Vote!

It is that time. Everyone that has not gotten around to registering to vote, requesting your absentee ballot, or requesting change of polling place, it is that time. I just sent in my request yesterday and feel empowered to make sure that others plan to vote. I don't care if you are democrat or republican, if you are steadfast on your decision already, if you are undecided at this point, or if either candidate doesn't really appeal to you. Regardless, the election is happening and as a citizen of this country, you should make a decision. There are a lot of people that are voicing their opinion on the candidates at this point. There are a lot of people that feel very strongly about this election. There are a lot of people that don't agree with what is going on in our country at this point. Well if you want to be able to discuss this issue in the future, if you want to have an opinion about the outcome of this election, and if you are wanting to help make a difference, you owe it to the rest of us and yourself to VOTE. So, in order to help you on your way.....maybe check out these sites set up to help you register or help you learn more about the issues at hand:


"Rock the Vote's mission is to engage and build the political power of young people in order to achieve progressive change in our country.

Rock the Vote uses music, popular culture and new technologies to engage and incite young people to register and vote in every election. And we give young people the tools to identify, learn about, and take action on the issues that affect their lives, and leverage their power in the political process."
Overview of Young Democratic Voters
Overview of Young Republican Voters
Overview of Young Women Voters



USA.gov provides official information and services on and for the election by the US government including information on the candidates and means to register to vote.




Project Vote Smart Providing a critical eye on all of politics to provide both the issues and the facts to help voters to make informed decisions. There is a lot of great information and stats to help you make well informed decisions.


So those are a few to get you started. Please add any sites that you have been using to gather your information and i will add it to this post as well.

now VOTE!!!

Information Overload

You know exactly what I mean.

Foreclosure
Fannie Mae
Freddie Mac
Obama
McCain
Debate
Oxford
WaMu
Palin
Bailout
Wall Street
credit
recession
economy
Georgia
Pakistan
Gustav
Simpson
AIDS
gas prices
murder

I have to say that I am on that likes to stay very well informed, up to date, well educated, seated in current event issues.....etc. Sometimes it just really gets to me though.

Getting bombarded all day every day (which I do invite most of the time) starts to become draining. I am not sure if it is that it is too much information or the fact that you start to build opinions on every topic. You don't have a way out of the conversation with the "I am not up to date on the issue" card, but you have a strong and (mostly) informed opinion.

I am beginning to get waited down with all the devastating news out there for the past couple of weeks and think a week of being detached is my near future.

Not tonight though, I am going to go to an OBAMA watch party with a grad friend of mine and am very excited. Let's kick some ass Obama!

Cougars

So one of those interesting cultural transitions that I have noticed recently is this "Cougar" identity that is gaining popularity. I am hearing about cougar clubs on the radio, seeing cougar blogs, and now there has been mention of cougar hang outs.

For those of you, like myself, that are not up on what it is to be a "Cougar" this is what I understand: A "cougar" is any women that goes for much younger men. So with the popularity of not settling down at the moment and getting married in your late thirties (as women) you would go after someone in their early twenties. So being strong, confident, and secure...knowing what you want and going after it no matter the age difference.

This is fine and good, and I have nothing bad to say about it (at this point) but when it is known that "cougars" hang out in a certain area, I will probably stay away. I am not really up to having to deal with under sexed and aggressive older women when I want a night out.

On a recent blog I saw that Spindini (a.k.a Sit-and-Spindini) is a cougar den. This bar has been trying to market itself as being for the "elite" and being very "posh" and with its reputation as an "identity building" restaurant......it has made me stay away. Now with it being identified as a place that these women hang out (combined with the fact that its most popular name is Sit-and-Spindini) has crossed this restaurant completely off my list.

All this being said, watch out for these "cougars" as I am not sure what kind of night to expect when you are trapped with them in a bar or etc. Also, be on the look out for these cougar dens as it might be hazardous to your health to interrupt a cougar when they are on the hunt!

A Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Quote

So I am a very, very, very big fan of the NPR show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." Today one of the panelists, Paula Pownstone, made a comment that I thought was great (in keeping with the political theme that my blog seems to have taken on). The conversation was one of the current state of the economy, then the President, and it was suggested "Why don't we put Bush's face on the dollar at this point? He is worth so little and so is the dollar it only seems fitting."

Thought it was interesting, and now after reading it.....I think you have to hear it to appreciate it.

Oh Well.

Be Stress Free

Gotcha!

Not a real post, but I found something that all of you may find interesting.

I read this blog entitled Your Natural Wellness which posts on pure, natural means for making your health and life better. This week's post is on stress relieving foods....and is really interesting.

The post is Stress Relieving Dinner, it is some really great info and you should check it out.

Elitist Much?

Check out the story (one of many) at Newsweek: All the candidates Cars

Low Profile

Despite the fact that I am quite the socially interested person, school is taking it's tole on me and I am having to reevaluate how I spend my time. Having my days, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at times, planned out I am really enjoying the time that I can spend at home and away from the "popular." Outside of doing those activities that I "had" to do, I did as little as possible outside of my house this weekend.

My outlook on the everyday is changing. There isn't a day or hour that goes by that isn't wrapped up in school. Either reading, writing, planning, or stressing over what I need to do, what I have done, and what I won't find time to do this week. I am finding myself less concerned with things that consumed my life this summer, and that is telling me that this change is exactly what I needed. I went from having very little to do over the summer to being absolutely consumed in the culture and experience of graduate school.

So what is the point of this whole post? Graduate school is in itself a new culture and way of life that is even outside the realm of understanding from undergraduate school. I have been thrown into projects that are way over my head and way outside the realm of my training. There are times when I am looked on as someone that has an opinion and training in a certain area, and while that is correct, I often feel it is still something that I am not "ready" for professionally. It has gone from situations of sitting outside the circle and looking in to being the one inside the circle. Going from observer to participant all in a matter of weeks. The culture of being a graduate student and the demands that it takes on you deserves its own anthropological research. The changes and demands that have come about this year combined with the demand for little sleep, always being on point, and never admitting that you are behind......set one up for a very interesting and diverse dynamic that has both its pro's and it's con's.

I would love to hear some other people's experience in graduate programs to see if they compare. Did you go through a rapid transformation that demanded anything and everything from you that ultimately left you feeling both an expert and a layman simultaneously? What have you found out about the culture of being a graduate student?

Obama

Take a look

Barack Obama ´s life path
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Time of my life

Not the kind of post that you think that it is going to be. I really just want to talk about this concept of "time."

I understand the scientific separation of one cycle of daylight and night into increments of hours, minutes, and seconds. What I don't get is the relative conception of time that we has human beings possess. I would think that there would be some kind of hormonal response to the amount of daylight or darkness, but if that is the case then it our modern lifestyles that have led us to have a skewed sense of time. What i am meaning by this is those times where you think you have worked for hours and only worked one, woke up in the morning and new you were late even though you woke up 2 hours early, when you think it is time to go to bed yet it is only 7 even though you thought it was 12, or that 15 nap seemed to have lasted decades. Now does this all revolve around fatigue, tiredness, and rest....or is it something else. Being devoid of real sunlight and real darkness because or our lighting and jobs that have us indoors could be a real issue right? I also think it is relative to the person too. If you like what you are doing time seems to "fly" if not it seems to "drag." It is the same amount of time either way, yet your personal perception of that time is now skewed.

Just a thought, talk amongst yourselves.

I didn't know people could be this way!

I have heard and read a lot about the topic of Palin in regards to abortion and rape kit protests but here is some more information and another individuals response in order to not go on a rant.

Check it out if you wish to see why Palin has decided not to fund rap kits because it includes emergency contraceptives.

The Digg comments

The Daily KOS article

And let me know what you think!

