Graduation Day

Four years ago I graduated with my friends from Elder High School. Today I'll do the same from UC

This one goes out to everyone and anyone who has made an impact on me in the past four years. There are a few a lot of you to thank, so let’s cut to the chase (and not the final ten races of the NASCAR season, although that’s normally an exciting time of the year).

To every one of my friends, whether from high school or college, or both, it’s been a great ride. There are far too many of you to thank individually, but you know who you are if you’re reading this. It’s been fun, and the past four years wouldn’t have been the same without my friends.

To the folks who have guided me to a career path including the folks at Channel 9 (Mark Slaughter, Dennis Janson and John Popovich amongst others) and Channel 19 (Rufus, Brian, Joe D, Dan Wood and while he was at Ch. 19 last year, Zach Wells); you guys have pushed me into an exciting world that I love every second of.

Brian Giesenschlag of FOX19 loves take me with him to Kentucky Speedway...and I love his hard hat

When I sit in classes and teachers tell me that the journalism world is dying and it’s tougher and tougher to get jobs, I know that through my experiences with you guys, I will have zero problems landing a job when I need to.

To my co-workers within the UC video department (including Joe Stanek, who is now at Tennessee); you guys are like my extended family, and while the past four years have been a blast, we aren’t done yet. Let’s make the next two-plus (possibly) even more fun.

To Wid and Greg Bruner, thanks for everything so far, and let’s keep it going. (Positively of course Wid…positive, positive, positive)

But the man who especially deserves a thank you is former UC video coordinator John Sells. Four years ago Joe Stanek and I walked onto the field at Nippert Stadium to film 1-Day camps. Neither of us really knew what we were doing.

Sells (in the white shirt) on the field in Miami before the Orange Bowl with (from left) Bambi, me, Joe Stanek and Marcus

Four years later Joe is at Tennessee and I’m going to be a Graduate Assistant for the Bearcats. Our love and passion for this job came from the way you taught us in the three and a half years you were around us.

To the coaching staff(s) I’ve worked with at UC under Brian Kelly and Butch Jones, thanks for allowing us to be such an integral part of the football program. I’ve enjoyed it and I’m definitely looking forward to the next few years as a GA.

But the people who really deserve a thank you are the three people who have had to deal with me for the past 22 years, my mom, my dad and my brother.

My brother, two years younger than myself, has taught me a lot about UC, and I hope I've done the same for him

Without their support and help, the past four years would have been a lot tougher. I could have made it on my own, no doubt about that, but having the help with laundry and meals is the reason I’ve been so successful as an undergraduate.

Even when I’m not home (and that’s quite often with all the odd jobs I do around the city for all sorts of different folks) someone will call to check on me or text me to see if I need food or anything done before I get home.

Four years ago we lined up in front of our old house for photos. We'll do the same in a few hours

I’m not the easiest person to deal with, but they’ve put up with me throughout the years, and for that I’m grateful.

And to all those of you who are offended or feel that I’ve missed you or shortchanged you some column space, I apologize. It’s my graduation day, I’ve got many, many more things on my mind today.

It’s time for “Pomp and Circumstance” at UC, and it’s time to get my degree. It’s been a long road, but a fun road. For all the times—happy and sad, good and bad—you folks have been here. It’s been a blast, and if these 500-plus blog posts don’t show what fun it’s been so far, I’m not sure what else will.

Thanks for reading, have a great Saturday, and congratulations to all my classmates. We deserve it.

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Watch me graduate, beginning at 2 p.m. at this link: https://www.uc.edu/ucvision/event.aspx?eventid=265

One day until graduation

First, if you’ve missed any of the countdown, here’s a look at each day in the countdown:

No. 10- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-days-until-graduation.html

No. 9- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/nine-days-until-graduation.html

No. 8- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/eight-days-until-graduation.html

No. 7- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-week-until-graduation.html

No. 6- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-days-until-graduation.html

No. 5- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/five-days-until-graduation.html

No. 4- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/four-days-until-graduation.html

No. 3- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/three-days-until-graduation.html

No. 2- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/two-days-until-graduation.html

Moment 1: “The Game” (Dec. 5, 2009)

It was cold and somewhat snowy when I opened the shades in the Pittsburgh hotel room I was sharing with fellow video team member J.P. Hummer. My dad had just texted me to say that he and my mom were up and headed to breakfast on a chilly morning.

