D's Notebook

Tag: weather (Page 7 of 14)

Weekend Notes

January 7, 2019 /

It is the last day of Christmas vacation in our house. It might hit 50 for the third-straight day, but no one seems real interested in getting outside and doing something. Probably has something to do with me telling everyone their rooms need to be cleaned up before anything else gets done today, and no one is moving all that quickly to start cleaning. C does have a volleyball practice in a bit, but other than that looks like one, final, lazy day to wrap up two-plus weeks of them.

So let’s look back at the weekend.

KU

Man, that’s about as shitty of a weekend as I can remember for KU sports fans. There were the big events: Udoka Azubuike getting ruled out for Saturday’s game at Iowa State because of an injury suffered in practice Friday, the Jayhawks getting run off the court in the second half by the Cyclones, and then Sunday’s announcement that Udoka is done for the season.

And then two smaller events, one of which that is, really, bigger: Gary Woodland getting caught by the red-hot Xander Schauffele and losing the Tournament of Champions by one stroke and former KU football great – and father of a current Jayhawk – Kwamie Lassiter dying of a heart attack at just 49. Seriously, there was a lot of bad texting amongst my KU friends this weekend.

The loss to Iowa State was miserable. Despite playing terribly, KU was still in a good spot with 1:00 to play in the first half. It was one of those “If they can survive the next minute, get into the locker room, make some adjustments, this is anyone’s game.” Then then gave up a bad and-one, followed by a bad possession on offense and a 3-pointer by Iowa State that, effectively, ended the game. The second half was brutal. Iowa State, who I had read was not a very good 3-point shooting team, hit just about everything they threw up. The KU defense seemed only mildly interested in guarding anyone and in the last 10 minutes often stood and watched while ISU had a glorified shoot around.

So a bad loss on paper, but in the grand scheme of things, it was just a single loss. One I had chalked up at the beginning of the year, a belief that was reinforced when Udoka’s injury was announced before the game. KU had a lot of work to do to get better, but Bill Self is always able to adjust and get the best out of whatever his mix of talent is. As long as Dok didn’t miss more than a couple games, KU would be fine, although the Big 12 race would clearly be a dogfight.

And then the Udoka news broke Sunday. This will sound dramatic to all you non-KU folks, but the season is over. In a season after a Final Four appearance, and in which they began a national title favorites, the loss of Udoka from an already flawed team means all the lofty goals of November are trashed. The Big 12 streak will end and KU will be fortunate to get to the Sweet 16.

If KU could suddenly find an elite shooter who had immediate eligibility I would hold out hope that they could right the ship. But this team’s fatal flaw is that it has zero reliable outside shooters in an era where you need multiple guys who can hit the 3. There’s no getting around that.

Some people have been saying today, “Well, if Silvio De Sousa gets eligible, that changes things.” He’s not getting eligible. If it was going to happen, he would have been cleared by now. I’m sure KU is doing everything they can to get him cleared, but that ship has sailed. He should head to Bosnia, or wherever Billy Preston went last year.

That’s not to say this is a terrible team, or that I will not still watch every game with great interest. In fact, this season suddenly becomes pretty much stress-free. Knowing the Streak will end this early in the season means there’s less pressure on the next 16 Big 12 games. Losses on Big Mondays won’t mean I’m awake until 3:00 AM replaying what went wrong in my head. The Big 12 race will suddenly be about KU being spoilers rather than favorites. Knowing they don’t have a chance to make a repeat trip to the Final Four should make March games much more tolerable to watch.

It all sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.

Colts

As KU was losing in Ames, the Colts were hammering the Texans in Houston. As I understand it only a pass interference penalty and a tipped interception kept the Colts from leading 35–0 before halftime. I was switching over during commercials enough to get the gist of the game without all the details. As impressive as the Colts performance was, I do temper my enthusiasm a bit knowing they were playing Houston, the biggest frauds in this year’s playoff field.

Now it is on to Kansas City for a very, very interesting matchup. The Chiefs should be healthy favorites; I give the Colts about a 10% chance of winning. As good as the Colts’ defense has been this year, they’ve not faced an offense like the Chiefs’. But the Colts’ suddenly stout running game makes an upset not entirely out of the question. Get a lead, start pounding the rock, convert third downs, anything can happen. Not that the Colts have ever beaten the Chiefs in the playoffs before, so there’s really nothing for my Chiefs fan friends to worry about Saturday…

Other Football

I caught parts of the other three playoff games. I’m really not sure what Seattle was thinking on offense, although I’m not an expert on these things. I laughed at all the people who were saying “No one wants to play the Ravens!” a week ago after the Chargers pounded them. I did see that stretch at the end of the third/beginning of the fourth quarters when the referees somehow managed to totally botch three consecutive plays in at least five different ways. All those guys should be done for the playoffs. And the last couple minutes of the Eagles-Bears game were simply fantastic for neutrals. What an ending!

