What a Thanksgiving!
Wow, I'm tired.
And what indeed a spectacular Thanksgiving!
It all started when Church bells went off this morning at 5:45AM.
Yep, you know it! well, no. Aurora on my mbp is normally scheduled to wake me up around 6:45 to get me up for work, however this was a special morning, and mind you I had only gone to sleep about 2-3 hours prior, it was time to get up.
After sleeping in a BIT extra longer, I was awake, I had woken Emily up (and succeeded in not waking up Chris) and Alexander was not woken by the church bells either, so that was a success!
So I showered, and dressed in what would be considered layers. I haven't dressed in layers in longer than I can remember.
2 pairs of socks, covering my feet in my fuzzy crocs. 2 pairs of pants (Gym pants under, nice pants over). An undershirt, a button down shirt, a sweater, covered by a zipper-down coat, followed up by a zipper down jacket.
Oh, and then I topped it off with an Owlie hat, and a pair of thick work gloves.
I'm set for the weather!
WTF!?! It's 6:30AM on Thanksgivings day, what the hell am I getting dressed up so much?
So, off Emily and I went, driving downtown to the Chicago Hosteling international! Hmm....
That was our meeting place, as we were announcers in the Chicago Thanksgivings Day Parade (McDonalds Thanksgivings Day Parade).
To tell you the truth, I don't really recall if I've ever gone to our parade before, certainly not playing a vocal and focal role of the event!
After a short bit of collecting materials (Red jackets to wear over our clothes, to indicate us as Volunteers) and a Sash which read "TOASTMASTERS" across it, we were set with Pocket Warmers and assigned to our teams to go ready ourselves on the Parade route!
We were at Station #1 - State and Jackson. First stop on the Parade route.
We had a wonderful active audience of people when we did get our Microphones online and were ready to start announcing the floats and other festivities as they rolled down the street.
There were 4 Teams of dual-pair announcers, we were Team #3, so we had a bit of time to prepare, "Work the crowd" and whathaveyou before we were up on the stand, and being the voices of Chicagoans to give their ears an idea of what was coming down the parade line!
Due to a technical difficulty of one of the mics being out, we were limited to sharing a single microphone, which caused our team banter to suffer, and as a result my normal lively quitepossiblyinsane self from being exhibited through the mic; however Emily was able to prosper under the circumstances, and quite definitely was the best presenter at our particular portion of the Parade stations. Hands down, I was... I was good enough, given the situation of having thousands of people looking to you for information, but I was not the hotbed of information and exuberance that I usually am, so I am glad that Emily was able to come through, not only for herself, but also for the Chicagoans who were able to be provided the information, banter, wit and content that she was so eloquently able to provide.
The other volunteers in our particular station did well, but did not prosper quite so strongly as Emily was able to! Props to Emily!
Me, I was able to prosper as I often do, and facilitated our situation in order to ensure the information was timely and passing, additional content which was relevant could be presented, and I did address the crowd a number of times and occasions, but not as my normal self as you might encounter when I'm evangelizing something. We were able to further do great justice to our group when it came to handing out cards, engaging the crowd and getting their involvement and response. In all, it was excellent good times!
After heading back to the Hosteling building following our particular speaking engagement (~20mins on the stand), we collected our giftbag, and headed on home to prepare things for Thanksgiving!
Chris had already gotten the food which needed to be in the oven taken care of, and cleaned up the house and was getting things ready for when Emily's parents and Emily's Brother arrived. I took a bit of opportunity to take a nap!
Dinner went off well, we had our Vegan meal, everyone else had their turkey and ham, and various other non-vegan goodies, and then some Pinata excitement, including some watching "Billy Madison", as thats one of the less crazy things we had available to watch!
I fell asleep again (waking up to come upstairs to lay down to go to sleep again, and decided to post this! (Hi Änna!)
So, in all, a very active and busy Thanksgiving!
I need to help my "Team" in my University of Phoenix class, sometime this weekend, so not only can they understand how to make better powerpoint presentations, but also so my grade 'doesn't suffer', not that it can suffer too much, as I've only lost 1 point so far in the class (A point I firmly standby should not have been lost!)
In a few weeks, I'll be in the WTTW/PBS Phone Drive, so you can look for me there! I'll find out the details and post those eventually!
So, hoorah, hooray, happy thanksgivings and whossawhatsit!
And what indeed a spectacular Thanksgiving!
It all started when Church bells went off this morning at 5:45AM.
Yep, you know it! well, no. Aurora on my mbp is normally scheduled to wake me up around 6:45 to get me up for work, however this was a special morning, and mind you I had only gone to sleep about 2-3 hours prior, it was time to get up.
After sleeping in a BIT extra longer, I was awake, I had woken Emily up (and succeeded in not waking up Chris) and Alexander was not woken by the church bells either, so that was a success!
So I showered, and dressed in what would be considered layers. I haven't dressed in layers in longer than I can remember.
2 pairs of socks, covering my feet in my fuzzy crocs. 2 pairs of pants (Gym pants under, nice pants over). An undershirt, a button down shirt, a sweater, covered by a zipper-down coat, followed up by a zipper down jacket.
Oh, and then I topped it off with an Owlie hat, and a pair of thick work gloves.
I'm set for the weather!
WTF!?! It's 6:30AM on Thanksgivings day, what the hell am I getting dressed up so much?
So, off Emily and I went, driving downtown to the Chicago Hosteling international! Hmm....
That was our meeting place, as we were announcers in the Chicago Thanksgivings Day Parade (McDonalds Thanksgivings Day Parade).
To tell you the truth, I don't really recall if I've ever gone to our parade before, certainly not playing a vocal and focal role of the event!
After a short bit of collecting materials (Red jackets to wear over our clothes, to indicate us as Volunteers) and a Sash which read "TOASTMASTERS" across it, we were set with Pocket Warmers and assigned to our teams to go ready ourselves on the Parade route!
We were at Station #1 - State and Jackson. First stop on the Parade route.
We had a wonderful active audience of people when we did get our Microphones online and were ready to start announcing the floats and other festivities as they rolled down the street.
There were 4 Teams of dual-pair announcers, we were Team #3, so we had a bit of time to prepare, "Work the crowd" and whathaveyou before we were up on the stand, and being the voices of Chicagoans to give their ears an idea of what was coming down the parade line!
Due to a technical difficulty of one of the mics being out, we were limited to sharing a single microphone, which caused our team banter to suffer, and as a result my normal lively quitepossiblyinsane self from being exhibited through the mic; however Emily was able to prosper under the circumstances, and quite definitely was the best presenter at our particular portion of the Parade stations. Hands down, I was... I was good enough, given the situation of having thousands of people looking to you for information, but I was not the hotbed of information and exuberance that I usually am, so I am glad that Emily was able to come through, not only for herself, but also for the Chicagoans who were able to be provided the information, banter, wit and content that she was so eloquently able to provide.
The other volunteers in our particular station did well, but did not prosper quite so strongly as Emily was able to! Props to Emily!
Me, I was able to prosper as I often do, and facilitated our situation in order to ensure the information was timely and passing, additional content which was relevant could be presented, and I did address the crowd a number of times and occasions, but not as my normal self as you might encounter when I'm evangelizing something. We were able to further do great justice to our group when it came to handing out cards, engaging the crowd and getting their involvement and response. In all, it was excellent good times!
After heading back to the Hosteling building following our particular speaking engagement (~20mins on the stand), we collected our giftbag, and headed on home to prepare things for Thanksgiving!
Chris had already gotten the food which needed to be in the oven taken care of, and cleaned up the house and was getting things ready for when Emily's parents and Emily's Brother arrived. I took a bit of opportunity to take a nap!
Dinner went off well, we had our Vegan meal, everyone else had their turkey and ham, and various other non-vegan goodies, and then some Pinata excitement, including some watching "Billy Madison", as thats one of the less crazy things we had available to watch!
I fell asleep again (waking up to come upstairs to lay down to go to sleep again, and decided to post this! (Hi Änna!)
So, in all, a very active and busy Thanksgiving!
I need to help my "Team" in my University of Phoenix class, sometime this weekend, so not only can they understand how to make better powerpoint presentations, but also so my grade 'doesn't suffer', not that it can suffer too much, as I've only lost 1 point so far in the class (A point I firmly standby should not have been lost!)
In a few weeks, I'll be in the WTTW/PBS Phone Drive, so you can look for me there! I'll find out the details and post those eventually!
So, hoorah, hooray, happy thanksgivings and whossawhatsit!