Category Archives: Photography

Animals, Comedy, Jen, Work

Some Photos

I’ll keep this brief because I have a big afternoon at work scheduled. Just thought I would throw up a few pictures that I came across yesterday while I was toiling in the computer mines.

The first image comes from the David Letterman show. I don’t watch the David Letterman show because it is head to head with the Colbert Report, and quite frankly that is not even a tough decision. On Monday, in a segment called “Small Town News”, somebody I actually know was featured: Jen’s dad. See the picture below:




Yesterday a co-worker brought in Venison Stroganoff for the department to eat for lunch. This gave me a little extra time, so I went for a walk in the woods behind our building. Although I was just there for a walk and to find decent lighting to take my new profile picture, I stumbled upon this little guy:


02-22-07

02-22-07

I have seen as many as 12 deer out there at once, but this fellow is the only one I’ve seen lately. He has a broken back leg that makes it difficult for him to get around, but he is still hanging in there for right now.

Formal Portrait, Holidays, Photoshop, Willy

An Accomplished Mission

Let me start out by saying “Happy Valentine’s Day” to the people who are celebrating it. Let me say “Happy Wednesday” for those of you who are not.

“>Willy’s birthday was over 2 months ago. I am a timely person. So, I am glad to report that I have finally finished Willy’s birthday present and handed it over to him. Unfortunately, I have no clue where he is going to put this in his apartment. You see Willy’s walls are made out of either concrete or pixie dust. Neither one is good for hanging things. At least I know it won’t end up in the bathroom. No wall space. For reasons I haven’t been able to make right in my head, whenever anybody actually requests a piece it always ends up in their bathroom. I’m not quite sure what to make of this phenomenon. Below is a photo of the gift. This picture is entitled “Grizzly McAlpine”. The subject named the picture himself. This is the only time I have ever allowed such a thing to occur. The mat was originally an orange-brown color. I painted it silver, but allowed some of the original color to bleed through. The frame is black. I was originally going to put a coat of silver underneath the black and then distress the black paint to allow the silver to come through. I decided just to keep it simple and leave it one color and let the stress come to it in its own due course.


Grizzly McAlpine - Framed
“Grizzly McAlpine”

Bowling, FNSC, Movies, Nader, Nature, Scottie D., Steph, Teresa

Spirit Pumps

2 Comments

Just thought I would jot down a few quick thoughts.

First of all, I would like to share the fruits of my labors from Craft Night!!


Restore Blog - Spirit Pumps - 01-24-2007

Okay . . . so one could make the case that painting a frame and matting a picture hardly constitutes a “craft”.

I’m not the craft police, but I did do this on Craft Night. I even finally decided on a name for this picture: “Last, Loveliest Smile”

This picture will soon be displayed in Salon 908. You could say that it will be on “Public Display”. I won’t because I’m not that pretentious. I’ll just say that it is hanging on a wall where people I don’t know might gaze upon it lovingly or in disgust.

I have to give credit to my sister Teresa. She was right about something. A few weeks ago at Supper Club we ate at Es Tas! It was terrible. Teresa recommended that we go to the West Street Deli instead. We ignored her sage advice and paid a pretty hefty price. Namely the worst french fries I have ever forced down in my life. Yesterday I met Teresa for lunch and we hit the West Street Deli. I ordered a club sandwich. It was tremendous. I don’t have the words to describe the greatness of this sandwich. Instead, I will steal a poem from Coleridge to encapsulate my feelings about this sandwich.

Desire

Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.

That pretty much says it. One tasty sandwich!!! As some of you may or may not know, I bowl (very poorly) in a Monday night league. Even by my abysmally low standards I have been in a bit of a slump lately. In fact, going into Monday night I had not won a single game since before Christmas.

On Monday night I found myself matched up with Shaun Wirtz. Is he better than me? Certainly, but this is not an insurmountable task. Yet, he thoroughly thrashed me in the first 2 games, extending my losing streak to 9 games. I stood on the threshold of a double digit losing streak. So I dug deep inside and told myself: “You can not lose this third game. If you do . . . eh, whatever.”

