September 27, 2005
Greatest Game in a Long Time!
Here is the story that I just wrote about tongihts volleyball game between the No. 4 Bulldogs and the No. 5 Golden Bears of Concordia-St. Paul.
The picture I took and risked life and limb to get, as for the second time in my life when my boss from Michigan Tech (Dave Fischer) was in the building I got smacked hard in the side of the head with a volleyball during warm-ups. I blame him for this one. I only have a slight swelling on the right side of my face and I'm expecting it to bruse tomorrow.
Anyway here is the story and the picture.
Here students pose for a quick shot before the start of the
match against Concordia-St. Paul and the second annual
Hawaiian Night. The Bulldogs had a record 1,267 fans in
attendance for the 3-1 victory over the Golden Bears.
The No. 4 University of Minnesota Duluth earned a huge regional and national victory against No. 5 Concordia University-St. Paul, 3-1 (20-30, 36-34, 34-32, 30-21), in front of the largest volleyball crowd in Bulldogs history. Students, athletes, and members of the community came out strong for UMD setting a 1,267 attendance record to cheer on the Bulldogs to their 13th straight victory.
Game one gave the fans in attendance a scare as UMD had a 12-8 lead and then started to lose steam as the Golden Bears fought back to win 30-20. Game two then started out win the same momentum as CSP fought hard and were up 25-21 before the Bulldogs took over and forced the game to extra points, eventually winning 36-34 with a kill by freshman setter Katie Gangelhoff.
After that it was pretty much all UMD. Game three was another highly contested match as CSP then fought back from a 27-24 disadvantage to force extra points for the second straight game, but this time the Bulldogs came out on top with a 34-32 victory.
UMD then pulled together to use the momentum and the crowd's support to earn a 30-21 victory in the fourth and final game of the match.
Sophomore outside hitter Kari Wolford was the top performer for the Bulldogs as she garnered 21 kills, nine digs, three blocks, and one service ace. Right behind her was fellow sophomore Vicky Braegelmann who tallied 19 kills, five digs, and one block. Junior Rachel Langseth also contributed 13 kills and four blocks.
Gangelhoff also had a large hand in the success of UMD tonight as she garnered 56 assists, four kills, and 20 digs.
Defensively senior libero Allison Boddy dug up 18 of the Golden Bears attacks and 28 of their service attempts. Junior Chelsea Meierotto was big on the serving as she had 26 service attempts and one service ace to go along with 10 digs.
UMD, now 14-2 overall and 4-0 in the North Central Conference, will now travel to St. Cloud State University for a Saturday, Oct. 1 match at 4:30 p.m.
September 25, 2005
Second Fiction blog
Here is the second fiction blog that I found. it was actually harder than you might think to find them. All I got was stories about how people are writing fictional blogs and no blogs them selves
This oen talks about what it would be like if there was a necular war. Mainly ablout what would happen afterword. (It waould be great if I could spell today)
Fiction Novel Blog
So I was looking for my fiction blogs and came across this one
It says that it is a novel about how this guy is trying to be a better person.
The first entry got my attention and I think I will keep checking back to find out more about what happens to this guy and the people who are now threating him over the internet.
It seems like a mystery novel to me, but in the blog form and I love mysteries.
I'm the worst driver ever
I would have to say that after reflecting on my driving habits on the tirp back from Houghton, that I am probably one of the worst drivers on the road.
Here is how my trip started.
First 15 minutes - Eating my supper from McDonald's, while driving through curvy roads in the U.P. at 55 miles an hour.
New 15 minutes - One I was done eating I started taking picutres of the trees, while driving (I at least made sure that there were no cars heading my way) so that you all could see how much the leaves are changing already.
Next Few Minutes - I then pulled out my cell phone and the receipt from when I filled up my tank and used the calculator to figure out how many miles per gallon I got on the trip to Houghton
227 miles/10.624 gallons= about 21 mpg
All this was while I was playing DJ with my computer on the seat next to me with I Tunes going because you don't get enough good radio stations on the trip and I like the suffle option better than regular CD's.
Then it started to rain. At first everything was fine, but then the passanger windshield washer almost fell off and I had to stop using them until I could find a place to pull off the road to fix it.
Then the rest of the trip was mosting the same, talking on my phone, working with the I Tunes on my computer and then playing with the radio.
