There's Always Someone Cooler Than You

Sharpen Your Bubble

2011-05-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

The other day at the beginning of school, I passed a couple of my homeroom students in the hallway. One of them embarrassedly said something like "oh my gosh, Mr. Buck, I didn't mean to say that with you there!"

Not having heard what she said, I told her "I don't know what you said, but if it was that embarrassing you should probably be more aware of your surroundings. What I thought I heard you say was 'sharpen your bubble'."

This caused some giggling, and we soon began to come up with different meanings for the phrase "sharpen your bubble", as in, "come on guys, sharpen your bubbles!", or "we really need to get our act together and sharpen our bubbles". It can be an admonishment, or encouragement. I love it, and have been using it since. We've decided to try to make it become a part of the vernacular, so if you hear it being used anywhere please tag me back. You heard it here first, and if it becomes a commonly used phrase, we want credit given to my 2010-11 home room.

Don't You Forget About Me

2011-05-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

Blogging hasn't been a priority for some time. Simply too much going on around here, and any free time is spent on Facebook. (I'm only half-joking there...)

At any rate, my Capstone is starting to seem surmountable, I feel good when I write, and who knows, with the current economy and state of our school budget, having writing skills on which to fall back might not be a bad idea.

In true procrastinator's form, here is an (incomplete) list of things I can't wait to do when my Master's degree is done:

1) Eradicate all evidence that Microsoft Word ever lived on my hard drive. For the purposes of being able to communicate with my professors, and trade papers back and forth, it has been necessary for me to keep using Word to write this paper. It is redundant and inferior, and I can't wait to throw it out the Window. (See what I did there?)

2) Blog. And write. And write, and blog. Maybe I'll write my book.

3) Play my guitar. My calluses are gone, but every now and then I still pick up my guitar and realize how much I enjoy playing. I want to put together a set of classic punk and new wave tunes that I play on an acoustic guitar, and play them for no one in particular.

4) Write some songs. I saw John Prine the other night. I'm always amazed how he says so much with three basic chords. I want to try it.

5) Ride my bike. My belly's too big, and my wedding ring won't come off my finger.

6) Hang out with my family. I have a great family, and they're growing up and changing by the minute.

7) Learn to use my USB microphone/recording studio.

8) Take pictures with my cool waterproof camera.

9) Live beside the ocean/leave the fire behind/swim out past the breakers/and watch the world die.

That's what I have for now.

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

2010-10-28T18:11:00.000-07:00

We took the trip to Portland last night to see Guster. It's been a while, at least a couple of years, and I wasn't really sure how they would age. As it turns out, Guster is still great. As a matter of fact, Rach declared them her favorite band going. They played a nice mix of old, new, and middle.

Everything about the show was a testament to why we loved them from the first time we saw them warming up for Barenaked Ladies, about ten years ago. Since then we've seen them numerous times--I want to say six or so--and every time it's been like seeing old friends.

But last night the circle closed a little: a band called Jukebox the Ghost opened for them, and because I subscribe to the YepRoc Records mailing list, we were a few of the only people in the audience who'd heard them prior to the show. It went like this: YepRoc sent out a link for video of Jukebox playing on Letterman. I clicked, and was instantly hooked: ("Schizophrenia")

So after seeing that, being a netizen in good standing, I YouTubed them and found some of the songs from their older album: ("Hold it In")

I really enjoyed them, and Weather Lad REALLY dug them. I ended up buying both albums on iTunes, and then found out that Jukebox the Ghost would be opening for Guster when we saw them! At that point, I became more excited about seeing the opening band than at any time since Soul Asylum opened for the Spin Doctors. But the coolest part of the night was just before the show, when we were finishing dinner at Mesa Verde. I looked up and saw a couple of young, geeky guys headed to a table at the back. It dawned on me that it was two of the members of Jukebox! I said to the kids: "Those guys are members of Jukebox the Ghost, and they ROCK!" They asked if we were planning to go to the show, and made a little small talk ("Hey, my name's Ben, too!"...really nice guys!), then went back to their table. After a little convincing, the kids went and got Ben and Tom's autographs, and on the way out WL asked if they'd play his favorite, called "Lighting Myself on Fire". They said "well, we hadn't planned on it, but we'll definitely think about it now!"

Lo and behold, about seven or eight songs in, and with us completely blissed out, they pulled out WL's request, which was no small feat since the song goes about six-and-a-half minutes, coupled with "My Heart's the Same".

So earlier I said the circle was closed a little. What I meant by that is Jukebox the Ghost will be touring with Barenaked Ladies on their upcoming tour. BNL was our first introduction to Guster. Guster was our first (live) introduction to Jukebox. It makes me wonder who we'll discover when Jukebox is a headlining act. And they will be.

Don't Call Them Twinkies

2010-10-01T14:22:00.000-07:00

With my Red Sox out of the playoff picture, and nearly all the other teams left on my short list of most-despised teams (though the Padres and Giants are fine, Texas is okay, and the Reds have suffered some horrible times since their last go-round) the Twins are my team this October. Incidentally, I can't wait to hear Dane Cook utter those immortal words: "There's only one...Oc-TOE-berrr!" I hope that brilliant campaign hasn't been mothballed, even though I think it's been Dane's only paying gig over the past four years or so.

So it was kind of cool to hear the Baseball Project, a supergroup of alt-rocker/baseball fans (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Linda Pitmon, and Steve Wynn), had enlisted Craig Finn of the Hold Steady to write and sing a song with them. The result is predictably contrived, as will be a band that sings only about baseball, but it is obviously written with love and with Finn's inimitable pop-culture referential style. Whatever, for what it is, it sure kicks the hell out of "Play Ball", and "Sweet Caroline". I'll still put "Tessie" and "Dirty Water" up against it--or maybe along-side it--but I envy the Twins their playoff run and the love of one of their bigget fans, Craig Finn. Click to hear the new best baseball rock anthem, in Hold Steady style:

Keep On Rockin' in the Free World

2010-08-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

As much as my wife complains about the late nights and long drives, my wife is still a rocker at heart. If she weren't, she wouldn't bring things like this and this to my attention. Yeah, two of our favorite bands playing in Portland at the same venue in the same week. And she wouldn't ask me if I was interested, because she knows the answer.

(Fountains of Wayne-"Hackensack"...who knew Katy Perry did a cover? Who cared?)

(Hold Steady-"Party Pit"...they didn't play this when we saw them back in April...I may try to contact them and make a special request...)

Then I found out that the mighty James is playing the Paradise Rock Club in Boston on a Saturday night in September. We'll probably make that road trip as well.

(James-"Sit Down"...the guy singing isn't James. He's Tim. James is the drummer, but the band's not really named after him. Don't know why the photographer has to focus just on Tim, but the song is awesome and it's the one Rach and WB danced to in the recital a couple of years ago so it's even more special.)

So as old as we are, the music hasn't left us behind. I swear I could follow my favorite bands around for a living, even as I enter my golden years.

Ode to Alphonse

2010-07-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

July is always reserved for the Tour de France, and with this being Lance Armstrong's last Tour, we've been treated to a great ad campaign from Radio Shack. I don't know whether these ads show up anywhere else except on the Vs. network during the Tour, but I thought I needed to do a post to commemorate my favorite ad campaign in a long time. Enjoy.

You're welcome.

Modern capitalism? Broken.

2010-07-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

One of the news services I subscribe to had a story on oil companies destroying Nigeria, and how the gusher in the Gulf pales in comparison to what has happened there. Recently I heard the situation in the Gulf described as "the worst in U.S. history, and wondered how it compared to others around the world. The news is not good.

How do we change this? The divide between the ultra-rich and even the middle class has become so wide that, even though they are greatly outnumbered, the rich control the message and the capital. And they control the message to the extent that, even though he knows they are evil, the little guy still trusts the big companies that drive our economic system and believes what's best for business is best for all. The big companies can stomp on the livelihoods to pump up the portfolios of the stockholders, and thereby their own worth.

How did we get to this point in human culture? The problems are so deep and extensive, I can't even begin to think about solutions. All I can come up with is wanting less, but so many are convinced that our happiness lies in having more material things that I'm not sure those of us who get it can take an economic bite out of big business. We're afraid of promoting local food because it might upset Wal-Mart. And exposing the large corporations for the evil entities they are is likely to be fruitless as well, because they can manipulate the message to make themselves look good.

Disclaimer: Don't read beyond this point if you are uncomfortable with reading something that might be considered "socialistic".

I don't know what to do with this, and I thought it might be a place to start the conversation: how do we make things better? How do we fight the battle against huge corporations that aren't bothered by trampling whatever stands in the way? What are the main factors driving this situation? How do you fight back against a much, much, MUCH more powerful adversary? What tools that can be used against unquestioning acceptance of rampant capitalism, misinformation, and overwhelming amounts of money and capital?

So it goes.

2010-07-15T16:24:00.001-07:00

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I don't know why I think this is so funny.

Edit: On further review, this is seeming more and more ridiculous with each passing time I put in samples of my writing. I kept getting Vonnegut, and was pretty pleased with myself, and then I got Dan Brown. Hardly in the pantheon. Then I just got H.G. Wells.

So it goes.

Thank you, Captain Obvious!

2010-07-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

I think I scared my kids when I yelled at the t.v. tonight. Seriously. I mean SERIOUSLY!?!
Don't text while READING TO YOUR KIDS?!?

I can't think what I might have texted while I was reading to my kids:
"No way! I cnt blve this junie b! LMFAO!"
"Alxndr had a trbl hrbl no gd vry bad day. LOL BOO HOO."
"Wish sam i m wld go away. Dont like grn eggs n ham either."
"I wldnt do that harry. vldmrt will own u."

Seriously.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wake UP!

2010-07-12T15:10:00.000-07:00

We've reached our destination in Quebec, the Chateau Grande Alle. It's Quebec City Summer Festival up here, and the Grande Allee is closed down. Outside we can hear some band playing "Ring of Fire" and "Folsom Prison Blues". They're singing it in English.

We've scoped out the site of tonight's ARCADE FIRE concert. As we were walking around looking for food, we heard loud music from somewhere out on the Plains of Abraham. A slightly closer listen revealed: SOUND CHECK! So we heard some freebie Arcade Fire, and even heard "Wake Up" from a distance, where we were eating. Never mind that the music playing at the sidewalk bistro was a mix of Jason Mraz, All-American Rejects and Lady Gaga, among others. We got pretty geeked to hear the strains of our favorite song of the past year or so.

Concert starts at 9:30--we'll be headed down soon to stake our claim on prime territory for the show. We're pretty pumped up about this concert.

Post-concert update: One of the top three concerts I've ever attended. Man, they put out a lot of energy! For "Haiti", they brought up the 14 or so members of the opening band RAM, from Port-Au-Prince. Regine's family is from Haiti, and today they launched an organization called KANPE for Haitian relief. They also pledged to match up to $1million of their own money if people text "STAND" to 30333. Each text sends $5 to KANPE.

QUIZ: Tech Savvy Teaching: How Do You Rank? | Edutopia

2010-07-01T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is for my teaching friends:

QUIZ: Tech Savvy Teaching: How Do You Rank? | Edutopia

You Want My Business? Don't Be a Jerk.

2010-06-27T12:43:00.001-07:00

I've been holding on to this for a while, but I feel like I need to say something.

At heart, I'm a boycotter. When something about a business ticks me off, I take personal action. About ten years ago or so, someone gave me a gift card to Wal-Mart. I already didn't like their business model and the way they treat their employees, so my plan was to go in, buy some socks, and recover the cash. Well, of course they don't do things that way (to be fair, neither do most businesses, which is why I hate gift cards) and they wouldn't give me cash back on my socks. So since that time I've boycotted them.

The power of the purse is important, but I really doubt any of the businesses or establishments I've boycotted feel the direct impact of my withholding business. But it makes me feel better about not supporting something that troubles me on a deeper level.

And sometimes my boycotts lead to some personal level of sacrifice, which makes me feel better, too. There is a place in town that serves pretty good coffee, and a mean reuben. And they no longer receive my business. It bums me out because I enjoyed their service very much until I could no longer support them on a moral level.

During the school year this year, my wife and her Sunshines were out for a walk. I'll spare the details of where the walk took them, but they were on the property of a local store, headed to where they were going. No one was loitering, no one was stealing, no one was vandalizing. The owner of the store physically accosted one of the students when he wasn't doing anything wrong. Now mind you, sometimes these kids do something wrong. Sometimes they are not the best-behaved kids. But this time they were minding their own business, getting from point A to point B. And one was physically assaulted by a grown up who should be able to control himself.

Unfortunately no charges were pressed, so it's not really a matter of public record, and being too specific might be viewed as slander. I'd love to make it a public crusade, because grown-ups should act like grown-ups, and bullies should be put in their places. But it does make me feel better to put this out there, as a cautionary tale: you do things I don't like, you lose my business.

My Personal Learning Network

2010-06-25T06:47:00.000-07:00

(Note: this is a cross-post from my other blog, "Mr. Buck's Room".)

Over the past couple of weeks I've been motivated by my master's program to develop a "personal learning network". What was once just "messing around on the internet" now has a real name and a real purpose...sometimes. My personal learning network has, to date, consisted of two things: blogging, and then there's everything else.

I've blogged for a while, intermittently, about whatever struck my fancy. I've blogged about my life, things I like, things I don't like, things of beauty, things of ugliness. If you care to check in, here's the link to "There's Always Someone Cooler Than You" (rarely scientific in nature, so it's not very relevant but this is the internet, and it is all about personal choices). I've learned by periodically writing in that blog, but it's been a sporadic pursuit. Fits and starts, but it's been around for a couple of years, so it's kind of a habit.

Then there's "everything else". I've tried numerous tools that have seemed promising, but for whatever reason, I've quickly abandoned. I have numerous podcast subscriptions clogging my iTunes, but I rarely listen to them. I've participated on a couple of Ning networks, a few wikis, I'm a member of a couple of message boards, and I've recently begun an Edmodo account and a Twitter account. So far the Edmodo account seems promising as a way to disseminate and share information and thoughts between students, teachers and classes. I invited some of my colleagues to check in on the Edmodo site, and I'm grateful to those who did: as a result I've been able to better understand how the tool might be utilized in my class, and how I might administer it among the students in my school.

But Ning is a pay site now, and I am not willing to pay. And Wikis seem unwieldy and difficult to keep up with--I may mess around with PBWorks a little to find out for myself, but I don't really foresee them meshing with my world view.

Meanwhile, I am a member of a group called "Sons of Sam Horn", a Red Sox fans online community. Most of the time, the analysis and discussion surrounding the topics is far better thought-out and presented than that on official sites or through traditional news sources. This has, in an indirect way, suggested to me the power of Web2.0 and a group of people who share a passion.

Finally, I'll comment on Twitter, but I'll limit it to 140 characters or fewer: It's good for getting news, but I don't see myself contributing much.

Mr. Buck's Room

2010-06-16T17:36:00.000-07:00

I'm doing a little cross-pollinating here. As a result of taking a web-tools course for my master's program, I've started a new blog: Mr. Buck's Room. I've posted a new diatribe on why I (and, by extension, the entire American educational system) should teach more 21st century skills and Web 2.0 skills. I'm enjoying a course that encourages me to be a little provocative; I'm hoping to draw a distinction between my online voice and my serious researcher voice. Anyway, jump over and check it out, if you're so inclined.

Fin

2010-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

There are seven and a half days remaining in the school year, and the usual problems of the last week apply: how do we keep the kids engaged in such a way that they don't break stuff, that they don't hurt each other, and that we can still feel as though we are providing some sort of benefit to their overall educations. Grades closed yesterday, a full four days before they are due in the office. They have to be in early, of course, so the certificates can be printed for honor roll and such. Funny thing, though, we're having our third quarter honor roll assembly this afternoon...

Tomorrow I'm out, with the rescheduled State Class C track meet going on at 2, I'd be able to teach one uninterrupted class before having to leave. This seemed silly, so I'm taking the whole day.

Last night was the high school spring sports banquet, and tonight is the middle school athletic banquet for the entire year. At these times I become quite disgusted, and think to myself: "Isn't the celebration actually being able to participate in these sports? Isn't sports the celebration itself?" Apparently not.

Competing at the track meet tomorrow will be a number of our seniors who have made the choice not to attend the candlelight service (whatever that signifies) at the high school. This past Sunday night was the senior banquet, and Thursday night is class night. Friday, mercifully, is graduation, and we'll have all the high school nonsense out of the way, just in time for more middle school nonsense.

Next Tuesday is our barbecue/Flag Day/model rocket day, Wednesday is the 6th & 7th grade final assembly, and Thursday, the final day of the school year, is the 8th grade final assembly. We 7th grade-types will be playing kickball.

So here's the thing: why do we do this to ourselves? Couldn't we celebrate the end of the year with a little more sanity, and a little less chaos? Do we need to have events on EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE FINAL TWO WEEKS OF THE SCHOOL YEAR? It seems to me we've become far too extrinsic in our rewards system.

All of a sudden I have the attitude of Ebenezer Scrooge and the attention span of Andy Rooney. This is what the end of the year does to me. But have no fear, when the year is done I'll have a whole 68 days to get over it.

Photo Friday: The Coast

2010-05-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

On my recent trip to the Dominican Republic, we visited Cayo Arena, a protected refuge off Punta Rucia on the north coast. Prior to the trip I bought a new waterproof camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC TS-1. This is a shot I took at the reef, just before I panicked and handed the camera over to the guide. It takes pretty good pictures, I think, although I played with the color in iPhoto to make this one a little more special.

This photo is linked to Photo Friday. This week's theme is the coast.

Me=General McClellan; Robins=President Lincoln

2010-05-03T15:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to clarify the title of this post: Abraham Lincoln was famously quoted as saying about his general "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a time."

You'll understand what I'm getting at shortly.

So about a week ago I was finally feeling up to par following my trip to the D.R. and my subsequent intestinal distress. I decided it would be a good day for a bike ride, my first in just under a year. So I went to the barn, where my bike hangs from two hooks to get it out of the way during the winter months. As I poked my head into the barn, I heard a rapid fluttering of wings headed toward the big garage doors. A quick glance told me it was a robin. It's not uncommon at all for birds to nest in our barn, especially phoebes. As a matter of fact, we've had nesting phoebes in our barn every year I can remember since we moved here. But a robin was somewhat unexpected, and I began looking around for why the bird was there.I saw nothing out of the ordinary, so I went to my bike to take it down. As I freed the rear wheel from the ceiling hook, I realized where the bird had come from:

At the time there was only one lonely blue egg in the nest, but yesterday when I finally got around to chronicling this event, there were four lovely eggs:

They had apparently attempted to build a nest on the bike hanging next to mine, but found my front cluster more to their liking. So, essentially, the birds said to me "if you're not going to use that bike, do you mind if we do?" As much as I'd love to take my bike for a ride, it's pretty cool to see these birds using it for their own purpose.

Back from Mañana: D.R. 2010-An Asynchronous History

2010-04-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

(Note: this entry is my asynchronous journal of my trip to the Dominican Republic, with the Dirigo International Service Club. It was begun on a porch overlooking an organic coffee plantation(Finca Alta Gracia), high on a mountainside in Los Marranitos, Jarabacoa, D.R.[19˚o4'13.15"N, 70˚44'10.95"W, elev. 1002m])From where I sit, I can just barely see the house next to the school in Los Marranitos. It is about 500 feet above us, through this coffee plantation at about 1000m. above sea level. This is where the beans grow. We are one day removed from la playa, Punta Rucia, where we spent three days on the north coast, living like royalty amidst the poverty, beachcombing, reading, swimming, shopping at the beach market, looking at plants, and meeting the locals. Oh, and listening to loud Dominican music, compliments of Luisito's tocayo (person who shares the same name).
We had no hot water, nor reliable electricity, yet no one complained. Well, maybe a few of us did. Luisito and his crew took care of our needs, which, beyond food, were few. Life there was loud, with motorcycles revving, loud, jovial voices hollering and motorboats from the German tourist company Paradise Island, roaring. Waves against the shore, a mere forty feet from the beach house, were drowned out by the cacophony during all but a few hours late at night and early in the morning. And no one seemed to mind too much.
Punta Rucia is a place of contradictions: the locals are poor--very poor. Their shacks line the road following the beach line, crumbling, leaning, not gripping the shore, but decaying into it. The locals mostly drive "motors"--either dirtbikes or scooters--though the infrequent late-model SUV can be seen when the rich city-folk weekenders come to town, or when a bank has been foolish enough to overextend the erstwhile "owner". For the most part, it is a hand-to-mouth existence in Punta Rucia, but with the sea handy, no one goes hungry.
The other major form of transportation in the tiny village is the tour bus. From our spot on the beach right next to the Paradise Island company, we saw at least ten boatloads of tourists leave for Cayo Arena (renamed "Paradise Island" by the company, and it has more or less stuck) each day we were at the beach. The village has attempted to remake itself as an eco-tourism destination, and has met with some success. Most of the men in town work for one, some, or all of the four tourist companies, for anywhere from $7-12 dollars a day. Their wives are generally housewives. They have little: their shacks, their few possessions (some have televisions, but more catch their t.v. at the local shop), their motors, huge hair curlers for actually straightening their hair, some everyday work clothes, and some really nice clothes for going out. And going out may consist of heading to the dance hall on Saturday night, along with about 200 other locals. They see the same clothes on their neighbors every Saturday night, and they always look good.
On Saturday, after our trip to Cayo Arena (not with the big company, but with a locally-owned business that also runs the biggest, nicest restaurant in town) we stopped at the restaurant for a nice meal of salad, beans & rice (ubiquitous in Dominican cuisine), fried plantanos, fried chicken, and fried carite, a type of catfish that tasted very much like swordfish. The meal was fantastic, and the family who runs the business did a great job of making us feel at home.
At the counter of the bars stood a blond woman with glasses, who looked suspiciously un-Dominican. Within a few minutes she was sitting near one of our group's tables with a young mother and her baby, talking in what seemed to be fluent Spanish. Soon she was conversing in English with the adults at the table, and it came out that she is a Peace Corps volunteer being hosted by the family that owns the restaurant. Her name was Samantha Dillman from Oregon, and her main project in Punta Rucia is sex education for the teenagers. She has also been involved in the continuation of projects begun by previous volunteers, including trash collection and a town library.

