Rambling Along on a Weekend About Sports, Books, Camping, and Whatever Else Comes to Mind

Carrie and John from 2013

Rambling along on a Sunday is what this post is about. Not one specific thing to discuss or talk about today, but various items that may or may not connect together. That’s what happens sometimes as I go to think about what to write for my Sunday update. In this edition, I will talk sports, books, camping, and anything else that comes to mind that I feel like sharing. I hope you find these as interesting as my other weeks posts about specific events or topics.

Sports

The days are getting shorter and believe it or not, the temperature is starting to drop too. We have had some really nice weather the past week or two, so we can see fall is approaching. Granted, we had at least two days this past week that were in the upper 90s, but the evenings are so nice. The shorter days and lower temperatures mean only one thing… football is starting. 

Washburn Football

Washburn plays our first game of the season at home on Thursday, September 1. I cannot wait! We finally have a parking spot in the tailgate this year, so I am excited to have that although it is a ways from our “spot” it will be nice to have the car close for everything we pack and not having to walk a distance to get it to our “spot”. We will still be by the flag pole in the northeast corner of the field. I am doing Weight Watchers, so planning to eat a little better at this tailgate with Subway for dinner and some Michelob Ultra beers for watching the game. We only have five home games and we will miss at least one which will be the last game of the season. I might find a way to get out for part of the game, but too early to say at this point. 

We had a great season last year and I expect to see another great season this year too. Last year we had some memorable victories at home and even one where our neighbor ran on to the field after we won. Good times! I am looking forward to another fun round of games at home and on the road. I renewed my subscription for streaming Washburn sports as well as our season tickets to football in case we decide to go into the stadium. I think it is going to be a fun season and I cannot wait to get it started on Thursday. Go Bods!

Washburn Volleyball

We love going to volleyball games. I watched the whole season streaming last year and it was a wonderful season. Every year we say we are going to go to a lot of volleyball games and the season flies by with us only going to a few. I am hoping to get to a lot more games this year. I have them on my calendar and I know Carrie is interested in going to more of them this year too, so we will plan to cheer on the volleyball team at home this year in-person. I am watching an away game this morning as I write this update on Saturday morning with Washburn playing Midwestern. We started the season Thursday and we are already off to a good start… season is young, but expect great things from the team again this season. 

If you have not been out to a volleyball game, you should make it a point to get out to a match. It is so fun! Even though I do not know/recall all of the rules for volleyball, we have fun cheering on our team. I love the fact that as the final point is about to be scored the home crowd stands and claps until the point is won. Yes, I realize this is not unique to Washburn volleyball, but it makes it a fun environment and us as fans like we are helping the team along to the win.

Fantasy Football and Baseball

The baseball season is coming to an end. The Royals are in another struggling year, but still having fun watching their games and the new talent. I am in two fantasy baseball leagues and while I am not sure I have ever won a fantasy baseball league, I have fun setting my rosters each day and following the games for each of my players. Fantasy sports is a lot of making the right decision on who to play, who to draft, and when to bench a player, but it is also a lot of luck. At one point during this season, I had the majority of my roster in one league on the IR. With all of the “good” players drafted, it makes it difficult to go out to the waiver wire to pick up quality players, so sometimes it is necessary to use up spots on the roster with injured players. Again, this is what makes it fun to struggle through IR instances or survive the season without a single injured player where when I have had this occur, I am toward the top of the rankings. All part of the game and it is so fun!

Fantasy football is starting up and this week I will be drafting in the two leagues I take part. One league is a free league and the other is one where we put in money for fun. Both are a lot of fun and both I am in with friends, so it is a good time. I love baseball, but I really like fantasy football. Unlike baseball where I have to check my roster daily, make changes, etc., in fantasy football I check a few times a week to make changes. Typically prior to Thursday, when there are games, prior to Sunday, and then again on Monday. A final check to see who I can pick up on waivers to prepare for the next week of play. It is so fun!

Typically at some point during the season, usually for football, the league finds a time to meet up at a local establishment to watch a game and talk some trash. I love it when we are able to connect during the season (baseball or football) to watch a game, have a few drinks, and what some of “our” players in a game. All part of the fun of the season.

Kansas City Chiefs

Speaking of football, who is ready for the Chiefs season to begin? We came up short last year and looking to have a great season this year, I cannot wait for it to start. It all starts on Sunday, September 11 with Kansas City Chiefs playing Arizona Cardinals. Looking forward to seeing us on the field and Mahomes leading us down the field. Football happens to be one of the sports Carrie does not enjoy to watch, but it is one of my favorite things to do on a Sunday. Football all afternoon and even better when my Chiefs are playing. 

