A day of debt and gratitude

If you think about the significance of a day like today, the cliche statement "freedom isn't free" always surfaces to the top. After spending a lot of time at US battlefields both here in the US and overseas in Europe, grave stones, those pale somber tributes are also one of the first things to pop into my mind. And those pale stones are growing in number every day in cemeteries like Arlington as soldiers die in battle, or our veterans from so many great wars before our time pass away. We are truly blessed to have so many people who have sacrificed their lives, their families, and their other career pursuits in defense of the one pivotal, defining and often controversial aspect of this country: freedom. Freedom is never free.

Memorial Day to me as a kid was one of those days we marked in remembrance of those who served our country and in celebration of the freedom we enjoy. It was the long weekend break in the school year with a fighter flyover, tons of grungy flea markets and the deadline for making the first cutting of hay. I saw a lot of people out getting that first cutting down and dry today and it reminded me of times gone by. Pitching manure out of the feedlot by hand, getting the worst sunburned neck of the year and working all day just for a decent grill-out at the end. Because even as we remember and celebrate, time goes on.

Time goes on and unyieldingly requires of us over and over again to prove just how much this freedom we have is worth. Back in high school I spent a weekend with kids from military families in an outreach program and tried to relate to the sacrifice that they feel. Freedom isn't free and it costs as much from the family of the servicemen as it does from those who are deployed. Weekends given up for training, instability for living locations due to re-deployments, the uncertainty of the job risk - never knowing if they wouldn't hear from Mommy or Daddy, or both, ever again. Every call or letter could be the last one and you could see the stress of the situation played out in every kid. Sure, they all applied it to their lives and dealt with it in unique ways but their one unifying condition was stress and uncertainty, because freedom isn't free.

This will be the 3rd year that my dad has been assigned overseas. Thankfully he doesn't often find himself in the line of fire but the stress of him being gone is still trying on the family. It wasn't until he went over that I realized just how diverse and numerous the people were who do the behind the scenes work involved in protecting and sharing our precious freedom globally. And there isn't a day gone by that I haven't missed him here, some days more than others. We don't know what a military family knows in terms of sacrifice, but I can say that I have personally experienced the trials that a family can undergo on behalf of this country's freedom. I know it's worth it; I'm just very grateful to everyone who makes a sacrifice on behalf of our country. I hope you have all find the time to get done what you wanted to accomplish this week, and that you have taken the time to thank those who fight and have fought so that you could enjoy your extended weekend.

Visit to the Hocking Hills

Over the past few months, Betsy has become increasingly a focal part of our family. No weekend has been as strong a testament to this so far as this past one when we took a hiking trip down to the Hocking Hills. Amanda looked up to find out ahead of time that the trails were pet-friendly and so we packed up, gave the dog some easy drugs and embarked on a bonding journey. A short time later, we had arrived in a madhouse that was best described by a man I met last summer: “All the cockroaches come out at a time like that”. I’ll save a specific description for a separate blog post which I have reserved for scathing some idiots, but it was hectic and loaded with crazies to say the least.

For a dog we’ve only had 5 months, Betsy performed with agility and poise among the multitudes of furry friends and their owners. I’ve never seen so many dogs out at a park before and we took quite a while just to get away from the bulk of the people. Amanda says Betsy was probably over-stimulated, but regardless of the cause she was pretty withdrawn throughout the process and politely approached dogs and people only when given permission. We let her play in the water some and ours was of course the embarrassing one which decided to drop and wet right into the water where kids were playing.

Escaping all of the madness we finally got into the quiet of the woods. Betsy loved the walk and proved to have a natural inclination towards agility as we navigated through some places where the trail had completely disintegrated. She hopped up on rocks twice as tall as her and patiently waited in single file passes as people had to come through the opposite direction. I have to attribute a lot of this good behavior to the socialization and walks that Amanda has been taking Betsy on; Amanda should be proud of how great the dog was.

