differentiated stuff

The school year is coming to an end.  I had some major motivation issues, but I pushed through and actually got everything done in a reasonable amount of time.  I’ve got a few things left, but they’re limited and very manageable.  Plus, since classes are basically over, my students are almost entirely done with their work, meaning that my sessions with them are over as well.  I’m really looking forward to the summer, but I’m starting to get a bit nervous about boredom.  Don’t get me wrong, I love — love –  sitting at home.  But I’m gonna need a project or two to maintain some activity in life.  One such project is almost certainly going to be socializing, which I don’t do nearly enough.  Another will be watching baseball.  Yes, that is a project.  Takes commitment, that’s for sure.

Aiden had one of his first-ever legit play dates last weekend with the daughter of a friend of mine from work.  She’s about a month older than he is, though she looks older than that based solely on her height in comparison to his.  They had a great time though.

After she finished pushing him on this little bike, she got in our wagon and he pushed her around for a while.  They have another date in a few weeks.  We knew it was time for a playdate or two because he has started treating the dog and, occasionally, his stuffed animals like friends.  And the friend that Christina has been so kind as to grow for him will not be ready for his level of interaction for a little while.

On another note, I am totally geeking out about the introduction of Google Wave.  It looks so freaking cool.  I’ve already signed up for email notification of its release.  Hopefully, they’ll release it over the summer and I’ll be able to geek out on it for a few days.   So cool looking.

May is the busiest month for teachers.  By far.  Right now, I should definitely be working on one of four things, most prominent of which is completing my student reports.  I’m having motivational issues.  I’m working at a rate of 1-2/day, which is simply not an acceptable rate.  Usually, I whip them all up in about 6 hours.  Not happening this time around.

Yesterday, I stopped at the Jewel on my from work to picking up Aiden.  Had a number of things to get for the weekend and next week.  Amongst them was some turkey for lunch for me and Aiden.  I picked that up, along with everything else on the list and proceeded to the self-checkout kiosk.  I scanned everything, but realized that the turkey didn’t have a bar code.  Then I looked a little closer.  This is what I saw:

In case you can’t read that, it says that my 2/3 of a pound of smoked turkey cost $632.49.  The unit price per pound was $958.32.  Hmmm.  Me thinks not.

There were a couple of hilarious clips on the Daily Show last night:

The sad thing about this one is that there is really only one way that politicians can talk about foreign policy these days.  Otherwise they’re “soft.”  

This clip isn’t as funny, but the point at the end is so fantastic that I had to post it.

Political talking heads are an absolutely worthless breed and should be eliminated entirely.  What good does this sort of reporting entertainment do?  I find it ridiculous that people do this whole “26+&=Mentos” thing.  I would find it hilarious if people didn’t actually watch them or listen to them.  I mean, I too can find a piece of information and causatively link it to something I don’t like.  But why would I?  And why must they?

So my baseball coaching season is over.  It was actually a lot of fun once I accepted that I’d be home late on game days.  It’ll be fun next year too, though I still won’t like being home late on game days.  This year’s team was strong.  Finished the season 5-1 (with 4 cancelled games).  Hopefully next year’s team will be able to win a few games too.  Winning always makes the coaching just a little more fun.

One of the major benefits to living in a house is that the condo required me to carry 4 keys at all times.  The house requires only one.  But that are complications associated.  For one, I’m trying not to read too much into the fact that about half of the time that I go to unlock my office door, I try to use my house key.  

The new (older) house has much better water pressure than the old (newer) condo.  There has been only one moment where I missed the condo — when a rabbit got stuck in our fence in the back yard.  Thankfully, the landlord lives across the street, so he came over with some heavy-duty gloves and jimmied the thing out of the fence.  I do not expect to see that rabbit in the yard again.  As I told the landlord, this rabbit-in-the-fence thing is not a city problem, thus it is not something for which we are prepared.  Ah, the beauty of renting…

The other day, my baseball team had to cancel our game.  Out of 13 players on the roster, four were able to play.  Most had baseball games to play for other teams.  So, of those four kids, two were 7th graders who were invited to play with the 6th grade team.  When I say “invited,” what I mean is that they were told to play with those guys.  Theoretically, they play baseball because they like baseball and want to play when given the opportunity.  Not these two kids.  Both of them talked the other coach into not having them play.  And I’m about 95% convinced that one of them lied to me, then, upon fear of being held accountable (gasp) for the lie, had his mother send me an email to back up his story.  Basically, he was going to be able to play in our game, but when he found out he would be playing with the younger team, a doctor’s appointment arose as if from nowhere.  This “appointment” was confirmed much later that evening by the mother.  Sketchy.  He did one of two things — he either lied to me to avoid his commitment to play or he used his cell phone during the school day.  And I can call him out on neither.  Frustrating.  Even more frustrating is the fact that this kid’s parents became adamant supporters of the athletics program during the scheduling process.  Adamant to the point of disrespectfulness toward many of the heads of the school.  Rhetoric not matching actions here, which is only infuriating because of the way we were attacked about sports not more than three weeks ago.  Oh well.  Time to move on. 

