Viking Craniums and a New Car

Two things of significance in recent days. First, my daddio participated on the "Bar-barians," a team of like 8 lawyers and 1 plumber who rocked the house at the Cheyenne Rotary Cranium Bowl. They competed against 10 other teams, and not only won a giant trophy for knowing the most random information, but they also won the golden apple award for team spirit. My father, of course, started out a little shy, but by the end of the night, was out of control. One of the head lawyer ladies leaned over to him and said, "Ernie, we've voted you as the most surprising team member."

Here's a pic of their brilliance.



And secondly, I bought a new car!!! When I was a missionary in Florida, I remember thinking "when I buy a car one day, I'm going to buy it from the LDS mission in the area." And that's exactly what I did. I got a great deal, a nice looking vehicle, and got to hang out in the Colorado Denver North Mission Office while an Elder Kitchens and his wife told me how they used to sit on slabs of cardboard in BYU classrooms during the 1950's. Overall, an excellent car-buying experience.

Here's to missionary vehicles (that have replaced trunk hoods, of course.)

Tornado in the Basement

Yesterday, I was working with some of my students after school when the tornado sirens went off and Lori in the main office said "This is NOT a drill. Everyone to the basement." So I escorted my students, yelled at several others who started to panic and run through the hallways like out-of-shape banshees and with several other faculty (about 80 of us total) spent the hour in the smelly basement of Carey Jr. High. With my hurricane shelter training I immediately remembered and started instructing students to not use their cell phones, as it would overload the cell phone companies. Of course that's impossible for jr. high students. Most of them didn't believe me, but today in paper, you know what I read? "A spike in cell-phone use briefly overwhelmed the Verizon cellular system..." At least I know I'm wise.

The tornado touched down for about 20 minutes south of Cheyenne, so no biggie. Here's a picture my mom sent me:


And here's one I swiped from the paper's website:


And just added: a Youtube version: