Interesting thing happened yesterday. This space got scanned a couple times by government agencies in Virginia. Seems they picked up on the caption for one of the pictures at the bottom of this page which includes the word 'Bomb'. Hopefully, I won't get a visit from the nice men in black suits over a picture of eggplant, but it might be exciting.

Last Thursday was the final regular night for the Fall bocce league. We started the night in 5th place, so we already knew we would be in the playoffs, but if everything went well we could move up in placement. Well, as luck would have it we were facing the last place team on our night and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place teams were playing each other and everything went VERY WELL, INDEED. We won our three games 12-0, 12-1, and 12-1. Combined with the outcomes of those other games we moved into third place. Last night was our first round playoff game and we faced off with the third place finisher from Friday nights. Evenly matched games can take a long time and we were trading single points and were tied at 6-6 before we got a surge in game one and closed it out 12-8. The second game started off badly as Andy and I surrendered 3 points and after a failed short game experiment we found ourselves down 8-2. I think we were all starting to think we would need a game three, but all of us have been pretty dialed in the last few weeks. So we focused a little more and came back to 10-9 in their favor. After seeing Andy and I struggle with the short game from our end, the players on the other end of the court decided to challenge Rob and Brian the same way. Big mistake. They got three points for a 12-10 win and could have easily picked up the fourth point if it had been necessary. There is something very satisfying about doing well, especially as a team, and we do work well as a team. And it also is good to So, Sunday morning at 9am I'll be in St. Helena for round two. Hopefully it will be a long day of bocce and we do well. Bocce is one of the many things I will definitely miss while on my travels and I'm glad I have been able to participate over the last three years. It has been really fun. Anyone reading this should see if there is a league near where you live and try it out. I really recommend it.

If you enjoy beautiful cinematography and otherworldly landscapes, check out "House of Sand", a Brazillian film set in a desert in that country. I WANT WANT WANT to go see that place for myself. REALLY WANT. I may get that chance within the next two years!!