Project 365 Day 334: Tree Number Two

We have been enjoying our Christmas tree and other decorations around the main floor of our house since this past weekend, but I realized that the basement was nowhere near festive enough. Luckily, we have a few smaller artificial trees from our days of apartment living, and tonight I set this one up right next to my office desk. It features a string of multicolored lights, as well as an abundance of traditional and Star Trek/Star Wars themed ornaments.

Oline Christmas Ornament Trivia

Question: What ornament on this tree features the likeness of a character from a Star Trek television series who was played by an actor whom we saw perform live in a Shakespeare play during our first year in Washington, DC, back in 2005?

Answer: The character is Benjamin Sisko, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, played by Avery Brooks. We saw him perform as the title character in Othello at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh Theatre in Washington, DC during the fall of 2005.

His ornament is a bit difficult to find in this picture as it blends into the tree. It is on the lower left portion, directly below the Yoda ornament, and to the left of the guitar ornament.

Here he is as the Benjamin Sisko character:

Project 365 Day 333: Basement Rearrangement

After working in my home office in our unfinished basement for the past year in locations that were about as far from natural light as possible, I decided to take advantage of the cleaning and space clearing we did for Thanksgiving to rearrange things and move my desk to a corner next to a window. While I initiated this effort yesterday, it continued today with cleaning of shelves and moving our music stuff (guitars, keyboard, music laptop) to the space formerly occupied by my office.

I think I've finally got the ideal set up figured out! This arrangement should satisfy my hunger for moving furniture around for a few months...

Project 365 Day 332: Hanging of Stockings

As we do not have a fireplace or mantle in our house, we have had to find alternatives for hanging these Christmas stockings that Amy's mom made for us. Last year we hung them on the wall in the living room, and this year we decided to put them on what I like to call The Ledge. It is a small shelf just above the stairs going down to the basement, about 10 feet up, which would be nearly impossible to reach without aid of a ladder, unless you happen to be a cat or a fearless gymnastics-inclined 3 year old (just guessing on both, please do not call Child/Cat Protective Services!).

Despite our lack of a chimney and fireplace, we do have an abundance of vents for various purposes on the roof and side of our house, and I am confident that Santa will find a way to get some presents into the designated locations.

Project 365 Day 331: Tree Rescue Squad

We felt pretty good about ourselves last night, having gotten the tree in the house, strung with lights, and decorated, all on the day after Thanksgiving, with the help of Amy's parents. This morning we discovered a slight issue, in that the water bucket had cracked about halfway down the side. Yesterday the bucket was only somewhat deformed due to a couple of lower branches that I figured didn't need to be removed, but this morning realized they probably should have been... luckily Amy's parents were still here, and with their help (again) we were able to raise the tree, now fully unfurled and decorated, out of the busted bucket so I could saw off the troublesome branches, and then lower it into a different bucket that we found from last year.

The tree and bucket are still in good shape this evening, and hopefully they will remain so until we take the tree down after Christmas!

And finally, happy birthday Mom!

Project 365 Day 330: Christmas Tree Harvest

For the second straight year we made a visit to the Strautman Tree Farm just outside of Ames to get a real Christmas Tree. Last year was interesting when we had to figure out how to get the tree to fit in our Ford Fusion (thank goodness for fold down seats in the back), but this year we had the assistance of Amy's parents and their truck, which made tree transportation much easier!

Project 365 Day 329: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came and went for the second time in our new home with family over for the festivities. Here is a picture of our basement after the many tables, chairs, and participants left, their stomachs full of turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, and PIE! Once again it was a great day to visit with everyone, and we're looking forward to consuming leftovers and enjoying our neat and tidy basement in the weeks ahead.

Project 365 Day 328: I-State Crew

With our Thanksgiving preparations mostly finished we took a break for dinner and then went to the Iowa State men's basketball game against Kennesaw State from Georgia. After Iowa State's nail biter of a win over Creighton (and former ISU coach Greg McDermott) on Sunday, this game had the potential to be a bit of letdown for the team, but they came out strong and finished strong, winning 91-51. I noted an interesting statistic while reading my tweets after the game from Randy Peterson of the Des Moines Register. Freshman Melvin Ejim has scored 10 or more points in the first five games of his collegiate career at Iowa State. Another former player who did the same: current coach Fred Hoiberg.

