Zach Dotsey

What a great night, and there are so many things that were great about this game.

I’ve been amped about the Carolina at Duke game since yesterday.  Going into it, I knew that Duke should win the game handily, and that it could be a blowout, but I figured we wouldn’t be that lucky.  I thought Carolina would hang around for a bit.  In reality, Carolina scored the first single point then Duke killed them from there.

• Michael Mercer, my brother-in-law and UNC fan, told me he was giving me two Duke wins over Carolina for my birthday.  It was a nice touch for him to make the margin of victory on this one the same as the age I just turned: 32.
• The worst loss Roy Williams has ever had was 33.  So close!
• I said beforehand that if Duke beat the largest margin of victory in the series (37, by Carolina many, many years ago) that I’d shave my face.  I thought it was going to happen, but it did not.
• Duke scored more in the first half (53) than Carolina scored the entire game.  That means Duke could have not scored at all in the second half and still get the win.  Think about how crazy that is.
• In the first half, Brian Zoubek had more rebounds by himself than the entire Tar Heel team.
• This was Carolina’s worst loss since 2002 (to Maryland) and the fewest points scored in a game since 2003 (to Duke).
• This was the worst loss by a defending NCAA champion since 1990.
• Duke set a school record for home wins in a season with 17.  All but one of those was by double digits, and the one that wasn’t was an out of conference game.
• Duke tied Maryland for the ACC regular season title but is the #1 seed in the ACC Tournament next week.
• Carolina has secured a #10 seed for the ACC Tournament, their lowest ever.
• Duke is being discussed as being the probable fourth #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.  It helps that Kansas State lost today.
• It was Senior Night for Jon Scheyer, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas.  Coach K was emotional during the Senior Day celebrations, which they showed before the game.
• The Presbyterian fan who was kicked out of a Carolina game by Roy Williams for mild heckling was in attendance.

So it was a good night, as you can see.

We started the day going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  Actually, the day started earlier than that.  Bruce kept getting up and going downstairs to bother Karen and Milly woke up and cried a bunch around 1:00.  Maybe she’s teething again, because she was very fussy today.  She didn’t like being put down for naps, and when she did nap it wasn’t for long.  She wasn’t a fan of going to sleep tonight either, although she seemed to go out (or at least quiet down) pretty soon after I shut her door.

Anyway, Cracker Barrel.  We went to Wal-Mart after that to pick up a few things and Karen took off when we got home.  Amanda actually napped on the couch, which is very much a rarity.  I went out to pick up some chicken for our enchilada dinner tonight (we forgot to get it at Wally World) and to drop off the recycling.  I took a huge amount of paper recycling that had built up over a few years.  There were some slips of paper at the bottom of it that had been used for Balderdash, and I can’t remember the last time we played that.

Around 5:00 Amanda started getting things ready for tonight.  Blake and Stephanie Konny came over around 6:30 for dinner.  Since there was time, we went ahead and introduced them to Puerto Rico.  It didn’t go well for me and Amanda.  Blake won, followed by Stephanie then Amanda then me.  That’s okay though, because the game came on before we finished and I’ll admit I was a little distracted.  (Not that that’s why I lost.)  I did DVR the game, and I plan on watching it again.  It really was fun.

Zach Dotsey

Milly doesn’t like loud noises.  A couple weeks ago I mentioned that she buried her head in my chest when Amanda was vacuuming and this past weekend when the blender was being used she’d get real tense and grab me really tight.

Tonight we went over to Anna and Barry’s, as they made a birthday meal for me.  All the Frazelles were there, plus Amanda’s mom, Karen, who is staying with us tonight, Amanda’s grandparents and my brother, Adam and Hannah’s boyfriend, Christian.  After they sang Happy Birthday to me I mentioned to Christian that this was the first time I had a rock star sing that to me.  The band he’s in, Rio Bravo, will be recording a studio album next week.

We tried putting Milly down for a nap while we all ate, but she wasn’t having it and we got her back up part way through dinner.  We had the pack & play set up in Anna and Barry’s room and went to put her down in there a little later, after we and she ate.  Barry and Earl were back there, and before we could put Milly down Barry accidentally caused a very loud noise that left my and Amanda’s ears ringing.  Milly didn’t do anything at first, out of shock I think, but then she started crying and wouldn’t stop.  We got her calmed down eventually, but there was no way she’d let us put her down, and it was getting on past her bedtime.

After a few minutes we decided we needed to get on home, hoping the drive and familiar settings would make it easier for her to go down.  I hated to leave so soon after eating when we were planning on hanging out for a bit, and I think Barry felt bad, but we really had to get her down.

Milly did well in the car, but once we got her upstairs she cried every time we laid her down in the crib.  She’d roll over then stand up and once she got up she’d be happy, but of course she then didn’t want us to leave.  Eventually I just had to go ahead and leave, and I think she was quiet by the time I got down the steps.

Amanda and Karen were tired and didn’t want to play Puerto Rico, so we just watched a little TV before they went off to bed.

