www.srossi.net

Classic Elegance/Wal*Mart Pricing.

2012-02-08T18:14:00.001-07:00

**Less than a million dollars!**

At least it wasn’t priced at $999,999.99.

Good Groceries Gone

2012-02-07T18:29:00.001-07:00

I’ve known of it’s existence since I moved to Salt Lake City in 1974, though it opened up way back in 1942. It was just around the corner from the Junior High I went to that year for 9^th grade, and my parents often went there when they wanted specialty meats and cheeses.

In 2010, thanks to the “Great Recession”, Emigration Market closed it’s doors. Yeah, it’s been reopened by one of our local chains, Harmon’s, and from what I hear they have done a good job of keeping it’s unique atmosphere, but it is no longer a truly independent store. At way too fast a rate, those kind of stores are becoming a thing of the past. Sad.

When we heard about it’s closing, before we knew it wasn’t going to be leveled for a subdivision, Writer and I had to go get some pictures of it, so when I saw this weeks Thematic Photographic theme I immediately thought of those pictures.

I’m glad the building is still there, still serving this neighborhood. I’m also glad that a chain is sensitive enough to their clientele to at least attempt to keep the flavor of the independent grocer. But it’s still Harmon’s Emigration Market.

Inside the courtyard, taken through the gates. Not sure what that pile of stuff is, but it certainly looks like it was just dumped there on the way out.

The sun set on our little photo shoot, and we said goodbye and headed home.

And, as always, click on the banner below if you want to join in the fun, or simply see a bunch of other great pictures.

Keys and Pie

2012-02-06T20:30:00.001-07:00

Saturday I went to a piano bar called Keys on Main with 5 other educators (all female). I’ve gone with them 2 or three times before and always had a blast; they usually play a lot of music I know and the crowd is energetic but not sloshed. This time was different. No idea why, but we were surrounded by three tables of obnoxious drunks and the music sucked. One good song for every 3 that had no reason to exist other than to use the “f” word as a verb. (I have no aversion to the “f” word except for the gratuitous use of it).

We have always stuck around until close to midnight, but this time we left by 9:30, went to Village Inn for pie. As we were walking in I noticed myself as the only male surrounded by 5 females and commented “You’d think my name was Warren Jeffs.” It went downhill from there.

The evening’s conversation was peppered with comments about the remaining two wives and the 22 kids they were watching while we were out on the town, specific roles for each of the attending 5 wives and how, as educators, we had the whole home-schooling thing covered. The waitress heard the conversation going on and I’m not sure she realized we were just joking, which brings us to one of the funniest parts of the evening.

One of the guys at the table behind us called the waitress over and the following conversation ensued:

Guy: “There’s something wrong with the bill.”

Waitress: “What’s wrong?”

Guy: “It doesn’t have your phone number on it.”

Waitress: “That’s just about the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”

If I hadn’t been in Utah, where there would really be a question of whether our polygamy talk was serious or not, I (probably) would have told her when she came back to our table:

Me: “I’ve got an even worse pick-up line.”

Waitress: “What?”

Me: “Want to be #8?”

Bada-bim, bada-boom.

I confess, I didn’t have the guts to really ask, but the rest of my group found it hilarious.

Screens

2012-02-05T15:18:00.001-07:00

So, I struggled over what to do for this theme. I finally remembered a picture (I thought) I took back at my first school, of me and my Stage Crew playing video games on the auditorium’s big screen. I couldn’t find the picture but along the way I found this of one of our first computer labs at the school.

And was amused at the difference with the computer screens in this picture of my current keyboarding lab.

Back in 1999, that computer lab was in the basement, an old storage room that was retro-fitted and, as you can see, strung with wires and cables all over the place. Damp and dingy, you and your class had to trek through half the school to get there.

The room I’m in now was always intended to be a computer lab. The power and network wiring plug right into the walls, and the tables are designed so the wiring comes right down the middle, safe and secure above the floor, but off the tables themselves. And, like all 5 of our computer labs, they are right in the heart of the classrooms.

Not that I need to point this out to anyone on the blogosphere, but we’ve come a long way in the last decade.

For more “screens” pictures, click on the banner below.

Roommate?

2012-02-04T10:28:00.001-07:00

The room’s all ready and I’m just waiting. And nothing’s happening.

Every time I’ve had a roommate they’ve just fallen into my lap, figuratively speaking. Family, friend or someone I’ve worked with. The least connected of all my roommates was a friend of a trusted friend. So far, every time it has worked out great, never regretted having them here and, for the most part, enjoyed the company.

So, since I’m not getting behind on the bills, but just want the income to pay off some debts, I’ve been just hoping. And hoping.

I don’t really like the idea of taking out an ad, interviewing people and trying to decide who I can trust and who I can live with, but I really want to pay off some debts.

So, I’m mulling over placing an ad. I’d appreciate any good advice anyone out there has with finding a roommate. I’m still not sure I want to share my house with a stranger, but I am at least considering it.

The Sci-Fi Post

2012-02-03T18:12:00.001-07:00

Surprisingly, I’m in charge of what I call the Tech Squad at the school. Basically I have two students as my T.A. during my prep period. We produce videos and photos to for the counselors and other school things. We’ve (I should say, mostly they), made videos on honor, dress code and bullying. We just finished a promo video for the elective classes that the counselors will take when they talk to the 6^th graders about registration for next year. Next week we start on the promo video for our current 7^th and 8^th graders.

So we took yesterday off and took a series of pictures that MRT digitally blended (and messed with) to get this: (A long, long time ago, in a Junior High School far, far away…)

And then I decided to add this one in, because it also blends sci-fi with down-to-earth reality.

Saw this bumper sticker the other day:

2012-01-30T01:13:00.000-07:00

Loved it.

Movement 2

2012-01-29T12:35:00.001-07:00

I went to Best Buy today around 10:00 to pick up some ink for my printer, only to find out that they don’t open until 11:00 on Sundays.

While I waited for them to open, I spent some time at Murray Park and found a bunch of very active ducks. Much movement. Of course I had my camera in the car, and of course I got a bunch of pictures of them. Here are some high-movement duck pictures from today.

If only.

2012-01-28T10:54:00.001-07:00

If only all those financial documents came on tissue paper, I’d never again have to spend time shredding them. Just leave them in a box on my desk and the cats would take care of them for me.

This is what happens when I forget to put the kleenex box back in the desk drawer before going to bed or work.

Thanks guys.

You said what?

2012-01-26T21:11:00.001-07:00

Kid comes into class today and says:

“I don’t really want to be here today, I’d rather be at home in bed…(pause)…petting my horse.”

I think the pause was actually a barely audible “or”, because he really does have a horse, and a yard big enough to keep it at home.

Jr high kids say the bizarrest things.

Saw this as one of my student’s backgrounds.

2012-01-25T20:04:00.001-07:00

Perpetual Motion

2012-01-24T21:15:00.001-07:00

Students. I’ve always argued that if we could harness their energy we could completely eliminate our energy carbon footprint. Here are a few of the things I have been involved in that were used to direct this energy.

Some sort of Marco-Polo teambuilding game we played on the Green Team. I really can’t remember exactly what the activity was, but I do remember that it was my first year at that particular school.

Hot air balloons. The kids designed them to be as durable and to go as far as they could get them to. This was a science class activity that the whole team did, at the same school.

Here the science teacher is teaching the kids about mass versus weight. Actually, again, I don’t remember the specifics, but this was an after-the-lesson activity. I only taught at this school for one year, but since my classroom was right next to hers, you can probably tell I had a fun year.

This was during lunch, but this kid had some good basketball moves.

We were “The Farmers” at the high school I taught at. It opened up in 1906, when South Salt Lake was mostly farm land, and as you can see, a few of the traditions remained from that era.

I got to teach Psychology at the high school, and one of the more fun activities was when the counselor got her father, who was professionally a polygraph technician, to come in and polygraph willing students. They weren’t supposed to move at all, but you should have seen those needles move when they lied to a question. (They were told to lie on a couple of questions and see if he could tell).

Halloween jack-o-lantern contest gone wrong. Nah, that was the reward for entering, you got to throw your pumpkin off the back of the bleachers.

For many more Movement photos, click on the banner.

Whew!

2012-01-22T16:35:00.001-07:00

It took me about 3 hours. Had to download and install the payroll program, find my authorization code for it, download and install the most current tax tables, find the company’s latest backup file and re input the last payroll.

I now have pdf files of the W-2s, the W-3, all 4 quarters of 941s and the year end 940. Yesterday I installed the new payroll program and recreated the one pay period that I lost in about 2 hours. Everything is back as it should be.

Oh, and did I mention that I now have 3 back up copies of all my payroll information? Yup, if they all crash at the same time, I’ll just give up, but for now all is good.

One of my driving pet peeves…

2012-01-22T09:10:00.001-07:00

Got this on facebook:

Especially when it’s on the freeway, by the off ramp and the schmuck is blocking the flow of traffic.

Rollercoaster ride from hell.

2012-01-21T09:34:00.001-07:00

Computers suck. We rely on them heavily, and then they just break down, out of nowhere their hard drive crashes and we lose everything we’ve got.

Then we became smart enough to keep a backup of our important stuff. Now we’re safe, if either goes bad, we’ll still have one copy of our information.

Until two hard drives go belly up within a week and a half of each other. Which, you all probably know, happened to me this month.

Well, yesterday I got the call from the Geek Squad™ that they were done retrieving the information off my original backup drive. I went down there to pick it up and find out how things went.

They told me that they were able to save some 590GB of the 620+GB that was on there. The disk went down in flames before they could get the rest. I headed home fearing the worst, that the missing 40GB was the REALLY important stuff.

I got home, plugged the new 3TB hard drive into the new computer and waited for it to install the driver. Then I started going through the stuff they had saved. I was looking for a folder named “MyEverything”, which had all my financial information and all the information for the payroll I do. It was there, completely intact. All I lost were pictures, which have their very own hard drive which was not a part of the crash of 2012.

So, all I ended up losing was the stuff I did between the backup hard drive crash and the computer crash. The week that I printed the W-2 forms and their first payroll of the year. I’m going to have to recreate the end of the year stuff and re input all the employee data, which will take a lot of my weekend but at least all is not completely lost.

With the original photo hard drive, the first new backup drive and the second one I purchased to have the info transferred onto, I’m now going to have three (3) backups of my vital information. And I set up my backing-up program to automatically back up everything every day, in the wee hours of the morn.

Now the big question is: Can four hard drives crash simultaneously? Because I’m not going to wait a week next time to go out and get a replacement for a bad hard drive. No way.

Innocence still exists.

2012-01-20T18:08:00.001-07:00

I got this when I taught at the high school, the PTA gave them out to all the teachers. It still sits on my desk.

Today after school four seventh graders were hanging out in my room waiting for their ride. One of them saw the rock and said “That’s cool, it says ‘You Rock’ on that rock.”

Then he saw this, (which I got for being a new member of the faculty at the school I’m at now)

and asked “Does it say ‘You Bone” on the bone?”

Now, my first thought was that it was intentional. I looked up at him, preparing to say something about inappropriate comments in my classroom. Not even a smirk, not even a twitch at the corner of his mouth. And his three friends who were close by didn’t even flinch.

