Storms hit isolated areas and residents along the White River in east Arkansas and the Black River in the northeast contended for another day with rising water and muck.
In northwest Arkansas, authorities reported Saturday that they had found a body believed to be that of a man whose pickup was found submerged in a creek after heavy rains 10 days ago.
The National Weather Service issued a 24-hour flood watch Saturday morning for Lawrence and Randolph counties, while predicting more rain through at least Monday.
Saturday, Margaret Walker stayed dry at her tobacco shop in Clarendon during a heavy rain. Storms and rising water two weeks ago chased her and her husband Gary from their home in the small community of East Lake. They set up house temporarily at a duck hunting club and have traveled by boat to check on their house.
“I had to go down there yesterday and take the food out of my refrigerator and freezer because a house had floated into a power pole or power lines and it knocked the electricity out,” Walker said. “I just stepped out of the house into the boat.”
Walker said the water was three feet from the front door of her home and many of the houses on the lake were under water.
“Nobody in their right minds would still be down there on the lower end,” she said. “I just pray and say ‘God, please take care of my home.’ But if it happens, it happens — we’ll survive.”
The Monroe County community of Maddox Bay along the White River, where at least one resident was sandbagging his home a few days ago, was under water and only a flock of birds seemed to be watching over the small community on the White River.
The March flooding was the most severe in Arkansas since 1982, and places along the White, Spring, Eleven Point and Black rivers reached 100-year flood stages, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A 100-year flood is defined as having a 1% chance of happening in any given year.
usatoday.com
Tags: little,
march,
peggy
Although the play-in game was held on Tuesday, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament kicks off in earnest on Thursday.
This year, there are more high-tech ways than ever to enter and run pools and to make sure you don’t miss a minute of the action.
Brackets and pools
Pretty much every sports related web site you can think of let’s you enter and run tournament pools. Some of the most popular ones are offered by ESPN.com, Yahoo, and CBS Sportsline.
If you use Facebook, CBS Sports has an application that lets you participate in a pool from inside Facebook. Other companies are also offering bracket applications in Facebook.
Most pools require all entries to be in before the first game tips off on Thursday at 12:20 p.m. eastern time.
If you are running a pool, I would suggest creating a spreadsheet in Google Docs & Spreadsheets to keep track of the standings. Doing this will allow you to update the spreadsheet from any computer with an Internet connection and easily share it with others or publish it to the web.
Following the action at work
Your best bet is to sign up for March Madness on Demand, so you can watch all of the games for free on your computer. For instructions, check out this How 2 item I wrote recently on the service.
Free TV and movie service Joost, is also offering live streaming coverage of every game, though you have to download a program to watch and Joost warns that since it is testing this service, the company expects things to go wrong.
If your employer, blocks access to these services, you can always track the scores at a number of sites, including ESPN, CBS Sportsline and Yahoo Sports. Many cell phone companies, sports sites and other sites are also offering free text message alerts. One site that is offering text message alerts is 4info.net.
blogs.orlandosentinel.com
Tags: cbs,
madness,
march,
sports
But for the second consecutive season, the Orange will not be playing in the N.C.A.A. tournament. And this time, there will not be much debate.
Eighth-seeded Villanova throttled the ninth-seeded Orange, 82-63, at Madison Square Garden before most people across the country had finished lunch. One year after Syracuse was snubbed from the N.C.A.A. tournament, its bubble has burst.
“We needed to win a lot of games,” Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim said. “After last year, we probably needed to win two or three games to even get close to where we were last year.”
Syracuse’s season-long inconsistency manifested itself yet again. The Orange turned the ball over 18 times, settled for too many 3-point shots and played lackadaisical defense, which allowed the Wildcats to make 11 of 21 3-point shots. For stretches, Syracuse players lost track of Villanova guard Scottie Reynolds, who had 22 points and 6 assists, with no turnovers.
