30 Days

Tonight I decided to watch the show 30 Days on FX. I had seen it only a few times before tonight, but the commercials for this episode seemed interesting. In this episode, Morgan Spurlock (typically just the creator and host of the show) spent 30 days inside of a prison in Virginia. Some of the things he pointed out were pretty interesting.

-- The U.S. prison system has turned into more of a dumping ground than anything else.

-- If every prison had a form of a full-time drug rehab program, there would be more opportunities for prisoners to try to get better so they could return to lives on the outside, freeing up space for the constant flow of new inmates.

-- Solitary confinement would be a living hell. Sitting in a 7 x 10 room for at least 72 hours with nothing to do? Sounds to me like it'd be a great time to pick your eyes out with your own tongue.

I then decided to scope out the FX website. The show Nip/Tuck is nothing less than stupid. Especially since there is a game on the site that lets you use a picture of yourself to change your look and see what you would be like with plastic surgery.

I'm bored and have no idea why I blogged about this. Maybe it's just the fact that I have nothing to do right now. Yeah, I think that's it....

The E! True Hollywood Story of: Mariah Tappe

I recently discovered a book containing key information to unlocking the secrets of one Mariah Tappe of New Richland. I decided to follow through with this information by using it (and prior knowledge) to conduct an interview with Mariah.

Good afternoon, Mariah. It's a pleasure to have you here.
No, no. The pleasure is all mine. Where did you get this wallpaper?

I believe it was Home Depot. Now, let's get down to brass tacks. If you could have one wish come true, what would it be?
Definitely to meet Britney Spears. She's so cool! Or I would want money because it's green and spendable.

Speaking of Britney, didn't you also once say you would "walk in her shoes for a day" and "meet her above any other celebrity?"
Yeah, I did say those things. She just seems so nice. I'd love to see what it's like to be famous and have money like her.

That sounds a little conceited.
What?

Moving on, if you were a cereal, which would you be?
Rice Krispies. I just think it's amazing how they get them to snap, crackle, and pop. I can't figure how it works!

So other than your answer to the previous question, what is the most embarrassing experience of your entire life?
My pants ripped a little in school once. I thought I was going to cry. My therapist says that's what's ruined my life.

I thought being stuck overnight in a funeral home was what ruined your life.
No, that was my sister Mackensie. She always has loved dead people.

I'll remember that. Could you describe yourself in just three words for me?
I would say funny, smart, and pretty.

Again, that sounds a little bit conceited. Am I right?
What?

Forget I said anything.
Okay.

Anyway, what do you believe is the nicest thing you've ever done?
I gave to carraty once.

Excuse me?
I gave money to UNICEF one time.

So you mean "charity."
No. I mean UNICEF.

Ugh. Forget it. Who would you say you love?
Nick Carter.

I apologize to our readers. What do you like best about your appearance?
My hair. It always looks amazing!

So, Mariah, if you could be any character on The Brady Bunch, who would it be?
I always liked Cindy. She was so young and confused. Her hair was always fabulous, too.

I would be honored if I wasn't in this situation right now.
What does that mean?

It means...it's great to have you here.
Why thank you! I'm enjoying this!

Glad one of us is. Now, if you had a secret to keep, who would you never tell?
Jessica. She has a big mouth.

Well, since I'm not Jessica, what's your deepest, darkest secret?
I'm not telling you.

Why not?
That's a secret too.

I hate you.
You hate juice? Why? My favorite is apple. It tastes really good with apple pie.

Great. More useful information. Instead of gaining more stupidity today, I'm going to skip the rest of my questions to get to the one everyone is dying to know the answer to. If you had to choose one person to be stranded on a desert island with, you would choose...?
My mom.

Wait a minute. Your mom? The person you call "The Woman" and talk trash about all the time?
Yeah, that's her.

Why her?
Good point. I think I'm switching my answer to Katie or Taylor.