With my new personal “whatever” mantra fueling me, I powered my way to a 10 pin victory. Of course, he won the series, but I left the bowling alley a winner. A winner of 1 of my last 11 points, but a winner nonetheless. Well maybe a little “theless”.

Tuesday night I went to see “Running with Scissors” with Stephanie and her friend Maggie. Let me tell you something about art films. For every “Little Miss Sunshine” or “Memento” there sure are a lot of “Pieces of April”. Actually I don’t hate “Pieces of April” that much, it is just the first movie to come to mind. “Running with Scissors” was a big time disappointment. They changed the focus of the book from Augusten Burroughs adolescence to his relationship with his mom. They eliminated about 10 characters, which is okay, but they twisted the other characters just enough to entirely screw up the essence of the book. I was particularly bothered by the way that pretty much left Dr. Finch off the hook for being responsible for almost all the misery in all the other characters lives. Rather than being grossly incompetent and extremely unethical; he came off as merely eccentric. Plus, there were at least two scenes in the movie that were so poor that they made you a little uncomfortable when watching them. Similar to when your friend shows you something that they are really emotionally invested in, but it blows and you’re not really sure how to react. Do you tell them: “Dude, this sucks.” Or do you try to change the subject quickly? Or do you feign enthusiasm? Whatever you do decide to do, you are still uncomfortable while you consider your options.

In “Running with Scissors” I was uncomfortable with the incredible lameness in particular of the scene where Annette Bening’s character hallucinates that she is seeing snowflakes falling from her ceiling while the soundtrack blares: “Blinded by the Light”. Normally I would laugh out loud at such a horrific sequence, but because I wanted to like this movie, I had to look away. Similar to Nader during the sex scenes of “BrokebackMountain”. Although Nader just felt a little squeamish around those scenes. I felt embarrassment for the filmmakers.

Tonight would be movie night with Scott. It would be my turn to choose the movie. Last time it was his choice and he chose “Clerks II”. I should make him watch a French New Wave Film or something by Fellini as punishment for making me sit through one long scatological joke trying to thinly masquerade itself as a morality tale. Although he does deserve to be punished in such a way, I do not wish to make his brain explode in head. I am making him watch an independent art picture. I do not know how good this movie is because I missed it when it was at the Varsity. I am making him watch “Brick” which I know is better than “Clerks II” without breaking its plastic seal; I just hope that it is exponentially better. Although no movie is that bad on a 106 inch screen, except maybe “Clerks II”.

I would just close by saying that I am currently reading what might be the best book I’ve ever read. I won’t tell you any more about this book at this time, but I would reiterate that it is phenomenal. It also taught me this fun little fact: “Presbyterians” is an anagram for Britney Spears.

Oh yeah, one last thing: Rodin is tomorrow. Still time to signup for the field trip!!

Calendar

A First Endorsement

I wish to begin with a quote by Henry Ward Beecher:

The overweening self respect of conceited men relieves others from the duty of respecting them at all.

Perhaps you don’t understand why now, but you will understand soon enough. You see my first endorsement is of myself. Well not exactly myself, but of the Photography 139 Calendar. I even have photographic evidence to back up my claim that I think very highly of my own calendar.
 




 

What can I say? It is a good product. Let me just tell you a little bit about its production. I started by taking a gander at the thousands of images that I have made in the past year. Then I eliminate all the fluff and filler and distill the essence of my photographic vision down to 13 images. 1 picture for the front cover and 12 for the monthly images.

Then I adjust and crop the images so that they will print with the proper dimensions and spatial relationships. I also combine 12 of the images into 1 image for the back cover.

Once the images are ready to be printed, I begin creating the actual monthly pages. The useful part of the calendar. Generating the calendars is easy enough, but then I check various websites, astronomical charts, and other calendars to get all of the most important days on their proper dates. Thankfully “Squirrel Appreciation Day” is always the same day every year.

