Moondog Delight

Kathryn's Quilts - Plano Quilt Guild Show

2009-08-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am an incredibly fortunate man. When it's cold at night, I sleep under the quilts my wife has sewn.

She walks through fabric stores with her sighting lasers on high-res/high-gain, her hands verifying and sorting data her eyes have sent up. She sees and feels the way the different fabrics catch and hold the light or kiss it as it passes, whether it's cambric or calico or wool or velvet or . . . I have no notion (needlewoman's pun there) of the different ways she sees fabric.

But I do watch the way her expression focuses, the way her shoulders bear her rotary-cutter-armed hand directly to the cutting table. I watch as she aligns the different layers of colored stuff more precisely than thought beneath her blade. I watch the way her eyes match and measure the little stacks of milled and woven and spun geometry and tally up their numberings with a dragon-glitter glance at her hoarded cloths. Cotton plants and sheep and chemists and silkworm moths exist to provide this art-bringer her pallet media. (That was not a misspelling, incidentally.)

When a pattern calls for a quarter-inch seam allowance, it by-God gets a quarter-inch seam allowance . . . not three-sixteenths, not nine-thirty-seconds. And when she has sewn two squares together, or three, if it aligns to a different galactic standard than the one she subscribed to, she stitch-rips it out and begins anew. Patience, focus, drive . . . these words are water-thin stuff as descriptors.

I have watched the way this woman lays out her pattern on her sewing table, or the floor, the carpet, the bed, calculating the visual effect of shade, shadow, hue, and tint. I have watched her smile, frown, or laugh at a joke she shares with that God who taught mankind to weave, spin, and sew. I have watched her, hand ahip, march miles to circle her projects, to compare and contrast the effect of placing that square here instead of there, or, possibly rotating that square . . . no; that one; yes . . . 45-, 90-, or 180 degrees. Does the light nestle in the warp or ricochet off the weft? How does the shadow pool where the quilting piles up the batting?

I have listened to her closely reasoned affection, love, care, concern, excitement as she tells me why this fabric for that child, these colors for that couple, this background for that baby. I have ached with the agony in her voice as she shared her fear that a child wouldn't appreciate the effort this work - and friend, it is work - is costing. This transformed labor no longer delivers "just" the baby, it delivers her love with all its accumulated frustrations, misunderstandings, downright disapprovals, sighs, hugs, smiles, grins, and kisses.

Some of her quilts hang on our walls, and friends and clients walk in and out of our house and never even see them. They are, after all, placed where an interior designer would position a store-bought painting or print that she found for a really good price. The dollar value of these quilts is truly beyond measure . . . Churchill's "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" don't include the insight and reflection that goes into each one. Our house is swaddled in the mental and physical aura of the woman who is the center of it.

On cold nights we snuggle and giggle and laugh out loud under these quilts. We watch rented or paid-for videos on Heinlein's "goddam noisy box" (Stranger in a Strange Land) coccooned in color and texture, cushioned from the world outside in the form and substance of considered thought and expressed reflection. In the morning my hands emerge into window-blinded daylight tracing the fingerprints of quilted colored squares.

"O, wad some power the Giftie gie us" to see Kathryn's quilts as she must see them. One day, maybe I'll hire a professional photographer - probably a landscape photographer - to capture the qualities and bloodlines of these quilts. Till then you get this "Honey, stand over by your quilt under the indirect fluorescent lights with the official take-my-picture smile."

And on that someday, maybe Kathryn will tell you the tales of these different quilts. I would not presume to.

Till you can hold these quilts and watch the light dance. Till you can bunch them in your hands and breathe through them. Till they can warm the walls in your house or the toes in your bed . . .

I give you joy of them.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Masquerade

2009-08-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

I'm always prompt, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than others.

I finally figured out where the computer stashed the photos, and ain't we swell?

The first year's gathering is always the smallest, and this is sked to be an annual event.

Start planning now. I bought the pattern for my coat (a la Dorian Grey . . . just the coat) before the masque. The fabric is waiting for me in Oklahoma. They may not have shoes, but they have fabric for clothes. There's a humongous shop just this side of Pryor, OK, (Fabricut Factory Outlet), on the west side of the highway, opposite the railroad, same side as the airport. The link won't post, and it's NDG anyway. But the prices . . . it's worth the gas, and "your dollar goes farther" (about 270 miles, actually, from my house). It really is.

True Summer Goals

2009-08-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

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By the calendar there are sixty-eight days between the last day of School Year 2008-2009 and the first day of School year 2009-2010. Every teacher I know compiles a list of things to get done while (s)he is free of bells, papers, and student conferences. Being mildly anal-retentive, I have put my list into a multi-page color-coded spreadsheet that runs to eighteen pages. The Completed Tasks pages are line-item color-coded yellow; projects that just aren't going to happen or that were overtaken by events are red. I have three pages dedicated to those completed items, two of them are double-columned. The third is holding space so I don't have to "Insert Column" nine hundred times. I still have several pages of unstarted (no-color) or in-progress (green) stuff to go.

The most responsibly significant page has three monthly calendar blocks day-by-day indicating that I have checked my bank balances online at least once that day. I balanced my checkbook to the penny for the first time in my life in June, and, at the urging of my oldest son (long may he wave) I have been faithful to that practice to date. Hellfire, I even check it when I get back from Home Depot for a light bulb or a can of paint . . . I enter the receipts on the interactive spreadsheet I built (another first) and I know - absolutely know - how much money I have available for living that day till the coming payday. I tell my kids I feel like King F. Kong.

But, being at heart a Teacher/Student, even a certified English Teacher, my favorite page this summer shows my progress to a totally irresponsible goal of --- no; not reading x number of books, but of watching at least one movie for each day of summer. This is undignified. The list below is alphabetical, not chronological - I did watch the Lord of the Rings sequentially. And Band of Brothers would have been senseless had it not been episodic. Multiple viewings are because I was looking for specific events or references or allusions or titles or characters - I am a student, after all. So, my list to date reads:

1. A Bridge Too Far
2. Armageddon
3. The Art of Dining - The Business Lunch -- "learn something" fascinating
5. The Art of Dining - The Formal Dinner X2 -- "learn something" absolutely fascinating
6. Band of Brothers - Curahee
7. Band of Brothers - Day of Days
8. Band of Brothers - Carentan
9. Band of Brothers - Replacements
10. Band of Brothers - Crossroads
11. Band of Brothers - Bastogne
12. Band of Brothers - Breaking Point
13. Band of Brothers - Last Patrol
14. Band of Brothers- Why We Fight
15. Band of Brothers - Points
16. Body Heat
17. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
18. Crossing The Distance -- "learn something" bummer
19. Curse of the Jade Scorpion
20. Deja Vu - Director Henry Jaglom, 1997
21. E.T.
22. The Eagle Has Landed
23. Earth -- turned out to be a "learn something" - another bummer
24. Educated Eye: How an Idea Becomes a Book -- "learn something" bummer
25. Enchanted April
26. Enemy of the State
27. Field of Dreams
28. The Firm
29. Harry Potter - The Halfblood Prince
30. The Horse Whisperer
31. Hot Fuzz
32. I Robot
33. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls
34. Julie and Julia X2
35. Jurassic Park
37. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen X2
38. Little Big Man
39. Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring
40. Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers
41. Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King
42. M*A*S*H
44. Men in Black X2
45. Mickey Blue Eyes
46. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
48. Moonstruck
49. My Best Friend's Wedding
50. October Sky
51. Other People's Money
52. The Phantom
53. The Princess Bride
54. The Proposal
55. The Red Baron -- "learn something" -- not bat at all, really
56. Richard III
57. Romancing the Stone
58. Scent of a Woman
59. The Search for Alien Worlds -- "learn something" -- uh . . .
60. The Search for Bobby Fischer
61. Searching for Richard
62. Secondhand Lions
63. The Shadow
64. Shakespeare in Love
65. The Soloist
66. Spiritual Liberation -- "learn something" -- pretty good; well done
67. Star Trek - First Contact
68. Start Trek (2009) (fourth time, but first time this summer)
69. That Thing You Do
70. The Thomas Crowne Affair (Brosnan/Russo) (I also have McQueen/Dunaway)
71. Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle J. Swan
72. To the Edge of the Universe -- "learn something" -- arid
73. Tom Jones
74. Young Sherlock Holmes

I almost hate to have numbered the blessed things. When I put in Gettysburg and Dances With Wolves and Our Town it'll screw up my numbering badly -- I can't just add them to the bottom of the list . . . And I still have a week of freedom left for my cinematic sprint.

Sure; I've read at least a dozen books for sport: Steinbeck, O'Brian, Twain, Pratchett, but that's what I do. That's where I focus. Movies are a less intense focus unless they trigger other questions - and the best ones always do.

Anyway, I'll post photos of the finished floor painting and some other stuff. But I just had to do this right now.
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LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN MASQUERADE

2009-07-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

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I am really looking forward to tonight. We have always wanted to have a herd of people over. We just never have yet. This is a great excuse. So now we are. I really hope the different communities each of us lives in can cross-pollinate and get to be even more fun.

Scroll down three or four entires to see the major stuff. And then scroll down some more -- it keeps coming up.

How do you put your address out so your friends can see it, without broadcasting to the entire world? Email/call; I'll give you the address.

Jumanji, you guys!

Moondog
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League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

2009-07-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

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I love a good movie

I love a good book even more

Now, you have to realize that I am one of the luckiest on the face of Planet Earth. I have taught English Literature to Ninth Graders. No; I did not find this assignment in Dante's Fifth Circle, though some do. I love sharing well-told tales with everybody, and I get inordinate pleasure seeing and sharing the clever ways a story is whittled out and glued together.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was originally a comic book. Whoops! 'Scuse me . . . a graphic novel. "Crap." I despise political correctness as gelding the language. I haven't read comic books probably since sixth or seventh grade. And, simultaneously, I don't really care how "classic" a book is if it doesn't interest me. Period.

So . . . The League . . . I turned up my educated nose at it the first time the kids brought it home from Blockbuster. Then I was at home, bored out of my gourd, so I slotted it. . .

Oh, what a hoot! What a joy of synthesis, connecting all the different writers of the Belle Epoque" into a Harry Turtledove-ian stage-setting for World War One.

Allan Quatermain, Captain Nemo, Ishmael, Dracula (Mina Harker), Dorian Grey, Tom Sawyer. How much fun could you really have in a classroom with this? I can see Principals covering their ears and running for the doors. "Bless their hearts!"

I keep toying with setting up Captain Ahab's (Ahab's his first name; we don't know his family name) having a son (we know he has a child) named John. That's a typical enough name for that time. If Ahab's last name were Dunbar then we could have an interesting progression from east coast whaling to Great Plains buffalo hunting . . . well, the mind can ramble.

Please come to this masquerade. The masque is not mandatory; it just makes things more fun. Bring snicker-snacks or dessert or something munchable for four other people. RSVP on Facebook.

Y'all come.

