Project 365 Day 273: Halloween Boutique

My apologies for the lack of focus on this picture. I blame this on a couple of things:

1. I forgot to take my cell phone camera out of macro mode
2. I was rushed to avoid getting caught by the camera cops in the store

Let me explain number two in more detail. You may be able to see the small white letter-sized rectangle of paper at the top of the rack in the center of the picture. I'm sure you cannot read it, but it basically said something to effect of "NO PHOTOS IN STORE!!!"

Ah, but you see, I was not "in" the store when I took this picture. If you notice the floor pattern change in the foreground, you will deduce that I was in fact in the hallway of the mall, taking a picture that just happened to be pointed towards this seasonal Halloween costume shop.

I took the picture because the Mario costume on the right reminded me of the Mario costume I wore back in my grade school days for the Halloween party at Rowley elementary school. I am certain mine was much better quality than this one, however, thanks to my mom who helped make it (by which I mean she made all of it, except for the Mario face with cut out eye holes that I drew on cardboard).

Thanks Mom!

Project 365 Day 272: Avocado Tree To Be

If you remember this post about our attempt to grow an avocado tree, you may have found yourself wondering about what has been happening on that front lately. Well, we recently had a major breakthrough, and it is presented here in all it's glory. The avocado pit has cracked itself open and a little root has started making its way out the bottom.

At least, I hope that's a root, and not part of a little space alien that was actually trapped inside the avocado pit. And if it is a little space alien, then I hope it is the good kind that is interested in learning about our Earthly culture and not the kind that wants to wipe out the human race.

Perhaps I'll start playing some good classic rock like Led Zeppelin near the plant as an example of what our species has to offer and hope the for the best...

Project 365 Day 271: Public Discourse at the Civic Center

Tonight we made the drive down to Des Moines for the first event in Iowa Public Radio's Insight Series, which is bringing personalities from Nation Public Radio to the Civic Center for talks and question and answer sessions. Scott Simon, host of Weekend Edition, was in town tonight, and while the crowd probably took up less than a quarter of the Civic Center's capacity, he still gave an interesting talk on the state of public discourse and honesty in the national media. He started off humorously relating his lifelong disappointment as a Cubs baseball fan, and lamented those poor minor league players with the Iowa Cubs in Des Moines who could only aspire to one day move up to the major league team in Chicago where they would be destined to never win a World Series.

Along with his main talk about the media, he also expressed his passionate support for adoption while discussing his book about his and his wife's experience adopting two little girls from China after having difficulties conceiving on their own. The session closed with a question and answer session, with a moderator asking questions that had been submitted by members of the audience ahead of time. We enjoyed the event and look forward to the next one featuring Sarah Vowell in November!

Project 365 Day 270: Test Success

Congratulations to Amy on acing her first exam of the semester, and first one in over five years, for that matter. She was excited to find out that she got 94.4 out of a 100, and this after reading instructor reviews online by other students who had taken the class previously saying that the professor was a tough grader on the essay section of the tests. Since she didn't actually get a copy of her test back, I created this memento for the occasion and hung it on the refrigerator in place the real deal. And now it's on the Internet for all to admire!

Project 365 Day 269: Octagon Art Festival

Downtown Ames was host to the annual Octagon Arts Festival today, and we decided to take a stroll through the exhibits on Main Street before ducking into Cafe Diem for some more weekend catch-up on work (Adam) and homework (Amy). In this picture, taken from "our" booth in the coffee shop near an ever-important electrical outlet, you can just barely make out some of the exhibit tents on the street through the windows. We managed to avoid being enticed into purchasing any artwork, but it's always fun to see what's new.

Project 365 Day 268: View From The Cheap Seats

The view from the cheap seats at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames is pretty good. Technically the cheapest seats are the ground; I think it's $30 to sit on the hillsides in the corners of the stadium. While sitting on hard ground on an incline doesn't sound that great under normal circumstances, we were especially glad we opted for real seats for tonight's game after having a pretty constant rain for the 8 hours leading up to the 6pm kickoff. We enjoyed seeing the game three rows from the top of the stadium, near the northwest corner, with our friend Rashelle, and we were also glad to see Iowa State get another win to pull even at 2-2 on the season.