Both of them are troopers for putting up with the misunderstanding of trail distances that occurred. I fully knew that the loop trail we were on was 3 miles each way and tried to tell Amanda this, but it didn’t seem to sink in. I knew we were doomed when we got to the end and Amanda thought we were back to the beginning. With a heavy heart, I informed her we had another 3 miles to go and I started to get concerned about how tired Betsy was going to be. Finally, we made it back to the car and I’ve never seen a dog so droopy and worn out. She slept nearly the whole way back as Amanda and I got a well-earned lunch. Betsy and her little legs walked 6 miles down there and she was still feeling it this morning when we got up. But what a great day!

I’ve added a few pictures from our trip the photo album on my Picasa; please enjoy.

Busy Week

I'll warn you now that I'm going to have quite a few blogs on the way out in the next couple of days. I've been in the habit of writing blogs and keeping them on my desktop, publishing one a day as I see fit in order to allow me time to focus on writing, but also and more importantly time to focus on what is quickly becoming a more busy work schedule.

It's not that I'm actually doing any more physical work but I've had a lot of projects and the like which are open and running at the same time. All of these things have to come to a close soon, especially as I get ready to finish classes and head into the summer with research and literature reviews. I've been trying to wrap a lot of stuff up this week and the middle of yesterday afternoon finally marked the breaking point where I was mostly done with all pressing matters and I could collapse into temporary complacency on the rest of it. Last night we watched Megamind in honor of that and Amanda graciously sat through a movie which is not her type and smiled along with the dumb humor which I of course was very entertained by.

This week marks the submission of my IACUC proposal for starters which has been a much larger endeavor than I had originally supposed. For those of you who don't know, IACUC is an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and every research institution has one of these committees. The main purpose of the committee is to oversee research that deals with animals and ensure the animals' well-being by reviewing the protocols and making sure that the animals will be well cared far, that the research has a practical use in today's society, that animals will not be wasted needlessly in this research and that there isn't some crazy professor doing horrendous things to animals in the name of science. All of these criteria have some very specific reasoning behind them which focus on the 3 R's of research today: Replacement, Refinement and Reduction. For more on that I'll refer you to a parallel blog of mine where I've already commented on this. Let's just say that I spent over a month now refining my protocol and editing in many people's comments, ensuring the staff for the project were appropriately trained and certified and dotting my i's before it was turned in this week. I'm very glad to have it off my chest.

Second big thing on my plate this week was my last homework for my SAS class. I've got to say that apart from the homework, this hasn't felt like a class at all. I've enjoyed nearly every minute in class and out of it when I've had questions for the professor. He is a great guy and we are lucky to have him teaching here. I finished the homework and immediately after turning it in had regrets on the accuracy and appropriateness of my models; hopefully it went better than my gut feeling is always telling me.

Then the third big thing I had this week was a research seminar on the 3 main manuscripts leading to my research proposal. This was for a class and a satisfactory grade so while I wasn't super concerned about it, I have my own reputation to uphold as well and I want to be known for professionalism and a job well done in these things. I tried to throw a bit of pizazz in the presentation with imaging and using our department's new big screen TV rather than blurring my images through the old slide projector and I was really happy with how that turned out. But the presentation itself sometimes felt more like an interrogation session than a talk I was giving. It's something that I'll have to get used to during my time here pursuing my Masters, I think. Based on my impressions from Masters defenses around here they're just prepping for the big show in the future.

So with all of that off my plate, I can refocus on my other stuff obscuring my desk right now. Lauren and I still owe 4-H our final write-up from March and I have a final exam project for SAS along with finishing up data collection from elapsed video shots (~130 dvds in all!). I can't wait to be done with that, it feels like that's all I've been doing the past year.

My first video chat

I always had a speculation that video chatting was particularly well suited for less legitimate internet purposes, but I cast that close-mindedness aside when I first used my computer webcam this past week for a little chat with an old roommate. The experience was actually pretty cool, but it led to me learning very quickly, or slowly in some cases, things that work well for video chatting someone and things that don't so I thought I'd share a few.