After all the files are ready to go, it is time for the printing. This year we used two separate printers, although they both are HP printers that use their Vivera print cartridges. This year the images were printed on Staples brand premium matte photo paper and the calendar pages were printed on stock card.

Once everything is printed, the pages are sorted so that they are placed back to back with its mate in the proper orientation. I usually accomplish this task, but sometimes a small Italian man helps me.

Then the calendars are off to the 2nd part of this 2 man operation. Jesse is that second man. He fires up the Royal Sovereign laminator and all of the pages are laminated. This process can take up to 10 runs through the Royal Sovereign to guarantee the best seal.

After the lamination, the calendar pages are taken to the comb binding machine to have holes punch in the top and then bound with a comb binder. This year the comb binders were white. In the future I think we will branch out in a more colorful direction. It is the promoter in me.

Now that the Photography 139 calendar is bound, it comes back to me where I man a modified 3 hole puncher that places a hole in darn near the exact middle of the top of the calendar so that it can be hung up on the wall and is ready for display.

Then I either hand deliver the calendar to your home, place of employment, or talk you into coming to see me at work.

How good is this calendar? I know that it is hanging up on walls as far north as Mendota Heights, Minnesota and as far south as Fairview, Kansas. It is proudly displayed in the work areas of employees at the Younkers Salon, Principal Financial, Ortho Computer Systems, and Atlas Media Group.

This calendar is so good that people have asked for the mistake pages. Begging for my scraps. This calendar is so good that a very mild acqaintance got in my face about how “I could be making money off of this!!”

I hope you got one because I have some sad news. When I walked into the Photography 139 Print Shop in the calendar wing, I found the following sign posted next to the water cooler:


2007 Photography 139 Calendar - Sold Out

Calendar, FNSC, Jay, Jesse, Willy, Work

Score!

Some times it pays to show up for work. Usually whatever your hourly wage happens to be, unless you are on salary then you are consistently being robbed. There are times when it REALLY pays to show up for work. I’m talking about when you have a high quality converstaion with a co-worker or just out of the blue you get something dropped on you that just happens to be exactly what you need. You could even call it a miracle.

There is a beautiful sequence in the movie “Signs” where Mel Gibson is sitting on couch with Joaquin Phoenix discussing the concept of miracles. Mel Gibson’s characters says the following tidbit:

People break down into two groups when they experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just a happy turn of chance. I’m sure the people in Group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way. For them, the situation isn’t fifty-fifty. Could be bad, could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they’re on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there’s a whole lot of people in the Group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they’re looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever’s going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

I’m a miracle man. I back this up with the following image:





My one man staff (Jesse Howard) and I have been diligently working on the handcrafted goodness that is the Photography 139 calendar. We have printers. We have a laminating machine. We have hole punchers. The one thing we are missing is our own comb binding machine. Not any more!!! The company that employs me was throwing this bad boy out. We swooped in on it like it was our job. I mean the jobs we get paid to do. So that picture you are peering at with most likely a small amount of envy is the brand new (20 years old) Photography 139 Calendar Comb Binder. The only thing left to make it “official” will be the slapping of the “Property of Photography 139” sticker on the side and christening it with a bottle of ice cold Original Black Raspberry Faygo Soda.

Warning !!!!!!

The following small story is going to contain juvenile and explicit reference to the female genitalia. If you are not comfortable with such subject matter I suggest you turn back now. Otherwise continue and discover the importance of good communication.

Last night at Supper Club a couple members had the following communication breakdown. I will leave their names out to spare them.

Setting: Es Tas

Member #1: (points to shirt that says “I love Pink Tacos”) Hey would you wear a shirt like that?

Member #2: I don’t know I haven’t had one before.

Member #1: What?

Member#2: I can’t wear a shirt if I don’t know whether or not I like it.

Member #1: What do you mean you don’t know whether or not you like “the product”?

Member #2: I haven’t had one before. I can’t wear a shirt for a product I don’t know.

Member#1: What?

Member#3: I think our friend is trying to say that he prefers a big, beefy burrito.

