May 18, 2014

Today my brother graduated from high school. Yet again I feel really freaking old. So very old.

I picked my sister up and we headed over to my dad's house around 12:30PM so we could take pictures. We ended up being the first ones there, which is a first, and after more people had shown up we went outside to take pictures. My brother looked about as excited as I did taking pictures before a graduation. I was proudest of the fact that he was wearing his green Chucks. Like brother like brother.

As for the graduation, we parked in the parking lot on the west side of the stadium and it was a breeze. The parking lot on the east side is the main parking lot and it is always a complete cluster. Avoiding that was nice. I ended up sitting with my sister, dad, and brother's girlfriend at the very top of the coliseum because my dad wasn't going to mess with the stairs. I didn't really want to either. The ceremony was boring, as all graduation ceremonies are. The best part was the lack of a boring commencement speaker. Instead, they just had two class speakers. Both tried to be funny and occasionally succeeded, but mostly I couldn't hear what they were saying. The sound system wasn't the best and they spoke too fast. Also, the second kid was not only Indian but I think he may have had a slight speech impediment. But there wasn't a boring adult so hooray. Then there was the handing out of the thing that will eventually hold a diploma when those get mailed out. There was something over three hundred kids, possibly close or more than four hundred. And my brother was near the end so there was a long wait. Eventually, his name was called and I could tell it was him by his unenthused walk, his green shoes, and the fact that they called his name.

After the ceremony we had about an hour before dinner so I dropped my sister off so she could let her dogs out and I went home for awhile. When we met back up at my dad's house I sat at a table with my sister, brother, and his girlfriend and talked for about an hour I think while we waited for dinner to be ready. So not quite the five o'clock we were promised but the conversation was good, covering high school pranks and music, so I didn't really mind. When one of my dad's friends from the fire department showed up he came over and gave my brother twenty bucks and said he didn't believe in cards. Then he dug in his pocket and gave my sister, brother's girlfriend, and I each a penny so we didn't feel left out. It was pretty funny.

Dinner was a lot more filling than at the work party on Friday. I had a baked potato, coleslaw, potato salad, veggies, and fruit. And then there was more sitting around and talking until about seven o'clock when my brother was getting antsy to leave so he was able to open his cards and the prints I got him. My sister made him candy and pitas because that is what he wanted. An odd request but to each his own.

Shortly after that my sister and I left. I dropped her off and then came home to work on the slideshow. I made progress but not as much as I would have liked. I ended up not having some of the pictures I worked on at school last week so I couldn't add those, and I hope it won't be too hard to add them in later. It took a lot of fiddling to get the length and overlap for each slide figured out. It is a fine balance between the slide going by way too fast and the transition feeling jerky and the slideshow being way too long. But I think I got it all decently figured out. I am having to go through and individually change the pan and zoom for each slide (and each kid has two slides) and that is taking awhile. I made it through twenty-four slides tonight but still have a lot to go. Then I will need to add the music and figure out how hard it will be to add scrolling credits with a list of the kids. And then throw it into the DVD editor software and see about making a menu screen. The goal is still to get all of this done by tomorrow night so I can show the principal and sixth grade teachers on Tuesday and have enough time to make any changes before Thursday. It is looking like tomorrow might be a late night. Later than tonight. It would be nice if I could work on it at school but I only have the software at home. If I win the lottery over the summer I'll buy a laptop so I can be prepared for next year.