Where are we now?

The University of Wisconsin football and men's basketball teams are on serious hiatus. (It's nearly summertime!) I'm sure many of the players from both teams are hanging around Madison, so lovely this time of year, strength training, practicing informally, taking a few summer courses, and maybe working at some part-time jobs. That's all fun and interesting stuff that I would love to be able to talk about. But since I'm not a student, don't have access to UW athletic facilities and don't even live in Madison anymore, I will be unable to provide you with information about all these fun topics. So if you're looking for the lowdown on how swol' Jonathon Casillas is getting, or how Michael Flowers shot during a pick-up game at the Shell, you're probably better off trolling the various UW message boards.

It's sad but true--we're in an annual lull period right about now. For college basketball and football fans, it's the time of the season when you can actually do things on the weekends without having to worry about what time the game comes on. I guess we'll have to learn to enjoy our free time. I'm going to use my newly open schedule to be a little more handy around the house, tidy up a bit more, etc. While that may sound like a terrible way to spend extra time, I have a semi-nefarious plan. It all comes back to pleasing the woman. You see, I read about this study finding that women are more likely to be sexually attracted to men who do more chores around the house . . .

Now before you go running off to do the laundry, there is a little bit of action on the Packer front. Specifically, the Packers just finished a "mini-camp"-- three days of no-pads practices that the players are contractually required to attend. Since these are the first full team practices after the draft, you can usually expect some evaluations on the rookies and the other younger players on the team.
Various word is that Will Blackmon, our fourth round pick last season who was sidelined with injuries all last year, looked pretty good. This story, about his attempts to recover from injury and stay healthy, was interesting. (He hired someone called a "soft tissue" specialist.) Our third-round San Jose State derived wideout, James Jones, was also making some plays in practice. Lori Nickel, a writer for the Journal-Sentinel's Packer Insider online magazine, mentioned that Patrick Dendy (our replacement for Carroll at nickel back last season), Justin Harrell (this year's first rounder), and a rookie free agent fullback, Corey White, all stood out. In addition, someone wrote that Jennings looked like his old, pre-high ankle sprain, self.

If folks are in need of some summary type articles dealing with the Packers, the Green Bay Press-Gazette and the State Journal both have decent looks at the entire roster. You can find them here and here.

Though this is a slow period, I'll be occasionally posting-- when I come across things to jabber about. Until then, you stay classy.