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Dances-With-Cockatiels

2009-07-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

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In my stepdad's house we had three cocker spaniels - PeeWee, Smoky, and Dutchess. They were fabulous, personable, thoroughly loveable dogs. I had to mix a pound of dry Purina dog chow with one can of canned dogfood-of-the-week in the Kitchen-Aid in the closet/tool storage in the garage. That was ok. Then I had to scoop up the result of that food preparation the next day from the back yard. That wasn't all that much fun.

When I moved out I set up my own household, with cats. Cats are ever so much more fastidious than dogs. But I never had a dog climb a three story brick apartment wall to get at a bitch in heat. They were cute kittens, though. And I still had to seive through the kitty-litter with that slotted aluminum spoon to clean things back up.

For the last more-than-a-dozen years I have taken the Indian names Whistles-With-Birds or Dances-With-Cockatiels, depending on where I am at the time. This is because I really enjoy talking with "my" cockatiel. One owns a bird about as much as one owns a child or a even a spouse. Our flock talks about all manner of things with whistles, clucks, chick-chicks, rhythmic hammerings on horizontal surfaces, because all of those are more dignified than baby-talking to a stupid bird.

Cocker Spaniels are delightful to roll up in a ball with and scratch their bellies and backs and behind their ears. It is hysterical to watch them dip their ears and jowls in the water bowl and inundate the linoleum like a bosun's mate with a swab. Cats are exquisitely, graceful in their focused curiousity and studied movement, cleaning their whiskers (don't you love the word "vibrissae"?). But a cockatiel is . . . well, a cockatiel is just flat smooth different.

Naming a bird, "fer chrissakes", is difficult. But daughter Jennifer pointed out that a cockatiel is a 'small Australian parrot,' right? So let's call him "Cockatiel Dundee." We did, and we pronounced it "Dundy." Crushed by her dying eggbound, we laugh today remembering her antics. Did you know, for instance, that a cockatiel, having landed in a pan of uncooked brownie batter, cannot generate enough lift to flap herself out? I had to scoop her up with two fingers under her keel, whereupon she flew to the safety of the kitchen cabinet tops. When we moved from that house the inverted bird trackes in brownie batter were still up there. They might be to this day. Or were you aware that a bird keeps a layer of very fine dust (sort of like the sublime Gold Bond Powder) in her feathers to keep her dry. We learned that when Dundee tried to fly to freedom through the fixed glass beside the fireplace at our last house. We never washed that window, either, because we wanted to preserve the perfect dusted-on image of a cockatiel in full flight. I'm laughting through tears as I write this.

The present landlord who sublets to our family is named "Sir Galahad" because he was given us at Four Winds Renaissance Faire. I had not realized you can here this bird's call across a four- or five-acre field. He goes by the less formal "Galahad," or most often, just "Bird." This creature talks more than my ninth grade student girls. Yes, friends and neighbors, that's a lot. And he expects you to answer him, bigod! So we do. The whole family. When you come in the door, he bellows - whistles a Falstaffian "Hello!" very emphatically. Well, shoot fire and save the matches, we all reply with the same emphasis. Or he'll thrust out his breast at the dressing mirror, and do his Schwartznegger "guns" impression and sing what we beak-challenged members of the flock call "woogewoop". That's pronounced "woogewoop," incidentally. Or he will sing "Columbia the Gem of the Ocean." Now, you have to understand that scientists say a cockatiel has the intellect of a two-year-old child. That's about how he sings it. But Kate Smith couldn't do better. And it's a solo number, too. He does not appreciate interruptions . . . remember the way your fourth-grade teacher snapped on a bad day? Same thing (in whistle).

The hardest dance we share with this bird is his whistle-rap. He will perch on the kitchen curtain rod, lean waaay over, call once - sharply - and bang with his beak like a five to seven round burst from an M-16 on the wooden becket that holds the rod from the wall. Everybody (that's everybody) in the kitchen replies with one short twoot and a stacatto rapping on whatever surface is closest. It's difficult to bake when you're rapping in the flour. It's difficult to twoot with a mouthful of hashbrowns . . . But this is serious communication, serious quality time, with a fellow-member of this flock, and we all reply. Galahad has a way of fixing you with one birdy beady eye to see if you have any manners at all. He also does this atop a computer monitor, from the towel rack in the bathroom, and in the bedroom on the wall closest the street. Twoot-rap sessions have been know to last five minutes and more. They can be as brief as a first kiss.

It's necessary.

And we talk back.

Galahad is a free-range cocktiel. Have you ever seen one of these beings fly? I mean really fly, not flutter around in a cage. He has full run . . . flight . . . of our story-and-a-half house. It was a little rough at first while he was figuring out the ceiling fans - a whack upside the head tended to knock him right straight out of the air, and those whacks leave marks in the form of discolored feathers where the skin grows back in. But now he avoids those. The first time I saw him really fly was at an adult Scout Leader training. I had slipped off his leash (yeah; he's got a leash; red nylon) and we were walking around inside this acre of dining hall when he leapt from my shoulder like a Stinger missile at an adversary helicopter. Four or five of us just pivoted on our heels as this little gray and orange rocket whipped around the room. It was breathtaking to watch. By that time a wild bird would be out of sight or behind some trees, but Galahad was confined by the four walls. He made four laps in less time than it takes to tell, then he went for the night-black glass "exit" and left the air with a flat thud and a flutter behind some folding chairs. We-ho-have-no-wings rushed to his rescue. He had whanged himself pretty good, and, stunned, he did not resist the leash to take him home to the tent for the rest of the night.

I have stood at the top of the stairs and watched him fly to my finger. I say that; actually he ignores my finger lands atop my shining dome; then I put my finger up under him and he steps up to that. I have stood at that same step and watched his back as his wings and tail flare for a landing on the back of his favorite chair. God in His Heaven; but that is a beautiful thing to see. I have watched him stretch his left wing then his right, the flights separating, then the secondaries . . . This silly little bird, who lives in my house, is a marvel of rare beauty and delight.

He's also a sassy little twit . . . whacking whoever is in his way going through a door. Getting smacked by a bird's wing in flight is startling. And you do laugh at the improbability of it all.

But the deeper issue is that of diversity. Planetary diversity. I really don't care what color anybody wears on their skin. It's all melanin ratios anyway. But I have found myself aware of cardinals and robins and jays. Of waxwings and orioles and doves. And I find myself silenced by the youngest mockingbird. I try to talk back to them, to respond to their overtures. And then I feel foolish. And then I feel . . . aware on a deeper, richer level. And I grin at myself, and I keep tweeting and twooting .

And when I get back in the house, Bird and I have a conversation, and I tell him about my day.
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I love noodling in the kitchen

2009-07-06T09:02:00.001-07:00

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Since school got out, I have baked at least two loaves of bread each week. There is nothing finer from the kitchen than fresh-baked bread with molten butter soaking in --- just barely staying ahead of your teeth. Now, confession time: though I absolutely enjoy rolling and kneading the dough, I have been using a bread machine for the last couple of months. There is a line between therapy and production. Right now, I am enjoying production. And I have recipes that I would never trust to a bread machine.

Now I do noodle around with the recipes, and I am working out a really delightful anadama recipe (don't you love the story of this recipe?). And braided loaves you just can't even consider doing mechanically.

Austin has moved to Arizona to be with his main squeeze. His mother wishes he would write more. Thus was it ever so . . . but at least we baked him some cookies to send up. Then, since we couldn't find safe packaging - well, you really don't want oatmeal cookies going stale - we ate them ourselves. Of course, we had to tell him that sad tale. Just to put a knot in his tail. But now we have found the packaging. So I'm working on a new batch of cookies - oatmeal again.

The microwave oven died three, four months ago. I can't say we've missed it. When Jenny comes over, she sighs at us and rolls her eyes because she can't heat up whatever she bought to munch on the way over. But now I really make grilled cheese sandwiches, not melted; and I appreciate a cold soup - or I take the time to heat it on the stove. And I brew a couple of quarts of tea, sweeten it all, and chill it in the refrigerator instead of firing up a cup in the microwave.

Convenience is a good thing, but how good is it, really?

Today, on a medium-sized roll, I put cornmeal bread in the bread machine (I know . . . that's not really baking), popped out a double batch of oatmeal cookies (eight score), brewed up two quarts of tea, made - and ate half - a pea salad, snarfed a tin of Portuguese sardines (skinless, boneless, in olive oil . . . heavens; they're tasty - even without crackers -!), and finished reading a chapter in my book before I trooped into the living room to complete my epic painting where a wiser man would have put crown molding.

I'm thinking of frying up some catfish later tonight. With hashbrowns and more hotsauce. Tomorrow is starting to feel like chicken livers with McIlhenny's sauce, black eyed peas, and more cold tea. Life is pretty good in the summertime.
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LEAGUE - Masquerade Discussions

2009-06-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

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The character you come as should be fictional. Historicals are fun, of course, but fictionals allow more latitude . . . that's Spanish (or French) for "attitude."

Poetic licenses are issued en bloc for the ladies. Not everyone wants to be Mrs. Harker. Lord Greystoke's lady's wardrobe leaves all manner of "latitude."

Has anybody else read Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund? More latitude. The opening line is "Ahab was not my first husband, nor was he my last." Oh, dear me. And to keep going in that vein, need Ishmael have been a single man?
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League Candidates

2009-06-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

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How about Messrs Nicholl, Barbicane, and Ardan?

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LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN MASQUERADE

2009-06-12T20:33:00.000-07:00

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OK; I cannot not do this.

----- LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN -----
---------- MASQUERADE AND WHATEVER --------------

Friday night, 17 July, 7 PM till Midnight. Since some of my students access this blog and my FB, this gathering is for high school graduates only.

R.S.V.P

You must dress the part of a character from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Oh, you must dress the part. Of a member or conceivable member, of the League. Drac is not a member. Jack is not a member. Wilhelmina Murray is a member, though; isn't she.

If you do at least some of your homework for this one, it will make it that much more fun for everybody that shows up. For instance, I haven't read subject book yet, though I have seen the video three times. And I have caught direct or indirect connections to the works of Haggard, Stoker, Stevenson, Wells, Verne, Doyle, Fleming, Twain, Wilde, Melville, and Leroux. What did I miss? I know there's more.

Lick up the history . . . the Belle Epoque, European colonialism in Africa and Asia, the incredible mechanization of warfare, Jack the Ripper's spree in London's East End . . . and what did the posters on the warehouse walls advertise in the movie? Did anybody catch those? Those have to be good.

And who is not there you ask? Hmmm? Lord Greystone? Holmes or Watson? The original Phantom? Rudolf Rassendyll? Rupert of Hentzau? Where are Hector Servadac and Professor Aronnax? Carruthers and Davies? Professor(s) Lidenbrock/Hardwigg and his(?) nephew Alex? Where is Tom Swift? Richard Hannay? Captain Dan Reid?

The directions this thing links make me salivate. O! Be still my trembling heart! Victorian steampunk, tophats, swirling gowns, capes, uniforms . . . oh! oh!

Bring food; we're not as good with the loaves as Elisha, and I prefer sardines, personally.
Ours is a dry house; therefore BYOB. We will have ice and tea and Dr. Pepper. (This is not Kansas, Dorothy.)

