UNI beat South Dakota by a score of 66-7 in this game. The crowd held UNI’s first blackout, and the team even bought special black uniforms to join in the fun. I was sadly away to my niece’s birthday party and unable to watch the game. However, my experience with the game was receiving text updates from a friend every time points were put on the board. It got pretty entertaining as the entire party was intrigued by how frequently my phone was alerting me with the next score update. I remember realizing it was halftime when I had not received any updates for five to ten minutes. This blog post really sucks, but the Panthers rock!
On Saturday, September 5th, 2009, the University of Northern Iowa lost to University of Iowa by a score of 16-17. It took the FBS team two blocked field goals in the final seven seconds to beat the FCS team. I was in the crowd that day. I must say that was one of the most enjoyable football games I have been to in my life, and I have been to a lot. Going into the game, my only concerns were that UNI did not have any major injuries. Being an Iowa and UNI fan, I was not too concerned with who won. Iowa winning might have been the best since it hardly effects UNI to lose to an FBS team.
Iowa was ranked #22 in the nation in the preseason. However, that was before a few season ending injuries to HB Jewell Hampton and CB Jordan Bernstine. Both of whom were to be key figures in the success of the Hawkeyes on the season. I felt like Iowa came out a little flat and might have slightly underestimated UNI. That being said, it is hard to say how much was bad play versus struggling against a quality team. Not to mention, there will always be the cobwebs and shaky play that come with the first game of the season.
I believe UNI was ranked #4 in the nation preseason in the FCS. While there were brief moments of questionable play, overall, the Panthers looked pretty sharp. They attacked Iowa on both sides of the ball. There was some luck in that Iowa was still trying to sort out who the primary ball carriers would be to setup the play-action for Stanzi “the Manzi.” One of the things I noticed early on was Billy Hallgren was kicking some line drive kickoffs. His extra points were not too high either. This did not surprise me as he always struggled during warm-ups last year, and I knew the kicking game would be a weakness for UNI this year after losing our starter from the 2008-2009 season. Perhaps the thing that surprised me the most was the ability of UNI’s linemen to compete in the trenches against Iowa. I thought this would be where the game was decided, and that UNI would simply be overmatched. I was wrong. Overall, I would call it a draw as was the game in most areas.
Ultimately, the game came down to a field goal with seven seconds left. I told Jessa to not be surprised to see a blocked kick. I knew Hallgren had been kicking low all game, and Iowa is one of the best teams in the nation at blocking critical field goals at the end of games. Everything screamed for an adrenaline surge up the middle of the formation with outstretched arms to deflect the ball. Amazingly, I was dead on. I was a little surprised to see one of the Iowa players telling everyone to get back from the ball, but did not have time enough to process the reasoning it was a bad move. UNI recovered the ball.
The referees gave UNI the ball on the right hash at the spot where the ball was located and with a stopped clock. My problem with the ruling of the referees is the stopped clock. When the ball does not cross the line of scrimmage on a field goal attempt, the ball is considered live. This means when a UNI player fell on the ball, it was as if they were attempting a running play or something similar. Since this player did not go out of bounds, the clock should have been started as soon as ruling was decided and the ball ready for play. There was only one second on the clock. This means the ball would have had to been snapped immediately upon the whistle signaling ready for play. This makes it more difficult for the kicker because he does not have the opportunity to wait until he is ready to have the ball snapped. On the other hand, the defense would have a little less time to get ready and organize their attempts to time the block. Normally, the upright defenders can get a jump on the snap by watching the backfield for the kicker and holder to signal their readiness for the snap. Considering the kick was blocked by Jeremiah Hunter, an upright defender, maybe the second kick would not have been blocked. It is hard to say either way. I just wish the referees would know the rules of college football better than a guy out in the stands. Maybe we should give them a phone call or a poll the audience lifeline…
The 4-3 defense in football is the premiere formation. It is by far the most common seen throughout all levels of play. The four implies there are four down defensive linemen (DL). The three designates the number of linebackers (LB). This leaves four defensive backs (DB). It is a common formation due to its great balance. There are enough people on the line to hold a run and also attack on pass plays. The linebackers are able to step up on the run and back off on passes. Meanwhile, there are enough defensive backs to prevent getting burned deep by fast receivers, but not too many that an offense can manhandle the defense by running the ball. It is a good base from which to adapt to alternative formations depending on the situation. Because of this, it is probably the best defense to teach younger kids who are just learning the game. It focuses on the fundamentals on which everything else builds.
