Elvis

On Wednesday the family, along with Lisa's mother, drove into downtown Tupelo to visit the birthplace of Elvis Presley. I have to say, the visit greatly exceeded my expectations.

When Lisa and I were fairly early in our courtship--I am in the deep south here so I need to use words like "courtship"--we came to visit Lisa's family down here, and we visited Elvis's birthplace then. I think it was the summer of 1993 when we were down here. At the time, all that was at the birthplace was the housd he lived in from birth until age 3. The house is a simple two room shotgun shack that is--no exaggeration here--smaller in its entirety than most modern family rooms. On the day we visited in 1993 the museum wasn't even open All we could do was sit--read "trespass"--on the front porch for a few minutes before taking off and visiting other sites.

The site has changed quite a bit since 1993. The little house is still there, but now there is a very modern museum that included some really interesting artifacts. In addition, the museum purchased the church that Elvis attended from birth until age 13 and moved the entire building onto the museum grounds. They have painstakingly restored the original building while also modernizing it. After a brief introduction by one of Elvis's relatives, three huge screens dropped from the ceiling--one that completely covered the front wall, and a pair that did the same for the side walls. We then sat through a Pentecostal service similar to what Elvis would have seen as a child. By looking at the screens in front of and to the sides of us, it felt like we were in the middle of the service. It was actually very cool, and it was realistic enough that when the actor/preacher asked everyone to stand and sing "How Great Thou Art," and all of the actors on the screens stood and started singing, I had to restrain myself from standing with them.

Visiting this site was easily the highlight of the trip for me.

News Babes

As I have mentioned the last few posts, we are in Mississippi this week visiting Lisa's mother. There isn't a whole lot to do in Satillo, MS, so we've spent a lot of time watching TV. Specifically, we've spent a lot of time watching cable news networks. We have the VERY basic cable package at home, which includes only local network stations, so we don't usually watch these stations and haven't for a couple of years. And it seems to me that a lot has changed on these channels in the last couple of years. I am amazed at how many "news babes" there are on these channels. I am assuming that sexuality now trumps journalistic skills when it comes to who can anchor a news show.

That doesn't explain Nancy Grace, though. I have NO idea how she got on TV.

Mississippi

Yesterday I made a post saying that I didn't know if I would be able to make any posts for the next couple of days because I was going to be in Mississippi visiting Lisa's mom, and the last time I was here there was no cell phone or Internet access. Well, guess what? Apparently Mississippi now has the Internet AND cell phone access! And running water! Who knew?

The trip started off bad but got better. First, we drove about all of three miles before stopping for gas. After filling up I jumped in the car and...no crank. The battery was dead. Luckily for us there was a nice person who gave us a jump, and I went straight to a Pep Boys and got a new battery. Then our dog decided to throw up twice.

But we are here, and life is good now. It's not a whole lot warmer here than in Cincinnati, which is disappointing.

C'est la vie.

Playoff Bound

Okay, so I'm man enough to admit when I am wrong!

Back in September, I predicted that the Bengals would finish the season 9-7 and barely miss the playoffs. I predicted that the blown game with the Denver Broncos would keep them out of the playoffs.

I was wrong on all counts. With a week to go, the Bengals 10-5 and winners of the AFC North.

And I've never been more happy to be wrong.

Who Dey!

P.S. I'm headed to Mississippi for a few days to spend the holidays with the Mississippi side of our family. Last time I was there I had no cell phone access nor Internet access. If that turns out to be the case this time, I may be taking a forced vacation from blogging. Just wanted to let you know (especially Mom and Dad) so you wouldn't think there was something wrong if I don't post.

Christmas Video

Yesterday was the Sweasy Family Christmas. As everyone got their food to eat we played a video of photos of Christmas Past. Here is that video:



(I can't see the video.)

Christmas

Today is the Sweasy Family Christmas, and we're hosting this year! That means that--about the time this blog entry will be posting to Sweasy.net--I'll be rolling out of bed to put the turkey in the oven.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a burden. I actually enjoy very much hosting our Christmas get together. This is the first year we'll be hosting in our new house, though, and I wonder how it will go. The house is big enough (more than big enough) for four people, but we've never tried to have a sit down dinner with 16, which is what I think the final count is for today. This house might get a little crowded.

But I'm sure it will all work out.

Here are some photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day:

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

(I can't see the video.)

Favorite Christmas Films/TV Specials

I've re-read my posts for December, and it seems to me that I've been pretty negative, what with my discussion about Christmas songs that I've hated. So I thought on this Christmas Eve I would give a quick positive discussion about my Top 5 favorite Christmas films/TV Specials. These are DVD's that my family watch each year.

5. A Christmas Story. This is a movie that I avoided for years and years. People told me it was great, but I just wasn't interested. "Who wants to watch a movie that takes place in the 1940's?" I'd say. But then I saw it and realized that it doesn't take place during a specific time. Well, that's not true. It DOES take place during a specific time, but the date is irrelevant. The time it takes place in is the time of childhood, and Ralphie's narration is true for every kid every year at Christmas. Sure, maybe it's not a Red Ryder BB gun that you're wanting for Christmas. Maybe today it's a Playstation 3 or something like that. But the feelings are the same. And maybe you didn't write a theme about what you wanted for Christmas, but every kid knows the feeling of getting a grade back on a paper that he/she was sure was going to be great only to be disappointed. And like the younger brother, I, too, remember going out in the snow only to find I had so many layers on that I couldn't move.

4. Veggietales: The Toy that Saved Christmas. Most of the other shows here would probably be on a lot of people's lists, but I doubt that most people have even heard of this one. But it was a favorite of my children when they were growing up, and we still watch it every year. Invariably, at some time during the year one of the four of us will sing the opening song, "I Can't Believe It's Christmas."

3. Elf. This is a fairly new entry on this list. I saw the film first in the theaters (and this is the only film on this list that I can say that about) and as soon as I saw the film I knew that it was destined to be an instant holiday classic. The film was really much more than I was expecting. I assumed it would be another amusing but forgettable Will Ferrell film, like pretty much every other film he's ever made.


 It's not just that the film is funny--it's that Buddy the Elf is so sweet (Think "Oh! I forgot to give you a hug!" or "What's a Candygram? I want one!").

2. It's a Wonderful Life. This is a movie that I didn't see until I was an adult. In 1992 it came on TV at midnight on Christmas Eve / Christmas Day, and Lisa (who'd seen the movie many times before) convinced me to stay up and watch it. At first I was sure I'd fall asleep, but I was soon swept up in the story. For years it was a tradition that Lisa and I would watch it on Christmas Eve while we wrapped presents. For the last two years, though, we've watched it with the kids.

One tradition that hasn't changed, though: Lisa crying at the end of the movie. I get a little teary, too, but only if I've seen the entire movie first. Not Lisa, though. She doesn't even have to see the movie. You can just say to her in passing during a conversation, "No man is a failure who has friends" or "To my brother George, the richest man in town" and chances are about 50/50 that she'll break into tears. It doesn't have to be during the Holiday season, either.

That sensitivity is one of the many reasons why I love her.

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love everything about this TV special, even the sub-par animation. I love the choice of jazz music for background sound, especially "Christmas Time is Here"  and the melancholy version of "Oh, Tennenbaum." I love the voices of the child actors. I especially love Sally, who actually flubs a line when she says "All I want is what I have coming to me." She actually starts, and then stops, and then starts again, and the producers didn't bother to re-record it. And it's a good thing they didn't, because the result is precious.

I love Snoopy pretending to be all of the different animals and then mocking Lucy. I love Snoopy dancing (How can ANYONE watch Snoopy dance and not feel his/her troubles lighten just a little bit?).  I love that Snoopy wins the light decorating contest.

And it doesn't matter how many times I see this TV special, I still get misty-eyed at the end when everyone sings "Hark the Herald Angel Sings." Don't know why. I just do.

