Thursday

I am ready to pronounce Tiger Woods as just another player out there on the PGA tour.  The watershed moment for me was when he missed a relatively easy six-footer on the 18th green this afternoon, a miss that concluded his match as a loss against the very capable Nick Whatney.  It wasn't even a particularly "close" miss.  There was a time 2-3 years ago (and for the 10 years before that), when those six-foot testers were "money" for Tiger.

This pic from yesterday's round has him out in cactus country where the rest of us often play.  Note that he's swinging left-handed as he tries to advance the ball from a lie under a desert bush.  With all the very talented young players on the tour, Tiger's time has passed.

The replay of Danica's hard wreck on the last lap of today's first Gatorade Duel race has been all over the evening news.  From what I could see, she was cruising along on the low-line and some cars got together above her, came down and spun her out.  If it weren't for the "safer" walls that have "give" in them, she most likely would have had serious injuries.  I hope she has better luck on Sunday.

Keeping with the sports theme, the Augie boys got pasted, by 30(!!), on Tuesday night in Wheaton.  I thought I had misread the score initially.  My guess is that the game got ugly early and they decided to play the end of the bench for much of the second half to save the legs for the Friday tournament game.  They now play the conference champ in the semi's. If they don't win the two game tournament, I think they'll be done for the year.  Hard to believe for a season that had started with so much promise.

For the record, I was not on the published list of winners today from last weekend's writing contest.  No surprise.  While my effort had some redeeming qualities, it didn't do much with the prompt, and I'm sure more creative minds were able to incorporate "A Bridge will be written..." into something other than as a wrong title for a hit song.  In addition to content issues, I didn't do a word count, and I initially emailed it to the wrong email-box at The Writing Center.  Like Cub fans have been saying forever, wait'll next year!

Sad fact #2, the pinch-hitting, substitute RCL was a no-show yesterday.  My only hope is that maybe there was a mis-communication between RCL's and the schedule will actually start next week.   Hmmm.  Probably taking the Under on that one.

I have a DirecTV battle in my future.  The bill is automatically paid through my business American Express card.  I order no movies nor do I have any services that are variable on my contract.  The bill paid in February was $20 more than the January bill.  Periodically, I have had to call their Call Center to get billing adjustments to keep my total fee in an acceptable range.  I think the last of my "special deals" must have now expired and I again need to talk to someone in Mumbai about finding another promotional deal for me.

Still waiting on that 3-6 inches of snow that they were predicting.  It's okay by me if it stays away.

Finally, I hear word that the "strings" for cocktails and the DJ for dancing for #07282012 have been contracted.  Suite!

Maybe more later.

BCOT