Good and Bad

So this morning I wake with both good and bad news...

On the good front, the Beechwood Marching Tigers performed in the state band contest yesterday. The Class A semi-finals were at Butler High School in Louisville from 10 AM until 2:30. Beechwood performed at 1:45 PM, and they had easily their worst performance of the year. The wind played havoc with the band's props, blowing one side of the front "wall" down (which was distracting as the black boards that make up the wall starting "walking" in the wind before collapsing in domino fashion) and--even worse--blowing over the tallest flags in the "bridge" in the middle of the field, meaning that some of the band members (my daughter included) had to deal with the fact that there were big, orange, metal poles lying across their marching paths. The band finished second in the semi-final competition behind Williamstown. It was good enough to go on to the finals (the top four finishers in semi-finals do), but they finished a full three points behind Williamstown, which in marching band competition is a HUGE gap.

They weren't discouraged, though, and in the finals competition they absolutely NAILED their performance. Afterwards their band director told them, in effect, that it didn't really matter whether they won or lost anymore. They had been PERFECT out on the field at finals, and if they didn't win, then the other team just had a better show. I thought that perhaps he KNEW they weren't going to win, and he was preparing them for it. But that turned out not to be the case. In the end, during the awards ceremony at Papa John's stadium at 11:30 last night, it DID come down to either Williamstown or Beechwood as the other two finalists had already been named fourth place and third place. And the announcer said, "And the second place team in Class A is..." and held that pause for dramatic effect. When he shouted "Williamstown High School!" the fans of Williamstown cheered, sure, but the Beechwood contingent--all of us sitting together in one section of the stadium--erupted in chaos. We knew we had won! I have never been so proud of my daughter and of all of the members of the Beechwood band. They had worked so hard for that moment. We were so giddy that I hardly even noticed how tired I was on the two hour drive home last night (or...this morning actually).

On the bad side, though, I woke up this morning to find that, before leaving for Louisville yesterday morning, I had left the refrigerator door slightly open. EVERYTHING in the refrigerator was at room temperature, and based on the research that I did online, probably had been that way since about 3 PM yesterday. So I filled up two garbage bags full of ruined food, and I'm off to the grocery store in a few minutes.

Ah well. You gotta take the bad with the good!

I've posted video of the band on a couple of different occasions. Here's one more:

Still Yet Another Sign

I spent Monday and Tuesday in Frankfort at a KySTE event. Once it was over I had dinner with my parents and sister (Great to see you guys again!) and then headed out of town. On the way out of town I stopped to get gas at the Shell station that's right by the interstate on the west side of Frankfort. Just above where a user would put in his/her credit card was this sign:

I THINK the creator of the sign meant "DEBIT" card. Not sure if this was a Freudian slip or just a case of bad spelling, but it doesn't matter as the sentence makes sense either way.

Carly Simon was RIGHT!

The song below came out in 1977, when I was 8 or 9 years old. That's my excuse.

"My excuse for what?" you ask. My excuse for the fact that I thought the song was about me. I know it's ridiculous now, but in 1977 I was convinced that this song was about ME, or at least about someone who had the same last name as I have.

And before you laugh at me too hard, listen to what she and the background singers are singing. It sure SOUNDS like they're saying my name ("It's Sweasy! It's Sweasy! Whooooooah. It's Sweasy! It's Sweasy!").


(I can't see the video.)

That's One Billion, 210 Million Watts!

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about how nice it was that my children had friends on this street. My younger daughter, in particular, has become very good friends with a girl just a couple of houses down, and I find her and her family very intriguing. Here's why. There are eight members of the girl's family: the father, the mother, and six children. In descending order, there is a son, two daughters, and then three more sons. All of the children are two to three years apart with the exception of the last two boys, who are slightly more than a year apart.

So what? Here's what: That is almost EXACTLY the make-up of my family growing up. There was my father and mother, my older brother, followed two years later by my older sister, who was followed three and a half years later by my younger older sister, and then three years after that I came along, and three years later my younger brother Kelly was born, followed by Donald 14 months later. This family up the street from us is almost exactly the same!

One of my favorite genre of movies is science fiction movies, and I especially love time travel movies like Back to the Future or Hot Tub Time Machine  or pretty much every third episode of any Star Trek series. And in every one of those shows, there's always the moment when the main character who has traveled back through time comes across HIMSELF in the earlier time. And the character always has this dazed look on his face as he realizes, That's me! That's me in an earlier time, and I'm watching myself!

I get that same feeling two or three times a week. Every time I see the fourth child (the second boy) in this family up the street I think, That's me! That's me back in 1974. It works out almost perfectly. In October of 1974 my older brother Tom would have been a sophomore in high school, which is the grade today of the older brother up the street. My sister Jane was in the 8th grade, the same as the older daughter up the street. My daughter's friend is in the 5th grade, just a grade ahead of where my sister Ann would have been, and every time I see her friend (which is about 5 times a week) I think, "There goes my sister Ann!"

And it's the one just below her that really intrigues me. He's six, the same age I would have been in 1974, and he rides his bike up and down the all of the driveways in the neighborhood, plays in the street with friends, and (to my chagrin) occasionally throws pebbles at cars as they pass. All things I would have done in 1974. And the two youngest children are toddlers, just as my brothers would have been 36 years ago.

And it's not just the children that are the same. Their house is a lot like my parent's house. Sure, my parents had a ranch house and this house is--like almost every other house in my neighborhood--a Cape Cod, but stand in the front yard of either house and look at them and the same thought will strike you: How do that many people even FIT inside that house, let alone LIVE in it? And the stay at home mother up the street has the same look of exhaustion that my mother had for pretty much my whole childhood, and the father, who works six days a week just like my dad did, has the same look on his face, too, one that says, "There are WAY too many people in this house for me, and I have a handle on what's happening at work, but at home things seem just on the verge of being out of control!"

So I don't have to pull out old photo albums. When I see the older brothers and sisters pushing the two younger children, both toddlers, around in their strollers, or when I see my daughter's friend and the boy right below her (Me!) chasing one another around their yard with sticks in a fit of anger, or when I see the mother running after the toddlers as they head towards the street, I don't see them--I see MY family 36 years ago. I've been transported back in time...and without needing to find 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.

A Terrible Educational Wall Poster

I don't know whether to be horrified or amused by this one...

This past work week I spent a couple of days in middle school classrooms working with students. I was explaining to them my school district's rules for usage of the Internet and email. They sign a big, long document explaining all of the rules, but it's SO long that I worry sometimes that the students don't understand it.

That's not important to what I'm writing about, though. Here's what is: Above the whiteboard in this classroom the teacher had placed a number of educational posters. These posters were meant to inspire students to exhibit positive qualities. At the top of the poster in large print was a good positive quality ("Be Courageous" or "Be Inventive"). Running down the left side of the poster were various ways that students could exhibit these qualities in a school setting. And in the middle of the poster was a famous figure from history that exhibited that quality.

As an idea, the posters were fine, and the poster that said "Be A Leader" and that had George Washington on it I had no problem with, nor did I have a problem with putting George Washington Carver on the "Be Inventive" poster. But THIS poster, as I said, made me laugh out loud AND cringe at the same time:

How in the WORLD do you pair Frederick Douglass with the idea of being cooperative? He was an escaped slave who--according to his own autobiography--learned to read and write with the help of the children of his slave owners, and who was beaten for attempting to get an education. But still he persevered, and when the opportunity presented itself, he escaped to the north, where he spent the rest of his life working for the rights of African-Americans. That doesn't sound like cooperation to me!

If, as a slave, Douglass had been given this poster, and if he'd followed the encouragement to be cooperative, he probably would have just accepted his life as a slave and worked hard to do what his masters said.

Maybe the poster should have said, "Be Courageous," for Douglass certainly was, or "Be a Role Model," for he did serve to any naysayers as an example of what blacks could become. But "cooperative"?

As I said, I don't know whether to laugh or be offended.

They're being redundant again! (Or...Still More Stupid Directions)

I'm preheating the oven right now, getting ready to make a fabulous Stouffer's Cheese Lasagna for dinner (Yup. White trash. But don't judge me. That's not the point of this post...). As I was preheating the oven I read the directions for making the lasagna, and step one jumped out at me. It says this:

The part that jumped out at me was right at the beginning:

"1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Do not exceed 400 degrees F."

Why did they feel the need to repeat themselves there? The first line of the directions was pretty clear: 400 degrees. I can't complete that step and at the same time exceed 400 degrees, so there's no real need to have the second line. 

The only reason one could possibly need the second line is if the author of the directions ASSUMED that readers were going to ignore the first line. But if they're going to ignore the first line, why would the author of the directions assume readers were going to follow the second line, either? They might ignore that, too. Maybe the author should have added the same line a THIRD time in case the reader decided to ignore the second line. And if we keep going, we'll end up with something like this:

"1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Do not exceed 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Make sure the oven is preheated to 400 degrees and not even a little bit over it.

