D's Notebook

Tag: weather (Page 5 of 14)

Weekend Notes

May 2, 2022 /

I was going to begin this post with a complaint about the weather. Then I realized that our recent run of swings between warm and cool are what spring is supposed to be like. Sure, it would be great if it was 60 for two weeks, then 65 for two weeks, and so on. Recent years have seemed a lot more like 40s until April 10 then it’s suddenly 85. The bouncing back-and-forth is normal, we’ve just grown accustomed to the abnormal.

The weather was good enough last week for me to spend two full days outside prepping the pool and pool area for the crew to come open it for the season tomorrow. Lots of power washing, scrubbing, scooping of leaves, etc. That water was cooooold when I I had to stick my hand in it! That’s how I spent pretty much the entire school day both Thursday and Friday. Thus my lack of content.

Over the weekend L’s team had another basketball tournament. They won all four games and took the championship. I must disclose that two of those games were against sixth grade teams. One of them was a 40-point win, the other was by 16. That second team was good, and nasty. The refs were calling no fouls so they were shoving and grabbing our girls the entire game. One of our girls even got hit in the face, a hit that drew blood, and the ref standing four feet away didn’t call a foul. Unbelievable. Fortunately our girls were poised and put them away.

That first sixth grade team, not sure why they were playing in a seventh grade tournament when they were not good. Losing by 40 doesn’t make you any better.

The championship game was a big, cathartic win for many of our girls. Our coach and five of his players have played against that group for years in both AAU and middle school ball. And they had never beat them. L lost to them twice this winter, so even she was 0-fer. We led pretty much the entire game, a couple times by 12, and held on late to win by three. Another set of medals for our girls.

Now I’ve buried the lede a bit: L did not play at all this weekend. Friday at recess she fell and cracked her tailbone on the ground. I guess she was jumping, landed on a ball, and fell straight backwards. She was in crazy pain Friday and could barely walk when she got home.

When she woke Saturday the pain wasn’t any better. Fortunately the first three games of the tournament were easy wins. They could have used her in the title game, as our guards really struggled to handle the other team’s pressure in the last five minutes. Having another solid ball handler would have kept the game from getting close, I bet.

As of this morning the pain still had not improved. There’s not much you can do, according to S. Whether it’s just a deep bone bruise or a fracture, the only thing L can do is rest, treat the pain, and wait for it to heal. She was super bummed to sit on the bench all weekend. She will miss the rest of kickball season. She will miss all her basketball practices at least this week and maybe next. This coming weekend is off for basketball, so that’s good.

What she is most worried about is our first out-of-town tournament in three weeks in Louisville. That seems right on the border of when she will be cleared to play again, assuming no setbacks. She really wants to be a part of that weekend.

In her abbreviated kickball season she went 16–20 with six home runs. The team had two easy wins then lost a tough game to eighth graders last week. They play that team again tomorrow and we hoped we could steal that to force a playoff. But with L out that’s probably not in the cards. Tonight they have to play with just eight players because another girl has a conflict. I don’t think this game will be a problem, but when you’re down two fielders dumb things can happen on defense.

So that’s a big, ol’ bummer. We just got her knees checked two weeks ago and the sports medicine doc confirmed her pain is just Osgood-Schlatter and there’s no need to worry about it. He also confirmed she has plenty of open space in her growth plates so she will continue to add some height for at least a little longer.

I’ll admit I was a little mad that she got hurt in recess. It’s one thing to get hurt in a game, although when she pitched in kickball I got nervous about her getting some kind of hand/finger injury. But recess?!?! Seriously?!?!

The dad of one of L’s friends made a good point when I admitted I was a little annoyed by the cause of her injury. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s hard when they get older and start playing sports more seriously to still let them be kids and just have fun sometimes.”

She better have been having fun in the moments before the cracked her ass on the ground.

Weekend Notes

April 18, 2022 /

Sometimes the Midwest really sucks.

We had a decent Easter weekend, weather-wise. Not perfect – if it was 5–10 degrees warmer it would have been ideal – but at least it was warm enough to do little kid activities outside.

Then this morning it was snowing when I woke up. And it’s going to be 80 by Friday.

Sheesh.

We had our family Easter celebration on Saturday. Just about all the locals were there, including all the nephews under six. The girls had fun hiding eggs for them then helping the youngest ones find them. With five boys in that group, it always gets a little chaotic, but they were generally well behaved. As were our girls.

Luckily we had a brunch-time gathering, as L had two basketball games later in the day. They won game one by 12 or 13 but they made us nervous. After leading 8–0, they gave up a big run late in the first half and trailed 15–14. A little five-point run gave us the lead back before half and then we cruised in the second half.

L looked like she hadn’t played a competitive game in a month. Which, to be fair, was the case. She made some terrible passes, rushed shots, and went 0–4 from the line. One play summed up her game. She missed a free throw, battled her ass off to get the rebound – tipping it twice in traffic before grabbing it in the corner – then dribbled in for a wide-open layup before she panicked and traveled when she got stuck between shooting and passing to a cutting teammate. After the game I asked her what happened and she said she was so wide open that she wondered if the ref had blown the whistle and the play was dead so she just stopped.

She also got absolutely trucked by a girl when she was leading a break. They both went flying and parents in the crowd let out gasps. They both popped right up and L was laughing, although he had a big bruise Sunday. On our way out of the gym I heard that girl’s dad saying, “You about put that girl in the hospital!”