I’d hoped for the best, but I knew it was going to be a tough battle. We were on the brink of a perfect season and a shot at the BCS National Title game. These were unforeseen and nearly unbelievable times in the Cincinnati football program. And I was in the center of it all.

We packed the meeting rooms up, and headed down to the buses to put away our things. In just hours, the ball would be kicked, and the 60-minute journey to perfection would be right in front of our very eyes.

Setting everything up at Heinz Field was just like normal: I headed to my endzone area, two guys headed to the TV truck, and John Sells, video coordinator, headed to his spot in the sideline video booth. Minutes later we all hooked up in the Heinz Field pressbox for breakfast.

WPTS Sport Director Jake Meyer, a good friend of mine, met me there. The previous night Jake and I hung out and watched the MAC title game, featuring a highly-touted Central Michigan squad, led by quarterback Dan LeFevour and head coach Butch Jones. The Chips defeated Ohio University, and little did any of us know the significance of that game at the time.

Jake and I made our way to the radio booth where I met his co-anchor for the day, Dan, who I’d talked to on the radio earlier that week when I was a live guest on Jake’s weekly sportscast on WPTS radio in Pittsburgh.

For three years I called into the radio show, live from practice. Dan and Jake asked me what it would take for UC to defeat the Panthers. When I got into the radio booth that morning to chat with the guys, Dan said, “The first one to 45 wins this game.”

Funny how things work out some times.

I headed down to the field to join my actual co-workers with about 45 minutes until kickoff. ‘If this is the biggest game I’m ever a part of,’ I thought, ‘I might as well go down on the field and soak in some of the atmospohere.’

I talked to some local news folks on the field, including WCPO sports anchor Dennis Janson, who was about to go live for a one-hour special preceding the game on ABC. DJ was one of the nicest guys I had the opportunity to work with at Channel 9, so I stopped by and said hello.

Oh, and then there was a game to be played. I found my way back up to my film booth, which was somewhat heated, but since we had the front windows open it wasn’t the warmest place in the world. However, I felt bad for the folks sitting out in front of us.

And I felt bad for my mom and dad, who, for some reason, got stuck in the very top row of Heinz Field. I thought my dad was kidding when he sent me a text that said, “Look out to your left. We’re in the top row of seats.”

Holy cow, they were. (“It was colder than hell,” my mom will still tell you)

When the game kicked off it was business as usual. Start recording, watch the play, stop recording. Repeat. It’s what I had done all season, nothing new.

Except the fact that what we hadn’t done all season was get beat, like a drum. We were tied after one quarter at 7-7, but in the second the Pitt Panthers decided that the Bearcats of Cincinnati didn’t deserve the perfect season we had our sights on. The rattled off three touchdowns and a field goal, and led 31-10 with 1:26 showing on the clock in the second quarter.

Brian Kelly, who had his sights on a job in South Bend, was suddenly looking like a normal human being, not the super coach that every national media outlet had made him out to be.

After the touchdown that put Pitt up 31-10 I received a text from John Sells, my boss. While I forget exactly what it said, the message basically said, “This one is over. We’re going to Charlotte, bye bye BK.”

I wanted to respond, but I just couldn’t think of anything to say.

And I didn’t have to say much, because seconds later the play on the field said it all.

Mardy Gilyard stood on the UC goal line with a perfect season in his hands. He received the kickoff, and the rest, as they say, is history. The play that saved the perfect season took all of 16 seconds. Gilyard covered 99 yards and sprinted into the endzone away from me for a Bearcat touchdown.

“Why are you so negative?” I immediately responded to Sells.

From there, the momentum shifted. But it wasn’t the final time momentum would shift in the game.

With 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter an almost perfect Jake Rogers missed a PAT attempt to bring UC within seven. The Cats trailed Pitt 38-30. (Highlights from ESPN.com can be seen here: http://espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=293390221)

With less than six minutes left the Bearcats had the ball on the one yard line. Zach Collaros, who had played masterfully in replacement of Pike when Pike re-injured his left arm earlier in the year, came in to run the UC offense on the goal line. He handed the ball on a read option to Isaiah Pead for six. We trailed by two.

