Habits

       Hi Bloggers.  I had an amazing swim meet last Saturday.  I swam personal bests in all three events.  1:11:87 in my 100 yard breast stroke,  24.7 for my 50 yard freestyle, and 57.3 in my 100 freestyle.  I was very proud of myself.  I began to look at my routine for that morning because I hadn’t swum that well this year.  I learned that it is really important to keep your body hydrated and alert.
       I started the day buying two Gatorades and gummy candy.  I wanted to try something new.  I thought the candy would give me energy before the race.  The Gatorades fueled me up and hydrated me.  It is a great drink to have right before you perform.
       Most people don’t know (including me until now) that you are not supposed to drink it if you are not going to work out.  It gives your body an overload of sugar and electrolytes.  Your body doesn’t use the electrolytes and the sugar turns to fat.
       The gummy candy didn’t help that much.  It provided me with a little sugar, but the Gatorade had already done that job.  I considered it a wash.
       The second aspect to the great performance was the mental aspect.  I came into each and every race saying “I will win.”  While I didn’t win every race, I kicked the crap out of my old times and swam amazingly.
       If you are trying to find ways to improve on a sport or academics, make sure to try new things and something is bound to prevail.
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Spin

        Hi Bloggers! I thought I would start of the blogging week with a look on how manipulated elections are as well as the politicians.  Everything has bias in politics.  When bias is spoken, it is called spin.  Politics also uses card stacking to get their point of view across.  These tactics are used by politicians, political parties, and special interest groups to convey their message in attractive way.  Their goal is to get you to agree with them.  
        Spin is defined as a propaganda technique to sway or influence your opinion by manipulating the facts.  They often bring up a bunch of excuses or say something should get done but don’t do it.  Sometimes, they will try and redefine a simple word like “where is he” or “it is” or “relations” so they can manipulate what they or a candidate said. Here are some examples.

PRINCE CHARMING
You! You can't lie. So tell me
puppet... Where is Shrek?!
Pinocchio thinks.
PINOCCHIO
(nervous)
Well, I don't know where he's not.
Prince Charming gets in Pinocchio's face.
PRINCE CHARMING
You're telling me you don't know
where Shrek is?
Pinocchio is still a little nervous.
PINOCCHIO
It wouldn't be inaccurate to assume
that I couldn't exactly not say
that is or isn't almost partially
incorrect.
Pinocchio thinks he has the upper hand.
PRINCE CHARMING
So you do know where he is!
PINOCCHIO
On the contrary, I'm possibly more
or less, not definitely rejecting
the idea, that in no way, with any
amount of uncertainty that...
PRINCE CHARMING
Stop it.
PINOCCHIO (CONT'D)
...I undeniably do or do not know
where he shouldn't probably be.
END.

        You see that Pinocchio isn’t lying to Prince Charming.  He is manipulating the clause “where is Shrek.”  It is something that politicians use all the time to get out of trouble.  Probably the most famous of all is Bill Clinton.  He “mislead” the people of the United States by saying he didn’t have relations with that woman and he didn’t have sex with her.  What are relations? What is sex?  When he was caught with evidence, he squirmed his way out by taking a broad approach and telling the people to focus on the real issues.  By downplaying it and not directly apologizing for lying, he effectively used spin to avert a bigger crisis.  Sarah Palin did the same thing when she was caught saying Africa was a country.  She down played it and said she was taken out of context.  Instead of apologizing to the media about her mess up, she denied it and gave a “non apologizing, apology.”  Barack Obama is guilty! Yes, our current President said the famous “You didn’t build that!” sentence that shook the campaign.  Romney used that for a month, saying that Obama said businesses didn’t build themselves.  The government had built it for them.  It was taken out of context, but it swung a lot of votes because Mitt Romney effectively used spin to influence the voter.
         Card Stacking is the more familiar and more common way that politicians and interest groups get their messages across to people.  Card Stacking is defined as putting up all the positives of your idea or philosophy and mentioning all the negatives of the opposing idea or philosophy.  Basically, in a simplistic form, the Democrats will praise their ideologies and criticize the Republican Party.
Interest groups are the best at card stacking.  Pro Life Association puts up all of these facts and statistics for being pro-life and mentions all the negatives of having abortions.  This interest group gives subjective speeches and drives to make you believe abortions are wrong.  That’s their goal.  Practically every interest group works the same way.  One sided information to try and get you, the voter, to side with them.
         All media is bias.  All elections are bias.  When you are watching the news or listening to political debates, try really hard to listen for the bias and sort in your mind what is and what isn’t true.  You should have information from both sides before you make a judgment and a decision on the news or who you should vote for.   Just a thought for the 2016 elections.  

