September
6, 2008
Almost a month since I last updated this site, and,
man, has it ever been ridiculously busy. In fact, almost every week,
I've had enough information for a pretty major update, but simply
not had the time to do it. So, now, I get to spend some time doing
a MAJOR update that ought to end up a lot longer than usual. I've
honestly done a lot of small updates with my
Twitter account, but a lot of them deserve more details than
I can fit in that small space, so this is my chance to flesh out
those headlines.
But where to start?
- I work with some ridiculously idiotic people. It
may come from teaching computer classes; it may come from having
a programmer and techie father. It may just come from irritation
at people being idiots. Whatever the reason, I have a major pet
peeve at work: people who can't be bothered to use work e-mail
for work e-mail purposes. These brilliant souls feel the need
to use work e-mail to advertise their personal businesses, send
along funny stories, opine at length about politics, or other
moronic issues that I don't have the time or inclination to read.
Now, you might say, "Why not just ignore
them?" Yes, admittedly, that's the reasonable thing to do.
However, I'm irritated by these people, and I'm irritated by their
inability to follow directions. After all, we've gotten several
e-mails from technology supervisors reminding us of proper usage
of e-mail, and not to send worthless forwards to the entire school.
So my typical response now is that I forward these people the original
administrator e-mail outlining the e-mail policy.
The response I get is charming. I get cussed out
a lot, or called rude. Nice.
But nothing really compares to the debacle that
happened last month, when I responded to a new coach's forward to
the school entitled "FW: FWD: FW: TAKE TIME FOR GOD."
It's odd, but some part of me thought that an e-mail with that subject
just might not be school related. So I forwarded him
the original e-mail that the administrators sent to the whole district.
Now, hopefully you know what a forward is; it
attaches a copy of the original e-mail, often along with the headers
and original send information, to the recipient.
Apparently, this guy didn't. He read my e-mail,
saw the original send line that said "To: Administrators, Schools"
and thought that I sent it to all of the administrators. So what
does he do? Respond to the entire school, saying "Thanks for
sending this to all the administrators; if you had come to me like
a man, I wouldn't have cared, but I guess you're not man enough."
Charming. I responded to him privately, explaining
his mistake; he didn't apologize, but at least acknowledged his
mistake.
I thought that was the end of the whole thing,
but apparently not, as I became the subject of conversations all
over the school between teachers who thought that I had sent the
e-mail to administrators, and wondered why I hated God.
This is why I love teaching: I can shut my door
and ignore the people I work with. Not all of them are tools, but
we definitely have a high percentage.
- After a ridiculously long process, I now have HDTV and
a 42" plasma TV, in addition to faster internet service.
As most of you know, this is something Maria and I have been discussing
for a long time. We've known that, at some point, we were going
to have to get a flat-screen, and the original plan was to do
it down here in the computer room/den. However, we really began
to realize that, if we were to start using this room more and
more for playing, it might be nice to have a room for the child
that didn't have a TV in it, so we could make sure that
we had more to life than the television. Still, upgrading the
TV remained a decently high priority.
Then AT&T bought out Bellsouth. This was a
nice turn for us, because that meant that we could now bundle together
our Dish Network, our phone, and our DSL into one bill, and end
up upgrading almost every service while keeping the bill exactly
the same - a sweet deal indeed for us. With the upgrade on Dish,
we ended up getting a new tuner, one with significantly more recording
time (about fifty hours more) and the ability to record and watch
at the same time, in addition to all the new channels. And, as if
that weren't enough, I got to upgrade my DSL to the highest version
available.
 At
the same time, we got aggressive about getting a new TV, and finally
ended up getting a great deal on a 42" Panasonic plasma from
my friend Dietrich, who works at HH Gregg. Dietrich probably would
have hooked us up with a great discount, but we ended up getting
an even better one through price matching, and were thrilled to
get the TV for just over a thousand dollars. The TV is pictured
to the right; feel free to click on the image for a bigger version,
if you care.
But then came the issue.
Turns out, even though we had a nice new Dish
box, the new box didn't have HDMI or even component hookups to it.
And here's the thing no one ever tells you about plasma and LCD
TVs: a standard signal on one of those? Pretty much looks like crap.
