Had a little ice cream cake with Nana last night. Tonight the big party, a sleep-over of 10 girls. Whee!!
Tonight, in lieu of cake, Charlotte decided to have the chocolate fountain.
My 60th Celebrations!
Decided to keep the 60th a small celebration (unlike the 40th & 50th). Had dinner with some close friends last weekend. Note the beautiful orchid arrangement Dawn made (and small bouquets for each lady). Kenny, I do look much better when pictures are taken out of the sunshine, don’t I?
Dinner on my birthday was at Dawn’s. Reid was sick, so he went to bed early. Blake helped Mommy decorate…he especially loved the balloons and the Mickey Mouse cake.
Shannon put together a little book of “60 Things I’ve Learned from My Mom”. Some were pretty standard things a mother should teach a child i.e., “Patience”, “Work Ethic”, “Pride” etc. Some were things our mother taught us i.e., “Kill them with Kindness”, giving people the “Benefit of the Doubt” etc. Some things were applicable to just us i.e., “The Fall Family Lazy Gene – it does exist and I’ve taught her how to combat it”, “How much she loves Mickey Mouse cakes”, “How to pronounce things correctly – The ‘Mary’ test is a perfect example”, and of course “Family – Nothing matters more”.
It was a great birthday and would only have been better with all of you here. We got close on Christmas…we need to keep trying!
Updated software
The next time you go to enter a post, things might look a little different. That’s because I’ve updated the WordPress software which runs the blog. Everything should still be pretty straightforward but use the help function in the right sidebar if you have any problems.
Happy Birthday Sweet Sixty
MARILYN, THE UTAH FALLS HOPE YOU HAVE A FANTASTIC SIXTIETH.
IT’S NOT ALWAYS EASY BEING THE SECOND SIBLING.
THE SECOND CHILD FOLLOWING SOMEONE AS CONFIDENT AS LARRY.
THE SECOND PRETTIEST CHILD (FOLLOWING GARY).
THE SECOND SMARTEST (FOLLOWING KENNY).
AND THE SECOND CLASSIEST (STEVE & RONNIE TIED FOR FIRST).
BUT MARILYN, YOU ARE SECOND TO NONE WHEN IT COMES TO LOVE AND DEVOTION TO THE FAMILY.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
KENNY, LISA, ELLIOT AND NATALIE
$7,490,133.87
Props to the kids for setting a new record for dollars raised topping last years number by $800,000.
The total is unveiled to the dancers at the end of the marathon when the cards in the above photo are slowly raised from right to left – thus the million dollar digit is the last to be shown. Usually, everyone has a pretty good idea what the last figure is so it’s not really a shock.
This year was different.
There was a real concern that THON wouldn’t be able to top last year’s $6.6 million number. In fact, a lot of people didn’t even think they’d be able to make it to $6M. When the 490,000 number was displayed, I’m sure that most people thought that they had probably come up short. I’m sure that some even thought that the last number would be a five. When the seven was lifted up the place went absolutely bonkers. No one expected a dollar figure that high.
I’ll post video of that moment when I can find some.
Here’s the video:
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Shot of the dance floor with an hour remaining:
THON 2009
This is my annual post where I talk about the Dance Marathon that the kids at PSU put on every year. It’s the largest student run philanthropy in the world. Last year they raised over $6 million dollars. Given the tough times at the moment, getting that much this year will be a real challenge. All the monies go to fight childhood cancers, hence THON’s rallying cry FTK – “For The Kids”.
Here’s a live link to what’s going on at the Bryce Jordan Center Arena on campus. I’ll probably head up Sunday afternoon to hear JR and Natalie perform – they are traditionally the last band to play for the kids.
THON 2009 Webcam
Rather than rehash what I’ve written before, here are some links to the old posts that I’ve made.
– THON 2007
– $5,240,385.17
– Capping my THON Coverage
And here’s a good clip that summarizes what it’s all about.
I could have been on TV
Missed out on a great opportunity today. PSU played Wisconsin in a Sunday afternoon hoops game covered by the Big Ten Network today (unfortunately, we played terribly and got beat). My standard routine for a basketball game is to TiVo it and come back and watch the game afterward.
Another standard routine of mine used to be to get up at half time and walk around the arena to stretch my legs. For most of this season I haven’t done that because walking up (the arena is sunken) the 30 some steps from my seat to the concourse was just exhausting. However, within the last two weeks I’ve resumed my half time exercise routine.
