Your Right to Burn the American Flag is Constitutionally Protected

It was announced on Monday evening (Nov. 24) that Officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted on charges in the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. This didn’t really come as a shock to many who had been keeping up with the case, but it still sent Ferguson into an eruption of looting and other unacceptable forms of public displeasure. The peaceful protests that had taken place, and been horribly interrupted with police over-stepping their bounds in the summer, had been taken over on Monday night by a small band of instigators who simply wanted to cause as much trouble as they could. And they did, leaving much of Ferguson in flames.

This, of course, set the Internet ablaze, but it was the blaze of America’s favorite symbol – the red, white and blue that set another sect of the Internet into fiery passionate rants. Burning the American flag trended on Twitter for much of the night with many people outraged over the fact that anybody would do something so horrendous in protest. The only problem here is that people didn’t seem to have much of a clue what they were talking about.

Now, I don’t care much for flag burning. It’s not a form of protest that I’d ever feel the need to partake in. In fact, as a sports fan, one of my many, many favorite sports tidbits or stories is the time Arkansas’ own Rick Monday, playing with the Chicago Cubs, saved a flag from being burned in the outfield of Dodger Stadium when two protesters ran into the outfield and were about to set it on fire before Monday swooped in and saved the day. However, I will defend the right for people to burn the American flag, because it’s a form of freedom of speech and thus protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact that a lot of people on the Internet failed to understand. They were saying things like ‘burning the American flag is illegal’ and ‘It pisses me off that they were burning the American flag. It's disrespect to all the veterans who fought for your rights.’

Well, sorry ladies and gentleman. You can disagree with flag burning all you want. But, believe it or not, we as American citizens actually do have the right to burn our flag. Thus, those veterans who fought for our rights were also fighting for that very right, as well.

Certain people like to pick and choose the U.S. Constitution. For instance, they love the Second Amendment because it protects their right to bear arms, but then hate the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and so on and so forth. This picking and choosing of the Constitution really burns me, because it’s always the people holding it up as America’s Bible or the ‘Law of the Land that Should Never Ever Change No Matter How Much the World Around Us Does’ who end up bitching about it when somebody decides they want to burn a flag.

The people burning the American flag on Monday night where doing so because they feel this country has turned its back on them for too long and this was a form of protest that showed their displeasure. This is a feeling so many of us could not even begin to understand. Maybe if we could understand it just a little bit we’d realize there were more important things going on in this world than a few people burning a colored piece of fabric.   

'No FRC at UCA' Protest Simply Didn't Go Far Enough

I was disappointed last week when I found out that my alma mater the University of Central Arkansas had rented out its Reynolds Performance Hall to Arkansas Sen. Jason Rapert for a campaign event/concert that included an appearance by the Family Research Council.

The Family Research Council (FRC) has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group and its leader Tony Perkins has publicly supported the sickening Uganda “Kill the Gays” bill that seeks the death penalty for LGBT people.

Instantly upon hearing that the FRC would be allowed on the UCA campus I wanted to voice by displeasure that the school would allow such a heinous group to take part in an event on its campus.

I was thrilled when I found out that “No FRC at UCA” protest was organized by a man named James Thweatt. I decided that this protest was something I wanted to take part in after I finished my shift at work.

The protest’s Facebook page announced that the protest would take place between 6:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. I clocked out from my job around 6:50 p.m. and headed on over to UCA to take part in the protest across the street from the Reynolds Performance Hall. When I arrived I saw a decent crowd of maybe 30-ish people and at least two local media crews. I walked up to the event where I joined a friend and noticed that the media crews were leaving. My friend had made three nice signs that read: “I don’t support bully politicians,” “more love, less hate” and “equality & hate don’t mix.” I picked up one of his signs and began to hold it over my head.

Within minutes I heard rumblings of people ready to call it a night. I thought it was strange because the protest wasn’t much more than a half hour old. Then the leader of the protest, Thweatt, announced he was leaving around 7:10-7:15-ish, just about 10 minutes after my friend and I had arrived. Within minutes of his leaving the entire protest had broken up.

This bothered me. It bothered me particularly because the protest was less than an hour in and it bothered me because the leaders bolted and thus their flock followed less than 10 minutes after the last bit of media left the area.

