saw this on the daily what and thought it was really cute. It's a mash up of the 11 pixar movies to a few good songs

periodic table of sports

This is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. At first it just looks like they pasted a bunch of sports teams on a periodic table. But if you know the names of teams and cities they're in it's a whole lot of fun to look through.

25 days of christmas: day 24-how the grinch stole christmas

The christmas classic

25 days of christmas: day 23- ice skating

So ice skating isn't technically a Christmas thing. But it is associated with winter, especially outdoor skating. If you live in st. louis going to Steinberg rink is pretty much a necessity. A few friends and I are going tonight so maybe I'll put up a few pictures later.

Merry almost Christmas

25 days of christmas: day 22-linus' christmas monologue

An absolute Christmas classic right here. Apparently this is the last time a bible verse was able to be spoken on network tv.

Luke 2:8-14 (king james version)

8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men

25 days of christmas: day 21-o come all ye faithful

I've been a fan of these guys for a while now. This is one of my favorite christmas songs

25 days of christmas: day 20-TSO

here's some Trans Siberian Orchestra. One of my friends is obsessed with them cause these guys are pretty much amazing

25 days of christmas: day 19-putting up our tree

Well we finally put up our christmas tree today. Reason #1 being that I've put up and decorated the tree since at least 8th grade, and now i'm finally home for break. #2 we like to wait until the semi-reject trees are left and are all 50% off. It actually turned out fairly well this year.

The strand of lights at the top of the tree decided to stop working so please ignore the gap in lights at the top.

cute little plane


Garfield is probably one of my top 3 favorite ornaments

25 days of christmas: day 18-dancing christmas lights

What do you get with someone who's innovative, tech savvy, and loves Christmas? This! Probably one of my favorite things about christmas lights are the creative people who make them dance to music.

25 days of christmas: day 17-the nativity story

The whole "reason for the season" right here. We picture the little, baby Jesus peacefully lying in the manger with his parents leaning over him. The shepherds and maji circled around a few feet away.

We all know that every little detail of this isn't true. So here's a few details that our nativity sets on the table top leave out.

1. Jesus was probably born in the fall, not the winter

2. There was no room at the inn because in the autumn the jews would travel to Jerusalem to observe God's Holy Days (this still goes on today)

3. Jesus was about 2 years old when the wise men saw him

4. Jesus wasn't necessarily born in a stable, the Bible only says he was laid in a manger (which if you ask me probably means he was born in a stable)

I know, a few of these are kind of a buzz kill. I found them on here and here. I left out some of the ones that seem like theories and not based on historical evidence....Sorry if this was kind of a downer it wasn't initially meant to be.

25 days of christmas: day 16-christmas vacation

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is one of my favorite movies of all time. This is by no means the best scene in the movie, but it was the only one who's code wasn't embedded. Still good nevertheless

25 days of christmas: day 15-santa names

This is pretty cool to see the different names of santa in all the different countries. All of them has their own unique story about him too.

COUNTRY	SANTA NAMES
United States of America, Canada	Santa Claus
Brazil	Papai Noel
China	Shengdan Laoren
Chile	Viejo Pascuero
Dutch	Sinter Klaas
England	Father Christmas
Europe	Saint Nicholas
Finland	Joulupukki
France	Pere Noel
Germany	Saint Nikolaus
Hawaii	Kanakaloka
Holland	De Kerstman
Hungary	Tel-apo/Mikulas/ Winter grandfather
India	Santa Claus, Baba
Italy	Babbo Natale
Japan	Hoteiosho
Lithuania	Kaledu Senelis
Morocco	Black Peter
Netherlands	Kerstman
Norway	Julenissen
Peru	Papa Noel
Poland	Swiety Mikolaj
Russia	Ded Moroz
Scandinavia	Julenisse
Spain	El Nino Jesus
Sweden	Tomten/Jultomten

25 days of christmas: day 14-coca cola polar bears

sorry I'm super behind on the 25 days of christmas thing. It's been a combination of not being home all day or internet not working.

