tracker7 | Entries tagged with football

I can't seem to get over being tired most of the time. I'm not sleeping as well as I'd like. I feel like I'm just staggering forward at work, succeeding in spite of myself. Last week was bad. I think part of it was the first five-day week in a while, what with holidays and weather. By Friday afternoon, I was moving mostly by the power of spite. I just wanted to have enough energy to get home.

An early bedtime helped. I went to Dad's to pick up a pressure cooker that I'd had shipped there. We had a good low-key afternoon together, a late lunch and some football. Got back to Louisville around midnight, stayed up for an hour or so, went to bed.

Sunday. The Ravens lost a heartbreaker to the Bills, who will play the Chiefs - again - for the AFC championship. I put my trusty printer to work on material for this weekend's convention during commercial breaks, tearing through a couple of ink cartridges and lots of paper - 4th- and 5th-level DCC spellcasters can easily have 15-page grimoires!

MLK Day was a holiday for us. It's still nice and a little bit novel having holidays off like civilized people. I took it as easy as I could, doing more convention prep. I had some vague plans of finding some volunteering to do, but the cold and my own weakness wiped those plans out. And I sure as hell wasn't going to watch that orange bastard's inauguration.

I'm looking forward to the con - seeing friends and playing some games and all that. Unfortunately, I'm expecting some drama with a bad actor. I tag my games as ages 13+, and this dude signs up himself and his kid. A couple of years ago, I let this slide in a Blade Runner game, and it was a mistake - the kid was disruptive and took away from the experience of other players, and I'm not going to let it happen again. I've already talked with the con organizers, and they told me I have final say on who gets seated at my table. So, in the parlance of our times, fuck dem kids.

Two-and-a-half days at work last week. Didn't see my rural clients because of road conditions, and we got another snowstorm on Friday. I wasn't feeling great Friday morning and went in with the plan of sorting one client's apartment concerns out, then either WFH or taking a half-day and watching the weather from the comfort of my couch.

That didn't happen. When the weather started hitting, the powers-that-be made the sensible decision to close our offices and clinics at 1PM. All good - that fit into my plans. About 12:40 the client mentioned above called, told me he was a couple of blocks from the center and needed a way home. I told him to get to the center and I'd get him home. What should have been a 20-minute drive took a little over an hour. Okay, great, I'm only burning three hours of PTO. I headed for home.

That's when the second call of the day came in. Another client needing help. I judged that the roads weren't too dangerous yet, offered up a prayer to Max Rockatansky, and headed back out. Got him to the grocery and back, and then got my own precious self home.

And that's where I stayed for the weekend, save for a quick trip to pick up a pizza on Sunday afternoon. The second wave of snow wasn't bad, and warmer temps today melted a lot of the snow off.

Today should have been better, but it started off with putting out more of someone else's fires and progressed to wrangling one of my own and then a couple more. Tomorrow,I need to put my people (and myself) first and take care of us.

Let's see how that works out.

Ravens beat the Steelers, and that was the best thing about a good NFL Wild Card weekend. The final game of the weekend is going on right now. It was supposed to be played in LA, but some horrific fires forced a move to Phoenix, to be played in a stadium whose naming rights belong to an insurance company that canceled a load of homeowners' policies in the wildfire area last year. I guess the universe does have a sense of the absurd.

Whatever. We're doomed.

Having Monday night to myself was a treat. I didn't sleep as much or as late as I wanted, to no real surprise. I got on the road before sunrise amid light traffic and had an easy drive to Liberty.

Dad and I went on a little last-minute grocery run, and did very little else on Christmas Eve. Plenty of cooking on Christmas morning, plenty of food and leftovers to graze on during the afternoon's NFL games. Kansas City beat Pittsburgh (yay) and the Ravens just demolished the Texans 31-2.

Drove back to Louisville, chatted with housemate, put stuff away, went to bed. Felt pretty darn good.

Busy week. In addition to the normal client visits and office work, our holiday party for the clients was on Thursday and that meant lots of extra work. I'm dangerously close to getting one of my folks intro transitional housing and if I can manage that I'll call the first half of the month a win.

Friday was good. Took a half-day as Clayton was in town and sat in on the evening's CP Red game. John C was unable to play, so that saved me from running out to Crescent Hill before and after the game.

Went to Liberty for a presentation at the library and to see Dad for a bit. My iPad suicided during some app updates and it couldn't be fixed, so I bought a new one this morning. Not cheap, but it's a hell of a good tool and I'm very accustomed to having one.