We invited Sam back to the beach to talk with the kids and to join us in a big cookout of burgers, dogs, pork and beef. Sam was excited to talk to the kids, and she ended up staying and talking with the adults until much later in the evening. We learned much about the Dominican Republic from this American here by choice, who has assimilated to the culture and has a passion for making the world a better place.
On Sunday we left Punta Rucia, after our final dips in the tropical waters, after a large, sumptuous lunchtime feast, after a tour of the school and library with Sam, and after procrastinating--and finally pulling it together enough to get packed and leave at about 4 pm. The big scenes on the way home were: the Punta Rucia "gas station", where the proprietor drives into Isabella twice a week to fill glass rum and beer bottles with gasoline to sell in the remote village; a large purple-party parade and rally in Isabella; the flamboyant trees (that's their name, really); and a DVD on the bus that had such great video hits as "We Are the World" (original version), "Careless Whisper", "Hotel California", "Making Love (Out of Nothing At All)" and UB40's "Kingston Town" (?!?)

At around 6:30 pm we rolled into Santiago once more, and in lieu of a big, cooked meal we ordered pizza. the next day would be our real purpose for coming: Los Marranitos, the village in the mountains.

I was honored to be able to ride up to the village with Luis, along with Jenn and Diane. Along the way we were treated to invaluable insights on Dominican culture, history, government, politics, ecology, botany--you name it, Luis schooled us in it. The time spent with Luis was so incredibly valuable and interesting.

After about 1.5 hours we encountered Jarabacoa, a good sized city to the south and west of Santiago. Another 45 minutes or so outside of Jarabacoa, over winding mountain roads and with stunning views of the Yaque Norte river, we came to a cobblestone turnoff, with about a 45% pitch. I knew we were almost there. The vehicles ground up this road slowly and carefully, and in about ten minutes we were at the front gate of Finca Alta Gracia. The air was cooler and drier there, like a midsummer's day on Tumbledown. At the gate we met Ari, an Indian woman who is a volunteer with OXFAM.

Ironically, Ari nearly worked herself out of a job by helping to re-open the village school this past fall, after ten years of being closed. She adapted, however, and moved on to adult education and literacy. The illiteracy rate here is around 75% among adults. There is much to do.

One narrow road runs through the village of Los Marranitos and any vehicle that passes (not many do), comes within two feet of the school's front porch. As Luis pulled the Chevy SUV into a grassy spot just above the school, a small army of children began to wiggle out of the woodworks. First came two little girls and a little boy from the house next to the school. Two appeared to be of school age, and one tiny, beautiful girl, a bit younger. I wanted to hug them, but just smiled and quietly said "hola!" They smiled and giggled, huddling up to each other in that shy manner endemic to small children. Just the right reaction to this big gringo.

Soon we were offloading paint and equipment, moving desks, and figuring out where to begin. Coral, Deidre and Jess got to work re-painting the map of the D.R. on the exterior wall, a group got started indoor (after first figuring out our approach to a bat on the wall, who we affectionately referred to as "Stellaluna"). We decided to leave her where she was until she needed to be moved. Turns out she moved on her own when she realized we weren't leaving any time soon.

After our group had finished about half of the job, we went about the job of meeting the kids. Nothing says diplomacy like jumproping, and the small group of about 8 kids soon turned into nearly the entire school population of 16, each waiting to take a turn at jumping the rope. One little boy named Diego was the first to break the ice, and soon was taking every other turn. I suspect Diego gets spoken to about sharing and taking turns every so often.

It was deceptively hot on the mountain. We felt much hotter on the beach, where things were more humid. But the sun was more direct in Los Marranitos. Unfortunately I didn't really catch on to the fact that I was becoming dehydrated and heat exhausted until it was too late. By the time the painting was done for the day and the donations passed out, heat exhaustion had set in. Physically, I could hardly move and I was apathetic and listless.

That didn't mean there wasn't fun and hilarity on the way home, though. The highlight was at the coffee factory in Jarabacoa, where I learned from Luis that the word for "whole bean" coffee, granos, is the same as the Dominican slang for testicles. I asked Luis if I should order granos grande for the bags of whole bean coffee. He said "only if you want to ask for big balls". I learned that one should ask for un livre de granos, or tres livres des granos. Context is important.

As we entered Santiago city limits that night, the heavens opened up and traffic crawled. As we exited the bus at La Isleta, the Catholic retreat where we were staying, I experienced full-body, uncontrollable shivering as the first raindrops hit me. Normally that might have been a great feeling at the end of a hot day, but this felt wrong. When I got inside, the uncontrolled shivering continued. I went to bed at 7:30, under a sheet, even though the temperature was about 85˚ in the room. I didn't take in anything other than water or orange juice until about 3pm the next day.

Our last two days in Santiago were really more about the city culture. The group was perceptibly tired, and smaller issues were obviously bothering them. During that time we visited the PUCMM, where Luis, as well has his wife and his son, teach. It is called, phonetically, "Poo-ka-mai-ma". We also visited a large mall where I was able to get on iChat with my wife for the first communication we'd had in a week, and where I was finally able to eat some KFC (the best it's tasted in years) and a Baskin-Robbins shake.

The following day we visited the Museo Central, a Dominican cultural and art museum, a tobacco factory/museum, an open air market, and a supermarket that looked like any clean, well-kept supermarket in the U.S. We also stopped in a couple of places to drop off some of our donations: medical supplies at a Catholic relief organization and baseball equipment at a youth activity center.

On our final night we ate at a restaurant located at an equestrian center high above Santiago. It was a beautiful location, and since we had the place to ourselves it was a great way for the kids, the adults, and our hosts to celebrate our week together. Our accomplishments were great, and something to be proud of: we dropped off over 800 pounds of humanitarian aid and supplies to over five locations. We painted a school. We met people who have committed to similar actions over the course of their lives. We learned that we can all live on less. We taught. And we'll continue to do so.

Action Research

2010-03-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

TASCTY (I never realized what a good acronym this blog has!) is about to take a turn that some of you, as if there is a vast readership out there, may find annoying.

As I was reading my latest assignment for my Foundations of Action Research course, the author suggested getting started on the writing early. Writing about my thoughts, feelings, biases, preconceived notions--basically just letting it all hang out--in order to ensure as much validity in my action research project as possible. As I was reading that, I mentally started fumbling for my pen and notebook: that's cool, I thought, I like writing and journaling, and this will be a good opportunity to get back to writing!

Then I realized I don't really own a notebook. Not one that is suitable for that kind of writing, anyway. I have a small notebook that contains lyrics and poetry, and another legal pad that has education association stuff, but I don't have anything like a journal. However, I do have a blog. And since many of my readers (again with the hyperbole!) are educators, it might be useful to post my thoughts here, and have a built in audience that might give me feedback and thoughts and such. And those of you who read this blog who aren't teachers are still intelligent, brilliant and beautiful, and I'd still value and cherish any input you gave. So in case you're wondering, I would love to have peer review and discussion around what I post here, and it will be valuable to the process of carrying out this action research process.

This past weekend I finally hammered out my lit review for the project, and after reading numerous articles that seemed to line up with what I'm trying to do, I settled on a focus for my project, which is also a working title: “Promoting Higher-Order Questioning Through Guided and Open Inquiry Projects”. It was pretty cool to look at the literature I read surrounding this topic and to have my Free-Form Friday process somewhat validated. It's been my belief for some time that students who are learning about what interests them will be more motivated to learn. It's also been my belief that students who formulate their own research questions will be more likely to be on task and invested in what they are learning about, thus learning more of things that are useful to them. This early realization (or, let's call it what it really is, bias), probably comes from my own experience as a student. Much of what my teachers tried to teach me when I wasn't interested went straight in one ear and out the other, but the things I pursued on my own became my passion. And the teachers who allowed some freedom in selecting topics of interest were the ones who saw me at my best. So when I ask students to think of what they are interested in, and then we'll figure out how it relates to science, I am not just trying to perform a trick. I'm trying to get at what really motivates them, to help build a foundation, a passion, upon which their further learning and understanding of the world can be built.

Over time, since I began having students do these projects six or seven years ago, I've come to understand a few more things:
-seventh grade students will often have much interest in factual, simple questions, such as "how many babies to pandas have", and "how long do pandas live?";
-seventh grade students' ideas of research is often copying and pasting information from websites or online resources;
-seventh grade students rarely have the first idea about how to get started on a research project, or to build an experiment, or to perform any sort of scientific inquiry on their own;
-seventh grade students have very little formalized understanding of how science is carried out, or what makes science "science";
-seventh grade students are not to blame for any of this.

My approach to the Free Form Friday projects has been, by-and-large, just that: free form. I started by having students just randomly choosing topics, often with very tenuous connections to actual science. The first thing I noticed was that most of the projects were of a reportage nature: telling the audience about the subject, but often not learning much new. I responded to that by adding a "topic sheet", where students, before embarking on a project, would need to identify a topic, the questions they were interested in answering about the topic, where they might find information, what type of presentation they would like to do, and how long they thought the project might take. This was somewhat helpful, and the projects began to show a little more focused. The next big innovations were a KWL sheet (what you KNOW about the topic, what you WANT to learn about the topic, and a follow-up of what you LEARNED about the topic) along with a weekly progress log that chronicles each week's progress, thoughts, and next steps in the project. These also showed some measured improvement, but not a shift in the landscape. There are still steps to be taken to improve this process.

What I am looking at doing to improve the student focus is this:
1) put the topic sheet, KWL, and progress log in a table format, that students can copy, fill out, and paste into both my and their electronic notebooks;
2) develop some guided inquiry activities for students to learn at the beginning of the year, and use a technique called "backwards faded scaffolding" to eventually wean the students off of my guidance in their inquiry, and toward open inquiry, where they develop the questions, the testing, and the answers;
3) have students learn about Bloom's Taxonomy at the beginning of the year, and develop some questions on all levels of the taxonomy in our early inquiry activities together so they have some understanding of different levels of cognition;
4) ask students to develop questions at higher cognitive levels in their projects as they go along. I have not yet figured out how this will be implemented, but it is something I am considering right now.

Right now this seems really attainable, and the project feels like it is coming together all on its own. And what is more, if it shows promise in my classroom, it feels like it could be readily adapted in other settings as well.

What do my educator/educated friends have to say? Am I still on your radar? It just seems natural to use the blog for this purpose, and draw on the collective wisdom.

Sowing the Seeds

2010-01-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

This morning I ventured out into the snow to pick up a prescription that ran out yesterday.

On my way to the pharmacy, I passed the magazine rack. There on the middle row, amidst all the "Car & Driver", "Sports Illustrated" and "Tattoo" magazines (I made that part up), and the Word Search/Sudoku/Crossword Puzzle books, was the "2010 Fantasy Baseball Preview" (not the guide pictured). A few weeks ago, I decided to crawl back to the guys in the Busch League, grovel, and ask if they'd have me back in their Rotisserie baseball league. Somehow they agreed (I doubt the vote was unanimous, but since the last guy I had a major conflict with is no longer part of the league, time healed that particular wound) and I was accepted.

Then our good friend Joe, an original member of the league, a total class-act, and someone everyone loved, passed away. And suddenly the prospect of playing for keeps this season seemed somewhat empty. Before he died, I was thinking of renaming my team the Natinals, after the uniform blooper on the Washington Nationals' shirts:
But at his passing, my instinct was to name my team after his, the Bookies. I don't like to be maudlin, however, so I've settled upon something that honors his team while looking to my own past. When I left the league my team was called the Bridesmaids, for my numerous second-place finishes. Now I'm planning to call my team the Bookish Bridesmads, honoring Joe, the Bridesmaids, and the Natinals. It's a classic case of overthinking the team name (Lou's "Irish-U-Bluebirds", anyone?) but I'm pretty happy with it.

Anyway, back to the fantasy guide. It dawned on me that this is very much like the seed catalogs I get this time of year, where I look at the varieties of vegetables in their best light, idealizing their beneficial aspects and downplaying their shortcomings. When I say "If I start those watermelons indoors during April and put them out in the first week of June, I should have a great harvest in late August", it is akin to saying "If Mike Lowell's thumb is okay, and his hips are back to normal, he could be an undervalued starting third baseman this year". Both statements are true, but they are colored heavily by the optimism of mid-winter.

But that is the point of both of these exercises, I think. My seed catalogs and my fantasy baseball publications are largely superfluous. They are merely props for the activity itself: I could very easily look through my Fedco catalog and pick out the varieties I want in about 15 minutes. I could probably go into my baseball auction/draft and do fairly well right now. But it's the studying and the fantasizing, the idealizing, and the analyzing that take me to those days in summer. The actual "doing" isn't the most fun part for me, it's the mental exercise of anticipation and looking forward to the spring, summer, and early fall, and what they will bring.

Winters in these parts can get pretty long, these things remind me that, as Gordon Bok so aptly put it, "the world is always turning toward the morning."

Long time passing...

2009-12-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

So it's been a while since I last posted...July or something ridiculous like that. I'm nearing the end of a Teaching Evolution class, and thought I'd post these pictures from Jim Temple in Glendive, where his high school geology class went back into the field and re-found the big bone. Then they cast it in plaster of Paris. Lucky kids.

More later...if you can believe me...

Bonedigger, bonedigger...

2009-07-20T19:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some better shots of "the bone", taken by classmate Leslie Karpiak. I plan to get back in the swing of real posts shortly, but for now I'll do a photo post.

Dino Camp

2009-07-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

As I begin to write this I realize I've never really talked about how I got myself into this Master's program in the first place. So at some point in the not-too-distant-future I'll need to do that.

Last week, beginning on July 6th and ending on July 11th, I took a class entitled "Dinosaur Paleontology of the Hell Creek Formation", here in Montana. Here is my log of what happened on this trip (some events are sure to be glossed over in the name of expediency, humility, self-esteem, and/or good taste, not necessarily in that order.)

On Monday morning we met outside one of the residence halls, where there were many people. I'd met 11 other classmates of mine for this trip the night before, so I was a little taken aback by the 30 or so people waiting for a van. Turns out the department failed to close the registrations for this class, so they got twice as many students as they normally have: OOPSIE!

We all loaded our gear into a pickup and Frankie's (more about Frankie Jackson later) Jackson's (paleontology professor) camper, and clambered into vans for the ride to Glendive. Remember, Montana is a large state; 4th largest in land area, if my sources are correct. So traveling ⅗ of the distance across the state actually means something from a time standpoint. It means you're going to travel about six or seven hours is what it means.

By the time we rolled into Glendive, we knew each others' life stories, we'd swapped photos, a new administration had taken office…a long time had passed. It was time to stop at Albertson's a supermarket chain out here. Thirty people ran through that place, scouring it for trail mix, beer, snacks, wine, beer, teriyaki wings, and more beer. Turns out a six pack of Fat Tire didn't take me far into the week, and it was Thursday before we re-provisioned. Given what I knew about archaeologists, I expected a beer run every day. I guess paleontologists and geologists are more refined…

From there it was a short drive to Makoshika State Park, where we were greeted by precipitous dropoffs on both sides of the road, and road beds that are impassable in rain because of their mineral composition which turns to a soupy mud, known affectionately as "gumbo". I tried to think how to take some of this clay soil home, so I could demonstrate: the closest I can come is Bentonite. If anyone knows a good source for this, please send it my way.

That night after dinner we introduced ourselves to the group--by Friday I knew most of the names--and how we got there. Then we had a couple of mini-lectures by Frankie and Jim Schmitt, the geologist of the teaching pair, on tephonomy and why it is important to know how a fossil ends up where it is. Think CSI: Cretaceous.

On Tuesday I awoke early to try to get some pictures of the area at sunrise. The sun goes down late and comes up early in these parts, so 5:30 didn't get me up in time for the sunrise, but I did get some pictures of the local flora.

After breakfast we went to the A-Frame at the top of the hill, which overlooks a canyon carved by numerous extinct streams carving into the soil. There we had the first lecture of the week, by Jim. He gave us the background of the geologic deposits visible in the canyon, as well as the time frame we were looking at. In a nutshell, the Hell Creek formation lies just below the layer of coal ("Z coal") that marks the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (the K/T boundary), which happens to be the time period where dinosaurs are thought to have gone extinct. The lecture was very interesting, and the setting was spectacular, but we all wanted to get out in the field.

After lunch, we did just that: half the group went with Jim, to check out sandstone deposits from a geologic standpoint while the other half, including me, went down the Cap Rock Trail, and then off the trail, down past the K/T boundary, to the bottom of a canyon where we all could have died easily if we'd fallen into mud caves, the walls gave way, it started raining, or someone up above us kicked some rocks loose. It was exhilarating.

The trip down was marked by few finds: a marine mollusk, some leaf imprints in ancient marine mudstone, and a crocodile tooth. Pretty cool, but I was shut out and not feeling to good about it. Then some guys up on a rise at the foot of a cliff said they'd found some bone. On my way up to see what they'd found, I looked down and saw something that looked suspiciously like the vertebrae on the skeleton model at my massage therapist's office. I called Frankie over, and she confirmed my find.
Then I looked about five feet to the right and saw the unmistakable curve of a tooth. At that point, I'm certain a profanity escaped my lips, which started with "Holy". Frankie said it was a shed tooth from some sort of theropod. Had it been a full tooth with the root attached, it would have been much longer, and it would be associated with a skull. But apparently, like most animals, theropods shed teeth and re-grew them throughout their lives. This tooth had serrated edges on it, which probably won't show up in the photos. I logged the information, including the GPS coordinates, of this find, collected the specimens, and we began the long hike out of the canyon.

Tuesday night was another lecture, and Wednesday morning the two groups swapped activities. In the afternoon we hiked out to a spot on the access road where there were abundant fossils of marine plants present. This was fine, but most of us wanted to go look for more bones.

On Thursday we had lecture once more, and then in the afternoon we hiked into another trail where the K/T boundary was very apparent. There, Jim debunked the popular Discovery Channel explanation of the dinosaur extinction, and left us with the impression that we really don't know why there was a mass die-off at the K/T boundary. In a nutshell, the index fossils of dinosaurs disappear three meters below the appearance of the iridium layers that many use to explain the mass extinction event at the K/T boundary.

That night most of us were treated to a performance of "Two Gentlemen of Verona", presented by Montana State University's Shakespeare in the Parks troupe. The performance was pretty good, but I was distracted by the scenery at the park's amphitheater. Some of the younger, more adventurous guys ventured into the canyon by the A-Frame and found a few more fossils. My wife and family are probably glad I chose to watch theater.

On Friday we loaded into our vans and headed to the dump. Well, first we visited the Makoshika State Park visitors center to check out the exhibits (really well done!) and to buy schwag. I did my part for the Montanan economy.

The dump: this is where the excitement happened. The City of Glendive has bought a large tract of land so they can expand the landfill at some future time when everyone has given up on Las Vegas and decides to go there instead. Out in the canyons behind the tire dump is where we were set free to employ our skills. For a good while, I saw nothing where it should have been, but I was excited because I found a cool ironstone concretion that I could keep!

After about an hour of looking around, I came across Joel, my classmate who had an eye for fossils. On our initial venture, he found a leaf impression and the crocodile tooth, and I think another bone. This time when I saw him he was uncovering a wide, thin bone that looked like a scapula. I offered to help him clean it out, and as I was doing that, I looked about four feet off to the right, where I saw a pinkish-looking piece of stone peeking out from beneath a sage. The piece I saw was about three inches tall and two inches across, rounded, with a darker, rougher center and a smoother, lighter edge. The same profanity escaped my lips as when I saw the tooth, and all of a sudden I was digging it out.

Before long, the piece was larger than one of my fists, and it showed no signs of being done. We called for Jim to see if it was anything important, though we knew the answer before we asked.

The rule was that we should only take bones that were diagnostic (either being complete, or being in a place or situation that would give evidence to how it got there).

When Jim showed up, he thought it looked like a vertebra with the processes broken off. I thought it looked like one of the ends of a long bone.

Long story short, the group became more excited as time wore on, and we realized there was quite a bit of bone there. About three inches from the big piece we unearthed, there was a jagged end that was obviously broken off, with dark, crystalline stone inside. There were numerous bone fragments scattered underneath where it broke off, and we kept looking for more bone. We weren't disappointed, as up from the break and to the left was the associated broken end. We kept digging, and unearthed what ended up as a 4-5 foot long bone with two complete ends. It was definitely diagnostic, but we didn't have the time or ability to extract it, and if we tried to carry it out it would be destroyed by the journey. The heartbreaking decision was made that we would have to re-bury it, and keep the coordinates for someone else to come dig it out.

I was on a high from having found it, but hugely disappointed that someone else would return to finish the job. That disappointment didn't last long however, once we returned to camp and talked to Frankie. First of all, from the pictures we showed her, she thought it was the tibia of a theropod (could very well have been a T Rex). Better yet, she told me it is likely a local teacher in Glendive who is a graduate of the MSSE program will take his classes out there to unearth the bone and go through the process of removal. Nothing could have raised my spirits any higher than that: any time kids can learn from what I've begun, I am happy.

We did an inquiry activity that night, and then the mood was festive due to it being the last night of Dino Camp, and the beer stop right after the Glendive Dump. There were five of us who were finished with their MSSE program at the completion of that activity, so we were very happy.

Later that night, we watched the moon come up from the deck where we'd had our first lectures. There were a few people left on the deck when I excused myself and headed back down the hill to bed. The next morning we packed up and were on the road by 8:30 and were back in Bozeman by 3:30.

I hope this post has done justice to the great experience of Dino Camp. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Westward, Ho!

2009-07-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

The last week’s been kind of surreal. I think the van lag has set in, and my mind hasn’t caught up.

If you’ve been keeping up with Life’s Lessons over the past week, then you’re likely aware of the goings-on, but I’ll give my own synopsis here.

On Monday (wow, it was still June then!) it rained. And it kept raining. And we kind of knew Weather Lad’s last baseball game wasn’t going to be played, but we stuck around anyway, in hopes that he’d be able to get one final game in. At 3 pm we received the call that Aubuchon Field was unplayable, and the game would be postponed. Bummed out by that, we put a move on and decided to blow town a day earlier than we’d expected.

It was in my plans to cross into New York by ferry from Burlington, VT, so after bidding our adieus to the Nolette clan, we struck forth on US 2. On our way out of town we went through Rumford just to get a look at the field. It was sodden, and obviously unplayable even if it hadn’t been STILL RAINING...

So it was on to dinner at Crabby Jack’s in Gorham, NH. Lots of tourists trying to stay dry. Not a good time to be camping, motorcycling, or through-hiking. There were a couple of bedraggled AT hikers who I would have gladly given a ride had the van not already been full.

The ride through the rest of NH and VT was beautiful; rain let up and the green New England valleys looked a little like Brigadoon through the mist. We saw a young bull moose shortly after crossing into Vermont, followed closely by a bald eagle. I wondered what seeing them along our trail meant.

After a little bit of being turned around in Colchester, VT, we found the Motel 6 and made small talk with some other people who were headed to Maine from California. I told them I hoped they were bringing the good weather with them. Turns out they weren’t.

