Yet another celebrity.

Billy Mays (July 20, 1958 - June 28, 2009)

I'm starting to think this is some sort of epidemic. All the celebrities are running scared. I think he died in his sleep. RIP, Billy. I'm gonna miss your loud obnoxious voice and frequent appearance on my television.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

This was the first time the "moonwalk" was performed (check out 3:45 of the above clip), in 1983 at the 25th Anniversary of Motown. As I wrote below, in his later years, Michael Jackson was a creep of a huge magnitude and very likely molested children (at the least). However, his music is bound to live on. His album Thriller is far and away the best selling album of all time (it has sold more than TWICE as many copies than any other album ever made). For those that have iTunes, check out the top 10 most downloaded albums right now: the first nine are Jacksons. Unbelievable. The King of Pop, dead at 50. I'm playing a little "Man in the Mirror" tonight to remember the good things from his life, rather than dwell on the bad.

Rest in Peace, Michael.

Bahamas....

Afternoon all.

This has been an exciting couple of days! The NBA draft was fun to watch, especially the #10 pick who decided that he wasn't going to show himself on stage until several picks later when he suddenly appeared from behind the curtains. Good stuff. Also, the long lost John Smoltz went 5 innings last night for the beloved Red Sox (after pitching so many years for Bobby Cox and the Braves down in the ATL) and actually pitched fairly well. He definitely pitched far better than his statistics showed. It was sad though to learn of the deaths of so many famous celebrities. Ed McMahon, Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett all in the same week?! Sheesh! Its almost making me wonder, "Who is next?"

This next part that I'm going to write about has completely changed the course of my summer. Just today I was out checking the mail and I received a piece of mail from the Caribbean cruise lines notifying me that I had won a free cruise. Now, normally these types of things are a hoax. But this one is different! I called in to their corporate headquarters and found out that it is completely legitimate. I get a free 3 night cruise to the Bahamas, along with 3 days in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 2 nights in Orlando, Florida, and 3 nights in Vegas! To cap it all off, I get 1300 bucks in spending cash! I am so excited! This will be my first time leaving the country, and my first cruise as well!

Also, for anyone who cares, the Oregon District 4 Little League 11-12 year old baseball honors tournament begins Saturday, and I have the great honor of being a member of the umpiring crew. This is quite a feat for any little league umpire, let alone a first year umpire like myself. It is a great compliment to receive such an honor.

I hope everyone is having such a great summer! I wish more people would post on here about their summer plans, but oh well. The sun is shining and I'm finally getting over that nasty 3 day flu deal I had (maybe it was swine flu... :P). Well, thats about all for now. Take it easy alums.

ZT

NBA Draft Live Blog!

The Rose Garden court in Portland, before Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs this year.
Hey everyone!

I'm not sure about you, but I always really enjoyed talking about the Blazers this year in class, when we could! I just had a thought (and am getting completely distracted from the over a hundred pages - no joke - of reading I have to do for my classes tomorrow) that we should definitely have a NBA Draft Live Blog! For those that do not know, the NBA draft is where the teams select college players (or foreign players) to play for them. In essence, they are selecting the rights to negotiate with the player for a contract. Every year, there is always a lot of interesting stuff happening! I am guessing that the Blazers will be active too - their General Manager, Kevin Pritchard, is famous for draft day trades. In fact, that is how we got Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge!

So, come back and visit the blog THIS THURSDAY, starting at 4:00 PM. The draft will be held live on ESPN television, and I am sure on the radio as well. I will be live-blogging as it goes along - possibly on this main post. Who knows what exciting players Portland will get? Hope to see you then!

EDIT: Thursday - 3:40 - I'm here, ready to chat, but very saddened at the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Weird, weird guy, and quite possibly a pedophile, but my goodness, his music was incredible.

Anyway, I will be in the comments, blogging the NBA Draft. The Blazers have already made a trade, to get the #22 pick. I wonder if they are done? Lots of action in the league - Shaq has been traded to play in Cleveland with LeBron next year. Plus lots of others. Follow along in the comments!

TRADE #1: Sergio Rodriguez is no longer a Trail Blazer, according to BlazersEdge. We just traded him and the #38 pick for the #31 pick in the draft from Sacramento. To commemorate Serigo's Portland career, here's a picture I took last season:



DRAFT PICKS:

#22: Victor Claver, a forward out of Spain. The thinking here is that the Blazers can have him continue to play overseas for a few years, so they don't have to pay him, and when he is ready to come over, we will have the money and roster spot for him.

#31: Jeff Pendergraph, a forward from Arizona. He will probably take the spot of Channing Frye.

#33: Daunte Cunningham, a forward (are you seeing a trend?) from Villanova. He will have to compete hard to take a roster spot (unless we are going to trade him or other Blazers away).

