Brewers for Wild Card

I think the Cubs game that I watched part of on Saturday made things clear for me, the Cubs are not going to make the post season this year. In the scope of baseball history, this does not seem like a bold prediction. But my next prediction is: the Milwaukee Brewers will come close to winning the Wild Card.

A Day of Firsts

It is now two in the morning and I really don’t feel like sleeping much. Tomorrow I officially start doing work as the “assistant” debate coach at North High School. “Assistant” is pretty flexible term, if it means doing all of the debate work while doing none of the bureaucratic work, then I guess I’m an assistant. I like to think of myself as a “virtual director of debate” because in the time I spent with Memorial I have had enough experiences that I should feel confident enough to lead a new program. Should is the operative word.

But right now, I’m here awake. Either because I’m too excited to sleep or that I feel that I could do more work to be prepared, it really doesn’t matter. Things really don’t feel different. I mean, I’m still asking Tim debate questions when I get stuck, and doing so probably more than I should. But like many young debaters, I too find that when giving advice and making arguments it is often extremely helpful to deliberate arguments with another experienced argument maker.

All of that aside, I am not the only one who should be excited about starting something new.

Laptop Elation

this is so great.
I have a laptop again.
rock on.
unfortionately, it doesn’t have a cat 5 plugin, so I’m going to have to find some sort of wireless or combo card to add.
what makes things better is that my cousin Geoff, who totally rules for just giving me this, had xp installed. So I pretty much have to do no work. Granted the machine can barely run xp by the skin of its teeth, but whatever, I don’t care, I have a freaking laptop again.

this means that I can get so much more work done, and its not even funny. For instance, all of these blog posts were written on my laptop in Sheboygan (eventhough none of them are posted yet, but they will be.) word up for work being done away from my desktop.

Plus its a Vaio. so, even though its super old, it still looks decent and is sony reliable. (so old I can hear my desktop calling this machine “grandpa” all the way from Madison.) But like my own grandpa, this machine is cool. I’m pretty sure this weighs the same amount as my old stolen gateway did, and the screen is essentially the same size. ahhhh…. It’s no wonder that I love technology.
I can’t wait to splurg money unnecessarily on a digital camera. And then a year later, when hopefully I can afford a better laptop.

thanks Geoff.
This kicks serious ass.

Nelson, Rove, and Dean

About a month ago I had an interesting day that was cause for emotional and political reflection. Three major political events in Wisconsin and the nation were occurring on the same day. The mere fact that these three events all occurred on the same day should be cause for suspicion and conspiracy theorists a like. The events were: Senator Nelson’s Memorial Service, Howard Dean’s visit to Madison, and the continuing Karl Rove controversy.

VBI Mourns a Staff Member

During the 2003-2004, if you were involved in national circuit Lincoln-Douglas high school debate, you must have heard of John McKay. John was simply among the best in the nation that year. As Jon Cruz writes on VBD:

In his senior year, he earned nine bids to the TOC, where he was a semifinalist. He placed at the MBA and Stanford Round Robins, was runner-up at the Mineapple, closed out CPS and MLK, and won Manchester, Grapevine, the Victory Briefs Round Robin, and the St. Mark’s Heart of Texas Invitational. A VBI alumnus and a student at Stanford University, this weekend’s Session II would have marked his fourth session teaching with us.

I had the privilege of being at the Stanford National Forensics Institute with John and many other great debate minds in the summer of 2003. While I never really knew John well, the work that he did in only his first year out of debate in setting up the Voices Foundation impressed and inspired me. John became one of the great people in this activity, always willing to be friendly and to talk to others. Because of John, I was able to find out that Brian won his double-octo final round at Stanford before even Scheffler knew (and Tim was at the tournament). And at the TOC this May, John was Brian’s second round judge. I found his opinion fair and thoughtful, and his oral/disclosure encouraging. It is sad to say that this was one of the few rounds John judged then, and will ever judge at the TOC.

In a discussion on LD-Debate.org, John provided an interesting commentary on the value of debating. Very competitive debaters (of which the national circuit is almost entirely composed of) often feel a tension between debate as a competition and debate as an educational-extracurricular. John wrote:

Debate wasn’t just a net beneficial activity for me, though. It was a priceless part of my life. What made debate priceless for me, however, was the character that competition allowed me to build. I had a rough patch in my life late in middle school. A combination of personal factors that I won’t go into led me to quit swimming and water polo after 8 years of dedication, and spiral in school. I gained a ton of weight, loafed around the house all day, never did any homework, had a massive grade drop and became severely anti-social. When I entered debate, however, it allowed me to start setting goals for myself again. Those goals started out modestly. I came from the very bottom, I promise (I was destroyed every round at my first novice tournament and saw very little growth for a long time). I did, however, see improvement. The competition allowed a gateway for me to be a winner. A winner, in this context, shouldn’t be confused with a person who simply wins lots of rounds. A winner is someone who demands of themself personal growth and improvement. It may be comforting for you to know, Alex, that the biggest winner that I know in debate never received a TOC bid (despite many attempts). The reason he was the biggest winner, however, was because he gained the most out of the activity by becoming a much better all around person. I think that the vast majority of people in debate come out winners. I honestly believe that debate betters people, and that’s why I love this activity.