Spidey

C, L, and I went to see Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse yesterday afternoon. It was really, really good! I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’m not into movies based on comics,[1] nor was I a comics fan when I was little. I do recall owning some Spider-Man comics, though, and recognized the sense of humor that was unique to them in the movie. L has always been a Spider-Man fan, so she really enjoyed it. As we were walking out, we saw a little guy, maybe four, in his Spider-Man costume. She had the same costume when she was younger and I bet she would have worn hers if the movie had come out back then.

Weather

I think M is the only one complaining about our mild weather. She was supposed to go on a middle school ski trip yesterday to some hills down near Cincinnati, but with it being well over 60 down there, the trip had to be postponed for a couple weeks. She was most annoyed about having washed dishes for a month to pay for the trip. “If it doesn’t happen, I will have washed all those dishes for nothing!” she whined. I let the comment go, lest she think it through a little more and demand cash in exchange for her services.

Back to the grind tomorrow. M and C will get their volleyball schedules soon. We’re counting down the days until spring break. And after the first semester wraps up next week, M will be in her final semester at St. P’s.

  1. I don’t think I’ve seen any of the modern Marvel or DC movies other than Ant-Man.  ↩

Kid Sports

September 11, 2018 /

Once again, that bitch Mother Nature has been playing havoc with our family sports schedule. I’ve lost track of how many practices, games, and other events have been wiped out over the past month. Seriously, it didn’t rain here for like six weeks, then, as soon as fall practices started, we began getting multiple downpours each week right around the time a kid was supposed to be doing something.

Here’s where we stand now.

M’s kickball team will not defend their City championship. They won their first two games – another game was stopped after one inning because of rain with them up 9–1 – before they ran into a buzzsaw. We had heard St L had been practicing four nights a week to come after our girls. We weren’t super concerned at first, because we had never had trouble with them. But we also heard they had a bunch of soccer players that had not played since fifth grade that were coming back for one final run at City.

And, damn, those chicks were good.

We were up by five or six runs after two innings but then got blasted. We narrowly avoided getting run-ruled after six innings and scored enough in the 7th to only lost by 16. It really wasn’t that close, though. We’ve never played a team that could kick like St L’s. Every girl through their entire lineup could absolutely blast the ball. Even their tiny girls who looked more like 6th graders could boot it. Our lineup is good, but also has several holes in it and we just couldn’t keep up.

That was a bit of a bummer, but I thought it was a good sign that all our girls recognized they got beat by a better team and came to terms with the loss pretty quickly. My memory might be a little off, but I believe this was only the sixth regular season loss these girls have had in nine seasons of kickball. And only their fourth regular season loss when playing against same-aged girls. Pretty impressive.

A night later we had an exciting one-run win over another one of our big rivals. I missed this game running the other two sisters around.

M’s team has a double header on the schedule for next Monday. Those will, likely, be the last two games this group ever plays together.

C’s team won their first three games and had their biggest game of the year Monday night against St. S, a long-time nemesis for her class. They were undefeated too, but where we were scoring between 20–30 runs a game, St. S had scored over 50 runs in all five of their games. Before we started, I joked with our coach that if we could just hold them to 30 and kick well ourselves, we had a chance.

Things got off to a bad start when three of our girls went to St. S instead of our field. Two of them caught their error quick and arrived before the game started, but the third girl rolled in in the second inning.

We somehow held them scoreless in the first, scored three in our half, and were up 5–2 after two. Then came the proverbial “bad inning”: we gave up 12 runs, eight after getting two outs. We dropped two balls in the outfield, bobbled a bunch of balls in the infield, and were on the wrong side of a close call at first.

We never got back in it and lost by 15. So no City for C’s team. She’s had a steady, if unspectacular season. Girls don’t kick it to the suicide spot as much as they did when they were younger, so she’s made a lot fewer plays than she did a year ago. But she still generally makes them when the ball is kicked her way. And I always laugh when another team tries to run on her and she races some girl down from 50 feet away. Her kicking has been hot-and-cold, like always. She has a few home runs. She’s also booted some deep balls that have been caught. Such is life in sixth grade. She has scored from first on kicks to shallow center a couple times. Once she almost ran down a teammate who was a base ahead of her when they were both coming home. She was giggling the whole time.

St. P’s will send at least one team to City this season. Our 7th graders are undefeated and two games ahead of everyone with one to play. And L’s classmates are still undefeated, although they have two tough games this week against teams that each have one loss. I’ve been giving L grief all season about “What if they go to City without you?” She always looks like she’s filled with mixed emotions when I ask.

Cross country has suffered from the weather, too. The first meet of the year was cancelled Labor Day weekend because of heavy thunderstorms. While S and I were in New York, C ran and finished in 10th place. It was her fourth fastest time ever, which was pretty good considering she’s barely practiced because of kickball and the weather. A friend sent a picture of her just after she finished and she looked like she was going to throw up. Then last week’s meet was wiped out because of heavy rains. I’m kind of anxious for kickball to get wrapped up so she can have a couple weeks of good training before the City meet in early October.

And L’s soccer season has yet to begin. She was supposed to play two games the weekend before Labor Day, but as all teams had just started practicing that week, both were postponed until October. Then last week the fields were flooded. So this Saturday will be her first game of the year. I’m counting on tornadoes or a blizzard or some other crazy weather to keep them from playing.

