ENG 001: Language & Writing

My life!

2008-05-06T12:55:00.004-05:00

I Just can't wait to be King from Disney's The Lion King. This was the first Disney movie I think my mom ever bought me and from that point on it is my most favorite one. I am sure that for many other youngsters that this is one of the first Disney movies they think of when asked about a Disney movie. Simba is the cub of Mufasa who at this point in time is the King of the Pride Land. Simba can't wait until he is the king, but he will have to wait for his time. I think of this as my times as a little kid and wanting to be all grown up, because grown ups just had all the fun. Simba is a newborn cub and is full of adventure and is just wanting to be on top of Pride Rock as the king, but he knows that he has to wait for his time to come and that he has to mature before he can become king.

Watching You by Randy Atkins. I can remember the first day when my mom told me I was going to be an uncle, I was Just going into junior high. This song is an almost exact replay of the early years that I have spent with my nephew. The song is about the good and bad things that the boy learns from his father, although I am not a father, I am still a father figure to my nephew. The boy learns some good things from his father, but then there are some bad things as well. He learns words that his dad says, wears some of the same types of clothes and acts just like his dad. The boy in the video wants to be exactly like his dad and does just what his dad does, but the dad does not always realize that he is setting an example until the boys says he wants be just like his dad. I set the same examples for my nephew, there are some things I am sure that my sister did not want me to teach him and I am know that there are some very helpful things I have taught him. I feel like I am obligated as an uncle to set such a good example to my nephew because he looks up to me and wants to be like me.

Air Force One by Nelly

"Get me two pair, I need two pair." Ever since I came into junior high and had to start buying athletic shoes for every sport, I started to be really picky about what I put on my feet. I like shoes a lot and in this video Nelly talks about buying two pairs of these Nike Air Force One's. It is almost as if Nelly has a shoe fetish because he is buying two pairs at one time. In the early parts of the video, you can hear that the artists are describing what seems to be their favorite type of shoe that they are wanting to buy. Plain white, outlined in green or yellow, with the strap or without, but whatever they get, they are pretty pumped about getting those shoes. I get really pumped when I buy new shoes and I recently did that. I also purchased a pair of Nike shoes like they did in the video. Mine are Nike Relax, all black with a gold outline around the Nike symbol and with black lettering on the toung of the shoe. Shoes are a very important aspect of my life and the life of those in the video. They are buying two pairs of the same shoe, which seems a little odd to do so, but to the guys in the video buying shoes is almost like buying food. You might as well get two since you are here so you don't have to come back.

Blue Man Group

This group is one my favorite groups ever. Though they do not really have a music video, there performances are just like a video. There are no lyrics, just an amazing beat. They make amazing sounds and rhythm with almost nothing. In the last few years, that is something that I have loved to do, make something out of nothing. I started by taking ten to fifteen pieces of landscaping timber and started slicing and dicing them into pieces and putting them together. The end result was an entertainment center. Much like the Blue Man Group taking the pieces of PVC and putting them together and beating them with drum sticks to make music. They are creative with everything they have. Almost as if they never waist anything. Very environmentally concious you could say.

Number One by Nelly.

What does it take to be number one? The lyrics to one of Nelly's hits. Those are the specific words that hit me the hardest. At Chase County High School there is an extremely lot of tradition in all athletics. You are expected to be number one, anything else is almost a dissapointment. But the fact of the matter is that we have never been number one. Our school has never one a state championship in any sport. "Two is not a winner and nobody remembers third." More lyrics from the song by Nelly. There have been 10 state runner-ups in the last ten years at my school and that small portion of his lyrics really puts it into prospective that you are not a winner unless you win. There is a saying that everyone is a winner, but in fact you are not the winner.

