Raymo’s Ramblings

Interview on Q92 with the LQPV Robotic Team

Well I’m a 59-year-old middle aged man, and I like to think of myself as having average intelligence, I’m not the smartest or even close to that, but yet I can add two plus two without any problem and think the light bulb burns bright at times.

 The last few years I have spent some time interviewing the LQPV Robotics Team before they head out for the state robotic competition in the cities. And after visiting with them and listening to them use words I’ve never heard of, talking about a programmable logical controller, or an actuator, a magnetic detector, modules, transducer, or a degree of freedom and drop delivery terms, my head is spinning and I have no idea what they are talking about. And you can tell listening to the interview I don’t know what I’m talking about during the whole interview I did with them this past week.

You know I’ve interviewed Senator Amy Klobuchar a couple of times and sounded like I knew what was happening in Washington when interviewing her and I’ve talked to the President of the Cattlemen’s Association in Minnesota, knowing nothing about cattle or farming for that matter and can usually fake my way through those interviews and sound somewhat intelligent asking questions.

 But the robotic team is another story, I can’t fake my way through that interview. My stupidity comes out loud and clear with them.

 I look down at the roster of names and grades of these very intelligent and future engineers I’m sure, they are in 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th grade!   Boys and girls, from all different backgrounds. I just shake my head when talking to them at their intelligence, so proud of all of them.

I was a C and D student in high school, all I cared about was sports and girls in high school, I don’t think I ever took a book home to study. How sad as I just typed that. At Alex Tech and Community College things changed for me, I was very interested in what I was studying and I cared, so I pulled off straight A’s in college. See I do have intelligence and I even was voted Outstanding Student at graduation.

So when I see young kids in high school doing so well in the classroom and doing so good at something they love to do, like building a very complicated robot, whom they named Murphy by the way, it makes me smile and I feel good about the world.

These robotic students are very smart and very impressive teenagers. So the next time I spend some time with them and interview them maybe I won’t be so hard on myself and think I’m an old 59-year-old guy that doesn’t know squat about robotics, I’m sure they will take some time to educate me about what they are doing.

 I should have bragged about myself and told all of them “hey I bet you didn’t know I pulled straight A’s in college”

 I will be attending a number of high school graduations in the next few weeks and its always a challenge for me to make as many of them as I can while traveling western Minnesota to accomplish this!

 As a sports broadcaster I cover mostly LQPV, Dawson/Boyd, Canby, and Minneota teams, and over the years I get to know a good number of the student/athletes and parents and become friends with them for life. So as you might imagine I get a good number of graduation invites this time of year from the student/athletes at the different schools I cover. I almost feel like a teacher sometimes on graduation days running from here to there trying to get in as many graduation parties as I can get to in a day! I can tell you it’s almost impossible to get to everyone that sends me an invite, but I try.

I love attending high school graduation parties, it is one of my favorite times of the year. The excitement, families and friends gather, cards and presents, accomplishments of the student/athlete displayed, good weather, food and punch! Speaking of punch, it’s amazing to me going from graduation to graduation party the number of different punches out there, and for the most part all very good. My favorite is anything with a strawberry flavor to it! (hint, hint to any graduate reading this)

And the food!! I still remember some food layouts at some of the graduation parties I have attended in the past, anything from a complete Chinese buffet, to Subway Super subs, root beer floats, kobobs, to roasting a whole pig in a pit, and a complete Hawaiian luau! For the most part, ham sandwiches seem to be the thing to serve at graduation parties.

I remember preparing for our four kids graduation parties and all the work involved in that process, getting the house ready, the yard work, getting picnic tables and chairs and hoping it doesn’t rain, because we don’t have enough room in our home for all the people we invited, so everyone can be outside! But it was all worth it and so much fun.

It’s a special day for the graduate and their family, and it’s also a special day for me, going to the graduations and seeing them smiling and enjoying the moment of graduating from high school and wishing them the best in the future, and in the years to come watching them live their lives, graduating from college, being successful in a career, and starting families of their own.  