We got up and headed to the ferry terminal in Burlington (by the way, a very cool small city. I think we need to go spend some time there) and got breakfast while waiting for the ferry. By about 10:45 we were on the western shore of Lake Champlain, New England at our backs, and all of New York ahead. I planned to travel through the Adirondacks because you only go around once. Now we’ve done it, and I don’t ever need to do it again.

Got lunch at a small place in Russia or Poland, then jumped on 90 somewhere near Utica and headed west. Not a complaint or peep from the kids. Roughly 45 hours later we were in Niagara, and stopped for a couple of hours at the falls. I’d heard the American side was nasty and ugly, and the cities of Niagara and Buffalo really are. But the state park at the falls is very nice, and I much preferred being there than on the casino-and-high-rise-hotel-ridden Canadian side. It was somewhat surprising to see the Canadians outdoing us in ostentation. We decided to push through the remaining section of New York and into Erie, PA, where I knew of a place we could get good dinner along with wireless from our trip last year. I Googled a Motel 6 in Willoughby, OH, and set the coordinates in the GPS. After dinner it was another couple of hours of driving into torrential downpours, followed by eerie clear, until we were finally in bed.

Wednesday, 7/1. The first day of July, a milestone I hate. The road on this day would take us through Cleveland, which, at least from I-90, doesn’t appear to be anywhere near the armpit that Buffalo does. Ohio is pretty flat. And so is Indiana. There are Amish people in both states, and we saw an Amish carriage on one of the frontage roads in Indiana, as we whizzed by at 70 mph. After a meal at a Perkins Restaurant (I don’t really recommend it) in Indiana, we soldiered on to Chicago. Another thing I don’t recommend is Chicago at rush hour. Getting through Chicago took us roughly the same time it took us from Utica to Niagara Falls.

North of Chicago, everything widened out, and we flew by an empty Chrysler plant at about 73 mph. Then we bulled on to Madison, WI, another state capital, where Rach’s mom and uncle both attended UW-Madison. The kids were so incredibly good that we succumbed and let them go for a swim while I scouted out meal options near the motel. Found a franchise joint called Noodles & Company. It was excellent, and I want franchise rights in Maine.

The Motel 6 in Madison, WI is dumpy. Nasty, if you really want to know. Don’t go.

Thursday, July 2nd. I-90 northwest of Madison is really flat. There was a hill, but they seem to have torn it down to make a rest stop. Farther north, there are waterslide parks at every exit, with no discernible population for them to serve. It is weird.

We were once again excited to enter a new state, Minnesota, until I-694 turned into a parking lot. It was not so much fun at that point, as everyone seemed to be headed north and west of the city for the holiday weekend. About two hours from the ND border I decided I needed coffee and Cheerchick needed a new book. I found a Caribou Coffee place while Rach and the kids hit the MallWart. Mission accomplished on all fronts. Fargo beckoned. (You betcha!)

As we rolled into Fargo, we saw a Mexican restaurant, Acapulco, next door. Just what the doctor ordered. The kids went for a dip in the pool while some idiotic waster showed off for his girlfriend by diving and flipping into the 6’ deep pool. I removed myself because I didn’t want to be a Good Samaritan when he broke his neck. Predictably he seemed to have survived because God protects fools and children.

A fine Mexican meal and 2 Pacificos later, I was ready for sleep and a the next day’s long march to Bozeman. No internet in Fargo, by the way, so I had to get the weather report from the Weather Channel. Sorry it’s still raining. Apparently there was state-of-emergency-level flooding in Erie the day after we left. Apologies to those good people, too. We seem to be bringing it with us wherever we go.
Did I say something about Wisconsin being flat? Eastern North Dakota is FLAT. Holy crap. When it floods there, narrow rivers spill over their banks for MILES. No bison, though, except at the bison museum, which disappointed me.

After about three hours on the road in ND, there appeared small buttes, which provided for some relief. Rach took over driving in Bismarck, home of the butte-ugliest (see what I did there?) state capital building in the union. This one appears to have been designed by a depressed Soviet-era architect, circa 1957.

Somewhere west of Bismarck, but before the state line, the time zone changed again, from Central to Mountain. (We entered Central time in Indiana). This made our arrival in Bozeman before dark a much more certain thing.

As the landscape in ND got more interesting, about 30 miles from the Montana state line, we entered Theodore Roosevelt National Park. All of a sudden we were in painted canyons, with wild horses roaming around! It was amazing, beautiful, spectacular, and I now feel as though I need to return to southwestern ND some day. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen.

About half an hour across the Montana border is a small town called Glendive. It is the home of Makoshika State Park. Starting tomorrow I will be there for six days for a class on dinosaur paleontology for my master’s program. We stopped there for lunch just because. Lunch was okay, but nothing to write home about. Across the road from the restaurant where we ate was another restaurant that also contained a hotel and a casino. But the building looked a lot like Coulthard’s Pools. So apparently they can squeeze a whole lot of gaming fun into a small space out here in Big Sky.

I got back into the driver’s seat in Glendive, since Rach doesn’t like the 75 mph speed limit out here.

Another 2.5 hours down the road we stopped at Pompey’s Pillar, where William Clark of Lewis & Clark fame climbed a 200 foot cliff to carve his name in the sandstone on his way home from the coast. I don’t normally condone graffiti, but this is fairly excusable. I’ll probably blog Lewis & Clark later on; I have a lot of thoughts on the subject, but now is not the time.

After Pompey’s Pillar, we heard thunder and jumped back in the car. Immediately we heard a National Weather Service severe weather warning for Billings, about 25 miles east of us. Not only were there damaging winds, hail, and cloud-to-ground lightning, but there had also been observed a funnel cloud touching down. This plains stuff is out of my comfort zone. After stopping for gas in a town that was the Montanan equivalent of Carthage--small population and one gas station that didn’t take credit cards--we saw a pickup truck with an anemometer and other meteorologic equipment stop at an intersection up the road from us. We decided to try to talk with the driver and assess the risk up ahead. But the truck sped off onto I-94, and we did the same, keeping it in sight. That was the only section of road where the speed limit was 75 and I actually sped, figuring the truck was probably trying to find out where the storm was likely to go, rather than going directly into its path. As we headed west, the storm appeared to move south. At times there were ugly comma-shaped clouds, but they broke off and nothing seemed to develop into funnels. We forged on, and as the Rockies came into sight, new energy overcame us. Or else it was the adrenaline rush of New Englanders faced with severe midwestern weather. Whatever.

A couple of times the weather over the Crazy Mountains--I kid you not--looked really nasty, and threatened torrential downpours. It never materialized, though, and after a false alarm of a dinner stop in Big Timber, we jumped back on 94 to finish the last hour to Bozeman.

Bozeman Pass is unreal. On the way up, we kept seeing areas to pull off and put on chains. And we kept ascending. Near the top of the pass is an historical marker for Bozeman Pass. Bozeman was a bit of a scoundrel, and not someone you should name your city after. Nonetheless, the valley below shone brightly, with huge mountains to our south veiled in ominous gray clouds. Our descent into Bozeman felt much like a final approach at Las Vegas: a few turbulent bumps, and really fast. At the first Bozeman exit, we hopped off and found ourselves on West Main St. And the first restaurant we came to was the Montana Ale Works. Think Sunday River Brew Pub in a hip college town. We’ll be going back...

Anyway, Beth and James live about 2.5 miles from there, through suburban neighborhoods. James’ directions were good, and we pulled in at about 8:30 to a power outage. The grass in their back yard was soft, though, and all I needed to be comfortable.

Yesterday, the 4th, can be summed up thusly: two sisters and their high school friend, all of their husbands, and their eight kids, aged 9 months to eleven years. 7 boys and one girl. But Cheerchick had a great time getting acquainted with her youngest cousin. The boys played lots of wiffleball, hooted, hollered, rode bikes and scooters to the Museum of the Rockies, had a full day of gazing at dinosaur bones, made “waterworks” (food coloring dumped into a garden hose and then discharged, giving about 1.2 seconds of colored water), had a cookout, and ended up at a huge fireworks show in the center of Bozeman at 10 pm because that’s when it is sufficiently dark to do fireworks out here.

It’s been a big week, and in about an hour and a half I go to have dinner with some of the people I’ll be living with for the next week: as I mentioned earlier, it’s Dino Camp this week. So I’ve driven 3/5 of the way across the country with my family to spend a week away from them. Seems odd. I’ll try to keep you updated, but have no way of knowing what the internet access will be.

Hope it dries up at home, while I’m in the desert trying to stay hydrated. The irony is not lost on me.

While the Sun Smiles

2009-06-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

On the eve of our trip to Montana I leave you with this. If a bunch of pasty-white Irish guys can dance and carry on about the sun like this, then it might bring some sun to this bleak, rainy landscape. Enjoy.

This is the last you'll hear about it here...

2009-06-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

...but in 1985 you never could have told me Farrah Fawcett would have had a larger positive impact on humanity than Michael Jackson. I thought the moonwalk would change the world. I prefer to think of him as the ten-year old singing "I Want You Back". I suppose there was a lot of inappropriateness in his life.

And then, there was Farrah, whose greatest contribution seemed to be her hair, until she contracted cancer and was a gracious voice of awareness for the world. Life, and death, is strange.

I forgot how much I like taking pictures.

2009-06-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, I had just charged the battery for my digital camera, and I thought to myself "Hey, I haven't taken any pictures of plants lately"...

the first to catch my eye was one of the irises...

then it was on to the garlic (yes, I'm still offering a garlic primer in the fall, and I'll likely blog the harvest and some of the preparation again this year...)

On to the daisies, which have just popped out recently:

And finally, out back to the garden. I like the geometry of the beans. I took some interesting ones of pea blossoms, too, but my camera's resolution isn't the best so I've left them out. I'll use Rach's camera next time so they'll look good even close up.

Wonderlick's "Topless at the Arco Arena"

2009-06-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

I've waxed not-so-eloquent about Too Much Joy, and, to a lesser extent, Wonderlick from time to time. Wonderlick's new album is streaming on their website right now, and pre-sale has begun. You can check it out here for free, and if you hate it that's fine. But if you like it enough to order it, could you tell me 'cause I'd love to know that I'd converted someone.

07.08.09

2009-06-08T19:03:00.000-07:00

So today we were taking water samples in class, and I was explaining how important it was for the information my students wrote on their data sheets to be accurate. The idea is that I am starting my students on periodic testing of the same stream that borders the schoolyard, and all of their entries need to have the proper date and time to keep them valid.

That is nowhere near the point of this post.

I told them the date, 6/8/09, and noticed, "Hey, that's almost 7/8/09! Next month we're going to have to celebrate 'Why was 6 afraid of 7? Day' " A couple of kids got it. Then I explained it, and I couldn't believe there were kids who: a) didn't get it or b) never heard the joke before. So in case you missed it the first time, here is the 2nd grade joke:

"Why was six afraid of seven?"
"Because seven ate nine!" (7, 8, 9 or 7/8/09...and the kneeslaps ensued.)

So, spread the word. A month from today is National (or International) "Why Was Six Afraid of Seven? Day". I won't be around to blog it, as I'll be fending off grizzly bears in the wilds of Montana, while prying T-rex bones from the unyielding ground. So spread the word, and join me in starting a movement that honors both juvenile humor and math at the same time.

There's no crying in baseball...but there's dancing!

2009-05-22T20:32:00.001-07:00

This is just all kinds of awesome. If the whole world ran like (gulp) the Big East Baseball Tournament, life would be just about perfect. So yesterday (Thursday, 5/21) was supposed to be the winners bracket game between the UConn Huskies and the South Florida Bulls. Except the weather didn't cooperate, and a bunch of college-aged young men were sequestered together in a stadium with time to kill. Presumably they had no access to alcohol at this time. And there were no women in sight. Somehow it is comforting that this is what ensues when combatants, in the face of battle, come face to face outside of the battle. Enjoy.

Oh, and disregard the little ad at the beginning. I promise it gets better (check out the redheaded guy on South Florida...he's got some SKILLS!)

Playing Catch Up

2009-05-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling pretty guilty about my lack of posts lately, and checking back on my posts by month: oh, look, not a single post in April!

Here's what's been up: April 1st was my wife's birthday. It was dandy. On the Friday before April vacation, I finished my class on Earth Systems Science, which has been the best online class I've ever taken. Baseball season started. Track season got into full swing. Association stuff got in the way. I got lazy. It was pea-planting season. Weather during vacation was wicked sweet, and I didn't want to spend my time blogging. I started using Facebook, and got my fix there. I became a full paying member on Sons of Sam Horn. Girly had her first gymnastics "meet". My 41st birthday (what a weak number, 41...I liken it to vanilla-flavored mashed potatoes) was April 30th. The family spent many hours rehearsing for the recital, and I spent many hours being a dutiful, supportive dad. I'm sure there were plenty of other things happening in April, too, but I have conveniently forgotten them at the exact same time I got tired of coming up with excuses for not writing. Serendipity is a cool thing.

Anyway, the school year now holds 30 more student days. A quick look at the calendar shows there are five Mondays remaining: five. That's just enough to fit on one hand. We have reached the milestone where we can say "only one more_____________left in the school year", i.e., "only one more complete month left in the school year".

Not that posts like this will make you clamor for more, but I do hope to be a little more regular this month, and in the coming months. I'd hate to get deleted from your Google Readers.

I Feel Pretty...

2009-03-31T20:11:00.001-07:00

You Are Blooming Flowers

You are an optimistic person by nature. In even the darkest times, you are hopeful about the future.

You feel truly blessed in life and can sometimes be overwhelmed with emotions.

You have an artist's eye. You are always looking for beauty in the mundane.

You have a good sense of aesthetics, especially when it comes to shapes and color.

What Part of Spring Are You?

"Milk"

2009-03-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Milk is worth seeing. Sean Penn, who you may love or hate, is such an amazing actor. I've never really researched the legacy of Harvey Milk, but it is a story of courage and strength, and of a man who was unapologetic in who he was.

I was speaking with a fellow Democrat the other day about how it is good to be a member of a party that doesn't eliminate roughly ten percent of the population from its ranks (if you believe Kinsey) simply due to the way they are wired in sexual orientation. It is the party of Gerry Studds and Barney Frank, of homosexuals who were accepted and allowed to contribute to society because their sexual orientation wasn't the most important piece of their being.

But American society always gets its titillation from the Republicans getting caught in trysts because it is such a cornerstone of their affiliation that they are the pillars of society, paragons of virtue. I feel sorry for the Larry Craigs of the world, who have to resort to finding their satisfaction in airport bathrooms because admission of their true being is anathema to their political parties.

Back to the beauty of "Milk": seeing a young Tom Brokaw interviewing Anita Bryant (even as a ten-year-old boy growing up in Weld, Maine, I knew she was so evil that I had to boycott orange juice for a while), and news breaks with Walter Cronkite. This is a great movie, and I am happy to have a better understanding of Harvey Milk's place in American politics.

Kermit and Christian Bale: Separated at Birth?

2009-03-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

This is where Twitter would make sense for me: not much to say here, except if you're a Kermit fan, trust me and check this out. If you're also a Christian Bale fan (can't say I am) this is a must. If you're a fan of neither, just marvel at the wonderful use of this person's spare time. I'll give you a little taste, but go see this: http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/27350111.html?page=1

Who's in Your Twenty?

2009-02-27T18:15:00.000-08:00

Curses upon you my dear wife, for posting your top 20 albums. You know I can't resist firing back, and during this class when I can least afford to spend the time. I have resisted looking at your list, for fear of influencing my own. I saw your first, the Simon & Garfunkel, and the last, the Hold Steady. Great choices both, but I don't think either will make my twenty, and that is fine.

In the order that they come to me, these are my most influential albums of my life. They have been chosen by the criteria of being the soundtrack to my life; they may be what I was listening to at my most malleable moments, and therefore are standouts. I make no claims that this is an all-inclusive "best of" that represents my life, but more just a knee-jerk list of recordings that jump out at me. They've all shaped my world view, or my musical taste, or both, in some way.

All right, enough prattling on. Here's the list. Oh, yeah: I'm linking the Amazon.com reviews. If it sounds good and you can afford it, don't buy it from them. Go to your local record store and give them the business instead.

Too Much Joy-Finally This isn't even my favorite TMJ album--that honor would probably go to Mutiny or Cereal Killers--but it is the one that cemented them as my all-time favorite band, for other reasons than their smart-ass one-liners. Through their recording career, from the underachievement tinged with brilliance of their debut "Green Eggs and Crack" to the maturity and introspection veiled in one liners of "Son of Sam I Am", "Cereal Killers", and "Mutiny" and their all-growed-up and slightly melancholy about it swan song of "Finally...", they mirrored my young adulthood. It was really the lyrics of two songs from "Finally..." that cemented it for me. From "I Believe In Something": "I believe/what they taught me in grade school/history is made by handsome fools...I believe everything on television/twelve step programs are the new religion/Gideon Bibles make rolling papers/the just prevail sooner or later...I believe in something". And the other line is from "Half Life": "I take pleasure/in the simple things/I love my headphones/and my wedding ring...are you talking to me now/or reading from a script?/what's that s'posed to mean, you say you wanna be yourself/I don't think you really know just who the hell that is/no, I don't think you have a clue just who the hell that is/so what's your half life?/you spend half your life pretending you're like everybody else/like everybody else".

Midnight Oil-Blue Sky Mining Whereas much of their earlier work was raw politics and anger, Blue Sky Mining mixed the adrenaline and testosterone with a little more of an Aquarius vibe. "Shakers and Movers" contains the first Midnight Oil song that can even be remotely considered a "love song" that professed love for something other than the Earth or indigenous people (not that there's anything wrong with that): "I can shake/I can move/but I can't live without your love/I can break/over you/but I can't live without your love". This album came out when I was in England on exchange, and my cassette tape of it was bought in Oxford. I enjoy Earth and Sun and Moon and their last studio album Capricornia more, but this one is a big mile-marker in my life.

Elvis Costello & the Attractions-This Year's Model There is nothing better, except maybe Armed Forces. This is one of those rare ones, where my favorite album by the artist is also the most influential. You've all heard "Pump it Up"? It's probably the weakest one here. There are more songs on Armed Forces that make my all-time favorite list, but TYM doesn't have a single weak track. This is the one where Elvis pissed off NBC for a good long time by playing the banned-by-the-BBC "Radio, Radio" in an unscheduled turn of events on SNL. He still pulls surprises, and makes great music (see "A Very Colbert Christmas" for further evidence.)

Til Tuesday- Welcome Home Again, not my favorite album by the artist. Everything's Different Now, which was, for all intents and purposes, an Aimee Mann solo album, takes that honor. But Welcome Home contains the transcendent song "Coming Up Close", which is the ultimate song for driving around on a sultry summer night, acting like a teenager when you know it's your last chance to act like a teenager. It takes me back to the summer of 1987, which was a good summer.

X-See How We Are This is one of my picks where I part with the critics. Many of the people paid to have an opinion hated X's departure to a more country/rock approach. But to me it was the first time I loved alt/country, and I didn't even know that was what it was at the time. X showed its intelligence and humor on this one, but the feeling was warmer than the Los Angeles/More Fun in the New World vibe. John Doe and Exene Cervenka gave us an early taste of what would come later on in the form of the Knitters. And their take on Dave Alvin's "Fourth of July" leads to one of my favorite songs of all time.

Concrete Blonde-Bloodletting You've probably heard of "Joey", but there's plenty more here. "Tomorrow, Wendy" and "The Sky is a Poisonous Garden" are the highlights. Johnette Napolitano's voice is a force of nature, and Jim Mankey's guitar hits you in the gut. Somewhat inspired by Anne Rice's vampire stories, this is the perfect antidote to the saccharine vampires of Twilight.

ELO-Out of the Blue Everyone says they hate the Electric Light Orchestra, the same way they eschew ABBA. But put on "Mr. Blue Sky", and everyone starts bopping uncontrollably. "Out of the Blue" was the first big 8-track tape I owned, because my sister had a Columbia House subscription and she ordered it for me. It was a double album that also contained "Turn to Stone" and "Sweet Talkin' Woman", which were some of the finest pop music treats of the 1970's. Add to that some psychedelic synth and some strings section heaven, and it's just a lucky thing I didn't have a good set of headphones at the age of ten, or I might never have left the house.

Dire Straits-Alchemy In the fall of 1985, Dire Straits came to Portland on their Brothers in Arms tour. I was a senior in high school, with little money and little ability to procure money. I'd loved Mark Knopfler's guitar playing since "Sultans of Swing", and I'd bought "Love Over Gold" a couple years before. Then "Money for Nothing" hit MTV, and all of a sudden Dire Straits was everyone's favorite band. Never mind that the big hits on that album were some of Dire Straits' weakest work, they were huge. And they were in Portland. And I had no way to see them. So I bought Alchemy, their double live album, instead. "Tunnel of Love", "Telegraph Road", "Sultans"...the live versions of these songs are the only ones that make sense to me. They take me back to the fall of my senior year of high school. But it is the instrumental theme to the movie "Local Hero", called "Going Home" that packs the most emotion. With Knopfler, it's not just about the lyrics, but about the way he and his guitar communicate.

Crash Test Dummies-The Ghosts That Haunt Me "I've all my wisdom teeth/two up top and two beneath/yet, I recognize/my mouth says things that aren't so wise/When I sing my darling's praise/I know I'm right, or close anyways/she's a gem upon the Earth/I know to me she will return/I know it's true/I know it's true/that I was made for her, and she me, too/and I'm confident she'll think so too/she'll be comin' back, comin' back, comin' back, comin' back soon."
This album was loaded with great songs and Canadian quirkiness, but it's a shame all the Crash Test Dummies will be remembered for is "Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm". Maybe Campbell's soup will pay for the rights.

Avett Brothers-Emotionalism On my way to the state track meet a coupl of years ago, I was listening to Scott Simon on NPR, interviewing these brothers from North Carolina, who sounded to me like a cross between the Everly Brothers, the Beatles, Hank Williams, and the Clash. Like the Proclaimers, there are harmonies that can only be made by kin. Check out the Avett Brothers. "Die, Die, Die" will probably catch your ear first, but my favorites are "Will You Return" and "The Ballad of Love and Hate". I've since learned about four Avett songs on my guitar.

