Ah, Spring!

As the equinox of the fair season of spring has come and gone around us, I thought it an appropriate time to update The Ballad with a little goings-on. A change of season gives us a new breath of air, a rebirth, if you will. That and it's Friday and I have a bit of time to type. Go figure.

Zee baby (what everyone wants to know about anyway): as the little podling approaches her six-month badge of life she continues to eat voraciously, stuff any object within reach into her mouth, sit fairly well on her own, and roll from her back to stomach basically at will. She also squeals with fervent joy at such things that give her joy, and hates sleep. See, she has always slept pretty well for a baby human, although of late her insistent on wakefulness has almost drug her ability to unabashedly sleep back to the days of her infanthood. Her mother and I get to sleep much more difficultly because...NO SLEEP. That's not really true, but baby certainly fights the bedtime more than she used to. It becomes almost harder to deal with something we haven't had to deal with for a while because...well, we haven't had to deal with it as much. I suppose it is the podling's zeal and thirst for knowledge and experience that causes her to just not want to miss any goings on, of which sleep is just an annoying little task that gets in the way. Or that's just my dad talking.

The Wall: ah, you thought I had forgotten about this! While it is true that there has been no great construction during this season of snow and cold, with the approaching warmth of spring I have many plans to continue and finish this bastion of gardenic solidarity. (Geez, who gave Sam the thesaurus today? See, this is what happens when he gets too busy to write prose, he starts spouting entirely too many words.) At this point I am ready to start building out from the hill, around the curve and back towards the house. I think this fresh starting point will allow me to dig in (heehee) a little more thoroughly as we begin the outdoor seasons. After the great wall is constructed I still need to dig out the adjoining hill a bit more, plant grass and of course finish out the bed. Still not sure what I'm going to plant yet, but I'll get to that when the rocks are in place, hmm?

The Fu: Always ongoing is the learning process of martial arts. Or at least, how it should be in my mind. While our finances struggle somewhat of late and the discussion even existed if my continued investment in martial arts could even continue, my wife has determined that I would go crazy(er) if I didn't keep up with kung fu and thus other provisions have been made. I tend to agree with her. I feel like in the last few months I've gotten back into the martial "shape" that one tends to evolve to when you are consistent with your training. Back in the state o' crabs that I lived and trained in previously, there would be those inevitable periods in life that made you miss a stretch of classes and your conditioning suffered somewhat. Now going on a consistent two-night a week schedule allows me to not only keep up with all the new forms and drills I'm learning but it keeps my body and brain in the right shape as well. I still have some more arts-related drafts hanging around here somewhere that I'll get to posting; I swear this is The Ballad of Kung Fu for a reason.

The Madness: Have you been keeping up with your basketball? For shame if you have not. Actually, there is little madness to speak of. We all know poor Davidson is going to get pantsed by Wisconsin, or if by some miracle not then the next powerhouse team. More than likely all the regional finals this weekend will end up as 1 seed versus 2 or 3 seeds, and not like that isn't exciting but we all know the main reason everybody refers to it as "madness" is the unpredictability of it all. Top seeded teams playing each other isn't hard to predict, so it would be nifty to get a few surprises in there. Can Michigan State pull it off against the only once-beaten Tigers of Memphis? Probably not, but I'm guessing somebody else in there is going to do it. I really have to hope that Pitino's Cardinals will knock off the obnoxious Tar Heels. I try not to have too much bias in sports (it just drives you crazy) but man would I be bored with a final college hoops game of North Carolina against anybody. Gimme somebody non-standard, hell I'd take the oft failure-repeating Kansas at this point. I won't bother to try and tell you who's actually going to make it; as one that has kept up with the madness of brackets over the years I can tell you I never actually predict much correctly. Often times I pick teams because I want to see them play rather than who I think will actually win; like I said, I'll take exciting match-ups over dynastic drudgery any day of the week. Hell, with my poor Hoyas sitting the rest of the year and the even more unfortunate Terps doing nothing at all, I'll give you a wild prediction: gimme Louisville vs. Stanford. That's right, Card vs. Card, see who comes out on top! Take that, ACC!

Well I think that's about enough for now. I'm off to enjoy the weekend.

Blog on!