For Sale

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It finally happened.

D & R (aka General Chaos and White Lioness) borrowed my Subaru for a couple days a while back and they both asked me if I ever had reactions to my bumper stickers. Seems that both of them had some smartass mimic cell phone useage in an ovious attempt to mock the bumper stickers. I don't know if I had just been oblivious to the mockings or if it just never happened, but I honestly told them "no". Until today. I'm driving down 13th east headed to the Home Depot, and right after crossing I-80, I hear someone honking. Looking over to the right I see these two highschool guys in their parents new Yukon, swerving in and out of traffic, honking at me, talking on their cell phones and flipping me off. And who said teenagers were idiots? Anyways, I just laughed, flipped them off, downshifted, slid to the right and passed a blockade right before the right lane ended and left them in the dust. Well, until the light at Highland Drive. They passed me turning left onto Highland, leaning out the window screaming something at me. I had the air on and all the windows up so I didn't hear, and just kept looking forward with my finger at the window at them. But I did post their plate number on this great site Danny got me hooked on called PlateWire. If you're looking for a way to vent frustration with bad drivers without resorting to road rage, you ought to check it out. Gives me a better outlet - I have it bookmarked over on the left for future reference, if you need it.

Note to Self : Weed whacking in shorts can be painful.

My back yard is hidden behind my garage and undeveloped so it has pretty much become a parking area and weed garden. And a pretty good weed garden at that - especially this year when it was wet earlier in the spring, and now it's dry as hell. Nice dry weeds. And being a couple of blocks from Sugarhouse Park and less than a week away from the 4th of July, it's a fire just waiting to happen. So I pull out the weed whacker and start to harvest the crop. Things are going well until I hit a rock, the tip of the "string" breaks off and heads straight for my calf. Now I know how those poor weeds feel, course they don't bleed. So I head into the house, put on my paratrooper pants, supress my sympathy for the weeds and whack the rest of them. I tried to do the humane thing and kill them all off at the beginning of spring, before they even had a chance to grow - but there's a reason for the phrase "growin' like a weed".

As if I don't have enough.......

Been working on going through some of my more recent pictures to put into galleries for the web site. And now I'm up to date - here a few you may be interested in (or not)
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Family
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Scenery
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Southern Utah

Motel West, alive and kicking......

Ahhh, names like General Chaos, Midnight Cavalier (and getting to call him Midnight Chevette again) right here on my blog. Heard from (other than here) Sir Duke, White Lioness, Herb Doom, Frank Zelba and of course DB Rat. Names I haven't heard, let alone read on a computer screen, for years. Makes me wonder what Your Concience, Ed Broadbent, Dr. Faust, Michael Binkley, The Apex, Nosferatu !, Oliver Wendell Jones and the rest are up to.

I found an old IBM 386 laying around the school last winter and set it up in my classroom. Has Windows 3.1, but also had DOS Wordperfect 5.1 - which is the only way I can get the old dot matrix printer to work. I was teaching a computer tech class at the time, and part of the curriculum was a little bit of history. So, I get the computer printing up some papers for me and of course the kids ask "What is that noise?" Which lead straight into the workings of the old IBM with 256 KB memory, a 20 MB harddrive and Windoes 3.1. Most of them don't remember anything before Windows 98, and that's ancient. Almost died when I told them that I hadn't made a mistake and it was in fact 256 KB and 20 MB, not MB and Gigs. It put things into perspective when a student held up this thing that was the size of a really thin lighter and pointed out it had 100 times the memory of that hard drive. So I decided to really freak them out and describe the experience of downloading a message from the BBS with a 300 baud modem. Jaws hit the keyboards as I described watching the letters come through one by one, almost like someone was typing it right there in front of me. When one of them asked "how long did it take for a picture to come through?" I just laughed.

Liking a Republican Governor was bad enough - but this is intolerable......

Did you know that if you click on any of the pictures here - you'll get the full sized version? Now you do.

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I've had a hard week this week. First I read about Gov. Huntsman's top three items on his agenda for next years predicted surplus, and the thought "I could vote for this guy" popped into my head. Not only is "tax cut" not even on the list, but teacher salaries, healthcare and pollution are the top 3 things he wants to spend the money on. What? A far cry from "take 2 aspirin and go back to work" Bangerter and backstabbin' Leavitt. If he backs up his words with actions, any Democrat that runs against is going to have to work hard to convince me to vote for them. And that hurts.

