The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Vikings (Re-Entry!).  You really can't tell how a draft goes until three years down the road.  But that doesn't sportswriters from proclaiming who "won" and "lost" the NFL Draft.  Down those unreasonable lines, the Vikings "won" the draft (which took place more than a week ago, but I forgot to include it last week, so it tops this week's list).

They had picks 23 and 25 in a year with very few, if any, good prospects that might make it to the Pro Football Hall Of Fame, but many good rookies that could go in the teens and twenties of the first round.  But according to General Manager Rick Spielman on SI.com's Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback, the best players, offensive linemen, were taken first, thus pushing defensive players some mock drafts had fairly high into the Vikings' area of the first round.  Spielman, nor anyone else, had no idea that Florida Defensive Tackle Sharrif Floyd, a man some people thought could go as high as third in the draft, would slip all the way into the Vikings' waiting arms at pick 23.  Floyd apparently slipped apparently because he has, like, short arms, like dinosaur arms, or something.  If you look at the picture, I think Floyd's arms are normal enough.

Pick 25 I would have been OK with them taking Manti Te'o.  Linebacker is a need and I thought, especially considering where they were picking, he would have been a great value choice.  But instead they went to fill another weakness, Cornerback (although admittedly every NFL team of this pass-happy league has weakness at Cornerback) and took Florida St.'s Xavier Rhodes.  Intriguing pick; I was initially unhappy, but, like Te'o, he's a good choice late in the first round.

So Spielman started his press conference when he was forced to leave the dais after receiving a phone call.  He needed to take a dump?  No.  Booty call?  No.  Turns out the New England Patriots, who legendarily choose quantity over quality when it comes to the draft, were receptive to the Vikings' offer of giving their 29th pick in exchange for a slew of Minnesota's picks.  I saw one guy on Twitter scream, "No!  Don't do it!!  The Pats are going to turn it into another rookie bonanza!!!"  They might.  Shit, man, Bill Belichick, probably will turn two of the Vikings' four draft picks they received into the Offensive and Defensive Players Of The Year.  But the tweeter implies that this move will haunt the team for the rest of their days, like the Herschel Walker deal.  I would care only if those draft picks specifically beat Minnesota in a future Super Bowl.  Till then, who cares?

Meanwhile, with the 29th pick, I'm salivating as to who will be the team's third first-round pick.  Now would be the perfect time to grab Te'o.  But no!  Led by Jason LaCanfora, whose Twitter feed a followed at Buffalo Wild Wings all night, writers announced before the official on-stage announcement by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that the Vikes were picking someone whom many pundits thought the team would draft all along, as well as someone whom some people thought would be picked before Minnesota had a chance to select him: Tennessee Wide Receiver Cordarrelle Patterson.  The book on Patterson: He only has one year in top-flight college after two years at junior college and his route-running is raw -- bad flashbacks to Troy Williamson -- but he has so much potential.  He will be groomed to be the next Percy Harvin, a slash-type player who could be shifted from the outside to the slot to the Wing-T to the backfield, just to fuck with the other team.

We have no idea if Patterson will pan out.  Neither Floyd nor Rhodes.  But the only real way to evaluate who "won" a draft just after it's over, in my opinion, is to see which team makes the biggest splash.  And with three first-rounders, the Vikings did at least that.

#-2: Timberwolves (Re-Entry!).  They are here because they fired -- OK, technically they decided not to pick up the option -- of President Of Basketball Operations David Kahn.  In his four years since being plucked out of the ether and plugged back into the National Basketball Association after so much time away, he guided the Woofie Dogs to an 89-223 record with, you guessed it, zero playoff appearances.

I didn't think that a playoff spot this year was a guarantee, especially after Kevin Love broke his hand before the season began.  That plus the spate of injuries that decimated the club's year, and I was willing to give Kahn at least another year.  But the way Kahn and Owner Glen Taylor sold this bill of goods, this was supposed to be the year the team finally turns the corner and makes the postseason.  Under that line of thinking, even with the injuries to Love and Rubio and Andrei Kirilenko, et al., heads had to roll.  And Kahn's was the easiest and most obvious.

