Gotta have a goal in life.

I came across this web site the other day, What states have you been to?, and plugged in all the states I have at least driven through.  Here’s the map it created (I enhanced it a little bit, among adding the percentage the site gave me below the map): As you can see, there is a chunk of the continental United States that I seem to have avoided.  The only reason I can even count Florida is because of a family cruise that took off from Miami and stopped in Key West one day. 

Well, I’ve decided to make it my goal to add this so-far ignored part of the county to my “visited” list, changing my map into this one: Hopefully someday I’ll add the last two states, and maybe even the U.S. territories to my list, but for now I’ll just settle for hitting the south.

Though I don’t think I’ll rent a Metallic Mint Green 1964 Buick Skylark convertible for the trip.

I write the songs…

Parent/Teacher conferences were this week.  That makes for longs days in a long week, but at least I have a 4 day weekend coming up after that.  Two other good things came up while I was parent-less this evening.

Mr. B was a history teacher at my school, who is taking a few years off to take care of a special-needs child of his.  He was also one of the most favoritest teachers in the school.  I kid you not when I tell you that at the end of the school year, after hearing his going away talk to his classes, the halls were filled (ok, not filled, but there were a few) with young girls crying.  And not because he was the hot young teacher on the block, ‘cause he ain’t that type.  The kids just loved him.

Well, today one of my students told me that I was his “new Mr. B".”  I don’t flatter myself enough to think that I would have been able to knock him off his pedestal had he stayed at the school, but to be put up there after he vacated it, is quite an honor.  One of those moments that make teaching worthwhile.

Earlier on in the evening, again while I was parentless, another student came over and wanted to play some songs from his Playlist.com playlist on the laptop I was using.  He even had a small set of speakers so we could actually hear it.  He’s one of my Academic Team students [ see you next Tuesday, Writer :) ], so I said ok, at least while there were no parents.  He logs on, pulls up his playlist and I glanced at it, expecting to recognize one or, if I’m lucky, two songs.  Hallelujah, I again have faith in the future of the human race.  Out of 80 songs, there were less than 10 that I did not recognize.  Bob Marley, Journey, REO Speedwagon, The Scorpions, Aretha Franklin, Quiet Riot, Billy Joel, CCR, The Beach Boys, The Who, Roy Orbison, Beethoven, Eagles, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Twisted Sister, Police, Johnny Cash (Ring of Fire), Def Leppard, Queen, Metallica, Elvis Presley (Hound Dog) and (yes, Writer) The Beatles.  Looks a lot like my iPod playlist.  Oh, and he didn’t just have them on there to look retro, we played some and he knew the words to them, at least the chorus.

Yes, it’s been a hell of a long day, but for those two things, it was worth it.

Danny

I nose how

to tell the two cats apart now.  It’s in the nose.  Denny has a lot of black in his nose, Alan’s nose is entirely pink except for the edges.  There’s probably other things I’ll notice along the way, but at least for now I have a way. 

Now, personality wise there are big differences.  Alan likes to lay around, is happy being petted but just as willing to just lie at my feet or on my lap.  Denny on the other hand, will follow me around the house trying to get my attention.  This morning while I was making coffee and breakfast he literally climbed me a couple times.  Which isn’t fun since I was wearing my sleeping shorts and a light shirt.  Gonna have to break him of that habit.  They’re already getting the hint that the dining room table is off limits, so I figure they’ll just have to learn what is allowed and what isn’t.

I was afraid that they were going to keep me up all night with their meowing, but after about 10 minutes of trying to get my attention at my bedroom door, they figured out that I was down for the evening and just went about their own business.  Which is good, because I can’t sleep with cats on my bed, I move around too much and feel confined when something I can squish is right there next to me.

It’s going to be an interesting ride for the next few months.

Strangers – for now.

Well, I finally did it.   As some of you know, my cat that I’d had for about 16 years died back in November.   For the last couple of weeks I’ve been checking the KSL.com classifieds for kittens, and today I got myself a pair.  I got them from a lady that runs a Veterinary Clinic up in Heber, so they both had their shots and were fixed, for a grand total of $20.   In the ad she called them Bo and Luke, my guess after the brothers in the old “Dukes of Hazard” show.   I scrapped the names, but kept the concept – Denny and Alan.  Might have something to do with me watching my “Boston Legal” DVDs this week.  Not sure which is going to be which yet, got to get to know them a little better first.   Anyhow, here’s a few pictures I took of them with the new Nikon D3100: I’m already noticing their different personalities.  I was sitting on the floor getting pictures of them when one of them came up and laid in my lap.  He sat there, letting me pet him, for about a half hour while the other cat roamed around the house exploring.

And here’s one last picture, just so you know there really are two of them:

Strange Stranger

I’ve posted this picture on here before, but it fits the theme on a couple of levels so well that I just have to re-post it.

