It was about this time every year when I would dust off my batting bag, and wiggle the zipper until it would come undone. All my gear had sat in the garage all fall and winter, left unattended and abandoned. As I unpacked that old glove , cleats, and bat, I became rejuvenated. I would slip that glove on, and feel the soft, broken in leather with that perfect pocket in the webbing from countless hours of playing catch. The little league try-outs were coming up and my brother and I would get the cobwebs out of our rusty arms by tossing an old baseball around our front yard and in the road. Spring was finally here. I have always felt like I was born to love baseball. I was born early in the morning on October 28th, 1986. Earlier that night my dad was sitting in the waiting room watching game seven of the '86 world series between the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox. This was the series of the infamous Bill Buckner error, if you can recall with me. I can remember sitting in the forier of our school during lunch time and talking baseball with my fellow sportscaster classmates who discussed the list of topics that we had heard while watching sportscenter before class. We were Stuart Scotts in the making, I swear. Baseball to me means the regional tournament in Moundridge, KS when I was thirteen. Baseball to me means my home town hosting the state tournament when I was fourteen, and losing the battle in the champonship game. Baseball to me means playing catch to pass the time, turing on the game for a relaxing afternoon, or going to Busch Stadium for cold beer and hot dogs. Baseball to me is watching the Kiss Cam during the seventh inning stretch, the hotdog races around the field, the CO2 cannon that deploys t-shirts into the crowds of waving arms and screaming voices. Baseball to me is comprehending that you hit a round ball traveling at a considerable speed, with a round bat that you have to swing at a precise interval in order to make contact; the skill in that is unbelievable. Baseball is being 100% optimistic in sping training, and sick of watching your team disappoint you in August. Baseball is knowing there is always another year. Its the lights that you can see from the highway, revealing a game of thirty year olds playing some slowpitch. It's rounding those bases when you are twelve years old after hitting that two run shot in the bottom of the sixth inning, feeling your pride swell inside you. It's your teammates waiting for you in a mob at home plate as you swing around third. Baseball can be your hope. Baseball can slow you down when everything around you in today's world seems to fly by so fast. I think we all could use a little slow down these days. Here's to baseball, and here is to a brand new season. Go Cardinals!
Kurt "Jag" Carpenter
Monday, April 6, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Learning in Reverse
30, March 2009.
For those of you who read this outside o the midwest, we just recently had a snow storm this weekend. I thought it was spring already? wtfrick? It wasn't that bad I guess, we got about 4 inches of the white stuff where I live... I guess it could have been like what Oklahoma got so I'm not going to complain (much). I hadn't blogged for a while so I thought I would just keep it simple and give you a little run down of my weekend. I wish I could make this a daily habit but I'm not to that point yet! I love to write so this is a good release.. it's theraputic for me.
Friday night I recieved a new book that I had ordered off of Amazon.com so I spent most of my Friday night and Saturday morning reading this book. Let's be honest, I live in a small town in Iowa and I have little to do on the weekends without having to drive an hour. Since I drive almost two hours a day the way it is, with school all day and work wed, thurs, fri night till 11 or midnight.. most of the time I do not feel like driving anywhere on Friday nights after work or Saturday, therefore I have much time on the counch and I have recently started to get into reading. I don't want to blog much about what I am reading but I will tell you that the it talks a lot about Mystery and Style. If you can fill in the blanks then you know what I'm up to. See a few weeks ago I fell into my old mistakes of dumb ass-ism. I don't want to go into details with it but I realized that it is my downfall. I heard an analogy once that love is a like sand: If you hold it palm-up, the sand stays there, and doesn't move, but if you close your hand around the sand and squeeze, most of the sand runs out between your fingers until there isn't enough left to amount to anything. I am a squeezer by nature I guess... and I hate that. This book I am reading is teaching me how to turn the table. I felt like a different person as of the first page I read out of this book. It inspired me. I had my nose in the book all weekend. Realizing how much of it related to me and my life. I felt like the author was talking about MY LIFE. It's really cool, and I am excited for this new adventure. It made me want to discover new things. I have to experience some more of life. I have to solve this puzzle.