So we got back in touch with Dish, who
first told us that we would have to pay for a whole new visit and
installation. We definitely weren't happy about that. Upon a second
call, Maria managed to find someone who decided that, since it hadn't
even been two weeks, they would waive the charges. The result? We
now have an HD box, with a TON of HD channels, a DVR that holds
up to 350 hours of recordings (standard; HD gets about 60), and
a picture that looks outstanding. Plus, now I have IFC and Turner
Classic. Bliss.
- My good friend Dietrich lived with us for a couple of
weeks, and is now back on his own again. Even by the
admittedly short standards of the Twitter box, there was no
way that I was fitting this one into a short Twitter update,
and even now I'm not sure how much I would feel comfortable writing,
or how much Dietrich would really like me to share. So I'll stick
to generalities here.
For some time, Dietrich and his wife, Maddy, have
had some problems in their marriage. There was a period several
months ago when I felt for certain that they wouldn't make it more
than a couple more months; they seemed to have worked it out that
time. This time, no such luck; while on vacation in Panama City,
they decided that they both would feel happier away from the other
one.
Much, I'm sure, to Dietrich's pleasure, this led
to a really long drive back together, at which point Dietrich moved
out of their house and in with us for a couple of weeks while he
got back on his feet. To put it mildly, Dietrich had a string of
bad luck during this time, ranging from car problems to family medical
issues and beyond. Luckily for him, he has found what seems like
a great apartment, has good roommates, and seems to be
getting back onto his feet, and is in as good spirits as I think
anyone could be in that situation. So good for him.
As for how Maddy is handling it, I have not heard
from her since the marriage ended, except once to check on Dietrich,
so I don't honestly know. But I'm happy that Dietrich is doing okay,
and I wish the best to them both as they move on in this new chapter
of their lives.
- The Best Buy Fiasco: Honestly, I don't want
to spend a huge amount of time on this one, but I got a lot of
questions about it when I mentioned it on Twitter, so I thought
it was worth explaining at least once.
Most of you know that I run the school newspaper.
To put it mildly, we don't make much money on the paper. To put
it more realistically, we lose money on the paper. It costs
us a little over 500 dollars for every issue of the paper we sell.
In the past, we have sold an average of 10 to 20 dollars worth of
papers each month. This year, that amount will be even lower, as
we have decided to give the papers away, just so we feel like people
are actually, you know, reading the paper that we work
so hard on.
 So
how do we stay afloat? We sell ads, and do fundraisers, and basically
just barely scrape by every month. Not an easy task, and when it
comes time for new equipment, something we desperately need, I need
every break I can get. So when Best Buy announced that they were
having a special teacher's night, I was really excited.
The event was explained as being an evening of
appreciation for teachers, and Best Buy said that they would sell
us any one item at employee pricing, which was cost plus five percent.
So I spent all week putting together purchase orders, e-mailing
back and forth with Best Buy to get prices so I could get the purchase
order made and put together. My week was already pretty insane,
and so taking the time to do this...well, it wasn't the ideal time.
But I couldn't afford to miss a deal like this.
Sunday night, I get out to Best Buy. I do my shopping,
and head to the checkout line...where I am told that they don't
accept purchase orders. Despite the fact that I've mailed back and
forth with Best Buy district managers and employees all week, and
said repeatedly that I needed this information for a purchase
order, no one has bothered to mention this to me. It would
have been really nice to know, and it kind of pissed me
off.
- Political Drama Bomb! No, I'm not talking about
the conventions and whatnot here, despite all the faux-excitement
those whipped up. Honestly, I have little tolerance for political
theater; the most I've checked out of the conventions, apart from
Daily Show coverage, is skimming a transcript of Obama's
speech.
No, this particular drama bomb comes in the form
of local politics; specifically, the Wilson County school board.
See, the deal is this: we actually have yet to approve a budget
for our Wilson County schools. The school board keeps sending the
budgets to the commissioners, who keep rejecting it; at issue is
the fact that the county feels that they either have to a) raise
property taxes or b) cut 3.2 million out of the school's budget.
See, Wilson County hasn't raised its property
taxes since 1997, well before Mt. Juliet began to experience record
growth and the area underwent a massive population boom. This, of
course, has resulted in a need for more and more supplies at schools,
and the old tax rate honestly just won't support the schools at
this point.
However, no one wants to suggest raising taxes,
so here's what happened: the school board, out of desperation, passed
a budget that cut the 3.2 million. How? By cutting all teacher supplements.