We all remember the polar bear commercials for coca cola a few years ago. Those were awesome commercials. So here's one for the sake of nostalgia

25 days of christmas: day 13-calvin and hobbes christmas

we're all familiar with and love the Calvin and Hobbes comics. The snowman comic has become a particular favorite with fans.

eagle release

we're gonna take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to show you this. Yup, I was totally there.

25 days of christmas: day 12-christmas in disney

while I've never been to Disney world during the Christmas season, I've heard it's amazing. They completely deck out all the different parks. There's several giant 45-75 foot christmas trees in each of the parks and in a few of the more popular resorts such as the Grand Floridian and Animal Kingdom Resort. I'll probably do some more on Disney Christmas since it's such a big ordeal.

25 days of christmas: day 11-awesome santa

while this may not be technically christmas it's got a pretty awesome dude in a santa outfit

25 days of christmas: day 10-the plaza lights

a group of us went to kansas city for the mu v. ku game and that night we went to the plaza. The plaza is basically a few streets of restaurants and stores. It's really cool and pretty especially during the Christmas season. They line all of the roofs and buildings with really pretty lights. These pics don't do it any justice, but you can imagine being surrounded by these is pretty cool.

25 days of christmas: day 9-christmas lights

I resisted the urge to make another "history of..." thing and instead found an article that shows all the different kinds of modern christmas lights. I might do more with lights later on simply because I love them.

The Lights You Know and Love

Incandescent lights are the ones that started it all. Even though they're well over a hundred years old now, the technology largely remains the same. The shapes and sizes of the bulbs, on the other hand, have been in constant flux. Now we're left with three major types of incandescent Christmas light bulbs, as described by the excellent guide at JimOnLight.com:

The Mini/Fairy Light: This is the big kahuna. If you haven't seen one of these by now, then you've probably never seen Christmas lights. Traditionally, the set is wired in series, hence the age old problem where if one bulb goes out, the rest won't light. But it's not hard to find sets that are wired in parallel nowadays.

These guys also have a lo-fi twinkle method built in. That little red-tipped bulb that comes with each set is made in a way that as the filament heats up, it rises and breaks the circuit. That, of course, shuts of the rest of the lights. When it cools down, it falls again to complete the circuit, and the lights (wait for it...) come back on. Physics 101.

C7: Again, an incandescent light that comes in a different-sized glass housing. These are about the size of your thumb, and work in almost exactly the same way as a mini light.

C9: You get the picture by now. Same shape as the C7, but slightly bigger.

LED lights have been growing in popularity for the past few years. Regardless of what you think of their light output, there's no denying that they're much more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, and give off less heat. And who knows, maybe someday they'll match the color temperature of good-ol' tungsten lighting. Until then, here's what you'll be looking at, again according to the guide at JimOnLight.com:

5mm: These are the LED equivalent of incandescent mini-lights. They're small LED bulbs in a plastic enclosure. Usually the "white" level is waaaay off from the "white" of incandescent lights.

G12 and G25: Just like with incandescent lights, you're going to find a whole lot of the same with LEDs, just in different shapes and sizes. These are globe shaped plastic enclosures, G12 is pictured.

C7: You've seen these before, except this time there's an LED inside.

You'll find a bunch of crazy light designs out there, but like Jim's excellent guide says, 99.9% of them are just plastic enclosures that are illuminated by these types of bulbs.

25 days of christmas: day 8-tilles park

one of my favorite things about christmas around st. louis is when Tilles Park puts up the annual lights. It's always really pretty and I plan on going at some point this year with some school friends.

Winter Wonderland at Tilles Park open until January 2 on Sunday-Friday from 5:30-9:30

25 days of christmas: day 7-30 rock christmas tree

we all know about the famous christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza. This year it's up from November 30th- January 1 and lit from 5:30am-11:30pm every day.