It's Five O'clock Somewhere by Alan Jackson. Working on a farm every summer for the last four years and this song puts describes the way I feel around noon everyday. Hard physical labor, running back and forth from place to place and sitting outside in the heat will just take a toll on someone. You really feel like you need a tall drink around noon just to make that time go a little faster in the afternoon. Like the lyrics of the song say, "getting paid by the hour, and getting older by the minute," I really feel that way. During harvest when you unload truck after truck after truck, then have to turn around and load up three more trucks and do all of this within an hour, you push yourself to the edge. You want to go on that vacation they sing about in the video. It would seem a lot nicer being on that beach next to the water instead of the farm all day in the heat.

Pedal to the Metal by Kazzer. A song about racing and going fast. Two things that I love to do. I think that almost everybody has some sort of a dream to go fast at some point in time, but maybe I am wrong. This video is all about going fast and never stopping. This is easy for me to relate to because I have a problem sitting for a long period of time, I feel as if I need to be doing something all the time. Speed is something that will make me happy until the day I die. In this fast pace world, you have to be prepared for whatever life throws at you. I am prepared to put my pedal to the metal and I am off.

"Free and Easy Down the Road I Go" by Dierks Bently. The song “Free and Easy Down the Road I Go” is a song that will always take me back to my trip from Imperial to Lincoln Nebraska to start my college life. It was just me, my truck, and the open road. As I left Imperial and headed into western Nebraska the scenery changed from rolling hills and high altitude, to flat lands, river bottoms and cornfields. The sun was shining and the sky was clear. I rolled the windows down and cranked up the music and the first song I played was this song. As I heard the words “a pair of boots and a sack of clothes, free and easy down the road I go,” I got my first taste of being out on my own. I saw irrigation systems all throughout the fields and the rows of corn looked as though they would never end.

But now it is time that I make that very familiar trip back to my hometown of Imperial and the first song I plan on playing is this song. It will put me back in time to nine months ago when I first made this trip.

I hate it

2008-04-28T21:54:00.002-05:00

This song is one that I do not care for at all. I do not think that Missy Elliot is a very good artist, granite I know that many people listen to her music and she is actually very popular, but her music just does not appeal to me. I do not think that girls should really try to rap, just because it just is not attractive to see a woman singing like that. The song takes place mostly on what looks like to be a run down playground, but skips around to a salon and what looks like to me an underground area of some sort. During the song one of the lines sounds like a bunch of jibberish and I have no idea what it is trying to say or what it even means. It is just a song that does not appeal to me and I do not plan on listening to it on my own will.

Go Getta

2008-04-23T22:04:00.003-05:00

Go Getta, a recent hit by Young Jeezy featuring R. Kelly. This was a really hard decision to make for me since I like a lot of songs right now. I don't really have a favorite right now, but this is what came to my mind when i started to write this. This is a really catchy song, that I probably know almost every word to. Every time it comes on I just feel good about things and I just start singing the song. In this video there is a lot of change of scenes between the two singers, Young Jeezy and R. Kelly. There is also a lot of scenes where you have guys at what looks like a club going up to women and "hitting" on them. This kind of gives me the impression of why they named the song, Go Getta. The guys going and getting the girls at the clubs. I think this song has a really catchy beat along with the words that go along with the beat. It is a song that you can easily dance to and have a good time when listening to it. This song goes along with many others songs of its type that are very popular today. If I had a chance to watch this song live I would do it in a heart beat. So next time you hear this song go ahead and stand up and dance.

My First Game!

2008-04-20T22:51:00.003-05:00

This past weekend I attended my first Husker baseball game ever. They were playing The Kansas Jayhawks. We were sitting on the burm in left field at the beautiful Haymarket Park. It was one of the nicest day's of the year so far, the wind was calm, the sun was shinning and temperature was just right. I went with my two cousins from Beatrice and met up with a few friends of mine when we got there. It was a packed house and we ended up standing for 90 percent of the game.

The Huskers started off kind of slow in the game and let the Jayhawks get out to an early lead, but soon Mitch Abeita came up to bat with the bases loaded and hit a grand slam. The ball was caught by a tall bald man about fifteen feet to my left. Once the ball cleared the fence the crowd erupted and the momentum soon changed in favor of the Huskers.