Last season I remember we started out slow losing some early season games. I recall social media saying our season was over and then we came to life and started winning. I am hoping not to start off slow this year and have game mode at the start of the season. Do not let teams back into games, but finish them early and keep the heat on throughout the game to the end. We lost the first four of seven games last year and people were saying our season was over, but yet we turned it around. Let’s not start that way this season! Let’s go Chiefs!

Books and Reading

Reading with Kindle

I continue the enjoyment of reading. I started January 2022 with the goal of reading 20 books for the year and so far I have read 14 books. I have read every day since January 1, 2022 which has been a nice change. I typically read every night before going to sleep, so sometimes I read for just a few minutes to thirty or 40 minutes before falling asleep. It is a nice way to wind down, ignore the phone, email, and social media to just relax and enjoy a book. I continue to read on my Kindle which I love and I have anywhere from two to three books downloaded at any one time to the device in airplane mode so I do not lose them when they are due back at the library. Work out nice except sometimes I miss books I have reserved because I cannot come out of airplane mode or I will lose some of my books. 

Currently I am reading “Where the Crawdads Sing” which happens to also be in theaters. I am really enjoying this book and I look forward to seeing the movie. Prior to this book, I had been reading a lot of series. An eight book series by L.T. Ryan, I only have one book left. I had to take a break from the series though, but I plan to finish up that last book in the near future. I have another series Carrie started me on by C.J. Box which as been really good and I am about three books into that series. Again, I took a little break while I read some other books that were on my list.

At the rate I am going, I think I will exceed my 20 book goal for the year. Only a few short months and the year will be changing, but I think I can finish strong and go a ways past my twenty book target. It will be the most books I have read in one year. It has been a fun process and I look forward to continuing the goal for next year.

Camping

We have only been camping once this year. It was early spring that we went. We were hoping to go again, but it was a busy summer and the fall is turning out to be busy too. I have hope we can fit in one more weekend get away to go camping. The difficult part is that there are sports happening that I want to see, blue festival in early October, and other events happening that prevent us from taking a weekend. Still, I hope we can find a weekend to take Oliver and get to be lakeside somewhere to enjoy the outdoors and some good books.

Next year, I hope we can make it to more than four camp sites. We went to three sites last summer with four total as we went to one spot twice, so I am hoping to make it to just as many next summer if not more. Start a little earlier in the spring and go later in the fall, we might be able to beat that camping number.

End of Rambling

The end of August is right around the corner and I wish the days would slow down just a little. Going by way too fast as we watch 2022 speed by. I hope to have some future posts about sports that we attend as well as books I am reading. Of course, I also hope to have a camping trip in the near future, but not sure when that will occur. For now, I am trying to slow down the days and enjoy reading a good book or enjoying a sporting event. 

I hope you have a great rest of the weekend and can enjoy some quiet time before the busy week starts again.

Volunteering to Get People to Vote, Asking Questions, and Participation in the Election Process was an Enjoyable New Process for Me

 

For the first time in my life, I volunteered my time to help get people out to vote. Without getting into the politics, it was a wonderful experience overall. I started in early October with a response to a text I received asking if I would be interested in helping to get people to vote. I initially started by calling residence in Texas which I did for two different weekends.

No longer is there a requirement to walk door-to-door to ask people to vote.

The process to volunteer is very easy, as I expected it would be, in our modern times. No longer is there a requirement to walk door-to-door to ask people to vote. Instead, from the comfort of my home, I was able to call to households throughout Texas, Florida, and eventually Kansas as the weeks narrowed in on election day. The Texas and Florida calling was done through an automated system where I would sign in on my computer, the voters information is displayed on my screen, and I am on a single call with my phone that connects me to each person (i.e. I never hang up the phone) which was really easy. I would hear a beep and start talking through my script that displayed on my computer. Based on responses from the person called, I would ask different questions, and eventually end the conversation thanking them for their time.

Overall, the calls were enjoyable. The nice thing about the calling through Texas and Florida process was that it was automated meaning I only would speak to people that answered the phone. If they did not answer their phone, they would not connect with me on the phone. Obviously, this cut down on the amount of time spent on the phone with people that did not want to speak. However, there were some that would answer their phones and then ask to be removed from the calling list.

