Geology

My favorite class at Cedarville was Geology taught by John Whitmore. This article in the New York Times talks about him and other young earth creation geologists. I enjoyed learning in the classroom but really enjoyed hunting for fossils and glacial erratics. He had a contest to see who could find the largest glacial erratic in the Cedarville area. I loved driving around with friends and running into peoples yards to measure and take pictures of big rocks. Big fun.

Check out this Spice store

I'm doing one of my first advertisements ever. My mom's new store is up and running. Check it out. If you buy spices maybe you'll be interested. Please check out the site even if you don't buy spices because it will get her hit count up and help her out. I took some of the pictures of spices. I'm no Burrill Strong that's for sure. The site looks pretty good. The Hawaiin Black Lava Salt is really good. I'm going to use some of the white peppercorn today to grind up fresh for Thanksgiving dinner. So check out Cherry Valley Spice Company.

Stephanie's first Notre Dame game

We got to go to Stephanie's first Notre Dame game last Saturday. Justin came through and picked up tickets for me again. We didn't do any James Bond stuff like last year but we met and he gave me a tour of the Law School. Watching his kids run through the courtroom was big fun. After that we went and got lunch. If you go to Notre Dame make sure you eat before you go in the stadium. Student groups have many booths set up selling food on campus and they have very good food. I went with the traditional brat but Steph got a steak sandwich that made me very jealous. She said it was great.After lunch we became a part of the human tunnel that greets the players as they go from mass to the stadium. Last year when I did this I got a high five from Brady Quinn. This year we just watched them go by. Steph was amazed by how many people were there to watch them walk by.

When you finish watching the players walk by you should head over to watch the band play. It's fun to watch and there's a good crowd for it. This week they were playing songs from the original Mario Bros. I made a little video of the band playing a portion of the 1812 overture.

Our seats were pretty good. We were in the 19th row on the north side of the stadium. The student section started on the other side of the aisle. Getting to see all of the traditions was cool. It even was cold and rainy just like the old days when we had season tickets.

I even took a picture of the big guy. I'm hoping he can turn it around next year. Maybe recruit someone who knows how to pick up a blitzer or something.

Notre Dame won. They were ahead by enough at the end that they put Zibby in at QB. This didn't make the Duke defenders happy. Putting a safety in at QB is seen by some as rubbing it in. I think Charlie learned that move from Bill.
I don't know if I've ever seen a team that excited to get their second win. We had a good time. Steph's first ND game was a success.

Happy Thanksgiving

We're celebrating with family at my parents. They have High Speed Internet so I'll do a couple of posts. I hope you have a good time watching football, eating, playing games, and spending time with your family.

Rank Claire Markwardt up there with Derek Redmond

Derek Redmond has been a favorite sports hero of mine for some time. I even have preached sermons and youth group lessons using him as an example. I came across this article and video on ESPN's site. Claire broke her leg and still finished the race. I won't ruin it for you with details but please read the article. It's a very good story. Oh and the video isn't as scary as they make it sound. It's worth watching.

Oh boy here we go...

I'm the last to know this I guess. Some of you are already putting odds on which way I will go on this one and I'm just finding out. Laura wants to get her ears pierced. Stink it all. I've decided that I'm really not a fan of my girls growing up. I tried to convince her that it will hurt. She doesn't care. Heh. Now I'm becoming my dad and trying to convince them that they don't really want the things they want. I'll keep thinking about and probably post the pictures when I finally give in.

Roethlisberger burger

On Monday nights we've been trying to eat something from the city that is hosting Monday Night Football. We've had buffalo wings, Coke floats, and stuff like that. Last week we had Roethliburgers. Pretty stinking good. We changed the recipe some and here's what we came up with. First a big burger patty. Melt provolone and sharp chedder on it. Put barbeque sauce under it. Put bacon and ranch over it. All of that inside of the bun. It was much better than I thought it would be. Try it.

The Great Turtle Race

No I'm not talking about myself. Sometimes I feel as slow as a turtle though. The name of the race on Mackinac Island is The Great Turtle Race. Apparently the island resembles a turtle. I've been training for this race for a while now and I just didn't feel myself getting faster so I was worried. My original goal was to finish in less than 50 minutes. As I trained I found myself thinking I could not come close to that. We went and met Dan and had a good time with the girls playing in the water park and eating at Mama Mia's. We got upgraded to a room with a private balcony overlooking the lake. But really what is there to look at? Ferries and a big hotel on an island. But it was nice anyways. The next morning we woke up and I had a light breakfast including a waffle and a piece of cinnamon toast. Then Dan and I went to catch a ferry. It was raining and chilly but the rain slowed down while we were on the ride over. It really turned out to be a good day for running. We met up with James over on the island and stretched a little. I get nervous before a race like this and end up going to the bathroom about 10 times before the race starts. When the race started we took off up the hill and I was going an ok pace. After the first mile I looked down at my ipod and noticed that I was on a 8:40 pace. That's kind of fast for me. It scared me and I slowed down. My second mile was 9:09 and I started thinking that I felt pretty ok. Maybe I should go faster. The third mile was 8:35. That was flying for me. So it scared me again. I slowed down. At that time a girl passed me. She was going the pace I wanted to go and since I'm not good at pacing myself I just followed her. She had a blondish pony tail so I told myself over and over to follow the blond ponytail. The fourth mile was 8:58. We came out of the woods there and ran along side the lake. Thankfully the wind was behind us. It would've been awful to finish into the wind. The fifth mile was 8:53. Blond ponytail started slowing just a tad after the completion of the fifth mile. I found out later that she had slipped in the mud earlier and fallen. I passed her when she slowed down. The last .7 mile was at a 8:34 pace. I finished 5th in my age group with a total of 50:03. 4 seconds off of my original goal. I'm happy since I didn't think I had a chance of being close. There were 16 guys in my age group and about 400 overall entered that race. I finished 106th overall. Here are the results. Stephanie and the girls made it about 5 minutes after I finished. Afterwards we showered, lunched, shopped, ate fudge and then left.

I'll post some pictures later.