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This week is a week of countdowns…

2 days 3 hours until NFL Season kicks off, Raidah’s at the Patriots on Thursday, then it’s the first of 17 NFL Sundays   4 hours until my first Fantasy Draft  I am a football fiend, as well as an addict.  Today, as I was organizing my draft cheatsheet and all of my web links, I took a moment to count all of the football-related games/activities I am participating in:

• Fantasy Football League on Yahoo (one of my primary involvements)
• The Balderrama Family Football pool (another primary involvement)
• ESPN Fantasy Football (playing in my cousin’s league)
• 950 the Fan’s Football Pick’Em (radio station’s game)
• HBO’s Inside the NFL: Beat the Hosts
• Yahoo Survival Football

Geez!  You’d think with all of these games, I’d have a ton of free time on my hands!!  In all actuality the Pools & Pick’Em’s are all the same.  I make the same picks for 3 of the games.  The Fantasy games basically play themselves out, maybe you spend 10-15 minutes during the entire week on each team.  Then the Survival Football only requires me to pick one time that’s sure to win for that week, so that doesn’t take much time at all.

But I’m also counting down to the first home game of the season!  Broncos won’t be playing at home until next Sunday, but I am so looking forward to the energy of being at the games, screaming as loud as I can, enjoying a beer and just having a good time.  To the right is a picture at a game from last year with Kristi, a good friend of mine.

Also the other big countdown of this week approximately 72 hours until Dave Matthews Band Night 1!! I am so pumped to be heading down to Red Rocks, do some tailgating and seeing some great shows with my sister and Bethany for the next few days.  I’m really anxious to see what songs they’re going to play, how different the set lists will be from each night, and to be partying with all of the people who traveled across the country for these concerts.

Mission for the week: I need to find a disposable camera that does not have a flash, and will take good pictures in a night-time concert.  Any suggestions?

Loooong day, so this will hopefully be a short post – I need to get to bed.  But I had a few updates and some other thoughts that are still fresh in my head.

My Labor Day weekend is off to a good start, and has been a combination of restful and fun.  This morning I got to sleep in a bit, lounge around, picked up my drum set, watched part of the CU/CSU game, played drums at church, ran errands and had dinner with Bethany, then we went over to Michael’s and played poker.  Talk about a busy day!

Poker was a blast.  I lasted until 4th place, which isn’t that impressive considering there were only 6 of us.  It was still a lot of fun though, I ended up playing from 9:45-1:15am, so quite a bit of entertainment for $5 – that’s why Poker is so cool   It was fun hanging out with everyone though, we definitely laughed a lot.

So I went on-line to check my email then make my way over to ESPN’s site, remembering today was the day they made the NFL cuts and brought rosters down to the 53-man limit.  Looking at the Broncos roster, there were a few surprises:

• Jerry Rice got demoted down to the #4 man on the roster, bumped from the #3 spot last night by Darrius Watts.  I guess now he’s once again thinking about retiring and whether or not he wants to play as the #4 man.  Now I have the utmost respect for Jerry Rice – one of the greatest players to ever pick up football – but I’m stating to get really sick of these "should I retire/should I not retire" mood swings that he’s getting.  I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal that he’s back down to the #4 spot, considering that’s where they told him he’d be at when they signed him…  Plus it’s only a matter of time he’s going to be back up to the #3 spot – Darrius Watts can’t catch!!!  The Broncos need Jerry Rice – when the regular season roles around and one of our starters gets hurt, we’re going to need someone who’s been there before and can provide that spark that the team will need…   I hope that he doesn’t retire, but if he’s going to be like this every few weeks, then let’s just move on.
• Quintin Griffen got cut!!  Woah.. Way to go from starting running back last year to not even making the roster..  Ouch!  The good news is that Colorado State running back Cecil Sapp made the team!  Nice!!  We were talking about this at work a few days ago, and I predicted it’d either be Griffen or Sapp, looks like I was right
• QB Matt Mauck got cut, leaving only two quarterbacks on the roster – Jake Plummer and CSU QB Bradlee Van Pelt.  Arrrgh, we better hope that both these guys don’t get hurt and we have to put WR Rod Smith under center…  Arrgh
• …and the dumbest thing of all WE HAVE THREE KICKERS ON OUR ROSTER!!!!!!!  What the heck!  We have Elam, who’s money at kicking field goals, Sauerbrun who’s a punter, and now Paul Ernster who will do kick-offs or something.  This is freakin’ stupid.  We can’t have 3 quarterbacks but we can have three kickers??? 