There are many writers who told Kahn not to let the door hit has ass on the way out.  But to play devil's advocate, I point you to Henry Abbott, lead writer of the TrueHoop NBA blog on ESPN.com, who notes that the team has a rosy future, led by Rubio and Love, after the post-Kevin Garnett Dark Ages.  But to play reverse devil's advocate, what good is a rosy future if the present doesn't lead to a championship.  We Timberwolves fans have been patient with getting shitty seasons out of the way just so we can chug through bad contracts and wait for high draft picks to develop.  But there has to be some dividends at some point.  Let's say they should make the playoffs next year, and not get swept in their first-round series.

I would have fired Kahn because apparently he's an asshole, a weird asshole, as Abbott and many others can attest to.  Also, of the many baffling transactions he made before a real grown-up, Head Coach Rick Adelman, started having a say, he will forever be known for taking Point Guards in back-to-back picks in a draft.  I should put a finer point on his sorry legacy: He will forever be known for following up a great pick in Rubio with an absolutely atrocious pick in Jonny Flynn instead of drafting Stephen Curry (who had an incredible third quarter in Monday's Game 1 thriller loss to San Antonio).

But think about this: If Kahn is doomed to always be known as the guy who passed up Stephen Curry for Jonny Flynn, shouldn't Taylor be similarly known as the guy who hired David Kahn?  Whatever the case, any hire will be seen as a step up, and steps don't get more, uh, upper than bringing back Flip Saunders, Kevin McHale's ex-friend-turned-scapegoat in the 2003-4 NBA season (that's what McHale will always be known for -- well, that and finally trading away KG), this time not as Head Coach but as GM.  He'll get a lot of rope in these parts because he's One Of Us (even though he was born in Ohio).  Saunders was not the problem when the Woofie Dogs fell so precipitously from the Western Conference Finals, but he is unproven in management.  Again, goodwill gives him ample latitude, but he can't waste the talent that this team with the rosy future has, especially if all the key parts are back and healthy from the outset.

#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -1).  Won two of three at Penn St., and so, despite the wide disparity in number of conference games played, they currently sit on top of the Big Ten with an 11-4 record.  They failed to get the sweep of the Nittany Lions in extra innings.  In the top of the 10th they loaded the bases but failed to score with back-to-back grounders (the first cutting off the guy headed home, the second a Grounding Into A Double Play).  In the bottom of the frame with maximum juice and one out, Taylor Skerpon beat out a GIDP to end the game and give the Lions a 4-3 win.

Meanwhile, the U.'s Wednesday game at home vs. St. Thomas was cancelled.  Six of the Gophers' last eight home games have either been postponed or cancelled.  How weird is that shit?  Remember that that includes a complete wipeout of their series against Michigan St., which is why Minnesota has fewer games in the B1G.

If the season were to end today ... well, first of all it'd surprise the shit out of all of us because the season isn't supposed to end today.  But if it were, they probably would still not be in the NCAA Tournament.  They might need to win the conference tournament, which will be held Memorial Weekend at Target Field.  But it would also certainly help if they continue winning.  And to that end, the best part is that they will be home for the rest of the regular season: A midweek showdown with Wisconsin-Milwaukee (assuming they get that game in; the forecast Wednesday calls for rain) followed by the weekend series versus Nebraska (forecast, if I recall correctly, is good, which means I might be going down there for a game).

#-4: Wild (Last Week: 0).  Remember last week when I said I didn't give a shit if the Mild get swept by Chicago?  Yeah, forget I said that, at least for now.  I do give a shit.  And I realized that when Minnesota swung both ways in digging themselves an 0-2 hole.  They were so close in taking Game 1, with Josh Harding admirably standing on his head after being substituted in for Nicklas Backstrom (who couldn't play because he hurt his groin during warm-ups) and Jason Zucker hitting the crossbar in overtime.  Bryan Bickell did not hit the crossbar, and so he gave the Blackhawks a thrilling but ultimately demoralizing 2-1 win.

From what I heard about the game (couldn't see it because of it being on cable and all), it sounded like, despite some TV reporters saying that they played like seasoned veterans, the youngsters on the club, were hanging on for dear life in trying to understand how differently playoff hockey is played than during the regular season.  Therefore it felt like they were going to get blitzed in Game 2 6-0.  It wasn't that bad, but they got blitzed, 5-2.  So they lost a nail-biter and got blown out.  Shit, neither defeat is better than the other.  They're both pretty bad.

