Project 365 Day 294: Study Night

Amy's next test for her Ethics in Politics course is coming up Monday, and she is busy working on the regular weekly assignments as well as studying for the test. Here is a picture of her reading assignment for tonight, and it seems like a timely subject with the recent history of the health care law and the upcoming elections.

And in case you are wondering, as I was, whether those underlinings were already in the book when Amy bought it, they are in fact her own. Ye who seek proof of her studyin', look no further!

Project 365 Day 293: Backyard Ball Game

Many days when Amy or I look out our South-facing window from the living room, we are entertained by the neighbor kids playing in their backyard or on the walking path. Today when I looked out, I saw the aftermath of what must have been an epic game involving every ball on the block! Too bad we missed the main event.

Project 365 Day 292: Avocado Update

Today's picture is a simple Avocado status update report. The root has continued to grow and fork in the past few weeks, and though you cannot see it in this picture, I believe the stalk is working its way towards the top, based on what I can see through the crack in the avocado pit. Maybe by Christmas we'll be seeing some foliage!

Project 365 Day 291: Bulbs Ahoy!

While waiting for dinner to bake in the oven tonight, Amy and I used our newfangled bulb planter (pictured here on the left) to put a bunch of tulip, iris, and daffodil bulbs we had accumulated in the ground. The bulb planter is really just a mini-post-hole-digger I suppose, except this one does not have a mechanism to release the dirt that gets trapped inside the cylinder. Couple this with some of our clay-rich soil near the house, and it's clear that additional tools will be needed to get the dirt out of the planter.

Thus the weeder rod on the right side of the picture (that's what I'm going to call it anyway). Of the available rod-like items in the garage, it seemed the most well-suited for the task of pushing dirt out of the bulb-planter cylinder, though one could also say that the Iowa State Cyclones are the most well-suited football team in the city of Ames to beat the Oklahoma Sooners. Both scenarios may be factually accurate but that doesn't mean either one is going to work out so great...

Nevertheless I got the hang of scraping the dirt-clay out of the bulb planter, and we put some 50 bulbs in the ground before calling it a day and going in for our dinner. Next spring and summer should be interesting to watch what comes up!

Project 365 Day 290: Tree Walk

Friday as we were leaving to pick up Amy's sister and brother-in-law from the Des Moines airport, we noticed a number of new trees had been moved into the backyard trail area on our block, and were laying on the ground. Upon returning to Ames today we were pleasantly surprised to find that the trees had been planted all along the common area by the walking path that winds through everyone's backyards on our block. Suddenly we no longer feel as torn about whether we should plant a tree or two in our relatively small backyard, especially since we would also like to put in some raised-bed gardens next spring and want to make sure they'll have adequate sunlight.

This picture shows in the foreground the one tree that is directly behind our house on our side of the path. In the background are a variety of four more trees that were planted. There are even more that are not in the picture. All these trees should make the walking trail even more interesting and beautiful in the years and decades to come.

Project 365 Day 289: Serving Duty

The wedding reception for Amy's sister and brother-in-law went off without a hitch. The actual hitching occurred back in June in Washington state, and tonight the local family and friends (including some Midwestern out-of-towners) got together to celebrate. Amy was put on salad-serving duty, pictured here, and I was in charge of electronic photo album display and musical accompaniment. Fortunately, I got the preparation work out of the way ahead of time, and during the reception I basically just had to remember to click Play on the computer. After I completed my clicking duties, I then joined Amy as backup-salad-server. And a salad was never served any better than the job we did tonight.

High five!

Project 365 Day 288: Oline Limousine

Tomorrow Amy's parents are having a reception in Anamosa for her sister and brother-in-law, who got married in Washington state back in June. Amy's mom has been busy with preparations, but Amy and I may have had one of the most important jobs... getting the recently-weds from the Des Moines airport in central Iowa over to eastern Iowa, the land of Quaker Oats, Cornell College, and Grant Wood. On our journey we stopped at the McDonald's near Colfax for some food, and then about an hour later the driver (that would be me) needed to make a "comfort" stop and found another McDonald's near Williamsburg. As we stood in line to order some drinks in return for use of their facilities, I noticed that the restaurant was giving equal wall space to Iowa Hawkeye and Iowa State Cyclone gear, such as this ISU scarf. That's something special when you're outside a 30 mile range of Ames!

Project 365 Day 287: Ladder Tree

David Sedaris visited Ames tonight and we attended his very enjoyable talk at Stephen's auditorium. Amy has read many of his books, and I was familiar with some of his work from stories he has read on the radio on This American Life. His talk consisted of him reading from a number of books and stories he has written, interspersed with some commentary on those stories and other topics, and probably best of all, he read selections from his diary which mostly consisted of accounts from life on his book tours around the world. The audience, including ourselves, were laughing loudly and often.

