The Last 4 Days

Thursday:
Frank and I went to lunch at BWs in Ypsi. A bunch of State fans were all around us. Everyone was hoping Xavier pulls off the win against Georgia not because they are Xavier fans, but because they want to win their brackets. We found some humor in this.
Dinner at Damon's with Frank and Hillary. Rough afternoon for me - it has been a while since I have had BWs, and it didn't sit well. Very embarrassing - I almost missed Duke almost lose because of it. For some reason, my beers and Carrie's bottom-shelf margaritas were grossly overpriced, and I hated life when the bill arrives. Washington State/Winthrop were tied at the half, and Wash. St. wins by 30 somehow.
Also, Carrie and I are disappointed because the UPS commercials with the guy drawing on the white board are now shown with animation. This is disappointing to us because we actually thought he was drawing it live in the commercial, but now we can see it is all computers. Of course.
NCAA tourney - I end the first day 13 of 16 with all my sweet 16 teams still in it.

Friday:
Lunch was at home - Carrie was off school. We have nothing to eat at home, so I have a Lean Pocket. It sits better on my stomach than Thursday lunch.
Back at work - someone shows me how to screen the games live on your computer - Garth and Frank are in my cube when Western KY hits the game winning three with no time on the clock to beat Drake. We all scream at the same time, and basically the whole office pops their heads up in their cubes to see what just happened. Highlight of my day, even if I had Drake in the Sweet 16. Friday night - we have an appointment to meet with the people who run/own the place where we are having the reception. However, between 3pm and 11pm that evening, we got about 8 inches of snow, so we had to cancel. The woman who runs the place emailed us the menu, and let's just say that it needs some work. Why would they want to make dessert? We will have a cake.
We end up going to Meijers and get stuff to make tacos (because it is so close to home) and all in all we get to see about 30 seconds of the Memphis game, all at halftime of the Indiana/Arkansas game, but luckily we won handily.
Today - I get 11 of 16 right and lose 2 of my sweet 16 picks - Drake and Vanderbilt. What happened there?

Saturday:
Yeah, there is no snow left on the roads. I watch a couple of minutes of Duke flopping like a Spanish soccer team before I can't handle it anymore. We go out to get groceries, and I call Mom and she lets me know that Duke lost. Which is good, because I got that one right. How about you, Steph? :)
7:00 - I have my keeper league baseball draft, which is a disaster because someone in our league forgot to pre-rank with his keepers. I still ended up with an awesome team, because I am awesome at fantasy baseball. During the draft, Xavier squeaks out a win against Purdue, which is good since I have Xavier in my Final Four. I almost get extra help when UCLA almost loses later.
Our version of The Game - I got 2 whites for Carrie to guess, because our red was going to be a Cortina Seghesio Zin. The first white I chose was an albarino, which I had never had. Carrie did not guess correctly - it didn't have the lime that she associates with albarino - btw, anyone reading this should try an albarino. It was like a Riesling with less mineral, and also tasted like a somewhat less polarizing Gewürztraminer - you know, a hint of pretty and flowers, instead of just an obnoxious amount. This time for The Game, I wrote out 8 grapes and 8 countries, but it didn't help. Then again, this was a grape that neither of us had much familiarity with. So you can't really give Carrie too much shit about it.
The second wine was the Chateau St. Jean Fume Blanc, the 2005 that wasn't the one that made WS top 100, but still got a 90. Carrie didn't get it either, but then again, I threw her off by saying "oak" instead of "smoke", even though it was not on purpose - it just put it in her mind. She really could have guessed this one. So Carrie was 0 for 2 on the game. It was an off day.
We made short ribs, some mustard green casserole thingy from Alton Brown, and the casserole rocked while the short ribs didn't so much. I think the quality of the short ribs was lacking - wayyyyy too much fat. Even for short ribs - fat and meat go together, not just a bunch of fat with a little bit of meat. Plus, the ribs and the red didn't pair up as well as hoped. Also, I made ice cream in my new ice cream maker. Seriously - the entirety of the recipe - 1 cup of whole milk, 2 cups of heavy cream, 8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, 1/2 cup sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract. In WW terms, the whole thing was 8 billion points.
Luckily, in my Sweet 16, I was doing better - I got 6 of 8 right that night. Stupid MSU (redundant) and stupid Washington State (no emotions at all. I did get accepted into Oregon State's grad program for history but didn't go, so I root for the Beavers in the Pac-10 for that reason alone. Not just for the comedic value.)
Oh, and Michigan won the CCHA hockey tourney that night too. And SNL was a repeat, but it has their "I drink your milkshake" sketch, which leads a drunken me to utter the phrase 600 times that night. And even a bunch today - I haven't even seen the movie.

Sunday:
Hangover. I wake up early-ish because I am convinced I have my baseball draft with all you folk, but I guess there isn't a league this year. My scheduled draft is actually at 5:00, and is with work folk. Duh.
First game of the day is Sienna/Villanova, which rates as my biggest "who cares" game of the weekend.
All in all it is a lazy day - no school for Carrie to plan for. She ends up watching Mrs. Doubtfire, for some reason.
We drive the 25 minutes to Costco before we realize that it is closed for Easter. We get home by 5:00 after stopping at Meijer, just in time for my draft (which again, I will win). Also, I had Butler over Tennessee and Georgetown over Davidson, and got neither of those. Although I was thrilled - Davidson was my almost alma mater. Stupid obscene amounts of money it would have cost for me to go there.
Oh, and then Memphis made me sweat it out. Holy crap - hit some free throws, bitches - it ain't that hard. I think I could hit 47% of my free throws, and I suck at everything.
More importantly, we watched the last 4 new episodes of Gossip Girl, which is really fantastic and we love it. Highly recommended.
Today, not so good - 4 for 8, making me 10 for 16 on my Sweet 16. All my Elite 8 are still there, so good for me. If Memphis can pull it off, then I might just win the money, not that I am in any office pools or anything.

(So it is weird this year in basketball - of course, I picked Memphis last year also, but this year it seems that the rest of the tournament isn't as important. Memphis needs to win to validate all my hype and defenses of their abilities and my arguments that they should have been #1 even after they lost to Tennessee. You know, UNC, Kansas, and UCLA are there every year. Who cares? Why isn't Memphis everyone's favorite? They are the ultimate underdog - only 1 loss, but somehow we aren't as good as the teams who lost 3 or 4 times? Why do people think it is a weakness for our team that we won every game but one? We are from a mid-major. Top draft pick guy on the team. It is just, with these guys, this is maybe the closest I have felt to a college basketball team in years. But it just seems all or none for me and Memphis this year - every other game left in the tournament could end with a three point shot at the buzzer, but my heart rate will never be as high as it was when Memphis was trying to hit enough free throws to win today. I just wish they weren't playing State next. It is going to be a long week for me, and even longer if they don't beat State.)