Tuesday

It was a fun, but brief, evening in DSM last night.  With a tight schedule, I made good time on the way over and arrived at the Gateway Market shortly after 1700, actually a few minutes early.  The Market serves a NYC style menu, and gets the order to your table without unnecessary delay.  We had another good experience there.

I think that I am impressed with the ingress and egress to/from Wells Fargo Arena. Understand that Wells Fargo Arena is the same venue that 2 and I saw the concert in last month. My pal Doug obviously knows his way around downtown DSM, so we found rock-star-parking within a couple of blocks of the arena. 2 and I walked a little further than Doug and I did last night, but both times proved to be much easier than, say, Carver Hawkeye in IC.  And both times were in spots where we paid no fees.

Our seats were about at mid-level in the arena.  I was surprised that DSM would get that many fans to a women's game with no local connection.  They didn't have the upper bowl open, but the paper this AM said that they had 9K fans for the game.  It was a good crowd, although not that loud.  Tennessee had quite a few fans scattered throughout, and both schools had pep bands.

I had thought the contest would be a 20-point game, and I was right on target.  Tennessee just had no answer for the big Baylor gal.  As I commented on Twitter, I went to the game anticipating to cheer for Tennessee, but when the team came out for final warm-ups before introductions, they all had on matching orange sweats with "hoodies" covering their heads. Very unimpressed.  This whole thing rings of Duke lacrosse.  Sports and politics are poor companions.  When Al and Jesse get on the bandwagon, whatever the truth may be becomes secondary.  The Lady Vols were emulating the Heat from the other night.  Yuck!

I need to do a little research to find out the story behind the I-80 rest stop just West of IC.  They've gone to some effort to personalize the stop to Johnson County and education.  Check out the books on the pillars and on the building.  Something beyond the utilitarian design of most rest stops.  Who pays the freight?  Not complaining, just a bit curious on how those kind of things happen.

I made a quick trip by the library to picked up a book on CD to listen to on my trip yesterday.  I thought it was a title I had never heard of by an author that didn't register.  By the third CD, the cobwebs are clearing, and I think I've listened to it before.  What does that mean?

Busy day.  More here later.

NOW LATER:  I forgot to mention in an earlier entry this sidebar from my weekend of yard maintenance.  As I pulled my lawn mower from it's Winter storage spot in my garage, I had to move my snow blower to have access.  This being the same snow blower that had started after a little coaxing in November (before any cold weather), and then refused to fire the one time in January when we actually got some accumulating snow.  On a fatalistic whim, I brought the snow blower outside, gave it a single pull...and...it started immediately!  No choke lever manipulation, no sputtering, and no spark plug cleaning.  Classic stuff.

Not the best news out there today for about half of the world's spectator population: the London Olympics has decided that women's beach volleyball players will not have to wear bikini's for the games.  In an effort to "broaden the diversity of the sport, to encourage countries with more modest beliefs, and to reflect cultural conventions of various participating countries", athletes are going to be allowed to wear shorts and shirts. 

Okay, lets see how this works out.  Political correctness gone international.  I'm thinking that we'll have the equivalent of advertising for a Captain Morgan mojito party and the hosts electing to serve Ensure because it's better for you.  Where should I go?:  the California girls and the Brazilians on Court #10, or Pakistan and Iran over on the Stadium Court.  Whatever.

Still more later.

BCOT