Tuesday, December 25th, 2012

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all.  Elizabeth and I are now sitting down to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as we wind down our evening (I got the entire Harry Potter collection for her on Blu-ray for X-mas).  Today we drove back from Omaha where we had been enjoying a Salton family Christmas get-together at Amy & Brandon's place.

We drove out on Friday afternoon in what was pretty bad roads between Ames & Des Moines.  Between the snow packed roads, the rush-hour traffic that we hit, and the increased number of drivers on the road leaving for the holidays, it took us about two and a half hours to get from our house to I-80 westbound with Des Moines in our rear-view mirror.  We were glad when we finally made it out there in what was a much longer trip than it should have been.

Amy made a very nice X-mas meal for us Sunday at noon.  Turkey, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, Italian salad, dinner rolls, crumb cake, apple pie, and chese cake.  Well, Elizabeth made the salad, and I helped with the crust on the apple pie, but Amy deserves most of the credit.  She also made a Russian cream (like a custard), and homemade whipped cream.  That was just Sunday.  She also made a big pot of oyster stew, and we ordered Godfather's pizza another day.  All in all, there was too much to eat :)

How about that lattice crust topping?

Of course we played a lot of games (Telestrations, trivial pursuit, cards).  One game was especially worse than others.  We played a drinking game version of hearts, and it wasn't with alcohol.  Eben & Lynn had bought a few absolutely disgusting varieties of soda at a store in Minnesota.  They gave them to us as a gift, so we all decided to try them.  The soda flavors were Sweet Corn, Bacon, and Buffalo wing sause.  I think that the Sweet Corn was the worst.  It had a very strong smell and tasted like bad butter. 

Yuck.

Another thing to note is that Lynn just had her right knee replaced on the 11th of this month.  She is doing well, but her knee is still pretty stiff and it will take a while to get all of her strength and motion back.  On a couple of different occasions I worked with her and gave her some physical therapy exercises. 

Saturday, December 15th, 2012

Today Elizabeth and I enjoyed a fun afternoon down in Des Moines.  We met up with our buddy Erick Ude for lunch at Exile Brewing Company.  It was a cozy little restraunt / brewery, and I enjoyed a burger while Elizabeth chose their chicken fingers basket.  After lunch we headed over to Wells Fargo Arena to watch a basketball doubleheader, the inaugural Big Four Classic.  It was fun to be able to watch all four major college basketball teams in the state, but in general I have mixed feelings about this.  It's really too bad that Iowa State will not be able to play both UNI and Drake each year like they had in the past, and it's too bad that these games will not be played home/away on the school campuses like before.

The first game was UNI vs Iowa, and the second was Drake vs. ISU.

A view of the action between the Panthers and Hawkeyes.  The three of us were cheering on UNI for this game.

Panoramic view of Wells Fargo (and Elizabeth).

Unfortunately, the Hawkeyes were able to make their free throws down the stretch.  They went on to win 80-73.

Tip-off between Iowa State and Drake.

Brian and Elizabeth at Wells Fargo Arena.  ISU defeated Drake 86-77.

Both games were very competative, but it was kind of a long and exhausting day for sure.  Elizabeth did a good job of putting up with two entire basketball games!  Not a lot of the crowd actually stayed for both games, so it was odd that the place seemed maybe 3/4 full despite most of the tickets being sold.  A lot of the ISU and Drake fans did not show up until their game, and it seemed like a lot of Hawkeye fans did not stay to watch the second game.  ISU had a couple of nice dunks in this one... one by Melvin Ejim as he drove baseline, and the other by Will Clyburn.  Clyburn's was the most memorable (agreed upon by Elizabeth).  Drake had just rebounded a missed shot by Iowa State, but they threw a very poor outlet pass which was stolen by Clyburn underneath the ISU basket.  He threw down a two-handed dunk as he was fouled.  Ejim (21 points/11 rebounds) and Clyburn (17 and 10) both tallied double-doubles for Iowa State.

Sunday, December 9th, 2012

I just got back from Hilton Coliseum where David and I watched Iowa State take down Nebraska-Omaha by a score of 93-65.  It wasn't the most entertaining game, but it's always fun to see the Cyclones win. 

