Ohio State University is on spring break this week. I picked up Apollo and Mozzie Wednesday after work and brought them home for Nikki and I to look after while Ashley and Shane headed to Kalahari in Sandusky. They left Thursday morning and had a good time at the indoor water park. According to Ashley, Friday there was a convention at Kalahari with a bunch of youngsters dressed in full make-up like the television show toddlers and tiaras for a cheer leading convention. They spent two nights there and were going to spend most of the day Saturday, but they said it was very crowded and decided to head home in the early afternoon. We kept the pets another night before bringing them back to their apartment.
Author Archives: JerryLukins
Stephanie goes to New Orleans
Stephanie and Marcus headed south Saturday morning after Nikki and I dropped off some dresses Stephanie packed, but left in her bedroom. The first day they made it down to Birmingham, Alabama. Stephanie really liked the area and thought all the houses looked like brick mansions.
Garden District
Sunday they made it into New Orleans late afternoon and checked into the Wyndham Avenue Plaza Resort, located in the Garden District in New Orleans.
The beads were all over every tree and fence.
They unpacked and then walked to Magazine Street, but most of the places were closed because it was Sunday.
Monday they walked back to Magazine Street and checked out the shops. Stephanie really liked the boutiques, but was unable to find anything in her size.
Ice cream and macaroons
For lunch they stopped and had pizza and then went to a French Pastry shop and had macaroons and ice cream for dessert. Stephanie and Marcus both were getting sun burnt and at that point Marcus decided to buy a hat for himself. That evening they decided to go back to St. Charles Street, which was near their resort, and ate a place called Zea. Stephanie had BBQ chicken and ribs and Marcus ordered the shrimp pasta.
Small Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter
Tuesday they took the Street Car to the French Quarter District.
#NOLA
Once there, they visited the little voodoo museum and then did some more window shopping where Stephanie found a fedora to help protect her from the sun.
Shrimp Sandwich, Gumbo and fried alligator
They stopped for lunch and shared a fried alligator appetizer, Marcus had Gumbo and Stephanie had a fried shrimp sandwich.
Live music was coming out of almost every door. They did more window shopping and had a cold drink at Starbucks before taking the Street Car back to the Garden District and went back to the hotel. They decided to try Mr. John’s Steakhouse located in the same building as the hotel. They should have known it was going to be expensive when there were no prices on the menu. They both said it was the best meal of their lives and it should have been for $160 for two before tip.
Mr. John’s Steakhouse, cost a lot more than expected. Worth it.
They felt a little out of their element as Stephanie needed to send pictures to Nikki to determine what to do with some of the things they were bringing to the table, such as a little yellow cloth tied with a green ribbon. Inside was a lemon that was to be used to wash the smell of the seafood off her hands. Stephanie took her dinner to go, for fear that she was going to embarrass herself at the dinner table in the restaurant.
Heading down to Camelias.
Wednesday they took the Street Car to Camelia’s, which is a breakfast joint in the Garden District. It was crowded, but the experience was well worth the wait. From there they walked to a city park with a pond and jogging/bike path where they tried to play some hacky sack. Since it was really hot that day they decided to go back to the hotel and took a swim at the pool. They walked to the cafe and Marcus had a coffee before they went to back to hotel again and changed for dinner. They took a half hour walk from the hotel to a place called Superior Seafood. They had Crab Cakes as an appetizer, Stephanie had Shrimp and Crawfish pasta and Marcus had Catfish. After dinner they took the Street Car back to the Avenue Plaza Resort.
Thursday morning they checked out of the resort and took a Street Car back to the French Quarter.
Beautiful flowers
They were going to have breakfast at Cafe De Monde, but the line was out the door and down the street.
Hardy breakfast before the trip to FL.
So instead they picked a cafe next door and had beignets for breakfast and a frozen coffee. They walked to the cemetery, but were told they could not enter without paying $50 per person to have a tour guide take them around.
They took the Street Car back to the hotel to get the car and headed east to Pensacola, Florida and after checking in to a hotel, they found a pizza place that had the biggest slices of New York Style Pie that was very good.
Pensacola Beach, FL
After lunch they went to the beach and they had the pleasure of watching some dolphins porpoising near the shore. They then spent some time shopping at the tourist beach shops and Stephanie talked Marcus into stopping at a pet store and had fun talking with a Macaw. They had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse before calling it a night.