Normally I would have posted a grainy, poorly lit photo of the stage at Stephen's for such an event as this, but because I forgot to do so, I instead asked Amy to take a picture of this ladder near a very small tree while we were in the drive through at McDonald's afterward.

I am not sure why that ladder is next to the tree, but I am sure David Sedaris could write a very humorous satirical take on life around it.

Project 365 Day 286: Dollar Pints

After I put in a little extra work time tonight, we decided to forego home-cookery and instead took a trip downtime to eat at our favorite (and only?) local brewpub, Olde Main. I knew they had recently tapped their seasonal batch of Horseman's Revenge pumpkin spice ale and was ready to try a pint. Little did we know that every Wednesday at Olde Main is one dollar pints night from 5pm to 2am! Perhaps we'll have to turn this into more of a weekly tradition...

Project 365 Day 285: Lint Trap

Replacement lint traps are surprisingly difficult to locate on the Internet. Observe the following facts:

1. We need a new lint trap (this photo should provide sufficient evidence)
2. We went to Lowe's, which sells our model of dryer, asked an employee about replacement filters, and got a card from him pointing us to the lowes.partsquik.com website, which he told us would provide access to "a warehouse full of replacement parts"
3. I located both our dryer model number as well as the specific lint trap part number
4. Inputting either the dryer model number or lint trap part number into the website's search form yielded no matches
5. Inputting the dryer model number or lint trap part number into Google yielded only a couple of links to websites with Chinese characters
6. Inputting the same numbers into www.whirlpoolpartsonline.com (the "official" Whirlpool parts site) also came up empty

Of the above, fact (5) is the most surprising to me. I have often found that no matter what I'm looking for, if I type it into Google, I will find it. Not this time!

I finally gave up and tried searching for more generic phrases like "Whirlpool dryer lint trap" which eventually led me to what I assume is a replacement part with a different model number on amazon.com. Hopefully the dryer appliance companies are not so evil that they would conspire to create multiple hexagonal lint trap parts that are not interchangeable.

We shall see.

UPDATE: See how this turned out here!

Project 365 Day 284: Fall on Campus

Today I took advantage of my day off (thank you company I work for, for taking all federal government holidays off, including Columbus day!) by meeting Amy for lunch at Planet Sub, and then walking around campus for a few hours, taking pictures of the fall colors. I got a lot of photos, which I will upload at some point, but I thought this one captured the scenery well. This tree with red leaves is in front of the Armory building.

Walking around campus always makes me a little nostalgic for the days of being a student, but it's also a great reminder of what a beautiful setting we have within a few miles of our house.

Project 365 Day 283: Laundry Day

Our laundry machines got a work out today. After a few weeks of us both being busy with work and Amy also with her class, the laundry situation had gotten to the point of needs-to-be-dealt-with. Four loads later, the hampers were empty, and all the clean clothes was folded and put away. While Amy handled most of the laundry duties, I put in some solid hours on kitchen and bathroom cleaning duty as well.

Maybe we should take a vacation until next weekend so as to not mess up our pristine household!

Project 365 Day 282: Walking Tacos and Stampeding Utes

After the ISU football team's big win last Saturday in a high-scoring game with Texas Tech, the Iowa State fan base started getting pretty excited about the prospects of a chance to take on the #10 ranked Utah Utes (yes, that really is their name) today. If we could score over 50 points against a Texas team, the logic went, then why couldn't we keep up with an allegedly good team from Utah that hadn't really played anyone of note on their schedule so far this season? Maybe this could be the biggest win in Paul Rhoads' short career at Iowa State!

As it turned out, it was the biggest something, but that something turned out to be the biggest amount of points scored by the opposing team in Ames at Jack Trice Stadium. ISU went down 68-27! Though Iowa State actually had the lead, 14-10, at the end of the first quarter, those points had as much to do with Utah giving us the ball and a short field on turnovers as it had to do with our offense scoring. Still, we had some hope as the second quarter began, but that was soon dashed when it became clear that Utah could move the ball at will, and we could not convert a third down all game long.

On the bright side, as the photo shows, we took in some Walking Tacos for dinner at the game, and they were delicious! Start with a single-serving bag of Doritos, cut off one long edge, fill with seasoned ground beef, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, taco sauce, and sour cream, and you have a party in your hand that you can eat with a fork!

Project 365 Day 281: Perkins After Legally Blonde

Amy's parents came over to Ames this afternoon so we could all go to Legally Blonde: The Musical, at Stephen's auditorium. It was a fun show that adhered pretty closely to the movie, though they threw in a few insignificant plot and scene differences to make things a tad bit more interesting. Afterwards we stopped at Perkins for caffeine and pie. Here you can see the coffee mugs Bob and I used. Hopefully we can get some sleep tonight. Iowa State has a big football game tomorrow that Amy and I need to be ready for to cheer on the good guys!

