After coming in second two years in a row (link), Beenie finally won the middle school spelling bee!!!! I'm so excited and happy for him - especially because this means that he gets to compete in the Regional Spelling Bee, the winner of which gets to go to Washington, DC, for the big Scripps Spelling Bee finals!!!
However, that doesn't mean that I didn't have heart failure along the way. Here's what happened:
The words he spelled:
calibration
examine
consonant
denominator
scruple
oblige
patience
palatable
At this point, it was down to a final group of three. The other two spellers missed their words, and Beenie spelled (correctly):
enfranchise
Now, by the rules of the spelling bee, he had to spell one more "championship" word to win. His word was:
circuitous
and, he missed it. So, what that means is that all the spellers from the previous round come back, and we do it again. The two others missed their words, and Beenie spelled (correctly):
omniscient
Then, for the championship word:
analgesia
And, he missed it again. So, we did it one more time. The other two missed their words, and Beenie spelled (correctly):
vengeance
Then for the championship word:
photosynthesis
And, he got it!!! I was an absolute nervous wreck during the championship word rounds. I'm sure I was more nervous than he was - or at least than he appeared to be.
So, he got a big honkin' trophy, and he's on his way to the regionals in a month!
Two years ago today my wife brought home The Dog. I think my reaction to The Dog have been well documented. But, in the spirit of generosity, and seeing how it is the Christmas season, I would like to say something nice about The Dog.
I like riding around town with the dog in the car. He sits in the passenger seat and looks out the front window.
Gameweek 8 is about to begin in the English Premier League. Hopefully I will do better this week than last. I got creamed in Gameweek 7. The average score was 52 and I scored 30. I'm a little Chelsea heavy, and not only did they lose, but Petr Cech (GK) got red carded. That hurt. When your Goalkeeper has a -1 point total for the week, you know it's going to be a bad week. The other players didn't have a spectacular week either. Drogba was my best scoring player with 6 points. My current rank is 1,934,446 out of 2,052,351. (My disclaimer/rationalization is that I didn't start until GW5 so I'm already behind. But still...) I also dropped to 11th (out of 20) in my league. I had been at 5 after GW6 (which is when the league formed).
So I made one transfer for the week. I transferred out Upson, and replaced him with Dunne. I also sat Cech, since he is suspended, bringing in Foster (ManUtd) off the bench. We'll see what happens. Here's my lineup for the weekend:
My team in the ESPN Premier League didn't do well either, but it was my first Gameweek for the ESPN league, so we'll see what happens.
However.....
The Champions League and the Europa League both competed this week.
In the Champions League, I rocked. The average score was 51, and I scored 73. That shot me up to 37,587 out of 273,855. And I jumped up to 4 in my league (Galaxy Two), out of 21 teams. Having Christiano Ronaldo scoring 14 points and being my captain (doubling his points to 28) certainly helped!
My favorite stat is that for Matchweek 1 my rank was 152,678. For Matchweek 2 my rank was 11,231. I improved 141,447 places.
In the Europa League (where I have absolutely no idea who any of these players are), I scored 53 points, with 42 being the average. I rank 966/29,741. In my league I am #1 out of 7. But I'm only up by 13 points over #2.
All of this will probably change, so I am hoping for the best on the EPL front today and gloating over UCL/Europa for the next couple of weeks.
So, he got a big honkin' trophy, and he's on his way to the regionals in a month!