Sunday I went to church for my first time in quite a while which was really good for me. I have been reading my Bible a lot lately but nothing beats a good Sunday morning at church. I feel God working in me more and more all of the time. I think I only cussed a handful of times this weekend, and most of those were from playing COD.. and not cussing during COD is like not cussing during golf, ya know what I mean? Ha.
By the way I am going to try a new alias (nickname) and would apprecaite it if you would start to incorporate it when you address me. It is simple: Jag.
"I was afraid of losing what I did not have. I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of nothing being around the corner. I no longer worry about these things. I live each day as if it is a new journey. You can not lose what you never possessed."
To new adventures and sunny days,
Jag
For those of you who read this outside o the midwest, we just recently had a snow storm this weekend. I thought it was spring already? wtfrick? It wasn't that bad I guess, we got about 4 inches of the white stuff where I live... I guess it could have been like what Oklahoma got so I'm not going to complain (much). I hadn't blogged for a while so I thought I would just keep it simple and give you a little run down of my weekend. I wish I could make this a daily habit but I'm not to that point yet! I love to write so this is a good release.. it's theraputic for me.
Friday night I recieved a new book that I had ordered off of Amazon.com so I spent most of my Friday night and Saturday morning reading this book. Let's be honest, I live in a small town in Iowa and I have little to do on the weekends without having to drive an hour. Since I drive almost two hours a day the way it is, with school all day and work wed, thurs, fri night till 11 or midnight.. most of the time I do not feel like driving anywhere on Friday nights after work or Saturday, therefore I have much time on the counch and I have recently started to get into reading. I don't want to blog much about what I am reading but I will tell you that the it talks a lot about Mystery and Style. If you can fill in the blanks then you know what I'm up to. See a few weeks ago I fell into my old mistakes of dumb ass-ism. I don't want to go into details with it but I realized that it is my downfall. I heard an analogy once that love is a like sand: If you hold it palm-up, the sand stays there, and doesn't move, but if you close your hand around the sand and squeeze, most of the sand runs out between your fingers until there isn't enough left to amount to anything. I am a squeezer by nature I guess... and I hate that. This book I am reading is teaching me how to turn the table. I felt like a different person as of the first page I read out of this book. It inspired me. I had my nose in the book all weekend. Realizing how much of it related to me and my life. I felt like the author was talking about MY LIFE. It's really cool, and I am excited for this new adventure. It made me want to discover new things. I have to experience some more of life. I have to solve this puzzle.
Sunday I went to church for my first time in quite a while which was really good for me. I have been reading my Bible a lot lately but nothing beats a good Sunday morning at church. I feel God working in me more and more all of the time. I think I only cussed a handful of times this weekend, and most of those were from playing COD.. and not cussing during COD is like not cussing during golf, ya know what I mean? Ha.
By the way I am going to try a new alias (nickname) and would apprecaite it if you would start to incorporate it when you address me. It is simple: Jag.
"I was afraid of losing what I did not have. I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of nothing being around the corner. I no longer worry about these things. I live each day as if it is a new journey. You can not lose what you never possessed."
To new adventures and sunny days,
Jag
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
I just filled out a bracket for my first "money pool" ever. The pool of course if for the infamous NCAA basketball tournament which will be upon us tomorrow!! This is (in my opinion) the best 3 weeks of any sports, including the superbowl, world series, The Masters, Daytona, the Olympics.. why? College atheletes who are playing for nothing but pride, seniors who are down to their last shot. You lose, you die. These guys aren't getting paid (well... let's just say they aren't) and they are giving everything they have for the love of the game. The tournament is also awesome because everyone can engage in it. Even if you are just filling out brackets with your friends, it's just cool to be able to sit down and fill in those lines. Filling out my bracket is always hard because you KNOW that there are going to be upsets, you just have to use that spidi-sense and predict them. I will go ahead and post the link to my picks if I can, but I will give you a little run-down if you can't access it. If the link doesn't work, sorry. I will say that my cinderella's are: Syracuse, Western Kentucky, and West Virginia. I went with an elite 8 of Louisville-W. Virginia, Connecticut-Missouri, Pittsburgh-Villanova, and North Carolina-Syracuse. Final Four: Louisville-Connecticut, Villanova, North Carolina. Championship game Louisville-North Carolina with Louisville winning it.