So VBD’s news that John McKay passed away yesterday is shocking at a bare minimum. To hear that some one who has grown to love debate so much, and in turn was loved by the debate community, is now gone is always hard. However, this news becomes increasingly difficult to bear when you consider that John was only 19. Personally, I find this news scary. There are no details of what exactly happened, and I do not mean to impose upon the family for them. I certainly hope, though, that the cause of death was not suicide. Or caused by anything the debate community could have prevented. For if one of our own loved members died alone, and we could have helped, redemption would be a long and winding road. I pray that this is not the case. And for the first time in a long time, I am using the word “pray” with all of the meaning that the word once held for me. I do not think that I will be taking my Voices bracelet off for along time.

Good bye Jon, we hardly knew you. You will be missed.

updated 8/4/2005 – 10:23 p.m. cst.

ROADTRIP!

After driving a lot last weekend, and overall, driving a lot this year, I have decided that after graduation in May that I will take about two weeks to go on a road trip across the USA. I do not really know when I am going to leave, or where I am going, or who is coming with me. I just feel like that before I leave college “officially” and move on to the next thing (whatever that is) that I should take some time to myself. And what better way to enjoy that time than to take a few friends with me on a trip across the country. By all indications, it should be a trip not to be forgotten.

However, there are a few problems. Most notably my car. Before embarking on this trip it is going to need a substaintial number of repairs that I have been neglecting including: new winshield wipers, new tires, transmition fluid changed, radiator fluid changed, new winshield, and several oil changes. My air conditioning might also be shot by then too, which may make using my car impossible, if May of 2006 is hot and humid. The other option is to use someone else’s car. Which might be possible, but it is pretty much unlikely. Renting is pretty much out of the question because the miles would make the trip cost far too much.

Cost will probably be an issue. Excluding repairs for my car (which need to be done anyway) I would like to spend no more than 600 dollars. Probably a good 10-25 percent of that will be spent on gas, the remaining amount on food and lodging. I think that it goes without saying that it would be impossible for me to remain in budget and stay in a hotel for every night of the two week trip. However, it is possible if two to three other people coming with me. I have not asked anyone yet. And I do not even have a single person in mind. But it goes without saying that the trip becomes increasingly affordable the more people that come along. Moreover, the trip becomes more affordable if people are willing to camp out for a few of those days instead of sleeping in a hotel. I think a 60-40 split would be nice (8 days hotel-6 days camping). Unfortionately, camping will also add to trunk space. And to make matters worse there’s probably a trade off between trunk space and people, given that its a 14 day trip and people might be inclined to pack ridiculously.

And so, we’ve reached the two fold reasons for this post. One to gauge interest level. Who thinks this might be fun? Who wants to go along? Who would rather spend 14 years in jail than 14 days with me?

The other is reason is to start brainstorming where exactly we (if it ever moves from me to we) want to go. I have made a list of the places that I would like to see. But this is no where near a complete list, its just the end of the brianstorming that I have done tonight. You can see a lot of the country in two weeks, but it requires careful planning. And so a very detailed list of activities will be required, as well as much planning. (Both of which I think I would do a decent job at and would probably have fun creating too. Damn! I’m a geek.)

Anyway. Here’s the list I’ve come with for now. I will probably update this a bunch. And I realize it is pretty lame to start a cross-country trip off with stuff that’s only 2 hours away, but still; this is what was on my mind.

Milwaukee
• Art Museum
• Summerfest
• Brewers Game
• Skip Milwaukee altogether

Chicago
• Downtown
• Cubs Game
• Art Museum

Other Destinations
• Boston
• St. Louis
• Tennessee/Kentucky – for whiskey and bourbon tours
• Washington D.C.
• Seattle/Puget Sound/Pacific Northwest
• San Francisco
• Yosemite/Yellowstone (big difference between CA and CO, but I’d like to see either or both)
• New Orleans

College Reflection

Scourgie: LIke if you won the lottery, you’d just get a bunch of degrees?
njbubbster02: i think so. that’d be pretty cool, wouldn’t it?
Scourgie: Hell yeah, your grades wouldn’t really matter, but you’d be doing if for yourself.
njbubbster02: well, actually. i’d be doing it for world domination.
Scourgie: ahh, I see. A noble cause.