Friday, February 29, 2008

Myron Cope...on...sports.

figured I'd find some video sooner or later. This one's just about perfect.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Sitting at the Metro..who-oh!

ok, so, maybe Berlin didn't record that version.

Not quite sure how the schedule makers have determined that the last flight to Lansing from Detroit should leave at 10:30 pm, but, there it is. That twist of fate invariably gets me an extended layover in Detroit; most inbound flights land between 6:30 and 7:30, the next wave of outbound flights begin around 8 and end, well, when they end. Lansing's near the end (I'll console myself with the knowledge that suckers going to Albany are delayed and leave at 11:15).

So, here I sit. Did some work (and the layovers are good for that), but, it's 10, and I'm tired of that.

Currently reading: Finished "A crack in the edge of the world" by Simon Winchester about the 1906 San Francisco quake; finished "the sky people" by SM Sterling. It's amazing how much time you have to read when Northwest loads you on a plane and drives you around Detroit before they finish thier paperwork.....

Currently listening: podcasts on the flight. Listened to Junker&Crow from yesterday, all about the Penguin trade and the passing of cope, am currently listening to the Tony Kornheiser show.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Northworst?

Can't complain about having to wait in Lansing for the snowplows to clear the runway. That's life.

Can't complain about a part failing and having to wait while the mechanics come out and replace it. That's life.

When they replace the part, and the plane backs up from the gate, and they taxi out to the runway, and then the plane gets CALLED BACK because the paperwork isn't filled out? Well, that's a different matter.

Departs: Detroit-Wayne County Int'l, MI (DTW) Arrives: Dayton-Int'l, OH ( DAY )
Departure Date: February 26 Arrival Date: February 27
Gate: B3 Gate: B11
Scheduled: 9:41PM Scheduled: 10:50PM
Actual: 11:20PM Actual: 12:38AM
Aircraft: CRJ Weather: DAY
Note: Delayed due flight returned to gate for maintenance.

Yoi

Kind of ironic....today and tomorrow I'm in Cincinnati (home of the Bungles) for a meeting with the Army Corp of Engineers and Ohio EPA.

Casey Stengel? The world's a little less noisy today....



Monday, February 25, 2008

Christopher's Soccer Video

Christopher is asking that the goals be about 6" wider than they currently are as he 'bonks' shots off of each of the goalposts...

Sunday, February 24, 2008

From the sports desk

Kevin's basketball team won again this Saturday. He played well, a few shot attempts, no points. He told us after the game that he was supposed to get the ball on a few offensive sets and he was wide open, but, the point guard just drove in and made layups.

Matthew's soccer team won their game convincingly. We were up by a lot going into the fourth quarter so, I asked the boys to try and focus on passing. Never thought I'd actually get someone to do it, but, had some breakthrough moments as shown in the video clip below.



You can hear me yelling encouraging the passing....Kevin didn't catch it, but, after that goal Matthew ran back, as he was getting in position for the kickoff, turned to me and gave me a big Thumbs-Up-sign.

Christopher's soccer team got hammered...they play on a bigger field and are still struggling with the concept of spreading out and passing as well. Christopher, when he's motivated, plays fairly well. When he decides to be goofy...it's not so good.

Sunday only had Kevin's indoor soccer game; the Figs lost, Kevin played a lot on defense (not his normal positions when he plays) and he said he had a lot of fun with it.

Suzanne and I watched "Michael Clayton" last night. Very good movie.

Kevin's story

Kevin had to do this at school, I think for some sort of proofreading exercise. He's taking a lot of creative license with Matthew's laser tag skills......




Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Teeth are dropping like flies

Poor Kevin had his teeth so long that the dentist had to extract 4, and then another 4 so that those bomb-proof baby teeth didn't cause problems for those slow-arriving adult teeth.


Christopher...well, he's going through those baby teeth like they're nothing! Two down this month already, and that other upper front tooth wiggles quite a bit.

Tooth fairy is going to need a short-term loan......







Sunday, February 17, 2008

The long-awaited Fig post

Kevin's playing indoor soccer now. Why he's playing is a bit of a story, since, well, competitive soccer passed Kevin by a few years ago.

During second grade, Kevin was asked to play indoor soccer with a group of Okemos kids. Soccer seemed to be the be all and end all for this group, and Kevin was, if not the worst on the team, close to it. He improved a lot, had fun, and that was fine.

That group of kids, from the Score-pions, en masse, tried out for the 'travel' team for Okemos the next year. Kevin tried out also, and, we weren't surprised when he didn't make it, they were going to take the top 11 or 12 kids, 30 tried out, and Kevin's many things, but, he's not the fastest, the most aggressive, or the most athletic kid out there (all but two of the 9 or 10 Score-pions made the team).