Weekend O’ Football

September 10, 2018 /

It was a full weekend of football for at least some parts of our family this weekend. Here’s a breakdown.

Friday was a big local high school game. Cathedral, where our girls will go, was playing their biggest Catholic school rival, Bishop Chatard. BC has the most state titles in Indiana history. Cathedral is second. I believe Cathedral leads the stat in total wins and championship appearances, though. Or something like that. They play in different classes – Cathedral is roughly twice the size of BC – and Cathedral also draws from a much larger area, so they generally dominate the rivalry. St. P’s sends roughly equal numbers to each school, so Friday at St. P’s was a spirit wear day where kids got to wear the gear from their favorite high school. Apparently the halls were filled with trash talk throughout the day.

M was very excited to go, because a bunch of classmates were going to be there. It was her first high school football game hangout, OMIGOD! So I carted her, a friend, and L to the game.[1] The only issue was that we were in the early stages of our 48-hour rain event. When we got to the stadium, it was raining in torrents. It had actually started pouring right after school. Then I asked the girls if it was still raining this hard at game time would they still want to go. They responded with a quick “YES!” so that was that and we got thoroughly soaked just walking into the stadium. It was raining so hard that even the artificial turf surface was filling with large puddles in low spots. It was an utterly miserable night.

Fortunately, it stopped raining suddenly late in the first quarter. It drizzled a few more times, but the heavy rains held off again until after the game.

Unfortunately for the first time in quite awhile, BC was clearly the better team. Cathedral was kind of lucky to even be in it late before a last-gasp drive fell short. It was the first win for BC in the rivalry in six years. I’m sure there is no trash talking in the St. P’s halls today. M had a really good time. She has several friends at BC and ran into them at halftime. She was warned not to go over to their student section, because she would be greeted with chants of “YOU DON’T GO HERE!” because of her Cathedral shirt, which she thought was great. And she mocked some friends on Instagram afterward, so I think she’s prepared for her high school years and some of her best friends going to BC.

Saturday it poured here pretty much all day. We have a drainage area in our front yard that filled as high as we’ve ever seen it.[2] So why not lay around and watch college ball all day? I flipped around a lot; I’m still getting used to where our channels are on Comcast, plus trying to figure out what second-tier sports channels we had on Uverse that we no longer have. But I kept my remote thumbs busy.

The big game, of course, was the epic clash in Mt. Pleasant, MI between Kansas and Central Michigan. Coming off the loss last week to Nichols State, there was not much reason for optimism. It was more a question of how much we would lose by and if that lose would force the firing of head coach David Beaty.

Little did I know that Central Michigan might be the only D1 school that is shittier than KU. It helped that top recruit Pooka Williams was finally eligible and ran all over the Central Michigan defense. I fully expect to hear soon that Pooka never should have been cleared, we forfeit the win, and he never plays another down at KU.

But for one afternoon, KU fans around the world could revel in not only a win over a D1 school, but a road win no less! The first in nine seasons. This was no joke, people. America sat up and noticed. The CBS crew gave props to the Jayhawks after the Georgia-South Carolina game. ESPN chose the win as their “Mayhem Moment” as the fine Clemson-Texas A&M game closed. Things might finally be happening for KU football!!!!

Well, we’ll see about that. I think the most likely outcome for the season remains one win, although I don’t think this week’s opponent, Rutgers, isn’t all that great either. It seems like Beaty is a good guy who is trying to do the right thing. The problem is just bigger than him, and he was woefully unprepared to tackle it. This should serve as a nice pre-parting gift for him. An acknowledgement that he took the mess that Charlie Weis left and worked his ass off to try to get it turned around. Pooka Williams, and some of the other young guys Beaty has brought in the past two years, will be the stars when the next coach squeezes out a 6–6 season and goes to some shitty, December 21st bowl game.

Sunday Andrew Luck finally returned. We were in the midst of some house projects right at 1:00 kickoff time, so when I turned the game on it was just in time to see Luck about get his head knocked off. Yep, Colts are back to normal, doing their best collective effort to get the franchise player killed.

However, the bigger football event of the day was M cheering at her first CYO game. We had to make a trek about 45 minutes south to go stand in the persistent drizzle and chilly breezes so she and her classmates could root on the 7th–8th grade team. The cheer squad’s new uniforms are not in yet, so they wore their gym clothes for the game. I would have approved of them being given a pass until the uniforms come in, but the girls seemed excited about getting out there and getting the fans and team pumped up.

I had never been to a CYO football game before, so had no idea what the rules were, how long the game lasted, etc. It didn’t help that the host school’s scoreboard was not working because it got a little wet.

I quickly learned, though, that CYO football games are quick. They wrapped things up in exactly an hour, which is about as long as I wanted to be outside. There are no kickoffs, either. After a score the opposing team takes over at the 5, which seems a little deep. The field had goalposts but I never saw a PAT or field goal attempt, so not sure if both teams lacked kickers or the coaches just weren’t interested in kicking in the slop.

