Monthly Archives: May 2017

Outcomes of the 2016-17 TV season

The PolyBlog
May 21 2017

Every year, at the start of the TV season, I try to predict the outcome of the new shows — renewal for another season, or cancellation. Let’s see how I did this past year…Of the shows I picked for renewal:

  • Correct: Great News, Kevin Can Wait, Riverdale
  • Incorrect: Doubt, Emerald City, Powerless
  • Still uncertain: 24: Legacy, Chicago Justice, Midnight: Texas, Still Star-Crossed

Which basically means I was 50/50 for the shows I thought would get renewed but didn’t.

Of the shows I picked for cancellation:

  • Correct: APB, Blacklist: Redemption, Conviction, Frequency, Great Indoors, Imaginary Mary, Making History, No Tomorrow, Pitch, Notorious, Pure Genius, Shots Fired, Son of Zorn, Time After Time, Training Day
  • Incorrect: American Housewife, Bull, Designated Survivor, Exorcist, Good Place, Lethal Weapon, MacGyver, The Mick, Man With A Plan, Speechless, Star, Taken, This Is Us, Timeless, Trial & Error
  • Still uncertain: Downward Dog, Marlon, Prison Break

Again, I was 50/50.

Heck, I could have probably done just as well or better assuming they would all be cancelled. Good thing I don’t do this for a living!

Overall, there were:

  • Ten shows cancelled by ABC, and I won’t miss any of them;
  • Eight shows cancelled by CBS, and I won’t miss any of them;
  • Four shows cancelled by CW, and I won’t miss any of them;
  • Nine shows cancelled by Fox, including Rosewood, which never found it’s groove, and Pitch + Sleepy Hollow, no great losses; and,
  • Four shows cancelled by NBC, including Grimm and BlackList: Redemption, but both were ready to go;

For renewals:

  • Fourteen shows were renewed by ABC, none of which I watch regularly, and only SHIELD / Designated Survivor / Quantico on catch-up eventually;
  • Eighteen shows were renewed by NBC, and it makes a big difference for me — Blue Bloods, Bull, Elementary, NCIS are all ones I watch the same week, and Scorpion and Big Bang Theory I bingewatch to catch up;
  • Eleven shows were renewed by CW, including Arrow, DC Legends, Supergirl, and The Flash, all of which I watch same week;
  • Thirteen shows were renewed by Fox, and I like two of them a lot — Gotham and Lucifer; and,
  • Fourteen shows were renewed by NBC, including Blindspot, The Blacklist, and Timeless.

Nothing cancelled that I really cared about, and 18 that I do like were renewed. Not a bad outcome…

Sometimes it all goes right

The PolyBlog
May 20 2017

Jacob really likes watching hockey — he keeps a playoff bracket list for some immediate friends and family, he has a blast doing it, and when the playoffs are on, he wants to watch every night. So it was a no-brainer to try and get Round 3 tickets here at home. They’re not cheap and Andrea didn’t think it was worth it for her to go, so I grabbed two seats for Jacob and I high in the third deck at the visitor blueline.

Last night was game 4, Sens were up in the series 2-1, and totally dominated the previous game. But I had some logistical concerns.

Jacob is in the midst of serial casting, so he is walking with two casts on his feet. Not ideal for getting from our car to our seats. Ideally, if Andrea had been going, I probably would have dropped them close and then parked. We likely would have struggled to the car afterwards or they would have been waiting awhile, but with Andrea not going, Jacob had to walk.

Not a big deal, he gets along pretty well with them, just some extra work and no alternative other than perhaps dropping him by himself at the door for 15 minutes while I parked. Not an option, obviously. He is still only (almost) 8.

And just for fun, the right cast has started to crack. Exactly where your shoe bends when you walk, about even with the base of your toes. Not uncommon, or unexpected, but can make walking a little more hazardous or annoying, depending on how far they have cracked. Still functional, and he gets along pretty well, as I said.

I was also a bit worried about the seats — would he have enough leg room? Cuz there isn’t a lot, the casts give him about a size 11 mens boot now, and he can’t turn it very easily nor is there any bend in it. It was a bit tight in the seats, but workable.

And I was determined that it would be a “fun” night, not me worrying openly, and so I told him it would be an adventure.

