Pi, Ides & Palms

‘Twas a fun weekend here in SC, with Carl & Betsy visiting for the weekend. Much fun was had, from team trivia at G-Man to karaoke (and a lot of it) at the Saloon with them plus Kerrie, Frame, Kent & Walter. Believe it or not, I’d never done karaoke before, and it’s actually kinda fun. Carl tried to get me up there to sing some song from Grease, but I stubbornly refused to go up there because I’d seriously never heard the song before. I proved later that I was more than willing to do karaoke for songs that I was at least somewhat familiar with, but by that point Carl was announcing my name as “Jared sucks,” haha. It was a really fun night, and downright jubilant when I saw this highlight for the Golden Gophers on the TVs at the Saloon:

I love March Madness!!! Too bad those heroics were for naught, as the Gophers lost in the Big Ten semifinals to Illinois the following day. And now that the NCAA Tournament matchups have been announced, I’ve gotta get busy and fill out a few brackets for different pools I’m gonna be in. I’m not totally sure yet whether I’ll do a different one for each, or stick with two or at most three different versions of my brackets. I’ll have to do a bit more studying to figure out who I’m gonna have as my upset picks.
Anyway, on Saturday we were pretty lazy. Got up at noon, had breakfast (lunch?) at Waffle Shop, watched some basketball, went out for a little bit of a hike on Jackson Trail in Rothrock State Forest (and for the picture I had to set my camera’s timer and try to balance it on one of the jagged rocks there, so I think I managed pretty well to get that shot!), came back to watch a bit more basketball, got ice cream at Meyer Dairy, watched a little more basketball (did I say I love March? Betsy’s a big college b-ball fan too, as she did her master’s at North Carolina), then watched a movie, “The Darwin Awards.” It’s an indie film about an insurance agent who profiles the people you read about in the Darwin Awards. There were a couple scenes that could’ve been done without, but overall it was pretty funny. And while I remember reading each of the Darwin Awards cases they dramatized, seeing them re-enacted certainly made them seem a little more… I don’t know what the word is… sad? Pathetic? Scary that some people really can be that dumb? At any rate it was a fun little movie.
Betsy & Carl left right after church, as they both had to get down to DC & Baltimore, respectively. It was a bunch of fun to have them up here and show them around and whatnot. It’s too bad Seth had to be thesising in Madison, else he would’ve joined us this weekend as well. Maybe next time!
This week is shaping up to be pretty busy and musical for me. I’ve known since the beginning of the month that I would be playing piano at church on Easter Sunday, but I found out today that I’m needed to play piano for the choir on Easter as well. I guess Ray found out he has to go out of town or something. So anyway, that’s only one additional song I’ll have to play on (a gospel song called “A Mighty Hope”), but I’ll need to practice a bunch Monday evening, then there’s choir rehearsal Tuesday evening, and two worship band rehearsals (since we’re having such a big ensemble this week, with a bunch of brass playing and the choir singing), on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. And then there’s the early Sunday morning rehearsal before the two regular Sunday services. If playing piano is a bit of stress relief for me, I should be darn near stress-free by the end of Resurrection Sunday, haha!