Worksheet Machine!

After blogging, I waited around for the termite people to come, only to discover my oops of the month. I put the appointment on August 31 in my calendar, only to discover that it was ACTUALLY on July 31. If you check that date on this blog, you'll see that I slept till 11:30. Meg said she was downstairs watching TV with the door closed. This usually means we don't hear the doorbell. According to the secretary at the termite place, they came, no one answered, and then they left. So, now it is rescheduled for 9/6.

We had lunch, watched Seinfeld, then went to St. Paul's (our church) to do the closet switch. Basically what happened here was I was asked to move the handbell stuff to a different closet. Reason being the church needed a new place to store the communion dishes and stuff, since they are kept in the altar table, and get banged up anytime anyone moves it. The new closet is downstairs, which I thought originally was going to be a problem. However, it is twice the size as the old closet (good thing, since we barely had room for everything before). I also decided to move rehearsals downstairs, to eliminate having to take our equipment back up once a week for rehearsals. That means we will only have to bring everything up once a month for our Sunday morning performance. This isn't a real big problem, because the elevator is located right down the hall from the closet.

So, I installed the shelves I bought while Meg (carefully) moved equipment into the elevator. Then, we loaded everything into the new closet with plenty of room. This will be a surprise to the bell members when we start at the end of September. Some of the members seem to have this major fear of change, so I know there will be whining, but, it's done now, and it isn't going back. I'm kind of looking forward to the change.

Speaking of changes, I chose my first listening example for my middle school classes... David Bowie's "Changes." A great song, with cool instrumentation, interesting meter changes, and a good meaning. Hopefully the kids will appreciate it.

The rest of my day, aside from grilling some pork chops from dinner, was spent churning out worksheets, lesson plans, and materials for school. I got a TON done tonight, and hope to get some more done tomorrow. I'd like to take it easy Sat, Sun, and Mon, as they are my last three days of summer. Believe it or not, this doesn't bother me. Maybe it just hasn't hit me yet, or maybe, it is because I am actually prepared. Anyway, I was a worksheet machine tonight, and am very proud of the pile of papers in front of me.

Oh, I forgot to mention the poor things we do to our dog for entertainment. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:


Max, wearing one of my "paint shirt" ringer tees. Maybe he is getting ready to re-do his crate, or maybe he is going to poop, pick or something. You wouldn't want to ruin a nice shirt.



Aww, isn't that cute, Max and I match!

Workshop and Grandparent Visit

I got up at 6 again yesterday. The early wake up is working so far. I was able to relax more in the morning, because the workshop didn't start until 8:30. I had planned to leave around 7:30 to ensure that I would get there in plenty of time. I wish I always had the opportunity to relax in the morning before school, but that would involve getting up a half-hour early. Plus, I probably shouldn't get used to relaxing in the morning, as I imagine it will be quite hectic soon with the baby coming. But anyway...

I left around 7:30, heading up to the school where the workshop was. It is in a neighboring district, I'd say about 5 miles north of where I work. I found the school, and got there about 10 minutes early. I walked into the building, and followed the directions on the registration paperwork to room A107--only to find it locked, dark, and empty. I headed over to the main office, and they informed me the workshop was moved to the media center. I found the media center upstairs, went in, and took a seat. Around me there were about 20 other teachers, all pulling out and setting up their own little white Mac iBook. Here I sit with a pen and a pad of paper. I didn't know laptops were needed for this workshop. Even if I had brought my laptop, it would have done me no good, because I don't have the software they were using.

I had already felt very out-of-place, and it got worse when the next thing happened... a union meeting! Apparently, I was the only one there who didn't work for this district. The union leader was passing around salary guides, and the members voted on them. I just blended into the background. I had no idea this workshop was for members of this district only, all who were given a laptop by the district. I also learned that this workshop was for people who already had an ActivBoard, and have been using it regularly in their classes. I had never actually used and ActivBoard before today; I had just seen other people use it.

At this point, I was feeling alone and out of place, and almost had the urge to just sneak out. But I decided to stick it out. After the union meeting, the presenters began the workshop with a "getting to know you" game, which I thought was ironic, since all of these people work for the same district (but I guess in different buildings--this is a new concept to me, since my district is so small). There were four stations, and we had to brainstorm answers to questions at three of the stations. The first station was, "What ActivBoard lessons do your students enjoy the most?" Whoops, I've never taught an ActivBoard lesson. I admitted this to my group, and suggested a lesson I would do (music composition). The next two stations questions were easy enough to fake. On the last station, you had to come up to the ActivBoard, and copy and drag either a red, yellow, or green dot to an area of the board to indicate your comfort level with the ActivBoard. I watched a few people do it, so I was able to do it without a problem (I probably should've picked red, but I chose yellow instead).

The workshop continued on with tips such as inserting links and images from the web. I was bored at this point, because everyone is trying this on their laptops, and because this is something I could've figured out on my own. Eventually, he gave everyone some time to work this out on their own, in which I texted Meg about how boring this was.

I learned a few other useful tips as the workshop continued, and things started looking better. I was worried about the last hour of the workshop, because the agenda listed individual work-time on creating your own presentation using the techniques learned in the workshop. Since I didn't have a laptop, I wasn't sure what I would be doing. When the time came though, the presenter let me use his laptop. I created a listening map in which students would drag and copy various animals to represent the tempo changes in Brahms' "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5". I figured out how to use the program pretty quickly, because it was basically like using any other program where you place objects and draw, like PowerPoint, or Adobe InDesign, or even Word for that matter. At the end, we were able to present our flipcharts (that is what they are called in this program). Everyone seemed impressed with what I came up with. I e-mailed the file to myself so I could use it when I do get an ActivBoard. And I also got 5 PD hours for the workshop too!

After the workshop, I came home, and finished editing my band handbook, so I could submit it to my principal for review. Then we got ready to go to my Grandmom and Grandpop's house.

The whole family was coming: Meg and I, my parents, Nick, Laura, and Sean. My grandparents live in a rather small apartment, so things were a little tight. My mom brought baked ziti, meatballs, salad, and bread for dinner. As things usually go with my family, there was much laughing and craziness involved. Nick and I took Grandpop's digital camera, and took pictures of odd things and from odd places, to name one. You'd probably have to be there to get the full experience. Here are some pictures though:


Sean and Laura


Meg and I


My Dad (doing a Rocky impression)


Grandmom, Mom , and Grandpop

Apparently my brother is camera shy, because there were no pictures of him.

We came home at about 10 and went to bed. I slept very well, but woke up at about 3:30 from the sound of dead silence. The power had gone out. I figured there was a storm coming, and it had knocked out the power. Since I didn't really have to be anywhere today, I just ignored it, and tried to go back to sleep. Then I noticed the sound of running water--the pool filter was still on. Meg also noticed that the candles in the front windows were still on. I checked the breaker, and apparently the one for our room had tripped. I can't figure out why. All that was on was the ceiling fan, the window fan, and our alarm clocks. I reset the breaker, then went back to sleep.

I added an extra snooze this morning, getting up at 6:09. I had breakfast, and am now blogging. Max is in the family room whining because no one is paying attention to him. So I'll play with him for a while, and then we have our annual termite inspection at 10. I plan on going to church and switching the handbell closets today, and then working on school work and money stuff the rest of the day.

Test School Day

I actually managed to get up at 6 AM on the nose this morning. I did my normal school morning routine (minus getting professionally dressed, which adds time), and left right at 7, which is when I usually try to get out of the house. Meggie got up with me too, which was really nice, and made be breakfast and packed my lunch.

I drove to school, taking the long way, as I wanted to see if the construction in Berlin had finished over the summer. No such luck, Routes 30 and 73 are all still ripped up, and it doesn't look like they'll be done anytime soon. I guess the state shutdown, tons of rain and the beginning of the summer, and tons or rain at the end of the summer slowed things down.

Got to school at 7:30, and then realized that no one would be there that early, and the building would be locked. So, I relaxed in my car until about when our CST coordinator arrived. She let me in, and I headed into my room for the first time since June.

It was like Christmas Day! My purchase orders had come in. So I opened up all of the boxes and checked to see if I got everything. All of my band music from JW pepper was there, about 15 pieces in all. My recorders and books had arrived, along with a concert sleigh bell, a cowbell, another soprano glockenspiel, 4 new guitars, and various school/office supplies. I am still missing the shelves I ordered, the reeds and valve oil and supplies from Music & Arts, and Manila folders. I will check into these things if they are not in by next week.

I got to work on setting things up: dragged out all of the keyboards and classroom instruments. I also unpacked anything that was packed up, and set up my computers. After that I was ready for lunch, but was curious about what my schedule for next year looked like.

So I stopped by the Principal's office and got my schedule. It is VERY different, but I am looking forward to the change. For example, our school is on a 6 day cycle, and last year on Day 3, I had two 7th grade classes, an 8th grade class (all of which can be a challenge), and one of the worse-behaved 5th grade classes. Needless to say, I never looked forward to Day 3. Well now, Day 3 is completely different.

While I ate lunch, I looked over my schedule and thought of ways to fit the instrument lessons in. My first year, I had lessons on days 4, 5, and 6, as I only had 4 General music classes between those three days. This past year, I had to add lessons on Day 3, as I had a lot of new students. This 3,4,5,6 thing won't really work this year, so I am spreading out my lessons over the whole week, here and there. It will be a challenge to have to change gears, but I think it will make my days more balanced.

