Blog Post 3/4/10
FYI: I wasn't planning to write a blog tonight but this was too good to pass up.
1. The cops
2. The BIG 29
1. Sara and I were coming home from dinner tonight and we were waiting in our driveway for the garage door to open. All of the sudden I noticed that the neighbors (skateboard college boys) were honking their horns at us to move. I get out of the car and tell the guys that I didn't appreciate that they were driving over my lawn and asked them not to do it again. I then went in the house and looked out the big front window that I have and saw that the boys were moving a different truck through my yard with a huge skateboard ramp in the bed of the truck. I told Sara I was calling the police because those guys weren't listening to me.
As I was waiting for the police to arrive I sat in my old man chair by the front window and watched the boys take three more trips over the lawn. The boys even had the gaul to drop off their skate ramp parts in my yard while they were moving. Sara then left for work and 45 minutes after calling the police they finally arrive and give the boys some hell. After the police officers talked with them the police officers came over and talked with me. The officers told me that I had two options. I could either file trespassing charges or let the kids go with a stern warning.
I told the cops I was just pissed off and wanted the kids to know how upset I was. One of the officers said that if it was his lawn those kids would be going through the ringer. Right as the officer was saying that Sara's friends Holly and Mike showed up to stay with us for a couple days. It was really funny timing.
Holly and Mike came in the house and were wondering what in the world was going on. So I had to explain it to them.
2. I'm now 29 and had a lot of great friends come up for by birthday. It was another great birthday celebrated with brewery tours and the school bus. I'd like to say more, but if I did I'd forget to mention one of the great stories that happened on the bus.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Operation: Ruin Hopes and Dreams
Blog 2/8/2010: Operation: Ruin Hopes and Dreams
1. Weddings
2. Bachelor parties
3. The Super Bowl
1. So I was asked to be a Groomsman in Chads wedding. It ought to be a real interesting show. Wink, wink. The wedding is September 24th and it just so happens to be the exact same day as the remake of Red Dawn is released. So I am really torn on what to do with the day. Should I go to the wedding of my college roommate, or go to see the remake of one of the most breathtaking movies in the last 30 years? This one might take me a while to figure out.
2. So Chad has it in his mind that he is going to Vegas for his bachelor party. I have a few comments on that subject. I think this concept is very selfish of the groom to be. Of course a groom to be wants to go to Vegas. The groom to be wants his bachelor party to go down as the most memorable bachelor parties in the history of bachelor parties. Of course the movie "The Hangover" didn't help. What every groom to be needs to realize is that for the guests of a bachelor party, there will be many bachelor parties in their lives.
One of my major hang-ups with Vegas for bachelor parties is the inherent cost of the trip. Being conservative a plane ticket from DIA costs $150, hotels for 3 nights $140 per person, meals $120, "entertainment" money $100, gambling money $200, and multiply the total by 1.33 since you'll be paying for the groom to be. That comes to a total of $944, that is a really expensive weekend no matter how you count it. Remember, that is a per person fee.
My second issue with a Vegas bachelor party assumes that you are not a lottery winner or heir to millions. I am assuming that there is a certain portion of the population that will balk at spending a grand on a weekend so there will be fewer people at the party in Vegas. If the party were held in town more people would come and partake in the fun. In my naive little world more people=more fun.
The last issue that I'll mention with Vegas is that when you're there for a party, unless you're Lindsey Lohan, you are just another face in the crowd. Why not spend a weekend in town and do all of the insane (sky dive, bungie jump, golf, smoke cigars, see the big game from club level, floozies, etc...) things that you want to do for far cheaper and all while the groom to be is the center of attention. You'd live life like a king.
In conclusion, the phrase "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" is not true. Here is a non-complete list:
1. Your credit card debit from gambling too much
2. An arrest record
3. Herpies (thanks, The Hangover)
4. A marriage to a cocktail waitress (thanks, the Simpsons)
5. A guilty conscience
3. The Super Bowl was yesterday and I thought it was a real sleeper. I just had a hard time getting up for the game between two teams that I really don't care about. It really brings me to my next point. I hate all of those people that jump on the bandwagon of the winning team. I include people in the previous statement that refuse to acknowledge their team when the team is doing terrible. Winning is so much sweeter, when you've been with the team through the ups and more importantly the down.
There was a term that I learned in grad school related to that fact, it was BIRGing,Basking In Reflective Glory. BIRGing relates to an individual feeling a level of success through the success of another. It's commonly associated with fans of sports teams. This may be the reason why I don't really associate with any professional sports teams. I really don't see the point of cheering for a guy like Brett Farve only to see him go to an arch rival a couple years later. In the college game there are fewer issues with player issues like that.
Currently watching, "The Education of Charlie Bartlett"
1. Weddings
2. Bachelor parties
3. The Super Bowl
1. So I was asked to be a Groomsman in Chads wedding. It ought to be a real interesting show. Wink, wink. The wedding is September 24th and it just so happens to be the exact same day as the remake of Red Dawn is released. So I am really torn on what to do with the day. Should I go to the wedding of my college roommate, or go to see the remake of one of the most breathtaking movies in the last 30 years? This one might take me a while to figure out.
2. So Chad has it in his mind that he is going to Vegas for his bachelor party. I have a few comments on that subject. I think this concept is very selfish of the groom to be. Of course a groom to be wants to go to Vegas. The groom to be wants his bachelor party to go down as the most memorable bachelor parties in the history of bachelor parties. Of course the movie "The Hangover" didn't help. What every groom to be needs to realize is that for the guests of a bachelor party, there will be many bachelor parties in their lives.