I'm probably way off, I always am. I thought it might interest you to check it out, so do so:
http://www.mysideline.com/u/17456/collegebbmens/playerpicks.htm
I'm probably way off, I always am. I thought it might interest you to check it out, so do so:
http://www.mysideline.com/u/17456/collegebbmens/playerpicks.htm
Monday, March 16, 2009
Here I go Again...
What's up guys? Well, it's Monday... the day after spring break, which is arguably the worst Monday of the school year. It's so freakin' nice outside today, finally. You know how that goes? Spring fever is here!!! By the way spring fever and senioritis is not a good combination. I applied for like five jobs last night, all of which were in the Kansas City area. I hope to hear something back soon. My resume has been sent off to come contract agencies in KC and STL so.. I think I will get something out of all that.
Over spring break I went down to my favorite place on earth: Bolivar, MO. Hung out with the boys and just layed around a lot (haha)... it was spring break afterall. Since Simpson likes to do their spring break the week before everyone else in the country, SBU had class... and I had couch time. We went paintballing which was.... meh? You know it may have been a little better if we wouldn't have played against team slayer. These guys were using marine lingo and had actual strategies and stuff, GAY. Our group was like.. "hey lets shoot each other.. a lot.." and by that time we had been welted in the groins. Not that fun, but overall it was a decent experience. That was about the highlight of the trip though. It was good because I'm not drinking much anymore so I didn't feel like I had to do that all that much over break which was good. Nothing else too exciting, just chillin' with the old roomie and friends.
So now I'm back to the every day life. 6 AM felt so miserable this morning... not to mention the motor in my fan went out last night so I couldn't sleep very well. I felt like I was sleeping in a hotel room and I HATE that. BUT something cool that happened last night was... well, I'll blog about it later. I just felt like I had a good conversation with the man upstairs. It really gave me some peace of mind.
"Though I keep searching for an answer,
I never seem to find what Im looking for.
Oh lord, I pray You give me strength to carry on,
Because I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams."
Over spring break I went down to my favorite place on earth: Bolivar, MO. Hung out with the boys and just layed around a lot (haha)... it was spring break afterall. Since Simpson likes to do their spring break the week before everyone else in the country, SBU had class... and I had couch time. We went paintballing which was.... meh? You know it may have been a little better if we wouldn't have played against team slayer. These guys were using marine lingo and had actual strategies and stuff, GAY. Our group was like.. "hey lets shoot each other.. a lot.." and by that time we had been welted in the groins. Not that fun, but overall it was a decent experience. That was about the highlight of the trip though. It was good because I'm not drinking much anymore so I didn't feel like I had to do that all that much over break which was good. Nothing else too exciting, just chillin' with the old roomie and friends.
So now I'm back to the every day life. 6 AM felt so miserable this morning... not to mention the motor in my fan went out last night so I couldn't sleep very well. I felt like I was sleeping in a hotel room and I HATE that. BUT something cool that happened last night was... well, I'll blog about it later. I just felt like I had a good conversation with the man upstairs. It really gave me some peace of mind.
"Though I keep searching for an answer,
I never seem to find what Im looking for.
Oh lord, I pray You give me strength to carry on,
Because I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams."
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Spring Break on the Horizon
So spring break is just two days away now. I would just skip my worthless Friday of classes but I have to take a test, which is lame. Right now I am sitting in the computer lab located the Carver Science building on the Simpson College Campus. I am waiting for my lab partners to get here so we can do some useless preparing for our research pitch. This is pretty frustrating because I live 45 minutes away and I have been out of class since 1 PM, and I was going to play ball tonight at the community center. Thanks group. I hate you.
Yesterday I came to a realization that I hadn't come up with before. I posted a status on my facebook page (add me) that stated something along the lines of "I think that complaining is one of the most annoying attributes of humans". It wasn't until after I posted it that it dawned on me; by complaining about people complaining, I was in fact complaining! Ugh... it was like the universe ripped in half or something when I realized this. Pretty interesting concept.
