Bonus Blog: Where Would You Go?

In geography this year, we will talk about many different places in the world. If I were to give you an all-expense paid trip to anywhere in the world, where would you go? Be sure to include a detailed explanation of why you would travel to that place.

Years ago, I would have told you that I wanted to go to Alaska. Six years ago, my wish came true as my wife an I took an Alaskan cruise and then traveled by train to Denali National Park in central Alaska. Our trip was almost everything I hoped it would be. We experienced magnificent, ice-capped mountains and glaciers. We saw a grizzley bear and her cubs, along with several bald eagles, caribou, humpback whales, seals, and a moose. Most of all, we experienced the truly rugged wilderness of the Alaskan frontier.

I look forward to reading about your answers!

End Blog

This concludes the bonus blogs for this school year. Have a nice summer!

Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics is my favorite event of the year. Congrats to the sophomore class for winning this year's edition. How about the teachers taking 2nd place? YEAH! Looks like Emily W will be doing a lot of mowing for Mr. Allision this coming spring!

For pictures of the event, check out this Sun-Gazette page.

Which picture is your favorite? I like the one of Mr. German celebrating after he knocked Jonah out of musical chairs.

"Feliz Navidad!"

Last week, I participated as a vocalist in the faculty chorus at the holiday band/chorus concert. What a great event! I had a great time singing, but I was even more impressed by the talent displayed by all the students. It's nice to see such wonderful people doing such wonderful things on stage.

Keep up the great work!

Metro-Doom!

At the beginning of the year, the Minnesota Vikings were favorites to go to the Super Bowl. Now, the team is 5-7, their quarterback is injured, and their head coach has been fired. Today, following a major snow storm, the roof of their stadium, the Metrodome, deflated. This seems representative of the entire season, as both their team and their stadium has now collapsed!

Watch amazing video of the Metrodome's roof deflating.

Rattlesnake Roundup

This is a little nuts (and scary)! Don't watch if you don't like snakes.

Rattlesnake Roundup

South Students Caught on ESPN

I was watching the Little League World Series (Europe vs. Mexico) while visiting with my parents this afternoon when I spotted South's Sarah Kistner and LeAnn Paternostro on TV. They were all decked out in purple Europe garb and had their faces painted. Congrats on your 5 seconds of fame ladies!!

I Heart Boston!

This weekend my wife and I and my sister Jackie and her new fiance Jason visited my cousin Kimberly and her husband Josh in Westborough, Massachusetts, which is about 45 minutes soutwest of Boston. We spent Saturday in Boston taking in the city and many of the historic sites. The Revolutionary War started in Boston and many important events leading up to the war occurred there as well, such as the Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, and Paul Revere's midnight ride. While there we saw a Revolutionary War re-enactment in Boston Commons, caught a festival in Little Italy with some amazing cannolis, and saw a street performer who could contorted his body to fit through a squash racquet, juggled a running chainsaw, and juggled knives on a 12-foot pole. Boston is a fantastic city with a great blend of modern skyscrapers and historic brick buildings, markets, and cobblestone roads. It definitely ranks among Chicago and Washington DC one of my favorite U.S. cities. On Sunday we drove a little further to Salem, Massachusetts where the Salem witch trials occurred. In this town, 20 people were wrongfully convicted and executed for witchcraft in 1692. I found the all the witchcraft stuff to be a little cheesy, but it was still a neat seaside New England town. We ended the day by traveling to Marblehead, MA for some spectacular ocean views (see photo) and a great seafood dinner.

In other news, I was washing my wife's car Thursday night before we left for Boston. I was hurrying to finish before dark when I jammed my middle finger into the gas cap door. The next morning the bright purple color and some x-rays confirmed that my finger was broken. Thankfully I don't need a cast, but my finger has to stay in a wrapped splint for a month. This will surely slow up the summer projects I am racing to finish, not to mention my typing.

It's almost Little League time. Maybe I'll see some of you at the parade on Thursday. Sorry this was so long Christian!