Like many things on my computer, my webcam automatically starts up when triggered by another program. In this case I was called to video chat and my computer responded by opening up that program without even telling me. I came face to face with someone before I even realized they were calling. In this case that was ok, but in the future I plan to have something set up that requests permission before acknowledging and definitely before answering a video chat with video feed. It would be really weird to me to suddenly find out I'm video chatting with someone I don't or barely know. On a side note to that, during the call my video link fell out. That left Tony with just a picture of me but I could still see him; very weird.

Second is where the camera is pointed, etc. I usually sit pretty high above my screen and with the limited range of vision that my webcam has it was pretty much pointed at my chest. Again, while this might have uses in other fields of internet use, Tony was calling to speak face to face with me and so I learned quickly it's important to find a range to sit in where the camera can follow your face the whole time. Similarly, it was important not to move around a lot in the picture. Betsy was running around and I kept trying to pet her or hold her on the couch but then I was rocking the computer screen and moving around a lot - the perfect recipe for the other chatter's motion sickness.

Another important detail is eye contact. I have a strong tendency to multi-task, but answering emails and trying to work on other things at the same time as having a conversation is kind of rude. Unlike just doing this on the phone or in a normal text chat, they can see in this case when you're not paying attention to them or when you're distracted and this is also something to be considerate of during a conversation, depending on how important the other person is to you.

But all in all, I thought for a first call it went pretty well. The voice is kinda choppy and it reminds me of trying to Skype people in a different language with tons of pauses and delays for reactions, etc. Nice thing about it is eliminating the need for stupid type such as "lol", because I can now see if you smile or laugh and don't need to be told what I said was funny. As I posted on my Facebook, very cool little adventure, but welcome to at least a decade ago. I'm pretty sure everyone I know has used that technology before so shame on me for being so far behind.

Parenting Practice

I joked when we got the dog that she was our child that we could return to the pound if she was bad. Of course I'd never return her, but there are days I definitely question our moment of insanity when we got her and I wonder how on earth I'll ever deal with the reality of children for 20 years before they disappear to start their own lives.

Betsy is a lesson in parenting every day since we got her in January. Currently she's digesting some jelly beans she snuck from a box of trash by the door (Amanda trying to motivate us to lose weight by throwing away everything good in the house). I pushed Betsy off the bed after she wouldn't stop whining about nothing thus in my mind deserving loss of privileges such as sitting on furniture. It wasn't two minutes before she came slinking back into the room looking guilty. Upon arriving at me, she rolled over and casually tried to drop a half-eaten lemon jelly bean onto the floor as if she had no idea how it got there. Oh, she knew alright, but I told her it was fine, "You'll deserve it when you throw up now." And pretty soon I think you can see how I'm not quite cut out for parenting yet.

We've been through everything from manners towards strangers, not eating dirt, not wetting the carpet (have to re-learn that every week right now), eating all of our dinner, not getting treats unless we're on good behavior, not whining and crying about nothing, when it's ok to play and when it's not ok to bark loudly. None of these are mutually exclusive and I think I speak for Amanda when I say that both of us are exhausted most days trying to keep up with the dog and her antics. Precious though she may be, she is a challenge and the level of challenge which I can rise to right now. Parenting practice continues for now...

Worg

Jacob and Mom came over last night to play Scrabble. Needless to say we had a pretty good time because all of us have our word specialties and so it made for a very diverse board. But word of the day goes hands down to Jacob. At the beginning of the game he lays down "worg", and I couldn't believe it. He had us look it up in full confidence it would be approved and sure enough it was perfect. Similar to "Underworld"'s Lycans (minus the ability to change into a human), a worg is a demon-like wolf beast which is stronger and better than a werewolf, and which appears in as notable games and movies as "Dungeons and Dragons", "Lord of the Rings" and "World of Warcraft". So this was just a short post of props to him for keeping the game interesting.

"Words with Friends" brought Scrabble back into our world and since I don't have a smartphone this has been the best way for Amanda and I to play it together. We've had a lot of fun with it so far in the two games we've been able to play and I'm very glad to have the game around the house here. It's a stimulating game which starts a lot of interesting conversations and old-school enough to be way cooler than all these flashy new games that are out.

