Come, Hobnob

School is now back in full swing. I am taking a class and sitting in on a class and teaching two classes here at State. I would elaborate more but really all that stuff is going about like it always does.

The car bash for the hockey club looks like it was a big success as we are looking at around 10 new members this year when usually we only get 3 or 4. Also Junction is redoing their rink so when it gets done we will have a much improved facility to practice in.

Game night is rolling on and football starts this Saturday, against Auburn (eep!). Not much more I could ask for right now.

RoboRally

RoboRally for game night. Michelle isn't happy, she had a knack for killing herself. (As did Chris)

Vis a vis Visa

Most of the internet is filled with rants of various companies. So I will try to balance out the blogging karma by posting a rave. This one goes out to you Visa.

One of the companies that makes my life so much easier is Visa. I carry almost no money or checks on me when I go out, and almost all of my purchases go through my Visa card. I deal alot with Visa and I have never have had a bad experience, in fact when I deal with Visa I am always happy with their service. Here is my most recent episode:

The company that I had my old Visa card (yes, I only have one credit card) switched abruptly to American Express, so I only had a month or so to get a new card. After searching online we found an Amazon Visa card that automatically sends us Amazon gift certificates when we get so many points (we get about 1% back). Well the credit line on the card was rather low, and we went over the credit limit a couple times. After the second time I called up Visa to figure out what I could do. I don't really want to pay a fee every month... and it's not like we don't pay it off, it just had too low of a credit line.

I called them up, and only had to sit through one voice prompt before I got in touch with a person. When I talked to the service person I asked if I raise my credit limit to almost twice the current limit. He said sure as long as he could run a credit check, which I OKed. After about 10 seconds I got a new credit line, along with a verbal warning that stated that a higher credit limit does not mean that I actually have more money. When he asked if there was anything else he could do, I asked if I could get the over the credit limit fee waved and he said no problem. Now that is a good company.

I am sure the experience depends on what company you get the Visa from, but my old card also had very good service too. Also I don't try to take advantage of Visa either, I am sure that if I always tried to get freebies they would become a little bit less friendly.

But for me Visa is one grade A company.

Bosco Takes A Swing

Yesterday was K-State's activity fair. The fair is a time for all the organizations on the campus to get together and try to recruit some new members. Our club had the normal table in the ballroom, but Zac and others got a car to smash in Bosco plaza (the area outside of the Student Union).

We used to car smash for a fundraiser, which was sucessful, but we also gained some exposure because the Collegian covered it as well. And even Bosco stopped on by to take a few swings. Awesome!

Beckham for the save

Major League Soccer is still in the red. Ever since it's inception the league has not made money. Things have been turning around a bit recently as cities build soccer specific stadiums which are more profitable to run. But it is estimated that the league will still be losing money for some time.

The big problem is though that people don't care. Specifically people in New York. For a professional sports league to be successful they need to put on a good showing in the biggest city in the United States. Unfortunately for the MLS the New York Red Bulls are drawing around 10,000 a game, the second lowest average attendance in the MLS.

Enter David Beckham. In his MLS debut starting match he drew more than 60,000 fans to watch the game in New York (Beckham plays for the L.A. Galaxy). Beckham sextupled the attendance to the game. But that's not all. During the game Beckham had three assists in a loss, where the Red Bulls pulled out a 5-4 win in the last minutes of the game.

In every sucessful sports league there is something that can be pointed to as the reason the league is doing so well. For example, the NFL's success can be traced to when Joe Namath guarenteed a win for his underdog team, the new York Jets, in Super Bowl III. It is very likley that this exciting game, played with the premiere new star, in front of a large crowd, is what will make the MLS start to turn a profit, and start to give professional soccer a real foundation in the United States. He might actually be worth his $250 million dollar contract.

Here are the highlights from the game:

Zoom isn't always good

As I promised some here are some of the pics of tonight's thunderstorm.

The storm rolled through Manhattan around sunset -which was nice because then I could still use a long shutter and get some nice colors in the picture:


I was able to snap a good pic of the laundry house while the storm was coming in:


I kicked myself after this pic. I had zoomed in earlier for a different set of pictures and never reset my camera... this would have been the winner for the night if it wasn't zoomed in. :(


So here is the best lightning picture that I took all night:

The end.