After lunch, I unpacked my office, and cleaned and reorganized the desk drawers. At about 2:15, I thought I might start putting up my bulletin boards, but I realized that my stapler disappeared last year. And since I wanted to leave at 3 anyway, the bulletin boards would be too big of a project to complete before then, so I got my stuff together, and headed home.

I got home, with intentions of swimming since it was hot and humid, but there were tornado warnings in Delaware, and a huge storm headed our way, so the pool was out of the question.

Instead, I unplugged all of our electronics, and Meggie and I played scrabble. She won, but only by 1 point. I guess we are pretty well matched.

After that, we had Tacos for dinner, talked for a while, and then I dove right back into school work. Now that I had my schedule, I was able to finish working on my band schedule and handbook. I finished the schedule, but I still have to finish up the handbook, but it will all get done. I am way ahead of the game right now anyway.

Here are two pictures from our scrabble game.



Our completed scrabble board (words we came up with: is, sh*t, grid, hick, tent, caned, suck, rub, job, soiled, lazed, fad, zoned, nano, lit, pelt, log, got, toy, one, no, hey, hog, gun, fro, if, ped, peel, rev, raw, war, reel, yow, om, war, rim, rat, stab, and bed) Meg one with a score of 236, I closely followed with a 235.



Me putting away the board (also known as, "Meggie playing with the camera," as there are about 6 pictures of me putting away the board).

End of Summer Improvements

Quite a busy day, but now begins the season of shorter blog posts. I am going to go to school tomorrow to start setting up my room. Voluntary, of course, but I am still of the mentality that this is more a way of life then a job I'm getting paid for. I personally think it is a noble attitude, but I know many of my colleagues would disagree... "Don't give them anything extra!" Anyway, it is past my bedtime (10 PM--HA!), and I am blogging anyway.

Today was a productive day. I got done the following (including pictures)

• Some more school work

• Helping Meggie install new carpet in the pantry and linen closet in place of the gross stuff that was in there.

• Went up to church to check out the new closet they are relocating the handbell equipment to (more on that when I have time)


• Got rid of touchier lamp in living room (not baby-safe, and to make room for a baby swing) and rehung pictures to make up for the missing vertical space.

• Rearranged the laundry room so that I can put shelves in there for our Sam's Club purchase.

• Went to Wal-Mart AGAIN, but buy shelves for the laundry room, and a second set for the new handbell closet.


• Got my boxes of school stuff out of the crawlspace to take to school tomorrow

Okay, well it is now REALLY past my bedtime, because it took forever to post these pictures. I learned tonight that you can't post pictures from Picasa with the new blogger beta. At least not yet anyway. So I was trying to insert them manually, and it was taking forever, and then I realized after uploading 2 that you have to shrink them first, or it sends the whole 5MP picture. I guess Picasa does this automatically when you hit "BlogThis." Really gotta get to bed now. Enjoy the pics!

More Grocery Experiments

After blogging yesterday, I woke up Meggie, and we got ready to go to Wal-Mart to make our list of prices.

We worked it just like we did yesterday at Sam's Club. I took our list, and we went through every aisle, writing down the prices of everything we bought.

Then, after we got home, I sat down, put everything into a spreadsheet, and then discovered that, yes, we did do the right thing. Most of the products that we compared led towards Sam's Club. Now, it's good, but not as good as it looks on paper, because a lot of the stuff in the Sam's Club list are things that you only buy once every couple of months, or maybe even once a year (like the 3-gallon pack of bleach). However, I think the meat prices alone made the card very worth it.

After comparing prices, I toyed around with the spreadsheet some more, and gave it the same functionality it had before. I put in what we need, it tells us how much it will cost. My goal this morning is to put in our Sam's Club order for the month. Hopefully it is not too much. It could take a few months to tweak this new shopping system to make it work, but I have faith that it will work in the long-run.

I worked on this all afternoon, so when I finished, we got ready to go to my parents. Dinner was fun, and as usual, I laughed a lot. I usually laugh a lot at my parents. My sister is crazy funny sometimes, and usually the combination of her, with my brother, can be very funny. Probably the moment I laughed the most was when we somehow all started chanting, "Ohmmmm..." at Scamp to calm him down. While we were in the middle of doing it, I burst out laughing when I realized how ridiculous it was. I guess you had to be there. Anyway...

Some other news I forgot.

Our new camera came in. I don't like it as much as the old camera, but it will work. Apparently they don't sell the old version anymore, and this was the next best thing they had. It goes up to 5MP, (the old only went up to 4MP), and it has a few other features that the old one didn't have. My biggest complaint right now, is that it takes really dark videos, and I can't find any way to adjust the darkness. Guess I'll have to turn on a light or something.

Sorry there haven't been pictures in a while--there hasn't been a whole lot to take pictures of. Next Sunday is "Crab Day," an annual celebration held at my Mommom and Poppop's house, so I'll definitely have some pictures from that.

After my parents, I went to bed right away, because my plan was to get up at 6 AM. Well, it didn't happen. I heard my first snooze go off at 5:33, and don't remember anything after that. I love my alarm clock because it has a gentle-wake feature (the alarm starts soft, then gradually gets louder), but they put the 'Off' button right next to the 'Snooze," button. Bad idea, because I think I keep hitting the wrong button in my sleepy state. Maybe I should look for a new alarm clock. Give up snoozing, you say? Never. I'm addicted to the snooze button!

So, I'm blogging now. I'm gonna plug the Sam's Club order into the grocery spreadsheet, and then get cracking on schoolwork.

Grocery Experiments

I got up right at 7 yesterday, blogged, and then got right into schoolwork and such. I created several rhythm practice worksheets. Each worksheet contains 1 measure examples that are meant to be repeated. I'll play music with a strong beat, and call out the # of the example, and the students will clap it. I'll probably turn them into transparencies, or maybe use them on the ACTIVBoard that I will be able to use this year. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with them. I am thinking of using Google Pages to create a website where I can share the teacher resources that I make. When I finally get around to doing that, I'll post them there.

I worked on that kind of stuff until lunch. Meggie and I had pizza, and finished up the 5th Season of Seinfeld. We will have one more season that we have yet to watch. Then, we have to move on to The Simpsons. We have up through Season 8 now, and I have only watched up through Season 5.

After lunch, Meggie and I went BACK to Sam's Club, this time with our grocery shopping list. We walked around the whole store, and wrote down the price and the quantity of everything that we might possibly buy there. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but it was actually fun. Meg and I were commenting that we feel like little kids in Sam's Club because everything is supersized. There were also tons of free food samples. The prices seem to be really good, but we still need to do the same thing at Wal-Mart, and make some decisions about what we are going to buy where. Sam's Club only carries certain brands, and we still might be better off getting the generic brand at Wal-Mart for some things. We'll have to check it out. It seems like an unusual Saturday outing, but: it was free, it was fun, it will potentially save us money on our grocery bill!

When we got home, Max was acting a little rambunctious, so I suggested we go S-W-I-M-M-I-N-G. Apparently Max knows how to spell now, because I got all excited when I said this. The weather was kinda yucky though, so I ended up letting him in and just watching him from the deck. Then we had dinner, and afterwards, I got some more school work done.

I developed an updated lesson plan format, and then changed gears back to groceries. Now that we are Sam's Club members, we are going to plan our meals by the month. We usually plan them by the week, but if we do it once a month, then we can go to Sam's Club at the start of the month and see what we need to get and store/freeze. Meg and I are discussing rearranging the laundry room so that we can fit shelves in there to store all of this stuff. Eventually, we want to get a chest freezer for down there too.

I'm very excited about all of this. When my Grandmom & Grandpop used to live in Stratford, my Grandpop had this neat workshop off the back of the garage. Along one wall, he had a workbench, some machinery, and a bunch of tools and stuff. Along the other wall, there was what I called the "store." They had shelves with all of this food. To a little kid, it looked like a grocery store aisle. Basically, my grandmother bought lots of sale items and stored them there (I don't think they had wholesale clubs back then). I always thought this was really neat, and now we are talking about doing the same thing. Also, when I used to work at Cinemark (a local movie theatre), I was always fascinated by the stock room for the concession stand. Now we will have a stock room. Now, if we could work on a popcorn popper (which they did have at Sam's Club, I might add), and a soda fountain, we'd be set.

So my task for the rest of the evening was making a calendar on the computer to put our meals on, and actually planning out the meals. It was a little tough to think of 31 different meals, but I made it simpler by thinking of 'theme days.' For example, Saturday is Fish, Sunday is my parents, Monday is pasta, Tuesday is Mexican, Wednesday is chicken, Thursday is pork, and Friday is either the diner or beef. Once I got that down, it was easy to plan everything else out.

After that I went to bed, got up at 7 (still not by the alarm clock, I really gotta do something about that), had breakfast, and blogged. Today we are going to Wal-Mart to complete the other half of our price comparisons. I'll blog about that, plus dinner at my parents', later tonight.

In the Club

7 AM didn't really happen yesterday morning. Missed the alarm again, but only by like a half-hour or so.

I got up at 7:30, had breakfast, and read the news. Then, Meg and headed to the hospital for our monthly growth scan.

