this is me
This is going to be an extremely long week. It is already a hellish day. I have some of the worst kids right now. One kid was kicked out within two hours. I have three more that are being extremely obnoxious. This really sucks. I want these kids out of here now. I'm so looking forward to the upcoming 3 day weekend. I have a feeling I'm really going to need it. And who knows, maybe there will be a snow day tomorrow. One could only hope.
No, I'm not a smooth operator, but my car is. My new G6 is such a smooth ride. I enjoy driving it so much and am extremely happy with my purchase. I've not taken any pictures yet, but I found one online that is my exact color, chrome wheels, and spoiler. This is what my car looks like (click for larger image).
So, I have a new car. Last night we went out to look for a new car. The first place we went was Suntrup Buick, Pontiac and GMC. I found the car I saw on their website and had the salesman bring it around. I took it for a quick test drive and immediately fell in love. It had such a smooth ride and was very spacious. I love the features on the car as well. It has two-toned interior with wood accents, XM satellite radio, cd player, input for an mp3 player, remote unlock and trunk popper, remote start, power everything, On Star. It's a v6 so it has plenty of power. I'm really enjoying the ride. I can't wait to drive it some more. Hopefully I'll have some pictures up soon.
I'm thinking about getting a new car soon, hopefully within the next couple weeks. I would really like to get a 6 cylinder car, as they have a much smoother ride. My very first car was a 6 cylinder Chevy Corsica. While it was an old car, it had a fairly smooth ride and had no problem accelerating. My current car is a Mazda Protege. It's been a good car but it's a much rougher ride and the acceleration is slow. This has lead me to a couple of possible choices. The Nissan Altima and the Pontiac G6. The Altima is a really nice looking car and has a smooth ride. My brother-in-law has an Altima and really likes it. I've always like Grand-Ams and the G6 is the car that replaced it. I'll have to test-drive the G6 to see what it rides like. If it's anything like the Grand-Am was, i'll enjoy driving it a lot. Does anyone have any suggestions on cars?
I was talking to my friend Trix today and we were discussing what's on the menu for dinner tonight. She is having Chinese and I'm having BBQ hamburgers. This confused her a great deal. She asked if I meant grill. I asked her to explain the difference. I'm always curious to see how terms are interchanged depending on region (soda vs pop vs coke for example).
11:09:58 AM trix wants to go home: maybe i'll get chinese food tonight 11:10:11 AM shep: oh, that sounds delicious 11:10:19 AM shep: i'm going to BBQ some hamburgers 11:10:31 AM shep: cause it's supposed to be like 64 today 11:10:34 AM trix wants to go home: bbq them or grill them? 11:10:46 AM shep: what's the diff? 11:10:57 AM trix wants to go home: doesn't bbq involve bbq sauce? 11:11:02 AM shep: yes 11:11:06 AM shep: so i'm bbqing them 11:11:09 AM shep: hence why i said bbq 11:11:10 AM trix wants to go home: ahhh ok 11:11:13 AM trix wants to go home: never heard that 11:11:22 AM shep: heard what? 11:11:27 AM shep: bbq hamburgers? 11:13:52 AM trix wants to go home: yeah 11:14:00 AM shep: really? 11:14:10 AM trix wants to go home: yes 11:14:15 AM shep: you've never heard of hamburgers with bbq sauce on them? 11:14:19 AM trix wants to go home: like a hamburger with bbq sauce on it? 11:14:21 AM trix wants to go home: no 11:14:22 AM shep: really? 11:14:23 AM shep: wow 11:14:25 AM shep: really? 11:14:42 AM trix wants to go home: maybe some weird specialty burger at a restaurant 11:14:45 AM trix wants to go home: but not at home 11:14:56 AM shep: they are grilled 11:14:58 AM shep: then sauced 11:15:06 AM shep: and cooked for a few minutes with sauce on them 11:15:11 AM trix wants to go home: weird 11:15:12 AM shep: just like any other bbq 11:15:13 AM shep: omg 11:15:15 AM shep: seriously? 11:15:16 AM trix wants to go home: lol 11:15:23 AM shep: how have you not heard of bbq hamburgers 11:15:25 AM trix wants to go home: must be a southern thing
I'm completely dumbfounded by this conversation. Really. I understand people not from St. Louis never hearing of BBQ pork steaks. Pork steaks are traditionally a St. Louis area thing. It really shocks me that something as simple as BBQ hamburgers could seem so foreign to someone who lives only 5 hours away, near Chicago. I mean, when I think of summertime, I think of BBQs with friends and family, BBQing burgers and dogs. Do these "cook-outs" (and not BBQs) have signs posted that say "No Sauce Allowed"? Something I thought was "as American as apple pie" I find out is something that others have never heard of. So Trix, do you know what apple pie is?
BTW, St. Louis is NOT Southern.
EDIT: This is not a proxy server! The search field on this site will not take you to myspace, facebook, bebo, or any other site that your work or school has blocked.
Hello my Kproxy visitors. I notice you visit once every few weeks. I'm pretty sure I know who you are. I don't know what to say, other than there's a note waiting for you.
