D's Notebook

Tag: weather (Page 2 of 11)

Weekend Notes

February 5, 2024 /

Last week was pretty much a lost week for me. I could never shake my cold. In fact, it kept getting worse. I thought I had turned a corner Friday before my stomach and head started hurting in the evening. I woke up Saturday feeling even worse. I ate some cereal, took some meds, and passed out on the couch for another three hours. Sunday morning I again thought I was feeling better. Then I woke up after an unexpected nap of 90 minutes. I just can’t get rid of this congestion. As I try to clear the cobwebs Monday morning my head still feels full of various fluids over a week after they first made their presence known. If I didn’t have a haircut this morning, I would probably be crawling back into bed.

I say it was a lost week because I barely left the house. I went to the grocery store a couple times. I picked L up from practice Monday and Tuesday. I went to her game Wednesday. And that was about it. Otherwise I just laid around the house, bundled under my blanket all week.

Maybe this week will be better.

Weather

Thursday was February 1. That was the first day we saw the sun here in Indianapolis in 10 days. It also got up over 50. I walked out to get the mail that afternoon and had that false sense of imminent spring that can come this time of year.

It’s one thing for that to happen on February 25th. It’s another on the freaking first of the month, when spring is still six-to-twelve weeks away.

We might get close to 60 a couple days this week, but there is snow in the forecast next week.

I’m just saying I wouldn’t mind an early spring.

HS Hoops

Friday night I watched the big CHS sectional semifinal on the computer. It was #9 Lawrence North, who beat the Irish on Wednesday, vs. #1 Lawrence Central. LN led by 11 late in the first half, then gave up a 22–2 run that bridged halftime. LN fought back and got as close as three a couple times, but LC won by seven. LC won the next night, too, capturing only the second sectional title in school history. They hadn’t won a sectional GAME in 20 years before Wednesday. Not sure how you go from that to 22–1 in a year, but that’s exactly what they’ve done.

There are five teams that CHS played this year that are still alive.

The highlight of the game for me was that the wrong team inbounded the ball to start the second half, and the refs had to re-start the half. I say this was a highlight because the teacher who normally runs the clock/possession arrow at CHS is notorious for talking too much and having the arrow pointed the wrong way. It’s not an every game occurrence, but it’s happened at least five times this season. Once he had the arrow wrong, they caught and corrected his error, then seconds later there was another held ball and he again forgot to switch the arrow. Come on, man!

It was nice to see he’s consistent and does it in non-CHS games, too.

Jayhawk Talk

I thought about putting this off until tomorrow. Saturday’s performance was so good, though, that I didn’t want to risk not being able to give it proper credit if the Jayhawks drop a turd in Manhattan tonight.

So…

OOOOOOOOH YEEAAAHHHHHH!!!

A good, old fashioned, ass kicking of an elite team in the Phog!

That was KU’s best performance of the season. Not only was it against the best defense in the country. It was against a historically great defense, one that was poised to set records for defensive efficiency. And the Jayhawks sliced them up for 40 minutes, shooting nearly 70% for the game. SEVENTY PERCENT!!!!! They scored more points in the first 35 minutes of the game than any team had scored against Houston all season, including overtime games. Even the area where KU struggled – 18 turnovers – was more about them throwing the ball out of bounds for no reason than anything Houston was doing on defense.

It was just the latest entry in the Magical Saturday Big 12 Games In Allen Fieldhouse catalog, one that the kids who were in the stands Saturday will recall fondly the rest of their lives.

The funniest part of how easily KU handled Houston is that most KU fans – including me – had been extremely worried about this game for a couple weeks. Houston is a fearsome team on defense. They are limited offensively but they also can put up numbers if their defense forces a lot of turnovers, as they did to Kansas State a week ago. This was exactly the kind of game that KU has always found a way to win at home. I’m not sure most KU fans had that much faith in this year’s team going into the game.

To beat the dead horse a little more, Johnny Furphy is the difference. He just keeps producing, and gets more efficient each game. He missed just one shot Saturday (although he missed two from the free throw line). His 3s came in huge moments. He threw down a powerful dunk in transition. He grabbed rebounds. He played decent defense. I was worried he might not be up for the task against a team like Houston. He proved me wrong. Now everyone is worried that instead of a 2–3 year player, he will spend a single year in Lawrence. Declaring for the draft is a ways away, but if it indeed happens, that would make his rise even more incredible.

It’s a small sample size, but since Furphy became a starter, KU is, by one analytical measure, the second-best offense in the country and the third-best team overall. Wild.

It’s not fair or realistic to expect him to keep going for 17 & 7 every night. Whether he is scoring or not, opponents have to account for him on defense. Which opens things up for the other four Jayhawks on the court.

My one hope coming into the game was that Hunter Dickinson would carve up Houston. For all their athleticism, they are not a big team. And athletic defenders don’t bother Hunter. He just uses his big body to render them helpless, as long as he can get the ball in scoring position. He had great numbers, 20 & 8 on 15 shots, but his willingness to share the ball was what made KU’s attack really hum.

We are now at the midpoint in the Big 12 schedule. KU and Houston are tied for first, with three teams a half game back. TCU is another half game back. The next month is going to be crazy. Houston would seem to have a slight edge because of their schedule, which includes a return date from the Jayhawks the last day of the season. Sure would be nice if Iowa State had to come to Lawrence…

Speaking of wildness, how about that Iowa State – Baylor game? Sadly I missed Scott Drew getting ejected. I did see each team blow five-point leads. I saw Baylor miss a ton of free throws. I saw the clock operator start the clock too soon, giving Iowa State a chance to stop the clock and inbound the ball instead of trying to grab a rebound and get up court for a final shot. I saw the Clones bank in a game winner that was wiped out because it came a fraction of a second too late. Imagine if that had counted. Whoever runs the clock in Waco might need to find a new city to live in because their itchy finger had just cost the Bears an important game. Situations like that are why parents make themselves scarce when coaches come looking for someone to run the clock in youth games. You never want to be the person who messes up the clock and have to deal with irate coaches/parents/kids afterward.

