Saturday

Sorry for the missed day. Too many balls in the air Friday.

Looks like a nice Fall day here. Cool, but sunny. Good football weather. I'm going to try to do 4.5 or 5 later today.

3 should be in the QC for a little while today. Most importantly, she needs to swap out her phone. Her trip to C-town yesterday went well, but was long.

US Cellular is allowing customers with older equipment to upgrade at little cost without any contract extension. 3 likes to say that her phone is so old that it runs on diesel fuel. The new units have a GPS device which basically means that CSI can track you down where ever you try to hide. So you get the new phone, but give up a measure of privacy. Which, for most people, is probably ok. Increasingly so, if you think you're below radar, think again. OnStar in cars. Electronic tracks on your internet travels. It all makes the tracing of credit card usage by detectives in cop movies in the '80's and '90's very pedestrian.

Enjoyed Dan's comment on the congressional race. It's a small world. The GOP candidate is a local restauranteur whom I have never cared for. He also has the Machine Shed place on Living History Farms in DM. The Democrat is a lawyer. Not much to choose from.

I think I'm going to take a pass on church this weekend. I really have little interest in the bankruptcy explanation which will be the sole topic of Sunday's homily.

NCAA basketball practice opened last night with many schools holding Midnight Madness events. The big news around here is of a highly touted recruit from Indiana, now a high school senior, who had originally committed to Illinois, but who got hustled by the new guy at Indiana (Kelvin Sampson) and the kid has now annnounced that he will be going to Indiana. So much for the gentlemanly code of conduct among coaches.

Sampson left Oklahoma under a cloud. There's lots of pressure for Indiana to win and they accepted Sampson's baggage as part of the deal. This incident certainly sends a clear message in Big 10 country that he will accept a lower standard of coaching/recruiting ethics. I think that a lot of coaches work the gray areas when they are recruiting. I know Jim Calhoun at UConn has ruffled feathers out East. Bottom line: if you don't get the best recriuts, you won't win the tournament. And the really good players generally stay for only a year or two.

So I'm headed out to see 3 and 4 for the phone swap and lunch. Enjoy your day.

Be careful out there.