Juried (paper ballots) will determine award of silly-assed prizes for the best/most appropriate costume. Ditto for the most obscure potential member of the League. You must bring documentation of your bona fides for membership in this category.

Details will unfold here as they are figured out.

RESPONDEZ, S'IL VOUS PLAIT

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Just Keep Breathing

2009-02-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

My last post was back in December . . .

I.
I went back and checked my PineWoodDerbyWorkshop calendar -- in December and January I had over 650 kids (and an equal number of parents) come through the workshop in my home. Most Americans have a garage back there. That's boring. I'd rather be designing and creating something with my hands.

"What the hands learn, the mind can't forget."

I have hung wall cabinetry on two sides of the shop (donated by a generous Universe), and I am able to start stashing the twenty bazillion things that accumulate in any woodshop in those instead of on shelves that eat floor space. I have built workbenches that girdle the space, and I have the bench tools mounted on those, and I have a large work table in the middle of the area for inital design and final assembly. Next I'll rearrange the ceiling lighting to be more task-supportive.

Last night I went out to the shop and designed and built a rocket-propelled pinewood-scaled car. It has humongous (2 1/4" diameter) foam rubber tires, and it will track down a braided wire cable for about a hundred yards before it will parachute-brake to a stop. What I'm doing is setting up a parameters-kit for kids to be able to construct/assemble at summer camp without power tools.

Then I finally cut the prototype "oak" tree cutout to epoxy to the doors throughout our house. When we bought this house, lo these many years ago, the renters that moved out holed many of the doors. Well, we've patched the holes, but it looks tacky. I want to try giving the doors a visual/tactile texture with oak silhouettes applied in quarter-inch layers. I think this will come out well.

II.
School is "interesting." What a wonderful euphemism.

I love to teach English, especially literature. If you can hook a student/kid on the stories, the techniques for reading analytically, the reason for reading analytically, and the techniques and reasons for writing analytically will follow in the course of desire for self expression. In my personal opinion (how's that for CYA?!) TAKS is incredibly counterproductive. Our system jams kids into stressful, overcrowded situations, enforces draconian crowd control, tests them like lab rats, changes it metrics at irregular intervals, then vulns itself and its teachers asking why it doesn't work.

As a CADD teacher, I can demonstrate how to assemble a drawing, why to draw it, and how to assemble a set of drawings. Then I have community professionals come in and show how a person can change his world - and make a decent living - by exercising this skill.

Hmmmmm . . .

Seventh Period I now teach English IV to graduating seniors, including several who are ESL. To satifsy State form-fillers, I am required to assign specific writing assignments to the entire class (can't single out those who are being tested - no, no, no) and turn that in, entire and unmarked, for someone who knows nothing about these kids to evaluate.

Hmmmmm . . .

Oh, well; I have taken the king's shilling, after all.

But at least I get to share The Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth.
The guy I am replacing moved to become Head Coach out in Anna. He's a Coyote now, not a Trojan. When I walked into his class a couple of days before he left, he was reading aloud to his class . . . these kids were attentive; they were listening; they responded to his questions and prompts. Damn! He was good. And he was/is a good guy.

What tickles me the most is that we had only met, really, once before. He brought his son to my PineWoodDerbyWorkshop to build a racecar. You just have to love it.

III.
WindWalkerCamp International will be starting operations on our 45 acres in Missouri this summer! June 14th is opening day.

I have always wanted to have kids from all over the world come to this camp . . . I want to share the riches of America with the world, and I want to enjoy the riches of other cultures as well. The Universe is proving me with international campers right here, right now. And it is providing me an avenue for telling folk about this camp. More as it develops.

Pictures soon.

Benedictete!

Moondog

Words of the Day

2008-12-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

"Pastafarianism"

"Steampunk"

WindWalkerCamp will open for campers 14 June. Stay tuned.

Peace, y'all.

QUIDDLER COMPETITION

2008-12-03T18:55:00.000-08:00

QUIDDLER is one of the funnest games in the world (quoth the English teacher; and yes, dammit! I said "funnest".) Several months Zak and Lauren were in town and they and Austin and I got into a game wherein Zak said, "Why don't we keep a list of all the words we come up with and write a short story with them to see who wrote the best?"
So we did.
Below are those compositions, anonymously presented, of course . . . we will have open balloting for one week from today. It's like Chicago politics: "Vote early; vote often."

Composition A

The lazy yid slumped at the helm like a soggy yarmulke on a pile of sock. Needless to say he tracked a slow, sloppy course and left lax and torn every fid and clew about the ship. A nicotine haze covered a drunk moon quark-dim with sleepy light and even the zoea below swam on their hands and knees. The pilot's tin jug, calico'd from pure UV and salty air sounded every bit like the bony rasping hiccups of the ghosts that haunt these waters. Though they were generously rationed rum, this distant son of Abraham preferred his ale from the agave. He'd spilt this night no less than a quart of the clear bier on his beard so it smeared, in fact, to his gut and to each rib. It was said his ship sailed queer, surely the dud of the fleet, the admiral's ire and constant gripe.
Even now she was well hind of her convoy through this perilous range that had found more than a few ships with crews even more bold than hers and of greater unity laying on the sea floor like sox in the hamper. Indeed, this was no river Om. The sea was confused with deep troughs and every man braced his rack, clingy, like a pauper to the pew. "Oh to man the rails of one of the admiral's doves," he thought. "For sure a far cuter cutter than this flaccid frigate." It was, he mused, as if someone had tried to chisel a mum but instead had pulled from the lathe a wooden weiner, such was his ship. Had she legs, they'd be knock-kneed, had she an arse, she'd be dragging it. "Bah," he sighed, "a right pile of matchsticks."

Composition B

Small bells on the shop door jingled as we entered Om Gourmet Grocery in the university town of Athens, Georgia. OGG is just one of the thousands of small businesses in America that have been forced to become more innovative as the state of the economy worsens. Luxury items are the first sector to decline in economic straits. The store, where you might once have come for a quart of cold pressed olive oil, a wheel of rich European quark, a tin of rosewater lozenges, a case of specialty Yorkshire ale, or an amber jug of organic agave syrup, has now downsized their luxury import inventory to make room for stock that will appeal to a more frugal consumer base. Shop owner Martha Hind says, "More of our customers are mending torn clothes rather than buying new, and embarking on small-scale home improvement projects themselves rather than hiring professionals, so we're actually expanding our grocery to include more non-food items, like tools and textiles. We've even had requests for a lathe by some local DIY enthusiasts! So, we're listening, and trying to respond."
Even armed with her flexible business strategy, Hind worries that they can't hang on much longer, and is frustrated by a perceived lack of leadership from Washington. "Frankly, I feel like the President is, well, sitting on his arse -- going along with a bailout plan that rewards the corporate fat cats who created this problem in the first place... I'd like to think this new pile of candidates have a plan for us average Americans, but honestly, I don't have a lot of faith in them either."
We asked each of the candidates, on the trail in Athens before their final debate, for some reassurance that their leadership plans will put the worst behind us.
Staunch White Sox fan Barack Obama employed a sports metaphor in his answer. "What we have here is a ballgame with no referee! And the Bush administration's economic policies have turned out to be a dud in terms of protecting the American people. But, let's be clear -- now is not the time to gripe, or try to stoke our partisan ire. Now is a time for unity.
Dem running-mate Joe Biden added that we should be wary about the big rescue bill Congress has passed. "It's like throwing cigarettes at a nicotine-addict... I don't think it's sound policy, and my friend John is trying to push it through without taking any time for review or dissent. At odds with his own party, all he can do is lurch and clank from one position to the next. And John, if you're listening -- just because you can see the bank from your house doesn't make you an expert on the economy. Haha... Listen folks, I've known John for 35 years. Don't worry, he can take a good rib now and then.
GOP candidate John Mccain, heretofore mum on the subject of the crisis, told us, "My friends, Washington has become too lax in its oversight of wall street, allowing greed and corruption to cripple the system. If we don't take bold action, we'll be watching what's left of our crumbling economy carried out on a funeral bier. Additionally, we must cut pork barrel spending, and my friends, I know how to do that. Just recently, 'that one' asked for a 3.2 million dollar earmark for researching the DNA of crab zoea! My friends, this is ridiculous and it's got to stop!"
Governor Palin's response? "What we have to do in order to shore up our economy is create job creation under the umbrella of job creation which will allow us to create new jobs. Also, with trade missions and the global threat, we must seek to try to stop Ahmadinejad from being such a weiner. If, God-willing, John McCain and I are so blessed and so privileged by the American people to serve, we will seek to let the doves of the free market fly up and shield us, ya know, from those harsh, clingy UV rays of Fannie and Freddie who would seek to bring harm to us and our allies. As Ronald Reagan said so wisely, "'A yid in the pew is cuter than a ghost with a beard.' And that is what I would seek to tell the American people in this time of crisis. Also, fid." In an attempt to clarify Palin's queer statement, we contacted Palintologist, Tina Fey "Oh -- that's classic Palin gibberish." Fey remarked. "It's what I call a verbal 'pile of sock.' Her words have no pairing or relationship with reality, and that doesn't seem to bother her. Trying to interpret what she's saying is like trying to match a pile of single, mateless socks. Frustrating. Annoying. Senseless. Don't even try." In short, none of the candidates have a definitive plan for untangling this clew of economic anxieties. Luckily for them, no matter what they say (or don't), studies show that most Americans will go with their gut on November 4th rather than their opinion on the range of platform issues. On our way out of the shop, we asked one more patron who he thought would be best suited to lead. "Bah!" He smiled, shaking his head, "I'm waiting until 2012."

Composition C

It is an ancient Yid
And he boldeth one of them.
‘By thy long beard and pile of sock
Now wherefore gripest thou me?’

‘The Tin Queer’s pew is opened wide,
And this is range of rib ;
Lax sox are torn, the wiener set :
May'st hear the clingy clank.’

He ires him with his skinny gut,
‘There was a lathe,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! un-jug me, grey-beard arse !
'Eftsoons his ale dropt he.

He clews him with his cuter fid--
The Wedding-Ghost stood mum,
And jingled like a uv’s child:
The Mariner hath his quart.

The Wedding-Ghosts sat on an agave
They cannot choose but hear;
Oh spake on that ancient Unity,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

The quark was cheered,
then bier was cleared,
Merrily did nicotine drop
Below the dud, below the doves,
Below the zoea top.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor om nor motion ;
As idle as a painted hind
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And fey damned boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very pile did rot:
O Bah!That ever this should be!
If slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

OK, Friends and Neighbors.
There you have them.
One of the players wussed out and would not be persuaded to grave upon the tablets of your minds.

Read On!
(Or off.)

More later.

Benedictete!

Goals

2008-10-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have lately been considering my life and my goals.

I am not a formal school teacher at the core of my being. I am a daddy, a loving husband, a teacher, a student, a wandering spirit.

I absolutely must get back into the forest, onto the plains, out on the water, up in the sky again before I go out of my rabbit-assed mind.

