In Loving Memory

No, nobody died. I just felt like posting here and thought this would be an appropriate topic. Prepare for some slightly mushy sentimentality...

I'm going to miss OM! I wish we were doing it this year! But then, I'm relieved that we're not. I'll actually get some schoolwork done this year, haha. Anyways, OM was great. Going to Worlds both times and placing so well was just awesome. The whole thing was awesome. We rock. Yayeth! I miss seeing you guys all the time... I'm friend deprived! I have no one to throw old catch phrases around with! Really the only advantage about not doing Odyssey, besides school, is that every time something breaks I don't hear, "Kaaaatiiiee!"

I'll survive somehow. :-)

In search of alec

So, after we arrived, we decided to go and find our stuff. (Remember that we had shipped it to them two weeks before)
So off we went. Cody and I had brought our rip-sticks, and john borrowed my scooter, and everyone else walked as we searched for Alec (our dino).
So after one wrong turn, we figured out how to read the map they had given us. So we're walking, and walking, and walking... (Okay, it wasn't that long, but it felt like it at the time) and we find the building that the map says we are competing in, and the building's HUGE! Like, it's not one building, but 5 or something hooked together. So we spent about an hour checking different doors on the building, trying to find ANY sign of odyssey of the mind. Nothing; not one single solitary sign. And the whole time we keep on asking people if they know about odyssey, and they give us this blank kinda stare like were crazy or something. So after about an hour of this, we finally give up and return to the dorms, dejected. About half an hour after we get back, the coach gets back from a meeting she went to (I forgot to mention this earlier, she was not there for any of this), and tells us that our stuff is in a parking garage next to the building. She asks us if we want to to go look for it now, and we gave kinda "our you nuts?" kinda looks, and tell her "maybe later".
so we go and eat dinner, (Cafeteria food(yum)) and afterward decide to head back to the garage for our stuff. We get there, and sure enough, there it is! not 100 feet from where we had been looking (and to just make it perfect, they had about 10 signs that would have told us where the stuff was, but they hadn't been put up yet). So we start unloading our stuff, and discover the box containing our Rube-Goldberg machines, our "pais de resistance", as it were, which were in a box labeled "Fragile, this end up", were upside down. We were thrilled (fortunately, they didn't get broken). and so then we worked for like 3 or 4 hours, untill 10:00pm (I think) then the coach drags us off our stuff and we go to the dorms to sleep. (we had been up since 4:00AM (except for me, I didn't sleep at all the night before(And to top all that, the time difference made it so we Had been up since 3:00AM their time))).
And that is how our first day went.
-bob

Polish literature

This is me and whats her face reading polish literature books that we received from the polish team (who woulda guessed?)

This is "the coach" reading a book she received from the polish team

arriving at worlds

Well, I know it's a little belated, but I thought I would post about some of our experiences at world finals.
O wow, there's a lot.
When we first got there, we discovered that you had to use a card key to do anything. So after we get the keys, but before they were distributed, we got in the elevator only to discover that you needed a card key to push any of the buttons. Unfortunately, the doors had already shut and the card keys were with the coach who was outside the elevator. so some poor kid on the fifth floor calls the elevator, and when it arrives, there we are, jammed tight into it. so then it goes back down to the first floor, where we frantically tell the coach (before the doors close) "Give us the keys!" and she does. Unfortunately, we weren't specific enough and the keys she gave us were the regular keys for our doors. So then, we get called up to the fifth floor again, and that same poor kid is standing there. then, we decide to get off on the next floor we go to, no matter what floor it may be. it turns out to be the second floor, and we think "Thank goodness, it's our floor" and we get off. Well, the coach had apparently gone up to this floor and pushed the call button, which was why we stopped there; but after doing that she went down to the first floor; so we had to send someone after her.
This whole experience would have been much less stressful except that we had all been up since 4:00AM, since we had a 5:30 flight; and so we were all sleep deprived (and I had not gone to bed the previous night, and so had been up for 24 hours).
and this is when we've been there for less than 20 minutes.
-bob

Memories of Yesterday

ok, i was just looking at the old performance pictures from this year and i almost blew out a gut when i saw the one of Galen with the beanie thing on. there's just this huge blue thing on topof his head and all it does is call attention to itself! i guess at the time it seemed like a good idea, but i'm glad we decided to do something different....

anywho, the rest of the pics are great. hope to see you guys soon!
-juliana

Video

Hello all, if you look to the sidebar to the right, under "links" there is now a link to our worlds performance, and a link to my web album, which I have uploaded TONS of pics too.

even more pics

This is our home-stay team, john got a mariachi band to serenade them.