Then when I got on the expressway near Superior, I was going 65, it was pouring, and the windshield washer broke again. But I couldn't stop there so I continued going 65 mpg with no wipers until I got into Superior. Luckily I have Rain X on the windshield so it wasn't too bad.
But at least I made it and I didn't cause any accidents that I know of.
Oh yeah, I saw about 7 dead skunks on the side of the road on the way back to it was either a really good year for them and next year will be bad, or they just couldn't take life as a skunk anymore and commited suicide.
The New Me
Now that I'm finally back in Duluth I can show you what the new me looks like. i don't know why the computer wouldn't let me up load files in Houghton.
Maybe you have to be on the university server to do that. I wouldn't doubt it since they are so picky about everything else. I'm sure it's because they want to scan for viruses or something.
anyway, I have so far only gotten good reviews about my new hair style, but i'm not entirely sure about it yet.
My mom asked me if I feel smarter.
I told her no, I actually feel more dumb because I don't recognized myself in the mirror yet.
Well, anyway after a long process to wait here is my new style and the stylist that I love so much that I travel four hours to have my hair done.
September 24, 2005
New Me
Well I finally did it, I am no longer a blonde. I would tell you what I had did, bu since I can't get teh pictures up I guess you will just have to wait. All I have to say is that it will be very shocking to see what I did. I'm stillhaving a hard time recognizing myself in the mirror.
So, I spent most of the day working at Michigan Tech University even though I haven't worked there for almsot three years.
I was teaching them how to do live stats for volleyball and will be working there again tomorrow.
It was fun to teach more people how to do the live stats, I just wish I could get more for my consultating services since a lot of people need them.
It was fun to go to the football game as well. While I was only able to see the first half it was nice to see a Tech team win a football game (something I didn't get to see a lot while I was going to school there).
I will be at MTU tomorrow as well making sure that they know how to do things. Plus, it just so happens that their next home match will be against the Bulldogs and I will be with them so I can make sure that what I'm teachingis sinking in.
September 23, 2005
"You're Crazy" Or am I
So, I’m sitting here at my Aunt Linda and Uncle Terry's (yes I was named after him) house in Houghton, MI sipping on my vodka and coke and watching TV. I came back home for the weekend so I can get my hair done. This is what makes most people think that I’m crazy.
Just because I drive for four hours to have my hair done doesn’t mean that I’ve gone nuts. It is one of those things, once you find someone who can do your hair the right way and that you trust you will go to any lengths to make sure that you see them.
Plus, I’m not the only one who travels long distances to see Gina. In fact she has someone who comes all the way to the U.P. from Florida to have their hair done by her.
I didn’t just come back for my appointment, I actually came back so that I could get out of dodge (Duluth) for a while. This is the only weekend that there is nothing going on in Duluth, sport wise, so I actually get a weekend off.
Well, I actually have to work later tonight and later tomorrow because the volleyball team is on the road, so I guess that I can’t have too many drinks otherwise the game stories will be a little off.
I’m actually getting a little nervous about this trip, because I am doing something to my hair that I haven’t done in over nine years. Below is what my hair has looked like for the past nine years (since I was a senior in high school).
Tomorrow I will let you all in on the secret as to what I have done now.
September 18, 2005
This is really hard
So I'm sitting here again on sunday afternoon trying to figure out what to write about for my final blog entry for the week. i guess I really don't like this limit on the number of entries that we have to write
Most people would think that three would be a piece of cake, but if you are like me and really don't like the world to know about what is happeningin your life then this becomes really hard. Plus there is stuff that I would like to write, but can't because of work or class, or just don't want to write so I don't sound like it b****ing all the time.
I just get so flustered as to what to write that my mind goes blank. Combine this with the fact that nothing interesting really happens to me, it is all just crappy stuff that no body wants to hear about and you get a really boring life.
Oh yeah and I forgot I have to have three links so here is the third, since I couldn't link on my other reflection.
Links
Well, one of the assignemnts this weeks was to link on eof the other classmates blogs to a topic on Jill Walker's site. But, I just can't find one. It seems that everyone in my class talks about things that happen at school and at home,and Jill talks about the same stuff for her, but they just don't match up.
I don't know if it is just me (and it probably is), but i don't see a match, except when they reflect on an entry that she wrote.
I guess I just don't have much of an imagination or creative mind!
