(Edited slightly from “My Dad” by an unknown author.)
This just really fit my Grandpa’s life perfectly. I just now got around to posting it.

He wore the sunshine in his famer’s tan,
Beneath his fingernails, he wore the soil of his land.
He wore his determination in the lines in his face,
Each day he worked hard at a steady pace.
He wore his pride well as he stood tall,
Because each day he gave it his all.
He wore his love for the open skies,
In an ongoing twinkly in his eyes.
He wore his happiness from within,
In his little jokes that always gave him a grin.

He worked hard daybreak to night,
And was rewarded with some wonderful sights.
The peaceful moments of the sun setting low,
With all its colors radiating their glow.
After the miracle of birth, a moment of pay,
The glory of watching a new baby lamb at play.

A time when a farmer’s expectations grow,
As the seeds of life were carefully sown.
The reward of looking across his land,
At his crops and sheep made him a rich man.
He didn’t take much time to travel the world and the sea,
But he possessed everything that a man could want to be.
Worldly possessions he may not have had,
But a rich man he was, and he was my Grandad.

Light pours over the land. As it breaks a constant earthly boundary, the Orb reveals all. At first it actually feels lower than your feet, a result of the land dropping away in all directions. Quickly she lifts high, though, and long-armed shadows stretch from every house and building, John Deere and Ford, mailbox and lonely tree, cow and wheat stalk. The world groans awake from north to south, from sloping lip to sloping lip. Cattle blink, horses stamp, stoplights stop blinking, and tired men stretch into their boots and eggs. Darkness seems to last but an instant in this country.

Work begins. The beasts need fed, and so do the yields. Roads must be built, drywall raised, products sold, and food prepared. No matter the task, all need completed soon. The Great Light assumes her position above it all as the shadows shorten. All dwelling beneath her know that her medicine is a pill to be taken with caution. She sheds light and life, but once her peak is reached, with her heat pushing down like a great kiln, the light is already half gone. Water jugs seem to be sapped by her scorching rays as man and beast flee from her whenever able. The very air burns.

Light strikes a lake. Physical bonds break and liquid becomes gas. Heat pulls water from ground and plants alike. The pattern as old as time begins to unfold its mysteries on the Colorado plains. The droplets gather in the sky and cool. Workers look up and beg each fluffy pillow to move their way, to act as their personal awning for a time. Clouds collide and darken over and over. Watchful eyes glance carefully, judging distance, time, strength. Slowly the behemoth begins to move. Inertia sees to its direction from the beginning. Flashes of light grow ever nearer and thunder rolls like a bowling ball. Horses begin to neigh and dogs grow restless as the early afternoon becomes night almost instantly. A train rolls into town from the west and water plinks from its side onto the steaming rails.  Another train barrels in behind this one, growing ever closer. But the second shows no signs of stopping, indeed it picks up speed and fury on the approach. Thunder ripples through the valley.

Oh prairie rain! Oh farmer’s prayer delivered!
Sweet sweat from the brow of the Lord!
Crashing down upon the parched land, your torrent is a welcomed blight.
Our very bodies soak your glory up like forgotten sponges.
Thankful as they are, respect must be paid. The power of this irritable guest must not be scorned. As if to remind the land-dwellers of such, the titanic beast strikes the earth. His winds whip the trees, his icy fists punch with vigor. He displays his might through a light and sound show unsurpassed by man.
Flash, Crash.
Blind, Deaf.
Glint, Din.
Roar after roar he lets fly, making rafters and hearts of stern-faced men shutter all the same. Life ceases until the leviathan has had his say.

And the deluge lifts. The tumult again becomes a distant bowling alley. And yea, the Sun! Descending now from behind the darkness. She throws her light upon the aftermath as all living things shake off and stir once more. Life seems new. Water drips from all the leaves. The dust has become luscious soil. Damage looks fixable. Even the trucks are clean. Time to get back to work before that western edge swallows the light. There are stables to clean, trenches to dig, roasts to broil, weeds to pull, boards to sell, and paperwork to finish. All will be done in time. And what of that horizon, as it beckons to the falling sun? It will cast its own, encompassing shadow soon, but the abyss will only stay a fleeting moment. Remember that in this country the summer days seem longer than the nights, the earth falls off a bit at the edges, and the sky looms larger than the land.