Five Current Obsessions

So the Modern Gal tagged me on this really interesting meme that she did the other day, so I thought that I would give it a go. Check out the Modern Gal's obsessions here too. And as for mine, here we go:

1. Technology - and I am not even talking in the small scale. I am talking the large and ever-progressing technological world that we live in. Things like integrating your Tivo to be recorded wirelessly on your computer so that you can download your favorite TV shows to your Ipod in order to watch them on it or hook it up to a TV where ever you decide to watch it. Things like integrating your twitter (or twitter on it's own), Google Extras, reference programs, notes, hard drives, computers, pictures, and the like all together so that it can be accessed from anywhere and always available. All technology and the ever expansive knowledge and integration that is possible and becoming ever more assessable on an everyday basis.....I am addicted!!!!

2. Promoting the Local - In everything that I do, buy, want to visit, promote, and search for I try to find the local first. It has taken a while to change perspective and focus, but searching out local food, local restaurants, local bars, and local businesses puts more money back in one's own community and betters the area as a whole. For this reason I am absolutely obsessed with seeking out what is local or where I can buy it from somewhere locally owned and continue to help spread the word in hopes of keeping these locals alive and keep big box as far from my grasp as possible.

3. Information - I know, I know, this one is extremely broad, but I needed it to be that way. I am obsessed with being informed in enough areas to be able to hold conversation and be up on current events. I watch news every morning, listen to NPR every single time I am in the car, read blogs like they are going out of style, read journals in areas ranging from finance to forensic science, and listen to NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, This American Life, and Studio 360 as if they aren't going to be there tomorrow. I am on a mission to stay on top of the issues and make sure my opinion is an informed one.

4. Genius Application on Itunes - I just downloaded ITunes 8.0 and as an addition you get this new application: Genius. It is an web integration into your music library that does song suggestions, album completion suggestions, and even suggestions for new music. The thing that I really like is that if you have a song selected in your library, you can click a button on the bottom of the screen and the Genius App will compile a new playlist for you from your existing library based around the one key song you selected. I have already made a dozen and am addicted to doing this over and over again.

5. My Family - I have never been one to say that I focus a lot on family. I also never thought that I would make decisions based on time spent with my family during the week. Well that all changed when I got married. I know this isn't where you wanted me to go with this I am sure, but this is something that I am obsessed with. I really do make decisions on when I schedule meetings, when I sign up for special events, and when I try to cram in more studying as to maximize the amount of time I get to spend with my wife and our children (dogs).

Ok, so those are my obsessions. Those little things that plague my thoughts throughout the day and that I don't go without incorporating into everyone.

I need to tag two people to keep this going, so let us see what Mental 360 and Mel Does Grad School are obsessed with these days.

Posting as Procrastination

I am taking the time now not only to fill you in on my weekend, but also to procrastinate on a grand scale. I have a large list of things to get done tonight, but I have decided that if I don't go ahead and blog I will just keeping thinking about it and will continue to be distracted.

This weekend was one of the better visits that I have had in returning to Knoxville. We went up for the UAB-UT game with a new friend of ours and it turned out very well. I was kind of reluctant in spending an entire weekend with someone that I didn't know that well, but he proved to be the kind of person that I thought he was and provided much comic relief for the weekend. We got to tromp around one of my favorite bars on the planet, Downtown Bar and Grill, in downtown Knoxville. This is the place I would and still always take friends to give them a good Knoxville experience. We went twice this weekend and it was just as good as it always has been. The bar is one that everyone always congregated to during my undergraduate career and my old room mate still works there. This makes the place a little more grand in my perspective than it probably is.

We also were able to spend time with all those friends we wanted to see within one trip. It usually works out that we have to pass up on some people and ultimately leave disappointed. We set up a football watching get together this weekend which everyone came to in order to watch the Ohio State game, and had a great time. We had my best man, our new friend from Memphis, the newly married couple, and The Modern Gal and Beau. Even though this group has never spent much time with each other, they all enjoyed themselves and really got along. We then went out to our second trip to the bar and it was a blast.

The game was a good experience as usual, and exceptionally hot. There are few times in my life where I sweat through my clothes while sitting, and college football games in the south during the summer is one of those times. The culture that surrounds football games and the people that attend them entertain me just as much as the game itself.

