Smashing Pumpkins

I woke up Sunday and walked outside and noticed that my roommates nice pumpkin he spent a lot of time carving..smashed. to tell you the truth, it was a quite depressing scene to see, I liked that pumpkin. I then look all the way up and down Clyaton Avenue and see smashed pumpkins in front of almost every house. Why would someone do this? It can not possibly be to impress someone, I don't know many girls who would fall head over heals for some dude who wrecks pumpkins while walking her home from the bar. (yes i do think it was a guy because girls usually don't think it's funny to walk around and smash things...) If it was a girl, i'd like to meet her... It just makes me wonder why people have to act like this..I know people get drunk and do stupid things, but it seems like iif you leave something out on your porch over the weekend, you are going to find it smashed or all together stolen. We had a few chairs out on the porch a few weeks ago and we walked to class the next day and found them scattered on the street. I have walked back from the bars many times with my friends and can honestly say we have never stolen or smashed someone elses property. I suppose these kids were just drunk and decided they had a problem with every pumpkin on every porch on Clayton. This happened a week ago and the pumpkin stuff is still in the road rotting away, its just awesome to walk to and from class and step in it everyday. I probably should just go out there and clean it up but if I did that I'd have nothing to complain about so I'll let it rot away and get mad everytime i walk in it untill it washes away. Would anyone else go clean a rotting pumpkin off a public road? I doubt it.

Bye Bye Yamaha

My friends and I wait all winter for the temperatures to warm up and the rains to come to clean the roads off. Over the winter tons of salt is put all over the road to clear the ice and snow, but this stuff stays on the road and makes it extremely dangerous for motorcyclists who go out early. The sand and salt needs to be washed off the road, because taking a turn at good speed on sand means one thing.....roadrash. After the rain comes and washes the roads its time to dust off the bikes and make your neighbors happy they live next door when you scream past their house all the time. But this time of year is a sad time, the weather is starting to turn cold and bikes are disappearing from the streets. I got into a heated discussion with a friend of mine about how to properly store a bike for the winter...it seems he has zero knowledge of how to store his Suzuki, and if he does not listen he will be seeing some pricey mechanic costs in the spring. He refuses to admit that if a bike sits in a garage for months with any fuel in its system water will get in the lines, freeze up and destroy critical fuel system components. I personally don't even leave fuel , or any type of liquids in my bike over the winter I drain my bike 100% because 2 years ago I had the same issue my friend will see in the spring. The fuel lines froze, ruptured and I had a 400 dollar mechanic bill to pay for, I was less than happy. this is the case with any type of "toy" you own, my friend Chad works at a marine supply store and he knows you gotta take care of your stuff or you'll be paying for it later on. Anyways, the yamaha is soon to be drained and put on rack for the winter, another year in the books. Now i'm just curious as to how much money he's going to have to spend this spring to get his bike up and running while mine starts the first time i put the key in it.

Halloween

This year Halloweens on a weekday,Wednesday, and I think a lot of college students will be missing their early classes on Thursday, or maybe calling it a weekend Wednesday night and not even going at all. Every class I am in I hear kids asking each other back and forth what they will be doing to celebrate. Theres a ton of house parties that I know of and I have also recieved about ten invitations for bar parties (you know, you pay twenty bucks and go down to the bar and drink continuously for three hours, then everyone gets thrown out..) It seems funny to me now that I am in college because when I've talked to my friends at home.. no one is doing anything at all, and everyone at school is planning on having big parties. Every time a holiday comes around at school kids have a reason to go out and party all night, which is fine with me, I just think my friends at home who chose to stay around Watertown are missing out somewhat. Its nice though because, even though they haven't come up this year, they had a good time last year when they came up. Anyway, me and my roommates are pretty excited about Halloween cause we were thinking about havin a party at the house, we even bought some candy because theres some little kids up the street who may come around trick or treating, theyre parents surely wouldn't be happy if we put a Keystone or Busch in their bags so we're helping everyone out this year. I really dont know what is worse, a little kid all buzzed out on sugar or a college kid all drunk...Anyways, I was just wondering what everyone else had planned for Halloween, because I'm positive everyones heard of a party, or maybe even having one...

