Thursday

I'm looking to have a final good night's sleep tonight in anticipation of The Winniferous visiting for the three-day weekend.  Another "person" in my house puts a ripple in the force here on Maplecrest.  But they tend to be good workout days...which is a big plus.

DirecTV has done some new software protocols that have altered the heretofore normal operation of my TV's.  Previously, I would just turn the TV set "off" at night and "on" in the morning.  There's now an automatic shut-down/sleep default to the receiver that requires both the TV set and the DirecTV receiver to be turned "on" in the morning.  Not sure why, but there's probably some "green" rationale out there.  Really just another example of Big Brother watching over you.  We are all Persons of Interest.

The local Writing Center has their annual writing contest this weekend.  They send out a "prompt" tomorrow afternoon at 1700 and you have 24 hours to complete a 2000 word entry.  I've signed up for fiction.  I mean, I am living a dream!  4 made some noise about entering the contest too.  We have theorized that in prior years, some of the contestants already have stories done, and they just tailor what they have already written to the topic provided.  Makes sense considering that one person actually "placed" last year with separate entries in both the fiction and non-fiction categories.

A stay-at-home-mom client with a small photography business was through the office today.  She uses an iPhone and an iPad for her on-the-move communications platforms.  She doesn't have her own studio and does most of her work on location.  She now has a device that she can plug into either of the Apple units and run client credit card payments straight to her PayPal account.  Slick.  For 2.5% of the transaction.  There's just no reason for a business, no matter how small, to not embrace technology.

The dentist this AM was relatively low-impact work with impressions for the cap on the implant...and routine cleaning.  (Is anything with someone actually manipulating a variety of pointy instruments at your teeth and gums routine/low-impact?)   The cap manufacturing is done off of the impression by an out-sourced lab...can you say China?..., and then I have to go back in a couple of weeks or so to get the cap "placed and fitted."   The dentist says that the caps "usually" fit.  If not, its return to "Go" and do another impression.  I'm really pretty much over this implant thing.

The W and I will get to enjoy the opening weekend of NASCAR together.  Things open with an All-Star race on Saturday night where there are no points up for grabs.  Just a trophy and some $$$'s.  Danica Patrick is running the second-tier series (Nationwide) full-time and will also run 10 Sprint Cup races.  She's locked-in to the starting field in the Daytona 500 a week from Sunday.  It is unlikely that she will win in either series this year, but she'll have good enough equipment in the Nationwide series to compete for the top ten each week.  I hope she does well.  NASCAR doesn't need it's own Anna Kournikova.

Finally, here's another shocker.  CBS has announced that it will be charging a $3.99 fee to people who want to watch any of the NCAA tournament on their smart phones or tablets.  Why wouldn't they?  Those kind of revenues are all profit.  Just like the hotel charging a fee to guests for Wi-Fi access.  Their marginal cost to add another user is a big nada. 

Selection Sunday is just three weeks away!  The Commish will need to dust off the rule book here shortly!

Hope everyone has a good TGIF.

BCOT