Midwest Vs. Westcoast the age old question by Ferrari F50 (Chase Tikker)

Spending four years at Union College gave me a good idea of what Midwest life is really like. After packing up my wagon and burning every bridge possible, I pioneered like my forefathers out to Loma Linda, CA. Yes, that Loma Linda. The Adventist Mecca your parents have probably been too but you have only heard about from others. Here’s what life is really like:

1. Climate – I played golf a week ago. Outside. 18 holes. Oldest club course in California. In the middle of January. I went home that day a little sunburned and sweaty. Unless you are from Northern Minnesota, you probably aren’t going to be doing much golfing in Lincoln between the months of November through March. It’s a dry heat down here, so even the simmering summers of 110° aren’t muggy like they are in Lincoln. Right now, its 70° and sunny. In ya face, Lincoln.
2. Entertainment – Last weekend, I knew a group of friends who drove an hour and went snowboarding. Last weekend, I knew a group of friends who drove an hour and went surfing. Last weekend, I knew a group of friends who drove an hour and went rock climbing. Extreme sports not your thing? Are you tired of the fact that the best athlete you watch on a regular basis is a toss-up between Shawn Perry and Zach Watkins? How about the world-class athletes who play a little over an hour away? Kobe, LT, Becks. I’ve made it to Vegas in 3 hours, several times. Art and cute little shops more your thing? Museums, bazaars, historical landmarks are aplenty, or so I’m told.
3. Opportunity – Most of you know what I’m saying when I say “Opportunity”. Fellas, there are so many dimers down here, its crazy. Ladies, there are so many studs down here, its crazy. I’m not saying everyone looks like a model, but I am saying that since there are so many people down here, the number of beautiful people is proven to be higher. It’s science. All different shapes, sizes, ages, races, professions, personalities. “Oh you just want to be friends?” Me too. “Oh you want to be more than friends?” Me too. Maybe its just being in a different location finally, but this is truly the land of opportunity, for both sexes.

So to wrap this mug up in a timely fashion, let me say this. I loved my time at Union, please believe. I don’t miss the school but I do miss the people. But hopefully we all graduate (Log, Jason O), and maybe you didn’t get that job at Union Bank / Saint E’s you were hoping for. Or maybe that special relationship didn’t end up with a rock. Whatever the reason you find yourself with no path after graduation. My advice: go West. Get my number from one of the two kids at Union who still have it and I’ll get you set up for life. Hey, it worked out for me… (single and barely a minimally paid- intern).

Editor's note: Thanks for the article Chase. We miss you in Lincoln. Nobody on the team is rocking those shinguards anymore. And after this article went to press Zach Watkins quit the team. So now we are left with just Shawn. And to anyone interested in getting their opinon on the small world hit me up. God Bless.

Lady Gaga ruins everybody's night

Dude#1: Dude we got seats to the Grammy's.
Dude#2 Awesome man where are they?
Dude#1 They are really close we will have a great view!

“A dog was rescued from an iceberg floating 18 miles from land in the Baltic Sea. Sailors plucked the animal to safety after it got trapped on ice on Poland’s Vistula river and drifted for more than 70 miles. Rescuer Adam Buczynski said: ‘He didn’t even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes. It’s thought Baltic’s problems began when he got trapped on ice on the Vistula River near Torun on Friday… After sightings dried up it was assumed the dog had perished. But incredibly Baltic had travelled a further 50 miles to the river mouth before heading out to the ocean where finally his luck turned when scientists on a research boat spotted something odd moving amid the broken ice.”

Paradise and I tried this at the Wendy's on Midland

Shelby put me onto this. Apparently there are huge cats called Mancoons roaming around the Northwest

Not impressive

Paco Pomet painting

Saturday Night B ball. Union lost both games. Sherron Collins happened. Obama goes to a Duke beating

watch this if you have some free time

This is funny to me

This bear has issues. Who does he think he is. I am actually quite scared.

Alaska Nanooks 2010 Hockey Intro from Szymon Weglarski on Vimeo.

A swan fell asleep and got frozen in the water. Here is a picture of firemen rescuing her.

A video of Forest Lake's trip to good ole UC

Floridians in the snow from Union College on Vimeo.

