Last week after dance class Milly said she wanted a balance beam, so Amanda called her dad and asked if he could put one together with any spare beams laying around his shed.  When Karen came to watch Milly today she brought it, and the first thing I had Milly do was call her Paw Paw to thank him.  She really enjoyed it, though she’s not quite comfortable putting her feet in front of one another, preferring to to a side shuffle.

I dropped the Escape off at Jeff Gordon today and Karen picked me up and took me back home then headed back out with Milly.  I got some work done, but the Escape wasn’t ready today, which was a bit perturbing since I dropped it off at 10:30 and they gave me no indication that it would take so long.

Scandal news:

So, Carolina’s had this whole big academic scandal going on for a while now.  Well, they got to celebrate this weekend as it came out that Lance Thomas bought $100,000 of jewelry in December of 2009.  Actually, he put down $30K and had a 15 day loan for the rest of it.  If it’s shown that he received money from someone like an agent or a booster, or that he received impermissible benefits, such as getting a deal that other college students couldn’t have, then Duke’s 2010 NCAA championship is in jeopardy.

But here’s my thinking.  Sure, Lance Thomas plays for the New Orleans Hornets now, but in 2009 nobody thought he’d be in the NBA, so they don’t seem to have been giving him benefits based on his future as an NBA star.  They also set the loan for 15 days.  I think a jewelry place is probably happy to give anybody a loan if they plop down $30,000.

So then the question is where did the money come from?  There’s a lot of speculation on that, but the most insidious assumption, that he got it from an agent, is also shot down by the fact that nobody expected him to be playing in the NBA.  If an agent tried to lure Lance Thomas in December of 2009, they’d probably be laughed at and fired.  (No offense, Lance.)

Anyway, I’m not too worried about Duke’s 2010 title coming down.

Meanwhile, Carolina, jealous that the scandal spotlight had been stolen by their rival, decided they wanted it to shine back on them again.  Long story short, Matt Kupec, a former Tar Heel football standout and (until just recently) fundraiser, was found to have been taking personal trips with Tami Hansbrough, the mother of Carolina’s own Tyler Hansbrough, who also works in fundraising (or something akin to it) for the school, on the university’s dime.  Aside from fraud and/or embezzlement, this could also be a case of impermissible benefits, not to mention that it could have legal ramifications outside the NCAA.

Zach Dotsey