Baby D is doing fine. She was 2 lbs 9 oz right now. Her growth rate is where it should be. She is breech (upside down--or is it right-side up? Let's say, feet down) right now, but this is not a concern until the end, as she is still able to move around a lot. She was much more cooperative this time, and the technician was able to get all of the measurements she needed. No pictures though, she was very 'business-like,' and did not print any.

After the scan, we had lunch, and watched some more of Seinfeld: Season 5. After lunch, I started to make the grocery list, and then got involved in a tangent that took pretty much the rest of the afternoon

As it is the end of the month, our grocery budget was low. I wanted to make it a goal this month to find a way to stick to it, since we always go over. So, what I did was start by making a simple spreadsheet of everything we needed. Then, I went through old receipts, and put in prices for the things we needed, since we pretty much buy the same things. Then, I had it total up everything. This way, I could make our list according to our budget. This seemed like a good thing, and I got the idea to switch to making our regular shopping lists in Calc (OpenOffice.org's version of Excel). So I added to this list everything we ever buy, and went through old receipts, adding prices for as many things as I can find. Then, when you make the list, all you have to do is type a number in the "Qty" column, and it totals up everything you are going to buy, including sales tax! Pretty cool. So now the problems: I ended up with a list of like 200 things that we could possibly buy. And the idea is that we can continue to add to this list. Well, it seemed silly to have to print out a few pages for one trip, when really, we probably only by 30 or so items in a trip. So, I found out a way to filter out all of the items we didn't need for the shopping trip. Great! Now, I can work it, but my next problem was to make it more user-friendly for Meg. I was trying to record macros (small programs to automate tasks) to make things faster. I was able to successfully program one to sort the list by aisle and one to clear out all of the numbers in the "Qty" column to start a new list. I was working on one to automate the filtering process, and I just could not get it to work. I posted my problem to the OpenOffice.org Forum, and found out you need to know some advanced stuff about programming language to do this. I think it would be cool to program stuff, but apparently I know nothing. I was looking over help guides to do this, and I might as well be reading German. So, I gave up on that. But the rest of the file is cool, and should make grocery shopping easier, and help us stick to our budget.

Speaking of groceries, I am now part of the "club," Sam Walton's club that is. My mom has been a member of BJ's (another wholesale club) for a while, and I have always been impressed with what you could buy in bulk. However, I never wanted to join a wholesale club before, because A) I thought the membership was really expensive, and B) I didn't think we'd be able to use everything we bought in bulk. Well, I found out the membership was only $40 a year for two cards!

So, we decided to check it out last night. Just on the meat prices alone, we will definitely save more than $40 a year. Plus, they have diapers, and a lot of other stuff that can easily be bought in bulk.

So, we signed up. I've got my own Sam's Club card now-- Complete with bad ID picture.



After Sam's Club, we went over to Wal-Mart (boy, the Walton family can eat tonight), and did our regular grocery shopping, and actually were UNDER the amount that I had predicted. Woo-Hoo, we actually stuck to our grocery budget this month!

We got home, and I toyed around more the the grocery program, and then gave up and went to bed.

Sleepy

This will be a short post, as I got up at 4:45 this morning. Basically, after my last post, I spent the day getting school work done, and oddly enough, looking at old sent mail from my freshman year in college. All I can say is I didn't realized how much I have changed and matured. Reading messages that I had sent, it was hard to imagine that I was the author! The rest of college, marriage, 3 years of working in a school, buying two houses, owning a dog, and realizing that I am going to be a father have sure refined the college freshman I read the writing of today.

I also made sauce, which turned out really great this time--one of my best batches in a long time. The only bad part was that I think I overdid the cheese, and what didn't melt into the sauce burnt to the bottom of the pot. It will have to soak overnight.

I also talked with Jane, the choir director at church, and set up our handbell schedule and such for the fall and Christmas seasons.

School work I accomplished today: Welcome letters for all grades, class expectations and grading handouts for elementary & middle, and my own, homemade, rhythm flashcards.

Okay, time for bed.

Dad's Visit

Wow, I've had a lot of coffee today...

Wednesday, August 23

I actually got up at 7 yesterday morning, although I had to be very quiet, as Cait was sleeping in the living room. Eventually, the sunlight coming in through our front window, and the dog licking her sent her downstairs to the family room.

I went downstairs and got to work on some schoolwork. Meg, Dad, and Cait were all still asleep.

My first task was to make a list. I am a major list-maker. I usually make very long, detailed to-do lists, breaking larger tasks down into smaller ones. I do this because it allows me to check items off of the list more often. This checking-off process is very satisfying to a whacky list-maker like myself.

So, I made this list of all of the materials, handouts, letters, etc. that I need to make for school. I included pretty much anything I could think of up until the end of the 1st marking period. Now, I obviously can't do everything on the list before school starts, so I also indicated the date that I would like to have these done. My goal is to get as much done as possible before the beginning of the school year, but since I have everything so organized, if I don't get to finish what I want, it won't be that big of a deal.

Eventually Meg got up, and we had breakfast out on the deck. Then, we both sat out on the deck with our laptops, and I started tackling some of the items on my list: welcome letters to parents for each grade. Cait woke up soon after and went swimming in the pool. Dad got up around 11, which seems late, until you realize that it was 8 AM in California time.

After Dad got up, we had the Tommy's Pizza we had gotten in Gettysburg for lunch. During lunch, we vaguely planned out the day. This was a very relaxing visit, as we didn't have any general plans, but kind of played things by ear.

After Cait left for Gettysburg, we made a visit to my parents house, mainly so I could sign the loan papers for my sister. We also wanted to give Dad a tour of the house and show off the Tiki hut and all. It was a very pleasant visit, and dad enjoyed the house. I also signed the loan papers, and set up my parents computer for faxing, which they didn't know was even possible. I helped Laura fax off the papers, while Meg, Dad and Mom got caught up.

When we came home, I realized that I had accidentally left the hose running in the pool, overfilling it more than I ever have before. I always thought it was impossible to overflow our pool, because excess water usually just runs out of the skimmer. The cover on the top of the skimmer has a hole in it to allow this to happen. Well, apparently water comes out of the garden hose faster than it can come out of this hole. By the time we got home, the water was well above the top of the skimmer, and was kinda squirting out of the hole like a fountain. I took the lid off of the skimmer, and water started rushing out of the top. I figured it would rush out for a few seconds and then stop, but there was so much water in the pool that it just kept on going. So I put the lid back on because I didn't want to flood the area around the filter. I ended up backwashing the filter just to get the excess water out of the pool. This, of course, flooded the rest of the yard and Max's "bathroom." Max ended up being covered with mud, because he saw a large muddy puddle and decided to play in it. Pools--it never ends!

After all of this watery fun, we decided to go swimming. This also helped to get rid of some excess water, as a lot got splashed out. It was warmer, so the water felt very nice and refreshing. Meg did a great job vacuuming it too, so it was nice and clean. After the pool, I grilled some peppers and chicken on the grill, and we made chicken fajitas for dinner. Dad is a fan of Mexican food, and he really enjoyed the dinner.

After dinner, we took him to the WIF (Water Ice Factory). He had never even heard of water ice, because it is just a Philly thing. The WIF is a great place to go for dessert. They have tons of flavors, and it is really cheap. A large water ice, which is really a lot, is only $1.75. My standard flavor is blueberry. I always get this, and if I decide to try something else, I am always disappointed that I did not get blueberry. Meg and Dad got mint chocolate chip, and Dad liked it so much, that he decided to go back and try another flavor.

When we got home, I gave Dad a tutorial in LimeWire. He is a huge music fan, and has a lot of stuff on vinyl and tape. He wants to convert all of his stuff to CD (or perhaps digital), and has been looking for a way to easily do this without having to buy a whole lot of new equipment. Meg suggested just downloading the music, to which he replied, "that will cost me thousands of dollars," not realizing that you can still download stuff illegally for free. He seemed as if he might have ethical problems with it, but justified the fact that he already owns the record, and in many cases, the tape and the CD. The record company got its money more than once from him. So, I gave him a primer on how to search for and download music. He was very excited by all of this, and couldn't wait to get started when he got home.

We discussed what the plan was for the morning. Dad's flight was scheduled for 8:40. You're supposed to get to the airport 2 hours before your departure time = 6:40. So, we planned to leave the house at 5:45, in order to have time stop at Wawa and get there in time. The meant getting up at 4:45, and that meant going to bed NOW, as it was already close to 11.

Thursday, August 24
I was the first to get up, right on the nose at 4:45. I got a shower, then Dad, and then Meg. I had my 1st pot of coffee for the day, and had breakfast. The fun started when I went online to see if the flight was on time, and I couldn't find the flight number. Dad called the Philly Airport, and got a recording. The recording said the same thing, no record of the flight number. So Dad called back again, and got a real person, who was very suspicious of Dad, and refused to give him an explanation of why the flight was not listed. He told him it was a security issue, but to arrive for the flight anyway. This had us worried that something bad was going on with that flight, and that he would not be able to fly. Dad called his wife, Heidi in California (it is about 3 AM in CA at this time). She has more experience flying, and explained that it was probably just a computer error, and that the guy on the phone was probably not allowed to give out flight information, since security is so tight anyway.

