Saturday, March 29, 2008

After third round, Cardinal chances still looking good

An alert reader revealed the fact that I was not counting Ohio, Illinois, Virginia and West Virginia in my Cardinal stats. Each of these states share the Cardinal as their state bird along with the ones that I have lived in: Indiana, North Carolina and Kentucky.

Welcome Xavier, WVU and Kent State to the Cardinal stats.

We know that at least one Cardinal will fall today when Louisville plays UNC...


Third
Round
Teams
Left
Remaining Teams
Cardinal 33% 4 Louisville, UNC, Davidson, Xavier
North Carolina 67% 2 UNC, Davidson
Ohio 50% 1 Xavier
Kentucky 33% 1 Louisville
Tennessee 25% 1 Memphis




Wins Losses Penetration
Big Ten 5 4 R1: Indiana
R2: Purdue
R3: Wisconsin, Michigan State
SEC 4 6 R1: Kentucky, Georgia, Vanderbilt
R2: Arkansas, Mississippi State
R3: Tennesse
West Virginia 2 1 R3: West Virginia
Indiana 3 4 R1: Indiana
R2: Purdue, Butler, Notre Dame
Illinois 0
0
Virginia 0 0

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Second round strips Indiana of its State Bird

I'm not sure how Butler, Purdue and Notre Dame all ended up losing in the second round, but they did. Butler's loss to the only remaining SEC team was particularly embarrassing.

I had lunch with a UofL graduate today and he seemed to think Louisville's chances in the tournament were unrelated to their Cardinal status. We'll see.


Second Round Teams
Left
Remaining Teams
Cardinal 50% 5 Stanford, WKU, Louisville, UNC, Davidson
Kentucky 67% 2 WKU, Louisville
North Carolina 67% 2 UNC, Davidson
Big Ten 50% 2 Wisconsin, Mich State
Tennessee 50% 2 Memphis, Tennessee
SEC 17% 1 Tennessee
Indiana 0% 0

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Indiana University let me down yesterday

I went to bed last night with great confidence the coachless Indiana University Hoosiers could come back against the champion of the SEC conference, but was disappointed this morning to find that they couldn't pull it off.

Indiana was the only team in Indiana to lose, and the only team in the Big Ten to lose. Indiana and Kentucky were the only teams in my "Cardinal Connection" group to lose.

I used to wear a shirt that said I cheered for two teams: "Purdue and whoever plays IU", but last night they really let me down.

I'm still a believer that this is the year of the Cardinal. Eight teams left... but I think the second round could give the state of Tennesee a chance to move up a few notches in this list.


First
Round
Teams
Left
North Carolina 100% 3
Cardinal 80% 8
Big Ten 75% 3
Indiana 75% 3
Kentucky 67% 2
Tennessee 50% 2
SEC 50% 3

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Adam heads to Washington

Adam left Thursday night on a school field trip to Washington, DC. They drove all night and had a tour of the White House on Friday morning to start out a three day weekend. Adam's Uncle Keith planned on walking down to see him on Friday but it was raining.

The two of them hooked up on Saturday: Adam in DC

As I read Keith's blog about him buying Adam an Oreo McFlurry, my mind raced back to the evening that we spent with Keith's friends during 2001. That evening, Adam made chocolate milk shakes for about 10 people and climbed all over everyone. I think he thought he had about four extra Uncles.

In 2001, Carmen was tougher than Adam as she demonstrated by wearing shorts on a cold day.
In 2001, Adam's hair was the same length as his Uncle's.
2001 was only seven years ago....

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Six Lanes of Slush around Six Flags, St. Louis


I made a trip to Rolla, Missouri on Tuesday to speak to the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and the interview some candidates on Wednesday morning. As I headed around the Southeast side of St. Louis, the traffic crews closed the roads while they cleared trucks off the hills near the Six Flags exit of I-44. I migrated my way around several tractionless trucks and stopped at the St. Louis Bread Company to have lunch and read 300 emails that had accumulated in the first six hours of my trip.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Bradford Pear: Designed to break

While we were in Nashville a few weekends ago, there were strong winds there overnight. Apparently those same winds made it to Lexington on Sunday morning and pruned a Bradford pear tree in our back yard.

It took Adam, Becca and I two weekends to get this cleaned up, but it is done now.

I cut up small branches for Becca to carry to the front yard, but I couldn't get her to stick at it very long. The only way I could motivate her to help was to suggest that she play a game with Buster while moving the sticks.

Adam, on the other hand, motivated himself in a couple of different manners. First, the opportunity to use a hatchet and second, the potential of creating a fire.

The picture on the right side is the "fire pit" after it sat outside a week in the rain. Obviously, he never got around to the fire part.

Now to the question... Why would God design a tree to break?

These trees are the beautiful flowering variety that are found all over the commonwealth of Kentucky. Yet, in every ice storm or windstorm they are the first to go.

We purchased our house with one in the front yard, but it collapsed before we moved in. Inspecting the bark, a neighbor pointed out that this particular branch had started to fall away years ago.

This is the tree that the kids climbed and swung in while they were growing up and I was always telling them to be careful with all the contraptions that they put in the tree because of its weakness.

Looking back on the two weekends of work to remove the branches, I now think I was wasting my breath with the kids. Although these trees were designed to break, knowing that a half damaged branch could sustain that much weight through the torque of many storms, makes me believe there is nothing the kids could possibly do to damage a 20 year old tree with weight or leverage from swings or stands.

I'd still like to keep Adam's hatchet and fire away from all of our things in our yard.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Pictures from Aunt Helen's Photo Album

Cardinal Connections in College Basketball

I've only lived in three states. All three have two things in common, basketball and state birds. This restricts my mobility, but it does give me a unique view of the top 17 college basketball teams in the country. ( BTW, those youngsters at Purdue are hanging in there....)

I think the nation should be watching out for Louisville, they have a multiplying Cardinal factor. The might even get cubic cardinal points if you consider the fact that Louisville has a high concentration of catholic residents.

Rank Team Record State Cardinal Connection
4 UCLA 25-3 CA
8 Stanford 23-4 CA Mascot
15 Connecticut 22-6 CN
11 Georgetown 23-4 DC
12 Indiana 24-4 IN State Bird
14 Butler 26-3 IN State Bird
16 Purdue 22-6 IN State Bird
17 Notre Dame 21-6 IN State Bird
6 Kansas 25-3 KS
13 Louisville 23-6 KY State Bird & Mascot
3 UNC
26-2 NC State Bird
7 Duke 24-3 NC State Bird
9 Xavier 24-4 OH
1 Tennessee 25-3 TN
2 Memphis 27-1 TN
5 Texas 24-4 TX
10 Wisconsin 24-4 WI