(not the) april recap

It's well overdue, so before I get into my monthly summation of all things Crock, I'm going to overuse commas while describing last weekend.

The Cal U Ultimate Frisbee team traveled two and a half hours north to Tionesta, a small time town with big time trees. Here, we shacked up with Tyler's parents, who own a motel, and very graciously put us up for two nights. Saturday saw us stroll into Clarion to take on the only two teams who showed up for this tourney. We did very well, winning both games as a Cal U team. After our wins, we were treated to a "hat tournament" where every one's name goes into a hat and teams are assembled in the "pick em" fashion. There were about six of us who were accidentally left out of the hat (myself included) so I ended up on my good friend Eric's team. Without going into much detail, I'm sad to inform you that our team didn't fare so well. A lot of memories were forged during those games we played as a "hat team". Most are forgettable! Towards the end of the hat tourney a mighty rain squall rolled through and forced us indoors for about an hour. We resumed frisbee activities and continued our now famed losing streak. Heidi and Ali were the mudpuppies of the afternoon, finally making good on their promise to mud wrestle (sort of).

That night, we kicked off the festivities with a game called "WAH!" - a traditional frisbee game which we quickly turned into a drinking game. Instead of sitting out whenever you messed up, you simply drank and were able to keep playing. It added a certain mystique to the game that is rivaled only by beer pong or maybe circle of death. What a fun way to kick off a night. After dusk settled and we were all WAH'd out, we chilled around the campfire for a bit until the night peaked when some skinny dipping went down. Shortly thereafter, we called it a night.

Sunday, the remainder of the team that stayed the extra night went to a state park near Tionesta. We talked as we walked along the trail and Reese took some killer pictures. (see my facebook until I flickr them) We hit two trails, nearly completing both of them. Jokes were plentiful and the times were amazing. Looking back, I couldn't think of a better way to round out our last tournament of the semester. Later that night, we returned home to elect new officers and get some paperwork ready for the fall semester.

This Friday, I'm hosting a bonfire for the team. Can't wait.

Monthly recap coming later today. Stick around.

clarion frisbee tournament

This weekend's going to be creative and fun. Our final frisbee tournament will be hosted hosted by Clarion (2+ hours due north) on Saturday. What's creative about this tourney is that after all the playoffs are settled, they're hosting a "hat tournament" where everyone's name, from every school attending, goes into a hat and teams are assembled by drawing names. We've never had an opportunity to do this in the past, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Backtracking just a bit, Tyler's (frisbee teammate who has completely written off microwaves and now uses power chords from his axe to warm his food) parents own a motel/livery and have invited the entire frisbee team to stay there for the weekend. Honestly, this is one of the most generous offers I've seen extended to the team. His parents are saving us from having to wake up at 5:00am on Saturday and drive 2+ hours. Instead, we'll be well rested and (with any luck) bushy-tailed. So, we'll be leaving tonight after I get off work and we plan on staying until Sunday afternoon. By the sounds of things, there's lots to do up there. We've got hiking, kayaking, and (of course) frisbee on the itinerary. I really can't thank his parents enough for this. Amazing.

I assume I'll be back by Sunday afternoon/evening, not that I'm particularly excited about returning. This will not only be the last tournament of the semester, but it may be last time I'll play on the same team as good friend Eric. He's been around since we started the frisbee team, and he's somebody I've really connected with both on and off the field. While learning the game, we pretty much progressed at the same pace, shared the same intensity and practiced together hard - especially during the "battle drill". I can't picture a practice or game without him there. Hopefully, he'll come back and play in tournaments after he graduates. However things end up, I absolutely want to make this tournament one to remember.

IUP frisbee tournament

100_0068
Originally uploaded by California Ultimate Frisbee

I'm definitely satisfied with how this past weekend went. The Cal U Ultimate Frisbee team played hard at a very difficult, very fun IUP tournament. We may have only won once, but I really believe that we learned a lot (especially from the game against IUP, who gave us a crash course in how to run the zone defense well).

I believe Keebs said it best during our last game when he remarked that "A lot of inexperienced players are playing some amazing frisbee right now." While that held true for that game, it really was the sentiment for the entire tourney. We came out of the gates flying around, playing our own game and lost our first two games by a combined three points.

Bringing things into a more personal view, Reese and I stayed overnight in some dude's house on Saturday night. Our hosts were cool as hell, but I had to sleep on the floor. (They had converted their third bedroom into a walk-in closet with a small, bench-style bed and a bureau.) Needless to say, I'm glad to be home. Though, I had some great trouble getting to sleep last night as I couldn't help but relive it all. Excellent weekend.

interesting set of pics

Ferris Wheel
Originally uploaded by Jalebe

I never knew about an abandoned theme park at Chippewa Lake Park. The entire park is being overtaken by nature. It's been abandoned for over thirty years now, and apparently will be completely demolished for redevelopment.