I took this picture back in June of 2010, one day while at work at the Chevron.  It is not doctored at all, this person really showed up on a mint green scooter, in the middle of summer, dressed like sasquatch.  I can’t even tell you whether it was male or female, sasquatch used a credit card out at the pump and never came in.

Now, here is the doctored photo I made up for the new advertising campaign for Chevron.  I gave a copy to the manager, but still haven’t heard back on whether or not they are going to go with the campaign.

Strangers in the water

The Thematic Photographic for this week is “Strangers”.  I have to admit that one of the things I love to do is people watching.  And with a good lens you can capture some interesting things that go on in public.  No, I don’t peek into windows or private back yards or even front porches, that would be creepy.  But I find people in public places fascinating.  This set of photos was taken back in 2007 at the fountain in the Gateway Mall in downtown Salt Lake City.  For being in such a backwards state, Salt Lake is quite forward thinking.  Our city council was the first in the state to pass employment and housing protections for the LGBT community.  More than any other area in the state, the city protects it’s historic districts and buildings.  Bike paths and lanes on major streets criss-cross the city and Trax lightrail exists and is planned throughout it.  I like the Gateway Mall because it’s an open, walking/bus/Trax friendly mall that includes retail, office and housing.  I don’t know if it still exists, but the Gateway plan included an artisan center, living, working and display spaces.  Ok, enough of the love-my-city crap, on to the pictures.

When I took these pictures they were playing music, the fountain choreographed to it.  This picture gives you an idea of what the entire space is like:

I was just standing there, watching, and saw this kid.  Immediately I knew what was going to happen, so I focused in on him.  As he got his face closer to the ground, and as the music implied what was soon to happen, I simply held down the shutter button and let the scene unfold in front of me.  Here’s what I got: He knew it was going to spit water at him.  He knew it was going to hit him in the face.  So, why, pray tell, did he stick his face so close to the opening.  Because he’s a kid, that’s why.  And there’s no other explanation.

Click on the banner to join in on the fun, or at least to see what other people have come up with for “strangers”.

It’s gonna be a banner year.

(insert carnival music here) 

De, de, deedle, eedle, eedle, de, de, de, de…

It’s always kind of a circus here in Utah for the 45 days our state legislature is in session, but this seems like a banner year.

I already told you about the Official Handgun for the State of Utah.

I already told you about the desire to prevent the school board from adopting the Common Core Standards because of socialist code words.

I even mentioned a bill that would eliminate the buffer zone around schools to allow people to openly carry guns all the way up to the property line.

Well, yes folks, it gets even better!  First of all, good old Chris Buttars stuck his foot in his mouth once again.  According to Columnist Paul Rolly, Buttars accused the school district I work for of having a socialist agenda. Buttars considers being a member of the Utah Education Association (UEA) makes you a socialist, and since “100 percent of Granite’s school board are members of the Utah Education Association”, that makes them all socialists.  Facts?  We don’ need no stinkin’ facts!  According to one of the two Board Members that I drove in the 4th of July parade, she is the only person on the board who belongs to the UEA.  In a letter to the editor, she goes on to say that she has never met with Sen. Buttars and never even seen him at a school board meeting, so she isn’t even sure how he would know if they were socialists or even pushing a socialist agenda.  Once again he proves that he has no idea that what he says in public should have some relevance to reality.

And finally, and this is a big finally, Rep. Curt Oda is trying to pass a bill that would allow citizens to shoot wild cats on sight.  Say that again?  Ok, “shoot feral cats on sight”.  Fortunately the House committee in charge of the bill altered it a bit, making it so that you have to be in fear of injury or death to shoot the cat, but Oda was a bit ticked with that.  He’s worried that “anyone who legitimately shoots a feral animal will still be subject to potentially severe penalties.”  This, rather than calling the people that will capture, neuter and release the animals, is much better?  Open season on any cat running around outside?  Makes me want to rethink letting any cats I get (and have neutered, always have them fixed) roam outside.

And you thought Halloween was the scary season.

Saige

And the saga continues.

You may remember my saga about the stolen phone (What the…).  Well, that wasn’t the end of it.  Seems I had forgotten to return her coffee cup and 4 orange cones and it seems she got tired of waiting.

I was making copies on the Riso machine, an old high-speed copier, when the PE teacher involved came in.  She had some copies to make and waited for me to get done.  I got my copies, took them into the other room to cut them in half on the big cutter and on my way back to my room went past the Riso.  PE teacher immediately stood in between me and what she was copying, trying to be subtle, but making it obvious that I wasn’t supposed to see what she was doing.  I went to look, and then it was obvious, she wouldn’t let me see.  Fine.  I left the room and waited for her to leave.  See, this machine is so old that it makes a master of what you are copying and I knew that if she didn’t copy something else that master would still be in the machine.