One of my major hang-ups with Vegas for bachelor parties is the inherent cost of the trip. Being conservative a plane ticket from DIA costs $150, hotels for 3 nights $140 per person, meals $120, "entertainment" money $100, gambling money $200, and multiply the total by 1.33 since you'll be paying for the groom to be. That comes to a total of $944, that is a really expensive weekend no matter how you count it. Remember, that is a per person fee.
My second issue with a Vegas bachelor party assumes that you are not a lottery winner or heir to millions. I am assuming that there is a certain portion of the population that will balk at spending a grand on a weekend so there will be fewer people at the party in Vegas. If the party were held in town more people would come and partake in the fun. In my naive little world more people=more fun.
The last issue that I'll mention with Vegas is that when you're there for a party, unless you're Lindsey Lohan, you are just another face in the crowd. Why not spend a weekend in town and do all of the insane (sky dive, bungie jump, golf, smoke cigars, see the big game from club level, floozies, etc...) things that you want to do for far cheaper and all while the groom to be is the center of attention. You'd live life like a king.
In conclusion, the phrase "What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" is not true. Here is a non-complete list:
1. Your credit card debit from gambling too much
2. An arrest record
3. Herpies (thanks, The Hangover)
4. A marriage to a cocktail waitress (thanks, the Simpsons)
5. A guilty conscience
3. The Super Bowl was yesterday and I thought it was a real sleeper. I just had a hard time getting up for the game between two teams that I really don't care about. It really brings me to my next point. I hate all of those people that jump on the bandwagon of the winning team. I include people in the previous statement that refuse to acknowledge their team when the team is doing terrible. Winning is so much sweeter, when you've been with the team through the ups and more importantly the down.
There was a term that I learned in grad school related to that fact, it was BIRGing,Basking In Reflective Glory. BIRGing relates to an individual feeling a level of success through the success of another. It's commonly associated with fans of sports teams. This may be the reason why I don't really associate with any professional sports teams. I really don't see the point of cheering for a guy like Brett Farve only to see him go to an arch rival a couple years later. In the college game there are fewer issues with player issues like that.
Currently watching, "The Education of Charlie Bartlett"
Thursday, January 14, 2010
1/14/10, the death of saving time
Blog 1/14/10
1. I'm back
2. My work
3. The time saving drop of the 0
4. What I'm watching right now
1. I haven't written a blog in a long time. Okay, it's been a really long time. I've been busy around work and my personal life so I've had little oppurtunity to continue to write in this. For those of you that are reading this for the first time, I had quite the blog history on blogger and on myspace. What I'm trying to say is that I have been too damn lazy to write this blog.
2. This time of year at work is the calm before the storm. The students aren't back yet, but I can see the storm (students) coming off of the coast. I've had a rough spell at work, my wonderful supervisor Marsha has decided to retire at the end of the month. I've been working on several large scale events that will take place this semester, in fact there will be ar least one a month through May. So it will be a busy semester! Here is a brief calendar:
Feb, CSU vs. UNC Men's Ice Hockey at the Budweiser Event Center
Mar, Logging Sports Conclave (Regional Championship) televised on ESPN
Apr, Skyline Stampede Rodeo, the oldest college rodeo
Apr, CSU vs. CU Lacrosse Showdown at Invesco Field
May, Ultimate Frisbee Regional Tournament, approximately 500 players will be there
3. Back in 2007 I had a blog topic about dropping the 0 whenever I write the date out. Here's a sample, 1/21/7, instead of 1/21/07. I did the math and I literally saved hours of time over the course of the last 3 years. Now that we've entered 2010 that time savings is gone. So I am not saving that time anymore. Time to work a little extra hard to make up for that lost time. I guess that I'll have to get used to disappointment.
4. I just watched (500) Days of Summer. That may explain the somberness of this post. After watching that I've decided that I need to watch something happy before I cry myself to sleep, so I put on Role Models. Role Models is a vastly underrated movie from 2008. It really is kind of funny and Lil' Ronnie really stole the show in that one. Any ways, to-ta-lou, good readers!
1. I'm back
2. My work
3. The time saving drop of the 0
4. What I'm watching right now
1. I haven't written a blog in a long time. Okay, it's been a really long time. I've been busy around work and my personal life so I've had little oppurtunity to continue to write in this. For those of you that are reading this for the first time, I had quite the blog history on blogger and on myspace. What I'm trying to say is that I have been too damn lazy to write this blog.
2. This time of year at work is the calm before the storm. The students aren't back yet, but I can see the storm (students) coming off of the coast. I've had a rough spell at work, my wonderful supervisor Marsha has decided to retire at the end of the month. I've been working on several large scale events that will take place this semester, in fact there will be ar least one a month through May. So it will be a busy semester! Here is a brief calendar:
Feb, CSU vs. UNC Men's Ice Hockey at the Budweiser Event Center
Mar, Logging Sports Conclave (Regional Championship) televised on ESPN
Apr, Skyline Stampede Rodeo, the oldest college rodeo
Apr, CSU vs. CU Lacrosse Showdown at Invesco Field
May, Ultimate Frisbee Regional Tournament, approximately 500 players will be there
3. Back in 2007 I had a blog topic about dropping the 0 whenever I write the date out. Here's a sample, 1/21/7, instead of 1/21/07. I did the math and I literally saved hours of time over the course of the last 3 years. Now that we've entered 2010 that time savings is gone. So I am not saving that time anymore. Time to work a little extra hard to make up for that lost time. I guess that I'll have to get used to disappointment.