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Yesterday I'm looking for parts for my LTD convertible and come across this - the new Camaro concept car. Not a big fan of GM, and since the '70 change have never liked the Camaro. Oversized outside and undersized inside, given one I would have just sold it to get a Mustang. Now they come out with the new Camaro, which is a flashback to the ones of the '60's. (Click here to see the comparisons). This is a Camaro that I could actually see myself owning. If I could get past the feeling of cheating on my beloved Mustang......

Blogging - a few basic directions.

A couple of people have made comments about being able to add comments to my blog, so here is a few little tips, at the bottom of the page is a link that will take you to a page with these notes, that includes pictures so you don't have to guess what the hell I'm talking about.
*** You do not need to sign up for anything to post a comment, you just need to click on "Other" when it asks for your identity (follow link, see picture)
*** I have enabled the moderation function - this means that anything you add does not go directly to the page, I get to read it first and accept or reject it. Anything obscene or that simply does not add to the conversation will be rejected, all else will be accepted. If you are not sure - just go ahead and post it. If I don't post it then I don't post it, nothing lost.
*** Funny is good.
*** Thank you and click here for the pictorial version of this tutorial, including previously unseen little hints......
*** And click here if you want to see some pictures I took this month while wandering around the city bored.....

Right place, right time, right sarcastic comment

So Barry, my next-door neighbor who used to work at the Chevron, shows up with a brand new Scion (they're not quite as boxy as they used to be). He's telling me all about it and how now that he has a new car, he's giving his Jaguar to his significant other. So, being completely sarcastic, I say "Does that mean I get the BMW?". When he says yes, I just kind of chuckle like yeah whatever. To make a long story not so long, he brought me the title to the car tonight while I was at work. No joke. It's a 1976 BMW 2002, not to be mixed up with a BMW made in 2002. It's brown, well, where the paint is still there. 4 cylindar, 5 speed manual with 17,649 miles on the odometer. Ok, it could be 117,649 or even 217,649 miles. The back seat is totally trashed, the front ones certainly are a little bit worn. The body needs painting, has some Bondo and surface rust, but no body rot. The engine runs great, no obvious oil burning, no choking, chugging or anything like that. Tomorrow I go down to the DMV and get a temporary plate so I can drive it around while I'm getting it ready to pass inspection and emissions. Let ya know how it goes.......

Wednesday, June 22, 2007 @ around 9:45 pm

Went down to the DMV today and got the temporary plate, car is now all insured and legal (at least until the 7th of July (07/07/07), hopefully I'll have it inspected and emissioned by then and have a real registration. Anyways, I'm sure you'll hear as things progress.....

Mother of the Year or :

Maybe I watch too much CSI & Without a Trace?

I'm looking out the window at the Chevron and I see this little kid, not more than 3 years old, dodging traffic trying to get from the pumps to the store, clutching some money in his little hand. First thing I think is "where is this poor kid's parent?" and then my TV watching prompts the thought "prime target for kidnapping". The entire time the kid is crossing the street, both on the way in and on the way back, mom has her head buried in the back seat of their car, cleaning it out, organizing it or who knows what, but not watching her kid. He comes in to buy a little bottle of milk, and isn't even as tall as the counter, I have to lean over to get the milk from him and give him is change. How many kids over the years have disappeared from busy convience stores? A couple of cases in Salt Lake alone come to mind. Add to that the fact that people drive like maniacs through our parking lot, think it's just an extension of 2100 South. Anyway. all worked out well, kid got his milk and made it back to the car safe and sound, and "Mom of the Year" got the back seat cleaned out. Of course, if she hadn't been so lucky, maybe the back would have stayed clean......

Low mileage, hardly been used.

I have a friend who works for IHC. She's one of the people who takes all your information and gives you those thousand forms to fill out. She knows what everybody is in for. So, it seems that it's geriatric day at whichever IHC hospital she was working at (she's a temp, moves around) and she had the usual - cataracts, hip replacement, stuff like that. Except for this one 82 year old lady who was in there for ........ you guessed it - breast implants. At 82. About as funny (sad and obvious) as the 70 year old guy that comes into the Chevron with his road-kill rug on. Give her a supply of Viagra with that and it wont be the "Shady Acres REST Home" anymore......