Some of the goals I have written down - and lost track of with the press of events - include
1. Own and pilot a DC-3. Fly the airplane to Europe and back.
2. See Macchu Picchu.
3. Own and wear a hair-out leather coat made from the hide of a cow from my own ranch/farm.
4. Learn to play the cello.
5. Play in a recorder consort again.
6. Get back into the sky - in a square parachute now. Those look like easier landings than the ones I made in my round rigs.
7. Buy and drive another TR-3, a sweel little small-mouth -3. They only come convertible-topped.
8. Write and publish a book on the educational values of camp and travel the world promoting the book - and the camp.
9. Get a blue frapped rope with a square knot tied in it tattooed around my left ankle.

Come play with me in my camp in the Ozark foothills.
We'll have archery, riflery, raku pottery, rockets, model airplanes, quilts, haka, ukuleles, lumberjacking, butterfly collecting, mountainbiking, canoeing, arrowsmithing, flint knapping, homemade ice cream, homemade root beer, tree houses, trebuchet contests, stargazing, sundialling, birdhousing gardening. Just kind of fun stuff.

I'll stop with those right now; my wings are pushing too tightly against my shirt to let me type . . . I'm going to go fly.

Pax, y'all. And love.

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

2008-10-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

Driving the truck to work Thursday morning last week (I'm hauling a lot of projects back and forth to my woodshop up there - I have access to bigger tools there), Christoper Hackett, the d.j. on the NPR station announced free tickets for caller number two.

When he mentioned "free tickets," I was already digging, deep, friend. The light had just turned red; I had the number preprogrammed; I punched the button; the light turned green; I missed it; the guy behind me swerved around my parked behind and turned to the right in front of me . . . and I was caller number two.

Kathryn and I have a date tonight to hear some wonderful stuff at Caruth Auditorium on the SMU campus . . . I love their music.

We're debating whether to wear starched western shirts and blue jeans or Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes. This is the day after spending two nights on an air mattress in a tent at Ladybird State Park in Fredricksburg - that's where we slept during the permaculture workshop. That weekend's sleeping arrangements were a blast from the past. Mariachi music from the north, giggles from the south, and capture the flag from the west across the creek. At different, unholy hours during the night aircraft landed and took off. With the dawn came the heady (so to speak) aroma, not of woodsmoke, but, shall we say, of someone burning rope. Return with us, now, to the '60s.

I'll let you know how the evening went, but I absolutely love live music, and St. Martin's is chamber-orchestra. Bliss!

Pax, y'all.

Permaculture Workshop

2008-10-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Kathryn and I went to a Permaculture workshop in Kerrville this past weekend. That was a mind-blowing experience.

I was surrounded by barefoot Ph.D. hippies who knew more about the way the biome works than anybody in business casual ever taught me. I loved getting knee-deep into discussions about rainwater catchment and storage systems. Seriously into specifics. Gawd! It was great!

We also checked out sumac berry tea, raw food lunch, alternative-building systems, natural-building systems (not the same thing), earth plasters, worm farms, alternate cattle breeds/heritage breeds. Lots of stuff.

Google "permaculture." There are options in the world.

Pax, y'all.

Just thinking

2008-10-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have been teaching school for fifteen years now.

That's longer than I have done anything except be married to Kathryn.

Before that I spent eight years in the Navy.

The entire time I have done those things, I have been thinking about how to set up the best summer camp in the world. Not exclusively, just parallel processing.

Today I was standing at the front of my classroom -- and these are good, sweet kids who enjoy the work I assign them to master a valuable skill -- and, looking out the windows on the back wall (west wall) I could see the raggedy-assed gray clouds scudding above the trees. The greens of the trees included that bilious tint from light that had filtered through cloud. I could hear the creak of the windows as the wind tried to push them through the brick wall.

I wanted to breathe deeply, but all I could get was the recycled, processed exhalations of 2200 kids and adults. I wanted to feel the wind tugging at my shirt and pinching my cheeks, but 72 degrees of mechanically-handled air circulated through my small, enclosed world, ignoring the fluctions of sun and shadow. I wanted to celebrate the faint warmth of weakened sun in the blustery wind chill . . . and there I stood in unchanging 72 degrees, short-sleeved in October's sixty-two degrees.

I have to get outside!

Cyclocommuting

2008-10-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

I broke a hundred cumulative miles today. Every twelve days now, at 8.4 miles/day, I'll clock another hundred.

It was Japanese Flying Weather this morning -- 49 degrees F. I donned the camouflage-gray sweatshirt for protection from the elements and "high visibility."

My route is nice. Civil automobilistas - lots of room on the road. Lots of patience at the lights. The road parallels the greenbelt for a mile or so; I'm going to check out the walking paths for that section of the ride tomorrow.

Pax, y'all.

The Lord giveth, and . . . uh . . . well, you see . . .

2008-10-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

I live in a generous Universe which provides all I want and need if I know to ask the right questions and where to look.

I recently moved PinewoodDerbyWorkshop back into the garage, and I've built a couple of new workbenches for tools against the wall. I need a workbench in the middle of the space now for assembly.

Biking home I found a slightly used heavy-duty sturdy oak dining table someone had set on the curb. I asked, and she said, "Take anything you want." It's so big I'm planning to take it on up to Missouri over Thanksgiving Break. Now I'm looking for chairs . . .

Another three families had portable basketball backboards on the curb. Aha! The next day I went back, and the City had collected two of them. So I moved on to the third. The clunky, cumbersome beast didn't really fit in the bed of the truck, and I had only brought one wrench. So I set it back on the curb, and the owner of the house drove up.

I walked over to his side of the driveway and said, with my best grin and bonhomie, "I sure hope you're throwing this out!"

"Well, actually, I'm not . . ." he replied, also with a grin.

I explained that it was on the sidewalk, and I made the assumption. He noted that someone must have moved it from up against the house . . .

The Lord takes care of fools and the Hardage.

Pax, y'all.

Tom Swifties . . .

2008-10-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

If you have to ask . . . well, google the term.

Last night I assaulted Morgan with . . . "Where's my file?" Tom rasped.

She counterbatteried with . . . "You son of a bitch!" Tom barked.

I supposed Tom could have growled as well.

I love this place!

2008-09-29T13:52:00.000-07:00

My Architecture babies want to draw these buildings!
"I wanna draw, Mr. Hardage!"
OK. Put shingles on your roof.
"What're shingles?"

" . . . uh . . ." And I launch into how the cedar loggers on the Pacific Northwest coast cut the trees into cants that are cut into standard lengths, then quartered, then independent shingle/shake makers cut shakes with a mallet and froe and either leave them as shakes or resaw them into shingles. And they look at me like calves at a butcher.

So we go outside by the tennis courts, and I show them (asphalt)(for you aggies . . . that is not a birth defect) shingles on a roof across the alley, and I wax prosodic about light and shadow lines on the asphalt shingles, how they're supposed to look like wood shingles . . . and they look at me.

Then I tell them about the brick, how you can see by the intensity of the shadows that the mortar joints are raked with a square tool. I show them how the mortar in the school's walls are raked with a round tool, and you don't have the play of the light there . . .

Mooooo.

Damn!

So I ask an Assistant Principal "Can I take my babies alley crawling tomorrow - there're only a dozen of them - to look at what they're supposed to be drawing?"

"Ask the Principal."

"Oh, Captain, my Captain . . ."

"YES."

That was all. Just, "yes." No paperwork. Just, "yes."

So I went and told the SRO we'd be out in the world, and he's cool with keeping the good citizens calm about my mob of banditos prowling their streets point at their residences; he's even calling Dispatch ahead of time.

Gawd! I love this place.

Pax, y'all.

Back in the Saddle!

2008-09-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

I have found a new route! It's 1.3 miles longer than shooting straight down Josey Lane, but I didn't get honked at once, cut off, or sworn at all morning!

Huzzah. Now I have to see how it works going home.

I'm like the ant and the rubber tree plant. I have high hopes.
High apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes.

Pax, y'all.

More Joys of Quiddler

2008-09-29T12:54:00.000-07:00

Check this link!

http://www.quiddler.com/quiddler/puzzle_frame.htm

Oh frabjous day!

It only puts out one puzzle per day, so you can argue with it all you want, you only get one puzzle. So far I have gotten four points higher that the score once. I was proud of myself till I saw that other people had gotten twenty points higher.

Damn!

So I did it again.

Pax, y'all.

Joys of Quiddler

2008-09-23T05:32:00.000-07:00

Zak and Lauren were in the area over the weekend for one of Zak's bicycle races. We got to see them for a good part of Monday afternoon and evening. We fell into a couple of rounds of Quiddler, naturally. Doesn't everybody.

At the beginning of the second round, Zak piped up with this great idea, wherein the co-conspirators at the table agreed. (Kathryn was teaching a student.) Here's how it shakes out.

Zak, Lauren, Austin, and Dad have to write a short story using each and every one of the words on this list, which were those arrived at in a single round of Quiddler played 22 September 2008. The stories must be completed not later than 6PM, Carrollton time, Monday, 29 September 2008. The stories will be submitted to the family to be judged for "literary merit." Hah! Your ballot will count as
most excellent – 4 points
merely excellent - 3 points
damned good - 2 points
hell; I could’ve written that - 1 point

Points (4,3,2,1) will be awarded as well for shortest story (mercy, indeed) as well.

The winner has bragging rights --- this time. Till the next game.
bah
ale
this
pile
clew
dud
torn
them
to
fid
sox
the phrase "pile of sock" (don't even ask)
bier
lax
tin
cuter
on
quark
ghost
weiner
ire
agave
om
clingy
jug
bold
hind
yid
rib
is
queer
fey
pew
then
arse
range
zoea
they
doves
clank
quart
mum
uv (we allowed this one)
gripe
unity
beard
lathe
gut
nicotine
oh
if
jingled

The stories will be posted on the Patriarch’s blog: http://www.moondogdelight.blogspot.com/.

Vote Early; Vote Often. (Only once counts.)

If you want to write your own - you may, of course. All entries must be emailed to the (Senior) Alpha Male of the family in time to be posted. I will put them out simply as numbered pieces - nobody will know for certain-sure who wrote which till the balloting is over.

Please get your ballot in by Monday, 6 October, for tallying.

Pax, y'all.

Another Haiku Site!

2008-09-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Look at this one . . .
What a treat!

http://www.beerhaikudaily.com/

Pax, y'all

The sublime and the ridiculous

2008-09-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

Website Kelli found.
Emailed as a shining gift . . .
Treasure from the East.

http://haikugolfer.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/denmark/

Pax, y'all.

Cookies!

2008-09-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

When paychecks were on paper the Principal of this campus used to have cookies in the office on paydays -- I guess it sweetened the deal. Now paychecks are electronic.

This school still has cookies in the office on paydays.

Loads of cookies. No Cookie Police counting how many you snitch.

Homemade.

Still warm.

Some of them are still sticking together!

OMG! it's classy.

Pax, y'all

Alternatives

2008-09-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

I really want to ride my bike to work. That is important to me on several levels. So, last night Kathryn and I saddled up the truck and noodled around backstreets to/from school.

