I had been on the earth for 5473 days (14 years, 11 months, 3 weeks, 3 days) when KISS played this concert in NY. I was in 8th grade. Back then, high school was for 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. I was at Kennedy High School for the graduating classes of 1986, 1987, and 1988 (my senior year). It's funny how I use dates to figure out simple things like what grade I was in.
There was a time in my life when I wanted to "live" as either a ski instructor or ski patrol dude. I remember going to Sundown in Dubuque when I was in junior high (40ish years ago) and even into my freshman & sophomore years of high school. I remember watching the ski patrol staff as they jumped to the front of the line for the ski lift, going down the black diamond hill called the Gunbarrel with ease, and, in general, while I didn't understand the mechanics of what it would take to be a ski instructor or a ski patrol dude, I knew the destination. This was further reinforced when I saw the ski instructors and ski patrol dudes in CO at Keystone and Breckenridge. I thought that would be the life.
Of course, it was 40ish years ago when I remember seeing "Hot Dog: The Movie" - released trailer below - and really wanting to live the life depicted in the movie!
Editor's Note: Here's a review of "Hot Dog: The Movie" from Amazon Product Reviews - Hot Dog: The Movie: - note that the movie always had sex & nudity - now the DVD has 3 more minutes! ... Sigh... if I were 13, I would be buying it... and so would you! <grin>
As a 1988 graduate of Cedar Rapids Kennedy, I had been happy that this year's boys' basketball team was undefeated and marching into the State Basketball Tournament. When I was a senior, the boys' basketball team made its way to the State
Basketball Tournament Championship game, only to be defeated by Fort
Dodge, which featured future Iowa Hawkeye Wade Lookingbill. Thus, I was hoping for this team to win a State Championship . . but that didn't happen:
Cedar Rapids Kennedy the victim in a boys' state basketball tournament stunner | The Gazette
I don't know how many of the players on this team are seniors. Hopefully, there is enough outstanding players that will take the court as the 2023-2024 boys' basketball team!
the 2022 4A Boys State Basketball Tournament Championship game tomorrow night at 7 PM will be Kennedy vs. Prairie in a battle for not only the 4A Boys State Basketball Tournament Championship, but for bragging rights for Cedar Rapids.
Typically, I resist the "Back in my days of high school" game. Between 1989 and early 2014, when Alex was on the freshman basketball team and had a game at Kennedy, I hadn't been in Kennedy. Then, from early 2014 until today, I have not stepped inside Kennedy. So yes, I haven't stepped foot in Kennedy High School for 8 years. However, I will say that I don't remember in high school whether CR Prairie was a powerhouse boys basketball team - I don't recall any specific basketball game scores from any basketball game I went to in high school when I was in pep band. Sigh. I can't even say what the final score was when Kennedy played in the 1988 4A Boys State Basketball Tournament Championship game. I do remember Kennedy lost that game. I also remember I played snare drum and ROCKED the snare solo when the pep band played the theme from "Rocky" because the other snare drummer's snare head broke.
Ah, good memories. My smile is a mile wide...
Editor's Note: Kennedy lost to Ames by double digits; Prairie won their game.
Until I read my FOX NEWS FIRST email newsletter, I'd forgotten that it was on this date in 2008 that "an Iraqi journalist hurls his shoes at President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad; Bush ducks the flying footwear as they whiz past his head and land against the wall behind him." (Souce: FOX NEWS FIRST email newsletter, 12/14/18, 4:44 AM). If I recall correctly, this was a big deal at the time because it showed a lack of respect for the President of the United States, which had sent many soldiers to Iraq to be involved in their conflict (the Gulf War). I remember being angry with that Iraqi journalist because I thought about my high school friend Steve, who has three distinctions in my head:
When he dubbed White Lion's Pride release onto a cassette tape for me, he put Metallica's cover of "Am I Evil?" and "Blitzkrieg" to fill up the tape, which turned into the first time I had ever heard Metallica.
