Basketball Saturday

Another busy January week has come and gone, my oh my.

Gabe is in Greta, Nebraska right now (Saturday) with the Central show choir group, they left Friday at noon, stayed in a hotel and got up at 6am today for the competition. I spoke with him a couple hours ago, he said he and his roommates got about a half hour of sleep. The 'Blue Vibes' performed at 11am and Gabe said they did fantastic. The Blue Vibes don't get judged, Central's varsity team is competing this afternoon, the buses leave when the big kids are done, early if there is no callback for the finals, later if they make the finals. We were told to expect the buses to pull in at 5am, Sunday morning. Luckily we don't have to pick him up, a friends mom is doing that in exchange for a warm bed for Gabe's friend next weekend.

In case you are wondering......show choir is like a mini musical. The kids have a 20 minute routine that includes 5 or 6 songs, dance moves and costume changes. You laugh, you cry, you want to sing! Last Saturday the season kicked off with a dinner theater at the Col Ballroom, both groups performed to about 350 people, family and friends. Gabe was front and center for much of the show. It was a riot. The next 8 weeks they will play in various places like Des Moines, Mount Pleasant, Davenport, Peoria and Mundelein, IL, where we will spend that weekend with my Cousins Rich and Germaine at their home!

It's minus something degrees outside, the weatherman said not to go outside, but we braved the weather for 2 basketball games. I took the camera to Elli's game, got some highlights below, next week we'll take it to Abbi's game.

Pete On Live Network TV!!!!

Last night (Friday) we didn't have a scheduled Mediacom basketball game to broadcast, so I was invited to co-host WQAD channel 8's highlight show during the 10:00 news called Hoops Central. I showed up at 9pm, saw some clips of games, took some notes of the highlights and then at 10:15 we went live, me and their sports guy, Matt Randazzo ('97 Alleman grad). We did 15 minutes, which seemed like 2 minutes. All went well, I was a little nervous but got thru it. I didn't know anybody there besides Matt, but the crew seemed geniunely impressed by my skill. They are doing 8 or so Friday shows, this month and next. They have a list of 'celebrity' guest hosts, old coaches and such. Here's the link, they have broken it up in two segments, the date was 1-18-08. Some notes before you watch: The dork with the photo that says 'Hi Pete' is a guy I work with who was calling a game on the radio. We also made several refences to Duncan Reid, former Rock Island coach and a friend of mine, he was guest hosting last week, the clips from his appearance are there on the link as well. Duncan was, well, rather loud and obxinous, so we made fun of him a lot.

http://wqad.com/Global/category.asp?C=117777&nav=menu132_4_1

And yes.....If you noticed......and you have to look close......I've made a change with my hair. While getting a trim on Tuesday, my barber had my hair wet and slicked back. It didn't look bad. So, I wash, brush back and apply some gel, thus revealing I have a forehead. Reviews have been favorable.