Yesterday was the first football game of the season. I love Hawkeye football. I can't stand professional ball, and I'm not too into any of the other sports, but it would be a sacrilige to live where I live and not love Hawkeye football. I live very close to Kinnick Stadium, close enough to be able to charge an arm and a leg to park cars on my lawn. I started getting some regular tailgaters last year, a couple of Suburbans from Estherville. They are really nice, and I now tailgate with them regularly. They feed me and pay for parking! What a deal!

I still haven't gotten Ken's camera set up on my computer, but Leah took some awesome pictures last year at the Homecoming game. This is my street on a football Saturday:

There is a rather large field/ravine at the end of my dead-end street, and they make a killing parking cars down there. 600-700 cars at $20 a pop...makes my six cars look puny. There has been talk of cracking down on people who park cars on their lawns, making them pay a permit fee or something. I haven't heard anything official about it yet, so I figure I'll keep doing it until I hear something. It pays for my season tickets anyway, and then some. I try and do something fun with the money, but I feel bad doing it this year, since I put so much of the repairs and the computer on my credit cards. Maybe I'll just say I bought part of my computer with it, because really, the computer is fun.

My seats are on the north goal line, right across from the student section. This is my fourth year in that spot, and it's nice to make friends with the people around me. Some people have held those seats for over 20 years. I actually sat down in the wrong spot yesterday, and didn't recognize anyone around me. I felt kinda lost. And stupid, when I realized what I had done.

Kinnick:

They did a "Throwback Game", celebrating the Stadium's 75th anniversary. They did the uniforms like they were in 1939, the refs wore knickerbockers (if you thought refs were hard to take seriously before...), and the poor cheerleaders had to change clothes at halftime, because it was so hot. I ended up with my third case of heat exhaustion this summer. I drank tons of water, and wore a hat to the game, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I was still out of it for the rest of the evening.

Next week is Iowa State. My brother is coming down, I have an extra ticket for him. This year, we're going to win. We're at the end of the longest losing streak to our intra-state rivals ever. This year, it ends.

Bum-dum-duuum!