Nearly every day of baseball practice sees me throw batting practice to all my kids.  13.  Some of them need 4-5 pitches.  Some only need 1 or 2.  But a few of them need more.  Many more.  I’m pretty sure I threw about 45 pitches to one kid on Tuesday.  My arm and, ahem, posterior, were quite sore for 2 days.  I felt like an old man.  But seriously.  45 pitches?  And at that point, what am I gonna do?  I gotta keep throwing until this kid manages to touch the ball with his bat, which, I might add, he has an equally good chance of doing if blindfolded.

This whole swine flu thing is getting a little out of control.  Rumors about it fly around like crazy.  The annoying thing is that since I work in a school, it is absolutely impossible to avoid.  For example, I have to clean with Lysol wipes the work table in my office after every session.  (I don’t have desks in my office, just one large round table for students to work at.  When they’re not in here, I work at it too.)  We’ve already had one emergency meeting about it this week.  I’m expecting at least one more by the end of the week.  So, as much as I can, I look for distractions.

Enter….Jon Stewart.  Too funny.

I just got the strangest call at work.  The caller ID said it was a 202 number, which I recall from my time in DC as being a DC number.  Actually the number was (202) 000-0000.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that was not the actual number.  Anyways, I pick up the phone and there’s a delay (i.e., it’s a computer-generated call).  I say hello, and this guy says he’s calling from Phillip Morris USA regarding a proposed increase in the tobacco tax in Illinois.  He asks if I’m a smoker.  All I say back is, “Why are you calling me at work?”  The guy says, “I was assigned this number.”  Then he hangs up!  Strange.  I never really gave much thought to why I don’t get calls like that at work.  I guess I figured we are not the Do Not Call list.  Or that our system blocks calls from people who are blocking their numbers from appearing on caller IDs.  Or something.  I dunno.  It was really quite bizarre.

One of the best things about renting is that other people fix problems for you.  For free.  Over the past few weeks, we had a water issue in our basement.  Namely, there was water on the floor of the basement.  It was coming in through the sink in the bathroom down there.  Water was coming up through the drain, filling the basin, and pouring over the edge.  Thankfully, the water was going directly to a drain on the floor.  This happened several times over a period of about a week.  Each time, the landlord came and cleaned it up.  On Monday, a plumber came to actually fix the problem.  There was a partial blockage of the sewer pipe running to the street.  And something about drainage.  Dunno.  Didn’t pay close attention.  Because it was not my problem.  Awesome.

On an entirely unrelated note, earlier this week, I had a bit of time while one of my students worked on an overdue project (sometimes my job is just to give time to get organized and caught up).  I decided to see what Windows Live was all about.  My computer kept downloading updates related to Windows Live, so I checked it out.  I figured I’d be able to foward the live.com email account to Gmail so it wouldn’t really be one more account to manage.  Nope.   The Windows Live email (basically Hotmail renamed) only allows mail forwarding within the Microsoft family, and it does not support POP, so mail cannot be fetched by anything.  Except Outlook.  Unless of course I pay for a “premium” online account.   Not likely.

The Outlook Connector add-in gave me the impression that I’d be able to sync my Outlook calendar to the Windows Live cloud and access/modify it online when I am using a different computer.  Nope.  The Outlook Connector allows me to see my live.com calendar, but I cannot sync it to my existing calendar, nor can I import my existing calendar into my live.com account.  In Outlook, I can lay my live.com calendar on top of my existing Outlook calendar, but there is no way for them to interact.  Without Outlook.  Getting the pattern?  Google’s services have allowed me to fetch mail from private domains and other commercial domains (like comcast.net, for example).  Google also provides software to sync Outlook calendars with Google calendars.  The only thing they don’t have is a contact sync to link Google and Outlook, but I bet there’s one on the way.  So, while Microsoft seems exceedingly focused on people using Outlook at work, Google lets me combine my work and home schedules while seeing both from anywhere through the internet or my iPhone.  Google also lets me see all of my email accounts (except live.com) in one page with multiple inboxes, as I mentioned last week.  Google, by the way, launched a fantastaic new iPhone gmail interface that works in Safari (rather than being a downloadable app).  The Google Reader interface on iPhone is very user-friendly as well.  Google Talk on iPhone leaves something to be desired.

