Earlier one of my blog posts was talking about the MLB season might be suspended indefinitely due to the players and owners not being able to agree to a new collective bargaining agreement. Thankfully months later I can happily say that the season is underway. Me and my friends Aidan and Sean even went last weekend to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals play the Diamondbacks. It was a lot of fun the Cardinals thankfully won 7-5 after losing a majority of the game. In the bottom of the 7th inning Harrison Bader hit a two run homerun which gave the lead back to the cardinals. Nolan Arenado then hit another homerun which gave the Cardinals the lead they never gave back. The game was a lot of fun to go to even though I got sun burnt really bad. Initially I did not like blogging. I have never enjoyed talking about myself and I assumed that a project where you have to talk about yourself would be terrible, but I discovered something. While I hate talking about myself I found that I loved writing about topics I actually cared about. My posts about football and baseball I made over the year I actually enjoyed writing about. While I always enjoyed writing throughout my schooling career it was different for me with this blog because I could talk about what I wanted to. It was very refreshing to not have to read some book and then write about it or be given a prompt and told to just write on it. Blogging gave me the freedom to write about topics I enjoy writing and talking about outside of school. I am not sure if I will ever continue blogging, while I enjoyed it it is not something I see myself continuing doing.
Sci-fi book wrap up
For the month of march I was assigned to read The Loop, written by Ben Oliver. It was about a prison for people under 18 years old and the prison essentially serves as a death row because once they turn 18 they start experimenting on the prisoners. I thought that the book was very good, in fact I probably finished that book faster than any book I have ever read before. From the books I have read that are science fiction I can say that I have enjoyed reading them. My favorite books from the science fiction genre are dystopian worlds which is most likely why I enjoyed reading the Loop so much because in The Loop the world has descended into a very bad place. The regions run off of energy they extract from the prisoners and their are red zones in each region due to high levels of radiation, so it is not exactly a perfect world. Despite enjoying the book, I did not enjoy my experience working with critical lenses. In my opinion it is hard enough for me to get into a book and enjoy and having to stop and look for examples that fit with the lens I had each week made reading less enjoyable. I also feel like that using lenses over analyzes the book instead of letting the reader just enjoy the book. My first inquiry question regarding my book is why do we take freedom for granted? In The Loop all the characters are prisoners so they frequently talk about how they miss their freedom, so why do the people that are free do not value that as much? My next inquiry question is regarding one incident in the book where when the group is escaping one person says to free the other prisoners in the prison which ends up causing a lot of issues. My question is ” Are there times when being selfish is the right thing to do?”.
Buccaneers cut Antonio Brown
Former all pro wide receiver Antonio Brown has been released after his outburst Sunday against the New York Jets. Towards the end of the 3rd quarter with the Jets winning Antonio brown on the sideline started to walk around yelling at coaches before taking his jersey and equipment off and leaving the stadium. Brown ran down the back of the end-zone and out of the tunnel and left the stadium. Multiple possible reasons have came out as to why this incident occurred. Bruce Arians the teams coach said that Brown and him had yelled at each other before Brown left the stadium. Coach Arians has stated that he did not know that Antonio Brown was injured. The day after Coach Arians made these comments Antonio Brown went to twitter and tweeted screenshots of him telling the Coach that his ankle was not at full strength. Their is also a theory that since the Bucaneers were going to have to pay Brown if he had gotten 1 more reception. Some people have began to speculate weather or not it was the Buccaneers game plan to not thrown to brown to prevent having to pay him a three hundred thousand dollar bonus. Seeing Antonio Brown have another action like this is really sad to see. From 2013 to 2018 Antonio Brown was considered to be a top 2 wide receiver in football for the Pittsburgh Steelers. After 2018 he has played for many different teams. After the steelers he was traded to Oakland to play for the raiders. He never ended up playing for them as he tried to fight the teams general manager and was eventually cut. After the raiders incident the Patriots picked him up for one game before cutting him again. Finally he spent 2 years in Tampa before being officially released on January 6th.
MLB work stoppage
On December 2nd the MLB players association and the MLB team owners failed to reach a agreement upon a new collective bargaining agreement which now means that Major league baseball is on strike. Back in 2016 the players and owners renewed the collective bargaining agreement which expired this year. Players and Owners are unable to agree to a new CBA due to different wants. The players want to ensure that younger prospects are paid more fairly, as while in recent years great players contracts have gone up the same can not be said for minor league and lower level players as they make much less. Players also want to stop the owners from expanding the playoffs. Currently the way the playoffs are set up a total of 8 teams (4 from each league) make the playoffs every year. Owners want to change the playoff format to allow 14 teams to make the playoffs. Players are against the 14 team playoff bracket as they feel it could lead to teams paying players less but still being able to make it to the playoffs. The players also want to see the owners take action against tanking to make sure you receive a good pick in the MLB draft every year. If the strike effects the season and games are missed it will only be the 3rd time in baseball history that a strike has caused the season to be shortend as it happened first in 1981 and once again in 1994.