So even though I have a friend who offered to sell me tickets to Sunday afternoon's Game 3, I passed.  (He was asking for $80, and that was too rich for my blood.)  Why be witness to a slaughter.  Except that it wasn't a slaughter.  In a game where the Wild managed to take it to Chicago (memories of the old Blackhawks-North Stars almost brought me to tears!), they didn't let a late regulation goal by the 'Hawks rattle them.  In OT, Matt Cullen apparently was able to pass the puck from behind the net on his front after he got tripped to Jason Zucker, who hiked a shot past Corey Crawford the game-winner about 2 1/2 minutes in.  And with that, the team at least hasn't completely embarrassed themselves this series.

I still doubt they're going to win, but you never know.  Game 4 is tonight, about a half-hour after I type this, and if the Wild manage to tie this series at 2 ... hoo-boy.  Whatever happens, the series ends this weekend: Games 6 and 7 are back-to-back, in St. Paul and then in Chicago (even though they are not in the same division, and by the way, I'm so glad that the National Hockey League Players Association finally agreed to realign into four divisions, because that means Minnesota will finally be taken out of their ginned-up Northwest Division "rivals" with Colorado, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver and shoved into traditional Norris Division rivals Chicago and St. Louis).

#-5: Twins (Last Week: -2).  A Stephen Drew double off Jared Burton in the bottom of the 11th prevented the Twinks from reaching .500 for the week, therefore they go 2-4 for the second screening week in a row.  Phil Miller of the Star Tribune thought that this year's Twins team has improved because, among other things, they have been able to prevent sweeps on the road by winning the final games of the series.  That may be true; they did win the third games at Detroit and Cleveland this week.  But if they continue to go 1-2 every series, on the road as well as at home, the club will finish with a record of about 54-108.

After they finish in Boston (thus completing their longest road trip of the year), they start a long homestand Friday with series against Baltimore and the White Sox.

#-Infinity: Swarm (Last Week: Positive Numbers).  Yeah, I was afraid that I would put these guys on such a lofty perch just before they get eliminated.  And now, it's over.  They were playing catchup from the get-go at Rochester, being blanked after one quarter 3-0.  But they stormed back to take a 9-7 lead before the Knighthawks ripped off five in a row to eventually win and take the Eastern Conference Championship (even though the Smarm are in the Western Conference) 12-10.

The Swarm, as you would expect, are putting a positive spin on things, pointing out that Jordan MacIntosh, last week named National Lacrosse League's Transition Player Of The Year (guess you can't call him the Tranny Of The Year) was this afternoon named to the NLL All-Pro First Team.  And yeah, they won their first playoff game for the second year in a row.  Plus, they're a young team and there's an 8/9 chance they'll be in the playoffs again.  But it'll be Rochester against Washington in this season's championship game, and it could have been the Swarm, and since it's not, this season ends in failure.

Waste Sunday

Yesterday I went to the car parts store to finally, once and for all, change the busted tail light.  Damn tail light warning light on my dashboard has been pissing me off for months.  Thought I had the right-sized socket for it, but I was wrong, but I finally got the right one.  I thought.

Car parts stores are now awesome because I am now able to borrow some of the tools I need for free.  God bless 'em!  So I got a used screwdriver, screwdriver socket, and clamp-down wrench to remove the lining, jar loose the tail light assembly, and change the bulb.  And when the bulb that I had was the wrong one, I just had to go back inside and buy the right kind.

I checked it out and everything, I swear.  I even placed my bookbag on the brake pedal to make sure which tail light was broken.  But when I changed it and put everything back, drove off and pressed the brake pedal ... the warning light did not come on.  Until five seconds later, when it came back on.

So I worked on this for almost an hour, spent $4+ for new tail light bulbs, and used this much elbow grease, and I didn't change shit?  Fuck.  What a goddamn waste.

---

Afterwards I went to Wendy's for lunch.  Have a bunch of coupons from work, and I wanted to use them before they expire next weekend.  However, I had lunch with my parents before going out to the auto parts store -- noodles, and they were awesome, as usual.

Therefore, I wasn't hungry.  And yet I went to Wendy's instead.  I initially declined Mother's request for noodles.  But then Father asked me, and like I usually do when the second parent asks if I want something, my "no" turns into a "yes."  Besides, they are away for the next two weeks, so maybe they wanted to spend more time with me while it was possible (even though we were going to have dinner later that day anyway).

