Monday

Another busy Monday.

Augie gets to host a game Thursday, but if they win, they go to St. Thomas to play the Tommies on Saturday. Unlike last year when their conference had three participants in the tournament, Augie's automatic invitation was the only one given to the conference this year. D-III keeps teams pretty close to home in the early rounds, so if this grid had plenty of other good teams, those at-large bids just aren't going to be there. And in contrast to the D-I event where they have 65 teams (counting the play-in game), here they only asked a total of 59 teams, with four other schools in addition to UST getting first round byes.

So 2 and I have a Thursday night date. The last of the popcorn and 'dogs for the year. Roy may join us.

The contractor started on my bathroom today. I still haven't bought a couple of fixture things, but he's torn up most of the stuff that has to go. I need to make a couple more trips to Lowe's and Home Depot. I hate shopping.

A guy like my pal Roy doesn't shop. He buys. The ultimate hunter.

There are still people in this area without power. That ice and wind combine to snap trees and electric line poles. There was a story in the local paper about families checking into local motels to beat the cold. Many years ago, we would do that to give the girls a mid-Winter day or two in a swimming pool. And it was a big deal to them. Kids can be easily entertained. I remember one of the places offered a room discount equal to the number of degrees below freezing. And we got by with just one room, I think.

Uncle Phil said that they got two feet of snow at Tahoe over the weekend. And that it was still snowing. Which is good for the ski resorts there. They had been hurting with little snow recently. It amazes me that we can go there in the middle of Summer and there will still be snow drifts in the mountain passes.

I'm headed off to Big Monday. Thanks for reading. And thanks to 1 and 2 for writing.

Be careful out there.