School's out for summer!

It's over. We graduated a whopping 48 students today. For a senior class of only 50-something, that's not bad. Especially when you consider our demographics. (Inner city by Utah standards). We had it outside on the football field, and you'd think that since we live in the desert that the last cause of stress would be the weather. At least that's what you might think if you weren't in Salt Lake this week. We've been watching the weather for a while now, and they were predicting rain for yesterday and today for the last week or so. For a while it was going to rain all through Thursday, then it was going to start Wed morning and end 9ish on Thu. Then they had no clue. Well, we were hoping the rain would start on Tue, which would most likely mean that the storm hit early, and would clear out early. When it didn't start raining until late Wed, we got worried. This is typical winter and spring weather for Utah; storms can suddenly stall, speed up or even hit a high pressure and go above/below us. So we knew the thing to do was to put off the decision as long as possible. The crux of the dilemma was the rental of the stage for on the lawn, how long could we put it off before we had to pay for it anyways, and at what point would we not have the time to set it up. We had the stage in the auditorium set up by mid Wed, so the change to inside would be easy, but when do we decide to go for the outdoor stage and risk eating the cost of the rental. That point was at 9:30 this morning when the rain stopped, it looked like it was going to clear up and the chairs we sat on to check the grass didn't sink into the ground. But then again, we've seen storms circle around and hit us again, which this one did as I was driving back to school with the stage in the back of the truck. Nothing terrible, since another Utah trait is that with some storms most of the rain evaporates before hitting the ground (something that facinates me having been raised in Massachusetts). Anyway, the upshot is that despite rain hitting the ground at 11:30, by graduation at 6:00 the grass was dry, the bleachers were dry, the sun was out and blinding the speakers on stage and we were all sweating in our graduation robes. But not as bas as last year when it was sunny all day, not even the slightest threat of wet and 20 degrees warmer. Everything went perfect. It was amazing. And despite having nothing more than a 10 minute run through, my sister-in-law Rae, who ran the sound for the event, was invited back to do it again next year.

Well, I rewarded myself for making it through this week with the 3rd season of Voyager. I think I'll go have a beer and watch it. G'nite.

Why men shouldn't have action figures.....

Happy Birthday Alex!

Oprah soaprah on a roprah.

I am a firm believer in equal rights. I was raised by a feminist or two and continue to believe that all people deserve the same opportunities as everyone else. But it still just annoys the hell out of me when people take things to the level of absurd.

I accidentally saw 30 seconds or so of Oprah today. Turned the TV on this afternoon and I had to get the other remote to change the channel (the VCR receives in HD). Had enough time to hear her use the made up word shero as the female version of hero. Now, I can get my mind around the desire to coin new words like chairperson or chairwoman, businesswoman, and I can even comprehend bastardizing history into herstory. At least it has an origin due to male dominated society. But hero just happens to have the two letters h & e at the beginning, despite that according to Wikipedia* it actually comes from Hera, a Greek goddess. The need to change every word that starts off or includes the letter combinations he or him, despite the origin of the word, is, well in my opinion, stupid. We get to a level of absurd, where men are heathens, women are sheathens. Where women don't heal from a wound, they sheal, and male Muslims cannot be Shiites, they would have to be Hiites. And I don't want to sleep in sheets, they're way to frilly. I want a really nice set of heets for my bed. King size, of course. But then again, Oprah is the queen of let's take it to the extreme of absurd. Ever since she showed disappointment when Tiger Woods father responded that he raised his son to be part of the human race, as opposed to either black or white, I have been aware of her narrow view on the world and her inability to see view points other than her own.

*Wikipedia : The literal meaning of the word is "protector", "defender" or "guardian"[citation needed] and etymologically it is thought to be cognate with the name of the goddess Hera, the guardian of marriage; the postulated original forms of these words being *ἥρFως, hērwōs, and *ἭρFα, Hērwā, respectively. It is also thought to be a cognate of the Latin verb servo (original meaning: to preserve whole) and of the Avestan verb haurvaiti (to keep vigil over), although the original Proto-Indoeuropean root is unclear.

Done. Well, for the next couple of weeks.

It's done. Sorta. I've got all the wood up, there are only 2 things left to do : the roof and putting the wood sealer on. I want to let the wood cure for a couple weeks before I put the sealer on, in person you can tell the difference between the new wood and the stuff that's been on for a week or two. Once it all matches, then I'll put on the sealer. Which is kind of convenient, since the next week is going to be real busy and after that I'm going to be comatose from the end of the school year. If you click on the picture you can see the whole effect better, with bigger pictures and more of them. Anyway, if you don't see much change on here in the next two weeks, don't be surprised.