Frozen

It's finals week and everything at Coe is winding down for the year. I don't have a lot to say for my final blog post, but I do want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and tell one story before signing off until next year.

Last Sunday I decided to go for my usual run at the Sac & Fox Trail. That wouldn't be very interesting just by itself, but when I woke up it was snowing. Usually if this happens I will forgo running outside and head for the treadmill and indoor track. This time, however, I decided to brave the wind, cold, and snow to keep experiencing the great outdoors. The run was fun although one thing you don't realize about running with snow falling is that it gets in your eyes every other step. I spent half the time running blind just hoping I didn't go off the trail into the river. The end result of my run looked like this:

Yes, that is ice.

As you can see, all the snow and sweat froze. If you look at that picture and think, "wow that's cool!" then you're probably a little bit crazy - like me. If you look at that picture and think "wow, that's crazy" then you're definitely correct, but will probably miss out on some cool experiences like running through a snowstorm. 

That's all for this year! Hope the holiday's are great, and I will be back at the start of the tennis season.

More Than a Woman

Laura Birky '16, and two other classmates, produced this video for a class project.  Both myself, and Mark Kroll '16 served as interviewees.

More Than a Woman

Woolf Update

Mike Woolf '14 spent much time off the court this past semester engaged in an internship. As a result, Tim Palmer, Aaron Collins and he

were published for their work as part of the Birkey Investment Fund. 

A summary from Woolf:

We researched U.S. Silica Holdings (SLCA) and presented our findings to a board who bought the stock.  

The report itself was published on the following website:

seekingalpha.com

Executive Summary

U.S. Silica Holdings (SLCA) is an up-and-coming company that has a promising future. It operates in the sand and gravel mining industry and it is experiencing an increased demand for its products. U.S. Silica is a large influence in an industry that is competitive through many local companies. Environmental regulations are a potential issue, due to oil fracking which is its most profitable business. U.S. Silica is taking steps to improving its business through these regulations. It also has a constant revenue from its other sector which provides silica for industrial use. Steadily increasing revenue and earnings trends show possible growth in the company. Other financials, such as forward P/E also show that there is promise in U.S. Silica.

An Eventful Saturday!

The Student Alumni Association (SAA) hosted a Kids' Holiday party Saturday morning.  Emmie and Sasha were ecstatic to have been greeted and checked in by Jordan (assisting with the event).

The Kohawk Tennis Holiday party followed.  The teams, and a few alumni, gathered to eat pizza before traipsing over to Eby to watch and support the Men's Basketball team.  Coe won in the 3rd OT.

The Racquet Center was taken over by the Fiala's Friday evening.  Both Mark and Mary had a benchmark birthday this year.  Megan, Molly & Mindy threw a surprise party to celebrate.....the parents thought they were joining the Kohawk Tennis Holiday party.  They were in fact invited to our earlier, actual, party but the sisters couldn't figure out how to make both work.

Thanksgiving Adventure

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break and had feasts of epic proportions. I went back to Dallas over the holiday to spend time with friends and family, but instead of telling you some boring tale about Thanksgiving dinner I thought I would go in a different direction today.

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a fairly typical day which involved me doing very little besides helping my sister prepare food for the following day. And even in this instance of cooking, my main contribution involved eating everything, or as I like to call it: taste testing. About mid-afternoon I went to pick up a friend from work. The day was beautiful and since I had been eating for most of it I felt the time was right for a nice jog.

Through the beautiful city

When I arrived to get my friend, before I could ask about running I was greeted with this question: “you want to go kayaking?” Judging by her reaction to my reaction, I must've looked like I didn't want to go. In my defense, I had my mind on other plans, and it took a few minutes to readjust my thinking. It’s kind of like missing your turn with a navigation system, it just takes a moment for everything to change to the new setting. So after some initial wavering on my part we started loading the kayak.

This is where things started to get interesting. The kayak seated two people and was fairly long. The vehicle we had was a 4-door Chevy Cobalt. Automobile aficionados will probably notice this is not a large vehicle. No matter, we threw that kayak on top and tied it down to anything we could find. After 30 minutes of wrangling we finally had everything in place all the while praying fervently that the roof didn’t turn into a floor by collapsing.

Nothing odd about that at all.

After that little adventure all we had to do was drive through Dallas to get to White Rock Lake which literally sits just east of downtown. If you want to get some strange looks just drive through Dallas in a small car with a bright red kayak attached to the roof. You will stand out, perhaps if we could’ve disguised the kayak with a cowboy hat then no one would have noticed. After all this we didn’t get to the lake until around 5:15 which in Dallas means you have about 30 minutes of daylight left. Now it was my friends turn to waver on whether or not we should go ahead with the plan, but I had already changed my mind once and was therefore unable to do so again.

If you want a cool experience then being on a calm lake at sunset will always qualify. The panorama was great, and we had the lake to ourselves because nobody else was crazy enough to head out for kayaking in the dark. After a few minutes we learned how to row in unison and work as a team which is much better for propelling a craft through water. If you want to work on you relationship with others, then just go out in a two person kayak. Afterwards you will either have an unshakable bond or hate each other for life.

Next week is the last post of the year, I’ll be back in January for the start of school. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving… even if it wasn’t as cool as mine

42 Days.....

......until Men's Tennis practice gets underway!

Fall Semester Classes end Monday, December 9th

Final Exams conclude Saturday, December 14th

Happy Thanksgiving!

As sang by one of the younger member of Kohawk Tennis (my daughter):

"Give thanks for sweet ice cream; for ducks in a row.

