Spring Break was pretty uneventful. The last half of the week, I simply watched basketball and did some rally route planning for my Friday night rally. I’m extremely glad that I didn’t bother filling out a bracket this year — there were lots of upsets in the first and second rounds that I would have never guessed, and I would have placed behind those who chose their brackets solely on what school names sound cool.
There are two departures from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament that I am very happy about. Duke lost in the second round, making this the second year in a row that they have not been able to advance to the Sweet 16. Duke really should have lost in the first round as they barely beat Belmont, but I’ll gladly accept the second round loss to West Virginia. The second departure is Indiana’s loss in the first round. Eric Gordon, in my opinion, may be a good player but he’s not good enough for the NBA yet, because he’s wildly inconsistent on the basketball court.
I also watched, with much glee, Georgetown’s loss to Davidson. Too bad none of the other 2-seeds were knocked out. And I’m still waiting for a 1-seed to get knocked out. I still intensely dislike Kansas and really want to see them out of the tournament, but that’s not very likely.
If I had to make a call on which team will win it all, I’d put my money on UNC. I think they just have an unstoppable combination of talent from all their players. My father, however, disagrees. He thinks it’s not going to be a 1-seed that wins the championship, but one of the lower seeds. He thinks Wisconsin has a decent chance at going all the way. Perhaps. It would be interesting to see a 3-seed or lower win it all, but I still suspect that only the 1 and 2-seeds will have the talent to challenge for the championship. After all, that’s why they are 1 and 2-seeds, right?
On Saturday night, I mounted the auxiliary lights onto the front of the Miata, bought myself a huge atlas of Illinois, and set about to form up my rally route. My initial attempt to set up a route failed miserably, as I found that the route I was considering was hampered by the roads and traffic. I drove back home, did a quick route plot on Google Maps, and then set back out again to plot my route, note mileages, and write the rally instructions.
I left home at 9pm. Four hours later, after wandering around in the countryside getting lost multiple times, I finally finished noting my mileages and rally instructions. Sheesh, I had so much trouble not getting lost with a set of route instructions that I had written up, that it’s no wonder that I completely suck as a rally participant in night rallies.
I still have to cold run the rally and make sure that my mileages and route instructions are correct. But for now, those can wait. Next weekend is the epic late-night rally, which consists of five hours of driving in dark countryside. I can’t wait!