I don't know about you, but I was glued to the TV for most of Wednesday's inauguration ceremonies. There were so many firsts, like the first female vice president (something I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to see in my lifetime). And in a nod to the male population, we also got the first Second Gentleman.
Since the pandemic is still going on, most people were wearing masks. Black was the most popular color, but several people wore red, white, and blue masks or masks to match their outfits.
Instead of an inauguration ball, they hosted a virtual TV show hosted by Tom Hanks. Luckily the show was only 90 minutes long, because poor Tom Hanks had to do the whole thing outdoors from the Lincoln Memorial. My favorite song was Undivided by Tim McGraw and Tyler Hubbard. Most of the entertainment featured uplifting themes, but theirs was one of the best having been recently written by Hubbard when he was suffering from COVID-19. Of course, I like country music, so I'm probably biased.
But Katy Perry stole the show in the finale with her song Firework. And of course, they had an amazing fireworks display over the Washington Monument. Those lights lining the reflecting pool are tea lights representing all the people who'd died from the virus - very striking tribute.
I was so inspired by the whole day that I tried to draw some of it for the Urban Sketchers. My sincerest apologies to Biden and Harris, because I'm terrible at drawing people. I should have drawn the Capitol instead, because I'm much better at buildings.
It was another Zoom-filled week. On Thursday I started my German language class. The great thing about online learning is I didn't have to get dressed up and go out at night to the community college. I could just stay in my sweats and log onto my computer. The bad thing about it was the teacher was reluctant to mute anyone, even when they got phone calls and didn't mute themselves. I thought we'd start out learning the alphabet, especially since German has some non-traditional characters. But our teacher uses the immersion method where she just starts talking and then asks you to guess what she said. Between that and the phone talking man, I didn't really pick up much the first class. Hopefully the second class will be better. If nothing else, there's always Google translate.
On Saturday, we had our final planning meeting for the remote robotics competition. We're using the Breakout feature in Zoom to put all the teams in different "rooms" for judging (I'll be in the one called Referee Sidebar). The only thing I find a bit weird is that the organizer recommended that we use the virtual background feature, so some judges looked like they were sitting on the beach or floating in outer space. I'm sure the kids are used to things like that from their own online school experiences, but when it's 20 degrees outside, looking at my partner sitting in the middle of a field of flowering tulips looks strange.
In an effort to get better at the game rules, I made my own robot to solve some of the missions. My favorite is the pull-up bar. Even though my robot is very small, it still took quite a few tries to build a motorized mechanism strong enough to lift it off the ground. I'm not really sure what the real-life value is in having a robot that can pull itself up off the floor, but it looks very entertaining to the general public.
