Remembering a friend

It was 4 years ago on March 28, 2018 that a high school friend of mine, Kylie Deane Perrin Musfeldt, passed away unexpectedly. While I can't say I was close friends with her there is one specific incident that led me to consider her a friend. It was our senior year year of high school in 2007 and we were hosting the Nevada Cubs for a football game on Friday, September 7th. I was on the team and had been named a captain for that game.

Now, I had an intense fear of public speaking and as a captain I had to stand out on the gym floor with the other captains during a pep rally in front of the entire school. We each had to take turns riling up the crowd for the game and when the mic got to me I froze. After an awkward eternity someone in the crowd began chanting my name in encouragement. As you can probably guess, it was Kylie. While my glossophobia won out I did come to appreciate it, even if it took ten years to do so.

When news of her death came in 2018 it spurred a change in me. Whereas before I had been a largely directionless NEET, the outpouring of love for Kylie that I witnessed had inspired me to clean up my act. It's still a struggle some days but I'm doing my best.

So thank you for the motivation, Kylie. You are missed by many.

Spring is here!

That means it's time to start planting and with fuel prices rising and food shortages on the horizon there's no better year to start. Last fall I harvested a "wild" sunflower growing near my house and this year I plan to grow numerous sunflowers along the south wall where there is currently nothing but peonies, spirea, and bare mulch.

One head of sunflower seeds and some crabapples.

Along the west wall there's more mulch, spirea, and sedum. I intend to plant cantaloupe in the bare areas here. I have grown cantaloupe in a pot before, producing one baseball sized melon.

In the northwest corner there is more mulch, spirea, daylilies, and coneflowers. I've also planted about 7-8 apple seeds here and am hoping at least one will sprout. In the southwest corner of the property I intend to plant the maple sapling I collected last summer.

Better days...

Winter was hard. The leaves dried up and fell off. I'm praying this means it's just dormant and not dead. Moving to the front yard I'll be removing the shroud from Lazarus the mulberry in a few weeks and praying that the rabbits don't get to it.

Lazarus

Just to the north of Lazarus I planted a sycamore seed. If that one fails to germinate I have several seed balls I can take more seeds from.

Lastly, I may or may not take some of the cedar saplings and transplant them to the north or northwest (if the apples fail) yard to create a windbreak and privacy screen. An alternative is the possibility of 'guerilla' planting them around town.

An abundance of cedars

Those are my gardening plans for this year.

Photo(s) of the Week: Sweet 16

On Sunday the Iowa State Cyclones women's basketball team advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division I women's tournament for the first time since the 2009-2010 season. It was a surprisingly easy victory over the Georgia Lady Bulldogs that followed a surprisingly difficult victory over the UT-Arlington Mavericks on Friday. It also gave them a school record 28th win on the year. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the game.

Morgan Kane. Source

Ashley Joens. Source

And easily my favorite photo from the night:

Ashley Joens & Emily Ryan. Source

A much happier final game at Hilton than the senior night debacle vs Baylor.

Photo of the Week: Tatiana the Amazing Levitating Girl

 

Perhaps I'm just not seeing something but to me it appears that Olga is standing on flat ground while Tatiana is floating in the air. So what is the answer: a trick of light and dark, early 20th century photoshop, sitting/standing on a hidden object, perfectly timed jump, or Satanic powers?

Judo throws are legal in women's college basketball...

 ...as long as you play for the University of Texas Longhorns. They're known for two things: deep pockets and dirty play. Here we see Aliyah Matharu from Texas judo throw Lexi Donarski of Iowa State to the ground (as well as throwing an arm in Donarski's face which should have be ruled contact above the shoulder which I know is a rule since Iowa State got reviewed for it later in this same game) during a Big 12 conference tournament semifinal today. Matharu should have been tossed for that but it was not called an unsportsmanlike foul nor was it even reviewed. Fortunately Donarski was not injured from it.

Not so lucky was Kari Niblack of West Virginia. Back on February 20th West Virginia played Texas. During the game Lauren Ebo of Texas literally headbutted Niblack, knocking her out with a concussion. A video of the assault can be viewed in this article. Just like Matharu, Ebo was not tossed for her dirty play.

This is becoming a problem where Texas is allowed to maliciously and deliberately injure or attempt to injure opposing players and something needs to be done about it before someone is seriously or permanently hurt.

Photo(s) of the Week: Father & son

 And to continue with the parent-child theme, a family breakfast photo:

This is where my profile photo came from.

A return to normality

Exciting news this week. After one year and ten months my employer is dropping their mask mandate effective Tuesday, March 8th, finally catching up to the city, county, and state in doing so. Therefore this will be my last post talking (specifically) about COVID unless something dramatic happens. With that said I'll end this post with a screencap that perfectly encapsulates my thoughts and feelings on everything that has happened in the last two years.

100 blog posts

This is my 100th blog post and I've been debating what it should be about for the past week. Well, I've figured that it should be about the thing I've cared about for most of my life.

It's been a record breaking season for the Iowa State women's basketball program. They've won 7 Big 12 Conference road games, swept 7 out of 9 Big 12 opponents, won 14 conference games and 25 regular season games overall, which are all school records.

Individually it has also been a record breaker. Senior Ashley Joens now owns the school career scoring record and is staring down the career record for scoring average among other records. (Fun fact: I have the same birthday and last name as she does but I assure you that she is significantly better at basketball than I am.) Sophomore Emily Ryan continues reaching for every assist record at Iowa State while fellow sophomore Lexi Donarski seems to be the heir apparent to Ashley. Statistically Morgan Kane won't blow you away but together with Portuguese transfer Beatriz Jordão they have combined to make a serviceable duo in the post.

They wrapped up the regular season this past Saturday with a win over West Virginia University and now look forward to the Big 12 tournament this coming weekend. Hopefully they'll win a couple of games there and in the NCAA tourney the weekend after.

Photo(s) of the Week: Mother-daughter time.

 

I hate the Baylor Bears

A trash university for trash people that should be legally required to change it's name to Rape Scandal University.