Come On Irene

I have bought all the 2x4s at Home Depot and Lowe's to board up my windows, hired a company to raise my house six feet off the ground, stocked my pantry with nothing but 100 loafs of bread and 50 jards of peanut butter, purchased 25 10-gallon water jugs, filled 20 gas cans with premium unleaded and cleared out every bag of gummi worms in the state

 so I say ...

Come on Irene too-loo rye-aye
Come on Irene too-loo rye-aye
Toora toora-too-loora

Now you have grown, now you have shown, oh Irene
Come on Irene, these things they are real and I know
how you feel
Now I must say more than ever
things round here have changed
Too-ra loo-ra too-ra loo-rye-aye

With this super, mega hurricane coming our way tomorrow I have almost come to the verge of evacuating the city. Unfortunately I filled so many gas cans for my house, the Circle K is now out of fuel and my truck has gone from F to passed the E and is almost to say see ya to the D on the fuel guage. I am also not sure where I could go because the waves are sure to swallow half the United States and I don't think I can get to the Mississippi river by tomorrow afternoon. They say this storm may claim more victims than Hurricane Shapiro recently did to the University of Miami.

HURRICANE SHAPIRO

I am afraid of going into shock with all of these natural disasters of late. In back-to-back days my home state of Colorado was rocked by an earthquake that could have put true meaning to the Continental Divide and split the state down the middle. It could have done two things: create a new Grand Canyon or give the U.S. 51 states. Of course most people out here in the East don't know Colorado is not just one big mountain that people ski on so the Rocky Mountains would have stayed Colorado and the rest would be called Western Kansas. The other huge earthquake was claimed to take place in Virginia but I think it was the effect of the entire U.S. trying to blast New Jersey into the Atlantic Ocean. The "earthquake" was also felt here in North Carolina by many. There are t-shirts for sale that say "I survived the 2011 Earthquake". The tremors moved Duke's four national championship banners just enough to make room for No. 5. I also heard the basketball team was awakened over in China from the tremors. It was either that or Georgetown fighting the housecleaning staff at the hotel. Maybe the entire thing wasn't an earthquake after all and was really the Graboids from the great Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward film "Tremors".

 
 I am sure these rash of natural disasters will bring up more talk of the apocalypse. Well with my stash of gummi worms I am ready to go with a smile on my face if that happens.

Music and War ... What Is It Good For???

So last weekend I had a couple of hours of free time believe it or not and was chillaxing on my couch watching TV when I came across a great movie ... The Patriot with Mel Gibson. I have always been interested in the Revolutionary War and especially the Civil War. I was watching one of the battle scenes and the British were marching forward with drums and flutes a blazin. I started wondering "why in the world did they play music during battle?"

I started reading up on the history of music during war and it goes back a long ways. Apparently it has always been used to help build morale and as a psychological weapon against opponents. Dating all the way back to the Old Testament when they used ram's horns which are also used by the orcs in Lord of the Rings. The Greek and Roman armies both used brass (tuba and trumpet type instruments) and percussion during war. Of course Scotland used bagpipes which were somehow banned by the British after Prince Charles Edward Stuart's Scottish army was defeated in 1746. What I want to know is who is the governing body of war. Do you think they are like the NCAA and dish out suspensions when you hire mercenaries to hide in the bushes and use unfair tactics during battles or are they like the NFL and hand out ungodly fines to people who do not obey the gentleman's rules of combat?

It has always baffled me that two foes used to line up straight across from each other in a wide open field so they can easily gun down a large percentage of each other's forces but that could be another blog all together. In the middle ages military bands were used to transmit orders sort of like a morse code I guess. I also like that after fighting another country soldiers would bring back new ideas of how they could improve their military band. It eventually became where trumpets were not used in combat as much but more as a wake up call or like a buzzer to assemble the troops. Drums and flutes became the battle instruments to help soldiers march to a certain beat and stay together during infantry maneuvers.

Just think about how it would be now if music was used during war. They would probably design an AKA47 with a built in speaker and a place you could plug your IPOD into. How would the Afghanistan soldiers feel about hearing Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA or Toby Keith's Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue coming from the bushes? Some may even stand on the sidelines and play Edwin Starr's War (What is it Good For, Absolutely Nothing). I would think they could also advance their strategies and include dance fighting like in Zoolander or South Park. Our troops could do the Dougie or break out the sprinkler and yell "You Got Served!!" when dominating another soldier with our sweet dance moves.