Give thanks for great stories, which help you to grow."

Coe College and Kohawk Tennis wishes you well in the days ahead.  Enjoy family, friends, healthy food and your own "stories" as they unfold!

Holiday Cheer

The holiday season is about to kick into full swing next week with Thanksgiving and the even bigger Black Friday celebrations bringing on the full feeling of holiday cheer. I’m sure we’re all excited for the holiday season and all the joyous feelings that it entails. I’ve been getting in the holiday spirit in a slightly different way from the norm of eating and shopping until you either develop Type II Diabetes or Bankruptcy – both detrimental to your health I’m sure. I have re-started my boxing lessons because nothing says Merry Christmas like a right hook to the face.

and a Happy New Year!

Now I’ve never been in a fight before in my life. My plan, if I ever get in a rough spot, is to follow comedian Rodney Carrington’s advice and just take my pants off… because no one wants to fight the naked guy. Or I would use my speed and run away as quickly as my feet could carry me. Obviously neither one of these plans inspires confidence and after successfully navigating my whole life thus far with nary an incident involving fisticuffs I have decided now is the time to learn how to fight.

So a couple of times a week, I wrap the wrists, don the mitts, and take the shirt off (in some ways I guess unclothing myself is still part of my fighting plan?) and work to learn the sweet science. I wish I could say I am the next de la Hoya, Mayweather, and Pacquiao all wrapped into one

And now, Gold-Money Pac Maaaaaaaaannnn!!!

Sadly for several weeks the first 30 minutes of each lesson was spent re-learning how to not swing like an idiot. Seemingly simple combos caused my brain to blow a gasket, “Oh sorry, when you said to throw a jab, punch, and 2 hooks I thought you just wanted 4 straight punches followed by me leaning my face into your swing.”

Finally after much practice and Zen-like patience from my instructor I have gotten to where it only takes 5 minutes at the beginning of each session for me to become un-stupid. It’s been great progress. In the course of our journey we found out something most people would find odd: I’m a much better southpaw than righty and my best punches definitely come from my left. This is not surprising for those that know I throw a baseball left-handed. I was always better at most tasks with my left hand until my pre-k teacher – who apparently was stuck in 1850 – decided I needed to be right handed and thus have no advantages in life. Thanks God I never threw anything in class, or I probably would’ve had to switch that too.

Left hands are of the devil or something

I realize that in the previous paragraph I have quite possibly given away my biggest advantage in a fight. If you’re reading this and plan on accosting me then please forget the fact that I will start out right handed and switch midway through to southpaw in an attempt to confuse you and land a big left on your face.  Otherwise I am ready for the holiday shopping season and all the joy that brings. Now that I think about it, I better go hit the heavy bag to make sure I have plenty of joy to spread around. 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Kohawks Receive Best App Award

Tyler Wilson '14, Mike Cranwill and Lucais Piot from Prof. Chen's Entrepreneurship class formed a team called Studera to produce a mobile app to help manage study hours for fraternities/sororities. Tyler and Mike traveled to Des Moines last weekend to participate in a start-up event known as CodeDay Iowa. They polished their app and won the Best App Award at the competition. Congratulations to Tyler, Mike and Lucais on a job well done!

Tyler is a Senior on the men's team this year.  He has been a consistent smiling (always!) face in the Racquet Center for four years now....in and out of season....and will certainly be missed next year.   

Cycling Project

Today I did something a little bit weird… or weird for me at least. Now you may be wondering what could be weird for someone who runs 12 mile obstacle courses for fun, reads books over cosmology, and rides a bicycle 10 miles for cup of coffee in solitude. Well today I did that immensely weird thing known as driving my truck.

Complete Madness

Yes while most people spend a great deal of their lives tethered to their vehicles, something as seemingly normal as firing up the car is a huge detour from my usual day. I’ve talked before about how I’m slowly dipping my toe into the world of cycling, and over the last few months I have eschewed driving for biking in most instances. Luckily my house next to Coe enables me to ride my bike to work as well as downtown. If I have a little free time and want to partake in a new coffee shop or do a little reading I can takeoff for my destination with no problems. This riding has been helped out a great deal by the amount of bike lanes being added around Cedar Rapids. It turns out those lanes aren’t just for passing on the right like I was previously led to believe. Those lanes are actually for bicycles and the people said bikes carry. One drawback of this whole system is that people in cars are most often hell bent on crashing into cyclists like a big game of pin ball.

One more biker and we get an extra ball!

I haven’t biked a lot back home but I’m sure this little problem would be even more prominent there. If you’re not polluting or killing something with your daily commute then the license gets taken away. I have no doubt that for my previous statements I’ll probably be forced to sacrifice a vegan before being allowed back in the state.

We need you to prove your loyalty before proceeding into the state.

Here is my next project: I have reset the Trip Meter on my truck’s odometer and plan on seeing how far I drive in the next few weeks. At the same time I will track how many miles I bike each week. And I hope this project gets carried out with more vigor than some of my previous ideas like my New Year’s Resolutions which are laying scattered in my mind like confetti in Times Square. I won’t count the time I am away for Thanksgiving or Christmas since I won’t have my car or bike with me while I’m gone. That would obviously make no sense for the purposes of this project. Some of you will probably point out that we are heading steadily toward winter and I’m not exactly a huge fan of the cold, but I plan on continuing this endeavor even when faced with the cold. I rode 20 miles yesterday with a starting temperature of 27 degrees and quite enjoyed myself. I know that sounds like madness, but for me driving my truck? That sounds like madness.

Total Miles Driven today: 8