My Life Blog

I just discovered that the student-produced newspaper of my university has made its way online.  That’s no surprise, its probably been online for quite some time.  You can find The Battalion here.

I only found it because I was wondering today what the student perspective on the upcoming NCAA tournament game might be.  Turns out, its Spring Break and so the information is a bit stale this week.

I remember fondly  when "The Batt" would be made available every weekday afternoon.  It made for good reading between classes or on lazy classless afternoons. 

This means nothing to my few readers, but I must give public props to my school for the improvement they’ve made in their basketball programs.  Its a meteoric rise, if you will.

First the men.  I have waited almost 20 years for them to return to the NCAA tournament and not only are we going this year, we are actually pretty firmly in.  At least by my estimation.  I realize I take a risk in saying this since the selection happens tomorrow. 

It has been a long and dreary road back to a competitive team.  For the longest time, our basketball facility held us back.  Heck, I graduated in that building 21 years ago.  But finally in the last 5 years or so we have a grand facility.  I’ve never been in it, but it looks beautiful from TV.  The court reminds me almost of the old Boston Garden.  But anyway, recruits now have something to get excited about.

We also have a legitimate coach, Billy Gillispie.  Just look at that first name…I may not have to say anything more.  But alas, he’s taken the likes of UTEP to the same NCAA tournament and now in his second year with us, he’s doing the same thing.  Just watching him coach and hearing about how he coaches in practice gives me assurance that he’s the real thing. 

For instance, we recently beat #4 Texas with a last-second three-pointer from well behind the arc.  It was a miracle shot.  And the game was billed as the "signature win" that we needed to gain enough credibility to get into the NCAA tournament.  So the team could easily have rested on its laurels.  But Gillispie had 7 players in practice shoot that same shot.  Only one made it.  His lesson: we win on consistent performance throughout the game, we win with defense, offense comes through defense, and we don’t depend upon lucky shots.  In short, we must outwork other teams.

They promptly closed the year out with a blowout against Bobby Knight and Texas Tech to ensure Knight of his first losing season in over two decades.  Then against Colorado in the Big XII tournament, a 33 point blowout.  Colorado was competing for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.  Some said that only the winner of that game would have gone, but we’ll never know.  A&M has closed the year (to this point) with eight straight wins and the last two blowouts.  I think they are clearing deserving of an NCAA bid…its not even close. 

So now we’ll see what they do in the rest of the Big XII tournament.  Today is a big rematch with Texas.  And if they get past them, then who knows?  This is a stunning reversal for a team who has never played past Thursday in the Thu-Sun tournament. 

I have less to say about the women, but they too are experiencing a renaissance.  Last year’s NCAA overall champion, Baylor, narrowly beat our ladies in the Big XII women’s tournament.  It was a 1 point loss.  I watched the team beat Nebraska the previous night and they play that same style of aggressive, tough defense.  And it looks like they have a couple of scorers too. 

So needless to say, Aggie basketball is back.  Now if I we can just work on that football team a little bit…

I started noting things I wonder about here.  Here are a couple more:

• Wondering about the term "meteoric rise."  The term is used to describe a dramatic upswing and yet all meteors do is fall quickly to the ground and flame out.

• What is the deal with people who need to back into their parking spaces?  I have never understood this phenomenon and I wonder if its just a Texas thing.  And its usually the people with the biggest vehicles, like the big trucks that are found in Texas.  To me, its way too stressful trying to negotiate into a parking space while backing up.  I’d rather have the easier back up scenario where I’m not trying to thread the needle between two other vehicles.  I cannot figure out what kind of advantage this provides someone, so if someone out there does this regularly, please explain why.

• Another parking lot scenario.  When packing out of a spot, why must you be three-fourths out of your spot before you get the respect of oncoming traffic.  It seems I’m invariably putting the brakes on even when my car is well out of its space.

That’s it for today…

One of the cool things about relationships is the inside jokes that you share.  Through the years you collect them and some stay forever, while others have a limited shelf-life.

One of our latest ones was born from the documentary Grizzly Man.  The documentary itself is not really funny as it centers around a man insistent on living among the Grizzlies in Alaska.  The documentary ties a collection of the man’s own self-made videos of himself amongst the bears along with the story of his death.  Yes, he was eventually eaten by a bear.