Finally it was learned that Member #2, thought the shirt said “Big Tacos”. Communication breakdowns, perhaps they aren’t always the same.

Art, Black & White, Commercial, Football, Nate, Self-Portrait, Work

Failed Beginning

So I thought quite some time about beginning a new segment on this blog. I was going to do some endorsements. You know, endorsing products, ideas, people. I was all set to endorse my first product: Heartland Creamery Milk. In fact, I even went so far as to have the following image made:


Chocolate Milk Endorsement

 

You can see that I was serious. Definitely in the mood to do some hardcore endorsing. It wasn’t without any particular reason. In fact there were a few reasons for my strong passion for Heartland Creamery Milk. Let’s start with the obvious. It comes in a glass bottle. How cool is that? It keeps the milk quite a bit colder than the plastic jugs that most milk comes in. Secondly those glass bottles bring back pleasant childhood memories of taking milk back to Boyd’s Dairy.

Another reason for my passion for this milk is that it is quite tasty. I am not willing to place it on an even pedestal with the holy grail of milk: Anderson Erickson. However it is certainly quite a bit better than Roberts. Of course almost everything is better than Roberts

I also enjoy the fact that Heartland Creamery owns all of their own cows. Therefore they have complete control over the product that they are putting on the shelf. Plus, they can control the cow’s diet and any “antibiotics” that the cows might get.

One last thing that “rings my bell” about this milk is that the company is unabashedly Christian. All of the profits from this product go to support a Christian Academy for violent children and an Adult recovery center.

Sounds great doesn’t it? The problem is that I can’t bring my self to give Heartland Creamery my complete and utter endorsement because People Magazine wrote an article about this school in their October issue. This article asserts that the students are abused physically while they attend this school.

Now normally I wouldn’t care about what a rag like People Magazine has to say about anything. This is a magazine that is only suited for beauty salons and keeping houseless people warm during a cold winter night. I have a suspiscion that even houseless people would rather endure the cold than having People magazine come into contact with their skin. I know that if I was given the choice of lining my clothing with People, Entertainment Weekly, any Left Behind novel, or a Nicholas Sparks tome OR just being cold . . . I wouldn’t even think twice. Bring it on Old Man Winter!

Although I do confess that I would burn all of those failed writing attempts to keep warm. As long as I got to wear gloves. I wouldn’t want my skin to come into contact with that trash.

But this is off the point. The point is that on the Heartland Creamery website there is a response to the attack by People. Their response isn’t overwhelming in reassuring me that this is just another attempt at trashing religion by the mainstream media. You know, like how the 700 Club is a clever parody by the liberal media designed to make Christians look stupid . . . oh, that’s not a parody?!?

The response basically is quite up front with its use of what they call “tough love”. They admit to being raided by the government in 2001, but that none of the charges stuck. So I’m not sure where I come down on this whole milk controversey. (I hope somebody out there caught that rip snorting pun. I’m talking to you Nate! Twin Cities, huh! huh!) I do know that I can not endorse this product at this time, but there glass bottles are extremely cool.

I also think that Heartland Creamery should make an energy drink called “Tough Love”. I’d buy it and I don’t even drink energy drinks.

While I’m on the subject of my beliefs and God, I would just like to point something out. I don’t know if it says this on my main MySpace page, but I do have one core belief about God and athletics. It goes a little something like this:

I do not believe that God takes an active role in deciding the outcome of sporting events. No matter how much people in the stands or in the game pray, ask, or plead for God’s intervention. I do believe that God takes time out from rooting against Notre Dame to root for the Iowa State Cyclones.

I bring this up because anybody that watched the Sugar Bowl last night witnessed history. Notre Dame lost its 9th straight bowl game. This is a new NCAA record. Furthermore, 85 teams have won a bowl game since the last time Notre Dame won a bowl game. 85!! There are only 119 teams in Division I football.

