2014 Goals Checkpoint

One memorable quarter of the year has passed!

Exercise/Stretch 5+ Days a Week, Body Fat 12%

Need to pick this up. Stretching was limited, and I didn't consult the fat-o-meter. My weight is holding steady and I got all my exercise in.

Healthy Elbow, Eyes, Teeth

The elbow is all that's left: I have set up a more ergonomically correct work station; paying more attention to my posture; typing much more with my left hand so as to relieve my right. I also switched from weekly physical therapy to massage, which seems to do a more thorough job of addressing all the affected muscles. Some activities that used to cause near-flinching, like opening Tupperware and shaking hands, have been more doable.

Tutor 300 Hours

I am above 150 hours by the end of March! 26 students by my count. I predict that by the next report I will be over 30, and therefore, working more hours per week (when you include Heartland) than I was at State Farm. With pleasure! I've got a great boss.

Blog Thanks Weekly

I did two this month. Next month I'll do better.

Make 10 New Acquaintances

I haven't yet started to reach out on this. Someone did suggest that I consider being a chaplain for a nursing home, which was a flattering possibility.

Clean House

We consulted a handyman who should be able to help us fix the basement wall. I have also volunteered to assist with our driveway/carport project. And thanks to a shopping trip I have a partial upgrade to my shirts, pants and sunglasses. More to come!

Spring Beaming: The Week In Thanks

The thankfulness flows as easily as the thawing snow these days:

- Daylight savings time is here. Seven o'clock splashes of red still in the sky.

- The winter has officially passed without Dena or I getting sick. The fall too.

- Marriage is great! We had a weekend getaway recently, some nice long talks, planning vacation. Feeling the halo of the 16th anniversary.

- Dena and my jobs are going smoothly.

- I nominated an Easter song for the band to play, and it was accepted. So supportive!

- I suggested some improvements at Heartland and got positive encouragement from my boss to implement them.

- Fantasy baseball is off and running! Three teams, three pretty good drafts. Meanwhile I've sewn up 2nd place in fantasy basketball.

- How I Met Your Mother is a great show. We've been watching it daily on Netflix.

- Cupcake is nearing ten pounds, sleeping with us peacefully now, loves to gaze out the window at last into the fresh air.

- Basketball banquet is this week, LMC graduation is next week, officially restoring 25 hours a week for me.

- I hit all the lights right coming home from the health club and got driveway-to-driveway in three minutes.

- I had my best workout in a while today... heart rate at 140 bpm.

- We just got a new popcorn maker; it is awesome; Dena likes to make it; I like to eat it.

- Band mate Tim Burns just released an album after a ton of hard work, and it sounds great.

- We have quiet, considerate neighbors on each side of our condominium unit.

- Our friend Rosann had a party last weekend to celebrate some recent personal successes.

Let the 2nd quarter begin!

A Path Toward Trust

"People are much more likely to trust a leader if they know he is compassionate and forgiving of mistakes." - Donald Phillips

I arrived at the library to await a student who didn't show up. I texted her mother, and with great embarrassment she said that her daughter was on a spring break trip. I replied that it was no problem. The daughter had mentioned a spring break trip. She may even have mentioned that she'd miss our Thursday meeting. I told the mother as much, and also that I could easily fill the hour working on e-mail. No problem, really.

Only once in about fifty cancellations have I ever charged for the lost hour. I figure that I make enough mistakes that benefit from forgiveness, who am I to penalize?

Listening University

"I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. A good manager listens at least as much as he needs to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions." - Lee Iacocca

If I listened twice as much as I do today, I might come close to listening half as much as I talk. In other words, I have a ways to go!

Public Opinion Baths

Abraham Lincoln made himself as available to public visitors as his schedule permitted, exposing himself to a wide range of opinions for better and worse.

"I tell you that I call these receptions my 'public opinion baths' - for I have little time to read the papers and gather public opinion that way; and though they may not be pleasant in all particulars, the effect, as a whole, is renovating and invigorating."

Not Better Or Worse, Just Different

A friend of mine shared this mantra, which resonates very peacefully with me.

So many different religions.

So many different orientations.

So many habits.

So many appearances.

All of them fascinating. To master the art of viewing life as a fascinated observer, instead of through the lens of better/worse, is to achieve a healthier state of being.

Happiness In The Hallways

I decided to give the gift of smiling to everyone I passed in the hallways of Heartland College today. I turned several flat faces into glowing ones in just a few seconds. The next step may be adding a relaxed "Hi" to the mix. Free gift to others - a free tiny contribution to world peace.

Getting Out And Getting Up

"His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself, and allows nobody to see him; and by which he does not know what is going on in the very matter he is dealing with." - Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was writing to his incoming general David Hunter about the man he was replacing, John Fremont. It set a clear expectation about the value of being present. Lincoln himself was constantly present at the telegraph office, the armory, even the front lines. It made him not only relatable to the army, but also well-informed.

I'm more like Fremont in the sense of not just walking about. As a supervisor I set up meetings in my office weekly to stay informed, and I attended unit meetings to show my commitment to them, but I never developed the skill of walking into a group of people for small talk. Is it time to start?

Embracing The Rain

That familiar sound of rain gently pelting the condominium siding coaxed me out of sleep with a slowly spreading smile this morning.

"If it's raining, it ain't snowing," I like to say when that telltale sign of warmer weather first arrives. The radio alarm noted a high of 52 degrees today.

Somehow I found those gray skies comforting as I pedaled on the stationary bike at the gym and gazed out the massive windows.

I walked into the tutoring center leisurely, head up, welcoming the steady drizzle and even the 30 mph winds that forced my eyes shut. My jacket and face were slick when I got indoors, and I felt great.

This is spring. This is new life. This is worth embracing.

"Knuckleball Princess" Chelsea Baker Shines In High School

In Japan, they call Chelsea Baker "the Knuckleball Princess" and even once offered her a $50,000 annual contract. But in Plant City, Fla., she's just another member of the Durant High baseball team.

Baker, who rose to prominence upon throwing a pair of perfect games in Little League four years ago, is now a junior right-handed pitcher starting for the Cougars in Florida's competitive Class 7A. Needless to say, she's the only girl on Durant's 10-3 baseball team. But that's not the only reason she stands out.

The 5-foot-2, 120-pound Baker throws mostly knuckleballs, a pitch she learned from two of the best to ever throw it. First, 1979 Major League Baseball All-Star Joe Niekro taught her as a youth and later 2009 MLB All-Star Tim Wakefield helped her perfect it, according to the Plant City Times & Observer.

Baker has started this season 2-0 on the mound with a 0.78 ERA and three strikeouts against only one walk in her first nine innings. The only starting pitcher on the roster to have recorded a win without registering a loss through the first six weeks, she has allowed just seven hits in three appearances.

“When I was little, all my dreams were to be on the USA team and high school baseball, and people always told me, ‘You’ll never play varsity baseball, you’re not strong enough, you don’t have the guts to do it,’" she told The Tampa Tribune upon recording the first win of her high school career, "so coming out here today and taking the win was an awesome feeling. It was like, "I got you.'"

In 2010, Baker appeared on ESPN's "E:60", the MLB Network's "This Week in Baseball" and ABC's "Good Morning America" during her fourth consecutive perfect youth baseball season. Four years later, she still hasn't lost.

