Miscellaneous March

I don't have anything in particular I want to talk about so I'll just put some random things I have done or am going to do in March....

1. I recently watched a somewhat old movie by the name of "Hurricane". I got it from Netflix, which I'm addicted to. The movie is about an African-American boxer, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was falsely imprisoned by a corrupt police force and judicial people in the state of New Jersey. He was sentenced three counts of murder and wrote an autobiography while in prison "The 16th Round". Another African American from that area who was somewhat adopted by a group of Canadians to prepare him for college, read the book and was moved by it. He visited Rubin in prison and these three Canadians get Rubin a hearing in the supreme court where he is ordered to be released. The movie is however one sided as there are still questions about whether Rubin was really innocent or not. Either way, great movie, watch it if you haven't seen it.



2. One downside of doing everything you do on a couch (eat, sleep, read, computer, watch TV, play Xbox, or homework) is that you lose things and it takes me getting off my lazy butt to find them. I think I'm going to tie a string around my phone and attach it to my wrist because that thing gets stuck in between cushions and lost in blankets daily (very annoying).



3. I have way too many hobbies: I play Xbox, read books occasionally, watch about 5 TV shows a week, any sporting event, watching movies, being on the Internet, read 3 sports magazines (ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Sporting News), and still try to fit in homework somewhere in between. I'm trying to figure out which hobby I want to set aside for a while as I've become terrible on time management this semester but can't figure it out. Maybe I just need to figure out how to multitask more efficiently?



4. Basketball finally is about to mean something: Mostly in the NBA as the playoffs approach in the beginning of April but NCAA basketball begins the greatest tournament in sports in about 2 weeks. I will be filling my bracket out to perfection or nowhere close to it, probably the latter.



5. March also means MLB baseball is on its way. This also means fantasy baseball! Oh yeah, I should probably add fantasy sports to my hobby list. I'll probably get in more leagues than I know what to do with, hoping that I may actually win one of them.



6. Spring break- Colorado = as Borat would say it "Great Success". As much as I hate being in the cold, I would honestly rather be skiing in the mountains than being on the beach any day. Although I do want to take a cruise sometime, I'm thinking a huge family one too, I wonder who'd throw who off the boat first?



7. After Spring break means only 7 more weeks of school for me!

Oh and for those of participating in the annual "McGuire Big 12 Tourney Challenge", you can make your checks out to Corbin McGuire, I also accept cash.

On to the next one

So last night capped off my final basketball game as a high schooler, and as I will seriously miss playing the sport of basketball, I will not miss the drama and baggage that came with playing it these last two years. Now its on to baseball: Dill Pickle seeds, batting practice, taking some pop flies, shagging balls, sometimes a little goofing off, and most importantly dew time are all the great things that come with playing baseball. Dew time, for all of you who don't know, is when after practice everyday, someone on the team goes and buys a case of mountain dew. Everyone with a truck pulls up and we make of circle of trucks and sit to drink our dews and talk, argue, mess with the softball players, or play "death hack". Death hack in a nutshell is just a game with a hacky sack and the goal is to hit someone with the hacky sack. It can get very intense and usually leads to arguments and more yelling.

Last year, all of us were bored sitting around during dew time and the softball players had gone to eat and some had left their cars at the parking lot. So we decided that we would move Taylor Parsons in between two trees. So we all picked up the back end of her car and rolled it into the grass between two trees. Well later when she came back and freaked out that her car was in between two trees, she made a break to steal Tyler Springer's car, so he decided he was going to steal her car as well and park it on a huge mound of dirt in the sports complex. I don't know how her Honda civic made it back down from the hill but it did by some miracle but needless to say she has a new car now. The softball girls would later retaliate with water balloons, all of which I dodged I might add.

One more "game" we have in Dew Time is after your done drinking your mountain dew. You must see how long you can stand on your empty can. Now you may think this is impossible but surprisingly the record held by Justin Parton is over 13 seconds with all of his weight on top of his empty mountain dew can. My goal is to beat that...doubting it though.

So there is a brief summary of what goes on during and after baseball practice, I'll try to get some pictures of the dumb stuff we do during this season

Drumroll...

Well yesterday was the last of my college visits that I will probably use and I went to, of course, Kansas State. The day started with a 7 a.m. wake up call, which usually I'm not a pleasant person in the morning but today I didn't care because I was that excited to get to Manhattan aka Manhappenin. After two Jr. mcskillet burritos-not sure why they go rid of the regular mcskillet burrito-I took a nap and read my ESPN magazine and by that time we had arrived in Manhattan ready for what the day had in store for us.

