Wisconsin, Final Four Indy 2015

Lucas Oil Stadium

At the end of February, I was working on my schedule for work and realized that I was going to be off for Easter weekend again this year. Since I do lots of traveling but not necessarily a lot of it back home, I thought it would be an excellent chance to make a trip back — especially since I am planning a Canada road trip for my summer drive rather than a Midwest trip like I've done the last two years. About a week after buying my tickets and getting a rental car, I realized it was also Final Four weekend.

Last year Colin and I both made the trek to the Dallas area to witness the Badgers' first trip in 14 years. The team was doing well this year (consistently in the top 5, and only a few losses), so maybe there was an outside chance we could make the trip again this year, since it was being held in Indianapolis, Indiana. But I guess the Badgers had to do their thing first. And at this point, the regular season wasn't even done yet.

Well, after wrapping up the Big Ten regular season title, the Badgers also took care of the Big Ten conference tournament. This vaulted them to a number one seed in the West region, and set them up for a return to the Final Four. It turned out this year's NCAA tournament would be filled with rematches. Round of 32? Played and beat Oregon again. Elite Eight? Knocked out Arizona one more time. It was a tough matchup, but Wisconsin pulled it out in the end. I wish I didn't have to watch it on my iPad at work, but it was good enough. The Badgers were going back to the Final Four. And I really wanted to go again.

Remember, I already had my trip planned to Minneapolis to go home for Easter. With this in mind, I did some mapping to see if it was even feasible: could I realistically drive to Indy Friday night, see the games Saturday, and still be able to make it back to Minneapolis by Sunday evening to fly back to Phoenix? It seemed like it. So after talking to Colin, we got our tickets going as soon as possible, and looks like mom and dad were going to join us, too. Sounds like a plan.

Fast forward to Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, we have finished watching Duke absolutely destroy Michigan State. (An MSU/Wisconsin matchup in the championship would have been awesome, and recall that they met in the Final Four in 2000, also hosted in Indianapolis). The Badgers were playing Kentucky, and despite several big runs by each team, Wisconsin was currently winning, and hoping to hold on at the end to make Kentucky's hopes of a perfect season vanish. I'm not going to discuss much of the basketball stuff, because there isn't really anything that ESPN or any of the analysts haven't said. And I couldn't say it better, anyway. But needless to say, the Badgers played a terrific game. Everyone was in on the action, and it was typical Wisconsin basketball. The refs may have tried to ruin things, but I don't want to bring that into the equation. Bottom line: Wisconsin won. Kentucky was 38-1. 38 and done.

This was too amazing. Hard to even grasp what had happened. All I knew was I had to come back Monday night for the final. Somehow, some way. But the way things had been set up with me leaving Minneapolis Sunday night, it wasn't going to be easy.

First off, I had to switch my work days. Fortunately, my staff pharmacist is super awesome and very flexible, so he was cool with changing Monday and Thursday this week so I could stay. Good. Next up, we needed tickets. This fortunately wasn't too hard, we got in pretty early and actually got some slightly better seats than we did for the first games. The hardest part was figuring out what to do with my rental car, how to get back to Arizona Tuesday, and how to get mom and dad back home, since they wouldn't be coming to Monday's game. As ridiculous as it seems, the best thing I came up with was dropping Colin back off in Madison, driving mom and dad back home, then turning my car back in Sunday night like planned. At MSP I would then get a new one-way rental from a less expensive company to turn back in at the Madison airport when I flew out Tuesday. Now I would have to complete my plan and try to stay awake. As you can see in the timeline below, there was a lot of driving in not a whole lot of time.

Bottom line is this: despite some rough traffic on our way back to Indianapolis (and those stupid toll roads in Illinois), we made it a couple hours before tip-off and got to see a great championship game. The first championship game involving Wisconsin since 1941. No, they didn't hold on to win and revenge their loss to Duke at the Kohl Center in December. But it was a hard-fought game by a bunch of excellent players who make me very proud to be from Wisconsin and see our state on the big stage. Second place is pretty darn good. And knocking off the team that almost everyone thought was going to roll to an undefeated season and the championship? Unbelievable. I couldn't have been happier to get to see that.

Overall, this was probably a boring story, but I had a great weekend and a lot happened. A few great games. 2267 miles of driving. And some time spent on Easter weekend with my family, who I don't get to see in person all that often. I wouldn't have given it up for anything.

TIMELINE:

Friday

7a MST Leave PHX
12p CDT Arrive MSP
1:15p CDT Leave Roberts
5:15p CDT Leave Madison
7:30p CDT Chick-Fil-A Batavia, IL
11:30p EDT Arrive hotel Lafayette, IN

Saturday

11a EDT Leave Lafayette
2:30p EDT Granite City Downtown Indianapolis
6p EDT Michigan State/Duke tip
9:05p EDT Wisconsin/Kentucky tip
1:30a EDT Back to hotel in Lafayette

Sunday

8:15a EDT Leave Lafayette
11:45a CDT Leave Madison
3p CDT Arrive Roberts
5:30p CDT Turn in Mazda, get Sonata at MSP
7p CDT Leave Roberts
11p CDT Arrive Madison

Monday

11a CDT Leave Madison
2p CDT Granite City Naperville, IL
7p EDT Arrive Indianapolis
9:18p EDT Wisconsin/Duke tip
1a EDT Back to hotel in Lafayette

Tuesday

8:30a EDT Leave Lafayette
12p CDT Fazoli's Janesville
1:30p CDT Arrive Madison
5p CDT Leave MSN
7:35p CDT Leave MSP
9p MST Arrive PHX

Total 2267 miles

My favorite music of 2014

Well, it's the end of the year, so naturally time for the best-of lists. I usually document my favorite new albums yearly, but somehow I forgot last year. Here's to it for 2014 before I do the same again.