I think these pics are some of the coolest I've seen in a while. I'd definitely like to explore this place. Click on the picture to view the whole set. There's rollercoasters, concession stands and other creepy stuff!

the digital meal

(After typing and rereading this blog entry, I noticed how each paragraph was a separate, single, digestible portion of thought. It led me to think, "Wow, if I could eat any part of the internet right now, I'd definitely wanna eat this blog entry. So, I've labeled each paragraph as a course of my digital meal. A word of advice regarding meals - don't make the meal if you can't buy the groceries yourself.)

(to start, an appetizer)
Another note about contemporary music, Louis XIV has a single called "Air Traffic Control" that's getting some major airplay on Sirius 21 - Alt Nation. When I first heard Louis XIV (pronounced Louie the Fourteenth) I thought this band sounded similar to most other Brit-Punk/Alternative bands. I guess they do a lot of work with their vocals to sound different, because it was only today that I found out they hail from San Diego. Air Traffic Control sort of reminds me of Radiohead's "Karma Police", so maybe that's why I had assumed they were from across the pond. Regardless, Air Traffic Control is definitely worth a listen, especially if you were into Karma Police. Louis XIV's song isn't quite as dark as Radiohead's, but it shades well. I'd definitely like to hear more from Mr. 14th.

(napkin the hands/face)
Alright. Enough about music.

(bring on the first course)
This weekend puts me at IUP for two days to participate in an Ultimate Frisbee tourney with the Cal U team. Unlike the previous two tournaments, the weather for this event seems to be cooperating. That means when Monday rolls around, I'll have something else to write about instead of bitching about how rain ruined yet another set of weekend plans.

(toughin' out the second course w/ side salad)
On the college front, there's only a few more weeks of class left in the semester and I'm kind of sad to see it go. I've programmed myself to operate at full collegiate learning capacity on Mondays and Thursdays, and losing that over the summer will no doubt cause me all kinds of grief during the first few weeks of the fall semester. And although I'm only taking two classes, I'm doing quite well in them, so replicating the results from the Spring will be my main goal when Fall finally arrives. I really did enjoy my first semester as a graduate student. Learning something that I have little experience with keeps me interested while the university's mandate of a "B average" in prerequisite classes has me sharply focused. Really, I haven't been this focused on my studies since my sophomore year in high school.

(make room for the third course)
Yesterday, I got into twittering. (You can see my twitter updates to the right --->) I'm not entirely sure what kind of benefits this service will add to my digital life, but I'm willing to give anything a try. Twitter seems like a "Facebook Status" website that was blown way out of proportion. The authors of many blogs I frequent use it fairly often, though. Maybe this will help me connect with them. Maybe it will fall by the wayside.

(and dessert)
Oh, and how about those Pens!!?!?!
Go.
Pens.

kodak m763

Around lunchtime yesterday I decided I've had it with my old digital camera (HP Photosmart 435 - a zoomless clunker of a camera) and needed to purchase the camera I've had my eye on for about a week now. So, also on my lunch break yesterday, I went to Best Buy and readied myself to buy the camera. There was a real problem though; Best Buy seems to lack floor people during the lunch hour on Tuesdays. So for little under twenty minutes I'm double-checking my price comparisons versus similar cameras and their accessories, assuming that if I look confused enough that SOMEBODY would come along and offer to assist me. No such luck. I left as I had arrived - without a camera.

Forward to an hour and a half ago. Best Buy is now fully stocked with floor representatives. (Tuesdays must be the "call off sick day" or "lets all go eat at Friday's day") As luck would have it, I immediately was greeted by a stout young gentleman who looked more irritated about working during the lunch hour than he was about his weight. (If you can't read into that, he was heavy-set... come to think of it, maybe today is "lets all go eat at Friday's day" and he got left behind...) I told him to stick around, as I was checking out the prices on memory cards and was heading for the camera next. Getting this thing a day later than I had wanted wound up being a splendid trip down Serendipity Lane. Just today one of the 4GB ($27) cards went on sale for a mere $5 more than the 2GB ($22) card of the same brand. (Now THATS a deal!) The floor rep then hooked me up with my camera (the Kodak M763) and I was on my way. For the rest of my lunch break, I read the manual and played with it a bit. (Don't wanna go ruining an investment)

I'll need this camera in the upcoming months since Reese & I are so intent on building our home and I'd like to document everything that I possibly can during the process. I also haven't been taking pictures regularly since about 2005. That will all change now.

music notes

Just a few music-related thoughts for your Metallica Wednesday. (Time to hit your Metallica playlist, hard!)

