Carolyn Kalil's Personality Quiz

Carolyn Kalil's Personality Quiz

true colors test

true colors test

Coffee Personality Quiz

Coffee Personality Quiz

Personality Quiz: Quiz

Personality Quiz: Quiz

Personality Test

Personality Test
I turned out to be an ENTP- very analytical

BLOGinality: weblogger personality types - the personality test

BLOGinality: weblogger personality types - the personality test

Online test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology

Online test based on Jung - Myers-Briggs typology

Art Schools and Art Colleges Directory - ArtSchools.com

Art Schools and Art Colleges Directory - ArtSchools.com

Young Love

One of the things about being a guy who coaches a predominantly girls’ sport is that you end up being kind of a father-figure. At least I hope I do. One former cheerleader went so far as to ask my wife and I to be her godparents once. Last week another former cheerleader introduced me to her college roommate as her “mentor.”

One of the things about being a father-figure is having to patiently listen to things that would probably make most real fathers cringe and then gently dispensing empathy, advice or admonishment in appropriate doses.

Case in point; over the course of several months, one former athlete kept me updated on her life via email. Essentially, it was like watching the old ‘50s/early ‘60s TV show, “The many Loves of Dobby Gillis,” except that she’s a girl.

She went through a plethora of boys. There was the cowboy, the manipulative control freak, the musician, the bad boy, the other girl’s boyfriend, the Boy Scout, and the really cute nice guy who they both knew it wouldn’t last and didn’t, and the chauvinist pig.

Finally it ended with “the one.” Of course, I’m not her real dad, and many people thought that I got married too young, but I still cringed. Then, I proceeded to dispense the appropriate amounts of empathy, advice and admonishment. Immediately afterward, I was thanking God that I didn’t have to worry about such things as a REAL dad for at least another 15 years (20 or 30 if I get my way). But alas, it was not to be.

I was sitting on Grace’s bed reading a book while she took her bath next door when her younger sister Ellie called to me from her room across the hall.

“Da-aad?”

“In here kiddo.”

“Yeah, but um, I have to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah, so come in here and talk.”

“Yeah, but, um, it’s something vewy imp-O-tant.”

“Okay…” How serious can anything a three-year-old has to talk about be? I thought as I tried to quickly finish up my chapter.

She sauntered into the room and sat down next to me, folded her hands in her lap and let out a long sigh.

“What is it honey? Is everything Okay?”

“Yeah, but it’s just that I wuv Bwaden SO MUCH?”

Braden is her older cousin from Topeka. Braden is a Freshman in high school and an awesome kid. He and his older brother Cale have always been incredibly kind, patient and fun with all our girls, but obviously, he’s a little bit old for her. Not to mention the whole never –marry-your-cousin thing. But I wasn’t sure my preschooler was ready for a discussion about the legality or icky-ness of that whole scenario, so I decided to just listen empathetically.

“He is a pretty good guy huh?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking up with the most dramatic eyebrows she could muster, “but I just don’t know… I love him SO much, but I just miss him. I won’t get to see him for two weeks!” she sighed, exasperated.

“And…and. I just,” she looked down at the floor and shook her head in dismay. “Maybe sum day when we’re both teen-angels we can go to the same college.”

At that point, I probably should’ve pointed out that Braden already is a teenager, but just as I was about to speak she told me more, “And we will get mare-weed and wive in Sioux Falls. “The next morning when I drove her to the babysitter, she told me that she’d changed her mind, they’d live in Topeka, “but it’s so far away!”

Later, on the stairs, after Grace was in her pajamas too, Ellie informed Grace that “you can be our neighbors in To-PEEK-ah.”

“Da-aad!” Grace started to tattle, “Ewen said I half to be her ney-BOHR!”

“It’s Okay, homey, when you grow up you can live anywhere you want to, she just loves you so much that she want to stay close.”

So it may be a couple of weeks instead of a couple of decades, but I’m already planning on asking a young man what his intentions are with my daughter. I’m practicing sounding intimidating.

Bill Cosby knew what he was talkin’ about

I recently rented ‘The Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy made me split a gut. But I gotta admit that Larry the Cable Guy was hit and miss with because his humor appeals a little too much to the junior high boy level than I’m used to. Ron White is funny enough, but I worry for that guy and his family, is really as bad of a drunk as he pretends to be on stage?

When I was a kid in college, a popular comedy album was ‘Bill Cosby; Himself.’ Even the guys who liked the racier jokes told by Eddie Murphy and Robin Williams thought that Cosby was the best. But I have to admit that back then I didn’t appreciate half of Doctor Coz’s routine. And it dawned on me the other night when ‘Bill Cosby; Himself’ showed up on late night cable why that was. It’s the same reason that Jeff Foxworthy is currently the funniest man on the planet, they’re parents.