If you get a call, or text, from a polling place and you ask to be removed from the list, it is the law that you must be removed from their list.

If you were not aware as we are now done with the calling/texting for elections, if you get a call, or text, from a polling place and you ask to be removed from the list, it is the law that you must be removed from their list. The issue that happened during my time helping with getting people out to vote is that some people would say this is the sixth or seventh time your organization has called me today; the problem is that multiple organizations use the same lists which are shared by the state to which we are contacting. In the processes I was involved, both made it clear if someone asked to be removed from a list that we needed to do so.

The other area that I spent my time leading up to election day making calls and texts was of course Kansas. I spent almost every weekend to end the month of October involved in calling programs or texting for Kansas. Again, the process was enjoyable although Kansas had two different processes for calling with one using an automated system and the other we would use our own phone numbers to call voters. The texting part was my favorite as I could send out in batch and respond like email to the responses following a script. This was ideal as I could do these in the evening while watching television or eating dinner. Very easy and again people had the ability to opt out if they did not want to receive the texts.

So, why was I interested in participating this year for the election? To get the word out to get people to vote. We already knew that it was going to be a huge election year with lots of voters. As we wait for states to finish up their vote counting, we see the large numbers that turned out before and on election day.

We should have this type of turnout, and interest, in the election process every election and not just this year during a pandemic. Still, even with COVID-19 cases ramping up, it is impressive how many people across the United States got out to vote early, went out on election day, and participated in the process.

I do plan to take part in future elections to help get the word out. It was a fun process and I enjoyed taking part. I enjoyed talking to voters with their concerns. I can think of a few calls that were extremely enjoyable and could have stayed on the phone with the person to discuss with them for hours about politics, the state of the country, and how we are hoping for change.

I trust you made your vote and participated in our election process. 

I hope you had an enjoyable process to cast your vote. I trust you made your vote and participated in our election process. Doing the volunteer process did allow me to understand those calls and texts I had been receiving leading up to when I started volunteering. Now, I try to answer or respond to texts when those come through because I can now relate with what they are doing.

Chats via Twitter and My Experience

I have been using Twitter since April 2009 when I first created my account. In the early years, I did not use it too much.  I created the account simply to see what all the cool kids were using.  In the past few years, I have been using Twitter on a regular basis.  I enjoy Twitter much more than FaceBook and typically use Twitter to interact with others about an event whether that is a sporting, television, or other major event being discussed.  Mostly I have used Twitter to discuss Royals, Chiefs, Washburn, or KU.

Recently I had heard about #TwitterChat. This was new to me, so I wanted to find a #TwitterChat I could participate.  The first few I found were not so much "chats", but rather random people posting web sites to check on the topic.  I checked a few others finding the same thing of not a lot of discussion back-and-forth with the Twitter accounts, but simply people posting web sites to check on the topic.

I found a couple of web sites that listed Twitter Chats that had been compiled by various people.  Again, a few of these were helpful and a few were not.  I would find a topic I wanted to discuss and search for that hashtag finding no discussion at all was taking place on the particular topic.

I did find a Twitter Chat schedule that seems good and each of the times I have checked the schedule, there are actually chats occurring at the scheduled times.  The one I found is hosted on Google as a document.  It is simply called Twitter Chats 2.  By way of this chat schedule, I participated in my first #TwitterChat last Sunday.  It was a great time and I connected with others on the topic.

The chat I participated in was simply about blogging with a hashtag search of #blogchat.  It was exactly what I expected from a chat where a topic was posted by the moderator and people began responding, connecting, and interacting on the topic.  The topic of #blogchat meets every Sunday at 8 pm CST and I plan to take part in it again tonight.

My goal is to post on a regular basis here on my blog.  It was a inspiration to take part in the #blogchat and get ideas, motivation, and see what others were doing with their blogs.  Obviously having a blog, I want people to read and participate in said blog.

One interaction I had during the #blogchat last week was that I do not get a lot of comments, but I can see that people are accessing and reading the posts.  My thought on why I do not get a lot of comments was primarily because I post so inconsistently.  I believe if I start posting on a regular basis that will result in regular followers that will begin to post comments.

The #blogchat is very fast paced.  A lot of posts and it is recommended that you use a client that can separate those discussions in a easy manner.  I use Tweetbot for Mac and iOS that does this for me.  Many people use TweetDeck or HootSuite for this purpose.  I see fast paced discussions when following sporting events, but unlike those, I do not try to read or respond to every post like I did with the #blogchat discussion.