My favorite new albums released in 2014, in alphabetical order:

Chris Brown – X
Colbie Caillat – Gypsy Heart
Chromeo – White Women
Coldplay – Ghost Stories
Maroon 5 – V
Andrew McMahon – Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness
Lea Michele – Louder
Porter Robinson – Worlds
Skrillex – Recess
Spoon – They Want My Soul
Super8 & Tab – Unified
50 Cent – Animal Ambition

In addition to these, there are my favorite standby compilation albums, both of which had a new version this year:

Anjunadeep 06
Anjunabeats Volume 11

Pretty much everything that comes out under the Anjuna label has been pretty great. Some of their artists (including Dusky, Jaytech, and Mat Zo) have also launched their own new labels, so I am ready for more great things to come from them as well.

Of course, there was also plenty of other music in there that I added to my collection that was not released in 2014, but was still great.

Like I always say, I'm looking forward to some great new stuff in 2015!
 

SURGE!!!

Since I'm on here, I might as well write about Surge. I've covered it on Twitter and Facebook, but the bottom line is... it's back!

Some Surge, yesterday

Surge existed in the United States from 1996 until 2001, or in other words, right around the time when my parents were finally letting me drink pop (or at least pop with caffeine). Surge was glorious. I vividly recall this deep green delight, whether it was in a can, in a bottle, or from the fountain at McDonald's.

I almost had forgotten about the demise of Surge until I began college at Drake in the fall of 2004. There, one of my best friends reminded me of this awesome stuff (and I think he was even contemplating importing some from Sweden, where it was still sold as "Urge").

Turns out™ that very winter break I was at my grandma's house, where she did her best to run a museum of pop in her basement. There, while looking for something with caffeine that was non-diet, I came across a two liter bottle of Surge. I could not believe it, and I was rightfully overjoyed. At least until I decided to check the expiration date, which told me it was best consumed by early 2000. Ugh. Despite this, I took it with me and brought it back to Des Moines for the second semester.

There, on January 17, 2005, exactly five years after its expiration, Frank and I opened up that bottle and had a drink. Unsurprisingly, it was mostly horrible because it had lost all carbonation and the taste had begun to change. But still. It was amazing to have Surge in our hands, even if it was terrible old Surge. We continued to hope that one day Coca-Cola would figure things out and bring Surge back.

In a way, it did, in the form of Vault. This was very close to the taste of Surge, maybe somewhere between 80 and 90 percent there. But not quite. And with way more caffeine. Its adoption was quite widespread, you could find it nearly everywhere (gas stations, Target, even some restaurants), although in most places it overtook Mello Yello, my other favorite Coke product. Sometime in 2011, Vault did go away, allowing Mello Yello to make a comeback in places it was overtaken (and come to Arizona!!). On a side note, Mello Yello still has a ways to go to gain full adoption here, whereas it is much more common in the midwest.

This week, however, this news of Surge's comeback caused me to run to my computer and jump onto Amazon faster than anything maybe ever. I saw this page on The Verge while browsing Twitter, and after skimming it as fast as possible (even selectively ignoring the fact that they call it the "worst soda of the 1990s"), I clicked on the Amazon link.

It will be sold exclusively on Amazon (for the time being, at least), in 12-packs of 16 oz cans for $14, with free Prime shipping. I bought three of these. Unsurprisingly, they sold out rather quickly (I'm guessing Coke underestimated how crazy us Surge lovers are). Originally, I was expecting to get them by the beginning of October, but I got an update the next day saying it is expected by September 23. I can't wait to provide an update.

Currently, it still shows it is sold out (or some ridiculous price – right now it is going for $250), but hopefully they will both restock it soon and then continue to carry it indefinitely. Certainly, it is much more difficult to get by ordering from Amazon than just going to Target or to a gas station, but I will surely take that option over no Surge at all. So, once it's available again, please buy it! We cannot let our Surge be taken from us a second time.

JB

Tim Gunn delivers Bucksbaum Lecture

Drake University and the Des Moines community had the pleasure of welcoming Tim Gunn on Wednesday, September 17, 2014, for the latest installment of the Bucksbaum Lecture series.

Learn more about the lecture here.

Good day

So, I decided to just do a site. Squarespace seems to sponsor every podcast under the sun, so I hear about them all the time. I figured I might as well throw something out there that's not connected to some social site or anything like that. I really hope I get plenty of time to get this going and keep it updated, so we will see what happens.