THE WEISS CHRONICLES

On March 29, 2008 both the men's and women's NCAA Division 1 playoffs had games featuring UNC vs. Louisville. UNC won both.

Also of note is that in the men's bracket, the 4 finalist teams (Univ of North Carolina, Memphis, Kansas Univ and UCLA) were all #1 seeded in their respective divisions.

Finally, both semifinal matches, (Mem vs UCLA and KU vs UNC) are rematchs of an ancient variety. In the 1957 championship, UNC beat KU 54-53. In the 1973 championship, UCLA beat Memphis 87-66 (in a game noted for Bill Walton hitting 21 of 22 shots from the field).

Al Deitch in Town

Al was in town to serve on a peer review panel for the D of HHS. We met at a bookstore (Kramerbooks) near DuPont Circle. We've done this before. Its a nice place but a pitcher of beer is now $18. The previous time we met there was June 24, 2004. However Al had visited twice in 2005 (March 2 and Dec 26) and we met either at our house or a restaurant near our house.

Some Statistical Oddities

Georgetown lost to Davidson 74-70 last night in the NCAA 2nd round (thus they don't make the sweet sixteen. The unusual thing was that Georgetown went 26 for 41 in field goals (10 of 18 in 3-pointers) beating Davidson (22 of 57 and 6 of 28) by a wide margin. The difference in the game was that Georgetown only made 8 free throws (of 17) while Davidson made 24 (of 30). The reason Davidson got more free throws has to do with their more aggressive play. Davidson gave up only 5 turnovers. Georgetown gave up 20 (per the box score)

Another statistical oddity was in the weather department. Midland, Texas received 0.35' of rain yesterday. That was about 10 times as much as they had received previously in calendar 2008 (obviously a bad drought in an area that is usually pretty dry).

Atlanta Tornado

The previous post refers to damage to the Georgia Dome caused by a tornado on Mar 14.

This is a picture of Atlanta taken about the time of the tornado (the Atlanta Journal Constitution had it on their website). Standing roughly a mile from downtown Atlanta, photographer Shane Durrance caught this image Friday night as the tornado struck (It's the bushy looking cloud mass just to the right of the tower with the illuminated top). He had been shooting lightning strikes from his sixth-floor balcony at the 1016 Lofts when he captured the image. Durrance, who grow up in Phenix City, Ala., has lived in Atlanta since 2000. He specializes in advertising, fashion, celebrity and wedding photography.

Stanley pointed out this to me today. Last week (March 15), the Georgia Bulldogs won two basketball games in one day.

A game scheduled for Friday night (March 14) with Georgia vs Kentucky was pushed forward to Saturday (March 15) because of damage done by a tornado to the Georgia Dome. Georgia won that game 60-56. Then in the evening game Georgia beat Mississippi State 64-60. Then Georgia beat Arkansas Sunday (March 16) evening 66-57.

With the three wins, Georgia won the Southeast Conference (all but the most fanatic of their fans will admit that this conference is one of the weakest in the country this year) even though their record was 14-16 overall and 4-12 in the conference during the regular season.

Ann's Self Improvement Project

As we were standing in line at the grocery store (I was reading the highly authoritative tabloids) Ann announced that she was buying the "Improving Your Memory" book from the Idiot's Guide series.

I responded, "OK, but don't forget where you put it when you get home.

If the book works it would be nice. She left the clerk without receiving the receipt (she came back to get it).

Ann Goes to Boca Raton

Ann went to an ORT meeting March 9-10 in Boca Raton. The most interesting thing here is that she booked flights from National to FT Lauderdale on Jet Blue but by the time of the flight, the airline was called SPIRIT. It was a $75 cab ride from the FT L airport to the hotel in Boca but she needed to take it to get to a meeting on time.