This is our home-stay team at the beach, they had a lot of fun. (Although micoli got a massive sunburn)


This is our buddy team in front of a shop at north padre. They loved to shop.

Yum a pic...

sorry galen but this is a better pic of us and our buddy team.

More pics

This is before spontaneous, the rest of the team, (excluding Katie & me) stayed up until 4AM the night before, so yeah, they were tired, and I just started putting grass in juliana's hair.

This is us in D.C., in front of the archives


This is us in front of the white house (no, Katie didn't break it)

And this is us in front of the Washington monument.

This is us with our buddy team from Singapore, they were really nice and spoke excellent English.

I'll post even more soon, but blogger will only let me put 5 pictures per post.
-bob

Pictures

This is us ariving at the airport, it was pretty cool, and completely unexpected.

this is us in the dorms.

John gets his nails painted.

Ellie in the dorms

Opening ceremonies.

I promise I'll post more later, but right now, I gotta go.
-bob

summary of plot

Glory glory and hallelujah, worlds is over. This means that I can finally post about our script, ideas, and technical gizmo's!

Our plot is thus:

A narcissistic marshmallow preppy peep goddess (M.P.P.G.) has acquired the help of an alien race known as the mustachiens to try and abduct the dinosaur race (She wants the dinosaurs to be her subjects).
Thus begins our story. When the MPPG lands on earth with two mustachiens, they do not see any dinosaurs, so they begin trekking. After some time, they come upon a peaceful clearing (our first required technical element accomplishes the scene change, I'll go into this more later) Once in the clearing, a big ominous shape appears, in the form of a t-Rex, and the MPPG orders one of her cronies to go make it bow down to her. When the mustachien attempts this, he is eaten, and the dinosaur leaves. After unconvincing mourning (The dead mustachien was a jerk while alive) the sinister party (now down to 1 &1/2, going by I.Q. levels) decides to look for other subjects. after more trekking, the sinister party finds a pompous *** of a dinosaur, and a sloth. after some talking, the MPPG convinces the Dino (Who's an anlkosuars, by the way) to accompany her on her spaceship (flying saucer and TEACUP, excuse me) and the Dino heads off. (Technically the sloth goes too, but since he's so slow, stays behind) Then, the MPPG begins discussing the details of her plot to abduct the Dino's (Which involves an escalator) The sloth (named brad) overhears and is greatly concerned for the Dino's (Alec) safety. He starts trying to stop them from abducting Alec. But alas, they had arrived... The MPPG whips a sheet off of a "Stupendous escalator of doom" And thus begins our extinction event. Our second required technical element turns on some lights on the escalator, and starts "stairway to heaven". Then, the escalator starts and the Dino goes up it into the spaceship (Flying saucer and teacup). then there are some closing remarks, and that's it!
That is our theory as to how the dinosaurs became extinct.

-bob

The End Of Wolrds

so now that worlds 2008 is over i have no idea what to do with my free time. actually i'll most likely be catching up on my geometry (curse ye).

but i greatly enjoyed the Worlds experience; in some ways it was better than last year.
the food for the most part was better; at least the salad bar was good. as our buddy team from Singapore put it," You guys are like rabbits, just eating vegetables!" they were really sweet though. they were much easier to communicate with than last year's team.