There is a high, mostly level route on the east side of Josey that is 4.2 miles door-to-door. There is a low, hilly, long pull route on the west side of Josey that is 4.something miles (I didn't pursue this one).

I drove the eastern route in the truck this morning to school, watching the traffic with a more educated eye. Mucha mas calma, gracias a dios. (Are the adjectives right, Holmie?) It took twenty peaceful minutes on four wheels; therefore, dividing the wheels by two multiplies the time by a factor of 1.5 - rule of thumb - to estimate time to bike it.

It will be infinitely more satisfying to arrive at school able to walk, rather than being wheeled in on a gurney.

It's 62 degrees Fahrenheit outside this morning.

Pax, y'all.

Working in a Museum . . .

2008-09-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

I know my teaching buds out there will appreciate this . . .

I am still - four weeks into the school year - shoveling out the flotsam of earlier teachers in this CADD labb (It giggles me much to double the "b" in "labb").

I learned from my neighbors that the reason my teacher computer workstation is where it is is because the last guy to have the labb originally had it on the drafting board at the front of the classroom. He just kept piling papers up, and he kept moving the computer to the top of the pile. When it became too unstable, he cadged another desk and moved the computer there. Today I finally got to the surface - uh, the original surface of that drawing board. I felt like Lord Carnarvon when, opening Tutankhamon's tomb, who said . . . "I see things . . . wonderful things."

There, taped to the working surface of the board, preserved for the ages in vinyl sheet protectors, was a complete six period set of seating charts for school year 2003-2004. God, I love this place.

In cabinets and lockers and drawers at the back of the room (the west wall --- of the Temple?? ---) I have unearthed drafting tools from an earlier age. I'm planning to box these up and see if anyone in the Third World can use the donation. These are in semi-pristine condition; it's just that no office around this town uses them any more. Everyone's gone electronic. Back to Lord Carnarvon . . .

I have found hand-rendered and -lettered drawings of machine parts that should be framed and mounted on walls for public display. Oh! the humanity! These are, honestly, artwork -- from the late eighties, early nineties. They're too big to scan, and, were I do do so, it's impossible to appreciate them at monitor-scale.

Pax, y'all.

OK; You Scared Me

2008-09-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

I got up this morning and realized I don't intend to ride my bicycle to school in the mornings any more. It's not scary. It's terrifying.

People honk at me because I'm in their way.
They honk at me from the next lane so I won't suddenly swerve in front of them.
They honk at me to let me know they see me or to give me an attaboy.

People try to squeeze past me without getting out of their lane . . . even when there's no traffice in the next lane.
People cut in front of me when they pass - I guess to let me know I shouldn't be taking up road space.

As scary as it is on the street, the sidewalk is worse . . .
g the little loopies where the walk meanders around utility poles . . .
g the branches of trees down at eye level . . .
g the ledges where the subsoil has heaved the sidewalk up four inches . . .
g the guy wires that stay the utility poles where they anchor through the sidewalk . . .
g where the sidewalk goes away altogether for shopping center landscaping, forcing me into the roadway when the motorist isn't expecting me . . .
gthe 90-degree bends in the sidewalk that pedestrians have no problem with . . .

I'm too young and pretty to become a traffic statistic. I don't get to contribute to reducing my carbon footprint this way. I don't get to reduce my country's dependence on foreign petroleum.

I wonder how long it takes to walk the three miles?

For now, I'll just burn the oil, I guess.

But I am going to petition the City Council for a bike lane.

Pax

I feel so pumped!

2008-09-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

I don't have a clue which Saturday morning cartoon I watched as a kid, but there was a recurring line: "The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the sea is a smooth as glass."

Well, that pretty well describes today.

I am pumped to be standing in this classroom working with these children sharing what I am about the nature of how incredibly valuable each one of them is and how to express that glory that each of them is with lines on the page.

I just want to shout. I want to jump up and down. If I could bottle this and sell it, Bill Gates would borrow money from me.

I worked like a horse this summer figuring this stuff (engineering graphics) out. It was work. My joy came when I was able to draw a model of Ray Haroun's 1911 Marmon Wasp in which he won the first Indianapolis 500. After my class do the assigned exercise I have cobbed together, we can have "guided dork-around-with-it time" or "free-dork." Today in freedork, Julio drew Pacman eating a snake (thoroughly segmented), and Adrian drew a pirahna (all teeth and eyeballs). There'll be time for work after while. Right now I just want them to get comfortable with the tools.

My architectural graphics class, al otro mano, is harder . . .

There goes the bell . . .

Pax

New Books

2008-09-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most challenging skillsets to master is to eat a nectarine, either crisp or mooshy, while blogging . . . I can do that and read - no prob - but keyboarding . . .

UPS just delivered my latest treasure, Robert Battlestone's Odysseus Unbound. This gentleman posits that Odysseus' Ithaka is today's Cephalonia, not the island currently so identified. He offers over five hundred pages, including maps, satellite photos, images, and appendices to make his point. Oh, Joy! Multimedic argument. I love it. I have my highlighters and pencils handy. Plus half a dozen translations of the Odyssey, of course, just for cross-checking. This gives me shivers.

The other book I'm working on/playing with right now is Deepak Chopra's Peace is the Way. We're hosting a seven-week book study in our living room, in amongst the piano, keyboards, and plethora of stringed instruments, and I've decided to augment the dozen or so guiding questions presented in the facilitator training manual for the event. "Little did they know, heh heh, " snorkled I in my best Snidley Whiplash imitation. I'm on my third page of referents - so far only twenty-two questions, and I'm only on page (4) of the actual text. It's something of a dense read, with a lot of author-assumed knowledge and vocabulary in it. I don't know yet whether I'll put in my EnglishIsNotForSissies website or start another one.

Speaking of that website, I'm about halfway through A.M.Smith's The Good Husband of Zebra Drive.

The nectarine is history, along with its guard detail of a dozen sesame-peanuts. Oh, the privation.

Last night I ordered Kage Baker's Sky Coyote, book two in her The Company series. Time travel, enlightened(?) science, ultimate responsibilities, humanity in immortality. Delicious sets of interlocking questions to consider. Then on a whim, I googled, the lady, and paged through her website. Very tasty, indeed. You really should read her The Garden of Iden. She'll set the hook way deep in your jaw. You'll have to get it on Amazon or eBay.

Pax.

We have tickets!

2008-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

We have tickets to Garrison Keillor's book signing 10/20 here in Dallas.
I love listening to this man. I feel like he's this generation's Mark Twain.
So, let's all sing the Powdermilk Biscuit jingle . . .

Has your family tried 'em,
Powdermilk . . .
Has your family tried 'em,
Powdermilk . . .
If your family's tried 'em,
you know you satisfied 'em,
They're a real hot item . .
Powdermilk.

Powdermilk biscuits in the bright blue box; they give shy people the strength to do what must be done.

Made of all natural ingredients by Norwegian bachelor farmers.

Heavens, they're tasty.

Life is Good.

2008-09-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Lemme start a list of good things in my job . . .

1. I have almost all really good kids . . . a couple of slackers - one's already dropped; another just won't last long (that's his option).

2. The kids want to be in here.

3. I'm teaching this through a sense of play. Once we've been playing through the material - the commands, the views, the drawing layers . . . THEN we'll do the "serious" stuff, the stuff you can make money with by working for the man . . . or yourself.

4. There is a restroom - lockable - forty-seven steps from my desk. (I counted them when I wasn't in a hurry just now.)

5. The two other guys teaching adjacent to my cadd-labb are seasoned old horses, and nothing much excites them.

6. There is very often the smell of fresh southern yellow pine sawdust coming from the construction skills lab next door. Dios mio! that is a wonderous aroma.

7. My gradebook is caught up; my grades are exported; my lesson plans for the week are turned in. Schweeeet.

8. The two periods a day I am in Plato Lab (computer-driven academic credit recovery) the aide who really runs the lab always has truly fine jazz playing in the background, and my soul often soars beyond the metes and bounds of this mortal coil.

9. I get to help kids one-on-one learn stuff; therefore, I get to learn stuff. Today, among other things I learnt what cnidaria were. Sounds like something right out of Star Trek. Actually, these might be the inspiration for the survey 'droids in Star Wars.

Other manifestations of good . . .

10. We have moved our shop and studio out of the storefront and back into the house. This lets us refocus our efforts into a tighter beam, not having to go through all manner of machination to fund/justify/make happen one aspect of our lives.

11. We are hosting a book study of Deepak Chopra's book Peace is the Way on Wednesday nights at our home.

a. this keeps mental stimulation at elevated levels
b. this gets new people into our home
c. we met new people at the training/organization meeting

12. A wonderful story I heard at the meeting (11.c.) . . .

A tall, slender, beautiful woman there grew up on a ranch outside Kress, Texas, out in the big, wide emptiness between Amarillo and Lubbock. (God, is it ever pretty out there!). When she was a girl, the family had a pump handle in the kitchen for water and oil lanterns for light. When daddy wired the house as part of the rural electrification program, he loaded everybody into the truck and drove them into town, saying repeatedly, "Don't look back." "Don't look back." They motored into town, bought groceries and a treat. When they drove back to the place after dark . . .

. . . she saw her two-story house lit up like a castle in a book of fairy tales . . .

I think her daddy was a magician. What a glorious gift to give his wife and kids.

Other manifestations of good . . .

13. Ike roared through DFW rather like a lamb . . . we had strong breezes - not what you'd call winds, even, and some light rain. It was all rather pleasant. Good sleeping weather.

14. Found a Polish deli/grocery on Forest at I-75 that has a delightful selection of sardines. I bought Porguguese, Croatian, Spanish, and Moroccan sardines . . . twenty-eight dollars' worth. You really ought to track down the Angelo Parodi brand (I've savored these before) - lightly smoked, skinless, boneless . . . "heavens, they're tasty." And we bought two tins of a Spanish (Roland brand) antipasto . . . sardines, carrots, peppers, olives, onions, spices . . . and mixed them up with a bowl of white rice . . . I had a small bowl, Kathryn had a small bowl, Morgan didn't get any, Jenni came by and got a taste . . . and Austin snarfed almost of the dish.

Life is good.

Missouri Land

2008-08-26T19:04:00.001-07:00

I found my photos from Summer '07. These will show you how incredibly beautiful it is up there...this is the turn to the left (west) to the flying field across the Gerald Creek. I was forced to name the creek Gerald because I had to Ford it . . . This is the height of summer, mind, and squarely in the middle of the photo is where I caught my Luna Moth - at night - I spotted him in the headlights, jumped out with the net and charged into the darkness after him. My first swing with the net knocked him out of the tree ------DAMN! he's not in the net! There he is in the grass! Saaaawooooooosh! I'm a lousy golfer; the grass just collapsed, and I had to take another swing - an overhand smash to trap him with the net against the ground to finally get him into the net. I folded the net over to trap him in there and the Ranger and I clambered across the creek to the Launch Control to put him in the killing jar. Did you know months can scream? You want to talk about depressing . . . I waited up with him while he died so I could pin him in my collection box while he was still flexible.His wings were so incredibly soft and flexible - they just sort of rolled up on my fingers and tongs while I was working with him. But I got it done by around 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. Then it was all right to go on to bed. Gawdawg! but he's a pretty corpse in my box.]This view looks directly west after Fording the Gerald. Right where the sunlight is the brightest is where the road takes another fork. Going straight and slightly doglegging to the left goes on up the hill to the Buffalo Natural Area. This is 486 acres of Missouri State land, and it's on my west fenceline. And it's just incredible - walnut trees a couple hundred years old, deer, turkey, skunk, armadillo, fox, coyote, rabbit, every tree God made in North America, some of 'em bigger than for of us can reach around . . . I like it.

