Mac = evil

So, we spent the morning and part of the afternoon at the MathCounts regional competition, grading and such. And having been doing this for more than ten years, we (meaning the Sainted Bride and my sorry self) were put in charge of the grading. It went pretty well, especially since we had about 18 graders for about 120 students. Amazingly, we had enough graders that we all could take a half-hour break after the Target Round before the Team Round scores arrived for grading. Quel fantastique (pardon my Frog).

One small glitch, though.

Backstory: Last year, we used a scoring template built by a math teacher at one of the participating schools (a GREAT GUY!) which required sorting to find the individual and teams scores after. Being a bit of a "Spreadsheet Jockey" (dubbed so by a former coworker) I resolved to streamline the process for this year, so that the results would be automatically calculated for both team and individual scores. And between last year and this year, I did so and emailed the spreadsheet to the GREAT GUY!.

Unfortunately, he (in his classroom) uses a [spit] Mac [spit]. First off, his [spit] Mac [spit] opened the EXCEL FILE as a Word document (WITH THE DAMNED .XLS EXTENSION, no less). Once we'd discovered that particular bug, we reopened with Excel and copied over the school and student names and started entering scores. So far, so good.

Then we discovered that, while the [spit] Mac [spit] Excel program actually used the scoring function correctly (it looked like it didn't at first), it choked on using the function on (for lack of a better word) non-responsive cells (i.e., non-existent data).

But ultimately, we were able to muddle through and find the top scores for the Coutdown Round. And I think I now know what is needed to make it work for next year.

Oh, and the Kids Are All Right. This year saw some of the highest scores we the veterans have seen EVER! Scores on the order of 45 out of a possible 46 total! Way to go, kids!

Heck, parts of the Countdown Round sounded like "Question Number..." [beep]

Gads I love that [beep] even before the question is read...

Oh and GREAT GUY and his wife and his kids (who all worked at the competition today) freakin' ROCK! As does a crosstown "rival" who still runs his school's program even though the last of his umpteen kids are out of middle school (one left in high school, several more in college or grad school). You rock, guys. I just wish I had the time to devote to this program that you do. I am in awe of your contributions.

Oh, and a special shoutout to the one coordinating the regional competition: You are marvelous.