First, has anybody noticed how tight Avenged Sevenfold's guitar licks are? They seriously are taking me back to the days when Metallica was rocking my world with explosive guitar riffs. Their song - "Critical Acclaim" has an amazing intro where both guitars mirror one another. Its awesome.

I'm not afraid to admit I'm a fan of Panic at the Disco. I thoroughly enjoyed their "A Fever You Can't Sweat Out" album and even though their newest disc "Pretty. Odd." deviates from their original sound, I still enjoy it. This album sounds much more light-hearted and fun than their first.

I'm not so sure what's going on with Deathcab for Cutie. I haven't had the opportunity to listen to their entire new disc - "Narrow Stairs" - but I did manage to hear their first single and it's definitely not what I expected. "I Will Possess Your Heart" doesn't follow the typical, witty, poetic style of lyrics that are on the Transatlanticism or Plans albums. They've been very open about how they weren't going for the same sound from their last two albums. I'm not saying its a bad thing, yet. I'm just not used to Deathcab sounding like this. Maybe it'll be a good change?

A few days ago, I was reading Weezer's official website and they're being deceptively concrete about their upcoming album. They've recently confirmed the drop date of the album (6/24) but they're being slightly coy about the remaining details. Word on the street is that the album will be their third self titled album, this time the color theme being red - becoming known as "The Red Album". I've always said that Weezer's best songs came from their "color" albums (save a few from Pinkerton, which was kind of like a color album, right?) so I'm definitely looking forward to this release. At least Weezer has confirmed their first single "Pork & Beans" which was written as a result of Rivers' becoming pissed off over a meeting where he was told write songs differently. I hear that we're going to be getting Pork & Beans airplay in little under a week. I can't wait to hear it!

Unrelated to music, but just as important - the Pens can sweep the Sens tonight with a win. GO PENS!@!#@!

liquor stories vol. 1

This past Saturday, Chuck, Reese and I ventured to South Hills Village to get Chuck fitted for his tux. (I am, always have been, and will ever remain his ride) So he gets fitted for a tux in record time, and we peruse the mall. I buy my obligatory "shirts on-sale" from Aero. Reese conquered a candy store. All the buyin' worked us up a mean hunger, so we went to the Olive Garden where I was reunited with a former love - balsamic vinegar. (I dined on jelly beans and salad) After our meal, Chuck pointed out a large liquor store. He wanted to pick up some juice for his old man. I originally thought I'd just do some window shopping, since I'm not much of a liquor drinker anyway. Fate again reunited me with another former love. This time, it was Black Velvet.

My favorite section of a liquor store is where the rum/gin/vodka/whiskey/tequila collide. If I were to make hay at a state store, this is where I'd do it. (Now, friends - a tale) I was in a whiskey mood. But, for whatever reason when it comes to whiskey I can't really stand JD or Jim Beam. I think its because they've both got a nasty bite right after you finish shooting it. To me, drinking that stuff sort of makes me feel like I'm using industrial-strength rubbing alcohol as mouthwash. (and... uhh.. I get COMPLETELY out of control when I drink that stuff. Almost left that out...) Its a different story when it comes to Black Velvet. If I could choose one word to describe Black Velvet, it would be "smooth". There's no harsh bite at the end. No shrill aftertaste of industrial biohazard. As far as I'm concerned, it's all good. I still get a bit out of hand, but that comes with the territory. Anyway, back to the liquor store. They're having a sale on this stuff! Typically, fifths of it can be sold anywhere between the $8.99 - $9.99 range. (not bad) The markdown was an entire dollar! I'll take your $8.00 whiskey.

Later that night, Reese, Rollo and I are drinking in my kitchen. I'm three glasses deep and I'm getting a bit out of hand. That's the beauty of a nightcap, though. If I feel I'm headed down the wrong path to sobriety, I can always crash on the couch and watch a movie with Reese and Rollo.

The moral of the story? "There Will Be Blood" is a DAMN good movie.

rainchecks and home sites

Last weekend the Cal U frisbee team saw our road trip and tournament at Juniata washed away by rain, forty-two hours before game time. That's a real crumb on your bumper considering I was going to be gone an entire weekend for nothing other than throwing a disc. Oh well, live for the next weekend I guess. So, as of tomorrow "next weekend" will be "this weekend" and yet another tournament has been foregone. This time, its due to lack of participation. Six teams were tabbed as the minimum number for the tournament to be held --- three teams RSVP'd. Yet another bummer. Next weekend we have a tournament at IUP. I've rarely seen a tourney canceled there, so I'm going to be as up as I can be for this thing. Following the tourney at IUP, I understand that Cal will be hosting a home tourney. Spring weather is some of the most volatile weather of the year, but damnit they can't ALL be canceled, can they?

