Well, due to a recent hospital stay, I didn't get any picks posted for round 2, nor did I get results up for round 1. I made the picks, but never posted them.

Since I never made full picks, I won't bore you with the details, but there's a few games I'd like to comment on. But first, some stats. In the first round, I was 22-32 picking winners. Unfortunately, I lost a final four team. I was watching MSU against Old Dominion when we left for the hospital, but never saw the end. Nor did I see that Kansas blew it - they were a final four pick. I guess Jim and Dave were right.

 I was a dismal 14-17-1 against the spread. Pretty pathetic. Picking against the spread is hard in basketball. The second round wasn't much better. 8-7-1. Although I was 12-4 picking the winners. Unfortunately, I lost another of my final four teams! But after losing one, I figured I didn't have much of a chance to win, and it was a great game!

This has been a great year for underdogs. Lot's of upsets - no #1's yet, but 2 #2's are gone, as are 3 #3's and #4's. That's pretty good. Plus, you still have a 12, a 10, and a 7 seed left. If all goes as planned, it would be all 1's, 2's, 3's and 4's. Only half have gone as planned.

I can't wait for the games coming up!

Usually when I say that, I'm referring to working during times when I should be spending time with my family. Now, it's the other way around too.

Let me explain. Some of you who've read this site for a while may recall that my wife is pregnant. She's scheduled for a C-Section in a few weeks, but we've already been into the E.R. three times now. The last trip was Friday night, and we didn't get back to the house until Sunday afternoon. She's been put on complete bed rest, with the threat that if she has to go back in, she'll be parked there until the baby is born.

So far, she's doing pretty good with the whole bed rest thing. She has a lot she wants to do, and she wants to help. Convincing her to stay down is tough, but her safety and the baby's well being is more important than her desire to help out.

So, I get to play Mr. Mom for a few weeks. I'm lucky enough to have a flexible enough job that allows me to work from home, even going as far as to allow me to get my work done during non-standard hours. Having a team three time zones away helps too - when I start working around 8:00 PM, they are getting ready to finish their day up.

Her problems aren't severe right now - but that can change in a hurry. The baby isn't in any danger, and given that she's 36+ weeks along, they could do the C-Section at any time, without any adverse effects. The goal is to get to 38 or 39 weeks, but babies survive at 36 weeks, usually not even requiring an extended stay at the hospital.

But until the birth, just call me Mr. Mom!

Time for part two of my first round picks.

• C. Florida vs. Connecticut (-18.5): UConn will win, but not by 19.
• NC State (-4.5) vs. Charlotte: One more team that is a favorite as a lower seed. NC State, though, deserves a higher seed.
• Old Dominion vs. Michigan State (-8.5): Homerism setting in? I don't think so, but we'll see.
• Vermont vs. Syracuse (-9): Sorry Dave.
• Oakland vs. North Carolina (-27.5): 28 points! No way! They'll win, but not by 28.
• Iowa State vs. Minnesota (-1): When in doubt, pick your local conference.
• Delaware St. vs Duke (-26.5): No team should win by more than 20. If you get up by 20, it's time to use up your bench.
• Mississippi St. (-2) vs. Stanford: The third and final team that, as a lower seed, is an underdog. I think Stanford has what it takes to pull this one out.
• G. Washington vs. Georgia Tech (-5.5): Georgia Tech has a crown to protect. They won't lose in the first round.
• UL Lafayette vs. Louisville (-11.5): Louisville has a huge beef with the seeding. They were #5 in the polls I think, and ended up with a 4 seed? No, they're better than that. And they'll take it out on Lafayette.
• New Mexico vs. Villanova (-5.5)
• Ohio vs. Florida (-11): I'm taking Florida in a close one.
• SE Louisiana vs. Oklahoma St. (-18.5): I know it's a big spread, but I think OK State will cover.
• Saint Mary's vs. S. Illinois (-2.5)
• Northern Iowa vs. Wisconsin (-7.5): Another Big Ten team. They beat MSU in the Big Ten Tourney, so they must be pretty good, right?
• Bucknell vs. Kansas (-14): Kansas is on a road to the Final Four!

Short and sweet, but at least it's posted!

I saw the .NET Tiers generator a while ago, and I think it looks very interesting. From the looks of it, you come up with a database, take their templates, load them in CodeSmith, and you can generate just about everything else: Your stored procedures, your DAL, your entities, and even web services to expose it all. Oh yeah - a Visual Studio project and solution too. And unit tests.

All you need is a UI. If it works, this would make development a lot quicker.

I haven't purchased the book yet, but I've heard many good things about James Avery's new book, Visual Studio Hacks. If you want to get a feel for the book, five samples are online. And they're all good ones!

I was listening to the G'Day World podcast with Ewan Spence today on my way home today and it got me thinking. The show was OK, but I wasn't really into the content of it. Ewan runs a site all about Symbian, an operating system for phones and mobile devices.

