Tomorrow I think I’m going down to the Salt Lake Tribune headquarters and apply to be their new Director of Inadvertent Innuendo Avoidance.
Unfortunately, with John Swallow’s political career in the toilet, I don’t think we’ll ever see him running for political office against Olympic gold medal swimmer Mark Spitz. Now, that would have made a good headline.
Let’s see. A whole bunch of new cars in one place, and a few old ones to boot. You can touch them, get in them, look under the hood and in the trunk.
Of course I went to the Utah Auto Show this weekend.
Saw some Jaguars that were once again real Jaguars, not the overpriced Fords they were for a while there. Hyundai has a new sports car that puts out over 350 horse power, that’ll be one fast car. The new Dodge Dart doesn’t have any of the styling cues of the classic one, but still lives up to it’s name: it’s practical, inexpensive and economical, and looks like it would be fun to drive.
My little brother and his wife went with me. we looked at a bunch of SUVs for my older brother – he thinks it’s time to trade in his 2000 Durango for something new. We didn’t find many rear-wheel drive, 4 wheel drive (with 4-low) SUVs in a actual truck platform. Most of them were all-wheel drive on a front-wheel drive platform, which is really good for getting around town in the snow, but not as good for hard off-road driving.
I can’t remember what year this came out, but I remember it being marketed as an off-road 2-seater sports car. I did like the color, name and badge on this one.
Scion came out with their answer to the Smart Car.
It’s a little bit bigger than the Smart Car, and has actual back seats, although they are not what I would call roomy. My brother pointed out that it looks a lot less awkward than the Smart Car, and I have to agree.
I wanted to sit in the new Corvette, but the line was too long. From this picture my brother got, I think I wouldn’t have found it too comfortable. Especially if the top had been on.
I did get to sit in the new Mazda MX-5 (formerly known as the Miata), and found the same problem I had when I was going to buy one when they first came out. Sitting in a comfortable position, the top frame of the windshield was right at my eye level.
I fit a lot better in the VW Bug convertible.
But I could never own one, because only a double-amputee could ride in the back seat when I was driving.
The real reason I went was to go see the new Jeep Wranglers. I love mine, but I’ve been thinking about getting a new one. They replaced the old crappy V-6 with a new one that is much better. It comes with a 6-speed manual transmission and a 2-piece hard top that gives a targa top effect.
My brother test drove one and says it’s still built as rugged as the one I have, which is what I want. My requirements would include the manual transmission and hardtop in the Willey’s trim. I’m not sure what color I want, you can check out the different possibilities, seen at our property, here. Check them out at Arches national Park too, then come back and let me know which color you like the best.
It was 9th Grade week this week, (8th & 7th are the next two weeks), and we’ve had games (for the 9th graders only) in the commons area every day during lunch. Thursday’s game involved setting up red plastic cups full of water, having the contestants bounce a ping-pong ball on the table and hopefully into one of the opponent’s cups.
If the ball goes in, the cup gets removed and the player with the last cup left on the table wins.
Pretty innocuous, fun kind of game for a junior high, eh?
Until the kids start asking things like “Aren’t they supposed to chug it when the ball goes in?” or “It’s not supposed to be water in the cups, is it?”
I even had to inform a dozen or so kids that we were playing Water Pong when they asked about the Beer Pong game going on in the commons area.
I’ve been working with the same Vice-Principal for the last 3½ years at 2 different schools. A week ago we got informed the district had decided to move him to another school. That put the faculty in a panic, because he’s been fantastic and the previous Vice they had (I never worked with him) was, well, uh, … not nearly as good. He didn’t ask to leave, really doesn’t want to, but when the district “asks”, you simply say “thanks & how high?”, especially if you ever want to make it to full-fledged Principal.
The good news is that we’re getting a rookie, an intern that is being promoted to his first full position. A rookie is good because, of the five rookies I’ve seen my current Principal train, 2 have become a couple of the best Principals in the district, one is in charge of Technology and Adult Education for the entire district and the fourth, the one we just lost, is being transferred to a school in need of a strong V.P. I have no idea what happened to the fifth, but an 80% success rate makes me comfortable that the new guy is going to be good.
Anyway, I decided we couldn’t just let him fade out into oblivion, so I orchestrated a fun farewell, live during Thursday’s morning announcements. The Student Body Officers got him up to the studio on the premise of presenting him with a farewell card. He made a little “I’m gonna miss you all” speech and then was presented with these:
Before things got too emotional, but mostly before he could escape, my Tech Crew and I presented him with one final farewell gift.
After he finally extricated himself from all the silly string, he told me “Now I know what it’s like to be an insect, getting sprayed with bug spray.”
