Well, the previous night, Ryan had been telling me he had an exam to take care of, as well as meeting with one person or another. While he had specific duties, of living life, to tend to, I went about sleeping in to late morning. After getting cleaned up, getting things sorting and eating a quick… brunch, I was about to settle down to the computer when Ryan came on in. We chatted and then Ryan said he wanted to have me to meet someone special for him. Well, walking past the mascot and getting things tended to at Ryan’s office, we went to the other side of Kansas State University (I hope that was right), and to a building separate from the main campus, the alumni building. We saw the guy who had organised for the article and photo of Ryan and chatted to him for a little. We walked into the alumni building, where Ryan was able to say g’day to a few people, yes Ryan was still going strong with the Australian accent (and on occasion was able to make people to question where he was from). Walking down the ’staff only’ corridor, Ryan turned to me and put his finger to his lips as he crept into a room. In this room I saw how Ryan was in the process of grabbing the hammer, while there was a guy turned to his computer and his back to us. Just as Ryan was about to slam the judge hammer on the wood piece, the chap turned around and shook his head. Apparently this chap, I think his name was Mr Mann, could sense there was trouble in the room. Ryan and he shook hands, I was introduced, then we went into discussion of our trip. While we said about the states and cities we were in I could sense that this was the guy that Ryan had regularly referred to as Dad. I could see how this guy and Ryan could call each other Dad and Son, even though they were not related in any way. There were so many stories being confirmed with Dad. His humour was fit for all levels, and I wished that I was able to spend more time in his presence. After about near 20 minutes of talking, and finding about how Ryan (and Dad’s PA) were dual holders of a unique award, it was time for us to stop disturbing him. Well, Ryan showed me the updates to the alumni building, then we went back and gave our regards to Dad.
We went back through the university and had a few things to do. I think it may have been this day when Ryan had an in class exam to give. While he went about doing it, I was in the office he shared with about seven, or so. other academics. OK, I am going to forget some of the people’s names, that is a given, but some of the people that I met through this situation included: Amanda, Laura, Victoria, Manni, then Ryan’s two supervisors (Melvin? And the guy who had done a fairly in depth research on cattle grids). Oh yea, I met a guy who constantly referred to his place of work as being the seven circles of hell, or along those lines.
After Ryan had finished with his supervision of his test, I did it as well and did OK, we went off back to his place. While walking back to his place the idea of Disc Golf surfaced. Well, it was a warmish kind of day. At the course, with several bodies of water, Ryan was easily the dominating player. After we had done about nine holes, in my uncoordinated ways, there was one disc that did not abide by my attempt. Several kids were wading through a small lake looking through it for someone else’s disc, apparently they were getting paid $10 each for the frisbee. Well, after my attempt, these kids were going about trying to find Ryan’s disc. Near 20 minutes worth of 3 people in the water proved worthless, sorry Ryan. We played with the remaining discs only for a short while following the incident.
People seemed to be busy doing their own things, where we were invited to a girls’ night out but declined. We declined either for their benefit, or ours, we are still not sure. In the end we decided to get a feed at a BBQ place just off of the main stretch of the city. This was a pretty awesome pile of food. Man, the way they eat in the Mid-West, just like in the South, was full of (unhealthy) delights. Places were already getting busier then typical, where this was due to more people coming in for graduation on the weekend. A good way to chew up the time was by us walking to and from the cafe. In the end we wandered around a bit. The heat of the day had dissipated, whilst the food still was in need to be walked off. Ryan pointed out specific places, as well as the history of Emporia a bit. We got up to the university and walked through a bit, where at one stage Ryan saw a student who probably was not too eager to talk to Ryan (the student had not done too well in his assessment). After the hour and a half worth of walking around, we eventually got back to Ryan’s place and saw the next item to entertain us… darts. This lasted for about the same amount of time the walk did, where by the time this was finished (Ryan was a sharp eye, but after all the games we turned out fairly even) we talked for a short while longer, then hit the sack.
