This is an ode to my two best friends currently going to the University of Northern Iowa. They ended up coming to see me up at Wartburg the other day. It was so fun, we played ping pong. Adam is always fooling around and breaks stupid stuff all the time. I borrowed a guy's ping pong stuff so we could play and some how he ended up throwing the ball up in the ceiling. Adam tried to balance on a chair and ended up tipping the chair and partially breaking a ceiling tile in the process. Landon and I tease him all the time like holy crap Adam you should not touch spherical objects ever! We never get it so we have to go on a Walmart run. We get there, I buy some ping pong balls to replace the one we lost. I turn around and my two friends are fighting each with foam swords in the middle of the store. I swear to God I don't understand how they get away with the dumb things they do.
We get our supplies and head back to drop them off. I leave the room for two seconds to find them putting a picture from fours years ago as my rommates background on his laptop. I can't even get mad about all the mischeif they do though; everything they do is just too random.
I have never been there apartment so we go to Cedar Falls. I get in there and the first thing I see is a fortress made out of couch cushions, chairs and blankets tied together in front of the television. My sister calls me up asks what I am up to. I tell her that I have in Cedar Falls and she tells me I have to visit here at this house party. I finally agree after my friends literally beg me to go to it because they are a little bit obsessive with my sister which really creeps me out. We end up going and my sister is her happy old self. I force us to leave to keep my friends from drooling all over themselves.
We leave start walking back to the apartment. We are almost there so I can finally call it a night but my friends see a line to get into Mo Jo's and so logically they want to go to the happening place. We get out of there covered in sweat around two o'clock in the morning. They having seemingly limitless energy are going up to random people and trying to introduce me to every lady. Like they don't get it I want to go to bed. All in all it was a good day and despite all the little problems they cause I wouldn't have it any other way. It seems with them no matter how much time I spend away nothing changes. We just have careless fun. Its nice to know some friends will always be there no matter how much time is spent away.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
imMORTal empire
The greatest flag football team in Wartburg's history. Daniel, a running back that also runs track, just printed off the plays for tonights game which is agaisnt a experienced senoir team. Not going to lie I am worried, I haven't played flag footbal since the fourth grade. I don't even know if I completely remember the rule differences between tackle football and flag. My senior year I didn't catch a pass and hardly ever went out for passes. The only thing that helped me not be completely frightened is the knowledge that my team has some farely good atheletes. We have Clay from the basketball team, tall and can body defenders up to make plays. Alex a first team all-distrinct quarterback from Van Meter, also on the track team. Wesley a fast wide receiver in high school that has soft hands. Jacoby a very large man that can catch and is quick. Lastly there is Chad a music major with a beautiful voice. We were doomed to be arch rivales when I found out he played for Bouden-Hall Rock Valley, the team that ended Winterset's playoff run and my organized football career but then I found out he is a great friend.
It is finally time to take the field on a chilly fall night. They are all seemingly confident with me attepting to look the same. We play some catch to warm up all our hands and more importantly Alex's arm. The senior team that we are playing has the president of Rittorchore as the captain. The game gets started and the first couple plays are drops. Then out of no where daniel rips off a huge catch run. He flies by nearly everone utilizing his track speed and we are rolling. Alex tosses a pass to Clay in the endzone and we are on the scoreboard.
As the first half ends the score reads good guys, eighteen, bad guys zero. Our team has our swag on now and I feel nobody can't stop us. In the second half I actually have a few nice catches and runs after catch. I realize now that there is no reason to worry about a game that doesn't matter everyone had fun, even the losing team that lost to us by thirty-one points in the end. Even I who hasn't done much physical activity in a while played well. I realize that once an athelete always an athelete no matter what happens I will always have the competive drive to excell.
It is finally time to take the field on a chilly fall night. They are all seemingly confident with me attepting to look the same. We play some catch to warm up all our hands and more importantly Alex's arm. The senior team that we are playing has the president of Rittorchore as the captain. The game gets started and the first couple plays are drops. Then out of no where daniel rips off a huge catch run. He flies by nearly everone utilizing his track speed and we are rolling. Alex tosses a pass to Clay in the endzone and we are on the scoreboard.