On the day we graduated from high school, I brought my drums to his garage and we jammed. It was the second time I had ever jammed with a guitarist. Trivia: James Waddington was the first guitarist I ever jammed with.
After the graduation ceremony, there was a post-graduation party at a long-gone place called Chapman's Fun World. The girl I had chased all through high school and had taken to senior prom was there . . . with another guy. I remember that Steve helped divert my attention from seeing her with someone else. Unfortunately, it didn't stop me from continuing to chase her, but that's the subject for another post... maybe....
Perhaps the most important distinction, though, was that Steve had joined the Army right out of high school (1988) and had then been sent to the Gulf War. I thought by throwing the shoe at President Bush, that Iraqi journalist disrespected three items on a list:
Steve
All the brave men & women Steve served with
(obviously) The Office of President of the United States
Why we have spent another moment in that country after that blatant disrespect is beyond my comprehension!
I'm playing a Rummy 500 game during a break at work. I'm ahead by 96 going into the 4th round. What happens? I get set and only earn 11 points while the computer (my cell phone) racks up 121 points for a 501 - 487 victory!
I'm certainly not going to get all bent out of shape about a Rummy 500 game, but I did think about something after the game was over. Like many times in life, I thought a victory was guaranteed. I thought I was going to sail through the final round and end up with an outcome but, in reality, it didn't turn out that way.
It's a lesson I have learned many times in my life.
For example, I thought I was going to be the drummer for Avery Riot in April 2016. Instead, I didn't get the gig.
For example, a short 842 days ago, I thought I would be working at Pearson until I retired. Instead, I was laid off 841 days (or 2 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 6 days) ago.
Sometimes, though, I am the computer.
For example, I thought I would never reach 1000 blog posts. Instead, I have published 6069 posts in 3711 days with an average of posting 1.635408245755861 posts a day. I have 3594 days until 3/28/2028 to post 2.376460767946578 times a day to reach a total of 8541 posts between 3/18/2018 and 3/18/2028, which will bump up that 1.635408245755861 posts a day average to an even 2 posts a day average.
For example, I thought I would never get over my high school sweetheart. Instead, when I saw her at my nephew's Confirmation reception in Cedar Falls, I did not have the urge to go talk to her.
My point is that I cannot take anything as a given. Instead, I must always work hard for what I want.
After looking at these pictures, two questions. Why did I think I needed to have sunglasses on and why didn't I smile in all of these pictures? I wish I could remember, more vividly than I do, what was going through my brain during these times with my friends. I know I will not see Andres again (RIP) or Senora Richardson (RIP) but I hope to see my friends again someday. Tentatively, I will get together with at least one of the guys in these pictures in December 2017.
Because of my less-than-best effort and lack of natural talent, I never swam at an Iowa high school state swim meet. I could go on and on about my lack of dedication, my lack of endurance, and my lack of talent, but, instead, I'd rather focus on the Area State Championship Qualifiers.
By the way, I think the content for that story were pasted into the story from 2016. The URL has "2016" but the story is (obviously) about "2017" since it is, uh, 2017.
Editor's Note: Sorry the print is so small in the URL.
Back in my time, there was a single swim team in the Cedar Rapids metro area that anyone cared about: Washington. The swimmers on that team, including its current coach Chris Cruise, were dominant. Between Cruise, the DeBooms, Stefan Frishkorn, Matt Parker, Wade Feller, and a great diver by the name of Donnie Bear, Washington was "it" when it came to high school swimming. Linn Mar, in Marion, didn't have a swim program or, if they did, I don't remember it. I remember there was a girl swimmer at Prairie, but I can't recall any boys from Linn Mar. And yet, now in 2017, Linn Mar is the program that takes down a 53 year dominance by 6.5 points. That's totally awesome! Linn-Mar breaks Cedar Rapids Washington's 53-year boys' swimming district title streak Lions edge Warriors by 6.5 points at Coe
I so agree with the ideas expressed by John Smoltz about kids playing the same sport not just during the season, but during the rest of the year, as described in this article. I have seen the result of kids playing the same sport year-round and while sometimes there are positives, there are also negatives. For example, a young man I know was told by his baseball coach to not play golf as it would throw off his baseball swing. There's issues with that statement:
It is a different physical motion with the body when you swing a golf club and a baseball bat. The main difference is where your head is pointed. Do you look down at the ground when hitting a baseball? Of course not! Do you look up at where you want to put the ball when you swing a golf club? Of course not! Two different types of swings.
