Another Avenue

2011-06-23T15:45:00.001-05:00

People usually say "playing the percentages" with respect to baseball decisions mid-game, and they usually have no idea what they mean by that. In fact, they sometimes say that when the percentages actually say otherwise.

2011-06-23T10:16:00.001-05:00

I'm currently taking a class at UAH called Engineering Reliability. It's all about failure of systems and components. How fun is that?

2011-04-30T18:06:00.001-05:00

The sooner people realize that hitting with runners in scoring position is not a separate skill from hitting itself, the better our ears will be when listening to play-by-play announcers and analysts. What, do they really think batters get pumped up and try harder when they see a teammate on second base?

Test Post

2011-04-29T07:14:00.001-05:00

I have a new idea. Test post.

Brew Blog

2010-11-07T18:40:00.003-06:00

Might be interesting to kind of turn this blog into a brewing blog. It's hard to convey ideas, ingredients, inventions using only 140 characters on Twitter.

I can't believe I forgot this

2009-02-05T21:07:00.003-06:00

My last post was about great events happening next week. How on God's green Earth did I forgot the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show!?

I really don't care what you think. Watching this show with my mom is one of my oldest(and fondest) memories. I'm pretty sure this is where my complete adoration for the German Shephard breed stemmed from. Not sure why I was transfixed on the Shephard given that there were tons of great breeds there, but I did. (It also may be because there were countless reruns of Rin Tin Tin: K9 Cop on tv during my childhood).

I learned alot about dogs just from watching the show (or asking mom). My family has always been animal-friendly, but we have always had a special place for dogs. My mom grew up with Brittany dogs(all named Dan), we had a St. Bernard when I was teeny-tiny, I spent most of my childhood alongside our Yellow Lab Odie, and ever since I've been in college we've had Greta (Grace passed away a few years ago), who is mix of Lab, Chesapeake Retriever, and Rottweiler.

It's a treat(at least to me) to see the absolute best of every breed in the country in one place. I can't see who wouldn't enjoy that. And more to the point...who can't like dogs, period?

the sweetest dog on the planet (Greta)

great week coming up

2009-02-04T22:00:00.006-06:00

First to preface. We have a HUGE deadline coming up at work on Monday. I've been working late this whole week, and I shall be working be late all through the weekend. But rest assured that after Monday, things start looking much rosier...

-Tuesday. Kentucky @ Vanderbilt basketball. Kentucky just got steamrolled by my Dawgs, so hopefully the Dores can take advantage. They need a home SEC win, and they need to string together some W's to get back in the crazy SEC East race. I love having a Vanderbilt ID.
-Wenesday. LSU @ MSU basketball on tv. Time for a little payback. This game gets bigger with each passing day, and sure enough it will probably decide who sits atop the SEC West at the end of the season.
-Thursday. Some of my favorite words: Pitchers and Catchers report. Yes, yes....and yes. Let the almost unlimited baseball coverage begin...and not end until November.
At this point of the week I expect my income tax refund to be deposited into my bank account. At which point I will be purchasing our tickets to the 2009 MLB All-Star Game in St. Louis, getting them delivered straight to our hotel room :). Wait, where are we staying, you ask? HERE. I...can't...wait.
-Friday. MSU hockey playing against Vanderbilt at Centennial Park(at a weird 10:45pm start time. wtf?). I played inline hockey with most of these guys, so it'll be great to see them(and even greater to see them win).
-Friday part 2. Friday the 13th comes out in theaters. Yeh, I'm stoked to see this re-imagining of the horror flick. But you all know me...what do I like even more than the movies themselves? The trailers. And yes, the FULL Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen trailer will be shown before this movie. Not that 30 second bullshit they displayed during the Super Bowl.
-Saturday. V-day. Very excited. It's on a weekend this year, so I get to spend the whole day with the special lady. Capped off by dinner at the wonderfully romantic Restaurant Zola.

So yeh, I'm looking forward to next week (after Monday).

it's Mississippi State...NOT the University of Mississippi

2009-02-01T00:11:00.003-06:00

Okay, I'm sorry. But it has become increasingly VERY frustating/annoying/aggravating to have people confuse Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss" as some call it). It's really not that hard, people.

I bring this up because although I have been at my job now for 8 months or so now, I'm still meeting new people there all the time. Most of them ask me where I went to school; my natural reply is, "Mississippi State University." The replies I get over 50% of the time (not an exaggeration):

-"Oh, that's in Oxford, right?"

-"Ah, the Rebels. Well, alright."

Or some variation. Now, normally I wouldn't be offended if these people lived in Washington state their whole lives. But almost all of these people have LIVED in the SOUTH their WHOLE lives. They've been around SEC football since they were toddlers. How do you NOT know the difference between Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi yet?!

Like I said, if you haven't lived in this conference or part of the country for more than a year, I can understand missing the difference. Heck, I remember asking Mallory not too long ago if Christina went to Iowa State or the University of Iowa(yes, I know the correct answer now, Lex, no worries). But I have not lived in Big 10 country at any point in my life, so I'm exempt.

This all just really returns to the fact that people raised in this great state of Tennessee(yes, I love this place, not the school) are almost completely shut off from anything other than their beloved University of Tennesse in Knoxville. (Did you notice how I didn't say Tennessee State in Nashville? Using Tennessean logic, they are basically the same schools.)

If something is colored orange, then they'll drool over it or buy the souvenir right then and there. They've never known anything else. Heck, I'm surprised they know any other schools exist outside of Florida.

Granted, not all the people that confuse my MSU with UM are Tennessee fans, but the ones I've met at work have all been. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe not. Either way, it's annoying as hell.

Cleaning the Apartment

2008-11-17T21:53:00.001-06:00

so yes, I'm doing something other than blogging. But I'm getting close...check Christina's blog for what I'll write about next. Such a great idea.

back in action

2008-10-02T19:09:00.002-05:00

Okay, so I know I have a whole other blog about sports, but at this point of my life, the Red Sox are pretty much what you think of when you think of me, right? Ok, maybe not. But they're a big part of my personal life, so why not post on the personal blog??

Nothing earth shattering to say(at least for now), but just an observation. How can you NOT like this Red Sox team(or the team of recent years?). We have some free agents, sure, just like every team. But just think about how much home-grown talent is on the team. Last night, for instance, the 3 pitchers in the game were the following : Lester, Masterson, Papelbon. ALL were products of drafts by the Red Sox. The infield that day consisted of Lowrie at short, Youkilis at first, and Pedroia at second. One of those has already won a Gold Glove; the other two will win a few of their own in the coming years. And one of them will probably be the MVP this year.

We have Delcarmen in the bullpen as well, a Boston native and Red Sox draft pick. Ellsbury, also known as the fastest human alive, another draft pick. Michael Bowden made his pitching major league debut earlier this year, and Daniel Bard is right behind him. Lars Anderson may take over 1B when Lowell leaves, moving Youk to 3rd. And Josh Reddick will be manning right field when Drew is out of here.

The point I am trying to get across is that these aren't the Yankees that every broadcaster likes to compare these Sox with these days. The Yanks drafted Jeter, Posada, Bernie, and Mariano........after that, who'd they have? Exactly. That's why they are getting old FAST and watching the playoffs at home this year.

That's all for now. I'm back in the blogging world.

And this is kind of random, but they show these commercials ALL during the MLB playoffs. How shitty would that be if your doctor told you, "I'm sorry. You just aren't healthy enough for sex." That would have to be at least in the top 3 of Worst Things to be Said to You That Aren't of a Life-Threatening Nature to You or Someone Close to You.

Nike+

2008-07-14T17:16:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start posting my Nike+ runs on the sidebar. My times/distance could either be motivational for me, or just completely hilarious and pathetic to you. We shall see...

One Grateful Dog

2008-03-03T11:44:00.003-06:00

Taken from The Kiss:

She is pregnant;

he had just saved her from a fire in her house, rescuing her by carrying her out of the house into her front yard, while he continued to fight the fire.

When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest.

A photographer from the Charlotte , North Carolina newspaper, noticed her in the distance looking at the fireman.

He saw her walking straight toward the fireman and wondered what she was going to do.

As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies and kissed him just as the photographer snapped this photograph.

Scroll down for photograph.

And people say animals are dumb.

I officially work for the government...again

2008-01-24T19:35:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday I received a call from the head of human resources at ATA(group that runs Arnold Air Force Base), and she was informing me that they were making me an offer of employment. Considering that this was the job I had been greatly anticipating, I of course accepted. So now, after several stints of being a co-op and interning for the government, I once again am a worker for the U.S. of A.

This job is going to be great. It was already neat-o last summer, but the past 6 months have made me even more excited. My two classes(incompressible and compressible aerodynamics) have taught me TONS about what actually goes on in a wind tunnel during testing, how they get the conditions they want, and how this data is translated to the actual vehicle. SO cool. Currently, I'm taking a rocket propulsion class, and we're learning(and will learn more) about the actual operation of rocket nozzles(we touched on nozzles in general last semester), as well as their testing-reality relationship. Again, f'in cool.

All of that is great because I'm going to be working in the Space & Missile division at Arnold. I can't really say more than that, but this info here is all public, so I'll let you dive into that if you wish. It's really exciting to be a part of the workforce at Arnold because I already know I'll be using so much of what I have learned this past year, as well as semesters before then, here at Mississippi State.

They're even going to pay for me to come up one weekend to apartment hunt, and they'll even pay for me to live somewhere temporarily should my apartment not be ready in time for work. AND, they'll pay for my relocation expenses when I finally do move. Seriously, how cool is that?

It really will be load off now that I have landed this job. The past 2 weeks, and especially last week, were kinda stressful. I didn't sleep that well on any one occasion, but after Tuesday I have had no problem getting some rest.

All that's left is for me to graduate, and I think I can handle that. If all goes as planned, I'll be walking out of MSU with 3.90 GPA and a "Summa Cum Laude" under my name on my diploma. Woo hoo! Yes yes, I know it's not as cool looking as 4.00, but I'm doing my best here!

Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in a few weeks(on Valentine's Day to be exact!), and I absolutely cannot wait for baseball to get geared up and going. Maybe with some extra cash this year I'll be able to buy Mal and me some tickets to go up to Boston for a weekend to see our Sox.

Working on a new post...

2008-01-24T19:35:00.001-06:00

so just hold on!

Blog '08

2008-01-04T00:03:00.000-06:00

A new year, a new blog? Eh, prolly not, but I do really want to start posting more. I usually have much to say, or at the very least, I want to say something. I thought about posting on here my New Year's resolution, but anyone that knows me knows what that is. Instead, I thought this would be a good time to just get reacquainted with this whole blogging deal.

Last few weeks have been awesome. Spent about a week with Mal in Nashville. We went to a Preds/Avs game, went to Alicia's wedding in Athens, and we got to see Mal's old friend Christina for a day. It was great. I then came home for a week and spent Christmas with mom and dad. It was the first Christmas ever where more than one Horne child didn't attend, but the Rents and I didn't let that be a downer. The week was full of movies, home cooking, and just plain relaxing. Just let it be known that I hold the all-time record in the Horne family for consecutive Christmases attended(22), haha.

Last week Trevor, Mary and I went back to Nashville to celebrate the New Year at Mal's place with many of our other friends. We also went to the Music City Bowl on Monday and saw the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Sunday. TSO was AMAZING, to say the least. I cannot wait to see them again next year. I'm going to try to convince my family to go see them if they get a chance...they have to experience what I did. Besides, who DOESN'T like Christmas music? (albeit with more lasers and lights than they're prolly used to).

So I'm home for another week until classes start. I'll get some things done(Jeep has some major issues), but I'll mostly be just relaxing and hopefully start running.

Sometime soon...

2007-12-06T00:54:00.001-06:00

I'll actually post pertinent information. If I get a job offer(like I am hoping/kinda expecting) in the coming weeks, I'll have TONS to talk about.

it's kinda quiet around here

2007-04-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

yeh, I know. I've been dormant on this thing for awhile. Mainly because Trevor and I have been devoting much of our time to our sports blog, Sports on the Rox. On the personal side of things, not THAT much has been going on, which explains my lack of posts. I'll get something on here at some point, because there has been some news worth mentioning, mainly my getting a job this summer at Arnold Air Force Base :). But that will be discussed later...

Science Fair Redux

2007-02-26T21:50:00.000-06:00

I guess I'm way overdue to give Eric and Jennifer a big CONGRATULATIONS on bringing in the newest edition to the world, Scott Michael Maier. Their kid is adorable, and I know from being around them for almost a year that they will be fantastic parents. Just don't raise that kid to be a Rangers fan, Eric!!

Other than a usually busy week for me(spacecraft attitude homework, lab report, lab, aerospace structural analysis homework, fluids quizzes), I'm in for a treat this Wednesday. As part of my technical writing course, I am required to be a judge at a science fair held at the Hump. The fair covers all ages up to 12th grade, but I was assigned to the K-6 crowd. I'm not necessarily sure which grade I'll eventually end up grading, but I'm looking forward to it no matter where I end up. I remember all too well doing science projects EVERY year. I was quite elated to learn that after moving to Tennessee in 2000 that they weren't required up there. I'm anxious to see if these kids are creative or if their parents did all the work. Should be fun.

Our intramural men's soccer tournament starts this Thursday. Match play treated us well; we ended up 5-2, so we should get a decent seed. As for the co-ed team, I'm not entirely sure where we stand, as I've missed the last 2 games with hockey. I think we're doing halfway decent. The girls on our team are BALLERS. I really do no know why they don't play club.

Call me childish, but I'm loving the potential of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie more and more. The tv spots kick so much ass. Have you seen the Foot Soldiers?! SO badass. And Splinter...well, he's his normal awesome self. I really cannot wait to see that one.

Speaking of awesome movies, I am counting down the days until Frank Miller's 300. I hear the flick is the ultimate "guy movie," so being the guy that I am, I'm almost required to see it. We want to go see it at an IMAX, which would necessitate going to Memphis. It's still up in the air, but it just might happen.

The Dawgs are in the final stretch of their season. We're tied with Ole Miss for the 1st spot in the West. They go to play at Alabama on Wednesday and finish the season hosting Auburn. We pretty much need 'Bama to step up against them, and we need to win our final 2 games. If we do that, we clinch the West, an SEC 1st round bye, and a chance to get to the NCAAs. We win in the first round of the SEC tourney, and we're golden to go to the Dance. Com'on Dawgs!

Wits & Wagers has turned into a fan favorite here in Starkvegas. The whole crew absolutely loves this game. It's become an almost weekly ritual. We had 7 teams the other night, allowing us to fill the entire board. It was NUTS. Mary and Adam are quite the W&W players. Thanks, Will for bringing that home over Christmas!

I will send my "official" application papers to AEDC tomorrow. I'll hear something in a few weeks. No whammies, no whammies...

phone interview tomorrow!!

2007-02-15T22:36:00.000-06:00

I submitted my cover-letter, resume, and transcript to the Arnold Engineering and Development Center on Tuesday, and I got an email response the next day. I have a phone interview with AEDC tomorrow at 4:30 pm Central Time.

I'm slightly more nervous about this phone interview than I was for my one before going down to JSC. I had a face-to-face interview before my phone interview back then, so I was already feeling good about my chances. The phone interview was sort of a "second chance." I don't have the luxury of that this time. I either nail the phone interview or it's no-go for AEDC.

I really want this job, so all day I've been reviewing everything I can find on the Center. I'll head to the Career Center(where' I'm doing the interview, as my phone is crapping out) around 4:15, then I'll sit in the conference room during the interview. Hopefully after 5:00 or so I should have a good idea whether I'll be simulating missile defense experiments this summer or not. After my morning class I'll try to round up some questions I have about AEDC, as well as try to figure out what kind of questions they'll ask me.

Wish me luck!

Henry's Eleven

2007-02-13T23:00:00.000-06:00

So I was kicking back while watching some tv the other day. Ocean’s Eleven just happen to come on, and it made me think: Who would I need out of my pool of friends to make a successful casino heist? Well, I put some thought in it, and here is MY Eleven. Note that I didn't choose based on similar appearances. Rather, I chose based on abilities, similar characteristics, etc.

Danny Ocean – George Clooney ( the leader )
Played by: Me
I’m creating this list, so I get to be the lead guy. I would like to think I have some leadership skills in me which help keep the group focused and fresh. Besides, Danny gets the girl in the end.

Rusty Ryan – Brad Pitt (the right-hand man)
Played by: Trevor Acy
Trevor seems a nice fit for this role. Danny and Rusty work well together, and they rarely need to do much conversing to relay information. One is always one step ahead of the other, and this helps the planning go smoothly. Although not always the case, Trevor and I work very well together, an important ability for the leaders of the group.

Linus Caldwell – Matt Damon(the rookie)
Played by: Marty Brennan
Marty just started hanging around with our group this semester, so being the rookie is perfect. Besides, I think he could easily pull off the monotonous jobs in the movie as well as posing as a member of the NGC and pick-pocketing Andy Garcia. Of course, knowing Marty now, I bet he’d actually attempt to hit on Tess after watching her for several days rather than hold back. Shut up Marty…you know you would.

Basher Tarr – Don Cheadle(the explosives guy)
Played by: Paul Howell
If only you all knew how well Paul made explosives during our freshman year of college. The marks are still there! This guy WAS Basher reincarnate. I’d also fully trust Paul to steal a “Pinch” from a laboratory, as Paul was…well…pretty good at stealing things. I’m restricted from saying any more on the matter.

Livingston Dell – Eddie Jemison(the surveillance guy)
Played by: Adam Wandler
Sure, I have about four hundred computer wiz friends, but Adam just appeared to fit the role better than the rest. Adam would also be the only guy that could double as a technician and make it through security without causing a blip. Adam might blow his cover with a M.S.I. showing under his outfit, but I’m willing to take that chance.

Frank Catton – Bernie Mac(the con man)
Played by: Anthony Vizzini
Com’on, I know I’m not the only one that looks at Anthony in his black leather jacket, slicked back hair, and ragged jeans and thinks, “con man.” Although of a much lighter complexion than Frank, Anthony would easily pull off the blackjack dealer look with his trademark goatee-stache. I wouldn’t put it past Anthony to steal stuff from a Casino for the sake of stealing over $100 million either. He’s also got a slick way of talking, a trait Frank no doubt had down pat.

Reuben Tishkoff – Elliot Gould(the former Vegas hotel big wig)
Played by: Bill Wilson
I’m sure many of you(well, those NOT from Paris, TN) do not know who Bill is. He is my former employer and a great friend of mine and my family. But if you really get to know the guy, you know he doesn’t necessarily have the longest temper. He also has quite the fowl mouth. But hey, we all love him for these characteristics. And because of these human flaws he would be the perfect Reuben. I can see Bill wanting to exact revenge on someone that put him out of business(in this case, the hotel business), and I can also see him being a smart ass to everyone, just like Reuben in the movie.

Saul Bloom – Carl Reiner(the old pro)
Played by: Josh Collums
Saul was old reliable. Sure, he was out of the game for awhile when Dusty approached him, but he wanted in, even if he didn’t outwardly show it. In the end, he was one of the most important pieces to the heist. Josh is Saul, hands down. He’s reliable as hell, and he’s almost always willing to join in and go all out. I’d love to watch Josh and Terry Benedict go head-to-head like the movie.

Turk Malloy – Scott Caan (the cars & transportation guy)
Played by: Mike Bradley
Ok, so we needed a muscle man, as well as someone that knows about cars. Mike, you know cars, right? Great. Turk liked to argue during the course of the film, and from what time I’ve determined from my brief stints around Mike, he seems like a guy that could argue very well. He has the confidence to do so, and he’d probably win most of the time, like Turk. I also see Mike donning the chauffeur’s outfit in a moment’s notice without protest. Or maybe the personal bodyguard costume. Most importantly, Mike would be the perfect compliment to his younger brother…

Virgil Malloy – Casey Affleck (the cars & transportation guy)
Played by: Chris Moore
Chris has a mustang….so he should have automobile knowledge….right?? We’ll assume yes. He knows how to drive a manual transmission, so that’s good enough. Most importantly, I think it’d be fun as hell to watch Chris and his older brother(Mike) argue. I’ve argued with Chris before, and he and Virgil have many parallels.

Yen – Shaobo Qin(the grease man)
Played by: Jaimee Floyd
Ok, so our grease man is really a “grease woman”. Hmm, that doesn’t sound too nice. How about “acrobatic artist”? In either case, we’d need someone that can fit into tight spaces, contort their body, and be very acrobatic. Jaimee’s on the pom squad, and from basketball halftime performances you can tell she’d fit the bill. As opposed to Yen, we’d actually be able to understand her speech too, which is a plus.

What the hell, a small bonus. Tess was the 13th in the sequel, and Benedict looks like he might be the 14th in the next flick. So why not include them?

Terry Benedict – Andy Garcia
Played by: Andy Garcia
Uhm, is it just me, or is Andy the only person that could play this role?! You can’t really replace him.

Tess Ocean – Julia Roberts
Played by: Mallory Hacker
Tess had the looks, she had the strength, and she could definitely hold her own. She’s headstrong but knows how to have fun and let loose, just like in the sequel. I think Mallory would be the ideal Tess.

first impressions

2007-01-18T14:04:00.000-06:00

I've successfully made it through 1.5 weeks of class this semester. This has given me just enough time to get thorough first impressions of my teachers. Yes, I could have had sufficient class time to get impressions last week, but not all my professors were present at that point. Now that I've had 2-3 classes, it's time to give out some "pre-season" rankings. We'll revisit this subject at the end of the semester to see how my feelings about the teacher and/or class have changed, if anything. I'll also detail some aspects of my class just so my faithful audience can get a sense of what I'm learning.

Aerospace Lab, MWF 8:00-8:50, W 2:00-4:50, Thomas Hannigan
Three parts lecture, one part lab, I was kind of unsure of what to expect about this class. After a few classes, though, I think it should be a great learning experience. Each week we'll study a different lab technique or piece of hardware, then use each in an application experiment. The class will require tons of programming, which I am very comfortable with. I cannot say the same for the rest of my class however. In fact, if we use a different programming language than the standard ones(BASIC, FORTRAN, MathCAD, Matlab, Mathematica, and Maple), we get bonus points. Guess that bulk of programming I did in Houston will finally pay off :). Mr. Hannigan is a decent teacher; I had him for my third Intro class during the first semester my sophomore year. He's kinda anal about some things, which tends to get annoying, but he's tolerable.

Aerospace Structural Analysis, MWF 1:00-1:50, Dr. Newman, Jr.
This class could very well be Mechanics of Materials II. Topics we'll cover in detail include shear and stress analysis, torsion, and strain relationships. Since Dr. Lacy's Structures class last semester I've become quite interested in the structures area of study. Dr. Newman is the father of my Vibrations teacher last semester, and I can honestly say I now know where Dr. Newman III gets his personality. I love his father's class; he's pretty much Martin Sheen with a goatee. He's got a great sense of humor too, which never hurts.

Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics, MWF 8:00-9:15, Dr. Ming Xin
Probably the class I have looked forward to the most since I declared my concentration as Astronautics. This course is basically ADCO 101, a compilation and a more detailed breakdown of everything I learned while at NASA. Whereas last semester I learned about the movement of a spacecraft treated as a point mass under influence of another mass, this semester we'll treat spacecraft as rigid bodies and study their movement about their own center of mass. VERY neat stuff. My professor is kind of quiet so far, but Chris, who had him last semester for Controls class, says he's pretty cool. I suspect Ming isn't that lively because this is the first time this class has been taught and this is his first year of teaching. Supposedly this kind of material is his specialty, so maybe he's just warming up.

Technical Writing, MWF 9:30-10:45, John Brocato
According to John(my brother), this will be one of the most applicable classes I'll take my whole time in college. Technical Writing aims to teach how to express technical ideas to others who are not always technically inclined, an ability many MANY people lack(I've witnessed firsthand at the big N). Mr. Brocato kicks so much ass; he has a very smart sense of humor, and he's very dry. Hilarious. Interesting note: first day of class he was running through the role, and he saw my name on the list. Without even saying anything he looked up, found me, and said, "You must be John Horne's brother." HAHA. He said he could tell by my face. Turns out John had Mr. Brocato a few years back. Small world.

