New Hobbie?

Last year when I was driving to West Virginia for the umpteenth time in pursuit of one hobby (black and white stripes on the college pigskin field), I really started considering a new hobby, piloting.

I never did the math on how much it would actually cost, but I'm sure it isn't cost effective, but to me it was more about being time effective. I was driving solo to a lot of these games and had to get up before dawn or travel the night before to reach the field at a decent time (and be well rested). Plus, let's be honest, I thought it would be fun and I'd find excuses to use it in other endeavors (like this summer alone we have 3 trips to the Land Between the Lakes, and that 3+ hour trip is just long enough to make me wonder how much shorter it would be to fly).

So, when a chance to try a Discovery Flight was available on Groupon, I decided I wanted to try. So j and I took a flight in a Piper Warrior down the Ohio River...

He let me do the steering more most of the flight, he controlled the important things like the throttle, gas mixture, the pedals... 

Here's a look down the Ohio River towards downtown from the NE 

Flying by downtown 

The Falls of the Ohio

The Locks

The water tower (more impressive from the ground).

I told j after the flight that I wanted one (a plane/license). So it's not a new hobby yet, but I do admit I am considering it...

Really Late Sugar Bowl Post (keeping with the UL theme)

Most of our vacation/travel in the past few months have been UL related. For basketball we did a road trip to DC (to also visit with t), went to the Big East in NYC, and Atlanta for the Final Four. Before all of that, however, we went to New Orleans to watch UL play in the Sugar Bowl. My parents, oldest brother's family, and our family all were on the same charter to New Orleans a little before New Years Day.

(yes against my usual policy, we are all wearing the same shirt)

Here's mab's first trip in an airplane.

Here's cmb, he's an old pro. Interesting fact, his first trip in a plane was also to New Orleans.

Self photo in a mirror at the hotel.

Here we are with Teddy Bridgewater and Dr. James Ramsey... kinda

We had a few days to run around New Orleans, which is never a bad thing.

If you look in the above picture, cmb really wanted this stuffed alligator when we were walking around the French Quarter. j bought it for him, although I was a little concerned. After all, we were about to play the Florida Gators. Then we sat down for some lunch and this is what he started doing...

Little did we know that this was foreshadowing.

Back at the hotel with cmb and mab.

Day of the game we spent the early afternoon on the Steamboat Natchez. cmb loves water and splashing, so we had to smuggle rocks onto the boat for him to throw into the water. It was a bit cold with the breeze out on the deck, but we had fun.

They had a jazz band on the boat. cmb danced listening to them for a bit.

Messing with my new cameras out panorama feature. Still learning

Oh yeah, we were down here for a game. Thought the Mayhem comments were wishful thinking.

By the time game time rolled around the fans were pretty fired up. Here are the team buses as they're about to leave for the Superdome.

So, unlike our future trip (and previously blogged) trip to the Final Four, we had no expectations for the actual game. We were an inconsistent team in the sub-par Big East playing a team that was legitimately the 2nd or 3rd best team in the best league in the country. I figured due to Coach Strong's previous time working at Florida, the fact that Teddy had established himself as a legitimately great quarterback, and a possible let down by Florida, we might keep it respectable. I think that my text messaging to a Floirda alumni friend were basically of the lien of thinking. Keep it close, maybe sneak something at the end. So we went to the game in good spirits to have a good time.

Arriving at the Superdome

View from our seats, I was pretty shocked we got such great seats.

We had a good view of some friends on the upper level (guy in white was the kidnapee in the previous blog)

Hard to beat Ali (and Tom Jackson) representing your team. 

So if you don't know or don't remember the results of the game, let's just say that the game played out perfectly for UL. On the first play from scrimmage, the Cards got a pick 6, and never really looked back. Teddy was stellar against the top rated defense in NCAA. The defense was more than solid. UL also scored on the first play from scrimmage in the second half. The final score:

and it wasn't that close. UL had their best game of the season when Florida likely had their worst. 

On field celebration

 MVP Teddy Bridgewater

A week or so after, UL had an event at the football stadium where you could get autographs and pictures with Sugar Bowl trophy (I think j posted that on facebook). cmb was just excited to get on the field.

 Touchdown CMB!!!

