Saturday. September 24th, 2022

Today I woke up early and brought both kids out to the tailgate lots by 7:00 for a fun day of tailgating and football.  Well, at least the tailgating was fun.  We set up camp under the SW corner overhang of the Scheman building to stay out of the sun.  The kids had plenty of grassy area just to the south to run around and play catch with a football.  I brought some Casey's breakfast pizzas, and others brought biscuits and gravy.  

As for the game, well, it was not as much fun.  Baylor ended up defeating Iowa State, 31-24. The first touchdown drive for Baylor was especially painful to watch, as there was a complete BS targeting penalty called on ISU, which caused Beau Freyler to miss the rest of the game.  That was one of about three terrible 15 yard penalties called on the Cyclones today.  Baylor still made the plays to win the game, but poor officiating definitely adds some frustration to watching games like this.  

Anyways, it was nice to have both of the boys get to watch a game with me at Jack Trice.  Today was the fourth time that I have seen Iowa State play Baylor in football.  The other years were wins in 2018 and 2012, and a loss back when I was an undergrad student in 2005.    This was the 8th football game that Nolan has been to, and his 4th conference game (Oklahoma 2018, Texas Tech 2020, and Kansas State 2021 were the others).  As for Maxwell, this was his 4th football game and second conference game that he has attended (the other was Kansas State 2021).  

Maxwell and Nolan with the view from our seated in section G.

Monday, September 5th, 2022

 Happy Labor Day everyone.  Today I did something that I haven’t done since early 2006… donate plasma.  I remember that when I first started to blog it was something I would talk about.  I went back to the same place I used to donate as a college student, BioLife.  I sat in the “Red” section today and gave from my left arm.  It all went pretty smoothly for me, although there was another person there that was having a bad reaction to it.  Anyways, if I can occasionally donate plasma it could be a nice way to help chip in for a vacation that we have planned in over a year…

Saturday, September 3rd, 2022

I am feeling a bit exhausted at the moment after being outside in the sun all day, but it was well worth it to enjoy Iowa State's season-opening football game against Southeast Missouri State.  The Cyclones rolled over the Redhawks, 42-10.

This year we are parking in the B1 lot, which is just north of the Scheman building.  We had to move away from the G7 lot that had always been our tailgate home, as that was converted to RV lots.  I think that the kids had a lot of fun at the tailgate.  Maxwell and Glenn were inseparable.  Nolan hung out with Bash most of the time, and we played catch with the nerf football quite a bit.  I brought a bunch of Fareway pork burgers to grill, and Dan made some smoked chicken wings that were very good.

As for the game itself, Xavier Hutchinson had three receiving touchdowns.  Hunter Dekkers looked solid for his first career start.  There was not much drama in the game, as SEMO was not very good.

Our whole family was able to attend today's game.  Nolan sat with me (with our mobile pass tickets), while Maxwell and Elizabeth used some free tickets that she got from work.  The weather was very nice for a home opener - kickoff was 74 degrees and sunny.  I believe that this was Nolan's 7th ISU football game, and it was Maxwell's 3rd game.  

Go Cyclones!!