Legacy of the Motel West BBS (circa 1987)

I've been writing back and forth with Sir Duke, the sysop of the old Motel West BBS that I belonged to in the late 1980's. We've been swapping stories about our times at Chevron - he worked graveyards for a year or so and I've been working part time at one for 3 years now. He got on the subject of practical jokes, which reminded me of one I pulled at Churchill Jr. that I'm particularly proud of :

I haven’t pulled many practical jokes at the Chevron, but I’ve done some good ones at the schools I’ve been at. One of the best ones I can think of was on April 1st, about 10 years ago. The Spanish teacher and the Vice Principal at the school were (well, still are) major Diet Coke addicts. I made sure I worked late the night before the 1st, they both had left the building and I pulled out $20 in quarters and bought all the Diet Coke out of the faculty vending machine. Then I talked one of the custodians into letting me into the Vice Principal’s office and the Spanish teacher’s room and cleaned out their personal stashes. Pretty much cleaned out all the Diet Cokes in the entire building. Put them in the cooler and brought them home. The next day (April 1st) I show up and hide the cooler in the auditorium, and say absolutely nothing to anyone. Halfway through 2nd period the Spanish teacher shows up at my room, murderous look in her eye and says, sounding remarkably like “The Exorcist”, “GIVE ME A DIET COKE!” Why do you think I brought a cooler full of Diet Cokes to school, I knew my life was on the line. I run off to the auditorium, get her a couple dripping, cold cans and I could see the Devil leave her body. Didn’t hear anything from the Vice Principal, so at lunch I get another ice cold can and bring it down to her. When I get there, she’s drinking a warm 4 month old Diet Coke (it had the Christmas lable on it) that she found in the bottom of her closet. Now, this may not be reality, but it’s the way I remember it – she see’s the can, dripping cold water and her tongue comes out and drools, just like Homer Simpson. I swear. They ended up buying back all the soda, I reclaimed my $20 bucks.

Anyway, if you have any good ones. go ahead and post it here - always like a good, tasteful practical joke

Burger King and a diet Pepsi

Seen the latest diet Pepsi commercial? They tout that the latest survey showed that 56% of the people surveyed preferred diet Pepsi. They start with "that means almost everybody preferred", paired it down to "most" and kept it up until the tag line to end all tag lines. "Just over half the people prefer Diet Pepsi" Now that's an overwhelming vote of confidence. Then there's the Western Whopper commercial, y'know the one at the sorority? A blonde sorority sister is eating the Western Whopper and, like in the rest of the commercials, it gives her an old western moustache. Well, her moustache is brown, not blonde, and her sorority sisters say "I knew she wasn't a real blonde!"

"Lawmakers seek to strip school board of it's authority" - SL Trib, B1, today.

Seems we've got some ego maniacal lawmakers that are irked at the fact that the Utah State Board of Education did not buckle under to their demands and immediately implement school vouchers. Despite the fact that the school board was waiting for the Utah Supreme Court to make a decision on it, which ended up vindicating the actions (or in this case inactions) of the school board, there will still be bills up on the hill to strip the board of it's powers. But right v. wrong is irrelevant to these power crazed legislators. "You didn't play by my rules, so now I'm going to take my marbles and go home, pbbbblllttt!" Time and time again these people have proven the wisdom of the separation of powers build into our system. Time and time again they try to circumvent and eliminate these separations, and hopefully, since this involves a change to the state constitution, there are enough level-headed people up there to block this BS. I'm going to e-mail my representatives, you can find yours easily by going to this web site "Legislator Lookup", it will even give you links to their e-mail addresses. I think I'll be a little less, um, negative when I e-mail them than I am here on my blog. Maybe just comment on how important a concept I think the separation of powers is and how I feel that it would be wrong to enact a change in the Constitution that eliminates some, or one, of these checks and balances. Yeah, that sounds good.

Here is what I sent :

Dear Mr. Wiley,

Dear Mr. Romero,

In the Salt Lake Tribune this morning I read an article titled “Lawmakers seek to strip school board of it’s authority”. As one of your constituents I just wanted to let you know that even before I became a public school teacher I firmly believed in the principle of separation of powers, and that too much power in the hands of any one governmental entity is dangerous.

I realize that the next legislative session is still a way off, but I just wanted to express my opinion that the way the State School Board operates should be left alone, and I consider shifting the powers they have from them to the Legislature would be a mistake and contrary to the idea of governmental checks and balances.

