D's Notebook

Tag: weather (Page 1 of 14)

Weekend Notes, Part 1

May 27, 2025 /

Another super busy weekend, not to mention some big news that lead in to the weekend. Because of that, I’ll probably split this into two posts, the second coming tomorrow.

Our school year officially ended on Friday with L’s last final. She just had one exam in her first period, so I called her out at 10:30. She had some girlfriends over in the afternoon and some young men joined them later on. They swam, ate pizza, hung out around the fire pit, and an encouragingly large number of them kept coming inside to check on the Pacers game. Good kids.

Most of our weekend was dominating by preparing for C’s graduation party, which we were hosting on Memorial Day. She was sharing the gathering with two of her friends, so S was doing a lot of coordination with the other moms to make sure all the food and drink was covered. My job was to clean the house and make sure the pool, which had been temperamental last week, was in good shape for L’s group to swim on Friday and then just to look pretty for Monday. Oh, and we squeezed in an afternoon of swimming for all the local nephews on Saturday. I’m pleased to say with a big assist from my pool guy, the water was clear and ready-to-go all weekend. Who knew a six ounce squirt of the right chemical could totally clear up 25,000 gallons of water?

Grad Party

As soon as the bridal shower we hosted a week ago wrapped, we started eyeing the forecast for Memorial Day. It was a roller coaster. One day it would say low 60s and rain, the next clear and 70. And so on. By Friday it had steadied to at least be dry, if cloudy, and in the upper 60s. Then we woke Monday morning to a perfect day. Not many clouds. It pushed into the low 70s. Other than some periodic breezes that played havoc with the picture boards and flower vases on each table, we had zero weather complaints. It could have been pouring like at M’s combined party two years ago. Or 90 and everyone fighting for shade. Today dawned much cooler with clouds and occasional sprinkles. We timed it right.

My sister-in-law the chef provided most of the food and it was incredible, as always.

As far as we know all the kids got along and there weren’t any hurt feelings, misunderstandings, etc. There was a rumor that a girl C does not get along with might show up, as she is friendly with one of the other graduates. When they heard this, both M and L said they were going to kick her ass if she showed up. Which is pretty funny because neither of them have ever been in a fight. It sure would have made for an interesting story! Fortunately this girl was smart enough to stay away. I think she knew the real person she needed to fear was S, who definitely holds grudges against people who cause her kids pain.

With two other grad families here, it was weird to see total strangers casually stroll into our backyard.

Anyway, it was a good day. C’s core group hung out and swam for a couple hours after the party before clearing out. S and I got most of the stuff outside broken down and the inside cleaned up before 9:00. It made for a long day. It was worth it.

With that our family is done, directly, with grad season activities. It started way back in March, prepping for spring break, the stress of that week in Florida, then prom, finals week, C’s last days on campus, graduation weekend, and now her party. We still have plenty of parties on our calendar for the next month, but those will be as guests dropping it to say hello, share a card, and then escape.

Indy 500

Sunday was, of course, race day here in Indy. We did what all Indy residents who don’t go to the race do: watched the local news all morning to follow the goings-on at the track, the traffic trying to get to the Speedway, and the radar to make sure any rain stayed away. All morning the weather people noted that while there was a lot of rain in Illinois, they expected it to fade by the time it reached Indy. Ooops.

For some reason they put the drivers in their cars and then had them sit in them doing nothing for nearly 45 minutes because light showers had passed over part of the track and they wanted to make sure the surface was dry before starting. Somehow with 350,000 people crammed into the facility they couldn’t tell it was raining and let the drivers chill somewhere other than their cramped cockpits while it passed.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, the race sold out early, so for only the sixth time ever IMS waived the local TV blackout. It happened last year thanks to severe storms that delayed the race for hours, but this was the first time the race had been shown live, at its traditional time, in nearly a decade. I do kind of miss the Indy tradition of listening to the radio broadcast, but it is fun to watch live and not have to wait for the evening replay.

This was also the first time Fox showed the race. As you would expected, they thoroughly Fox-ed it up. At C’s party I talked to our neighbor, who went to the race for 67 straight years before finally calling it quits last year. I was glad as someone who watches exactly one race a year that my complaints matched his.

We couldn’t understand why they were talking to pace car driver Michael Strahan live while he was trying to lead the cars out to begin the race. It was clearly a distraction as the guy in the passenger seat kept giving him hand motions encouraging Strahan to go faster. Never mind that the pace car’s whole job is to, you know, get the cars up to race speed. Talking to him was more important in Fox’s eyes.

OK, they’re paying Tom Brady a bazillion dollars to be an announcer. So I get why they had to shoehorn him into coverage. But people here HATE Tom Brady. Tone deaf much? And while they had Peyton Manning do a voice over for a feature, he never appeared. What a stupid miss.

Noted race fans and Indianapolis legends Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriquez called the drivers to their cars. Utterly baffling.

Worse were the misses during the race. Multiple times something big would happen and Fox would completely miss it. Ryan Hunter-Reay was leading the race when he pitted. The cameras cut away to show action on the track, as you do, and like a minute later they showed Hunter-Reay still in the pits, apparently stalled out. As soon as his pitstop lasted more than 10 seconds they should have been back on him.

The biggest miss of the day, though, was missing the fucking end of the race. As Alex Palou and Marcus Ericsson came out of turn four and raced to the finish, the cameras cut away to show a car half a lap back crashed into the wall. Now, this was important as it forced the yellow caution flag to come out, freezing the cars in position. But while showing this crumpled car in the back stretch, Palou crossed the line for the biggest win of his career. And Fox didn’t show it. As the cherry on top, once they switched back to live and showed Palou in his victory lap and celebration, they never went back and showed what caused the wreck that forced the race to end under caution or explained why a wreck on the opposite side of the track forced the lead cars to finish under yellow.

Fox has covered Nascar for years, so they understand how to broadcast auto racing. But if a dummy like me, who again watches one race a year, can pick out all these errors, I would imagine most real race fans were like my neighbor and disgusted with how the race was presented to them.

Fox is always going to Fox.

Weekend Notes

May 5, 2025 /

A week after prom and before four consecutive weeks where we will be very busy, it was a nice, boring, lazy weekend.

Weather

There’s no delicate way to say this: our weather was ass most of the weekend. It rained Friday night into Saturday, then off-and-on the rest of the weekend. The temps slowly dropped from the 70s into the 40s. Sunday was dark and dreary and misty and generally ugly. It felt more like January in Portland, not Indianapolis the first weekend of May.

Fortunately spring will come drifting back over the next couple days. Our landscaping guys are due here this week to clean everything up and lay new mulch. And the pool guys will be here Friday to get it started up for the season. Spring is undefeated, folks.[1]
That crappy weather meant we didn’t do a whole hell of a lot over the weekend. So more notes about sports than anything else. With one exception…

Moving Back

Thursday S and I drove down to Cincinnati to move M out of her sorority house. It was kind of an interesting trip.

We knew we would be driving into rain, but had no idea we’d spend about 20 minutes driving through a series of near-severe storms with torrential rains. The second round was the worst. Visibility was basically down to zero on the interstate, which is always fun. Even with folks using their hazard lights we were basically crawling, hoping we didn’t hit someone or run off the road. Then I came up on some fool who refused to put their hazards on. We were still in the midst of the storm when a few other fools went blowing past us at normal speeds while the rest of us were maybe going 25 MPH.

