Cassandra

The Utah State Racquetball team has come a long way since its beginnings three years ago.  Doug Holt, the team’s coach, organized the team in 2006 after being the only person to represent Utah State in the national competition the year before.  This year the team has 16 members, 12 of which will represent Utah State in the National Competition held in Springfield, Missouri this April.

Last year, Utah State was ranked tenth out of the division one schools. Club President Mike Balaskey said that the outlook for the upcoming season is “pretty good, we hope to make the top ten again or move up.” They lost three players from their men’s team and only one from the women’s but they are well into the rebuilding stages. During practices held twice per week, they focus on technique and form and hold scrimmages.

The racquetball team shows their dedication by practicing and traveling to tournaments, all without scholarships or funding to pay for their expenses. Since the Racquetball team is a club sport, the team does their own fundraising to help pay for uniforms, equipment, and travel expenses, and then the University matches a portion of the money raised.

It is amazing what Holt has done for the team, just three years ago, one of his goals was to have three men and three women at nationals so they could “make a name for Utah State.” Now the racquetball team is nationally ranked and Holt is coaching for the first time rather than playing. According to Balaskey, “Doug sacrifices his time and a lot of our success comes from that. We work a lot harder as a team and a lot of growing comes from the responsibility put on our shoulders.”

The racquetball team usually participates in one competition per month. They mainly compete in Orem, Ogden, and the Salt Lake City area. The Utah State Aggie Open will be held October 16-17^th and is the only home tournament this year.  As a fundraiser, they will be having a USU student/faculty tournament in the beginning of November. Open to all skill levels, this is a great chance for anyone interested to come out and have a great time playing racquetball.

Katie Christiansen, who is a returning player for the women’s team says that “racquetball gives me a break from everyday life. It is a great work out and it is fun!” One reason that she enjoys playing is because if you work at it you can get better.

In the fast paced game of racquetball, having fun is what keeps these players going. The Utah State Racquetball team is improving with each year and is living up to the original goals of the team.  Ward Cuff, who was the Vice President three years ago said, “I want people to say, ‘Hey, Utah State’s got a team, and they play pretty good.’” If anyone has doubts about the exceptional abilities of the racquetball team, all they need to do is look at how far the team has come and they will realize that racquetball is at USU to stay.

For more information regarding the Utah State racquetball team, please contact Mike Balaskey at otispringle@gmail.com.

References

http://utahracquetball.org/index.html

http://www.usaracquetball.com/CollegiateRacquetball.aspx

http://www.hardnewscafe.usu.edu/archive/sept2006/091106_racket.html

Katie Christiansen

Mike Balaskey

On the first picture, I used the image adjustments to fix the color slightly and then I used the dodge and sharpen tools on the people so that they would stand out more and wouldn’t be so dark.

On the second picture, first I cropped it, then I used the stamp/clone tool to erase the words on the wall, then I adjusted the color, then I used the sharpen tool on my clothes, then I made another layer for the guitar and changed the color of it so that it would have a pinkish/purple tone.

On the third picture, I cropped the random people off the bottom, then I lightened the picture, then I adjusted the color tones, then I used the burn tool and dodge tool to highlight parts of the building on the right side.

I thought the Second Life reading was interesting. It seems crazy to believe that people really make their living in an imaginary world. I remember the first time about three years ago when I heard about the online world. I thought it sounded fun and very technology advanced. Once I tried it for a couple hours and it was just way too time consuming for me. I don’t think that people should waste their real lives doing something so fake. I feel like it could really ruin relationships and careers if people got too involved in Second Life. I wonder how long this fad will last.

I thought it was very interesting to read the cartoons about the internet.  It is true that the people out there reading about you don’t know anything. You need to make sure that the information you have online paints you in a god light. For all they know, you could be a dog- you have to show them who you really are. This makes me think of the people who go on dating sites and post fake beautiful pictures of themselves when they are really ugly people. No one knows who you are, and yet at the same time, depending on what you post on your myspace, everyone knows who you are.

I enjoyed reading the article about creating your own brand. I think that it is important to make yourself look good online. I have tried to Google myself before and I would be interested on learning how to make my name more visible in a search. I also think that purchasing your own domain name is a good idea.

The other article from our readings that I enjoyed was about Google and when it isn’t your friend. I don’t have a problem with Google keeping information about my searches. I feel that it helps the search engines be more accurate when showing me results and I feel like they are more personalized. If someone has a search record that proves they murdered someone, then the evidence should be used against them.

I thought that this week’s readings were very interesting to think about. At my job we use email for everything but we don’t have an official email policy. After reading the email etiquette article, I realized all the things about email that my company could easily improve with just a few rules. The 32 most important email etiquette tips are all very simple rules to put into place but not everyone knows or realizes them.  Reading this made me think of one experience in particular where my friend at work did a blind carbon copy marketing email to about 20 customers and after she sent it she realized that she had sent the wrong email (containing a different customer’s private information.) She then tried to recall the messages but it didn’t work for everyone’s email. If she would have read the email before sending it, she wouldn’t have made this simple mistake.

The second reading is something that I thought everyone knew, but it was a good refresher. I have another work experience to go along with it. In regards to Rule #8: Respect Other People’s Privacy, it shared a story of what happens when checking other peoples email and that you can get misled. A few years ago at my work, one of my coworkers caught a glimpse of an email that contained his name and thought that it was talking about him in a bad way, he logged on to my email and to a few other peoples email at work and was caught. He ended up getting in trouble over the incident and later posted things on Facebook about the job. He should have followed the etiquette rules for being online and watched what he said. Our boss saw his Facebook and he was fired the next day. It just goes to show that you need to be professional and follow common sense when online and emailing.