherry on top for the day, though. M’s rush prep activities wrapped up at 3:00 so I was able to go pick her up for dinner together. We went to a very tasty pizza place right off campus. Her “work week” went well. She is already losing her voice. “We yelled so much this week!” I’m not sure why they were yelling so much when they were just getting trained and practicing for rush, which starts tomorrow. Anyway, work week went well, she and her suitemates get along great, all the girls on their floor are getting along, and it’s been a good first week on campus.

Great seats. Great time with a guy I lived with for a year but haven’t seen much on a consistent basis in over 20 years. Great win/weekend for the Royals. Great dinner with my daughter. Great that the driver that had just passed me got pulled over by the state police officer who is always lurking near Batesville. Always slow down around Batesville, folks.

Fall Feelings

I think it’s funny how as soon as the kids go back to school you start thinking of fall. When we still have half of August left, plus summer weather these days seem to stretch deep into October.

I’ve already been thinking about fall wardrobe choices. Octoberfest beers have started replacing summer ones. Pumpkin Spice is emerging from its slumber to take over store shelves. People are spending too much time talking about preseason football.

I even heard a local weatherman talking about how fall weather was just around the corner. He was kind of right as we’ve had a few very cool mornings and will have a couple more this week. But we also just came off a stretch of days where if it wasn’t close to 90, the heat index was. And, again, astronomical summer has over a month left.

I know the end of summer kind of sucks, as we get beaten down by the heat, our lawns get crispy, and we are looking forward to the relief of fall and all the fun things that come with that time of year. I try to hold on to summer, though. Sure, fall is great. But right after fall there will be long months when we are stuck inside by the cold and we will long for days when we complained about it being hot and humid.

  1. Or closer to 30.  ↩

Vacation Notes

August 5, 2024 /

Our week in Florida wasn’t perfect, Mother Nature saw to that. But it was pretty good.

For the first time in eight or nine years, we drove for a vacation in the south. It was 11.5 hours, door-to-door, and traffic was not terrible on either trip. A lot of travelers, to be sure, but nothing like spring break volume.

We stayed in Inlet Beach, one of the 30A communities, with our old neighbors. We’ve now been to Mexico, Kauai, Captiva, and Inlet Beach with them. This was likely our last vacation as two families totalling nine: their oldest is getting married next summer. The adults may continue to travel once we navigate the college years.

Our house was nice, two blocks from the beach. That distance was just right on the days we had to pack up quickly because storms were moving in. Our little area was very quiet. We were in a duplex and the other side was empty, as was the duplex next to ours. There was a bachelorette group across the street starting Thursday, but they weren’t too loud, too late. Other than that, we barely saw or heard anyone in our immediate vicinity. Going late in the season, when some schools have already gone back to class, pays off.

I guess that’s my signal to get to the Mother Nature bullshit. On the way down we stopped at Buc-ee’s near Bowling Green, KY, our first ever trip to one. More on that in a bit. While we were grabbing food, C looked outside and said, “Oh, it’s pouring!” She was right. The gray skies were suddenly just dumping. I had to run to move our car closer to the doors so the family members who had straightened their hair before our trip wouldn’t have it ruined before we got to Florida. Not naming any names.

To avoid an accident that had I–65 stalled in Montgomery, AL, we took a side route that involved nearly three hours on state and county roads to the shore. Driving through intermittent downpours. A couple times it rained so hard we could barely see. Fun stuff.

Monday morning it rained just as we were getting ready to go to the beach. Tuesday afternoon it rained and drove us from the beach for over two hours. Same Wednesday, although for a little less time. There were storms Thursday. It stormed, loudly, from 5–8 AM Friday, which didn’t impact our beach time but did make for an early alarm clock no one wanted. Then Saturday, our departure day, those morning storms arrived at 4 AM. We had to drive in rain for about an hour before getting clear.

We’ve been to Florida in the summer before, and are used to the pop ups that come and go quickly. These were all big storms that would blow up and then sit over one spot with lots of lightning so you couldn’t be outside.


This storm sat right over us for three hours. It was the only rain in the entire state of Florida at the time.

It could have been worse, obviously, with Hurricane Storm Debby hitting just down the panhandle as I write this.

