BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

So, I just watched the game…in St. Louis, and I have to say two things. Either the Illini are going to have to step it up, or we are looking at another disappointing season. Secondly, Mizzou fans suck, not as much as packers fans, but they suck none-the-less.

About the Illini, I have never seen a team that just breaks down at a fundamental level like that. They don’t wrap up when they tackle, they just lower their heads and hope the guy falls down, the linebackers don’t move against the motion of the O-line, they just flow right into the blockers and away from the run. A rule in football is that the linebackers should not get sucked in with the motion of the line, because the runner is going to go through the hole that is at the offensive lines back, so if the whole line is moving to the right the runner is going to go to the left off the back of the outside tackle, but low-and-behold, there is no illini linebacker because they got sucked right into the blockers. I must also say that I believe Carry Davis is the worst fullback ever. He is completely inconsistent, he doesn’t hit the hole hard on blocks or on a run, he can’t cut upfield when he is moving laterally after a catch, and he frequently cannot catch the ball when it is thrown right to him. Do I see something that the coaches and people on the TV are missing, or am I missing something, because they talk about him like he is awesome, but I seem to recall J. Cook, the former fullback for the illini, being far superior to Davis. The new guy J. Davis, that saw some time looked much more impressive. He was more mobile and caught what was thrown at him, and he hit the hole much harder. I think the Illini would do a lot of good to get back to basics, Hitting, Wrapping, and Following through on tackles. Catching, turning upfield and running, and recognizing where your blockers are….all fundamentals, all areas the Illini are lacking in.

On the upside, Beutjer looked pretty good, very accurate, not a lot of mistakes. He threw a couple passes off his back foot, and led the DB’s a couple of time with his head far too long. But seeing that we were up against a not very talented D, which was getting away with a lot of passing interference (not a single interference call was made the whole game), he managed to get away with some stuff, where when we see Michigan and Ohio they are going to pick those passes off, but most of the stuff looked good. He knew the offense, and looked confident. That was refreshing to see with last years constant switch of quarterbacks.

Anyway, that is all I have to say about the game and all, now I will eat good food at my friend Jason Tice’s, so I will write again when I have something else to say.

-Ben

So, I haven’t posted in a while. Thought that it might be a good idea to write something. Everything is up in the air right now, I’m beginning to feel like that is the way the whole rest of my life will be.
I am starting school, but I don’t have two of the classes I want, which is due to me not filling out my ‘planner’ (which is a sheet that says I talked to my adviser) on time, so since I turned it in late, they won’t remove my hold until the 8th of September. That is like totally bogus. Besides that, I had a long talk with my pal Bob last night and it made me think about some stuff about the history of Godsearch (the young adult ministry at my church) and it made me think about the history that I come from. A lot of times I feel like I’m supposed to do something different then what I”m doing now, but my Mom pointed out that unless God releases me from what I’m doing, i.e. tells me something else to do, or opens up doors that point me in the right direction, I’m not supposed to stop being an engineer right now, because I have no idea what else I’m good at that I could get a degree in, and I don’t feel called to do anything else….although I don’t particularly called to be an Electrical Engineer right now. I have to say, that while I have nothing else to do, I am quite thoroughly sick of ECE classes, I’m tired of taking them, I’m tired of failing them (having failed two classes now…both required) I wish there was some way to just be done with this and doing something I enjoy.

I have previously stated that I am concerned about leading the small group, well I have less concern now about doing a decent job, but more I have concerns about having time to put into it. If I am going to pass these terribly annoying classes I have to take, and manage to not completely ignore my girlfriend so that our relationship doesn’t go into the pot I’m going to have to manage my time much better then I have been able to do in the past.
*Aside*
Rob just made a reference to Lamb a great book, by saying “I think the Catholic church is like bacon”, which for those of you who have never read the book, is like saying “I think that God doens’t really care about the catholic church (or more specifically it’s rules on everything)” This amuses me greatly that he said this.

I decided that I would actually write more about my Canada trip. The trip started off with us leaving my house in Winchester (over by Jacksonville IL) at about 5:30pm, and we drove through the night, which sucked, and we got to the lodge at about 1:30pm. We portaged twice and got found a campsite about the time it started raining. But after a brief shower we were able to set up camp with little or no problems. The rest of the week went by without any more rain. So I would talk more about the fishing, but I can sum it up by saying it didn’t suck, but it wasn’t good. I am not a huge fan of fishing so I didn’t do it much…most of what I did was shuttle people who wanted to do some serious fishing. I talked to my girlfriends Dad in the canoe for a good while the first day, as well as at the camp. That was really excellent because I got to pick a smart guys brain, and talk with him about my relationship with his daughter. I also spent some time talking with my Dad in the canoe….talking in the canoe is good because your basically alone….we talked about a large series of topics ranging from my life and my brothers to his ministry and where he is going with it. But I have to say that the best thing about the whole trip was the nights. The moon would rise casting a ray of deep orange onto the lake, and shortly after a bright mars would rise up just to the left of the moon. One night I turned my back to the moon to see the stars popping up behind the setting sun opposite the moon rising. What I saw was nothing short of amazing. A few whispy clouds seemed to be hanging just above the horizon, but as I watched closely I noticed that what I first thought was the last light of the setting sun reflecting off the edge of the clouds was really moving independant of the clouds. It was then I realized it was the northern lights. As we watched, a metor shower periodically streaked across the sky above the swirling glow of blue and purple. Streams of light blue shot up and down, occasioanally flaring up into a different shade of blue or a touch of red or orange, but it was beautiful. The last night of the trip we decided in the aftrnoon to pack up and portage across the first portage and we slept under the stars on a white sand beach. The trip after that was a return to normalcy, where we drove back to Deluth and slept in a hotel, ate at appelbees, got up early and left for home….we got home at about 9:30 in the PM, and I crashed at home and came back to Urbana for church the next morning.

So that was a great time, and very relaxing. And I have written enough now, so I will go to bed.

Thank you, and Goodnight.

“It was kinda sad when they broke up, because we all knew that without the Beatles there was no stopping disco” - Kermit the Frog

So that being said, I am home. My Canada trip was awesome, I shall likely write about it later. Yesterday I went to Chicago to pick up Laurens best friend Faith. On the down side of everything I got home and checked my grade for my summer class, and I received and “F”. So wasted $1000 over the summer, and I will not likely be graduating next may. This sucks. But anyway, I have to get to work, so I will try to post later.