Saturday

Throwing up a few lines here before 2, 4 and I head over to Augie for their last home game of the season.  I'm still learning about the ins-and-outs of  the use of the regular keyboard and monitor when feeding off of the laptop.  And I don't have a work surface other than my coffee table at this point.  But it is a lot less-frustrating than the laptop keyboard that sends the cursor all over the place.

Augie has under-achieved this year.  The loss of their center at Christmas-time seemed to destroy the team's chemistry (or substitution rotations), and they have struggled to score points in close games.  At this point, they are just trying to maintain their 4th place position in the league to qualify for the 4-team conference tournament.  If they get there, and win a game, they should make the D-III field.  Bottom line?  They were probably over-rated going into the season.

Great time last night for wine at Bass Street in Moline.  They have half-priced bottles on Friday night and the Oakville Cabernet that we drank is near the top of my current favorite list (that is affordable).  In Hy Vee, you can get it for $35-40, and it was $45 at it's 50% price from the Bass Street wine list.  2 and 4 agree to it's drinkability.  My pal Ron joined us too, and it was an excellent two hours.  (FYI 3, Ron finally got the save-the-date card in today's mail.)

The mini-digi Fuji arrived yesterday by FedEx.  The work order stated "replacement".  They included a new battery and camera strap that I must have include in the return box.  Bad news is that the memory card that I didn't return was/is bad and I had to buy a replacement.  And I bought another small case.  So my situation has been rectified, I'm back in business with a min-digi (and I have a cheapo back-up).  I feel better.

Aunt Martha, I think that the folks "assembled" their Wausau home in the mid '70's.  We were still in the old place when I graduated from ND in 1971, but I think that they had moved to the new one by the time we went to Chicago in 1976.  Funny how that big of a transition for them gets lost in our memories in 35+ years.

RevKev,the car show was our version of Detroit or Chicago's.  All new stuff.  The dealers do such meager business in the Winter months that they use the car shows as a way to get people out of their houses to check out the cars.  4 and I spent about an hour going through the local show.  Not much to get excited about.  You can spend a lot of $$$'s on some of 'em.  Sticking with my current stable of 3!

I came across a local example of the dangers of trying to enter the debate on current political
issues in the country.  A friend of mine who retired from the financial business a couple of years ago has written a few Letters to the Editor in our local fish-wrap.  He always had an above-average grasp of the machinations in the business and wrote a decent monthly news-letter to his clients.  Anyway, he recently submitted a letter that was published trying to explain the differences in taxation of ordinary income and capital gain income.  The few Comments on the post were largely negative, and not particularly civil. 

It reminds me of a principle of conduct in sports:  Never get into a conversation with a loud-mouthed fan.  And don't even consider acknowledge the riding that might come from the opposing bench.  The folks on the other side have no interest in your position or thoughts.  Which pretty well describes the gulf between the aisle these days in Washington.

OK.  Maybe some more after the game.

BCOT