golf accident research

the upcoming paper we are doing opened my eyes to how many people get hurt, playing a sport that looked at possibly as one of the most relaxed sports: golf. this paper is research integrated, so i decided to write about my friend Adam who got demolished by a golf ball right in front of me. he took a direct hit to the neck, and we were all laughing about it but it can be a serious thing, and to my surprise it happens more than you would think. i looked for research and found an article on CNN describing what can happen to someone who gets hit by a golf ball, and also how frequently it happens. the report said over 300, 000 people have reported a golf injury in the last few years. this isnt all from being hit though, many people that play frequently swing a club wrong, and after many times develop problems with the muscle, causing huge problems for the rest of their life. many times people who are hit in the head try and ignore their problem but this can lead to devastating consequences down the road, paralysis and even death sometimes. My grandfather used to play golf but got shoulder trouble, although i dont know if it was golf related but it may have been now that i have done this research for our upcoming paper. i find it really hard to believe that over a quarter million people have been hurt by the game of golf. i asked a few people , including my dad , about how many people they thought got hurt on the golf course every year and the highest number i got was around 15 thousand. i do know one thing for sure, my buddy Adam definately was a statistic when it comes to getting hurt on a golf course.

downtown mug clubs

this is a blog that im sure everyone knows about. My friends and i live close to the bars downtown and, not a proud thing but, we have been to every place in cortland im sure. this year i have taken notice to all the bars doing a special promotion thinig called a "mug club." for people who dont know what the mug clubs at these bars are..here it is.. you pay 20 or 25 bucks at the beginning of the semester and get a mug with a number on it, this is your mug for the rest of the semester. after you get the mug you get special prices on beers at respective bar you have a mug at. i dont know every bars mug club specials but i do knnow Woodys mug club. Its 20 bucks to start and after you get a mug you pay a dollar for rolling rocks and 2 dollars for everyhting else, at the end of the semester i think you can keep the mug and you also get a t-shirt from woodys bar. i did it pretty much for dollar beers and i'll wear the shirt at the end of the semester i guess.. it also saves you money because a bottle of beer is anywhere around three and four dollars and you only get twelve ounces, where i can get a 16 ounce pint of rolling rock for a dollar. this is a college kids dream right? more beer for less money. Anyways, i have noticed these mug clubs at just about every bar i have been to (i guess a good promotion thinig like this catches on quick with college kids), and was just wondering if anyone had a mug from a different bar and what the deal was with the mug at that bar...let me know im curious..

stanley cup destroyed in cortland

this is a follow up to a previous blog i wrote about my friend creating a stanley cup replica out of hundreds of tins. this was a nice replica and my roommates and me were all excited because we had a bet where we each picked a team on the east coast and what ever team did the best at the end of the season, that person got to have the cup till the next season. I chose tampa bay lightning, because as said before i needed to choose a east coast team...im a calgary flames fan to be honest.. (easy on the comments about me being a fan of Calgary, im sure i've heard it already..) My roommate, and sports fanatic who is in this class, chad, has the islanders because hes a lifetime fan of them. My other roommate is a fan of the sabres and i forget now who the others have as their teams. So getting to the point here, when i left thursday lord stanley was doing great sitting in his spot in the corner of our living room lookin great. When i returned to my house sunday afternoon the base was still there that stanley sat on, but stanley was gone. i was absolutely shocked and couldnt believe that someone either had stolen stanley, or even worse it got destroyed. i knew most likely it got destroyed because we frequently are throwinig a football, baseball, tennisball, or some other object at each other in our living room...it can be a dangerous place. i asked my roommate mike who created it with hours of work, and he said he accidentally ran into it or something like that and destroyed it. so everyone can rest easy, we saved the tins and lord stanley will be re created once again this time stronger and tougher than ever.

philosophy presentation

In my philosophy class we all have a presentation to do thats worth twenty percent of our grades. I find this class interesting, but difficult and the grading of this project somewhat worries me. the whole class evaluates your presentation, each student has a sheet where a 0-5 score must be given based on your performance of the project/presentation. this worries me because the philosophy students in the class have a much better understanding of the topics we are discussing than i do, not only do they critique presentations but they have a question session with the presenter after the presentation where they seem to really grill the presenter on what i seem to see as difficult questions. Being twenty percent of my grade, i would prefer the teacher to solely grade my project because she knows i have never taken a philosophy class, being i am a political science major. I have seen a few presenters like myself with some, but little, knowledge of philosophy and the philosophy majors destroy them after the presentation with questions, and if you cant answer these hard questions they ask they give the presenter really bad grades. i guess my point here is that i simply wish the question session of this project was somewhat more relaxed, because when i have to talk about "freedom of self" i know im going to be in trouble when it comes to answering questions. i was wondering how many other people have had to do a presentation worth a good part of your grade, and that the grade is based on kids in your class and not the teacher...