So, we left the house, feeling better about things. We stopped at Wawa so Dad could get breakfast and lunch, and then headed into Philly. Traffic wasn't too bad, as rush hour doesn't officially start till 7 or so. We dropped Dad off, said our goodbyes, and headed home.

I made another pot of coffee, as I did not want to go back to bed, but was still very sleepy. Meg and I were both kind of bummed, as we hardly get to see Dad, and we had a very enjoyable visit. He will be coming out again after Christmas, this time with Heidi. But, the holiday's are stressful as it is, and will be even more interesting this year, as we will have a 4 week old baby at the time. Not that I am complaining, but it will be a very different visit.

Meg and I are outside enjoying another beautiful day on the deck. I am going to focus on my schoolwork and relaxing now. The summer is winding down. All of our visits are over. There are no more guests coming here. The fun money supply has run dry. There are no more house projects to work on. The air has that 'school' feeling. Cool at night and in the morning; hot in the afternoon. The school year is approaching quickly. Only this time, I am not dreading it. I am looking forward to my third year there--looking forward to a fresh start. The 'Monday' of summer is approaching, and I plan to make the best of it.

RIP Our Camera

I actually got up at 7 this morning! Amazing! It helped because Meggie had been awake for a half-hour for some unknown reason, so we both made it out of bed in time.

Had breakfast, then did our morning computer stuff. I discovered another new great Google product: personalized homepage. They've got all kind of modules you can add to your page, so I spent most of the morning going through them and checking them out. So, now I've got a pretty good home page.

At about a little after nine or so, Meg's dad called. He's at the airport, so we left to pick him up. Getting there was interesting. First, I had a panic moment, because I didn't think we had cash to go over the Walt Whitman bridge. So, I took the exit into Deptford, only to discover that I had it all along. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get back on 42 North. All of the signs were going to 42 South. I finally figured it out, and then we were back on the road. Only to get stuck in traffic at the Walt-Whitman, as they were doing construction, and 4 lanes suddenly have to merge into 2. It took some time, but we eventually got over the bridge, and easily found Dad at the airport.

After getting home, we got caught up, had lunch, and Dad took a nap because of the jet lag. I got involved in another project: making my own blinkie, using Paint Shop Pro with Animation Shop. It's the Daddy-To-Be one. I had to make one, since most of the blinkies seemed to be geared towards women. To most people this would be a hint that blinkies are a girly thing. But not me. Hey, I'm comfortable with my manliness.

Cait arrived from Gettysburg, and Dad got up from his nap, when the crappy part of the day started. Dad had mentioned that he wanted a picture of the four of us. I got out the tripod, thinking I could use the timer feature to take a picture of us. I set up the tripod, and was waiting till we were all ready to take the picture. While waiting, I was making a 360 degree movie of the room--it just seemed like something fun to do. Well, I by doing this, I inadvertently unscrewed the top of the tripod, sending the camera crashing to the ground. It didn't seem like that bad of a fall, but when I picked it up, it had turned off. I switched it back on. The lens, which was extended before the fall, tried to go back in, and got stuck, and the camera shut off again. No matter what I did, the camera got stuck at the same spot. I figured this might be a mechanical problem, so I took the camera apart. This was a little hairy, because inside the camera I found a high-voltage capacitor, which made me a little nervous. I discovered that the lens apparatus was self-contained, and therefore not repairable. I Googled some camera repair places, only to find out that it was going to be more expensive to get it fixed then to buy a new, nicer camera. So, I ended up ordering a new one on Circuit City.com for pretty cheap.

We had dinner at Peter's tonight, Dad's treat. I got one of my usuals, the patty-melt. The rest of the evening was spent researching a new camera, showing Dad our wedding video, and watching episodes from the 8th Season of The Simpsons DVD.

Okay, very tired from the early wake-up. Going to bed now (after this episode of The Simpsons

Yardwork and Floors

Today was a pretty busy, and fast day.

My 7:00 wake-up failed miserably. I got up at 6:04 to go to the bathroom. Now, my clock was set for 6:33 (odd logic, but here goes. 6:33 gives me 3 snoozes before 7--alarm goes off at 6:33, 6:42, 6:51, and 7). So, when I got back in bed, I was like, "okay, about a half-hour till my alarm goes off." Well, what felt like 15 minutes later, Max was licking me, shoving his toy in my face, growling, and barking. I couldn't possibly imagine why he'd be waking me up before 6:30 in the morning. I finally looked at the clock to find out it was 9:30! I don't even remember hearing my alarm. It was set and everything. I must've turned it off when it first went off in my sleepy state. This is why I don't wait till the first day of school to get used to waking up early.

Did my morning news and blog reads, and then posted a lengthy entry on the penny-per-view concept. Don't get me started again, just read the last post if you want to know about it. Another morning project was adding blinkies to my blog sidebar. Check-em out! (hint: just divert your eyes a little to to the right).

Laura stopped by for a while. Last night, she asked if I would co-sign on a student loan for her, since my parents' credit isn't that good. I agreed, so she stopped over so we could fill out the 'paperwork' online.

After this, I got my Zen, and got to work outside. My original plan was to mow the entire property, but we have had so little rain, that the back didn't really need done. The front wasn't real bad either, but it was getting a little long in spots.

After finishing the front yard, Meg and I went to Produce Junction, and then set out on a mission to find more Tiki torches. We tried a Rite-Aid, a Dollar General, and K-Mart, and couldn't find them. It was all Back-to-School stuff, or, in Dollar General's case, Christmas stuff! We did stop by a Fashion Bug, and Meg got some new clothes for school.

We got home, and I made pork and peppers on the grill. After dinner, Meg went out and vacuumed the pool, and I cleaned all of the floors in the whole house. It took a while, but now every floor surface, carpet or floor, has been cleaned in some way. We have a Hoover Floormate. It makes it very easy to clean the floors, and since most of our house is either pergo or tile, I am glad we bought this. It's also fun to use too.

Right now are baby is listening to Mozart! Meg recently read that she can hear things. So, last night before bed, I read a book and sang to her. Meg is on her computer, with Mozart playing on the Zen, and headphones on her belly. This is cool!

Okay, Meg's Dad is coming from California tomorrow. He is taking a red-eye flight. He left at 9:55 PM, California time, has a two-hour layover in Atlanta, and will arrive in NJ at 9:00 AM, New Jersey time. He is going to call us when the plane gets on the ground, so we can go to Philly and pick him up. 7:00 wake-up is perfect for this. Let's just hope it works!

Penny-Per-Page?? Are they crazy?

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/penny-per-page.htm

Just read this article on HowStuffWorks, while surfing the web. Evidently, under this system, I would have already spent 50 cents browsing the web today. And that was just this morning. And that was only counting unique web sites (hey, I browse the web a lot). I'd probably be over a dollar if it counted individual pages on a particular site. Well, let's take that 50 cents, and multiply it by 30, for the entire month. This $15 a month I am spending to look at stuff that I used to be able to look at for free!! And that is on top of the $17.95 per month for my ISP. Hey, if I hadn't switched to 768K DSL, it would be on top of the $42.95 charged by Comcast. Outrageous!

The article argues that if all websites had this revenue, that they would be able to offer better content. It argues that sites like Google, would be able to work wonders with the extra $1 million a day. But, I'm very happy with what Google already offers for free. I am using Blogspot right now, completely for free. Hey, Google even manages to run this without ads. Not to mention all of the other products Google offers for free. Calendar, Spreadsheet, G-Mail, Picasa, Earth, just to name a few. And this is on top of the great search engine they already have. Obviously Google's business model is working, and the company is not going under anytime soon.

The article also argues that people will accept this model for the internet, since we do with so many other things. For example, we pay an amount per KHW for electricity, or per gallon for water. The reason why? There's no alternative. I bet if an electric company came along and said, "We are going to subsidize our funding through another source, and charge a flat rate of $75/month for service," people would jump on that. You could say goodbye to the old electric company. You can see this same trend with telecommunications company. Originally, most telecoms billed by the minute. And as a result, people were stingy with their long-distance calling. I remember those days in college, tracking the minutes on phone calls home, so I could afford to pay the bill. Now, many companies are offering packages like Verizon Freedom: pay a higher rate for unlimited calling. Very good for people who make a lot of phone calls. People in general do not like to be nickle-and-dimed (or -pennied, in the case of this article) for service. The article discusses a flat-rate model for this, charged by the ISP. It is annoying enough to look at a bill, and see the UFSF fees and taxes that are already added. I sure as hell don't want to find a $15 flat rate browsing fee added to my ISP bill. Especially when the alternative is free!

This kinda reminds me of the whole MP3 downloading thing. I'll admit that I still illegally download music, despite the availability of paid services. I do occasionally pay, but, if I want more than I can afford, I jump over to LimeWire. I know it is wrong, and illegal, but it is an easy and free alternative, with a slim chance of getting caught. I believe that the two main reasons people pay for the Internet is because they either A) don't want to break the law, or B), want to support the artist (and their record company) financially. Great! However, in the case of a pay-per-page-view Internet, option A does not exist, and no one really cares about option B. It is not illegal to view a page for free. And, I've never known anyone to feel sorry for Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page because they did a Google search for free.