4. I just watched (500) Days of Summer. That may explain the somberness of this post. After watching that I've decided that I need to watch something happy before I cry myself to sleep, so I put on Role Models. Role Models is a vastly underrated movie from 2008. It really is kind of funny and Lil' Ronnie really stole the show in that one. Any ways, to-ta-lou, good readers!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
So it's been a while
I've been forgetting to blog for a while. I've been doing it intermittently on myspace and rarely on this.
Things i'll talk about in this issue:
1. Life in Fort Collins
2. The election
3. Concerts
1. Things have been going moderately well in Fort Collins. Sara and I are still together. Yes, it's been over a year. She and I have been going through a really good spell lately. I think that we're both happy.
For those of you that are familiar with my work life things have been going alright. People around the office have been on edge a little more lately. I think that this is partially due to the fact that the economy is in the shitter; and the expansion coming up soon. The rec. is expanding and it will be a really cool addition if it gets built. Allegedly the money is already in the bank, but given everything that is going on in the world I am a bit skeptical.
2. I am usually a person that loves the political game. Over the past 6 months I actually hated the process this time around. Everywhere I turned people were proudly displaying their candidate of choice. It is great to see that people were getting involved in the process. The only thing that irritated me was that people would seem to completely belittle the other candidate and everything he/she believed in. Not only that but people would focus on the minuscule detail of a candidates background and exploit it. When people were talking bad about the minuscule details the people would refuse to take the same critical look at their candidates. Nearly everyone forgot to take a fair look at all of the candidates.
3. I've been going to a lot of concerts lately and I have to say my favorites recently were Matt Nathanson and Lupe Fiasco at Moby Arena (the fiasco).
Things i'll talk about in this issue:
1. Life in Fort Collins
2. The election
3. Concerts
1. Things have been going moderately well in Fort Collins. Sara and I are still together. Yes, it's been over a year. She and I have been going through a really good spell lately. I think that we're both happy.
For those of you that are familiar with my work life things have been going alright. People around the office have been on edge a little more lately. I think that this is partially due to the fact that the economy is in the shitter; and the expansion coming up soon. The rec. is expanding and it will be a really cool addition if it gets built. Allegedly the money is already in the bank, but given everything that is going on in the world I am a bit skeptical.
2. I am usually a person that loves the political game. Over the past 6 months I actually hated the process this time around. Everywhere I turned people were proudly displaying their candidate of choice. It is great to see that people were getting involved in the process. The only thing that irritated me was that people would seem to completely belittle the other candidate and everything he/she believed in. Not only that but people would focus on the minuscule detail of a candidates background and exploit it. When people were talking bad about the minuscule details the people would refuse to take the same critical look at their candidates. Nearly everyone forgot to take a fair look at all of the candidates.
3. I've been going to a lot of concerts lately and I have to say my favorites recently were Matt Nathanson and Lupe Fiasco at Moby Arena (the fiasco).
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
What do Spring Break, St. Patty's Day, and Trivia have in common? A: I'm screwed
1. Television
2. Work
3. Spring Break
4.
1. My sister and I hooked up the rabbit ears and on the second floor we can get three channels clearly. The three channels that are coming in clear are fox, the bible channel and everyone’s favorite telemundo. So I can watch fox at home now. The only thing that pisses me off about the fox network is that it is all American Idol all the time. Yet again why I refuse to pay for television.
Maybe one of these days I will subscribe to television again. Just not now.
2. My new boss Marsha started this week. Marsha comes from the big bad wolf known as Athletics. I call athletics the big bad wolf because around campus there is a certain aura about that department. So I now share an office with her. Thus far (two days in) it has been going great. I am learning some things about her and what is going on around the university. She is learning a lot about things that go on around the sport clubs office. She has been very fun to work with.
Other than that work has been getting busy since it is the week after spring break and we are now in crunch time for all of the teams. The main thing that this means is that my ski season is most effectively over. That is due to the fact that I have to be at the Oval Crit (cycling race) at 8am this Sunday. Next weekend I am going to the CSU rodeo. Anyone want to go to the rodeo with me? The following weekend I have the ice hockey alumni game and end of the season banquet. So that will effectively end my ski season. Damn, work.
3. My spring break started a day later than the college kids. This was due to the hockey tournament. I headed down to Crested Butte to spend some time with Dan. There was an ulterior motive of course. That was to meet some young spring breakers. Well to effectively ruin that sub plot, there were very few spring breakers down there. The coeds that were in attendance were all families and families from Texas none the ness.
Spending time with Dan was fun though. The time was consumed with drinking cheap beer and skiing for free. I didn’t pay to ski the entire week. That was wicked sweet. The first day we met up at Monarch and skied up there. That was cool because despite being spring break there were no lift lines. Have I mentioned how nice it is to ski with someone who can ski anywhere on the mountain and not bitch about it? We got to ski for free up there because it was part of Dan’s season pass and I had a free pass from John going to a Mammoth lacrosse game. The only down side to the day was that I developed a blister the size of a quarter on the inside side of my foot. That little bastard still hurts today. After the day of skiing we left for dinner in Gunnison, and later that day drinks in Crested Butte.