I got the show on DVD as a Christmas gift a few years ago, and I watch it on DVD every year, but I also want to watch it when it's actually on TV. I know it's dumb, but seeing it air on TV is a signal to me that Christmas really is coming.



(I Can't See the Video above.)

Honorable Mention: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

A Christmas Memory

I grew up a Roman Catholic, and back when I was a child, there were no Saturday evening masses, at least not in Frankfort. If you were Catholic in Frankfort and you wanted to go to mass on a Sunday or some other Holy Day of Obligation, you had to go on the actual day! If I recall, there was an 8 AM, 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM, and 12:30 PM mass. And one of the cruelest things I remember that my parents ever did was to insist that on Christmas morning--which was a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics whether it fell on a Sunday or a Tuesday or any other day of the week--we went to mass BEFORE opening presents.

I'm not sure what my parents were hoping for us to get out of attending mass on that morning. My mind was never on God. My mind was on the presents back home, the presents that we had seen lying under the Christmas tree before leaving for church, the presents that we had crept down the stairs at 4 in the morning to examine, to shake, to squint at in the dark to try to figure out whose name was on them.Occasionally there would even be presents that--because of their odd shape or sheer size--were not wrapped. I remember Kelly and Donald getting shiny green tricycles one year, and I remember the year we got a Foozball set. Each year, though, we'd have to leave these visible treasures behind, as well as the potentially even better presents hidden behind the wrapping paper, to head off to church to stand in what would be a packed building, people even lining the walls on this one day of the year (Well, two days, since Easter was similarly crowded).

One year stands out in my mind, though.

I remember one Christmas morning in particular, when I was maybe ten years old, sneaking out of my bed upstairs and tip toeing downstairs to see what booty had been set out (I'm pretty sure I'd stopped believing in Santa by this time). Our house had wooden floors, and I was trying to be quiet so I wouldn't get caught by my parents, but it seemed every board squeaked under my feet. I slowly crept down the stairs, each of which also seemed intent upon waking the house. When I finally made it to the basement, where my older brother and one of my older sisters slept, and where the tree and presents were, my feet hit the tile floor, which covered the solid, immovable, uncreakable, concrete below. I took off running for the other side of the family room, where the light switch was.

I never made it to the other side of the room, though. After three quick steps I felt something sharp strike me in my lower left rib, and I heard an "Oooof" escape from between my lips. A moment later I was crying out in pain at whatever I'd hit. I felt like maybe I'd been stabbed in my side by a sword.

So much for trying to be quiet. I heard both my older brother and sister rustling in their beds, and my older brother shouted sort of in a daze for me to shut up. And  I heard my parents get out of bed and come down to see what was going on, and when they flipped on the stairway light behind me there was enough light in the family room that I could see what the barrier had been: a new ping pong table had been set up in our family room, and I had run right into the corner of it. My mom came downstairs and checked on me. I had a scrape across my ribs, but otherwise I was going to be fine. I was scolded by my parents for getting up in the middle of the night and sent back to bed. I lay there with my side pulsing in pain.

But that's not the exciting part about that year. What I remember about that year was that--for the only time I remember--my parents let us actually play with a present BEFORE going to mass. Everyone was too excited about the ping pong table to NOT play with it. I have a photo of my younger brother Kelly and myself, dressed in our winter coats and stocking hats, ready to go to mass, but playing a quick game of ping pong against someone on the other side of the table.

What you can't see in the photo, though, is the bruise on my side.

A Traditional Christmas Carol that I DO Like

I've recently written about my 10 least favorite Christmas carols. I decided to go this route after writing about my two favorite Christmas carols last year. However, 10-2 seems unfair, so I thought today I'd even things up a little bit by writing about a traditional carol that I actually like. That song is "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

I don't know how carefully you've listened to this song while it's being sung, but if I had to sum it up in one word, this is the word I'd choose: ballsy. This song has guts.

Think about it. In verse one, the song is like every other Christmas song. The song simply expresses a hope that the listener will have a nice holiday:

We wish you a Merry Christmas.
We wish you a Merry Christmas.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good tidings we send
To you and your kin,
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Pretty innocent, right? It's all a deception, though. In the next verse, the song goes from pleasant little ditty to what basically amounts to a bullish demand:

So bring us some figgy pudding.
So bring us some figgy pudding.
So bring us some figgy pudding and bring it right here.

"And bring it right now"! We're through singing to you, sucka! Now pay up with some figgy pudding!

The next verse is even worse. The second verse is just bossy, but in the third verse is a threat of a sit in.  It's like the carolers are radical political kids from Berkley:

We won't go until we get some.
We won't go until we get some.
We won't go until we get some,
So bring it out now.

The song then repeats the first verse about wishing you a merry Christmas. It's as if the singers are trying to gloss over the whole threat that was made in the middle verses.   Maybe they added this because they realized that they're one more harsh verse away from being labeled not Christmas carolers, but terrorists.

I just admire the moxie of the song.

The Killed Messenger

Everyone at work is mad at me today.

One of the many weird jobs I have at work--jobs that have nothing really to do with technology--involves the school calendar. It is my responsibility to present to the Board of Education each year possible school calendar options for the following year. You know, when school starts, what week Spring Break is on, when our holidays are. That kind of stuff. The BOE then makes a decision based on those options. Sometimes they choose a calendar exactly as I've presented it. Sometimes they take one of the calendars and ask me to tweak it ("Let's move Spring Break to the following week." or "We're starting awfully early in August. Can we move it a few days later?"). In the end, though, THEY make the decision.

I tell everyone this every year, but no one hears me. I'm the one that creates the options, and I'm the one that informs the staff of what the Board decided (I've asked both the former and current superintendent if they wouldn't rather be the ones to inform the district, and they've both said that it was something I can handle. I think they both know better). And since I do those things, I'm the one that everyone gets angry at.

Last year, when I was creating options for THIS year, I noticed that Christmas was on a Friday. This presented a problem. Though there's no law against it, we can't realistically have school on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. That meant that the latest we could possibly go was Wednesday the 23rd. The teaching staff, though, typically wants two or three days before Christmas Eve to get ready for Christmas (though I've never understood why they're so insistent about this. Most other occupations don't get that much time off.). If I gave them the 22nd and 23rd off, though, that would leave only Monday the 21st for students to attend. That would be a bad idea. Many families just wouldn't send their students to school for that one day. If they had vacations planned, they'd leave on the 19th and wouldn't come on the 21st. So the only options, really, were to have the last day of school on the 18th and have a VERY long Christmas Break, or to have the last day on the 22nd and have a very SHORT Christmas Break.

I presented both options to the Board, fairly sure that they'd choose the 18th. Imagine my surprise when the Board chose the calendar with the short Christmas Break. When one of them made a motion to vote for the calendar, I actually did the very improper thing of stopping the motion to ask them if they didn't want to modify the calendar to lengthen Christmas Break before voting. Nope, they said. They were fine the way it was. And the calendar passed unanimously.

As far as I know, EVERY OTHER public school in Northern Kentucky had their last day on Friday. But not us. We're working today and tomorrow. And so this morning, NO ONE will be happy with me. I'm not even sure--based on how sullen people were Friday--if anyone will talk to me today. They're all mad at me.

And honestly, I'm mad at me, too.

No Computer

The picture below shows what I spent most of Friday night and yesterday doing. And I was in the office, where our computer, cable modem, and wireless router usually reside. As a result, I had no computer to write a blog entry, so this is all there is for today.

Mini-Review

I know I'm a couple of years late on this, but over the last few days I've been watching the film Cloverfield. I'm finding it very fascinating. Horror movies usually have a proxy villain that  reveal the things that we're truly afraid of. For instance, the early Godzilla films were Japanese made and were really all about the nuclear destruction at Hiroshimi and Nagasaki. Godzilla was a creature created by nuclear radiation, and he was able to breathe out a nuclear blast from his mouth. The film gave its Japanese creators a chance to play out their fears for everyone to see. It was sort of therapeutic, I would think.

