Other Fun Stuff
The rest of this page is pretty straight-laced group stuff. This part of the page just for fun. These are some sites and things I enjoy personally, and no endorsement by the chemistry department or university is implied.
Soccer
I got sucked into soccer Christopher turned four in 1999 and wanted to play. The local club called me up and said if I wanted him to have a team, I had to coach it. I said OK, as long as it didn't matter I knew nothing particularly of the game, and surely didn't know how to play well at all.
I learned to play a little, then more or less stopped a few years ago when I kept getting recurring hamstring injuries. But I got a national youth coaching license or two, and ended up on the board of the local club. Now he can can probably take me, but I can still whip my twins.
- Ames Soccer Club (I do the web site.)
- National Soccer Coaches Association of America
- US Soccer
They call Soccer "The Beautiful Game." Took me a while, but now I get it.
Triathlon and Running
In recent years, I figured out that while playing "serious" soccer is probably bad for me, I can run (slowly, but for a long time) without hurting myself too badly. And because the old knees have some mileage on them, I ended up taking triathlon. Way cool, actually. Did my first half-iron-man (Aluminum man???) in August 2008. My wife let me buy a sweet bike. Christopher is on schedule to start beating me in 2009. We'll see! There is an amazing number of races in Iowa each summer
- Triathlon Racers of Iowa my triathlon club
- ISU triathlon club great for locals, but my schedule doesn't match theirs
- Find a race in Iowa
- Bike World of Ames where you can get cool stuff and they take care of you
- Cervélo, who make arguably the best tri bikes in the world
The Dodgers
You can take the boy out of LA but you can't take LA out of the boy.
Cyclones
OK, so I'm a sucker for the local teams. We're season ticket holders for the Women's Basketball team. All hail Bill Fennelly!
Politics, etc.
- One of the cool things about living in Iowa is that - once every four years - You Matter. My guy - Howard Dean - imploded in 2004, but hey, you don't win them all. My guy in 2008 -Chris Dodd- didn't make it out of Iowa either, but BO was a good second choice.
- LGBT issues are a pet peave of mine
- Here is the site of the More Light Presbyterians, most definitesly NOT part of the religious right. They have a lot of excellent things to say about the value of all people, especially in relationship to the church in which I grew up.
- ISU On-campus LGBT resources
- Become a card carrying member of the ACLU
Animals
- Is there anything cooler than a big friendly Newfoundland Dog? Here's the local club and the kennel from which we got our first ones. This picture is from 1996, but I still like it.
