Best Time of the Year

To my loyal, maybe six, readers I would like to apologize for the delay.  It is that time of year again and I am as busy as can be. Between my marketing job for the SCSU Campus Rec department and my Husky PR Coordinator position I have my work cut out for me this year. This is all on top of the routine 15 credits of upper level classes.  Anyway, that is enough complaining. 

This is truly the best time of year. Aside from this being my birthday month, the end of September introduces a season that surpasses all the others. Duck season.  With Minnesota duck opener starting a couple of weeks early this year, I am even more restless than ever.  One week from Friday I will pack up my hunting gear and depart for the ever so small, but wonderful land of Faribault, Minnesota.  Here lies some of the best waterfowl hunting a college guy could ask for in Southern Minnesota. 

Since I can remember, the allowed shooting time on the day of duck opener has been a half hour AFTER sunrise.  My best friends and I will row the canoe through the pitch-dark waters of a private duck pond.  This is not any regular duck pond.  This small body of water is located in the backyard of my friend’s home.  You are probably asking yourself, “What could be better than that?”  The answer is nothing.  This is simply a waterfowl hunter’s paradise.  Here, you will find no parking spaces, no speed limits, no regulations on having to actually take your decoys out after each day of blasting, and mostly, no early morning race to the best spot.  The blinds are carefully and strategically placed along the edge of this beautiful and peaceful duck and goose honey hole. 

Like I was saying, this year Minnesota has bumped up the shooting time to the normal shooting time of a half hour before sunrise.  No longer will we sit and watch as 15 ducks swoop into our perfect decoy layout as we curse the shooting time on this glorious morning.  We will be blasting before light even touches the top of the horizon. Fire will explode out of our barrels as we rise from our sitting positions and pump 12 gauge double BB shells into any duck or goose that dares to approach our setup.  We will be slapping high fives and doing the sacred “duck dance” even earlier than normal.  It will truly be great. 

Yes, just like any other hunter on opening morning, we will be a little rusty. We have been known to unload our guns at flocks of birds and see nothing drop. This is just a part of the sport.  Perhaps it has to do with the lack of practice in the off-season, or the absence of sleep the night before, but who knows?  Over the past four years that I have been fortunate enough to hunt with these fine gentlemen, we have never walked away from opening day skunked.  We will row back on to shore and walk a total of 100 paces up to the garage and clean our birds.  We will remain in the same clothes and sit on the porch and toast a hardy beer to our successful day in action. 

Oh, what a wonderful season this is.  

Stay tuned for the many updates and stories to come.  Until Next time.. 

A Bike Ride Through Memory Lane

At around 1:00 a.m. last night, I left my buddy's place after some cocktails and Vikings football.  I hopped on my bike and took off down the road and made my way towards campus. In case you are not familiar with St. Cloud on a Thursday night at this time, let me paint you the picture.

The streets and sidewalks are cluttered with all sorts of entertainment. People watching at it's finest. There is the large group of people wandering around that look like they have no idea where the hell they are.  The group generally consists of more males than females and all of the guys are wearing backpacks. The girls wear lanyards around their necks and insist on expressing themselves in a very loud manner.  Clearly we have our group of freshman. If not freshman, they are students that are not of age and have not figured out how to get into the bars yet. Attempting to find their next house party, they walk around trying to figure out which way the streets and avenues run.  Generally there is at least one person on the phone that keeps repeating the address of their destination to the lost group.

On the other side of the road you have two guys that figured it was for the best to leave the bar a little early and venture their way back to wherever they came from. If the walk is long enough, they have generally gotten themselves into a very in-depth conversation about any random subject. These two also have no idea how loud they are talking and just about everyone in a block radius can hear them word for word.  They may take a minute, dig from that liquid courage and chirp at people across the street, but normally end up keeping the path to their destination.

Behind these two, there is the classic "girlfriend walking away from her boyfriend situation."  These two have let the alcohol get the best of them and have found themselves is a "relationship ending" argument.  They have both probably said some things that they should not have and now find themselves walking all over St. Cloud letting everyone tune in.  In the morning they will most likely not talk about it and everything will be alright.