we had a lot of fun spending time with each other (even though we've been seeing each other since September of last year!) as katie said we came up with quite a few inside jokes and catch phrases which i won't explain since it wouldn't make any sense and then it wouldn't be an inside joke anymore :)

the night before we had spontaneous (i think it was Sunday night) we ended staying up 'til 4:00 AM! none of us were really that tired and then of course ellie started getting hungry (i did too). we also had the fortunate coincidence of finding a chinese menu in the lounge which only increased our hunger, so instead we circled all the meals that we wnated to eat. we also tried to order a pizza at 3:00 but found out the Dominoe's (i'm allowed to use their name right?) onlt delivered 'til 2:00. we ended up eating Sunchips and pretzels with non-salsa and disgusting jalapenos.


yes, it is true tat i was holding a box-cutter behind my back while we were receiving the unfortunate news of our dino costume. i didn't really notice anybody elses emotions, but i do know that Galen was very distressed and i was just shooting daggers at everybody and almost committed bloody murder. luckily Galen took the knife away before i could commit said crime; which is good cuz that action probably would've gotten us eliminated. i was told later by my team mates that i had this horrible look on my face the whole time. in case you haven't figured it out, i have a horrible temper...

anywho, after performing the rest of the time went amazingly. we went into D.C. on Monday and had a great time there. we did walk for a very long time, but i think that it was all worth it. i love Washington D.C.

i am sad that it's all over, but it was a terrific experience and i know that i will never forget it. i think other people will post pictures seeing that i can't do it.

thanks for listening (i think).
-juliana

I'm the first one to post about Worlds!

ha. Ya'd think it would've been Galen, but no, I got to it first.


Anyways, Worlds was awesome! Of course. Our buddy team was great, they were so sweet. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time to spend with them (they weren't in the same dorm with us *mumbles under breath at whoever arranged that*) but the little time we did spend with them was really nice. They told us all about Singapore. Did you know that to get a drivers liscence (sp?) in Singapore you have to be 21? They seemed jealous of us, some of whom already have their permits.
Speaking of buddy teams, we did get to talk to some members of last year's. We found out that Some of them were on a team competeing against us (as soon as we learned this, we all thought "we're dead!" as anybody who saw their machinery last year would understand). Kuba-not-Cooper had split up and joined a different team (Wonderful Muses) but Schimmon, Julian and Woitech (sp?) were on the team competing against us. Woitech was their coach (!!) and they came in second AND won a Rentra Fusca. Of course none of this was surprising. If any of us were surprised, it's that they didn't win first. We got to talk to Kuba, Julian and Schimmon. Julian and Schimmon have both grown taller. I know it's hard to believe.

Now I'll actually talk about US. We had been having a good time, all ready to go and give it our best, when in the prop holding room (where we were before going on) two judges came and told us we couldn't use the gift card picks as creative use of materials.
You should have seen our faces.
They went on to say that since Alec was already being judged on "quality of appearance" he couldn't be judged as creative use of materials in style.
I was almost in tears, John was clenching his jaw so much it hurt for the rest of the day, Juliana had a murderous look on her face and was opening and closing a box-cutter behind her back.
That wasn't the half of it! Apparently the humor of the flying saucer and teacup couldn't be judged because the entire performance was being judged on humor. Same case with our second free choice, the humor of the MPPG.
AGGGH!
So they helped us twist "humor" into "irony" for the spaceship (I think we bent the rules a bit there, but hey, the judges were fine with it. They gave us the hints that led to it.) and humor of the MPPG we changed to the artistic quality of the dino on a stick. DURING all this there was a much ado over nothing as to whether or not Juliana's flip-chart-small pages thingy was a prop or not. (artistic quality of a prop in the Mesozoic Era) The time-keeper had to go get the problem captain, who, thank goodness! said that it definitely was a prop. phew! So then, after what was practically the most stressful half hour of lives (yes, it actually took that long!) we performed. "Uh-oh, a bunch of kids who just had to restrain themselves from breaking down in tears and/or comitting murder had to put on a humorous performance? ouch"
No, actually we did great! We all gave the best perofrmance we had done so far, everything worked, and the audience seemed to love it! Thank goodness for our buddy team, they gave us a standing ovation before we even started. They all stood up and shouted "GO BUDDY TEAM!" when the time-keeper announced us. I don't know about everyone else, but that definitely made me feel better.
Spontaneous went well... I suppose. It would've gone better if we had found out that there was a Starbucks in the same building as spontaneous BEFORE going in there than after. We did find it afterwards though. mmmm!

