63 thoughts on “February 14, 2017: Love One Another”
Resolved: children should not have to give out valentines until they're old enough to fill out the cards entirely on their own.
No kidding, my 2-year old used permanent marker all over every part of the cards he picked out. He really wanted to color for his friends.
My 5-year old can fill them out, but she's awful with efficient use of writing space, so names were often written on two separate lines, not unlike Ji
Jim Thome
My kids have 4-or-5-letter names and I've seen them have to extremely laterally compress the last two to fit them on the page. Making capital Es look like lowercase Ls with a stray mark around the middle.
Do your children not have generic ones, on which they simply write their name and leave the "to" line blank?
Aquinas decided to design a personal Valentine for everyone in his class. He started working on it last week, and actually got it done. I was quite impressed. He made cards with hidden-images, color-by-numbers, mazes, etc. He also misspelled every kids' name, even though he was working from a list. I was less impressed by that part.
He's a Valentine's kind of guy, isn't he?
Aye. We did just the smallest of "parties" this year. I'm sure next year he'll make us throw a bigger shindig again.
Funny that it's this one and not other holidays one might pick to be enthusiastic about. Unless he's always looking for an occasion to throw a party.
I suppose there aren't a whole lot of festive holidays (New Year's, Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas) that don't get decent coverage. Does he know about St. Patrick's Day?
He must get his affinity for Valentine's from me... (Seriously though, I've warmed on the holiday since college. I'm even wearing a pink tie today.)
I don't think he's too big on St. Pat's. Halloween and Valentine's are right in his wheelhouse for adding extra fanfare - he's made seasonal bingo games with holiday-related items instead of numbers for both of those holidays.
I had to fill out 42 cards with To: My Friend From: [peperoncino] yesterday. They also had super annoying stickers that had to be added separately. (I can justifiably complain since I'm not the one who bought them.) The jalapeño was great--he filled out all of his cards on his own at the end of last week because he was so excited.
That's adorable about Aquinas!
This week's The Ringer podcast is an interview with Glen Perkins. It's pretty good. Perk talks about his love of sabermetrics, his beliefs about the closer role, and his years long goal of convincing Michael Cuddyer that WAR matters.
I'll have to catch this. I'm not a Ringer MLB Show subscriber, which I can't really justify since I listen to Ben's other podcast & enjoyed his Ringer co-host's recent appearance on same. I suppose it's because I don't read The Ringer? (Should I? I've heard mixed reviews.)
Edit: The Ringer's website has top-level nav for NBA & NFL content, but not MLB? For a "Sports. Pop Culture. Tech." publication that's a frustrating UI choice.
I haven't caught much. Just information overload. But I pick out podcasts where I'm intrigued by the guest.
On the other hand, scrolling down I count so far three things about Girls and only a single MLB entry. *scrolls more* Ah hah, two more from February 8 and another from the 7th. I think the "Sports" needs to be amended to "NBA Sports, some NFL, maybe MLB."
Edit: I made it to the bottom of their page and found a fifth from the 6th.
Hmm. I see stuff on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, the Grammys, Girls, LEGO Batman, a clickbait post about DJ Kahlid leaving Snapchat for Instagram, another on how celebrities are becoming more vocal about politics... Hard pass, I think.
You're just waiting for Bill Simmons' highly anticipated HBO show, aren't you.
I'd ask someone if I could borrow their HBO streaming credentials if Simmons' show is primarily a round table topical discussion with a resurrected James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Langston Hughes, Marshall McLuhan, Dickey Chappelle, Tony Judt, and (a very much alive) Teju Cole & Barbara Ehrenreich, followed by a reconstituted & resurrected Hunter S. Thompson in the Andy Rooney slot telling a cardboard cutout of Simmons how Simmons has wasted his talent/resources that week.
I don't know if that's within HBO's budget, though.
resurrected Hunter S. Thompson in the Andy Rooney slot
You know what I don't like.... Bumpers. They used to be standard height, and now they're not. Bumpers are ridiculous!
The joke here is that Simmons already flamed out on HBO after about three months and is cancelled.
Simmons: the anti-JoePos.
On the other hand, scrolling down I count so far three things about Girls and only a single MLB entry. *scrolls more* Ah hah, two more from February 8 and another from the 7th. I think the "Sports" needs to be amended to "NBA Sports, some NFL, maybe MLB."
Took her to Best Buy last Thursday. Some guy named Kelly sold us a sound bar for the family room TV. Told her Mom wouldn't even notice. It's Tuesday and she hasn't figured that out.
Friday, she and I went to her first NBA game. She was ecstatic in the first quarter. She really enjoyed the game and there were several really exciting plays. Before the game I pointed out the The Brow and told her that he was one of the very best players in the world. Then, he proceeded to prove me right with an absolutely incredible game. The Wolves took a 4 point lead into the halftime break. NOP immediately goes on a 7-0 run to start the third quarter. Miss SBG looks at me and says "Third quarter" and rolled her eyes.