They had three hours off until game two, so it was nice that they were playing just 20 minutes from home. They trounced this poor team, winning by 40. L played much better, scoring eight while going 2–3 from the line. She was most proud of getting fouled on the break, making the basket, then converting the free throw. “I got an and-one!” was the first thing she told her sisters when we got home. Not sure they know what an and-one is…

Even though this was not a tournament, they still got medals. Which caused come grumbling from the parents. One dad said to me, sarcastically, “I guess everyone gets trophies now?”

“That orange team doesn’t,” was my response, referring to the team we just destroyed.

Harsh, but fair.

With Sunday open we got some cleaning down around the house. We planned on power washing all the outdoor stuff that needs power washed but our damn power washer wouldn’t start. We hauled out some of the porch furniture. It was cooler Sunday but it still felt like pool season was close.

The girls are all off today – Easter Monday is a Catholic school holiday – so there are some doctor appointments; maybe the first kickball game of the year if the parking lot dries off; practices for track, tennis, and basketball; and M is hanging out with the girls in her prom group getting ideas for how to do their makeup this weekend.

Weekend Notes

March 7, 2022 /

Spring?

That first weekend each year when the weather turns warm is always a delight. Living in the Midwest you know there will be plenty of wild weather swings before spring completely arrives. Yet even in a year like this when winter wasn’t all that bad, these weekends are welcome.

Saturday it was in the mid–70s here, breaking a daily high temperature record. I did some yard work to prep for the growing season and sat in the sun reading a book for about an hour. I wore shorts all afternoon. Other than the rather gusty winds, it was an ideal afternoon, feeling more like mid-May than early March.

We had loud, nasty thunderstorms overnight Saturday. Sunday was a little cooler and more cloudy, but with less wind. Much of my day was spent in the car or gyms, as we’ll get to, but S and I were able to take a walk late in the afternoon and it felt really nice. Sunday night/Monday morning we got nearly two inches of rain, setting another daily record.

The weather has already turned, and this week will be much cooler. Snow keeps flipping into and out of next weekend’s forecast. But the warmth is coming, and better days with it.

A lot of important hoops this weekend. So much that I’ll make a (relatively) quick pass at it all. Which you all will probably appreciate.

Jayhawk Talk

Big 12 (co) Champs!

There is a tinge of disappointment over going from leading by two full games with five to play to needing a nervy overtime win at home to salvage a tie with Baylor. It’s still another notch in the conference title ledger, though.

I saw very little of the game, as S and I had not one but two adult social engagements Saturday. (Look at us!) We did reach our second spot of the night just as the game was nearing the end of regulation, and after saying hello to the folks we were hanging with, I scampered over to a big screen to watch. As the game went into OT, I rejoined our crew but kept one eye on the game. When David McCormack dunked to put KU up five I slapped the table and said, “OK, I’m ready to be social!” That got some laughs. I was with a bunch of IU people so they all appreciated my need to focus on hoops.

Without seeing most of the game I can’t make any judgements. It’s concerning that Ochai Agbaji played one of the worst games of his career. The entire offense seemed to suck. But, hey, the defense was solid, they rebounded, they took care of the ball. I guess if you’re not going to score, you better do those other things.

I will be interested if Bill Self rests any of his players this week in Kansas City. I’m not sure it will provide any benefits in the NCAAs, unless guys have legit injuries they need to rest to heal. But it might be good for Ochai not to play 35 minutes two or three times this coming week. And, hey, perhaps let Remy and Yesefu play more than five minutes and give them a chance to get through mistakes and build some rhythm and confidence going into the games that really matter.

Then again, if I don’t expect a deep run in the NCAAs, maybe the Jayhawks should pull out all the stops to win the Big 12 tournament.

Duke/Coach K

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

When we got home Saturday I LOVED reviewing Twitter to see the sheer joy from around the country at the KU-Texas game going to overtime and ruining ESPN’s early coverage of K’s last game. Mark Titus even suggested that Self blew the end of regulation intentionally to ensure overtime and overlapping coverage.

And then for Duke to lose, their coaches to act like pricks to the Carolina staff, and K to scold the home crowd? It was the biggest chef’s kiss I can imagine. Just beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Listen, he’s the greatest coach in the history of the game. I’ve said that before. He’s won five titles playing at least three different styles of basketball. He’s adjusted as the game has changed, often quickly. But he’s always been a sanctimonious prick who puts himself above the game and acted like he hasn’t benefitted from a corrupt system more than any other coach.

Ya’ll know I had some issues with Roy Williams. But, dadgummit, he had the decency to announce he was done and disappear and not turn an entire season into an ego trip, and then get mad when his fairy tale ending got upended. I just hope someone beats Duke before the Final Four so K’s farewell tour doesn’t cloud the entire tournament.

KU Rumors

Just before we left the house Saturday some KU-NCAA rumors broke. They are just rumors at this point, and incomplete rumors at that. By the time you read this some real news may have arrived that renders the next paragraph or two meaningless, so keep that in mind.

The biggest rumor is that Bill Self and Kurtis Townsend will each serve two-year postseason bans. There was uncertainty whether that ban will begin this week or next March. As the rumor spread, there were a lot of “This could be Bill Self’s last 20/10/5 minutes of the season” Tweets. Hmmmm…

The key to the rumor was the insistence that this was just the top headline of the potential punishment, not the entire penalty. There could still be much more, like reduction in scholarships, recruiting limits, forfeiting games that Silvio De Sousa played in, etc.

I had to laugh at myself scrambling through Twitter once we got to our first stop of the evening looking more for confirmations/expansions of the NCAA rumors than the score of the game being played at that moment.