First Friday

Did you know about First Friday? I just heard about it myself and my wife and I took advantage of a beautiful evening to go check it out. On the first Friday of every month, all the small businesses in downtown stay open until 9:00. There are street musicians and bands, street vendors, lots of people. My friend Karl just opened a coffee shop, called Alabaster Coffee Roaster & Tea Company, on Pine Street. He purchased the former Coffee and Tea Room. So we went downtown to check out his new shop as well as the other festivities. I had a fantastic time as my wife and I literally ran into dozens of friends and acquaintances from high school, church, work, and even South High's very own Marissa Gonzalez and family. Check out the next First Friday when it happens on September 3rd!

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Lauck!

I spent the past 5 days in Pittsburgh celebrating my brother-in-law Brian's wedding, which occurred on Friday, July 30th. It was a great time had by all, with the exception of a few last minute glitches (such as a photographer who didn't show up for the ceremony and a missing table at the reception), but all was well in the end. Quite frankly, I'm exhausted, but the entire weekend was a lot of fun. We're happy to have Brian's new wife, Jen, in our family. For me, that means I now have a fellow in-law to experience the Lauck family with. I've waited 5 years for this day! Finally another "outsider" is living among my in-laws.

As a funny side note, my wife's name is Jen and her brother just married a Jen. There has already been some small confusion over this matter, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. Again, welcome to the family Jen and congratuations to the bride and groom.

(p.s. My sister Jackie just got engaged too, so I get to experience this all over again next summer. Yaaaaaaaay!)

Exciting Week

What a fun week this has been! On Monday I drove to Denton, Maryland (about an hour from Ocean City, MD) to visit my old college roommate and the best man in my wedding, Brian. I haven't seen Brian in over a year and half, so this visit was long overdue. I had a wonderful time hanging out with Brian and his wife. He took me canoeing at the state park near his house and then we went to Dewey Beach in Delaware for the rest of the day.

Then, after returning home on Wednesday, Mrs. Rodgers and I traveled to New York City to celebrate our 5th Anniversary. 5 years--it sure doesn't feel like I've been married for 5 years. What were you doing 5 years ago? Think about how fast 5 years passes. While in New York City, we saw the major sites--Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, FAO Schwartz, etc. We also saw John Mayer playing in Rockefeller Center as part of the Today Show. Later on, we caught Sheryl Crow playing near Central Park for CBS's Early Show. We finished the day with a Broadway show. We saw Memphis, the story of a white radio dj who starts playing black music in 1950s Memphis. Words can't describe how good it was. It was excellent and was definitely the highlight of our trip! The Big Apple was fun, but it's sure good to be home.

(Sheryl Crow performs at Central Park. Mrs. Rodgers and I wait outside Memphis theatre.

Above: Mrs. Rodgers poses on "The Top of the Rock".)

Thunderstorm

Now THAT was a thunderstorm!!!! Wooo! Talk about lightning! I love thunderstorms, as long as no one gets hurt of course, and THAT was a good one!

I Just Had a Party In My Mouth!

Summer = Grilling. It's one of the best parts about summer really. Last year, my wife saw somebody grilling peaches on tv, so we tried it. Amazing! If you've never eaten a grilled peach before, well then you just haven't lived. This is a great summertime dessert.

It's best to use peaches that are already ripe or maybe a little over ripe. Carefully peal the skin off of the peach being sure not to bruise the fruit. Cut the peach in half and remove the pit, again be sure not to bruise the fruit. Then get that grill roaring. Bring it up to a very high temp--maybe 300-400 degrees--and then back the heat way down as low as you can so that the peach will cook slowly and thoroughly. Peaches have so much natural sugar in them that the sugar will actually carmelize when it is slowly cooked, making the peach even sweeter. Cook about 7-10 minutes per side, add some vanilla ice cream in a bowl and I promise your mouth will be partying too.

That's right, you just cooked...well, grilled, with Mr. Rodgers.

