Friday

Not a lot new here.  At this time of year, I fall into a work routine that leaves nominal time for extra-curricular activities.  I did leave the office early last night to catch the early games...with a glass of vino!  No real surprises in last night's games, eh?  A bit eyebrow-raising that the Irish made it look fairly easy against Wichita, but their demise will come quickly enough against Kentucky.  Four more games tonight.

The plane crash over in France is a bit scary.  The crash site is not all that far from the high mountains used in the TdF.  The origin of the flight, Barcelona, is where we will be flying to this Fall, and the destination of the doomed plane, Dusseldorf, was our connection airport on the Sicily trip in 2013.  How does society protect itself from ordinary people who go off the reservation?

Speaking of this Fall, 2 and I have made our September flight reservations for Barcelona-Bordeaux.  We leave out of ORD on the 17th (to ATL and then direct to Barcelona), and return to ORD from Bordeaux (via Paris) on the 29th.  We drove to ORD for these trips in the past so as to eliminate one of the possible connection snafu's.  There's not any cost-savings, but it is just easier on the stress-factor.

I've had the idea in the last couple of days that I may go the route of buying a lower priced mid-range bike in Spain rather than take as additional baggage my primary bike from here.  The fee to bring a bike is usually $150-$175.  If I can find something for $600 or so, I like the cost-benefit result of a purchase.  I'll be doing some on-line shopping in the near future to lock-in on that decision.

Life is full of times when the hand dealt to a person is just a bad hand.  Case in point, the lot drawn by the wave of golfers who were given Thursday morning tee times this week at the TPC San Antonio.  Understand that the PGA constructs tee-off schedules each week (randomly?) that have half the field starting in the AM on Thursday, then that same group gets their start in the PM on Friday.  The other half of the field goes off in the PM on Thursday and AM on Friday. 

Conditions on Thursday AM were just awful with high winds.  Scores were predominately in the high 70's and a few in the 80's.  The winds died down in the afternoon, and scores dropped accordingly.  So that morning group from Thursday gave up at least 6-8 shots to the afternoon guys.  Friday has been even-steven between morning and afternoon.  So almost all of the golfers making the cut to play the weekend (top 70 and ties) were the Thursday afternoon guys.  Some days you get the bear.  Some days the bear gets you.  (And you hope you get a better draw next time.)

Speaking of the bear getting you, two crowd fav's in the peloton have hit the deck in recent races and won't be starting some of the sport's major one-day races these next few weeks.  Belgium Tom Boonen (on the left) separated his shoulder in a crash a couple of weeks ago, and the Swiss star Fabian Cancellara (Spartacus, on the right in the pic) went over his handlebars today doing damage to his back in a couple of places.  He'll be out for a while as well.  Both of these guys are warriors...and have not been caught in the doping scandals.  (I think Boonen had a cocaine issue at one point, but who's perfect?)

Here's my TBT offering on Friday.  One of my all-time favorite pic's.  How cool is it that 4 is shown reading a book on a trip to Kohl's as what, a second or third grader?  (That Suburban was a monster truck.  Can't imagine driving one of those on a daily basis today.)

Working both weekend days.  But not all that hard...or all day.  Might be time for the application of the crabgrass pre-emergent treatment Sunday.  And I need to get my garage spiffed-up for a possible MCSC event next Friday.

So hope the weekend goes well for the Peanut Gallery.

BCOT