Tuesday, November 27, 2007

My first chance to DVR the Hoosiers

I love watching games from the comfort of my home on my DVR. I get to fast forward through commercials and halftime, I am allowed to turn off the announcers, and I get to watch the interesting possessions three or four times before continuing... and all in High Definition! Mmmmm....

So, now that I've seen the Hoosiers against a real opponent, DVR-style, here are some thoughts.

1. This team is loaded with potential... and to date it is largely unrealized potential. This is not too surprising. While I think it's guaranteed that this team will get significantly better over the course of the season, it's still far from certain that they'll realize their potential.

2. Mike White got elbowed in the face and they called a foul on him.

3. Speaking of potential, I think IU started the season with a ranking that matched their potential -- about #8 in the country. That's what I think this team can be. It clearly is not what this team is today.

4. DJ White jumped up to catch a pass and was undercut by a GT player as he was coming down, causing him to bobble the pass out of bounds, and they gave the ball to GT.

5. This is why playing cupcakes at the beginning of the season is a waste of time. Indiana needed to start the season against a couple decent teams to find out what they needed to work on. Beating Longwood gave the Hoosiers no good information about their strengths and weaknesses. Schedule Longwood right before the conference games start, if at all.

6. Gordon is really good, and dang, he's just going to get better.

7. There's been a couple years when I thought the B10 was better than the ACC even though they lost the B10-ACC Challenge... this isn't one of those years.

8. People who complain about officiating annoy the crap out of me.

9. This was a good win, but it wasn't the kind of game that causes visions of Final Fours to dance in your head.

10. Go Wisconsin!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

How I spent my Friday night

First, I'm now so old that I've been looking forward to Friday night so that I could sleep. I've been incredibly busy with work, and I needed a good night's sleep, so that was my big Friday night plan - take a sleeping pill and then sleep all the way through till morning. Yup, I'm quite the party animal.

Unfortunately, Tyler was having one of his bad going-to-sleep nights where not only did he not want to go to sleep, but he was constantly messing around and keeping us awake as well. Given Tyler's normal eagerness to please, this is a strange aspect of his personality -- sometimes he would rather have us so angry at him that we don't trust ourselves to speak than to just relax and go to sleep. Or just relax and stay awake quietly. I don't get it. Last night he was probably revved up because Morgan was at our house having a sleepover with Carson, and he was having a hard time switching his engine back to idle.

So anyway, now it's 12:30 A.M. I'm still awake, Tyler's still awake, Karen's still awake, we're all exhausted... and then Carson strolls into our room, crawls up onto our bed, pauses for a moment on all fours in between Karen and I, and then vomits all over the sheets, pillows, and blanket. So Karen jumps up and cleans up Carson and I jump up and clean up the bed, we remake the bed, get a bucket, Carson continues to throw up periodically, and eventually I go downstairs to sleep on the couch with the animals.

Hooray. It's the weekend.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Decisions, decisions

We've had Time-Warner cable for years. We're happy with it. We use it for Roadrunner as well. They recently ran a new, bigger line from the street to our house (the size they use for apartment buildings) because we use so much bandwidth. No charge.

Time-Warner doesn't have the Big Ten Network.

Indiana has 17 games on the Big Ten Network this basketball season. In HD. I can't watch any of them. We have two games on CBS regional that I usually can't watch. I can't watch the ESPNU games.

That leaves 9 games that I know I can get (ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS National).

Nine.

This appears to be the best IU team in years. A Top 10 team. And I might miss nearly 3 out of 4 games. That's not okay.

DirectTV has the Big Ten Network.

Decisions, decisions...

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Italy 2

I'm trying to post several pictures plus a message. I somehow lost the first message and can only post four pictures. Give me a call. Uncle Roger is sick and I want to give you a report. Ove, Mommu

Italy




Posted by Picasa

Monday, October 01, 2007

London

I went to London for a couple days at the end of last week for a customer visit. My first time in London, but unfortunately the quick turnaround didn't leave much time for sightseeing. Here's a couple of my favorites pictures that I snapped:









Monday, August 20, 2007

On High School Musical 2

So here's my question about High School Musical 2.

Should I be really happy that the kids (especially Carson) are really into a wholesome movie about nice, polite teenagers who like sports and singing and dancing and earning money for college -- and the big villain of the movie is a self-absorbed teenage diva who hasn't yet learned the value of friendship?

Or should I be really annoyed that the movie was on 37 times times over the weekend and now all the songs are now stuck in my head, maybe forever?