Back during the Gulf War why didn't soldiers carry boom boxes on their shoulders during battles. Why don't soldiers install subwoofers and high dollar stereo systems in the humvees and fighter planes? The government already spends a boat load of money on the military so might as well go all out to provide some great music for the troops during battle. If nothing else I think they should get this group of soldiers to perform during combat because the girl is really good.

Taking Off the Helmet is My Hard Knocks

I invite everyone to visit GoDuke.com or click on the link below to see the first edition of my own version of HBO's Hard Knocks called Taking Off the Helmet: A Behind-the-Scenes look at the 2011 Duke Football Training Camp.

Taking Off The Helmet

First off I would like to say we had fewer members on our staff then HBO had makeup people but in a week's time myself, Chad Lampman and Mike Cappetto were able to piece together a pretty good show if I do say so myself. I also give special thanks to Tom Long and Adam Barkley in our football video department for working with us and letting us borrow a camera. It was great how we worked around only having one handheld video camera, one set of wireless mics and three computers to edit on. All this with our staff doing a lot of work with basketball as they get ready for this China trip. I am not going to lie, I am ready for them to leave already so we can focus on this football show.

Working on the show has been great for me. It took me some time to get used to doing video work again since I haven't shot any video or edited any since my junior year of college in the spring of 2003. It was a quick transition back after eight years as I picked things up pretty quick and started remembering bits and pieces of my classes and training. Who knows how great the show can be if I actually become halfway decent at it again.

The show is definitely our own and different than Hard Knocks. Being in a college environment we can't do the types of storylines such as position battles or coaches speaking about players individually as much. However we do have such things as guys still taking classes during camp which most people don't realize. Our coach David Cutcliffe will give us some great audio and is a gem to work with so the show was really fun to work on this first week. It almost made me forget about my real job at Duke as I was in my office for a combined 20 minutes this entire week. I did enjoy hanging out with Chad and Cappetto however.

I hope everyone likes the first show and will tune in the next two Fridays for the last two episodes. I will try to make them entertaining for all.

Maybe the Greatest Tattoo Idea Ever

For some of my friends this will come as no surprise to you since I have had a hard time keeping it a secret. I have an idea for a tattoo that will be lifelike, scary, original and imposing all in one. The placement of the tattoo is on the neck. First reactions are usually "wouldn't that hurt?" and the answer is probably since I have never gotten a tattoo. To best describe my tattoo here is a picture of something I would have in mind only in closer quarters since there is not as much space on your neck.

Now the tattoo would mostly be outlined except for the teeth, ears, eyes, nose and claws. The rest would be filled in with human neck hair to bring a 3D look to it. Depending on if you have brown or black hair will determine the type of bear obviously. The greatest thing is that it defends everyone's tattoo argument about what happens when you get older. Well with age the bear just becomes a polar bear when your hair turns white. Problem solved.

If you are judging me for this idea and think it sounds similar to a chia pet well my answer to you is it is just an idea because I will never in my life get a tattoo. I can't stand tattoos about as much as I can't stand smoking. The closest I ever came to a tattoo was in Hawai'i when I had a tribal tattoo drawn on my entire arm with a marker at a Luau. The bartender at a local bar thought it was amazing until it started rubbing off when I spilled beer down my arm.

My two biggest turnoffs with females is smoking and tattoos. I don't care if people have them, I won't judge, but for my personal preference I could not date a female with tattoos. I had a hard time in Las Vegas earlier this summer because some of the most attractive females I have seen up close and personal became very average when I saw they had tattoos - and most of them did. There were tattoos up and down their legs, covering arms, all over their stomach and back - you name it. I would take a less attractive girl with no tattoos any day (and I have to because lets be honest I am not much to look at).  To me tattoos take away from a person's natural beauty.

A lot of my friends have tattoos as do three of my sisters. I think some of them are pretty cool but obviously not as cool as my bear tattoo idea. I don't know if you can see it but one of our football players, Donovan Varner, has my favorite tattoo.

It is a mobster with a tommy gun and it says "You need people like me." Donovan also probably has the best hair of anyone on our team but I will leave that off of this blog.

For the most part though I do not like tattoos but if anyone wants to steal my idea for the bear tattoo please do. All I ask is that you take a picture of it and sent it to me for my office wall of heroes. You will go right up next to Donovan.