The same could be said about this film. It's pretty obvious watching Cloverfield that it was filmed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The real monster in the film is not the Godzilla-like creature that is attacking everyone. Rather, it's the memory of 9/11 and the confines of the city that make the film frightening. The film, in fact, finishes the terrorists' work, adding the fictional destruction of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building to the real destruction of the World Trade Centers, and these fictional destructions render the city similarly covered in ash and debris. It is a horror film for the age.

That said, the film gave me a headache with all of its simulated home movie panning and zooming. I'd still recommend it, though. It was fun, if for no other reason than as an examination of what I mentioned above.

Chris Henry

I have posted on my Twitter account a couple of sarcastic comments about Tiger Woods, but for the most part I've been ignoring the entire matter. I'm completely disinterested. I can't say the same thing, though, about the recent death of Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry. I feel very, very sad about his death.

I'm not sure what the difference is. At first I thought it might be just that because I followed the NFL more than I followed the PGA, I was just naturally more interested. And it's true that I wasn't a HUGE follower of Tiger Woods. Heck, I didn't even know that he WAS married (and didn't care, frankly) until I found out about his infidelities. But I don't think that's it. After all, I did know SOMETHING about Tiger Woods. Though I wasn't a huge PGA follower, I did watch golf occasionally. I remember watching at Lisa's dad's house the day he first won the Masters, when he kept building a larger and larger lead until he seemed almost superhuman. And I've watched him a number of times since then, the last time being earlier this year when he lost to a little known Korean golfer in the PGA Championship. So I'd followed him a little bit. And yet I didn't really care about any of his problems.

But I DID care about Chris Henry. I was stunned to hear of his accident yesterday morning, and I checked the Internet a couple of different times at work to see what his status was. I was sad to hear he'd died, and as I drove to lunch I listened to the press conference that the Bengals were giving about him.

Maybe my concern was because he was a local guy. He lived in Northern Kentucky, and he'd been arrested a few times in Northern Kentucky, too. Lisa actually ran into him at a burger joint in Latonia a few months ago. She went in to get some food and there he was, the only other customer in the place. She said he seemed extremely shy and not at all like some monster celebrity.

I think Lisa hit it on the head yesterday, though, when she said that the difference between the two is that Tiger Woods always came off as perfect, untouchable, or--as I said above--a superman. "Super" is Latin for "above," of course, and when you are a creature ABOVE man, as Tiger Woods seemed, it's hard for me to feel any connection to you. Sure, Tiger Woods winced in pain when he had his injury for the last year, and he'd pump his fist in excitement when he made an important shot, but mostly he tried to portray himself as this perfect, untouchable figure. So I don't really care about HIM. If I'm watching recent new stories about him at all, it's because a small part of me wants to live that lifestyle vicariously through reports about him. That's all. I don't care about Tiger.

But Chris Henry was a different story. There are a lot of words that might be applied to Henry's life, but "perfect" would never have been one of them. He was an extremely talented athelete, but he also had a VERY troubled life. He'd been arrested multiple times, and he'd even gotten suspended by the NFL for 6 months and fired by his team. He was a human, a relatable human, who excelled at some things in life and stunk at other things.

But he seemed to be turning his life around. Since rejoining the Bengals for the last two seasons, he'd managed to stay out of trouble. And prior to his season-ending injury back in November, he seemed to be doing very well both personally and professionally. And I was excited for him. I'd been upset with the Bengals for taking him back at the start of the 2008 season, sure they'd made a mistake, that he couldn't be reformed. But I'd enjoyed the fact that I appeared to be wrong.

When he got injured, though, I worried that he might slip up, that not having the rigid schedule of the NFL might hurt him. I don't know it that was the case or not, but I've been thinking about him and praying for him since he was lost for the season. That's not something that I did for Tiger Woods. I did it for Chris Henry because he seemed so human to me.

Maybe, it seems now, too human.

Dirty Dishes

I think I made one of my co-workers angry not too long ago. My office has a tiny little kitchen that everyone shares. I came into the office and found the following note taped to the kitchen cabinet above the sink:


I walked out to the secretary and said, "Hey, have you seen the new sign someone put up in the kitchen?"

"Yes," she said, with her jaw set firmly. "I put it there. I thought people needed to read it!"

"That's all fine," I said to her, "but I'm confused."

"About what?" she said as she crossed her arms.

"Well," I told her, "where am I supposed to put my dirty dishes now?"

She didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

My Least Favorite Christmas Songs, Part Four

Okay, I'm getting fairly tired of this whole string of posts, so let me just finish up with a summary of my ten least liked Christmas songs. For a few of these, it's not the actual song I hate--it's a specific recording. For others, it doesn't matter who sings it--I don't like the song. So here they are:

10. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." The point of this song, you see, is that we, the listener, understand that there's no such thing as Santa Claus. It's not Santa that Mommy is kissing--it's Dad, dressed up as Santa. We know more about Christmas than the kid singing the song does! Get it? Isn't that cute? Doesn't that make this just a precious song?

No, it doesn't. Couple it with the annoying voice of the kid singing the original recording, and I change the radio station every time this song is on.

And on a slightly different note, I can understand the father dressing up as Santa Claus maybe on Christmas morning or at a Christmas party or something, but why was the father dressed up as Santa Claus at night when the kids were supposed to be asleep? Who was he playing Santa for? His wife? And if that's the case, did the kid stumble upon something a little weirder than just Mommy kissing Santa? Was this some kind of sick role playing thing going on downstairs?

9. "The Christmas Shoes." Holy crud, could a song be TRYING to pull on our heartstrings any harder than this song? I know at my heart there's a bit of a cynic, but--believe it or not--I AM moved by good literature, but it has to feel genuine. I get teary eyed at the end of Death of a Salesman when Willy's wife stands at his grave telling him they're free, and I cried like a baby the first time I watched Sally Field break down in the cemetery during Steel Magnolias, and I even got a little misty-eyed at the end of Home Alone when the old man neighbor's family came to see him.  But what I don't like is being felt like I'm being DIRECTED to get emotional ("Cue tears of sympathy...NOW!"), and that's what I feel like when I listen to this song.

Look, I'll buy the kid a dozen pairs of shoes for his mom if he'll just go away!

8. Anything by Mannheim Steamroller. I don't think this one requires any explanation.

7. Anything by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Ditto.

6. "Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer." I can't even really put into words WHY this song bothers me as much as it does. I mean, I guess it IS kind of a funny song. Maybe it's that it's been overplayed. Maybe it's the faux Appalachian accents of the singers. Maybe it's the whole "Gee-This-is-a-funny-song-ain't-it" attitude of the song. I'm not sure. But when I hear it something makes me want to stab my jugular with the nearest branch of mistletoe just to get it all over with.

5. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree." I don't actually hate this song. I hate the most popular version of it, the one recorded by Brenda Lee. Something about her voice in it just drives me up a wall.

4. "Do You Hear What I Hear?" There are all kinds of things wrong with this song. To start with, since when does the "Night Wind" have a consciouness and speak to a lamb? The wind is not a living creature--it's just the movement of air. Also, the night wind describes the star as having "a tail as big as a kite." Uh, sorry, Night Wind. That's not a star you're looking at. Sounds like a comet to me.

Also, as with "The Little Drummer Boy," this song is seemingly based in Biblical times, but the story isn't accurate. For instance, there was no king at the end of the story who proclaims that the child will "bring us goodness and light." Instead, according to the Bible, the king pretty much did everything he could to KILL the child. That final verse should read, "The child, the child sleeping in the night / If you see him, kill him on sight!/ If you see him, kill him on sight!"  Not a very comforting way to end the song, but more Biblically accurate.
3. "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

2. "The 12 Days of Christmas."

