UIL chess puzzle

Elliot placed 3rd in the district (without ever practicing at home) for third grade UIL chess puzzle.

First place in UIL chess

In the district UIL competition, Elliot took first place in the category of "chess puzzle solving," representing the second grade for her school. The process began months prior when she had to compete against fellow second graders within her school for the opportunity to go to UIL. Only the top kids were selected.

I'm not sure how many kids were in her division but there are twenty elementary schools in the district. The top eight kids of each category were awarded a medal (4th - 8th) or trophy (1st - 3rd) so I'm assuming there were a lot of kids in her group.

Needless to say, I'm super proud of her.

Pandemic

The pandemic is over!

Rodeo art

Oops!... I did it again

(photo from USA Today)

Actually we did it again, as in Lynn and I. We were responsible for the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series and consequently the Astros getting knocked out (oops!). This makes it the third time that after we attend a professional sporting event (not in Houston), that team will subsequently win the championship for that season. The other two occurrences happened with the 2014 Seattle Seahawks and the 2016 Chicago Cubs.

Houston SeaPerch Regionals

Last weekend Jacob and his team competed at the SeaPerch regional competition. SeaPerch is an innovative underwater robotics program that equips teachers and students with the resources they need to build an underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) in an in-school or out-of-school setting. This is only his second year of doing a robotics program, his first time being three years ago in elementary school where they did pretty well. Regionals had around a hundred teams from all over the area and only four spots would be given to teams to advance on to the national international competition.

World Series champions

The Astros won the World Series! But you already knew that. That was the best series ever (a totally non-biased opinion). So many ups and downs. One aspect of the game that I like is that it's not over until it's truly over. Two outs and two strikes in an inning... it's not over. Down a few runs in the 9th inning... it's not over. It's really nerve-wracking... but that's what made it great. But the best part, the whole family really got into it.

BJJ competition (Austin, TX)

Last weekend I participated in my first ever BJJ competition, the IBJJF Austin Open. If you want to compete, IBJJF tournaments are the ones you want to do. It's bigger and more organized. The way it works is that you compete against someone of similar rank (white belt), weight (light-feather division), and age (36-40 years old). This was the first fair fight in a long time since I'm always up against giant monsters during training.

Championship guaranteed

(photo from Chicago Tribune)

That should be our slogan. Lynn and I are the ultimate good luck charms for major sporting teams that's not in Houston. It first began in 2013 when we attended a Seattle Seahawks game and they subsequently won the Super Bowl that season. Then this year we went to a Chicago Cubs game and they won the World Series! Great game. Great series. I'd like to think we were responsible for ending their 108 year drought.

Cashing out... in meat

This weekend I finally cashed in on the muscle ups bet with my cousin Jon. The bet was for Killen's steakhouse (awesome) but I decided that I'd rather have Killen's BBQ instead (also awesome in their own way). Recently they got recognized as one of the best BBQ places in the country. Good for Killen's but bad for us. Now it's going to get even more crowded. Damn tourists! :(

Robotics tournaments

A couple weeks ago Jacob had a robotics tournament at his school, which was composed of third, fourth and fifth graders from different schools around the area. And from talking with the teacher that organized the tournament, this was the first year they allowed third graders in the competition. That makes sense, may as well get them started early. There were 18 teams competing and the top four teams would move on to the final rounds.

Muscle ups!!!!!

Wedding, water and weigh-out

This past Memorial Day weekend was non-stop action. It was fun but very exhausting. I think I have finally recovered and it's Wednesday... and I just woke up from a nap... and I'm drinking coffee. So I'm good, for now.

Memorial Day weekend

As bad as it sounds, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Memorial Day are the shopping deals to be had. It began Saturday morning when we cruised around our neighborhood scoping out the garage sales we looked up the day before. We got several kid books for a quarter a piece, a giant dinosaur puzzle for $2, and my favorite buy of all, an old-school TV for $5. No remote control here... you need to physically turn the dial to change the channels. Classic. My other steal was the patio furniture set that I got for $400 off the original price (more than 50% off). I was quite excited since I was going to purchase it when the price initially dropped $200 but decided to wait for this weekend. Boy it paid off.

Winning!

Charlie Sheen and I have one thing in common and that's winning. I weighed myself yesterday morning and I was at a slender 140 lbs, which means I won Bet #3 (check out the weight loss page) and the two losers have to wear super-tight scrubs for an entire shift. But the problem here is that I no longer work at Memorial Hermann so cashing in on this bet is going to be a problem... but I'm going to make it happen.