Credit to vesivus.com for the image since I obviously didn't have an image of a worg.

Failure

Not everything in my life can be a success, it's a fact of life. This was a reminder forced upon me at the Heifer International Fundraiser Lunch this past Friday. This was the 3rd year that our ASGSA has put this on to benefit Heifer International and unfortunately also the worst as far as turnout. I know not everything can be blamed on me - it was a group effort, it was on a really nice day, not all of the secretary's followed through on advertising, etc. - but I also helped in the decision not to pre-sell tickets this year and I think that led to a turn for the worse.

The end result of this is that we didn't raise enough money for Heifer as we had hoped and that a lot of people put in a lot of really hard work for a less than thrilling result. I felt at the end of the day as if I'd let people down a little. I hope that wasn't the case, but then again I more hope that it doesn't get brought up again in conversation in the first place. I don't like things not working out like they should.

But there was also a shining moment from my clouds of despair. The grad students showed up en masse to help with the lunch and for that I'm grateful. It was good if nothing else to get everyone together and to spend some time socializing and working over the food to feed the people who did show up. For that I am thankful and that was the uplifting part of the day. This group cares about service and they're willing to put the time into it. We had a chance to share food with some 40 people and outreach from animal science students is still outreach, regardless of how many people we reach. I just think it's a shame for all the help that we had to have only served 40 people.

"Hallelujah"

The song hit me one day and I can't really tell you why. It just got stuck in my head from out of nowhere and in an effort to rediscover the lyrics that haunted the shadows of my memory, I searched it out. And I fell in love with the song. I've always connected with it for some strange reason, and I'm not the only one. One of the first nights in Binnenhaven, this was one of the songs we sang together, brought together into that strange condemned dump from all over the world. I didn't learn a lot in class there, but I learned a lot about family and what you'd be willing to do for a real friend and I still feel like it started with this song.

I remember belting it out solo in the dark on the walk home from the lonely pub out on the Aran Islands in Ireland too. Drunk on the happiness that just rained down around me and free to my own thoughts I could think of nothing I would've rathered done than sing "Hallelujah" to the stray poultry and the stars in the sky as I stumbled back to my hostel. The song always came to mind no matter what mood I was in, happy or sad, lonely or among the best of friends, triumphant or searching the depths of my soul.

Of course, this song wasn't always as popular as it is today. And the first time I heard it sung by its father I thought I had heard a shameful cover by a drunk off the street. But the more times I've listened to it it might even be better that way on some occasions. There is true pain in the way Cohen sings the song that more accurately reflects the agony that can be extracted from the lyrics even if he sacrifices the beauty of the poetry. Just like the song has so many different meanings to me, it seems to have found a multitude of interpretations worldwide. And we all know that Shrek was a big part of plunging this song into the limelight...



Well, last night at the student happy hour held at a friend's house I was in a pretty down mood. Our Heifer Fundraiser didn't go nearly as well as I'd hoped (more to come on that later) and I just wasn't really feeling as up and crazy as I'm known to be. Katie pulled out her guitar and this was one of the songs she played and it really struck me how much I've missed that song since I got a virus and had to clear my hard drive. Great song and I'm glad to have it back, circulating my mind.

Good Morning!

It's officially a beautiful day outside and despite Amanda turning off her alarm clock last night, she still work up at 7 am this morning so I can blame my being up this early on her. But hopefully today promises to be a day full of productivity. I'm planning to start by tidying up some of the stuff I've left sitting around the house over the past few days, then work on a presentation I have to give Thursday, go to the bike sale to look for bikes, weed out the garden, start my stats homework and keep the dog out of Amanda's hair while she tries to study.

Something of interest to note as well is that Amanda and I both have pedometers now. Starting today (Amanda started yesterday), we're going to keep track of who takes the most steps and I'll also be correlating my weight everyday with the number of steps I take. If that proves interesting I might even go into caloric intake, but I think I'd rather measure the easy stuff first. I really have to get into gear and lose the 10-15 pounds for Kaitlin and Colin's wedding. So here goes and I'll keep you posted as things progress. It's so beautiful outside this has to be a good day.