Also today I woke up with a great bible verse texted me to; "Have I not commanded you? Be strong anc courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God wil be with you wherever you go." Don't know where the passage is found.. since I have USCELLULAR (which blows) I can only receive about 160 characters before it cuts off. Either way it was a pretty cool verse and it was awesome to wake up with something like that in my mind. This friend and I have been sending verses to each other in the morning to inspire us and get us out of bed and going in the morning and so far I think it is working out pretty well!! (granted that it is only two days into it).
I also have been digging this dude that I found while following Ashtin Coucher (however you spell his name) on Twitter. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1212991 he is pretty funny and he posts these "suck it" videos all the time.
I will be in Bolivar on Saturday!!! Holla!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep it real and remember to follow me at www.twitter.com/kurtcarpenter
Much Love,
Kurt
btw Grant, I am also putting off getting my hair cut... I just want to try and grow it out one last time before I have to resort to a 'grown up' look at my interviews. Haha
remember to follow grant's blog and him and www.twitter.com/grantbenson
also you might find this interesting; www.somethingawesomepodcast.com
and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMr9J7fe-U
Yesterday I came to a realization that I hadn't come up with before. I posted a status on my facebook page (add me) that stated something along the lines of "I think that complaining is one of the most annoying attributes of humans". It wasn't until after I posted it that it dawned on me; by complaining about people complaining, I was in fact complaining! Ugh... it was like the universe ripped in half or something when I realized this. Pretty interesting concept.
Also today I woke up with a great bible verse texted me to; "Have I not commanded you? Be strong anc courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God wil be with you wherever you go." Don't know where the passage is found.. since I have USCELLULAR (which blows) I can only receive about 160 characters before it cuts off. Either way it was a pretty cool verse and it was awesome to wake up with something like that in my mind. This friend and I have been sending verses to each other in the morning to inspire us and get us out of bed and going in the morning and so far I think it is working out pretty well!! (granted that it is only two days into it).
I also have been digging this dude that I found while following Ashtin Coucher (however you spell his name) on Twitter. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1212991 he is pretty funny and he posts these "suck it" videos all the time.
I will be in Bolivar on Saturday!!! Holla!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Keep it real and remember to follow me at www.twitter.com/kurtcarpenter
Much Love,
Kurt
btw Grant, I am also putting off getting my hair cut... I just want to try and grow it out one last time before I have to resort to a 'grown up' look at my interviews. Haha
remember to follow grant's blog and him and www.twitter.com/grantbenson
also you might find this interesting; www.somethingawesomepodcast.com
and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMr9J7fe-U
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Good day my fellow Americans. The weather is scheduled to start gradually getting warmer, although it is still unseasonably cold right now, thank you Al Gore. By the way did you know that recent studies are showing that the climate has actually been getting warmer over the past 10 years?! These luney tune Liberals are looking dumber and dumber by the day and us republicans don't even have to try to make them look like it!! I love it!
First I want to start with something I just laughed at while watching Foxnews. President Barack Obama just said "right now is a good time to buy stocks." Somebody should tell him that the Dow and the Nasdaq both finished the day in the red. The Dow was down about 34 points and the Nasdaq was down about 1 or two points. What you should know is that before Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke got on the tube and started running his mouth about Obama's spendulus bill that was recently passed, the Dow was up about 60 and the Nasdaq was up about 6. When are these guys going to start realizing that every time they start flapping their jaw about all of this money being thrown around. The democrats are doing it on purpose!! They are taking this country down into the drain and they know it. Anyway Obama literally just said that buying stocks right now is a good thing. You don't have to be a genius to know that the markets are at a 12 year low right now.. buying stocks is the opposite of a good idea. Unless of course you are looking long-term, but let's be honest people are trying to get through each month right now, let alone plan for the future.