1. "The Little Drummer Boy."

For People Who Love Sci Fi AND Christmas

I stumbled upon this public domain movie the other day. I can't really vouch for it. I only made it through the first four minutes. But it's so weird I felt I HAD to share it:


(I can't see the video.)

Twenty Years

It occurred to me the other day--in a way that it never had before--that this is my 20th school year in education, and my 20th year with the Erlanger-Elsmere School District. Yes, other than working in high school for my dad and in college at Wal-Mart (with one semester substitute teaching in the Franklin County School System), I have spent my entire career (so far) with a single employer.

And something about my 20th year on the job has bothered me. When I reached my 10th year, I thought to myself, "Now people who hear how many years I have will figure I have some experience and some wisdom, and they'll understand I've been here for a while."  But now that I'm in my 20th year, I think to myself, "When people hear how many years of experience I have they'll figure, 1) 'He's old' or 2) 'He's been here 20 years? How can he STAND it?' or 3) 'That guy's winding down. He's going to retire soon' or 4) 'Wow, he's like an old student desk with a well in it for the ink--he's been here forever!'" Because when I was a first year teacher, I thought all of those things about teachers with that much experience.

But I don't feel old. At all. In fact, as I've often told others around me, I had NO idea when I was a child that adults felt the way I feel now. And that's a good thing, I guess. If I'd known then how much my parents were making things up as they went along, how much of their confidence and knowledge was a facade, how frightened they REALLY were, I probably wouldn't have been able to sleep at night. I mean, I TRUSTED my parents! I thought they were taking care of me! And they felt like this?

I also feel differently about sentence number two above. That question of "How can he STAND it?" that I used to utter about teachers that I knew had worked at Lloyd High School for 20 years was a subtle accusation, I guess, of a lack of ambition or motivation on their part. Why were they still working the same crummy job they'd had for all of those years?

But I don't have the same job I've had all of those years. Not really. It's funny. During my student teaching I had a professor who over the course of a semester gave about nine really rousing speeches of several minutes in length (I wrote about one of them here). One of those speeches was given on our last day, and the professor spouted off a bunch of statistics that were supposed to scare us. We were told most of us would not stay in the classroom, that if we stayed in education at all that we'd be working in jobs outside of the classroom. We were told that if we left education we'd probably end up working in an occupation that hadn't even been invented yet. We were told that--regardless of whether we stayed in education or not--we'd most likely work for 7-10 different employers.

The things he was saying were basically the same statistics in all of those annoying "Did You Know" videos that it seems every educational speaker with a PowerPoint presentation and a projector wants to show. And I used to look at myself and think that---with all of the years I had with a single employer--I must be the exception to the rule. But then I thought to myself, not really. Yes, if I had been a sophomore level English teacher for 20 years, I'd be the exception. But other than the fact that all of my adult paychecks have been signed by the same employer, my career is bearing out the predictions that professor was reading. I was in the classroom for 14 years, but I didn't teach a single class: I taught every level of English from grade 8 to grade 12, I taught speech and drama, electronic journalism, and website design. And I wasn't JUST a teacher. During those 14 years I was also the drama director, the speech and drama club sponsor (though I was a LOUSY speech and drama club sponsor), a writing curriculum coach, the lighting and sound director for the district auditorium, and a school technology coordinator. In fact, I only taught full time for the first half of those 14 years. For the last seven years I was in the classroom I only taught half time and did something else half time.

And for the last six years I have left the classroom, as my professor predicted I would, and I have been the district's Chief Information Officer, a job that, indeed, didn't exist in any school 20 years ago. So I've been with the same employer for 20 years, but I haven't been sitting still.

Now, the third comment that I used to think about teachers with 20+ years experience, that one has some traction! It HAS occurred to me that I will be retiring soon. And by soon I don't mean in the next year or anything. I'll be eligible to retire without penalty in eight years. That's not so long. And that means that in six years I'll have to REALLY start thinking about my life after the Erlanger-Elsmere School District, and I'll have to start planning in earnest for retirement (I don't mean finanical planning, Mom and Dad. I've been saving my money, I promise.). In SIX YEARS! I have a long-range plan for the technology in the school district, and it extends beyond six years. It extends beyond eight years, for that matter. And what that means to me is that the plans I'm making now for the future will not have come to fruition when I retire. I will necessarily leave with the job unfinished.That's just the way the job works. There will always be the next thing to do, and some day I'm going to have to leave that for someone else and walk away.

Which leads me to my next comment. The final thing I used to think back in my younger days--that the person with 20 years of experience had been in the district FOREVER--I also see differently now. Twenty years is nothing. I need another 100 to do all of the things that I want to do.

Oh well. We get the years that we get, and our job is not to bemoan that and complain that we don't get more. Our job is to take and accept them and do what we can with them, as much as we can, and not worry or fret that we couldn't do more.

And that's what I'm trying to do.

Another Grammar Mistake

A few days ago I made a post about how much I hate the term "Epic Fail" because it misuses the word "fail." I actually took some flack for this from at least one person who said I needed to get over it, that the language changes.

Maybe I'll catch flack from that person again with this post.

For the last three weekends I've been minding my own business, trying to watch the NFL on TV, when I see the commercial below. I honestly have no idea what the commercial is saying because I immediately become FIXATED on the first word that appears on the screen: "ALRIGHT."  Guess what? "Alright" is not a word. The words are "all right."

It's actually a pretty common mistake, an outgrowth over the confusion about "all ready" and "already." Those are both correct, though in different situations. "All ready" means "completely prepared," as in "We were all ready for our trip to Disney World," while "already" means "previously," as in "We were already at Disney World."

As I said, both of those are completely correct and accepted by English majors the world over. But "alright" is not a word. It's "all right."

I understand that our language morphs itself over time, and that one day the word "alright" MAY be completely acceptable. But I also know that there is enough disagreement about it right now that Ford should not have included it in this commercial (Okay, I actually went back and watched the commercial just now to see what they were selling). Dozens of people worked on this commercial, and I can only come to one of two conclusions:

1) NO ONE knew that "alright" wasn't a real word, or at least, if someone noticed, he/she didn't bother to tell anyone else.

2) Someone DID notice that "alright" wasn't a word, but it was decided that this error SHOULD be in the commercial, that that's the kind of people who buy Ford trucks; the illiterate.

Either way, I'm a little bothered.



(I can't see the video.)

An Absolutely TREMENDOUS song and video

My wife showed me this video the other day. I usually don't fall head over heels for contemporary Christian music (though there are exceptions--I especially like Third Day and Chris Rice) because I feel like the artists sometimes go overboard--I don't think anyone wants to be preached at through a song.

The song below is another one of those exceptions. When I heard the song and saw the video I got tears in my eyes, mostly for my daughters, who are just now having to fight against this, but also for every female in our culture. And heck, even the guys, too, though to a lesser extent.

I honestly think every teenager in America ought to see this video.



(I can't see the video.)

Christmas Songs I Don't Like, part three

I've written two prior posts about Christmas songs I don't like (You can read them here and here). I'll admit that, though while deciding numbers one and two were easy, deciding what would be my third most hated Christmas song was a little tougher. I don't have the hatred for any of the remaining songs that I will talk about that I had for the first two. The remaining songs I'm going to write about over the next couple of weeks only annoy me.

Still, after making the list, I decided that--of all the songs that annoy me but that I don't absolutely hate--the one that goes right to the top of the list (or the bottom, depending on how you want to look at it, I guess) is Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Here are my observations about this song:


1. I don't like the lyrics that try to make me feel guilty. The lyrics are all about how terrible the famine is in Africa, and they're supposed to make us feel guilty at Christmas: "Pray for the other ones/ At Christmas Time it's hard, but when you're having fun/There's a world outside your window/ And it's a world of dread and fear." Thanks, Band Aid. That's just what I want to hear when I'm gathering with my family. Or how is this to get you in the holiday spirit: "The Christmas bells that ring there / Are the clanging chimes of doom"? Fits right in with "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas."

