The National Bible Bowl competition, in which my kids participated over the last several days in Indiana, involves memorization of large sections of the Bible, at leas for those who want to be successful. Last year the assigned text was the Gospel of John, along with 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, 1 Peter and 2 Peter. This year the text covered six great prophets, and was taken from I Kings, 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and Jonah.
A relatively recent addition to the main competition is the Quoting Bee, in which participants are given a single verse reference, and within 10 seconds must begin to quote the verse, starting at the first word and ending exactly at the last word.
It’s hard enough to memorize an extended passage; pulling a verse right out of the middle of a chapter like Jeremiah 19:3 as my daughter Ruthie does in the video below (she’s the fifth contestant) is amazing:
Here is the climactic moment of the Quoting Bee, in which Ross Smith of Towne South (North Carolina) edged Breanna Hayes of Valley View (Dallas, TX) for the top spot:
Ruthie made it through six rounds of the qualifying contest and four rounds of the finals before making a mistake. She finished in a tie for sixth place.
I’ve written some posts over the last couple of years about my kids being involved in Bible Bowl, such as this one from 2007 and this from 2008. My daughter Ruthie, who has been the “franchise player” for the team, just graduated from high school, so this year’s national competition in Indianapolis is her last.
Bible Bowl is a team game, but most teams typically have one key player who wins the toss-up questions. That’s Ruthie. So when I say “Ruthie won” or “Ruthie had a tough time in last year’s round robin” it’s because so much of the team’s performance depends on winning toss-up questions, and also because she is the hardest-working and most dedicated member of her team. Her brother Joe and sister Rebekah are key contributors to the Austin team, and it’s been great to have them all doing this together (Bekah also graduated in June; Joe will be in 9th grade next year.)
During the first couple of days of the competition the teams play a round robin format to determine seeding for the double elimination competition. The teams are grouped into pods or pools of 12 based on how they have done earlier in the year, and then those teams all play each other, and are seeded for the double elimination based on their pool record.
In some ways the round robin doesn’t really matter, as Ruthie showed last year. Her team lost every game in round robin, was seeded 12th, and still came back to finish fifth in the double elimination tournament. She’s kind of streaky that way.
This year she’s off to a much better start, with a 6-2 record and tied for first in the round robin, with three games tomorrow afternoon. Two of those games are against the teams with which Austin is tied, so it’s nice that she can just focus on the games she’s playing instead of depending on someone else losing.
Of course, the most important thing is that through the competition the kids are learning a lot and memorizing lots of scripture. But it’s nice to have Ruthie doing well in the competition since she has worked so hard.
Bible Bowl has been our family vacation for the last couple of years, as we went to Kansas City in 2007 and Atlanta in 2008. We’re glad to have my parents joining us again this year and Lisa’s dad attending for the first time. And a big highlight is that my daughter Rachel and her husband Kyle were able to come for the weekend with our granddaughter, Evelyn.
So for the next few days, until Wednesday, my Twitter stream will be mostly personal. If you want to follow the Bible Bowl tweets, you can use this hashtag: #BibleBowl09. Looks like I’m the only one using it right now, but let’s see if we can get that to change.
But now it’s time to stop blogging about vacation and resume my experience of it.
Here’s hoping everyone is having a great Independence Day!
In my work at Mayo Clinic and working with our Sharing Mayo Clinic blog I got to meet Sheila Robb, a Twin Cities patient who is a former Miss Austin (Minn.), which also happens to be the world headquarters of SMUG. Here is Sheila’s story on Sharing Mayo Clinic.
As she mentions in the video, Sheila works for General Mills, maker of Chex cereals and Betty Crocker mixes. As we got to know each other and I mentioned that I had celiac disease, she told me about the line of gluten-free Betty Crocker dessert mixes General Mills is developing. And when she returned for her check-up, she left a sample of these mixes (which I don’t think are generally available yet) in my office (I was away.)
Here’s a little video I shot tonight after taking one bite of the gluten-free Devil’s Food cake:
Again, I emphasize that the opinions expressed here are my own, and not those of my employer. But they’re also the opinions of my wife, Lisa, and my son, John, who each had a piece. I had two pieces.
I appreciate when large organizations like General Mills, Outback Steakhouse and Chipotle Mexican Grill make it a point to accommodate those of us with celiac disease. I’m glad for the niche players too, who have served the celiac community and provided resources. But it means a lot when bigger businesses offer gluten-free options that really taste good and are reasonably priced.
Update: In keeping with our Mayo Clinic policy on personal acceptance of gifts, I brought the rest of the cake to the office to share with co-workers. I also want them to see how good this is so they buy gluten-free products, so there will be more of them offered.
Millions of people know the character Richard Dean Anderson (a Minnesota boy, by the way) played on TV: MacGyver. So when I did a presentation in Chicago called, “The $4-a-week online newsroom (and other MacGyver tips)” people immediate “got” what it was about.
Although he is highly regarded in our community, relatively fewer people know my dad, Lewis Aase. That’s a pity, and it’s a situation I hope to rectify in some small measure through this post.
