Surviving Myself

I was on the staff for our annual Utah Valley State College Powwow this weekend. My job is to handle registration and tally the points for the dancers who are competing. One of my Navajo friends called me the calculator (you have to understand that sometimes he ends up using the wrong words). I really enjoy doing it, but it can be a little frustrating at times. Although the core group that does most of the planning and advising is organized, the student organization that actually does the powwow can be flaky. When I showed up yesterday, none of the paperwork had been printed and I had to run up to the computer lab and print everything while people were lining up. This year we were to honored to have two Navajo code talkers visit us. They are the guys in the red hats. The one in the brown jacket is one of the original group of 29 code talkers.

I've developed my own program for calculating the winners of the dance contests, determine ties, etc. and everything was working extremely well until the program went blank (#*&@ Microsoft!). Ten minutes before the winners were to be announced, I had lost everything. Panic set in and I had to quicky recreate all the data while the rest of the powwow committee set everything up for announcing the winners. It was awkward, but I managed to print out a list with the numbers of the winners and a list of all the contestants. Unfortunately, it caused a huge delay and the crowd was getting restless. I was embarassed not just for myself, but for the reputation of the powwow. I sure hope next year goes smoother. I'm going to have an extra backup copy of everything.