On another unrelated note, I have to coach a double-header for my baseball team.  On a Saturday.  An hour away.  I have to be on campus around 8:15, and I don’t think I’ll be back before 2:00.  Not cool.  And not necessary for a successful Middle School sports program.  Somebody needs to check their priorities.  Here’s hoping it rains.

One of my (several) new responsibilities at work this year is coaching a middle school baseball team.  It’s really quite fun, aside from all the annoying parts.  I like the kids.  I like coaching them.  I like coaching in games.  I do not like playing games until 6 in the evening and getting home at or around 7.  That’s a 12-hour day, which is not something that appeals to me in any way, really.  The good news is that there are only 11 scheduled games in the season, and the season itself is only about 2 months long.  Plus, more often than not, games that are rained (or snowed) out are not rescheduled.  We already had one game called off this year on account of a period of disgusting December-ish weather last week.  Well, technically it’s postponed while the athletic directors try to sort out another time to play the game.

So the season is off to a bit of a mixed start.  We won our first game in what I would call fairly dominant fashion.  We were missing almost a quarter of the roster on account of conflicts with out-of-school activities.  Thankfully, we were able to fill the gaps left by the missing 4 kids.  In the second game, we were not so lucky.  Couldn’t fill the gaps for the 4 missing kids and lost the game.  And prior to the cancellation of the game last week, I thought we would have to forfeit on account of all the missing kids.  At this point, I’m starting to think I’ll never have more than 10 at a game.  I could make that work just fine.  If the kids swung.  Really hard to score any runs when the kids don’t swing.  Seriously.  More than half of them did not take a real swing in the game.  That’s 4 swingers and 6 non-swingers.  Painful to watch.  It’s frustrating in a way because I’ve thrown tons of batting practice for these non-swingers, but they get up in a game and just hope the pitcher walks them.

Now, having said all this, when I started playing little league, I was a non-swinger for almost all of the first year.  I was 8.  After that, I started swinging a bunch, and ended up hitting in the top third of the order for the rest of my little league career.  The kids I coach are between the ages of 12 and 14 — too old to be watching all the balls go by in my opinion.  Hard to know what to say to a kid to get them to lift the bat while standing at the plate.  Insights are welcome.

Lastly, no politics here, but really amused me:

It’s been a crazy few weeks at work.  I have had, no exaggeration, at least 10 emergency meetings in the past week-and-a-half.  Anyone who has ever been involved in any sort of significant policy change can understand part of what we’re going through with our schedule change for next year.  It’s funny to me, in a sad way, because the only thing anyone cares about is when the kids have PE and athletics.   Check that — ATHLETICS and pe.  I call such people “Those in Need of a Real Problem.”  Regardless of how asinine their concerns are, we’re forced to hear them and respond.  And once they recruit the right people to back them, things get changed.  So it goes.  The irony is that the new version, which fixes their dreaded PE/Athletics problem, cuts the time allotted to the program by more than 25%.  The previous version kept the allotted time at its current level.  HA!  If we had proposed that initially, I’d be packing my desk by now.  I seem to recall having some other job description besides schedule-maker, but it’s hard to recall.  I think it had something to do with kids.

I had a few minutes to myself this morning.  My student was finishing a few tests, and I didn’t want to be working on the schedule in front of him since he’ll be a student here next year.  I decided to try activating the “Multiple Inboxes” Gmail lab.  Oh.  My.  Jeebus.  Awesome.  Basically, you can create a string of inboxes that align vertically.  The content of those inboxes can be based on labels or forwarding from other accounts.  Tangentially, I discovered that you can have Gmail fetch mail from other accounts, including my second gmail account, the email account that Comcast made me set up for our internet and phone service, and any other accounts I open later on.  Could include work, if I so choose.  At this time, I do not so choose, as to maintain clear division between business and personal.  So I can now see all of my email accounts in one place.  The down side?  There was a lot of spam in a few of my accounts.  I had to cancel one of them and restart it with a different ID.  Not a big deal, since it’s rarely used for anything.    But before I deleted it, I added it to my Gmail account, and even though I disconnected and deleted it, Gmail kept fetching spam (like years-old spam) for another two hours.  It was strange.  I kept getting “new” mail that was two years old.  But now that it’s done, there is no down side.  It’s just plain old cool.

