Random News and Notes
-My Braves finally got eliminated from playoff contention last night thanks to Philly. What really sucks is that they made a charge late, but it wasn’t enough as the losses in June and July came back to haunt them. Whoever said games in April and May don’t count was wrong. They need a good quality pitcher in the third slot in the rotation as musical rotation to help out Smoltzy and Huddy. Perhaps if Hampton comes back finally…I don’t know. I do know that we need to give Texiera whatever he wants because that guy is a stud.
-It’s about a month to the one of the two days that defines my identity. Pheasant season opens in a month and I’m starting to get the fever. I haven’t even had time to go out and scout yet and that sucks.
-I still hate WSU Comm 325. Seriously.
-Tonight is the homecoming game at my alma matter for high school football. I’m afraid that it won’t be a close game as I chatted up the opposition’s defensive line coach who just happens to be on my softball team. I asked him what he was bringing to the table and he looked at me with a helpless look and said “Not much.”
-Yesterday I was in the grocery store when this guy asks me out of the blue, “Do you go to Wichita State?” Now, I just happened to be standing there in a WSU tshirt and a WSU hat. “Yeah, I do,” I replied. He then said “So that’s what a Shocker looks like.” I grimaced and said sarcastically, “Yep, that’s our mascot.” He then said “Well it’s not as bad as the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers Big Red Blob. Is it electric around campus?” Without missing a beat I said “Not as much, but we get a charge out of being there.” With that, I picked up my groceries and walked out the door.
-I still hate Comm 325. Really.
-My Cowboys look good and my Huskers can’t tackle.
Rant
Rant:
I seriously despise this Class. Since WSU decided to lump all communications majors together, including us print journalism people, we have certain courses we have to take. Fine, I understand that goes with the territory, but must we have classes that have no bearing on our major? I’m currently enrolled in Comm. 325 Speaking in Business and the Professions. Yeah, read that again.
Business. I’m not a business major. I’m a journalism major. I will write sports for a living (hopefully) and sports related columns. Why I have to take a freaking course about speaking is beyond me? Oh did I mention I already have a public speaking course that transferred?
If I’m going to speak, I want it to be creative. I’m not going to be leading gigantic proposals about some hostile take over. I’m not going to be negotiating major meetings summits. We just got done reading this book called “Getting to Yes” about the art of negotiating. How this relates to journalism is way, way, WAY beyond me. I’m going to talk to people. I can interview people. I can ask questions. I don’t have to negotiate when the other side plays dirty tricks.
Today I almost committed murders. I wanted to jump over the girl sitting in front of me with a horrendous yell and jam my pen into the red-headed kid’s head. From there I was going to dive roll and jump kick the instructor. The reasons being, the red-headed kid asks the same question that someone else just asked. It’s within seconds of the original question. DUDE, clean the earwax out of your ear and pay attention. Not only that, but the questions that were being asked, were all answerable if the people would have looked at the freaking book!
The instructor is an older lady who is set in her ways about how this class should work. Every little detail has to be down to her specifications rather than any creativity. I feel as if we’re pouring what little info we have into her form and canning the speech. There’s no room for any creativity, and guess what, I’m going to remember a creative, fun speaker rather than a dull one whose speech seems canned.
I hate that class. And don’t even get me started on the science.
/Rant
Ummmmm?
Ok, I don’t like it. We’re officially two days into fall and up until today it was mid 80’s. Fine, if you’re in Texas/Florida/Deep south, but not so good here in Sunflower land. It’s almost time for the trees to start turning, yes, we do have trees in Kansas. Today felt better as it’s only 67. I’m torn because I’ve got a ballgame tonight, but my stud cousin plays her arch rival in volleyball. Oh well, that’s how it goes.
On other notes, still no one can drive in Kansas, WSU still sucks goat nuts, and I seem to always be stuck with an annoying person in one class. Seems like life is just SSDD.
Ok, I’m going to go see if I can keep going 0-4.