I SO did not get many of Cosby’s jokes about being a dad. Now that I’ve been one for several years, I know why Bill Cosby is considered a genious.

“These people (kids) cannot hear.-Come here. Come HERE, commere, commere, commere, COME HERE!”

“DA-AAD, she’s touching meee!”

“Quiet down, stop touching your sister, knock it off, leave her alone, give that back to her, If you don’t stop that I’ll stop this car. Don’t make me pull over and stop this car, I’ll stop this car, don’t make me come back there….”

I didn’t have to look up a transcript because these are all things that I’ve said over the last few years myself.

“What did your mother ask you to do? Close the door, we’re not paying to cool (or warm) the whole outdoors. What did I ask you to do?” Etc. Etc.

Coz was right, we all become our parents and say things that we swore to ourselves we’d never say when we grew up and had kids. Like Jeff Foxworthy, I have three girls, so needless to say, my lifestyle isn’t anything like it was in college.

Probably two thirds of our laundry is pink, for example. Last summer even the shower curtain and bathroom accessories went pink.

I have maybe four pairs of shoes. Dress shoes, work shoes, tennis shoes and sandals. Each of the four women in my family have no less than twenty pairs of shoes- and the eight-month old only wears one pair maybe once or twice a week- she doesn’t even walk yet!

Last week I reached into the refrigerator for a pop and there was a pair of pink shoes!

You can’t walk through our living room without having to side-step a Barbie or Barbie clothes. Nothing hurts so bad in the middle of the night on the dark walk to the bathroom, than stepping bare-foot on a Barbie shoe.

I’m the kinda guy who prefers a little privacy in the john, but every other morning when I step into the shower, there’s Barbie staring up at me.

The other night it happened. I thought I’d get through my entire life without being drawn through the vortex and into their world, but what could I do? My wife Bethany had taken Grace, our six year old to speech therapy in Omaha, so there I was with three-year old Ellen and the baby…

“Daddy, will you play Barbies with us?”

“Huh, wha?” I pretended not to hear her as I peered over my Newsweek at them on the floor.

“DA-AAD, play Barbies with us! PLEEEASE. Here…” she handed me two dolls, “you be these two and I’ll be these two.”

Oh jeeez. What am I supposed to do? How do I do this?

“Hi I’m Ewika and I’m Pwincess Anamaliese, what’s your names?”

“Uh, hi…uh, I’m, uh… Snow White, and uh, this is- er, uh, Ken, yeah, Ken. How are you? Do you want to play?”

What can I tell you, you pretty much have to make it up as you go along.

As Dr. William H. Cosby, once said, “My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own parenthood, but it didn't because parenting can be learned only by people who have no children.”

Coffee Suite; a photo-essay

What can I say? I'm an addict, I admit it.

Caught writing

Didn't someone once say "a cluttered desk is the sign of a brilliant mind?"
Here's a picture of me taken by one of my Journalism students.So this is pretty much what it looks like to see me write my column.

Double wave

I don't know, is it pathetic that this is as creative as I get as a visual artist anymore?

The end of a sportwriting era

This reporter would like to thank Butch Walker of the Dunlap Reporter and ‘Madam Publisher’ for the opportunity to test my skills on what Howard Cosell called they “toy department” of life. When I was sophomore in high school, I was assigned sports story, but I couldn’t write my way out of a paper bag, so my Journalism teacher let me draw cartoons.

I’m glad Butch is feeling better and gladly hand the reins back over to him, but I’ll miss having the best seat at a game- standing along the sidelines, up close to the action.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren once said “I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people's accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man's failures.”

I’ve enjoyed getting to report on the accomplishments of this Bulldogs football team. I hope you enjoy reading about them. Thanks to them and Coach Petersen and Ernie Kline for their help with stats and quotes.

Fun quote

"If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing."
- Kingsley Amis

Sports Quotes

"Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings."
- George Will

Today's Front Pages

Today's Front Pages

Akiane: child prodigy, artist, poet. Purchase Paintings and Prints direct from Akiane

Akiane: child prodigy, artist, poet. Purchase Paintings and Prints direct from Akiane

This girl's work is currently at the Museum of Religious Art in Logan, IA if you have a chance, I highly reccomend checking it out.

My life as a cub reporter at the Sports Desk

This should be my last week as a sports reporter. It’s almost a shame to retire so young from such an illustrious and rewarding career, but I believe that the time has come for me to hang up my cleats and move on. Besides, I’m pretty sure that there’s no danger of me joining the ranks NBC’s Bob Costas orChris Berman of ESPN.

Butch Walker, the publisher of the Dunlap Reporter was going to have to have surgery. He needed someone to cover Boyer Valley High School’s Friday night football games for him for at least a month. I’m pretty sure that his first choice was a former student of mine named Justin.

Justin is a premiere sports photographer. He was our yearbook’s photo editor last year and has sunk a lot of money into his equipment. Unfortunately for Butch, Justin had just gotten home from basic training for the National Guard and was headed to Alaska for several weeks on a photo-excursion with some uncle or something.

