I had a fine time curling at the Poynette Spring Spiel this weekend, finishing runner-up in the fourth event. That's essentially 8th out of 16, but still good enough to be in the jewelry. And not bad for four second-year curlers who'd been off the ice for six weeks. And surprisingly tough competition -- a team with one of the 2003 world champs (Ann Swisshelm-Silver) finished second. She was very nice, real down-to-earth -- she had played against one of us this year, and while chatting with Andrea introduced herself to the rest of us, and I'm thinking "yeah, I know who you are." Nice to know world-class athletes (yes, athletes; I was sore as hell yesterday) can be like that. Of course, if curling meant something to more than 16,000 Americans, things might be different.



Oh, and I also ran into the Taiwanese Curling Club, The Fighting Yams. Now there's a logo! You better believe I'm buying some merchandise.