Category Archives: Football

Andree, Baier, Basketball, Faust, Football, Iowa State, Russell, Willy

Spring Game

I started my Saturday by stepping on the basketball court at Beyer Hall for the first time in over a year. To be more direct, it was the first time I have stepped on any basketball court in over a year.

On the court with me was Andree, Russell and Baier. We had been planning this game for over a month. Through a series of e-mails I might have built my basketball skills up to them based on the baller that I was in my youth. I was not the only one though. Russell gave himself the nickname The Open Flame. I believe he also gave himself the nickname the Big HuHot. He also gave himself the nickname The Big Nome de Plume. However, he decided to rely mostly on the nickname The Open Flame. I tried to get him to wear a head band with flame design, but he only indicated that he would “work on it”.

I did not want to be outnicknamed, so in the tradition of some of my friends, I chose to give myself the nickname The Almighty. This was mostly based on the fact that Andree claims that the only thing that could make him cower is being in the presence of The Almighty.

There was doubt that I would be able to live up to the nickname, but through our first three contests I lived up to the nickname and more. I opened up the outside game early, then I showed off my post up moves. Then I cracked out the dribble penetration. Finally I showed off the passing game.

After three games, I was The Almighty. I was undefeated and everybody else had felt the bitter taste of defeat. Then my years of eating bad food and not exercising caught up to me. I ran out of steam. I didn’t fare so well in the last couple of games, but no need to dwell on that.

After the basketball game, Baier and I met up with Willy, Faust and Bret in lot B6 for a little tailgating. I had brought my grill over, but I was a bit concerned that it would not fire up. That fear was not necessary. The grill fired up and we knocked down a wide assortment of meats and a pasta salad that Baier had made. A couple other gents joined us and we made our way to the spring game. I posted some pictures from the Spring Game in the Snapshots Gallery. You can get there via the picture of the link below:


Spring Game

IOWA STATE FOOTBALL – 2008


I have some observations from the Spring Game, but I don’t really put any stock in the Spring Game, so I won’t bore you with any of that information.

Football, Grandma, Iowa State, Still Life, Teresa

ISU Football

My grandma is going through the herculean task of downsizing her possessions. She recently gave a bunch of yarn to Teresa. When Teresa was going through the yarn she found our grandpa’s Iowa State football season ticket from 1979.

I started attending Iowa State football games with my grandpa in 1983. I’ve had season tickets ever since. I was very interested in this ticket.


03-01-08

One of the more interesting things to me about this ticket is the price: $36.00. To renew my season tickets this year the price of the ticket is $300.00. For the right to even renew those tickets I have to make a $1,000 donation to the Cyclone Club. I don’t think the term inflation begins to cover it.

Art, Brog Frog, Football, Iowa State, Music

Jack Trice Wallpaper

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My friend Shawn is a badass graphic designer. He recently made a new wallpaper featuring Jack Trice. You should know who Jack Trice is and if you don’t, then I have failed you as a friend.


01-31-08

He is the man in this statue.

Jack Trice was the first African American to play sports for Iowa State. During the first half of his first game, Trice suffered a broken collarbone. He continued to play during the third quarter, until he was thrown on his back and trampled by three Minnesota players. He died three days later. Four thousand students and faculty members attended his funeral service on central campus.

Before the night of the game he wrote this letter to himself on some hotel stationary:

My thoughts just before the first real college game of my life: The honor of my race, family & self is at stake. Everyone is expecting me to do big things. I will. My whole body and soul are to be thrown recklessly about the field tomorrow. Every time the ball is snapped, I will be trying to do more than my part. On all defensive plays I must break thru the opponents’ line and stop the play in their territory. Beware of mass interference. Fight low, with your eyes open and toward the play. Watch out for crossbucks and reverse end runs. Be on your toes every minute if you expect to make good.

Below is a small version of Shawn’s Jack Trice Wallpaper.




Some other exciting news about Shawn (the former drummer of UnHingd) is that he has a new band up and going. They have yet to pick a name, but they are planning to be playing a show near you by April.

