9-12-11

Hello America,

I'm about to make a statement that, if taken WAY out of context, could be considered offensive. I surly have no intention of it being interpreted that way, but you never know. 

It's darn good to be an American on September, 11. We all know how horrible and tragic that day 10 years ago was, but our response to the day reminds me why I'm proud to be an American. On the ten year anniversary of the day, we weren't scared. Our spirits weren't crushed. We didn't cry for the loss of the American way of life. 

We responded to the anniversary by reminding ourselves of how we felt that day and showing that we can move on without forgetting. The World Trade Center Memorial looked incredible and to see the new tower going up just made me proud. They can hurt us, but they can never stop us. Go America!

Hey there football fans

Hey there football fans,

What a great opening Sunday of football! I'm not a huge fan of the turn out of most of the games, but it was still just so nice to be watching the NFL again. The Cowboys lost to the Jets, in true Romo choke fashion. This was probably the highlight of the week for me. Not that I dislike the Cowboys, or love the Jets, it was just a great way to get vengeance against my room mates.

You see, I am a Steeler fan, and they played their rivals, the Ravens. The Steelers had 7 turnovers, leading to a Ravens spanking. I was not very happy about this. To make it worse, my room mates hammered me with smack talk for the entire game. My only reply was, "Yeah, but the Cowboys are worse and your QB stinks worse than Pigpen. He will choke harder than Bush on Pretzels. America's Team my butt, you're a terrorist if you don't cheer for New York on the 10 year anniversary of 9-11." (I cleaned up the language a bit)

Thankfully, Romo came through for me and blew the game, or at least his team did and I get to blame it on Romo simply because he exists. Unfortunately, it looks like I will lose in Fantasy Football this week, I need Brandon Marshall to score less than 8 points on Monday, which doesn't seem likely to happen. Shucks.

What I saw on TV

Happy weekend team,
I was just watching this documentary on ESPN that nearly made me cry. It was the story of a boxer named Paco. He was a fairly accomplished boxer in the Chicago area, having a record of 14 and 2. His wife, who had recently given birth, was encouraging him to give up boxing because of the health risks. He refused because he finally had a shot at a title match. When the match came around, he was beaten badly. So badly that he fell into a coma and died the next day.
His wife then decided to donate his organs. Five different people received Paco's organs. A few months after their surgeries were completed, Paco's wife wrote to each of the people to arrange a meeting. On the one year anniversary of his death, all the recipients and Paco's wife meet in Chicago. It was a strange sight; sad for Paco, but joyous because his death saved 5 strangers lives.
I hope when I die they can help people with my organs. It almost seems like a way to cheat death, trading one life for five others. Its a kind of victory through defeat. Good for Paco

9-6-11

Howdy Y'all,
Well, the long weekend is over. It was fun while it lasted, but if it lasted much longer I would probably not enjoy it as much. Labor Day is a nifty holiday. I understand it is to support and honor the work force and the unions who fought for the workers' rights, but its still so abstract to me. Maybe that's because I have never been a real member of the work force, or maybe its because in my mind Labor Day is synonymous not wearing white pants. Either way, I wish the holiday was more important to me, but its not. Does that make me a bad liberal? Maybe, but at least I'm not phony.
The evolution class took their first quiz today. Only one of the questions I wrote made it on to the quiz, but it was still a proud moment for me. Only 59 percent of the class answered it correctly. I'm not sure if that makes me proud for creating a hard question, or feel guilty because I made the question too hard. I'll probably make the next batch of questions slightly easier to see what my emotional response is to a higher correct response rate. After that I'll know for sure what kind of questions make me feel the best, and will make all of them like that in the future. (if any professors of mine are reading this... I'm SURE it will be the very easy questions. Lets aim for that on my next tests.)

9-5-11

Good afternoon,
Today has just been one of those days. Not like "those" days referring to a bad day, if fact just the opposite. I mean today has been one of THOSE days, where while nothing is really going right, everything just seems to be funnier than normal. Today started out like any other Monday, with a lab meeting. We were a bit confused as to be having a lab meeting on Labor Day, but I'm not the boss so my opinions are irrelevant on this kind of thing. Well, as it turns out, we didn't have a lab meeting. Woke up and went to school at 9, but no meeting. Communication breakdown, but the silver lining was that I went to the union and had a delicious Phili Cheese Steak for breakfast. Roy Halladay's breakfast of champions.
Then I was off to play some Frisbee golf. I played probably the greatest round of Frolf of my young life, but that wasn't the good part. The THOSE day events came from a 10 year old kid who joined our group. He was wearing a Kool-aid shirt, so naturally, his nickname became "OHHH YEAH!" Well OHHH told our group that it was weird for my room mate and I to be playing together. "What makes you say that DJ Yeah?" he responds, "Well, you (pointing at me) are like, what... 30? and you (my elder room mate) are like 17. How'd yall become room mates?" I laughed so hard I could have died on the spot happy. By the time I was finished laughing, Captain Tropical Punch had left without anyone seeing where he went. We decided that he must be a ghost who haunts the Frisbee Golf field and only materializes to make my life full of immature laughter.

9-4-11

Howdy,
So how awesome was the football game? I invited a few friends over to my girlfriend's house to tailgate before hand. We had steak, bratwurst and all that kind of stuff on the grill. I always get a kick out of grilling. Mainly because it is one of the only styles of cooking that I'm no novice to. Also, standing behind a grill makes me feel like a big boy.
We all walked to the game about an hour before kickoff. The lead up to the game is almost as much fun as the game itself. Watching all the freshmen is the best part. Freshmen are so excited, and usually pretty drunk, so I just get a kick out of them. I like to think that I wasn't that lame at that age, but I'm sure I was equally, if not more, ridiculous.
The game was great. I was so excited for the season to start that i was described as "an 8 year old on Christmas eve," which was a reasonable description. I hope the excitement stays all season, which means I really hope we keep winning. Florida State in just 2 weeks. Can't wait!!

9-2-11

Greetings Nerds,

So I'm currently in Springfield, Missouri. My girlfriend, Kristine, is from Springfield, so we came up to see her parents. Her dad turned 65 yesterday. And if that wasn't enough to constitute a trip, today was his last day of work. He is retiring from the city water treatment plant after 14 years.

The retirement party was this afternoon at the water treatment plant. Surprisingly, the place didn't smell bad at all. The plant (under his leadership) is now the most progressive and greenest treatment plant in all of Missouri. It was honored in 2010 for being the best treatment plant in the state, making Kristine's dad a pretty popular man in the Missouri engineering world.

Before the tour kicked off, one of the workers gave me a tour. Turns out water treatment is much more sophisticated than one would assume. Ozone generators, Nitrogen conversion tanks, and gravitational belt settlers (or something that sounded something like that) to name a few of the nifty machines. More on the tour tomorrow. See you at the game!