Louis Armstrong's song goes:  "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen / Nobody but Jesus."  This is true in writing these pages as well.  Really, and quite honestly, I enjoy writing things about bridge, about our club, about the Laws.  Call it a labor of love and until it stops being fun I am just going forward.  The other thing and take this week's Poser number XII .  It involved a lot of time just learning how to present material with blocks of hidden text and pop out "More" "Less" blocks. Years and years ago (actually before Facebook became a thing)  I had a nest of social websites surrounding my law practice, family, church and Community.  I did a lot of "hard coding" because presentation systems now taken for granted just were not available.  That said, HTML CSS is hard unless you are using it all the time.  But I found a solution, MS AI "Copilot" which I call Mike (anyone who knows why, in addition to being short for Mycroft??)  In any case the AI will build HTML / CSS structures after being prodded with desired out come. Then reviewing and fine tuning the actual outcomes because the Bridgewebs Editor "helps"  and sometimes filters certain structures which violates its own protective skins.  BW has done a lot of heavy lifting to protect its sites and that is good.  In any case please do look at this week's Poser on score adjustments and while I have not kept track I suspect I have close to 10 - 15 hours into it.  I intended it be informative, but as a webpiece its structure  was fun to build as well.

Some times Happy news has a tinge of sad news mixed in.  Looking at YTD Table counts for our Unit

If the idea is to win the Table Count metric.  Well we won and not really at anyone else's expense. BUT the state of the unit is not good.  Then I look at the clubs with no games at all.  Sure, some of them are here, and we have merged and operate under a single franchise.  But then there are clubs that are just gone: Storm Lake, Algona, Estherville are the recent ones but going back further almost every town and berg had a game.  We should be thankful for Leon, Diana, Jean, and Kurt all doing the heavy lifting to keep our game going.  I think out reach  is a critical consideration for our club's success.  At present we are not drawing in new players nor launching new games.  Just my  thoughts and it barely qualifies as news.  Perhaps I need a page captioned "Gripes and Fears."

I discovered the District 14 website. (Our District.)  Geographically it is the “Ol’ Five State” which a long, long time Siouxland resident may remember was how KVTV (now KCAU) and maybe KTIV referred to their white board and grease pencil weather map.  The D14 map shows all the clubs in D14.

Clearly someone has misplaced Ames but otherwise, I believe it is accurate.  The website ACBLD14.com has a variety of information.  You should certainly explore it all if you are interested.  For this piece I thought I would reproduce the Iowa portion of one chart:

I am proud of Siouxland DBC showing growth in table count year over year for the period January through June.  Clearly, we are bucking a trend.  I think the biggest reasons are the efforts of Leon with the 299 game, educational efforts of both Leon and Diana and finally the consistent dedication and directing by Jean on Mondays and Thursdays.

Just for fun check out this article from 1961 Sports Illustrated on Bridge. SI-Vault

Not my image.  Looking at it certainly generated by AI.