stumbling through the good parts

Starting next week (isn't that how all goals start, you put them off until next week?) I will be regularly updating this gem on Thursday afternoons.  In the meantime, I've got a LOT of missed time to make up for.  So perhaps I'll do a summer in review (cop out) or even better, a back to the future to the past which will then allow me to talk about the glorious summer months. In the mean time, I'm going to recap this past weekend's festivities!  I'd like to say New York (upstate) in the fall is anomaly. It's not.  It's quite similar to the falls in Michigan.  Back in college the fact that a North Carolina autumn could span all the way into December was baffling.  I'd come home to Ann Arbor over fall break and the leaves would mostly be on the ground, wet with almost-freezing rain on top.  In NC, the leaves were barely changing colors yet.  My favorite tournament of the fall season was easily in Boone, NC the last weekend of Oct./early November sp