Peter Mulvey- The Knuckleball Suite This is another MPBN find, but this time it can be traced to "In Tune By Ten". I first heard "The Eisenhower Waltz (Abilene)" on that show, and then on a subsequent show I heard the title track. He warmed up for Chris Smither at the Stone Mountain Center for the Performing Arts, and I missed that show. But I checked him out on YouTube and was amazed even more by his guitar playing (note: good lord, the man is gifted). Then in January of '08 he played the Northstar Cafe in Portland, to a small audience of about 50. He is a great guy, with a really engaging stage presence. As WL started to learn to play guitar, he became more interested: amazing how great playing stands out even more when you try to do it. I've learned three Mulvey songs. Lately, my "most influential" songs tend to be artists whose songs I love enough to learn. *(Note: the sample songs on the Amazon page I've linked ARE NOT Peter Mulvey. Something got messed up in translation.)

James-The Best of... When James came out with their first new studio album ("Hey, Ma") in seven years last spring, I ordered it as an import off eBay. It didn't come out stateside until September, but it was the soundtrack for the summer of '08, and Weather Lad and Cheer Chick became pretty big fans in the mean time. I'd already loved James for a long time, as had Rach, and knew a few of their songs on the guitar. The "Best of..." album is more significant for me because it has most of my favorite songs by them.

The Replacements-Don't Tell A Soul So many of my most influentials are not the ones the critics liked. But "Don't Tell a Soul", basically a Paul Westerberg solo effort, has some of my favorite lyrics: "if it's just a lull/why'm I bored right outta my skull?/keep me from being so dull". It's a little less cranky, a little less drunken, and a little more introspective than most of the other Placemats catalog, and that makes it a little more relevant to me.

The Refreshments-Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big and Buzzy "Banditos" (about a plot to pull of a heist and head to the border: "I've got the pistols, so I'll keep the pesos/yeah, that seems fair") was the big "hit", but there is sooooo much more to this one. It would be the perfect album for driving the wide open spaces of the desert southwest, but it's also got some tropical feel ("Mekong"). Therefore, it is probably my number one desert island disc. We saw Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers warm up for John Eddie a few years back, and didn't realize until halfway through that Roger was the lead singer or the Refreshments. Since then I've become a Peacemakers fan as well, but the Refreshments were better. Check out the shuffle of "Interstate": "Handgun and a bottle of booze/'69 Ford and a new pair of shoes/left from Boise, Idaho, 95/I was just in time to miss the 5 'o clock news/velvet black interstate's something appeals/spent $5.99 on a stone cold meal and bottle of wine/ I was feeling just fine when I crossed the state line/I was just in time to fall/asleep at the wheel"...just listen to it, because it loses much in my tranlation.

Barenaked Ladies- Maybe You Should Drive The first BNL album I bought; I'd heard of them but knew very little about them. Rach and I were just engaged, and the Barenaked Ladies were still small enough potatoes that they were playing the State Theater. We've since seen them--what--six times or so. Now Stephen Page is leaving the band, and it makes me sad that one of the most talented voices in rock music can't pull his personal life together.

The Smiths- Louder Than Bombs It was the summer following my freshman year of college. I was commuting to the UMF Archaeology lab for my summer job on a bike each day, and then out to Weld on the weekends. The house I lived in for the summer was belonged to my high school soccer coach, also the director of Flying Moose Lodge, where I worked both the previous and subsequent summers. I read It that summer, and got the worst case of poison ivy of my life. My friend Tom and I spent lots of time at the batting cages that summer. It was a great summer. And the Smiths provided the music.

Judybats- Native Son This one represents my time in Knoxville, TN. I'd heard the Judybats during my time DJing at WUMF, but they were actually from Knoxville, and had just recently signed a big deal with Sire Records. They owned K-Town for that time, and then promptly fell off the face of the alternative rock earth, as angrier sounds (think Nirvana and Soundgarden) took over.

The Cure-Head on the Door This one and "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" are my two favorites. I lump them together with the Smiths, bands with some of the cheeriest sugar-sweet melodies and hooks, but with downright depressing lyrics. For some reason that dichotomy has always worked for me; as a matter of fact, now that I mention it, it's kind of an undercurrent through a lot of my most influential (and favorite) music. "In Between Days" is pure perfection.

A3- Exile on Coldharbour Lane You might know "Woke Up This Morning", the theme music from The Sopranos. But I got in on Alabama 3 a little earlier, thanks to a sampler disc that came with my CMJ magazine, and a song called "Ain't Goin' to Goa", a hip-hop/house mixture sung by British guys who had taken on the identities of Southern Baptist preachers gone bad. It sounds like a recipe for a joke that turns unfunny pretty quickly (see: Dread Zeppelin), but damned if it doesn't work and keep working. They sing a lot about the rave scene and the ills of ecstasy, which is as close as I'll ever come to that culture. How do you turn a John Prine cover ("Speed of the Sound of Loneliness") into a dancefloor hit? Ask these guys. They do it flawlessly.

Fountains of Wayne-Fountains of Wayne Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger are pop geniuses. This album features the PERFECT "Radiation Vibe". I can't get sick of this song. If you heard "Stacy's Mom" a few too many times, this album is the tonic for that ailment. My favorite lyric from this album: "He's got his arm around every man's dream/with crumbs in his beard from the seafood special/oh, can't you see my world is falling apart/baby, please, leave the biker/leave the biker, break his heart" (from "Leave the Biker"). Give them a second chance.

Chopped...Bring Me Your Torch.

2009-02-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

I'm a sucker for reality t.v. I've railed against the concept, how they aren't so much "reality" as they are real people acting in an artificial manner in unreal situations. That said, I will still tuck in for a big ol feast of "Amazing Race" or "Project Runway" on a regular basis.

On Saturday, however, I was happy to witness something that will make me never go back to at least one of the "reality" shows. Let me explain.

As we were watching "Chopped", on Food Network, I was somewhat intrigued by the concept. Four contestants, chefs, are given some ingredients--usually incongruous--to make a course for a meal. With each successive round, one chef's dish is "Chopped". (Ha! That's clever!) "Queer Eye"'s own Ted Allen is the host, and while he's no Alton Brown, he's not too annoying, and doesn't really interfere with the proceedings.

So the first round, the appetizer, goes through, one of the chefs gets "Chopped", and they move on to an entree, which was centered around a beef blade cut (along with yucca, raisins, anchos, and pickles). The little personal "confessional" sections have already indicated that one of the chefs is kind of a weasel, who would sell his own mother for the right price. So as they're preparing their blade cuts, this guy drops one on the floor. I've done it a million times. Then, he picks it up, and throws it in with his other pieces, without even rinsing it! My immediate reaction was "no way. This guy is a chef, and he just did that on t.v. Never mind losing this competition, NO ONE will ever go to his restaurant again!" (Bloomingdale Road and Wine Directory, NYC, in case you were wondering).

But this is television, and the very reason I've used quotations around the word "reality" over the course of this post. Let me, at this point, tell you that the judges saw this little slip. They witnessed it, and when served, one of the judges asked "did I get the piece that fell on the floor?"

The chef replied, with what could be described as an "oh, crap" look on his face, "I don't think so..."

Then the judge asked another judge "did you get the piece that fell on the floor?" At that point, I believe the chef actually said "oh, crap."

I'm thinking his goose--or blade steak, as it were--is cooked. But only on "reality" television is there redemption for the irredeemable. I give you "The Flavor of Love" as Exhibit . This guy moves on to the next round. That is utterly unconscionable, that something that would likely get his health department permit yanked is brushed off with a shrug. The other contestants should have been able to make shredded wheat with a side of tap water and beat him in that round. But that's not how "reality" t.v. works, and that's why it's not "reality". We switched the channel at that point, so I don't know who won. But if you watch this link, I strongly encourage two boycotts: one, on the restaurant where the tattoed man works and two, on this dreadful show.

I Hate Dick Cheney.

2009-02-13T20:41:00.000-08:00

This is an easy one. Dick Cheney just needs to go back to Wyoming and lose control of his chair on an incline, eventually finding himself boiled to death in Old Faithful. Dude, you're done, and we don't need your views on national security anymore (as if there was a time when we did...) But I love his fashion sense:

Bunting My Way On Base...

2009-02-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

...seems like a good metaphor on the day when the Red Sox equipment trucks headed to Fort Myers. I view these little lists as the equivalent of bunting my way on base: it isn't my best work, and it isn't original, but sometimes it's what I need to shake me out of a slump. So without further ado, here is my bunt single...eh...

1. What is your name: Weather Boy
2. A four Letter Word: wank
3. A boy's Name: Willie
4. A girl's Name: Wynona
5. An occupation: woodworker
6. A color: white (is that really a color?)
7. Something you wear: wellies
8. A food: water chestnut, the one food I would choose to eat if I had no sense of taste
9. Something found in the bathroom: waterstained wallpaper (bonus points!)
10. A place: West Peru, which is still a place in some peoples' minds
11. A reason for being late: waiting for the plumber
12. Something you shout: Whoa, Nellie!
13. A movie title: Waterworld (minus bonus points!)
14. Something you drink: water with a large splash of something else
15. A musical group: Waterboys
16. An animal: wildebeest
17. A street name: Webb River Drive
18. A type of car: Willys Jeep
19. Something scary: water...really deep water
20. Ice cream flavor: White Russian

Okay, that was fun, but I feel like I was thrown out by half a step. Here's another one:

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
I think so, kind of: my great, great grandfather David Kirk was the first generation Scot who came across the pond and settled in Pittsburgh.

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Don't really remember, but it was undoubtedly when I heard a song that reminded me of when my kids were little and how grown-up they're becoming. I'm a sap. Maybe something like "The Circle Game".

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
I like how it's become such an efficient mix of printing and cursive. Otherwise, it's pretty nondescript.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Corned beef or pastrami. (Although I love a nice MLT...mutton, lettuce and tomato, when the mutton is lean...)

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes, two.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
If I'd let me.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Only on those who deserve it. I prefer facetiousness.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
I think so.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Kashi Go Lean, Oat Flakes with brown sugar, Corn Chex, good granola, Cap'n Crunch, Life

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Usually

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
New York Super Fudge Chunk

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
How seriously they seem to take themselves.

15. RED OR PINK?
Pink.

16. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
How my disorganization sometimes affects others.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
Hmm...I don't think I miss people...I think I miss times or activities more. Like playing softball.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Blue jeans and socks.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Numbers.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Midnight Blue.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
lime zest

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Our school secretary.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Baseball.

27. HAIR COLOR?
Dark brown with whitewalls and an increasingly flesh-colored patch above my forehead.

28. EYE COLOR?
Brown

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
No. Good eyesight.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
The kind you eat. I guess I'd say Mexican.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
It depends on the day: some days it's suspense, some days it's "Little Miss Sunshine".

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
I'm going back and watching Lost, which I missed first time around. We'll see if it sticks.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
Blue lightweight fleece over black t-shirt

34. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Late summer/Indian summer.

35. HUGS OR KISSES?
Hugs

39. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Truman

40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Whatever has been placed on top of it since we stopped using the desktop.

41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Whatever was in the background as I surfed.

42. FAVORITE SOUND(S).
The stream by the house.

43. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
Again, it depends but usually the Beatles

44. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Paris.

45. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I can flare my nostrils, and roll my tongue and roll my r's, and I pick up dialects really quickly. All really useful.

46 WHERE WERE U BORN?
Hyannis, Massachusetts

48. HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
In college the first time, and then when I was coaching soccer at the school where she worked.

There. I got on base. Now let's see if this starts a rally...

Hidden Treasures

2009-01-28T11:43:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, 207 is pretty darned good. Last Thursday night, WL and I were at Central Maine Archery, putting in some practice. On the tv they were showing the NBC Nightly News, and then afterward 207 came on. I knew Lissa Schneckenburger was going to be performing on that episode, and I was excited that I'd be able to see it, even though we weren't at home. Lissa is the young fiddler from Maine who Rach and I saw open for Richard Thompson back in the fall, and I was duly impressed.

Anyway, just as Lissa and her guitarist began to play, Tom, the proprietor, changed the channel! I almost freaked out, but realized I could go to the 207 site to see the performance later on. In a way, it was a blessing, because when I checked the site I realized her guitarist is a fellow camper of mine at Meadowlark Music Camp! Her name is Bethany Waickman, and she's a MUCH better player than I am. Very quiet, very nice, and very talented. She has always been an advanced player, doing DADGAD classes with Keith Murphy (who is also a member of Lissa's band at times).

Lissa plays numerous shows in Maine, so go check her out sometime. She's really enjoyable and seems to be genuinely nice and personable.

I tried to embed the video, but the link seems to be broken. Here is the link and I'll see if I can figure something out to embed it.

*Note: the link remains broken, and I can't figure out where the error is. I've tried becoming a member of the WCSH site, but that's screwy, too. I take back the nice things I said about 207. Okay, no I don't. But here's another video I grabbed from YouTube so you can have instant gratification and see whether it's worth your while to click the previous link:

I Liked These Questions!

2009-01-23T18:48:00.000-08:00

1. Do you like blue cheese? I love it. "There's blue cheese dressing, blue cheese shrimp, fried blue cheese, baked blue cheese, spam and blue cheese...that's about all you can make out of blue cheese..." Bubba Blue
2. Have you ever smoked? For about three days in Baltimore with Mike Mozden, I was a smoker. He stopped being a vegetarian for those three days.
3. Do you own a gun? Nope. Had a .22 when I was a kid, but it burned in my parents' house fire.
4. What flavor Kool Aid is your favorite? The kind that makes me believe Rocco Baldelli, Jon Smoltz, Brad Penny, Mike Lowell, David Ortiz and J.D. Drew are going to be healthy this year.
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? Not outwardly, but my BP jumps about twenty points when the nurse approaches with the cuff and stethoscope.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I don't, I just eat them. I find it works better that way.
7. Favorite Christmas movie? Can't think of any I really love. The Grinch, maybe? (The cartoon, of course, with Boris Karloff narrating.)
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee. French roast.
9. Can you do push-ups? I prefer to go bra-less.
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? "I love my headphones/and my wedding ring"
11. Favorite hobby? Gardening and my guitar.
12. Do you have A.D.D? I'm actually...oh, look a bird! What?
13. Do you wear glasses/contacts? Nope.
14. Middle name? Hidden. No, really, it is.
15. Name thoughts at this moment? Just how I'm going to answer this question...
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Coffee, water, ginger ale.
17. Current worry? I've found worrying to be counter-productive.
18. Current hate right now? I've found hatred to be counter-productive, too, but I really hate arctic cold fronts.
19. Favorite place to be? In my hammock, strung up between the two big maples. Can't wait to try out the new one!
20. How did you bring in the New Year? Making music with friends.
21. Where would you like to go? Not many places I wouldn't like to go, but New Zealand is my dream destination right now.
22. Name three people who will complete this? Everyone else before me, apparently.
23. Do you own slippers? Yes, fleece L.L. Bean slips with leather soles that I've owned for at least eight years.
24 What color shirt are you wearing? Gray, over my maroon Great Big Sea t-shirt.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Sounds slippery. Give me cotton with a high thread count.
26. Can you whistle? Yes, but not as well as I like to think.
27. Favorite Color? Dark blue is a safe bet, but I like green, purple and orange, too.
28. What songs do you sing in the shower? Sometimes I make things up, but "Ordinary Day" by Great Big Sea tends to come out pretty often.
29. Would you be a pirate? I'm really more of a Robin Hood type, or a privateer.
30. Favorite Girl's Name? Cate
31. Favorite boy's name? Ben
32. What's in your pocket right now? A valve cap (Schrader) from an inner tube.
33. Last thing that made you laugh? One of Rach's stories about her students.
34. What vehicle do you drive? 1995 Ford Ranger
35. Worst injury you've ever had? Ruptured disc, L5/S1.
36. Do you love where you live? Yes. It makes everywhere else a nice place to visit.
37. How many TVs do you have in your house? One that works.

Yes...

2009-01-19T15:55:00.000-08:00

Up until today, the inauguration of our new President hasn't really sunk in. On that fateful November morning when we found out that Barack Obama would be the President, I found myself grateful that America had put aside petty differences such as skin color, and elected an intelligent and dynamic black man to the Presidency. I found myself grateful that the missteps and embarrassments of the past eight years would be put behind us, and be replaced by...something better, I hope. I found myself encouraged that somehow the electorate had realized the error of its ways in supporting Bush so vehemently through the early days of an ill-advised war, and had turned its back on the kind of thinking that got us there in the first place. I found myself vindicated in my liberal beliefs, that the government can be an agent for positive change if it is thoughtfully administered.

It has only been today, MLK Day 2009, that I have begun to feel the emotion of this momentous day. The interviews with John Lewis and Andrew Young, and everyday citizens of the United States who are black have allowed me to step outside my academic detachment. The joy and the pride are palpable, and as a middle class, middle aged white guy, I feel like I've been invited to the party. I obviously can't experience the same joy and ecstasy of the black American who has been told for four-hundred years that he is inferior and suddenly is empowered.

To me, the feeling is of freedom: this past election cycle completely destroyed our limiting mindset that said minorities and women were second class citizens. Of the major players this past fall, only half of the people involved were white males. And then, figure in how Obama got where he did: he defeated a powerful, respected woman who was the presumptive Democratic candidate as late as February of 2008.

The election of 2008 has opened doors. If we did the math on what percentage of Americans are white males, we'd find that 75% of Americans are white, and 49.1% are male (2000 Census figures). Quick and dirty math tells me that about 37% of Americans are white males. That means about 63% of the population had previously been left out of the Presidential discussion prior to this year. Think about how our choices and options of having great people in high positions have increased. This is exciting and liberating, and can only mean good things for our country.

And if you look at the response of people around the world to this election, you see people everywhere questioning their own governments, wondering why the same thing can't happen there. It can. As a result of what America has done this year, we can change the world.

Yes, we can.

Meditating

2009-01-18T17:18:00.000-08:00

The Photo Friday topic was "Meditation". I wondered, "what do I have in my iPhotos that would fit the bill"? Sadly, I haven's shot anything new in a long time. I need to get back at it because I just love taking photos. More, I love having a large library I can draw from when there is a stated theme, and contemplating how my photos fit the theme. This exercise is fun because it is fairly infrequent that I actually intended said photo to fit any "theme".

Anyway, I admire those of you who are more original-photo oriented than I am. Keep up the good work, because you inspire me.

This one was taken last spring. Cheer Chick is one of the most introspective and meditative kids I've ever met when she is in the great outdoors. I love just watching her do her thing.

Embrace Your Inner Bjorn.

2009-01-10T18:59:00.001-08:00

We rented "Mamma Mia" this past weekend, and I have to be honest: it really wasn't horrible. The reviews on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are mixed, and for good reason. It is one of those flicks where you can see the (reasonable) arguments both for and against it.

Let's start with the plot: not exactly A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), is a twenty-something young woman, with a wedding coming up. Donna (Meryl Streep) is her mother, and the proprietor of a Greek Mediterranean money pit of a hotel. The story revolves around Sophie's father; namely, she never knew her father growing up, and Donna isn't exactly sure who the father was. By sneaking a peek at Donna's diary, Sophie has narrowed down the candidates to three, and she has tracked all three down and invited them to her wedding. It's a comedy! It's a drama! It's a love story! (The hotel is purported to be build somewhere near the mythical Aphrodite's fountain.)

In case you've been living under a rock, though, the major contrivance of this movie is that it is adapted from a Broadway musical based on the music of ABBA. And this is the font from which my original trepidation sprang (like the aforementioned Aphrodite's fountain...metaphors are so cool!): Meryl Streep crooning the songs of ABBA. How could any self-respecting man "want" to see this movie and keep his testosterone intact? The mere concept of this movie was, at its very core, emasculating, and thereby intimidating.

But I have been the main proponent of the following theory for some time, and I think it is what ultimately raises this movie to enjoyability: everyone loves ABBA. Even if you don't think you do, your love of ABBA is like some repressed memory. Some day you will be in a crowd of people, maybe waiting for your favorite band to take the stage, and the opening bars of "Does Your Mother Know" will come over the PA quite loud. The synthesizers will pulse; the cheesy guitar riff will ring, and you will find yourself with a dilemma on your hands: do you allow yourself to groove? If you are honest with yourself, you will obey your body and not your mind. You will bite your lip. Your shoulders will start to undulate. Even if you are not a dancer, you will start to re-create the moves of Tony Manero (that's John Travolta to the under 40 set) in Saturday Night Fever, but more wholesomely. And by the time you are bumping into the people next to you, dancing and jiving and singing along gleefully with the ESL-inflected refrain "Well I could dance with you honey/If you think it's funny/Does your mother know that you're out?", you will have embraced your inner Bjorn. It's okay. We all have an inner Bjorn.

Anyway, I digress. But that's all I really feel like I needed to say about "Mamma Mia". The cast is fun: Streep and Seyfried are joined by Pierce Brosnan (sings about as well as you might expect Remington Steele to sing), and Colin Firth. Christine Baranski and Julie Walters take turns stealing the show as Donna's friends Tanya and Rosie. Bottom line? The whole movie plays like the cast had a great time making it. That is worth the cheap rental in and of itself. Is it Streep's weightiest role, or her best acting job? Not by a long shot. Is it one of her more enjoyable performances? You bet.

Do I feel any less of a man for enjoying this movie? Let me answer that with another question: Do Benny and Bjorn look any less manly with their white polyester jumpsuits? On second thought, I'd prefer not to answer that.

Reserve Battery Power

2009-01-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

I am informed that my computer is now running on reserve battery power.

That is a very fitting analogy for my whole being right now. I'd love to give more, but my batteries are low. No promises: I can't commit to giving a whole lot more.

My main hope is that this doesn't come off as whining, because it really isn't intended that way. It's really just my way of saying "sorry I haven't been more committed to the blog thing" to my loyal readers, all four of you. (You know who you are!) Anyway, it won't be long until I'm doing another class, and the posts will be even fewer and farther between, so if you're wondering where I am, I'll be somewhere away from the madding crowd, recharging.

So You Think You Know...Christmas?

2008-12-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Newspaper, painted with watercolors. Or recycled wrapping paper. Or recycled gift bags. Or that red plaid paper I BOUGHT (gasp!) new a couple of years ago because I liked it.

Real tree or artificial? Real. Period.

When do you put up the tree? As late as I can get away with it.

When do you take the tree down? Before CheerChick's birthday on December 28th.

Do you like eggnog? Only Devon's recipe. God I miss Devon right about now! (And many other times, too, but especially around Christmas.)

Favorite gift received as a child? An axe. Really.

Hardest person to buy for? Rach, of course.

Easiest person to buy for? Either of the kids, who have nice long lists.

Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. I wish Willie Nelson were in it, though, bringing his special gift to the Baby Jesus.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

A Colbert Christmas: Willie Nelson Sings

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Mail or e-mail Christmas cards? Mail. I'll get the ones to my friends out sometime over vacation, I hope.

Worst Christmas gift you ever received? No such thing...as long as it was given from the heart.