The question thus has to be asked: Why did I go to Wendy's?  Don't know, really.  I did wolf it down without a problem.  The small bowl of noodles helped.  And I was going to work out after this.  But I also wanted to go back because I failed to write down the amount of the Wendy's I ate in previous days and weekends for my Expenses Without Receipt.  Also, I wanted to try the other Flatbread Grilled Chicken Sandwich I didn't have last week, but I forgot which one, and I wanted to eat there again to try to see if I could remember which one I had eaten so I could try out the other one Sunday.  (BTW, I decided that I ate the cheaper honey mustard one last weekend, so I bought the more expensive ranch one.  Hope I'm right.)

Regardless of all that, I spent $4+, again, for food I wasn't hungry for?  What a goddamn waste.

Addendum To: Three Things

Now I remembered what I wanted to talk about here instead of my Saturday!

On Thursday, in anticipation of Wear Your Favorite Sports Team's Jersey To Work Day the following day, I hauled out my North Stars sweater.  I had it drycleaned a couple years ago (or thereabouts), but I had not noticed that the instructions say not to dry clean but to instead wash it like you would any other clothes.  (I thought that since it was a really expensive jersey with embroidered logo and fight strip, it would need special attention.  My bad.)

The drycleaner marks every piece of clothing with a computer-generated tag.  The place I went to attaches that tag to the cleaning tag on my North Stars jersey with a pin.  Normal people usually take that pin out as soon as they bring it home.  I am not a normal person.  I didn't take off that computer-generated tag.  In fact, I had kept it on ever since I got it back.  I have worn it, oh, about a dozen times since it was last cleaned, and I am not ashamed that I wore that sweater with the drycleaning tag and pin still on.

What?  It wasn't like it was showing.  Besides, it was low enough only to press against my upper back, and there you couldn't even feel it.

But this time, on Thursday, I thought it was time to be normal.  I love my job, and I didn't think I could jeopardize the perception that I was a hard ... er, good ... OK, just an adequate worker by doing something as "strange" as wear a jersey with the drycleaner tag still pinned onto it.  So I took it off.

And there I found a notable thing, or at least a thing notable enough to write on Wailing And Failing.  I had never noticed the date on the tag, the day when it either was dropped off, processed or picked up: Tuesday, August 2, 2011.  I finally removed the tag Thursday, May 2, 2013.  I finally took the tag off of my Minnesota North Stars sweater a year and nine months to the fucking day.

That can't be just a coincidence, y'all.  That's a sign.  For something.

Work Has Been Killing Me, In A Way

I am now more adjusted to a very early sleep schedule, where I am so tuckered out by the day (and, I must say, the commute, which I kind of melted down on on my way home yesterday even though, as afternoon rushes go, it wasn't the worst) that after work and maybe a shower (I'm violating The Contract!!!) I am ready for bed.  More and more often as I go through this project this has been happening to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for the work (I going in for overtime in a few hours) and sleep is great whenever you need and/or get it.  But that means I push what I usually try to do in the evenings till after I get up.  And sometimes I don't want to get up.  Sometimes I want to roll around and try and get some quick nightmare sleep before I actually have to get up for good.

Couldn't do that today, and took myself five minutes of trying to see if I could just pass out again before I reluctantly got up.  There are things I had to do, like blog here, make a very fast write-up about the Kentucky Derby, and map out a new way to get to work because this weekend part of my old way to work is closed.  I'll probably get all of this done by the time I actually have to head out to work.

But it should all be worth it in the end.  After I deposit my payroll check I'm going to roll out to see my ATF.  She's gonna yank my pee-pee somethin' fierce today!

The Things I Like About The Home Remodel:

In decreasing order of importance and need:

