Rules: Aren't they just guidelines?

Okay, so many of you may know that my daughter will be representing the USA on a U-19 team going to the United Kingdom next summer.  Also, she is heading to Tiffin University this fall.  Being the good kid and parents that we are, we are doing our best to obey by all the lovely rules set before us by the NCAA.  Wow!  Let me just start there.  First, you can't download a book of rules or guidelines or even basic tips.  You constantly have to call someone in a compliance department of the university.  They usually have to make a phone call to Indianapolis.  How tough can it be to give some basic guidelines to all of us trying to obey the rules.  Apparently, its pretty tough!  Naturally this brought a family discussion.  We considered ourselves to be educated and law abiding people.  We don't want anyone to get into trouble.  We want our daughter to enjoy life and have what she has obviously worked very hard for.  How is it that this all authoritative body we call the NCAA imposes rules and yet makes them virtually impossible to find, understand, and interpret?  They wonder why and how some of these athletes end up breaking them.  This is the same governing body that finally realized that athletes on scholarship should get 3 meals a day!  Of course, this probably won't be instituted until my daughter has left college but at least they acknowledge they should feed their athletes.  Seriously!  Folks I can't make this up.  Full scholarship athletes currently only get 14 meals a week.  They have to find ways to eat the other 7 meals.  Now, most are pretty smart and get work study or other scholarships or even have to resort to student loans.  So, the term full ride, as we have learned, is not the ride we thought it was.

Okay, so since this needs to be posted soon...I should state that this confusion is far from being corrected.  All I know is, we are doing our best to abide by rules that are no where near comprehensible.  So, parents do your homework and get help!  Don't be afraid to ask someone out there the questions - your child's NCAA career depends on it!

So much for comfortable

I get that the internet is an evolution.  But please don't mess with my music!  I get that Beats are the new "thing" and so they bought my music service.  I really like Mog and how they worked.  I can go search for an artist when I hear the song on tv or some other source and add it to my playlist.  Easy peasy.  I am not finding Beats to be that accommodating.  I am hoping it is because I am in the so called "trial" for the transition from Mog to Beats.  Otherwise, I am going to be looking for a new music subscription service.

Okay, since I am voicing an opinion.  I guess I don't understand why every time I get comfortable with an application or website some developer somewhere in the world goes and changes the darn thing.  Some of us enjoy the comfort!  So please Springpad don't change a thing!  I love you just the way you are.  I consider myself to be a creature who is willing to accept change until the change makes me angry.  Yes, when they make finding Justin Timberlake impossible - I get angry!  I must have my JT.  This is also why I don't frequent Facebook anymore.  Long gone are the days of people posting status updates.  Now we get ads, videos, and pictures.  Oh my goodness the pictures.   And they aren't pictures of the person or their kids...No they are pictures that a graphic designer created with some words of wisdom on it.  I would have preferred someone to just type the words of wisdom.  Pictures take too long for me to scroll through.  of course Twitter and Instagram are getting just as bad.  I don't nearly frequent Instagram like I used to.  I stick to Twitter.  At least I can turn the darn pictures off and just scroll through and see how everyone and everything is.  Twitter doesn't mess with JT or other items of importance to me so for now that is where I stay.  Perhaps as time goes by I will grow happy with Beats.  So now, I am off to learn how to use the new stuff!