Look, guilt mongers, we have 364 other days of the year to solve the world's food and water crises. Let's just relax and open some presents on Christmas, okay?

2. The song gives Africa a bum rap. The song says these four lines: "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas Time / The greatest gift they'll get this year is life / Where nothing ever grows / No rain nor river flows." The song is about Ethiopia, where a massive famine was happening in 1984 and 1985, but the song makes it sound like all of Africa is desert. The song is true in saying that there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas Time. But guess what? It's not going to snow in December ANYWHERE in the southern hemisphere, which is where the bottom half of Africa is, because it's SUMMER in December! And the northern half of Africa is too close to the equator to get snow, either (though I have to admit, after taking a quick look at a map of the world, Africa goes further north than I envisioned it). And even if we get beyond the snow imagery, the last lines about nothing ever growing and no rain and river flowing is ridiculous. There are JUNGLES in Africa. Lots of them! It's not the whole continent that was experiencing a drought. But you wouldn't know that from the song.

3. To quote from "The Twelve Pains of Christmas": "I Don't Even KNOW Half These People." The song is supposed to be a group effort from all of the major British popular musicians of the 1980's, but even when the song first came out in 1984 I didn't know who half of the people in the song were. These days I'm even less sure, and the ones that I recognize are not anyone I want to hear singing. Culture Club? Wham? Is that Bananarama? Holy crap! It's like a nightmare from my high school days. The faces bring back all kinds of bad memories: I don't remember what song you sang, there, Paul Young, but I remember that I HATED it. And wait a minute! Is that Kool & the Gang in the back? Who let them in there? They're not British! They're from New Jersey! Did they pull a Salahi and crash the recording of this song?

4. In some ways, the song minimizes the famine in Ethiopia. Sure, the song raised a lot of money when it came out, and I know the song means well, but some of the lines are downright offensive: "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you" is a ridiculous line that even in 1984, when I was an idealistic 16 year old, I knew was dumb. Instead of thanking God it's them and not me, why don't I instead ask God to make it none of us? Why would I THANK God that they are starving?

A few lines later, the song encourages me to "raise a glass" for "Them beneath the burning sun." Yup. That's going to do a lot of good. Let me drink a toast to the starving Ethiopians.

I thought the song deserved a C+ for effort in 1984, but it's time to retire it, especially since the drought and famine in Ethiopia went away in 1985 (though it's returned again this year).

Dirty Laundry

I've spent the last couple of nights in Louisville attending a couple of different educational conferences. In the bathroom I found this little sign on the sink:

I've been amused by little signs like this before. I wrote about them here and here. Again, it's what's not being said here that is funny to me. What the hotel WANTS to write is this: "Dear Hotel Guest, let's get real. That towel you're holding ISN'T dirty. You used it once...to dry off your clean body when you got out of the shower! You and I BOTH know that towel doesn't need to be laundered right now, that you don't need a fresh towel tomorrow morning. Just hang the thing back up on the rack and let's move on with our lives."

By the way, do you want to know what I did with MY towels? I think the video below, which I thought of immediately upon seeing the sign, answers the question...



(I can't see the video.)

All True Energy

In more than one interview (and in the video below) I've heard Bruce Springsteen say that every song that he's written since 1975 has echoes of the song "Born to Run" in it, that the questions asked in that song are the same questions that drive every song he's written since. Which begs the question, I guess, of why you'd listen to any other Bruce Springsteen song EXCEPT "Born to Run," but that's a point for another day. My point for today is this: I know how he feels.

I used to write poetry all of the time. I wrote over 3,000 poems from 1984 until 2003.  Not good poetry, mind you, but poetry nonetheless. And in 1992 I wrote a wholly unremarkable poem, but in that poem I wrote two lines that have followed me ever since. I wrote:

     Yet all true energy stems
     From the Son, not the sun.

Immediately after writing it I stared at the line for a solid two minutes, and then I scratched out and reversed the homonyms so that it read as follows:

     Yet all true energy stems
     From the sun, not the Son.

I stared at the line again for a while, and then I scratched out the exchanged words and returned the line to its original state...

But I never really decided in what order that line should be written, and I've pretty much spent the last seventeen years of my life trying to decide whether the "Son" or the "sun" should come first in that sentence.

And I'm going to be honest here: After 17 years, I'm not any closer to knowing the order of that line than I was in 1992. I'd like to tell you otherwise.  I'd love to say that I have become completely convicted in my belief in Christianity, and that, as the contemporary Christian cliche goes, "I know that I know that I know." But that's nonsense to me. I don't even believe other people who say that. When someone says "I know that I know that I know," what I hear them say is, "I THINK I know, but I'm not sure, and I don't REALLY want to even address my doubts because they're really so shaky that they won't stand up under scrutiny, and I don't want anyone to talk to me about my doubts, so I'm going to just say that 'I know' multiple times so that people will avoid the conversation with me. Case closed."  But as Shakespeare said, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

On the other hand, if I'm not sure in my belief in God and Christianity, I have even less faith in anything like atheism. Though I think Creationists are ridiculous in calling Intelligent Design "science" (By its definition it's not), I do believe there is a point to be made in the idea that the universe's complexity lends itself to the idea that SOMETHING must be behind it. And besides, without God, life is pretty much meaningless. I simply can't function that way.

On the other other hand, maybe that last sentence says it all--that I have to make myself believe something fanciful in order to function, that my need to believe in a God doesn't make Him real.

So I don't know. I still don't have an answer to the question of how that line should go. Maybe I'll never know. I'd like to think that when I lie on my death bed I will not still be wrestling with a line of poetry I wrote when I was 24 years old.

I'd LIKE to think that...



(I can't see the video.)

"Fail" is a Verb!

Lately I've been disturbed by a grammar error that has been creeping into our language. The error is this: When someone attempts to do something grand and important and makes a mistake of equally grand and important scale, people will often say something to the effect of, "Boy, that was an Epic Fail!" There's even a website dedicated to showing people who make "Epic Fails."

When people say this, I feel as if they're scraping their fingernails on a chalkboard. I want to scream the following at these people: "No! It is NOT an 'Epic Fail!' It is an 'Epic FailURE!' The word 'fail' is not a noun! Ever! It's a verb! And that's all it is! You can't even use it as another part of speech. You can use 'failING' as another part of speech, as in 'Someone needs to turn around those failing schools' or 'Failing is never fun.' You can also used 'failED' in the same way ('She burned all of her failed tests.'). You can add the word 'to' in front of it and make it an infinitive and THAT can be used as an adjective, as in 'Mary was the one to fail,' or--yes--an infinitive can even be a noun, as in 'To fail is to not try.' But you can never, Never, NEVER use 'fail' alone as anything but a verb!"

I guess it just makes the English teacher rise up in me.

Thank You For My Unicorn

I wanted to write a quick note to talk about yesterday's posting of Natalie reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I guess I'm writing in part to explain something about the video, and in part to brag on her.

When I first saw that video, back in 2002, I assumed that Natalie was NOT reading the book at all. I figured she'd just memorized the video, which she'd seen dozens of times before, and she'd just memorized the book, which Lisa and I (and Nat's older sister Meredith) had read to her many times before. There was no way, I told myself, that she was actually reading the book. Three year olds (almost four year olds) can't read.

That notion was dispelled the next month, when Natalie turned four. She had a birthday party, and one of her friends, a girl named Audrey, gave her a stuffed unicorn. A couple of days after her birthday Natalie walked into my bedroom and handed me a piece of paper.

"Here you go, Dad," she said to me. "This is a Thank You note for my birthday."