Here is a little story from work today. Tell me that somebody else gets the exquisite irony in the statement one of my co-workers made today. I’m going to slightly paraphrase, but the essence of what was said is still there:

“I’m a genius. I have proof. I took a test on the internet.”

I assure you that this statement was not said in a facetious manner. It was said straight faced. It was meant to be a statement of fact. It almost makes me want to go off on a rant about how the term “genius” is overused and how “genius” in actuality has next to nothing to do with intelligence and it certainly has nothing to do with how people score on standardized tests. It also make me want to do a rant on the various forms of intelligences, but I won’t at this time. I’ll just let that sweet phrase sink in a little bit longer.

How about another picture:


Thinker Recreation

Why this picture?

Because next week at the Brunnier Art Gallery an exhibition of Rodin’s sculptures is opening. True it is only about 30 sculptures, but how many opportunities do you have to see the work of a man who is widely considered to be the greatest sculptor since Michaelangelo in virtually your own backyard. I say virtually because these sculptures will not physically be in your backyard. However, if anybody is looking for a late Christmas gift idea for me, a Rodin sculpture would look great in my backyard. I’ll even let you borrow my window breaking rock. Although I will need it back soon. The 1 year anniversary of my first day at my current place of employment is rapidly approaching and I’ll need that rock to “buy” some cake.

The rock thing aside, I’m pretty freaking jazzed about going to see the work of Rodin. If anybody else wants to go, let me know. But if you roll with me, you have to display the proper amount of snootiness. It is a metric ton of snootiness.

Speaking of art, I’m going to start working on a new photo project now that the calendar is virtually done. Anybody out there with a burning desire to press their face into a piece of plexiglass for a picture let me know. I’m not making that up.

Animals, Black & White, Calendar, Christianity, Derrick, Flowers, Formal Portrait, Jay, Macro, Nature, Photoshop

2007 Calendar

So most of the 2007 Calendars have been printed, laminated and bound. There are just a few left that need to be distributed. If you still want a calendar and didn’t get your order in, better let me know. Because 2007 begins in 13 hours and every day that a calendar comes late, it depreciates in value.

Below is a little bit of a look at what you would get by “purchasing” a calendar.


2007 Back Page

I would just like to impart a small bit of information about why each month was selected.

January Image – Ledges Daily Denouement

I selected this image because it was the most wintery of the images that I have selected. It definitely leaves you with a cold feeling.

February Image – Unnamed Butterfly Image

I made this image exclusively for distribution with this calendar and I don’t like it, so it will remain an Unnamed Butterfly Image.

March Image – Flower in a Ditch

March begins the Northern Hemispheres return to life. Therefore, this is the first of many traditional nature images.

April Image – Oversaturated Dragonfly

April is a month traditionally oversaturated with rain. I went a little crazy with the exposure compensation on this image. Make it a bit oversaturated by traditional photographic estimations.

May Image – Kentucky Appetizer

Traditionally I put my favorite image in May irregardless of whether or not I think anybody else will enjoy it in the slightest bit.

June Image – Yellow Swallow Tail

The end of the traditional nature images.

July Image – Outburst of the Soul

A random selection here.

August Image – Wildflower

August is a great month for wildflowers.

September – Portrait of the Artist as a Middle Aged Man

A random selection here.

October – Wheat Grass

The only fall looking image of the bunch so it went in a fall month.

November – Four Flowers

Olivia’s birth month. My auction image from Songs for Olivia.

December – Building 429

A Christian image for the month of Christmas.

Not much info there, but enough for the intellectually curious.

Animals, Steve, Work

A Good Day at Work

2 Comments

This will be just a brief little thing. I just wanted to take time to mention that yesterday at work I finally got a picture of one of the ground hogs that lives out behind my place of employment. I have wanted this picture ever since I first saw one six months ago.

The ironic thing about this groundhog picture is that the groundhog was found climbing in a tree by Steve. Just earlier in the day on my fresh air break we had discussed our love of watching wildlife in the wooded area behind where we work.

Two hours later he came inside from his smoke break to grab me and tell me that there was a groundhog in a tree. I grabbed my camera and took the picture below.