It was actually a near perfect day as far as the weather, about 40 degrees, sunny and no wind. So the day was set as we checked in, got my free shirt, and then set off on our campus tour. Our guide was pretty good, especially at walking backwards and saying the word "Wild" about 20 or so times. After seeing about everything on campus, most memorable being the dorms and student union where we saw two basketball players in Rodney McGruder and Wally Judge. After the tour, I met with with an admissions advisor who was in one word, awesome. Answered every question I had and was interested in what I wanted to do later in life and what was important to me on a personal level. My next trip was to the Arts and Sciences building to meet with an advisor from the Journalism and Mass communications building. She was also excellent in giving me an idea of what type of classes I would be taking and to start thinking about what type of minor I would like to take because it is required for a JMC major to have a minor as well.
This would conclude my "official visit" but not my day in Manhattan.

As my family always does while in Manhattan, we went to Varneys because you can never have to much purple, right? I got a new pair of sweats and annoyed my mom into buying Travis a sweet Saint Patty's Day/K-State hat, your welcome Travis. We then decided to walk down the street to see if our friend Fitz was in his office. He was and he gave me some great perspective on why I need to go to K-State. One of them was that K-State JMC major offers a broader area to study in every area that a journalist will work in: Writing, broadcasting on TV and radio. He said this is important because he does all of these things and so do most people in the Sports Media Field. Another compelling reason for me to go is to prove to Fitz that there may actually be a decent softball player in the McGuire family. He also said that after a couple years of schooling I could work with him and get some great experience in the field and start building my resume.

Fitz told us to go to back across town to campus to see the Dole Building, this is where they do most of the video and radio broadcasting for students. The main guy in charge there gave us a tour of the place and it was pretty cool to see what these students, that work for him, were doing with video editing and pretty much running their own TV show. Seeing all of this kind of put K-State over the top for me.

The last leg of the day was my favorite because we were going to watch the K-State/Nebraska game. We got their pretty early to watch the team warm-up and were surprised to see the team having a "Dunk Contest" which was pretty entertaining. Entertaining enough for me to record about 2 min. of it on my phone. The game was very exciting, more exciting than I had hoped but a win is a win so I'll take it.

I slept most of the way home as I was tired from the long day. Later that night as I was about to go to sleep, I was thinking about all of this deciding on a college thing and it wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. It wasn't necesarily one particular thing that swayed me to K-State but a combination of a a lot of things and I think it just felt right when I was on campus. I could see myself being there next fall and that was huge for me. So as I'm sure you all have figured out I will keep bleeding purple and attend K-State next year!

You Tube is my addiction

So lately my I've been on you tube so much that it should be my homepage. I have been watching/listening to music (We need a stereo downstairs!) while playing Xbox or doing whatever. But the majority of battery being used for my computer is being used watching videos on the secret society called the "Illuminati" and other conspiracy theories behind historic events such as 9/11 or the JFK assassination. Now I'm not saying that 9/11 was a set up or that all of the things on you tube are true but there are some signs and things that they point out that really make you think, which is the main reason I watch them, I love sitting there and wondering what if this is the real reason that a certain thing happened.

My sudden obsession with the "Illuminati" came from watching the movie "Angels and Demons" based on Dan Brown's book (also wrote The Da Vinci Code) and if you haven't seen the movie or read the book, I strongly encourage you to at least watch the movie and if you have time, read the book, I am currently about 100 pages in and can barely put it down. The story is based off the clash between the "Illuminati" and the Catholic church aka the clash between science and religion. In this case the Illuminati believe in science not religion and are back on a vengeance against the Vatican to kill future prospects to be Pope. The irony is they use a scientific invention ("antimatter" aka big bomb!) to threaten the foundation of one of the largest religions in the world. If you want the rest of the movie, watch it! I can't tell you too much or it will ruin it.

Now the Illuminati, from what I've learned in my hours of watching and researching things on the Internet, are a wide based secret society that believe in a wide variety of things like Science created everything, the Devil is the real god, the bible is a lie, and many other things. To clarify I DO NOT BELIEVE IN ANY OF THESE THINGS! I don't want people thinking because I believe or suspect some of the things that Illuminati is said to have been involved in that I believe the Illuminati's beliefs are right.

