My Mom mailed me Eggs

Got an interesting package in the mail today. thanks, Mom.

Aubrey's family is HARDCORE when it comes to holidays. And, by hardcore, I most likely mean just normal. We are not big on holidays at my house, so pretty much anyone else doing anything it all is "HARDCORE" to me.

The hardcore translation for this month: An Egg Hunt. They do not, I repeat do not mess around over at that household when it comes to the hunting of gametes. They have let me partake in the hunt for the past few years, giving me the perfect opportunity to make a fool out of myself. Since we just don't do that stuff at my house, I most likely end up looking like a seven year old at Christmas.

Aubrey, Aaryn and I have to stay inside, while Wyley & Stephanie (plus Mom and Dad this year) hide about 200 eggs in the front yard. The key here is the absence of windows. Windows would be my strategy, but my amateur methods have already been sniffed out years ago. They know better, and we get stuffed in the kitchen.

After FOREVER of hiding the eggs, they turn us loose, and it's about one punch difference in a brawl. It's madness. It's wild. It's a dad gum Easter Egg Hunt. The three of us hit hard, trying to Eggspence any Eggstra Eggergy needed to Eggcel in the Eggvent.

that just happened.

Years past have stacked up to be embarrassments on the most extreme scales. Running around like a fool, only to loose to the Eggsperts. This year was different. Managed to pull out 104.5 eggs, making me the 2009 champ. Oh yeah, it felt good.

Then I left all the eggs I won in Bentonville.

dad burn it garsh dern darn

I called my Mom and asked her to mail my baseball glove down (Intramural Softball tourney starts next week). I got a box with a baseball mit packed to the corrugation with plastic eggs and delightful sugary treats.

What a pleasant surprise. The eggs have arrived. Stop by the room to partake in enjoying the spoils of The Hunt. Thank you, Elliotts, for allowing me to take part in your festivities of Easter. It's nice to experience the holidays with another families' traditions. Especially yours. Yours are definitely the best.

Thanks for the Egg Delivery, MOM!

Big Money Bingo Bingo’s Again

Henderson hosted it’s second annual Big Money Bingo event this past Wednesday, bringing out over 1500 students to the Garrison Center Day Gym. There is not an official record, but Big Money Bingo is considered to be the biggest event of the year. The event is put on by Jordan O’Roark, assistant dean of students. O’Roark does not take credit for the origination of the event, claiming that it was already in motion when he arrived three years ago. “I want to say it’s been happening about seven or eight years,” said O’Roark.

Big Money Bingo is an SAB sponsored event that is put on during the fall semester and again during the spring. It is a simple bingo formatted game, with students being permitted for play with proof of their student ID as the only ticket required to get in the door. Once in, students are handed one bingo card, and the nearly two-hour event begins. All formats of the traditional number game are used, including blackout, vertical, horizontal, anyway, and the school tradition of “the Henderson H”. This is typically done multiple times during gameplay, declaring a winner by filling the entire B column, the entire O column, the middle I and N space, and the free center space. Once a student “bingos”, they approach the front of the gym where they accept their prize.

The number of prizes varies from semester to semester. “We usually try to get at least 25 prizes,” said O’Roark, “but it all depends on if it is the fall or the spring.” Each prize is numbered, with winning students drawing numbers to determine their prize. In the event of a tie, the multiple students play their fate into the hands of “pick a hand” challenge. O’Roark places a blue poker chip in one hand and a red in the other. The student choosing the blue chip advances forward to draw and win a prize, the other student is returned their bingo card, and resumes play.

Typically bingo is considered gambling, but no money is exchanging hands during Big Money Bingo, so it is acceptable for a college campus.

The event has been known to bring out nearly 2500 students, which according to O’Roark, is not a capacity issue. Although the day gym flexes at the gills, there are always enough bingo cards. “I think we have about 3,000 cards,” said O’Roark, “I have never counted.”

Technically it is a student event, not intended for faculty. However, anyone taking over six hours is required to pay the student activities fee, and therefore is eligible to play. Garrison Center director Ernie Higgs took part in the bingo festivities during this past game. Higgs actually got a bingo during one round, but it was a tie round, with Higgs loosing the “pick a hand” challenge, and the blue chip and coinciding prize going to the other winner.

O’Roark and his team go out and spend thousands of dollars on “prizes that students might like to have.” This fall, about $17,000 was spent. “The Spring is a little smaller because the semester is wrapping up and we have to make sure there is enough money to finish out the semester,” said O’Roark. “This Spring we spent about $9,000.”

The event is only hosted once each semester. Miniature Big Money Bingos have been hosted before for incoming freshman, but the funding comes out of the Heart Start budget, usually only allowing for approximately $2000 in prizes.

The student activities board puts on multiple events during the school year, but Big Money Bingo is typically the most successful. According to O’Roark, “It is not every day when you have a chance to win several prizes.” O’Roark believes the event is such a success because of the multiple prizes, resulting in several winners. Big Money Bingo will be back again in the fall, with more prizes and bigger TV’s.

the Gossip Shop

When I'm home in Bentonville, Tom Treinen of Athena Salon takes care of my hair. However, now that I'm away from school during the week, I have been on the hunt for a place to get my haircut here in Arkadelphia.

Step One of finding a place to get your haircut: Find somebody who looks good, and I mean GOOD, and ask them where they go. For instance, I asked Klayton Seyler. He is an OBU Golfer, and leads worship for Refuge. His hair always looks good. He said he went to The Gossip Shop, so I started there.