So after the game I come home and am watching the game replay. Just as the second half is about to start, the TV camera gradually zooms in on the fans behind the Wisconsin bench. They zoom all the way down to one fan who is standing by himself as the announcers talk about him. It was two time US Open champion Andy North who is a HUGE Wisconsin basketball fan and catches as many games as he can. The cameras zoom in so far that the only thing that fills the screen is Andy’s upper torso and the two empty blue seats behind him – my seats.
I was literally seconds from sitting back down. Blown opportunity to get some TV face time.
I’ve talked about them a lot
I thought you should get to see, and this time, hear them. I stumbled across this YouTube video of JR and Natalie recorded at the Cafe 210 on New Year’s Eve.
I kind of hoped that I might be in the video somewhere because New Year’s Eve was actually my first real night back out in public. Shortly after I got out of the hospital, I made it my objective to make it to the band’s New Year’s Eve show and I did (even if I did run out of gas and leave shortly after midnight). Unfortunately, I didn’t make an appearance in the video (or at least a visible appearance). I was actually standing on the other side of the state almost directly opposite the person with the camera so I’m somewhere there hidden in the shadows.
Here’s another clip from a night that I wasn’t there.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the videos.
My Groundhog Day story
Back in the early 70’s a few of us here at PSU got a great idea. Â We decided we’d celebrate Groundhog Day with a party and a trip to Punxsutawney. Â Feb 2nd fell on a Friday that year (which with a little quick internet research tells me that the year was 1973). Â About 30 of us signed on. Â One of the guys was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and he arranged for the use of the fraternity party room. Â We also chartered a bus from the local bus company.Â
One keg rental and we were good to go. Â The party started about midnight and went until about 3:30 AM when the bus showed up. Â We all piled onto the bus, dragging the keg with us and headed to Gobbler’s Knob.
Punxsy is about 80 miles from PSU but in those days it was all back roads and probably well over a two hour trip. Lo and behold disaster hit us about 45 minutes out when our bus broke down. We had to wait almost an hour before a backup bus was located to fill in for the disabled one (rounding up a bus and driver at 4:30 in the morning evidently isn’t the easiest thing to do). With that delay we knew it was going to be a close call as to whether we would make Phil’s appearance or not.
Sure enough we got to the Knob just in time to see everyone come pouring down the hill. Amazing no one seemed to mind (probably a result of the alcohol). On to phase three of the escapade – the Punxsutawney Country Club where we had reservations for the annual Groundhog Day Breakfast and where we got to meet the Groundhog Day Queen. We were treated like royalty by all the Punxsy folk – this was well before the movie and before it became a really huge deal to head to Punxsy – they thought it was great that a group would come all the way from State College.
Despite the amount of alcohol that we all had consumed, we were all on our best behavior and there were no incidents (I honestly don’t think we could do the same in this day and age – not to sound like an old fogey but every weekend here I see kids that just don’t know how to handle their alcohol). However, by 10:00 am or so, we were all pretty much exhausted. Word came that it was time to go and we all piled back onto the bus.
The ride back to State College was pretty quiet as the whole crowd tried to grab some shut eye. We pulled into State College and exited the bus in front of the fraternity house. I was at the back of the bus and was the last one off. Waiting at the bottom of the bus steps was my friend Chuck Gambone, who was basically the driving force behind the whole trip (Chuck was in grad school but worked part time for a travel agency during football bowl season so he knew all the ins and outs of making the trip arrangements).
Chuck’s first words to me were “Where’s GW?” (GW was Chuck’s roommate). I looked at him inquisitively. He repeated “GW. Wasn’t he in the back with you?” “Nope” was my answer. A little bit of panic spread across Chuck’s face at that moment as he realized that he had left his roommie in Punxsy.
We later found out that GW had gone to the bathroom just as we all piled onto the bus. When he came out he initially thought that we had just pulled the bus away for a bit to pull a joke on him. It wasn’t until 10-15 minutes passed that he realized that we really had left him behind. There weren’t any cell phones in those days so he had no way of alerting us to the problem.
Chuck was really upset but didn’t really know what to do. He figured he’d better hurry home guessing that GW would probably be calling often. Chuck raced home, walked into the apartment and was promptly greeted in a not so friendly manner by GW who was already home.
Fortunately for GW, his new Punxsy friends had taken good care of him. As soon as they realized that he’d been left behind they took him over to a table where the local Punxsy morning radio personality was doing his show. The host relayed the story about GW being stranded and asked his listeners if anyone was headed to State College that day. Within minutes someone had called in and offered GW a ride to SC. He actually wound up beating the bus home.
Chuck still lives in State College and whenever I run into him around this time of year, we have a good left about the failed Punxsy trip.