All the latest

It's been an interesting last couple of weeks, at least for me-maybe not so much for y'all.

-A couple of weeks ago, TBH went to the Illinois Masters State Championship meet. She took first in her age group in 10 events and second in one. Good enough for the high point trophy! Also, the points won helped propel a small Western Illinois Masters Program team to a top-ten finish, which isn't too shabby considering the size of some of the Chicago area swim clubs. Victory doesn't ALWAYS go to the bigger battalions!

-Another year, another renovation: In a flash of brilliance, my brother was out at our mom's place. She has the washer and dryer in the basement but doesn't climb stairs too well. So why not take the extra bedroom and make a bathroom out of it, and make the existing bathroom a laundry room? That way everything's on one floor. Making the bathroom will be easy. Getting the old stuff out of the existing bathroom will be harder. Getting the washer and dryer up won't be a big picnic either. But it'll be a job well done when finished.

-Seems I spend most of my vacation time running people in my life to various doctors. I'm thinking of painting the Brazen Chariot white and putting a red cross on top of it-or finding a '58 or '59 Cadillac ambulance. Maybe do it up 'Ecto-1' style.

-Also, been busy at work of late. Good to have the business.

-The Mississippi River is rising in the annual spring flood. More than a few roads around here are underwater, but most of the towns and cities in the area have been amassing enough sandbags to make a small extension to the Maginot Line so we'll be in good shape. It's the flash floods that do most of the damage because they come in with such force and with no time to prepare.

-I see the British Royal Wedding is coming up. I suppose they're celebrities enough, but as an American, I can't say that I care all that much and I don't know why there's going to be so much coverage of the event here. We did, after all, have a little spat with England 230+ years ago partly to be out from under the Royal Family, and we aren't part of the Commonwealth. He might be HRH Prince William to the Brits, but in my world he's Lieutenant Windsor, RAF, and she's Miss Middleton. Good luck to them and perhaps he'll do better than his dopey father did. 'Nuff said.

-In sports, the Cubs are settling into a 'win one, lose one' pattern of mediocrity. The Blackhawks, who last year rolled through the Stanley Cup playoffs, probably won't survive the first round of the this year's playoffs. Guess you can still buy a championship if you have the cash and you put your mind to it. The Bulls look like the real deal in the NBA for the first time since that Jordan guy quit playing here a loooong time ago. They really should at least win the Eastern Conference, if not make a strong showing for the whole schmear.

I'm looking at doing something this year that's on my bucket list. There's a place not too far up into Minnesota that, after a short course, allows you to drive a 'tank' (actually, they have an old British FV432 APC and an Abbot self-propelled howitzer-same drive and chassis, I believe). For a couple hundred bucks more, you can drive their Chieftain MBT over a car. To me it'd be worth the money to drive one of these for a few minutes. I suppose when I got out of high school way back in the day, I should've done it the old hard way, joined the Army, and spent some time tooling around Fort Knox and southern Germany. I reckon this will be easier, though-and someone isn't out there with an RPG or AT missile wanting to take me out as I'm having my driving experience. We'll see how the finances look before I sign up for this.

Much to do in the next few weeks. Very tired tonight and a bit achy, so I reckon it's time to shut down and catch a few z's.

yankeedog out.