The next morning (Monday) Dan left for work. This was as I was doing my part to a constructive society, I was nursing a hang over. I did make it up skiing by 10am. This was one of the days when I drove around to the back side of the mountain and skied on the backside (of the mountain sickos) for free all day. Dan met me up for lunch on the mountain and we skied some runs for about three hours. That is one thing that is amazing about mountain living, long lunch breaks to go skiing. Damn I wish CSU was relocated to Crested Butte, Steamboat, Aspen, or Vail.
After the lunch break I went skiing by myself for the rest of the day. Then I went in for some hot tubing. Note to you readers out there, splitting a 20 pack at 10,000 feet in a hot tub isn’t a good idea. The next morning my hangover was ridiculous. I decided to take the day off from skiing so that I could find an internet connection in town so I could set my March Madness brackets. I had actually planned on taking the day off from skiing but I hadn’t planned on the wicked hangover. Got the brackets set and headed to the mountain for some much needed lunch. After this it was back to Gettman’s place for a nap, hot tub and some beer. Dan came back around 5 and we took the bus into town for a night (Tuesday) on the town. Dan had noted that the town of Crested Butte was not known for having many ladies at the bars. He was correct there were less women at the bars then I have ever seen in my life. I was in shock. Back to Gettman’s place for some more beers.
The next morning I woke up without a hangover and headed out skiing early. I went out hard since it was my last day there. The only downfall was that skiing hard all day and deciding to split more than a full 30 pack with Dan left us both shit housed. I don’t know how it happened really but we got housed that night.
Thursday morning I left for Fort Collins. That ended up being a fairly uneventful drive. The uneventfulness was partially due to the fact that I was in that hungover phase when keeping a constant thought was difficult. So keeping my mind on track resulted in time fly by on the way back to Fort Collins. Thursday night was uneventful even though my trivia team won.
Since Boyle didn’t have to teach and I didn’t have to work on Friday we went to the brewery tours. This was before I was supposed to meet Jessica and Paul to discuss them getting together to get her into a town home. Paul and I decided to meet later in the evening for some drinks. It ended up being Tamara, Paul and some of Paul’s friends. We went to Old C’s. Not much happened outside the typical shenanigans. I didn’t do anything wrong this time. Paul’s friend ended up nearly getting us into some trouble but I was a good sailor. I guess that means that I am becoming more mature and responsible. I ended up giving Paul and Tamara a ride home. During this Tamara actually said that I was “a good guy”. I nearly crapped in my pants.
Saturday consisted of me being lazy until about 3pm when Jessica and I got together to grab a couple of beers at the Old Town bars. It was a beautiful day and apparently the entire population of Fort Collins thought the same thing as we did. Of course it also happened to be Saint Patrick’s Day so I can’t figure out why the bars were packed. Jessica and I later met up with her old boyfriend and a couple of other ladies. After all of it was said and done there were 5 girls and 2 guys. I went home alone, I am a loser. I didn’t drive though. That was probably due to the fact that I didn’t have a car but I took to new Shamrock $6 shuttle home. I wish that thing was there when I was in college.
Sunday was the day of rest and I used it as such. I went to Potts with the sister for some Bloody Mary’s. Spring Break was over as is this story.
2. Work
3. Spring Break
4.
1. My sister and I hooked up the rabbit ears and on the second floor we can get three channels clearly. The three channels that are coming in clear are fox, the bible channel and everyone’s favorite telemundo. So I can watch fox at home now. The only thing that pisses me off about the fox network is that it is all American Idol all the time. Yet again why I refuse to pay for television.
Maybe one of these days I will subscribe to television again. Just not now.
2. My new boss Marsha started this week. Marsha comes from the big bad wolf known as Athletics. I call athletics the big bad wolf because around campus there is a certain aura about that department. So I now share an office with her. Thus far (two days in) it has been going great. I am learning some things about her and what is going on around the university. She is learning a lot about things that go on around the sport clubs office. She has been very fun to work with.
Other than that work has been getting busy since it is the week after spring break and we are now in crunch time for all of the teams. The main thing that this means is that my ski season is most effectively over. That is due to the fact that I have to be at the Oval Crit (cycling race) at 8am this Sunday. Next weekend I am going to the CSU rodeo. Anyone want to go to the rodeo with me? The following weekend I have the ice hockey alumni game and end of the season banquet. So that will effectively end my ski season. Damn, work.
3. My spring break started a day later than the college kids. This was due to the hockey tournament. I headed down to Crested Butte to spend some time with Dan. There was an ulterior motive of course. That was to meet some young spring breakers. Well to effectively ruin that sub plot, there were very few spring breakers down there. The coeds that were in attendance were all families and families from Texas none the ness.
Spending time with Dan was fun though. The time was consumed with drinking cheap beer and skiing for free. I didn’t pay to ski the entire week. That was wicked sweet. The first day we met up at Monarch and skied up there. That was cool because despite being spring break there were no lift lines. Have I mentioned how nice it is to ski with someone who can ski anywhere on the mountain and not bitch about it? We got to ski for free up there because it was part of Dan’s season pass and I had a free pass from John going to a Mammoth lacrosse game. The only down side to the day was that I developed a blister the size of a quarter on the inside side of my foot. That little bastard still hurts today. After the day of skiing we left for dinner in Gunnison, and later that day drinks in Crested Butte.
