I just watched the wildest MMA event I've ever seen live. Under normal circumstances, if all but one fight went to a decision and no preliminary bouts were broadcast, I would be inclined to complain or even feel a bit cheated. Tonight's action, however, was certainly not an example of normal circumstances.
*Both of the fights I was looking forward to watching most were every bit as good as I had hoped they would be.
*The other 3 televised fights exceeded my expectations.
*The final 2 fights of the night were tremendous upsets that turned the highly competitive Light Heavyweight Division on it freakin' head:
1) Forrest Griffin chokes out Shogun just before the final bell! Shogun looked completely fatigued after just 5 minutes of action. His lack of cardio may be the main reason he has now plummetted from his previous ranking of #1 in the world at 205 pounds.
2) Keith Jardine wins a Split Decision over former LHW champion Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell. Jardine clearly won the last two rounds, even buckling Chuck's knees with a stiff shot to the jaw in the 2nd. The gameplan his team devised was brilliant. Chuck has now lost 2 fights in a row for the first time ever in his illustrious career. It was also announced at the opening of the program that, if Chuck were to win, then he would fight Wanderlei Silva in December. Jardine's defeat of the Iceman almost certainly means that the long awaited Silva-Liddell showdown has been foiled yet again.
*Jon Fitch won a true split decision over Diego Sanchez. I thought Fitch undoubtedly won the 2nd Round and Diego the 3rd. But the 1st was one of the most tightly contested rounds I've ever witnessed. Fitch's gotta be ranked in the Top 5 at 170 now.
This event can't come out on DVD fast enough in my opinion. And to think, it was completely devoid of title fights.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
...to Prove to Dad that I'm Not a Fool
In my last post, I shared the more interesting details about my move to Denver, my new apartment, and my efforts to furnish the place.
Since that bit of reflection, I've completed my first week of classes and things are going fairly smooth thus far. Now that I'm in a Ph.D. program and on the quarter system for the first time, I'm still adjusting to the fact that 9 credit hours per term is considered full-time enrollment. Most courses are worth 4 or 5 credit hours so I am taking only two classes this quarter. One was determined for me coming into the program.
There's a course entitled "Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion" that all new students must take. Interestingly, the class syllabus does not include a final exam or a term paper. My grade will be determined by how I perform on 4 3-page reading response papers and 30-minute presentation on a classic book in the field.
By contrast, the other class I'm taking (a philosophy course on Nietzsche) is backloaded to the point that 80% of my grad will be determined in the final week of the term when both a term paper and a take-home final must be handed in. The mix of the students in this class is quite unique. First of all, it has an astonishing number of people in it given the subject matter- easily 20 or more. And, second, the class is made up of undergraduates, masters students, and one Ph.D. student (me). The other 20% of the course grade is earned by weekly participation in a reading group that meets outside of class one hour each week. My group consists of myself and two college sophomores. We had our first meeting today and it felt like I was the leader of the world's smallest colloquy.
Both of the classes I'm in convene only once a week so I spend the great majority of my time outside of the classroom. I've already made a friend in the program named R.J. and we work out together in the morning on MWF. When I'm not in class, lifting weights, or shopping for groceries, I'm either reading, surfing the web, or watching a DVD. This past weekend I did little more than study and watch all three Lord of the Rings films in their extended cuts. It was actually an enjoyable weekend despite the relative solitude. I don't spend much more time alone during the week than I was over the summer in Indy, but this was the first weekend I realized how much I've been keeping to myself since arriving in Denver. From what I can tell, Iliff doesn't have the active Back-to-School social scene that Candler had.
I cook for myself about three nights a week. Now that I'm selecting all my own food and footing the bill for it, I'm eating a bit better and a fair bit less than I had been over the past year. Now that I'm also getting back into a workout routine, I'm already feeling lighter even though I can't say for a fact I've lost any weight. And I must say that I enjoy having an apartment to myself for the first time in my life. Having a good roommate is a rewarding experience (and I've had several very good ones) but living alone has some undeniable benefits. My reading is never disturbed no matter what time of day I chose to do it, the apartment doesn't get any messier than I allow it to get, and I comfortably spend the first hour of nearly each day in my boxers. A mixed blessing is that I talk to myself a lot more (I say "mixed" because I find myself to be quite entertaining which is likely a dual symptom of inner gladness and madness). And the major downside of not living with someone else is that I know roommates are often responsible for far more pleasant surprises than they are unwelcome ones.
There are only few things left to be done before I can say I've fully settled in to my life in Denver. The most notable one being that my student loans are still pending. It could be as long as three more weeks before any loan money comes my way, so I'll be spending a fair bit of time this week begging various authoritative persons not to charge me late fees when I'm unable to pay my bills on time due to circumstances beyond my control. My various new masters all seem quite benevolent so I should be able to escape this frustrating situation unscathed. The second unresolved matter is that I still plan to by a sofa/loveseat. However, I'll need some loan money to supplement my present funds before I can afford to make such a sizeable purchase. Other than loans and couch, I've pretty much got my life arranged in manner I'm comfortable with.