I couldn’t help but question some of the intentions of those protesting the FRC at UCA. I have no doubt that people were truly irritated and outraged by their appearance at the university, but I also wondered if they hadn’t just wanted to catch a glimpse of themselves on the local evening news. Why wouldn’t they stay longer and fight for what they believed in? Was an entire hour all they could give to their cause? Why would a leader of the protest set an event from 6:30-9 p.m. and be gone by 7:15? Hell, if I had clocked out at 7 p.m. instead of 6:50 I would’ve gotten to the campus and thought that there hadn’t been a protest at all. I wonder if this happened to others.

I don’t like to throw this charge around lightly, because I’m happy there was a protest of this horrendous group in the first place, but the “No FRC at UCA” protest came off to me as a bit of slacktivism. It just didn’t seem like it was enough. I don’t know Mr. Thweatt and I’m sure he did some good work in setting the event up and getting people to it (though I was somewhat disappointed more people didn’t come out in support), but I do have to question his leadership skills in leaving his own protest about two hours before he claimed it would end. A true leader would be the last one to call it a night. Mr. Thweatt seemed to be one of the first to say goodbye.

My friend and I realizing we were the only two willing to stay decided ultimately to go home. I don’t believe this is a decision that set well with either of us, because an hour later we had decided we would head back to UCA’s campus so we could be seen holding our signs and standing up for what we believed when the event let out.

Our three person protest (my fiancée joined in with us) may have paled in comparison to the larger group outside before the event began, but we got our message across. I think someone needed to be there when the event ended. Attendees walking out to a long dispersed protest would have given them an undeserved satisfaction.

Standing up for what you believe in is something that should not be taken lightly. I’m glad two dozen or more people decided to show their unhappiness in such a horrid group’s participation on campus last night, but I don’t think it was nearly enough. 

Last Night Ferguson P.D. Spit on Three First Amendment Rights and So Many of You Didn't Care

I watched in horror on both television and on Twitter last night as the Ferguson Police Department went on a rampage through the streets of Ferguson, Mo. doing whatever the hell they wanted. Everything that is but keeping the peace. In fact, the Ferguson P.D. was the only ones in the St. Louis suburb actually destroying the peace.

They were also destroying the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. You know the one so important that the Founding Fathers of our country chose to list it first.

They weren’t just destroying one aspect of the First Amendment either. The First Amendment gives American citizens the right to freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly.

Last night the Ferguson P.D. attempted to destroy three of those four things. I guess they simply ran out of time to get around to destroying freedom of religion.  

The entire thing started late last week when 18-year old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer. The incident was curious, and led to peaceful protests among the citizens of Ferguson. The Ferguson police department handled the situation completely wrong by not releasing the name of the officer involved in the shooting, even though it’s typically normal protocol to do so. This, along with other things like not interviewing the only witness to the shooting, led to a belief of a cover up.

For one night the peaceful protests got a little out of hand and led to slight looting, but the peace quickly was restored to the protests, as it should have been. Yet, the Ferguson P.D. sought to make things worse by continuing to refuse to name the officer who shot and killed Brown.

Numerous media, both local and nationwide, converged on Ferguson to cover the protests and the questionable tactics of the Ferguson P.D., who had begun to use tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters. The attire of the Ferguson P.D. started to look as if the police department where a group of United States military personnel waiting to do battle with terrorist insurgents, even though the protesters were merely armed with signs that read “don’t shoot” and many held their hands over their heads in protest (as they say Brown did in signifying he was no danger before he was killed).

Last night, the Ferguson P.D. ratcheted things up way too high by arresting media members covering the incident, Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery and Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly. The two were quickly released and the Ferguson P.D. wanted it to appear as if nothing has really happened. But, there are photographs and journalistic accounts that prove it did.

The Ferguson P.D. apparently not wanting the news of their idiocy to get out to the American public then tried to ban all media from the town. They forced satellite TV trucks to leave town and they even went so far as driving by an Al-Jazeera America news crew, dropped tear gas canisters by their feet and when the media ran for their safety the P.D. swooped in and disassembled their gear. There are photos to prove this on the Internet.

Proof as plain as day that the Ferguson P.D. was both abridging the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech.

They had been trying to abridge the right of American citizens to assemble in peaceful protest for days. The Ferguson P.D. threatened anybody protesting after dark would be arrested, even though the town had not set up a curfew. When people refused to give up their rights the Ferguson P.D. fired tear gas at them, fired rubber bullets at them and just all-around wreaked havoc on the streets they swore to protect.