Jack's Fantasy Baseball Team

Very happy with the results of this draft!

It's $260 budget, so I:

- Named two keepers who by my projection were top-20 picks and likely $30+ values. That allowed me to cap my budget on any other position at around $20.

- The league on average spends 2/3 on hitting ($170) and 1/3 on pitching ($90), despite the fact that half of the points in the league come from pitching.

- I aimed for 11 hitters and 11 starting pitchers (plus 3 relievers). There are 10 hitting slots, so I left one open for a sub. There's no limit on pitching innings, so the more pitchers the merrier as long as they're quality. And since the league tends to undervalue pitchers, I should be able to grab quality ones at reasonable prices.

- Since I had two OF spots filled with my keepers worth (in my estimation) $65, I only needed to spend another $105 on hitters to keep up with the league. I saw a lot more quality options at 1B and OF than anywhere else, so I slotted $15 for the 1B slot. For scarcer positions like catcher, it was $20. I had a list of inferior fallback players available at each position for the worst-case scenario. Fortunately I got a quality player at every spot, in some cases surprisingly good at discount prices (looking at you, Jean Segura).

- There's a certain amount of draft fatigue as you get past the first 100 of 300 total picks, as owners frantically overpay for the top players (at least according to my calculations). Not only in patience but in dollars available. I nominated popular players for bid that I didn't expect to get because someone would overpay, hoping that my main targets would stay off the board until fatigue had set in. This pretty much played out to perfection.

- I wanted to get at least one middle infielder with serious speed (Segura fit the bill), and one outfielder (Desmond Jennings). I had Shin-Soo Choo for a third leg, and Alex Gordon became a fourth.

- Unexpected benefit of slotting the top 260 players into dollar slots: I was able to police players on the verge of going for abnormally low amounts and bid them up to decent levels. This probably happened 25 times.

- Besides the speedsters, my lineup is filled with power guys with experience and youth (Carlos Santana, Jose Abreu, Aramis Ramirez, Jose Bautista, Brandon Moss). Random utility guy Kolten Wong of the Cardinals has a little speed and can spell Jed Lowrie at 2B if it turns out I need more speed than pop at that position.

- I got three top-flight relievers good for more than 100 saves, within my $18 budget.

- The rest of the budget was for starters ($93). I reached for an ace (Verlander) and otherwise kept in check for the dollar amounts I'd allocated to the other slots. Again a mix of experience and youth, a little younger, and mostly playing for winning teams:

Tigers (Verlander)
Nationals (Zimmerman)
Braves (Teheran, Wood)
Red Sox (Lester, Buchholz)
Yankees (Nova)
Cardinals (Lynn)

Picked up promising Zack Wheeler of the Mets and took a flier on former ace Cole Hamels, who's targeted to be in play by the third month of the season.

Fast Break From Hoops

It's official - I will not be coaching basketball next year. Instead I'll be tending to the swelling ranks of the 25+ students who depend on my math teaching skills, and investing volunteer gifts elsewhere. Mixed emotions apply here. I'll miss the old friends and look forward to the new ones, whomever those may turn out to be. These five years have been great!

Taxman

Our taxes are done. We got a $1,000 refund from the Feds, which we promptly paid to the state for the amount we owed. All in all, not a bad deal. We dropped gracefully into the 25% marginal tax bracket, and next year will likely drop again. Ignoring State Farm income, our investment income exceeded our earned income - not a bad way to be!

Parent's Comical Facebook Response To Common Core

This article's more controversial than I usually repost, but as a tutor it's significant because as long as Common Core is popular, so will tutors. By Elise Sole of Yahoo! Shine:

A Facebook update from a father frustrated with the Common Core math program at his son's school is making the Internet rounds after the father Jeff Severt expressed (via what looks like a kid's homework assignment) how convoluted the teaching approach is.

The worksheet posted to Facebook shows the elaborate Common Core (CC) formula for solving a math problem (as opposed to the simple strategy of subtracting the smaller number from the larger one). It instructs the student to explain why a fictional kid named "Jack" should be using common core strategies to solve the problem: “Jack used the number line below to solve 427 - 316. Find his error. Then write a letter to Jack telling him what he did right, and what he should do to fix his mistake.”

Severt's response reads, “Dear Jack, Don’t feel bad. I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electronics Engineering, which included extensive study in differential equations and other higher math applications. Even I cannot explain the Common Core mathematics approach, nor get the answer correct. In the real world, simplification is valued over complication. Therefore, 427 - 316 = 111. The answer is solved in under 5 seconds — 111. The process used is ridiculous and would result in termination if used. Sincerely, Frustrated Parent.”

The Facebook post (which by Tuesday had generated 4,400 likes, 4,300 shares, and 700 comments debating the issue) coincides with news that on Monday, Indiana became the first state to formally withdraw from the Common Core standards.

If you haven’t heard of the Common Core program, it’s an education initiative funded and developed by two Washington, D.C.-based trade organizations, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA). According to a story published Tuesday by the Washington Post, the program is not an official federal mandate, but it has become a hot-button issue among certain political groups that either support or oppose the idea.

The program aims to ensure that all children are equally prepared as they advance to the next level by dictating what exactly students in kindergarten through 12th grade should know in arts, language, and math by the time they complete each grade. The Common Core's website states that the program focuses on "developing the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills students will need to be successful." Here is one example illustrated by U.S. News & World Report: Students mostly read material on par with their grade levels, not their reading ability. To help kids who are lacking comprehension, teachers use a technique called "close reading," focusing on one vocabulary word for the entire class. And thought-based questions, such as: “Why did the North fight the Civil War?,” would be swapped for fact-based ones, such as: “Who are the fathers [that Lincoln mentions]?” Other examples: Prioritizing nonfiction over literary fiction classics, and class discussions focused on evidence from the reading as opposed to creative thought.
Critics call the program a “one-size-fits-all” approach to learning that ignores cultural and individual differences. They also argue that not all students are ready to advance at the same time, that the CC’s teaching methods overly complicate basic subjects, and that the program limits teachers from freely shaping their curricula. Another complaint: The program doesn’t properly prepare students for the future — according to retired University of Arkansas Professor Sandra Stotsky, CC founder Professor Jason Zimba admitted in March 2010 at a Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting that being “prepared for college” meant being ready for a nonselective two-year community college, not a selective four-year institution.

In December, an outspoken mother testified at the Arkansas Board of Education that the Common Core program overcomplicated simple math problems. As an example, she gave the board a basic fourth-grade division problem which CC requires students to solve by using 108 steps. And in November, a Tennessee teen criticized Common Core during a school board meeting, saying, "Somewhere our Founding Fathers are turning in their graves — pleading, screaming, and trying to say to us that we teach to free minds." Videos of both speeches went viral.

According to the Associated Press, Indiana has pulled out of the Common Core program in exchange for new guidelines, on which the State Board of Education will vote next month. However, some say the new proposal is too similar to the Common Core.  And while CC has been adopted by 45 states (now excluding Indiana), more than 200 bills were introduced in 2014 that would slow or stop its implementation or stop it. Oklahoma is one state considering banning the program. 

In the meantime, parents like Severt will continue to struggle helping their kids with homework.