Janice snapped this photo of three Iowa State alumni who happened to be in attendance after we got back home from the game. We're looking forward to a crowded house for Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Project 365 Day 327: Ready to Roast

Amy's parents arrived tonight with their roaster in tow, and tomorrow we'll get ready for hosting the big meal on Thursday. Of course, after having a tasty (as usual) meal at Hickory Park, maybe we should think about just relocating everyone there for Thanksgiving...

Nah! Hickory Park is good, but nothing can compete with a Thanksgiving feast consisting of everyone's home-cooked goodies.

Project 365 Day 326: Recycling at Home

Here's a new way to recycle beer bottles before they've ever been opened. Amy knitted this lovely hat, and she put four unopened bottles of Olde Main's Off Kilter Scottish Ale (brewed locally!) together to "block" it, which I understand is fancy-knitter-speak for stretching something out. Those knitters and their words...

I've got a fancy word and I bet it's never been used before.

Pre-cycling.

Pure gold. I bet that makes Oxford Dictionary's next list of new words, let's get an Internet campaign going for it.

Project 365 Day 325: Chiefs Vs. Cardinals

We left Ames early this morning to drive down to Kansas City and meet Amy's aunt for our first NFL game, featuring the Chiefs at home against the Arizona Cardinals. It was fun to be at the game with a big crowd and fast-paced action on the field. I wish we could steal a couple of the receivers out there today for Iowa State to use next season! We had seats in the fifth row behind one of the end zones, which was great when the teams were near, but left us watching the far side video board for other parts of the game. We also had a good view of KC Wolf, the mascot who looks like he could stand to lose a few pounds around his mid-section. He had a humorous prank that involved setting a box of donuts on the field next to the security workers and police staff, and then yanking on an attached string a little to see if they would bite. Stereotypes can be funny!

Project 365 Day 324: Cyclone Gear

Today was Iowa State's final football game of the regular season against Missouri, and it was the first real chilly game of the football season. We decided to go and see the seniors in their last game, as well as cheer the Cyclones on for their last chance at six wins and a chance to go to a bowl game.

Given the winter temperatures, we decided to stock up on a few extra pieces of Cyclone gear today, pictured here. The blanket and hats (and thermal underwear, not pictured) were helpful in raising our body temperature a few degrees, but unfortunately the football team was not able to warm our blood a little more with any scoring. While the defense played reasonably well against a tough Missouri team and the offense was able to move the ball, we couldn't put it in the end zone or through the uprights. Missouri won 14-0.

It was still a fun season, and great to see Iowa State in so many games. Paul Rhoads has things on the right track in Ames, and hopefully future seasons will be just as gripping, with a few more games going our way.

Project 365 Day 323: Fall Cleaning

With our second attempt at hosting Thanksgiving coming up next week, we are in our annual Fall cleaning mode. Among other things, we have collected this plastic tub of clothes, books, and movies to take to Goodwill tomorrow. I will probably do our semi-annual vacuuming of the house this weekend. Maybe we'll even dust!

Project 365 Day 322: L.I.A.R.S.

While hanging out at Cafe Diem tonight for some studying (Amy) and working (Adam), I spied this piece of artwork hanging on the wall, and upon seeing the slogan "All Men Are Liars" I thought, "Hmph. That is quite a generalization, and ironically, a lie itself!"

Unless you count things like when I lie to myself that I'm going to get out of bed immediately in the morning when the alarm goes off. Then perhaps it is true. Somehow I'm guessing that's not what the artist was getting at.

Then I thought changing the meaning of the word liar in this context might be a solution. So let us tweak the phrase to "All Men Are L.I.A.R.S." and then check this out:

Lovely In Argyle Red Sweaters

(Thanks for the random sweater picture, Google!)

