So I made you a mixed tape.

Or myself a playlist for an upcoming half marathon. Kenyan? No. Good music? Yes. Honestly, half the fun of these things is making the playlist. Yes, I'm a nerd. But I need all the motivation I can get and if that means starting off with Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" and ending with Madonna's "Cherish" then so be it...

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' - Michael Jackson. Just realized this was the perfect song to get started to. Just over 6 minutes, nice and long.

For Those About to Rock - AC/DC. Classic. Also long, over 7 minutes. Makes me forget I'm running.... errrrrrrrr.

The Adventure - Angels & Airwaves. This is the first of many questionable calls on this playlist. I hate these bands in real life but in fake (running) life- it gets me moving.

Ragoo - Kings of Leon.

Can't Say No- The Helio Sequence- trendy, probably not the best song to run to. Might get skipped.

King Without a Crown - Matisyahu. Another great one that doesn't get old.

Streetwalker - Delta Spirit. Great new band out of SD, appropriately titled, only hopefully I'll be running instead of walking.

Neighborhood #3 (Power out)- The Arcade Fire. Love these guys. I realized when trying to pick a song of theirs that I could easily be content playing their entire "Funeral" album all the way through and it would be plenty motivation. Classic song.

Feeling So Real - Moby. Another one I would never listen to in my car but good for the workout.

Mr. Brightside - The Killers. Kinda gay, but kinda classic.

Echo - Gorilla Zoe

Believe - The Bravery

Don't Tread on Me - 311

Hypnotize - Notorious B.I.G. Starting to move more toward the rap stuff now- after the beginning consisted of mostly rock/indie.

The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. This song has been on every mix I've ever made for a race. Long, great rock, keeps you moving.

The Hand that Feeds You - NIN. Debatable, not a big NIN fan but I'm trying to see how the angry, screaming Trent Reznor approach goes. Who knows, might be motivating. We'll see how it goes.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk. Sure. This is the beginning of the end- miles 8-9 probably. the next few songs are going to all be solid and making me think happy thoughts about the finish line, a cold beverage and LOTS of food. And probably my new love (Big Red, the scooter).

Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz.

Kids - MGMT

Get By - Talib Kweli. Love this song, just recently downloaded it.

Kick Start My Heart - Motley Crue. Classic- almost started out with this song but MJ won. Put it here because I will probably need some sort of kick starting at this point. Might need a lot more than that, too.

Move Along - The All-American Rejects. Probably the worst song on here. I'm ok with it though because in the likely circumstance that at this point (if I'm still alive) I totally forget what I'm doing then I'll just listen to the words and hopefully I'll be able to follow instructions.

All My Friends - LCD Soundsystem. Another song I'm super stoked for. Once this song comes on I'm super close.

The Seed - The Roots

World Hold On - Bob Sinclair

Give It Away - RHCP

Perfect Situation - Weezer. Would love to end on this song. One of my all time favorites.

Starlight - Muse

Atliens - Outkast

This Way - Dilated Peoples

Annnnnnnnnnd that's all she wrote. Feel free to leave hate mail/suggestions. I can still change it up. Kthxbai.

Goin' back to Cali

My dog, Barkley, who just had his 1st birthday likes to run around in the backyard and monitor the situation among neighbor dogs. He still has a lot of puppy in him, so he will run back and forth and communicate with the other dogs by whimpering or showing some excitement by trying to jump up the wooden fence. Another act, and one of my personal favorites is when he will lift one of his legs (always on one of the 3 fences, never in the middle of the yard, or on a tree) and relieve himself. Of course many dogs mark their territory, especially in their own yard.

