our engagement photos.

sorry for the lack of blogs lately everyone. it's been a busy busy month.

but here comes a fury of posts. i've got three on my mind right now, and chances are i can get them all written down in the next 45 minutes. here's the first one: our engagement pictures are up! check out a sampling on the parson's blog - they did an amazing job. more pics after the "jump"!

just click the pic.

-ap.

EDIT: so there's no way i'll finish my next two blogs in time. but coming soon: john buck made the all-star team.

boba fett/espn.

this is stinkin amazing. someone, somewhere is an absolute genius. and for the first time in my life, i want a bumper sticker.

-apc.

goal for 2010: utilize my planner.

as you can see, i'm holding my 2010 Monthly Planning Guide. it was issued to me from hillcrest (which, btw, has a newly revamped and live website). it was issued to hillcrest from the U.S. Diary Company, which i first read as "U.S. Dairy Company", and i found it odd that makers of milk and cheese also made planners. but i figured it out.

i've never been a true believer in a planner. i understand the point, and i understand that they are useful, but i also understand that i never remember to write in them.

back in middle and high school my mother would purchase me one of those school-issued planners every year, and every yearbook distribution day i would discover it hanging out with the empty Stewart's Key Lime Soda bottles at the bottom of my locker.

but now that i'm a big kid, i just might need a calendar. and since i don't have an iPhone (yet), i'm going to take my first strides with this sleek, burgandy, hard-copy monthly planning guide. call it a "resolution" if you want. but it really has nothing to do with New Year's...other than that it's a monthly calendar and the first day listed is January 1.

so a goal of mine for 2010 - utilize my planner.

-ap.

more love.

-ap.

november sizzler: the blazin challenge.

last night the freshman, sophomore, and junior guys small groups went out to buffalo wild wings to participate in the BLAZIN CHALLENGE: 12 blazin wings, 6 minutes, no water, celery, ranch, napkins, wet naps etc. just your face and your fingers - to take the popular Pink lyric entirely out of context: "it's just you and your hand tonight."

of the 40-some fellas that came to bww, the freshman group had 5 dudes participating in the challenge, the sophomores had 8 and the juniors added one more, bringing the grand total to 14 dudes - which, as you know, is two times the number of perfection.*

fortunately, we had managed to time the beginning of the event with the beginning of Game 3 of the world series, so our challenge began as all other terrific american sporting events do: with the star-spangled banner. so all 40 guys were belting it out along with the thousands in citizens bank park in philadelphia. an epic beginning to an epic event.

here is the sophomore event in pictures (with captions...because we found out after my st. louis trip that i'm truly incapable of doing strictly picture posts):

this is my challenge batch. notice the two stickers on the left side: one says "blazin"...the other is a warning label.

the munching begins. bring it on.


caleb polishing off wing 2 of 12. although not participating, colin is equally fierce and even brought some chocolate milk to tease the contestants. cruel.


dave is well on his way as well. both dave and i rocked white t-shirts. rookie mistake? or savvy veteren confidence? we'll see...


braden is a beast! he's a freshman, so he doesn't fit the "sophomore event in pictures" category, but LOOK AT THAT FACE! i had to include it. for more, check out tj's blog with a video of the freshman event.


caleb is feelin the slow burn! jack is all business.


my co-leader and best friend dave records the best time: 2 minutes 10 seconds. atta boy.


second place! my time: 2 minutes, 32 seconds. and hark! the white tshirts proved to be a stroke of confidence for both dave and i - not a single drop of sauce ended up there!


the group is finishing up...this is when the endorphins all ran to my head apparently.


lip ice baths! caleb and kurtis enjoying a quick dip in their ice water following the event. hilarious.


the blazin' graveyard. those bones didn't stand a chance.

this may be the first of many blazin challenges i'll participate in - all in all, i had a great time. i liked it so much that i might actually walk in to bww sometime this week and purchase 12 blazin wings for dinner. they were truly delicious. in the meantime, i'll be practicing my technique and further increasing my spicy food tolerance. can't wait for a rematch. the first sunday in november might've just become a new holiday and the host of an annual event. we'll see.

welcome to november sizzler everybody. this just might be the best month ever.

-apc.

* - john buck reference.

happy halloween.

-apc.

darth sasquatch.

courtesy of animals with lightsabers.

-apc.

snow leopard and the planet Hoth.

i just installed the new Mac OS X (also called snow leopard) on to my laptop. is it worth it? probably. it freed up tons of disc space and everything seems to be running much snappier than before. it's fresh and clean.

the only problem i've had with it so far is that firefox would only work for about 9 seconds and then it would "unexpectedly quit" on me. but i just opened the new safari 4, downloaded firefox over again and i haven't had a problem since. feels good.

and speaking of snow, i got a new favorite tshirt.

complete with the Hoth battle scene at the bottom.

the ATAT on the right is falling over - while intimidating, i never really found the walkers very practical. any machine that can be tripped doesn't seem too powerful to me. but the shirt is sweet. i'm a sucker for anything star wars. probably why i spent too much on this new tshirt, and way too much on both star wars trilogies back in june.

and, yet again, i have to give props to jedi gym. never gets old.