The moment you've all been waiting for...
We placed....

11th!!!!!!!!!!! Out of 46! WOO! Pretty good, if we do say so ourselves. Technically, in long-term we were only nine points away from first!
Another fun fact, the first place team was from Irondequoit, NY!
Of course nobody understands why that is so fascinating to me. I lived there! When I was like five. Fond childhood memories and all that jazz.
And yes, at the awards ceremony I cheered for every team from Connecticut who placed.

That's about all I have to say that relates to how we did and our buddy teams, past and present. There's more about the actual experience, the annoying things the boys did, the inside jokes that developed, etc. but my grandma is probably wondering why I'm taking so long on her computer so I should get off. I have no pictures, but I'm sure everybody else will post more pictures than can even load on the page.
ttfn
Katie

Worlds

Well, as worlds draws nigh, the planets align themselves and we prepare to leave.
It should be exiting at worlds for the first three days, (while we reasemmble our stuff that we shipped) we have about three or four technical componets, and all of them must be assembaleled to hairpin accuracy. And as if that weren't enough work, during packing, one of our things broke (read, I broke) and so we shipped up some supplies and are going to build a new one from scratch while we are there.
I'll post again soon (I mean it!),
-bob

World Finals - 2 Weeks!

Ha, I agree Katie - I am sooooo looking forward to chucking all of our machines and gadgets in dumpsters. Yes, I admit the stuff we've built this year is pretty amazing and all, but it's also been a royal pain in the butt. I swear, the R.G. machines are perpetually PMSing or something, they have a complete mind of their own. But in spite of all their mood swings, the machines have got us this far, so good for them.

Anywho, for our huge audience out there that consists of like, 3 people...
We packed up on Monday, which was, believe me, absolutely exhilerating. After doing some last minute rehearsals (they lasted more than a few minutes) we took everything apart, and stuffed all the bits and pieces in cardboard boxes. It's gonna be interesting unpacking everything. It'll also be interesting to see if everything comes out unscathed....

But yep, I'm really looking forward to Worlds! It'll a be nice end to the year - go out with a bang. We're leaving on Friday, May 30th at 6am! Which, for us, is the middle of the night. In John's case it's his bedtime. :) So yeah, we get to Maryland at around 10am, then we'll unpack everything. We'll have most of Friday and all day Saturday to practice, and then on Sunday we perform! I have no idea when we have Spontaneous, but on Tuesday we're going to sight see in Washington D.C., which'll be awesome, considering it's our nation's capital and such.
Oh, and we got assigned to a Buddy Team - they're an all girl team from Singapore, cool! I'm looking forward to meeting them.

So 2 weeks from tomorrow we'll be in Maryland, hooha!

General sounds of unhappiness

Sob, boo-hoo, and other general sounds of unhappiness.
my technical gizmo's are gone, oh woe is me.

...sniff...

Anyway, what will I do with my time now that I'm not fixing technical elements 2/7 (2 hours a day, 7 days a week(I'm not exaggerating)).
Hmmm...
-bob

Packed and ready to go

On Monday we packed up all our junk in boxes to be shipped to Maryland. Cardboard boxes really are delightful things.
Soon our stuff will be on the road to..... victory? Maybe. A dumpster? Definitely! Oh how joyful an experience it will be to throw that stuff away! Most of it has been a nuisance, a torture, a residing evil in our lives....
Still, in spite of the stubborn stand they take in deliberately not working, those machines have gotten us to Maryland and another Worlds adventure. So we should be grateful, right? And our fellow OMers at competition were impressed with our junk, not to mention the judges. It can be very flattering sometimes.

Still.... I DID get burned several times by the glue gun making my props...

And we DID get papier-mache all over our arms and hands...

And we DID lose function in parts of our hands from using scissors too much...


Let's just say it's a love/hate relationship.