Peloton being formed

After the initial start on the Pelotonia, things got pretty busy around here and they haven't been slowing down as much as I thought they would. We had discussed plans for how we would solicit sponsors and eventually landed on the idea of forming our own Peloton this year. This design allows people to still donate to specific people on a Peloton, but also we can get large sponsors to donate to the whole group. The trick is that we need five people actually registered to form the group and start soliciting financial support so I've been trying to put the pressure on the other people who want to ride so we can get this moving. As of right now, only 2 people are actually registered for the race.

I also received my first donation last week from a friend of Amanda's and mine who was in our wedding. It was pretty exciting to get that email and I can't wait to really start fundraising so I hope everyone hurries up with registering. In the meantime, my profile is here if you want to take a look.

There's a bike sale this week down at OSU and I'm hoping to take a look there for a new or used and repairable bike. I don't want to ride that classic of mine down there again. It was far too pretty to beat up like that.

Piggies!

I went out for my second visit to the farm where my project will be taking place, and it's all starting to seem just a little bit more real. Work with literature, designing, planning and the like can become so abstract and the chance to get hands on and take pictures and conceptualize where things will really be was pretty exciting. I went through the simple stuff such as claiming a locker to keep some things in, meeting the farm employees and designing the main ideas of how this is going down. Right now I'm still held up by people who haven't completed their animal handling training requirements so hopefully we will get a move on pretty soon.

We also dropped in to see the little piglets. If I had seen my first pigs as piglets, I think I would have a much more happy impression of pigs. They are so cute and little, almost fragile looking like Wilbur in Charlotte's Web. But little pigs grow up to be mean biters, cannibalistic towards their neighbors and aggressive towards anyone. And don't think that they were any better in the wild. Old Yeller might be a Disney movie but the vicious wild pigs in it are totally straight to character. Thankfully we found a solution for this, and it's called bacon.

Speaking of bacon, I helped with the Ohio Lamb Chef's Day this week and got to experience new twists on many old products. I love lamb for it's unique taste, whimsical rearing grounds (the definition of beautiful pasture was coined when someone saw lambs grazing), and for its ability to eat anything and turn it into food for me (best thing about ruminants). But I loved lamb even more after getting to eat it prepared by a master chef. And this chef wasn't just a master at preparing food, but a great guy to work with and help. He explained everything so simply and yet got such amazing results from relatively unskilled volunteers. Very impressive and my personal favorite from the day was lamb bacon. I will try and remember to take a picture and give a description of it when I fry up the leftovers that I have in our refrigerator now.

Record Lows

This has been a weak of temperature shock to say the least. We really rocked the high 80's last week into the weekend, with enough sunshine to finally dry up the ground in a hurry. My fear of a sudden drought onslaught was disappointed by the rain which began a cold front a mere 10 minutes after the garden was in. This preceded what is now a couple of days with record lows for the month of May. Needless to say this has not been great for plant germination.

Of course, not all of the plants are struggling through this weather. Our indoor plants are doing well, and this includes our future upside down tomatoes which show such phototrophic aptitude that they switch sunlight orientation over the course of a meal when we rotate the dish they're sitting on. Our morning glories have shown their typical determination as well, even surviving an upset of the plant basket by Betsy when she thought she was going to catch a toad. Hopefully our warmer weather little guys will hang in there because I don't want to have to start all over.

Speaking of record lows, Amanda informs me Kasich's approval rating is currently at 38%. And who honestly approves of a guy who has been pulled over for not yielding to an emergency vehicle, publicly called a police officer stupid, rejected an agricultural deal with HSUS which people worked a year on, and who never knew our driver's licenses had changed colors? How far removed is this guy from real life? I have friends in other states who even know our licenses are pink.

Plant Sale

With one more thing to add to the busy schedule I keep for the next year, I asked to be nominated for the presidency of our departmental graduate student association. Not wanting to step on anyone’s toes, I rarely ask to lead things if there is someone else capable of taking the leadership role when I can just as easily lead without the title. But this time, I wanted the title, the authority and to finally do something that I can look back and formally get credit for, so here goes. Hopefully they’re glad they voted for me when this is all over.

