20% Time Project

     20% Time is a cool project that allows students to work on a project of their choice to help others or make the world better. They get to completely think of whatever they want to do so the sky is the limit. We work on this project during class on Fridays every week. My English class decided to do 20% time and we have some creative ideas(link to the website that has all of my class's blogs at the bottom of this blog post). I decided to work with two other people to come together as a group project and it is turning out great.

     What my group decided to do is to create touch screen stylists that we can sell to people at our school for a low price. These stylists have been created and tested and they work well and are fairly durable. We can also custom make stylists meaning if someone wants us to turn their dried out pen or mechanical pencil into a stylist then we can take it turn it into a stylist. This relates to the 20% time project because we are offering stylists to students for a low price. We also are considering donating some of our profit to another group that is raising money for a charity. I believe that if all goes well we will successfully help other students, help a charity and maybe even have a little money left over for ourselves.

Website with my class's blogs—http://viewfrom1082.weebly.com/student-blogs.html

Once in this site press these links to find other blogs:

For my partner's blogs: Cade's Blog     Jackson's Blog

For my friend who is doing donations: Dawson's Blog

Stay tuned for more posts about our 20% Time project and to learn how to make your own stylist!

The Dalls Cowboys Injuries

     If you know me then you know how I am a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. Recently they played the Philadelphia Eagles in the last game of the regular season and lost to them. The Cowboys finished the season 8-8 and just missed the playoffs again with the Eagles going on. However in this game the Cowboy's franchise quarterback Tony Romo had back surgery and was replaced by Kyle Orton. He played very well but made an inexperienced mistake by throwing an interception late in the game to cost the season. However Tony Romo was not the only Injury this year, there were almost more injuries to count this season that the cowboys had to deal with.
     Starting off with the Cowboy's Defensive line with pro-bowler defensive end Demarcus Ware. He is a huge leader in the Cowboy defensive line but he had a hamstring injury this year and didn't participate in all of the games. Anthony spencer was one of our defensive tackles who was injured and traded to the Chicago Bears halfway through the season. The only defensive line player that might have participated in every game this year was defensive tackle Jason Hatcher. Hatcher really stepped up his game this year and became a leader on the team when we needed it but he wasn't enough. The rest of the defensive line consisted of people who I can't remember because we basically pulled them off the street because we didn't have anyone else to play. Our star linebacker and leader of the defense Sean Lee is the probably the most valuable defensive player on the Cowboy's roster. However, he suffered from a hamstring injury and a neck injury and missed several important games and when he was gone our defense suffered. We had other injuries in the defensive secondaries that had our safeties playing as corners and vise versa. Our defense was one of the worst defenses in the NFL this year. Rookie safety Barry Church made almost the most tackles this year... as the safety. It is definitely a problem when your safeties are making all of the tackles and plays on defense. Our defense put up horrible stats, several games this year our defense gave up at least thirty five points. This is horrible. If we hadn't had that many defensive injuries then we could have won many more games than we had and probably been in the playoffs.
     Offensively we did not have as many injuries but we still had some vital ones. Franchise running back Demarco Murray had a hamstring injury and missed at least three games this season. Our backup running back Lance Dunbar was also an exceptional player for a backup and he did great. However when the Cowboys played the Oakland Raiders this season he put up huge numbers but her was injured and didn't return for the rest of the season. Wide receiver Miles Austin had a hamstring injury early in the season and missed several games and never really got "back into the game" even though he returned to play later in the season. I say he never really got "back into the game" because when he returned he didn't do well at all. In Cowboy history he did great and used to be our number 1 wide receiver but this season he was kind of "a sleeper." There were other injuries as well but I think you get the point. If they hadn't been injured then they could have been there when their team, city and fans needed them.
     I wish that I could have prevented all or at least some of these injuries but I really don't know how I would have done that. I would say we could have gotten better safety gear but that wasn't a problem noting that the Cowboys are the richest team in the NFL right now and already owned proper gear. I guess the only thing that could have happened was maybe more rest. What I mean by that is that is for example if we had a offensive lineman who has been in the game playing hard for several whole long drives, he would obviously get tired eventually. It's football, it's not easy, it's very tiring and you get beat up because of how physical the sport is. Instead of leaving this player in that long, you could substitute him out with a backup for a while to get him more rest. The more tired you are, the more likely you are to get an injury. However remembering all that I have talked about so far we simply did not have enough people to substitute players in and out.
     If these injuries and some of the trades had not happened the "Dallas Cowboy nation" would have been completely different right now. The Cowboys would have probably had a better shot at beating the Denver Broncos, New Orleans Saints, San Diego Chargers, Chicago Bears, Kansas City Chiefs and many more teams that defeated the Cowboys when they didn't have all of their starters on hand. Now back to the final game of the season when the Cowboys took on the Philadelphia Eagles with the season on the line when we had backup quarterback Kyle Orton in. The game was very close until the game costing interception. Kyle Orton still played a great game and had great stats and the defense stepped up against almost unstoppable quarter back Nick Foles. If Tony Romo had been in then he could have had even more yards and stats than Orton put up as a backup. The Cowboys would have most likely won and advanced into the playoffs. The Cowboys would have played the New Orleans Saints in their first game of the playoffs. The Cowboys lost horribly to the Saints earlier in the season but this time the Cowboys would have half as many more starters they needed playing and they would have had home field advantage. I honestly do not know if they would have beaten the Saints but the season would not have just ended as another heartbreaking "Cowboys Season." If there weren't as many injuries this season then it would have changed my world and other Cowboys and Dallas fans around the world.