When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I see something that I need to buy someone.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Who hasn't?

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Whatever beast is roasted...lamb, beef, ham, 'possum...it's all good.

Lights on the tree? Too many. I'd like them to be LED, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.

Favorite Christmas song? "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)", performed by either U2 or Darlene Love.

Travel at Christmas or stay home? I'd prefer to stay home on Christmas proper, but I don't mind a short jaunt to Weld for dinner with my parents.

Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? And Olive...the OTHER reindeer...

Angel on top of the tree, or a star? Beer can. (Not really.)

Presents on Christmas Eve or morning? Morning, but the sock is my favorite part.

Most annoying thing about this time of year? Crass commercialism and lack of commitment to peace on Earth.

Favorite ornament theme or color? Theme? I like all our homemade ornaments featuring the kids' pictures from over the years.

Favorite for Christmas dinner? Standing rib roast with garlic mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole. The beef was Woody's favorite, too.

What do you want for Christmas this year? Not much. Everyone to forget about why they think their religion is best, and lay down their weapons and prejudices.

Who is most likely to respond to this? Either SJ or Rach.

Who is least likely to respond to this? Whoever has the least time on his or her hands.

D-Day

2008-12-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

When I watched National Lampoon's Animal House for the first time (I was 10...but a very mature 10...) my favorite character was not "Bluto" Blutarski, nor was it Flounder or Hoover. My favorite was the total badass, "D-Day" ("Ramming speed!")

And my favorite part of the movie was the end, where all of the heroes and ne'er-do-wells' personal histories (fictional, of course) are revealed to the viewer.

Recently came news from the New York Times that Daniel "D-Day" Laikin, National Lampoon Chief Executive, has been charged in conspiracy and security fraud to artificially inflate the stock of the company.

It is a career footnote worthy of the movie's closing credits.

Photo Friday: Weathered

2008-12-12T19:45:00.000-08:00

While SJ has taken to posting sky pictures on a semi-regular weekly basis, I am somewhat less regular in my posting to Photo Friday. However, here's my entry for "Weathered". I'm hoping some of the prompts will get me taking more new pictures, but I wanted to share this one. It's an old yellow birch standing on the bank of the stream by our house.

I took this picture during one of the field studies for my master's course last winter (just finished my latest class last night...woohoo!) It's an ancient warrior, which--though it is no longer removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and giving us nice, clean oxygen--is still providing food and shelter for birds and small mammals. It's a great tree.

At 89

2008-12-03T20:15:00.000-08:00

I was looking around on the Late Show With David Letterman website, because there was an interesting singer called Sia on. She painted her hands bright red and signed along with her singing. I was slightly intrigued, and wanted to find out more.

Then I got sidetracked by a link to Pete Seeger...PETE FREAKIN' SEEGER...who performed ON LETTERMAN. And I missed it. Unfortunately, the CBS website won't let me post the video here, but that's what YouTube is for. Yes, I'll link it a little later on, but you'll have to endure my reminiscences until then. Unless you just skip ahead, or skip it all together. Honestly, I'll never know the difference.

Anyway, Pete Seeger is one of my heroes. I may not always be in the mood to listen to him, but his ideals, his morality, his passion, his sheer love for life and what he does, are an inspiration to us all. Some of my earliest musical memories involve my parents' record collection on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Quite often the playlist involved "The Bullfrog", "Abiyoyo", and other childrens' songs. Other times, there were more socially conscious, politically motivated songs, including some of the things Pete did with Arlo Guthrie. The "Precious Friends" album sticks out. And then there were the Weavers, who showed up now and then.

I'll leave it to you to check on Pete's troubles with the House Un-American Activities Committee (he was blacklisted from network television for a good long time) and his pedigree as a great American. The thing that stands out to me most is that about nine years ago, three of us had the pleasure of seeing Pete perform at Rockland High School. At the time he was 78 or 79 years old, and he was sickly. There were many worries that this would be among his last performances.

Flash forward nine years. Pete has just put out an album (because it would just be silly to call it a "disc" or a "CD" when you're talking about Pete) called "At 89". Dude's 89 years old, and he's still actively performing, writing, and putting out new music. He leaves much more of the singing to his guests and audiences today, but that's the amazing thing: everyone ends up singing along with Pete. I've never seen David Letterman's audience sing along, but they did on this song. His banjo is marked with the words "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender." Pete, keep on rockin'.

The "Blue" Planet

2008-12-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

Today we spent quite a bit of time in class discussing carbon, carbon dioxide, and the effects of greenhouse gases. We played a nice little online game, where the students played the role of a carbon molecule making its way through the carbon cycle, and learning all along the way. One student asked if I had seen this video, and I hadn't. I love these guys. It's amazing how humor in the face of something so potentially grim as global climate change can be such a powerful educational tool.

A Thought That Made Me Giggle...The Link Between Coldplay and the Wiggles!

2008-12-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

+

=

Where is the Love?

2008-12-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

We were sitting around at our staff meeting today, looking at the MEA scores for our school and wondering how we could help improve our students' performance in math. The discussion turned to how students don't just "do" math nowadays.

First of all, if I had a dime for every time I'd heard "students today just don't _____", I'd be a rich man. That only beats "families today just don't______" by a very slim margin. Fact is, we're teachers, and we play the cards we're dealt. Meet the kids where they are, and help them get farther on. But I digress.

I tried to think of a time in my life, especially my adolescence, when I just "did" math. I can remember getting up an hour before I normally would have (5:30?), to try to get my long division problems done. Mom was up with me, enduring the tears and the woe, and we somehow worked through it. Thanks mom, you unwittingly helped make the case for "families today" arguments. At any rate, that was somewhere around 4th grade. I wasn't into baseball in a sick, obsessed sort of way...yet.

Flash forward about two years. I'm a sixth grader, who lives and dies by the Red Sox. And magically, I had developed the ability to manipulate fractions and percentages to the extent that, by the end of his at bat, I could calculate what Dwight Evans' batting average would be at the end of the at bat, whether he got a hit or didn't.

Then, in eighth grade, I was into calculating shooting percentages and free throw percentages on our school basketball team. My FT% was easy, because when you don't make any free throws, 0% is really easy to calculate.

So somewhere along the line, someone confused my statistical sickness with the ability (or desire, or readiness) to do higher order math in eighth grade. Eighth grade algebra was a dismal failure. The teacher was good, he was entertaining, and he really tried to help me. I just wasn't ready, and I didn't care. Taking the class again in my freshman year wasn't much more successful, but I did manage to pass.

I don't really know what the point of all this is. Regular, everyday calculations have been easy since I used them on an everyday basis for things I enjoyed, so maybe we're onto something there. But the more abstract concepts have never come easy, even to this day. Physics took a serious toll on my self-esteem when I took it last summer, and statistics was the bane of my existence in my earlier grad school stint. But geometry and trig were fine during high school.

I think I've figured out what the point of all this is: the point is, "meet the kids where they are, and help them get farther on." Sometimes digression can lead you to an clarity.

Funniest Sports Ads

2008-11-23T13:48:00.000-08:00

I was sitting around on a Sunday (nothing new here!) reading the posts on Sons of Sam Horn. There was a thread devoted to Greg Maddux's imminent retirement from baseball, and I was prompted to post my memories of Maddux. Here is my post:

"We drove to Montreal in July of '03 to see Vladimir Guerrero. Had great seats in the front row of the RF bleachers. Ron Calloway started in Vladdy's place, thus reinforcing the old adage that you NEVER buy tickets to a Sunday game if you want to see the stars.

Anyway, Maddux went six innings, against Tomo Ohka. He gave up six runs and two homers, the deciding blow coming from...wait for it...Ron Calloway.

I can still say I saw the three best pitchers of their era live, though, in Pedro, Roger and Maddux. As I recall, all three got lit up when I watched them.

Oh, and "Chicks dig the longball."*"

*Here is your video for reference:

Then Rach suggested someone (Translated:"ahem...that means YOU!") do a post on the best sports related commercials of all time. Well, I've taken it upon myself to gather a few that I consider to be very good, but it is by no means an exhaustive list.

Bo Jackson, who made so many of us feel inadequate as athletes:

Gretzky's performance is almost as good as Glavine in the previous clip.

There were a lot of good Michael Jordan ads, but this one stands out for me, probably because it pairs him with Larry Legend:

"Nothin' But Net"

Arguably, this one got it started:

"Tastes great!" "Less filling!"

Now before I'm overrun with "What about Mean Joe Greene? That was the best EVAH!", let me just emphasize that I don't want to pollute this space with glurge. It's cute, but it's not that funny.

How about Sugar Ray Leonard? This guy singlehandedly made boxing relevant in the years when the heavyweights were bashing each others' brains out; he was just a breath of classy air in a brutish sport. I can't find the one he made with his son:

Boy 1: "Hey, is that the champ?"
Sugar Ray's Kid: "Naw, that's just my dad."

Another one I wish I could find is Eddie Murray's spot from the 90's where there's a little jingle to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw" singing about his career accomplishments ("...and a three time winner of a Golden Glove") and at the end, a young fan comments about the laconic Murray: "That's not tired, that's DEE-termination!" Eddie was a man of few words, but one HELL of a hitter.

The last one I wish I could find for you is one where Randy Johnson is playing dodgeball. That's just a flat-out funny concept, and it just might have been the inspiration for the Ben Stiller movie.

If any of you stumbles upon any of these missing gems, please contact me or post them.

Please vote in the poll at the upper right of your browser, and if your answer would be "none of the above", either don't vote, or drop me your favorite in the comments. I might even add your suggestions!

I'll leave you with this, and let you chime in with your own thoughts. I know I'm in the minority, being a Patriots fan who thinks Peyton Manning is pretty awesome, and here is why:

"Cut that meat! Cut that meat!"

Photo Friday Challenge

2008-11-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

SJ's Sky Photo entry linked me to another photo challenge: the Photo Friday Challenge. Today's challenge is "food", and a whole bunch of people in this circle would be up for that challenge (Amity? Krazy Karoline?)! This is my entry:

Amity, I'm sorry I got all the garlic in the ground this fall without having you over to see the process. It's really easy, though.

The Beehive Collective

2008-11-14T18:03:00.002-08:00

The Beehive Collective: full time volunteers based in Machias, making some incredible sociopolitically inspired tapestries. They restored local grange hall as their home, and have turned it back into a community center. They go on tour with their tapestries, exhibiting them at colleges and being paid in honoraria. They also show their work at high schools, where they get their bigger impact: usually when they exhibit at colleges, the students who show up are "the choir", and don't need to be preached to. To say these folks are liberal is analogous to saying the weather this year has been crappy. The next tapestry they are working on has mountaintop removal as its theme.

The tapestry in front of me stretches diagonally across the room, about thirty feet, and it depicts the political and social conditions in Colombia, as influenced by geopolitical and historical events. Directly in front of me there is an ant colony, where worker ants seem to be reading about organizing labor, watching television, plotting military strategy, and other activities. Different corporate labels (Monsanto, Chiquita, BP, Coca Cola, DynCorp, Ford) find their ways into the tapestry, and not in the most flattering of light.

I've seen these folks exhibiting at Common Ground before, but never really stopped to find out about what their story was.

This could be a really cool way to have students tell human stories in ways that make sense to them. It is interesting to watch these kids opening up a little bit, explaining what they see in the symbolism and imagery of the tapestry. This would be a really cool way to have kids show what they know in an interdisciplinary unit. (Joe, you feelin' me? Amity? Mike?)

Mission statement of the Beehive Collective: "to cross-pollinate the grassroots".

Feeling Good

2008-11-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

I'm at the Maine Youth Action Network conference in Bar Harbor today. There are about 350 attendees, including middle school students, high school students, and the adults who love working with them enough to endure ridiculously low salaries to do what they love.

Shortly after the keynote (not really very effectively done, but the guy has an impressive record of anti-tobacco activism at the tender age of 19) I ran into a former student who is now a senior at our local high school. She endured three years of me as her science teacher, and one as her language arts teacher, and was a member of my favorite class ever. To this day, every time I see her she exclaims that I was her "favorite teacher ever". That's not a brag, and I certainly don't claim to have done anything to have earned that particular accolade, but I use it to set the scene.

So after hugs and some small talk, I asked her what is happening for her next year. I was flabbergasted to hear she is hoping to enter Pre-Med at UVM next fall. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't flabbergasted because she has dreams of Pre-Med. And it doesn't shock me in the least that she is considering a very good school. No, it was the fact that this is one of the most intelligent kids I've ever taught, who--though she coasted through my sixth, seventh and eighth grade science classes--I never pegged for being a particularly science-oriented person. She always had a book, and usually it was pretty challenging reading. Check that: she always had a book going, and usually she had it going simultaneously with my lessons. But she was a very capable multi-tasker, and even when I tried to trip her up, she knew right where we were, even in the middle of Return of the King. This is one sharp kid. Anyway, I view it as vindication of my teaching methods that she told me when they did Punnett Squares in honors biology, she had no problem while most of the others in the class simply didn't get it.

It excites me that at least one of my students is going into a scientific field, and I think I had some small part in helping develop her passion for science. That feels damn good.

It's Not Really a Celebration

2008-11-10T16:12:00.000-08:00

I saw pieces of this video on the NBC Nightly News tonight, and felt I needed a place I could get back to it and watch it when I wanted to. Earlier tonight, Cheerchick said "I don't think we should celebrate Veterans Day." I asked her why, and she said "Because we shouldn't have the war in the first place." Though I couldn't agree with her more on that point, I asked whether she thought it was important to remember all those people who have died in wars. She said yes, it is important to remember them. I then explained that we don't really "celebrate", but we remember the sacrifices made by people who have served our country in the military.

There will be some deep and amazing discussions in the not too distant future as my kids attempt to figure out when--or if--war is ever justified. Unfortunately, I think war is part of our DNA, but the idealist in me says if we didn't have willing warriors, we couldn't have war. And then, of course, there are the battles that have to be joined, even when we're reluctant, because evil must be met head-on. I only hope that we are entering a phase of foreign policy where we will only enter righteous battles. I am tired of any blood--American or otherwise--being spilled needlessly.

At any rate, this video grabbed me. Black and white. No sound. And it is real.

Change Has Come.

2008-11-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Wow. 11pm, and NBC has declared Barack Hussein Obama the 44th President of the United States of America. I am in tears.

Grant Park East

2008-11-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

The entire family is in the living room, watching the returns come in. 270 is the magic number, and if you trust MSNBC, there are fewer than 100 to go (currently Barack 175/McCain 70). I'm hoping to get the kids off to bed by ten. That would be a landslide, in my book.

On the Dole

2008-11-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Dole, who ran a MORE shameful campaign than Soo-Sin, appears to have been defeated in North Carolina. Kind of makes me wish Collins had called Allen "godless", or something equally meaningless. It might have turned the tide.

Soo-sin Wins.

2008-11-04T17:14:00.000-08:00

NBC projecting Soo-Sin Collins as the winner over Tom Allen. Her campaign was shameful, but effective.

Meanwhile, Virginia numbers don't look all that good for Barack UNLESS...you realize that the precincts reporting are the rural precincts, and Northern Virginia hasn't reported yet. As someone on fivethirtyeight pointed out, the "fake" Virginia takes longer. I still have hope...and that's what this is all about.

Virginia is for (Barack) Lovers

2008-11-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

It looks like the night could be very short if Virginia goes Obama's way. I've become a serious junkie at this site and they are also reporting some encouraging happenings in Indiana, where they say he is "substantially outperforming" John Kerry's 2004 performance in that state.

Dare we hope?

A Change is Gonna Come

2008-11-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

It is 6:46 pm Eastern Standard Time, and the results should start rolling in soon. My stomach is fluttery. I'm unbelievably nervous about this election, though everything I'm seeing is treating an Obama victory as a foregone conclusion. I can't let myself believe it, and I'm simply in awe of what might happen tonight. Below is a video of Sam Cooke performing "A Change is Gonna Come". The story goes that Cooke wrote it in reply to Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" in 1964 because he was so amazed that a white man could write such a powerful song about race relations.

I can't believe this hasn't registered with me before now that this has been such a staple in the Obama appearances, but it is perfect. Of course soul greats Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding recorded their versions of this song, and it has been a touchstone for the civil rights movement. But it has also been an iconic song for all Americans--and others--seeking true freedom: some of my favorites on my iPod have also recorded their own takes on this song, including Billy Bragg, Cold War Kids, and Arcade Fire, a Montreal band that is so fervent in their support of Obama that they recorded their own version. I'm going to be blogging this election night live, so feel free to keep checking in if you're so inclined. Meantime, here's Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come".

So Much for the Trifecta...I'll Have to Settle for the Quinella

2008-10-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

So last Friday night, Rach and I were fortunate enough to catch Richard Thompson at South Portland High School (?!?) where he was playing a rescheduled show. This was after his unfortunate run-in with a scorpion last spring. We'd just seen him do his "1,000 Years of Popular Music" show at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield about two months previous, so we didn't spring for tickets at the time. Rach wasn't all that excited about the show because he didn't play one of her all-time favorite songs, "'52 Vincent Black Lightning". There was good reason for disappointment, as it is an amazing song, with some of the craziest finger-style playing you're likely to ever see or hear. But RT put on an amazing show that night, and I was totally blown away by his versatility and the power of his playing. He didn't play the tune below that night either, but man, he makes even Britney Spears look good. He did do a brutal version of Nellie Furtado's "Maneater" that night, and an amazing cover of the Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind", which, if I'd had my eyes closed, I would have sworn had him playing three different guitars simultaneously.

His show last Friday was the one Rach hoped for: solo RT for about two solid hours, and three encores. The ONLY drawback was the boomers in the audience (sorry if any of my boomer readers take offense) hollering out requests a la "FREEBIRD". And he dropped "'52 Vincent" on us. Simply amazing.

This Friday night we are making the trip to Brownfield again, kids in tow, to catch Peter Mulvey. He is not as famous as RT, but is a great guy, a fantastic songwriter and story teller, and he can shred an acoustic guitar pretty well, too. (NB: see what he does from about 2:20-2:40...if you've ever tried to play guitar, your jaw will likely drop...the only similar thing about my guitar playing to Peter's is that we use the same capo.) Last I knew there are still tickets available for this amazing show, at a pretty cool venue. $20. C'mon, what else would you be doing on a Friday night?

So, on successive Friday nights, we'll be hitting paydirt, hence the "Quinella" I mentioned in the title. But there was a fleeting chance that I was going to hit the Trifecta this week. I was listening to my iTunes last week, and Billy Bragg's "Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards" came on. I wondered to myself if Billy was on tour anytime soon. I checked out his website, and OH MY GOD!!!!, he is playing tomorrow night (Thursday) in Lebanon, NH. Billy Bragg is one of my rock 'n roll idols, described in some circles as "a one-man Clash". He and John Doe of X are the two guys I'd most like to have been if I'd been a "rock star" (so, yeah, I'd like to be more of a "cult rock star").

Suffice to say, this week has been hell, and I decided to hold off and make a game-time decision as to whether I'd drive the three hours out-and-back to Lebanon. I just can't do it. I have a feeling I wouldn't see Peru alive again. So I'm kinda glad I didn't bet the Trifecta, but I'm providing it here for you on There's Always Someone Cooler Than You. It's my pledge week gift to my loyal readers. Henry Rollins says "1(800)866-1475...that's the number to call to keep this great resource coming to you. It couldn't happen without you. 1(800)866-1475. And this is a matching pledge break, so your money will do double duty."

Anyway, Billy is not the great guitarist that the other two guys on here are, but he is one of my panoply. The lyrics to this updated version of "Waiting" are quite different from when the Soviet Union was still intact, but even more salient today. Rock on, Billy...without me.

Being John McCain

2008-10-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

This kind of says it all. I think he was just being philosophical, referring to the "Allegory of the Cave". Maybe that's why Sarah looks so startled when he utters the brilliant line...

...she just hasn't extended the metaphor as far as John has. Or maybe she's just realizing her wagon's been hitched to a train...running over the edge of a cliff...into a pit of piranhas...that are made of nuclear waste.

Classroom Assessments and other stuff

2008-09-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

Well, with 2 hours and 40 minutes remaining in the month, there is time yet for one more post in the month of September. I'd feel worse about the dearth of writing on my blog if I weren't actually doing things, but I really am busy. I feel like I should go back into coaching high school soccer so I might have more free time.

The class I'm taking this quarter is on classroom assessment. It is highly useful, and this time I can actually understand what the textbook is trying to tell me! Long story short, it is all about techniques teachers can use to actually affect student performance positively through formal and informal assessments. We're not talking big ol' Princeton-style standardized tests here, though. We're talking one-sentence summaries, Preconception/Misconception Checks, and something called "The Muddiest Point", where students submit the parts of their learning about which they are most confused. Much of the time these assessments are administered anonymously, so what the teacher REALLY gets is how well the class is understanding the main ideas they are supposed to be getting.

What I like most is the idea that students aren't being measured against each other in some sort of competition. They are being measured by their own capabilities and understanding, and against some standards that have been identified as vital to their mastery of the subject matter. Grades are compiled as a guide to the students' paths to their education, rather than as a social norm that tells very little about what they can do or how well they can apply what they know.

Besides the class, I've been helping to coach my kids' soccer teams, developing an after school program through the River Valley Healthy Communities Coalition, becoming more involved in the Dirigo Educators Association, setting up a family night to view the Draconid meteor showers at school, and being a team leader for the seventh grade team. It's been kind of a crazy month.

So while I am busy, it is a good kind of busy. I'm just looking forward to a time when I can be lazy. A good kind of lazy.

It's Getting Ugly!

2008-09-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

All right, so now the McCain/Palin crazies are trying to turn around the phrase "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig", which Obama used in a speech on Tuesday to characterize Republican policies. People, it's an old phrase. It's been used for many years to illustrate the foolishness of prettifying something ugly, but not changing it fundamentally (reminds me of a certain Republican ticket...but I digress...).

But then Good Ol' GSWLTF used this joke in her speech accepting the party's nomination for VP: "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick." Even I almost cracked a smile when she delivered this line. She'd obviously practiced it for comedic effect. Her timing was impeccable, and her delivery deadpan. I was impressed. But now, it seems the Republican Party seems to think GSWLTF has a copyright on lipstick or something. This will come as a bit of a surprise to Revlon, I'm sure.

Anyway, my take is this: Palin opened the sty door when she used the joke, and whether it was intentional on Obama's part or not, it seems to be fair game. The gun totin', caribou-killin', oil-drinkin', bridge-to-nowhere-lovin' VP candidate should be able to handle herself in the heat of a campaign, yet the chivalrous door holding white males of the Republican Party are stumbling over themselves to defend her honor. Meanwhile they make up lies about Obama wanting to teach kindergartners about the ins and outs of sex, and of consorting with terrorists. So a little comment about lipstick on a pig? Well, if the mud fits...