Project 365 Day 280: Babar Times Two

One activity I enjoy in my spare time is playing around with my guitars. And because I'm also a computer geek, I have gotten into looping, whereby you put a computer between the guitar and speaker or amplier, and use it record and repeatedly playback different parts. Essentially you can accompany yourself. Lately I have found that one of the cables I was using had a short in it that would cause my guitar to cut out from time to time, so I figured it was time to get a new one. After dinner we headed downtown where there are a couple of music shops, one of which was still open, and I got some new cables. After finishing there, we walked around a little more, and happened across The Pumpkin Patch, which is the kind of toy store I imagine I would have been completely fascinated by back in my single-digit years.

Of course that doesn't mean I can't be fascinated by it now that my years have two digits and start with a 3! They had a lot of neat Halloween things on display, and the walls and tables are packed with toys, most of which are high quality too. Near the back in the children's books area I saw these two stuffed Babar animals looking down from the top of a bookshelf. If they could talk I bet they could tell some funny stories about the kids they've seen.

Project 365 Day 279: Roman's Numeral

Tonight we returned to the Globalization lecture series at the Howe Hall auditorium on campus to see Christine Romans, an ISU alum and host and correspondent on a handful of shows on CNN. She is an economy specialist, and started out with one of her "Roman's Numeral" tidbits. These are noteworthy statistics she talks about on CNN, and tonight she discussed the fact that currently, on average, there are 5.5 applicants for every available job. She related a lot of her talk to the college-aged students in the classroom, and listening as "professional adults" (that still sounds weird), we were certainly glad to have our current jobs.

Project 365 Day 278: Dr. Politics

While at the mall after another walk in some gorgeous Fall weather tonight I saw this advertisement in the hallway and it reminded me that Amy may be taking a class from Dr. Politics himself, Steffen Schmidt, next semester. I knew he had a good reputation in the world of Political Science, and learned from the advertisement that he has written a successful textbook used at many academic institutions.

Good professors, entertaining sports, and a beautiful campus. Three reasons why we're happy to be back in Ames.

Project 365 Day 277: Crock Pot Plans

We had grand plans to get some crock pot cooking started this morning, with a chicken-and-potato recipe from the pictured book that we've made before. Unfortunately work and weekend-wind-down caught up with us and we didn't get around to making the preparations Sunday night or Monday morning. However, since I have nearly almost completely (technical term) finished the current phase of a big work project, we decided to celebrate with a trip to the always-excellent Valentino's Italian buffet. It's about a two mile walk from our house, and with the weather cooperating we decided to work off the meal both before and after.

So, as I get ready for bed, this crock pot book stands guard on my nightstand, at the ready to make sure I do not overdo the snooze button in the morning and do not forget about our crock pot plans again!

Project 365 Day 276: Qdoba

Last summer shortly after we moved back to Ames, we noticed a Qdoba Mexican fast food restaurant going up on S. Duff Ave, and thought it funny because we had first experienced its burrito goodness while living in DC. So it seemed like they had decided to follow us to Iowa, though I didn't think we were good enough customers to warrant it...

Despite knowing that we liked their food, it took us over a year before we finally stopped in the local restaurant today to see how they compared. It's definitely a national chain; the food and decor were pretty much identical to what we had in DC, but that's not a bad thing. Sometimes it's nice to know what you're getting, as long as you're getting something decent.

While we have to go with the local Fighting Burrito (formerly known as the Flying Burrito) for our numero uno burrito stop, it's nice to have another option in town!

Project365 Day 275: Barton Hall, Where It All Began

For non-season-ticket-holders, we sure act like ones! Tonight we made it to our fifth straight Iowa State football game of the season (if you haven't been counting, there have only been five games this season so far). This game was against Texas Tech, and to the amazement of many, myself included, the Cyclones managed to win in a high-scoring shootout, 52-38.

We parked on campus and walked by our stomping grounds at Barton Hall, pictured here, on our way to the stadium. This is where I met Amy when we were both freshmen in the fall of 1998, and we have many great memories (and probably other ones too) of friends, homework, movies, video games, weekly house meetings, dork and angel awards, etc. College was a great time in our lives, and it's nice to get a little rush of nostalgia whenever we happen to be in this area of campus.

Project 365 Day 274: Halloween Tomato

Technically, I picked this tomato yesterday, in September, but it seemed much more appropriate to wait until October to post it here. This tomato is literally unaltered from the its moment of vine separation, save for roughly 24 hours of indoor ripening. Hopefully this tomato, like our recently-cracked-open avocado pit, does not attack us in the middle of the night. I think I should probably be more worried about this tomato...

If I let it sit on the counter until the end of the month, we'll have something really scary to show the trick-or-treaters!

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!