Groundhog Steve

Football, Iowa State

A Cyclone Victory

Much has transpired since the last time that I took keyboard in hand and banged down a few thoughts for the World Wide Web. I won’t discuss many of those matters at this time. I’m only going to bang out some thoughts about the UNI-ISU football game on last Saturday. I don’t have a “Snapshot” page of pictures from that game quite put together at this time, but it will burst into existence in the next couple of days. It will definitely be up before we manhandle Nebraska on Saturday.

My observations:

1. Jon Davis is our best receiver. For all the hoopla that Todd Blythe gets, he has become a ball dropping machine. That is ironic since Jon Davis has the reputation for having bad hands. Even Blythe’s touchdown was a catch that he missed the first time and got lucky that the ball came back to him. Forget the fact Davis has been the most consistent receiver on the team. Forget the fact that he is the only receiver not to have dropped a ball this year. Consider only these facts: 1. He leads to team in receiving yards with 304. 2. He is second on the team in receptions with 21. 3. He has the longest reception of the year at 44 yards. 4. He leads the team in yards per reception at 14.5 YPR. Other Cyclone fans can call sports radio shows and complain that we aren’t throwing the ball to Blythe enough. I will wonder why we aren’t throwing the ball to Davis enough.

2. We might be 3-2, but we could very easily be 0-5. To break it down, our 3 wins are thanks to a dropped pass in the end zone, an overthrown ball in the end zone, and a field goal that floated barely wide right. All three plays were the last play in the game. Football truly is a game of inches. Although dominating performances against inferior opponents would have been nice, I get a certain amount of morbid joy from seeing us on the right end of those inches for once. How many times have we lost by that same small increment? I can think of 9 just off the top of my head: Alabama in 2001, Florida State and Texas in 2002, Colorado and Missouri in 2004, and Nebraska, Baylor, Missouri, and Kansas in 2005.

3. We almost lost to UNI at home. That would have been incredibly embarrassing, but I have had season tickets since 1983. It wouldn’t have been the worst thing I’ve ever seen in Jack Trice Stadium. I’ve seen ISU lose to UNI two other times already. I’ve seen us lose to Baylor. I’ve seen us lose to Connecticut. I’ve seen us lose to Western Michigan. The icing on the cake is seeing us lose to Drake the year before they completely dropped football. I don’t think anything will ever be as embarrassing as that 20-17 loss to the Bulldogs in 1985. I think the modicum of success that we have achieved in the last few years has spoiled Cyclone fans to the point that we now treat unimpressive victories like losses. I’m not sure if that is because we have arrived as a midlevel power conference program or just a statement on how quickly we forget.

4. When UNI kicked a field goal to take a 27-21 lead the two people to our right and the two people to our left got up and departed. I understand if these people would have left because this put UNI up by 10 points or 17 points or even 9 points. It didn’t, it put UNI up by under 7 points while giving our offense the ball with 2 and half minutes left to get into the end zone. At this point in the game our offense was moving the ball at will. The only thing separating us from putting this game away much earlier was a pair of fumbles. One by Austin Flynn as he was trying to power his way across the goal line and another that simply bounced off Ryan Baum’s helmet as he misjudged the trajectory of a Panther punt. There is no good excuse for the thousands of Cyclone “supporters” that streamed out of the stadium after that field goal. I think Jamie Pollard should take the money he flushed down the toilet for that stupid inflatable toy the players use to enter the field, and station ushers by the gates to take pictures of people who leave the game under these circumstances. Obviously we don’t want to ban them from coming to future games. However, establishig a Wall of Shame for such people would be a good deterrent and remind “fans” to support their team to the bitter end. The Cyclones have broken my heart on many an occasion. I don’t use it as an excuse to quit on them in the future. I put my heart back together and remember that next week might be the game where the other team misses a field goal at the buzzer to lose the game.