The next morning (Monday) Dan left for work. This was as I was doing my part to a constructive society, I was nursing a hang over. I did make it up skiing by 10am. This was one of the days when I drove around to the back side of the mountain and skied on the backside (of the mountain sickos) for free all day. Dan met me up for lunch on the mountain and we skied some runs for about three hours. That is one thing that is amazing about mountain living, long lunch breaks to go skiing. Damn I wish CSU was relocated to Crested Butte, Steamboat, Aspen, or Vail.
After the lunch break I went skiing by myself for the rest of the day. Then I went in for some hot tubing. Note to you readers out there, splitting a 20 pack at 10,000 feet in a hot tub isn’t a good idea. The next morning my hangover was ridiculous. I decided to take the day off from skiing so that I could find an internet connection in town so I could set my March Madness brackets. I had actually planned on taking the day off from skiing but I hadn’t planned on the wicked hangover. Got the brackets set and headed to the mountain for some much needed lunch. After this it was back to Gettman’s place for a nap, hot tub and some beer. Dan came back around 5 and we took the bus into town for a night (Tuesday) on the town. Dan had noted that the town of Crested Butte was not known for having many ladies at the bars. He was correct there were less women at the bars then I have ever seen in my life. I was in shock. Back to Gettman’s place for some more beers.
The next morning I woke up without a hangover and headed out skiing early. I went out hard since it was my last day there. The only downfall was that skiing hard all day and deciding to split more than a full 30 pack with Dan left us both shit housed. I don’t know how it happened really but we got housed that night.
Thursday morning I left for Fort Collins. That ended up being a fairly uneventful drive. The uneventfulness was partially due to the fact that I was in that hungover phase when keeping a constant thought was difficult. So keeping my mind on track resulted in time fly by on the way back to Fort Collins. Thursday night was uneventful even though my trivia team won.
Since Boyle didn’t have to teach and I didn’t have to work on Friday we went to the brewery tours. This was before I was supposed to meet Jessica and Paul to discuss them getting together to get her into a town home. Paul and I decided to meet later in the evening for some drinks. It ended up being Tamara, Paul and some of Paul’s friends. We went to Old C’s. Not much happened outside the typical shenanigans. I didn’t do anything wrong this time. Paul’s friend ended up nearly getting us into some trouble but I was a good sailor. I guess that means that I am becoming more mature and responsible. I ended up giving Paul and Tamara a ride home. During this Tamara actually said that I was “a good guy”. I nearly crapped in my pants.
Saturday consisted of me being lazy until about 3pm when Jessica and I got together to grab a couple of beers at the Old Town bars. It was a beautiful day and apparently the entire population of Fort Collins thought the same thing as we did. Of course it also happened to be Saint Patrick’s Day so I can’t figure out why the bars were packed. Jessica and I later met up with her old boyfriend and a couple of other ladies. After all of it was said and done there were 5 girls and 2 guys. I went home alone, I am a loser. I didn’t drive though. That was probably due to the fact that I didn’t have a car but I took to new Shamrock $6 shuttle home. I wish that thing was there when I was in college.
Sunday was the day of rest and I used it as such. I went to Potts with the sister for some Bloody Mary’s. Spring Break was over as is this story.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Hockey and Work... LAME
Hockey, Life, and everything in between
The story
1. There is a reason why I have not been keeping the blog as active as I (and presumably you) would like. My ice hockey team has the privilege of hosing their national tournament. Of course that means that I have the privilege of hosting the national tournament. Of course this privilege comes with the duty of working more than I like. While most of you are tired of this bitching, I feel that it is justified this time around. From Sunday, March 4, to Saturday March 10 I will work 105 hours. This time is split between the EPIC ice rink, Moby Aux. Gym, and the Rec. Center.
On Sunday I intended on coming in from 9am until noon. I was just going to setup the field for the lacrosse game, watch it start and take off. Well 9am to noon turned into 9am to midnight. After I accomplished my intended goal baseball had one of their daily disasters. Today’s daily disaster consisted of their electronic scoreboard not having electricity. This little fix involved a couple of hours of my time, a giant ladder, and me dangling 20 feet in the air. How I didn’t break (or electrocute) my ass I still don’t know.
Following that I made the mistake of heading up to the office to check some email and ended up getting wrangled in by the ice hockey team that needed me to come to a meeting at 4:30. Since I have this issue with the word ‘no’ I ended up at the meeting. It took a couple of hours. By the time I was leaving it was time for the playoff water polo game at the Moby Aux. Gym. Wow, three hours at work was sure turning into a long day.
At the waterpolo game I drew the short straw and had to work. Since it was playoffs and the team we were playing had a couple of staff members on the team someone had to sit out. I did, my team lost by 12. It was an ugly game. I’m not going into any more detail than that. After that game the intramural staff was short staffed. Even though I no longer work in the area I stayed and worked. Little did I know that I would be staying until midnight.
The next morning I went to work like normal and worked the standard day. I still had a hockey nationals meeting at 5 and a student organization meeting at 6 but it was a normal day. I made the mistake of coming back into the office at that point. I was talking with John when a call came over the radio that there were two playoff basketball games scheduled on the same court at the same time. The obviously meant that I was going to be staying for a while longer so I could officiate the game on an extra court at the rec. center. I got out of the building at a relatively early 10:30pm. Damn, state of Colorado.