1. The complete tearing down of the downstairs/master bathroom.  I will spare the sink, which was tiny and had a very old faucet because it still worked and worked well.  And yes, the wallpaper took you back to the 70's, but hey, it's just wallpaper.  But everything else had to go.  If I had to start somewhere, it'd be the shower.  Father tried to redo the shower walls about a decade ago but the linoleum either buckled or he installed too much because it didn't fit right up against the wall.  Plus the shower was so old the bottom was beginning to rust.  And, it just had a curtain, letting all the water seep out through the bottom.  That's fixed with a glass door in the brand-new shower.  Then there is the leaking pipes above the ceiling.  They tore the whole bathroom down to the studs, probably in order to find where and how big the leak is.  It's been there a long time; whenever a faucet from the kitchen or upstairs bathroom has been running a long time, after it's shut off you can still hear drops coming from inside the walls or ceiling.  And for a long time those drops eventually started to warp the ceiling of the master bathroom.  It was so bad, for years My Father placed a metal bowl where there were drips coming down from the ceiling.  I don't think there was a constant drip-drip, but if there were, I think it was where he put it, all those years ago.  I know they stopped the water in order to change a pipe somewhere, and that was long over due.  Then there was the toilet, which never flushed completely; the water would just bubble and gurgle, then maybe it would flush in that ba-whoosh! sort of way where it would all evacuate through the bowl.  Plus it always seemed to be running.  And finally, the floor.  I usually don't think floors need updating, but when it's cracked from all the shower water runoff it's absorbed, maybe it can go.  I wondered why they did the upstairs bathroom first since that was perfectly good and the downstairs one was in such bad shape.  At least they got to both, and now the floor, the guts, the toilet and the shower all work splendidly.
2. The overhaul of the kitchen sink and its pipes.  I have mentioned that the entire kitchen has been redone.  And it looks great, don't get me wrong.  But even though you were stuck in a time warp whenever you prepared food, the formica countertop still, you know, worked.  What didn't work was the sink.  Well, it did work, as in you opened up the spigot and water came out.  But it too had a leaky pipe.  Also, Father kind of did a number on it many years ago when trying to take out the sink system and figure out where the leak was coming from.  He bollixed the re-installation and resorted to re-caulking the whole damn thing with, like, two whole tubes.  You should have seen it; what we used as a backsplash was instead a large, hardened, shitty-looking tan mass of caulk that was smeared by someone both blind and drunk.  It looked ghastly; so ghastly, in fact, that this was the only time I thought a fixture around the house had to be replaced only because it looked terrible.  Now, there was that matter of a leak, too, and fortunately the contractors got to the bottom of that when they ripped out all the cabinets.  The new sink, wider and deeper, looks great, but more important than that, there is no dripping after you turn off the faucet and there's no dried caulk that makes the appliance looks like trailer trash.
3. The tearing down of the side fences.  This is news to me.  And this started ... um, let's see ... when I was helping Father dig up the backyard to make way for my parents' garden it was still there on Saturday, and I think I noticed the fences were torn down after I came home from work and thinking, "Well, at least this makes it easier for me to take out the recycling bin tomorrow" on Tuesday, so between Saturday and Tuesday.  (Guess I should have written the exact day down.)  Well, let's see ... Tuesday morning I think was the day the city tore up our driveway for some fucking reason, and I think the fences down by then.  So I'm guessing it happened either Sunday or Monday, and I'm leaning toward Monday.  Anyway, I had never thought putting up the fences was necessary; when Father put them up they were the highest (and thus most hostile) fences in the neighborhood.  Since then I have seen many fences like that in the neighborhood -- none as high, but most have that same "don't fucking even come close to our house" message.  But the doors of both fences weren't flush and didn't close properly, so we had to use cinder blocks to secure them shut.  And the one to the right was very loose; several years ago that door tore off its hinges and Father and I had to spend an afternoon trying to nail it back on, and it was still uneven against the other door.  So, although I've come to understand the security features, those fences were coming apart.  Besides, all somebody had to do was move the cinder blocks (no one would be able to hear) to get into our backyard.  I just don't know if the contractor who's redoing the fences -- the same one that took what seemed like years (complete with not one but two sabbaticals) to finally renovate the master bathroom -- will be coming around when my parents are away and I'm at work to finish the job.

And I think those are all the good things about the remodel.  Now, soon I will list all the bad things.  Trust me, it'll be both longer and more impassioned.

