Flying made interesting

Tourney Time

I've noticed a trend in my thinking over the last day plus while the NCAA basketball tournament has been going on. That trend is this -- any time that a team struggles but wins and I've got them going deep into the tournament, automatically I think, 'Alright, I like them having a struggle. They're motivated now to fight harder than ever.' But, any time that a team stuggles but wins and I've got them losing in the next round or two, it's definitely, 'HA, totally gonna score on that pick. Look at how much they struggled in the first round!'

Example of thought process #1: Villanova

Example of thought process #2: Kansas, Pittsburgh

This probably isn't anywhere close to being isolated to just my thinking, but I thought it was funny that I succumbed to such double thinking.

Oh, and West Virginia to the Elite 8? Ummm, not so good.

An abode

Violet and I now have an apartment to live in after we're married! It was the first one we looked at and we like it a lot. It's only a few minutes away from school for Violet and is in a very nice, quiet neighborhood. We're really excited about it. Now, the only problem is furnishing it. :)

The kitchen is what I'm most excited about. It's just large.


This is the dining room.


The living room.


And one of the two bedrooms.


I'm free to move in April 1, so we'll see if I have enough stuff to go with then!

Another YouTube

I confess that I haven't put up a whole lot of original material recently, and for that I apologize. However, I continue to find YouTube clips that fascinate me. Here's the latest one that caught my attention.

Forrest in One Minute

I thought this was rather entertaining.



Basketball is now over. We finished the season a not-so-great 7-14. It was disappointing to have seven seniors and have such a poor season. At the end, it was tough to see if they really cared. Having coached those seniors for two years, it hurt even more for me, because I knew what they were capable of doing. Anyway, my new after-work project? Planning a wedding! Woot!

Amazing rhythmic gymnast

via videosift.com

Latest basketball update

Since my last update, LCA is actually 2-2, but what's more interesting is how we got to that record. First, we lost by 10 to the team right above us in league standings, Landmark. (We're in second-to-last place.) Then we beat the worst team in the league, Berwick, by 28 on Monday. Our second game of the week was last night, where we blew a late lead to a middle of the pack Portsmouth Abbey, losing 51-49. We had two opportunities to tie or take in the lead in that game in the last 30 seconds. Then tonight, to top it all off, we beat the second best team in the league, Bancroft, 73-70. What an up and down season! Unfortunately, the guys maybe just saw tonight was they can do as a team. With only four games left in the season, there's not much recovering that can be done in standings, but at least we could end on a good note.

In other news, I'm rediscovering Pandora. My roomate my sophomore year in college, Shawn Cowley, introduced me to this Internet radio service but I never really tried it out. Now I have and I'm using it all of the time. Basically, you create "stations" by giving Pandora different genres, bands or songs, and it makes a stations for each one you enter. It then plays songs of a similar nature to your entry. For example, let's say I like the 70s band, Journey. I insert Journey and Pandora plays Journey's songs as well as songs from similar bands like The Eagles and Boston. The feature I like the most is the quick mix which allows you to pick an assorted collection of your stations and it plays songs from each station. I'm getting to listen to a lot of good music this way. If only Draper didn't block this site during the work day--seriously, I'd be so much more productive. :)

Pandora: http://pandora.com/

Down and out

LCA 54, Beaver Country Day 55. Chalk another one up for the bad guys...

Alice's Restaurant

For the older crowd...I heard this played on a classic rock station here in Boston a few afternoons ago and cracked up quite a bit. Presenting Alice's Restaurant from Arlo Guthrie.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Beatbox

For the younger crowd...

Bunny rabbit trifecta

Lost in double-overtime tonight to Concord, 76-70. Their best player hit a three with 8 seconds left in regulation to tie the game. We got an open shot off of a sideline play after a timeout and missed. In overtime, under 10 seconds again, our "4" stole the ball, missed badly on a contested layup, the "1" got one outstretched hand on the carom, leading to another carom falling right into our "2"s hands for a layup. The defender that contested the original layup came back and blocked that layup--Coach King dubbed this the bunny rabbit trifecta. In the second overtime, they used their big guys to post up and got a number of shots near the basket. We stayed close for the first two minutes but drifted in the last two. Missed free throw to leave it at a four-point game proved costly, and that's all she wrote. I'm excited about practice tomorrow morning. I wanna get back in the gym.

Chalk one up for the bad guys

We played Pingree, the best team in the league, tonight. We hung with them until two minutes before halftime. It was a four-point game at that point and then Pingree put on a more rigorous press. We turned the ball over four times consecutively within 15 feet of our endline, each turnover leading to a layup. At halftime, we were down 14. Game over. Final score 70-46.

Random Bible reference

On our way to the Berkshires this morning, I noticed what I thought at the time was a clever slogan on the side of a semi trailer. The slogan? Kane is Able. After a little research, turns out that the slogan is actually the company's name. It's a trucking company that helps to distribute consumer packaged goods between warehouses. Anyways, thought that was ever so slightly clever!

Hawk sighting

Sylvia was looking out the back door this morning and noticed that their was a hawk in the backyard tree. After closer inspection, we saw that there was also a squirrel in the tree. Both of them just sat there waiting for the other to give up. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're still sitting there. Let me check...yep, still there.


I don't have a long-range zoom lens yet for my camera so this was the best I could do on getting some pictures. Sorry, no squirrel. I mentioned at Thanksgiving that a good zoom lens was going to be my next major purchase. Wrong thing to say in the present company. My mother quickly responded, "How about a house son?"

The Inauguration

I came across a pretty cool panoramic picture of the inauguration today. It's a large number of smaller photos pieced together, which allows the viewer to zoom in quite a bit. . Here's the link: Inauguration Panoramic. Because of how it was made, it's a large file so it may take some time to load.

On that note, my next youngest brother, Luke, is interning in Washington, D.C., this semester through the Witherspoon Fellowship after graduating from K-State in December. His apartment is only three blocks from the Capitol so he's right in the mix of things. He took advantage of that proximity to attend the inauguration. I wanted to see if I could find him in the panoramic, and sure enough, there he was. I've outlined him in these pictures cut from the panoramic. Please click on the pics to enlarge them.



It's pretty neat that Luke gets to spend a semester in D.C., but it's even neater that he was able to take in a presidential inauguration.

Changing the subject, tonight was the sixth annual Battle of Lexington-Concord. It's a fairly young tradition with Lexington Christian competing with Concord Academy in V and JV boys and girls basketball (4 games) and wrestling. Best-of-five wins an amazingly wimpy revolutionary-like drum! With that on, we actually had a large crowd (with a student section!). Girls varsity started with a win, followed by wrestling and concluding with our 67-61 victory. This gave LCA the drum for the fifth year in a row. Unfortunately, since the last time I posted about basketball (when we were 1-2), we have lost five games in a row before tonight's win. Do the math and we're a lack-luster 3-7. Sometimes we show up, other times, not so much. Tonight was better, but with three league games next week, we're looking at an uphill battle.