Sunday, March 11th, 2012

What a long weekend so far...
All weekend long I have been down in Des Moines at a continuing education course at the Mercy South Physical Therapy location for lectures and lab sessions about manual therapy and the lumbar spine.  It was actually a very good course to take as it was a good refresher of my manual skills and showed me a few different techniques to use at work.  Still it was hard to sit through class from 8 to 5 each day this weekend. 

One thing that made it worse was that on Saturday morning while I was in class I had a text message from Elizabeth which said to call my parents ASAP.  Ok, that doesn't sound good.  I get a break in class and call my mom's cell... and my aunt Deb answers and explains to me that my dad is being transported to Sioux Falls hospital, and they are not sure exactly what happened yet.  OH SHIT.  She tells me just to wait until they can update me further.  Turns out that he just had a bad allergic reaction to medicine and was fine shortly after he reached the Spencer hospital.  They just sent him on to Sioux Falls to run tests and clear everything.  At first when he collapsed at home people were worried that he had a heart attack.  Very scarry. 

Another thing to note about today is that it's Selection Sunday.  The NCAA tournament is finally set!  Until this Thursday, March 15th, PUBLIC ENEMY #1 = CONNECTICUT.  That's right.  Iowa State earned the #8 seed in the South region and will match up against the #9 UConn Huskies. 

Right now I'm not sure exactly how happy I am about this match-up.  Overall, it seems that ISU was given a very difficult draw in the tournament.  They ended up as an 8 which is just what I didn't want because it means they have a very small chance to reach the Sweet 16.  Then UConn is a tough draw for a 9 seed.  They are the defending national champions of all things, and they are very well coached. 

To be honset though, I would like to have ISU match up against teams that are at least noteworthy (defending national champs qualify).  The other 9 seeds ended up being Saint Louis, Alabama, and Southern Miss.  I think UConn is a harder match-up than the other 9 seeds, but if we were playing Saint Louis I really wouldn't be as excited about it.  Southern Miss would have been fun just because their coach used to be our coach. 

If Iowa State is lucky enough to advance past UConn, they will have to play the overall highest #1 seed, Kentucky.  It looks like we have our work cut out for us.