Fluid Mechanics, MWF 11:00-12:15, Mary Wolverton
Another class I'm excited about. We're gonna learn all about hydrostatics and hydrodynamics; inviscid,turbulent flow; and compressible/imcompressible flow. VERY applicable stuff to what I'm wanting to possibly do. I had Mrs. Wolverton for Dynamics last spring, so I'm pretty familiar with her. She loved me for some reason in that class, which should make this class a breeze, other than the fact I love this material.

the awesomeness of St. Patrick

2007-01-11T12:41:00.000-06:00

Just some highlights of my boy doin' his thing...

Not sure why this montage is rockin' to Enya, but it kinda fits. Hey Rich, you like that save at the 1:00 minute mark of the video? Mwa ha ha ;)

she blogs again!

2007-01-07T23:44:00.000-06:00

My sister has returned to the blogging world! *applause*

Check out the link to the right. It's a great site she's got goin'. Pretty f'in hilarious too.

if you're a star wars fan...

2007-01-07T23:32:00.000-06:00

well you're just gonna love this. It's the Star Wars version of Wikipedia, except since we're in the Star Wars universe here, it's actually called Wookieepedia. HAHA. I love it.

I'll admit that I'm interested in Star Wars(it WAS one of the 3 movie series I was raised on as a child, after all), but I'm nowhere near the infatuation levels of the Skywalker-crazed fanatics out there. It's more of a casual interest, if you will.

Anyways, if you have a few minutes, check out the site. I usually just go and hit the "random" button and pull up an article about something I had never heard of before. Fascinating stuff.

Oh, and my computer arrived today....and I luuuuv it so far. I'll include pics and descriptions later on. It's VERY slick.

well, I have an 8:00 am class tomorrow morning(and EVERY morning, for that matter. Hey, it's what happens when you get to the upper-level classes...there's only ONE of each!), so I guess it's bedtime for me. SUCKS.

the other two movie series I was raised on a child? Superman and Indiana Jones, of course!

and you people wonder why I like hockey

2007-01-05T01:14:00.000-06:00

just follow the link above(it's the title) and watch the video on this page. This game was un-FREAKIN'-believable. Tarik, hockey kicks ass, and you know it. Now go watch some Saved by the Bell and brush up on your trivia.

god I love my team's front office

2006-12-18T00:44:00.000-06:00

From Michael Silverman's article in the Boston Herald:

Has anyone else been wondering about the $51.11 million bid the Red Sox made – and now must pay the Seibu Lions — in order to gain exclusive negotiating rights with Daisuke Matsuzaka?We asked principal owner John Henry if there was anything behind that specific amount. We got an answer all right, a fascinating and totally unexpected one. Here’s his emailed response, in full:

“$51,111,111.11 actually.

“We assumed a few teams would try to blow all the other teams ‘out of the water.’ We didn’t know if that would represent 30, 40 or 50 million.

We also knew a couple of teams would have their eyes on luxury taxes as well (as) assuring themselves of six years of service. Therefore we estimated someone could potentially bid as much as $50,000,000 to assure success since they were doing so with no risk. And we thought that just to be sure they might decide to bid $51,000,000.

“We were not going to take any chances of losing Matsuzaka-san and were determined to top even that potential bid. And to ensure that our number could not be leaked, I was given the task of devising the final amount. (I thought (team president and CEO) Larry (Lucchino) was going to pass out when I told him the number as we were delivering it to MLB.)

“When we were attempting to purchase the Red Sox, I did not want my name thrown around in the media for quite some time. Therefore, all of the potential investors and bankers knew me only as “Investor 11.” We had extraordinarily good fortune in bidding for the team. In fact, at one point Mr. (Charles) Dolan had won the bidding before asking to purchase the entire club rather than the half that was originally for sale. We were lucky to win the bidding when the second bids were taken. So although I am decidedly not superstitious, I decided, for good luck, to throw in as many 11s as I could.
“I also felt good about another set of numbers. Matsuzaka-san and I were both born on the 13th of September.

That’s the story,

John”

a change of scenery?

2006-12-17T20:36:00.000-06:00

So about midway through last semester I had an interesting experience in my Vibrations class...

That day we didn't even begin the lecture, which was supposed to cover single degree-of-freedom free, undamped vibation, but that's beside the point. Instead, Dr. Newman, for one reason or another, decided to enlighten us with the work he does over at the ERC(Engineering Research Center).

To make a long blog short, Dr. Newman divulged that he does TONS of research with respect to ballistic missles, missle defense, and satellite-based missle defense. Maybe it was the way Dr. Newman relayed this information, or maybe it was the fact that he's a very down-to-earth kind of demeanor, or maybe it was the fact that I was excited that we weren't having a lecture, but I was COMPLETELY captivated by what he had to say. I walked away from that class that day(which lasted an extra half hour, but we didn't care) very very interested in the field of missle defense and its applications.

As a side note, ever since John got a job with....er....uhm....the government in a defense capacity, I've kinda wanted to do the same thing. Before graduating high school, I considered majoring in mathematics, as our government is one of leading employers of mathematicians, especially in the Department of Defense. I then switched to aerospace engineering(astronautics), which turned out to be a great decision, but I realized that I probably wouldn't be able to work where my bro worked. Now, however, I may not work in the same place or have the same job as my brother, but I could be working towards the same goal as his.

After some research, I found a place where I might be able to intern AND get some experience in the missle defense field. The locale: Arnold Engineering Development Center, right outside Tullahoma, TN and adjacent to the University of Tennessee Space Institute. These guys do some COOL stuff, including aerodynamic testing of pretty much every military or civilian spacecraft/aircraft created by the ole' U.S. of A., lots of rocket(solid and liquid) propulsion testing, AND missle defense technology, mainly in the areas of detection and recognition. Add that to the fact this place is the world's largest collection of flight test facilities, and you have an engineer's dream at this place. Even cooler, they tested the upper-stage liquid rocket engine of the Saturn-V(the J-2 engine) back in the Apollo days! With our nation returning to the moon in 2020, Arnold could very well be doing some testing once again for our government, as NASA is using basically the same architecture for the booster vehicle this time around.

So there you go. The application process to Arnold requires my resume, a 500-word essay on some topic, and my transcript. Then they notify me after the February deadline if I've been selected for an interview. After the interview, they let me know a month or two later if I've been accepted into their intern prgoram. As you can imagine, I've been hard at work on updating my resume here at home, and I'll begin the essay soon I'm sure. I'm gonna need references too, so Tarik and Eric, be expecting an email from me soon!

I would LOVE to work there next summer. Not only will it be a change of scenery from Houston, but it'll give me a broader range of experience AND I'll be near Nashville, one of my favorite cities in the country. Of course there are other great benefits, but I'm sure you can figure those out.

I'll try to keep you all updated on the various stages of my application process.

Four Great Reasons to Drink Beer in 2007

2006-12-14T20:28:00.000-06:00

My dad, now that he brews his own beer(a resounding applause can be heard), is part of the Brewers Association. He subscribes to their periodic newsletter, and this week's edition had this to say:

A brochure produced by the Breweres of Europe gives the following information about the health benefits of consuming alcohol in moderation for healthy adults...

#1) Drinking Beer is Good for Your Heart

There is compelling evidence that moderate beer drinkers have a substantially reduced risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack, when compared to teetotalers.

Additional evidence shows that moderate drinking may be protective against the most common form of strokes.

It is estimated that an intake of approximately three alcholic drinks a day should
reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 24.7%( 1 drink = 8.5 U.S. liquid oz.)

Beer is as good as wine for protecting your heart. The American Heart Association has said that "there is no clear evidence that wine is more beneficial than other forms of alcoholic drink."

#2) Moderate Consumption of Beer Reduces the Riske of Type 2 Diabetes

Sudies show a reduced incidence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in men and women who are moderate drinkers. Compared to non-drinkers, men who consume one to two beers a day have a 36% less risk of Type 2 Diabetes.

#3) Drinking Beer Reduces The Risk of Osteoporosis

Recent research shows that moderate beer drinking has a protective effect on bones, thus reducing the risk of osteoporosis.

#4) Beer Consumption Reduces the Risk of Kidney Stones

Daily consumption of beer is shown to reduce the risk of kidney stones by 40%

home for the holidays...and then some

2006-12-13T20:23:00.000-06:00

Shouldn't come as a surprise, but I'm home now at the Ranch. Just some points to note...

I've begun painting the rest of the railings at the Center. Nothing like a few extra bucks to earn over break. Dad says he's already received numerous compliments on the railings that I did over Thanksgiving. Guess I'm doing ok with them.

My dogs are somehow 32 times cuter than they were last time I was home. Don't really know how that happened. I'm taking pics of them like crazy, and I really want a good pic taken of just me and them. I'll try to share some of those over break.

I should have a new laptop purchased within a few days. My current computer is on its last LCD days.

Due to a near-incident last night at 2:00 am over at the Center, I have decided (and Dad agrees) I should learn to shoot a gun. So over break Dad's gonna take me to a range around here and show me the ins and outs of packing heat with his Glock 9mm. I can't wait :)

I'm now reading(finally) my automotive handbook I bought several months ago. As I do, I'm going along in my jeep, seeing each piece and storing into memory what each thing does. Although not a natural-born auto mechanic, I'm really getting into this material. I do have some questions, and I'm sure John will be able to answer those when he gets here next week.

I'm totally redoing my resume, as I've had quite a few work stints since my last update. I'm revamping it for my potential job in Tennessee next summer. Where is it, you ask? I'll gladly inform you next time(seriously, I promise).

A Most Impressive Pitch

2006-12-13T20:01:00.000-06:00

Well it's all but official: The Red Sox top brass(Epstein, Lucchino, Werner), after flying from Boston to L.A. in owner John Henry's private jet to a last minute bargaining session, have pretty much locked up Daisuke Matsuzaka for the next six years for a total of $52 million, with $8 million left for incentives. I've waited to write about Daisuke(pronounced "Dice-K") until it was almost certain that we'd get him, and well, we pretty much got him.

Rather than splurge and write about 28 paragraphs on the guy right now, I'll be writing plenty about him leading up to Spring Training in March. Needless to say, I'm absolutely STOKED about getting Dice-K. We now have an unbelievable starting rotation, one that is anchored by two veterans(Schilling and Wakefield) and filled in the middle by THREE 26-year old hard throwing studs(Papelbon, Matsuzaka, and Beckett). Also, should Wake not have a stellar year due to his rib injury again, Jon Lester will be wating in the wings. Lester disclosed recently that his cancer is in complete regression, and he will be joining the crew at Spring Training. To add even more intrigue, word has it the Sox have given Clemens a "most impressive" pitch in regards to pitching for them in 2007. Whether this was just a precautionary measure had the Sox not signed Matsuzaka, or whether it was the plan all along, remains to be seen. Either way, it's times like this that it's exciting to be a Sox fan.

"Let's Daaaaaaance!!!"

2006-12-08T11:49:00.000-06:00

...because I am DONE with Finals this semester. Definitely the hardest set of exams I've had since I've been in college. Now it's a waiting game to see if I kept the 4.0. But first, I'm going to sleep for a very, very, very long time. I'm out.

LCDead

2006-11-30T02:13:00.000-06:00

As if the internal clock of my computer told it that the warranty was no longer in effect(ended two months ago), my laptop's LCD screen is on the verge of dying any day now.

The first symptoms appeared over Thanksgiving break when I booted up my comp to load some pictures. I was greeted by my desktop in very retro(and psychedelic) colors. Upon further investigation of online documentation, I realized that my screen was dying, as some of the liquid crystals weren't allowing some light to pass through, thus giving off a very tinted look.

I woke up this morning to prepare a little more for my Aerothermodynamics test, and as you might expect, I opened my computer and the screen had gotten worse. It's even difficult to stare at the screen for extended periods of time now. I've adjusted the colors to where everything is pretty much blue; I had to choose this setting because it's the only one that would allow me to see text. This WOULD happen right before a test that required the use of my computer. Thankfully, it battled through, and I made it through the test just fine.

So now the quest is on to look for a new laptop. Just like they've always done, my brothers have my back. They're doing their best to find me the best deal out there. I'm also looking myself, hoping to spot a steal. I'll probably have to do monthly installments until next summer, at which point I'll just pay the rest of the balance because I will be working.

Yup, working. Except I hope to not be co-oping next summer; rather, I hope to be interning. And it will NOT be at NASA. Where I am aiming to land in summer of 2007? ................Ah, you'll just have to tune in next time to find out :)

A Slight Facelift

2006-11-21T23:19:00.000-06:00

Welcome back everyone...err...welcome back myself.

Yeh, I've been gone way too long. Longer than any time before. So if you all but gave up on my blog, I don't blame you. Who should you blame? Mississippi State University. Yup, that's right. They've been working my ass to death the past 2 months, but finally, FINALLY, I have procured some time off from school.

It's the Thanksgiving holidays, so that means I'm at home. As of now, I am the active siblings leader in my family in the category of consecutive Thanksgivings attended(about to be #22), so very few things were going to tear me away from returning to the Ranch for a few days in late November.

You would think I'd have all kinds of free time over break, but that is sadly far frome the truth. Next week I have a Vibrations exam, a Aerothermodynamics exam, a Vibrations project due, an Orbital Mechanics project due, and some Aerothermo homework due. Then the week after that I have FINALS. Add that to the fact that I'll be working right around 8 hours a day here starting tomorrow, and you realize that I'll be working during the day and studying during the night. I'm not really complaining, though. I'm making money while getting a fresh venue in which to enrich my brain with subjects that really do interest me.

It will not be all work, of course. You know me better than that. Dad's good friend from St. Andrews(Class of '64, right Dad?), Tim Mucklow, just arrived this evening, and my brother John will be flying in tomorrow night. Four Hornes and a friend of Horne is usually a recipe for some fun times.

Well that's about it. Just thought I'd let everyone know I'm still alive. Oh yeh, how do you like the new style of my blog? Yay, nay, indifferent? I'd really like to know what ya think. So shoot me a comment if you want.

I really do have so much to talk about, so hopefully I'll be able to post about it this week and the next and the next and so on. Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

-a recent list I have growing that lists the reasons I love baseball
-the Red Sox offseason dramas(Matsuzaka, Manny, bullpen help, right field, etc.)
-recent developments regarding my Summer 2007 work plans
-Nintendo's sexy new console, the Wii
-Michael Richards' idiocy
-New Year's plans
-my newest infatuation: bartending and drink making
-movie reviews and previews of films coming soon that have caught my eye

that's about it. Tune in later this week. I might even throw in a pic from the Ranch(which, by the way, looks absolutely beautiful this time of year).

Sox are everywhere

2006-10-09T21:35:00.000-05:00

today was very Red Sox oriented.

to start, I wore my Papelbon jersey-shirt today for the mere fact of pronouncing to all the Yankee fans on campus that I'm saying "HAHAHAHAHA" to them. There's this one particular NY fan in all of my engineering classes who is always sporting something Yankee related. He either has his battered NY hat, his Yankeet watch, or some shirt that says "Jeter XXL"(don't really get that one) or has a player-jersey on hit(usually Posada). Anyhow, this guy just looks the part of a typical Yankee fan, and while I have never conversed with him, I'm rather certain he's annoying. The great thing about all of this is that I usually sit RIGHT in front of this guy in my classes(by no choice of mine; I usually get there before he does), so wearing my Sox shirt today was the perfect ploy. I hope he got a good, loooooong look at it.

on my way out of the library today I saw this chick with a #58 Papelbon jersey-shirt on. She has the alternate home jersey, so it's red with blue lettering, while mine is blue with red lettering. It's kinda sad that I'm not the only one with that jersey on campus anymore :(, haha.

and finally, after my Structures test this evening, I was leaving the room when Dr. Lacy(who is quite possibly the nicest man in this universe) pulled me aside to question me about if I had ever seen the Sportscenter commercial with the Red Sox fan in the bathroom. I told him I had, and that I wore my shirt today just for *that* guy up there(I pointed the Yankee out). As if Dr. Lacy couldn't get any cooler, now I learn that this guy watches ESPN. I wonder if he likes baseball...hmmm.

well, back to Thermodynamics and Monday Night Football...

from NASA to groundskeeping

2006-10-05T01:18:00.000-05:00

Today was Day #1 of the 89th NHL season. It's pretty exciting. Unfortunately, my Avs couldn't hold their 2-0 lead the whole game, and they allowed 2 unanswered goals in the 3rd, as well as the game-winner in OT off an assist by Turco. Eyugh. I'm just glad hockey is back; every other weekend or so I'll get to watch some games on NBC. Also, if things go as planned, I will be watching Joe Sakic and Company on New Year's Day in Nashville play against the hometown Predators.

Baseball playoffs keep rolling along. The Twins are disappointing, while the Tigers are just a sacrificial lamb for the Yankees. It appears the A's are going to be my best hope to get the Yanks knocked out of October.

Today I was finally able to get things done that needed to be done. I got my Target e-giftcard problems worked out, so now my 2 GB SD card for my camera is on its way :). Thanks again for my birthday present, Mom and Dad!! Oh, and since someone was obviously trying to swindle me on Half.com(where I ordered 2 of my textbooks for cheap), I filed my claims on my two books. It takes 30 days for them to resolve it, so I should get a refund by then. I've already been using books from my friends, and although they aren't the exact same textbooks, they are more than adequate. It'll just be a little more change in the pocket when I get my money back :)

Speaking of pocket money, I'm going home this weekend, and I may very well be going home the next two weekends as well. I offered my services to Dad and the Gray Center, and he informed me that there was plenty work to be done. So the plan is just to work as many hours as possible this weekend and get some extra money in the pocket. I've got alot of events coming up(well into next semester), so more money couldn't hurt. I'm also planning on working over Christmas break at the Center. Basically, my weekend will involve physical labor, eating, and sleeping. That sounds bad, but it will be great to be continually working on something and not have to think about school, baseball, or much else.

Another plus this weekend will be that John and his dog Tyrone are coming home. John is dropping off Tyrone to Mom, so she can take care of him while John is off on some super secret spy mission somewhere on the other side of the planet(he's really just going to New Zealand, but I like to think he's a super-spy). Not only will I get to see my dogs, I'll get an extra treat with Tyrone!! (And I get to see my brother, of course, haha)

Just watch...this weekend be the weekend we upset West Virginia while I'm at home. Twenty bucks says it happens, haha.

Trevor and I went to Chattanooga for Fall Break this past weekend. We had such an awesome time. Thursday night was half-priced wine night at this local cafe, Friday night was guys' night at this bar with around 200 beers, and Saturday night we partied it up at Mal's then headed over to Parkway Billiards(which I absolutely love now). I wanted to eat brunch with Ann at some point, but she was never able to take a break out of her demanding schedule at the Magazine. The entire weekend included great food and great fun with pretty much the entire Spring Break crew. I also got to see Mal kick some ass on the soccer fields in a mini-tournament at UTC. I swear that girl has gotten even faster, if that's even possible. She had several scoring oppurtunities but was just unlucky on the bounces. Once again, I assumed the role of Mr. Photographer during the games, haha. I think I like that job.

Speaking of Mal and soccer, the girls have a soccer game at Vandy the last Saturday in October. I was thinking about heading up there on that Friday, maybe spending the night with Paul in Cookeville(or Lebanon), eating lunch with Andrea in Nashville, then heading to the game. It's almost like my Red Roadies days back in my senior year of high school, haha.

Lamenting 2006, but looking forward to 2007

2006-09-25T11:55:00.000-05:00

Well this past Saturday the Sox were officially eliminated from playoff contention. Not that I couldn't see it coming, but as a dedicated fan, you never like to think about it. Plus, considering what happened in 2004, I refuse to ever believe that anything is impossible.

So now in the AL we'll have the A's, Tigers, Twins, and Yankees. In the NL we'll have the Mets, Cardinals, and the Dodgers/Phillies/Padres(pick two). I really do not think it'll matter who gets to the World Series from the NL; the AL is going to steamroll over their opponent in the big dance. All I hope is that the Yankees do not win it all; if they do, then my baseball life will be miserable(not that it wouldn't be anyway since we're out of the postseason). So I'm basically going for 7 teams this October, haha.

Even though the Sox aren't going anywhere after September, there are still reasons to keep up with them. David Murphy and Dustin Pedrioa are getting their feet wet in the bigs, and they have shown vast improvements since being call-ups earlier in the month. Dustin will be our future 2nd baseman, and David could be the second coming of Gabe Kapler. David Ortiz is obliterating all kinds of AL homerun records each night, and if he doesn't get a SHIT load of votes for MVP, I'll be disappointed. Even so, I'm pretty sure all the lame-ass AP voters will go with Jeter because he is the most overrated player in MLB history. Everyone is ALWAYS up his ass; it's sickening. If Papelbon had not been shut down for the season as a preventative measure, we'd be witnessing his setting the all-time mark for saves by a rookie. Also, this last week we'll get one more look at Beckett, who has clearly become adjusted to the AL, although it took almost an entire season. It's no longer scary to watch him pitch now; in fact, it's down right exciting. I can't wait to see him next year.

"Next year".wow, it sounds so weird to already be talking about it. But since we were eliminated, we are allowed to look that far ahead. I have some thoughts and predictions for next season, and I'll share some of them now, as I need a forum...

2007 Red Sox Regular Season Predictions

-Despite my objection, Papelbon will be sent to the starting rotation next year. Words really can't describe how awesome Paps was for us this year. With an ERA of 0.92, he was "lights out" in every sense of the word. Papelbon, however, was a starter in AA-Portland, and he was originally bred to be a starter for the Sox, not a closer. Plus, with a spot in the rotation, his appearances will be more predictable, instead of the sporadic nature of relief pitching. This gives him 4-5 days to rest his arm, putting him in a better position for his body to heal.

-Beckett will regain his 2003 postseason form in 2007. You can already tell he has "figured out" the AL with his last 3 starts. He has a blazing 4-seam fastball, a 2-seamer that flies all around the plate, the most wicked curveball of all power pitchers out there, and a split-finger fastball that is being taught to him by the guy with the best split-finger fastball in the bigs: Curt Schilling. Josh Beckett WILL win 20 games next season.

-Curt Schilling, in his final MLB season, will the anchor of our rotation in 2007. He showed great resilience from his injury-riddled 2005 season this year, and there's no reason to believe he will be any different. Schiller will ring up 260 strikeouts next season.

-The starting rotation will(at the season's outset) be Schilling/Beckett/Papelbon/Wakefield/#5. That #5 spot could depend on moves the Sox make. I predict Beckett and Papelbon will the most electrifying combo in the bigs next year, even more so than the Santana/Liriano duo.

-To be honest, I'm not sure if Manny will return next year. Gordan Edes of Boston.com also thinks so. I really can't believe Manny. He's been benched for the past 2-3 weeks due to his knee problems and his not wanting to play for fear of further injuring it. YET, he has the audacity to STILL prompt his agent to ask the Sox to trade him. WTF!? Manny is such a great player that it hurts just to think about his not being with the team. At the very least, he makes Papi a better hitter, protecting him in the lineup with a potent bat behind him. Buster Olney says there will be many buyers looking for power hitters in the offseason, so who knows what can happen. Sox fans, however depressing the thought of a lineup without Manny might be, must realize that what the Sox get in return WILL be rather awesome. Be it a pitcher, batter, or Anti-Yankee spray, it'll be something good(see next note). Granted, you can't truly replace Manny, but the Sox can(and most assuredly, WILL) put someone in that 4-spot that is a winner, a hustler, and NOT someone that's going to quit when his team isn't playing .800 ball.

