Five for Friday
09.26.2008 12:00AM
Welcome to a new feature at Beavers and Ducks. It's Friday, the week is over and you're ready for the weekend. So to get you ready to enjoy the time off I give you five songs to get things started. So here we go with the first installment of Five for Friday.Inspired by the return of The Office I present to you The Grass Roots' "Let's Live for Today" and four other songs from the year that brought us the Summer of Love, 1967.I say The Office inspired because Creed Bratton, yes Creed Bratton of The Office was a part of The Grass Roots during their most successful years, 1967-1969. That's Creed on the far left.Next up, The Box Tops "The Letter"Easily in my Top 10 Songs of All Time, Jefferson Airplane with "Somebody to Love"The epitome of the Summer of Love and hippies, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" by Scott McKenzie.And finally, the greatest song in the history of music, "For What It's Worth" by The Buffalo Springfield.
It's Been Awhile
09.22.2008 6:40PM
I don't feel like I've been too busy lately, so I don't know why I haven't posted anything. Maybe its because I didn't really have anything to say. Pretty much anything architecture related I'm posting on my blog at Archinect, but I do have some things to report from the weekend.On Friday some friends and I headed to Bloomington for the Ball State vs. Indiana football game. It was your usual Dowell brother get together. With the game at 7PM on Saturday, we started tailgating in early afternoon. With the cornhole boards set up Mark and I took on all challengers. Through the course of the tailgate we won 13 consecutive games with the average score falling somewhere at 21-6. Yeah that's right, total domination. We finally lost a game when decided that we were tired of tossing bags.The game was pretty exciting through out the first half. It was back and forth with big play after big play. Ball State led 28-20 at the half, but the game was soured when Ball State's top receiver was taken from the field on a stretcher (He suffered a cracked vertebrae and underwent 5 hours of surgery to repair it. The doctors expect a full recovery but his football career is most likely over.) Ball State's defense really game to play in the second half and shut out the Hoosiers on their way to a 42-20 victory. It was Ball State's first win over a BCS school in 43 attempts. So its no stretch of the imagine calling it Ball State's biggest win, ever. The Cardinals moved to 4-0 and looked poised for a 10 win season, even without Love.It's Homecoming Week here. Which really doesn't mean anything to me. The game is at Noon on Saturday so that just means tailgating will start good and early.
Perfectionism is Time Consuming
09.07.2008 8:13PM
While I may have taken Labor Day off, I've been quite busy since the last time I checked in. Not busy with anything important (well not in the grand scheme of this semester- like studio projects or other school work) but rather busy with a little something for myself. During the summer I had you guys vote on what style my Illinois cornhole should take and those boards are now complete. I didn't follow your vote, or even the original style I had planned on, but in the end they turned out freakin awesome.I created digital patterns from logos provided on a UIUC website and using the laser cutter in the BSU Architecture Building I created physical chipboard stencils that allowed me to paint Illinois and the Chief Illiniwek logo on the boards. When it comes to my own projects I'm super anal and a perfectionist. But there comes a point when its good enough, especially when I had a deadline of Thursday night/Friday morning in order to use them on Friday afternoon for tailgating the Ball State vs. Navy game. So 16 hours of painting later and two clear coats of polycrylic early Friday morning, the boards were ready for cornholing.After studio finished on Friday a large group of graduate architecture students headed over to the stadium to tailgate. It was your standard tailgate. Beer, hot dogs, hamburgers, cornhole, did I mention beer. Then it was time for the game. While some games at Illinois may have only had 24,000 in attendance at least it was in a stadium that holds 60,000+. Not the case at Ball State. A capacity crowd at Scheumann Stadium is roughly 24,000. So maybe its MAC football, but BSU has a pretty good team, especially a potent offense. Here are a few shots from Ball State's 35-23 victory of the Midshipman of Navy.Two Thursdays ago I met my brother in Noblesville for a Counting Crows concert. The Crows put on a good show but unfortunately Maroon 5 opened, and they suck. They played about 12 songs and they all sounded exactly the same. I never want to hear another Maroon 5 song again, but I'm pretty sure that when I end up at my level of Hell, my punishment will be listen to Maroon 5 on a continuous loop. Here's a picture of Counting Crows during Miami.