Well, coincidently we have an all-expenses paid trip to a desert island for you and a guest. The first person you name will be your only friend for the rest of your life. Who will it be?
I should probably call The Woman to let her know I'll be leaving...

Your mom it is! Thank you very much for joining us today. Enjoy your trip!

If I had any idea what to title this....I'd be a happy guy....

I quit football yesterday morning. My mom wasn't too thrilled with my decision because she (understandably) would rather see me finish something I started, but football just hasn't been as enjoyable as it used to be. Plus, there are other things that I could be doing with my time. The last couple days have been pretty good to me. I've looked for jobs in Blue Earth, but there's been nothing. I figured I'll probably have to go to Albert Lea to find something.

I've also kept my TV shut off (with the exception of Mike and Mike In the Morning on ESPN this morning) and dug into my Bible. I've actually been a lot more patient the last two days with my Bible than I have in my entire life. Usually I get really tired of the repetitiveness (see: Leviticus) and try to find new places to start reading. But now I've realized it isn't worth it to skip around so much, even when it gets boring.


Word from the Frontline: Daunte Culpepper dropped huge numbers on Carolina last night. I see more promise in him than I expected. Congrats to Nate on his pick in last night's League of Champions draft.

"You smell something Rabbit?"

"Yeah......fear......"

I'm not really afraid of anything major. I'm good with heights. No problems with spiders. I can look at a sock monkey without screaming. I was thinking today about what I'm actually afraid of, and I came up with one thing.

Jeopardizing

I'm not sure how to go into detail about this without sounding like a weirdo, but I'll do what I can.

My fear of jeopardizing comes up quite often. It could be something as small as jeopardizing a homework assignment by waiting until the last minute, or it could be as big as jeopardizing a friendship just because you don't see eye to eye on something either of you has done. No matter what it is, I just have a fear of jeopardy. I feel like I jeopardize a lot of things without even knowing it, and that just makes my fear worse.

No, this blog doesn't really have a point (or even make a ton of sense). It's just my random thought of the night, and now I should probably try to sleep before football practice.


Word from the Frontline: I'm almost sick of football. Just one more week of two a day practices, and then I'm pretty much home free.

"Even if saving you sends me to Heaven...."

I don't exactly have anything to blog about, so I'll just randomly spout off some facts of the day.

-- Birthdays today: Amanda Follmuth (18), Robert Redford (70), Edward Norton (37), Patrick Swayze (54), Denis Leary (49), Malcolm-Jamal Warner (36), Paker McKenna Posey (11)

-- Comedians I have talked about and/or watched today: Dane Cook, Jim Gaffigan, Pablo Francisco

-- Funniest sights of the day:
1) Coach Kuechenmeister (football head coach) shaving in the coaches' office this morning
2) Coach Kokos (line coach) giving Poopcup the finger
3) The reason behind the nickname "Curly" that was given to a teammate

-- My level of boredom on a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high): 37.48

-- My class schedule (big thanks to Shayla for giving me something to blog about):

Quarter 1
Study Hall [??]
Accounting [Holmseth]
Chemistry [Schoenfelder]
Communication [Ehlers]

Quarter 2
Philosophy & World Religions [Frederickson]
Accounting [Holmseth]
Composition I [Alleven]
Chemistry [Schoenfelder]

Quarter 3
Study Hall [??]
Advanced Algebra [Rustad-Huisman]
Spanish III [Tietje]
AP European History [Duden]

Quarter 4
Nursery Landscaping [Niess]
Advanced Algebra [Rustad-Huisman]
Spanish III [Tietje]
AP European History [Duden]


Word from the Frontline: [complete silence]

Are you ready for some football?

I wasn't even close to ready for football when it started on Monday. I sat out the morning practice because I felt sick when I woke up, but I was ready to go for the night practice. It wasn't too bad at all. Yesterday's practices were probably about the worst. I felt like crap through both of them. And today, we got yelled at in the morning for having a slow pursuit drill, but tonight we got through 20 reps of footwork with the bags and boards in 4 minutes as an offensive line. Our coach told us that meant we could skip out on shuttles whenever we did them. Also tonight, we were doing countdowns from 90 for conditioning. I expected them to be horrible, but I felt great afterwards.

