MIG 2006 Part 4

I woke up at 7:27 Sunday morning wondering why I was up so damned early. You can bet that I sleep about 12 hours or more each day this weekend. The bills we wanted to veto were sitting on the docket, so I went to Capitol to make sure they got through the General Assembly.

Sitting on the GOP side of the House, I started working on the veto messages while they were debating a bill. I stopped when I realized that they were debating McFarland’s OL. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, so I grabbed a microphone and gave some off the cuff remark about property rights. The House was in overtime session and the bill failed to reach the 3/5-majority threshold for passage. I also spoke after one of the infamous Grandpa and Little Jimmy stories right before the veto session.

The veto session came and went. Did I mention that Speaker K kicks ass? Anyway, he does. After taking pictures in the House chamber, we headed over to the awards banquet. The awards didn’t interest me as much as the banquet because I was starving. I sat with Kovats, Shana, Ira, JP, Mau and Blake. They had pork loin but Ira couldn’t eat it. Go figure that at the end of the day, something would go wrong.

As we were eating, they handed out awards. Normally, they wait until the end but the weather was turning bad north of Peoria. I have no arguments with the awards this year. In my opinion (and my nomination form), Daley College rightfully won Best Small Delegation. This might come as a shock to some of my more close-minded readers, but the past is the past. Whatever happened back then will force some people from Daley to never like me, but I won’t lose sleep over it. Life is too short to do otherwise.

I received the George Perry Award for Outstanding Contribution to MIG. The award and the standing ovation honored me, but nothing could compare to what was next. When the Board approved the Lifetime Achievement Award, everyone knew that Joan Eastlund would be the first recipient. What few people know is that MIG would name the award after her. Past and present Board members were called to the front to present Joan with the now-named Joan Eastlund Lifetime Achievement Award.

Joan has been the faculty advisor from BlackHawk College for years and has put so many hours into the organization. More than anyone else in the organization, she is the heart and soul of MIG. No one is more deserving of this honor than she. As she accepted the award, she was crying. I was crying along with a lot of people in the room. That was the capstone to an extraordinary simulation.

After taking the requisite WIU delegation picture, we stumbled upstairs to hang out. O’Donnell, his girlfriend Jen, Shana, Blake, Galvin, Hughes, Deputy Dawg, Ira and I went to dinner at 7. No one was awake enough to eat and everything was funny. I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow at 10:15 and woke up 7:15 for work.