Monday Meanderings

SHE says I have to call it Meanderings, he said randomly.

Politics aside, you have to take your hat off to a President that can quickly and knowledgeably fill in a Final Four bracket. On national TV. And warn UNC not to make him look bad. No pressure, Tarheels.

And on that subject, can you imagine the logistics involved for CBS to broadcast the tournament? Every game is broadcast. According to Brad Schulz it takes a crew of about 50 people to handle a network basketball game and about 72 hours of pre-production, broadcast and post-production time for that crew. And even though we may only see those games interesting to our region, every game in the tournament is on the air somewhere.

The bluebonnets are out. Mom saw a few week before last, then there were a number of patches last Sunday morning. Now they are well and truly out, though they won't be outstanding this year, they tell us. Too little rain.

It's South by Southwest time in Austin. What started as a music thing now starts with a week of "Interactive" sessions - having mainly to do with the Internet and Blogging and stuff. This week is the Film Festival - or was that the week before last? I do know that this past week has been music - more than 1800 bands in town looking to get discovered. Some 590 bands are from out of the country; this is a really big deal. However, if you don't go any further south than Central Market you can avoid the chaos.

We may have a clue as to why we haven't seen the owl in a while - too noisy! I heard a sharp "rat-a-tat-tat" the other morning and looked up to see a gorgeous red-headed woodpecker jack-hammering away on the front of the owl house! Had the owl been there that would have been a rude awakening.

And I have noticed a new kind of bird at the feeder. It's about the size of a house sparrow, with a white throat and breast, but a black "vee" on its head. I've Googled every bird image I can call up but I can't name it yet. I'm leaning toward the Black Capped Vireo, but I have only seen the bird fleetingly on two occasions. I'll keep watching.

And did you know that you have to be rather cautious when you Google any search string that contain the words "white breast"? "Really, dear - I was looking for this bird...."

Sign on the local Putt-Putt golf course: "Closed for re-pars"