I looked at the piece of paper. She had scribbled some letters on it. At first glance, I assumed she'd scribbled them randomly:

"That's nice," I said, playing along. "What does the note say?"

Natalie pointed at the letters and said, "Thank you for my unicorn, Audrey. From Natalie, Dad, and Mom!"

As she pointed at the letters, my jaw dropped. As she dragged her fingers across the paper while reading her note again, I could see that was EXACTLY what was written on the paper: Thank (TAC) you (U) for (FER) my (Y) unicorn (YNACORYN), Audrey (ADEDER).

What amazed me about this was that we had NEVER made a systematic effort to teach Natalie to read early. Sure, we read to her several times a day EVERY day, and she did watch Sesame Street on TV and we did have a couple of computer software games designed to teach beginning sounds, and Meredith, who was in school, liked to "play" school and pretend to be the teacher to Natalie's student, but we'd never sat Natalie down and said, "Okay, here's how you read." She'd just figured it out on her own.

I guess I should have seen the signs that she was reading on her own. There was the video I posted yesterday, and for about six months before that, Natalie would correct me when I was reading to her. I might read "Then Alice fell in the deep hole and disappeared" and Natalie would correct me and say, "No, Dad. She 'fell INTO the deep hole.'" I'd look at the page, and sure enough she was right. But I just assumed that Natalie had heard the story so many times that she had it memorized, even though she'd be pointing right to the word that I'd mispronounced.

I'm not saying that everything in yesterday's video is Natalie actually reading the book. I think, for the most part, she IS reciting something she'd memorized. But when she loses her place in the book on several occasions I watch her now, and I firmly believe that she's actually reading the words and not just looking at the pictures to find her place again.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

My favorite Christmas video of all time used to be A Charlie Brown Christmas, but this is my favorite video now...

In December of 2002, while I was at work, Lisa filmed this little gem below. I've been wanting to post this online for a couple of years now, but the daughter in the video, who was three (almost four) at the time, went from being proud of the video when it was first produced to being embarrassed by it. However, this year I think there's been enough distance between the her in the video and the her of the present because she has given me the go ahead to place the video online for all to see. However, she doesn't want me to mention her name anywhere, though.

Everyone who knows her will know who it is, though.




(I can't see the video!)

The Theater

I have been looking forward to today for a long time...

When our children were younger I always enjoyed them for the age that they were, but I also was always looking forward to the next stage in their development. When they were little things, maybe ten weeks old, I enjoyed holding them while they slept and singing to them, but I also couldn't wait until they were old enough to walk. When they were three or four years old they were fun to wrestle around on the floor with and I enjoyed that, but I also looked forward to when they'd be old enough to have structured play together, maybe building a house with Lincoln Logs or something.

That enthusiasm has waned a little in the last couple of years. The girls aren't doing a whole lot more now at 13 and (almost) 11 than they were at 11 and 9, and in some ways they're getting harder. I'm finding myself now looking fondly BACKWARD rather than forward, and I don't like that much.

But tonight, I'm looking at the present again with excitement. I've been waiting for years for my girls to get old enough that I could take them to the theater. And that moment has arrived.

Yes, we've been to the theater before as a family. A couple of years ago we went and saw a travelling Broadway performance of The Lion King, and last year we took the girls to see Cirque du Soleil. But I don't really consider those two to be REAL theater. To me theater isn't costumes and music and lots of dancing. Theater is acting and directing and great writing.


I guess I'm talking about "plays" more than "the theater" in general. I LOVE plays, and I've been looking forward to the chance to take my girls to see a play.


And tonight we're going to see the play that, I guess, most children who go to the theater go to see early in their lives, Charles Dickens' The Christmas Carol. We've got great seats, on the second row. We're off to the side a little, but nothing terrible. 


I hope the girls really enjoy it. I've been waiting for years to take them, but one of the girls kept saying she thought she'd be afraid to be in the dark with actors pretending to be ghosts. She didn't stop saying that this year; we just decided we were going anyway.


I hope this is the highlight of the girls' Christmas this year, the thing that they'll say, "2009? That was the year we went to see The Christmas Carol, right? I also hope that the girls leave the show tonight with a lifelong love of plays. I was telling Lisa that--as much as I love the Cincinnati Bengals--I'd take season tickets to the Playhouse in the Park over season tickets to the Bengals AND the Reds. 


I'll let you know later how things went.

Christmas Songs I Don't Like, part two

Two days ago I wrote about the Christmas song that I hate the most, "The Little Drummer Boy." At the time I said that if I had to create a list of my top 10 hated songs that I didn't know what they would be. Not anymore. I sat down for a few minutes yesterday and made a quick list of my 10 most hated songs, and now I can share them with you, one post at a time.

Lucky you.

So "Little Drummer Boy" is my MOST hated Christmas song. And coming in at number two is...

 ..."The 12 Days of Christmas."

There is so much about this song that I honestly don't know where to begin. In fact, as I was working out in my head what this post would look like, I quickly realized there were a handful of different angles from which I could attack this song, so many that I wasn't really sure how I should do it. So finally I just thought, to heck with it! I'll mention them all.

Angle One: The Repetitious Angle
One of the things that bothers me about this song is how completely repetitious it is to sing the song. It goes on WAY too long. In fact, though I know what all 12 of the gifts in the song are, I can never clearly keep straight what order the gifts are in once you get past all of the birds. After seven swans a swimming, I start to think, "Okay, is it eight Lords a Leaping? Or is it eight Maids a Milking? Where do the drumming drummers fit in? What about the dancing ladies?" I think I can't keep these straight because by this point in the song I've usually given up, so I don't hear this part of the song as often.

Angle Two: All of the Irritating Variations on the Song
Even if "The 12 Days of Christmas" were a GREAT song, it would still make my list of most hated songs if for no other reason than that it has inspired some really irritating variations. The Muppets have a version that get played every year, as do Bob and Doug McKenzie. Jeff Foxworthy had NO business making a "12 Redneck Days of Christmas" record, and there are plenty of other examples. I will make one notable exception here, though: I think "The 12 Pains of Christmas" is funny, as long as I only hear it once a season.


Angle Three: The Impracticality of the Gifts
Another thing about the song that bothers me is the impracticality of the gifts. And it always leaves me with questions about some of the gifts. For instance, take the six geese a laying: how did the gift giver manage to time the giving of the gift to coincide with the laying of the eggs? Because the geese can't have laid the eggs BEFORE the gift was given. Otherwise, they'd be the "Six Geese a Sitting on their Eggs."

Another example: The maids a milking (Sorry, as I mentioned above, I forget what number they are). My question is what exactly is the gift here? The lyrics say it's the MAIDS, not the cows or the milk. But does the receiver at least get to keep the milk, too? And what happens to the cows AFTER the maids have milked them? Is the receiver responsible for getting them back to their original owner?

Oh, and the Maids a Milking lead me to my next angle...

Angle Four: The Creepy Progression of the Song
Has anyone else ever been bothered by the creepy way that the song progresses? It starts off innocently enough, with the speaker receiving a partridge in a pear tree. That's a pretty weird gift, I'll admit, like nothing I've ever been given, but I guess it's understandable. Maybe there's some inside joke or meaning between the giver and the receiver that we're all just not getting there.

But very quickly, however, the gifts get more ominous. Move past the ever increasing number of birds that the receiver is getting--which is odd in its own right--and you start to see that, for the last half of the song the receiver is being given actual human beings! And lots of them! Regardless of what order they're in, when all is said and done FIFTY human beings are being transacted in this song. I think it becomes pretty obvious who the receiver of these gifts is: A slave trader who loves birds!

Sick of Writing

Yesterday I was working in earnest for many hours to write a 20 page grant for my school district. I spent all of about 10 hours writing this thing--that after having already spent perhaps that same amount of time over several days working on it. Plus, I probably still have another 10 or so hours to go to finish the thing! As a result of all of that writing, I'm not really in the mood to write anything here today.