And freedom is the great thing about the Internet. I marvel in the fact that people go to lengths to provide information and services for free, just out of interest, or the goodness in their hearts. That is why I admire Open Source projects so much. I currently am using OpenOffice.org as my office suite. Here is a fully-functional suite that does just as much, or more, than Microsoft Office. This program was created by open-source developers, who generally put in their time for free. Heck, I am running FireFox right now. A program built on the same idea. I am sure you can find lots of examples on the Internet of people who are not in it for the money. Imposing such a business model on the Internet turns it into just another greedy enterprise, instead of the open, information-sharing medium it is now.

The article offers several ways for to implement a penny-per-page approach. Obviously, one or two websites can't just start this--who would buy into that? Instead, it advocates that the top 1,000 websites ban together to start this, leaving users with little choice. Or, that ALL ISPs ban together to start this. Let's hope this doesn't happen. But if it does, I would be the first to boycott these sites. Even if it meant giving up services. Don't fall into their trap of, "It's only a penny," because pennies add up. Don't let anyone take away the freedom of the Internet.

By the way, I am no expert on this topic, but read this article, was immediately enraged, and needed to vent. I did find this article against micropayments, which is, I guess the technical term for this. It offers better evidence against such a business model.

Also, on another note, I did find it amusing that the author of the Penny-Per-Page article is the creator of one of the larger sites on the web, Marshall Brain of HowStuffWorks.com. Of course this would work out great for him. He owns the website! Hey, maybe if enough people read my blog, I could get pennies too!--unless Google gets to them first.

The old saying that usually applies to premarital relationships also works great with this argument: "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

Shower Pictures

Pictures from our shower are now on our PicasaWeb Public Albums.

Check them out here:

Gettysburg Baby Shower

Aug 18, 2006 - 44 Photos

Home from G-Burg, Maps are Done!

I didn't blog last night, as I was very tired, so I have some catching up to do.

Saturday, August 19
Got up, hung around the house with Mom, Cait, and Meg. Meggie got showered, and I blogged, then I got a shower. After that, I helped Mom order those prints we went through the night before.

Meggie and I then went "into town," the main section of Gettysburg to visit Cait at work. She works as a ghost tour guide (pretty unique occupation) and at a souvenir shop in Gettysburg. So, we stopped into see where she worked. A typical souvenir shop, all of the junk you usually find in one, only with a lot of Civil War stuff. I've never really been interested in history, and don't think I'd have ever gone to Gettysburg if I hadn't met Meg. But, boy where there a lot of people in the center of town. July and August are the big tourist season for the town. I just can't figure out WHY so many people are there. I guess I'm like my dad. Whenever my mom planned a trip to somewhere, my dad's response always was, "Are There Rides?"

So, after visiting Meg, we went to this place called Tommy's Pizza. Meg says she loves their pizza and she has never found a place with pizza like it. Our main reason for going there was that Meg's Dad really wanted some, so we agreed to buy some, take it home in a cooler, and freeze it until Tuesday when he arrives from California. I ended up getting a cheesesteak there, which was a mistake. I forgot that PA really messes up a cheesesteak outside of the Philly area. It was made with Steakums, which are okay when you make a cheesesteak at home, but when you are paying for one, it kinda stinks.

After getting the pizza, we headed back to Mom's, where I started the packing process. This was a little tougher, since I had to work in all of the shower gifts that we got. But soon, I had the car loaded up, and Meg, Max, and I were on our way home!

The ride home was pretty snag-free. We got home around 6 or so, which was great, because it is usually dark and later in the evening when we get home from these trips. We got everything unloaded, unpacked, and the laundry started right away. Meg made a shopping list, and then we were off to Wal-Mart for our weekly shopping.

In the middle of our shopping trip, I got a really bad stomach ache. I might have been hungry, since it had been a while since my cheesesteak at Tommy's. Or, it might be that I ate nothing but junk the whole trip. Probably a combination of both. Shopping with an upset stomach is kinda good though--it keeps you from impulse buying. This is also the same reason why we usually go out to dinner before shopping. We checked out, and it was a little expensive. But I've learned to start buying meat in bulk. I got 5.5 pounds of ground beef, for only $2 something a pound, which is a very good price. I also got 3 lbs or Italian sausage. Both of these will last us a few weeks, so it will save money in the long-run.

After getting home, I curled up on the couch for a while till my stomach ache started to go away. Then, Meg made a very complicated meal: a Caesar salad kit with precooked chicken (I'm being sarcastic, can't you tell?). We ate dinner, and watched the Seinfeld DVD, and at about 8:30 or so, decided it was time for bed.

Sunday, August 20
I had originally planned to start my 7:00 wake-up time today, but quick decided to wait until Monday. I actually got up only a little bit after 8. Meggie got up too. We both had breakfast and watched some more Seinfeld. Then, Meg and I put together the Pack-n-Play we got at the shower. It is pretty neat, and very multi-functional. It is a smaller crib (I believe called a bassinet), that later converts to a playpen. It also has a changing table attachment, baskets for storing stuff, a mobile, and an attachment that plays soft music and nature sounds, and has a night light.

I finally decided to get down to business and make more progress on my maps. I was up to 6th grade, but had barely made a dent the last time I was working on them. I had some trouble getting started with the middle school maps, and was moving very slowly. Well, after an hour or so, I was done 6th grade. Now, the good thing about this, is that I could pretty much use the 6th grade map as a template for 7th & 8th. All I'd have to do is change the content and standards, but it works best for me to keep all of the grades doing something similar at the same time. So, with taking only a break for lunch, I had the curriculum maps for all grades finished by 4. I had a quick snack, and Meg, Max, and I went for a swim. After swimming, we showered, and ready to go to my parents.

Dinner at my parents' was delicious. Gnoccis with my mom's sauce, meatballs, and really good bread. There was salad too, but I usually avoid healthy food at my parents'. Afterwards, we listened to CDs of some other comedians my sister had. She recently got me listening to Jim Gaffigan. VERY FUNNY! I've listened to his bit like 3 times now, and get hysterical laughing every time. If you don't know his name, you may have heard the "Hot Pocket" bit before. That's him. Laura played some Dane Cook, who is also really funny, and another comedian named Nick (something), I don't remember his last name. I didn't find him as funny. Laura gave me a CD with Dane Cook and Brian Regan on it. I also went through my parents', and borrowed some I want to rip. Some other time, I am going to have to dig through my dad's DJ CD's, because I'll probably find a lot there. So, tomorrow, I've got some CD's to rip.

Okay, off to bed now, because tomorrow starts my 7 AM wake-up time.

Baby Shower

I woke up yesterday morning with a horrible stiff neck. When we stay at Meg's mom's, Meg sleeps on the couch (she's more comfortable there), and I sleep on Meg's bed from when she was a kid. I seemed to have a lot of trouble getting comfortable, and apparently, I must have slept funny, because my neck was killing me.

I got up, and made omelets and pork roll for Meg, Mom, and myself. We spent most of the morning lazing around, before we came up with some kind of game plan. We were trying to figure out what to do for lunch, when I remembered this really good Chinese buffet in Gettysburg called the Mayflower. So, Meg, Cait, and I went there for lunch. It was delicious. The only bad thing was that there was so much there that I liked, that I could only have a little bit of everything. I kinda wished my stomach was a few times bigger.

After lunch, we came home, and chilled some more, until it was time to go to Grandmom's. Since we aren't going to be able to come for Christmas or Thanksgiving, Grandmom and Pappy wanted to have the whole family over before the baby is born. Well, right before we left, I had suspected that this might be a shower of some sort. It turned out I was right. Meg's family had planned a shower for us. It was a small shower, as it was just Meg's family (her grandparents, grand-aunt & -uncle, Mom, Cait, her aunt & uncle, and two cousins), but had all of the regular shower features. Or so I am told. This was actually the first shower that I, as a guy, was allowed to attend.

There were two neat party games. The first: everyone put name guesses on a piece of paper in a jar. Meg and I read all of the names allowed. If, after the baby is born, anyone guessed right, then they win $20. Well, whoever was going to give the $20 can keep it, because there were no right guesses! We'll just have to keep everyone guessing. The other game was a memory game. There were 20 baby items scattered on the table, and you had 2 minutes to look at the items. Then, the table was covered, and you had three minutes to write down as many as you can. I was only able to remember 12--I am not very good with memory games. Mallory (Meg's cousin), and Cait remembered the most, 19 of the 20.

There was dinner too, pulled pork and baked macaroni (and deviled eggs for Meggie, yuck!) And, my favorite part, icecream cake! We also got a lot of gifts too. A bunch of baby clothes, a baby stacker ring toy, a baby carrier, which I am modeling below...



The biggest gift was our pack-n-play, which Meg had to resist the temptation to put it together. I'm sure it will be a priority when we get home.

After the shower, we headed home, and we spent the rest of the evening going through pictures on my computer, and picking ones for my mom to order. That reminds me, we actually have to order them... 

To Gettysburg

Got up pretty much on time today (8:30). I had breakfast, blogged, and finished paying the bills and stuff. I got showered, and then headed out for some errands.

