Just Missed

As I said last week, I have no clue what constitutes a good routine vs. a bad one anymore.  Today at the State finals, I thought the girls put on an awesome routine.  There were a couple of slip ups, but overall their performance was much better than last week’s regional final.  There were a couple of teams in their class that I thought were clearly better, but I thought we’d be hearing Menomonee Falls announced on the winners stage. 

Imagine my shock this week, when they didn’t get announced.  In fact, afterward, we found out that the judging had them with a worse score than their regional result even after having a better performance.  This is sort of one of the reasons I prefer sports that have a hard score and are not left up to judging.  Races… there is a clear winner and loser.  Teams sports… One teams score more points that the other resulting in a clear winner.  Sports that require “judging” will depend on who is doing the judging.  Maybe someone puts more emphasis on jumps (like in the regionals) and one might put more emphasis on the dance portion of the routine, or the tumbling aspects. Then again, what do I know?

There were only two teams we didn’t see perform, and of the ones we saw, we thought our girls would end up in third place, and if we got lucky, maybe second.  They ended up in 4^th place, something like 1.5 or 2 points out of third.  And the team that got third was one we didn’t see (and just happened to be Sussex Hamilton).  I can’t get too crazy because I didn’t see their routine, but people we were speaking to that did told us it wasn’t all that great.  That was definitely as bitter pill to swallow, but I guess they should just count themselves as lucky for even making it as they may have been the beneficiaries of some generous judging to even make it to State. 

Congratulations on a great season girls!  Go Falls!

Big Send Off

This morning we all met at the high school to see the girls off to the State Cheer finals.  The AD was there to take pictures and video because the girls got a police escort out of town.  I thought that was awesome for them.  Cheerleading doesn’t get near the recognition that the traditional sports do, and honestly, I think that the cheer team gets hosed by the high school.  They don’t get their accomplishments recognized with banners when they win, and they aren’t allowed to display their trophies, so the police send off was a nice nod to the things they have accomplished this year. 

Good luck at STATE to our Cheer Team! Go Falls! - Menomonee Falls High School Athletics from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

State Regional

It seems a little anti-climactic going to the state cheer regionals the week after being at nationals, but that’s what happened this weekend.  I don’t claim to be an expert when it comes to figuring out judging for cheer competitions, but I thought I had a pretty good idea of what is good and what is bad.  Well thrown all that out, because I am officially stating, I HAVE NO CLUE!

The girls were in a division with, I believe, six other teams.  We figured that they would take the 4 top teams to advance to the state competition next week in Madison, maybe five if we were lucky.  After watching their performance this week, I had some serious misgivings they would be in that group, and I think Kris agreed with me.  There were a couple of teams that had performances that were clearly over the rest of the teams.  And a couple of the teams looked ok, but I thought they would be on the outs.  The Falls’ performance had a couple of falls, and I thought was definitely not one of their better efforts.  Afterward, the coaches also laid into them for the uninspiring, poor routine they pulled. 

But then when it came time for announcing the winners, we didn’t get called for fifth, or fourth, so we figured, well, it has been a good season.  Then all of a sudden they announce, “In second place, Menomonee Falls!”  I was stunned, as was Kris, the teams, and I think the coaches too.  The funniest thing was hearing the Hamilton parents that were sitting near us going ballistic.  Hamilton (the Falls’ biggest rival) finished in third place.  So how they got second, I have no idea.  Apparently, they judges put a lot of emphasis on their jumps and other moves and did not put as much into the falls that they had. 

I say they got lucky, but take it and move on.  State is next week and if they perform like they did at the regionals I think they may be in the cellar.  Then again, what do I know?

Heading Home

We had an early flight home from Orlando.  It must have been the first one of the day.  Take off was at something like 7:00 AM (Might have been earlier, I don’t quite remember).  So we had to get up early to drive back to Orlando from my folks’ house.  It was a pretty good drive back, no incidents of traffic jams.  And getting the rental car back was smooth too.  It was once we got to the airport that things got messy. 

