Red 4, Green 2, 30 seconds, 10 seconds, Time!

I was the timer at Quiz Bowl at my church today. Quiz Bowl is like the "GE College Bowls," back in my day, or like the "High Q" shows they used to have in the 80's. I had to hold a timer and start it after a question was read. Most of the questions were 10 seconds, unless it was a hard question like a math question. Then I had to stop the timer when someone from the red or green team would buzz in. Then if they were wrong I had to reset the box. Sometimes, I would mess up and BOY! did I hear from the audience (aka the coaches from other teams...Mr. S, was completely patient!). Once I didn't give them enough time to answer (I thought I did, but I guess according to the opposing team coach I didn't). Another time I had forgotten to reset the box and the green team couldn't buzz in, so the red team could. So we had to throw out the question so it would be fair to the green team. (Secretly, I was rooting for the team that did the less complaining from there on out).

THEN, I would mess up in answering. I would look at red team and the green team would answer. DUH!!! I'd be like green 3 and red 2 would be the one who buzzed in. Towards the last I had a nice kid tell me to reset the box. So that was kind of him. (I was thinking, what team is that kid on?) I found out it was K town. I know a few people from out there. So they were a nice bunch to deal with.

Some of the math questions were hard...a lot of story problems. With these types of problems the coach would have know which person to put in. One from H team was quick, I could tell that her favorite subject was math. There would be easy (easy to me) sports questions. S used to be on QB last year and answered a lot of sports questions. Hopefully J will want to do this in a couple of years.

Over in the other room was "Battle of the Books." These students must answer obscure questions regarding the 16 books they read. Not just author and title but they must know some picky little detail. S did this when she was in 6th grade. I am persuading J not to do this activity. I have a hard time getting him to read anything let alone the required reading. Flute's K1 is in "BOB" and really enjoys it. The majority of the team are boys, such a switch when S was on it. There was only one boy on the team when S was in it.

County Spelling Bee Results

We just got into the high school with all 36 top spellers in the county. J was sitting in chair 1. So that was good! There were 3 judges (H from H town, one from At town, and the librarian from CHS, our friend K). A teacher from An town pronounced the words. She was very "clear" in her pronunciations! I give her high marks on that.

After they went over the rules, they did a practice round. J's word was "design." He asks for a definition. He thinks it over and says "disign." By this time I am closing my eyes, its a good thing that this was a "practice round."During the practice session, several of the kids got the words wrong and that made me feel a whole lot better. After the practice session came round1. He got the word "ballot." I held my breath. Was he going to get that one right? He spelled it correctly. Whew!! He got passed round 1, that was better than yesterday. The words that they gave them in round 1 were VERY hard. Bequeath, cantata, dearth, fiery, alamo, algebra, cobalt, easel, and bagel. In the first round 17 spellers went out.

Round 2. J's word was "primal." He spelled that one correctly. I uttered "PTL." The words that kids missed were babushka, semantics, crochet, paprika, and finale. All three fifth graders from H town remained in that round. This time they went down by another 5 spellers.

Round 3 and 14 spellers left. J's word was "affinitity." My eyes went big! I didn't even know how to spell THAT word. So he tried and missed it by one letter. At least he did try and it was a verry hard word. The other two fifth graders also went out on this round. O got vibrado and Bry got gestapo. In that round they lost 8 spellers.

Round 4 and 6 spellers left. Aquacduct and souvenir. They had to give out some easy words in that round such as "psalm" and "incredible." It went into round 5 and there was 4 spellers left. Three of the spellers went down and one girl kept spelling. So they proclaimed her as champion and had a spell-off for 2nd and 3rd place, which was ridiculous. There should have been a spell off between first and second. So first place went to a girl from At town (a 6th grader), 2nd place a boy from An town (an 8th grader), and 3rd went to the one who won the H school bee (an 8th grader). The winner goes to Great Bend and that winner goes to Washington D.C....WOW that would be cool! (Get prepared K2!)

Hopefully J will want to do this next year and continue to excell. It's going to be an uphill battle for me to get him to at least try. Oh well!

