 |
| Yost and the trophy |
 |
| Salvador Perez |
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| Ben Zobrist |
 |
| Mooooooose! |
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| Lorenzo Cain |
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| The kids had a great view! |
 |
| Waiting for the parade to start. |
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| Good thing Aaron is tall. |
Showing posts with label Sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sports. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2015
Royals Parade
We had good luck a couple of Tuesdays ago and made it to the Royals Parade. We had even better luck considering we got separated and still managed to watch the parade together. Danny and I crossed at 10th and Grand, thinking Aaron and Maura were right behind us, but due to the crowd they got stuck on the other side. Of course, that was the last time the police were letting people cross before the parade. Aaron and Maura hiked all the way around the Sprint Center and found a great spot only about 3 rows deep. Danny and I were able to meet up with them and have lunch before the parade started. Here are some pictures (in reverse order):
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Yup, it's March Madness. Thank goodness for CBS broadcasting the first three rounds online. It's not HD, but it beats by a mile soccer, cricket, rugby, horse racing, snooker, and any other sport they televise here all combined.
Right now I'm watching the 'Nova-Kentucky game on replay. Have to scout for the 'Hawks next game.
Other odds and ends on this St. Patrick's Day morning (have you had your Guinness yet?)
Wife and I went to Oxford last weekend to check out the town and universities. It was a really cool college town, but it definitely wasn't a typical weekend. It must have been some kind of end of term because there were a ton of parents thre helping their kids move out of the dorms.
We got there in the late morning and took off wandering. Wife will cover the sites on her blog, so I'll cover lunch. Our guidebook said one of the best restaurants was a place called Quod. It was geared toward Mediterranean cuisine and sounded pretty good. It did not disappoint.
When we walked in I was afraid we wouldn't get a table because the place was packed, but we lucked into a small table. For an appetizer we split an order of fried squid. It was perfectly cooked: lightly crispy, just the smallest bit chewy but not tough at all, and very tasty. Main courses were a wild mushroom and goat's cheese pizza for Wife and porcini ravioli with parsley butter for me. Wife and I both agreed that the pizza was one of the best if not the best pizza we'd ever had. The ravioli had a wonderful mushroom flavor with a lot of parmesan as well.
Dessert was a blackberry and apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. Needless to say we pretty much had to role out of the restaurant after all that food.
But sometimes something like that can't compare to a homemade quesadilla when you're hungry for Mexican food. That's what we had last night to go with our basketball watching (along with lots of Corona of course).
Unfortunately there's not much of anything more exciting than that to report. Next month should be a lot more exciting because we're headed to Ireland for Easter and then Paris for our anniversary. That should be fun because we're taking the high speed train from London to Paris.
Rock Chalk!
Frog
Right now I'm watching the 'Nova-Kentucky game on replay. Have to scout for the 'Hawks next game.
Other odds and ends on this St. Patrick's Day morning (have you had your Guinness yet?)
Wife and I went to Oxford last weekend to check out the town and universities. It was a really cool college town, but it definitely wasn't a typical weekend. It must have been some kind of end of term because there were a ton of parents thre helping their kids move out of the dorms.
We got there in the late morning and took off wandering. Wife will cover the sites on her blog, so I'll cover lunch. Our guidebook said one of the best restaurants was a place called Quod. It was geared toward Mediterranean cuisine and sounded pretty good. It did not disappoint.
When we walked in I was afraid we wouldn't get a table because the place was packed, but we lucked into a small table. For an appetizer we split an order of fried squid. It was perfectly cooked: lightly crispy, just the smallest bit chewy but not tough at all, and very tasty. Main courses were a wild mushroom and goat's cheese pizza for Wife and porcini ravioli with parsley butter for me. Wife and I both agreed that the pizza was one of the best if not the best pizza we'd ever had. The ravioli had a wonderful mushroom flavor with a lot of parmesan as well.
Dessert was a blackberry and apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. Needless to say we pretty much had to role out of the restaurant after all that food.
But sometimes something like that can't compare to a homemade quesadilla when you're hungry for Mexican food. That's what we had last night to go with our basketball watching (along with lots of Corona of course).
