You Should Give This a Whirl

We took the college big band out today for an unusual team-building activity: WhirlyBall. If you've never played before, it pretty much goes like this: You use a jai alai-type scoop contraption to shoot a wiffle ball at a target located in the center of a basketball-like backboard, all while driving bumper cars. It was bigtime fun (even though our team, the saxophone section, was admittedly pretty bad--we lost to the trombones, for crying out loud), and, despite the cost (it ain't cheap), it's definitely something I'd do again. Nobody got hurt (save for a few bruised egos), and it really was a great way to spend an hour. (And I think that, with just a bit of practice, a lot of us--myself very much included--could have been a lot better at shooting the thing. Really!) I hope we do it again in the fall...

Badly-written headline of the week: Mom Allegedly Leaves Kids in Car to Tan. As written, it sounds like she left them in a hot car so they'd get some sun, but, as the story explains, she actually left them in a cold car while she went inside to use a tanning booth.

Least-plausible-sounding excuse of the week that turned out to actually be true: "My dog ate my wedding ring."

iGuts: A truck driver lost control of his car as he took his eyes off the road to adjust his iPod, spilling his truck's load--50 tons of cow intestines.

Blowing out the candles: Happy birthday to my oldest nephew Noah, who's six now. An account of his very first birthday may be found here.