We made it to campus safely and had to dodge graduation traffic to find a parking space. Then we had to hustle to get our cars full of M’s stuff before the storms rolled into Cincy. We were parked roughly a block from her house, down a rather large hill. So there was a lot of running up the hill, then walking back down it and its multiple sets of old, concrete steps with arms full of crap. If you know our oldest daughter, it won’t be a surprise that she was moving much slower than we wanted her too, then being overly dramatic about how hard she was working.

Thankfully we got the cars loaded and her checked out of her house just before the rain hit. We went to one of her favorite spots just off campus for her final UC lunch of the academic year. Luckily the storms were going around the city, so it was just a steady rain we waited out while eating. We made it back home in normal time and filled up our bonus room with everything we moved back for the next two weeks before she returns to Cincy for her summer internship. Luckily we won’t have to move everything back right away. She’s sub-leasing from a friend who left all her furniture, so will mostly take clothes for the summer. Now in August, when she moves into the apartment she’ll have the next two years, we will need to rent a truck to get all her furniture down. I’m sure that will be a real joy. And we get to move C to Bloomington at about the same time. Are there people you can pay to do this for you?

Anyway, good to have M home for a few weeks. Her grades aren’t official yet but she’s pretty sure she got straight A’s again this semester. She’s halfway done with college! Actually more because the fall semester of her senior year she will likely be doing a co-op and not taking any classes.

Pacers

DAMN, that’s how you start a series!

The Pacers went into Cleveland, built up a big first half lead, weathered a bunch of Cavaliers runs, and ended up winning by nine after making some huge plays on both ends late.

Now, Cleveland was without Darius Garland, who was a late scratch because of a lingering injury. The Pacers shot the lights out and the Cavs had one of their worst 3-point nights of the year.

But 1–0 and stealing home court advantage is all the matters.

Another game that showed what a great combination of talent this squad is. People who don’t see them every night have a hard time getting it. They’re not an NBA title contender. But they are a team that can steal any seven game series because they know who they are and never get rattled. Tyrese Haliburton was absolute ass on defense much of the night, then somehow forced two huge stops late. Always a wild ride with him.

Local TV broadcasts of games ends when the conferences semifinals begin, so I was forced to watch the TNT feed. Which was fine. Mega props to Greg Anthony for saying, when the Pacers challenged an offensive foul on Myles Turner late in the game, “I like the challenge but I don’t think they are going to win it.” I forgot what wild stuff he says sometimes since he was in announcer purgatory for a few years.

Also, a broader NBA observation, I LOVE how NBA series between evenly matched teams swing. I haven’t watched a ton of ball outside Pacers games, little bits and pieces of each series, but am still deep into The Ringer’s NBA pods, so I hear the breakdowns after each game. It is so fun how team A will win a game comfortably, the series seems under their control, and two nights later team B has made some huge adjustments and are right back in it. The Clippers really should have won their series against Denver. Detroit probably should have upset the Knicks. The Rockets-Warriors series was crazy. I think Pacers-Cavs is headed down that same path, with two of the best offenses in the league taking turns dropping 15–3 runs on each other for another 4–6 games. It’s a league where coaches can scheme around anything but it often comes down to which team gets the hottest from behind the 3-point arc.

Fever

It’s opening week for the WNBA. ESPN showed the Fever’s final exhibition game Sunday, a matchup with the Brazilian national team in Iowa City. You can’t take too much away from the game since this was far from Brazil’s full Olympic squad – one of their best players in yesterday’s lineup is an 18-year-old who will be a freshman at South Carolina this fall – but it was cool to see all the new Fever players. They’ve added a ton of size, but it is athletic, rangy, perimeter size rather than more post players to backup Aliyah Boston. DeWanna Bonner seems like the perfect Den Mom for a mostly very young team, and was a delightful in-game interview. Loathe as I am to give a Missouri alum credit, Sophie Cunningham adds a level of toughness and versatility that was missing last year. And she might have the most “don’t look at it when your wife and kids are around” Instagram account in the league. Not that I looked.

Caitlin Clark missed Friday’s exhibition game with a minor leg injury, and played limited minutes Sunday, but her range looked deeper than a year ago and the experienced players the Fever brought in already understand how to run to spots where she will get them the ball. Kelsey Mitchell will get a little overlooked because of the new talent, but she looked to still be the steady scoring threat who is an ideal partner for Clark. Lexie Hull’s 3-point shot still looks locked in after whatever mechanical adjustment she made in the middle of last season.

As an added bonus, second round draft pick Makayla Timpson might be an absolute steal. I’m not sure if she will be a huge contributor this season. But with so many of the league’s rosters in flux because of the CBA expiring after this season, having a player with her skills on her salary could be massive in the Fever building a team that contends for years to come.

Racing

I actually watched parts of two car races Sunday. That’s how annoying the weather was and how limited the TV offerings were in the afternoon. It is May, I guess.

I watched the back halves of both the Indy Car Grand Prix race in Alabama and then the F1 race in Miami. It was hilarious how, since both races were won by large margins, each broadcast focused on “races within the race” further back in the pack. The F1 broadcast was almost exclusively about the two Ferrari cars and the bickering involved in their team trying to figure out if they should pass each other or not. Such weird drama.

Hey, we actually watched multiple horse races Saturday, keeping the NBC coverage of the Kentucky Derby on for hours, so this might have been the most “watching cars/animals chase each other around a track” weekend of my life!

  1. I just checked my notes and it appears that summer, fall, and winter are also undefeated. Wild if true.  ↩

Weekend Notes

March 17, 2025 /

As I said Friday, last week was a very odd one around here, at least in terms of our daily schedules.

Monday was a normal day, although one third of L’s classmates were gone on their retreat. She did go in late after getting her stitches removed and new cast put on.

Tuesday had the same schedule, although this was her day to go on retreat. As it involved A LOT of walking, we excused her and she stayed home. We got in a good 30-minute, seated shooting session before the winds kicked up in the afternoon. Trying to lock that upper body form in.

Wednesday was SAT day for juniors. Seniors were excused, so C was home. Freshmen and sophomores had “unity days,” so L did dumb stuff with her classmates all day. They went in 20 minutes late and got out 75 minutes early. I guess that’s enough to count it as a full school day even if they weren’t actually in class.

Thursday? Normal day for all four grades!

Then Friday, for some reason, was the Indy St. Patrick’s Day parade.[1] Which CHS always takes the day off for so the band and several teams and student groups can march in it. Despite being a gorgeous day, C wasn’t interested in going to watch. And L wanted nothing to do with crutching around in the crowds.

Back to a normal, five-day week this week. However, after that, the next five weeks include one off for spring break and three four-day weeks. Weird times. A lot of days off when we’re paying tuition, too.

Last week was the most glorious weather week you could imagine, especially for this time of year. Every day it at least touched 70, Friday it rubbed up against 80. While it was breezy, the sun was out each day, making it feel more like late April. L spent her day home trying to get some sun. I certainly got some over the five days. Shorts and t-shirts every day.

I wrapped up the last of our late winter yard work. All the hydrangeas have been trimmed back, all the ornamental grasses cut down to the earth, any other stragglers cleaned up so the growing season can begin.

