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Bracket busted badly

Well, thanks to a 2nd round upset of UK by UAB, my bracket is toast. I guess, in a way, that’s what the tournament is all about. Ultimately, it comes down to matchups and it’s not necessarily true that the “best” team wins the Tournament. Rather, it’s the team that does the best in its particular string of matchups.

But, that’s why they play they games, as they say.

Relaxing weekend

I had a great weekend of watching basketball and relaxing, but now it’s time to start winding things down, so I can be ready for work tomorrow. After last week and a few marathon meetings, this week should seem like cake. I’m not looking forward to it, but I’m not dreading it nearly as much as I did last week.

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Slippin’

Well, of eight games today, I essentially lost six. I still have all my Final Four teams and most of my Elite (or “Great”) Eight teams, but it ain’t lookin’ good. Unfortunately, others who’ve picked Kentucky to go all the way have very similar brackets to mine and haven’t gotten burned like I did in the second round today. There’s still an outside chance I could win it, but it’s a slim one.

Watchin’ the game with the guys

I spent several hours today watchin’ the Tourney games with my buddies and I have to say it was a blast. For one, it’s just fun sittin’ around with a couple guys, screamin’ at the TV and crackin’ jokes at the commentators. For another thing, Tourney time reminds of being at school every March, when things get kinda’ crazy in Gainesville. Usually, around this time, we’ve all just gotten back from Spring Break and, although most people think they can avoid it, we refuse to do work and our performance in our courses begins to slip. Then, just as we’re getting determined to pick it back up in school, March Madness rolls around and we’re sunk. A full month of Conference Tournaments and then the National Tournament distracts us from from school and forces us to spend hours and hours of our time in front of the television, rooting for thirty-something teams, many of which we’ve never heard.

Ah, the Madness. Just thinking about the fun my friends are having in Gainesville right now makes me miss it… and it makes me glad I’m going home for a week at the end of April.

What a poorly written, but emotionally motivated post. I really gotta’ work on that.

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Middle of the road

Well, after the first round of the Tourney, I’m right at the middle of the pack in two of three pools in which I’m participating. I’ll know about the third tomorrow. Middle of the pack is ok with me. Two years ago, when I won it, I was in about the same situation after the first round, so I feel it’s possible I can repeat this year. I’ve only lost one Sweet 16 team–Florida–so that puts me in good position for the rest of the tourney if the second round goes well. From here on out, I’ve pretty much picked favorites, so I guess I’m just hoping for as few upsets as possible. One exception is that I’m hoping to see Manhattan make it to the Elite Eight. If they pull that off, then I’m no worse for picking Florida to go so far.

Playin’ ball in the morning

I haven’t played basketball in a couple weeks, so I’m pretty anxious to get back out there. Last time I played, I had a miserable day, so I can only hope to improve tomorrow. By “improve”, I mean “score at least one point”, although I’m sure I won’t be satisfied with just a point. We’ll see.

Time to play catch up

And now it’s time for me to try to make up for some of the sleep I missed this week.

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Up and down Florida basketball season ends way down

What a horrible showing today. What a disappointment. “There’s always next year.”

Mediocre brackets

I picked a pretty conservative bracket, but I’m still getting burned by the few upsets I picked. I think the good news is that I only picked those upsets to win one game and then lose the next round, so they’ll each only cost me a point. Hopefully, I can make up ground with my Final Four predictions and the few upsets I do get.

Wired outta’ my mind

I tried to take a nap after work today and couldn’t fall asleep. I said yesterday that I was sure my lack of sleep would catch up with me tomorrow, and I think that’s inevitable now. I guess it could hit me tomorrow night, but I’m expecting to feel totally exhausted all day at work tomorrow. This is gonna’ be a rough Friday.

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Bummed about basketball

Apparently, because CBS does regional coverage of the NCAA Tournament, I won’t be able to see the Florida game tomorrow because they’ll be showing the Texas Tech game instead. So, I guess I’m going to proceed as though they are showing the Florida game–keep my cell off, stay away from IM, avoid e-mail and keep out of earshot of any potential basketball conversations at work–and TiVo it, so I can watch it when I get home. Of course, by “it”, I mean “any little segments or tidbits they might show during the Texas Tech game.” If I remember correctly, CBS tends to sort of bounce around and show bits from games in other regions all day. Hopefully, they’ll show some of the Florida game. Also, I’m thinking that if the game is close down the stretch or goes into OT, CBS might show it. I’ve made my picks and I’ll try and post my bracket once they’re “public.”

Sleepometer runnin’ low

I only got 6 hours of sleep last night, I’ll be lucky to get 6 tonight, I slept horribly on Sunday night and Monday night was only a moderate night’s sleep. So far, I’ve been feelin’ great, had plenty of energy and haven’t felt like I needed a mandatory naptime. But, I’m afraid my lack of sleep is going to catch up with me before the weekend is here. I spent all day today (almost 10 hours) in a meeting and I’ll be in the same meeting tomorrow, although “they” say it’ll only run about 6 hours. I just hope they’re right, ’cause if they’re not, they might have to adjust their voices to compensate for my super loud snoring.