Collapse
On Jill's site she talks about the aftermath of Hurrican katrina. Collapse
It talks about how no one thought that this type of complete collapse of the government to help could happen, especially in the US. Well, I actually think that something like this was bound to happen at some point. Yes, as a nation we did a good job of responding to the 9/11 attacks, but that was located on small portions of three seperate locations.
Hurrican Katrina took out an entire region of the country. And as much as I would like to think that our nation could handle anything, with most of the military and the national guard (which is supposed to be around for this type of disaster) out the country it was almost inevitable that it would not go smoothly.
I think that we could and should have done a much better job, but then again we were dealying with mother nature and you never know what will happen with an enemy like that. I think that it is amazing that New Orleans has survied this long since they have been batteling mother nature from the very beginning.
Whenever you have a city that is below sea level, is holding off a natural lake with leeves and also trying to reroute the Mississippi River with levees, you have a disaster waiting to happen.
Gender Balances
Well, I finally able to get some time to read the entries on Jill Walker's blog and the first thing I see is about gender balnaces. Gender
It talks about how in the academic world there are not that many women in the higher academic areas. This is something that I tend to look at more because I am also in a field that is hard for women to enter and get far in.
Sports Information has been a male dominated area basically since it started. That is slowly changing now that more females are starting to be able to see what it is like, but that is also not changing fast because I know that there are a lot of aspects of the job that could turn women off.
For example, you work basically nights and weekends and all year, with the summer being the only time that you really get a chance to take time off. So if you are interested in having a family and children the job would make it a lot harder to juggle both.
Another problem that I see for women in the field is that a lot of colleges and universities only want to have women cover women's sports. A lot of this boils down to traveling problems, because even though we are adults you can't have mixed genders sharing a hotel room.
Like Jill, I think that the other problem is that those that are already in are chosing their graduate assistants and maybe they tend to think that males are better at understanding what needs to be done in the field and what it will take to make it.
Whatever it is, I hope that the situation will change adn more and more women will enter the field so I won't have to feel so out of place.
Student Life at UMD
So, normally I wuldn't say anything about the was that students react on campus about stuff, because it would make to many people made. But this time I would like to say something positive so I figured that was ok.
This weekend was the first real home game for the UMD volleyball team. They have played at home already this season, but that was two weeks before school started so the students weren't here, so I won't hold that against them.
Anyway, Friday's match was great! We had a crowd of 852, that was mosting students. I think that in the three years that I have been here I have only seen a crowd like that when we play Concordia-St. Paul and it is a dress up night.
These students were great though. They had an amazing energy throughout the match. And I was even more impressed that they didn't sink to antognizing (?spelling?) the other team. And this would have been really easy since the team wasn't doing so great at the match.
I saw a lot of other athletes at the event and they seemed to be the ring leaders for the rest of the group and that is what we need here at UMD.
I know that men's hockey gets a lot of student support, but now it is great to see the students branching out to other sports.
There was also a large contingent of students at the home football game this weekend as well.
From what I've seen so far, I think that the students are finally getting interested in stuff on campus. maybe it is because the teams are winning, but I hope it is because there is a real interest.
September 17, 2005
Bears and Deer, OH MY!
Ok, so I found out something very interesting about my neighborhood in Duluth the other day. I live just east of Woodland in a nice suburban-like neighborhood.
However, while we are not surrounded by woods we do have to worry about bears and deers wondering around our yards at night.
I guess I should have know that we would have more wild animals since we seem to be infested with chipmunks, squirls, birds, adn other "normal" wildlife, but I didn't expect to have to worry about black bears.
It seems that the garden that we planted in the back yard has attracted the deer. The plants were getting eatin quite rapidly and we were stumped as to what the problem was. That was until my housemate discovered a whole load of deer droppings in the back yard.
Plus he then informed me that our neighbor (she shares the driveway) will have to worry about the bears in her yard this fall if her apple tree continues to blossom.
No wonder all the dogs in the neighborhood are always barking and going mad at night. I thought that they just didn't like all the sirens that seem to run by our area of town at all hours of the night.
Now I guess they have a ligitimit excuse for howling and barking, they are "trying" to protect their homes. ( Like they could do much against a bear)
Even living in the U.P. of Michigan most of my life I didn't have to wonder if the bears were going to come into town during the night and start looking for food. We had deer in the yards all the time, but that was because we lived in the middle of the woods.
September 11, 2005
Diary Blog
Now I now that this one may seem more like a cyber journalist blog, but I found it really interesting after looking through the first couple of entires in class.
http://joshbritton.com/
This student blog not only talks about what it is like to be a student, but also about what Katrina did and continues to disrupt his life. I think that it will be interesting to see what happens as the term goes on and also what it is like to go to a school in the south compared to what it is like up her in the north. I guess the first big difference is the sport that is worshiped at each school.
Josh talks about being a die hard football fan, while most of the students that I know would be more likely called die hard hockey fans up here.
Interst Blog
http://michigancollegehockey.blogspot.com/
The link above is to a blog all about all the hockey in Michigan, including college. Right now I am going to have this as my interst blog, because I am having a really hard time finding a blog about the sports information aspect of sports. They are all centered around specific sports and not about the career, which is what I am looking for.
At least this way I can keep up on what is happening in my home state on the hockey end without having to go to several differnt sites. So when I go to the Great Lakes Invitation for the eighth year in a row I will know what Michinan and Michigan State have been up to so far this season.
Iraq Citizen Blog
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
The address above is a blog that I was able to find that is a citizen journalist like blog from Iraq.
It is amazing to me what the people of Iraq are dealing with in the wake of the war. He talks about have no power and no water and it has been like two years since the war was "declared over."
What exactly have all of our independent contractors been doing over there? If they can figure out how to get teh water out of New Orleans in less than two weeks then why can't they find a way to get the water running in Iraq?
I also find it facinating that he talks about what happened in the south with Katrina. I figured that most of the population in Iraq didn't care about what would happen to Americans. I know that I would be angry with what we have done to there country in the last two years. I know that Sadam might have been an evil leader, but at least the country had adequate water and power supplies for the people.
I am actually really interested in what he has to say about the draft constitution. I don't really know what is in it, but want to find out more.
The Amazing Patches
Ok, most people would probably think that looking at this picture that it just looks like a normal cat, but they would be wrong. This is the amazing Patches. She is my baby and we have been together for a really long time.
What makes her amazing is that despite her youthful look she is really 21 years old (that's human years) so that makes her about 150 years old in cats years right now. Cats are like dogs and one year in our time is seven to them. I can't remember when her real bithday is so I just go with mine.
That means that this coming Feburary she will turn 22 years old (154). It is amazing to me that she is still around and still getting around very well. She goes outside everymorning for about 30 minutes and plays around in the back yard.
She might not do much more that jump up and down from the bed to go downstairs and outside, eat, and sleep, but she is still doing well for a cat her age.
Sometimes I think that she stays alive just for me. There was a time a couple of years ago when she was living with my dad that we thought she was going to give up, but then I took her back to school with me and she has turned around greatly. She can now run again, which is just amazing to me since right now I can't even do that (stupid knee).
So we are kindred spirits and I don't know what I'd do without her.
"Beautiful Aberdeen, South Dakota"
Why is it that every time that you decide to go out and actually have a little bit of fun on a night that you know you really shouldn't, but someone else is paying that you end up paying for it the next day.
Those times always seem like they are the ones that you all say, ok we will only say out for an hour and have one or two drinks and then go home. However, those are also the days that you end up staying for two to three hours and have five or six drinks.
This is what happened to me this weekend. I wen tout with the other Sports Info people that were at the tournament in "Beautiful Aberdeen, South Dakota." We had a great time, but since I haven't been out for like four months I really wasn't doing too god in the morning.
I guess that it was all worth it though, because I meet a lot of cool people and learned a lot about the other SID's at the tournament that were brave enough to go out. Plus it was worth it to go out because our team is trying to give me a heartattack by going to as many five game matches as they can this season against teams that they should be able to win in three.
We ended up winning all three matches on the weekend so it was good on that respect at least. Plus I made it back in one piece so I guess the weekend was good all around.
September 6, 2005
Stupid Parking Stuff
So I finally got my temperary handicap parking permit from the school today and was very annoyed with them. They didn't ask me if I had gotten my blue permit and just gave me the pass. SO it seems like they changed their policy and I could have had the permit right after the surgery when I needed it the most. Now that I am close to being off the crutches it seems silly to have it, but I'll take it.