Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

I'm staying with Peggy in Pendleton, OR for the holiday.

I got here last night after applying for a job at Cayuse Technologies, a company owned by the Umatilla Confederated Tribes. They have software developer and customer care call center jobs, and I applied for both. They gave me a test that is supposed to measure my problem-solving abilities; it consisted of some pattern-recognition drills, verbal as well as spatial. The test was fun, and I think I did well at it.

Peggy's house is nice, and she is letting me sleep in her bed (by myself, of course). Her kids and pets are nice, and despite the fact that it is a beehive of activity, it is also a peaceful place, a place of humor and love. I like it here.

Creative Writing Paper

Today, I'm posting a paper I submitted for my Creative Writing class last night. Everyone seemed to like it.

Allen Hanson
English 209
Truth Essay
11-18-08


Truth is not my friend. Nor is it yours. No one gives truth advice, nor can anyone spin truth to his or her own use. It is independent of us.
When talking about truth, it is important to understand a few things about it.
First, truth is objective. It doesn’t come from any of us; therefore, none of us can claim to own it. About the best that can be hoped for is that truth owns us. In a way, truth does own us; one cannot violate truth without experiencing the consequences thereof.
Truth is also basic. It underlies our hopes, dreams, opinions, fears, ideas, theories, and speculations. Truth is physical, emotional, mental and moral gravity. When we agree with truth, it steadies us; when we don’t, it merely sucks.
Truth is razor-sharp. That makes it very useful, and very dangerous, too. It can be used as a scalpel, to excise the warts on the character or stains within the soul. The sword that is truth is best directed at oneself.
Truth is immutable to charm, manner or persuasion. It cares not how you look, whether you just did your hair, how much you spent on your clothes, how shiny your shoes are, or what cologne you are wearing. It is blind to style, affectation, and reputation. It is unconcerned with popularity, politics of any kind, the latest polls, or the results of any election.
If you are looking for someone to take up your cause, to be your buddy, to be loyal to you and follow you around, forget about truth: Buy yourself a golden retriever.
But I don’t want to give truth a totally bad rap, because it doesn’t deserve one. When you bend to truth, and let it shape your thoughts and your character, it is the strongest ally you could have. It is like moral steroids, making you a stronger person than you could ever have imagined being. It makes you King of the Mountain and enables you to fight off those who would dethrone you. And if you have decided to be Truth’s friend, you'd better be ready to fight; truth is seen as a bully by many and they will accost you when they see you are together.
Truth doesn’t come to you with flattery and phony positivism. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme or an instant diet; it’s a take-up-your-cross-daily-and –follow-me thing. It’s not stealing kisses behind the high-school gym; it’s a commitment; a promise that the joy will at least equal the pain in the end.
In my experience, truth is a shelter from all life’s storms. The problem is, the storms seem to intensify when you stand next to truth. When you stand next to truth, you become like an anvil. Hammers may land blows upon you; in the long run, you’ll find that you either break the hammers, or just wear them out.
Truth makes a great gift, but it doesn’t play well with others. It is not an extrovert, but is capable of mass effect as well as great intimacy. Truth is neither an accessory nor an ornament. It is a not a tapestry or a great piece of art; it is more like the concrete that makes up the foundation of your house. Truth is not a decoration; it is the wall that pulls all the decorations together and makes them work.
Truth is like the rudder of a ship. If you don’t know where to look for it, you won’t find it. However, truth and your relationship to it, do determine the path of your life. The good thing about truth is that if you get away from it, you can get right back to it. However, it’ll take a while to get back on course. That’s harsh, but it’s the nature of sailing upon the sea of life.
I don’t really like truth; but it’s so important to my life that I have to delight myself in it. The Hebrew word translated “delight” in the Psalms and Proverbs in the Bible means “to bend,” not “to have a warm feeling about.” As I bend myself to truth, it does make me feel happy…eventually.
I heard a preacher once say, “The Truth shall set you free; but first, it will make you miserable.” I think he got that right.

My Gratitude

I have enclosed a list of things I am thankful for, as well as my last Sports Beast Column.

