What's the hubub, bub?

There is no way on God's green(ish) earth that I'd vote for Sarah Palin. Partly because what little I know of her politics (conservative, gun-totin', pro-life, anti-gay beauty queen) is completely contrary to my beliefs, but mainly because a vote for McCain (also known as Bush Light) is a vote for 4 more years of the Bush policies of failure.

That said, I now say that I don't give a rats ass if she has a pregnant teenage daughter, regardless of whether the father were sticking with her or disappeared into the Alaskan wilds. Unless she were forcing her daughter to have an abortion, this has absolutlely no bearing on her ability to be Vice-President. You can be the best parent in the world and your teenage daughter might still end up pregnant, hormones do not happen only to the "ill-bred". So, this is my official plea that we hear no more on the subject. Let the news outlets drop it, let the Obama campaign rise above it and not make it an issue, because it isn't. We, as a nation, spend too much energy delving into the personal lives of our celebrities, and that's how we ended up with such pathetic leaders. Move past it and concentrate on the real issues; energy problems, federal deficit and federal debt, ending the war and keeping us out of new ones, restoring the American image in the rest of the world and restoring our economy. I don't know the answers to these problems, but we'll never figure them out if we worry instead about whose daughter is doing what.

Julia

Should be standard Prom attire;

Click on it, look closely, you'll get it.

Well, the first two weeks of school are over. I survived. Our enrollment numbers are higher than expected, which, for now, means we have some fairly packed classes. The other day the Head Custodian came in to see if I had any spare desks. At the time I did, and he took 3 for a teacher who had more students than desks. That would have been nice, except since then I've had 5 new students show up. Got 2 of my desks back 2 days ago, now I need 3 more. Last year that wouldn't have been a problem, since each class had 2 or 3 students that just never showed up. Well, our Attendance Dean got a head start this year, has a "No Show" list and has been calling parents and students convincing them to get their butts to school. Four students chose today to be their first day of school. We're still up 30 students from where we expected to be. That means we should have one more teacher working than we do, cramming one extra teacher's worth of kids into all the other classes. But, we just have to wait until October, when we do our final warm-body-count and get our official staffing allowance from the district.

So, the first weeks went pretty well. I really like my Geometry classes. I have some really interesting students in them, but today I had 98% of the class engaged in what we were doing, even in the assignment. Some were working harder than others, but not a single student was avoiding the work all together. Niiiice. Algebra, right before Geometry, not so much. That's the class that had 2 kids show up for the first time, and one that just transferred into it. There was a group of 4 in the back (yes, they will be moved and separated by next class) doing nothing except talking. They did keep it down when I was going over the material, but whenever we had a transition or independent working, they were socializing. Yeah "Earth to dumbasses, if you pass my class now, you just might have an easy Senior year when (and if) you get there." Yeah, try telling that to a generation that's used to making multiple life-and-death decisions in one 20 minute video game. I still have a lot of students in the class that I really like, that are going to prove to be amusing throughout the year, I'm just going to be working at keeping them on task. The good news is that so far there isn't a single student that I wish would disappear off the rolls and out of the school. Can't say that for last year. I did have one major teacher success moment, the first week of school. This one student, a sophomore I think, was giving me the old "Why do we have to work the first week of school" whine right before the second day of class. I looked at him and said "Tell you what, you go out get a job and when you show up for the first day of work tell your boss you're going to just sit in the corner and do nothing because, after all, it is just the first day of work" He gave me a puzzled look and I asked "Do you think you'll still have a job?" He shyly said "No" and sat down and got to work. Yeah! Chalk one up for the Gipper!

On the other hand, the staff can be every bit as annoying as the students. This one counselor for example. She came to us halfway through the year last year, and because of that I forgot to print up a Relicensure Point Certificate for the inservice hours she was there for. Well, when we passed them out at the first faculty meeting and she didn't get one, she came up to me and said (gruffly) "I need to get my points." I apologized to her and told her to eMail me and that I would get them to her as soon as possible. (Note: Relicensure is always in June, so if she didn't need them by June 2008, she won't need them until June of 2009. Not an immediate need). From our conversation she goes over to the principal and tells her to make sure that I don't forget to print her up the certificate. The principal (she's a wise one, she is) tells her to go ahead and let me know, and when the counselor tells her that she already told me the principal says "Well, then don't worry, he'll do it." Nope, she wants the principal to remind me. Ok, fast forward to yesterday, going past several emails and remiders from her, she comes into my classroom first thing in the morning to ask me if I had her certificate done yet. I told her that I had her emails, had even sent in an official district work order to remind me, and that I would get to it as soon as possible. She goes on about needing it, has to get it "off her desk" so she can file it, etc. I try to explain that this is the beginning of the school year and that I have 3 teachers with no computer, a lab that needs Word and a printer installed and several other issues that directly effect student education, and that, frankly, her certificate is not that high a priority. She continues to go on about "getting it off her desk" so I just assure her that I will get to it as soon as possible and shoo her out the door. By lunch I have an eMail from her reminding me of the discussion we had earlier that day and that she needs to (yes, you got it) get this off her desk. Right after school she sticks her head in to ask me if I got her eMail reminding me about the discussion we had at the beginning of the day. If the door had opened into the class instead of out into the hall, I would have slammed it in her face. Well, the part of me that wanted to fight that kind of bullying got the crap beat out of it by the part of me that was willing to do anything to avoid talking to this woman, and I ended up making up her certificate, which has to be signed by the principal, who is going to talk to her about the way she dealt with this (and other things, I'm not the only one) when she gives her the certificate.

So, that was the first couple of weeks. Got a little frustrated over fighting the cellphone thing for a couple days, but just stuck to it and we're doing ok. Been a good couple of weeks, overall. Have some great students, have some good students, have some annoying students. But none that I would like to see disappear. That's success.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

First two weeks of school tiring? Nah. Zzz

What the hail?

or Good thing it was the day before Labor Day; The tale of 5 hours without power.

It started out a nice warm summer day in the lazy little city on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Sunny and warm, it was 76F by the time I got my butt out of bed around 9 am, completely oblivious to the drastic changes that would occur in the next 24 hours.

Bleah! I sound like a really pathetic 3rd rate novel. Let's cut to the chase, at 4:30 pm yesterday it was 84F and by 5:30 it had hit 63F (today's high is supposed to be 63F, tomorrow 72F). Welcome to Utah in the fall.

There, now for the full story. Yesterday was a warm day, I had the swamp cooler on cooling down the house, had done a load of dishes, couple of loads of laundry and was working on changing my seating charts. (Kids are idiots, they show me in the first week who needs to be separated from who. If they were just a little more subtle, they could get away with stuff for a lot longer.) Around noon I got a call from one of my old roommates inviting me over for a bbq around 6, which I accepted. Around 2:30 I got a call from my little brother reminding me of an old Ford show that was going on in Park City, suggesting we take a couple of my old Fords up there. I told him I had to be back by 6, but then again so did he so we decided to go. He, his wife and kids and I all headed up there in Old Blue and the Battlecruiser, looking forward to a little relief from the heat. It was beautiful up there. We went through Park City, didn't find the Ford show, went further up the hill a way and then came back. We'd been told that it was in The Canyons (formerly known as Park West, because it's just a few miles west of Park City) on Friday, then in Park City on Saturday, so we decided to see if it had headed back to The Canyons for Sunday. Yo, it was there, right at the foot of the gondola ride up to the resort. By this time it was almost 5:00, but we decided we had enough time to check out the cars, and the kids needed to stretch their legs anyway. We spent a little bit of time looking at the cars, there were some really nice ones, and then decided that since the gondola ride was free, we'd take it for a quick ride, the kids were kind of hinting they wanted to ride it. We rode it right over my cars, got a couple cool pictures from right above them and then the storm that hit SLC hit us. A 20 minute round-trip ride on a gondola seems a lot longer when it's cold and raining, although the ride back was better because we were going with the wind, so the rain wasn't hitting us as hard. And at least it wasn't the worst part of the storm, which hit on the ride down Parley's Canyon. They were in Old Blue and I had The Battlecruiser, so we decided to just part ways and head straight to our respective bbqs, since it was almost 6 already. Well it's about a 30 mile drive from The Canyons to Salt Lake City, most of it along a stretch of I-80 that was recently repaved. Nice, smooth road, but it seems that new pavement has something in it that, when mixed with a heavy rain, comes out of the pavement like a big sheet of frothy soap. It was slick as snot. On a road that I would normally travel between 70 and 80 MPH, I found myself slowing down to 50 MPH at times. Just a wee bit scary, but I made it, although a bit late to the bbq.

The bbq was great, even sat out in the hot tub in the rain. Which was a mistake because it was so relaxing that I was falling asleep by 9 and headed home. I became a little worried about the possibility of no power at my house when I got to the intersection of 13th East and 17th South and the power was out there. No signal lights. Fortunately most of the people there understood the concept of treating it like a 4 way stop, so there was no big confusing mess there, and I made it through the intersection smoothly. That area is actually on a different circuit than my house, so I wasn't positive I was out of power, but having lived here for 15 years, I knew that the probability was high. Yep. Total darkness. Good thing I keep a lantern, with good batteries, in an easily accessible spot. It really wasn't totally dark in the house, the moon must have been out, or the lights from the city were bouncing all off the clouds, because there was enough of an eerie light throughout the house for me to get around easily. (I can make it around the house in total darkness, but a lot slower.) The house was a little warm for sleeping, and I love listening to the rain anyhow, so I went and layed out on the futon on the back porch. I dozed, listening to the rain, traffic and other sounds of the city, until it got too cold and damp and then I moved back into my room. Opened the window up all the way, still listening to the rain and went to sleep. Until the accident out in front of the house. I heard the crash and then the sound of screeching brakes, and thought it was weird, because usually the smash comes after the brakes. So, I got up, went out there to see what had happened, couldn't figure out what exactly had happened but saw enough people walking around to know that they didn't need any assistance. One car was filled with high school aged guys, who were all high 5'ing each other like they had just accomplished some astronomical feat. Um, yeah, You got in a wreck. Cool. They couldn't have been going that fast, the cars weren't that badly damaged, so I don't think it was a "thank God we survived" kind of high-5. Ah, well, whatever. The cops showed up and I went back to bed, just to be woken (is that a word?) up around 2:30 with the sound of air conditioners kicking on at the apartment complex next door. I was really, really glad that this was not a regular night where I had to work in the morning, I would have been too worried about getting up on time (no alarm clock) and getting enough sleep that it would have been really frustrating. Instead I just kind of faded in and out of sleep all night. And woke up to a hail storm this morning. Yup, had to flip on the heat. So, in the last 24 hours I went from a swamp cooler on full throttle cooling down the house to nothing because of no power to heating up the house because it was 50F outside. Yes, I do love living in Utah (and that's not even sarcasm).