-So to whom could we deal Manny? Who would pick up that deferred money? Who could we get in return? All of these are great questions, but I have a bold prediction that you may or may not like: The Houston Astros. Yeh, THOSE guys. Everyone and their momma knows that the Astros need offense, and if Papelbon goes to the rotation, we're gonna need a guy closing the door at the end of the game. Solution: Manny for Lidge. Yeh, that seems like a slim deal on our part, but I'm certain other teams would be involved with this trade (a la Nomar 2004), and we'd get even more than just Lidge. Lidge has been un-Lidge like this year, especially after Pujols cranked one off of him from Houston to San Antonio during the 2005 NLCS. But the kid is GOOD, really good. He's got the meanest slider since Randy Johnson circa 1997. Again, like Beckett, the NL-to-AL conversion could be tough for a pitcher, but Lidge is the best option out there for a closer. He's a proven guy, and he's just getting into his prime. Now don't send me hate emails cuz I'm bashing Manny; I'm not. He's a great ballplayer, he's great for the game, and he's great for our team(and our MVP). I just get kinda worn out from all his "Manny episodes" and trade requests. It's almost like an annual event to hear about Manny and trade rumors. I want the guy to stay, but not if he's going to quit on us.

-Sadly, I think the Sox will move Trot in the offseason. We just have a surplus of outfielders wanting more play time, and considering Trot's age and tendency to get injured, the Sox could use him in a trade to bring in some fresh guys.

-David Ortiz will be the unanimous vote for 2007 AL MVP. He'll stroke 60 HRs(6 of which will be walk-offs) and drive in 180 RBI. (*this is all assuming he has someone to protect him in the lineup)

-There have been lots of rumblings regardign Coco Crisp next season. Personally, I think they should give him another year to prove himself. He had a MONSTER spring training, and he was off to a fast start before he broke his finger stealing 3rd in Baltimore early in the season. He just wasn't the same after that, although he got his numbers back to "Coco-esque" figures. He made some of the best plays this season, but he also made some real blunders(the one that comes to mind is the attempt to rob a homer in Seattle over the wall......he was about 7 feet to the left of where the ball actually landed. The result? Inside-the-park homerun. Yikes). I love Coco, though, and although he doesn't have a cannon in the outfield, he can cover serious ground, and when he's healthy, he's a great leadoff man and baserunner. However, should the Sox move him, there have also been whispers of bringing Andruw Jones to Boston. Now how badass would that be? I'd be willing to bet that the Braves could be that "other" team involved in Astros-Red Sox deal.

-The Sox will win 100 games next year

-Now for a prediction that really isn't that far fetched: Come June 21, 2007, the Red Sox will have added one more pitcher to their rotation: Roger Clemens. Roger will do the same half-season deal he did with the Astros this year, except this time he will be going to the right team, and one that will give him plenty of run support. It's no secret that Roger lamented over his decision to go with the Astros this year; he regretted not choosing the Red Sox. There is no better way to end his career than where it started. Can you imagine the atmosphere the first Roger pitches for the Red Sox at Fenway?! Holy crap. What about when he pitches against the Yankees!? It'g going to be awesome: Schilling-Beckett-Clemens-Papelbon-Wakefield. Daaaaaaamn.

-And finally, in 2007 the Red Sox will win their first AL East title in 12 years

Musings

2006-08-31T00:59:00.000-05:00

A blog? What is that?

That's how I feel since I haven't posted in such an extended time. It's been so long that there is just TOO much to talk about. Let's see...

School has been taking up most of my time. My classes are freakin' awesome, but at the same time they are sure to be very difficult. My teachers are quite possibly the most diverse I have had to date in my college tenure. Let me attempt to paint you a picture:

My Aircraft Structures professor is a cross between Christopher Lloyd and Raul Julia.

My Aerothermodynamics teacher is Mr. Bean, yet he is Italian. His most used phrase: "Duz zis make zense to youz guyz?"

My Vibrations teacher is definitely the coolest teacher I have had yet in college. He's about 38, but he acts like a frat boy. Normally, I'm not a fan of the typical fraternity guy, but my teacher pulls it off. He's also hilarious. And on a daily basis he seems to relate classwork to alcohol somehow. For example, today we were talking about damping vibrations as well as hydraulics and they way fluids move in and out of shafts. He made an analogy(and diagram!) of how beer flows out of a keg. Brilliant.

My Electrical Engineering Systems teacher is Bob Hoskins, but with an Indian accent and complexion.

Finally, my Orbital Mechanics professor is a cross between the woman from Fried Green Tomatoes and the mom from That 70's Show.

As far as the actual classes are going, so far so good. Structures and Aerothermo will definitely be my most difficult courses. I hate circuits, but I can do them with my eyes closed, so EE Systems shouldn't be bad. Vibrations is a completely new subject matter to me, but it fascinates me, and I love the applications, so that should be an A. Orbital Mechanics is already my favorite class. I'm getting to apply stuff I learned at work to course material, bringing me way ahead of everyone else. We even got this software,called Satellite Tool Kit(STK),put onto our computers. Yeh, that baby is $80,000 right there. You read it correctly. It's pretty much Mission Control Houston...but on my laptop.

Speaking of NASA...

Atlantis is heading BACK to the Launch Complex 39B after getting halfway back to the VAB. It seems Ernesto shifted its course just enough to make the big wigs at KSC think it was safe. Hopefully we'll launch within a week(we kinda HAVE to, but that's another story).

Tarik(my mentor back at JSC) has really inspired me to get into drink making. I bought a bar set(shaker, double jigger, fruit peeler, ice tongs, and a wine/bottle opener) last week, and I got right into it. The first thing I made was a classic mojito, but I didn't shake it well enough the first time. The next night, I tried again, but this time shaking thoroughly; the results were much better this time around. My mojitos were a hit with everyone at Dan's. I now have a "signature" drink to make people, haha.

I just returned from the store, and I now have the ingredients to make true Caribbean Rum Punch from Tarik's heavily protected recipe. I had to basically beg and plea to get it out of him last semester, but I got it alright. I had some of the punch at Tarik's last Doorstep Happy Hour at his warehouse, and it was SO good, yet freakin' potent as anything. My advice: sip this stuff slowly, or you will get verrrrrrrry inebriated verrrrrrry fast. With that said(haha), we're making a batch of it tomorrow for the first time, just in time for MSU's first football game here against South Carolina.

I love college football atmosphere, and I can't wait to see the crowds of people here tailgating tonight. There's a pre-game shindig somewhere near campus that I think we are going to attend. The game is on ESPN, so if you are near a television, tune in and you may see me :). Due to the time of the game, classes after 12:30 tomorrow are cancelled. It just so happens that my first class is at 12:30, so that means FREE day for me tomorrow. Definitely looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, on the diamond I'm not as happy. The Sox have had the most serious onslaught of illnesses and injuries that I have ever seen on one team. It's frustrating, for sure, but it was just learned today that Jon Lester(sent back to Boston a few days ago after being put on the DL) is being tested for cancer. A promising young player, no one wants to hear this news about him. Even with all of the on-field shortcomings, this really puts things into perspective. We're all hoping Lester turns out to be fine.

Now, the Sox are by no means out of the playoff race, but with 2/3rds of the lineup gone or injured, it's hard to do anything to be competitive. Things could definitely start to turn once players start coming back this week and next. Some great things to look forward to: Papelbon setting the record for most saves by a rookie, Papi destroying the previous record for HR's in a season by Foxx(50), and the Sox making the fewest errors ever in a baseball season.

I should stop talking about the Sox...it'll only make me more depressed, haha.

The apartment looks great. I've begun putting up all the posters up on my wall, and I am ordering a few more, except they are sports posters. One poster I am hoping to get is the frame-by-frame shot of Carlton Fisk as he is "motioning" his hit ball to stay fair during the final inning of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. It's a SWEET poster, and it will look superb on my wall.

Well it's late, but to be honest, I'm not tired at all. Surely there's a good movie on or something. Anyways, I'm done. The weather forecast is looking great for tomorrow; I'm ready to watch Steve Spurrier once AGAIN not win at Davis-Wade Stadium.

go dawgs. go sox.

The Boston Massacre, 2006 Edition

2006-08-21T23:04:00.000-05:00

1770. 1978. And now 2006.

I can barely think about this right now, let alone type about it, but I'm going to try.

The Sox are hurtin'. We just dropped FIVE games in a row to the Yankees, and we now sit 6.5 games behind them in the AL East standings. I watched all the games but the one on Friday night, and I followed that game online. For the first 3 games our starting pitching was way below average, but not completely horrible. Our bullpen is what did us in during those games. Then Schiller took the mound on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, and he was exactly what he paid him to be. Unfortunately, Terry Francona opted NOT to use Papelbon for what was clearly the perfect time for a 2-inning save(Papelbon had 4 days rest, so he was ready to go); instead, he brought in journeyman Mike Timlin and lefty-specialist Javier Vasquez(just recalled), who got the bases loaded with Giambi at the plate. NOW Papelbon came in. *sigh*. Papelbon got through the inning with the lead intact, and he had 2 outs with a man on 2nd in the 9th inning, but Derek Jeter blooped one into right field, bringing the game even. Giambi rocked a 3-run homer off Hansen in the 10th inning, and the rest was history. Today David Wells again went deep into the game, but our offense decided not to show up, and we lost 2-1. Of course, having Ramirez out with a hamstring cramp wasn't going to help, either.

So that's where we stand now. It was announced today that Alex Gonzalez has an oblique strain, which was the same injury that kept Albert Pujols out for a couple of weeks earlier in the season. That sucks. But assuming that his injury isn't that bad as Pujols' was, and considering Manny is only day-to-day, here's what's going to be happening in the coming weeks:

Here's our rotation right now: Schilling, Wells, Beckett, Lester, and _______. Wells has shown resurgence, and he deserves that #2 spot right now. And yes, I left that last one open on purpose, but it's probably Snyder. Wakefield is set to return in about a week, so that places him in that 3/4 spot, meaning we can move Snyder back into bullpen, where we need him.

Speaking of bullpen, ours IS good, but I have to believe their collapse over the past 5 days has been due to the absence of our captain behind the plate, Jason Varitek. Varitek is THE play/pitch caller of the MLB; no one does it better. The pitchers feel confident with him sitting 60 ft, 6 in. away, and it cannot be a coincidence that they look like little league pitchers with Javy Lopez and Mirabelli calling the pitchers. Varitek is a few weeks away from returning, maybe earlier. After Wakefield gets back, and before Varitek returns, Trot Nixon will come back off the disabled list. Now, that might not be a problem, as rosters expand after September 1st. We already have a great bench, and with Nixon back, we can rest guys while also remaining very competitive. And resting will be HUGE the next month or so, as we are not getting many days off.

Offense wise, we're just fine. Like I said earlier, as long as Manny doesn't decline(again, he's only day-to-day, could be worse), we're gonna be golden. We have the Greek God of Walks(Youkilis), the most feared 3-4 combo in the majors(Ortiz and Manny), and some up-and-coming bats of the likes of Wily Mo Pena and Hinske. Pena has been absolutely CRUSHING the ball, and he could very well end up being our #5 hitter down the stretch.

Defensively, there's no question. We're the best in the business. We could very well end up with 2 gold glove winners(Lowell and Gonzalez).

Over the next couple of series, both the Sox and the Yankees have tough road trips to the west coast, while also playing difficult series at home. Then both teams play Kansas City and Baltimore before meeting up again in the Bronx for the final showdown.

It's evident that this AL Wild Card/East is nowhere close to being over. I didn't give up on October 16th two years ago, and I sure as hell am not going to give up this year. We're in a bind, that's for sure, but we're far from the dire circumstances of the ALCS in 2004. We've got great picthers, but they aren't pitching great. We've got the bats. We've got the gloves. If losing 5 games in a row to the Yankees and falling to almost 7 games back lets us fly under the radar, fine by me. Watch out for the Red Sox these last 40 games folks; it'd be a mistake to write them off.

It's Isle Over

2006-08-16T22:06:00.000-05:00

Long time, no blog, I know. But I have returned from a successful journey that took me from Houston to Canton to Paris to Atlanta to Charleston to Atlanta to Paris to Starkville. All within about a 10 day span. So I'm slightly tired, but I am here in Starkvegas at last, and I'm trying to get settled.

The week at the Isle of Palms was fantastic. There was so much good food that was eaten, from steaks to shrimp to lamb chops. In the beverage department there was no holding back, as you'd expect from the Horne clan. TONS of great beer and pa-lenty of wine(provided by Caro, of course) were consumed during the 7-day stay. Pretty much every day we went to the beach for the afternoon, where a Bocce game was always going, a projectile of some sort(football, disc, etc.) was flying, and photo opps were abound. The only departure from this routine was Wednesday, when Mallory and I made a journey up to Wilmington, NC. Why did we go? I suggest you go here to find out.

So without further ado, here are some pics!(some of these were taken with a disposable, so forgive the quality)

Mallory was so happy to be at the beach that she just couldn't hide it...

...neither could I.

I thought I was showing Mal how to play Bocce like a pro...

...until she displayed the fact that she was the Bocce Rookie of the Year in 2005.

Mal and I just felt like running......into the ocean.

My attempt at modeling...

...as well as Mallory's.

Finally, a cheesin' in the water.

Year of the Movie

2006-07-24T20:57:00.000-05:00

I've already deemed 2007 as "The Year of the Movie." Well, at least for geeks like me. See if you can follow me around the room:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
March 30th, 2007
Trailer
Why it will rock: It's all in CG. That pretty much makes it better than that abomination known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

Spider-Man 3
May 4th, 2007
TrailerWhy it will rock: the appearance of Venom in the storyline, as well as Sandman and the Green Goblin(2). Can you say "awesome battle sequences"?

Transformers
July 4th, 2007
Trailer
Why it will rock: just announced mere minutes ago that Peter Cullen will be reprising his role as the voice of series mainstay Optimus Prime. BADASS.

Pirates of Caribbean 3(subtitle pending)
Summer 2007
Why it will rock: Keith Richards will portray Captain Jack's father. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Prince of Persia
TBA 2007
Why it will rock: one of my favorite game franchises of all time is being brought to the big screen via Jerry Bruckheimer. This game's story is perfect for a movie, and I can't wait. Go get 'em Jerry.

"Not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

2006-07-23T21:14:00.000-05:00

Just as Project Apollo took men to the moon in the 60's and 70's, so will Project Orion. It's been leaked that Orion will be the name of the next project of the United States' manned space program, as well as the name of the vehicle that will take them there, the Crew Exploration Vehicle. This is similar to the naming conventions used in America's first manned-moon missions.

Project Orion. You gotta admit that it sounds cool.

You read it here first, folks.

Doorstep Happy Hour

2006-07-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

Tarik and Seth hosted their montly party this past Friday. They have a sweet setup in this warehouse in downtown Houston. They've completely redone the place to be more of a loft apartment/bachelor's pad. Thought I'd share a few of the pics...

A view from the balcony...that's right, balcony. This is the kind of place Trevor and I need during our college years. It's perfect for this kind of stuff...

Turntables were provided. I had to resist the urge.

A lower-level shot. It's kinda blurry, but com'on, it was around 2:00am at this point. (Not really sure what those two dudes are doing on the left side of the screen)

Yes, they also have a firepole to slide down. How cool is that?

Bubbles and foam also made an appearance in the evening(they go all out), but for fear of my new shiny camera, I didn't take any shots.

Officially excited...

2006-07-18T22:36:00.000-05:00

Our crib for the week at the Isle of Palms................awesome.

When the Mission Ends, the Party Begins

2006-07-14T22:30:00.000-05:00

Well the mission is coming to a close; Discovery is set to undock tomorrow early morning sometime. The NASA folks love excuses to party, and tonight is no exception. After the Orbit 3 shift(which ends around 1:00am), everyone is heading to the Saturn V building(it holds the Saturn V vehicle that was too be used for Apollo 18) to start the celebrations early, and I think I'm going to join them. Should be a good time. Maybe I'll be able to get some good pictures......oh yeh, I forgot....my NEW CAMERA came in!

I obviously can't take a pic of it without using a mirror(that'd be kinda lame), so just go HERE to check it out. This little baby is AWESOME. It's light, it's small, and it has tons of features. Oh, and takes pretty swell pictures as well. It can do all sorts of neato stuff. For example, click HERE to go to a picture I took today(it may take a few seconds to load; it's kinda big) at work; I call it the "drill field" of Johnson Space Center, in reference to my school. Click on it to zoom in and really get a good close up loook. No, I don't have a wide-angle lens on my camera; rather, my camera has a "stitch" mode. I just take pictures across the horizon, and the software on the computer knows what goes where, and it connects the images. Pretty sweet, eh?

I've been taking pictures of everything lately, but I wont really get to have fun until my 2GB SD card comes in next week. At that point, I'll be able to shoot movies and play around with the "burst" mode, which I have already dabbled in slightly(and it ROCKS!!)

Tomorrow will continue the celebration of the end of the Station assembly mission. Technically, yes, I know that the mission won't "officially" end until wheels stop on Discovery when she lands at KSC Monday morning. But after undocking tomorrow morning, the Station folks are DONE, so there is definitely cause to celebrate. Eric and I have rounded up a crew, and we are all set to play some 2v2 beach volleyball around noon tomorrow. Afterwards, we'll prolly head to Eric's pool to relax and chill. Then that night, we're all heading to Rice Village, where there is supposed to be an awesome nightlife on the weekends. It also happens to be yet another great oppurtunity for us to celebrate the end of the mission.

Sox got OWNED tonight. Eyugh. Probably one of the worst pitched games by the Sox(starter and relief pitchers) I have ever seen. It makes me sick. Yanks are now only 1.5 games back.

Conan on NASA

2006-07-10T23:51:00.000-05:00

Here's the mission patch from the current shuttle mission, STS-121. Take a good, long look at it. It depicts the space shuttle in it's docking configuration on the halfway-completed International Space Station. The long horizontal piece at the top of the ISS/Shuttle stack is the P6 solar array, and the second longest horizontal piece below it is the truss segment of the Station. All of that is overlayed on the yellow astronaut symobl of the the star and 3 lines...

And here is what Conan O'brien said about the patch the other night on his show:

"It looks like the space shuttle is having sex with a helicopter...and it's all happening under the birth of baby Jesus..."

hahahahahahaha. Brilliant.... just brilliant.

Ok, now for something VERY VERY cool. If you have a minute(or about 8) please please please check out these links:

Right-Aft SRB sep video
Right-Forward SRB sep video

I think you need a version of Windows Media Player to view it. They're videos of the right aft and forward solid rocket booster cameras, all the way from launch to splashdown. Yeh, you read that right. It's the entire video of the launch, from main engine ignition to the moment the SRBs fall into the ocean. It's neat because you see the flight LEAVE the atmosphere then RE-ENTER the atmosphere. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in engineering or space, watch the video. It is fuckin' awesome.

NOTE: If you want to see the shuttle/tank at separation, watch the FIRST video. If you want to see the ocean get closer and closer and closer until splashdown, watch the SECOND video. Or just watch both videos if you're feeling it.

Co-op's Log...Flight Day 4

2006-07-08T03:20:00.000-05:00

Just thought I'd give you all an unofficial status update of things up in orbit. The Station and Shuttle are doing just fine. Docking went smoothly, we added another crewman to the ISS(first 3-man crew since 2003), unbirthed the MPLM(Multi-Purpose Logistics Module) and attached it to Node-2, and things are set for the first EVA tomorrow. All looks good.

The highlight of tonight's Orbit 3 shift(my shift) was the passing of the ISS directly overhead Houston around 9:45pm CST. Almost the entire ISS and Shuttle flight control teams left Building 30 and congregated outside to watch the passover. It was pretty cool; nothing I hadn't seen before, but it's still cool. The station/shuttle were amazingly bright and very easy to spot. The station/shuttle stack passed right over MCC, and it one frame you could see both the streaking star(the shuttle and station) and the illuminated American flag protuding prominently atop MCC. I wish I had a camera, as it was a VERY good shot.

And one more thing...I now have a new favorite astronaut(not that I had one to begin with). And as it turns out, she's actually one of the ones that went up on Discovery a few days ago: Stephanie Wilson. Why do I like her? See below:

Notice the cap she is wearing while taking a ride in the Space Shuttle motion simulator.

And another shot of her in the Lab mockup in Building 9, just to reinforce the point(she's from Massachusetts, by the way).

Well it's late here. Too late. Around 3:30. I'm worn out and headed to bed.

"And the Rockets' Red Glare"

2006-07-04T23:41:00.000-05:00

A job well done to the Launch Control Team at KSC, as well as to the Ascent Team at JSC. Some slight issues arose, such as minor foam pieces and a mysterious ice object which was originally thought to be a thermal blanket, but nothing seems to be critical. All seems well with Discovery and her crew, so it's time to go to work. Hopefully I'll have some entertaining and/or great pictures for ya from my 2 weeks of mission support. I'll use my new camera for the pics...when it gets here :).

Tank You...Tank You Very Much

2006-07-03T21:58:00.000-05:00

Congratulations are in order for David Ortiz, Mark Loretta, Manny Ramirez, and my boy Jonathan Papelbon. They were chosen by the fans(except Papelbon; he was chosen by Ozzie Guillen, the AL manager) to represent Boston in the 77th All-Star game in Pittsburgh next week. Despite the great showing of Red Sox on the AL squad, I can't help but feel like we were snubbed. No Curt Schilling or Josh Beckett on the team!?! Com'on now, Ozzie. I have heard that Francona has talked to Guillen recently in hopes of convincing him that Schiller belongs on the team. Sticking with the All-Star theme, David Ortiz has elected to participate in the homerun derby the day before the mid-summer classic. I hope he tears the cover off the ball.

Slight scare today in the space world. During a checkout of Discover and her related parts last night, a piece of foam fell from a support strut on the External Tank(ET). Here's a high-res shot of the missing area:

That light area is the part of the foam that fell off. To give you an idea of scale, that area of foam loss was about 4 inches wide.

The Mission Management Team(MMT) met twice today, and thanks to some clever engineering they were able to examine the foam loss area without actually crushing the foam or having to bring in an external platform, which would have added another day to the launch. After much review, it was determine that the foam less presented now aerothermo problems, no ice threat, and it didn't shear surrounding foam. In short, Discover is GO for launch tomorrow at 1:38pm CST. Should be exciting, as the weather presents only a 40% chance of delaying the launch tomorrow, according to the weather military dudes over at the cape.

My body is wondering what the HELL I think I'm doing. I sleep shifted last weekend in preparation for the mission. Then we were delayed, and I had to shift back for work this week. Now that there's a good chance to launch tomorrow, I'm having to shift AGAIN tonight. That means staying up until 4:00am after being up at 7:00am this morning for work and getting only about an hour of sleep after work. Eyugh.

Richard has had a tough week this week: England gets ousted from the World Cup in the quarters, Beckham resigns his captaincy, his boy Agassi is defeated at Wimbledon at the hands of phenom capri-wearing Rafael Nadal, Ben Wallace is leaving the Pistons for Chicago, and today he found out that Steve Yzerman is retiring from the NHL. If you don't know who Steve Yzerman is, SHAME ON YOU. To give you an idea of this guy's affect on hockey the past 20+ years, go HERE. Everyone say a private prayer for Richard, haha. I'm sure I'll feel the same when Joe Sakic(who is also #19) retires one day.

One more thing: Sharapova advanced past the 4th round at Wimbledon today :)

Another one-more-thing: Jose Canseco is a fuckin' idiot. And he can't throw a knuckleball worth crap.

There. I'm done.

The Curtain Call...

2006-07-02T22:17:00.000-05:00

is used WAY too much by the New York Yankees. They have pretty much erased the effect the Curtain Call has. It means nothing now, because of them. Just watch a Yankee game the next oppurtunity you get. You will notice that it is WAY overdone. Chill out New York...we have monster home runs, clutch hits, and great baserunning on a nightly basis at Fenway, but you don't see us waving our helmet from the dugout steps EVERY time we do those things. It's actually EXPECTED of the Red Sox.

T-12 hours...

2006-07-01T02:26:00.000-05:00

So I'm here at the apartment. The party died down at Eric's, and he needed to get to sleep, so I've returned to HQ. I'm trying to sleep-shift as much as possible tonight so I don't have to do much of it tomorrow. That means I need to stay up all the way to 4:30 or 5:00 if possible. That wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't waking up at 9:15 to go watch England/Portugal at Eric's. Sheesh. The things I do for the love of sports.