St. P’s won fairly easily. I have no idea what the score was, though. Because, you now, the scoreboard wasn’t working. Their best offensive play seemed to be moving everyone to one sideline after the snap, then having the guy with the ball cut all the way back to the other side and then race up the sideline. That worked for 40+ yard gains like four times.

Also, CYO football seems to be kind of shitty. I say this as someone whose mom made him stop playing football after fifth grade when I would have had to start playing tackle, so I don’t have a lot of personal experience. But, man, these kids couldn’t run, catch, throw, block, or really do much other than run into each other.

After the game, the St. P’s coach told his players to go thank the cheerleaders and give them high fives. I began muttering, to the other parents of cheerleaders who were huddled around me, “Nope, no touching of the cheerleaders. Just stay away from them…” Yep, we’re getting to that age where I’m starting to worry about idiot boys touching my daughters.

Sunday night I stayed up to watch the Chicago-Green Bay game. If you stayed up, too, you know that was one that we will never forget. Aaron Rodgers doing something to his knee in the first half and leaving the game on a cart only to come back in the second half and lead a furious comeback that ended with a 75-yard, game-winning throw to Randall Cobb. The dude is amazing. And we’re going to find out in a couple hours his ACL is shot or something and his season is over, right? The NFL is terrible.

  1. C was supposed to go with a friend she had gone home with.  ↩
  2. At 8:00 Monday morning there is still a significant amount of water in it.  ↩

Weekend Wrap

July 30, 2018 /

It is a dreary, rainy Monday. A good day to just lie around and not do anything. Which is a good thing since about half the house is out of commission thanks to a stomach bug that is still working its way through the house.

Not especially good timing for that as last weekend was a big family gathering for my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday celebration. Her official party was Saturday evening and we brought the immediate family to our place for a lunch and hanging out on Sunday. I don’t know the exact count but I’m guessing at least 10 people had some kind of intestinal issue over that stretch. The odd thing is some of the people who got sick were ill before they interacted with each other. So we may have served as a focal point for the joining of several varying GI bugs. If there’s a Super Flu racing through the country soon, you can blame us.

Other than that, the celebration was good. It was a relatively cool weekend, at least for July in Indiana. Lots of good food. Our first chance to meet our newest nephew, who is nine months old. The first time all of S’s siblings have been together in a long time. We’re interested to see how the big group photos turn out. When you have a three-year-old, three two-year-olds, and a baby it makes for interesting photography times.

Friday I drove down to pick up M from her week of camp. She had another really good time, making a couple new friends and hanging out with two of her best friends. They were all in tears when I picked them up. I reminded her, good naturedly, that she would see her school friends in just a couple days. She said “But this is our last year at camp!” Which seemed like a solid point. Until she told me, on our way home, that she wants to come back next year for one of the other sections of the camp that is open to older kids, she wants to be a junior counselor when she turns 16, and she wants to be a full counselor when she goes to college. Teenage girls, man…

She turned 14 while she was away. I’m retiring the birthday posts, mostly because I feel like the girls are all pretty locked into their personalities and it’s harder to think of several hundred words to write about them on their birthdays. She definitely seems like a 14-year-old, though. Mood swings, irrational emotional outbursts, moments she expresses strong confidence countered by ones when she is totally unsure of herself. Every element of her personality expressed to its maximum level. It’s a delightful time to be a parent.

We’re down to two-and-a-half weeks of summer break remaining. We have a fairly busy week of activities lined up this week, weather and health permitting. C begins her normal cross country practice schedule this week. Kickball practice is about to start, too, and soccer is a couple weeks away. Our not-so-lazy summer schedule is about to shift into the super packed stretch of weeks that are the beginning of the school year.

The Last Weekend

June 11, 2018 /

I’ve long documented on the pages of this personal website (aka weblog, aka blog) that Mother Nature is a bitch.

She proved that to be true once again this weekend.

After six weeks of hot, dry weather, she decided to unleash a torrent of heavy rains on central Indiana. Just in time to, more or less, ruin our weekend at the lake. We had about two good hours Saturday, between our first guests arriving and the first storms hitting, and then maybe 45 minutes Sunday between storm waves, to take kids out on the boat for tubing and boarding. The rest of the weekend was spent holed up in our home with three other families, 10 total kids from 14 to 3, trying to make the best of the weekend.

This was significant because it was our final weekend at the lake.

We showed the house for the first time last Wednesday and those folks made an immediate offer. They are paying full price in cash, so things are going to happen quickly. We are currently scheduled to close on July 2. However, the inspection is today and unless anything major comes up,[1] we anticipate them asking to close even sooner.

So that was it. Which made it a weekend full of mixed emotions. As I documented last week, I’m well past done with all the prep and clean up that goes into hosting people. I’m done with moody kids who sit around and pout. I’m done with kids of our guests who make huge messes and neither attempt to help clean them up or apologize for making them.[2]

But I also spent the weekend trying to enjoy the good moments while remembering the high points from the past six summers, of which there were many. When we bought the house it was a little earlier than we had planned. But we wanted to do it while the girls were still fairly young and would be able to make memories that lasted the rest of their lives. They’re not pleased that we’re leaving the lake life behind us. But I know they will always look back and remember swimming and tubing and fishing and all the other fun things they did in our time down there.