I stink. My hair needs washed and my clothes show with the grime of a backwoods hike. My calves ache almost as badly as my head does. I have a cut on my lip and I stopped looking in the mirror long ago for fear of the grime on my face. Tears have left streaks through the dirt on my cheeks. My eyes hang heavy.

My mind burns. Like a physics-class-type burn. Information-overload doesn’t even cover it. I feel like I have a confused switchboard room behind my eyes. The flustered ladies dash about trying to connect me to myself but I just keep hanging up. I can’t think.

I am totally battered. Broken down. I am weak from the journey. Weary from the struggle. I have been pierced, prodded, and tripped. My realities rebuked, my world challenged. My weaknesses have been called upon and they betrayed my barriers as they screamed to the world, “Here I am!” I am stripped of all my defenses.

Yet I am so alive. So so alive! Maybe more so than I ever have been, only One can really say.
My eyes hang heavy; from crying after dwelling on Your passion. I weep at the Love, the true Love, that You are for me. I can’t help but lose tears when I feel You in the room, working inside me as well as my brothers and sisters. My chin quivers as I realize You have answered all my prayers.
I can’t think; because You have bombarded me with Your message through all forms possible. I have heard You speaking in discussions, music and lectures. I have seen You acting through my fellow humans, both lay and religious, in skits, plays and the simplest gestures. I can’t think on anything but You, because You have blocked all else.
I am stripped of all my defenses; because it is only then that I might truly accept Your message. I have built so many walls to protect myself when the only protection I ever needed was You. You tear them down, that You might build me back up. Starting with my soul.

Buffalo Awakening 15
“No Greater Love” Jn. 15:13-16

There is no hug like a BA hug. And no hug so plentiful.
A BA hug isn’t just physical. A BA hug is a hug of the soul.
A hug that wraps around your newly exposed heart and covers it.
A BA hug has true Love at its core.
When you first receive a BA hug, you’ll know.
You’ll feel it in your very being.
A warmth like you didn’t know existed.
A Love that you’d only read about in books.
Total support, through it all, no matter, the end.
That’s a BA hug.

Part of me wants to:

be a musician.
work on cancer research.
be in the film industry.
be a comedian.
write a sports column.
live on and maintain a farm or ranch.
drop out of college.
move to Hawaii.
live up in the mountains.
own/work at a brewery.
just spend my life making people laugh.
do freelance writing.
just be happy all the time
work on photo editing.
be a mathematician.
just get married and raise a family.
be a college student for a while and just party.
disappear.

Add all that up, and you might say I’m a little conflicted. haha

(Rankings are all post-regular season but pre-bowls)

Let’s look at the contenders:

Oklahoma:
Wins against ranked teams- 3 (#11 TCU, #8 Texas Tech, #25 Missouri)
Losses- 1 (#3 Texas)

Florida:
Wins against ranked teams- 2 (#16 Georgia, #4 Alabama)
Losses- 1 (Unranked Ole’ Miss)

USC:
Wins against ranked teams- 3 (#15 Oregon, #10 Ohio State, #7 Penn State)
Losses- 1 (#24 Oregon State)

Texas (Let’s just assume they beat Ohio State on Monday. If not they aren’t in the discussion anyway):
Wins against ranked teams- 5 (#2 Oklahoma, #25 Missouri, #13 Oklahoma State, #8 Texas Tech, #10 Ohio State (presumed))
Losses- 1 (#8 Texas Tech)

UTAH:
Wins against ranked teams- 4 (#25 Oregon State, #11 TCU, #17 BYU, #4 Alabama)
Losses- …..

First let’s get USC out of the way. They are the perennial, “But wait! You forgot about…” team. Every year we hear about how they only had that one loss and how they killed everyone else and won the Rose Bowl. I don’t even know if the Rose Bowl can count for them anymore. The Trojans own the Rose Bowl like Mike Shanahan owns the Raid- … ok, OWNED the Raiders (should have given him one more year, Pat). They have this mystical power over that Bowl and they come out every year smelling like, well, roses because of it. Even still, they DID beat a top ten team there but their early season loss to Oregon State is really was kills them. They barely won the Pac-10, for God’s sake. Then you look at their quality wins as a whole: Penn State, Ohio State, Oregon. All good teams, but Oregon is the best by FAR in my mind (I don’t think the Big 10 could compete with the WAC over a whole season top to bottom), and that just isn’t going to cut it when we’re talking about a National Title.

