2003 february 28

today i waited in a huge line for 2 hours, which wrapped around the imu. i found out last night that former president william jefferson clinton is coming to the university of iowa to give a speech. i am excited! this will be my second time hearing him speak. the first time tom and i headed out to the palmer house in downtown chicago to hear him give a farewell speech before he left office. he is one of the best public speakers in america currently so it should be a good time.

you know what is not a good time, watching reality television lately. last night jen and i spent the night ripping into new shows such as are you hot, the search for america's sexiest people and i am a celebrity get me out of here. these two shows are complete crap. first off, there is only one person i consider a celebrity on get me out of here, robin leach. i mean seriously find some real celebes and maybe it would be worth watching. secondly, where did they find the judges for are you hot? one guy was giving every gal high scores so he could hook up with them after the show. the other guy seem to have some homosexual tendencies that were creeping everyone out. abc should save face and pull these horrible shows off the air. also abc please move the jimmy kimmel live show to an earlier time. david letterman and jay leno have both lost their luster.

2003 february 27

today started off great. i went to the senior center with tim and natalie in my video essay group. our project is to film a unique scene in iowa city, and we chose the senior citizens band. so we spent all morning hanging out with them and listening to them play. what a great band! they also gave the best interviews i have ever heard, old people have the best stories.

i also found out that new york announced the winner of the contest to rebuild the wtc. the winning project by daniel lebeskind will have the tallest building in the world.

1928-2003

2003 february 25

i have been doing a lot of touch up work to the site to make it look almost perfect. my first step, revise all the pages with pictures as backgrounds to fit a large web browser. it all ways made me crazy looking at the background being replicated to fill the screen. those pages look a lot nicer now. i also am going add new backgrounds to some old pages, such as the architecture page. i already finished redoing the lights page, so check it out. i am also thinking about new ways to redo the main page and the introduction page, so if you have any ideas let me know.

yesterday the university finally put the new gold dome on top of the old capitol. the dome burned down last year after a construction worker was using a blowtorch to remove asbestos from the bell tower. it looks like the old capitol exterior will return to normal sometime late in march. finally something nice to look at on campus.

2003 february 24

on wednesday my tv production group has to do a 10 minute interview with a guest outside of class. for two weeks we had a guest lined up, and today we are not sure if he will make it. this may mean writing a whole new script for a new guest, which takes a couple hours to write. on a good tv production note our group got an a- on the cul wipes commercial.

i am not a big reader, but lately i can not put down tom clancy's new book red rabbit. its a good read, everyone should read it.

also good luck jeff on your last two days at devry and finals. it seemed like yesterday you were just starting school there, and wiring up some crazy gadgets. kick some ass jeff!

2003 february 23

this weekend was pretty nice. went and saw iowa lose yet another basketball game to wisconsin. it is ok though that our team sucks, they only have 7 players on scholarship and the play their hearts out. i was able to buy a ticket from a scalper for only 20 bucks. this is a good deal since to get in it is usually around 25. so i must shout a holla to that great man outside of the northeast gate.

this weekend i also got to hang out with luken and his friend dan who came up from saint louis to visit his sis. had a good time at malones on friday night, and i had pizza for the first time all year in iowa. i love pokey sticks!

i must thank my boss at wsui for the e-mail she sent me about the work i did last week in the political science discussion. what a great thing it is to know your work was appreciated (and went on air). it is truly the greatest internship in the world.

good luck katie (sis) with all your college applications, i hope you get in everywhere you want to.

2003 february 21

can someone tell me when the world began to revolve around michael jackson? i think it is ridiculous that every network has been running these horrible behind the scenes look at michael. yesterday i saw that oprah is going to run a special on her view of michael. for as long as i have known he has been a weird guy. i mean he i would never let a child of mine with in 4,000 miles of the guy. i just don't understand why now was picked to be the michael special month on tv.

last night i learned that my good friend john fech's site was being shut down by the man. what the hell, he had great family pics up there, the mitchell family, my family, and other not worthy events. help save john fech's website for future visitors to see. i created a nice picture link below my friendly links section to guide you to his now defunct site. damn the man! leave a nice comment for john below to brighten his day.