One thing that jumped out in those chaotic closing minutes is how imperfect replay review is in basketball, especially college. I’m sure I’ve made this rant before, but the fact you can review a play and overturn an out-of-bounds decision but not also review the foul that caused the ball to go OB is insane.

In the ISU-BU game, the referee gave possession to Baylor after a ball went out of bounds. Since there was under 2:00 to play, it got reviewed. The replay showed the ball, in fact, touched the Baylor player last. But it also showed that the ISU defender clearly hit his arm and caused the turnover. But the non-called foul isn’t reviewable. ISU got the ball.

The NBA allows fouls to be switched upon review. College should go to this system. If an offensive player loses the ball because he was fouled, call the foul, even if it takes replay to show it.

The best thing to do would be to say there was incidental contact that caused the turnover, and give the offense the ball back. But then you’re introducing even more variance into the replay interpretation, and not all plays are as obvious as the one Saturday. I can only imagine the outcry when three refs huddle around a monitor for five minutes trying to determine if there was enough contact to adjust the call one way or the other.

Even better, give each coach one review per half, which do not carry over if unused, and otherwise get rid of replay review except for clock malfunctions/scoring questions. There are 15 marginal possession calls every game. Why the game has to grind to a halt for only the ones in the last two minutes has never made any sense.

Weekend Notes

January 15, 2024 /

Kind of a strange weekend, mostly due to the weather, which kept us cooped up inside. I spent roughly 87.2% of Saturday and Sunday on the couch, under a blanket, either watching sports on TV, watching shows on my laptop, or reading one of two books.

Jayhawk Talk: Hoops

It took awhile to get going, but a very nice bounce back game against Oklahoma. Johnny Furphy moving into the starting lineup worked out pretty well, both for him and Elmarko Jackson, who looked more relaxed coming off the bench. The more I see it in action the more I think KJ Adams’ free throw line jumper/floater could be the key to unlocking the KU offense. Assuming this team continues to never hit 3s, that is.

I forgot to mention in my wrap-up of the UCF game that when KU was cruising in the first half, I texted friends that this was the best KU had looked all year. Moments later they went into the shitter. Saturday, after KU blew a five point lead, I said I hated this team and that they were terrible to watch. Moments later they broke the game open. I need to keep my mouth shut until the game is over.

I watched parts of several Big 12 games Saturday. Man, this conference is such a beast. Most games in the 60s, with minimal separation. I watched Houston for the first time. They are so tough and athletic and relentless. Just because they lost twice last week is not a reason to count them out. Their game with TCU was tremendous.

At this point Baylor would seem to be the favorite, even with Texas Tech tied with them at 3–0. Still, Baylor did not look all that impressive when I was watching their game against Cincinnati. Of course, Tech is letting an accused rapist play, which you have to think the Hoops Gods will not look kindly on.

The conference is filled with teams that have very little to differentiate them. UCF is probably the “worst” team in the league, and they just beat KU. West Virginia beat Texas. BYU and Cincinnati are much better than most people expected them to be. Just like I’m going to complain about KU’s shooting every week, I’m going to remind you about how tough the Big 12 is every week.

Jayhawk Talk: Lance!

KU fans had roughly 24 hours of semi-worry and then 15 minutes of full-on panic when rumors about Lance Leipold taking the Washington job bubbled up. First, he was said to be one of the top candidates on Saturday. Sunday afternoon both an allegedly reputable national site and a local source who is fairly locked in suggested that he had been offered the job and was likely to take it.

The next 10–15 minutes were pretty wild on Twitter and in text threads.

Fortunately Leipold put all that speculation to rest with a Tweet of his own and both national and local sources quickly reported that he and KU had agreed to a new contract.

Full-on panic to elation in 15 minutes. America, 2024!

A couple hours later news dropped that UW was hiring Arizona coach Jed Fisch. Which makes me wonder if UW really offered the job to Lance or if it was just posturing by his agent to squeeze a little more out of KU in their negotiations. Regardless, it seems like KU dodged a bullet. We had all relaxed after the main round of coach shuffling passed with Lance still in Lawrence. Then Nick Saban fucked that all up and we had to briefly stress again.

The added bonus is with Fisch leaving Arizona, they are likely to lose some players, weakening a team that was expected to be one of the best in the Big 12 next year. They aren’t on KU’s 2024 schedule, but that does potentially mean one fewer team to have to beat out for a spot on the conference championship game. Although I have no idea how that is going to work in the revamped Big 12. And KU has a few more holes to plug before we start getting too excited about a possible conference title game run.

NFL Playoffs

First off, we all agree the Chiefs-Dolphins game being on Peacock was bullshit, right? Even more bullshitty was NBC’s incessant promotion of the game. Shots of Kansas City during the Houston game, just so they could talk about the nightcap. Calling it a historic event was even more bullshit.

Then came the cherry on top, NBC proclaiming Sunday that it was a milestone in sports and media history. We are into the second decade of broadly available, streamed sports events. NBC didn’t roll out any new technology for this game. They, and the NFL, decided to hide it behind a paywall that still forced viewers to watch commercials just to scrape more money out of fans.

You have to take out a mortgage to afford going to games. Over-the-air broadcasts have more commercial breaks than ever. And now more and more games are slipping behind paywalls. The NFL and Roger Goodell rival MLB and Rob Manfred for finding the most ways to fuck its fans.

I guess the Chiefs played well? We don’t have Peacock. I watched a movie.

Super impressive performance by Houston Saturday. I picked Cleveland and was very wrong. C.J. Stroud is going to be a problem. The Colts better hope Anthony Richardson can develop into a reasonable foil for him. And if Carolina didn’t have a shit-bag of an owner, I would feel sorry for them totally blowing the draft last spring.

Even more impressive performance by Green Bay Sunday, knocking out my Super Bowl pick Cowboys in shockingly easy fashion. Again, I was very wrong. The Niners are going to cream the Packers next week, though, aren’t they, making this an even worse loss for Cowboys fans.