Allen Hanson
What I’m Thankful For
11-17-08

My girlfriend was recently dared to compile and write down a list of the things in her life that she was thankful for. I was relieved to read she mentioned me on her list. Then she challenged me to write a list of my own. So here it is.
I’m thankful for Peggy, Ashleigh, Amanda, Joshua, and Jeremy. I’m also thankful to be able to spend part of my Thanksgiving Day holiday with them. (Of course this is the first one on the list! I may be ugly, but I’m not stupid!)
I’m thankful for my dad, my sisters, and my brother. They are always there for me, and I appreciate all they do for me. I’ll miss them when I move away at the end of the semester.
I’m thankful for all the people at the Pathfinder, especially Bryce, Loren and Beez. Bryce and Loren have done a great job pulling the paper out of the toilet. It is now an excellent publication that deals with issues the students care about. I’m thankful they allowed me to have a small part in this endeavor.
I’m thankful for the radio station, KLCZ-FM 88.9. Matt, Sam, Dani, and Tate have done a great job getting the station off the ground, and creating a place for people like me to play songs we like and broadcast our views to the world.
I’m thankful for LCSC. Lewis-Clark State College has been a great place for me to try my hand at many things. Most colleges are too big to allow a person to discover and develop his talents, especially if his talents are multicurricular in nature. It’s a place where one can try and fail until one finds his talents; then the people here provide a place to hone those talents.
I’m thankful for President Dene Thomas. She’s a great leader, and the person most responsible for LCSC’s great reputation in the community, in academia and in the State of Idaho.
I’m thankful for my fellow students. As a non-traditional student, it’s so cool to see my classmates grow and change. They have rubbed off on me and kept my viewpoint from getting stale and crusty.
I’m thankful to the entire faculty. These people, even the ones outside my major, have always been eager to help me hone my skills. The LCSC faculty are here because they love to teach; believe me, they could be making a lot more money teaching someplace else.
Mostly, I’m thankful to God. He has brought me into contact with people who challenge me while caring about me. He has taught me how to deal with conflict in a courteous, classy manner. He has given me the opportunity to disagree with others while still valuing them as fellow travelers created in His likeness and image.

Allen Hanson
Sports Beast
November 17, 2008

Last week seemed to be Tourney Week here at LCSC. Five different Warrior teams were involved in some sort of tournament action this week. Three fall sports teams were playing for Frontier Conference championships, and both basketball teams were traveling for early-season tourneys. Here’s how they all did.
The volleyball team skunked the Conference, winning all three of their games to take the Frontier title at the tournament they hosted last weekend. However, the tourney wasn’t a cakewalk: LCSC put away its first-round game against cellar-dwelling Montana-Western on Friday pretty easily, but the team took all it could handle from Carroll College and Rocky Mountain College on Saturday. I was present for the Carroll game, and thought it was the toughest three-set game I had ever seen. I had to go to my other job before championship match with Rocky Mountain (being The Sports Beast, despite the glamour, doesn’t pay all that well), but I was told by trusted sources that the later match was even closer. On a side note, I got to meet the young men from Carroll College who comprised the team’s cheer section, and they seemed like nice guys. They painted themselves up in team colors with letters that said SAINTS. They were only a little less pleasant when I pointed out that they could also spell out STAINS. It’d be nice if we had something like that for our teams.
The volleyball plays a home match against Shawnee State of Ohio Saturday as a play-in game for the NAIA National Tournament.
The men’s and women’s cross-country teams also won the Frontier Conference Championships, which they hosted last weekend. In fact, the men’s team pulled off a rare perfect score. For those of you not in the know, cross-country meets are scored in this manner: Every runner is assigned a point value based upon his race finish, i.e. the winner is assigned a score of one, the runner-up gets two, and so on. The team’s score is the sum of its first five finishers, and the team with the lowest score wins. Based upon this formula, the best a team can do is score 15 points, by virtue of its members win all five of the top spots. This is akin to pitching a perfect game in baseball, or winning a tennis match 6-0, 6-0, 6-0, and it’s just what the men’s team did. The women’s team also won, scoring 21 points and winning all but third place on their bid for a perfect score. They will participate in the NAIA nationals in Wisconsin this Saturday. A cross-country race over the frozen tundra? Doesn’t the NAIA watch the Weather Channel? Hope the team takes some snowshoes and wears leggings. It’s not about fashion; it’s about survival.
The men’s basketball team won the Walla Walla University Tournament over the weekend, beating both Bethany College and Northwest University by substantial margins. It’s great to see coach Tim Walker pulling his team together so quickly. Usually, the men’s team takes a little while to get used to playing together, but Walker has a strong returning core this year and is integrating the new players into his system rapidly.
The women’s basketball team didn’t do so well. They dropped both their games in the Lynda Goodrich Classic, played at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. on Saturday and Sunday. However, both the schools they played are NCAA Division II schools: NCAA Division II is considered a tougher classification than the one the Warriors play in. So it’s not too surprising that the Warriors had trouble in the tournament. On the plus side, the women came out of their road trip with no injuries and some badly-needed experience against tough foes.
It’s great that we have so many great teams and student-athletes to root for at LCSC. However, I still wish we had a football team.