Project 365 Day 321: Hoiberg Still Undefeated

Fred Hoiberg still has the magic touch. After three contests his ISU Men's Basketball team is 3-0. Now maybe it's still a little early to judge, after all the team isn't exactly playing the likes of Duke or Kansas, (or Baylor even), but tonight was his first in-state rivalry game against the Drake Bulldogs, a team that has had success against the Cyclones in recent years. We blew them out completely, 91-43, thanks to our high scoring run-and-gun offense and some salty defense throughout the game. While Drake may be having a down year anyway, these games are still showing us some good stuff with regard to style of play, hustle, and the potential of this team. Things are looking bright! Once we get into the tougher part of our non-conference schedule, including a game with California and an away game at Virginia, we'll learn a little bit more.

The player of the night was Scott Christopherson. He literally brought his A+ game, as the following statistics show:

	Attempted	Made
Field Goals	11	11
Three Pointers	5	5
Free Throws	2	2
Total Points	29

When Scotty left the game, he had one more point than the entire Drake team had scored!

Win or lose, we're looking forward to more entertaining basketball games this year.

Up next: Creighton at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines this Sunday, led by none other than the previous ISU coach, Greg McDermott. We won't be able to make this one, but I'm hoping for a similar outcome as tonight's game.

Project 365 Day 320: Dahlia In Bloom

Our dahlia flower that spent the summer out on the deck in a small pot fooled us into thinking we had killed it sometime around August. We never got around to disposing of the dead (so we thought) plant matter, and after another month had passed we were surprised and pleased to see that some new green growth had started sprouting. We continued watering it weekly, and eventually brought it inside to our living room window-side table to put it next to our other indoor plants. The growth continued, and in the last few days the first flower from the reborn plant has blossomed, as shown here. Will wonders never cease!

Project 365 Day 319: DirecTV Downsizing

Now that there will be no more Iowa State football games on the Fox College Sports network of obscure DirecTV channels in the 600 range that I will need to watch this season (we are planning to go to this Saturday's final game in Ames against Missouri), I decided tonight would be a good time to call up my friendly DirecTV customer service robot and try to remove the sports package we're paying extra for. In fact, we've been paying extra for it for over a year since last fall, when I realized we would need to order it the day of the ISU - Iowa game so we could watch from home with my parents who were over for a visit. I've watched all of two away games on it since then.

And while I was at it, the time also seemed right to cancel the Showtime promotional package that we never use and which is now also costing us a little extra on each month's bill. Of course DirecTV makes it impossible (or at least, too hard for me) to cancel any service from their web site. After calling customer service and convincing the automated system that I wanted to reduce service (not "Add HBO" as it proposed in its sample voice command), I was not surprised to be transferred to a human Salesperson Customer Representative.

Fortunately, my days as a telefundraiser during my first summer break from college taught me the trick of surviving most simple phone-based sales interactions, which I shall refer to as The Three Strikes Rule. It basically amounts to holding your ground while the teenager on the other end of the line goes through his or her scripted questions to ensure that their supervisor does not yell at them later on for skipping any steps during their quality assurance reviews of the phone call recordings (yes, this happened to me).

Our conversation tonight went something like this:

Me: I would like to request a change to my service plan which will save me money and also hurt your company's bottom line.

Customer Representative: Oh, I am sorry to hear that, any particular reason why?

Me: I would like to stop paying extra for something I am not using. Strrrrrrrike One!

Customer Representative: Well, we can offer you a reduced premium deal for six months to keep your current package, in hopes that you'll be too lazy to call and cancel again for a few more months after the cost reverts to the normal pricing scheme.

Me: No thanks. Strrrrrrrike Two!

Customer Representative: Very good. We can also offer you a special deal on some other services that you didn't even ask for. Two for one special, a very good deal!

Me: No thanks. Strrrrrrrike Three!

Customer Representative: Ok then, one moment and I will make the changes you requested.

Me: Thank you. Yerrrrrr Outta Here!

And now I am saving $24 a month and the employee on the other end can clock out and go home to play X-Box 360. We both live happily ever after.

Project 365 Day 318: Pep Band Gets Peppy

Today was our second Iowa State Men's Basketball game of the regular season. It was a fairly sparse crowd, student section included, but that's not too surprising given that it was a Sunday afternoon and the game was not expected to be close. It wasn't, as Iowa State won without any real challenge, 74-47. We continue to be excited about the up-tempo style of play, and hopefully the numerous newcomers to the team this year will continue to gel and play well together.