2003 february 20

last night i had to cover a panel discussion of the possible war on iraq for wsui. it was interesting to see which political science professors were anti or pro war. most of them agreed that oil was not the reason for a bush war. they decided it was a war to get a regime change in iraq. some of the pro war panelist pulled up good reasons why france and russia would not want us to go to war. france and russia have huge oil deals with iraq, and iraq owes both countries in the billions of dollars. the u.s. has been nice enough to say if there is a regime change these iraq debts would be erased, and russia and france would be out of luck.

the most interesting argument for war i did hear on the panel was the fact that if america does not go we will lose face in the international community. this is the first time i have heard this. its a good point, if you hype up war and say you will go it alone then you don't, the international community will look at you as a whipping boy. it would not improve our situation with north korea if they see that small countries can bargain with america without the use of a nuclear weapons threat.

a good alternative to war was brought up by the french to the un security council. the french want to send in triple the amount of inspectors backed by un military force. only problem with that is good luck getting sadam to sign up for it.

the best point of the night came from one of my old professors, he stated if the anti war protestors don't like what they see in america it is time for a regime change, a regime change in the united states. yes that is right elections are coming up soon. if these anti war demonstrators don't like what is going on vote him out of office.

i added a page of gavin pics that chuck sent out.

2003 february 19

last night was a little to adventurous for myself. how long does one put microwave popcorn in the microwave for? this has been the question that i have been asking everyone i know. the consensus was around 3 minutes, and that is exactly how long i put the popcorn in for. katie (roomie) and i were going to watch a movie, and she went to get the popcorn out of the microwave. she started screaming and i knew that was not a good sign. i ran into the kitchen to see a cloud of smoke and a bag of popcorn on fire. not a bad fire just like lighting a lighter bad. the bag of fire was tossed into the snow and extinguished, but the place still smells of burnt popcorn and butter.

katie and i had a debate about whether it mattered that the popcorn remained in the microwave unopened for 5 minutes after it was done cooking. i argued that made no difference, there was no heat in the microwave. she said there is still heat in the bag thus making it catch fire. anyone out there with microwave knowledge want to settle this one?

check out the new 2002 archive page, and the new poll.

2003 february 18

things are crazy busy again this week. i thought my final semester in college would be a time to kick back and relax. i guess it is my fault for signing up for two production classes. tonight we have another meeting for tv production. our next assignment is to create a television interview show that lasts about 10 minutes. we are going to interview some iowa city band that a group member knows.

this week for wsui i am going to be covering an iraq war debate. should be a good time, and a good subject to cover.

thanks to tommy for hanging out with me and putting up with sleeping on the floor of my room (or the lack of floor). also i have a pic of little gavin hayes up now. i was so happy to find cooper's beer which is brewed in australia. i was introduced to it when uncle don accidentally sprayed it in my face. ah memories of doyle's restaurant on watson bay. i will have to bring some in for st. patrick's parade, nothing is more irish than australian beer.

to all those trying to post comments i am sorry but i guess the server is being fixed, so hopefully it is up and running soon.

2003 february 15

what the hell, tj you are so lucky!! steve waugh autographed your cricket bat. first of all i am jealous that you own a cricket bat, second it is autographed by the third time leading points person in cricket. for all americans this is similar to getting michael jordan to autograph a basketball. how did you get that autograph?!?!

2003 february 14

what an idiot, this story comes from the daily telegraph of sydney australia. "Australia leg spinner Shane Warne took a fluid-reducing tablet containing a banned diuretic to appease his mother who wanted him to look good at a news conference, Australian media have reported. Warne and mother Brigitte, who local newspapers described as "the life of the party", talked only hours before the January 22 news conference in Sydney where he announced the 2003 World Cup would be his last one-day competition, two newspapers said. "Mrs Warne began badgering Warne to take one of her 'fluid tablets' so he would look nice at the televised press conference," reported The Australian national newspaper, citing an unnamed family friend as the source for the story." this is supposed to be one of australia's best cricket players, and he has since been kicked out of the world cup for taking the banned diuretic.

