Happy Birthday WSU

Happy Birthday to WSU today. 118 years old. It doesn't look a day over 87 if you ask me but I'm a little biased. Just a drop in the bucket in academia though considering we live in a city with a university that was founded 400 years before WSU did. That's old. Remember to wear your crimson and gray today, just maybe not the same tear stained things you wore yesterday.

Sad to see the basketball season end yesterday but it really was another great year for the Cougs. They just ran into a buzz saw yesterday against North Carolina. I have to say Aron Baynes did a great job against Tyler Hansbrough until he fouled out. I think they were even in points and rebounds when Baynes left. If that's the kind of performance he can put up against the guy most people think is the National Player of the Year (I'm not buying it) then next year should be another good year for the Cougs with Taylor "McLovin" Rochestie playing the role of the cagey senior walk-on, Daven Harmeling, Caleb Forrest, and Nic Koprivica and the younger guys it will be fun to watch. Hats off to Derrick Low, Kyle Weaver, and Robbie Cowgill for four great, and often tough, years as Cougs. Those guys will stand as legends of Cougar basketball for years to come. If any of them end up playing in Europe, don't be surprised to see our vacation schedule coincide with some of the areas they will be in.

We heard that it's been another glorious spring on the Palouse, and throughout the state too (snow days in Seattle in March?). It has been nice and sunny here since Easter, even though we are about parallel to Anchorage on the globe. Maybe it's a little cold but really quite pleasant.

Ok now for some of the "Swedish" stuff that people visit this site for. CiS Cultural Fact #32 (I really need to keep better track of which numbers I've already used, thank goodness that every word I've put up here will be on the internet long after the Earth is recolonized by an alien race after the coming ice age that will follow on the heels of rising global temperatures wipes out the machines that have risen up to take the world back from humanity): you can buy vegetables here, mostly lettuce and fresh herbs, that are still planted. That's right; buy a head of lettuce at the store and it still has roots, in dirt, in one of those black plastic planter things. It's nice for the herbs because we can keep them going until we use them, not so beneficial for the lettuce though. We have a picture here for your amusement.

And now for a new feature here on CiS that we will include in every post, "How Much is Your Dollar Worth?" This will probably be at the top of each post where we will let you know what one U.S. dollar converts to in Swedish krona, krowns, or SEK. So today, according to Yahoo Finance: $1 = 5.9551 SEK

That is a new low since we have been here. The high was 6.5 after the first couple days we were here. For perspective I'm trying to think of what you can buy for 5 or 6 SEK and the first thing that comes to mind is plastic bags at the grocery store that you have to buy to carry your groceries in. Good times.