Dena's T-Shirt Idea Of The Day

lol = Drowning Man
*lol* = Drowning Cheerleader

Top 10 Live Televised Events

Irish Haiku: The Week In Thanks

On one of the warm days that trickled into central Illinois last week, as I walked into the Normal Public Library, I saw an elderly woman in a wheelchair. From the possessions sitting on her lap in a tattered bag, she appeared to be homeless. The parking lot is small, and she was neither close to the library door nor the street. Just sitting quietly alone, far off to the side, head tilted slightly back, bothering no one, taking in the momentary relief of the sun. The thought of having so little is heartbreaking. The thought of all that I do have is overwhelming.

My "spring break" is this week, since the high schools but not the colleges are out. Last week I averaged 4 hours of tutoring per day; I now have 25 students on my roster including 7 in college. The Heartland staff invited me to help with their annual planning, which was educational. Some ACT interest has come in.

Dena and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary with Monical's pizza and a How I Met Your Mother marathon! It would have been more representative of our dating years for us to watch Forrest Gump three times, but we have been thankful for rediscovering this witty show the last couple of weeks. Netflix has been a capable substitute for cable these last ten months, and I say this in the middle of March Madness NCAA hoops!

Ah, yes, hoops. Our season ended in the sectional championship game. We could just as easily have had 32 wins instead of 23, but it was still a winning season competitively as well as personally. Coaching basketball has been a stirring 5-year tribute to all that Dad did for me growing up; I've learned much about myself and look forward to the next volunteer adventure.

Fantasy baseball is in bloom. I had one draft last weekend; another tonight; another one coming up. My Excel spreadsheets are smoking, I've enlisted Twitter and several web sites to help feed me the latest information. There will be abundant brain activity and no early-onset dementia fueled in this house. I'm shooting for a best-ever finish in the Hillegass league.

Two weeks ago the band played one of the songs I suggested (Need You Now, by Plumb). As much as I enjoyed the sound, it also reminds me how fortunate I am to have the selfless and supportive band mates I do; how much I've mellowed when it comes to giving suggestions (I'm fine whether or not they use my ideas); how healthy it is to be part of a stable organization like Catholicism; how occasionally I even get to be the lead male singer, which is enough for me. Easter's coming and we'll be uplifting a huge crowd.

Jack and I set up a weekly Skype call, which is not so much to look at each other as to look at our pets. Mostly, as they sleep.

Our taxes were lower than we expected! $1,000 for state and, somehow, nearly zero for federal. I reported about $5,000 of tutoring income this year; next year's pace is above $15,000. My retirement goal was $12,000, all for spending money. Things are good.

Even though the semi-leisurely week ahead promises temperatures in the 30's and a hint of snow, daylight savings time makes it impossible to think of us as wintered these days. We've caught the scent of spring, and it's here to stay. In celebration of this glow on the horizon, and St. Patrick's Day just in the rear view mirror, it suits to close with an Irish blessing for you all this week. Or maybe a haiku:

Be ever thankful,
God is gently by your side,
Smile, count your blessings.

Kevin Bacon's Footloose Entrance On The Tonight Show

Desmond Haymon's Game-Tying 4 Point Play

Coach K's Classy Gesture

Not long after his third-seeded Blue Devils were surprisingly knocked off in Raleigh by No. 14 seed Mercer, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski peeked into the entranceway of the Bears' winning locker room at PNC Arena to pay a compliment to the Bears.

Mercer's 78-71 win over Duke means the Bears advance to the round of 32 and will face No. 11 seed Tennessee on Sunday.

“You guys have a hell of a basketball team,” Krzyzewski said. “I love the game and you guys play the game really, really well and your coach coaches it well. If we had to be beaten, I’m glad we got beaten by a hell of a basketball team. So good luck to you.”

Before the Mercer players and coaches had time to say “thank you,” Krzyzewski had already departed, leaving an incredulous silence behind.

“My God,” senior Daniel Coursey, who scored 17 points for the Bears in the win, said to reporters. “That’s huge. Coach K is one of the most famous basketball coaches ever and for him to just come in here and tell us we’re a great basketball team – that’s pretty unbelievable to tell you the truth.”

This was a classy move from Krzyzewski, especially after a tough loss like this one. The disappointment was evident just from the look on his face, so kudos to him for the gesture.

16th Anniversary

Friday was Dena and my sweet sixteenth wedding anniversary. I suppose a good husband would have celebrated our marriage's 16th birthday by buying a new car. Instead, I told her some things I love about her:

- She is extremely loyal.
- She has deep empathy for others.
- She puts others ahead of herself.
- She is a good cook.
- She is especially patient with the big things.
- She's a good driver.
- She is a talented writer.
- She does small romantic surprises like bringing home DQ blizzards.
- She can be really organized.

I'm so blessed to be married to Dena!

Teen Fired By 7-Eleven For Serving Homeless Person Gets New Job

In a striking example of poetic justice, a Massachusetts teenager who says she was fired from 7-Eleven for giving a cup of coffee to a homeless man has landed a new job within days—at a homeless-services organization.

“My lesson learned is that good deeds pay off,” Ava Lins, 19, tells Yahoo Shine. “Do what you believe is the right thing, and stand up for what you believe in. Only good things will come of it.”
The story began last Thursday, when Lins, a clerk at 7-Eleven in Salem, says she began chatting with a customer about how he didn’t know where he was going to sleep on that freezing night. Lins, who immediately empathized given her own recent struggles with being homeless, gave him a small cup of coffee. “It directly influenced my decision,” she says. When storeowner Romany Youseff appeared and allegedly accosted the man, demanding to know if he had paid for it, Lins lied and told her boss that he had. She fessed up the next day and paid for the $1 coffee herself, but, she says, she was soon fired.

That’s when Lins, nearly out of money and wanting her job back, took to social media and contacted local news stations to get her story told. Kudos and job offers began streaming in, including a Facebook message from Citizens for Adequate Housing in Peabody.

“Our mission is about restoring hope and dignity to homeless families, and what she was able to do with a simple cup of coffee was just that. It was very inspiring,” Executive Director Corey Jackson tells Yahoo Shine. “We want more of that in the world.” Jackson asked Lins for her resume, as his organization was about to list an opening for a part-time administrative assistant position. She responded right away, went in for an interview on Tuesday, and left with the job, which she started on Wednesday. “We loved her,” Jackson says, adding that he hopes the job develops into a bigger position for Lins. “I feel like this all fell into place for a reason.”  

As for Youseff, after first telling WCVB that he could not allow employees like Lins to "steal," he has since told various media outlets that he was fine to forget the whole coffee incident, and that Lins could have her job back. Contacted by Yahoo Shine on Thursday, Youseff says, “She’s lying in her story. I did not fire her.”

Social-media reaction has been supportive of Lins. Tweets on the topic include, “The owner of the 7-Eleven store was cruel and heartless!” and Facebook comments, particularly those on the 7-Eleven page, have been similar. “That was just cruel & inhumane, not to mention downright greedy,” wrote one critic. Meanwhile, a fan of Lins’s wrote on her page that she was “a blessing from God doing what she did to help out a homeless person.”

Either way, Lins says she did not want to continue working for Youseff, and that she’s thrilled with the outcome — especially after being kicked out of her mom’s house at the age of 18, during what she calls “just a bad time in my life.” She spent time living in her car and couch surfing at friends’ apartments and is now living with her boyfriend. Lins says she is ready to focus on homeless advocacy. “I am so excited to be a part of their cause.”

