Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

As of right now, the Big 10 has 12 schools (Nebraska just joined), the Big 12 has 10 schools (Nebraska and Colorado left), and the Pac 10 has 11 schools (Colorado). The rumors are that Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, and Utah will join the Pac 10 to make 16 teams. Texas A&M is rumored to join the SEC and make 13 schools. That leaves Kansas, Kansas St, Missouri, Baylor, and Iowa St in the remains of the Big 12 conference. I would think that the SEC would want 1 more team (to get an even number of teams) so maybe they would take Baylor. If the Big 10 can get Notre Dame and get up to 16 teams, that would be the only scenario where they would take Missouri (not the others). They would also (most likely) want Syracuse and Rutgers to make the 16 team conference. About the only thing for the other 3 would be to join the Mountain West and make that an 12 team conference (it's 10 right now - Boise St joined a week or so ago), which would go down to 9 if Utah leaves). There...

After three days of work spanning two weekends we have the deck finished. Day 1 was cleaning the deck, day 2 was the main deck, and day 3 was the stairs. We used Cabot preservative wood finish semi-transparent chestnut drown stain. It took 3 gallons of stain (we did only 1 coat). We also went through 1 gallon of mineral spirits, 2 brushes, 1 small roller (for the spindles), 1 large roller (for the main deck), a few tarps, masking tape, and a metal pan. We really like the look of the deck. Hopefully it lasts for 2-3 years so we don't have to do it again for a while. The spindles were the worst part, but using a small roller helps - you can get the majority with a roller. On the main deck, the big roller didn't "run into" the cracks between boards very much. If we had known that ahead of time, we would have used a brush to get between the boards and then went over it with the roller.