Thank you for your time,

Sometimes I like the human race.

Ok, so usually after a shift at the Chevron my posts here sound like I would rather run off to the Yukon and never see another human being again. That's because it's a lot easier to be funny, or make fun of, rude, stupid and obnoxious people. Making fun of all the decent people really wouldn't be funny and would make me look like a real moron. Plus there's no anger at nice people that needs venting. Anyway, the rest of this post is dedicated to those people who go through life trying to improve the day of the people they interact with. Like the guy who sounded incredibly sincere when he thanked me for helping him. And the couple that, instead of pocketing the $5 bill that was dropped on the ground, chased the guy to give him back his $5. Anyway, I just figured that once in a while I ought to point out that, for the most part, I really do think the human race is ok.

Genetic Sludge

It never ceases to amaze me how many people there are that are so much better human beings than I am that they deserve to be able to ignore the rules by which I must live. From the superior human being in the Toyota Land Cruiser to those in the picture here. As you can see, it does not matter that the park service is trying to get the pavilion ready for this season, these people wanted to eat lunch there TODAY! And if they push the caution tape up high enough that they don't even have to duck under it, then it's not really there, is it? So now it is entirely possible that they have undone all or some of the work that the park service was trying to protect, and it will have to be re-done, at your and my expense. I've got a name for them, and it rhymes with "grass poles". Same with Mr. Toyota at Foothill Village yesterday. He's behind me in the parking garage as I try to pull the LTD into a stall, and of course it doesn't fit the first time. So, rather than wait the extra 45 seconds, he pulls behind me to go around - as I'm backing up. Good thing I was looking or his $40,000 SUV would have been several inches thinner, and I would have had to brush off my back bumper. Except that it would have been my insurance that paid to fix his POS, because it would have been me that hit him. Ahhhh, if life were fair the people in the picture would get food poisoning, the Toyota would develop dry rot and I'd win the lottery.

I knew it! & Funny Jr. High kids.....

Did I call it or did I call it? I saw Bagley's cartoon today and laughed my butt off (if only I could!). Check it out, click HERE and choose the 6/14 cartoon. That's all I'm telling you about it, check it out for yourself.......
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I'm in my summer school cooking class at the Junior High today. Two of my old students are in the class, Josh and Joey, and ironically both of them have a sister going into 7th grade next year that are in the class too. (I found that out when one of the 9th grade boys said to one of the 7th grade girls "I know where you sleep!". When I made my prescribed teacher comment on being appropriate he said "it's ok, she's my sister". Whew! Not so creepy that way.) Anyway, we're discussing elementary schools and the girls are telling me that their school moved from an old building to a new building on the same block as the district offices. Josh says something like "yeah, and the funny thing is when they're hanging out at the edge of the playground, they're hanging out on the corner of State Street". Not sure he knew that it meant what I know "The Corner of State Street" means in that neighborhood I look at him and ask "do you mean what I think you mean?" and get that semi-embarassed, semi-prideful, 'please don't make me explain this' look that tells me; yes, he does. Ohkay - moving on .... how about checking the enchiladas..........

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And if you want to see some pictures I took last weekend while wandering around Salt Lake with my new camera, click HERE.

No comment necessary :

"Rocky nearly in City Hall fistfight" - SL Tribune, 06/13/07, pg B1

Seems Rocky didn't like the business dealings of a downtown developer, and tried to put the nix on some tax kickback the city offered the developer. Nothing new in politics (well, in Utah saying "NO" to a developer very well may be new), except for the non-alcoholic bar brawl. Seems at one point the developer yelled at Rocky "You got the guts to come talk to me", and then stormed to him and did the ol' chest bump thing. Rocky, in his time-tested and well known self-controlled manner responded with "Don't touch me! I'll kick your ass." A couple of security guards and the Mayors Chief of Staff intervened and prevented it from becoming an all out brawl in the main hall of City Hall. Cool.

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Ok, some of you are going to say that Rocky is a little out of control. Some of you will probably say something about impeaching him at this point. Me, I'm gonna say that it's just getting interesting and since he is leaving office soon, let's just sit back and enjoy the ride.

