“Hey, do you know how many college basketball teams play how many games in how many cities for the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament?”

“No. No one does. I checked the paper today, and three articles had three different sets of numbers.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I went, myself, to the schedule in the sports section and added up the numbers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It took about an hour, but I think I got ‘em right.”

“Man, you must love college basketball.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Yeah. I mean sure. You got that right.

“Thanks.”

“So, how many teams, how many games, how many cities, and for how long?”

“You ready?”

“Yep.”

“Ok, the tournament starts on March 18-19 with a First Round of eight teams playing four games in Dayton, Ohio. Got that?”

“Got it. I’m writing it down and getting ready to add.”

“Good. The Second Round starts on March 20 and has 64 teams, which includes the four winners from the First Round, which means for the whole tournament there are 68 teams. Make a note of that. A couple of sportswriters got that figure right. The 64 teams play 32 games in 8 different cities. We are now up to 36 games. The Second Round games are played in the following cities: Orlando, Florida; San Diego California; Buffalo, New York; St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Spokane, Washington; San Antonio, Texas; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So, we are up to 9 cities. How are you doing?”

“I think I’m following.”

“Good, because now it starts to get confusing.”

“Shoot.”

“It is a complete mystery when the Third Round starts. The Second and Third Rounds overlap. I know the Second Round has to start on March 20, because you can’t have the Third before the Second, but after that only the sports schedulers in their secretive and secluded back-room dens know for sure what’s going on, and they only tell the newspapers and sportscasters things like: ‘Thursday’s GAMES,’ ‘Friday’s GAMES,’ ‘Saturday’s GAMES,’ and ‘Sunday’s GAMES.’ No dates appear in the paper. So, you have to be reading and staying tuned all the time, or you may miss your favorite team.”

“Okay. Do we know how many games will be held in the Third Round and in which cities?”

“Yes and no. The rules of mathematics apply to some extent. The 32 winners of the Second Round play 16 games in the Third Round. So, with these Third Round games, we are now up to 52 games. The ‘where’ is the tricky part. Cities seem to start moving around. I think your team could play in one city in the Second Round, win, and then play in another city for the Third Round. I’m not sure, and I’m not sure anyone is. The phantom pencil pushers in their hidden closets so camouflage the actual logistics that you must be constantly on your toes, checking the new schedules when they are reported or published, so that you do not pass your team in flight and end up watching who knows who where.”

“I think I’ll watch on TV.”

“An astute move. Just be sure you have the right station. Oh, by the way, the Second and Third Round games end March 23.

“Okay. Are we to the Fourth Round?”

“We would be, if it were called that. The fourth round is called the ‘Sweet Sixteen.’ The 16 remaining teams (the Sweet Sixteen teams) play eight games in four new cities: Memphis, Tennessee; New York City, New York; Anaheim, California; and Indianapolis, Indiana. These 8 games are played between March 27 and March 28. This brings the total games to 60 and the total cities to 13. Lucky 13 for Sweet 16.”

“Are we ready for the next round, whatever it’s called?”

“Get ready. The eight winning teams from the Sweet Sixteen round advance to the “Elite Eight.” In this 5th  round, which is not called the ‘Fifth Round,’ even though it is, there are 4 games, which brings our game total to 64. Since these four games are held in the same four cities as the ‘Sweet Sixteen,’ the city count stays at 13.”

“Do we know in which city each of the 4 Elite 8 games is played?”

“No. No one knows. It ‘s all part of the mystique of the Big Dance.”

“The ‘Big Dance’?”

“That’s what they call the whole tournament.”

“Why?”

“No idea.”

“I’m starting to worry.”

“You should start to get very worried and very excited. There are only a few games left.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. It is an amazing tournament. To continue, the 4 winners of the Elite Eight advance to round 6, which is called the ‘Final Four.’ There are 2 games, which brings our total to 66 games. These 2 games are played in Arlington, Texas, our new city #14.”

“Are we now to the ‘Tremendous Two’?”

“You jest. The next and last game, which is played on April 7, is the long-awaited ‘Championship Game,’  #67 of round #7 in city #14, Arlington, Texas.”

“I can’t wait.”

“I’m with you there.”

“Okay, how many teams, games and cities?”

“To summarize, 68 teams will play 67 games in 14 cities over 21 days from March 18 to April 7.”

“Is that the last dance?”

“That is the Big Dance, and it is a dandy.”

“Oh, golly gee.”

“And, WHEE and away we go. Do you have all that down?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Would you like me to start over?”

“No, please don’t. I’ll just watch it all on TV.”