As the first half ends the score reads good guys, eighteen, bad guys zero. Our team has our swag on now and I feel nobody can't stop us. In the second half I actually have a few nice catches and runs after catch. I realize now that there is no reason to worry about a game that doesn't matter everyone had fun, even the losing team that lost to us by thirty-one points in the end. Even I who hasn't done much physical activity in a while played well. I realize that once an athelete always an athelete no matter what happens I will always have the competive drive to excell.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Frustrating Day
Today I went to my first chemistry lab. I couldn't find it. I was so scared but luckly I found a man that was in the same situation as I and together we got help. This lovely man that had a heart of pure orange told us it was up the next floor three doors down on the right hand side. I slipped in the back without anyone noticing.
We move to our designated labs and I get the best partner ever and my luck is about to change. His name is, Jordan Sabus, we met during our SOAR day. That day we bowled and had ice cream. Anyways back to the subject.... We get going on combining different chemicals and writing down observations.
"Class. Listen up class. I have an announcement only fill the bottom of you wells with your chemical," Doctor Hu announces.
Great. Now we have to restart the whole experiment over again, I think to myself. We end up taking almost an hour over of the set aside time. Good thing thats the only class I have today. I am off to the library to work on my plethora of homework. I start off finishing the rest of Chemistry chapter two and then three. I look at the time. Holy crap!! Lunch is almost over! I sprint off to the mensa and grab my food which is a sandwich that just happens to be the only edible thing left besides cereal. I inhale it and trudge through the grass back to the library. I work for four straight hours and seemingly get no where and is seriously getting frustrated!!! I don't get my hot topic done for my Biology class after all that work and I am on the brink. I end up getting done the next morning while eating a glorious parfait.
This is what I learned when I am in a slump. All I need is some protein in the form of yogurt, carbs in the form of granola and finally vitamin c from fruit and I am set to take on any problem as long I have my friends encouraging me the whole way.
We move to our designated labs and I get the best partner ever and my luck is about to change. His name is, Jordan Sabus, we met during our SOAR day. That day we bowled and had ice cream. Anyways back to the subject.... We get going on combining different chemicals and writing down observations.
"Class. Listen up class. I have an announcement only fill the bottom of you wells with your chemical," Doctor Hu announces.
Great. Now we have to restart the whole experiment over again, I think to myself. We end up taking almost an hour over of the set aside time. Good thing thats the only class I have today. I am off to the library to work on my plethora of homework. I start off finishing the rest of Chemistry chapter two and then three. I look at the time. Holy crap!! Lunch is almost over! I sprint off to the mensa and grab my food which is a sandwich that just happens to be the only edible thing left besides cereal. I inhale it and trudge through the grass back to the library. I work for four straight hours and seemingly get no where and is seriously getting frustrated!!! I don't get my hot topic done for my Biology class after all that work and I am on the brink. I end up getting done the next morning while eating a glorious parfait.
This is what I learned when I am in a slump. All I need is some protein in the form of yogurt, carbs in the form of granola and finally vitamin c from fruit and I am set to take on any problem as long I have my friends encouraging me the whole way.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Jurassic Park
There is several scientific ideas throughout Jurassic Park, the main one being genetic engineering and one very key idea to the plot that blood can be extracted out of mosquitos that are millions of years old that were found in fossilized sap, known as amber. All need be done is to find some DNA sequence it and easy as that we have a dinosaur!...
But lets think. Is this actually plausible with today's technology? The answer is no and lets start off with the basic. DNA is held together by weak hydrogen bonds between adenine to thymine and guanine to cytosine. They come apart pretty easily making replication of DNA pretty easy so an organism can make proteins within its cell or just to replicate and make a whole new cell. This some property allows strands to come apart and degrade very readily. There has been reports of genes being recovered from an organism over twenty-million years old but it was just one gene. There is thousands and thousands of genes found in organisms and not every gene has a function. Lot of genes are just random junk that doesn't get used. How would scientist know if they got all the genes that a prehistoric animal needs to survive. Even if all the proper genes got put together inside an egg how would it be able to develop without the mothers genes to provide key proteins and enzymes that help in early development. To fill in the gaps that would be there in the movie Jurassic Park frog DNA was used, which is quite bewildering to me since frogs aren't that close to dinosaurs in evolutionary terms.
Organisms are more than the sum of the parts. Scientist can breakdown complex organic systems to its basic building blocks and understand how they work for the most part, but putting these parts back together in the perfect configuration that natural selection did over millions of years is not the same thing. So in conclusion, DNA is fragile and doesn't stand the test of time, key proteins and ezymes would be missing from egg, frogs are hardly related to dinosaurs and complex organic structures are more than the sum of its parts. This is my belief of why Jurassic Park though entertaining is unrealistic and could never be practiced.