I took my 10 year old to the debacle against Portland a few weeks ago. Highlight was getting free froyo.
Also, it's been a while since I've been to Target Center. What a dump that place is. Holy cow.
The seats are just gross. Worse than any theater seats.
I get the gripes the club has about the arena (then again, the Timberwolves did build it themselves, so...). The concourses are A.W.F.U.L. We entered on First Avenue on street level (which is not the main entrance anymore). The walk toward the escalators reminded me of Spinal Tap (Hello, Cleveland!).
Did you happen to catch the high school dancers before the game? My sister was among them.
Yes we did.
The Brow is really a very nice guy. I've seen him several times around the city, and he always has time for folks to chat him up. That, and he has a righteous uni-brow.
The Brow?
#Dbacks bench coach Ron Gardenhire has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Please join us in sending well wishes to Gardy and his family. pic.twitter.com/RKRyuuVTyS
I don't know why it's a big deal when an NBA player takes a game off. Baseball players do it all the time. While baseball has twice as many games, the sport certainly isn't as strenuous as basketball. I couldn't believe Lue would give 3 star players the same game off, though. Might as well just forfeit the game. It would be smarter to give different players a different night off. With Love and his back, he probably shouldn't play back-to-back games at all, at least until the playoffs, if they ever do it in the playoffs.
Holding them all back the same game makes sense to me. If you're going to put your team at a disadvantage by siting your best players, at least this way you're only lowering your chances of winning one game instead of making your team worse for three games.
Plus, doing them one at a time could also put extra stress on the two stars that are playing that game, perhaps mitigating the advantage you might get by sitting them in the first place.
I think with the NBA, you see teams so few times ( 2 home games for Conference foes, only 1 for non Conference) its not fair to to customers to buy tickets and not see the good players. Right around Christmas, Cleveland traveled to Memphis there LeBron Jame, Kevin Love, AND Kyrie Irving didn't even travel to the game. That game was part of a partial season ticket promotion (something like 10 games for $1000 for premium seats). Thats just not fair. I think if you are going to do maintenance days for players (and I agree with coaches doing them!), do them at home.
At least in the MLB you get 2-3-4 game series and if you are in a division you play 19 games.
I would bet coaches would get a lot more crap for sitting star players from home fans and the front office if they sit them at home games. It makes sense since teams are starting to adjust prices based on opponents but my sense is that coaches couldn't care less about fans of opposing teams or the far less fans that show up for road games.
Wattsy is all over why it's a problem.
I don't know if 6 games is the magic number, but I really think they should do away with back-to-backs. Even at home, I think the league is too competitive for players to be at their best both nights.
Or at the very least require that both teams be on back-to-backs if necessary. Maybe a home-and-home series?
Unenforceable. that rule would cause a rash of "injuries".
Glad to hear the evacuation order lifted for Northern California, but with it sounding like a string of storms to hit the West Coast starting Friday, I probably wouldn't unpack if I was in the evacuation area.
the guidance was for folks to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.
New storms start tonight and are expected to be heavy and lasting for about a week.
Just found out Trey has made the junior high basketball team despite not having ever played organized basketball. He's also a sixth grader competing against 6-7-8 graders and is definitely not tall for his age. So I will be experiencing what it's like to be a basketball dad now as well. Of course, his season runs at the same time as Junior's, who is on the senior high baseball team as a freshman. The baseball games start at 3:15 and the basketball games start at 5:00, so when they do have games on the same day, so whoever stays to the end of the baseball game will be able to still see at least part of the basketball game (hopefully).
LeBron is now 21-1 against the Wolves in his career.
Ugh.
Anyone here ever deal with their kid being bullied? We've been trying to wrap our heads around it for the past few weeks, but it's become obvious that the boys in Aquinas' class have moved from "boys will be boys" to "targeted meanness and/or forced exclusion." I've reached out to the teacher and a couple of parents, just tonight. It's an incredibly small class (there are 6 boys, including Aquinas), and Aquinas is much less athletic/more unique than the others. He also struggles with being a good sport sometimes, if things aren't going his way (it's first grade. that's not unusual, right?), but we've been working on that for a while, and it's certainly no excuse for him being picked on. He actually asked us to move again, and said he just wished he could fit in. My heart is broken tonight.
Resolved: children should not have to give out valentines until they're old enough to fill out the cards entirely on their own.
No kidding, my 2-year old used permanent marker all over every part of the cards he picked out. He really wanted to color for his friends.