Project 365 Day 267: Sushi Celebration

When we were in graduate school back in the 2003/2004 time frame, and I had a particularly challenging computer science course, my place of choice for sorrow-drowning and success-celebrating was the Welch Ave Station bar near campus. Since Amy completed her first exam today in her political science class, which was at least a little stress-inducing, I told her we should go out for dinner to celebrate, and I had a pretty good idea of what she would choose.

Sushi and Diet Coke! Our celebrating these days is pretty low key, but tasty!

Project 365 Day 266: Cramming

Both Amy and I seem to be in a cramming mode this week. Amy's first test in her Ethics in Politics course is tomorrow, and I have a work project that is due this weekend. With our laptops in tow, we've started becoming regulars at the Cafe Diem coffee shop downtown, getting in some extra hours of study/work after supper each night.

We are looking forward to next week when we're both (hopefully) done with the cramming for awhile. Until then, back to cramming...

Project 365 Day 265: What the heck is TED?

As a computer nerd who remembers a time (just barely) before the Internet was accessible to virtually any home that wanted it, I have long enjoyed the myriad opportunities for communications, entertainment, and productivity that the Information Superhighway provides. What has been especially interesting over the last 5 years or so is seeing how much the Internet has provided enrichment opportunities for those who would not proudly refer to themselves as nerds, geeks, or dorks (oh wait, I guess "dork" is just something Amy calls me from time to time). Blogs, podcasts, and legally downloadable music, to name a few, provide useful services to many, and with the ongoing march towards faster Internet connections supporting higher bandwidths, online video has continued to grow. Now you can watch many of your favorite TV shows online, even if you missed the broadcast, through the networks' sites or affiliated sites like Hulu.com.

This all brings me to my recent discovery of TED. I had heard of TED for some time, but never had a notion of what it was other than some kind of event or conference where people would gather. I just read about a Des Moines native who organized a TED event in Iowa's capital recently so decided I should just head on over to www.ted.com to see what it was all about, and in a very short time I was fairly blown away.

To sum up my understanding: TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and through series of events the organization hosts, speakers give roughly 18 minute talks to an audience about a subject of their choosing that generally falls into one or more of these categories. The talks are recorded for subsequent viewing through the TED website, and the videos are free (both money-wise and copyright-wise, they use a Creative Commons license), and can be viewed on-demand at TED's website or on YouTube.com.

The first video I watched was Steven Johnson giving a talk on "Where good ideas come from." It was an engaging presentation, he related some interesting ideas to both history and current events, and it made me think that this kind of stuff would have been great to have when I was in High School. It seems to me a good example of content that would make for an interesting classroom discussion, or even just something to encourage kids to watch in their own time.

After seeing this video I found TED's list of Top 10 Talks as of June 2008, and started working my way up from the bottom, watching talks about how Nintendo Wii remotes can be used for cheap tech experiments, Al Gore giving an updated talk about averting a climate crisis, and Tony Robbins talking about motivation (relating a powerful story about 9/11 in the process). A word of caution, the talks are not censored (I noted a few expletives in the Tony Robbins talk) so you may want to preview before sharing with any impressionable youths.

I'm looking forward to watching more TED!

Project 365 Day 264: Study Hall

Amy has been taking a Political Science class on campus this semester while working that is about ethics in politics. With classes come exams, and her first one is this Friday, so we have been going downtown to the Cafe Diem coffee shop in the evenings quite a bit lately, including tonight, to get in some quality study time (and extra work time for me). We both like getting our caffeine doses there in different forms: coffee and related drinks for me, Diet Coke for Amy.

Good luck to Amy on her test Friday! If she gets a B+ or better it's going on the fridge.

