11 Days Later

The length of time between posts is often a good indicator of whether or not my life is out of control. In this case, as you can see, it's been eleven days since my last "real" post on the blog. Welcome to the asylum. We got back from Oregon on Tuesday night late and at midnight I was in Meijer restocking our refrigerator. By 8:00 Wednesday I was in the office and by the end of the day, my vacation was long forgotten and I was in need of another!

Last Friday and Saturday were TUFW's first summer orientation for this year. Thanks to some good work by my new staff, and the cooperation of others on campus, the event came off very well. Sometimes it was by the skin of our teeth but we problem-solved and stayed on our toes and it all worked out. None of us had ever done summer orientation on this campus before. One very positive thing was that we only had three "no shows" from amongst all those who signed up for registration.

Right on the heels of orientation in a feat of outstandingly bad planning, our annual Summer Honors College started on Sunday. Under any circumstances, that would have been questionable planning but it was made all the worse by the fact that--with a complete restructuring of TUFW's admissions office--the lead responsibility for both events fell on one person, whereas we originally had it split between two staffers plus someone from another department on campus.

Our theme was . . .

We weren't particularly thoughtful in selecting the theme, though I think it was a great one . . . I just went on the Church Art Works web site and looked for a t-shirt design that we liked and, voila, we had a new theme for the week.

Forty-four high schoolers from around the US (and even an MK from Nigeria) came to TUFW to take one of four classes. They were, generally speaking and overwhelmingly, a great bunch of kids. Even though the Summer Honors College program is a ton of work, having seen it in action from start-to-finish this week, I am convinced it is a great way to introduce kids to the university. As with the orientation event before it, the entire admissions counseling staff came through with flying colors to keep everything going smoothly.

Here is a video that one of our student workers made of the week. The highlight of the video is at the 4:17 mark:



Another aspect of this week was that Pam, one of Jeannette's friends from Klamath Falls (now living in Missouri), came to Fort Wayne to bring her daughter to Summer Honors College. Robin enjoyed her writing class and her brother, Brian, one of Jameson's old friends spent the week with us. Pam and her mother spent much of each day with Jeannette at our house.

On Tuesday evening, I took Jameson and Brian with me to the Fort Wayne Wizards baseball game. Brian went enthusiastically; Jameson reluctantly. We spent much money on snacks. I had to be there to present TUFW's "Teacher of the Month" award. Jameson documented the event for posterity. As you can see, Dinger was excited about the whole thing. He's pointing at a section of the crowd where the teacher's former students were cheering for her . . .
Lest you think this was a particularly impressive event for me to be involved with, you should take a look at that evening's crowd, as seen here . . .
After the third inning, Jameson, Brian and I moved from our seats in the ninth row right down to the front row behind the dugout . . .
. . . so we had pretty outstanding seats for most of the game. And, believe it or not, Jameson actually watched the entire game. One final handful of Mike & Ike candy got him through the last inning. I ended up talking with the father of one of the Wizards' pitchers, Jeremy McBride, for the last two innings and that was a lot of fun. He had driven up from Oklahoma City for the week and his son had started that night's game.

Back to Summer Honors College . . . SHC concluded last night with a banquet of sorts and most of the students' parents were there. It was a very nice end to the week. I sat with three students and it was cool at the end to hear one of my favorite girls say, with tears in her eyes, "I don't want to leave!"

From SHC, I went straight to another Wizards game. Last night was Taylor alumni night and so there were a number of Taylor and TUFW alumni and employees there. The Wizards blew the Dayton Dragons out but I stayed to the bitter end so that [a] I could chat with Jeremy McBride's dad again for an inning or so and [b] I could see the performers "Quick Change" do their act. You might remember them from that generally awful show, America's Got Talent . . .


Well, after the game, they came out to home plate and they did an act very similar to what you saw on TV, including the finale where he just throws glitter up in the air over her and when it settles, she's in a new outfit, but it was all the more impressive given the fact that they were doing it outdoors with an audience sitting at all angles. And, like the television studio audience, we gave them a standing ovation, too.

As you might gather, I basically did not see my family this week, but to give you an update, Jameson had all four wisdom teeth removed yesterday. These photos testify to the fact that he did not want his picture taken, but I wrestled him to the ground and got a photo . . .

As you can see, he's actually doing quite well. [Update on 6/29 - Not doing quite so well any longer . . . Jamey's pretty sore and grumpy now. He stayed in the house all day today and his face is a little more swollen. Still, I think he's doing better than Jordan did.]

In other family news, Phillip's glasses broke last week and so Jeannette made a trip to Sam's Club (that's what happens when you don't have vision insurance anymore) and these are the results . . .
Tonight, it's off to see the neighborhood fireworks show with friends. We've spoken with Jordan frequently in Oregon and it sounds like he's doing just fine. It'll be good to have him home next Friday. I've noticed that the house is both more peaceful and more boring in his absence.