Our grad student association was pretty dead when I showed up last year. No offense to any grad students who read this, but that is at least the way it seemed to me and the other new people last year. Most people didn’t spend a lot of time with each, either in service projects or in social activities. This isn’t to say that the club wasn’t formally doing things, but the club in theory consisted of far more people than the few that actually showed up and did stuff. I had long talks with the now past president about frustrations with lack of group participation, and so my goal since last fall has been to encourage people to start joining in activities, starting as always with the big winners, sports and drinks. Everyone likes a little bit of social drinking as a group; as our Wageningen University president said, it made meeting people much easier. And honestly, it works well. We’ve had great participation in group drinks and sports, and everyone has been good at encouraging group participation so that we’ve all gotten to know each other a lot better.

Hoping to build on the momentum we’ve gained through the past year, I volunteered and was elected to the presidency in the hope that we can really mold this student body into a factor and a positive influence on campus. There are so many opportunities for us to make an impact even within our department, so hopefully this next year will be a great success.

It already started really well this past weekend when we served brats and burgers for the plant sale. Not only did this serve as a small fundraiser for us, but this gave us an opportunity to increase our visibility on campus. Many people stopped to talk and to ask questions, and this was a chance for students to talk about what they do at the Animal Sciences building and to discuss different factors of meat production for human consumption. We also served many grateful volunteers and so what started out as a fundraiser opportunity morphed in a broad-spectrum outreach opportunity which I was very proud to be a part of.

Sunshine at last (duplicate post)

I've been watching everyone else blog and report on the rain for the last few weeks, and we don't live on a flood plain or near one of the hugely overflowed rivers this week, but it has been wet here as well. But in an effort to avoid beating the dead horse, I'll refrain from elaborating on just how much water we've gotten. Needless to say, the breeze the last couple of days with 85F and sunshine has been a much-needed blessing and there is finally some hope of recovering the pastures and getting a vegetable garden in.

Record rainfall here for the month of April doesn't even begin to describe how soft the ground was getting, even in our yard. The dog finally started refusing to even go outside because she got tired of having to deal with the rain and stepping in the mud. Out on the farms, the pasture hasn't even been able to grow grass to keep up with the appetite and hoofprints litter the ground, damaging the roots of the plants so it's going to take a while to recover.

I remember a few years back when the dams almost breached because of the rain then, but that was on frozen ground with less absorption and increased direct watershed flow to the dam. This is different because the ground took everything it could first, before it started a mass migration according to the law of gravity.

But of course, our damage and the local crops not being planted long after they were due is nothing compared to the damage I saw today from the tornadoes in the South. It was unbelievable to see the footage from the tornadoes and even more astonishing to see the damage after. The South hasn't seen a swath of devastation like that since our very own Sherman marched to Atlanta and the resolve of the populace to bounce back is impressive. I saw a show this morning that highlighted the projects and groups who are helping to rebuild and those people should be commended for their efforts.

Hopefully this week we'll finally be able to start working the garden soil and planting all the starters my brother has going. Now if we can just avoid a long-summer drought or corn prices will be through the roof. It feels really good to have a hot sun beam down and to not have to run from car to building to not be soaked, but I worry that it won't be long before I wish that sun would be covered by some clouds again.

Red Wings, Game 6

People talk about the recession in Columbus like the worst of it is here. Of course even I have been shocked by the number of shootings, rising crime and homelessness, but if you want to see the pit of recession take a drive through the state up North. Surprisingly beautiful, eerily vacant, most of the population continues life forgotten in the fog as the rest of the country complains about economic troubles because Michigan has been living economic troubles for a long time now. I don’t frankly miss living in Michigan but I do miss the people. There is something about the people there that defies expectations; rugged, determined and practical, I identified with so many of those I met during my time there and I miss the common connection that I had which sometimes I can’t find with people here now.

