Tuesday

I decided to update that Home Page pic to get some color to the blog.  This is a shot of one of the Par 3 holes at Grayhawk from a few years back.  Pretty hard to screw up that scenery, eh?

So the tournament gets underway tonight with the first of the four "play-in" games in Dayton.  There are a pair of 16 seeds in the first game...playing for the privilege to meet Kentucky...and then BYU and Ole Miss play for one of the 11 seeds in the late game.  The format is repeated tomorrow night, with host school Dayton getting a home court game against Boise State in the 11 seed knock-out game.  While eye-brows were raised a little to have the selection committee put Dayton on their home court, that angst was nothing compared to the hackles voiced for UCLA getting an invite to dance, period.  Whatever.  All these teams will be watching, not playing, in a few days anyway.

Augustana is taking the bus option to get to Salem, Virginia for the D-III Final Four.  13 hours of luxury coach ridin'.  The coach is putting in a nice wrinkle to break-up the trek:  they're doing a practice Wednesday afternoon in Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis.  (Hinkle Fieldhouse as in "Hoosiers".)  They play their semi-final game on Friday early-evening, and the winners play Saturday afternoon. 

I actually looked at travel alternatives to get to the games, and it became quickly apparent that the D-III folks aren't all that worried about fans' travel issues.  If I were more of a fan, and they won on Friday, the best choice would be to get 6-8 other guys and charter the King Air from my pal Roy to do an in-there and outta there one-day deal directly to Salem.  Yeah, that ain't gonna happen.

Little interest at this end to do any serious celebration of St. Patrick's Day.  In years past, I've sampled a green beer or two, but those days have been long gone.  I see where NYC did a parade today.  Chicago dyed the river green last weekend.  All the bigger parties around here were last weekend as well.  I think that they've figured out that they can keep people out later (and sell more green beer!) on the weekends.

In the For What Its Worth Department, I just checked Stub Hub for Shania for the Target Center.  The eleven tickets currently offered in our section go for a low of $335 each.  Hmmm.

I didn't adequately recognize 4 for her half marathon on Sunday.  I was in a hurry to get to an after-work function...read: client party...last night and Blogger was uncooperative when I pulled those pics up from Twitter.  Sorry, Kiddo.  She had a really good finishing time, had a great support crew, and incurred no injuries.  All fabulous results!!  And from the looks of things, she is developing into the fam's expert on Bloody Mary's.  In that regard, she is her father's daughter.  With warmer weather in the offing, she should be able to train more regularly for the May half that will have @srh4 in The Big Apple to provide support from home.

Anyone catch the I hate Christian Laettner documentary on ESPN Sunday night?  I caught a few minutes here and there.  I never disliked him as much as some players, but I've never been a big fan of the Dookies either.  (Trivia factoid:  Who was the lone college player on the original Dream Team?)  Anyway, Laettner did have a decent career in the NBA, making millions over 10 years or so.  He has had a lot less success in the business world following his retirement.  He got caught in some bad real estate deals in the financial/real estate bust of 2007-10...and has been sued for millions by some of his investors.  He's also been tainted by accusations of oral mis-information in promoting his various projects.  My experience suggests that developers shade the truth always.

All for tonight.  Hope it is a good Hump Day in your neighborhood.

BCOT