2010 Week 9

Sunday

Chef-son, aka Ice-carver-son, ended a two-day competition, the Nationals (National Ice Carvers Association) and was awarded silver medal and fifth place. Here is one final photo (Courtesy of Ice Alaska) of the Chimney Sweep.

 

Monday I was visiting a friend in the hospital, picked up the Muncie paper, opened it and on the second page, there was mentor Michael of Team 1720 with the  little robot at the annual scrimmage. Eleven FIRST robotics teams from around Indiana showed up to practice on a playing field before the six-week shipping deadline Tuesday.

As it turns out, they (mentors and students) spent most of the day Monday and through the night fixing and finishing then packing and crating their ball-gathering-and-kicking robot that can operate equally forward or backward and is appropriately named Palindrome.

Tuesday, besides being catch-up-on-sleep day for Mike, it was writing day for me (big assignment due Wednesday), so no 'clean-desk-photo' this week. However, you may remember that last week I asked a question about the poster of Garfield. Only one person responded, Sara! And she had to search the internet for an Argentine beverage. Someone else asked for the answer so here you have it, a free cultural lesson. The beverage is called mate. Technically speaking, mate is the gourd that you drink out of and yerba mate is the special tea that is only grown in that area of the world (Paraguay, Southern Brazil, Northern Argentina). In this photo you can see a variety of the special drinking cups made of various materials: wood, leather, bone, gourd.

 

Sara won a mate, a bamboo straw, instead of the typical metal bombilla because that is all I have, and a package of yerba.

Wednesday, and most other days, the most watched winter Olympic sport in our home this time was...curling!

We also follow closely the regular webcam updates of the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, Alaska. Chef-son's second competition ended Thursday. This was a single-block, two-man, two and half day event.

"Chasing the Wind" (Photo courtesy of Ice Alaska.)

  

And what is this little creature that scurried about on our deck?

Early this morning, Mike left with several cycling club buddies, for two weeks of intensive biking in Georgia and Florida. All part of training for an upcoming event in the Pyrenees.

After dropping him off, I decided to stop by the DIL's on the way home and visit with my consuegros who are spending the weekend with their daughter.

Sweet couple, don't you think?