Excuse the absence.

I got back from Montana on Sunday night. The family's all doing well. Lea and I ran roughshod over the City of Great Falls and managed to plan an entire wedding in the course of two days: met with the church, the country club, the florist, Kaufmann's for the tuxes, Insty Prints for the invitations, and then followed it up with my cousin Brad's wedding, which just happened to also be at St. Ann's Cathedral (read: dress rehearsal). Game on. Unfortunately, the kilts will not be making an appearance on September 23.

Just this afternoon, I dropped off my application for admission to the Minnesota Bar. It cost four hunny just to process the thing. So basically I'm paying the state bar association $400 to determine whether I'm lying to them about my character and fitness. You'd think I was signing up for the Secret Service.

Thoughts on everything else that's happened this week:

• I love the WBC. This thing is an unmitigated success. It's even better than Olympic baseball because it happens during spring training when Major League Baseball is less reluctant to allow its players to participate (rightly so since they put it together). And even if the U.S. is eliminated in the next couple days (which t-mac notes is a distinct possibility), I'll still be happy with it. The European hussies that collectively eliminated baseball as an Olympic sport did so partly because the U.S. and a handful of other countries dominate it. Any baseball player already knows this isn't true. Matter of fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a summer sport that is more global than baseball outside of soccer and track-and-field events. If the U.S. can be beaten by Canada and Korea and Cuba can be taken out by the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, then there is obviously fertile ground for baseball globally. It's officially out for London in 2012, but I expect hellfire if baseball and softball aren't re-added for 2016.
• Griz v. Reno. Montana pulls a #12 seed in the Minneapolis region of the Big Dance. In honor of that, all posts will be in maroon as long as the Griz are still in it. Nevada-Reno is first on the list. This is the second trip to the NCAA tourney in two years with Krystko as coach. Krystko is the man. My picks: Final four will be Duke, 'Zaga, UConn, and Florida. UConn over Zaga in the final. Edge to UConn because Morrison won't shave his mustache.
• Podcasts are wicked kewl. They've been around for quite awhile, but I've just recently started to get on the band wagon. I can download BBC News, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, MLB Radio, and even more obscure stuff like...say, three podcasts all about 24, for example, and then listen to all of it while walking on the skyway or home from work or whatever. Heck, I might even download some lessons in Arabic. Bottom line: my iPod has made me a better person. Mad props to Lea.
• I asked Marie to nab me a bottle of Greek ouzo when she went to Greece. She came back empty handed. Requested a Maltese falcon (read: some trinket that looks like one) when she went to Malta over the summer. No dice. So when she went to clerk for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, I made a simple request that she shouldn't have had too much trouble fulfilling, especially since she's working on the defense side of the aisle: Slobodan Milosevic's autograph. Heck, she was only sitting fifteen feet away from the guy. He knows English. It's not like it's that hard. Instead, not only does she not get me the autograph, he conveniently has a "heart attack" in his jail cell. Gee, thanks Marie. Not getting the autograph is one thing, but do you have to poison the guy just to spite me? ;o)
• Okay, joking aside on the Slobo thing, conspiracy theories will abound amongst his supporters in Serbia and others about this whole deal, even though it appears he was trying to make himself sick in order to delay his trial and get neat little jaunts to Moscow. How come no one seems to question this part of it? If I'm sitting in a Dutch prison cell, do I get to fly to Moscow for medical treatment? Or is that a benefit exclusive to brutal dictators who slaughter hundreds of thousands of people because of their religion? Anyway, not all feel the same way I do. Anonymous Lawyer praises Slobo for both his management style and for dying prior to his eventual conviction (because afterall, no defense lawyer likes to lose a high profile case...It's much better if the defendant passes away before that can happen).

That's it for now. Go Griz.