Is it worse to be a Chiefs fan. Here is a quote from Bill Simmons's latest column

"Imagine being a die-hard living in Minnesota or South Dakota after Sunday's loss. It's three degrees outside, you have one year left with Joe Mauer, your basketball GM choked with Ricky Rubio, you have a .500 hockey team, and your football team is coming back nine months from now with the same bumbling coach and a 41-year-old QB ... and that's before we get to the fact that God might legitimately hate your team, or that it's going to be 20 degrees or colder for the next two months, or that everyone around you is just as depressed as you are. How do you get out of bed? How do you function that Monday? So much for spiritual optimism."

free time

How does Gretzky get this hookup? And someone send Logan over there to give him a fresh cut. Where does he buy this furniture?

This dude is a pimp

R.I.P. J.D. Sallinger

Intramural game #3

Tonight was a wierd game.  We won by 20+.  Jason had 24 on all layups.  I hit a couple 3's and ended with 17.  The kid Jovon had 8 and Andy had 6.  While I am typing this Steve Nash just shook Dirk so nasty.  Anyway Brendan keeps starting all of our games with 3's from the corner.  My man Brandon had a couple of hoops and Howard Meier played solid all around.  I think what everyone has been waiting for is our matchup with team Ginger.  That's goin down on Tuesday.  I am really excited for it.  They have a big team.  The game plan is to give me the ball and get out of the way. 

oh snap!

You can just chill with us, or you can just chill with me

I was goin to make fun of the iPad but then the internet happened.

Dang. I just now got an iPod.

Himiny Yeah!

Rasheed "WALLACE"!

This is sad but funny. Yara the dog does not get hurt.

Watching "Casino" right now

D'oh

Now that's a tasty burger!

I have no idea what this is about.

Intramural game #2

So tonight we had our second intramural game.  Jason Odenthal was in the lineup.  Let's just say we did our thing.  Jason had 20 points, Andy and I had 9 points each, and three dudes had like 3 each.  We won by about 19.  It was pretty close up until the beginning of the second half.  Then we started getting busy.  This is my second game with single digit shots.  3 free throws and 3 buckets.  It has been feeling extremely strange that my teammates haven't been mad at me.  It was crazy, after the game one of them came up to me and said "good game".  I don't know what that was all about.  I needed to get back to normal so I played two plus hours of late night and passed like 6 times.  Feels good.  Our next game is Thursday but I won't be able to play.  I'll keep you updated.

Insert robbery analogy here

This is how I felt when I saw they jacked my tv

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

This is what you dress like if you don't want anyone to help you at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Bonus Pic of Buell's online chat on Facebook.

Room with a view: Dubai timelapse tests from Atlantis hotel from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

How did New Orleans not burn down last night?

How is Lamar doin? (Lamar Odom is married to Khloe) I guess if I have to explain it it's not funny.

The Best of Conan - watch more funny videos

Who is goin with me?

Who hasn't been waiting for this product?

DiGiorno Delivery from Paul Scheer

Ladies and Gentleman Big Rich's Small world would like to present our first guest article written by none other then Ed "No Look" Mejia. Enjoy

A Letter to Logan about Parenthood from a guy he barely knows.

Dear new Facebook friend Logan,
There’s a saying in my village about the transition a man goes through when he becomes a father, it says, “you can take a burro to the outhouse but you can’t make mango juice from corn tortillas”…or something like that, it rhymes and is a beautiful sentiment in Spanish, really. You’ll have to trust me on this one, anyway it’s never rang truer for me than it has this January.

You see Loge, (can I call you Loge?) when Big Rich asked me to write a guest article about my first month of Parenthood, I thought to myself, “what in the world can I tell all 4 of his blog readers and Logan that they couldn’t gather themselves by watching a Steve Martin movie by the same name?”

Then I realized maybe there were some insights, some secrets I can let the crew in on. It might seem to you that being a single dude, X-Boxing it up every night and wearing pantless costumes would be the zenith of a man’s existence. But I’m here to tell you, Logan there’s more to life and really, there’s nothing more gangsta than being a dad. Peep this:


1. Carrying a baby around makes you look like Brad Pitt with the abs of The Situation rolled into one sexy Taylor Lautner, but only sexier. - Let’s just address the elephant in the cyber-room here…I’m what they call “not model material” (well not anymore, right Sears?) and I definitely married “up”. However, once I started walking around with my progeny I went from George Lopez’s ugly brother to Benjamin Bratt! If I had known this in college I definitely would’ve bought that kid on the black market of Jakarta. I’m just being real.

