Wednesday

Not sure how the week went by without an addition here.  On the road in Minnesota can account for the first half of my hiatus, but only poor planning can explain these last few days.  I'm sharpest in the AM, but its hard to allocate time to a leisure activity when I have so much to do at the office.  At night, I've just been so tired.  What's an old guy to do?

4 noted on Twitter this AM that today is the two-year anniversary of Super Storm Sandy.  I know that she, 3 and 3.1 put up with a lot of inconvenience at that time.  And she's right, its hard to believe that it has been two years since then.  Lots of water under the bridge since she had to detour around the L train.

The World Series ends tonight.  Playing the 7th game in the last week of October seems a bit late.  Those two rounds played at the league level before the winners meet in the WS extends the season an extra two weeks.  And the regular season is a week longer with the 162 game-schedule compared to the 154 game slate from way-back-when.  They can talk about creating excitement and all, but trust me, its about the money.

1.1 pointed out to me last week that all of the high school football teams in Minnesota participate in the play-offs, just like in basketball.  Iowa has expanded the football classes such that the big-school division now only has 50-60 teams, total.  32 teams qualify in each class (several with losing records), so if they were to add just one more round, everybody would be in.  Why not?  We have an institutional thought process in the classroom where participation is to be rewarded, maybe more so than actual success.  Why not extend that to the gridiron as well? 

My book-on-tape for the Harvest Path trip was another spy-thriller that I had randomly selected at the library on my way out of town.  I think I've read/listened-to other books by this author.  I actually have the substantial doubt that I have been through this same book before, but either my Sometimer's is getting worse, or I quit the book midway through any prior experience.  In any event, it was another case of a reasonable storyline cluttered with extraneous, disconnected sub-plots that never went anywhere.  And the Epilogue went on for 15 minutes to explain the final action sequence.  Don't good writers write books without the need for a full-chapter epilogue?

I'm giving the Total Wine store in Roseville, Minnesota (just North of Minneapolis) a two-star rating on the LtPC FWS (Fine Wine Scale).  For starters, the store is not the most convenient place to get to, even with the assist from Google Maps.  And I'd rate their selection of Cabernet's as good, not great.  Finally, I made the mistake of being there on a Friday afternoon...along with a good share of the other wine-drinkers of Minneapolis.  I did survive though, and 1 and I enjoyed a couple very nice selections over the weekend, one from Napa and another from Tuscany.  (The good news is that a new Total Wine will be opening soon near Woodbury.  Bonus!)

And to give credit to 4...You Guys!  Can't we be done with this political stuff?  Please!

Here's a little Glad Game Top Ten list for the positives of Hump Day:

1.  Still no hard frost on Maplecrest.  The ficus trees do come in this weekend.
2.  Its RCL day on Maplecrest.
3.  Half-price wine night at Crust.
4.  Gas under $2.90 with my latest gas card discount.
5.  3 gets home from her Left Coast business trip.
6.  Margret out twice this week.
7.  Doing some W walks without W.  Interesting.
8.  Having absolutely no trouble not watching the tube in the evenings.
9.  Won a pretty dicey IRS argument this week.  Suite.
10. No tax deadline this week.

All for now.  Its a start, yes?

Thanks for reading.

BCOT