"Hello Lance"

I have been requested to explain why I have a shirt that says "Hello Lance" on it, so that I shall do. It all began when they built a Hobby Lobby in Manhattan back when I was going to grad school. We were walking around and noticed that you could buy blank t-shirts and iron on letters for a good price. So we bought a couple of shirts and a couple sets of iron on letters.

Then came the hard part -thinking of something to actually write on the shirts. Nicole decided upon a shirt that said "Snotvia" in homage of her homeland. Jenette made a "Nani?" shirt, and Chris made his that said "Don't be a wanker". I thought about mine for a bit and went for "Chinastronaut". However after I made it I realized that there were a few people in the Stat. Dept. from China that might not like the idea that I was aspiring to be an astronaut from China, also, I didn't want to have to explain my obviously funny t-shirt to them. So I had to make another t-shirt.

I pondered over another shirt for a bit and thought that it would be funny to make a shirt that says hello to somebody, and the best person that I could have thought of was my K-State office buddy Lance. So I made a shirt that would greet him every time he saw it. "Hello Lance" was thus decided upon.

I wore the shirt a couple times at K-State and then it got packed up when I needed space in my apartment closet. I had forgotten all about it until I looked through my old boxed clothes and ever since it has been back in my regular t-shirt rotation.

I think I still have all the stuff to make two more shirts... I need to get on that.

K-State Purple

Outside of Kansas it is hard to find K-State merchandise, here in Oklahoma it is all OU and Oklahoma State at the sports stores, and in Colorado it is Broncos, and the other pro teams. What makes finding K-State stuff even harder is that K-State purple is a very distinct purple, and alot of companies that put out mass collegiate apparel don't realize that it is easy to tell when they get the color purple wrong. So I'll do my part here to point out the differences of the two colors.

First I will start with the right K-State Purple. Now I'm sure that this purple isn't the exact right color, but I tried to match the color on my monitor with the color of my hat, which is the right color. The first thing to notice is that K-State purple is a blue purple instead of a red purple. I think the proper name for blue purple is indigo purple.

Now this is the most commonly used wrong purple that is used for K-State. It is most definitely a red purple (violet purple) and seems a bit sun faded compared to true K-State purple. Alot of times K-State items that are discounted are of this color.

I have a couple of ideas why people get K-State purple wrong. The first is because the color is very hard to replicate on TV. It seems that there are two main options when most networks decide to broadcast our games on TV. The first is to make the purple look almost black, which I think looks fine. However, the more common color that gets shown as is that red purple that is certainly not the right color. It is a rare case when the color is actually broadcast correctly on TV. The second problem is that K-State purple is sort of a unique purple color in the sports world. It is similar to the Colorado Rockies, maybe a bit bluer, but most sports teams, such as the Phoenix Suns actually use the red purple instead. This means that, unlike say red or kelly green, there has to be someone who knows what color they should be using. And I bet most of the times companies just get something purple without actually looking at the color. The final problem is that it seems even some apparel that starts out the correct purple color fades into the red purple (while some really good quality stuff fades into just a lighter version of K-State purple). So some of the problem at stores could be just old apparel that started out the right color but have changed slowly into the wrong color over time.
I could go on about how K-State ink purple isn't the same color as normal K-State purple, and what colors should be paired with purple (K-State's only official color is purple), but I can tell from your face that you have had enough of this topic. Cheerio.

Bowl Game for K-State? Mayhap.

This weekend I caught a K-State football game on accident. Well, I had gone to Manhattan on purpose, but not with the intent of seeing a game, but when the opportunity arose I couldn't pass it up. So here are my thoughts on how the team looks:

Offense: Freeman is holding up well. He definitely has learned to stay in the pocket, but still has the ability to make a run for it if he needed to. I don't think that he made too many bad passes, and none of them were horrible, so that is a plus. Our running back situation is a bit shakier. Leon Patton is suspended indefinitely, which left the running game to fall on Valentine's shoulders. Although Valentine is a bit slow, he seems to be able to pick a good line when running. I was really impressed with him last year when he got a shot and I think he will be an adequate back, however he is not a show stopper. Overall K-State was able to put together sustained drives that resulted in points, this is a change from the past where K-State relied on big gains to move the chains.