Update

Well, not too much is happening right now.
The one technical thingie that causes the scene change change has broken again (no surprise there), the technical section of the extinction event has been consolidated, and work is progressing on everything.
I hope to post pictures of our state performance soon.
-bob

MARYLAND!!!!!

aaahhhhh!!!!! we freaking made it! i'm also still in shock that this is gonna be our second year running that we're going to worlds. when they announced our team i think i might've yelled something like, "Oh my God!", (this is according to Ellie). it was very exciting. and like katie said, there were LOTS of hugs going around (that the boys didn't really participate in), and hand shaking.

so now it's just getting all the money together for all of us to get to Maryland, lots of spontanous practices and packing up all our stuff. yayeth.

i don't know about everybody else, but i'm personally looking forward to the trip up there with great antici.......pation. it'll be really cool if we get to see our polish team from last year and catch up with them. the whole thing will be VERY exciting.

so definitely look forward to reading about our exciting trip (whoever's reding this), you're in for a treat (i guess :).

-juliana

by the way...

If anybody wants to read about our adventures at Worlds in Michigan last year, here's the link for our old blog. http://hero-om-worlds.blogspot.com/

OMG WORLDS!!!!!

AHHHHH WORLDS!!!!!!! Wow, I'm still in shock. Not because we sucked or anything (everything went brilliantly, believe it or not) but because this'll be our second year in a row competing at Worlds! Woot woot!!!! And simply because Worlds is just downright amazing.

Worlds was such an awesome experience last year....tons of unforgettable memories (So...do you grow flowers? -inside joke-). You can't move a step without hearing a different language or meeting people from other countries. We met a lot of teens from Poland last year, and hopefully we'll see them again this year (they are a brilliant team and go to Worlds regularly). I can't wait till we get to Maryland!

But yeah, finally knowing that we're going is such a huge relief. Last year we weren't expecting to go to Worlds at all, and because it was so amazing, we really really wanted to go back this year. So we put a ton of effort into it. And I mean a TON. State competition was really nerve-racking for me, I was sooo nervous (my ears were bright red :). I was freaking out the whole time that we were going to forget something (like Regionals :). But everything worked smoothly and went just swimmingly. We've worked sooo hard this year, it's such a satisfying reward to know that all that effort paid off.

So yep, expect a lot more posts soon, now that we have something we can actually post about. There's gonna be a lot of prep to do before Worlds....

woot woot!

Maryland, here we come! yeeha! We did great, everything actually worked! Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles! I'm kinda disappointed though, that the judges gave us a much much lower score in style than the Regionals judges did. It doesn't really matter though.... we're going to Worlds! *birthday dance* At the awards ceremony Ellie redefined the meaning of the phrase, "just in time". She ran in and sat down literally less than a minute before they announced 2nd place (us). After that it was group hugs galore (for us girls, anyway, while the boys shook hands in what they apparently considered manly fashion) as we celebrated. yipee!

WORLDS!!!!!!!

States finished tonight, and guess what: WE'RE GOING TO WORLDS!!!
We finished 2nd overall, first in longterm, 2nd in style, and 3rd in spontaneous.
Although, spontaneous wasn't really a fair comparison, since the team that got first got a RENATRA FUSCA for it! (A Renatra Fusca is OM's highest honor).
well that's all, hope to post more soon!
-bob

Happy April Fools

Just a few days to States! Yesterday we rehearsed several times... things seem to be working pretty well. We meet again on Friday to pack the trailer, then we're headed to Houston! Wish us luck!

how swiftly pass the days!

Almost a week until States! It seemed far away at Regionals... now the real competition is upon us! We are up against four other high school teams, some of which regularly go to Worlds. Now, the top two teams go to worlds. So we have a 66% chance. Then there is the Ranatra Fusca award. It is Odyssey of the Mind's highest award and is given to teams or individuals for extreme creativity. Winners of the Ranatra Fusca automatically advance to the Worlds tournament, no matter how the team places. Back on topic-- we've been working on our performance and our spontaneous skills all month. During rehearsals, we've especially been practicing volume ("Louder, Katie, louder!") and humor, trying to be as funny as we can and make sure that the jokes we all get are also understood by the audience. Humor is a major part of the scoring. (humor in the perfomance - 1-15 points) Our technical stuff is mostly working... hopefully all the kinks will be worked out before State. That Rube Goldberg machine has a mind of it's own and consistently refuses to work when we want it to. grrr. I have to go make sure my brother isn't trying to burn the house down... will report again before State!

sleep deprived...