We still got several beach hours every day, but were curtailed at least a little by the weather most days. That wasn’t the worst thing, because it was stinking hot, the heat index well over 100 every day. Even with umbrellas and a breeze, you couldn’t sit in direct sun for very long without swimming in your own sweat.

The beach was very nice. Fluffy, white sand. Deep enough that there was plenty of room to find your own spot. Although some big, multi-generational crew decided to set up right next to us on Wednesday. I’m talking like less than three feet between the edge of our stuff and theirs. There were a lot of passive-aggressive dirty looks and music played louder than normal for the next few hours. When you got into the water, could walk way out a couple hundred feet and still both see and touch. It wasn’t quite Cancun, but it was close.

Wednesday I wandered out about as far as I’m comfortable going to enjoy the cooling water. Once I got settled in my chair with a new beer and my Kindle, there was a ruckus. Roughly the same distance I had gone out and a couple hundred feet to our left there was a shark. We could see its fins as it attacked something, fortunately not a person. Folks cleared out pretty quick, although we laughed out loud at a couple meathead dads who only came part of the way back in, then stood there defiantly. As if they had any chance against a shark in waist-deep water. Dumbasses, the whole lot. Meanwhile their wives were herding the kids back to land. Clearly all the brains in those operations reside with the ladies.

Thursday there were lots of small jellyfish around, so I avoided the water early. Once the winds kicked up and produced some waves, they disappeared and I braved the waters again.

We had our own pool, but it was very small. We expected it to be hot, too, but it was surprisingly refreshing. It was perfect for hopping into for a few minutes after dragging all our gear back from the beach.

We had three dinners out, all focused on seafood. M and C both tried snow crab one night, with mixed results. I can share food recommendations if anyone heads that way. We had burger, steak, and taco nights at home. We walked around a little in Rosemary Beach, but otherwise didn’t get out much. One family game night. A lot of recovering from the sun and watching the Olympics at night.

Oh, Buc-ee’s. Never had a chance to stop at one before. Our first stop in Kentucky Sunday morning, at about 8:00 AM, might be the perfect time to go. It was busy, but you could find a gas pump and move around the store easily. I got a breakfast taco that was solid. We stopped at one in Alabama on the way home, at about 1:00 PM on a Saturday, and it was a totally different story. Gas pumps all filled up. Store jam-packed. It’s an amazing operation, because we got gas quickly and I was able to grab a sandwich and pay within about 30 seconds despite the gridlock inside. The people who just left their cars at the pumps while they went into the store don’t understand that we are living in a society. I got a fried chicken sandwich for lunch, which was fantastic. Way better than Chick Fil A. Thumbs up, other than the crowds.

I had to chuckle that the road signs announce Florida as “The Free State of Florida.” 1) Serious Try Hard energy there. 2) As a native of a state that was founded as a Free State, I think the Floridians have a very different idea of what that means that I do. 3) I quickly amassed a list of things you are not free to do, based on my limited knowledge of Florida, that seemed to counter the governor and his lackeys’ assertion.

Worst bumper sticker I saw, just outside Nashville, TN: A confederate flag on one side, on the other “Fighting Terrorists Since 1861.” Oh Lord…

Speaking of Tennessee, what a gorgeous state to drive through. The rolling hills of central/western Tennessee might not be as dramatic as the Smokies of east Tennessee, but are still beautiful.

We also saw lots of Say No To Solar signs. I never realized there was actually an anti-solar lobby.

It boggles the mind why the Florida panhandle is on Central Time. Inlet Beach is literally straight south of Indy, but we’re in different time zones.

Pretty solid trip. I read a good book. The girls got to hang with their friends. S and I spent time with our friends.

And now we’re back to the academic grind. C and L start school Thursday, we will move M back to UC on Sunday.

Weekend Notes

July 23, 2024 /

Belated notes after a morning of driver’s ed, some cleaning up after our travels, and starting to prep for our next trip.

Kid Hoops

Five months of travel ball came to an end this weekend in Louisville. L’s team went 2–2, losing both of their bracket games. It was a very weird weekend.

Like last week, the courts were filled with teams from all over the country. We saw teams from Georgia, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, California, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa, New Jersey, and Nebraska.