The check in desk at Frontier only had two people working it, and the line was probably 50-60 people deep.  The girls had gotten there early so they were already thru and waiting for TSA screening by the time we got in line.  And it took FOREVER!!!  It was at least a half an hour waiting to get checked in (whatever happened to curbside check in?).  Once we were thru the check in process at the counter, we had to go thru TSA screening, which was about 4 or 5 times as bad as checking in.  WOW!  Funny, they always tell you to get to the airport an hour early for domestic flights, and we were there more than 90 minutes ahead of time and by the time we got thru TSA and to our gate, we only had about 5-10 minutes to wait before we were able to board.

While in the TSA line we saw several of the teams that Ali competed against, and a couple had trophies.  Kris talked to a couple of parents from some of the other teams while we were in line to find out how the finals went and who won, what place they took, etc.

Then when we got on board the plane we ended up sitting near some kids from a team from Madison who obviously had just woken up and drove to the airport, because they looked (and smelled) like they hadn’t showered in a day or two.  YUCK!  And I was lucky enough to get the middle seat and sit next to one of them.

There was also a kid on the flight home across the aisle from Kris who looked to be probably between 2 and 3 years old.  He was a drippy, snotty, mess and had a toy car he kept dropping.  GERM FACTORY!!!  His mom ended up having to take him to the bathroom in flight because he obviously had filled his diaper (or pull-up… or whatever he was wearing) and needed a change. Again… YUCK!!!! 

Overall, it was a pretty good trip and we are very proud of Ali and how the team performed.  Kudos go out to Sharon and Liz (their coaches) for having them prepped and coached so well.  The only thing that sucked was the flight home, and maybe the hassle we had with the water at the resort.  I can’t wait to do it again next year (fingers crossed).

Back On Track, Or Time To Stop?

While sitting around Sunday night relaxing waiting to get ready to go back to Wisconsin my father mentioned that he hadn’t seen anything on my blog in quite some time. I told him that yes, I know, I have been slacking off. Time just seems to be tight with everything else going on at work, and home that by the time I am able to sit down and type out what is happening in our lives, I just feel too tired. My mind set is, I’ll get to it tomorrow. The only problem is that tomorrow, I feel just as tired by the time I get around to being able to sit down. And so the cycle continues.

But rest assured, I make my notes about everything that is happening. In fact I have a list of between 30 and 50 things I need to finish writing. I only hope I don’t forget too much by the time I can sit down and write it out. Since I use my blog as sort of a snapshot/diary of what is happening in our lives, I want to be able years from now, to either download it digitally, or print it out somehow so we have a record of what happened to us when. I am sure I’ll have Kris tell me I am wrong with a lot, because she remembers something differently, well, that’s just too bad.

Told to Stop

Kris and I went to EPCOT for the day since we didn’t get to go last month when we were here, and it is my favorite park. However, I was told that I had to stop taking pictures. Kris told me I looked ridiculous taking pictures of all sorts of things around the park. Well that was also the purpose of buying an expensive DSLR camera. I want to be able to take pictures of things. Flowers, the monorail, the facades of the shops in the world showcase, or even the fountains. I really wanted to take one of the big fountain right behind Spaceship Earth; that is my favorite one. But I guess I was being embarrassing, so I stopped. It put me in a bad mood the rest of the day. I guess having an actual camera to take pictures instead of a phone makes you look stupid. I wish I had known that before buying it.

Turning Left

Since the girls are done with their performances, and we don’t have anything else to do, Kris and I decided to drive up to Daytona and take a tour of the Speedway before calling it a trip and heading back to my parents’ house for our last night in Florida. We were going to stop when we were there in December, but it was late in the day and the girls really could have cared less, so we put it off.

Obviously, the racetrack is huge. And I didn’t know exactly what we’d be seeing. The description of the tour didn’t really get specific. And with the Daytona 500 only being a week away, I thought there may be a lot of things/areas on lockdown preparing for the race. But I was wrong.

We were in a tram being towed by a big Chevy pickup truck (at least I think it was a Chevy). We got to see the winner’s circle, some of the inside track areas (there is actually a smaller track on the infield) the driver’s meeting area, a press area where they do the press conferences after the race, some of the garage areas, and then up into the remodeled stands. Like I said, the track is HUGE! And there was actually some sort of “driver’s experience” you can take. For the sum of something like $157 and change you can sit in the passenger seat of a race car while a professional driver takes you around the track and nearly 200 mph. There were actually people doing it while we were there. I had at first thought that it may have been some race team Yeah, it would have been fun, but not for that much. Maybe that is a birthday present/Christmas present idea for Kris.