I hope you understand.

Christmas Songs I DON'T Like, part one

Last year at Christmas time I shared my two all time favorite Christmas songs (You can see the posts here and here). This year I thought I'd take the opposite approach and present you with some Christmas songs that I don't like, and tell you why.

If I had to come up with my Top 10 List of Most Hated Christmas Songs, I'm honestly not sure what the entire list would comprise, but I can tell you easily--without even having to give any thought to it--what number one on the list would be: "The Little Drummer Boy."

I hate every possible version of the song. And I'm not exactly sure what it is about this song that bothers me. The alliteration of "Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum" repeated over and over again isn't what bothers me. I kind of like that, in fact, because back when I was a 10th grade English teacher I almost always taught a unit on poetry right before the first semester break and  I could use the song as an example of what onomatopoeia was. So I guess I have that to be grateful for in the song.

No, I guess what bothers me is the Biblical inconsistency of the whole song. Three things bother me:
1) There was no drummer boy bringing Jesus gifts at the manger. Read the gospels and you'll see. No drummer boy is mentioned. Or if you're not Christian and/or you don't want to read a Bible, you can just go look at any of the manger sets that are for sale in the Christmas aisle of any store. There is no little drummer boy in the set.
2) Not only was there no drummer boy in the Bible, but the whole idea of a bunch of people parading in front of Jesus and presenting him gifts is not in the Bible, either! The song opens with these lines, "'Come,' they told him (Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum)/ A newborn King to see (Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum)/ Our finest gifts we bring (Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum)/ To lay before the King." Unless the "they" in the song were the Magi telling the child to come before the king then the whole idea is flawed, because the Magi were the only ones who presented gifts to Jesus. Who are these mysterious other people planning to come before Jesus, too? And if it isn't other people, if it is the Magi that are telling the child to come with them, why are they enticing this child to come with them? Are they wise men or child molesters?
3) The sentimentality of the final verse bugs me. "The ox and lamb kept time?" Really? The ox and lamb had a sense of musical rhythm? They were magical, musical beasts? Also, the idea that Jesus smiled at the boy at the end of the song bugs me, too. I know famous paintings of the Christ child show him with a halo around his head, and I understand that Jesus is the physical incarnation of the living God, but did he really have full, adult consiousness when he was an infant? I don't think so. Maybe it wasn't a smile, little drummer boy. Maybe it was just gas.

Look, I don't have a problem with songs about Santa Claus and magical reindeer, and I don't have a problem with songs about Christmas that don't focus on Jesus (In fact, both of the songs that I link to above would fall into that category), but if you're going to write a Christmas song that focuses on the manger scene, at least be accurate to what's recorded in the Bible.

NOW It's Christmas Season

Back in early November I wrote a post about how a local station here in Cincinnati had started playing Christmas music on November 1, and how I felt that was too soon to really get into the Chrismtas spirit. Well, that feeling is gone now. It's now DECEMBER 1, and it's definitely Christmas season, and I am excited.

Last year I was so busy moving that I don't know that I ever really got into the Christmas spirit much. Sure, I thought the decorating job that Lisa did was nice, and that did get me in the spirit a little, but everything from painting to moving to work made things so harried that it was hard to really stop and smell the roses. Or more appropriately for this time of year, I guess, stop and smell the pine boughs. Or more appropriately for this time of year AND this modern world, stop and smell the pine bough-scented candles.

But this year, despite how busy I am at work, I'm really excited about Christmas. But it's been a strange year for me, though. For the last ten years or so, Lisa and I have done more and more of our Christmas shopping online. In fact, I just checked online, and last year I had 13 different Amazon orders at Christmas time, and I'm sure that I ordered a few items from other vendors as well. I think our mail man got used to delivering Amazon boxes to our house. In fact, one day in late December I happened to be going out the door as he was walking up the sidewalk. As he handed me the mail he said, "No packages today!"

This year, though, I've only ordered ONE package online thus far, and that package was ordered at Wal-Mart.com and I have to go and pick it up at a physical Wal-Mart, so it's really only sort of an online order. Everything else has been bought at a real store.  I don't know what this move back to purchasing stuff from physical stores means, whether it's a trend or not. But I doubt it. I think it just is a result of Lisa buying most of the items thus far rather than me.

Oh well, December is still very young. I may make 12 more online orders yet...

Google Wave

On October 13 I signed up for a new communications service from Google called Google Wave. I didn't actually sign up for the service. I signed up for an invitation. Yesterday, only six weeks later, I got that invitation.

I haven't really started playing with the service yet, but I'm pretty excited about it. It has the potential to completely change the way we communicate electronically.

I'll post more later...

The Real Wicked Witch

One night over this Thanksgiving weekend the entire family sat down to watch The Wizard of Oz on DVD. We watched it because Lisa wanted to watch it--she said she remembered as a child that the movie always played on TV sometime around Thanksgiving. 


It's a movie I've seen dozens of times now, and most of those viewings have been in the last 10 years or so thanks to my daughters' love for the movie. And every time I watch the film I become more and more convinced of one thing:


Glinda is not what she claims to be!


I know there's already been a book and musical called Wicked! that dealt with this issue, but I'm not interested in the back story leading up to the events in the original 1939 movie. I'm talking about in the movie itself, Glinda is not as wholesome as she claims to be. The problem is, The Wizard of Oz is seen pretty much through Dorothy's eyes. She's the protagonist, and she's the one we identify with throughout the story. But Dorothy, very early on in the movie, is shown to be a wide-eyed, naive little girl who foolishly believes everything that Professor Marvel tells her, a little girl who dreams of "somewhere over the rainbow." So Dorothy naturally believes Glinda when she describes herself as a "good" witch. But Glinda, in my mind, is NOT a good witch. She's a Machiavellian monster!


Here's what I think happened:


Years ago, the Kansas man who will one day be known as "The Wizard of Oz" lands in the Land of Oz in his balloon. At some point later he convinces the citizens of the Emerald City that he is the Wizard of Oz. When the story begins, there are four powerful beings vying for control of Oz, the "Wicked" Witch of the West, the "Wicked" Witch of the East, Glinda the "Good" Witch of the North, and the Wizard of Oz, whom I will bet is also referred to as the "Wizard of the South." These four beings rule the lands of Oz, and none of them trust the other ones AT ALL! But as none is more powerful than the others, there is a measure of stability and peace in the kingdom.


Enter Dorothy in her tornado-blown house. Her house lands on top of the Witch of the East, killing her. Now, think about what happens next! Almost instantly Glinda arrives in her bubble. The first thing she does is ask Dorothy, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" She's measuring up Dorothy to see how powerful she is. I think Glinda very quickly realizes that a) Dorothy is nothing to fear and b) Dorothy is from the same land as the Wizard of Oz. 


Then the Wicked Witch of the West shows up demanding revenge for the killing of her sister. And before Dorothy can try to smooth things over with the Wicked Witch of the West, maybe try some of that mid-western charm on her, Glinda goads the Witch of the West, reminding her about the ruby slippers, and when the Witch of the West goes for the slippers, Glinda makes them appear on Dorothy's feet. Glinda makes Dorothy a target! 


Once the "Wicked" Witch of the West leaves, Glinda convinces Dorothy that Dorothy will have to Follow the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City to ask the Wizard of Oz to take her home. Glinda doesn't offer to send anyone along as a guide, nor does she offer to accompany Dorothy herself. She sends a 12 year old child alone on a long journey through a dangerous, dark forest where the trees are alive and where living scarecrows and metal men with axes live. And she does this assuming that Dorothy will either be killed before she ever gets to the Emerald City, or if she does, she will meet the Wizard of Oz, who will either a) send her off to kill the Witch of the West (Maybe he makes this demand of anyone who wants something from him!) or b) he will decide to get in his balloon and take her home. If either of these events happens, Glinda gets rid of one more of the two remaining foes in her way to total domination of Oz. And if Dorothy gets killed, it's no real loss for her.