Uncle Sandy’s Macaw Rescue, feeding the birds
Friday morning they went to Uncle Sandy’s Macaw Bird Park Rescue. A non-profit organization that takes in all kinds of birds. The admission gets you a bucket of peanuts to feed the different birds.
Uncle Sandy’s Macaw Rescue, feeding the birds
They spent about 2 hours there and really enjoyed a Cockatoo that was there. They had trouble finding a hotel and had to drive farther than they anticipated. They drove all the way to Clarksville, Tennessee and didn’t make it to the hotel until 1:00 am.
Saturday they stopped around Louisville at an outlet mall to stretch and do a little shopping to break up the 6 drive to Columbus.
Central District Division I Indoor Meet at Otterbein University
Last Week Jonny was supposed to run at Dennison University, but because of the bad weather Granville cancelled the meet for their athletes, even though it was located right here in Granville. The kids were not allowed to participate and told by the coaches that they were going to attend to make sure none of the kids representing Granville ran and could possibly be punished by the athletic director.
Today Jonny participated in the Central District Division I Indoor Meet held at Otterbein University located in Westerville, OH. This was going to be his last chance to to qualify for the State Indoor Track Meet. They had a good opportunity with the group representing the 4×800 relay team. Jonny ran the first leg and got a decent start and was in the middle of pack. He worked his way to the outside worked his way into 3rd place before he handed off to the 2nd leg. Unfortunately it wasn’t a clean handoff and they were declared out of the hand off zone by the time the hand off took place. The 2nd leg they worked up into 2nd place and at the end of the third leg they had built up quite a lead. At that point they had all kinds of trouble as the person running the fourth leg had miscounted laps and wasn’t in the area to take the handoff. I think they ended up in 6th place because of the 20 second delay for the last hand off. It didn’t matter anyway as they were disqualified for the first infraction and just for good measure they added on 4 more infractions before the end of the race. All the boys were deeply disappointed as the team they were handly beating ended up having a good enough time to go to qualify for state and they were in position to get a new personal best time as a team.
By the time the boys were ready to run the 4×400 relay they were all joking around about previous race and all appeared forgiven since each member of the team had a DQ against them.
The 4×400 race was the last race of the event and the boys completed it in 3:45.24 which put them in 10th place out of the field of 17 teams.
Jonny’s 2015 indoor track season is over and he moves right on to start practicing for the outdoor track season.
Ohio State University HS Qualifier #4
Today Jonny ran in the fourth Ohio State Indoor State Track Meet Qualifier held at the French Fieldhouse on the Ohio State University Campus. Jonny ran in two events today the 3200 Meter Relay (4×800) and the 4oo meter run.
First up was the relay. Jonny ran the third leg of the relay in the first heat and received the baton while in 5th place. He was able to pass one team ahead of them while also negotiating other teams they were beginning to lap. Jonny’s time of 2:04.9 was a new indoor personal best for himself and the team finished in 8:32.52 which was good enough for 4th place overall out of 32 teams.
His next race was the 400 meter run. Jonny was seeded in the 5th heat of 10 heats overall, they run the heats from the fastest runners to the slowest to keep the competition fairly consistent in each heat. He finished 2nd in his heat and 18th overall out of 57 runners and ran much better than where he was seeded. He finished in 55.2 which was 8/10ths faster than his seed time of 56 even. At the 200 mark he was in 5th place, but his endurance kicked in and he was able to pass 3 runners, including one right at the finish line to take 2nd place in the heat. In the video below you can see how much distance he had to make up to catch the leaders.
Official race results can be found at http://www.finishtimingresults.com/2015/02-14-OSU/results.pdf
Ohio State University HS Qualifier #3
After a bye week last week, Jonny is running again at the French Fieldhouse in the Ohio State University High School Qualifier #3. He is only scheduled to run one event this week and that is the 800 Meter Dash.
He got another bad start and at one point was last place in his heat. He worked his way to the outside and was able to pass 9 more people and ended up 7th place overall out of 61 participants with a time of 2:05.91 which is a new indoor personal best time for him.
The official results can be found at finishtiming.com.
Ohio State University HS Qualifier #2
Jonny participated in the indoor Ohio State University High School Qualifier #2 today. He ran in the 800 meter run and in the 4×400 relay.