Saturday we started against a team from Michigan. We led by seven at halftime unofficially. I say unofficially because the old dude running the clock and scoreboard had no idea what he was doing. At one point we had seven points even though we had not hit a 3 or a free throw, thus should have been on an even number. Later, when we did hit a 3, he gave both teams two points. Our assistant coach keeps track of stats on an iPad and tried to correct him multiple times, but old man was not having it. So, officially, we were just up four at the half. The dad from the other team who was keeping the official book was no help. He tracked the score with slash marks rather than numbers. So, for example, when L hit a 3-pointer, rather than write down a 3 on his sheet, he wrote down III. Thus he couldn’t reconcile his scoring to our coach’s digital version. Three of us rotate keeping the book when it is our team’s responsibility, and we took turns ripping this guy and discussing our scoring methods when we heard this after the game.

Anyway…we trailed 45–37 with about six minutes left before our girls got their shit together and ripped off a very nice 18–2 run to put the game away.

We were supposed to play a team from Florida Sunday, but they didn’t make the tournament and we won by forfeit, which also clinched first place in our pool. For some reason despite teams being in four team pools, you only played two pool games.

Weird.

Our coach asked for a replacement game and we got one against a team from Wichita. Since the game didn’t count in the standings, and they were coming straight from another game, the coaches agreed we would play 16 minute halves with a running clock rather than 14 minute halves with dead ball stops. And their coach asked ours not to press because his girls were tired.

So, naturally, our team was the one that looked tired and we trailed 18–2. Our coach said, “OK, we’re pressing now,” and got it down to two points at halftime. Then someone decided the second half would be just 12 minutes.

Whatever, we ended up winning by two.

Weird.

Onto bracket play. We started with a team from Arkansas. All skinny, white girls. They had won their two games both by 30+. Watching them in warmups, I leaned over to another dad and said, “I hate to jinx us, but this doesn’t look like a team that will beat us by 30.”

Any guess what happened next?

Yep, these skinny chicks from the ‘Saw ran our girls off the court. We hit one 3 in the first half. They missed one, going 7–8. We were down 35 at one point. But, hey, we got it down to 29 so I wasn’t wrong!

Their coach was a true piece of work. She ranted and raved the entire game. At halftime she screamed at her girls like they were down 15 not up 15. She yelled at our dad who was keeping the book when he tried to help her get her roster in. She yelled at the very nice older woman who was running the clock. I think her team played so good because they were genuinely frightened of making her mad and getting murdered.

Monday morning, our loser’s bracket game, against another team from the same program as the one we beat in game one. Nice little game. We trailed most of the first half but started the second half on an 8–1 run to jump up by six. Gave it all back and trailed by 4–5–6 most of the last six minutes. We put on a surge late but came up just short, losing by two. The real killer was we had a stretch where everyone kept selling out on the offensive boards and letting them get run-outs because no one got back. They scored six points on layups when we had no one within ten feet of the scorer. That’s the ballgame, right there.

I was keeping the book this game and their coach got super salty at the end of the game. She had been pretty quiet most of the day but in the last five minutes started screaming about every call. When her team was late coming out of a timeout and ref put the ball on the floor and started counting, she kept yelling “That’s fucked up!” over and over. When we fouled to put them on the line, she was all over the ref about how it was an intentional foul. She would not let up. The ref warned her multiple times before she finally walked away but kept yapping. Later we decided it would have been hilarious if she got T’ed up in the last 10 seconds of a two-point game and we won because she was an idiot.

Alas…

L did ok. Her best game was that last one, when she scored nine and had three assists and two steals. She scored 4, 7, and 5 in the other three games. She hit a couple threes but otherwise all of her scoring continued to be by finishing tough drives. She was, again, pissed that her team struggles because half the players don’t know the plays. She has basically told me she doesn’t care where she plays next year, as long as it’s on a team that practices. Once again it was glaringly obvious that every team we played gets regular practice time together. The close wins would have been more comfortable, I think we could have hung with that Arkansas team, and we win the last game if we practice a couple times a week.

Not the best ending for the team. I see some real growth in L’s game. Her finishing has gotten a lot better. Her defense has improved. Her free throws were much improved until the last two weeks. She actually airballed one on Monday. Yikes. We need to keep working on the jumper and her being better with both hands when facing tough defenders.