...but whatever. We had a good time! Nothing worked, but it actually made the performance a little more fun. We spent most of the day walking through the school halls and around the outdoor grounds talking and being goofy. At least, we girls did. Don't really know what the guys did all day (except getting shouted at by flirty blondes), and I don't really want to know. We did well, found out what we need to work on, and had fun. I'm exhausted now, I'm sure everybody else is too, more than me. Don't you just love daylight savings?

Hey guys... goats...

Regionals Whoohoo

Hey, I'm excited, too! But I suppose I'm just excited in general.
Yeah, none of our stuff works very well, if at all, so far. But that's all ok, we're going to State no matter what. We're just going to go and have a good time. And I'm sure that whatever happens at Regionals we'll be cracking up about for the rest of the year. I'm predicting that there will be many stage-whispered Stall!'s in the midst of our performance. Haha.

So yeah, Regionals this year is kinda like a win-win situation. I'll be really happy and surprised if our stuff actually works, and if it doesn't work....well, I'll have something to laugh about.
Well, I've gotta go pack, we'll all post after Regionals.

Wish us luck!

Regionals-- two days!

I think I'm probably the only person who is excited about going to regionals, and I don't even know WHY I'm excited. Almost nothing works. Thankfully, we know for sure we're going to State, there is only one other team in our division and problem. At regionals, we'll do what we can and be on our way.... after that, one month before states to make everything work. yeehaw... At least one person will have fun in Groesbeck; my mom is a judge for the drama problem. She is really looking forward to it, she'll have a blast. She and her fellow judges might go with an American Idol theme (as in, three of them portraying Randy, Paula and Simon). That'll be fun to see.

I'll post after regionals to let our 3 or 4 readers know how we did... and I have a gut feeling it'll be a crack-up.

aaaahh!!!

12 days until Regionals! eek! We're doing a bunch of extra meetings, and hopefully we'll be finished before we all leave on the 7th. (Regionals is on the 8th, but it's a long drive so we're going there the day before) We have about half of our lines memorized.... the technical thingys #1 and #2 are not finished..... we need to practice set-up.... yeah, you can see how optimistic we are. It's hurry hurry hurry, busy busy busy, ow the glue gun is hot! However, things ARE moving along, unbelievable as that may be. Everything should be done by competition, the question is, will it all be working by then? Only time and a lot of glue will tell....

GO GIANTS!!!

Yeah, yeah, off-topic title. C'mon folks, it's the Superbowl! Anyhow, getting to the important things:

We finished painting the backdrop! It is bee-utiful! Ellie's hours of watching PBS painting shows finally paid off.

Design for one of our technical aspects is about done. The other technical thingamajiger has a frame-- forgive me, prototype of a frame. (details, details)

We counted our cost so far and found that we have plenty left. :-) And we still have to make the most expensive part of the solution. *facepalm*

Not much else to say that I can think of. Anybody with a better memory go ahead and post whatever I probably left out.

update

Hey world! Some unfortunate news-- Tim had to quit the team for so-far unknown reasons. :( Luckily, this did not have much of an impact on our solution. Cody will probably play the character Tim was to have. All the same, it's sad that Tim has to leave. Hopefully he can do OM next year.

On the sunny side: OK, well there really isn't anything I can say that is ecstatically sunny. Continuing the update...we are going to start having extra meetings to get more work done, because there is a lot of it. We are being very ambitious this year, and have a lot of elements in our solution that require a lot of time. We have an extra backdrop for certain scenes, and since it isn't very important we decided to omit it for Regionals (since we pretty much know for sure that we're going to State, there are so few high school teams). That way we have more time to work on technical aspects, costumes, rehearsing and all those other important things.