Three Things

1. I finally had time to cash in my paycheck.  But when I saw the new total, it was at least $500 less than what I thought my balance would look like.  I'll be totally honest: I was hovering around a grand total in my account.  I hadn't been that low since my darkest days in El Paso.  I had to check if everything was OK, specifically if I transferred my entire CD and paid my credit card in time.  I did.  Everything checked out ... which means that I really am down to my last my dollars.  Well, at least until the paycheck.  I do get paid tomorrow as well, and I can't wait to cash that in, just so I can look at my checking account like I did an Ethiopian child back in the 80's.  But shit, I once had an account that exceeded five figures, and now I'm flirting close to one that has only three.  What happened to me?  Or, what happened to Real Life?
2. Because of this I got into a panic about this future paycheck.  I have looked up the deductions.  For record-keeping purposes, I pay 6.2% out of every paycheck for Social Security, 1.45% out of every paycheck for Medicare ... and an uncertain percentage for federal and state taxes.  (I just tried calculating how much I get deducted for those two things from two previous paychecks and they were different for both.)  So I don't know exactly how much money I'm going to lose to the government.  Every penny I have to pay is less that goes in to replenish my account.  And I am already fucking anxious.
3. I forgot the third thing, so I'm going to either assume or make this the third thing: I am happy that we got overtime available Saturday.  I certainly need all the money I can get.  But I had a, ahem, "session" planned with my All-Time Favorite then.  I could get there if I can push it back an hour.  I need the relaxation, but I wouldn't mind if I could save my money if she says no or otherwise flakes out.  I should just be happy that I have the work.

The Very Last Snowstorm Of The Winter Was All For Naught

From yesterday morning up to about the evening news last night, there was talk that we got socked with yet another blizzard.  And up to half a foot, which was our total for two of our three April snowstorms.  Hell, the record for most snowfall in any May (the whole month) is only three inches.  That did not sit well with me, at all.  I am more than done with this fucking winter, and I hated to prepare by sleeping in early just so I could wake up early so I can shovel.

Well, imagine my surprise when I got up and looked through my window and saw that the roads were wet but not covered in slushy snow that I would have to shovel.  I received good news on the late news: The Winter Storm Warning was dropped both for the counties I live in and work.  Honestly, if we were going to be inconvenienced by such a long and bad winter, might as well set the record.  But at least I can take the time I had set aside for shoveling to do the blogging I wanted to do late at night.

The weatherman for Minnesota Public Radio, Paul Huttner, I have found to be a bit overestimated when it comes to his forecasts.

Timing When I Send In My Health Insurance Do-Over Forms

I have my half-year health insurance renewal through the state coming up -- or, rather, came up.  I did not fill it out to the state's satisfaction, so I have one more chance to get it right by the end of the month, which was yesterday (Tuesday), or I really do lose my health insurance.

So I did everything they asked.  I filled in all the "No" bubbles, I sent a letter explaining my current work situation, and I copied and sent said copies of the paystubs I got after I had to send the renewal application the first time.  However, I did not send it out immediately.  I thought I would, but I made the mistake of cashing out my entire Certificate of Deposit a couple weeks ago while I was furloughed from my job.  I liquidated the CD in order to pay off my credit card bill, which I was going to do after the billing period cycled over.  But what if the person deciding whether or not I get health insurance through the state checks on my checking account (I believe they can do that) and sees that I have more cash than I said I did, even though that money will promptly be spent?

It's at this point the wheels start turning and go down the rabbit hole and all rational thought goes out the window.

I can't pay off my credit card bill till I know how much is on it, so the money that's in there has to stay in there a little longer than I planned.  But I then run up on the Tuesday deadline, and missing that will mean I get no health insurance, and that's plenty worse.  But what happens if I am deemed too "rich" to get health insurance through the state?  I'd get no health insurance then anyway.

And on top of all that I got a few paychecks I wanted to cash in immediately to shore up my account.  But that would also damage my standing with the state.  Decisions, decisions.

So I needed to thread a needle: Delay sending in the health insurance renewal form until I deplete my checking account in order to pay off my debts, but don't delay it so much that I'm late completely.  The person who decides this needs to know the real truth about how much money I really have, and so she or he needs to know that after I pay off my credit card I'm still in a world of hurt.

Therefore, I decided to send in my renewal Thursday.  And since I decided I'd stay out to watch the NFL Draft at Buffalo Wild Wings (and not Hooters like I wanted), that seemed like a good time to kill two birds with one stone and drop off my renewal form while visiting Eden Prairie Mall, a place I hadn't been to since getting passes to see the pilot of the TV show House a decade ago through Entertainment Weekly (I brought my sister) because it's so far away from where I live, yet is about 20 minutes away from where I currently work.  It's your basic, proud, run-of-the-mill mall.