New United Way CEO Selected

I'm happy to know both David Taylor and Gina Mandros, the final two candidates. They will both be excellent in their new roles!

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/partnerships-job-one-for-new-united-way-ceo/article_6b97d07a-9aee-51f3-a2a9-d054bb5d1f81.html

Price Is Right: What A Spinoff!

Price Is Right: Greatest Comeback Ever

Price Is Right: Plinko Master

Crazy Good Guess On Wheel Of Fortune

Planet Fitness' Unique Secret To Fast-Growing Success

Planet Fitness has built its reputation on being a non-competitive workout environment.

Once a month, national gym chain Planet Fitness has a free pizza night.

So many members come in for these food-filled evenings that the health club franchise usually gives away 250,000 slices each time, for more than 3 million pieces a year. That's probably not surprising when you consider that Planet Fitness recently hit 5 million members and is now the fastest-growing gym chain in the U.S., according to co-founder and chief executive Chris Rondeau.

What's taken the company, which began in 1992 as a small operation in Dover, N.H., to a nationally dominant chain? Rondeau says its all about targeting the right audience.

Most health  clubs, Rondeau explains, cater to the roughly 15% of Americans who consider themselves fitness nuts and love to work out. Planet Fitness's goal, on the other hand, is to attract the much larger percentage of people  who want to be healthier but may only use the gym a few times a month.

"The rest of the industry is fighting over that 15%," he says. "We're going for the other 85%."

To accomplish this, Planet Fitness has mixed fitness with fun through its  monthly pizza nights and a bagel breakfast on the second Tuesday of the Month. Its facilities sport mostly bright yellow and purple equipment, with an emphasis on cardio and weight-lifting machines. To keep costs down, the company omits amenities offered by more upscale gyms, such as juice bars and personal trainers. Membership fees run as low as $10 per month (plus a $20 startup fee), and many locations are open 24/7.

Beyond being affordable, Planet Fitness has  built its reputation on  maintaining a non-competitive workout environment. If someone attempts to lift too many weights or seems to be grunting under the effort, staffers can set off a loud siren called the "lunk alarm." On some occasions, particularly egregious lifting offenders have been asked to leave and then escorted out by police.

What's more, Rondeau thinks the focus his company has on basic products like weight and cardio ends up being a strength, rather than a detractor. There's always "a lot of fads" in fitness, he explains — aerobics, kickboxing, and lately, spinning — but the cardio and weight machines are the timeless essentials.

If further evidence is needed that Planet Fitness has a broad appeal, Rondeau points out that the gym's 5 million members account for roughly 10% of the 50 million people in the U.S. who belong to a health club. The gym has more than 750 locations nationwide, with the heaviest concentrations in the Northeast, Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas.

At least right now, Rondeau isn't planning any big changes in the model. He says the $10 price tag and the uncompetitive atmosphere are the two big reasons Planet Fitness has been able to differentiate its product. As he likes to put it, if all the other gyms are selling hamburgers, then Planet Fitness is offering pizza. 

Sharpshooter Scores 12 Points In 20 Seconds

Playoff madness!

High School Wins State Basketball Championship With Only 6 Players

Hours before Saturday's state title game, Pat Strickland and his team were dining at a local Olive Garden when the boys' basketball coach received a message from Portland (Ore.) Jefferson High officials.

The administration suspended half of his team for violating an undisclosed team rule that morning, leaving his one-loss Democrats with just six players entering the championship contest, according to The Oregonian. Greyson Smallwood, the team's 6-foot-11 center and Rivals' No. 125 ranked junior recruit, had already been removed from the team by his parents a week earlier for "off-the-court issues."

So, how did Jefferson -- considered at full strength to be among the nation's top teams -- respond? Only by jumping out to a 22-point halftime lead and hanging on for dear life to defeat Churchill, 69-64, and capture the school's second straight state title and fifth in the past seven seasons.

"We've been talking about dealing with adversity all tournament," Strickland told The Oregonian after his team finished the season 26-1. "These guys stayed together. This one is special."

Indeed, Gonzaga-bound senior guard Silas Melson -- one of four starters who were not suspended -- reportedly gathered his five teammates together and led them out of the locker room arm in arm. Their arms remained locked until they reached the floor, where they unleashed a fury of 3-pointers. The Democrats made 10-of-16 attempts from beyond the arc to snatch a 47-25 halftime lead.

"I don't know if (the suspensions) affected us, but it obviously affected them," Churchill coach Kelly Bokn told The Oregonian. "They hadn't shot like that all year. The basket was like a garbage can for them."

Bokn's charges outscored Jefferson 25-7 in the third quarter to cut the lead to four, but the Democrats held on for the five-point win. "We were gassed," Strickland admitted to The Register-Guard.

Prior to the game, the Jefferson coach reportedly challenged Melson. "This is why you're the best player in the state," Strickland told his star. "For these types of moments right here." Melson responded with a game-high 24 points on 15 shots to go along with seven rebounds and four assists. Mission accomplished.

Got It Good

I look around at friends enduring disease, divorce and death, and reflect on how wondrous of a life God has give to Dena and me! Our fortysomething aches and pains are such a pittance. We can do pretty much anything we want to. Life is good.

10 Ways To Remove Wrinkles Without Ironing

By Perrie Simotin, StyleCaster:

Newsflash: Ironing is boring. We all do it, but by gosh, it’s a snooze. Of course, walking outside in clothes that look as if they’ve been folded up, stuffed in an envelope, and shipped overseas probably isn’t the message we want to send to the world, but it just so happens that sometimes, we simply don’t have the time or the patience to bust out the iron and all its accoutrements.
To that end—since we’re all about tips and tricks that make our daily lives a little easier—we’ve compiled 10 ways to get wrinkles out of clothes—without an iron!




1. Use a flat iron.
Yes ladies, the same device that straightens your hair can also smooth out your clothes—women in the ’60s used to straighten their hair with an actual iron, so this is flipping the script. While a flat iron won’t fully smooth a large garment, it’s perfect for getting wrinkles out of a small section, like the collar, the cuffs, or a hem. Just make sure you clean it first: You probably don’t want your thermal heat-protectant spray to rub off on your favorite blouse.

2. Use the dryer.
Another great way to remove wrinkles without an iron? The dryer! Here’s how: Dampen a very small thing—like the toe of a sock, or a small handkerchief—and set your dryer to medium. Toss in the dry creased garments and let ‘em spin for about 15 minutes. Voila, NMW (no more wrinkles.)


3. Use a pot.
One of the oldest tricks in the book to remove wrinkles sans iron is to use a regular metal pot that you’d make pasta in. Boil water in the pot, then spill it out. From there, use the bottom of the pot as your iron. Brilliant!




4. Use your mattress.
Another effective trick: Take a wrinkled garment and roll it as if you were rolling a burrito. Once it’s all wrapped up (wrapped, not folded), put it under your mattress for an hour. Once you take it out, most of the wrinkles should be gone.




5. Use dryer sheets.
Some people swear by tossing one wrinkled item into the dryer by itself, and throwing in a few damp dryer sheets. Set to medium and let it spin for about 15 minutes.






