Cousins

A few different posts are needed to capture the last few weeks properly; we’ll start here, do one on New Orleans, and then probably an Iphone photo dump post to close it out.

The pictures, and video, of the cousins all come from the sleepover of 2013.  The pictures and video in the van are from the trip back to our rental house after watching football at Buffalo Wild Wings (Mom ducked into Target for a few items; Kevin was with Aunt Melissa and Ian and avoided the chaos in the back of the van).  They didn’t realize I was taping for quite some time…most of the activity in the back is picture-taking on Matthew’s Itouch….I have to go and find that device and download what I believe are half-a-million selfies and see if there’s anything decent there.

(if you click on this picture there is about 3 minutes of giggling video from the back of the van.  There is nothing spectacular or earth-shattering in the video…other than the giggling over whatever the heck they are doing)

(After the sleepover, and breakfast, Suzanne and I took everyone down to the beach…and while we expected some dipping of toes, it turned into almost full immersion pretty quickly.  I had to go and look; air temperature was about 57 degrees, water temp was about 65 degrees)

again, clicking on the picture gets you about 90 seconds of cousins running around)

(Merissa and Matthew….before full immersion began)

(Matthew, somewhat predictably, was the one who started the move through the water out to the second sand bar and deeper waves….and started the move towards total soakings)

(Cathleen joined Matthew out there first…Cpher came back to help Merissa out there)

(I think these pictures were in chronological order but this one makes me wonder….must be quite a bit later)

Quick College Update

Accepted to Arizona’s Honor College.  A whole lot of official mail-type paperwork awaiting us when we returned home Friday…..hope to scan some of it in for out here.

Officially eliminated:  Kentucky (even though he hasn’t even been accepted here yet).  Alabama.

(what a search for “roll tide fail” turns up….that this picture even exists is probably enough of a reason not to go there….)

While initially somewhat positive about Alabama, Kevin, upon reflection and some distance has come to the conclusion that he doesn’t think he’ll ever fit in there.  Too much sports-focus…too much greek-focus.  Too much roll-tide focus.  Just not his scene. 

GoPro Videos One, Two, and Three

Matthew’s big present (or, one of Matthew’s big presents) this Christmas was a GoPro Video camera.  So, I guess this is half my present, since I’m the one who is actually going to be doing the setup and processing of the video.  Have high hopes for some interesting video on the sports front (mount it on a basketball frame?  have a chest harness for a soccer scrimmage….not sure what I can do for lacrosse).

Video Number One: Starring one of our handy dandy 4 legged subjects.  Or, better said, attached to one of our subjects.

(not the most willing of subjects….not real happy with the harness)

Pretty happy with the video for the first attempt….not so happy with the harness….the camera slid (if the top of Wiley’s body is 12 o'clock than the camera comfortably slid into a nice holding position at about 2 pm).  But, as first tries go, we’ll take it.

Video Number Two.  More Wiley.  He is under the mistaken impression that we are about to go on a car ride and is sitting by the tailgate of the CR-V waiting to hop on board.

it is kind of sad that the appearance of the leash always leads to Wiley thinking car first….we need to take him on more car rides since he is such a fan of them!   You can see we have solved the camera droop problems….and that it is still snowing.

Also amusing is Wiley’s hop onto the couch; first directly into Mom’s spot and then to another spot after I chased him off of there.

Video Number Three:  The first boy video; Matthew went out in the snow near dusk.  Really happy with how the video looked in what was pretty low light. 

(“Hey Christopher, can you adjust this?”

The face-plant as he passes the house next to us to find Christopher, Maddie, and Laurna is epic.  Another face plant as he hits the trampoline, and I edited out the moment where he dropped the camera as he was climbing back in the woods.  Camera did a good job in some very low light conditions.  And man is it snowing…we certainly have 12 inches so far and it is supposed to snow all evening.  The snow blower is getting quite a workout!

