Game One

It's been a funny season for UK basketball. There was all sorts of hype about the "greatest freshman class ever" and "40-0". This team has not really seemed to gel all season long. I attribute that to two things - no true leader emerging and point guard play. At least this year, Kentucky was going to be in the NCAA tournament. They were given what I feel was a terrible seed - an 8. I had to leave home before the entire NCAA tournament bracket was announced. Josh was watching and would text me where UK would play. I was honestly hoping for Milwaukee so we could see him. He texted me "St Louis".

You see, I bought into all this hype about the team. In October, I figured that UK would be a number one seed. The closest pod to Lexington for the first two rounds (I don't count that play-in mess) was St Louis. The closest Regional site was Indianapolis. So, I bought three tickets for each of us - for Jonathan, Josh and I to go. I even got hotel rooms in each city just in case. Well, Josh went and got a job in Madison Wisconsin so he couldn't come. Fortunately, Jonathan's fiancee' Cheyenne is a big UK fan, so she was definitely up for going. I had honestly thought that UK would never end up in St Louis, so I was ready to sell the tickets and cancel my reservations. Fortunately, everything had worked out.

So on Friday, the four of us (including Donna) headed for St Louis. We ate at Chick-Fil-a in Paducah. The trip went fine except that our usual rest stop stop at Rend Lake was closed for some reason. We got to our hotel (Pear Tree at Union Station) just fine. I had reserved two rooms and had forgotten that I had reserved suites. The rooms had plenty of space for us. The Pear Tree had also added an interesting piece to their check-in. You now have to sign a statement that you will not have a party in your room. I think that's great - some may disagree. The young lady checking me in told that if we could anything like that going on that we should let the front desk know. While we were gone to the game, Donna heard a ruckus in the hallway outside her and Cheyenne's room. When it didn't let up, she called the front desk. Within a few minutes, everything was calmed down.

The hotel has a restaurant in it called Syberg's which I've eaten at a few times. It has good food but I noted that they no longer had my go to meal of chicken fried steak. I settled for a bacon cheeseburger. I just got the food to go and we ate in one of the suites. We decided to leave when we were done so we could catch the Wichita State game before the Kentucky game. The games were at the Scottrade Center (where the Blues play). The walk from the hotel was no problem, it only took about ten minutes. We conversed with a couple who were there to see Wichita State play. When we got to the arena, there was a huge crowed waiting to get in. They appeared to have only one main entrance open. The Wichita State game had already started by the time we got in. That was not a big deal for us but it was to the many Wichita State fans waiting to get in. We finally got in and headed for our seats.

It turned out we had floor seats in the end zone. We were really close. Jonathan even remarked "you can see the players sweat from here!". We settled in and watched Wichita State blow out Cal-Poly. Wichita State had a lot of fans there, even more than Kentucky. We watched the Kansas State Band file in and sit immediately in front of us. They were entertaining to watch. Their signature song seemed to be "Wabash Cannonball". I always thought Wabash was in Indiana? They did some sort of wild gyrations each time they played the song. Jonathan actually did it along with them once earning a laugh from the security guard. The Kansas State mascot is a Wildcat. It is however, a wildcat head with a human body. It lead me to ask "Can't they afford a whole costume like we can?". He was quite animated and did a good job.

The game began with Andrew Harrison going to the free throw line to shoot two free throws. The acoustics were absolutely terrible and you couldn't hear anything the announcer was saying. I found out later from Donna that a Kansas State walk-on had dunked in warm-ups which you cannot do within 20:00 on the clock. The game got going and it was very physical. It was one of those games that frustrate me to no end. For a while, nothing was a foul than everything was a foul. Kansas State had a big power forward who continually bulled his way to the basket and wasn't whistled for a foul until the end of the game. Kentucky got up by as many as twelve and Kansas State whittled the lead down to six by the half. They nailed a three to cut the lead to three. Kentucky would get a small run and Kansas State would come back. They got a close as two but never could climb all the way back. Kentucky finally got up by 13 with about a minute to go. Kansas State got a turnover and a couple of threes (one double pump three) and got the lead down to six, but UK ended up winning by seven. Julius Randle had another double-double to lead the way.