2. If you are into soft, pink blankets…Loge you’re about to hit the motherload! (fatherload?) – not much to say here other than you’ll be swimming in pink quilts with teddy bears, and who doesn’t like that?

3. The word “cute”? No longer off limits! - before babies your reserved this word only for such emergencies like, “girl is cute, she kinda thick but she gots a face…she thick though,” but with a baby it’s carte blanche on dropping the “cute” word. “That’s a cute level 4 roll on your 24 sided die, bro!” “This lapdance is cute!” and so on and so forth…you’ll love it Loge.

4. You finally wanna finish Modern Warfare 2? Get a baby! – I’ve never had so much time with my PS3 like I’ve had every night at about 3am, right after second night feeding, but before 6am when baby falls asleep. That’s PS3 time! Babies love explosions it reminds them of uterine gurglings. It’s science, really.

5. Fix that slice! – I had a bit of a problem with my swing off the tee. But ever since I got my baby bjorn and baby, I’ve managed to keep the proper separation between my arms that I need to keep my swing on plane and to hit through the ball like I need too. I just added 30 yards to my drive and the beverage cart girl can’t stop bringing me diet Cokes.

6. You need to take off from your internship early to hit up LIDS at Gateway? - Well my friend, the baby just ran up a temperature! – Free passes all day, every week, no questions asked. Don’t be afraid to make up sicknesses. My baby had cholera last week and daddy was able to get himself an Auntie Anne’s pretzel.

7. You know how many pairs of jacked kicks from Richard Young's closet fit in a baby car seat? – Four, to be exact. Without the boxes of course.

8. Now, when you’re at Dillinger’s and “I love it when you call me Big Poppa” comes on, you can point at your sleeping baby, and everyone knows you’re the real deal.

9. Never miss another Super Bowl party with the Young Adult Sabbath School crew – it’s no toga party at Hugh Heffner’s house but let’s just say this year the JELLO will probably have grapes in it and if left out a tad too long the fruit pectin and the amino acids in the grapes can combine and well, let’s just say you better get a designated driver. PARTAY!

10. Brother, you ain’t never seen this much breast in your life! - Being around hungry babies is like being at an outdoor Hooters-slash-Hanes-Her Way t-shirt party on a rainy day! (but within the context of a happy Adventist marriage.)

And so dear Logan (what’s your last name?), if this humble little list of miracles doesn’t inspire you to pickup your little Bluetooth earthang and start dialing Rees Hall numbers, I’m not sure if anything can. I wish you the best of luck out there at Union College. Now go make a baby! (within the confines of a monogamous marriage of course.)

Your friend,
Ed Mejia – father, level 3 warlock (World of Warcraft), artist, spoken word poet, thespian.

and you don't forget to finish your fillet of fish

How can you not like this movie Ed!

This will be of no interest to Buell Fogg

So long CoCo

A couple more thoughts from yesterday

1. You picked the wrong house to rob if you didn't want to get your junk blazed on the internet bad guys! You should have stolen this computer if you really wanted to bust up Big Rich's small world. But that's impossible because I have had it surgically attached to my leg. Once again bad guys lose, Big Rich wins.
2. The Velcro on my black and white Nike Shox doesn't work anymore and it's annoying when you are running up and down the court. Try not to let that bother you after one or more pickup games. FACE!
3. You stole the wrong pair of jeans. Haha I don't even wear those anymore. Everybody knows I have been rocking the APC's all day everyday. You didn't even crimp my style. UGH!
4. That's messed up that you took my Royals hats. Who are these guys?
5. Thanks to all the friends who act like family and have shown support during this time. It really makes us feel loved. Shout outs to K Fogg for showing up on the doorstep this morning with my favorite item of food of all time. We are slicing up the pie this afternoon to prove that the terrorists can't win.

Happy Sabbath

For my real people only.

