Madness

So, I think I'm too old for March Madness. I've been a basketball fan since I was pretty young, although the time I spend actually following the sport has significantly decreased over the years. The only exception to that is the most wonderful athletic tournament on the face of the earth, the NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship, aka March Madness. I love it. I can't get enough. I always fill out at least one bracket and track them religiously. This year was no exception.

I made some crazy picks, and for once, most of them paid off. My Final Four: Kansas, Duke, West Virginia and Butler. Kansas got knocked off in the second round by Northern Iowa, Duke plays Baylor tomorrow night, and WVU and Butler both made it in today. Woo hoo! Other notable upsets I picked: Georgia Tech, Murray St., Missouri and Washington.

I've been winning my pool at work pretty much the entire tournament, but it really comes down to whether a) Duke wins tomorrow, and if so, b) WVU beats Duke. If those two things happen, I think I have it wrapped up.

And, I just figured out tonight that I went to high school with Brad Stevens, the head coach of Butler. It's good to have a reason to cheer for a team other than wanting to them to help you win something.

In other news, we've now expanded the number of pets in our household. Grandma Darke bought Lauren a really pretty betta a few weeks ago. Lauren named him Luke. Luke went to "swim with the other fishies" and Sammy the betta arrived a couple days later. Sammy almost joined Luke, but I managed to keep him alive. Bettas are pretty, but they're kind of boring. So Chris and the kids picked out a nice little 2.5 gallon tank, and today I took the kids to pick out a fish to put in it. Lauren of course chose a $12.99 green Glofish. That thing better live. We'll get another fish in 2-3 weeks, and maybe one more another 2-3 weeks after that. Who knew aquariums took so long to get going? Apparently there's some nitrogen cycle you have to worry about. But both the kids love the fish. Maybe someday we'll get a really cool aquarium with all kinds of neat fish. Not now, though.

I've got good things going on at work, and so does Chris. We're crossing our fingers that everything pans out the way we think it will. We all need some good news these days...