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My sister-in-law, Georgetta, called me Friday afternoon because she had a cut on her head that she thought would need stitches. Of course my first question was, “What happened?”

Well… here goes…

My brother, Blake, went out to his shop, and the door was jammed. He opened the big doors and tried to get the regular door open from the inside, but couldn’t. He asked George to help him, so she tried to pry the door open. When she stopped, Blake walked to the back of the shop – to get a running start – so he could jump into the door and bust it open.

In the mean time, George decided to do more prying and asked Blake to wait a minute. He was already at the back of the shop, though, and didn’t hear her. She was down in front of the door prying away as Blake ran and jumped into it.

Needless to say, Blake flew through the door knocking it into George.

She actually did need stitches, but wouldn’t go to the hospital. She also has some bumps and bruises, but she is okay.

It is one of those things that isn’t really funny, but I couldn’t help laughing as she told me the story … Luckily, she laughed with me.

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It’s summertime again (okay, I know it won’t officially be summer until June 21 — but that’s beside the point) and that usually means a long dry spell for sports. Actually, it’s not just sports, but television in general has pretty slim pickings. Whoever it was that called television a “vast wasteland” must have done so after channel surfing on a Saturday afternoon during the summertime.

Baseball and NASCAR are approaching the midpoint of their schedules, but those sports have long, drawn out seasons, making it tough to get too jazzed up over a single game or race. However, there are a few things going on in the sports world worthy of attention.

First, in the NBA playoffs, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics have each made their respective conference finals. I haven’t watched the NBA very much over the past few years, but even I would be interested in a Lakers-Celtics final.

If you don’t want to wait until September and October for meaningful (and entertaining) baseball, the NCAA Baseball Tournament gets underway this weekend. The 64-team field will be whittled down to the eight teams that will advance to the College World Series in Omaha. I don’t keep up with college baseball during the regular season, but the NCAA Tourney and the CWS usually provide lots of drama and excitement for baseball fans.

Also, the Little League World Series will be played later in the summer. If you’ve never watched the LLWS, I urge you to check it out. It’s great fun to watch the kids play their hearts out for the love of the game and a desire to win.

For me, personally, the best thing about summer is the realization that each day that passes brings us one day closer to the start of football season. The NFL preseason starts Aug. 3. Only 68 more days! And, best of all, just three short months from today — Aug. 28 — marks the beginning of the college football season!
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My aunt, Pat Melton, passed away this morning after a short battle with cancer. Although it is always hard to lose someone you love, I'm thankful that she is now at peace and won't be suffering anymore.

As a kid, I loved to visit her house. She was always smiling and made you feel at home. She made the best baked beans I have ever eaten, and they always had the best toys or gadgets to play with (and still do - just ask Briar or Brad). I actually used my first computer at her house many, many years ago.

Aunt Pat was a huge NASCAR fan; she even won the Mark Martin truck that was given away a few years ago after the NASCAR season.

She loved life and her family and lived every day to the fullest. She was one of a kind and will definitely be missed.

Others in the office were talking about nicknames today. It got me to thinking…

A nickname is a name of an entity or thing that is not its proper name. It may either substitute or be added to the proper name. It may be a familiar or truncated form of the proper name, such as Angie – for Angela.

I’m also called Ang a lot. I guess that would be a nickname for a nickname. I don’t know. In school I was called “Big Ang.” Looking at me now you would think it is because I am big… I wasn’t then, though. They called me that because I was very small.

My husband called me AJ until we got married and I was no longer an AJ, and my Granny Tate always called me Hannie.

My little brother, Blake, is better known as Possum, and my older brother, Rodney, is either Hot Rod or Cougar.

Briar and Brad are #1 and #2, my niece, Kylie, is Booger, and Jarah is Tiger or JJ. My nephew Drake is Big D, and Grace, my other niece, is Gracie. I think nicknames are supposed to be shorter than the original name, so I’m not sure what happened there.

Anyway, you get the picture.

I’ve shared some of mine … feel free to share yours, too!

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At times while getting ready for work in the mornings, I will turn to my eight-year-old niece, Jarah, to ask how something looks - my hair, makeup, clothes, etc. She never fails to tell me how “great” everything looks.

I know that I don’t always – or ever, for that matter – look great, but I have trusted her not to let me leave the house looking like a fool. My hair is the last thing I fix, or don’t fix in my case. I’m a wash, comb and go girl. The other day, I took a towel off my head and quickly towel dried my hair. It was standing up everywhere.

I looked at Jarah and asked about my hair, I told her I was trying a new style. She quickly told me it looked “great.” Thinking I’d call her bluff, we headed out the door. Halfway to school, I couldn’t take it any more, I asked Jarah if she was really going to let me go to work with my hair uncombed.

She again assured me how good it looked. I keep a brush in my car, and was able to tame my wild tresses before entering The TD building.

This morning, I thought my hair looked about normal, and was ready to leave the house only to have Jarah tell me how horrible it looked. I didn’t even ask her opinion this time.

I didn’t have time to do anything to fix it, so I walked around all day with my horrible hair.

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Aside from occasionally forgetting that my family has moved and driving to our old house, we have settled in quite nicely. All the boxes have disappeared and everything has its place.

As a child, we lived in the “country,” and I hated it. As an adult, I love it.

We had a housewarming party a couple of weeks ago. Lots of our family and friends came and shared refreshments and visited with us. We had a great time.

We also had a opossum that visited our house for about three weeks. He would eat dog food and then go about his business. I have pictures of the animal on my cell phone and watched for it every night. My husband, however, has put an end to these visits. We have lots of other critters to take its place, though.