And who stepped up on the two-point conversion? None other than Mardy Gilyard.

Pike flipped the ball to Gilyard for two points, and the score was tied with 5:46 left in the game.

Pitt’s Dion Lewis punched the ball in from five yards with 1:33 left on the clock, leading my counterpart at Pitt to look at me and say, “Damn, bro, this is crazy! I think we left you with too much time though.” There was too much time for Pike and Gilyard to tie the game and send it into overtime.

Enter Andrew Janocko, Pitt’s third string back-up quarterback, and PAT holder. Janocko bobbled the snap and Dan Hutchins couldn’t put the PAT through the uprights. Pitt still led 44-38, but they needed to keep UC out of the endzone if they wanted to keep their hopes of securing the Big East title alive.

But with 33 seconds left on the clock Pike stood behind center Chris Jurek with four wide outs to his left and Armon Binns to his right. Binns, a junior from Pasadena, Calif., was only looking at one cover corner on his side of the field.

I don’t normally do this, but I glanced away from my camera for a split second and looked down at the field. ‘Oh…my…God. He’s singled covered!’ I thought. ‘Throw it to Binns Tony, throw it to Binns. This is a touchdown.’

Pike got the snap and lofted the ball for the right corner of the endzone. It fell into the arms of Binns in stride. The crowd in front of me—mainly Cincinnati fans—was pumped.

Pike celebrates (Cincinnati Enquirer photo)

Jake Rogers came on and nailed the PAT, leaving my counterpart from Pitt to once again utter, “Damn bro. This has been one of the craziest games I’ve ever seen.”

I couldn’t agree more.

When Pitt got the ball back with 33 seconds remaining in the game, they had to throw the ball. Bill Stull was pinned on his own 18-yard line, and Bob Diaco, whose defense had been torched all day on the ground, sent out the best pass coverage guys he could get on the field.

Stull’s first pass dropped incomplete. His second fell to the turf, also incomplete. On third down he turned to Jonathan Baldwin, who had been a stud for the Panthers all season; that pass also went incomplete. With just ten seconds remaining, Stull dropped back with the game on the line.

The Cincinnati Bearcats celebrate after defeating Pitt in 2009 (Cincinnati Enquirer photo)

He was sacked by Alex Daniels to end the game. Someone in front of me popped a cork on a champagne bottle. The party was on.

I leaned out of the video booth and waved at my mom and dad. I got the thumbs up from my dad. We had done it, so long as Tony Pike didn’t give the next snap to Pitt and let them run it into the endzone.

Brian Kelly sent the offense out onto the field and Pike took a knee. The clock said 0:00, UC-45 Pitt-44. For the second straight year I was headed to a BCS bowl game as the Big East champion.

Kelly and Jeff Quinn share a hug after beating Pittsburgh. (Cincinnati Enquirer photo)

“Good luck wherever you end up,” said my counterpart from Pitt. “And represent [the Big East] well.”

“Same to you guys,” I said as we left the video booth.

I walked down a few steps and my mom and dad were waiting. I think my mom hit me numerous times saying, “I drove all this way and you guys almost lost!”

Almost.

I said goodbye to them and headed down the elevator toward the locker room to set my stuff in the equipment truck. The first person who greeted me was co-worker Joe Stanek.

The Big East champs hold their title in the locker room (from the Twitter account of Tom Gelehrter aka Tommy G)

He picked me up and gave me a huge hug. “Can you believe we did it!” he said, as excited as I was that we were a part of something so very special.

I’m not sure what my response was, but I know it’s almost unbelievable still. We were a part of one of the best college football teams in America that season.

And that, is the best moment I’ve ever been a part of in the past four years at UC.

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Disagreements? Comments? Concerns? Questions? Leave a comment below, and as always thanks for reading.

Check back tomorrow on graduation day for a special post. This has been a fun countdown to produce and organize. You’ve seen the good and the bad, the happy and the sad moments that I’ve lived through the past four years. These posts are only a small look into what I’ve experienced in the past four years, but it’s been a blast. I can’t wait to put some more memories in as I go through grad school. One more game like this one wouldn’t be too bad.