I ran to the bank and deposited some stuff, then went over to my parents to drop off my car registration. See, I got my car registration back in July. The old one expired on July 31st. But I keep forgetting to put it out in the car. I am very lucky that I hadn't been pulled over since the 1st. I didn't want my parents to get pulled over in my car and have to deal with this, so I made a trip over to my parents to drop off the registration.

I headed home after that and threw some burgers and hot dogs on the grill for lunch. Meg and I had lunch and then got the car loaded up for our trip to Gettysburg.

The trip went fairly well. We had one major slowdown trying to get on the Ben Franklin Bridge. For some reason, they kept closing and reopening toll lanes, making everyone have to shift around. In the confusion, I somehow got us stuck between two lines, and no one seemed willing to let me in. Common courtesy on the road is gone. Finally, a lady let us in, and we moved on.

Got to Mom's house in Gettysburg, and I unloaded everything. Mom took us out to this cafe in the center of town. It was okay, just not really my thing. I am more of a burgers and fries, cheesteak-type guy. This place had all kinds of fancy sandwiches, with chips instead of fries. I got a chicken panini sandwich. It was okay, but it left me feeling kinda queasy. Mom paid, so it was a nice free dinner, so I can't complain to much.

We got back to the house and relaxed a bit. I also got yelled at by the neighbor because Max was like 2 feet on her property. Mom lives in a town home, the second unit from the end. The garage is in the back, and there is no fence, so we have a 15 foot tether to put him on when he is outside. It allows him some freedom, and the cord stretches a few feet onto either property next to Mom's. We've trained Max in past visits to go to the bathroom in a specific spot, and he is very good about this. Well, for whatever reason, she had an issue with Max being on her property. He didn't even do anything; he was just standing there. So, I had to shorten Max's long-line so that he won't be able to reach the neighbor's yard. Now he only has like 10 ft to move about. I feel bad for him. These trips must be rough on him. He does okay with the ride up, especially since we took my parent's van this time. But you can tell he is nervous the whole time. Oh well, we are only here for two nights.

Being here is also stressful for other reasons. Meg's mom can be tough to deal with at times. From an outsider's perspective, she doesn't do anything really bad. She is just very hard to read, and if you are doing something she doesn't like, she gets all passive-aggressive, and then denies it if you say something to her. I am never directly affected, and she loves me. But I don't like the way she treats Meg and Cait. She is very critical, but in a way that's easy to deny. I just try to stay out of it, and be very supportive of Meg.

Later on in the evening, we went to Brusters, an icecream chain around here. I learned that the icecream terminology in PA is apparently different than NJ. They had Blasts, which were their version of DQ Blizzards. I wanted one of them with vanilla icecream, but couldn't find soft-serve or custard anywhere on the menu. So, I asked the guy if they had soft-serve icecream, and he said no. So I was like, "Well, what kind of icecream goes in the blast?" He replied, "soft vanilla icecream," which to me, is the same thing as vanilla soft-serve. Fine with me, but I was just a little confused. Not to mention that the guy took FOREVER to fill our order. I think people move slower in PA.

After that, we came home, watched TV for a while, and I discovered two more cool services offered by Google. I finally got a G-Mail account. You need to be 'invited' which I found strange, but I discovered that you can get invited by entering your cell phone number. Then, they send you a code to enter. I don't think I'll use it, but its good to have a backup mail account. Also, you needed to have one in order to try Google's Web Picasa service. You can upload albums from Picasa to a web album that you can share with everyone. Check out our web album here.

Well, Meggie looks like she needs some comforting, after a day of dealing with her family. Gotta go!

Board Meeting

The 8 AM thing did NOT happen yesterday morning. I ended up finally getting up at 9:45 or so. Meg and I had breakfast, and then both brought our laptops out to the deck to do or morning mail and news reading. I also got started on another project I've been wanting to work on... creating playlists for my Zen.

I believe this is truly an art, and I have been brain-storming about the various types of lists I can make since I got my Zen. A few days after I got it, I made 1 initial list called "All Time Favorites," where I basically went through every album, and added my favorite songs to the list. But yesterday, I came up with some new ones. My first list of the day was my "Weird Al vs. The Original" list. Yes, I know, I am admittedly a geek, so therefore it is a requirement that I like Weird Al's parodies. Whether you like him or not, you have to admire the cleverness of the lyrics, and how accurately he aligns the phrasing, rhyme-scheme, and accents with the original lyrics. Not to mention the music, most often depicted exactly like the original (except sometimes with the addition of accordion). Well, I took all of the Weird Al songs I had on my list, and coupled them up with the original versions. I discovered that I was missing a lot of the originals, so I jumped on Limewire, and downloaded what I needed. Meg and I will listen to this list in the car on the way to G-burg today.

Some of the other lists I made were: my favorite 80's, my favorite pop/rock, as well as several lists from memorable time periods in my life. It has always amazed me that just hearing a song can bring back so many memories, senses, and emotions that were associated with that song. For example, I have a list called 'Movie Tunes.' Back in college and high school, I worked at a local movie theatre, first as a concessionaire, then as a manager. Every both, the theatre was given 1 CD to play repeatedly inside the theatres (while the movies aren't showing) and in the lobby. A lot of the songs you got sick of, because you would hear them over and over for a month. But some of the songs got stuck with me. I can almost smell popcorn again when I hear these songs. So anyway, I made playlists for these time periods: high school, high school 'break up' songs (I went through a bad break up in high school, with a slew of songs I associate with this. Since the break up was long ago and forgotten about, the music just brings back feelings of nostalgia, rather than sadness), college summer songs (those too had several sad memories, since much of those songs involved me missing Meg in the summer, but now that we are married, I can really enjoy them), Summer of 1999 (the summer before college), Summer of 2003 (the summer we graduated/got married), and one list for each year I have been teaching so far. Well, enough about my lists, onto the rest of my day.

I got showered and dressed, and then had lunch. After lunch, I took a ride up to church to see if the handbell music I had ordered came in. It did. I also picked two old pieces from the handbell music library while I was there, and then took everything home, so I can start looking at and preparing the music.

After that, I got started on money stuff, which I need to finish after posting this. At 5, I had to stop what I was doing to make an eat dinner, as I had to go to the BOE meeting as a union representative.

At about 6:15, I left for my 30 minute commute to school. It has been a while since I did this commute, but it was nice to see the progress made on the construction sites I always passed. Hopefully the road construction will be almost finished by the time school starts.

I got to the BOE meeting, where there was a very small audience. Just me, Jeanie, an English teacher I work with, and the preschool teacher who works at the other building. There was also a guy there from the education foundation. I also got to meet our new superintendent. He seemed kind of quiet, but he doesn't officially take over for a week or so. The board meeting was a little more like a 'bored' meeting. Basically reviewing over reports and presentations and approving and amending things. Pretty much a good demonstration of how Robert's Rules of Order work: Motion, second, discussion..................... all in favor? opposed? Very exciting. ;-) My job was to take notes. I brought my laptop, because I type way faster than I write. Jeanie was impressed by this, as she usually is by my use of technology. I offered to just e-mail my notes to the union president, this way, they didn't really have to. Both were very appreciative of this.

After the board meeting, I headed over to my parents to switch cars again, so that we can travel to Gettysburg safely with Max. Then, I headed home, finally getting home at about 11:30. I had a bowl of ice cream, watched another episode of Seinfeld, and then was off to bed. I'll blog about today later on.

Mmmmm... Cookiedough....

Got up a little after 8 this morning, since we had to get moving earlier today. While I was in the shower, my boss (the principal), called. I had sent her an e-mail asking if it was okay if I came in and start setting up my room tomorrow. I was expecting an e-mail reply, because she called this morning, of course, while I was in the shower. So I called her back, and they still have to shampoo the carpets in my room, so it's a no-go. Not that it is a big deal or anything. I have to go to the Board of Education meeting tomorrow night as a representative for the union. I figured since I would be in the area, I would stay and get stuff done. So, I'll probably go the week after Meg's dad visits, which, sadly enough, is the last week of summer. Wow, the summer went fast.

So, after getting dressed, and quickly grabbing breakfast to eat on the go, we headed up to Meg's school to assess the damage. Luckily, only one instrument was damaged. A bunch of posters got wet too, so sometime after the insurance adjusters look over everything, she has to got to go through them and see if any are salvageable.

We then headed to the OBs office for our 6 month appointment. We thought we were going to get an ultrasound, but since Meg just had one on August 1, it wasn't necessary. We weren't really bummed or anything, since we have another growth scan on August 25. Meg and Baby D are healthy, which is great news.

Afterwards, we stopped at Hallmark where my mom works. She wanted a status update on everything from the appointment. Meg got a gift for her friend she would see later on today, and I smelled every Yankee candle they had there (it's a card store, that's about as exciting as it gets).

We went home, and were both kinda sleepy from getting up early, so we took a nap. After about 40 minutes or so, Meg woke up to what she thought was the doorbell. In a sleepy stupor, I threw clothes back on, and went out to look. I didn't open the door, just looked through the window, and I didn't see anybody, and thought Meg was hearing things.

Meg got ready to go out with one of her friends from school. I wanted to do a search of her car to see if I could find that power inverter I was looking for. On my way out the door, I discovered two packages, one large and one small on the front step. Meg wasn't hearing things--the doorbell actually did ring.