I think I am more likely to play golf when I am elderly than I am to play baseball. Golf is a lifelong sport while baseball is terminal. Even the great baseball players would probably tell you that. What is sad for me is that this young man has turned down opportunities to play golf over the last couple of years. Eventually, he will end his baseball career and then what? He will likely want to learn to play golf. Except he will be in his early-20s (assuming he plays throughout college) and will have lost years of time he could have been learning.
I guess the other thing that plays into all of this is that when I was young, I hated golf. I really did. My dad tried to teach me to not move my head and grabbed my hair. When I swung, my head moved and my hair was pulled. It hurt. Not being mature enough to understand what Dad was trying to do, I spent a lot of years despising the sport. I realize now that if I had gotten over myself and listened to Dad, I might have been able to spend a lot more time with him and, perhaps, with my brother on the golf course. Sometimes I ponder the idea that because I didn't play golf, I put up a wall between myself and the two of them where they are on one side and I am on the other. Of course I can't change the past, but I admit the thought has crossed my mind.
Back to the article, I see kids that play baseball year-round and think their feces is without odor. Those kids may or may not be as good as they think they are at playing the sport. I also see really good baseball players who don't play year-round and when they tried out for the high school team, they didn't make it. My hunch is that the coach knows who plays year-round and who doesn't. Maybe, in a coach's eyes, playing the sport year-round shows a commitment to the sport that he really wants on his team. After all, I agree that if you have 9 guys playing baseball year-round and traveling to different cities to play in tournaments, there is likely a bond and a trust that develops. Then, when those 9 guys go to the high school level, they are a well-oiled machine and, possibly, don't make the same mistakes as 9 guys who haven't played together.
And yet, when I think about my own athletic career, there were kids when I was in high school (Fall 1985 - Spring 1988) who swam year-round. There was a swim club (Cedar Rapids Aquatics Association or CRAA) and the really fast kids were members of that club and swam year-round. They worked on their stroke, they competed in regional meets, and they were a lot faster than I could ever hope to be. Back in those days, there was no such thing as "being cut" from the Varsity boy's swim team - if you went out for the sport, you were on the team. Period.
I don't have the answer to all of this, but I did like the idea behind Smoltz's opinion.
I got this in an email this AM from a music publicist. No idea if the band "Junior Prom" is worthy of my time or not. I was just captivated by the marketing angle. There was no such thing as "junior prom" when I was in high school. There was prom and you went your senior year. My prom is not something I really think about anymore. It was what it was.
If I were to attempt to keep up with all the 2016 presidential campaign events and stories, I would need to write this blog full-time. That's not happening. Thus, I'm free to pick out only those events and stories that interest me.
On the Republican side, there's Donald Trump. I can't really see him as president of the country, but I do think a lot of what he says makes sense. No, not the stuff about all Muslims are bad people and that they should be rounded up and shipped out. I like the talk about having a secure border and about having a process by which if you want to come into America, you follow the rules. Period. If you don't follow the process, you can be called "illegal immigrants" and you can be sent back on your dime, not mine. I also think that he gets in trouble with his mouth and says things that are not nice. I think sweeping generalizations are a bad thing and Trump should cease making statements like "all Muslims are bad." Read more about Donald Trump here.