After taking that turn to the right I mentioned, you come up this rise that is cooled by the trees and it just keeps coming till you get to the sentinel walnut I stopped the dozer man from flattening. this is the gate, the statue-in-the-fountain-drive that opens into the flying field. I plan to plant daffodils and anything else that is deer- and rodent resistant. There's plenty enough to eat out there; I don't need to supply the salad bar.

Notice how the land has a little slope to it? Hah! It's a lot easier to walk toward the creek than away from it. And you see how thick the trees are across the field? That whole area was that way before George and Randy bulldozered it down. It was a shame to tear up/down all the forest, but there was nowere to see the sky. Now you can see where you are and still be embraced by the wood. It's enchanting on a midsummer night with the fireflies putting on a lightshow and the owls hunting up and down the creek in accompaniment and the Milky Way overhead turning so slowly you don't see it unless you drift off and wake back up in your chair. Kathryn and I launched daylight parachute fireworks out there that 4th of July. Those are so cool! This gargantuan monster mortar tube lobs seven or nine aerial bombs up into a sky of crystal blue with horsetail streaks of strato-cirrus cloud . . . and the bombs blow up, of course, and spray a dozen or so colored-tissue parachutes all over the sky to drift down in the echoing silence after the booms. It's like being a little kid again and blowing dandelions in technicolor . . . This is all I can handle right now; I need to get lesson plans together for the rest of the week. But I can breathe a little deeper knowing that little slice of heaven is up there waiting.

C'mon, Pearl Harbor Day!

2008-08-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

My life is so working.

I just got an email from a Cub Scout Den Leader to schedule his den for a workshop December 6 or 7. This is before scouting even gets started for the year in the elementary schools. I love pinewood derby . . . look at the discipline involved.

You have to start with a block of pine (actually spruce, pine, fir, or larch . . . some of the white pines are so soft you can crease the block with your thumbnail; the Douglas fir is so dense, you can cold-cock a running horse with the block). This car can max out at seven inches long by two and three-quarters wide (including the wheels). The height doesn't matter unless you are terminally into speed. Then you go for thin, and you use high-dollar tungsten weights.

Depending on the Pack rules, you may or may not relocate the wheels from the pre-sawn slots. Otherwise, dork around with the wheels at your own peril. You can't machine them to reduce tread/track contact or to reduce their mass (lighter wheels begin turning faster from a stop).

You can use lead (Pb), except, since California [I think it was] determined that people shouldn't eat lead weights, almost everybody uses zinc (Zn) to add mass. Or you can spend the money and spring for tungsten (W). This is so cool. Look at the specific gravities . . .
Zn ---- 7.05
Pb ---- 11.35
W ----19.62
OK, kids, let's use our thinking caps . . . which element gives you more mass for your ducat? Uh, by a factor of almost 3, for sweet Pity's sake. You can really shave a car body down thin with that. And, uh, which mechano-bod has to have all this drag-inducing wooden frontal area just to carry the largest volume of mass? This is so cool. (Did I already say that?)

And then there's wheel lubrication - no liquid lubricants . . . says that right in the rules. Now, of course, I have a moral/ethical question. If a hypothetical racing team of a dad and a lad spray a penetrating aerosol on the (linoleum nail) axles so that the axle is wet, push that through the bore in the wheel a couple of times from each direction, then clean the wheel with a pipe cleaner three or four times till it's dry, and, finally, wipe the axles with a very clean cloth till they're dry - and never lube the wheels again for the life of the car . . . is that a liquid lubricant. In the immortal words of Anna's friend the King, "'Tis a puzzlement."

Last year over four hundred racing teams came through my shop and built their cars using my bench-mounted tools. That's because Grampa, who even had a metal lathe in his garage so he could repair his own lawn mower (we're talking about grinding and milling cylinders here, folk) or car, died and gramma sold all his stuff, and his son went to college and got a mindworker job instead of a handworker job, and his son never even saw a hand tool, much less machine/bench tools . . . and since shop in school is only for socioeconomically challenged kids who aren't smart enough to get mindworker jobs . . . well, that's why I have my shop. Actually, that's the excuse for my shop. Really, I just like to uncle and grampa everybody; Lord, but that's fun.

I have a bud at the end of the block, across the alley, named Jim. His boy and mine joined Cub Scouts at the same time. The kids are in college now, but Jim and I still race each other at our old Pack's Derby. We'll work for months (I've been working on a tank for over a year) on one of these silly-assed little wooden race cars, then saunter nonchalantely down the alley, and say, "Hey, man, look what I just whipped up in the shop this afternoon." We both know he's lying through his teeth . . . but, dammit, maybe he did just bang that out. "looks good, bud; how's it run?" (Evokes Kicking Bird's query of Dances With Wolves' pipe, doesn't it.)

Anyway. I think I'll finish this tank. The turret spins. The commander's hatch opens and closes. The gun tube elevates and depresses. I have entrenching tools and picks in a little cage on the engine comparment. There are shielded headlights, a tow chain, hollow exhaust pipes . . . and I'm fabricating (non-functioning) tread out of two weights of paper, glued one atop the other and separated where they are visible from beneath the fender skirting.

It's either that or grade papers . . .

First Day

2008-08-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

First day - finally got my class lists, just not my gradebook.
I have wound up with around 75 kids that are CADD students and another two classes of total 20 or so kids in a Plato (credit recovery, computer-driven) lab. It surely makes for an easier transition, even with two preps. One class is Architectural Graphics, three classes are Engineering Graphics. I know what I'm doing with the three classes, but it's tap-dance-and-whistle time for Architectural.

Things went so smoothly it was anticlimatic. No drama in my life at all. Well, actually the Principal did catch me in the hall to tell me to go ahead and put in my flower box under the windowsills. (I have the only windows on the entire west side of the building. Is that cool, or what?) I can't drill into the masonry to hang them, so I'll put some torsion rods into the openings and hang the boxes from those. Oh, man. Dirt, flahrs, bulbs, color, weather, rain, stuff outdoors. Check this grower's website about flowers and the women who grow them. I love to read his page just for the stories . . . I'm putting it in my links section.
http://www.buydaffodilbulbs.com/ Besides, he has such a subtle page name. There's a link on his page to another cool spot: http://www.chineseshuixianhua.com/. I'm waitin till he opens back up.

It's all good, isn't it.

First Day Tomorrow

2008-08-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

Back up at school for three hours after church doing last-minute stuff with new materials in a new campus . . . must have been twenty cars in the parking lot. That's just ridiculous, but, I guess it's the nature of the beast.

----Time out; I have to check on a sardine label bid on eBay. Still twelve minutes to go. ----

I read Shelly's comments . . . sounds like a torero putting together her traje de luces. I'll probably wear khakis, a collared shirt, and my SASes like I have every day for the past fourteen years. Since I'm planning to ride the bike every day, I've made a little rat's nest in a corner of the lab where I can drive up with the truck and hang shirts and trew and stash meine Schuhe in a dark corner. One of the local cleaners delivers; I'm looking into the possibilities there.

---- Back to check on the labels . . .

" 25 vintage Telmo Brand French Style Fancy Fried American Sardines labels, Distributed By Franklin MacVeagh & Co., Chicago, Ills. These seldom-seen labels are close to 100 years old. They were discovered in a barn near an old factory site here in Maine. "

. . . these are todally dudical. I got into a bidding war over this same lot about a month ago, and it got over $25 plus s/h. I quit when it passed my limit. Then all of a sudden - same dingdong day - they were back on the market in a second-chance auction. Uh . . . no thank you. Smelt Hamletic . . . Five minutes to go ----

Where Shelly has manicured and pedicured herself to a fare-thee-well (I'm just going to remain sans comment about the parts in the middle . . . well, I'm gonna clean my fingernails and wash my feet . . . who cares? They're clad in leather (sounds kinky) . . . the feet.

---- Back to eBay . . . they're still mine at 2 mins 13 seconds . . . I'm clicking the "refresh this page button like a channel surfer . . . YES! . . . they're mine at less than half the bidding war price.

Is this cool, or what? Look at the saturation of the colors and the wonderful Deco linework and the curved text. Remember, this was all done without photolithography or Microsoft programs. Oh, man, oh, man. What a prizeI And there are twenty-five of these puppies in this lot. I can sweeten my collection and turn around an resell the rest to another addict like myself. You know what? I don't care if anyone buys them or not. These are schweet.

OK; so maybe it's an acquired taste, but I feel like Scrooge McDuck with another canvas bag of "gold coins that were used as a trade currency throughout Europe before World War I. Each coin's weight was 3.4909 grams of .986 gold, which is 0.1107 troy ounce, AGW, actual gold weight. Gawd, I'm going to miss teaching English and being able to pun with my smart buds.

I'm gonna go watch a movie, eat a little ice cream, and bring myself down slowly from all this excitement.

God Bless All Here.

Last Days Before School . . .

2008-08-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

Jeez-ola Peaches . . .

Four hours on a Saturday in a new building, copying syllabi (two preps) intro worksheets . . . in the immortal words of Captain Jack Aubrey, looking at a hull model of a French frigate, "What a fascinating modern age we live in . . ." The copy machine is a Ricoh monster-truck. The lights are off, the copy room is still, only Hardage is moving, tentatively pushing random buttons to see if the machine will talk to me . . . aha! Click! and with a series of solenoids slamming shut and vacuum pumps generating absence, honest-to-God eight feet of machine fires up like an F-15 on the catapult of the Enterprise. You have to turn your head to see the source of the noise. The beastie is huge! And it all comes to life with flashing green and red lights atop the control console - at eye level . . . I'm expecting to hear, "Danger, Will Robinson!"

I got my copying done. Well most of it, anyway. I ran out of paper. Other people had been there ahead of me . . . maybe tomorrow.

I came home to veg-out and watched Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy. ROFLMAO. That is really a delightful piece of work. What a terrific line of . . ."Professor! What does an intellectual genius like you want with a simple young nurse like me?" to the accompaniment of ripping fabric. Really; go rustle up a copy from Amazon.com or eBay and watch it with someone you enjoy talking to and thinking with. So much laughter that the back of your head hurts where your jaw muscles attach.

Mental Health Break!

Last year I took off a week to ride around our forty-five acres with George and his D-6 Caterpillar bulldozer (tracked front-end loader). Oh, Lord, have mercy; what a rush. I'm starting to get an idea how George Patton felt driving through Germany!

