WOO HOO!

Goin' to the playoffs....goin' to the playoffs.....

Last night was a special night for CUHS, as our much beleaguered football program took a major step last night, defeating the Coffeyvill Golden Tornadoes 31-6 to win the 4A District 1 championship. We host Fort Scott next Tuesday at 7 pm.

I love football. I love high school, college, and the NFL. I love to watch it, play it (flag, of course),talk about it, and play football videogames.

This is all very interesting because I didn't play football in high school. Back then I was a 6'4" 160 pound beanpole with asthma, bad feet, and an unbelievable lack of balance. I grew six inches in just over 6 months, and it took me (seriously) until I was 20 before regained control of my body. It was awful.

Not to mention I had a tremendous lack of footspeed. In fact, if you were to judge my speed based on comparing me to a member of the animal kingdom, my label would no doubt be "arthritic sloth."

But in my high school days Riverton was a football power, based primarily on the running prowess of Andy Ball. We were state champs in 3A my junior year, and state runner-ups in 4A my senior year against the defending 4A champ Scott City (Boo Beavers!) To my knowledge that kind of matchup has occured only twice, the other being 2A power Colgan versus the defending 3A champion Smith Center last year in 2A (Smith Center prevailed.)

When the football team did good, the entire school and town rallied together to encourage the team.

This is something I have not witnessed at Columbus. I think there are many reasons for this.

1. It is hard to get psycho pumped (community-wise) for teams that were getting drilled 56-0 week in and week out. Expectations were always super low (or non-existent) and ergo enthusiasm was not that great. Pep rallies were always wretched.....the optimist in me wants to say that the team's ability shouldn't matter, school spirit should always be there....but the realist in me asks, when was the last time you ever saw people getting pumped over the Arizona Cardinals NFL team? They've sucked for years, and they get little attention from the national media (and not much more from the locals.) There HAS to be some good product on the field, and now we have good product. The turnout at Tuesday's game will be tremendous.

2. We have a blistering division between the band and the athletes. The crowd feeds off the band- to me, hearing a high school drum cadence IS high school football. But the athletes don't care for the band here, and the band mostly don't care for the athletes, creating two separate distinct, self-absorbed entities. There is an unexplainable chasm there that most other school districts don't have. We need to find a way to alleviate that flaw.

3. We have a large number of the student body who show zero interest in athletic activities/events (or much of anything, for that matter.) When I was in school EVERYONE went to the games, the parades, all of it. (Lord, does that date me or WHAT? I sound like an old codger...everything was better in the good old days that a. weren't that good and b. didn't exist.) This may be partially caused by the fact that a larger number of students are working more than ever, which is a shame. Every day I deal with students complaining about having to work so much. Some of them work because they are emancipated and financially responsible to their families or selves. Most, however, are working to pay insurance for their ridiculously over-priced vehicles that they think they need but really don't. Too many kids waste their high school years working. They'll be working the rest of their lives. Why work now? I didn't work in high school. I had no money, no car (and no clue). But I was involved in everything and had a wonderful time. Too many kids walk around here dead tired from working too late or getting up too early to unload the trucks at their workplace- not a good way to learn and not a good way to go through life.

Wait, wasn't this about football?

Yeah.

GO TITANS!

Howdy.

Here are the coming assignments for Government:

Oct. 25: Quiz Chapter 2 Section 4. Take notes over Chapter Two Section 5. Flag Burning Questions page 56.

Oct. 26/27: Presidents Quiz 1-43. Chapter 2 Section 5 quiz. Red Day do Stocks. (Current Events on Red 10/27)

Oct. 28/31: Review Chapter 2 test. (Current events on Gold 10/28.)

Nov. 1/2: Chapter 2 Test.

Nov. 3/4: Mr. Fletcher sings the soundtrack to "Moulin Rouge"

It's 6:57 am in Carl Junction Missouri.

The High SChool band is marching right out side my house.

Normally I'd think I'd be upset, but in the mornings I kinda like it.

As I'm getting dressed, I pretend that I'm a Kansas City Chief and I'm putting on my pads for the big game against the hated, incestuous Denver Broncos.

Oops. That was probably harsh of me.