Then our first thunderstorms of the year Friday night/Saturday morning. I guess we had a severe thunderstorm warning sometime around 3:00 AM. The thunder certainly woke me up. There were even three tornadoes in southern Indiana. Then rain off-and-on Saturday and Sunday as the temperatures dropped. It actually spit snow several times yesterday.

This week will be your March typical rollercoaster. It is 26° as I type this Monday morning. It will be in the 70s tomorrow, then barely 40° on Thursday. Good times.

Kid Hoops

This weekend was the kickoff of travel ball season. There is always a huge event here in Indy that is normally spread across several venues in the suburb of Westfield. I think all the high school teams are confined to the Pacers Athletic Center, so L and I were able to go watch her team play twice as well as all of her CHS teammates, plus girls she’s played with in the past now on other teams. We spent five hours up there Saturday evening watching games. I had to tell the story of what was up with the cast on her foot at least 10 times.

Her coach let her sit on the bench during games. There are five new girls this year and it was funny to watch the ones she’s played with in the past kind of shuffle the new additions to the side so they could sit by L at the end of the bench when they came out of the game. She did a good job cheering and help coach.

Her team went 1–1 Saturday, then lost in the knockout round Sunday. It seemed like all the new girls fit in, from a basketball perspective. They all understand how to play as a team. Hopefully the coach can get them some gym time so they develop some chemistry. We’ll probably go watch them again, but I’m not going to spend $40+ every week so I can sit and watch my daughter sit on the bench in a cast. L might even go on a road trip with one of her best friends on the team and her mom.

Spring Breaker

M flew down to Florida yesterday for a week in the sun. It was quite a process to get there.

She and her friends boarded their plane on time in Cincinnati, then had to get back off a few minutes later. Airspace in Florida had basically been shut down because of a line of heavy storms moving through the state. After an hour or so they re-boarded, sat on the ground for a bit, then finally departed.

Once in the air, there was some adjustment of route but eventually they made it to Sarasota. She texted us and told us that no planes were being allowed to take off, leaving all the gates full. They were going to have to sit and wait until flights were either cleared to start taking off again, they were cancelled and planes moved from gates, or the storms passed so they could wheel out a portable jetway.

They sat for an hour until the storms fell apart and were finally able to deplane via the portable stairs. Stressful and aggravating but at least they made it. M said some friends were on a different flight that made it into Florida airspace before turning around and flying back to Cincy because there was no where to land safely. That would be awful. Not sure if those girls made it in later in the evening or are scrambling for a flight today. Looking at M’s flight route, it appears they may have been contemplating doing the same turn around, but luckily found a gap in the storms to get into Sarasota.

Hopefully the rest of her week is less stressful than the flight down.

I’ll get to college hoops tomorrow.

  1. Turned out to be a great decision, though, as it was 30–35° warmer Friday than today.  ↩

Weekend Notes

March 10, 2025 /

I had a busy morning, so will blow through a few items from another rather laid-back weekend.

Jayhawk Talk

Saturday’s regular season finale with Arizona summed up the season for KU.

Nice start, only to fell apart when Hunter Dickinson went to the bench. Another solid run in the last 6–7 minutes of the first half on the verge of going up 16, only to give up a seven-point swing in the final minute to destroy their momentum.

Then, in the second half, letting Arizona tie the game, stretching another nice lead out, then falling behind, and finally playing great in the last three minutes to win.

All about wild mood swings, but at least they finally won a game against a good team by being the better side in the closing minutes.

Dickinson was spectacular. KJ Adams’ energy early carried the team. His lob dunk that put KU up by 7 late was the loudest I’ve yelled all year.[1] And Zeke Mayo found his mojo again.

I’m not going to get too excited about this game, thinking they’ve fixed their issues and are now dangerous in the NCAA tournament. I’m just glad they figured it out and gave fans a fun game against a name opponent for the first time since November. More on that next week. A nice win to a frustrating regular season.

By the way, it drove me INSANE that ESPN said multiple times that this was the eighth straight year KU wore red uniforms on senior night. I was 1000% sure that was wrong, not because I remember every year clearly,[2] but because I DID clearly recall the crazy Texas game in 2022, a game that I knew KU wore white for.

So I spent the first three timeouts of the game digging back through the six senior night games since this “tradition” allegedly began. KU indeed wore red in 2018. But then they wore white in 2019 and 2020. Red returned in 2021. White, as noted, in 2022. Then red the past two years. So, rather than an eight year streak, it was only three, and then five of eight.

Yet another sign of the dumbing down of ESPN. This is basic shit.

I was also a little bummed that the Lawrence Journal-World finally slapped a paywall on their KU coverage. I’ve been reading their coverage since I was a student. It was a big deal to get an apartment and be able to have the city paper delivered, staying up on all the latest KU news that the campus paper didn’t report. I’ve been following their online coverage since whenever they first started posting on the web. Once upon a time I would have gladly paid for their coverage. But, like so much of print media, it has gotten dramatically worse in recent years. Where once a minimum of three writers covered each KU game, now it is one guy doing it all. And he’s a young dude who tries hard but isn’t all that great at his job.

Worse, with just one writer at games, the old “notebook” stories that were a staple of postgame coverage have disappeared. Every sports fan knows the glory of the notebook pieces, a collection of blurbs no where important or deep enough for entire stories, but of high interest to the serious fan. These were the tidbits that insane people like me loved to digest. Hell, I (eventually) named this website after that concept!

In recent years the LJW started putting video of KU press conferences on YouTube. I’ve found watching those are often more illuminating than one writer boiling them down to their basics. So the only thing I really garnered from them was looking at their photo galleries. A lot of their pictures have enhanced my posts over the years. I guess I’ll have to search harder for those going forward.

HS Hoops

This was sectional weekend on the boys side of basketball. To honor the occasion, I read a fantastic book about a key moment in Indiana high school basketball history. I’ll get to that later this week or next.

The biggest upset in the state came in 3A, where #1 Cathedral lost in Friday’s semifinals to their in-city rivals Crispus Attucks. It just so happened the book I read was about Attucks as well. Apparently the Irish were up 11 going into the fourth quarter and totally fell apart to lose by six. L was not super upset; she was glad the girls went further than the boys.

Big 10 Tournament

L was not at that game Friday. Instead she went with some friends and sat in a suite at the Big 10 tournament to watch the night games, which included eventual tournament champs UCLA.

She’s a big fan of USC’s JuJu Watkins, so was disappointed the Trojans had played during the afternoon session. She asked me if she could buy a shirt, and suggested it would be a tournament shirt. Then she arrived home with a nice, pretty expensive USC shirt. When the Trojans blew a 13 point lead and lost to UCLA in Sunday’s championship game, I told her she had to burn the shirt. Those are the rules.

Super dumb that UCLA and USC traveled to Indianapolis to play for their conference championship. Can we fast forward 5–10 years when we go to two conferences with multiple, regional divisions and return some sanity to the games?

Weather

This winter has sucked. And by that I mean it’s been pretty normal, which is mostly cold and dreary. A few really cold weeks but mostly just two months of temps in the 20s and 30s.

That finally broke on Sunday. It was only 60, but the sun was so warm it felt at least 10 degrees warmer. L actually got a little pink from sitting outside. The coming week will be in the 60s and 70s. Mother Nature surely has some tricks up her sleeves for the next eight weeks, but we’re getting close, people, to shorts and t-shirts weather. Hang in there.