Awards SZN

The Big 12 coaches awards came out Sunday night. Ochai was the unanimous player of the year, to no one’s surprise. Despite his rough final week, no player ever challenged him for the award.

Much grousing in the KU Twittersphere about Ochai being the only KU first team pick. I don’t think it’s worth the time to argue. You can make a case Christian Braun or Jalen Wilson (and, to some people, both) deserved first team honors. But each player had stretches where they struggled, KU faltered late, and their numbers weren’t dramatically better than the guys you have to argue against to put them on the first team. Be thankful for the recognition and use the “snub” as fuel for the next month.

I think Mark Adams should have won coach of the year, and it shouldn’t be close, but Texas Tech losing two of their last three did take some shine off his season. Still, did anyone expect the Red Raiders, who lost their head coach, some decent talent, and brought in second and third tier transfers instead of marquee names like Remy Martin and Marcus Carr to challenge for the league crown until the final week?

I guess you can make a case for Scott Drew. He did have to get this team through a ton of injuries. But I think him winning the award was more about him, and Baylor’s PR team, winning the battle of narrative, making the Bears’ entire season about those injuries. Conveniently ignoring that he still had two (likely) lottery picks and a bunch of guys who won a national title last year even when they were battling through the injuries.

Drew winning didn’t bother me. Until someone reminded me that he won Big 12 coach of the year two years ago. When KU went 17–1 and won the league by two games. Yep, Scottie and the Baylor crew definitely have pictures and emails that they aren’t afraid to use against other coaches and the media.

High School Hoops

Cathedral won their first sectional title since Jalen Coleman-Lands was a sophomore. Friday night was their big battle, against rival Tech. The Irish trailed by six late in the third quarter before going on a 14–0 run that helped them pull away and win easily. In Saturday’s final they beat Lawrence North, who had ended their season three of the past four seasons, comfortably.

Cathedral is now the best team left according to the computer ratings, and have the highest odds with win State at 26%. They do have to beat a team they lost to two weeks ago to get out of regionals this weekend. But they seem to be coming together and playing to their talent level at the right time.

Kid Hoops

L had three games this weekend.

Saturday, while we were out, her winter league team played for their tournament championship.

I honestly have no idea how they came up with this tournament, which was just a little four-team bracket. Three teams were from the pool they played their regular season games against. The fourth team was a fifth grade team from L’s travel program. I asked her travel coach if he knew how they came up with that combination. He said the fifth grade team is really good; they won a national tournament last summer. They probably beat the hell out of some sixth grade teams in the regular season, he said, so they moved up another level to play in our tournament. He also believed the four-team brackets were done to get the tournaments over before travel season began this weekend.

Seems weird to me.

Anyway, L’s team played those fifth graders Saturday for the title. We watched the fifth graders beat an eighth grade team in overtime in their semifinal Tuesday. They have a girl who is almost six feet tall who hit a couple 25-foot shots and a bunch of shooters around her. I told L “Watch #33,” a shooter who camped out in the corner waiting to launch threes all night. “If you guard her, don’t ever leave her.”

Another team dad texted me updates throughout the game. At halftime he said L got a steal and layup right before the buzzer to put us up 8–7. We were up the entire second half between 1–3 points. Every few minutes he’d send me another picture of the scoreboard. Finally he sent one with all zeros on the clock and us winning 28–27.

Champs!

Well, watered down, weird bracket champs.

They actually got rings, although as the last game of the night no one who runs the league stayed to hand them out and L’s team got the ones that said “Finalist” not “Champion.” I guess no one looked at which bag they handed to which team. Oh well.

When we got home I asked L about her game. She said she had eight points, at least 10 rebounds, and “I shut 33 down! She only had four points!” The dad who sent me in-game updates confirmed all that.

So a great end to what was, at times, a frustrating season. The weird schedule (playing more 6th grade A teams than 7th/8th B teams), the lack of practice time, the absence of any organized offense. Flags fly forever. And I guess cheap championship rings last forever. Or at least until they get wet and tarnish.

Sunday it was straight into the travel season. Her team played in a two-game shootout. They are the third rated seventh grade team in their program and opened with a game against the #2 team. That squad has one girl that is a stud. She has size and can do almost everything. The only thing that stopped her were the refs who called anything remotely close to a travel a travel. I think they were a little harsh on her, but it was to our benefit so I didn’t complain or anything. We were down 12 at one point but made a great run late and trailed by one with under 2:00 left. We just couldn’t get the stops and scores needed and lost by five. It was a great effort, though.

In the second game we played a team that had a lot of size and knew how to use it. They took threes when open, but generally just punished us inside. L somehow drew the low block on free throws and gave up three-straight offensive boards in one sequence. It was demoralizing. We were down 13 at half. We got behind by as many as 22 in the second half to fall into running clock territory, and never got it closer than 16.

L had a weird day. She came off the bench in both first halves, started both second halves. She was scoreless in the first game, scored three in the second. But, man, she was as aggressive as she’s ever been getting to the basket. Before we left the house she told me she has a spin move that has been working. I rolled my eyes a little because I had never seen it. Sunday, though, she kept getting by her defender with it. She just could not finish. She was probably a combined 1–15 in the two games. Almost all those misses were either off that spin move or on runners. The runners were all forced and didn’t have much chance. But that spin move…it worked almost every time! Well, expect for making the shot. She even recognized when the defense caught onto the move and made a sweet pass out of it to a cutter. Who naturally missed. It was that kind of day for our team.

They start real practices tonight and I’m excited to see them learn the offense, get comfortable playing together, and improve over the next few months. They don’t play again for two weeks, but I’m expecting better things then.