Tip-off between the Cyclones and Mavericks

Halftime score: 52-28.

Iowa State wins!

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

The view of our backyard.

We officially have our first SNOWFALL of the winter!  I'm sure that it won't amount to much, but it's something to note.

I'm also excited to be going down to Memphis at the end of the month to watch ISU play in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl against the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes.  I'm not overly excited about playing Tulsa since we've already played them once this year, but it will be fun to watch my Cyclones play football again this year. 

Of course this all depends on the world not abruptly ending in 13 days like a few idiots think will... just because it's the end of the Mayan calander on 12/21/12 people are freaking out. 

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

Elizabeth and I just got back a little while ago from Marshalltown where we went bowling for my work Christmas party.  It wasn't your regular night of bowling.  During our first game we bowled normally, but in our second and third games we had to bowl with a specific style for each frame.  Opposite handed, pushing the ball with a pool stick, with something over our head to we are blindfolded, granny-style, etc.  I actually only had strikes a few times that I bowled silly... my only attempt blindfolded I threw a strike.  Also I had strikes when using the pool cue and when throwing "as hard as I can".  No strikes when I tried to bowl normally. 

The other highlight of today was taking Elizabeth to watch the ISU men's basketball team defeat BYU, 83-62.  Will Clyburn was the star of the game for Iowa State, scoring a career-high 32 points. 

Outside of Hilton Coliseum

Today's game was "Color it Cardinal", and the Cyclones wore red instead of their usual home white.  Later on this play there was an amazing alley-op pass that Clyburn dunked over a BYU defender. 

Halftime score 48-37 Iowa State leading. 

Cyclones win again!

 

I was able to shave this past week once our donation quota was met at work.  Here I am before shaving...

Mustache!!  Ok, I looked like a pedophile.

One other thing that I will remember about today's basketball game was the large number of BYU fans that made the trip over here to watch the game.  It seemed like there was one whole section that was filled up with the visiting team's fans.  I'm guessing that they had a couple charter busses or something.  At least they all got to be disappointed in the end :)

Sunday, November 18th, 2012

It's time for another blog post... this time yet again about basketball.  Tonight's game featured the Fighting Camels from Campbell University against our very own Iowa State Cyclones.  Once again Iowa State proved victorious, this time by a score of 88-68.  In case you're not familiar with Campbell, it is a coed Baptist university located in Biues Creek, North Carolina.  Their mascot is "Gaylord the Camel", and their enrollment is listed as 6,182.  They play in the Big South Conference

Anyways, I had never heard of Campbell before last year when they beat the Iowa Hawkeyes, 77-61.  That was great.  However, tonight was a completely different story for the good old Fighting Camels.  Chris Babb returned from his 3-game suspension for violating team rules and was one of 5 Cyclones to score in double figures.  It really was a well-balanced game scoring for ISU.  Tyrus McGee came off the bench to lead the team with 16 points.  Will Clyburn added 15, Melvin Ejim and Babb each had 13, and Niang had 11. 

Just about to tip off.

A view of the action in the second half.

Final score: ISU 88, Campbell 68.

Since I went by myself today, here I am trying to get a self-shot and the score in the background.

Notice that I've been starting to grow a beard.  It's part of "No-shave November" which all the guys are doing at my work as a way to raise money for the Salvation Army.  I may look like a homeless person, but it's kind of fun and different.

 

Monday, November 12th, 2012

I just got back from Hilton Coliseum where I was able to watch the Cyclones absolutely demolish the Alabama A&M Bulldogs 98-40.  Wow.  The 58-point margin of victory was the sixth-best ever in ISU's history.  This game was never in doubt... although at one point Iowa State was trailing 2-0.  I took my cousin David with me to the game, and even though it was a blowout we managed to enjoy ourselves.  Tyrus McGee led five Cyclones in double figures with 18 points.  Not really much to say about this one... the crowd never really was into the game, and really Alabama A&M was god awful.  This was not a test for our team at all. 

Iowa State wins the opening tip vs. Alabama A&M

Halftime score: ISU 41, Alabama A&M 14

David posing with the final score, 98-40.

This was the biggest win I've ever seen for ISU.