Labor Free Labor Day
09.01.2008 10:12PM
So here it is Labor Day and that mean's two things. Its the unofficial end to summer (though you wouldn't know it from the weather forecast...HOT, HOT, HOT!) and the college football season is underway. As much as I love the summer, I'm pretty sure the fall is my favorite time of the year. I already recapped my summer, so here's one final goodbye to the Dog Days and an open arms welcome to autumn. Grab a beer and enjoy the unofficial closing theme song to summer Boys of Summer by Don Henly.Now that I have two NCAA rooting interests (okay so my interest for Ball State is basically the fact that I can properly tailgate for the first time in my college career) its double the pleasure. Ball State was one of a handful of schools to kickoff the season on Thursday. While I missed the game because I was enjoying a Counting Crows concert, the Cardinals made quick work of Northeastern winning 48-14. Quarterback Nate Davis threw just four incompletions as Ball State got off to a great start to crash the BCS (I know I'm way ahead of myself, but with the talent the Cardinals brought back and one of the easiest schedules, its not out of the realm of possibilities).As far as my other rooting interest (the real interest) the Fighting Illini couldn't withstand the offensive explosion of the Missouri Tigers. In a game that featured 94 points the Illini were on the short end of a 52-42 score. Some glaring problems for Illinois include the lack of any running game and the lack of any defensive presence. But all in all there's little to be ashamed of in a loss to the #6 team in the country with legitimate National Title hopes. Juice has developed into a pretty good deep passer (still has Byron Leftwich syndrome on short passes though) but is rendered useless as a running threat without a reliable running back. Hopefully things come together over the next two weeks as the Illini take on Eastern Illinois and Louisiana-Lafayette.Oh yeah, I'm also back in classes, but its too early to report anything from that front. I think the semester will be pretty doable and the historic preservation classes are more appealing to me than your standard architecture courses. And why not, here's one more for the close of summer, Nightswimming by R.E.M."Nightswimming, remembering that night. September's coming soon."
Check out Last Month
09.01.2008 10:05PM
Check out last month at Beavers and Ducks, while you wait for a new post for September. August 2008
Gregory 'Jesus' Dowell
Muncie, IN
- I'm currently in my second and final year of Ball State University's Master of Architecture program. Over the summer I completed an internship for The Estopinal Group and prior to that I interned seven months for Rath, Raths & Johnson. I'm currently deciding what the future holds. All that and more will be explored right here at Beavers and Ducks.
Greg's Calendar
Sept 19-21- Bloomington, IN Ball State @ IndianaOctober 3-5- Louisville, KYOctober 16-19 Fall Break, Champaign, IL Indiana @ Illinois
Important Wii Release Dates
- I'll be picking up Tiger Woods 09 sometime this week.October 22 Guitar Hero: World Tour
Other Wii Games To Watch For
Sept 22 de BlobTBA 2008 James Bond 007
The Latest Podcast
Last Month at Beavers and Ducks
August 2008
Links
the building bloc(k)CadaverBlenderSmelkemSpargelLives of WanderTheresa's Freelance Site
After studio finished on Friday a large group of graduate architecture students headed over to the stadium to tailgate. It was your standard tailgate. Beer, hot dogs, hamburgers, cornhole, did I mention beer. Then it was time for the game. While some games at Illinois may have only had 24,000 in attendance at least it was in a stadium that holds 60,000+. Not the case at Ball State. A capacity crowd at Scheumann Stadium is roughly 24,000. So maybe its MAC football, but BSU has a pretty good team, especially a potent offense. Here are a few shots from Ball State's 35-23 victory of the Midshipman of Navy.
Two Thursdays ago I met my brother in Noblesville for a Counting Crows concert. The Crows put on a good show but unfortunately Maroon 5 opened, and they suck. They played about 12 songs and they all sounded exactly the same. I never want to hear another Maroon 5 song again, but I'm pretty sure that when I end up at my level of Hell, my punishment will be listen to Maroon 5 on a continuous loop. Here's a picture of Counting Crows during Miami.