When one African-American raised his middle finger toward officers a photograph was taken of a laser-targeted assault rifle trained on his back, obviously a significantly harsh measure to take for a simple hand gesture.

During all of this Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was nowhere to be seen; in fact he was prepping to go to the Missouri State Fair instead. Why worry about your citizens being bullied and criminally treated by their own police department when there is a foot-long corndog in your near future? President Barack Obama didn’t have anything to say about it until the morning after. He was on vacation.

Last night was a shameful night for America. A shameful night to be an American.

The news was adequately outraged. My Twitter feed filled with journalists, celebrities and people I do not know in real life was adequately outraged.

But, curiously my Facebook feed filled with people I do know was quiet. In fact, talk of what was going on or had gone on in Ferguson was frankly almost non-existent.

This is disturbing. I’m not saying these people should live and breathe what’s happening in Ferguson minute-by-minute, but they should at least acknowledge it, be aware of it, be outraged by it.

It’s one thing when they refuse to recognize it happening overseas, but this is happening less than six hours from where most of those on my Facebook feed live. And, it’s happening on American soil to American citizens.

This lack of interest on the part of those I know is not as disgusting to me as the Ferguson police essentially running their own government by their own rules for a few nights, but it’s still slightly sickening to know that so many people either don’t care or don’t have anything to say about such a travesty happening in their own backyard.

I want to be around people who are more outraged by what’s going on in Ferguson than by the announcement of Ben Affleck playing Batman or Facebook changing its appearance for the 100^th time.

Maybe that’s too much to ask for. But, maybe this is part of the problem.    

A Little More Vanity Couldn't Hurt

Here’s something you probably don’t hear often … I wish I was more vain. I think a little more vanity could potentially save my life.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that I’m vanity free, but when it comes to the way I look that’s simply never been an issue to me. I’ve always preferred to sculpt my mind rather than my body, which I’ll always believe is more important. However, I can’t help but believe now that more vanity in the way I look would’ve resulted in a much healthier me.

Ten months ago I ended up in the emergency room, which is thankfully just a walk down the hall at my workplace as I’m a cashier at my town’s hospital cafeteria. I began to experience shortness of breath, chest pains and dizziness. I didn’t know what was going on because I’d never experienced anything like this. It could’ve been a heart attack or a panic attack for all I knew – but in the moment it sure felt like I was dying; a dire prospect for anyone, but especially someone who’s only 26 years old.

After I got to the E.R. I’d calmed down a bit, started to breathe easier and ultimately it was determined that my blood pressure had gotten way too high. I was put on blood pressure medication. Over the next few months I would also find out that I needed medication for high cholesterol and that I had severe sleep apnea and needed a CPAP machine so I could breathe at night.

I’ve been on both medications and the CPAP for a while now and I guess a combination of the three has kept me out of the E.R. since, but I honestly haven’t gotten any healthier in the almost year since. I’ve even experienced chest pains, shortage of breath and dizziness numerous times since that day. Hell, I’ve experienced chest pains today.

It’s not like I haven’t tried to get healthy. I have. I’ve gone through spurts of trying to eat healthier and eat less. I’ve tried working out regularly. Most importantly I’ve tried to cut sodas out of my life completely. Nothing seems to stick and it ultimately doesn’t stick because I don’t care. I don’t want to drop dead or anything – that scares me greatly, but I just don’t have the will power or drive to change my habits. The biggest issue I face – more so than the over-and-unhealthy eating and disinterest in working out – is my addiction to sodas, most specifically Coca-Cola.

I believe if I could get the addiction under control it would greatly improve my life. I had faced this addiction head-on in the past – completely dropping sodas from my life for months at a time (earlier this year I didn’t drink Coca-Cola for four months), but like a true addict I always let it pull me back in.

Addiction can’t be cured, I believe, only contained and I frankly suck at containing it. It doesn’t help that I have almost constant access to it and for free on a daily basis sitting at my cash register at work less than 10 feet from a soda fountain directly in front of me. Every day I stare at that bright red Coca-Cola sign and you’d better believe it stares right back as if taunting and tempting me to have another drink.