Ok, so USC is out. We can assume that whichever team losses the BCS Title game is out of the running, too. Which would leave Okla/Florida, Texas, or Utah as the remaining contenders. When looking at pure strength of wins and quality of losses, the two best choices of those are actually Texas or Utah. Those two schools have more wins against ranked opponents than the rest, which is obvious, but some would argue that Oklahoma’s loss is more understandable than Texas’ because it was to a higher ranked opponent. Let’s look at it, though. First of all, TEXAS beat Oklahoma, and by ten whole points. Both of those weigh against an Oklahoma over Texas argument. Couple that with the fact that Texas’ lone lose came with one second to go in the game on a miracle play by the Biletnikoff winner, and Oklahoma is out in my mind (even if they beat Florida. In fact, if they beat Florida, Texas should immediately be crowned Champions, right? Afterall, they did beat the Sooners).

But wait, then there’s Utah. They didn’t lose a game… that’s HUGE! And they played 4 ranked opponents, the second most by these top teams, one of which was ranked #1 for over 75% of the season. The Utes didn’t just beat that team, either, they dismantled them. The fact that Utah played a quality schedule (not just the ranked teams, but good wins over a bowl-winning club in Colorado State, and an always tough Air Force squad), and never lost pushes them over the top to me. I think they should be aided the most by a Florida win in the title game. Florida is the weakest team in the running by strength of schedule (losing to an unranked team and only beating two ranked clubs) and Utah just embarassed the best team they beat all year. However, I know that if Florida wins, the Gators will be crowned the National Champs, and if Oklahoma wins, they will be. But to me, an impartial sports observer, Utah is clearly the best team in the country at the end of the year, and the only team with a real argument against them is Texas (if they beat Ohio State by a lot). Neither of these teams will even have a chance at being the Champion. Something’s wrong here.

I have a completely hypothetical situation I’d like to get some opinions on, so that I might know how to feel if it ever happened to me.

So the story starts with a student, let’s call him Matt, who was studying at a large, well-known public university in his home state. One of Matt’s classes, Geography with Professor M. Goldman (a hypothetical teacher, of course. Not to be confused with Geography professor Mara Goldman, of the University of Colorado), always bored him. He tried desperately at the beginning of the semester to attend lecture, only to fall asleep. Let’s also suppose that Matt had a resurgence of sorts after missing some very important material one day while napping. He attended class more often, studied, and did very well on all the tests and quizzes. Now, this hypothetical class also had a hypothetical recitation. Let’s say that Matt enjoyed the recitation even less than the lecture because his TA was very obviously sexist and would take offense to almost any opinion in opposition to hers, especially one that was expressed by a male in the class. Matt, being an opinionated and knowledgeable male in the class, butted heads with the female TA on many occasions and she hypothetically tended to grade his work much more strictly than was necessary. None of this really ever concerned Matt, after all, he was doing fine on all the tests and quizzes and was keeping up in lecture. “Recitation is just supposed to help you solidify your information if you don’t understand it in lecture, right?” Matt hypothetically reasoned with himself. Then on the third to last week of class, Matt discovered something that could hypothetically ruin his hypothetical grade. He reread the syllabus and found that recitation was worth 50% of his overall class grade, while the quizzes were only 10% (total) and the midterm and final were 20% each. Matt was, needless to say, hypothetically pissed. His grade now almost completely rested on the red pen of a flighty grad student with an inflated ego and a feminist agenda instead of on his own work. Quickly tallying up his hypothetical grades, Matt discovered that an A was no longer possible. Something in the situation didn’t sit well with Matt. Perhaps it was that he had taken 2 quizzes and a Midterm and received grades of 90, 100, and 95 on them, respectively, but could not pull out an A in the class. That’s right, even a hypothetical grade of 100 on the final meant he would only receive an 84 for the overall class grade.

I feel it is always useful to go over realistic hypothetical life-situations in my head before they happen so that in the event that they one day occur, I can react appropriately. So I ask you know, how should Matt react to this hypothetical situation. I have to tell you, if this ever did happen to me, I would be completely, undoubtedly, and justifiably ticked. Hypothetically, of course.

http://psa.blastmagazine.com/2008/08/16/twilight-sucks-and-not-in-a-good-way/

Best review I’ve read about this book series. It really is awful literature and is actually pretty poisonous for the impressionable age group that it targets.