Now, at this point it took every ounce of my self control to keep from breaking out in laughter as I picked up the bone and pointed out to him that it just said “Welcome..”, and the conversation continued like no double entendre was uttered.

What’re the odds.

2012-01-17T17:49:00.001-07:00

About a week ago my backup hard drive went on the fritz. Wasn’t working, so I couldn’t keep backing things up.

Yesterday, as I was starting to back things up on my brand new backup hard drive, my computer died. Completely fried the hard drive. Great. Lost. Everything. Well, except for my pictures, which fortunately were backed up on a third hard drive.

I took the computer down to Best Buy and talked to the Geek Squad. He checked it’s hard drive and gave me the bad news, completely kaput. I asked him if there was any way to get the information off of it and he told me that it was still possible, as bad as it was, but that it would entail sending it off to somewhere, that it would have to be completely disassembled in a controlled environment. Then they might be able to get at the info. Cost? $2,100, or more. (Blood pressure spike).

So I went home, got the old back up drive and brought that down. With my heart pumping at a million beats a second I waited five minutes for him to check it. First good news of the weekend – he could get at most, if not all, of the information on that one. (Blood pressure returns to normal). Not the $2,100, but I did have to shell out $200 for a new 3TB hard drive and the $99 recovery fee. So with the new 2TB back up drive I already have and the one I bought for the transfer, I’m going to see if 3 copies of everything will be sufficient.

Unfortunately, the information is a week old. A week which included year-end files for the pizza place’s payroll, their first payroll of the new year, and some work I did on book covers for my writer friend, Lisa Shafer. (Sorry Lisa, we’re going to have to start over again, though I will still have the files I had when you came over this weekend).

And then I had to spend another $700 for a new computer. It is a lot faster than that 5 year old one I had, but I still had to spend a bunch of time re-installing programs, and I’m not even done yet. Bleah. Oh, and it does have the hookups for dual monitors, which you can see in the picture. As I write this, it’s in the process of backing up my photos, and all the new stuff on this computer.

Life – sometimes it’s the tasty fruit, sometimes it’s the pits.

How about some more After Dark photos?

2012-01-14T19:02:00.001-07:00

I took these one night as they were moving a pre-fab bridge into place where I-80 crosses 7th East.

This first one is in Fairmont Park. That’s me and my evil-twin brother. Or maybe just a 30 second shutter shot where I switched places half way through.

This bridge was already in place, where I-80 crosses Highland Drive. As you can see, they weren’t quite done with the underneath work.

Just north of the freeway is a Utah State Liquor Store. The only alcohol you can buy at a grocery store in Utah is beer, and 3.2% alcohol beer at that. All other bottled alcohol must be bought at a State owned and run liquor store, and that includes wine-coolers (alca-pop as they call it).

Looking north on Highland Drive, from right next to the Liquor Store.

The bridge at 700 East being lowered into place. It was build where the off ramp was, while traffic still continued on the freeway, and then moved into place in one day.

I’d hate to be driving I-80 west and end up on that bridge.

The next three pictures are the exact same shot, just with different shutter speeds. They were taken facing north on 7th East, facing the opposite direction from where I took the pictures of the bridge being lowered.

And if you are interested in joining in, click on the banner below.

After Dark

2012-01-11T19:01:00.001-07:00

Taking pictures at night is challenging. Which is one of the reason I like doing it. Seeing what you can capture on film even when your eye can’t see it is fun. Here are some of the things I came up with.

The Wasatch Mountains.

The moon, taken with my 1000mm lens.

2100 South and 1300 East intersection.

Cars driving down 2100 South.

Students, hanging out in front of the Seminary building at the school star party.

More cars on 2100 South.

Sugarhouse Park.

Click on the banner for more After Dark pictures, and why not add your own?

Construction on 13th East, March 2011 to Jan 2012

2012-01-08T15:29:00.001-07:00

It’ll get longer as the construction continues.

Some pictures.

2012-01-07T19:05:00.001-07:00

It’s a bird! It’s a crane! It’s the moon. Nope, it’s all three of them.

Jet trail over the Wasatch Mountains, at sunrise.

Welding, in the dark, on the building next to the Chevron.

More welding, at a slower shutter speed.

Just wanted to throw those pictures out there.

Ain’t it the truth!

2012-01-02T09:57:00.001-07:00

Nappy Yew Hear!

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Oh Deer!

2011-12-31T17:14:00.001-07:00

Back in October, Paperback Writer went to a local cemetery to take some pictures. I’ve lived in this city for over 37 years and I’ve never been there, so today Writer and I chose that cemetery for a photo shoot.

We spent a couple hours, looking at the different grave markers, but for me the most fascinating thing there was a herd of deer.

Now, I’ve seen deer in the city before. As a teenager, we lived one street away from the edge of the city, right at the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. Few winters went by when I wouldn’t find a deer or two or three munching the leaves of our bushes. The harder the winter, the more deer I would see. So seeing the deer wasn’t completely surprising.

What was different was 1. I had my camera with me and was prepared to take pictures, 2. These deer had to travel at least a mile, probably through the University of Utah to get there, 3. It was a wet summer and an incredibly mild winter so there should be plenty of food in the mountains and most importantly 4. They let me get within 20 feet of them (about 7m).

I’m posting 26 photos here, so I’ll break the post at this point so you don’t spend all week downloading them, unless you want to see them. Click on “Read more >>” at the bottom to see the rest.

The rest are from the second encounter, when Writer and I spent about an hour slowly moving closer and closer to them.

We’d take one step, quietly, and then just stand there for about 5 minutes, taking pictures while they got used to us being there. Then another step.

“Clever, ain’t I, hiding behind this big funny looking rock!”

“Mmmmm, tasty flower!”

“Whatcha dooin?”

Kissing Deer

“Eh! What you lookin’ at dere?”

It took a while to get close to them, but well worth it.

At one point Writer sat down in front of a tombstone to watch a deer that had laid down. When I asked her what she was doing, se told me “Having a conversation with this deer”.

We always had a dozen or so eyes on us, even when they relaxed a bit and laid down.

Couple of young bucks having a little disagreement. Probably about whether or not we were there to eat their leaves.

That’s the doe that was having a conversation with Writer.

“Hey, why aren’t you eating some of these yummy leaves? There’s enough for all of us.”

“No kidding, you’re right. He’s just standing there, making that funny noise, and not eating anything. What an idiot.”

One of the young bucks, going to check out what Writer was doing.

**Note to self** – If you’re wearing a vinyl jacket, don’t slide down the tree. The noise of vinyl against tree bark spooks the deer.

So I stopped leaning against the tree and they all calmed down and went back to watching us.

And watching us.

And watching us some more.

And cleaning themselves.

Overall, an excellent way to spend an afternoon.

2011 #5

2011-12-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

And finally – the plasma ball. You can have a lot of fun with this thing, zapping unsuspecting people as they walk by.

2011 #4

2011-12-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

‘Twas a cold and windy day, the snow was dry enough that the wind was blowing it right off the mountaintop.

KSL.com rocks.

2011-12-29T14:47:00.001-07:00

I brought some stuff down to the D.I. to donate to them and found out that they do not take old appliances. They took everything else, but I came home with my two small refrigerators that don’t work.

I didn’t want to just throw them away, they could probably be fixed, so I put an ad on KSL.com classifieds. “2 free non-working fridges, just come pick them up and they’re yours.”

I posted the ad right around 1:00. The first call came in at 1:05, and by 1:19 I had 12 calls, 5 text messages and 5 voice mails. They were coming in so fast that I had to get back online and mark the ad as “sold” before I could even get around to calling the first person back.

The calls have stopped, the fridges are gone. Very effective indeed.

2011 #3

2011-12-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

“Favorites wouldn’t be complete without a set of pictures of Alan and Denny.

2011 #2

2011-12-28T10:39:00.000-07:00

For today, we get a mixture of McDonald’s drive-thru and an old Ford truck that burst into flames. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but the building was closed for a couple months.

Golden Grahams®, Frankenberry® and Mueslix®.

2011-12-27T17:45:00.001-07:00

Can you spot the mistake in this article from the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday? You may have to click on it to make it large enough to read.

The article was written by Robert Kirby, a columnist for the paper. He usually writes pretty funny stuff, so part of me wants to believe that the mistake is on purpose. But after reading the entire article, that kind of humor just doesn’t seem to belong there.

Let me know what you think, ‘cause I can’t make up my mind whether he meant to make that pun or if it is a case of spellcheck going bezerk. (Click on “Read more” to see the error of their ways.)

The gifts from the three wise men are supposed to be gold, frankincense and myrrh, not Frankenberry.

2011

2011-12-27T09:58:00.001-07:00

Thematic Photographic theme for this week (and more) is “Favorites”, we get to pick our favorite pictures of the year. I’m going to start with this one, a mix of downtown, inversion and sunset.

Click on the banner below to check out other people’s favorites, add your own to the mix, and come back to see what I come up with every day from now until 2012.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T09:07:00.001-07:00

LMAO!

2011-12-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Decided to check my school email yesterday. Glad that I did. There was one new message and it was from one of my tech-crew kids. This is all it contained:

The Slow Mo Guys

2011-12-23T15:04:00.001-07:00

Found this while randomly surfing the blogosphere. They’ve got about 50 videos on their channel, and they do some really stupid stuff. But, in slow motion it looks pretty cool. If you like this kind of stuff, spend some time and see the other stupid things they do.

The Slow Mo Guys on YouTube

Politics

2011-12-22T14:18:00.001-07:00

Here is a little quiz for people who want to find out which presidential candidate best matches your political views (according to ABC and Yahoo News).

You are given about 10 political questions, each with responses from the candidates, without any indication of which candidate said which.

Here are my results, which weren’t very surprising, although my #3 match is actually my #2 choice.

My filter works fine.

2011-12-21T17:47:00.001-07:00

In the lunchroom a student looked into his lunch bag and asked “If I give you something can I pick where I sit when we get back [from the holiday break]?”

I told him that I wouldn’t make that deal and he stuck his hand in his lunch bag and handed me a lemon. Immediately I thought “share the Tequila too, and it’s a deal.”

Fortunately my “keep your butt out of trouble” filter was working at peak efficiency and I didn’t actually say it.

Stranger among us.

2011-12-20T17:54:00.001-07:00

People fascinate me. That’s probably why I minored in psychology and continue to teach. Half the reason I go to many of the street fairs that we have here in Salt Lake is to watch the people. And of course I always bring my camera.

I take pictures of them. I try to be subtle about it ‘cause I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, and I will not follow anyone to get a picture. But I read somewhere that with surveillance cameras, traffic cameras and ATM cameras, urban dwellers can expect to be on camera a majority of time they are out in public, so I figure one more shot isn’t going to matter.

Anyhoo, I took this picture as I was walking back to my classroom from up on the 3rd floor.

Theme for this week: “Strangers among us.” Click on the banner to see more great pictures and/or to join in the fun.

Cat on a hot tin roof.

2011-12-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

The radiator on Old Green has been leaking for a while, so yesterday I decided to swap it for the one in the wagon, my now-official “parts car to the stars”.