Project 365 Day 263: Sale Sale Sale!

Our life isn't always super exciting. Some days it's just mildly exciting, like realizing that Amy has a $40 rewards certificate to spend at Eddie Bauer before Wednesday. So today's excitement involved a trip to the mall and shopping! She found some pants/trousers/slacks/whatever-you-call-non-jeans-two-legged-articles-of-clothing that should be good for work, especially during the coming cold months of fall and winter. We've also found the staff at the Eddie Bauer store in town to be very pleasant, helpful, and knowledgeable, and they even remember us (is that a good thing or bad...?).

And of course, a trip to the mall could not be complete until we finished it off with cookies from Cookies, Etc. and soda from Jimmy John's. Yum!

Project 365 Day 262: Deer Run

During our run through the neighborhood to the west of our house, we came upon a friendly deer who didn't bolt as soon as it saw us. We had slowed down to a walk already after our initial jog, and as I stopped here to take some pictures, it cocked its head at a few different angles and shifted its stance, as if saying, "Hey guys, this is all cool as long as no one makes a move, but if you come any closer, I'm outta here!" Since we weren't ready to turn back yet, we continued on and Mr. Deer proceeded to take off into the protection of the prairie grass nearby.

Project 365 Day 261: Farmageddon Football in KC

Today was our third trip to see Iowa State football play at the Kansas City Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium in KC. The first round was a super exciting game against Bobby Bowden's well-respected Florida State program back in 2002. That day we had a weapon in quarterback Seneca Wallace, who could throw but also had amazing speed, and he nearly tied the game in the last seconds with an amazing scramble. It was an exciting game to be at, but a loss in the end.

Fast forward to last year's game against Kansas City, and again today, and the result was basically the same. In a match that was dubbed "Farmageddon" by some due to the agricultural base of both states, both rounds in the two-year series were very exciting, but resulted in Iowa State losses.

Last year was a heart-breaker. Down by seven points, Austen Arnaud put the team on his shoulders for one last drive in the 4th quarter, came all the way down the field and scored six points on a passing touchdown to a receiver in the end zone. We were within one point of Kansas State, and we assumed the follow-on routine PAT would tie the game up and send it to overtime. Unfortunately, the PAT was not routine and was blocked by a Kansas State defender's outstretched hand. That was as much of a roller-coaster emotional experience as I have had in any sporting event.

This year was another good game, and the emotional roller-coaster was smoothed out a little compared to last year, but it did not disappear. In the end, Iowa State had a few "what-if" moments in the fourth quarter that could have led to a tied or even a win. Iowa State was leading until Kansas State connected on a long pass that was run in for a touchdown; the Cyclone Fanatics over at CycloneFanatic.com's message boards mentioned that it looked like the receiver illegally pushed off on his defender who nearly made a play to bat the ball down anyway. Austen Arnaud nearly connected with Alexander Robinson for a long touchdown pass of his own on the ensuing series, but the ball came off the receiver's hands and hit the ground.

Finally, with one final drive to at least tie the game (wow, apparently every Iowa State game at Arrowhead ends this way!) Austen Arnaud moves the ball downfield, and Iowa State picks up a few must-have first downs on fourth-and-short possessions, only in the end to have a fourth-down pass for a first down in the red zone sail yards over the outstretched hands of the intended receiver. Game Over.

This may have been the last game at Arrowhead for a while, as Kansas State intends to move the game back to their home base of Manhattan, KS in the future. While it's been an exciting trip down to Arrowhead Stadium each time, I can understand why the school would like to have the traveling fans boosting the economy in their hometown.

I liked what I saw from Redshirt freshman Jeff Woody, backup running back to senior Alexandar Robinson. Woody was in for a series of plays with backup QB Jerome Tiller while Austen Arnaud sat out a series due to a bruised left arm, and every time Woody ran he got at least 4 yards, and was good at running straight ahead and fall forward for a little extra. Also neat that he was a walk-on out of Southeast Polk High School in Des Moines who won a scholarship this year.

