Not such a great start to my favorite restaurants 2013. BWW in East Peoria had a pipe break or something the other day. Check out the water damage and disaster in this video. It’s like it’s raining in BWW! Hope they get it fixed soon cause I’m hungry for some Asian Zing!
Everyone Is So Giving When Talking About Winning The Lottery!
November 28th, 2012 
knup 
How many times have you heard it? “If I win the lottery, I’ll definitely give you $xx,xxx amount of money!” This was everywhere I went this morning and just made me chuckle. The Powerball is up to a record high $500,000,000 – yes – that is 500 MILLION DOLLARS. So everyone and their mother is jumping on board and buying these lotto tickets. Everyone has those false hopes that this could be their day to shine. I was at the gas station this morning getting my usual diet pepsi and a guy in front of me was clearly buying lotto tickets. As he was done he told the cashier, “If I win, I’ll give you $10,000.” What a nice gesture. The cashier looked pumped and wanted him to give her his name, etc… Just so happened that he owned a small apartment complex in the area and this cashiers family rented from him. The guy says, “Tell them if I win – I’ll give them $10,000 as well.” LOL… So how many times did this same guy say this throughout the day? And the real question – when he wins – will he remember?
Asking for Trouble
Deals like this are just asking for trouble. You told me you would give me a million dollars. I was kidding! Now lawyers are involved and all of this. Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself. These people actually have to win the lottery first which ISNT going to happen. But save yourself the freakin headache and quit telling a hundred people you’ll give them money if you win!
So that’s my random thought of the day. And no – I did not buy a Powerball lottery ticket this morning. I’m still tempted to buy one after work – but I’ll most likely forget.
GOOD LUCK to all of you that did play!
Wait – last thought – how is playing the lottery legal but betting on sports isn’t? Or playing poker isn’t? Poker and sports betting are way more skill games than the freakin lottery. Makes me so mad. Lottery is pure gambling at it’s finest yet we can spend billions on it. But make a simple sports bet or play a home poker game and you are breaking the law. Rant over.
This Could Be Your JFL Kid Next Year?
November 26th, 2012 knup Most of you know that I am already leary of my kids playing Youth JFL football. Just seems like a concussion or injury waiting to happen. Watch this massive running back just TRUCK this smaller defender! This can’t be good for the kids brain waves!
Luckily in the Morton JFL league you can’t run the ball if you are “that big”. But it must be happening somewhere.
2012-13 Morton Basketball Schedules
November 14th, 2012 knup I’m sick and tired of not being able to find these schedules. It’s like torture going through whatever system Morton HS is using to find the schedule I want. So, below are the 2012-13 Morton Varsity Boys, 2012-13 Morton Varsity Girls and 2012-13 Morton Freshman Girls basketball schedules:
Obviously I won’t be editing this if things change. So if you really want to verify Morton high school keeps their sports schedules here.
Update – you can also watch Morton games or listen in here.
Drew’s 2012 JFL Awards Banquet
October 30th, 2012 knup Last night was the 2012 JFL Awards banquet. Drew and his “squirt red” team all gathered together with the rest of the Morton tackle football teams for a fun awards night. This was our first one of these (being this is Drew’s first year of tackle). It was a lot of fun. The team really seemed to enjoy it and each of them got a small trophy. At that age – trophy’s still rock! Here are a couple pictures from the event.
Sarah Opened Up an “Arts” Academy in Morton, IL
August 8th, 2012 knup 
It’s been a long while since I’ve posted anything on my personal blog. But todays the day 
Today I wanted to talk about my wifes new business – Inspired Arts Academy.
Sarah opened up a new business here in our hometown, Morton Illinois, earlier this year (2012). Inspired Arts offers dance classes, art classes, theatre classes, music classes, spanish, after school clubs, themed birthday parties and more. These programs are for PreK to 8th grade students. It’s been quite the challenge and adventure to say the least.
So we bought a place right downtown Morton that couldn’t be more perfect. Great location. Great space. Good “curb appeal”. A little pricey – but whats new right? We did some mass renovations on the place, put in some walls, painted, put in dance floor and mirrors, and so on… It’s lookin good!
She has now had 2-3 sessions and the response has been great. I think she is up to 250+ total clients between the sessions. I couldn’t imagine it growing this fast but it has. She does a great job running the business and teaching the dance classes. She has a few teachers helping with art and theatre but the rest is her.