We got back to the hotel about 11:30pm. It took me a little time to wind down but I finally did and went to bed. We got up that morning and made it back home without incident.

Now Kentucky gets the undefeated Wichita State Shockers. Can they win? They'll have to play a lot better than they did against Kansas State.

Trivia...

I have always had an interest in trivia. I love to read at any opportunity I get and I learn all sorts of trivia. I’ve loved the TV show Jeopardy even from the Art Fleming days. I was thrilled with the release of the game Trivial Pursuit in the early 1980s. I played many a game of that with my friends. Both Jonathan and Joshua participated on the Academic Teams at Ballard Middle and Ballard Memorial. I’ll admit I was a bit jealous. They never had anything like this when I was their age and I would have loved it.

I have noticed over the past few years the increasing occurrence of trivia nights or games by various groups usually for charity. I’ve never participated in one until recently. My work colleague and friend John Witte invited me to a trivia contest that was to benefit the Challenger Learning center. I accepted the invitation having no idea what to expect. I arrived to a packed room that I later found out had 43 teams of six each. I saw my friend (and legal counsel) Chuck Walter. He had the boys former teacher (and A-Team coach) Steve Quartermous on his team (who we call to this day Mr. Q). I knew that was going to be a formidable team and they ended up winning. Our team finished fourth which I thought was really good.

Here’s the basic format. Each team has six to eight members. There are ten rounds of ten questions each. Each ten question set follows a theme like Sports, History or even more specific categories like 70’s Music or Paducah Trivia. A narrator reads the question which also appears on a screen. You write down your answers on a sheet of paper. Some contests also allow you to have mulligans. These allow you to mark a question with a “mulligan” which means it will automatically be counted correct. You are given a minute or so after the questions are read to turn in your paper. The team with the most correct answers wins. You have to make a guess before you start as to how many questions you’ll get right, this serves as the tiebreaker.

Last week, Chuck called me to invite me to play on a team he was getting together. It was a benefit for the New Pathways Children’s Home (which I am familiar with) that was held at Broadway church of Christ. I was all for it this time and agreed to be there. This one didn’t charge an entry fee. You made a donation for the Children’s Home. With this donation, you got five “mulligans” to use. We started and did pretty well. We thought the questions here were a bit tougher than the previous trivia tournament we were in. I was able to contribute some answers so I felt good about that. We got to the final round with a three point lead and the final category was “Technology”. Of course, the pressure was on me to come through on that one. We got enough answers right to end up winning. We ended up getting a trophy made appropriately enough of “Smarties”. It’s what you see above.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed participating in these and hope to get the opportunity to do some more.

Hershey Spread

Being a chocolate loving kinda guy, I of course got very excited when I saw the advertisements for the new product Hershey Spreads. I love Hershey bars and Hershey Kisses. I then began to beg Donna (the household’s grocery comptroller) to buy me a jar. She then dropped a stumper on me – “What food will you dip in it?”. I was stumped. I generally eat my chocolate in some sort of solidified form. I’m not one to dunk fruit or other foreign objects in my chocolate. Being the very smart lady she is (and knowing her husband very weel), she came up with a brilliant solution (which I’ll reveal later).

She kept checking for several weeks and nobody had the spreads. Finally, Wal-Mart had them. There are three flavors – Chocolate, Chocolate with Hazelnut and Chocolate with Almond. I of course chose the unadulterated Chocolate. The first thing to note is this stuff isn’t cheap – it was 3.38 a jar. Another thing I immediately noted is the jar isn’t totally round so there is even less product then you might guess in it. I hope this picture (comparing to a peanut butter jar) shows kinda what I am talking about.

Donna came home with Eggos. Not only were they Eggos but they were Chocolate Chip Eggos. I used to eat Eggos a lot when I was younger but haven’t had any in a long time. I eagerly toasted up a couple and slathered a tablespoon of the spread between them. Ladies and Gentlemen, it was exquisite. It’ll be a very good thing when we are out of Eggos and Hershey Spread because I have to have one of these waffle sandwiches almost every day now.