25 days of christmas: day 6-eggnog

$20 says I'm not the only one who's ever said "what's up with eggnog?" Well here's what's up. Yet again I got this from a web site:

The word itself does not have much appeal, the guttural sound and the thought of drinking egg doesn’t sound very appetizing to most. There are differing opinions as to the origin of the name for this famous drink. One version says that nog derives from an Old English word for strong beer, hence “noggin”. Another version attributes the name to Colonial America where colonists referred to thick drinks as “grog” and eggnog as “egg-and-grog”. Either way, we know it today as Eggnog.

Europe:

It is believed that the eggnog tradition began in Europe as an adaptation of the various milk and wine punches often served at social gatherings. In the 17th century, eggnog was used as a toast to one’s health and was consumed by the well-to-do of society as milk and eggs were scarce commodities in Europe.

The New World:

When the brew was brought to the “New World,” colonists added a new twist, rum. The rum Americans could get from the Caribbean was considerably less expensive than the other liquors shipped from England. And so, along with the readily available supply of milk and eggs in the colonies, the rum version quickly became a popular drink for people of all classes.

Variations:

As a rich, spicy and (oh yes) alcoholic drink, eggnog soon became a familiar item during the holiday season across the growing nation. Each region would adapt the drink to their personal tastes. Even George Washington devised his own version of the brew which only the most courageous would partake using rye whiskey, rum and sherry.

In the south, Southern taste replaced rum with bourbon. And when the brew reached Latin America even more adaptations were made; in Puerto Rico coconut juice or milk was added, in Mexico eggnog became a harder liqueur to be sipped with the addition of Mexican cinnamon and rum or grain alcohol, and in Peru it was made with the Peruvian pomace brandy called pisco.

Noggin' Now:

The basic recipe for eggnog has not changed over the years (eggs beaten with sugar, milk, cream and some kind of spirit) and remains a favorite for holiday parties. Whatever the variation of the popular holiday drink, it is sure to be a winner with most of your holiday guests. However, for those who wish to go “nogless,” there are other warm spirited drinks that are sure to be a hit as well and lift everyone’s holiday spirits.

25 days of christmas: day 5-christmas plants

I couldn't think of a more attractive title other than 'christmas plants' because the word 'foliage' is just kinda weird. So here's a list of the origins of mistletoe and holly, poinsettias, and the christmas tree. By the way I got this from a site, it isn't my own wording.

Mistletoe and Holly
Two hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Druids used mistletoe to celebrate the coming of winter. They would gather this evergreen plant that is parasitic upon other trees and used it to decorate their homes. They believed the plant had special healing powers for everything from female infertility to poison ingestion. Scandinavians also thought of mistletoe as a plant of peace and harmony. They associated mistletoe with their goddess of love, Frigga. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe probably derived from this belief. The early church banned the use of mistletoe in Christmas celebrations because of its pagan origins. Instead, church fathers suggested the use of holly as an appropriate substitute for Christmas greenery.

Poinsettias
Poinsettias are native to Mexico. They were named after America's first ambassador to Mexico, Joel Poinsett. He brought the plants to America in 1828. The Mexicans in the eighteenth century thought the plants were symbolic of the Star of Bethlehem. Thus the Poinsettia became associated with the Christmas season. The actual flower of the poinsettia is small and yellow. But surrounding the flower are large, bright red leaves, often mistaken for petals.

The Christmas Tree
The Christmas Tree originated in Germany in the 16th century. It was common for the Germanic people to decorate fir trees, both inside and out, with roses, apples, and colored paper. It is believed that Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, was the first to light a Christmas tree with candles. While coming home one dark winter's night near Christmas, he was struck with the beauty of the starlight shining through the branches of a small fir tree outside his home. He duplicated the starlight by using candles attached to the branches of his indoor Christmas tree. The Christmas tree was not widely used in Britain until the 19th century. It was brought to America by the Pennsylvania Germans in the 1820's.

25 days of christmas: day 4-the magic tree

in columbia we have a thing called the magic tree. I'm pretty sure I already posted on it so if you don't know what it is you can probably find it if you type it into the search bar.