This was an amazing time and I regret not going to a game before that. I plan to attend the game with my friends this Tuesday when the Huskers will host their rivals from Omaha, Creighton Blue Jays.

My New Ride!

2008-04-20T20:34:00.002-05:00

This last weekend was the last time I had to spend with my Green Ford Explorer Sport Trac. I traded it in for a 2007 Chevy Cobalt. My Sport Trac was a very good vehicle for me. I purchased it 18 months ago from the Country Ford dealership in my hometown of Imperial. The dealership I purchased the new Cobalt from is Copple Chevrolet in Louisville Nebraska, which is about 30 minutes east of here. I decided to change vehicles for two reasons; the first being for gas mileage and the second is because I already own a pickup that is sitting at my house back home. Rising gas prices made me really want to find a more eco-friendly vehicle with better gas mileage. This new car gets approximately 34 miles per gallon and the Sport Trac only got 18 miles per gallon. I contemplated this change for a long time, but I thought that the amount of money that I would save on gas was pretty close to the difference in the car payments. It was definitely worth the change.

My new car is very comfortable to drive. It is an all around smooth ride. There is not a lot of space in the back of the car for many people, but two people could still comfortable ride in the back. There is a lot of trunk space despite how small the car is. It will be a little difficult to make this transition from a truck to a car, but I think that the transition has gone smoothly so far and that things will work out for the best.

New Ride

2008-04-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

April 12, 2008 is the last day I spent with my Ford Explorer Sport Trac, but was the first day I was able to spend with my new Chevy Cobalt.

Fuel Fix

2008-04-13T23:40:00.007-05:00

There are many strong visual arguments used in cartoons today that try to prove a point or give an opinion. This cartoon has strong arguments that show how “America is addicted to foreign oil”. The artist uses many rhetorical strategies in these cartoons to prove their point, some of those strategies include: cause and effect, analogy, and the use of ethos. All of these strategies and appeals put together give a strong argument as to whether America is really addicted to oil.
The cartoonists did this piece of work using the gray and black colors. It seems like it implies that America is in sort of bad times, and by that I mean with the fuel problems. It also kind of goes along with the look of the Statue of Liberty and that look is not good.
In this cartoon there are dark clouds of smoke in the background that seem to be representing burning oil pumps in Iraq. In the front of the image you have the Statue of Liberty lying on the ground next to a fuel pump injecting the fuel into her arm. The Statue of Liberty is really the focal point of this cartoon, but the burning oil pumps in the background just kind of give the cartoon a setting and that setting being the desert of Iraq.
In this illustration, you see that America is addicted to oil. In the top left hand corner the cartoonist put a quote from President Bush that says just that, “America is addicted to oil”. In the picture you also see the statue of liberty injecting fuel into her arm from a gas pump that you would see at a gas station, which this looks like what one might inject them if they were doing drugs. People do not usually incorporate drugs and fuel together, but in this cartoon, that is what it looks like the artist is doing exactly that. This is a form of analogy that argues that American’s use fuel like a drug addict uses drugs.
A good example of ethos stands out when talking about the appearance of the Statue of Liberty. She is really a symbol of America. She represents what America is and that is a truly free county. But the look of the Statue of Liberty is really quite bad in this picture; Her face looks horrible, she has spots all over her body from the injections, her teeth look bad, her eyes make her look like she is really high and even her crown is all broken. This is really the look of some people who are addicted to drugs. This cartoon is really implying that we as American’s are so dependant on oil that we will do almost anything to get it. We get the feeling that we need that fuel fix to get through our day, just as a drug addict has to light up a joint or snort a line of crack to get through the day.