“A good move, a very good move. You are a fan and smart one too.”

“Am I?”

“You are.”

Are you?

I am.

Grandpa Jim

Back in the old days, the 1960’s and 1970’s, people wanted to talk more with their computers. I remember my first computer — it was just me and my programs. We had good times together, just the two of us, but we were lonely. We wanted some more friends to talk to.

Then one day, someone, or a few of those someone’s, a military person over there, a presidential aspirant here, a professor and a corporate guy and gal said, at their different locations and somewhat different times, but in pretty much the same way: “Let’s have more fun! Let’s talk to each other! Not that limited/centralized/proprietary corporate/government/academic proper talk that we do at work with just a few fellow employees. Let’s all talk together without restrictions.”

The Internet was born in the basements, garages, boardrooms and backrooms of those far-thinkers.

This is my definition of the Internet: “An open, linked, electronic, digitalized, information-sharing network between users and sources.” This was the first Internet, the first information highway, the Internet “1”. Sources made their information available to one and to all. With their servers, they served up a menu of diverse thoughts to anyone with an appetite.

In response, the all of us upgraded our computers and services to reach those servers and their information. One rule bound the many: No rules, no barriers, no red tape, no corporate protocols, no government regulations, no costs beyond the costs of getting on and taking the ride, and no limits. Today, the Internet “1” is as close to limitless as a thing of man and woman can be. It is the stuff of dreams that links us all to all us persons and our things.

Remember “The Brave Little Toaster.” It was a 1980 novel and 1987 movie. A small cabin in the woods is the home of a toaster, a lamp, an electric blanket, a radio and a vacuum cleaner. Their master has left, and the household appliances are lonely and feeling left out. One day, the little friends talk things over and decide to go on an adventure. What follows is the great and grand quest of the talking gadgets to find and communicate with their person. It was a wonder of a story, and it was the start of another and new Internet.

Yes, there is a new Internet on the way to you.

The new Internet of Things is approaching.

Get prepared to meet your appliances.

Internet “1” was between you and me and our data, between the 1^st big people of the airways. As a person, you’re on it now, reading this blog. You are the user. This is a source of information (hopefully somewhat entertaining). You reached here over an open, linked, electronic, digitalized network. You are on the traditional, old-fashioned, people-to-people Internet “1.”

Get ready for Internet “0” — “0” because the Internet is now available to the smallest of things.

It’s all possible because of the new microcontrollers. These are tiny computers for appliances. The size of a pen tip, they cost a few small coins and use almost no power. In a nutshell, they fit the budget of just about everything in your home: the light bulb you’re reading by, the coffee maker over there on the counter, the switch on the wall, the exercise machine you haven’t used in a while, that over-heated TV in the corner, and even your new electronic tooth brush. Toasters, lamps, electric blankets, radios (do we still have radios?) and vacuum cleaners can now speak directly to each other, not just across the cabin in the woods, but to each other around the world. And, we can listen in. And, smart processors can design new programs to use all that data-chatter our appliances are exchanging.

It is the brave new world of the Internet of Things, Internet “0.”

What will they think of next?

And, who?

Grandpa Jim

“Who moved the Breakfast Rock? I am OG, King of the Cave People, and I demand to know who moved the Breakfast Rock. The shadow from the big hill has shrunk back from the Wake-up Rock, which has been in the light for an hour. The Breakfast Rock should be right beside Wake-up, but it was moved back into the morning shadows and is only now catching the sun. I’ve been up for an hour and I’m hungry. Why am I waiting for breakfast? Who moved forward the time for breakfast?”

“It was I, King OG, Benjamin Frankenrock, Thinker of the Tribe, who stands in the rain and watches the lighting strike. I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone enjoy the summer sun for an hour before breakfast. I also moved the Bed-time rock so we can all go to bed an hour earlier and use less wood on the evening fire. Now, we are the first Green Cave Persons Tribe.”

“Benjamin Frankenrock, you have stood too long in the rain. The ‘Green’ movement does not start for thousands of years. Some of you Neanderthals move those rocks to their proper places so we can get back in tune with the sun. And you, Benjamin, why don’t you take a trip to that ‘Paris, France’ you’re always talking about and practice the writing scribble you invented.”

Many years later Benjamin Franklin did just that. He moved to Paris, France. Now, this Benjamin Franklin was the very great great great grandson of the first Benjamin Frankenrock, and like his granddad, Benjamin of the new United States of America liked to stand in the rain, watch the lighting and discover new things like electricity with kites and keys. Well, in an old bookstore in Paris, Benjamin of the US of A discovered some old rock writings signed by a “B. F., Caveman.” Curious, our B. F. studied the drawings. The next morning he woke with a flash and blurted out to the world: “Daylight Savings Time! I have rediscovered it!”

