Jeff & Amy

2 out of 5 survive rampage.

.... Some days just start out wrong.  Today was one of them.

.... You may or may not know that the Utah Legislature allocated extra money for bonuses for Math and Science teachers, an effort to keep them in the classroom.  Since I was teaching math half time last year, I was eligible for some of that money, and thought I had done everything right and was getting it.  Not so.

.... If God is just trying to make a point, He sure has a funny way of making me realize how important the stuff I learned in my Master's program is.  For those of you who are unaware, or forgot, my degree is in Instructional Design and Educational Technology.  We had at least two classes that revolved around making web sites that were user friendly and as idiot proof as possible.  I wish my professor had designed the TSSP* website.

.... Saving you from the long story, I lost out on the money because when they went through the applications mine was marked as "New" instead of "Submitted", even though I submitted it back in April.  Their system is set up so that if you even look at your application after submitting it, you have to resubmit it or it automatically resets back to "New".  Even if you hit the "back" button without making any changes.  And their warning doesn't say anything about having to resubmit.  Now, government being what it is, by August all the applications had been looked at, the money disbursed and whatever remained was sent back to the governement.  Too late, so sad.  I'm screwed.  Even though I accepted that I wasn't ever going to see the money, I still found all my emails, including the one confirming the submission, I took screen shots of the various steps showing the problem and sent an email to the TSSP* group explaining what went wrong.  I just wanted to be heard and for someone to acknowledge there was a problem on their part.  I got a nice email back thanking me for the time I put into the explaination and letting me know they would forward it to their IT** department. If I see a change in the program next year I'll be happy, I'll know they listened.  If not, I'll probably get mad all over again.

.... Which brings me to the title of my post, and a little opening up of my psyche to all you bloggers. 

.... I have a temper sometimes.  Not too often, but when things that shouldn't go wrong do, and when I tried to fix it and there is nothing I can see to do about it, I can blow up.  Now, I've only been in two physical fights in my life, both before I was 18, both times it was in defense, so I never vent at people or any living thing.  Never hit the cat, never kicked a dog (even though I call lap dogs "puntables").  Always inanimate objects.  My older brother and his wife still like to remind me of the time I played basketball with a little black & white TV. (Yes, Virginia, there was a time before color).  My little brother can attest to the time I slammed the door of my car so hard the window shattered.  Today it was 3 of the 5 remaining glasses of the set pictured above. (The first one died in a dishwasher accident).  Before anyone tells me how stupid it was to take my frustration out on these poor glasses, I had more than enough time to ponder that as I cleaned their pieces up off the laundry floor.  Had to or I couldn't leave the house.  I'm painting the front porch and the only other way out is through the laundry room. 
.... The rest of the day went much better.  I went out to my new school ... (nope, not gonna say it) ... and at first thought I wasn't going to be able to get into my classroom because they were waxing the halls, but the custodian said they were dry enough as long as I didn't drag furniture around the halls.  I've got all but one box unpacked, and put away.  Came home to find the email from TSSP* thanking me for my input and then watched two episodes of CSI I just downloaded on iTunes.  ($2.99 apiece).  Good episodes, the ones where Grissom leaves and we meet the new guy.  I've got 3 more new ones to watch, then I'll have to download more.  This may be better than buying them on DVD, 'cause I don't have to wait for the whole season to come out, just grab them one by one as they are available.

*Teacher Salary Supplement Program
**Informational Technology

Alex & Marijke

New Neighbors, Old Powers and Dumbass Stores.

.... Looks like they sold the house next door, so I'm going to be getting new neighbors.  At this point, this is neither good nor bad, I like the neighbors I have now but I don't know the new ones so I'll just have to wait and see.