Caribou Coffee

The last day of summer. Caribou Coffee awaits me tomorrow.

Michelle's new digs

We helped Michelle move in to Smurthwaite. It's like camp, but at college.

The future is now

I can't wait to try this program out:



Really it is revolutionary, don't you agree?

About Sweet Corn

At the risk of sounding stereotypical, I grew up in a Kansas town and I spent my summers out in corn fields. We didn't own corn fields, although I had a friend that was a farmer, but my dad owned a crop consulting business, so we told the farmers when they needed to spray, how to optimize water usage and stuff like that. So I have some knowledge about buying sweet corn that I need to pass on to the rest of the kind folk on the internet.

About the corn at stores and markets: the problem with corn at the store is that it is generally picked too ripe after alot of the sugar in the kernels have switched to starch. This makes the corn taste not as good. Stores generally get the same corn as markets (or farm stands) do, but the people at markets probably only sale corn that will actually be good while stores just sell all the corn they get.

If you want to make sure that the corn that you are buying is good no matter where you get it pop one of the kernels that is in the middle of the ear with your fingernail and let the liquid dry on your nail. If it dries to be white the corn has alot of starch in it and won't taste good. If it dries and it is clear and slightly sticky then the corn has alot of sugar in it and will taste good.

Another thing to look for is if any of the kernels have indentions in them. This means that the ear of corn was picked after the corn plant started to dry itself out, that corn will not taste good.

Finally, this one is my pet peeve with sweet corn; make sure that the corn is actually a sweet corn variety and not a young field corn variety. Young field corn (the corn that farmers grow to make cow feed, which is what most corn grown does) looks and tastes like sweet corn. The problem is that field corn always will have more starch and has a flavor that just tastes a bit off. Now here is where the local farmer is at a disadvantage, alot of the time a farmer will plant field corn and sweet corn in the same field, and if the corn field is center pivot irrigated the sweet corn will be planted down the access road in the middle of the field. This means that the perfectly good sweet corn plants will most likely be pollinated by field corn and will make a hybrid that does not taste as good as it could be. So unless your local market is getting corn form a sweet corn only field the corn might not taste great. Grocery stores on the other hand probably only get corn from sweet corn only fields, so the corn might be better off genetically, but have the problems listed above. I'm not sure if everybody can taste the sweet corn hybrid that is sold, but since I know what young field corn tastes like I generally can tell if the corn is sweet corn or not. I guess this can be my talent.

Flickr to the rescue

Since Google changed how Blogger handles mobile pics I have been searching for an easy solution. Flickr (a Yahoo company) looks like it will be the solution for now. The only problems that I have with it is that the size of the pic posted here is sorta small, but you can click on it an see the full size pic on the flickr page... also there may be a problem if I get over 200 pics posted... but I will worry about that when that time gets here.

Let the mobile blogging resume.

Aaron & Stephanie

We went to Aaron and Stephanie's WeddingBQ tonight. We had a good time and got to meet the parents and some co-workers.

More wedding receptions should have grilled corn on the cob.

Stardust

I went to the movie Stardust yesterday, and it was well worth the price of the ticket. It was written very well -and it is almost Star Wars, but fantasy... the story isn't the same, but the feel for the universe that it creates has the same enormity. Stardust was funny, which is hard for movies that aren't comedies to pull off without becoming "kiddy" or awkward. Basically they did everything right, and I would have only liked to see a couple of things changed slightly (the pirate actually turns out to be too cliche for me... oh well).

If you are even remotely interested in checking out a movie over the next couple of weeks you need to see Stardust. This movie will be recognized as a classic in the coming years, and when you seen it on DVD you will be disappointed that you missed it in theaters.

A week to remember

So there I was. I had to make a decision, and I had to make the decision right then. Four out of the six dogs on my sled team had frozen to death. And I only had enough rations for two more days. The trip to the Pole alone would take two days and it would take a week to get back.

But I didn't come here to turn back now. No sir.

So I unhitched to dogs and let them run free, they could hunt down moose for food, it was cruel to keep them tied up to my sled -bound to freeze to death. After the dogs were off into the horizon I made the hardest decision, but it was the one that saved my life. I pulled out the baby sled team. They got me to the top of the world in only half a day, and back to the post the next day. I do owe my life to the crack team of babies and their incredible skill to pull my sled over the icy planes of the arctic.