Blogging, Football, Frank

FTP Issues

So a guy I work with hosts my website on his server. This is a pretty good deal for me because he doesn’t charge me a plum nickel and I get pretty much all the space I could ever want. However, he recently moved my website to a different server. That is fine. The new server is faster and has all sorts of fancy bells and whistles. However, he really does not want to make this new server a FTP server. This means that I can’t really make changes to my website because I can’t FTP into it. He really wants me to use this program that automatically publishes to the server through something like Port 80. That would be fine IF I wanted to use this program and if I could select which port to FTP though on blogger AND if wanted to use this program, which I really don’t. Therefore, it may be a week or so before I can convince him that I need some kind of FTP capability or we reach some kind of compromise before you see any changes on the website. This means that for those of you that have been waiting for the pictures from the Colorado game to be posted – hang in there. They are still coming.

Yesterday kind of sucked because the Cyclone got dismantled. What happened to them wasn’t half as embarrassing as what happened in Iowa City. I’m not referring to the loss to a MAC school that is most likely going to keep the Hawks walking the streets of Iowa City this December. Losing on the field is one thing. The embarrassment I’m talking about is Iowa fans booing their team as they left the field on Saturday.

I’ve been put in the position of defending Iowa fans a lot lately. I tell people that they aren’t bad, there are just a few bad apples. However, I can’t come up with a defense for booing your own team.

Granted, I’m not a fan of booing as a general rule. When I plunk down my cold hard cash for a season ticket and head into Jack Trice Stadium, I have only one motivation. I’m there to cheer for the Cyclones. Let me repeat that because in a movie I saw today somebody said, “In this day and age, optimism is a revolutionary act.” I’m there to cheer for the Cyclones. I’m not there to boo the other team. I’m there to support my team. I’m not there to disparage their opponent. In this day and age, sportsmanship has become a revolutionary act.

I might on occasion in the heat of the moment allow a boo to escape my lips when the referees have bungled a call or an opponent has displayed poor sportsmanship. Never has the thought of booing the Cyclones ever even crossed my brain. Never.

What makes the actions of Iowa “fans” even more reprehensible is the fact that this was Senior Day. Players like Adam Shada, Albert Young, Damian Sims, Mike Klinkenborg, Tom Busch, and Kenny Iwebema left Kinnick Stadium for the final time as players. They left the field to a chorus of boos. Those guys gave their heart and soul to that football team. They deserve better than that. Win or lose. The effort of those players demands your respect and it makes me sick to think that their final memory as Hawks is being booed off the field by their own fans.

I’m done defending Iowa fans.

Football

Prison Overcrowding

I don’t want to pile on, but what has been happening with the Iowa football team this season is a disgrace and an embarrassment to the state of Iowa. I’ve always thought that Ferentz was a great coach and I know that nobody can control 125 or so hormonal, young men all of the time; but with 3 new players now under investigation for sexual assault, that means that over 10% of the team has had trouble with the law. I believe that a coach should be able to make sure that less than 10% of their players aren’t jailbirds.

Take a look at the legal problems thus far this year:

– Ryan Bain (April 14): Disorderly conduct, drunk driving. Voluntarily transferred.
– Ricky Stanzi (May 5): Possession of alcohol. Backup quarterback.
– Dana Brown: Fifth-degree theft (May 15), domestic assault (Oct. 16). Kicked off team.
– Tyler Gerstandt (May 18): Possession of alcohol. Backup tight end.
– Arvell Nelson: Driving with a suspended license (July 2), failure to appear in court (Aug. 16). Backup quarterback.
– Bradley Fletcher (July 17): Drunk driving. Starting defensive back.
– Ben Evans (July 29): Drunk driving. Wide receiver.
– Anthony Bowman (Aug. 18): Unauthorized use of a credit card. Suspended.
– Dominique Douglas: Unauthorized use of a credit card (Aug. 18), fifth-degree theft (Oct. 30). Suspended.
– Clint Huntrods (Sept. 6): Public intoxication, public urination. Kicked off team.
– Lance Tillison (Sept. 16): Drunk driving. Second-team defensive back.