The overall appearance is just implying that America is in really bad shape and that it will take a lot of work to get back to good health. This cartoon plays with your emotions in a way that you never really thought that America could become so addicted to oil that we risk people’s lives in order to get what we want. But this cartoon is implying just that. As you can see in the middle of the fuel pump, the fuel that the Statue of Liberty is injecting into herself is fuel from Iraq and the numbers on the pump that would usually show the amount of fuel you are putting in and the amount in which you are pay. But in this cartoon the numbers that you are seeing above may represent the number of people that have died in the recent “war on terrorism” so that we can get our fuel. That also relates to the words that are in the box in the middle of the cartoon; they are saying that “the price of a fix keeps going up”. But if you break that down it is easier to interpret. The price in which they are talking about is the rising death toll of American Soldiers and even Iraqi citizens; the fix is the fuel and oil that we are consuming, and when it says that the price keeps going up is trying to say that we do not know how many more people will die just so that we as American’s can have our fuel fix. If you think about it a little more, you are paying in the $3.30 range for a gallon of gas and add that up if your tank is on empty, you are paying about $50 to fill up on fuel. Some people will go through a tank of gas every week or two. So in essence every American that purchases fuel is paying money for those deaths that are compiling on that fuel pump in the picture.
The cause and effect strategy is also used in this cartoon. As mentioned before about the price of a fix and the number of deaths, this is also cause and effect. The cause is that America needs their “fix” on fuel and the effect is that more people have to die in order to get that fix. The number of deaths is not really specified for Iraq, but it seems as if the illustrator is trying to say that it is just too great of a number and more are still dying over this.
Overall, this cartoon had strong arguments using different rhetorical strategies and appeals. The strongest strategy used in this cartoon was the analogy strategy. It was well represented throughout the cartoon. These strategies helped the illustrator to argue that America is addicted to oil and that it may take a long time for us American’s to realize that we have this problem.

McCain

2008-03-30T22:18:00.003-05:00

Just another presidential candidates website, but what does all this stuff on their site mean. Most of it is a strategy trying to persuade you to vote for them, another part of it is bashing the other candidates in the race and the other part they are just trying to take your money.
When you first come to John McCains website, there are pictures of him smiling, links to go deeper into his website for more information on some of his main issues that he is focusing on, and even in a big red box there is a spot where you can join his campaign group and a spot where you can donate. This area on the page is probably the area in which McCain wants the majority of the people to go to. The thought that if he gets more people to donate and join his campaign group the better the shot he has at winning the election. But for people to go to these links, they will most likely go to the links that discuss his issues, his stand on certain issues and what he promises to do if he is elected president. This is a great example of definition, what the candidate feels about certain topics.

This all leads you into another rhetorical strategy used in this website, cause and effect. That is, the page on his website that tells what it is he will do if elected president. The cause is him being elected president of the U.S. and the effect is all of the positive things he promises to do afterwards.

Of course there is always that part of a candidates campaign that talks about the other candidates in the race for the presidency. It seems like there is more focus on what the other candidates are doing and what they have done in past. Money is another things that is becoming more of an issue. Like I said earlier, it seems as if they are trying to lure you into donating with the big red box on the right asking for your money, and even the box below that that is a link to a page where you can buy McCain apparell.

More and more rhetorical strategies are being used in the presidential campaigns every year, and millions of dollars are being spent to find out ways to utilize these strategies.

No Speak English!!!

2008-03-12T22:38:00.002-05:00

When this video first came out last year, I thought it was the best one Bud Light has had for a long time. Carlos Mencia is a good comedian which makes the commerical that much better. Carlos Mencia is teaching what looks to be a wide variety of immigrants or even tourists how to ask for a Bud Light. He starts off by giving them instructions for ordering one in the south and he uses a southern accent most likely from Texas. Then one of the students says it with his accent and kind of messes it up. Then he moves to New York saying his line with an accent from the Northeast and the student tries to do it exactly the same way. Once the guy tried to do it I thought that this was hilarious and starting laughin histarically. Then he goes to the next guy and says it with an accent from East L.A.and gives this little shimmy with his shoulders while saying it, then the student tries to do it but fails misserably. But at the end he switches it up and teaches them what to say when somebody asks them for a Bud Light. This commercial was definitely to humor the audience, but at the same time it is trying to sell its product by giving its tradition slogan right before the commercial ends.

