Senior Pictures Class of 2025

Senior pictures here from the photo shoot we did back in June, around the downtown Toledo area.  Nick wasn't thrilled with the process, but the results are pretty good.  He selected most of the outfits, and of course the vehicle was provided. We might need to do another round of these, we shall see.  Not sure what kids do with these anymore, other than a professional profile photo, they don't pass them around like the old days.

 

 

 

 

 

Link here to all of the photos.

Grand Canyon 2024

A short business trip and cheap flights led to a 6-day vacation for the three of us to Arizona, a trip on Brandi's bucket list.

Thursday was an easy flight with a little maneuvering around security and the Delta software mess nearly resolved. We landed early morning in Phoenix and checked into the Embassy downtown, grabbed a quick bite at Pino's Pizza and settled in.  So hot, 115 degrees, like sticking your face in an oven, walking a block for lunch was an effort.   Brandi and I had dinner at the famous Durant's with Cheri and Kristopher, outstanding meal, and prepared for our adventures.

Friday was a drive and rest day, we took a scenic route up to our hotel in Flagstaff, through Sedona for some shaved ice and amazing views of the mountainous topography. Forty-five minutes of winding roads thru the forest was awesome.

Saturday was up at 3:30 AM local time to spend 9 hours on a bus that day for 2.5 hours on the Colorado River.  The tour company was a bit of a cluster (A/C broken in the bus), busing us all over to accommodate others, but the raft time was memorable. A raft for twenty of us traveled a couple miles thru the canyon, plus a boxed turkey sandwich, with our guide Scooter from Ohio, where we saw wild horses and sheep, stopped along the shore to see some Indian hieroglyphics, and swam in the cool river (57 degrees).  The views were breathtaking. By the end of the day we were fried, found some lousy food and back to bed.  We also came away with a cool photo at sunrise along the road up to the airport where we started.

Sunday was a free day, Nick and toured around downtown Flagstaff, checked out several miles of Route 66 and the remaining neon, and he experienced his first In-n-Out burger. Brandi got her stop at the local Goodwill.

Monday was Nick's highlight, the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams, AZ up to Grand Canyon Village, where we wandered for three hours peering into the canyon from above. We had dinner at El Tovar, a 4-star restaurant in the village, my first time eating elk. Mostly pics and a cooler breeze further north, it was a 'now we can say we've seen it' day.  For the train itself, we travelled in the luxury domed car with a full bar and food, and despite some annoying 'entertainment', it was worth the trip. Photos of us standing on the back platform, in the parlor below our car, and enjoying some drinks tell the story.

Photos here in Flikr.

June 2024 + College Visits #4 & 5

On the run every week this month.
Brandi and I got our strawberry picking in earlier this year because of the heat, but the berries were not as impressive.
Nick and I traveled down to Cincinnati to see Noah for his HS graduation. High points of the trip were a stop at the Air Force Museum in Dayton (not our first time) and their D-Day movie which was cool, and a new pizza joint down a country road. He humored me with an evening ballgame of Dayton Dragons v Lansing Lugnuts. No downside to this trip... except maybe for Nick using all the towels in the hotel.

Pool opened this year on June 12, we had a good Wednesday morning with no wind. Nick's notes and photos matter now, as Grandpa is about done with this exercise after 53 years, next year I suspect we'll be opening it on our own. I did get a good video of me cleaning the cover like Brandi's rug guy on YouTube.

Our fourth college visit was Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. This school has moved into a solid second-place spot on Nick's list, with an impressive engineering facility nearby main campus. It was a bit of a drive through Ann Arbor traffic, and early in the morning, but the campus is nicer than the other MAC schools, more impressive than I expected. We had a good tour guide, and seeing the dyno was the highlight. We took the back roads home past Devil's Lake, which isn't as rural as it once was, with dinner in Blissfield at Lena's. This school will be a little tougher commute, but the program is solid for what he wants.

There was a fifth stop at University of Dayton, which I didn't attend, but Brandi and Nick came away unimpressed.  True to the Catholic tradition, this college is the only one that required visitors to pay for a tour.  The church never misses a chance to take in a buck.

Flikr photos here.

OBW Company E

I enrolled Nick in a week-long college 'camp' named Ohio Business Week, while despite having been around 35 years, I had to check and make sure it wasn't a scam.  SFS mentioned it, but no record of alumni attending (although one kid was there that Nick knew when we arrived as an associate, Connor.) I'd hoped a week in a dorm away from home, and with 120 other HS seniors, would be good for him.  The results are better than anticipated.