Some friends and I went last night and it was so pretty. Unfortunately they moved it so now it's on a smaller tree, but still awesome. Fletcher is the last name of the guy who puts up the lights, so even though I'm not related to him it still makes me somewhat proud.

Forgive me for the blurriness of all the pictures because at the moment I don't have a real camera so I've got to use my phone.

And for future reference the rest of the posts are probably going to be about christmas historically or christmas traditions of different cities not just my own christmas stuff.

25 days of christmas: day 3-12 days of christmas by straight no chaser

this hilarious rendition of the 12 days of christmas by 'straight no chaser.' They start out perfectly normal and then break off into multiple other songs some of which are deck the halls, rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and dreidel dreidel. Worth a watch

25 days of christmas: day 2-the house

My favorite thing to do all year is put up the christmas lights. This year's lights were all LED. And given that they are all LED there's not that many because they are fairly expensive. So, it's kind of a sad display, but it took about a million years to put up. Next year I hope to add more colors and get more of the roof and second story. But, for now this is what it looks like. Plus, all LED saves a lot of energy so you don't have to unplug the lights when you use the treadmill (yes that's a true story)

25 days of christmas: day 1

as of yesterday I decided I wanted to do a 25 days of christmas thing. Yes, I know it's cliche but oh well. Being that it's December 4th I'm just going to post 4 things. This counts as the first. So happy december.

I don't know the official name of this picture is, but it describes college life perfectly

turkey day fun

saw this on the daily what and thought it was funny. enjoy

awesome of the day

mu v ku

on saturday we've got the annual mu v. ku border war. Or in this case the border scrimmage since ku isn't exactly amazing this year. So it'll be fun to go to cause a big group of us got 4th and 5th row tickets.

I can't resist--potter part 7

Unless you live under a rock, you're probably aware that Harry Potter opened at midnight last night. I've never been to a midnight showing of anything, so this being Harry Potter I had to go. It was such an amazing experience for so many reasons. 1. it was like 99% college kids who were really excited 2. i'm not a night person but was able to stay up till 4 for this movie 3. IT'S HARRY POTTER. Aside from the amazingness of the movie (which I will spare you from me going on and on about it) my favorite part was how interactive the crowd was. People cheered loud and laughed loud. It was so nice to be with a crowd like that, cause we've all been watching a movie and a funny part comes up and you can't laugh as much as you want cause the crowd sucks and doesn't wanna laugh. We cheered at Dobby the house elf being amazing and laughed at the Weasley twins being hilarious.

Alright I can't resist at least a little review. There were two main things that made it amazing. First off is that it actually followed the book really well. You already had these pictures of the scenes in your head and they played out exactly on screen. And second was the subtle humor added into everything. There's a lot of death (don't yell at me for "spoiling" it cause the book has been out forever and it's your fault for not reading it) and it was nice to have comic relief intermittently. But, like I said it was subtle: the awkward walk, facial expressions, and all those little things.

And yes this picture is of Hermione cause she's b.a.

new simon's cat

enjoy the beauty that is 'Simon's Cat'

sugar art cookies

this is my plug for a friend's business. Though I haven't gotten the opportunity to order any yet I plan to when the opportunity arises. Sugar art cookies is their web site and if you wanna see all the albums of their awesome cookies here's their page on facebook



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funny comic of the day

look what I found

found this on youtube, it's not mine. Incase you ever wondered what it was like to storm Farout field, here ya go. That was an awesome day

word of the day

So when I'm driving friends around I often get "Nice rolling stop" to which I respond "Why thank you it's the St. louis stoptional" What is a stoptional you ask? Well let me tell you.

My friend Matt invented the word a while back, so all credit goes to him. It basically describes the art of the rolling stop. And we all know about rolling stops, but not everybody knows that it's an art form. It has been mastered by nearly every St. Louis driver. The process: You gently slow down to a stop sign, and upon seeing that there is nobody around, gently roll through it. The key is in the smoothness of stoptional or else it's just a rolling stop. Everybody can do a rolling stop, and then punch the accelerator after the sign, but only St. Louisians are able to do it smoothly and with fluidity. Because seriously, when it's 1 am and you're on a country road who really wants to stop all the way at the sign.

