Alumni Game

Last weekend we went to Purdue's Inaugural Alumni game. It was very cool to see the players come back and play a pick up game. I take that back. It wasn't cool at all.  It was hotter than two hamsters farting in a wool sock (inspiration for that saying is here, not very proud that I stumbled upon it). Mackey Arena has no air conditioning so we sweated for a few hours while watching the alumni game and then the current players scrimmage.

We went to Jake's for lunch before the game. Of course Jake's didn't know it was the alumni game.  They had one waiter working the upper level and 2 cooks for the whole restaurant.  We were there early so we got our order in early but we felt bad for everyone else that got there after us. It got packed really quickly.

Not only was it the alumni game but it was also graduation day for Summer Session.  You would think they would have prepared for that.  But not so much.

I got a new app and I tried it out.  It's called 360 Panorama. I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet but this is one of my first attempts.  Hopefully I'll get a little better.

 They had the current players sitting out at tables around Mackey for people to stand in line and get autographs and pictures.  We didn't stand in line but we did creep on the players a bit while walking by. :)

I can't tell who the first guy at this table is (I think he's a walk on) but the next 3 are T. Johnson, Hale, and Simpson.

Let the creeping commence! I'm posing with Terone! :)

Then it was game time!

 The alumni were practicing before the game.  I love Robbie's face in this shot.

This is also a good face from Cardinal.

 Tomahawk Jam from Kramer!
By the way, I googled Tomahawk jam because I wanted to make sure I was calling it the right thing (shut up) and I found this little gem that makes me so much more in love with the interwebs.

JAZZKETBALL!!

 Here's a full court shot of Mackey.

 Here's Mean Gene waving to the crowd. Purdue Basketball Family Reunion INDEED.

 This guy.  He was what they called the "Senior" Alumni player.  He played in the 60s I believe.  It was pretty awesome.  Every time he had the ball in his hands, the crowd was screaming SHOOT IT! He did not.  Things have changed a bit since he played. But he gave it a GREAT effort.  Plus with no air conditioning, I mean come on.  What a champ.

Here he is playing the actual game.  He's like "Yikes fellas! Don't hurt me!"

 I got to zoom in and creep on Jujuan.  Aww. Stalking is such sweet sorrow.

Creeped a bit on Robbie too.  Hey bro!

Hey look at that! The Boilers won! Nice!

 Alumni player family picture

Instead of googling what type of dunk this was, I asked Andrew.  He said, "Backward." So here's Anthony Johnson doing a backward dunk. :-)

 Two big johnsons on the floor (A favorite quote in my family is my super young younger brother saying, "Dad, just what exactly IS a big johnson??")

 Newly married Mean Gene is ready to party!

 Jeff Washburn from the J&C got a quick interview right before....

 Erin and I got our picture with Gene Keady!! Awesome!! We asked him for a picture and he agreed.  He said, "I'm like a thorn between two roses." (Did you think he used a line like that when he met his new wife?) Erin said to him, "And our last name is Thornburg!" He said, "Huh. Are you guys from Thorntown?"  Ah Gene.  You still got it! :-)

Andrew took this pic and it just cracks me up. What do you think he's saying?

Got his Herbie Hancock too!

Anyway, despite that horrendous heat, we had a great time.  Very cool to see all the old players again.

Jack's Band Concert

I'm WAAAYYYY behind on posts.  This post is probably 3+ weeks late. But better late than never I guess? 

Anyway, back in July, we went to Jack's (my nephew's) band concert.  It was at Jeff High School.  Jack plays the saxamophone.  :-) (Yes, that's a Homer Simpson reference.)

 It's always awesome to go to a school band concert when the school has an amazing music program.  This is one of those schools.

 We can't post anything on this blog without posting about Tommy.  So let's talk about what Tommy did during the concert. He listened for a bit and then had many of my family members chase after him.  This is Desi's turn.

 This is my favorite picture of the night.  Look at his face! He finally saw us waving from the balcony and waved back.  He's totally embarrassed but totally not.  I love it.  Yay Family!

 Jack had a solo!!! We got there in time to see it and take a picture but I didn't think to take a video.  Duh.  But at least I got a pic.  He got to make it up! He made up his own solo.  That is awesome. What a talented duderino!

 It got a little late and Tommy started to get tired.  Better take a quick snoozer on grandpa.

 Just kidding! Let's go run around the gym some more!

Then let's run around the hallways! Whoo hoo! Party time!

 Check out this band.  This is only 2/3rds of the band for the middle school.  Crazy right? There was another section that I couldn't fit into the picture.  What the what? That's huge!

They also sound amazing!

My teeny little middle school band did not sound that good.  In fact, even our high school band didn't sound that good.  Dang Gina! You middle schoolers are talented!

My favorite part of the evening was seeing my dad's boat in the parking lot.  He had taken some friends out on the lake that afternoon and he came right from the lake, straight to Jeff High School pulling the boat behind him.  Too funny.

Congrats on your awesome solo Jack! Way to rock that saxamophone!

LMOC (Little Man on Campus)

We decided to take Tommy to our old alma matter to play around campus (we had some recycling to take to the West Side so we thought Why Not?).  We are trying to savor the very short amount of time we have before students come back.  

 Tommy LOVED it.  Wide open spaces for him to run... run... RUN!

 We started at the Engineering Fountain.  It wasn't running water today. Bummer.

 But guess who was running water? The LIONS! ROAR! They kinda freaked Tommy out a bit.

 Sadly, Tommy's favorite part of the day was the bike rack.  No idea why he enjoyed that so much.

 I mean, come on! Here's the Liberal Arts Fountain.  It was running and there were lots of kids playing in it.

 But he was not interested. He preferred to be hugged.

 Then it was lunch time. We packed a lunch for the little guy.  He was super excited about that, not the fountain.

 I set the timer to snap a quick family pic while we were sitting there.

 Did you guys know that they have a statue of a pencil in front of LAEB or whatever it's called now? When did they put that there? Unless it's a giant alien pencil that some martian dropped and it came shooting down to earth and just happened to get stuck in the ground next to the LAEB building? Yeah, that's more likely.

 I couldn't get Tommy to pose with the pencil.  Instead he threw a stick at a tree for 15 minutes.  Welcome to Toddler Town! Love, Mayor Tommy T.

 I tried to take another timed family pic when we came back through the Engineering Fountains.  Turned out great huh? #Oppositeday

Once Tommy realized that he could walk up the Engineering Fountain, it was on! 

 When we went to school here and even when I worked at Purdue, there was no walkway here. I used to cut through these old World War II buildings that used to be here to go to lunch.  They were junky and falling apart.  They have since replaced them with fancy new buildings and a nice walkway leading directly to Mackey and Ross Ade.  So much better.  (Now we need to work on married student housing. Barf!)

 Tommy loves the new walkway. I gave him the whole speech.  "Back when I went to school, I had no air conditioning and had to walk by ugly buildings BOTH WAYS!"

They are definitely keeping their grass watered on campus. I haven't seen grass that green since who knows when.

I miss sitting in comfortable grass.  Tommy does too apparently.

Don't you just love Tommy's new shirt? He's a little Purdue basketball player.

Tommy didn't want to ride in the stroller.  We let him walk for awhile but then he just kept stopping to play with the gross bike racks.  We finally compromised with a ride on dada's shoulders.

We were walking by the clock tower when the clock went off.  Tommy was pumped!

Look at how awesome the sky looked.  I did not photoshop that.  It was actually that blue.

I think Tommy enjoyed his first visit to campus.  It would be pretty darn cool to see him become a Boilermaker someday.