Signs of spring, part II

When I was younger, spring meant crocuses, and blooming forsythia in front of my building, and playing outside.

When I was a little older, and spending my days here, spring meant putting the docks in really cold water, and spending Spring Break with 80 of my nearest and dearest as the crew team went south to train, and not drinking* for many moons until the spring season was over.

But then I went off to grad school just at the end of Ivey's tenure, and spring began meaning this. And then I went to Arizona, and landed in a lab containing a number of gambling-obessesed college sports fans (so obsessed that at one point we were having pools on Irish horse racing. Not to mention the 2000 Presidential election). Now that we have scattered to many places of academic biomedical research, we do our NCAA pool online. My record in this pool has been characterized by winning the 2000 electoral college pool (I was the only one who had Gore for the win), and eking out wins in March Madness two years in a row (although I had to put in two separate brackets each year to manage that). Ironman greatly enjoys this time of year, because he gets a big kick out of hearing me say "Dude, my bracket is fucked!" every evening for two weeks.

So far (after one day) I'm in last place. Hunh. Guess I'll have to make some sacrifices to the appropriate gods to pull out the win this year.

* Not that I drank alcohol in college...