You’ve heard me talk often about the plight of Detroit, the pit that is Flint, and Michigan, the perfect example of mismanagement and poor government. Rough city, sure it’s the heart of the recession, but Detroit is a city with heart and you can hate the likes of Kid Rock and Eminem for the attitude, but without the attitude who can survive the city? The attitude in this music connects with the people and so the music sells. The city itself exudes this attitude, the determination to fight, the willingness to believe and the effort to rise through the pain and conquer the struggle. And what the city loves most is a team that is the living symbol of this fight. Not that every story in the city is a win (look at the Lions) but at least there’s always the Red Wings. I’ve been a Red Wings fan since my days as a kid in Kalamazoo, but they came to have a special new meaning in the dirty bars of Lansing with people old enough to remember more than just the last couple Stanley Cups. Being a Red Wings fan is like having family at every sports bar in the state of Michigan.

I know firsthand how a successful sports team can energize a state. Growing up in Buckeye nation, I thought I knew the best of school rivalries, and could feel the love of a state for the team, but then I moved to Michigan and was adopted by the community in East Lansing, Michigan. Buckeye vs. Wolverine football might still be the greatest game of the year, highlighting November, but that is when the excitement in Michigan is just starting and Izzo’s Midnight Madness resurrects the faithful for another year where anything is possible just because of work ethic and a coach who never says never. In 2009, all of Michigan was electrified by the team which ran the gauntlet to return home to Detroit and make a run at the national title, a huge lift for the city.

Tonight, in Hockeytown, returns a team who went out to San Jose destined to be eliminated, weakened by injuries and supported by fans that couldn’t help but doubt if the season and Stanley Cup hopes wouldn’t come to a brutal end. It is again the work ethic of a Michigan team which defied expectations and continues to beat the odds. It is this same Michigan team which gives a lift to fans everywhere, and the faithful in Detroit who really need it the most. Wins for the Red Wings are a win for Detroit and everyone agrees that Detroit could use a few more of those right now.

I literally almost broke a lamp in our house for excitement when they scored the winning goal in game 4. During game 5, Amanda made fun of me for how excited I got about the away victory and Howard’s fantastic 39 saves, Zetterberg’s face-off slaughter, Abdelkader’s killer hits, and Datsyuk’s thrilling shots. This has been a great series, and I’m proud to have been a Red Wings and to be one regardless of the results, but really am pushing for one win at a time right now, crawling out of a tight spot in this series. Watch the game and just listen to the crowd; hear them shout with penalties, hear them sing with Journey, and hear them roar at a goal. They believe.

Dirt Burn

Nothing like a good blow out in our second of a double header tonight to really revive the team spirit. We made a recovery 13-13 tie in the first game of the season, nearly a month ago, then have been rained out since until today's double-header. With a lot of new blood on the field and a brand new pitcher (who turned out to be awesome), I was skeptical and the first game turned into a debacle of umpiring culminating in the last inning warning at the bottom of the fourth when we had never gotten forewarned about our last at-bat.

But then the second game came along tonight and after a tough 6-3 loss, we rebounded with a resounding bang, winning a slaughter at 21-2. I probably didn't need to make the sacrifice, but I wanted to slide in safe to 3rd base and didn't quite make it, leaving my own symbolic blood sacrifice in a good faith measure to the other team that I was still giving the game my all. Earlier they had tried to call me as dropping a catch in right field which I obviously palmed on my glove hand. All in all, it was a great game, and I returned home finally thrilled about the season having played better than ever before. At this point in the season, I'm batting over 0.700 and feeling pretty good about it.

Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious

Yep, that's right, I went to see Mary Poppins this past weekend with Amanda and the extended in-laws, and I loved it. I grew up on the movie and have always been attached to the good magic worked by Mary Poppins who teaches kids to love their imaginations and to stop wasting time on obstinacy. Of course, that's probably also why my mom liked the movie so much and put it on for us to watch so often. Combined with the my favorite actor as a youth, that is Dick van Dyke, the movie was one of my favorites. I have to say I was a bit surprised by the ending being a tick happier than the movie, but the storyline was about the same, with great performers, a solid soundtrack and simply put it embodied my idea of a good time on a Thursday evening.