Overall, not a bad little 90 minute tour.

End Of The Run

Once again, the girls gave it their all in their performance, but the run had to come to an end sometime, and the time was now, after the semis. I don’t profess to know anything about judging cheerleading, but I would have said that our girls were right on the bubble. There were some teams that I would have considered questionable and others I had a feeling have a history, or a tradition, of being a strong program so they got the benefit of the doubt. So when the final schools were announced, Menomonee Falls was not among them, unfortunately. But I have to say that the girls were in great spirits and they didn’t seem bothered or upset at all. Ali told us they were happy that they even made it to the semis, they had fun, and it was a great experience. That is a pretty good attitude to have, especially considering there were a couple other teams that were in tears because they didn’t make it to the finals. However, that changed a little bit when they found out that they had missed out on making the finals by something like 2 points. Again, not knowing anything about cheerleading judging/scoring, I don’t know if 2 points is a lot or a little, but the girls seem to think it wasn’t a lot.

They still had fun, and it is an experience that they are certainly going to remember. Congratulations girls!

Disney All-Star Resort

Ali is staying at one of the Disney All-Star resorts for her cheer competition. All 4 of them are actually booked solid with cheerleaders. Kris and I are serving as the supply runners for the girls in Ali’s room, and the first day here we got them a bunch of supplies from WalMart (snacks for their room, bottled water, etc.). After the first day, Ali sent us a message saying they were out of water. Over the course of the first day there they girls had polished off an entire case of bottled water, something we didn’t expect. So we made a second run and this time when we dropped it off, the girls were gone, and since we don’t have a key to their room, we asked at the front desk if we could have someone deliver it to their room. The guy behind the desk calls over what I can only assume is a manager, who tells us, of course. It isn’t a problem at all. He instructs us to just drop it at the concierge’s stand outside the door (I think it was a concierge) and just fill out some slip with her name and room number and someone would take it there when the girls got back.

So the next day, Ali sends us a message saying they were dying of thirst because they didn’t have any water. When I asked what happened to the two cases we dropped off, she told us they never delivered it. After a lot of calls and being put on hold, we found out that no, they never did deliver it, and that they were sorry, they couldn’t find where it was. And after talking to Kris, I found out that they guy she dropped the water off with didn’t have her fill out that “slip of paper” that the manager (or more probably assistant manager) said we’d need to complete. Kris told the guy the room number that it needed to be delivered to, and that was it. So my best guess is that they delivered it to the wrong room. After 20 minutes on the phone, someone at the front desk told one of the girls in Alison’s room that they had found it and would be bringing it up to them right away.

Crisis solved right? Not exactly. When we stopped by later to see how they were doing in between competitions, we found out that they had delivered only one case of water, not the two that we had purchased. Further, the brand of water they had in their room was NOT the same brand as we had purchased. So technically, they DIDN’T find the water we had bought for them. As near as I can figure out, they couldn’t find what happened to the cases we had dropped off, so instead, they managed to locate a case of botte water, probably what they sell at the parks, and tell them, “oh, look here, we found it”. That is one thing that Disney does well I think, keeping guests happy. From stories I have seen they try to bend over backwards to solve problems when they come up, because they realize an unhappy guest is a guest who won’t come back to spend money at their parks. So while I give them credit for trying to right the situation, it was something that I don’t think should have happened, or rather should have been averted, in the first place. In the end, the girls got their water so I guess that is the most important thing, but it still took a lot of dinking around on the phone and some angry words to Disney to get it resolved.

Made It To The Semis

After the girls finished their routine, we had to sit around and wait for the winners, or rather to find out who was advancing. I thought that there were some schools that were definitely going to make it, and then there were the ones on the bubble, like us. I thought we had a very good shot at going on since they hit almost all of their moves. Then as they were announcing the schools that would advance, we thought we heard the emcee say Menomonee Falls, but he butchered the pronunciation so badly we couldn’t be sure. Even the girls didn’t know for sure if they had made the Semis. After the announcements were done we had to check with the coaches to see if we heard correctly and we were going on. Luckily, we were. The only thing that really sucked was that because the announcer screwed up our name so bad, the girls weren’t really even able to celebrate, which is too bad. It was fun seeing the excitement in the some of the teams when they had their names announced, and we didn’t get that.

