Monday

The report from the Minnesota weekend is pretty tame.  Twitter captured all of the best moments.  That route up through Rochester is definitely shorter, and we even took the Hastings Cut-off (same as the Schlossen Cut-off) to lop off another few miles.  Friday afternoon traffic tempered the benefits.  @srh4 did her imitation of 2 in the navigator' seat.  The Hastings leg is definitely a two-man operation.

Total Wine gave me a full refund-trade for that bottle of the 2010  Dominican Oaks Cab from the last case.  No questions asked.  I thought their stock was a little better this time.  I had one of the sales guys give me some advice on Bordeaux's.  Bought two.  Not the cheap ones either.  They had the 2012 J Lohr Cab on sale for $9.97.  Woulda coulda.  Didn't.

The book on tape for the trip was pathetic.  Catherine Coulter spy thriller that never thrilled.  I almost never select my standard political/spy/espionage books with female authors.  Not sure why I let down my guard this time.  Just soooo much time spent working the feminine/feelings/romance angles to   humanize" the protagonists.  This novel had two couples and a total of four kids to weave into the story.   Really bad.

(I'm entering this from the laptop at home.  Blogger is messing with me.  Sorry.)

The computer problem on my desk machine actually was apparent Friday.  The IT contractor identified a missed update on the exchange server.  I think they just overlooked my machine on the update protocol since no one else in the office had any issues.  Love IT.

Spring has arrived with some attitude.  We had two hours of major winter driving conditions in southern Minnesota yesterday.  We had freezing rain for a while this AM.  I could handle some days in the 60's.

Augie's run hit a big bump in the road in their championship game against Wisconsin Steven's Point..  The Pointer's were a good team, bigger at most all positions, well-coached, and made the shots.  Augie has played them in the regular season a time or two in recent years, so I'm sure that they were prepared to defend against the Augie offense.  In a 10-game series, Augie could maybe win 2 or 3, no more.

But LBH, the Vikings had a successful tournament...in contrast to ISU, Iowa and UNI.

Another example of "You're not below radar."  When I bought the new Buick, I agreed to the trial period for the OnStar service.  Among the "services" was a monthly update via email on the fluid levels, tire pressures and oil-life status.  Next came the call from the dealer to remind me that OnStar had alerted them that I was due for an oil change.  Now OnStar wants me to sign up for the service on a regular basis.  Yuck.

On the one hand, I'm offended at the Big Brotherness of an internal monitor feeding data to the Cloud without my consent.  On the other hand (drink for the title of a country song), I'm thinking seriously about accepting the Siri GPS advice for travel.  Is a reminder on car service that bad of an idea for a senior citizen?

I saw a curious article today about how the U of Tennessee is phasing out the name Lady Vols for their women's athletic teams.  This had been a topic that gave indigestion to the PC crowd every where.  How come the women's teams weren't just The Vols?  Its demeaning to refer to them as Lady Vols.  Except...that the name Lady Vols had become synonymous with excellence.  Thanks in large part to Pat  Summitt.  Most interesting was that Nike, who became the outfitter for UT last Fall, suggested in writing that the name Lady Vols was inconsistent with the university-wide effort to be "One Tennessee".  Yeah, Starbucks is not the only PC-obsessed corporate citizen in the Great Northwest.

Hope it is a good week in your neighborhood.

BCOT