Category Archives: contest

contest, dryer, trivia, weekend

Fun and Curses

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This weekend was interesting, in the sense of “May you live in interesting times” form of the old Chinese proverb.

(If you are really curious, that phrase is reputed to be the mildest of three canonical Chinese curses. In order of increasing severity:

  • May you live in interesting times
  • May you come to the attention of those in authority
  • May you find what you are looking for

For the convoluted history, check out “May you live in interesting times” from Wikipedia.)

Saturday night was the Ninth Annual Community Caring Hands Trivia Contest. Our team was the defending champion and we won going away again Saturday. That makes if 3 out of the last 3 years and 6 of the last 8. Proof positive that we are indeed trivial. Our team consists of a CPA, lawyer, surgeon, a home schooled jack of all trades, a school teacher, and myself. The school teacher was a sub for our retired librarian – she was off at a family reunion in Lincoln and so couldn’t join us this year.

The contest is always fun and is a fund raising event for Community Caring Hands, a local group formed when we were informed that we we too small an area to support a Habitat for Humanity branch. A retired professor from the local community college presides in full academic robes. (He has written a newspaper trivia column for the last 20 years, so he has an amazing amount of trivia to hand.)  There are between 15 and 25 teams each year with each team consisting of 6 members. The master of ceremonies reads each question aloud and the teams have 30 seconds to write their answers on a slip of paper and give them to the runners when time is called. The contest is divided into 9 groups of 8 questions each, with each group concentrating on a specific broad areas. Some of the groups are Science, Entertainment, Literature, Geography, TV, etc. Prizes are also awarded for the most amusing (and incorrect) answers in each group.

To give a flavor of the questions, here are a couple that stuck with me form this years contest:

  • What was the given name of the Joker from Batman Comics?
  • What geographic feature known to the Lakota as the Six Grandfathers was renamed after a lawyer as punishment to the Lakota?
  • What astronaut flew in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs?
  • The travelers in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales were served by someone with the same title as a U.S. Navy rank. What is that rank?

(The answers are in the first comment – no peeking!)

That was the fun part of weekend. The cursed interesting part is that the dryer quit heating on Sunday. So that means that today I have it disassembled all over the laundry room to see if it is one of the thermostats or the heating element that has departed these earthly realms. Fortunately it warmed up a bit outside today and is windy and in the fifties so I could hang all the damp and wet clothes out to dry in the breeze.

Which in turn reminded me of my childhood. I can remember hanging bedding out to dry in the winter when I was a kid and letting it freeze dry. I always thought that was neat, especially going out and bringing in the sheets as the sun went down. They’d be these big stiff crackly things that expired their last bit of moisture as they thawed entering the warm house. Now that I am no longer a kid, the whole thing seems no where near as neat now.

So what was your weekend like?

bad writing, bulwer-lyton, contest

Bad Writing for the Slightly Literate

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Jenners is running a tribute game ala the Bulwer-Lytton contest of really really bad writing fame. She even has a button:


(Just click the button to find the rules and the linky to the participants.)

So forthwith and forsooth are some really really bad starts to novels from the minuscule minds of that infamous trio of writers: me, myself, and I.
It was a dark and stormy night, which wasn’t all that surprising considering that the last 9,871 nights had been dark and stormy and the forecast was for still more dark and stormy nights, continuing on into the dull and dreary evenings of the future like a foul blot upon the blackness of yet another dark and stormy night.
— It Was A Dark and Stormy Night: A Tribute to “Paul-Clifford (1830)” by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (The first novel to begin “It was a dark and stormy night.”)

Ned the Vampire had just opened his mouth in preparation for having a little midnight snack before getting on with the evenings festivities when the thought struck him like a blow to the family jewels:  a little mustard would make this one of the tastier bits he had nibbled on in the last ten centuries, ever since he had been caught roasting that pilfered pig on the fen in Scotland by that fancy schmancy Dracula feller – he really must remember to have Igor pack a jar of Grey Poupon in the cape for just such occurrences as this in the future.
—A Vampire’s Life for Me: The Adventures of Ned the Pig Man

