Archive for April, 2006

Now, is how it got worse. We’re junkies. We’re addicted to LOST.

We watched two episodes before church, and then after church we watched another 5-6 or so. I don’t think we barely did anything else for the rest of the day. We talked on the phone with parents, I did some stuff on the computer and watched Family Guy, but we didn’t do anything except for a short walk exploring the cemetary just up the road. What can I say, it is an awesome show.

Today ended up flying by.

We got up pretty early, I needed to be over to Warren high school by 8:30 a.m. to start judging the SkillsUSA contest at 9:00 a.m.

Like most events of this nature, things were a little hectic in the beginning, trying to figure out what needed to be done, where to go, how to do it, etc. But with so many events for the kids to participate in from trades to business related competitions, it was quite an event to pull off.

The event was had a fair amount of contestants for being the first year for Web Design, 5 groups in total. The contest went for three and a half hours and the objective / contest was to design the best site they could in that timeframe. This was the basic premise, there was a certain type of client they were designing for and a certain amount of pages, but other than specifics of what needed to be included, I left the direction open to the students to choose.

Most of the time was spent supervising. Some of our students were there so I worked on them with assignments, and got to know them better outside of class. I wrote some thank you notes, and talked with Chris who was my co-judge. We did have Panera bagels, one of my students works there and brings in the day old stuff to share usually with the class.

It finally got to be 12:30 and we wrapped up the judging, took some questions, and then sat down to critique each of the groups. Two of the groups left early and were disqualified so that made things even easier. One student there, in his own group, brought a huge mac setup, and he did a really amazing site in the three plus hours. But he has his own business too on the side, so there was no middle group. Average learning students and one experienced guy who won the contest.

It took a while to judge the entries, and get everything wrapped up for some reason. It wasn’t until about 2:00 that I was able to leave, grab some food with the food vouchers from the cafeteria and head home. But it was the best darn grilled ham and cheese on sourdough I had ever had.

Real quick we decided that it would be best for me to go home. That was a bust, and without getting into much detail both Sarah and I were grumpy after I got home just after 2, and left the house around 3. We went down to the State Fairgrounds & paid the three bucks to park this time around.

The auction was slow moving at best. They had made it through one round of the arcade games and were on the jukeboxes when we got there. So we both went across the way to a huge flea market, that was a ton of fun. It has been so long since I’ve been to one of those things. I did stop back at the auction later on to watch how things went, but overall I was disappointed on the selection for popular games at this thing. It’s probably a good indication of why I can’t find anything in Indianapolis because no one does the arcade game thing, too much farming to do. But it did give me a sense of how an auction for that stuff worked, what to expect, and what certain machines would go for.

About 5:30 we headed out, taking a long way out to 70 and back over to Post road to go roller skating with the school. That was fun, I was by far the oldest person out there for most of the time, Christine did some skating but not much. I did notice that they had a mini pacman cabinet there, and in one game I took the high score, pretty darn cool. When we left, Christine showed me the Batman Easter basket she got for $5 at Kmart, she’s so funny.

When Sarah and I got back we were both hungry, so I ate something really quick and then headed to the back to mow the lawn. I felt just wiped after that, and spent the rest of the night watching LOST, which was only a couple of episodes before we both passed out.

A-B Movies, G Movies, S Movies

Today was pretty awesome. We went to an all day conference at the Marriott put on by BNI on the GEMS program by the Referral Institute. eSystems had a taste of this training at the BNI conference last March and it was so popular that they brought it back as it’s own full day conference.

GEMS basically trains people to recognize different types of personality traits in people, and how to embrace those traits to work better with different types of people in everyday business. There is a self evaluation, and four different types of GEMS you could be, a pearl, saffire, emerald, and ruby. I am a ruby - saffire, the highest two areas I score. I could go into a lot of detail, but I don’t actually want to right now, I just know that I love the information and the speaker, Dawn, is always just so engaging.

After the conference I went back to work for a little bit, until about 6:00 or so when I headed up to the State Fairgrounds. Tomorrow is the US Amusements auction, and the night before I read you can get in for free and see what people are dropping off for the auction. I stopped across the street from the grounds and walked into an open area. It was a long walk, and the cop basically told me I was in the exactly wrong place, to get in my car, and drive back to the opening gate. That is what I did. But the little boy running the register told me it was $3 to get in even when there were no events taking place. All I needed to do was look, that’s it. So, I drove down the road and parked at some retail space and walked.