Last, but not least, is the solo traveler.  This is a guy that walks at a brisk pace and knows where he is going.  He does not leave his straight path to his place.  He probably stayed downtown longer than he had anticipated and blew a wad of money doing so. My guess is that he has a morning class that he needs to get to and will feel like shit during that class, but he will go.  He won't remember how he got home but the important thing, is that his brain had turned on auto pilot mode that successfully landed him in his bed.

Back to the story. I decided to cut through campus to shorten up this ride. At this time of night it is very peaceful peddling round on the smooth sidewalks. The air is warm but the coasting of the bike brings a cool breeze to my face. I am almost to my apartment when I pass by Holes Hall. The starting point of my college career. As I passed by, all sorts of memories came flowing into my head. Although, everyone bitches about living in the dorms, myself included, this building brought me some of the best times of my life. Any upper class student will probably agree with me.

Yeah it sucked living in a room that was about the size of a prison cell, but I really would not be the person I am today without the dorm experience. I met many of my best friends in the dorms. Some of them have graduated and moved on with their lives but for the most part we keep in touch. Each person that I have met and became close with has impacted my life in a different way. I have learned so much from my friends that I acquired in the dorms. We went through both good and bad times.  We got into a little trouble here and there but everything always seemed to work out. Nothing ever real serious, just college kids being college kids. You people know who you are.

The thing is, when you are sitting there as a freshman, you have no idea how fast the years you have in school fly by. I am now a fifth year student and have lived in three different places since my time in the dorms. It literally feels like 30 seconds have gone by. Although this may be the case, I feel like I have known my college buddies since elementary school.  I know these people feel the same way.  I have traveled with these people, I have met their families and friends from their home towns and built relationships with them, I have been through many good and some shitty times with them. In reality the dorms have provided me with better friendships then I could have ever asked for. If you have ever seen the movie Goodwill Hunting, and remember strong relationship he has with his friends, that is how I think of the people I have met along my college journey.

Its funny how biking by a building at one in the morning can bring on such memories and thoughts. I pass by that building every single day on my way to class and never really have thought about it like that. Perhaps it was the particular mood that I was in or the few cocktails that I had consumed earlier.  Either way, it made me realize that time really does go by fast. In about a year, at best, I will be moving on to the "real world" and all of this will be a great memory. For now though, there are still good times to be had and great people to meet.

Until next time. Have yourselves a great Labor Day weekend.

   

Greetings

As a public relations major, I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone that I enjoy writing.  Over the past, oh I don't know, four years of school at St. Cloud State University, I have realized this more and more. Numbers and math classes, not for me.  For some reason I was assigned a brain that won't and does not want to think like that. To be honest, I really despise all of the rules that tag along with such a subject. Yes, there are rules in writing but they are not cut and dry. I have learned that everything is up for debate when it comes to writing.

whenever I am verbally telling a story, any kind of story, it could be a story about  how I saw something crazy happen.  It could be a story about my walk home from class.  Either way, my friends and especially myself will notice that I tend to elaborate and get into an excessive amount of detail.  I find myself stopping mid-sentence to go back and fill in a "must know" detail that I missed along the way. For my new listeners, this can become annoying.  For my good friends and family well, they just stopped giving me shit about it. I just feel, to fully understand what I am talking about, they need to hear and envision exactly what I have witnessed. Yes, maybe it is a little exaggerated but I make a point to keep it on the factual side. Despite how long it usually takes me to spit out the end of each "story worthy" incident, I tend to have a amused and pleased audience in the end. Perhaps I am completely wrong. If so, who cares. They don't have to listen next time.

Throughout my writing in my college classes I have found this harder to do. This is especially true in public relations and business writing. PR writing needs to be to the point. Usually, short and sweet sentences. Hold that thought for a later time. <----- Oh.. he said it! 

The point of this post is to start off what I should have started many years ago.  I have always known and been told to blog as a PR major, but I have never really known what to talk about. What do the readers want to hear? I have came to the conclusion that it really does not matter. If you don't like the song then turn the station. Most of what I write about will be little bits of randomness and inevitable thoughts going through my head at any given moment.  Just for you, my readers, I will hold that thought and regurgitate it on this playing field of opinion. 

I am a people person that highly enjoys: hunting, fishing, snowboarding, traveling, talking, social gatherings, and story telling. (Among many others) I hope that these passions tend to emerge from my writing over time. Until next time, hold that thought.