LCSC Volleyball

I just watched the most intense volleyball match I have ever seen. In the Frontier Conference Tournament semi-final match between Lewis-Clark State College and Carroll College, LCSC had to overcome a lot of attack errors to win in three games. 25-21, 25-23, 25-22. Both teams really fought hard; L-C hit the shots when they needed them most. The Warriors play again at 7 p.m. tonight, but I have to work in Moscow.
Not really much more of interest going on today. I work at 4 p.m. for C&R up in Moscow. Hope to get together with my dad up in Troy tomorrow.

First Entry

Today is the first time I have entered anything in my blog. I'm just trying it out to see how I like it.

I plan to discuss all kinds of interesting things and use the blog as an outlet for some of my writing. I am a college student at Lewis-Clark State College who writes for The Pathfinder, LCSC's student newspaper.

I write a sports commentary called The Sports Beast. Below is the article I wrote for the November 5th edition, which has proven to be somewhat controversial.

Allen Hanson
Sports Beast
11/2/08

I’m out sick for a week and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.
First, let me apologize for my absence from the Sports Beast column and from the Pathfinder offices in general for the past week. This was due to my annual bout with a drug-resistant sinus bug and some interesting side effects due to wildly variable blood sugar. My illness was extremely ill-timed, which is about par for the course for me this semester.
When I gained the necessary strength to come back into the office this weekend, I learned that our intrepid editors wrote a controversial piece regarding a member of the LCSC baseball team. Then Bryce explained that certain members of the baseball team tried to prevent the story’s circulation by absconding with most of the issues of the October 29th edition of The Pathfinder.
When you come to LCSC, you soon learn that the baseball team is sort of a sacred cow here; the administration tends to take a “boys will be boys” approach to team members’ various misdeeds. The reason for this is that baseball is a big cash cow for the school and the community in general: The NAIA World Series, which LCSC is currently playing host to on a semi-permanent basis, pulls in a lot of money for the community. (It’s interesting how cash can render even the scrubbiest cows sacrosanct).
You may be saying to yourself, “Sports Beast, do you have any evidence of this? After all, that’s a pretty serious allegation!”
In fact, I have anecdotal evidence of this, which I will recount.
At a basketball game in Spring 2006, I had the misfortune of sitting in the Warrior Zone section with a group of LCSC baseball players. At first, it was kind of fun; I have long decried the tomb-like atmosphere at LCSC basketball games and liked being in a raucous mob cheering on the Warrior men’s basketball team. Team members were hectoring the other team’s coach, calling him “Tom Green” (the guy did resemble that untalented thespian), and the first few times they did it, it was funny. Then I became concerned: Certain members of the group began shouting profanities at the coach, then escalated to hurling racial slurs at certain members of the opposing team. How’s that for Champions of Character?
At that point, I told the group off and took my leave. Two of the players, whom I knew personally because I had taken classes with them, were intoxicated to the point they could barely stand. I won’t name them, because neither of them attends LCSC at this time. At the time, a member of LCSC’s Student Services staff applauded the team for supporting their fellow athletes.
When I worked at Southway Shell as a cashier in my three-semester hiatus from school, almost every weekend I had to deal with people I knew were on the baseball team trying to purchase alcohol for underage girls. They’d get mad when I asked for the girls’ identification, as I was required to do by state law and company policy. Sometimes, I had to throw them out, and once I had to threaten to call the cops.
I hate to slam the baseball team at large. I have met some outstanding young men through the team, like Carlos Fisher, Brad Davis, Allen Balmer, and Adam Ramirez, who became my friends. However, the current situation raises doubts within me about the baseball program. Is it really a way for student-athletes to change their lives and broaden their horizons? Or is it just a group of thugs raising funds for the school? In my opinion, this school’s administration needs to rein in the program, for the sake of the students and the LCSC community.