She had her last CHS weight lifting session of the summer today, has her last open gym tomorrow. They’ll take a few weeks off and in late August probably start doing some morning open gyms. After we get back from vacation we’ll figure out if she’s going to do any private work with teammates like she did in June, or we focus on individual workouts.

Feature Court

We had a couple hours to kill between games Sunday so a couple dads and I checked out the feature court, where the semifinals of the U–16 tournament were taking place. There were bleachers on one side and double rows of chairs for college coaches. When we walked up there was a game between a team from Ohio and one from Colorado going on. There were so many college coaches there that the IU head coach had to stand next to us since all the seats were taken. Eventually she got away from us schmucks.

We also saw coaches from Syracuse, USC, UCLA, Cal, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisville, and Wisconsin.

I know I’ve shared this before, but it is really incredible watching these high-level games. Teams will run out 3–4 girls who are well over six feet tall. They can all shoot, rebound, and get up-and-down the court insanely fast.

Later we watched a team from Oakland that is sponsored by Jason Kidd. Bradley Beal had teams there. Good to see those guys supporting the women’s game!

Hotels

I forgot to mention last week that we finally stayed at decent hotels. In Cincinnati we were in a Courtyard and you would have thought we were in a luxury resort the way the girls acted when we checked in. Our coach said, “See, those nights in the bad hotels made them appreciate this more than they did before.”

True.

We were in a Hilton Garden Inn this week. It was perfectly fine. We gambled a little by booking there, which was just a couple minutes from the expo center where the tournament took place. It was not on the official hotel list, so we didn’t have an approved reservation number when we pre-registered the girls for the tournament. When they checked in to get their tournament badges, they had to show proof of lodging. I nervously stood to the side with another team dad while our daughters checked in, waiting to get called over and be asked to pay the “opt out fee” but they both got their badges and we hustled out.

Again, big fucking racket. It cost $70 to get in for the weekend, a bottled soda was $5, parking was $12 per day. And then they want you to stay only at the mediocre hotels that are on their list. We decided that’s why our hotel wasn’t on the “approved” list: there was a free shuttle so you didn’t have to pay for parking.

Democracy

Well, two weekends in a row that were monumental for news regarding our electoral process. Where last week’s news was an unwelcome surprise, Sunday’s news that President Biden was dropping out of the race was the exact opposite. It seemed inevitable and probably best for everyone. We tend to avoid talking politics in our AAU parent group, but this news had us cautiously discussing it, mostly regarding the historical ramifications rather than what we thought of any of the candidates involved.

I don’t know that Biden’s move saves the Democrats’ hopes this fall, but it for sure helps them. I think he’s a good person and that his presidency will generally be regarded as decent. He did some big things that benefitted a lot of people, including many who didn’t vote for him in 2020 and had zero chance of voting for him this year. But he inherited a disaster of an economy on the heels of an insurrection designed to overthrow our democracy. All his big projects, while good in the long term, may have been ill timed given the health of the economy, extending the inflationary period beyond the Covid days. Then again, our economy was so jacked that maybe anything any president did would have had as many negative effects as positive ones as we tried to get supply back in sync with demand.

Now we just have to hope Kamala is up for the fight that is ahead. JD Vance has already rolled out the lazy “she’s not grateful enough” line that tends to get attached to women and minorities. I’m sure that’s going to be repeated constantly over the next four months. Fortunately, she is facing a horrible human being that most of the country does not like. Seems like a low bar but we failed to clear it eight years ago and nearly tripped over it four years ago.

Weekend Notes

July 16, 2024 /

What a weekend! I assume a lot happened in the world, but last weekend was a live period for college basketball recruiting, and there were several massive tournaments in the Midwest. We played against or saw teams from Pennsylvania, Washington state, California, Colorado, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Michigan, Georgia, Illinois, Connecticut, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Kentucky, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, plus a ton of teams that didn’t have a location in their name so we couldn’t identify them.

