BYU @ Marquette

Yet another travelogue. You don’t have to read it.

I became a fan of Volleyball at some point in my college years. The games were free if you were a student. I went as more of a “Let’s see what this is about.” I became so fascinated by the reflexes of the women playing that I probably just stared a lot. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was almost a dance, the way the players moved around and were so focused on what they were doing. I also learned that taking dates to volleyball was a cheap way to spend the evening. Being a poor college student made you creative.

Now that I’m older and have some disposable cash, I have a ritual to this, my favorite time of the year. My tastes have since expanded to Women’s soccer, having watched an extraordinary year of BYU’s team again. So I wait for the year’s schedules to come out. I want to time the subscriptions to sports channels with the finals so I make sure to get them in...and not a day longer. Those come out around August 1st. I also contemplate travel. Last year or the year before, I missed a game of BYU that sounded incredible at Ohio State. If they play that close to me, I want to go. Well, I was surprised to find out that BYU was going to play a tournament at Marquette University in Milwaukee. There was no way I wasn’t going to go. Three games.

After finding out how to purchase tickets and waiting for the box office to open for Marquette games, I made the call. It was a somewhat frustrating event as the woman on the other side of the line didn’t have the schedule and seemed mystified that I wanted to buy tickets for games that Marquette wasn’t a player. It eventually came down to that the other games were free and I only had to buy the tickets to the Marquette games. So I had convinced Tracy that she needed to take the day off with me and watch three volleyball games away from the demands of parenthood. That was kind of a challenge, but she came with. Friday, two games with BYU and those were free. One game with Marquette and USC. That I had to pay for. $10 total. Pfft. I also planned to be there solo on Saturday so I bought the $5 ticket to BYU vs Marquette.

The things that Tracy does for the kids are highlighted whenever we make plans for ourselves. Lots of things had to be scheduled. The little things that Tracy does for others also came into play. In any case, at one point earlier in the week, she told me, “I’m really looking forward to going to the games with you.” That did some remarkable things with me. I always think the things I do for fun are highly annoying to others. It is a guilt that I don’t know why I have it. I think it is a universal thing. Guilt for enjoying yourself. In any case, I like watching women slam volleyballs into the ground and the cheers they make to show how excited they are to accomplish it.

August 7, 2018

So Tracy and I left around 7am and headed north. Nothing of note other than noticing one of the rivers being high. I then looked at the map and discovered that the river was the Fox River so that water would be traveling by us in Elgin eventually. We had the normal “What exit?” moments and let me tell you, the interchanges in Milwaukee are epic. Go ahead, look at Google Maps. It will amaze you. In any case, we found the parking garage, made note of how we pay, and made our way to the arena. 

Intros:

And the inevitable win.

After the first game, Tracy and I headed out to explore. While we were heading towards the chapel, the Sycamore team walked by us. They towered over us. Make no mistake, these women are tall. We didn’t get to see the high church, so that was anticlimactic. We found a map for the campus and a helpful woman stopped and told us where the student union was. We were mainly looking for a place to buy knick-knacks. We did find it. And they were not cheap. So Marquette University didn’t get any money at that place from us. We then found a Quizno’s to eat at. I asked the parking attendant at the west structure if this was the structure I should park at. I had found a cryptic webpage and it intimated that the west structure is where we should park motorcycles, and I intended to ride my bike the next day.

After we moved around a bit back onto the south part of campus, we happened upon something out of the middle ages. So we walked around and found out, yep, this was a church from France that was built in the middle ages. There was a statue of Joan of Arc hiding behind one of the bushes. 

We also found a strange sculpture of Father Marquette. I’m not sure if he had short legs or the sculptor just couldn’t do legs. In the same area was someone wearing a red something. I saw a sign later that talked about a blood drive, and that made a bit more sense. A walking blood drop.

Then we sat. We found a place and sat and talked for a couple of hours. BYU would be playing Syracuse, and there were introductions

And the inevitable win

Afterwards, the Marquette game against USC. It was close to a full house. Well, it was until the half. The students, as a body, got up, went somewhere for pizza, because some of them had pizza, and they left. Not sure what all that was about. 

It went to five sets. We left at the end of the fourth. It just didn’t do it for us. The band and the announcer were very loud. After every point that the home team scored, the announcer would bellow, “Point Marquette!!” and the students would echo, and so would the drumline.

August 8, 2018

The next morning, I packed my things and got the bike on the road. It was a fairly uneventful ride. I knew where to go. Once I got into Wisconsin, I noted something that we have seen up there. When the road is under construction, they kind of hide the towns that the road goes to. They don’t really tell you a detour, they just block out the names on the signs. While I like the idea of them just shutting down the road to make repairs, I think it odd that the towns just disappear from the collective knowledge of the state.