#55: Patrick Mills, guard out of St. Mary's. I am pretty sure that the thinking here is that we will send him overseas to continue playing.

Thoughts: All in all, this is a draft that does not overwhelm. I am guessing that the Blazers have other moves coming, via signing free agents in the next months, or by trade. If they don't do anything, I will be seriously questioning the strategy. I guess it is just another "wait and see" approach!

Thanks to everyone that stopped by! Lots of fun! Take care, have a great weekend!

This One Time, at Football Camp...

In front of the Grand Canyon in Arizona right before a beautiful sunset. Taken in the summer of 2007.
Good evening, everyone!

I really hope that your first week off has been restful and interesting. As I pointed out below, I have been coaching football out at Westview this entire week (basically just trying to chip in where I can). Tomorrow (Saturday), we are starting the camp that we have been preparing for the last two weeks! It takes place at Canby High School, about 45 minutes away from Westview. We are not actually staying the night there, but will be there practicing and playing various teams from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, on both Saturday and Sunday. If you want, come out and watch next year's team! I will primarily be coaching the incoming freshmen, but you will also see me with the other squads as well. Zack, you will be sad to hear that I got absolutely DRENCHED today at the Freshman practice. So much so that Coach Fisher took pity on me and gave me new clothes for the second practice. Summer, indeed.

In other news, after football ends, it is back to Lewis and Clark full-time for me. I have already ordered all of my books (in college, you have to pay for every textbook, and it is not fun), and been e-mailed a 3 page essay, due on Monday! Crazy times. Back to being a student for me! One of the classes I am taking is on teaching the Constitution, which will be taught by Westview's own Athletic Director (and all around amazing guy), Mike Sanderson! I am definitely looking forward to it. However, with class from 9:00-5:00 on Monday and Wednesday, as well as classes from 9:00-1:30 on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, I know it is going to be a ton of work!

Totally jazzed by the student blogs that have gone up this week (below)! Exactly what I was hoping for! This place should really be for everyone to stay in contact with everyone else, not just me with you all. For one, I think that people are probably more interested in how everyone is doing, not just me. Two, I really enjoy reading and seeing what everyone else is up to as well! Please, keep it up! Remember to e-mail me if you want to be able to post blogs yourself, so I can send you an invitation! After that, just sign in to www.blogger.com - select "new post" under this blog, and you are good to go!

For those interested, here's the visitor stat tracker (which I tend to think is counting first time visitors wrongly, because as much as I would like to believe that there have been 242 different visitors, I do not - EDIT: Unless, as I just realized might be so, the tracker is counting "first time visitors" PER DAY - as in, it resets every night. That would make way more sense, so we are averaging about 30 visits a day - good!) for this first week:


Overall, I am still very pleased! Keep coming back and checking in! As I said, I am hoping to keep my own post count down to about once a week, but there is no limit to how much everyone else can post!

Okay, a few other things before I head off. One, for those interested about my ability to possibly land a teaching job for next year - the opportunities simply are not coming yet. I think they will, but it will probably be near the end of the summer, if at all. One thing that may have an enormous impact on this: KGW.com - Governor threatens to veto K-12 budget. Which is actually pretty funny to me, because I like Governor Kulongoski, voted for him, and he spoke at my WOU graduation last year, but now he has the ability to really dampen my prospects for a job. Just remember, everyone - you cannot have good public schools without people earning money and paying their taxes!

Secondly, I know I keep coming back to this, but pay attention to what is going on in Iran right now! It is seriously monumental and really ties in to what we were talking about in class at the end of the year. This weekend, especially, should be really interesting. The leader of Iran (it is basically a theocracy - a religious government), Ayatollah Khamenei has basically said "bring it" to the protesters of the recent election, and has threatened to use violence to suppress them. Link: CNN.com - Chants against West punctuate Khamenei's defiant speech. All of this might happen tomorrow. Just check out the headline of the Huffington Post right now (again, they are running a fantastic live blog of the whole uprising here):


A day of destiny, indeed. Let us all hope that the Iranians can resolve this conflict by gaining true democracy and rights for all, without any more blood being shed. You can see some really incredible pictures of the uprising (as well as a money quote by Gandhi) here: DailyKos.com - Tehran Street Photos -- On the Brink. Look at the reaction from all around the world too! Finally (for the Iran news), we also talked in class about how women (specifically in the Middle East) can have an impact in policy and gaining rights. Here's a fantastic article about how the women in Iran are responding to this: CNN.com - Women in Iran march against discrimination.

In other news, check out my (and now your) friend Ryan Bowen's pictures and blog from Rwanda - he has had a few updates since I last showed Period 1: PlayForHope.org - Ryan's Blog.

