The Great College T-Shirt Project Day 24

The Great College T-Shirt Project continues and the college gear is really rolling in. There are just too many shirts and things coming in to continue posting pictures of every single item but I’ll keep putting up a picture here and there. So here’s what came in over the last few days:

On Day 18 Weber State in Utah sent a t-shirt and an assortment of pens and mechanical pencils. These came in a large mailing tube, which was pretty cool. I thought it was going to be a poster or something rolled up in there. Dickinson State in North Dakota also sent a really nice looking t-shirt. Ashland University in Ohio sent a nice t-shirt, also in a tube. It was a day for mailing tubes apparently. The University of Findlay in Ohio sent a t-shirt and the University of Rio Grande in Ohio sent a shirt, a pen, and a pad of paper with the school logo on it.

Day 20 was relatively quiet, I received one package from Sitting Bull College in North Dakota. In it was a t-shirt and a really neat keychain. There were also a few pages of printouts detailing the history of Sitting Bull and Sitting Bull College. Interesting stuff.

On Day 22 I got a pennant, sticker and pen from Marshall University in West Virginia and a pen from Cleveland State in Ohio. I also received a nice pennant from the University of Maryland, something that really pleased Joni. I also received t-shirts from Utah State, Regent University in Virginia, and Augustana College in South Dakota.


And then yesterday, Day 23, the mailman came to the door with about 15 large envelopes and 11 of them had t-shirts in them. There were shirts from The University of Akron in Ohio, Lynchburg College in Virginia, The University of Wisconsin’s Whitewater campus, Western Kentucky University, William Peace University in North Carolina, and Milligan College in Tennessee. There was also a package from The University of Wisconsin’s Superior campus, which contained a shirt and a pencil. And finally Tennessee Tech sent a shirt, a lanyard, a sticker, and a bracelet.

The tally so far is 920 emails sent and a total of 28 t-shirts received.

The Great College T-Shirt Project Day 17

Well! Every day I receive more items in the mail. Here’s what I got over the last several days:

On the 13th Howard University in Washington DC sent a pennant, a pen, and a lanyard, The University of Utah in Salt Lake City sent a pennant and a pen, and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston sent a t-shirt and two pencils.

On the 14th Wesley College in Delaware sent a shirt and Oakland University in Michigan sent a nice “Golden Grizzlies” shirt.

On the 15th American University in Washington DC sent a shirt and two pens. My collection of pens sure I piling up!

And yesterday I got shirts from Mansfield College, Mercyhurst College, and Point park College, all in Pennsylvania. I also got a shirt and 3 pens from Penn State’s Hazelton campus and a pennant from Umass in Boston. And finally, American International College in Massachusetts sent a shirt and a neat pair of sunglasses covered in AIC Yellowjackets. A busy day for the mailman.

The tally so far is 580 emails sent, 13 t-shirts received.

I also wanted to note one school in particular. A representative from Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania said that he couldn’t send me a t-shirt unless I went through the application process, something I’ve heard from many schools. What I liked about this one however was that in a postscript he added “Should you wish to send me a Minden, Nebraska shirt, my size is L. I’ll fill out whatever application you need.” Ha! I might just do that.

The Great College T-Shirt Project Day 12

Well, here it is Day 12 of the Great College T-Shirt Project and the oversized envelopes continue to arrive in the mail.

Yesterday I received envelopes from five different schools. The University of Alaska – Fairbanks sent a lot of literature about their fine school. Westminster College of Salt Lake City, Utah sent two pennants, a pen, and a car window sticker. Cayuga Community College of Auburn, New York sent a pen, a hook thing, and a sticker with the school logo. The College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York sent a t-shirt and a pen. A very huge shirt, I’ll probably give that one to Joni to wear as a nightgown. And the University of Maine – Augusta sent a very nice looking dark blue t-shirt with the school logo. Pens seem to be a very popular item. I should have anticipated that since they’re cheap and easy to mail. I don’t mind though because I like to have lots of different pens and it’s something you can always use. I think I’ve gotten about 9 pens so far but it’s hard to tell because they keep disappearing.

And today I received one more. This shirt and lanyard are from Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. If that town sounds familiar you may be remembering it from the Old Testament of the Bible, where it is mentioned quite a few times.

So far the project is going pretty well, maybe even a little better than I expected. I’ve sent 460 emails and have another 491 on my list.