One of the branches of the Illuminati is the group that "sold their souls for fame", this group includes Jay Z, Eminem, Beyonce, Tupac Shakur, Kanye, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and many more. I'm tellin you, just type in Illuminati into you tube and you'll b on there for hours but it is kind of interesting because they provide in some cases overwhelming evidence against these people. Jay Z is the most convincing one that I've seen. Just to list a few songs that are Devil related...(Devils and Lucifer) and in his new song Empire State Of Mind he has a verse that's a shot at Jesus saying "If Jesus paying Lebron I'm Paying Dwayne Wade" meaning he's doing the opposite of what Jesus is. His signature hand gesture is also very similar to the symbol of the Illuminati (triangle with eye in it), I'll post some pictures. Eminem also has a newly released song called "My Darling" talking about the Devil coming back to claim his soul which he sold for his rap career, listen to it its actually a very interesting song (side note, "Careful what you wish for" by Eminem is also great, new as well). Now I won't go on about each of these people, if you want to learn more just google it or YouTube and you'll see that this stuff is everywhere, whether it is true or just a coincidence? I don't know but I'm aware of it and will take it with a grain of salt and go with it. But here are some Illuminati pictures and symbols random things....

Notice Eye in triangle, very key

U.S. money and Illuminati?

Lebron and Jay Z, notice hand symbol

If I didn't interest you at all with all this nonsense, at least watch the movie "Angels and Demons", if you don't like that then I don't know what's wrong with you....

Countdown to...

So as many exciting and important days come closer and closer, I've gone as far to start a countdown to each of these events in order of importance.

1. Graduation- (3 months, 7 days, and 14 hours) 12 years of 8-3 can start to wear on you after a while and it has definitely started to hit me this semester. I'm almost to the point of ripping post it notes with the # of days til graduation off every morning, so you could say I'm pretty pumped to get that diploma!



2. March 1st-(21 days, 14 hours) This day will be a day of relief as it is the first day of baseball! Don't get me wrong, I love playing baseball but I've never been this excited to pick up a ball and a bat and just start a new season. This will be nice because the season, if it goes anything like my previous three, will be enjoyable. I won't dread going to practice and will have some fun with it. Anyway, this is also when I hope to have picked or to pick the college I will be attending next fall.



3. Spring Break! ( 1 month, 4 days, 14 hours)- Now I know there are certain people who think this should be number 1-you know who you are-but this is a close 3rd if that makes you feel any better. I can't wait to be able to get out of Mulvane for a few days with now worries of school or sports and just hang with family, rock the slopes, and have some fun of course. Hopefully this year will be a spring break to remember for good reasons not for a snowboard flying off our car going 70 MPH on a highway in Denver, although that was quite humorous.

These are the only things on my mind right now, when these things are all over then maybe I'll think about what happens next, maybe?

Stillwater!

So the plan was to take my first college visit to K-State this Monday but unfortunately they weren't having visits on Monday and informed us that we needed to give them 7-14 days advance for a visit. We then proceeded to see if Oklahoma State (my other college option) would let me come take a visit on such short notice, no problem, we got an entire days worth of tours and advisement meetings set up and were set to go!

As I walk upstairs like a zombie with my eyes halfway closed ready to go, my father informed me that it wouldn't look good to wear sweats to a college visit, so I angrily went back downstairs and changed into some jeans. I continue on after eating a bowl of cereal (captain crunch) and then get into the infinite. 2 hours later I wake up in Stillwater and become the navigator of our car-not sure why we have a GPS?

We eventually find our parking garage and walk to the Alumni Center to check in. After about a 30 min wait because as usual we are EARLY, precious minutes I could have been sleeping, but anyway we get a little introduction spiel by some guy from Undergraduate Admissions and a corny video. Following this we go on a tour of the campus, which was by far the nicest campus I've ever seen granted I've only been on about 4. Our guide, a student, should probably not give tours for a living, he definitely did not like the cold as we went through about every building to warm up. The one thing out of this tour that stuck out at me was their Rec Center. It was like 4 stories, with anything you could think of from swimming pools, basketball courts, racquetball courts, running equipment, weights, ping pong table, and even a rock climbing wall. The best part of this is that coming here is free for students!

As we were walking through the Rec Center, who would have guessed we would run into Mr. Trent Turner, coming out of his dance class, damn PE majors. So we talked to him and we later met him for lunch with his roommate, Butch. I was very surprised to find all the dining options that are available for students, over 40 different places. I also was interested in the system they used to pay, the students have a card that works kind of like a debit card where a certain amount of money is put on the card and is just deducted when you pay for your meal. On a side note, I had some sort of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, some noodle stuff, and a roll and later some ice cream of course and it was delicious!

