March madness

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Is it spring yet?

After the longest, wettest, most apocalyptic winter of recent memory, it’s finally starting to feel like spring around here. The thermostat has floated above 60 a couple of times recently. The change to Daylight Saving Time successfully conjured the illusion of an extra hour of sunlight every afternoon.

And this week I’ve encountered the surest, truest sign of the coming spring: plants trying to fuck my face.

I don’t know what just started blooming around the Truckee Meadows, but whatever it is, it wants to crawl up my nostrils, and tickle me ’til I explode. My sneezes have been loud, messy and gross. People around the office think I’m exaggerating them for comic effect. My girlfriend is annoyed that I lost the Claritin. Earlier today, I sneezed with a mouth full of food and then had to change my shirt. Fortunately—or not, depending on your perspective—nobody was around to witness that particular disaster.

Anyway, I think that extra frisky pollen cozying up to vulnerable, sensitive faces like mine is just one of the many strange side effects we’re going to experience after that wet winter. In this week’s cover story, Kris Vagner talks to some local sports folks about how the wet winter is going to affect their passions.

And, as I’ve said before and will say again, it feels so good, in these troubled times, to think about sports. Only a couple of weeks ’til the MLB opening day!

Oh, and big congrats to the Nevada Wolf Pack men’s basketball team on winning the Mountain West Tournament title and making the NCAA Tournament!

AAAAATTCHOOOOOOO!