If the premise doesn’t tell you that there’s something not quite right about this man, just a few minutes of watching it will.  He’s very emotional and has a child-like enthusiasm for these bears.

So in one scene, he’s capturing a bear standing on its hind legs in a clump of trees.  The bear appears to be using the trees to scratch and itch.  After a few seconds, the bear heads straight for the camera (and our guy).  The man apologizes to the bear for being in the way and the bear changes its direction to move away.  As the bear heads away, the man says, "you’re the boss, nice job, nice job."

The man then goes into the trees and stands in the same place.  Its clear that the bear was huge by comparison.  In a wave of adrenaline-induced enthusiasm he repeatedly says, "he’s a big bear, he’s a big bear."  Its just the way he says it and I’m sure it doesn’t translate in this blog. 

So now, everytime I get the chance, I’m enthusiastically and repeatedly proclaiming something to be big.  Case in point, the owl that hooted so loudly that it drew us out of our house at 10:30pm just to get a glimpse of him.

"He’s a big owl, he’s a big owl…nice job, you’re the boss…"

Don’t get it?  Watch the documentary and see what I mean.

I don’t know how it came up, but Suzanne and I have discovered that we have two very firm, but different beliefs on how a four-way stop is navigated.  These are such long-held beliefs that even if we find out that one of us is wrong, we will be hard-pressed to change our habits.

We are in agreement on the four-way stop in the one and two car at the same time situations.  Its when several cars arrive at the same time, that we differ.  Suzanne believes that the order must go based upon the order of arrival.  In other words, it does not follow a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation.

I, on the other hand, have always observed a counter-clockwise rotation once someone has claimed the right of way.

I have tried to research this in the Texas Department of Public Safety Driver’s Manual, but they were pretty vague and there was much left up for interpretation.  There are a few other assorted Internet sites, but none seemed to have a definitive answer. 

So until we find out otherwise, I guess we’ll each handle it our own way.  I refuse to adopt Suzanne’s method since it seems inherently dangerous.  I do not believe people can maintain an order that’s not some kind of a rotation.  But for all I know, she may be right.

Two years ago when I was still single and unattached, a Friday night usually entailed an evening out at a bar drinking a lot of beer.  Two years later and married and things are much different.  Last night, out of a wave of nostalgia, Suzanne and I decided tto seek out and play the game of Life. 

The game of Life these days is much more real to life.  We immediately were reminded how cruel life can be as our game came short of two of the buildings that mount into the board.  Yes, that means that you actually have to put the board together.  We also noticed that the spinner is just barely functional.

We had to read the instructions almost from front to back in order to play.  There were so many new twists to the game.  Its either that or we’ve forgotten everything we remembered about the game.  As an example, they now have a variety of careers; one of which is Computer Consultant.  I’m pretty sure that’s new.  You can also buy stock.  All in all, the game seemed much more like Monopoly now.

In case you are curious, I became a Doctor, got married, and had a daughter.  I bought a modest house at first and then upgraded to a pretty nice house.  And then somehow, I was forced to become an Artist briefly before reverting back to being a Doctor.  Several times through the game, my house had calamities, but I was always protected by my home insurance.  In the end, I retired comfortably and won the game.

Suzanne skipped college and became an Artist.  Then she briefly became a Doctor before reverting back to being an Artist.  Then she had a mid-life crisis and became a Police Officer.  She also got married and had a boy and a girl.  I saw her car fall off one of the hills a time or two, but that didn’t seem to affect her game.  She retired decently thanks to her better-paying job, but she narrowly avoided living in a trailer in the early part of the game.

So there’s my review of the game of Life.  Much different and quite sobering.  As such, have yourself some wine and beer to even things out.  Or maybe just go to a bar instead.

Autumn (the cat) and I are fast becoming good friends, but when Suzanne is around the two seemed to be invisibly tethered.  That being the case, Autumn doesn’t visit the study without an entourage when Suzanne is around. 

So as Suzanne and I were discussing our upcoming trip to Kauai while in my study, Autumn made herself at home.  We thought the photo opportunity was too cute to pass up. 

I’m always amazed at the spots this cat can get to.  This particular shelf is three feet off the ground and there’s little room left on the ledge in front of the books.  This posed no problem for her as she assumed this position in a matter of seconds.

I think its funny that she came to rest just above the Mac OS X Panther books.