On the other side of things, there is no other side of things. Football is all I've been able to do lately. I had some of the same thoughts as Nate, but I'm going to stick it out for a while and see what happens.

Word from the Frontline: Name of my Buc Card sales team -- Goody's Gaybobs (led by coach Gudahl)
Name of my fantasy football team (when I finally create it) -- Goody's Gaybops; I just think it sounds better

Recap....

I'm just here to recap the last few days of my life, since this is the first time I've really been at a computer lately.

Wednesday
I took off to Mankato with my mom to meet my brother and continue our trip. We were headed to Arlington to drop my car off at Nate's. We left my car there, talked to Nate, Okon, and Brittany for a minute, then moved on to Belle Plaine. When we got there, we checked into the hotel, which wasn't too bad of a place, and then went to the funeral home with my grandparents for a visitation. I didn't know my aunt's dad really well, but it was good to be there to support the family and such. That night, I couldn't sleep very well. I slept from 12-2:16, then didn't fall back asleep until about 6. During that time, my brother was snoring and suddenly stopped, had an arm spasm that caused him to punch me, then started snoring again. Quite odd.

Thursday
I woke up at 8 and ate some cereal at the hotel, then we left for the funeral at the church. We had some time to kill, so we shopped around the thrift store and dollar store. I found a nice, never-been-worn dress shirt for something like $3. After the funeral we went out to the cemetery, then back to the church to eat. We had to leave there and head back to Arlington to meet Nate so I could ride with him to council. Turns out, we left a little later than expected and had to meet up with Nate in Mankato. We had an interesting ride to council that all started after Kimmy was late to meet with us in New Richland. We even had time to vacuum out Nate's truck. After the meeting, a bunch of us headed to Perkins. Quick side note: I apologize to Greg for the random sandwich that was put on his car. Nate apparently didn't want it anymore since it was the reason he didn't have enough money for a Moolatte or Perkins. I rode with Sarah, and we happened to almost get killed 3 different times. I think it was because we talked about car accidents the whole way to Owatonna. After Bob and Ben finally showed up, we were told to be quiet in no more than 5 minutes (no thanks to Bob's amazing awesome laugh). Ben made Ruth get out of bed to come see us, and he also stole her hat. We played some dice in the parking lot to see who would get shotgun. Kimmy won, but only by a point.

We dropped Kimmy off, then pulled off on a random gravel road. Nate almost took off while I was on top of his truck, but Curtis was still hanging onto the back when we did take off. Pretty humorous. Nate and I stayed up until about 2 that night, and on Friday....

Friday
Nate and I watched some "Next" on MTV for a while, then I headed home. On my way back, there was what I think was a garbage truck being sprayed down by fire hoses on some road that goes onto 169. It was pretty interesting. I dropped off Shayla's cooler that she had left with Nate, then came home. I hung out for a couple hours before I went to Relay for Life. On my way there, I stopped at Tommy's to get my CD's. He was really tired, and it showed when he called me 20 minutes later and asked if I had been at his house that day.

Relay for Life
It was a great time yet again this year. John convinced me to run around the course with him, and he was a great person to run with. He pushed me to run more than I wanted to, and I definitely thank him for it. I almost saran wrapped a car with its owner inside of it that night, but she realized it while I was doing it. As she got out, I started wrapping her. She tried walking away only to find out that there was saran wrap attached to the car that was holding her back.

Saturday
I went to get a free McDonalds breakfast with a couple people, then I came home and slept. I talked to Mariah for a few minutes about how mean I was to call her 5 times between 4:00 and 6:00 her time (in California), then I finally fell asleep. At about 4:00, I woke up and decided to get slightly cleaned up and ready to go. I finally got to Oswald's about 6:20, and we waited for folks to show up to the shindig.

