Great news, the Grumpy Shillelaghs has found subs and will again be playing in the St. Patrick's day tournament.  My old high school buddy Twink who has reappeared after 40 years is one of the subs and another long time friend, Bake, is going to play also.  Twink has never really played much and Bake has just got interested in playing so we may not be very successful but we'll have fun. 
Ex-Super Sub Fred can't commit because he has sold his house and may not have time.  He's now Ex-Super Sub because he's playing on another team on Wednesdays.
It's been a long, strange winter and I'm ready to get back on the courts and start playing again.  Hopefully we'll get the benches out of the shed so we can get at the equipment and start working the courts before too long.  Not to mention get the roof up and brickdust down on the third court.

It started back in September with a trip to the ER which eventually led to gallbladder surgery in November.  A few weeks after that was a three week bout with a cold/congestion sickness.  A couple weeks after that was a week bout with the same stuff and finally a couple weeks after that with another week long bout of it again.  All in all I'm not sure I've been completely healthy all winter so I'm ready for this winter to end.
There's been some really strange weather with some really great weather such as Wednesday when I golfed in shorts in February.  These great days usually have been followed by a day when the temperature drops rapidly over the course of a few hours.  Not sure if this has anything to do with all the illness I've had but it can't help.
We got some bad news this week in that Herbster and Clutch won't be able to play in the St. Patricks Day tournament but we're hoping that the Grumpy Shillelagh's will still take the court with a couple of different players.

We said good bye to The Glues mother this past week.  She was a great mother in law and wonderful grandmother.  It's sad but it was time, she'd been wanting to go for a while and it was taking a toll on the family watching her go downhill.
We had four of The Glue's California family stay at our house and our trash guy isn't going to be happy when he does our recycling bin which is overflowing.  There were also six who stayed at Lisa's sister.  It was good seeing them but my bedtime was badly compromised by the two hour time difference.
We took the last Cali person to the airport yesterday morning and I'm going to need a few days to recover.  On the way back we were going to stop at a brewery in Waterloo but we were too early so we went on the eat at Mary's in Ruma which didn't seem as it good as the last time we ate there.  We had an unexpected surprise that we missed the first time was a fully functional phone booth by the parking lot there.  Not something you see much of anymore.  I sent the picture to my old boss at Telephone Service and his comment was "I wonder when the last time the coin box was collected". 

What a choke, probably worse the the Packers two years ago which still hurts.  Falcon fans will be reliving this for years and we'll have to hear the obnoxious patriot fans going on and on about it while still whining about brady's suspension for cheating.
When the falcons knocked themselves out of FG range with about four minutes left I had a very bad feeling the game would be in OT.  I didn't think there was any way the falcons defense would stop the drive or the two point conversion.  I also didn't have a lot of faith in them stopping in OT, only hope was to get the ball first and score a TD.  For most of the game the falcons defense played well but they were on the field for a lot of plays and looked worn down.
At least I got to play golf yesterday with the nice weather although I'm not playing well right now.  Afterwards we had a refreshing Dos Equis at Mi Patio with Fred and Rod.
Roll'em will be getting back on the bocce court in a little over a month and I can't hardly wait.  It's been a long crappy winter.

The annual MBC meeting was held last night and it was a great time getting together with members who you don't see much during the winter. 
Congratulations to the new board members:  Bruce Davis, Pete Collins, Sandy McCoy, Mike McCoy, Tonya Knust and Roll'ems own Herb 'Herbster' and Lissa 'Clutch' Voss.