Guest blogging

Today, I am coming to you from the couch downstairs, next to the Christmas tree. This is very rare, very rare indeed. I find it more or less necessary to be alone when I blog, and I am very rarely alone down here, but today Mary is with Graham in Durham at a Quiz Bowl tournament, where I must spell her after lunch.

Interestingly, it is at the NC School of Science and Math, which back through the 60s was Watts Hospital, where I was born. I'm honestly not sure I've been back since then. Certainly when I had my bout of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in '73 or '74, I went to Duke. And there was no way I was trying to go to Science and Match back in the day, because I was a humanist by inclination, and we had a soccer championship to win at CHHS, and how could I be certain of the quality of the ladies in a place like Science and Math, when I was certain there was much honeys at the high school, including some lovely new ones from Culbreth.

So it will be interesting today, and great to see Graham up there competing. I know he is ready to go, based on the degree of competitiveness he showed over dinner last Sunday with one Chad Ludington, Professor of History at NC State. Graham was flat out drilling him on details of 16th Century British succession -- admittedly not Chad's deepest area of focus.  On the one hand, Chad was digging the jousting element. On the other, we had to talk to Graham a little about the extent to which he was dominating the dinner table conversation and not letting others talk freely amongst themselves -- mostly because Chad and Graham were at opposite ends of the table.

Anyhoo, today is open competition, and it is all about answering them questions fast, and Graham is ready to go.