It Must Be Sweeps Week...

2008-09-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

So I took SJ's little quiz to see what my rating is, and it's quite apparent the censors are snoozing. G? Really? I talk about MILFs and GILF's and GSWLFs on my site, for heaven's sake.

In an attempt to spice up my ratings, here is another quiz I found linked from that quiz:

18

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

That is just SO wrong. But I'll tell ya, it's no worse than a 65% likelihood of eating my buddies...if it ever shows up on my Last.fm widget, you should check out Wonderlick's "Donner Lake". It's the sweetest love song that refers to cannibalism that you'll ever hear.

Palin in Comparison...

2008-09-03T19:44:00.001-07:00

I'm feeling particularly masochistic tonight, watching Sarah Palin's address to the Republican National Convention. I must not have fulfilled my monthly quota of pablum, "aw, shucks-ism", late to the party Hillary worship, and empty jingoism. At any rate, I almost gagged when the GSWLF (I couldn't leave the "I'd" in the acronym, so I've substituted "some would" instead) introduced her family, and especially her hubby. "After twenty years, he's still my guy!" Bleah.

I guess the thing ringing emptiest to me is the screeching cries of the Republicans of sexism on the part of Democrats: that somehow we are implying she can't find time for her five children if she is Vice President. Frankly, if she were to treat the job of VP the way it's supposed to be treated--as opposed to Cheney's de facto shadow President--she is eminently qualified, as a former beauty pageant champion. Shouldn't the VP job really be window dressing? And if she were VP, maybe she'd have more time to spend with her kids than she has as governor, doing all sorts of important parental things, like, oh, I don't know...talking to them?

I love her snotty witticisms. I love how she toes the party line of perpetuating fear in order to garner votes.

I love how she refers to herself as a "gal". I love how the idiotic sheep in the audience keep chanting "Drill, baby, drill!" Mmmm. Let's drill our way out of this particular set of problems.

I love how this crowd is whipped into a frenzy by such an apparent lightweight. It gives me hope for the next eight years, because we simply can't be stupid enough to fall for this again...can we?

Quite a Weekend

2008-09-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well, the Labor Day Weekend has been quite something.

I awoke Saturday to the news that John McCain had named Sarah Palin as his running mate. A quick Google search, and I'd been introduced to the term "GILF" If you're not familiar, quickly click this link for "MILF" (language is rated R, for those with sensitive sensibilities), and then substitute "Governor" for the first word of the acronym. It wasn't long before all sorts of sordid rumors began to surface about her, which I won't dignify in this space. Y'all are capable of looking up dirt on your own. But what struck me is that here McCain's been spending all of this time impugning Obama's fitness for the presidency based on his inexperience, and then he grabs up the first Pro-Life hottie with five kids from an oil-rich state who pops up, regardless of the fact that she's been a governor for a shorter period of time than Obama's been a candidate for President. But have no fear, she does have more extensive executive experience: she was previously the mayor of a town of 9,000. And was on the PTA...which is probably the highest qualification on her resume. Don't get me wrong, Ms. Palin is probably a pretty competent person, and I don't question her intelligence. She does believe we should be teaching creationism in science classes, which makes me question her understanding of constitutional issues, but that's another point entirely. What was most interesting in THIS morning's news is that there is now going to be another "G" word that can be substituted for the "M" word in "MILF": grandmother. Again, that certainly doesn't disqualify her for the job, and her public statement about her daughter's pregnancy strikes the right tone, but I guess my main objection is this is just the type of thing that conservatives love to attack liberals for, and I have a feeling she's going to get a pass on this one from the conservative wing of the Republican party because it is politically expedient to excuse it.

One more thing about McCain, and then I promise to stop: do you think he asked Condoleezza Rice? Because if he didn't, that was the dumbest thing that ever happened. If he wanted to try to take over the Hillary wing of the Democratic party, she was his shining hope. Because do you really think the Pro-Life and evangelical wings were really going to jump ship and vote Democrat? Here is a person with very strong credentials, experience in the highest levels of foreign policy, by most accounts is a very intelligent person (service for the Bush II administration notwithstanding), she counteracts the minority factor enjoyed by Obama, and let's not forget, she carries two--count 'em!--two X chromosomes. Sarah who?

Anyway, Saturday was spent McCain's bombshell, coaching peewee soccer, and wrangling up some lobsters and salmon for a Labor Day Weekend feed. Life is good in late summer.

Then on Sunday we headed to Portland for the Sea Dogs. This was not just any Sea Dogs game, however, and it wasn't important for anything that happened on the field. As a matter of fact, the coolest thing happened on the top of the visitors' dugout in the middle of the first inning.

Back in the spring, Rach found an opportunity for our kids to do some writing and possibly earn a scholarship from NexGen and the Sea Dogs. They had to write a 250 word essay stating whether they would choose to take a scholarship to college to play a sport, or to represent their country in the Olympics. There were three divisions: elementary, middle and high school, and the winners would get a $1000 scholarship. With some heavy prodding, especially from their mom, both kids entered the contest.

The summer went by, and no word came about the contest. Weather Lad asked whether we knew anything, and Rach said since we hadn't heard, she was assuming they must not have chosen his. Then, a couple of weeks ago, we were told that WL was a finalist in his division, and that on August 30th there would be four tickets to the Sea Dogs waiting for him at Will Call. We were all so excited and proud that he'd been chosen as a finalist! We wondered how many other finalists there were, and with guarded optimism, kept thinking "how cool! Even if he doesn't win, we all get to spend a day at Hadlock, watching the Sea Dogs and having a great time!"

We picked up the tickets, with great seats in section 212, row E (right behind home plate and directly above the entrance, so no one would block our view). We were told that a representative of the Sea Dogs would come give us more information before the game. About five minutes prior to scheduled game time, true to their word, a Sea Dogs employee came and told WL that he would meet him on the concourse above the visitors' dugout in the middle of the first inning. The man contacted a few more people, and then was off. Sitting right next to us was a freshman at UMaine who had entered the contest last spring, when she was a senior at Rockland. A nice young lady, she held a bag for Camp Mechuwana, where I attended music camp three times back in the 80's. That was good for small talk.

The pre-game festivities began ("Field of Dreams" day...Hadlock Field..."if you build it, they will come"...players in circa 1923 Portland Eskimos throwback uniforms...entering the field through cornstalks set up in center field, then coming into the stands to show their appreciation to the fans: it was hokey, but fun.)

Then the game began, the top of the first flew by, and Rach and WL made their way down to await word on his fate. As I looked down at the concourse, it seemed there were fewer kids there than I expected. Rach signaled up to me with three fingers, which I assumed to mean there were three finalists for each age group. The stadium announcer drew everyone's attention to the third base dugout, where a representative from NexGen said a few words, and then three kids, one of them WL, were escorted up to the top of the dugout. The high school girl who was seated next to us was presented her scholarship. The middle school age winner was announced. And then, WL, as shocked as he could be (really, why do you think only three kids were called up on the dugout? God bless his naivete...) was announced in front of 3,700 people as the grade k-5 winner of the NextGen/Sea Dogs Field of Dreams scholarship. He began crying in joy. It was quite a moment.

Honestly, if the circumstances had been different, I might have flipped out on the lady about five rows back who bellowed--absolutely BELLOWED--Seussian cheers for the Sea Dogs FOR THE ENTIRE GAME ("Through thick and thin, YOU'RE OUR KIN, and WE NEVER GIVE UP!", and "Come on HALL, hit it over the WALL!", and "Come on LARS, hit it to MARS!", "Come on ZACK, use your BACK!". "We're behind you ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!") My kids saw a different side of me, as I mumbled wise-guy responses: "It's kind of fun to be QUIET...You ought to TRY IT!", and the like. But given the beautiful day, the circumstances, and the fact that the hometown team clinched a playoff berth even as they lost 5-4, thanks to the ineptitude of the Binghamton Mets. Add to that a Clay Buchholz sighting in his street clothes, and a dinner at the Great Lost Bear, and you've got a pretty good day.

Later that night we watched Food Network where Bobby Flay took on an Asian dumpling throwdown. They looked so good that I dreamed about them on Sunday night, and Monday was largely devoted to drinking good coffee, kicking back, and making some pretty yummy Asian dumplings (recipe...with some substitutions).

Tomorrow it's back to school, and that is just fine. It was a great weekend.

Long Time, No See...

2008-08-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last logged in to the blog. I've been bad.

The world has changed since I last wrote: my wife went away and came back*; a war started; the Olympics began; the family and I went to Cape Cod; ten cords of wood showed up at the house, and now I have to house it; it's rained pretty much every single day; oh, and then there was this thing about some left fielder in Boston**. I didn't hear much about it, but apparently some people were pretty worked up about it.

*It's not quite as dramatic as that: she went out to California for a few days to visit her ailing uncle. Then she came back. But I wondered whether she would...

**I LOVE JASON BAY!!! He's still with the Pirates, right? I think if the Red Sox could get that guy, this whole Manny thing might go away. Theo, make it so. ***

***Apparently I've been a little out of the loop. Welcome to Boston, Jason Bay.

Anyway, I think the point has been made. I've been away for a while. I've been away so long, I'm holding conversations with a volleyball named Mr. Wilson. (Incidentally, isn't it time for another Tom Hanks movie? What's the last bad movie you saw that had Tom Hanks?****)

****The title was "The Terminal", but I just called it interminable.

So what is the point to all of this? The point is I've been away too long. The good news is that my physics class ends this week, and that, in my estimation, is the culprit for all this time away from the keyboard. I vow to do better. Though I've been neglecting you all, my newfound classmates on line have benefited greatly from my input. We were talking about electric charges, and since it was about all I had to contribute (here I am a 7th grade science teacher and I'm just taking my first physics class...what a farce!) I started a thread called "Behold, the dryer sheet". Believe it or not, it was one of the more popular threads of last week. What a proud moment in my education.

So, let me sign off now with the solemn vow to spend a little more time spilling my thoughts on you. When I have time.

Blogging Live From the MEA Conference

2008-07-29T11:22:00.001-07:00

Silly me, I forgot my camera so I can't share any pictures of Southern Maine Community College, so I've linked it. Amazing how this place has changed since the mid 90's when I came down to apply for a youth mentoring position. It's Tuesday, and my Web2.0 workshop began at 2 pm, and I'm feeling a little too proficient. After all, I have a blog, I have a MySpace account (never use it) and I'm not YouTube phobic. I was hoping there would be people here who were using Web2.0 in classrooms, but mostly it's people who are just progressing beyond email. No problem. There are some cool things that go along with the presentation that I can take home.

We're also moving toward talking about using Web2.0 applications for association issues. That could be very useful to the Dirigo Education Association, sharing information and ideas between leadership and membership. Lord knows we can use that.

I am commuting during this conference, because of my aforementioned Conceptual Physics class. I know that if I were to stay down here I'd end up frittering away my time, not doing my physics work, not being able to use my equipment at school. This way I can spend an hour and a half driving each way for the next three days, then frittering away my time in the comfort of my own living room. Easy peasy!

But seriously, I found a cool way for me to use that time effectively: I'm listening to my Richard Muller "Physics for Future Presidents" lectures on iTunes while I commute! This week we are talking about waves, light and sound. The Muller lectures will be my companion for the week.

Tomorrow and Thursday I will be in the "New Leaders Academy". Somehow I feel like the Politburo is molding me to the will of the party, and I am becoming part of the apparatchik. I'm simply not good at making my mind play along with these activities. Is it weird that I'd really rather be working on my physics?

Where y'at?

2008-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

Not that I expect a whole lot of exotic locales outside of the River Valley...

...and proud of it!

2008-07-23T19:30:00.001-07:00

67%
...but if I were a TECH geek I could figure out why this graphic comes out all funky. Andi I'd even care.

Renaissance Man

2008-07-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to SJ, there are all these "memes" for us to post, and take the place of the real effort of blogging. Apparently I'm a renaissance man--which I think must be code for "not good enough at anything in particular to claim it as a skill". I have a difficult time comparing myself to da Vinci, but I like to think I'm as studly as the Vitruvian Man...and I also like to think of jelly donuts as fruit and fiber.

Which Famous Artist Are You?
	You are part Leonardo da Vinci. You are the "Renaissance man" and you live to be productive. Great at everything you put your mind to, you have great passion and drive. But of all qualities, your curiosity is your best trait.
	You are part Ansel Adams. Your artistic tool of choice is the camera, but you've got lots of other skills as well. Spoiled when you were young, you grew up to be a loving person and you have a deep affinity for nature and all things black and white.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Wordle Up!

2008-07-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

Man, if I thought there were people out there clamoring for my posts, I'd feel guilty about my inactivity. Conceptual Physics is using up most of my RAM, so I haven't even given much thought to what I'd say even if I could blog. Thank goodness for Wordle.

I love that "nekkid" shows up...

...but where the heck is "shuttlecock"? Tell me if you find it.

Coming Home in Pieces

2008-07-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say about this, except I debated posting it because of the graphic footage of the reality of war. James is one of my favorite bands, and I think the lyrics of this song express my feelings about Iraq quite perfectly.

The James album "Hey Ma" will be released in the U.S. in September, but I found it on eBay as an import, in case you are interested.

But Enough About Me...or Not...

2008-07-07T18:58:00.000-07:00

I am...

having a hard time keeping up with blogging, especially now that summer is acting like summer.

I want....

to want less.

I have...

never understood the fascination with Michael Jackson. Or Madonna.

I wish...

there were a way for me to drop out of society and farm garlic for a living.

I hate...

bigotry.

I fear...

very little except for my childrens' and grandchildrens' futures.

I hear...

the voices of generations before in the words of my students.

I search...

for rainbows every time the sun shines after rain.

I wonder...

how we're going to use our ingenuity to get out of this mess.

I regret...

anything I've ever done that wasn't in line with what my heart told me to do. My heart is usually right.

I love...

rain on a metal roof.

I ache...

in the morning, sometimes when I sit too long, after gardening...pretty much always.

I always...

avoid answering the telephone when there is someone else around to answer it.

I usually...

treat everyone with respect they deserve. I wish this could be an "I always..."

I am not...

into yoga/and I have half a brain...(any Rupert Holmes fans out there?)

I dance...

only to music that I find worthy of the energy, and only spontaneously.

I sing...

better than I think I do. I'm working on my confidence.

I never...

have had much confidence in my abilities.

I rarely...

argue when I don't know I'm right. It's an infuriating trait to some.

I cry....

more about happy things than about sad.

I am not always...

good at remembering.

I lose...

my temper very rarely, but it's not pretty when I do.

I'm confused...

about the formulas in the physics class I'm taking. Old mental blocks die hard.

I miss...

Too Much Joy. They wrote the soundtrack for my life from age 18 to 30.

I need...

much less than I want.

I should...

eat less meat.

"Those Swim Trunks Are Dope!"

2008-06-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

Note: This entry is about sports. I promise to try and treat the topic in a manner befitting it and keep it light. Sports really shouldn't be taken as seriously as we take them.

So, we were sitting around watching the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team Trials with Mike and Katie tonight, and talking about the technology. I don't know if any of you have watched swimming lately, but there aren't too many OOB-ready Speedos in the pool these days.

The latest in controversial swim wear is not controversial for what it doesn't cover, but for what it DOES cover: Olympic distances in world record times.

The Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit is made with NASA technology, the seams sealed with a laser to reduce drag. The fabric reduces drag by 10%, and increases "oxygen efficiency" (whatever that is). Swimmers are corseted into the suits, with all of their "parts" held into a more aerodynamic--ahem--"package". Of the 22 swimming world records to fall since March, 21 of them were broken by swimmers wearing the LZR. Each suit runs around $500 retail, but of course the elite swimmers get a deal. This leaves "lesser" swimmers splashing around in the shallow end of the pool, looking for money to improve their performances.

Mike mentioned the term "tech doping", which is what one Italian swim coach has called this technological advance.

But sports has seen technological advances before: can you imagine how badminton would look today if we still used live turkeys instead of shuttlecocks? Really, that's why we started calling them "birdies". You could look it up, but I don't suggest it. And at one point, golf balls were pouches of leather filled with feathers. Which led to making "birdies" and "eagles" on the links. It all comes together, now, doesn't it?

But I digress...often...and unabashedly. It occurred to me that the most fair way around all of this is to begin a movement. The Nekkid Olympics.

Some sports are far better suited to the Nekkid Olympics movement, and swimming is one of the best. First off, if you've never skinny dipped, you owe it to yourself. I can't imagine any feeling that would more closely approximate what it must feel like in the womb, before we are born. Our elite swimmers should compete against each other naked, to remove any technological advantages enjoyed by some.

Keep in mind, the earliest Olympians competed nude, if we are to believe what history books tell us*.

*I wouldn't advise it.

Floor exercise in gymnastics might work, as well as the bars, the rings, and the vault. However, the pommel horse might prove too revealing: the Thomas Flair indeed!

Track would be fine, I think, except the hurdles and the pole vault.

However, I really don't want to see weightlifting in that particular light. Let's keep those athletes clothed. As a matter of fact, let's make them wear MORE clothes. Please. And the one event we have historic proof of being contested nude, Greco-Roman wrestling, should also happen while fully clothed...at least on the global stage. What people do in the privacy of their own homes is their own business.

The Hot 100

2008-06-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

1) I sweat when the dew point gets above 30˚F...
2) even if the temperature is below 3˚C.
3) I fancy myself a sports fan...
4) but music is really my first love...
5) but really my first love is my family...
6) and especially my wife. (Didn't think I could save that, did you?)
7) I love John Stewart and Stephen Colbert because they are clever...
8) and hate country music that tries to be clever.
9) When I was a kid the only garden chore I would do is hit rocks out of it with a stick...
10) and I've taught Weather Lad he can perform the same chore.
11) I've lost every competitive fiber in my body since high school.
12) That doesn't bother me.
13) I considered doing this list with song lyrics that contained each number.
14) Sadly, I could probably get pretty far with that.
15) It saddens me how far Mike Myers has fallen...
16) and Eddie Murphy...
17) and Adam Sandler.
18) Writing in this fashion severely cramps my style...
19) and it's probably good for me.
20) In my freshman picture from high school I look like Wil Ferrell in the cowbell skit, minus the sunglasses (I presume you've met my belly in previous pictures?)
21) Wil Ferrell makes me laugh even in his most stupid moments.
22) Jim Carrey does not make me laugh, except in his least stupid moments.
23) My favorite baseball players are the ones who do the little things right...
24) which is why Dwight Evans is my all-time favorite (the REAL #24--sorry, Manny)
25) I admire the detail-oriented people in my life...
26) though sometimes I don't understand them.
27) I fail to see why anyone would want to spend their time reading this.
28) I believe kids need to spend less time doing things adults are running.
29) I believe nations should be abolished and dissolved...
30) but I have no idea how this happens.
31) It's pretty damned sad that Zimbabwe is making Kenya look good right now.
32) As unlikely as it is, I feel Obama could actually make a difference. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but that's how I see it.
33) I originally attended college at Marist in Poughkeepsie, NY.
34) I was a communications major, intent on being the next Dan Rather.
35) That lasted one semester, as I hated New York and the frantic pace.
36) My communications experience was finally put to use at WABI-TV 5 in Bangor.
37) I was a production assistant for $5.75 an hour.
38) If the pay had been better, I might have stayed in television.
39) My faith in America has been profoundly shaken by the Bush II administration...
40) and that is no exaggeration.
41) I was born in Barnstable, MA, and lived the first 8 years of my life on Cape Cod.
42) My parents worked at Camp Arcadia in Otisfield, and moved the family to Weld when we visited some friends there and decided it was the place for us.
43) This fall will be the first soccer season in 15 years that I'm not coaching school soccer.
44) That doesn't seem possible.
45) The last time that happened I was a grad student at the University of Tennessee.
46) MS in Political Science, if you must know. One year. $15,000. Some lessons are more expensive than others.
47) I have just been accepted into the MS in Science Education program at Montana St.
48) I don't plan to drop out of this program.
49) I take pleasure in the simple things...
50) I love my headphones...
51) and my wedding ring.
52) That was for Rach.
53) Human nature scares the hell out of me. We're pretty ingenious, but not very smart.
54) The concept of hunting appeals to me, but I'm not good at killing things.
55) The only mammal I've ever intentionally killed was a woodchuck...
56) in my mother's garden, with a Browning .22.
57) It really bothered me.
58) Oh, yeah, I've killed countless mice with traps.
59) This doesn't bother me in the least.
60) Somehow, fishing doesn't bother me, either.
61) I borrowed "The Omnivore's Dilemma" from Sue BC and I hope to get a chance to read it.
62) I have one sister who is six years older than me.
63) We get along great, but I'm not very good at keeping in touch.
64) The lure of Aunt Beast is calling; I can't wait to take her out.
65) The best part of marriage is the shared experiences and points of reference.
66) I love that we already had so many shared points of reference before we even met.
67) My short-term memory is horrible, and it has nothing to do with THC. I was born this way.
68) I can definitely relate to Dory.
69) The Olympics in Beijing are going to be hard to watch, but I'll do it anyway.
70) B-minor is my hardest chord to play on my guitar.
71) I love my guitar, a Seagull Artist M series, made from sustainable Canadian cedar.
72) Bedazzling simply freaks me out.
73) My summer list of to-do's includes an Earth oven.
74) It's almost time to begin my summer professional reading.
75) I enjoy the way I've become more true to my ideals as I've gotten older.
76) My mid-life crisis is not likely to involve an expensive sports car, but an expensive electric guitar.
77) This is harder than I thought it would be.
78) Sweet William is my favorite flower.
79) I get more pleasure than I should from mowing my lawn.
80) If I could ever get a dog I'd look into Bernese Mountain Dogs.
81) The one summer when my cantaloupes flourished was my favorite garden EVER.
82) My garden is a constant source of joy...
83) as well as frustration and disappointment.
84) I'm troubled by society's misguided attitudes toward winning and losing.
85) When I was a kid, all I wanted to be able to do was dunk a basketball.
86) As a freshman, I could grab the rim.
87) That was as good as it ever got, but I was a pretty tough rebounder.
88) My large butt was the main reason for my rebounding success: hard to get around me!
89) I quit baseball after eighth grade because I didn't think I could hit anymore.
90) Then I ran track, and am glad I did.
91) When I moved to Peru I played fast pitch softball in the Oxie League.
92) Turns out I could still hit pretty well...I miss it.
93) I had back surgery about 8 years ago, and my body won't tolerate anything high impact for very long anymore.
94) My back is really good, and biking doesn't seem to bother it much.
95) I will be trading my upright diamond frame bike for a recumbent tadpole trike in the near future...
96) so I can do a cross country ride.
97) Sometimes Spongebob Squarepants makes me laugh. I'm sorry.
98) Traveling with my family is one of my most favorite things to do.
99) New York Super Fudge Chunk is one of the greatest discoveries of man.
100) This was fun, but I'm out of stuff to say.

