November 28, 2007

Not much to say, this song pretty much says it all.

"The Christmas Shoes" by Newsong

November 22, 2007

A feast: turkey, and/or ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, green bean casserole. A spread fit for a king. All day spent cooking and all evening spent eating. Aren't we fortunate to be able to eat this way with our family? All that food and time, how special is that? Of course it is very special. And what many of us forget is that there are some families that save money to provide a modest feast on Thanksgiving, while others could afford to eat that way once a week or more. On this Thanksgiving, what I am thankful for is all that I have. So much that I take for granted, including my health and family and modest home. All are more than many can afford.

For example, Christmas is a huge holiday. We buy gifts for each other and exchange them on or around Christmas day. But all the while we buy ourselves some of the many things we want along the way: clothes, games, toys, tools, etc. What we forget is that there are many people who must save up for these purchases to give on Christmas, without much left over to give or buy at times in between. The tell tale sign at school are coats. Come Thanksgiving time, some students have been wearing the same coat all year (save the warm months), and by now, they smell dirty. After New Years', these students come back to school with new coats that do not smell. The coat as a Christmas gift. Money saved to give a new present of a coat. We are fortunate, if I need a new coat, I buy it, be it October, November, February. I would feel jipped if I got a coat for Christmas.

Think it over. What do you have? What do you take for granted? What do others' have or need?

Be thankful.

November 21, 2007

At least we know there won't be a clean sweep, the New England Revolution lost the MLS championship this past weekend and it doesn't look good for the Boston College Eagles to play in the college championship after losing two straight games. The best Bostonians can hope for now is to sweep the remaining pro sport championships. The Boston Red Sox have already won the World Series, the New England Patriots look unbeatable and en route to winning the Super Bowl (unfortunately), the Boston Red Sox are off to a hot start (9-1) giving them a great chance in the NBA, and in the NHL since more than half the teams make the playoffs, there is no telling how far the Boston Bruins can go (they are currently 7th in the Eastern Conference). In the past, I used to think of New England, especially Boston, as being rich in history, a quaint region with considerable influence, having a passionate dedication to their sports teams. Now, I hate them. I hate the New England Patriots. I don't mind that they "run up the score" I just hate hearing "will they go 19-0?" or "just how good is the golden boy, Tom Brady?" Ugh, I feel nauseous just thinking about it. I used to like the Boston Red Sox as a legitimate rival to the New York Yankees (whom I hate as much as Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush), but now, I am sick of them too - Big Papi, Manny, Schilling and his bloody sock, blah blah blah, . Enough already, I am now sick of New England and Boston and their sports teams.

November 20, 2007

There I was, my size 8.5 Nikes touching the invisible line - the point of no return, literally. One more step and I would again have to subject myself to violation, made to strip in order to go any further. For some reason, an invisible energy forbade me from taking another step. I looked to my right, and there, sitting on a stool behind a lectern-like security station was the burgundy and black clad TSA agent. My confused look seemed to have provided a certain degree of amusement to her, after all, she has been made to sit and monitor exiting passengers for hours at a time. I imagine I was just the remedy for her monotony.

"Excuse me," I begin, "if I go out this way to get to gate 26, will I have to come back through security?"

Her response, "It depends," meant one of two things, either I was her comic relief for the hour, or I was about to hear a deep philosophical explanation on our existence and what it means to "pass through." I was relieved to discover it was the former when she directed me to the gate that provides a shuttle service to the next concourse. On the shuttle I smiled at my good fortune to not have to be subject to a near disrobing in order to get to my connecting flight.

To accommodate a gate change, an hour later I was back on the shuttle bound for the original concourse, this time without my smile.

November 18, 2007

"Evan, you lost both your front teeth this week?"
"Uh-huh, both of 'em!"
"How did you lose the second one?"
"My Daddy knocked it out."

I am expecting a knock on the door from social services any day now. That's right, I knocked out Evan's other front tooth. How did I do it? I hit him in the face with the cable remote. The full story is a little less interesting. If there is any day of the week that I am likely to take a nap after work, it would be on Thursday. I am usually wiped out for the week by then. Now I don't nap every Thursday, mind you, but some I just can't help it and will basically pass out. There I was, on the couch, Evan in the office playing a video game. After he finished putting down the rebellion on Yavin 4, or something, he comes out to the living room (where I am sleeping) and asks, "Daddy, do you want to play a board game?" "No Evan, I am trying to nap." "Can I put on Mario Brothers video?" "No Evan, I am listening to the TV." "Daddy, can you..." "Evan, can't I just take a short nap?!?!" Much to my surprise, Evan proceeds to climb on me. I get up off the couch, exasperated and toss the remote control back onto the couch from the end I was laying on. Needless to say, I turned around when I heard the remote hit Evan in the mouth. The look of shock on Evan's face was priceless. It would become even more surprised once he saw his tooth fall from his mouth. At this point he began to cry, but it would get worse once he began to rinse his mouth and saw the blood. He was nearly irreconcilable.