Fiesta
We had a good time hanging out. We played some flag football when people were first there, and it eventually turned into flag tag. Pretty entertaining. When Hannah and Jen decided to leave, 5 of us jumped on the car and rode down the driveway. Matt surfed on the hood while I surfed on the roof. It was really fun. They gave us a ride back up to the house, but this time John joined in on the fun. After they left, we played "Ghetto Ultimate," using car lights because it was pretty dark out. Eventually, after a nice conversation about scary movies, we decided to take a walk through the trails in the woods. It was pretty interesting, and Kimmy was hyperventilating at one point. After everyone left, I helped Tommy and Melissa bring stuff inside before we had some cake. It was definitely the most heavily frosted cake I'd ever eaten.


And now, here I sit with no ambition to go to bed. I know I'm missing a lot of details about all these days. It's just that I'm not the type of person to remember all these things.

I started thinking about how much I don't want to start football, but it's going to happen in about 29 hours.

Tourists....

About 2 hours after my post about my morning bike binge, I was in the car heading towards Orange City, Iowa. I told my mom, "I'll fall asleep about 3/4 of the way to Blue Earth," (which is 12 miles away). I fell asleep about 1/4 of the way there. I woke up long enough in B.E. to tell her that I wanted a Dr. Pepper from Kwik Trip, then I fell back asleep.

The next thing I remember, we were pulling into O.C. We sat in the car for a few minutes, then went inside to sign in for the meeting. We watched a powerpoint on the school and then a video. In the video, there was a guy who looks a lot like Matt Reiter (who goes to NWC), but it definitely wasn't him.

After the little meeting, we started the tour of the campus. Our guide was new in the admissions office, and he is the new wrestling coach at Northwestern. There were a couple of times when he would crack jokes and say that he was passing the rest of the tour on to me. He did luck out in 2 of the buildings. In Coley (a male dorm), the RA from last year was in there and led us around. Then, when we got to the theater building, I told Cody (yes, I mean my brother) that our guide was new at the school. Our guide offered to let Cody give us the tour, and he did.

When that was done, we hung around in the Bultman Center while other prospective students met with teachers, coaches, etc. in the fields they were interested in. I was the only one of the 3 in my tour group that didn't need to meet with anyone, so my mom and I waited around talking to other people until Cody showed up. When he did, we went back to West and helped Cody's roommate for this year move in. Then we headed on home. I slept quite a bit on the way back, but I also did 3 scratch-off tickets for my mom and listened to most of the Twins game.

And yes, I did get my free t-shirt. It could make its first appearance at this week's council meeting.

Word from the Frontline: Number of people I talked to that knew Cody -- 2 or 3
One of them was a guy Cody stayed with during his tour this summer
A second was a girl he worked with somewhere
A third could be someone that was visiting NWC a day earlier that mentioned they knew him

No longer sleepless in Seattle....

For the last hour or so, I've been cooling down after an amazing 16 (or 18, not sure how it measured out) mile bike ride outside of town. I left a little after 6:00, started it on the hilly gravel, and I felt great the whole way. The only time I was uncomfortable and ready to quit was when I had to stop and turn around after my hat flew off. Stupid semis anyway.

The first song on my shuffling playlist was "Come and Listen" -- David Crowder Band. It was a great song to listen to while watching the most incredible part of the sunrise. The rest of the way was accompanied by a lot of sweet Christian rock: Anberlin, Sanctus Real, Run Kid Run, Seventh Day Slumber....the wonders music can do!

On that note, I should probably go shower and get ready to head off to NWC for a college visit. I don't really need to visit there after all the times I've been there already, but I'm doing it for 2 reasons:
1) To see if it'll help me decide if NWC is the right school for me
2) How can I pass up a free t-shirt?

Fiesta de Bricemeister

It was a good time tonight at Brice's house. I showed up a little before 8:00, and John Coffield was soon to follow. We hung out by the tree (Brice and John were in it) for a while, and then Amanda and Molly pulled in. They saw me hiding behind a tree, but they freaked out when they found Brice and John.