Have a good Friday.

Two days until graduation

A lot of thought goes into these, and this one is no different. Here on Thursday we sit 48 hours from graduation. It’s time for moment No. 2 on the countdown. (Grab your tissues now)

Moment 2: “Here Comes Goodbye” (July 6-7, 2010)

It was one of the worst days of my college career, but in the end, it was one of the most memorable.

My mom’s cousin Chris thought I was thinking of something at one point in the night. “What are you thinking right now?” he asked.

I said, “Nothing really, why?”

He said, “You’ve got that look on your face like you’re thinking of something.”

I was thinking. ‘I tell stories, it’s what I do. How the hell do I tell the worst story I’ve ever told in my life? How do I put this moment into words?’ I think in the past 11 months I’ve found out that you don’t.

“I had nothing come to mind. No words, no phrases, absolutely nothing could describe what I’m feeling at this moment,” I wrote last summer. “And for someone who considered themselves pretty good with words, this moment is incredible.” (For the blog post I wrote last summer, visit http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-memory.html)

On Tuesday, July 6th I sat in the UC video office, prepping for another fun summer day at work. I had planned on leaving a little early to go golfing with my friends. Plans changed in a heartbeat.

For weeks leading up to that day, my grandfather, who had turned 87 in April, was in failing health. It was only a matter of time until I received the phone call. My mom called and said something along the lines of, “You can either stay at work, or get down here…” as her voice trailed off. “It won’t be long.”

‘Well, I’m sure as hell not going to miss saying goodbye to my grandpa,’ I thought. I raced, albeit at a safe pace, to my car and down to the nursing home where my grandfather was stationed.

The whole time the only song I could hear in my head was Rascal Flatts’s “Here Comes Goodbye.” But it was another song that gave myself, as well as my brother, some solace in the days following my grandfather’s passing.

My brother (left) and my grandpa, from two years ago when my brother graduated from Elder High School

Diamond Rio’s “God Only Cries.”

“It still makes me sad, when I think of my Grand-dad, I miss him each and every day. But I know the time will come, when my own grandson, wonders why I went away. Maybe we're not meant to understand, til we meet up in the Promised Land.”

The refrain: “God only cries for the living, 'cause it's the living that are left to carry on. And all the angels up in Heaven, they're not grieving because they're gone. There's a smile on their faces, 'cause they're in a better place than, oh, they've ever known. God only cries for the living, 'cause it's the living that are so far from home.”

There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t give my grandpa some thought. He won’t be in Fifth-Third Arena on Saturday, a place that I saw my very first UC basketball game at when I was about 8 years old. Who was with me on that day? He was.

I also spent most of Saturday afternoon in the dugout at Great American Ballpark working freelance for FOX’s national broadcast of the Reds and Dodgers game. In the middle of the first inning the only thing that crossed my mind was, ‘Damn, I want to tell someone all the stories of all the awesome things I’ve gotten to do today…except the only person that would have a blast listening to me would be my grandpa.’

This photo, sent to Twitter by FOX19's Joe Danneman, was taken on Saturday when I was freelancing for FOX's national broadcast of the Reds/Dodgers game

Excuse me for wearing sunglasses on Saturday afternoon to hide the tears for those brief moments.

Sometimes you find a silver lining in something so bad. Hours before my grandfather’s funeral we were gathered inside Our Lady of Victory’s church and one of my mom’s cousins told me, “I read your stories and they made me cry.”

I responded, “Well, that wasn’t what I planned to do!”

One of my biggest dreams is to put together a hair-raising, tear-inducing story, like the ones you’ll occasionally find on ESPN’s SportsCenter. I think I might have already done that.

On Saturday afternoon, I’ll look up at the crowd gathered for the class of 2011’s commencement, and there will be one face missing…physically at least.

But I know that somewhere, that one face will be shining down on me, beaming with a smile. And in one happy moment, I’ll say, “We did it grandpa, we did it…”

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And if you’ve missed any of the previous stories, feel free to peruse them at your leisure before tomorrow’s moment, the biggest moment in the past four years:

No. 10- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-days-until-graduation.html

No. 9- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/nine-days-until-graduation.html

No. 8- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/eight-days-until-graduation.html

No. 7- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-week-until-graduation.html

No. 6- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-days-until-graduation.html

No. 5- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/five-days-until-graduation.html

No. 4- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/four-days-until-graduation.html

No. 3- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/three-days-until-graduation.html

Four days until graduation

I’ve reached just past halfway in the countdown now. With just four days until graduation, it’s time to take a look back, and take a walk down memory lane.

