What I did on my 27th birthday.

On October 29th (Saturday), I turned 27 years old.

Josh told me that I'm now in my late-20's, so I figured it was a good time to cross some thresholds that I've never crossed before:

Just a bunch of dudes wearing skirts: Angie (right) and Patrick, my cousin, are married in Altoona, PA.

I'm the third from the right in the picture.

My dad and I after the wedding.

Dancing at the reception.

Lauren, me, and my sister Laura posing after dinner.

Cousins reenacting a photo from our childhood--Ooo, Ring-pop!

I caught the garter!

Patrick and his bride with his parents and brothers.

Showin' off some leg with my family.

Note the dagger in my sock that was fashioned by the groom's friend, given as a groomsmen gift!

a video about whoppaheads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zJWA3Vo6TU

Whoppa Dog

Some really cool news.

Excerpt from Tripp and Allie Usry's blog:

Can May get anymore exciting?
Yes, it can. You might've noticed that Tripp has been the primary blogger of our family lately. Part of it is because he has had some really exciting changes in his life. But the real reason I've been avoiding blogging is that until I could announce that I'm pregnant nothing else seemed important to say.

ETA 12/10/11

So here's our newest Usry addition. At the time of the ultrasound, I was 10 weeks, 3 days along and Baby measured just over an inch and a half long, moving around and looking very healthy. Now, we're at 12 weeks and Baby is the size of a lime.

We can't wait for our little Texas baby!

This morning, I ran over Seth Greenberg...

...or, I ALMOST did, anyway.

Actually, he was jogging along Washington Street in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he resides and works as Virginia Tech's basketball coach, as I drove by in my Honda-CRV. You might remember him from such episodes as "ACC Coach of the Year, 2005".

That "famous run-in" led me to ask the question:

"What run-in's with famous people have you had?"


Other famous run-in's of mine:
* I saw Jeremy Shapp, sports writer and ESPN personality, in a Minneapolis airport.
I doubt that he was there to see...

* ... author of Crazy Love and The Forgotten God, Francis Chan, who was in line in front of me in the same airport at the same time. He'd likely hate that he is referred to as a "famous person," however.

sometimes

Sometimes, it's just one of those gold-bond days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH00DgYtr4o

Enjoy the warm weather brothers.

talk dirty to me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3larcGfwC0g

Biology lesson 101

Slug shooting love darts at its mate and a lungless frog: my kind of guys.




"Creation's revealing your majesty!"

Brian R Wheeler

Happy Birthday Brian Wheeler. You are an extraordinary man, the heart of the whoppaheads, a bold leader, and always a true brother.

Enjoy it.

And this picture might be my favorite moment of all time ever coming home from work. What a disaster!

For those of you with Skype...

Gentlemen,

I wanted to open up a mode of communication that I have thus far neglected to make available to you. If you have skype, you can call my cell phone while I'm in China for $0.02/ minute.

Try it...it's amazing: (86) 15830293114

I love you guys entirely apart from anything you have done or will do in the future.

Ryan

Shijajuang

I spent the last 24 hours of my life in a place called Shijajuang, China watching my friend, Peter, get taped for a TV show where he sang a song called "Da Zhong Guo (Big China)" and performed with dozens of other foreign (non-Chinese) singers, dancers, and actors. He's actually a teacher in Northern Hebei Province, China, but he fit the role weell for this weekend. It remindeed me of "The UN" meets "The Super Happy Fun" Hour...complete with a set of African contortionists, flashing lights, a director going crazy to finish his show, and a Pakistani pop-star.

The first picture is of Peter, dressed in his traditional Chinese red-and-yellow attire, and I, dressed in my famous Chinese "The North Face" knock-off jacket, after his show.

The second is from the bus I rode on at 6:30 AM passing a tractor-trailer pulled over on the shoulder, which caught fire and had dozens of people streaming to pilfer the contents of the vehicle, which appeared to be mostly ramen noodles and dried food-stuffs.

"Receiving Grace Fully"

My today:

8 woke up with a spirit of hate writhing against me.

8-830 battled with a spirit of hate that was writhing against me

830-845 got onto the couch and jumped around, rebuking spirit of hate writhing against me. received grace fully.