Weather and Sports

October 6, 2021 /

Mother Nature can’t figure out what she wants to do. For the past few days, if you’ve looked through a window to see what’s going on outside, you would assume fall has taken over. It’s been cloudy most of the times, flat out dreary a few times, so you would think you would need to bundle up a bit when you set outside. Yet it’s still been close to 80 most days, and it looks like it’s going to be warmer than that for the next several days.

Not that I’m complaining. I’d be pleased as punch if I could wear shorts and t-shirts until Thanksgiving. However, I would also like to bust out the fall clothing. The jeans, the chinos, the flannels, the quarter-zips. You know what I’m talking about.

Game two of the CYO basketball season was last night. L’s team was playing St. I, a school that is always good and has beaten us pretty easily every time we’ve played them going back to third grade. We heard before the game that one of St. I’s best 7th graders would not be available, but knowing they have three really good 8th graders, we figured it wouldn’t matter much.

It might have helped us a little. At least at the beginning. We held them scoreless for the first four minutes and change of the game! Granted, we were without a basket, too. But being tied is better than getting crushed.

Sadly that changed quickly. St I scored, put on their press, and next thing you knew, we were down 12–0.

It never got much better – although we did win the third quarter 6–5 – and the final was 37–10. St. I not only had better players, but they all know how to play together. They would set up our defense and then get exactly what they wanted.

Meanwhile our girls were throwing lazy passes, never setting screens for each other, not running the right plays, dribbling into triple teams, and taking bad shots. The gap between the teams with players and the teams with athletes sure gets more obvious as the girls get older.

We were playing in a very small gym where the stands are directly behind the benches, so we were able to listen in on timeout huddles. To break the St. I press, our coaches drew up a very simple play that involved three quick passes and one cut. Our girls went out and ran it every single play for the next five possessions. It didn’t matter that St. I’s figured it out after the first play and adjusted their defense accordingly. Our girls blindly threw the passes that the coaches had told them to throw, without looking to see if that pass was covered and someone else was open.

It was super frustrating to watch and made me very glad I’m not coaching this year. The girls are all good girls. But none of them play enough basketball to not totally panic when faced with a better team that is messing up what they try to do.

L went scoreless, going something like 0–4 or 0–5 from the field. She had a couple decent looks in close that she missed. The rest were panic shots she threw up because she was trapped in the lane. She had one assist but approximately 37 turnovers. Ugly all around.

CYO now takes three weeks off for the various fall breaks around the Archdiocese. Stupid. L’s team does play in a mini-tournament this weekend but otherwise will have a few weeks to try to regroup and figure things out before they play their most winnable game of the year on October 26.

Hey, the Colts finally got their first win on Sunday! Since it was L’s birthday and we had some other things going on, I did not give the game my full attention. I believe I said it a few weeks ago and I have to restate it: I don’t like Carson Wentz, but that dude plays hard. You see why coaches and GM’s love his potential. He can make plays happen that only a handful of QB’s can pull off. But there’s always the downside with him that guys like Patrick Mahomes don’t also have, where he will account for an ugly turnover or three in his efforts to make a big play. Plus the inevitability of a major injury as a result of his scampering around.

The Colts still have tough games three of the next four weeks before the schedule lightens up a bit. That 0–3 hole is going to be tough to dig out of, even in the soft AFC South.

For those of you interested, CHS went down to Cincinnati and hammered a really good Ohio team last Friday. It was their best performance of the year. Their young quarterback had the best game of his career, throwing for 340+ yards, and he did it without his #1 receiver. Two more games in the regular season, both against fellow #1 teams from Indiana.

Finally, I was not super excited about last night’s AL Wild Card game between the Yankees and Red Sox. I even watched a short movie earlier in the evening. I did catch the last three and a half innings, though, and it warmed my heart to see the Yankees get bounced. A lot of things change over time, but my Yankee hatred remains strong after over 40 years.

I don’t think I watched a Royals game after mid-June. That terrible stretch that began about five weeks into the season killed any enthusiasm I had about devoting time to watching their young guys develop.

I’m bummed I missed most of Salvador Perez’s monster season. It has been shocking how he keeps getting better despite getting older. I hope he has another couple great years left in him so he can attach them to a season in which the Royals are contending.

Also a shame that Nicky Lopez’s out-of-nowhere great year was wasted on a season that the Royals were never in the race. You could have talked me into a great Salvy season last spring. But Nicky Lopez? No freaking way. Fingers crossed it was repeatable and not a fluke.

Now to get Bobby Witt Jr. to the bigs and hope the young arms progress. That’s enough to get me watching again next April.

Weekend Notes

July 19, 2021 /

Another relaxing and laid-back weekend.

Friday we wrapped up the rainiest week of a rainy summer by, yep, having more rain. By the time the storms stopped Saturday morning we were at six inches of rain through the first 15 days of the month. Which seems like a lot. The good news is I haven’t had to water the yard once so far this summer.

Friday evening S and I went to a party one of her old high school chums hosted. This wasn’t just any party, though. It was a rescheduled White Elephant party they have every Christmas. And since S’s high school buddy has a lot of Clark Griswold in him, he filled his home with Christmas decorations, cranked up the Christmas tunes, and greeted everyone with a hearty “Merry Christmas!” at the door. I threw out all my normal qualms with holiday music being played outside the season and was fully onboard. The pandemic has changed everything, folks. It was a fine evening.