2 for 1 special

Opening day of hunting season is always an exciting time for me and my grandfather. He spends all year working on his hunting stands in the woods and sitting in the woods almost every night watching deer. Two summers ago we decided to put a food plot down in the woods by our stands so the deer will have a diet of much more protein, giving them a healthy diet allows deer to gain weight while providing bucks bigger stronger antlers. I went home over our little "october break" because it was opening weekend of black powder season. my stand is on a ridge deep in the woods that looks down around 150 yards to a plateau that i have always seen deer on. Saturday morning i got to my stand around six thirty in the morning while it was still dark. around 730, right at daybreak i looked down to my east and saw two deer coming in my direction. one was a nice doe but the other was staggered directly behind it, about 10 yards down the hill with its head down in the brush feeding, i could not tell if it was a buck or a doe so i decided not to shoot for it. the deer stood in front of each other for over 20 minutes and i was anxious to take at least one of them back with me. I decided to take the doe, so i knew i had to hit it high in order for the bullet to go over the back of the other deer. i took the shot and dropped the first deer immediately and the other deer walked slowly in the woods, i was satisfied. About 30 minutes later i walked down to gut the deer and noticed the other deer layin in the brush and walked up to it to noticed the bullet had dropped and i had killed both deer. I have heard of this before but never thought it would happen to me. needless to say i tried for a doe and got it, along with a beautiful six point buck by accident...that was my saturday morning two for one special.

worst weeks of a semester

Maybe its just me but every year ive been in college i have had certain weeks, about 4 weeks into a semester, where i have had three or four tests, and last year i can remember in early October i had three tests on one day. I understand that each course you take tries to follow a strict schedule, by each class covering material fairly quickly, it adds up that around a month into school all the classes are ready to give some type of test, and if not a test have a big paper due thats twenty five percent of your grade. So on top of all the studying needed to prepare for tests, and writing papers that are due, you still must manage your homework and readings for other classes. To add to the list if you play a collegiate sport youre really screwed, practice for 3 or 4 hours a day on top of the same time to do homework...its school practice and sleep. Some people say that they font mind but i really can't stand it. Even after all the studying i know im prepeared but i still feel unsure when it comes time to take a test. I wish the college would look at the classes and designate each department a seperate test day, or something like that just to break up having blocks of tests. I think the school would see a higher grade average on tests when kids had ample amount of time to study, and not have 5 tests and papers due in the same week. Does anyone else have certain weeks where they are totally stacked with work/tests/papers that are soon due?

philosophy class

Today in philosophy we talked about some of the most difficult subjects i have ever had to discuss. Has anyone ever taken a class where they have no idea what they're talking about in the discussion, even when you do the studying and the reading before class? I honestly have done readings for classes and been able to walk in and particapate in an active discussion. I have never taken a class like this befre in my life, and i find that its pretty interesting. Today we talked about why people act the way they do, a topic and question that i think could take years to explain, let alone one two hour class once a week. Some of the early philosophers seem to use language that you need some type of advanced degree to understand. trying to read this seems somewhat impossible to me, but in a way i can understand because its my first philosophy class. All that aside, what i find most difficult is when we take one or two sentences from someone like Hobbes or Rousseau, and can literally discuss these two sentences for an hour. What i like about the class is that unless youre completely off subject, philosophy seems to be based on many opinions, and you can pretty much follow who's ideas you agree with as long as you back it up with some information from the text. At first i wasnt sure about the class, but now a few weeks into the class i find myself picking more and more info up. I still find myself sometimes completely lost but i was just wondering if anyones taken a class where you have no idea whats going on to start out then the class grows on you. I may take another class like this if i get the change..

kids from my high school...

i was sitting at my computer today when a cortland student, whom i went to school with sent me a message on instant messenger. The instant message had a link on it which I clicked and immediately knew someone from my old high school got in trouble. The headline said GB boots kids off the football team. As I read on I noticed a few kids that were younger than me, who are seniors now, and I knew all of them. When I read on i found out that the kids were kicked off the team for unaccaptable behavior, not on the field but in school. At my old high school we had a walkway that all the seniors paint their name on and it stays that way for another year. The students from the football team, five to be exact, painted a huge marijuana leaf and then put their names, each on one leaf. Thats definately not a smart thing to do, and i reeally dont consider it funny. It seems as if these kids were just trying to get in trouble. As a former player, i understand that behavior off the football field is just as important as actions on the field. However, It seems to me that an act like this should not be punishable by being kicked off the team. Maybe have the clowns paint the sidewalk or something, but don't kick them off the team. Does anyone think these kids should be icked off the team?