This year, 2024, marks the 42nd year (should be 43 years in a row since the tournament was canceled in 2020 due to COVID) that I have picked at least one NCAA men’s basketball bracket. I have copies of many of them, including the one from 1981, when I picked my Louisville Cardinals to win the championship. That was the year they lost their first game on a halfcourt shot. Some people might be deterred after that jarring experience, but not me! Then again, I was only 5 when it happened.
Articles
It is really remarkable that after writing online stories for 25 years, I have a topic today that I’ve both never written about and something I know more about than almost anything else.
That thing is figs.
How did we get to this point? My uncle had a fig tree in his backyard, and we lived at his house 16 years ago. Coincidentally, my father-in-law also had fig trees, so when we bought a new house 14 years ago, we accepted a gift of a fig cutting and planted it in an auspicious backyard location.
Great book that runs the gamut of synthetic biology
The term "natural" used to be substantially easier to apply to basic items like fruit and animals. It is both exhilarating and frightening to consider "improving" genetic material, but humans have a knack for putting their marks on everything imaginable.
During high school and college, I worked at Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville, Ky. Besides battling racuous crowds and the blazing heat, one thing that was interesting to me was trying to keep track of the different people I was seeing throughout the day. As a games attendant (a.k.a. carnival barker), I would attempt to personally say things to people that I saw multiple times, whether at different games or at different parts of the park. This was mostly just a sales tactic, and I think the customers likely thought I was training to have my own magic show.
Raymond and Damon are back to their shenanigans in "The Surprise Visit," the second book in the Caimans at Work series.
Raymond and Damon are busy with many orders these days. Their friend Clara stops by the shop with an urgent request. Will the caimans be able to help her before time runs out?
In the web world, an upgrade is usually a thing of joy and agony. On one hand, you want to have the latest and greatest, but on the other, there are usually so many hoops to jump through that it can oftentimes be better to wait until the last minute.
I guess in this case, I'm a little late to the game with Drupal 9, but I've finally upgraded this site - all the way to 9.1 with the Gutenberg editor. Now it is time to dance.
I decided to write a little bit here about my hobby of collecting trading cards. Maybe this will turn into something of interest to the Internet, or at least my kids will have some background info on me when I move along.
The first time I remember receiving cards as a gift was the Christmas of 1983. We were at a neighbor’s house - the boy who lived there was in my brother’s class - and Santa was giving out 1983 Donruss rack packs. The most interesting thing about this is that Santa was either related to or was Vinegar Bend Mizell, a former major leaguer.
I certainly had High Hopes for writing more on this website last year. I suppose it's easiest to blame it on the pandemic, but that wouldn't be completely accurate.
Lily, my 6-year-old daughter, wanted to bring in copies of The Special Delivery for her friends at school. Not only does it appear that they enjoyed the gift, but they took a bit of class time to say what they enjoyed the most!
Here is the text:
Dear Mr. Woods,