3rd @ MindSay

The course of my life has changed drastically since leaving college. I did not leave my joke of an institution with a degree. Due to the fact that i changed majors, and had an advisor that hated me, I went for five years and couldn't afford to go back for my last semester to finish out my degree. What does that leave a debt ridden 23 year old to do? Move back in with mom and dad and find a job that will at least pay for the bills. So now i've been stuck in a small manufacturing town in the middle of nowhere pennsylvania, working for a boss that is proud to say he went from graduating third from last in his high school class to being a third shift supervisor at a factory. You have to swallow a lot of things when you and everyone else around you knows for a fact that you know more about business management than every other person in that building aside from the owner. During our "meetings" I spend my time rifting through the smoke the higher-ups are blowing up everyones ass while I count the number of things they are saying or doing that I learned in college are fundamentally wrong. ( the highest count I had was 17, the lowest was 12) The only good thing to this is the fact that my supervisor realized my talents and has put all of this onto my yearly evaluation. THis evaluation will take place sometime next week, and will consist of myself, my supervisor and a manager of the company. Heres to hoping that things go my way.

I won't say we did excellent at our first TKD tourny but we did really well for being one of the bigger Regional Tournies in our area!

 

Hell there were ppl all the way from FL that showed up outside of Omaha to the Tourny!  It doesn't suprise any of us that we had ppl down from MN, ND, SD, IA or even up from MO, KS, and AK.  But it did shock a lot of folks that we had folks from FL, CA, OR, GA, and a couple from CO!  Why the FL one shocked us over the West coasters and the GA folks, is because the person was a lil 7 year old 1st Degree Black Belt!  I even talked to his mom (sittin next to each other during the Adult and Tiny Tot's BB competitions before opening ceromonines!).  This lil boy's mom flys him all over the states for TKD tournies!  This weekend they were of course in NE, last weekend AJ (my assistant instructor) saw him in St. Paul, MN and the weekend before they were in NE again at a smaller state Trouny!  Must be nice to be 7 years old and being flown all over creation by parents with money!:P  I don't begrudge them doing that but I'll be dayumed I fly anywhere for a tourny unless my kids eventually make it to one of the big ones out in Las Vegas.  Even the World Championship ones we won't ever fly too!  That is only down in Little Rock!

 

Anyway, AJ is waiting on BB point standings to be released Monday morning to see if he made it to the World Champinship (Only those in Leadership Status can collect points and go on to World Championship or get any State Championship or REgional Champsionship).  Mr. G (his first tourny also) placed in the BB also with forms and got a Victory Medal (basically 4th place -they only place 1-3) on his weapons. 

 

The kids and I weren't up till after opening ceromonies.  Which by the way was kick ass KEWL!  Master K not only owns the Bellevue NE school (outside of Omaha) but owns 3 other schools in NE also, so they of course always host regionals and he went out of his way this year because they got some High Ranking Masters to help judge this year.  A 1979 Triple Crown NE State Championship and World Champioinship Woman (can't remember her name) who is also on the ATA Board of Directors was there, along with the Current 7th to 9th degree Master who is currently the Triple Crown Holder for World Champioinships and one of the retired World Championship Head dudes that helped our Founding TKD Org and TKD Style Master Lee with some of the forms was there.  They were all there to help judge!  Not to mention a few other high ranking TKD folks who were helping to judge.  Then for opening ceromonies after all the chitter that irritates ppl, they had a Korean group come in and did a whole Korean Dragon show with 4 dragons.  It was AWESOME!

 

I managed to watch all of DeLaney's section and she did EXCELLENT for her first tourny!  A Victory Medal (again 4th place) for forms and a 1st placing in Weapons out of 5 girls.  She was the only ranking in her group.  All the rest were higher ranking and a total of 8 girls ages 8-10.  Sparring will come as we do more torunies.  I didn't get to watch Coltin's because my section was called up and gettin started at the same time Coltin's was.  So i relied on DeLaney to take pictures for me.  Coltin also did EXCELLENT!  He got a Victory Medal for 4th place in forms and got 3rd in Weapons out of 4 or 5 boys.  There were three other boys the same ranking as he was and a total of 15 boys ages 8-10 that he had to compete against.  Alas though Coltin wasn't able to spar.  The ignorance of a Mamma and not knowing that lil boys had to have a cup.  First who would have thought at that age group they require a cup.  They have really nothing there:D  So the judge (4th degree Dan) helped calm him down by letting him be the offical score keeper (usually reserved for BBs) and told him not to get mad at me cause us Mamma's don't always think of those things and just to have Daddy take him cup shopping before our next tourny!