Kid Notes

We’re approaching the final countdown for C’s senior year. She’s trying to find a prom dress, which is turning out to be harder than last year for some reason. We just bought her senior ad for the yearbook. We’re finalizing plans for which of her friends will be hanging out with us on spring break at the end of the month. And we’re trying to figure out grad party plans. I believe she has eight weeks of classes left.

M accepted the offer for a summer internship in Cincinnati. She’ll be working for a company that makes a variety of products, mostly in the hardware/construction space. It’s a marketing position but I’m guessing she’s going to have to learn way more about hardware than she knows now. And it pays pretty well, which is a bonus. She’ll be home for two weeks in early May then head back to Cincy. Timing worked out perfectly and she was able to claim a sublease at a friend’s apartment before another girl could.

L had her second post-op visit this morning. They cut off her first cast, removed her stitches, then re-casted her. Everything looked good and she’s not feeling any pain. Seventeen days in this cast and then she’ll switch to a boot.

We took advantage of the nice weather Sunday and did a seated shooting workout. She got about 180 shots up from various distances and rim-heights. She threw in some ball handling drills, as much as she could do around her chair.

  1. Later, during dinner, C asked me what happened when KU was ahead 79–72. She had heard my screams from two floors above and looked at the score to see what happened. A couple of my KU buddies and I have a long-time saying of “WAKE THE KIDS!!!” when we are yelling during an evening game. We haven’t had too many of those moments this year. It was nice to have one. Also a reminder that C was my one kid who was awake and aware of what was going on when I was losing my mind during the 2022 national championship game.  ↩
  2. You damn well know once upon a time I could remember that kind of shit, though.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 21, 2025 /

Hope you had a good Monday celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and all he stood for. Equal opportunity, justice, empathy, love. We’ve come a long way since he was murdered. Yesterday was a reminder that we still have a long way to go.

Let’s review some stuff that happened over the past few days.

KU Hoops

I’m about done with this team. Not in terms of watching, I’ll always watch the games.[1] But in terms of thinking they are going to figure it out in time to make a deep run in March. I guess anything is possible when the tournament rolls around. But, as I believe I said last year, this year’s parts just do not fit and I think it’s too late to make adjustments to get them to work together better.

Saturday’s game against K-State was a perfect example. A roaring start, and it looked like another pounding of the Purples was about to be entered into the media guide. But a combination of scheme, talent, and depth issues resulted in a final result that was far too close, and got Jerome Tang clapping like a wind-up bathtub toy as the Wildcats cut the lead down to six late.[2]

Hunter Dickinson finally remembered he’s the biggest guy on the court, and played terrific ball for stretches. But losing KJ Adams to injury and inserting Flory Bidunga into his starting spot meant Dickinson was completely gassed for the last 10 minutes or so of the game. Which made the defensive problems be presents even more pronounced since he could barely move. I get the logic of starting Flory, but with him being a foul-prone freshman, it opens the team up to not being able to rest Hunter because Flory has four fouls late.

KJ has been one of the most frustrating elements of this year’s team. Saturday showed his value, though. He would have guarded Coleman Hawkins better than any of his teammates. Dickinson is too big and slow. Bidunga too young and inexperienced. AJ Storr too small and not smart enough. K-State had a fine strategy of getting KU’s defense to move around, knowing at some point Dickinson would be out of place and/or Hawkins would have a mismatch. It didn’t help that Bidunga kept doubling way too late and no one would rotate to his spot, allowing easy dunks and layups for the Wildcats.

The game reminded me a little of the Missouri game a year ago. KU won, but it was not super satisfying because their rival exposed some weaknesses and it wasn’t the ass-kicking Jayhawks fans wanted.

Fortunately for KU, Iowa State and Arizona lost (and Houston should have lost). They are just a game back of second place. But there aren’t very many gimmes on the schedule and this year’s team does not inspire confidence they are going to show up focused every night. It’s tough to see them stealing a big win or two AND not blowing an equal number of winnable games. Hopefully we win more than we lose, but, to be honest, I’m more excited about/interested in Darryn Peterson and the other freshmen coming in next fall, if Flory will return, and if Bill Self can avoid picking the wrong role players in the portal to play around them.

NFL Playoffs

What a weird weekend. Each game had some serious drama, but other than the Baltimore-Buffalo game, they also didn’t feel as close as they actually were. The best part of the weekend, of course, was Sunday’s two snow games. We just needed a little more snow in Buffalo to make it perfect.

I heard a few prognosticators suggesting Washington had a good chance to beat Detroit. I thought that was crazy talk. Then the Commanders went wild on the Lions, pulling off one of the biggest shocks in recent memory. I felt so bad for Detroit fans. This was the best team they’ve had in the Super Bowl era. And they couldn’t even win a single playoff game at home. In retrospect, it’s amazing they got the #1 seed despite all their injuries. They’ve already lost their OC; their DC seems close behind him. I hope they can keep the core of their team around another year for another run. Detroit fans deserve it.

Both the Sunday games had really weird vibes. In the early one, the Rams seemed totally dead. Then they had the ball and were driving late with a chance to win until a sack blew that up. Philly does not inspire much confidence…until Saquan Barkley rips off another ridiculous run.

Baltimore out-played Buffalo in almost every aspect, expect for holding on to the ball. A brutal set of drops and fumbles killed their chances. Strap yourself in for six months of Lamar Jackson discourse, because he dropped a slippery football in the cold and made one terrible throw. In tight games like this, especially in bad weather, sometimes it comes down to luck. The Ravens had terrible luck Sunday night.

Nothing about the Chiefs impressed me. They aren’t awe-inspiring on offense the way they used to be. Their defensive line is very good, but it feels like if you attack them the right way, they are vulnerable. Yet every other team has huge flaws that make me reluctant to say any of them can beat KC. The Chiefs are just a super competent, if boring, team with a coach-QB tandem that can always find a way to pull things out when they get hairy.

CFP

Not sure that went exactly as expected, thanks to the opening drive by Notre Dame and then their late rally. I don’t think anyone outside the biggest Irish boosters were surprised that Ohio State was clearly the better team and played like it most of the night, though.

I figured OSU would have to work to crack the ND defense, but they had that problem completely solved. I was not surprised the Irish struggled to move the ball. Really it’s kind of incredible they made it this far with such a one-dimensional offense. For every impressive pass he threw, Riley Leonard threw at least three bad ones.

L had a doctor appointment this morning. The physician is an ND fan so I asked him if there were OSU fans in the office to harass him today. “Thank goodness, no. Those are the worst people in the world.” This was a first visit with this doc, but in that moment I knew we had the right guy!

College Visit

C and her buddy E, who grew up in Bloomington, went down to IU on Saturday for a casual visit. They met up with a couple of E’s middle school friends who showed them around town. I’m not certain they’re 100% locked in yet, but C and one of those B-town girls will likely live together next year. I know C was working on her housing stuff yesterday, so call it 98% with the paperwork pending.

They had fun exploring the area, then the Bloomington girls followed C and E back to Indy, went out with them for the night, and slept at our house after. Both Bloomington girls seemed nice, and the potential roommate told us we had a beautiful house, so naturally we liked her!

Polar Vortex

I think most of my readers are experiencing the same winter blast we are having. We can all agree this weather is terrible, right? As I type this at almost noon Tuesday, the windchill is –14. It has been so cold this is the longest stretch in a decade we’ve had snow on the ground in Indy. Which seems wild, but I guess every moderate-heavy snow we’ve had over that span has been followed by a warm-up that melted everything within a week.