Briar and Brad seem to really like the new house. They have friends who live nearby, and they have been spending a lot of time at our house. We also have a bigger yard, so they have been spending more time outside.

Everything is still new to us, but it seems as if we made a good move.

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The first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament are in the books and, as usual, there were a few surprises. Four of the remaining 16 teams — West Virginia, Davidson, Villanova and Western Kentucky — are double-digit seeds.

As expected, the #1 seeds in each region are still alive. The same goes for the #3 seeds. Only two of the #2s, Tennessee and Texas, are still in it, while Georgetown and Duke bit the dust in the second round. The #4 seeds were even less fortunate, with Washington State being the only one still standing.

Now, on to the Sweet Sixteen:

East Region
This is the only region where the top four seeds have advanced to the semifinals. In fact, ninth-seeded Arkansas’ first-round win over #8 Indiana has been the only “upset” so far.
#1 North Carolina vs. #4 Washington State. It’s hard to imagine anyone beating the Tar Heels right now.
#2 Tennessee vs. #3 Louisville. I pick Louisville in a mild upset.

Midwest Region
#1 Kansas vs. #12 Villanova. The Jayhawks will put an end to ‘Nova’s Cinderella run.
#3 Wisconsin vs. #10 Davidson. Davidson beat an outstanding defensive team, Georgetown, in the second round and will face another one in Wisconsin. I’ll go with the Badgers.

South Region
#1 Memphis vs. #5 Michigan State. Memphis has too much firepower and too many athletes for the Spartans.
#2 Texas vs. #3 Stanford. I’m picking the winner of this game to go to the Final Four. It’ll be Stanford.

West Region
#1 UCLA vs. #12 Western Kentucky. UCLA survived a scare against Texas A&M in the second round. They’ll romp and stomp over the Hilltoppers.
#3 Xavier vs. #10 West Virginia. The Mountaineers will be the only Cinderella in the Elite Eight.

Final Four: UNC, Kansas, Stanford and UCLA.
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Saturday my family had a reunion at Lake Frierson State Park. We had several who were unable to attend and were missed, but overall we had a good turnout.

I was very surprised, yet glad, to see long-time family friends Delbert and Mary Gall. Having her homemade pickles and deer sausage was a big treat.

I enjoyed catching up with everyone. While talking with a cousin, I had a feeling of nostalgia, watching our children running and playing together. It doesn’t seem like very long ago when we were the ones running and playing while our parents sat and visited.

In the past several years, we haven’t had a big family get together, and I didn’t realize how much I missed everyone.

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My second favorite sporting event of the year, the NCAA Basketball Tournament, gets underway Thursday. Actually, that’s not correct. The tournament technically starts Tuesday when Coppin State and Mount St. Mary’s play in the ‘play-in’ game for the right to get blown out by North Carolina in the first round.
Random thoughts on each of the regions:

East Region
This region has more potential upsets than any other region.
If the “good” Arkansas team shows up, they will beat Indiana. Heck, if the Razorbacks play like they did Saturday against Tennessee, they could give North Carolina a run for the money in the second round.
George Mason, Winthrop, St. Joseph’s and South Alabama are all lower-seeded teams that have a chance to pull upsets.

Midwest Region
Three first-round games stand out in this region.
The Kansas State-USC game may have the most marquee value of any first-round game. The game will feature two of the country’s top freshmen, in K-State’s Michael Beasley and USC’s O.J. Mayo.
Clemson-Villanova could be another outstanding matchup.
Tenth-seeded Davidson, playing close to home in Raleigh, N.C., should upset 7th-seeded Gonzaga.

South Region
None of the first-round games really stand out to me.
For an upset, I’ll pick 12th-seeded Temple to beat 5th-seeded Michigan State.
Looking ahead, Memphis versus Mississippi State could make for an interesting second-round contest, but the Bulldogs will have their hands full with Oregon in the first round.

West Region
Again, none of the first-round games jump out at me.
Fourteenth-seeded Georgia will try to continue its Cinderella post-season run against 3rd-seeded Xavier.
Purdue-Baylor and Arizona-West Virginia could also be interesting.
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Arkansas State University officially announced that Red Wolves would be the university’s new mascot. On Thursday they unveiled the new logo. When I saw the new logo, my first reaction was, “It ain’t got no eyeballs. Where are the eyeballs?” I must say, though, I really like the new logo. I think it would look great on their football helmets. I’ve never cared for the ‘stAte’ logo they’ve used for the past several years. The new wolf would look much better, even without eyeballs.
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Speaking of ASU, Nolan Richardson announced the other day that he was no longer a candidate to replace Dickey Nutt as head basketball coach. Personally, I can’t believe he was ever seriously considering the job.

Nolan’s a great coach and his accomplishments speak for themselves (a national championship at Arkansas, an NIT championship, a junior college national championship, etc.), but there’s no way that ASU, or the Sun Belt Conference would have provided a big enough stage for Nolan and his Texas-size ego.

One interesting rumor going around on the internet was that Nolan was asking ASU for a deal similar to the one Bobby Knight got at Texas Tech a few years ago: Nolan would coach a couple of years, then turn the job over to his son, Nolan III (a.k.a. Notes). I don’t know if it’s true or not, but if it is, that certainly would have been a deal-breaker.

Notes was the head coach at Tennessee State a few years ago. One day after practice he got into an argument with one of his assistants. Notes went to his car and got a gun and went back into the gym, looking for the assistant.

On second thought, maybe ASU should go ahead and hire Notes. It could have its advantages. For example, if I’m a referee working an ASU game, you could be assured that Notes’ team is going to get every close call.
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