Last weekend halftime of the KU vs. UNC game (which KU won, by the way), Cole and I started a new, small hobby: gardening. Are we pros? I don't think we would go that fan, but his family gardens and he has a pretty good knowledge of growing green things. Me, well, my dad is a Master Gardener, and I worked for Mother Earth News magazine for a year.

A bag of soil, a planter, a couple of different seed packets and a Spongebob watering can later, we have ourselves a little patio garden.

. . .

Are you well versed in the world? I hope so. These questions come straight from the National Geographic Bee.

1. Central America's largest lake shares its name with a country. Name this lake.

2. The Island of Zealand, which is near the entrance to the Baltic Sea, is part of what country?

3. Which U.S. territory is the largest and the southernmost of the Mariana Islands?

4. Arabic and French are spoken in which small African country located southwest of Sicily? . . .

Any Jayhawk is overblessified. Fact. Every March, madness ensues, and our team has a stake in it more often than not. This year, the Jayhawks are continuing the longest current consecutive appearances streak, 23, as they practice in St. Louis this week.

Tomorrow night, Kansas takes on NC State. They haven't been to the tournament since 2006, but with 22 appearances, they aren't completely new to the court. Thankfully, we have a coach who has been in the tournament 14 times and has impressed people with our current team. . . .

Spring, hop, vault, bound, leap, hurdle, skip, bounce: sounds like I am coaching preschool children. I did that tonight, but that is not why I am so excited about all the physical activity. It's finally spring. The time of the year when the flowers pop up, the trees bud, the grass greens and the rain dews on the windshield of my car.

So spring into action on these trivia question. Good luck!

1. What day is spring in 2012? . . .

The first day of the real madness if about over. My bracket, well let's just say picking teams based on limited basketball statistical knowledge, color and mascot isn't the winning strategy. According to my bracket on ESPN, I'm ranked 5,470,472. That's ... good ... right.

This year, ESPN had a record number of brackets submitted, with 6.45 million. At least for me, that means I am not last. But it's only the second round. I have plenty of points left to grab up. . . .