Rockin' the red

The last time I can remember the WKU men's basketball team getting this far in the NCAA tournament was in the last century. I was living in Dallas in 1992. WKU alumni made up about a third of the 80 or so employees at the company where I worked. My best buddy from college lived on the other side of town, but he came over and joined the bunch of us to watch the game at Joe Willy's and cheer on the team.

I still remember feeling that WKU was robbed, more or less literally beaten by a Florida team whose full-contact style of play went largely unpenalized by the officials.

Sixteen years later, Joe Willy's is gone – locked out of their building for non-payment of their lease, according to one report. I've lost touch with most of the WKU folks who used to be my coworkers. My college buddy and I are both married and overworked, so I'll be on my own for tonight's game – assuming the network doesn't replace it with some other game I couldn't care less about.

That's why I was so excited when I got home from work and discovered the package that had come in the mail from my mom and dad. Curious, I opened it up and pulled out a very red t-shirt commemorating my alma mater's return to the Sweet 16. I was so touched by the gesture that I promptly put on my t-shirt, trotted out my Red Towel and my Big Red drink hugger, and had Turtle snap this pre-enactment shot of me rooting for the Hilltoppers.

Epilogue

The game started 40 minutes later than scheduled, and our local programming carried UofL and Tennessee as the primary game. I got to watch the first half on my computer before having to go to bed, but WKU was always outmatched by UCLA.

At least I have my commemorative t-shirt.

Stuff it

(I admit it. This started as a comment on another blog, but these days I have to fan my faint sparks of inspiration as I find them.)

I ended up having to spend most of the long weekend working, but on general principal refused to crack open the work laptop on Easter. So, while I was flipping channels, trying to find something interesting to watch while waiting for the NCAA game between WKU and USD* to come on, I stumbled on an infomercial for some sort of… well, kind of like a grilled panini maker. Just the sort of thing that looked really cool and easy to use but which would probably sit in the back of some closet until meeting its ignoble end in a garage sale 15 years down the road.

But it wasn't the panini iron that piqued my interest. When they got to the “But wait! There’s more!” part of the spiel, one of the bonus items offered to entice the unwary impulse buyer was a “filling injector” – a sort of large gauge syringe that purported to be the ultimate solution for filling cupcakes with sugary goo, hot dogs with cheez whiz, and…

Well, perhaps it’s best not to dwell on some of the other possible uses.

Anyway, I got to thinking about a discussion Turtle and I had had a couple days earlier about the pros and cons of solid chocolate Easter bunnies vs. the hollow ones. She prefers the solid ones, which she likes to chop into chunks and tuck away, Dahmer style, in the freezer. I prefer the hollow ones because they're easier to eat without dislodging a tooth and, really, what 47-year-old man really needs anything to be solid chocolate?

Filling injector. Hollow chocolate Easter bunny. Marshmallow cream. Chocolate Easter bunny filled with marshmallow cream. Makes you want to throw up just thinking about it, doesn’t it? Or run up the wall, across the ceiling, out the door, and around the house about a dozen times to work off the sugar buzz.

* As listed on ESPN's web site, it was supposed to be on CBS; but the local affiliate apparently decided that the game between Miami and Texas would be more interesting.

I have a dream

(I actually began this posting on 2/29 and am only now finding time to get back to it. I hope it's not too dated.)

Last night was another of those nights. You know the kind: you sleep solidly, but your subconscious comes up with such such a full itinerary that by the time the alarm clock goes off, you're ready for a nice nap. On last night's agenda: primary elections.

I dreamed I'd gone down to my precinct's polling place to cast my primary ballot. After standing in line for half an hour or so, it was my turn to vote. A young, earnest-looking Julia Stiles type handed me a booklet the size of a large road atlas.

“What's this?” I asked.

“That's your ballot,” she said with a look that pitied me for being so old and out of it.

Not wanting to appear any less on top of things than I already had, I took my ballot, my No. 2 pencil, and my place at one of the dozen or so long, cafeteria-style tables. I opened my booklet and scanned the first page, which contained a series of statements. Next to each statement were two small ovals, labeled with “Yes” and “No”.

“You like to be engaged in an active and fast-paced job. Yes/No.”

“You usually plan your actions in advance. Yes/No.”

“You are strongly touched by the stories about people's troubles. Yes/No.”

“You prefer to spend your leisure time alone or relaxing in a tranquil family atmosphere. Yes/No.”

Weird, I thought as I began flipping pages and penciling in the ovals.

After a couple dozen pages of this, I reached the back page, expecting to finally have the opportunity to vote for my favored candidate. But instead of a list of candidates, there was only the phrase

THANK YOU FOR VOTING!

centered, bold, in all-caps 48pt Helvetica (or Arial; I'm not sure).

I picked up my booklet, spotted the young woman I'd spoken with earlier, and walked over to hand her my booklet. “I don't understand,” I said. “I couldn't find any place on the ballot where I could mark my choices of candidates.”

She smiled patiently and explained that it had been determined that most of the voting public really weren't capable of making an informed decision. They were easily swayed by campaign rhetoric. They voted one party line or another out of habit or because that's how their parents had always voted. They chose the candidate who looked the most like they did. As a result of this, the election process had gone to a system similar to a Briggs-Myers personality survey so that the voter could be paired more accurately with the candidate whose values and ideology most closely matched his or her own.

I woke up thinking it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever dreamt up, but as I took my shower, I got to thinking. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. Maybe some sort of test was the way to go – but only if the candidates were required to take the same test so that they couldn't fake their own beliefs and motivations.

Snow job

Conventional wisdom has it that if we're going to get any snow here in Texas, it's going to happen in February. Riiight...


Don't get me wrong. I'm not under any illusions that this is a noteworthy snowfall in any locale that actually gets snow more than once every other year, but considering the amount of chaos that even rain causes around here, it's enough to turn a half-hour afternoon commute into a four-hour slog.

That's why, when the sleet started coming around noon (instead of 6pm like the weather experts predicted), pretty much everyone at my office who had the ability to do so packed up and headed home. It may sometimes seem like being issued a laptop is more of a curse than a blessing, but it sure was nice to have the option to pack it up, beat the nightmare traffic, and finish out the second half of my workday from the comfort of my own kitchen.

We didn't even get as much as a couple days ago, but look at the size of those snowflakes... no! Snowglobs!

Update...

My Allen homeboy, Chip, lives only a couple miles from me and observed that he got a lot more snow on Tuesday than you see in the pictures above. That's because those are from Thursday when we didn't get as much snow, but what we did get came faster and in bigger chunks. Here's a shot I took Tuesday morning:


There's a mildly amusing footnote to this picture – besides the fact that I was out in the street at 6am in my Jack Daniel's pajama bottoms, goose down slippers, a fleece pullover, and my winter coat. As I gingerly picked my way down the driveway, I noticed one of my neighbors from a couple houses down was doing the same thing (except that he was dressed for work). I hollered to him that it was kind of pathetic that this amount of snow was enough to bring us out at dawn to take pictures. He laughed and agreed. He was snapping a picture to send to his brother in Wisconsin, where they had three feet of snow.

I guess it's all relative.