After I got the new one in and all hooked up I went to start up the car so the coolant would move around. There, sitting on the seat right in front of the steering wheel was Denny. All comfortable as can be, he didn’t even move when I started up the car. Most every cat I’ve known makes a bee line for the hills as soon as the starter motor kicks in. Nope, Denny just lays there. And lays there. (The car was running when I took this picture).

He was still laying there when I went back after putting in the new coolant in and returning the tools to their rightful places. To take it around the block I had to lift him out, where he stood on the side of the driveway looking at me like “Where ya goin’?”

I’ve never had cats as fearless as these two. Later I was vacuuming up the shredded newspaper they keep spreading around. Both of them looked up when I turned it on, but neither of them moved. Alan, the more skittish one, got up as if to get ready to leave when I was vacuuming right at the edge of the couch he was sleeping on. As soon as I moved away he laid down again. Denny never moved.

Gata, my last cat, was out the door, up a tree the second I hit the power button.

Psycho-Cyberbully: The Saga Continues?

2011-12-17T09:59:00.001-07:00

Did you know that “Repetitious, unwanted computer communication” is a criminal offense under Utah Code 769201?

We had a bullying seminar for the students the other day, and one of the police officers started the discussion with some interesting information about cyberbullying. It led me to go up to him after the presentation and ask him some questions. Here is some of the specific information I got from him:

Cyberbullying does not have to be threatening to be criminal. It can be simply mean, insulting, rude or even “I love you” kind of stuff that is continued after it is made obvious it is unwanted.
Generally the FBI investigates these crimes because the internet crosses state lines.
tends to be very cooperative with law enforcement when it comes to the identification and prosecution of cyberbullies.

On to the main story, though. The cyberbullying of Free Wheeler Pizza has hit critical mass and is being systematically dismantled. The fake reviews have become so obviously personal that the people running those review sites are beginning to remove them as fast as they can be posted (I exaggerate, but you get the idea). Facebook has removed 2/3 of the personal slams by the main culprit, in some instances eliminating the entire discussion.

One faction of this group of 3 hasn’t been heard from for over a month, the other has been MIA for a few days.

Are they regrouping? Have they realized that their smear campaign backfired on itself?

I’m not sure what it is, but I’m sure enjoying the cybersilence.

Yet one more reason I keep teaching…

2011-12-15T20:28:00.001-07:00

In keyboarding a kid asked me if I shave my legs. I said that I don’t but that some men do, like competition swimmers.

Me: “They shave their legs, their arms, their chest…”

Student: “And they’re bald”

(Say the two quotes together fast and stop before you get to the “d” on bald.)

All alone.

2011-12-14T17:02:00.001-07:00

Thematic Photographic for this week is “The One”, some lonely, solitary thing. I took these photos today, at school. I did not photoshop them at all, except to crop and frame them. Do you know what it is?

Does this one help?

If not, ask your favorite neighboring science teacher.

Answer: It’s called a plasma ball, the science teacher has one on her desk. The whole thing looks a lot like this:

This is a picture I got off the web – not the actual one I was photographing.

And if you want to see more “The One” pictures, or want to enter your own, click on the banner below.

Turning the tables.

2011-12-09T18:38:00.001-07:00

How many of you, as a 9^th grader would have jumped at the opportunity to teach your teachers? Three of ours got the chance this afternoon.

It was Friday afternoon, professional development time. Today we were taking about authentic assessments and alternative assessments. Tests.

The science teacher had done a survey of all her student on their opinions about tests; which kinds they liked the best, how they used the results of the tests and how they perceived the teachers using the results.

The entire faculty was there, all the teachers, the counselors and even the Assistant and Principal. The boy started the session off with a test, on trivia. He fell right into the roll of teacher, and was obviously enjoying it. During the test the science teacher asked me if I would get some pictures of the kids playing teacher for their teachers. I stood up to go get my camera.

“Mr. Rossi, sit down, we’re taking a test.” the boy said. It wasn’t arrogant, he was just playing the part.

I raised my hand and asked “May I use the hall pass, Mrs. B wants me to get my camera.”

He told me that I could, but to hurry back.

As you can probably guess, the teachers were pretty obnoxious at the beginning, peppering him with all the questions we're used to hearing.

“Is this going to count on my grade?”

“How many points is this worth?”

“Can I make this test up if I blow it?”

And etcetera and so forth.

After the initial thrill of giving back what we are accustomed to getting, the whole thing went quite well. The two girls presented the finding of the survey. I cropped the pictures, but didn’t shrink them so you can see the results for yourself, but there was one finding that I was surprised by.

For the answer to the question “What is your favorite type of assessment”, Computer Testing was dead last, below even the Essay Test.

It took me a minute, I was sincerely shocked, but it finally occurred to me: we’re killing them with computer tests. YPP (Yearly Progress Pro, taken weekly in some schools), Acuity and the end of the year NCLB tests. Not to mention all the other computer based tests in subjects other than math, of which I know nothing. Last year my math department did the math and figured out that we were spending 16% of our class time computer testing.

All of that aside, I couldn’t help chuckling through the whole thing, at the irony of these three kids teaching the whole faculty. And being amazed at how comfortable they appeared to be doing it.

These three, and kids like them, (hopefully) are going to be running the world when I’m collecting what’s left of Social Security.

Enquiring Minds Want to Know.

2011-12-07T17:27:00.001-07:00

How many innocent people would you be willing to hurt for the sake of a 12 year old grudge? One? A couple? Is it OK to spread lies and use deceit in an attempt to ruin a business if it puts less than 10 innocent people out of a job? Just to get back at the two you’re pissed at?

Here’s the latest review that has shown up on at least 3 different sites just yesterday: (Feel free to skip most of it, other than the last paragraph it’s basically the same as the ones I previously posted).

Dec 6, 2011

I just had to post this after seeing all these glowing reviews that, if you read very carefully, are obviously posted by employees and friends of this joint. The reason I have to speak out is because I have tried this place and I will NEVER go back there again! Why?
Well, a co-worker at Rocky Mountain Power, recommended this pizza place to me and I decided to give it a shot and took my wife and two kids there in September. My son is 13 and my little girl is 8. We wanted to dine in but that was a huge mistake! First, the service was incredibly slow and 3rd-rate. I cannot believe that this place would offer dine-in because it is so dimly-lit and the atmosphere reminds me of a shed out back on my Uncle's old homestead in Price! The chairs and tables are very cheap and not appealing at all as well as being dirty when we sat down. I really was not too upset until I got the pizza. My kids would not touch it because it was so soggy it looked like soup on cardboard. Seriously, how hard would it have been to drain a bit of juice from our veggie pizza? I guess too hard for this place.
On to the next problem; the employees looked like they had not bathed or showered in weeks and their manners were atrocious! I tried really hard not to take it personally but I finally gave up when some young kid delivery driver started telling dirty jokes within hearing range of my kids. That was enough! We will never go back there again and we would recommend to you that you do not try it. You will be sorry like we are! This is definitely not a place for a family to go. I must say too, that the front of this place is a bit intimidating and dreary. The sign out front looks more apropeaux for a garage sale or a pawn shop!
After our interesting experience, I got on the internet and did some research about this free wheeler place. After a bunch of leads and contacts and about 6 weeks, I got in touch with an original owner of this pizza chain from years ago who told me that free wheeler pizza was started by potheads and druggies because they could not get a delivery pizza back in the 70's or so. This guy wanted his name left out but told me he owned several of these shops and since he knows a friend of mine, he revealed to me that they used to use free wheeler pizza shops as a front to sell dope and other drugs! Great! This place is the descendent of a drug ring! Need I say more!

We get it, you’re still bitter over the ending of your employment there. But by your own accounts on the Facebook pages of the people you blame for it, it had no long term financial effects on you. You’re doing great now, you’ve bragged about college grades and your financial success. You’re happy in the new State you’re living in.

So why are you so intent on damaging a business that has been in the Salt Lake Valley for almost 35 years, your time there being just over 1/10 of it’s existence? What about Tim, Adam, Kody and the rest that weren’t even there when it all came about? Are you willing to sacrifice their livelihood, at a job they seem to like - having been there 3 or 4 years now, for the sake of revenge on the two? What about the regular customers (myself and extended family included, and we’re not the only ones) who are used to having their occasional pizza?

I will continue to point out the inconsistencies of these kinds of reviews, on every site I find them. Because the company you are attacking has been a part of my life for over half of it. Because everything you say is either irrelevant, false or vastly exaggerated. Because I still live in the same city and am down there at least every couple of weeks and know what their practices are like, and know that 98% of the time they serve a quality pizza.

So please, I’m appealing to your sense of fair play. If you must exact revenge on the parties that you see as wronging you, please limit it to them. Don’t continue this review charade that could end up hurting people that had nothing to do with what happened 12 years ago.

Thanks.

Utah Barbies, revisited.

2011-12-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand, my second post on the very-hilarious, very local humor “Utah Barbies”

I decided to just provide a link rather than repost the whole thing.

A Conspiracy of Three

2011-12-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

A lot of you know about my 30+ year relationship with the very local Free Wheeler Pizza. A few of you might have also read my post a while ago about a group of people who have been holding a 10 year grudge over their dismissal, and their harassment of the main people at Free Wheeler over the last year. Up until now, other than that one post, I’ve stayed out of the fray since I have no first hand knowledge of what happened back then and, frankly, it’s none of my business.

Until I found out that someone has been orchestrating an effort to ruin the reputation of this business that has been a part of my life since I was a teenager.

You probably read the reviews I posted here last month. I was seriously curious as to whether or not they were as obviously fake to someone on the outside as they are to me.

Well, I didn’t get my answer, but I’ll make my pitch anyway:

BEWARE THE VINDICTIVE REVIEW

Online review sites. Any schlub, under the darkness of anonymity and ‘usernames’, can post a review on a whole plethora of things. If you can name it, you can probably find a site to review it.

Problem is that if someone is really ticked off at you, they can sign up under multiple usernames and pass off a diatribe of personal vindictiveness as authentic reviews of your business.

This is what’s happening to Free Wheeler Pizza, and after reading a slew of these reviews on a dozen different sites I’ve decided there are some definite signs that a group of reviews (positive or negative) are, for the lack of a better word, a conspiracy.

Are these the reviewer’s only reviews? In all of the reviews I identified, this was their first and only review. Individually, this means nothing, every reviewer has to start somewhere. But when all of them are first-time reviewers (with newly created pseudonyms), you have to wonder.
Do the reviewers fixate on a common theme? Again, by itself this could just be caused by a problem that everyone is noticing. But, are they problems that most businesses would work to correct? Like in the case of a restaurant, are they the kind of problems the Board of Health would easily notice and close you down for? Such as rotting food in the cold tables and enough mice scurrying around that customers can see them.
Do they comment on the same petty things, things that are more of a pet-peeve than a serious problem? Things that most people wouldn’t harp on, such as a lack of uniforms and dirty clothing in a kitchen. (Food service is a messy business, you wouldn’t expect the same level of cleanliness in a kitchen as you would in a shoe store.)
Does the review come to a reasonable conclusion, or do they admit to reacting irrationally? Did they take just one bite of the food and then throw it out the window, or did they bring it back and demand a refund? Did they get a case of explosive diarrhea and call the Board of Health to report it, or just write a review?
Finally, do the reviews have a similar ‘voice’? Could you tell where one ends and the next one starts if there were no breaks in the writing?