So what has been my role? Of course – the IAA website is mine to deal with And a lot of the financial things. I guess I call myself the unpaid web and business guy. What a glorious job. But all in all, it’s good. Once things settle down and she can enjoy life again – things will be a little better. But we all know how hard new businesses are in the first year or so. Very hard! IE. Getaway Games debacle…
Hopefully I’ll start blogging on a more regular basis. Lots has changed. I took a new job in Morton Logistics as a black belt (NOT karate). A post about that is in the plans. Drew is in the middle of his first tackle football season. Heat basketball around the corner. We are thinking about converting to ITV3… Bryce is in pre-school! The Cardinals are back in the playoffs hoping for 12 in 12! And so on…
Happy 7th Birthday to My Baby Girl Alyssa
July 31st, 2012 knup My beautiful daughter, Alyssa, is 7 years old today. Wow how time flies. Lis is an absolute joy and such a great daughter, sister and friend. Speaking of “friend” – this girl absolutely loves hanging out with her little friends. Rylee, Emily, and on and on. Not a day goes by without this little social butterfly asking, “Can Rylee come and play?” What about hanging with your dad and mom for a night?! Haha. She just smiles.
So Alyssa enters 2nd grade this year at Grundy in Morton. She’s getting so big and does many things well. The one thing I haven’t gotten her into yet is sports. This year I plan to try that as she has shown definite interest in some things. She hits a softball very well and has some athleticism in her. Now if her mom can get over the fact that she may not be a dance / cheerleader type Who knows?
Happy Birthday Alyssa – LOVE YOU!
Finally Upgraded My Android Phone
I finally upgraded my old HTC Incredible android phone. This was my first smartphone and did me well for nearly 3 years. But… There were some definite problems with this phone. Battery life was horrible. Memory continued to go low when using Facebook and Gmail. And so on. Soo… The big question – iphone or another Android?
I couldn’t go iPhone. I don’t quite know why. I’m just a Google guy. I like how much more flexible they are and how much more you can do with the phones. An iPhone is simply an iPhone. Anyways – that is another story for another day I guess.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 is what I ended up buying. It’s the latest and greatest Android phone. I’ll have more details about this in a later post I’m sure. But for now, I’m spending my time configuring it, adding new apps, and playing with the fun new features. The biggest difference I’ve noticed so far is it’s much larger of a screen. I like that – but it’s different getting used to. Again, I’ll post my experiences with this phone often I’m sure.
Other Knup Thoughts
- Should I bet on football this year? Of course I should – but where?
- The Olympic gymnastic rule that kept Jordyn Wieber out of the all around finals is a JOKE!
- Today is the MLB trade deadline, curious what moves will be made.
- I’m on a new Daily Fantasy Sports Kick, you can follow my progress at Betting Blogger.
- Sarah has a big “Lion King / Chalk the Block” event in downtown Morton this Friday for Inspired Arts. Bad news is I’m going to miss my grandpas 90th birthday party.
- I’m in charge of the Morton Heat website and facebook. More on this later.
- I was not forced to upgrade my Verizon plan to shared plan. But I did. I actually saved nearly $10 a month by doing this. We just can’t use over 4 GB of data in a month. Should be no prob.
Cross Train Day + New Shoes!
July 17th, 2012 rodneyknuppel So Cross Training came and went. We went on a hot evening, with our 13 month son in tow. Carlye spent the first three miles with the “baby carrier” behind, and we made it in like 25 minutes. Then, we turned around and switched, and I got Jonah, and went back, and did an additional 4.25 – and made it in like 30 minutes. Needless to say, I was faster with Jonah in back then she was. It was a great workout. 7.25 miles in nearly 55 minutes. Great workout. My question is – how much is too much on the Cross Train day? Any answers out there? Tomorrow is a day off!
Monday is a day off – but I do have news – I got new running shoes. I took the advice of many of my Facebook and twitter friends and went with Running Central shoes. Talk about great service! They did everything they could to find the best shoe possible for me. I tried nearly half dozen pairs of shoes in. They have a ton of knowledge! I recommend runners head there for shoes. Well, that’s before I take off in my new shoes. That’ll be in my three mile run on Tuesday!
Running Blog to Begin
July 14th, 2012 rodneyknuppel This whole journey started the day that summer school came to an end. I hadn’t been running, but was wanting to. I kept telling myself I was too busy to run. While in reality, being a husband, a father, a teacher, a coach, a freelance writer for two online companies, co-owner of two “blogging websites”, and a part time sports jersey sales man DOES take up a lot of time – I had time to run. I was just being lazy. The longer I went, the harder it was to get started. My best form of exercise was racquetball 2-3 nights per week. Anyways – I joined a “biggest loser” competition at school, for the summer. I made my own goal that I wanted to lose 22 pounds by the time we got back to school. While in reality that’s a great goal – I have never been real big on how much I weigh. As long as I can do things I should be doing; I felt okay. But, it sounded good. The first half of the summer – I was going the wrong way. Sure – 22 pounds is going to be tough for me. Most of the reason stems from a conversation I had with my brother Ryan on one of our run’s. Basically it sounds like this: “Yeah, I’ve pretty much decided eating different foods, and giving up caffeine just isn’t worth it”. I’ve tried the “quit drinking soda” routine before = just doesn’t work for me. Now should I limit it – yes! Quit – NO WAY!