Just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year. May 2008 be a great year for everyone. I've not made any resolutions this year, yet. We'll see.
New Years Eve was fun. My old college roommate Charlie was in town with his girlfriend Lauren. He had some people over and it was good to catch up with both of them. Made me realize how much I miss college and hanging out with the group of people that I used to be close with. Charlie is hopping around the country in a Med School program. Lauren is still in Springfield, but the rest of my friends from college are spread around the country, most being in Kansas City, but some in Chicago. For those still in college, don't take these years for granted. You'll meet some great people while you're there and will miss them when you part ways. Enjoy it while you can. Live those moments to the fullest.
Someone in the Habari IRC channel said this today and I think it's perfect, so I'll say it again here:
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
Well, Christmas has come and gone. It was a good one. I was given seasons 4-7 of The West Wing. I love this show so much. It's such a smart, funny, well-acted show. I also got a bunch of Best Buy gift cards. I spent those today when I went to buy an external hard drive. I got a 500gb MyBook. I reformatted it and partitioned it so both the pc and the Mac can use it. The Mac partition will be used with Time Machine. My Christmas prank on my sister was great. She got me good as well and gave me this really cool picture of the first pitch on opening day of the first Cardinals game at the new Busch Stadium. It's very cool. Can't wait to hang it somewhere. My other sister got me a cool Cardinals baseball (well, it was from my nephew) and the Wii Zapper which I am using to play Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 and, of course, Link's Crossbow Training. It was a great Christmas. I hope everyone else had a great holiday as well.
These past few days I've had a huge influx of traffic. The reason behind it is someone stumbled upon an article I posted back in 2005 and liked it and thus it was shared with thousands upon thousands of people around the internet. On Tuesday I had about 900 visits, Wednesday went up to 7,110, and today so far I'm at 2,243 and it's not even 9 am. WordPress is known for not handling large traffic spikes, especially on shared hosting (which is what I'm on). Luckily, after Tuesday's small influx to 900 visits I decided to download and enable WP Super Cache. It has worked quite well and my site has been loading fast and the server seems to be handling all the traffic quite well. So, we shall see how long this traffic spike will last and how the shared hosting of HostGator handles it.
and all through the school, kid after kid were acting a fool. The teachers were grumpy and pulling their hair, with the hopes that winter break soon would be there. Today I had to remove a kid from ISS. He couldn't control himself any longer. On top of that, I also received four new visitors today. The teachers are giving me early Christmas gifts it seems. Or should I say they are giving themselves early Christmas gifts? The n00bs are actually working and aren't talking, so that's good. What's also good is that tomorrow I lose three of my more talkative kids. I have no doubt that their vacant seats will be filled by the end of the week. The excitement of Christmas and two weeks off is building in these young kids and they just can't control themselves. One of my favorite sayings is The sweet just isn't as sweet without the sour, because without the sour you really don't know what sweet is. I love this quote and it strikes true for this week. This is a sour week, but it's going to make my break that much sweeter.
(the second line in the poem was written by Trix)
This weekend was a busy weekend. Friday night was happy hour with people from work. A couple people who don't usually show up came out and it was fun. I really enjoy the people I work with, even though I never get to see them throughout the day. I'm with the kids from 7:15 until 2:15 without a break. I eat lunch with the kids in the classroom. I never deal with any teachers. The only people I deal with on a regular basis are the hall monitors and the lunch ladies. Needless to say, I really enjoy happy hour as it gives me time to really get to know my fellow co-workers.
After happy hour on Friday I went to my sister Lisa's party. Her and Kevin were having people over to show off the new floor and the wall they knocked down in the entryway. It looks really nice. They had quite a few people stop by their place to check it out, as well as enjoy some tasty food (except the meatballs), beer, and friendships.
I woke up on Saturday to about four inches of snow. For once the weather people were right. It snowed off and on all day. Why couldn't this happen during the week so we can have a snow day? I would really like one right about now. The snow did put some extra stress on the day as we had plans to go to my Grandma's house for her holiday party. We made it out there, but it took about an hour longer than it should have because it was snowing heavily again and the roads weren't in the best shape. Coming home was even worse since it snowed another two or three inches while we were at the party. None of the roads looked like they were plowed recently. It wasn't until we made it back into St. Peters that we experienced decent roads. Good job St. Pete! Anyway, I had fun at my Grandparent's place. There's some pictures on my Flickr page if you want to check them out. No, we weren't opening Christmas gifts. We did a white elephant thing and all the gifts were items from our homes.
I am so ready for winter break. I'm getting burnt out by these kids. The other day I had five kids enter on the same day. They have all been bouncing up and down on my last nerve. They are just as anxious to get out for winter break as I am. What makes it worse is these are middle schoolers. Middle schoolers don't know how to control themselves (yes, that's a sweeping generalization but it's one that is true, for the most part, of every middle school-aged child).
I don't really have plans for winter break. Maybe I'll finish up Super Mario Galaxy, finish a couple books I'm reading, and probably sleep a lot and wish I didn't have to come back. Ok, maybe not that last part, but right now, that's what is on my mind. I really can't wait for tonight's happy hour and then my sister's Christmas party. They should be fun and a good way to relax and let off a little steam.