  1. Well, not tomorrow when I’m an hour south watching L and her teammates play.  ↩
  2. Good to see Tang has continued the tradition of KSU coaches doing the fly-by handshake after losing to KU. Did Bruce Weber start that, or does it go back further?  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 13, 2025 /

A quieter weekend, although there were still enough activities over the past 5–6 days to justify an overly-long blog post.

Weather

A little over three new inches of snow Friday, on top of the 9+ we received last Sunday/Monday. Our street is one of the few side streets in our area that gets attention; the neighborhood behind us pays a private contractor to pass through and we enjoy the benefits of that. However, there was enough slush left over from the weekend that our street is a sheet of crusty ice today.

The joy of Friday’s storm was that it hit right in the middle of the day. Despite that, CHS did not dismiss early so C had a somewhat tricky drive home. She said she saw at least six accidents on her commute, but she made it safely. She said the four new tires I had to put on her car after her incident a week ago really helped with traction. No shit…

Then three hours later I had to head back to pick up L from practice. Getting to school wasn’t that bad, but the return was awful. We made it home without incident, although it took about 10–15 minutes longer than usual. And we saw lots of slide offs and small accidents.

While battery performance goes in the shitter, the Tesla gets around pretty well in the snow. Its heavy weight, low center of gravity, and dual motor setup makes for a pretty secure ride, as long as you don’t drive like a lunatic. I’m perfectly happy to slow down to keep things under control.

The forecast for this week is dry but super cold. Windchills as low as –20 midweek. Yay! I did have to break down and drive next door to the gym two days last week because the snow drifts in the parking lot were so high. If the windchill is as low as forecast Wednesday I’ll likely be driving again this week.

J Term

Last week was CHS’ annual J-term, a week of electives to ease back into the academic life. This year they shortened it to just one week instead of the two weeks it had been the last four years. That was smart, although the groups that traveled overseas (there were trips to Paris, Kenya, and the Galapagos) all had to leave early to squeeze everything in.

C took a Gilmore Girls session. They wore comfy clothes, read books, went to libraries, watched shows and movies, and went out for lunch or breakfast every day. Very intense stuff.

L’s was more serious. She took a careers in sports course. Tuesday they visited an Indy Car team to learn about their entire operation, including watching the crew practice doing pitstops in the garage. She’s not really into cars but thought that was cool. Wednesday they bussed up to Purdue and got to tour the basketball facilities and watch the men’s team practice. Matt Painter talked to them, as well. She LOVED this, even though she’s not a Purdue fan. Thursday they had a guest from the Horizon League who talked about what she does as a graduate assistant and how she is plotting out her career. This was extra cool because the speaker was L’s eighth grade buddy when she was in kindergarten at St. P’s. L was very interested in this path as well.

This morning they were back to normal classes at the normal time.

M went back to Cincinnati Friday before the snow hit 1) so she could hang out with the dude she’s been dating and 2) because she had a sorority meeting that started at 9 AM Sunday. She’s back in classes today as well.

KU Hoops

Whew! It was one thing to lose to Cincinnati last year in the Big 12 tournament, when Kevin McCullar and Hunter Dickinson were both injured and not playing. To have repeated that results at full strength Saturday would have been a disaster. UC seemed kind of stinky to me. I was worried that was where we headed that direction again. M even texted me during the first half to let me know my Jayhawks were losing to her Bearcats.

Fortunately KU decided to play some wicked defense in the second half and finally put together a little run late to win comfortably. UC’s 40 points were the fewest they had scored in 32 years. It was the fewest KU had given up in a conference game since 1963. I think the defense was very good, but, man, there was something going on in that gym. Both teams missed a million open shots. I’m not sure if it was the rims, if the arena was cold, or what. That was a despicable display of offense, though, and all the tapes should be burned.

I was very glad that I did not spent the several hundred dollars per seat the secondary market had tickets at the last time I checked. The week before Christmas there were tickets in the top of the upper level going for $600 each, which is insane. Some courtside seats were going for $2000 each. I know KU hadn’t played in Cincinnati since 1964, but jeez! I didn’t look to see if those dropped with UC coming into the game at 0–3 in the league, and KU 2–1. Regardless, for the quality of ball those teams played, anything would have been an overpay, so I was perfectly happy watching from my couch 102 miles away.

CFP

Ugh. After living in Indiana for over 20 years, I’ve come to really hate Ohio State. I’m not sure why; their success has never come at the expense of KU. We don’t recruit against them. I’m not a fan of another Big 10 school. Other than 2007, there’s never been a KU team that was in the discussion for the same level of bowl game as the Buckeyes. It’s just that as happens with programs that win all the time, I’ve come to dislike them and many of their fans. It doesn’t help that while most OSU fans I know are great, fun people, I know a few who are total dicks. Like people you never want to be around during games and talk the worst kind of shit after games. Just total nonsense. When you’re dealing with fanbases, the dicks always outweigh the normals.

And we all agree Ryan Day is a total psycho, right? Which is saying something in a sport where most of the coaches are psychos. For some reason his coloring of his hair and beard drives me nuts. Not sure why he’s not in a Just For Men commercial. Admit it, dude.

So, despite nearly 30 years of hating Texas for their political dominance of the Big 12, I was pulling for the Longhorns Friday. A lot of good that did me.

I also grew up hating Notre Dame, but my time in the Indianapolis Catholic community has softened my stance on the Irish. Plus, like a lot of folks, Marcus Freeman has won me over.

So there’s no doubt where my loyalties are next week. Sadly, I think Ohio State is going to overpower the Irish. And I’m now 100% against the 12-team CFP, because it lets clearly mediocre teams like the Buckeyes get hot for a month and win the damn thing.

I might watch a movie instead of the game.

NFL Playoffs

The opening round, so far, was kind of boring. The late game Sunday, with Washington bouncing in the winning field goal, was the only one with any true drama, and I barely watched that game because we had guests.

I guess there was drama in how many interceptions Justin Herbert would throw against Houston. And whether CJ Stroud would match him. I don’t watch the Chargers very often but it continues to baffle me, and many others, why The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz continues to rank Herbert well above Joe Burrow in his QB rankings. Maybe the Vikings and Rams will surprise us with a good one tonight.

HS Hoops

One game last week for CHS. L was able to warm up for the JV game, and count it as a rehab practice, but she was not eligible to return to play until this week.

The JV team started in a 13–2 hole but came back to win by 4. A really nice effort by them. I believe they are 10–3 for the season now.

Varsity was playing a top 10 4A team that has one of the best players in the state. Or, rather, one of the best athletes. This girl was the Gatorade Indiana soccer player of the year and won three state titles in her four years as a soccer player. She also won a state title in basketball as a freshman, and is one of the top 100 hoops recruits in the country. She’s going to Miami (FL) to play basketball. So, obviously, her genetic makeup and work ethic suck.

We held her to five below her season average of 27 points but that was the only high point of the night in a 24-point loss. Any positive momentum gained over the holidays seemed lost Wednesday. Varsity is 9–7.