The last game of Sunday was a lot of fun. Detroit jumps out early and their crowd is going nuts. LA claws back in the second half. You could feel the tension in the Detroit crowd as an LA win seemed inevitable. Then a couple close calls went Detroit’s way, the Lions converted a big third down, and they won their first playoff game since 1992. A great, cathartic scene at Ford Field, even if the Rams probably should have won that game.

Weather

As miserable as it was/is here in Indy, we really got off easy. A ton of rain Friday; I had the pump on the pool cover all day and three different times it rained hard enough to cover it completely. It had time to pump nearly all of it away before we dropped below freezing. As we walked out of L’s games Friday it was still raining hard, but with fat snowflakes mixed in. We got home just before everything froze up. We got just a touch of snow overnight and again Saturday evening, barely enough to cover the ground. And the winds that roared Friday into Saturday were not as strong as expected after the changeover, so our windchills were only around –15 Sunday. Far less snow than many of my readers got, and relatively warmer than many of you had to endure.

It isn’t supposed to get above freezing here for at least a week, with no real chances of snow at the moment.

I ran L to practice this morning and made a quick stop at the grocery store. The 30 seconds it took me to walk from my car to the store were not pleasant. My phone said the windchill was –16. Once you get below zero it really doesn’t matter anymore.

As always, winter sucks.

Weekend Notes

January 8, 2024 /

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

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

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

Back to School

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

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

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

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

Snow

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

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

Jayhawk Talk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NFL

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

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

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

Weekend Notes

August 28, 2023 /

Not the most exciting weekend of the year. I feel obligated to share the minor doings anyway, since that’s kind of our thing here.

HS Football

Number two Cathedral went west of town to Brownsburg, where they went 1–1 last year, to face the #5 Bulldogs. Last August CHS fell behind 21–0 before making a furious comeback that fell short, losing 42–35.

This year they started better – although they gave up an 80 yard TD pass on the first defensive possession of the game – and led 17–14 late in the second quarter.

But a BHS touchdown just before the half gave them the lead, they added 17 unanswered points in the third quarter, and won 45–31.

Not a great night for the Irish. The defense gave up too many big plays, the receivers dropped a lot of balls, and the quarterback threw two interceptions which made his over 400 yards of total offense kind of moot.

L went to the game. She said it was miserable. Like most games in the area, the start was pushed back to 7:30 to give the kids some break from the heat. Not sure it mattered all that much.

College Football

This week zero thing is dumb. If there are going to be games, there should be GAMES. Not the tease of Navy-Notre Dame and then a bunch of crap teams playing. Oh, I guess USC played, but since it was on the Pac–12 network no one saw it. Which explains why half of that conference is fleeing for other leagues.

I watched a chunk of the Notre Dame game. Gorgeous stadium in Dublin. Be nice if they painted the sidelines so they were visible. I wondered what the cost was to fly the football team, its support staff, and the entire band to Ireland and put them up for a few days. I’m sure NBC and Guinness handled some of those expenses.

My big takeaway from the game was questioning whether they had Irish people who know nothing about football operating the cameras. Multiple times after the snap, the main camera would follow a receiver who was racing down the field while the ball was still in the backfield. Weird and distracting. At least this wasn’t a close or important game.

Weather

We survived our week of heat. It ended up being less than intense than predicted, only because each morning was cloudy and breezy, and held the heat back a few hours. But each afternoon was pretty blistering, especially Thursday and Friday. I believe our heat index was near 120 both days. Turns out I’m glad I don’t have one-to-three girls playing kickball on asphalt parking lots this year. Our pool got as warm as 93°, which is right on the edge of miserable.

The heat broke Friday night, though, and Saturday and Sunday were terrific days for sitting around the pool. It was in the 80s Saturday, high 70s Sunday, and the humidity had faded by Sunday morning. As I type this Monday morning it is 58°. It looks like we have 4–5 days of super nice weather before the heat builds again next weekend.

Weekend Notes

August 21, 2023 /

Even down a kid, it was a pretty busy week. Although some of that activity was due to the missing kid.

Jinxed Myself

I mentioned in last week’s post that I was off the hook for driving to/from school for awhile. Well, not so fast…

C got rear-ended leaving campus by another student on Monday. No injuries, thankfully. Her car is still drivable, fortunately. But at some point it will go to the shop and stay there for a bit as it gets repaired, putting me back on the daily driving grind.

HS Football

Friday was opening week for high school football in Indiana. I took the girls downtown to watch Cathedral play in Lucas Oil Stadium against Lafayette Jefferson. It was a pretty easy 55–14 win for the #2 Irish. I didn’t think their offensive line looked very good, and there were some holes in the defense at times. But the skill players are very good.

It was a perfect night for football. The Colts were even nice enough to open the roof and window for the fans.

We’ll find out a lot more about how good the Irish are this week when they face Brownsburg, who beat them last August before CHS returned the favor in the regional round of the state playoffs.

Weather

Saturday was as nice a day as you could ask for. Sunday we finally got reminded that it is summer, and we have a fairly brutal week ahead of us. Right now it looks like we’ll top 100 at least once, although the heat index was already above 100 yesterday. Last night I walked outside around 11:30 to make sure everything was straightened up around the pool and it felt disgusting. Not sure how we managed to avoid the humidity for so long, but it made me appreciate how great this summer has been even more.

I won’t complain too much as I know a lot of my readers are facing way worse heat, and have been for some time.

New KU Stadium

Kansas finally revealed plans for the new football stadium. There have been so many false starts for a stadium renovation over the years that you always have to take these announcements with a grain of salt. But it seems like this time it’s really going to happen.

I loved the renderings the school released. Yeah, the lights look a little strange, but as long as they work I’m not sure why some people were so fired up about them. The current stadium is a dump and has been a dump for decades. Don’t let the little details get in the way of the big-picture end point of KU having a really nice stadium that is a good place to watch a game for the first time ever.

KU-Illinois

Pretty cool that the Jayhawks and Illini are taking their “secret” basketball scrimmage – I’m not sure why everyone calls them secret when we all know they are happening – public, moving it to Champaign, and using it as a way to raise money for the people in Maui. Savvy of Illinois to open up ticket sales to KU fans. I guess they think not enough U of I fans will show up just to boo Bill Self to fill the arena.