Finally, much thanks to Amy for her skills in ordering tickets! As you can see in this picture of Cy, we were in the front row on the ground. Awesome seats, near the 20 yard line which meant we got to see some end-zone plays by both teams.

Here's hoping Iowa State can pick up a win next week against Northern Iowa.

Project 365 Day 260: Visitors from Ireland

Amy parent's just returned from a vacation trip to Ireland yesterday, and today they were back on the road to Ames to stay with us before we all drive down to Kansas City for the Iowa State - Kansas State football game tomorrow. It sounds like they had a great time in the land of shamrocks and Guinness, and they brought back these pens with each of our names on them. The boxes they came in also had some appropriate descriptions of each of us:

Adam: A dutiful person with a positive outlook

Amy: An ambitious and energetic individual

Project 365 Day 259: Cheap Airplanes

While out for a brief errand to Theisen's tonight, we came across these pieces of playground-style aviation equipment which reminded me of our adventure to Iowa City last weekend. It's a bit dark since the only light was coming from a parking lot lamppost, but that's an airplane in the front and a helicopter in the back. These are probably as close as we could come to owning our own flight equipment for quite a while, but you gotta start somewhere!

Project 365 Day 258: Campus Lecture on Globalization and IT

Thanks to Amy's knowledge of the happenings in the IT community at Iowa State University, I found out about a distance education class that hosts a lecture series in Howe Hall's main auditorium on campus. Tonight's speaker was George Strawn (bio), who was formerly associated with ISU in various capacities in the Computer Science department and at the Computation Center. He is now a fellow member of the federal government community, though with much more stature than I have attained. His title is "Director of the National Coordination..." ok, hold on, this is really long so I'm going to blockquote it instead:

Director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the Federal government’s multiagency Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program.

The government is at least good at creating names and acronyms that are next to impossible to remember!

Mr. Strawn gave a very interesting talk on Globalization, and though he loosely tied it to Information Technology, it was really more general, discussing at a very high level the history of mankind and how technological evolutions and advancements have been occurring at an increasing rate. One of his final points was that some are predicting the next 50 years will hold just as many innovations as the past 200, and it is a very exciting time to be alive.

I knew Amy would consider the lecture worthwhile as soon as he opened with his first slide covering a list of recommended books! There were actually quite a few that sounded very interesting to me as well, and he mentioned that he didn't really start reading voraciously until he turned 30, so maybe there's still hope for me...

The distance education course webpage for this class has the list of the instructors and speakers, and next to each speaker who has already given his or her talk is a video link you can use to watch the session. If you're interested in history, IT, globalization, books, or all of the above, check out Mr. Strawn's talk.

I may have to return for some future lectures. One of the upcoming speakers of note is Christine Romans, an ISU alum who currently hosts a few shows on CNN and is a correspondent for the cable network's American Morning show. She's giving a talk on October 6th called The New Normal and the Value and Values Consumer.

Project 365 Day 257: Dave Matthews Band in Omaha

We had a late return to Ames from Omaha, NE today. Back in February we saw that the Dave Matthews Band would be touring through the Midwest again early this fall and decided to buy tickets. They have been one of our favorite bands and we saw them multiple times in Ames during college, so we figured it'd be fun to make the drive over to Omaha to see them again. They did not disappoint! After countless years of touring and recording albums, we've never seen a bad show, and only one of their albums, Everyday, was disappointing (though even it had a few good tunes).

For those who may have never seen a Dave Matthews Band show, the musicianship is generally outstanding. Carter Beauford plays the drums like no other (while chewing bubble gum and occasionally blowing bubbles), Boyd Tinsley does a great job blending in his electric violin and taking the lead on a few songs, Stefan Lessard slaps some mean bass in the rhythm section, and Dave Matthews sings and acts like a crazy person (but he remembers all the lyrics!). They also had some supporting bandmates, including Tim Reynolds on electric guitar. He shreds as well as anyone I've ever seen, and I have no doubt he could fill in on lead guitar for Van Halen with no problem whatsoever.