I pulled into the west parking structure and waited for the attendant to open the gate. She clicked away at the computer, and eventually slid the window to the side. “Do you have a permit?” “No, the woman yesterday told me to stop here to be let in.” “Oh, well you won’t trigger a ticket. Can you back your bike up and go around the other gate? Go around it when you leave too. Motorcycles don’t work on our system. I think that’s why some gates are so short.”

Alrighty. Backing up the bike with sidebags isn’t exactly my idea of a good time, but I got around the other gate and parked on the 2nd level. I had to change my clothes a bit to make it easy to walk around. I went to the USC and Syracuse game. It was clear that USC did not want to lose all their games there. It went to 5, I believe. USC won. A quick trip to Burger King and I was back for the BYU game. 

The intros:

Aaaaannnnddd the win:

A nice ride in the dark back home. It was a fantastic weekend.

At least for me.

Of Molds and Men

I'm not a good gardener. I don't like dirt. It is one reason I'm an engineer. No real dirt involved. I am good at thinking about particular subjects. Plants are not one of them. Because of this, my neighbors have to deal with my less than spectacular house. Honestly, it isn't a forte of my wife either. On top of that, we're too cheap to pay someone to do it for us. They'd have to be better at it than us. I will be forthright, when it comes to selling this place, yeah, we're gonna get someone to "fix" it for us.

In years past, yes, we did pay for some yard work. They came by every month, sprayed stuff, and our lawn did benefit. Well, the front really benefitted from that attention. I've never really had a problem in the backyard. When they fertilized the backyard, it made a hard to work with situation even worse. The grass grows like crazy back there. On top of that, it is also very wet in the first half of the year. As a consequence, it gets to be a mess. I have to mow with the highest soled shoes I have, as I don't have a good pair of boots for the task.  The lawnmower complains about being overworked. The grass clippings accumulate as I hope for the sun to dry it out and make it manageable.

So the past few years, we've stopped the lawn service. The crabgrass has come back. Weeds are just once again gaining a foothold. No problem. There are some things I feel adequate to work with. I can control the weeds. I can put stuff in the trees to keep the Japanese Beetles away. I can pull some weeds out of the overgrown flower beds.

Well, this year, Tracy complained about the ants. So I've been occasionally spreading insecticide around the house. Not the whole yard. Just the house. Well, I am also aware that we have a problem with cutworms around here, and I saw some tell-tale signs of cutworms; little circular bare spots. So I spread some insecticide around the spots that have been a problem in the past.

Fast forward a week or so, and the spots became more pronounced. They were spreading. What? So I bought some more insecticide, spread it over the front and side yards. It was so dry that I was worried I was stressing the yard out more. Also, I hadn't been mowing, as the grass just wasn't growing very quickly. But I did notice a few things that were odd. The grass was dying, or dead, but the dead spots seemed to be the same height as the green grass around it. The cutworms in the past died...but the spots seemed to spread. In fact, after some time, the dead spots seemed to follow where I spread the insecticide I spread. Was the stuff bad? I've never had a problem with the stuff before...

Then one morning, and it was fairly damp as the humidity was in full force the past few days, I went out to get the motorcycle out for my trip into work. I looked over the dew-soaked grass.....and it was white. White? Surely this was a trick of the eye. No, it was white. Spider webs? I mean, I know the dew shows all the spider webs and the fact that I hadn't mowed...maybe we are just up to our eyes in spiders. I went over to the grass to take a closer look. Yes, all the dead spots were white. It kind of looked like webs....but no. It was all spikey. Holy crud, what is that stuff? Some new kind of bug? Why didn't the insecticide kill it? Fuzzy...Oh man, this is some kind of mold or fungus. How did this happen? Why just my yard? The others don't have it. Why is it just where I spread the stuff? Is there mold on the insecticide?

So I did a few internet searches. Yep. Fungus of some sort. Most just said that there isn't anything you can do about it, that it comes out when it is humid and it will go away. Good. And we'll see. I already told Tracy that I was afraid that I killed the lawn this year, thinking that the insecticide was too strong and it was killing all the grass...or that maybe there was a problem and I was spreading grass killer instead.

We are a few weeks removed. No Japanese Beetles to speak of. The lawn has recovered. It is green again. It is in its normal "I suck for a lawn" mode that it has been since we moved in. Life goes on. We still might get a lawn service next year. We just aren't good at this aspect of ownership.