The Great College T-Shirt Project Day 10

Well, today is Sunday so there’s no mail of course, but yesterday I got three more envelopes in the mail.

Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachussetts sent me a pennant. Clark University, also in MA, sent a neat looking pennant and five pens. One of those pens seems to have disappeared, hmmm. And the big hit of the day was this really cool looking shirt from Western Michigan University. Even though brown is my least favorite color, this is an awesome shirt.

As of today I have sent emails to 340 colleges and my list still has another 534 schools on it, with more being added every day. I’m not even halfway across the country yet. I’m having fun with this!

The Great College T-Shirt Project Day 2

In that blog post I mentioned yesterday, that guy said that he had found a website that listed about 1,700 colleges and each one had a link to click on to send them an email or something like that. In my own searches of the internet I found a similar website but instead of one long list it’s a map of the USA. You can click on each state and that brings up a list of colleges in that state so I’ve started going through those. But instead of clicking the email links, which some of them have and some do not, I was just copying the email addresses into a spreadsheet.

My plan was to create a long list in this spreadsheet and then find some way to get Microsoft Outlook (my email program) and Microsoft Excel (the spreadsheet) to work together and maybe send all those emails automatically. Of course I would also need to loop Microsoft Word in there as well because that’s where I would type up the email template.

So anyway, after a couple of days I now have a little over three hundred colleges in my spreadsheet along with the email addresses. Before going any further I thought I would try to figure out how to do the emailing. I searched the internet again and apparently it is possible to do all that in newer versions of the Microsoft Office programs, but my version is an old one from 2000 and it just won’t be as easy as I had hoped. I did, however, get the mail merge feature in Word working so I can create a personalized email body for each college but I think I’ll still have to email each one individually like that other guy did. He said it took him an entire summer to get through all 1,700 of them and that’s okay, I’ve got time. So now that I have some email addresses to work with I think I’ll start sending out a few emails each day while continuing to gather more addresses.

And that’s where the Great College T-Shirt Project stands right now.

The Great College T-Shirt Project

Often when I don’t have anything in particular to do I just kind of browse the internet at random. The other day I came across a blog entry from some guy where he explained how he had gotten a bunch of free t-shirts from different colleges and universities around the country. Basically he had come across a website that listed email addresses for about 1,700 schools and he emailed every single one of them and simply asked for a t-shirt, telling them that he would wear it around and give their school a little publicity. Can you imagine sending 1,700 emails? Well, if this guy is being honest, he got positive results from about half of them. According to his blog he ended up with 800-900 shirts along with other items like pens, coffee mugs, mousepads, etc. I think he said that one school actually sent him about 10 shirts for some reason.

Now, let me state for the record that I don’t need or want 800-900 t-shirts, although I could always give them away to people or to a charitable organization or something. However, this did sound like kind of a fun project. The guy I mentioned above said he spent an entire summer sending all those emails. I won’t spend that much time at it but I thought I would give it a try and see how it goes. It’s always fun to get free stuff. So I’ll take a crack at it. In his blog, this guy said that he had come across a website where it was very easy to get all those email addresses but that site doesn’t exist anymore so I’ll have to see what I can find on the web. Going to individual school websites to find an address would be way too time consuming.

So this is the beginning of my College T-Shirt Project of 2014. If this works out and if you’re related to me, I guess you know what you’re getting for Christmas this year.

Journal - Father's Day

So yesterday was Father’s day. I hope all you Fathers out there had a great day.

My day was pretty good.. Before we left for church, Adam gave me a t-shirt that he bought with his own money. It’s a black shirt with all of the Marvel Comics superheroes on it. I was an avid collector of comic books for quite a few years so the t-shirt is pretty awesome.

After church we stopped by Walmart to look at dehumidifiers. We really need one for the basement, it’s so damp down there and keeps getting moldy. Walmart was all out of them. The lady said a lot of people have been buying them lately but they had some more coming in on a truck later in the day. Joni will have to look again when she does the shopping on Tuesday.

After Walmart, we stopped and picked up some lunch at Taco John’s. I hadn’t had Taco John's since coming back to Nebraska last year and I've really been wanting to. Since it was my choice yesterday, that's what I picked. We brought the food home and ate here.

After we ate, we drove into Gibbon to Mom’s house to borrow a mop bucket. We needed that for the basement which we are giving a thorough cleaning. We sat around Mom's for a while talking about the house she’s buying. This will be the first house she’s owned so she’s pretty excited about it. The rest of the family is pretty excited too.