Dropping him off, the whole operation looked sub-optimal, and a bit poorly organized.  I was hoping he'd connect with the tall blonde girl in front of us, but told him to at least make friends with some smart Asian kids if he wanted to win (seems smarmy on the surface but I wasn't far off from the reality). After sending his bags up to his dorm room, he marched off to his first session of the first day, no need for an escort from his mother.  He was relatively quiet for the first couple of days, but sent a few texts, like, "Not to sound like a bad person, but I'm in the same dorm as an <odd guy> or something, I have zero idea how to react, feels like I'm in a David Attenborough documentary."  That kid's name was Sam, and by the end of the week, they were solid roommates, who had spent hours comparing stories and notes, and a key reason Nick concluded dorm living isn't so bad. (Helped that they had A/C, it was 95 degrees here all week.)

By day two, he responded, "The product my company chose is the hardest to market, I hate where we are going, it's an over-complicated electronic pillbox."  He had other ideas, and sketches, around lubricating oil products and power-assisted hedge clippers, but the team decided, and he committed to the plan. He'd also concluded by this point their cafeteria pizza was the only edible food, and breakfast was irrelevant since he slept thru it anyway (once).

It was day three when he felt the momentum, and called me (not text) with an update. They had elected an Indian girl as CEO and he loved her (he didn't want a title for himself, "I just do what she tells me, it works better").  He'd been assigned all the visuals, creating hand sketches of the product and all of their materials, and created the product mock-ups in PowerPoint for their presentations. Later I learned the presentation boards were mostly his content, which I could tell from his notes. He'd found his place in the company, and was thriving.

Later on we'd heard stories of how the other ten companies had battles within their teams, were up late arguing, struggled to come to decisions. (They had some good-looking CEOs, apparently from some privileges households... didn't matter.  Nice lesson here.)  Nick told us they had no such issues inside his Company E, which is probably a contributor to their success.  Their biggest distraction were two teenagers that had the hots for each other inside the team, which Nick pointed out during the closing presentation, 'Couldn't you tell Victoria wasn't wearing a bra to get his attention?"

On Friday evening Brandi and I attended the closing ceremony, where several categorical awards were presented, and the organizers acted like an over-hyped rally. Despite the awkwardness from the outside looking in (today's society values some things that are just cringe moments for us older folks), the kids clearly committed to the week and learned alot.  Sitting there hearing Nick's company win Best Digital Ad and Best Marketing Materials, along with best cheer (where Nick was in street clothes when everyone else was in suits, because, he did 'the worm' on stage), we trudged along anxious for the exit.  Then his company won Best Overall, based on peer voting, and while I wouldn't have predicted it, I see it now.  Ask Nick what he was presented as recognition, and he'll tell you 'a block of wood', which was a nice plaque. But true to Nick, the minute it was over, we hustled for the door, pictures unnecessary, and were the first car to his bags and off campus in a hurry.  This will be a great memory for him, and a great resume builder.  Did he get the contact info of any of the other kids so they can stay in touch?  Nope.

May 2024

There's been a high number of posts about Nick's driving over the past two years, but that's where the excitement is, and he's come along to the point where I trust him completely. (Unlike the white pickup here in town that's been terrorizing people and almost ran me off the road before rebounding out of the ditch on Consear, and leaving his taillight behind.) For the first time out with just his mother in the vehicle with him, I got a margarita in her before a doctor's checkup, so she couldn't drive, meaning Nick had to drive them.  All went well. He's also done his first solo Taco Bell run.  So the common theme to motivated driving is: Mexican food.

Nick had a piano recital this month, where he played two pieces: the theme from Poirot, and Toccatina by Kobalevski.  He modified some of the music to fit the timeframe of the recital, and is now playing second-to-last as one of Mrs. Rutter's more senior students.  

We also caught a Mud Hens game one evening, Nick agreed to join me in exchange for a pizza at Papalis. 

And we snuck in college visit #3, although Defiance College over-hyped their engineering offerings... the entire college of engineering has eight students... so it's likely removed from the list of consideration. We did get a nice meal at the local bar (like eating wood chips) and a walk around in a downpour of rain.  Nothing to see here.  We had an impressive view of northern lights this month from home, so that was one evening of entertainment.
Finally, Miranda and Robin came by in a mom-exchange, and Nick hung with Myles for a couple hours, which isn't more than two guys ignoring each other on their tablets.

Brandi got her garden prepared for the summer, so we'll have one stalk of asparagus to eat, heavily seasoned with many spices from which to choose.
Whether it's driving a vehicle or hands on a keyboard, just don't ask him anything that involves identifying his right from his left (such as, "move right or you'll crash into something", as he swerves to the left.)  He does know for sure that junior year of school is over, and we're onto the senior steps, one last year of high school at SFS.