In plain English, the schools would cut all pay for extra-curricular
activities. No money for band, choir, drama...and no money for after
school sports.
Now, my gut feeling is that this is a craven political
move to raise taxes. The commission knows that this won't pass muster,
and they're counting on people's outrage so they can raise taxes,
claiming it as the lesser of two evils.
Still, this is a pretty major thing hanging over
everyone's heads. The kids are outraged; some are threatening to
drop out, some are planning protests, and some are just pissed.
Add into that the fact that the union is calling the decision illegal
(at least, against our contract), and you have the makings of a
spectacular fiasco.
Now, the commissioners won't vote until September
15th, so we have some time before this becomes official. But, man
oh man, is it going to be interesting to watch it all play out.
- Happy Fun Belcourt Time! I have ended up spending
a lot of time at the Belcourt over the last couple of days, and
I highly recommend it as a way to relax and enjoy life.
Thursday night, the Belcourt had a "Trailer
Park" night for members. Essentially, it was 3 and a half hours
of movie trailers, with free food catered by Hard Rock and no admission
for members. Ryan and I went; we were hoping for more cultish and
obscure trailers, but instead mostly got just indie films
that had played at the Belcourt over the years. There were some
greats along the ways, and the last hour or so was a lot of good
stuff, but the selection wasn't quite what we hoped. That being
said, there are far worse ways to spend a few hours than
drinking a beer at the Belcourt, chatting about movies, and watching
trailers.
But, the far more awesome
evening came last night, when Crispin Glover came to the Belcourt
with his film What is it? and his slide show. I think my
brain broke halfway through the evening, but I left more than satisfied
and really impressed with Glover. I expected a somewhat pretentious,
excessively artsy evening, and there definitely were aspects of
that; however, what I also got was a guy who's really passionate
and honest about what he does, and whose enthusiasm is definitely
infectious.
 The
evening opened with Glover's hour-long slide show, in which he does
dramatic readings from his books. "Books", however, isn't
really a descriptive enough term here; what Glover creates are fake
"old books" which he then scribbles over, edits, adds
in pictures, and creates a bizarre sort of visual art out of them.
On their own, the books are more odd than satisfying; Ryan bought
a couple before the show started and was a little irritated at himself
given the cost. After the show, though, he was more than satisfied,
as Glover's readings really give the books an odd and unique feel.
My favorite was probably either a long tale called In My House,
which involved a court case, a perfect friend, and a boy who may
or may not have been killed, or a fairy tale about a little girl
who needed to learn a lesson. It's definitely a unique experience,
and you can't always tell if there's really a point, or if it's
intentionally as funny as it often is...but it's certainly a unique
time.
Then there was the movie itself. What Is It?
is almost certainly a failure in some ways; as Ryan and I discussed
after the film, if you can't figure out from the film itself what
the point was, it doesn't really work well enough. And even knowing
the point - that the film is a reaction to boundaries and taboos
placed by corporate cinema - doesn't make the damn thing make any
sense. I mean, this is a film whose entire cast is composed of people
with various handicaps, mostly Down Syndrome, but also cerebral
palsy; it's a film where numerous snails are killed with salt or
razor blades; it's a film where naked women in monkey masks masturbate
a man with advanced cerebral palsy while he lays back in a clam.
And that's before the credits; it's a rare feat that the credits
of a movie make me even more confused than the movie itself, so
that's...well, it's certainly something.
And yet...and yet. Listening to Glover's in-depth
question and answer session after the film - a session that lasted
over an hour - and coming to understand what he was going for, I
found myself admiring the film more than I enjoyed it. I liked the
way that Glover didn't really go for a standard story, and I admired
the way he made a film that demanded the audience involve themselves,
and wouldn't hand them the answers. Do I think it all worked? No,
I don't. And while Glover's idea is interesting, that essentially
means that the film becomes little more than a piece of provocation,
with little substance to it...but it's fascinating the way that
he plays with the taboos, and, in his own words, "leaves the
audience with questions that they have to figure out."
That question and answer session was undoubtedly
the highlight of the evening for me, as Glover answered questions
in thoughtful, complex answers while always being respectful of
those who asked it. With a few people being really aggressively
offended about the snail aspect of the film, I was really impressed
with the way that Glover handled their questions, acknowledging
their issues, even agreeing with them, while carefully explaining
his thought process and trying to lay out his ideas. He even complimented
them on inspiring such heated discussion, and talked about how much
he loved that his film got people actually talking about issues
like that.