The large package was from Meg's mom, a bunch of pfaltzgraff stuff in our pattern "Summer Breeze." The small package from Meg's dad, an early "thanks for having me" gift, the 8th season of The Simpsons on DVD. This was a nice surprise--who doesn't like getting packages. So, I went back out to Meg's car, and, an even better surprise, I found the power inverter.

After Meg left, I got the extra speakers, and set everything up in the car. It is a little ghetto, but it sounds way better than the transmitter. I just have to remember to hide the speakers under the seats when I am not in the car.

I then went inside, and did some cleaning and straightening. Vacuumed the kitchen floor, loaded, ran, emptied, and loaded the dishwasher, put out the garbage, and straightened the living room and dining room.

Meg got home around 5:30 or so, and we went for a swim to cool off, as it was a little warmer today. I made BBQ chicken and grilled bell peppers on the grill for dinner... ah I love grilling, no better way to prepare food. I'll miss it when the weather gets colder.

After dinner, I really had some cravings for ice cream. Meg suggested going to Muellers for custard, but there isn't really anything there she can have, and we didn't have any cash on us, and you have to eat outside, and it is buggy. So, we ended up going to ShopRite, where I bought Cookie Dough ice cream, and just made myself some at home. I felt guilty about buying it, but I have been doing so well with eating better this summer, I thought I might deserve a good treat.

I thought I might work more on my curriculum maps for the rest of the evening, but decided not to worry about school work tonight. I watched some more of Seinfeld, and now I am blogging. I'm gonna get to bed a little early, because I am still tired from getting up early this morning.

More Mapping

Kind of a blah, somewhat productive day...

I got up at 8:45, not too far away from my goal of 8 AM. I made myself some breakfast, and ate out on the deck, since the weather was still really nice.

I decided then to do some research into FM Transmitters, to see if there was a better one I can get. I basically discovered that they don't work well in metropolitan areas. They all basically work the same way--you choose a radio station to broadcast on, anywhere from 88.1 - 88.7 and 107.1 - 107.7, and as long as there is no interference, you can get a clear signal from the transmitter. The only problem is most of those frequencies have stations on them around here. The 107 group all does, as well as 88.1 and 88.5. The two remaining work sometimes, but you keeping picking up static and interference from neighboring frequencies, and probably everyone else who is trying to listen to their MP3 player on their car stereo.

So, I've come up with a solution, though admittedly ghetto. I have an extra pair of computer speakers that I am going to put in my car. I figured I'd put them on the floor on either side behind the front seats. I have a DC power inverter that plugs into the cigarette lighter, that I can plug the speakers into for power. Then, I can just hook the Zen up to the speakers. This is probably not the best location for the speakers, but I don't want them to be plainly visible, so there is no temptation for someone to break into my car. Whatever the sound, it has got to be better than the FM transmitter. The only problem is, we can't find the power inverter. We haven't used it in months, and I can't even imagine where it got to. I haven't looked really hard yet, but I don't even know where to start.

The rest of my day was spent working on my curriculum maps and ripping more of my CD collection. I thought I might be able to get 6th - 8th grade finished today, but I didn't even finish 6th grade. The problem was that 3 - 5 and 6 - 8 are very different as far as the way material is presented. Also, what I have taught in the past doesn't necessarily line up with the new curriculum, so I had to get creative. I did make a neat worksheet that I am going to have my kids fill out when they listen to music. Last year, each kid had a 'Listening Log,' which they had to answer questions about the music in. They were hard to grade, and the kids never really got the hang of getting theirs from the back of the room. By the end of the year, I gave up, and just handed them out each class. This worksheet basically does the same thing, but it is more user-friendly, and, I think, more fun to fill out (though most teachers know that students never seem to find fun what you think they will). I can just make a zillion copies of it, and put it in a bin in the back of the room, and the kids can grab a new sheet whenever we do a listening.

Meg and I also ordered out for lunch, which was fun, since we rarely do it. We usually order from this place in Laurel Springs called Bella Vita. It was good food, and cheap too, but the last two times we tried to order from there, no one picks up the phone. I have this feeling they went out of business. So, we tried this place called Pat's a 2nd time. They're a little more expensive, but the food is good. I had a bacon cheese steak, and Meg had wings and onion rings. Next time, I want to try their pizza, because it looked really good when I went in to pick of the food.

Lunch was a nice break, and we watched some more of the Seinfeld DVD's we have as we ate. Then, I got back to work on the mapping and ripping.

Later, we took a swim to cool off. It got progressively warmer as the day went on, but nowhere near as bad as it was last week. After that, I went for a bike ride to get some fresh air, and help get the brain juices flowing in regards to these maps.

Got more work done, ate a late dinner, burgers on the grill, and then worked some more.

Now tomorrow, I am really going to have to make sure I stick to my wake-up time. Meg got a call today from her principal. Apparently there was water damage in a storage closet near her room, so we have to go up to her school tomorrow, and assess the damage, and declare what everything costs, so the construction company can pay for new stuff. We have to do this before our scheduled prenatal appointment, so that means we are out of the house before nine. Whoopie...

Curriculum Maps

This belongs on August 13, I saved it as a draft instead of publishing it....

Got a good chunk of my goal to get stuff done before the Sunday Noon of Summer. Prior to today, I had 3rd grade of my curriculum maps done. I had started 4th grade, but really had only done a couple of week's worth. Well, I finished 4th & 5th today.

My plan to get up at 8 did not happen. It was kinda chilly this morning, and the cool air provided little motivation for getting out of the warm bed. So, I ended up getting up around 9:30 (yes, I hit snooze for an hour and a half).

I got up, and got started on my curriculum maps, after some breakfast. While working on the maps, I was ripping CDs to my Zen. My goal is to digitize my entire CD collection, so I have any track available instantly.

I pretty much worked on the maps all day. I did stop to take a break and walk the dog.

We left for my parents around 6 or so, and had our usual Sunday dinner there. My parents invited one of their friends, Mr. Donnelly, over, because his wife and daughter were out of town visiting family. It was neat to have an extra guest over for dinner. Plus, Laura and Mr. Donnelly have a jokingly "hate-hate" relationship, which made dinner conversation interesting. Sean wasn't there, but Nick was. The more the merrier it is with Sunday night dinners.

Nick gave me his old FM transmitter for my car, so I can listen to the Zen while driving. He installed a new car stereo, which allows him to plug his Zen directly into the stereo. I am a little dissappointed with the FM transmitter, because the audio quality was really poor. I understood that it would be no where near CD quality, since FM radio isn't anyway. But, regardless of what channel I set it to, I get intermittent static. It will work well for a while, and then more static comes in. It makes it very hard to listen to. I don't know if I need to buy a newer transmitter, or maybe there is someting I can do to ampify the signal. I'll have to do some research on the web tomorrow.

I better get to bed now, if I want to make this 8 AM thing happen.

Long Days

Okay, so I haven't blogged in a few days. I've got some catching up to do...

Thursday, August 10
Today is the day that Meg's mom came to visit, and we had lots to do, so we got up a little early to go grocery shopping. That was actually easier than usual, because there aren't too many people at Wal-Mart on a Thursday morning.

After shopping, it was cleaning time. We had lunch, and then I went outside to start mowing the back yard. Right as I got outside, the clouds rolled over, and it looked like it was going to rain. I got the back done as quick as possible, and it started to rain just as I had finished mowing. I didn't have a chance to do anything else though: weed the back gardens, weed-whack, sweep/blow, etc, but the most important part was finished.

Then I came inside to help Meg with the cleaning. We have a Hoover Floormate, which does a great job with the floors, but is a little time-consuming. Using that on the floors, and a the regular vacuum on the rugs, I got the entire house done just in time for Meg's mom to arrive.

Mom had gotten stuck in all kinds of traffic getting here, so she got here a little later than expected. She had told us not to hold dinner, but neither Meg nor I were hungry, so we waited anyway. She expressed that she really wanted to use our pool, and since it was going to be dark by the time we got in it, I had set up three Tiki torches around the pool. They offered a little bit of light, but we needed more. It was still neat to swim at night, though.

After swimming, we made a pork loin for dinner, and caught up for the rest of the evening. Mom needed help typing a resume, so I helped her out with that. We also showed her all of the pictures we have taken recently. Since we hardly ever get prints anymore, there was a lot we didn't see. Eventually (after 1!), we went to bed.

Friday, August 11
Got up, had breakfast, sat around, and more talking with Mom. It's a beautiful day, so we opened up all of the windows. All I can think is "I've gotta get outside!"

Mom and Meg go to Deptford to go to AC Moore, and peruse Babies-R-Us for a while. I get some outside time to myself. Not that I don't like company. I especially like Meg's company, but I really do enjoy getting work done by myself. I guess I am kind of a loner. Just not the duffle bag-carrying kind.

Outside, I weeded all of the back gardens, weed-whacked, and took the leaf blower to both decks. I also moved all of the pool vacuum equipment, which was originally located on the back fence behind the pool. This used to be a great spot for this stuff, but now with the deck there, it wasn't exactly accessible. So, I moved all of the hanging hardware for this stuff to the side of the deck by the filter.