Imagine Glinda's surprise, then, when at the end of the movie Dorothy kills the Witch of the West AND convinces the Wizard of Oz to leave in the balloon. Sure, the Wizard leaves the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion in charge of the Emerald City, but do you really think the three of them will be much of a match against Glinda that "Good" Witch (though I think you're beginning to see now what I've been seeing in all of these viewings, aren't you? She's no GOOD witch!)? Glinda will be in total control of the Land of Oz before Dorothy can finish chanting "There's no place like home!"


And if you still have doubts, consider this: When the Wizard goes off and leaves Dorothy alone, Glinda shows up and tells Dorothy that she could have gone home anytime she wanted--all she has to do is click her heels, say "There's no Place Like Home," and remember that everything she ever wanted was in her own back yard. Dorothy asks Glinda why she didn't tell her that in the first place, and Glinda replies that Dorothy wouldn't have believed her, that Dorothy had to find out for herself...


...well...


....if I'd been Dorothy, I would have said to her, "Oh yeah? Well, I would have liked to have tried it anyway!"



What a load of rubbish. Glinda didn't tell her at the beginning of the movie because she still saw that she could use Dorothy to at least occupy the Witch of the West for a little while. She had no idea how swimmingly things were going to go for her.


Or maybe I've just seen this movie too many times...

Disoriented

Sometimes a dream will disorient me for a while...

Last night I dreamed that I was teaching English at a strange school, and I couldn't find my way to my classroom. I wandered the halls, occasionally stopping people to ask them how to get to my classroom, but no matter what direction I went, I always seemed to be on the opposite side of the school from where I was supposed to be. Then, when I finally neared my classroom, it occurred to me that I had no idea who my students were, what I was supposed to be teaching, or even what grade level I'd be teaching. It also occurred to me that I hadn't done any lesson plans for this class.

I woke up suddenly from the dream, and after lying in bed for about 30 seconds it occurred to me that in my REAL life I hadn't done any lesson plans in a LONG time. I got panicky over that, and then I realized that I couldn't even remember HOW to do lesson plans in the new student information system that the state of Kentucky uses. And I started to get really agitated and upset until I remembered...

...I haven't been a teacher for six years now...

Practically Done Now

Monday I wrote about how stressed I was at work because I had three major reports that I needed to get into the state by the middle of December. I was so excited Tuesday afternoon because I FINALLY got started on one of these. After about two hours of work, I looked at my computer screen and this is a sample of what I had:

I am practically finished now!

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for

• my wife
• my children
• days off work
• that moment when you think you've already eaten the last cookie from the bag, but then you realize that there is one left
• family
• coffee
• forced air furnaces
• that it is not a year ago today, because I came home from Thanksgiving dinner and then loaded the  moving truck and worked from then until Monday morning
• for work
• for my health
• for police officers
• that no one I know personally has died in the War on Terror. I'm also thankful to those I personally know who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have done so, and that most of them are home now
• for turkey
• for dressing
• for pumpkin pie
• for potatoes, that wonderful vegetable that you can deep fry or cover with cheese or mash or cover with bacon...or heck, I guess you can do all of them at once!
• for friends
• for Facebook
• for blogs
• that the world seems a little smaller thanks to the Internet
• for co-workers
• for my job
• for peace of mind
• that, with the economy as bad as its been lately, I have not gone hungry or filed for unemployment or even really worried about my own job
• for soft blankets and pillows
• that I am not homeless
• for board games and chicken wings
• and for Ladder Ball or Hillbilly golf or whatever you want to call it, which is what I was playing in that photo from yesterday...

What am I doing?

Yesterday I wrote a post about the family dog. As I was browsing through pictures on the hard drive of our computer, I came upon this picture. As I looked at it I thought, "You know, if I remove everything from the photo but me, that's going to be one weird looking photo." So I did it.

Can you figure out what I'm doing in the photo? Any guesses? (I'll tell you tomorrow).

The Warrior Princess

It occured to me today that I hadn't really written about our dog since right after we'd gotten her, so I thought I'd give a quick update and give some photos.

Her name is Xena, as in Warrior Princess. Don't make fun of the name. We didn't give it to her; it was from her previous owners. We did, though, keep it, which I guess we didn't have to do.

I just re-read the last thing that I wrote about her, and it almost made me laugh out loud. I didn't really know the dog very well back then. In that post I described her as "a dominant dog" that tried to run the show...

...This is the most submissive dog I've ever seen.

Here is a short list of just some of things that terrifies this dog:
1. Garbage trucks.
2. Any plastic container, like a bucket or a trash can.
3. Any other dog, no matter the size.
4. Me.

The last one is my fault, I guess. I really did think that she was a dominant dog when we first got her. She wasn't a dominant dog at all--she was just an enthusiastic puppy, but I decided that it was my job to try to break her. So I read some books about dominant dogs. Never mind that the photo on the cover of one of these books was of a Doberman Pinscher, and that on another was a huge Rottweiler with its teeth bared, and never mind that my dog looks like a black lab puppy and is smaller than a beagle. I assumed these books could help me. One of the books suggested that the next time that the dog did something I didn't want her to do, I should point at her and shout "No!" as loudly as I could. Seemed a little extreme to me, but I thought I'd give it a try.

The next day I came home from work wearing a suit. I let Xena in the back door and she ran over to me and jumped up on me. I shoved her roughly away, pointed a finger in her face, and shouted "No!" as loudly as I could. I literarlly hurt my own ears I shouted so hard. Xena's ears fell back on her head, she crouched down, and promptly emptied her bladder on the hardwood floor.

For months after that this was the kind of greeting I got from Xena--an enthusiastic greeting, but when I bent down to pet her she'd squat and pee. I knew that I had to be patient with her. If I got frustrated and yelled at her it would just reinforce the situation.

Eventually she got to the point that she quit peeing, but she still didn't want to be around me when we were alone together. I told my family about it, and they thought I was lying, I think. She acted absolutely fine when anyone else was around, but the moment she realized it was just the two of us she'd run into Natalie's room and hide under her bed. I finally proved to Lisa how she acted one afternoon when the dog and I were in the back yard and everyone else was inside, and Xena didn't know anyone else was inside. "Don't make any noise," I told Lisa. "Just look out the basement door and watch this." I then went out and threw a rope bone to Xena. She merrily went and got it, but when I approached her to take it from her she dropped the bone, rolled over onto her belly, tucked her tail into the air, and peed on herself. I looked over at Lisa. I think she finally believed me.

For a long time it bothered me, but then as I got to know the dog better I noticed that it wasn't just me--she was just one terrified, insecure dog. As I mentioned above, she's terrified of plastic containers. She loves to go for a walk...except on garbage day! Then it becomes an experience similar to you or me going to a haunted house. All those empty garbage cans!

She's actually gotten a lot better, though. She hasn't peed on herself when I've approached her since Halloween night (when she was about to pull out of her leash and run off and I leaped toward her to keep her from getting away), and she no longer hides from me when we're alone in the house. She's still a pretty timid dog, though.

The video below was taken back in July at a "dog park" in Covington. This dog park is basically just a fenced off area where you can let your dog run free where other dogs are so that your dog can get worms. We took Xena to the dog park twice, and she spent the VAST majority of time hiding under the legs of whatever human she could find. If she wasn't doing that, she was literally foaming at the mouth from anxiety. The only time she played AT ALL with any other dog is in the video below. She played with this dog for the length of time in the video and maybe a minute and a half more before a larger dog raced into the fracas and got in between them. At that point Xena ran back over to where we were and got between Natalie's legs.