UofL football is going to the Sun Bowl, a New Year's Eve game. Win or lose, it'll be a good end to the season. Since it's on CBS instead of whatever cable network threw money at the NCAA, I'm going to take a half-day and watch the game from my couch before ...

Holy cow, I have plans for NYE! Almost a date, really. I don't quite know what to do with this. Casual plans, just hanging out and watching movies and quite possibly nodding off before midnight.

Thanskgiving weekend fell later in the month this year. I used a couple of personal hours to give myself a slightly early escape on Wednesday afternoon, handled some personal stuff, and headed to Liberty around sunset. Heavy traffic on 64, but nothing out of the ordinary for the rest of the drive.

Good meal on Thanksgiving Day, some okay football, and a water main break in the afternoon. Never a dull moment. Water was still out on Friday evening, so I decided to get a hotel room that night, and that was certainly a decision that I made.

Back to Liberty Saturday morning to wait for a package and play with Kaiser and listen to the UofL-UK game. The Cards won handily, 41-14, the package arrived, and I headed back to Louisville. Light snow around Bardstown, a pileup on 65 at the 264 interchange. It was good to get home and talk with housemate and watch Svengoolie.

So, Sunday morning. Ground's covered in snow. Clothes are being washed. Tomorrow Never Dies is playing. I have a stack of print and PDF books to read and Asimov's Prelude to Foundation on the Kindle app.

Friday night's game only ran for a couple of hours, and I wound up leaving a couple bottles of soda and water at the shop. Not my best night.

Did a lot of nothing yesterday. Laid in without sleeping very much. Miami beat Louisville.

Read a good chunk of When Gravity Fails this morning. Worked on more material for Cyberpunk.

Back to work tomorrow, and I'm making a fast trip to Liberty and back to pick up a couple of books from Noble Knight and some documents from Dad. Thought about spending the night and coming back up here early Tuesday morning, but I don't think I will. I'll sleep a little late and attend the morning meeting's via Zoom.

Short workweeks are always appreciated. I like them better when the day off is a Friday - when the week ends sooner rather than starting later - but I'm not going to complain. This one was busy, with the normal 150-mile drive on Thursday, so at least it didn't seem to drag on. So, here I am on a Sunday afternoon, watching the Colts-Texans game and doing laundry. Getting in some reading, too.

Today is the third anniversary of Mom's death. The pain is gone, and has been for a while, if I'm being honest. It's an emptiness now. An empty space. I miss her.

Friday was Dad's birthday, and I took him to lunch yesterday to celebrate. Heck of a good meal and Copper & Oak in Danville. We had a little other business to take care of, and that was handled easily enough. He's singing with his gospel group this afternoon, and that will hopefully keep him from dwelling on the date too much. They're singing about thirty miles south of Indy next weekend, and I may go up there and see about going early enough to go up to Patachou for one of their fantastic omelets.

I'm diving back into Eclipse Phase, prepping for a SYR game in a couple of weeks. I remember the broad strokes of the game, but so many details are coming back to me on the reread.

Some real glamour shots of Lucas Oil Stadium and Indianapolis in general during the game. I was just there five weeks ago, and I find myself missing it already. My GenCon family isn't what it used to be, but they do still mean something to me.

Some jerk decided to shoot up I-75 yesterday afternoon. Dude bought an AR of some stripe and 2000 rounds for it yesterday morning, then found a spot on an overpass and ... just started shooting. Still at large as of this afternoon.

I am trying to keep my hopes managed, but yesterday's dual-position interview felt good. I feel like I pitched myself well. I think that the panel liked me - I was told that if I passed the first round of interviewing, they would ask for references on Monday ... and the email asking for them hit my inbox this morning, with a follow-up request late this afternoon.

So, I threw out a request for reference on my socials, to use the parlance of our time, and got so many offers. An embarrassment of riches. Narrowed it down to a grad school friend who's now at the NIH, a good friend from my time at the paper, and my practicum mentor. Sent those in a couple of hours ago. Let's see what happens.

I'm feeling better about tomorrow's interview - also interviewing for two positions at the same time. I sure wouldn't turn down what I sat for yesterday, but if I'm being honest, tomorrow is what I really want. Better money, more inline with my education and interests.

I'm getting hopeful about this, no matter how much I'm trying not to. I'm telling myself that some of this is clearing books at the end of the calendar year. But then I think about the call asking if I was interested in a job that I hadn't actually applied for, and then there was the impromptu phone interview leading to an in-person appointment next week and ... well, here's hoping.