My 5-year old can fill them out, but she's awful with efficient use of writing space, so names were often written on two separate lines, not unlike Ji
Jim Thome
My kids have 4-or-5-letter names and I've seen them have to extremely laterally compress the last two to fit them on the page. Making capital Es look like lowercase Ls with a stray mark around the middle.
Do your children not have generic ones, on which they simply write their name and leave the "to" line blank?
Aquinas decided to design a personal Valentine for everyone in his class. He started working on it last week, and actually got it done. I was quite impressed. He made cards with hidden-images, color-by-numbers, mazes, etc. He also misspelled every kids' name, even though he was working from a list. I was less impressed by that part.
He's a Valentine's kind of guy, isn't he?
Aye. We did just the smallest of "parties" this year. I'm sure next year he'll make us throw a bigger shindig again.
Funny that it's this one and not other holidays one might pick to be enthusiastic about. Unless he's always looking for an occasion to throw a party.
I suppose there aren't a whole lot of festive holidays (New Year's, Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas) that don't get decent coverage. Does he know about St. Patrick's Day?
He must get his affinity for Valentine's from me... (Seriously though, I've warmed on the holiday since college. I'm even wearing a pink tie today.)
I don't think he's too big on St. Pat's. Halloween and Valentine's are right in his wheelhouse for adding extra fanfare - he's made seasonal bingo games with holiday-related items instead of numbers for both of those holidays.
I had to fill out 42 cards with To: My Friend From: [peperoncino] yesterday. They also had super annoying stickers that had to be added separately. (I can justifiably complain since I'm not the one who bought them.) The jalapeño was great--he filled out all of his cards on his own at the end of last week because he was so excited.
That's adorable about Aquinas!
This week's The Ringer podcast is an interview with Glen Perkins. It's pretty good. Perk talks about his love of sabermetrics, his beliefs about the closer role, and his years long goal of convincing Michael Cuddyer that WAR matters.
I'll have to catch this. I'm not a Ringer MLB Show subscriber, which I can't really justify since I listen to Ben's other podcast & enjoyed his Ringer co-host's recent appearance on same. I suppose it's because I don't read The Ringer? (Should I? I've heard mixed reviews.)
Edit: The Ringer's website has top-level nav for NBA & NFL content, but not MLB? For a "Sports. Pop Culture. Tech." publication that's a frustrating UI choice.
I haven't caught much. Just information overload. But I pick out podcasts where I'm intrigued by the guest.
On the other hand, scrolling down I count so far three things about Girls and only a single MLB entry. *scrolls more* Ah hah, two more from February 8 and another from the 7th. I think the "Sports" needs to be amended to "NBA Sports, some NFL, maybe MLB."
Edit: I made it to the bottom of their page and found a fifth from the 6th.
Hmm. I see stuff on The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, the Grammys, Girls, LEGO Batman, a clickbait post about DJ Kahlid leaving Snapchat for Instagram, another on how celebrities are becoming more vocal about politics... Hard pass, I think.
You're just waiting for Bill Simmons' highly anticipated HBO show, aren't you.
I'd ask someone if I could borrow their HBO streaming credentials if Simmons' show is primarily a round table topical discussion with a resurrected James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Langston Hughes, Marshall McLuhan, Dickey Chappelle, Tony Judt, and (a very much alive) Teju Cole & Barbara Ehrenreich, followed by a reconstituted & resurrected Hunter S. Thompson in the Andy Rooney slot telling a cardboard cutout of Simmons how Simmons has wasted his talent/resources that week.
I don't know if that's within HBO's budget, though.
resurrected Hunter S. Thompson in the Andy Rooney slot
You know what I don't like.... Bumpers. They used to be standard height, and now they're not. Bumpers are ridiculous!
The joke here is that Simmons already flamed out on HBO after about three months and is cancelled.
Simmons: the anti-JoePos.
that could almost be a tag line for the WGOM. 😉
Here's a direct link to it on SoundCloud.
Miss SBG stories:
Took her to Best Buy last Thursday. Some guy named Kelly sold us a sound bar for the family room TV. Told her Mom wouldn't even notice. It's Tuesday and she hasn't figured that out.
Friday, she and I went to her first NBA game. She was ecstatic in the first quarter. She really enjoyed the game and there were several really exciting plays. Before the game I pointed out the The Brow and told her that he was one of the very best players in the world. Then, he proceeded to prove me right with an absolutely incredible game. The Wolves took a 4 point lead into the halftime break. NOP immediately goes on a 7-0 run to start the third quarter. Miss SBG looks at me and says "Third quarter" and rolled her eyes.
I took my 10 year old to the debacle against Portland a few weeks ago. Highlight was getting free froyo.
That's bad.
But you get your choice of toppings!
That's good!
Highlights from the game: KAT's 19 point first quarter, Rubio's superior defensive play to poke the ball away go get the ball and convert, several huge dunks by KAT and Brow, Brow's out of his mind shooting, Brow's overall game including exquisite ball handling, Crunch's birthday, really good seats.
