SEC Champions! UT Women's Basketball Game - 03/02/2025

your geniuses at work

On Sunday, March 2, we headed to the University of Texas campus to catch the UT Women’s Basketball team play in the final game of the year. I thought I was being a smart boy and bought tickets for my parents, Jamie and myself. 

This week is my mom’s birthday, and my parents are both alumnae of the University of Florida, who we were playing. I called to surprise them, and they informed me they’d already purchased tickets to the same game. This is how things work at my house. 

Steanso, The Niece and Yours Truly

So, Sunday afternoon my mom and cousin met up with me and Jamie, and then Steanso's family.  We had seats in separate sections, but it worked out.

Andre Crosses the Rainbow Bridge

during Christmas this year

Just over three years ago, we adopted a very large dog.

We'd been going through a rescue that specializes in Golden Retrievers, and got something we thought was a mix.  A 110+ pound mix of Golden Retriever and... something.  Our new boi swiftly got healthier and was now a 120+ pound mix.  And, as it would turn out, not a Golden at all, but a Great Pyrenees mix with a dollop of Pit Bull.  

But because the rescue thought he was a gigantic Golden, they'd named him Andre the Giant.  When given a chance to rename him, we figured he'd just been given a new name, and he sure seemed like an Andre.  

In the end, his breed explained a lot.  As a Golden, he'd had a hard time getting adopted out because he would bark at people who came to meet him, which could be intimidating.  But, Pyrs are sheep guard dogs, and they bark at people entering their territory.  We didn't have that problem - he came to meet us at our house - and it was kind of love at first sight, but when we thought he was a Golden, his behavior was super odd.  

When he didn't want to do something badly enough, or he got scared, he would sploot - just go to ground and dare you to move him.  He didn't want to be in the backyard at all, even with us, and he was very confused by things Goldens love, like toys, pleasing people, and following commands - which is not a thing Pyrs care about at all.  

A Night at The Austin Symphony - The New World

So, back during covid lockdown, I spent a lot of time watching YouTube.  And, as some may remember, during the first days of lockdown in March of 2020, famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma offered up a song of comfort with Dvořák's "Coming Home".  

At the time, this was the thing that wrecked me as I realized how we were all in this together, for a long time to come.  But, I also realized I didn't really know anything about Dvořák, or this song, which we've all heard out there somewhere.  But if Ma picked Dvořák, I thought it was worth looking into.  

There's a pretty great explainer here from 2020 (hopefully the link doesn't die).  And one from NPR on the full symphony.  

I learned it's the second movement of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From The New World", written circa 1893.  You will know this symphony - it's been used in movies, television, etc... in bits and pieces. 

Christmas 2024

the official White House 2024 ornament, amongst some family ornaments

Our mode the past decade or so has been to throw as much Christmas as we can at the wall so when something doesn't pan out or something bad happens, at least *something* Christmassy occurred.

This year we got up decorations inside and outside the house early.

We put up the Super Tree

Me and "Batman" (1989) - at 35

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Batman.   

Our final episode of The Signal Watch PodCast covered this movie.  I invite you to join Jamie and me through a chipper discussion of the movie and the forces around it.  And I've previously written about me and Batman.

To repeat some of what's the podcast and maybe elsewhere - I very much recall my excitement around Batman in 1989. 

I'd really come to comics in 1986, and like a lot of readers at the time, I mostly read X-books and the Bat-titles.  Bat-comics were kind of exploding at the time in the wake of Dark Knight Returns and with the arrival of the terrific talents of folks like Alan Grant on writing chores, veteran Jim Aparo and fresh talent Norm Breyfogle on pencils.  I think this era is one of the many well-loved eras for the books, and with good reason.  

Even in the era of Indiana Jones and Star Wars, Batman was the first movie I ever followed through development and to release date - then through box office and into home video.  It was not the first movie I ever loved, but it was the first movie I felt a level of personal attachment.  

I recall articles in Comics Scene, then the paper.  Reading Nicholson was the Joker and feeling uncertain how that would go.  Prince would be on the soundtrack, which seemed bizarre.

So excited was I - I purchased the novelization prior to the release of the film, and was half-way through reading it when I realized "this is a very dumb thing to do" and I cast the book aside.  I didn't know the term "spoilers" then, but I realized I was going to maybe ruin the experience a mere 4 or 5 days prior to seeing the movie.

My memory of seeing the film itself will always be tied up with a few unrelated things.

24 Years of Wedded Bliss

So, April 28th, 2024 marks the 24th anniversary of Jamie and I making it official.

We'd "dated" for years prior, back to 1995, but that's if you call "dating" two people just saying "yup" to each other and now we were an item.  There wasn't much in the way of trying to figure things out regarding our status.  I wasn't taking her to a movie and then dropping her off and wondering what she was thinking.  We were just together.  And while I didn't know that we'd get married in the first months, there was just not a lot of work there - we just didn't have a trial period or casual dating phase.  

When I hear about people having relationship drama, I'm just of the opinion that you aren't writing a romantic novel about overcoming all kinds of obstacles in liking each other.  I'm not saying there isn't any work or misunderstandings, but, kids, it can be pretty good pretty early on.  With Jamie's medical history, we wound up having plenty of drama that wasn't us arguing, so don't mistake things for being all smooth sailing.  And I got cold feet a couple of times as we headed toward what looked like a lifelong relationship - what with college ending and next phases of life starting.

But into those next phases we headed, sharing an apartment for two years before nuptials.  We got married on a Friday in April of the year 2000.  We were 25, which was pretty young by the standards of my peers.  But, also, most of my friends responded to the news with "shocker, man".  Which means people probably knew we were getting married before I knew.