The other day I was looking at Facebook and Alyssa Graves had posted something on my wall. It said "If the world was going to end tomorrow what would Richard Young do today? Her answer as it turns out was the correct one. "Blog about it". Something happened today that shook my world a little bit and now I am going to blog about it. My house was robbed today. After I got off of work I wen't into the cafeteria and had lunch with Ambure, Kati, and Azriel. When I was done with that Logan and I went to the mall. We were there for a while and when I pulled up to 52nd and Prescott I noticed that my garage door was open. I thought to myself "Natalie must have gotten off of work early. When we moved foward I realized that our car wasn't in the garage. I then wondered if Natalie had left for work this morning and forgotten to close it. Maybe I hadn't noticed it when I left the house to walk to work. Logan dropped me off and I unlocked the door from the garage and walked into our eating area. The house seemed windy. As I scanned the room something just didn't feel right. The back door was completely open. At this moment I still didn't realize what had happened. I instinctively called out for Natalie. When she didn't answer I went downstairs and walked into the man cave. My TV was gone. My first thought was about Jason Odenthal cause when I lived in the hole behind the nail shop on 48th street he snuck in and took about 200 of my dvd's. But this was to crazy for even Jason. As I walked around the rest of the house I realized that these guys had gone through my whole house rummaging through my drawers. When I looked into my bedroom my bottom drawer that holds my jeans was open and all of them were gone. That is when I knew that I had been jacked. I dialed 911 and then hung up. I knew who I had to call. Ron Dodds. Ron gave me the number for the police. When the jake finally showed up I walked out the door of my garage yelled out "Hey 5-0 (you can't make that stuff up). I broke down to them what happend. For the next hour and a half I walked around my house with the police trying to see what was missing. After they left I sat in my front room shell shocked. If you haven't ever had anything stolen from your house then I hope it never happens to you. It is a very intrusive feeling. You feel exploited and violated. The worst day of my life is when my family's minivan was stolen in Memphis and my puppet beaver was still in the car. I feel the same feelings now that I felt then. The only way I can describe it is to say that it hurts your stomach and you feel nauseated. After sitting down and digesting the situation I have come up with several thoughts.
1. Why did they take all my ties? I have an awesome tie collection that has been building up over time. Natalie has gotten me some ties throughout these last three years that really meant something to me. Now some dude is walking around with my ties. I bet he doesn't even know how nice they are. How is he planning to move these things? Does he have a tie guy that can get him a good deal? Stupid.
2. Why did they take all of my basketball shoes? Seriously. I have a game on Tuesday. My squad has been hoopin. also what's wrong with the patent leather gray high tops? What you didn't like those? Hater.
3. Praise God I have renter's insurance. I must throw a shout out to Tom Young. When I was living in the hole I was living in my dad told me to get renter's insurance and I did like a good boy. Now when the check comes I'm poppin tags. We hitting the mall. I'm leasing a new whip. If I don't the terrorists win.
4. Why did they take all my dress shirts? Do these guys have a job interview coming up. Oh and thanks for stealing those Dockers my mom bought me they didn't even fit. And now I'm getting paid. In ya face bad guys.
5. Praise God that I didn't pull up when they were in my house. Not cause I would have done anything but because I am thankful that I wasn't in harm's way. I am also thankful that Natalie wasn't in harm's way. When it all boils down I am just out some stuff. My wife is here next to me and she is great. God has taken care of my family so far and I am not going to doubt him now. I am pretty sure that I will never see any of the things that were stolen from my house today. I am not that heartbroken over it. I loved my TV but I'll get a new one. I needed to stop playing Modern Warfare 2 anyway. I liked my clothes but I can try some new ones on. I think I'm just going to have faith in God and see how he works everything out. I know he will. I am excited to see how.

This will bring them in

You must wait till the end for this one

Intramural game #1

So we stormed out of the gate against Matt Evans team. Brandon Grentz scored 18 Brendan Nieto had 12 Jovon Winnell had 12 Andy Seiler had 6 and I had 6. Now I know what you are saying. Richard how did you only score 6 points? Who is Brandon Grentz? Why didn't they stop B Nieto from the perim? How many did you guys win by?
Well I will answer all of those questions. I only scored six points because I only took 5 shots. I was 3 out of 5 and I didn't shoot in the second half. I think these are all firsts. Last year someone took a stat that I went coast to coast 20 times without passing the ball in a game. In my defense I was ballin and ended the game with 35 points. But tonight was a different story. Brandon Grentz who by the way is a freshmen from Minnetonka was heating it up. Brendan was dialing it in from deep hitting 4 threes. And Jovon and Andy were working that hi low to a fair thee well (that means good). We won by over 20 and we didn't even have the kid Jason Odenthal. So what i'm saying is watch out UC intramurals, we got a squad.