845-905 walked to classroom. packed up fake Christmas tree from last year and brought it back to apartment. Saw Sunshine and chatted for a few seconds. Thought about when I used to see him walking toward me on campus last year, how I'd always start singing "You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine!..." to him. I haven't done that lately...which is something I must remedy

905-10 researched for message I was planning for on ps 37, to our congregation (six people, myself included). saw that one of my fantasy football teams was kicking tail, as Miles Austin had 79 yards and a TD before 10 minutes were gone in the first quarter. Received grace fully (no pun intended...)
Listened to John "Smokin' the Pipe"-r talk about envy.

10-1030 rebuked spirit of fear in my living room. jumped around on my couch some more, dreaming of our time together. Wore: blue jeans, maroon VT rugby t-shirt, and oversized Hokie slippers. Perfect uniform for rebuking spirits, I do believe.

1030-11 Made/ drank coffee. Sat with friends in sanctuary/ breakfast table/ movie theater/ study area/ dining room/ newly-christened "rebuking zone"...aka, the living room. Spoke of our time with Canadians who Are Like Us who we met with to exhalt the day before.

11-1 Danced...we danced a pure dance of freedom and left no stone unturned, searching for the Truth inside eight sentences printed in a book made from letters written to friends, poems written to brothers about the One, and stories written about true things in life. We read ps 37, v. 1-11 together.

"What sticks out to you here?" I asked.
"Delight yourself in Him," Kerry answered.
"The part that talks about not fretting," Amelia noted. "I like that."

I noted the action verbs: "Trust" (v. 3), "do good" (3), "dwell" (3), "enjoy" (3), "Delight" (4), "Commit your way" (5), "trust in him" (5), "Be still" (7), "wait patiently" (7), "do not fret" (1, 7, 8), "turn from wrath" (8), "hope" (9).

Listened to a 'teaching' from the Pipe-smoking Johnnie himself. Challenged to fight envy with faith. Intentionally Came before Him together.

1-230 Ate food with these precious people. Asked again, after planning English Night (aka, club) for our lives, for logistical concerns, and for Truth to be Seen.

230-4 Fought more spirits of hatred. Sent e-mails. Burried head in the couch in a position of desperation. Asked and received grace fully.

4-7 heard knock on the door. Answered and carried chairs to my next-door-neighbor and teammate, Bethany's, apartment. Commensed "The MSA Christmas party" with 20 Chinese girls, three dudes (Wang Ja Jun, myself, and John), and our British neighbor, James. Played Yankee swap, charades, 20 questions, and a strange chinese game where everyone pretends to be confused about everything that's going on around them (I often don't have to pretend). Strove toward glad heart, even in the tired moments. favorite moments were during 20 questions, wherein I held a tiny turtle in my hands for about 20 minutes and tried to tickle his belly until he started running away.

7-8 Ate supper...I had "Tang su Li Gi Gai Fan (ten yuan to whoever translates that first!)

8-830 Helped our neighbor get her head wrapped around her thesis for English class. She greeted us at the door with dough all over her hands from making jiaotzi (dumplings).

830-930 Planned English Night. Listened to Jon, my roommate, speak about the date he had in Beijing this weekend. Prepared for club and understood that, indeed, not all days are the same. Received Grace Fully.

930-1111 Listened to Jon play the guitar and talk to his friends on Skype. G-chatted with Robert Ramsey, a young guy who I used to walk alongside, mutually pursuing the King, and challenged him to question if "how you receive is just as important as how you give." Wrote a blog entry about my day and entitled it "Receiving Grace Fully". Received Grace Fully.

1122 Pressed "Publish Post," planning to and (inevitably) executing the full reception of Grace.

picture blog for my travels

hokieatremington.blogspot.com

arms dealer

Never been shot. Selling them to get them off inventory.

jerry knows some whoppas

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f80f01f1dd/jerry-seinfeld-on-men-and-women-from-standupfan

american boys

started reading some thoreau

They mistake who assert that the Yankee has few amusements, because he has not so many public holidays, and men and boys do not play so many games as they do in England, for here the more primitive but solitary amusements of hunting, fishing, and the like have not yet given place to the former. Almost every New England boy among my contemporaries shouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten and fourteen; and his hunting and fishing grounds were not limited, like the preserves of an English nobleman, but were more boundless even than those of a savage. No wonder, then, that he did not oftener stay to play on the common. But already a change is taking place, owing, not to an increased humanity, but to an increased scarcity of game, for perhaps the hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the Humane Society.

nico is a wild man

this is what nico did with dish and me without ever jumping at the quarry before. we thought he died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgfiqhuJOP8&feature=geosearch

definitions

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whoppa%20head

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=WHOPPADONK

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=whoppa




Public Disclaimer: These have nothing to do with what we are discussing. We did not create these definitions.