What else is going on. Started reading Lash-Up, a technothriller by Larry Bond. So far, it's heavy on the tech and slowly building up the thrills. Finished watching Hunters on Prime, and started Citadel. I'm dropping Prime after the last Thursday night NFL game of the season - not even watching tonight's Patriots-Steelers game - so, trying to get in as much of that service's viewing as I can before reupping Apple+.

Shotgunning resumes has led to some small progress. I have interviews coming up - two tomorrow, two Friday, one next week. None are bad options, and two are especially good. One is a substance abuse case management position that would probably move me to Danville or Nicholasville soon; the other is a prevention training gig that is very much in line with my MPH and would move me back to Lexington. I've said that I wouldn't go back there, but ... well, I do still have friends there, it's closer to home, and ... it's not here.

Booted a player from Cyberpunk Red over the weekend. Got tired of his in- and out-of-game antics, and didn't see it getting any better, so, seeya. Looking for a couple of new players, of course. And our Delta Green handler wants to get in some time as a player, so I'm taking over that one in a couple of weeks.

UofL lost to Florida State in the ACC championship. No surprise there, the Cards were underdogs. Next up is a mid-level bowl game between Christmas and New Year's Eve sometime. I think it's a nationally televised game instead of ESPN coverage, so I can watch Jeff Brohm close out his first year as our coach.

Cardinal football had an unexpectedly rough game against Virginia Thursday night. UofL had a 14-0 lead at the start of the second half, then Virginia put up 21 unanswered. Louisville came back in the fourth, with a final score of 31-24. It was ugly, but ultimately a good win. They're 9-1 now, and in a good place for an ACC championship slot. Next weekend is against Miami, and the regular season ends the weekend after that against UK.

Saw ex-housemate this week. He's out of the little house on Cannons, and hopefully free of that crazy woman, too. He had some last pictures of the property, and the landlords finally did something about the godawful vegetation and ancient rusty fencing along the property lines. They hired pros to clear it all out, finally getting that it would have been WAY outside the maintenance part of a lease. Not my problem anymore, but ... it was a good place to live, for the most part.

Dad's honor guard led a short Veterans Day observation this morning. Respectful. I attended at his request, and they invited me to a post-observance lunch. Nice chats.

In another world, I'd be one of those vets, but T7 at 25 let someone convince him to abandon a lifelong dream. She wasn't worth it, but I was messed up then. Differently than I am now, I mean.f

Halloween season has improved my mood a little bit. I've found myself wishing that I'd renewed the ol' WoW subscription because of the holiday-themed stuff that Blizzard does - I've found myself wishing that for a few years now, so clearly it's not that big a deal.

I finally got around to getting a borrower's card at the county library. Checked out William Forstchen's One Second After and its sequels. Given my mental state last week, that may have been a mistake because these are hard reads. Great ideas, very good writing, but fuck me these characters suffer.

Louisville beat Duke this afternoon - a solid 23-0 thrashing. After last week's horrible game against Pitt, this was quite welcome.

Got things prepped for NerdLouvia next weekend. A buddy's putting me up for the weekend, and that's awesome. Going to run a couple of DCC sessions, and after that taking a crash course in Coriolis for January's con.

The first cold of the season arrived last night. Sore throat, slight headache; woke up this morning to general body aches and weakness. Dayquil and cough drops have been my companions today.

At halftime, UofL's up on Pitt 21-14. It shouldn't be this close. The Cards went into this game 6-0 against Pitt's 1-5 record.

I feel like a glutton. Came home and made so much spaghetti. Two batches, one with meat sauce, one with meatballs. Ate way too much, and now I'm heavily settled into the recliner. Just huge. Many meals of leftovers to come.

Cardinal football beat Notre Dame Saturday night. Record home crowd, beat a Top 10 ranked team, pretty exciting. ABC's commentators turned into apologists in the fourth quarter, trying to excuse Notre Dame with "oh they had midterms" and "oh it's a night game" and all that. Well, guess who else was playing a night game after midterm week, you chumps? The University of Louisville - the team that just manhandled their opponent.

Just not enough fight in the Irish.

Hamas launched a sizable assault on Israel over the weekend - huge rocket and artillery barrages and paramilitary operations attacking military and civilian targets inside Israeli borders. Most US media is describing it as "terrorist attacks," and I can't wholly disagree - Hamas has taken dozens of hostages and one of the targets was an open-air music festival, killing 260 or so people. The US is promising help to Israel, of course, but since the House of Representatives is recessed because there's no Speaker, and a college football coach that Alabama sent to the Senate is blocking US military promotions, and we have no ambassador to Israel because of Rand Fucking Paul ... well, this'll be a mess. More than usual.

