I got tagged again and because I am a co-operative friend here are my ABC's...

A: Age-33

B: Bed Size-Queen

C: Chore You Hate-Dusting

D: Dog's Name-Wendy (growing up)

E: Essential to Start Your Day-Shower
F: Favorite Color-Blue

G: Gold or Silver-Silver

H: Height-5'8"
I: Instrument You Can Play-Trombone
J: Job-Executive Assistant
K: Kid's-2 + 1 on the way!

L: Living Arrangement-Currently-in-an-apartment-offer-on-house-waiting-waiting… Hmm- how about ‘content’

M: Mom's Name-June
N: Nicknames-The Stallion, Bob (As Busy…), Z calls me ‘cool baker’

O: Overnight Hospital Stays-None! Except sleeping in the chair next to Busy

P: Pet Peeve-Blue haired AZ snowbirds that can’t drive, scowl at children, and complain about everything.

Q: Quote from a Movie-A wizard is never late, nor early. He arrives precisely when he means to.

R: Right or Left Handed-Right

S: Siblings-1 Younger Brother

T: Time You Wake Up-between 4am-6am

U: Underwear-Boxers

V: Vegetables You Dislike-Carrots- but only the boiled kind
W: Ways You Run Late-I’m never late (See ‘Q’)

X: X-Rays Like Busy, I almost glow… pesky radiation therapy.

Y: Yummy Food You Can Make-Cookies, cakes.. anything sweet and baked.
Z: Zoo Animal (favorite)-Polar bears

The REAL cause.

Darn kids!! I'm am sick of the swine flu nonsense. I mean, if thousands start dying I'll take it all back.... seems unlikely though.

Thanks to Busy's mom for sending this in :)

The bus.

I take the bus a few days a week. I don't mind it, I get a chance to read and Busy gets the car. Today, the driver's switched to their new routes. I was a little frustrated that I caught a later bus then usual. This turned out to be a good thing though. The new drive, Janice, may just be the friendliest bus driver I've ever seen. She greeted everyone, introduced herself by name at least 6 times on the ride, and actually made folks move so the elementary kids that catch the bus could sit down. She even remarked she wouldn't want to drive the new trains here in Phoenix since she'd not get to interact with people.

What a refreshing attitude in this day and age of ATMs, self checkout, curbside to go places, Internet shopping and solo commutes to work. A person that actually likes...*gasp*... people.

Facebook.

I have, along with my darling wife BusyMommy, entered the world of Facebook. It was rather cool to find some old friends, see pictures of their kids, and get a glimpse of the class of '94 15 years later.

Just based on the number of people I recognized, though, I may just have been the last person in the country to build a profile!

WOAH!!

My camera phone just went off in my pocket... scared me. Wasn't sure who was taking my picture.

Sunday School

I remember being a student. Respect for a teacher was drilled into us, and the few 'bad' kids that dared to be disrespectful were dealt with. Usually they didn't repeat the offense either. When did this change? I'm not talking about a rowdy can crowded public school either. I teach a Sunday School class full of 3rd and 4th grade students. Don't get me wrong, I love the kids, but the reaction to authority shocks me:

Me- Johnny- please move to that table
Johnny- Why?
Me- Because I asked you to- that table you are at has no supplies
Johnny- The activity is dumb, I want to sit here.
Me, (calm but annoyed)- yes, but I didn't ask you about the project. I also did not ask if you wanted to move- please move.
Johnny- No.
Me- Sorry, not a choice *take away Johnny's chair- he moves*

5 minutes later Johny and his partner in crime Jimmy are back at the table, which now has not chairs, laughing.

One 'teacher glare' and they moved... slowly.

It would be OK if this were the only time, or the only students. I also have a runner... who's parent refuses to 'make' them come into class, rather they will enter when they are emotionally ready. Never mind she runs off to do her volunteer work elsewhere.

Or, the 10 year old boys that bring toys to class and refuse to put them away. M loves Bionicle Legos... they weren't too happy when I offered their toys a new home at my house...

Or the girls, lest we think it is all boys, who are the rudest of all. The phrases I'm bored and this class is stupid are particular annoyances. I realize, I tell them, they are here because their parents 'make them' be there. It's still my job, though, to teach them. I had the phrase 'he's a jerk' mumbled under breath yesterday because I refused to let a group of 6 girls (about 1/3 the class) go to the bathroom together 5 minutes after we had a class restroom break.

So... am I crazy or have kids become disrespect machines? These are 'good Christian' kids from (mostly) solid families.

The highlight of my class yesterday was the boy with Asperger's, or similar. He was obsessed with elevators and numbers of floors in places. He poled everyone he could about their experiences with elevators, floors in their home and where they worked, etc. He loved that I'd been on the world's fastest elevator in the Hancock building in Chicago. I expected constant competition from him during the lesson... he was an angel.

The irony of it all was the topic yesterday: "To Be Like Jesus: Learning to Rejoice in Suffering"

God bless these kids... but I pray for a wake up call for their parents.

Why I don't understand many parents...

Sexting. Apparently teens now are having very graphic encounters, with pictures, over their cell phones. While this does not surprise me all that much given society's current state, the reactions do. First, these children are being labeled as sex offenders and traffickers in child pornography. Why aren't the parents being charged? For that matter, why haven't parents educated their children enough so they know it isn't OK to send naked pictures of yourself over the Internet?


Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/07/sexting.busts/index.html

Just one more thing...