Reflection

2008-03-09T22:08:00.002-05:00

Zaireeka. As I sat in class and listened in on that cool experience, it reminded me of a time when we would sit at the lake in high school. There would be two or three people playing there own music at their respected camp sites. Though none of the music was coming together like it did in the Zaireeka experiment. In the experiment we started by getting the cd players in time with each other, but after the first track or the timing was off. But the more I think about it, I realized how much time and effort it had to take in order for them to be able to have all of cd's lined up perfectly with each other.

Another time that this reminded me of is when in the dorms a few weeks back, there were two cd players that we had set up to try and play the same song in sync with each other. It took some time to get them calibrated, but when they were in sync it was really awesome and when they were out of sync it was kind of hard to listen to it. But this was the same problem in the Zaireeka experiment when the cd players were out of sync, then it was hard at times to listen to it when you knew that one of the cd players was off just because you wanted to hear what it was like when they were all in sync. Overall, it was really a cool experience and I was glad that I was able to be apart of that experiment.

Extremely Crazy!

2008-03-05T23:08:00.002-06:00

Zaireeka…. That was one of the weirdest things that I have ever experienced, but it was cool. It was really interesting to try and piece everything together from the four cd’s. The first instance it played and it counted the 1,2,3,4 from a different cd caught me off guard. It was kind of disorienting when you could hear a different instrument playing from each different cd player. Then there was a long random scream that just “wierded” me out, that one made some other people even look around and try to figure out what the heck was going on. On the third track it sounded like a space shuttle was taking off with kind of a deep rumble but later it came to sound like jet’s flying over a stadium. The fourth track was my favorite with the old school acoustic guitar but later went into this like X-Files theme music coming from Gary’s cd player. The seventh track kind of opened up and it sounded like we were outside a Wal*Mart or something and the Salvation Army Santa Clauses were out there ringing their bells, but the track later on went into this sweet drum solo that was really awesome. On this final track towards the end with all the dogs barking and going crazy made me thing of Mike Vick and his Pitbulls. Overall it was a really cool experience, even though for a while it gave me a headache just because I was trying to get used to the sounds and music from four different directions, kind of like a really big surround sound system.

30 Minutes in a Target Parking Lot

2008-03-02T20:23:00.002-06:00

Target, located on at 333 north 48th street on your right hand side when driving to the south, I am sitting on the tailgate of my dark green Ford Explorer Sport Trak seven stalls from the front, including the Handicapped stalls, from the main entrance of the store.

This parking lot is located on the east side of the store and it has a downward slope towards the street to the east. With the looks of the set up was that this was mainly for drainage purposes and it looks like the store was built somewhat of a natural hill just by the looks of the surrounding building and structures nearby.

I get situated the best that I can, even though there is not really any way to get comfortable when sitting on a tailgate with little ridges everywhere making my rear uncomfortable. The car next to me on my left one stall closer to the front of the store was a red Chevy Impala with dark tinted windows and a thin black pin stripe on the sides of the car just underneath the window and the car to my right was a silver Chevy Silverado that had some customizing done to it like chrome rocker panels, rhino lining, chrome rims and it also had a dark gray almost black pin stripe located in the same spot as the car just below the windows on the side.

Both cars were no newer than a 2006 model because of the older body style. This parking lot is full of different brands of cars; Chevy’s, Ford’s, Dodge’s, BMW’s, Nissan’s, Volkswagen’s, and a Cadillac, just to name a few.