Tunin’ up the workouts

I took last week off from the gym and came back this week with a whole different philosophy. For the past several months (years?), I’ve been training primarily to build some strength and secondarily to build some tone. Mostly, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting pushed around when I played basketball. Last week, I realized it’s been a really long time since I’ve worked out really hard and pushed myself to do a lot of reps and a lot of exercises in short time. So, I decided I’d go back to a workout similar to what I was doing in high school, but only three days a week instead of five. I’m hopin’ to “lean up” a bit and maybe get some of my speed back on the basketball court while maintaining a reasonable amount of strength. I’m also trying to eat better by eating lots of veggies and focusing on not consuming ridiculous quantities of unhealthy food. We’ll see how that goes…

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Fun out west

Turns out my friends live about 65 miles away, so the drive out and back was a beast. But, I had a great time and got dinner with them and the trip was well worth it. It’s always great to see faces from home, or the other side of Texas, that are familiar.

Bracket almost done

I’ve been working on my bracket since Sunday when the Selections Committee made their choices for the 65 teams competing in this year’s Tourney. It’s always stressful because it’s difficult to know the difference between a bracket that is simply “all favorites” and one that is “the right blend of favorites and upsets”. Someone should figure out a mathematical way to determine how many favorites and how many upsets should be picked. Maybe a points system could be devised so that the differences in seeding are taken into account (to compensate for the difference in likelihood of a 16 upsetting a 1 versus a 9 upsetting an 8 ). So, it would be something like: You get a total of 14 points in upsets. A 9 upsetting an 8 is worth a half point, a 10 upsetting a 7 is worth a full point, an 11 upsetting a 6 is worth 2 points, a 12 upsetting a 5 is worth 4 points, etc. (Of course this method would really need to be based on statistics, so these number have absolutely no meaning.) Then you pick your bracket, count the upset points and see if your bracket is balanced. Of course, this would only get one through the first round, but then, that’s the toughest round to pick. I’m sure a similar method could be used for picking subsequent rounds, but I don’t feel like thinking about this anymore.

I’m pretty happy with my bracket and I also realize that a lot of it comes down to dumb luck and freak occurrences, so I ain’t losin’ any sleep over it.

Finishing Prince Caspian

I’m about to finish the fourth book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, so I’m out. That’s all I have to say about that.

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Bad night’s sleep

I slept pretty badly last night, so I’m hopin’ for a better night tonight. I think the culprit may have been a combination of things, not the least of which was all the light coming in my windows. My bedroom is the best lit room in the apartment and I hate it. I like my bedroom to be as dark as possible because dark means more sleepy time. I think this weekend I might have to go buy some curtains… or at least something to put over the windows (I’m hoping for something other than garbage bags or tin foil).

Off to Ft. Worth

I live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth “metro” area, but that title is really pretty deceiving. Tomorrow after work, I’m driving over to Ft. Worth to see a friend who’s in town, but I doubt that drive will feel as though I’m in a “metro” area. It’ll probably be about an hour and a half with lots of traffic and plenty of tolls. I’m not looking forward to the drive, but I am looking forward to hanging out with my friends.

March Madness is here

This post is actually a few days late, but I kept forgetting about the Madness until now. I’ve almost got my bracket finalized and then I’ll be entering at least two pools (both for small stakes: one for 5 bucks, one for 2 buck, winner take all). I won it two years ago and got demolished last year. That’s probably because I feel it’s necessary to take risks to win the pool, and last year’s risks didn’t pay off at all. I’ve tried to educate myself a lot more this year, so hopefully my bracket will look pretty good going into the Sweet 16 (if my teams are good into the round of 16, I feel confident I’ll pick pretty well from there on out).

I guess anyone could say that, though…

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Fun time is over

This past week felt very much like an unofficial vacation of sorts. I went to California, spent most of my time wandering around, finding stuff to do, got to sit first class on the plane on the way out there and didn’t have to go into work on Friday. Of course, with down time comes the inevitable return to normalcy that I’ve been dreading since Thursday evening when I got back home. Luckily, I’ve been enjoying my work, so going in tomorrow morning won’t be entirely painful. It’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and how those days will eventually bleed into weeks that concerns me. For now, I’ll just keep tryin’ to tough it out.

A friendly visit

A good friend of mine is coming to Texas to visit for a few days. She’s staying with other friends out in Ft. Worth, but it sounds like I’ll get to hang out with her on Tuesday evening after work. It’ll be nice to see someone from home, especially someone with whom I’ve been friends for a long time. Phone calls from friends and family are good reminders of home, but there’s nothing like a familiar face to keep me from getting too homesick.