The next morning I again showed up at 8am. This was destined to be a long day. I knew that I was leaving late but I couldn’t expect how late that was actually going to be. I planned on leaving the office at 2pm to head to EPIC and help setup for the ice hockey tournament. When I got there I ended up helping out until 7pm when I got roped into showing my face at the coaches meet and greet. Of course all of the coaches got to eat real food, all I got to eat was a mouthful of hopes and dreams. After this was over all of the volunteers headed back to EPIC to finish up the sweatshop-esque duties. When all of the volunteers got back we ended up waiting around for an hour before the name tags and lanyards arrived from the printing company. Why on earth the printing company couldn’t put them together themselves I’ll never know. Anyways to let a painful memory leave my mind I’ll just tell you that I left EPIC at 11pm.
Wednesday (you guessed it 8am) was the opening day of the tournament and the initial plan was for me to come to Epic use wireless internet and do work from EPIC while I oversaw the hockey action. I should have known that we were destined to be short staffed. Not only was the tournament short staffed but the wireless internet that we were all planning on wasn’t available since we were utilizing free webcasts of all games. So instead of blissfully working I checked tickets for 5 hours before heading to CSU to go to a couple of meetings. The moment that those meetings were over I headed back to EPIC to help out and run a penalty box for the tournament. I was fortunate that I was able to leave at 10pm.
I’m going to make this a reader participation blog. Instead of me telling you when I arrived at EPIC Thursday I’ll let you guess. The answer is of course 8am. Good job kiddos. I arrived and ended up checking tickers yet again. I’ll explain why this duty was starting to piss me off. The ticket taking area is right in front of the ice rink doors that get opened every 5 seconds. Well, since this is a national tournament EPIC has decided to lower the temperature in the arena to 40 degrees to make sure that the ice is harder (thus moving the puck faster). Since the HVAC (cooling system for you normal people) has a positive pressure in the arena. Every the doors open a 10 mile an hour wind blows on to me. Those 5 hour shifts are starting to piss me off ever so slightly.
Going into Thursday night’s game CSU hadn’t won a game yet. The only way that CSU could advance to the semifinals was to win the remaining two games and hope for Sienna (the team that they lost to) to lose their remaining two games. On Thursday night I was scheduled to work the Davenport (really good) and CU game. I was working the CU penalty box. Guess what I wore. I wore all of the CSU green apparel I could find. In the game there were 39 penalties.
I did find out some interesting things about Davenport (MI). The team really isn’t a club sport. The school funds the team to a tune of $100,000 per year and pays for everything for the team. Not only that but the schools athletic director is also the hockey coach. While the players don’t receive athletic scholarships the player do receive academic scholarships for meeting the 2.0 GPA threshold while playing hockey. That sounds a little fishy to me too.
On the other sheet of ice CSU handily defeated Grand Valley State University. Also helping CSU’s case was the fact that Sienna lost to Miami of Ohio. Go Miami!!! So for Friday CSU needs to win their game against Miami and Grand Valley needs to beat Sienna. Grand Valley ended up winning 2-1 in a closely contested game. CSU won their game 5-4. GO RAMS! On to the semifinals. This was the point of the tournament that I started to hit the exhaustion wall. The three people who were here for the whole tournament had a look on their bodies like they had just been through war. Working this much with out more than 6 hours off can take its toll on people.
To sidetrack a little, this tournament is one of the reasons why I have never gotten into tournament management. There are many opportunities in my field to work managing tournaments around the country. Well working 100 weeks and living in a crappy hotel out of a suitcase does not sound appealing to me. I’m happy sleeping in my own bed at nights.
Saturday morning at 8 marked the start of both semifinal games. One was CSU vs. Michigan State; while the other was Eastern Washington vs. Davenport. At this point Davenport was the clear favorite. Prior to the tournament everyone who knew about this league called the Davenport bracket the “bracket of death”. This was due to the quality of teams in the bracket. Davenport cleaned up the bracket outscoring opponents 25-4 in 3 games. Given this statistic they also handled Eastern Washington 3-0.
I had a feeling on Saturday morning that CSU was dead in the water in the semifinal due to their miraculous come back from an early pool play loss. Not to mention that but on Friday nights game there were over 800 people in the crowd. For those of you that went to CSU you’ll know that getting any sort of turnout to a CSU game that starts at 8am is not going to happen. It was inevitable, less than 100 CSU fans showed up. Apparently the CSU team didn’t show up either starting off the game with a 3-0 deficit after the first period. The game ended up being 7-4 but CSU was eliminated.
Saturday did give all of the volunteers a 2 hour break between the semifinals and the allstar game and skills competition. Those events were fun and universally liked by everyone. After those events came the final game. At this point I was selling tickets and ran into an unexpected friend. Alison (Usen’s friend) came up to the game from Boulder. This was unexpected. Good to see her though.
The championship game started off with a Michigan State 1-0 lead at the end of the first period. The game ended up going to Michigan State 5-4 over Davenport. I’m thrilled to see that a state school won the tournament and those cocky rich people from Davenport didn’t win.
For those of you scoring at home, here are the hours I worked during the week:
Sunday: 15 hours
Monday: 14 hours
Tuesday: 14.5 hours
Wednesday: 14 hours
Thursday: 15 hours
Friday: 14.5 hours
Saturday: 18 hours
TOTAL 105 hours
2. The story that I mentioned in my last installment hasn’t gone away. I have come up with a topic that I will write about. Given the fact that I have been at hockey all week I haven’t had a lot of free time to write the story.