So as I am watching the Green Bay Packers play against the Chicago Bears, a play got me thinking. Let me layout a hypothetical situation for you. Let us say the Packers have the ball on 3rd & 10. They hike the ball and throw to the sideline. The receiver makes a tip-toe catch for the first down. There is also an offsides penalty on the Bears. The Packers decline the penalty because they want the first down. Then the Bears challenge the catch in hopes the receiver was out of bounds. The referee reverses the call upon further review. Thus the pass is incomplete, and it becomes 4th & 10 for the Packers. Does this mean the Packers can now choose to accept the offsides penalty they had previously declined considering the supposed outcomes of their options have changed? Anyone know the exact rules on this? I am too lazy at the moment to go find the official rulebook and dig through it to find out.
For those that do not know, Michael Jordan is being inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame as I type this. He is being inducted along with John Stockton, David Robinson, Jerry Sloan, and Vivian Stringer. Beyond any doubt, this is the greatest Hall of Fame class as far as I am concerned. The reason no past class rivals it and I doubt any other will touch it is because these figures represent my childhood. I grew up to the greatness that is Michael Jordan. I recall watching the 1993 NBA Finals when I was only six years old.
Jordan retired to play baseball shortly thereafter when his father passed away. I followed him as best as I could with his limited career. He was on a Chicago White Sox farm team, Birmingham Barons. Perhaps the most resounding image of this time comes from the movie Space Jam along with a news clip on the television.
Then one day the world stopped to watch as Michael Jordan returned to the game of basketball. I had a cheap knockoff of his jersey. I wore it as much as I could as long as it would fit. I somehow convinced my parents to let me stay up way past my bedtime to watch the end of some of the epic games against John Stockton’s Utah Jazz in the 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals. The sixth championship ended with Jordan’s final shot as a Chicago Bull.
Jordan retired for the second time after the 1998 season. I lost interest in basketball as no one could rival the greatness of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990′s. There was a brief stint when he came out of retirement with the Washington Wizards. He was older than everybody else around him on the court, and yet, he still challenged his opposition night in and night out. After retiring for the final time as a player, Jordan was involved in the Charlotte Bobcats organization as a partial owner.
In looking back now that Jordan is being inducted into the Hall of Fame, I realize he is one of a few individuals who inspired me to give everything in an effort to be great. While I may not think about it consciously, I get up in the morning because of Michael Jordan. I have poured sweat playing sports because of him. I have passed out face first into textbooks late at night because of him. I sit here writing this blog post now because of him. We all have our role models growing up. Jordan stood on a pedestal with a select few others in my childhood.
This NBA Hall of Fame class is the greatest because it symbolizes Michael Jordan’s career. John Stockton and Jerry Sloan were the arch-nemeses as the Utah Jazz after Jordan’s return to the game of basketball. David Robinson was one of the greats in the league, but never met with the success he was capable of until Jordan retired. When I was watching perhaps my greatest role model growing up, these were the guys I saw facing him on the court. They were the sort of opponents one had to respect. This is the greatest NBA Hall of Fame class of all-time.
I realized a couple of days ago I am at the end of the last summer vacation of my life. I will graduate college in December and enter the working world. To get a day off, I will have to wait for a holiday, or use ever precious time off. Fortunately, I have spent this last week making the most of it.
Friday, August 14, was the last day of my summer internship. I had spent the last three summers working in IT for the same company. I changed teams after the first year, but only moved a couple cubicle rows down. In other words, I saw the same floor of coworkers every summer for three years. It was interesting as I was packing up to leave because it hit me that I will never work as a student employee again. Students are always treated a little differently than normal employees. In every job I have had, student employees have been at least mildly protected from some of the mind-numbing tasks every job entails. Instead, I have been allowed to pursue the job tasks that interested me the most. I have also been able to avoid some of the red tape and bureaucracy slowing down some of my other team members. When in doubt, the simple line, “I didn’t know. I am only an intern.” will go a long ways. The trick is using it in a way to benefit the team I worked with everyday. It is seen as taking the initiative to get a job done with other coworkers are being a bit stringent. I was taught this clever technique by one of my leaders my first summer who used to me to contact business associates for information while being unable to give it myself since I did not know any details in which they were interested. There is a possibility I return to the same company to begin my career, but it is still up in the air at this point. Coincidentally, “Broken” by Seether was the last song to play on Pandora before I shut my computer down for the last time. The lyrics can be found here.