The pep band was there in full force, as they are for every men's and women's game, and they added their usual spiciness to the mix. Along with the music, they also bring out some trademarked chants when the opposing team is shooting free throws, like yelling "the ball is bigger than the basket", or singing "You're not gonna make it" to the tune of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It." And finally, perhaps most off the wall, they occasionally chant "Block that kick! Block that kick!"

I love ISU basketball!

Project 365 Day 317: Netbook Consulting

I am always glad to help advise someone in the way of spending money on computers, and today I enjoyed helping Amy's mom Janice choose a netbook (i.e. a very small notebook computer). We stopped by Walmart and had a pretty easy time choosing the better of two models they had on display, after which we retreated to Borders where I spent some time getting it set up while sipping coffee in the cafe. Here you see a picture of the backside of the netbook, framed by Amy and her mom's arms and hands, and now I realize that the color of the netbook matches the stone in Amy's engagement ring I "helped pick out" oh so many years ago.

After our earlier supper had settled, we then made our way to Perkins for pie, and the slick-talking waiter convinced me to pay the extra three bucks to get a whole pumpkin pie after Janice and I each ordered individual slices. It's hard to argue with logic, and logic said that three bucks would get me an extra four slices to take home. How could I pass that up!?

I would not be surprised if our waiter works at the used car lot down the street as a second job...

Project 365 Day 316: Coach Hoiberg's Official Debut

Fred Hoiberg made his first official appearance as Iowa State's head coach of Men's Basketball tonight against Northern Arizona, and Amy's mom joined us at the game while her dad is away on a hunting trip. We got a preview of Hoiberg and his team in last Friday's exhibition match against University of Dubuque, but this was the first game that counts, and I'm happy to say that Fred Hoiberg is still undefeated in his very young coaching career. Amazingly, two Iowa State players scored all of the team's points in the first half, Diante Garrett and Jamie Vanderbeken, many of them on three pointers.

Most people aren't expecting much from this year's team due to the loss of players after the coaching change and having a lot of young players on the team now, but hopefully they'll grow together quickly and give us some exciting basketball to watch for the remainder of the season.

Project 365 Day 315: Car Checkup

I took advantage of a slow work day to get the Ford Fusion over to Ankeny for a changing of oil and other fluids, working from my laptop in the customer area while waiting. 17,000 miles down, 183,000 miles to go (at least)!

Project 365 Day 314: Basement: To DIY Or Not To DIY

As you may know, we enjoy our home very much and have been making reasonable use of our unfinished basement. After throwing down ten or so area rugs it's made for a very serviceable home office/music room/entertainment area/storage space. However, we have still been planning to finish the basement at some point, once we have the funds saved up and are ready for the associated disarray.

Whenever I mention our plans to someone and they ask if we're going to do it ourselves, that usually means the person asking has done one or more basements themselves and consider it to be pretty easy. As we have never done a basement, I feel that we probably need to gather more information before deciding if it's something we're willing and able to take on. So, along with Googling for some info online, I also decided to pick up a book on the subject at the public library (pictured here). I think we'll be in the information consumption and percolation stage for a while.

Project 365 Day 313: Legendary Lunch

This picture may not appear to have anything to do with lunch, but in fact it had everything to do with lunch today. You see, today my boss and I had a working lunch at Legends restaurant in Ames with its spectacular seventh floor view of campus (that qualifies as high rise in Ames), during which we ate lunch, followed by activities involving pens and papers. Said pens and papers were concealed in this carrying device. I can disclose no further details other than the tortilla soup was excellent.

Project 365 Day 312: Beverage Sampling

We made a trip down to Des Moines' Court Avenue Brewing Company brewpub for dinner and a sampling of some fine local brews. Here you can see the official sampler of all their current beers from light on the near bottom end to dark on the far end at the top. It appears that we had already finished off one in the middle.

Of course this was followed up with a short walk to El Bait Shop to see their wall-o-taps. We made sure to get back to the house in time to catch Conan's debut on TBS at 10pm local time however. It's good to have the funny man with the red hair back on TV!