A final note:  Keith Olbermann has started a baseball blog through MLB.com!  I love Keith Olbermann as a sports reporter.  I like him fine as a talking head, but only as much as one can actually like a talking head.  I loved him on Sportscenter, and I think he’s great on Sunday Night Football on NBC.  Can’t wait to see what he’ll be writing on baseball.

There was a period of college where Animal (of the Muppets) was permanently hilarious.  Seeing the video on The Daily Show last night.  Also, I love a good pirate joke…

I had to post the full Muppetts video to go with it, for those sad souls who are yet to be familiar with this bit.

 

The other day, I had by computer bag over my shoulder and the strap came undone.  It’s a solid woven strap connected with a metal clip do a D-ring, which is attached to the back with a thick plastic piece.  I figured that the clip had come undone from the D-ring, but when I stopped to look at it, I saw that the plastic connector on the bag itself had torn.  The clip and D-ring were still connected, but the D-ring was now connected to absolutely nothing.  So bizarre.  Thankfully, they’ve got a bunch of these bags, so I’m going to trade it in for a new one.  Strange.

Some random thoughts

• All of my kid’s words sound like ‘cock.’  Okay, not all of them.  The following words sound very good and recognizable to almost anyone:  Mom, Dad, more, shoes, coat, yes, no, cookie, and some others.  Most of the rest sound like ‘cock.’  Cookie, cracker, sock, milk, cut.  You get the idea.  My kid says “cock” and I spend the next few moments trying to sort out what kind of “cock” he wants.
• Let’s stick with the kid theme — on the way to dinner on Saturday, “Hey Ya” by Outkast came on the radio.  And Aiden started clapping with it.  Hilarious.  He also fake blows his nose, fake coughs, and fake sneezes whenever anyone does any of those things.  You learn a lot about yourself by watching your kid copy every single little thing that you do without thinking.
• I’m excited about the Cubs season.  First, I love baseball.  it’s just really fun for me to watch.  TV, in person, radio, doesn’t matter.  Baseball.  And I’m particularly enthused by the Cubs’ start to the season.  They’re winning by taking advantage of opponents’ mistakes and pitching well.  Well, sometimes.  Sometimes the relievers seem afraid of throwing strikes.  But it’s early, so we’ll see. 
• I do not understand why the Fox network doesn’t put new episodes of their shows online until 8 days after the first broadcast.  ABC and NBC don’t have such a ridonkulous policy.  And I think it hurts viewership.  Last week, our DVR farted and forgot to tape the new episode of House.  Turns out it was a hugely important episode.  We haven’t been able to watch it on account of Fox’s 8-day delay policy, and now we weren’t able to watch this week’s episode yesterday.  Also, I disagree with their definition of 8 days.  It first aired on April 6.  The eighth day after that airing was yesterday.  Show posts today.  Do they wait until 8 days from the original airing time?  Makes no sense.  All will be well tonight, when we can finally watch it.  But still.   Annoying.
• We did standardized tests at school last week.  What a waste of time, space, energy, paper, and pencils.  You’ll notice that brain power was not wasted, as it is not required during the completion of these standardized tests.

So much to say…

The big move is over.  We live in a house now.  It is amazing.  And quiet.  The first few days, we had to leave the DVR playing on the TV (since we had no TV service yet) just so there would be a little noise in the house.  I’ve already adjusted to the lack of noise.  So peaceful.  Here’s a quick hit list of highlights and low-lights from the move:

The Good:

• The movers.  Yes, we hired movers.  They started unloading our 3rd floor walk-up apartment at 7:30, or thereabouts.  They finished emptying the trucks at the new house at about 12:30.  With the amount of stuff (and crap) that we have accumulated, 5 hours is absolutely amazing. 
• DirecTV.  They almost made the not-so-good list.  Seems like there’s no such thing as an easy install, no matter where we live.  When we first got their service at the condo, the dude could not sort out how to run cable from our back balcony to our living room.  It took hours.   This time, the issue was satellite dish placement.  We couldn’t put it on the roof, and I’m not sure I would even if the landlord allowed it.  Something about tacking a huge piece of metal to the roof makes me uneasy on a number of levels, from the structure of the building through to the seal of the roof.  So, they decided to put it in the yard, which required them to dig, which required them to have the city come out and survey the land for buried wires.  All of this caused a 2-day delay.  Then, when they returned, they didn’t have the insulated wire that they’re supposed to use when they bury a cable.  Now, here’s why they made the good list:  The guy who came for the second install visit was great.  He gave us a special type of satellite (supposed to cost extra) for free, which allowed them to run one cable to the house instead of four.  That meant they only had to drill into the house in one location.  They were exceedingly professional and did a very clean job.  Then, they came back a few days later with insulated cable and buried the line going to the house.  Like I said at the top, it was a close call, but they came out on the good side.
• The yard.  The dog and the kid love the yard, ergo I love the yard.  I would love it on its own merit, but the love of the under-three-footers makes it all the better.  When the dog goes out there, she sprints around the whole thing.
• Comcast.  They showed up on time.  They did exactly what they were supposed to do.  And they left.  Granted it took the guy forever due to some faulty phone lines in the house, but that wasn’t his fault.  And he got the modem in the exact place that we wanted it.
• The landlord.  He addresses problems lightning fast.  He grew up in the house we’re renting, so he clearly cares about it quite a bit.  And on the first day, he dropped off a six-pack of Harp for me.
• Christina.  She was an unpacking machine.  All of the boxes are basically unpacked or in storage in the…
• Basement.  We have a full basement that hold all of our unused crap.  It’s basically a huge storage locker with a washer and dryer.
• My commute.  It takes me 10 minutes to get to work.  Tops.  The only problem is I’m still trying to figure out when I’m going to listen to my podcasts.  I’m pretty well addicted to Car Talk, Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and This American Life.  Planet Money may get squeezed out, as I’m not as into it now as I was a few months ago.  I’m just a little sick of doom and gloom economic analysis.  Yes, I’m aware of the economic situation, but it’s a lot like the latest Iraq war — my day wasn’t any better or more enlightened after hearing the daily reports on it.

The Not-So-Good:

• RCN.  We don’t even have their service any more and they still made the list.  In fact, they are #1 on the list for a reason.  First, they cancelled our service a week early.  Then, they tried to charge us for equipment that we had returned.  Then, they tried to charge us for the month of April even though our service was discontinued on March 31.  I’ve called them 3 times this week.  Idiots.  As soon as I told them that we’re moving someplace that they do not service, we lost their attention completely and they stopped caring about serving us as customers.   Not sure if this is true or not, but it sure as hell feels that way. 
• The fence around the yard.  There are several gaps in the fence that are large enough for the dog to slip through.  And she did, in fact, within the first week.  Thankfully, I was right there when it happened and was able to chase her down and bring her back.  I then promptly covered all of the gaps with chicken wire, wooden blocks, fencing, bricks, or whatever else I could find that wouldn’t move.  I’m still a little wary about the fence, but I’m starting to trust it a bit.
• Ants.  Ah yes, welcome to house living you say.  And you are right.  Ants were never an issue in our 3rd floor apartment.  At the house though, they’ve already made appearances in several rooms, including the kitchen, bathroom, and Aiden’s room.  Called the landlord this morning, and he’s having an exterminator out on Monday.  So the good finds its way into the not-so-good.
• The new TV.  This was totally a slam dunk for the good list, but I’ve only had it for a week and it already needs a service call.  It occasionally turns off by itself, which is annoying.  But more annoyingly (and more frequently) the TV picture gets jumbled, turns a weird color, and the set freezes.  The only way to turn it off is to unplug the power cord from the back of the unit.  So tomorrow, I plan to return it and get another brand.  At the time I got it, I was choosing between three almost identical sets.  So, tomorrow, I’m going to choose one of the other two.

Don’t let the relative sizes of the good and not-so-good lists fool you — the move has been nothing but positive for all. We are much happier as a group.  Our noise doesn’t bother anyone (except the cat, but she’ll have to deal).  No one’s noise bothers us.  Actually, the dogs next door (which look like wolves, by the way) howl at the moon at night.  It’s hilarious.  Doesn’t bother us at all.  Beats the crap out of howling neighbors and howling Cubs fans.  I love the Cubs.  I hate the “fans.”  I use quotation marks because they aren’t actually fans — they’re idiots who pay $30 for a ticket to the most expensive bar in Chicago and pay no attention to the game.  Of course, this is a drastic over-generalization, but it’s more true than untrue.

And with that, I’ll leave you.  Well, that and this Daily Show clip from last night: