Cornhusker Stadium

It was the state finals for High school football. Playing was Westside vs. Kearny and it was held at Memorial Stadium. Everyone was so psyched for the drive to Lincoln and to see the stadium but I didn’t get why. It had to be that they were just excited to see the game. I had been to plenty of stadiums before. They were all the same. There’s no way this stadium could be any different.
When we got this assignment I knew right away where I wanted to go. I remember seeing the Memorial Stadium for the first time that day and I loved it. I was so surprised because it was nothing that I had expected. This way I figured I’m in Lincoln already; why not go back there again.
Driving up to it from the road reminded me of how big it is. I walked up to the entrance with the press box and stared up building. The glass windows stretched almost the whole length and right above them were the words “Memorial Stadium” accompanied by to big red N’s. My favorite part, something I failed to notice in my first visit was a message inscribed into one of the stones. “Not the victory but the action; not the goal but the game; in the deed the glory"

Inside the stadium now was more vast than I thought it would be. Looking right onto the field I saw the big N right in the middle of the two-tone turf. Following the field all the way down is the huge video screen so everyone in the enormous stadium can see the game. Your eyes follow the seats all the way around until you get to your left and you see the tunnel where all of the players come out. Coming back and going to your right is a huge stone guard wall that has all of the national and confrence titles along with all-americans inscribed on it.

September 11th Memorials

I was sitting today flipping through the channels and I saw the movie United 93 was on. I had never seen it so I decided I would give it a shot see what it was like. It was at the part where the plane is being hijacked. All of the passengers are freaking out and wondering what is going on. At this point I had to change the channel. I’ve watched war movies before which are just as true as this and they didn’t bother me, but for some reason I couldn’t watch this movie. It was too real.
Yesterday two memorials for the 9/11 attacks were put up. One is in downtown Omaha and the other is in Grand Island. The steel sculpture in Omaha stands 16 feet tall. It is people’s hands forming a sphere, representing the earth, with the Twin Towers next to it. Angel’s wings hold the Twin Towers up showing they “aspire to heaven.”
The Grand Island structure is a 350lb beam with over 1,000 signatures of policemen, firefighters and veterans.
It's crazy to me how something that happened 6 years ago can still seem so real as if it happened last week. We are still picking up the pieces and rebuilding our nation from what happened that day. It shows how strong of a nation we are though, that we can come back strong but still take time to mourn the ones who lost their lives.

James Bridges, who represented Woodmen at the ceremony, said people should honor not only those who lost their lives on 9/11 but also those who serve in law enforcement and the military.
"All of these are America's heroes," he said.

It was really interesting for me to see how the phone has progressed over the years to get to where it is today. The telephone museum was nothing like I thought it would be.
One of the first phones used in the 1800s weighed 10.5lbs! The old movie favorites “Candlestick Phones” were next on the tour. These phones were made of nickel and cost $8.00 in 1895. Eventually these phones were made cheaper when they switched to using brass instead of nickel. If you lived in a well off family, in 1900, you started to have phones. Vanity phones started to come out and be popular in hotel lobbies and train stations. You now see phone booths and pay phones in restaurants, gas stations, outside and most other public places. In 1905 though they were only found in a drug store in Kansas. Of course there have just been more and more advances since then. You have your spin to dial phones, the phones with cords, phone without the cords and then the first cell phones.
Last year I went to pick up my brother from school. He was in the 6th grade at Westgate Elementary. As all of the kids walked, over half of them pulled out cell phones to see where their rides are. These kids are barely old enough to remember their own phone number. Now, the coolest thing is to have a cell phone that’s really thin but has the Internet, email, music, games and anything else you can imagine. The first phone weighed ten and a half pounds, now they weigh less than a pound. People used to have to sit and operate the phones 24 hours a day. Computers take care of a lot of the work today. This museum visit was interesting just to see how far we have come in such a short amount of time.