I just hate the Broncos.

It's Friday morning and I'm functioning on ZERO caffiene. We just don't keep it in the house anymore since my wife is pregnant. She is a Coke junkie (the drink, you fools! The SODA!) and can only have one Coke a day. So to keep temptation down, we only keep one emergency 2-liter of Soda in the back of the refrigerator hidden behind the 3 year old jar of mayonnaise and the packet of shredded cheddar cheese that, as far as I know, has gelled together into some sort of semi-sentient wad of dairy and mold. We keep it back there so Natalie is not tempted to drink any more of it than necessary, unless it's been a really bad day, and then I'll put on my riot gear and arm myself with 2 bottles of 409 to fight my way to the back of the fridge to liberate the Coke from the grasp of the evil cheese-beast and it's mindless lackey- the bag of wilted lettuce.

The next movie night is Tuesday, Nov. 1. We will be watching "National Treasure." It will start at 6 pm.

The December Movie Night will be "Starship Troopers." It will begin at 6:00 on Monday, December something. I haven't made up my mind yet. It will primarily depend on how much Christmas shopping I have left to do.

BONUS OPPORTUNITY: If you want to read the original novel by Robert Heinlein (written in 1954) you can do so and write a book review of 3 pages. Make sure you discuss the concept of forced military service to gain citizenship.

Woo hoo!

My wife gave me the go-ahead to reserve my Xbox 360.

What is a 31 year old man getting bent out of shape over a videogame for, you may ask?


The answer is simple: I have been, and always be, a closet geek.

I love Star Wars and Star Trek and all things science fiction. I played Dungeons and Dragons in college. I read as a child and continue to read comic books.

But I'm also a sports nut. I like to hunt. I love to read, listen to music, and write. I love movies and TV. In short, I love everything.

But videogames hold a special place in my heart. I don't waste hours away playing these games, but doggone it if I don't like showing them off on my MASSIVE home theater systsem.

Halo 2 and ANY college football game are my videogaming passions.

I play about 30 minutes a night before I go to sleep.

So I take all challengers anytime. I have an Xbox Live gamertag:
Severedmouse.

I didn't make it. The computer did.


Hasta lasagna!

I now have a death warrant on my head because last night, on my way home from Wichita, I killed approximately 1.4 gazillion bugs with the Suburban I was driving. The International Bug Irritation Studio (IBIS) put the death warrant on me yesterday at 5 pm.

I stopped TWICE to clean off the dead bug juice, but it was like I was the U.S.S. Missouri and the bugs were kamikaze fighters....I can't think of anything I did to anger that many bugs, other than slapping about 100 of them with a rolled up newspaper at the golf tournament. So last night the bugs came after me in the suburban with their suicide attacks.

But bugs are stupid, and I was in a very large, very hard vehicle driving at a smooth 71 miles per hour. Their attacks did not sway me in the least- they just blocked my vision. Maybe that was their plan all along! To blind me and hope I wrecked and died for my brash slaughter of their brethren in Wichita.

News travels fast in the bug world, I guess.

But bugs in the midwest are getting cocky.

It's been abnormally hot, and they continue breeding and breeding and biting and sucking and ticking me off......they think they're gonna live forever.

Well, to the bugs I say NAY!

Frost will come and smite thee from the planet, and I will stand over thy withered, frozen corpses, singing the victory song ** and drinking a big mug of chocolate milk as I parade around in my heavy woolen sweater, mittens, and ear muffs that you stupid insects are not smart enough to wear. I mean, think of the discount. If you all went to Wal-mart and said, "We need 1.4 trillion sets of insect sized mittens to keep our little probosci warm in the coming cold, the Wal-Mart Manager (Al Smith, 53, thrice divorced) would have no choice but to give you a GREAT volume discount. I'm talking 40% here.

But you're just stupid bugs.
Die, bugs, die.

** (We Will Rock You by Queen)

ENOUGH WITH THE HEAT!

I HATE summer. I HATE being HOT. We are in the middle of OCTOBER and next week is supposed to be near 90 all week....that is ridiculous. My favorite season is fall....but it's not gonna happen. It's been summer ALL YEAR it seems like.....I feel bad for the people in the gym and PE classes- no air conditioning, and 90 degrees!