The Jayhawks played a Sunday morning game against the USC Trojans today. As always, the Jayhawks alumni showed up in full force to support their Jayhawks. The last time the Jayhawks visited California ended in an elite 8 loss to UCLA in San Jose. A good friend and fellow Jayhawk, Stephen, and I witnessed the Hawks fall one game short of the Final Four last March in San Jose, and I found myself sitting next to him to watch this years Jayhawks take on USC. The Trojans have a pretty good squad. They have some great young talent in freshmen O.J. Mayo and Davon Jefferson. They had a 16-6 lead early in the game and Kansas came back and made it a three point game at halftime. We acted pretty care-free for most of the first half. Calm, cool, collected. Like it wasn’t the end of the world if we lost this game, which it wouldn’t have been. But during Kansas’ run I turned to Stephen and said, “I don’t want to lose this game”. He laughed and said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

The Trojans football team just beat UCLA the day before to clinch a spot in this year’s Rose Bowl. They are a football school. Recently their basketball program (like KU football) has turned around and they are going to be a team I would not want to face in March. But it isn’t March. It is early December and Kansas is playing their first away game and true test, besides Arizona at home. It was a great test for this ball club, who held a 9 point lead with 6:30 to go and saw that cut to 4 with 2 minutes left. With 20 seconds to go and only a 2 point lead, Mario Chalmers drained a three-pointer from way behind the arch to put the nail in the coffin. Drained it. All we needed was a two and with 5 seconds on the shot clock he released the ball and… splash. The mysterious “Rock Chalk, Jayhawk- K-Uuuuuuuuuuuuuu” chant filled the Galen Center as I thought of how good it feels to pee in someone else’s yard.

The Best Weekend in the History of KC Sports

Saturday night inside what has been my place of worship on Sundays for 25+ years, Arrowhead Stadium, 80,500 + fans watched the Missouri Tigers beat the Kansas Jayhawks 36-28. The final score was not an indicator of what occurred on this cold, November night. The Tigers jumped out to a 14-0 lead at halftime, which could have easily been 14-6 if the Jayhawks could have connected on two missed field goals. In the third quarter, Mizzou jumped to a 21-0 lead and at this point the feeling sank in. It was all but over. After getting shut out on their first 8 drives, Kansas scored 28 points on 4 drives in a row and for a second there was still hope that KU could actually pull this one off. Reminiscent of a March Madness melt down vs. UCLA with a few minutes to go KU fans still had a very slim shot at pulling this one off. But in the end, Missouri showed they were the superior team in this battle.

The stadium was blocked off into a Missouri section and a Kansas section. It was extremely vivid by bright blue and red jackets, hats, gloves and Jayhawk stuffed animals vs. black and gold jackets, hats, gloves and tiger tails. From the 50-yard line on the visitors side and wrapping all the way around (like a horseshoe) the Tony Departo Pack Band Dugout and the tunnel, all way to the 50-yard line near the press box was pure black and gold. Opposite of that was Jayhawk crimson and blue.

The parking lot scene before the game was amazing. Kansas football had never seen this type of college atmosphere, and with the exception of Texas or Kansas State, neither has the rest of the Big XII. The gates opened at 3 and fans poured in to park their cars, fire up their grills, hang up their flags, crack open a cold one, toss the pigskin around and talk about the excitement surrounding the biggest football game in Kansas City history that was about to kickoff in a few short hours. One tailgate had an ice sculpture of a Jayhawk with a shot luge down it so people could take shots out of it. It was insane. An atmosphere that I have never seen at Arrowhead or in Lawrence and probably won’t be able to see again. Not anytime soon, at least.

Once inside the stadium and still before kickoff, there was a tremendous buzz and energy in anticipation around what was about to kickoff. Once kickoff took place, the place was about to erupt. Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit did the play by play and color commentary and all the ESPN College gameday guys including Lee Corso, Desmond Howard and Chris Fowler were there to cover the pregame and halftime events. Kansas fans were loud at times. The Mizzou fans were louder. Either the Kansas fans were taken out of this game very early by the 21-0 deficit in the third, or they forgot when and how to cheer due to the fact it has been so long since they had a competitive football team. In the 4th quarter when the Jayhawks defense needed them to be loud it sounded like Tiger Woods was about to putt on the 18th at Augusta. Okay, maybe not that bad; however, compared to the Missouri fans the Jayhawk supporters were not up to this challenge. It was a HOME game in Kansas City where the Tigers faced several 3rd and longs and the fans did not make that much noise. Disappointing.

Saturday night- great atmosphere, amazing game. Hats off to the Missouri Tigers and their fans. Jayhawks season 11-1. No shot at playing for the National Championship. “THE BEST WEEKEND IN THE HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY/JAYHAWKS SPORTS”= 0-1.