Ok...what else can I bore you with. I am finding a really good person and friend in my wife's co-worker. He is the guy that we went to the game with this weekend, and while I was unsure of his bias while he was working with my wife...he is no longer doing so and we are getting along better. I only mention this because I have struggled finding people that I can trust and enjoy spending much time with yet he is becoming one of these people. It is a good friendship for me to have too because he is coming from a different place than myself. He is a successful bachelor that is out on his own doing his own thing. Struggling with relationships, out of school, and out to have a good time are his M.O's and it brings me back to somewhere that I had lost. Not in the respect that I want to be back in that place, but that not everything has to be so complicated and not everything has to be so analytically based. He reminds me of who I used to be, what I could have been, brings a since of pride for what I have, and makes me more grounded in myself. I think we will have a good friendship and I hope that it fleshes itself out.

On another similar note. I am really finding a strong admiration for The Modern Gal and Beau. The more time that I spend around them and with them I realize how much we have in common and what good and interesting people they are. I feel really connected to her because of her strong support and interest in my blogging discovery and her intelligence. We also seem to have a lot of the same things going on in our lives right now, and through our blogging and commenting to each other we stay in very good touch it seems like. Every time that I spend time with the Modern Beau I find that we have more in common as well. He is able to hold very good conversations, first of all, but I also found out that he likes to cook....and that is definitely something that we have in common.

Ok, well I have been working on this post for almost 2 hours while researching and printing so I am going to go ahead and apologize for the errors and choppiness.

K-Town

I am taking this weekend off (from life) to travel back to my old stomping grounds in Knoxville, TN. It is always a great time to see all of my college friends, go to a football game, and visit all my old hang outs. With that being said, I will try to take notes or remind myself to keep up with this weekends events and let you know all about it.

In the mean time, have a great weekend and.....

Go VOLS!!!!!

A Little Political

So I know most people don't want to hear about politics. But then I thought about it.....I really do. I really like politics and it is part of what makes me Nerdy.

Well, I found some of Matt Damon's opinions on the topic of the election and I thought I should share.

You tell me what you think.

Presidental Candidate Ad Campaigns

I know that all of us are being plagued with the abundance of ad campaigns for this election through all medias, including the internet, yet there is still something very interesting about the process and the repeating themes that happen during ad campaigns through out the years.

To give the public a good archive of the use and types of ad campaigns, the Museum of the Moving Image has curated all television campaign ads ever produced for your scrutiny. The site is The Living Room Candidate and it really puts into perspective the annoying and often controversial television ad campaigns, both successful and unnecessary, that we have been plagued with over the years.

For example, here is an ad directed directly towards women voters in Dwight Eisenhower's television commercial.




There are also a number that you can find that are exact precursors to those being shown today in regards to Obama and Paulin's lack of experience.

It is a very interesting phenomenon and much like Hollywood one can establish the remake of some very influential commericals over the years.

Check it out.

Learning Science through Video Games

As I alluded to before there is a new video game coming out called Spore. The way that it has been explained to me is that you start out the game as a single celled organism and throughout the course of the game you must eat, reproduce, and keep from being eaten/killed. Throughout the course of the game you take on the role of the next generations and make decisions that effect your evolution into a high level species over time. In my opinion this would be great for an evolutionary theory class. You incorporate this game as a homework assignment where the students must keep up with the game over the course of the semester and you see how evolved the student was able to become. This would allow an individual to not only study the theory and principals that govern evolution but also to experience it first hand through trying to survive and evolve over the course of the game.

With that being said, this same company has also made some games that all of us are familiar with (at least in name anyway). First off there is The Sims, a game that lets you create your own individual person complete with the look, personality, career, and possessions that you wish for them to have. The significance is you are able to manipulate and make decisions through this individual in terms of career, financial, social, and behavioral contexts. This would be a great addition to a human behavior or general social sciences class as the student would be made to justify the choices that they made for the individual and end up with measurable outcomes on the basis of satisfaction and productivity through the games system of information output. It seems like this should have been done a long time ago.....and I will be using it as soon as I get to that level.