No, not even 401 degrees Fahrenheit.

I know what you're thinking--how much of a problem can one little degree make? Trust me. You don't want to find out! 

Just take my word for it--don't go beyond 400 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Don't make me come to your house. Set the @#@#@$@#@ oven to 400 degrees!

In fact, considering the inaccuracy of YOUR oven, you might want to back it up to 375 or maybe even 350."

The directions could end up being PAGES long. 

Then again, if they WERE pages long, I'd have time to read them, because this thing takes an hour and a half to cook!

Foundation Painting

I haven't made a post in over a week, so mostly I'm just making this post so my parents won't think I died (because I don't think I've posted anything on Facebook in that time, either).

I've been really busy, which is why I haven't posted much. That might seem weird since this week has been Fall Break in my district, but I've been doing a project around the house. Since we moved in almost two years ago the foundation has needed to be painted. Here's a photo from Meredith's birthday party last year which clearly shows how bad the foundation looks:

I actually made a post about this party, and I was embarrassed to put up many photos of the back yard because of the poor paint job.

That poor paint job was made even worse after we replaced the retaining walls in the front of the house. The area in front of the garage became an ugly mess, as evidenced by this picture:

So after working Monday and Tuesday getting stuff done at work that I can't do when students and teachers are in the building (network maintenance stuff), I spent all day Wednesday prepping the foundation and Thursday and Friday morning painting. This is what it looks like now:

Hidden Messages in Your Facebook Status

I spent four hours of the day yesterday talking with  8th grade students at Tichenor Middle School about social networking sites like Facebook.We were talking about the appropriate use of those sites in regards to school, but I also spent some time just talking with them about being careful what they post online, that sometimes your Facebook page says more than you intend. Afterward, it occurred to me that there are all kinds of hidden messages in Facebook statuses. Here are some examples:

Facebook Status: Having a great time at the beach. Can't believe I have to go back north Friday. (2 hours ago).
Hidden Message: No one's home at my house. Feel free to rob us.

Facebook Status: Fired up to watch The Office tonight. (37 minutes ago)
Hidden Message: I lead a really boring life.

Facebook Status: Hello? Is there anyone out there? (a few seconds ago)
Why has no one replied to my last status? (2 minutes ago)
What's your favorite thing about me? (7 minutes ago)
Feeling better. Maybe I was just hungry (12 minutes ago)
Why can't I ever get oatmeal off of the sides of my bowls? (15 minutes ago)
The oatmeal is eaten. (21 minutes ago)
I think oatmeal will be my breakfast of choice today. (26 minutes ago)
Anyone interested in going to lunch with me this PM? (33 minutes ago)
My face looks fat this morning (40 minutes ago)
Not feeling too good today. Wish it were spring again (42 minutes ago)
Hidden Message: Three possibilities--1) Unfriend me, 2) I'm addicted to Facebook, or 3) I'm REALLY self-obsessed.

Facebook Status: Center court third row at Rupp Arena, UK vs Florida (14 minutes ago)
Hidden Message: Hah! Loser! Comment on my post and tell me how jealous you are!

Facebook Status: If you believe that God is the Father of the Universe, and that we are all his children, and that LOVE is the most important thing on this planet, please make this your status and let everyone know where you stand. (about an hour ago)
Hidden Message: I have nothing original to say, so I'm going to waste your time with a "chain letter."

Facebook Status: TO ALL MY RELIGIOUS FRIENDS WHO ARE ASKING ME TO SAY I BELIEVE GOD IS THE FATHER OF THE UNIVERSE, I DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD, AND I WISH YOU WOULD NOT WASTE MY TIME WITH SUCH RUBBISH! "THE TRULY ENLIGHTENED ARE THE ONES WHO BELIEVE THAT NONBELIEF IS THE KEY TO LIFE." --SOME OBSCURE ATHEIST (25 minutes ago)
Hidden Message: I'm kind of a jerk...

Facebook Status: I just found a great new product that will let you see exactly who's been viewing your Facebook profile, and that will pay you 10 cents for every visit to your profile. http://www.ssww.com/new/ (2 hours ago)
Hidden Message: My Facebook account has been hacked.

I could give more examples, but they'll have to wait for another post. I'm off now to update my own inane Facebook status...