With a rich catalogue of songs and a setlist that varies from night to night, it's exciting to anticipate the first strains of each song during one of their shows. Last night was a great concert and to top it off they played my favorite Dave Matthews Band song, Lie In Our Graves.

Project 365 Day 256: Running Shoes

We've been trying to maintain a workout plan of some kind for awhile, at least to get our hearts pumping a little bit each day, and now that the weather is cooling off ever so slightly we've been able to get out for a little jog two nights in a row! This is especially good since the Iowa State Lied Recreation center, which is normally our backup for too-hot/too-cold/too-rainy/too-wintry days, is still closed due to the effects of the recent floods. It sounds like they are getting closer to reopening, pending the results of one last safety inspection test.

Now we just need the mosquitoes and pollen to go away!

Project 365 Day 255: Golfing with Dad

Happy birthday to my dad! He and Mom came over to Ames last night for our planned day today of helping Dad celebrate with an excellent-as-usual breakfast at The Grove Cafe, followed by nine holes of golf at Veenker Memorial Golf Course. The course is still recovering from the recent flooding, but they have nine holes open, 1-6 and 12-14, and you can't beat the $10 greens fee.

I managed to win one hole based on golf strokes, but Dad definitely won overall in that category, as he did last year on his birthday outing in Ames. I'm pretty sure he also did better in the not-losing-golf-balls department too. It was still a fun day with great weather, and Mom and Amy enjoyed riding in the carts with us around the course. We look forward to doing it again next year!

I'd better start working on my golf game as soon as the ground thaws in 2011 if I want to keep up though...

Project 365 Day 254: Ames to Iowa City in 30 Minutes

If someone had told me you could travel from Ames, IA to Iowa City, IA in 30 minutes (about a 2.5 hour car ride), I would have said they were crazy, or in possession of a private plane. Luckily for Amy and me, my boss from Virginia flew his private plane to Ames yesterday for a business visit (after spending a few days in Chicago), and today he took us for a quick jump through the skies over highway 30 and I-80 east to see the big Cy-Hawk game in Iowa City. With a nice tailwind at our backs, the trip was over in 30 minutes. I have a new appreciation for personal aviation.

No matter the outome of the game, I figured the plane ride would be the highlight of the day. As it turned out, the plane ride was really, definitely, certainly, easily, the highlight of the day. Iowa State's football team was outmatched and made too many big mistakes to have a chance against 9th-ranked Iowa, losing 35-7 in a game that was never close after halfway through the first quarter. ISU could take some small victories away, though. Special teams looked pretty good on punts and kick returns, and we at least got the monkey off our backs, ending the streak of quarters in which Iowa State had not scored a touchdown against Iowa at 17! With ISU's final drive of the game they finally punched one in, and I yelled in celebration as loud as I had about anything. Small victories! Kinnick stadium had a fun gameday atmosphere with a packed house, just wish we had had a little more to cheer about today.

We are glad my boss had a chance to visit and experience some real Iowa hospitality. We do it right in this part of the country.

Project 365 Day 253: "We Have Clearance Clarence"

Today I took my first ever trip in 8-plus years of Ames residency to the Ames Municipal Airport to pick up a visitor. My boss from the DC area flew in after spending some time in Chicago the prior few days, and we spent the evening enjoying Ames food and drink and touring a little of the ISU campus. We checked off visits to Olde Main and Brewers, and still need to hit up The Grove Cafe, Hickory Park, Welch Ave Station, and Legends when time allows. We may not squeeze it all in this visit, but hopefully it is not the last!

Project 365 Day 252: Precise Measures

Don't let the pretty print fool you. Although this may look like a flower-child piglet that just left Woodstock circa 1970, it is in fact a tape measure. And for the record, this tape measure is not normally found in any of my three toolboxes (yes, I am that manly).