6. Use a professional spray.
There’s been an influx of wrinkle-removing sprays hitting the market recently, designed to smooth out pesky creases without using anything else. Most feature fiber-relaxing technology and are safe for almost any type of fabric. We like Downy Wrinkle Releaser. ($15.89 for two-pack on Yahoo Shopping)



7. Use vinegar.
Did you know that standard white vinegar can eradicate wrinkles from your clothes? It’s true!
Mist garments with 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water, and let it air-dry.
(A bonus: It’s super-gentle on your threads!)





8. Use a damp towel.
Place your wrinkled clothing underneath some damp towels and gently press down and smooth out the creases.





9. Use your shower.
This one is fairly obvious, but it works: While you’re showering, hang up wrinkled garments inside your bathroom (and close the door.) In about 10 minutes, the steam will smooth out the wrinkles. It’s not the most effective method out there, but it’s great in a pinch, which is why it’s so common among travelers in hotels.

10. Use a kettle. If you can boil water for tea, you can steam the wrinkles right out of your clothes. Just hold a steaming tea kettle about a foot away from the wrinkles in your clothes, and you can steam the creases right out. (This is essentially using the same methodology as the shower technique, but you don’t have to steam up a whole room.)

Emergency Savings Strategy

By Andrea Coombes, MarketWatch:

Are you brave enough to hold your emergency savings in an investment portfolio of stocks and bonds? While some studies suggest it can be a better deal for your finances, plenty of financial planners — and their clients — say it’s a no-go.

Ironically, with interest rates at rock-bottom lows, some might argue it takes more courage to stash savings in a bank account that’s losing money to inflation than to invest it in the volatile stock market.

One recent study found that investing emergency savings in a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds rather than in cash led to a better outcome — more money at retirement — even after financial shocks like a job loss.

“The traditional recommendation of a cash-only reserve emergency fund strategy is likely to reduce wealth over a lifetime,” the study’s authors said. Read the full study in the Journal of Financial Planning.

“Clients with a high-risk tolerance could consider an aggressive strategy of minimizing cash reserves and maximizing account holdings in an effort to accumulate assets faster, thereby providing funds for emergencies, retirement and future needs,” they wrote.

Of course, our behavior isn’t always rational, and financial advisers say their clients often are not interested in subjecting their savings stash to market risk.

“I think of risk tolerance as having two sides. There’s the financial side: can you afford to invest this money in something risky? And the emotional side: can you tolerate investing in something risky?” said Mike Piper, a
CPA and author of “The Oblivious Investor” blog, based in St. Louis, Mo.

“If you’re going to lose sleep at night, then you can’t afford to do that even if you can financially afford it,” he said.

One very real and worrisome prospect is that you may be forced to sell your holdings when they’re down. 

“If you need the cash, you may end up selling at a very bad time,” said Kevin O’Reilly, a certified financial planner with Foothills Financial Planning in Phoenix

Picture a self-employed consultant whose jobs dry up. He has a three-month savings cushion sitting in cash and another three months in a stock index fund. When his cash cushion runs out, he’s forced to tap his investments — but in that six-month period, the market drops 20%.

“You don’t want to be selling out of that index fund at that time,” O’Reilly said. “Having that cushion protects you. That cash allows you to ride through that drop.”

Even if you don’t need the money for an emergency, watching the market’s gyrations decimate your savings could be painful. “There’s the additional stress even if they don’t need the money,” he said.

Search for yield

While O’Reilly said he’s generally opposed to investing emergency savings in the markets, he also said many people aren’t doing enough to earn a return on savings.

“Most individuals are not maximizing the safe returns that they can get on their emergency funds,” he said. “I typically recommend pulling these funds from the big bank on the corner that pays .01%, and putting them in an FDIC-insured account at an online bank that pays closer to 1%.”

Plenty of financial advisers agree that, opportunity cost or no, emergency savings should stay in a cash-like account.

“I don’t advocate taking on substantial risk with money that is truly earmarked for potential emergencies,” said Rebecca Kennedy, founder and principal of Kennedy Financial Planning in Denver

“But it can be prudent in certain circumstances to invest a portion of one’s reserves into a slightly less liquid, higher-earning vehicle,” she said. Those investment options include laddering CDs with varying maturities, buying I-bonds (which earn an interest rate partly tied to variable inflation rate), or investing in a no-load, low-cost, short-term bond fund.

Of course, all investments come with some type of risk. Short-term bond funds can lose money — and did last year, Kennedy notes, and CDs levy surrender charges.

These types of investment options for emergency savings are not suitable for everyone, she said, only for those who have more than six months’ worth of emergency savings, or a very stable employment situation.

“People with ready access to a low-interest line of credit can also afford to take on a little more risk with their cash reserves since the line of credit can serve as a backup when needed,” she said.

But, she warned, “The danger of relying on the line of credit is that the bank can change its mind about making those funds available to the borrower. I would not use this strategy with someone who lives closer to the edge in terms of their financial stability or has lower emergency reserves.”

If the low rates you’re earning on your savings have got you down, think of the earnings you’re sacrificing as an insurance payment.

“I view the lost opportunity as an insurance cost,” O’Reilly said. “The return I’m not earning on the funds I’ve set aside is like an insurance premium that I pay to protect my other growth assets from being sold at the wrong time.”

Rethink the question

Perhaps a better strategy than subjecting your emergency savings to stock-market risk is to ask yourself how much emergency savings you need, and then invest whatever you have over and above that amount.

Take a dual-income couple, O’Reilly said. “Their need for an emergency fund is probably lower than a single-income couple. They could have a smaller emergency fund, and so the remaining funds can be invested a little more broadly.”

Similarly, your job type plays a part in how big a reserve you need. “If you have a very stable job, for instance a government job or a tenured professor, then you can certainly get away with a much lower emergency fund,” Piper said.

Piper, who is self-employed, said he keeps one year’s worth of living expenses in cash or cash-like investments. “I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all rule. It varies depending on what type of emergency you can be exposed to, with job loss being the biggest one.”

O’Reilly said the range for his clients is three to 12 months. “The rules of thumb that applied seven or eight years ago might not be quite the same now because people take longer to get new jobs,” he said. “It depends on what you do. If you’re tenured, you’re pretty safe. If you’re working in high tech or you’re an engineer, there might be a little more demand for those roles — even if there’s a job interruption, you might expect that to be briefer.”

Meanwhile, Brett Horowitz, a vice president and wealth manager with Evensky & Katz in Coral Gables, Fla., said the firm advises its retiree clients to stash one to two years’ worth of expenses in savings. Clients feel a lot better, he said, when a year like 2009 comes around “and they can look down at their checking account and see $100,000 sitting there.”

When stocks go down 20%, they don’t need to worry about selling anything to cover their bills. “The psychology, for us, is maybe the biggest aspect of it,” Horowitz said.

“The purpose of that emergency reserve is for emergencies,” he said. “You’re giving up the opportunity cost but you have the safety blanket there in case you need it.”

Another viewpoint

There’s another psychological point to consider, said Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network, a network of fee-only financial advisers.

If you’re liable to reach into emergency savings even when it’s not a true emergency, then an investment vehicle might be better for you. Garrett said investing her savings afforded her a sense of discipline when she was in her 20s and all-to-likely to spend what was in her bank account.