My uncle recently gave Reese and I a vote of confidence when I finally got around to asking him about his opinion regarding my desire to build a house. I was quite surprised when he agreed with our decision to build on the hill, up above my parents' house. I seriously thought his response would be more along the lines of "trying to talk me out of it". Now that we've got the initial discussion out of the way, my uncle, Reese and I will walk up to our proposed home site. Once he gives me to OK to get it surveyed, I'm going to try to steamboat through this thing and hopefully have a house built in time for winter.

workin' for mba

I'm enrolled at Cal U to get my MBA... Or so I thought.

A few days ago, Chuck and I were shootin' the shit about his degree and what his plans were. It came up that he might consider getting his MBA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. That seemed a bit odd, seeing as how Cal offered the same thing and wouldn't require a move. He then set me straight. If you go to this website, you'll see the complete description of the MBS program at Cal (the program in which I'm currently enrolled). Now, I know it makes no mention of the term "MBA" anywhere in there, but to a dude who has an undergraduate degree in IT - it looked just the same. I'm pretty green when it comes to business education, and you'd think that after talking with my adviser and many administrative types, that SOMEBODY would have set me straight. Not Cal, though. They let me meander on, never correcting me. I must have looked pretty foolish talking to administration, faculty and my adviser. Now I've nearly completed my first semester here, and I wonder if I've done it all for nothing.

Chuck and I continued talking. I told him my primary reason for attending Cal U was because it made the most economical sense to me. Since I graduated there, I didn't have to take the GMAT or the GRE exams, thus eliminating exam fees. It wasn't far from home, so I'd be using little gas (and also decreasing my carbon footprint). Their tuition is affordable, and their activity fees are reasonable. While my plight still remains purely economical, my choices aren't as exciting as I'd like to envision them. Chuck told me that there are plenty of "distance learning" programs that would allow me to earn my MBA from home. This is all well and good, except these types of programs are typically several hundred dollars more per-credit-hour. For example, Cal has a per-credit-hour fee of $327.00 for graduate students. Not bad at all. In contrast, two schools I've briefly explored almost double Cal U's tuition. Regis University offers a distance learning MBA program at $750.00 per-credit-hour. Capella University tops off at $605.00 per-credit-hour. Neither make financial sense to me.

So now I'm left with several questions. The foremost being: What's the biggest difference between the two degrees? I'm actually surprised by the lack of GOOD articles on the web regarding this! I managed to find this article, and it really didn't do a good job explaining the differences between the two degrees. This is what I took from it: "the academically inclined often pursue the MBS while career-oriented individuals value the prestige of an MBA". Well great. What the hell does that mean? I need the meat and potatoes of this discussion and they gave me a side salad. What can I do with an MBA that I couldn't do with an MBS? And vice versa! Is there some kind of ceiling I'll hit if I stick with the MBS, that somehow doesn't exist to those who have obtained an MBA? And will an MBA be completely useless in ten years after anybody with access to the internet and a high school diploma can obtain one? Why can't I find the answers to these questions?

All I know is that I'm career-driven, so does that automatically mean I should be pursuing an MBA and not an MBS?

frisbee impact!

I guess there's just no substitute for good, hard competition when it comes to exercise. I consider myself to be a borderline running fanatic. I'll run if I'm bored. I'll run if I'm not bored. I'll run in the rain. I'll run in the snow. (I will eat it in a box, I will eat it with a fox...) You get the picture. Saturday I played my first truly competitive game of Ultimate Frisbee in a long, long time. Three hours into the game and I'm pretty winded - a minor letdown, since I'm so ambitious about running. Gotta step up the game if I'm gonna play it, I guess.

I had a really good time Saturday night when Amy had the frisbee team over for a get-together. The night started off well, with good discussion and plenty of bad jokes. As the night went on, our group had shifted into two separate but equal factions: the beer pongers and the card players. Since it was a Jefferson gathering and beer pong is ALWAYS played on the breakfast bar - I declined to join. Something about a five foot long beer pong table doesn't strike me as a challenge. So I instead played one of my favorite booze-related card games in Asshole. I quickly started off by being the Asshole in the first two rounds thanks to excellent strategy by Train (skip Crock...ugh...). The game hung together a lot longer than I had thought it would and ended right as I was to be president for a third time, thus denying me "create a rule" privileges. No matter, it was still a hell of a lot of fun. At some point, though, there's gotta be a cutoff limit when it comes to switching music...