There’s something about the taste of Coca-Cola that I just absolutely love – the syrupy sweetness it leaves on my lips, tongue and throat going down and especially the way it slightly burns as you swallow it. It’s the greatest taste I’ve ever experienced. This might sound asinine to most, but like any addictive sensation be it alcohol, drugs or sex it pulls you back in and absolutely does not let go. I guess it’s just way cooler to be an alcoholic or drug or sex addict than it is to say you are an addict of Coca-Cola. It seems like something that should be easier to quit or defend, but I doubt that’s the case.

This is why I wish I had more vanity when it came to my looks. I truly believe if I gave a damn about such things it would win out over my unhealthy habits and addictions. I could be like so many others I see who are so into their bodies and their looks that they refuse to let themselves go. I know that many claim that they simply want to be healthy, that they want to live longer, but I see these people. Most of them honestly aren’t doing it for those reasons; those are just positive side effects. Most of these people are doing it because they want to be hot. They want to be attractive. They want to live up to the ideal body so many tell them they should have.

I don’t believe this is the healthiest belief one could have, but ultimately it keeps them fit and not believing they are going to die of a heart attack at age 26. I see many of these people who spend much of their day and life trying to create and maintain the “perfect body” and to me it just seems like a waste of time and makes them look completely self-absorbed (as many of them are), but the truth of it is they will be healthier in the long run. Maybe that type of vanity makes them better off. 

Dealing with Disrespect in Daily Life

I am tired of being disrespected. I’m tired of being disrespected in almost every aspect of my life. I’m tired of it at work, tired of it at home, tired of it online.

I don’t mean for this to sound like some old Rodney Dangerfield routine (“I can’t get no respect”), because I don’t feel disrespected by everybody or all of the time. It’s just that there seems to be a lot of disrespect going around in general. I’m sure others feel the way I do.

It seems to be an unfortunate aspect of our society these days. Maybe, I’m about to have a Howard Beale “I’m madder than hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore” moment, but this week the disrespect has seemed rampant.

The Internet is a major source of disrespect in the world today. It’s a place where simply having a different opinion or viewpoint from another or the majority can turn you into an outcast or punching bag for faceless avatars with anger issues. I think that’s why so many people use social media sites, in particular, these days simply for funny memes, pictures of cats and random insights into their daily life. Having an opinion on topics – whether important like political or religious issues to less important things like sports or television shows – can set the wrong person off on a tangent toward you.

Well, I’m an opinionated person and I’m going to use the Internet to post many of these opinions. I’m going to use the Internet, particularly social media, because I want my voice to be heard; even if you have to dig through cat photos and funny memes to find it. I don’t want to be among the voiceless majority, but unfortunately that means I have to put up with people who refuse to respect my ideas or opinions on such things. Now, don’t get me wrong I love a debate. I don’t want to have the same ideas or opinions as everybody else, because that simply would not be much fun for me. But, too many people on the Internet don’t want to debate you, they just want to berate you or name call you and make you feel bad for feeling the way you do. It’s worse when you deviate from the majority opinion on something, which without ever trying I seem to frequently find myself doing.

For a person not as stubborn as myself it would make them want to stop voicing their opinions when they’re being disrespected for doing so. It just makes me want to push my viewpoints harder, but it still irritates me deep down to be disrespected in such ways.

Still, being disrespected by nameless/faceless avatars on the Internet is not near as bad as being disrespected in real life or face-to-face. It may not be as common either, but I think we all get a little bit of it from time to time – likely in our workplaces (or for those a little bit younger in the classroom).

In my place of work there are those who are way too good at disrespecting their co-workers, like they are trying to win an Olympic medal in disrespect. They are the kind of people with a “me first” attitude who don’t give a damn about anybody beside themselves.

Sometimes you want to try to give these types of people a little lesson and hope they learn from it. Last week I tried doing just that. I learned that one of my fellow co-workers was disrespected by another co-worker who, if my workplace were a professional sports league, would lead the place in the statistical category of “disrespect.” At this point I had enough with the rampant disrespect and saw fit to make a point, because I didn’t think anybody else would (standing up for others is something this society sorely lacks in, as well). I made my point in a harmless fashion that basically amounted to a small prank.