Suzanne began to feel she might be just a little overdressed for the occasion, her overcoat with it’s fleece lining making her feel like the victim of an apache ant mound ceremony in the Arizona summer, her Uggs boots making her feet sweat and emit that certain pungent aroma, and all of it coupled with the floor length wool worsted gown that felt like it weighted a hundred and fifty pounds and was so hot that she was suffering visions of being cooked in Torquemada’s iron maiden as it heated over an open fire – why had no one told her that this was a pool party.
—Valley of the Dulls

Danny reminded himself that it was important to concentrate on the task at hand because the detonator was very delicate, subject to going off at the slightest provocation, somewhat like his wife now that he thought about it, at least every four weeks or so, it seemed, and he had to wonder if his wife was somehow involved in these bombings, because after all she did go on a bit about almost every headline in the newspaper, so maybe he ought to write a memo mentioning his suspicions and – Oh Bloody Hell, that was the fifth pair of pliers he’d dropped this week and what in the heck was that darned ticking noise that was so anno….
—The Short Life of Danny, The ADD Bomb Officer

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. — Rudyard Kipling

ASIDE (Repeat #1): I plan to remove and recreate anew the feed for this site sometime Saturday to try and clear up the reported problems with the site not showing up in dashboard and/or some readers. The problem seems to be related to having two feeds as a result of some template changes a while ago. So on Sunday (or Monday), please resubscribe in your reader after deleting the old subscription and/or if you are a follower, unfollow and then follow again. Hopefully this will clear up all the problems. Thanks.
contest, reading, service groups, youth

Youth

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My wife and I were guests tonight at the annual 4-H award banquet. As always, it was good to see the leaders and youth. It is always nice to see young people doing things well and being honored for their hard work. More on this later …

One of the pleasures of being mayor is the chance to meet and interact with some of the best youth to be found. This year was especially nice in that sense because the local community college played host to the state FFA (Future Farmers of America) convention and they were kind enough to invite me to appear before the assembled group and welcome them.  It was a great experience. 2000 bright and eager high school youth who were polite, well spoken, and passionate. Young leaders who could work a crowd better than I could ever hope to. And they listened to an old fogey like me even though their kick off dance and mixer started shortly after I spoke. The hormones were at a fever pitch. I happened to sit on the convention floor and overhear a couple of young men beside me who were laying out their plan for which young ladies to ask to dance just before my speech. It was really fun to overhear, but I have no desire to be that young and agonized about the opposite sex again. Getting a rousing round of applause from 2000 screaming kids and a few hundred other adults (whether deserved or not) is as close as I’ll ever get to being a rock star. Highly recommended if you get the chance.

I also sit on the committee of a local Boy Scout troop and my wife is on the state board for the Girl Scouts . In addition, we as a city council run a youth commission to get feedback and input from the youth of the community in a way that also exposes them to local government and how it works. We’ve been very fortunate to have some real leaders emerge from the youth commission. We hope they will return to roles in our community when their college days are over. There have been some that stand out and make you want to see their future because you know they will do great things.

In addition, we have started a program called “If I were Mayor …” in cooperation with CML (Colorado Municipal League) . It is an essay contest for students in 5th grade who write an essay addressing how they would explain/do various things if they were mayor. Each year it is a different aspect of local government. I convene a panel of myself, the city manager, and community citizens to read the essays and select the top three. We give scholarship prizes to the top three winners and certificates signed by me with the city seal to all who enter. In addition, we forward all the entries to the CML state wide contest. The four state wide winners are given scholarship grants and invited to the CML annual meeting. They are recognized and honored at an awards luncheon at the meeting. We were lucky enough to have one of our students win the CML contest last year.

What makes this all come full circle is that some of the 4-H award winners tonight were participants in the “If I were Mayor …” contest, some of the 4-H winners were youth commission members, and some of the 4-H winners were Scouts and FFA members. The one thing in common with all these events and groups is great kids working hard to reach their goals. They have fun and enjoy the journey, but they work hard and accomplish goals. They are taking steps, preparing for their future, and giving back to the community at the same time. It is so inspiring to talk to the youth and see their enthusiasm, pride, and giving spirits. A completely different picture from the group you see when you visit a prison.

(And as an aside, it is really fun to visit the elementary schools and read to the kids in the early grades. The Mayor is a mythical figure to them, so you have to work hard to live up to their expectations. Although it is a bit disconcerting when the first graders are much more excited by being read to by {*gasp*} a fireman or policeman.)