Brunch With Friends

We were delighted to have bunch Sunday with the Roeders from KC, who dropped their son off at Notre Dame over the weekend. I think all of my friends scattered around the country should send a kid to college in Indiana so we have an excuse to get together.

Rush Week

I’ve saved the biggest topic for last, with M participating in Rush Week at UC.

She gave us periodic updates throughout the week and it always seemed like it was going well. Each time there was a cut, she got called back by the maximum possible number of houses. We talked to her on Thursday, when it was down to five houses, and she told us she had really connected with a girl at one house who said she thought M embodied what their sorority was about. That was her clear #1 choice, but she also had a clear #2 followed by the other three that were a jumble together at the bottom.

Then the #1 house dropped her Saturday going into the final round, which really bummed her out. Her #2 kept her, but she wasn’t crazy about the other house that called her back for the last set of visits. What seemed like a pretty straight-forward week was suddenly very stressful. I’m sure it was more stressful for her being in the midst of it. As parents we were concerned that things wouldn’t work out and she would have a huge disappointment right before classes began.

Fortunately she got an offer from her new #1, Pi Phi. We talked to her Sunday afternoon and she was happy, although very tired and a little sick.

The Pi Phi house is pretty new at UC, only opening in 2010. I don’t know what that means for its quality. She doesn’t know any of the girls in her pledge class, which she thought was good. M’s roommate got into her first choice, and her high school buddy and her roommate both got into houses, so their little friend group all landed on their feet.

After she matched I did some searching to find pictures of the house, info about it, etc. I came across this site that listed the reputations and stereotypes of several of the biggest sororities. This clearly isn’t scientific and we found it hilarious. Pi Phis are said to be a top-tier house, but “fake, social, pretty, and not service-oriented.” That made me laugh. I sent it to her and her response was “Ur fake. And Mid.” Ok, then.

I haven’t told her yet that I knew a few Pi Phis at KU – where it was the oldest house on campus – and they were all super granola rich girls. Like girls who were wearing Birks and flannel before it was cool, but still drove BMWs. Not sure how she’ll take that. She better not expect a BMW.

M’s friends at IU and Miami don’t have rush until the spring semester. I kind of like that system, although having to walk to all the houses in the winter would suck. At least they have a semester to build up a group of relationships as something to fall back on if rush doesn’t work out. If you’re the one girl out of your group who doesn’t get into a house, it can still be awkward, so I guess there’s no perfect way or time to do rush.

Her first college class is at 11:15 today.

Weekend Notes

July 17, 2023 /

Kid Hoops

A weird weekend for L and her teammates.

We were in Bloomington for this week’s games. While that seems close it also involves navigating a shit-ton of construction and means we’re in the car for nearly three hours each day.

Saturday we opened with an easy win. In fact, I’m not sure we’ll ever have an easier win. At halftime we were ahead 39–0. We added 16 more points before these poor girls finally got their first bucker. That’s a 55–0 run. FIFTY. FIVE. TO. ZERO. Sadly that was the only basket they could muster, and the final was 65–2. Our girls really didn’t try to score too hard in the second half and, thankfully, the clock ran the entire time.

Obviously there was a big talent disparity here. Our girls were also hitting just about everything they threw up – we hit 3’s on four of six possessions at one point in the first half – and were dominating on defense as well. The other team took only six shots for the entire game because they were either turning it over or we were just flat stealing it before they had a chance to shoot.

We learned afterward that two of the girls were sixth graders, and most of the rest were going into 8th grade. I’m honestly not sure they could have competed against six graders. There was some real strangeness in the bracketing this weekend.

I will give those girls this credit: they never got frustrated or angry. They kept trying, as best as they could, and were smiling after the game. Props to their coach and parents for teaching them to stay positive.

After dispensing with them we watched our program’s C team win a tight contest that was physical and a little nasty. We walked over to warm up for our second game, but no one was warming up on the other side. Things were ahead of schedule but as we got closer to tip there still wasn’t anyone on the other bench. The tournament director called his contact for that team and got some long, sob story about how a bunch of girls quit on the coach this week so they couldn’t field a team. Sure would have been nice if they had shared that information ahead of time to either adjust the schedule or just let us leave early.

The tournament director offered to let us play the first team again, the team we beat 65–2, but our coach politely declined.

So we “earned” a 20–0 win by forfeit and headed to downtown Bloomington for an earlier-than=expected dinner.

Sunday we went back down for the semis/finals. Our first opponents had gone 1–1 Saturday, losing to our C team. So we didn’t expect much. But these girls were tough, guarded the hell out of people, and had a big girl who could move her feet and block shots anywhere in the paint. Six minutes into the game we were down 3–0. Not exactly getting blown out but also not looking anywhere near as good as we had a week earlier. We went on a run after calling a time out and led by 14 at half, stretched it close to 20 a couple times, and ended up winning by 12.

On to the title game against our C team, who we beat handily the one time we’ve played them this year. They had a couple different girls this time, though, including one who was on our team last year and one of L’s CHS friends/classmates. Still, we knew they weren’t as good as us if we focused and played hard. Which is what we did. We got an early lead and never let up, winning by 19.

So, good team weekend.

L did not have such a great weekend. Her jump shot was not working at all. She hit nothing outside the lane in our three games. She also missed a couple easy layups. She had a few bad turnovers. In short, she didn’t play nearly as well as she did in St. Louis. She had six points and three assists in the blowout Saturday, but only two points in each game Sunday. She did not want to be in the team picture after, and made sure she was as far from the championship plaque as possible. She pouted most of the way home. I let her stew in the backseat with her headphones on while I listened to my own music. As always, I respect the bitterness.

Next weekend is our final week as a travel team. We go to Cincinnati for a four-day event. I’m guessing the competition will be a little tougher. We know our first three games are against teams from New York, Nashville, and Cincinnati.

Weather

As we drove back to Indy I noticed it was hard to see buildings downtown. Yes, that good, ol’ Canadian wildfire smoke we have been missing returned!

