March Madness is coming

March is a time for changing our clocks, changing seasons from winter to spring, and watching lots of college basketball. The 2007 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament (aka March Madness) kicks off with a "play in" game on Monday, March 12. The real action starts on March 15 (Beware the Ides of March) with more games than there is time to watch them. Hopefully we'll see Tom Izzo and the MSU Spartans make it into the "Big Dance." It would be nice to have at least one team from Michigan make it in.

For all kinds of tournament information, video highlights from the 2006 tournament, tips on how to fill out your brackets, and the lowdown on how to watch the first 56 tournament games live on the internet for free head over to www.squidoo.com/March-Madness-Basketball/.

The Top Ten Baby Names of 2006

Bronson Methodist Hospital was home to about 3,200 births in 2006. They have tabulated the number of names given to those babies in 2006 and created a top ten list of boy and girl names. Top Ten Boy Names from 2006:

1. Andrew
2. Benjamin
3. Tyler
4. Ethan
5. Michael
6. Lucas
7. Samuel
8. Jack
9. Jacob
10. Joshua / Matthew (tie)

Know someone having a baby?

Our 'Welcome Baby Basket' is a great welcome home or baby shower gift for the parents. A handmade baby blanket featuring vintage prints will be certain to become a beloved keepsake. For the parents there are delicious gourmet chocolate chunk cherry cookies (Baby Boomchunkas) and chocolate cigars (choose boy or girl) for the proud papa to pass around.

Top Ten Girl Names from 2006:

1. Ava
2. Emma
3. Olivia
4. Ella
5. Natalie
6. Madison
7. Addison
8. Sophia
9. Elizabeth
10. Lillian / Hannah (tie)

Via BronsonHealth.com

How the tangled world wide web is missed when it is gone

I never realized how much of my life was tied in to the internet until we lost our internet connection from 2 a.m. Sunday until late last night. We had an ice storm and high winds which knocked our wireless internet tower down at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. The backup solution of a dialup account proved worthless due to everyone else who was without high-speed wireless service trying the same thing. Needless to say – I was never able to connect via a dialup account due to the system being overwhelmed.

They put up a temporary tower yesterday to get things running again until the new permanent tower can be put in place. To me, it is a pretty ingenious quick fix. They have attached the wireless transmitter to the end of a boom from a crane.

It has its hiccups, but is better than nothing. As I went to write this post on the internet I lost the connection again as our service provider made some adjustments. At least that is what I hope was the reason.

Lake Superior State's 32nd annual banished words list

Each year Lake Superior State processes thousands of words that the public recommends should be banished from "the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness." The list is whittled down by a committee in December and released in January. Here is this year's list in no particular order.

• GITMO - shorthand for U.S. military base in Cuba
• Combined celebrity names (i.e. Bragelina)
• Awesome - Rats, that's a favorite of mine. Probably due to watching Napoleon Dynamite too many times.
• Gone/Went missing - Is that in Nebraska? Can you get me directions to Missing?
• PWN or PWND - popular phrase online gamers use instead of "own" or "owned"
• Now Playing in Theaters
• We're Pregnant - Oh yeah big boy? I thought you were just gaining a little weight.
• Undocumented Alien - no documents = Illegal
• Armed Robbery/Drug Deal Gone Bad
• Truthiness - Hmm, sounds like a bad tasting granola bar. Maybe it is - they say that sometimes the truth is hard to swallow ;)
• Ask Your Doctor - and make the pharmaceutical companies some cash!
• Chipotle
• i-ANYTHING
• Search - as in the internet
• Healthy Food
• Boasts - as in our motel boasts king-sized beds and a jacuzzi.

View the list with additional comments at www.lssu.edu/banished/.

Expect the unexpected at Menards

Okay, this is not really "Michigan" themed, but I was so struck by something you wouldn't expect to find at a home improvement store that I had to write about it. After glancing through the Menards ad for this week I tried to think in my head a conversation I might have either in my head (no, no one ever answers my questions) or with my wife before firing up the truck and heading to Menards where I can save big money.

It might go something like this -

*while scanning the flyer and making my list* "Lets see, I need some 8 foot studs, finishing nails, a new belt sander, and . . . Holy Wah! Menards has a 3 lb stick of Summer Sausage for only $5.49! That will go over great for the wife's bridge party tomorrow afternoon. I wonder if they sell cheese and crackers too?"

Who goes to Menards and buys a giant stick of Summer Sausage? I don't know - it just struck me as odd. Maybe everyone else expects to find Summer Sausage at Menards. I don't.

My Christmas gift to you - Dickens' Christmas Carol ebook and more

I have uploaded three Christmas eBooks for your reading pleasure. The books are in PDF so anyone can download and read them. I got the text from the Project Gutenberg website that hosts the texts of out of print and/or public domain books. These texts are fairly short (A Christmas Carol is the longest at 81 pages) and are of such a small file size that even those of you with dialup accounts will be able to download them without trouble.

• A Christmas Carol
• The Gift of the Magi
• The Burglar and the Blizzard

Enjoy these wonderful old stories and feel free to share them with family and friends!

Merry Christmas!