Where do the days go?

Good Morning Teams,

Another successful but busy week spent monitoring 14 FRC Regional and District Events has flown by.   Some students asked me this weekend, “What’s it like to work at FIRST?” I think they thought I get to build robots all day long, because they seemed surprised by my answer.  My schedule during the competition season is basically; fly to an event, get up early, spend the day making speeches, meeting with local volunteers and visiting teams while checking on the progress of all the other events and fielding phone calls from event managers, key volunteers and staff who need my input as they troubleshoot events.  I  get back to my hotel room late, clean out my email in box, go to bed, get up early and repeat until it’s time to fly home.  Mondays I meet with the Game Design Committee where we discuss the previous week’s events, tweak anything that needs tweaking, and prepare for the next week.  (Which reminds me, watch for Team Update #19 coming soon.) Tuesdays I catch up on what’s happening back at the office as staff prepare for upcoming events and championship, then do a load of laundry, and re-pack my suitcase in preparation for flying to the next event.

I know I was in Bayou last week because it was warm outdoors, I had gumbo and I remember marching in the opening parade holding an umbrella and tossing miniature stuffed alligators to the teams.  My thanks to all the volunteers who were so helpful last weekend and my apologies to any of you who wanted to talk to me but couldn’t because I had a cellphone stuck to my ear.  My primary goal is to ensure all events are running smoothly, which unfortunately means I’m not always free to talk.

Checking my calendar, I see I’m headed to Midwest Regional this week.  Maybe I’ll see you there.  If not, best of luck in week 4 everyone!

36 Days until Championship
See you then!