“Something had to be truly an emergency for me to pillage my investment account,” she said. “I’ve recommended it to some clients, not everybody, but for those people who lack the discipline, like I used to.”
Meanwhile, the blogger known as Mr. Money Mustache said he invests his emergency savings without a problem. Here’s what he said during a recent interview with MarketWatch:

“I’ve always questioned the idea of an emergency fund. It’s a great tool for the financial beginner who lives from paycheck to paycheck, and for whom a broken water heater would make the difference between making ends meet and borrowing via a credit card. But once you get off the ground, your credit card is a monthly buffer and your investment accounts are the emergency fund,” he said.

Don’t forget your Roth

For many Americans, the many competing demands on their money — monthly bills, debt payments and retirement and college savings goals — can make it difficult to create a sufficient rainy day fund.

If that describes your situation, then consider this: A Roth IRA can act as an emergency fund, with some caveats.

“If someone has, say, $5,000 they think could be emergency fund money or retirement savings money, there’s not a lot of downside to contributing it to a Roth, as long as you keep it in something safe,” Piper said.

That’s because any contributions you make to a Roth are always available to you, free of taxes and penalty. There are some caveats: Unless you meet certain rules, only the money that you contributed is available free of penalties and taxes. Any earnings on your money, and any money that you converted from a traditional IRA could be hit with a big penalty and income taxes.

“All the various hoops that you need to jump through only apply to earnings that have happened in the account or to amounts that are in the account as a result of a Roth conversion,” Piper said.

Also, Roth 401(k)s don’t offer the same freedom as Roth IRAs. You can’t withdraw your contributions while you work at that employer, Piper said.

Plus, if you’re in the right tax bracket, you might qualify for the retirement saver’s credit.

But, Piper warns, if this Roth contribution is doubling as emergency savings, then don’t invest it in the stock market. “If this is money that you might want to use in the event of an emergency, you would want to keep it in something safe. You can own CDs with an IRA, or low-risk bonds or any number of other investments.”

Possible SAT Overhaul Impacts Tutor

Anthony-James Green has spent nearly a decade, and amassed quite a fortune, figuring out how to ace the SAT.

But his finely honed -- and expensive -- methodology could be in flux now that the College Board plans sweeping changes for the college entrance exam.

Among the changes: Test takers will no longer need to commit scores of obscure vocabulary words to memory, and math sections will focus much more on real-world problem solving. College Board president David Coleman said the changes, beginning in the spring of 2016, aim to level the playing field for those who can't afford pricey tutors and classes.

So what about Green, who's built a business around that uneven playing field?

Over the past nine years, he's cultivated a strategy in which he observes each client one on one and zeroes in on the student's biggest weakness.

"Before you ever teach students anything, you need to know the enemy -- what is it that they don't get and what's stopping them from getting their perfect score," he said.

Whatever he does, it seems to work. Green said his students improve an average of 430 points after working with him.

His method is in such demand from New York's 1% that he charges up to $650 per hour at his company, Test Prep Authority. The more hours you purchase, the lower the price (but it still bottoms out at $500 an hour).

He only takes about 10 students each quarter, though he said about 60 hopefuls clamor to work with him. He requires his students to spend three hours with him each week.

On top of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he rakes in from tutoring, Green also sells SAT tutoring software for $297 a pop to those who don't get a chance for in-person sessions.

"A few years ago, I'd never imagine that my rates would be this high," he said. "But I get really good results.
You don't get to this kind of rate if what you're doing doesn't work."

Green said he did horribly on his early SAT prep tests and went to several tutoring sessions without improving. Once he got an individual tutor, he said he scored in the 99th percentile.

As a freshman at Columbia, Green realized he could put what he'd learned to use. Since then, he's tutored about 325 students.

For his clients, many of whose parents are in finance, law and business, his price tag for three months of tutoring is a drop in the bucket if it means their child could go from state school to Ivy League.

"My typical client places a big value on education and results," he said. "They also place a high value on someone who can handle things for them, like reminding their kid to bring a prep book on vacation."

For stressed-out students and parents, the College Board's announcement was rattling. Green received dozens of panicked e-mails from parents asking if this test would be better for their children and what he thought of the changes.

What he thinks is that it will be a lot of work to relearn a test he's spent thousands of hours mastering. He plans to devour any material the College Board releases about the new version next month.

He said he's thrilled the College Board is trying to make the test more reflective of what kids learn in school and not what they can get from private tutors. But he thinks there will still be rich parents willing to pay for a leg up.

"There's always going to an optimal strategy to beat the test, and it's a beautiful thing that I have a lot of time to alter my methodology," he said. "Anyone who claims that standardized testing is fair is ridiculous."

5 Secrets Of A Happy Marriage

By Elise Sole of Yahoo Shine. I've got #2 down cold!

Turns out the adage, 'Happy wife, happy life," may not be true. New research conducted by the University of Chicago finds that a happy and healthy husband is the key to having an awesome marriage. “We studied older, more conventional couples, but results may apply to younger generations since people tend to become more traditional as they age,” lead author, James Iveniuk, a PhD candidate in the department of sociology, tells Yahoo Shine. Chalk it up to cultural norms: “Even in the most modern marriages, there are gender role expectations,” he says. “Women tend to police the emotional temperature of the home, so if a husband is sick or being difficult, women are often the ones to smooth things over, versus men who are more avoidant.” Here are four more factors that make marriages tick.

An average-looking husband: So, you didn’t marry David Beckham — that’s a good thing. Plain-looking men make better husbands, according to the Journal of Family Psychology. Researchers filmed 82 newlywed couples discussing a marital problem, and in those pairs in which the man was the more attractive one, he was less sensitive to his wife's feelings. Meanwhile, the less handsome husbands were interested in problem-solving. "There are lots of reasons why people stay together, and lots of reasons why people are committed to each other," study author Benjamin Karney, PhD, a social psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles said in a press release. "So it would be an exaggeration to say, ‘Well, no woman should ever marry a man who is more attractive than she is.’ But it is true that on average, when men are more attractive than their wives — in this sample, at least — it looks like they were less invested. Maybe because they knew that they might have more alternatives — better alternatives, potentially.”

Holding a grudge: It’s counterintuitive, but refusing to forgive your spouse for an offense could be the key to resolving an issue, says one Florida State University study. That’s especially true when dealing with a difficult partner who takes advantage of the other's kindness. "Believing a partner is forgiving leads agreeable people to be less likely to offend that partner and disagreeable people to be more likely to offend that partner,” lead study author James McNulty, PhD, a psychology professor said in a press release. No need to drag out the argument for days, but having what McNulty calls an “angry but honest conversation” will make it clear that his behavior won’t fly. 

Having married friends: One Brown University study suggests that the divorce of a close friend increases the odds that you’ll end your own marriage by 75 percent. "When one person experiences divorce, it gives the people around them information about what that's like," lead study author James Fowler told Good Morning America. A friend’s split could cause you to question your own relationship or hearing the juicy details of the single life could make its benefits seem more appealing. To head off trouble, hang out with happily married friends: One study found that having an audience witness you two on your best behavior validates your lovey-dovey feelings.