Anyways, on the Friday that summer officially started for me, I went on a short run before I went to pick Jonah up from grandparents. It was a pretty short run, but it got me back in the game. That led to a late run Saturday night and a fairly good distance run on Sunday night. Monday was a short treadmill before racquetball. In the first four days I had run nearly 6 miles; which isn’t a lot – but it was a start. If you know me, I have ran several 5K’s for fun, and have even completed a 10K. I have the St. Louis Cardinals 6K coming up in September. I like to do local 5k’s for fun. Do I win? No way – but I like the challenge and seeing all the people. Anyways – I decided I would contact my brother Ryan, who I know has dabbled into getting back into running. Ryan was a college basketball player; but that was 10+ years ago. He has three kids, coaches his son’s youth teams, and has a job, and is married to a working lady. So, Ryan “runs out of time” as well. But anyways, we got together in Morton for a 3 mile run on Tuesday.
The run went pretty well. We have a 3 mile course, and we also like to run the course backwards, just for the heck of it. We finished. We stopped at the 2.25 mile marker to get a drink at the park. Bad mistake for me – as it caused my back to stiffen up. I am not a very good stop and go runner. I need to keep going – or it’s OVER! We got back to Ryan’s house and had a quick drink, and he brought up that his wife and a friend were training for a half marathon inSt. Louis. Two things struck me: 1.St. Louis– oh how I loveSt. Louis! 2. – I’ve always been interested in a huge race like that. A marathon is too far, so maybe a half marathon would work. So, we talked a bit about it. I asked what the date was. Neither of them were sure, but thought it was in October. We talked about how much time it would take. We both felt the routine schedule would look a little tougher than it really is. We talked about how we would like to do it, but just didn’t have time. I left thinking about it. I then found out it was the same weekend as I will be in town for a Blues Saturday night game, and Rams/Packers football game. Rock and Roll half marathon is what it was. We found a few regiments, and looked them over. After seeing several online, we counted up: We had 15 weeks to prepare. The regiment didn’t look terrible. Basically medium runs on T, W, R – take F off – long runs are on Saturday’s and Sunday’s are for cross training. Then take Monday off. Didn’t seem too bad. We found a 14 week regiment, and decided to just call it a 15 week-er and do week 1 twice. So, it began.
We got together again on Wednesday, and I went 2.5 miles and felt that “I have to stop feeling”. I walked a bit, and then finished it up. We came to find out the course we had been running was actually right at 3.2. I brought my phone with me to check it out. We talked more about the half marathon, and both agreed – that if we could make it through the regiment to the sign-up date of August 28th, we would do it! We had about 7 weeks to keep going.
We decided Thursday would be on our own. I have a 3 mile path that I like to run near my home that I did that day. It was another: “Man, I must stop day”, which frustrated me to no end. But it was finished, just over 30:00. Speaking of time, Ryan and I neither one run for time anymore. We are old! We don’t care how fast we run it in. The goal will be to finish the race on October 21st!
We followed the schedule and took Friday off. Ryan noted that he was sore. I was not too bad, but noted to myself that I had run 7 straight days; dating back to July 6th. When I started, I said I was going to run every day of the summer. I think I even started it’s own hash tag on Twitter as #40days40runs. That was before the half marathon schedule. Now, we are dedicated to the schedule.
I checked with Ryan, and we were going to get together on Saturday morning, before we started our daily activities. It was raining through most of the morning, but on my way to Morton, it had cleared up a bit, and the radio talking heads so the rain was heading out of the area. In Morton, it was a bit cloudy, but we didn’t think much of it. I made a wise choice and kept my phone at Ryan’s for this run. Wise choice indeed! At about the ¼ mark of the first mile, we heard a BOOM and lightning right above us. Was a storm brewing? Sure enough – we got around the ½ mile marker and it started to rain. We discussed it – and both agreed it wouldn’t be too bad. Plus, now we didn’t want to go back. Then the downpour came. It poured for over 1.5 miles. 15-20 minutes of down right pouring rain. I am sure the folks of Morton felt we were the two biggest idiots on earth, but we were going to finish this run. Of course, just like karma – the final ¼ of a mile it stopped raining. The damage was already down. I had a t-shirt on that looked like it had soaked in a swimming pool for a week. My shoes (which have holes in them) were water logged. I do want to note we DID NOT stop the entire run. I never got the “I want to stop” feeling going through my head. We made it! I did not time it, but I would guess we made it in under 30:00.
So the journey had begun. Sure, this blog may come to an end next week, as I find a day or two that I simply do not want to run. But for now, I am into it. I would love to finish this half marathon. 13.2 miles. It certainly would be a proud moment for me. Finally, I need new shoes. Runners often times say you need to get the specially designed “runner shoes”. Is that true? Does that make a huge difference? Should I spend the big money at a place like Running Central? I guess my Reebok’s with holes on both sides of them just aren’t going to cut it anymore.
Next up: Cross Train Day on Sunday!
