IC (part 2)

Ok, at this point I really am along way behind, but we’ll ee how we go. At the moment I’m sitting in the Admiral’s club in Charlotte Airport (NC) but I’m going to have to leave to board my plane to Fort Lauderdale in a few minutes.

So I think I’m up to Thursday, I don’t think anything of note happened the previous night at the appreciation dinner, except perhaps for the first time and bid on something at the silent action and managed to win. It’s a YETI, FPSPI 50th anniversary cocktail shaker. It wasn’t cheap, but the money we spend is for a good cause, and I did need one. Now I just need to get the Bailey’s to make the cocktails (hopefully duty free on my way home).

So Thursday morning was the opening ceremony. It was pretty good – not too long and a couple of good performances including an Australian violinist. I didn’t really connect with the keynote speaker, I didn’t find him that engaging, but a lot of other people thought it was good, so maybe it was just me. Here’s a couple of pics from the opening ceremony.

After the opening ceremony I when to have lunch with Suz and Cheryl (another AD) – we went to McNutt dining – where all the students were eating. Then it was back to Union St Centre for our evaluator meeting. As usual there was a lot of discussion over the FS, especially about the FSP this time! The FS was pretty good – it was very clear on where it wanted you to go, which did theme to some teams just restating the charge and not doing much else, but there were some good UPs.

After the meeting we had a bit of free time, including time to get dinner so I drove round the corner to Forest dining as I missed the transportation there. After dinner it was shout out time, I was doing Seniors, no real problem there. Ann and I raced through ours pretty quickly. Then it was time to start evaluating, they said packets were bigger and I guess they were in the sense that I had two booklets of teams (no individuals) but I only had 14 booklets in total, which was better than what some people had. We had till 4pm on Friday to get the done. So I evaluated, slept for a few hours and evaluated more. When I was done Emily & Kyla asked if I could do another booklet which I did. Then I had a nap! For the first time in 3 years I actually had the time to go to the CmPS fair, but I napped for a bit too long and then I drove over there I couldn’t find any parking.

After that failed attempt I came back and made a start of my MAGIC booklets, but quickly decided I would be more productive in the morning, so I had an early night. Booklets were due at 2, so after that I had another nap – are you noticing a patter? Then I went and had a drink with Suz & Anne, before we went to dinner and then to the variety show. My usual Saturday night duty of supervising the dance happened, this year was probably easier because Paige & I didn’t have to DJ. We did take requests, but a lot of them didn’t get played, but in general the music was good. (I have a lot of videos from the dance, but I only took one photo!)

After that it was back to the Union St Center and join in with the post evaluation party – I always end up getting to bed too late after this, but it’s part of the fun of IC. I had a good 30 seconds of being April’s MVP because I ’accidentally’ opened a bottle of red wine so we could have more drinks! I made it to be, probably around 2 pm. The next morning I was up and off to the closing ceremony. Nothing too exciting, an Australian Junior Team one the action plan presentation so we got to see them perform that and there were generally some good results from Australia. Thankfully that ended early so Suz didn’t have to leave before it was over. Then it was time to pack & leave. This took me a while to work out what I had bought and acquired and how to pack it all, but within an hour I was all sorted and headed off to Louisville.

(I’m currently on my flight to Fort Lauderdale but I’m going to end here because I only have two minutes of free internet left. I’m slowly catching up – my Kentucky adventures come next.)

I’ll add one more picture I took at IU, including cool clouds!