Sharing a glass of wine: If you're going to drink a cocktail, pour for two. Although it's unclear why, both married and dating couples who enjoy between one and three drinks together feel happier than those who indulge when they're apart. "Individuals who drink with their partner report feeling increased intimacy and decreased relationship problems the next day, compared to individuals who drink apart from their partner or do not drink at all," lead author Ash Levitt, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions, said in a press release. The effects were seen in couples who mirror each other's drinking habits, so if your partner is abstaining, you should too.

Next Play

Our basketball season ended last night in the sectional championship game. No regrets. The coaches and players did great, just not quite great enough.

This morning I emptied out my travel bag for road games. A flashlight and a couple books for reading during long nighttime bus rides. Toe and hand warmers for long, cold bus rides. Water bottles for emergencies. Pens and pencils for drawing up rotations and plays. Breath mints. Chap stick. An odd packet of mustard from the dinners the players' parents would provide.

I am ready to be done with long bus rides.

Five years of committing 250 hours annually to being an average basketball coach is enough for a while. It has been a tremendous character-building experience with terrific role models. I've become a better person thanks to the influences of coaches Witzig, Schweinberg, Short, Foster and Harden. I hope to continue to be around NCHS in some capacity.

God has given me top-flight abilities as a math and business tutor; above-average skills as a facilitator, treasurer, actor/singer, spreadsheet guy, and writer. What else? It's time to find out.

My students will benefit from the better daytime flexibility in my hours.
 
And of course, the prospect of an extra date-night option per week is an exciting one!

About The 1% Sales Tax Proposal

There is a vote on Tuesday the 18th regarding a 1% sales tax increase.

This isn't to brag, maybe even the opposite, it's a glimpse of the mindset of a mostly ignorant voter which may in the future help each side of the 1% sales tax increase proposal to organize themselves.

- I don't recall how I first heard about the proposal. My guess is via the signs posted along Vernon Avenue which either supported the tax as a way to support schools, or opposed it on the basis of existing waste. I generally don't read local news.
- I've worked at a large corporation and been part of large volunteer organizations. Waste is everywhere, in my opinion, part of the human condition. I have been in the position of asking for a budget increase. So I sympathize with the schools.
- With that said, I have not researched what the schools would use the money for, or what all the reasons against it are.
- I don't read mailings, probably jaded by years of one-sided political ads. I know I've received at least a mailing from the opposition, maybe one from the schools.
- I was in a meeting with the mayor of Downs who said that if the sales tax is not passed, then property taxes will have to increase.
- Dena was at a Kiwanis Club meeting where a retired superintendent explained many aspects of the schools' position. What stuck most in her mind were that property tax abatement was mentioned as part of the package, though apparently not guaranteeable. And also, a fairly casual comment about how 1% wasn't much money.
- I recently was taxed $80 by the Town of Normal because I bought a car (in Morton, incidentally). Our water bill is in the midst of a multi-year phased increase. I separately had to appeal a property tax increase which overstated by value of our property by nearly a third. Casual comments about tax increases are counterproductive with me.
- Regarding waste, a friend commented that he'd vote in favor of a tax increase once the number of superintendents in the county was reduced far below the 11 of today - too much administration (whether or not that figure is right, I don't know).
- When I walk into NCHS just before the end-of-day bell rings, I see hundreds of students wandering aimlessly in the halls. There might be a great reason, but as a person who was in class from opening to closing bell my entire career, it raises the question of waste.
- I have many friends in education, and I do believe that they are underpaid, understaffed, overworked, especially driven recently by Common Core requirements, No Child Left Behind Act, and other legislation.
- I also believe that education is, behind national security and a more balanced budget, the top issue in our country.
- I have no children. But strong schools attract employees to our county, which attract employers, which infuse the local economy.
- My property tax is about $1,500 annually. I spend far more than $1,500 per year. So given a choice, I choose property tax, assuming equal percentages (which is probably untrue).
- Property taxes are borne entirely by locals. Sales taxes are also paid by visitors, a nice subsidy.
- Sales taxes impact local businesses. I can only guess, but in part because it raises the cost that customers pay which could reduce sales. And perhaps in part, if they purchase supplies from in town. The Chamber of Commerce took an official position against the sales tax.

In the end, I am voting against the tax because I am uneducated about the benefit(s) and so unwilling to accept the cost. Maybe my property tax will increase. We already occasionally shop around for cities in other states that might be more affordable to live in than this one, so this might add another spark of energy to that.

Replay: Autistic Student's 20-Point Four Minutes

Got to break this one back out every once in a while...

)

Normal Community Captures Dramatic Win Over Rock Island

By Quad Cities Online:

EAST MOLINE -- What he experienced a few minutes earlier had Rock Island senior guard Trey Sigel admitting he could barely stand up for a post-game interview.

"I can't feel anything," Sigel said.

The pain and emotions simply were too unbearable.

Within a seven-second span on Tuesday night, the Rocks had a potential win ripped away and their season end with a cruel finish. Normal Community guard Zach Thompson's reverse layup and C.J. Carr's miss on an off-balance layup as time expired decided Rocky's 56-55 overtime loss in a Class 4A United Township Sectional semifinal at the Panther Den.

"We did a great job of passing the ball and finding the open man. It ended up in my hands. I made a play," said Thompson, who scored his only basket of the contest with :06.8 left in overtime that provided the winning margin.

"It shows  our relentlessness. We showed we could handle adversity."

On the other end, the Rocks (19-9) had to pick up the pieces after losing a 55-52 lead in the final minute of overtime.

"I can't even explain it because I'm in shock," Sigel said with his eyes staring at the floor. "We just gave the game away. I don't know what guys were thinking. If we would have played keep-away, we would have won by 10."

The end of regulation proved frustrating as the Rocks lost four-point leads three times in the game, but it got worse in overtime.

Three of Rocky's seven overtime possessions ended in unforced turnovers. The last one came when Tyler Hall's pass to DayQwon Jones near the baseline trickled out of bounds with :27.1 left and the Rocks up 55-54. Thompson's game-winning layup came 20 seconds later.

"They don't even pressure that hard," said Sigel, who scored 13 points. "We played probably 10 teams that pressure harder than they do. We didn't take care of the ball."

Rocky committed half of its 10 turnovers in the last five minutes of the contest.

"We have a lot of varsity experience," Rocky senior forward Keenan Shorter said. "We couldn't step up and lead this team to a win."

Given opportunities to secure the game, the Rocks, who trailed 20-7 after the first quarter, fumbled them away. Leading 46-45 with less than a minute left in regulation, Rocky turned the ball over in the backcourt. Tyler Seibring immediately converted the miscue into a three-point play, giving the 23-8 Ironmen a 48-46 lead with :35.3 left.

Twenty seconds later, Carr hit a layup after a drive to the basket that tied the game.

Normal turned the ball over on its subsequent possession, but the Rocks could not get a shot attempt after forcing it with :00.9 remaining in regulation.

"We did enough things that we felt we should have won the game after being down," Rocky coach Thom Sigel said. "We just made mistakes."

Jones' putback and Carr's two foul shots on consecutive trips pushed the Rocky lead to 55-52 with less than a minute remaining in overtime. The lead was cut to one on Alex Peacock's bucket with 42 seconds left.

In between Peacock's basket and Thompson's layup was the key turnover.

"The calendar turned to March. We needed to step it up a level," Trey Sigel said. "We didn't."