This week is the Indianapolis City Tournament. The CHS varsity is seeded #1, based on the computer rankings, but our rivals Bishop Chatard are, arguably, the favorites.[1] They beat us last year in the championship game at the buzzer in OT, and I think they are better this season. Although we are the top seed, we have a tougher second-round game,[2] so hopefully our girls don’t slip up and we make it to the championship game Friday.

The JV tournament mirrors the varsity bracket, so your defending JV city champs are also the #1 seed. And they get their point guard back Tuesday! Other than the two top seeds, the other JV teams are trash, so a rematch is almost guaranteed in the title game. Last year Chatard played us close in the first half, then we ran away in the second half for a comfortable win. Their two best players from that team, and their best freshman this season, are all on varsity this year. L doesn’t think much of their JV squad but I’m not sure what she bases that on. I’m cautiously optimistic. And I’m more interested to see how her body holds up this week with three games in four days. She’s still only practicing about 50% of the reps so I doubt she has any of her cardio health built back up.

  1. In this week’s computer rankings we are #8 in 3A, they are #9. In the media poll, though, BCHS is #10 and we are not ranked. Our lofty computer ranking advantage is purely from playing a tougher schedule.  ↩
  2. The bracket is determined by the computer rankings two weeks before the tournament. The #3 and #4 seeds have actually swapped spots in the computer poll since the bracket came out. Last year CHS was the #1 seed but by the time the tournament started, Chatard was actually the highest ranked team in the bracket. Weird, but I guess you can’t roll out the pairings the day before games start.  ↩

Weekend Notes

January 6, 2025 /

Friday I had an appointment to get C’s iPad looked at. After confirming it needed a new battery, the guy helping me said the replacement would take about a week to arrive, so it would probably be “next Monday.” He paused, we looked at each other for a moment, and then we both started laughing. We both thought Friday was Monday because of the New Year’s holiday. Time and space gets freaky over the holidays!

C and L were supposed to go back to school today, although CHS begins the calendar year with J-Term and this week was not going to be a return to serious classwork. Until the school, like most in central Indiana, called off Monday classes early Sunday evening because of our big snow storm. As I begin this Monday morning, we are sitting on about 6” of snow in our part of town, with another wave blowing through that is expected to add one more inch or so. Worse, the winds are kicking up even any roads that have been plowed will likely get worse over the next few hours. S’s office did not close and she had to go in at the normal time. She arrived safely but said the roads are horrible. I’m not 100% certain our snowblower is functional, so we’ll see how much effort I have to put into clearing the driveway later this morning.

**Update: I measured 8″ of snow in our driveway before I began clearing it. One more squall passed through mid-morning and added another inch. As expected, the snowblower did not cooperate so I had to do it by hand. It took over three total hours, with a little help from L at the end. I am very sore and tired.**

It’s not quite our 2014 snowstorm – that one shut the city down for days and wiped out a whole week of school – but it’s good enough for the girls, who get to sleep in one more day.

We did have a little mishap in the storm. We let C drive to work Sunday, thinking she would be home before the roads got bad. Turns out we miscalculated by about an hour. On her way home she slid through a turn and hit a curb, popping a tire. Luckily she was right next to a gas station and was able to pull into the parking lot and wait for us to come change the tire for her. Given the age of the tire, that probably means we get to buy her a new, full set. Happy New Year!

Some more notes from New Year’s week.

NYE

The girls all had plans to ring in 2025 with friends. M traveled to Columbus, OH to hang out with some sorority pals for a couple days. She had a good time and traveled back-and-forth safely. She has one more week at home before UC classes resume next week.

C got together with her friend group. Seems like they had fun. L was supposed to do the same with a smaller group but started feeling bad Tuesday afternoon and ended up staying in her room all night. C came home Wendesday morning feeling bad, an illness that got worse Thursday. She’s been sick for the better part of a month and Dr. Mom finally called in the antibiotic troops to get her cleared up before the second semester begins. The drugs seem to be working so hopefully she starts ’25 healthier than she ended ’24.

As tends to happen, S was in bed well before midnight and I stayed up until just after the ball dropped. I don’t have any great fondness for New Year’s Eve, but I do like to see the calendar officially flip over to the next year and then sit around for a few minutes to make sure civilization doesn’t start breaking down because of some computer bug or whatever.

Thursday

Thursday was a big day for L. First thing in the morning she went back to sports medicine for a check-up on her foot. She was officially cleared to return to practice, although she’s supposed to take it easy and focus on rehab exercises for the time being. She was back at practice Friday and Saturday, the coaches letting her play in about 50% of the reps. There is still some foot pain, so we’re a little concerned that taking six weeks off did not resolve the issue. Unfortunately, she will not have enough practices to be cleared to play Wednesday night, so her first potential game will be in the City tournament next week.

Immediately after she got back from sports medicine I took her to the BMV where she got her driver’s license. She had passed her driving test nearly three months ago and just needed to wait the 90 days after her birthday to be eligible for her license. We got there as soon as they opened and were out in about 15 minutes. She’s driven herself to practice twice, along with going to a boys basketball game Saturday and run a few errands on her own. It would be nice if my days driving her to practice were over but as she and C share a car, those glory days won’t arrive until next year.

Sunday morning S and I took down all the Christmas decorations and got the house cleaned up. It’s always a little weird and a touch sad to be confronted with a “naked” living room after five weeks of having the tree, lights, and other decorations warm the space. Our house was still aglow last night, but this time because of street and house lights reflecting off the snow pack outside. Seriously, I woke a couple times thinking someone was shining a light into our bedroom it was so bright.

Colts

A mediocre season came to an appropriately mediocre ending with an overtime win over Jacksonville in front of a diminished but surly crowd. Tons of the people who bothered to show up left in the second half as the roads began to slicken and the stands were mostly empty as the game went to the extra frame. They would have been better served playing the game at one of the small, college stadiums in town. Then they could have been out in the elements, too! Kind of a shame that despite this massive snowstorm spreading across the country, not a single NFL game was affected by it because the Chiefs were in Denver, the Colts play in a dome, and the Bengals played Saturday night in Pittsburgh.

Owner Jim Irsay wasted no time in saying that GM Chris Ballard and coach Shane Steichen would return for the 2025 season, a decision that pleased zero Colts fans. Get excited for another year on the mediocre treadmill!

Pacers

Hey, they might actually be playing good ball! They climbed back to .500 with a win Saturday. Throw out the disaster loss in Boston right after Christmas, an L they got revenge for two nights later, and they’ve generally played pretty well for about three weeks now. Tyrese Haliburton’s highs have been higher, his lows not as low. Andrew Nembhard returning seems to have steadied the entire roster. They have back-to-backs with Cleveland in a week, which should go a long way to showing how legit they are.

KU Hoops

Talk about wild mood swings! Last week had such a wide variance I’ll hold off my thoughts until tomorrow.

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.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 7, 2024 /

A busy, warm, disappointing, and significant weekend.

FNL + Party

Friday was a big night for a couple reasons. First, L was having friends over to celebrate her birthday. Seven girls, including her middle school buddy who goes to the rival high school, gathered at our house after school. They are a good group and fun to be around. They are mostly sassy and confident and silly, and while they usually congregate away from us, when we have to interact with them they always make me laugh.

Once S got home we ran them over to Marion University, which was hosting the big Center Grove vs Cathedral game. This was class 6A #5 vs #7. CG came in at 4–2, CHS 3–2. CG had won three in a row in the series and have dominated it over the past decade. In a change, it was moved from the final week of the season to week eight this year for some reason.