The other game that this company provided us with is Sim City. As this game has been around since the early 90's, I am sure most of you have heard of this one. The premise is simply to design and maintain a city from the ground up and through both financial and natural disasters. In terms of classes focused on community and city planning this seems link a no brainer. Having students to run the simulation throughout the course of the semester and justifying there decisions you would be able to see whose decisions proved the most beneficial to the cities (comparatively) and then discuss if the reasoning behind certain decisions were valid or flawed.

I am really excited about this little brainstorm that I have and hope than I can benefit from it in the future. I have not found any hard data of people using these simulations in the classroom to this point yet I know that areas of business and accounting have simulations that they employee. I am sure someone has already beaten me to the punch on this one, but I am going to use it anyway!

Before I forget

I attempt to jog my memory later, I thought I would allude to the blog postings that you could look forward to in the next couple of days.

I have three major ones in mind revolving around:

Spore - the new video game from the creators of The Sims and Sim city in which you have to eat, spawn, and survive in order to evolve into a more complex life form....yeah evolution!!

The possibility and implications of using the games The sims, sim city, and spore as models or simulations for classes like human behavioral interactions, urban development, and evolutionary theory. Just a thought.

And last, but not least, some well needed updates and tangents that you have all come so fond of.

Dying over here

Oh yes I am. I have to say that graduate school is kicking my ass. I knew that it was going to be bad, but damn. I don't have time to not think about school because even spending the last two weeks completely emerged in everything anthropology, I am still behind. Part of that might be because I am on here writing instead of reading, but as you have seen my posts are not what I want them to be. My reading load is equivalent to a novel every four days and my school schedule does not allow for much study time so it is all outside of normal hours.

On a new note, I am completely overwhelmed in my Applied anthro class. It is one of our requirements and it feels like I have been taken out of high school and thrown in an upper division college course. I am so lost as to what is going on, but at the same time I am excited about it. It has been a long time since i have been challenged, and this class is def. going to do that for me.

My project is going to revolve around talking to community leaders, business owners, community members, and program chairs as well as doing focus groups, video and audio interviews, photography, transcribe, and attending community events in order to evaluate the program for rejuvenation and improvement of the main st of the college. It also includes a lot of the surrounding communities and covers quite a large space. It is really throwing me in the deep in and hoping that I can swim. We even met with the program founder and CEO today to lay things out. It is like actually having the job of analyst.......which I know nothing about.

On the nerdy front, I am totally coming into my own. I am going from my usual to super nerd in a short amount of time. My everything is wrapped up in being a Graduate student and the museum, and I couldn't be happier. Things are going great and there are only minimal hitches.

I can't seem to get back in the swing of things. For some reason I can't make that transition of lazy summer to don't have a minute to spare. My focus just has not come back to me yet, but when it does I will be golden.

Good week so far and going to make time to post again tomorrow.

Good night all.

Kid in a Candy Shop

I have had a very "Willie Wanka-ish" experience over the past couple of days. Or maybe better termed "Kid in a Candy Shop." Call it what you want, it has been amazing.....in a nerdy way of course. I have been stressed with getting exhibits together and getting things looking professional before the premier of our new exhibit on Friday night. There has been a lot of design, altering, stapling gluing, and pulling together projects in a matter of minutes. I have to say that all of our hands on stuff looks amazing and I can't wait to let people experience working with projectile points over 8,000 years old. What has been so amazing though is going through all the pictures and artifacts that the museum has collected over the past 60 or so years. Everything from full pots, human remains, and ceremonial weapons to projectile points showing evidence of use, pictures of the original excavation, and pottery that looks like it was made yesterday. Trying to decide what needs to be brought back into the public view, what can't be brought back in public view, and what we have that needs to go untouched to preserve them (we walk a fine line). I have seen so many amazing things over the past couple of weeks that it really makes me remember why it is that I do like archaeology and explaining things to people helps me realize the amount of knowledge that I have gained along the way. I have had some experiences with children in the archaeology lab recently and being able to engage and excite them on archaeology and past cultures really makes me feel accomplished. It has been a great couple of weeks and a great experience and I look forward to sharing more as it happens.