Before moving to the other side of the aisle, I want to write about my personal experience with hearing a specific sweeping generalization and then having that cloud my opinion of people with a specific character trait. For me, it wasn't Muslims. It was heavy metal fans with long hair. Let me explain. When I was in high school, Iron Maiden was playing a concert at the Five Seasons Center (now called the US Cellular Center) in downtown Cedar Rapids. For reasons I don't remember, I was at a (now closed) restaurant called Gringo's across the street with my mother. When she saw all the Iron Maiden concert attendees walking towards the door, she made a negative comment about people with long hair. It was the type of comment that I carried with me and made people with long hair intimidating to me to the extent that I thought they were all mean people. Of course, not every person with long hair is mean. It was easier to follow the intent of what my mother said to me and to make judgments about people than to approach a heavy metal fan with long hair and find out about that person.
On the Democrat side, there's Hillary Clinton. There are websites dedicated to documenting the lies she has told. At the Democratic debate on Saturday night, she apparently tole more, per this article. The other day, I read about how Politifact was debunking another claim she had made about videos of Trump being shown to recruit ISIS members, per this article.
I realize that lying is sometimes a matter of perspective. Ben Kenobi proved this when he explained that when he said that Darth Vader had betrayed and murdered Luke's father, it was true from a certain point of view. I get that. I don't get it when you knowingly say words that you know in your heart are not true. Was there ever really any evidence that a video had caused the Benghazi attack, when she said these words below? What about when she said that it wasn't a video to some people in her emails, which contradicted what she said publicly? Is that lying or is that telling people a portion of what they need to know? I don't have the answers.
Before ending this post with the video of Clinton's speech, I can think of several examples where lying would have benefited me. In all phases of my life, from youth to adulthood, telling a lie instead of the truth may have caused tears to not fall, anger to not explode, friendships to not flourish, better relationships with those around me, and quite frankly, changed the path I have followed in my life. Lies I have told, especially to myself, are the most damaging, especially when my actions followed the path laid out by the lie instead of the truth.
Thursday is my son's 17th birthday. Conveniently, he has forgotten that his birthday present was for me to take him & his friend Austin to the 5FDP / Papa Roach / In This Moment / From Ashes to New concert on 10/2, because now his Grand Plan is to go out to eat on Thursday to Old Chicago (no issue thus far) with us (good) and also his current girlfriend Annika.
Last night, it was humorous to hear Alex talk about kissing Annika during the day. Alex proclaimed that couples do that after walking to class and then, as a part of saying "good-bye", they kiss. Karen was in shock and in awe upon hearing this. "Couples do that?!?"
I found myself nodding. In high school, especially sophomore year, I remember walking to class with my girlfriend and kissing her before we diverged to go to our separate classes. I remember walking to practice - me to swim practice, her to basketball practice - and kissing her before we diverged. That was the culture. We held hands and spent precious moments together.
On a related note, here's a story. In high school, Mom signed me up for CRAA (Cedar Rapids Aquatics Association) so that I could train at the Coe College swimming pool during the summer. I remember telling Mom that I wanted to be signed up for CRAA because I believed training over the summer would make me an awesomely fast swimmer during the high school swim season. In the same breath as stating my goal of being a fast swimmer, I would recite a litany of reasons why I was skipping practice.
I don't remember Mom forcing me to go to CRAA practices. I think she understood what I've come to understand over time. I realize now that Mom couldn't want me to do something more than what I wanted to do. If I really wanted to be an awesomely fast swimmer, I would have rarely missed any practices. Neither Mom nor Scott, my CRAA coach, couldn't want me to be an awesomely fast swimmer more than I wanted to be an awesomely fast swimmer. That's just the way it is. I know life was busy during those summers but if I really wanted to train, I would have made sure I allowed myself time to train.
Coming back to the story in the first paragraph, does the state of CT want this girl to be alive more than she wants to be alive? Ponder that thought.
Not once did I ever attend a high school state swim meet during my 4 years as a swimmer in high school. When I read this article about this young woman's battle not only with other competitors, but with her own body, it made me thankful that she did well.
