Updates on recent Fortnight dispatches, including some predictions are in order today ... as the last "third" of the year unfolds.

First, if anyone can leave a funeral service with joy and enthusiasm and gusto and a dedication to "live life", then I certainly experienced it this past week. The services for Coach Jim Wacker were as full of zest as Jim had lived. Man, this guy's pumpin' us up 'after the fact' ... And, that's really cool !!

Now, some predictions on the Texas redistricting fiasco, which continues to have national implication and importance:

• Six of the 11 Texas Senators who are boycotting Legislative Redistricting sessions by spending the summer in New Mexico will actually fall in love with their new home, and seek exile. Texas Governor Perry will shrug his shoulders and call another special Legislative session to rewrite the duck hunting laws.

• The remaining five holdout Senators - all diehard Texas Longhorn fans - will be arrested at the annual Texas-Oklahoma football game in Dallas in October. But they'll sneak on the Oklahoma team bus, and escape. Governor Perry will shrug his shoulders and check the paper for the Texas A&M-Baylor score.

• I will write a column chastising the holdout Democratic Senators for carrying this whole redistricting thing too far. Governor Perry will shrug his shoulders because the whole money-wasting mess will end up in Federal Court anyway, just as it has the last three decades. Duhhhh.

And, after all of this, the sun and moon will still rise and set. Amazing how all that works, isn't it?