Amanda had signed up a while back to take the day off today, knowing she’d need some time to decompress after a weekend of planning a huge party and playing hostess. The weather was awesome today and she spent a lot of the morning after picking up a light breakfast for us (just a danish for me because I’d already eaten, a chocolate and toffee cookie with a free birthday cookie coupon from Atlanta Bread that I’d eat later) outside in the backyard throwing a ball for Harvey. They both had a good time with that.

We met Michael at PT’s for lunch. They got my order wrong twice- first they put mustard on my burger then they put mayo and no cheese, so they gave me a few PT dollars, which I turned right around and used. I wasn’t upset or anything, but it was getting kind of silly.

We all came back to the house where I got back to work while Michael and Amanda got to work on finishing up the basketball goal. They needed help a couple times, but they ended up getting the bolts we were having trouble with to go all the way through all the tubes they needed to go through. They needed my help a little bit but by and large they did well by themselves.

It just turned midnight. I know this because I got an automated birthday card. I’m thirty years old now. Technically I’m not thirty until 3:20-something this afternoon. But I’m now thirty for all intents and purposes.

I finished work right at 5:00 and screwed in the plastic parts around the rim and put on the net. Assembling that thing was a three day job. After it was all put together Michael and I wheeled it out to the road and played some HORSE. Very surprisingly, I won the first game, nothing-HORSE. Michael wanted a rematch and I beat him H-HORSE. He wanted a third game and I beat him HORS-HORSE. That sucks for Michael because I’m really not a good basketball player at all. Competitive as he is, he wanted some one-on-one after that to feel better about himself and he beat me 4-0 (two baskets to none) by the time I was too tired to really do anything. Well, I was too tired to make any more baskets at least, and it was getting dark.

Michael left shortly thereafter to go to small group and Amanda and I watched The Soup and Saturday Night Live while I ate the leftovers from Little Dipper. I never knew I’d enjoy a ginger sauce so much, but it really was good on everything. Amanda went to bed after SNL and I checked up on my UltraCorps games and the Duke message board.

Speaking of the Duke message board, it tuns out that Coach Krzyzewski never made the infamous jab at Carolina. A radio show reported that he had said that Duke didn’t report their injuries, unlike some other schools, which was taken as a shot at UNC, who had just released information that about half their roster was sick or injured. What Coach K actually said was this: “(Smith) has not been playing well the last couple of weeks. Again, he hyperextended his knee. You know, we don’t put out all our injuries, you know, but we’re injured too, you know. I mean everyone’s injured.” Many (but not all) of the Carolina fans on their own message board are still trying to somehow spin that into Mike Krzyzewski lying about something or covering up the truth or some such nonsense.

I also got an e-mail from Mike Davino at SPMSportsPage.com. He said he had to get in media credential requests for the NCAA tournament and asked if I’d be available (if he can get the credentials) to do the first two rounds of the the Men’s Basketball NCAA Tournament, which will be in Raleigh on a Friday and a Saturday. Oh man that’ll be sweet. (I told him “heck yes sir!” in case there’s any question about what my response would be.)

Well, I should get to bed. Happy birthday to me.

Zach Dotsey
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