That fall, Kevin played with a soccer club, the Chill. Good coaching, and Kevin improved a lot. The whole goal of this exercise was to see if Kevin's skills would improve enough to try out again. And, there would be two travel teams, so, there were 22 openings. Due to mismanagement issues, the Chill team fell apart, and, that June, Kevin tried out again for the Okemos club, and, again, did not make either of the two teams. This time, it made no sense to us, I watched Kevin's tryout and thought he did way better than the year before. Never was able to get the coach to explain why he didn't make it, and found out later through rumors and gossip that the coach of the 2nd team (and we knew he wouldn't make that 1st team...but thought he had a shot at the 2nd) had selected his team not on who were the best soccer players, but, instead, on who were the best athletes (he took players who had never played soccer before, for example).

So, Kevin's adventure with trying out for travel soccer came to an end. Kevin still plays rec soccer, and, in that setting (with the better players in club soccer or on the travel teams) he does really well. I'm proud of Kevin that he's kept playing soccer at the rec level, because, after the sour tryout experiences, he could have quit at anytime and nobody would have said anything.

Kevin's 'return' to rec soccer began with kids a year older than Kevin. His friend, Ashton, who lives up the street and is one year older (or, better said, one grade ahead) plays soccer and his dad coaches the team, so, it was good for us to have Kevin play with them. Even up a grade level in rec, Kevin would do fairly well. He's always had a good head for where to play at and who to pass to, so, that's been good. Kevin would play outdoors with that team, and they also played indoors, and Kevin did that too.

Ashton played rec soccer while he, also, played for the Okemos travel team. Soon enough, Ashton only played travel soccer, and Kevin returned to his grade level and played rec soccer. And that was fine. Kevin still wanted to play indoor soccer, so, we signed him up for a house team, and, he was asked with one of his friends to join a group of kids from Grand Ledge and form a team. So, Okemos Kevin has a Grand Ledge jersey and played with them for about a year and did well. That too, came to an end, and we thought indoor soccer was done.

Ashton's dad moved on and became the coach of the Ashton's travel team, and also took some of those kids and played indoors. Last year, when he was short one or two players, he asked if Kevin wanted to play for a game or two, so, Kevin trotted out with the Figs (Ashton's Dad lets the kids name the teams he's on, so, you get funny names like the Fightin' Figs) and played. The kids he plays with (and against), again, are a year older, but, this time, they're even better, because all of them play travel soccer.

This year, Kevin was asked to play on the team full time (mainly because not all of the members of team wanted to play indoors). Kevin holds his own out there, he certainly doesn't embarrass himself and he makes some plays that are really good (passing, mostly). But, he doesn't have the footwork that the kids who play soccer 3x a week year-round do, and, he's younger, so, he can look bad at times.

But he gets full points for me for trying. Most rec sports phase out in Okemos after 8th grade, so, for sports like soccer and basketball, I'm sure we're seeing the end of Kevin's competitive days in those sports. We mention to Kevin that he might want to think about sports that he has a chance to play in high school (lacrosse is one, tennis is another, but the Okemos team is really really good, 4 state championships in the last 5 years, so, we'll see, and other sports like cross country and water polo that he hasn't even tried yet).

Kevin had two indoor soccer games today. The Figs tied both today, 3-3. Both games were against teams they had lost to previously, so, ties are a good thing, especially the second game, when they only had one sub.

Catching up on video

let a bunch of Matthew Soccer highlights pile up while I was doing other things.


Friday, February 15, 2008

Une pléthore virtuelle

While we think Uno is a worthy champion, Wiley would like to remind everyone that last year's champ was the REAL deal.

Seems like Kevin's reality show dreams are dead dead dead.

Speaking of Kevin, he went on the 6th grade field trip to Mt. Brighton and learned to ski. And wants to go again. Very badly.

Engineer's Week is next week. I'm going to be presenting in some Lansing schools and in Matthew's and Christopher's class. Haven't done the gumdrop dome in some time, so, am looking forward to trotting it out again.

Can't believe I'm going to have to wait another 6 months.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Cloverfield

Kevin and I went to the movies last night; he's been asking to go see Cloverfield for a month. So, yesterday, as a 'reward' to consenting to having a jaw expander placed in his mouth (more on that later!), we went.

6:20 showing, 3-4 weeks after movie open. We're walking in and I ask Kevin how many people he thinks will be in the theatre, he says 8. I take the under.

Turns out we're the only 2 watching. Which let Kevin and I act up in the theatre.

Movie review: Good, not great. Movie was really boring in the beginning (Kevin and I were yelling at the screen "We want the monster!"). Scary at parts (at one point I was grabbing and tickling Kevin as the little monsters attacked) and the ending wasn't much of an ending at all (to the best of my knowledge, the monster is still trashing NYNY).