Nick Foles

This past week in the NFL, the Philadelphia Eagle's back up quarterback Nick Foles tied the NFL record of seven touchdown passes in a game. He played the Oakland Raiders who are not that great of a team and their secondary or people who help defend against pass on their team was not doing so well with many injuries and replacements. Still this was a very impressive game. Also the fact that he is the backup quarterback, the Eagle's original quarterback Michael Vick has been out for a while with a hamstring injury. Nick Foles threw for 406 yards and seven touchdowns and completed 22 of 28 passes attempted. Foles is yet to throw an interception this season which is very impressive. He has played for a total of six games and won three of them. The three he won were against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers twice and the Oakland Raiders recently when he tied the record. Neither of these teams are very good in the NFL with the Buccaneers 0-8 and the Raiders 3-5. Next week he will play the Green Bay Packers and that will be more of a challenge because they have a good defense and they are 5-3.
     Earlier this season Peyton Manning, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, tied the record as well for seven touchdowns in the opening week against Baltimore Ravens. He has had a great season and is ranked the number one quarterback right now. I think that Nick Foles has a lot of potential to be a great quarterback and lead the Eagles and I hope he does well because the Eagles are not having a good season right now. How do you think Foles will do against harder opponents in the future? Do you think he will take charge of the eagle offense?

The Cowboys and The Lions

     This week NFL teams Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions played each other and had a great game. The final score of the game was 31-30 with the Lions winning. There was about two minutes on the clock when the Detroit offense got the ball back and they needed to score a touchdown to win or at least tie. Matthew Stafford the Lion's quarterback lead their team down the field with a big help from one of their wide receivers Calvin Johnson. Calvin Johnson had a great game with 329 yards and one touchdown. He is a big part of the Lions offense and set up the game winning touchdown from the one yard line with about twenty seconds left in the game. However the actual touchdown was all Matthew Stafford. He was telling his team that he was going to spike the ball to stop the clock so that they could run a play. Everyone thought that was going to happen; his team thought that would happen, the defense thought that would happen, even the coaches, fans and announcers. But when Stafford got the ball in the next play he did not spike it but he just improvised and jumped over the line of scrimmage taking a chance and scored the game winning touchdown.
     Just because this last drive was in favor of the Lions does not mean that the
Cowboys did not play well. The Cowboys had scored 30 points too and did great defensively until the last drive. Sean Lee the Dallas Cowboy's inside linebacker had a great game. He had two interceptions this game, one with a 74 yard return almost scoring! He really has been a great leader on the Cowboy's defense this year and is a great athlete. On offense the Cowboy's did pretty well too. However one of the Cowboy's wide receivers Dez Bryant was getting a little frustrated with his teammates. Dez Bryant is a great athlete and is a very capable receiver but he averages at about only three receptions a game and still has a ton of touchdowns. He should not have gotten mad at his teammates and coaches but I do think he should get the ball more. He had only three catches in this game but still had 72 yards and two touchdowns. There were four passes intended to him but on the one he did not catch he was interfered with by the defense and could not have caught it. There was a penalty charged on the Lion's defense for this.
     I am a huge Cowboy's fan and I am upset with the outcome of the game. I do
think that they played well though. Do you think that they played well? I also do no think that Dez Bryant should have gotten mad at his teammates and coaches but I do think that he should get the ball more. What do you think of Bryant's response to not getting the ball? Do you think it was selfish? If he got the ball more he could be a huge help to the team.

Dallas Cowboy's Dez Bryant.

My Knee Injury

     Two weeks ago in our school's middle school football game on a thursday, I 

had strained my mcl and missed the rest of that game and the next one. On our team I am the full back so I get the ball a lot and get tackled a lot. One of the times in our game when I was tackled, I was hit around my knees and it hurt my mcl. The outside of my right leg was hit in straining the inner ligament on my knee.

     After the injury I could not walk for three days and I had to ice my knee like 

crazy. My mom had to get me crutches and a brace for my knee. The monday at school the next week was the first time I walked and it was a challenge to get up and down stairs. That week I had to see our team's trainer after school and work on my knee. He put me on this machine that sends electric pulses in your body and automatically flexes your muscles without you doing anything. I didn't know that it would do that at first so it startled me when it happened. The machine is supposed to increase blood flow to that area and speed up the healing of it. He also made me roll out my muscles or keep them somewhat in shape while I was not using them. On that Wednesday I went to the doctor and they said that I was mostly healed by then and that I could play in the game this week. I was happy to hear that because this year is my last year of middle school football and it means a lot to me to be out on the field. The next day I traveled with our team to an away game and I could not play. Our team won the game and it was good to be there to support the team. On Friday I worked on my knee again with the trainer and I did some work outs to get my leg back in shape. Also I had been missing weightlifting that week so I went back and did just some upper body work outs. Over the weekend I went to my friends house and came back and it was swollen again so I had to ice it again. On Sunday I rode my bike at a nice pace for about twenty minutes to get my leg working again. This week I will start practice again but at first I will not be allowed to tackle and I might not be able to run full speed. The rest of the season I am supposed to wear my brace at all times while playing to protect my knee. I am scheduled to play in this week's game on Thursday and I hope I can.

     Having an injury is not very fun and It is more frustrating not being able to help out your team. Have you ever had an injury causing you to not be able to participate in a sport or event? If you have you know how frustrating it is not being able to participate. If you are injured right now I hope you get better soon so you can get back to doing what you love.