The main thing to ask yourself when reading any review is “Does this sound like the person is simply trying to inform me or do they sound like they need you to believe the way they do? Do they sound angry or simply unhappy; fawning or just satisfied by the product?” And if ever in doubt, go check it out for yourself.

Once again, thank you for listening to my venting.

I’m not saying it was windy yesterday…

2011-12-02T16:50:00.001-07:00

…but it was a good day to fly an 8^th grader.

Flash

2011-11-28T20:40:00.001-07:00

This week’s Thematic Photographic theme is “flash of color”. If you want to see other entries, and hopefully enter your own pictures, click on the banner below.

Either way, here are my choices for this week. This first one is from a laser light show during an integrated science and music assembly we recently had at the school, titled “Stairway to Science”. The music and science teachers did an awesome job of blending the two together.

This is another laser show at UVCC (Utah Valley Community College) that we took some of the high school students to a few years back.

And finally, a couple of dancing-with-glow-sticks pictures I captured at a the school’s Halloween dance several years back.

Sugar hangover.

2011-11-25T10:22:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning with a huge headache, dry mouth and upset stomach. All the symptoms of a night of heavy alcohol consumption. Problem is, we didn’t drink any alcohol at all last night, not even a glass of wine with dinner.

What I woke up with was a sugar hangover. Because my A1c was just below the diabetic level a few years ago, I’ve almost completely cut out sugar and drastically reduced carbs in my diet. I’ve brought my A1c level down to just a skitch above normal. This gives me the leeway to indulge when relatives bring some incredible home made cheesecake and pumpkin, pecan and lemon meringue pies to Thanksgiving dinner.

Except that this leaves me with a sugar hangover the next day.

Well, at least I don’t make a fool of myself when I’m on a sugar high.

New poster for the classroom,

2011-11-24T23:29:00.000-07:00

"♪ Jingle bells,
Twilight smells,
Edward ran away,
Jacob cries,
Bella dies,
Potter all the way! ♪"

Courtesy of The Gearheads.

I really do think I’m going to post that on the bulletin board at school.

Real or retaliation? What’s your opinion?

2011-11-23T02:00:00.000-07:00

Here’s the scenario: You’re checking out the reviews on a local restaurant on three different review sites..

On the first site, the 10 reviews average out to 3½ stars out of 5, the same was true for the 7 reviews at the second site. Over at the third site, 46 people voted and 84% liked the restaurant.

You scroll down and read these negative reviews:

11/1/2011
Bertha K. 1 review
I see that a bad review of [this restaurant] was deleted. Perhaps that person went too far or it got too personal for this site. As a paying customer, let me state that this is a fact. I personally have witnessed mice scurrying around [this restaurant]. This is why I refuse to ever think about ordering a pizza from them again. In the past, they made a fairly good pie, but, now their pies get very soupy and their sourdough is quite bland. They also have some of the most unkempt, filthy employees I have ever seen, whether you are picking up or getting delivery. In addition, the accommodations for dining onsite are atrocious, with sparse seating and tables and a very casual, dare I say, unprofessional environment. Poor service and a devil-may-care ambience more suited to tattooing that family dining. I looked past a few of these unsavory items in the past, but when I saw the mice it was adios for me.
11/03/11
SLC's Worst Pizza
by yodlewoman
What a sad day that slacker expressionism enters the workplace. It makes for a revolting dining experience. No hairnets, unlaundered clothing (notice I didn't say uniforms), and a could-care-less attitude. If that wasn't bad enough, read on.
On to the cuisine. I use the word cuisine liberally. The pizza dough was so lacking in taste, I almost thought it was not sourdough. I ordered a combo and came away extremely dissatisfied. The cheese on top didn't adhere to the toppings, which included uncooked green peppers and rotting mushrooms. I ate one piece and had to throw the rest out. Unfortunately, or unfortunately, I could not return the pie because I did not even contemplate dining there--that's the fortunate part.
November 9, 2011
This Place Is God Awful!!
by Min Rentals (1 review)
Dude, this pie place is for the birds, yeah I threw my flattened, frozen pizza out my window to the pigeons below. Delivery was a joke! Dude was unconcerned that he was over 30 minutes late. I also ordered the garlic balls and they came cold and greasy, like they were used to clean up the BP Gulf oil spill. After eating just one of those things, I felt like I was one of those sea birds and that I needed some mild dish detergent and a good scrubbing. Try anything else. Hell, go get a Fruschetta's or a Red Baron and save some money--your taste buds will thank you.
11/15/11
Oy-Vay!
by FredHere
I have gotten more cold, watery, flavorless pizzas from [this restaurant] than any other pizza place in SLC. The phone help was rude. The delivery guys could care less. Used to be good some time ago, but now it's just seems to be a failing enterprise. I finally learned my lesson after getting pretty sick. Avoid this place like the plague!!
11/15/11
SLC's WORST
by muchwind
Ordered the garlic rolls, a salad, and a combo pizza. Came delivered with the cheese stuck to the box and cold...ABOUT 40 MIINUTES LATE!! The pizza dough was tasteless. The toppings were minimal, to say the least. Sauce was meh! I ate about half a slice (it tasted as bad as it looked) and tried to pass it off to my roommates, but they not-so-politely declined. You see, they had been trying to eat a garlic roll and decided they were better off eating drywall. The salad? Wilted, slimy, and starting to turn. Unfortunately, too late to call them back once it finally got to me; I'll have to let it go and vow never to eat this junk again. [this restaurant] is an unholy mess!
Go anywhere else. [this restaurant] seems more like a prison chow line than a reputable, family dining experience.
November 21, 2011
Well, I Never...
by Whiteflower (1 review)
I order a pesto chicken special with artichoke hearts late one friday night, thinking it would be a gourmet delight, as their ads and website had promised...was I surprised! I'm not sure what their recipe for pesto includes, but the chunky bitter mess I tasted hardly qualifies as "gourmet." In addition, the chicken was barely warm; quite a food disaster, if you ask me! and, the red onions included part of the peel...ick! Poor quality control abounds!! I will never order again.
11/21/2011
Dave K. 1 review
I had the big wheel. It's their version of a combination pie. It is so bad! Just drenched with water from all the undercooked toppings. Salad was barely passable. Service was on the apathetic side of things. Everything is overpriced. Poor to mediocre all the way around. I would not recommend [this restaurant].
11/21/11
BAD REVIEWS NEED PROOF -- GOOD NEED NO PROOF!!
by sychoplant
These bad reviews are spot on!! I don't eat at [this restaurant] anymore, cause it is just such a terrible experiense! The food is horrible and expensive! People there look slobby and shabby! Why do you trust the good reviews?! They could be just as bogus as Wilhelm says the bad reviews are. See for yourself--yes!! But, wait a few months when they can revert to their normal selves, dirty uniforms, really bad food, and really lazy service!!! This pizza place is so bad!

I’m just curious about people’s reactions to these kinds of reviews. Please let me know your first impressions after reading them, both individually and in tandem. I will post your comments anonymously if you ask me to. Thank you for helping me with this little bit of social research.

Statistics

2011-11-20T18:34:00.001-07:00

My writer friend, Lisa, wrote a post today about her blog stats, so I went and checked mine.

The top two viewed posts of mine are, in this order:

Walmartians, run for your life:…….….2,857 views.
Of Kaffeeklatches and JNCO jeans:….1,289 views.

Ever since I’ve started watching my stats, these two have been in the top 5 viewed posts for the All Time, Month, and Week categories, every time I checked.

This has always bothered me, because it means that my stats are a little skewed, and I’m not getting a good feel for who is coming by to see my stuff on a regular basis. The popularity of those two posts is shown in the search keywords, people who are searching for JNCO Jeans and Walmartians and are not intentionally coming to visit my blog.

Now, I haven’t been losing a lot of sleep over it. The truth is that I blog for the personal satisfaction I get from it, not to see how popular I can get. I do truly appreciate and love the few regulars that drop by and comment, and I’m not completely immune to the compliments I get. But if all I really wanted to do is rack up a huge list of followers I’d just get on Facebook, make a bunch of comments (good or bad) on Justin Beiber, Twilight, Harry Potter and World of Warcraft III and I’d have a list of 14 year-old “friends” a mile long. (Which is why my Facebook account remains dormant for months in a row).

So, all that leads up to this: For the first time ever, neither of those posts are on the top five viewed posts for this week! Even better, 3 of the top 5 are from this month and JNCO jeans fell off the top five list for the whole last month.

Which means that even though the overall number of page views has dropped, more of them are for current posts and bound to be intentional.

Thank you. I love your comments and trading comments, ideas and opinions with all of you.

Più dei Classici

2011-11-18T23:31:00.001-07:00

Postcards. Used to be that anytime you went anywhere you would tell your friends and family “I’ll send you a postcard.”

Now with almost every cell phone having a camera and texting, we just catch a snap and send it to everyone in our contacts. Who needs postcards anymore?

I laminated a bunch of postcards a while ago. I have no idea where I got them, but I do know most of them came from my dad’s side of the family from the sender and receiver information on the back. These date all the way back to 1937. I have no idea where some of them were sent from, what they are of or even who sent them, but here they are.

I have no idea what the theory was behind producing this postcard, but as you can see from the back, it really was one.

The names and address on the postcards have not been changed because they are decades old and the innocent need not be protected anymore.

Quartet of Classic Cars

2011-11-16T18:45:00.001-07:00

Here’s what you’ve all been expecting from me. I tried to fight the urge to show off these four, but just couldn’t do it. I’m a weak man.

The second car I ever owned was a 1969 Ford LTD 2 door hardtop. I regularly packed over 10 teenagers in it (seatbelts, we don’ need no stinkin’ seatbelts). Yeah, not smart, but we never went far. Usually just from East High to the Village Inn a few blocks away.

Ever since then I’ve been in love with those huge, old Fords. In my 35 years of buying cars, I’ve owned ten LTDs and two Mercury Marquis (Marquises? Marquis’, Marquii?), which is the identical cousin to the LTD.

I bought the convertible in January of 1999, online from a dealership somewhere in Ohio or Iowa. That was the year they had a month of ice storms in the area and I had to wait 2 or 3 long weeks before they could ship it out to me. I can still remember them pulling it off the car carrier in the parking lot of Skyline High. White, with a bright red naugahyde interior, it was love at first sight. Other than having the engine rebuilt about 10 years ago, I’ve done very little to it, although right now it’s waiting for me to save the money for a new transmission.

It wasn’t until October of 2007 that I decided to add onto the collection. I always wished my first LTD had been a 4 door hardtop, straight out of Hawaii Five-0 and with that big opening in the side with all the widows down, it was the next best thing to a convertible. And even better in the winter. So I got online again and found this one in the L.A. area. Flew my two brother’s out there and it made it all the way back to Salt Lake City, smooth as silk, until the battery gave out on the exit ramp going to my brother’s house.