The story
1. There is a reason why I have not been keeping the blog as active as I (and presumably you) would like. My ice hockey team has the privilege of hosing their national tournament. Of course that means that I have the privilege of hosting the national tournament. Of course this privilege comes with the duty of working more than I like. While most of you are tired of this bitching, I feel that it is justified this time around. From Sunday, March 4, to Saturday March 10 I will work 105 hours. This time is split between the EPIC ice rink, Moby Aux. Gym, and the Rec. Center.
On Sunday I intended on coming in from 9am until noon. I was just going to setup the field for the lacrosse game, watch it start and take off. Well 9am to noon turned into 9am to midnight. After I accomplished my intended goal baseball had one of their daily disasters. Today’s daily disaster consisted of their electronic scoreboard not having electricity. This little fix involved a couple of hours of my time, a giant ladder, and me dangling 20 feet in the air. How I didn’t break (or electrocute) my ass I still don’t know.
Following that I made the mistake of heading up to the office to check some email and ended up getting wrangled in by the ice hockey team that needed me to come to a meeting at 4:30. Since I have this issue with the word ‘no’ I ended up at the meeting. It took a couple of hours. By the time I was leaving it was time for the playoff water polo game at the Moby Aux. Gym. Wow, three hours at work was sure turning into a long day.
At the waterpolo game I drew the short straw and had to work. Since it was playoffs and the team we were playing had a couple of staff members on the team someone had to sit out. I did, my team lost by 12. It was an ugly game. I’m not going into any more detail than that. After that game the intramural staff was short staffed. Even though I no longer work in the area I stayed and worked. Little did I know that I would be staying until midnight.
The next morning I went to work like normal and worked the standard day. I still had a hockey nationals meeting at 5 and a student organization meeting at 6 but it was a normal day. I made the mistake of coming back into the office at that point. I was talking with John when a call came over the radio that there were two playoff basketball games scheduled on the same court at the same time. The obviously meant that I was going to be staying for a while longer so I could officiate the game on an extra court at the rec. center. I got out of the building at a relatively early 10:30pm. Damn, state of Colorado.
The next morning I again showed up at 8am. This was destined to be a long day. I knew that I was leaving late but I couldn’t expect how late that was actually going to be. I planned on leaving the office at 2pm to head to EPIC and help setup for the ice hockey tournament. When I got there I ended up helping out until 7pm when I got roped into showing my face at the coaches meet and greet. Of course all of the coaches got to eat real food, all I got to eat was a mouthful of hopes and dreams. After this was over all of the volunteers headed back to EPIC to finish up the sweatshop-esque duties. When all of the volunteers got back we ended up waiting around for an hour before the name tags and lanyards arrived from the printing company. Why on earth the printing company couldn’t put them together themselves I’ll never know. Anyways to let a painful memory leave my mind I’ll just tell you that I left EPIC at 11pm.
Wednesday (you guessed it 8am) was the opening day of the tournament and the initial plan was for me to come to Epic use wireless internet and do work from EPIC while I oversaw the hockey action. I should have known that we were destined to be short staffed. Not only was the tournament short staffed but the wireless internet that we were all planning on wasn’t available since we were utilizing free webcasts of all games. So instead of blissfully working I checked tickets for 5 hours before heading to CSU to go to a couple of meetings. The moment that those meetings were over I headed back to EPIC to help out and run a penalty box for the tournament. I was fortunate that I was able to leave at 10pm.
I’m going to make this a reader participation blog. Instead of me telling you when I arrived at EPIC Thursday I’ll let you guess. The answer is of course 8am. Good job kiddos. I arrived and ended up checking tickers yet again. I’ll explain why this duty was starting to piss me off. The ticket taking area is right in front of the ice rink doors that get opened every 5 seconds. Well, since this is a national tournament EPIC has decided to lower the temperature in the arena to 40 degrees to make sure that the ice is harder (thus moving the puck faster). Since the HVAC (cooling system for you normal people) has a positive pressure in the arena. Every the doors open a 10 mile an hour wind blows on to me. Those 5 hour shifts are starting to piss me off ever so slightly.
Going into Thursday night’s game CSU hadn’t won a game yet. The only way that CSU could advance to the semifinals was to win the remaining two games and hope for Sienna (the team that they lost to) to lose their remaining two games. On Thursday night I was scheduled to work the Davenport (really good) and CU game. I was working the CU penalty box. Guess what I wore. I wore all of the CSU green apparel I could find. In the game there were 39 penalties.
I did find out some interesting things about Davenport (MI). The team really isn’t a club sport. The school funds the team to a tune of $100,000 per year and pays for everything for the team. Not only that but the schools athletic director is also the hockey coach. While the players don’t receive athletic scholarships the player do receive academic scholarships for meeting the 2.0 GPA threshold while playing hockey. That sounds a little fishy to me too.
On the other sheet of ice CSU handily defeated Grand Valley State University. Also helping CSU’s case was the fact that Sienna lost to Miami of Ohio. Go Miami!!! So for Friday CSU needs to win their game against Miami and Grand Valley needs to beat Sienna. Grand Valley ended up winning 2-1 in a closely contested game. CSU won their game 5-4. GO RAMS! On to the semifinals. This was the point of the tournament that I started to hit the exhaustion wall. The three people who were here for the whole tournament had a look on their bodies like they had just been through war. Working this much with out more than 6 hours off can take its toll on people.