My three summer internships meant a summer spent in a city separated from my hometown and college. It was a blast. My sister and her family lived nearby which resulted in lots of summer evenings grilling food and hanging out on their back deck. I had a few friends from high school in the area which I would meet up with on occasion. There was also tennis and videogames. Perhaps the best part of it all was getting out on my own. I am one of those people who gets claustrophobic when I am constantly around people. Moving to a city seems like it would be a problem, but it was easy to tuck away in my apartment. Rather than having to make efforts to get away from everything, the inverse became true. I was making efforts to get out and do some things. Having an evening with nothing to do and being completely free to decide without anyone nagging may be one of the greatest experiences of all time. I have always loved driving across towns late at night in the summer when I am returning home from being out with friends. Being able to roll the windows down, turn up the music, and just cruise is amazing. Having my own apartment in a city was a parallel sensation. Of course, “Good Riddance” by Green Day had to come on the radio as I was driving out of town to move my stuff back to college. As before, the lyrics can be found here.
Then I got a week off before classes started. In that time, I have played nine holes of golf in which I shot my lowest score yet. It was the consistent round I have been looking for all summer. I have played tennis a couple of times. I have gone disc golfing for the first time in years. I have played Rock Band for a handful of hours. I had to get a shower mat to put down on the hardwood floors in my current house to keep the drum set from sliding across the floor. There have been countless hours of playing Call of Duty 4 including a few of the most epic moments yet. This all after two years spent playing the game. According to the statistics in game, I have logged almost two full weeks of my life playing the game. It is one of the greatest of all time in my opinion. I have taken some time to edit some video from the game as well. An afternoon was spent on web development. I have watched the movies Marley and Me, King Arthur, Jaws, and Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill. Last night brought several friends around a bonfire in our backyard until the whee hours of the morning. Last, but not least, I have gotten to spend several hours in the evening hanging out with my girlfriend after she has gotten off work. She will be much busier during the semester so it is nice to spend some time now. Something about double majoring, working, and being a collegiate athlete takes up a lot of time during the school year apparently.
All told, it has been a great summer. I have been wanting to write this blog post for over a week now. Funny that I am getting to it on the very last night before classes start. I remember when high school was getting ready to end, I was ready to kick back and just enjoy the end of it. I probably could have done a little better in the activities I participated in, but I doubt I could have enjoyed them much more. While I had a great time, I was ready to move onto something new. I planned my college schedule to have an easy semester to wrap things up. To the point I have two classes, one of which may very well be one of the easiest classes I will take at UNI. The other is just going to be pretty darn cool. Then I will be doing my undergraduate research which should be fun. Finally, I will be sitting on a third class so I might actually know something about the topic, software engineering, since my degree’s emphasis is in it, and the professor who taught it when I took it knew nothing about the matter. Needless to say, I have four months of sports, videogames, football, computers, and friends. It will be a good time.
First off, you should check out my Future Enhancements page if you have not already. As of right now, I am hoping I can knock off most of those things if not all of them by the end of the year. Of course, there will likely be new items on it by then so I doubt my work here will ever be done.
Another hobby eating up a lot of my time is how much I have been getting back into Call of Duty 4 on the Playstation 3. This entails a little more though than people might think. Considering I am an active member in a videogame clan, we have started to look at playing the game semi-competitively again rather than just dominating random people in regular games. This means I spend at least an hour dealing with administrative work for every match we play, but I think I will save the details for another post. Things, unfortunately, got a little rough this past weekend due to a hack released on the internet allowing opposing players to be able to fly as well as being invincible during that time; though, they cannot shoot. It was enough to put a damper on the game unless playing with a strong party capable of embarrassing these players.
In conjunction with all the game playing and competition overhead, I have started to dabble some with recording video from my play. I have around two to three hundred gigabytes of video sitting on hard drives from last summer. This used a rather bland recording rig so the quality is not very good. Nonetheless, I have finally started going through it in order to build some video editing competency. It will be posted on youtube for all to see once it is complete. Do not expect any quick turnarounds on it. However, before I could do the editing, I needed to find some good software. Sony Vegas exists, but it costs a lot of money unless you want to pirate it. Even then, it is primarily a Windows-based application unless time is spent finagling with it. I managed to come across kdenlive which is more than enough for my needs. I think so far I have only found one feature in Vegas that is not in kdenlive, and yet, I am easily able to workaround it. In addition to all of this, I bought a new bit of hardware back in April that allows me to get much better quality of video. Did I mention I am also able to use it from linux? My previous rig required me to boot Windows on a machine. I was not even able to get the old Hava to connect with a Windows vm. I probably could have if I had spent more time tinkering with the vm networking, but I never did. My Hauppauge took me about a day to get working on an Ubuntu server. I used a website and then posted on the Ubuntu forums for a bit of help. I had it working within an hour of coming home from work the next day.