Kicking is so stupid in football….  I know, I know – if we didn’t have kickers then there wouldn’t be much point in calling it "football", but there’s nothing worse than two teams slugging it out for 60 minutes all over the field, just nailing each other, when a kicker – a guy who hasn’t seen any action whatsoever – trots out onto the field and is going to decide whether or not your pain, sweat and blood was all worth it.  Just like in the CU/CSU game today….  What a joke!

Oh, one other note about today:

I got a little frustrated with the choir at church tonight, mainly because I’m sitting there on my drum set, trying to lay down the groove, set a tempo and lock it in with the piano, then bass, then guitars, when one of the gals who isn’t singing starts playing Nerf Tamborine.  Arrrgh!

So you might wonder "what is a Nerf Tamborine", Nerf Tamborine is based off of Nerf Claves from the widely-circulated Marching Band Drumline Dictionary:

Nerf Claves (nurf clah vayz) n. What you give the bag, freakin’ ree ree, geriatric, stick jockey, or water boy to play. also Nerfwoodblock and Nerf cowbell.

I know that definition mixed in 3 or 4 other slangs, but basically it’s based off the analogy of giving kids a nerf ball.  You give unskilled people the nerf ball so they won’t hurt themselves or others, in drumming/music you give them the Nerf Claves/Cowbell/Woodblock so that they won’t hurt your band.  So I’m adding Nerf Tambourine & Nerf Shaker.

So this gal doesn’t have anything to do during these songs (specifically they’re Mass parts), so she decides to pick up the Nerf Tambourine.  The trouble is that she’s COMPLETELY OFF TEMPO, slowing things down.  And to make it worse – it’s not really a true Nerf Instrument, because guitar players are actually trying to follow her (because I’m at one end of the row and she’s on the other) and causing massive amounts of phasing during the Mass parts… 

I know she’s trying her best, but I really need to take her aside and teach her how to play Nerf instruments, or I’m going to have to hide/break the tambourine & shaker…  I may sound mean, but you’d feel the same way if you show up 30 minutes before everyone, haul in all this drum equipment, set it all up, write your own parts (not to mention spend 30 minutes afterwards tearing down) – only to have your efforts ruined by someone who decided they didn’t want to be bored during one of the songs and picked up a tambourine.

So it’s the second day of school, beautiful late-summer evening, work piled up a bit today, let alone reading that needs to get done for school… And what do I do?

SPEND FOUR HOURS IN A BAR!

Yes, I am a bar-room degenerate…  I was over at Old Chicago’s from 8pm until Midnight!!  That’s nuts!  I went over there thinking I was going to be there for an hour, maybe two, BUT NOT FOUR!?!  What started simply was Michael and myself sitting at at the bar eventually turned into a group of 10 people moving to table in the dining room.  For a brief while I thought Michael and I got stood up by all of our friends, but Karen and her guy Ryan came to the rescue.  Then 9:45 roles around and all of the sudden we have people surrounding us who I don’t even know!  A bit nuts… 

Now I know what you’re thinking, but no, I wasn’t sitting around drinking the whole time.  I did have the equivalent of about three beers during those four hours, and ate one of those mini-pizzas they serve at Happy Hour, but a good deal of my time was having some very engaging discussions with a lot of my friends I haven’t seen in a while.  It was really nice to be able to make those re-connections, catch up on how everyone is doing, laughing a lot, along with hearing some very thought-provoking words.  I especially appreciated the discussion I had with my friend Christian regarding Spirit Fire and the state of things at John XXIII.

