i watched tommy lee goes to college last night, mainly because it's filmed at the university of nebraska at lincoln. a guy i went to high school with was on the show a bunch of times because he's in the unl band drum line, which tommy tried out for. his name is ben c (he's the guy to the right of tommy lee).

i don't know ben very well. during my junior and senior yr of high school, i stood in the line behind him in marching band and it was obvious that music was his life. but the most obvious thing about him was that he didn't care what anyone thought. he wasn't showey at all, but he was never afraid to show off his passion. he was big into music, mainly drums, but also anything that could be used as an instrument. a few of us were at his house once and he played a bunch of his stuff at our request. it was mostly songs that he imitated from the radio. they each had several layers and sounded like the real thing -- it was amazing! when he decided on majoring in percussion performance at unl, lots of people snickered. but he didn't care because it was what he was passionate about. and everyone knew it. not many people did that in high school.

i have no idea what ben c is up to by now. he was a year behind me, so he graduated in 2004 or 2005. i have no doubt that he is doing quite well. he had his head on straight in high school, so i'm sure he's even more mature now. i have the utmost respect for him and wish him the best!


after i watched tommy lee, i changed channels to cnn where they were talking about the latest worm to attack windows 2k/xp and how if IT departments had blocked certain ports to the open world (which is a no-brainer), this worm wouldn't be an issue. here's hoping the guy i replaced and the guys that set up our network used common sense.