Notes

Woe is us Raiders
The contract negotiations between football coach Mike Leach and Texas Tech turn ugly. I won't give any analysis here, because you probably don't care and can find much better coverage elsewhere. (Note the Double-T Nation link on the blog roll.)

But I'll say it's ugly, and things like this tend to bring out the bad things on each side.

Bad thing for Leach:

• He's a lawyer and really lets his agents act like lawyers. One of his agents (meaning he has more than one guy, I guess) goes over everyone's head and sends a whiny e-mail to the board of regents. And every season ends with the movie, "Coach Leach goes shopping for a new job."

Bad thing for Tech:

• You have to shut down all negotiations and publicly proclaim that you're doing so? After deciding to hold off on negotiations when you had the chance to wrap things up before the season started? This SportingNews story says a lot:

"A close friend of Leach told me a story last fall that sums up the situation. When Bob Knight arrived at Tech in 2001 to coach basketball, (Athletic Director Gerald) Myers gave Knight Leach's university parking spot. Even though Leach was given another spot in the same lot, the move didn't sit well. For the rest of the semester, Leach parked in a commuter lot and walked to work."

Even if this ends well, it points to major problems down the road.

My boy can emote
Sam has had another of those mental leaps where things just all of a sudden seem to line up in his head. He's got about six vocabulary words and can basically do what we tell him to do, unless it has to do with his developing motor skills. Or the fact that he's still very short.

What's fun is watching his personality develop through his reaction to things.


He opened his first Valentine card today -- from his baby-mama's mama -- and went through a set of intensifying reactions:

• First he has this paper thing, and that's cool.
• There's a picture of a bell on the paper -- all right!
• We can tear it up! Yaay!
• BUT WAIT, THERE'S A PICTURE OF A DOG ON ANOTHER PIECE OF PAPER ON THE INSIDE! UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE!

Hico Jonesin'
Headed to the farm this weekend to check and see if we recieved any damage in Tuesday's storm. Should be fun, unless we have a gaping hole in the roof.

I've planned an expedition of sorts. Years and years ago, my father and his father planted a marker of the spot where, supposedly, the first Segrist homestead was built in 1868. It's on a part of the land that I've never explored. This weekend, I aim to find it. Should have pictures next week.

Have a stimulating, non-pork-laden, day.