Around that same time I saw this wagon in a parking lot nearby and commented to my little brother that I’d love to add that one to my collection. Six months later he ran into the owner in another parking lot, got to talking to him, gave him my phone # and said that if he ever thought about selling it to give me a call. Six months after that, in July of 2008, he called and I bought.

In November of 2009 one of my brother’s neighbors mentioned an old LTD they had in the driveway that they were going to just have towed away. It was old, had been sitting for several years, a little bit rusty and was just taking up room. My brother and his wife (The Gearheads) said “Uh, No. We’ll give you a couple hundred bucks for it.” Then they made the mistake (or maybe intentionally) of telling me about it and agreed to let me have it. They didn’t really want the car, just hated seeing it go to scrap. So I paid $200 for it, put a new vinyl roof on it ($450), new dual exhaust ($450) and 4 new tires (hmm, about $450 also). Other than a couple bottles of gas stabilizer and a few tanks of gas to run out the years old gas in the tank, the car has been the best running and riding one of the bunch.

So, there’s my Quartet of Classic Cars.

Classico

2011-11-15T18:49:00.001-07:00

I have to admit that I thought of these because of Writer’s wax paper picture.

One of my roommates from a few years ago found these when he was unpacking things he inherited from his grandmother. He was going to throw them out and I asked for them, ‘cause I thought they were cool, and still do.

I wonder how many megapixels this one has?

Whoa! 23¢ a pound. They must be incredible steaks.

We get a dollar for a chocolate donut at the Chevron.

Broken fingernails really distract from those yellow, nicotine stained fingers, don’t they?

That’s the dealership that owned the building the original Free Wheeler Pizza was in.

There’s the exact spot.

Brand new hot water heating plant. Cooooll.

Not a whole lot of farm land left in that area, mostly housing subdivisions and strip malls.

How long has it been since there has actually been a Society Section?

I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz dozens of times, just never in the theater.

And finally, beer brewed in Utah? Nahhh.

For more classic pictures, click on the banner below.

Why district people need to spend more time in the classroom.

2011-11-14T20:38:00.001-07:00

We’ve learned all the keys on the keyboard now, so my Keyboarding classes are ready to start practicing and memorizing the “High Frequency Words”, the most common 100 words used in business correspondence.

Luckily (sort of) the District person (from another school district, not mine) who taught my class last summer supplied us with Powerpoint presentations for the kids to follow. I’m on the third set, #51 through 75, and the last five words in the presentation, in the order they show up, are:

has

her

hot

it’s

lay

I almost plotzed when I saw those words come up on the screen. Fortunately they show up one at a time, and the students at the school I’m at are quite a bit more naïve than I’m used to. Not a single one, in any of my 3 classes, said anything or even gave a snicker, and we went through the set at least three times each class.

On the other hand, the teachers I showed it to all laughed.

Stereotypes and being just plain rude.

2011-11-13T16:58:00.001-07:00

I’m not a big fan of the Republican party here in the United States. I’m registered as an independent and vote Democrat probably 90% of the time. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to tell this customer today to just shut up, pay for her damn beer and get the hell out.

She’s probably in her late 20’s or early 30’s. She and her friend come into the store and as they are walking around getting their stuff I hear them bitching and moaning about Republicans. That’s OK, everyone has their right to their opinion and to talk about it with their friends.

My coworker was ringing her up, I was ringing up one of our regulars, when an older man in a 3-piece suit comes in to use the restroom. Bitchy customer looks at him and asks him “Are you a Republican?” He replies politely "Why?” She comes back with “It’s a yes or no question, just answer it.” He says “Yes.”

“Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww.” Yes, she actually said that. The poor man just wanted to pee, didn’t confront her at all and she feels the need to offend him.

Funny thing, though, is that she didn’t bother asking the 20 year old guy with long hair wearing jeans and a T-shirt that question. Or any of the other 3 or 4 customers that were in the store. Nope, because if you’re wearing a 3 piece suit you must be a Republican. And if you’re a Republican you must want to ban all birth-control and force every pregnant woman to carry every unwanted child to term. Because, as we all know, that’s what every Republican believes. (The coworker helping her asked her why she hated Republicans so bad, and that’s all she came up with.)

It’s just plain stupid to think that every Republican has the exact same beliefs, just like it would be stupid to think that every Democrat wants to ban all guns, get every internal combustion engine removed from the planet and eliminate all defense funding.

And it’s just downright rude to drag some unsuspecting guy who just wants to relieve himself into your own bad hair day. No excuse for it.

Addiction

2011-11-13T09:31:00.001-07:00

I’m addicted to the internet.

I don’t spend hours and hours on it, usually it’s 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there, checking my emails, paying my bills or visiting and/or posting on blogs. I don’t Facebook, I don’t Tweet and it’s not online gaming or porn. Those of you who’ve been visiting my blog know that I can go days without posting, so it’s not that I have to be online all the time.

But when I do want to get online and it’s not available, that’s when the addiction shows up.

I came home from Chevron last night and tried to hop on to check my email and see if there were any new comments on my blog and new posts on the blogs I follow.

No internet. I unplugged the modem, counted to 20 to let it reset, and then hoped for the best. Nada. I unplugged the router, counted to 20 to let it reset, and then hoped some more. Nothing. I shut both computers down, unplugged the entire system from the wall, went and made dinner and then booted everything up again and prayed. Still the big Zip. At this point hoping and praying devolved into swearing.

After I got tired of that I just went to bed (it was only 8:30) with the plan to get up early and go to the cable company and see what was up.

This morning I got up and plugged everything back in and turned it all on. I apprehensively clicked the Firefox icon and waited to see.

I could feel the anxiety leave as my blog loaded up completely, my blood pressure returning to normal. The world was back to normal. The cats, sensing my change in mood, returned to the living room. All is well.

Until the next time the cable company has a glitch.

Gone, white and now red.

2011-11-11T19:29:00.001-07:00

I’ve had my head shaved at school when the student body met a goal on our fundraiser.

Yeah, went to Mohawk first, before the complete shave.

I bleached my hair blond at another school for career day, so I could come as the science teacher that the kids kept calling by my name and me by his.

And now, today I went red, University of Utah red.

Our students collected over 1,200 cans and boxes of food for the food pantry. Each can or box counted as a vote for either The University of Utah or Brigham Young University, depending on who the donor wanted to vote for.

Students got to wear the logo of the winning University today, and I agreed to color my hair to match. U of U red or BYU blue. Well, the U of U won, some 700 cans to 500 cans, so I painted my hair red. The kids loved it, the other teachers were highly amused. Even the principal got a chuckle out of it. And I got to act like a kid again. Fun day.

Eleven-eleven-eleven

2011-11-10T21:36:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow is (or by the time you see this, it may already be) 11/11/11. Seems that a lot of people are finding it cute to get married on 11/11/11. Even some junior high kids. During a discussion about this in 7th period, in a class of mostly 8^th graders, a 7^th grade girl blurted out “Anybody want to marry me?”

The class went silent, I looked at her and said “Uh, moving on, we then take the slope and…”

In X S.

2011-11-09T19:29:00.001-07:00

Remember when Mountain Dew was green and came in two versions, “tons of sugar and caffeine” and “just tons of caffeine”? I do, and I was missing those days when I was stocking the fridge at Chevron earlier this week.

We just got 2 new flavors of Mountain Dew, bringing the total up to 9. Now you can choose between:

1. Mountain Dew
2. Diet Mountain Dew
3. Mountain Dew Code Red
4. Mountain Dew Live Wire
5. Mountain Dew Voltage
6. Mountain Dew White Out
7. Mountain Dew Throwback and now
8. Mountain Dew Game Fuel with a Charge of Tropical Flavor and
9. Mountain Dew Game Fuel with a Blast of Citrus Cherry.
Whew!

So, when does the number of choices hit critical mass? It flashes me back to that scene in “Back to the Future” where he walks into the diner back in 1955 and asks for a Tab.

“I can’t give ya a tab until you order something.”

“Ok, how about a Pepsi Free?”

“If I’m going to give you a Pepsi, you gotta pay for it.”

“Just give me something without any sugar in it.”

Shirley, you jest?

2011-11-06T20:30:00.001-07:00

I always thought all the crap that people left laying around, and on, the pumps at the Chevron was because of laziness or a total lack of giving a crap. But I found out differently today.

Study the picture carefully. Can you tell where the trash goes?

I was out sweeping up the gum wrappers, receipts and cigarette butts out by the pumps today. I saw a guy walking around lost, with a couple empty water bottles in his hand. I pushed the flap open and said “here ya go”. He thanked me and tossed the two bottles in the trash.

We didn’t have a huge, long conversation but he came across as a normally intelligent person. Which makes me wonder if all those bottles, packages and receipts sitting on the pumps are not due to a total lack of consideration, but simply because for some reason they just can’t see the trash bins.

So, I ask your help. Are they really that hard to see, or are these people just not looking? I’ve changed them so many times that I honestly can’t tell whether or not they just blend in.

Reader Beware

2011-11-05T17:44:00.001-06:00

It is entirely possible that a few, if not many, expletives will creep into this post. Anyone easily offended by coarse language should probably skip this post.

Woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee, grabbed today’s edition of the Salt Lake Tribune, took my place on the throne and made it to the front page of the Utah section before getting totally pissed off.

Utah Sen. Howard (the Duck) Stephenson is going to sponsor a bill that would privatize failing schools, firing the entire staff of the school. This I’ve posted about before, but what boiled my blood was the quote by Stephenson they had in today’s article.

“It’s quite interesting that the members of the state school board who say, ‘We don’t want to punish schools’, are perfectly satisfied to keep punishing children by subjecting them to mediocre education. I’m less concerned about the feelings of educators who run mediocre schools than I am about the future prospects of those children in the school.”

Bullshit, you duckin’ hypocrite.

If his holier-than-thou “won’t someone think of the children” almighty façade had any truth to it;

Utah students wouldn’t be crammed into the largest classrooms in the nation.
Utah wouldn’t be spending less than any other state in the US, by about $2,000 per student.
He would have freaked out when his peers passed a law that earmarked $30,000,000 of new tax revenue to roads rather than education.
He would be fighting tooth and nail to not only hold educators accountable, but also to provide them with the tools to do their job at the level he wants them to.

It’s the legislators of the State of Utah that don’t give a flying duck about the education of our children, not the majority of the teachers and administrators that work hard to do the best they can with what they are given. The proof is in the funding, “starving the beast’, the ever decreasing investment in support of education, despite the 60% (or more, depending on your poll) of voters that would be willing to pay more taxes for increased education funding. Even though we were last in per-pupil funding, Utah used to be #1 in the amount invested per $1,000 of personal income, we’re now down to 24^th. Full day kindergarten, proven to help lower income and lower achieving students – denied. Class-size reduction funding – dried up.

Rep. Howard Stephenson; you and your cronies are the ones punishing the students of this state. Your quote would be better rewritten as “I’m less concerned about the feelings of state legislators who won’t even adequately fund schools, than I am about the future prospects of those children in the school.”

Finally, I can’t believe anyone, including Rep. Stephenson, really believes that private companies could better educate these same students with the same funding.