Perhaps the Hawks should just look into locking up their athletes all week and then let them out for games. It seems that it would be good practice for what many of them will face in their future any way.

Derrick, Faust, Football, Iowa State, Jay, Johnathan, Willy

A Great Saturday

Many great things happened on Saturday.

Iowa State beat Kansas State
I got to take my nephew Johnathan to his first ever Cyclone football game.
I got to tailgate with the Fausts, Willy, Jay, and Derrick.

Then just to put icing on the Great Day Cake:

Kansas put up over 70 points on Nebraska< Navy beat Notre Dame for the first time in 43 years. Don't just glide over that last sentence. Think about that for a second. Notre Dame had beaten Navy 43 straight times. It is hard to fathom losing anything 43 straight times. To put it in perspective, the last time that Navy beat Notre Dame, Kennedy was still President. I do have the pictures from the ISU victory posted. All you have to do is click on the picture of the link below:


ISU vs. Kansas State

Football, Iowa State, Movies

Oklahoma

“It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Von.”
– Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange)

If all things are relative, the loss to Oklahoma on Saturday felt like a win since it was an incredible improvement over the Texas game. I have to admit to feeling pretty good when I left Jack Trice. I did not listen to Beethoven on Saturday night though. I mostly sat around thinking about how I left some necessary documents at work and then fell asleep.

Unfortunately, there are no moral victories. Iowa State did lose. My Beethoven CDs still collect dust. I did however get the pictures from the game up on the website moments ago.

Iowa State Cyclones vs. Oklahoma Sooners

Football, Iowa State, Movies

Texas Sized Beatdown

“Sorry don’t get it done, Dude. That’s the second time you hit me. Don’t ever do it again.”

-John T. Chance
Rio Bravo (1959)

The Iowa State-Texas game was over about 2 minutes into the sad, sordid affair. It was a rainy, gloomy day. The pictures from this debacle are up on the website any way. I think the highlight of this new gallery might be a picture of Jay on his way to a lumberjack competition.

Iowa State vs. Texas

Blogging, Derrick, Faust, FNSC, Football, Frank, Jay, Music, Schmidt, Steph

A Very Non Exciting Announcement

I was counting up the ways that a person could make contact with me and I decided that I needed one more way. So I actually took the time and energy and told the guy that hosts my website (Frank) to give me an address at my own domain. So now if you want yet another e-mail address to write to me at:

bennett@photography139.com

There might* be a prize for the first person that e-mails me at my new address.

I am excited that this weekend will be the peak of fall colors this year in Central Iowa. I hope you are able to spend some time outside this weekend to enjoy the beauty of nature. I think I might just celebrate by taking a train ride.

The Fausts are going to be joining FNSC this evening. They have been given the rare privilege of picking the location for FNSC. This is a very rare honor only given to the most highly regarded. They did not make a mistake with their choice. They have chosen the West Street Deli, which is home to the world’s best club sandwich. I’m not joking about it. If you haven’t had the club at The West Street Deli you are missing out.

Tomorrow is an exciting day as well. The Iowa State Cyclones will attempt to BBQ the Texas Longhorns. I have little doubt that the Cyclones will leave Jack Trice Stadium victors, but that isn’t why tomorrow is so exciting. Tomorrow is exciting because Jay and Derrick are attending their first Faust tailgate. They will get to witness first hand Faust doing his Johnny Cash impersonation (it involves standing on the cooler) and after the game, they might get to see him bust out the Humpty Dance. Although the real highlight of any Faust tailgate is watching him yell at Bret over the music selections. Nothing is better than Faust getting mad when Bret won’t play “Not as Good as I Once Was”. He points at his damaged foot and screams, “That’s my song. I’m not as good as I once was”. Priceless merrymaking.