It was about three o’clock when we got home from Mom’s and just as we were walking in the door my phone rang. It was Brenna calling to say happy Father’s day. I have to admit, I didn't think she would, although I was secretly hoping for an email or aFacebook message. A phone call was even better.

After that, I had to get to work on the basement. Saturday I had pulled everything out of the storage room down there. So Yesterday I scrubbed the walls and floor with bleach. Joni did some research and found out that bleach or vinegar are the best things for mold, and I sure didn’t want the whole basement smelling like vinegar. I couldn’t put the stuff back in the room afterward because the floor wouldn't dry. I ended up letting it sit overnight. Joni says it's dry today so everything can go back in there now. Then it will be time to tackle the main room which is pretty big.

After all that, I took a shower and relaxed for a while. Then I played my sax. I haven't done that for several weeks and it sure felt good.

Shortly before we went to bed, it looked like it was going to storm, but we only heard a few distant rumbles of thunder and then it cleared up. During the night we ended up getting two storms. The first was small, but the second one, at around four-thirty, was pretty loud. I still have some light perception in one eye so I can see the lightning flashes. It was going like a strobe light. The thunder was very loud and the wind came up pretty hard. I think I heard a little bit of hail too but not bad. I was pretty tired, though, and I fell asleep even though the storm was pretty loud. I like thunderstorms at night, just like blizzards, but I can do without the wind.

Psalms 103:13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

Journal, Birthday Wrap-up

Sooo, what’s been happening since my birthday? I’m glad you asked! It seems like all kinds of things are going on.

First, let me wrap up the birthday thing. I got my new socks and am enjoying them a great deal! Also, from Adam I got a Husker t-shirt that I am told looks very cool. From Joni, I got a pair of Husker lounge pants. This is mainly what I wear around the house and I definitely needed a new pair. Oh, and the angus burger was good, but not, THAT, good. I still like the Whopper better. The Coke glasses from McDonald's are nice though, they feel much heavier and sturdier than the ones they had years ago.

Okay, on to my health. I talked about the bad time I was having with my asthma. I had gone to the doctor the day before my birthday. She gave me some medicine that was very affordable, even without insurance, and I’ve been feeling very good since. The pills she gave me, however, are a steroid and you can’t take them for very long. I took my last one on Wednesday so we’ll see what happens. Actually I should be okay for a while yet; she also gave me a free sample of Advair, and now that the steroids are gone I’ll start using that. I’m still working on the insurance thing, but the blizzard kind of shut things down for a couple of days and I'm still waiting for a call back. I called a Blue Cross, Blue Shield agent because I heard they don’t deny for pre-existing conditions. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Did someone say blizzard? Yep, I guess I did. It snowed pretty heavily for most of Monday and Tuesday. Lots of gusty wind too. I'm not sure what the final tally was, but they were calling for 12 to 15 inches of snow and I'm pretty sure we got at least that much. I loved blizzards when I was a kid. Laying in my nice warm bed at night, listening to the wind whoop and holler outside, knowing the snow was really piling up. That kind of stuff loses its magic a little when you get older, but this one came close. Tuesday night I lay in bed listening to my first blizzard in about 15 years. I think I got a little of the magic back because I knew I didn’t have to leave the house the next day. Also, I could hear my wind chime. I didn’t talk about my wind chime yet, but let's just say it's a very special chime that I hadn't heard since I was a child.

Aside from that, I’ve been spending my time listening to books and exercising. I’ve been putting in about 30 minutes a day on the bike, although I took a few days off when I wasn’t feeling well. Also I’ve been practicing my Christmas music a lot. Some of the songs I got turned out to be kind of difficult so I’ve been working hard on them. I think they’re coming along pretty well though, and I should be ready for the 19th. Which reminds me, Stacy, (Brenna's mom), told me that Brenna has a violin recital on the 19th. Wouldn't you know it? The recital is at 2pm though, and supper here at the house isn't until 5:30, so I think we can make it. Frankly, if I had to choose, I'd probably go to the recital. Our party could always be rescheduled.

Busy, busy, busy! And still a lot to look forward to. The 19th will be a fun day and, of course, Christmas is almost here. In the meantime I’ve got my exercise bike, and my blog, and my saxophone. Not to mention an insurance policy to track down. With any luck, this will be my only Christmas as a blind man. But I can’t get too far ahead of myself. One day at a time, one day at a time.

Psalm 98:4 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.