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Homemade vs. Store Bought Gifts

       What gifts are better: homemade or store bought?  This is the age old question of man during the holidays.  I am going to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of homemade and store bought gifts.

       Homemade gifts can be incredible.  They show personal and emotional connections that store bought gifts don’t.  They are thought of as taking more time and can be personalized.  These gifts are great for close family and the special someone because these gifts have a personal meaning.  If you give them to the wrong type of person however, they can come off as cheap and lazy.  Bosses, brothers, and sometimes, friends, can take a homemade gift as cheap an inconsiderate of what they want.  Fi they made it clear to you that they wanted a special store bought item, don’t go against their wish.

       Store bought gifts can be the best kind of gift.  The can show that you made an investment in their happiness.  These gifts, especially expensive gifts, show that you made the time and effort to buy them it.  Sons and daughters love these gifts as well as friends and distant relatives.  It is a  “I was thinking about you and I spent money on you” factor.  People like to be bought things, even if they don’t need them.  It was the thought of buying something for them that counts.  Everyone likes store bought gifts because they are usually better quality and cost more resources (money etc.).  Some Moms and Dads would rather have a homemade gift because they like the closeness of the gift. 

       Make sure you know what kind of gift to get people this holiday season to avoid their shit list.  It isn’t just the holiday of giving; it is the holiday of giving people what they want.

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Pralines

       Hi Bloggers! I have yet to do a Pod of Process Analysis, so I thought I would give it a try. I would like to show you how to make pralines, a southern treat.  They are a classic in the south and can be made in hundreds of different ways.  I will stick with the traditional method which consists of butter, white and brown sugar, milk, and pecans. 

        First mix a cup of white sugar and a cup of brown sugar together in a bowl.  Melt ¾ a cup of butter into a pot on low heat.  Add in ½ cup milk and stir until it is hot.  Take this time to grab a ½ cup (or more if you would like) of pecans and dice them.   Put them in a bowl and place it near the stove.  Return the stove and add the mixed sugar to the pot.  Make sure that none of the sugar hits the side of the pot.  If it does, the sugar will harden and taste bad.  Slowly mix the sugar in the pot until you have a homogenous liquid.  Increase the heat to high and add your pecans.  When the mixture starts bubbling, stop stirring, and boil for three minutes.   Take a wooden spoon and stir the mixture.  If you hear a crackle sound as you scrape the edges of the pot, you know the sugar has crystalized and it is ready to place. 

        Quickly turn off the heat and set up wax paper sheets.  Create the choice size you want and quickly place them down.  You don’t want the pralines to cool in the pot.  You must place them quickly.  Once placed, wait ten minutes to cool and enjoy.   I hope you fill your bellies with this incredible, rich dessert.

 