FOOTBALL!

Miami weekend was great, brothers...I know I wasn't actually in Blacksburg to see the game, but little did we know that thousands of miles to the East, there was a game of immense importance waged between the English and the Finance Departments of Hebei College of Finance. Not only did I have the pleasure of being a part of this intense struggle for football immortality, but I was also honored with being the starting sweeper for the English Department!

The Finance department was the vaunted opponent on this overcast Thursday afternoon, set to play the role of refined, regimented, uniformed Goliath to our "Sandlot", "Squints" Paldorous-kissing-his-lifeguard, throwing up on the twirl-a-whirl while swallowing chewing tobacco David...they had defeated their first two opponents, 17-3, and seemed poised for another blow out. Vince had little faith that we would win.

"If we win this game," he posed before our match, thinking of the most outlandish threat imaginable, "I will become a (hr'$+/@^."

I paused at Vince's threat, then said in an insincere, yet ponderously upward-lifting tone, "Okay...I'll 'lift' that up for you."

The game began with the Finance Department kicking off, intentionally giving us the ball as a sign of friendship and acknowledging us as the "lesser" team in the competition. I recognized this as more of an insult than a sign of respect and honor. I gave three reasons for this reaction to the gesture:

1. I am American with bred American pride

2. I'm a Whoppahead

3. I lived with Wheeler for twelve months of my life.

Either way, I was touched with the tinge of tenacity, which thrust me to an athletic fury that saw shots which rivaled only the biggest Beckham ball game and Rinaldino ricochet. In actuality, I only had two shots on goal in this game, but our team did play brilliantly. Nearing the end of the first half, which saw many scoring chances for both teams, our enter forward, Henry (#5) got loose in a one-on-one with the keeper only a few feet from the goal. Shifting his body weight to the left, he baited the keeper to go with him, only to leave the ball off his right foot, just out of the reach of the keeper's flailing legs. Our team had drawn first blood...but knew well as the half drew to a close that we were far from finished.

"We're only a lucky shot away from this being tied," Jon, my roommate and Newly-Anointed Keeper of the Ring...uh, I mean goal, he's the goalie, the keeper of the goal and has exactly as much experience before entering this tournament at said position as Sean Glennon's estimated NFL starts at QB: zero.

"At least I know I can't get hurt playing goalie," Jon said. My mind instantly recalled the pictures immortalized on the "Wall of Pain" in the Willard House living room of Matt Walker and the clenched-jaw aftermath of his "not getting hurt" while playing goalie for FC Whoppa.

"Uh, just don't be too careful," I told Jon, rushing back into reality.

So, things were looking up/ lucky for our team going into the second half. There were a fair number of "Jia you, peng you!" (literally, "add oil," but also meaning "Let's go, friends!") chants emitted into the collective ears of my teammates during the next 35-minute half as we continued to feel the heat. I felt like it was FC Whoppahead all over again, except this time without the awkward-looking slips and strange positions I ended up getting into when trying to play defense against people who REALLY knew what they were doing. They controlled the ball most of the second half, but our defense stacked in tight and continued forcing tough shots and deflecting would-be saves for corner kicks. Jon made a few great saves and we ended up keeping them at bay until, with about 10 minutes left in the game, Henry received a cleared ball at midfield with only one defender back. He juked the defender for one move, then dumped the ball into the left corner of the goal box, running parallel with the defender step-for-step. When they reached the ball, Henry gained control, only to be dragged to the ground in a heap of man, reminiscent of a post-Hokie-TD dog pile in Lane. The ref blew the whistle and we'd earned a pk. Henry stepped up, brushed off some dirt, and promptly punched home the second goal of the game. We were winning, 2-0, with minutes left. The rest of the game was chippy, with a few fouls called on both teams. Our team cleared a few corner kicks and finally ended with a tough 50/50 ball that Jon punched out before colliding with the Finance's center-forward. The referee blew the three "tweets" indicating our 2-0 victory!

Life's living well, brothers. Ask for discipline, faith, and for thanksgiving.

Whoppa' What!

Bettwy

ps-- There's one "Perfect" shot where the guy shoots from the top of the TX A&M stadium and makes it into a hoop on the field...nasty stuff.

I bought a motorcycle!

FC English Department

In-game action versus Finance.

I dont get it....are all of those shots real? cuz I think we could make most of them.