Life is good!

What can I say about moms on Mothers Day? What is motherhood? What does it mean to be a mom? I think moms are pretty amazing, all moms!

As I sit on my couch contemplating and thinking about my own mother, my wife as a mom, my daughter in laws as moms, friends as moms, coworkers as moms, my mother in law as a mom, my sisters as moms, my sister in laws as mothers, my nieces, cousins, they all are amazing moms, but yet they each are all so different as a mom.

You know it’s really hard to put into words trying to describe what a mom is, because I think it’s so much more than giving birth, changing diapers, protecting your children as they grow and doing the things moms are supposed to do. I read in a Mother’s Day card this week, trying to put into words what a mother is and it said “Motherhood, it’s a feeling, not an explanation.” How true is that?  I love that!

Most of you know my wife Roxie, Roxie and I started dating when we were freshman in high school, and this year we celebrated our 40^th wedding anniversary. As long as I’ve known her, all she ever wanted to be was a mom, we had discussions about this all the time cruising around Madison in the early 70’s in my Ford Galaxy 500 when we were in high school, We would sit in my car outside of DeToys after school or a ballgame  and visit about this subject often. Did you know  DeToys had car hops back then?

So after high school, most of her friends went off to college and started careers. She did to, went to college, but her career became being a mother. And the lady I call my wife became a mom for the first time on June 30^th 1977, two births later and adopting a beautiful girl from Korea completed our family. I admired her strong desire to become a mom, even at a young age. Once a mom always a mom, and she has done a fantastic job at the occupation as a mother!

If I were to describe my own mother, I would say how she made me feel so loved by her all the time!!  Family to my mother was number one, if we all could have lived in the same house even after we were all married and had children she would have loved that. Everyone together all the time! That was my mom!

Motherhood it’s a feeling, not a explanation! 

Happy Mother’s Day

Can’t Dance!

Are you comfortable with dancing? Do you like to dance? My wife and I really enjoy watching Dancing with the Stars on Monday evenings. For sure it’s her favorite show to watch, she talks about it, votes for the dancers on her ipad during the show, gets mad when she disagrees with the judges results and loves and hates some of the dancers and professional dancers. She can’t wait to get home from work on Mondays to watch Dancing with the Stars, and it usually means I am making dinner that night.

Dance, it’s a big deal around here with Valley Dance District, Dance Haven studio in Montevideo and of course the sport of Dance teams in high school. I have covered for the radio station the LQPV/D/B Shadows dance teams from day one and that sport has exploded in popularity. It’s been fun to watch the sport grow over the years and the passion these coaches and girls and parents have for their sport. It seems everyone is dancing and loves to dance.

And that brings me, to me! I hate to dance, I don’t like to dance, I’ve never like to dance. The times I have danced were in high school at school dances which were slow dances, which I did enjoy!  Then in college at parties and bars when disco was big in the late 70’s and early 80’s but it usually involved alcohol which made it easier to get out on the floor and bust some moves!

Lately, I’ve been asked to dance on the golf course (don’t ask) and in a press box. And at the KLQP radio studio’s, the company exercise plan is when YMCA by the Village People plays on the radio, everyone in the studio meets in the lobby and is required to do the YMCA, its required and I hate it. I don’t like exercise anyways.  I don’t have any rhythm, and to me dancing is just awkward and dumb. Of course most of my dancing attempts have been at weddings over the years, and I try to avoid getting on the dance floor if at all possible.

You could say I have a fear of having to dance! And did you know there is a word for that? It’s called Chorophobia! A person having Chorophobia is fearful and extremely uncomfortable of dancing!  I am not alone, there are people like me!!  And boy that makes me feel better, I thought I was the only person that didn’t like or want to dance.  I never thought I would have a phobia, but I do. I’m not sure how to overcome Chorophobia. Any suggestions? Anyone else out there have this issue?