it was nice to see today that everyone in my tv production class was a little pist about evil valentine day. we figure it will be a good one if everyone just gets drunk beyond recognition.

i am excited that family might be coming out this weekend to see little gavin. mary pat, charlie, ellen, and tom are going to make the big trip to the lovely iowa city. i hope the weather holds up so everyone can make it out here. they are talking about freezing rain and a possible 7-9 inches of snow.

now it is time for the final evil valentine day old dating story: the girls i date are usually good at predicting who i am going to date after them or while dating them (no i don't cheat on girls i date). this one gal i was dating for a couple of months and things were going ok. one night i went out with tj his friend, and the friend's sister. we hung out and it was a fun night. the girl i dated heard about this from who knows who, and asked me if i was cheating on her with the friend's sister. this came from nowhere as it was the first time i had seen the friend's sister in about two years. well ends up i ended up going out with the friend's sister. it was weird how the one girl i was dating was able to predict that was going to happen. this happened a 2nd time when another girl had a dream that i was going to hook up with someone that lives close by my house. turns out the girl living close by the house kissed me while drunk at a party. how odd, girls i guess are able to read other girls heads better than guys can.

i will write one more to end on a happy note instead of a funny one. the best date i went on was with one of my coworkers at the pool. me and her went downtown to go learn how to swing dance, after not finding the place at all we went to navy pier to meet up with some of her friends, but never found them. we walked over most of downtown before heading back to the car. it was one long ass walk from navy pier to the shedd aquarium (i still talk about i am down at the lake). after being stopped by the cops to tell us to get off the lakefront we headed home. downtown walking around has to be the coolest place for a date, you know since you get that cool breeze off the lake (horrible joke but i had to through it in).

now here is the fun part, i will give any person who is able to name all the girls i have wrote about, $10 dollars. i think only katie, jeff, tom, and maybe katie tulley have a shot at naming all of them if not a majority of them. sign your idea's to the comments section or the guest book, and be sure to match the dates of the log and the girls. good luck kids!

2003 february 13

things have been so crazy around iowa city with babies, classes, and meetings, oh my! i was happy to hear that my old dating stories were found as funny by katie (sister). i hope they bring laughter to all since they do for me.

so with on delay, here is the fourth past dating story in tribute for evil valentine day: its always nice to hear a girl likes you, and it is also great when you begin dating. the bad part is when you are getting followed. this girl i used to date lived by my place of employment (a private pool). after dating a few weeks she began to walk her dog by my work all the time. it was cool at first, but then started to get a little creepy. she began to get upset when she would see me talk with other female coworkers. her family joined the pool with only a month left of summer. workers began to get to know her, and referred to her as my stalker.

2003 february 12

today was great! first i went to the hospital to see the newborn gavin hayes. he is so small, and when he cries it is not even that loud. i had to say it was the last time i have held a baby since i think little seany boy 13 years ago. awwww little seany, now he is almost twice the size of me. i picked up gavin a nice iowa hawkeye bib. i figure he can drool and spit up on it, which might make chuck (for those who do not know chuck loves the illini, and is not a fan of the hawks) a proud dad lol.

then after seeing gavin i had to run and do interviews at the poets against the war in iraq. it was great, everyone was nice, no one was an ass about being interviewed. on top of that my interviews ran on air at 5:04 and 6:04 on wsui (910 am). it was a great thrill to say, hey i did that.

interesting news appeared today on the e! network. turns out my favorite american idol singer will not be competing anymore. frenchie davis was kicked off the show after producers found out that she had posed nude. many might say hey that is nothing bad. well it is bad if it was for a website that is under investigation for distributing child porn. way to go fox on getting some form of morals.

i was disturbed to learn that demon dogs in lincoln park will be bulldozed soon. it seems the cta wants to expand the brown line station. that upsets me, because my dad used to drive all of us kids out there to get some great hot dogs.

the third past dating story in preparation for the evil valentines day is a happy one this time: one girl i used to date decided for my birthday she would pick me up tickets to my favorite band on earth, yup that is right u2. not only that she drove all the way to iowa city to pick me up. when things ended cousin chuck was there to say, well at least you got u2 tickets out of it. that was the truth, how many people could say they went to see the greatest band of all times for their birthday? (and yes u2 is slowly taking over the world)