We celebrated lots of things tonight at Boondoggles then at Kemah:

Discover is a GO for launch, and this will be our last free night for two weeks. We're all looking forward to working the flight though.
It was Eric's 26th birthday.
Colin's return from Germany.
Colin FINALLY proposed to Rachel in Germany last week. He did it while they were sitting on a bench right beside the Rhine River. I'm proud of my boy. (Rachel said "yes" by the way). Her ring is beautiful. Well done, Colin. Well done indeed. They're planning on saying "I do" on July 7, 2007 in Pittsburgh. Yup: 7/7/07. Can you say "road trip"?! :)
My 21st birthday. Yeh, it was a few weeks ago, but the guys never got around to celebrating it with me. I used my new power to buy Colin and Rachel their drinks as a Merry Engagement present.
The Red Sox 12-game win streak, as well as their consecutive errorless streak.
and something else...but I'm not at liberty to say...yet :)

Thursday's game saving play by our center fielder. Lord knows Damon can't do this...(not sure why the pic is so big)

All systems go. If the weather is looking good tomorrow then the bird will be off the pad...and I'll be watching it all from Mission Control. You're jealous, I know.

Make it a Dozen

2006-06-29T22:23:00.000-05:00

Yup. The Sox have won 12 games in row, capping off the final 3 against the best team in the NL. This is the longest win streak for the Beantown Boys since 1995, the last time they won the AL East. We also have tied the record for consecutive games without an error(16). One more and we ARE the record, haha.

Speaking of sports.....my favorite athlete of all time, Patrick Roy, is being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this November. This was his first time on the ballot, but it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that follows hockey. I will not go into all the awards and records he holds, but you can follow the link on the right and see for yourself. The man was a freakin' machine. I can't wait to see his speech! Matt and I both agree he should go to the ceremony wearing full pads and helmet.

Again staying with sports....my girl Sharapova(as well as Wimbledon's new favorite sweetheart) is still in the tournament. What's really funny though is the last opponent she beat. The opponent's name? Anna SMASHNOVA. How cool a tennis name is that? I mean seriously. SMASHnova. With that name you either grow up to play tennis or be a boxer.

We saw the late late late showing(got home around 1:30) of Superman Returns last night. I liked it alot. It was a great homage to the older films, which were the movies I basically grew up on(as well as Indiana Jones and Batman). A little bit of cheeziness, a few inside jokes(Gotham City is mentioned in a news broadcast), and a ton of action really add up to a great Superman movie. As if all that wasn't enough, the opening credits of the movie are done EXACTLY like the old movies, but they combined the old credits with a schnazzy opening showing the explosion of a star on its way towards Earth. It was incredibly nostalgic, especially with the orginal score composed by John Williams played more bombastically than before, and I loved it. I can honestly say that that was the first time I have ever had goosebumps for the first 3 minutes of a movie. Granted, the movie skipped and jumped around some of the older movies, but I don't mind that at all. Much like the latest Batman movie, when the movies are now based on the comic book licenses, I think they can throw out the rule books set by the older flicks.

Tomorrow is Eric's birthday, so I think we're gonna try to throw him a party. It's almost like we are required to because he is set to go on console at Mission Control Sunday night, so he has to begin sleep shifting, which means he needs to stay up to AT LEAST 3:00 am tomorrow. I think we can handle that :)

Y'all Come Back Now...Ya Hear!

2006-06-27T22:45:00.000-05:00

Funny thing happened today. On my way back to work from my lunch break, I stopped at the Post Office in Nassau Bay, which is just across from JSC, to get some stamps. I pulled my Jeep into a parking space, and I noticed the parked van beside me had a Mississippi tag, a Washington Co. tag to be specific. I thought that was kind of funny, but didn't think much beyond that. I then strolled into the building and got in line. I wasn't in line for more than 3 minutes when this bald guy wearing a Hawiian shirt, khaki shorts, and sandals popped his head into the main post office room(where you get service). He talked as if he was calling out the winning BINGO number: "Anyone in here from Mississippi??"

After looking around for a second, I casually raised my hand and said, "I am."

The guy asked me if I was the one driving with the Madison license, and I confirmed his guess. He asked me if I lived here and what I was doing, and I told him. He then went on to tell me where he was originally from(Greenville) and what he's doing in Houston, now that he lives there. Then he left. All of that was in a 30-second span, if that. Then he told me to take care, and he was gone. Poof. Like that.

It just goes on to prove that Mississippi is home to some of the most friendly people on this Earth, and THAT'S why I love my(2nd) home state.

Treasure Hunting

2006-06-26T21:37:00.000-05:00

Once again...David Ortiz comes to the rescue in the clutch. ANOTHER walk-off hit today against the Phillies. His second game in a row and 3rd in the last 8 home games at Fenway. To quote Trevor: "Papi(David Ortiz) is the shit!"

Walker and I are addicted to this new show Treasure Hunters on NBC. Granted, we don't have great reception on our tv(that will change on Wednesday), but we can get the basic idea of what's going on. Best of all, we can play along online with these "brainteasers" that lead you on a parallel path with the show. Each episode there is a different online challenge, and with each successful completion of the online challenges you are given another clue as to the whereabouts of the treasure. So far the first two clues make no sense, but we're working on it. We want that $10,000, haha.

Jennifer is bringing me Curse of the Bambino tomorrow. She says I'm not a true Sox fan until I have completely understood the past miseries of the team. She has a point, so I feel obliged to read it. I'm actually looking forward to it. I finished Angels & Demons, which was awesome. I need another bedside book.

Interesting Stat

2006-06-25T21:53:00.000-05:00

Oh yeh, I forgot. At Roger Clemens' return to baseball last Thursday, we(my group and the rest of Houston) set the all-time record for attendance at Minute Maid Park: 43,769!! That's more than any of the World Series games last year! Go figure...

Don't Forget to Pack Your Launch

2006-06-25T00:11:00.000-05:00

Well if you are(were) a USA Soccer fan, that World Cup sucked, didn't it? Bleh. VERY disappointed in our boys. No explosiveness, apparently no chemistry(which was our problem in '98), no stamina. We were outplayed every which way during our 3 group games, and it was just painful to watch. I expect Arena to be on the chopping block for this affair, but then again, he was probably on his way out after this World Cup anyway. Lots of our guys probably wont be playing anymore(Reyna, McBride, Keller), so we either get younger or we don't get anywhere at all....I guess I'm an England fan now(Richard's team).

Thursday was Roger Clemen's return to baseball, as well as the Astros, and I was there to watch history. He wasn't overly awesome, but it was definitely vintage Roger. Unfortunately, it was also vintage Astros, which means ZERO run support for their ace. Of course it also didn't help that they were batting against the rookie phenom pitcher of Liriano on the Twins. The 'stros lost, but it was a good time hanging out with alot of people from work(we got group seats). I had never seen Minnesota play before, so I got to knock them off my list :)

Speaking of baseball, the Red Sox are freakin' BALLIN. Eight in row, baby. Papi had a walk-off homer today, which is just becoming the norm for him. I swear, all of his RBI's have come in the bottom of the last inning when the score is either tied or they're behind. That man is a machine.

The launch schedule was released earlier this week. (NOTE: the shuttle mission is designated STS-121 and the related ISS Flight is designated ULF 1.1. I'll be using those in my posts from now on...just to let you know). I'm gonna OJT(on-the-job training) with the Orbit 3 shift with Tarik in the Blue MPSR(pronounced "mip-sir"), which is the ISS backroom. Orbit 3 is from 7:30pm-4:30am, and while I know you think that that timeframe sucks, it really doesn't. See, since Orbit 3 is within that timeframe, it is usually the planning shift, where timelines are laid out for the next day, maneuvers are discussed, as well as any other items for the shift. The crew is usually asleep in this shift, but alot happens here on the ground, and it will be a great oppurtunity for me to learn hands-on and ask many questions.

So those are the "work" reasons why it's gonna rock. Here are the "fun" reasons....Orbit 3 in the backroom is pretty much the party shift. Yup, I said it: party. Eric has told me from experience that there will be grilling, footballs, ESPN on the tv's, and more; only after the Station work has been done, of course, haha. It's gonna be awesome. I'll be sitting in with my boy Tarik, and Eric is also on Orbit 3, so it's going to be a blast. Even better is that I get home at 5:00am, which means I sleep until around noon. That leaves me the afternoon to sit by the pool and soak up some rays every day during the mission(2 weeks!). Helllll yeh. I'm actually excited to totally flip my sleep schedule; it should be a fresh experience, especially considering the work I'll get to do. So starting on July 2, be looking for me on NASA TV when I roam into the control room!

Hooray for Presents

2006-06-21T20:53:00.000-05:00

So my birthday rocked. You all know that from my last post. My birthday celebrations continued into this last weekend when Mal and I went to see the Sox sweep the Braves. She did a great post about our trip, so just go over to her blog to read the recap. Yeh I know, I'm lazy. But it is a good post with good pics.

My birthday extended even beyond my two trips. I got some awesome gifts from everyone. Shall I review?

Mom and Dad got me a $100 e-gift certificate to Target. Awesome! I'm using that card to buy my new camera, but I forgot that it is an electronic gift certificate, so I can only use it online. That means I have to order my camera online, so it will take a few days. I'm still doing some last minute research, so this may be for the better that I didn't buy it today.

Carolyn and Richard bought me birthday dinner as well as birthday drinks. They also drove us around D.C. all weekend, got us Nats tickets, got us into the Smithsonian museum, fixed us food, provided entertainment, etc. etc. My siblings kick soooooo much ass. Thank you C and R!!

Will got me a blue Red Sox tee with Papelbon and #58 on the back, but you already knew that. Nevertheless, it's still awesome.

Mallory also got me a Papelbon Red Sox shirt. She also got me this uber-uber comfy Red Sox throw. It's my new favorite blanket. And yes, it's on my bed. Mallory also carted me ALL around Atlanta this past weekend, including a trip to the always-crazy Atlanta Hartsfield Int'l Airport and 3 forays into post-Braves traffic. It's safe to say that she sacrificed the most for my birthday, haha.

The Red Sox gave me a sweep of the Braves, which is exactly what I asked for!!!

so as you can see, my 21st birtday = awesome. That's pretty much it.

Ran across a great article on my boy Papelbon today at work......CLICK HERE TO READ IT.

Tomorrow's the big game, folks. The return of Roger. This city is going absolutely bonkers over it.

Oh, and one more thing. Today I saw the first of what is sure to be an onslaught of television reporters broadcasting from Johnson Space Center. They were standing in front of the big NASA/JSC sign right off NASA Rd. 1. There's gonna be a bajillion of these reporters on and off-site, especially beginning next week. It's gonna be pandamonium. I can't wait!!!

We Are GO For Launch

2006-06-20T21:27:00.000-05:00

The head managers have given the go-ahead. All supporting facilities are cleared. The viewing areas have been designated. Houston is ready to be in control at liftoff.

No, I'm not talking about those 2 solid rocket boosters, orbiter, and external tank sitting on Pad 39B at Cape Canaveral. I'm talking about a totally different Rocket. The 43 year old, 6' 4" Rocket. The one that can bring the heat in the mid-to-upper 90's. I am, of course, talking about Roger Clemens.

Roger is set to return to the Astros on June 22 here in Houston against the Twins in an interleague matchup. When this date was announced about 2 weeks ago, I suggested to everyone here that we get group tickets, as this game was sure to sell out. We bought 20 group seats a few weeks ago, and sure enough, I went to the Astros website today, attempted to order tickets to the game, and what seats were available? Just Standing Room Only, folks. That's all. That would indicate a sellout. Hell freakin' yeh. On top of that, ESPN(again, as I predicted they would) has picked up this game, airing at 7:00pm CT Thursday evening. So I'm going to be there, along with a horde of other baseball-lovin' fans, watching history. What's more, I'm gonna have my new super shiny digital camera with me to capture the moment. My new camera, which I am buying tomorrow, is totally badass. For example, it has this special "rapid fire" mode, where it will snap full resolution pics just as fast as I can press the trigger. HOLY SHIT, that's cool. The boys over at CNET clocked 143 shots in 110 seconds onto the memory card. Aw, hell yeh. I'm gonna have fuuuuun with my new toy :)

Rewind

2006-06-19T18:56:00.000-05:00

Okay, I guess it's time I get you all caught up on my last few weekends.

So 2 weekends ago was my 21st birthday, but you already knew that. Friday afternoon Trevor and I began our voyage to D.C. When we arrived, it took us a minute to realize we were in the ghetto-wing of Reagan airport. After a few phone calls back and forth between me and Carolyn, we were finally picked up and on our way back to Fairfax. Friday night we just drank some wine and sat around the apartment, talking and whatnot. Carolyn used my 21st birthday weekend as a perfect time to educate me on the ins and outs of various wines.

Saturday started off early. Richard made is world famous chocoloate-chip pancackes while Carolyn made us some fabulous mimosas. Then we all donned England-themed soccer attire(yours truly reclaiming my beloved Newcastle jersey) and watched, as you might guess, England play soccer in the World Cup. Richard was happy, as England walked away with a 1-0 lead over Paraguay. EN-G-LAND!

The next event of the day was a baseball matchup of the Philles and Nationals at RFK stadium. After navigating through the crazy traffic and the orange cones of fury, we arrived at the game. I really didn't have any affinity towards either team, but it just great to see a new stadium, see two teams I have never seen play before, and just hang out with my family and friends. I mean, it's baseball, so what's NOT to like?

After the game we cleaned up at the apartment and headed out to celebrate the greatest day of the entire year. We began with dinner at this awesome tapas restaurant called Zengo. It was quite possibly(and Trevor concurs) the best dinner I have had.....ever. Seriously, I have had time to reflect on it, and it was the tastiest, most filling, most diverse meal that has ever met my mouth. We also had a great bottle of wine to go with our supper, and it was yet another oppurtunity for Carolyn to share her wealth of wine knowledge with me. Sufficiently full, we made our way to our next destination: the Childe Harold Restaurant and Bar.

With a very Daves-like atmosphere, the Childe was just gettin busy when we arrived. By a stroke of luck, they started checking I.D.'s at the door about 10 minutes after we arrived. Score! We(Richard, Caro, Trevor, and I) arrived around 10:30pm, but our group started showing up around 11:00, and a steady stream of our friends were arriving after that for about an hour. I started the night off with 2 pints of Samuel Adams' White Ale and a pint of Bass Pale Ale. Next, Tyler(Katie O's fiance) bought me a rum and coke, which consisted mainly of rum and just a pinch of coke. (NOTE: Tyler wanted to get a much more awesome mixed drink, but the bartender was such an ass and told Tyler that it was stupid drink. Tyler could have kicked the bartender's ass, but he opted to just get me something else instead of bloodshed, haha.) Then Trevor bought me a whiskey sour, which was also tasty.

As the clock hit midnight, I was officially 21, and things officially got crazy. For my first drink as a 21 year old, Richard bought Trevor and me shots of Sambuca, which basically tasted like black liquorice. Yum yum. Following suit, Tina got me a glass(I'd say about 2 and half shots worth) of Grand Marnier. Now, I didn't know that you are supposed to just sip on Grand Marn; I figured you just shot it. Ryan advised me to just sip on it like I should have, but her warnings fell on deaf ears, haha. Tina pressured me into downing it, saying, "Com'on, Henry, be a man." Well, I couldn't very well turn down that kind of a challenge on my 21st birthday, could I? So I took the Grand Marnier and shot ALL of it. Later I would realize that to be a bad, bad choice. Shortly thereafter, Leann bought me a shot of Jagermeister at the bar; she of course couldn't let me drink alone. Supposedly after that, we all had tequila shots, but I honestly can't remember that. And I think there were more drinks, but again, not much recollection of them, haha. The rest of the night was rather eventful, but I'll spare most of you the gory details. If you REALLY want them, just lemme know, and I'll give you the full story.

My birthday actually ended up being our detox day. Richard fixed an amazing breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, fruit, and juice. After food, we headed to the Udvar-Hazy hangar of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, which is located near Dulles airport. Man, it was AWESOME. They had the test Space Shuttle Enterprise, an SR-71, the Enola Gay, a Concorde, as well an amazing array of space artifacts, satellites, and equipment from the past and present. I'm so glad we got a chance to visit this portion of the museum. Definitely a memorable experience.

Sunday night we dined out and ate dessert at the Cheesecake Factory. For a place called a "factory," this place was VERY posh. We all got different types of cheesecake, and I had a cappucino. DIVINE!

So that was my 21st birthday extravaganza in D.C. Trevor and I left Monday morning, but we both agreed that we will be returning to D.C.(or wherever Caroly and Richard are located) to party it up with my sister and Richard again. They were absolutely awesome on my birthday, and I hope I can return the favor to them in the future.

Just as a show of how much fun was had, here's the picture that really sums up our weekend. It was taken near the tail-end of our night at the Childe Harold. Unfortunately, several of our friends had left, but we still managed to get a great picture.

The last supper(or drink)...

And just for a comparison:

My birthday week, including this past weekend, was awesome. Mallory will probably blog this weekend pretty soon, and since she has all the pictures, you might wanna stay tuned to her site. She got some great shots. I'll go into detail about presents I got, things I did, and places I visited next post.

You are probably wondering why I haven't included many pictures lately. Well, the plain truth is my current camera is now considerably out-of-date. It has served me VERY well over the past 4 years, but now I'm looking to upgrade. I know exactly what I want, and I'm going to get it. Probably within a few days. I'll let you all know when I procure it, and I'll take some pictures to prove it, haha.

-H

No Time

2006-06-14T21:21:00.000-05:00

Well, this week has just been crazy. I got back from D.C. Monday afternoon, dropped Trevor off at the airport on Tuesday, and I have been/will work 10 hour days until Friday so I can take off early on Friday, which is when I fly to Atlanta to meet Mal for the Red Sox vs. Braves series. There's so much to talk about, I know, but I just don't have the time to post right now. I'm washing clothes, running to WalMart, and trying to get things in order for my trip this weekend. I'm gonna have to wait until Tuesday to post, but I promise I will detail everything from my 21st birthday and the Sox series. Just don't have time right now.

Speaking of Sox, our freakin' middle relief is F'in PISS POOR! And it's showing at this very minute. Grrr. We best pick up some talent come July 31(trade deadline), or things could get very bad very quickly.

-H

Farewell 20...Helloooooo 21

2006-06-09T00:32:00.000-05:00

Well, by the time you read this, Trevor and I will be either en route to the airport, at the airport, on an airplane, or in D.C. I am absolutely stoked about this weekend. All I can say is I hope that Trevor and I survive, haha. Just think, the next time I post, I will be doing so as a 21-year old. Let the good times roll!!!

Henry the 20th

"It is going to be HISTORIC..."

2006-06-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

...so go the words of my brother-in-law(or just my "bro," as I call him. He's part of the fam now; no need for that "in-law" stuff) in regards to this coming weekend. In an email sent to Trevor and me just the other day, Richard spoke on behalf of the Sewells and answered a couple of questions I had about wardrobe for this weekend. He also mentioned the phrase that is the title of this particular blog post. Put simply, I cannot wait for this weekend. I really can't. Trevor and I sincerely believe that Carolyn and Richard are more excited about this weekend than we are...and we are REALLY excited(up there with Cedar Point excitment levels). And trust me...that ain't a bad thing.

Adding to this excitment, my other brother Will came through today; I received my first birthday present of the year from him. The man who lives in the Heart of Red Sox Nation can feel its pulse, as well as mine. He got me a blue(with red lettering) Red Sox tee with quite possibly my new favorite player's(next to Varitek, of course) name on the back: Jonathan "beat 'em with high heat" Papelbon. Yup, that's right. "Papelbon" and his number 58 are on the back of the shirt. I absolutley LOVE it. Despite the Sox/Yankees game being cancelled today, I wore the shirt to BJ's tonight as Eric, Trevor, and I had a farewell dinner for Eric. He is heading to KSC tomorrow to do some testing on the P3/P4 truss MDM going up on the next assembly flight(in August). Now I have TWO bitchin Red Sox tees and a jersey. That means I am good-to-go for the Red Sox series in Atlanta.

Obviously, we have internet now in the apartment. We also have furniture, which was GREATLY appreciated after a week and a half sleeping on the floor. It's good to live civilized now, haha.

Tomorrow we(save Eric) are going to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Sox game. Schiller needs to deliver for us so we can stay in the chase. GO SOX.

-Henry

Temporarily Out of Service

2006-06-01T21:49:00.000-05:00

We aren't getting internet in the new apartment until Tuesday. I'm posting right now from Eric's house, as we are watching the Mavs game while hoggin' down on some Little Ceasars pizzas.

Just wanted to keep you all up-to-date and let you know I hadn't dropped off the face of the earth.

Tons to talk about when I come back!

-H

In Papelbon We Trust

2006-05-25T22:33:00.000-05:00

Damn that Mississippi(State) boy is good. Save #16 for the big guy. And that makes him 16 for 16 in save chances(leads majors) with a 0.39 ERA. B-A-D-A-S-S.

Jason Hopper appeared in the form of a savior today. Turns out he posted a listing on Mississippi State's Co-Op email server today looking for a place to stay this summer. Enter yours truly. I am definitely not wanting to pay TWO rents this summer, so Jason is going to help out in a HUGE way. He and Trevor know each other, and I KNOW Jason would make great use of our extensive video game library, so I'm thinking this is going to be a good fit. He hasn't given me an absolute YES yet, but I told him to just get back with me tomorrow. It sounds like he's gonna do it.

I'm quickly approaching the end of my stay at the Maier household. Saturday Walker and I move into our apartment, although we will not have any furniture yet, haha. For their generosity over the past fortnight, I am taking Eric and Jennifer out to eat at this nice restaurant tomorrow night. Before that I may join(around 4:45 or so) some co-workers of mine as we go see X-Men 3.

Go Sox...

I Wanna Go(Back) to Europe

2006-05-24T17:26:00.000-05:00

Anne, one of my 32 mentors I have at work, has been talking nonstop about her trip to Europe. Everyday over the past week she has had a new "something" to tell me about where she's going and what she's gonna do. She and her husband left today around 1:30, and they're going to hit France, England, Italy, and Greece, all over a 2-week span. I'd SO go right now if I had the time and money......*looks to the sky*

Top 10 Tuesday(kind of)

2006-05-22T21:58:00.000-05:00

Hopefully this is the beginning of a summer trend this year. I'm going to try to start doing Top 10 Tuesdays, where I'll present a different Top 10 List every week. This week is slightly different for a few reasons. One, today is Trevor's 21st birthday, and two, today is not a Tuesday.

So without ado, I present to you the Top 10 Henry & Trevor moments of all time. Enjoy!

#10)
Moving into Avalon apartments this past January. No one can deny that we have the most bitchin' of all apartment setups among our friends. We have the best chair(the Rally), the best sound system(ONKYO...although none but me and Trevor have witnessed it's true power), and the best video setup(two tv's placed perpendicular to each other, allowing maximum sports coverage). And it will only get better this fall. Trevor and I are eyeing a 42" HDTV Panasonic plasma flat-panel tv to be installed hopefully near the time we get a Wii. Can you say "Red Sox in High Definition"?

#9)
It was a gloomy day as Mrs. Howe's 7th grade Pre-Algebra class was set to begin. Everyone had just begun to quiet down in anticipation of the teacher's instruction. Without thinking about it much, I began to tap my foot in a catchy rhythm. Before I know it, Trevor has added his own foot-tapping rhythm to my own, and the music had begun to catch on. When it was all said and done, about 5 of us were each contributing his own beat to the overall "song." The ENTIRE class got a good laugh out of it. It was actually some decent music; we should have recorded it or soemthing. And so began our incredible ability to be spontaneous...AND funny at the same time.

#8)
Getting invited to go to Six Flags St. Louis with the Grenada Band...a year AFTER we had left Grenada.(we accepted the invitation, btw)

#7)
During the same summer as Cedar Point, Trevor and I visited my brother in Boston. The trip included our first games at Fenway, a Black Eyed Peas concert(of about 200 people), and Trevor's infamous "bringin the bitchin'"

#6)
The summer I moved to Paris was a rough one. No friends, no car, no idea what to do. Trevor comes up to Tennessee, and our days consisted of this simple formula: MDK2, frisbee, food, and more MDK2. Monotonous? Yes. Boring? Hell no.