And, he did.

Unfortunately, in the history of Man, Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal, Daylight Savings Time is the most complicated thing that has ever been invented. King OG didn’t understand it. We don’t understand it. No one understands it. But, the daylight savings thing of the Benjamin’s appears here to stay.

I have read many definitions and explanations of Daylight Savings Time and none of them are consistent or particularly lucid. So, I will spring-forward and fall-back to the definition that magically appears when I type “Daylight Savings Time” into my Internet Search Engine (as they say, “When in doubt, just ‘Google it.’”). Here is the definition: “Time as adjusted to achieve longer evening daylight, esp. in summer, by setting the clocks an hour ahead of standard time.”

Whether the rationale is rising earlier to enjoy a pre-jentacular horse ride in the park or staying up later for a post-prandial catch of bugs or round of golf, we will never know which argument won out and convinced the world to change from good old-fashioned caveman sun time. Even the supposed saving of firewood, candles, coal and electricity is up for debate, and it is contested by some whether Daylight Savings Time is “green” after all.

It is no lighter — the sun pays no attention to our clocks or our adjustments of them.

When you do use our modern clocks and you spring forward an hour in the spring and fall back and hour in the fall, which is the simplest description of what you do to be in sync with Daylight Savings Time, it does certainly seem, to us who use the clocks, darker in the morning and lighter in the evening than Sol, our star, intended, and that, for some with their reasons, is apparently a comfort and justification, though, I suspect, for us, the many, it is more a distraction and puzzlement than a cause to stand in the rain with kite and key and wait for the lighting flash.

“Ouch, that hurt!” young Benjamin exclaimed in the rain, holding his kite. “I wonder what time it is. With the wet, my watch is ruined. Oh, no bother, our Sun knows best.”

Well said, Benjamin, well said, as you said, in your book, remember the line: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” That’s what it really is all about. I think we can leave the sun in its hours to Mother Nature, and let King OG have his breakfast on time.

Have a great day – it’s the same number of hours either way.

Grandpa Jim

This day we honor our fallen dead.

178 years ago, on this day, the defenders of the Alamo died.

Those men stayed at their posts and gave their lives that Texas would live today.

*

The most popular tourist site in Texas is an old Spanish mission in San Antonio. It was never much to look at, and it’s not much of a site today: a sprawling complex with a few buildings and a chapel. The chapel has been restored, and the grounds are meticulously maintained, but the place is still not much to look at.

On March 6, 1836, 189 Texans died there.

In the early morning hours of that day, President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna of the centralist government of Mexico ordered 1800 of his men to assault the Alamo Mission. Above his command station, a blood-red flag flew. The defenders had been declared “pirates.” As such, no quarter could be given. It would be a fight to the death.

Because some of the Alamo defenders were related to soldiers under his command, Santa Anna did excuse those relatives in the Mexican forces from joining in the attack. It was a small mercy.

The remaining Mexican soldiers and officers followed their orders. They attacked the mission from one side and were repulsed. Another attack was launched from the other side and was thrown back. Finally, a third attack of the combined forces was made. Overwhelming the defenders with their greater numbers, the Mexican soldiers breached the outlying walls. Uniformed attackers poured into the Mission compound, firing their rifles and stabbing with their bayonets.

Some weeks earlier, the Commanding Officer of the defenders, William B. Travis, had couriered an urgent message “To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World.” Perhaps the most famous part of that letter is this: “I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his honor & that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH.”

Recognizing that attack was imminent and his forces could not prevail, on March 5th Colonel Travis gathered the defenders and explained their circumstances. The position was hopeless. The Colonel gave each the chance to escape or stay. At that time, Travis did not know that three days earlier, on March 2nd, the delegates to the Texas Convention in Washington on the Brazos had voted and declared independence from Mexico. The commander and the volunteers facing him were fighting for a new country, the Republic of Texas. Although they did not know Texas was a sovereign nation, those men knew who they were. They were Texans. The vast majority were from other states and other countries. Almost all the native-born Texans were of Mexican descent. Whatever their origins, they were one and all Texans. They were fighting for their homes, their families and freedom. Each made his own decision. They stayed.

There is little glory in the aftermath of battle. The bodies are collected and buried . . . or burned. Many fell that chilly winter day in the new State of Texas. All the defenders lay on the cold ground. They were joined by many young Mexican soldiers who knew little of why they had fought. Brave men died that day – on both sides.