2003 february 11

AHHHHH!!!! chuck and camille had their baby this morning. gavin martin hayes, eight pounds two ounces. how cool is that?? i found out a couple of hours ago, and started calling everyone i knew. i will have to stop by the hospital tomorrow.

hey tj how much did you win on the pokies, it didn't turn up in your post? also who is this symonds guy? i saw he had a century plus another 43 runs against pakistan. for all americans, australia won their first match in the world cup by 82 runs against pakistan. go australia!!!! get your cricket on by visiting the world cup site.

the second funny dating memory to the evil valentine's day log: i have learned through past experience that i am never taking a girl that i am dating to the july 3rd fireworks at the taste of chicago. something always turns up wrong. the first time i found out the girl i was dating started smoking that week, and now has a really bad smoking habit. so that ended within 2 weeks. the next time i went with a girl i was dating, she decided it was a good time to tell me she didn't know who i was when i first started talking to her, even though we had meet before. i note those two moments, because it is when everything good turned bad quickly.

2003 february 10

so i am now over at cousin chuck and camille's place watching bud tonight. camille went into the doctor today, and there may be a baby anytime now. i was happy to see bud remembered who i was when i walked in. i will keep everyone posted on the news as it comes in.

today i had to do my air check for wsui, talk about pressure. after a little coaching i got it the way they wanted it. they said i was reading a little to npr like, and not so natural. i figured since they are npr they would want it slow and mellow, but no. i will find out some time in the future if i get an air shift.

as i promised here is the first funny dating memory of the day in preparation for evil valentines day: now that i have been on the radio for a while i learned an important lesson, never talk about a girl you have dated or are dating on the air. this lesson applies to all times of the night. last year i was set up on a blind meeting or date if you will, it went well. we set up a second meeting to go out to eat. well before that took place bryce (the host of the bryce fishman show 1-4am on thursdays last year) decided it was an open subject to talk about on air. after saying some nice things about her bryce brought up some stuff she should not have. well, long story short the girl was listening to the show, and i have not really seen her since that second meeting. we e-mailed a little over the summer, but that was about all. so lesson of that day was never talk about girls on air, write that one down kids.

2003 february 8

the imu (student union of iowa for those who don't know) is rocking today!! yesterday was the start of the dance marathon. this is a great event where people dance for 24 hours, starting from 7pm to 7pm the next day. it was cool to see when i was doing my show today to see all the kids and students hanging out in the chill room outside our studio. also i would like to thank tilly and her family for stopping by the studio today while my show was on. i guess they can be counted as my first guests. thanks also to tom hayes who was the first to use "requestkrui" on im today.

the show today kicked ass!! there was some mechanical problems while it was going on. damn cd player #2 wouldn't kick in so i had a couple seconds of dead air. it ended up working in the end though. i had about 10 request which is an amazing number, and i also had a ticket giveaway which brought in a whole bunch of callers.

for all the complaining i have been doing over this name change, i have also been doing a lot of research on future renovations of comiskey park. an architecture firm called hks out of texas has been drawing up plans for comiskey renovations for over the last 5 years. the latest renovations which should be ready by the this season were posted on their site. so check out the u.s. cellular renovations slated for this season. back in the late 1980s another architecture firm designed armour field an alternative to hok inc.'s new comiskey design which was chosen and built.

coming monday look for my past memories of horrible and weird girlfriends in tribute to valentines day.

2003 february 7

ah, i can finally relax a little since all my work for the week is done. today we handed in the cul wipes commercial, we think it is gold, but those projects always get torn apart by the teachers. i can compare it to a dumb down version of being on american idol and receiving cruel comments.

i have to laugh every time i get a phone call lately i think it is going to be cousin chuck with baby news. it usually turns out to be tv production people or katie (sister). hopefully the news come soon.

last night jen and rachel stopped by before i passed out for the night. jen and i had to watch and rip on dr. phil on jay leno. yes, i have been recently watching dr. phil everyday. i think anyone could do his job, just ask your self how is that working for ya (in a horrible texas accent)?

also in preparation for the evil day of valentine i am going to be posting some funny memories of my past love life. i am thinking a fact a day starting on monday. stay tuned it should be a riot.