I hate being hot.

I love cold.

Bone-chilling, teeth-chattering cold.
Blue-black cold.

But no. I haven't gone to a football game all year where a jacket is required. Doesn't sound like I will the rest of the season.

Stupid weather.

I'm so glad it's Thursday.

It could only be better if it were Friday.

Of all the days of the week, the worst is Wednesday. See, with Monday, you come back fresh from the weekend. Everyone talks about the games they watched, what they did, it's all still new and fresh. Tuesday is very similar to Monday. We've had either a gold or red day, and Tuesday is for the other classes we haven't seen yet. So we hear what the kids did over the weekend and catch up with them. Thursdays are pretty great because it's the last time I see either my red or gold kids, and we leave knowing that tomorrow is the most blessed of days, Friday.

But Wednesdays...Hump days...they suck.

You're not close to the beginning, you're not close to the end...you're just kinda there, stuck in the middle. I even hate getting UP in the mornings. Wednesdays are also the days when we have faculty meetings. They just extend the school day further. Some days they are okay, but other days, when the kids have been behaving as though they were raised by werewolves, and I'm forced to sit through a long meeting when all I can dream of is getting the HECK out of Dodge.....yikes.

Then, when you get home, there's nothing good on TV, the news has run out of interesting things to talk about and they air irrelevant stories about women who collect frog legs or something bizarre like that.....

But enough about Wednesdays.

It's Thursday.

Time to think about Friday.

Thank heavens it's Friday.

I'm reading about six different books right now- is it possible to have ADD while reading books? I can't just sit and focus on one book start to finish- at least I haven't been since I was reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I read that book on the trip home from Michigan- ten straight hours of Harry Potter. My eyes were bloodshot, I had a headache, but By God I was going to finish Harry Potter. I was happy. I love the books. I think living in the world of Harry Potter would be infinitely more entertaining than our present reality. So there I was, speeding through the book, until I hit the pivotal chapter 31.

Hermione dies and Harry Potter has his arm chewed off by a deranged Hagrid, who is under a "Hallucinate" spell cast on him by Draco which makes Hagrid think Harry is a large chicken burrito with dragon-mustard, Hagrid's favorite.

I'm sorry if I ruined the book for you. But this ending really torqued me off.

Right now I'm reading the newest trilogy of the Star Wars Expanded Universe series, a Star Trek book, the Historian by Elizabeth Kotovsky (spelling?), Freakonomics, and I'm re-reading Ordeal of Fire by James MacPherson, an excellent study of the Civil War.

My wife just finished the Runaway Jury. Only Grisham book I've never finished. I HATE it.

PS That isn't really how Harry Potter ends. It's not Harry's arm that gets chewed off. It's his leg.

ARGH.

Put me down as officially being on the football fan's suicide watch list.....this weekend I drove to Topeka to sit in the pouring rain and watch my beloved Pittsburg State Gorillas lose a 1 point heartbreaker in overtime. Then on Sunday, I drove to Kansas City to watch my beloved Kansas City Chiefs blow an 18 point lead to the Philadelphia Eagles, and then I had to sit and listen to my buddy Buddy rave about it the entire way home. This was Buddy's first Eagles game despite being a lifelong fan....and he ate it up. There were many, many idiotic drunken Eagles fans at the game (and a fair share of idiotic drunken Chiefs fans as well), and several fights nearly broke out because of the so-called bravado the liquid courage gave those drunken morons. Good thing Buddy is a nice guy and talks to people friendly, or we would have gotten lynched.

My fantasy teams lost, too......sniff, sniff.....it's too hard to talk about......

Just watched Million Dollar Baby last night. I secretly hid my tears during the last five minutes of the movie. Man, that presents a moral dilemma. But when Frankie (Eastwood) revealed the meaning of the gaelic name to her, I quit breathing.

I looked around the classroom, and saw the girls just BALLING their eyes out, including my wife Natalie. I also saw lots of guys coughing, doing anything to not bring attention to themselves, hiding the fact that they actually have feelings.......

Great flick. It might have even been better than "CRASH."

But definitely not better than Star Wars III.

Yoda to the end, baby.