Raymond Johnson @ downclimb.com

After keeping myself busy the past couple of weeks working on end-of-semester projects, presentations, and other miscellaneous tasks, I am now facing my last week of school. Not just the last week of this semester, but the last week for the foreseeable future. This is the conclusion of my 21st year of school, and for the first time I know I won't be going back in the fall. It's a pretty strange feeling, but I'm excited about the other possibilities I have available to me. I'm not totally walking away from academia - I still have my master's thesis to finish and I have a feeling I'll be going for a Ph.D. someday - but for now it looks like I'm at the end of the road. Fortunately, when you go to school for 21 years, that road ends where a lot of other roads begin. Which will I choose? Stay tuned...

George Clinton and P-Funk wasn't the only concert I attended last weekend. Friday night I went to see Jazz Band One, widely regarded as one of the top college jazz bands in the country. I've been going to their concerts since I came to school here, and this might have been my final one. I didn't realize it until I got there, but what was billed as a "normal" Jazz Band One concert was turned into an event called "Celebrate Washut", named for the bands director, Bob Washut. Washut came here in 1980 and by 1982 Jazz Band One had been named the top college jazz band in the nation. He is recognized as a top educator, clinician, composer, arranger...everything you would want in a person in your music program. But after 22 years he's decided to step down as director of Jazz Band One. He'll continue at the university, working with students, writing and arranging music, and directing Jazz Band Two, but now the torch has been passed to a new directo...

Put a glide in your stride, a dip in your hip, and come and join me on the mothership... I went to the George Clinton and P-Funk concert last night and was very impressed. George might be getting a little old, but he still puts on a great show and gives you your money's worth. The concert started about a half-hour after the posted time, but we ended up getting funked for over 3 hours, and I got the feeling that they went longer than they were supposed to (the lights went on and the microphones got shut off, but they performed for at least 15 minutes after that, just having a good time and shouting lyrics at the crowd). I know a thing or two about P-Funk and what their shows were like in their heyday, and I was glad to see they're still doing some of the same things - guys wearing crazy costumes (or almost no costumes at all), songs that don't seem to ever really stop (I think music stopped about 5-6 times during 3+ hours), and people coming on and off stage at almost...

Yes, another speaker! Robert Fisk is Britain's most decorated foreign correspondent, having reported from the Middle East for 25 years. His speech was titled "911 - Ask who did it but for heaven's sake don't ask why." Fisk lives in Beirut and has interviewed Osama bin Laden 3 times. At first, Fisk's speech struck me as anti-American, but I quickly saw his point - the journalism that we're used to hearing is far from unbiased. The events of the Middle East are often heavily skewed in Israel's favor and many people are led to believe that injustices are only committed by one side, which simply isn't true. For an example of Fisk's view of the world, check out this interview of Fisk conducted shortly after September 11th. The title of his speech was very appropriate, and it made me realize that the world is an easier place if you don't ask yourself why people commit such horrible acts. But they have their reasons, and we should all ope...

No, the university isn't bringing in Sir Ernest Shackleton to give any speeches (see previous two entries). Shackleton is best known for what I consider to be the greatest survival epic of all time . On December 5th, 1914, Shackleton and his crew of 28 men left South Georgia Island and headed for Antarctica. They would not set foot in civilization for another 497 days. Forced to sit out an Antarctic winter while stuck in the sea ice, Shackleton and his men eventually abandoned ship and pushed their lifeboats across the ice and into the water and headed for the nearest land. From Elephant Island, Shackleton and 5 of his best men took one of the boats and headed across nearly 800 miles of stormy ocean for South Georgia Island. The trip took 17 days and was followed by a grueling 36-hour march across the island to the whaling station. From there it was another three months before a ship could be secured and the weather was suitable to return to Elephant Island for the remainder...

My university brought in yet another fine speaker last night - General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. This one was a much bigger occasion than Greg Gumble on Thursday night, complete with valet parking, non-free tickets, and about 50 or so protesters. Protesters at this university are somewhat amusing - when it comes to campus activism, we aren't exactly Berkley, Iowa City, or Madison. The focus of the protest were the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died since the Gulf War, assumably because of the sanctions the rest of the world places on that county. I believe our sanctions are the result of a distrust of Saddam Hussein, a man we essentially chose to leave in power. If you're going to protest Schwarzkopf, I really don't think this is the right topic. I read his autobiography twice and I know how he felt about not "finishing" our military action in the Gulf War. The decision to leave Saddam in power was clearly made higher up. Oh well, I suppose some p...