But that was not all the excitement for Thursday, oh no. About 10pm as I am at work in the office, I hear the cat's scrambling around the kitchen and then into the living room. I come out to see Jessie with a live mouse in her mouth. If you don't have a cat, then you don't know that the plan of a cat isn't to actually kill the mouse, it is to play with it, in a sort of Lenny from Of Mice and Men kind of way. Ultimately the mouse will die, but not because the cats want it dead, but because they will play with it until it can take no more prancing around the house in their teeth. In these situations, the goal for me is to catch the mouse myself, take it outside, and throw it into the neighbor's yard, where it will hopefully become their problem. Always, fun.


Did you think that was all there could be on a Thursday? If you did, then you would be wrong. Back in February of 2006, I wrote a commentary on both Barry Bonds and Ricky Williams and their uncanny ability to further tarnish their respective sports (see "Hang It Up! Please!"). Surprisingly, 20 months later both make top sports headlines. Barry Bonds has been indicted on 4 counts of Perjury and 1 count of Obstruction of Justice and could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted and Ricky Williams has been reinstated by the NFL and can now begin practicing with his old team, the Miami Dolphins (who would welcome anyone to save their hapless season, they are now 0-10). So far, I have gotten half of my wish, it doesn't look like Barry Bonds will play baseball ever again. And we'll see how long Ricky Williams can go before testing positive for drugs again.

November 12, 2007

Today was an "Evan and Daddy day" as we like to call it. That is, Michelle had to work and we were off from school so we had our customary breakfast at Perkin's restaurant. We made plans to bowl with Peter and the boys at 12:30. That was fun, but of course the kids mostly just wanted to get their game over so they could hit the gameroom and win their tickets so they could turn them in for "prizes," a.k.a. junk. In between, I brought Michelle's laptop over to Firedog at CircuitCity so they could check the powered component of the USB ports in question. They said that they did not have that capability their to test such a problem, but the tech did make me feel better by saying that he has seen more problems with iPods than you would think. In fact, if the second iPod was in the same shipment as the first one I returned, then they could all have been fitted with bad hard drives, which is now what I am hoping. So I returned now the second iPod to BestBuy hoping that the latest is from another batch and will not have a bad HD. (I hope I am not just deluding myself and that the problem is with Michelle's laptop)

Speaking of bowling, I don't know if you saw this video. It is from a couple of years back. It is still pretty funny.

November 11, 2007

It sure is nice to have the day off tomorrow (sorry to all of you who don't). I remember that it isn't just a random day off from school in order to fill the calendar, it is a national holiday - Veterans' Day (formerly Armistice Day). It is the day we are to honor all those who have served to defend the United States (originally, as Armistice Day, it was to be a worldwide day of remembrance after World War I, "The Eleventh hour, of the Eleventh day, of the Eleventh month." But with World War II, the US decided to make it simply our own little holiday.) So to all you vets out there, thank you. Thank you for defending our country and our lives. By putting your own life at risk to defend millions of people you don't even know. The United States would not be what it is today were it not for you. And Grandpa, thank you. You fought in World War II to protect the US abroad and to save the lives of millions of people in Europe.



I have tried to get my Grandfather, now in his eighties, to tell me the story of his life. As a history teacher, I want to hear about US history through his experiences and observations. Unfortunately, he has been reluctant to open up, which seems to be the case with most people of his generation.

November 10, 2007

Saturdays can be so boring. We are always looking forward to the weekend, and yet when it gets here, I am bored. And what is worse, I don't want to do anything about it. I am almost content to be bored on a Saturday, but I try to make up for it on Sunday. But I don't really mind, so long as I spend some good time with Evan. For example, I didn't get dressed out of my pjs until about 1pm. At which time I went outside, mowed the lawn, blew leaves off the roof and tried to deal with Michelle's iPod problems. Unfortunately I think I have narrowed it down, bad USB port. It works fine with most devices, but once you use something that needs power, I think it is bad. The reason I say this is because Michelle's new iPod is now acting the same way as her previous. It will sync and add songs from here iTunes library to her iPod but then it craps out and won't fully start. It keeps trying to start, but the Apple splash screen comes up, the hard drive engages, clicks one or twice, then it powers off and repeats. Any attempt to reset it by holding the buttons does nothing. Last time I had to wait for the battery to completely die and plug it into the AC outlet to get any type of response from the buttons. So tomorrow I am going to bring her laptop in to get the USB ports tested. But to compound my frustration, I don't understand why I did not buy the service plan on her computer. I was obviously having an idiot moment. I can't explain it.

We are also dealing with a VERY loose tooth for Evan. His ... Wait, Michelle just came downstairs with news, she pulled out his tooth while he was sleeping. He didn't even wake up. Good thing too, would have hated to have to deal with him if he did wake up to find Michelle trying to pull it out. All day and last night his tooth was hanging on by a thread, his permanent tooth has been showing. He probably could have flicked it out with his tongue, but of course he was too afraid to do it, he was afraid it would bleed. We had been bribing him to pull it out for two days, Dan offered him a dollar, I offered him a video game, and anything else he said he wanted I told him I would get it right there on the spot if he pulled it out. Tonight, while he was laying in bed, he was crying that he was going to miss his tooth and that he wishes he could keep all his teeth.