It was a wild game.

CHS scored on the first play of the game, a 64 yard run.
Trailing 10–0, CG had an 80-yard TD run.
CHS answered with a 74-yard TD pass.
CG led 30–27 at halftime, and eventually 45–35 with about six minutes to play.
The game ended with this sequence in the final five minutes:
Cathedral touchdown.
Cathedral successful onside kick.
Cathedral touchdown.
Center Grove interception.
Cathedral punt.
Center Grove interception.
Game over.

Huge win for the Irish. Normally you would say these teams are on a collision course for a rematch in semistate. CHS is going to have trouble getting past Lawrence North, who is 7–0 and destroyed #2 Warren Central this week, in sectionals though. They would also likely have to beat #1 Brownsburg between sectionals and Center Grove, and they’ve already lost to them. Anything is possible I guess.

The only bummer to the night was apparently there weren’t a ton of CHS kids at the game. Marion is on the opposite side of the city from school. Since CHS kids come from literally everywhere – something like 80 middle schools are represented in L’s class – you would think that wouldn’t be an issue. Especially for the Center Grove game, which is always huge. But I guess it was an issue. Anyway, L texted us at halftime that they wanted to leave because “no one is here” and it was boring. So the girls were eating cake and ice cream at our house when the Irish made their furious comeback. I kept listening and let them know the result.

Kids, man. Kids.

Royals

Man, so close to stealing game one in New York. Yes, there was a curious, at best, replay call that didn’t go the Royals way that directly let to the winning run for the Yanks. Bobby Witt Jr. got no love from the home plate ump in the 9th. Bummers.

What truly sucked was the Royals pitchers walking 80 Yankees batters. The fifth inning was really when the Royals lost this game. That inning went walk-single-walk-walk-foul out-fielder’s choice-walk. Two runs scored, both on bases loaded walks.

You don’t expect to lose in Yankees Stadium because you walked in more runs than you allowed on homers.

The Royals are a resilient bunch, though, and I think the loss will get them more re-focused than discouraged. Hopefully the pitchers are a little more locked in Monday while the hitters can keep generating runs.

Oh, and this ALDS schedule is nuts. Three days off in a five-game series? When these teams played a five-game ALCS in 1980, games one-through-three were played on consecutive days. And that was with a night game on Thursday in Kansas City and a night game Friday in New York. Since the Royals swept that series, I don’t know if an off-day was scheduled before either game four or five. But in 2024, there are scheduled off days between games one and two, two and three, and four and five if needed. Dumb.

KU

Same old same old. A disastrous end to the first half. A lead in the fourth quarter. The inability to stop the opponent when it mattered most. A fifth loss in a row.

Lawrence radio guy Derek Johnson posted this amazing stat on Twitter after the game: In each of their losses, at some point in the second half KU has had at least a 74% win probability. Add those up, and the odds of going 0–5 over that stretch is 0.01%, or about 1 in 10,000. Yet KU found a way to do it. Never say we can’t do amazing things in football season!

I think that stat also points out the truth to this season, something I pointed out last week. KU got just about every break possible last year. This year, though? No breaks. Or when they get a break, they find a way to fuck it up.

The offense and OC Jeff Grimes have taken the bulk of the criticism this year. The offense was fine Saturday. Yes, there were a few bad choices, notably in the two three-and-outs after KU forced turnovers because of hopelessly conservative play calling. One first down late in the second quarter and Arizona State never gets a chance to tie the game going into halftime. Jalon Daniels, who might have had his best game of the year, rushed a throw to a wide open Quentin Skinner that cost KU four points in a four-point loss.

Those aside, Saturday was on the defense. Yes, they forced two turnovers and blocked a field goal. But there were, yet again, massive holes for ASU to exploit all night. Almost no pressure on the quarterback. KU got destroyed at the line on running plays and gave up 313 yards rushing! Not technically on the defense, but they also gave up another long punt return to a player who should have been tackled seconds after fielding the ball by one of three players.

I know they were missing one defensive captain the entire game, and Cobee Bryant left the game late with what appeared to be a bad injury. That doesn’t excuse how bad the D looked as a whole, and has looked all season.

I read a theory this week that the transitional recruiting class between Les Miles and Lance Leipold, which was ranked in the 110s nationally, is what is killing this team. There are a ton of seniors of various types, a lot of freshmen and true sophomores, but not many of those third year players who maybe aren’t ready to start, but have been in the system and can come in briefly to spell the starters when needed.

I have no idea if that explains KU’s defensive woes or not. I am starting to think last year’s performance was a fluke. DC Brian Borland should definitely be under as much pressure as Grimes, because he hasn’t found a way to scheme around talent issues.

I genuinely hated sports late Saturday night. The Royals and KU games overlapped some. I had the Royals on the TV, KU on the MacBook. It was harder to follow both than my attempts to listen to CHS and watch tennis or football earlier this year. Higher stakes, I guess. KU and the Royals both scored at about the same time once, which was fun. The Yankees scored the go-ahead run at nearly the same moment Arizona State tied the game going into halftime, which was not fun.

Oh, a couple of my KU buddies and I had talked about going to this game a while back. We didn’t go forward because, for some reason, tickets even on Southwest were over $500. I was glad we chose to stay home. Not just because of the loss, but also because it was 106° at kickoff. I read somewhere this was the hottest temperature at kickoff for an ASU game this century. And, (in)famously, whatever Sun Devil Stadium is called these days has all aluminum bleacher seating. I can’t believe the game was nearly sold out.

Colts

No Anthony Richardson or Johnathan Taylor, plus a couple key defensive injuries. An offensive lineman breaks his leg during the game. And the Colts hadn’t won in Jacksonville in 11 years.

So no surprise that after giving up their third ridiculously long touchdown of the game, they trailed by 14 late. I went outside to water some plants, figuring my weekend didn’t need any more sports disappointment.

A few minutes later I noticed S looking at the window trying to get my attention. I strolled over and glanced inside at the TV and saw the Colts were kicking a PAT to tie. Apparently Joe Flacco and Alec Pierce did their best to save the day, but the Jags kicked a field goal to win at about the same point in the clock as where Arizona State beat KU. Perfect.

I don’t think the Colts are terrible. But they are definitely on the bottom half of the mediocre middle of the NFL. That middle is so big that any team in that group can beat any other, so the Colts might still manage six or seven wins. I wonder if they would be better served to start thinking about the draft and focusing on getting the best pick possible. Which means as tempting as it will be to keep starting Flacco when AR is healthy, you have to focus on both developing Richardson and determining if he is the man going forward. You can’t delay that question another year while you’re chasing a Wild Card spot with Flacco.

LB

Some milestones for B girl #3.

She turned 16 Thursday.

Saturday we got her travel basketball assignment for next year. She’s with the same coach she’s been with. It does suck that we’ve lost two more of her best friends she’s played with the last three years. We might steal one of those girls back but we’re not confident. Travel ball at the high school level is brutal when it comes to roster building. You have very little say in who you get, as teams higher in the pecking order can “steal” girls if they need them. That happened to one of her besties, and from what I’ve heard from that girl’s mom, she does not want to play with the team that picked her. L is hopeful they can get her switched back to our team, but I’m doubtful.

