Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

HAPPY LEAP DAY!!

I just think that this is such a fun day... anything that only happens once every 4 years is so rare that it's fun!  I should say happy 21st birthday to Paul Lindgren!!! 

So while I was at work this morning I spent a little time looking up information about leap days.  I learned that back in the old days, women could only propose to their men on leap days.  Maybe this is common knowledge, but I thought it was interesting.  The reason that we have a leap year in the first place is because a year isn't exactly 365 days long.  It's actually 365 days, 5 hours, and 49 minutes.  So it actually takes a little more fine tuning to our callender than just adding a day every four years.  I found out that every 100 years we skip a leap year (except for every 400 years where we still have a leep year).  So in the years 1800 and 1900 there was no leap day, but in 2000 there was.  Maybe it's just me, but I think that's pretty interesting.

Another fun thing that Elizabeth and I did today was go out for sushi with Erick down at Tokyo Steak House in Ankeny.  I was very proud of Elizabeth because she was adventurous and willing to try something out of the norm.  We split a couple of fancy rolls (one of them was tempura fried), and then I also ordered a spicy salmon roll and a eel with avacodo roll.  Elizabeth added a Philadelphia roll.  It was very yummy.  Maybe going out for sushi could be a fun tradition that we do every leap day?  Kind of like how we make homemade pizza for Valentines day.  I enjoy little traditions like that.  I'm guessing that since it only comes around about once every 4 years that by the next leap day we will be lucky to remember this tradition anyways! 

Love you Elizabeth.

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Ok, so I still have basketball on the brain, and I have some time to blog about it.  I can't wait to see who Iowa State will play in the NCAA tournament, and what their seed will be.  It's been so long since ISU has made the tournament... I almost forgot how much fun it is to see them make it!  Right now, according ot Joe Lunardi's bracketology projection as of February 20th, he has ISU as a #9 seed matched up with #8 Saint Louis in the first round.  I really hope that we are not an 8 or a 9 seed because that would put us in a death-match with a #1 seed in the second round if we would advance.  Really there is still quite a bit of basketball left to be played, and I think that Iowa State could end up being anything from a #7 to a #11 seed.  Just my opinion.  If that's the case, we would also play a team with a seed of 6 through 10.  Who might that be?

According to the most recent bracketology, these would be the teams:
#6 seed: Murray State, Notre Dame, New Mexico, Creighton
#7 seed: Vanderbilt, Gonzaga, St. Mary's, San Diego State
#8 seeds: Memphis, Southern Miss, Virginia, Saint Louis
#9 Seeds: Kansas State, Mississippi State, California, Iowa State
#10 Seeds: Harvard, Purdue, Alabama, West Virginia

More than likely, the team that we will face will be someone other than these teams.  But who knows?  Murray State has been highly ranked all year, so they would be fun to play.  No chance that we would play Kansas State since we are in the same conference.  Harvard or Gonzaga would be fun match-ups.  I hate Notre Dame, so I hope we don't play them.  I would hate to lose to the Irish.  A match-up with Creighton would be interesting since their star Doug McDermott is the son of former ISU coach Greg McDermott.  I hope we don't play West Virginia either since we will be seeing plenty of them starting next year when the join the Big 12.  I just hope that we are not an 8 or 9 seed, we play some team that we never get to see and would be a fun match-up, and I would love us to just win at least one game in the tournament.  Sweet 16 would be amazing.

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Ok this is YET ANOTHER post about an Iowa State Cyclone men's basketball win.  This time the victim was Texas Tech, 72-54. 

Before the game today I met up with Jeremy Seago, and we went out for some delicious chinese at "New China" located next to the west Hy-Vee in Ames. 

My orange chicken was delicious!

Now I had just bought a new camera which can take "panorama" pictures... so I was having fun with that feture.  Kind of cool, no? But enough of our pre-game meal... onto the basketball pictures!

The view from our seats in section 213.

Another panoramic picture... this one inside Hilton. 

The student section had a lot of funny giant heads that they were waving around when Texas Tech was shooting free throws.  I have no idea who this is.

Here Scott Christopherson is about to launch a 3 from the wing... which he made BTW.

My customary picture with the final score.  Cyclones WIN!!!  If you can't read it, my shirt says "Ames, don't knock it till you RIOT".

Jeremy with the final score... but the cool part is that we also see Coach Hoiberg in the bottom right as he is leaving the court!!

Even though this was an expected win for the Cyclones, it was very important as it gave them 20 wins for the season and 10 conference wins.  Iowa State has not achieved the 20-win mark for 8 years and has not won 10 conference games since 2001.  This was Jeremy's first time watching an Iowa State game, so I was glad that he could see a good win.  The last thing that I will remember from this game was all of the great dunks.  The best I think was when Royce White dribbled between a defender's legs and dunked!  Royce came close to a triple-double by notching 13 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists.

Check out some great dunks from the game here.

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

Today Matthew Kovarna and I went to Hilton Coliseum where we watched Iowa State dominate the Texas A&M Aggies, 69-46. 

This game was not nearly as stressful as the last one that Elizabeth and I went to.  In fact the entire second half was kind of boring... in a good way.  I won't be the one to complain about a blow out conference win for the Cyclones!  This game marks the final regular season Big 12 conference game between Iowa State and Texas A&M, and it will likely be the last time they play for a very long time.  That is unless they meet up in the Big 12 conference tournament later this season. 

The crowd today was a good one.  This was the 3rd sell-out crowd of the season at Hilton (Kansas and Iowa were the others).  A few times it got pretty loud, but for the most part there wasn't much to go crazy about.  Royce White and Anthony Booker had a few big dunks that were fun, and Chris Allen led all scorers with 25 points.  Iowa State's largest lead was 33 points, but after we put our subs in the final score ended up being a little closer. 

Just before tip-off.

There was a very good crowd at the game; almost no empty seats!

ISU had a great game defensively as they held the Aggies to under 20 points in the first half.

Kovarna with the final score: Cyclones 69, Aggies 46.

There were "Go Cyclones" cards placed on all of the seats before the game.

Another fun note about today's game was the chants that the crowd was making at the end of the game.  Everyone was chanting "S-E-C" and then "Na na na na, hey, hey, hey, Goodbye".