To sidetrack a little, this tournament is one of the reasons why I have never gotten into tournament management. There are many opportunities in my field to work managing tournaments around the country. Well working 100 weeks and living in a crappy hotel out of a suitcase does not sound appealing to me. I’m happy sleeping in my own bed at nights.
Saturday morning at 8 marked the start of both semifinal games. One was CSU vs. Michigan State; while the other was Eastern Washington vs. Davenport. At this point Davenport was the clear favorite. Prior to the tournament everyone who knew about this league called the Davenport bracket the “bracket of death”. This was due to the quality of teams in the bracket. Davenport cleaned up the bracket outscoring opponents 25-4 in 3 games. Given this statistic they also handled Eastern Washington 3-0.
I had a feeling on Saturday morning that CSU was dead in the water in the semifinal due to their miraculous come back from an early pool play loss. Not to mention that but on Friday nights game there were over 800 people in the crowd. For those of you that went to CSU you’ll know that getting any sort of turnout to a CSU game that starts at 8am is not going to happen. It was inevitable, less than 100 CSU fans showed up. Apparently the CSU team didn’t show up either starting off the game with a 3-0 deficit after the first period. The game ended up being 7-4 but CSU was eliminated.
Saturday did give all of the volunteers a 2 hour break between the semifinals and the allstar game and skills competition. Those events were fun and universally liked by everyone. After those events came the final game. At this point I was selling tickets and ran into an unexpected friend. Alison (Usen’s friend) came up to the game from Boulder. This was unexpected. Good to see her though.
The championship game started off with a Michigan State 1-0 lead at the end of the first period. The game ended up going to Michigan State 5-4 over Davenport. I’m thrilled to see that a state school won the tournament and those cocky rich people from Davenport didn’t win.
For those of you scoring at home, here are the hours I worked during the week:
Sunday: 15 hours
Monday: 14 hours
Tuesday: 14.5 hours
Wednesday: 14 hours
Thursday: 15 hours
Friday: 14.5 hours
Saturday: 18 hours
TOTAL 105 hours
2. The story that I mentioned in my last installment hasn’t gone away. I have come up with a topic that I will write about. Given the fact that I have been at hockey all week I haven’t had a lot of free time to write the story.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
The end of the rainbow is a place we'd all like to go
1. A new hobby
2. Writing
3. Sign my petition
1. I think that I have found a new hobby. Actually you could say that this hobby has found me. I was asked by the General Manager of CB & Potts to be the new trivia host. This hobby accomplishes several things that I have been looking to accomplish. The first of which is that it gives me something to do in my spare time. So in researching trivia questions it gives me a chance to waste some time in this endeavor.
The second of the things that it accomplishes is that hosting trivia gets some extra money in my pocket. Part of this extra income comes from the money that they would be paying me. The other part comes from the money that I can be making by not participating in trivia every Thursday. I am going to estimate that this savings is about $10-$20 per week. This equates to a little less than $1000 per year. In case you didn’t know I am a nerd.
The third thing that this hobby accomplishes is that I have a purpose behind by research. It will give me a chance to actually spend time in a library and not look like a complete nerd. So I’ll see you all in the library from time to time.
2. I have been contemplating this fact. I think that I going to start to write a story. I am first going to strive for a short story. Judging by my previous blog related rambling a short story might turn into an extremely long one. Hell, in grad school I wrote an 84 page paper, when the entire professor said in handing it back was “good”.
Why am I considering it? It gives me something to write about without expressing the doldrums of real life. I imagine that there will be several life inspired situations in this story. Well that’s how people make stories seem more realistic. Now all I need to write my story is a topic of interest to me.
3. At the bottom of this link I have attached a link to a petition to get my father to install a hot tub at our condo in Alaska. This would be a very valuable addition. I need all of the signatures that I can muster so please sign. Thanks!!!! http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?JEFFHARR
2. Writing
3. Sign my petition
1. I think that I have found a new hobby. Actually you could say that this hobby has found me. I was asked by the General Manager of CB & Potts to be the new trivia host. This hobby accomplishes several things that I have been looking to accomplish. The first of which is that it gives me something to do in my spare time. So in researching trivia questions it gives me a chance to waste some time in this endeavor.
The second of the things that it accomplishes is that hosting trivia gets some extra money in my pocket. Part of this extra income comes from the money that they would be paying me. The other part comes from the money that I can be making by not participating in trivia every Thursday. I am going to estimate that this savings is about $10-$20 per week. This equates to a little less than $1000 per year. In case you didn’t know I am a nerd.
The third thing that this hobby accomplishes is that I have a purpose behind by research. It will give me a chance to actually spend time in a library and not look like a complete nerd. So I’ll see you all in the library from time to time.
2. I have been contemplating this fact. I think that I going to start to write a story. I am first going to strive for a short story. Judging by my previous blog related rambling a short story might turn into an extremely long one. Hell, in grad school I wrote an 84 page paper, when the entire professor said in handing it back was “good”.
Why am I considering it? It gives me something to write about without expressing the doldrums of real life. I imagine that there will be several life inspired situations in this story. Well that’s how people make stories seem more realistic. Now all I need to write my story is a topic of interest to me.
3. At the bottom of this link I have attached a link to a petition to get my father to install a hot tub at our condo in Alaska. This would be a very valuable addition. I need all of the signatures that I can muster so please sign. Thanks!!!! http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?JEFFHARR
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)