Now, I listened to it because I like the G'Day World guys, and I think they have some great interviews, even if they're with someone I've never heard of or in an area I'm not particularly interested in. For example, I've never used mind mapping software, but the interview with Hobart Swan was very good. 

But then I got to thinking about how you would search for particular podcast episodes that I'm interested in, and then be able to subscribe to the search feed, a lot like a Technorati search feed. That way, I can create a feed that sends me podcasts about asp.net, or the ncaa tournament. Or combine them! 

What would it take to get it done? Podcasters would need to include more meta data than they have now. Show notes are nice, but are they enough? Search engines need to know the difference between a podcast, a blog, and a webpage. And of course, search feeds need to include the enclosures.

Jeff Sandquist is looking for something similar, but different. He wants a way to say that he likes a particular podcast episode. I want want a way to find a particular podcast episode.

I've been waiting for the NCAA Tournament to start for, well, 11 months now! And it's finally here. We have less than 16 hours to go!

So, I guess it's time that I make my picks. I haven't made many comments on seeds yet, so I'll do some of that too. I probably won't comment on all of them, either. For the benefit of you, I'll make two posts - doing one will be way too long! I'll be making my pick against the spread (the bold team is my pick), and also noting who I think will win. With that, let's get started.

• Chattanooga vs. Wake Forest (-17.5): Wake should have been a number one seed. I heard all day Sunday that Washington was going to get a one seed, and I was surprised by that. I felt Wake had a great season. They'll easily take Chattanooga.
• Creighton vs. West Virginia (-2): This is also my first upset pick. Creighton in a close one.
• Wisc. Milwaukee vs. Alabama (-5)
• Penn vs. Boston College (-6): I think B.C. will pull this one out. A few weeks ago, I wondered if they would be a one seed. Then they lost a few, and they dropped to a four seed. I've heard Penn is a good team (never seen them play), but B.C. will pull it out in a close one.
• F. Dickenson vs. Illinois (-26.5): Illinois wins, but not by 27! Illinois is on a good run - they won the Big Ten outright - both regular season and tournament, so they are hot. But 27 is a huge lead. Once they get up by 10 or 15, they have no reason to leave thier starters in.
• Nevada vs. Texas (-1.5): 8's and 9's are a tough pick. 8's only win 44% of the time. On the other hand, rarely does a 1 seed lose to either an 8 or a 9, so when it comes to your bracket, does it really matter who you pick? Anyway, Texas in this one.
• E. Kentucky vs. Kentucky (-16): I'm not from Kentucky, but is this a rivalry there? Somehow, I doubt it.
• Iowa vs. Cincinnati (-3.5): I usually like to go with Big Ten teams, but for whatever reason, I've always liked Cincy. Plus, I think they're good enough to pull this one out.
• Montana vs. Washington (-20.5): Spreads over 20 are tough to take the favorite. Don't get me wrong here. Washington will win, but not by 20+.
• Pittsburgh (-4) vs. Pacific: Only three lower seeded teams are underdogs in the first round. This is one of them, and I don't think it'll hold. Look for Pacific to take this one.
• UAB vs. LSU (-2.5)
• Utah St. vs. Arizona (-5): At one point, I thought Arizona was going to be a number one. I was wrong, obviously, but they'll win this one easily.
• UTEP vs. Utah (-3): Upset special! UTEP will beat Utah. You heard it here first!
• Niagara vs. Oklahoma (-12.5): 3's rarely lose to 14s. This shouldn't be any different.
• UCLA vs. Texas Tech (-3.5): According to ESPN, Bobby Knight doesn't lose in the first round. Good enough for me!
• Winthrop vs. Gonzaga (-13.5): Last game to pick for Thursday. I thought Gonzaga was always supposed to be the underdog! With the tables turned, they'll still win, but not by 14.

There's my picks for Thursday's games. I'll post Friday's games probably a little bit later.

I posted my picks over at my Tourney Logic blog.

Before I give you mine, let's look at some people talking about the tournament.

The Post Game has two articles (so far) about the brackets. So far, they've covered the Syracuse and Chicago regions. He predicts the same Elite Eight game I do in the Syracuse region - Kansas versus UNC! I can't wait to see that game!

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that the GaryP at Skybox by Maytag blog is a college basketball fan. He's got a three part series on Bracket Analysis. Then he's got a lot of data and a good tip for the tournament.

Of course, none of that tops my picks, right? I'm going to try to list out each game, with spread, and predict the winners (based on my brackets), but here's a teaser: My final four is Illinois, Wake Forest, Duke and Kansas.

Of the 500+ subscriptions I have, there are a few blogs that I check to see if there's a new post. Dave Burke's is one of those. And this week, one I was hoping for did.

Over the weekend, Dave did a presentation at Code Camp 3 about customizing dotText. Afterwards, he posted his presentation material and code. I've already downloaded it, and will be perusing it shortly.

Oh yeah. Dave, what do you think of the Tourney Pool Manager? I'm pretty sure I saw you downloaded it today...