Everything went fine, more or less. Seats were okay, only issue was when people stood up in front of us, so hard for the cub to see. But I made sure he focused on the screen in those situations as he could see that higher up. So he was good.

Boring game though, for a Sens fan. The Senators didn’t show up for the first two periods. And he was excited for Period 1, but by near the middle of Period 2, he was drooping with boring play and it was later too, so tired.

Early into the third period, he needed his contacts out. We weren’t near a washroom, and I didn’t want him trying to navigate too many stairs if I could avoid it, so we did it in the seat. Dropping both of them into his lap as we tried it. Found them (it helped they are blue tinted against very white Sens shirt and Sens towel), got it done.

And then it happened.

The Sens scored their first goal and Jacob was excited. Lots of hoopla, and he was “part of it”.

Then they scored their second, and he grabbed my arm SO hard. He frequently cuddles my arm when I’m sitting beside him, and this time he wrapped his whole body around it and he was shaking and rocking, super excited.

It was awesome to see. I don’t even care that the Sens lost, or the price of the tickets, or the stress with the lenses, etc. I have never seen him as excited as he was when they scored, even if I’m not entirely sure he saw all of it.

Sometimes it all goes right. Thanks cub for a great evening.

Even when things go right

The PolyBlog
May 3 2017

If you follow Andrea and I on FB, you would have seen a post earlier this week showing Jacob in dual casts. My posts about “Becoming/Being Jacob’s Dad” are still back at age 3, so I haven’t covered yet the topic of serial casting and stuff, but I’ll give the highlights. Basically, Jacob legs are super tight, particularly his heel cord (behind the calf). Which means he walks on his tiptoes on his right foot. He can consciously put his foot flat, but eventually it will rise.

When he was four, we did something called serial casting. Basically they put an inclined plane / wedge under his foot at say 18 degrees. Cast it for a week, which prevents any other movement, and thus his heel cord stretches. Take it off, put another wedge in, 15 degrees. Another week, 12. Etc. Until it is down flat. It worked GREAT. Now he’s turning 8 and we need to do it again. There’s more to the story than that but that’s the basic overview.

We did the casting on Monday, and it was way different than what I was expecting. When we did it at age 4, they only did one leg. This time they were doing two, which we knew, but the casts are gigantic on him. Cast plus wedge, plus a support area. It’s like he’s wearing platform shoes. We bought him overshoes to keep them dry — Men’s size 13!

Transport was a question from school. I drop him in the morning, no problem there, but how would he get up the stairs on the bus? Could he? Turns out he can. Crisis averted, as I thought I was going to have to leave work every day at 3:00 to get him. Or they were considering a special medical van.

Everything’s fine in the end, but we were running around town buying extra cast shoes, and overshoes, and this and that, way more stressful than I was expecting.

On top of the fact that we are PUTTING OUR SON in casts for SIX WEEKS.

Sure, it’s the right call. I know that. But it STILL sucks. And when it is done, he’s going to need a second ankle-foot orthotic. He has been able to get along pretty well with just one, but his left foot has been compensating so long, that it is turning inward too much. We’ll need to straighten it. So he needs the second one.

And he already feels different having one. But to him, at least it was only one. And it takes him longer to get ready each day at school, so he’s always last. Which others have noticed too. Not in a bad bullying way, just they noticed. Which made him feel self-conscious, and he is not really happy getting two now.

But as he put it, “I don’t have a choice.”

No, he really doesn’t.

And even when everything goes right, as it did in the end, I was still kind of weepy during the day. Emotional. Some of it stress, some of it just that I wish he didn’t have to deal with it. Even if he’s awesome. He even made a little presentation to his class to tell him that he had them, would get new ones, etc. Yet, when I’ve tried to get him to maybe get his class to sign it, he doesn’t want the attention.

I’ve got him focused on “40 days to go”, just like my countdown for PolySpring. I don’t know if that is the right approach or not. He doesn’t want to do anything to decorate it or play with it in any way. It’s just functional to him, and something he had no choice about.

Except we did talk about the fact that he did sort of have a choice. It wasn’t mandatory or life-threatening, there was a choice. But Mommy and Daddy had kind of made it for him, cuz it was the right thing to do. Which he understands.

And which he is handling great. I wish I was.