Until next time, have a great week!

Enjoying My First MOOC from Duke University

A MOOC was recommended to me by a fellow Washburn Leadership alum and since I had not taken a MOOC, I decided to try it out.  After all, the class was free, and it was about higher education.  The name of the class is "History and Future of (Mostly) Higher Education".  We are more than halfway done with the course, but I am finding it very interesting.  We only have two weeks left of the class.

So far, I have done fairly well on the quizzes.  Along with quizzes we also are to watch videos from the instructor Cathy N. Davidson and I have enjoyed watching the videos.  The videos are split up into smaller videos so you can watch at your leisure, on your mobile device, etc when you have time. The course is put on by Duke University and they have done a very nice job with the delivery and class content.

The other interesting piece of the class is peer assessments.  For this assignment, which so far we have had two, we are assigned the task of writing 500 words about a topic.  We write up our comments or views on that topic and then we evaluate up to five other authors from the class.  Essentially, we are giving a grade based on our review of their writing.  This is done by at least five people for every essay that is written.  The average of the peer assessments is then used to assign the grade.  A interesting process to review the 1,000's of students taking the class where it would be impossible for a instructor to review all of the assignments.

The other important piece of this class is of course the discussions in the forums.  It took me a little bit to get into the forum posting on the site, but I have the hang of it now and I have been participating in the discussions.  The other area of interest is discussion outside of the course.  Using the #FutureEd Twitter hash tag, I have been discussing with others in the class about topics from the class.  For me, discussing using Twitter instead of the forums is easier as I am almost always on Twitter or have it close by most of the time.  I created a saved search for #FutureEd so I can jump into any discussion.

This course while being done through Duke University is presented on Coursera web site.  I have already started reviewing the Coursera site to find additional classes that I can take after this one is finished.

If you are interested in taking this class, watch their web site (https://www.coursera.org/course/highered) for future classes.

Wednesday Night Woes for Kansas... Huge Win for Kansas State!

What a game! Well, at least for Kansas State it was a hell of a game. They did exactly what they need to do in order to take care of business and put away the 20-0 Kansas Jayhawks. Beasley and Walker did what they need to do with not getting into foul trouble and finished off KU for the first time at home in 24 straight at home in Manhattan. Michael Beasley got one part right with stating:

"We're going to beat Kansas at home! We're going to beat them in their house! We're going to beat them in Africa!"

Well, at least the first right so far. It is too early to tell about the second part. Bill Walker simply stated straight and to the point that

I'll predict it.

I'm not scared to say it.

I'm a man. I can live up to my words.

I'm saying we'll beat'em both places.

Well, so far they have lived up to those statements in the first game located in Manhattan. Beasley and Walker combined for 47 points.

The Jayhawks never got into sync in this game and K-State was definitely pumped up for this game. I certainly thought they would be and had a discussion with KSU fans at work about this game. For some reason the KSU fans I spoke to did not think that this was a big game for KSU. Well, tell that to the fans in Manhattan that stormed the court and reacted like they had just won the national championship. When I told the KSU fans that I thought it was the best chance to beat the Jayhawks they came back with the fact that KSU beat KU two years ago. They thought that Walker and Beasley would both be in foul trouble and it would be a lose. Wrong! Beasley did not get his first foul until well into the second half. K-State put on a game all the way around. The only spot that did not shine for KSU was their foul shooting.

Kansas State moves to 5 - 0 while Kansas goes to 5 - 1 in the Big Twelve. It is going to be a lot of fun in February and lets not forget March or the first part of April. Geez, before we know it we are going to be in the midst of March Madness and the Final Four will be here.

Good game tonight Cats! We will see you again in Lawrence on March 1 at 8 pm.

Big Wednesday!

You have heard of Big Monday, what we have coming up Wednesday will be Big Wednesday when in-state rivals Kansas State University faces #2 Kansas in Manhattan. The game is going to be huge because of the talent that K-State possesses. On the other hand, Kansas is going to be tough because they are sitting at 20-0 on the season with only one other team (Memphis) being unbeaten this far.

Michael Beasley was a menace in his last game scoring high numbers in just a few minutes of play. Will he be able to help guide the Wildcats to a win over a power house coming into Manhattan? Time will of course only tell. We know that Kansas has gone on a winning streak over KSU for the past twenty plus years. We also know that it cannot last forever. I for one do not want it to end this year against KSU with Michael Beasley or Walker. So time will tell.

Lets go Hawks!