This is what it is like to be a museum GA.

I WANT IT

So my friend...Mental Three-Sixty introduced me to a website recently that is amazing. And I am sure that everyone else has already found it as usual, but is new to me. Geekologie promotes itself as being "a geek blog dedicated to the scientific study of gadgets, gizmos, and awesome. There are a lot of shiny new things out there, and Geekologie is dedicated to finding every last one of them for you." And they are pretty right on. Lets just say without this website my procrastination hours would not have been nearly what they are as of today.

The reason Mental pointed out the site to me was regarding a video clip. I work in a museum and Mental thought that this technology would be a great addition to our museum. I have to say that I agree and am willing just to buy one for myself as my Halloween costume from now until I die. You have to take a look:





I WANT ONE!!!!

Be a better blogger

I want to be a better blogger, I really do. I want to have a blog that I can be proud of and introduce other people to and not compromise the reason that I started blogging in the first place. I want to gain and keep readers that will respond to me regularly and I want to believe that I have something worth saying.

Ok...enough of that crap. I am really struggling with this whole "blog" thing. On one hand it is an amazing outlet for me to put my opinions out there and, regardless if they are being read, making my thoughts available for others. I think I am doing that yet I don't always feel like I have a product that I can promote on a face-to-face basis do to how opinionated that I am. Furthermore, I am not getting the feedback and the constant reading that I want.

Ok, the other hand is that I would like to have a good blog that I can promote to those I run into have a product that puts me in the position to be read by the masses. I don't think that I am the kind of person that can produce this kind of product, but doesn't mean I still wouldn't like it.

I guess my struggle is that I am unsure about the amount of time I spend blogging and etc. for a medium that is only there to help myself. Yet, this is an amazing anthropological self-reflecting research arena that will produce a very interesting product in the end.

Ok....I didn't flesh anything out by writing this, but you got to hear about it. Got any suggestions?

Who's Opinion Matters

So one of my many classes this semester revolves around "Museum Studies." While this includes things like educational planning, exhibit design, management, and cuation it also includes things like museum ethics and defining what a museums place is within our culture. Tonight's discussion led us to a very intriguing point in my mind....do museums have an agenda? With everything in a museum there is some basis for the material being presented. In the case of prehistoric museums there is a basis on archaeological finds and methodology that allows information to be presented to the public. Even in this area there is a lot of conjecture on what something would have been used for or looked like based on evidence, but never without a shadow of a doubt (so to speak). This led to an example of our National Civil Rights Museum here in Memphis. While this museum is based on factual events and accounts of events, it does not represent every angle of the information. For example, there is a women that has sat outside the museum for decades protesting the use of the hotel as a museum instead of the many other humanitarian uses it could have. Also, the number three hit you get on Google-ing Mr. Luther King Jr. is Martin Luther King Jr.: A True Historical Examination. While this website portrays a completly different view of the events of the night that Dr. King was in Memphis and the events that have been apart of our Civil Rights History, it is based in real accounts and historical events. (Not that I agree with this view, it is just an example) With this being said, why is it that this view isn't represented in the museum? Somewhere...someone had to make a judgment call and that persons views and the society in which the formation of this museum was set up called for the museum to have a certain agenda. The question is should this be ok, to have an agenda, or should all sides of every story be explored?

I always try to look at both sides of any argument/issue, but this has really made me think. Where does validity, bias, and etc. come into play and how is it that we are able to cipher through all of this? Where is our culture and societal bias intruding into our better judgment into what is presented to the public? This is a big issue for me.