Other than all that, my day was taken up with work.  I don’t feel like I’ve been as busy as I’ve been in the last few months, but it is getting busy once again, just when things were calming down a bit.  I don’t mind being busy, I just want it to be more manageable than it has been.  Manageable might not be the right word.

Zach Dotsey

It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday today.  I honestly don’t think a guy could ask for a better mother-in-law than the one I’ve got.  Happy birthday, Karen!

One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday is that my laptop died.  Now, the battery’s been unable to hold a charge for a while now, so I’m thinking the problem is just that my power adapter is dead.  I really hope that’s the case because I’ve got this month’s pictures on there, not to mention a few months’ worth of videos.  I was going to buy a new adapter, but Amanda reminded me that the Nowaks had the same laptop as mine, so Mike, who said he found a spare adapter, said he’d bring that to small group on Tuesday.  If that doesn’t work I guess I’ll just need to load the hard drive into an external case and get what I can off of it.

Aside from all that though, Amanda also convinced me that it just might be time for a new laptop, so after church and a brunch at Atlanta Bread we stopped by Best Buy to look at some.  We signed up for a Best Buy credit card to get 18 month no interest, then before I could pick one out Milly started getting fussy so we went home then I came back out myself a little later.  I decided to make sure not to get a Hewlett-Packard since my last two laptops were HP’s and I’ve had issues with them.  After doing some research and talking to Adam (my brother) and a couple people at Best Buy I decided to get a Toshiba Satellite A505.  It’s got a good bit of processing power and 4 gigs of RAM, but what really put me over with it was the fact that it has an actual video card in it.  I spent most of the rest of the day getting rid of a lot of the pre-installed crap and adding back on the things I need for work and such.  It really does run so much better though.  It takes no time at all to load Photoshop, much less use it.  It’s very smooth.

Once I got back from picking up my birthday present (which is how we justified getting it) Amanda went out to Old Navy to pick up some shoes for Milly.  Of course, she got a few other things as well.

Speaking of Milly’s shoes, that reminds me what a time we had getting to church this morning.  Long story short, we couldn’t find shoes for Milly and we ended up forgetting the diaper bag.  It was a fun morning.  Milly did better at Grow Zone today though.  We put her back in the baby room and when I went to go get her she was wrapped around Chris Sikes’ mom sleeping.  She was precious.  I was told that Milly told them that even if she was 12 years old, she wanted to be in that room every Sunday.

This evening Amanda and I watched Duke battle it out against Virginia Tech.  My Blue Devils built an 11 point lead in the second half but finished up with just a five point lead going into halftime.  The offense was pretty stinky again tonight, though Singler and Smith quietly managed to score north of 20 points, but the big story was Brian Zoubek’s 16 rebounds.  The game stayed pretty close but Duke ended up winning 67-55 on a nice late run.

Zach Dotsey

On Friday I noticed a text message from Elliot Clark from sometime after 2:00 in the morning letting the world know that his and Melissa’s baby, Ella, would be here soon.  I hadn’t heard anything since (and I didn’t want to put anything on here since I didn’t know what was going on), so I texted him and asked how everything was going.  He called this evening and told us that mom and baby were fine.  Melissa’s water had broken but they didn’t think it was what it was until just a little later.  To my understanding, Ella, who was early, wasn’t turned right.  They had actually been scheduled to turn her anyway, and when they couldn’t get it done at the hospital they went ahead and had a c-section.  So, welcome to the world, Ella Jane Clark!  We’re excited about another little friend for Milly.

Amanda and Karen’s big adventure was to go to a place where they could blow glass and make their own things with the Frazelle ladies.  I think Amanda said she made a bowl and Karen made a vase.  Sounds like they had a fun time.

The morning was pretty much just me and Milly.  Amanda’s grandparents, Peggy and Earl Lemons, got here with a kitchen new sink for us.  Well, it wasn’t entirely new, but it was gently used.  They go it from their church, which just got a new sink.  It’s a bit deeper than the one we had, plus the fixtures work much better.  On our old one, you had to push the handle up pretty hard and the sprayer was all gunked up.  The nice thing about that was that even though the spray only came out of one hole, it had a lot of pressure, so it was pretty good for cleaning.

Anyway, they got here around 12:30 I think.  I was watching Carolina play a close game with Boston College to help determine which of them was going to be tied for second last in the ACC.  Fortunately, the Eagles were able to pull out the win.  NC State had a big upset over Wake Forest after that, but for most of those two games Earl and I were working on getting the sink installed.  Michael came over early in the second game while his grandpa and I were on a run to Lowe’s and Amanda and Karen got back just as we were finishing up.  Earl had said to me that he wondered what Amanda might give me tonight if she was really pleased with the sink.  I thought that was hilarious.

Amanda went to a jewelry party thing at the Cains’ house while their other half came over just as everyone else was leaving here.  We flipped around the TV a bit and settled on watching the Winter Olympic sport of curling.  People make fun of it, but we really got wrapped up in it.