Stoptional (n.) (stop-chi-nul): The art form that involves almost stopping at a stop sign, and smoothly exiting. Often seen in St. Louis drivers.

Saw this on tv the other day. Mainly liked it because of Carrie Underwood cause she's awesome. But it looks like a cute movie

Just thought I'd give you an update on life at the moment. I'm sick as a dog (which if you think about it dogs don't really get sick and horses "healthy as a horse" tend to get hurt/sick a lot ). Anyways back to the point, I don't think playing in our RUF rec league basketball game helped my cold any.

But the main thing is that I've figured out living arrangements for next year. I can't wait to get away from this obnoxiously loud apartment complex I live in at the moment. There's a main group of us RUF folks and I'll be housing with 7 of them next year. And by house together I mean we're gonna try and find two 4 person apartments right next to each other. One of the girls knows of a few people who are hopefully moving out of some apartments that are right on top of each other next year. Plus they're on the edge of campus, which is a requirement cause it's really inconvenient living far away. The only potential drama is the fact that we won't know for sure until December/January when they do or don't resign their leases. It'll be fun and interesting especially considering one of my best friends is a girly, sorority girl. So I guess people will have to get use to the sight of my cleats and football sitting 5 feet away from high end makeup stuff.

old school

Do you remember this? I sure do. I may have only been 10 at the time, but even then i knew how awesome that team was

aww of the day

M I Z- Z O U!!!!!!!!!!!!

yup I was there. Did you see me, I was in yellow?? Just messin with ya. Seriously though, yesterday was the best day of my life. We beat #1 oklahoma, which was the most awesome game i've ever seen in person. We rushed the field, which was something I never thought I'd be able to do-it was AMAZING! And we got to kiss the 50 yard line which is one of the traditions. I can truely say that i never thought I'd see that one play out-it was gross and wet from the rain but again, AMAZING!! A friend who watched the game on tv said that a friend and myself made it on tv once during the game and after when there was a camera lady literally right where we were on the field. When you watch all the college kids screaming their heads off on tv you think-wow those kids are crazy. But when your team just pulled off the impossible you just can't help yourself.

secretariat review

I just got back from seeing Secretariat the movie. It was pretty awesome. The movie focuses mostly on Penny Chenery, the owner of Big Red. As a horse/Secretariat aficionado I was paying most attention to the horse and his groom Eddie Sweat. I'm not the happiest with how they portrayed Eddie. At one point they made him look like a somewhat crazy guy. But, truth being that Eddie was just very passionate about Secretariat and racing in general. Diane Lane does a great job portraying the character of Penny. Even though I'm not very knowledgeable about the person of Penny Chenery I believe that she did a great job. Definitely some great acting from both the big names and no names. The music was absolutely astounding and I plan to buy the soundtrack when I get the chance. They chose orchestra music for the races and it worked beautifully. Probably my favorite part was at the beginning when they showed a slow motion shot of a galloping horses stride. It was amazing. I've never seen it framed so well; you saw every little part of the stride and it's amazing what a gallop looks like.

But, as a horse fan I would have liked to see Secretariat get more screen time. Though the film makers did the best they could to describe how Big Red would literally pose for pictures and would look through people and actually observe, not just watch people, there's no substitute for the real thing. I don't like how they made Sham and his owner the "bad" characters. In truth Sham was also an amazing animal who would have been the triple crown winner any other year other than 1973 when Secretariat took over. My basic consensus is that if you aren't a horse person or familiar with Secretariat it probably won't be your kind of movie. But if you're interested in the amazing equine athlete you'll probably enjoy it.

