Tag: fun

Wheel! Of! Fortune!

Mom, Aunt Carol and I got to see a taping of Wheel of Fortune at the Convention Center.  It was great fun.
 

Things you should know about going to a remote taping of Wheel of Fortune:

  • The information emphatically requires no cell phones and no cameras.  If you follow their instructions and do not bring your cell phones and cameras you will be annoyed because the vast majority of people DO bring their cell phones and cameras with no consequences.
  • There is a lot of waiting around.  First there is the waiting around to get in when you are herded, cattle-like, through a switchback of a line.  However, Wheel of Fortune knows their audience and there are chairs in which to sit all along the line, for those who aren’t able to stand the whole time.  
  • For those who can’t really stand long at all, they just get to go to a holding area to wait for the rest of their party.  This brings up unfortunate images of “culling the weak ones” in my mind, but rest assured that your loved one will still be waiting when you get to the front of the line.
  • When you are herded into a seat, you may not really like your seats.  That is okay, as they will be taping multiple shows and there are a lot of people who leave after the first show is done.  Then you can get much better seats.
  • They will want you to clap a lot.  So if you try and keep up with Vanna’s clapping as the Wheel is spinning, your hands will be quite tired by the end of the session.
  • It takes a very long time to tape three 20-minute shows. The taping itself lasted about 2.5 hours and that doesn’t include waiting in line.  So get ready to settle in.

Observations gleaned from my session:

  • Pat Sajak spends very little time on stage.  When they have finished the round he immediately leaves the stage, returning just as the next round is going to begin.  There is very little schmoozing
  • Vanna is the only one on stage who knows the answer to the puzzle.
  • When Vanna walks around answering questions, 30% will be interesting questions to which I want to know the answers, 65% will be the eye-roll inducing and grammatically incorrect “Can I have a hug?” and 5% will be people wanting to take their pictures with her.
  • Vanna does not get to keep the clothing she wears.  Given that she wore three different one-piece outfits that I found a bit ugly, I see this as a blessing.  She does, however, wear her own shoes with her outfits.  She reports that she has a lot of shoes.
  • It takes eight people to move the mini-Wheel used for the final puzzle on and off the stage:  four to push/hold up cables, and four more to place a rotation of press board on the floor for the mini wheel to roll over.
  • I find the TV industry to be incredibly inefficient in the realm of labor.
  • WOF has a “remote crew” out of Florida who do all the remote tapings.  The regular crew stays back in California.
  • There is only one Wheel and it is very heavy.  Watching the crew change the wheel between segments was my favorite part.
  • The reason the contestants tend to yell out their letters in a rather obnoxious fashion is that there are two people employed to make sure the candidates can spin the wheel and they hype them up as much as possible.
  • When Pat Sajak mishears a contestant’s letter choice the stage goes dark, the contestants are ordered to turn around, there is a general murmur of discussion on the stage and then they restart the round with a brand-new puzzle.  Also, Pat Sajak will tell you that it’s the first time it has happened in the history of the show.  Don’t believe him.
  • Because contestants are not allowed to name their actual employers, when a contestant identifies hers as a “local athletic apparel manufacturer” half the audience will lean to the other half of the audience and whisper “Nike.”
  • The “kissing cam” was a hilarious part of the experience, even if I felt dumb the whole time for laughing.  This was where they would show two members of the audience framed in a heart and the couple would laugh in recognition and kiss, to the audience’s approval.  Or, they would lean over a row and down three chairs to kiss their spouse who was not the person in the frame originally, or attempt to hide their eight-year old selves as their older sister attempted to kiss them, or sit uncomfortably as their wife moves in for the kiss.  Good clean fun.
  • When the productions likes us, they give us super cool Wheel of Fortune blinky pins that are very fun to wear at school the next day.

 

 

New Loo Ceremony.

The school took part in the First Flush ceremony for the newest Portland Loo. As usual, adding children to the mix was delightful.

Listening to the speeches.

Waiting to sing our songs

Tara is ready to lead the 4/5 chorus.

After singing, (“New Loo” performed by the 4/5 chorus to the tune of “Blue Moon.” Also, “Skip to my Loo” by the entire school) we did the first flush by doing a massive “all school” push that began in the K/1 grade blend and traveled up through the grades. Each student carefully–for the most part–pushed the arm of the student next to them all the way to the end of the line…

…where Julie passed off the flush to Tara and she ran inside and pushed the button. This resulted in a great photo that was in the Saturday Community Section of the Oregonian. Sadly, the photo is not included with the web site article.

The Oregonian’s video (which sadly includes an ad) has a slide show and the Skip to My Loo song.

Hal Holbrook Mark Twain Tonight.


Hal Holbrook is 86 years old, a full sixteen years older than the 70-year-old Mark Twain he is portraying in this show. Using Mark Twain’s writings, Holbrook talked about this and that, and there was a lot of “the more things change, the more they stay the same” as Mark Twain had a lot to say about incompetent congress, incredibly wealthy fat cats and distrustful media.

Our Loo!

Have you heard of the Portland Loo? It’s a public toilet designed to avoid all the usual problems of public toilets. They’ve been pretty successful here, enough so that Portland is starting to sell them to other cities. Recently, the city has decided to install one in the North Park Blocks, directly across from the school at which I work. We are very excited about this because we are hoping it ends the practice of people using the playground or our parking lot as their bathroom. And today the loo is being installed!

There was a lot of preliminary work setting things up, but after that is done the loo itself is dropped into position. Here it is on the truck.

Hovering

Moving into position.

Almost there:

And, crack blogger that I am, I forgot to take a final picture. But you will see it when I show you the pictures from the First Flush ceremony, which will happen next week. In the meantime, look at the awesome design for the door on the loo. Apparently, each Loo’s door reflects the character of the area the Loo is located. The city asked the school children to create the design. We picked out a quote by Emerson and all the kids drew flowers. A selection of them were chosen and sent to the city and a woman came up with this fabulous design incorporating our flowers. We even got our own copy of the door to hang in our school, which is what you see here.

Do you want to read more about the Loo? Here’s an article from the Atlantic: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/01/why-portlands-public-toilets-succeeded-where-others-failed/1020/

What I want for Christmas

Smart Car wants people to drive them. So they set up on Broadway, right across the park from my work. I wandered over and got a test drive and a ten dollar gift certificate to the Pearl Bakery. They were fun to drive and now I know what you can get me for Christmas.

Only $12,000-$17,000 and you can make my wish come true.

Perk

There are a lot of good things about my job: I get full medical and dental benefits paid for, I get copious amounts of vacation, I get a reduced schedule during the summer and I enjoy the people I work with. But some of the best perks are the random gifts from children. In this case, Leo and Cian decided they wanted to make hot chocolate mix for all the teachers, etc. So they came around with order forms after school one day and we all placed our order. The next day I was greeted with a delightful package of homemade hot chocolate mix.

Complete with instructions and picture.

Here was my order form. “You can get more than one kind,” said Cian. So I checked two kinds. I got both kinds in one package. Altogether, salted caramel and peppermint work fairly well when combined.

Thanks Leo and Cian, for making my day.