Tiffany's 101 in 1001

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Well… Life happened and I got pretty lazy about updating my 101 list.  That didn’t keep me from actually finishing some items though, so I’m going to do a series of posts about my latest accomplishments.  I know you’re all on the edge of your seats, so here goes…

#18 – Frame and hang a wedding picture:  Found a cool website where I could get a free canvas – Canvas On Demand – so we used a picture from the Capitol on our wedding night.  It looks fabulous!!

#19 – Buy a digital frame and load it with pics:  Lisa and Steve gave us a fabulous gift certificate to Amazon.com for our wedding gift, so we put it towards a new digital frame in August.  Right now, it’s full of Yellowstone pics and the DeLuca wedding photos from Montana.  Love it!

#20 – Hire a professional photographer to do our album:  After Lisa’s wedding in August, we became great friends with our wedding photog, Tyler Schmitt and his wife Olivia.   We chatted about albums and once we saw one in person, we were hooked!  He designed it, we approved it, and we got it on December 4th.  It’s FABULOUS!

More later…

So again, not much happening on the 101 list (although I did finish 1 of my 35 books – Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson), so I’m going to reminisce again.

This weeks subject – Tyson Auditorium.

Built in 1950 as an addition to the “Versailles School (est 1938)”, Tyson Auditorium has a classic art deco style in light yellow-cream glazed bricks with limestone trim. Inside, concrete bleachers with wooden plank tops are arranged in a U-shape, with a large wooden stage on the west end of the gymnasium. Seating capacity is 1850 (coincidentally this is roughly the current population of Versailles as well). The total construction cost for the auditorium was $178,000 (the cost for the Versailles School was only $130,500 in 1938). Another little known fact is that the 1954 Milan Indians state basketball championship team played all their “home” games at Tyson Auditorium that year, in order to accommodate larger crowds than their own home gymnasium could handle. The South Ripley Raiders have occupied this gym since the school’s establishment in 1966, but the last game for this historical auditorium will be on February 22nd, 2008.

This gets me to thinking about all the memories I have from Tyson… I thought I’d make a random list and hope that my friends and family will add to it with their own memories.

First – I went to elementary school from kindergarten through 5th grade here – so practically all of my childhood school memories are tied to Tyson School & Auditorium.

• Kindergarten classes were held in “temporary” buildings put on the gravel parking lot next to the Auditorium. There were 2 class rooms, with a set of shared restrooms in the middle (I think). I can distinctly remember waiting in this parking lot for my mom (or someone else’s mom) to pick me up from school and drive me to “Brownies” – you know – the thing before girl scouts. It was common knowledge that the driver of the car must tell you the correct password before you would ever get into someone’s car other than your own parents. We don’t mess around with strangers in Versailles!
• Playing with my pogo ball in the concrete loading dock ramp during recess.
• Having Laura count all the freckles on my skin for something like 3 whole days of recess. I think she got close to 3000 before we gave it up.
• Practicing our “Beach Girls” performances on the old basketball court outside.
• School carnivals! One special year, I won the cake walk 6 or 8 times and took all these cakes home with me. My friends and I stayed the night at my dad’s house where we ate most of all the cakes and sang beach boys songs all night long. We had to cover one of my dad’s animal “trophies” hanging on the wall because someone was scared.
• In 5th grade, some famous psychic said that there would be a major earthquake to hit Versailles (we do lie on a fault line, evidently), so we had earthquake drills alot that year. At one point, Ms. Avedesian told us that the drills were pointless and we should just wave to the 1st graders when the floor fell out from under us and we fell to our death. seriously.
• Also that same year, Mr. Wilson sent me “out to the hall” for the first of only 2 times that I can ever remember being in trouble. Samantha and I were talking too much, so he sent me out there to sit by myself. I think he came and yelled at me later and let me come back into the class.
• Mr. Maltbie’s art class was in a separate building near the kindergarten buildings. There was a kiln in there to do clay projects.
• Boys would play kickball on the tennis courts during recess. The girls would make up cheers for them. Stereotypes at their finest.
• Also on the playground was a set of “logs”. They seemed very large at the time, but were probably something like old telephone poles. These logs were laid end-to-end to make one long line. If you ever got in trouble, you had to sit on “the log” during the whole recess. Samantha and I also had 1 week on the logs for stepping on each others heels in a line one time. Thanks, Mrs. Mills.
• Mr. Susnick (principal and Megan’s grandpa) and later Mr. Collier’s office was on the top floor with a really high desk that most of the kids couldn’t see over.
• During PE, one of my favorite memories was of going to the gym, getting everyone around a gigantic piece of cloth cut in a circle, and having us simultaneously lift the cloth up and down… Once it got enough air under it, we took a step in and sat on the edge of the cloth so that we were under a big tent!
• Learning the “50 States” song in the cafeteria (where we always had music class). I also have a distinct memory of learning “kookaburra sits in the old gum tree…”
• Having an all-night “book-in” for the whole school in the gym. I can’t remember how old I was, but I’m guessing 3rd grade. We stayed all night at the school and read books. wow.

