Ames and I have really been enjoying the exercise and competition, but it’s also been fun to design a shirt together each semester to go with our goofy co-ed team names. Last year, our team was Not in the face, we’re models and this is the design we came up with:

This year, our team name is Oldies but Goodies. Our friend Ashley came up with the idea of an old guy in a walker, and this is what I drew in Illustrator. The free font, Team Spirit helped to finish the design:

We actually had so many girls from the ChemE department come out this year that my wife and her close friend Eyma decided decided to branch off and start a girls only team. I suggested the name War Kittens, Eyma suggested the lolcats picture and we all agreed that the Chinese Take Away font added a lot to the design.

Pretty intimidating if you ask me…as much as we love lolcats though, the true inspiration behind that team name was this most-excellent Capital One commercial.

In case you’re wondering, the Oldies but Goodies were victorious over a bunch of law students last night, winning 9-8 in overtime. The War Kittens are getting together tonight to iron on their t-shirt transfers and have their first game tomorrow evening. Should be a fun season.

When I do have time to exercise, I generally prefer going for a run through our beautiful neighborhood or tossing my mountain bike in the back of the truck and heading over to the nearby trails at Harbison State Forrest. I’ve never competed in either of those arenas, but I’ve been slowly building up my endurance and can now run about 4 miles. I’m rather proud of that accomplishment, but the idea of running 6.2 miles (10K) by the end of March sounds like a big challenge. One that I’ll start training for this week.

How did that happen? Well a bunch of our friends from the University of South Carolina have been talking about participating in the Cooper River Bridge 10K (bridgerun.com) in Charleston, SC on March 21, 2007. Some planned to walk and some planned to run. I wasn’t planning to do either, but yesterday Amy’s friend Adriana said she would walk it if Amy signed up, and Amy said she would go if I would run it…and if Amy wants me to do it, then I’ll certainly give it my best effort. So here I am, a novice runner, trying to figure out how to train for a 10K. I don’t plan to really compete with anyone there, but as a personal goal, I’d like to be able to run the whole thing. One of our friends recommended Hal Higdon’s 10K novice training program. Fortunately, it’s an 8 week program and there’s just enough weeks before the race for me to go through the entire thing. I plan to push each day back so that the weeks start with Sunday and end with Saturday, since that’s the race day. In an unrelated turn of events, I also just ordered my first “real” mountain bike last weekend: A 19″ Gary Fisher Piranha from Harrell’s Bicycle World. I’ve been talking about getting a decent bike since before we moved to South Carolina, and after a lot of research and test rides, the Piranha seemed like the best bang for my buck. I’ll probably post more about the new bike after I’ve ridden it a few times, but you can bet that on my cross training days I’ll be tearin’ up the trails.

Anybody have any advice for this first time 10K runner and novice mountain biker?

Whatever the excuse, the Florida Gators came out and played a solid ball game. No tricks, no smoke and mirrors. When Leak was on the field, they mostly passed. When Tebow came in, they ran it…usually right up the middle. And they did it all night long. 41-14! Go Gators!

The University of Central Florida is an amazing school with great classes, a beautiful campus, and a unique atmosphere. In 1968, UCF (formerly Florida Technilogial University) began classes with an enrollment of 1,948 students. Today, the school boasts over 40,000 students, and competes with most major universities in all but one arena – school spirit. For the 4 years I attended UCF, I loved going to the athletic events and cheering on the Knights…but having to drive about 20 miles to and from the Citrus Bowl for football games really takes away from the “hometeam advantage”.

In the last couple years, the University has been (Finally!) working on incorporating an on campus stadium to it’s master plan. I’ve enjoyed reading about the stadium plans in Pegasus (UCF’s Alumni Magazine) and online at http://stadium.ucf.edu/. Seeing renderings of the proposed stadium, like the one above, have really fueled my enthusiasm for the project and I’d really like to go to a few games once it’s built.

Sounds great, right? Well, not to the contemptuous coalition behind the so-called UCF Community Watch. In following the progress of the stadium plans, a friend and fellow UCF alum came across their site and sent me the link a few months ago. The information propaganda on this site is a biased, demeaning (to the actual “UCF Community”), and downright desperate attempt to derail the plans for any on-campus stadium. I’ve attempted in the past to share my opinion’s through the blog comments, only to see them deleted, or that they’ve disabled comments on posts that have enough intelligent information to bother writing a counter argument to. I’ve since reserved my opinions on the topic to conversations with friends and fellow alums, but after seeing the images in this post, and this one, I can no longer contain my opinions.

The residents living around the UCF campus are reaping the financial rewards of having one of the best Universities in the state in their backyard, yet they don’t want that university to succeed. Although the football team is doing much better this year, they went 0 for 11 last year. That’s right, they didn’t win a single game! I want to see my Alma Mater excel, not just academically, but in sports as well. I’d like to see UCF win a conference title, go to bowl games, and give the big teams a run for their money. They can’t do this without fan support, and I know from the games I attended at the Swamp that being at home in a packed house sure helps intimidate opponents and spur on the home team to victory. So with that said, I fully support the university’s plan for an on-campus stadium and proudly say Go Knights!

Update: After a final public meeting on November 9^th the UCF Board of Trustees Approve Construction of On-Campus Stadium pending final approval of financing. By amending the campus master plan to include the stadium, construction could begin within the next few months and be completed before the 2007 football season.