Finally, to wrap this all up - I cannot believe that I did not somehow find the time to show everyone these sites in class this year, but these are some of my favorites for FREE giving to people in need, just by clicking! The first one is: The Hunger Site. Just click on the "Click Here to Give -- It's Free" button in the middle, and presto, you have given 1.1 cups of food to hungry people! There are all sorts of good causes (just click on each site at the top) - click every day, for free, and help out people for nothing (it is based on the ad revenue from your click)! I try to do this every day, though I often forget. Just put it on your favorites! Make a difference in one minute, sitting at your computer!

That should just about do it! Wish me luck for everything coming up! I will try to post a new poll later tomorrow - it seems like the overwhelming favorite for right now is keeping the layout the same, which is good, because it means less work for me!

Have a fantastic weekend everyone! I miss all of you! :-)

The A'Cat'Amy Awards

Hey class, Just thought I post this
A'Cat'amy awards

Most Sporty: CJ Garcia and Carson Kelly
Most Gonna-Be-Missed: Jazmyne Clark
Most Unique: John Woerz
Most African: Mustafae Nur
Most Fashionable: McKenzie Crawford
Most Inteligent Yet Cool: Zack Thompson
Most Bob Marley: Robert Beth
Most Smiley: Andrew Knauer
Most Funny: Abe Argaw
Most Blazer Fan: Arch Sriram
Most Artistic: Kierra Knight
Most Unusual: Lauren Verburg
Most Calm: Jordan Timbrook
Most Voiced: Randi Lawrence
Most Cheerleader: Brooke Preim
Most Best: Ben Ludeman
Most Different: Kurtis Lee
Most Informative: Brandon Cicero
Most Shoppy: Scout Clair
Most Colorful: Andrew Hyun
Most Creative: Nathan DelRosario
Most Delightful: Russel Garo
Most Nice: Jillian Goff
Most Interactive: Thuy Tran
Most Questining: Aaron Rockford
Most Quite: Morgan McClincy
Most Straight Forward: Nolan Fischer
Most Hard Working: Nicole Tsingos
Most Random: Zach Neville
Most Best-Teacher: Luke Fritz

Summer?

Dear Alums,
I do not have long to write, so we will make this super short and quick.

First off, I would like to let everyone know that this thing that you Oregon natives call "summer", is not in fact summer. Summer consists of sunny days, with NO RAIN AND CLOUDS. That being said, hopefully our "summer" vacation will eventually consist of some summer weather.

On to the news brief. On CNN, I found an amazing article about former president Jimmy Carter and his recent visit to Israel. He sat down with members of both groups, and talked some things out. EXACTLY WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT IN CLASS! We all have to realize that Arabs and Israelis are all human. Mr. Carter very emotionally brings this into plain sight. Coming from a man of his stature, this article ought to make Americans feel ashamed at how much we ignore Palestinians until they start blowing up Israelis.

On a lighter note, tonight I went out and umpired at five oaks middle school, and had to kick out a parent. This was a first for me, and somewhat intimidating to be honest. I was convinced I was going to be murdered at the end of the game. However, it is all done with though, and I'm glad to have made it home in one piece. Also, for those of you who knew her, I got a myspace message from Jazmyne today. It was so great to hear from her! Hopefully she will post on here very soon.

I hope all of you are enjoying your "summers!" Take it easy alums.

ZT

Alright then.

A little doodle I did out of boredom, yes, it's me. I like drawing myself as a cartoon character for some reason.

Hey guys, it's me, Lauren Verburg, from P.1. I just figured since nobody else was doing so, I'd post a blog entry.

I was trying to think of what I'd write about, when all of a sudden, it came to me: "Why not do a news brief?" So I went to CNN.com and looked for something interesting, when this caught my eye. Imagine being yanked out of your hospital bed!

Secondly, I would like to announce that my birthday is next month, on the 20th. If your birthday is coming up soon, please feel free to drop a comment in and tell me when. I'll put it up! ALSO, July 11th is Free Slurpee Day, so go find a 711 and get one. 

Lastly, some people have been asking to see some of my photography, so here's a link

That's all I have to say for now, have a good summer everyone, I hope we can keep this blog up and running!

- Lauren Verburg

We Might Have Something Here...

A graph of how many visitors to this blog there have been from when I put the visitor tracker on the website Saturday afternoon to when I am writing this post, at 10:00 PM on Sunday.
Hello everyone!

I must say, this is pretty exciting! For those of you that might not be able to understand the above graph, basically it is saying that there have been at least 40 (!!!) different "first-time" visitors (some may be the same person, on different computers) to this blog this weekend! When I first put it up, I started the count at 4, because I knew that at least that many had already stopped by. It looks like I may have underestimated things! Woo hoo! Very exciting stuff. You too can see how many people have stopped by, by looking at the counter in blue and red on the left side. If you need a little pointer, here it is:


I cannot believe that I did not investigate how to do this visitor thing before, when I was doing the class blogs. It would have been really nice to know if all of that hard work was actually being put to good use! It also might have been super depressing, so maybe it is for the better. Anyway, I am very excited about things. You can also note in the above picture that we already have SEVEN authors signed up to post blogs/pictures whenever they want. If you want to join this list, please e-mail me at LukeFritz@aol.com, so I can send you an invitation to join up. I still have about 21 open invitations, so check your e-mail, you might already have one from me!