#5)
Riding some of the world's best roller coasters at Cedar Point, Ohio, and making a classic video of all our shenanigans during that trip. I mean, how can you not like VH1 Storytellers, Robot Wars, a terrential flood, and a Bad Word Booboo? It's brilliant stuff, that summer of 2003.

#4)
Watching the greatest comeback in the history of baseball, nay, the history of SPORTS, with Trevor in the very cramped confines of his Glen Hollow apartment. As Bellhorn made the last out to send the Yankees packing, Trevor and I celebrated with, as you would expect, a bottle of Samuel Adams each.

#3)
What started as a simple trip down to Madison to hang with Trevor over Christmas break 2002 turned out to be the starting point of our crusade. After introducing Trevor to Eternal Darkness, quite possibly one of the most underrated games for the Gamecube, Trevor became addicted to it, even necessitating his purchase of a Gamecube shortly thereafter. From then on, he and I became the torchbearers of the Big N's cause. Oh yeh...we also decided to go Mississippi State and stay in Hull Hall.

#2)
Beating the Facility level in UNDER 2 min 6 sec during our 7th-8th grade years, thereby achieving the Holy Grail of the N64-Playstaion era of videogames: Invincibility in Goldeneye 64.

#1)
And the #1 Trevor/Henry moment of all time!?! Well.....it hasn't actually happened yet. It will no doubt occur during our trip to D.C. in a few weeks as we celebrate both our birthdays in STYLE with none other than Mr. and Mrs. Style themselves: Richard and Carolyn Sewell.

So Long the Con of Man

2006-05-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

Today was dreary(in Houston terms), so that means it was overcast and slightly on the windy side. I slept in late only to wake up as Eric and Jennifer were headed out to the Galleria to do some shopping. I opted to stay home and finish The DaVinci Code. I finished the book around 3:00, and shortly thereafter I received a call from my host; his car had broken down, and after two tries and jump-starting it, they had no luck. I was called in to pick them up. I made the voyage downtown, and after a minor ordeal with the tow guy, we returned to the house in my jeep.

We went to see the film adaptation of The DaVinci Code tonight, but it wasn't your usual movie-going experience. Instead, we opted for the Star Cinema Grill, which was pretty awesome, to say the least. You basically go in, and every other row of the theater has been removed and replaced by built-in-the-ground movie "trays." Waiters and waitresses come in and ask for your beverages(like your normal restaurant), and while they are retrieving your beverage you fill out an order card. Every food type is named after a part of the movie; it's kinda goofy, but it's also well done. The order card has every kind of food you want, and you just select what you want and when you want it. They bring you your drink(coke, water, any of a plethora of mixed drinks, tons of beer, many kinds of wine) and you give them the card. That's it. Throughout the movie you are brought everything, and they waiters are very unobtrusive. If you need anything extra, there is a small beacon button you can press to get extra service. Then they bring you your tab at the end of the show. It was all VERY cool.

Speaking of the show...the movie was pretty decent. Granted, there was SO much information in the book, so I can see how it would be difficult to translate all of it to the screen. Howard deleted a few things as well as do some parts COMPLETELY different from the book, but I can understand why. Despite the removal of several parts, the movie was a solid 2.5 hours. VERY long. The movie did stay true to many parts of the movie, though, which is rare for the book-to-film conversions you see today. I've been told to read Angels and Demons next, so I guess I will have to continue this whole reading-for-fun thing :(

Yankees at Red Sox starts tomorrow, baby. Will is going to the game, as well as a co-worker of mine. How they get these tickets I will never know. Colin has tickets to the Rangers game at Fenway on my birthday; he has stated he is going to make a "happy birthday" sign for me to display on NESN. You hear that, Will? Set your TiVO for June 11 :)

Dynamite

2006-05-20T19:22:00.000-05:00

The first week of work went smoothly. I JUST got computer access and a login on Friday, and by Monday I should have email access. It wasn't that bad, though; it gave me plenty of time to do some reading for my training.

Last night was pretty fun. Tarik(my former mentor) and his roomate Seth threw their monthly party at their place. And speaking of their place...wow. When they bought it, it was just a warehouse pretty much. Since their purchase, they have added a whole second floor as well as added on to the building width-wise. I'm hoping to get pictures from the party soon. Their place is truly remarkable. It's like one third Italian villa, one third club, and one third studio. Un-freakin-believable. I want a place like that.

Today was my first experience at a Houston Dynamo soccer game. They lost 1-0, but they had many oppurtunities to score; they just didn't capitalize on those chances. The game was a blast, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing some more upper-tier teams coming in to Robertson Stadium(their temporary home) this summer.

I sat with the lower-class folk the first half, haha. We had friends in these seats.

My season ticket seat :)

More soccer goodness

Eric and Jennifer found these two beagles wandering around their yard the other day. They had collars, so we called the owners. They eventually came to pick them up, but I had a few moments to snap some pictures, although they were moving pretty fast.

Beagle #1

Beagle #2

Oh yeh. Turning 21 in 21 days. Three weeks, baby :)

Access...Granted

2006-05-15T21:58:00.000-05:00

I safely landed in Space City yesterday afternoon despite having about 4 cumulative hours of constant rain/drizzle to deal with. It wasn't completely bad, though, as Mal made me a new mp3 cd to listen to on the way down. Mp3 cds are awesome; you can put 3.2 bajillion songs on each one. No need for cd changing :)

To my surprise, when I arrived at Hotel Maier, Eric and Jennifer greeted me with a couple of steaks being cooked on the grill. Dinner that night was great. I also became indoctrinated into the dramas that are The West Wing and The Sopranos. Granted, it was the West Wing's last episode, but I enjoyed it. I really like the Sopranos too. We also dabbled in Big Love; Eric was correct in his diagnosis: it's more interesting than it is entertaining.

Work today was great. The whole gang was here, and it was good to do the "welcome back" tour and see everyone again. It looks like I'll be pretty busy this summer; they have alot of work for me this tour(I'm in ADCO again, for those of you keeping score). I also learned that the government has finished my background check, and I have been cleared for access to all the cool places on site. It goes without saying today that once my badge was activated, I played around with the proximity-sensitive card readers to Mission Control for quite some time. Now when you come visit me this summer(and you KNOW you want to!), I can give you my personal tour of JSC.

I've been here less than 48 hours, yet this week is already starting to get hectic. The Sox game was tonight(OWNED the Birds 11-1), tomorrow we're going to Minute Maid in an attempt to see history made by Bonds, Wednesday is the UEFA Championship Final between Barcelona and Arsenal(we're recording it and watching it at Colin's that night), Thursday we're prolly going to see the new GOAL! movie, Friday I'm sure something entertaining is going to happen(DaVinci Code anyone?), and Saturday will be my first experience of a Houston Dynamo game. Unfortunately I wont get to sit in our bitchin' season-ticket seats, but I will be there nonetheless. Eric knows a guy who knows a guy, so we were able to score about 10 free extra tickets. We're planning on tailgating all afternoon until kickoff. Hell yeh!

Next post I'll divulge all the details of everything that I'll be doing(and hope to do) this summer while in Houston as a 21-year old. I'll make it a top-10 list or something.

TWENTY SIX DAYS!!!

4 semesters down...4 to go

2006-05-12T02:05:00.000-05:00

Damn. Sh*t. How they hell can you completely OWN the #2 seed in the conference one week and then turn around and get swept? I have no idea, but the Avalanche do. Grr. Today was so awesome with the Sox winning at the Stadium(Papelbon got save #13!), but that great feeling quickly evaporated into a painful gut sensation. Bleh. They just couldn't get the offense going. I think the Avs were 0-for-124 on the power play during the series. Or something close. Grr. Sure, I'll probably get over it in a week or so of watching baseball, but damn. Com'on guys. Four games in a row? I was really looking foward to wearing my "2006 Stanley Cup Champions" t-shirt as I walked off the airplane in DC next month. You're lucky Richard...verrry lucky. I normally don't cheer for the team that defeats mine, but I'm gonna do that this year. Go Ducks. I hate Jersey(they're almost gone anyways), don't care about Buffalo(I hate Hasek), and absolutely loathe San Jose(knocked Avs out a few seasons ago), so they're the only logical choice.

I've begun reading The DaVinci Code in preparation for the motion picture of the same name coming to theaters next week. I still can't believe I bought the book. If you know me, you know I enjoy reading fiction as much I like eat lima beans. I was also pretty skeptical that the book was as awesome as everyone and their child was saying it was, but I should not have been. I'm only 15 chapters into the novel, and I'm completely hooked. I'm all about some secret codes. Bring on the movie!

E3 was this week in Los Angeles, and just as Trevor and I predicted, Nintendo freakin' owned. Let's just say you ALL will be hearing alot more about the Nintendo Wii in the coming months. Just google it or something. Or go to IGN. Everyone is talking about it, and with good reason. This baby is sa-weet. Yes, Richard, I'll have one before Christmas this year. Now we can fill that void between eating and sleeping during the Christmas break, haha.

Exams are done. I leave my cozy corner of Starkville for home tomorrow, and I venture to Houston on Saturday or Sunday. Yours truly is still sportin the big FOUR POINT after 4 semesters :)

-H

Welcome(Back)

2006-05-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

First of all, for those of you that were redirected from my old site...Welcome!

The SIHL banquet went well. I got our Sewell Cup trophy for the Championship, but that was all I expected to get. Totally out of nowhere, Richard presented trophies for milestones reached this season for goalies. I was awarded with a plaque for reaching the 25-win mark in the SIHL. Only one other goalie has that many wins, and it took him 50 games to get 25 wins. It only took me 35 :). Attached to the plaque was the actual puck that used in the game in which I got my 25th win. It's quite possibly my most cherished trophy now. There were pictures taken that evening, but Richie has yet to send them to me. I'll try to post them when I get 'em.

This one goes out to Tarik. It seems you made this comment before the game yesterday:

"The red sox blow and they will get their asses handed it to them tomorrow evening."

So tell me Tarik...what happened last night? Damon went 0-4. Papi went deep. Mirabelli was as if he never left. Sox won. Aren't you so looking forward to having me as a mentee again this summer? hahaha.

I have finally registered for Fall classes. I had to wait for this one class to become available, but now it's good. Here we go. I opted to just use the MSU Course Catalog descriptions of the courses:

Mechanics of Deformable Structures
Introduction to structural materials and loads. Deflection analysis using energy methods, flexibility-based matrix method, and the finite element method. Influence of design on deflection and vice versa.

Aerothermodynamics
Energy; First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics; Entropy; Properties of Ideal Gases; Mixtures; Gas Power Cycles; One Dimensional Compressible Flow; Introduction to Heat Transfer.

Orbital Mechanics I
Two-body orbital mechanics;geometry of spatial orbits; fundamental orbits determinnation;orbital maneuvers; introduction to rendezvous and interplanetary trajectories.

Electrical Engineering Systems
Definitions and laws relating to electrical quantities; circuit element descriptions; development of techniques in network analysis; semiconductor devices; integration of devices into digital networks.

Vibrations
Fundamentals of free vibration, energy methods; forced and damped vibration, single degree of freedom; two degrees of freedom.

The only class I am not excited too much about is EE Systems. I absolutely hate electricity and magnetism, so I can expect to loathe them even more come this Fall.

The Season Begins Today

2006-05-01T14:27:00.000-05:00

Yup. It really does. Yankees at Red Sox. 6:00 pm CST. This is it. In regards to one center fielder that will remain nameless, here's a shirt that's circulating Fenway:

"Looked Like Jesus.
Throws Like Mary.
Loyal Like Judas."

That's right. Screw 'em.

Champions

2006-04-29T00:44:00.000-05:00

Yup. We are. Coming back from a 1-0 deficit in the SIHL 2006 Sewell Cup Series, my team, the Predators, roared back in game 2 and game 3 to take the cup. Game 3 was awesome. Tons of my friends came out to the rink. Some of them were there for the first time(Anthony, Sabrina, Dustin, April, to name a few), while the rest of my gang had seen several games played before. In addition to my crowd that came to watch, pretty much half of the league’s other teams came out to watch, John Guinn’s usual posse was present(and brought beverages, which could have explained the rowdiness, haha), and Ben Evans’ barrage of sorority followers also arrived. The atmosphere was freakin’ unbelievable. With every goal there was a roar from the crowd, and when there was a flashy save there was applause…well at least from my group….ba-zing!! Long story short, we played great that night, winning 12-7. Make that THREE(1 shared, 2 outright) SIHL championship titles for yours truly J.

This year was also the first year that I was able to take part in the All-Star Game, as it was started the semester I left for Houston. The all-star voting took place about a month ago, and I was fortunate enough to have been selected by my fellow peers in the league. The game took place this past Tuesday, and it was a blast. I got to play along guys I played against all semester, so that was definitely a treat. We even have All-Star jerseys that were given to us by e-Puck. I was stoked because my All-Star jersey is the first jersey I have ever worn in this league that actually matches my equipment! Unfortunately, my most spectacular saves of the season came during this game, a game that didn’t count towards anything:

We had just broken out of the zone, and had put a few shots on goal. Their team regained control of the puck and it was a two-on-one for them, with Nels and Tommy coming into our zone against my one defenseman, Richard. Tommy came in on the right with the puck, Nels sliding in on the left; Richard took away the pass, as he is supposed to do. I skated about a foot out of the crease to cut down Tommy’s angle of shot. He’s got a wicked hard wrister, and it elevates quickly, so I figured I’d cheat some with my positioning. I stopped at my spot, triangle with the pads, stick down covering the 5-hole, elbows in, and glove elevated(remember, high elevation with his shot). Tommy normally takes this shot at this point, as he’s left-handed and had a great look at the net. Of course he doesn’t do as I expect this time, and he makes a brilliant pass through Richard’s legs and stick right across the slot to the left face-off circle, where Nels was waiting to bang it in from about 13 feet away. With almost no hesitation, I skate backwards as quickly as possible, and with great right-to-left movement, I push off my right skate, propelling me to the other half of the crease. Knees come down, pushing the leg pads up on the surface, eliminating the threat of the low shot and allowing my upper body to make the save. Stick still covering the daylight between the pads. At this moment, Nels receives the puck perfectly and absolutely crushes the puck with a one-timer slap shot; the puck is headed for the upper left 90 of the net. With my body sliding left and perfect positioning, my hands were free to move, and I snagged the bullet puck with my trapper mere inches from it crossing the goal line. It was beautiful. Roy would be proud.

As you can see, despite the non-impact of the game on the season, it was still played with plenty of intensity. Pictures were taken after the game, and other pics were taken of the Championship game as well. I’ll try to get those from Richie or Brian sometime. The SIHL Banquet is Sunday night at 7:00. I didn’t get any of the goalie awards this year, but I’d like to think it was because we had to forfeit two games due to lack of players. But Nathan had an outstanding year this year, so he definitely deserves those 2 awards. I did reach some career milestones this season, though. I am now the SIHL’s all-time leader in wins in the regular season, as well as the postseason leader. Pretty cool stuff.

Last weekend I went to Chattanooga to see Mal. The annual Chemistry Department’s banquet was that Friday, and Mal racked up. She was recognized for her work in research this semester, and she was also honored for acceptance into the Chemistry National Honor Society and being selected for a huge scholarship. That Saturday the UTC club soccer team played Georgia Tech. The girls were down 2-0 early in the first half, but they rallied in the 2^nd half with goals from Mal(completely unassisted) and another brilliant shot from just inside the eighteen from one of her teammates. The game ended in a tie, but it was great to watch. The UTC girls played really well.

Speaking of club soccer, Dan, Trevor, and I have been asked to coach the MSU girls club soccer team in the fall. It goes without saying that I’ll be the goalie coach. I’m gonna make sure that if we lose, it wont be because the goalies suck. I have a feeling they’ll hate me before the year’s over, haha.

The Avalanche, up until tonight, have been absolutely BALLIN’ on the ice. They took the first 3 games from the Stars(2 were in OT), but they lost Game 4 by a count of 4-1 tonight. No fears though, as I am sure they can close it out within the next two games. Dallas was such a great defensive team this whole year, but they have been giving up so many goals and scoring opportunities to the Avs. Sakic, Hejduk, and Tanguay have been lighting it up on Turco. Theodore, although not Roy-impressive as of yet, is doing his part. I’m hoping he improves with each round.

How are those Wings doing, Rich? The OILERS!?! Com’on! Haha…nah, the Oilers play really well at home, so it doesn’t surprise me that the series is tied. Just think, if the Wings survive the first round, they get to play us! You KNOW everyone wants to see that J

Sox are streaky as of now. They win a few in a row, they lose a few more in a row. We just aren’t being patient at the plate like we did last year. We aren’t getting the pitch counts up for the opposing pitchers. Our defense has also been kinda shaky, but that will improve. Our infield is freakin’ full of talent. Pitching is suspect now. Beckett was just way off last night, giving up 3 homers and a bazillion runs. I’m hoping he has got the worst out of him in that outing. Schilling was great in his last start, but he was left in too long. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite us later on down the stretch. Oh, and our interim pitching coach Al Nipper seems confident that Roger Clemens will come back to Beantown to pitch. Al and Clemens have a close relationship (hell, they were even in each others’ weddings!), so I’d like to believe him. Just think of that first 3 in the rotation: Schilling, Clemens, Beckett. Holy sh#@!

When I woke up Sunday morning in Chattanooga, my right side of my jaw(just in front of my ear) was feeling really really sore. I didn’t think much of it until it bothered me during my entire trip home that afternoon. I figured it would just subside overnight. Nope. I did some research online, and I had the symptoms of TMD, or temporo-mandibular disorder, which is basically when there is too much tension in the muscles that connect your skull and lower jaw. They’re just sore and need rest. So that was my diagnosis. I decided to see a doctor as soon as possible. I came home this morning to go see our family doc, Dr. Durfy. Mom went with me, and after Dr. Durfy took a look at my jaw, he said he couldn’t feel anything out of place. He thinks it’s just tendonitis in my temporo-mandibular joints, which corroborated my assessment. He gave me some Celebrex to try for 2 weeks, and then I’m supposed to come back to him and let him know how it’s going. The whole Celebrex thing was fine until my mom mentioned that’s what she takes, haha. Oh well, if it helps, then I don’t care what I take. I’m getting Mrs. Belot(my dentist and next-door neighbor) to take a look at my jaw tomorrow and get her opinion too.

Tomorrow will be pretty fun. The NFL Draft coverage starts at 11am central time, and then at 2pm central I get to see some playoff hockey on NBC. I have a test on Tuesday in Materials class, so I’ll have to get some of that studying in too. Our cable service in Houston has OLN(Outdoor Life Network), and since they now carry all of the NHL playoff games until the finals, I’m looking forward to watching all of those when I get down there.

Good to Be Home

2006-04-13T22:33:00.000-05:00

Ah, it's good to be home. My 3:30 class got out early today, so I arrived here at the ranch around 6:30. This is my 20th straight Easter weekend to be at home, a record for the Horne children. I also have a streak of consecutive Christmas's and Thanksgiving's made. I'm like the Cal Ripken Jr. of holidays at home, haha...

Mom and dad welcomed me with meatloaf, english peas, carrots, and homemade mashed potatoes, and I just consumed about half of the pound cake and ice cream about 5 minutes ago. Again, it's great to come home.

The weather is amazing. I just walked outside, and it feels SO good. To add to the temperature, a near full-moon is out, and with clear skies it shines through all of the trees surrounding our house, illuminating patches of the freshly-cut lawn all over the place. It really is gorgeous. Hell, all the windows in the house are open to give us some natural ventilation. It's really nice; the only audible noises are the crickets chirping, Jay Leno's squeaky voice in his monologue, and the clicking of my laptop keys. Again....it's great to be home.

and this just in from the Matriarc herself: french toast will be served for breakfast tomorrow morning!! Do I really need to say it again? Yes. I do. Home kicks so much ass.

Sadly, things aren't so great in the home park of my beloved Sox. They just dropped 2 out of 3 to the Jays, but tonight did have some positives. Foulke was impressive in his 2 innings(bout time), and the Sox showed they could come back in the bottom of the 9th. It's still early, but the Sox have squandered a masterful lead on the Jays and Yanks the past two days. Let's hope a visit from the Mariners(thank God we don't have to face Felix) this weekend can get us back on a winning streak.

Speaking of the Sox, Trevor and I bailed on our softball game on Wednesday to watch Papi and the boys battle the Blue Jays. We felt bad that we missed the game, as we had only played one game so far, but we rationalized that since the Sox don't come on tv that often we were allowed to take part. Trevor fixed his famous cheese/chili/spicy dip, and Trevor, Aaron, and Adam joined us. Minus the losing part, the night was fun. After the game, we all went to Polliwogs to meet the rest of the group and hang out on our last day before break.

Sticking with the sports topic, the Avalanche are on the precipice of one of the most monumental playoff push collapses in recent memory. Just 3 weeks ago they were battling Calgary for the top spot in the Northwest division, which would have put them in one of the top 3 seeds in the conference. Now(and especially after they lost tonight) they are very close to being bumped out of the top 8 by Edmonton and Vancouver.(Vancouver is currently beating San Jose). Two more games remain in the season. Com'on Avs! The Avalanche have been in the playoffs every year since I began watching them(2001-2002), not to mention the years before then too, so they can't stop now.

I don't have much planned for this weekend. I'm prolly going to battle the crowds at the mall tomorrow to go find a new dress shirt for Mal's chemistry banquet next friday. My red shirt had to be retired long ago, so maybe I'll fill that hole in my color repertoire. Not sure yet about the pants to wear. Black really isn't "springy," so I may go with my new set of khakis. I also have some studying to do over the next few days, but I'd also like to run some, as well as hang by the pool to try to catch some rays. I also brought my volleyball to practice my jump serve. It's the one aspect of beach volleyball that I am almost completely oblvious to. I hope to at least get the basic mechanics down while I'm here this weekend. Speaking of volleyball, it was a PERFECT day to play today, but Trevor left early this morning, so we were unable to play Dan and Aaron. Arrgh.

It was a roller coast of feelings for me last week. It was tax time, so I had to finally sit down and do the damn things. I was ultra elated after calculating my federal income tax, as I was due about $1200 back from Uncle Sam. Then of course, I am reminded by Jason that we live in Mississippi, and they have an income tax of their own. Damn. So I do the numbers for the MS government, and it turns out I OWE them about $900. WTF. So I sent both sets of papers off a few days ago. Then, I am online, and I'm talking to John via AIM. He mentions that he is working on his own taxes, and I tell him about the gayness that is Mississippi. He then proceeds to tell me that I may not actually have to pay that money to the state. He was rather certain that since I worked more than 6 months out of state(I worked close to 9), and in a state with ZERO income tax no less, I should be entitled to that money, NOT the state of Mississippi. He was so sure because he did the co-op thing as well, and he remembered going through the same ordeal. I passed all this information along to dad yesterday, and he is going to ask our his accountant about the matter. However, dad's gonna wait until after the tax deadline has passed to give the guy a breather. If it turns out that I am due that money, all I do is file a income tax return correction, and that money comes back to me:)...no whammies no whammies...

Less than two months until the big TWO-ONE, folks! June 11, people. Mark it down :)

On the Houston front, plans have begun to get things in order for my return. I've contacted Trey and Bryan, and it seems I wont get into the group I wanted to; they just don't have enough mentors and floor space. The group I was eyeing was GNC, which is shuttle group that works with the (G)uidance, (N)avigation, and (Control) systems. He says that ADCO(my last group) is really all that's open, so I'm to return there. No worries though. I love the ADCOs; I had a blast with them in the fall. They like to have fun, some of them have Mississippi ties, and above all, the majority of them love baseball. That's a perfect group for summer if you ask me.