It’s not that I am afraid to die,
I hate to say goodbye.
To all my family I love so much
and to all those friends who kept in touch.
My time is up and I must go,
where I go I don’t know.
It’s not for me to decide, the choices are few,
there’s only two.
If by the love of God and his grace,
we meet again in another place,
it will be great to celebrate with family and friends.
There will be some old and some new
If you look closely, one of them might be you.

Birds that sing,
gates that swing,
wire that’s tight,
coyotes howl in the night.
Corn that grows tall until it’s done,
wheat waving in the breeze, hay curing in the sun.
Green grass growing
by a stream flowing.
A sky so blue
with a few fluffy white clouds, too.
How could I be so blind, why could I not see?
That maybe it’s a little bit of heaven God gives to you and me.

-Paul Pierson
August, 2008

RIP Uncle Paul.
July 25, 1926 — November 21, 2008

“So much in this world is focused on doing some action. What do you want to do with your life? What classes do you want to take? Do you think you’d be happier somewhere else? Do you want to move to Hawaii? Do you want to be a politician, or a priest, or a whatever? Those actions are all a part of something bigger though: who we are. And it’s not that the actions determine who we are, it’s the other way around, who we are determines our actions. So instead of asking yourself those action questions, focus on the being. Who am I? And then, Is that who I want to be? Even better yet, Is that who God wants me to be?”

-Father Peter Musset

This is a letter I wrote tonight immediately after Barack Obama’s inspiring acceptance speech (seriously, whether you voted for him or not, the man can give a speech. In fact, if he can lead half as well as he speaks, we’re gonna be ok for the next four years). I am sending it to the Senator’s office tomorrow morning.

Dear Senator Barack Obama,

Hello, my name is Mark Westhoff. I would like to start out this letter by saying that I am a 20 year old two-time voting college student, that I live in probably the bluest city in a blue state, and that I did not vote for you. This was mainly because of certain moral issues, mostly abortion. At the same time, I did not vote for Senator John McCain either, but for other reasons. I am, however, extremely concerned with and involved in politics, and I was long before your historic race against Mr. McCain. In that regard, I planned on writing this letter to whoever won this year’s election, because I feel we are entering one of the most important times in our world’s history, as you have also made very clear.

I bring all of this up because I want you to know where I am coming from with my message. I believe that the two-party system is one of the greatest current injustices to the American people. Why should we be so divided at a time when standing together is the most important thing we can do? Why should we be limited to two candidates for every race with a viable chance of winning? Especially when both candidates are very likely to become partisan and stubborn in office, ignoring the near 50% of their constituents who did not vote for them.

It is with all this in mind that I sincerely ask you to take my plea into mind. In the next few months you will be selecting your cabinet, arguably a task as important to the future of our nation as your election was. This task gains even more importance with the knowledge that your party will be in control of both houses of Congress. When one party can rule unchecked, our nation is at the greatest possible risk of corruption. In your acceptance speech tonight you called upon fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. I urge you to follow the great President’s lead and select for yourself a bipartisan cabinet. You have also been compared to another uniting figure in United States politics who surrounded himself with players from both sides of the aisle: President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy famously weighed every option possible before making his most difficult decisions, some of which had the greatest consequences the world has every known. I ask you to take into mind the examples of both of these great men, one a Republican, one a Democrat, in selecting your advisers.

The differing viewpoints can only help you become a great leader and a righteous man! You get to make the ultimate decision no matter what advice they give you, and you will gain the perspective from the other side of your original stance, which is the first step to making great decisions. You must know how millions of people in your own country are going to react to your choices before you can make them, otherwise you are blinded to their important and merit-filled opinions.

I firmly believe you have the amazing potential to be a President with a positive legacy, one who left this nation better than you found it, as long as you don’t try to do too much. Having trusted members of your staff who differ with you on certain points can help you achieve both of these things.

No matter who we voted for, come January, you are our President. I pray that you will lead by example and with caution. We, as Americans, are firmly sitting before you asking you to lead us with prudent discretion and careful forethought. No single man or woman in the world will have the possibility to wield as much power as you will, especially with an undivided Congress that would do your bidding without much question. All I ask is that you are willing to admit that that power has the potential to destroy as well as build, and that the greatest opportunity for that growth lies in a bipartisan approach by our leadership.

You truly have my prayers. For the next four years.

God bless you and God bless America,
Mark William Westhoff, concerned citizen