As I’ve said before, the NBA playoffs and Finals are often too late for me to see the best parts of the game. I did catch the last four minutes of Saturday’s game five, which we an absolute thrill ride. Again, I have no rooting interest and can’t force myself one way or the other. So it was terrific fun to watch Phoenix slice a ten point deficit down to one, have the ball with under 30 seconds left, and have the crowd going bonkers. And it was equally fun to watch Jrue Holliday strip Devon Booker then throw a ridiculous alley oop to Giannis for the clinching bucket.

Sunday was a nearly perfect day. The sun was out, it was warm but not hot, and the humidity had finally broken for a bit. We spent nearly all day in the pool with a couple nephews. Any time it got just a little toasty, a slight breeze would kick in to refresh you. In fact, I’m sitting out on the porch putting this together around 8:00 Sunday evening and it’s damn-near perfect: 81 and breezy with low humidity. You can actually sit outside without sweating into your chair. We don’t even have the ceiling fan on. Oh, and the normal, annual cicadas have been emerging over the past week so we have a nice soundtrack to this lovely evening.

I watched quite a bit of The Open Championship Thursday through Sunday. Pool time kept me away from the tail end of the final round, although I did have NBC on our outdoor TV. Unfortunately it doesn’t face the pool so I couldn’t sit in the pool AND watch golf. Travesty. We should tear our porch down and start over to fix this error.

Anyway, another disappointing Sunday for Louis Oosthuizen. I wanted him to win just because of all the other close calls, but he looked shook pretty much all through his Sunday round. I think even laid-back Louis is going to rue his missed opportunities in the summer of 2021 when he looks back on them.

Jordan Spieth also kicked his chances away with some uneven play early Sunday and some terrible play at the end of his round Saturday. But he still made a little run and if a couple more putts had found the hole Sunday he could have been right there. He didn’t win a major this year, but it was great to have him back contending again.

Winner Collin Morikawa cemented his place as an absolute ace and perhaps the best player of both the under 25 and under 30 crowds. Which is saying something because both of those groups are filled with remarkably talented players.

On the weeks he putts well – as he did this week and a year ago when he won the PGA – he’s damn tough to beat. That’s the biggest flaw in his game, as his putting can be very erratic. Tighten that up and get it more consistent to go along with a fine long game and probably the best iron play in the game, and we just might have the generational star we’ve been looking for since Tiger fell apart.

Although as talented as the sub–30 group of golfers is, I have a hard time seeing Morikawa or anyone else running away and winning five, six, seven majors over the next decade. There are just too many insanely talented young guys in the game right now for one guy to dominate. Plus, “old’ guys like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, etc aren’t just going to let these young guys win everything. Well, Rory might…

Holiday Week Notes

July 6, 2021 /

A busy family and holiday week is in the books.

We had visitors. My brother-in-law, his wife, and their three kids who live in Boston spent a week with us. Their kids are 6, 3, and 2. When I think of our kids being those ages and trying to spend a week as guests in someone else’s home, the word “disaster” immediately pops into my head.

But the week passed quicker than I expected and was more-or-less incident-free. There were some bedtime meltdowns but those are inevitable and didn’t grind the entire house to a halt or anything.

It was very funny having the two younger kids talk to me. The three-year-old comes across as an old soul. He would come up and ask me a question – Have you seen my mom? Do you know where my swimsuit is? Can I have a muffin? – and wave his arms around and scrunch up his face like he was an old man and the fate of the world depended on my response. He would also forget the name of whichever one of our girls was not in the room. So he would ask, “Where is the other cousin at?”

One night we were getting ready to watch a movie and he was irate at my choice. “I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE!!!!” he screamed at me over-and-over. My brother-in-law whispered, “Just start it, watch what he does.” Sure enough, I hit play, the kid went catatonic, and didn’t utter a peep the rest of the movie.

His little sister killed me with some of the things she said, too. She has a sweet little voice and has very good speech for a not yet two-and-a-half year old. One morning she was asking me about breakfast, where her cousins were, etc and then dropped this bomb, “Can you stop hitting me?”

WHAT?!?!

I promise, I had not touched the kid. We think maybe she was asking me to tell her brother to stop touching her. We laughed about that all week.

Another morning she kept saying something to me and neither her dad nor I could figure out exactly what she was asking. Finally my brother-in-law said, “Oh,” and laughed, “She telling you she has a vagina.” Then she repeated it like three more times before asking, “Do you have a vagina?” More laughter. A few minutes later she told me her brother has a vagina which set him off. “MOM ALREADY TOLD YOU I HAVE A PENIS!!!”

Later my sister-in-law told us that while everyone was waking up, the little one started asking when she would get a penis like her brother, which led to an explanation of what different body parts boys and girls have. That left her with announcements and questions to share with the rest of the family. We missed out on fun like this with three girls.

Every day these little ones cracked us up with stuff like this.

Their older sister reminds us a lot of M at the same age. They both are/were very smart, could read well for their age, LOVE to talk, and have curly hair. If she pinned you down and started a story, you had to be prepared to listen for 5–10 minutes until she wrapped it up. I had years of practice with that so it was no sweat to me.

It was lots of fun to catch up with them since we don’t get to see them very often, and it had been 18 months since their last visit to Indy.

We had crazy weather over the holiday week. Early in the week we were stuck in a stormy, wet pattern. Wednesday morning we got three inches of rain in an hour, which set off our sump pump alarm at 6:30 AM and flooded the low point in our front yard. No water in the house, thank goodness. The next night we had another big downpour that put as at nearly six inches of rain in a 36 hour stretch.