Moment 4: “The Beginning” (Sept. 19, 2007)

Referees blow their whistles, the umpire yells, “Play Ball,” a cap gun is shot, a green flag is dropped. All of these things signal the beginning of my favorite things in the world—sporting events. But how do you signal the start of a school day, the start of a school career?

If you’re in grade school or high school, you might hear the dreaded bell, then announcements from teachers and administrators. So, imagine my shock when, after twelve years of nearly the same routine, I walked into a college classroom and didn’t hear a bell, didn’t hear announcements and just started learning.

Sort of.

I can remember all the same feelings I had when I began high school. ‘This place is huge. How will I ever fit in? Will any of these people know me? How many of them are cool enough to be my friend?’

I can also remember the class: Probability and Statistics 147. The teacher’s name was Dr. Horn. He walked in, and if he weren’t a few years older, you could have mistaken him for a student. He carried a backpack like the rest of us.

“For some of you this might be your first ever college class,” he said. “Welcome.”

‘All right,’ I thought. ‘This won’t be too bad after all.’

And it wasn’t bad at all. Each of the classrooms I visited was inviting enough for me to think I was back in high school again. It didn’t hurt that I was in a “Learning Community” with about 20 other students for two of the class meetings on that day.

We bonded, and introduced ourselves to one another three different times. We all quickly figured out a lot about one another (And for more on someone I met that day, check out this: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-best-friend.html).

Even though I had been working on campus with the football team since late July, I found the first day to be somewhat scary. There were a ton of people around, most of them, surprise, surprise, I did not know. It’s kind of tough to know roughly 25,000 other people, I know.

Things that were normally easy to do, like walking into the Tangeman University Center to grab lunch, were now an adventure, thanks to the throngs of fellow Bearcats who were back for class.

Even four years after day one, I still get skittish on the first day of each quarter. I still have those same, ‘How tough is this class going to be?’ thoughts rolling through my head.

But you can’t have graduation without first getting through day one. I found my way through it, and looking back, it was just another day on the campus of the University of Cincinnati.

I didn’t need a whistle or a bell to start my college career. But it would be darn cool to see President Williams wave a checkered flag on Saturday afternoon during graduation. We’ll see if he takes my advice.

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That was moment No. 4 on the countdown toward graduation, which takes place at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I will find the link to the webcast for those of you who can’t travel to Cincinnati to watch me take “the walk.” Until then, enjoy your Tuesday, and thanks for reading.

If you missed any of the other countdown stories, click the links below:

No. 10- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-days-until-graduation.html

No. 9- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/nine-days-until-graduation.html

No. 8- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/eight-days-until-graduation.html

No. 7- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-week-until-graduation.html

No. 6- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-days-until-graduation.html

No. 5- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/five-days-until-graduation.html

Five days until graduation

With just five days until graduation everyone is beginning to get excited about it. To be honest, I’m not very excited about it yet. But I’ve still got a whole “work” week ahead of me to get fired up about walking across a stage and getting a piece of paper. Here’s a look at the No. 5 moment in the countdown to graduation.

Moment 5: “The day the music died”(December 10th 2009)

As we pulled back onto the campus of the University of Cincinnati on that cold night, REM’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it,” played on the car radio. How apropos.

Hours earlier Brian Kelly walked into the Westin Hotel in downtown Cincinnati flanked by police officers and he simply waved to throngs of TV cameras assembled in the lobby. He wasn’t speaking to the folks who all wanted to know the answer to the simple question, “Why?”

Why are you leaving Cincinnati? Why go to Notre Dame? They didn’t even make a bowl game! This team is on the cusp of finishing third in national polls and is undefeated? Why leave your players before the biggest game in program history?

It was his dream.

“Nobody does it like Notre Dame,” he’d say in a press conference the next day in South Bend, Ind., his new home.

On that night in the Westin Hotel it was simply a nightmare.

