March Madness-The Women's Final Four

April 5, 2011

For any of you who are college basketball fans like us, you can imagine how crazy, mad, excited we were when one of Rowan's Phd students offered us tickets to go see the NCAA woman's final championship game in Indianapolis. We dropped everything and headed up to witness our first ever NCAA final anything. The final game was between Texas A&M and Notre Dame. Everyone on the planet had expected Connecticut and Stanford to be in the final game, so it made it extra exciting that we would see underdogs battle it out. Our seats, mid court of the floor section, row 21, were outstanding and unbelievable. We had the Texas A&M rooting section to our left and the Notre Dame rooting section to our right. Insanity is the only word to describe it! Too much fun!

The tickets were crazy. They came in an envelope that opened up like a stadium, revealing the crowd and our passes to extreme entertainment.

We arrived early so we could park :o) and experience the fans as they entered the Conseco Fieldhouse (home of the NBA Indiana Pacers basketball team). Here is the view from our seats.

Yes, we are very happy to be here :o)

The national anthem sung by a children's choir from Indy.

The cheering sections from both sides had giant photo heads of their favorite players and coaches. Most of you have probably seen these on TV during athletic events. It is hysterical to see a sea of them in the crowd. Here is one of the Texas A&M coach, Gary Blair, that a woman right behind us kept raising in the air.

And here are the giant heads of the TA&M team stars.

Photo of the jump ball at the start of the game.

A video of the Notre Dame student cheering section. With all of the bumping and grinding going on, it was really amazing that none of them fell out of the balcony!

The No. 1 Connecticut women's bball teams coach, Geno Auriemma, was sitting just a few rows ahead of us. He was so gracious to sign autographs and take pictures with all of the young fans in the crowd during half time.

The final score of 76-70 was light years beyond the final score of the men's final game and way more exciting. There were only 2 points between the two teams with 1 minute to go. Texas A&M took home the trophy. In our minds, both teams won. WHAT A GAME!

Raising a Fist & Be Our Guest

It didn't take long for the snow to follow us home from Canada. After only one day back, our local weather returned to winter. Well, don't think for one minute a little snow and freezing rain would keep our local folks from coming out into the streets of Btown to continue the labor law protests (and other local issues) during a visit from our governor, Mitch Daniels (R), who came here to speak to our local chamber of commerce. For those of you in the USA that are reading this, get ready............Mitch will surely be running for president against Obama in the next election. This is why he is trying to table anything controversial going on in our state at the moment. He is against our state house and senate members (taken over by republicans/tea party in the last election) trying to push through anything controversial. However, they continue to stir things up, prompting protests all over the state. It is such an interesting dynamic. He really agrees with his party, but won't publicly admit it. When is honesty and integrity going to return to politics.............UGH! I won't go on, and believe me I DO have an opinion! :o)

Here are some us as we begin to gather in front of the convention center waiting for the governor to arrive.

Of course the governor came in the back door to avoid 'the people' out front. My friends Bob, Lynn and I were working on getting arrested as we went into the lobby of the center to see where all the 'important people' were. We could see them arriving in the back and being protected by the police as they entered. We were told we could not be in the lobby and were asked to leave. As the police started to approach us, we very quickly exited the lobby and went back out into the cold, snowy street. THEY ARE ALL COWARDS! :o)

Me, Bob & Lynn.

Now, back to something that doesn't raise my blood pressure as much as politics - The House!

We had 10 days after our return from Canada to get the guest room ready for my sisters visit. She is coming from Seattle to go to the opera with us for her birthday. We will get to spend five days together and we are really looking forward to it. We had to move many boxes of books and assorted other items out of the guest room before we could get to the painting, etc. I had retextured all of the walls to match the original plaster walls and then added new paint.

The new pine bed frame needed staining too, so I was doing that in the garage in between the painting.

We got that whole project done with two days to spare before my sister arrived. Believe it or not, this is the last room that needed painting in the house. It feels good to know at least that part of the inside work is done. Only some window trim painting to go!

On to the next post...........