Sad stomach. Maybe stress related, maybe something I ate. Store-brand Pepto-Bismol is helping.

Kaiser is a never-ending source of mostly entertainment, with occasional doses of confusion and frustration. He has the Doberman neuroses, and his attachment to Dad is like nothing I've ever seen in an animal.

JFC, Joe Buck's calling tonight's game. Do your thing, little mute button.

My fair commonwealth recently legalized gambling on live sports. State constitutional offices are up for election this year. Know what that means? We are in an absolute hell of dreadful television commercials. Our useless trumpian attorney-general is running for governor, and his campaign says very little about what he'll do for Kentucky, instead putting forward half-truths or outright lies. On the gambling side, we're treated to Kevin Hart's little-dude-yelling shtick, and that was old long before Draft Kings or whatever hired him to be their spokesman. Bleah.

Today was the NFL's first full day of the 2023 season. The Bengals got manhandled by the Browns, and the Ravens got an opening week win. There was an Indycar race at Laguna Seca, too, and that was a joy to watch. Laguna Seca's one of my favorite tracks in Gran Turismo, and it's just a beautiful facility. Scott Dixon won, after an early penalty and a lot of cautions.

Jesus Christ, NBC still uses the country-pop person for their Sunday night game intro. I love you, television remote mute button. Looks like we're going to be spared any kind of WTC attack commemoration - since the game is at New York - well, East Rutherford, New Jersey - I figured we'd get that. Again.

Gods, I'm just a ray of sunshine this evening.

Kansas City won the Super Bowl in a similar fashion to the conference championship win - a last-minute field goal. I’m happy enough with the outcome - my fandom is ultimately pretty casual, but I like the Chiefs well enough and I think Andy Reid’s a good coach on and off the field, and the Eagles fan base is terrible, so yeah, good for the Chiefs. Also, KC barbecue over cheesesteaks any day of the week.

Since the S&W doesn’t get enough use, I bought it a little friend - a compact Taurus, also in .40S&W. It feels a tiny bit rougher than the bigger pistol, and lord knows it feels different in my octave-and-a-half hands, but the first hundred rounds fed and fired just fine.

Patiently waiting for Free League and Goodman to acknowledge a couple of demo game reports. I’m not in any kind of hurry - I still haven’t sent a sell list to Noble Knight or boxed up a couple shelves’ worth of books for Half-Price Books. Going to be a good-sized purge again.

Well, heck, let’s dive into this. There’s a Harry Potter game out, and it’s causing quite the stirs, plural. First, it seems to be not very good, but it’s getting high numerical review scores because reviewers don’t want to get blackballed by studios. Then, there’s JK Rowling’s broad spectrum awfulness, and boy-howdy is there plenty of that to go around.

I’ve never really gotten the Potter fandom. I was in my mid-20s when the first book was published in the US, finishing my undergrad degree, and not much interested in the kid-lit that a lot of my peers were getting into. I tried the first book a few years later, and tossed it aside after a hundred pages. Could not give a damn about any of the characters, and that’s the kiss of death for me as a reader. The near-virulence of the fanbase turned me off, too. Say you haven’t read their tomes, and they look at you like you’ve grown a spare head or something. And FFS, if you’re a grown-ass adult and you still call someone a “muggle” or WTFever, just, ugh.

Good thing there’s no shortage of other things to read, watch, and play.

The LFPL J-town branch had a Blu-Ray copy of Zach Snyder's Justice League available, so I went that route. The bad, right off the bat (not The Batman) - it's in 4:3 instead of 16:9 or something civilized. And there is entirely too much slo-mo. Aside from those quibbles, it is a darned entertaining movie. Better than the theatrical release. A big ol' superhero actioner.

Oh - the SFX people should probably have worked a little harder to make Steppenwolf not look so much like the Devastator from Thor.

After a couple of not-so-great weeks, I had a terrific mental health day yesterday. Got up early-ish and loaded up the Escape and headed over to Jeffersonville to run some trains. Got in a couple of hours of very relaxing train time. Feeling darned good about the start of the day, I headed back across the river, looking for lunch before gaming. Decided to swing by Chicken King for the first time in months, and damned if those spicy fried wings and potato wedges weren't the very thing I wanted. And then it was on to Heroes for a DCC demo game. Four players, one known to me. Had a blast - short, straightforward adventure, two PC deaths (and that's why I whip up plenty of spares), tons of laughs. Went home, took a nap, read, napped again. I felt so damned good.