Unfortunately there's not much of anything more exciting than that to report. Next month should be a lot more exciting because we're headed to Ireland for Easter and then Paris for our anniversary. That should be fun because we're taking the high speed train from London to Paris.
Rock Chalk!
Frog
Thursday, December 07, 2006
My Beloved Jayhawks
Well, Jayhawk football has yet again failed to make it to a bowl game in consecutive years. Of course when you blow two games in which you hold large leads in the fourth quarter you don’t deserve to go to a bowl game.
Since football is over we might as well talk basketball. The relatively minor struggles of the Jayhawks have been much discussed in my family recently, and I have a theory. Granted I haven’t been able to see all the games yet (still waiting on DVD’s from my friend back home that’s recording the games for me), but I did see the Florida game.
In spite of what everyone said about it being a well played game it didn’t look particularly well played to me. The final score was misleading about the offensive output due to overtime. Florida had massive foul trouble throughout the game so were not at their full strength. KU made several mistakes that would have been fatal against a team not plagued by even bigger errors. This wasn’t so much one team grabbing victory as it was which team made less mistakes.
On, then, to my theory. Comparing Bill Self and Roy Williams is inevitable. Roy coached for a lot of very successful years at KU and these early season losses to inferior teams were very rare. However I can’t recall a team that Roy coached that didn’t have an upperclassman who was a vocal leader. KU is certainly lacking that at the moment, but my hope is that Julian Wright finds his voice and yanks the guys out of their stupor.
What does this have to do with my theory? Well, not much actually, that was a bit of digression. Now really to my theory. To me it appeared that from the beginning of the season Roy coaches his transition game. He pounds that into his players from day one of practice each year. This leads to his teams always looking very impressive early because early in the season every team is more focused on what they’re doing than game-planning for their opponents. KU fans got used to this approach which makes early season setbacks tougher to take now.
Bill Self has a different focus. He believes very strongly that ultimate success is rooted in lock down man defense which requires effort and focus night in and night out. His determination to instill this belief in his players at the beginning of the year leads to an offense that can be pretty anemic and a lack of defensive adjustments.
However the more I think about it the more this approach reminds me of how Norman Dale approached the Hickory team. He knew what it was going to take to win in the end and he wasn’t going to be put off of that vision by a few early losses or some criticism from the fans. Bill Self is the same way.
He’s just now got the team understanding that you win games when shots aren’t falling by making sure the other team’s offense is struggling as well (USC and Depaul went a long way toward proving that). Now I think he could make this point much more quickly if he would do a wholesale benching of guys that aren’t giving effort for walk-ons that will. I always thought that was one of Roy’s most effective tactics.
Now that Coach Self has got them going down the road to believing in his philosophy he’ll start putting in the defensive wrinkles and offensive sets that can make this team lethal. Now he has time with Christmas break to truly add all the X’s and O’s that when combined with the effort can make KU a great team. You can tell by his most recent comments that he’s been waiting for this stretch of relatively few games and lots of practice time.
The next few months are going to be a lot of fun!
Rock Chalk!
Frog
Since football is over we might as well talk basketball. The relatively minor struggles of the Jayhawks have been much discussed in my family recently, and I have a theory. Granted I haven’t been able to see all the games yet (still waiting on DVD’s from my friend back home that’s recording the games for me), but I did see the Florida game.
In spite of what everyone said about it being a well played game it didn’t look particularly well played to me. The final score was misleading about the offensive output due to overtime. Florida had massive foul trouble throughout the game so were not at their full strength. KU made several mistakes that would have been fatal against a team not plagued by even bigger errors. This wasn’t so much one team grabbing victory as it was which team made less mistakes.
On, then, to my theory. Comparing Bill Self and Roy Williams is inevitable. Roy coached for a lot of very successful years at KU and these early season losses to inferior teams were very rare. However I can’t recall a team that Roy coached that didn’t have an upperclassman who was a vocal leader. KU is certainly lacking that at the moment, but my hope is that Julian Wright finds his voice and yanks the guys out of their stupor.
What does this have to do with my theory? Well, not much actually, that was a bit of digression. Now really to my theory. To me it appeared that from the beginning of the season Roy coaches his transition game. He pounds that into his players from day one of practice each year. This leads to his teams always looking very impressive early because early in the season every team is more focused on what they’re doing than game-planning for their opponents. KU fans got used to this approach which makes early season setbacks tougher to take now.
