Year One of the Bob Huggins era came to a close last night with a heartbreaking overtime loss to Xavier in the first Sweet 16 game of the NCAA Tournament. Xavier jumped out to an early 18 point lead to start the game, only to see the deficit cut to seven by halftime as the Mountaineers began to make shots that weren’t falling earlier…not to mention becoming more scrappy on defense and transition. It would be late in the second half before WVU took it’s first lead of the game, but missed free throws and some weak offensive series late in regulation and overtime would seal our fate.

I was on record from Day 1 as a Huggins skeptic. I had no idea how players recruited to fit John Beilein’s finesse system would take to Huggins’ vicious man defense and post play. I wondered how long it would take for the roster to be overrun by players of, um, dubious character. While the long term questions are still there, in the short term I have to say I have been won over. Huggs emphasized tough defense and rebounding but did not force the offensive transition, allowing his players to play to their strengths and run many of the Beilein era sets.

This was a group of overachievers, playing for a coach and a system they did not sign up for, and still answering the call. Winning 26 games, making the Big East semifinals, and being a couple missed free throws from the Elite Eight is a great accomplishment. Short of advancing further in the tournament I’m not sure how much more successful this season could have been.

Obviously the long term questions remain, as it remains to be seen if Huggs keeps parts of Beileinball and recruits a subset of players who can execute it. How many future players will be arrested? But for now, the experiment has been a success.

Now comes the sporting quiet period before football kicks off.

There were a lot of hard fouls in the Duke game as the team takes on Huggy’s attitude, but the non-call on Cam after the Duke guy gave him a big shove in the back is pretty awesome!

Also, check out the 14 second mark…purple nurples??? C’mon, K, we know you teach your guys to flop, but what’s next? Wedgies in the lane? Wet willies on boxouts? Indian burns?

A few weeks ago I wrote a short, cryptic message that didn’t present the best light possible but kind of reflected my warped mindset at the time.  During that time there has been a lot of opportunity to settle down and comb through the dark, scary recesses that house the way I see and react to the world.  (Not a pretty sight.)

What kicked off that cheery post was a health fair run by one of the hospitals here back in February.  One of the booths did a blood screening, and knowing that there was diabetes and cardiovascular issues in my family I did a walk-in draw.  A couple weeks later, or one day prior to the post, the results came back.  While I was cool on the diabetes numbers (actually registering a little low on the fasting blood sugar) the cholesterol numbers in general were high and the triglycerides (the fatty component of blood) were off the charts.  Triglyceride levels over 200 are considered bad.  My numbers were over 200.  Over 500.  Over 1,000.  Almost to 1,200.  At this point one should probably be calling the Guinness people in the Record Department.  That number is downright scary, and my physician agrees.  Additionally, with all that crap in my blood liver enzymes were reading badly as well.  That could be another lovely scenario down the road.
Now I’m not the most active person, nor will my daily diet make a Weight Watcher proud.  However, my wife enjoys a similar diet and activity level and her numbers come back quite safe.  There are two factors working against my numbers.  One is genetics.  My mother has high triglycerides.  Her mother had high triglycerides.  In other words, thanks guys.

The second factor (which was the bigger blow to my psyche) is that Seroquel, the mood stabilizer which has provided the most stability to my bipolar swings, just happens to have a nasty side effect that raises levels of (a) triglycerides, (b) cholesterol, and (c) sugars in the blood.  Damn, dammit, and goddammit!!!  Well, we can pull back the last one since the blood sugar was under par.  But the other two, that was the real kick in the nuts.  While the path is well documented as long and harrowing to fully get involuntary mood swings under control, I have gotten off to a good start psychologically.  That has been aided in no small part to the Seroquel.  It basically keeps the mind from wandering off the beaten path, allowing me to rewire how I process things that cause difficulty.  So I pretty much landed in a funk knowing that the tool helping me to fix my own ship was slowly killing me from another boat.

I’m now currently in the midst of building up another stabilizer that has not shown such napalming side effects to my torso, and once I reach a long term treatment level we start stepping off the killer.  I’m also taking one of those famous anti-cholesterol meds to reduce the amount of fatty crap in my blood as a temporary solution while getting off the killer.  I’m also slowly changing my diet to eat healthier.  We’ve replaced pastas, sauces, & meats with healthier versions and found new ways to incorporate fruits, veggies, and grains.  As the weather clears we’re also committed to getting more outside activities to shed this winter coat.

I’ve gotten messages checking in on me over that post, so my apologies to anyone I might have freaked out.  It’s just so difficult to be making slow, steady progress on a lifelong problem only to find out things are getting inadvertently worse.

Thanks to WVURxMan

The redneck refrain…most people who are aware of comedy have heard the joke behind this phrase.  Whenever some, um, “fun-loving soul” utters the  words above, be sure to grab the camcorder because something wild is about to go down.

While these words were not uttered in our basement yesterday, the preparatory phrase “You gotta see this!” was uttered more than once by the electricians investigating my powerless subterranean abode.  Not good words to hear from the people whose task it is to harness electricity in such a way that it doesn’t burn the damn place down.  But there they were, audible in full glory as they moved from receptacle to receptacle and junction box to junction box.

The backstory is that the basement to our home has had numerous electrical problems since we bought it, mainly due to the growing evidence that our home was wired by “a friend” of the owner who happened to claim he “knew” something about “electricity” after finishing a “40″ of “Milwaukee’s Best”.  Nearly the entire basement was on the same circuit as the furnace, there were no emergency shutoffs on the gas unit, two three-foot segments of heavy gauge wire were pulled from the drywall with nothing covering the exposed copper twist, hot wires that ran to no-place in the drop ceiling…and this was from a previous visit.  This time the professionals called out to us as they found junction after junction wired incorrectly with only tape covering the copper.  Multiple receptacles were wired backwards, and in more than one box hot twisted copper was found shoved in without any wire nuts covering them…close enough in one case that arcs could have flown back and forth.

The basement is fine and powered this morning, thanks to the discovery that the upstairs kitchen cooktop (!!!), plugged into an outlet run off of the basement circuit (???), was malfunctioning and causing a short.  Now we get the pleasure of dropping hundreds of dollars on a new cooktop, although I guess it beats watching my house burn down.

Watch this, indeed.  Maybe someone would have brought a bug zapper and bottle rockets.