2003 february 6

me so tired! after 3 and a half hours of filming, and four hours of editing the cul wipes mentholated toleit wipes commercial is gold. it is the funniest thing i have ever helped cut, and we were able to make it look incredible. last night we wrapped up the project at around 1am. i am going to put all my media creations on vhs for all to watch this summer or anytime in iowa city.

recently there has been arguments of my declaration of being a full time cub fan. i would like to clear the air. have i ever been a full time sox for cub fan in the past, no. i have been an admitted fair weather fan for most of my life. my dad and mom took us to both white sox and cubs games most of my life. as most of you may know the naming rights have pist me off. if the white sox do good this season, i may support them, but overall i will support the cubs win or lose. we need a championship in chicago and i could care less who wins it, but it better be the cubs or sox before i die.

today i go into wsui to do an air check to see if i can get anything on the air. i love doing editing off air, but what the hell i will see if i can scrap up one good news reading, wish me luck. for those of you not from iowa city, wsui is the local eastern iowa npr affiliate.

2003 february 5

things have been going crazy with television production. it was true what everyone told me, it eats up all your time. last night we were filming for are 30 sec. commercial, our product was cul wipes, which is mentholated toilet paper. good idea huh. well we filmed from 6pm until 9:30pm for what needs to be only 30 seconds. tonight we are going to start editing at 11:30pm, the scary part is editing is always the longest portion of production. something tells me i will be home at around 2:30am.

to all those i have talked to back home, i am not going to make it in this weekend due to filming and radio stuff. i am definitely going to have to make it back soon.

tj just notified me that the baggy green will be playing the world cup of cricket this month. i am going to get you a bunch of tapes. tj are these all day-night tests or the 5 days?

check out the two finalists for the world trade center redevelopment.

2003 february 4

i would like to send a get well note to andrew powers. yesterday i was notified that he had to get a couple stiches in his head. why? turns out that walking head first into a dumpster avoiding the rain is not a good idea. i hope the stiches heal quickly.

i also talked to c mitch to get the european trip underway. last night we planned a tentative route and dates. i figure this is the only time i will have 5 weeks off for a long time.

i put up the january archive, and also added some new quotes so check them out.

2003 february 3

busy busy is the name of the game this week. i still have to finish some reading for my night class, quest for human destiny. today i am finally going over to wsui to see if i can get my job. this will be the first time i have ever worked while taking courses here in iowa.

i was excited when we finished our sports show last night. it was the best show i have been a part of since i started doing the sports gig. i was making some great comments, and was making a funny once and a while. we got to discuss the arena football league, which i love. little known fact but i was at the first ever arena bowl (the chicago bulldogs v. detroit drive). for all of those great australians that help teach me the game of cricket i gave an on air shout out. i also filled my promise that i would mention steve waugh's 10,000 point. it put steve at the 3rd highest point scorer in cricket history. i love cricket!

also to note a columnist for the chicago tribune had a better funny about the u.s. cellular field name. he refers to it as the u.s. sell-your-soul field, and that is what the white sox did. this made me a cubs fan for life.

2003 february 2

before the game started against purdon't there was a moment of silence for those on the space shuttle columbia. then instead of having one person sing the national anthem, they asked the entire stadium to sing. it was the loudest i have heard a national anthem sung by spectators.

it was the best basketball game i have seen iowa play in a long time, and we still lost. i give my heart out to those on the team that fought with all they had. i love that we only have 5 scholarship players on the team with reiner out. what a great game, purdon't is one hell of a team. willie dean has skills, but tends to walk a little.

in the post game interviews gene keady is a riot. he is the funniest coach i have meet in a while, and what a comb over.

it is also official that comiskey park is now known as u.s. cellular field. the company purchased the rights for $68 million. the money will go towards a new look for the stadium by 2005. i hope they bulldoze the bruise down.

2003 february 1