So, here we are at the top of the hill clearing out a circle in the trees for a council-fire ring, and we stop to . . . ah . . . water a tree . . . and I smell wood smoke. What a happy smell. Uh, the smoke is coming from the pile of tree/brush we just trod over! Damn! NO water left - this is the top of the hill. I'm sprinting across the clearing grabbing up a stick to beat out the fire with. It's in a punky, rotten log, so I start digging out the coals that are glowing in the daylight! The more I dig out, the more I find. Fifteen, twenty minutes - I get them dug out. OK. But there's more smoke back across the clearing where I just ran from. OGodOGodOGod! More running, more digging, more scooping rocky dirt to smother embers - no open blaze. Thank you, Father.

Another trip back to the first pile and the fire's out, but George and I hear the crackle of flame and smell - OSHIT! THE ENGINE'S ON FIRE! Bail off the Cat!

The little yellow-painted thumbturn screws that hold the engine compartment closed won't open. Did you know that it is humanly possible to bend heavy-gauge metal when one is excited enough? George and I stepped into the Twilight Zone and bent metal to get the engine compartment open. The only water we have is our water bottles. That doesn't impress the gods of fire. The oil and fluids that drip out of the engine and puddle on the bottom of the engine compartment . . . that's what's aflame. So I'm ripping up handfuls of hardscrabble dirt and rock and tossing it into the sump.

Then George starts sounding his Death Rattle . . . he's 68, lean as a snake, weathered as an old Paiute moccasin in the Mojave desert . . . the man has stress-induced asthma, his inhaler's in his truck down on the flat, and he's leaning against the 'dozer trying to get enough air not to die. Finally the fire in the engine sump goes out.

But smoke has started again across the clearing. This is not a fun afternoon so far. Exciting for sure, but not much fun. Scared witless. All I need now is to burn down the woods. The cellphone doesn't work down in here, so we can't call the VFD, and the neighbors are about a mile away through the trees. That's the same way the crow flies, by the way. So I'm back being a forest ranger/smoke jumper when George yells, "The fire's back up in the engine!" and guns the dozer down the roadway we've just bulled out like a Russian in a T-38 on his way to Berlin. I get the hilltop fire out again. I hope. And I hear the dozer engine revving and the treads shredding vegetation --- then the scream of limestone as the beastie slides (Thank God it didn't roll) off the top of the hill and down to the creek. I later learn that we now have two paths up/down the hill.

Then all the noise just stops.

And there's not a sound in the woods. Even the birds are still.

I start reenacting the Battle of New Orleans . . ."I ran through the briars, and I ran through the brambles; I ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go." Greenbriar is a real bitch. I am being polite, Mom. I get off the hill and pelt down the road (it's gravel). There stands the 'dozer, engine off, smoking gently. No George. No sound. OGod! He's dead somewhere on the road!

Nah. Here he comes, sauntering back up the road with an empty milk jug, sucking his inhaler like a kid with a Dr. Pepper, cutting the top off to make a bailing bucket. Now I'm standing in the creek - in my boots, yet - bailing creek water into the engine compartment, and now the damn fire is out.

Uh, it's not really wise to run heavy equipment with an engine compartment full of rocky mud and sh....tuff. So we unbolt this 100-pound skid plate to get access the the beast's steel gut, and the young guy (that's me) gets into a semi-erotic configuration with this caterpillar and starts pulling out all the mud and the blood and the beer I have been shoving in there in the first place. The smile is because there's no smoke on top of the hill, either. You can laugh or cry. It's easier to just laugh.

Then we bolt the skid plate back on, and just let the machine sit in the road. That's enough for that day.

When I got back to town and back to school, I learned that that same day -- at that same time -- the fire sprinkler in the hall outside my classroom blew and put, I'm told, a couple of inches of water on the carpet and partway up the walls. The Principals shut down my classroom and herded my kids into Kay's class and Dawn's class. Actually, they herded them into Kay's room, but she was so tough on 'em some of them just sort of migrated over to Dawn's.

A little psychokinetics goes a long way . . .

I love being in my classroom; but I flat smooth would not take for that day.

The 'dozer worked fine the next day. And that evening's bath in Buffalo Creek was uniquely refreshing.

This is the road we pushed up the hill when we were calm. I didn't have the strength to take a shot of the one George cut coming off the hill. It looks a lot like this one, except theres some bare-naked limestone up just below the crest where the treads slipped.

Missouri Visuals

2008-08-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

This front gate photo is my screen saver at home. It keeps the dream alive. This was taken in at the end of last summer ('07) when I had been starting to build the first structure and working on my tan out there all summer. The grass is kept mowed just by driving back and forth on the road, and the trees on the right are still browned-off at the way George and his bulldozer came through and cleared a mountain-bike trail down that hill.

This is what it looked like the day it was put in by George's son and grandson -- Tim and (damn; I forgot it the instant I went to type it in . . . the kid rides bulls in high school rodeo! He's a good kid, too. They dug those holes in by hand and strung the barbed wire back to the blackjack trees to keep the riffraff out.)

And, finally, this is what the front gate looked like when I finally got back up there this summer, between CADD classes at Mountain View and the first day of in-service . . .

Needs a little work with the lawnmower, but, you know, it feels so way, way different from mowing the lawn back in town. I'm not sure that I could articulate that.

Lord have mercy, but I love it out there.

Missouri Visual

2008-08-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

Maybe Katie or Mary can identify this incredible creature. Yes; dammit; I know it's a butterfly; I just don't know all his Latinations. I stalked him while he was at lunch on a thistle. Spread your hand as wide as you can . . . that's how big he was. This was the weekend of 8/11, after CADD classes at Mountain View, before In-Service. Large dose of mental health.

A Movie and A Book

2008-08-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

The Movie:
IOUSA. It's a documentary about current American monetary and fiscal policies. It's the scariest damned thing I've seen since I was a little kid and went to horror movies. In the time it took to watch the movie the National Debt (notice how that is capitalized?) increased by $85 Million. King George II almost doubled in six years what it took the other 42 guys ahead of him to do. If you are feeling too good, if you are feeling giddy with the promise of life and spring and butterflies . . . go see this thing. I'm not saying it's not good . . . it's incredibly informative; it's just a major downer.

The Book:
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Holy Printing Presses, Batman! This boy can write! Gods, demigods, sprites, dwarves, pantheons from around the world cascade and crash into the techno/drug/cultural icons of today in an unhibited (do not leave this lying around your classroom; a couple of passages are . . . uh . . . mental-image-astonishing - but you do get the picture, and the violence and language are explicit and graphic) Armageddon. It's an exploration of the roots of religion and their relevance to current life. You will visit iconic American sites with Old World deities in modern garb; you will ask all the right questions as you read; you will reach all the right conclusions; you will be wrong. And Gaiman put a twist into it . . . he's given you so many indicators, but you read right over them. This is a serious, enthralling read. It is not for the faint of heart or conviction. The answer a power greater than a god gives the protagonist's question is, "Believe." Another glorious wordplay is delivered by a television commentator . . . "This is still God's country; the question is: Which gods?"
This one is meat for much discussion.

New School - Pre-Kid Days

2008-08-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

I'm lovin' it. It ain't G-Hall at Lowery, but it's going to be a good year.

Uh, I have a designated classroom budget from the campus. Oh, and I have a designated classroom (curriculum) budget from the District. Fifteen years into the program, and someone has decided that I might be trusted to figure what I need most in my classroom. Kowabunga! Buffalo World!

I got my hands terminally dirty today . . . and I'm not through. The senior guy downstairs in my department taught this program fourteen years ago. Then the guy next door between us had it for a couple of years, then an anonymous guy had it, then the guy I replaced had it for six or eight years. Follow that? OK. I'm cleaning stuff out of all manner of closets, cabinets, and file drawers . . . and I found brochures promoting the class from the first guy on the list - fourteen years ago! tucked in cabinet - forty or fifty copies of the stuff. And parts and pieces of drawing boards and tables and equipment that have been landfill and recycled into Japanese Zero fighter planes. My favorite is the wall cabinet that was chained shut with a combination lock on it. I phoned my predecessor to ask what was in the cabinet and if he remembered the combination. He replied, "You know, I just used to pull those doors open and peer into the crack." Uh . . . I borrowed the boltcutters from Robert the Construction Tech guy next door. That cabinet had dried ink, dried tape, broken tool parts . . . it's empty now.
People I don't know yet have stopped me in the hall to thank me for opening the blinds on the west wall. Uh . . .

I'm gonna have a good time.

I asked Robert if he'd build me (have his students build me) a stand-up window box to go under my west wall windows for daffodils, irises, gladiolas . . . you know, bulbs . . . "Draw it up; give me the plans; I'm visual." Learning experience time: my kids draw it; his kids build it. Bofus plant it. Everybody who comes in the west (back) doors gets to enjoy it. You gotta love it.

More later; taking Kathryn to the movie. IOUSA - documentary.

Second Day of In-Service

2008-08-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

Once again in the cafeteria with hand-held microphones and tripod-mounted speakers and reverbs when the speaker strolled too close to the speaker . . . you know the sound . . . the owl getting a vasectomy with a plastic spoon and two rubber bands . . . Newman Smith is one of the top 5% high-performance in the country according to at least one study (not by a staff member). They'll be offering Arabic next year, even.

The speaker today was a retired English teacher - the IDEA is to have the kids write 20-minute essays each six weeks (we're on a 9-week schedule) in their other disciplines. You can't imagine the relief that washed over me when I heard that. I just got a permit to commit literature . . . in public, mind you. The engineers are going to be in for you, and you don't want even to think about what the architects are going to have to go through. Heh heh heh. The Principal's behind it all. This is going to be a good year. That was in the building - the Convocation - now that was a different matter altogether. CFBISD filled Prestonwood Baptist Church (Fort God as it's known in the neighborhood {till the trees grew taller and a new spawn of commercial buildings went up, as you crested the hill on Hebron Parkway, you saw the form of a sleeping dragon with its head tucked under its wing on the far hilltop [alas the dragon snoozes neath an oaken coverlet now]}). I loved the visual irony. I wandered into the sanctuary and was almost knocked over by the blast of the faculty jazz band - really good horns and traps - and the boy (teacher) singer had a nice tenor. Nettie would have enjoyed him. The lights went off, colored lights hit the discoball, the band went away, and a half dozen juniors and seniors put on one of the most poised skits (collegiate quality) re: "what are teachers about" in white light I have ever seen. It was impressive, young Skywalker. The Superintendent got on, said her piece, and got off. Wow. Not "Polly stories", but good nonetheless. The the speaker came on. Neal Jeffrey stutters, but, dog my cats, he 's good; got the audience to honk like a flight of Canadian Geese. Then they finished up with Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog. Helluva show. I'd thought about cutting it, but I'm glad I stayed.

David, the guy I'm following around 'cause I'm still locating offices, restrooms, and the cafeteria, tracked down the guy who has the password that unlocked my lab. Whew, friends and neighbors. It was looking like T-squares and triangles for a while there. Overhead projector, sound, even a pulldown screen. The works. Starting to get set up now.