Lost in the labyrinths of my mind.

2011-11-04T20:44:00.001-06:00

I know this building was, maybe still is, in Salt Lake City. I don’t even remember taking these pictures, but the negatives are definitely mine. They are nestled within the pages that contain the pictures I took in high school, and they were developed at home like the rest. And nobody used my beloved Nikon but me.

So, what was it? What is it now? What street is that on and why are all those pallets doing in the back? I don’t know, but if you do, leave me a comment.

I love old buildings. They have character, history. If those bricks could talk, what stories would they tell? My own home turns 100 next year and despite all it’s quirks, creaks and off-plumb walls, I wouldn’t trade it for a brand new one twice it’s size.

So, here’s a building that was old back in the late 1970’s. Brick and mortar from top to bottom, and not that ¼ inch brick veneer they use these days. The real thing, very likely laid brick by brick by men who took pride in their work, who laughed together, ached together and probably even fought together as they pieced these walls together.

Bricks and mortar. But more than just bricks and mortar. And there’s even more to be seen by clicking the banner below.

Some brick, some mortar, some both.

2011-10-31T20:49:00.001-06:00

Gilgal Gardens. We discovered it when I was in high school, back then it was just someone’s fenced in back yard. It was overgrown with trees and bushes, in the heart of Salt lake City. It had (still has) all sorts of weird carvings, sculptures and paths of rocks with scriptures carved into them. New to Salt Lake, and not LDS, I knew nothing of the meaning of it all, but my friends and I were still drawn to it, always in the middle of the night, for it’s spooky, isolated, otherworldly atmosphere. I won’t go into details, I still know very little of them, you can get that by clicking on the name at the top. But now it is a city park, all cleaned up, groomed and only accessible in the day. Not the same atmosphere, but interesting none the less. Here are the brick and mortar pictures from a recent trip there.

Check out more photos for this theme by clicking the banner below. And for cryin’ out loud, add some of your own to the mix…

I’m having a metal breakdown

2011-10-30T20:22:00.001-06:00

I heard it all. From a terrorist attack, pipe bomb to an explosion. The only thing for sure is that an old Ford truck caught fire in the drive-thru at the McDonalds in Sugarhouse. Probably just a simple engine fire since the only official on site was a security guard, No F.B.I., no C.S.I., no Homeland Security.

But a fire there was. And at 7:30 PM tonight, the truck was still there, in the drive-thru, and the entire McDonalds property was fenced off. I could still smell the charred wood.

Now, I’m not a big fan of McDonalds food. I’d say it’s been over 3 years since I’ve eaten there, and I really don’t miss it. But I feel bad for the people who work there and hope and pray that nobody got hurt.

And on the “small world” note, this McDonalds happens to be on the exact corner of the original Free Wheeler Pizza. In fact, we had to move out of the original store because McDonalds bought the building so they could put this restaurant there.

So, there’s the burnt metal of an old ford, the dangling metal of the building’s gutter and, of course, the chain link fence surrounding the whole thing. That’s my connection to the Metallic theme of:

Ego stroking

2011-10-30T09:21:00.001-06:00

I like compliments on my blog as much as the next person. But insincere blatant pandering just to get your link posted on my blog isn’t what I’m looking for. Especially when it’s a comment on a year old post and your username link is to a website for discounted viagra.

“Your blog is outrageous! I mean, Ive never been so entertained by anything in my life! Your vids are perfect for this. I mean, how did you manage to find something that matches your style of writing so well? Im really happy I started reading this today. Youve got a follower in me for sure!”

My vids match my style of writing? I post a few vids here an there, but anyone who has visited here more than once knows my forté is photographs, not video clips. And the post this comment was to didn’t even have a video on it. I suppose I do have a style of writing, but I have a degree in math and technology, I don’t think about style, I just write. Let alone trying to match my vids with it.

Despite all that, I’m still glad they were so impressed with my blog. It’s nice to know it’s so outrageous and the most entertaining thing in people’s lives.

But what get’s me is that this person didn’t follow through and become a follower.

Dawn of the dead.

2011-10-28T21:08:00.001-06:00

From the moment that Free Wheeler Pizza was conceived, in the middle of the night by a half dozen inebriated out-of-Staters dismayed at the lack of food delivery service in the Salt Lake Valley, it’s been a counter-culture kind of place.

It has attracted employees from the likes of law-school students to a guy who used to hang himself vertically by meat hooks for relaxation. And everything in between. They either lasted 2 days and forced the place out of their memories, or several years and their ears still perk up when they hear the words ‘Free Wheeler’.

The most recently acquired partner wanted otherwise, he wanted to portray a more corporate image. That may or may not have resulted in the recent, thankfully temporary, demise of the business, but it did cut me out of their payroll business for a more professional payroll service.

Now, after a couple of weeks on the Coroner's slab and a quick resurrection, things have changed. The newly acquired partner is off to greener pastures in another state and the original partner is back at the helm. New partner still holds financial interest in the business, but he’s going to be a semi-silent, long-distance partner.

The first order of business for original partner was to get me back on the payroll, doing the payroll.

Yup, I’m once again gainfully employed by 3 different companies, and a part of the Free Wheeler business. Makes me happy. Not just that I’ll be bringing in a little more money, but that the people of Free Wheeler (employees included) were happy that I would be processing their paychecks and coming by at least once every couple weeks to drop them off and shoot the breeze for a couple hours.

Happy days are here again, skies are clear and blue again…

Mo’ metal, and funny kids.

2011-10-27T20:59:00.001-06:00

Chronological, so I’ll start with the kids.

Three moms came to our school to bring their kids lunch. They were dressed in color-coordinated 50’s outfits, (their cat’s eye glasses matched the color of their respective 50’s dresses), because they had just been to some Halloween gig at the local elementary school. They decided to camp out on the bench in the ‘grand hall’ we have out in front of the cafeteria, they wanted to embarrass their junior high kids a wee bit.

One of my T.A.s went up to them and asked: “Excuse me ladies, can I help you find your way back to the nineteen-fifties?”

Then after lunch, in my last keyboarding class we were doing some timed typings. One of the students got a little frustrated and exclaimed “I can’t do shift!”

And finally we get to the metal part of this post.

At the Chevron tonight a Nissan X-Terra smashed into pump #8. Someone in the back seat got out, surveyed the damage and then they just took off. I had the foresight to write down their license plate before I even knew for sure they were going to leave, I figured if they were going to leave they’d do it as I was walking out there anyway and if they weren’t going to leave having the plate number wouldn’t hurt. They left. I called the police, made a report, they found them and gave them a whopping ticket for hit-and-run, plus we got all their insurance information.

Anyhoo, here’s the metal pictures, that little hose part that sticks into your car when you fill up.

Moral of the story: If they’d just given us their info in the first place they wouldn’t have to pay a huge ticket.

Thematic Photographic: Metallica

2011-10-26T18:24:00.001-06:00

Well, as often happens, things do not work out the way I was planning. I thought “Metal? Cool. I’ve got some old Ford LTDs that have more metal in one of their hoods than there is in my entire Escort.

Well, I came home from school yesterday too tired to choreograph the shuffling of the cars to get good pictures, so I put it off ‘till today. Except the temperature dropped so much that today’s high was Monday’s low. Again, not the day I want to be moving cars around.

As I was pondering the photographic dilemma I was in, I noticed a lot of metal things around my house.

The pressure valve on my bigger espresso maker.

An old thermostat I found in my house. It just sits on the wall, I’ve got a plastic programmable one controlling the furnace.

A Coors can from back when you needed a church key to open the things.

Looking at the top of my one-cup espresso maker.

The I.D. plate from the original furnace in my house. When I replaced it 6 years ago, the furnace people said it looked like it was installed in the 30’s or 40’s.

My wall mounted can opener I got on a trek out to Eureka with Writer.

The inner workings of an old gas stove I have in my kitchen. Like the thermostat, I have a newer stove that I use, this one isn’t even hooked up.

And finally, the oven thermostat on the same stove.

If you want to see more metal, and hopefully join your own into the mix, click the banner below.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

2011-10-23T16:43:00.001-06:00

I call him “Copenhagen® guy”. He’s in his late 40’s or early 50’s, chews Copenhagen® tobacco and has a serious Napoleon complex. Although he doesn’t come in often anymore, he’s been buying his tobacco at the Chevron since before I started working there. And he’s always arrogant, condescending, rude and impatient.

The other day he struts in and commands “4 Copenhagen pouches.”

There’s only one tin up in the display, so I look under the counter to see if there is any more. I grab a roll of what happens to be Skoal® pouches, not recognizing the difference since they are both brown and I don’t chew the stuff.

“Those aren’t pouches” he barks at me.

Looking at the roll in my hand, right to where it says “Pouches”, I respond with “what?”

“Those aren’t pouches!”

“Says ‘pouches’ right here.”

I his best condescending “are you too stupid to understand what I’m saying” tone, he replies “Not Copenhagen pouches.”

“Oh, not Copenhagen, now I see what you meant to say.” I wanted to say “Well, why the $*&# didn’t you say that in the first place?”, but I knew that I was going to ruin his day by having only one tin anyway, so I just let it go.

He bought his one tin and stomped out, dissatisfied with our store once again. Dude, if we suck so bad, why do you keep coming back?

On a lighter note, here are some pictures I took that same day, of the evening sun shining on the Wasatch Mountains.

And one final picture I just took a minute ago, that was just too cute not to post.

Ferragosto 2005

2011-10-21T16:15:00.001-06:00

My older brother and sister-in-law took my Nonni’s biscotti recipe, made it their own (with minor revisions) and toyed with the idea of opening their own Italian Bakery. They even funded and, with the help of a big portion of the family, cooked up a ton of biscotti and ran a booth at Salt Lake’s Italian festival, known as Ferragosto (August fair).

We used the kitchen facilities at Free Wheeler Pizza, which worked perfect for baking biscotti. His oldest daughter arranged a biscotti eating contest at the fair, and even got a local station to include the contest in one of their ‘local interest’ spots on the fair. That’s how my two brothers and I ended up having our own biscotti eating contest on the local morning news.

Here’s an edible guy. Um, well, a guy who is representing something edible – Precious® String Cheese.

Biscotti crumbles, or pieces that we were giving out as samples.

And finally, what’s biscotti without coffee? (really dry and hard to eat)

Monster edible

2011-10-20T09:18:00.001-06:00

Back in 2002 I took a bunch of pictures for the owner of the almost defunct Free Wheeler Pizza, (mentioned here, here, here and here). Here are a few of them that fit well into Thematic Photographic’s ‘edible’ theme.

Mmmm, pizza: a lot tastier than buildings!

One whole pie isn’t enough, gotta go for a slice too.

Godzilla; not the neatest eater on the block.

For more edible pictures, click on the banner below.

Photographic Edibles

2011-10-18T17:32:00.001-06:00

The theme for Thematic Photographic this week is “edible”, a theme after my own heart.

I’m having a couple friends from school #5 over for dinner tomorrow, and of course I’m making my famous home made spaghetti sauce, for my famous home made lasagna.

I won’t be assembling the lasagna until tomorrow, but here’s a couple shots of the sauce cookin’ on the stove.

Hungry? C’mon over for dinner tomorrow. Or click on the banner below to see a bunch more appetizing photographs from all over the world. It’s pot luck, so bring your favorite food photos, pull up a chair and join in the fun.

So, you want to use your own picture as a background, eh?

2011-10-16T20:00:00.001-06:00

When choosing a picture for the background of my blog, I pick one with the main focus right in the middle and a decent amount of extra picture around it, and resize it to 1500 x 1000 pixels. This allows people to view my blog on a screen as narrow as 800 pixels and still see the main part of the photo, and one as wide as 1500 pixels without the picture repeating itself.

I run my own server for www.srossi.net on a computer in my home, so I just put the background on there. You can use any photo album server, like Picasa or Windows Live, and get your picture from there.

Step 1 is to pick the picture, edit it to the size you want and any other editing you want to do to it (I put my copyright right on the background), and then upload it to Picasa or something like that.

Step 2 is to get into blogger and find the spot in your blogs html where the background image is defined. See pictures below (click on them to get them full sized so you can actually see what to do:

A really good idea at this point would be to highlight the entire html file, copy it and paste it into a word document. Then if something goes wrong you can always revert back to what you had before by erasing everything here and pasting what you saved back in.

Then you need to open up another browser window and get the url to your photo. See pictures below:

Then highlight bloggers background picture url, delete it and insert your own.

Remember, no matter what happens you can always revert back to the original blog template in a matter of seconds to keep your blog available. Any changes you already did before trying this will have to be redone, but at least your blog won’t be down and out for long.

Any feedback on my directions would be highly appreciated. Let me know if they were clear enough, whether you had any problems or if you just have questions. Thanks.

Way cool.

2011-10-16T17:11:00.000-06:00

Saw this at the Whole Foods store yesterday. Nice.

Saving money

2011-10-15T22:45:00.001-06:00

I went to Barnes & Noble to get the 11^th season of C.S.I., and to use the $10 gift certificate I got at school last year.

They had several copies there, priced at a whopping $79 (with the 10% discount they were currently offering it would have been $71)

The clerk said something about having it shipped to my house, that I missed because I was trying to restart my heart from sticker-shock. I mumbled something about just taking it with me as she clicked away on the computer. Before I could tell her that I really didn’t want to pay for shipping since I was already there, she said “If you don’t mind waiting a week, we can ship it to your house for $44.”

It took only a millisecond for my brain to go from “another $44 bucks to wait for it?” to “It’s less if I have it mailed to my house?” Fortunately, what came out of my mouth was the later, and the clerk confirmed it. So I asked if it would be the same if I just ordered it online. “Yes, but then you would miss out on chatting with me.”

Bonus points for the quick comeback.

My figuring is that the company knows the more people they can get to order from the warehouse, the less shelf space they need to keep, and pay for, in the expensive prime locations they put their stores.

Either way, with the $10 gift certificate, I got an $80 DVD for just over $35. Do yourself the same favor next time you’re shopping there. If you can wait, get it delivered.

One bowl, two cats. And the juice from a can of tuna.

2011-10-15T09:38:00.000-06:00

Triangular

2011-10-14T16:50:00.001-06:00

You’d think a math teacher would have a million ideas when it comes to triangles. Not so much. I’ve been drawing a blank all week.

Then I started looking at everyone else’s pictures, saw all the rooflines (thanks everyone, check them out by clicking on the banner above) and went looking for this picture:

Park City, Utah.

While I was looking for it, I stumbled upon these other ones that I thought would work.

From the “Tackalicious Christmas” collection of 2007, when my friend Adele and I went out looking for the most overdone homes in the Salt Lake Valley.

And a night picture of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in downtown Salt Lake City.

Getting away from the roofline theme, the triangular webbed feet of a seagull walking on ice.

And finally, the one picture I actually took for this theme, triangles at the construction site.

Triangles. Harder than you think.

You know your Gangsta’ Cred is in the toilet when…

2011-10-13T20:23:00.001-06:00

…you’re stooping to tagging the plunger at the local Chevron.

I’m just trying to figure out if he did this just because he was bored while doing his business or did he actually think “A plunger! What a cool place for a tag.”

But when I consider the job this piece of equipment does, it is a pretty appropriate place for gang tags.

End of Stage 1

2011-10-08T19:27:00.001-06:00

I’ve decided to get a roommate. There’s nobody in particular yet, but I figured I’d get things ready and put the idea out into the cosmos and see what happens.

Stage 1: Move the office out into the living room.

My house really has only one bedroom, but I have two front rooms, each with it’s own outside door.

This makes one of them real convenient as a rentable second bedroom. One that I have rented out three times before. And although it was real nice having a separate room for all my computer stuff, I really want to pay off some debts so I decided to at least get prepared for a roommate.

The living room hasn’t had any electrical outlets for about six years. I was putting in a new chandelier in the dining room and was working up in the attic when I noticed about ¾ of my wiring in the house was the old knob and tube stuff, dating back to before the 1930’s. AND, there were a couple of live wires just dangling in the insulation up there. I immediately disconnected it all from the breaker box and lived with floor lamps and extension cords for a few months while I completely rewired everything in the attic. The outlets in the living room, on the other hand, had to be accessed from under the house, through a crawl space. Which is why, until today, everything in the living room was powered from one of the remaining extension cords. VERY attractive stretched across the floor between the living room and dining room.

It wasn’t too bad hooking up the outlet close to the center of the house. Under the kitchen and breezeway the basement was dug out for the furnace, water heater and water softener. The outlet at the outside wall will have to wait, I’ll have to actually crawl up under there to feed the wires. Something I’ve avoided for 6 years now, and probably will for a while longer.

So I moved the TV to the inside wall and moved the computers out there right next to it. Intrudes into the living and entertaining area, but on the bright side I’ll have to keep it clean instead of just closing the door so nobody can see.

Stage 2 is going to be to clean out the office, find a place for all the crap I’ve crammed in there for storage. Oh well, I need to get rid of a few things I never use anyhoo….

Welcome autu – uh, um, winter?

2011-10-06T20:30:00.001-06:00

Technically, it’s autumn here in the desert, so I’m still going to claim this goes with the current Thematic Photographic theme (click on banner at bottom to see more). But it sure didn’t look like it outside my window during 1^st period today.

My car, right after lunch.

And this is what Mt. Olympus looked like as I was leaving around 3:30 this afternoon.

Welcome to autumn in the Rocky Mountains. Click on any picture to see it full sized.

Newton would be proud.

2011-10-06T13:49:00.000-06:00

After the volleyball game yesterday, some kids were in the hall running, jumping and pushing themselves off the walls. I told them to stop climbing the walls and one of the came back with:

“We’re not climbing the walls, we’re doing a science experiment on kinetic and potential energy.”

Nothing worse than a smart smartass.

Love a goofy faculty.

2011-10-05T18:39:00.001-06:00

The first school I was at, I was among the 2 goofiest people on the staff. Any practical joke was immediately met with “Oh, [insert my name and my cohort-in-crime’s name] are at it again.”.

The second school I went to, I found myself a big fish in a really big pond. Goofyness abounded and I had to work hard to keep my standing in the group. (Ok, not that hard. But I wasn’t always automatically blamed for everything.)

Flash forward to school number six and I may be a big fish in a small pond, but I’m not the only one. I got this delivered to my classroom third period:

Seems the P.E. teacher thinks that my classroom may, at some time, spontaneously become a vacuum. And this little bag would help?

In fourth period, the kids noticed it and one of them asked if he could have it. When I asked him why he told me “It would make a great pillow. You could sleep on it and since it’s clear the teacher would just think you’re looking at the book.”

I don’t think it would be that hard to notice, but it still made me laugh.

Autumn in Duchesne

2011-10-04T05:59:00.001-06:00

It’s definitely autumn here in Utah, for a second or two at least. We have a winter storm warning for the mountains this Thursday, but I took these pictures last weekend, when it was still quite warm.

What says autumn more than a nice, toasty warm campfire?

And the spray of boiling water and ash as we put it out.

Enjoy the warmth while we can.

To get in on the fun and see more autumn pictures, and hopefully you’ll be inclined to join in and post your own, click on the banner below.

Lambpede on Rt. 35

2011-10-02T18:56:00.001-06:00

It was a beautiful weekend. The brothers and their families headed up to our property. The weather was perfect, warm during the day and just cool enough overnight.

The kids played on the hammock,

and in the dirt where they found a horny toad they named after me,

the dog took a power nap,

and the adults just sat around and talked. A great way to spend the weekend.

On the way home we decided to take the scenic route, Rt 35 through Tabiona rather than highway 40. The speeds are slower but you don’t see any big-rigs and fewer people hauling trailers. And you bypass the road construction on 40.

It probably took just about the same amount of time, despite running into a herd of sheep crossing the road,

and the scenery was great.

All in all, a good weekend.

Ode to a pizza parlor.

2011-09-30T21:56:00.001-06:00

I got a text message in the middle of Algebra. I took a quick look and all it said was “Free wheeler is closing”. I had to wrap up the class, get the next one going, repeat the process a couple more times and then go to a 2 hour faculty meeting. The message was pushed to the back of my mind.

Until I checked The Gearheads’ blog. All I can say (not really, as you’ll soon see) is WOW.

I’ve been involved with Free Wheeler Pizza since July 7^th, 1978, in one way or another. Other than the last couple months and a few years in the 90’s, I’ve been processing their payroll since 1980. Started out doing it all by hand, on those big ledger sheets, looking up deductions and taxes on a chart, going through miles of 10-key paper at a time. I got my first real personal computer from them to do the payroll on, an Apple IIe. Complete with 2, yes two, 5¼” floppy drives.

That place was my first career, I worked there for the last couple of my teen years, through my entire 20’s and the beginning of my 30’s. I managed the Sugarhouse store at 3 different locations, the West Valley store at 2, the Holladay store and owned my own franchise in Provo for the 6 months before it went bankrupt (a story for another time). It saw me through my parent’s divorce, turning 21, my 15 years of getting my Bachelor’s degree, going from living at home to owning my own home (a duplex with The Gearheads), and my mother’s death.

Like Mr. Gearhead says in his post, it was more than just a business, it was a family. And all my real family, all my siblings, were involved with it at one time or another. Even my parents, who gave their house 4 or 5 years in a row for the annual company anniversary party.

It was a small, locally owned restaurant. Even in it’s heyday in the mid 80’s, when we were virtually the only pizza delivery place in Salt Lake City, we topped out at 11 stores, but for the most part it was a 1 or 2 store operation. The owners always worked there, and we all knew them as Mike, Mitch, Al, Tony, Don. Never as “Mr.” somebody. Ownership changed hands several times, but it was more like being passed down the family line than selling out to someone, the new owner was always someone you knew, someone you had worked with, partied with and grown with for several years, and in my case sometimes someone who I had hired and been manager for.

Well, I’m gonna head off to sleep, let this sink in a bit. All I have left to say for now is “Herb, you put up a hell of a fight. Thanks.”

You can see my first in a line of stories about the place on my other blog: HERE.

More funny stuff at school.

