MARCH MADNESS and an ACE IN THE HOLE

Hello Minnesota Gopher fans and the rest of you. Well, they made it into the NCAA tournament. I am very glad. OMG Did you just read that? I am very glad. How subtle Minnesotan is that now, ay? Let's insert a golf clap here. Sheesh. I've been corrupted. Oh well, now we'll see if they can make it past the first round. I think so. They play Xavier on Friday. Schools that start with the letter 'X' rarely get too far I've found. In fact, when you think about it the letter 'X' itself is mysterious and well, to coin Ellen's DJ on her daytime show, Dodgey. Other than X-rated and X-Ray, 'X'words aren't even pronounced as 'X'-s. How sneaky is that? Xylophone uses the 'Zy' sound. Xavier whats-his-face who won the Oscar for No Country for Old Men uses the silent 'J or hah' sound to pronounce his name. What's up with the wacky 'X' anyways? Interesting. Wow, what a digression. Back on track now shall we? The Gophers play Friday and good luck to them. I have Kentucky versus Kansas in the final with Kentucky taking the title. Maybe they'll call them Xansas for an added boost.

Speaking of sneaky, I actually learned of a shenanigan today. Did you know, I mean did you realllllly know that those back room card games happen for real? Now I don't mean a bunch of guys pretending to be card sharps in somebody's garage on a Saturday night, or a bar sanctioned TeXas Hold 'Em contest at Champps(yawn). I mean the real McCoy. Now pronounced XCoy. Well they do and here's how I know. Tammy and I have joked for a couple of years now about the "man cave" I work in, and how I wasn't specific enough when I created more men being in my life. I've got mostly guy cavemen friends now. Anybody see the movie "Knocked Up"? If you have, add ten years on those guys and they are my co-workers to which I lovingly refer. OK, so my manager recently resigned and his last day is this Wednesday. He's moving to a new cave across town with some more modern cavemen (they carry golf clubs now - rimshot) to sell PDU harness cables in a regional territory (in case anyone cares to know and if you don't know what PDU cables are, you really don't care, trust me.) That means Friday night was his night where the office took him out to thank him and say goodbye and give the guys a reason to drink on the company's dime. Now, also please note that when I say guys, I literally mean all guys as I am the only woman on the sales team and there is only one other woman in the entire office, warehouse included, and she works up front, rarely seen. I did not attend the event however, I have been to a strip club before, but I was getting the scoop today. What to my wondering ears was I hearing? Two of my buds were in a BACKROOM POKER GAME. A real one. The place was a nearby watering hole which shall remain nameless, but "Tom" (wink-wink) was talking about already being fairly swacked when he joined the game in the back room and had to pay money literally under the table. Then the two guys that played in the game went on to relate how the game went, who won what, who was staring them down etc, all on the hush hush. Not that they were bragging about it, I think they were surprised these games went on as well. They accidentally stumbled upon it themselves, with the old, "where does this door lead" dealie. Why am I sharing? I don't know, I just thought it was interesting. It's 2010 and this stuff actually happens. It was all hushy hush and everything. Ok, maybe I am naive, but have YOU played in a backroom game with strangers and for real? I didn't think so.

Not too much is going on at Sodium Manor that plays out in this blog, though Sarah did make the 'A' 14U softball team for summer, and she has a shot at making the high school team as an 8th grader. Practice/tryouts are all this week. So that's cool! I won't keep you any longer for now. GO GOPHERS!!!!

Love,
Diane