Category Archives: Sports

Happy Birthday Sara!

Today is Sara’s birthday.



Rather than post a bunch of pictures of Sara for Sara’s birthday, I’m going to take a slightly different tact.

Yesterday I wrote about Sara auditioning to become a Photography 139 Photo Assistant. She got high marks for having a big purse. One of her few problems was that she doesn’t know the difference between a film camera and a digital camera.

I left her with 1 digital camera and 1 film camera while I moved up the river looking for a better spot to photograph Jen’s team. I told her that she could take pictures with the digital camera if she wanted.

About 10 minutes elapsed and I returned to her position and asked for the film camera.

She looked at Derrick awkwardly. He looked back equally awkwardly.

The she said, “There is a little problem with that camera. I didn’t know it was film, so I used up all the film.”

So as a tribute to Sara, I’m going to post all the pictures from that roll of film. The first few are from before I handed her the camera.



More convertible


More convertible


Dock


Derrick and Jay


Derrick


Jay and Derrick


The River

It was at this point that I left my camera in Sara’s hand.



All in all, I think she did some pretty solid work. But I was still counting on having that film for later in the day!

So one final Happy Birthday Sara! I look forward to the party on Saturday.

My Saturday (Volume 2)

More pictures from Saturday. Some of these pictures were taken by Sara as she was auditioning to become a Photography 139 Photo Assistant.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Relaxing

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
On dry land

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Done

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Done

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Oar duty

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Guns

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Oar Duty

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Me

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Celebration

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Celebrating with some juice.

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Jen and Derrick

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Sara

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Banner

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
The Past

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Back in the convertible

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Shiny

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Sara after winning a scholarship.

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Classic Frozen Custard

Des Moines Regatta - 2008
Classic Frozen Custard

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

All in all, it was a pretty good day.

St. Elmo’s Fire

There was an article about Willy and his running ways in the Boone News Republican on Friday.



Because of the weird way that they printed the article, I couldn’t scan the whole thing in one scan.

For reasons I can’t quite figure out, the Boone News Republican (maybe they are busy getting ready to cover the big nudie bar town meeting tonight) didn’t post this article on their website. So if you combine the scan above with the scan below, you can get the whole article.



Somewhere and someplace, John Parr is smiling.

Growin’ up, you don’t see the writing on the wall
Passin’ by, movin’ straight ahead, you knew it all
But maybe sometime if you feel the pain
You’ll find you’re all alone, everything has changed
Play the game, you know you can’t quit until it’s won
Soldier on, only you can do what must be done
You know in some way you’re a lot like me
You’re just a prisoner and you’re tryin’ to break free

My Saturday (Volume 1)

My big plan for Saturday was to journey down to Des Moines to watch Jen compete in the Des Moines Regatta. I have never been to such an event, so it was going to be a new experience.

I started my day by going to Ames to drop off a roll of real black and white film at Walden Photo. It seems to be more and more difficult to find a place to get real black and white film developed. I think it is down to Walden Photo and Pyle in Ames. I took this roll of film to Walden Photo. We’ll see how that turns out.

While I was downtown I stopped at the Downtown Farmer’s Market briefly to talk to Shannon. She was making soap there. While I was there I picked up a jar of jalapeno jelly. I already have about 6 or 7 jars of jelly that I don’t eat because I don’t eat breakfast, but I have high hopes that I will use this jelly on crackers.

I met Jay back in Boone and we headed down to Des Moines to meet Sara and Derrick for lunch. We ate at the Hessen Haus. It was somewhat of a disappointment. Fortunately, due to the poorness of the Hessen Haus, a plan was hatched for a future FNSC. That is exciting!

After watching Iowa lose to Northwestern, we hopped into the Mustang convertible that was being used as our form of conveyance and went to Prospect Park to watch the Des Moines Regatta.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Once we got to the park, we had a brief wait on some rocks for Jen’s team to come up the river.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

It didn’t take long for us to see Jen’s boat come around the bend.


Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

Des Moines Regatta - 2008

I’m not going to try to using rowing lingo, but one of the members of the team missed the regatta because before they were supposed to get into the water, their knee was run over by a van. They had a member from the ISU rowing crew sit in with them.

First Meet

Alexis had her first gymnastics meet on Sunday. She totally ripped it up. Just look at all the precious metal she brought back with her from that other side of the state.


Alexis the Gymnast
I don’t know how she can even stand up!

This is how she did:

  • 6th on Floor
  • 3rd on Vault
  • 3rd on Beam
  • 1st on Bars
  • 3rd in All-Around

I’m glad that she got all of this athletic ability from the Bennett side of the family.

Her next meet is in Chow’s gym AKA where Shawn Johnson trains. That should be a pretty incredible experience.

Worst in Ames

My website has moved servers yet again. I know anything related to PHP doesn’t work at all and I’m not really sure when it will work again, but I’m told FTP works again, so I’m testing that theory with this entry.

Jay is rather uneducated in the nuances of the Cy-Hawk rivalry. Last week he did some research and he sent me a blog that an Iowa fan wrote about doing things to a Cyclone fan’s mother. It was the type of unintelligent drivel you would expect to come from an Iowa fan, but I don’t wish to dwell on it. I just want to show a screen capture of part of the blog.



I take umbrage with one part of this blog. At least I was going to take umbrage with one part of this blog. I was going to say that Whiskey River is not the worst bar in Ames. I was going to argue in favor of Deano’s or The Fox.

Then last night I found out that Whiskey River has been condemned. I guess it is the worst bar in Ames, until the end of the month.

Cyclone Logos

In honor of the big game that kicks off in about an hour, I am going o post a few of the logos I kind of like from Cyclone history.



Here is hoping for another Cyclone victory. A victory to match the one that the volleyball team earned last night by humiliating the Hawks 3-0.

Go State!

The Michael Phelps of Pufferbilly Days

So Willy didn’t actually win 8 events during Pufferbilly Days, but he did finish 2nd with his partner Avril in the Anytime Fitness Amazing Race. He backed this up by winning the Pufferbilly Days 5K for his age group the following morning.

Below is a very pixelated video taken by Jesse as Willy’s team finished the Amazing Race.



Although they were the first team to cross the finish line, another team finished with a better time and took home the 500 smackers.

Some of the tasks they had to complete along the way included:

  • Putting together a puzzle
  • Counting cars in the Pat Clemons lot
  • Make a free throw blind folded
  • 100 push ups or eat a randomly selected amount of hot dogs
  • 100 situps or drink 32 oz coolie
  • Find the prices of 10 items in Hy-Vee

I think I’ll have to watch Willy complete the whole event if he does it again next year.