I ended there. The Gossip Shop is a great place, and I don't plan on shopping around anywhere else.

The Gossip Shop is located here in Arkadelphia, about 90secs from the campus.

They take appointments, but today I pulled a sneak attack and just walked in. I got lucky today, but I've called before to make sure. The point is, you can call if you want, but you don't have to. I really like that. I typically will schedule, but I like the freedom of not being locked down incase a newspaper photo story assignment comes up or something.

A girl named Taylor cuts my hair. She always does a great job, and somehow remembers things to talk about, even after the typical 6-weeks it takes me to get back in there. I don't know what the going rate is for a haircut, but she only charges me $10, which I think is incredible.

Our friends Taylor and Jamie just got married, and Jamie goes in there, so I'm sure they do a good job on girls' hair too. They also have tanning stuff in there, but I'm not much of a tanner, so you'll have to find another blogger to get on that one for you.

The Gossip Shop works great for me here in Arkadelphia. They have easy scheduling, reasonable prices, and THEY KNOW HOW TO CUT SOME HAIR. Taylor always does a great job, and never keeps me in there for over 30mins. Girly name or not, this guy loves the Gossip Shop.

Today was a Beautiful Easter Day

Woke up early this morning (for a Saturday) and drove out to Memorial Park.

My friend Tom Ewart of NWA Photography had asked he to help him shoot some soccer photos. Team photos and individual uniform portraits of 4-year-olds. Loved it.

Tom doesn't mess around. I'm used to shooting with above-average gear, always finding ways to pull off a "pro" look with not so much gear. Not Tom. He has the COOLEST gear. It's always nice when he asks me to work for him, because I get to pretend I'm in the Big Leagues (weak soccer pun).

Met my Dad at McDonalds. Ever since I was about four years old, my brother, my Dad and I have always eaten lunch together every Saturday, at McDonalds. It's called "Men's Club", because we don't let my Mom tag along. She doesn't eat lunch on Saturday's, so it's all good.

With Caleb and I being away at college, Men's Club has been a hit or miss event. Today Caleb was out cycling, so it was just me and Dad. Last week it was just Dad and Caleb.

Caleb rode 75 miles on his bicycle today.

He came back and the three of us did a little wood splitting. The last storm here caused us to bring down our front tree, so we had some firewood looking at us. Caleb hauled all the logs down to the bottom of the driveway, where it all needed to be split sorted and stacked. I'm usually an embarrassment during this annual man event at our house. This year was different.

Dad swung the sledge hammer, it slipped and slammed hard into his leg. He went down. Hard. He'll be fine. Caleb stepped up, swung the sledge and his hand split open from how strong he was. He was out. He'll be fine. Then I stepped up. Look out.

It took me forever, mind you, because I'm a weakling compared to them, but I took care of business. Split one, that was enough for today. :-)

[thought I'd add that both of those are STRAIGHT off my iPhone. I guess it does well shooting logs.]

Laid around the house the rest of the afternoon doing a little online shopping, and then headed over to the Elliott's for the hunt.

Mom and Dad went over to help hide, too. It was a good haul this year, with me managing to embarrass myself less than last year's amateur hour of an egg hunt. Here's the totals for 2009:

Aubrey - 79
Aaryn - 84
Cameron - 104.5

Last year I completely embarrassed myself, so I guess it's important to bounce back and reclaim my manhood. *[insert ToolTime grunt]*

Yep, a good day today.

Jack the Frog

I am taking a handful of classes this semester. It is my second semester here at Henderson, and I am trying to mix the required stuff with some fun media stuff. Sometimes the required becomes fun. Biology lab was a blast this week.

Typically, Biology lab is microscope work. For example, last week we examined bull semen under the scopes. Sometimes it's homework, like classifying new species of pocketbeastus. This week it was frogs.

Some animals hibernate to get through the cold wintery months. During these months it is difficult to find food, because the cold weather slows the creatures down. For example, the colder it is, the slower a frog can hop, making him slower at catching food, and slower at running away from being eaten. So, during the cold slow winter, frogs dig down deep into the mud, below the freeze line, and simply hibernate for a few months.

The goal of the lab was to take frogs in room-temperature environments and simulate a season change. We wanted the frogs to think winter was coming, and to prepare to hibernate so we could watch them. It takes about a month for the change to happen in the wild from normal temperatures to near freezing temperatures. We did it in about 12mins.

There was a tank with about 18 leopard frogs in it. We chose one and put him (we're positive it was a him) in a small beaker. We filled a large beaker with ice water, and set the small in the large. This chilled the small without bringing it completely to freezing, and without ice contacting the frog's sensitive skin.

As the temperature lowered, the frog got as low he could in the beaker, braced himself in a defensive stance, turned pink, and fell asleep into hibernation. He was prepared for a few months like this. After he was ready we plopped him out onto the lab desk and watched him warm up. He slowly woke up and began acclimating himself with the new warmer environment. Like I said, the warmer it is, the faster they can jump. As he warmed, he became more and more active, until we had to put him back in the tank with his friends, because he was jumping around like a madMan (madFrog).

"crab legs come from crabs"

Jack was a really good boy for us. We found out he was a boy because... (it's about to get serious)

During mating season, male frogs jump on other frogs' backs, trying to find a female to mate with. If a male accidentally jumps on another male, this male will ribbit in a way that's code for "dude, I'm a dude". Well, Jack was doing that when my lab partner Liz would grab his back. He thought Liz was a dude frog, and he thought she meant business.

Lab was great. It made for some good, wholesome blog content, too. Thanks for reading!