Well, the interesting thing about people who often treat others with disrespect is that many of them can’t take a little of their own medicine. So, this person freaked out and made a huge deal out of little to nothing. I wanted to get a little insight on what this person’s issue was and afterward was going to drop the whole thing, with my point having been made. When I asked this person what their “deal” was I was met with one of the most disrespectful things I’d ever witnessed.

This person actually gave me the “shooing away” motion with their hand and didn’t respond verbally. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a grown ass person physically shoo you away, but if you haven’t it will instantaneously make something in your brain snap and want to get at that person. Being at work I couldn’t rip this person’s throat out the way I wanted, which was a good thing no doubt, but I did take a few moments to let them know exactly what I felt about them and their disrespectful motion.

This person hasn’t had a thing to do with me in the days since and basically acts like I don’t exist – which is not only disrespectful, but way too immature for a grown adult.

I wanted to teach this person a lesson, and I think I failed in doing so. However, I did teach myself a very important lesson in the process … disrespectful people aren’t going to stop being disrespectful. No matter how hard you try you aren’t going to cure somebody of their disrespectfulness. I think half the time these people aren’t even aware of their disrespect or their selfishness, which leads to the problem in the first place.

It’s not a good moral to this story, but it’s unfortunately a truthful one. I guess, the best that you can do is just try to treat others with the respect they deserve and if they aren’t deserving of it just try your best to ignore it. I’m the kind of person who likes to try to fix problems that I perceive within the world, but damn it, some problems and some people just aren’t worth fixing.   

   

Facing the Fear of Religion

I’ve always been uneasy with religion. I’m uneasy with it/around it for many reasons that I know and understand and some that likely are unbeknownst to me.

I’ve never been a churchgoer. I didn’t grow up with religion. For this reason it seems foreign to me. It doesn’t seem natural to me. Many aspects of religion seem cultish or wrong to me. I don’t mean to be offensive about it; it’s just how I feel.

A lot of religious people seem like bad people to me. They seem like hypocrites. They don’t seem like they’re worthy of the glories they feel they’ll bask in one day. They don’t seem like they follow the rules and words they preach or are preached to them.

I know this is likely only a small segment of churchgoers, but I feel it’s tolerated by the others and it shouldn’t be.

That’s not to say I’m perfect. I’m not. This is also a reason why I’m uneasy with religion. Any time I’m around religion I feel judged. I feel inadequate. I feel wrong. I know this is supposed to be forgiven, but I don’t necessarily feel I’m worthy of such forgiveness for the things I do or have done. I can’t be around religion without feeling guilty and it’s a feeling I’m all too familiar with, as it is.

But, the biggest issue I have with religion is that I’m a man of many fears. Probably way too many fears for a man my age. One of these biggest fears is death. I’m going to die. Everybody is going to die. It’s something that I can’t even remotely think about for more than a couple of seconds without wanting to burst into tears or scream at the top of my lungs. For this very reason I push it back and don’t think much of it. However, when I’m in a church or around religion or even worse around death the fear can’t escape me.

I can’t wrap my head around the concept of death. What’s the point of living, loving and enjoying life when it’s going to end – and may do so in a split second? The fact that I’m here now and one day I won’t be scares me. The fact that people I love are going to die on me absolutely horrifies me. I don’t know how people who have had close ones pass away can deal with it on a day-to-day basis.

All of the religious people I know don’t fear death. Many even welcome it, because they believe they will be better off in death than in life because of “eternal life.” I’m scared because I don’t know that this is the case. I’m scared that when I die that’s the end of everything and I’m just gone. The concept of Hell and possibly being damned to it for all eternity scares me even further.

Sure, many would say you just need to have faith, but the word “faith” isn’t very comforting in this situation. 

The only comfort would be proof that everything works out well in the end. The only problem here is there isn’t proof of heaven or eternal life or God. I understand that the whole point of religion is to believe in something without proof, but the fact that there isn’t any leads to the possibility of religion being nothing but a cruel joke. A child’s fairytale to make them believe everything will be OK, that’s been passed down for centuries as fact.

It’s nice to have faith. It’s nice to believe in heaven or say you know heaven and God exist, but the honesty of it all is that nobody really does know. That’s scary as hell.

I have managed to avoid these fears for most of my life, but they have crept up upon me rather quickly. I always knew that religion was going to cause a rift between me and my girlfriend (now fiancée). We haven’t had too many problems in the eight-plus years that we have been together, but when we do it’s almost always the result of religion. Religion is something that comforts her and she wants to share it with me. It’s a nice thought, but religion is something that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t have an issue with her religion. I even like that she is religious, because I believe her to be worthy of it and believe that it makes her who she is … the great, loving person she is.

I knew that proposing to her a couple of months ago could speed up some of the issues we’d face due to religion, but I had hoped that we could fight through it and everything would be OK. She’s Catholic and in Catholicism in order to be married you have to be baptized, something that I have not been. To do this you have to take courses on Catholicism, religion, etc. These courses, which I’m supposed to start today, are held every Monday night at her local church. Not only will they be something that terrifies me every single time I’m doing them, but they are also incredibly time consuming (and time is something I don’t feel I have a lot of floating around). I also don’t like the feeling of these classes being forced upon me. I don’t like that they are mandated if you’re going to be married in a Catholic church. I don’t like a system that says ‘you have to do this or else.’ I don’t like anything about the situation, but feel I have no other choice but to participate. It’s an ultimatum I’ve been given … her and the church or whatever comes of life without her.

Both options scare the hell out of me.    

  

My 5 Favorite Moments of 2013

As with almost every year 2013 had a lot of ups and downs for me. I figured I’d focus on the positives and highlight the five best moments of my 2013.

5. Conversations with Friends

This is the only one of these moments that almost happens on a daily basis and the one that I most cherish. I love all of the conversations I have with my friends, most of which take place with my friends at work. These conversations are often the smartest, wackiest, absurd, funniest and important conversations I have. My favorite thing about this job and the thing that keeps me strong and interested every day are these conversations. I truly love how a really good conversation can go from one topic to another to another in the span of just a few minutes and consistently be the most riveting thing of my day. These conversations and these people are immeasurably important to my day-to-day life.  

4. George Strait Farewell Concert

When I first heard that George Strait was retiring from touring and going on a farewell tour I knew that I had to get tickets for when he came to Verizon Arena in Little Rock one last time. I had seen him a few years previously, but when King George says he’s giving up touring you just have to see him, after all if there was a Mount Rushmore of country music voices he’d be on it. Aprille and I had a blast watching Strait thoroughly entertain the packed crowd with many classics and also some deep album cuts that he probably hadn’t played in 30 years or more. It was a magical night.

3. Small Venue Concerts

Jason Isbell, Turnpike Troubadours and Kacey Musgraves all helped to revitalize my passion for new music today, even though you won’t (or rarely) hear them on the radio. All released albums or music this year that ranked among the best in their genres (country or Americana) and helped prove that while what you hear on country radio is mostly redundant, stereotypical and incredibly stupid good music is being made by immensely talented artists, even though they may be harder to find. I had the great opportunity of seeing Isbell, the Troubadours and Musgraves all in 2013 at small, intimate venues like The Rev Room and Juanita’s in Little Rock where the sound is great and the atmosphere is highly energetic and fun. These were among the best shows I’ve seen all year, and the fact that I was introduced to another great band, Dawes, who Isbell opened for at the Rev Room was just icing on the cake.

2. Talladega

Aprille got a new job in 2013 writing for The Trucker newspaper in Little Rock and the job came with some great perks, which included free tickets to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala. Talladega is one of my absolute favorite NASCAR tracks and was the next track on my bucket list, after having knocked Daytona International Speedway off of my list in July of 2009. Despite it raining almost the entire weekend and sitting through one of the longest rain delays in NASCAR history they got the entire Sprint Cup race in and it included one of the most epic races that I’ve ever seen in my 12 years of watching the sport, as it provided a true underdog winner in David Ragan winning for the underfunded Front Row Motorsports team in a mad dash toward the checkered flag as he and teammate David Gilliland drafted out of nowhere to nip Carl Edwards at the finish line.  

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    1.  Nashville

One of my big bucket list things was to go to Nashville and see all of the sights, most notably the Country Music Hall of Fame. I had intended to go to Nashville over Spring Break in 2010, but contracted staph infection and had to have surgery which required a wound in my stomach being packed for an entire month. Aprille and I decided to take a long weekend to Nashville this year to finally see the town and it was better than I ever expected it would be and the best few days of my entire year. Downtown Nashville is one of the greatest places I’ve ever seen, and probably one of the nicest and most fun places there is in this country. I frankly can’t wait to go back again.