Well, friends, I'm quite tired now and the little clock display on my laptop is informing me that its only five minutes until my self-appointed bedtime (not that there's been anyone else who had the authority to mandate my bedtime over the last seven years). I promise to proofread this post, as well as its immediate predecessor, in the very near future.
Since that bit of reflection, I've completed my first week of classes and things are going fairly smooth thus far. Now that I'm in a Ph.D. program and on the quarter system for the first time, I'm still adjusting to the fact that 9 credit hours per term is considered full-time enrollment. Most courses are worth 4 or 5 credit hours so I am taking only two classes this quarter. One was determined for me coming into the program.
There's a course entitled "Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion" that all new students must take. Interestingly, the class syllabus does not include a final exam or a term paper. My grade will be determined by how I perform on 4 3-page reading response papers and 30-minute presentation on a classic book in the field.
By contrast, the other class I'm taking (a philosophy course on Nietzsche) is backloaded to the point that 80% of my grad will be determined in the final week of the term when both a term paper and a take-home final must be handed in. The mix of the students in this class is quite unique. First of all, it has an astonishing number of people in it given the subject matter- easily 20 or more. And, second, the class is made up of undergraduates, masters students, and one Ph.D. student (me). The other 20% of the course grade is earned by weekly participation in a reading group that meets outside of class one hour each week. My group consists of myself and two college sophomores. We had our first meeting today and it felt like I was the leader of the world's smallest colloquy.
Both of the classes I'm in convene only once a week so I spend the great majority of my time outside of the classroom. I've already made a friend in the program named R.J. and we work out together in the morning on MWF. When I'm not in class, lifting weights, or shopping for groceries, I'm either reading, surfing the web, or watching a DVD. This past weekend I did little more than study and watch all three Lord of the Rings films in their extended cuts. It was actually an enjoyable weekend despite the relative solitude. I don't spend much more time alone during the week than I was over the summer in Indy, but this was the first weekend I realized how much I've been keeping to myself since arriving in Denver. From what I can tell, Iliff doesn't have the active Back-to-School social scene that Candler had.
I cook for myself about three nights a week. Now that I'm selecting all my own food and footing the bill for it, I'm eating a bit better and a fair bit less than I had been over the past year. Now that I'm also getting back into a workout routine, I'm already feeling lighter even though I can't say for a fact I've lost any weight. And I must say that I enjoy having an apartment to myself for the first time in my life. Having a good roommate is a rewarding experience (and I've had several very good ones) but living alone has some undeniable benefits. My reading is never disturbed no matter what time of day I chose to do it, the apartment doesn't get any messier than I allow it to get, and I comfortably spend the first hour of nearly each day in my boxers. A mixed blessing is that I talk to myself a lot more (I say "mixed" because I find myself to be quite entertaining which is likely a dual symptom of inner gladness and madness). And the major downside of not living with someone else is that I know roommates are often responsible for far more pleasant surprises than they are unwelcome ones.
There are only few things left to be done before I can say I've fully settled in to my life in Denver. The most notable one being that my student loans are still pending. It could be as long as three more weeks before any loan money comes my way, so I'll be spending a fair bit of time this week begging various authoritative persons not to charge me late fees when I'm unable to pay my bills on time due to circumstances beyond my control. My various new masters all seem quite benevolent so I should be able to escape this frustrating situation unscathed. The second unresolved matter is that I still plan to by a sofa/loveseat. However, I'll need some loan money to supplement my present funds before I can afford to make such a sizeable purchase. Other than loans and couch, I've pretty much got my life arranged in manner I'm comfortable with.
Well, friends, I'm quite tired now and the little clock display on my laptop is informing me that its only five minutes until my self-appointed bedtime (not that there's been anyone else who had the authority to mandate my bedtime over the last seven years). I promise to proofread this post, as well as its immediate predecessor, in the very near future.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
The Land of a Different Horse
When the clock rolls around to about 2:30 PM Mountain Time, I will have been a resident of the city of Denver, CO for one whole week. My journey here was not terribly difficult but not especially easy either. A brief compromise of my immune system saw to that. As you may recall from a previous post, the moving option I chose to go with was the "stuffing my car with as many boxes as bags as possible and then driving 1100 miles in two days" strategy.
