Slow and Rainy Week

Nothing too exciting is going on this week.

Tonight Evan and I are going to buy some white paint and primer and paint the basement "workout" room (that gets used about twice a month). It is filled with this ugly wood paneling that just needs to be given a make-over.

Once we paint what we need to in the basement, then we can get carpet down there. Once we get carpet, we're going to buy new living room furniture and move our hand-me-down furniture to the basement. More nice living space = more home value.

My friend Heather from back during our gradeschool soccer days just moved in down the street with her fiance, and last week, we gave each other tours of our houses. After seeing theirs, and seeing Katheryne's townhouse in Georgia last weekend, I realized how lazy we have been with our house. It still looks like we just moved in. Motivated me to actually put photos in some of our pictures frames...
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Last night I attended the book signing and reception for Walter Hanson, the founder of Hanson Professional Services in Springfield, and pretty much a legend in engineering, especially around central Illinois.

He had a biography written about him, and I wrote an article for the Springfield Business Journal a couple of months ago about the book. Since they gave me a free copy, I wanted to have it signed and meet Walt in person.

My friend Jeff, who is an engineer, met me there, and we had a sweet chat with Walt, who is almost 92. He told some good stories of his days at Triangle fraternity at U of I in the 40s, he's a fun guy and I enjoyed myself. It probably helped that I had a huge glass of wine.
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I filled out two brackets for the NCAA tournament last night. In one, I have Duke and North Carolina vying for the title with UNC taking all. In the other, I have Memphis and Tennessee in the championship with Memphis as the winner. I also picked quite a few upsets in that one, so that should be interesting.

I have two criteria when selecting teams who will win. First, I decide which name I like better. For instance, Gonzaga always makes it through the first round on my brackets. But secondly, I also take their seeds into account. So although Austin Peay is a way cooler name than Texas, I just couldn't bring myself to pick a 15 seed over a 2 seed.

This method has only failed me once in the last decade or so. And actually, when I was a freshman, sophomore and senior in college, I won it all in the bracket contests I entered.

I'm a big fan of upsets in the NCAA tourney. When #4 seed Arizona won the championship in 1997, it was one of my favorite years. Plus it didn't hurt that I thought Miles Simon was very good-looking.

But I have to say my all-time favorite part of the tournament is not the games or the bracket contests. It comes at the very, very end of it all. Yes, you know what I'm talking about: the One Shining Moment video.

"The beating of your heart, the wind in your face. It's more than a contest, it's more than a race." Is it sad I not only have the words memorized, but I still have the clips of different games shown on the One Shining Moment videos etched in my mind from 1994?