-ap.

air jesus.

proof that jesus was a baller:

this was in a cathedral in spain. well, it still is probably. but karlie and i aren't anymore and thats when this picture was taken.

-ap.

ap still exists. phew.

i feel like i have so much to say, but i'm absolutely awful at saying it suddenly.

in the last few weeks i have done so much more than this blog shows. this thing used to be a terrific way to keep up to date with my life and what i'm doing and the things i'm passionate about. however, right now the two aren't very analogous. so much is happening in my life and so little is occurring on this mug. maybe it's because too much is happening and i'm certain that i won't be able to adequately express my thoughts on here.

also john buck is on the disabled list and the royals have been the worst team in baseball over the last month. this doesn't bode well for my writing.

however, i will say that my life is chugging along well. i keep pretty busy trying to juggle youth ministry, videography, softball, moving into a new apartment, disc golf and time with karlie. the good thing is that i absolutely love all of those things (especially the last one), so despite 'wearing so many hats' i absolutely love my life.

this weekend is the first weekend that i truly have "off". hopefully that will bring with it a fresh blogging spirit and tons of motivation to write. i'll probably have to chronicle my first ever meat smoking experience tomorrow. dave and i are firing up the smoker around 4 am tomorrow. i'll be more of a man by this time tomorrow.

speaking of being more of a man...perhaps the biggest development in the last few weeks: i've started parting my hair to the side. gasp.

karlie thinks it's cute. and i think she's cute. so i do what she says. can't really argue with the logic there. truth be told - it looks pretty much the same.

-ap.

awkward family photos.

one of the funniest things i've ever seen: awkwardfamilyphotos.com

a few of my quick glance favorites:
the bird.
abracadabra.
the choker.
osh kosh: the prequel.

-ap.

photo in need of caption...

here we see john buck shamelessly taunting the chicago white sucks, but what exactly has mr. incredible said to make carlos quentin so distraught?

you decide...gosh this is going to be hilarious. i can't wait.

-ap.

one of my all time favorite photos.

-ap.

my face hurts.

i am on fire. it was hot.

-ap.

photo courtesy of nick welch. he was in the right place at the right time to catch me mid-engulf. i would link to his name to his tumblr, but i don't support tumblr. just cause ryan adams has one doesn't inherently make it cool.

i am in love.

-ap.

indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull.

...this movie was awful.

i wasn't expecting much, but it came no where near even my lowest of expectations. it started out alright with the potential for a decent indiana 4, but goodness gracious did they fall short.

before i get too far into my negativity i need to address something: harrison ford still rules and he did a great job with the script/plot/screenplay that was presented to him.

unfortunately, all three of those things sucked.

the plot was the worst. it moved about 9 million miles per hour from point to point. in past indy films they'd spend 30 minutes acquiring a certain artifact, but in this one they manage to make it to about 6 different locations within about 10 minutes of footage. it was really tough to keep up with what was even going on or why people were even fighting or why they were even interested in the plot at all. and when you can't figure out why the characters would be interested in the plot then its super difficult to want to stay involved in the movie yourself.

i'm not necessarily sure what george lucas was thinking when he agreed to do a 4th movie. cause not only was this one terrible, but it has slightly tainted the other three for me. i love the original indiana jones series, and i've already decided that i refuse to affiliate this one with the other three. it was unrealistically awful and at times i forgot i was even watching indiana jones. it was just weird.

shai labeouf was an interesting addition. not sure if i liked him or disliked him. i think his character was a good idea, but he's the same kid that played in Even Stevens and Transformers in my mind. i can never get past that. and Holes too. loved Holes.

another thing that annoyed me: it was very obvious that this movie had a HUGE budget, and i feel like they added in special effects just cause tehy could afford to. which is dumb because indiana jones does not thrive on special effects, it thrives on intense heroics and great one-liners. both of those can be accomplished with or without crazy usage of special effects and/or computers. it just seemed a bit out of place when thinking about the other movies.

don't waste your money. i went during the $5 cheapo time and it still wasn't worth it. the $6.50 popcorn was a much better deal than wasting 2 hours of my life watching that business. do yourself a favor and don't even rent it if you have ANY respect for the first three. it'll just bum you out and make you question george lucas. which isn't healthy in my mind.

its just sad that they waited 20 years to make it and it came out so disappointing. i just wish it hadn't been aliens. just anything but that. i give it a 1.5 out of 5. sigh.

at least they didnt spell crystal with a k.