And there was the added bonus of a line of heavy storms blowing in. We drove through two squalls once we got within 15 minutes of home. Then, just as we pulled onto our street, the skies really let loose.

For the next two hours it absolutely dumped. I don’t have a rain gauge but the weather stations in our area I can pull up all had between 2–3” of rain for the night. When I put our pool cover pump out once the storms had passed, it sunk completely below the water level and was still completely submerged after it had been running for an hour.

During the storm, it would pour for 10 minutes, then stop for five. Then the winds would kick back up and rain would start blasting again, occasionally with small hail. This pattern repeated for two hours. We had three different severe thunderstorm warnings in this stretch. At one point the winds got up around 60 MPH. We ran outside to move some of our patio cushions and the rain was literally blowing sideways, soaking us even though we were well back under the patio roof.

Our power flickered off-and-on at least five times during the first 20 minutes of the storm before it went off for good at 6:45. It stayed off until nearly 10:00. We are just getting our fridge fully stocked again after our extended power outage two weeks back. I was not enthused about starting all over again again. I think we dodged the bullet there.

Weekend Notes

July 5, 2023 /

A lot to get caught up on after a long holiday weekend.

July 4th

Our standard family pool party for the Fourth of July. Almost all the locals were over for a daytime gathering. I smoked rather than grilled burgers for the first time and they turned out pretty good. All the young ones were well behaved, and it seems like both generations of sisters got along for the day, too.

We had neighbors over for drinks in the evening after the family had cleared out. No driveway fireworks this year.

Kid Hoops

Thursday was the last night of summer league games. CHS played a team they lost to by six earlier in June, and both coaches agreed to stack their rosters so that it was a true A game. Which got L excited.

She played pretty well in an eight-point loss. She hit a shot right before halftime to give us a 20–19 lead. But we were on the wrong side of a 9–2 run to start the third quarter that was pretty much the game. L was not on the court for any of that run. When she played, it was an even ballgame. When she sat, our offense bogged down and the defense was disconnected.

She scored six for the night on 3–4 shooting, and had a rebound, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

She wasn’t super pleased with her play afterward, but I told her about my rough +/- numbers and how I saw her affect the game. There are definitely girls better than her on the team. There are girls with more potential or who are better than her in individual aspects of the game. But of the girls in the 20-ish player pool the JV teams pulled from this summer, no one organizes the game better than her.

Her first summer of high school hoops was a success. She fit in, she got more confident as the season progressed, was high scorer in at least two games, earned the coaches’ trust, and most importantly, she made some new, good friends. I’m excited to see how she improves once fall practice kicks off.

Not much rest for her. The travel team goes to St. Louis Friday for a tournament.

Over the weekend we went to the Y to shoot three times. She came up with a new workout that required her to make 300 shots. Mid-range, floaters, and 3’s. Off-the-catch and off-the-dribble. Lots of free throws. It took roughly an hour to get through it each day. I worked up a good sweat rebounding and passing.

Weather/Power

What a weird weather week.

We began with a terrible bout with the Canadian wild fire smoke. A couple times we had the worst air quality of any city in the US. Wednesday morning we were up to #2 in the world. Never say that Indianapolis can’t compete on the world stage!

It was much worse than our first run with the smoke a month ago. Two days the sky resembled the winter sky right before a big snow storm. Those days we couldn’t even see the sun, let alone take eerie pictures of its light refracted by the smoke. There was also a strange, metallic smell to the air.

Then Thursday a Derecho storm blew through with winds over 70 MPH. Our power went off at 3:57 and did not come back on until 3:00 Saturday afternoon. We filled up coolers with ice and transported our important items from the freezer to a relative’s home, but lost pretty much everything else from our fridges and freezers. S said it was time to replace a lot of our condiments anyway. Our house got pretty toasty each afternoon, but at least our basement remained cool. It was completely comfortable sleeping down there.

At one point nearly 80,000 people in Indianapolis were without power. I was obsessively checking the outage map and watched it slowly tick down a few thousand at a time, only for it to shoot back up after more, if less intense, storms came through both Friday night and Saturday morning.

When our power came back on there were still around 20,000 people in the city without power. I think most of them were back up and running by Sunday evening.

We had zero damage at our house. The neighbors to either side of us kept their power. It was just a thin row of 7–8 houses behind us that all come off the same line that got knocked out. Obviously the big downside of living in an area with tons of old trees and old power lines.

The big surprise was that our pool survived without turning bad. I was worried that sitting in the heat, covered, with zero circulation or filtration would be a recipe for stuff to grow quickly. It has turned cloudy in less time before. But Saturday night it was clear and tested out fine. I shocked it and ran the pump a little higher than normal and it was fine to swim in on Sunday.

In a related note, our refrigerators are very clean and organized.

Taylor Swift

I mentioned in Friday’s playlist that M was off to Cincy to watch Taylor Swift perform. She said the show was awesome.

M just got her tickets a week before the show. She received a text saying that some new tickets had been released. She was worried it was a scam, but noticed the message came from the same number her other Ticketmaster texts came from, so she decided to quickly buy two tickets and hope they were legit. She messaged some friends and they asked if she could try to get two more. The link indeed worked again so she bought four total tickets at face value 10 days before the show. She checked the secondary market and seats in her section were going for more than $2000. Pretty crazy. She was in the lower level in the Bengals stadium, with a great view of the main stage.

The grandparents of one of the friends that went with her live in Cincy, so the girls stayed at their house. The grandfather also met them near the stadium so M could park in a good spot hours before the show, took them to his house to drop their stuff, then back to the stadium. She’s living right these days.

Just a nice bonus this trip allowed her to miss out on about 24 hours of our power outage.

Football Recruiting

I will not address KU football recruiting until December.

Home States

Finally, not only did I just pass my 20th wedding anniversary and my 20th blogging anniversary, but also marked my 20th year living in Indiana. A few years ago I went through the exercise of figuring out how long I spent in each of the four states I lived in.

That was harder than you would think because of the college years, splitting time between two states. I decided to give Kansas ¾ credit for my first three years at KU, then full credit for the last couple after I gained residency and stayed there most of the summers. I’m not sure if that works out exactly right, but it seemed close and fair.