KU Wins/Spelling Bee continues/Personal note

KU got their confidence back as they beat Missouri (the border rival) by a score of 90--71. Darrell Arthur, who got in early foul trouble, came back strong in the second half shooting 5 our of 6 free throws from the line. He wasn't lead scorer but none the less, did very good for the team. Lead scorer was Brandon Rush with 19, followed by Mario Chalmers with 15, then Arthur with 13, Sasha Kaun and Sherron Collins had 12 points each, Russell Robinson had 7, Darnell Jackson and Cole Aldrich with 6 each. On ESPN they HAD to show the football game between Missouri and Kansas, whatever. Then I saw the shirts that the students had bought over at "Joe College," and for a Kansas fan it was funny but for a Mizzou fan it probably made them VERY angry. So I guess it all evened out. ;) Next game is an improved Baylor Basketball team. This won't be a cakewalk.
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J was out in the first round of the school bee yesterday. My friend, flute, got a pic of J on her blog. Thank you flute!!! J got out on a word that no 5th grader would use in this day and age (this was a comment made by Mr. V, fifth grade teacher). The word was "cassette." Now, J knows how to spell it and knows what it is too. Cassette. That's something we had when I was 12! Kid's nowadays have MP3 players, Ipods, and CD's. Not cassettes, or 8-tracks nor vinyl records like I had growing up.

Funny thing, J's librarian at his school was MY librarian in high school, when I was a mere sophomore. I talked with the librarian and he said that was his third year as a librarian. Now I guess he would be in his 40-41st year! I'm surprised he's not tired or re-tired like "Bobby Knight." Okay, that's another subject.

So the county is this morning. I hope this time he gets words that he knows. He knew the "harder" ones. His friend B got the word "talon." J could have spelled that one and even "perserverance." Like my friend flute says, "it's the luck or unluck of the draw." One word can knock you out. The kid who won is an 8th grader. He's not what you would call a model student. The one who came in second was an alternate speller and IS a model student and good kid all around.

I had to "coach" J in what to wear today. He wanted to wear a basketball t-shirt and I had to persuade him to "dress up," for the county bee. He is going to have to start wearing more "dress up stuff" when he is on the junior high basketball team in a couple of years. I know this will be a struggle.
I hope that J doesn't get out in the first round this morning.
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I normally only comment on my friend's flute blog. But lately have been following the writings of a Missouri teacher. You see he used to be my Botany teacher at SC when I was a senior. I knew his wife too as she was a student when I was there. So it's nice to see what is going on with "The Reformed Angler," who is a Presbyterian like I used to be growing up. So if he's reading this, that is how I know you and Susan. That is IF he reads this and IF he remembers me.

Of Giants and Bees

I didn't watch much of the game, except the last of it. I was really glad to see the NY Giants win the Super Bowl!! I really enjoy Eli Manning. Now, Archie Manning, former quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, is the father of two Super Bowl quarterbacks, Peyton and now Eli. In Archie's playing days with the Saints his team never did go to the Super Bowl. This must be a very proud moment for their dad.
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The School Spelling Bee is tomorrow, as it was postpone because of snow days. The county bee is on Tuesday. I think J is prepared and that this will be a learning experience for him. I hope he does well. I told him that I knew he was good at this and that he should at least try. S did the Spelling Bee from fifth through eighth grade. In her first year, she didn't place at all, but she loved competing in the bee. In her sixth grade year she made third in the county; in seventh she didn't place; in eighth grade she was second in the county. So hopefully J will just try and like it. I think it is an honor to be able to spell well and get this far. When I went to school, in the dark ages, my big school didn't have the spelling bee. That was my favorite subject as I always pulled A's in it. I can remember when I went to jr. high I wanted to take a test on spelling only my unified studies teacher didn't think I was good enough. I knew better, but always felt cheated that I never got to prove myself. It's so nice that my kids at least get a shot at trying.

That's what Archie and I have in common. We didn't get a chance to prove ourselves but our kids did. It makes you feel so proud!
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KU is playing Mizzery tomorrow night. I just hope they play well against them. Mizzery is coming off their big game against Purple Pride.
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I wish our town had a pharmacy!! I buy my two prescription drugs at Wally World. WW sells one of my prescriptions at $4. It is because it is a generic drug. But the other one, which is also vital to my health, is not a generic. So I am always waiting in line for a refill, waiting for them to complete my refill, ugh!! On the $4 prescription I can double up on my pills on the other I can't because of insurance purposes. The other one cost $25 a bottle. I'm not sure IF we had a pharmacy here would the prescription be economical? It would be nice to have a pharmacy in town so that we wouldn't have to drive 8 miles south or up to Wichita for prescription drugs. Think about that one H town.