Sunday morning. The attendance for the Chiefs/Raiders rivalry was piss poor. Chiefs suck. Raiders suck. Chiefs sucked harder this day and Herm Edwards played to lose the game. I really don’t want to talk much about this one because it was so bad and I would go off on a rant about what is wrong with the Chiefs which no one wants to hear. The crowd was surprisingly loud considering how many empty seats there were. I didn’t want to go to this game. It was at noon. A good friend, Matt, holds an annual tailgate which was held before this game against the Raiders. This tailgate, named “Normal Like Us” (and this was the 5th year, so NLU V, for short) was less than 12 hours after the end of the MU-KU game. The highlight of this game was definitely the pre-game. The 18th and Vine “Kansas City Style BBQ” pit crew cooked up some very tasty treats including pulled pork, brisket, cheese grits, baked beans, smoked jalepeno stuffed peppers, and much more. There was even an appearance by the much anticipated Chicken.

What is supposed to be “THE BEST WEEKEND IN THE HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY/JAYHAWKS SPORTS”= 0-2.

I was very close to not going to the KU basketball game Sunday night. My cousin that was supposed to go decided at the last minute that he wouldn’t be able to go and my step-brother decided to stay indoors and watch it on a beautiful big screen high definition plasma tv. How tempting after spending nearly the last 24 hours at Arrowhead stadium. A couch and a beautiful television sounded really good. Oh, and good food. With family.

I rarely ever get back to Lawrence for basketball games, and I have not seen a good game there since I was a student. Last year I made it back for one game over Christmas. Who was it against? Rhode Island. Yeah, I didn’t know they had a basketball team, either. Anyways, this was against Arizona. A great match-up.
Once stepping foot inside Allen Fieldhouse for this match-up, it didn’t take me long to realize that I had made the right decision. This was easily the highlight of the “best weekend in the history of Kansas City/Jayhawks sports fans” weekend. And not just because the good guys won. There is a feeling I, like many other Jayhawks, get when being inside Allen Fieldhouse that isn’t easy to describe. It is a certain aura about being inside such an arena with so much history and pride the alumni and students take to make it what it is. There is a great clip that is shown before each game that gets the crowd pumped up and reminds them about the rich tradition of Kansas Basketball and Allen Fieldhouse. However, I had a lot of emotions going on: the Jayhawks football loss to their rivals from the night before, another Chiefs loss to add to an already disappointing season, disappointment that I did not spend as much time with my family as I normally like to over Thanksgiving due to my obsession with sports, dreading my 6:40 am flight the next day back to California (and of course that thing called a j-o-b which followed my landing), etc…

But for just 2 hours- none of that mattered. The student section wasn’t even full in the corners, as many students were still on Thanksgiving vacation, or hungover from the MU-KU loss the night before. That didn’t matter, either. I had a great seat to see my first glance at the 2007-08 Jayhawks. As my thoughts were wandering during the first time-out and I was looking around at the atmosphere, I noticed the shiny white banners with blue trim which hang from the historic building’s ceiling. The shiny banners are embroidered with years representing KU basketball achievments from conference and final four play. There have been many championships and final four appearances in the history of KU, but since 1980 here are the Jayhawks stats that caught my eye:

Big 8 Champions
1986
1991
1992
1993
1995
1996

Big 12 Champions
1997
1998
2002
2003
2005
2006
2007

Final Four
1988
1991
1993
2002
2003

Awesome. The Jayhawks have absolutely dominated the Big 12 conference since its forming in 1997, winning the title 7 out of the 11 years. Since 1986 they have won 13 conference titles. If you were born in 1986 the Jayhawks have won their conference championship 65% of the time. Not bad. In addition, they have been to the Final Four 5 times since I have been alive. They won the National Championship in 1988, were the National runner-up in 1991 and 2003.

“BEST WEEKEND IN THE HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY/JAYHAWKS SPORTS”= 1-2, but guess what? As hard as this is to say, and maybe I don’t believe it 100% but I’m going to say it anyways… it doesn’t matter. Not today at least. Ask me again in March, I’m sure it will be different.