Zach Dotsey

This week went by pretty fast but today seemed to go pretty slow.  I got done most of what I wanted to get done, and it felt great not to feel as rushed as I’ve felt the past few weeks.

Amanda kept herself pretty busy today.  On top of keeping up with Milly she did a lot of cleaning today plus some household shopping and cooking.

Amanda’s mom’s birthday is Sunday and her sister, Anna Frazelle, has some sort of surprise lined up for her and for Amanda (an early birthday present) tomorrow.  Karen came here this evening with plans to stay the night and watch Milly while Amanda and I went out to eat, but we surprised her by having dinner for her.  Amanda’s dad, Phil, came without Karen knowing (although he showed up before she even got in the house) and Michael and Jenn arrived just a few minutes later.

Milly was hardly left alone, which she didn’t mind.  We ate dinner and cupcakes and Phil left to go back to Richlands while Milly was (not really) eating her dinner.  The rest of us played Puerto Rico after we got Milly down to sleep.  Amanda won by six points.  Michael (and Jenn, who wasn’t really playing but was ostensibly on Michael’s team) and I tied, but I had more money so I won the tiebreaker, leaving Karen in last place.

Zach Dotsey
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This Monday was unlike the majority of Mondays.  In my new office, Milly had room to crawl around and entertain herself while I could work but still keep an eye on her.  Success!

My mother-in-law, Karen Mercer, came by after a dental appointment this evening and brought some Elizabeth’s Pizza with her for dinner.  Amanda rushed home to do some picking up, which I would have done during the day had I the time for it.  The house was in a bit of disarray since we’d spent almost all of yesterday focused on switching out the two rooms.

Karen stuck around for a little while then took off.  Amanda and I watched a couple episodes of Fringe and caught up on the show.  The last episode we watched left an unanswered question, which was:  Why was the Nazi guy still so young?  I was left wondering if that was something they’d come back to later or if it was just something they were going to leave out there for people to ponder forever, which is kind of a cool thing.

After that I struggled to stay awake, which I think irritated Amanda a little.  We’ve got a good bit of stuff on the DVR and TV season is kicking back up.  The premiere of the final season of Lost is tomorrow!  I don’t know if we’ll be able to watch it tomorrow night though because it’ll be two hours (plus the one hours recap show that I don’t think we’ll watch) and we’ve got small group.

Zach Dotsey

Our day started out in a similar manner to yesterday, with Milly talking to herself off and on throughout the early morning until she fussed, at which time she spent a few minutes in bed before we got up to feed her.  Phil went to church early because the Baptist Men’s Group was singing in the choir (or some such).  Amanda went to get some biscuits for me, Karen and herself for breakfast then Karen went to church.

Amanda and I played MarioKart and took showers.  When Karen got home, about the time Michael and Jenn both got up, she made some steak and cheese sandwiches out of leftovers from last night.  She laid a bunch of other stuff out too, basically trying to get rid of as much food as she could before we all left.

After Milly went down for a nap Amanda, Michael, Karen and I played Puerto Rico.  Jenn wasn’t feeling it and Phil’s not much of one for playing games.  Amanda won this one, but the point spread was crazy close.  She had 43, Karen and I tied at 42 (though Karen had more dubloons, so she won that tie-breaker) and Michael had 41.  I really like that game and I could play it back to back several times if someone else would go along with it.

It was just about to time to feed Milly again after the game so she was fed and everyone packed up to leave.  Michael and Jenn left a little before us.  Bruce snuck out of the house while I was going out to load the car and jumped in, waiting for us to take off.  He stayed in there the whole time, except for when I took him out right before we left so he could relieve himself.

The ride home was without incident, though Milly again didn’t sleep on the trip and was angry fussing the last ten miles.  We thought she’d pooped, but it turned out that one of the dogs, very likely Harvey, had simply farted.

Back home we unpacked and watched an episode of The Soup and a couple Law & Order: SVU’s.

Two other things of note from today:

1.  Amanda accidentally knocked a statue of St. Francis of Assisi in the sunroom onto the very laptop I’m typing on right now.  It’s working fine, but I think a few keys are loose and there are a few very small pock marks on the screen now.

2.  Jason Revill called me today and asked me a favor.  He wanted me to call Barry Frazelle, Amanda’s uncle who is a dentist, and ask him about a situation.  You see, Jason went to Greensboro this weekend to hang out with some guys we went to college with.  Apparently Jaime Arnold accidentally knocked Jason down.  Jason tripped at the same time and ended up faceplanting into the ground.  His front left tooth was knocked back (on top of busting his lip and getting a shiner) but he was able to push it back into place.  He said it doesn’t hurt or bother him except for when he messes with it.

I talked to Barry and he said to keep on a soft diet and take Advil.  As for what would happen with the tooth, he said it depended on the root.  If the root wasn’t damaged they would splint the tooth by tying it to one next to it with floss and put something on it to keep it in place until it heals.If the root was damaged though, he’d need a root canal and that sucker is going to have to come out.

Zach Dotsey
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