The best player I saw was a 6’5”-ish girl from Michigan. I randomly walked over to her game as it was ending. The seats reserved for college coaches were filled. People were lined up three-deep around the court. I only saw her line up for a rebound so didn’t see anything of her game. I also tried to find her on a recruiting list but had no luck. Of course, while she plays for a Michigan team, she could be from anywhere, so without a name I was kind of stabbing in the dark.

L’s team had seven games in five days, in two different tournaments, in two different cities, so the days are a bit of a blur. I didn’t see any of Spain’s fantastic Sunday, Tadej Pogacar blowing open the Tour de France, the Home Run Derby, or anything else that was newsworthy. Fingers crossed nothing happened that will be in the history books one day.

Kid Hoops

No need to give a full breakdown of all seven of L’s games. That would take too long plus they run together to me at this point. It wasn’t a great weekend, anyway. Her team went 1–6 in those seven games.

Two of losses were against teams we had no business being on the same court. Both play the equivalent of two levels up from where L’s team is slotted in the AAU hierarchy. Thursday we lost to a team from Pittsburgh by 25. Friday we lost to a team from North Carolina by about the same score, but where we were only down 10 at the half in the first game, we were down 10–0 two minutes into the second game.

We later learned that North Carolina doesn’t have the same restrictions as Indiana when it comes to high school teammates playing together. In Indiana, only three girls from the same high school program can play travel ball together. There are zero rules in North Carolina, so this team was mostly from the same school. Not only have they been playing together for years, they play together year-round. Makes sense that they looked like a well-oiled machine.

Plus they were just really good. Their best player scored 23, and we had a running clock for the last 17 minutes of the game. She hit 3’s. She drove and scored. She blocked shots and grabbed rebounds. An athletic, 6’1”-ish player. I wish I had written down her name to follow if she ends up anywhere in three years.

Another loss came in double overtime to a team from the Seattle area. I missed this game but I guess we had every chance to win in regulation and OT, but blew both, then L had a chance to win the game in the second OT but didn’t get a foul call. In this tournament double OT ended when a team was up two points. In our second tournament, double OT was timed and the third OT was sudden death. Can we get some consistent rules here, tournament organizers?

The fourth loss was the most frustrating of the weekend. This was to another team from that same North Carolina program. We started up 12–0 before giving up a 14–0 the other way. The rest of the game was back-and-forth. L hit a 3 with about 3:00 left to give us the lead, but we gave up an immediate 3 on the other end and never got the lead back. Our girls just faded badly and couldn’t handle the physicality of summer ball.

These first four games were here in Indy. Sunday we drove down to Cincinnati for two days.

We lost the first game by 11. Again, we wilted against the physical nature of summer ball and trailed by 14 at the half. We finally started being tough in the second half and cut it to three but gave up back-to-back 3s that killed us. L had a half-court shot go in-and-out at the halftime buzzer. I told her if that had dropped, we would have won. The math doesn’t work out there but I insist the momentum shift would have been massive.

Finally, in game six, we played a bad team from Colorado. It took us a half to get going but ended up winning by 25.

Then Monday we finished against a team from New Jersey. They kept getting up by 5–7, then we would come back. We had a little run right after halftime and got it down to three. L missed a tough runner to cut it to one, we gave up a 12–0 run, and the game was over.

Yikes.

I mentioned this a couple times in there but our girls just looked super uncomfortable with the adjustment to travel rules after playing high school ball in June. Refs call almost nothing in travel ball to keep the clock moving. So teams are super physical knowing they can get away with it, and our nice, mostly suburban girls, just do not like that. I bet we win at least two of those games we lost with high school rules in place.

Plus you could tell that all seven teams we played against practice on a regular basis, where we had a couple partial practices around the holiday weekend that never had more than half the team there. There was a lot of grumbling from our parents about how our program needs to change their high school model, which does not allow for regular team practices except for the highest level teams. Our organization will have its own facility starting this fall. We hope that means the high school girls can get at least one practice per week in there, but there’s been no word about next year’s model yet.

Our team is not the most talented – I’d say we have one girl who would be a varsity player at any school, and then not until she’s a junior or senior – but they are very smart and when they had a chance to play together a lot in May, looked really good against similar competition. Getting practice time would not make a difference against those high level teams. I’m confident we would have won at least two more games if we practiced on a regular basis.

