I’m a little bit late, but the Christmas decoration are up the Marzolf house. Not a full display this year. Just the nativity scene and the traditional lights along the front of the house.

If you look closely, though, you will notice one string of the lights doesn’t work. It worked. Then it didn’t. Then it did. Now it doesn’t again.

I placed on the side of the front porch arch where it is by itself. That way if it is not working at the time, you might just think I didn’t put anything on that side of the porch. If it’s working, all the better. I was going to get another set, but the store doesn’t have them any longer. Blue LED C7 bulbs.

I can order them online but it will take a week to get here. I guess if I would have done that a week ago when I put the lights up I would have them by now. But I didn’t.

So just admire the blow up nativity and the lights that do work.

Prep Thoughts

Round one is in the books. In what is currently the best rivalry in boys’ high school basketball in the state of Kansas, round one goes to Central Plains. The Oilers defeated St. John, 45-32, Tuesday night in Claflin. Round two will take place in St. John the first day of February.

Going back to the 2012-13 season – the sophomore season for Dean Wade at St. John – the two teams have combined for four state titles, two second places finishes and two third place at state over six years. One year they played each other for the state title (Wade’s senior season).

In four of the past five seasons, one team has ended the other’s team season in either the sub-state title game or that state title game. Since the 2013-14 season, Wade’s junior season, and including this season, the two teams have a combined 27 losses of which 18 are to each other.

Ironically since the sophomore season of Wade, there has never been a split of games during a regular season. St. John leads the series 14-8 during that span. The Tigers swept three games in 12-13, all four in 13-14 and three more in 14-15. All three state title seasons for St. John as they went a combined 76-1.

Central Plains then swept four games in 15-16. St. John won all three in 16-17 then the Oilers won all three last year and the only game so far this year.

Former Barton Athlete/Coach update

Former Barton women’s basketball player Katrina Roenfeldt is having a pretty darn good season for Missouri Western in her second junior season. Here’s hoping she can stay injury-free this season. She played eight games last year for the Griffons before getting injured and receiving a medical redshirt.

Roenfeldt, originally from Dodge City, is scoring 14.2 points per game and grabbing five rebounds. She has been in double figures in eight of the Griffons nine games this year with a high of 22 in a win over St. Mary.

Injuries plagued the 5-6 guard while at Barton as well, taking a medical redshirt while with the Cougars also. She played just three games her second season at Barton before a knee injury kept her off the court that season.

Good luck and stay healthy Trina.

And Finally

I like to think, even though I am now 51 years young, I am pretty good with the all the new technology that has swept the world.

Not great by any means, but pretty good. After all, I remember the days of having just five television stations in Glen Elder. Three came out of Nebraska (NBC, CBS, and ABC) and we also got a CBS out of Hays and NBC out of right here in Great Bend. You had to turn the antenna to get the different stations.

I grew up with rotary phones and remember when the game Pong came out. That was quite the technology. Then when Atari came along, wow. Big stuff there.

So I’ve seen technology advance a lot. I am not quite old enough to be able to say I lived through the days when hardly anyone had a home phone to when everyone had one to currently when hardly anyone has one again.

Sure, watching my daughter Katelyn text with her thumbs like she is on a typewriter makes me feel a little old. But, hey, I feel like I am fairly savvy in my technology. At least I used to feel that way.

I told my readers of At the Mike a year or so ago that my cell phone lived in the future. It was a couple minutes ahead of everyone else. It went from two minutes fast to three and eventually seven minutes ahead. I didn’t know why. After all, cell phones times are set by an atomic clock right. It just sets itself.

Well, when I was in Glen Elder over Thanksgiving, my niece Tori noticed it was seven minutes fast. I explained to her I didn’t know why because, well, you know, it sets itself. She took my phone, flipped through a few things for like a minute and gave it back with the right time on it.

At some point, I had changed the clock to manual. I’m not sure how. I didn’t even know that was an option.

But that, perhaps, explains why my phone never went to Mountain Time on trip to Sharon Springs. Steve Webster’s flip phone did. But if it was on manual, why does it change itself from standard time to daylight savings time and vice versa? Someone explain that to me.

Oh well, I think I will just go home and get my Atari flashback game out and play Gunfight. Then ask Katelyn to tell me the time by looking at our traditional wall clock. That will make me fill better.

Mike Marzolf is a guest columnist for the Great Bend Tribune and his views don’t necessarily reflect those of the paper. He can be reached at MarzolfM@bartonccc.edu.