Car History

Okay, so I gave up facebook for Lent.. tonight I'm bored so here I am! Blogging. I saw this car history thing on Sydneys blog a while back and thought it would be fun so here it goes....

First Car..... 1999 Dodge Stratus


I absolutely hated this car! Lauren got it first in like 2000... it was a bank repo. It was practically brand new, no miles on the thing. This isn't the actual car. I google imaged all of these but this is so close to the real deal! We called it the ghetto sled or the ghetto wagon. It had really illegal dark tinted windows and then it had those window guards. We took those off quick. Mine looked the same except had a power cat on the front. This car was a boss, we got like 10 people in it at one time. It saw sooooo many memories. If they wouldn't embaress people I would have to list them all!! Danielle got one just the same, except it was called a plymoth breeze. We had twin cars, except her trunk was filled with about 40 to 50 street cones and magnets from every union county schoool. good times! Anyway, I totaled it my Senior year on Agnes Road. Dangit.

Car #2... 2000 Infiniti Q45


I inherited this one from my dad after I totaled the dodge. I'd say I faired pretty well. This car was like luxury to a "t" but it was better suited for a 50 year old man than a 17 year old girl who has already wrecked one car. It had 180 on the dash, tempting. It was like a V8 and took the most expensive gas but it was awesome. Somehow I ended up busting one of the speakers and I broke the 6 disc changer in the back... not long after the cd player in the front decided it wouldn't play burnt cds. It had this awesome shade in the back... one touch that puppy was up, blockin out the sun.. pretty awesome. It also had this gorgeous wood grain and a cute little non digital clock. Nice car, but we traded it for the next when I went to college. It was getting some miles on it and dad didn't want me going off to school with an older car. Introducing number 3.... wow, that's a lot for an 18 year old.

Car #3... 2005 Nissan Altima


I got this for graduation I guess you could say. The next week I got mono and was in bed for about 2 months. I just got to look at it! It was soooo sad! When I got it, it only had like 12 miles on it. Dad just said, "you want it?" ummm, of course! they washed it and it was mine! About a month later the Margis' put a spoiler on it for my graduation gift from them. Here's the deal with my dad, he says you can have any car you want as long as it's a nissan and it's a car.. but no maxima. UMMM, what else is there? Anyway, this car was awesome... it stuck with me all though college. Made lots of fun roadtrips... to Arkadelphia every week, sometimes twice, to the spring river... awesome. Beach trips, trips to visit friends... you name it. The best night I remember in ole black was bid night. There were like 7 of us piled in there... I didn't know any of them! I made them listen to Hanson and they LOVED it! We listed to "I Will Come to You!" and then we almost ran out of gas... my car is like blinking 2 miles til empty! Scary. I never had a problem with this car, I even hit a car on Cantrell one day... slammed into it... like seriously hard... it did nothing. You couldn't even tell. The worst thing that happened was I broke like 5 licences plates on this car. No one ever knew who I was cause my plate changed... a lot. Dang garages. She held on tight... 5 long years and only like 75,000 miles. That's good, right? Anyway, she was laid to rest last September when I got t-boned on the highway. You can find that pic farther down. Poor baby, may you rest in peace.

That brings us to CAR #4... good gracoius!
2009 Altima Coupe


Now this one is fun! Not many memories, yet... but I've always wanted a 2 door car. I love the interior and I have a sunroof again, yay! I got it about mid-September. We haven't gone many places yet but it still smells so brand new, i love that. And it's totally cool cause it's got that push button start and no key. I NEVER have to pull out my keys... it's so high-tech!

There's my history... wasn't that fun. Hopefully we won't add a 5th to the list any time soon!! fingers crossed. Also, I gotta say I'm pretty lucky, I've never had a bad car. I hated the status but it wasn't bad. So thanks mom and dad. I sure do LOVE ya!

xoxo, AH

America's Team~ The Dallas Cowboys

I wrote this back in 2007 when I covered Jerry Jones coming to UCA to speak... I just happened to find it today and thought it was funny.... and a little bizarre. Look where the Cowboys are now! When I went to tour the stadium they told me... the former stadium was 800,000 square feet... can you guess the size of the new one?! 3.2 million square feet! O.M.G! Anyway, here's my paper.


Alex Hale
April 20, 2007
Jerry Jones Speech

The University of Central Arkansas welcomed Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, to campus as part as the Centennial Lecture Series.

Before Jones was brought to the stage by President of the University Lu Hardin the crowd learned Jones was a member of the Dallas Sports Hall of Fame, Texas Business Hall of Fame and was being inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame just hours after leaving UCA. As Jones walked on stage he received a standing ovation from the crowd.

Jones called President Hardin back on stage and presented on behalf of the Dallas Cowboys a football helmet to the university, staff and football team.

Jones then began to explain some of the influences on buying the Dallas Cowboys in 1989. He explained when he was living in Little Rock, his son and him traveled to Cabo San Lucas and as he was “having fun” on the beach he read the Dallas Cowboys owner was going to sell the team. He then picked up the phone from Mexico and said, “I think I’m going to die but if I live I’m going to come back and buy the Dallas Cowboys!”

That’s just what Jones did. In 1989 he purchased the team for 155 million dollars, this was the most anyone had ever paid in the history of sports.

At this time Texas Stadium had 115 new suites and five were occupied. Thirteen percent were foreclosed and owned by the FDIC. Jones stated, “This really was America’s team, America owned half of it.”

Texas Stadium was losing one million dollars a month and $100,000 a day just to open the doors. But for Jones it was about motivation, not money.

To this day Jones says he doesn’t feel like he owns the team, he wants the fans to own the team.

The first year into Jones ownership the Cowboys won one game. The second year they won seven and all Texas Stadium suites were sold. Jones then found out about sponsorships and was sponsored by American Airlines. He took the visibility and ran with it.

Jones sought visibility with the Salvation Army and started the Red Kettle Campaign after players had been caught making bad decisions and the Cowboys got bad press. Jones paid one million dollars of his own money to keep the cameras on the field for 15 minutes during half-time on Thanksgiving Day.

During this time they would raise money for the Salvation Army. In ten years they raised three quarters of a billion dollars more then the Salvation Army could have raised without the Cowboys.

Today the Dallas Cowboys were in four of the five top shows on television, with the fifth being Dancing with the Stars with former Cowboy Emmett Smith.

In closing Jones talked on how he wrote the book on feeling sorry for himself. He gave up worrying about trivial things which helped him to be happy. He obtained the mind set on how long and hard can we go and challenged the audience to do the same.