Most summer nights you can hear frogs in our neighborhood after dark. All that rain must have forced all the frogs out of the ground because they were insanely loud Thursday night. It sounded like the Brood X cicadas of a few weeks back. At one point I realized they sounded much closer than before. Our garage door was still up, and when I opened the entry door, sure enough, there was a big, fat frog sitting between our cars. I grabbed the pool net and forced him outside then shut the garage door to keep him and his buddies out.

That was followed by two nearly perfect days, with cool nights, days in the 70s with low humidity. And then the normal July heat and humidity hit on Sunday for our Fourth of July gathering. The week ahead looks hot and muggy, so we’ll probably be doing a lot of sitting around in either the pool or remaining inside in the AC.

There were several gatherings over the week. A few informal ones around the pool during the days so the young ones could swim. Another of our local families hosted dinner and s’mores Friday night. We hosted the annual July 4th pool party for about 30, that included lots of food, drink, and Uncle D’s fireworks. We splurged for the extra-large Target fireworks kit this year. Monday we hung out with all of S’s partners around one of their pools for a few hours.

A pretty good week all around.

We have a quiet week ahead and then my in-laws arrive Saturday. My two brothers-in-law are flying down to Jacksonville Friday to load up a U-Haul while my in-laws fly up to Indy. Sunday we’ll all get them moved into their new house.

Mother Nature’s Fury

April 22, 2021 /

It was some 24 hours we experienced from roughly 5:00 pm Tuesday to 5:00 pm Wednesday.

On Tuesday we got hit by that freak, spring snowstorm that blew through the Midwest. Both C and L had kickball games scheduled, and both games were cancelled. C’s was actually cancelled on Monday night when their opponents all went into quarantine. With kickball out of the way, she decided to join her soccer team on Tuesday. I warned her that it was supposed to snow, be very windy, and very cold. She didn’t care, she was all in.

Wouldn’t you know it the worst of the storm hit right during her game. When we showed up the field was already covered, but the snow seemed to be stopping. As soon as the game began, the winds kicked up and started blowing heavy snow right into our faces. The players, at first, were having fun. But as soon as they all got soaked and chilled the fun ended. As the snow increased in intensity, it became almost impossible to control the ball. If you tried to dribble, the ball would either stick in the snow and go nowhere, or collect snow as it rolled like you were making a snowman. The best bet was to hit it long and hope someone could run onto it.

Soon kids started wiping out left and right. I have no idea why the coaches or referees allowed them to keep playing. In the midst of the slipping and sliding, our goalie got absolutely destroyed three times. The first two times the ref just signaled the kids to play on.

The third time, when our goalie was rolling around in the snow holding his head in pain, the ref finally relented and gave the attacking player a yellow card. The goalie’s dad is our head coach, and he was screaming at the ref, “THAT’S THREE TIMES, SIR!!!” I love how soccer coaches always say “Sir” to the refs. The ref didn’t like that. After he literally told our goalie to get up rather than check on him to see if he was ok, he walked the length of the field and gave our coach a yellow card for dissent.

My friend I was standing with has a very loud voice. He was getting super frustrated. He had cancelled the practices for his lacrosse teams, and his high school junior’s soccer practice had been cancelled. He thought it was ridiculous we were playing. He let it all out, “OH YEAH, GIVE HIM A YELLOW CARD BECAUSE YOU’VE TOTALLY LOST CONTROL OF THE GAME!!!” Everyone within a mile probably heard him.

The other dads and I were almost falling over laughing. After he finished with the coach the ref walked to us and said, “Which one of you has the big mouth?” Dave raised his hand and the ref said, “You’re out of here!” There was some back-and-forth before Dave slowly walked away, only to return two minutes later with a new coat on and an umbrella to cover his face. Hilarious!

It kept snowing harder. Despite wearing long underwear, snow pants, snow boots, a thick fleece hoodie, a down layer, a rain shell, and a stocking cap with the hoodie pulled over it, I was miserable. My glasses were totally wet, so I could barely tell when C was on the field. Every two minutes I had to brush the snow off my body because my clothes were completely covered.

On April freaking 20th!

This was the worst sports viewing experience of my life. It didn’t help that we lost 3–1. Although, to be honest, if we played that team in good weather it would have been 7–3 or worse. I hate that there are no requirements for how evenly balanced co-ed teams have to be in CYO. We were playing with mostly girls while the other team only had two girls on a team filled with really good male players.

Oh well. C was nearly frozen solid after the game. We sat in the car for at least 15 minutes, waiting for our bodies to warm and the windshield to defrost/defog. Once she stopping shivering she said, “Well, at least we had a memorable game!” I liked that attitude.

We ended up getting between two and three inches of thick, heavy snow. That was a problem.

I went to bed fairly early that night. I woke sometime around 11:30 and realized I wasn’t getting any airflow through my CPAP mask. I kept hitting the button on the machine to restart it, but nothing changed. After about five attempts I realized the power was off. That sucked! I tossed my mask aside and went back to sleep.

Fifteen minutes later C came into our room saying that something downstairs was beeping. I got out of bed, looked around, and finally found that the power supply our networking gear is plugged into had drained its battery and triggered its alarm. I flipped it off and went back to bed.

But this time I couldn’t sleep, so after tossing and turning for awhile, I got up, found my Kindle, and read for about an hour. I went back to bed around 2:00 and, after more tossing and turning, finally drifted off again.