Kinda scary

Coco update

When it's so sweet.

Intramural season starts for my squad today in the Thunderdome. It's an exciting time that everyone should be a part of tonight at 5:30. As I woke up this morning I began to reflect on all the intramural teams that I've been on. This being my eighth spring at Union I have had several teams. I've played 7 intramural seasons with very little success. This weekend my boy Michael Polite was in town and like friends that haven't seen each other in a while we stayed up till 3:30 in the morning talking about the good ole days. The good ole days revolve around basketball. We were talking about our best wins that we have had personally and why they are our favorites. My top best wins in no particular order are the Alumni game my senior year. The 2002 Union College basketball tournament. The 3 on 3 tournament senior year when we beat Mile High twice in a row to get the ship. The 2005 Intramural championship. When Mr. Murrill and I beat Mark and Mike (you might not remember this Mark but it happened). And last but not least when Michael Paradise, Russell Keller and myself beat Polite, Marcus Mott, and Mike Moss in a three on three game at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park CO. The last one might be the crown Jewell of them all. Michael Paradise got so mad at the end of the game cause he was always trying to stop us from trash talking. Marcus and I got mad at each other because we were trash talking. And Russell got mad at Mike Moss cause Mike was trippin (I just made that last part up)(actually Mike was probably trippin but Russell didn't care). When I look back at these greatest basketball victories I realize why I like them so much. Cause we weren't supposed to win. There is something sweet about winning a game that you aren't supposed to. With the exception of the 3 on 3 tournament (we were supposed to smoke everyone)all of those games I was an underdog in. No one thought that my senior year we could beat an Alumni team featuring Mark, Mike, and Mikey. No one thought that a Troy Beans coached team would lose to us streetballers in 02. No one thought that our squad could beat the 1 loss Tyson Miner team when we had 5 losses in 05. Not even Mrs. Murrill believed me when I told her that her husband and I beat her two baller sons(That's the second time the Murrill bros are on this list. That means I respect them). And even I was blown away when the Italian Stallion, the Circus, and the Engineer beat the Taxi, the Candyman, and Too High (These are Midland Mustang basketball nicknames, except the engineer, I just made that up). Because we weren't supposed to win it made winning feel like we shook the world (our world being the Kansas/Nebraska conference of Seventh Day Adventists). I have had many wins where we were supposed to win and we did. Not as exciting. I mean how many times in a row can we beat Sunnydale and still be pumped (slam on Logan even though he was in 4th grade). As for heartbreaking losses I have had my fair share. Read about my miserable losses here Most of those happened when we were suppposed to win the game and we didn't. But that's not important right now. I feel like my team should win this intramural season and please believe I will keep you updated. Here is a picture of the dynasty.

My Jam right now

lovestopicnic.com

I did it. We have it now. I purchased the domain name lovestopicnic.com. So now when I am telling people the name of my website I don't have to add blogspot. I am really happy about that. I think having to say blogspot made it 20% more wak. Now I can use that 20% for videos that nobody likes and more shoes. I was thinking about what I have done. This is the first time that I have spent money on my blog. What does this say about me? I'd like to think that it means that my little blog is growing up. I'd like to think it's a litte more professional now. I'd like to think that maybe it's bigger then just some dude's blog that likes Star Wars and Wu Tang Clan. I said I'd "like" to think that. But's lets be real son. This means I'm a huge nerd. But now when you are telling your friends about my blog all you have to say is "lovestopicnic.com" the dopest blog of my lifetime. So next time you are logging on to see the latest Chiefs/Jayhawks/pictures of me that you don't care about/videos of dudes falling/cat pictures/views on pop culture/news/hip hop then save yourself the extra keystrokes and use that time to write a comment/send me some money/.

I don't know what this means cause I haven't seen the movie

I'm surprised that this looks kinda funny

Once Mr. Paradise said that Lebron was the highest jumper ever. He might have been right.

The suspense on this mug is tight

watching this makes me mad

Pants on the ground!

Drake and Lil Wayne at the Tuttle Creek Reservoir.

Coco update of the day

This is kinda like me in my old neighborhood. Except I didn't live in NY I lived in South KC.

MLK day