March Madness 2011: Nature Bracket III, Part Deux

Since I wrote the first post on this year’s NCAA tourney, the following craptacular events have transpired:


1. Blogger, the website I use for this blog, has been working against me. I post things. Then, given my careful eye for detail, I go back into my post to proofread and revise. At this point, the malevolent Blogger formatting demons wreak havoc on what I’ve done, changing alignments, removing hyperlinks, and even re-ordering paragraphs. Bizarre s—t.
2. I tried to navigate the labyrinth that is health care claims and payments. Fail.
3. I attempted to schedule an appointment to get Luke’s passport for our cruise this summer. This required seven phone calls. For real. Finally got it nailed down, but for real… why so difficult?
4. The printer didn’t work. That isn’t all that catastrophic, but it was an annoyance in that, “C’mon, really? What else can go wrong?” kind of way. And by the way: I strongly recommend you NEVER ask that question. Life will provide you with an answer, such as…
5. There’s a claim filed to my insurance for a three-week long hospital stay for Luke. Do you recall blog entries about Luke's agonized three-week stay in the hospital in January? I don’t either. I’m confident we won’t be financially responsible for it, but it’s just something else to keep an eye on.
6. And, the cherry on top of the poo sundae: today, some broad in New York went to several Banks of America in posing as me – using, I might add, a Texas driver’s license with my address on it and my social security number – trying to get cash. She failed, but if you’ve experienced identity theft before, you know that I have spent hours and will continue to spend hours investigating, changing accounts, filing a police report, etc.

March Madness 2011: Nature Blog III

This marks my third year of creating the Nature Bracket for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. For those of you new to this, here’s the skinny: each year, I make two brackets. In one, I make “informed” guesses about how teams will fare in the tournament. I base these picks on personal biases, teams’ histories (mark it – Kansas will choke at some point), and gut feelings. But the second… well, unlike some girls who make picks based on favorite colors or cutest mascots, I choose victors based on this premise: if the mascots were to actually battle in nature, who would win? It’s like that Spike show Deadliest Warrior except with college mascots. I have no idea why it started – just another output from that fount of randomness that is my brain. But for whatever reason, it’s provided great enjoyment for friends, family, and even me.

Given that this is my third time around, I’ve learned there are obstacles to preparing this blog:

Marvelous March

Hello all! This past Saturday was my birthday... believe me, I don't think I ever dreamed that part of my 33rd birthday celebration would include Sesame Street Live, but it did! :) We had a great time seeing Elmo's Healthy Heroes. You may not know this, but all you need to be a healthy hero is to eat healthy foods, get plenty of rest, exercise, and have good hygiene. I think I'm maybe batting .250 on any given day... probably need to work on that. Ha! Anyway, here are the Sesame Street characters in all their splendor...