Monday

So what happened to January?



It was another successful visit to Harvest Path over the weekend.  Roads were clear.  Kids were great.  No stress in any respect.  To commemorate the weekend, 1.01 is Granddaughter of the Day and 1.02 is Grandson of the Day.









Right before departure on Friday, I did a quick hit at the Bettendorf library for a couple of books-on-tape...and neither were worth the read.  The first was a James Patterson "thriller" that I trashed after the first disc.  The second was Critical by Robin Cook, who is known for medical thrillers (Contagion for one, Outbreak for another).  Critical must have been a contracted book for which Cook was prepaid, and which required he submit a text of x-amount of pages by some specified time-deadline.  There was so much superfluous, irrelevant-to-the-plot detail that I fast-forwarded most of the last 8 (of 11) discs.



Cook is similar to Grisham in that his novels are basically beach-trash on the high side, and door-stops on the low side.  These authors have some success, then sign multi-book deals with publishers who expect production at regular intervals...like one book a year.  Whatever.  Entertainment on the road from Maplecrest to Harvest Path has a low bar.  I'm glad 2 was reading her own book rather than trying to put up with Critical. 



Not much to say about the Super Bowl.  I went over to watch the game at my friends Ron and Jane.  Fortunately, I brought along a couple of bottles of Black Stallion (always a good choice).  I stayed a little after half, but not much.  Pretty sure the game will go down as forgettable for most folks not living in the Seattle region.



See my entry last year for Groundhog Day commentary.  (I didn't even realize it was Groundhog Day until I was checking my Yahoo email last night.)  More Winter in the forecast.  Shocking.



And the Olympics start this week.  Why would any average person want to go to Sochi?  Its a long way to get there.  Its gotta be expensive.  And there's a bunch of terrorist groups who have publicly expressed intent to disrupt the gathering of nations.  So why go? 



Given the heightened security measures at the Super Bowl and what seems to be stalag-like security in Sochi, what's the answer?  Does anyone live in Kansas anymore?



Well, actually, yes.  They had 190,000 people on the grounds Friday at the Scottsdale course for the PGA event.  My guess is that they ran that event similar to the John Deere tournament here.  People had to go through security check-points to enter, purses would have been limited in size, and backpacks were probably prohibited.  (Actually, it was quite a list of no-no's. http://www.abc15.com/dpp/sports/sports_blogs_local/phoenix-open-2014-officials-warn-attendees-of-new-security-measures)  But I saw no stories of problems.  Is the golf crowd too boring to go after?



'Clones are on Big Monday tonight at Okie State.  Hard to win on the road in that league.



All for this morning.  Make it a Good Monday in your neighborhood.





BCOT