Visit from Friends Young and Old

This weekend was wonderful! My wife and I lived in Manassas, VA for the first three years we were married. While we lived there, we became very close friends with three other young couples who were near our age. They all came to stay with us this weekend. So, we had 8 adults and 2 children (ages 2 and 3) staying in our house. Thank goodness the heat wave broke! We enjoyed playing with the kids--Kailey is feeding Aaron imaginery picnic food--playing some ladder golf, which I made myself, and catching up with the people who are still some of our closest friends.

Heat Wave

Okay, I love summer. I really do--this is my favorite season. But this is heat wave is a ridiculous, crazy kind of stupid! It's 8:00 in the morning and tying my shoes just made me sweat. Yep, just sitting in my house sweating at 8:00 AM. This is going to be a great day!

Independence Day

I love the 4th of July! It's definitely my favorite holiday of the year. What's not to like about it? Grilling, swimming, volleyball, warm evenings, and things that explode. I LOVE IT! I celebrated the holiday with my wife's extended family in Wellsburg, WV which is about an hour west of Pittsburgh. The fireworks weren't as good as Williamsport's but they were MUCH closer which made them really really loud, and I liked that.

Hope you all had a nice 4th of July. Keep having fun, safe summers! And stay cool in this heat!

World Cup Fever

Do you have World Cup fever? Were you jumping around your house when Landon Donovan scored the game winning goal last week? Then watch this YouTube video of America's reaction to Donovan's goal. It could have been you. The Americans were knocked out of the World Cup on Saturday, but the legacy and memory of this goal will carry on.

Some of these clips from personal homes were probably staged, but my favorite is the shot of the crowd of people watching at a TV in a store window in New York City. Great goal; great video!

(PS I promise I'll stop blogging about World Cup soon...promise.)

Proud Work

My wife and I are investing a lot of energy into home repairs/renovations. Just recently, we finished updating our downstairs bathroom. Mrs. Rodgers did most of the work on this, but I helped out by doing some plumbing work as well as tiling the floor and setting the toilet and sink in place. It looks great!

Then, last week I built a fence around the vegetable garden in our backyard. Our neighborhood is home for lots of rabbits (and when I say lots, I mean it's not unusual for there to be 3-5 rabbits in our yard at one time) who like to jump the fence and eat our vegetables as they grow. As a result, I ripped up the old fence and built this structure in its place. This fence is 3 feet high (twice as high as the old fence) and I buried the chicken wire 1/2 a foot under the ground so that rabbits will have trouble burrowing under it. Yeah, it's just a fence, but every once in awhile, when you finish a project, you can step back and very proudly say "Yeah, I built that!" It's a good feeling.

In other news, remember when we made 3-D maps of Africa and you had to identify Victoria Falls? Check out this video of "the most dangerous swimming hole on Earth" where people are swimming on the edge of the falls. This is nuts!!!

Hate the Drama, But I Love the Yanks!

Did you see the goal? Landon Donovan's rebound goal in the 91st minute that put the Yanks, as the world has nicknamed our US National Team, into the knockout stage of the World Cup. Excited? You know I am!!! I was literally sitting in my living room with my head in my hands, thinking hope had run out on the US, who had to win to advance in the World Cup. Then, out of nowhere the US converted a 4 on 2 break for a goal with only 3 minutes remaining in the game.

The drama for the US team these past 2 weeks has almost been too much. First there was the high profile matchup against world powerhouse England. Then, the US came from two goals down to tie Slovenia 2-2 (and would have won if the referee would not have made a REALLY bad call that cost the US what would have been the winning goal). Next, today's game when the US scored the winning goal with just 3 minutes left. Up next for the US--Ghana in the first round of the knockout stage. (Saturday, 2:30) Will you be watching? You know I will be!!!

(Photo credited to Matt Bonesteel, Washington Post Blog)

America's reaction to the Donovan goal!

BP Oil Spill Graphs

I just saw this graph on CNN.com and found it amazing. This is a great look at just how big and costly the Gulf Oil Spill has been. Of particular interest, check out how much money BP makes each year, as compared to how much money they have currently spent in cleaning up the oil spill. Very interesting.

Click here for CNN graphs.