Sugar Bowl Trophy

All in all, I think we can say it's been a great year to be a UL fan. Glad to be back in town to be a part of it all. 

NCAA Tournament

We had so much fun at the Big East Tournament that we thought we should try to catch some of the NCAA tournament as well. It helped that UL's success and some timely losses of some rivals allowed UL to be the overall #1 seed, and with that, some favorable locations. We couldn't go to the first (2nd according to NCAA) round game due to j's work, but we did go to UL's second game in nearby Lexington, KY.

Pregame meal at the Atomic Cafe. This was a standard haunt for us in college whenever we made the 75 mile trip to Lexington. It was also location of our dinner when we once kidnapped a friend on a school night (he had a test the next day). 

Wasn't quite everything I remembered, but still pretty good.

Our seats weren't all that great (pictures below). We were literally the top row in the end zone sections. The one nice thing about that was that because the upper level at Rupp has bench seating, the last row is the only seat that has a back (the wall).

UL won the game against Colorado State 82-56 and we had lots of fun.

Next, UL was in the Indianapolis region, which is only 117 miles away. Unfortunately, j was on call that weekend so she couldn't go and I couldn't figure out a way to go to the regional semifinal game against Oregon. Fortunately UL won and I was able to go to the regional final game against Duke. I was able to ride with my oldest brother to the game and my other brother drove down from Chicago to watch the game with me. Here is the view from our seats with SVT's uncle photobombing us.

The game was very memorable for the sickening injury that Kevin Ware suffered. Our seats weren't that close, but my angle perpendicular to how he was laying on the floor gave me a great view to see his leg bending unnaturally between his knee and ankle. I saw it pretty fast and I think I was the one who informed most of my section what I thought the problem was. I was hoping I was wrong, but the reaction of the other players lead me to suspect I was right. Text messages with j confirmed it.

I thought that UL had to just survive the rest of the half after the injury and regroup at half. I was shocked that they went to the half with a lead. Then, early in the 2nd half they took control of the game and went on to win 85-63. It was impressive, and we were trying to figure out how to get to Atlanta...

j had a connection for tickets and we didn't know how we could pass on an opportunity to watch UL play for a national championship, a mere 417 miles away. Plus this is the first time since 1986 that I felt that UL really had a strong chance to win. Previous trips in 2005 and 2012, UL had a distinct talent gap versus their opponents. This year we thought we had a chance. As a matter of logistics, we thought that we could bring mab (FYI she was required to have a ticket), but cmb stayed in Louisville with his cousins and grandparents. We might regret that decision when he's a teenager and gets mad about that decision.

Presemifinal party 

View from seats

The semifinal game versus Wichita State was excruciating. UL trailed for most of the first half and was down by as much as 12 in the second half. This is the game we felt we were 'expected' to win, so the fans were a ball of nervous energy. Cheers were quickly followed by nail-biting, until the final horn. After that, everyone was a lot better.

j with her college roommate/teammate 

 Post-Wichita State Jubilation

The Final game was on Monday night, we went to the Alumni Association's pep rally and then went to the dome a little early. There was some grass in front of the dome where we allowed mab to roam around a bit before we knew she would be largely confined for the game.

We found my brothers and their wives before the game and took some pictures. There was more excitement and less nervous energy for this game compared to the semifinal game.

brothers 

wives 

pregame photo from seats 

j nailed tipoff with this picture

The game was a high-tempo back and forth affair that was roundly hailed as a great finish to an otherwise forgettable season. UL truly displayed a team effort with several players contributing big plays. The 3's by Hancock to close a 12 point first half deficit. A thunderous dunk by Harell to actually take a brief 1st half lead. Blackshear with some great defense. Behanan owning the boards after halftime. Dieng breaking out a sky hook. Siva getting to the rim time after time. It was a lot of fun and UL prevailed in the end.

 Postgame confetti

 Postgame family photo

 Final Score

In the end, we had a great time. It helps when you win, but this team was fun to watch all year. Not bad for our first year with non-student season tickets (they're a lot more expensive this way). We had a blast, Cards won, mab held up great until she had a leaky diaper with 1:30 left in the game which required a change in the stands during a 30 sec timeout (no way we were going to the bathroom at that point).

Ware cutting the net (on the Jumbotron)