Trailing 56-55 with :06.8 left in overtime, Carr received the inbounds pass and quickly dribbled to the right block. As he was met by two defenders, he put up an off-balance layup that hit the rim and harmlessly fell to the floor at the buzzer.

"I thought it was going in from where I was standing," Thom Sigel said. "He has a tendency to make those tough shots."

Normal led exactly :36.8 seconds of the overtime.

"This will be one of the toughest (losses)," Thom Sigel said. " ... We had it. And it was taken away."

2014 Goals Checkpoint

Two snowy months are in the books, so let's check in on progress toward 2014 goals, hm?

Exercise/Stretch 5+ Days a Week, Body Fat 12%

About the same, with some iffy progress. Definitely logged the time in the gym which is what really matters. I've stretched less, a poor trend. The scale told me that my weight's still right around 160. Good news: Purchased a body-fat analyzer. Bad news: It's over 12%. My excellent theory is that the meter is wrong. However, as I blogged earlier, now I have a baseline for comparison. I'll have to see how the device performs daily. Maybe right after I stretch.

Healthy Elbow, Eyes, Teeth

I'm removing "teeth" from the list, since it's as good as it's going to get, which is still quite good.

Eyes: Success! A new type of lens in my stigmatized left eye has cleared the blur. A new supply is on the way. Glasses are still looking and working good.

Elbow: Still dealing with tennis elbow in the right one so that I haven't shot a basketball or done an upper body workout pain-free since last summer. No progress to report, really, other than my recently-noted blog post about changing my typing habits.

Tutor 300 Hours

Work is pouring in and I can't say enough about how blessed the business has been. I am averaging easily more than 15 hours of tutoring per school week which is 450 over the course of a year. I've dabbled in remote (Skype) tutoring. My biggest challenge is fitting them all in during basketball season!

Blog Thanks Weekly

Not every week, but I did better this month than last. Actually I have notes from last week that simply haven't been typed up. Considering all the tutoring and volunteering I've got going on, I'm cutting myself some slack on this one.

Make 10 New Acquaintances

Made a big decision here to shift my volunteer focus away from major long-term commitments (including chair of LMC Alumni Committee) and more on smaller independent projects. For example, I spoke with a friend from United Way and learned of a finance-based need that could be an excellent fit with my skills.

Clean House

I have begun to scrape the basement wall at home! The other two are still on my to-do list: A major project to repair driveway/carports will improve our property greatly, and my wardrobe and files need an overhaul.

Cupcake's Greatest Hits

Cuppie is growing up to be quite the house kitty, and getting ready for her first spring and taste of the outdoors!

2014 Regional Championship Photos

Add caption

Normal Community Tops Danville For Regional Championship

By the Danville Commercial-News:

NORMAL — The worst fears for Danville boys basketball coach Ted Houpt came true on Friday night.

The Vikings, trying to win their first regional title since 2001, ran into a wall — the Normal Community Ironmen wall of defense.

Junior forwards Alex Peacock and Tyler Seibring, both 6-foot-7, combined for 48 points and 16 rebounds as Normal Community rolled to a Class 4A regional title with a 71-42 victory over Danville.

“The three biggest fears that I had: They would use their size well, they did. They would shoot the ball well, they did. We would shoot the ball poorly, we did,’’ Danville coach Ted Houpt said. “That adds up to a pretty clear defeat.’’

While Normal Community was shooting 60 percent (27-of-45) from the field in Friday’s regional championship game, Danville High missed it’s first 10 shots and the Vikings shot a dismal 32.6 percent (16-of-49) from the field, including making just  3-of-21 behind the 3-point arc.

“Some of the shots that we have been making, didn’t go in,’’ said Houpt as the Vikings had made 55 percent of their shots in regional wins over Normal West and Bradley-Bourbonnais. “The Normal Community defense is designed to give up jump shots. We got some shots, but you have to make them from the outside or it will be a long night.

“They did everything well and we didn’t play well. It looks like we ran out of gas emotionally.’’

Houpt was hoping that Danville could get off to a quick start, but it was actually the opposite.
Normal Community (22-8) scored the game’s first 16 points as the Ironmen held the Vikings scoreless for the entire first quarter and the first minute of the second quarter.

“We just didn’t come out the way that we needed to come out,’’ said Danville senior forward Denzel Smith, who scored 11 of his team-high 21 in the second quarter. But even at that point, it was too little, too late for the Vikings. “They hit us in the mouth and we didn’t respond back.’’

“We just didn’t knock down shots,’’ Houpt said. “Against a defense like that, you have to knock down shots to make them come out or they will just guard the basket.’’

Basically, the Ironmen playing a man-to-man defense in which they put all five defenders in the lane. The combination of man-to-man and their clog the lane mentality was just too much for the Vikings (11-17).

“We haven’t seen a lot of man defense recently and we have been playing well against zones,’’ Houpt said. “They pack it in so tight, that you run ball screens and after a while, you see no point in doing it because you are just going to run into a wall of big, strong kids that are not going to budge. It just makes it really tough to get any rhythm.’’

And once Danville fell behind by double-digits, for the first time in the regional tournament, the Vikings tried to get it all back in just a couple of possessions.

“We panicked,’’ Smith admitted. “We were trying to come back and not let our fans down.’’

Houpt acknowledged that it wasn’t a selfish move by any player.

“Every one of them thought they could knock down the shot that was going to get us going,’’ he said.
“I was hoping that we could make them feel a little pressure of being the favorite team on its home court, if we could have gotten on them early.

“But that didn’t happen and we will never know.’’

After the 29-point loss, the second worst of the season for the Vikings, both Houpt and Smith somewhat admitted that reaching the regional final for the first time in three years was a positive step for the Danville program.

“Yeah, it’s a good finish, but we wanted to win the regional title,’’ Smith said.

Houpt said “it’s hard to feel that right now.’’

“We wanted to have a good game, we wanted to play well and hard,’’ he added. “Even if it was a loss, we wanted to play better than we did.

“When we get a little time away from it, we will see that we closed really well and we did some great things.’’

Houpt believes this will help the Danville program going forward.

“It makes the summer easier,’’ he said. “It shows people that we are going in the right direction.’’

Danville senior guard Kylen Butler, playing in his final game, finished with 10 points and a game-high four rebounds.

Normal Community, which outrebounded Danville 41-17, advances to play Rock Island in the Class 4A East Moline Sectional on Tuesday.

My 2014 Lenten Sacrifice

It's a Catholic tradition to give up something for the 40 days of Lent which began yesterday (for those of you who either didn't see people walking around with dirty foreheads or just wrote it off as the mark of an alien invasion).

So I have decided: I am giving up typing with my right hand.

Yes, to all you out there howling in protest, this is so, so not what the spirit of Lent is. I could argue that if you're supposed to be giving up something that you love... well after a few blog posts at half-speed I am really starting to love and miss my right-hand-typing. But yep, it's a weak argument. Fact is, my physical therapist advised that my sore elbow issues are connected to typing habits, so in true McDonald fashion, I am going all-out. The fact that it just so happened on Ash Wednesday and so by definition is extremely pleasing to Pope Francis is just a bonus. And hey, it's the first time I've given up something for Lent since VHS tapes were cutting-edge technology, so isn't that worth a few more heaven credits than the guy next to me who thinks that Lent is stuff that comes out of the dryer?