The Orange’s uninspired performance left the two locker rooms with drastically different moods. Villanova’s impressive performance, its third victory in a row, pushes the Wildcats (20-11) closer to securing an N.C.A.A. bid. But they will not be able to rest easy on the eve of selection Sunday, even if they can upset top-seeded Georgetown on Thursday in the quarterfinals.
read_more
Tags: 2008,
madness,
march,
predictions
2008 ncca tournament bracket
2008 ncca tournament schedule
NCAA tournament bracket
OK, it’s technically called the "opening round" of the NCAA Tournament, but we all know that Tuesday’s game between Mount St. Mary’s and Coppin State is the play-in game, with the winner to be fodder for No. 1 overall seed North Carolina on Friday in Raleigh, N.C.
Actually, Coppin State (16-20) has made history this season, becoming the first NCAA Tournament team with 20 losses. In fact, the Eagles, champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, were 4-19 (losing 17 of 18) at one point this season before finishing 12-1. They will be making their first NCAA Tournament, appearance since 1997, when they made history by upsetting No. 2 South Carolina as a 15 seed.
"A lot of people could have quit in that situation," Coppin coach Fang Mitchell said of his players’ early struggles. "These guys didn’t quit. I was really proud of them for having that fight in them … even though it seemed that the season was over for them.
"Now we’re striving to be the first 20-loss team to win a tournament game now," Mitchell said, although the Eagles are betting underdogs for Tuesday night’s game at WagerWeb.com.
read_more
Tags: madness,
march,
predictions
BracketBrains.com helps college basketball fans identify likely upsets, make better bracket pool picks for 2008 NCAA basketball tournament.
Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) March 14, 2008 — TeamRankings.com today announced BracketBrains 2008, a web-based service that uses powerful statistical technology to help NCAA basketball fans make smarter 2008 March Madness bracket pool picks. A free demonstration of BracketBrains is available now at http://teamrankings.com/ncbtp/index.php?aff=100000005.
"Conventional wisdom regarding how to make good NCAA bracket picks is often disproved by analyzing historical data," said Mike Greenfield, a Stanford-trained computational scientist and co-founder of TeamRankings.com. "For example, sportscasters from media outlets such as ESPN and CBS Sportsline love to discuss how teams with strong end-of-season momentum are well positioned for success in the NCAA tournament. In fact, 'streaking' tournament teams have generally underperformed expectations when one considers the historical performance of similarly seeded teams."
"Unfortunately," adds Greenfield, "when it comes to making March Madness picks, very few college basketball fans have the technical aptitude, data, or free time to perform a detailed statistical analysis of every possible NCAA tournament bracket game."
To help NCAA basketball fans make more educated bracket choices, TeamRankings.com created BracketBrains. The web site touched a nerve with guessing-weary office pool entrants last year, attracting hundreds of thousands of March Madness fans in the days after the 2007 NCAA tournament bracket was announced by the NCAA Selection Committee.
read_more
Tags: 2008,
bracket,
madness,
march
All ISS systems continue to function nominally, except those noted previously or below. Russian Holiday: International Women’s Day (”held over” from 3/8). Underway: Week 21 of Increment 16.
After consulting with Col-CC (Columbus Control Center) specialists, FE-2 Eyharts set up a video camcorder in front of the FSL RIC (Fluid Science Laboratory Rack Interface Controller) to monitor its LEDs, then performed an uplinked troubleshooting procedure on the FSL facility, using wire cutter, wire stripper and crimp tools in an effort to repair its LAN (Local Area Network) jumper that could not be connected with the UIP (Utility Interface Panel) J46 LAN-1 connector last week.
Later, Eyharts conducted photo documentation of the completed WAICO (Waving & Coiling of Arabidopsis Roots at Different g-levels) experiment, first configuring the DCS-760 camera equipment, then removing the ECs (Experiment Containers) from the centrifuge, taking imagery inside the BGB (BIOLAB Glovebox) and afterwards replacing the ECs on the gravity-simulating centrifuge.
In the Lab, CDR Whitson connected the regular ITCS LTL (Internal Thermal Control System/Low Temperature Loop) coolant jumper at the LAB1D6 rack in support of ground-commanded activation, at 4:00am-6:00am EDT, of the U.S. CDRA (Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly). [CDRA was turned on to reduce cabin CO2 level prior to 1J/A docking.]
read_more
Tags: 14th,
holiday,
march