Bill Self has a different focus. He believes very strongly that ultimate success is rooted in lock down man defense which requires effort and focus night in and night out. His determination to instill this belief in his players at the beginning of the year leads to an offense that can be pretty anemic and a lack of defensive adjustments.
However the more I think about it the more this approach reminds me of how Norman Dale approached the Hickory team. He knew what it was going to take to win in the end and he wasn’t going to be put off of that vision by a few early losses or some criticism from the fans. Bill Self is the same way.
He’s just now got the team understanding that you win games when shots aren’t falling by making sure the other team’s offense is struggling as well (USC and Depaul went a long way toward proving that). Now I think he could make this point much more quickly if he would do a wholesale benching of guys that aren’t giving effort for walk-ons that will. I always thought that was one of Roy’s most effective tactics.
Now that Coach Self has got them going down the road to believing in his philosophy he’ll start putting in the defensive wrinkles and offensive sets that can make this team lethal. Now he has time with Christmas break to truly add all the X’s and O’s that when combined with the effort can make KU a great team. You can tell by his most recent comments that he’s been waiting for this stretch of relatively few games and lots of practice time.
The next few months are going to be a lot of fun!
Rock Chalk!
Frog
Saturday, July 15, 2006
The Unwatchable Sport
I guess it’s been way too long since I wrote a post since I’ve got friends e-mailing me asking when the next update is coming. Well here it is, in all its lack of glory.
The big thing over the past couple of weeks has been the World Cup. Even though it has been over for a week, the talk is still about the head butt. There have even been articles about it on Page 2 on espn.com. It wasn’t quite Artest going into the stands, but it definitely made the game exciting.
That leads me to the title of my post. We went over to a friend of a friend’s place to watch the England quarterfinal match against Portugal. There hadn’t been an opportunity to watch a full match on a real TV (Internet viewing leaves a lot to be desired), so we were looking forward to it. Plus, there were going to be grilled hamburgers, so Wife was definitely excited.
Viewing conditions weren’t optimal since we wanted to enjoy the nice weather by sitting in the garden. This required the TV to be wheeled to the back door which caused the sun to wash out the picture a little, but it was still better than a 320x240 pixel internet feed.
I think it was about halfway through the first half when Wife and I realized that the first half wasn’t close to over and we were already bored. In the game’s defense our friends who actually know soccer said it was an awful game, but we were just completely bored. And this went on for 120 minutes plus some arbitrary number of extra time minutes that the referee decided they needed to play. Even after all that nobody had scored. The only thing interesting that had happened was a Portuguese player had gotten stepped on (in the groin) leading to the best English player shoving another Portuguese player and getting ejected.
In the end England lost because their players couldn’t kick a ball into the ocean from a boat when it comes to penalties.
Now I will be the first to admit that the subtlety of the game is completely lost on me, so I won’t claim to understand the game completely. But to me it seems like the game of close but not quite. So many times the players would break away from their defender only to make a pass that was just a little ahead of the player breaking to the goal.
I guess I could find myself watching soccer more often, but I think it will be similar to how the Sports Guy watches it: be doing something else and then look up when the announcers’ voices become agitated or excited. That way I can catch all the good bits and skip all the “action” around midfield.
Wife would like me to point out that she still likes it even if she couldn’t make it all the way through final without flipping through the channels occasionally. The drama of grown men (aka: the Italians) acting like they’ve been hit by a sledgehammer when anyone from the opposing side looks at them funny appeals to her soap opera appreciation side.
That should about cover soccer (football). I’d write about cricket but I don’t have a clue what the heck is going on in that sport. It’s incomprehensible.
Cheers,
Frog
The big thing over the past couple of weeks has been the World Cup. Even though it has been over for a week, the talk is still about the head butt. There have even been articles about it on Page 2 on espn.com. It wasn’t quite Artest going into the stands, but it definitely made the game exciting.
That leads me to the title of my post. We went over to a friend of a friend’s place to watch the England quarterfinal match against Portugal. There hadn’t been an opportunity to watch a full match on a real TV (Internet viewing leaves a lot to be desired), so we were looking forward to it. Plus, there were going to be grilled hamburgers, so Wife was definitely excited.