How did L do?

She had two really good games, then was decent in the others.

She guessed she scored 13 or 15 in that double OT game, but didn’t look at the scorebook to confirm. Our coach texted me and said she played well and did a great job getting to the rim and finishing in that game.

She had 13 in the game we blew the big lead. She should have had 15 but she totally wiped out on a breakaway. She claimed there were wet spots all over the court and slipped on one. She also had four assists and three steals in this game.

In the other five games, she averaged just under five points. Didn’t hit many 3s. Like most of her teammates she had way too many turnovers. Her free throws had been great all summer, but something was off there this weekend and she went just 1–5 (that I saw).

You can definitely see how all her work has paid off in her finishing. She was super aggressive all weekend and had her fair share of shots blocked inside. But she’s learned how to find an angle and get a shot up on the rim that often falls in. She takes some crazy-ass shots sometimes, but a decent amount of them either crawl in or at least have a chance where they used to be wild tosses that had no chance.

She was not enthused on the way home. She’s pissed more about her team and their inability to get on the same page than the losses. She complains about girls that don’t know the plays. Our offense is not super complicated but, again, when you don’t practice, teammates who aren’t like her and learn where everyone is supposed to be quickly are going to struggle. A couple girls in particular were always in the wrong spot on both ends and it killed us in a couple games.

On the other hand, one of our girls who is new to basketball and is struggling to figure out how 6’1” body and a new game at the same time had a couple stretches where she was really good.

We go to Louisville next weekend for our final event of the summer. Based on the early, partial schedule we’ve seen, we should be playing teams closer to our skill level. Fingers crossed…

Teeth

It’s been a rough dental summer in our house. All the girls have had to get multiple fillings. Pretty awesome when we just have a preventative dental plan.

Both M and C have had to go in for multiple visits to get everything fixed. One of C’s new fillings was giving her a lot of trouble. So, rather than go to L’s first game Friday, I took C to the endodontist for a consult. Fortunately there’s no need for a root canal at the moment. The doc was hopeful that the sensitivity is just because the filling is so close to the nerve and in time there will be new calcification that insulates the nerve better. But there is also the chance C will still need a root canal down the road.

When C told the endodontist she goes to CHS, the doc said her kids graduated from there a few years earlier.

“You probably know their crazy cousins, though.” One of her nephews was in M’s class and they were friendly. Another is in C’s class, but they run in different circles. And her niece is one of L’s best friends. Later we found out that until a few weeks ago the doc lived two doors down from one of M’s best friends. In fact, M went to her daughter’s grad party a few years ago just because she was at her best friend’s house that day. And the doc’s son goes to UC, although he’s older than M and they wouldn’t overlap in classes.

Small world.

Democracy

I don’t write about politics much these days. It depresses me. I think we’re in a very bad place, and headed to a worse one, no matter who wins this year’s elections. Or the 2026 ones. Or the 2028 ones. Our process seems hopelessly broken. Despite it seeming like most rational people want other choices, seek elected officials that will work to find common ground and represent all instead of a narrow set of interests that will keep them from getting primaried, we remain stuck with the mess we’re in.

Yet it seems like I need to share a few words about the shooting Saturday night. Very few words.

Once the initial shock passed and we got some clarity on the situation, the thought I was left with was Malcolm X’s famous line about chickens coming home to roost.

In this case, when you forge a political identity and movement based on fear, hatred, and manufactured bogeymen; make said movement about a person rather than an ideology; endlessly malign and delegitimize anyone and any view that is counter to yours; lie, lie, lie, and lie again; and throw in a heaping dose of paranoia, well, it’s not surprising we got here. All the ingredients are there in America 2024 for a disaster. It’s a bit of a surprise it took this long for us to reach this point. I’m hopeful this was a momentary blip. I fear it was the beginning of an even more difficult and tense time in our nation’s history.

It’s sad when you start hoping climate change destroys the world before our nation has a chance to fall apart.

Weekend Notes

July 9, 2024 /

Holiday Weekend

Not a bad Independence Day weekend at all.

S’s sister who lives in Denver and her family came to stay with us from Wednesday through Sunday. We had a couple cornhole tournaments (L beat her cousin in one, and she and I beat the cousin and his dad in the other).The kids went and played mini-golf in the midst of a downpour. We hit a hibachi place one night. And other assorted nonsense.