She left, I went in, put in my copy number and proceeded to make 1 copy from what was left there.  This is what I got:Another teacher that was in there said that she had made a bunch of copies and had planned to hang them up all over the school tomorrow.  Cool, that gives me some time to come up with a plan.  Which I did.  I was preparing a school wide email warning everyone of the fraud the was going to be perpetrated on them, letting them know that the “reward” would be offered payable directly into their bank account and that any information given would be used to clean out their accounts.  A student came in with one of the fliers, they had already been put up all over the school.  Plan “A” foiled, but this student, we’ll call him Creeper (some of you in Utah may be able to figure out his real name from this), offered to split any reward he got from the PE teacher with me if I’d give him the stolen items.  I gave him the cones, told him to tell her that he wanted half of the reward and then he would get the coffee cup for her.  Bingo!  Four bags of those little fruit chews, 2 for him, 2 for me.  So I gave him the cup, he got the rest of the reward, a bottle of Gatorade which I let him keep.

Now, this was before lunch, so all through lunch duty I had kids coming up to me saying that I was wanted (my response was “Yeah, I know [PE teacher] wants me”), or under citizens arrest.  To my benefit, the regular school cop was out sick so we had a replacement, who (unlike Johnny) wasn’t into going along with the joke.   I joke around all the time with Johnny, so he might have actually handcuffed me right there in the lunchroom when the kids turned me in.  That would have been funny, the PE teacher would have got a real kick out of it, so to me it’s even funnier she picked the wrong day.

Anyway, I’m still plotting my revenge.  Stay tuned.

Blue Sky Day

And it was another beautiful (although cold) blue sky day here in Salt Lake City. I have to say, that’s not too bad a picture for my little 4.1 megapixel point-and-shoot camera.  Unfortunately, I’ve been SLR-less for the last few days, and will be until Saturday.  See, my 5 (4?) year old Nikon D40X decided to, as they say in Chicken Run”, “go on holiday”.   As soon as I turn it on “Error, Press shutter release button again” pops up on the screen.  I press the shutter release button and the error goes away, until I let go.  Then it’s back.  I tried reattaching the lens, turning it off and on, finding “Reset” in the menu and then resetting several times and even removing the battery for 2 days to see if it would come back to life.  Nuttin’ honey.  She’s toast.  I probably could bring it in and see if they could fix it, and it could cost me anywhere from $40 to $800.  But, I’ve been eying this cute little Nikon D3100 since before Christmas and just couldn’t justify spending the $700 on it.  Well combine one dead digital SLR, the D3100 being on sale for $600 and the fact that I actually have been feeling anxiety not having a good camera, and voila, all the excuse I need to go get me one.  Ordered it just yesterday, I’ll be able to pick it up on Saturday.

So, you think I’m going to spend Sunday out taking pictures?  Nah.

Once again, some moron is telling me I’m not a patriotic American.

Page 1, Section B; “UTAH”, Salt Lake Tribune, Saturday, February 5, 2011:

“Committee OKs guns near schools   POLITICS>> A House committee Friday approved a bill that would wipe out a 1,000 foot buffer zone around schools and day care centers that bars people from carrying guns.”

Only in Utah, folks.  Now, the real offensive part is on page 2 of this same section.   Peter Cannon, a member of the Davis County 9/12 Project, is quoted by the paper as having said:

“I think a reasonable All-American teacher would say to his class, ‘Let’s talk about the Second Amendment to the Constitution. … We have the right to carry a weapon, to bear arms.’ … We don’t need to teach our children to panic because they see a firearm.”

Thank you Mr. Cannon.  I must be either unreasonable, un-American, just a bad teacher, or all of the above, because if it were my place to discuss the Second Amendment with my students I would discuss the entire thing, including the clause “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,”, not just the part that says “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

What I love so much about these tea-bagger people is that if you don’t agree with them then you are obviously a long haired hippie-type (shudder) liberal pinko socialist.  Period.  Nothing in between.  Period.

Ok, enough of the close-minded schmucks that have crawled out from under rocks since Obama took office, what about the proposed bill itself?  According to State Representative Curt Oda (R-Clearfield) (as reported by the Tribune) these “zones have created an impossible patchwork and well-meaning gun owners can break the law without knowing it and criminals will just ignore it.”

Here’s my problem;  How many well meaning gun owners have been charged lately for accidentally crossing over into a school buffer zone while on their morning, gun-totin’ health walk?  My guess:  zip.  On the other hand, if this passes, what power does that give the police when the law-abiding gang-banger shows up at my school’s fence with a gun, intending on just standing there, doing nothing other than intimidating a rival gang member?