November 9, 2007

Why am I not a "Values Voter"? Since I am not as socially conservative as these family values, pro-life, evangelical groups, does that mean I do not have any values? Quite frankly, I take offense to the name "values voters." Just because my values are more liberal does not mean that I am "no good" or that I will ultimately be responsible for the destruction of western civilization. I would argue that I am just as much, if not more in support of the family than these so-called "family values" groups. Society has evolved and continues to evolve. What is the "traditional family" of today was a radical idea just over a century ago. In another century the traditional family of today will be seen as antiquated and backwards (what the "family" will look like in a hundred years, I have no idea, but follow the pattern of history).

In the United States, we proclaim ourselves to be an enlightened people. We are advanced technologically, economically, socially and politically. And yet there are striking deficiencies in all of these categories. Socially, we claim to have a society based on justice and equality. But in reality, the you are only equal if you have enough money and the same sexual preference, otherwise, you are inferior. Today, justice is better served to those with the money to buy it, that is to say, if you have enough money to buy a lawyer with more resources at his disposal than the state's prosecuting attorney then you have a better chance of receiving "justice" (in other words, you can better afford to buy an acquittal). In the battle over what is an "acceptable" family, money plays a large role. Lower income families must have at least two incomes to make ends meet, sometimes three. The third could be one parent having two jobs, or the oldest child working hours after school. This is all assuming that this family has two parents at all. But this situation is not a problem because the parents were obviously heterosexual and able to procreate with each other. Statistically speaking, a single-parent family is more likely to have children that find trouble because of the lack of guidance and supervision while the single-parent is working multiple jobs to make ends meet. The level of academic success tends to be lower in these families creating a cycle of poverty. But, this is an acceptable family according to the "values voters." Unacceptable, however, would be a married homosexual couple that wants to adopt a child. Although no one has been able to successfully explain to me why this would be unacceptable, I fully understand that portions of our evolved society would deem this type of family as undermining to marriage and family values. I argue, if a family is a place that exists a safe, loving, nurturing environment, then why can't the result of a same-sex marriage be considered a family? Wouldn't it be better for a child to have this type of arrangement in a family where both parents are of the same sex than to have a child grow up in a situation where the single parent is absent?

The "sanctity of life" is yet another important issue for "values voters." In their mind abortion is not an option. In this case I am not going to argue for or against abortion, but simply point out the hypocrisy of this philosophy. Too often do pro-life voters support the death penalty. Explain how supporting the death penalty protects the "sanctity of life?"

I am appalled at the ignorance of many members of this demographic. Listen to this excerpt from a special on NPR. I hope you are as afraid of the future as I am if these voters get their way in upcoming elections.

http://www.billiondollarpresident.org/2007/11/06/values-voters/

November 1, 2007

October had been so busy I only had the opportunity to post 8 times! I hope November will be a little quieter.

True story (I couldn't make something this good up!).
Wednesday was Halloween. We trick-or-treated in Joe's neighborhood so that Bailey can trick-or-treat from home for her first Halloween. Since they live so close to my school, and it was the same afternoon as the Powderpuff Football Game and Carnival (3- 5 pm), I left directly from school and met Michelle and Evan at their house. I arrived early enough to play with Bailey for a little while and then Michelle and Evan arrived with a BANG. Well, it was more of a "bottle rocket" sound, as described by Joe. Michelle took a gash out of the front tire when pulling up to the curb across from Joe's house. Needless to say, I was a bit aggrevated. When I saw the damage to the tire and the rim, I threw my hat onto the floor and gestured angirly, much like Steve Martin in the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Before I could eat any of the pizza or go trick-or-treating with the kids, I first had to change the flat tire before the sun went down. A gentleman across the street from Joe was kind enough to assist Dan and I, he contributed a hydraulic jack that worked much better than the supplied jack from Toyota. After catching the van twice before it fell over off the jack, we were able to successfully affix the donut and then go trick-or-treating. That isn't the funny part. The next day, in my 4th period class, one of my students asked,

Student: "Mr. C, did you go trick-or-treating in Westwinds yesterday."
Me: (cautiously) "Um, yes.... why?"
Student: "Well, I saw you changing a tire, and you looked kinda mad."
Me: (with a guilty grin) "Oh, I was pretty angry."
Student: "I saw you throw your hat on the ground, so I decided you were angry so I didn't come over to say 'hi'."
Me: "Do you live near there?"
Student: "Do you know the house right across the street with the bright green door? Well, that is my house."
Me: "Oh that is cool, my frined lives right across the street from you."
Student: "And [this student] lives two doors down, and [that student] lives around the corner."

Not too embarrassing!