Now to my other issue. Ethics, morals, norms, and the like are all kind of ....... difficult for me. Ethics are all subject of pressures from the society and culture of which they are embedded. Morals then are the ingrained principles which a person is taught to inherit and even learn during the coarse of their life. Therefore, someones morals influence the ethics of the group. Norms fall even lower in my mind. Norms are practices that people become comfortable with and therefore except and are reluctant to change. All of these "principles" are very simplistic and in need of being challenged in my mind. The way that I perceive this issue is that through these set ideas being challenged is how cultures and societies have learned and evolved over time. That being said, it is something that "envelope" that needs to be "pushed." Furthermore, when it comes to subjects of scientific research I think that the education out weighs what people see as normal or socially acceptable. I worked on human decomposition, so this all kind of follows my own bias I know. You can see where I am going with all this and don't want to get too heated on this, but let me just say this: I have a very big problem with religions dictating that human remains should be placed in the ground and never disturbed, therefore forever taking up space and and providing only an eyesore of cemeteries and unusable land for future generations. I think that the amount of knowledge that could be gained from the study of human remains or even the amount of space that could be gained through a higher use of cremation would benefit human kind far better than what current religious beliefs currently dictate.

Ok....gonna leave it alone.....would love to read your feedback.

I'm back....

...and kind of sad about it!


Ohio State University "horse-shoe" stadium.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13887059@N08/2811485241/

In celebration of my last weekend before school gets out of control, my wife's birthday, and my 2nd wedding anniversary the wife and I decided to take a little mini-vacation. In the three days we flew up to Columbus, Ohio (a city I am really starting favor) and went to Ohio State University's opening season football game. As many of you have probably picked up on, I am not the biggest football fan (even though the nerdy wife and my nerdy in-laws are) I am a huge crowd fan, people watcher, tail-gater, and beer drinker so have a strong affinity towards attending games. This being said I had a great time despite the fact that the game wasn't even close are particularly exciting. It was also interesting to attend a game outside of the SEC and be witness to SEC heckling and "hate speech." Since I am not a "big fan" of football and do not stay up on my football rhetoric....I do not even attempt to debate the Big 10 vs. SEC rivalry that is about and instead did my usual anthropological and cultural evaluations of the situations and stayed very entertained.


Theme park on Lake Erie (Cedar Point). Mantis: Standing Roller Coaster.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68789727@N00/1122315006/


After the game, many beers, and thousands of rowdy northerns we headed off to Sandusky, Ohio to temp our fates at Cedar Point. Those of you that have never been on Lake Erie or been to Cedar Point... you are really missing out. While we didn't get to go out on the lake, I did get my first experience aboard a sail boat and even though we didn't even leave the dock it was really cool to experience. I have decided that next summer we will be making a trip up there to go sailing (it is my wife's aunt and uncle's boat so we are always invited). Anyway....Cedar Point is one of the best amusement parks on the planet. You have 13 roller coasters of which many break world records. Also, you have the breeze of the great lake and a lot of shade and low humidity all of which allow for quite and enjoyable experience. There are not a lot or roller coasters that are fun, but very few that really get my heart pumping and take my breath away. Cedar point has many of them. Including one that takes you from 0-120 mph in a matter of seconds and sends you what has to be 20 stories in the air. I am guessing a little bit, but I know that it is the tallest structure around and has to have a beacon on top because of the possibility of being in aircraft paths. It is absolutely amazing.

410 feet straight up. Top Thrill Dragster. Cedar Point!!!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39089491@N00/2747530883/

We also dabbled a little bit in the town of Grandview, Ohio. It is a really interesting little city that is completely surrounded by Columbus Ohio and is yet its own entity. It has this amazing small town feel to it and promotes walking and riding bikes. Most stores and restaurants are still in the old town square type style and feature all local businesses and restaurants. Nights out and the farmers market are all set up along the same little streets and have an amazing town pride surrounding them. I am hoping that I can find a place like this to live in which ever city we end up in next.

Spagio Restaurant on the main drag in Grandview, OH. Amazing peach soup!!!http://www.flickr.com/photos/32861308@N00/706332851/

More cultural insights to come, but thought I would make you all jealous of my relaxing, eventful, and worry free weekend first and then provide further discussion.