Garlic! (The Great Scape)

2008-06-21T19:18:00.001-07:00

Alright, it's time to humor me (as if that isn't always the case...) I picked the scapes off one of my varieties of garlic today, and the other two will be ready in the next couple of days. In honor of this momentous event, I am writing my "how I grow garlic" blog. A couple of people in the RVB community have expressed some interest in this topic, so for those of you who care, here it is. For those of you who don't, I'll try to do something less, um, agricultural before too long. I hope to never do this again, unless I come up with some wild variation on my technique, or I start to grow some exotic varieties of garlic*.

*Is there really an "exotic" variety of garlic? Garlic is ubiquitous. To me it is like calling something like water or air exotic. It is far too important and central to life on earth to be cheapened by labels like "exotic". I apologize to garlic for even suggesting there might be something exotic about it.

For now, I will stick to the basics: I grow hardneck varieties called Georgian Crystal, Chesnok, and something that was once probably Romanian Red or something like it, but I lost track of the name and now I call it "Dave's Own Red". You're allowed to do this with garlic once you are reusing your own seed garlic, and you've done it for at least three years in succession in the same soil. I just made that rule up. Why, you may ask, do I grow hardneck? Because it is not finicky about soil, it grows in most conditions--hot, cold, dry, wet--and despite some reports to the contrary, it keeps pretty well. I've put up our garlic in July, and if stored in cool dark places, have run out in April before it sprouted or got soft. If you're considering growing your own garlic (note: DO IT!) don't be fooled by the hype of softneck. Most softneck varieties come from warmer climes than our own, while the hardnecks tend to originate in Russia and other unforgiving places.*

*Like Washington.

Anyway, hardneck is cool because it roasts really well, but it can't be braided like softnecks can. That's okay because garlic braids are kind of prissy.

Growing Garlic

Step 1:
After buying your seed garlic from a reputable company (like this, this, or this) WAIT UNTIL LATE OCTOBER OR EARLY NOVEMBER TO BEGIN THE PLANTING PROCESS!!! Then peel the papery outer skin off the bulbs. If you've bought more than one variety, you might want to make row markers so you can know which variety is which (unless you just want to name them for yourself later on, which I'll admit is very satisfying). Avoid messing with the harder, inner skin, which will protect the seed bulb through the long winter and into spring. If it is damaged, your bulbs will be more susceptible to rot.

Step 2:
Prepare your soil. I like to have beds about three feet wide, and about 25 feet long. I usually till my soil by hand, with an EZ Digger (aka Korean Hand Plow) duct taped to the end of a rake handle. I love the utility of this tool, and if you don't have one you should order it now...I'll wait... Seriously, it will become your favorite tool.

Often I will sow garlic in soil that has had some sort of cover crop growing on it, such as oats or buckwheat. That keeps the nitrogen in the soil, and since garlic is planted long after the first frost, you can usually just till the organic matter into the soil and then plant. Every couple of years I will add some compost and soil amendments (SulPoMag, bloodmeal, greensand, Menafee humates, etc.) but the key, according to a number of garlic famers I've spoken to, is to keep sowing it in the same soil year after year. Do not rotate garlic crops.

Step 3:
When have my three foot rows, I like to create three shallow furrows about 10" apart, the full length of each row. Then I just drop in the individual cloves every six inches or so.

From there, it's a simple matter of covering the bulbs with about two inches of soil, and tamping down the soil, and covering the rows with mulch. DO NOT SKIMP ON THIS STEP! The garlic cloves will begin to put out roots in the time between planting and solid frost. This will help it stabilize itself for spring, but the mulch will cut down on the amount of frost heaving the bulbs will go through.

Step 4:
Fuhgeddaboutit! This is my favorite step. It is what makes garlic such a gratifying crop to grow: your work is really mostly done, save for a little weeding in the spring. In the past, I raked the mulch off the beds as soon as the soil opened up in the spring. This year I found if I left it on, the garlic came up through the mulch, and the weeds didn't emerge nearly as badly as in the past.

Step 5:
Harvest. For me this has been happening in mid-to-late July, which seems to be earlier than some in the area. I have no idea why this is, and I'm not too worried. I just follow these two simple guidelines:
1) break off the scapes when they are big enough to snap off;
2) pull the garlic gently* from the ground when about 70% of the leaves have turned yellow.**

Breaking off the scapes allows the garlic to put its energy into storing energy in its bulbs, which makes for the bulbs being as big as they can be. The jury is still out as to whether this makes an appreciable difference in yield, but there is another good reason to harvest the scapes: they are yummy. I've had pickled garlic scapes that are to die for, and am still looking for a good recipe to make our own. If you allow the scapes to continue growing, eventually they will develop into a flower-like bundle of tiny garlic bulbs (bulbils) on the end of stalk. These can be planted, and will form one solitary bulb the following year, and then those bulbs can be planted and will yield full sized heads. It's a pretty cool process, and all along the way the scapes, bulbils and bulbs are edible. I would suggest against eating the foliage though. Pretty chewy.

*Pulling gently is advisable because it's no fun digging through the soil trying to find the broken-off head of garlic.

**If the leaves get too dry, the garlic won't keep well, because there won't be enough skin to protect it. If not enough of the leaves are yellow, the skin will be too thick, and the garlic--you guessed it--won't store well.

Step 6:
Storage. Hang up the freshly harvested garlic on a clothesline somewhere. After about two weeks, it will dry out, and the leaves will become dry and rustly. At this point you can brush the dirt off the bulbs, snip off the roots, and cut off the leaves and stalk about two inches above the bulb. Being hardneck, you will need a fairly sturdy set of clippers or scissors to do this.

Then, store it in a cool, dark place. A pantry will do just fine. And then, enjoy the fruits of your labor for the next eight months, when you will see the next year's crop just beginning to peek through the mulch.

Hey Lucky You, Lucky Me

2008-06-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

A few entries back I talked about theme songs, and which songs seem to fit our lives. Given the events of the last three days, I'm submitting "Lucky Me" by Great Big Sea as Rachel's and my joint theme song:

He was born a sailors son
Nothing came easy or free
He suffered the squalls all the rises and falls
And everything else in between
But he says storms always fade after they've had their way
They're never as bad as they seem

As long as the rivers still run to the seas
Hey Lucky You Lucky Me

Who'd ever thought for a moment
She'd have to grow up so fast
School beauty queen with a child at sixteen
Swore that her fortunes had passed
But blessings can hide in the strangest disguise
I know that she would agree

As long as the rivers still run to the seas
Hey Lucky You Lucky Me

Hey look at me in the spotlight
Ripped jeans and rock and roll hair
Feeling so cool but I'd be such a Fool
Singing to no one out there
So Hey take a bow every band needs a crowd
And I've got a song we can sing

As long as the rivers still run to the seas
Hey Lucky You Lucky Me

I'll back up a little for those who aren't up to date. Rach had her graduation ceremony for three of her students on Friday, and was in disbelief at the outpouring of support and thanks given to her by students, families, and her administrators. I was not that surprised, for what she does is far beyond what most of us recognize: she takes kids who dislike the traditional school setting intensely for whatever reason, and gives them a place where they can learn comfortably. It takes lots of tough love, but amidst the "tough" part of that, her students really come to recognize the "love" part. It is an amazing process, and I admire her greatly for what she does.

On Friday I was unable to attend that particular ceremony, because I was participating in the Trek Across Maine. I'd hemmed and hawed for months as to whether I wanted to pull into the Middle School on our way through Dixfield. The positives would be that I could model for the kids about volunteering and doing things for a good cause, and I'd get to see my kids on the last day of school. The drawbacks would be disruption of the kids on the last day of school, and everyone seeing me in my tight bicycling jersey. By Friday morning I had decided that I would zip through the Middle School on my way to Weld, just to check in on my home room, who by that time should have been playing kickball in a 7th grade double elimination tournament.

At around 10AM the Cyclin' Cougars of SAD #21 pulled out of the rest stop in Rumford, and headed toward Dixfield. A phone call was placed to the central office, and as we wheeled up Weld Street about 20 minutes later, we were greeted by a small crowd outside Dirigo High School. It was nice to stop for ten minutes or so to chat, as other Trekkers whizzed by wondering why our team was pulled over, talking to people on the sidewalk.

The small group I was riding with then pulled out and headed north on 142, with a short side trip into Dirigo Middle School planned. They would be surprised to see me!
Well, the surprise was on me. At the end of the access road to the school, I was greeted by this sight (photo credits to SJ):

The seventh grade team was assembled by the road, cheering on other bicyclists as they went by, until our small group pulled into view. They then started cheering for ME exclusively, and after I pulled to the other side of the road to visit with them, completely shocked and at a loss for words, they gathered around asking questions about the trip, about my bike, about the other bikers, and anything involved in the Trek. It was a strange and humbling feeling, being a bit of a celebrity there on my own turf. I really didn't answer their questions very eloquently, but I hope everyone involved realized how touched I was by their kindness.

I am told this was pulled together by the teachers on my team, with help from the students. Whoever was responsible, it was an amazing moment in my teaching career as they chanted my name as I pulled away. The next twelve miles to Weld flew by, as I alternated between shaking my head and tearing up every time I thought about what they had done. Regardless of what our kids learn in their subject areas, it is clear that both Rachel's and my kids have somewhere learned the more important lessons: it is the connections we make with other people in life that matter most.

Lucky us.

Happy Feet!

2008-06-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

With all the talk lately of comfortable sandals and taking pictures of our feet, I thought I'd join the fun and take a new angle: check out the sandal tan lines on my feet! That is a great sign of late spring turning into summer: without trying, I have worn my sandals enough in warm sunny weather, that I have telltale Keen lines on my feet. It's a good thing.

This is the End...My Only Friend...The End

2008-06-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

My list of lasts has begun. As a teacher you can always come up with some fairly frivolous "lasts" of the year: last workshop day in August, last standardized test, last formal observation by the principal--you get the picture.

It is when the REAL lasts start rolling by that we realize "Holy crap, another year and I still haven't figured out how to get everything done that I planned." I hope my friends and colleagues who are retiring aren't plagued by this type of thought. I can't imagine my golden years being spent worrying that we didn't get around to doing the water lab back in 2003. Knowing my memory, that isn't anything for me to worry about.

Today marks my last Friday because next Friday I will be in a throng 1,500 strong, heading to Belfast on two skinny wheels on the Trek Across Maine. Every day from here on in will be a last of some sort.

I heard word of a long-time special ed. teacher in a neighboring district who recently had his last PET of a long career. I believe he's been teaching since at least the mid-1970's, if not the early '70's. He is still a young guy, in my eyes, still enjoys the kids he works with, and is only really happy to be leaving because of the proliferation of paperwork enjoyed by special ed teachers. When (or if) I ever retire, I hope it is on terms similar to his. If I don't still enjoy working with kids, I should be put out to pasture long before my statutory retirement age. It should be that way for all educators, and anyone else whose attitude and demeanor affects the future of others. This is why the Maine Legislature screwed up so royally under John McKernan when they raided the retirement fund and forced teachers to work longer before they could retire without penalty. They effectively forced ineffective teachers to stay in linger, teaching ineffectively for even longer than they would have and making an artificial barrier younger, eager teachers. Hand in hand with that comes the step increases for older, more experienced teachers, which cause districts to pay even more money for (presumably) less enthusiastic and effective teachers.

It would be foolish to suggest that all veteran teachers are ineffective or less enthusiastic: indeed, I've seen plenty who are good teachers even beyond the traditional retirement age, and I've seen plenty of teachers who don't improve much throughout their entire careers. But for the most part, it does seem fairly common for the passion to fade with passing years.

So with each passing "last" of the school year, I am reminded of summer. Summer leads into fall, where the lasts will all begin again and cycle throughout the year. It's hard to know what my reaction will be when all my "lasts" are really final. I hope by then that I will still love working with kids, and that I leave this profession on my own terms. That will be a good day.

Sometimes the Answer is Right In Front of You

2008-05-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

One of my seventh graders with an inquiring mind ("Inquiring minds want to know!") today asked me what my theme song is. My first reaction was...yep, you guessed it, fear. So much of the music I enjoy is either on the inappropriate-for-seventh-graders side, or too-obscure-for-them-to-care side, or the over-their-heads-side (hey, three sides: that's a triangle!) that I struggled for a while. The answer I gave was unsatisfactory, and only led to more questioning. I should have known better. I made the mistake of telling them it wasn't really appropriate. Well didn't their twisted little minds start churning: "Is it 'Bad Touch'?" "NO! Does your mother even know you guys listen to that?", I asked, blushing. "Heh, heh, heh!", they evilly chuckle, answering that question. When they asked me the question, my original response was far more benign. I thought "Satan is My Motor", by CAKE. But it's really not that. I like to think of myself as evil sometimes, but it's an act I have a hard time pulling off. I'm much more mischievous than evil.

My other immediate thought was "Pirate", by Too Much Joy:

I've got a beard/I've got a gold hoop in my ear
It's time to rape and pillage/and break the windows in this village
Everyone thinks he's crazy (everyone is right)
Everyone should sleep WITH EVERYONE TONIGHT, Who-o-oah!
I'm just sittin' here, waitin' for a tra-a-ain (ooh, ooh)
Tomorrow I'll be waitin' here again (ah-ha)
Well, the pirate in me/is lo-o-ost
Somewhere at sea
Oooooh, ba da da-da da
Somewhere at sea
Oooooh, ba da da-da da

Now TMJ is my official band, the band of which I feel I must be a long lost member. I am still planning a Too Much Joy blog in the not too distant future (I think it might be called "Ode to Joy") and there are numerous TMJ songs that could make my list, but "Pirate" is a little too, IDK, immature for me at this advanced stage of my life. That was me at 22, which is exactly what I love about TMJ. They are me at different times of my life. More in the "Ode to Joy" post to come.

Then I started to think like a major league closer: Papelbon with "Shipping Up to Boston", Trevor Hoffman's "Hell's Bells", Eric Gagne's "What Have You Done for Me Lately" (not really). If I were a major league closer, my entry music would have to be Kenny Rogers' "Long Arm of the Law" just for the irony. All these closers try to be so tough with their personal music. Imagine a guy coming in to a well timed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". The batter would be laughing so hard he couldn't even see the ball. Kind of like all those pitchers with the picture of Jason Giambi in a gold lame tiger print thong indelibly etched in their psyche--how could you possibly pitch to him? (For those of you who missed it, Giambi recently revealed that is the finery he wears when he needs to break out of a slump. Even more disturbingly, he also reported that numerous teammates have worn the thing to break out of slumps. I have a bunch of punchlines I can't even bring myself to type.)

Really, the question plagued me for quite some time; even up until I began to write this entry. Then it dawned on me: three months ago when I started this blog, I think I had it all right: "There's Always Someone Cooler Than You", by Ben Folds. It's on my lastfm.com playlist to the right:

Smile
Like you've got nothing to prove
No matter what you might do
There's always someone out there cooler than you

Think about it and get back to me if you can find anything you think is more appropriate, because I just can't. And feel free to send me your thoughts on your own theme songs. It's been kind of a fun exercise.

Power of Ten

2008-05-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'll play.

Ten years ago I was a new dad, toting our little butterball around, watching Blues Clues and Sesame Street, sleeping very little, and amazed at the growth rate of the human mind.

Ten months ago it was July, sweet July. We visited Rach's brother in Chicago for a couple of days. We love to travel, which is not going to work so well with these high fuel prices.

Ten weeks ago I, too, was celebrating the end of Rach's cheering season and looking forward to the coming track season. She joined us as the second assistant track coach this year, and as far as I know, neither one of us has wanted to kill the other one yet.

Ten days ago was a Friday, May 9th. I still had a student teacher then, but it was a Free Form Friday so I was teaching. Free Form is when my students get to work on projects of their own choice--anything as long as it can be fit under the umbrella of science. Some of the most fun we have is figuring out how to make a kid's love for skateboarding into a science project. It's really pretty easy. Though having a student teacher was great, I missed teaching my kids and I was unwilling to give up my Free Form Fridays.

Ten hours ago it was 11 am and I was finishing up my lesson right before lunch. We've been discussing comets in preparation for our trip to the Challenger Learning Center coming up this Friday. It's always a great experience, with kids doing more than they thought they were capable of doing, under the watchful eye of some very dedicated and passionate educators. It's a trip we will keep making as long as the money is there, even though it is a stressful lead-up.

Ten minutes ago Jason Varitek hit an absolute bomb to right field. Approximately ten minutes ago I realized it was the sixth inning and there is still a "0" in the middle column of the Royals' box score. Dare I hope for Jon Lester?

Ten seconds ago Jon Lester struck out the last batter of the seventh inning, with still a "0" in the middle column of the Royals' box score. I love how baseball is such a superstitious sport.

Ten seconds from now the Red Sox will come to bat in the bottom of the seventh. They already lead 7-0, and I hope they don't hit too much more because it might ruin Lester's chance to add to history.

Ten minutes from now I might be on the edge of my seat, hoping for Lester to make history. He's been such a tease up until now, but he's beginning to show signs of living up to his potential.*

Ten hours from now I'll be getting up for another day of teaching, sipping my first cup of coffee (Jim's Organic French Roast bought online: $50/5 lbs. if you buy in bulk makes it the same price as Green Mountain...not cheap, but worth every penny).

Ten days from now will be the eve of the MVC track meet. Rach and I will be in charge of the team, while Donna is at the rehearsal dinner for her older son's wedding. I have no idea how our team will do, but I am pretty sure that my earlier forecasts of our boys being a top 3 team were wildly optimistic. Some of our more gifted newcomers didn't really pan out, and health issues have bitten us. Whatever happens, it will be a learning experience. I find track offers more opportunities for young athletes to find out about themselves and their capabilities than other sports.

Ten weeks from now will be July again: sweet July. The garden will be starting to provide the first zucchini, and the garlic will be harvested and drying. With luck there will be other farmers in the area willing to trade their wares for my garlic. It's fun to show up to the farmers' markets with my garlic and have other farmers salivate...it's really the only crop I've figured out how to do well.

Ten months from now, as SJ has so heartlessly reminded me, will be March again. We'll be in the throes of MEA testing, and nervously trying to figure out what will happen the next fall, when our school districts merge. I am not looking forward to this.

Ten years from now I will be fifty, and I hope I will look back on this night as the night I blogged during a night that turned out to be one of Jon Lester's career highlights.

*It is now a bit more than ten minutes later. Jon Lester completed his no-hitter, and I feel somehow like I was a part of it. Isn't that kind of pathetic?

&%$*ing Forty

2008-05-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

One caveat: the language in the video I've linked in the title of this post is somewhat strong. When there are kids present, John sings it as "Truckin' Forty". It definitely loses something in translation.

I've been trying to rationalize why I haven't blogged since April 29th, coincidentally the day before my 40th birthday. There were all sorts of plans along the way: I was tempted to blog about the "Wizard of Oz" presentation put on by the middle school recently (working title: "Oh My"...);and on May 4th I was tempted to blog about my favorite band of all time, Too Much Joy (start with their Wikipedia page and if you aren't charmed by the tales of being sued by Bozo the Clown or arrested in Florida for performing 2Live Crew's "As Nasty as They Wanna Be" you have no sense of humor) because it was the first anniversary of their lone reunion concert. Yeah, it's a little bit of thin solace to grasp onto...

I was also considering writing a post composed entirely of run-on sentences, but then realized that happens EVERY time.

But it really has become apparent that I was just waiting until I was ready to blog about being forty. It's kind of funny, because I've never been that hung up on chronological age. Or at least I thought I wasn't. My sideburns started going gray about ten years ago, so that didn't exactly sneak up on me. I haven't had any inexplicable urge to purchase a hot sports car. This is as close to that as I've come, and my reasoning is that if I'm ever going to ride across country it would be best not to have a seat shaped like a 2x4 wedged into uncomfortable places.

I did, however, look in the mirror about a week before my birthday and notice some wrinkles I'd never noticed. There are a couple by the corners of my eyes, crow's feet, and a new one around my mouth. Happily, they all seem to be smile-related. That's always been my consolation about my wrinkles: they are in all the areas that come from smiling, so I figure things must be good.

These new wrinkles made me think about people who rely on their youth and vigor for their livelihoods: news came out at about the same time I was discovering the new lines on my face, of Scarlett Johansson, who lost a role to Emma Watson because, at the age of 23, she was "too old". There is something wrong with that. I am thankful for being in a professional position where forty is not "old", and it's not "green". It's an age that commands some respect, even when I might not have earned it, yet I'm not so old that I have to worry about buying Depends just yet.

There are still plenty of professional athletes older than I am (though it's becoming abundantly clear that many of them are extending their youths artificially). And if you listen to the song linked in the title of this post, you'll realize that 40 is a relatively young rock star. And then there's the line:
"I guess I'm f-ing forty, but I'm better off than some--
I might be f-ing forty, but you're f-ing forty-one!"

Anyone wanna start a band?

Loons in Stony Brook

2008-04-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

After a night of heavy rainfall, there was a pair of loons in the flooded stream by our house this morning. I crossed the bridge in the truck, looked to the left, and saw a large gray bird awkwardly waddling from Mrs. Sicotte's field and into the water. Then I saw her mate, an impressively large loon, dark black on the back and shocking white on his breast and underside.

Realizing I didn't have my camera, I pulled the not-so-advisable trick of backing over the bridge to run inside and get my camera. When I came back out with Weather Lad in tow, the loons had swum into the woods, and were bouncing around on the rapids. They seemed to be rafting through the rough spots, then paddling to the slower moving water to make their ways back upstream and do it all over again. My one concern is that the high water will make them think Mrs. Sicotte's field is a good place to nest, and it really isn't. I would love to hear a loon call, just once, tonight. Then they can fly off to a more appropriate place...if they have enough runway.

***Note: after looking up some information on loons, it is likely the gray one is either non-breeding, or juvenile, due to the gray color. Maybe we don't have to worry about little loon chicks being brought up in Mrs. Sicotte's field, though it would sure be cute.

Signs of Home

2008-04-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Herkimer Area

Back in New England

Our backs to the setting sun...

we see signs of home.

"Hey it's good to be back home again..."