KU Wins! Thanks Missouri just this once!

It was nice to see KU finally come back and win really strong in the 2nd half. Sasha Kaun was just excellent scoring 12 points. He looks very strong coming off of the bench. Darnell Jackson stepped up his game hitting 10 out 10 (perfect!) from the free throw line. Then Sherron Collins, who was injured in the first half, came back to score 9 points without a miss. We had a lot of 'Hawks helping out throughout the game but not scoring.
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Thank you Missouri for beating our in-state rivals, K-State. This puts Kansas back up to the number 1 spot in the Big 12. I was just glad to see Missouri shut-up Michael Beasley and his ridiculous predictions. Now, guess who we are playing on Big Monday? Missouri. So I thank them today and I hope we beat them at our arena this coming Monday.
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J's team beat the Arlington team 24--8. That team has a bunch of thugs on their team. They were pushing our boys pretty good. When I saw them pushing on my kid how I wanted to go out there and push that boy back! I was yelling, "hey quit pushing on my kid!" J took it in stride and just played without playing on that kid's level.
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Super Bowl is tomorrow and I read a blog from "The Reformed Angler," who reported that the NFL was cracking down on church's for showing the game on 55 inch TV's. The NFL thinks this is infringing on their "profits." Church's usually have souper bowl parties and never charge any fees to fellowship and watch the game. Why should it matter how big the screen is? The people in charge at the NFL apparently have never been to a church when this event is going on. It's a strange world. I am not all that interested in the Super Bowl. I can remember at SC we would hold little mini-parties in our "parlor" area to watch the game. But I am not THAT interested in it. My kids are. They want the NY Giants. I like Eli Manning (Archie's son and Peyton's brother).
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I will be completely exhausted at the end of the day. It's time for me to go to work!

4 day weekend

Thanks (or no thanks) to the snow days this past week, the kids have been off from school for 4 days straight! S is looking forward to going back to school and really didn't want to have a snow day on Friday. But J could care less. He was happy school was not in session. Now I have to "motivate" him to be at school for Monday. I think that HG will be holding the school spelling bee. The county bee is either Tuesday or Wednesday and hopefully that won't be snowned out.
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Tomorrow (Saturday) we out to the high school because S has to leave for a forensics tournament and then we go up the road a piece, approximately 55 miles from here for a basketball game (Biddy ball) with a start time of 8:00 AM. But the team needs to be there by 7:30 to warm up. So hopefully we won't run into any wild animals (Bambie, in particular) on the road. I will be doing my scoring and writing a little article on the game. I hope J scores at least once tomorrow. After that we have business in Hutch and may or may not be watching the KU game. If we don't watch it we will be listening on the radio and going back home down south. Then we may have to pick up S and clean church. What a busy day ahead!

I should be in bed now!!

Don't worry, be happy!

When we traveling out to see Josiah this morning the engine light on our main vehicle came on. Thoughts of no oil, oh no and what now, came into our thoughts. So we drove it over to blueberry auto and our appointment is 4 days from now. They told us not to worry. Well, immediately I think, what if we are out on the road and the vehicle dies. Then what? I ask L about our backup vehicle. It's not much better. Suspension, alignment problems and other minor (major) problems.

I hate vehicle problems right up there with money problems. Thoughts of getting a better vehicle enter my mind. But that would sink us into even more debt. I was hoping just to pay off the cars and looking forward on getting a 3rd vehicle in a couple of years. Although, S wants it in 1 year or so. The thought of her driving alone is a scary worry.

How do people NOT worry? We talked about this in our Sunday school this past Sunday. We are supposed to give our troubles to the Lord. I just finished reading a book "Between Sundays," by Karen Kingsbury and the main character has troubles/worries and he talks to the Lord to take it all away and things change for him. He relied on the Lord. I need to do that more.