L is still suffering from the lingering effects of mono, but will try to go back to preseason practice this week. She feels mentally bad about missing two weeks, but also feels physically bad any time she breaks a sweat. Knock on wood I don’t get a call at 6:30 AM Tuesday that she’s sick at practice, or just can’t continue and needs to get picked up.

Sunday she passed her driving test. She’s been doing a great job with her practicing, so there wasn’t much doubt. Her instructor even said “Piece of cake” when they returned. She can officially get her license on Jan. 1, although she’ll obviously have to wait another day.

Weather

A gorgeous, warm weekend to wrap up an unseasonably warm week. Saturday I hardly watched any football during the day, partially because I knew I would be watching both the Royals and Jayhawks at night. But also because I wanted to sit outside and read and enjoy the beautiful day.

All last week they were saying this week would be much different. It is cooling off a little; we’ll be down in the upper 40s for a few mornings. But days will still be in the low 70s, slowly warming back to the low 80s by the weekend. These are the days you have to hold on to because even when they are mild, the Midwest winters will suck the life out of you.

Weekend Notes

September 30, 2024 /

Another weekend in the books. This one had some familiar elements, yet was still quite different than other recent weekends.

Helene

The biggest event of the weekend was the remnants of Hurricane Helene kind of ruining our weekend. That’s overstating things. Other people had far worse weekends than we did because of the weather. But it was cloudy, breezy, and muggy at best all weekend. Off-and-on drizzle all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then about five hours of pretty intense rain and wind Friday evening as the biggest waves from the storm blew through between 5:00 and 10:00 PM.

We were very lucky. Our power blinked a few times Friday night, but never fully went out. Which is a miracle given that the line that feeds our house runs through dozens of old trees that are growing into/against it. I was sure at least part of the line had pulled loose at one point, as we kept getting little waves of partial outages. But we made it through. Lots of people around us lost their power for much longer than a few seconds.

We desperately needed the rain, so that was welcome. TV said we were somewhere between an inch and inch-and-a-half of rain for the storm. Normally when we get any significant rain our sump pit in the basement will make lots of noise as it fills and the pump ejects the collected water. It had been so dry here none of the rain made it to the pit and our basement remained eerily quiet.

Driving and walking around Saturday and Sunday there were tons of big trees and limbs down in our part of the city. Lots of power crews working to repair lines. We just had one small branch come down in our yard, along with lots of leaves. Again, very lucky.

We have friends who were not so fortunate.

Parents of one of S’s best friends live on Anna Maria island. We spent our first day of spring break this year at their house while we were waiting for our rental to open. Friday night they had water waist-deep inside their house. Our friend lost contact with them overnight, and she was freaking out. Fortunately cell service came back up Friday morning and they were safe. However, they likely lost everything they own inside the house.

S also found video of the place in Siesta Key where we are going for spring break this coming year. It took a lot of water damage. It is a high rise, so we are hoping our rooms aren’t on the first floor and got through without any damage.

She also has an old friend in Asheville, NC which is apparently in terrible shape because of flooding. S sent her a text and got a response, but no real word on how they are doing.

High School Football

Cathedral picked a great week to have a bye. I’m sure the coaches weren’t thrilled to have a hole in their schedule, but they were able to avoid having to deal with the weather.

Most games here Friday were postponed to Saturday. But some foolish schools decided to play. The worst of the storm was going through right during game times Friday. At their peak, the winds were gusting to around 70 MPH. Oddly there was no lightning associated with the storm, so most games that started just kept on going through the worst of it. A couple games kicked off then stopped when the power went out.

Although the Irish were off, I did have football plans for the night. Our friend Coach H was bringing his team to play NC, the school across the street from us. That game was moved to Saturday morning, so I walked over and watched with Mrs. H. Poor NC entered on a 32-game losing streak. Coach H’s guys did their job and easily extended that streak to 33 games. It was fun to catch up with Mrs. Coach.

The Jayhawks

As the season continues to go down the toilet, I can step back a bit and react from a distance. Noticing things like it’s interesting how you can be mad about one thing during a game, then afterwards realize you should be mad about something else completely.

During the loss to TCU Saturday, most KU fans were steaming about a series of replay reviews and calls/no-calls that went against KU. All were very close, but in the heat of the moment they all seemed horribly wrong.

After the game, though, it was clear KU didn’t lose that game because of the refs. They lost, mostly, because on three massive plays, they missed a total of 187 tackles. They let what is basically a fullback run a punt back over 80 yards for a touchdown. They had the TCU QB dead in the backfield only to let him slip away and complete a pass that not only secured a massive first down, but turned into another score when tackles were missed on the back half of the play.

Offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes is taking most of the ire of KU fans because his offense seems unimaginative and predictable while former OC Andy Kotelnicki took his super-fun offense to Penn State and is doing amazing things. And Grimes deserves that ire. His offense is dumb and his play calling at times infuriating. Not giving the ball to the best running back in school history one time when you have first and goal inside the five is just stupid.

But the defensive coaches need to take their share of the blame. They haven’t figured out a way to either get consistent pressure on the quarterback or cover receivers downfield. There are far too many big holes for receivers to get open and run freely. On top of that, this team tackles terribly. It’s like they don’t practice it.

Last year’s defense often played bend-but-don’t-break football. This year they break early and often. They had three take-aways Saturday, and should have had at least one more. And still gave up 38 points.

Honestly, I think you can summarize this year compared to last like this: last year, KU got nearly every break. This year, the Jayhawks are getting none. Watching games, you always expect something to go wrong. I think the players feel that, too. Which means things can get rougher as they lose faith. You know what I always say about KU football and things getting worse…

Colts

Hey the Colts with an impressive win, dropping 27 on the allegedly fearsome Pittsburgh defense. Twenty of those points coming after Anthony Richardson, shockingly, left the game with an injury. Old man Joe Flacco can still fling it. The defense was incredible early and made a couple huge plays late to hold off the rallying Steelers.

Again, I refuse to judge Richardson until the end of the year. But, man, he threw a couple more just incredible balls in the first two drives of the game. Then he got destroyed on two different QB runs and had to leave the game. Will Levis was the other option for the Colts to draft a year ago, and he looks like a disaster at this point, so I think AR was the right choice. It feels like he’s always, always, always going to be a massive risk-reward player, though. He’s got some Joel Embiid in him where even when he does the right thing, he manages to get some total freak injury. But, again, I’m not judging him yet.

Oh, would you be surprised that there were a series of incredibly inconsistent calls by the refs in this game? They both helped and hurt the Colts. Between this and the KU game, I’m about done with football refs. Looking forward to basketball refs ruining my life in about a month.

Royals

The Kansas City Royals are in the playoffs! One year after losing 106 games. What a turnaround, and totally unexpected. I would have been thrilled if they got close to .500 this year. If not for a bad September, the R’s would have been well over 90 wins in 2024.

That stumble to the finish doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for the Wild Card series with Baltimore. But the playoffs are all about pitching and the Royals have three solid starters, when they are on, plus the bullpen has been terrific for the last month or so. If they can just find a way to string together some hits again they have every chance to advance. A Royals-Yankees divisional series would be fun for us old folks.

I expect these playoffs to be much less stressful for me than the Royals’ runs in 2014 and 2015. I’m less invested now, the games move quicker, I drink less than I did a decade ago, and I have lower expectations. I still need to add sunflower seeds to my shopping list so I can recreate some of the magic from those two Octobers.

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