The only bummer of the deal so far is the buyers decided not to make on offer on our boat. So I’m furiously working various angles to try to sell it quickly, preferably to either someone down there or to someone who is capable of hauling it wherever they want to take it. I’d really like to avoid dragging it back to Indy one last time, and/or having to store it somewhere for awhile as we attempt to sell it. I have a few leads, I have no idea how promising they are. But some information has been sent out. We’ll see if I can get any bites and hook them before we have to be out of the house.

We will go down at least one more time. We drop C at camp next Sunday, which is right down the road. We’ll make a stop to grab our final personal effects, load the trash up one more time, and then depart. Knock on wood we can include wrapping up things with the boat that day, too.

Anyway, it was an immense relief to sell that house quickly. Obviously any time you are buying and selling properties there are endless stresses involved. When you could potentially own three homes for a stretch of time those stresses increase exponentially. We still need to sell our main home – traffic has still been slow although we had an open house Sunday while we were gone, and are contemplating some changes we can make if things don’t pick up in the next week – but getting the lake house moved in a day was monumental.

First world problems…

  1. Furiously knocking on wood, throwing salt over my shoulder, lighting candles, and having the girls say endless prayers…  ↩
  2. Seriously, we found a “paste” made of Oreos, Gatorade, and something else rubbed into the sheets and run of the bunk room. And another kid spilled red drink on white carpet and never acted like it was a big deal.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Wrap Up With More Big News

May 29, 2018 /

Our summer is off to a very hot and hectic start.

Remember back when I was bitching about how cold it was in April? Mother Nature was paying attention and has punished me, and others in Indiana, who complained about her April offerings. This month is almost certain to clinch the hottest May in Indianapolis history. Yesterday was the hottest May day here in 107 years. It’s stupid. I’m assuming June is going to be wet and in the 60s.

We began the summer as we normally do, heading down to the lake. We went Saturday, taking one of our young nephews, and were joined by other family on Sunday. So the girls were super annoying Saturday without friends to keep them entertained. They were slightly better when aunts, uncles, and other cousins showed up. We had a second birthday party for one of the cousins. The rest of the time we just sweated in the heat.

Each of the past two summers, as we’ve closed down the house for the season, S and I have had a very brief conversation about whether the lake house is worth it. We really only spend six or seven fun weekends down there every season, but we’re paying a mortgage, insurance, taxes, and utilities for 12 months. We always talk about spending a weekend down there in the fall or winter, but never do it. Each of the past two years, the answer has been yes, it is still worth it. That math has changed.

We’re getting ready to sell the lake house, too.

It’s partially because we’re getting busier and it’s going to be tougher to get down there as the girls continue to get older. But it’s also because our new home in Indy is stretching us out more on how much money we’re spending on properties each month. It’s tougher to justify the lake house when it’s no longer in the comfortable financial zone to keep it.

We told the girls a couple weeks ago, and they weren’t happy. One of them cried for an hour. Too much change at once, I think. We explained our reasoning, but also pointed out that this will free us to do other things in the summer. They can have friends over more often. We might get to take some more, bigger trips. Eventually that logic has taken hold, but I still think they are, overall, disappointed.

When they were acting like being at the lake was a chore this weekend, when I spent 90 minutes in the heat working in the yard, when I thought ahead to all the prep for lake weekends and all the clean up after, I was ready to put a sign out when we left Monday morning. I’m sure I’ll be in a better mood in two weeks when we have friends down. But after six great summers, I’m kind of done with it.

We are just full of bombshells lately, aren’t we?!?!

Our home here officially went on the market today. We already have one showing scheduled. It’s been a hectic week or so to get the house as ready as it can be to start letting people walk through it. I believe I mentioned one of our next door neighbors had two offers the first day they put theirs on the market two weeks ago. That sets kind of a high expectation for how quickly things could happen. We also pushed our price up a decent chunk since they got more than their asking price, and we have more updates and a much bigger lot than they do. We could get an offer in a week, which would be pretty good, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be all stressed out since the neighbors were done so quickly.

We went over to meet the builder at our new house today. Even though we bought after it was 95% complete, we still had to run through some bullshit marketing surveys to satisfy their execs. They were putting in all the landscaping today, which made the house look better. Only problem is it is hot and dry, as I mentioned above, and they’re waiting on some final piece of paperwork to get the water line connected. We’re supposed to have a pretty good dose of rain over the next 36 hours as the tropical storm remnants pass us, but if the water isn’t hooked up soon, I worry we’ll have to start over in the fall. Oh well…

I hope all of you had safe and enjoyable holiday weekends free of major, life-changing decisions.

The Bare Minimum

April 24, 2018 /

Lazy ass.

That’s what I’ve been.

Well, to be fair to myself, we do have a couple potentially large projects in the planning stages that have dominated my attention of late. Should they proceed, I shall share them here at a future date.