Viewing conditions weren’t optimal since we wanted to enjoy the nice weather by sitting in the garden. This required the TV to be wheeled to the back door which caused the sun to wash out the picture a little, but it was still better than a 320x240 pixel internet feed.
I think it was about halfway through the first half when Wife and I realized that the first half wasn’t close to over and we were already bored. In the game’s defense our friends who actually know soccer said it was an awful game, but we were just completely bored. And this went on for 120 minutes plus some arbitrary number of extra time minutes that the referee decided they needed to play. Even after all that nobody had scored. The only thing interesting that had happened was a Portuguese player had gotten stepped on (in the groin) leading to the best English player shoving another Portuguese player and getting ejected.
In the end England lost because their players couldn’t kick a ball into the ocean from a boat when it comes to penalties.
Now I will be the first to admit that the subtlety of the game is completely lost on me, so I won’t claim to understand the game completely. But to me it seems like the game of close but not quite. So many times the players would break away from their defender only to make a pass that was just a little ahead of the player breaking to the goal.
I guess I could find myself watching soccer more often, but I think it will be similar to how the Sports Guy watches it: be doing something else and then look up when the announcers’ voices become agitated or excited. That way I can catch all the good bits and skip all the “action” around midfield.
Wife would like me to point out that she still likes it even if she couldn’t make it all the way through final without flipping through the channels occasionally. The drama of grown men (aka: the Italians) acting like they’ve been hit by a sledgehammer when anyone from the opposing side looks at them funny appeals to her soap opera appreciation side.
That should about cover soccer (football). I’d write about cricket but I don’t have a clue what the heck is going on in that sport. It’s incomprehensible.
Cheers,
Frog
Thursday, March 16, 2006
It's the most wonderful time...
Okay, so maybe not the most wonderful time of the year, but it sure ranks toward the top. It's the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Is there any sporting event quite as cool as the first two days of the tournament? Sure the Super Bowl (am I going to get sued by the NFL for using the name?) is big, but there's four hours of lead up before the action even starts. Today, games have started already and will continue to be played pretty much continuously for the next 13 hours. It's a hoops fan's paradise.
A friend of mine is having a watch party at his place. I'm headed over there in a bit. We'll have our pick of games with the local CBS coverage, the March Madness On Demand, and there's a rumor that Time Warner is going to be offering multiple CBS channels. One can only hope.
The Jayhawks don't play until tomorrow night, so today is a day to enjoy the atmosphere, cheer for upsets (as long as they don't wreck my bracket), and hope that Billy Packer doesn't announce any of the games I want to watch.
A word about brackets. I always do two. One with KU winning, another that I try to be completely objective. This year that made me put Duke into the Elite Eight, but I don't think they'll beat Texas. That was lucky because under no circumstances will I ever pick Duke to win a championship. If they play Missouri I'll hope for all the players to be too ill to play so the game is called with a double forfeit.
Fiance filled out a bracket based on which mascot she liked the best. With her leanings toward the Irish, Iona went far in her bracket.
That's all the tournament musings for the moment. I'm off for Japan on Sunday, so I should have some good stories from that trip.
Rock Chalk!
Frog
A friend of mine is having a watch party at his place. I'm headed over there in a bit. We'll have our pick of games with the local CBS coverage, the March Madness On Demand, and there's a rumor that Time Warner is going to be offering multiple CBS channels. One can only hope.
The Jayhawks don't play until tomorrow night, so today is a day to enjoy the atmosphere, cheer for upsets (as long as they don't wreck my bracket), and hope that Billy Packer doesn't announce any of the games I want to watch.
A word about brackets. I always do two. One with KU winning, another that I try to be completely objective. This year that made me put Duke into the Elite Eight, but I don't think they'll beat Texas. That was lucky because under no circumstances will I ever pick Duke to win a championship. If they play Missouri I'll hope for all the players to be too ill to play so the game is called with a double forfeit.
Fiance filled out a bracket based on which mascot she liked the best. With her leanings toward the Irish, Iona went far in her bracket.
That's all the tournament musings for the moment. I'm off for Japan on Sunday, so I should have some good stories from that trip.
Rock Chalk!
Frog
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