Searching for the perfect spot

1) Searching for the perfect spot, originally uploaded by dan_spengler.

This picture introduces my mother's epic journey of perch fishing on Thanksgiving weekend. It was a beautiful day back home in Northwest Iowa. The day was warm and the wind was still, so still that nearly perfect images of trees and clouds could be seen on the surface of the ponds. In this picture, my mom is looking for a spot to begin. She caught around 8 yellow perch and one channel catfish in about an hour and a half. This has been the latest "open water" fishing trip that we have even taken out to the Ocheyedan Sand Pits. I will never forget this day, it meant a lot more than just fishing to me.

Fishing lures

Over the past few months I have been hard at work creating my own line of freshwater fishing lures. My first lure (not present in the picture above) was created using trial and error as a technique. Although it's appearance was poor, it did catch fish, which challenged me to create more lures. I have noticed some slight progression with each lure I create, and I hope to eventually market them. Here is a picture of 12 lures. Each lure begins with a trip to the band-saw. After the basic body type is created, I carv each lure to the appropriate size and sand them down. After applying the blanks with screw eyes and hooks, I wood burn details, add holographic eyes, gorilla glue and three coats of vinyl finish. So that's it in a nutshell. So far I have caught 4 different species of freshwaters fish on them, but look to add to that list next summer.

Justin Morneau = MVP

The Twins first baseman won the 2006 AL MVP award over Derek Jeter by a total of 14 points (320 to 306). Overall, three members of the Twins were in the top seven for MVP. In addition to that, Joe Mauer won the AL (and overall) batting title and Johan Santana won the Cy Young award this year. I think this is a pretty amazing team. Infact when was the last time this happened; an MVP, a Cy Young winner, and a batting champ all on one team. It seems pretty remarkable, and to think, if Francisco Liriano wouln't have gotten injured he may have won rookie of the year, now that's something to think about! Additional information on this story can be found at Fox Sports

Cowbell

A few members of the South Dakota State Basketball team and their coach get together for this short film. It's all about ringing the cowbell here at SDSU.

Michigan at Ohio State

The biggest showdown in college football this season will be at Columbus, Ohio this weekend. This is where no. 1 Ohio State (11-0) meets no. 2 Michigan (11-0), the winner will head to the national championship, the loser may not find themselves out of a title shot either. If the game is close and decided with a dramatic finish both teams could find themselves in a rematch Jan. 8. Other coaches around the league are stating their opinion on the match up, as well as stating their stance on which other team(s) should be in the title game. On ESPN a few coaches showed signs of dislike to the possibility of two Big Ten teams in the national championship game.

Hawkeyes fall short in the fourth

The unranked Iowa Hawkeyes came close to the upset of no. 16 Wisconsin this Saturday, but their comeback fell short in the fourth quarter. Iowa came back from an early 10-0 deficit to obtain a 14-10 lead, but the final score ended up 24-21 Wisconsin. One of the Key plays toward the end of the game was Scott Chandler's dropped pass which would have given them a first down with about 5 minutes to go. The hawkeyes, now 6-5, will play Minnesota next week.

Colts stay unbeaten, Chicago tagged with first loss.

Going into this week, both Indianapolis and Chicago were 7-0. It may have seemed (on paper) that the Bears had the easier route to 8-0 playing the lowly dophins while the Colts played a tough Patriots team. However,the week ended with the Colts prevailing and the Bears failing. There's still a long way to go this season, and I don't think one loss will truley affect the Bears too much along the way.

video

I don't know what happened with the video I posted, all I know is that it wasn't 7 seconds long. I might have uploaded just a piece of it. I will fix it within the next day or so.

Amanda Pearson interview

Here is the interview of Amanda pearson, a volleyball player here at SDSU. In this video she explains her reasons for coming to SDSU, playing volleyeball, as well as some other information on the team and coaching staff.

Bulls whip last years champs

I find it funny. A Heat team just coming off an NBA title lose by 44 points (108-66) to the Chicago Bulls. Now, maybe the Bulls will be that good this year, it looks promising from the score, but most likely the Heat will bounce back. It's just good to see a team dominated by stars get pounded by a team with young, less-known players. Although I suppose you could now argue Hinrich as a star player, but not to the extreme so called "super-star" level that is labeled of Shaq and Wade. The article can be found here.