But I’ve also just been lazy. Freaking weak-ass weather isn’t helping either.

We got the boat in the water last weekend. All went well in every aspect of that process. No issues getting the boat down from Indy to the lake. S got the trailer in the water as quick as she ever has. And the boat started right up for a very chilly, early Saturday trip from the ramp to our lift. We had to do it early in order to get back for L’s soccer game, so it was still idle speed hours on the water, thus we casually cut across the lake, the only boat out.

We were also able to check out the repairs that had just been completed to our boat dock area after a big-ass tree fell on it in February. Everything looks good as new. The crazy thing is it looks like there was about a 5% chance of that tree making it all the way to our dock without getting blocked by another tree. Somehow it threaded that needle and did a fair amount of destruction in the process. I think it may have actually bounced off another tree on the way down. Freaking gravity…

Spring sports are officially underway, although our family has more rainouts than games played in kickball so far. I have a legendary kickball story to share in another post at some point.

Other things I need to write about soon:
* KU basketball and the FBI
* A Reader’s Notebook
* Something about the Royals maybe
* Perhaps some NBA playoff chatter
* Share a couple more good links

It’s supposed to start drying out here tomorrow and slowly begin getting closer to normal April/May temperatures. Hopefully that will get me re-focused on providing you quality content on a more regular basis.

Friday Notes

April 6, 2018 /

It’s been a busy week around these parts.

First, crazy ass weather. Sunday night/Monday morning we had our fourth snowstorm in the past two weeks. This time we got somewhere between 3–4” of snow. We received almost as much snow in those two weeks than we had gotten all of this winter before then and last winter combined. Weird.

We followed that up Tuesday with ridiculous rains. Some areas got 5” of rain. Pretty much any low land around here was/is still flooded.

And then Wednesday it snowed again, flurries all day.

I actually kind of like this late winter burst. Only because we’re leaving for a week in Mexico on Saturday. I like leaving for spring break when it still feels like winter. It’s kind of strange to leave when it’s already in the 70s and sunny every day. Now the real trick is for spring to finally kick winter’s ass out of here while we’re gone and come back to normal April weather.

Another sign spring – and summer – are getting closer: I had our boat scheduled for its spring start-up so it is ready to put in the water in two weeks. That’s a little earlier that we would like to do it, but we had to switch storage places this year and the new business has an earlier pickup deadline than our old place.

Today was also confirmation that our boat survived the winter. I forget if I shared this already, but the place we store our boat had one of their storage buildings burn down right before Christmas. I assumed our boat was fine since we never got a call. But I was reserving about 1% of my brain for there to be a long pause and then the owner asking me to come into his office when I was setting things up today.

Our new deck at the lake was not so lucky. About a month ago a large tree fell onto it during a wind storm. The tree took out one side of deck railings, destroyed a few of the floor planks, split our peddle boat in two, and also damaged a bunch of pavers that form a retaining wall. Luckily insurance will cover most of it and the repairs have already begun, so everything should be 100% when the summer season begins.

Wrapping up college hoops, I remember when my mom used to tell me, when I was a kid, that I should always want the team that beat my team to win the championship. She argued that validated my loss. I always thought that was garbage; I wanted the teams that beat mine to go down in flames in their next game. I wanted them to feel the pain I felt. Besides, my team should have won, why give that other team any credit?

I’ve softened in that view as I’ve grown older. If the other team was legitimately better, I’ve learned to give credit. And Monday night Villanova proved they were the best team in the country, by far, this year. There was zero shame in KU losing to them in the Final Four. I think the only team this decade that is better than them is the 2012 Kentucky team that had Anthony Davis. He’s probably the one guy this decade that Nova couldn’t guard. And that Kentucky team would give them fits because of their height. But Nova shoots the ball well enough that they would still have a chance in that mythical game.

KU and Villanova play the next two years in the regular season. Those could be decent games.

By the way, Bill Self has won three straight games against Coach K. He’s won three straight games vs. John Calipari. And he’s won three straight games vs. Roy Williams. But he’s also lost three straight games vs. Jay Wright. Interesting.

As I was eating my lunch today the news broke that Lagerald Vick has declared for the draft. That came a day after Malik Newman announced he was leaving school. And now suddenly KU has an open scholarship! They just happen to be one of three schools in the running for the best un-signed recruit, a shooting guard from southern Indiana. I would approve of KU finally signing a blue chip recruit from Indiana.

Oh, and I finally finished season one of Stranger Things last night. I started watching it in late January and went 2–3 weeks between episodes until this week when I knocked the last four out in two nights. That was some high quality television programming. And the final episode was about as good as TV gets. Pretty much every note of that episode was perfect. Looking forward to starting season two after we get back.

That will pretty much do it for posts here until our return. If we have a rainy day and I’m stuck inside I might post something, but do not expect any new content for awhile.

D’s Notes

March 5, 2018 /

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a random notes post. As I’m kind of between longer posts, right now feels like the perfect moment to revisit that favorite of blog readers worldwide.