Thinking back to sitting in the parking lot made me think of when I was in high school and the journalism did a quick little study one day in the parking lot of the brands of cars that the students drove to school. It came out that there was a 2 to 1 ratio of Chevy’s to Ford’s, which in this case was the same because in this group of three cars their was one Ford and two Chevy vehicles. I thought that this was pretty typical to see those two brands of cars in the parking lot, because those two brands have probably been around the longest so it would just make sense that those two were more common. Also being in Nebraska, which is basically a farming community and or state, it just makes sense that these two brands would be more common due to the fact that Ford’s and Chevy’s over time have proved to be the more frequent pick among farmers who have work pickups. At the farm where I work at in the summer, Chevrolet and GMC are the only work vehicles that my boss buys because they are durable, they have lasted a long time and he grew up in Imperial so there is not much selection of vehicles. The GMC is basically the same as Chevy and they come from the General Motors corporation which is the company that owns Chevy, GMC, Buick, Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab, and Cadillac. This might not be the case maybe if I was in New York or Los Angeles though. There seems to have been a greater demand in the foreign car market the last few years. The foreign market is going to be more dominant on the coastal states, because they are not going to need the big pickups to haul anything or the durable cars that will be able to drive on country roads every day. These people on the coasts will want the car that gets thirty or forty miles to the gallon and that look extremely sharp. Not saying that Chevy and Ford do not make sharp looking vehicles, but that there are companies like Porsche and BMW that all I think they are worried about is the look and the comfort of the car.
A lot of your decision on buying a car is probably based on the way you were brought up and where you were brought up. I was brought up and you drove a Ford or a Chevy because those are the only two dealerships in town. But it may be completely different for someone that lives in LA or New York or even Lincoln. You have probably 50 car dealerships or more that you can go shopping at compared to the two located in Imperial.

Sitting in the parking lot reminded me of the days in high school when we would sit outside on the tailgates of our pickups over our lunch break watching the cars go by and just hanging out until it was time to go back to class. It was almost the same situation as I sat there getting very odd looks from many people. Some of them are probably thinking that I was waiting for them to get to their car then I was going to mug them or something, but those were not my intentions. Some people gave the quick glance over towards me and others just stared, which to me makes me uncomfortable when people stare and it just made things kind of awkward for that short moment.

There was one specific car that caught my eye as I sat there on my tailgate and it was a white Dodge Grand Caravan with silver alloy wheels and dark tinted windows in the rear that. The mini-van was approximately two or three years old from the looks of the clean body style and the overall clean appeal of the van. The car passed in front of me twice and in and out of other rows and I thought that this person is either looking for a good parking spot or they are just taking a leisurely drive through the parking lot, but finally they found a parking spot two rows in front of me three stalls from the front. I thought to myself that they wasted a lot more time looking for that spot than the time it would probably take them to park a little further down the line and walk an extra 20 or 30 feet. But the more I thought about it, I do the same things sometimes. I will drive through the parking lot and always check the by front of the store in case there is an opening.
This reminded me of my mom that drives a mini van. I was the last to leave the house and now she still has a vehicle that holds seven people and she has no real use for that. This guy was older and probably does not have anymore kids around the house, which makes me wonder why people drive vehicles that big and they have no real use for it. It may be that they are comfortable driving it, or that they just do not want the hassle of getting something new.
There are so many different kinds of cars now a days and everybody has there own likes and dislikes about cars. They range from the brand of car, the style of the car and even just the color of the car. No matter what they like, it seems like the world will be driving cars of all different kinds for many many years to come.

2008-02-24T21:22:00.003-06:00

This is my bedroom. As you see in the diagram of my room it seams very similar to that of a hippies room from South Carolina, there are boxes of bullets and bombs sitting on the gun case. In my room I also have bullets sitting on top of the gun case but I really don't think that there are any bombs. They are illegal to have in plain view so I usually put them in the closet, or I just don't really have bombs.

I do like to have money sitting next to my bed, although it is not a lot money there are a few dollars there and it just makes me feel really cool to have my money sitting next to me. My clock is a digital RCA clock that I purchased at Radio Shack and my pillow I took from my sister because it is really fluffy and comfortable. I don't really know why there is a cat here, because I am a true dog lover and cats make me sick. I think someone planted this cat in my room just so that I would get very angry.

My hippie carpet is my prized possession that I bid on and won on ebay. My secret little space on the top left part of the diagram is a very special place of mine, which is really a balcony to the outside, where I like to sit during the evening sipping on a glass of cold water and stare at the stars. It is a very soothing feeling and relaxes me after a long day at the office. This is my room and by this you can really understand how I live and how I like to spend my time.