Sunday errands are unusual at our house, but we decided to go price appliances, carpet, paint, and all the other homey type things we will need in the near future. It went something like this:

• Kmart- notice small puddle of coolant under the car
• Home Depot- Notice slightly larger puddle under the car
• McDonald's- notice increasingly hard to ignore puddle under the car
• Drive by mechanic- discover his is now closed on Sunday, notice coolant dripping while looking at hours
• Drive home- waiting on the car to explode.

We made it home just fine... but it's just one more of the little things!

Boys and Toys...

The State Department on Thursday sent a blunt, public message to North Korea: Don't launch your missile.

Seriously? I can picture this. The N Korean government gets this memo... and thinks, Oh, since they SAID not to, we shouldn't. Or maybe they'll think that the message meant a different missile.

I guess our diplomats need to attend preschool, and discover that this doesn't work.

This tiny nation wants attention... and we are giving it to them. I don't advocate ignoring temper tantrums, but then again sometimes that works.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that a crazy dictator with a missile that can hit Los Angeles is a big deal, but if it were really a threat it wouldn't be in the news.

If the government ran like a preschool, we just might be in better shape!

The sequential side of me...

That side is freaking out about moving and buying a house...I can't put it on a nice neat list!

So, as therapy, here's how it should go:

• Busy Finds house tomorrow
• I see house Friday, we make an offer
• We have an anxious weekend
• Offer is accepted Tuesday
• We close May 1st ish...
• We can leisurely move out of our apartment with time to spare...

Ah, but what a comfort to know we are taken care of no matter what, we won't be homeless, and it'll all work out in ways we don't imagine yet.

Still, that list...

Addendum to yesterday's rant...

The scene as I walked in the door:

Coffee. Everywhere. With a few absorbent spill pads thrown into it.

The coffee pot (those pump style pots) was innocently sitting closed on the counter.

So, someone not only can't line up a drip of coffee with a pot, the didn't realize the pot was empty.

This might, might mind you , have been because of the large brown puddle covering most of the floor.

To the ... less intellegent in the workplace

List of things you should not do at work:

• Mess with the settings on someones chair for no good reason



• Flush, or attempt to flush, entire rolls of unused toilet paper



• Not call facilities when the ice machine is broken, but complain it hasn't worked in a week



• Touch the backroom TV, including:

1. Unscrewing the coaxial cable (which requires using a chair as it is up high) presumably to improve reception... not sure



2. Touch the volume/channel buttons (which are covered with a sticker that says do not touch)
   


3. Remove the 'do not touch sticker' so you can touch what it says not to

• Burn your popcorn to a cinder, then be too embarrassed to admit it and leave it in the microwave



• Delete an entire month from a team calendar, and not tell anyone



• Order a case (24) cartridges for a printer (last October) that will be junked (last December) The junk date was known... just discovered the ink in a locked drawer



• Leave open packages of coffee, cookies, sugar, whatever, under the sign in the break room that warns against such practice as it attracts ants.



• Call facilities 27 times in one week to report ants. (really not exaggerating here...)

Want to know the really sad part? Besides all being true, they all happened TODAY.

Words I'm tired of hearing

I have the remote for the breakroom TV in my desk, perk of being the Admin. Now- I am so tired of the list below, if I hear them again the TV goes to cartoon network!

Bailout
Toxic Assets
Sub prime mess
Bailout
Stock market
Recession
Fed
Did I mention bailout?
Executive compensation
I didn't forget Bailout, right?

I just loathe the way the media picks up phrases that have zero meaning and runs with them.
Anyone remember the famed 'Shock and Awe' from the Gulf war?
Or, enemy combatant? Obama has done away with that phrase for PC reasons I hear...
Near the top of the list though is that any scandal is now ____-gate. Er- Watergate was the name of the hotel, never did understand how that caught on.

Which will lead to the future scandals of:
Bailoutgate
Fedgate
AIGgate (any day now...)
bonusgate (sounds like a video game event...)

On the totally random side, letting my nerd shine through, remember Kenneth Starr and his debacle of a trial with the Clintons?

Should name that one Starrgate (aka- McGyver in Space!)

Spell check is going to love this post...

Behold the power of Mayonaise

More specifically, Kraft brand with olive oil. For some unknown reason M decided he didn't like chicken at dinner.
You know... that look kids get like 'if I chew one more chew, you'll regret it!'
I suggested he dip it in something which he did, and wanted seconds. Who knew?

Busy says I better...

Tell ya'll she's pregnant, so she is more prone to grumpy outbursts.

Her grumpy, though, is most peoples cheerful. Seriously.

(Note, Busy develops a southern drawl when she's tired...thus the ya'll)

PS- she's hot too.

75% of last year's total...woohoo!

Reasons I only had 4 blog posts in 2008...

With this post, I've now posted half as many times as last year!

1: Read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (11 books, average 800+ pages each) Pesky author died before finishing book 12... so the new guy better be good!

2: Been in school... 18 months, straight A record!

3: Laziness. I've mentioned my talent in this area before...

4: Acceleration of time. Thinking Nobel Prize if I can prove this one...

5: Winged Monkey Attack. (or M & Z... )

I can make up more... but it's late, and I should go to bed before Busy gets grumpy that the light is on still...

Didn't realize...

I still had a blog! Hmm... has it really, really been nearly a year?

That's kind scary. You might think Blogger would delete these things after awhile, huh? I mean.... 20 years after we leave this silly little world, our thoughts and ramblings will still be in cyberspace for somone to read? Scary.

Well... no promises, but as you well know if you read Busy's blog... I've been in trouble more often than not anyway. :)