Monday

Another successful weekend visit to Harvest Path is in the books.  No snow, freezing temps or traffic problems.  I really like these non-notable trips when the hangin' out program is not challenged by the elements.

The Home Page pic was snapped on my way home yesterday afternoon with my iPhone as I blasted by at around 80 mph.  It isn't the best focus, but the combination of speed and traffic makes that shot a bit iffy.  And its a one-and-done deal.  No do-over.  It always gets to me how close the tree seems to be with just normal vision, and how distant it ends up being through the lens.  Blowing in the pic up for a bigger presentation adds to the lack of sharpness.

I hesitate to recognize Cinco de Mayo today for fear of being considered a racist.  But I'll go with it anyway.  Seems like a good reason to order some Margarita's, si?

In that light, you have Dartmouth College cancelling a Cinco de Mayo fundraiser scheduled by a sorority/fraternity because one of the school's student's was offended by the "Americanization" of the holiday.  It was label as a "Phiesta" by the sponsors as a play on words with their Greek organizations' names.  The travesty of it!  Who knew that serving up a few burritos was being racially insensitive?


I elected to invest another not-so-small amount into the BEATER last week.  It had been running pretty rough and needed a tune-up for sure, maybe tires, and routine maintenance.  I really like having that back-up car, so I gave the mechanic the green light to fix those items, plus a couple of others.  We'll see how long it holds out this time.  I may even clean it up some one of these days.

3 and 3.1 spent the weekend with friends at the Wells Fargo golf tournament in Charlotte.  Its a small world.  3's friend Amanda (a NYC resident who did one of the readings at the Tahoe wedding) has been dating a guy from Charlotte whose dad is the Tournament Director for the tournament.  The dad, and son, grew up in our Quad City area and Dad was the director at the local PGA event, the John Deere Classic...until Charlotte poached him around 10 years ago.  I guess the son went to Iowa too... as did Amanda.  So we have millennial's from Iowa, working in The Big Apple and connecting with other Iowans in North Carolina.  Yeah, Six Degrees of Separation is a little on the high side.

One of my understated highlights of the NYC visit was the completion of another Chicago Sun Times pattern-less crossword puzzle that I finished up the Monday afternoon that I spent with 4 in Washington Square Park.  Its a rarity for me, mostly because they're so hard that I usually don't even make an attempt...and I only buy the Sun Times when I'm passing through C-town.  Not only do you have the challenge of the clues, you also have to figure out the black boxes for word lengths.  Its a math exercise as well as a test of language skills.

I was able to get most of the Friday and Saturday NYT crosswords done this past weekend as well.  There's no question that success on these brain challenges is partially related to getting the mind ramped-up to the complexities, and then keeping it set in the "on" position.  I find that I go through phases where I get a lot of self-worth out of good results...and then just get tired of the endless trickery that some of the puzzles present.  And some puzzles are poorly constructed so that they do not reward creative thought, but rather fall flat with illogical solutions.

So do you want more crossword philosophy, or should I jump over to NASCAR?

All for now.  Hope everyone has a good week.

BCOT