The whole city of Cincinnati wanted to know. It was so overwhelming that quarterbacks coach Greg Forest had to put out a tweet: “Please stop calling, texting me I do not know anything.”

He spoke for every one of us sitting in the team’s end of the year banquet that evening. It was so bad I turned my phone off, completely.

Quarterback Tony Pike told reporters that evening, “We listen to the radio and the news just as much as everyone else. It’s probably a little harder on us, because we’re getting the calls from our friends and family, wanting to know what’s really happening. It’s hard, because we don’t know either.”

No one knew that evening except for Brian Kelly.

It was the weirdest night anyone associated with this football program has probably ever had to deal with. It was such a fascinating night that even months later we sat in our team hotel and discussed stories from that evening. Everyone has a different take, everyone saw something differently, and every person has their own interpretation of what happened on that night.

I got to speak to Coach Kelly in the middle of April, ironically enough, about 50 feet away from the spot I last saw him in that hotel lobby. Now, as the head man of the program he’d dreamed of coaching for, he still remembered who I was.

That’s the BK we all remember. Ever so camera friendly, except for one night in December of 2009.

I just hope that never happens again. It was awful, but so memorable, and that’s why the night that Brian Kelly left Cincinnati to become the head coach at Notre Dame is the No. 5 moment on the graduation countdown list.

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If you’ve missed any of the other countdown stories, click the links below:

No. 10- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/10-days-until-graduation.html

No. 9- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/nine-days-until-graduation.html

No. 8- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/eight-days-until-graduation.html

No. 7- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/one-week-until-graduation.html

No. 6- http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/06/six-days-until-graduation.html

A progress report on the “Graduation Bucket List”

Six weeks ago, with 50 days until graduation, I compiled a list of seven things I wanted to do in seven weeks before I walked across the stage and received my diploma (Check it here: http://adamniemeyer.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-7-things-to-do-before-graduating.html).

Here’s the list again, with some comments on how close I am to completing it.

7. Learn the rules of lacrosse (Done)

I may not know every intricacy of each rule of lacrosse, but I’ll tell you this, I have a much better understanding of the general rules of the game after the two weeks I spent working on my 3-plus minute story for FOX19.com.

The story can be viewed here: http://www.fox19.com/story/14689199/lacrosse-growing-at-high-school-level-in-cincinnati

All the feedback I’ve gotten from the story has been positive. Once again I’ve got to thank the fine folks at Summit, Seven Hills and my alma mater Elder High School for the help with the story. I’ve got a much greater appreciation for lacrosse now than I ever have before.

6. Go to the Newport Aquarium (Not complete)

As I said in the original post, I’ve lived in Cincinnati my entire life and I’ve still never been to the Aquarium. Anyone want to go? I’ve only got a few days to get this one done.

5. Reds-Marlins series (Done)

The Reds and Marlins played at the beginning of the month of May and I got to go to one game, a Marlins win, on Sunday. It was pretty cool. I enjoyed it.

4. Kentucky Speedway’s tire test (Done)

If you’ve missed any of my posts about the Kentucky Speedway tire test, just scroll down a little. Brian Giesenschlag and I went to the track on Wednesday and did everything Goodyear would let us do. I was disappointed, but at least there were some sights, sounds and smells to hold on to before the Cup cars really get rolling here in about five weeks.

3. Buy a suit (Done)

My dad and I headed out one Saturday afternoon and found some suits. I’m currently getting them, or at least the pants, fitted so I can look good when I have the chance to wear them.

2. Begin writing my book, or books (Not complete)

I spent 14 straight days working on that lacrosse story and much, much more for both FOX19 and the UC football team in that time. So I haven’t started writing anything book wise, but I have been writing a ton of blogs.

The month of May was actually the busiest month on the blog. Check out all the fun posts by clicking over on the right side of the blog under 2011, and May. Happy reading.

1. Write thank you notes to everyone who has supported me (Not completed, yet)

I do plan on writing a big, long thank you note sometime this week, and it will not be mailed out to everyone and anyone who has supported me while in college. But you’ll be able to find it, trust me.

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Stay tuned for the countdown and some more Kentucky Speedway notes from Greg Biffle and Joey Logano later this afternoon.