Jeff and Diana Harris

This will be a long post, but it is worth it. For this year's Halloween Competition I gave the idea of Mario Brother's. To put less work on myself, I decided to have a competition within a competition. I moved offices this year because I received a full time job within another office at the University of Utah, The Office for Student Equity and Diversity. Last year, I helped with Thriller (if that helps ring any bells) for ASUU.

To make this year a competition within a competition I had each student group within the office participate in creating a Mario Brother's World. The student groups were: Pacific Islander Student Association/Pacific Islander Medical Student Association (PISA/PIMSA), Inter-tribal Student Association/American Indian Student Engineers (ITSA/AISE), Asian American Student Association (AASA), Black Student Union (BSU), and MEChA (Latino/a, Chinao/a) student group. I had my supervisor pick a world out of one hat and a student group out of another hat. Once each student group knew what world they were in charge of they started to decorate. I decorated with my student assistants the grass world (World 1), the pipe in the front door, Bowser's castle, the coin boxes hanging from the ceiling, and the costumes (Mario/Luigi Hat, Bowser's outfit, Princess dress (My bride's maid dress, I think it's Kristina's that I borrowed), and the toad. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. All the other decorations were created by each student group.
Grass World:

The challenge for each student group was to not only decorate their world, but to create a game or challenge for Mario and Luigi to pass before entering into the next world.
1. PISA/PIMSA had World 3 (Beach/Water World),

2. ITSA/AISE had World 5 (Jungle World),
3. AASA had World 6 (Ice World),

4. BSU had World 7 (Cloud world), and
5. MEChA had World 8 (Volcano World).

To explain the games:
1. PISA/PIMSA -Beach World had Mario and Luigi eat donuts hanging down of the ceiling in a certain amount of time (aka coins floating in the water).
2. ITSA/AISE- Jungle World had Mario and Luigi feed the piranha's by creating huge piranha flowers on the office doors with a hoop for them to throw a basketball in the hoop.
3. AASA- Ice world had a plate with two blue balls (mom you will love this) and several white balls surrounding the blue balls. The object of the game is to blow the blue balls off the plate without blowing the white balls of the plate.
4. BSU- Cloud World had a matching game with the Mario Brothers characters.
And lastly,
5. MEChA had an air gun with a black paper ball at the end to hit Bowser with. Once Mario hit Bowser, then princess Peach would be saved.
Watch the video and you will understand. I have two videos. The first video shows the decorations in detail and an explanation of each world and who created it. The second video is the actually production of each world and Mario and Luigi playing the games (the video's are split up; Jeff started video taping it, but then I took over).

Characters:
1. Mario: One of the judges (Me in the Picture)
2. Luigi: Luciano Marzulli, Second Year Experience, Latino/a Academic Adviser, Transfer Student Coordinator
3. Bowser: Travis Jack, Senior Year Experience, African American Academic Adviser/ Coordinator
4. Princess: Maria Martinez, Community College Diverse Transfer Student Coordinator
5. Toad: Mikiko Kumasaka, Senior Director for The Office of Student Equity and Diversity (MY BOSS)
6. Chopper: Tricia Sugiyama, First Year Experience, Asian American Academic Adviser/Coordinator

One of the Co-workers decorated this cork board and I though it looked awesome. All the gadgets on the board actually work.


First Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4BiS0CzoQ

Second Video: (Sorry the video's are split up, but I want to show you the toad and the princess being taken away by Bowser)

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0QcTIdF2lE




Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAWtXNlXPKQ



Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQod_Jyiozk

THE WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON MONDAY!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! :)

My spine model is finally up and running...many iterations to follow.  Here is my first result - showing max compression in L5.  Now I can start simulating all ranges of motion and insert my orthopedic device.

Kristina has been encouraging me to post pictures of my pregnancy. Well I finally took pictures last week and today and now I am posting them. I don't really have much to say other than I am tired, feel fat, and my back hurts. And to think, I still have 4 more months.