Anyway, my 20th year in Indiana means I’ve officially lived here longer than any other state. That still doesn’t sound right. My current tally looks like this:

Indiana 20 years
Missouri 19 years
Kansas 12 years
California 1 year

Weekend Notes

June 26, 2023 /

Quite a few things to discuss this week, so I’m going to split this into two posts. The personal stuff first, the NBA Draft stuff later on today.

Weather

We dodged a big ol’ bullet Sunday when storms roared through our area. There was a tornado on the ground about 10 minutes north of us. Several on the ground on the south side of Indy did significant damage. There was fairly large hail within two miles of our house.

But we just got a couple brief downpours and gusty winds.

In fact, we had worse problems a few nights earlier when the wind kicked up and briefly knocked our power out. I’m talking like a quick blink. However, a few minutes later I noticed a fire truck was sitting in the street in front of our house and the firefighters were walking through our neighbors’ yard.

We later learned the gusts had pulled down a power line in their yard which had caused a small fire. They were not home, but fortunately the fire was just in their yard and well away from their house.

Also fortunate that it wasn’t an integral power line for any of us and no one had to sit in the dark until the power company arrived to fix the line at 3:00 AM.

A Night of Music

S and I joined some friends to watch Ben Folds play at the Rock the Ruins concert series at Holliday Park, which is about 10 minutes from our house.

It had been a hot afternoon, but once the sun disappeared behind the park’s thick tree canopy it became a lovely evening.

I’m not a huge Ben Folds fan, but did very much enjoy the show. He only played a couple songs that I knew, somehow not playing “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” which would have been perfect for the setting.

A key part of Holliday Park are some “ruins” that were transported from a building in New York to Indy in the 1950s. Folds mentioned that it was an honor to play in this ancient, historic site. “One that they rocked so hard 2000 years ago that they blew the motherfucker up.”

The Bear

I spent a good chunk of the weekend racing through season two of The Bear. I loved the first season. I liked this one even more.

SPOILER ALERT

Everything that made season one great was still there. I can sum all of that up with one word: porn.

The show is food porn, obviously. It is acting porn. It is music porn.[1] It is cinema/photography porn. It is writing porn. Just about every aspect of the show is pornographic it is so good.

What made this season slightly better than the first was how the little moments where the supporting characters were allowed to shine in those first eight episodes were all expanded here, often to episode-long explorations. Marcus going to Copenhagen. Sydney’s food tour of Chicago. Richie’s week learning how the best restaurant in the world operates. Tina’s trip to culinary school.

I think what was brilliant about these episodes/scenes was their restraint. Any actor can go big: see Jamie Lee Curtis’ turn as Donna Berzatto in episode six. In each of those other performances, though, the actor we are focused on had to go small and subtle. We learned so much about them through small gestures and looks and actions. I don’t know who deserves more credit, the writers or actors, but major props all around for making such good television.

My favorite scene of the year? Near the end of episode nine, “Omelette,” as the new restaurant is minutes away from opening their doors for Friends and Family night, Carmen and Syd crawl under a table to make sure it is level. Their conversation was so honest and open and intimate despite being just about work.

One of the big storylines of the season was Carmy trying to balance beginning a romantic relationship with the super cute Claire and opening a restaurant under a ton of pressure.[2] When I heard he and Syd connecting under that table, though, I knew that Claire wasn’t going to work out. Not because he and Syd have a romantic attraction for each other, but because she is the only woman, maybe person, who he can truly be open and connect with. If you are more honest with your co-worker than your girlfriend, girlfriend ain’t gonna last.

So of course Carmy fucks it up.

There were also like half a dozen other conversations like the one between Carmy and Syd that were amazing and affecting and make this show so good.

I also loved how everyone but Carmy figured their shit out over the course of the season while he became more of a mess. By the end of the year, The Bear (the restaurant) was a lean, mean fighting machine of competent, confident staff that saved F&F night when it was on the verge of becoming a disaster. And did so largely without Carmy, who was locked in the walk-in , pounding on its doors and screaming.

Richie especially was a revelation. He went from literally having no idea where he fit into the new restaurant concept and how that would affect the rest of his life, to being a total food and hospitality badass in a suit.

I feel obligated to throw out a few words about episode six, “Fishes.” The obvious comparison is to last season’s episode seven, “Review.” They are both over-the-top, breakneck episodes designed to overwhelm and challenge. If you want to love the show, you have to keep up. “Fishes” is like your worst family holiday nightmare cranked up to the maximum boss level. It is probably too much. Especially with how it ends. It was shocking and draining and thoroughly depressing. Much of what happens in that episode does end up being vital for how the rest of the season plays out, but I think it came very close to distracting from how strong and consistent the other nine episodes were.

Despite that slight hiccup, there is just so much goodness in this show. It’s the best thing I’ve watched this year and I give it my highest recommendation.

Kid Hoops

Two weeks of JV updates for L.

The past two weeks they’ve split the JV pool into two teams that each played one game in the Thursday league.

A week ago L’s group played sectional rival North Central, the school we live down the block from. She scored a game-high 10 points in a nine-point win. Everything was at/near the rim as she went 5–8 on 2’s and 0–3 on 3’s. Her best move of the night ended up a waste. She ran out on a break, caught a pass over the top of the defense, took two dribbles, then stopped and faked, sending her defender by her in the air. The CHS bench all let out howls and screams. And then she blew the layup. Oh well…

This past Thursday they played Lawrence Central, another school that falls into CHS’ sectional. L had five points in a seven-point win. This time she was shooting from outside, going 1–4 on 3’s and hitting another long two. LC was playing a zone and a couple times she was wide open but chose to pass.

When she subbed out after turning down her most open look of the night, her coach told her, gently, that she needs to shoot more. “You have a nice shot. Be ready and take them when you’re open.” That’s exactly what I’ve been saying…

I should probably mention who coached her team that night. It was the CHS freshman coach. He just happens to be a 1982 McDonald’s All American at Cathedral and a first-round pick in the 1986 draft.