Tonight I went to listen to Greg Gumble, the CBS sportscaster, give a speech about "The Spirit of Competition". He was pretty good - he balanced funny and serious stories and showed some video clips, but where he really shined was in the question and answer period. Here was my big chance to ask a question first posed by Bill Simmons, ESPN's Sports Guy in his article " Diary of a March madman : "4 p.m. New topic: Why doesn't Clark Kellogg ever look at the camera? We can't figure it out. It's like he just saw the Blair Witch. Clark, Camera Two. Camera Two!" Since Clark Kellogg is Greg Gumble's broadcast partner, this was my big chance to get to the bottom of this. I sent the results of my inquiry to the Sports Guy: "In your "Diary of a March madman" you asked (at 4 pm) why Clark Kellogg never looks at the camera. Greg Gumble spoke tonight at my university, and during the Q&A time I decided to risk embarrassmen...

Here's an interesting story from the Denver Post . Apparently a couple of young males thought it would be fun to go out into the street and shoot their paintball guns at people passing by. Unfortunately, one of the people they shot at was a kid (probably 15 or 16 years old) who was carrying a real handgun. He fired back, hit one of the paintballers in the head, and now their little prank has put somebody into intensive care. Just sad. You can easily find enough blame to spread it around to everybody. I'm left to wonder where the kid with the handgun developed that kind of aim...maybe he just got lucky...or unlucky...

There are so many good things about today that could be so much better. First, it snowed this morning, but I know it will melt away within a few days. Second, it was Opening Day for the Cubs, but they lost in the bottom of the 9th. Third, the NCAA basketball tournament championship game is tonight, but Kansas didn't make it so I'm left to grab a seat on the Indiana bandwagon. I think the ramifications of April Fool's Day extends a little farther than we all might think...

Happy Easter! I've always thought Easter was somewhat of a strange holiday. For starters, I didn't know the religious background behind the holiday until rather late in my upbringing and even now I find it humorous when people so casually say "Oh yeah, Easter is when Jesus rose from the dead." Just like that, like it happens every day. No different than when people say "The garbage men pick up our trash on Tuesday." The other major thing I realized this year is that Easter is one of the four major "candy holidays" along with Halloween (which is probably the biggest), Christmas, and Valentine's Day. Notice that all those holidays are pretty close together and there's a relatively long span between Easter and Halloween. I guess some candy makers are starting to make special treats for the 4th of July, and I suppose I don't blame them. Candy makers have to have something special to look forward to and Wal-Mart has to have something...

The most dominant collegiate athlete of all time? I've followed him, watched him, studied him...I don't think there's any doubt. I realize that most people don't follow college wrestling, but Cael Sanderson of Iowa State University grabbed the spotlight as he finished his college wrestling career with 159 wins, zero losses, four national titles, and four NCAA Championships Outstanding Wrestler awards. The Des Moines Register has a nice summary of Cael's career. What amazed me most about Sanderson was how much he improved each year, especially from his junior year to his senior year. I think about it and I'm still thinking that I've imagined the whole thing, but just when I didn't think a guy could get any better, he proves me wrong. Is the guy unbeatable? In wrestling, nobody is unbeatable - even the great Dan Gable and Alexander Karelin had their long unbeaten streaks ended. I'm guessing that to beat Cael Sanderson you'll have to be ...

Yes, I got back across Nebraska last Thursday without incident and now I'm back to school. It's a little strange to think that I'm facing my last few weeks here at the university, but I'm ready to move on. Where will I go next? It's hard to say - I've started applying for jobs and the prospects look pretty good so far. I caught the last part of last night's Academy Awards. Was I the only one who thought Halle Berry was going to pass out before she even started her acceptance speech? Denzel Washington displayed the type of class you'd expect from somebody who is "following" in Sidney Poitier's footsteps. I've been a fan of his ever since he did such an outstanding job in Spike Lee's " Malcolm X ". Unfortunately, I hadn't seen any of the movies that won the bigger awards, but I did see " Lord of the Rings " several months ago and was glad to not see it fall short in some of the major categories. ...

I opted for snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park over all my other options. The weather was interesting - when I got there it was still quite early and the wind was gusting at least 40-50 mph. By the time mid-morning came, the wind had died down some but bright sun and white snow can bake you past golden brown in a hurry. Don't worry - I still had fun.