And that's precisely what I did. During the afternoon and evening of Thursday, August 30th, I packed my 4-Door Honda Accord as full as I could without creating new blindspots for myself. My plan was to drive 10 hours to Salina, Kansas, where I had already made a hotel reservation through Priceline.com, and put another 6.5 hours of travels behind me the next day. Once I set this plan in motion, I was bound to it. To my knowledge, Priceline reservations cannot be canceled without forfeiting the hotel fee (which is paid up front) and the woman who runs my new apartment building had a difficult time lining up someone to meet and check me in once I arrived in Denver since I was coming into town during a holiday weekend.
This fixedness proved daunting when, just 12 hours before I was set to depart from Indianapolis, my gastro-intestinal candle started burning at both end...if you catch my drift. I felt far less than stellar but I know I would have tremendous difficulties putting together a new travel plan if I missed the window I'd built for myself. So the morning of August 31st, Susan was kind enough to buy me some Gatorade and a two liter of Sprite and I lived on those fluids and a sleeve a Saltines for the duration of my trip to Salina. Soon thereafter my innards had righted themselves and, by the time I went to sleep in my Denver apartment for the first time, my belly was full with a Subway footlong.
My present apartment is apart of building owned and operated by the Iliff School of Theology. As such, I had mentally prepared myself to find a one-bedroom apartment very much like the ones I had seen in Candler's Turner Village. That comparison won't do much for those of you unfamiliar with the community I lived in during my first year in Atlanta, but it should be an effective image for those of you who know it. (Or "knew" it I should say. I've been told that Emory is tearing the place down.)
What I actually encountered was a considerable improvement on my expectations. My bedroom is bigger than the ones at TV my bathroom is a couple of shades nicer (though the shower head is equally pathetic) and I actually have a little hall way separating my bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the apartment. There's also a door where you can close the back half off from the noise of the front half should you have the cause and desire to do so. The kitchen area is larger than the one in two-bedroom TV apartment I occupied, and there's even a small dining area adjacent to it so I don't have to put a dining table in the living room. Speaking of the living room, it's not luxuriously large but it is amply sized for a one-bedroom apartment. In short I'm pleased with the place. I'm paying the most I ever have for rent ($620/month) but it's not much more than I was paying for my share of rent and utilities during my second year in Atlanta and I'm getting a lot of apartment for my dollar.
Another major component of my moving plan was that I would be buying all new furniture once I showed up. The cheapest moving truck/service option my research uncovered would still have cost me around $1150, and the only pieces of furniture I would have brought with me were a queen size bed, a dresser, a cheap bookcase, a few media racks, and an aging La-Z-boy. My gas costs would also have been higher because I would have been paying to fuel a much larger vehicle with my own car in tow.
Well, I was thrilled to find a number of major pieces of furniture already present in an apartment I was informed would be entirely unfurnished. The bedroom came with a full size bed, a dresser and a small bookcase. The dining area has a small, square table complete with three chairs, while the living room came equipped with a couple of lamps and a decent recliner. There was already a curtain in place in the shower, and I found a microwave and coffee maker in the kitchen. I am planning keep nearly all these items around, thus my pleasant suprise has saved me at least $700-$800 of the money I had been planning to spend on new stuff.
My full-time job once I officially occupied the place was to buy the furniture, appliances, and other goods I still needed to purchase and find a proper place to put everything. Over the course of 5 days, I made three trips to Target, three to Bed, Bath & Beyond, one to Bestbuy, one to Wal-Mart, one to a regional grocery chain (Safeway), and one fruitless trip to Big!Lots. Just over $1000 later, I have:
*a fairly plush reading chair complete with Ottoman
*a glass-top computer desk
*a TV stand
*four end tables (two of which are serving as speaker stands)
*another cheap bookcase
*a four-piece lamp set
*three media racks (one will remain unbuilt until I bring the rest of my Video/DVD collection to Denver after Christmas break)
*a high-quality toaster, and
*a George Foreman grill. It's a Super Champ.
Of course there have been other domestic expense like food, trash cans, an ironing board, and the extra comfy mattress pad and pillows I got for my otherwise stiff bed. All in all, I've taken advantage of many a Labor Day and Back to School Sale and purchased some quality furniture cheaply (e.g. getting a hundred dollar desk for fifty bucks). And out of all the money I've spent this past week, I would have had to spend at least $450 of that even if I had used a moving truck or service. The only three thing left on my "To Buy" list are a desk chair, a coffee table, and- what will be the biggest single expense of all -a loveseat or sofa. All of which are also items I would have needed to get even if I had rented a truck. At the end of the day, it looks as though I saved myself $700 in rental and gas costs by following my chosen plan of action. That'll cover an extra month's rent and cell phone bill with some mad money left over.
Well, I figure that's all the information you ever cared to know about my move, my apartment, and my settling process. I'll post another blog entry soon about how orientation went yesterday and the initial impressions I have about what life will be like as a Ph.D. student.