A slight problem has arisen with my lodging logistics in Houston. I plan on starting work at JSC on May 15th(Monday), but since Walker(my soon-to-be roomate in H-town) lives in Tampa, he can't just stop by home on the way to work like I can. He's going to take a few weeks off before venturing down to the heart of Texas, so that theoretically leaves me living in/paying for a 2-person apartment for 2 weeks. Not cool. Enter Eric Maeir. For those of you don't remember, Eric is one of my boyz in Houston. He and Colin are full-timers at JSC. Anyways, Eric has been gracious enough to offer to let me stay in the guest room in his house until Walker arrives. Awesome! Eric is cool as hell, and Jennifer(his wife) is also a blast. Remember, Eric and Jenn are only 25-26, so they still have the college youth mentality, so I don't think it'll be a problem at all. I even asked if it would be in any way an inconvenience, and Eric said not at all. So that's the plan so far. My last exam is on the 11th of May, I'll go home that night, spend a day here, and then head out to Houston Saturday morning, arriving JUST in time for Colin's party bash at his place that night.

Well as I mentioned before in earlier posts, Eric, Colin, and I purchased 2 season tickets for the new MLS team in Houston, the Dynamo. With a new franchise like this, season tickets go on sale on a first-come first-serve basis. It goes without saying that Colin was definitely first to get served...HAHAHA...anyway...he got ticket choice at the very outset. He took pics of Robertson Stadium a few months back and sent them to me. [Note: Robertson Stadium, used by UH, is the home field of the Dynamo until an SSS(soccer specific stadium) is built, and from what I hear, officials are well under way with getting Houston an SSS. ] Back to the tickets....so yeh, I get the pics from Colin, and I look at them and think, "Egh, these are OK. But jeez, I thought we had preference!" Here's the picture:

I thought our seats were at the place from which the picture was taken. Not THAT amazing. As it turns out, our seats are the ones ALL THE WAY DOWN, on the FRONT ROW, and MIDFIELD!! Colin was trying to take a pic OF our seats and not FROM our seats. How f'in awesome is this?!?! Colin, Eric, and I had a draft for the tickets earlier this semester, and they are divided up accordingly. I am slated to go to my first Dynamo game with Eric on May 20th when the Chicago Fire come to town. Other notable games I will see are the L.A. Galaxy, the Columbus Crew, Chivas USA, and the New England Revolution. I can't wait to get a Dynamo jersey, some face paint, and a drum. I finally have an MLS team to root for! Woo hoo!

Trevor and I made an addition to our apartment this week: an uber soft loveseat! We also hung many of the pictures and frames we have been storing in odd places. The living room has really livened up!

I've registered for classes, but this post is already too long. I'll talk all about my geeky classes next time.

I'm gonna watch some Conan and Baseball Tonight...

-Henry

'Tis the Season for Baseball...and Hockey

2006-04-09T02:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, before you read any further...if you are in my immediate family or you have known me and Mallory for some time now(pretty much all you Paris folk), then go to Mallory's blog right NOW. I mean it. Go HERE. All your premonitions over the years have finally been verified. Just read. You'll know what I mean. Totally hilarious...

It's been a week since the last post, so let's see what has happened...

Our amazing intramural soccer run has ended. I wish I could have had a say in the outcome of our last game, but unfortunately I had a prior engagement: hockey. Our soccer game was scheduled for Sunday at 6, and my hockey game that day was scheduled for 5. Normally our hockey games are about an hour long, so I thought I would at least be able to make the second half of the soccer game, but it wasn't going to happen. Sunday turned out to be one of the hottest days here so far this year, and we had to use all of our timeouts to recover from the heat. The breaks were more for me and the other goalie, as having another layer of pads and equpipment on really intensifies the heat. The game time ended being closer to 2 hours; there was no way I was going to make the soccer game. We lost 12-11 in hockey, which sucks. My GAA is usually around 5-6ish, so you can see that this was a massive departure from my norm. I usually don't care about GAA and other stats and usually just focus on one: wins. Unfortunately, I didn't get the W that day. Nevertheless, we ended up 2nd in the regular season. Our first game of the playoffs is tomorrow at 5pm, and we're going to have the #1 leading scorer in SIHL history back playing for us. I'm optimistic and anxious. I need another Sewell Cup on my shelf :)

My soccer boys were just as unlucky; they lost 6-2 that day. I was so bummed that I wasn't able to help them. From what I hear, Kyle did a great job in goal, so I can just assume that the other team was just very good. Oh well, we've improved each year. Maybe next year we bring home the intramural championship.

Of course, the end of one sport means the beginning of another. This Wednesday we(Trevor, Aaron, and I) started intramural softball. We joined a team from which we knew no one; our only connection to them was through Trevor's co-worker, BJ. Despite the anonymonity, we quickly befriended the team. With their new additions, they had too many players, so we had to switch midway through the game. I started in left field while Trevor manned the 3rd-base coaching position. I didn't have any put-outs or assists, but I did field the ball twice. I was much more productive at the plate. I went 1-2 with 2 RBI and a double. I was pretty satisfied considering the last time I played baseball/softball competitively was about 6 years ago. Trevor and I switched roles around the 4th inning. He did just as well. We won the game 10-4. We're looking to repeat that result this Wednesday.

Speaking of baseball, the MLB season has officially started. My Sox are 4-1, and they lead the AL East with the Yanks trailing 3 games in last place. I know I know. It's early, but it's never too early to rub it in the Yankees' faces :)

The NHL playoffs are quickly approaching. My Avs, who were battling for first place in the Northwest Division about a week ago, are now struggling to just make the playoffs. It's looking like 5-6th place will be where the stand when the tournament starts. When it actually does, I'll give my Stanley Cup predictions. I will say this: I'm scared of the Wings right now. They've won a record number of road games, and they are just blazin'. Screw you, Richard, haha. I know you are loving this. Even your Pistons are doing well!! Detroit needs to start having crappy teams!! Hell, even the TIGERS are undefeated in baseball!! What's the deal!? I think steroids are the answer :)

Over the past few weeks I've tried to maintain a relatively regular workout schedule, and for the most part I have kept to it. I'm feeling great. Nothing near what I felt like around last summer, but I'm getting there. I really enjoy running now. I can only attribute that to my kick-ass mp3 lineup of running music. There's no problem with getting motivated; I just pop on the headphones and I'm good to go. I even can run 3.0 miles now without any trouble at all. That's a HUGE improvement over my high school years, haha.

I'm excited about next week. Not only is it a short week(Easter weekend), but I have NO tests or assignments due. I haven't had that feeling in awhile. I'm ready to actually do fun things during the week. We didn't get a chance to play volleyball this weekend due to the bad weather, so hopefully we'll get a chance this week. We even have more sun to play with during the day due to Daylight Savings last week.

I just finished filing my taxes yesterday. I was rather elated to find out that I had a HUGE tax return on my wages from last year's co-op tours. It was a ginormous number. Unfortunately, I realized that Mississippi has an income tax, so I lose pretty much all of that refund due to the money I have to pay the state. Damn you Mississippi. I didn't have this problem in Tennessee. No income tax there. Grrr...

Well, it's looking like everyone is crashing here tonight, so I should probably close my laptop to give them some darkness to sleep in. Wish me luck on our first hockey playoff game tomorrow!

-Henry

"We came, we saw...we kicked ITS ASS!"

2006-03-31T01:10:00.000-06:00

(props to anyone who can tell me what movie that quote is from WITHOUT looking it up. About 200 cool points are on the line on this one...)

Ok, this just had to be blogged about...

In what can only be described as the greatest Cinderella team story since the Villanova Wildcats of 1985, Team Glen Hollow United(kinda gay name, I know, but Dan came up with it ages ago. We all don't even live in Glen Hollow, so it really doesn't make sense. I prefer GH United, as it sounds slightly more refined. Anyways, I digress...) soccer pulled off their SECOND playoff victory today!!! This is our first deep run into the playoffs, and considering we won our FIRST ever playoff game 4 days ago, this is just great news.

We played the Catholic Student Association soccer team, and let me tell you, they weren't being very Catholic, let alone Christian, in the contest. They pressured early with several shots, and from a quick through ball sent from the 18, they scored 10 minutes into the match. Unphazed, we bounced back quickly, scoring 2 goals within the next 10 minutes. The second half was even more heated, with CSA fouling more often and yelling very non-Christian words, haha. Adam Brown miraculously put a ball in the back of the net halfway through the second half. The ball was actually shot by dan from about 30 yards out, but the ball deflected off a defender, and Brown happened to be at the right place at the right time. In stride, he simply extended his left foot and the ball shot into the lower left corner. GOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLL!

Defensive-wise, we were solid. Trevor was back(had to miss last game due to class), and coupled with Dusty playing left fullback, we were a brick wall. Because of the guys in front of me, I didn't have to exert too much effort. There were a few balls I had to dive for, but they weren't super-dives(which are fun, as well as entertaining to watch). I also had to charge from my line on a few occasions, punching the ball out of play once and leaping to grab it the other times.

If you can believe it, there IS a downside to this whole affair. Our next playoff game is scheduled for SUNDAY AT 6:00pm. What the f#*@!?!?! Who schedules intramural games for Sunday afternoons?? Not only is this time just bizarre in its own rite, but it also happens to be during a hockey game I am scheduled to play. Under normal circumstances, I would call Richie in a heartbeat and ask him to reschedule the game, but since I have already done that to Richard once this semester, I don't think I can do that to him again. He has a hard enough time scheduling these games, and when they have to be re-scheduled, it's just a headache. My hockey game IS at 5:00 on Sunday, and they do usually last around an hour. If we can get done early, I can shoot on over across town to the intramural fields to join my teammates. I will already be stretched and primed for action, so it may even be good for me. Kyle, a fantastic player we drafted this year, has quite a bit of goalie experience, so it's looking like he will start in goal until I can get there. He's got a bitchin' shot, so once I get there, he can move to the front and start hammering away.

I go to get pre-advised tomorrow. Just wait until I tell you what classes I have to take next semester. Oh man, they are freakin' sweet. Next fall I think I can be officially called an aerospace engineering student. All engineering classes, no electives. It's gonna be fun, haha. I'll post my fall schedule on my next post.

The weather outlook has improved for tomorrow, so it's looking like round 2 of Dan/Adam vs. Henry/Trevor will commence as planned. Everyone of us has been dying to play all week, as the weather has been very summer-like. I can't wait to play tomorrow. At some point I'll try to get someone to take some pics, so we can show you how it's done :)

-H

Alot of Sports with a Little Bit of School

2006-03-29T00:46:00.000-06:00

Quick update:

-Our men's intramural soccer team won our first playoff game in the history of our clubt(almost 3 years!). We somehow managed this win without our steadfast sweeper, Trevor, but we did it nonetheless. It was great soccer all-around from our team. We play again on Thursday at 6:00.

-Softball was moved from Wednesday to Thursday night, so we wont get to start softball this week(see previous note).

-We had to forfeit our hockey game on Sunday. Once again, my team lacked the minimum number of players to play. TWO forfeits in one season. SO SO SO lame!

-Friday has been set as our next volleyball match with Dan and Adam. We are itchin' to play everyday, but it's evident from all of our schedules that volleyball is going to have to be restricted to Friday-Monday of the week. On Friday, we are all out of class by noon, so come 1pm, we're going to be ballin' it up on the sand :)

-Family Force 5 is playing at Rick's Thursday night. I admit that I'm not that big a fan of their music, but everyone says that put on a bitchin' show, so I figure why not(despite my dislike of Rick's). Besides, what a great way to kick off the weekend of the party, volleyball...and more volleyball.

-I've erected a countdown to my 21st birthday on the right column over there in red. No, I don't update that thing EVERYDAY with a new number; rather, I constructed a simple javascript to do the math for me everytime you log in. Sweet, huh?

-Henry

Newton is My Homeboy

2006-03-26T11:13:00.000-06:00

I really should start updating this thing more often. I always intend to post every few days, but I inevitably hold it off, thinking that I can sum everything up in a post at the end of the week. Of course, by the time I sit down to write about everything I usually forget to include at least a few crucial events that occured the previous week. Here's to keeping up with the times...

I don't have to tell you that I really didn't want to come back to school this week. I was having such a great Spring Break(snow skiing, road trip, V for Vendetta, mom's cooking, hanging with the dogs), and I also knew that there were some big tests awaiting me upon my return. The week did get off to a good start on Tuesday, however. The Dynamics test I took the Thursday before Spring Break was returned to us, and I got a 98. I'm really rolling in that class; I got a 100 on the first test, and the homework is just ridiculously simple. This whole class is basically physics I, except it has much more calculus. I think that's why I like this subject. Everything we use is derived from one simple equation created by Sir Newton himself, and it has real applications in the world.

Tuesday afternoon was my Early U.S. History test, an exam covering the span of the War for Independence and the American Revolution. According to my grade on the first exam, I obviously didn't write enough on the discussion questions for my teacher, so I made sure to give him mounds and mounds of text this time. The multiple choice questions are, as my Differential Equations teacher a few years ago stated, "Mickey Mouse." Every junior high student knows the answers to them. Considering that my hand really felt that it was going to just fall off my right arm by the test's end, I'm feeling like a perfect score was accomplished. We'll see on Tuesday.

Wednesday was our second Physics III exam. It covered pretty much all of our lenses, mirrors, and optical subejct matter. I was actually shocked by how easy it was, and that's not just my talking. Pretty much everyone said that after walking out of the room. For example, this was an ACTUAL question: A clown stands in front of a mirror that is 1.8 meters high. Approximately where should the clown look in the mirror to see his feet? Yeh, exactly. (The answer is halfway down/up the mirror, or 0.9 meters. Just common sense stuff that everyone knows). Despite the level of difficulty, I was excited to see later that day that I got a 100 on the exam. Awesome stuff.

My Materials exam was moved to next Thursday, so I still have time before that one. I had a poor showing my first test in that class, so I'm ready to bounce back. I completely understand the material(beam loading, beam deflection, shear and bending moments in beams), although Dr. Sullivan is renown for pulling problems out of nowhere to put on her test. We'll see how it looks come Thursday.

The rest of the week minus school was still just as hectic. My hockey team had a game on Tuesday; we didn't play poorly, but we weren't magnificent either. My control of the puck was WAY off. I kept leaving juicy rebounds right in the slot through most of the night, which did lead to two goals for the other team that ended up being the difference in the game. Our best player is out for a few games because he is covering the Final Four in Indianapolis(broadcasting major), so we're going to have to change our gameplan slightly these next games leading up to the playoffs.

The intramural soccer tournament started this week, but our mens game was moved, so we only played with our co-ed team on Thursday. We ended up losing(catching a theme here?), but we never expected much with our co-ed team. If we had girls like Mallory or Kate(Trevor's friend from high school. AMAZING soccer player) on our team, I could guarantee that we'd go deeper into the tournament. Oh well. Our mens round 1 game is tomorrow. We feel much more confident with that group.

Wednesday and Thursday the group went to Polliwogs(Thursday to celebrate our not-so-triumphant end to the co-ed soccer season).

Friday, we decided to have some fun. Knowing good and well that the movie Stay Alive would be very very very bad, Aaron, Reggie, Trevor, and I headed to the movie with all intentions of making fun of its entire length. We would have never guessed that everyone that went to that movie showing was planning on doing the same. The theater was full of laughter and comments AT the movie the entire showing, which made it even better. We continued the fun night at Dan's after the movie.

Saturday continued the fun. Trevor and I woke up around noon to play some 2v2 beach volleyball with Dan and Adam Brown, the official start to our own volleyball season. I think we stayed out there for close to 3 hours. Trevor and I didn't drop a game the whole day(they play "games" instead of "sets" in volleyball), and that equated to 3 straight matches that we won. We played a short game to 15 points at the very end, and due to our faulty net(Avalon has ordered a new $100 net to be here soon), we lost the match point to Dan and Adam. Neverthelesse, we were pleased with our performance. We get better with each match. The weather was on the slightly chilly side, with the high around 58ish, but being in the direct sunlight made it feel closer to 75 degrees. I can't wait for it to warm up. I need to get to work on my tan :)

Saturday night(last night) we went to Dave's Tavern to see an old friend of Trevor's, Reggie's, and mine from Grenada play in a band. David O'Bannon(our friend) has been in Iraq with the military for the past few years, but he's been home on and off throughout that time. He plays the drums for this band called Mosaic(at least, that's what we think it was called). They are a combination of jazz band, jam band, and latin jazz. I had no idea what to expect from these guys, but they ROCKED. The whole place was jumping halfway through the night. The highlights of the evening included the great music(of course), the random conga line that materialized near the end of the night, my being offered free drinks(I said "offered" mom!), and the lead saxaphone player jumping onto the bar at Dave's to play the finale. Put simply, the evening kicked ass.

As always, stuff is happening this week...

Mike Griffin, Administrator of NASA is coming to MSU tomorrow to kick off a lectureship series started by a group of professors here. I saw Griffin speak at JSC last semester, but I am looking forward to seeing him speak again. I mean, how many times does the NASA Administrator come to Starkville, MS?!? My parents, being the cool people that they are, are driving all the way from Canton to Starkville tomorrow, just to see him speak. It's open to the entire public, so I bet that the Hunter Henry Center is going to be packed.

This week is the start of softball season for Aaron, Trevor, and me. I'm looking forward to returning to the diamond. Aaron even bought himself a Boston cap over break, so now we are all set hat-wise. Aaaron has his Red Sox cap, Trevor has his red Yankee-Hater cap(which is awesome, btw), and I have my trusty old Red Sox cap as well.

The AVP season starts this weekend. Can't wait. The AVP Tour is even coming to Birmingham and Atlanta this summer, but too bad I'll be in Houston :(.

The big March/April party is this weekend too. The month's fall a little funny this year, so we're having to split it this weekend. Friday will be the March Party, and Saturday(April 1st) will be the April party. SO many people are coming to this thing; it should definitely be fun. Mallory may even come down as well.

Well, I think that's about it. I have a busy day today: laundry, schoolwork, hockey, grocery run, hanging up stuff, schoolwork. It just never stops, haha...

-Henry

Spring Break Shenanigans

2006-03-19T23:38:00.000-06:00

Spring Break 2006 has come and gone, and it was absolutely the best one yet

Note: Mal's posted many of the pics from the trip on her latest post, and she's also added a link to the Facebook album that has ALL of our Spring Break photos. So if you want visualizations to go with what you read in my post, open up a new tab and scroll through Mal's blog. Definitely make sure to check out the Facebook album. Don't worry, you can still access the pics even if you do not have a Facebook login(just click each picture to go onto the next one)...

So yeh, Trevor and I packed up and headed to Chatt-town U.S.A. early Saturday(the 11th) morning in my mom's bitchin van. We made a stop in the Big Ham so I could do look for some new swim trunks for the summer(yes, I was successful); we also stopped to eat(twice) while we were in the mall. We arrived in Chattanooga around dusk, and Mal, Alicia, Trevor, and I went to this nice(and evidently very popular) Italian restaurant. The highlight of the meal was my daring Trevor to drink the rest of the melted butter that was in the bread roll holder. I offered to pay his way for the movie, and he accepted the challenge. He shot the butter with no problem, but he did feel the after-effects throughout the night. After dinner we(just Trevor and I...the girls had to pack) went to see The Hills Have Eyes. Definitely one of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen. Trevor says it's nothing compared to Hostel, so I'm making a point of checking that one out when it hits the dvd shelves.

Our whole ski group congregated Sunday morning at the parking lot near Mal's place. After some creative packing, we were off in 3 cars toward Snowshoe, West Virginia.

.......8 hours later.......we arrived at what we were hoping to be snow-capped mountains and slopes. Unfortunately, just the slopes were covered, and worse still, it wasn't the "real" snow. Our spirits weren't broken, though, and we proceeded to check-in at the bottom of the mountain. This is where the trip took a turn for the better. Mallory and Alicia, with their amazing powers of persuasion and charm, were able to turn a mistake made by Snowshoe(not making one of the rooms available) into an SUPER sweet deal for us. Mal and Alicia ended up saving everyone about 75$, and they were able to make it where the entire group was housed in one 3 story-condo. Needless to say, at that point we were all very, very, very excited.

We headed up the rest of the mountain pass, checked-in(again), and moved into our freakin' sweet condo. This place was awesome: huge kitchen, plenty of space, too many rooms to count, fireplace, great balcony view of the valley and mountains, 3 bathrooms, and a living room made for Spring Breakers. After we got settled in, we headed to the Village area of the resort to get some grub.

That night was occupied mostly by a game of Catch-Phrase. Basically, it's like Taboo, except a little more mobile in that you pass around a device that displays the word you need to describe. Unfortunately, at a point about midway through the night, my brain had a fatal memory lapse. The Catch-Phrase gizmo came my way, and I was charged with starting the round. I pressed(what I thought to be the "word" button), but in reality, I had pressed the "category" button, so the display of the device read the category of the words that would follow. There is the Sports category, the Around the House category, etc. etc. When I pressed the button it happen to show the category "History Buff," which is, as you guessed it, a category of historical facts and notes. At the instant I see the words pop on the screen, I start describing "History Buff" perfectly, and within mere seconds, my team had correctly guessed it. I then passed the device over to CG, who was on the other team. It didn't take him long to realize that I had read the category instead of the words, and he made that fact known to the whole group. About 2 very very very very long minutes of laughter ensued. Of course, I couldn't help but laugh too, as it was one of the dumbest things I think I have ever done. I can guarantee that most, if not everyone there during that trip, will make sure I remember that deed.

Trevor and I woke up really early on Monday to get a jump-start on the skiing. The only person awake before us was Tyler, who had the day's forecast laid out on the breakfast table, as well as a fresh pot of coffee going. Trevor and I were on the sloaps no later than 9:30. It had been 7 years since I last skiied, but Trevor was very patient to help me rejog the skills Gabi had taught me in Switzerland. After about a half hour, we were bolting down the slopes. Granted, these were Green(as in difficulty, not in color. They made sure there was enough fake powder mixed with the real stuff) slopes, but even Trevor admitted that they were some of the more fun ones he had tried. From that point until 4:30 that afternoon, all we did was ski(with a small lunch in between). It SO kicked ass...

That night we all went to eat at the nice restaurant in the Village, the Bistro. Mal and I splurged, ordering the Filet and Beef Tips Special respectively. Our waitress was also very sociable and fun, which just added to the already great evening.

We returned to the condo to start up a game of Turbo Cranium. We had 3 teams, with Mal, Trevor, and I composing one team. Without going into the details, I'll just say that we had no trouble at all in winning that game. I'm willing to bet that that triumvirate is unbeatable........It will be interesting to see how good Mal and I are come August this year, when we go to the beach with my family. Will/Andrea and Carolyn/Richard are sure to be awesome at Cranium, so we'll definitely have our work cut out for us. You hear that, Caro and Rich? Start brushing up on your Cranium skillz, haha. (If you can't tell, I'm pretty excited about Horne Beach Party 2006...but that's another post for another day)

Tuesday was CONSIDERABLY colder than the day before. Whereas the high on Monday was around 75, the high on Tuesday was closer to 36. Yeh, that's about a 40 degree drop. Yikes. Nevertheless, we were all out at when the slopes opened, and it was another glorious day of snow skiing. I even attemped a dreaded Blue slope in the earlier part of the day. It was very icy, but I managed to go through some moguls without TOO much difficulty. I felt I improved my turning and sharp stopping skills during the second day; I just need to do this ski thing on a more regular(yearly) basis, and I think I can get up to Trevor's skill level in no time, haha.

A myriad of games were played Tuesday night at the condo, and it sucked that the trip had to end. Tyler and I woke up on Wednesday to about a foot of fresh powder that had fallen the night before. We couldn't believe it. The day we leave is the day the best snow comes. Grrr.

We were cleaned up and out of Snowshoe by about 10:30 local time, and we were on our way back to Tennessee and beyond.

So that about sums it up for my Spring Break. Again, head over to Mal's blog for more pics and funny captions.

As for the rest of the break...

Trevor and I saw V for Vendetta at the new Madison theater. AWESOME place to see movies. It's closer to our house, uses digital projection, has huge screens and one MEGA screen for some movies(like the one we saw), and produced some bombastic sound. Absolutely breathtaking movie experience. Can't wait to go back :)

Found out Mike Griffin(aka Administrator of NASA) is coming to MSU a week from tomorrow to speak on "Leadership and Space Exploration." This is part of a new Lectureship Series created by some professors and alumni here at State. It's pretty cool that we get such a bigwig as Mike himself to come. I'm definitely going to attend and here what he has to say. I saw him speak at JSC last fall, but this time promises to be a much less-crowded affair.