High point of the movie happened before the movie:



Kevin made me feel old...he didn't recognize the ship, or the music, or the phrase, and I had to explain to him it was Star Trek. And tell him that he had no choice, he was going to opening night with me!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Editorial Corrections

The staff here at BNS has made the following errors recently:

a) you only have to make up school if you lose more than 30 hours of instruction to weather. Okemos has only lost 19.5 hrs to date. So, no June penalty has been imposed (yet....noticed on the tv that school districts were already closing because of the predicted arctic weather today and tomorrow).

b) Matthew had 4, not 3 goals, in Sunday's game.

We'll add the correction to the french title when that rolls in. :)

Exit Ramp "Here"

another burst of interest in the blog from the world in general

Rome. Puerto Vallerta. Lisbon. Pittsburgh (really!). Littleton, Colorado. Mesa, Arizona. Vienna. Gonesse, France.

The world-famous tiger face continues to attract the curious.

Wreckage from the room switch

Found these two items in the rooms as we were cleaning up after the switch last weekend

a) Page 1 of Kevin's autobiography from a few years back. The '4' stands for the grade the teacher gave the essay..it's a scale they use for the standardized testing here in Michigan



b) a little Matthew art.

Mise à jour de week-end

If I messed up the translation, blame babelfish.

Saturday:

Kevin - his basketball team won, no points, but played well. Kind of a change of pace for Kevin, usually his basketball teams struggle to win games, this year they are undefeated.

Christopher - the Cheetahs won their game, Christopher had 3 goals (one of them a nice left-footed shot), Matthew, playing up with the 1st graders, had 2.

Dad - won his racquetball match 14-15, 15-12, 15-9. :)

Boys - went sledding again to the North Meridian park. Instead of the fresh snow, it was the hard-packed deal, so, the kids went a little faster and a little farther.

Sunday:

A really quiet day (for us!).

Matthew - Chargers won, Matthew had 3 goals and probably played the best game I've seen him play in quite a while. He's figured out, or, at least made the decision at times, that if he's running along side or coming up on another team's player with the ball, that he's going to cut inside of them (or outside of them), and if that doesn't work, he's going to do it again. He had two goals today where he dribbled through 3 different players to score.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Basketball Highlights

from Kevin's game last Saturday.

Snow Day

3rd in the last month....means the kids have all signed up for an extra day in June.

Oh well, at least they got good mileage out of the 8" of snow that fell yesterday


Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Long Delayed Weekend Update (and weekday update)

Saturday:

5 kid events in 4 hours...required some compromises.

Basketball clinic - didn't attend this weekend.

Matthew invited to birthday party at Funtyme. Found out that Matthew takes after Kevin and is a budding dance dance revolution expert.

Kevin Basketball - Kevin's rec team won. The Rec league includes 5th through 7th graders; the other team had a kid (we'll call him He-Man) who was easily 6 inches taller than anyone on our team, and easily was 8 to 9 inches taller than Kevin. The other team's strategy when He-Man was on the court was pretty predictable....pass to He-Man in the middle and let him take shots and get rebounds until the ball went in. So, the other team would score a lot while He-Man was on the court for his 1/2 of a quarter, and Kevin's team would coming roaring back in the other half of the quarter.

Christopher Soccer - missed this this weekend. Had a flu bug invade the house; chills, hot, chills, etc. Wiped Dad out Thu-Fri, Mom out Fri, Christopher Sat, and Kevin Sunday. Matthew apparently escaped unscathed...he had complained early in the week that he felt 'bad' but, never really seemed to reach the heights the rest of us aspired to.

Matthew Soccer - Had a good game, several goals from players who haven't scored very much, so, that's always a great thing.

Above and beyond all that, we moved Kevin to the smaller bedroom upstairs and moved the boys into Kevin's room. Not sure how well it's going to work out, but wanted to see what it would be like to evaluate the long-term viability of staying in this house instead of moving as we always thought we would. Kevin's items seem to fit fairly well in this new room, the boys furniture doesn't work out as well in their room. Some modifications necessary.

Sunday

Kevin missed his Fighting Figs game as he took his turn 'chillin'...yes, that Fig post is coming...

Matthew Soccer - Had an ugly game....seems every player decided that his would be the game where they wouldn't want to play.....players wrestling, fighting with each other on the field or staring off into space, etc.

Super Bowl - Matthew did an extra special football song to support the Patriots, but, that didn't work out so well. He took the loss well the next morning, thank goodness.

Monday:

Went to see the Hannah Montana movie. 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Matthew sang all the songs, much to the displeasure of his older brother who thought his brother was being 'too loud'. Dad spent much of his time noticing technical things (funny how all of the dancers were shorter than Miley) in the 3-d and concert presentation.

Tuesday:

Matthew has been attending a 6-week football clinic. After each class on Tuesday, he's been spending the next week practicing his moves in the house for the next 6 days. Today, they were practicing blocking (and how to get past someone who is blocking you). The next week ought to be interesting around here.....