Defense: I am a bit more worried about us in this category. The 6 points North Texas scored was off of a turnover while the second team was in. However the lack of scoring was more of an indication of a lack of offense for North Texas than a good defense by K-State. The defensive line had problems wrapping up running backs. Play fakes worked a bit too well. And the big thing I am worried about is that our defensive backs gave way too much of a cushion. If our guys are worried about getting burned against the North Texas wide receivers we are going to have huge problems against better teams. Back in the day of Dylan Meier I used to be relieved when our defense was on the field, this year I will not be.

Special Teams: Ah, K-State's unrecognized bread and butter. For some reason we have always been able to crank out the good special teams players, and recently there has been 4 NFL teams using K-State players for kick and punt returns at the same time. So you know we are all set in the special team’s area right? Yup you guessed it; we were unimpressive in the first game of the season. Besides Deon Murphy's first good punt return it seemed like he was much more interested in running parallel to the lines instead of perpendicular. I don't mind trying to get a bit of running room, but always ditching your blockers so that you can run 40 yards back and forth to net a minus two yard return is not a sound plan to keep the spot. After awhile Murphy was replaced by a different returner that didn't have the charisma of Deon, but also would safely get a 10 yard return. We are going to have to work on this.

So how do I think we will do? Well let's look at the games:

North Texas... W 45-6
Montana St... Win
at Louisville... Loss
Louisiana-Laf... Win
Texas Tech... Loss
at Texas A&M... Win
at Colorado... Loss
Oklahoma... Loss
at Kansas... Win
at Missouri... Loss
Nebraska... Loss
Iowa State... Win

So it looks like it will be 6-6, with an iffy win at KU, and a chance to grab a couple of more wins from Colorado, Nebraska, and Louisville. Not too bad considering that our schedule is pretty harsh this year. Texas Bowl here we come!

Famous House

About a year ago I talked about a video that a professor from K-State made that was very popular on the internet. (I posted it below if you haven't seen it yet)



Well guess what I found out this weekend. The house Jenette and Chris just bought (the one I am living in right now) was Dr. Wesch's and he lived in it when he made the video. How sweet is that? We have some of his mail that we need to take to him, maybe I could get an autograph or something.

p.s. I believe that the winner of the My Favorite New Blog 2008 contest will be announced tomorrow, if you haven't got your vote in yet do it now!

Cribs

Before we start to pack up everything to move into the new house I decided to give you all a look at my place. I know that it seems very luxurious but if you work hard for your masters then you too can live in such a spectacular place. Behold:

Monkey Smiles

You know what is awesome about today? The class that I take is canceled because the professor is away on some research shindig, possibly finding out why a monkey smile is funnier than a human smile (well some sort of research anyways). It is always fun to have a class canceled. Actually having a class canceled is better than not even having that class in the first place.

I think next semester I will just take a whole bunch of classes from professors that cancel class alot. Everyday I'll be "Today is awesome 6 of my 10 classes are canceled today! Party!" And it will seem like my semester rocks and I have tons of free time even though this year I only take one class.

Post Auburn

In the back of my mind I keep telling myself that we weren't even suppose to have a shot at winning the game, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about how close K-State came to beating Auburn. If we just didn't get as many penalties and we made one or two more plays we would be 1-0 right now and still be unbeaten in the last 18 opening games. But it was not to be.

However that is not what I want to talk about, the real story of K-State football this season (and last) is new coach Ron Prince. He steeped into one of the worst situations possible -Snyder is a living god in Manhattan, the starters for the team mostly sucked, and unlike our basketball team we didn't just want to win, we wanted to win while retaining integrity.

I don't know how they found the guy but Prince is the perfect fit for the Wildcats. He is a nice guy that knows how to get ready for and beat good teams. It was possible that K-State would have looked for some high profile coach to take over, or a two year 'hold over' guy that would be discarded after they found someone else. But it really looks like Prince is here to stay and that he has already turned K-State back in to a Big XII North contender (although those standards are quite low recently).

It would have been all to easy for Coach Prince to fold under the pressure of Snyder, but he seems know how to respond to the high demands of his job. And so far he has performed better than we could have hope for here in Manhattan. Here's looking to a promising 2007 football season.

Bring on the Cats.

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!

K-State Football and Chipotle

Today I attended a focus group meeting on K-State Football. I didn't mind spending an hour telling them what I thought about our football program, but getting free Chipotle burritos made it awesome (they didn't tell us there was going to be food.)