The coaches are going to draw for spots in the Semis so now we wait to hear when the girls perform later tonight. But either way, we have 8 hours to kill before having to be back. Congratulations girls!

UCA Prelims

We got to the ESPN Zone, or whatever Disney calls the complex, very early Saturday morning. The gates opened at 7:00 and performances started at 8:00, but since we have never been here before I didn’t know what traffic would be like, or how crowded the venues would be, or where they even were on the grounds we tried to get there as soon as we could. We had to wait in line for a short time to get into the parking lot, and then we ended up parking a good five minute (if not slightly longer) walk away from the gates. They did offer preferred parking for something like $20, but I wasn’t sure if I could just get into that line. As we walked in, I thought I should have at least tried.

Once we got in, we walked around a little bit looking for the right place to go. There were something like five or six different fieldhouses/arenas/tents that were holding competitions depending on school size, class, and category. It didn’t take too long to find where we needed to go though. We were at least a half an hour early, and the place was pretty empty, and cold. They apparently needed to pump the A/C in to make sure it stayed cool, even though it was only about 50 degrees outside. We were even able to see the girls before the performances began, and were able to talk to the coaches a little bit. Everyone seemed very relaxed, which was a good thing.

It was almost two hours before they went on, so we had to sit thru a lot of the competition. It was very interesting seeing some of the other schools. My initial thoughts were that if the girls performed like they did at the qualifier, they would do pretty well. There were lots of mistakes, and falls, though as we found out when Sarah cheered, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. A lot has to do with the degree of difficulty of the routine.

So… here is their preliminary performance:

UCA Nationals - Preliminary Round from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Not too shabby.

EPCOT

Since the girls wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom one more time when we came to Disney in December, Kris and I decided to hit EPCOT when we were there for Ali’s UCA Nationals. I always liked EPCOT the best, though after this last time, that might change. It was not very crowded, as opposed to being at the Magic Kingdom over Christmas, but something just didn’t seem all that fun about being there. Maybe it was because the girls weren’t along, maybe it was because the rides are all the same and we have been on them several times, maybe because it was just too much walking around. Whatever the reason, Kris and I only made it about half the day there, which based on the price of the tickets is not a good value.

We started out with Soarin’ because I had heard they changed the film/experience since the last time we were there. That was very cool. Though I always come away feeling like they try to jam too much into the experience. Flying over the pyramids, over the rain forests, over the African savannah. I think that they could do sort of what the Tower of Terror does and have several different experiences and spend more time “soarin’” over fewer things, and let the guests choose the number, 1 thru 5 for example, of the one they want to do. That is one way to keep it fresh, and also keep guests coming back. Just my $.02 for Disney.

After Soarin’ we had to go see the “new” Frozen attraction in the Norway/Viking area. What a let down that was. I had heard last summer that people were waiting in line for 3+ hours to go on it, and all the attraction is, is a water ride thru some animatronic scenes from the movie Frozen while the music from the movie plays in the background. I thought, “this is what people waited in line for hours for?” There was one drop in the flume where the people sitting in front of us got soaked (thank goodness it wasn’t us). I remember that drop from the Norway/Troll ride that was there before, but I don’t remember getting wet. And if it weren’t for the waves rebounding back off the wall as we went down, the boat wouldn’t have gotten wet that time either. Maybe that is what set the tone for me. But the rest of the day was spent walking around the park looking for attractions to go on, and things to see. All very hum-drum.

They were having an art festival there at the time as well, and I thought that would be something different. It was like when the Falls does the Art in the Park artist’s festival in the summer. Lots of painters, sculptors, etc. with booths set up around the park showcasing their work. But I just didn’t feel like looking. At least we had a sunny day to walk around.

Frontier Flight

We took Frontier on the flight down to Orlando for the girls’ UCA National Competition.  I can’t remember if we ever flew Frontier before but this flight was pretty nice.  I know Frontier is sort of a discount airline, but our plane was new, it was clean, and there was plenty of overhead space, although we didn’t use it.  I have found that if you want to carry anything on, it is best to just have it be a small backpack that you can stuff under your seat.  That way there is no fighting for compartments, which is something I absolutely refuse to do.

