A pretty light edition this week. (Update: have a sick kid at home for the fourth time in two weeks, so was able to read/add a couple more articles while watching Scooby Doo and Despicable Me 2.) To begin, more love for Bill Self. I’m sharing these now since we’ll all be bashing him in a couple weeks when KU loses to a lower seed in the NCAA tournament.
open.spotify.com/user/224a… “The Boy In the Bubble” - Paul Simon. I acknowledge Simon’s place in music history, but his songs never really connected with me. They were my parents’ generation’s songs, not mine. This is the one exception. I’ve always loved it and crank it up any time I hear it, as I did earlier this week on SiriusXM’s The Spectrum station. “Pale Kings” - Shearwater. One of my three favorite songs of the year (so far).
We have a star in the family. My wife appeared on the local noon news yesterday in an Ask the Doc segment. Her topic was kids and sleep, one that was especially timely given the time change this weekend and the state reading test that all third graders begin on Monday.[1] It was a fairly quick three-minute appearance, but it was very much live and I think it’s ok for me to share that she was a little nervous.
Another productive month, even with a couple wrinkles thrown in. I had my first abandoned book of the year in February. Leif G.W. Persson’s Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End has been on my To Read list for a few years now. Occasionally I would breeze by it at the library and take a look. But between its size (550+ pages) and its place as the first in a trilogy, I always moved on.
The college hoops lull has arrived, a brief pause before all the big conferences kick off their tournaments over the next 72 hours. An opportunity to reflect on the regular season and think about the real tournament that is just over a week away. In my case it’s a chance to begin working up a healthy case of nerves about KU’s chances to end their season in Houston. That’s an outcome that I figured had roughly zero chance of happening just over a month ago.
My Instapaper queue is crammed full of articles. Unfortunately for all of you, the bulk of them relate to a couple topics I’m really into now that won’t necessarily be that interesting to anyone else. So just a few things to share this week. This is really long, and really geeky, but here is a very detailed look at how the Millennium Falcon came to be. I admit I got about halfway through and just skimmed the rest while paying more attention to the really cool sketches and storyboard samples.
Spring is nigh. Sure, it snowed here today, and is expected to again on Saturday. But it is also supposed to jump into the 70s next week. Mornings and evenings are getting a little brighter each day as our daylight stretches out. Spring training baseball has begun. My anticipation of warmer days is like a little kid’s on December 10 counting down the days until Christmas. Also, love is in the air.
I’ve shared quite a bit about L’s first basketball season. C didn’t play a winter sport, but did go to a softball clinic Saturday and had a great time. She’s excited to play both softball and go through her first kickball season this spring. That leaves M, who is in her second year of volleyball. Unfortunately, we had a lot of conflicts between volleyball and basketball over the past month. And since I was coaching basketball, I only got to see M play in about half of her games.
It is that time of year again. No, not a birthday for one of my girls. Although it may as well be. Time for my annual “KU Won the Big 12 (Again)” post. Feel free to skip if you’re sick of these. I’ll probably end up repeating myself from the last 11 anyway. Twelve. Even I will admit that is dumb. It should not happen. It can not happen. This isn’t some hoops giant stuck in a league with a bunch of schools that consider basketball an afterthought.
I’m feeling some tremors just below the surface of our house that signal a change is coming. M is growing up. This morning I was thinking about how that affects how I share stories about her. I realized that it’s one thing to share a story that could be embarrassing to one of your kids when they are a toddler. It’s another to do so when they are pre-teens/teenagers and the information you share about them could be found by friends (and rivals) at school.
One thing I forgot to include in my post this morning that Stace’s comment kind of reminded me of, was a Tweet from writer Drew Magary over the weekend. twitter.com/drewmagar… That is 100% true. We were getting our asses kicked on the offensive boards Saturday. I think the other team had something like 15 OBs as they opened up a 10–0 lead to start the game. I’m not even exaggerating.
We closed out L’s first ever basketball season over the weekend, losing by 10 in our tournament semifinals. We were down by 20 at one point but somehow whittled that down to 8 with a couple minutes left. We ended up going 2–5 for the year, only beating the other St. P’s team both times we played them. Coincidentally perhaps, they were the only other team that had as many first graders as we did.
We’ll kick this week’s edition off with a couple music-related links. Stereogum is excellent when it comes to putting together long profiles of artists just before they release a new album. Ryan Leas’ deep look at the recording process of The War On Drugs’ Lost In The Dream played a huge role in setting expectations for that album. Here he catches up with Frightened Rabbit as the prepare to release their fifth studio album.
Another addition to the list of stories I share so you can make fun of me. Ya’ll know I’m not the most handy guy in the world. I can do some basic, minor repairs around the house. But when it comes to things behind, below, or under walls that involve electricity or plumbing, I recognize my limits and am happy to write a check to get things done. That need for outside help has been aided in recent years by our next door neighbor, who can handle just about any project.
It’s Winter Break time at St. P’s. Otherwise known as the most annoying weekend of the winter. For some reason, our school has scheduled a five-day weekend anchored by President’s Day as long as we’ve had girls there. Just over a month after Christmas break ended, and with two short weeks in-between. Some years spring break has been less than a month down the road, too. It’s kind of maddening for us - well for S.
youtu.be/37HXyAK-k… “God’s Eyes” - Spookyland Digging this song a lot right now. There’s a certain mid–90s vibe to it, from that final blast of the alt rock revolution before everything became derivative and poppy. From the first word, you can tell these lads are Aussies.
Some words about music. I’m wrapping up my first week of a rather grand experiment: avoiding iTunes/Apple Music and using Spotify in their place. I cancelled my subscription to the now defunct Rdio streaming service and went all-in with Apple Music as soon as it went live back in June. While Apple Music wasn’t perfect, I liked how it was the only service that could combine all the music I’ve downloaded over the past decade, plus stream new music, and then give me access to all those songs across all my devices.
A slow start to the new year, with only three books completed. But I did have some other things going on in January. I polished off my first book of February Sunday night, so I’ll include it in this list. The Whites - Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt Richard Price is one of the best crime writers around. In addition to his own novels, he was a contributing writer on The Wire.
So, that was a pretty terrible Super Bowl, huh? Unless you’re a Broncos fan, or were pulling for Peyton to win, I guess. Fortunately I really only saw about half of the game. We went to a party and I spent most of the first half socializing. By the time we made it home and got the girls to bed, I was able to see the Panthers doink their field goal attempt early in the third quarter.
Friday was a busy day filled with household activities and paperwork.[1] That kept me from getting a Super Bowl prediction in. So, quickly, I’ll try to get something posted here Sunday morning so I am on record. I’ve not paid too much attention to the pre-game coverage, or read many predictions for how the experts believe the game will play out. But of the general vibe I’ve picked up, it seems like most people want to pick Carolina to win big, but the strength of Denver’s defense has them thinking it will be a close Panthers win.