Spring is Coming 2019

Spring is Coming 2019

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for March 10, 2019

It has been a brutally long winter.  So far in 2019, we have had 32 days where the temperatures have been below 0 degrees Fahrenheit.  We just came out of the snowiest February in recorded history for Minnesota.  Needless to say, when I heard we were expected to have another 12 inches of snow fall on us, I wasn't looking forward to it.  Lucky for us, we only had about 5 inches.  It did look really pretty on the trees when we woke up this morning.

Miss Sheri takes care of our driveway and it's been quite the chore the past few months.  I don't remember our pile ever being this high in the past.

I thought it would be fun to get the drone out to capture some aerial shots of the snow.  It was fun for awhile until the wind picked it up and almost carried it into the neighbor's snow covered tree.

  

My dog, Blue, has been acting like quite the victim lately constantly whining about not being able to go outside for runs.  He normally spends a lot of time in our backyard, but it hasn't been too pleasant trying to navigate the deep snow.

Sometimes he gets so frustrated, he tries to eat all the snow.  He barely makes a dent.

Sometimes he pouts and asks me to make all the snow go away.  I just tell him Spring is Coming.  It's kind of like our little play on Game of Thrones, but I swap out the word Spring for Winter.  he finds that hilarious.

When the temperatures warm up, I take him down to the lake so he can race the snowmobiles.  It was a balmy 28 degrees today and I swear it feels like a heat wave!!  Spring is Coming!!

Other fun things I did this week was going for a visit to our old friends on the Prior Lake High School Robotics team, KING TeC, at their annual robot reveal event.

This year's competition looks like it will be pretty challenging, but I was really impressed with the team's new robot they built this year.  It has an impressive arm that uses advanced programming techniques to place the discs and balls used in the competition.  I look forward to seeing how well they do this year.

We also fired up the Prior Lake Empty Nester Club again for the first time in a few months.  We were joined by some fun friends at Buffalo Wild Wings in Savage.  It's always good to get out of our igloos for awhile and go socialize again.

The 2018 Minne Mini Robotics Tournament

The 2018 Minne Mini Robotics Tournament

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for November 18, 2018

I spent much of the week in Kansas City along with my team attending a very intense & powerful sales training.  We worked hard and played hard together.

On Saturday, I attended the 2018 Minne Mini Regional FRC Robotics Tournament.  The tournament consists of 36 robotics teams from Minnesota & Iowa competing in a game called First Power Up.

Basically each match consists of 2 alliances with 3 robots per side competing to score points by performing various tasks including lifting large blocks onto a scale to gain control away from the competing alliance.  It's 2 minutes of chaos on the field and a lot of fun to watch.

I was one of 8 judges observing the tournament and interviewing the teams to determine which ones would win various awards for showcasing talent in engineering, spirit, and gracious professionalism.  It's hard to judge because there are so many worthy teams to be considered and a ton of great kids.

It's also fun spending time with my fellow judges.  These are a bunch of great guys.

After the tournament we went out to dinner with the Korkowskis and one of Sue's best friends from childhood.  We had a nice dinner before heading back to the high school for a late night event.

We went to see the Prior Lake High School performance of Sister Act.  If you haven't seen the movie, the story is about a night club singer who witnesses a murder and has to go into hiding so she pretends to be a nun in a local convent.  Hilarity ensues.

We were there to support Grace Korkowski who was one of the nuns.  It was fun seeing her sing and dance throughout the various performances.

There are a lot of talented performers at Prior Lake High School.

There were more than 120 students involved in the production which seems pretty crazy to me.  That's a lot of kids.  But you could totally see the amount of passion and hard-work they put into the production.  It was a phenomenal show!

Prior Lake Farmer's Market 2017

Prior Lake Farmer's Market 2017

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for May 29, 2017

My sons Luke and Avery are graduating high school in a couple of weeks so we continue to experience our "last times" at certain events that have been a regular part of our lives.  This week it was watching Luke perform at his last high school band concert.  He's been performing percussion since the 6th grade so we've been coming to see him perform for more than seven years now.  I thought to mark the occasion, I'd share a couple of minutes of video from the event:

He's not really happy with me for putting this video on YouTube, but it's the last time he'll have to worry about that also.

We continue to get our house ready for their graduation party.  Last week we had to clear out the main level to get our wood floors re-surfaced.  This week we had to clear out everything upstairs to get new carpet.  It's been a major pain in the butt, but now that it's done we're really happy having fresh new floors throughout our house.

It feels so squishy on my toes.

My old, buddy Orlando Mazzolini, picked me up to go exploring the woods of nearby Jordan, Minnesota.  We picked up quite a few ticks along the way.

Orlando always takes me on a new adventure whenever we get together.  I really trust the dude so I just have to keep the faith whenever I see signs like these.

The high school robotics season is over so we had our year end celebration banquet at the Legends.  This year's seniors had the seats of honor.