Why not to have a wedding
WARNING: LONG POST
Well, what can I say? This weekend must have been a “blessing in disguise” because I learned what not to do at a wedding. Seriously. I made the prediction this wedding would be like a circus train wreck with dead clowns and monkeys scattered everywhere. So brutal but you just couldn’t pull your eyes away. According to various people, I was close in my description.
My spidey-sense must have been malfunctioning when I got the original invite to the wedding addressed to me. I should have seen impending disaster but my senses were clouded. I laughed because I honestly thought the bride gave it her best shot at spelling my last name. Really, the groom (Josh) can correct her since he’s known me for 9 years now? Surely that would happen.
Boy, was I wrong.
I received a letter including the details of where the rehearsal dinner was being held, the time, the dress, then the timeframe for ushers (my job) to arrive on the day of the wedding. Unfortunately, the letter was addressed to Russ Wichert. Naturally, I’m a bit of a smartass (hush eva) so I called Josh and he answered. The way I chose to greet him was by spelling my last name for him. Granted I was joking, but I realized that the programs were already printed and I was going to be immortalized by horrible spelling.
In the program, it wasn’t even close. What killed me was that I had just emailed Josh about a month ago. Honestly, I like being listed as Rusty in stuff like that, just because it looks more official or something. In fact, during the wedding, Timmy’s parents looked and said “Um, that’s not how you spell Rus’s name.” So did Timmy’s wife. Of course I was a student of hers too.
We ran through things at the rehearsal THREE times. Not once, not twice, but THREE times. Then we watched the same slide show...twice. I didn’t know if it was because we might have missed something or not, I’m not sure. Finally, we got to the food, which I had been concerned about thanks to my garlic allergy, but it was sub sandwiches and life was good.
As we’re eating, the wedding coordinator who had a stick up her butt came up and told us, we had to be at the church at 2. Our letters said 3. I asked her about the time change and she said something about pictures. Fine, whatever, I’ll be here. I’m ushing. Ushing is not hard. I know, I’ve done it before. During the dinner, we made the plans for our little customary Patron shot. I was the hero because I had Patron at my disposal. (During Tim’s I had three of them…damn peer pressure) After dinner it was off to Old Chicago for 2.75 pints of Blue Moon. After spending most of the evening laughing, I rolled home and slept with the intention of facing this wedding.
The day of the wedding arrived and I dressed myself, including wearing a shiny earring, in all the brand new clothes I bought for this because black jeans and black boots wouldn’t work. Damn them. White shirt, deep red/black tie, black slacks and black shoes.
There were six ushers. Why six, I’m still not sure, but there were six of us. However, two of them, didn’t ush, all they did was carry gifts back to a car. Never once did they take anyone down the aisles. There was no bride or groom side, so we just seated people as they came. I escorted the oldest great grandma down the aisle as part of the processional. Poor old bird couldn’t walk, and couldn’t hear. But that’s just part of the job when you usher. No problem.
I stepped out to see how things were going and to see if I needed to help with anything else, because I’m nice like that. There was the bride, barely holding it together. Her eyes looked like fountains and I wasn’t sure if I needed to go find a paper bag for her to breathe into. She was right on the verge of breaking down and I thought she someone needed to slap her. (Had I known how the rest of the night was going to turn out, I would have gladly volunteered!) Somehow she pulled it together and got down to her man. Now, the wedding was short and sweet which was good. The party came out and the wedding coordinator and her stick said that we had to go get the mothers. ( By the way, the Wedding Co wore jeans and a sweater to the wedding. GAH!) Um, when was she planning to tell us ushers that? So we go get the mothers of the bride and groom. Then we dismissed them row by row as we were supposed to kill time.
We made our way to the reception place pretty quickly after the wedding. I’ve been to several weddings and I was under the impression that the ushers were actually part of the wedding party. There was a table for the wedding party, but then some family reserved tables and I thought we would be included since there were six of us. Again, I was wrong. I didn’t know the root of the word for usher is actually Latin for pond scum. I found a table with my friends that were ushers, Tim’s parents, and wife and another couple we know.