-Katie :-)

makin' progress!

Costume production is coming along beautifully! We finished most of the top half of the dino costume (it looks awesome, very colorful and shiny), Ellie is working on the alien costumes, and I'm starting to sew my dress together. About 15% of the technical aspect is completed.... not much but it's a start. We're a mite behind schedule, but then, nobody's perfect and it's not like we're not getting anywhere.

Unless anyone else volunteers, I'll post again in a week or two.

actually...

Just for the record, there IS someone who is reading this blog, or will be very soon. So don't feel totally neglected. I suggest we post more often, she's interested in starting a team someday.

Hi

Greetings and salutations!
I am sure that by now everyone who did read this blog has quit, so now I'm free to ramble.
Last Monday, we began work on my costume. It is going to turn out interesting...
our backdrop construction is complete, it's really cool, it can fold up to like, a fraction of it's full size.
we have been watching a ton of rube Goldberg videos on you tube, it's awesome!
just type in rube Goldberg machine in the you tube search box, and you get like a million results.
The. Japanese. Are. Crazy. OMG! Their machines are the neatest, tidiest, most intricate, ridiculous machines EVER!!!!
and that Doo Doo Doo Doo Dee Dee Dee, is going to drive everyone on our team crazy.
as you can see, we haven't had a very exiting few months.
happy readings,
-bob

Now I'll take the honors

Hello all,
Before I go any further, I must know: DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY READ THIS BLOG?!?
I mean, we have almost no posts, no comments, and as far as I can tell, no audience.
I'm not mad, just kind of laughing.
Anyway, just wanted to say that.
Also, although this is kind of old news, I would just like to mention that after careful consideration (Like, 5 minutes of it) we the people of the home-school odyssey of the mind team of Floresville have decided to let Timothy Munsler onto the team.
That, with all of our other team members (John Cody Ellie Juliana Katie and Bob (ME!)), we have brought our total membership to a whopping 7 people, the most allowed on an odyssey of the mind team.
And since once on the team, always on the team, this is what our roster is going to look like in till next year.
Cheers,
-bob

helloooooo

Well SOMEONE needs to post here sometimes, so I'll take the honors for the moment.

Hey non-team readers, whoever you may be! We've finished the first draft of our script, but it is likely to undergo many changes before everybody is pleased with it. Costume design is begun somewhat. We've been trying to make sure that we meet all requirements by going over the problem description. We've got some ideas for all the technical things, better let the guys, who are better at that sort of thing, sit in some comfy chairs and think about that for a while without disturbance. Our solution is probably going to include a Rube Goldberg machine, just a note. In any case, things are coming along. We're making progress every week, and that's important.


-Katie :-)

Hello

Hello, our meeting last Monday went great!
we started working on the script, and also began designing our backdrop!
-bob

Blog issues

Hey, since we can't share ideas on this blog since it's public, me and Juliana where thinking that instead of making this blog private (and depriving our attentive audience of like two people who are reading this blog), we thought that we could just create a blog separately for the purpose of sharing ideas.
-bob

amazing

Look, Galen's enthusiasm about picking the problem was such that the title of the blog magically changed. wow. So we'll spend most of next week's meeting reading over the problem with Coach and brainstorming, right? Start the creative engines, guys. We'll be having fun thinking up our EXTINCTION EVENT. (dun dun dun) Though it might take a while.
see ya'll on Monday.

THANK YOU GALEN!!!

Hi Galen. I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the all-caps headline of your last post, it really made my day. And uh...nice choice of completely random words for the title. I think they're finally starting to make sense to me now...
Anyway, I finally read the problem description, it doesn't sound nearly as hard or excruciating as last year's, so yay! I'm excited. See all you guys later!

WE CHOSE A PROBLEM!!!

