Sunday

This had to be one of the quicker weekends I've had for a while.  3 and 3.1 blew into MLI on Friday morning, and the hits just kept on coming through their departure this afternoon.

The tailgating on Saturday before the game was decidedly low-key.  I'm thinking that the Hawks have lowered the expectations of their fans and you could feel it in the parking lots.  It was a non-conference game with a lower division opponent, but still, I got into Iowa City around 11:40 for a 2:40 kick-off, and the only stop-and-go traffic that I had to deal with was at a red-light on Dubuque Street.

But as was the case with Northern Illinois, two weeks ago, a win is a win is a win.
The Hawks complete the Directional University portion of their schedule next week when the Chippewa's of Central Michigan coming calling.

This airport photo is posted just for effect.  I mean, how can you waste an opportunity to get such a rare photo?  I took it with the iPhone in poor terminal lighting, and it barely makes the "save" category.

Props to the Irish for an improbable win at East Lansing.  Their road doesn't get any easier with a visit from Michigan this Saturday.  My pal Pete may be at that one.  The ND Estate Planning conference is Thursday and Friday, an annual program that he regularly attends with a Des Moines ND grad whom he has known since college.  (Years ago, I used to go to the same conference.)

A few things learned from the early golf round played at 0715 on Saturday:

1.  That early, mid-September sun is a beach.  Several holes on the front nine looked right into the sun.  It changed my game, for sure, and not for the better.
2.  The heavy dew this time of year is like playing immediately after a measurable rain.
3.  Most evident of all; my handicap goal will not make it this year.   Bummer.
4.  My putting stoke is gone.  I may need to go to a long-handled putter like many of the pro's have done, particularly the seniors.

Here's a little episode for reference in a future Glad Game.  When I got back to Geneva from Iowa City last evening for the party, I took a shower to wash off the dust of Kinnick Stadium.  In the process, I had carried in  a duffel bag with some clothes and other personal items.  After completing my work in the locker room, including policing my area for my dirty clothes and toiletries, I took the bag back to my car.  All's well, eh?  Well, when I finally got home (not that late, kids!), I realized that I wasn't wearing my Ironman wrist watch.  Another bummer!

I scoured the duffel bag a few times, searched the car, and finally concluded that I had to have left it on a surface in the locker room.  I was a bit concerned about a watch laying openly there on a counter, particularly when I had watched the band for the party getting dressed in my area of the locker room for their gig .  They were definitely sketchy...and not tea-totalers!  (I think most club members would either ignore an item like a watch sitting out, thinking that someone would come back for it; or maybe they would turn it in to the pro shop.)

I had rationalized that the watch was probably gone, and that it had been a worthy investment given that I had owned it for several year (batteries and bands too!). But I called the pro shop this morning and asked them to look around on the off-chance that it was laying about.  The assistant pro called me back a few minutes later to tell me that he had in fact found my watch in the locker room!  Bonus!  (So I mis-judged those band guys.  Sorry for the sketchy-persons profiling!)

My 60 Month Plan became a 55 Month Plan over the weekend.  If a person was keeping track of such things!

Busy day tomorrow.  It's the Drop Dead Extension Date for 2011 tax returns for corporations, partnerships and trusts.  I have a few to get done by end-of-business tomorrow.

Hope everyone has a good week.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT