LaJeunesse's Blog

Update of Project

My personal site has started to rally take form. I now have the main idea of what each page will look like and just need to finish up the details and get all the pictures together for it.

I really haven’t had much time to work on it this week, but will be going strong this week to make sure that I can get it done on time.

Too much info...

Jill Walker’s site also talks about a fine line between having everyone that you will have viewing your site having access to all of your thoughts.

She didn’t want her students to be able to view her pictures on Flicker so she removed the link from her site. If a sports information person had a site that was accessible to students and media you would not want them to know a lot of the information that you could and would probably want to put up.

For instance if you wanted it to be viewed by the media the thing that would drive them to it would be if you had interviews with athletes on it so they could find out more information about them to determine if they wanted to do a feature story or not. The problem with this is that you would have to make sure that it was kept within a certain range of information because you would not want some information out.

The purpose of a blog in my mind is to have an uncensored view of what is happening in your life or the area that you are interesting in and writing about. This is not what the university would want you to do with the student athletes lives. There are some things that you just have to keep to yourselves. We are there to help the media, but not to hand them scandalous stories.

The only way that I see a Sports Information blog working would be if it was for other sports information directors in the country. The blog could be used to help others with problems that they come up against or tips to help them with new areas that they find themselves in.

You could have an open forum that that would allow you to share tips and to ask statistical questions, but it would not be for much else.

Constraints, Constraints, Constraints...

Jill’s hypertext essay talks about constraints and how they affect the original meaning behind something that is meant to be helpful.

Jill's Essay

That is how I see a blog about sports information starting and then becoming a problem.

In the field we are constrained by the university that you work for on what information that they want out about heir athletes. But if you did it on tips and advice they wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But eventually I would see a problem occurring. That would be the interference of the NCAA or COSIDA, the Collegiate Sports Information Director of America organization.

Both of these entities like to come in and constrain what happens in the college sports world.

Recently COSIDA put forth an effort to make it so that media guides can only be 208 pages. While I personally think that this was a good thing because some guides were so hard to find information in that it was getting ridiculous, it is just a form of constraining what the field can do.

The NCAA is also known for trying to have their hands in everything. Starting in 2006 they are starting a rule that colleges can no longer have alcohol sold on the site of games. So now when you go to a hockey game at someplace like North Dakota or Wisconsin they won’t be able to sell beer.

I don’t really understand why the NCAA has to be involved in this. It is not like it is being sold to the athletes or anyone underage. So why do they have to determine whether or not you sell alcohol?

This just goes to show that a sports information blog would start out as a good thing, but then after a while someone would step up and set constraints.

Worries about blogging....

On Jill Walker’s site she had an entry about how someone talked about his friend and embellished the story to make it more interesting. Then the friend found out about it and was angry and posted a comment that told the true story. This is one reason why writing blogs can be dangerous. You don’t know if everything that you read is true or the entire story.

Walker Blog

This is one reason why a blog for a sports information director probably wouldn’t work. As a university employee yo9u can’t say a lot of things that you hear. For instance if you have a player on a team you are covering that is injured even if you know that they have dislocated their knee and will be out for the rest of the season all that you can legally say is that they have a knee injury are will be out for the rest of the season.

Plus a lot of what you know happens you would not want the public to know about. As a sports information director you are there to be like a public relations expert for your team as well as a fountain of information. So if your coach goes out and gets a DWI you would not want to be talking about that because if the media found out they would pounce on it and never let it go.

Story Project

Well, I finally decided on a project idea for this class. It is something that is really hard for me to do because it is a kinda of tribute to my cat Patches.

I have wrote most of the text that I want to have in it and am working on finding all the right pictures for the story.

This is something that will be hard for me to do, but somehting that I have to do. I still have moments where it seem slike I will enver get over losing her. This is a way for me to let her and everyone else know just how much that she meant to me.

I know that a lot of people may say that she was just a cat, but to me she was much more. She was my olny friend for a lot of my time here in Duluth. She was the only one that I had to talk to when I got upset and again I know it sounds crazy, but I swear that she knew what I was saying and that she responded to me.

Think what you will, but I really don't care.

Rhizome

I really don't understand how you are supposed to find anything on this site that is impoartant to our essays.

I tired clicking on a few links and it said that I had to be a member to view them. Then I realized that I was supposed to be looking at art and I really got confused.

Like Andrea I looked at it quite a few times and still don't know how it is suppsoed to help me.

I guess part of the problem is that I really don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be looking for because the essay is so ambiguious that I don't know what I'm supposed to be talking about in it.

Rhizome

Zimmerman's Essay on Games

Zimmerman's Essay

I guess because I haven't played games for a ong time, I'm behind the trend here. The most I remember about game stories is Super mario Bros. trying to explain not what lead to the kidnapping of the princess, but hat it happened and now yoiu have to save her. But I never really paid much attention, even at the end of the game when you won and it showed the restoration of order and the happiness of hte creatures.

Game stories to me are just not important. If I am going to play a game it is not because of the story invovled it is because of the way that the game is played and wheter or not I think that I can accomplish it.

Then he goes into talking about the definations of narrative, interactivity, play nad game.

This is were I got even more confused. With narrative is seemed like he was trying to make it seems ok that kids are spending all there time playing games because they are now like "narratives in books"

It was like kids are now writing their own books with each action in the game. Is it suppoed to make is seem more educational?

Yet according to the defination of a narrative anything can be one, even eating a meal so I don't know what they were going for here.

Then when it got down to interactivty it really seemed like they were comparing games to books, like they are just liek the choose your own adventure books.

I'm sorry, ut I really don't see the benefit of most games compared to even the choose your own adventure books. Unless they actually teach kids somehting they will use in school o rlife (and I don't count how to kill someone) they are not very helpful to increasing your intelligence like books can do.

When he started talking about the game story and he went on about the Ms. Pac-Man game story as a "strategic pursuit through a constrained space, about dramatic reverasals of fortune where the hunter becomes the hunted. It's a narrative about relationships, in which every character on the scree, every munchable dot and empty corridor, are meaningful parts of a larger system...." it was reading way to much into a game.

I doubt most kids, who are the majority of those playing, are thinking about the life and death struggle of Ms. pac-Man as they are tyring to beat the game or their friends high score.

It just seems like they are trying to say that the game players are thinking about the game story while they are playing. It just seems like this is tyring to justify game playing fo the public or like the industry is justifying why they need to charge so much for the "experience" of the game.

I just don't see what the game story really means. At first it seemed like it was about the story behind the game (why things had happened and what you needed to do to resovle them). Then it changed to the experience of playing a gme. To me stories tell the reader a tale or set of actions that have occured and the experiences that were percieved by those involved in the actions. Not the experience of the reader of the story about the story, the book that they were holding and the drawings that were in it.

To me this article just seems liek a mean sto justify his job. Maybe the game-story is important to the indutry and those that play, but ot me videogames are just games and are not an experience.

Carnet De Voyage

I guess that I will go out on a limb and be the first person to say that I really didn’t like this book when I first saw it and after I finished it.

I don’t know whether it was the cartoon-look, the fact that the last two weeks have been crap and nothing seems good to me, or a combination of both.

I think that a lot of it is the cartoon-look. I guess I just never got over that this was supposed to be a “textbook” and a cartoon doesn’t work for me with that. Plus it was all over the place in style that it made it really hard to follow for me.

But, there were a few places that I found were a lot like myself. On page 86 and 87 where he is showing how he is feeling inside because he lost his pens, it made me think about how I get sometimes when things don’t go my way.

I can turn into a real nasty person. Unfortunately I don’t tend to have the inner self to calm me down. I just keep getting worse and worse until I can just go home and crawl into bed and that normally makes it end.

Most of the rest of the book was just too much for me to follow at once. The only other things that I really liked were the pages that only had one big picture on them. Those were the easiest to understand for me. I guess I really like how a picture can tell you everything that you need to know.

Buddy Blog Update

It seems that things have somewhat returned to normal at LSU.

Buddy Blog

Josh is now talking about not being able to blog because of a really hectic week of studying and midterms, the normal college student life.

I know somewhat of how he feels, while I haven't had to worry much about classes this week I was stressed out with a lot of work related stuff. Friday was the home opener for UMD women's hockey and that is always a fun game, with a lot of stuff crammed into about five mintues pre-game that takes about a week to finalize.

Not to mention the fun that we had yesterday, with football at 1, volleyball at 4 and then hockey again at 7.

I don't think I really ever stopped running (literally) yesterday from event to event.

But that is what college is about. Going to classes and then making sure that you pack the fun in around studying like Josh was able to do this week with his tests and then the big LSU football game.

It is nice to see that at least some things are getting back to a semblance of normal after the hurricans disrupted the good old days of college for him.

Iraq Citizen Blog Update

Well, it looks like things are no different in Iraq when I last checked in to this blog

Iraq Citizen Blog

They now voting on a draft of the constitution that if approved will become the governing document for the government in Iraq. But they say that they will change it after they get the government up and running if they choose to.

So it is kinda like the US Constitution I guess.

The problem is that it doesn't see to be good for a lot of the population. If what I am understanding is right, it seems like the Sunni's in Iraq are a little like the African Americans and Native American populations in the US when our constitutin was ratified.

They had almost to no rights to help with the government and I see things happening like they did back when they first gave the African American's the right to vote that the Jim Crow laws had to get rid of.

The Sunni's and the rest of the country are under curfew until Sunday and then they go to the polls, but the polls in the Sunni areas are kilometers away adn the first time they voted their votes may not have even made it to the final counting places.

I hope that Iraq can make it through this whole uphevil of their country. Not just because it would be nice to get our troops out of there (and I know Bushy-boy won't bring them back until he thinks that there is a stable government), but also because it is not fair to the Iraqi people to have to live through this ongoing civil war.

Patches Update

I just wanted to let you all know why I wasn't in class on Thursday.

I had a rough night on Wednesday, because I had to put Patches to sleep. It was the hardest thing that I have ever done.

So combine that with the fact that I have a really bad cold, you can image just how much sleep that I was able to get that night.

But it was the best for both of us, she didn't have to suffer anymore and I didn't have to watch her suffer. We had a good run together.

Twenty-one years is a long time for a cat adn I am happy for the last few years that we were able to spend together.

The Chaning of the Seasons

Since this was the third time in the last two weeks that I was back in the lovely U.P. and I took a picture of the leaves the last time that I was on the way back I figured that I would show you all what has changed in the last few weeks.

Unfortunely, the colors haven't done much since then, or at least it doesn't look like they have.

When I was there earlier in the week it was pouring so a lot of the leaves turned and then fell off immediately.

Here is where the before picture is

And here is the new view

It is not that impressive to me.

Me Again...

Charcters, Characters

I really like Dayna's fictional charater's. Even though there has only been one post so far from them, it really makes me feel at home.

There are a lot of times taht I think the same way as the devil, but only speak what I think is polically correct like the angel.

Most of that is directed at things in public, like her experience with the street person (Devil is more like the norm here)

I guess that it is good that we have those internal moments of clairtly before we speak or else we would get ourselves in more trouble than we normally do.

This is kinda what i keep doing everyday at work. I keep my develish comments to myself and only say what a good student worker should say to their boss.

Only occasionally does the deveil side win out and cause me to burst out angry comments adn reflections to him.

I think that at those moments teh angel side is even fed up with all the stuff that is happening and just looks the other way and allows it to happen.

Sorry Everyone...

Sorry about Patches everyone. She really doesn't like it when I leave town. I tried to tell her last night that I was going back to Houghton for my niece's birthday, but I guess that she is bound and determined to blame you all for me not being around.

I'll have a talk to her when I get back on Sunday.

ANyway,

I'm having a good time so far in the U.P. I got to see Michigan Tech actually win a hockey game at home. THey won 4-3 with a freshman goalie against Mercyhurst who is ranked 25th in the country.

It was nice to see a team that has a lot of potential this season.

Tomorrow I get to go have a pool party with the my, brother, and his two kids. It's Autumn's 5th birthday so it will be a fun event.

I Thought We Had an Understanding...

The Trip from H-E Double Hockey Sticks

Well...

I went to Houghton with the volleyball team on Tuesday and it was not a real fun trip.

It started out just like normal, get on the bus, try to do some studying, give up and watch the movie, same old same old.

Then the bus driver asked the coach how to get to Houghton and since I am from there I was pulled up to the front of the bus to show him the directions. How scary is that when your bus driver need directions to get to the town that you are going to.

Then we went to eat and when we got done with that the driver asked me to stay up front to show him how to get to the gym. I told him that all he had to do was to make a right out of the parking lot and then follow the road straight until it wound around to the gym.

He said that he wanted to make sure that he didn't get lost. So, feeling that it was stupid to think that you could ever get lost in Houghton, I staying up front and guided him to the SDC.

Then the match started and it was not pretty. UMD is way better then the Huskies (as much as I hate to admit it since I'm from MTU) and they were without two of their top players. UMD should have dominated throughout the match, but they didn't.

They started to play down to the level of the team we were playing again. We ended up winning in three, but the coaches weren't exactly happy with the effort.

Plus the stats were off and they couldn't get them completely right while I was there. I finally took what they had and got on the bus late for the first time ever.

We stopped for food and then I was asked to guide the driver out of town again. Well we got about 10 miles out and the bus broke down twice. We ended up waiting it out for about 30 minutes before we could get it going again and decided that we were going to go until the bus died completely. At least there was another bus in the area that could pick us up if need be.

Well, we got to the road before the final turn and the driver said that he could make it from there. But I decided to stay put, and it was a good thing I did.

If I hadn't I don't know if we would have made it home because he missed the last turn because he was on the phone and I had to yell at him to turn around.

The bus eneded up stopping twice more for the same misterious problem before we were able to make it home.

To make a long story short it took 5 and a half hours to make a four hour trip.

USA/WCHA Game

Well, first let me say that I knew Patches was smart, but not that smart. I'll have to keep a closer eye on her from now on, I only know the stories that she could tell (Scary)!!!!

Anyway, yesterday was the USA Women's National Team versus the WCHA All-Stars down at the DECC. And since the university decided that this would be a good thing to HELP host. I got roped into doing a lot of work that I really didn't need right now.

I guess I should be greatful about it. At least I got to know more of the people in USA Hockey besides my old boss from MTU. And know they know what kind of work that I can do. So it could be helpful in the future when I'm looking for a real job.

But, it was really stressful. I got to the DECC yesterday at about 1:30 and didn't leave until about 10:30. I got the best workout that I've had in about seven months.

Running up and down those stairs to the pressbox takes a lot out of you. And when you do it about 20 times in a day it is even better.

At least my knee mostly held up. I had to go get ice after the first two trips, but then I just blocked it out and kept going.

What else was I going to do since there is no elevator up to the pressbox.

Here is what the view from the pressbox looks like.

More from Patches

What do you think you are doing?