2008-02-20T19:44:00.002-06:00

If I were stuck on a deserted island I would want to have an Eve 6 album, 50 Cent, Breaking Benjamin, Kanye West and Chicago.

My first ever concert was Eve 6 and I just loved them from that point. I purchased their cd right afterwards and I love to listen to their music to this day. Then we move onto 50 cent and he has just an amazing story about being shot nine times and living to sing about it and make millions from his cd's, concerts and clothing. I love the song "Blow me Away" by Breaking Benjamin along with many of their other songs, but I would want their music on their cd, which is a little harder, while on the island just to get me pumped up in case some natives from the island or a wild animal comes at me I will be ready to go to battle. Kanye West has just recently in the last few years put out some amazing songs that to me will never get old and his cd would be something that I would want. Then there would be Chicago. They have some great classics on their cd's and you never know when you might want a little something soft or softer than other four cd's just in case you need help going to sleep and you want something to calm your nerves. These five cd's would make my time on the island go so much smoother while I built my raft for getting off the island and when I hunted for food.

Memorial Stadium "The Greatest Place on Earth"

2008-02-17T20:26:00.003-06:00

In the next year Memorial Stadium in downtown Lincoln, Nebraska will surpass the 290 consecutive sellouts. That is a NCAA record and more than any other school by a long shot. Memorial Stadium means so much to Nebraskans in general. For me, I have had the pleasure of playing in two games there while in high school, one as a freshman and another as a junior. Although the outcome of the game was not how I wanted it, the chance to play in such a historical place will mean so much to me til the day I die. Many people can only dream of going to a Huskers game there but let alone playing on that beloved field turf of Tom Osborne Field twice is something special.

I have attended games there as well. In 2002, when the Huskers hosted the Texas Longhorns but lost the game at the end when the Huskers threw an interception at about the three of four yard line when we could have kicked a field goal to put the game into overtime and had a chance then. It was a devistating loss for everyone, but for me it was really hard because it was my first game that I had ever seen in the stadium.

Now as a child I had the dream of wanting to play for the Huskers, but knew that it would be extremely hard and unlikely. But my heart was not completely broken when I knew that I would not play for the Huskers because one of my best friends from high school dreams came true come signing day when he became a Nebraska Cornhusker.

Not only seeing a game there, playing on that field and seeing one of my best friends play for the Huskers has fullfilled some of that child hood dream of wanting to become a Nebraska Cornhusker.

2008-02-14T18:29:00.002-06:00

This is a very exciting time for high school football players across the state whether playing or watching the playoffs bring out the best in everyone.

The playoffs may bring out the best and maybe the worst. High school playoffs in Nebraska are always exciting to see who will come out on top from each side of the bracket even though everybody already planned on the east winning it because the west is just to "weak" to hang with the boys from the east.

As a alum from Chase County High School it seemed that we were always the team that everybody wanted to see get beat. We did not have the most liked teams while I was in School, maybe because we were pretty good. The expectations are high in that area to produce a great team that will do good in the playoffs. As a team it was always expected to make it deep into the playoffs as well. Goals set at the beginning of the year were set as high as possible because we always thought that if you set them low enough then it might be to easy to reach that. All four years of playing football, nobody expected our team to be any good except for ourselves and the community. We were only rated in the top 10 preseason my sophmore and senior season when we were rated number 2 both years and that is probably because as a freshman and junior we were runner-up in class c-1. That senior seaon we went into the playoffs as the number 1 ranked team in the Omaha World Herald with a perfect 8-0 regular season record, but we ended up losing in the quaterfinals 14-13 to Hastings St. Cecilia. Even though I was not playing because of ACL surgury half way through the season, when that clock hit zeros and we lost it was one of the most devistating things that have ever happened to me. We were a team that did not care about anything but making it back to Memorial Stadium to prove that we could win a State tittle. Very emotional part of the season, but in the end I would say that it brought out the best in me.

