I've got a bunch of exciting stuff to tell you about.
First off, as you probably know, our church arranges a bunch of activities, one of them is called "mutual", on Wednesdays. Once in a while, they'll do career nights, where we will visit a company or a workplace.
Since one of the men at our church works at Channel 12, doing technical maintenance and repairs, we went there on a visit. It's near downtown Phoenix. It was pretty cool!
The Channel 12 news studio
They had turned on their greenscreen, which they usually use for weather reports. So we played around with that for a while.
This guy is the last man in charge of what is being broadcasted out of their studio.
One of several control rooms with a bunch of screens and buttons.
If you want to keep your job, you don't unplug any of these cables.
Channel 12 shared the building with the Arizona Republic newspaper, so we also got a quick look at their floor of the building too.
Now, time for the really fun stuff! Ever since I decided to go the U.S., I knew that I wanted to go see a football game, college or NFL. Well, last Saturday gave me that opportunity! The Arizona State University Sun Devils, the local Division I football team, hosted their in-state and Pac-12 rival, the University of Arizona Wildcats. Safe to say, I couldn't wait for Saturday to come around.
I went to the game with two of my good friends, Delaney and Monica. Delaney and her dad has ASU season tickets, so whenever they go to games, they tailgate with a bunch of her dad's friends. So I got the tailgating experience too!
We got to the parking lot at around 3.15, a good 4+ hours before the 7.30 kickoff. First off we just had to find a spot and claim it! The parking lot would get pretty crowded with tailgaters, especially when it's ASU - U of A.
Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.
Told you a bunch of people would show up (these pictures were taken a few hours later)
After then, basically we just hung out and waited for the rest of the group to show up and for the food to be cooked. It gave us plenty of time to practice our cornhole skills! I'll get back to that game later on.
There was a bunch of crazy stuff at the tailgate parking lot. Some guys had bought an ambulance and turned it into a "Sun Devil Wagon". Yes, they kept the siren. And of course, there were a whole lot of drunk college students. And all the very serious tailgaters. This guy had mounted a TV in the back of his truck and a grill, also with space for beer kegs. The picture is dark, but you should be able to at least notice the screen:
As you can see, we tailgated right up until game time!
But, we didn't leave the parking lot until at least getting in a good game of cornhole. It seems to be a tailgating tradition since a lot of people were playing this game.
Cornhole is a game where you throw beanbags at a board with a hole in it.
You team up with a partner standing across from you with another board, around 15 or so meters from you. Then, you gotta outscore the other team! For each beanbag that lands on the board and stays there, you get one point, for each bag that goes through the hole, you get three points. Each team has four beanbags per round. The points cancel out too. First team to 21 points wins.
Me and Delaney played against Monica and one of their friends.
Since Monica hit pretty much as many trucks, tables, little kids, bypassers and their beers as she hit beanbags on the board (I'm not even kidding), this turned out to be a pretty easy win for Delaney and I.
Game time was coming up, so we headed to the stadium. We made it in just in time to see the teams run out before the opening kickoff.
Game time was coming up, so we headed to the stadium. We made it in just in time to see the teams run out before the opening kickoff.
If I remember correctly, ASU won the coin toss (above) and chose to kick off.
Opening kickoff!
So, the Wildcats (wearing white) start out with the football. Their quarterback (passer) is #8 Nick Foles, if you see the two players standing almost next to eachother behind everyone else, he's the guy on the left.
ASU's student section. Student sections are always loud.
ASU's marching band back in the stands.
Blurry picture, but the Wildcats' Nick Foles completed a deep pass to Juron Criner who got tackled at the 1-yard line. Criner is pretty good, he's probably gonna play in the NFL some day.
That set them up for a fairly easy touchdown:
I was too busy watching the actual play to look at what I was filming, so you're missing out on the actual score, but yeah.
So it was time for the Sun Devil offense, led by #17 Brock Osweiler (left most guy) to see if they could get a score. I should mention that the receiver at the bottom of the picture, #4 Aaron Pflugrand, made one of the most amazing one-handed catches I've ever seen, on a comeback route (you football people know what I'm talking about). And he's not wearing any gloves!
ASU failed to really get much going though, and they punt the ball back to U of A, who gets their second touchdown fairly quickly, so they have a 14-0 lead.
Here, they are lined up for the extra point kick.
Fumble! An ASU player lost the ball, but the Sun Devils recovered it, so they kept their drive going. By now, the 1st quarter was over. Because Monica and Delaney had a friend who was also at the game, we walked over to the other side of the field.
This might give you a better view of Sun Devil Stadium on the inside too. It seats more than 70,000.
ASU got going on this drive though, and they later scored a touchdown. They scored two more touchdowns before the halftime. U of A added another field goal:
So at halftime, the score was 21-17 Arizona State. Time for the marching band(s) to take the field:
On this last picture, both the ASU and U of A marching bands play together.
After the halftime performance, it was time to play some football again!
Opening kickoff of the second half.
ASU came that close to scoring, but they only managed to come up with 3 points on a field goal.
After the Wildcats couldn't do much on offense, ASU drove down the field again.
Again, ASU came very close to the endzone. And again, they only came up with a field goal. That didn't keep them from showing off their fireworks though:
They do that after every ASU score, even just extra points. This was the only decent picture I got of the fireworks all night.
