Some stuff students said in class…

“How many teenagers does it take to change a light bulb?” (answer is after the picture)

“A dozen.  One to do it and 11 to take pictures on their cell phones and upload them to Facebook.”

Home, sweet home.

Today went much smoother.  The bank had the check all ready to go.  The dealer had the Jeep all ready to go.  10 min at the bank, then 10 min at the dealer.  Done.  It’s home, it’s mine.  Yea!

Car 58, where are you?

I bought it.  A 2000 Jeep Wrangler Sahara.  With the V-6 and a manual transmission.

I just don’t have it.
The financing is set.
The papers are signed.

I just had one little snafu that kept me from taking it home today – insurance.  They can’t let you take it off the lot without collision insurance if you are financing it.  And it being Thanksgiving weekend, the insurance agent, and the company itself, are closed.

Fortunately, the office manager of the insurance agency I work with is my niece’s-husband’s-brother’s wife (and we’ve been with her agency for over 30 years, long before she was my niece’s-husband’s-brother’s-wife, so we’re pretty good friends with her).  She emailed the paperwork to the dealership, but it was right around their closing time, so I don’t get to pick the Jeep up until tomorrow (Saturday).  Bummer, but at least I don’t have to wait until Monday.

I really love getting a new vehicle, as if you can’t tell by the fact that I’ve owned 58 of them in the 36 years I’ve been driving.  But I’ve always hated the negotiating part.  And this one was grueling, it took my little brother and I two hours from my first offer until I finally got them down to $50 over my “limit”.  I had a limit set, told them that with the loan I was approved for and the cash I had I simply couldn’t go any higher.  At that point they were $400 higher than I wanted to go.  They brought in the sales manager, who whittled that down to $106 over what I was willing to pay and I told them that it really was a choice between meeting their offer and paying my electric and gas bills.  I was ready to walk out, and then he suggested we split the difference.  I was going to hold fast, until I weighed the extra $50 against having to go through the whole mess again at another dealer.  I decided that a $50 convenience fee wasn’t bad, so we kicked all the salesmen out of the cubical, I told my brother that I really didn’t need to borrow the $50 from him, but that I wanted them to think that was what I was doing.  He started sending a text to his wife like he was checking if it was ok, asked her something else and when she texted back we told the salespeople they had a deal.

Whew!  And then I didn’t even get to take it home in the end.  Oh well, at least I should be able to get it tomorrow.  And now I think I’ll go to bed so I can get up early to claim my latest vehicular conquest.  If I do, you’re likely to see some of my own pictures of it on here soon, these are from their online ad.

Rectangular

Just some rectangular stuff from around the school.

Gobble, gobble.

Wheels in motion.

Last week, the storm reminded me how hard it is to get up my snowy driveway in an old Ford LTD.

I’d already been thinking about getting something that didn’t suck gas like what I’m driving now, and that would make it up the dirt road to our property.  Turning the Mercury to CNG would have done great for gas expenses, but did nothing for camping.

So I decided I wanted a Jeep Wrangler.  4 or 6 cylindar, the gas mileage will be a lot better than 10 MPG.  Made for dirt roads and 4 wheel drive so I don’t have to shovel my driveway at 11 PM to get up my driveway.  Plus, unlike an SUV or Subaru, the top comes off.  Convertibles rock!

So, I applied for a loan at my Credit Union and got pre-approved.  Now I just have to find a good one.

I think I’ll pass on the pink one though.

Pondering.

With all this talk of secession, something occurred to me: What happens if Washington D.C. decides to secede?

Just sayin’.

Thematic Photographic: Windows

Twinkies: On Facebook.

No more Twinkies®?

You remember the joke about the only two things that would survive al all-out nuclear war?  Cockroaches and Twinkies.

Well, cockroaches may be left with nothing to eat.  Hostess is threatening to liquidate their entire company if striking workers don’t go back to work today.

No Twinkies?  What would a world without Twinkies be like?

Busy signal?

In keyboarding class today we started doing my Storyboard activity.  This is patterned after the storyboard on a BBS (Bulleting Board System) I frequented back in the mid-80’s.  Basically, everyone starts a story and every 4 minutes they switch seats and continue the story started on the other person’s computer.

I introduce it by giving them a little history lesson, describing online life before the internet.   In 6^th period, when I said “back before the internet existed”, one of the boys responded with “How did you survive?”  I explained that we had to connect to the BBS one at a time and talked about the slow data transfer rate, how the individual letters come through as if someone was typing it as we watched.  They were amazed, and completely dumbfounded when they asked how long a picture would take and I explained that we didn’t even have them.

I told them about having to wait for the line to be free, and setting my Apple IIe on auto dial.  In 4^th period, when I mentioned hearing the busy signal in the background as I went about my business waiting for the computer to connect, they  looked at me with blank faces.  Busy signal?  Two, maybe three of them (out of 36) even knew what I was talking about.   It was the same in 6^th and 7^th period when I asked who knew what a busy signal was even before I talked about it.  Two or three hands went up and one kid started going “beep, beep, beep” imitating it.

It was funny watching them as I talked about not having call-waiting or voice mail and how you would just have to keep calling your friends back until someone answered.

I probably had the same look on my face when my parents talked about listening to the radio shows before TV came about.

Winter Wonderland.

Had a little bit of snow this weekend.

‘Twas coming down pretty good for a while.

But, then the sun came out and cleared up the roads.

Typical for winter in Utah.

Funny Faculty Follies

I’ve been lucky in my career.  I’ve had the opportunity to work with some incredibly dedicated, welcoming and funny groups of teachers.  And yesterday confirmed that I’ve landed at yet another one, especially the welcoming part.

Last year the art teacher noticed that I happened to wear a plaid button up shirt almost every Friday, and that several of the other teachers had started following suit.  Whether it was intentional or subconscious, I don’t know, but this art teacher said something about wishing she had a plaid shirt to wear too.  So the next week I brought in a plaid shirt that was too small for me and gave it to her.  It became her Friday shirt.

Yesterday one of the other math teachers was on the morning announcements, and when she signed off she said “Have a great National Mr. Rossi Day.”  I just laughed and didn’t even connect that she was wearing a plaid button up shirt.

An hour or so later one of the counselors was walking by my room and said “Happy Rossi Day"”, this time I noticed that she too was wearing a plaid shirt.  She informed me that several teachers had planned this earlier this week and, behind my back, invited the whole faculty to dress up for the day.

The art teacher (far left side of the photo) wore the shirt I gave her, and even made a pair of glasses out of wire to match mine.

The PE teacher even went to Thifty-Town and bought some glasses and a plaid shirt. 

And the CTE teacher even wore a pair of matching pants.

All day the kids were asking me if it was my birthday, and when I told them it wasn’t they would ask why it was National Rossi Day.

My only answer was “Because you’re at a school with some weird teachers.”