Bag of Randomness for Monday, February 25, 2019

  • DaughterGeeding is a third-grader and this weekend participated in her first school-related competition. I’ll be damned, she and her team came in first place and are now going to state.
    • At the beginning of the school year, a parent of a classmate approached us to recruit DaughterGeeding to be part of their Destination Imagination (DI) team. We were skeptical since we never heard of it, but after some research realized it was a legitimate and well-organized activity and agreed she could participate if she wanted to. It reminds of something I participated in back in middle-school, Odyssey of the Mind, and focuses on teamwork, creativity, and STEM concepts. Their challenge was a medical mystery.
    • Her team worked hard and spent a lot of after-school hours together. A few of us parents joked we were glad the competition was this weekend and was ready for all of this to wrap-up, none of us had any expectation for them to come in first to be eligible to go on to state competition. After all, this is the first year their school has competed in DI, as third-graders they would one of the youngest to compete (it’s open to grades 3-5), and they were competing against 12 other teams. Some of those teams were from impressive schools from some very well respected school districts.
      • Speaking of school representation, there were a lot of teams from Decatur. Wise Country was very well represented.
    • The competition was an all-day affair and it was one of those moments I looked back at my childhood and could appreciate all those times my parents sacrificed their weekends attending my events. It was held at Flower Mound Marcus High School. Just walking the halls was an out-of-body type of experience since the school shares the same colors as my high school. A plethora of high school memories came back yet, I never been inside that school before. Sure, my high school used the letters MWHS and they used MHS, but it’s all the red and black colors and seeing the phrase “Go Big Red” everywhere made me feel like I was a teen in Mineral Wells again.
    • I watched a few of the other teams DaughterGeeding’s team were competing against and was very impressed. I thought her team didn’t stand a chance and already had an idea what to say to her about how it’s important to just compete and what you can learn from losing.
    • Each team chooses its own name. One team made entirely of South Asians played off the book and movie Crazy Rich Asians and called themselves “Crazy Smart Asians”.  I thought DaughterGeeding’s team name was a little prosaic, “DI Einsteins”.
    • At the awards ceremony where the winners are announced, medals are awarded from sixth to first place. As you’d expect, they start with sixth place and work their way to first. When second place was announced, I felt bad that her team didn’t even place in the top half. But on the off chance the might win, I quickly pulled out my phone to video record their reactions if they won. And I’ll be damned, they won. And man, my back was aching after that long day and sitting in bleachers without any back support.
    • Huh, that’s now two weeks in a row I’ve posted a picture of DaughterGeeding wearing sunglasses indoors while performing at a school event. I’m making her out as if she’s a free spirit and very out-going, but I’d actually describe her as being reserved and shy. All my photos are to the contrary.
  • Jerry Jones has now owned the Cowboys for 30 years. If someone told me at the time the new ownership would win three Super Bowls in that time period I would have been very satisfied. It’s well documented that when Jerry bought the team, he had the lights turned on at Texas Stadium to walk the field and to lay down on the star on the 50-yard line. What I didn’t know until last night’s CBS11 broadcast that it cost $2,500 just to turn Texas Stadium’s lights on at the time. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $5,212 today. But now there’s a new stadium with bigger lighting, which probably operates a bit more efficiently. I reckon it’s still more expensive to turn the lights on at AT&T Stadium than Texas Stadium, even with the big HDTV turned off.
  • I think the way Jerry let go of Tom Landry was respectful. He flew down to Austin where Landry was and personally told him. I guess some people didn’t like the idea of interrupting Landry’s golf game was tactful. I think if anything, Jerry’s enthusiasm at his first press conference as the new owner looked insensitive and too giddy.
  • My pastor will retire soon. He preached his second to last sermon yesterday as the founding pastor of the church that’s been around 30-ish years. It was beautiful and most likely the one I will remember most. I’ll share more thoughts and details about it later this week.
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One Response to Bag of Randomness for Monday, February 25, 2019

  1. Lori says:

    Congrats!! Need to get you a sports bleacher seat. I won’t sit in any bleachers without them.

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