So last night was a lot of fun, and rather interesting, too. It was Junior Parents Weekend, so that means that they planned a big activity on campus last night. We had a ‘mentalist’ on campus. Craig Karges is just amazing. He appears to have mental abilities. He was blindfolded, and had members of the audience bring up objects, which he identified. They just held them near his hand. He identified a pair of sunglasses, which wasn’t that impressive. Then the next woman brought up a relative’s blood donor card. Not only did he identify that, but he got the name and blood type correct, too. He needed to handle the card for that, but there’s no raised printing on a blood donor card. Then he had someone bring up a unit of currency. He identified that the guy had brought up a foreign currency, and then read the Serial number, and identified it as a 5 euro bill. I don’t see how it was done. He was blindfolded with two coins taped to his eyes, more tape, and a cloth blindfold over the whole mess. If he had an assistant in the audience somewhere, it’s hard to believe that he could have gotten the serial number. And he offers $100,000 to charity if anyone ever finds out that he uses stooges or hidden cameras/radios in the show.
Later in the show, he levitated a table, with a scarf on the surface between his hand and the table. Then he went into the mind reading portion. He had people concentrate on their initials, a piece of personal info, and a random thought. He then would pick a thought, or set of initials, ask people with those initials to stand, and he told two people their phone numbers, read several of their random thoughts, including “Brady is hott!”, “lime jello”, and “frogs”. HE knew the names of the people they were sitting next to, and their signs. One girl thought she knew her sign, and he informed her that given her date and year of birth, which she hadn’t told him but he got correct, she was a cusp person, born between two signs. ]
Then he had three people write a number in a book, and had a fourth add them up. He got a hinged chalkboard, put a small piece of chalk inside, gave it to an audience member, and told them to hold it horizontal. After a few seconds, it was reopened, and the number inside matched the sum of the three numbers.
He asked four audience members to assist in creating a car, each in charge of a different component. Then he pulled out of a zipped pocket in his wallet, which was inside his jacket, a sealed envelope with a piece of paper, on which was written the exact make, model, color, license plate number, and cost of this car. It’s possible that this was sleight of hand, but unlikely.
He borrowed three rings from audience members, and linked them in a chain, and unlinked them. The owners of the rings were onstage to see them unlinked.
He asked for his check, had an audience member put it in an envelope, and seal it. The volunteer then sealed blank pieces of paper in two more envelopes. They were then numbered, and then the volunteer chose an envelope to give to Craig. From the remaining two, the volunteer chose one. Craig shredded, on the spot with a shredder, both the envelopes he was holding, and lo and behold, it was the check.
Wow, I’ve been ranting for quite a while about it, but he was good. It just blows your mind. He claims to have no supernatural powers, and reminds us several times, that it was a show, he was just an entertainer. He’s one heck of an entertainer, I’ll tell you that!
Shortly after we got back from the show, several people decided to make a Cove run, and I went along. While everyone was at the cove, it was decided that there should be a game of sardines in Franz Hall. (Franz has classrooms, and staff offices, as well as a few common areas, and a coffee bar. There are several alcoves in which to hide, all over the building, which is four floors and a basement.) So once everyone had eaten, off we went. We’d picked up a few extra people by then, and numbered 18. So we played a few games of sardines.
For those who have never played sardines, there is one person who hides somewhere, and the rest try and find the person. But when you find the person, instead of ending the game, you hide with them. Depending on the hiding space, that can be interesting, although people tended to pick good, large hiding spots. The first person to find the hid hides the next turn.
By midnight, we were pretty much burned out on the game, having been playing since 10:30 or 11:00. It’s just as well, as P-safe comes to lock up the building at midnight. So we all went outside, and decided that we should watch a movie. Somehow over the course of the game, the movie “The Princess Bride” was mentioned, and they were rather surprised/outraged that a few people, including me, hadn’t seen it. So we ended up watching it. It’s an interesting movie, I wouldn’t call it a classic or anything, but it wasn’t nearly as ‘chick fickish’ as it sounds. I enjoyed it. So I came back to the room late, and wound up going to bed somewhere after 3.
I got up earlier this morning, to go over and see the College Bowl thing. As part of Junior parent weekend, they set up college bowl as Students vs. Parents. At our last meeting, before Christmas, the man in charge of College bowl invited us back to help, as he wasn’t sure how many students would be there. I ended up competing in two of the five rounds, one of which we won by a large margin, the other we lost 95 – 0. Which is only about 3 questions worth, but it was still bad as it was the tie-breaker round. I guess the parents are smarter than the students. Or maybe just older. Some of the questions they got just because they lived through the events. I couldn’t name the five summer Olympic locations in North America, but I bet they remembered reading about them as they happened, mostly. Anyway, it was fun.
On the way back from the College bowl, I was riding my bike back to Villa. I decided to go a longer route, around a few buildings, to avoid all the people walking from the building. I was outside Swindells (a building), near the road to get to Waldschmidt and behind Kenna. The sidewalk is pretty wide, and can be used as a road if you need to get to some of the buildings. TO keep people from driving places they don’t want them to, there are several black steel posts which set into holes into the pavement. The holes are about a foot in diameter. The posts can be removed, to allow vehicles to pass. I was riding, and wanted to pass between the poles and turn onto the sidewalk just beyond. I rode right between the two poles, and started my turn. I wasn’t going super fast, but I wasn’t just coasting, either.
Anyway, what I failed to notice was that this particular sidewalk was set up for three posts, and one had been removed. I rode right over the hole, and as my wheel was turned, fell over the bike. I wasn’t hurt, except for my palm, but I’ve scraped it worse just falling while walking. I went to get back on my bike, and discovered that my handlebars must not have been totally tight, and were rotated about 30 degrees. So I had to pull on them to get them back towards straight. I rode back to Villa, and straightened them back out the rest of the way.
So that’s been my last 24 hours or so. Not a lot happening here…
