Helping out with another 5K

Our park is having a 5K walk/run each month, and the Ham radio club helps out at corners to make sure folks stay on route, and to help to ensure if folks are having any health issues, we can radio for help for them. Even though I'm not a ham (I call myself a "hamster" because I'm married to a ham), I help out at one of the corners...

Assignments around the park -- we were at corners 6 & 7 - up near the top of the map, left of center.

Carl manning his corner

We are the last corners the participants pass on their first time around, and then we direct them to the finish line on their second loop. We bring a speaker out and practice some line dancing while we wait for participants to show up -- the runners finish in about 15 minutes, and the last walkers in about and hour and 15 minutes. Some of the runners pass us for their second time before all the walkers get to us their first time around. We enjoy being out in the sun and encouraging the folks on their way!

And then there's comedy!

Our friends, Linda and Don, were not able to use their concert series tickets so offered them to us. The "concert" was a comedian this particular night. They told us that they had seen the comedian who was performing and that he did good, clean comedy. We went and they had great tickets!

Well, it turned out that the scheduled comedian was sick, so the Activity Office director, Kimberly, had called another comedian who lives about 3 hours away. The replacement related that he and his wife were at the Department of Motor Vehicles in a line of about 20 people. They had made it to #3 when Kimberly called. He went outside to take the call and committed to Kimberly that he would come. He went back in, and his wife had made it to #2 in line -- he told her they needed to leave and come back another time! So, they left, he went home and got ready to come, and was here to entertain.

Mark Cordes, comedian

If you'd like a sample of his act, here is a sample from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiHbXbQSTPg

We enjoyed the show, but since I looked him up online, I realize that he did about the same jokes in the performance we saw, so I'm not sure it would be worthwhile to see him more than once!

An interesting golf cart

I had seen this golf cart driving around our community, but saw it parked at the center so got a couple of pictures...

I think it is a body that can be placed over the frame (not originally built this way)...

...with a rumble seat in the back!

We notice that we are seeing more variations on golf carts since we got one -- that we really never paid attention to before!

January Line Dance Social

I had mentioned that there was a line dance social back in December (on the same day as the Ham radio club's Christmas Party). We had another line dance social in January, a week ago Saturday.

This was the plan of music and dances for the social. Note that sometimes there is a "Split Floor" dance -- in that case, the more advanced dancers were doing the dance named in the first column, while the absolute beginners did the dance named in the second column.

There was a good turnout!

A video of part of "Rockin' the Wagon Wheel":  https://youtu.be/QtM1398Cvls 

I was acting as one of the "floor angels" - being at the back (or side) of the room so when the dancers turn from the front, they have someone to watch (there is an instructor up in front on the stage). I was the "floor angel" for the absolute beginner dancers at the back of the room.

Most of the time, I danced with the absolute beginners, but for a couple of dances I went to the more advanced dance group (for dance steps that I particularly enjoy doing!).

Alaska presentation

When we got back to the park this season and we told people about our Alaska trip, some friends in the Ham radio group asked if we could do a presentation on it. So, I put a presentation together (I learned a LOT of new things to do in Powerpoint!). A week ago Saturday I was scheduled to do the presentation for the group in Venture Out.

"Alaska Journey"

Presenting

Does the audience look like they are rapt?!?!?!?

I had a lot more content than I could present in the time allotted, so I had decided to start the presentation and just stop when it was time for the meeting to come to an end. That got us as far as the Alaska border (caravan start, Calgary, Banff, Alaska Highway, Signpost forest in Watson Lake, Whitehorse, Dawson City). The other Ham radio group that Carl belongs to has me scheduled to present for one of their meetings in February, so I'll do the initial slides, and then continue the presentation from the Alaska border.

I had used Powerpoint to create the course materials that I did in my teaching with IBM. In my learning about additional features of Powerpoint, I added a lot of animation and included lots of pictures and videos. Several folks came up afterwards and asked how I had put the presentation together so I think they found the presentation to be interesting.

Bocce ball league

A week ago last Friday, we started in our Winter/Spring Bocce ball league.

I posted about us taking lessons back in November, but we were not able to join a fall league as we didn't get signed up early enough. For the winter/spring league, we found a team on Friday afternoons that had two open positions so we could be on the same team. It turns out that the other couple on the team are friends of one of our neighbors (and, in fact, our neighbors used to be on the team with them, but our neighbors needed to cut back this year). Though we took lessons, we are still learning, and the other folks are very helpful.

One fellow from the other team and I were examining the locations of our balls and those of the other team to determine the score for that "end" (or round? I'm not sure what it is called).

This picture was from just last Friday -- multiple balls very close to the pallina.

As it turns out, we have won our first two matches -- not due to any skill on our part. At least for me, I will try to throw the ball to hit a particular point on the side board, miss it entirely, but sometimes the ball still gets close to the pallina. Other times, someone on the other team will end up accidentally knocking their own ball out of contention, or knocking one of our balls closer. So far, I'm not seeing that it is a game of skill, but who knows?!?!?!?

Dance lessons

Sorry for the lack of posts -- we've been so busy that I haven't written blog entries! I'm going to try to get caught up...

We started Arizona Two-Step lessons on Friday a week ago...

... they started the lessons with the men on one side of the ballroom and the ladies on the other while the instructors taught us our respective steps.

Then they taught us the appropriate hold...

... and some different cues or leads for the man to lead the woman into spins.

We are enjoying it -- we have been wanting to learn some "couple dancing" and think that this will get us started on that process.