Sunday

Hard to believe that it has been a full week since I've put up an entry.  Busy times.

The visit from the Dornie's was a big success.  I'd say that the Twitter pic's that got posted pretty well sum up the weekend.  Here are a few others.


2 has driven over to Iowa City today to set-up house-keeping, at least temporarily, with a gal in her same office building who has space for a tenant in her condo North of town. @srh4 took her car along with more stuff.  The Davenport house is on the market.  We all hope for a quick sale at a decent price.  I've got The Winniferous for a couple days while 2 gets settled.  I'll be making a trip over to IC mid-week to drop W off, maybe on 1/2 price pizza night at The Airliner! 

The Tour de France started yesterday...in England, of course.  The big news out of the first stage was that one of the highest profile sprinters, Mark Cavendish of England, crashed on the mass-finish as he tried desperately to win on the home soil, and suffered a shoulder injury that ended his Tour.  These guys work for months (years, really) to prepare for the three weeks of racing, and he's gone on Day One.  Rule #1 of Cycling can be cruel.

Cycling here in Scott County, Iowa has been pretty good recently.  My pal Pete had scheduled himself for a century ride yesterday (a 100-miler) to keep his string of months going where he had done at least one 100-mile-day.  I had no such interest, but was willing to meet him in DeWItt for breakfast at The Sunrise Cafe.  The fly in the ointment was that local flooding on a river just North of town had closed our regular route.  Long story short, the detour that Pete said was an extra 6 miles, was in excess of 10, and I ended up do at least 10 or 15 more miles than what I thought was on my agenda.  Whatever, if it doesn't kill ya', it'll make ya' stronger, right?  (Pete got his ride done, so the streak is at 19 months.  Strong stuff.)

I had been thinking for several weeks about adding a refrigerator to my garage to enhance the Maplecrest Social Club experience.  I pulled the trigger on Thursday in anticipation of the BBQ here that night.  A fridge in a garage is not that radical, I know, and many of my friends are so set-up.  But all of those guys are dealing with attached garages.  But I get a personal kick of that new little feature to the MCSC. 

I bought the fridge at the new Menard's Home Center in Davenport.  I think that that store is as big as anything this side of a Costco.  I was actually a little concerned about finding my way out of the place.  And they sell everything!  I wonder if they ever have an accurate count of the store's inventory?  And what do they consider an acceptable percentage-rate for shrinkage (theft/loss/mistakes/etc.)?  I'm betting that we're talking about easily thousands of dollars per month.  Controls in that size of a store has to be scary, regardless of how many cameras that they have in operation.

The Mississippi River has been out of its banks much of this week.  If you Google "Davenport, Iowa" for news, you'll likely get one of the pictures of the downtown riverfront covered with flooding.  The minor-league stadium is fully surrounded, but they have the thing now protected with berms and walls such that they continue to play games.

I have had the thought while on the bike several times recently that football season starts next month.  I really find that amazing.  Both the pro's and the colleges are almost never out of the news.  After the Super Bowl, you get all of the reports on the NFL draft, then you have Sping Football on campuses, and the constant stories on recruiting, arrests, and when is a story on Johnny Football not news?  I'm betting that my Pal Dr. Doug will be calling me soon to set our annual "meeting" over in IC for a Hawkeye game against one of the early-season Directional U opponents.

Margret was a hit with the kids.  We did short rides around the block in Century Heights with the Dornie's all in the back seat.  (There was room for more in the back seat, obviously.)   I gunned the engine a few times with quick, little,"revs", and their reactions were great.  When 1.01 called Margret, my "new" car, we described how Margret was really a much older car.  And 2014 is Margret's Golden Anniversary. 1964 to 2014.  Do the math.  (Although many cars for 1964 would have hit the show rooms in the Fall of 1963, so Margret could actually be 51.)

I have not embraced the World Cup.  1.1 and I were talking last night about the absurdity of games of this import (Netherlands - Costa Rica) being decided by penalty kicks.  Defending a PK is basically guesswork on the part of the goal keeper.  They play for 2-plus hours, and then they leave it up to guesswork?  C'mon, FIFA!  Even the NFL does it better in OT.

I was kinda glad to see Jeff Samardzija get out of Chicago.  He's the ND football player who turned down the NFL for baseball a few years back, playing parts of two seasons in Des Moines.  He's become a legit major league starter, but has been having little success with the hapless Cubs.  The A's and Mr. Moneyball (Billy Bean) have decided to roll the dice this year and go for the whole shebang by trading some top prospects (for the future) for producers for now.  (Good news early...Jeff won in his first Oakland game today.)

The upcoming week here is the PGA Tour stop...The John Deere Classic.  Deere & Company has done a nice job supporting this event, and they get pretty good fields to participate.  Steve Stricker, Jordon Speith and Zack Johnson are the last three champions, and are all top-tier players.  The Chairman of the volunteer, not-for-profit organization that handles all of the support functions for the tournament is a "regular" at Dunn's Coffee.  She is an officer with a local bank and is well-connected on both sides of the river.  Does a great job.  I have tickets for a couple of days to luxury boxes, but I'm taking a pass this year.  Too hot, too many people, and too little top-shelf wine on the grounds.

Plenty for today.  Hope its a good week in your neighborhood.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT