Chicago...My Kind of Town

Wow. What a weekend. For those of you who don't know, I went to Chi-town this weekend for the benefit "Hustle up the Hancock." By the way, even though the race is over, you may still donate to the cause. Get in contact with me if you choose to.

We arrived in Chicago late Thursday and a friend of our hosts, the Ferkaus, had left us her apartment while she stayed with another friend in the building. So we had an apartment to ourselves and way too much food provided by everyone involved in hosting us. Friday, my friend Jenn Amendt, rang the opening bell at the Chicago Stock Exchange while the rest of us stood up at the top with her. Pretty cool. After that we went to the Shedd Aquarium. Then went to ChinaTown to eat that night.

Saturday was spent on Michigan Ave. shopping and seeing some sights. A big dinner at an Italian restaurant culminated the day.

Sunday morning came the walk/run up the 94 floors of the Hancock building. What can I say about that...lol...floors 1-10 went quick...floors 10-oh say 60, I was hurting and thinking to myself, "what am I doing here." Floors 61-80 were alright, good thing for water breaks. Floors 80-94 were actually simple cause the end was near. What an experience though.

So my weekend in Chicago was excellent and I have Steve Ferkau and his wife Laura, his sisters Karen and Nancy ( I hope I got their names right), his mother (whom we now call Grandma) , Ruth and Sharon (it was Sharon's place we stayed in and Ruth who took Sharon in), and the countless other people that we met to THANK! They took such wonderful care of us and made it a great trip. Steve, you are truly an inspirational person.

By the way...I made it up in a time of 20 minutes and 15 seconds!!!

random

it is late on a sunday night and i have school tomorrow, so this will be quick. In fact, I really got nothing to say. I just thought to myself "I better update my blog just so my loyal throng of fans does not think I forgot about them!"

Basketball ended this week, so life is starting to slow down. Iowa basketball continues to lose. I like Alford, I want to see him do well, but I think it may be time for a change and I think he is gone. Watching the NBA All-Star game tonight. First, it takes forever to do the introductions. I think we could play a high school girls game in the time it took them to introduce one team, have a little Destiny's Child performance and then introduce the other team. Halftime show was LeeAnn Rimes and Big & Rich. Does that really mix well with the attitude and the fan base of the NBA? Probably not. It would be like having 50 Cent perform at the Daytona 500 today.

Speaking of the Daytona 500, I only watched the very end. It was an exciting race, but the announcers were over-doing its excitement just a bit, so I turned it as soon as the race ended.

I love having HBO, the other night I watched Chris Rock's "Never Scared" for like the 25th time and laughed as hard then as I did the first time. He is a funny dude and watching the Oscars next week with him hosting should be interesting. I haven't watched the Oscars for a few years now, it may be time to watch again.

Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue came out this week. Not too bad. One of the better ones I've seen in the 10 years I've been an SI subscriber. Speaking of which, is it crazy that I have kept every single issue I've ever got!? Going back to the swimsuit issue, who here thinks Marissa Miller will go out with me? [crossing fingers now].

Well, Sports Sound-Off is on now, my favorite show. Have a good week. In my newly found free time I'll have to try and post more often. This was fun.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey everyone, hope your weekends went well. Just to catch you up a bit, Homecoming went well. Nothing extravagent, but it was nice. The dance was a waste of two hours though. Only about half of the high schoolers came and then left after like 5 songs. That left the junior highers to dance the night away and ohhh, what bad dancers they are (not that I really have any room to speak). Well, at least that week is over now though. Friday was one hectic day and I didn't get to bed until 2 am. Ouch.

Anyways, on to the main part of this blog. Valentine's Day. Let us clear two things up before I get going in on this topic. 1) I am not one of those people who hates Valentine's Day because I don't have a girlfriend. I still do enjoy the holiday. 2) This blog is in no way a "feel sorry for Christian" type thing...I don't want you to feel bad for me.

With those two things in mind, every year when Valentine's Day rolls around, I must admit I get pretty frustrated. Why not me? What do I not have/offer? Do I smell? I just don't understand. There are people very special to me and it never seems to work out...almost like I'm cursed. Sometimes it is my fault, I don't take chances and I am shy when it comes to feelings and stuff like that. It is probably just a test of my patientce, and if so, I guess I'm doing pretty bad right now. To conclude, because I don't want to whine or be bitter, I just feel like I can be good for someone and sometimes it feels like part of me is missing. Pretty deep for a 23 year old guy, eh? Anyways, Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Later.

ps- I saw Hitch last night (2 dollar movie theatre here) and it was very good. I recommend it, especially as a Valentine's Day date movie.

Good News...

Well, it is almost Friday which is good news in itself, but there are a couple other little things that you may find interesting or humorous.

First, Homecoming is tomorrow and it is starting to come together. I think the other teachers think that I'm a well-prepared young teacher with minor flaws of not knowing the system. What they don't know is that I was thinking this whole pulling off Homecoming was a total mess. Now it at least looks like it will go off well. If any of you were A-Team fans in the 80s, to steal a line from Hannibal "I love it when a plan comes together." Cue theme music

The other good news is for those of you who were interested in my haircut strike. I had a scheduled appointment today and went in not knowing what to do. Cut it or just trim it up. I left it up to the nice lady who cuts my hair. Quick story about her...I went in for my last haircut on Nov. 2, second time at this place first time with this lady. After getting my haircut I went to vote and she came in at the same time with her kids. Well she remembered that so well that when I went in to make an apppointment she remembered my name instantly and where I worked. Today she said she was nervous that I had not liked my last haircut seeing how it had been over three months.

Anyways, I say "do what you want" and she decided to just thin my hair. It was becoming too thick in places. Also trimmed up the back and around the ears a bit, but for those of you wanting a longer haired Christian, you got your wish. I think I'm turning into this lady's pet project or something cause at the end she was talking about highlighting next time I come in.

Well, wish me luck tomorrow with the Homecoming finale. I will be leaving my apartment at 7 am and probably not returning til after 1 am Saturday morning. Darn dances. Later

Part Two

So the Super Bowl is over and the Patriots won. I was cheering for the Eagles just because I wanted someone new to win, but I have no problem with the Pats. Kirk Ferentz (Iowa's head coach) learned from the Patriots head coach and the two teams are very similar in style. It was a close game, like I predicted, but kind of a boring close game. Philly played downright stupid at the end. What were they thinking just taking their time down 10 with under 5 minutes on the clock. No real standout performances either. I guess Deion Branch had a good game, but most of you are probably like "who the heck is Deion Branch?" Good question. Simply put, close game but I was even getting bored by the end of it.

Well, let's see here. Anything else I want to talk about? A couple other things. First, the downhill slide is starting as far as my busy schedule goes. I'm done reffing for the year. This week is homecoming (we have no football team so it is done during basketball season) and seeing how I'm in charge of that, I'll be glad when this week is over. In a week and a half the basketball season is over which means two things. First no more practices and games and secondly, no more concession stand. That all equals one thing...more free time! More time to focus on the 7 preps I have! By the way, I'm still trying to figure out how to teach classes of one. If someone knows or has any ideas, let me know.

Pierre Pierce is gone from the Iowa basketball team and at this point I say good riddance. Good luck to the rest of the Hawkeyes who don't jeopardize their careers and the team by acting stupid. I hope they can get some wins together and make the tournament. Yesterday was a tough loss but I liked the heart that was shown.

Lastly, haircut strike is up to three months and a couple days now. Too bad really none of you get to see it, and won't see it. Thursday I have a haircut appointment. I am going to keep it "longer" but right now it is really starting to bug me.

Well, have a good week everyone. I'll try to check in soon.

Super Bowl Sunday

The problem one faces when wanting to blog during the Super Bowl and still not miss anything is easily solved when you have an apartment as small as mine. I am able to sit here and type to you while watching Paul McCartney do his thing during halftime.

Thoughts on the first half...Good game so far. I kind of expected this. I was a little upset with those thinking it was going to be a blowout (now watch, it will in the second half). Highlights so far...well game wise only one touchdown a piece. A lot of action though...fumbles, reviews, interceptions, penalties (the Patriots sure are being penalized a lot tonight which is strange for them). I enjoyed the pre-game stuff with an actual choir singing the National Anthem and Presidents Bush I and Clinton were there. Coin flip done by a little kid. I like how this Super Bowl isn't as much overdone pop glitz as it has been in the past. I laughed though when all the captains had to pat the kid on the head or do something silly to him. He's probably 11 and they were acting like a 2 year old had come out to flip the coin for them. By the way, it wasn't really a flip, more of a toss into the air. I don't think the coin even made a revolution.

Na Na Na Nananah Nananahh Hey Jude!!!! No wardrobe malfunctions this year!

Funniest commerical so far...easily the one for FedEx/Kinkos where they have a guy saying "we've researched what makes a commerical great and come up with ten things every commerical needs" and then they have a really random commerical with the top ten things of a popular commerical (celebrity, a theme song, animal, dancing animal, cute kid, talking animal, etc.) I was laughing so hard.

Well second half is going to start very soon. I shall return then.

A Request....

Friends,

I don't have much to say tonight. I'm saving some stuff for later in the week, and maybe a running blog on tomorrow night's State of the Union address.

What I do have tonight is a request for all of you to read my blog "So Many Things" from a few weeks ago. Commenting on my blog is the man whose team I am running on later this month in Hustle up the Hancock. Very inspiring. Please remember that it would be much appreiciated if you clicked the link there too and donated to this cause. Thank you.