Walking on 38th street is always thrilling, it is hardly the best place to be, and since I hadn’t been home I was still in my dress shoes, shirt, and pants. So I walked the mile or so I needed into the fairgrounds from my spot. Highly inconvenient, you have to walk in a huge loop to get to the entry, it is not central and most of the time you end up going the exact opposite direction you need to go.

I didn’t stay too long, there wasn’t much to see. I saw a couple of games that I would be interested in, but mostly a dissapointing pick, a bunch of games I never even seen before. In 15 minutes I was leaving and walking out. Wouldn’t you know, no one was at the gate, so it wasn’t bad enough that they were such jerks about it, and that I had to walk forever because of it in my dress clothes on crack street central, it was that they couldn’t let me in 15 minutes before it was supposedly “free” anyway. So, on the way back out, I hopped the fence so I didn’t have to double back, and I cut my leg on a small tree. I hope the auction tomorrow goes a smidgeon better.

When I got home I relaxed for just a touch, then I mowed the front lawn, it was atrocious already. Christine had given us the first season of LOST on DVD so I figured I would watch some of that after Sarah got home. She had gone to Lutheran High to see a play, one put on by our friend Sarah Styf. I had talked to Eric and Jessica briefly after I got home, and after I got inside he called and said he was out and about, wanted to see if we were still going to watch LOST. He is a big fan, and I say who better to watch the first episodes with.

Sarah got back, and then Eric and I went to get some whiskey and 7up to go with our movies. We popped some popcorn, had some stiff drinks, and ate some cupcakes as we sat back and watched the first two episodes of the series. I thought it was good, but I wasn’t hooked or anything.

Yet….And little did I know it would only get worse.

C-D Movies

Tonight flew by for a change.

I got to talk with Eric about plans for this weekend and the next, which was nice. But I spent most of the night trying to stay focused, grading an asisgnment, and writing up a document for SkillsUSA Web Design Contest which is taking place for students at Warren on Saturday. Chris and I are judging the event. I had done the contest for the Tech Fair in Dec., so I had that good base to start from.

Tomorrow is an early morning, and I am still supposed to fix el toilito esta noche, so I am off.

Oh, and I beat Hexic on the hardest level, so I am now ultimately cool.

Had a hard workout in the morning today, and then on the way into work, I say a full size truck turned onto it’s side on the Westbound merge of 65 with 465. I have seen that on TV, but a lot more spooky to see it in person and think how it got that way.

After dinner Sarah and I took a walk around the block and talked, that was a nice change of pace. I did have work to do, grading students assignments, feedback, etc. etc. so getting out for a little while in the nice weather was good.

Got to talk with both Avi and Megan tonight as well, and that really picked up my mood. Any time I get to talk to old friends, rekindle old memories really lifts my spirits.

Tonight other than freelance, I played Hexic to wind down from the day, and I beat the Medium level! I was pretty pumped, it was really stinkin hard. I beat the easy level back last fall and gave it a rest for awhile, but have just recently gotten back into playing it.

Tonight did some freelance stuff, including a lot of learning about how to use paypal on a website. We also watching our tv, including the escalating 24 which gets better every week.

Who’s in it

Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Peet, Taryn Manning, Ali Larter, Kathryn Hahn

What was good

The casual acting by Kutcher and Peet. It feels real, and these are possibly a realistic series of encounters between two people who get caught up in what they think they need more than what they feel.

What sucked

You don’t for one point in time believe Kutcher is what he portrays in the movie, which kind of ruins things because alot of his story revolves
around him getting his “ducks in a row”. Sarah didn’t like the time gaps, where they would be apart for 2-4 years or so at a time and then the story would pick up again. I don’t mind that sort of thing, but it is something to watch out for.

Who should go see this

I don’t have a lot to say about this. It is a love story, two people who get to know each other over many years and realize that if one of them could make a move at the right time that they could be right for each other. If you like love stories and can tolerate Peet and Kutcher, then you make like this. My parents may enjoy it a touch. I do wish that Kutcher wasn’t so serious in this movie, a little more playful without being an idiot because super serious isn’t believable.