Right now, schools are allowed to assume anyone at their front door (figuratively speaking) carrying a gun out in the open is up to no good and, rightfully so, immediately lock down the school and call the police.  How much confusion and trouble is it going to cause if administrators have to decide if that person out there with a rifle is a real threat or just coming to pick up their student for a hunting weekend?

Multiple singles

I know somewhere in my archive of pictures I have one of a tree, against all odds, growing out the side of a big chunk of red rock.  I was looking through my file marked “scenery” and before I could find what I was looking for I found these three.  So, I’ll still look for that tree, but for now I’m going to post these.

The winter of ‘82 was a heavy winter in Utah, although not a real record breaker.  The problems came in the spring, when temperatures went from cold to very warm quite rapidly, melting the snowpack too fast for the reservoirs, creeks and city culverts to handle it.  To add insult to injury, it was a rainy spring too.  The water systems in the city were overwhelmed and both State Street (north-south) and 1300 South (going east-west) were turned into rivers.  Literally.  I remember being out one night after getting off work around 1:00 AM, standing in the rain with the rest of our crew piling sandbags along the sidewalks of 13th South.  You can see in the picture how high we had to stack them to keep the water from invading the homes and businesses along this major street.  My mom and I went down to survey the damage, and grab some pictures, after the water had receded somewhat.  But not too much to stop this single kid from tubing down it. This picture was taken along the shore of the Great Salt Lake. And finally, this single door into a long gone business in downtown Salt Lake.  I can’t even remember what the business was, but I took this along with others when they were renovating a block of downtown in an all too common Utah way: level everything and start over. 

Single.

The Thematic Photographic theme for this week is “singles”.  The first thing that came to mind was how, out here in the desert, so many trees seem to pop up and survive all alone in a sea of sage brush and dry grass.  Why?  Why can it survive and yet not even one other one can?  I’ve got tons of these pictures from around the state, they’re all over the place, and yet completely ‘single’.If you’re interested in seeing other ‘singles’ pictures and, hopefully, even joining in, click on the banner at the bottom and see what it’s all about. 

Mountains, fog and snow. Oh, My!

Despite being brothers, sometimes it amazes me how much we think alike.  Mr. Gearhead posted a couple of sets (1,2) of pictures he took this last week of the mountains surrounding our city.  I had planned a similar set of posts, completely oblivious to his, which I put off because I wanted to get the pictures of our trip up to the land posted.  Well, he may have beat me to the punch, but that ain’t gonna stop me from adding mine to the mix.  This time, though, I’m going to save you the long download time and put them in a photo album instead of on here.  Except for these few teasers, of course.  

Fog on the foothills above the This is the Place Monument Park.

Fog or rain/snow falling on the hillside at the mouth of Emigration Canyon.

Windy snow field on Mt. Olympus.

That’s not a cloud, that’s some of the “Greatest Snow on Earth” being blown off the mountain top.

View Full Album

What the ….?

Friday when I had a substitute, one of the P.E. teachers came into my room to steal one of my staplers.  She couldn’t find one, so instead she took the red rotary phone I’ve had since high-school.

I came to school Monday and on my notes from the substitute it said something about “someone in authority came and took your red phone.”  While I was still trying to figure out who would have taken the thing, a ransom note came letting me know they had it and that their demands would be made to me tomorrow during my prep period.  By lunch the kid-net had informed me who had taken it, so I took that prep period to sneak down into the gym and take my own hostages.

Now, it seems that my red phone meant a lot more to me than those orange cones meant to her, so I was still forced to go through a series of tests to prove my worthiness to get my phone back.  Things like sing “Happy Wednesday to you” to one of the office secretaries, do the fashion-show walk for the fashion class, say “how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood” in front of an English class and a few other things that I think I have subconsciously blocked.  Finally I was led to the P.E. teacher’s 7^th grade  daughter’s locker, with combination in hand, where the phone was stashed.

Oh, did I mention that one of the Journalism students followed us through this whole ordeal, with a video camera?  Yeah, I fully expect some of it to show up on the morning announcements tomorrow.  It was quite amusing, but I have to admit I was getting a little testy after the 10^th thing I had to do.

Well, just as I’d gotten home and over the trauma of the whole ordeal, I open up my email and this comes through:

Subject: phone finding…

So, just how much wood can a woodchuck chuck, anyway?  :)

from Writer herself.  For those of you who are not aware, Writer and I taught at the same school for four years.  For me that was 3 schools and 6 years ago.  First thing through my mind was “How the hell did she find out?  Half way across the valley in a different school?”  I’m guessing that somewhere at some sort of English thing, she met up with the English teacher who was assigned to have me recite the woodchuck thing for her kids (3 times she said “Say it faster!”  And I thought we were friends!)

Anyway, thanks for bringing it right back into the forefront of my mind, Writer.  :)