Happy Birthday Benjamin!

This morning, I was back at the eTech conference. It was a lot better today. I got to play with the science games that the engineering students at Ohio University has been working on. Although I do have some criticisms, they were pretty fun. They even had some games in Second Life, which were very cool. The keynote today was much better than the first one I saw although he didn’t talk much about technology. He talked about following your bliss, pretty much. One good quote he shared:

“Easy times are the enemy, they put us to sleep. Hard times wake us up.”

I forget where it came from, but it made me think and maybe gain a little perspective. Before the keynote, I came in at the tail end of the student video contest awards. There was the cutest video that I wanted to post here, but eTech didn’t put it on their website for some reason, so I’m going to tell you about it. It was this fifth or sixth grade Indian boy. He was interviewing his dad about when he first came to America and his dad talked about seeing the statue of liberty and how great that was. Then he said that he ended up settling in Cleveland. The video goes to a clip of the boy saying something like, “Now… I love everything about Cleveland. The lake, the Browns, the Cavs, the Indians. It’s great. But when my dad first got here, he didn’t know anything about Cleveland.” He’s wearing each jersey as he says this. Then, the video goes back to the interview with the Dad and his dad says, “When I first got to Cleveland, I kept seeing these signs everywhere that said ‘Go Indians!’ and I thought, do they want the Indians to go away?” Then the video goes back to the little boys and he says, “Oh, dad!” It was hilarious.

Oh, and then I was walking through the student exhibits and what do I see?
A poster from St. Paul’s! This is the school my dad and all his siblings went to, where Beth went AND where my Aunt Ann taught for 20 some years. Too bad there was no one at the booth to talk to!

After the conference, I went home for a snack, baked a cake for Ben, and then headed to class. Class was great. We got to practice doing interviews on each other.

Ben came over after class to have some cake and get his greedy little paws on a present. Here is Ben with his cake. It didn’t turn out quite as I had hoped. The batter was a little thick and the cake was uneven. Then, I learned a very important lesson: Do not put candles in a cake you just took out of the oven. They kept falling over and I was confused until I pulled one out and the whole part that was in the cake had melted off the string. So, we cut little pieces out and ate some just for birthday’s sake. The rest went in the trash can. Here’s Ben with his homely cake (it’s the thought that counts).
And, on a side note, last year on Ben’s birthday (well, the day after) he started his healthier lifestyle. He’s lost around 140 lbs. Just so you can compare, I added a picture from my wedding in June 2007. You can’t tell me that’s not amazing. Wow! I’m so proud of you Ben!