Reflecting upon our talk I’m once again feeling nostalgic for the "good ol’ days, and when thinking about just how much things have changed it really blows me away.  At the same time, it’s refreshing to know that people who are tied to once was are still around, and at the same time are very committed to campus ministry.  It really inspires me to do my part to support those people, pray for them, and do what I can to offer any help.  At the same time I feel very affirmed with where I’m at with NCSC, and greatly appreciate the opportunity I have to connect with amazing students who are very passionate about campus ministry (and who are more aligned with my theology).  I would like to find some way to bring that connection back to J23, specifically with the students who are struggling in finding their place at our changing church…  Something to think about for the rest of this week.  More on this topic to come…

Well time for bed, long day tomorrow.  I need to keep on top of things and spend no more time in bars this week!

So thus ends my first day of classes..  It’s back to school time and you can just smell that chalk dust in the air..  Well I can’t – because this is another semester of on-line classes for me..  Another semester where I’m not cool enough to go to an actual classroom.  Actually, it’s more like I’m really slammed at work and between my job and all the traveling I’m doing this fall semester I thought it’d be in my best interests to take on-line classes.  So right now I’m only taking 2.  I’m thinking about adding another one on, but we’ll see how things go.  I’m already looking forward to the spring when I’ll actually be going to a class again!

While this marks a big change from summer-time to fall for most of my friends, the biggest change is that I’ll no longer have time to play 3-4 games of Madden per day, but rather only 1-2…  Actually there are more changes for me, but it’s mainly that I need to find some good solid time to get my reading done, as well as caught up in all of my assignments.  Right now I feel pretty good about being able to manage my time, especially when I’m not working from home as much and going into the office a little more often.  The change of environment really encourages me to be productive.

It’s funny to see the changes that happen in Fort Collins when school starts. There are some good changes and some really bad changes.  The good changes is that the Old Town night-life really picks up, and the city is a-buzz with activity.  The downsides is that there seems to be more traffic, and things are just overall more crowded.  All summer long I was one of three people in my apartment building that was living there, and it seems that literally overnight the parking lot is now full and everyone is busy doing their own thing.  On Friday night I came home to find that my next door neighbor was having a party…  Looks like things are getting back into routine.

A few nights ago I made the mistake of going to Target on the day that Freshman move into the dorms.  That was one of the worst ideas ever – that place was a freakin’ zoo.  Between freshmen in there with their parents getting things all situated, along with the brand new room mates that didn’t start moving into their place until this afternoon, Target was a total mess.  It seemed like every section of the store was packed. Then I went over to Best Buy (oh, during this whole time I was working on accessorising my new camera), I’m standing in line and there are these two girls in front of me.  One of them has this "Nintendo GameCube Starter Set" complete with the console, extra controllers and a few games, then her room mate had 5 2-packs of movies…  Okay, so what’s wrong with this picture?

1) What are two girls doing with a Gamecube?  Now I"m not saying that girls don’t play video games, I know a few that do, but when was the last time you saw two girls buying a game console?  I might be stereotyping, but virtually all the video game-playing girls I know got hooked on it because some guy in their life (either a brother, boyfriend or guy room mate) had the video games…

2) And what the heck are you doing buying all this entertainment crap 4 days before school starts?  While everyone else in line was buying laptop accessories, keyboards, memory sticks (all the basic back-to-school stuff) you guys are stock-piling video games and DVD’s?!?  This is going to be one fun semester for you guys!

3) When it came time to pay one gal put most of it on a gift-card she had, then put the rest on her credit card with the other girl saying "I’ll pay you my half later".  When it comes to room mates, this is always a bad idea.  If you’re making joint-purchases with your room mate, 99% of the time someone’s going to end up getting screwed.  When the end of semester/lease comes, you find yourself battling with them about a fair price for the other half of what you want.  The monetary value is never what you think it is, and then it becomes worse when people mix in sentimental value into the item ("well the TV is worth more to you because you watched it a lot more than I did").  This is never a good idea – I have the battle-scars to prove it!

So yes, maybe a few nerdy observations here, but the way this line was moving I had A LOT of time to think about this kind of stuff!

Oh, so I finally took a picture with my new camera…  And it seemed really appropriate that my inaugural picture for my new camera was of people who are very important to me – my family..  And as you can see, I was not actually the photographer of my camera’s first picture:

My mom, my sister Amanda, (me of course), and my sister Christina

Then my second picture was of me with my Broncos season tickets before I had to tear the first pair off for the first pre-season game:

More to come later, but for now I must get going to bed, as I have yet another full day ahead of me!