High School Basketball Begins!

Omaha Central opened its season by playing Omaha South, the defending Class A state champion.

Not too many weeks after the football season came to a close, high school basketball got underway tonight with Omaha Central hosting defending Class A state boys basketball champion Omaha South.
This was also the debut of our Striv.TV regular season basketball broadcasts. Omaha South's girls beat the Eagles in the opener and the Central boys took the Packers to overtime and missed a potential game-winner in the final seconds.

I did myself a favor by buying a small, dry erase board. It worked well in passing along details to the announcers. And it will save on paper, sticky notes and index cards, many of which blew off the top of the press box during football season.

The new shirts for the broadcast crew, by the way, come via Dr. Keith Bigsby. Central's principal emeritus got the Central High Foundation to foot the bill for them. They are nice! And my new threads also gave some students a scare. I was using the restroom at halftime when a bunch of students came in with something not-so-good in mind. But before anything could go down, I heard one of them say to the others, "Guys, there's a teacher in here!"

From left: Julia (camera), Olivia (producer), Isaac (color) and Alec (play-by-play).

I am officially an Eagle now.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Veronica!

Olivia tried to help Veronica cut the frozen cake from Freddy's. Yep, the calendar says it is Nov. 1.

Not Sept. 19.

Veronica says at this rate, we will be celebrating Julia's birthday on Dec. 8.

Yes, we just might.

It's not easy to pay for a $19.99 cake when you are having money difficulties. So I really appreciated Veronica's patience and upbeat attitude.

By the way, the cake was good. And the Styrofoam base that we cut out with the first piece was, well, funny.

Back to the Future: Mid-City Bank

There was plenty of goofiness going on as we shot our second "Back to the Future" location.

The old Mid-City Bank that once sat on the corner of Saddle Creek and Dodge for years was torn down earlier this year.

In its place will be a hotel for Nebraska Medicine patients and family.

We stopped by the site after shooting photos and video of the demolition of the Omaha Civic Auditorium.

We tried to use some existing landmarks to make sure the "after" photo matches.

Apparently, the hotel could be up to six stories tall.

The property has been a dirt lot since May, when the bank was demolished.

Ok, look closely at this one. I didn't see it until after the photo was taken.

The End of the Civic Auditorium

Watch the final 30 seconds of the demolition of the Civic Auditorium.

We rushed from picking up Lauren from art club today to get our "Back to the Future" photo of the Omaha Civic Auditorium. Little did we know, we were under the gun to catch the final parts of the building being demolished.

Unfortunately, Lauren was not a willing participant in the shoot. While she moped and complained about not being able to work on her homework, I hustled the other four girls across the street. Then the fun began.

This was cute.

No Lauren in these photos, unfortunately.

We know there are photos like this from our "before" shoot. We just have to find them.

Check out Emily, trying to scale the fence.

And The Winner Is...

Julia helped tally the NCAA brackets (about two weeks after the title game).

It seemed a "dumpster fire" had broken out on everyone's NCAA Tournament brackets due to a host of first round upsets.

But, as you can see from our scoring system, it is the games near the end that really matter and help you pile up the points:

First round win: 1 point
Second round win: 2 points
Sweet 16 win: 4 points
Elite Eight win: 8 points
Final Four win: 16 points
Correctly picking the champion: 32 points

Julia helped tally up the points today and it was pretty close between Cole, Julia and me. In the end, I won with 165 points, with Julia in second (152), followed by Cole (140. Julia said I only won because, "Dad cheated. He copied off of me!"

Anyway, enjoy these final photos – and this year's "One Shining Moment" video.

Here's the final point totals from each round.

There were more brackets to tally this year.

The winning bracket.

Christmas Is Here!

The girls show off their presents.

Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony

Watch the lighting of the tree.
This year's tree lighting ceremony at Shadow Lake Towne Center was a special one.

While I don't believe we have ever attended one at this popular shopping place in Papillion, we had good reason to be there this year. That's because the tree that is on display came from the yard where Jon Brooks grew up. His dad donated it in memory of Patti, who died a few years ago. Because of this, we enjoyed a nice view from the VIP section next to the stage.

We enjoyed pretty moderate weather conditions (though the wind did kick up a bit at the end) and the ceremony itself was very nice. It included a concert by the "Peppermint Elves," as well as several characters from "Frozen" and other Disney movies – plus the entirety of the Papillion-South Titans marching band. That was impressive.

Here are a few photos: 

Santa Claus was there, along with radio personalities Chris and Ricky from Star 104.5.

The tree looked much larger on display than in Jon's front yard.

Julia got her picture taken with the Grinch. Well, kind of.

Olivia (right) and Julia posed in front of the tree.

Lauren was helping out with Neil's children and Emily was in Colorado.

This was a nice sign to help remember Patti.

I felt like I was live tweeting an event...

Here is Santa's arrival.

As Seen on Snapchat: Friday the 13th

This is how you know it is Friday the 13th.

Like The Photos? You'll Love The Video!

Behind the scenes at the photo shoot.

Re-enacting the post-game fight song.

They Love Their UNO Hockey

After Lauren bailed on our "Back to the Future at Baxter" shoot, we took a few more photos.

UNO hockey means a lot to the girls. Several of them are season ticket holders, in fact. So when a special salute to the Mavericks' program went up recently at Aksarben Village, we knew we had to get some photos with it.

Celebrating a victory. Well, kind of.

Ready for the face off.

I am not sure what was happening in this photo. Feel free to comment.

Geez, Julia. Talk about strength!

The girls posed in homage to the photos behind them.

Back to the Future: Baxter Arena

Our first "Back to the Future" photo of Baxter Arena, shot more than two years ago.

We are quite proud of our "Back to the Future" series photos, which document the "before" and "after" of buildings in and around the Omaha area. But the Baxter Arena photo project was our most ambitious one yet.

For more than two years, we have been shooting photos from the same spot on the wall across the street from Baxter Arena. Never mind that there is a sign (just out of frame) that says to "keep off this wall." In addition to documenting the building of the arena, we also tried to include a white car in each photo. That's because there was a white car in the first photo we took.

And the final photo, shot a few days before the building's opening.

Bob Cullinan Visits Omaha

Bob Cullinan surprised Veronica with a pick-up from school today.

Sean's friend, Bob Cullinan, visited Omaha today and surprised Veronica by picking her up from school. There was also this:

Princess Pictures

Not the best quality (with an iPhone set on small resolution), but pretty princesses nonetheless.

And a nice one with the girl who has gone off to college.

Poor Olivia

Olivia (pictured with Bridget) spent a few hours in the emergency room tonight.

Olivia's hand was painfully swollen.

Poor Olivia.

She came up with a rash recently and it led to some pretty unpleasant and uncomfortable days. Tonight, with the pain and itching too much to bear, we headed over to Children's Hospital to get to the bottom of it.

Several hours later, we still are not sure what is causing the rash but at least Olivia is getting some (temporary) relief from it. The official diagnosis? Hives.

The bad news is, we were told it could be at least a week before it completely subsides.

No, not that Emily...

Back to the Future: Aksarben Village

We shot this photo in August of 2012.

Aksarben Village has been the site of quite a few of our "Back to the Future" series photos. (Read about them here.) So last night, we decided to check on the progress of one from nearly three years ago.

Lauren said her knees look the same in both photos. And that she hasn't grown.

As you can see, there is no new building in "Zone 6." Only a parking lot, primarily used by Aksarben Cinema patrons. But we are told the building is still to come. So I guess this photo is the "in progress" version.

Here is how the latest "Back to the Future" series photo looked on Facebook.