One final thought. The beginning opened up with a reference to to story of Job. First off I didn't think Disney would ever take something from the Bible. Secondly it was about how apparently when Job was questioning God, God said something about horses. I personally don't remember that part of Job, but I'll check.

ballad of love and hate

Ross Dixon, my campus minister, is obsessed with the Avett Brothers. I don't really have any idea who they are but he played this song the other day when a group of us were in his car. It's an interesting song. Not the kind of music I usually listen to but still good nevertheless

savin' 3 lives

i gave blood today for the first time, it was an interesting experience. My friend asked me at the beginning of the school year if I could give for her sorority Kappa Delta (the fact that I'm involved with sorority functions is another story for another day). Well it started out with a group of us and a million other college kids waiting in line for about 45 minutes. Finally about 20 minutes, a dozen questions, and an extremely painful finger prick later we find ourselves sitting and waiting to give blood.

I don't know if you know anything about these people that work for the red cross and take blood, but they're not exactly professional nurses. I'm not one to complain but I watched at least 3 people come after me, give, and leave before I even saw my person. Finally after sitting and watching multiple pale white people get carted away for at least 20 minutes my person comes. She mumbles the whole time, I think I only comprehended about half her words. Despite waiting a frustrating amount of time, the giving blood part goes fine enough. That is until the end when my ever so professional nurse messes up.

There's a few test tube looking things that must be filled up prior to you being done to make sure you really don't have AIDS or something unusual with your blood. Well apparently my person let the tube that goes from the vein to the bad twist just enough that there wasn't enough blood left to go in the test tubes. So she proceeds to MOVE AND TWIST THE NEEDLE!! "I'll have to stick you again" is what she said. Safe to say I wanted to punch her and say a few choice words. Do you know how painful a needle inside your vein is when it's moved around? I pray that nobody ever has to feel that pain. Well just as I was about to call her bluff and say "no" another nurse took over insisting that mine take her break. This one actually knew what she was doing and I barely felt a thing when she had to stab me in my other arm.

Well at this moment my left arm is somewhat unusable, I'm left handed. I put sole blame on the chick who didn't know what she was doing. But nonetheless I got to hang out with some good friends and give blood for a good cause. So I'll probably give it another shot sometime in the future cause it's okay that I'm uncomfortable as long as it helps people.

college pigskin

pretty much an awesome day in college football:

South Carolina beat #1 Alabama

Mizzou killed Colorado

words to live by

a few friends of mine put together a blog focusing solely on the one and only Ross Dixon. They have put together a collection of his 'words to live by.' A phrase you're probably familiar with if you know this campus minister. It's absolutely hilarious because they put his random words into 3 categories of: Gold, Jackpot, and Money. Again a few phrases you're familiar with if you know the 'deceivingly athletic for his age' man. Well enough talking out of me here it is for your enjoyment.

thinkin' of winter

While I realize that it's only october 3rd I already can't wait to visit the magic tree. i didn't get a chance to go last year but am gonna make it a priority this year.

oh nature

Last night some of the RUF crew decided to go camping. The camping place was for the most part in the middle of nowhere and we quickly found out that you could actually see the stars really well. Something most of us aren't accustomed to. So about 5 of us decided to go out on the road and look at the stars. Who knew laying down on the path would be so cool.

I've always loved astronomy and the stars so it was pretty awesome. Aside from being able to see so many more stars than usual we were also able to see the milky way. The milky way is one of those things that you're not able to see very often so it was pretty cool. We also saw 5ish shooting stars. The combination of being able to see all those things reminds you of how neat the galaxy and all that stuff outside our solar system is.

bahaha

So I'm sitting here watching tv and apparently BigOtires is having a "KU lost their home opener sale"

Oh how I love mizzou and our rivalry

10th avenue north

I got to see 10th avenue north in concert this weekend in Jeff City with some RUF friends. They played this song and I really wanna learn it on piano.

food for thought

yesterday in church the pastor made a really good analogy. The basic premise was an analogy with the sun. Something to the effect of:

4 protons combine to make a larger molecule that's 7/10 the weight of the protons, the core is 28 million degrees, it's more than 99.8% of the mass of our solar system. But we don't need to know all that to get a sun tan and enjoy it.

Same with God and the Bible. We don't need to understand all the little details about God and be a seminary professor to appreciate him.

Just something I thought you'd like to know

hmm...

yeah, that's pretty much my life at the moment...

sand volleyball

For the next month or two I'm the captain of the RUF sand volleyball team. It's kinda funny cause I'm completely horrible at volleyball, but at least we've got some good players. It's gonna be insane because it's 4 on 4 sand volleyball and most of us can't exactly run very fast in deep sand. We've got some really athletic and tall guys who can hopefully spike the ball a lot.

Just though I'd update about my current situation.

simons cat

for those of you guys that have ever had cats. Here's the new 'simon's cat' video

Yesterdays game wasn't really a game as much as a practice for mizzou. From the beginning we felt bad for Mcnesse state, which as we found out is all the way from louisiana. There were 3 interceptions which were awesome. The halftime stats were so ridiculous that most of us literally laughed when we saw them. Something to the effect of Mizzou passing yards: 150+ Mcnesse passing yards: 20ish. Most of us are enjoying the games in which we're playing random schools. It'll be a different story when we play nebraska, oklahoma, and A & M.

aw of the day

M.I.Z.

Saturday is the first home football game of the year. I love football and football season, it's the best time of the year. Z.O.U

secretariat

This was just released for the new secretariat movie. I've been reading a book called The Horse God Built which is about the amazing Secretariat. What I've gathered is that Secretariat was the most amazing athlete that ever lived. His stride was just different and he loved to run just for the sake of running. He was extremely smart and actually observed, (which as a horse person I can tell you that some horses are dumb as rocks). Look at his win in the Belmont Stakes in 1973 he won by 31 lengths, instead of slowing down during the race he increased his speed with each furlong. He won by 31 lengths cause he just loved to run.

Apparently he was such a sight to look at. He was so muscular and majestic looking, unlike any animal. He was the perfect animal, the only races he lost were due to health issues. Truly "the horse God built." Everybody that saw him in person or saw him race remembers it. In the time of the Watergate scandal, Secretariat offered something purely honest. An public figure who knew he was amazing and didn't try to deceive anybody. He just did what he was built to do and what he loved to do.

No horse that they use in this movie to depict "Big Red" will ever be able to look or move like him. But I'm extremely excited anyways

how cute of the day

ultimate season

Ultimate frisbee started up again today. It quickly makes me realize how much I love the game and how much I lack in cardio endurance. Some people are built to run fast and some aren't, most of the team are a part of the former, but i am part of the latter. I've never been very good at ultimate in the context of other ultimate players but I love the game and people anyways. Plus by the end of the fall season running 2 miles feels like a warm up. So I'll probably have updates as the semester progresses and maybe a few pics.

give a damn

The stl beacon is doing a 4 part series on the guys of 'give a damn?' This is the part that highlights Dan

surviving the world

thought this was funny. It's from a web site called surviving the world

recap

alright, time for a recap of this summer. Figured that I might as well since a lot went on.

First off there was my 5 hour chem class. Not as big of a deal as I thought it would be. The teacher was really good at making sure we understood the material. He would use common analogies to describe concepts that otherwise would have been hard to understand. Even though it was 4 days a week two days were only for 1.5 hours, and the other days lasted till about 12:30 even though it was technically suppose to go till 1 pm.

Second, and probably the biggest part of my summer was Krew. It was a lot more fun/awesome then I though it would be. It was a lot of fun being a leader; a type of position I've never held in my life. I'm usually the youngest or in the same age range in relationships such a family and friends. It was a lot of fun being older and able to care about the kids. I loved my group of now sophomores. There are so many different personalities in that group from bubbly and loud to chill and quiet. Either way I love em all and wish I was there more often to see them grow up in high school the next three years. It was also really cool being a leader and hanging out with the other leaders as friends and not a student/leader relationship.

So that's my summer in a nut shell. It was awesome but I'm happy to be back in como hanging out with friends from RUF.