yea

University of Kansas (KU) won the NCAA national basketball championship.

Whoopee.

I admit that I am glad that this win means that the nation will be mentioning Kansas in a positive spin. It's better than hearing about Fred Phelps picketing another soldier's funeral (it's OK if he still pickets gay funerals) or about how our state board of education admonishes the teaching of evolution in Kansas Schools or how our state legislature is trying to make sure that the state spends more money on coal-fired power plants rather than wind energy.

Have you been to Western Kansas? It's freakin' windy out there. But there's more money in coal.

And I appreciated that I don't have to hear my collegues complaining about a loss for weeks on end. When the Jayhawks win, they talk about it, slap eachother on the back (they really do believe that their yelling at the TV helped win the game) and move on.

I teach in Lawrence, home of KU, but I could care less about KU or it's sports. KU hasn't done a whole lot for me besides make a drive across the little town take 20 minutes. And I have little interest in sports.

This shocks my co-workers.

"How can you NOT support KU? How could you NOT watch the game? Are you really that gay?"

I keep telling them, "I JUST DON'T CARE."

"HOW???"

I ask them, "Did you catch the Met's highly anticipated new production of 'Die Zauberflote' by Julie Taymore starring the brilliant and dashing Nathan Gunn on PBS?"

"Um, no."

"How could you miss that? It's one of the first German languange productions that the Met has actually done in English!"

"I'm not a fan of opera."

Exactly. I don't talk to you about opera. Don't talk to me about sports.

Instead of spending my weekend getting drunk and watching some boys dribble a ball, I refinished six deck chairs and a six-foot table.

I bought the set 5 years ago. And it hasn't really been taken care of since then. It's been sitting outside the whole time and besides the finish flaking off, it's held up remarkable well.

We bought a little electric palm sander last year just for this job. But I just got around to using it.

It's amazing. What would have taken days to sand by hand took a mere 8 hours with the palm sander.

The only problem is that for the last three days my hands have been tingly. Like I'm still holding the sander.

Weird.

I'd show pictures, but it's all still in the garage. Once we removed the table and chairs from the deck we realized that the deck needs repainting. And until Mother Nature decided we've had enough rain, the deck shall remain naked.