I've not posted in a while. I've been going through a rough few days. It's probably not something I'll be posting here, and if I do it will be very vague. The whole situation has drained my motivation to actually write anything. I have a few drafts that have been started but after a paragraph or so I just give up. I can't write right now. Hopefully in a day or so I'll be able to properly update. So, to my three loyal readers, hang in there.
On the second day of my four-day weekend, I thought I'd update my blog a bit. After all, a break from work doesn't mean a break from blogging, right? Since I've been off, nothing much has really happened over the past couple days, with one exception. My MacBook was delivered. What can I say? I love it. I've heard some users talk about their switch in the past and complained about how slow it was or how slow the programs were, but I've not experienced any of that. The OS runs great and programs are blazing fast to launch, even Firefox. I love the design of the MacBook, especially the keyboard and super-drive, compared to my old laptop. iChat is pretty sweet. I enjoyed chatting with Lisa on that. The only problem I had so far with the MacBook is last.fm appears twice in the dock and also doesn't want to shut down (and needs a force-quit). I know Lisa has had problems with it appearing twice in the dock. Anyone else have any problems with last.fm on their Mac? I think next time I get a desktop it will be a Mac as well, but that won't be for several years. That's pretty much it for now.
The past two days I've been lagging badly. I'm tired all day, time seems to creep to a halt, and my brain isn't functioning as quickly as it usually does. This is when I realized how addicted to Monster I really am. Since school started, every morning I would drink a 16 oz can of the low-carb goodness that delivers all the caffeine, ginseng, and taurine I need to get me through the day. These past two days I've forgotten to grab my Monster on the way out the door. I'm really feeling the effects of not having it. I know caffeine is bad for you, but when I look at all the people that are hooked on Starbucks every morning, I don't feel bad. Since I'm not a coffee drinker, this is my little indulgence. On top of that, it only has 10 calories. Someone send me a Monster, please.
So this past weekend was Daylight Savings Time in the US. Many people claimed how happy they were that they got an extra hour of sleep. I say that's BS. I didn't get an extra hour of sleep. The clock fell back and hour and you know what I did? I woke up at 7 instead of 8. No extra hour of sleep there. I had my 7 hours of rest and that's when my body told me to wake up. The spring is even worse, because you actually do lose an hour of sleep. So right now my internal clock is all messed up. I think it's time to get rid of DST. Who needs it?
This weekend I have a three-day weekend. Is there no better feeling than knowing you have an extra day in your weekend? I think not. (ok, well, maybe a few things). I have Friday off this week and am looking forward to being away from school for an extra day. I may have plans on Saturday, if we can ever decide on something, but other than that, my weekend should be fairly relaxing, besides the cleaning I plan on doing tomorrow. And do you know what the best part about this three-day weekend is? Knowing that the following weekend is a four-day weekend. I love November so much. Why can't every weekend be a three-day weekend?
This is going to be a really long day, I can tell. It's not because I have a lot of students, because I only have four. It's because I'm tired, which I wasn't until I got into the classroom. Why am I tired? Well, I got my usual amount of sleep last night and had my Monster this morning, so I think the reason must be because it's hot in my classroom. Like really hot. The AC isn't coming on for some reason. Many may think I don't need it because the temperature is only supposed to be 75 today, but I do need it because I have no windows in this classroom and can't open the door because this is ISS. So it's hot and stuffy in here with no air coming through at all. I can feel myself get more tired as the day goes on and I'm burning up. I picked the wrong day to wear a tie I think.
In other news, I had a great weekend. I didn't do anything at all really. Didn't go anywhere or do anything exciting. I did, however, get to talk to an old friend I don't get to talk to often. We spent hours catching up. That was a great surprise. Anyway, that's it for updates.
Edit: Since the post my ac kicked on and the day flew by. I only have about 1 hour left of students.
This past Saturday I went to Homecoming at my old high school, Fort Zumwalt South. It was a great game. The Bulldogs have a great team this year and have improved their record to 6-0. They played Frances Howell Central and beat them 34-0. The only downside to the game is we had to sit in the hot afternoon sun to watch it. No, I'm not being a baby. You think Homecoming and you think cool weather right? Well, not this Homecoming. It was 91 degrees out and the sun was beating down on us the entire time. I came home with a sunburn. Who would think you would need to wear sunscreen in St. Louis in October and that it would be 91 degrees? Crazy weather.
While browsing a blog last night I happened to notice that I was not listed in the author's blogroll anymore. It's a weird feeling (for me anyway) to notice that you are deemed no longer worthy of the precious link space on a website. Thinking about it, I believe I know why I was removed. I think I was removed because this person and I disagreed on a third party issue. That makes it even more curious that a disagreement like that would cause my site to be removed. I respect this author a lot and never thought they would remove someone because of their opinions on a subject (if that's what they indeed did). Of course, I could just be imagining things. It could be that they just don't like what I write about anymore. I don't know.