Science and Orange Juice

I (Zac) have been a subject in a few studies both at IU and since arriving down here... however, as a participant I have never encountered as fun a study as the one I am participating in. I know it is sort of dorky to post this but I figured I would share... so here is the story...

Rugby players are infamous for their drinking habits. They play a game and are seen starting fights at the pub later that night. So this study looks at the effects of alcohol on muscle recovery (obviously a hot topic around here)!

So yesterday after a battery of tests, and working my right leg so hard that I can't walk normally (I actually almost collapsed half a dozen times today), I got to drink screwdrivers!! Actually I drank 1 double (two shots of vodka, the rest O.J.) every 15 min for an hour and a half. After about an hour, lets just say it was a pretty good time.

The only bad thing is that in three weeks I have to do it all over again and just drink O.J. afterwords... oh well you can't win them all....

This is Bob, he is a grad student in nutrition/physiology, and he was my drinking buddy during the study. He is "damaging" his left leg, by doing 300 leg curls... sort of.


This is what his legs looked like when he was finished "damaging" his leg... it is a bit swollen, huh?

This is about half way through the drinking... the jug was full with screwdriver.


Success!!! The jug is gone!!

I figured most of you at IU would appreciate this! Nothing quite like combining 2 all-time favorites... science and... orange juice...

Weekend Entertainment!!

For a girl whose athletic prowess includes making a boy cry (4th grade basketball) and playing collegiate soccer, I believe that I may have seen one of Cassie's more awesome moments...

So on Sundays Cassie plays on a women's soccer team here in Palmy. They won 4 -3 which is great, and Cas had a goal (the winning one!) and 2 assists (I think), so she played really well... however, the awesomest thing happened though.

So midway through the second half one of Cassie's teammates went into a tackle with number 11 on the other team and fell over the ball. Well, instead of trying to kick the ball this number 11 started to kick Cas's teammate and yelled at her to get off the ball. Needless to say Cassie was in the area and came to her teammates rescue. Cassie accidentally on purpose clipped the girl's ankles while number 11 was kicking her teammate. Number 11 did not like this and decided to punch Cassie in the face. Cas did not take to this and as number 11 was walking away she grabbed number 11's jersey and threw a few haymakers. By this time Cassie's coach broke up the fight...

The funniest thing about this is that the ref saw none of this, so no cards were handed out and they both got to play the rest of the game (she was not the best of ref's and was friends with the other team). Also this league has girls from 18 to 40+, so number 11's mom was on the sidelines and started talking s**t to Cas (the 'grown women') about how she was picking fights with girls (18 yr olds). Cassie made sure to remind the mother that she probably should have raised her daughter not to pick fights and punch people, and that if she wasn't old enough to take it she shouldn't be on the field.

Besides Cassie getting mad props from her teammates for getting into a fight for protecting her teammate, there are a few other things we can take away from this...
1) You can fight in soccer games in NZ and not get thrown out
2) Girl fights here do not include: slapping, hair pulling, scratching, or any other cat like fighting sounds or tactics... when they fight they get after it
3) A knot on the head (see pics... I think they turned out ok)
5) and last but not least... Cassie's first appearance in a picture on the blog!!

Winter Dress Code

So Zac and I tried to go to a bar after work today for a few drinks, but we were told we couldn't get it because we weren't in the winter dress code - we had on flip flops! Apparently they don't let people in with gandals (sandals).

It was 60 degrees out today.... so I guess we won't be going back until summer.

run in with the law

Well I got my first ticket the other day - and it just came in the mail! Yeah that's right I couldn't even try to talk my way out of it! They have speed cameras that capture your speed - I was going 61 km/hr in a 50 km/hr area - that's like going 42 in a 35 or so! And the cameras have an error of 5 km/hr, so really i could have been only going 5 over and yeah it's for $80!

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter everyone!! So Easter is a major holiday down here... schools get 2 weeks off (mid-semester break), both Good Friday and Easter Monday are national holidays and on Good Friday and Easter Sunday nothing is open. So since we had a 4 day weekend we had a chance to go to the beach, Wellington, and a basketball game! So check out the pics...

One thing that we did that is not documented in the pics is we went to a professional basketball game... the Manawatu Jets! Let's just put it this way... it is not the highest quality basketball and they play (the word play is used loosely) in a high school gym. But it was a good time and we will probably do it again. Unfortunately, I (Zac) forgot the camera and you can't actually see what it was like.


This is the colossal squid... it is at Museum of New Zealand in Wellington... it is the largest squid known. It weighs something like 1000 lbs and its eyes are the size of a soccer ball. It was caught south of NZ near Antarctica (I think). It is pretty sweet, and the rest of the museum is pretty cool too.


Well as you can see this is me in front of Mac's Brewery (killer pose, huh?)... Mac's is a NZ brewing company. It is probably the best beer we've had over here... it is pretty good (not great).



That is Cassie sitting on a blanket reading on the beach... way down there by our car.



We spent a day at the beach just hangin' out, so I climbed one of the dunes and took these pics. I thought they were pretty cool


This should be an advertisement for the late nineties Honda Civic Hatchback... The beach here is pretty cool... you can drive on it!

Alright, until next time. Happy Easter!

Wellington

Well this past week I went to Wellington for the day to take someone to the airport. Wellington was amazing and Zac and I are going back this weekend for the day because he hasn't been yet. Wellington is only about 1.5 hours from Palmy and we ended up taking the train back to Palmy and that was really easy too.

Wellington was really pretty and the day I was there it was 70 and sunny. Apparently that was not typically Wellington weather because it is usually really windy and can get pretty cold. I can't wait to go back and explore more and I really can't wait to take people there (looks like we will be able to take some people in August!!)

I will take more pictures next time but this time I didn't want to seem too touristy with Rachel!


This is a picture of the Wellington Airport runaway. You can see that if you miss the runway you will be in the water!

These are all pictures from Wellington I took from the biggest hill in Wellington. It really reminded me of San Francisco because it is hilly and on the water.