It took me about a half-hour to find its mailbox.  When I opened it up, it said the pick-up time is at 5 during the week.  It was past 5 last Thursday.  So I started to panic.  The mailman won't pick it up until after 5 Friday, or after the workweek is over.  This has to go to my county seat, so about an hour north of where the mailbox was.  Do they sort things Friday nights?  Do they sort them Saturdays, or even Sunday evenings?  Theoretically the distance between the mailbox and the county seat is so short that I guess it could be delivered Saturday afternoon.  But, well, first of all, government offices are closed.  And second, what if I was wrong?  What if they're not going to even look at it until, say Monday?  It would be five days from letting the renewal application slip out of my hands to it being opened by someone in authority, but I was truly scared that it would not hit the government office until yesterday (Tuesday), the last day of the month.  And if it probably wouldn't get there until then, there's always a chance that the beleaguered United States Post Office could delay it until -- fuck -- today (Wednesday).  The 1st of May.  Or, in other words, too fucking late to help me get my health insurance renewed.

Moreover, the next day, as I was driving home from work, I decided to take the long way around because I thought it might be less congested than the freeway I usually take home.  (It wasn't, by the way.)  Along the way I saw a post office, right next to the complex where I work.  I had noticed it once or twice before, but it never occurred to me to drop off my health insurance do-over forms there.

Let's just hope I'm paranoid and hope for the best, shall we?

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Positive Numbers: Swarm (Last Week: -4).  Just realized that if I continue this practice of giving teams that win playoff games spots in the survey above -1, they will suffer precipitous falls once they get eliminated.

Well, so be it.  It's always a surprise whenever a Minnesota team is successful in the postseason.  Even more so for the Swarm, who won only their second-ever playoff game Sunday afternoon.  They did it against odds as insurmountable as they would be in this season's National League Playoffs: On the road against Toronto, the best team in the league.  And they didn't just paper the Rock, they destroyed them by a score of 20-11.  They outscored Toronto all four quarters but put the game away in the second, outscoring the Rock 5-1.  Five guys scored hat tricks, led by the prolific Ryan Benesch, who added six assists with the three goals he scored.

In short, the Swarm probably turned in the best game of the season; it's great that they did it in the playoffs.  Onward and upward -- and still on the road, since not only do they have the worst record of the eight teams that started the postseason, but since five teams from the Western Conference made it while only three from the East did, Minnesota will have to travel eastward in order to win the Champion's Cup.  The Eastern Conference Final is Saturday afternoon in Rochester against the Knighthawks.

#0: Wild (Last Week: -3).  They didn't necessarily finish with a flourish.  With Detroit leapfrogging the Mild in the Western Conference playoff standings and Columbus breathing down their necks (finishing the year 19-5-5), they turned in a really shitty performance in getting dicksmacked by a team that had nothing to play for, Edmonton, 6-1 Friday at home.  But on Tuesday they fought to a 2-1 win over defending champion Los Angeles at the X (a game where Dustin Brown hit Jason Pominville with an elbow that doesn't seem as dirty as other people say; it's not as if Brown was looking up and aiming his elbow at Pominville), then on Saturday they showed enough grit in outlasting Colorado in Colorado 3-1.  They and the Blue Jackets end the season tied in points, but the Wild win the tie-breaker, which is more wins.

Their prize for finishing grabbing the West's 8th seed?  An opening-round Stanley Cup Playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks, the President's Cup winner and the team that started off the season winning, like, 21 games in a row.  Do the Wild have a chance?  Sure they do.  It is hockey, after all, where you can truly throw the records out the window.  Remember the Kings last year; they won the Stanley Cup as the West's 8th seed, the same place the Wild are this year.

But really, do they have a shot?  Uh ... no.  And honestly, I don't care.  Yes, I'm one of those people who still thinks that any season that falls short of winning the championship is a failed one, and therefore if Minnesota doesn't hoist Lord Stanley's Cup, it will, technically, be a failure.  But my expectations for this team this year was to reach the playoffs, and although they were leaking a shit-ton of oil, they made it.  (Aside: And you can largely credit them making the postseason to their double-major acquisitions last off-season, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.  Without the scoring of the former and the yeoman's ice time of the latter, there's no telling where the hell this team, this franchise, would be.)  They remain a very young team, so any experience, any ass-kicking they receive, should be lessons for Jason Zucker and Charlie Coyle and Jonas Brodin and Mikael Granlund and all the young Wild players that will be participating in this series.  It's OK to be swept this year; just work hard so you can actually win games and series next year.  And hell, if you win a game or two, even better.  And if you win three or even -- gulp -- four?  Fuck, that's just gravy.