From The Sports Desk – New Year Edition

Matthew:  Had two indoor games on Saturday; a 0-0 tie against Pacesetter and a 1-1 tie against Rush Northville DA.  Matthew played center back every minute of both games; he was a tired kid at the end of the second game.  Indoor games are one 50 minute period…no breaks unless you are subbed.

I thought we controlled things in game 1...most of the play was in their end.  We were a bit rusty on offense.....we did put one in when the clock (we think) read 0:01 but the ref insisted it read 0:00.  Oh well.  They certainly aren't the worst team we played this year but I thought the result was more us not looking great than them being great.  and I think they bunkered in on defense quite a bit (I was more focused on Matthew and OUR defense for most of the game...but noted late in the game that they had a lot of kids behind the ball....)

Thought Rush Northville was much better than Pacesetter and they had us pinned back on defense a few times.....one seriously stupid Matthew moment gave them a gift of a chance that they converted for a goal.  Matthew decided to pass the ball to the left back (and the left back then passed the ball back to Matthew) not once, but twice, each, while sitting on our 18 and on the third time Rush picked it off and broke in for the easy shot.  We equalized with about 15 to go.  Good solid back and forth type of game.  Matthew did have an assist on our goal, and was pretty solid holding the fort on defense, so, I'll just try to blot that 10 seconds of stupidity out of my mind (I haven't heard our coach yell much this year....he let Matthew and the left back have it after the goal).  Unlike Pacesetter, they had some kids that made me go "uh-oh" when they had the ball on a breakaway coming in on Matthew (when Pacesetter had those chances Matthew almost always took the ball away and headed upfield...some random Pacesetter Mom came up to him afterwards and said "You played some awesome defense").

Cpher:  Made the ‘A’ team for the Red Cedar league…practice starts this week (not Monday…it is snowing like crazy…we have 12 inches at least already and school has already been cancelled for tomorrow).   Hope he takes this a little more seriously than he took the school season….he did not try very hard and we’ve talked about that a few times.  I think the coaching change will help too…I’m very happy with the new head coach…he has coached a lot of football but Cpher hasn’t been on his team in a few years.

Winter Concert, Act One

Surprised to find Cpher’s concert online already….downloaded the video and you can watch it by clicking the link below.

We were surprised to see Cpher listed as the section leader for this concert.  Turns out the designation is more of a random thing than anything else….Cpher was pretty clear “Dad, there are only two basses…it was my turn.”

Kevin Top Twenty

I’m not going to reproduce the whole thing here….but there were a few things there that I wanted to talk about after I saw what was on display for him.

 

(it looks like most of the schools Kevin is now considering treat his AP credit about the same….Alabama gives him the most, Michigan the least, but, it’s close.  The real difference is how each of them handle foreign language.  All of the schools have a test, four of the schools let you place into a higher-level, and one of them, Alabama, lets you place into a higher-level AND get credit for the classes you placed out of.  That might be four classes for Kevin.  I guess the other thing to mention here is that the teacher of AP Stats at OHS is not very good….a lot of those comments were commenting on how the kids had to teach themselves)

(Didn’t mention it when it happened….Kevin fasted for 72 hours for no reason whatsoever other than to do it)

(a pretty good fall for the kid!)

Top Twenty

Facebook says “Look back at your 20 biggest moments from the past year.”  And you click on a link and the program thoughtfully provides what it thinks are your twenty top moments from 2013.  I’m guessing it grabbed the posts that were the most commented/liked and put them in chronological order.

It took some doing (cutting and pasting.  rinse.  repeat)  to get them from there to here…but figured it was worth it.

(strange that Facebook chose four lacrosse photos for the title photo spread….but, I think they are the only ones I’ve been tagged in this year)

(the only post that might need some explanation….Game 4 of the ALDS, Tigers and A’s, and I forget which Tigers pitcher…Fister maybe?…got into the jam, but, he had the bases loaded, nobody out, and the Tigers with a one-run lead….and got out of it)

Alabama

I did this tour with Kevin….so maybe a little more detail on this summary than last time.  I get ASU; Suzanne finishes off with the Northeastern/Oklahoma trip.

