Update on Kansas City

Alright, I'm back.

Kansas City is a really cool place, lots of fountains, huge convention centers, odd hotels and stuff. The hotel the the Pennsylvania Delegation stayed at was connected to a mall and another hotel with a 30ft waterfall in the lobby. We never had to go outside in the 90 degree weather to get lunch or anything, and we could (not that we did) eat at a different restaurant for every meal.

Before anything else, a little word about what SkillsUSA is. SkillsUSA is an organization primarily in College and Vocational schools across the country that gets students involved in networking with each other, and practically helping them to prepare themselves for their future. SkillsUSA hold the annual SkillsUSA National Leadership Conference and Skills Competition (in Kansas City for the last several years, but Louisville, KY just won the bid for the Conference in 2015).

So I got their a day early for everything and got settled in Kansas City during the first day. The second day we checked into "Headquarters" and had a Delegation meeting. I was the "Keynote speaker", apparently it is tradition for the Prepared Speech competitor to give his speech in front of the Delegation at the opening meeting. So I gave it in front of over 225 Delegates, Competitiors and Advisors.

Before I write any more, I should explain that any time not accounted for was not TV time. You see, every state delegation has a state pin. Many people buy extras of their own state pins and then attempt to collect all the other pins by trading. You get blue fabric maps and pin your collection onto them, and race around one of the convention centers trying to catch those elusive Montanans, South Dakotans, and Hawaiians. I must say proudly that I collected all the pins from the United States, except Montana and Hawaii (however I did get the Navajo Nation pin and did not even attempt to get the Canada, Guam, or Virgin Islands pins). The Hawaiians were used to being mugged for their pins apparently, and they would only release 5 of them each day, demand exorbitant prices and give you little leis if they were out of pins for the day. So this is what 90% of my down time was filled with.

Tuesday we had orientation, where we went to our competition areas and called up Miss America style to check in with the technical comittee who was overseeing the Preapared Speech Competition. After Many redundant questions they let us go.

Tuesday evening was also the Opening Ceremony. I can tell, there is certainly a lot of pomp and ceremony for a student run thing like it is. It is held in Kemper Arena, the only place in the city big enough to hold 11,000 people. So you can hear the music even from outside the stadium, and once you get inside there is the roar of thousands of people cheering and clapping. You walk up the steps on one of the upper balconies and you see a sea of flashing lights (each state does something for "state spirit" Texas wears cowboy hats, Washington wears umbrella hats, Maryland wears crab hats and various other states do flashing necklaces or hats or something) Strobe lights flash, patriotic music blares and the masses of red suits waves and flows. (the official SkillsUSA attire is a red blazer or windbreaker and is required at all official functions) Spot lights wave, and it is really an amazing feeling for the the first half hour or so. There is the emblem ceremony and the introduction of the officers and those are always exciting, then there was the mini game of deal or no deal in which SkillsUSA won the one million dollar case. There was some more stuff and then they introduced the speakers. This was an hour later. You see the Midwest is not known for mild summers and the "peanut gallery' doesn't get that much air-conditioning. And we were getting rather warm in our polyester blazers; so when they still hadn't introduced the keynote speaker we slipped out along with hundreds of other people and took the shuttle back to our hotel along with a couple other bus-loads of people. We got ice cream. :-)


Wednesday I had Preliminary Competition which went well. I only stuttered once.

Wednesday evening was the Champions Festival which included a dance, a blowup slide, an obstacle course, a gladiator arena and some other stuff. I spent the whole evening chasing people for pins, and racing another Pennsylvania guy for all the continental U.S. Around 10:00 that evening we found out I had made the finals, so it was early bed for me X-p while my advisor stayed up to starch my shirts and iron my blazer.

Thursday morning into afternoon was finals. They went perfectly; no mistakes, no stutters, no stumbles.

Thursday evening we went to the Worlds of Fun amusement park. It's not quite Hershey Park, but still fun with a bunch of other teenagers.

Friday I had to be in the lobby of the hotel at 7:00 to catch the shuttle bus to head off to the annual Community Service project. My group spent the day in the woods creating hiking trails through a National Wild Area. We blazed, clipped and hacked over a mile of walking paths (we had permission and careful supervision).

Friday night was closing and awards. None of the people I traveled with medaled, but I am proud to say that there were 99 competitions and Pennsylvania brought home 10 gold, 9 silver, and 9 bronze medals. (again, we skipped out midway, we only waited to see the first 3 hours of the ceremony. this time we went and got supper)

After the losers who stayed for the rest of the awards got back there was an icecream social where we got certificates for our participation, and found out how us non-medal-havers had placed overall.

I placed 12th out of 12 finalists (out of an original 43). This was unacceptable, and even more so when my mother called saying that final scores had been posted online.

Between preliminaries and finals, my scores dropped dramatically so much that I would not have even come close to being a finalist if that had been my preliminary score. Here are the major drops.

Organization: Dropped 50 points (for the exact same speech)
Closing: 30 points (again for the exact same speech)
Appearance: 10 points (remember, between preliminaries and finals we starched my shirts, polished my shoes, ironed my blazer, and put makeup on my face)

The other drops were not as significant.

We are looking into what happened with those scores and are trying to challenge the placing.

The flight home was smooth, even if we had to be up at 5:00 in the morning to catch it (as opposed to last year when we had to be up at 3:00)

So that was Nationals and an account of my week. I wonder how many people actually made it through this thing?

Away

For the next week I will be in Kansas City, MO for the SkillsUSA National Conference. I'm competing in Prepared speech. Scary, someone could figure out who I am from that. Anyway, that explains my absence. Bigh all!

A Shout out...

I know some of you use Google Reader, and that this is going to be a nuisance maybe, but I just wanted to know who reads this. So if you could post a comment, please, it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

I'm not racist

Check this out...

Alright, so I really don't have a problem with this. What I have a problem with is the protests and the moves to shut this down. That is a restriction of our freedom of speech. It is not slander, it is not a bunch of lies that fall under the constitutional exception, it is merely an expressed political view that people don't like. (the fact that this political view is expressed in a humorous way is merely what got people stirred up)

And really, if Obama can't take it, why doesn't he quit. The President is historically the man most slandered and spoken against in our country. He wants to be the next President, but he refuses to take what comes with it. Take his wife for example she goes around shouting for him and offending people, and then when she is attacked and pointed out as pushy etc... he tells everyone to just "leave her alone". Suck it up, or maybe we will have the first black woman president....

I probably sound very racist here, and maybe a little chauvinistic, but it is not intentional, and I make no apology if I am. I am using my right to freedom of speech and expression, not forcing anyone to conform to my views, or saying that you're wrong and I'm right. I am just letting you all know how I see a very subjective issue. (I can do this because the issue is subjective and not objective. I rant on absolute truth is forthcoming)

As a side note, I found this rather interesting.

Rule this unconstitutional... (to be added to later)

Our Government. Based on our Constitution, is it not? Not really. You see, we live in a country very different from what our founding father's intended. Most of this comes from the national government taking on powers that are not its own. (please bear with me?)

Here is a list quoted directly from Article 1 Section 8 in regards to the Legislative branch of the government.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Please notice now, how many of these powers include farm subsidies, medicaid, social security, or even imply that it is within the power of the government to begin such programs. Only the last one. Which is the phrase of this document most used by legislature to take on all these programs, pork and expenditures. the Foregoing Powers = the powers listed before. Now, how is it necessary for the government to institute those programs to fulfill these "Foregoing powers". It isn't. That's anticlimactic. Now, to look at another Government function gone astray: the power of the government over the states.

Let's see what the Constitution says about that.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

There now, how does the national government get around this? Were we ever meant to have a large central government that took care of us? No. This can be clearly seen in our method of electing a president. What we have today is the remnants of what once was. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a popular vote selection instead of the electoral college? Well, it would if we were meant to have a central government with state borders being merely geographical like they almost are today. Instead, the popular vote in the state decides where all the electoral votes go. Doesn't this rather imply that the way the nation used to be, there were a bunch of independent state/countries much like the EU is today? With open borders, a continental council of policy makers and treaty signers (please note, that the meeting of the FF (founding fathers) was called the Continental Congress, not the national congress) and a common currency? But back to the question, how does the federal government get around this? Because of our ignorance. People these days just don't care about what happens. They want their government handouts, subsidies etc... and vote into office those people who they think will give them to them. These are the statesmen who turn around and take freedom from the people and turn us more and more into a Marxist communist state. These are also the people who believe that we should be working towards a one world unity and government.

Now we come to another question (please read on?) What is wrong with one world government. If you are a Christian, read your Bible. If you are non-Christian, read 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451. Super states with unlimited government power of censorship and laws. The very people who make their grand speeches about tolerance silencing the publication of any opinion or truth whatsoever, or worse silencing by force those who disagree with the commonly held practice. If it were in only one country, such as Russia or China, people could flee elsewhere, but with a one world government, if you disagreed to such an extent that you could not in conscience live under circumstance, you could not speak out because of fear of reprisal from a restrictive government, then there would be no place to flee. No place to speak your mind and to be tolerated. Everyone would live under the same restrictions and rules. The very human nature defies it. We must do all we can to prevent such a time.

T Shirt Design Competition

I have entered the Designbyhumans.com t shirt design contest. It is a perpetual competition for which a winning design is chosen and printed each day. 25 new entries are put up each day for voting, and this morning my design was chosen as one of them!

I would muchly appreciate votes, it takes an account, but it is very easy to do. My design is the eagle shirt entitled "Soar".

http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/16493

That is the link directly to my shirt. Every day a winner is chosen as the "Shirt of the Day" the designer gets $500 + $250 worth of tshirts from the site. (Haha! I'm funding college with shirts!)

Thank you all. (sorry, some of you have already gotten an email with this)

What I'm reading

Right now I'm working my way through a book on immigration policy. It was written in 1996, but the information has not been outdated, though some of the statistics are rather old Very Interesting.

I was recently told about a cool website that is a perpetual t shirt design competition, that i plan to use to fund college. designbyhumans.com 2 designs I've done have been rejected so far, but I have one awaiting approval, and two more that I am actively working on.

Posts have been short lately, I know. I am not a skilled ranter like Anilee.

Always Flipping Pages

So here's what's looking like a cool new website for writers, readers, and potential authors?

Always Flipping Pages' grand opening was today!

Check it out!

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