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Anyone who has ever heard me talk about developers in this state knows that I firmly believe that they get whatever they want, and if you've heard my opinions on Randy Horiuchi, you know that I belive this crosses party lines. So, I'm not going to argue that our Mayor should be brawling in the middle of City Hall, but I love the fact that he has the guts to stand up to a developer. Read the article in the Tribune and you'll see that there were, in fact, reasons for Rocky to be weary of this developer. And, at least the way I got it from the article, it was the developer that started the physical aspect of the argument. I don't know, but with Real Salt Lake being shoved down our throats, I just like seeing someone say NO to one of these guys. And I can't wait to see Bagley's cartoon on it.......

More work on the house.

The other day I'm looking at the back of the house and the thought strikes me; that'd look good if I build a railing around it. So I did. Spent the day working on it and got it done around 7:30 or so. If you want a better look, and comparisons to older pictures, click HERE. Let me know what you think.

Traveling with a 3 year old

<---Dylan, feelin' not so good.

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Saturday Danny and I headed up to the land, Josh was staying with his Nana, but Dylan was coming along for the ride. We made it to Heber, had lunch at the local Wendy's (we got the last 2 Frescata rolls of the lunch rush), picked up diapers and wipes at the local grocery store (Danny remembered everything, except diapers and wipes). About 3/4 of the way up Daniels Canyon, Dylan starts complaining about his stomach. Not feeling so good. When we get to the summit Danny suggests that, for my benefit as much as Dylans (we're in my car), I might want to pull over. We pull over, get Dylan out of the car,he sits down on the ground and withing minutes proceeds to barf all over himself. Leaves a nice puddle of semi-digested chocolate milk in the middle of the road (it's a side dirt road, we didn't let him puke in the middle of US 40!) After that he starts to feel a little bit better, but we're starting to consider just calling it a day and heading home. We decided to head over to Strawberry Reservoir so we could rinse off his clothes, we really didn't want to be smelling them all the way home. As soon as we get moving again Dylan's stomach starts bugging him again, but we make it the 3 miles or so safe and sound. We pull down to the shore of Strawberry and hang out there for a while - cleaning off the clothes and getting pictures of crawdads in the lake, the mountains and other sights around there. Dylan, as you can see by the picture, is feeling a lot better by now. As we're thinking about heading up to the land again, we notice it's already almost 3:00, and Danny promised Nana he would be back by 5:00 to pick up Josh. Hmmm, decisions, decisions, decisions. Take our time here at Strawberry, enjoy ourselves and relax a bit, or rush up to the land with just enough time to say "Hi Land" and turn around and come home. Hard choice. Strawberry was fun.

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Oh, and sorry honey, you're just going to have to wait for the picture of me in the tub with just my hat and boots on........

School Vouchers : You mean rich people from out of state won't be deciding for us?

Yup, the sad thing is we Utahns are going to have to decide for ourselves. Stupid Supreme Court. Taking the decision out of the hands of the lobbyists and legislators and putting it in the hands of the people. Bad Supreme Court! Naughty, naughty Zut, uh I mean Justices. (Let's not take that Freudian slip to fruition).

Front page of the Salt Lake Tribune : "Vouchers : You decide" In a somewhat unheard of turn of events, the Utah Supreme Court issued it's ruling the same day as it heard arguments. The November referendum WILL decide the fate of school vouchers in Utah; if the people of Utah vote against school vouchers it will kill BOTH bills passed by the legislature. None of this "well, you voted down the one bill, but by some quirky circumstances this second bill, passed just to fix things on the first bill, will stand on it's own and we will still implement the vouchers you voted against. Sorry about that folks."

Just in case my bias has not come through so far - I am against school vouchers. Not just because I'm a public school teacher, or because $3,000 isn't going to help a family of 6 living on $26,000 afford the $10,000 for private school tuition or because (this is a theory of my sisters' that I adopted) we could see a whole bunch of fly-by-night private schools pop up out of nowhere that will "educate" your students for little more than that $3,000. My main argument against school vouchers is that they are supposed to foster competition, but how can you have competition between to entities that play by different rules? Public schools have physical boundaries, in which we are required to take every student that resides there, regardless of their mental, physical, parental and economic capabilities. We cannot say "oh, sorry, our school is full, find some other place for your kid", we have to make the room somewhere. We have to provide services for the students that have special needs, we have to provide free lunches and other financial help for required fees to students that do not have the economic means to pay for them. Private schools may, and I know some do, give this extra support, but they are not required to do it. I could go on all day citing requirements on the public school system that give private schools the advantage in a competitive market, (other than cost, of course), but it boils down to the fact that because of state and federal regulations private and public schools do not play on a level field, giving private schools the overall advantage. Which is why people are willing to pay the tuition in the first place - private schools are less encumbered by the distractions inherent in public schools.

