The Hellish Weekend Begins

This weekend, we are driving from Columbus to Cincinnati tomorrow morning, doctor's appointment in the morning, work all day, drive to Valparaiso Indiana tomorrow night, wake up for a 7:30 tipoff of my little sister's first game of nationals, leave first thing Saturday morning and drive all the way to Marietta. Back Sunday night. Somewhere in there I need to knock out a bunch of final reads for JDR Issue III so I can focus on MPRE prep and JDR Note Selection next week. I hope C.J. does well in the two games we are able to see. There will be 13 of the Fitzgerald clan there, so we get to see more than just my siblings and Dad and Patti. That should be fun, even though it's too short. Then we get to see what Kelley gets for her big 25th birthday, other than the Ped Egg, telescoping camera lens, and dinner I'm getting her.

So I was going to post a poll before tonight to ask whether the Buckeyes would go farther in the NIT or The Well Hung Jury in the bowling playoffs. The debate still rages after both quarterfinals tonight, as the Buckeyes are going to NYC for the NIT semifinals, and good news - we are back in the semifinals again. That's as far as we've ever been (one semifinals loss, three quarterfinal losses, and one missed playoff appearance before now), and this time there will be no Bill Browne team to fret about. Tonight's results were as follows:

The Blev Stube (Ben Rose, Steve Hood) def. Penal Servitude (Bart, Avonte, Christy, Jen) 3-0
The Well Hung Jury (us) def. Prima Facial (Eckenrodes, Kominsky) 3-0
Pin Pals (Constantine, Glankler) def. Motion to Strike (Dobyns, Kyler, Derek Smith) 2-1
We Use Fingers (Spangler, Rich Helm) def. Capital Pinishment (1L's) 2-1

I have absolutely no idea who plays who in the semifinals, but the careers of the solid Eckenrode and Bart/Avonte teams is over. Three primarily 3L teams left with the 2L Pin Pals, and someone must win. None of the quarterfinals was particularly close except for ours. We won the first game by 1, and then lost our handicap edge in the second game within 3-4 frames (which is very bad news). We managed to hang tough through the 8th frame where we were practically tied going into the 9th. Then we had the most amazing and clutch foundation frame ever. Even if we don't win it all, this frame was one to remember, as we all but clinched with strikes by Daniel, Kelley, and myself and a spare by Brodie. A couple of splits and opens on the other side left it pretty much done. Way to have the killer instinct team. I bowled average (144-151) despite a staggering 4 splits in game 1 and 2 more in game 2, so that's OK with me. I think the most fitting final would be Spangler's team against ours, so hopefully we don't get paired next week and we have a chance to do that.

Two more notes: first, UPS blows big goats. So they show up sometime on Tuesday when Kelley is not home and leave the note saying the second attempt will be Wednesday and they check off the boxes for 2 PM - 5 PM and after 5 PM. OK, well we had no problem with that as Kelley was going to be home during that gigantic time window. Well nothing came and at 8 PM I call to see the status. They told me they showed up at 12:17 PM. What the fuck? So now they get to hold my package until Monday when I'll go pick it up. It just better not be returned to California.

Second, I called Chikezie leaving on AI. Yay on being 2 for 3 on who's going home. KKK Kristy, enjoy your one week out of the bottom three. And for the record, I'm going to stop putting Syesha in my Top 3 if the tween-tards insist on disagreeing with me about her every week.

See you after the hectic weekend, and next week...we have NIT hoops, bowling semifinals, American Idol Top 9, and the MPRE take two. Exciting!