Our big family gathering was scheduled for our house on the Fourth, but as the forecast showed rain all day, we did a last-minute switcheroo and reserved some lanes at a bowling alley for Thursday at lunchtime. Somehow one of the eight-year-olds had the best score out of the 18 bowlers. The kids then played laser tag and spent some time in the arcade. That evening we went to one of S’s other sister’s homes for food and hanging out. A couple small showers pushed through, but once they passed the temperature dropped and the humidity disappeared and it felt more like early October than July 4.

Our re-scheduled pool party went off Saturday without too many issues. It was warm and breezy and just about perfect. After a couple cool nights, the pool water checked in at 85 degrees, which had to be the coolest it has ever been for our family gathering on July 4. Or July 6, I guess.

And now we’re less than a month from C and L going back to school. Summer flies.

Driver’s Ed

L officially started her in-car driving lessons last week. She’s knocked out three of her six required sessions. Or rather, will have knocked out three by the time you read this. Her third lesson is Tuesday morning. She seems to be doing pretty good. We haven’t had much time to practice because of basketball, family stuff, etc. but I had her drive to the lesson last Friday and she did just fine.

College Visit

C and I visited IU Monday, her first, official campus visit. It was pretty much the same routine that I went through with M two years ago. C seemed to enjoy it but wasn’t blown away or anything. IU is where she wants to go, her grades and test scores seem to line up with what they are looking for. That all makes it pretty easy, fingers crossed.

I don’t know that we’ll make any more official visits this summer. She wants to spend some time with M at UC this fall. M will start leading tours on campus then, so C can get both the official and personal perspectives. She might also visit a friend who will be a freshman at Ball State once classes start. Then we’ll see if she wants to squeeze in any official tours before it’s time to start sending off applications.

Right now she says she wants to study forensic psychology. She is interested in CSI-type stuff, and working for the FBI is one of her goals. Or just deal with patients individually. Plenty of time to dial it in.

We had lunch at the always tasty Village Deli. While we ate C asked me which was bigger, Bloomington or Lawrence. I guessed they were pretty similar, but a check of Wikipedia showed that Lawrence is roughly 15,000 people bigger! That surprised me. It also surprised me that Lawrence has grown nearly 50% since I was in school. Damn!

One interesting aspect of our visit was there are a group of pro-Palestine demonstrators who are camped out on the IU campus. This is kind of a big deal because there was a rather violent encounter between the protesters and campus/state police in April. I’m not going to get into that too much, but it was pretty clear that the authorities WAY overstepped their mandate that day.[1] However, a lot of people in Indiana didn’t care because the Palestinian cause isn’t really a hot issue in this state. And most Hoosiers figured the protesters were dirty, commie, hippies and deserved whatever they got.

Anyway, our information session included a disclaimer that IU supported the right of people to assemble peacefully and express their beliefs. We were encouraged not to engage with the demonstrators during our tour, but were free to go back and talk to them on our own if we wanted to.

There were two groups of demonstrators who parked themselves in an area where each tour group had to pass. They peacefully, but loudly, stated their cause as we passed, which was basically that IU programs have helped develop weapons used by the Israelis in Gaza and IU has investments in Israel they want the university to back out of. A few politely offered us pamphlets.

Another highlight of the day was that the iHeart Radio AT40 station extended its holiday week marathon of year-end countdowns into this week. So we drove down listening to the middle of the Top 100 songs of 1984, and drove home listening to a nearly corresponding section of the 1985 countdown. Not sure if it’s a coincidence or not, but C napped most of the way down and back. I sure enjoyed the music, though!

  1. The state police brought in snipers that were based on tops of campus buildings and helicopters, and entered the fray in full riot gear. All to clear people who had been approved to assemble in an area set aside for protests and had shown no signs of being violent. Naturally the police ran out the old excuse that they believed the original protesters had been infiltrated by “outsiders” who were looking to agitate and force a violent encounter. They never provided any evidence for this argument. The Israel-Palestine situation is awful with no easy or clear answers. We don’t need American authorities making things worse here.  ↩
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