We hung around outisde playing with the frisbee and such, and then we gave up on it. Inside, we played pool, ping pong, and foosball. It was quite interesting. Then, Jenny and Lillie showed up. We hung around in the basement, and eventually we started up some Apples To Apples. I love that game, and I definitely got a couple of cards that fit me. Of course, all 10 of Amanda's were perfect for her. Kyree and Matt showed up about 10:45 or so, and we were still waiting on Kimmy. She eventually showed up with some Godfather's pizza for us.

Matt, Kyree, and Kimmy ended up spending an hour and a half in the bathroom chatting (with random visits from the rest of us). The rest of us jammed out to some sweet tunes in the basement. We thrashed a little, took pictures, and bummed around. It was a good time.

By the end of the night, most of us were hot and sweaty, be it from being shut in the bathroom or jamming. We also had a pyramid made of at least one of every kind of pop people drank. Most of it was Mountain Dew, a couple Diet Mountain Dew, a few Dr. Pepper, a Super Chill Strawberry, and the top was a Frappucino. I'll have the picture fairly soon.

Word from the Frontline: Number of green cards I had in Apples to Apples -- 6

Powerless

I meant to post this blog last night, but Frost lost power as soon as I got home. On that note, here it is.

Last night was a great time at Oswald's house for Tommy's birthday fire. As soon as the cupcakes showed up (provided by Shayla), I shoved one in Mariah's face. It was quite humorous. We hung out for a while, finally got the fire going, and eventually there were about 12 of us there. It started to get sort of quiet, so Brice pulled his car down and we jammed out to random music for a while. Kimmy and Shayla got me back for Mariah, and then Kyree did. So Tommy got Kyree back, and we had a great picture taken together. The NRHEG crew left, then the rest of us took off about a half hour later. It was a good time hanging out with those great people yet again.

Word from the Frontline: Number of babies born while I was in Mankato hospital today -- 1
I might've missed one during the 45 minutes that I was trying to sleep in the car, but I don't know.

Mission: Impossible?

For those of you who don't know, I have decided on a new mission in life. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do it, but I have to try.

Step 1: Find a harmonica to use
Step 2: I have no clue....maybe practice....

What is this mission?

It's to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWWoZEl4oXA

Sorry I couldn't get the video to work on the blog. The code wasn't working out for me.

Music makes the people come together

As I watched the casting special for the new competition "StarTomorrow" today on NBC, I noticed the judge, David Foster, was picking his own personal likes and dislikes about music while listening to each competitor. With that, I started to think about a few of the things I love to hear when I'm listening to music.

1. Important, or powerful, lyrics being repeated later on in the album
-- I like this because it's just a cool way to get a message through. It can also be used to add a little flair to other songs.
Ex: Lyrics from a few different songs are repeated in "A" on Cartel's Chroma album

2. Album follows a storyline
-- This is always interesting to me because I think it's fun to kind of fit the storyline of the album into the day you had, or even your life so far. It also makes use of transitions between songs, which doesn't happen enough.
Ex: Chroma - Cartel

3. No chorus in the song
-- I'm not sure why I like this, but I think it sounds cool and makes the song a little more interesting.
Ex: "Folsom Prison Blues" - Johnny Cash

4. Random lyrics that don't fit the rest of the song
-- Again, I have no clue why I like this. It just makes for an interesting discussion and sometimes even a good laugh.
Ex: "Buckets for Bulletwounds" - House of Heroes

5. Background lyrics are amusing and fit song
-- Pretty much the same reason as above.
Ex: "A Million Ways" - Ok Go

6. Depressing tone with positive lyrics
-- I just think songs like this help show that there's a bright side to everything and that it's easy to make light of a situation.
Ex: "Ok" - MuteMath

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there's more that I haven't discovered yet.

Word from the Frontline: Number of musicians I can say I really liked today on StarTomorrow -- 2, one of them was Jeff Coffee, and the other was a band with a name that I forgot