Got hold of Dawn by phone finally. I figured she must have been hanging in her parachute harness after having fallen off the edge of the world.

I still miss the G-Hall rowdies (and Korah!) from Lowrey, but it was time to flee . . .

Took a photo of el classroom today. I'm still negotiating with the nanogods about letting me load the image into this page. I've already sacrificed 10 bits and a dozen reboots. "Can you hold, please?"

Lucky sumbitch . . .

2008-08-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

I am married to the most incredible woman in the world.

Teacher In-Service

2008-08-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

It's really odd to start a new year without Kelli or Charlie. Kelli's gone to Denmark with Mads, and Charlie died last spring. Damn. Just, "damn." Charlie wasn't supposed to go yet, and Kelli - I think she was too good with people to be where she was. She did what she was about, and I think that scared people who didn't. Gonna miss both of them.

This is differently the same stuff. Teacher in-service - sitting in a large volume with bad acoustics with some people you know and some you don't trying to catch all the signals that you know you're missing. What do these new guys mean by "red" or "blue"? Playing math games to document the statements "The numbers show . . ." or "Evidence proves . . ."

I've been sitting with a couple of guys I'll be teaching in the same spaces with: David and Robert. David drives in to Carrollton every day from the TCU neighborhood of Fort Worth. Robert is originally from Pennsylvania (I don't hold that against him), drinks green oolong tea and has a 1950+ vinyl record collection. These are good guys. Hooked up again with Chad Bishop from across-the-hall at Lowery. Good feelings. Met up with Brian Shafer from upstairs E-Hall at Lowery. He's still tall. Met the new boys' soccer coach - from Amarillo - by way of South Africa; met the new cheerleader from another northern state . . . 3 1/2 inch heels. We're going to have a good year. Got a change-of-address from Joel Adkins! Remember him? What a gloriously-comptent/compassionate/impassioned geek. He's building an empire down in Kerrville.

My classroom is wall-to-wall computers. As far as the eye can see. And we can't figure the password from last year to unlock the beasts. Where's Napoleon Solo when you need him? But we're still gonna have a good time. I'm looking for a place to plant daffodils here. Not very promising - acres of asphalt (no; that's not an Aggie birth defect) outside my window.

I just drove over to Mountain View JC to pick up my transcripts (10-13 hours a day learning CADD) all summer. It was easier than doing it electronically . . . I don't do well with administrative hassle. Walked up to the window, gave Rafael my student number (we were inc class together), picked up my paperwork, grinned and shook hands, and left. That's how you're supposed to do business.

One of the best parts of MVJC is the drive home. From a dead stop on Keenland Parkway where Vista Real tees in - you can see for twenty-five miles - you release the brake and let the truck roll. It's slow for about half a block while it rolls slightly uphill over a contour line, then down and around a turn to the left - foot off the gas - 47-mph from a flat stop and no engine noise. What a rush. It's even faster when the bed of the truck is full of white limestone for lining the garden.

I'm reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods. It's weirdly serious or seriously weird. The research in this is wonderful, and the wordplay is delicious. There are passages that will drive my politically/morally correct friends nuts-ola. It's a wonderfully wide world. The protagonist, Shadow, asks, "What do I believe? All I have is the evidence of my senses and I have to go where they lead." The answer from Wotan/Odin/Glad-of-War is, "Believe everything." Works for me.

I love being old and humbly arrogant. I know there is more that I don't even know I don't know. By being receptive, by at least listening, I might actually learn something.

This is an incredibly lovely world. Challenging as hell, but terrifyingly beautiful.

Living Room Floor

2008-07-27T19:54:00.000-07:00

The Living Room Floor

I can't find my camera right now, but I have some existing photos that I want to share. Kathryn and I are in this really nice house in Carrollton . . . the guy that was the construction supervisor even lives across the alley at the other end of the block. The thing is about thirty years old - story and a half living room with a fireplace at the low end; open loft second living area above; three bedrooms up; master down. It's nice and roomy, and for a while we had five kids (three teenagers) in it with us.

We don't need that much room and had planned to downsize to a smaller house, but . . . this is better. Anyway, two summers ago we did the high wall in the living room and the floor in the living and dining rooms in paint. Yeah; we ripped up the carpet and just put down paint. It's kinda cool. These will show you what the floor looks like without furniture in it.

The upper image shows how the room looks from the foot of the stairs looking toward the front door. The lower image was shot leaning over the upper half-wall. The idea was to paint a checkerboard folded over on itself. This is the present state of the floor right now, two years later, except I have painted Dallas North Airport on one of the red squares and the deck plan of the USS Enterprise (CVA-N-65) on one of the blue ones. The idea is to be able to play with our micro-machines, flying them from one square to another. I will also be coming back to put a second coat down of denser color and paint a vining acanthus pattern twining amongst the squares.

I did paint a gloss black shadow under the concert grand piano (I have no idea what we'll do if we move the piano, and I have since painted the inside of the front door a pumpkin-peach color (a little darker than the wall). I will be outlining the glass with a dark green and putting a visual trimline about a quarter-inch thick on the first bevel of the molding to visually separate the two colors. It's coming along nicely.

2008-07-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

This is an image of the front gate to our place, our forty-five acres in McDonald County, Missouri. You have to understand something here. I am a Texas boy from so far back Moses is still looking through his calendar. But, Lord have mercy! that place in the toenails of the Missouri Ozark foothills is just pretty. It is "raht fahn" even. While I'm figuring how to work this blog business, I'll load some more photos of the place. Mostly I have to go back through my image files and label them textually instead of in date order like the camera does it.

This summer I had hoped to spend a week or so up there mowing out the flying field and putting a footbridge over Gerald Creek. I have no clue if that watercourse has a name or not, but since we have to "Ford" it to get to the flying field on the western half of the property, well, naming it the Gerald Creek just seemed to make sense.

But I moved from a forty-mile-a-day gasoline habit (plus tolls) to a less-than-six-miles a day (by bicycle -- ooooh look; Hardage rebottled his pony keg into a six-pack! What a stud!) by moving from Lowery Freshman Center to Newman Smith High School in Carrollton. It is the first time in this career that I have taught in the town I live in. jIt's still not in the attendance area, so I won't be having teacher conferences at the grocery store. Anyway I applied to be an English Teacher. There are lots of those on the ground. So I got hired as a Tech Teacher. I am officially going to be a CADD instructor. So I have spent 8-10 hours a day at Mountain View re-learning how to draw. The first time I did this nobody had computers in the office. As in "nobody." Now nobody uses pens and triangles and isometric circle templates.

We haven't been to Missouri yet this summer.

Then, this summer's income looked to be slow, so Kathryn and I started at looking at our options. What came up as a multi-pronged solution was selling the house we live in (4BR, 1.5 LA, 2Bath, 2 stories) and downsizing. Our family-under-the-roof is down from six kids out of seven in the house to one and a half (Austin is at Paris Junior College). Then we figured out we'd owe the same money for half the house in a neighborhood with narrow streets. So we looked at refinancing -- Lending Tree looks good on the Internet, but you can wind up with some very aggressive loan-packaging operators. Then, at a publishing workshop, we found an organization - and a person/family - selling a software system that lets us move our own money the same way the bank moves our money: and this way we get to keep it. Bottom line: we'll have our everything paid off in around four and a half years (they're saying three, but I'm putting in a pucker factor) without getting medieval on ourselves. They talked about a particular process during a phone call Thursday evening, that I executed Friday morning on the way to class. I spent an hour and a half at the bank, BUT I wound up pulling a $14K credit account out of collection (the interest rate had gone from 8% to 20+% and was killing my lilly-white behind), cutting everything to a fixed interest rate of 3% for a 60-month loan and no sillyassed up-the-interest games. And they offered me another line of credit to boot. "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!" This program has some possibilities. We're pursuing this.

For my new job at Newman Smith High School as a CADD instructor, I'm taking CADD classes at Mountain View Junior College. It's spanking me like a redheaded stepchild, but I kinda like that sort of stuff. I pulled a 99.15% for Summer I. Working in 3D is a beast till you figure out axis-management. Then it gets to be fun again. But I am getting there. I have been looking at teaching long enough to get my TRS money set back up (I took out six years the first time I quit) and buying five of my Navy years. That's around 36K. TRS will only let me contribute 25K/yr. That's pretty much two years.

Unless this debt reduction program works as advertised; however, Kathryn and I are disciplined enough to make it work, so I expect great things. Plus I'm hitting the Pinewood Derby really hard this year. Last year I had 400 cars go through the shop (http://www.pinewoodderbyworkshop.com/). That is so much fun it's hard to describe, working with those little guys and their dads (and moms) to build their cars . . . I'm shooting for 500 this year by actively pursuing available leads. Southern courtesy - the way my mama raised me has its place and its values . . . but, dammit, when you're polite, a lot of times people stampede right over your . . . so I'm learning to be not so reticent. Plus, since we have the floor space, I'm looking to bring a tutoring center online in the same general space.

What made me see the tutoring center a possibility at all was bailing out of LFC. I had set it up where I was actually pulling in $1200-$1500/month from babysitting (detention) at $25/hour. CFBISD pays $300/mo less than AISD. Well; that's not fun, but the round trip is 5.8 miles instead of 40. The gasoline/tolls rollback is around $12/day . . . tutoring at $40/hr needs 38 kid-hours/month (9-10 kid-hours/week)(2 kid-hours/day) to bring that back up. Uh . . . I can do that. Several times. And I can hire other tutors for $25/hr to take the additional . . .

I perceive exciting options for this coming year.

Since we have two kids in college, and CFBISD pays less than I had been making, I'm going to be focusing on getting the cash flow back up to Lowery levels. I’ll do a kick-ass job for my contract assignment, and I'll just see how it unfolds after school hours.

I went to an Autodesk CADD workshop Friday . . . omigawd! Everybody say together, “Middle School CADD curriculum”. As in -- they have a middle school curriculum already packaged up. Excuse me. If I put a half dozen or a dozen (used) computers into workstations in the tutoring space and explain to parents how their baby can get portfolio academic credit at their school in summer day camp . . . (did I mention they also have a packaged HS curriculum) . . . I'll have to stand a troll with a large bog-oak stick at the front door to protect the hinges. So we draw it - 3D - and build it and play with it and get academic credit for it. Where’s the downside? Oh, and Hardage makes money! YEA!

Now that sets up the North Dallas market. And puts the cash-flow above the projected flowline.

Then - I take a portion of the cash I now have in hand since we've paid off the credit debt (and the mortgage) and pay cash for (off-the-grid solar and wind-turbine) improvements to the Missouri land and cookie-cutter this operation up there. Then I have an excuse for the pilot's license to commute back and forth. Two years of this and I buy the cave on its eighty-seven acres and develop the land above as another camp and the cave below as a separate operation. Then we go for the small Italian hotel.

This is do-able in my world.

One of the branches of this camp thing includes teacher training - especially guerilla training - use the garage; use the living room; rent an office suite; team up with a couple of buds in other disciplines and set up micro-learning nodes. The times are right for the adventurous.