Live Music Everywhere
From there, we split up and wandered around downtown. We walked around with Hannah and Dylan for a while, making our way through the half set-up open market. People were still setting up their wares for the day, and it all seemed like very typical street market stuff, probably all made in the same place in China.
We did stop at a tiny Jazz “museum” state park, and almost returned for jazz yoga, but I guess we forgot. Instead, we wandered further down the square and into a toy shop where I picked up a little moo can. I had seen them before and always kind of wanted one, but I finally decided to bite the bullet. Then we made our way down to the cathedral where a weird looking guy with an unexpectedly higher-pitched voice offered a “special” on palm readings. I told him we were trying to avoid the dark arts, to which he seemed to quietly and incredulously respond that it wasn’t “dark arts.” That was about the time we got called back to some students trying to get into a different jazz museum.
Summer and I left Hannah and Dylan at the cathedral to let the kids into the jazz museum. She and I looked through the mint museum on the bottom floor first, which was pretty cool. The old building was neat by itself, but seeing the old coin minting equipment was even cooler.
Once we got back to the convention center, the kids all went to shower and change for their first game. The first game was against Russellville, AL, which was funny to us, but nobody seemed to really outwardly care while we were there. We were behind most of the game, caught up to lead, and then lost on the very last question by 15 points. Then we dominated the second game before calling it a day.
I had a fried seafood platter that was good, but overall relatively unremarkable. I found myself wishing I had gotten something like jambalaya, or an étouffée, but it was alright. A couple of the kids ordered gator there and didn’t care for it, but I liked it quite a bit.
Back at the hotel, Summer, Hannah, Dylan, and I got some drinks and went back to our room to play some Mario Kart. Dylan proved to be a consistent threat, and even Summer finished in first for the first time ever. I’m really glad we get to sleep in tomorrow.
If you’re advertising a discount higher than 10%, then it’s not really discounted at all.
We finally made it to Quiz Bowl nationals trip day. Summer and Autumn went to pick up Burger King for breakfast while I got ready, and we made it to the high school to load everyone onto the bus. I ran into Ben outside the high school and told him my sick day was to meet a witch doctor from the south. We barely had room for everything and everyone, but I think they may have overpacked some supplies on the way out.
We got to the Hampton in an old part of town, but really I think all of this area is old town. It’s been remodeled with new world commodities, but the outside shells of buildings seem to be left alone. We didn’t have any time to look around or do anything but eat, but I really didn’t want to eat the Domino’s pizza after overhearing the three telephone conversations it took to place the order. Instead, I opted to use Uber Eats to order some food from a nearby place called Magasin Kitchen. I got some grilled shrimp spring rolls and something called a bibimbap rice bowl that I didn’t dislike, but didn’t super care for either. It was decent food, but just not quite what I was looking for.
Crawford and Oakland had their staff basketball game this morning. I thought it was after school, but they reminded me that nobody would show up if it was after hours. They all bussed all of their kids to the high school arena, and had a rowdy game with an eagle mascot, and cheerleaders, and everything. Ben was playing for Oakland, so I tried to get the others to join me, but nobody cared enough. I noticed pretty quickly that nobody was around taking pictures up close, so I jumped right into the photographer role again. All I had was my phone, which was pretty terrible at catching the fast motion of the game, but I did what I could. I should have tried turning off HDR to see if it improved, but it’s too late now. The game went into double overtime and ultimately they agreed to end it in a tie where nobody went home a loser. It felt like the perfect analogy for public school.
It really seemed like we crammed more people in that library than Alene had at the Center for her retirement, and it felt good. I’ve never made it to the very first part of anyone’s retirement party, so I assume it’s at least a little customary to say some words. Regardless of what normally happens, it wasn’t unlike Dale to have a story. He recalled starting his adult life in the high school library where he spoke with a recruiter that got him into the Marines. Eventually he retired from that and came back to the school district, where he had a retirement party in the same library. It seemed as though he might have started to choke up a bit, and it was sweet. I’ll really miss him.
After lunch, I went to the high school and helped Dale out by doing a stack of keyboard bezels. Then we brought two more carts full of laptops to the office and stowed them away under the bins. It was tiring, boring, and thankless work, but evidently I have to do it now. I did pull a quarter out of one of the card readers, but I’m sure if anyone from central office had seen me earn that bonus, they would have relieved me of it. At one point we did get a little bit of excitement when Paul burst into the office asking what our IP was. After some digging and looking at the snipping tool clip of a screenshot he printed on paper, I discovered he had gotten a popup regarding a reset password. I was relatively certain he was crazy, but I gave him a couple pointers and sent him on his way. He came back just minutes later and asked us to come take a look at it, and left in an audible huff when Dale told him we were too busy at the moment. I honestly think there may have been tears. It must have been remorse for not paying attention, or not having a damn clue.
We stuck pretty close to Ronda and Steven most of the evening. The girls wandered off and kind of did their own thing for a while. I took the opportunity to jump up and take a bunch of photos that seemed really good on my phone, but looking at them on a computer screen left me a little disappointed. All of the official funsquad members were content wandering around on their phones recording poor vertical videos, or streaming live to the internet. I had to try and show them up by getting into the action a little bit, and even took a few photos from behind the band. I got at least one pretty decent picture of Mark up on stage playing with the band too.
Amanda actually volunteered to drive to Plumerville today. She even picked me up at my house. There was a box turtle in the driveway right next to the garage door, so I put it inside the fence for safe keeping. We made the trip in good time, and even stopped at Love’s in Morrilton for