Uhm...we kick ass at baseball. The defending SEC Champs(that would be the Mississippi State Bulldogs) are 15-0, the best start in school history. Better than the '85 Palmeiro/Clark/Brantley team even. Kick ASS. We wooped up on some Vols this weekend taking 2 out of 3 before the finale was cancelled today due to rain. Definitely picking up some tickets before this season is over. Omaha-bound, anyone??

School starts tomorrow....bleh.

-H

Off to the Slopes

2006-03-11T00:06:00.000-06:00

TONS of stuff has happened this week...here's a brief recap:

-My hockey team won both our games on Saturday, 18-4 and 14-6. We're rollin.

-Had a Dynamics test on Thursday. OWNED it. Had a Early U.S. History test too later that day, but classes were cancelled after 1:00pm due to the impending super storm, so I got out of that one :)

-We lost our co-ed soccer game on Wednesday. We are playing SO much better, though, and our guys' team is now STACKED. Too bad our guys' game was cancelled due to the super storm on Thursday.

-Trevor, Aaron, and I were recruited at the deadline as Free Agents onto the softball team of BJ's(Trevor's co-worker). Trevor and I are stoked. We wont start playing with them until our soccer season is over, so that will be in a few weeks. I can't wait. I'm) ready to start ballin' on the diamond again(hopefully)...

-Schilling says he is feeling the best he has ever felt in his career(awesome)

-Foulke says he will be ready by opening day. Says he is in the best shape he has been in over 4 years(awesome again)

-My Avs traded the hot as-of-late David Aebischer to the Montreal Canadiens for the 2001-2001 Hart and Vezina Trophy winner Jose Theodore. Normally, I'd be ecstatic about this trade. I mean, Aebischer was a bitchin' goaltender, but Jose Theodore is equally impressive, and he is entering the prime of his career. The part about this trade I hate is that Jose JUST injured is ankle, and he's going to be out for several weeks. That means the Avs have to mind the net with backup goaltender Peter Budaj until the playoffs. Theodore says he will be ready come playoff time, so that's good. He's an experienced goaltender, and that's what we need. But why trade your badass goaltender(Abby) for a guy that just fractured his ankle(Theodore)? My only guess could be that Pierre Lacroix(GM for the Avs) was hoping to make another Patrick Roy trade. Roy was acquired by Colorado from Montreal after he had a falling out with the coaches and management. He in turn led the Avs to two Stanley Cup titles. Theodore is no Roy, but(again) he's entering the prime of his career, and he's been in the playoffs before, so maybe there's promise. He's not in the intense spotlight of Montreal anymore, and that allowed Roy to prosper, so Lacroix might think Colorado will have that same affect on Theodore. Here's to hoping.

-Trevor and I are packed for West Virginia. We leave tomorrow morning around 9am.

-Colin, Eric, and I have purchased our season tickets for the new MLS team in Houston, the Houston Dynamo. We have AWESOME seats. I'll try to post pics of the seats sometime. We've already drafted what games we want, and I've got a few really good ones. I'll post about those as the dates approach.

-I have bought tickets for me and Mal to all 3 games of the Boston/Atlanta series later this year in June. We have(again) some AWESOME seats. We're both really excited. I'm gonna fly in from Houston, while Mal will drive in from Paris. More details as the games get nearer...

-This just in....this summer is going to be awesome.

-Trevor and I officially started our volleyball season today. We went out to the court(which is about 50 yards from our apartment) for two hours today, working on drills and receiving serves from Aaron. Man, what a workout that game gives you! I got a feeling that we're going to be really good. We both saw a dramatic improvement today from when we first hit the ball to the final serve from Aaron that we successfully bump-set-spiked. Trevor and I, for some reason, naturally tend to be pretty good teammates in the sports arena. We're both ready to come back from Spring Break and play Dan and Adam(who have been boasting their vball skillz) in some 2v2 beach volleyball on the court. It's gonna be great. The weather isn't as warm as we want it yet, but it will be there before too long. This summer is going to especially be awesome volleyball weather, as I'll be in Houston. Who knows, maybe I will actually get even darker than last year! No whammies no whammies...

well that about sums this week up. We are headed out early in the morning. I promise great pics of our Spring Break in my next post. Until next time...

-Henry "Downhill Skiing" Horne

So Close...

2006-03-04T18:33:00.000-06:00

Not sure why I haven't posted any this week. It was almost completely uneventful, so I'm assuming that that makes me lazy?

We lost our hockey game Tuesday 7-6 in overtime, and it was ALL my fault. I was too aggressive on a player coming in on the left face-off circle. I was certain he was going to have a breakaway if left unchallenged(and he would have certainly scored; he's good), so I went too far from the crease. He effortlessly put it over my left shoulder. It sucks because we were having a great game and playing really well. We're still have a solid group of guys, and I like our chances heading in the 2nd half of the season and playoffs.

Our intramural soccer team has come alive. I was unable to play on our co-ed team on Wednesday; I was definitely not feeling good that day due to a lack of sleep and headaches the night before. I was ready to go for our men's team on Thursday night though. I don't know what it was, but we started hitting our passes, started talking, and started scoring. Dan had two goals including a bitchin' header off a set piece, and Kyle had 2 as well. It was a pretty lame game for me; I don't even think they had a shot on goal the entire time. We ended up winning 5-0. We celebrated by going out to Chili's afterwards.

Last night was basically a party at Aaron's all night with the Splendid Chaos concert in between. After the concert, the guys brought back about 11 people that we didn't even know, haha. They were all relatively cool, though, so it wasn't too awkward.

Today Trevor, Dan, Aaron, Reggie, and I went out to the public soccer fields to kick the ball around. We got some good practice end and came up with some great ideas for more set pieces and corner kicks.

I got a dvd in the mail today that we've been waiting on for about a week. It's the movie The Wizard. Being video game nerds, this movie is one all of the guys remember from their childhoods. It's basically a 90 minute commercial for Nintendo products...seriously. We haven't watched it since I got it, but we are all pretty sure it has the same bad acting it had in the 80s. It's hard to find on VHS, let alone on dvd. That's because it DOESN'T exist on dvd; the guy I bought it from on ebay copied the movie from vhs to dvd, which I thought was cool. We're all going to Aaron's tonight to watch the movie. Should be fun.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. My parents are coming to Starkville to attend this fund-raising breakfast at the Episcopal Church here; the fund-raising has something to do with the Gray Center, so naturally that's why my parents are attending. While they are here, they are also going to switch cars with me, as we need the van to transport people on the ski trip in a week. Mom and Dad are also going to get to see me play some hockey as well, which is great. They haven't seen me in a game in a loooooong time(remember, I was gone for a year). I'm sure we'll eat lunch in between all this madness tomorrow too.

Speaking of skiing......uhm, yeh, I'm exicted. In one week will be on the snow-laden peaks having a freakin' blast. Two tests stand in my way next week, however. My professors just had to make it difficult didn't they?

Gearin' Up

2006-02-26T23:01:00.000-06:00

Trevor and I took a day trip to Jackson on Saturday to get some gear for our ski trip over spring break. We first met out parents for lunch at Amerigos, an excellent Italian restaurant. After grub, it was time to get shopping. Mrs. Joyce knew of this ski store right beside Indian Cycle, and it did not disappoint. I eyed a red ski jacket right as we came in, and I was sure that was what I wanted. Unfortunately, it was a size too small, and I had to find another one. At the end of our stay at the store, I procured a nice ski jacket, another pair of ski pants, several pairs of thermal socks, and ski gloves. From Trevor's past ski expeditions he had an extra pair of Smith goggles, so I lucked out with those. Plain and simple, Trevor and I are ready to get skiing.

stylin for the slopes...

In not so good news, my team had to forfeit our hockey game today; we did not have enough players show up. Above all else, I hate losing, but forfeiting a game could actually be a worse feeling. These guys made a commitment when they paid their dues before the season. You can't just "not show up." It really bummed me out today that so many of my teammates didn't show. It's just very disappointing. I did find solace in the fact that my game's forfeit made it possible for me to attend our group's Mexican night(we eat at El Sombrero every Sunday). I rarely get to join the guys on Mexican night due to my hockey schedule, so it was fun to go today.

This week should be pretty easy going. A co-worker of Trevor's has approached him in regards to recruiting teammates for a softball team. I am not sure if this is intramural or not, but I think it would be fun as hell to get a softball team going for intramurals(or any other league). Trevor and I were actually talking about it a few days prior to his coworker's inquiry. I am a baseball nut, and I absolutely love playing the game and thinking the game. Most people don't realize that I played baseball my entire life and even one year into high school. I had to give up baseball to play soccer in Paris, as their seasons coincided, and I was upset with making the decision. I have been longing for a return to the diamond. Granted, intramural softball is kinda limiting(no stealing), but I still think it will be a blast. Even if we don't join Trevor's coworker's team, we are definitely joining the softball forray in the fall, just in time for the Fall Classic :)

-H

BULLSH*@!

2006-02-23T01:04:00.000-06:00

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2341248

Yeh. Ok. Riiiiight.

Craziness

2006-02-22T23:12:00.000-06:00

Whew. I have just now recovered from that crazy week of stuff I told you about last week. All kinds of thing went on, but I'll try to give you the concise version...

Sunday I had 2 hockey games. One was at 3pm, and the other was at 7pm. Somehow, someway, despite our fatigue, we managed to get 2 wins that day.

Monday was spent studying, studying, studying for all my exams and quizzes happening that week.

Tuesday I had my first Dynamics test. I love how my professor pulled these problems WAY out of her ass. I swear, coming into the test, I felt I knew this stuff cold. Then, she gives us those 5 hellacious problems. After yelling expletives in my head upon receiving the exam, I slowed down, took a look at everything, and went to work. I actually felt pretty good about the test after I turned it in. My proff said she'd have them graded and posted online by Saturday afternoon, but no...they weren't. At this moment, she has YET to give us our grades...grrr. I have heard that she is sometimes scatter-brained, so maybe that's the problem

Tuesday night I had yet another hockey game. It was a personal best for me for the season that night, and my team played well offensively too. All-around a great game for the Predators. We are now in first place, baby :)

Wednesday I had physics class and my lab. The rest of the time was spent studying some more and packing for Chattanooga. Wednesday night was our first soccer game for our co-ed team. We lost 5-0. Not cool.

Thursday was my 3rd Mechanics of Materials quiz. I didn't have time to finish it because the last part was solving 3 equations with 3 unknowns, which is a bitch on paper. Dr. Sullivan saw what I was working towards, however, and I still got a sweet grade on the quiz anyway. Later that afternoon was my Early U.S. History test; I'm rather confident I smoked it. I'll see the grade tomorrow.

Thursday night was our first soccer game(mens), and we played this team called DeVille. See, all these guys have been playing soccer together in Starkville since conception, and they all(for some reason) decided not to leave Starkville after high school. They all opted to attend Mississippi State and never leave their hometown; the only reason for this I can think of is that they just wanted to own in intramural soccer. And they do...or did...or something like that. We lost by way too much, and we didn't score any either. That's pretty much all you need to know. Thursday night I was up until the wee hours studying for Physics and packing for Chattanooga.

Friday rolled around(thank God!), and I woke up extra early to finish packing and get some last problems worked. I took the Physics III exam at 11:00 am, and I was outta there by 11:30. I smoked it. The only things I missed were teeny tiny errors. I have the concepts down pat.

Around noon I headed to Chattanooga. I rolled in to Chatt-town around 5:30 local time, and Mal and I headed to dinner shortly thereafter. We at the Acropolis, a nice Greek restaurant near the mall. Afterwards, we tried to get some shopping in. I needed a new dress shirt for the weekend, and I was able to find one(and it was on sale!).

Saturday, Mal took the practice GRE, and when she returned around noon, we went to eat at Sticky Fingers with Alicia. While there, I got to meet Graf, a guy that will be going with us skiing on Spring Break. He seemed to be pretty cool, and I think we'll get along well.

Saturday night Mal and I had planned to go eat somewhere nice. I tried to find the poshest restaurant in Chattanooga, and I think we got pretty close. We tried our Porter's Steakhouse. It was fabulous. Mal had the pepperloin, and I tried the filet mignon. We also dabbled into this apple cobbler-like dessert too. If I had been 21, we would have also tried to their wine selection, haha. We like to go all-out sometimes at nice restaurants, so OF COURSE we had to look our best:

we could have hosted Fashion File or something

After dinner, we rented what we thought would be a good movie: The Legend of Zorro. BZZZ! WRONG. Terrible terrible movie. We had fun making fun of it anyways.

Sunday night Mal and I flexed our intellectual muscles in a game of Turbo Cranium against her friends and roomates. Needless to say, we owned the playing field. I swear, Mal is probably the best person in the world at drawing accurate pictures with her eyes close. Seriously. She does better than I do when my eyes are open!

After the huge win, we went to get another movie to watch. This time it was The Cave. We were hoping to get at least a little scare, but again, we chose poorly. I know I know. We should have known. Oh well. We did have fun making fun of this movie too, so it wasn't all bad.

Monday morning, Mal had class, so I slept in until shortly before noon. I got showered and met Mal and her friends in the UC for lunch. I headed back to Starkville right after lunch. I had a blast in Chattanooga(as I usually do); I just with the weekends had about 4 days in them instead of 2. It just flies by too quickly. I really can't wait for spring break :)

Yesterday I had my first Mechanics of Materials quiz. I felt pretty decent about it, but we'll have to see tomorrow how I did. No whammies no whammies.

Whew. And that's it. I told you it was a crazy week.

I'm out.

-H

A Dog's Love

2006-02-13T00:28:00.000-06:00

I think it is safe to say that many times we forget that animals are living, breathing creatures, and that they, especially dogs, grow attached and more than likely develop a sincere bond of love with their masters or caretakers. That attachment is no more readily apparent than with my own two dogs, Greta and Grace, or should I say, my Mom's two dogs. My brother-in-law had G&G for several years since their birth, and when they first met my mom in summer of 2003, they had no clue who she was; they still followed Richard on a whim and were with him every day all day. Slowly, as my mom began to care for them and be their "Nana," as my mom calls herself in relation to the dogs, G&G started to develop that bond that they had created between them and Richard. Now, whenever you visit my house, you will notice that my(or mom's) dogs follow my mom's every footstep. They react to her voice. They react to her movement. When she's upset, they are quiet and somber; when she is lively, they are verbose(with yelps and barks). When mom sits down in the living room chair, they are usually within mere inches of her feet. If mom is walking to the kitchen, they look at each other, decide that she isn't coming back, and begin to follow her right on her heels.

The point of this isn't to show how obedient and cute my dogs are(although they are every bit of those two adjectives). Rather, it was to show that that love bond between master(Nana) and dog is as real as the computer on which you are reading this post.

That bond exists between my family and our dogs, and it definitely existed between Trevor and his dog Holmes, who unfortunately had to be put to sleep this past weekend due to increasing eye problems and renal failure that occured over just the past few days. Jay-Jay, Trevor's other dog, experienced the same problems before he eventually had to be put to sleep months later(last year). Trevor and his family agreed that they didn't want to put Holmes through that much pain if she didn't have to experience it. The decision was hard for the Acy's, and I am sure it was especially hard for Trevor.

I was friends with Trevor in Grenada when he found Holmes. She was evidently beaten her whole life(at that point, about 2 or 3 years), her body was emaciated, and she was very thirsty and hungry. Trevor took in the dog, who looked to have some pitbull in her, and within a year, Holmes was jumping in Trevor's backyard and loving her new life with him. I can say that I too grew very attached to the dog, and every time I visited Trevor's house, be it in Grenada or Madison, I always made a point to play with Holmes or sit beside her on the floor while we watched tv. She could easily bring a smile to the face of anyone at anytime on any day.

Trevor and his family drove up to Greenwood this weekend to bury Holmes right beside Jay-Jay.

Sometimes we forget that our animals will eventually die, and chances are good that we will outlive the pets we have. It pains me just writing this post. Holmes was a central part of the Acy household, and the Acys are almost an extension of my family, so it is as if one of my own dogs has passed away. Holmes will be greatly missed.

You could not help but love this dog.

Yet, somehow, someway, be it by coincidence, or what I believe to be the Big Man up there hard at work, there is a silver lining to this somber set of circumstances. I warn you beforehand, though, that it is very graphic to begin with...

Trevor's step-grandfather's son(stay with me) was driving along a backroad highway last week, and he ended up behind a moderately moving truck. Before too long, Trevor's step-grandfather's son(we'll just call him Ben, as I have forgotten his true name) sees something thrown out of the cabin of the truck as the truck is going along the road. Upon quick inspection, Ben realizes that a SMALL DOG was just THROWN FROM THE TRUCK. Now, Ben(as well as I, or any other human person) would have followed the trucker until he stopped, gotten out of his vehicle, walked over to the man, and beat the SHIT out of him. Fortunately for us, though, Ben knew that the rescue of the dog was more important in the immediate timeframe. He stopped his vehicle near where the dog was thrown, found him, picked him up, and got his wounds taken care of at the vet. Thankfully, a broken leg was all that the dog suffered. It could have been much worse.

The dog, named Jill by Trevor's relatives, is now doing the normal things puppies should be doing. Trevor's mom was able to snap some shots of the dog...

Isn't she CUTE?!! Notice the cast on her back foot due to her broken leg.

I do believe she has some Bernese Mountain Dog in her.

Come on!! She just begs to be held!!

There is a good chance that Trevor and the Acys may end up taking this dog into their own care. It's not a guaranteed thing, but it is a definite possibility. It turns out that the end of one dog's life may very well have been balanced the rescue and subsequent survival of another.

Keeping this dog theme going(again, it is interesting that these events all took place now), the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is starting tomorrow! Yes, that's right; it is two days of some beautiful dogs strutting their stuff in Madison Square Gardens. I can't wait. Mom and I will again be cheering for the Bernese Mountain Dog. Unfortunately, I have a game on Tuesday night, so I will miss the 2nd night of the show, but I will be able to see my favorite breeds on Monday.

and with that, I bid you all a good night.

-H

You hear that? It's a busy week getting closer...

2006-02-12T00:01:00.000-06:00

This weekend pretty much kicked ass, but the fun was only temporary, as this upcoming week is sure to be one of the craziest.

Thursday night got things of to a pretty entertaining start. Around 10pm that evening, the whole gang headed over to Polliwogs, and we stayed there until closing time, which is around 12:30 on weeknights. We pretty much just sat around, but there were some random points of dart-throwing, although I mainly just watched; the dartboard was the plastic kind, so it wasn't that impressive. I will have to say that Polliwogs is about twice as smokey as Dave's, and that's really saying something. My eyes were burning like hell as we walked out...

Friday night Aaron, Reggie, Adam Wandler, and I headed to Tuscaloosa at around 7pm. The weather was terrible, and add that to the fact that Wandler can't drive on the road in the rain without a car in front of him, it took us almost 2 hours to get to Tuscaloosa. After navigating through the high waters in T-town, we finally arrive at Adam's good friend Andy's house, who also became good friends with my group of guys over the past year. I barely knew Andy, and I didn't know anyone else at all beyond him, so I didn't know what to expect that night. Thankfully, Andy was cool as hell, and so were his friends. I mean, how could you not have fun at a house where there are multiple Houndstooth hats floating around all night?(that's a UA reference for those of you not in tune with college football history). I met several people that have the same major as I do(they attend UA), and they all turned out to be some really cool people to know. At its peak, the party had about 45 people in the house at one time...yeh, it was THAT nuts. I am definitely going back to T-town with the guys the next chance I get.

Aaron had to work at 2pm today, so we left around noon from Tuscaloosa. I vegged the rest of the day, and we went to Peppers for dinner tonight. After that, we retreated back to Aaron's crib to watch the final 4 episodes of the Arrested Devlopment series, which aired last night(while we were at the party). Reggie recorded the shows on a vcr tape(we need a damn DVR), so the shows were ready for viewing tonight. It goes without saying that those last episodes were HILARIOUS. Please, if you haven't already, go pick up the first 2 seasons on dvd. Better yet, if you would like to pick those up for ME, that would be swell as well :). Oh, and word has it that SHOWTIME is going to pick up the series. That's great on one hand, but on the other it's not because we dont have SHOWTIME :(....I'll try to figure that problem out...

This week coming up is gonna be wild. Tomorrrow, I have TWO hockey games; one is at 3pm, and the other is at 7pm. Why we have a double header I don't know. I also have a game on Tuesday night. It's going to be tough on the body. School-wise, I have a Dynamics exam on Tuesday, a U.S. History exam on Thursday, a Mechanics of Materials quiz that day as well, and a Physics III exam on Friday. As you would expect of an engineer, I feel pretty confident with everything except U.S. History; I have ALL these terms to know and discuss. Bleh. Thankfully it's not Tunisian History or something(no offense to readers from Tunisia!).......continuing the craziness, intramural soccer starts this week; we have a game on Wednesday and Thursday. We haven't practiced once yet this semester, so we'll try to squeeze that in somewhere this week too.........oh, and the craziness doesn't stop. The upcoming weekend will give me something to look forward to(thank God!!); I am leaving for Chattanooga right after my Physics exam on Friday. I would like to actually wear something NEW for my stay up there, but I simply don't have time this week to get anything in Columbus. Maybe I'll get something while I am up there? I am in dire need of additions to my wardrobe, and I am sure the Chattanooga crew is wondering if I ever wear any other clothes, haha. My car also needs an oil change, so that will need to be done at SOME free point in my week.

There you have it. Crazy-fun week #1 is nigh...

Random thought...I have no clue, but I have been addicted to R.E.M. the past few days. I am trying to assemble a TVBO(the very best of...) cd right now. Again, no idea why they are in my head, just are. Go figure...

I am going to get some things arranged in my apartment, then I'm headed to bed. I need all the rest I can get for tomorrow...

-Henry

7-6

2006-02-08T00:35:00.000-06:00

Arrrrrrgh...I hate losing close games because it usually means that I am the one that could have changed the outcome. True, I could have definitely have played better, but oh well. We play those foes several more times this season. It was a great game, and for the unusually large crowd that was there tonight, it was an especially good game to watch. It's all about the fans, after all(at least that's what the NHL "says")...

I would be a terrible person if I didn't say HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY REGGIE!!! Yup, that's right. The friend I have known the longest finally passed that magical barrier today. I was swamped with my schedule and early hockey game, so I was unable to celebrate at Applebee's with him and Trevor this afternoon. He had 2 Sam Adams with his lunch; I'm so proud*tear*. Aaron turned 21 a month ago, Reggie turned today, and Adam Brown turns the two-one next week. It definitely feels like eternity until June 11....

I was doing some deep thinking during my Early U.S. History class today, and this is what I came up with: be it either by coincidence or on purpose, but ALL of the Horne children's names are prominent names of kings and queens in world history. Just do a Wikipedia search or a Google search. You'll see what I mean. William, Caroline, John, Henry, Richard....all of them. I wonder if the Horne parents knew what they were doing....hmmmmmm....

Wandler has persuaded me to go with them(he, Aaron, Reggie) to Tuscaloosa to their friends' party this Friday night. I don't have to drive, and I don't have to pay for any of the gas. Why WOULDN'T I go?! Besides, the Tuscaloosa gang is cool as hell, so it'll be good to see them again(they were here for my Welcome-Back party). We're returning on Saturday, so I'll still have time to do the things I was originally planning on doing this weekend...

well, I have to get up relatively early tomorrow. Richard Wright(SIHL president) and I have a weekly breakfast at The City Bagel, a tradition started by Richard, Richard Sewell, and I many moons ago. Each week this year we have had a progressively larger group of hockey players show up, so hopefully it will keep up. Plus, I get to play with Brennan, Richard's 1.3 year old baby. This kid is awesome, and he's definitely going to be a hockey player. He'll be amost 4 when I leave Starkville, so maybe if he sees me on a constant basis, he'll remember me at some point when he gets into the NHL. That's the plan anyway, haha...

