College Tourney Day 1

Don't expect a daily update...

I'm glad to see that I did fairly well with my bracket choices on the first day of the NCAA Tournament. I managed to select each winner correctly, except for 1. I had to go with school pride and choose BYU over Texas A&M. You may not believe me, but I really thought in my mind that BYU would lose because they do every year...

Although I did fill out a bracket and checked it this morning, I'm not a huge March Madness fan. Of course it's cool to be able to watch over 60 basketball games in a few weeks, but as mentioned on abigjuicyvan.blogspot.com college players lack the skill to make the games truly exciting.

I think that I like March Madness for a different reason than anyone else. I like it because I can sit back and watch brick after brick and say, "I can do that. I do that all of the time." I feel like a great basketball player after watching shabby play for 2 hours.

Good rule of thumb. If you want to see good basketball (like I do) , watch the pros. If you want to feel good about yourself, join in on the madness....(with me).

Hey Everybody,

Here is a video that my lab group made last week. It's of a water balloon popping. We had to film at 12,000 frames per second to get this shot. It's pretty amazing how the balloon just gets pulled off from around the water. The water kind of sticks to the rubber too. It's just a cool video. Enjoy!

Bowling Class Champions

It was almost as exciting as winning the summer intramural soccer tournament. This past Thursday, February 21, my bowling team won the class championship. We should have been the outright champions without having today's match, but last time we played team 3, they used a little bit or trickery to foil us. They split their team up and bowled on two separate lanes in order to get more games in to pad their score with their highest 3 scores. Their plan worked and they squeaked out a victory in our first meeting. Not on Thursday, though.

Since we had lost one match earlier in the year, to team 3 as mentioned above, we were pitted against them again in the championship game. Their tactics were still the same and they split up and started to bowl. This time however, we made note of each game they bowled in order to ensure they took a proper average. They didn't have a stellar first or second game, but we did pretty well. We were well on our way to beating them handily when my teammate made a suggestion to me that would change the whole day. After noticing that I frequently start out games with three strikes, Bret Anderson told me to just think of a game as 3 frames long, and to bowl 4 games of 3 frames each. I thought this was funny and laughed, but I decided to try it out. So, at the start of the next game, I bowled a turkey (Strike, Strike, Strike). 3 frames down, time for a new game. I next bowled a spare followed by two strikes. Keeping with the suggestion, I started my third game (frames 7-9) with a strike!, then a Strike!, and a STRIKE!!! I couldn't keep in the mindset anymore. I had bowled 8 strikes in 9 frames with a spare in the other! I couldn't believe it! With each strike, my heart started beating faster and my hand got shakier. I tried to stay calm and the balls just kept gliding right into the pocket, sending the pins into a frenzy, taking no prisoners, and leaving none standing. But, like I said, my mind became weak. In the tenth frame, my hand just wouldn't throw the ball straight anymore. The ball glided to the right and took out 3 pins. Luckily, due to a fortuitous pin bounce, I picked up the spare and got to my bonus frame. I picked up a strike in the last frame to secure my score. Two hundred fifty-two! It was pretty sweet. That is the best score that I have ever bowled or will ever bowl in my entire life. I got a bunch of high-fives and jumped around a little bit (you know,...you've gotta do something when you bowl a 252...). I'm pretty excited to get my name on the wall of the bowling alley for a while too. I'll try to get a picture of it so that all of you out there believe my story.

What's even more better than that, is that the other team didn't have as good of a game as when we had first played them and team 3 was defeated. Team 2 became the victors and champions of the Beginning Bowling class. I know, it's a pretty big honor to be the best of the beginners. Props to my teammates (Scott Selin, aka. Straight Cash Homey and Bret Anderson, aka. Hank) who each outplayed all of the members of team 3 in our finals match. And thanks to them for giving me some of their good luck in that third game....I couldn't have done it without you guys. So, I guess that's that. We are the champions, and what do we get as our prize?... We get to bowl cosmic style next Tuesday in our last class. Sweet!

Evan (Bowling Name: Eban Sr.)