Oh, and then there's the news about my phony MBA. I'll save that story for later, though.

audit-toberfest

Normally I don't like to double-post on the same day. I think its easier to keep a consistent, day-to-day process blog style. Maybe that's something I should change. I'm all about consistency and symmetry. For real, I did a self-audit on this blog before officially changing it over from "Sex Panther 2" to "Crocktoberfest" and I noticed a few interesting things.

First, I tend to capitalize every letter of a significant word when titling my blog posts. That made me think "What am I, some kind of poet?" (Actually, I am, but that's neither here nor there.) There's no poetry on this blog! I think what mattered the most to me was that the capitalization followed a structure and produced a symmetrical, eye-pleasing form. I can remember as little as a few years ago how I really didn't care about structure or form or good posture or anything of the like. So, in an effort to snub myself, I've decided that my blog titles will go all lower-case. Now, I know what you must be thinking; "all lowercase is more symmetrical than the capital letters!" Then why did I continue to do this? Because its a more natural symmetry. It requires no press of the SHIFT key. And because I don't wanna be the guy who's all about form, structure, attending finishing school and going to "coming-out" parties. I'd like to remain my old, fun self. I've got to not lose sight of the younger, random dude I was a few years ago.

Second, what the hell happened to me in 2006? According to my blog, that was the Crock-equivalent of the dark ages. Two blog posts for an entire year? I wonder what had me so busy. If I recall correctly, I believe I was wrapping up my work with the family business. It by no means should have prevented me from blogging, though. My digital absence certainly wasn't due to a lack of things to talk about. We shut down the family business, my old man passed away and I graduated college. Man, I could have posted three more blogs that year. haha.

Lastly, I'm damn poor. I'm saving to build a house, and I think I might be getting a little cabin fever. When I truly set my mind to something, I see it through to the end as quickly as possible. That's how I'm approaching this house construction. I'm saving any excess money I have from my paydays in an exciting, Mexican bank account. (Want a tip? This isn't 1963. Swiss bank accounts aren't all the rave. Get with the times.) Sure I allow myself $20 each payday -- my play money. But, Reese and I have started our "Disney DVD Collection" and the twenty bones I allow myself every two weeks goes toward the Disney movie of our choice. Its not a bad way to spend twenty clams, but that leaves me stranded at home for the entire month unless Rollo opts to drive us somewhere to hang out and pay for everything we do there. (Rare!) I think this is a huge reason why I find myself more structured and needed to fit to form. I've got myself in such a pattern of...:

• Waking up
  
• Going to work
• Going to class
• Going to the gym
• Going running
• Getting a shower
• Maybe eating
• Going to sleep

...that I'm bamboozled when the weekend gets here, and I finally have some free time. My newfound wisdom says "stay home and chill, can't waste money driving anywhere 'cause gas is too expensive and all your friends live in adjacent counties." So, I stay put and occupy my time with an endless supply of cats and World of Warcraft. Thank God warmer weather is on the way, and the days are getting longer!

Thus, my creativity and funlovingness (errr?) is sapped. This weekend will be good, though. There's a frisbee tournament in Juniata that I'll be attending. That'll get the winter funk blown off of me, and it'll be cheap too. Maybe that's just the inspiration I need.

It also helps that it's Metallica Wednesday - a day where I can put my iPod on my Metallica playlist for the entire day for no reason aside from that its Wednesday. It sure makes the workday go faster, and gets me pumped to do just about anything here. Aside from Friday, its my favorite day!

i'm in charge here

The clouds have lifted, the sun is shining, birds are singing and plugged into an outlet in my dining room is a little battery pack. That's right, the new battery charger has arrived.

Rollo greeted me with the little charger in complete silence last night. After all, it was a pretty intense moment. We've gone without a power supply for a long time, so it was understood that as soon as we got the charger in our possession - it was business time. I have to admit, it wasn't exactly what I had expected. I thought we were getting a bona-fide power supply for this thing. What we really received was a battery charger (big difference physically, not much difference functionally). It's pretty slick. Aside from the car charger accessory, it doesn't have any chords. In fact, instead of trying to explain it - I'll just link the picture. It's a nifty gadget!

So I let the dead battery charge all night. Maybe tonight I'll goof around with it.

I still won't relinquish my hunt for the original power supply, though. It's awful handy to have an actual power supply when the battery's running low.

so it begins

Here's the new (and by the looks of the weather, very appropriate) headliner. I think its tag-line is the funniest yet. What do you think?