Butch’s next choice was Brett, a Junior and our mascot. Brett’s life long aspiration is to become a CPA. Not to cast aspersions on his writing abilities, but he’ll tell you himself that he’s more comfortable with numbers than words.

Be that as it may, he has served as an announcer for various 4-H livestock shows and junior rodeo events and he is at every game. Of course, how much of the game can you see from inside a foam bulldog head? Brett asked Butch for time to think about it, but told me almost immediately that he was going to decline.

If I remember right, I believe I actually had to offer to cover Boyer Valley Football for Butch before he (I hope not too reluctantly) made me his third choice. He had statistics forms for the head coach to fax him anyway, so the coaches would just fill them out and send them to me Monday morning instead. I’d do the write-up and send it to Butch’s wife and staff by deadline Tuesday.

Now, I’m not completely oblivious to the fact that I wouldn’t be everybody’s first choice to write sports. I coach a predominantly female sport that is often ridiculed or at least marginalized as a non-sport. I’m an Art teacher for Cripe’s sake. Those two put together and people tend to think I’m a sissy. If they don’t suspect I’m gay, I’m sure they at least think that I’m way too “in touch with my feminine side” to like or know anything about sports.

I’ll admit this much; growing up I wasn’t good at sports, I had a short attention span, and I was bad at memorizing names and numbers. This doomed me where communicating with other guys is concerned. I couldn’t keep the names of rock bands, brands of stereos, or makes and models of cars in my brain, let alone stereo component and car parts.

So I’d hang out with girls. That was fine, I didn’t like competing with guys or comparing myself to other guys and I DID like girls. Man, did I like girls. Unfortunately for me, maybe because I treated them well, because I listened to them, or who knows, maybe they thought I was gay too, all the girls I had crushes on only wanted to “just be friends.”

I’ll also admit that I didn’t have a lot of respect and probably unfairly prejudged and stereotyped a lot of “jocks.” The athletes in my high school seemed to me to be arrogant (even when they lost), treated girls like disposable tissues, and were hypocrites where health and fitness were concerned. They had better bodies than me because they worked out and exercised, but they deliberately drank till they puked or passed out on a weekly basis, if not more often.

But, over the course of the last 15 years or so my attitude has changed. I see that sports is an outstanding opportunity to teach character. Coaches see kids in a context that regular classroom teacher’s don’t. Everything from work-ethic to resolving conflicts with teammates. I’ve read books by Tiger’s Manager Sparky Anderson, Husker legend Tom Osborne, and UCLA basketball Coach John Wooden that I feel have helped shape me and I hope have helped me shape the students I coach.

I’ve come to realize that successful jocks can’t be dumb jocks. Strength and skill aren’t enough. The guys who are starters in high school are the ones who were paying attention in junior high. You have to know how to execute a play and how to compensate for the unexpected. Even a game of force like football has strategy as subtle as chess and the winners are the ones who take advantage of that fact.

And I have watched at least ten high school football games a year for that last twelve years. I still don’t follow the NFL or NCAA that much, I’ll catch a couple games of each per year. Frankly high school football is a lot more fun. It’s much more unpredictable. I also like it better because I know who’s playing. Now that I’ve been at BV for five years or so, I had the Juniors and Seniors way back in junior high.

And I’ve come to recognize the value sports holds as a cultural lynch pin. What I mean is, girls may talk about their feeling, they may talk about guys, they may talk about shoes. Guys, guys talk about their work, the weather, and sports. Fortunately for me, I’ve learned enough about football and baseball to hold my own. What’s more, I’ve learned that if you ask questions, guys who know more about it are all too happy to share what they know. That way you don’t sound like a freak or a snob, you just sound like either you don’t have satellite or your wife won’t let you waste all day in front of the tube.

I have to tell you, there’s no seat in the stadium like the one I’ve had this past month. Stay out of the coaches’ way, use the telephoto lens, and don’t trip on the chain gang and it’s amazing what you get to see and hear. Several times I’ve had to step out of the way of a train wreck that crossed out of bounds. Of course, I never seem to click the shutter button in time to capture it.

Nothing compares to being up on the edge of the field, only two or three yards ahead of the action. Why watch millionaires play on TV when you can experience the action up front. The best seat is to be standing the whole game and it only comes with a press pass.

Click HERE to read one of my football stories

Victoria

Victshupe's Paintings

These are by my goddaughter, who is a former student. She is an artist and photographer in L.A.

A lot of these are of people in nightclubs. This one of the guy in the purple shirt reminds me of a Paul Gauguin.

The bottom one is totally like something Andy Warhol might have done.

I'm really proud of her. She has gotten really good, better than when I was trying to teach her.

Click here to see more of Victshupe's Paintings

Happy Fall