Friday, June 11, 2010
Shipping... from where?
This cracked me up. A student of mine was shopping for beakers. He found this item listed at aliexpress.com:
Check out that shipping charge!! (You'll have to click on the picture.)
Check out that shipping charge!! (You'll have to click on the picture.)
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Emily's trip to Odyssey of the Mind World Finals
My mom pointed out to me the other day that I hadn't posted anything to my blog for a while. Been busy, I guess. One of the things we've been busy with over the last month, has been fundraising for Emily's trip to Michigan for the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. Her OM team won the state competition for their division ("Food Court" event, in the youngest age group). After much deliberation, we decided that she could go with Matt Linford as her guardian, since Pauline and I couldn't go on the trip. Matt's a neighbor, and the dad of two of the other kids on the team.
They had a successful trip! They finished 27th (I think), out of about 85 teams. Considering none of them had done OM before, and OM hadn't even existed in the state in the recent past until this year, I thought that was phenomenal.
Here are some photos Matt gave us:
Excited kids on the airplane on the way there.
Kids and Matt in the airport. This is one of the few pictures we got of Matt, since he took almost all of the other pictures.
There they are, arriving at Michigan State. Their rental car broke down between the airport and the university (~100 miles away), so Hertz paid for a $150 taxi ride. This doesn't look like a taxi, so I think that's the replacement rental car.
There's the whole team: 7 kids, their coach (Jonathan Sherrill), and two of the other parents.
Entering the arena for the opening ceremonies. Gives you a sense of how big an event this is.
Here's the team again. Emily said they went swimming every day. (They had a lot of down time in between the "long term" and the "spontaneous" events they were competing in.)
Setting up for their "long term" event.
Here's a video Matt took of (part of) the skit the group prepared for their long term event. You can get a pretty good sense as to what they were doing for the "Food Court".
In line for their "spontaneous" event. Spontaneous is where they dominated in the state competition, and they did nearly as well in the World Finals. Apparently they finished 2nd in the country (out of those ~85 teams), and got 99.5 points to the top team's 100 points.
Abbey Road, anyone?
Team getting a lecture from their coach. Or simply "Coach", as Emily started calling him.
Kids coming home. Contrast this with the photo of them on the outbound plane.
Happy people waiting for them at the airport!
They had a successful trip! They finished 27th (I think), out of about 85 teams. Considering none of them had done OM before, and OM hadn't even existed in the state in the recent past until this year, I thought that was phenomenal.
Here are some photos Matt gave us:
Excited kids on the airplane on the way there.
Kids and Matt in the airport. This is one of the few pictures we got of Matt, since he took almost all of the other pictures.
There they are, arriving at Michigan State. Their rental car broke down between the airport and the university (~100 miles away), so Hertz paid for a $150 taxi ride. This doesn't look like a taxi, so I think that's the replacement rental car.
There's the whole team: 7 kids, their coach (Jonathan Sherrill), and two of the other parents.
Entering the arena for the opening ceremonies. Gives you a sense of how big an event this is.
Here's the team again. Emily said they went swimming every day. (They had a lot of down time in between the "long term" and the "spontaneous" events they were competing in.)
Setting up for their "long term" event.
Here's a video Matt took of (part of) the skit the group prepared for their long term event. You can get a pretty good sense as to what they were doing for the "Food Court".
In line for their "spontaneous" event. Spontaneous is where they dominated in the state competition, and they did nearly as well in the World Finals. Apparently they finished 2nd in the country (out of those ~85 teams), and got 99.5 points to the top team's 100 points.
Abbey Road, anyone?
Team getting a lecture from their coach. Or simply "Coach", as Emily started calling him.
Kids coming home. Contrast this with the photo of them on the outbound plane.
Happy people waiting for them at the airport!
