After about a year off of doing any serious home remodeling projects, 2004, at least the first 1/2 of the year, looks pretty busy.

It all started when my wife and I decided to replace the floor in the kitchen with wood laminate. We've been looking and deciding what kind to get. Of course before the new flooring goes down the door and window trim needs to be repainted.

So I scheduled the repainting over my Christmas break. I started yesterday, and as I'm happily scraping away at the old paint my wife proclaims: "You know, new wallpaper in this kitchen sure would look nice." Next thing you know she's off to the wallpaper store.

She comes back a while later with wallpaper and border for the entire kitchen and wants me to go back later with her to look at wallpaper for the front room. The wallpaper place is having a 'buy one get one free' sale so it's a great time to buy.

This morning we went to the wallpaper store and bought a bunch of paper to do the front room. All in all, we spent a little over $150 for wallpaper for two rooms. Not too shabby.

I guess I know what I'm doing with my nights and weekends for the next couple of months.....

Friday, Dec. 12th:

Frankfort at Logansport. The Hot Dogs lose a close one 39-38. This drops their record to 2-3.

Link to story: Hot Dogs lose hearbreaker to Logansport

Maconaquah at Wapahani: The Braves win 58-45. They pretty much led the entire game and even their record at 2-2.

Link to story: Prep Basketball roundup

Saturday Dec. 13th

Oak Hill at Maconaquah. Maconaquah wins 63-60 over a pretty good Oak Hill team. Things seem to be staring to click for the Braves as they have won 3 in a row to improve to 3-2.

Link to story: Braves shoot down Eagles

Frankfort evened it's season record at 2-2 with a 56-41 win over West Lafayette:

Frankfort Wins Fifth-Place Game at Hoops Classic

Next game: Dec. 12th at Logansport.

My alma mater got their first win of the season over county rival North Miami 71-67.

Link to story: Braves pull away for win

Thursday Dec. 4th - Frankfort versus McCutcheon. The Hot Dogs win 55-43

Link to story: Defense lifts Frankfort over McCutcheon

Now that Frankfort finally has a win on the books, we'll see how the rest of December plays out. They don't have a home game until Jan. 9th.

Frankfort: Dec. 2nd versus Twin Lakes, lost 56-53. Now 0-2 on the season.

Link to game report: Twin Lakes turn back Frankfort rally

Maconaquah: Nov. 29th verus Indianapolis Broad Ripple, lost 75-72 in overtime. Now 0-2 on the season.

couldn't find a game report for this one.

Sigh, could be a long season......

This is the first in what I hope is a series of JE's about Indiana HS basketball, specifically my 'home town' team as I follow them throughout the season. I'll probably post scores of my HS alma mater as well.

To put it simply, I love high school sports. Ever since we moved to Frankfort, IN almost 6 years ago we've been regulars at football & basketball games.

Of course, basketball is probably what everybody thinks of when they think of Indiana high school sports, and rightly so. It has a very rich and storied history, the move to class basketball 5 years ago notwitstanding (that's a debate I don't really care to get into).

For those not familiar to Indiana HS basketball here's a couple of links to some books and movies that will try and explain:

Hoosiers

Hoosier Hysteria Road Book

Now I'll get into the two teams that I'm following this year:

Frankfort Hot Dogs (beware stupid flash animation): Frankfort, IN is a small town of about 16k located 40 miles or so north and west of Indianapolis. It has a somewhat storied basketball history, winning 4 state titles back in the 1920-30's. Recent history has not been as kind, although they continue to usually field competative teams.

Current Record: 0-1

Last Game: Nov. 26th at home vs. Clinton Prairie. Lost 65-57. The Hot Dogs simply had not answer to 6 foot, 6 inch swingman Jordan Brewer of Prairie. Brewer had 34 points and seemed to take over the game in the fourth quarter. Frankfort better had find some consistant scoring or it will be long season.

Next Game: Dec. 2nd vs. Twin Lakes (0-0) at the Lafayette Hoops Classic tournment.

Maconaquah Braves: Maconaquah is my wife and I's alma mater (class of '85). It a fairly small school of about 700 students located about 60 miles straight north of Indianpolis, between the cities of Kokomo and Peru. The Braves have never won a state title, but have also had some pretty good teams in the past.

Current Record: 0-1

Last game: Nov. 25th vs. Pioneer. Lost 47-44. Don't have much info, need to find a paper. Just now this is the first time in 20 years Pioneer has beaten the Braves.

Next game: Nov. 29th at Indpls. Broad Ripple (0-1)

My wife and I did our first round of Christmas shopping this weekend. We have four boys ages 12, 9, 7 and 4 months.

Every year we set a budget, a set amount we want to spent on each child. Usually we do pretty well. Probably got about 75% of the stuff for the kids on Friday afternoon. Will do the next round probably right after Thanksgiving.

With the boys getting older finding a place at home to store the gifts is getting to be a problem. So this year my parents offered to let us store the gifts in an unused bedroom at their house. My sister, who has two girls, ages 4 and 7 months) is storing their stuff their as well.

So after shopping my wife and I head on over to my parents to store the gifts. Upon entering the bedroom we are greeted by my sisters shopping: a mound of stuff about 4 feet high and 2 feet around! Geeze, how much stuff can you buy for a little girl and an baby? We really think she is going way overboard, but what can you do?

Ron Borges from MSNBC just wrote what I think is the best commentary yet on this 'scandal' and IMHO it cuts pretty much to the truth:
Buckeyes just covering their butts

I really don't know what can be done to clean up the mess that is 'big-time' college athletics. If by the grace of god one of my four sons becomes a star athlete I really don't know if I would want him to go to a division 1-a school. Heck, I'd seriously think of steering him towards a division 3 school, where he can still get a quality education, play sports, but not have to deal with the ethical dilemmas and outrite hypocrisy that come with most of college athletics.

Yet again the good 'ole boys here in Clinton county, Indiana have provided another gem of a story:
Colfax mound

Here's what happened in the big city of Frankfort, IN (my current hometown) this past weekend:
Deer breaks into high school
and this gem:

Man arrested, head-butts FPD car window
Isn't life is a small town grand? Must have been a full moon this weekend.

Shout out to The_natedawg!!!!