That all being said, let's get on to some other interesting stuff. I am going to try and continue a bit of the News Brief section, because I thought that it was always fascinating to talk about what is going on in the world with you all.

First things first, check out the "This Day In History" item for today (Monday), right below the visitor counter? It's about Queen Noor! We totally talked about her in class! She married the King of Jordan 31 years ago today.

Speaking of the Middle East, my goodness, everyone should be paying a lot of attention to what is going on in Iran right now. Basically, since the "election," the youth of that country have risen up and said that they are not going to accept the continuing reign of President Ahmadinejad, the guy who really does not like America and has denied that the Holocaust happened. Here is a great running blog about everything going on over there, with pictures and videos of some of the riots: HuffingtonPost.com - Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising. Super, super interesting stuff.

Also, the Los Angeles Lakers won their 15th NBA Championship last night, beating the Orlando Magic in the series 4-1. I sent a congratulatory text message to Mr. Hardin, of course. The Blazers will have their turn soon, I am quite sure of it!


Me and my friend Clarke, at a Lakers game in Los Angeles against Golden State in 2007. Kobe Bryant had scored 50+ points four straight games going into this one, which he ended up scoring 43.
For those soccer fans and players in the audience, be sure to check out the United States play Italy today (Monday) on ESPN at 11:30 AM. So cool that we are actually able to watch stuff like this now! I will be taking in the start of the match before heading out to Westview, where I am coaching incoming Freshman football from 1:30-3:30, and the rest of the school from 3:00 to 5:00 (there is a bit of overlap there). That is the schedule all week, so if you want, come out to the football field and say hello!

Finally, here's an article that made me smile and think "what if?" when it comes to stopping Global Warming - WashingtonPost.com - White Rooftops May Help Slow Warming.

Again, please feel free to post whatever you want in the comments or on the actual blog (become an author)! This is about you guys now! Please enjoy your first Monday of summer break! Remember to post what you are doing, as well as upload pictures to the Group PhotoBucket Album using the password "newsbrief" - I see someone has already gone and commented on a few pictures, very nice!

Until next time...

Welcome to the Alumni Blog!

In London, during the summer of 2007 for a month long study abroad term. I cannot wait to hear all about where everybody travels to or does around town this summer!
Hello and welcome to the alumni blog, everyone!

I really do hope that this becomes a place where everyone can keep tabs on what is going on with everyone else, whether it be over the summer, or if you ever need help on an assignment, or want to talk about what is going on in this big wide world of ours! I am hoping to post every so often about what is going on in my life, though I will probably keep my own number of posts down, unless this idea really takes off. Hopefully, everyone is posting and talking to each other! Basically, let's continue the learning and the fun, as much as possible! If it becomes obvious that nobody is following along even every so often, I will just stop posting altogether. Let's please not have that happen!

I am thinking that this will be much less formal than the class blogs. For instance, I am taking away the "approve comments before they go up" rule that I have on the other blogs (unless I see some reason to go back to the other format) - meaning that if you enter a comment, it will post immediately, no matter when you post it. Hopefully, this will mean that there is much more talking to each other, rather than just to me. Also, as I think I mentioned to everyone, if you want to start posting your own blogs on this website, for people to comment on, make a Blogger ID, let me know what it is, and I can made you an author/contributor on here, so you can post whenever you want, about whatever you want (obviously, within reason).

I also have some other ideas, like guest appearances, topics, votes on settings (how do you like the flipped colors?) and generally, stuff to keep your interest.

So, the first question for anyone that is checking this, so I know that people are actually doing so - Are you going on vacation this summer? If so, where? If not, what do you plan to do around town?

Start posting in the comments and let's get this thing started! Come back often! :-)

Currently -
Located at: Home, Portland, OR.
Listening to: "Caribbean Blue" by Enya.
Reading: "1,000 Places To See Before You Die" by Patricia Schultz.

EDIT: Saturday, 6/13 - I just went through all of my old class related e-mails and sent invitations to everyone I could find, something like 23 different people. Spread the word, please! Sign up to be a poster, and e-mail everyone that I don't have addresses for! :-)

Also, Ben Ludeman, in the comments on the Period 1 blog, suggested that we have a group photobucket, for anyone to drop pictures into and see what is going on with everyone (besides just posting all your lovely pictures here on the blog, too). The address is really simple: http://photobucket.com/westviewgsalum. Sign up to view and post photos using the password "newsbrief" - I crack myself up. Great idea Ben!