Project 365 Day 311: Iowa Tour

We made the rounds of Eastern Iowa today with my boss Alfredo to visit our families, including a stop in Cedar Rapids to meet Amy's parents for lunch at Granite City and to drive around town and through the still-recovering-from-the-flood Czech Village historic district. Then we were off to Independence to visit my parents and grandparents and some other family at a birthday party. First we stopped at the Heartland Acres Agribition Center to check out the gift shop and exhibits, including a temporary exhibit of the largest tractor in the world, Big Bud! The Williams brothers from Montana who own the tractor just happened to be there as well signing shirts, calendars, and scale replicas, and as we about to head out to my cousin's twelfth birthday party, we picked up a puzzle featuring various photos of the tractor, and were happy to get their autographs on the box as part of his gift.

As we ate some great food and awesome cake and pie at the party, we enjoyed hearing stories from my dad and his brothers about their escapades in their younger days, as well as my grandmother's take on it all. I may have to start writing these stories down for preservation!

Project 365 Day 310: Football Bonanza

My boss visited us again from the East Coast by way of his Beechcraft Bonanza private plane. This picture shows the plane having just landed as he is coming in to find a parking spot. Work, along with a little football, brought him in for a visit. Today marked the last time Iowa State plays Nebraska in a conference football game, as next year Nebraska is defecting to the Big 10 due to the enticement of the lucrative equal revenue sharing contract from the Big 10 Network.

It turned out to be a great game which went to overtime tied 24-24. Nebraska was ranked coming into the game and Iowa State was a fairly heavy underdog according to the oddsmakers. The Cyclones were ready for the game however, and ended up battling back from a 24-10 deficit going into the fourth quarter. The team showed resilience, a trait that has been lacking in the past under previous coaching staffs. After Nebraska scored a touchdown with the kick for the point after on the first possession of overtime, Iowa State had their chance to tie or win. Iowa State put the ball in the end zone for six points and then lined up for the point after.

Except instead of kicking the point to tie, they went for the kill and tried a fake kick that was really a pass. The receiver was wide open, but the ball holder who needed to loft the 5 yard pass for the win under threw it (or maybe the wind caught it), and it fell short and incomplete near a Nebraska defender. Iowa State lost a nail biter, 30-31.

It was a game for the ages, and while it was disappointing to be on the losing side, it was also awesome to see Paul Rhoads and his staff have the team ready for a tough, ranked opponent and keep everything together to have the opportunity to win it on the last play in overtime. Many people though the Cyclones would get blown out.

This close of a game against Nebraska is another good sign for the future of Iowa State football. Hopefully the Cyclones (and tailgating) will give my boss many reasons to come back to Ames in the future!

Project 365 Day 309: Hoiberg Debut

Tonight we made it to Hilton Coliseum for Fred Hoiberg's unofficial first game as head coach of the Iowa State men's basketball team, and we are happy to report that he is still undefeated! They beat the visiting team from the University of Dubuque by a score of 100 to 50. It was an exhibition game, so the results don't count officially, but it was neat to be there to see him coach his first game, to see what style the team would play, and to see what our view will be like from our season ticket seats this year.

I will further expand my thoughts in a numbered list:

1. It was awesome to be at Fred's first game in Hilton as head coach. I hope someday 30 years or more from now we are looking back at his long historic run as head coach of the Cyclones where he rebuilt them into a national power and get to remember being there when it started.
2. The team played up tempo run-and-gun style, especially during the first half. It should be a fun team to watch throughout the season, even if they struggle against quality competition in the Big 12. And as opposed to what we saw last year, this team can actually make free throws!
3. The view is pictured above. I've always felt like there are no bad seats in Hilton, though I'm sure being closer to the floor is a blast. These seats seemed like a bargain at $99 for the season. That comes out to something under $5 a game if we make it to all of them.

It was a fun night, and we're looking forward to attending Fred's first game that counts as head coach a week from tonight!

Project 365 Day 308: Twitter

Lately I have found myself trying to explain what Twitter is and what it's good for to people who don't use it, and I understand that it's not obvious. I never quite understood what good it was either before I started using it. All I knew was that celebrities like Ashton Kutcher used Twitter to let everyone know what they had for dinner last night and other terribly important announcements.