It's a dilemma.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Washington DC Trip photo album

Here's the whole album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/TBleizeffer/2007JulyWashingtonDC

Here's a few of my favorites.






















Note the plane landing in the background.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

On Michael Conley

We were discussing Mike Conley's decision to turn pro and your surprise at this decision recently.

Well, check out this article from Sport Illustrated on the Top Guards in the NBA Draft.

Who do they have first? Mike Conley.

Still surprised?

Monday, May 28, 2007

Happy Memorial Day

Not much going on here. I've basically done two things on my long weekend -- "spring" cleaning the garage and going to our new pool. The pool is the more pleasant of the two activities... though I admit a deep feeling of satisfaction at having a clean, well-organized garage, even if it will only remain that way for a few days.

We got a membership at a nearby "swim and racquet" club. This might seem silly, since our neighborhood has a pool (which is why we've avoided getting a membership for years), but now we're kicking ourselves for not doing it sooner. This place is sooooo much nicer than our pool. First, the pool is a lot bigger, and it has a lifeguards, diving board, a high dive, a water slide, and a big 3 feet section for little kids. And they have activities like swim team. Tyler made the swim team last Wednesday after a couple weeks of practicing by showing that he could swim all the way across the pool in his lane without touching the bottom. He did it, and he was very, very excited. And Lord knows Tyler needs to find activities that involve actual exercise. They also have tennis courts and tennis teams (Carson is going to do tennis, it starts in a couple weeks), plus a half-basketball court (where I can shoot hoops while the kids are in the pool), and a volleyball court. They also have a snack shack that sells drinks and, um, snacks.

Plus Karen knows 3/4 of the parents and kids who go there.

We went there on Saturday and Sunday and I bet we're going back today.

So that's it for Memorial Day... but it's enough.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Bob Kriner

We've been praying for Bob Kriner at Mass lately. I heard third hand that he is very ill with cancer. Have you heard anything from Soupy?

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Are the Bleizeffers from Romania?

I found an interesting link about "Bleizeffer" courtesy of Google:
http://genforum.genealogy.com/cgi-bin/pageload.cgi?bleizeffer::romania::271.html

"I'm looking for any information on the family name "Bleizeffer". I believe they once came from the area around Banat and maybe a town called "Tschestereg or Tschestelek". Any information of the towns or the surname would be appreciated."

Didn't someone do a geneology for our family awhile back?

Monday, May 14, 2007

Monday, May 07, 2007

In anticipation of the new "Die Hard" movie...

... coming out in a few weeks.



(Thanks to Kung Fu Monkey for posting the link. Yippee Kay Yaaaaaayyyy!)

Monday, April 30, 2007

Carson's elongated birthday celebration

Someone we've managed to extend Carson's birthday into a series of events spanning about 3 weeks. First, she gets to open presents as they arrive in the mail (which I think is crime).
























Then she goes to see the "High School Musical" musical with her friends and then have cupcakes afterwards.





















































Tyler was there for cupcakes (we stayed home and played "Scooby Doo - Mystery Mayhem" instead of going to the musical).

And then her actual birthday is next Tuesday and then I'm taking her to Chicago the following Friday.

That girl is totally lucking out this year.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Some pictures from Montpellier

As always, click on the picture to see the full-size image.


This is a picture of my hotel (to prevent anyone from getting overly jealous).


Who says Europe is different than the U.S.? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and hamburgers!


Here's a statue and water fountain combo - and some kids in the background who had just gotten drenched playing in the fountain (sound familar?).


On the other side of the fountain above, there's a loooooong avenue to walk down. Pretty.


Here's a big square full of restaurants. This is where the TMNT picture above was taken.


This is the building where the conference is happening. It looks substantially nicer than the hotel.


Another long esplanade... this time with flowers.


Big arches never go out of style.


A statute with a big monument in the background. Speaking of big monuments...


...here it is close-up. Not sure the photo does it justice. It's big. Really big.


Here's a couple pictures of an ancient roman aquaduct. I need to explain to Tyler how impressive it is that the Romans could build multi-level structures using arches to move water around and have them still standing more than two thousand years later.


And for Carson, here's a picture of some crazy pigeons who were noisily taking a bath in some water near the aquaduct. They were having a ball.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

I'm taking Carson to American Girl in Chicago

For her 7th birthday.

We're going to have lunch at the AG Cafe and see the American Girl Revue show.

We'll also check out a couple Chicago area museums while we're there.

I'm also learning how to braid her hair.

It's a good thing that I'm comfortable with my masculinity!