Once I finished up with the yard, I came inside, filed my NJ Homestead Rebate application. Just as I finished, Meg and Mom arrived home. They had gotten a bunch of stuff at Babies-R-Us. Mom got some scrapbook stuff to make a memory book for Meg and Baby. They also found more Tiki torches at AC Moore for $1! So, they picked up three more.

With the new torches, I went outside and arranged them around the pool. I also went up in the attic, got down some white Christmas lights, and strung them up along the deck railings. After last night's cool experience with swimming at night, I figured more lighting would be better.

We then went to Peter's for dinner. I had one of my usuals (Chicken, bacon, and cheddar sandwich), while Meg tried a new chicken dish, and mom got this HUGE seafood platter, which she luckily shared with us (I haven't had lobster in a while).

After Peter's, we came home, I lit the torches and turned on the lights, and we went for another night swim. It was really too cold to be swimming, but after working so hard earlier on getting everything set up, I wanted to use it. You were fine as long as you stayed under water. As soon as you got out of the water, and felt the air temperature, you were freezing. We got out after we couldn't take the cold anymore. Meg and Mom worked on scrapbooking stuff, while I came downstairs to play on the computer.

I discovered a new program from Google last night called Google Sketch-Up. It is a 3D drawing program that allows you to make 3D models of things. I think you are supposed to use it to place stuff into Google Earth, but I didn't quite figure that part out. I did make a simple model of the exterior of our house, though. Check it out...



For those who know what our house looks like, it looks kinda like that, only with grass and trees and stuff. It didn't take too long to do either. After playing with this for a while, I eventually began playing with Google Earth, which I downloaded a while ago, but never really had a chance to play with. I ended up placing pushpins around the country where I know people live. My favorite feature of the program is simply the way it flies from location to location.

Eventually, I got tired of playing with Google Earth, and went to bed.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Got up and had breakfast as usual. I ended up staying in my pajamas for most of the day, and didn't change until well after Mom left. I showed Meg the pinpoints and stuff I made in Google Earth, and she wanted Mom to see it. So, I showed her, and then showed her a bunch of places in Germany where she has traveled before. I also discovered another Google product this morning: Google Spreadsheet. It allows you to create, import, edit, and share spreadsheets. I imported our address book, so that Meg and I can work from the same one. By the way, you can find these, and a whole bunch of other cool Google tools here. I currently use: Calendar, Spreadsheet, Picasa, Blogger, Personalized Search, SketchUp, Earth, and Desktop.

Mom left a little after lunch, and Meg and I decided to go for a swim. It was a little chilly, since it is finally cooling down. Afterwards, we finally got showered and dressed, and then went to Wal-mart to pick up prescriptions, and to buy a window fan, since it gets really stuffy in our bedroom at night. Well, since it is August, and therefore the middle of October in Wal-Mart, they weren't selling them anymore. We ended up picking one up at Home Depot.

We got home, I installed the fan, and Meg made dinner. Tilapia, and we had it out on the deck, since it was so nice. After dinner, I went for a quick bike ride (since it was getting dark), and spent the rest of the night fooling around on the computer, blogging, and building a 3D computer model of our deck, complete with all of the lumber (yes, I am that crazy).

Well, it is about 11:45 AM on my "Sunday of Summer." My goal to get all of my work done by noon (August 15), will not happen. As I do on most Sundays, I procrastinate with the usual distractions of the computer and household projects. So, starting tomorrow, I bite the bullet and get everything done, so I can enjoy the rest of my "Sunday" off, i.e., the rest of the summer.

Therefore, I am going to bed early, so I can wake up early (I've tried 9 for the past week, and am used to that now--time to crank it down to 8 AM!), and get stuff done in the morning and afternoon. Good night!

OCNJ and the Locksmith

After blogging yesterday, I finished syncing our newly labeled MP3's, got my work clothes on, sunscreen, my hat, sunglasses, and my Zen, and got ready to go outside and mow and weed the back yard--only to discover that the lawnmower wouldn't start.

I checked the usual things--plenty of gas, and the air filter vents were clear. So then I checked the oil--that was fine. I took out and cleaned the air filter--it still didn't start. I finally figured it might be the spark plug. So, I called my dad. He said to take it out, clean it and sand it, and see if it fixes the problem, if not, I should go and get a new one. So I took his advice, and it still didn't work.

Off to the local Pine Hill Hardware store I go. I am a small-business owners worst nightmare, because I generally shop at 'box stores.' My general attitude is, "If I can't find it at Wal-Mart or Home Depot, it ain't worth it, because I will pay too much elsewhere." Goes along with my frugal-ness, okay, I'll admit it, cheap-ness. But, having a local hardware store is convenient for when you need one thing. It would have been silly to drive all the way down to Home Depot to get one. The man at the hardware store was very nice, showed me what I needed. I even bought a spark plug wrench too, since I had a heck of the time getting the old one out with an adjustable wrench.

Came home, put in the spark plug, and the mower works great. Now of course, it is almost 2 PM, and we were planning on leaving for the shore at 3, so I never did get to the lawn. We had lunch out on the deck, because it was so nice yesterday, and then I went for a swim with Max, mainly because he had been rolling around in muddy water, and needed washed off, and I desparately needed a shower, despite the fact that I couldn't, because of the caulking I did yesterday.

Meg and I got all of our stuff packed up for the shore, and began our trip down the Black Horse Pike for Ocean City, NJ. We got to OCNJ, found a parking lot for $10. We opted to pay more for parking, because #1, I had to parallel park, and #2, it would have been annoying to have to keep feeding the meter all day. This lot was on the corner of Ocean and 13th, and was right by the boardwalk. Everything was going well--we made good time, we got a good spot.

As we were getting our stuff out of the car, I had placed my keys in the beach bag, since I didn't have pockets. Whenever I lock my car, I always hit the 'arm' button on the keys before all of the doors are shut. This causes the alarm and locks to 'wait' until all the doors are closed, and then lock the doors. This is usually not a problem, since I arm the car as I get out, put my keys in my pocket, and then close the doors. Well, I opened the driver side back door, closed my door, and got my stuff. Meg's door was still open. I got what I needed out of the driver side back, and closed the door. Meg closed her door too. All the doors were closed, and the car locked. Meg went to open the back passenger side door, but it was locked, and she asked me to unlock it. The only problem is my keys are in the beach bag, which, of course, is still in the car. Yeah, I locked my keys in the car.

We thought maybe Meg had an extra in her purse, nope! So, Meg got on the phone and 411ed a locksmith. No answer from whoever they forwarded her to. So, she called again, and they have her three numbers. The first guy answered, but was retired. The 2nd guy was able to help us out though, for $40 (which was less than I though), cash only. He said he would be there in 15 mins, and to look for a white truck with red lettering. Meg had to go to the bathroom, so she walked up to the boardwalk to go, and to get cash from an ATM. The bathroom was far from where we were, so she stopped at several stores, who insisted that their bathrooms were for paying customers only. Nice way to treat a pregnant woman! I think that should be illegal anyway. I think if you have to go, the business should let you go, as long as the restroom isn't in the back, where insurance doesn't cover the public. I mean, going to the bathroom is a necessity. I, of course, didn't know this, and was waiting by the car, panicking, wondering where Meg is. I thought maybe the ATM wouldn't work, or worse. Meg got back to the car just as the locksmith arrived.

He was a character. He was older, about in his 60's. He was short, with white hair, and a thick South Jersey accent. He kept making jokes about how he doesn't work as well when he is sober, and then went on with this long story about why he only charges $40 when the other guys charge $70. He got the car unlocked without too much trouble, despite his claim that Saturns are the hardest to get into. His name is Bill--if you ever need a locksmith in the OCNJ area, look up Bills Locksmith, I definitely recommend him.

After that little adventure, we got our stuff together, and went down to the beach. We spent about 2 hours lounging and reading on the beach. We were going to get in the water, but there were jellyfish everywhere. After swimming in a clean, chlorinated pool everday, it seems gross to get into the brown, murky ocean, swimming with jellyfish, seaweed, and who knows what else. Meg and I walked along the water for a while, and then got back to reading. Below is a picture of us on the beach.




At about 7:30 or so, it started to get dark, and a little chilly, so we packed up our stuff, and went back to the car, then to the boardwalk. We ended up eating at this restaraunt that is actually part of a hotel, the Beach Club Cafe. It is right by the 13th street ramp to the boardwalk. They have this deck that is right along the boards where you can eat. Since I was little, I've always walked past this restaraunt, and thought it would be neat to eat there. When we got up to the restaraunt, the hostess was in the process of putting the 'Closed' sign up, since they closed at 8. She was nice enough to let us in anyway.

Dinner was okay, it was no Peter's though, but you generally sacrifice some quality for the fun of eating on the deck by the boardwalk. I had a burger with fries, and Meg had a buffalo chicken salad. I don't know if I'd recommend the place, but it was fun to try something new, and now when I walk by it, I can say, "Hey, I ate there!"

After dinner, we walked all the way down to the music pier, grabbed some icecream at Kohr Bros., and walked back. Meg stopped at a couple of stores on the way back, but I waited outside, because it was insanely crowded, and I have a weird fear of crowded stores.

After the drive home, Meg and I were exhausted. We finally got to shower, and then went to bed.