Picking a College

In the recruiting process, I'm always trying to ask myself, "Why should someone come to my college?" Everyone has a different motivation, and that's what I need to tap into. Some come for a specific major, a certain type of school, a sport, reputation, rankings, family influence, a nice fitness center, financial aid, scholarships, proximity to home...lots of different reasons.

So let's hear it. Leave a comment to this post telling me what school you attended and why you chose it. This could be interesting.

Blast from the Past

1999 Medina Invitational Tournament on WVIZ
Andy Vogel, CVCA vs. Ryan Horner, Canton South

New Video

This video is also posted at Strider Wrestling. This, along with the rest of my videos can be found on my YouTube page.

New Link

So, what happens when you have three kids, but you just dropped the last one off at college? Apparently, you start a blog. That's what my mom did anyhow. Link included in the sidebar.

Red Sox Obituary from ESPN.com

Wheaton Wrestling has a MySpace page

And....here it is.

A very small house

A picture, plus some things that bug me

Without delay, things that bug me right now

1. Rising interest rates
2. People who put songs on their MySpace pages
3. Creamy peanut butter
4. The saying, "I could care less"
5. People who give their kids goofy names
6. College kids who give/get $5,000 engagement rings (sorry, Vikki's sister, it's true)
7. Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, John Kruk, and Joe Morgan
8. New Jersey
9. Professional golf
10. Tofu
11. "Reality" television
12. Watching pitchers try to hit
13. SUVs
14. Library borrowing restrictions on Playstation 2 games
15. Your favorite American Idol contestant (it doesn't matter who it is)
16. Real estate prices in Chicagoland (non-scary neighborhoods division)
17. Lyndon LaRouche
18. Fresno State University
19. Mushrooms
20. Traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway

Pictures from the visit of Steve

My brother Steve came to visit this week, and we took pictures of our trip downtown and our trip to the Brookfield Zoo. See them all HERE. By the way, the rabbits in the pictures are not at the zoo, they're just running wild in a park near the lakeshore.

Shirts and Books

The books are flying off the shelf over at half.com. Two more sold today, so click on the right to see the selection

Also, Strider Wrestling will be selling t-shirts soon. I'll have more info on the webpage soon, but if you want to get a head start, contact me. They will cost $10, and you can see the two available designs HERE.

Flowers

I bought Janet some flowers back on August 2nd. That was our 3rd anniversary, which seems like a long time to be married, but I bet three won't seem so big in 20 years. Anyhow, the flowers:

You're Cut

Sorry How Does Your Garden Grow. You haven't posted since May, so you will no longer get a link from me.

From the Archives

I scanned some old wrestling pictures today, find them HERE.

Pictures of the Cat

In case you want to know what people without kids take pictures of, click here.

A Photomosaic

You wish you were cool enough to make one of these. Click on it to make it huge.

Books for Sale

We're unloading some books we have no more need of. You can find them on Half.com on my page.

I got nothin'

Attention TV personalities: we understand and believe that it's hot in New York City. By the way, there are other places in this great land of ours. Get out and see them some time. I hear the Northeast Kingdom is nice (bonus points if you have any idea what or where that is).

Recruiting would be a lot easier if Wheaton would either give some academic scholarships or use that estimated $300 million endowment to lower tuition. I hear they're saving it for Y2K.

Does anyone else find the new Jeep Compass Commercial really annoying? Is that an actual song or did they write it specifically for the commercial? I'm still trying to decide which would be worse. (update: it's a real song by KRS-One called "Steady Bounce.")

You're not going to believe this, but Janet finished her paper and sent it off to her professor for revision. It's 15,000 words and is 53 double spaced pages long. That's 53 glorious pages about the domestic science movement at the turn of the 20th century. I read the whole thing. Just remember, in the words of Sarah Tyson Rorer, "Life is too short to spend it digesting pork."

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but I don't get those Apple commercials where the guy who played Warren on Ed is the Mac and that other guy is the PC. Is the fact that the Mac acts like a jerk in all of them supposed to make me want to run out and buy one?

I was inducted into the CVCA Athletic Hall of Fame this year. The ceremony is October 6th, and I'm trying to work a recruiting trip into things so I can justify the trip back. (CVCA wrestling partial recordbook here)

If you're going to drive your 80's diesel Mercedes that sounds like a semi at 7am, could you at least not honk the horn on your way out of the parking lot? Thanks.

After the Abreu trade, I feel sorry for any Phillies fans out there. They traded their best player for some spare parts minor leaguers for no better reason than that they wanted to get rid of him. Why? Who knows? Of course, cheering for the Phils is better than being on the other side of the Keystone State and cheering for the Pirates, who are almost Cub-like in their cluelessness.

In the 'I told you so' department: Target has announced they will not build that store in Chicago's South Side after all after the city council passed a law requiring big box stores to pay a minimum of $9.25 per hour to workers by 2007 and phasing up to $10 by 2010, with benefits of at least $1.50 per hour (phasing up to $3). Look for more big box stores just a bit outside of the city from now on.

All for now.