She is not used to living in a college town and gets very frustrated having to accommodate everything that goes one there with Duke University. she is amazed that the local TV stations will pre-empt prime time TV shows in favor of televising Duke basketball games.

Good thing she can watch her favorite TV shows on the internet. A lot of the hit major network shows are available online, either the same time they are broadcast on regular TV or within 24 hours of the original broadcast time.

Movies are available online too. So if her husband wants to watch the Duke basketball game on the TV, she can sign up for a service like Netflix and watch a movie on her laptop and they both get to watch what they prefer.

Although these circumstances are very disturbing, the underlying culture of winning college football games at any cost is what disturbs me. I have never been a fan of college football and now I am even less inclined to be a fan of any college and their corrupt sports programs.

Its not like we have a shortage of HISTORY.

But this show about swamp people is just chasing a couple of Cajun rednecks around the swam watching them kill things. This is not entertainment, people. This is disgusting butchering of alligators, snapping turtles, catfish and gar fish. It’s not hunting. It’s not sport. It is butchering animals in front of a camera crew. Big deal!

I watched this awful show just once to give it a chance. It is horrible and I doubt that I would ever watch it again unless tied to a chair in a torture chamber and my eyes held open with toothpicks. It won’t get another 1 minute of my time if I can help it and it actually bothers me thatanyone does watch it.

Looks like the Cardinals have a really good chance at going to the World Series this year. I hope they go and I hope they win. This may be the last year for Albert Pujols – I hope not, and MAYBE if they win the series with him they will find a way to renew his contract and keep him in St. Louis.

I didn’t realize that we had a workout room until I went into the men’s room and saw the lockers in there. It made me realize that there was a purpose for having a wall of small lockers with combination locks hanging from about half of them. Why would they be there in a relatively public restroom? For using the little workout room that is in there!

The workout room has two stationary bicycles, a stairmaster and a treadmill. Plus a little TV with DVD players mounted on the wall. It’s actually very nice and totally unexpected. I’ll probably pick up a combination lock at the hardware store and claim a locker for myself. There are plenty of mornings when I get to work early and could spend the 20 minute getting some exercise instead of just standing around in the break room drinking coffee and munching on a doughnut or muffin.

Three o’clock doesn’t give me much sleep, but I can catch up with a nap on Sunday if the football game gets boring.

Back in the Day, a special treat for the kids was a drive over to the little farm with pony rides. They had three different kinds of rides so kids of any age and any riding ability could enjoy being on a small horse and riding around a circle for 10 minutes or so.

The youngest kids would sit on tiny Shetland ponies that were tied to a large revolving wheels with spokes, a little like a huge wagon wheel. Parents were allowed to walk alongside the pony carrying their tot, just to be safe.

Older children were allowed to ride freestyle around a small ring with low fencing. They walked around the inner ring unaided.

The experienced riders were allowed to ride around the outer ring unaided on the larger ponies. Sometimes those ponies would break into a short trot – much to the delight of the young riders.

Riding ponies is one of my favorite memories of childhood.

I like the people watching at the lake, too. The kids are running around, swimming and splashing, playing games and having fun. There is nothing like the laughter of a little kid to put a smile on your face.

Of course, after we bought it and moved in, we quickly realized that the aggregate surface made bouncing a basketball almost impossible. We would have to pay for Basketball Court Resurfacing if we were serious about shooting hoops at home.

Of course, the home in the nicer neighborhoods, like Brentwood and Bellevue, have swimming pools and tennis courts in their backyards. One of their routine maintenance problems is Tennis Court Resurfacing and pool cleaning.

It’s not just the McMansion owners who have to deal with Tennis Court Resurfacing, there are plenty of country clubs, schools and apartment complexes who offer tennis as a recreational activity. When your sport requires a smooth surface for bouncing a ball, you can’t afford to have pits and patches that misdirect the ball’s bounce.

For the first time ever, the Nashville Predators played in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This was a great year for my favorite professional hockey team. We continue to have players with great skills and a coach with sound game strategies. With that and a little more luck, we might make it to the finals next year, and bring the Stanley Cup to Nashville for the first time.

I can’t believe that they flew so low to the ground and so close to the crowd that we could see the pilots in the cockpits and I could get this shot from almost eye level.

Here are four of them as they flew past the crowd in tight formation.

So the kids and I were thrilled to see that the Great Tennessee Air Show was going to be back this year – and I bought tickets online for all of us as soon as I hear the news. We had a great time yesterday. Other than a little bit of rain – and no one melted from the rain, no big deal – it was the perfect day. There was just a little sun ad enough clouds that it didn’t get scorching hot. In fact, the clouds made a great backdrop for the jets for all of us camera geeks who were taking photos.