2011-09-29T01:08:00.000-06:00

Seventh period I was walking down the rows to see which kids had done their homework. I get to Nathan and he’s flipping through his book, looking furiously for something. I watch for about 45 seconds, which in a middle school classroom can seem like an eternity, and then ask him “Did you do the homework?”

Totally deadpan, still flipping pages, he answers “No.”

It’s all in the details.

2011-09-28T16:49:00.001-06:00

They’re building a new dormitory for Westminster College right next door to “my” Chevron. It’s been going on since April of this year and we’re just beginning to see the end of destruction and beginning of actual construction.

One of the reasons Architects on these kinds of projects get paid the big bucks is because, as the title says, it’s all in the details. So, here are some construction details.

And if you want to check out more detail oriented pictures, or join in with the fun, click on the banner below.

Can we get any dumber?

2011-09-26T20:53:00.001-06:00

I was looking out the window towards the gas pumps when I was at work tonight. There’s a guy standing at the driver’s door of his silver Dodge Durango and I watch him light up a cigarette. Figuring he’s just about to get in and leave, I don’t move to do anything about it.

Until I see him walk to the back of his SUV, with the smoke in his mouth, and open up the gas tank. This is where I jet over to the intercom, punch the 1/2 button (for pumps 1 and 2) and dumbfoundedly spit out “Um, there’s no smoking around the gas pumps, put out the cigarette immediately please” just as he removes the gas hose to bring it over to his truck.

Fortunately, he leans over and crushes out the smoke. But he must have been a bit embarrassed, because he just hung up the pump and took off. Without closing his gas tank filler.

Stupid is as Stupid does.

They didn’t get the memo.

2011-09-26T16:54:00.000-06:00

Another reward I got for helping Lisa Shafer with the publication of one of her books the other day was a box full of real cotton cloths for waxing and cleaning my cars. On her way out she made a comment about making sure the box was closed so that the cats wouldn’t get into them. Something about the cars not appreciating cat fur all over them.

Well, this afternoon I found this:

Seems one or the other, or maybe even working together, the cats got the box off the table and opened. After I wash the rags, I think I’m going to remember to put them away in a closet.

War on Public Education Rages.

2011-09-25T15:18:00.001-06:00

There is no doubt in my mind that, especially since their 2007 defeat by public referendum, the Utah State Legislature has been waging a war against public education. There are more than enough rumors of legislators referring to “starving the beast” of public ed. for them to be believable. Especially in view of legislation passes since then, and three bills that most likely will be put on the floor during the 2012 legislative session.

Public High Schools will be charged for remedial courses their students are required to take in college.
Amend the Utah Constitution to give the Governor direct control over Public Education.
Require failing schools to be dismantled and put out to private contractors.

I’ve been at 6 different schools, from the upper income east side to lower income inner city schools. The majority of the teachers I know are doing their damnedest to educate their students with the largest class sizes and lowest per-pupil funding in the nation. I do agree that the reforms of the last couple decades were necessary to help bring education into the 21^st century, and education in general needs to continue being required to adapt to the changing face of our society. But since George W first introduced the No Child Left Behind concept, the silence regarding parental and student responsibility has been deafening. Here’s my comments on these three pieces of legislation:

And the student is not the least bit responsible? A motivated student will learn even if they have a bad teacher, a student determined to fail will fail despite a great teacher. Success in school depends on a trifecta: Students, parents and teachers. This legislation puts absolutely no responsibility on either the student or the parents.
Uh. Hm. Let’s not leave the running of education in the hands of people elected (despite being hand-picked by the Governor) for the sole purpose of making decisions for education. Nah, let’s put that power in the hands of a single person, whose responsibility includes the entirety of the State Government.
This is my favorite one. If a school fails, let’s fire everyone responsible for it’s failure. Oh, wait. The students are responsible too (see #1). And what about the parents who can’t, or won’t, help or even expect their student to succeed in school. (YES, that does happen).

I had a 9^th grade student at an inner city school that just about fell asleep in class. I asked him about it and he told me that he was out late working. He told me that, in addition to school, he worked about 30 hours a week. I made a comment about how great it must be to have all that money to spend. He looked at me and said “Nah, I have to pay the rent.”

How can I compete with that?

I will bet an entire month’s paycheck on two things if this privatization of “failing” schools passes.

No private school can improve the scores of students if they are required to do it with the exact same clientele and money per student.
Somehow, miraculously, the Utah State Legislature will find a way to improve education funding, helping line the pockets of their cronies in the private education business.

I love my job, can’t imagine doing anything else right now. But with each and every attack on my profession (and I do not view every change or criticism as an attack, there is a lot I agree with) managing a Chevron is looking better and better.

A Bear of a Day

2011-09-24T14:34:00.000-06:00

Last week we ended our big school-wide fundraiser. As a reward, the PTSA arranged to have the Utah Jazz Bear visit the school during both lunches.

Second lunch had a bit of an advantage over the kids in first lunch, a few had heard about it and were waiting for him to show up at the front door.

He shot off a confetti gun inside the cafeteria.

Twice. Spewing confetti over the entire lunchroom. I had an advantage second lunch too. I had a bit of a blood pressure spike during first lunch when that first shot went off. It didn’t sound like a gun, but I immediately spun around to see which kid had blown up his lunch bag and then popped it.

Then he signed a the kids hands (and mine too), and a few foreheads.

He had a few contests with some of the students, and arm-wrestled one of the mothers.

And took pictures with some of the kids. (even the 50-year-old kids.)

Finally, before taking off, he had me and one of the PTSA members take a picture of him with all the kids.

Which kind of made me feel like I ought to change my name to Fidel.

The assistant principal was thrilled by all the chaos,

and I’m sure the custodians loved cleaning up the confetti. Twice. Once right after first lunch so the second lunch kids wouldn’t know something was up.

A little smoke and bull for you.

2011-09-23T18:48:00.001-06:00

(**I stole that title from the email the writer, Lisa Shafer, sent me with the pictures we took during lunch. I took the sign picture and she took the menu picture.**)

I helped my friend with her “Half-Vampire” book again today. We worked on the cover (front, back and spine) and scanned a phew fotos for promotional stuff. As a reward, I once again got a great dinner, we went to a local place called “Cowboy Grub” that’s been in the exact same spot since 1975. Great, basic, comfort food. I had a club sandwich that had just about everything on it.

Not only is the food as good as ever, but it has pretty much the same décor as it did back in the 70’s. They even still have the non-smoking section sign attached to a pole, and restaurants have been completely smoke free for over 20 years here in Utah. (And did you notice the non-smoking area is completely open to the smoking area?)

The other thing they still had was on the menu. As a 15 year-old east coast city boy new to the intermountain west, I had no idea what Prairie Oysters, also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters, were, and on the menu at the time is said not to ask the poor waitress. So I asked mom & dad and was both grossed out and in awe at the same time when they told me.

Lo & Behold, they are still on the menu there. Mmmm, with dipping sauce! But if you want to sample some of “the best of the bull”, you had better hurry. The manager told us, when I asked if I could take a picture of the menu, that they wouldn’t be there on the next printing. Seems it’s getting hard to get them from any supplier anymore.

Bummer.

Say What?

2011-09-23T10:43:00.001-06:00

In Pre-Algebra we were talking about translating word problems from English to math, coming up with a list of words that translate into the different mathematical symbols. For the symbol for multiply we came up with all the usual ones and I finally prompted them to come up with double, triple and twice. A student offered the word thrice, which I put on the list but explained that it was a word we rarely used in American English.

About twenty minutes later a student was turned around talking to the kid behind him and I asked him “Are you goofing around or just having a spazz attack?”

His answer was immediate; “Spazz attack. I have them thrice daily.”

Then at the beginning of seventh period another student walks into class and he says to me

“That assignment was so hard, I think I cried a little.”

Smart Thinking.

2011-09-20T17:09:00.001-06:00

After school one day, headed back to my classroom, I noticed a garden hose going from a utility room into the boys bathroom, and heard the whoosh of water being sprayed around. I stuck my head in to see what was going on, and there was one of the custodians hosing down the entire bathroom.

Somebody was thinking when they designed the school I’m at. The bathrooms are all tiled all the way to the ceiling, and there is a sunken drain in one corner. So, short of some kid throwing stuff onto the ceiling, which is not unheard of, the whole thing can be simply squirted down.

Some architect knows teenagers.

Lisa and Jim

2011-09-20T02:57:00.000-06:00

Why do I always get stuck with the weird ones?

2011-09-19T20:43:00.001-06:00

I have two T.A.s on my prep period. They are the techie kids who make video Public Service Announcements for the school. They do some awesome animations and also help with the school’s website. They are also weird as can be.

Today I had to go talk to the principal and left them alone for a little while. When I came back the were nowhere to be seen. I walked over to my desk and when I walked around it into my little work area I found this:

He had the other T.A. tape his hands and his mouth to look like a kidnap victim. (With painter’s tape, not really the thing to use to secure someone.) The other one then locked himself in the closet.

I guess they were looking for a reaction, but I just said “wait a sec” and pulled out my cell phone to take a picture. Anti-climactic, and to think he had laid there for 15 full minutes waiting for me to get back. Ah well, at least I got a good laugh out of it. And then this one had to encourage me to go looking for the other one. I figured when it was time for lunch he’d show himself.

Playing with (very little) light.

2011-09-16T17:13:00.001-06:00

I love taking pictures in the dark. Not only is it challenging, but because of long exposure times you get some cool effects. Thursday night our Science Department sponsored it’s annual “Star Party” out on the athletic field. I decided to bring my camera and see what I could get. Keep in mind that the field was kept dark enough for star gazing. Here some of the better ones:

Front Porch lighting

2011-09-13T17:55:00.001-06:00

I took these earlier this month, when I was playing with my newly-rediscovered manual lens off the Nikon 35mm camera I’ve had since high school. For the first one I had the lights on in the office.

For the second one I turned off all the lights in the house, the only light came from the street lamp right on my property line.

And for this last one I turned on the green light in the ceiling fan on the porch.

On nice warm summer nights I love to sit on the porch with all the lights off and watch the cars drive by, wondering where they are going and why they are in such a hurry.

If you are interested in all the other “Playing with light” photos or entering your own (and you should be), click on the banner below and join in the fun.

Cats can climb ladders?

2011-09-12T03:14:00.000-06:00

I added a porch to the back of my house, it’s roof is a small deck that I use to access and work on the swamp cooler. The only way up and down from there is a ladder I built on the side of the porch.

Gata, my last cat, never went up there. At the time I thought the ladder was just too daunting for her to maneuver, but in retrospect I think it’s more that she just never had the desire.

Because the two I have now seem to have figured it out and ventured forward.

I was hanging up some curtains I washed out on the clothesline last night when I heard a cat clawing at the side of the porch. I went over there to find Alan up on top, posed like a King surveying his domain. Of course I ran in to get the camera and caught him in the pose again.

A couple of minutes later he decided to come down.

And I found his method of descending kind of amusing, straddling the outside beams and sliding down behind the actual steps.

Denny took this opportunity to attack, and a fight on the middle rungs of the ladder ensued.

Finally, peace was achieved and tranquility was returned to catdom.