Hoops

A shame KU got blown out at Oklahoma State Saturday. But I A) wasn’t super surprised and B) didn’t really care. My blood pressure rose only slightly because so many of the KU players seemed utterly uninterested in competing. As I told several friends before the game, I was cool with KU losing that game and then losing before the Big 12 tournament championship game next weekend. They accomplished this year’s biggest goal: winning the Big 12 again. Despite all the metrics that say otherwise, I don’t think this team deserves a #1 seed. I’d rather they go into the tournament as a #2 seed, and I don’t care what region they play in. I don’t see a deep run in this team, and I’d rather the inevitable end be about 25% less frustrating because they aren’t a #1 losing to an 8 or 9 in Wichita next Sunday.

Weather

Man, we had a good run of weather. For about a two-week stretch the highs were always well above normal, with a couple days up into the 70s. Our lawn has already started to green up a bit. Buds are popping out on some trees and bushes. Flowers are emerging. This is Indiana and it’s still early March, so the inevitable cool down arrived this morning, and this week looks to be cold again, with a couple chances of light snow. For the third straight year we ended meteorological winter[1] with less than 10” of snow. Our biggest snowstorm came while we were in Denver, so we missed the 2.5” we got in late December. And it was the fourth straight winter with less than 20”. Not that I’m complaining, but our snowblower has gone unused so long I’m not expecting it to work the winter we finally get snow again.

Oscars

I only saw Coco among movies nominated for Academy Awards this year. I don’t say that with pride; I’d like to get back into watching movies again. But with a deep Netflix queue of great TV shows and 800 books to read, it’s hard to devote three hours and the hassle of going to a theater to seeing first-run flicks. And with our girls going to bed at 9:00, it’s hard to squeeze in a DVD or streamed flick after they go down. Maybe some year I’ll devote my time to catching up on all the great movies I’ve missed over the last 15 years or so.

Beer!

Two weeks ago the Indiana state legislature passed a bill amending the state’s liquor laws and allowing Sunday sales of alcohol. The bill came with a late amendment that put the law into effect on the first Sunday after it received the governor’s signature. That signature came last Thursday, so yesterday was the first day in the modern history of Indiana where you could go to a liquor, grocery, or convenience store and buy beer.[2] To celebrate the day I went out to a local liquor store mid-afternoon. It was the busiest liquor store I’ve ever been in! The parking lot was full. The aisles were cramped. It was pretty funny. I bought six and four packs of two local beers, which were both 25% off in celebration of the day. I imagine next Sunday most liquor stores will be rather quiet, but it is nice to finally have the option.

  1. December 1 through March 1.  ↩
  2. But you can still only buy cold beer at liquor stores. That lobby refuses to cave on that one.  ↩

Belated Holiday Wrap Up

January 3, 2018 /

Glory be! After roughly 36 hours without either cable or internet access, our house (and neighborhood it turns out) has been reconnected! So I can finally start unloading some of the accumulated content from the past week-plus.

First, Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations, large and small, were fun and safe.

Let’s go back to 2017 and review how our family rolled over Christmas.

Christmas Day

I believe I mentioned this in my annual Christmas Spirit post, but the myth of where gifts come from was finally burst in our house this year. There was no formal acknowledgement, just little comments here and there that made it obvious the girls know that all those Amazon packages that show up from late November through December contain their gifts, not a jolly fat man and his reindeer who deliver them on Christmas Eve. L still put up appearances at times, because that’s what she does. But we knew the girls knew.

It didn’t help that at least one of them found our gift hiding place. For years we’ve been able to put boxes on a shelf in our closet that only I can reach. It’s just inside and behind the door, so younger eyes were generally not looking in this area. But one night I went in to change for bed and noticed the box was on the floor. I asked S about it the next day and she said she hadn’t taken it down. We’re not sure how but one/a combination of the girls pulled the box down and saw all their unwrapped gifts. S was more than a little pissed and wanted to say something. I pointed out that one year I had unwrapped nearly all of my gifts well before Christmas.[1] Looks like we’ll have to hide things better next year.

Anyway, Christmas morning… our girls all did well. M got the Beats headphones she desperately wanted but was sure we wouldn’t get her. She also got some new adidas and a shirt. Yep, she’s reached the age where she’s more interested in clothes than toys. Along those lines, C got a new desk and sheets. L got an Amazon Fire tablet and some Star Wars Legos. All were pleased with their gifts.

After presents, we did our final packing and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Denver. As we had hoped, the Indianapolis airport was pretty slow that morning. The weather was fine – we got about an inch of snow on Christmas Eve, but Christmas morning was cold and clear – and our flight was on time. We looked forward to being in Denver in a few hours.

The Flight

Facebook friends know our flight had some issues.

We took off as scheduled and headed west. Shortly after the fasten seatbelt sign went off, we heard an announcement that the front lavatory was not working. A few minutes later, the pilot said the rear lavatories were out of order, too. They were trying to figure out a fix in the air, but he added they were “exploring all options.”

About 15 minutes later, he came on again and said that they were still talking to the ground to see if the lavs could be fixed in the air. He also said that because our flight was so heavy, we had limited options on where we could land if we needed to. That seemed a little ominous. He would keep us updated, he promised.