I can’t speak for the other two flavors, but the one I had was pretty good. I imagine it’d be even better if I was a chocolate “dunking” kind of person. If you like Hershey’s anything, I’d suggest giving it a try.

I left my heart in Ballard County..

I'm reposting this in honor of the day..

Sunday September 15th is the 29th anniversary of a day that set my life (happily) on a drastic change.

I was a fledging programmer at what was called Martin Marietta then (now USEC) and living in an apartment in Forest Hills. I had gone over to my buddy Jeff Lawrence's trailer (known to this area as Dr. Jeff on WKYQ). He asked if I had plans for the next evening. I said no thinking we were going to have one of our regular marathon Trivial Pursuit matches. He says "Well, you've got a date". I was aghast. "I've set you up with someone I work with at Trader's Mart" (Trader's Mart is a long defunct want-ad kind of paper). He told me I had to go because I wouldn't be allowed to hang out at his place the next night so I reluctantly agreed.

The next day, I went with my friends Keith "Corky" Johnson and Jim Hill to Massac State Park. I sat on the bank of the Ohio River looking and thinking "What kind of idiot goes out with a girl he's never seen before?".

The hour approached and I headed out to meet her at Trader's Mart in my 1983 Trans-Am. All I knew is her name was Donna Woods and she'd be in a black Olds Cutlass.

I got there and the car was there. I watched the door open with apprehension. Out stepped the most beautiful brown haired brown-eyed girl I'd ever seen. I almost couldn't speak. I finally said "I'm Stuart, do you want to see my driver's license to prove it?". She actually laughed at my bad joke.

She wanted to go to McDonalds and eat so we did. She had a quarter pounder with cheese and I had a Big Mac. I saw some guys I knew and I think they were in shock when they saw me out with this beautiful girl.

She wanted to see Grandview USA at the Paducah Drive-In. I was glad to go there since I worked there for years each summer until I started working full-time at Martin Marietta. My boss (who recently passed away) Richard Phillips was at the ticket booth. I guess he was so shocked to see with such a pretty date that he let us in free. He also told me to go to the concession stand and get free drinks and popcorn. Donna told me later how impressed she was when I brought out drinks and a large brown bag full of buttered popcorn.

The whole date cost 5.00 (including gasoline). She even shared my frugality beliefs! I was enthralled...

The night went great and she even agreed to see me again.

The next morning as I was getting ready to go to church, my phone rang. The caller introduced himself as the "Ballard County Sheriff" and he needed to talk to me about an incident last night. The girl I had gone out with was from Ballard County. My main experiences with Ballard County were to go to the "Game Preserve" (as my Uncle James called it) to camp with my family and a visit to the "Green Palace" (which was really really Green) to watch Lone Oak play in a district basketball tournament. I remember all the kids there blew duck calls the whole game. Anyway, I thought "Oh man, she didn't make it home and now I am the last one to see her and the main suspect". It turned out that they had picked up a couple of guys I know as they came off the Wickliffe bridge and they wanted me to vouch for their idenities.

For reasons I'll never understand, she kept going out with me. We've been married 27 years. She still laughs at my bad jokes. I've worked at "Martin Marietta" for almost 30 years. We drove that black Olds Cutlass til it wouldn't run any more. I've lived in Ballard County for 25 years now. I still order a Big Mac when I go to McDonalds. And I couldn't be happier....

A brick wall...

If you are any kind of college football fan, you know the University of Kentucky hired a new football coach. His name is Mark Stoops. He was the defensive coordinator at Florida State and his brother is Bob Stoops the coach at Oklahoma. He'd gotten quite a bit of buzz around the football program (which is always seemingly playing a back seat to basketball). 50,000 people showed up for the spring football scrimmage. He brought in some key recruits for this year and his 2014 class is among the top in the nation. UK's first game of the year would be against Western Kentucky at LP Field in Nashville. Jonathan and I went to this game in 2011 and it's wasn't that great. I bought three tickets this year (for Jonathan, Josh and I). Western beat UK at home last year and with the new coach and the revenge factor, I thought UK had a good chance to win.

