The root of all evil...

So, Comedy Central has this "courtroom" show called "The Root of All Evil" where every Wednesday night two comedians act as attorneys in a trial to debate which of two "evils" is worse, and, therefore, the root of all evil. Some interesting cases in the past argued Paris Hilton versus Dick Cheney and beer versus high school. Tonight's case pitted Ultimate Fighting against Bloggers, and would you believe that despite stellar arguments against fighting and weak arguments against bloggers, the latter were deemed by the judge to be the root of all evil. The nerve! Among other things, Patton Oswald blames blogging for creating a "first draft" society in which complete, well-planned sentences take a backseat to abbreviations and sentence fragments. Um... which blogs has he been reading? All the blogs in my RSS feeds list are informative and thought-provoking and use complete words and sentences that even make use of correct grammar (most of the time). Now, naturally I don't take these things too seriously, but maybe I am too skeptical.... after all, ultimate fighting is "ultimately" going to result in the development of the Mexican nation to the point of the invasion and overthrow of the United States (yeah, there was more to it than that), and blogging will eventually lead to the complete degradation of human communication until we are back to cave paintings. This is serious stuff, people.... my deceptively innocent thought-sharing is slowly chipping away at the integrity of human civilization as I type!

Geocaching milestone

For those who haven't heard, geocaching is my new favorite hobby. Yes, we actually got started last summer (A day of firsts), but after that first one, it took us until this summer to really get going, and now I am totally addicted to it. This evening, we placed our first cache for other geocachers to find.

Now, some geocaches are, imho, kind of boring & pointless... something someone stuck in the middle of a parking light under a lamp post just because they could - not a lot of thought in it, and not a lot of value to the finder. But I saw some really neat ones when I was caching in Ohio, though - the two neatest ones were in cemeteries... one was by a headstone shaped like a motorcycle (Dad loved that one) and one was by the grave of a Revolutionary War veteran! These were interesting! And last weekend, we went off-road geocaching on Saxon Mountain with some friends from church and found several larger caches hidden in the mountain forests. We were rewarded partway through with the ineffable views from the summit, not to mention the fun of navigating the rocky "roads" and spending time with friends.

So, naturally, I had to make our hide interesting. I was going to go for the gravesite of Baby Doe Tabor (a la The Ballad of Baby Doe), but someone beat me to it. Instead, I settled on the Melvin Schoolhouse located on the grounds of my alma mater, SHHS. In the process, I have learned so many fascinating things, not only about the school house, but about the history of Aurora - and not boring history stuff, really really cool stuff. I think our new cache adds value.

Next, Eric and I are thinking of acquiring and launching a pair of travel bugs and competing to see whose bug travels farther. :-) We are also hosting two of El's college friends from NJ next weekend and hoping to convert them. ;-) hehe.

World's Oldest Blogger Dies at 108

As an avid blogger, I thought I should post this:

World's Oldest Blogger Dies at 108
http://news.aol.com/elections/story/_a/obamas-lead-has-faded-poll-says/20080714092009990001?icid=200100125x1205783261x1200262703

The article doesn't say who has succeeded her as the new world's oldest blogger.

A tech blast from the past

I'm back in Denver now doing some "spring cleaning," and I found my old software for "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego". The box contained twelve 3.5" floppy diskettes and six 5.25" diskettes - I haven't seen 5.25" diskettes in at least 15 years! The box also contained a 1991 World Almanac and a brochure advertising Prodigy Internet Service.... anyone remember them? They were my ISP at the time. That was a pretty cool service in its day.

Back in time

This morning, Dad and I rode to my hometown for breakfast at the donut shop a few doors down from the house where I grew up. I saw a few people I knew in the old class pictures on the wall. After breakfast, we walked down the block and looked at the house. The owners, we noticed, were working in the backyard - middle of the day on a Tuesday, would you believe! So, we said "Hello, we used to live here 17 years ago," and the guy gave us a tour of the house. It has changed tremendously in 17 years - walls have been moved, for example - but many things are also quite the same, like the original 83-year-old hardwood floors and the doors with skeleton keyholes. The guy had only lived there 6 months, and all the work had been done prior to his purchase of the home, so as we went along, we told him where the walls used to be and how things had changed. It was really strange walking through my old house again after all this time - the rooms were all smaller than I had remembered them - but what a neat experience.

Then we went down to Wyman Woods and found a geocache. :-) It had a travel bug in it. My first travel bug! I'll take it back to Colorado with me and deposit it there somewhere.

Doing much better and having fun

Hi all - Happy 4th!

I'm feeling substantially better! Anything remotely acidic sets my throat aflame yet, but beyond that, I feel quite back to normal. :-)

The day I got here, I got to ride Dad's mini-motorcycle. What a trip!! Fun little thing. Thought you'd enjoy a picture.

The family here has a Wii. I'd never encountered one before. Eric and my stepmom had a ball creating my Wii Mii. If I hadn't intervened, who knows what I'da come out looking like! I've tried boxing and bowling - fun. And I'm pretty much just as good/bad at bowling on a Wii as I am in real life. But my stepsister just kicked Eric's butt, and I don't know that this would happen in real life. Interesting.

On to Columbus... not a great start.

I got into Columbus yesterday afternoon and met up with Dad & Eric. My throat had been growing increasingly sore over the last two days. My throat is absolutely raw, so anything remotely acidic makes it burn, and it hurts to swallow. Then, I spent most of the nighttime hours praying to the porcelain god. This left me exhausted and, more importantly, extremely dehydrated so that I could neither sit nor stand without becoming dizzy and nausesous. I stayed home while Dad & Eric went to the cheese factory and the winery, and when they got home, we went to urgent care where I got a liter of IV fluids to give me a good start at rehydrating. Strep test, sadly, came back negative, which means I'm fighting a virus rather than a bacteria that could be easily dealt with via antibiotic. Darnit. So, I'm glad this wasn't supposed to be a short visit. I can take some time to get well and still enjoy time with the family. Grateful this bug waited until the conference was over, at any rate.

Conclusion

Wow… I figured I’d finish up tonight with something like, “the banquet was a lot of fun, a nice finish to a great week.” Tada. But if I can find the energy to write about it all, there will be a lot to say. Problem is, of course, that I am absolutely exhausted. Why? Because I danced for over three hours.

The dinner was nice. Anticipating I would want wine with dinner, I bought a glass at the cash bar, only to find out that they were serving wine complimentary during the dinner. Oh well. We Young Leaders found each other and sat together, but it was very loud in the room, so we were limited to one-on-one discussions. I mostly talked to the guy next to me, Larry, who was not a young leader, just a friendly colleague with a lot of spunk. He cracked me up… he actually fell asleep while Marni Nixon was talking, and then when we started applauding for her, he woke up and tried to cover it up with, “she is so funny, isn’t she?” She really was, though. She told us a handful of funny anecdotes about her career and working with Liberace and Victor Borge.

After Marni Nixon, it was time to dance. The orchestra was absolutely first rate. During dinner, they had played a variety of jazz standards, but during the dance time, they played mostly rockin’ oldies. Well, that and “Play That Funky Music, White Boy.” Hehe…. Can you just see a hundred or more voice teachers of all ages rockin’ out to that? I can. I did! Hehe…. I was one of them!

It was really tremendous. When the dancing started, they added some really great rock vocalists to work the crowd. There were a few hundred people at the dinner, and at least 85% of them were on the dance floor within the first few dances. Although the crowd gradually thinned out over the next three hours, there were still a good 60-80 people on the dance floor when the orchestra bid us goodnight. The singers got us involved in the music. For awhile, the lead singer even passed the mic around for various teachers to improvise while the orchestra looped the chord progression. That was a blast. I don’t think anyone quite expected how “with it” NATS could be!

I had a lot of fun tonight. I danced with a lot of different people. Mostly, we Young Leaders danced together, but we danced with a lot of other people, too. And we finally got some group photos. It’s too bad we didn’t all get together sooner because we were the perfect group of friends when we all finally met up at the banquet. All in all, the banquet was the perfect way to close an unforgettable five days. I will be sorry to leave it all behind in the morning.