Congress

Last night I sorted through the Congress data for Districts. For some reason Congress requires the least amount of "official" paperwork from Ripon. This is good, because Congress is something I know absolutely nothing about, which means that the possibility for screwing up would otherwise be all that much higher than the rest of Districts.

What I do is make two lists, one of Senators and one of Reps. Simple enough. Then I divide the Reps into 2 groups, breaking each school in half, because having over 30 in 2 houses means we send 2 Reps. First, of course, everything is arranged by school, which is how I initially receive the info. I type it into Excel, one cell of name, one of school. Then I copy the names and sort them according to first name, and that gives me a random list. Then I make a little chart that looks like the room we'll be in, and I copy a person to each spot in the room. Voila, a seating chart, which we print up and which works as a "ballot" for the judges. Every time someone talks on Friday the judge will give them some points, and then I collect all the points and put them back into a list in Excel, now completely arranged by school (it doesn't matter about houses or senate anymore) and send that to Ripon so that NFL points are entered into the Great Book of Whocares. Much more complicated is the process of electing the winners, which is done by preferential balloting. First, there's a list of nominees, which usually includes just about anybody who opened the old mouth over the 5 hour stretch. Then everybody ranks them. Then we do this thing in tab where we find the firsts, the seconds, the thirds, etc., in order, which is sort of like 20-card monte, and best done to a reggae beat. This is the one part I do guarantee that we get right (we do it as a duo, and occasionally a three-o--it's the hottest ticket in district tab); if we say you won Congress, well, by jiminy, you've won Congress. If we say you've earned 13 points, on the other hand, well, by jiminy, you've earned somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 points. Grumpily Dukes says that earning her first Diamond meant the most to her of all her accolades, because it represented so many student accomplishments. I don't disagree, but a few points lost in the mists of vagueness won't change all those wonderful years leading up to the event.

I've been tinkering with the listings on the right, which you may have noticed if your life is truly empty. Nothing major, but adding and subtracting the odd entry. Burgers, for instance, who is now posting about once an umpty-ump, is demoted for doing school work instead of entertaining his old high school coach. Sorry about that. On the other hand, I have added a couple of good theme park blogs; I'm not wild about the average yabbo's emptyheaded meanderings (I have enough of my own), but these are a cut above. Worth looking at, if you're interested in the subject.

A chez tonight on Pfft for Districts, then back to Districts paperwork tomorrow night. Then again, a lot can be done Friday morning during Congress. And meanwhile I've got to finish the rough draft of Businessman so that I can devote some time to S&S. Meanwhile, I'm reading Why Buildings Stand Up, which is about just that. You'll be happy to learn that the arches at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower are purely decorative, and that there is only one Eiffel structure in the US (structure used in the architectural sense, the thing that holds a structure up). Crappy prize if you can name it. Personally, I couldn't. (And no, it's not the Bumpidome.)