Dad
I wasn’t a huge MacGyver fan, in part because it began its run a year after Lisa and I were married, when we had four kids in six years. I didn’t have a lot of time for TV.
But another reason why I think it wasn’t “must-see TV” for me was that I didn’t think what he was doing was all that unusual. I grew up seeing my dad do things like that all the time. Dad never (to my knowledge, at least) used his problem-solving skills in death-defying situations, but he was (and still is) an amateur expert.
By “amateur expert” I mean someone who doesn’t have formal training, and perhaps doesn’t do things exactly like the professionals. But whether it was putting in a new shower by laying cement blocks in our basement (and eventually finishing it with ceramic tile) or fixing plumbing, installing light fixtures, laying carpet or linoleum (this was the 70s, remember!) or innumerable other projects, Dad just always seemed to figure it out.
Dad has had a strong influence on both of his sons, giving us a common-sense, no-nonsense approach to problem solving, as well as a can-do spirit. My brother Mark (of whom I’m really proud), got Dad’s home remodeling skills. In fact, they flipped a house together last year; maybe not as quickly as they would have liked, but they worked through everything.
I got more of Mom’s academic inclinations, so I’m pretty limited in use of Tim Allen-style power tools. The power tools I use instead are those designed for communication, such as Twitter, blogs, YouTube and everything else we cover in the SMUG curriculum.
Dad being a professional educator (he was an elementary school principal) gave me an interest in teaching. He also was an innovator who developed many new approaches and programs to better serve kids and help them learn. He didn’t just think about how things should change: he made change happen.
Malcolm Gladwell’s newest book, Outliers, highlights two reasons why I’m thankful to God for my dad and mom. First, Gladwell shows that so-called accidents of birth play a huge role in individuals’ success. For example, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were born at just the right time and place to become software tycoons. But Gladwell’s other point is that this favorable environment needs to be accompanied by 10,000 hours of skill development to become world-class in anything. No one becomes successful without hard work…and lots of it.
That’s why I have been triply blessed. My dad and mom not only provided me the advantages of education and a spirit of inquisitiveness, but also the example of what Dad called “stick-to-it-iveness.” I have many memories of Dad just continuing to methodically work through problems until they were solved, or tasks (like cleaning the garage) until they were finished. And most importantly, they raised and instructed Mark and me in the Christian faith.
The life lessons continue to this day. Dad is now 78, but here is his current remodeling project, tearing a hole in the wall to create a main floor laundry room so Mom doesn’t have to go up and down the stairs so much with her arthritic hip.
And having my kids get to spend time with their grandparents (including working with them in the garden) is a true joy. Here’s my youngest, John, out with his grandpa yesterday:
Being born and raised in the land of MacGyver to parents who continue to exemplify that can-do spirit (as well as the Spirit) is cause for great gratitude on Father’s Day.
Yesterday was my birthday, and it was one of my more memorable ones.
The highlight was watching two of my daughters, Rebekah and Ruth, graduate with High Distinction from Riverland Community College, receiving their AA degrees. They are the third and fourth of our children to take advantage of Minnesota’s Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program, which enables industrious high school juniors and seniors to take college classes for simultaneous high school credit. Like Rachel and Jake before them, these two graduated from the community college before they graduated from high school (Rebekah’s Austin High graduation is in a couple of weeks.) Here’s a picture of our recent graduates with their proud parents:
Lisa, Rebekah, Me and Ruth
I also was extremely pleased to receive birthday greetings from my granddaughter in Grand Rapids, MI, via her parents’ blog:
Evelyn Grace Borg wishing Grandpa Happy Birthday
I got a nice call from my son Jake, too. He lives in La Crosse, WI.
From a work perspective, it was a milestone day, as well. The video embedded below, which will be the subject of a future case study, cracked the 1 million mark in total views on YouTube. When I embedded it on our Sharing Mayo Clinic blog on April 7, it had been viewed 1,005 times over the preceding six months. As of this writing it’s at 1,108,201 views (and also was featured on the front page of msn.com yesterday, where it has been seen more than 133,000 times.)
It’s an interesting story that will, as I said, become a future case study…but I have a feeling it’s not done yet. But meanwhile you can get a bit of the back story through this great post on Sharing Mayo Clinic by Jodi Hume, who uploaded the video of the Cowans after her mother, Sharon Turner, a Mayo Clinic patient, shot it. I’ve never been associate with a “viral” video before, so it’s been fun watching the traffic for this one continue to grow.
We also have been delighted to have company for the last three days, as Rick and April Kelley and their children Christian, Gabe, Jake, Elijah, Grace, Ryle and Micah visited us from Louisville. Ruthie and Christian are “exclusive friends,” which is the motivation for the 700+ mile trip, but our families have become close, too.
The many Happy Birthday wishes I received on Facebook and Twitter were touching, too. It’s amazing how these social platforms can bring people together.
Lisa and I are so thankful to God for our many blessings. And if I’ve had a better birthday, I don’t remember it. This is one I won’t be forgetting.