Sometime after 3:00 I was again jolted awake by a loud noise. The smoke detectors were all ringing and the girls were wandering the hallway trying to figure out what was going on. S and I raced downstairs. Nothing on fire on the main floor. We went to the basement, where her parents were staying in our gust room. My eyes were blurry from sleep, but our flashlights seemed to show some smokey air as we rounded the corner. Her dad was walking towards us holding something that was giving off a cloud of smoke. Apparently he had woken up earlier, realized the power was off, and lit a couple small candles so he could see. One of them had nearly burned out and when it began to smoke, caused the smoke detectors to go off

We were all extremely thrilled by this development.

Once we got the air cleared and the alarms to stop ringing, it was back to bed. The rest of the night I woke each time I heard any traffic outside, thinking it might be the power trucks coming to fix whatever had caused the problem. It never was.

Finally morning arrived. Fortunately there was enough outside light that the girls could get ready without too much trouble. I found it odd that both of our neighbors seemed to have power. The neighbors to the north are on a different grid than we are, so it wasn’t unusual for one of our houses to have power when the other did not. But the house to the south was brightly lit, and I was sure we were on the same circuit. We don’t have any above-ground lines on our property that could have come down, so it didn’t make sense that only our house would be without power. The folks across the street seemed to have power as well.

I checked the power service website and it claimed 47 homes in our local area were without power, and nearly 2000 across the city. At least we weren’t alone, I guess.

I had no trouble getting the girls to school. All the traffic lights were working and the roads were clear. On the way I heard that we had set a record for both the most snow this late in the season, and the coldest day this late in April. It was a balmy 27 degrees.

I sat at home and waited for the power to come back on. And waited. And waited. I kept checking the power company’s site. Steadily the number of total outages dropped, but our little dot on the map remained. When I went to pick the girls up it was down to about 300 total homes without power, with our 47 all still dark.

By 5:00 everyone was getting antsy. The girls had homework to do and devices that required both Wifi access and charging. The house was getting cold. The food in our fridge had passed the point where it was safe to eat. I texted a sister-in-law to see if we could come over so the girls could do their schoolwork. She said of course and we began grabbing charging cables, devices, and materials needed to do their work and get everything powered for the night. I hoped we could take off for a few hours and come home to a lit and warm house. I had already warned S to do her charting at the office rather than save it for the evening.

We were seconds away from stepping outside when our electronic appliances began chiming. The internet gateway started its power-up cycle. The furnace woke and rumbled as it waited to fire. The one light that was switched on came to life. Nearly 18 hours after losing it, we had power!

We let out cheers, and the girls began debating what to order for dinner while I started throwing all the perishables from the fridge into the trash can.

I think this was a record for our longest-ever power outage. It could have been much worse. We have some friends who went a week without power two years ago. Still, 18 dark hours sucked.

The forecast says it is supposed to be close to 80 by Tuesday. Freaking Mother Nature…

Snow Day

February 16, 2021 /

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

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

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

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

IMG 3098

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

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

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

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

Weekend Notes

February 1, 2021 /

This weekend was a little different that other recent ones. No football, for starters. I also avoided the KU game, mostly because other plans kept me from seeing the beginning and by the time I had a chance to fire up the TV, several friends told me not to bother turning it on.

It was also our first significant snow of the year. We only got between 3–4 inches Saturday night (and then another inch last night), but that was enough for the girls to get outside with a few of their cousins Sunday to build a snowman and play for a bit. I had to pick L up from a friend’s house right in the heart of the snow Saturday evening. It was fun to turn on the four wheel drive and slip around a little bit on the turns. When M went to work Sunday the roads were fine, and by the time she returned home the parking lots at the high school across the street had already been cleared. I really need to get her out in a snowy, empty lot so she can be prepared if she ever gets caught out of the house when the roads get bad.

We watched one of our four-year-old nephews overnight Saturday. I think this is the first time this nephew has spent the night with us, or at least first since he was much younger. He’s in the “Why?” stage and wore us all out with questions. We were watching a movie Saturday evening, I forget which one, and it was something he had seen multiple times. He absolutely peppered us with questions. Why this, why that, who’s that, where’s he going, why is he going there and on and on. After about 20 minutes I cracked.

“Dude, you’ve seen this movie before, you know what happens!”

He thought that was pretty funny and just continued with the questions.

I obviously went through this three times with my kids, but I think I either tuned it out better or just had more patience then.

He’s a good kid, though. Smart, hilarious, and fun to be around.

It was funny when one of the other four-year-olds came over Sunday. They play really well together but are both pretty stubborn. They’ve already learned that when they get off the same page, they separate and do their own things. It’s amusing to see them argue for a moment and then drift apart, until one of them does something that catches the other’s interest and they hustle back together.

L had a game Saturday. They went to 3–1 with a 25–12 win. More impressive since their best player was out. L found a spot in the zone the other team was playing and just kept shooting. She hit two quick ones out of the main offense, then missed 2–3. The coach moved her to off-guard and had her start on the opposite side, curl under the basket to her spot, then had the high post player hit her with a pass. She hit the first shot and then missed a couple more. She and another girl combined for our first 12 points to put us up 12–2 and they led by 8–12 points the rest of the game. I think she ended up with 8 points and 4–5 both assists and steals for the game.

I gave her grief for missing two free throws late that would have put her in double figures. She missed the first one badly, barely grazing the left side of the rim before it smacked the backboard. One of the refs, an older guy, was standing right in front of me. He and his partner were more comedy act that referees and he let out a loud groan and then started laughing after the miss. I mock yelled at him, “Hey, I can laugh about her bad misses but you can’t do that!” He doubled over in laughter and patted my shoulder, “Sorry, Dad!” He was killing me the entire game.