We were putting some more plants in the ground this afternoon that we got from cousin Deb yesterday, and we wanted to make sure the hole we dug was wide and deep enough. I asked Amy to go to the garage and get a tape measure while I was on shovel duty, and this was the one she came back with.

It got the job done, though. An inch is an inch after all. I just prefer a more well-known pedigree in measuring tools, like Stanley or Ace Hardware!

Project 365 Day 251: Lark to the Meadow

We went out for our nightly stroll in north Ames and visited this open grassy area at the east edge of Somerset. From a distance it looked like the entire area was covered with a blanket of brown plant matter, and I assumed it was from something like the foxtail tip in the foreground of this picture, but upon closer examination the brown hue was really just from all the dead grass stems still standing up next to the green stuff.

Yet another sign that Fall is upon us!

Project 365 Day 250: Some Sweet Potatoes

There are many things I love about the Internet, and one among them is the ease of finding recipes for pretty much anything. Want to make something specific? Google it. Want to make something out of the ingredients you have around but don't know what you can make? Google it. The answer to all quandaries, food-based or otherwise, is the same. Google it.

So in my quest to produce sweet potato fries that rival those of Hickory Park's here in Ames, I decided to use the magic of Google, and pictured here are the results. Based on Amy's impartial analysis, I'd say they were pretty good! We almost had the fries finished before the leftover brats were warmed up. These turned out quite a bit better than the last batch I attempted. The secret? I am better at baking "fries" than I am at frying them...

Later on tonight I noticed some bananas sitting on the counter getting along in age and thought "smoothies!" Then I wondered how I would go about making banana smoothies with yogurt and ice, so I Googled "banana yogurt ice smoothies" and bam! Instant recipe. Amy added the brilliant suggestion of tossing in some peanut butter, and a few minutes of quality blending time later we were sipping some tasty banana-peanut-butter-yogurt-ice smoothies!

How did the world get along before Google?

Project 365 Day 249: Spooky Tree

There have been many signs of Fall lately, one of which was this somewhat scary face we noticed on a tree while out for a walk tonight. It looks like the tree is getting ready for Halloween, and it's not the only one. We saw that the Halloween Boutique has reopened their seasonal store in the old Sears space at the mall.

Aside from premature Halloween preparations, the temperatures lately have also seemed Fall-like, starting last Thursday. It was an appropriate time to start the lower temperature trend since that night also marked the kickoff of the college football Fall tradition, including ISU's opener.

Fall is in the air! Do I need to gas up the snowblower yet?

Project 365 Day 248: Tree in a Glass

We spent part of our Labor Day weekend Sunday getting some more landscaping work done outside, turning the soil over, mixing in some peat moss, and planting the latest batch of flowers and plants that have been donated to us. With that accomplishment out of the way, we spent the evening indoors, catching up on our Netflix subscription movie and feeding our craving for some late-night munchies. We fended off the urge to order some late night Jimmy John's or Pizza Pit sandwiches, and instead I whipped up a quick batch of one of our favorite meals, avocado and crab.

Once the movie and meal were finished, I decided to use the leftover avocado pit to try our hand at growing an avocado tree. Apparently it's fairly easy to get one started, and this picture shows our first attempt, started tonight. If things go according to plan, the roots will come out the bottom in the water, the stem will shoot up out the top, and eventually we can move to a pot. While we may never get a tree that produces edible avocado fruit, it'll still be neat if we can just get a tree that survives indoors and looks nice!

Project 365 Day 247: Fruitland

Did you know there is a town in Iowa called Fruitland? Me neither! Turns out the southeastern part of the state is known for producing some tasty fruit. We learned all this through the process of attending my aunt's wedding reception at her husband's backyard in the land of fruit known as Fruitland, IA. We had some great food and enjoyed catching up with family while celebrating the nuptials.