Before we were seated, Timmy, the Cuban and I were talking with the DJ. We tried to convince him to introduce them as Mr. and Mrs. Bride’s last name, in a joke as to how whipped Josh is. The DJ actually said “I can’t do that, I’d get in a lot of trouble.” I said I would do it and again he refused. At that point, my head was beginning to throb, so I looked at him and said “You’ve got no nuts dude.” He didn’t know what to say and I stomped off to find a beer.
The beer, another topic of discussion. I’d guess there were probably 200-250 people at the reception. Josh in his infinite wisdom had only purchased two kegs. TWO! Timmy had 300 people and there were 7 kegs, all of which were disposed. I saw the writing on the wall, that people weren’t going to be happy. I was right.
Now, back to the seating for the dinner. The nutless DJ introduced the wedding party as they came in, but it must have been his first time on the mic as no one could understand what he was saying because his levels were all jacked up. By now, my headache was starting to worsen. So, once the wedding party was in and seated, they jumped up and went to eat. The DJ then said they would dismiss by the song played that corresponded with a song on the table. Ok, fine. But when you couldn’t understand the lyrics of the song, not a good idea. People were getting hungry and in fact, my table jumped up to get food. There were three tables where no one was sitting, which I’m pretty sure had their song played before ours. I played watchdog and watched the purses. And that cost me. I got up to the food. The original spread was, plates/napkins, fruit, salad, relish tray, tortilla chips, artichoke dip/marinara sauce, chicken strips, chicken wings, pepperoni rolls and calzones.
By the time I got up there, they were out of chicken strips and calzones. The pepperoni rolls were the last of the batch, and probably should have been taken out of the herd. I’d guess there were 25 people who didn’t get a chance to eat the full spread. That’s bullshit! Throw in the fact, the first keg was empty and we were a good 1/3 into the second and this night was going south. Seriously, how can you not have enough food for one trip through? Wow. That’s all I could think…Wow.
Floating around through all of this were photographers. I have no problem with photographers, but I really have a problem with the MTV videographers videoing everything. EVERYTHING. The guy even came into video our Patron shot. Not only that, but it seemed they had a 500,000 candle power light on top of the camera. Honestly, videoing the ceremony not a problem, videoing the toasts, cool! But when you video the picture taking, you’re stepping over the line. When you’re videoing the dollar dance, you need to be slapped. Speaking of pictures..ask me how many pictures I was in since I had to be there at 2? Oh, ZERO! Yeah, NONE. Zip, zilch, nada, nil. I was standing with my friends and by now it felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of my sockets.
I couldn’t take it anymore as my friends started bailing to go to OC again. My head hurt too much so I passed. And my head hurt so much, I got direction turned so bad that I thought I was going west when I was going east, north when I was going south. The reception was in a part of Wichita that’s cut off by the river so it winds it’s way around.
Yes, I actually hurt so bad, I whimpered on the way home. Finally, I got home and was done with the debacle.
Why hello!
I guess I have been busy. Almost too busy to update, but because the composing process sucks so bad on blogger now, I do not like having to write an entry in word, copy paste it into my stupid blog and then go through and change all the punctuation so it doesn’t come up with stupid HTML symbols.
I have even tried to figure out why it takes so damn long and people keep saying it is my OS. Uh, hello? I'm running XP. It's not my OS. It's your stupid site.
Other than that, things are good. Busy as heck, but I like it that way. School is swell, but very busy as my Comm 325 class is one that the prof said "if you have a job, this class might not be for you." Thanks WSU. Really. I mean that. It's required for graduation and I'm supposed to devote all of my free time to it? Oh, I don't think so.
I'm officially trying to phase myself out of the radio game for play by play duties. I'll still do the Hesston College stuff which is broadcast over the phone/internet. But I believe that being full time next semester will be just too much to try to travel all over for games and the like. I'm hoping by Jan 09, I'll be writing sports somewhere.
And now, we're getting close to kick off. GO BIG RED.