So my next tour was the tour of the living facilities (dorms), we had two tour guides this time and these guys were awesome! We first went to the older dorms. They explained these dorms were where you would most likely meet more people and have more fun because you wouldn't be in your dorm all the time but you would be in your "floor entertainment room" with everyone else on your room doing just about anything. We then went to the nicer dorms (The Suites). They had their own living room and anywhere from 2-4 rooms and up to 2 bathrooms. They explained these dorms had the opposite benefits of the first dorms as a lot of people don't leave their dorms to meet new people. The last dorms we went to were the Village, I think these were my favorite because it was a great mix of the other two dorms as you did have your own room but all the people on your floor would be in your major so they could help you with any problems.

Our next trip was to the Journalism building to meet with a student advisor to talk to about their Sports Media program. Wow! I've never been that impressed about something in a long while! Our guide was not only hot but was also a Sports Media major, and had an internship with ESPN where she worked with "Baseball Tonight". She took me around and showed me all the equipment and technology which she said was tops in the nation in this program. She also told me that Oklahoma State is one of 3 schools in the U.S. with an actual "Sports Media" major. I then met a couple of professors and listened to them talk about what they teach, each one was very interesting. Our guide then explained a "Sports Media" club she joined in which she got to drive around Bobby Knight and make money for it. All of these things and many more that I haven't included are the reason Oklahoma State really impressed me and actually surprised me.

I still am not any closer to making a decision on where to go next year but I do have an idea of what type of questions to ask Kansas State when I visit them within the next couple of weeks, I hope to decide before baseball begins and hope its not as difficult to decide as I think its going to be?

Hell Dorado

So lets just say I haven't had the best luck with finding things in the town of El Dorado or for that matter, getting out of El Dorado. To start, about the start of November, Stephen Saldivar (Sal) and I were on our way to watch Mulvane's Cross Country team go for there 3rd Straight State Championship. After a short stop at the mall to buy some things, we were on our way, with about an hour til the race started so I'm thinking we r good on time. Well we get into El Dorado with about 30 min til the race was about to start and thought we were on route to the correct area....After about 4 phone calls to my father trying to figure out where I'm at and where I need to go, I'm thinking I'm getting warmer. Well after driving around El Dorado lake for about an hour, we finally managed to find the race site, just in time for the medal presentation. I'm going have to blame this trip on the faulty directions I was given before heading up there.

So my most recent trip to El Dorado was definitely the most entertaining of the two trips I've made their this year. Our basketball team decided we we're going to go up to the Butler vs. Barton basketball game to watch Tyler Springer (played for Mulvane last year and played very well in this game, scoring 8 points). So Sal, Taite Pulliam (Tyler's Girlfriend), Maddie Wise, Nick Lockwood, and head up to El Dorado. As we get bored of listening to music and have nothing better to talk about, Nick pulls out his Ipod Touch and decides we are going to play Truth or Dare. This isn't the regular Truth or Dare, this is the sexual version and if you haven't played it before I would recommend it for a night full of friends it can serve as a laughing tool for the whole night. You won't believe some the things this game comes up with, most of which are too inappropriate to put on here.

After we are done playing our game we arrive in El Dorado and find the Butler County Gym. While listening to three different people tell me three different places to park, I decide to try to park in the back (bad decision). As we pull into the parking lot, we see the Barton basketball bus, so we think we should go park in the front, however where supposed to get there? So Maddy says we should go through this alleyway that could lead to the front parking lot? Ummm not completely true. As I drive up this alleyway, bypassing the sign that said "authorized vehicles only", the concrete I started driving on turned into the sidewalk and eventually grass, and as it turns out, we had found the entrance. As people are walking by my car on each side, I'm trying to turn the car around on their front lawn, this was quite comical if you were there.

Finally we parked (in the back) and watched the game. Unfortunately, Tyler's team did not win but he played well. After the game, we go outside to find that is so foggy you can't see ten feet in front of you, so I'm thinking what else could happened to me while I'm in El Dorado. We all load up and begin our trek home. But as everybody tries to figure out how to get out of this parking lot and we try everyone's choice and don't find our way out of the parking lot for about 15 minutes, and thank God that was the last of our woes on the road...