One thing L is really good at is keeping her head up on the break and pitching the ball forward if a teammate is ahead of her. That’s how she gets most of her assists. Saturday she twice threw the ball to the weakest player on the team, who somehow was in front of everyone. The first pass connected and the girl came to a dead stop and fired a chest-pass shot toward the rim that hit the bottom, careened back, and nearly took her head off. L and her teammates who rode with us cracked up about it after the game. “Did you see H’s shot?!?!”

The second pass was something else. L was on the wing this time, received a pass, and saw H under the basket. L did a finger-tip, no-look touch pass. She kind of tossed it up the way you would an alley oop rather than extended her arms out. Poor H isn’t very tall and the ball sailed over her head. If our best player was in the game and in that spot, it would have been an awesome play. Unfortunately she was elsewhere, so it went in the scorebook as a turnover.

L has also developed a funny bad habit on the court. If she’s bringing the ball up against a press and starts to get trapped, she puts the ball in her left hand, tosses it forward behind/around the defender, runs out of bounds and tries to get around the defender, jumps back in bounds, and then tries to catch the ball. It hasn’t worked yet but she keeps trying. It annoys me during the games but afterward I find it highly amusing. I like that she refuses to get trapped, but she needs to learn to toss the ball to a teammate rather than just throw it to space.

Weekend Notes

October 12, 2020 /

We’ve hit that moment in fall that is both lovely and sad: the last burst of really warm, humid weather before things change. We are scheduled to have the pool closed on Wednesday, so last weekend was our final chance to swim. Friday I cranked the heater up to be sure the water was tolerable. That took the chill off but we may not have needed it Saturday as the temperature burst into the 80s. A couple of the nephews came over and enjoyed our last day in the pool with us.

Today the sky is darkening and the air is thick with humidity, feeling more like June than October. We may get a few sprinkles later, but not enough to break the drought we are mired in. It has been nearly two whole months since we got more than 0.10” of rain in a 24 hour period. Last week I had to bleach and flush out our sump pit because it had gotten so smelly from the lack of water.

The drought has caused trees to change colors rapidly and begin losing their leaves a little earlier than normal.

It looks like we will have a few more warm days before a bigger cold front comes through late this week and gives us more fall-like temperatures for the foreseeable future. In the era of global warning, you never know how many bursts of warm weather are left. Probably more than we expect. But these moments of transition always strike something deep inside my DNA that no doubt goes back hundreds/thousands of years ago when these changes meant finding shelter and stocking up on food to get through the cold months.

Besides swimming, it was a fairly boring weekend. M went to a watch party Friday for the CHS game at a friend’s house. (They won and are 8–0 going into the big season-ending clash with the #1 class 6A team.) C had a birthday party and sleepover at a friend’s. L was stuck at home with us.

It was certainly strange having the NBA Finals, the MLB league championship series, and the NFL regular season all on the same day Sunday.

The Colts lost a thoroughly winnable game in Cleveland, and the blame falls firmly on Philip Rivers. He’s taking some heat in the normally docile Indy sports media today. The gist of the argument against him is that he’s not performing that much better than Jacoby Brissett did last year, and he’s being paid a lot more than Brissett was. There was hope that putting him behind a stout offensive line could improve his passing stats. Losing his starting running back and three key receivers doesn’t help, to be 100% fair. But he also seems to making a lot of poor decisions. The defense has been great. Jonathan Taylor looks like a terrific draft pick. TY Hilton appears to be healthy. Quarterback is the only real weak link, at least thus far.

At least he didn’t snap his ankle like a pretzel. Very glad the Colts game was on at the same time as the Giants-Cowboys game so I could miss seeing Dak Prescott’s injury.

By the time I switched over to the NBA game, the Lakers were already up by 20. I didn’t think the Heat had one last run in them so pretty much avoided the game, other than a couple brief peeks to check the score.

Quite a run by the Heat. Had they been healthy maybe they could have stretched the Lakers out another game or even stole the series. They have to feel great about their playoffs despite the ending. I don’t think anyone outside Miami expected them to rip through the Eastern Conference and come within two games of a title.

As for the Lakers, this feels less like a triumph than an inevitable result. When the Clippers and Sixers proved too fragile in constitution and the Bucks too banged up, no one was really going to pose a serious threat to LeBron, AD, and their crew.

Their win kickstarts the “Is LeBron better than Michael?” debate again. I don’t think it changes my mind. They are still 1A and 1B, and lean toward MJ because of generational bias. But it gets harder and harder to separate the two. That said, the differences in the league during their two careers is what makes the comparison so difficult. The NBA is nothing now like it was in Michael’s career. So not only are they two very different players, but they also played in entirely different circumstances. Finally, I don’t think it is ever fair to judge a player who is still on the court against someone who has been retired, at least in terms of deciding who is the greatest ever. If LeBron ever retires, that’s when I will finally force myself to settle the question in my mind.

I’ve been a sporadic watcher of the baseball playoffs, some nights locked in, some nights not watching a minute. I watched a pretty good chunk of last night’s Houston-Tampa game. It was a classically tense playoff affair. I don’t know if it is the lack of fans, my general disinterest in baseball over the summer, or something else, but I’ve been finding baseball tedious over the past few weeks. I just can’t lock into all that playoff tension right now. I wonder if is the lack of a crowd is the biggest factor. There are no shots of people losing their shit because of nerves between every pitch.

Or maybe it’s just me getting old. I don’t think I could be as locked in if the Royals were in the playoffs as I was in 2014 and 2015. I was a mess those two Octobers. Not sure I what my mental state would be if I had to go through living and dying with every pitch again.

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