Life recently hasn't been a simple coast, but I can't really pretend that it's been altogether difficult. I'm cleaning up a lot of little things I've started and then also starting a lot of new things. Recently finished with my online class, I'm down to one class for the rest of this academic year and a couple of seminars which I go to. This opens up time for me to work on finishing old lab projects and the start uploading my proposal online which should be submitted to our IACUC this week. Then I will work towards finalizing my comp submission and internship plan for the National 4-H Conference with Lauren. She's been busy moving to a new job recently so we've had to put that off a bit, but I think she deserves a brief shout out for finishing her Masters like a champ - Congratulations!

Many of the people in our office are finishing in the next month and it's sad to see people go. This past week has definitely been a sharp realization of just how much work and life will change in the next month as we transition through the end of another academic year. My election as the future ASGSA president will mean I have a larger responsibility towards the new grad students, so I'm excited to be given new challenges too as this year rolls along. So hang in there folks, and stay tuned for a series of posts on their way to this page and some additional pictures on my Picasa album.

Parking Lot Argument

I was in playing basketball last night, and as always there were a group of people who got into a fight on the court. They were pretty heated and while they didn't end up getting kicked out, I didn't think much of it when I left 3 hours later and one side of the perpetrators were still in heated debate out in the parking lot. But as I eavesdropped in on my way to the car, it turned out that they weren't talking all basketball. As it turns out, they were talking about Bin Laden and what they had to say had a profound effect on me.

It goes without saying that these 4 guys were obviously of Arabic descent, and while I frankly don't discriminate it is important to the conversation to realize their background. They were arguing about the death of Bin Laden and the impact that it had on them. One in the group was obviously very angry about the celebration around him and the attitude everyone on campus had about the killing. The others in the group were trying to get him to see how the death of Bin Laden was equally good for them as it was for anyone else on campus and this is where the critical quote comes in... "Ever since he did that, we've been haunted by his image, by what he did. I've been haunted by his image."

And I think that couldn't be more true. Bin Laden and others like him are key to the racial profiling that began heavily over the past decade and which has led to a whole new judgment of one more misunderstood minority within this country. Nobody should rejoice at the death of anyone, but I think we should all be glad that maybe we can use this time to find even more unity in this country and stop isolating those people who have been hated on by some among us for far too long.

Big Day

Apparently I missed out on a lot of news since last night. We were still catching up on the Royal Wedding details which Amanda recorded and never even heard the big news until today about Bin Laden. I would be remiss without inclusion of such a big event on this blog and will include 3 links for your own perusal. Firstly, quotes from sundry world leaders about the event. I find these meaningful and they help depict many countries' formal positions on the event. Second is a day in pictures of the celebrations and events marking Bin Laden's death. These pictures aren't as poignant as such a big event should dictate, but I think they still capture the feeling of the moment. Lastly is the BBC live feed. Unlike CNN it isn't duplicative in its entirety, instead trying to have many different people on the interviews, including those people who were close to Osama Bin Laden himself.

And then three of my own thoughts from this. It is good that such an abomination to world peace, human rights and mutual understanding has been removed from a position of power. I think this event spans far beyond just an American event even though the US has certainly been the focus of attention. It is also ironic that the CIA misinformation got us into a lot of this mess about a decade ago, and that the CIA got this result too. Also ironic is the fact that Obama got this "result" just as everyone was really starting to put the heat on him and his many flawed campaign processes. Now time will tell how this impacts world events, but hopefully this has weakened the influence of global terrorism.

There are some really big, defining moments in history and this day in my life as a citizen of the US stands alongside other such days as watching the Bosnia conflict on TV, hearing about 9/11 from my sister, hearing about our second invasion of Iraq and the later the discovery of Hussein when in church on Sunday, and then this on the radio this morning. I heard it, and didn't believe it and still now am having trouble grasping the vastness of the announcement. But it doesn't really change anything in my own world until we actually make progress towards fixing the problems that Bin Laden represented.