Overall though, the boarding and unboarding (or is it called deplaning?) went really smooth.  Much better than other flights I have been on from “major” airlines.  I think I would consider flying Frontier again, although I wasn’t very happy with the baggage fees and the charges to “select my seat”.  That sort of cut into the affordability of the flight.

Stopped By The TSA

As we were going thru the security checkpoint at Mitchell I ended up getting called out of line by the TSA for a pat down.  It all stemmed from the fact that I didn’t take my money clip out of my pocket.  I was under the assumption that you didn’t need to pull the cash out of your pockets and drop it in the trays.  I thought I remembered the TSA telling me I didn’t need to do it when I went thru the airport in Phoenix a couple of months ago, so I didn’t do it this time.  From this experience I learned that first of all, every airport is different so it is best just to empty everything, and two, securing cash deep in a pocket of the backpack I am carrying thru the checkpoint is the easiest way to avoid this in the future. 

So I got pulled aside by an agent who had to give me the whole explanation of this, and then proceed to give me the once over.  All of Ali’s friends, and the cheer coaches (as well as Kris) were laughing watching me get the pat down.  The big joke was, what was I trying to smuggle thru the airport.  I found it funny that the agent had to give me a blow by blow walk thru of everything he was doing to me.  I get that they sort of have to do it because I set off the alarm going thru the detector.  Once they explained it to me I was of the opinion, OK, let’s just go thru this so I can continue on my way.  I was trying to be more than cooperative to speed up the process.  I would have been happy with just saying, yeah, yeah… go ahead and do whatever you need to in order to get me thru as quickly as possible. 

I guess that now, the next time going thru the checkpoint, I’ll be aware.  Not that it was a horror story as I have heard in news reports.  I think that some of those people exaggerate a little bit because they are disgruntled for having to be pulled aside, and for the purposes of getting on the news.  But I will say that I was more peeved at the amount of time it took rather than the process itself.  Live and learn.

Giving Blood

As we get ready to head to Florida for Ali’s Cheer Nationals, I was due to donate blood.  I had actually scheduled my donation for the beginning of January at the high school thru the health care career academy.  But they were apparently overbooked so they asked if I would mind moving my scheduled donation.  I thought, sure, whenever they need me to.  So now right before flying, I’ll be down a pint.  I hope that doesn’t mess me up while we’re cruising at 35,000 feet.

Actually the blood drive was a little bit frazzled.  I had to wait a little bit, even though I was there right when I was scheduled.  Someone had called in sick, so they were down a person.  That meant the person checking the donors in was also helping with some of the other duties.  I felt bad for them, but since it was close to the end of the day and I was in no hurry, I told them to take their time.  I have had days like that before so I hope that I was able to help relieve some of the rushing.  

Brookfield Blast

The girls had their final "regular" competition this weekend.  I don't know if they were trying to make up for their poor showing at the iCheer meet, but this week they were on.  They hit all their stunts, I didn't see many mistakes at all (if any).  There was one other team that I thought was some serious competition, but when it came time for the announcements of the winners, the Falls was #1.  Not a bad way to warm up for the UCA Nationals next week.



Brook Blast from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

New Google Image

After I saw that we are on the Google Street View at the corner of State and Harmonee, I decided to look up our house. Turns out the Google Street View car came down our street last fall too, sometime in October. As you go down the street and look at the house, Sarah’s car is out front, and the Halloween decorations are out (as sad as they are). So go have a look! (I was going to link to the photo, but then I realized it actually listed our address, and in the internet age, I thought that might not be a good idea.  If you know us, you know where we live so go look it up).

We're On Google

Last fall I mentioned how we saw the Goggle Street View car when we were on our way to get our 2016 WE Energies cookie book. Periodically since then I have been looking to see if we ended up on the actual street view at that corner. Well, when I checked yesterday, turns out we are! The Ford only appears in a single frame, and you can’t see Kris or me in the car itself, but it is clearly my car with the yellow, Packers license plate. And, you need to actually turn the shot in order to see us. It is funny, because I saw the car coming up to the stoplight, and turn, but yet we are only in one single shot, and it is the shot after the car turned so it is driving away and you need to turns and look slightly backward to see our car. I suppose it doesn’t matter, but at least I have a claim to fame now.

Here we are.