James my son and his partner Sam above at the start of their competition in 3D animation and visualization at the National Competition in Kansas City Missouri.
This is them after working 8 hours on their project (this might have been another day, he can't remember, but I will assume they are all smiles because they did a great job).
Jared and I watched the awards ceremony on TV (internet telecast) when they got to the announcements for his competion we watched as they read off the bronze/silver/ and then gold.
What is the first thing Jared blurts out??
LOSER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then he ran out of the room to play. I don't agree with little brothers assessment of the results (Jame's name was not read), we later found out he placed 11 of 33 groups in his competition. James is taking it in stride. The group last year that went from his school (he won second in state last year) placed 19th last year. He and his partner Sam placed 1st in state and got gold medals so they are winners in all of our books.
For any that don't know my son James has been diagnosed with Aspergers, which is a high functioning Autism. We paid about $800 to send him to nationals. Before he left I asked him to take his camera and make sure to take some pictures. He argued that he does not think their would be a single thing in Kansas City that he would want to take a picture of. I told him for $800 bucks I expect him to take some pictures. When he got home the only picture on his camera was a picture of a dead frog. He told me it looked interesting. Some times I want to bonk him on his head. (He for example did not even copy what he turned in, so I can't even show you what he did). The above pictures at the competion were from Sam's camera.
I took him to dinner to celebrate (his being a LOSER as Jared says). He talked a little bit about his roomies at the motel (they stayed 4 to a room). Two of them were in a competition in video and they were doing some video and had 48 hours to work on it. They were stuck on how to end their film, when James suggested that they could have some one dragging off a dead body (something about zombies, what do you expect from teens) Any way he got to play the part of the dead guy that got dragged away.
Any way they won 3rd place so he is a winner after all. Just as a dead stiff.
I finished quilting my quilt tonight here is a sneak peak from the back. It is right now in the wash and will try to get some pictures Friday or Saturday of it and post its finish.
In the mail today I got a block from a swap partner, it looks great, thanks.
And lastly for today, my wife spent her first full week back to work (acutally almost two weeks now) but this is her week one check. Yep they paid her 1 cent. I think I can afford to hire her at that rate. (It should be noted that our medical insurance comes though her work and after 3 months of insurance and not paying for it, they took it out of her first check, thus leaving a silly penny that they direct deposited into our checking account. Thanks, we will try not to spend it in one place.
