Engleberts in Missouri [miz-er-ree]

Jon took 4 days off this past weekend to geek it up from one side of Missouri to the other.

First he headed to Kansas City with his Physics Club to compete in a Science Knowledge Bowl at Rockhurst University. Although they won all 5 of their rounds, they didn’t place as well as they had hoped (placing determined by percentage method rather than win/loss), placing 32nd out of 90. He did get a trip to the Science Museum and a cool new t-shirt out of the deal so all was not lost.

Then he headed to Jefferson City for a couple of days to compete in the state We The People Hearings.

Jon’s Constitution Team consists of six groups of 4 students each that specialize in different areas of the constitution. Jon’s group specialized in Unit 4: How Have the Protections of the Bill of Rights Been Developed and Expanded?

Teams spend the day discussing historical and current constitutional issues in mock congressional hearings. During each round of the competition, the team has to be ready to respond to a variety of questions having to do with American government.

For example, one set of questions addressed by Jon’s unit this year was: A political scientist argues that we have made all the  constitutional changes necessary to expand suffrage. What we need to do now is to foster the civic norms that increase citizen participation. Do you agree or disagree with that argument? Why?
• What are the major constitutional changes that have expanded the right to vote? Are
more needed?
• What are civic norms that increase participation and how can they be encouraged?

Judges for the competition are drawn from lawyers and judges from the state of Missouri and have included the Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice, state and federal appeals court judges and the like in previous years. Jon couldn’t remember who was on the panel this year. I imagine he was focused on remembering other stuff.

Judges rate each unit/team’s responses and select the:

BEST UNIT from each High School Team: Joplin High School Unit IV (Jon’s unit)

BEST UNIT for each focus area: Joplin High School won Best Unit IV overall (Jon’s unit)

BEST TEAM overall: Joplin High School placed 2nd beaten out by Westminster Christian Academy who has won for the past humpteen-gazillion years.

Woot! Go Jon!

…Braggity McBragger signing off…

Larry King Live explores UFO sighting in Texas

Episode spurs Alien! Terror! at the Englebert house. Can aluminum foil hats protect us all!?!

My mom called - my dad’s bypass surgery went well. He is out of the operating room and in the ICU but doing well. My mom should be able to see him and talk to him in about an hour. I can breathe again.

I’ve never kept secret my desire to successfully empty my nest. It’s my job as a parent to throw my baby birds out into the wind and hope that they will take wing and fly, fly away to their own nests.

For the past 5 years, as they graduate from high school and become adults, I have been focused on launching my children into the world. Getting them successfully from here to there. College, tech school, military, some other career or job and then (hopefully) marriage and their own families.

When you have 6 children this is very important. Can you imagine the chaos if all 6 kids decided they would just stay here forever? Moving in their significant others and eventually all of their children. Holy cripes that would be a mad house!

Steph of course is married and settled. Amber graduates in May and will be off on adventures of her own. Then we’ll have 3 in college - a sort of middle ground between being a child and being on your own. It’s a time when they still need you for backup. Mostly financial backup - tuition, car repairs, medical insurance and the like.

But sometimes they need you for other stuff. Like figuring out how to balance school and work and still have a social life. Sometimes they even need your help with difficult classes cause you know stuff like math and statistics and Excel. And you are happy to help them because that’s your job too.

So they give up that cute little apartment that they love so much and move back home. They give up total freedom and resign themselves to being under the “parental eye” again. They aren’t thrilled at moving back home but everyone knows it’s the best thing right now.

That’s what Vicki has done. And even though she maybe feels a little like a failure it’s not. This is not a failure to launch…it’s more of a return to port for retooling.

Violet is home ill today. The good thing? She has managed to keep her food in her stomach where it belongs. Tom, her bus driver, was not so lucky.