I also got a new phone almost two weeks ago. If you feel you should have my number, email me and I send my number to you if I feel like you deserve it. My phone is an LG EnV3 on the Verizon network. Despite some interesting news about how insecure Verizon is, I decided to go with them since the other providers do not seem to be any better. The nice part about my new phone is I have unlimited text and picture messages, 3.0 megapixel camera, email and web with unlimited data, as well as a national plan. This means I am connected to the internet pretty much wherever I am. I have discovered though that my website crashes my phone’s browser. Needless to say, I will have to update the list of future enhancements to go mobile.
I went out golfing yesterday and shot fairly well overall. I actually shot amazing for four holes, mediocre for two holes, and terrible on three. The highlight of the day was by far my near eagle on hole six. I was sitting out roughly 130 yards from the pin in the next fairway. Distance was hard to judge because the markers were terrible and impossible to find. There was a tall tree directly between me and the pin. I figured if I hit a 7-iron, I could make it over the tree, but I would have to hit it strong to make the green. I went for it and absolutely crushed the ball, hitting it just over the top of the tree. The ball landed short of the green, bounced twice, and rolled into the pin before deflecting a couple feet away. I made the short putt for the second birdie of my life. I also put the ball on the green off the tee on both par 3′s and hit one of the prettiest drives of my life off the tee at hole 9. I still need to work a bit on avoiding water hazards and losing my ball into the brush. I could have dropped four strokes or more with that alone.
Those are the events of the past couple of weeks. I will be heading down to Kansas City for some fun this weekend before moving back to college the following weekend. I am looking forward to the week I have off between work and classes starting. Best part about this fall is I am only taking two classes, doing my undergraduate computer science research, and sitting in on another class. In other words, I will have a lot more free time than is normal for me. That being said, I am sure I will still be busy with personal projects and hanging out with friends.
So my sister has requested I write something other than technical blogs from time to time. This becomes a bit of a problem when I live, breathe, and eat code. It turns out if I buy the right kind of cereal, I can get some decent pseudocode going in the morning. Though, I will say it is difficult to find cereal with semi-colons and curly braces. For those wondering what I have been up to this summer, I currently have four websites on the table with negotiations still wrapping up for one of them. That does not count any of my personal projects such as this one. To make matters worse, I have come across the blogs of Jeremiah Grossman and RSnake, two elite web security specialists. The results of this has been me spending a portion of my time tonight reading some web security talks online as well as tinkering with Fierce and Nessus. Remember how I started this post by talking about how my sister wants me to talk a little less about geeky stuff? That does not mean I remembered it while writing this. Actually, I just meant this to be an update on what I have been up to lately and a lot of it is technology oriented. Call me a geek if you must.
What else have I done? A week ago I participated in my first United States Tennis Association tournament. I walked into the whole thing very tentatively. I have not played competitively since high school four years ago unless you count the poorly organized intramurals at college. I started to play semi-regularly last fall along with playing some this spring. However, I had not hit in a solid two months when I decided to register for the tournament. As a result, I chose the easiest skill level since I was not sure what I would be getting myself into, and I figured winning easily would be more fun than getting crushed. It turned out only one other person registered for my division and it was quite easy. I had gotten in a couple hours of hitting with an old friend on Wednesday. Still, I was hitting even better come the time of the tournament on Saturday. I managed to get a cool t-shirt, a nice plaque, and an instructor’s phone number to call about hitting sometime. All said, the tournament was pretty fun, and I am looking to go to another in Cedar Rapids this weekend. I will make sure to step up a skill level this time around.
This past weekend was a lot of fun. I drove up to Cedar Falls to spend some time with my girlfriend along with attend a wedding of a previous roommate further on down the road. Taking time to relax and watch movies with Jess was great and the wedding was a blast. We also got to watch some of The Open, Tour de France, and PBR on tv on Sunday. For those who dont know, The Open is the equivalent of the golf US Open but in Britain, Tour de France is bicycling, and PBR is Professional Bull Riding. To top the weekend off, we went out golfing on an amazing day. Needless to say, the weekend was over in no time, and I was back dabbling with computers in my apartment.
Tonight has been another moment of relaxation. I started with taking care of some apartment errands early on. Then I proceeded to dabbling in web security reading and tinkering. That was followed up with watching the Chicago Cubs look terrible again along with some light web development. In case you have not noticed, I have implemented a couple new themes and a theme changer to account for different reader preferences. Hopefully, I will continue to improve on this feature over time. I was able to catch up to July on Wallingford’s blog as well. Now I am finishing off the night with a little Sportscent on ESPN and writing this. With that said, good night!