But lets think. Is this actually plausible with today's technology? The answer is no and lets start off with the basic. DNA is held together by weak hydrogen bonds between adenine to thymine and guanine to cytosine. They come apart pretty easily making replication of DNA pretty easy so an organism can make proteins within its cell or just to replicate and make a whole new cell. This some property allows strands to come apart and degrade very readily. There has been reports of genes being recovered from an organism over twenty-million years old but it was just one gene. There is thousands and thousands of genes found in organisms and not every gene has a function. Lot of genes are just random junk that doesn't get used. How would scientist know if they got all the genes that a prehistoric animal needs to survive. Even if all the proper genes got put together inside an egg how would it be able to develop without the mothers genes to provide key proteins and enzymes that help in early development. To fill in the gaps that would be there in the movie Jurassic Park frog DNA was used, which is quite bewildering to me since frogs aren't that close to dinosaurs in evolutionary terms.
Organisms are more than the sum of the parts. Scientist can breakdown complex organic systems to its basic building blocks and understand how they work for the most part, but putting these parts back together in the perfect configuration that natural selection did over millions of years is not the same thing. So in conclusion, DNA is fragile and doesn't stand the test of time, key proteins and ezymes would be missing from egg, frogs are hardly related to dinosaurs and complex organic structures are more than the sum of its parts. This is my belief of why Jurassic Park though entertaining is unrealistic and could never be practiced.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
My great computer skills....
My family still has dial-up internet service at my house and this is the very first laptop I have ever had, so obviously I have vast amounts of technological knowledge bursting at the seams or so I thought..I arrive at Wartburg last Thursday on a hot steamy day. My family and I gets me all set up and ready to go so they leave me figuring I am a smart capable young man that can conquer the world over.
Quickly I realize this is false, within thirty minutes I come to the conclusion I don't know how to get on the internet. This is just the beginning of my problems. I finally get it fixed the next day at IT. No problem. I think to myself, phew I am back on the right track now. This was not the case I attempt to order Microsoft office 2010 online that night. I click continue...Nothing happens. My internet is frozen. Great, just great. I decide to go to bed and see if it got sent through tomorrow. Luckily, my bank told me nothing was taken out of my account. So logically I try again and get everything figured out untill a Microsoft disclosure pops up "Your order could not be sent." No explaination just a flat, bare statement. I decide to go back to IT and they are like just download open office off the internet for free. I am astonished...For Free! Why didn't they tell me this sooner?! I am on cloud nine then I attempt to download a pdf, no dice. Seriously frustrated at this point, I try to download adobe reader but that won't either.
Here I find myself not being able to see my powerpoints professors posted online and screwed. Now all I can do is look to the heavens and hope God will spare me and send a miracle. None have come yet. Hope is not lost yet though. I have recently heard of his son in human form. A young man, a freshman like I, named Huter Pagel with an extra copy of microsoft office on a disc that he is going to ask his beautiful mother, whose name I assume can only be Mary, to bring when she comes up here next which will be soon.
THANK YOU GOD. That is all I am able to say. Thank you.
Quickly I realize this is false, within thirty minutes I come to the conclusion I don't know how to get on the internet. This is just the beginning of my problems. I finally get it fixed the next day at IT. No problem. I think to myself, phew I am back on the right track now. This was not the case I attempt to order Microsoft office 2010 online that night. I click continue...Nothing happens. My internet is frozen. Great, just great. I decide to go to bed and see if it got sent through tomorrow. Luckily, my bank told me nothing was taken out of my account. So logically I try again and get everything figured out untill a Microsoft disclosure pops up "Your order could not be sent." No explaination just a flat, bare statement. I decide to go back to IT and they are like just download open office off the internet for free. I am astonished...For Free! Why didn't they tell me this sooner?! I am on cloud nine then I attempt to download a pdf, no dice. Seriously frustrated at this point, I try to download adobe reader but that won't either.
Here I find myself not being able to see my powerpoints professors posted online and screwed. Now all I can do is look to the heavens and hope God will spare me and send a miracle. None have come yet. Hope is not lost yet though. I have recently heard of his son in human form. A young man, a freshman like I, named Huter Pagel with an extra copy of microsoft office on a disc that he is going to ask his beautiful mother, whose name I assume can only be Mary, to bring when she comes up here next which will be soon.
THANK YOU GOD. That is all I am able to say. Thank you.
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