I picked up Jonathan at his apartment on Saturday and we headed down to Nasvhille. Josh was driving from Lexington to meet us there. I met my sister Jody at her bank to do some estate business. Her bank is actually open with lobby service on Saturday til 1pm. The transaction went smoothly and we were able to chat for a few minutes. Josh was running into traffic issues coming down on I-65 south (never did find out what the issue was). We had decided to do Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster. I had picked out the one in Mt Juliet (since it was closest to our hotel on Donelson Pike). Jody said it was a very nice Red Lobster so Jonathan and I headed there.

We got there and it was very nice. It wasn't packed at all. Josh had to meet us there late because of the traffic. Our waiter was great. It was the first Endless Shrimp that I ever remember that they brought out servings so fast we had to finally stop them. We did have a funny incident. We were discussing the Jets QB situation and mentioned Matt Simms. Two elderly ladies were seated close to us and one said "He played for Tennessee you know and he's Phil Simms son". Then as she was leaving she said "If you'd been talking about Vince Young, I'd have something to say about that too". I told her we'd talked about him earlier (which we had).

We checked into our hotel - Hampton Inn and Suites by the Airport. I had gotten a really good price on a suite. We were able to rest a bit before the game. We left about 1.5 hours before it started. I had a parking pass for the A lot at LP field. The pass said you had to loop around the city and actually enter from the North. Well, about the time we got to I-24, there was a monstrous traffic jam. It took us 1.5 hours to go 1.5 miles. The traffic control was hideous. There were not nearly as many people here as would be a Titans game (37k was the announced attendance). I guess if you go to a Titans game, you have to get there the night before. As we got close to the parking lot, two police cars with their lights on pulled in behind me. I thought "what in the world?". Turned out they were blocking in what looked like a trash truck. More cars arrived and they approached the truck with their weapons drawn. I have no earthly idea what was going on there. It got later, so I had the boys just jump out and head to the stadium. I finally got into the lot about 6. There were big lines at the gates since they have to "wand" everybody. I managed to get in my seat just as the game was starting though (it didn't kick off til 6:15pm).

I might as well have been late though. Western just pretty much dominated KY. The big strength of KY was supposed to be their defensive line. The WKU offensive line opened big holes and even when KY attempted to tackle the runner, he picked up extra yards. There was a lot of arm tackling and no wrapping up. When KY got the ball, I looked forward to the new "Air Raid Offense". Well, it looked like last year's offense. They ran the ball a lot even on 3rd and long situations. They did get some long runs and with the help of two WKU turnovers, Kentucky was only down 21-17 at the half and would get the ball to start the 2nd half. They did nothing on their first two drives and then WKU scored two TDs to go up 35-17. Since Josh was driving back that night, we left at the start of the 4th. We were able to get back to our hotel in 10 minutes. UK managed to get within 35-26 but the score was much closer than the game actually was. I'll be interested to see how WKU does against Tennessee next week to give some indication of how UK will do the rest of the year. Based on what I saw, they'll be lucky to win two games and they'll go winless in the SEC again.

Once we actually got into the stadium, the club seats were nice. We had a good view and being able to go into the "club" area and cool off was nice. The lines are shorter at the concession stands and bathrooms there. The LP field concessions have added something new. For 9.00 you get a "souvenir" cup that they will refill multiple times for you at any concession stand there during that game. We got multiple refills and I even got one as I left. Josh headed for Lexington made it fine. Jonathan and I got up the next morning and enjoyed worshipping at Lebanon Road church of Christ and hearing our friend Adam Faughn preach. We stopped and got Zaxby's in Clarksville and made it home just fine.

The game did temper expectations severely and it was like "running into a brick wall". The boys and I did have a good time together and that was the main thing.

Dealing with Aging Parents - Funerals - Part 2

This is part two of my postings on funerals.

What happens when your loved one dies is the funeral home is contacted to carry their body to the funeral home. You can talk with whoever comes to pick up the body to arrange a time and day to meet with them to plan when you want to have the visitation and the funeral service. When you go to this session, bring your already written obituary, plus the name of the cemetery where the burial plots are and the name and contact info of the main speaker at the service. The young man we dealt with each time was very professional and caring and helped us greatly making sure we hadn’t forgotten anything in our planning the service. They’ll let you know what all needs to done to prepare for the funeral. My advice is to let them handle as much are you comfortable with. You’ll have plenty of other things to deal with.