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BCS Bowl Selection

       Hi Bloggers!  I usually exclusively cover Iowa football, but the bowl system has pissed me off so much that I feel people need to know.  I have two major problems with the bowl system.  First, there is too much fighting over money to conferences and “saved” BCS spots.  Secondly, the non-automatic qualifying teams get too many undeserved BCS spots.  It really impacts the game.  Instead of bowl games people want to see, the BCS is creating games based on money.
Usually I don’t mind giving automatic bids to the winners of the big conferences.  One of them usually does very well and deserves to be a BCS bowl game.  However, sometimes a conference champion doesn’t deserve to be in a BCS bowl because their competition was weak and they had less than 9 wins.  This year, the perfect example is Wisconsin and Louisville.  Wisconsin for starters lost five games in a mediocre Big Ten.  They barely deserve the Outback Bowl.  I mean common.  You lose to a bad Michigan State team and then can’t post a single big win game until the championship.  There should be a rule that the conference can lose its guaranteed bid if the winner has less than 9 wins.
Louisville upsets me more than Wisconsin.  Wisconsin actually had to verse good teams every week.  Louisville didn’t play anyone hard and they still lose two games.  The Big East is the biggest joke of a conference and still gets an automatic bid.  They lost to a bad Syracuse team and Connecticut.  That conference doesn’t deserve a bid because everyone in the conference is mediocre.  They rank below the MAC, WAC, and all the other small conferences.  If Louisville goes to the BCS this year, you might as well throw in Iowa.  This conference has no good teams left and should be stripped of its automatic BCS status.  Leave the automatics for the SEC, Big Ten, Big Twelve, and PAC Twelve.  They (for the most part) deserve them.
There is an undeserved non-automatic qualifying team this year.  They finished outside the top 14 and still made it into the BCS.  I am talking about NIU, the same NIU that lost to the 4-8 Hawkeyes.  This is so stupid!  NIU does have an awesome QB, but they haven’t recorded any big wins and have a horrendous loss.  If you are not in an A.Q. conference, you need to be spotless.  NIU was not.  Close wins and a loss to Iowa is way to spotty to give them a BCS bid, especially when you consider the teams left out.  Those teams include Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, South Carolina, LSU, and Clemson.  These are all teams that deserve a BCS spots.  They all have big wins, the biggest of which was when the 10-2 Aggies beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  How do you give an 8-5 Wisconsin team, a 10-2 Louisville team, or a NIU team a BCS bid when the Aggies have a 10-2 record with a much harder schedule?  The answer is simple.  MONEY!  That is it!  We could see the good games we all want to see, but that would give too much money to the Big Twelve and SEC (for this year).  The conferences are all about the money and they will do anything they can to protect it.  This is why we have an 8-5 Wisconsin team playing the Rose Bowl.
I am so happy that we are moving away from this BCS system but I fear the four team playoff will not be better.  With ten deserving teams a year, conference champions will get first dibs and maybe the occasional non-AQ team.  The fifth team will always complain, and they have a right to.  Should Florida be denied a playoff spot because they didn’t win the SEC?  I don’t think this system will iron out until we have a ten team playoff.  That will never happen because it takes too much away from college education.  We are stuck in a subjective picks for the playoffs and bowl games base on money.  At least the NFL has it right.

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The Offense

       The offense. Oh god.  Someone give me the play calls.  We had a QB who threw for 25 TD’s his junior year.  We have multiple running backs and a decent offensive line.  Receivers struggled some, but they aren’t the reasons Iowa finished 102nd in passing.  Iowa also finished 105th in rushing yards per game.  The blame goes to one man named Greg Davis.  There hasn’t been an Iowa offense this bad in 12 years when Iowa went 2-10.  He had a senior QB and a lot of talent.  He chose to run 2-3 yard plays and call the most predictable calls.  I could tell 99 percent of the time whether it was going to be a pass or a run.  You can’t win games if a fan can call your plays.  Besides one pass, he didn’t throw over 25 yards.  If you run those short routes all season, the defense will not play deep.  They will inch up and intercept him.  James Vandenberg was a good quarterback with an awful coach.
Worst news of the season is that in a recent press conference, Ferentz said he was going to keep Davis and that he is more confident with him now than when he hired him.  Really, worst offensive production in your career and you like him?  It was infuriating to see Ferentz back up Davis.  Nobody is going to buy season tickets next year because Iowa will suck.  Until Ferentz and Davis leave, this program is doomed.  Maybe if we are lucky, we can get to the Alamo Bowl next year. Wooo.

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The Defense

       The Hawks went 4-8 this season.  Wow. There hasn’t been a season like this sense Ferentz’s first year taking over.  We lost to Central Michigan, Indiana, Purdue, Michigan, Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa State, and Penn St.  Not to mention, losing our last six games.  This season was pathetic.  My prediction before the Penn St. game was 7-5; Boy was I wrong.  Let’s rewind to see where we shot ourselves. This post will be about the defense.  Later today, I will post one on the offense.
The defense was the only highlight of the Hawkeye season, if there was a highlight.  They averaged 35 minutes per game of playing time.  If your defense is out there more than you offense, that is a big problem.  They finished 34th in the country.  They only allowed 22.4 points per game.  That isn’t great by Iowa and Big Ten standards, but still.  Corner back Micah Hyde and linebacker James Morris lead the defense.  Their big plays kept Iowa in a lot of the ball games.  The only bad performances were Penn St.  and Michigan.  I commend the defense for being put in crappy situations and making the plays.  Tip of the hat to the defense.

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