As it is often the case in college football, games aren't done until the final whistle blows. ASU had 27-17 lead in the fourth quarter, but U of A fought their way back with two scores to take a 31-27 lead. ASU got the ball back, but Osweiler threw an interception with about 3 minutes left of the game. However, the Sun Devils managed to get the ball back once again before the game was over....
The ASU offense is huddled up during a timeout.
With about 9 seconds left, ASU was right outside of the endzone once again. They had two shots at the endzone, but like a few times earlier in this game, they were unable to score a touchdown. Two incomplete passes later, the game was over, with the University of Arizona Wildcats winning 31-27. As you can see, they were pretty happy to have beaten their rival:
It was a fun night, and before we left, I bought a "Fear The Fork"-shirt and an ASU hat.
It was a long game though. I didn't get home until midnight.
So, the Wildcats (wearing white) start out with the football. Their quarterback (passer) is #8 Nick Foles, if you see the two players standing almost next to eachother behind everyone else, he's the guy on the left.
ASU's student section. Student sections are always loud.
ASU's marching band back in the stands.
Blurry picture, but the Wildcats' Nick Foles completed a deep pass to Juron Criner who got tackled at the 1-yard line. Criner is pretty good, he's probably gonna play in the NFL some day.
That set them up for a fairly easy touchdown:
I was too busy watching the actual play to look at what I was filming, so you're missing out on the actual score, but yeah.
So it was time for the Sun Devil offense, led by #17 Brock Osweiler (left most guy) to see if they could get a score. I should mention that the receiver at the bottom of the picture, #4 Aaron Pflugrand, made one of the most amazing one-handed catches I've ever seen, on a comeback route (you football people know what I'm talking about). And he's not wearing any gloves!
ASU failed to really get much going though, and they punt the ball back to U of A, who gets their second touchdown fairly quickly, so they have a 14-0 lead.
Here, they are lined up for the extra point kick.
The ensuing kickoff.
This might give you a better view of Sun Devil Stadium on the inside too. It seats more than 70,000.
ASU got going on this drive though, and they later scored a touchdown. They scored two more touchdowns before the halftime. U of A added another field goal:
So at halftime, the score was 21-17 Arizona State. Time for the marching band(s) to take the field:
On this last picture, both the ASU and U of A marching bands play together.
After the halftime performance, it was time to play some football again!
Opening kickoff of the second half.
ASU came that close to scoring, but they only managed to come up with 3 points on a field goal.
After the Wildcats couldn't do much on offense, ASU drove down the field again.
Again, ASU came very close to the endzone. And again, they only came up with a field goal. That didn't keep them from showing off their fireworks though:
They do that after every ASU score, even just extra points. This was the only decent picture I got of the fireworks all night.
As it is often the case in college football, games aren't done until the final whistle blows. ASU had 27-17 lead in the fourth quarter, but U of A fought their way back with two scores to take a 31-27 lead. ASU got the ball back, but Osweiler threw an interception with about 3 minutes left of the game. However, the Sun Devils managed to get the ball back once again before the game was over....
The ASU offense is huddled up during a timeout.
With about 9 seconds left, ASU was right outside of the endzone once again. They had two shots at the endzone, but like a few times earlier in this game, they were unable to score a touchdown. Two incomplete passes later, the game was over, with the University of Arizona Wildcats winning 31-27. As you can see, they were pretty happy to have beaten their rival:
It was a fun night, and before we left, I bought a "Fear The Fork"-shirt and an ASU hat.
It was a long game though. I didn't get home until midnight.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Basically, Thanksgiving is all about two things, food and football. I got up quite early to play in our church's Turkey Bowl, a game of two-hand-touch football (no pads or helmets, so no tackles). It was Priests vs. Elders, basically everyone below 19 years old against everyone over that age. We were about 25 kids and only 8-10 adults. Still, we only won by a single touchdown. Don't ask me what the score was, no one kept track of it haha. We just know we won!
Later on, it was time for the Thanksgiving dinner, at one of my host dad's cousins. There's quite a lot of relatives on that side of the family, since we were well above 20 people, almost 30. I was too busy eating all that great food to take pictures of it, sorry about that. We played another game of football. I caught the winning touchdown, so that was pretty neat.
That wasn't the only dinner of the day though, as later on we went over to our grandma's house to have a Thanksgiving dinner with my host mom's side of the family. It was a lot smaller though. After this, I was well beyond stuffed with food. But that's the point of Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving also meant a two-day break from school, Thursday, the actual day of Thanksgiving, and Friday. Now, Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. A lot of stores open at midnight, or even late Thursday night with a plethora of discount prices and cheap items. People stand in line for hours waiting to raid these shops. Some don't even celebrate Thanksgiving because they're standing in line on Thursday instead. I wasn't crazy enough to join them.
I haven't mentioned earlier that I'm uploading a lot more pictures on facebook than those you see here on my blog. If you aren't friends with me on facebook or you don't have a facebook login, you can still see them via this link:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150391932456959.433416.819821958&type=1&l=51a0c30b81
Enjoy!
Take care!
Thomas.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150391932456959.433416.819821958&type=1&l=51a0c30b81
Enjoy!
Take care!
Thomas.
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