Another thing that you’ll do at this meeting is tell them how many official death certificate copies you need from the state. You’ll need these for all sorts of things from claiming life insurance benefits, to accessing bank accounts and various other dealings. I’d tell you to order at least eight to ten and they’ll cost you six to seven dollars each. It will take two to four weeks for you to get these.

Finally, like any service you buy, the funeral home is going to want to arrange for payment. My advice is if at all humanly possible (and of course the money is available) is to have the money set aside somewhere that can be accessed easily – either by the surviving spouse or the children. I realize this is not always possible and you may have to wait for an insurance policy to pay out. Keep in mind you’ll need that death certificate to even file to even start this process. And it takes some time for the insurance company to process and pay this out. If you can’t pay at the meeting, somebody will have to sign a document promising to pay in thirty days. We got the death certificates for mom in two weeks and I hand walked it to the hospital (where she worked and had the policy) to process mom’s life insurance policy. We got the payout just two days before the thirty days was up. With dad, we put the money aside before he passed away and I was able to write a check on the spot.

We are still in the middle of two more issues as far as my parents go. One (which we are almost done with) is getting a headstone and preparing their funeral plot. The second is probating and settling their estate(s). I had no idea the amount of work that is required after your parents pass away. One tends to think that once the funeral is over "that is it". But, I can tell you "it is most certainly not it".

I hope these posts are of some value to you. When the two above issues are done, I will blog about them as well.

Dealing with Aging Parents - Funerals - Part 1

Discussing a funeral with your parents is tough. It’s admitting out loud what we already know – that we’ll have one someday, We did this at the recommendation of hospital staff when mom had her lengthy stay. I had no idea how to plan one. I’ll use my usual format of throwing out some issues we encountered and how we dealt with them

• Discuss with each parent what they want done.  Do you they want to have the funeral at the funeral home or another location (their home church congregation for example)?  How do they want the funeral conducted? Mom wanted to allow the opportunity for her friends and family to be able to get up and say a few words about their memories of her.   So that’s what we did.
• Write all of that down.  Make your siblings read it and even sign it so everybody totally understands what the person’s wishes are and how the service will be conducted so there are no disagreements and arguments when everybody is emotional.   And I won’t say any more about that.
• Plan, plan, plan.  The funeral home you choose can give a list of packages and how much they cost.  Talk to the people that will lead singing, speak, be a pallbearer, etc. and make sure they are OK with that. Have your parents go ahead and buy the funeral plots if they can.  Go ahead and find any pictures, keepsakes etc  that you want to display.  Finally (and this sounds really macabre), go ahead and write out an obituary and have several people read it.  You’d be surprised at what you might not remember (name spellings and the like) when you are in sorrow over someone’s death.  It also makes thing go more smoothly when you are arranging everything with the funeral director to simply hand them an already written obituary.

Now let’s talk about the funeral itself.  Most funeral homes offer packages that include most everything you need (that costs between 4000 and 5000).  If you know what funeral home will be used, ask them to send you this info beforehand.   Read over that carefully and ask all the questions you want.  There are several things that are not included in that package.  The first one (and usually the most costly) is the casket.  I was surprised to find that the funeral home we used has a “casket room” where the caskets are on display.  I almost laughed to see they were arranged in the classic style of any sales layout.  The most expensive ones (the nice wood ones) were in the front and the more inexpensive ones were in the back.    We got a nice inexpensive casket each time for my parents, but even these will run you 2500 to 3000.  You should also check with the cemetery where the burial plots are to see if they require a vault for the casket.  If they do, that is another 1500.  You also have to pay to have the grave dug and recovered for about 400 to 500.  You may want to buy flowers and a “spray” to go over the casket which will cost 300 to 500.  Finally, it is customary to pay the main speaker at the service something.  The total funeral cost is easily between 7500 and 10000 dollars.

In my next post, I'll discuss what actually happens when you meet with the funeral director.