Zach Dotsey

First off, happy birthday to my brother, Adam Dotsey, who turned 27 today!  Today also marks Milly’s nine month birthday and we noticed that her left front top tooth is poking through the gums now.

Duke beat Georgia Tech in another grinder, 65-61, to secure their ninth ACC Tournament championship in twelve seasons.  They also secured the third one seed in the NCAA Tournament.  Some are saying they’ve got an easy road to the Final Four, but some Duke fans are worried about a possible matchup with an inconsistent Louisville team.  I’m also hearing complaints about Kansas and Kentucky, the top two one seeds, having too tough of a road.

Kentucky won their conference title today, too.  I saw that it was near the end of a close game in which UK had been trailing to Mississippi State, so I switched the channel just in time to see the final sequence of regulation, where Kentucky hit a foul shot then got off a tip-in at the buzzer to tie the game.  They ended up winning in OT.

Anyway, it was another exciting day of basketball, and I talked to my dad and Uncle Roy a bit about it.  I don’t really know what to expect in the Tournament.

One thing that irritates me is that the Heels are a four seed in the NIT.  I don’t know that they deserved that, but a lot of people said the NIT would do it because they’re a draw, and they’d want to make some money.  I hope they lose in an embarrassment in the first round, which is against William & Mary.

Amanda and I helped with Grow Zone today.  We still haven’t decided what to do, what with them going to needing to volunteer every Sunday before long.  I had a lot of fun in there, playing with the kids today.  We also moved Milly back into the cruisers room, where she did fine for the first service she was in there for, but got fussy in the second one.  Fortunately, the second service is when Amanda and I volunteer, and Amanda was able to get Milly after helping sign kids in.

Adam came over for dinner tonight.  Amanda fixed the ham, potatoes, asparagus and cream cheese sauce thing and we devoured it.  Adam got to spend some good time with Milly and even helped feed her and put her down for a nap.

Zach Dotsey

The weather was pretty nice today, but I stayed in and watched basketball for most of it.  Duke beat Miami in a 1 versus 12 seed where the 12 seed just wouldn’t go away.  Duke won the game 77-74.  It wasn’t a great game, but survive and advance, right?

Georgia Tech beat our NC State in another close game.  The Wolfpack might have won but they were bringing the ball up while down three when Javi Gonzalez dribbled the ball off his foot and someone (Derrick Favors I think?) grabbed the ball and went for a fast break.  Gonzalez grabbed his jersey to stop him, but then he held on so that Favors (or whoever) spun around on the floor.  It was a very obvious intentional foul and warranted the technical foul assessed to State and they ended up losing by three.  Who knows?  I’d rather Duke face State to get revenge for the loss earlier in the season, plus I tend to root for North Carolina teams (except North Carolina) when they’re not playing Duke.

In other conference tournament news, Purdue, the sixth ranked team in the country, scored only 11 points in the first half of their game against Minnesota and Ohio State needed double overtime to beat Illinois.

Amanda went out to Olive Garden again with the small group girls.  Milly and I stayed behind and hung out, playing a bit and watching basketball.  I didn’t bother putting her down for her late nap because she was mostly in a good mood, but I did give her a bath and feed her early.  Bath time with Milly is so much fun because she enjoys herself so much.  She’ll just sit in there and splash around while making noises, and she’d probably be happy to do it all night.

On the matter of feeding Milly and putting her to bed early, I thought it would be a good idea because tomorrow we set the clocks back for daylight savings time.  She’s usually in fed and in bed by 8:00 or so, but tonight I had her down a little after 7:30.  Hopefully that will help her adjust.

Zach Dotsey

Conference tournament upsets continue.  As of today, Duke is the only top ACC team still in the tournament, and Virginia gave them all they wanted for the first half of the game.  Maryland, the second seed in the tournament, lost to Georgia Tech.  The Yellow Jackets can be decent, but it was a bit of a surprise.  Then Miami and NC State beat Virginia Tech and Florida State, respectively, which was a pretty huge shock.  Both of those teams have been sitting pretty snugly at the bottom of the ACC for some time, but here they are playing in the quarterfinal games tomorrow.  Duke should have a pretty good go of the rest of the tournament.  They’ll face Miami tomorrow then the winner of Georgia Tech and NC State.  The smart money’s on Georgia Tech, but I’d like Duke to get a revenge match for the beating the Wolfpack gave them earlier this season.  Either way, like I said, Duke should win the ACC and lock up a #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.

So, it’s gotten to the point where we pretty much have to put the dogs’ and cat’s water bowl up on the table any time Milly is out and about.  She heads straight over for it and really enjoys putting her hands in it.  I think I mentioned that yesterday, but it literally happens whenever she’s awake now.  Sucks for the animals- they’ve complained about it some.

We went over to Nick and Amy’s tonight for dinner and games.  Amanda and Nick were a little burned out on Puerto Rico so we introduced them to Wits & Wagers (Amy and I each won a game) then played Yahtzee, which I won over Amanda by six points.  I think it was Amanda who mentioned what time it was when we were going to start the second game as an argument for not playing Puerto Rico, but Yahtzee probably took twice as long.  We had a good time with them, as is the norm.

Zach Dotsey

Today was a special day, officially marking the start of March Madness for 2010.  Well, some conferences had already started their tournaments, but in particular the ACC Tournament started today at noon.  I was excited to watch what I could, but I had a pretty full slate including a meeting today.

I will say that there have been a lot of upsets so far.  I think the lower seed advanced in all the ACC games except one, that being Carolina.  I’ll give them this though- they actually played pretty well in the first half and had up to a twelve or so point lead over Georgia Tech, who had already swept the Heels in the regular season.  Georgia Tech came out pretty strong in the second half though, and I figured once it got close that they’d pull through and win, which they did.

Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh, all Big East teams, were all upset today too.  I just hope all the upsets stop by noon tomorrow, when Duke plays Virginia (who upset Boston College).

On the subject of Duke, they got a verbal commitment from Michael Gbinije (ben-ee-jee?) today.  He’s part of the 2011 class and is currently rated as one of the top 15 player in the country.  Congrats to both him and Duke University!

Billy Supplee and Cyra Sherburn came over for dinner and The Office tonight.  I was in the middle of changing Milly when they got here, but she had gotten up and wandered off before I  put a diaper back on her, so we let her greet them at the door like that.  This may sound funny, but it’s so cute when she’s crawling around on the floor with her tiny bare butt.

Speaking of Milly crawling around, I’m looking forward to a time when we can get her a kiddie pool.  Every time she goes to the kitchen she heads for the water bowl.  She likes to put her hand in it and splash it around a little.  That girl loves the water, so I think it’s good that she’ll be growing up going to the beach a lot.  That’s the plan anyway.

A few weeks ago, Seth and Dana Holloman turned me and Amanda on to an iPhone/iPod app called Words with Friends.  It’s basically online Scrabble.  Amanda and I had a really close game going, but she won in the end.  That was my first loss.  So far I’ve beaten a random player and Dana and lost to Amanda.  I think I’ll beat Seth and Ben Lambeth, who also has the game.  Amanda and I started a new game tonight and we’re also both playing Billy.  No idea how those game will go yet.

Zach Dotsey

Not too eventful a day today.  Milly was fussing really early off and on this morning, but she finally quieted down and went back to sleep about ten minutes before 8, so I let her sleep in just a little and got her up at about ten after.  She was pretty good during the time she was up, but she got fussy right at 9:30 so back down she went for a bit.

I was pretty busy this morning, plus I had to run out for a bit in the early afternoon.  I got a good bit done, but I’ve got things to do still.  I’ve also got a meeting lined up for tomorrow.

This evening Amanda and I watched what the DVR said was a two-hour long Law & Order: SVU, but actually turned out to be two separate episodes.  It was just odd that it was listed that way, because normally even if two new episodes of a show come on back-to-back it’s still listed as two different shows.  Whatevs.

I got to thinking today and realized that one year ago today I was in Costa Rica, surfing.  I looked up my entry for that day and saw that a year ago was actually the day that we rescued a family who had gone swimming in the ocean and got caught up in a rip current.  Good times.  I often think about Costa Rica and would love to go back.

I was just watching Louisville and Cincinnati playing a game in the Big East tournament.  Louisville lead the whole game until the very end when the Bearcats came back and stole the game from them.  The ACC tourney starts tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to it.

Zach Dotsey

As good as Milly was yesterday, she decided to make up for it today.  Then again, I thought she was making up yesterday for the day before that, so who knows?  She was up a little early, didn’t finish her bottle and was fussy enough, despite that I tried several things to make her happy, that I was able to put her down for her nap just a little before 9:30.  She usually goes down closer to 10.

Work seems to slowly be getting back to how it was before a week or two ago.  That’s good in that I get to make money, but it would also be nice not to feel stressed out for having plans at 6:00.

Plans at 6:00 were going to Port City Community Church for a meeting about Grow Zone, the children’s ministry that Amanda and I both volunteer at.  There are some big changes coming up that they wanted to announce, first and foremost among them was that everyone who helps out in the rooms is going to be moved to doing it every week.  I can see why that’s a good idea, as it gives the kids more stability and the chance to build better relationships with them and their parents, but it gives me a lot to think about.  I also volunteer on the production team once a month, plus hardly a month goes by when Amanda and I don’t either have someone in town for the weekend or we’re out of town ourselves.  We’ll just have to pray about it and see where we’re lead.

Kirsten came over early to watch Milly while we went to the meeting and Barry came to pick her up at about 7:30, just a few minutes before Joel, Mia and Felix came over for small group, bearing a birthday cake.  I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think I’ve had more birthday cake for any other birthday in my life.  Anyway, they were the only other couple who could make it tonight, so we ate cake, chatted and breezed through our discussion.  We’ve only got one chapter left in our study on Romans.

Zach Dotsey

Given how moody Milly was for most of the day yesterday, I was really expecting a tough day today.  I was pleasantly surprised though, because not only was Milly good, but she was also a lot of fun.  She was still asleep, curled up with her butt in the air and her face pressed against a blanket, when I went to get her up.  She woke up happy, drank a full six ounces of formula, ate almost a full container of baby food and then stayed happy for a while.  I had piled some clean clothes on the loveseat, which she is now able to quickly and easily pull herself up to stand against, and for some reason she thought the clothes were very funny.

So not only was Milly happy, she was playful and very interactive, but then when I started working she even kept herself entertained.  She did start to get clingy around 10:00, but that’s about the time she usually goes down for a nap anyway.  She didn’t protest that very much and stayed down until her mama (who got home a few minutes early today) got her up.

All that allowed me a lot of time for work today, although I hit a snag on something that shouldn’t have really taken too long.  Because of that I ended up working until almost 8:00 tonight, but I did get a lot done after my normal working hours.

At 8:00 I helped Amanda get Milly ready for bed.  She decided to add something to the bedtime routine, which is to read to Milly every night.  We’ve been bad about consistently reading to her, so I’m glad Amanda brought up doing it.

A year ago I was on Costa Rica.

Zach Dotsey
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