I haven't gotten too adventurous yet - yesterday afternoon I headed out to Rocky Mountain National Park and drove around in the snow. The clouds were pretty low and it was snowing heavily enough that picture-taking wasn't very good, but I did drive through a herd of about 150 elk, so my trip did have a few highlights. I've been trying to decide what to do with my time today and tomorrow. Option one (the lower-risk option) is to rent some snowshoes and make a few more day trips to RMNP. Option two (the higher-risk option) is to attempt to climb Mt. Evans. Evans is supposed to be a "novice" winter fourteener, which is good because I'm certainly a novice at winter climbing. I have all the gear, I know what the altitude looks like, and for Evans, I've even seen the route. But I'm just not convinced that it's something I should do. If I needed to cast any more doubt on the situation, check out the latest avalanche warnings from the Colorado Av...

Nothing like a little jaunt across the Great Plains to start a spring break...but now I'm in Colorado and within sight of snowy mountains, so all is right with the world. Nebraska is still Nebraska, but crossing the Great American Desert was relatively painless this time around. Tomorrow's events are still up in the air, and I hope to take a few days to "tour" and take an obscene number of pictures. Hey, it's a hobby... Otherwise, I'll save my other comments for a large writeup when I get home. I'm already thinking about what it would take to write a book called "10 Things to Keep Your Mind From Going Numb As You Drive Across Nebraska".

I did considerably better with my predictions today, correctly identifying 13 of the 16 winners. I missed on Hawaii, Florida, and Texas Tech. The Texas Tech loss hurt the worst - I had planned on some Bobby Knight magic to take them to the round of 8. I'm quite happy about the Creighton win - I didn't think they'd do it, but this puts both Kansas and Creighton one win away from playing each other in the round of 16. My hometown would go nuts over a Kansas/Creighton matchup because we have a hometown kid playing for each team - Nick Collison for Kansas and Mike Lindeman for Creighton. Creighton is going to have to beat an awfully tough Illinois team that more than a few people think could make it to the final four, and Kansas is going to have to get over this "funk" that they've been in and play the kind of basketball they played most of the season. In other news, I decided today that I'm going to take a trip for Spring Break (which started today). ...

Today wasn't a bad day of basketball - Missouri played great, Kansas won ugly, and by the time the last games of the day came around I decided I'd seen enough and watched the movie " Donnie Brasco " instead. I correctly picked 11 of the 16 games today, missing on USC, Oklahoma State, Gonzaga, Marquette, and Pepperdine. I think Missouri was the biggest upset that I predicted, so I'm glad that I at least got that one right. I'm not expecting anything too exciting to happen tomorrow - I'm going with the higher seeded team in every game except the Hawaii-Xavier game. Go Rainbows!

I've never been real big on entering NCAA basketball tournament pools. I know some people who do a ton of research and enter dozens of brackets. I entered two brackets a couple years ago and won, so I figure my luck has run out and there is no need to ever enter another. But it's still fun to fill out a bracket and follow along, even if there isn't anything at stake. Here's all you need to know about my NCAA tournament bracket . First, I'm a fan of college basketball, but I don't watch a ton of it. I usually only watch if it involves Kansas, my favorite team. Occasionally I'll watch an Iowa game, but beyond that I don't see much. Second, because I'm a Kansas fan, I'll root for them and many of the teams that I've seen them play. And that's about it - no specific research, RPI ratings, history of past matchups...none of that extra stuff. I guess all I can say is, "Go Jayhawks!"

Ugh. I was on my way home today when, on the highway, I noticed what appeared to be very fresh and undisturbed road kill right in the middle of my lane. I didn't have room to swerve around it because of oncoming traffic, but no problem, I thought - I'll just straddle it. I bet I wasn't more than 30 feet away when the carcas decided to stand on its hind legs and look straight at me. Thump! Too late. I caught one twitch in the rear view mirror and that appeared to be it. I'm not even sure what it was - a woodchuck, badger, muskrat...I'm not too good with critter identification, but I can usually identify if something is dead or alive. Well, I thought I could, anyway... What a way to ruin a perfectly good day.

If you didn't already know, most of the TV I watch are time-tested sitcoms brought back in reruns - M*A*S*H, Cosby, and Cheers are my current favorites, and I went through a long Roseanne phase there for a while. Otherwise I'll watch the news or sports, and very few new shows. Given that I'm recovering from Monday Night Football withdrawl (I'd even take a Seahawks vs. Bengals game right now) I thought I'd try a few new shows tonight. There seems to be a theme with some of the new programming. First, ABC's " The Wayne Brady Show " and second, NBC's " The Colin Quinn Show ". Yes, Wayne Brady is talented. Does that mean he should have his own half hour of sketch comedy? I'll let you decide for yourself, but don't be surprised if I've already forgotten who Wayne Brady is by next Monday night. As for Colin Quinn, well, I think I hold him in a little higher regard because although he's never really been great, he sure ha...