On April 21st, at the Battle of San Jacinto near present-day Houston, General Sam Houston and his army took General Santa Anna and his army by surprise and defeated the invaders in 18 short minutes. No red flag flew that day. When the captured General presented himself before Sam Houston, Santa Anna asked that the Texans “be generous to the vanquished.” General Houston was. The captured General and his troops were allowed to return to their homes. In granting mercy, Houston did reply to the Mexican Commander, “You should have remembered that at the Alamo.”

“Remember the Alamo” is a cry that echoes still over the old Spanish mission in San Antonio. The buildings themselves may not be much to look at, even with the tender care they receive from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, but they do not go unnoticed. The blood of brave men stained the soil there. The visitors remember and they come. They come because men did not leave that mission. They stayed, they fought, and they died for what they believed.

Remember the Alamo.

*

Thank you for reading.

The body of this post, between the Texas stars, is largely the same as published here on this site before today. This is, however, the first these words have appeared on the anniversary of the battle and its aftermath. For this reason, the words are now seen and felt to share more closely in the memory, the loss and the legacy of the fallen heroes.

We do remember the Alamo,

Grandpa Jim

“What winter is it?”

Apparently, there are two winters: 1) the astronomical winter, and 2) the meteorological winter.

“Did you know that? Who told you that?”

Well, we all know the astronomical winter – I thought. That’s our winter winter. This astronomical winter started December 21, 2013, the winter solstice, the day our sun (sol) said, “No, I’m stopping and standing still (stice) and not moving the day to be any shorter.” On that memorable day of sun-stop, the daylight was the shortest of the year, and the night was the longest and darkest. “Brrrr, it feels like winter.” That winter, this winter, our normal, every-year winter, will end March 20, 2014, the first day of spring, the vernal equinox, the day the daylight and darknight will be equal. Equinox for equal (equi) and night (nox). It’s been that way for ever and ever, or at least as far back as the Romans and their Latin words for it. Those are the normal seasons of our weather, our winter.

“I mean: what’s going on and why the change of season?”

Weathermen and weatherwomen love bad weather. We’ve seen the reporter-forecasters dressed in their shiny plastic slickers bent into the hurricane-force winds shouting to the camera, or garbed in their stylish station-monogrammed ski jackets in a white-out of snow and ice, one hand grasping a light pole or the antlers of a moose, the other gesticulating frantically to the world. What do they have on their faces? You’ve seen it. Admit it. They’re smiling. They are all sporting big happy grins in the worst weather in the universe. Weatherpersons love bad weather. Don’t get me wrong. I love and like my local weather celebrities. I watch them day and night. I’m being honest. They are smiling in the midst of the tempest.

They invented it, the other winter, the meteorological winter. It’s even named after them, the meteorologists.

“Why would they do such a thing? They seem so nice on the telly.”

They are so nice, and they love their work, and they got what they wanted: a colder and more newsworthy winter.

Meteorological winter does not start on the first day of the winter season. Meteorological winter starts on the first day of December and ends on the last day of February. December, January and February are the coldest months of the year. The announced rationale for changing seasons is this: “It makes things more sensible. Those are the coldest months. Everyone can feel that. Why hide behind the sun? The seasons are so outmoded, so old-fashioned. Let’s get the temperatures out in the open where they belong?”

By way of example for the new seasoning of winter, here is a recent headline and the weather folks’ talk from Minneapolis, Minnesota (a notably cold and frozen dominion): “Meteorological winter ended Friday. . . . It was the coldest in a generation. . . .The average temperature was 9.8 degrees . . .That’s the ninth coldest in records going back to 1871. . . . This winter is even more of an aberration when considering the number of days that have seen below-zero temperatures. There were 47 in the Twin Cities – enough for the fourth most on record and the most since the winter of 1935-36. . . .’Yeah, it’s brutal. . . . It’s been a brutal winter.’” The picture at the top of the article shows us all: A very photogenic well-groomed fellow in a blue designer bathing suit is stepping out of a Minneapolis sauna into the cold and snow with – you guessed it – a big smile on his face. He has to be a meteorologist.

You gotta’ love ‘em:  the new meteorologists and their new meteorological winters.

The weather may be the same, but the new seasoning does have a cool say.

Certainly, the new news is newsworthy and the reporting entertaining.

I guess we shouldn’t get stuck in those old seasons of the year.

Still, I feel an attachment to the solstices and equinoxes.

Perhaps, we can have the best of both worlds:

Exciting TV weather persons to watch,

And seasons for a quiet walk.

I’ll see you in the spring.

Whenever it arrives.

Grandpa Jim