On to the postseason

Alaina's team ended its regular season Thursday night by beating East 53-39. Northwest finished 12-8 overall and 10-6 in the league. That's the team's best records since the 1999-2000 season. Alaina has played better lately. She has 44 points, 22 rebounds and five blocks in her last two games. I'm sure the East coach was wondering who the hell she was because she missed the first game between the two teams for Mom's funeral.
In Kansas, there are 32 teams in Class 6A, the classification for the largest schools. The teams are broken down into eight, four-team substates. Each substate winner advances to the state tournament. Alaina's team will be the top seed in its substate, so it has a chance to advance to state. Northwest plays Thursday, probably against a neighboring suburban school we barely beat earlier in the year. So say a prayer for her Thursday morning.

Alaina's team wins in upset

Alaina's team had a nice win Tuesday night against Kapaun Mount Carmel, one of the Catholic schools in town. Northwest won 64-41 over Kapaun, which was ranked ninth in our poll. Alaina had 13 points and nine rebounds in limited minutes because of foul trouble. She made two big baskets in a row in the third quarter after Kapaun cut the lead to seven. The euphoria ends Friday when she has to play the No. 2 team in the state, which beat them 68-34 earlier this season. Still, Northwest will have its first winning record since the 1999-2000 season. Just two games to play followed by the state playoffs. A photographer at the game gave me a link to his web site, which includes a lot nice shots of Alaina. She tends to make a lot of funny faces when she plays. I think she gets that from her Aunt Peggy.

Focus:HOPE Honors Dad

Focus:HOPE is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a black tie affair March 7 at the Detroit Marriott (RenCen). They are honoring a group of folks for their service to Focus:HOPE, including Dad, Fr. Cunningham, Eleanor, Carl Levin and a couple other folks. Eleanor asked me to accept Dad's award. Not sure anyone wants to drop $250 for a ticket, but just in case here's a link to more info. If not, I'll report back with details of the evening.

Mae talk draws a crowd

There was a nice turnout at the Rochester Hills Public Library for my Life with Mae talk Feb. 10. There were probably 50-60 people there - mostly over the age of 70. As Dad used to say about the Depends-dependent crowds he drew for his talks, "There wasn't a dry seat in the house." Francis Cook, who used to sit next to us at the Lions game at the Dome, was there. So was the woman whom Dad lent his letter sweater to in high school when she lost a button on her blouse. Phylly, not surprisingly, was not pleased. Dad later wrote a column about it. I signed a book for this woman a year ago and Mom still scrunched her nose at the mention of her name (and they talked about Dad holding grudges). Sold 19 books, which was nice. Javan Kienzle is going to write to more libraries and groups to see if they'll come have me speak. Maybe I'll start using the honorariums for the cottage beer fund. The $100 last night went to Gift of Reading.

Link to Minnesota Daily

If you are interested in reading what Conor is writing for his school newspaper, here's a link to the Minnesota Daily. Do a search on Conor Shine and his stories will come up. Conor is covering the St. Paul campus, which is the ag campus -- see his story on the guy trying to figure out of the turkey genome sequence -- as well as environmental issues. That's a good beat because Minneapolis is a big tree-hugging state (when the trees aren't buried in snow). The Daily is student-run and one of the largest college papers in the country.

Life with Mae talk

For anyone who happens to be cruising in the vicinity of Rochester on Tuesday, Feb. 10, I will be giving a talk on Life with Mae at the Rochester Hills Public Library. Time is 7 p.m. It's located at 500 Olde Towne in Rochester. I'm buying a case of books from WSU Press to sell afterwards. I'm sure I'll have a few leftover in case anybody wants to buy a few from me to have around to give out to friends, etc. I'm hoping it will go better than my talk at the Dearborn Library in the fall where the median age was 78 and some audience members were sleeping before I even opened my mouth.

Happy Birthday to you

PLEASE send me your family birthdays this week so I can update the calendar found WAY at the bottom of the blog. As you can see the most important birthday is already listed for February.

News from Royal Oak:

My apartment is almost put together thanks to Mark sharing his furniture. The last thing is to empty a few (or 5) Rubbermaid bins filled with summer clothes. Fortunately I now have room to store all of it. Oh, and I need a butter dish but I figure a plate works for now.

2009 marks the last year I can say I'm in my twenties. My friends and I are going to go to Lucky Strike in Novi (21+ arcade/bowling/disco) on Saturday to celebrate. Someone at work today asked if I was taking that Monday off and I laughed and said, "No, I will be in. I'm not turning 21." The smart response would've been and incredulous, "You're not!?" Oh well.

Alaina basketball in Topeka

Alaina spent the weekend playing basketball in the Thunderbird Invitational (sounds like a bowling tournament) in Topeka. In Kansas, both the boys and girls take a week off to play in a mid-season tournament.
Her team beat the host team, Shawnee Heights, in the opener. Heights was ranked No. 4 in its class, so it was a pretty good win. Northwest played another ranked team from Kansas City in the second round and got drilled pretty good. In the third-place game, her team lost 59-58 on two free throws with 4.6 seconds to play. Kind of a marginal call on the play.
Overall her team played pretty well. She averaged 12.0 points and 10.3 rebounds for the tournament. Odd fact: Not only was the host team called the Thunderbirds, but they had the same color scheme -- red, turquoisy blue and white -- as Lima Catholic Central.
I have links to some video from WIBW in Topeka from the first two games. On the second one, scroll down to T-Bird Invite Thursday. Nice shot of Alaina scoring on a baby hook that her mother taught her.