The 800 Meter run he was seeded 19th out of 63 participants with a seed time of 2:10. He was put in the 1st heat which probably helped his time with the faster competition. He didn’t get the best of start, as you can see in the video, but still finished 5th overall with a time of 2:06.35 which is a new indoor personal best time for him in the 800. After his poor start he almost immediately started to pick off competitors in his attempt to stay with the lead group. After the start he ran a near perfect race and looked strong and confident. I took a video of this race shown below.
He also ran in the 4×400 relay. The team participated in the 2nd of heats. Jonny ran the 2nd leg and got a good handoff and proceeded to reel in two competitors before completing his 400 meter leg. Jonny ran his leg in 56.6 seconds and the team completed the race in 3:51.45. The team finished 12th out of 21 teams participating and ended up 5th out of 6 teams in their heat. I did take some video of the race, but my battery died before the end of the race and didn’t save. I have the batteries charging for their next meet which is scheduled for February 7th.
Ohio State University HS Qualifier #1
Jonny ran at the French Fieldhouse at The Ohio State University today. He only ran in one event today. The 4×800 boys relay. There was only one heat with 16 teams. Jonny ran the 2nd leg of the race and ran in 2:13. The team completed the race in 9:06.07 which was good enough for 3rd place overall. This was the teams 1st race in the indoor track season and most kids only raced in one event. This meet was used to get the kids used to running in the dry conditions at the fieldhouse and familiarize themselves with how the indoor meets are run again.
Next week they run at the French Fieldhouse again and will have the opportunity to run in more than one event.
2014 Granville Turkey Trot
Today Jonny ran in the Granville Turkey Trot which benefits the Licking County Food Bank. Jonny was one of 20053 runners participating in the run. They staged the starts into 3 starts. The competitive runners, the fun runners and the fun walkers. Jonny started with the competitive runners. At race time the temps were 31 degrees and snowing. He met several of his high school cross country racing buddies and they warmed up together before the race.
Jonny finished 8th overall out of 2053 participants with a time of 17:40.
After the race he went and had hot chocolate and donuts at one of his coaches house that is located on the race course. It was very windy and cold today and Nikki and I were numb standing and cheering the runners on.
Thanksgiving
We had our Thanksgiving diner with Ashley and Shane the day before Thanksgiving. They were going to be going to Shane’s mom’s house on Thanksgiving and asked to have diner at our house on Wednesday. Instead of Turkey, Ashley is not a fan of Turkey, Nikki cooked a delicious ham dinner with mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, mashed pumpkin and homemade cranberry sauce.
Stephanie’s best friend from high school, Ryan, was home from college and brought a friend from college, who was from Mexico and unable to make it back home for the long weekend. They were all over for dinner as well.
Ashley and Shane brought Apollo and all the dogs played together until they all ran out of energy, which was much later in the day. They stayed much later than expected and we had nice conversations and went through old pictures later into the night. It was a very nice visit and Nikki and I enjoyed the night very much.
Tomorrow, Thanksgiving morning, Jonny is running in the Granville Turkey Trot 5K race held in the streets of Granville.
State Cross Country Championship
For the first time in his running career Jonny participated in the Ohio High School State Cross Country Championship. The State meet is run at a neutral site. It is held at the National Trail Raceway which is 8 miles south of our house off Route 37 at the intersection of Route 40. The weather today was cold, windy and rainy, with the temps in the low 40’s, but the feels like temps in the low 30’s due to the 20 mile per hour winds.
Nearing the first mile mark
Granville Boys took 6th overall in the state. Jonny ran a 17:00 in the windy conditions, which was good enough to place him 56th overall out of 147 participants. He earned 34 points in his team’s 187 point effort. What that means is if you take out the individuals that ran the race without a team, he was 34th overall out of all the teams for Division II.
The last 150 meters
I did take some video that was limited to what we could see from the Grandstands. The video is below.
The official results can be found on finishtiming.com and the results can also be found on the Granville Running Database.
The girls team took 1st in the state edging out Lexington by one point to take the state championship trophy. Congratulations to the girls teams for an outstanding undefeated season.
When both teams arrived back in Granville, they were greeted with a police and fire engine escort with lights flashing and sirens wailing all the way to the high school.