Confessions of a Goof-Off

Forty-eight days since an update? What kind of a blogger am I? I would argue that I'm not a blogger at all. A blogger, by definition, blogs. Maybe I'm something else then. A goof-off perhaps. You see, the "drive" to blog is in fact more of a way of not doing something I aught to be. With my teaching duties done, I now have much less to put off. Therefore, the desire to blog has been lessened.

We are about two week from baby's due date. There is very little left for us to do. Most of our days have been spent waiting and watching terrible movies on basic cable. (Even Mr. and Mrs. Smith loses something after the forth time in a fortnight.) Monkey-Girl is not sleeping very well which is causing me to not sleep well. As a result, our new bedtime has shifted to 3:00 am.

When the situation calls for it (like Unforgiven coming on . . . again) I turn to one of my distractions du jour. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the (likely) unholy pairing of Transformers cross stitch and Dungeons & Dragons, 4th edition.

I've been working on this cross stitch project for just about a year now. Mostly it's sat in a bag while I've occasionally thought about maybe working on it. Something gave me the crazy idea of trying to finish it before baby got here. You know, I just might.

D&D, 4E, as the cool kids are calling it, is quite the upgrade. I'm plodding my way through the Player's Handbook currently. The plodding is entirely on me. The book is very readable and well laid out. The regular players of D&D I know all like what they see in this new edition. The occasional players have been mostly negative. I am in the former category and am no exception. I won't bore you with details. It's just very fun.

That's all for tonight. I'll try to update again soon. We'll see what baby has to say about that. Who knows maybe I can call myself a blogger again someday.

You ARRRR Invited, Matey!

Monkey-Girl's birthday is today. It's a milestone. (I will not get more specific than that.) It's also the last one she'll have before she's a mother. I decided to make it a big deal.

Hence, the pirate party. We had foam swords, pirate ring toss, eye patches, plastic coins, a pirate ship shaped cake, and more. The weather was great, the company was better. I only wish I took more pictures. Most importantly, Monkey-Girl had a wonderful time.

Monkey-Girl recieves a monkey from Gordon.

Pirate ship ring toss, anyone?

Gordon and Hannah duel for the crowd's pleasure.

A chainmaille clad Victor looms large.

The birthday girl checks out her cake.

And so can you.

The aftermath.

May the Fourth Be With You

It's been ridiculously long since I've posted. Sorry for that.

If you say this post's title out loud you'll get why this date is the unofficial Star Wars Day. This year I'm celebrating by letting you know how to be an even bigger Star Wars nerd.

Above is an example of ASCII art. The image is composed entirely of keystrokes. Well a crazy dutchman, has gone and made well over 10,000 images, strung them together, and made them available for your viewing pleasure. It's Star Wars animated!

1. In your start menu select run.


2. When prompted to run; type, "cmd". This opens a command window.


3. Now type, "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl"


4. Enjoy!

The dutchman hasn't finished the whole thing, but there's quite a bit there.

Marvel at his dedication! It certainly dwarfs mine.

An Offer I Can't Refuse

For the next year (2008-2009) my school needs a lot more Algebra 1 teachers. There so desperate that they've offered to pay the current teachers a bonus to take on an additional class. That would mean teaching four classes instead of three and not having a scheduled professional period for planning and grading.

On the one hand, I have a baby coming this summer and would love to be able to help out and play with him or her as much as possible. On the other hand, I have a baby coming this summer and would love to be able to clothe and shelter him or her.

Add in that Monkey-Girl will be in her senior year and she and I will both be traveling to interview for new jobs. Now factor in the added costs of childcare.

We've got some thinking and praying to do. (Help!)

All Clear

That's what the friendly river guide is telling us.

I'm writing this now as not to worry anyone. The student body and extended community were fairly wound up this week as a rumor was circulating that there would be lethal violence at my school on Friday. For the record: NOTHING BAD HAPPENED.

A text message rapidly made the rounds stating something suspiciously vague about a shooting scheduled for the lunch room. "No one knows who and no one knows what (sic.) lunch." The conclusion of the message urged people to forward it to, "everyone you care about."

An investigation was launched. A cause was found. Findings were disclosed. Precautions were taken. Safety was ensured. Rumors escalated. The process repeated. Half (no exaggeration) of the students were no-shows.

I believe there were several causes of this. Spring time is when teenagers go a little more insane than normal. What better way to feel important than to be a part of something involving life and death? People in general LOVE rumors. If it's about a faceless institution, it's that much better. Teenagers also love getting off of school.

I mentioned precautions. Doors were kept closed and locked during class time. An adult was stationed at every hallway intersection throughout the day. 15 armed police officers were in the cafeteria during all lunch periods and were fairly conspicuous the rest of the day. The principal encouraged worried parents to pick students up and take them out to lunch.

Monkey-Girl, who made a rare off-mountain appearance, heard many escalations of the rumors from community people. We agree that this sort of thing makes people feel important in a very sick way. We've all been guilty of it. I'm not going to point fingers.

With most of my class absent, I had my students doing make-up work all day. I got a lot of paper work done. It rained all day.

All in all, Friday was terribly long and boring.