Sunday, October 28th, 2012

This weekend turned out to be a very fun and memorable one as we hosted a number of old ISU friends at our house who returned for the homecoming football game.  This year was the 100th Cyclone homecoming, and it was great that we were able to celebrate the "Cy-tenial" with an important 35-21 victory over the Baylor Bears.  Mike Kazlauskas, Sara Bauman, Erick Ude, Rachel Stork, Renee Oehlerking & quite a few more peeps joined us for tailgating fun in Ames. 

"I-S-U" marching band

Sara & Mike

I know that the three videos above are poor quality & shaky, but they were taken on my phone and I was in the middle of a a bunch of roudy fans, so it was hard not to get bumped. 

It was nice to finally see some consistent quarterback play for Iowa State as Steele Jantz tied school records for TD passes in a game (5) and pass completions in a game (36).  Jarvis West had a career day for Iowa State as he managed to catch three TD receptions (the first three of his career by the way).  Now the Cyclones only need 1 more win in their last 4 games to be bowl eligible!!  GO STATE!!

Sunday, October 14th, 2012

Today is basically a recovery day for Elizabeth and myself after our trip to Chicago over the past few days.  I spent all day Thursday, Friday, and then 4 hours Saturday morning at a continuing education class in Rosemont, Illinois.  It was a very interesting class called Chain Reaction 3D which covers Applied Functional Science, and it was taught by "the father of function" Gary Gray. 

While we were in town, Elizabeth had fun shopping at Ikea, we got to see Timmy & Alana for a little bit, and we were able to enjoy some quality Chicago cuisine that we don't get to have very often.  This trip was actually the first time that I've been back to Chicago since we moved back to Iowa last year.  I made sure that we had my favorite sushi, Sushi Para in Palatine, which we enjoyed on Thursday after my classes were done.  Then on Friday we met up with Timmy & Alana for Exchequer Pizza. 

Menu at Sushi Para

My first plate: Volcano roll, 4 salmon sushi, 4 tuna sushi, 2 massago, 2 eel sushi

My second plate: Under control roll (bottom), a Chicago roll (middle), and 2 salmon sushi

Myself trying a piece of the Under Control Roll

My last plate, another "Under Control Roll"... it was so good that I needed one more!

Friday night's dinner was at Exchequer's in downtown Chicago.

Large pepperoni and sausage deep dish.

There is so much cheese on the deep dish!

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

I've got a little time this afternoon to blog... my schedule at work is just so slow today for some reason! 

Anyways one thing that I enjoy doing that I wanted to highlight here in my blog is keeping track of the previous sporting events that I have been to.  This should come as no surprise if you keep track of my blog anyways... it's mostly about sports or food :)

The way I keep track of all of my past sporting event attendance is through: www.espn.go.com/travel/passport

It's a fun thing that you can sign up for through ESPN which allows you to accumulate statistics on the different teams which you have seen play.  Things like their record vs each other, points allowed, points for, etc, for any given season or all time.  I'll just go into a little detail here to show how some of my most often watched teams have done...

College Football:

• Iowa State: 16 wins, 6 losses
• 599 points for, 422 points against... it also breaks it down between each season
• They were 6-1 when I was at the games in 2002 (the days of Seneca Wallace)
• Colorado: 0 wins, 3 losses
• 54 points for, 78 points against (all 3 vs ISU... 2005, 07, and 09)
• Iowa: 1 win, 2 losses (games against ISU... 2005, 07, 09)
• Nebraska: 0 wins, 2 losses (games against ISU in 2002, 04)
• Texas Tech: 1 win, 1 loss (2002 and 2012 against ISU)
• Kansas: 0 wins, 2 losses (2002 and 2011 against ISU)

Men's College Basketball:

• Iowa State: 13 wins, 2 losses
• 1,124 points for and 932 points against
• Oklahoma in 2003 & Drake last year were the team's I've seen ISU lose to
• Texas: 0 wins, 2 losses (2004 & 2012 against ISU)
• Kansas State: 0 wins, 2 losses (2003 & 2012 against ISU)
• Northern Iowa: 0 wins, 1 loss (2006 against ISU)

MLB:

• Minnesota Twins are 2-1 when I've seen them... 1-1 at home and 0-1 on the road
• Chicago Cubs are 2-2... 1-1 at home, 0-1 on the road, and 1-0 at neutral site (spring training)

So that is just a quick look at most the teams that I have seen play more than once.  I've also seen some NBA games, but I didn't bother to list them here.  I really wish that it would also keep track of women's college basketball, but for some reason it doesn't.  So just for my memory I wanted to list the few ISU women's games that I have seen...

• 3/18/2001 - Iowa State 85, Florida State 70 (NCAA tournament game)
• 2/5/2005 - Iowa State 73, Texas 69
• 12/11/2011 - Iowa State 77, Mississippi Valley State 47

Hopefully I can make it to a women's game for this upcoming season as well.