Series starts today (Tuesday).  Game 2 is Friday, which is the day we're asked to wear our favorite sports jerseys to work.  I think I will break out my North Stars jersey for that.

#-1: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  A 5-3 midweek win over North Dakota St. at Siebert, followed by taking 2-of-3 in Iowa, and the one game they dropped, the Friday one, they lost 10-9 in ten innings (although the Goofs blew a 9-4 lead and allowed the Hawkeyes to score the game's last six runs).

Going into the last month of regular season play, it's good to look at the team's NCAA Tournament prospects.  In the latest "College Stock Report," Baseball America writer Aaron Fitt's version of college basketball's Bracketology, which went out last Tuesday, he considers the Gophers a "Bubble Out" team.  Despite them being 9-3 in the Big Ten and 26-14 overall (granted this does not include the team's 3-1 screening week), they have an RPI too low to even be considered.  Now, if they keep winning conference series that definitely could change.  But Fitt seems to think their best chances of making it to the postseason is to win the Big Ten Conference Tournament ... which will be played Memorial Weekend at Target Field.  Plus, Fitt thinks the starting rotation, if healthy, could stand toe-to-toe with the rest of the conference if it goes down to a double-elimination scenario.

But first they must continue to win.  Wednesday they host St. Thomas before embarking on their final road series of the year this weekend at Penn St.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -1).  A 2-4 week which technically began with the second half of the Tuesday doubleheader, an 8-5 loss to Miami.  They then dropped the first two games of their four-game series with Texas before winning Saturday and Sunday to finish their homestand at 3-3, which was blown up to be more than it actually was by many pro-Twinks pundits around town.  With Monday's 4-3 loss in Detroit, a game where Mike Pelfrey held a 3-1 lead but gave up a three-run dong to Prince Fielder in the sixth for the decisive blow -- they now sit at 8-8.  That is a hell of a lot better than last year, but they're not winning the World Series, either.

The scary thing now is Joe Mauer's hitting slump, which currently sits at 0-for-20 after his 0-for-4 failing Monday in the Motor City.  This is the first time in his professional career Mauer has gone five straight games without a hit.  That should be worrisome.  On the bright side is Kevin Correia, the closest team this squad has to an ace.  He hasn't been lights-out, but he's been steady enough to already garner three wins.  This makes up for putative ace Vance Worley, who has been more down than up.

After finishing up against the Tigers, they have Thursday off before continuing their longest (one of their longest?) road trips of the year by playing a trio against Cleveland.  They immediately travel to Boston to play the Red Sox starting on Monday.

#-3: Gopher soccer (Re-Entry!).  This happened more than a week ago, so this really should have been in last week's WMNSS, but sue me.  Sophomore Striker Taylor Uhl, who scored 21 of the Goofs' 44 goals last season in which they probably were one penalty-kick loss away from reaching the NCAA Tournament, has decided to leave the program.  There's no telling where she's going, although a person on this women's soccer message board thinks the top destinations are Marquette, Portland and Stanford.

Scuttlebutt on this same board believe Uhl's last straw was when she was told, possibly by Head Coach Stefanie Golan, that she couldn't practice this spring because of "fitness reasons."  There has to be more to it than this.  Whatever the case, Golan, a coach known for her defense, will now have to replace what really was her whole offense last year.  At times Uhl was fantastic, a woman among girls.  Who the hell is going to score now?

When Did The Last Snow Melt Away At Your Place?

I wanted to write about this last year, but I forgot the date.  However I am at most two days late for the last day that snow was on the grounds of our house.

What I remember was that when Father roped me into digging part of the backyard to make room for a vegetable garden early Saturday afternoon, I saw him dig up snow in another part of the backyard.  I remember seeing some at the front of the house, but unfortunately I don't remember when it all disappeared. So Saturday afternoon was the last time I saw snow around the house.  And since the temperature reached the seventies that day, I will assume -- assume -- that ice-out happened Saturday.

Then again, there are snow showers forecast this week.  Fucking great.