When Conan O'Brien had his brief stint as host of The Tonight Show, he and his writers put this notion of celebrities posting useless updates to good comedic use by featuring a regular segment called Twitter Tracker in which actual Tweets (the short messages posted by people using Twitter) from celebrities about mundane everyday things were presented as if they were earth-shattering news items.

Since then I have become a regular Twitter user, mostly using my account to follow what other people are Tweeting. I have discovered the utility of Twitter through the following experiences:

• By following Conan O'Brien, I got a daily dose of his brand of humor, and found out the minute tickets went on sale for his comedy tour last summer. We got tickets shortly before they sold out.
• By following various Iowa State University related accounts, including CycloneFanatic for sports information, I have learned about player, coach, and university news as soon as its available.
• When Ames experienced the latest round of flooding recently, I searched for "Ames Flood" on Twitter to get up-to-the-minute information from the city's official account, as well as local newspapers and residents, on things like road closures, availability of bottled water, and safety of the tap water.
• Today, when a seemingly random error message started appearing in the web browsers of users who access the web site I work on for my job, a quick Twitter search revealed that it was a Microsoft Internet Explorer problem affecting many people around the world.

The last example is related to today's picture. I took a photo of some of the relevant Tweets about the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 bug, which helped me avoid wasting hours of my time researching and troubleshooting a problem that was not related to our code. I tried searching on Google for the same information, but at the time no news websites, blogs, or other "normal" publishing sites had any information about the problem, including Microsoft's official websites. Twitter helped me be more efficient at my job today.

So in summary, Twitter is useful to me because information on any subject can be published by anyone around the world, and I can search through that information in real-time. Like the rest of the Internet, the barrier to entry is very low, so that means there is a lot of information of varying degrees of value to sift through, but search makes it easy to zero in on specific topics. Since each individual Tweet is short (140 letters), it's easy to scan through many messages looking for something of value.

I won't be posting hourly updates on my daily activities on Twitter though, since I haven't quite reached celebrity status yet, so if you want to know what I had for dinner last night, you'll have to go the old fashioned route. Send me an email.

Project 365 Day 307: State Pride

The University Book Store had a sale this past week on Iowa State clothing, and Amy picked up some new shirts for us, including this one. The "Proud To Be One" slogan was chosen for this year's football season, and with the recent win over Texas a few weeks ago, it definitely rings true! Hopefully this Saturday's game with Nebraska will give us one more reason to be proud.

Project 365 Day 306: Test Number Two

After Amy took her second exam in her Ethics in Politics class last week, she told me she didn't feel as good about it as she did after the first exam. The tests consist of a handful of multiple choice questions, plus an essay question that makes up the majority of the points. The professor helps the students prepare, to a degree, by giving them six possible essay questions that could appear on the test ahead of time, then on the day of the exam he randomly picks two questions, and the students can choose which of the two they want to answer. Tricky!

Today Amy got the results back, and she actually did better (and she did pretty good on the first one)! Since she just saw her score online and doesn't actually get the physical test back until later, I created this certificate in honor of her achievement and clipped it to the fridge.

I may have to schedule a spouse-teacher conference with the professor to discuss the three points she lost out of 100 possible. I know my Amy, and I'm sure she should have only lost a half point at most!

Oh, and we also voted today. That's my sticker in the lower left.

Project 365 Day 305: Sarah Vowell

We made the short drive to Des Moines tonight for our second event in the Iowa Public Radio Insight Series. Sarah Vowell was the guest at the Hoyt Sherman Place, which is a very nice and ornate auditorium. The acoustical properties of the space seemed better suited to listening to someone speak when compared with listening to rock bands perform, which is what we did on our previous visit. Sarah gave a funny and interesting talk based around her writing about American history, including topics like the United States taking over Hawaii and other islands, exploring and mapping the uncharted territory of the west, and the Puritans of Massachusetts.

A bit of trivia from her introducation that I either did not know, or more likely, had known and then forgotten: Sarah Vowell voiced the character of Violet Parr, the shy teenage daughter in the animated Pixar movie The Incredibles.