There's your topic - discuss.

A round of new digital cameras.

So, A Paperback Writer (in the future to be referred to as either APW or just Writer, depending on which one she prefers) called me up to get advice on a digital camera for her trip abroad, and ironically I got some money I was expecting so I went out and bought myself one too. I advised her to get a 3 - 5 megapixel camera because she's mostly going to be using it for her blog (by the way Inkley's on 2200 So State has a bunch of 3 - 5 MP digitals on sale for somewhere around $60 or $70 bucks). Uh, where was I before I went into Darrin Stephens mode? Oh yea, I had other plans for my camera than the web, so I bought a Nikon D40X SLR digital. 10 mega pixels, works just like an olde tyme 35mm camera. I walked around various places playing with it, if you want to see the results go ahead and click HERE. If not, at least click on the bee and see it in full size. Ahh, I can remember the first class picture I took all the way back in '95 or so. When I printed it poster size, the pixels were so big up close all you could see were a bunch of squares, about 1/8 inch in size. If you knew the kids in my class, you could tell who was in the picture from across the room, but if you didn't know them you could hardly tell if they were boys or girls.

thinking blogger award

Ok, I'm kind of new at this, only been a part of the blogging community for a few months now, so I had no idea there were awards to win. If I'd know I would have hired a publicist, agent and a couple of lawyers to handle all the cash I'm going to be raking in. (By the way Writer, how much cash comes with this award?) Well, I got this award, it's supposed to go to a persons 5 top blogs that make you think. (And not just "I'm glad I'm not living in THAT guy's mind") In her own words, I got the award because "From Max I have learned about cars, computers, Barbies in Utah, how far 7th graders bounce, and many other useful things." How far 7th graders bounce? It's a pretty simple formula :

h = height of first bounce

m = mass of the 7th grader

d = height dropped from

a = angle at which 7th contacts surface (0 = feet first)

f = flexibility of surface

k = # of body piercings &/or metal pieces attached to clothing

I'm supposed to pass it on to my 5 favorite blogs that make me think, but since I only frequent 4 blogs (one of which is mine) I'm going to have to mull around the community a little more before I can bestow that honor......

Well Writer, thanks for the honor. I'll do my best to keep ya thinking...... have a great Friday. Oh, and thanks for all you contributions to my blog - they help me keep you thinking.

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And one final thing I almost forgot to do - the link to the original post from whence the "Thinking Blogger Award" originated.....click HERE.

Hangin' with a bunch of clowns at the Chevron....

I know I've called the people I work with at the Chevron a bunch of clowns, or if I haven't I really should have. But all that aside, this Ford Ranger pulls up to pump 9, and out steps some clown. Uh, no, they didn't do anything stupid or arrogant. She really was dressed like a clown. Big red nose, purple hair, baggy pants and floppy shoes. I was disappointed though - really wanted to see 7 or 8 clowns pile out of the pick-up truck. It worked with a VW on the Simpsons...

GRE! GRE! Man I'm glad I'm done with the GRE!

4 hours my aching butt - Started at 3:30 and I was done by 6:00. And they did let you out for bathroom breaks, although I got the feeling that if you wanted to go every 15 minutes they'd say no - but once or twice throughout the test is ok. I had to lock everything in a locker out front before going into the testing room, they gave me 2 pencils and 5 pages of scratch paper and I had to keep my ID on the desk where the guy walking around the room could make sure I was still me. I had to sign in and put down the time when I entered, when I went to pee, when I came back from peeing and when I left. Oh, and I had to show him my ID each time too. Man, they wanted to make sure I was taking my own test. But I guess I did pretty good. It gives you the scored at the end of the test - for the Language and Quantative parts, not the essays - and since I'm not allowed to keep my scratch paper (I might give away some secrets I wrote on there) as I was copying my scores onto a post-it note he gave me he said I got pretty good scores. 540 on the language part and 780 on the quantative (that means Math) part. He said the 780 is almost a perfect score, which is good since I taught Math for 13 out of the last 14 years. Anyway - enough bragging. My mind is brain dead and it's time to veg out to CSI, the 2nd season. Have a good one.