And that's precisely what I did. During the afternoon and evening of Thursday, August 30th, I packed my 4-Door Honda Accord as full as I could without creating new blindspots for myself. My plan was to drive 10 hours to Salina, Kansas, where I had already made a hotel reservation through Priceline.com, and put another 6.5 hours of travels behind me the next day. Once I set this plan in motion, I was bound to it. To my knowledge, Priceline reservations cannot be canceled without forfeiting the hotel fee (which is paid up front) and the woman who runs my new apartment building had a difficult time lining up someone to meet and check me in once I arrived in Denver since I was coming into town during a holiday weekend.
This fixedness proved daunting when, just 12 hours before I was set to depart from Indianapolis, my gastro-intestinal candle started burning at both end...if you catch my drift. I felt far less than stellar but I know I would have tremendous difficulties putting together a new travel plan if I missed the window I'd built for myself. So the morning of August 31st, Susan was kind enough to buy me some Gatorade and a two liter of Sprite and I lived on those fluids and a sleeve a Saltines for the duration of my trip to Salina. Soon thereafter my innards had righted themselves and, by the time I went to sleep in my Denver apartment for the first time, my belly was full with a Subway footlong.
My present apartment is apart of building owned and operated by the Iliff School of Theology. As such, I had mentally prepared myself to find a one-bedroom apartment very much like the ones I had seen in Candler's Turner Village. That comparison won't do much for those of you unfamiliar with the community I lived in during my first year in Atlanta, but it should be an effective image for those of you who know it. (Or "knew" it I should say. I've been told that Emory is tearing the place down.)
What I actually encountered was a considerable improvement on my expectations. My bedroom is bigger than the ones at TV my bathroom is a couple of shades nicer (though the shower head is equally pathetic) and I actually have a little hall way separating my bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the apartment. There's also a door where you can close the back half off from the noise of the front half should you have the cause and desire to do so. The kitchen area is larger than the one in two-bedroom TV apartment I occupied, and there's even a small dining area adjacent to it so I don't have to put a dining table in the living room. Speaking of the living room, it's not luxuriously large but it is amply sized for a one-bedroom apartment. In short I'm pleased with the place. I'm paying the most I ever have for rent ($620/month) but it's not much more than I was paying for my share of rent and utilities during my second year in Atlanta and I'm getting a lot of apartment for my dollar.
Another major component of my moving plan was that I would be buying all new furniture once I showed up. The cheapest moving truck/service option my research uncovered would still have cost me around $1150, and the only pieces of furniture I would have brought with me were a queen size bed, a dresser, a cheap bookcase, a few media racks, and an aging La-Z-boy. My gas costs would also have been higher because I would have been paying to fuel a much larger vehicle with my own car in tow.
Well, I was thrilled to find a number of major pieces of furniture already present in an apartment I was informed would be entirely unfurnished. The bedroom came with a full size bed, a dresser and a small bookcase. The dining area has a small, square table complete with three chairs, while the living room came equipped with a couple of lamps and a decent recliner. There was already a curtain in place in the shower, and I found a microwave and coffee maker in the kitchen. I am planning keep nearly all these items around, thus my pleasant suprise has saved me at least $700-$800 of the money I had been planning to spend on new stuff.
My full-time job once I officially occupied the place was to buy the furniture, appliances, and other goods I still needed to purchase and find a proper place to put everything. Over the course of 5 days, I made three trips to Target, three to Bed, Bath & Beyond, one to Bestbuy, one to Wal-Mart, one to a regional grocery chain (Safeway), and one fruitless trip to Big!Lots. Just over $1000 later, I have:
*a fairly plush reading chair complete with Ottoman
*a glass-top computer desk
*a TV stand
*four end tables (two of which are serving as speaker stands)
*another cheap bookcase
*a four-piece lamp set
*three media racks (one will remain unbuilt until I bring the rest of my Video/DVD collection to Denver after Christmas break)
*a high-quality toaster, and
*a George Foreman grill. It's a Super Champ.
Of course there have been other domestic expense like food, trash cans, an ironing board, and the extra comfy mattress pad and pillows I got for my otherwise stiff bed. All in all, I've taken advantage of many a Labor Day and Back to School Sale and purchased some quality furniture cheaply (e.g. getting a hundred dollar desk for fifty bucks). And out of all the money I've spent this past week, I would have had to spend at least $450 of that even if I had used a moving truck or service. The only three thing left on my "To Buy" list are a desk chair, a coffee table, and- what will be the biggest single expense of all -a loveseat or sofa. All of which are also items I would have needed to get even if I had rented a truck. At the end of the day, it looks as though I saved myself $700 in rental and gas costs by following my chosen plan of action. That'll cover an extra month's rent and cell phone bill with some mad money left over.
Well, I figure that's all the information you ever cared to know about my move, my apartment, and my settling process. I'll post another blog entry soon about how orientation went yesterday and the initial impressions I have about what life will be like as a Ph.D. student.
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