Blame Mike Terry and Bosch

LOOK. I REALLY like and respect Mike Terry, the hall of fame Quincy High School tennis coach and John Wood Community College teaching legend. He's a great guy. His son, Jake, is one of my favorite guitar students. Mike is knowledgeable about pop culture and music. He's often in EFB drinking coffee, reading and pondering life.

Again, I really like him. But right now, specifically this very yawn-filled minute, I hate him. A lot.

A week or so ago Mike was in the store and told us about an Amazon Prime series called Bosch. Sheryl started watching it and couldn't stop. Then she sucked me into the Bosch vortex. Last Sunday we watched almost every episode of season two and I was hooked. Last night I started watching season one and it was the same thing. What a great series.

So I got about four hours of sleep and I'm literally walking into walls right now. Thanks, Mike. It's not like I have a bunch of guitar lessons and a HartLyss show tonight at Spring Lake Country Club. Nah. More coffee, please.

The show is about a Los Angeles detective, Harry Bosch, who is the good guy but struggles to play by the rules. In the first season he deals with a civil lawsuit over a shooting, tries to reconnect with his daughter and chases a serial killer. There are three or four stories always at play and the series writers do an excellent job of tying everything together.

It's like Game of Thrones with less killing. It sucks you in and you can't stop. You. Can't. Stop. Last night it was nearly midnight and I got to the end of an episode in season one and I could barely keep my eyes open, yet I couldn't not watch the next episode - I mean, the serial killer just smothered his mom to death, for crying out loud.

Sheryl says it gets even better is season three and beyond. I think she's up to season five or six by now. The next time I can binge watch is Sunday, so guess what we're doing?

"I need to watch season three again anyway. There's a lot of stuff I missed," she said "Once you know how it ends you gotta go back and catch the clues they were giving you."

The great thing about things like Netflix and Amazon Prime is that they have tons of shows like this but there are no commercials and you can watch as much or as little as you want. I know a lot of people who will wait until a season is done before they watch any episodes - they want to see them all together in one long ride.

Anyway, I'd like to thank Mike for the suggestion and curse him for losing sleep. At least I'll get some tonight. Unless I start watching Bosch again.

Skating and getting old

THE OTHER NIGHT we bumped into Cory Stegeman, one of my ice skating pals. Cory and his buddies always invite me to pickup games and we used to have a blast skating at the Niemann family farm pond off of South 24th Street.

Cory told us about playing in a 3-on-3 hockey tournament down in St. Louis. Gosh, did it sound like fun. Then I realized I'm old and I probably wouldn't be able to hang with those young guys anymore.

I miss those days on South 24th Street ....

This makes me think of Tony Byers, the former hockey coach in Alpena, Michigan. When I was the sports editor at The Alpena News in the early 1990s, Tony and I played on the same men's league team. He could still skate circles around players half his age.

He didn't think a thing about it. I don't know if I've met a more competitive and driven man and coach in my life. There's a reason Alpena was a hockey powerhouse in those years - they had great players and great coaches, and a community behind them.

Just thinking about those days gets me fired up and longing to get back on the ice.

It's about minus forever in Quincy and I'm sure there are good places to skate right now. We have a limited window for ice skating and I used to ignore the cold and snow if there was ice or a game being organized. It will be 45 degrees by this time next week and the ice will be gone.

I thought about it yesterday as Sheryl and I hunkered down and binge-watched "Nurse Jackie" on Netflix. Should I go out and brave the wind chills and see if there was ice? Or should I stay home and warm under a blanket with a cup of coffee and see if Jackie's life could unravel any further?

Yup, Home 1, Skating 0. BTW, Nurse Jackie is amazing.

Getting old sucks.

Making a Murderer worth the time

SHERYL AND I took it easy this past weekend. We closed the store for three days and had a blast Saturday night watching Fielder, Blake Gardner and Devonte Clark play at One Restaurant.

But other than that, we did nothing, and it was glorious.

One of the beautiful things about Netflix is the documentaries. Sheryl and I got sucked in on New Year's Day watching Making a Murderer, a 10-part series about a Wisconsin man and a brutal murder. By the way, you can also watch every episode on YouTube.

Sheryl is adamant Steve Avery is innocent, as is his nephew. Her opinion is that they were incapable of cleaning up a bloody mess so thoroughly that it could not be detected at all in the house and garage. Since they are men, and slow, an of course she is probably right.

I'm not sure. I don't think the series showed all of the evidence, and condensing a murder trial into watchable form is extremely difficult, though the filmmakers did a great job.

Then we got into the High Profits series, about a marijuana dispensary in Colorado. Again, it's really well done and it shows the immense amount of work that goes into owning and operating a business, along with small town politics and the daily grind.

Someday, and it might be sooner than later, we in little old Quincy will be faced with the same issues, and it could get really interesting.

Warning: Binge-watching is way too easy. It's 2 a.m. and you have two more episodes to watch, and you can't keep your eyes open but you watch it anyway. Sleep is overrated - watch the shows!