Is it wrong to live and die with a sports athlete? Andy Roddick is five years older than me. He stepped up into professional tennis as I stepped into high school tennis. His greatest competitive achievements were recorded in 2003 and 2004. Mine came in 2005 during my senior year. When he thought he could make his greatest achievement by winning his second slam at the 2004 Wimbledon Finals, he ran into a rain delay which allowed Roger Federer to regroup and gain the upperhand. I was controlling my quarterfinals match at Districts my senior year against an opponent everyone said I could not stand toe-to-toe with before rain moved the match indoors and completely changed the outcome.
Roddick has a huge serve, a big forehand, an inconsistent backhand, and his volleying is mediocre for how much it could add to his game. I win with my serve, punish people with my forehand, roll the dice with my backhand, and do what I can from the net despite what it could do for my game. He has a sense of humor regardless of his situation. This includes when Roger Federer crushed him in this year’s Australian Open Semifinals. When you piss him off, he will not pull any punches as demonstrated by his relationship with Novak Djokovic in the past year. There is no one in the sport who is more competitive. No one has a stronger drive to win. He leaves everything out on the court everytime he steps on it. Despite his efforts, he has only one slam title to his name and has only been ranked #1 overall from November 2003 until February 2004.
In some ways, it is almost creepy how similar to him I am. Perhaps this is the reason why I celebrate for a few hours when he wins before getting prepped for the next match, why I take a day to mourn a loss before turning towards the next tournament. When he falls down, I feel the pain. When he catches a bad break, I am frustrating. When he has need to yell at the chair umpire, I am already angry. This man is living my life on the big stage and I will follow him every step of the way.
Best of luck at Wimbledon, Andy.
Eugene Wallingford recently wrote a couple blogs (Got To Begin Again and Anger and Starting Again) about the effort to get back into a sport after spending some time away. The timing was perfect for my own experience with getting back into tennis. I started playing semi-regularly back in middle school and put in four years on my high school team. When I went to college, initially, I played in intramurals and some with the tennis club because UNI does not have a men’s tennis team (hurray Title IX!) for me to attempt to walk-on. As the years went on, I played less and less as I got busier and busier. I had only played a handful of times the last couple of years.
This fall, Curt, a friend of mine, really wanted to play against me after he had played all summer. We started playing once or twice a week. However, I continued my bad habits of playing lazily and not hitting amazing shots. Also, he always wanted to play matches, sometimes with only a few minutes of warming up, rather than to simply hit around. Matches are great, but when I have not played much in the last couple of years, I prefer some time to rediscover my shots. My shots started coming back, but it was rather irregular. My serve never was better than mediocre, my forehand became decent, and my backhand was hit or miss depending on the day. Towards the end of the warm weather, I started to return to the net and volley some. It was not exceptionally pretty. If I am not mistaken, I believe I completely whiffed on a couple overheads. Still, it was a lot of fun getting back on the courts.
This spring semester, I am taking Personal Wellness because it is required to graduate as part of the Liberal Arts Core. Think of Personal Wellness as a health class lecture combined with an aerobics lab which is P.E. without the fun games. You would think they could at least let us play one day of dodgeball. I could write an entire blog ranting on how much I dislike this aspect of Personal Wellness. However, there is also a skill lab for which I am taking Beginner’s Tennis. I have only seen them offer Intermediate Tennis once in the four years I have attended UNI. Thus, it is tennis in which there are a lot of unskilled players, but at least I get to play.
We have spent the last few weeks hitting against the wall in a gymnasium because it is cold outside. There was snow falling today as I went to class. The nice thing is while the new people are learning to hit forwards, backhands, serves, and volleys semi-consistently, I am working on regaining my previous prowess. My forward is back to decent, my backhand is decent and still hit or miss, and my volley shots are pretty bad. However, my serve is coming back strong! My overhead was looking pretty good too when the instructor called me out to demonstrate to the class yesterday. Let us just say I was a bit nervous considering it had been a few years since I had consistently hit overheads. I think the service practice helped though because I looked pretty good. Now I am looking forward to going outside onto the courts so I can start working on really playing with my serve.
So what is the point of all this rambling? We started doing some footwork and movement drills at the beginning of class this week. I love them and am putting in the 120% I usually do with such things. The result of this is I have noticed my legs being slightly sore along with some fatigue in the days following. The weird thing is I find myself smiling when I feel the soreness or fatigue. I actually am finding that I missed it. I am not sure whether it is because the discomfort is somehow connected in my brain with the joy of playing tennis or if it is because I am realizing I am really starting to get back into this. Either way, my legs are a bit tired and I would not have it any other way. Now if it would just warm up outside so I could play tennis outside of class with friends.