I should make a confession. Almost a month ago, Stephanie gave me the Sufjan Stevens album Illinoise. She was really interested in me giving her feedback on my thoughts about the album. I think she was hoping for me to just agree with her that it is one of the greatest albums of all time. The problem is that she also gave me a copy of the Eric Lindell album Change in the Weather. I just can’t bring myself to listen to the Sufjan Stevens album because I LOVE the Eric Lindell album so much. In fact, I’ve taken to surrounding myself with a constant flow of music from the following albums: Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace** by the Foo Fighters, Change in the Weather by Eric Lindell, Once the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, and Every Second Counts by Plain White T’s. I hope to add Shannon Curfman’s album Fast Lane Addiction to the mix, but I have to find some place that is selling it first. Stupid Best Buy. Stupid Target. I’ll get to Sufjan, I swear it. Just not on anything important.

I received some exciting news this week. I’m not ready to share that information yet, but if you want a sneak peek, you can head over to the FUMC in Boone on Wednesday night at 7 pm. You will want to go to the parlor. There are a couple of strings attached. You have to be a woman, lady, female, or girl and you have to be interested in knitting, crocheting, quilting or something of that ilk. I’ll just leave this tease stand for now. Hopefully I will have a picture next to make you understand why I’m excited. Well I can’t make you understand anything. It will be an illustration of my excitement though.

I got another new toy for the “rig”*** a couple of weeks ago. I’m hoping to go out tonight and get some use out of it. If everything works out there might be some interesting night pictures in our future. Makes you wonder what toy would help with night photography, doesn’t it!

*By “might”, I mean there isn’t a prize.

** Even though Schmidt from work disagrees with my assessment, I think this album is pushing “The Colour and The Shape” for the title of the best Foo Fighters album.
*** Terminology used by the dude who annoyed me a couple of weeks ago.

Comedy, Football, Politics

The Presbyterian Experience

I’ve just had a few random thoughts cross my brain in the last few days.

Harvest Moon

Last night was the Harvest Moon. I didn’t really get to check it out myself because it was cloudy and I fell asleep on the couch waiting for score updates from the Padres game. I hope somebody else out there enjoyed it.

Iowa State’s New Uniforms

Yesterday Jamie Pollard announced the new Iowa State football uniforms. Take a look:









My main thing is that I’m very thankful that they didn’t decide to go with white helmets. The cardinal helmets look awesome. I am not crazy about the logo. Nobody in the world identifies us as “I State”, but at least the logo looks good on the helmets even if it doesn’t make perfect sense.

The home uniforms do have a very distinct USC flavor to them, but I can handle that because I’d rather look like USC and have our real colors than look like a loser franchise like the Chiefs and be sporting red and yellow for some reason.

The New Peso?

I don’t want to tell you what to think politically, but thanks to the completely unnecessary war in Iraq, Mr. Bush’s War (thanks to all the people that caught that sweet reference to and indictment of our 4th President), the United States is borrowing 2 billion dollars a day from foreign governments. This has lead to the weakening of the dollar. So much so that the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the American dollar. To think just 5 years ago, the Canadian dollar was only worth 64% of the American dollar and now it is worth more. If we continue on this kind of decline it might at least resolve one political issue that I personally could care less about but am sick of hearing about, the United States might be come little more than flyover territory for illegal immigrants trying to make their way to Canada.

Why should the average American care? That two dollar package of tube socks at Wal-Mart is about to go up in price. The American dollar can’t buy what it used to buy.

Tomorrow night Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show is going to be speaking at Stephens Auditorium. I’m pretty excited for this event. It is going to be awesome.

A little fun fact for you. I have revealed this fun fact before, but it is sort of related to the title of this journal entry.

Presbyterians is an anagram for Britney Spears. That is really about all I know about Presbyterians. However, after watching this video, I might have a clue what it is like to be a Presbyterian.

However, below is a video of Buck Henry’s recent appearance on The Daily Show.

The bit itself is only moderately funny, but there is a line in there I think Iowa women should hear. It is an interesting theory on why Iowa gets to have the first caucus in the nation. So if you are an Iowa woman or a fan of Iowa women, watch the video.

VIDEO DELETED


My only real response to this is, I guess I’m glad I was born in Iowa.