Day One of Competition

It was a very early morning for the students, because it was Day One of their competitions (above is another photo of the gang from opening ceremonies.) I dropped Matt and Josiah off - at 7:30 am, from there it was totally hands off for the instructors. Matt and Josiah are competing in Audio production - today was their day to gather all the audio they need to produce a one minute promotional spot. The students have no idea what the spot will be about until the arrived at the competition. This year they chose to have the students produce a spot for the Techspo (the big Expo here at the Skills Conference.) They had about 5 hours to explore the Techspo and record all the audio they needed. They will head back tomorrow to edit.

Today we also had three new arrivals to our St. Clair TEC cohort. Alex Super, St. Clair and Bob McLain, Yale were competing at the Ford AAA National Contest in Dearborn - since Sunday. Bob also won the state competition for Master Mechanic, which made him eligible to compete at the SkillsUSA nationals here in Kansas City. Alex is competing in a new contest for Mobile Electronics - so they competed in Dearborn until last night and then flew out very early this morning to Kansas City. Today was a very busy day for them - they had to get acquainted with the area, get their rooms and head to meetings to learn about their contests.

Nick Shepley, Port Huron spent the day competing in the Precision Machining contest. His contest is very intense two days of competition. We will be sure to give you a full report when Nick's done with the contest. I will be headed to the contest floor to take pictures with my camera tomorrow.

Craig Wilder, Yale and James Quandt, St. Clair competed in the Mechatronics contest. I will have more information about this for you tomorrow - after I speak with Mr. Timmerman.

Tonight I ran the world's hottest 5k - the temperature was in the 90's - however with the humidity (and trust me Michigan's most humid day does not compare to Kansas City) it felt like 100 degrees. I had a lot of fun running - I am not a fast runner - so the back of the pack is where it is at to cheer and have fun. We ran around the World War One Memorial and Museum. We finished at the steps of the memorial. This was the first year of the race - so we will cut them some slack - but if there could have been a course that was all up hill - this was it. And there was only one water station and it was a half mile from the finish - which was also out of water when I arrived. So I am sure they will read the blog here - because the world is following us - so my advice next year - MORE WATER!! (The picture is from our hotel room - the race was just about over - I didn't run with my camera - so this was what was left when we got back to the hotel. )

But the hot hilly run worked up quite an appetite - even for my students that didn't run. But we headed out to a Kansas City Favorite - The Cheesecake Factory (you may have been to the one in Chicago.) The name is ironic - yes they have fabulous cheesecake however you rarely have room to eat it at the end of your meal because the portions of food they serve is so enormous. Just take a look at Josiah and his burger - it took him a while to figure how to get it in his mouth. The picture below is before he added the bun on top of the burger. Needless to say - he walked away with a very full to go box.