-Henry

yes, I am a nerd.....sometimes

2006-02-05T22:02:00.000-06:00

Well, this weekend was fun.

Friday was a marvelous occasion. The Onkyo HT-S780 7.1 surround sound system is installed!!! Ladies and gentlemen, you have GOT to visit my apartment at least once in your lifetime. This thing is unbelievable. I will not go into all the details, because that would be boring. Just know that since about 3am Friday night, we've been playing video games(well, just one) and watching movies on it like crazy. It's so so so so awesome. Come check it out.

time for a nerd moment:
Friday was also a big deal because we(Dan, Adam, Adam, Grant, Robert, Reggie, 2 other guys, and I) finally beat what many considered to be one of the hardest video games of all time: Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts for the Super Nintendo. We've been trying since this summer(when I acquired the game); Dan and I were up until 5am one night trying to beat it. We can get to the end easily; that isn't the hard part. What IS difficult is the final boss, and well, it just annoys the hell out of ya. When Reggie and I arrived at Dan's on Friday night(around 7), Dan had already gotten to the end(the easy party) but having hard times with the boss(the hard part). After several grueling hours, I came away victorious. We took pictures of the credits because this is a VERY rare occurence...once I have those pictures I will post them to prove to you that we beat the game(and that I'm a geek sometimes...)

Saturday rocked as well. After a day of(again) more fun with the Onkyo, the whole gang headed to dan's for a pre-Dave's warmup. After about two hours, we all headed to Dave's to see Young Agent Jones play. Man, these guys ROCKED. I'm working on burning their cds as we speak. I love these guys. Plus, we were at Dave's, so that automatically makes things fun. Reggie and I owned at foosball, I waxed Regg in Golden Tee, and all of our clothes smell like smoke. I also saw about half a dozen people I had not seen since my last semester here, so that was fun. There are some great pics from the evening, but I'll have to steal them from Trevor before I put them on here. There was an after-party after Dave's, but I was worn out. I headed home to crash for our early hockey game..........

.....we won 12-5. My team played GREAT. Their score would have been lower, but a few pucks dropped out my glove off hard shots, and that left juicy rebounds. So it SHOULD have been 12-3, haha, but as long as we get the W I don't mind. I've added links over on the right column of my blog(you know, somewhere under my picture, with the rest of the links) for direct access to SIHL scores and score sheets. Now all of you can keep up with what should be a Sewell Cup Championship run. Enjoy!

Watched the Super Bowl tonight. Nothing super exciting, but some good football all-around. Always good to just eat burgers and hang out with the gang in front of a big tv. I hope my bro had a great Super Bowl party at his place with his new Panasonic EDTV. I think Caro and Rich went up there to the party as well. Guess I wasn't invited, haha...

I know I keep saying this, but pictures are on the way, I promise...we got pics of the living room(with the system set up), my room all organized, and other things. Bear with me!

now I am off to the wonderful world of Physics III....

-Henry

Onkyo = Sound

2006-01-31T00:03:00.000-06:00

No, seriously. Trevor looked it up. ONKYO means "sound" in Japanese. It alllll makes sense now.

Short post today...

The sound system is here. We picked it up on Saturday. It is not FULLY installed yet, so just wait a little longer for pics. Once everything is in its final place, I'll post the pictures. We have tested the bad boy, and it is INCREDIBLE. I wish I could somehow post the sound on here.

My room is almost finished as well. When I hang up my last poster or picture, I'll snap a few shots of my little corner of the world for ya.

The SIHL draft was today. My team is STACKED, but don't take my word for it; check it out HERE. If you still don't know why we're stacked, then just ask me; I'll explain. For yet another season I'm on the Predators, sportin' the number 33, baby :) The first game of the season is on Sunday.

No word yet on Super Bowl plans. SURELY there will be someone hosting a party.

Also, on Saturday Young Agent Jones(or HERE) is playing at Dave's Tavern. Can't wait. I love YAJ(they played at my sis' wedding, for all of you not in the know), and they are playing at one of my favorite places in Starkvegas to hang out. Should be an awesome evening.

welp, I should get to bed.

-H

Feel the Rhythm, Feel the Rhyme

2006-01-27T14:31:00.000-06:00

Well, it's Friday. I am done with all my work that needed to be done, and my first full week of schools is over.

I am finally in the rhythm of things. Tuesdays and Thursdays are full of classes, and Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays are pretty easy going. I like that setup. It gives me 3 days during the week(MWF) to really get work done, while T-Th days keep me occupied, but I have a 1 hour 45 minute in between classes, so work is also able to get done in that timespan. Wednesdays I will have a physics lab, but I don't think that will greatly complicate or mess up things. I have hockey on Tuesdays and Sundays, so the fact that I dont have class until 11 am in the mornings of the days after hockey helps. Another bonus is that I have just one class on Fridays, and it is one that I can easily miss a day or two of during the school year. The class is/will be very easy, so missing a class lecture(they are all available online from her) doesn't really hurt much. Obviously, I am not going to skip every Friday class; this is just convenient should I ever want to go to, say, Chattanooga, for a weekend, and I want an extra day up there. It's very nice.

Things are different here at State then when I was last here in fall of 2004. There are new buildings on campus, buildings have been torn down, there are new parking areas and decals, there are new students, and there are new teachers in my department. Most upsetting of all is probably the fact that John isn't here anymore. Besides being my savior in times of sever virus attacks on my computer, or whenever my jeep needed a little help, it was just a comforting feeling having my next oldest bro right down the road, so to speak. It's kind of like that extra added layer of protection. You know, "nothing can happen while John is here." Of course, I guess this is kind of like when I went to college; no longer did I have the safety of my parents at my house to go to. And it wasn't like I didn't know this was coming or that it was sudden. Nevertheless, it's a new feeling that I must get used to.

Hockey went great on Tuesday. I'm definitely rusty, but I was thrown right into a game after I got suited up, so that helped ease into things. My legs need to be faster, and my lateral movements need to be quicker as well. Those things will definitely improve once I get my workout routine back in action. I'm going to be playing intramural soccer soon with the guys, as well as beach volleyball, so getting in shape is definitely a must. I think Trevor is going to join my routine with me, so we can do things in tandem to make it less mundane. I'm looking forward to getting more active; hockey last Tuesday really jump-started me.

Tomorrow is a big day in the G-5 household. We are going to pick up my baby at the Circuit City in Tupelo. Then we are going to bring her back here and get it all set up, which will probably end up consuming our entire Saturday. No matter, though. It's really going to enhance the video game, as well as movie experience in our household. If you are in the Starkville area, you are invited to come by tomorrow night and see(of hear, rather) for yourself. Trevor and I, as well as the guys, are excited about it. I've been eyeing this sound system for months now, and after doing the research, we think we have a winner. I'm about to order some speaker stands from Crutchfield, which should get here on Tuesday. They are sharp, and will definitely add to aesthetic of the room.

You may think I am sucking up, but I have befriended the son of the Aerospace Engineering Department Head. Yeh I know, you are probably saying to yourself that I am low for doing that. We did meet by chance though, so it really isn't my fault. His name is Anthony Vizzini(just like his father's name), and he is(you guessed it) in aerospace engineering as a freshman. Anyway, we met at my Welcome Back party the weekend Mal was down here, and I discovered that he is in my Physics III class. He needed some slight instruction on our last homework set, so I invited him over last night to help him. Turns out we have similar interests: we both love to throw darts, he loves the Red Sox(his dad went to MIT and lived in Boston for many years), and he has our type of sense of humor. He also likes hockey, but for the WAY wrong team: the Red Wings. Half of his family is from Detroit, so that's his connection. He doesn't seem to be as into hockey as I am, so I'm not TOO bothered by it. With that being said, I did put on my Avs jersey as soon as he divulged to us that he was a Red Wings fan. Oh well. No one is perfect, haha.

Well, I guess that about sums things up for the past few days. Theo is back with the Sox as GM, which I predicted would happen a few months back. Aebischer got into a fight with Philippe Suave(old Avalance teammate, now with Calgary) the other night in Colorado's trouncing of the Flames. Nothing cooler to watch than the two goalies of an NHL game throwing fists. Not as good as Roy/Osgood match, but still fun to watch.

I have no idea what the plan is for tonight. Splendid Chaos is playing at Rick's, but I really do not like going there. Maybe Dave's will be the alternative. ANYWHERE but Rick's, haha....

-H

Starkville Hockey

2006-01-24T18:11:00.000-06:00

HAS RETURNED!!!

I am on my way to the rink right now. This is my first time to play in over 13 months!

My water bottles are filled. My new(used) hockey bag is full. My wheels are rotated. And my pads have been re-stringed.......

it's go time.

-H

In David I Trust

2006-01-22T01:31:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately, my Avs lost to Detroit today 4-3. My boys from Denver played amazingly despite losing, and many are now talking that they are a serious Cup contender(especially after that 8 game winning streak that ended this week!). They are probably saying this for one special reason: David "I-am-a-badass-in-the-net" Aebischer. This guy has been absolutely brilliant since coming off the DL earlier this season.

If you did not see the game, I suggest you turn to ESPNews right now, or maybe check NHL.com or ESPN.com for highlights of the game. Abby made this one outrageous save, but it was really THREE saves in one. I can barely describe it. Aebischer was somehow pulled to the right side of the net and lost his stick...the puck flew to the left face-off circle...a Red Wing launched the puck as soon as it hit the center of the circle, and David DOVE from the right side of the crease and blocks the puck...the puck flies out to center ice, and another Red Wing blasts it from there, and Abs makes ANOTHER reaction save with his left pad...and the puck flies out again to the left face-off circle, and yet again a Detroit player just WAYLAYS the puck towards the upper 90 of the goal, an almost impossible area to block...Aebischer flips his ENTIRE body around, throwing his legs into the air, deflecting the puck at point blank into the stands. TRULY remarkable.

St. Patrick made an eerily similar play a few years ago in the playoffs against San Jose. BOOM BOOM BOOM. Three saves in a row. Unbelievable.

One week until hockey starts in Starkville :)

-H

Classes

2006-01-20T21:56:00.000-06:00

I AM here to learn, right? Well, if my parents ask, then tell them that. No, seriously. My #1 goal here is to further my knowledge in the field of aerospace engineering and acquire the skills necessary in the field. With that in mind, I attended my classes for the first time this week.....

Monday, Wednesday, Friday @ 11:00 am. Physics III.

Continuing on the path of physics that I have been on since freshman year, this semester we will study simple harmonic motion, waves, optics, and even dive into a little modern physics(relativity included!). We just started with SHM, and it's very fascinating to me, as are the rest of the topics in this class. I look forward to the labs associated with this class.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Business Ethics.

This is an online course, so no traveling to school for this one. The syllabus and instructions are pretty straight forward. It involves alot of reading, and much more typing and responding to responses. Hopefully, by the end of this semester I will have learned a little something about ethics in the business world.

Tuesday, Thursday @ 9:30am. Engineering Mechanics II: Dynamics.

Basically an extension from EM1, Statics, in which all the systems of loads/supports were in a zero-acceleration frame. Dynamics now involves acceleration, so the simple mathematical concepts we used in Statics don't work so well now. We can't just take the sum of all the forces or moments to be zero now; they add up to "m*a", and that can include all kinds of forces. I'm very excited about this course. We're getting closer and closer to real-world situations.

Tuesday, Thursday @ 12:30pm. Mechanics of Materials.

Building off of what I have learned in Statics and Dynamics, Mechanics of Materials is focused on the actual members that make up the systems we studied in EM1 and EM2. Things like cross-sectional area, stress/strain relationships, torques, and beam deflection, among many other things, will be studied. Yet another very cool class I am very excited about.

Tuesday, Thursday @ 3:30pm. Early U.S. History.

Quite possibly my favorite portion of history of any kind. I already love the subject, but I believe my professor will make me appreciate even more. He looks like a skinnier version of the old man that helped Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. He's very enthusiastic about the subject, which is a definite plus. I came into the classroom for my first class, but I didn't see him initially; all I saw was a pair of leather pull-over chaps, a leather jacket, and a leather cap on the table. I knew this guy must be a biker. Sure enough, he spent half the class talking about his two bikes, "Red" and "Hun," and it was actually an engrossing story. Needless to say, this class should be a fun time.

So there you have it. My classes of Spring 2006. It should be a very intellectually stimulating semester, haha.

In other news...
I was walking back to my car after my Early US History class on Thursday, and I was about to pass the library. I noticed a short, stocky fellow carrying a box of books into the backdoor of the library. He looked familiar, but I wasn't sure. I then heard him cry out "Hank!!!" Well, that immediately narrowed it down to who the guy was because there is only a handful of people on this planet that call me Hank. That list includes Brandon Hodges, Scrapper, and my baseball guys from Grenada. I knew it wasn't Hodges or Scrapper, so it had to have been one of my baseball teammates. And it was. It was Ben Vaughn. I hadn't seen the guy in FOREVER, and we must have just talked there for half an hour, catching up on where old friends were and how they were doing. Turns out that Ben is rooming with Michael Hammond, a good friend from Grenada that I played soccer with, played in the GHS band with, went to Switzerland with, and even went to the same church with in Grenada. They live in the Crossgates Apartments, which is RIGHT across from Avalon. I can see our hanging out in the near future. Ben even said that they enjoy beach volleyball. Looks like Trevor and I have another duo to compete against :)

I am home this weekend. Dad just left for a 2-week business trip in Virginia, so I came home to keep mom company for a few days. I also needed to pick up my hockey equipment, so this was a good time to come home. Richard Wright had an extra hockey bag, and he gave it to me before I left for Canton. The bag is extra-large, so it's going to be perfect for my rather large goalie equipment. Also, now I can store my equipment(in the bag) in our balcony storage room, so my jeep will remain free of the used-hockey-equipment smell. Yay.

The season starts on January 29th, and I am obviously excited about playing. I have been absent from the league for over a year, so I'm anxious. I plan on somehow getting pictures taken of my playing this season, because I believe that at least 50% of my readers don't believe I play hockey, haha. So expect some proof this semester! haha.

Also, upon advice from a certain someone, I have decided to teach myself all I can about automobiles. No, I don't plan on becoming the next John Horne in the subject, but it has been suggested I take up the subject, and I tend to agree. I am going to pick up a good book on the material this weekend.

Mom and I are going to go see Glory Road tomorrow night. I am pretty sure it is going to play out JUST like Remember the Titans(one, the plots are pretty identical, and two, both movies done by Jerry Bruckheimer), but I like the actors in the movie, so we'll see how it ends up. Besides, it gives mom and me an excuse to get out of the house, haha.

Good hockey tomorrow: Detroit @ Colorado. Yet, for some reason NBC is going to carry Philadelphia @ Pittsburgh instead. WTF. Yeh, ok, I can see the rationale in that....

"Instead of showing two teams who are playoff bound, on hot streaks, and have a storied rivalry, let's show a number one team against a last place team"

Yeh. That sounds brilliant guys. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh: 0 Stanley Cups in the past 10 years. Colorado and Detroit: 5. Do the math, NBC. It's not that hard.

and with that, I'm out.

-H

Moved In

2006-01-17T01:55:00.000-06:00

Short update. Pictures to come later tonight.

We're officially "in" the apartment now. New additions and furniture arrangements are made each day we are here. Milestones completed today include setting up the dartboard(which looks freakin SA-WEET against the corkboard backdrop), putting the Fenway pic up on the hallway wall, and getting our high-speed internet and digital cable installed. Things are still changing even as we speak.

Mallory came down this weekend, as she had a 3-day weekend due to MLK Jr. Day. She came down on Friday, and due to a lack of good directions(see her blog), she was slightly delayed. She also had some battery problems(as in a dead battery), and we got that fixed as well. After that incident, things went smoothly the rest of the weekend. We mainly just relaxed in the new apartment for a couple of days, but we also attended my "welcome back" party on Saturday night at Dan's, ate dinner/lunch on several occasions with the crew, and rented Red Eye(which is in fact a TERRIBLE movie. Don't go see it. Ever.). I was able to send Mal off on time this morning at the early early hour of 6am.

So as you can see, it was a great weekend. Definitely glad Mal was able to come down. I'm looking forward to going up to Chattanooga soon.

Well, that's all for now. Like I said, pictures to come. The place isn't finished yet, but it's getting there.

-Henry

Starkville It Is

2006-01-16T08:19:00.000-06:00

I'm in the new place, and I am getting everything settled. Expect pictures, information, and MORE soon. We are getting internet/cable today :)

-H

Christmas Presents!!

2006-01-08T20:47:00.000-06:00

Okay, I am back, and I am going to brag...so just bare with me this post.

I got quite possibly the COOLEST gifts this Christmas. First off, John got me a set of surround sound headphones. Even used as stereo headphones, they are SUPERB. I can't wait to test them out on a source that has multi-out. These headphones have center, front left/right, surround, and subwoofer components. Yeh, I know. It's bitchin.

Next, my godparents got me a very neat little desk calendar. Every day has a different technique or exercise that is supposed to improve my memory. Definitely looking forward to remembering more stuff.

My parents got me this EXCELLENT fold-up chair. Why do I need that kind of chair? Well, if you ever came out to the rink before our hockey games, then you would see my attempting to get my skates on while sitting on an ultra-ghetto lawn chair. Well, that chair has seen MANY better days, and it is on the verge of complete collapse. With my new, stylish chair I can get dressed at the rink with ease and comfort. And it's fold-up, so it takes up zilch room in my jeep. My rents are also going to help with the purchase of a sound system I am eyeing for our apartment.

But I think I was completely spoiled by Mallory this Christmas. She got me some AMAZING presents. I shall explain.....

Mal got the Norman Rockwell poster(which she gave me for my last birthday) framed. Now it can go up in my new apartment! I love it!

Mal got this awesome aerial shot of Fenway(during the '99 All-Star Game) framed. Again, this baby is going up in the apartment where everyone can see it!!

To keep up with the myriad of events in my life, Mal got me this Red Sox wall calendar. Once more, this is going right up on the wall in the apartment(duh, it's a wall calendar).

For all my carbonated beverages before June 11, and for all my adult beverages post-June 11, Mal got me this Red Sox mug. It has these special crystals in the mug, so if you put into the freezer for an hour, it creates a cold, frosty outer layer. Now I can put beverages into this mug without worry of them ever getting watered down, and they will stay cold!!

I also got this great Red Sox tee. This gives me something to wear around campus, at a game, or just casually as I'm watching a game on tv. It has "Ortiz" and "34" on the back as well!!!

And this is probably my favorite present from Mal. It's a collection-frame of pics of us from over the past few years. Counterclockwise from top-left picture: my first visit to Mal in Chattanooga, right before Prom, World Series 2005 Game 3, Halloween 2005, Turner Field at a Braves/Pirates game in 2005, D.C. trip in December 2004, and a water slide in Tampa at Busch Gardens in 2005. The central pic is(of course) Fenway Park circa August 2004. You can safely bet that this frame will be prominently displayed on my wall in my apartment.

aren't those great!? I can't wait to move in.

-H

I'm Home

2006-01-08T19:07:00.000-06:00

so pictures are imminent!!

Wireless Woes

2006-01-01T21:54:00.000-06:00

Matt's wireless network is gay. It has the most bizarre security details, so I can't even upload pics to blogger. As SOON as I get this figured out, I will post my Christmas presents I got from Mal :)

-H

Yes, I still use this thing

2005-12-30T01:19:00.000-06:00

New pictures soon!

Well, this is it...

2005-12-14T21:40:00.000-06:00

My last post from Houston.

It's been a wild ride this year. We've had our ups, and we've had our really big ups. My loyal readers from last term continued reading this term, and I appreciate it. I also would like to thank my new readers this term: Andrea and Mary-Margaret(the newly-married Mary Margaret!!).

My final post is tonight only because tomorrow our furniture is being taken away, and I really wont feel like typing a post while sitting on the ground with everything else. Friday we are taking the modem back, so after Friday morning, we will be Internet-less. Plus, Friday is going to be crazy crazy. First, it will be my last day, so I have to say goodbye to everyone and their daughter at work. Second, I have to have my exit interview with the Co-op Coordinator, which will take up a good chunk of time. Finally, Eric and Colin are throwing me, and I quote, a "Get the Hell Outta Here" party on Friday. I do not know what that will entail or involve, as the guys aren't saying anything, but I figure it should be fun. I just hope I get back to the apartment in time to get some sleep before my journey on saturday, haha.

Speaking of journey, check out the weather for Saturday. Basically, if it's shitty weather, then I am going through it. The bad weather loves to find me. Definitely not looking forward to this.

I really am SO excited about being back in the MS/TN/AL area; you have no idea. This Christmas break is going to be awesome, and the upcoming school year will be the best yet, no doubt. If I am here too much longer, I just may scream, haha.

I am not sure yet if I will start a different blog when I'm at school or if I will continue to use this one. Technically, I will still be an employee at JSC even when I'm at school, so I could technically still be a Horne in Houston. Then again, this semester is much longer than my 3.5 weeks of summer school, so I may decide to start a new blog. No fear, though; I will provide a link on here directing you where to go. Oh, and another thing; I probably wont post much during the break. I may do it every now and then when I have some good pictures(like from the Avs game), but other than that, my blog will remain pretty scarce.

And with that, I am gone. You've been great, Houston. It's time I finally return to being a normal college student.

Go Sox. Go Avs. Go Dawgs.

-Henry

Bing Me Up

2005-12-12T19:09:00.000-06:00

So Saturday was pretty fun.

I woke up early and headed to Eric's for the Newcastle vs. Arsenal game. I brought the fun, and Colin brought the 2nd greatest food ever: Little Ceasar's pizza and Crazy Bread. It was good times. I could only stay for an hour because I had to be at Metro's pool tournament by noon...

I had high hopes for the pool tournament, but those were quickly diminished. We lost our first game by a large margin, so we were quickly in the loser's bracket. A few hours later we played the first game of the loser's bracket, and despite playing better than the first game, we lost again. We were the first team out of the tournament, but the fun we had was in the next room.... That's right, it was a game for the ages. An ESPN Instant Classic. It was the Men vs. the Ladies. Oh yes, it was Pictionary. Led by the mentor/mentee combo of Tarik and Henry, the Men steamrolled to a victory over the Ladies team. It was seriously getting crazy near the end of the match; almost the entire crowd was in the living room watching or participating. I drew the winning picture: swan dive. I had to be only slightly creative: I first drew a cliff, then some water, followed by a stick figure with an arrow going from the figure to the water. The guys got "dive" from that pretty easily. Next, I had to draw my best swan picture, which was rough to say the least, but Josh came through and was able to recognize it. Swan Dive. It was brilliant.

The whole event was a huge success. About $300 was raised for St. Jude's Children Hospital, and of course, Metro and his wife won the tournament again for the 3rd straight year. When we weren't playing pool or Pictionary, something else was always going on. Basketball was on all day. Food was in every room. Metro's dart board was pretty nice, and I just so happen to bring my darts :) . Again, it was good times.

I had to leave Metro's slightly early so I could come back in time to get ready for dinner. I met the gang at Chubaca's down on NASA Road 1. I had the filet, and I ended with some New York(how appropriate!) cheesecake. It was divine.

After a few hours at Chabuca's, we went down to the Harbour Playhouse. The play was pretty incredible. It was a small venue, but it was very well produced. Since we knew one of the actresses, we got to hang out with the entire cast after the show. We all went to Carlos' Beer Garden to celebrate, where they serve some INCREDIBLE hamburgers. They kicked so much ass.

I tried on Eric's topcoat before we went to the play. It's a London Fog blended wool topcoat, and I absolutely love it. I want one for myself. Unfortunately, the one's on ebay are not in my size(42R), so I will have to keep searching. Eric did snap a picture of me with his coat and hat on, and we realized after I took it that I was doing an impeccable Bing Crosby imitation. Just look at the pic to see for yourself...

See, I told you. The picture also confirms what my mom has always said: I have dimples.

Today was my last Monday of work here for a loooong time. It actually flew by, and I hope the rest of the days this week do the same. My group is taking me out for lunch on Thursday, and I give my exit pitch on Friday. Should be fun.

I'm looking forward to going home so much...

-H