Recent Journey: Fort Wayne Center for Learning benefit, "The Brain Game"

Our Regional Director once started a not for profit organization to help students receive the educational help they need.  That organization is called The Fort Wayne Center for Learning.  The FWCL is a great organization that makes learning accessible to all students.  Depending on the student's families income level the cost is on a sliding scale and the FWCL has never turned a child away.  They hold two major fundraisers every year.  The first of the year is "The Brain Game."  The second is an event in the fall called Ft. Wayne: Through the Beers, and is a great event with lots of great beer.  The BG is an event that companies buy slots for teams of four individuals to battle it out with all the power in their brain.  The Chef's Academy has been represented the past 3 years now, and we have never made it out of the first round, I guess chef's have "other" smarts, like how to make people happy.
     This past Saturday was this years BG.  I had been volunteered to be part of TCA's team this year and I was not overly excited to play as I'm not the biggest fan of trivial pursuit type games.  Useless knowledge is just that to me, Useless.  Let me take you back to my post on my winter afternoons:  I also had a middle school wrestling tournament in the morning on Saturday.  I had to leave the tournament early to make it to the BG.  Let's just say that the tournament was not a smashing success.  Have you ever had a parent threaten to take you outside?  Yeah, it was one of those days and I was not in the mood to go receive a lashing of the brain after having to bite my tongue with the previously mentioned shenanigans. 
     After exiting the tournament, I caught up with my bro and we headed to Ft. Wayne.  The full way there I was still in a funk and not really in the mood to be around people when the unthinkable happened:  We got to Ft. Wayne early and stopped at Stoner's Fun store.  For those of you not familiar with Stoner's, next time you are in Ft. Wayne it is a must.  Lucas like small magic tricks and he was looking for something new and I was just gazing at all the funky masks and such when Mr. Stoner came over to lend a hand.  He started an impromptu magic show taking us through many of the tricks they sell.  I was immediately upbeat and happy.  There really isn't much that compares to watching an aging man (clearly in his 70s or beyond) mystifying you with his many tricks.  There is just something about magic that makes you 8 years old again.  I had a goofy smile on my face the rest of the night.  Thank you Mr. Stoner, I really needed you Saturday afternoon.
     Lucas picked out a couple of new tricks and we were on our way to the BG. The BG is a large event and all the teams dress up in funky costumes and is a generally fun time.  We were to go on stage a little later in the evening as there were 4 or 5 divisions of preliminary rounds.  You have to win your preliminary round to move on to the finals.  The rounds before ours I was slaying all of the questions and had more than 80% of the questions correct.  Then is was our turn.  The questions literally went from:

"How old was Michael Jackson when he died?" (50)
to:
"What California city did the last Pony Express ride end in?" (Sacramento)
Sorry, but there is a big difference between those two questions.  But I guess that's how the cookie crumbles.  All in all the BG WAS a great event and I am happy that I was a part of TCAs team.  I am more thankful for our stop at Stoner's fun store though, as it made my weekend.