I've been the president of the Prior Lake Robotics booster club the past couple of years so I had the chance to say a few words to open the awards ceremony.  It's always a little dangerous to give me a microphone, but hopefully I didn't embarrass my kids too much.

Luke was one of the captains this year being responsible for mentoring the elementary school program, so he had the chance to say a few words also.  It's always fun watching the kids do public speaking.

Avery received several awards for his work as the head of programming.  There's so many talented kids on this team and it's a lot of fun to see them all being celebrated.

  

On Saturday, we stopped by the Prior Lake Farmer's Market.  It was a beautiful morning so the streets were packed with people.

I don't know how many Farmers are actually selling their wares here, but there are several people selling various food items and other goodies.  I always find something that makes me want to pull out my wallet.

It was fun to see one of the mentors from Prior Lake Robotics, Mark Glewwe.  He was there supporting his company, Glewwe's Castle Brewery.  The city will only let him sell root beer at the Farmers Market so we will have to go to his place some time to try the good stuff.

We always enjoy stopping by this food truck to buy breakfast.  They have fantastic egg sandwiches, burritos, and other yummy items.  Well done, El Jefe!

These guys were playing pleasant music all morning.  You know life is good when you're playing guitar while wearing socks and sandals.

Our neighbor's daughter, Jill, surprised the boys with early graduation presents.  Jill is an ex Minnesota Golden Gopher and has been so excited to get Avery his Gopher bibs ever since she heard that's where he was going to college.  I think he looks good in them!

2017 Minnesota State Robotics Championships

Minnesota State Robotics Championships 2017

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for May 21, 2017

Some of you might remember a few months ago when I was on a Podcast called Desire To Inspire with Manny Patrick.  Here's a link to the video if you missed it:

Shortarmguy - A Desire to Inspire

Manny came to town this week so we had the chance to meet in person.  We went out to dinner at Cowboy Jack's and then to a Twins game together.  It was a great time!

Manny is an aspiring inspirational speaker and was in town for the Minneapolis Small Business Expo so I went to the convention center to see him speak.  It was very motivating and I was happy to see him doing so well inspiring audiences.  He's a rising star on the speaker circuit.

It was fun going to Target Field to watch the Minnesota Twins play the Colorado Rockies.  The hometown team have been a surprise this year so far and are leading the AL Central after a horrible season last year.  Unfortunately they lost this game, but we still had a great time watching.

We are planning for a graduation party in a couple of weeks so have decided to take on some last minute re-modeling projects which have been pretty disruptive to our lives.  This week we had our wood floors re-surfaced so had to remove every stitch of furniture and accessory from the main level for a few days.

Our floors hadn't been done in more than 20 years, so it ended up being quite the project.  Four men were here from 8:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night the first day.  It's a little weird having to turn over your house so completely to strangers, but seeing how hard they were working made me really appreciate them!

We have been so pleased with how the floors turned out!!  It's like they are brand new.

The guys who came over the next two days were real nice and talked us through all the rules for our new floors.  If you live in or near Prior Lake and need work on your floors, you should check out www.aboveallhardwoodfloors.com.  Unfortunately they're not paying me for the plug, but I was real pleased with the work they performed so thought I'd give them a shout-out!

Poor Blue is so dang confused with his life.  First, he lost his adopted brother last weekend, then he had to stay out of the main level of our house for several days, and finally we made him wear socks to walk on the floors for awhile.  I think he's going to need doggy therapy soon.  

On Friday night we went to our friends, the Bolligs, to help celebrate the graduation of their two oldest, Andy & Lindsey.  Both graduated from St. Thomas and have awesome jobs and awesome futures in front of them.  We've known these two since they were born and are very happy for them & their accomplishments.

The Bolligs were our first friends when we moved to Minnesota back in 1993 and it's great that we still get to hang out with them some 24 years later.  Where the heck did all that time go?

On Saturday, we went to Marriucci Arena for the Minnesota State High School League's 2017 Robotics Championships.

There were 36 teams here from around the state of Minnesota who won a regional championship to earn the right to compete at State.

 We were there supporting Prior Lake High School team #2169 KING TeC as they battled throughout the day.

The team was excited to cheer on the robot and spread their KING-TeC spirit throughout the arena.

This was to be the last robotics tournament of the boys' high school career.  They've had an incredible time participating in robotics for the past 6 years, but they will now have to find their new passions to pursue when they go to college in a few months.

We're going to miss robotics as much as the boys.  We've met so many good friends through this program and it's kind of sad that we won't be going to tournaments any more.  We've had tons of fun going to them over the years.

The season ended on a high note.  KING TeC advanced to the finals and lost a close match earning them a second place ranking in the state of Minnesota.

It was a great year for a great team of a bunch of really great kids.

These are the graduating seniors of KING TeC's 2017 squad.  We wish them all the absolute best luck with their future endeavors!