I had not met him before – he is a VP for Community Relations and Diversity at CHS – but did introduce myself since I was keeping the book. Super nice guy. If you do some digging you can find stories about his life and what he does outside of coaching and his work for CHS.

I also met the dad of another freshman. He told me he liked my KU shirt a couple weeks ago in passing. We talked this week and he told me he has both graduate and law degrees from KU, although he arrived in Lawrence about the time I left. We bored our daughters with about 10 minutes of KU hoops talk before we broke it off.

College Prep

We have begun ordering things for M to take to college in less than two months.[3] Saturday the Amazon man dropped off like five boxes for her. Sunday three different Amazon folks came to our house with stuff. Two things are coming tomorrow. Two other things are backordered and will be here in the next couple weeks. And we’ve only just started.

I swear I didn’t take half as much shit when I moved into McCollum Hall in August 1989. Pretty sure I just took some clothes, toiletries, my boombox, and a bunch of cassette tapes.

Ok, that might be an exaggeration but I know we easily fit everything into the trunk of my stepdad’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera. We’re thinking about renting a van for the day we drive M to Cincinnati.

  1. THREE Neil Finn songs!?!?! As if the music choices weren’t good enough already…  ↩
  2. For the record, I’m very much in favor of dudes dating short, cute, dark-haired medical residents. Although Molly Gordon is 5’5” so perhaps I shouldn’t call her short.  ↩
  3. Yikes!  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 1, 2023 /

A big weekend full of big events.

Prom

The big event of the weekend was M’s final CHS prom. It was quite the stressful week leading up to the dance. There was way more drama in her friend group this year than last.

There was one breakup last week, another of her friends is dumping her boyfriend this week, and another girl has been a bit of a wank which has caused some rifts in their core group. Not all of her friends were originally invited to the same pre-party, which caused some more static. And then one kid invited the entire class – 220-some kids – to his house for an afterparty. He does not have a huge lake house with lots of property like the kid who hosted last year, so everyone just assumed it was going to be a disaster and not last very long before the cops showed up.

Oh, and the weather forecast sucked for Saturday.

Throw in all the normal pre-prom stresses, and M was wound pretty tight last week. On Wednesday she let out a big sigh and told us she just wanted it to all be over. We told her to do her best to relax, to control the things she could control, and focus on having the best time she possible.

You know what? Almost everything turned out just fine Saturday.

It was sunny and 75 when her three friends who were getting ready at our house arrived. We had the pool open, a few of our trees had some really good color, and it looked like we might get some great pictures. They got ready, gathered, I snapped two photos, and just before the third there was a big crack of thunder and rain started falling. I got a great shot of their faces all breaking when they heard the thunder.

We hustled them under the porch roof and got more pics, then they left for the pre-party, with us shortly behind. The hosts were gracious enough to open the party up to just about everyone so there were plenty of chances for more pics. In the 30 minutes between leaving our house and S and I getting there, it rained, hailed, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. Suddenly it was a wet, chilly night. Although with so many people crowded together it wasn’t that bad. The kids would have been roasting had it still been sunny and in the 70s.

We took more pics then left for dinner with friends. All of us monitored our kids’ locations closely until they arrived at the Children’s Museum for the dance. Then we relaxed a bit. Or at least until we got home, when it came time to monitor their after-the-dance activities.

M was where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there all night. The after party actually went well. I drifted in-and-out of sleep on the couch until 2:00 when I saw she was at her friend’s house where she was spending the night.

I didn’t see her until Sunday afternoon. She said it was a good night. Some drama in the evening but not as much as she had feared. She went with a friend and they had fun. One of her buddies who she had a little static with last week pulled her aside and thanked her for being honest with her, and they have a picture together with big smiles, so that worked out.

I guess it is easier to have fun when expectations are low, but it seemed like everything turned out about as well as it could have.

Kid Hoops

After a week off L’s team was back to tournament play with morning games both days about 30 minutes east of Indy.

Saturday we split two, losing by 22 and winning by 32. We were only down four in the first game with 2:00 left in the first half before giving up a 12–0 run. The lead quickly surpassed 20 in the second half and we had a running clock for the rest of the game. These girls were good: long, athletic, and could shoot. Pretty much the kind of team we always lose to. They hit a ton of 3’s; at least seven in the first half alone. We missed at least 10 free throws which could have at least made it respectable. We heard this team had lost by 10 to the girls that beat us twice two weeks ago.

L was solid in both games, scoring 6 and 8 and playing really good D in game two.

Sunday we were back at 8:00 AM for bracket play. We trailed 12–8 about four minutes into our semifinal. This team was giving us fits on defense but didn’t seem to have much on offense. After we hit a 3 to take the lead we finished the half on a 14–2 run and had a running clock most of the second half. L scored six but was 0–3 from the line. I believe she went 2–7 from the line for the weekend, the only makes coming when she hit 2–3 after getting fouled on a 3 attempt.

Onto the title game against the team that beat us Saturday. Just like the tournament two weeks ago, the rematch was a much better game.

Our girls game out super fired up and led 12–8 before giving up a 12–0 run. We were down 8 at halftime, but were limiting their three-point looks. L was face-guarding their best shooter – who hit six on us Saturday – and she didn’t take a 3 in the first half.

We slowly clawed back in the second half and briefly took a one-point lead at 36–35, only to give up an 11–2 run.

Again we clawed back. We were getting great, open looks from 3 and decent looks inside but kept missing. Yet we chipped away.

With under a minute left, down two, L got the ball on the left wing and didn’t hesitate, draining a three to give us the lead. But we gave up four-straight points and were down three with 2.9 seconds left, inbounding under the far basket. Our coach called a timeout to set something up. Which seemed a little hopeless since we had struggled against their pressure and surely they would press, right?

The girl taking the inbound faked a short pass, L cut from across the court at the midcourt stripe, the inbounder tossed a perfect pass just over the D, L caught it, took a dribble, threw up a running 3…and it banked in! Pandemonium! Poor kid thought she won the game, not tied it, and was a little bummed when she realized we were going to overtime. She lost her shit for a minute.