Thoughts about the Gatsby movie
The Great Gatsby movie in my opinion was not the greatest. I had high hopes for the movie even though I did not like the book. To me the book was slow moving and nothing very interesting happened for a majority of the story. Before watching the movie I initially knew that Leonardo DiCaprio was in the movie which was one reason I had such high hopes for the movie. Movies that he has starred in like The departed, Inception, and Django Unchained are 3 of my favorite movies ever and knowing that DiCaprio was in the movie gave me high hopes for it. Also seeing that Toby Maguire was in it also gave me high hopes because he was the best spider-man. Areas where the movie could have done better was going into greater detail about different parts. For instance, in the movie Nick was meeting with some sort of Doctor that never explains who he is or why Nick is having to meet with him. The movie also cut out some parts that were in the movie. For example in the book we meet Gatsby’s father at the funeral as the only three people that came were Gatsby’s dad, the old man from the library and Nick. All in all, I think that if you liked the Great Gatsby book you will like the movie but because in my case, I did not like the book and did not end up liking the movie.
Henry Ruggs
This week the NFL had to deal with a truly horrific incident. Henry Ruggs the 3rd was a wide receiver for the Las Vegas Raiders who was recently released this week due to a drunk driving incident. Ruggs reached the speed of 156 miles per hour at the time of the crash. The crash left Ruggs and his girlfriend with multiple injuries, but the crash also resulted in the death of a woman and her dog. Ruggs hit the back of the woman’s car and it caught fire. Once Ruggs reached the hospital the police concluded that his blood alchol content was .161 which is over twice the legal limit. While investigating the scene police also found a loaded weapon in his car. This is a huge loss for the family of the victims and it was dumb of Ruggs to be in that situation at all. This is not the first legal issue the raiders have had to deal with as last year their running back, Josh Jacobs was charged with a DUI, and earlier in the season their coach was fired as part of a email scandal. Ruggs is currently facing two to twenty years in priosn.
October 22nd 2021
For the first time in 37 years our football team has the ability to make the playoffs if they win tonight. That is a lot easier said than done though as the team we are playing is Triad High school. Their team record is currently 6 wins and two losses and they are a very good team. Between the two teams we only have had two shared opponents. When Lincoln played Mattoon it was a very good game and we won the game by only 1, meanwhile when Triad played Mattoon they beat them by 13. Lincoln suffered their first loss to Jerseyville this season as they defeated Lincoln 32-16. Triad has also played Jerseyville this season and Triad defeated them 38-13. Safe to say that Lincoln is the underdog heading into this game, but this is the best opportunity Lincoln has had to make the playoffs in years. I think that a lot of the seniors realize that this could be their last game playing football and hopefully that can motivate our players to give it their all on the field tonight. This game is also at home for Lincoln so hopefully having the fans there to cheer for them will motivate them as well. All in all it may be a little optimistic but I am hopeful for us to win tonight.
Fall
Fall truly is the best time of year everything about it is great, the weather is perfect and the best part is that the football season is starting and playoff baseball is also beginning soon. My favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals have recently won 12 straight games putting them back in contention for a playoff spot. This is the first time since 2001 that the cardinals have won at least 11 games in a row. Throughout the season the cardinals have looked very up and down, as in April and May they were one of the best teams but as we headed into the summer they started to lose more. But recently in the end of August and throughout September they started to win more. While my favorite baseball team may be doing well the same can not be said about my favorite football team. The Indianapolis Colts have not been very good throughout the first two games of the season. In week 1 they lost by 12 to the seahawks which I was very upset about because their defense if terrible. Week 2 went much better despite the loss, The LA rams are one of the best teams in football and the Colts stayed with them until the 4th quarter where our backup quarterback threw a interception that cost us the game. The colts have the lowest vaccination rate of any NFL team and many of their best players are quarantine, so I am hoping that can change so this season does not end poorly.
My first job
I doubt that going forward my blog posts will be about my life but today I am making an exception. This week I recently started my first job which has been a lot easier than I anticipated. I work with my dad and grandpa at a car dealership answering phones and filing papers. Having my dad and grandpa there with me is good because I know some of the people I work with. Since I had turned 16 my family had been pushing me to get a job for the longest time and I had been putting it off because I thought it was going to interfere with my free time. After my first week working, I learned that I should have gotten a job a long time ago so I would have had more money. While I do have less free time than I did in my opinion it was a fair trade to have more money which I should save to help me pay for college or buy myself a new car. All in all I am very happy that I got a job because I will have money more often which is a good feeling, and I am also very happy that so far I have gotten along with everyone I work with.
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