 

There was about 10 of us women age grouped from 17-39 because there was only 3 girl for the 17-20 age group and the rest of us were the 30-39 age group.  So instead of putting those 3 women off by themselves they just lumped them with us.  Only two women did weapons (me and a higher ranking woman) and of course there was only 1 other woman at my rank and the rest of the women were either two ranks ahead of us or clear up to the rank below black belt.  I did pretty good if I must say so!  I got a Victory Medal (4th place) for forms, and the other Blue Belt Rank lady that didn't do weapons and the other Camo Rank (my rank) also got the Victory Medal, so in other words we tied for 4th place and since they only count 1-3 we didn't have to do what is called a Form off:P:D  The other blue rank and I were the only ones that did Weapons.  She got first and I got second.  I didn't get to watch her form beause I was running over to Coltin's matt but EVERYONE said I got jipped out of 1st because I may have had my chucks do something funky twice, she dropper her weapon twice.  The other Camo belt ranking goes to the same Academy as the Blue ranking women who took first and said she is either sleeping with the instructor or doing some massive kiss ass because they both started at teh same time and the Camo belt lady is right were she needs to be at and the other lady is two rankings higher then her now.  Plus the 2nd Dan judge (Dan is the degree of black belt) is one of their Academies sister school instructors and Camo woman and the other ladies think that is why the lady who got first in weapons got it.  I didn't see her weapons form and I dont' care.  I placed!:D  Again I did good in sparring didn't place but it was our first tourny and the judge even said once I get some things down I am going to be a force to be reckoned with because I don't just do kicks or just punches I do a lot of combos!

 

They were doing closing ceromonies by the time Coltin and I were done and getting changed and we were getting complements left and right on how well we all three did!  The Triple Crown Lady went up to DeLaney and told her she was really impressed with her form and gave her a few tips to clean it up before testing and our in school tourny.  Coltin's judge and the Men's Triple Crown Current Champion both told him he did great and the guy took Coltin up to another tourny matt and showed him what he could do to improve both his form and his weapons!  I had the head guy that was retired and on board of directors show me a couple of arm and hand positions to help my sparring and complement all three of us and said that he is hoping to see us at some more tournies and asked why we weren't leadership yet.  That he was watching all 3 of us all day long because he sat near us, and was really impressed with not only how well we did but how the kids and I were NOT shy and talked to EVERYONE and even helped out others in our postion of being first tourny.  And he asked Coltin's judge  if she would please find out why we weren't leadership.  Coltin's judge is testing at World Championship with our insturctor for their 5th Dan BB and when I explained that I had leadership i just haven't taken it yet cause my kids didn't make it to open try outs and now have a invit try out after our in school tourny, the Host Master popped in and told Coltin's Judge (guess she is going to be at our tourny helping) to tell our instructor to get us in Leadership ASAP so we can start earing points!

 

Over all we did REALLY good, and I am proud of my kids.  They went in to have fun and that is what they did!  Sure they placed in weapons but that wasn't the goal.  The goal was to get some experenice in and I delibreatly choose a BIG tourny to do it so they would get over the nervousness and here they both placed!  We all are on a Marital Arts high today!  It was late by the time we got out of Bellevue into Omaha and I decieded NOT to stop anywhere for food and we picked up Micky D's in IA before crossing BACK into NE on our way home, so we are going to the Olive Garden today for a celebration lunch!

 

I'll post pictures later (sorry none of me cause I was the only parent there to manage my two!) and wish us luck on preparing for our next rank testing this coming Saturday! 

Now if you all don't know what the Iowa Basic Skills Tests are let me do a really brief explanation.  Now mind you I once took these for MANY years as a student and now I am dealing with them as a parent so it isn't going to be a good defination.

 

Iowa Basic Skills Tests:  A bunch of tests that mean jack shit and wastes time for the students and teachers.  And in some cases stresses the poor child out that they get literally sick.

 

DeLaney took her first Iowa Basic Skills Tests today.  I am not worried about her because she doesn't worry about them because RAndy and I hammered it into her head that some kids test well others dont' and to fuck it all!  All these tests do is see where your 3rd grade class is compared to other 3rd grade classes.  Kind of like those bogus ass tests you took down in TX.  I think they were called Task or something like that.  Same principal. 

 

I am proud of my girl.  She went in ready and willing to test just to get it over with and even went around to her classmates stressing and said dont' worry!  They aren't going to kick you out of third grade (her lil friend Casey thought if she did bad they would move her back to 2nd grade) and your not going to get in trouble if you get a lot wrong or even all of them. 

 

Even as a 3rd grader and taking these bogus ass tests the majority of my public school presence, I still HATE them with a passion.  I don't care I always ranked higher then national average on a personal level.  I HATE them!  They lump every student into one category and not every child learns the same!  And you add these tests to the bull shit of "No Child Left Behind Act" all you have is the gov't placing more and more stress on already stressed out kids! 

I now have been tasked to develop yet another web page.

 

WooHoo, (not to offend any actual web-devs out there but.....) It is sooooo much easier than my normal tasks at work, That may be because I am not much of a web developer and can only do the basics, but meh. It's all good.

 

Last night was good, even if I didn't sleep a wink and am now dog tired because of it.

 

I can't wait to get home tonight, I bought an expansion for one of my favorite RTS (Real Time Stratergy) games 2 days ago, and tonight I finally get a chance to play it.

 

Anyway, I have bludge *cough* ..... I mean work to do.

 

Have a good one.

JNTU has UML theory and lab for 3rd year Ist sem students. Umbrello UML modeling tool is present in Fedora Core 4 and Fedora Core 5.

Now the Church institute (CIT) students are using Umbrello on FC5 for their UML LAB since one year
It is really a good tool for UML modeling.

Hope other colleges of JNTU use UMBRELLO instead of pirated IBM rational rose.

Umbrello website is below

http://uml.sourceforge.net/

Hope the colleges in AP wakeup and start using umbrello.

Also there is Oracle 10g express edition available freely for students and others at oracle website.

The oracle marketing people are trying to market oracle standard edition when oracle express is freely downloadable for students and colleges