5. Although I have yet to find anybody to sign on to my theory, I think UNI made a huge mistake by laying up and going for the field goal that gave them a 27-21 lead. Not only do I disagree with the 3 straight runs they called in the red zone, but I think they should have manned up and went for it on 4th down. The worst case scenario was that they don’t get the 1st down and ISU gets the ball on the 15. They still have to go 85 yards to get a touchdown. True ISU could kick a field goal and head into overtime during such a scenario, but I don’t think I have to remind anybody about the Cyclones’ history of missing pressure field goals. Conversely, if the Panthers make the 1st down, the game is essentially over. ISU is out of timeouts. UNI could run out the clock or at worst leave just a handful of ticks left for the Cyclones offense. Now laying up was the prudent decision, but I think you only make prudent decisions when you are playing either your equals or your inferiors. Division 1-AA teams only get so many opportunities to upset 1-A schools. You have to be willing to take some risks to do it. UNI should have taken that risk.

6. Never thought I would write the following tidbit: I want to see more Stevie Hicks. The guy is averaging over 5 yards a carry and he is getting less than 10 carries a game. I understand that ISU has fallen behind in their last 2 contests, but I don’t think that means you abandon the run completely. Not when it is working to the tune of 5 yards a tote. That being said, I think I have finally figured out what is stopping Hicks from being a great back. He is definitely nothing more than an average D1 back, but that is good enough considering how bad our running game has been since Haywood graduated. However, Hicks shows the speed and power to be more than just an average back. There are times when I thought he was just way too indecisive. He seemed to stand in the backfield motionless after getting the ball and then he would get tackled for a two yard loss. I think his poor decision making comes from a lack of vision. I don’t think that Hicks sees the field very well. That explains to me his occasional indecisiveness and his lack of big plays. The play in the UNI game that leads me to this conclusion was late in the 1st Half. UNI was leading 21-7. ISU decided to roll the dice on 4th and 2. The call went to Hicks. There was a cavernous hole to his left. Rather than cutting to the left and perhaps taking it to the house, Hicks followed Koch straight up the middle. The problem with that decision was that Koch didn’t make it past the line of scrimmage. There was no hole where Koch had gone. There was at least a ton wall of cardinal, purple, and gold humanity. Hicks tried to move the pile. I’m sure Hicks is a strong guy. He certainly is an impressive looking human being. However, I don’t think on his best day he could move a ton of human bodies two yards. On Saturday he didn’t move it 2 inches.

7. Jason Scales. I like seeing him getting more playing time. I would like it even more if we could see more plays with him in open space. The screen play was a nice setup for Scales to use his talent. He is quicker and has more moves than Hicks. I think running him between the tackles isn’t the best use of his talent. I’d like to see more options and more sweeps with Scales.

8. Marquis Hamilton caught a huge ball during the game winning touchdown drive. I hope they keep enlarging his role in the offense. Especially with a Nebraska team that has proven an inability to cover tall receivers coming to town this Saturday.

9. Here is a riddle: The ISU defensive line has gotten penetration. What just happened? The other team called a screen play. I know they are young. I know they are small. We need to find a way to put pressure on the QB. Blitzing isn’t the answer unless we stop playing this soft zone garbage. When the opponent is throwing 5 yard passes because your corners are 15 yards off the ball, a blitzing linebacker isn’t going to get there fast enough. Not even close.

10. The other thing that concerns me about our defense is that we are missing an awful lot of tackles. On 3rd and 7 in the 4th quarter, Eric Sanders (who nobody will mistake for Michael Vick, Seneca Wallace, or even Todd Doxson) made Curvey miss in the backfield and then not 1 but 2 other Cyclones miss him as he trekked down the sideline for one of the most pathetic first downs you are ever going to see. I love Alvin Bowen. He is fast and hits like a bulldozer. That being said, I don’t know if he still leads the country in tackles, but I would lay money down that he leads the nation in missed tackles.

Those are my observations. I am still predicting another Cyclone victory on Saturday. Nebraska is a paper tiger. I believe the real Cyclones will show up this week. They have to right? We’re quickly running out of Saturdays.