My Cowboys still haven't made many moves this offseason. They did sign QB Jeff Garcia as a back-up which is better than nothing, I suppose. Especially considering the fact that Romo has been flaking in December thus far. My real sports new happened yesterday when T.J. Houshmandzadeh of the Cincinati Bengals signed with the Seattle Seahawks. Reports have his contract at $40 million over 5 years which doesn't seem like a lot compared to the outrageous contract that Albert Haynesworth signed with the Redskins (100 million over 7 years). I especially don't like the Haynesworth deal because that is going to be one more guy trying to kill Tony Romo this year. I like TJ going to the Northeast though, they needed another reciever to open up that offense that likes to throw the ball around. Hasselback is as good of a QB as any when he is healthy and TJ should help his down-field threat.
Those are the couple of stories I wanted to blog on today. I am trying to get a little system down to write, I think I am going to do one story and then free write from now on. Leave me a comment and don't forget to follow me at www.twitter.com/kurtcarpenter
Bolivar in Four Days!
First I want to start with something I just laughed at while watching Foxnews. President Barack Obama just said "right now is a good time to buy stocks." Somebody should tell him that the Dow and the Nasdaq both finished the day in the red. The Dow was down about 34 points and the Nasdaq was down about 1 or two points. What you should know is that before Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke got on the tube and started running his mouth about Obama's spendulus bill that was recently passed, the Dow was up about 60 and the Nasdaq was up about 6. When are these guys going to start realizing that every time they start flapping their jaw about all of this money being thrown around. The democrats are doing it on purpose!! They are taking this country down into the drain and they know it. Anyway Obama literally just said that buying stocks right now is a good thing. You don't have to be a genius to know that the markets are at a 12 year low right now.. buying stocks is the opposite of a good idea. Unless of course you are looking long-term, but let's be honest people are trying to get through each month right now, let alone plan for the future.
My Cowboys still haven't made many moves this offseason. They did sign QB Jeff Garcia as a back-up which is better than nothing, I suppose. Especially considering the fact that Romo has been flaking in December thus far. My real sports new happened yesterday when T.J. Houshmandzadeh of the Cincinati Bengals signed with the Seattle Seahawks. Reports have his contract at $40 million over 5 years which doesn't seem like a lot compared to the outrageous contract that Albert Haynesworth signed with the Redskins (100 million over 7 years). I especially don't like the Haynesworth deal because that is going to be one more guy trying to kill Tony Romo this year. I like TJ going to the Northeast though, they needed another reciever to open up that offense that likes to throw the ball around. Hasselback is as good of a QB as any when he is healthy and TJ should help his down-field threat.
Those are the couple of stories I wanted to blog on today. I am trying to get a little system down to write, I think I am going to do one story and then free write from now on. Leave me a comment and don't forget to follow me at www.twitter.com/kurtcarpenter
Bolivar in Four Days!
Monday, March 2, 2009
First Blog
So, back in High School we did a unit in English class reading the scarlet letter and we were supposed to blog on this website about it. I hadn't been back to the site since my friend Grant Benson started blogging. I decided that I like to write and that it would be a good way for me to waste my time, so today I created an account. Hello, BlogSpot.
Thought of the day:: God's gift to us is potential. What we do with that potential is our gift back to God.
==> I saw that on a t-shirt today and I thought it was really cool quote. I wish I had come up with it.
In the future I plan on blogging for real but I am unprepared since this was a spur of the moment thing. I am reading a book called, "Washed by Blood" which is basically a testimonial book of Brian "Head" Welch, former lead guitarist for KoRn. I have to be honest his album "Save me From Myself" really inspired me and this book is getting me even more inspired! I wish I had the same inspiration to fix my French take-home portion of our midterm. I will do that next hour..... .hopefully.
Thought of the day:: God's gift to us is potential. What we do with that potential is our gift back to God.
==> I saw that on a t-shirt today and I thought it was really cool quote. I wish I had come up with it.
In the future I plan on blogging for real but I am unprepared since this was a spur of the moment thing. I am reading a book called, "Washed by Blood" which is basically a testimonial book of Brian "Head" Welch, former lead guitarist for KoRn. I have to be honest his album "Save me From Myself" really inspired me and this book is getting me even more inspired! I wish I had the same inspiration to fix my French take-home portion of our midterm. I will do that next hour..... .hopefully.
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