We woke up at a service area on the New York State Thruway, somewhere west of Rochester. Despite the big rigs whizzing by at 80 mph all night, we both managed to get a full night's sleep. After refreshing ourselves in the rest rooms, some breakfast (Ben got two donuts at Tim Horton's, while I opted for a breakfast sandwich from Fuddrucker's), and use of the WiFi to post yesterday's entry, we hit the road. Our only other stops on the Thruway were for fuel for Aunt Beast and fuel for me, in the form of Starbuck's. The greatest improvement to interstate travel in the past 25 years has not been automated payment or rumble strips. The single greatest improvement has come in the quality of coffee available on the interstates. Though Starbuck's, in my mind, is little better than Mall Wart, their coffee is quite good and it made my life on the interstate much better.

Though the distance is long and the toll hefty, the Thruway isn't a bad drive. It's mostly pretty, with enough points of interest to keep one awake. The road surface is great ("Your Tolls at Work") and the drivers weren't too crazy. Some pretty good hills, though. Our little Toyota 4-cylinder was whining through the Herkimer area.

New York ended up nicely, with the lovely village of Whitehall. If someone forced me to live in New York, that is where I'd want to be. Whitehall finally gives way to Vermont, and Weather Lad was so overcome with happiness that he was inspired to write another sign. We didn't want to dally, so we did the obligatory "we're in New England" phone call at the same time we stretched and took pictures. Forty miles east lay Rutland, a fuel stop, and McDonald's. There would be no sit down meal on this afternoon, as we pushed eastward.

With the sun, and the rest of the country, at our backs, we were inspired to shoot some pictures out of the front of Aunt Beast. Our shadows reached toward home.

It's always nice to see familiar signs on the way home, and to know the way without looking at a map.

Our entry to Maine came as the sun sank behind us. We'd seen a couple of moose in Vermont and New Hampshire, but they kindly stayed out of the roads as Aunt Beast took us home, where Nanny, Cheer Chick, the Digital Backpacker, Katie, Lea and Neil awaited our arrival. I was still full from McDonald's but I grabbed some homemade stirfry and rice because it was homemade. It's good to be home.

Recap: Minnesota to New York

2008-04-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

As I blogged here on Thursday morning, we awoke to rain in Albert Lea. We’d had some thoughts of trying to get to Milwaukee for a baseball game at 12:05, but I had a number of labs due for my online class, and the last day they could be handed in was Friday (I only figured all of this out on Monday--I somehow thought the class ended in mid-May...silly me!) So the first order of the day was to find a wireless connection so I could hand in the work I’d done. In our phone call Wednesday night, Nanny gave me the address of a Starbucks in town, and after a few false starts, we found it. Did you know wireless at Starbucks is not always free? Me neither! I had to buy it from T-Mobile (GOUGERS!) for $10 a day! But it had to be done to ease my mind, so it was done, and most of my work was passed in.

The Beast, as we’ve come to call it, didn’t seem to mind the rain any more than it minded the wind--which was still present, mind you--and we steered south into Iowa. Guess what? Iowa is very flat. There are many farms in Iowa. I kept singing “Coming Up Close” by ‘Til Tuesday, both out loud and in my head, all the way through the state. I wanted to get a picture of “...a farmhouse that had long since been deserted...” There were a couple of good prospects, but stopping the Beast doesn’t happen on a dime, and there were few good places to stop.

Weather Lad and I played a couple of fun car games, one alphabetical and one finding objects. It was cool, and it kept my mind occupied. By the time we hit Davenport, the landscape was a little more rolling, and we came over a hill to see a big ‘ol bridge spanning the Mighty Mississippi. About that time, the sun peeked through, and after getting gas (did I mention the Beast really likes her gas, to the tune of about 15 mpg, and she has a really small gas tank, so fill-ups come about once every 1.5 to 2 hours: my back thanks her, since at least I get to stretch fairly frequently) we took some pictures at the scenic turnout over the river, and headed on into Illinois. The Beast is also not the fleetest of vehicles: imagine one of your Tonka trucks driving around with your toy box on top of it. You get the idea.

So Weather Lad said: “One good thing about this camper: you won’t get caught speeding.”

I replied “Not on the freeway, anyway.”

He said: “Hey, was I just being half-full?”

“Yes, you were”, I replied.

I had to chuckle when he said “I’m getting pretty good at this”

We had dinner at the Peru Mall. You go away for a few days, and look what happens!

Gas prices were the highest yet in Joliet, Illinois (Joliet Jake says hi) at $3.94.

We then crossed into Indiana and stopped for the night at a Day’s Inn, mostly for the free wireless. The room was altogether pretty nasty, as was that entire section of Indiana.

We woke to hear of the possibility of severe thundershowers in the Tri-State area, along with damaging winds and hail. Also a possibility of 9-12 inches of snow in Sioux Falls, S.D. Wow. I decided we should put as much distance between us and that line of weather as possible in as short a time as possible. So we bugged out of Portage at 9 am, and the nastiness of far-western Indiana soon gave way to land that looked just as flat and agricultural as Southern Minnesota, Eastern Iowa, and Southern Illinois. Amazingly enough, Ohio looked the same until we hit Cleveland, where we wished we’d had time to check out the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame and maybe an Indians game. Some other time, I guess, but Weather Lad did get a couple of glimpses of Lake Erie, and of Euclid, Ohio, home town of the main character in Walk Two Moons, one of his favorite books. East of Cleveland the terrain turned much hillier, but far less windy. The Beast approved. She likes the hills, but not the wind.

When we were crossing the border into Pennsylvania, I realized we never took any pictures of Weather Lad in Ohio. The only loss here is that there is one less picture of him. The only thing I would likely go back to Ohio for is the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame.

Pennsylvania was a refreshingly short jaunt, where we stopped at a place called Boston’s in Erie. It was a very good sports bar. Weather Lad had the mac ‘n cheese, while I had Jambalaya Linguini. Mmmm.

We called home right after dinner, and the phone call took us all the way into New York. Weather Lad watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, downloaded from iTunes last night at the hotel.

He was so intent watching that he never really noticed we’d gone through Buffalo and headed east on the Thruway. Tonight we are in a rest area on the Thruway as I type this, and I’ll go post it in the morning right before we leave. We are less than 250 miles from Albany, which puts us in striking distance of Peru by tomorrow night. I feel like a trucker.

Miscellanea

2008-04-25T05:56:00.000-07:00

I left the camera in the camper overnight, and we're trying to get off quickly this morning so no pictures for now. We'll try to find a free internet spot tonight to get off the pictures.

We're in Portage, Indiana right now, east of Chicago, east of the Mississippi (good pictures from there, but alas, not now.) Weather on the t.v. (Day's Inn--we're such wimps!) says humid this morning, then some possibly severe thunderstorms this afternoon. We need to get out ahead of it. The worst part? Possibly 9-12 inches of snow in Sioux Falls, where this whole ridiculousness started.

We hope to be hunkered down in Upstate N.Y. tonight, and home to Peru late tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

Time to go beat the weather.

Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues

2008-04-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Weather Lad and I spent our first night in the camper last night. We pulled into a parking lot outside a 24-hour grocery store in Albert Lea, MN at about 9pm Central, and pretty much collapsed after a quick call home.

Albert Lea is the home of Eddie Cochran, whose most enduring contribution to American culture was "Summertime Blues". I'm sure we can all relate, right about now. Locals were raving about the great weather (70˚, with tornado force winds) while I was pining for home, where I hear it's been near 80˚.
Weather Lad caught a sweet sunset on the camera just west of here, but we woke up to rain this morning.

Popped into a Starbucks for internet connection (downside to online classes: handing in work online) this morning, and soon to be on our way east. We hope to reach Ohio by tonight, but at 55mph with a tailwind, it's hard to say.

Live From the Other Home of Paul Bunyan

2008-04-22T18:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings from a Twin City. It could be St. Paul, but it’s not. You guessed it, it’s Minneapolis! Ben and I pulled in at about 3pm after USAir (not as good as Southwest, in Weather Lad’s book...or mine*) deposited us without incident at the Hubert H. Humphrey Airport. I don’t really think it’s the Hubert H. Humphrey airport, but since everything else around here is named after him, I kinda like my odds.

From HHH, we took a white-knuckle ride in a cab to the downtown Holiday Inn Express, which is really a lot nicer than it sounds. About two streets up from here there is a street shut down for pedestrian traffic, and lots of cool looking restaurants. Unfortunately, there is still motor traffic cutting across that street every block, so it kind of defeats the purpose. At any rate, there are street musicians, homeless people, and lots of young well-dressed professional types. Clinton and Stacy would feel right at home.

Many of the buildings in downtown Minneapolis are linked by walkways over the streets. We entered an urban Target store through a revolving door, went up the escalator, and found a Quizno’s, where we had our dinner. We could have taken an indoor tour of the city but decided not to since we were pretty tired (can you tell from this disjointed post?) We finally found a place where our crappy-and-soon-to-be-history T-Mobile plan could contact home, and we chatted with Nanny and CheerChick for a little while. Upon returning to the hotel, Weather Lad and I threw all caution to the wind, deciding to take a dip in the hot tub and pool in the shorts we brought along. They’ll dry eventually, I guess.

Tomorrow it’s an early wake-up call (5:15 am) to catch the bus to Sioux Falls, where we will pick up the white eleph...er...gracious gift from Rach’s parents. Yep, the 1986 Toyota Crossman RV will be heading home to where it belongs. The snowbanks and woodpile receded just in time to give us a good place to park it!

*Why is Southwest better than USAir? Let me count the ways: first, in Weather Lad’s words, Southwest is “funny”. “Remember when they put the snacks in the aisle while we were taking off, so they slid down the plane to us? That was cool.” USAir’s employees treat their jobs like, well, jobs. Some of the unhappiest flight attendants I’ve ever seen. Second, USAir didn’t make a second run for drinks, and on the first leg, from Portland to Philly (don’t get me started) we didn’t even get a snack! As soon as we boarded the plane in Philly, Weather Lad looked in the crack between his seat and the wall and said “Well, at least we know there are snacks on this flight.” I asked why, and he said “Because they’re between the seat and the wall.” He said “It’s kind of like trail mix”, to which I replied “More like flight mix.” Later on I realized we could call it contrail mix.

I’m off to the lobby to post this, while Weather Lad watches the Chris Farley SNL special. I’ll post again when I get a chance.

P.S.-Wish we’d had a chance to do some campaigning for Barack today, but our presence in Philadelphia wasn’t quite enough. Looks like he had his tookus handed to him.

Definitely Cooler Than Me

2008-04-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

A couple of Dirigo's finest have entered a film contest at the Great Minds Foundation. Brandon Doyen and Josh White posted a public service announcement called "Talk". Check it out, and compare it to the other entries, and I think you'll agree that it is superior work. The message is a good one, and powerfully delivered. The editing is impressive. These two have done Dirigo proud. I got their permission to embed the video on my blog, but you should drop in at the website to give them some words of encouragement and a four or five star vote.

Edit: I've removed the video from my blog, but feel free to click the link and check it out.

Well done, guys!

From Milking Shed to Greenhouse/Sugar Shack

2008-04-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

When we moved into our 150 year old farmhouse, there was one other building on the property. It was a small shed-like structure with a 2x6 front porch and a back deck made of 2x4s and plywood. It stood--actually it still stands--on a 3 foot tall concrete foundation, and in the middle of the concrete floor was a square hole about eight inches by eight inches. An iron pipe is centered in that hole, presumably leading out through the foundation, to the east side, where a pipe of the same size an material protrudes.

For a long time, we wondered about the origins and uses of this shed, and came up with all sorts of ideas. We're pretty sure that in recent years it was used as a play house for the previous owners' grandchildren, because its inside walls have been adorned with lovely wooden paneling, and because of the nifty and now close-to-rotten deck.

We began to refer this structure "the milking shed" since that's what it most closely resembled. It's quite possible it was a hen house, too, but since we moved in, it's been storage for old broken crap: our kids' wading pool, a flamingo that could be hooked up to a garden hose to spray the kids, and a plastic slide called the milking shed home for the past few years.

Recently I've toyed with the idea of turning the space into a greenhouse. It has a nice southeastern exposure, and it seems this would be a pretty good use of space.

So one day on the way home from school I was driving by "Tommy Gump's Master Bait Shop" (yes, it really exists, for those of you outside the River Valley). To date their contributions to the community have been witticisms on their board ("Three things to fear: Osama, Obama, Your Momma"), and tributes to fallen Maine soldiers. Truly a wide range of civic value. But from a purely selfish standpoint, the contribution they made to me that day was of the highest value: a 5'x6' picture window that adorned Nash's Store, Hoppy's Place, and everything the building was in between. It was sitting out by the road, with a "FREE" sign affixed, and after sizing it up a little bit, I began to load it on the truck. Mark Dupuis and his son, who were working on the bait shop, came out and helped me load it.

Once I got it home, it slid quite nicely out to the milking shed, since we still had ample snow cover. I levered it up the deck and in the door, and began to imagine the window in place.

Shortly thereafter, I made a trip to Lowe's to pick up some plexiglas: the 5'x6' window takes up almost the entire wall, but the roof needs to let light in, too.

This week I got aggressive, and with chainsaw and reciprocating saws in hand (not simultaneously, mind you) I began ripping out the wall and roof. Earlier this week, after some framing, the picture window went in place. Today, Weather Lad was out of school sick so I got to do some more work on the greenhouse. Note the subtle shift of terminology here: no longer the milking shed. The first panel of plexiglas was put in place on the roof, and though it still needs some tying down, the greenhouse is taking shape. I even got a little bit of a sunburn!

Before long, all our seedlings for this year's garden will be out there, getting ready for a long, productive summer. Over the summer I'll be looking for a small woodstove for boiling sap. This stands to be the coolest upgrade to our property since we moved in. Pictures forthcoming when the job is finished.

(Edit: in retrospect, there have been two other cool upgrades: our outdoor wood boiler (19 gallons of oil delivered in January? are you nuts?) and the third zone of heat added to the upstairs, which makes it so we can sleep with fewer than five comforters during the winter.

And the Award Goes To...

2008-04-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

Listening to "Wait, Wait..." yesterday, host Peter Sagal announced that the show has been nominated for a Webby Award in the comedy category. He, of course, suggested that it would be somewhat gauche to beg for votes, but that we should go check out the website.

Well, I did, and what an eye-opening experience! It takes a few minutes to sign in, but once you do there are numerous choices to make. I skipped a few categories since I had no interest or no background, but there were some old, familiar faces as well. There were a number of new (to me) websites that I bookmarked, and you can be sure I will be visiting regularly. One is dedicated to those passive aggressive notes that people leave for others. Who thinks of these things? Then there is the World Without Oil homepage. I wish I'd known about the game when it started, but there is some good reading to be had nonetheless. Then there's this thing, which I can't even begin to explain but it's pretty cool. It's easy to spend lots of time there, and it's not mind numbing. They got my vote. The final one I'll show you is Kiva, where people like you and me can provide loans to entrepreneurs worldwide to help fight poverty (why not get pickpocketed and cut out the middle man?) But seriously, I love this kind of initiative.

Once I got over my initial shock that the RVB was unrepresented in the Webby Award nominations, I found lots of cool and interesting things. Maybe one of these years one of us will show up, but in the mean time, go to the Webby Awards site and vote. This website was successful in pushing MPBN's pledge drive over the top (and I've got the counter to prove it!) so maybe our voices can help determine internet excellence. And while we're at it, maybe we could think up some categories for our own little RVB Webbies...

Pledge Break

2008-04-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

1-800-866-1475. That's the number to call...1-800-866-1475. We're taking a short pledge break from your regular programming because we know this service is valuable to you. 1-800-866-1475. If you check in on this blog from time to time, or if you've come to depend on it for irrelevant diatribes and offbeat meandierings, you know how valuable this service is to you. 1-800-866-1475, and you can make your pledge to support this valuable service. How many times have you been sitting on your couch, food warming in the microwave, and you continue reading even after the bell goes off just because you couldn't stop reading? And by the time you're done reading, your noodles are cold again? Here at TASCTY we call that a "sofa moment". No one's experienced that, huh? Oh. Still, you're here, so you must hold some value for this blog, and it's become a part of your life, right? 1-800-866-1475, and you can put your money where your cursor is. The funding for 65% of our programming comes from you, the listener, and believe me, the cost of putting out quality programming such as this is...free? Really? That last.fm thing on the right doesn't cost anything? Even the cool dancing Bridesmaid logo from the last post was free on the net? Surely it must cost something to ridicule George Bush via YouTube? (If the administration has their way, I'll pay, alright...)
Okay, so it's becoming exceedingly clear that making a pledge to this blog is not going to improve the quality of what you get, but I do implore you to call the number on your screen, or log in to mpbn.net, and get the money scroungers out of my ears so I can continue listening to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me in peace, minus the begging. 1-800-866-1475.

Take Me Out of the Ballgame

2008-03-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend marks the first final weekend before the "real" baseball season starts in--what, 14 years?--that I haven't been nervous about the fantasy baseball auction. For 14 years I played in the Busch League, a loose confederation of guys (and one lady, back in the old days) who were mostly affiliated with Mountain Valley High School in one way or another. It was a great run for Buck-ner's Boots/The Black Sox/The Bridesmaids. We started out horribly, with the immortal Kevin Koslofski on the original roster, but Scott Erickson provided the highlight of my first season, delivering me a no-hitter. That was worth some points in those days.

There were ups and downs, and lots of almost-were's. About halfway through the team's existence, I almost quit over a fellow owner's accusations of being a cheat. Rather than quit, though, I renamed my team the Black Sox. It was not time to quit at that point. After a run of three or four years where my team came in second, I renamed the team the Bridesmaids. That name actually got my team mentioned in a national column on Rotoworld.com by Jonathan Gangi, where he was soliciting clever fantasy baseball team names. I was pretty proud of that.

In fairly recent years, it became a desperate battle to win the league. It was a second job, beginning in January (when the first fantasy baseball publications came out) every year, trying to devise a new plan that would take me to the promised land. There were years where I threw all caution to the wind, taking the best players in the draft for large sums early on. There were other years when I conserved my money for the middle rounds, trying to have "balance" in my lineup. Invariably, the best laid plans failed. And the desperate pursuit of a championship became less and less satisfying, even as I came closer to winning.

Through it all, the best part of fantasy baseball in the Busch League was auction day, which almost always turned into auction night: at the height of the league we had (I think) 12 teams, each filling 23 spots. Early rounds flew by, with people spending like drunken sailors on Alex Rodriguez, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Juan Gonzalez, and Roger Clemens. It was the game of trying to hide a prized player--a first or second year Magglio Ordonez or Carlos Beltran, for instance--into the middle or late rounds, where you could get them for a decent price. But that was sometimes difficult, because the owners of the Busch League are a shrewd lot. They make a big show of not having prepared, or not knowing any of the players, but they knew. In fact, they'd gotten the same fantasy baseball publication I got, and probably the day it came out, just like me.

For every year but two, the auction has been held in Joe's basement. Once it was held in Bob's game room, but that didn't seem quite right. Another time it was held upstairs in Joe's house, but in recent years we returned to our roots and went back to the basement.

So this evening I had the pleasure of spending some time with the Digital Backpacker, who is giddy about tomorrow's auction. We got a chance to reminisce about past seasons, and he bounced some strategy off me. It dawned on me that I will be able to root for all of the Red Sox wholeheartedly this season. I'll never have to root against a Red Sox pitcher because my batter is up. As trivial as it seems, one can start to feel pretty conflicted. At the same time, rotisserie baseball allowed me to develop some favorite players I might not have grown to love otherwise. I can root for Jim Thome, Grady Sizemore, Alex Rios, Greg Zaun, Curtis Granderson and Joe Borowski whenever they aren't playing against the Red Sox. That is liberating.

While my friends are in Joe's basement tomorrow, Ben and I will be shooting some arrows at Central Maine Archery. Then we will go shopping in Auburn, to late lunch at Margarita's for Rach's birthday, and we will probably be home quite a bit before the fun ends at Joe's. I'll be waiting by the phone for Mike's account of how the day went.

"1,2,3,4 Tell Me That You Love Me More"

2008-03-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Ever notice that 2 out of every 5 t.v. commercials today features a song that sounds like Feist or is Feist? Has she ever put out an album? Actually, I once heard a song I liked by the wispy-voiced Canadian. It was called "Mushaboom", named after a small village in Nova Scotia. I first heard it after a family vacation to Nova Scotia, so I guess the positive associations were strong enough to override the fact that I hate her voice. Then I hear the new MacBook Air ad, with another breathy waif whinily peddling wares.

Ever notice that 1 out of those 5 commercials are horribly executed covers of Beatles songs? Why did anyone ever decide the world needed another version of "Hello, Goodbye"? And how is this supposed to make me want to buy crappy merchandise at Target? Somehow another scintillating version of "All You Need Is Love" is supposed to somehow make the store hipper than WalMart?

Another 1/5 of songs used in commercials are either horribly mismatched classic rock/punk songs (think Iggy and the Stooges' "Lust for Life", a celebration of heroin, being used to hawk trips on Holiday Cruise lines, or sad reworkings of familiar oldies, such as "Viva Viagra". I'd say Elvis would be rolling in his grave, but I'm sure he was probably using some sort of equivalent of Viagra and probably couldn't roll more than half way...if you catch my drift.

The other 1/5 of advertising music is where I get my jollies. Honestly, I have no idea how Cracker's "The World is Mine" is tied to Tiger Woods, David Beckham and shaving, but David Lowery howling "The world is mine! The world is MINE!" over Johnny Hickman's screaming guitar definitely glorifies the daily chore of pulling sharp metal over my stubbly face. I often find myself in the shower, screaming "The world is MINE!" as I watch the blood circle down the drain from my nicked up face and neck. It brightens my day.

Recently I saw a Kohl's ad that featured Ben Lee's "We're All in This Together". It's a sweet anthem about the human state of being: "I'm made of atoms; you're made of atoms, and we're all in this together..." I was ecstatic. I thought about immediately taking a trip to Kohl's to buy the same junk I won't buy at Target. When I make my trip to Auburn, I feel Kohl's should know that the only reason I am shopping there is their choice to use Ben Lee in their ad campaign. I'll march myself up to the customer service desk, grab a comment card, and look for the question that asks me why I chose to shop at Kohl's. Proudly, I will mark the "other" box (because I'm sure my reason won't be listed) and I will write on those little blank lines: "because every 12 seconds/someone remembers that we're all in this together."

Beyond that, the Kinks have been featured prominently in some recent ad campaigns. For my money you can never have enough Kinks.

Daily Affirmations

2008-03-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

Whenever I feel like a total idiot, I like to look at this:

My six word memoir

2008-03-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

A project started,
but never finished.