Make it a Great Manek, Manix, Manic Monday

Good morning Lucy,

How was the retreat to the Flippen Quiet House? I've been praying for you and hope you got my letter. It was fun to reconnect with Flip and Susan over the weekend. Exceptional people, fantastic company: Flippen Group.

While you took quiet, it was a BIG weekend in England for your papa. Fantastic date night with your 'mum' on Friday at Treviso, where we enjoyed bumping into some new Richmond friends. Up early on Saturday to watch a recording of UNC taking down UCLA and advancing to an Elite Eight matchup against Cinderella, St. Peters. One of the first Carolina games I remember was the 1968 NCAA championship when Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) led John Wooden's Bruins to the title. 

John Wooden seemingly did it all. No dynasty in college basketball history compares to the monster Wooden built at UCLA in the 1960s and 1970s, winning 10 NCAA titles in his last 12 seasons before he retired in 1975. [ESPN Classic - Wizard of Westwood]

Here's my flag flying in London and the bearded Brady Manek, who has quietly become the leader of a Tar Heel team peaking at the right time. Amazing job by first-year coach Hubert Davis. Nobody saw this coming a month ago.

Above is a photo with my first golfing buddy at Tube to Tee: Sudbury Golf Club, Sukhvir Manku (nickname, Manix.) After basketball on Saturday, I headed to the 'Tigers' Stableford and a fun group: Manix, Dave Normile, and Lewis Judd. Fine lads, good players all. More on Sudbury GC soon. 

So I say, Make it a Great Manek, Manix, Manic Monday . . .

Go Heels!

Dad

P.S. I have perfected the go to bed early, get up early to watch recordings of our tournament games. I scroll through my UNC Buds text thread as I watch. Occasionally my phone will skip ahead, and I see a spoiler, such as the text shown below. (-; Oh my! As I write this, the Heels are up BIG at the half and evidently headed to a Final Four match-up against you know who!

In closing, I should mention a wonderful 30th birthday dinner we were invited to attend on Saturday evening for the wife of a favorite colleague, Tommaso Tini. Nice photo of Tom and Demet below. We dined at the trendy Blue Bird in Chelsea and enjoyed meeting a diverse and interesting group of friends and family.