Today should be pretty good, too. Went out to Meijer earlier. I have a gallon of soup going in the slow cooker, and I'm going to bake some cornbread when the soup's about done. Probably get a little nap before the OSE game at noon, then another nap before the Super Bowl. And work is going to get whatever version of me manages to drag itself in tonight, and they'll like it.

Welp, February. Cold as all heck, but it's at least sunny right now. Some icy weather a couple of nights ago to remind us that, yeah, it's still winter.

The Chiefs beat the Bengals on a very late-game field goal, winning 23-20. Cincy's depleted o-line allowed at least four sacks in the first half alone, and KC just outplayed the Bengals. I'm not too broken up over it. I like both teams, and I'm indifferent at best towards the NFC teams that made it to the conference championship game. The Eagles are darned good, and the Chiefs are going to have a tough game.

Read yesterday that one of my favorite professors died last week. Dr. Esterhay was a good one, and gods what a full life.

Going to see Dad this weekend. Hoping for clear skies on at least one of the nights. I'll be far from Louisville's - or any other city's - light pollution, and I'd love to get a look at Comet ZTF.

This has sure been a week.

Ivy had to go back to hospital. Thought at first that it was a staph infection, but it was something else and Dad can't remember what it was, but anyway my niece and grandniece are back home now.

The local nerd community got a real shock Tuesday morning. The Louisville Game Shop is closing for good at the end of the month. I'm not too proud to say that the news just broke my heart. TLGS has been my game store of choice since Colin opened up 18 years ago - even when I lived 80 miles away. It's the best game store in Louisville, far and away, and, to be honest, I think it's the best in the state. I've ran demos there, played someone else's games there, lost a few tournaments there, and made good friends there. I understand why Colin and Clay are closing their doors, but I don't have to like it.

So, now, what to do? There are other stores in town, but they aren't the LGS. Heroes seems to be deteriorating and there was some drama between the owner and some customers that I wasn't privy to. There's Miso's, but it's really a toy/collectibles shop with some gaming stuff on the side. And nobody else is doing Bits & Mortar.

In the House of Representatives, the Republicans have a slight majority, but there are enough rebels and vandals and the like among their number to keep a Speaker of the House elected. It's a little bit funny and more than a little bit pathetic. Elect a bunch of clowns, expect a circus, I guess.

In Monday night's NFL game, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a serious injury. Clean play, he defended against a Bengals receiver, and the hit ... It stopped his heart. Just a confluence of factors. He was taken to UC Hospital, which has an incredible trauma center. He was intubated for a while, but that's over now, he's speaking to family and teammates, and his docs don't think there's any permanent neurological damage.

Went to Roosters with Housemate to watch UofL's bowl game yesterday morning. Smaller-than-feared crowd at the wing joint of choice, yay! And it was a pretty good game for the Cardinals. 24-7 win over Cincinnati!

Some pointless trivia re: the game. It was played at Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, so the field had a strange layout. UofL's most recent head coach, Scott Satterfeld, jumped ship to go to Cincinnati, so the win goes to the interim head coach, Deion Branch, making him the first Super Bowl MVP to win a NCAA bowl game as a coach. Which, hopefully, will keep him on the new coach's staff.

Said new coach is hometown guy and former UofL player Jeff Brohm. Brohm did great work at WKU before Purdue snatched him up - and he did great stuff up there, too. So, here's hoping for good things in the next few seasons.

Anyway, there was postseason football and it was fun.

I'm managing, for some value of the word, a GenCon team again, and I am not really enjoying the process, and I'm not looking forward to the convention itself. I've been enough times. I've done this job enough times. I've just aged out of it, I think. Give me smaller shows - Archon, the upcoming Ice & Dice. 2500 people, not 60,000.

Roadside Picnic

Bright Ideas, Dark Futures

Addictive

Rambling Man

Neon Signs

Mountain Fever

Free Radicals

Little Prince

Violet

Come on Heartache

China Girl

Wrecking Ball

Give me Back my Wig

Make Them Yours

Listen to the Sky

Grounds for Divorce

Take the Journey

Don’t Dream It’s Over

Let's Face the Music and Dance

Stars

I Get a Kick Out of You

Love Throw a Line

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July 2025

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