2008-02-10T20:12:00.000-06:00

Garth Brooks, one of if not the best singer, songwriter and performer in the history of music. But of course he did not write every song that he has ever sang, but he has written or helped write many of the songs he has sang though. His music is amazing and I am sure that millions of other would agree since almost all of his concerts have been sold out. His performances are amazing to watch even if you are watching it Live on HBO. While on stage he always seems to be getting the crowd pumped up and getting them involved in his songs. Overall he is just an amazing performer in that aspect.
His music always seems to have some type of purpose or meaning to it. For example, in the song "The Change" he sings about the Oklahoma City bombings that occured. This song is a very emotional song from the first time I heard it and every time i have heard it after since that time and it probably makes some people very emotional every time they hear it. So Garth Brooks in my eyes is one of the best musicians/performers in my lifetime. Even though he is "retired" he still seems to put out a few songs and even a performance here and there.

Video Test Post

2008-02-07T14:09:00.000-06:00

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That one Sentence!

2008-02-06T22:12:00.000-06:00

You don't have to follow the same old structure you learned growing up.

The same old structure that almost everybody uses, the same old structure that you professors in college make you write in, the same old structure that is just plain old BORING. The "five paragraph" format that is made up of one paragraph for the introduction of what you are going to tell your readers, then you have the three paragraphs in the middle or the body that tell the readers what you want them to get out of it, then you have the conclusion that tells the readers what you said. How dumb? You basically just told the reader the same information three times. If they are good readers and interested readers then they are probably going to read it again or if it was good enough then they probably understood everything the first time they read it. So who is to tell us we have to write in a certain format? Maybe you professor or teacher that is wanting a specific format. But as a teacher should you not allow your students to write freely and in a way that they feel comfortable. What if the way one of your students writes is unlike anybody has ever written? Maybe the way they write is a format that will make him or her famous, who knows? So making somebody write in a certain format is just dumb, for they are a free person and you may be forcing them to write in a way that is uncomfortable. Why be uncomfortable when writing, when writing should be relaxing and a time when you get away from everything else in the world.

Quotation from Atwan02

2008-01-31T14:15:00.000-06:00

Writing that has a voice is writing that has something like a personality. But whose personality is it? As with most things in art, there is no straight road from the product back to the person who made it. There are writers read and loved for their humor who are not especcially funny people, and writers read and loved for their eloquence who, in conversation, swallow their words or can't seem to finish a sentence. Wisdom on the page correlates with wisdom in the writer about as frequently as a high batting average correlates with a high IQ: they just seem to have very little to do with one another. Charming people can produce prose of sneering senentiousness, and cranky neurotics can, to their readers, seem to be inexhaustibly delightful. Personal drabness, through some obscure neural kink, can deliver verbal blooms. Readers who meet writers whose voice they have fallen in love with usually need to make small adjustment in order to hang on to their infatuation.

-Louis Menand

In Menands’ writing he states that writers are loved for their humor but are not especially funny people in person. This gives some understanding as to why it is easier for one to write down there thoughts or feelings, because they might not have the confidence to say to a group of people or even one person about some of the things that they write down. Where as a comedian may have an easier time just standing up in front of people cracking jokes off the top of their head but when asked they might have problems writing down jokes off the top of his head. It all depends on the comfort level of the person. Menand also states that readers who meet writers whose voice they have fallen in love with usually need to make a small adjustment in order to hang on to their infatuation. Many of this has to do with, again, the confidence of the writer to speak in person. The readers who love the writers work will usually think that the writer can very easily talk about his or her work and explain what it is that they were thinking while writing. But it seems to be the case that many writers are more, not necessarily quiet about the work they have done, but more to the point of being very humble about their work. It is very hard to get a full understanding of exactly what the writer is thinking or feeling while composing his or her work, unless there is some sort of note or biography placed in with the book giving further explanation as to the way the writer felt about the work.

Test Post

2008-01-24T14:27:00.000-06:00

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