(ten Hoor Hall…..I don’t know why it is named that…and we weren’t in the building very long anyway)

1)  In the end, what are the chances that Kevin goes here?   

25%?  Kevin says “I can see myself here” and after the visit pretty much said Kentucky was not an option anymore…he’s rather be here.  Roll Tide!

2)  What did Kevin think?

I think Kevin liked almost everything he was exposed to; this was the first of the more personalized tours.  We met for an hour with the Honor College representative and then for an hour with the chair(!) of the political science department (international studies falls here at UA).  Roll Tide!

3)  Most impressive thing?

Wow…there were a lot of impressive things.  I’ll go with the dorms; Kevin would be in the brand new Honors College dorm which would be a 4-person suite, each person with an individual bedroom, two shared bathrooms, one shared kitchen and commons space.

    

(Ridgecrest)

    

(Bathroom and Bedroom….really impressed by this suite!)

(    

(closet and common space….)

(Kitchen…no stove though)

4)  Least impressive thing? 

Well, the music professor didn’t show up for our scheduled appointment with her.  So, that was a downer.  We’ll call this one even though since Kevin got this email earlier this week…

“Dear Kevin,
I'm the viola teacher at the University of Alabama.  I'm so sorry that I will be gone for the holidays when you arrive tomorrow but I wanted to introduce myself. Mr. Adams speaks very highly of your application.  Please let me know if you have any questions about the music program, orchestra, or the viola studio.  We have a wonderful and very comprehensive music program for people wishing to major or double major in music, as well as minor or just participate as a non major.  Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions you might have.  I'm sorry that I won't have the chance to meet you tomorrow.  Safe travels and I hope you have a great time on campus.
All the best,
Dan Sweaney”

This is the only piece of correspondence we’ve received from Alabama that didn’t include Roll Tide in the closing sentence!

5)  Food?

Ate at Rama Jama’s…..the hamburger joint literally in the shadow of the football stadium.  Had the “National Championship” burger….15 ounces of beef with so much sauce that the bun literally dissolved as I tried to work my way through it.

    

(They take their football pretty seriously down here!)

6)  Biggest reason to go here?

Seems to have everything he wants…the Honors College is pretty impressive.  Campus was new and updated on almost every level.  The recreation center could be called opulent.

    

(I was joking with Kevin that we need to rethink his college choices after talking about some of the activities available here…..Intramural Battleship (where teams are in canoes in the indoor pool) and a freakin’ lazy river around the outdoor pool!  Maybe The Citadel or VMI or something like that is more appropriate!)

7)  Biggest reason not to go here?

A lot of smaller reasons; the Honors College, while impressive, is pretty large (6K of 30K students).  30% of the campus is Greek…which probably is not where Kevin will end up.  Merit aid is not at the same level as some other schools. 

    

8)  What’s next?

Arizona State near the end of January.

9)  Any Other Updates?

Accepted at Michigan on Friday. 

Accepted at Arizona State on Saturday.

Alabama is definitely the best case in handling Kevin’s AP courses and foreign language experience….and that is something we will need to track through the other visits.   Some schools (Penn State, for example) say we-don’t-care if you have AP English…you must must take Freshman English.  Will have to be sure what ASU, NE, OK, and UM will do here.  It may make a heck of a difference!

Alabama will let you place out of both semesters with a high enough score.  Since Kevin, by the end of this year, will have 8 classes with potential AP credit; that’s almost a full year of college credit Kevin might have before he starts.  Combine that with what language credit he may qualify for on their placement test (it seems like he’d hit both Beginner German classes and should get one of the Intermediate German classes, if not both). and that’s a lot of classes Kevin wouldn’t have to to take.  So, with that extra time, Kevin could probably double major as long as the core requirements are relatively similar, like, for example, International Studies / Political Science.