After this, Glover hung out in the lobby, signing
books and talking with people, and I was once again impressed with
the way he dealt with people. Unlike so many celebrities, who sign
a book and shoo you along, Glover talked with fans at length, chatting
with people for up to ten or fifteen minutes, never making people
feel awkward and being more than willing to have a conversation
with them about his film. We didn't get to talk to him for long;
by that time, I was exhausted, and Ryan had his own issues, but
I was really struck with the way he seemed genuinely interested
in our thoughts on the evening, and was more than willing to not
only defend himself but to open himself to criticism.
So, was the Glover evening an unqualified success?
Yes and no. Is he borderline-pretentious? Most definitely. Does
his film's grasp far, far outweigh his reach? Oh, yes. But for the
question and answer session, for the ideas he's playing with, and
for the simply unique nature of the night, I can't recommend it
enough for any serious fan of film. Glover's ideas about cinema
and the business are great to hear, and it's nice to find a director
who doesn't just take chances, but who's more than willing to hear
criticism of those ideas and even agree with it. Here's hoping that
he comes back with the sequel to Nashville some time soon.
 Thomas
the Tank Engine: Going from Crispin Glover last night
to Thomas the Tank Engine this morning...well, let's just say
that it was a bit of emotional whiplash. But it was a lot of fun.
For those of you without young children, you may
be unaware of just how much little kids love trains, specifically
Thomas. But if you have kids, you're probably very aware
of this love, and you'll understand that, as soon as we found out
that Thomas was coming to Nashville, we knew we'd have to take Aidan.
So, this morning, the three of us, along with
Maria's mom and step-dad, and April, Nathan, and their two little
ones, all headed out to Thomas, and by and large had a blast. Apart
from lines too long to be able to get pictures easily, I think we
more than got our money's worth; the kids got to play with train
sets, ride inflatables, and got to see an actual Thomas engine.
Aidan, naturally, was enchanted by the petting zoo; although his
interest in getting down was none (for all his brave front, my child
is a big coward), he loved seeing all the animals, as long as I
was holding him.
 Of
course, the big joy of the trip was getting to actually ride
a train, an event that more than made Aidan's day, as well
as his cousins. The ride was about 25 minutes, and while it wasn't
the most lovely areas of Nashville, the kids had a blast looking
out the window, checking out the train car, and generally being
cute. We forgot a regular camera, so all I have is some cell phone
shots, but I've stuck them in this section; feel free to click them
for larger versions of the shots if you'd like them.
In general, Aidan is doing well, with his second
(!) birthday coming up in less than three weeks. I can't say we're
not excited, but it's also a little scary thinking about him getting
so old so quickly. Of course, I was just pondering the other day
that I have less than two years to go until I turn 30, which is
definitely a strange thought...
Of course, Aidan's development comes in little
bursts, but I have to say we've hit a milestone: my first guilt
trip. After being gone Thursday night and basically not seeing him,
Friday morning Maria went in to greet him. (I, of course, was already
at work.)
"Where's Daddy?" Aidan asked.
"Daddy's already at work, honey," Maria
explained.
"Oh," Aidan said sadly, and then quietly
laid back down in bed, pouting.
Let me tell you: I am a jerk.
- Final Thoughts for the Evening: So what's next?
Well, Aidan turns 2 in less than a month, and a little bit after
that, I'll be on Fall break, which I'm looking forward to. Not
only for the break from school, but also because Maria and I will
be taking our first vacation solo, without Aidan; we're a little
nervous, but also really excited. We'll be heading out to Charleston,
where we'll spend a few days, including some time with Jim and
Cammi. So we're excited, but a little nervous about leaving Aidan
for the first time.
In more immediate news, I have been fighting a
nasty little cold/sinus thing for a few days now, and I'm quite
tired of it. I haven't been able to get up in the mornings, which
means no working out, and the evenings have been out, due to Belcourt
trips. I planned on making up for the missed workouts today, but
I ended up falling asleep for four hours. And here's the
bad part: I'm still tired. Ridiculous. I really hope I'm
not getting entirely sick; that will just piss me off.
In general, though: good job, good students, great
family...who could ask for more?
Well, maybe some more sleep. But at least I can
go do something about that. |
