Monthly Archives: November 2018

Text Review #2

“Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman” by Jon Krakauer is a must read. If you don’t know anything about Pat Tillman and his story either, then this is a good place to start. This book covers the life of Pat Tillman from his early life, to football, to joining the army, and his eventual death. Also his death is not a spoiler, if you turn to the back cover and it talks about that right there, so no spoiler was given, so please do not judge this review based on that.

This book also covers the topic of the Al Qaeda, 9/11, and the conflict in Afghanistan. This book is also great for a person that is a non-sports fan. Do not shy away from a great read just because you are afraid of the aspect of the sports in the life story of Pat Tillman.

How can someone not affiliated or related to the family write a book about the life of Pat Tillman you may ask yourself. Well Krakauer does it, and I think he does it amazingly. If you look near the back of the book on page 296 he breaks down every little detail from the book and where he got that information chapter by chapter. Between hundreds of interviews and hundreds of material reviewed and does it while compiling a great book.

The book even dives into the details of his death and how it was reported a different way for public to fuel them and get them more angry about the war and reveals the truth. Krakauer does a really good job at diving into these topics with the war with the Taliban and the propaganda behind it, as he writes it from an angry perspective.

Another focus of the book is NFL contract. How Pat Tillman walked away from the future of millions of dollars to continue playing in the NFL and really covers why he decided to go after 9/11 and how that was a huge factor in everything that fueled him to do so.

This book focuses on so many different aspects of Pat Tillman’s life, especially the army, but I think he does a great job of covering all so if you didn’t know anything about Pat Tillman coming into this book, then you were able to learn and fall in love with the guy he was and the hero he was. Pat Tillman was truly a great man and I think it is not easy to do in under three hundred pages, but Krakauer does it amazingly.

Overall this was a very good book. For most people that know the Pat Tillman story, it is not hard to convince them to read this book. For people that don’t know anything, it is a little harder to convince them to read a book about about a NFL player that walked away to go fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, as non sports fans tend to shy away.

I would give this book a nine out of ten. Mostly because I worry a little bit about what is one hundred percent factual in the book as it is hard to talk about a man’s life that is not there to talk about it. And comparing it to my first book review, it is completely written differently then a Paul Shirley book, zero sarcasm was applied. Anybody reading this, please go out and read “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.” If you don’t like it (which you will), I would be willing to talk to you on why you don’t think so.

Profile Sketch

For my profile I have decided to do Ryan Kriener. Ryan is a basketball player at the University of Iowa. For interviews, I will talk to him, some managers, a teammate, and attempt to get an interview with a coach on staff.

Scavenger Hunt for Things That Make Me Happy or Sad or Both

At first thought of going around looking for things that make me either happy or sad I thought this was either going to be impossible and I thought I wouldn’t ever find things. That turned out to be far from the truth, as I was able to find things for both. And some things actually do both.

Great example is I woke up earlier last week, got showered and ready for class. But when I gotten out of the shower, I had an email from a professor saying that class was canceled. This is met with immediate happiness as I do not have to go to class this day. That is met with immediate questioning of what to do for the next two hours before my next class. This angers me in the slightest as I am ready for the day and some what awake so I know I will struggle.

Another thing that makes me happy is time off from school. I went on a trip with the cross country team to nationals and missed three days worth of classes. While gone on this trip I was constantly doing homework and constantly stressed out about when I was going to do my homework because of practice and the activities that we had planned. This is one of those things that make both.

Another things that happened this week that made me both happy and sad, but in reverse order was late Monday night. The Kansas City Chiefs were playing the Los Angeles Rams and the game came down to the last play where the Chiefs ended up throwing an interception causing them to lose the game 54-51.

This later made me happy as I realized I just witnessed the third highest scoring game in NFL history and the highest scoring by far on Monday Night Football. I also realized how many positives the Chiefs could take away from this game moving forward and I become positive overall about the whole experience.

These are just a few of my examples, so I searched for some more among others I know. One person I knew on campus threw a party this weekend I decided to talk to him about it after the fact. He said “throwing parties is fun, but the cleanup after almost ruins the whole experience.”

But, he did explain one huge positive of throwing parties. He loves the fact that people leave alcohol at the house, and lots of it and it makes it possible for him to go without having to purchase anything for awhile. It is a secret blessing in disguise.

Another situation that seems like a huge negative that turns to a positive in the long run is a track practice. While speaking with a girl she described the pain and agony of running fast and long intervals on the track and how it is one of the things that ruin her whole day while thinking about having to do them and planning her meals around the workout.

She did describe the feeling of running that first track meet of the year and knowing that those hard practices led to the success she had right out of the gate during track season. She looks back and is extremely grateful for the pain she went through during the hard interval days.

It’s the little things in life that make us happy or sad, but they are simply the things that can get us through a day if we keep an open mind about the whole things. Optimism is described as one of the biggest things needed in a positive lifestyle. A positive lifestyle turns into a positive outlook of life.

My America

For those that know me, you would think that sports would dominate my America, and you would be right.

Sunday, the day of…….. Football:

This picture is my typical Sunday, I wake up late, just in time to watch the football games. Notice the orange juice, since I am typically just rolling out of bed. I am watching the Kansas Chiefs game while typing a paper. This normally doesn’t go well for me as I end up mostly watching the game and typically only typing a page or two in the three length of the football game.

Football Over Everything:

The next picture is post election when people were looking at results, but this is a perfect representation of my life. As my roommate is also watching football and clearly paying more attention to the football game. This accurately represents “My America” because clearly politics and the results are important, but not as important as football and betting on football to me. Even my roommate Anthony who is a political science major was caught paying more attention to the football then the results.

Diet or Diabetes:

This next picture accurately represents how I get through most weeks and days. Coffee and Red Bull keep me awake in classes and give me energy at practice. And the frozen pizza shows how I fuel myself on a budget. I often cook frozen pizzas because they are cheap and delicious. The other things more college I could of added to this picture would of been ramen noodles.

Buschhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh:

This next picture is a picture of a pile of leaves I raked with a Busch Light appropriately found when raking. Busch Light represents cheap beer and another aspect of my life and where I live. Busch Light is a very popular beer among Iowa college students and it is often left around the street and yards from people littering a lot. Another theme among these pictures is laziness. All the pictures are taking within a very close proximity of my house. Laziness is another theme within my life and a lot of “My America.” And these are the picture that I believe accurately represent “My America” very well.