GRE! GRE! GRE! WE got the GRE today!

Yup, in a little over 4 hours I'll be starting a 4 hour test, basically to see if I will crack up during a 4 hour test or if I can survive it. It's the Graduate Record Examination, something I have to take for the Graduate program I've been accepted to. It's basically set up so that you'll fail - the more questions you answer correctly, the harder the questions get. Flunk 'em all and you'll end up with questions like 2+2=? or Cat is to Meow as Cow is to ? Yeah, this is gonna be fun!

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On a lighter side, here's a bunch of "Motivational Posters" that we found on the internet. Some of them are the Star Trek ones that I mentioned before, some use foul language, but all are pretty funny. Check 'em out HERE.

Happy Birthday Alex!

Ok, so I'm still recuperating from the week of hell last week of school, I wished Alex a happy birthday yesterday - for the same reason I wished D & R a happy anniversary today......

Happy Anniversary Danny & Rachel!

Ok, this is supposed to be the 2nd of this month, sorry I'm a day late. Actually, I wished them a happy anniversary today, not because I thought they were married on the 3rd, but because I thought it was the 2nd today....

Friday - the last 20 hours of school.

This was my first year in High School, and the end of the school year is nothing like the last 13 in Jr. High. Granted there have been no worries about student behavior, most of them didn't even show up, and the ones that did were there to finish up their work so they could pass their classes, not to mess around. On the other hand, the kids do want to pass their classes, and graduate with their peers, so you really have to be willing and able to help, can't just put it off 'till next year. Then there's the committees - Awards Banquet Committee, Graduation Committee and Senior Breakout Committee. I was in charge of the stage and the program for graduation. Stage was easy - program was another story. It has to be perfect. All 81 students' names have to be perfect. All the administration and teacher names, and degrees, have to be perfect. All the Board Member names have to be perfect. One typo and BOOM, somebody's gonna be on your butt for screwing up. So I went over all the names, letter by letter, with one counselor, fixed all the typos, then went over them letter by letter with the principal, fixed all the typos, then with the other counselor. All in all I think there were 6 or 7 times people went through it, 6 or 7 different revisions. But it ended up as perfect as humanly possible. The upshot of this whole rambling is that this is the first time in 14 years of teaching that I didn't have the time to clean up my classroom, the first time I'm going to still have to go back next week and get my check-out card signed.

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Yesterday was a great day, despite being long as hell. Started out at the usual 6 am, I was busy doing grades from 7 to around 9. Then I had to go pick up the Graduation Programs and the stage we rented for the ceremony, and set it up on the football field. Meanwhile, the principal fried her computer and I had to try to get it going again, which I couldn't do, so I had to set up another computer, with her e-mail on it, for her. The last day of school is not the day to be without a computer. Then I got to go home and shower, rest for a whopping 30 minutes and head back to school for Graduation. Let's see, sitting out on the football field, in the 6:00 sun and a black graduation robe was not the coolest thing to do. At least we had the sun to our backs, the speakers were looking striaght into the sun. But, the fact that it went off without a hitch and that I got a bunch of congratulations for the program, made the last week of hell all worthwhile. I was even mentioned by name in one of the student speeches, and in a nice way. With only 81 graduates (89% of our seniors graduated), the whole ceremony took a little less than 2 hours. We got it all cleaned up within an hour, giving me about another hour between that and the Senior Breakout Party (translation : give the seniors someplace to go other than a kegger). I knew that if I cam home, I'd lay down on the couch and not wake up until August, so instead a few of us went out to Village Inn and drank caffeine. 10:00 we're at the party (ok, we were a little late, it was 10:15), we played black-light volleyball and dodge ball, watched the first Pirates movie, got our caricatures drawn (which I was going to show you except my stupid scanner is "not recognized") and ate a lot of food. Somewhere around 1 am we were getting so tired you would have thought the teachers were drunk. Climed into bed around 2:30 am and, despite being thoroughly exausted, wake up promptly at 8:45. So, today has been one of those days, lay on the couch and watch CSI CD's........

School's out for summer!!

Friday @ 6:30 am until Saturday at 2:00 am. One hell of a long day. Just wanted to say YEAH! and then hit the sack. Give ya the details later.