Also, it's been a while since I've been to Target Center. What a dump that place is. Holy cow.
The seats are just gross. Worse than any theater seats.
I get the gripes the club has about the arena (then again, the Timberwolves did build it themselves, so...). The concourses are A.W.F.U.L. We entered on First Avenue on street level (which is not the main entrance anymore). The walk toward the escalators reminded me of Spinal Tap (Hello, Cleveland!).
Did you happen to catch the high school dancers before the game? My sister was among them.
Yes we did.
The Brow is really a very nice guy. I've seen him several times around the city, and he always has time for folks to chat him up. That, and he has a righteous uni-brow.
The Brow?
Crap.
Seconded
Aw man.
Boo-urns. Good luck to Gardy.
May his oncology team be filled with All-Stars.
Got this IM today from NBBW:
Jxxx got all clear today! No further treatments needed. No more cancer!!
The sound you hear is all of New Ulm driving up to Minneapolis for a word with the Twins' communication department.
Edit: C'mon, Mauer.
maybe it's gurl Deutsch?
They certainly do seem to speak a different language at times.
I've been against shortening the NBA season -- they've been playing 82 games since forever -- but I'm thinking that maybe dropping 6 games or so wouldn't be a bad idea.
I don't know why it's a big deal when an NBA player takes a game off. Baseball players do it all the time. While baseball has twice as many games, the sport certainly isn't as strenuous as basketball. I couldn't believe Lue would give 3 star players the same game off, though. Might as well just forfeit the game. It would be smarter to give different players a different night off. With Love and his back, he probably shouldn't play back-to-back games at all, at least until the playoffs, if they ever do it in the playoffs.
Holding them all back the same game makes sense to me. If you're going to put your team at a disadvantage by siting your best players, at least this way you're only lowering your chances of winning one game instead of making your team worse for three games.
Plus, doing them one at a time could also put extra stress on the two stars that are playing that game, perhaps mitigating the advantage you might get by sitting them in the first place.
I think with the NBA, you see teams so few times ( 2 home games for Conference foes, only 1 for non Conference) its not fair to to customers to buy tickets and not see the good players. Right around Christmas, Cleveland traveled to Memphis there LeBron Jame, Kevin Love, AND Kyrie Irving didn't even travel to the game. That game was part of a partial season ticket promotion (something like 10 games for $1000 for premium seats). Thats just not fair. I think if you are going to do maintenance days for players (and I agree with coaches doing them!), do them at home.
At least in the MLB you get 2-3-4 game series and if you are in a division you play 19 games.
I would bet coaches would get a lot more crap for sitting star players from home fans and the front office if they sit them at home games. It makes sense since teams are starting to adjust prices based on opponents but my sense is that coaches couldn't care less about fans of opposing teams or the far less fans that show up for road games.
Wattsy is all over why it's a problem.
I don't know if 6 games is the magic number, but I really think they should do away with back-to-backs. Even at home, I think the league is too competitive for players to be at their best both nights.
Or at the very least require that both teams be on back-to-backs if necessary. Maybe a home-and-home series?
Unenforceable. that rule would cause a rash of "injuries".
NOW we're back. For reals this time.
Glad to hear the evacuation order lifted for Northern California, but with it sounding like a string of storms to hit the West Coast starting Friday, I probably wouldn't unpack if I was in the evacuation area.
the guidance was for folks to be ready to leave at a moment's notice.
New storms start tonight and are expected to be heavy and lasting for about a week.
Just found out Trey has made the junior high basketball team despite not having ever played organized basketball. He's also a sixth grader competing against 6-7-8 graders and is definitely not tall for his age. So I will be experiencing what it's like to be a basketball dad now as well. Of course, his season runs at the same time as Junior's, who is on the senior high baseball team as a freshman. The baseball games start at 3:15 and the basketball games start at 5:00, so when they do have games on the same day, so whoever stays to the end of the baseball game will be able to still see at least part of the basketball game (hopefully).
LeBron is now 21-1 against the Wolves in his career.
Ugh.
Anyone here ever deal with their kid being bullied? We've been trying to wrap our heads around it for the past few weeks, but it's become obvious that the boys in Aquinas' class have moved from "boys will be boys" to "targeted meanness and/or forced exclusion." I've reached out to the teacher and a couple of parents, just tonight. It's an incredibly small class (there are 6 boys, including Aquinas), and Aquinas is much less athletic/more unique than the others. He also struggles with being a good sport sometimes, if things aren't going his way (it's first grade. that's not unusual, right?), but we've been working on that for a while, and it's certainly no excuse for him being picked on. He actually asked us to move again, and said he just wished he could fit in. My heart is broken tonight.
responses starting in today's cuppa.