It was very interesting to hear what other K-State football fans thought about our traditions and game day events. We talked about jumbotron stuff, what Willie does, things that the band does and stuff like that. For the most part everyone agreed with each other that we like how K-State runs the show. It was also interesting to see how much these marketing and promotion guys revere some other programs. It was very evident that they think that Texas A&M has the best football program in respect to the fans and they are trying to get K-State's program to that level. I would have to agree with them. (Obviously we can not, and will not, admire anything about Nebraska.)

Nothing too drastic will change for next year from what I hear, maybe a little more 'hip hop' and a little less band at the beginning of the game. Also they are going to try to get some activities to do for the fans that show up a couple of hours early to the game. That would be nice.

I am really looking forward to football season already.

One more year of hockey

This weekend was the final weekend for the 2006-07 season of the inline hockey league that we play in. We played alright, we tied a game and lost another. I guess it turned out fine since we have improved so much over last year, and since most of our key players will be back for next year we should only get better. Shane got the most improved award (very deservingly so, although I should say that Kaylen improved greatly throughout the year), and I got the MVP award, which is awesome. I and really did not expect to get the award. We have alot of good players on our team and they do most of the hard work, I just score the goals in the end. So really the award should go to all of the team. But I'll keep the plaque on my wall just since it is already made out with my name on it.

Now I get a little more free time on the weekends. Rock on.
(p.s. That is our coach on the left, me in the center, and Shane on the right.)

Bill Clinton's Landon Lecture

Well, it's another win for K-State, after getting some good press from YouTube (see here and here), now we get some good press from the 'real' media because of Bill Clinton's Landon Lecture here.

I did not attend his talk because as with President Bush's talk I had to teach to close to the time of the speech. But I did watch it on TV, here are my brief thoughts:

I thought that he did a very good job of distancing himself from politics throughout his speech. Even during matters of governments and things like that he more focused on what we can do rather than what the government should do. That was nice to hear. His main topic was about the status of America in the world, more specifically if globalization is a good or a bad thing, and what we can do about it. He had good points and actual steps to take to improve our current position.

He also acknowledged that he was not the reason for the dramatic growth of the United States economy during his presidency, but instead it was the spread of the computer and the internet into businesses. Then he went on to say that it is not Bush's fault that the economy is not improving like it was during his time in office. (Clinton equates narrowing the income gap as a measure of economic growth, which I don't totally agree with.) He said that there just isn't that new 'thing' that has spurred on the economy on like the 90's has. He went on the say that clean energy, specifically biofules could be that new industry, citing that in other comparable countries that have been moving to more renewable energy sources many jobs have been created as a result. I do have to say that it is a good idea.

Overall Clinton actually had more good things to say about Bush than bad things, which is nice, although he is in 'enemy' territory, so I am sure he didn't want to ruffle any feathers. I thought that it was a nice speech and it was well thought out and had points that were very logical.

Video of Speech

Taylor Mali - What Teachers Make

K-Staters have been getting some good face time on YouTube and Digg lately. Last time it was The Machine is Us/ing Us, this time the internets are abuzz with world famous (actually world famous, not the lame "World Famous" that restaurants put on their most overpriced meal) slam poet Taylor Mali.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

It is a good video, but the bonus is that it is done by a professor at K-State. And I found it on Digg.

President Bush's Landon Lecture

Although I was not able to go to the lecture I did watch the entire speech at home. (It's a good thing that I cancelled my 1.30 class since it ran until 1.45) It was a good speech, he is by no means a wordsmith, but I feel that it can be overlooked. He presented a very good argument of why we need to be vigilant of terrorism; as a foundation of peace for the future, but I still am not sold on the necessity of some of the means to prevent the domestic terrorism (i.e. citizen surveillance).

Besides the Patriot Act issue I was impressed by not only his openness, but also his wide range of knowledge. After his speech he took questions from the audience ranging from the African Union to Tony Blair to Social Security. He was able to answer all the questions adequately with the only question not answered was: "What did you think of Broke Back Mountain"? To which he said he had not seen.

Overall the lecture was enjoyable and he seemed to enjoy giving the speech. I am glad that he came to K-State and I hope that we can continue to host very important people for the Landon Lecture Series. (Last fall Mikhail Gorbachev spoke at a Landon Lecture.)

I will post a link to a video of the Lecture when it is available. Video of Speech.