.... I've lost my special STS powers, they took them away.  Three years ago when I became an STS they gave me an administrative login for the school I was at.  They also, accidentally, gave me the same access to the school I was at right before.  I let them know, and for some reason they couldn't figure out how to un-link me from the Jr. High.  Then when they linked me to my new school (the one that rhymes with schmeisenhower) I had administrative access to all three schools.  Which meant that I could do all kinds of things, including seeing what classes everyone at the schools was teaching, and who was in their classes.  Not all that interesting, but it made me feel powerful.  Of course it also meant that to get to my own grades I had to login, choose the school, click on 'staff', scroll down to my name, click on it and then click on the class I wanted to do grades and/or attendance for.  Yesterday I logged in and it went straight to my classes.  No other schools, no list of staff, no extra-human powers.  Not bad, since it cuts getting to things down from four clicks to one, but, man, I used to be powerful.

.... Imagine a Ford dealer that didn't have a parts or service department.  Would you go there, or go down the street to the one that could help with the upkeep of your new Ford?  I bought a light switch from Home Depot that automatically turns on and off my outside lights at dusk and dawn.  Without the battery I can't even turn them on manually so when it died I went down to Home Depot to get a new one.  Couldn't find one at the store on 33rd So, and when one of their guys couldn't find one either, he suggested I go to the one on 21st So, since the 33rd is one of the smallest stores and 21st is one of the biggest.  So, I did.  Lotta good that did, they don't carry replacement batteries for that item, which they sold me in the first place.  Maybe Radio Shack will, or they suggested some place that specializes in batteries down on 33rd So and 2nd East.  Dude, replacement batteries for something you sell, it's a simple concept.

Huge hole in the earth and quirky little park in Salt Lake City

Tuesday was the last day my visitor would be in town.  We went out to see the Great Salt Lake, then to the Bingham Copper Mine, to Gilgal Gardens and finally to The Museum of Natural History up at the University of Utah. 

It's been a long time since I've been out to see the big pit, at least 10 years.  A lot has changed since then.  They moved the visitor's center, since the hole is a lot larger.  The most noticable thing, at least at first, is the increase in security.  From zero to the President sleeps here.  Last time I was there you just drove up to the visitor's center, walked out to the rim and took pictures.  Now you have to check in with Security at the front gate.  They give you a pass to hang on your rearview mirror, jot down the # of people in your car on a number coded stub from the hanger and charge you $5 a car.  A sign tells you that you are only permitted to take pictures at the visitor's center, and all the way up you are reminded not to stop and not to take pictures.  And there's a security dude in his truck at the center to make sure you follow all rules.  Jeese, it's just a hole!

One of those bigass tires that go on one of those bigass trucks that haul the dirt and ore out of the pit.

My pciture of their picture of the pit from the air.

Gilgal Gardens is a small little place in the heart of Salt Lake City.  Originally it was the back yard of a private residence, but when the house went up for sale, to prevent the destruction of this little oddity, Salt Lake City purchased the property.  Thomas Child started working on it in 1945 and worked on it until his death in 1963.  It's full of rock carvings like this statue of the sphinx with the face of Joseph Smith.  Rocks with engravings of scriptures form pathways and walls all over the place.  There is a statue of himself and one of his wife.

Below is a rock carving of a Mormon Cricket.

In the center is a sculpture of Thomas Child, surrounded by what looks like tools he used for farming and the carvings themselves.  One of the groundskeepers, an lady in what I would guess is her 70's, told us that he did all the carvings and engravings himself - except for the faces.  He didn't do faces so he had a friend of his carve all the faces for him.

A little set up of stones with scriptures, both standing up and on the walking stones.  I told the lady that I used to come here with my friends back when I was in high school and that I remembered it being a lot more overgrown, and that they had obviously cleaned it up since the city took over.  I also asked if anything had been moved around during the cleaning up or if everything was still in it's original place.  She told me that nothing had been moved, everything was in the place that Thomas had put it.  She also said to me, in response to my telling her that my friends and I visited there back in high school, "So, you and your little friends were some of the ones that used to sneak in and smoke marijuana in the corner there?"  Uh, no, not me!  She just smiled, chuckled and went on telling us about the history of the place.

Some sort of garden of stone body parts. If you click on the link below you can see them close up.

To see the rest of the pictures from that day go here: Bingam Copper Pit & Gilgal Gardens