Another 10 or so minutes went by when he came on again and announced than none of their in-air fixes were working, so we were turning around and landing in St. Louis, hopefully for a quick fix and back into the air shortly thereafter.

We were just a few minutes past St. Louis, so were on the ground quickly. Then we waited as technicians came in-and-out trying to get the shitters fixed. We sat for an hour, with some folks exiting to use the airport restrooms, before they announced we were switching planes. So off we went, down one gate, and waited about another hour before we boarded and took off again.

We figure St. Louis was the only airport on our path that had an extra plane we could switch to if needed. Because it would have made more sense to continue to Kansas City and land there. Yes, I was wondering if there were any decent barbecue places in KCI these days.

Oh well, we arrived about three hours later than planned, hungry, tired, but excited to start our Christmas adventure.

Denver

So my sister-in-law and her husband knew we were coming, obviously, but their kids did not. We Facetime with them once a month or so and ever since we booked the trip in the fall, our girls were always giggling and whispering “Don’t give it away!” when we talk to them. My sister-in-law picked us up and delivered us to their front door, where we all donned Santa hats and rang the doorbell. The kids answered and freaked out a little bit. My nephew, who turned 8 the next day, fell over and grabbed his heart. His five-year-old sister squealed with delight. It was exactly the reaction we had hoped for and a Christmas surprise all the kids will never forget.

On Tuesday we celebrated W’s birthday. We went bowling in the afternoon and had his local grandparents and an uncle over for dinner that evening.

On Wednesday we drove up to Vail, where my brother-in-law’s family has a place, for some mountain time. Since we were only spending one night there, we decided not to have the girls try skiing. So Wednesday we walked around Vail, had lunch and dinner there, let the kids ice skate in the evening, and got our girls the obligatory local sweatshirts.

On Thursday we drove down to Frisco and went snow tubing. That was a lot of fun. We did this ten years ago at Keystone, and that was a small hill on a golf course you had to drag your tubes back up each time. This was a manicured hill that was twice as big and had a Magic Carpet ramp that hauled you back up. We found that connecting multiple adult tubes together really made you fly. It was a pretty good time and no doubt better for our girls than trying to teach them to ski in just one day.[2]

I was pleased at how well we handled the altitude. I was very nervous because 10 years ago I had a really hard time in my first 24 hours in Breckenridge. But I had only occasional moments of needing to quickly catch my breath in Vail. We figured it was because 10 years ago our time in Denver was in a hot hotel where I didn’t drink much water, with a wedding squeezed into the final night. I went to the mountains dehydrated that time, where I was drinking tons of water as soon as we got to Denver this time.

Unfortunately, by this time my nephew was getting pretty sick. And it was beginning to pass through to our kids. C was coughing a lot and the rest of us all had sniffles. So Friday we kept things pretty tame. We had planned on going out that night to look at some of the holiday stuff in downtown Denver, but the kids were dragging so we let them watch a movie at home.

Saturday morning C was feeling much worse, coughing like crazy, and having trouble breathing at times. There were a few moments where we worried about whether she’d be able to get on the plane or not. But we got her steadied and we made it home without incident.

Other than the illnesses, which you kind of have to expect if you travel this time of year, it was a great week. We had plenty of fun in Denver. I do admit it was weird spending Christmas week somewhere else. When we got home Saturday evening I kept thinking, “Wait, Christmas is over?” My brain is still having trouble with the abrupt ending to all our traditional activities. But I also appreciate how our Denver relatives are often spending their holiday week in Indy with us, so was glad they could stay home for a change.

NYE

As has become a family tradition[3] we threw together a last-minute dinner for S’s sisters and their families. I made chili, there were lots of appetizers, and we did a mock countdown around 10:30 for our girls and their young cousins. It was a fun night. I’ve managed to hold off the illness for the most part, but was still pretty wiped out. I think I read until about 11:15 before I called it a night. L claims she was still up in her room until after midnight.

F&%K It’s Cold

We’re are about 36 hours away for setting the longest stretch in Indy history where the temperature has not risen over 20. We had some more light snow Sunday and are supposed to get enough to make rush hour tonight pretty nasty. When it finally warms up a little on Sunday we’re supposed to get hit with an ice storm.

Already so sick of winter.

We’ve had a couple practices and have a couple more later this week. The girls have some friends over now. L has a party Friday. We are gathering with some friends on Saturday. I’m trying to come up with some other indoor activities to get us to next Tuesday when the girls begin the new semester.

  1. We’re a put all the gifts under the tree Christmas morning family. My mom preferred to slowly lay them out over the course of December. Since I was home alone roughly six hours every afternoon/evening, I sliced through the tape on one side of each box, carefully peeked inside, then placed a new piece of tape directly over the original. Christmas morning I made sure to open each gift from the re-taped side to hide my work. As far as I ever knew, my mom had no idea.  ↩
  2. And, to be honest, me as well. I only tried skiing once, 30 years ago, and was not good at it in the hour or so I tried. I’d be starting from scratch, too.  ↩
  3. Based on the last two years only.  ↩
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