We were the first to arrive at the reception site and got this prime parking spot next to a 70's era Monte Carlo.

Speaking of relics from the past, Terry Branstad is running as the Republican nomination for governor of Iowa (see what I did there?), and we are having a hard time getting excited about voting for either him or Democrat incumbent Chet Culver. We recently looked into who else is in the race this year, and found some interesting info about Jonathan Narcisse (Iowa Party) and Eric Cooper (Libertarian Party). As it happened, we stopped at the Hardee's in Mt. Vernon for a quick lunch break on the way to the reception, and sat down at a booth near Mr. Narcisse himself, who appeared to be meeting with a campaign assistant. Eventually he walked around to introduce himself to the patrons in the restaurant, and we let him know that we knew who he was and were glad that he was running as an alternative to the main parties. He also spent some time in Washington, DC, and we chatted for a bit about this shared experience.

Hopefully the third-party candidates can at least help make this year's race a little more interesting, and who knows, the conditions certainly seem good for a third-party candidate to be a viable contender!

Project 365 Day 246: Supersavers

When we lived in DC we used to order Supersaver movie passes online, which you had to do in bulk, 20 or 40 at a time, but which also saved us 2-3 bucks off the standard movie fare. Prices were already extra high there, around $10.50 I think, so we at least felt a little better about going to a show when we were paying a slightly more reasonable rate.

Once we moved back to Ames last summer we decided to do the same thing, and ordered a big batch of discounted tickets for the local Cinemark chain of theaters. After we got the tickets, however, we realized that we were only saving 50 cents or so per ticket, so we didn't feel like it was that great of a deal here. This, combined with other factors, like the busyness of life, led to less frequent movie-going.

Tonight I decided it would be a fine night to use up a few of our vouchers, and convinced Amy to go to Scott Pilgrim vs The World with me. It was a great movie for someone like me, a child of 80's and 90's video game culture, as the movie itself was basically one giant video game. With modern special effects, and a quick sense of humor directed by the same guy who did the movie Hot Fuzz, I really enjoyed it. There was even a Seinfeld-Kramer-walking-through-a-door-to-great-applause reference for the non-gamers.

I think Amy got slightly less enjoyment out of it, but I did hear her chuckle a few times, so I'd say it was a good all around experience!

Project 365 Day 245: Gameday

When we arrived at our seats, the sun was still showing brightly directly across the field, just above the top row of seats. The first few plays of Iowa State's 2010 football season had already been completed, and it wasn't long after we sat down that we saw ISU score it's first touchdown of the season!

And then we found out that we had actually just seen ISU's first touchdown-called-back-due-to-a-penalty of the season. The drive ended with a missed field goal, so the game was off to a rough start, but eventually the Cyclones got things going against Northern Illinois University. Once the sun went down during the first quarter, we could finally stop squinting to see the game, and a little later on I took this picture.

The game stayed relatively interesting up until the last 10 minutes when ISU ran up the score a little, but overall it was a great night out and good to see us win the first game. I also discovered a dirty little secret about Jack Trice Stadium's foot-long corn dog vendor; the foot-long corn dog is actually made up of two regular hot dogs end-to-end inside the fried batter. I felt like I was missing out on a little hot dog meat there in the middle where the rounded come together.

On the other hand, I think a foot-long amount of any food covered in fried batter is probably more than enough... my stomach thinks so too.

Project 365 Day 244: Fundraising Frenzy

It is school fundraiser time again, as we were reminded tonight by a visit from some friendly neighbor children. We have a hard time resisting their sales pitch (especially since they, and not their parents, gave it), and here you can see our notes on the useful items we signed up for, and the checkbook we used to pay for them. Amy and I were both reminded of various fundraising activities from our younger school days as well, and it's funny to now realize that we're on the opposite end of the transaction.

Now, I just have to hope those kids will sell enough to get the remote control UFO toy prize, and that they'll keep their promise to invite me over to play with it! show them how it works.