And now for some other random memories…

• High School graduation… Megan giving her 1998 tassle to the Bogard twin that graduated with us (his brother, Aaron, I think, graduated on time, in 1995). Singing Onward Christian Soldiers and playing Battle Hymn for the Republic for the last time. Giving my graduation speech.
• Selling concessions during ball games for sophomore class officers? Making popcorn was the worst!
• Getting dressed for floor shows in my old 3rd grade classroom. It was also such a frenzy of excitement before the show, and then afterward we were screaming and laughing and talking about how many times we dropped our batons/flags.
• Cheering for 7th and 8th grade boys basketball games.
• Keeping stats for the Varsity basketball team junior and senior year.
• Crowning the homecoming king senior year.
• Megan announcing Chrissy Copeland the homecoming queen. So much love in her voice!
• For every ballgame, you know where people will sit… They’ve sat in the same seats for YEARS.
• Playing in the pep-band for all the home basketball games.
• Getting free popcorn during the 4th quarter.
• School dances after basketball games… Waiting for “November Rain” to come on before asking your crush to dance with you… The DJ always played the 8 minute version, so that was the best song! My Dad being a chaperone for all the dances and always being nervous. Someone’s dad watching his daughter kiss her boyfriend after a dance one night (not me!)
• Watching my sister cheer
• Helping my dad paint the gym one year when I was really little. I got to paint the cheerleading room! He also accidentally tipped a paint can onto my head and proceeded to wash it out of my hair with gasoline!

Finally – here are some pictures that will have to last forever…

Versailles High School and Tyson Auditorium

Elementary School Cafeteria

Inside of Tyson Auditorium

The sun has set on Tyson Auditorium…

Not the TV Show – but my actual friends! Although I didn’t get to cross anything else off my list this week, I was touched to hear that some of my friends are starting their own 101 lists. Two of my best-friends from high school, Leah and Jennifer (I just can’t get used to calling her Jenn yet), have started their lists and for some reason this makes me feel even closer to them. It was really hard to move so far away from all of them 5 years ago (at the time they were all in Indiana – since then Micah has moved to Florida) and I still miss them terribly. Not very many of us stay in touch weekly, but somehow we still keep up with each other and I try to see everyone at least once a year – either holidays or The Pumpkin Show. This year I was blessed to have 4 of them come to Austin for my wedding! I wish I could have spent more time with them, and shown them around the city and how fun it is, but hopefully it’s a reason to have them come back! Anyway – here’s to friends… young and old, near and far – they’re still SO special to me and I hope they all know how much I love them!

This week, I managed to complete 2 more goals.  The first, and most exciting, is that I got a new job!  Still with the same company, but I’m moving to the “User Experience” group.  Basically, I’ll work with a bunch of Psychologists who design user interfaces (anything that you can actually “see” on your computer screen).  They’ll do their magic to create recommendations and new designs, and then I’ll implement it!   I think I’m the only “techie” in the group, for now, but they might be looking to hire another person in the next year.  Sounds totally fun to me, and I’m definitely inspired again!  I start the new job on February 1st, so the next 2 weeks will be transitioning my old work to other team members.  I can see the finish line!

#88 was also completed – I finished our “to-do” list for the house last weekend, and we’ve already started to knock out some of the items.  There are 38 items on the list, and so far we’ve managed to almost complete 1!  We’ve tackled 4 closets (only 2 to go) and managed to seriously declutter and purge a ton of useless stuff.  Goodwill should be loving us right about now!  Only our bedroom closet and the downstairs closet under the stairs are left.  The house is really starting to pile up with stuff we want to take to storage, but we’re too cheap to pay an extra month’s rent, so we’ll keep it in the house until the last possible moment.

I’m also getting close to buying an iPhone – especially since they didn’t announce the new 3G phone at MacWorld this week.  I might have it by the end of the month!

Keep on keepin’ on…

Woo hoo!  I completed my 101 list today (January 9, 2007), so my official start date will be tomorrow, January 10th (which happens to be my sister’s birthday)!

The list look a lot longer than I anticipated.  I was able to brainstorm about 70 items, but the last 31 required some thinking and looking at other lists.  I also started out with a completely different set of categories than I have now, but I think the final list is pretty darn good.  Now I just need to encourage Nate and Grant (and any of my other friends that want to participate) to finish.

This should be an exciting challenge and I’m already pumped about having goals in front of me that are attainable and well-defined.

Here’s to the next 1001 days!  Stay tuned!

It’s January 2nd, and today I’m starting to write my 101 list. The list will have short, medium, and long term goals that I will complete in 1001 days. I hope to have the list done by January 15th, so my official start date will be January 16. Wish me luck!