-ap.

3rd floor hale library. great room. 3:30 pm.

welcome to the northeast corner of the great room/hogwarts in hale library.
thats a piece of Big Red in my mouth. not my tongue.
its helping me ween off of red bull. ok thats not true (red bull not pictured).

and i was under the impression that libraries contained books.
i was mistaken it appears.
reminds me of one of those cheesy shots they do at prep schools in front of a bookcase full of impressive looking volumes like don quixote, les miserables and the lorax.
i'm like a poor man's jimmy carter.

-ap.

4th floor hale library. 2nd nook on the right. 1:00 am.

welcome to my sociology term paper. feelin good.
please take time to appreciate the urine coloured walls of hale library.

note: i clearly have not been given wings.

-ap.

what a TREASURE.

i poured myself a hearty bowl of fruit loops this morning and i found this incredible piece of merch. its a hot wheels watch. its my new favorite watch. my old favorite watch also came from a cereal bowl. it was a Hercules watch. i only had it for a week in chicago. i took it to wrigley field, up the sears tower and to lake michigan with me. hopefully HW will accompany on similar adventures. what a great way to start a day.

-ap.

madness: rounds 1 & 2.

i wish i'd had the opportunity to throw up a predictions post about this years tourney, but i guess a sweet 16 post is better than nothing.

my final four:
unc over ku
ucla over texas
champ: ucla over unc

picks i've blown so far:
duke in the elite 8.
gtown in the elite 8.
kstate in the sweet 16.
drake over uconn in the sweet 16.

picks i've nailed so far:
villinova in the sweet 16.
davidson over gonzaga.
kstate over usc.

first round catholic games i missed:
miami over st. mary's.
oklahoma over st. joe's.
notre dame over george mason.

teams i like more since the beginning of the tourney:
davidson.
clemenson.
unlv.
texas a&m.
teams i like less since the beginning of the tourney:
oklahoma.
wisconsin.

most depressing post game interview award:
coach k following games against both the belmont and the wvu. after beating the #15 bruins by 1 point at the last second, mike goes on and on about how that was the best his team could play. way to give your guys a positive lift into the next game against west virginia. shocking they couldn't pull it out.

best performer thus far: stephen curry of davidson. what a freak. the guy looks like he's about 10 but he puts up 40 against zag and 30 against georgetown. sizzle.

biggest refereeing blunder: a&m was fouled with 4 seconds left against ucla. no call. (left) ucla went on to win by 2 (not four, the last second dunk didnt count). two free throws would've sent it to overtime - yikes.

biggest seeding crime: #6 oklahoma. are we joking. 4th in the big 12 with wins at baylor and texas tech to brag about - they get a bye to the second round of the big xii tourney where they are faced with a TERRIFYING 12th-seeded colorado team. and then got absolutely tossed by texas. they belong in the tourney. but not a 6. they're in the company of marquette, usc, and purdue as other 6 seeds. not even in the same league as them. i give them a 10 seed. 8 tops.

the "how did you even make the tournament" award: #10 arizona. arizona state beat them twice during the regular season. supposedly the wildcats made the tourney cause of their strength of schedule. thats all well and good i suppose - except they didnt win any of them. (though they did beat umkc by 19 at home. watch out for the roos.)

best team in the tourney with a losing record: coppin st. 16-20 during the regular season and finished 7th in the MEAC. are we joking.

most disappointing loss: drake to western kentucky. my cousin goes to drake and i was pumped to see the bulldogs in the tourney. big time buzzkill.

teams i pretty much fail to acknowledge in the sweet 16: michigan state, washington state. what boring trips to the sweet 16 - and dont expect either to last into the elite 8.

best jeremiah johnson impression: steven hill of arkansas. (right)

most surprising upset: siena over vanderbilt. siena is a burnt crayon color. not a college.

least surprising shalacking: ucla over mississippi valley state. 70-29.

craziest "upset" picked by an espn analyst: bobby knight - #5 MSU over #4 pitt. what a nutter.

most disappointing thing about kstate's loss to wiscosin: i can't happily wear one of my favorite tshirts anymore. unless wisconsin goes on to beat ku for the final four. then i can wear my badgers tee with pride.

number of kstate players who showed up against usc: 4.

number of kstate players who showed up against wisc: 2.

number of ron andersons on the front of usa today this week: 1.

anyway. there's a handful of thoughts there. i'll wrap this up until the final four probably.
eh. probably not. crossies.

-ap.

somehow my spacing changed halfway through my post. haven't the slightest why.
it kinda bugs me. but i'm kinda lazy. so i'm kinda gonna leave it as is.