You make oceans from the rain....

Today was just one of those days. Our school seemed very empty because the seniors didn't need to be there, and anybody in orchestra had left for their trip to Salt Lake City. Advanced algebra was as boring as ever because she actually made us do work. I was the only one in study hall because the other two people are in orchestra, so I spent the whole time doing a last-minute AP Euro essay. We watched The Pursuit of Happyness in Spanish. It was my first time seeing it, and we didn't get through it all, so I'm thinking about checking the rest of it out sometime. AP Euro was supposed to be productive until Duden realized how many people were actually gone. We ended up sitting around talking about random topics the whole time.

Basically, it was just one of those days. Not much happened. No big events. No fanfare. No parades. Mundane and boring. Amen.

Outside of my life, one thing did happen. The Twins chose Carlos Silva over Matt Garza for the final spot in their starting rotation. Garza's back in Rochester for some AAA ball. Gardenhire said, "He needs to be able to locate his pitches a little bit more." Amen again.

Four-day weeks

I have three consecutive four day weeks on my schedule. This week is a four-day week because of the end of the quarter, and the next to weeks are because of spring break.

So far, so good this week....kind of....

School's been pretty good. I've been finishing up the last of the AP Euro essays (had 3 to do this week) that are due by Friday (our day off), I felt alright about the AP Euro test we took today, and I've only been late to class once.

Which brings up my first-time experience that occurred yesterday on the way to school. I was running a little late and still had to pick up Tommy on my way to school, so I was going a little fast between his house and the school. I came up over a hill and saw the cop car coming the other way. Yes, I got pulled over. He took my license back to his car, but when he came back he told me he didn't check it at all. Lucky break seeing as he clocked me at about 15 over the speed limit. Talk about lucking out of a hefty ticket and a hefty insurance increase. Looks as if I'll have a new life experience every week at this rate (first flat tire, first time being pulled over....I'm 2 for 2).

Baseball's been just dandy. We were out at the field Monday and Tuesday, but with the rain and such we were stuck inside today. Our coach complimented me on my speed yesterday when I was baserunning, which definitely helped me with my goal to not get my self esteem down this season. He said even if I don't play much I'll definitely be pinch running for our pitchers and catchers a lot. Bueno....

That's all I've got. I should get to writing my last essay now. I'm sure you'd all love to write it for me. It's about whether the Reformation was more like the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Yes. Tons of fun. Or something. Like that. Yeah. No. Maybe.

I also discovered a strange new online comic this week and started to look through its entire archive. I'll post good ones on here as long as I'm able to find good ones.

Hold up, wait a minute, put a little love in it....

Last night was the Family Force 5 -- TFK -- tobyMac concert in Waterloo. I went with Boyum and Mariah (Curtis and some folks from his area were there too), and needless to say, it was a blast. We didn't have anything to do after we ate at Applebee's, so we just went and sat at the doors at 3:00 (they opened at 5:00). We were in the front row (the barrier was maybe 3 feet from the stage), and we started talking to the people behind us after a while. They were from Winona and hadn't waited outside at all.

Toddiefunk from DiverseCity came and talked to us before the show started. He asked us why we wanted to stand in the front row.

Family Force 5 was insane beyond my imagination. They're incredible live, and they have more energy than anyone I had seen up until then. Solomon Olds....is amazing....he put on golden "Hulk hands" for the last few songs....hilarious....

TFK had a mic issue right off the bat, and their show was very low-energy until they played "Rawkfist." Still, they play amazing music and it was nice to see them live again.

tobyMac was absolutely incredible. There was so much going on in his set that I can't even begin to spout off details. Well, I can try. They took a collection of old-school funk songs ("Play That Funky Music, White Boy"..."Rollercoaster of Love"...etc.) and put them all together into a song that was labeled "Disco" on their set list. There were also a few random bits of hip-hop songs thrown into the set ("Yeah" is the only one I can remember right now). Truett (Toby's son) was at the show and came out on stage a couple times. He never said anything, but he was jumping around. The best part was his Worm at the end. Plus, Tim Rosenau is a musical stud.

Boyum ended up with all three set lists, but he gave TFK's away. Other than that, all we got was a bunch of water thrown on us by Shonlock and GabeReal.

Good times....

Fresh treads

Wednesday....what a day it was. It started out with a blown tire on the way to school. Since Tommy and I had the spare (which only had about 10 psi in it) on by 8:30, we decided to drop my tire off to get it replaced and go cruising town before we got to school. That way, we would miss most (if not all) of advanced algebra. We got to school about 9:30, and all was good. I had an interview for Boys State (ugh....what a joke) at 1:00, and it was pretty dull. I won't be the least bit disappointed if I don't get chosen out of the four guys interviewed.

Baseball's still been great. My personal goal for the season is to not get down on myself for small mistakes, and so far so good. Outfielders even made it outside today for about a half hour. It felt good.

This weekend should be pretty great. Saturday is the tobyMac/TFK/Family Force 5 concert in Waterloo, and Sunday is the first TEC meeting (thankfully I don't practice my talk until the 2nd meeting). Good times....


I still check Tim's blog every day for his first post, but lo and behold, there is still nothing. Sadness....

Baseball....the sequel....