I’m not a videoing parent, and took some grief from the others when I didn’t capture it. Lucky one of our players brought a sister and her friend, and they did video it. I tried to include it here but can’t get it to embed properly. Trust me, it was fun!

Also worth noting she was supposed to pass to the girl in the corner, but decided not to.

In OT we were down two, with the ball, and time running out. One of our girls lost the ball while driving, the girl who threw the inbounds pass to Lia grabbed it and tossed it up. It rattled in just as the buzzer sounded. Double OT!

Despite being a championship game, tournament rules dictated the second OT be sudden death. We lost the tip, but held on D and had a run-out. We pitched the ball into the front court and had a 3-on–2 break. The ref up with the break suddenly blew his whistle and everyone looked around confused. The ball was nowhere near a defender, so there hadn’t been a foul. He pointed to the scorer’s table and yelled, “Start the clock!”

Only problem was the other ref had told the clock operator not to start the clock on the tip since the period was sudden death. We had been on the wrong end of a couple close calls late in the game and pretty much our entire side of the stands let this guy have it. Our calmest parent said she wanted to go punch him when the game was over.

Naturally after the re-start, we turned the ball over, that same ref called a very soft foul 40 feet from the basket, and they hit the first free throw to win.

A real bummer ending to a great performance by our girls. I get the need to keep games moving, but in a championship game, there shouldn’t be sudden death OT. Especially when both teams are in the bonus and either a soft foul or a player making a hustle play who gets a little too aggressive can determine the outcome.

L played her ass off. She scored 14, including a really tough layup late in the second half against their tallest player (who hacked her pretty good but got away with it). She had five turnovers but twice immediately stole it back. Once she made a terribly soft pass they picked off, then she stole it right back, drove the lane and tossed a perfect pass to a cutter for a layup. She locked down that shooter, who didn’t hit a 3 when L was on her in the entire game. And she hit two of the biggest shots of the game. She was mad about the result but pleased with her play as she limped to the car afterward.

If we could just get the team to play as hard in pool play games as they do in championship games…

Sunday night we capped off the weekend with the callout meeting for CHS basketball. She now has a rough idea of what her summer training with her future high school teammates will be like. She’s taking two summer classes. Throw in basketball workouts and homegirl is going to be bizzzzz-y this June.

NFL Draft

I’m long on record as hating the NFL Draft. It’s the most over-hyped event in sports, and sucks far too much air out of the sports media complex for far too long.

That said, I was more interested in this year’s draft than any other I can recall. That was, obviously, because the Colts were drafting at the four spot and there was a lot of confusion about how those first four picks would go.

I think I turned the TV on about ten ’til eight and was immediately annoyed. I should have known the entire thing would be an over-the-top, completely manufactured NFL/ESPN event. Sure enough in the maybe 20 minutes between when I tuned in and Carolina finally made their first pick, I got good and pissed off. Can we just get to the selections? The show is going to take four hours anyway, why do we need to stretch out the beginning?

As for the Colts’ pick, I honestly don’t think there was a sure-thing pick among the four top QB candidates. I was relieved Carolina took Bryce Young, as I worry about his size. Which means he’s going to be great. I liked CJ Stroud, but I wonder about his upside vs being a game manager who doesn’t really elevate a team. So Anthony Richardson was kind of my guy, although I give him like a 25% chance of turning into a franchise-level QB for the next decade. At least he’s an interesting pick. At least he has insane upside. I can deal with the chance that he is a complete bust and this pick sets the franchise back another 4–5 years because it is not a dull pick. If you shoot for the moon and whatnot.

Because I can’t stand that shit, I only glanced at two draft summaries. One gave the Colts an A+ for their overall draft. The other had it ranked as the second-best group. These grades are always suspect, as you never know how an athlete will transition to the pro game, if their bodies will hold up, etc. But it seemed like a good weekend for the Colts, and could be great if Richardson turns into a legit dude.

Weather

Continues to suck. Sunday was especially terrible. We got back from basketball around 1:00. It was dreary and chilly with occasional sprinkles. We had been home about 10 minutes when the skies turned pitch black, it started pouring, and there was small hail. Fifteen minutes later a glorious sun burst through. This cycle repeated all afternoon, with the temps slowly dropping each cycle.

Today it is only supposed to be 45. On May fucking first. With our pool available for swimming.

This Weather Is Bullshit

April 26, 2023 /

After an amazing first two weeks of April, we had the inevitable backslide. I shouldn’t be surprised.

Last week was back-and-forth until Thursday night, when a cold front rolled through and sucked all the warm weather away with it. Monday morning it was 28. We had several chilly, gloomy days where it felt more like mid-November than mid-April. Although the sun is out right now – and will roast you if you are sitting in your car waiting for you kid to get dismissed from school – the thermometer barely made it to 60 this afternoon. Tomorrow is supposed to be 67, but that will bring another crash with more nights in the 30s and days in the 50s. It looks like we will be several days into May before we reach normal temps again.

The real pisser to all of this is that we opened the pool a week ago. When we were in the midst of those two weeks of way warmer-than-usual weather, the girls begged me to open it. I put them off at first, knowing the warmth wouldn’t last. M told me, “I literally don’t care about school anymore so I will swim every day.” So I sent our pool guy a message asking him to come by if he was in our area.

He said there was a chance he could make it Friday, April 14, but if not then he would be out the next week.

By last Thursday night he hadn’t arrived so I texted him saying that it looked like the good weather was done for awhile, could he slide us to the first week of May.

He shot a message right back saying he would be at our house the next day.

So they opened the pool on a day when it was in the low 50s.

The water temp was 59 when they kicked the pump on. I ran the heater all weekend until I got it into the 70s, then backed it off and am letting it sit in the high 60s until the girls tell me they want to swim. Nope, M has not been in the pool yet.

Anyway, pool is open, and we’re back to lighting money on fire until it gets too warm to run the heater. I had to turn on the deck jets on for a few minutes last thing Sunday night and first thing Monday morning to make sure those pipes didn’t freeze. Almost as much fun as owning a boat…

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