Last Friday M. attended a birthday party1 at one of the many local bounce places.2 After bouncing for awhile, then eating pizza, cake, and ice cream, the host mom handed out tokens for the arcade area to all the kids. While I was helping M. earn some tickets so she could get another cheap, plastic toy to take home, I noticed a Pop-a-Shot. Except this Pop-a-Shot didn’t look like the games I remembered.
It appears that the dust has settled, for the time being, in the great college conference realignment of 2010, so I can finally try to put some thoughts together. I’m not promising anything particularly well organized or original. Consider yourself warned. What a strange couple of weeks it has been. There were multiple times during that span in which I stopped reading any e-mails, message board posts, Tweets, etc. that had anything to do with what was going to happen to the Big 12.
Notice some changes around here? If you haven’t, you’re not paying very close attention. Why the changes? Read on, friends. Welcome to Phase 3 (or is it Phase 2?) of Del Boca Vista, errr. the development of TBB.1 To quickly refresh, over a year ago I took full control of the blog, moving it off of a hosted service to a domain and server space that I owned. I also dumped the easy blogging platforms2 for Wordpress, which offers me more control over the granular details of the blog.
Time for a girl update. A big event has not gotten its proper blog treatment: M.’s “graduation” from kindergarten. I use the quotation marks because A) kindergarten graduations are kind of silly to begin with and B) she’s not really done with kindergarten. Let’s get the event out of the way first. Her class put on a fine performance for family and friends. They sang songs, showed off artwork, recited their lines to a couple poems, and received diplomas.
I’ve lived in Indiana for nearly seven years now. In that time, I’ve been to three Notre Dame football games, an Indiana basketball game, a Purdue football game, a Colts (preseason) game, and a Pacers game. I’ve also watched high school basketball players like Josh McRoberts, Eric Gordon, Michael Conley, and Greg Oden. My Indiana sports resume had two glaring omissions, however. I’ve yet to go to a Butler game at Hinkle Fieldhouse, and I’ve never been to an Indianapolis 500.
They’ve got me. Every online retailer I’ve ever purchased a good or service from has me in their clutches. There is no escape. Each morning when I first check my e-mail, chances are there are at least three, and often as many as six, messages from various retailers offering up fantastic discounts on things I might like. The Gap. Banana Republic. Old Navy. Eddie Bauer. Borders. Amazon. The KU Bookstore.
So, not the greatest sports year at my noble alma mater. A series of fights between the football and basketball teams. A football coach forced out because of abusive behavior. A football team that fell apart, lost seven-straight, and pissed a chance at a division title away. A basketball player, who was already in the doghouse, decided to shoot his mouth off during the season. A stunning early loss in the NCAA tournament.
The school year is almost over, but it’s never too late for the teachers to ban items from the classroom. M.’s class has been overrun by the scourge of our times: Silly Bandz. For the non-parents, or parents of younger kids, Silly Bandz are basically colored rubber bands that have been molded to the shape of kid friendly objects: pets, dinosaurs, zoo animals, etc. Kids wear them as bracelets and trade them with friends and classmates.
I’m pleased to report that M. has improved her soccer game over the past few weeks. She’s still no Mia Hamm, but at least she’s doing some positive things during games. Tuesday night she even had an important milestone. Last weekend she mastered the concept of getting back on defense. Unlike her earlier attempts, she was racing back towards her own goal each time the opponent took possession, then trying to at least get in the way as the ball approached the net.
A few blog minor blog updates. At times (OK, quite often) I like to imagine that I have a huge number of regular readers. Dozens, hundreds perhaps. I like to fantasize that they check in regularly not just to get updates on the wacky things the girls are doing, but to see what else I’m reading and writing about. Thus, I like to believe that any time I make minor tweaks to the blog, lots of people all around the world are noticing and wondering about the meanings behind the changes.
I’ve refrained from writing about the whole Big 10 expansion / Big 12 dissolution thing until something actually happens. But with all the rumors this week, I figured it was time to tack a crack. 1200 words later, I wasn’t making a logical argument and hadn’t come close to completing my thoughts. So how about this: it will suck if Missouri and Nebraska go to the Big 10. I have no great love for the Big 12, since it’s always seemed more concerned with keeping Texas happy, but I do have love for all the Big 8 schools.
One of my (many) sisters-in-law completed her first half-marathon last weekend, running the Indianapolis Mini Marathon in atrocious conditions. Her accomplishment got me reminiscing about my own running milestones over the years. Completing the Chicago Marathon in 2001, a half-marathon in 2000, and my first triathlon in 1999. But my favorite was much further back than that. In the spring of my first-grade year, my parents separated for the first time.
I recently discovered the site How I Met Your Motherboard, which features stories of first computer experiences. Interestingly, one of the stories mirrors my own. Seems like perfect fodder for my own blog post, no? People occasionally ask me why I’m so nutty for Apple products. I think part of it is because of when I got my first Mac: just as I was leaving the corporate world, becoming a father, starting down the path as a stay-at-home parent, etc.
The people at Hertz surprised us with an unusual ride last weekend. That’s right, we rocked a Nissan Cube in Kansas City all weekend! When we got to the appropriate spot in the Hertz parking lot, we looked at each other, and then around, unsure if we were in the right location. We double and triple checked the number. We looked to either side to see if maybe a Focus or Corolla was sitting there, and that was the correct car.
The latest installment in ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries is a funny look at the origins of fantasy sports: Rotisserie Baseball. I enjoyed it for many of the same reasons the AV Club reviewer enjoyed it: while the idea of fantasy sports appealed to me, I must admit I was more in love with the books that explained the game. I remember first noticing the original Rotisserie baseball book sometime in the summer of 1985.
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M.’s first soccer game was Saturday. As with her first practice, it went about as well as we could have hoped. She wasn’t the fastest player on the team, nor the best, but that fit our expectations. After trailing the action for awhile, she finally got in the mix and even managed to gain possession a few times. It was a tough day for soccer, at least if you’re five. After a week of warm days, the temperature dropped 20 degrees and the winds were howling at 20-25 MPH.
M. had her first soccer practice Wednesday night. It went about as we expected. She was a little tentative, but active. Her team of eight is split evenly between boys and girls. A few of the boys and one of the girls have some skills. M. will get comfortable and get more into it in time. But at least she wasn’t crying and refusing to participate like another girl. The first game is Saturday.
There was a situation I ran into a few times before I became a parent that I never really knew how to handle. It always involved a child who had an older sibling who was either learning to read, or had just mastered reading. I would say to the younger child, “Let’s read a book,” and that child would soberly respond, “I can’t read.” That response always took me aback; I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to encourage them, reassure them, ignore it, or what.
I made my first-ever visit to Cincinnati’s Great America Ballpark on Thursday to catch a Cardinals-Reds matinee. Good times all around. We cruised down I-74 and arrived in Cincy just in time to hook up with some friends who just happened to have a pocket-full of extra tickets. I’m pretty sure you can’t beat $20 for three tickets on a day when you can pick your seat. With only about 13,000 people in attendance, we were able to sit with our friends who had front row seats down the right field line.