Ok, so this is actually only my first post about this baseball season, but hey, it's my blog and I title it what I want.

Anyway, the BEA baseball season started today with a meeting at 4:30 and practice at 5:15. I truly dislike indoor practices, but I love the sport too much to complain a whole lot. The one thing I will complain about is how poorly I stayed in shape after I quit football. I was a wreck while we were running today. On the bright side, the worse I felt as I ran the better I felt about how my hitting is looking this year. I'm typically not the best batter, but I started to do better little by little last season. Today, we only hit off of the tees and soft toss, but I felt comfortable and I was hitting a lot of balls. It made me happy.

With that said, I'm utterly exhausted. I need to eat something and get to bed.

Tonight's episode of "The Riches" was pretty good. There's a small twist that I have to discuss with Nate after he watches it tomorrow night.

Knowledge....

Today was the day. Knowledge Bowl sub-regionals in Mankato. Out of 84 teams at the meet, the top 27 moved on to next week. I knew our top team would make it on to regionals next Friday, but my team (2nd team) was a question mark [our 3rd team struggled all year, so we all knew it wasn't likely they would make it]. We're not too shabby as a 2nd team, but our written round usually isn't up to par and we all pick the wrong oral rounds to sit out. Today was a little different.

Our 1st team got the highest overall written score (50 out of 60), and it was the start of something nice for them. They stayed in the top 5 rooms for each of the 5 oral rounds, so they guaranteed themselves a spot at regionals. Our 2nd team (the team I'm on) started with our best written round this year by getting a 43. That put is in the top 12 teams (room 4). Sadly, we ended up with scores of 6 and 7 in the first two oral rounds and dropped out of the running for regionals. We weren't able to get back into the top 9 rooms at all, so we didn't qualify for regionals. The round I sat out, I knew 20 out of the 45 answers, but hey that's the luck of the draw.

On that note, be sure to congratulate Nate on doing well today (he might blog about exactly how well later on).


And a quick question....
Has anyone noticed the fact that Tim has yet to produce a blog post for us all to read? I mean, I know a lot of us have been lacking posts lately, but to not even have a first post? Sad....I guess I can forgive him though....

March Madness

Tomorrow marks the start of this year's NCAA tournament. Since Nate chose to blog about his first round picks, I decided to follow suit. With my upsets, I won't put how sure I am of them like he did. I decided to stay pretty conservative this year and stick with higher seeds going deep in the tourney, but who knows what will unfold?

Midwest
1 Florida over 16 Jackson State
8 Arizona over 9 Purdue
12 Old Dominion over 5 Butler
4 Maryland over 13 Davidson
11 Winthrop over 6 Notre Dame [even though I love the Irish]
3 Oregon over 14 Miami (Ohio)
7 UNLV over 10 Georgia Tech
2 Wisconsin over 15 Texas A&M CC

West
1 Kansas over 16 Niagara
9 Villanova over 8 Kentucky
12 Illinois over 5 Virginia Tech
4 Southern Illinois over 13 Holy Cross
6 Duke over 11 VCU
3 Pittsburgh over 14 Wright St.
7 Indiana over 10 Gonzaga
2 UCLA over 15 Weber St.

East
1 UNC over 16 Eastern Kentucky
8 Marquette over 9 Michigan St.
12 Arkansas over 5 USC
4 Texas over 13 New Mexico St.
11 George Washington over 6 Vanderbilt
3 Washington St. over 14 Oral Roberts
10 Texas Tech over 7 Boston College
2 Georgetown over 15 Belmont

South
1 Ohio St. over 16 Central Conn. St.
9 Xavier over 8 BYU
5 Tennessee over 12 Long Beach St.
4 Virginia over 13 Albany
6 Louisville over 11 Stanford
3 Texas A&M over 14 Penn
7 Nevada over 10 Creighton [this was a tough call]
2 Memphis over 15 North Texas

100th Post

I thought maybe my 100th Blogger post might be something enlightening or a really good story. Lo and behold, it's not. I'm actually just posting something short, sweet, and to the point. I'll be going to Chicago in the morning with my mom because my brother is in the hospital there. He was doing a service project there for spring break, and he ended up fainting and such. I have no clue why everything happened the way it happened, but if you all could just keep him in your prayers it would be a great blessing.

On that note, have a great weekend everyone! Hopefully I'll be home with positive news on Monday!

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I'm frustrated. I'm in a bad mood. I'm just absolutely aggravated. I spent my third straight day sitting at home doing nothing. What have I accomplished since Wednesday night? I've read my Bible, and that's about it.

Tonight was going to be my first escape. I planned on going to the boys basketball game (sub-section quarterfinals) against St. Peter. It's a 12-mile trip to my school, and I heard from multiple people that the road to get there was perfectly fine. What does my mom say? "The roads are horrible. Travel isn't advised anywhere in southern Minnesota." Her subtle way of saying, "Might as well jump out your window now so you don't have to suffer sitting here doing nothing yet again."

I only got angrier when I remembered that TNT cuts out all the best parts of Gladiator. The only time I felt happy the whole night was when I saw the latest Sonic commercial. It gets me every time.

"You used wooden spoons for mixing?"
"Yeah that's what they're for."
"You mean they're not for....[swats at air]....'Get outta here!' "