Acting time

I’ve begun looking into taking acting lessons and, more specifically, earning a degree (probably an AA) in acting for the camera. As I get closer to making a decision on a studio and nailing down dates, I find myself hoping that “Hollywood” isn’t as superficial as it appears to be. I mean, I’m no ugly duckling, but I’m certainly not a “looker” either and it seems like physical appearance is a trait placed high atop the list of attributes that are reviewed when doling out work to wanna be actors. I’ve sort of decided that that is simply out of my control and I’ll have to focus on becoming good at the things I can control over the next couple years. For now, I’ll just continue trying to figure out where I’ll train.

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Back from my ~~vacation~~ business trip

All in all, I had a great time and met some great people. While I was there, I went ahead and did some work and spent some time layin’ around my hotel room like a bum. Before I left, I had grand plans of seein’ the sites and hobnobbin’ with the celebrities. Well, as I said in a previous post, I did get to hang with a celebrity for a little while, but that was the extent of my glamorous experience in Hollywood (or en route, really). I really don’t have much to report except that I had a good time, California is beautiful and I hope I can go back some time soon.

Finally bought some clothes

Since I was in middle school, I’ve been in a clothes-buying routine that landed me at the mall every couple years and rarely afforded me any significant changes to my wardrobe. Well, before I graduated and headed out here, I decided that was gonna’ change and I was going to have some sort of a respectable wardrobe. Now, I’m not really into having tons and tons of clothes for all occasions, but I would like to have a good amount of clothes for the situations I encounter regularly: work, workin’ out, sittin’ around my apartment and going out with friends. Although I don’t feel I’ve got everything I need, I’m starting to make progress and much of that progress was made this weekend at the GAP. I bought a few shirts and some pants and such and I’m well on my way. The thing that slowed me down most was my tendency to be picky when selecting clothes. It’s nice to be limited by my tendency to be particular rather than my wallet for a change, though.

Gators in the SEC Tournament Finals

Well, it seems we’ve decided to take a shot at winning our first even SEC Tournament. Yesterday, we played ok against Alabama and our team showed a lot of heart as we held on to win in overtime on a tough baseline jumper by one of our freshman. Today, we struggled early against Vandy, but we pulled away in the second half and turned what could have been a nailbiter into a cakewalk. Tomorrow will certainly be the most difficult game we play, though. We’ve lost to Kentucky four or five consecutive times (although we should’ve beaten ’em earlier this season, but we choked late and totally blew the game) and they’re just the kind of team that gives us fits when they’re on defense. They’re really nothing special on offense, but they know how to jam our perimeter players and deny passes into the paint for our big guys. Their defense–in your face, fast, aggressive and constantly pressing–is the kind of defense that our guys have the worst time with. Essentially, we’re not fast or aggressive enough to take them out of that defense. We’re going to have to find some aggressiveness by tomorrow afternoon if we want to win.

I honestly think we can win, especially if Roberson and Walsh can combine for almost 60 points again, but I’m afraid we won’t. This season, I’ve only seen a few instances (and for very brief durations) where our team played with enough energy to potentially thwart an aggressive team like Kentucky. We’re capable of it, but I just think our guys are too young to understand the necessity of stepping onto the floor at 100% effort and maintaining that intensity for 40 minutes. I hope they prove me wrong.

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L.A.: First celebrity sighting!

Well, I missed my flight this morning because traffic was horrendous. So, I waited two hours for the next flight and, just before we boarded, I hear, “Josh Doody, please report to the attendants desk.” So, I did and they told me I was upgraded to First Class and “please fly with us again.” Ok, so that’s awesome, I’m in First Class, gettin’ free refills, good food and a lot more leg room than I would’ve in “economy.” Excellent. But then, about three minutes before we take off, who sits down next to be but Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN College Gameday fame! I couldn’t place him at first, but a kid that was sitting in front of us said, “Excuse me, aren’t you Kirk…” So, I waited a few minutes for the kid to finish talking with Kirk, and I said, “Man, I’ve been tryin’ to figure out who you are for about 45 minutes. You look a lot like a friend of mine from back at school.” So, we ended up talking about college sports (football and basketball) and shootin’ the breeze for a while. Then it was naptime. Then, for about the last 10 minutes of the flight, we chatted some more about L.A. and how nice it is and such. And, just before we got off the flight, I got up the nerve to ask, “Hey, would you mind if I snap a picture with you after we get off the plane?” He was nice enough to wait for me in the terminal and let me get a picture. So, when I get back to Dallas (which will be way too soon), I’ll be posting at least one picture of me with a celebrity.

Also, I think Ridley Scott may have been on the plane with us. I never got to hear him talk, but it sure looked like him and he was getting a lot of special attention from the flight attendants. I’ll have to see if I can figure out whether that was him… Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a picture (there’s a fine line between being a fan and a stalker).

I’m off to my hotel, and then I’m headed to Hollywood for dinner. Hopefully, I’ll have a good team and maybe meet some cool people. It’s going to be a challenge for me to go out there by myself seein’ as how I’m pretty introverted and all. Maybe I can leave my shell in the hotel for tonight.