Hey, just in case the title doesn't give it away we chose to do "Dino-Stories".
This should be an interesting problem since it has a lot of technicality, but also a lot of artistic points.
Just thought I'd let y'all know.
-bob

?????

hey ya'll are we supposed to print out the problem description clarification thingy from the OM website or was there an email I didn't get or something? I don't have it and I don't see how to get it online.... sorry, just confused. grr.

supplies

um yeah, i only really saved like a two things over the summer but i guess they would work.
so once we're gonna start using all the stuff i guess i'll take them.

Yum!!!

Hey everyone, I saw galen's post about a list of creative materials (Great idea galen. I'll bring stickers next time i see y'all) so i turn my head and what do i see? About 200 marshmallow peeps bunnies that i was going to use for a movie last summer but never got around to it so there just laying here. But yeah just throwing that out there.
-cody

not bad

good job Ellie! I'll be sure to bring a sticker (and a lollipop) to the next meeting. :-P I saved like two things for Odyssey over the summer. A brand-new, never-used but not needed lawnmower wheel (my dad was going to return it but Mom was like "WAIT! give it to Katie!!" they are very enthusiastic about the whole thing) annnnd something else... I think.....so guys, you'd better think of a use for that wheel cuz if you don't it'll sit in my closet for another year.

OM Supplies

Oooh guess what I did today? Give up?
I went to Walmart and bought tons of OM supplies! So exciting. I should get a sticker or something. Anyways, I got masking tape, scotch tape, super glue (yay!), elmers glue, regular and fine tip sharpies, and scissors. I think we still have a substantial amount of duct tape left over from last year (god I should hope so). So, yeah we shouldn't have to worry about running out of anything this year, as long as we don't lose it...
Oh, and I found some junk over the summer that I've been saving. Lots of styrofoam, cardboard tubes, cardboard in general...Oh, and my dad works in hospitals a lot, so I got a freaky surgical-looking outfit, too.
Ok, that's it. Oh, and about the creative materials, bravo! Excellent idea, Galen. You should get a sticker, too! See ya guys on Monday...

Hello again

Hello all, I'm back.
I was thinking (A notable occasion for me) and I thought that it might be a good idea to start making a list of creative ways to do things/creative materials.
I know that in the past, this has always been where the team I was on was the weakest, and so instead of doing like them and waiting until the last moment to try and figure out creative materials, start now so that we have some ideas.
just a thought,
-bob

hmmm....

the long term problem descriptions??? i guess just print out all of them except the balsa wood.

Quick Question

do i have to print out all of the O.M. probelms or can i just print out the one that we're gonna be working on?
please answer

O.M. 2007-08

hey all!
wow, i can't beleive that o.m. is starting up again and that it's been a whole year! i'm really looking forward to our new team and seeing what stupid stuff we'll come up with this year.
guess that's all for now

Sorry guys

Hey guys, sorry i can't make it to next weeks meeting i have to go to a funeral. please tell me what happens. -cody

hola

*GASP* WOW Galen, now I know how to use a pencil! fascinating.


Anyways, hello people! I'm very excited about OM and I can't wait to get started! We're going to have an awesome time and have an awesome solution, since of course we're just awesome in general. awesomeness yay.


-Katie

boredom

hello again, I will now take the time to explain a #2 pencil. (I'm really bored)
A #2 pencil is an object that is shaped like a cylinder, and that is typically 7 inches long before it is used.
the way that it is used is this: inside of the pencil, at the very center, is a piece of graphite that runs the length of the pencil and at one end, the pencil is sharpened into a cone, so as to expose the graphite. then, you hold the pencil with one of your hands (if you are right handed, your right hand, and if you are left handed, your left hand) and drag the tip with the graphite exposed across a piece of paper, and the graphite will leave a mark on the paper.
if the marks are arranged correctly, then it can be used to spell out letters, and then the letters can be used to make words.
pencils can come in all colors, although the most common is a yellow-orange color, and can either have 6 sides or be round.
that is all.
-bob

hello world!

Hello all,
OM has started up again, and the teams are starting up.
Ellie is "exhilarated" and happily talking about something or other...
the hero high school team for Floresville has decided upon its team members, and we all are looking forward to this year with great excitement!
hope to blog again soon,
-bob