What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas

I may write a little about my vacation to Las Vegas a little later, but for now the saying is true. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Overall, I had a fairly enjoyable vacation. It would have been even better if I hadn’t constantly been worrying about the sale of my house.

When I left for vacation, I had received an offer for my house and the prospective buyer had accepted my counter offer pending an inspection. Well, it turned out that there were several problems with the house according to his inspector. A lot of what he complained about would be expected in a house that is nearly 50 years old! It seems like this guy wants a perfect, brand new house for under $100,000! Well, nearly a week after the offer, the offer was withdrawn as I would not give in to all of his demands.

On Friday I learned about another offer. Since I was out of the area, we were countering based on what I told my realtor verbally over the phone. I was not about to get anything signed. Well, we seemed to reach an agreement, but they wanted a night to think it over. After sleeping on it, the new prospective buyer backed out. Damn it!

Now, my fiancée and I have an offer pending on a house in Cedar Rapids. We have already started the loan processing and title search which will cost us money even if we don’t go through with the purchase. Plus, we also had an inspection done on the house. Incidentally, it wasn’t perfect, but we weren’t expecting a perfect house. We now have less than two weeks before we have to let the seller know if we will be unable to complete the purchase. I really hope an offer comes in on my house soon. I just want to get rid of it now!

Have a Great Week!

I just thought I'd let you all know that I probably won't be writing any new blog entries until the end of next weekend. Tomorrow, my fiancee and I are going to a wedding show in Ames. Her brother and sister-in-law live there, so we'll be staying the night in Ames. Then on Sunday we have a birthday party in Ankeny for her nephew. After that we head to the Twin Cities where we'll be spending the night at my sister's house before leaving for Las Vegas on Monday morning. We return to Minneapolis Friday night, but then my sister has an orchestra concert on Saturday, so we'll be staying for that. I hope everyone has a great week!

Counter Offer

My realtor called me back this morning informing me that he had received a counter offer from the seller of the house we want to buy. He agreed to most of the offer. In fact, the counter offer was pretty much what our realtor thought he would come back with. We accepted the offer this afternoon. On April 14, my fiancee and I will own a house in Cedar Rapids!

I'm So Excited!

My fiancee and I went back to Cedar Rapids to check out the house we really liked yesterday once again. After we looked through it with our real estate agent, we decided to write an offer for it! I think we were being a bit too greedy in what we asked for in our offer, but our agent thought the offer sounded pretty good. It leaves room for the seller to counter, and for us to still be happy with his counter offer. We should know by tomorrow night if he accepts our offer or not. I can't wait! Now I'll probably have a hard time getting to sleep tonight.

Napoleon Who?

This weekend my fiancee and I rented and watched Napoleon Dynamite and personally I would like to know what the big deal is all about! It was funny at times, but I was bored most of the time for the first half an hour of the film. I guess I just don't get it. Neither does my fiancee.

Yesterday we looked at some open houses in Cedar Rapids since we have to be out of our current house by April 15. We found one that we both really liked. It even comes with a stove and refrigerator that are practically new. The oven hasn't even been used. Upon opening the oven, I noticed that the owner's manual and the broiler rack were both still attached to a rack with plastic straps! The guy selling it is a single man who lived there about one year before his employer relocated him. He's really motivated to sell, asking less than what he paid for it. That does make me worry a little. We will definitely have the house inspected to look for any potential problems. However, we are planning on making an offer on it tonight.

SOLD!

Yesterday morning while I was at the menu board at the McDonald’s drive through ordering breakfast, my realtor called me. He called to tell me that one of the people who had viewed the house the night before was submitting an offer and that he would have it later in the morning. After work I stopped by his office to see what the offer was. He offered the full asking price, although I had just lowered it, so it wasn’t what I had originally hoped for. He also wanted the refrigerator and stove. That wasn’t really a problem as most of the houses we have looked at buying have at least one of those. He also wanted the washer and dryer. The biggest problem with the offer was that he wanted to close and take possession by April 1! That was a big problem as it is just too soon. Maybe if Mel and I weren’t going on vacation for a week in another week we could manage it, but Mel hasn’t found a new job yet, and she won’t be able to commute to her current job from where we would move to. So, I submitted a counter offer pushing back possession until April 15. That gives us two more weeks. Also, I didn’t want to give up the washer and dryer. We potentially will be buying a new refrigerator and stove already, we wouldn’t want to buy all of those appliances. The offer was accepted pending approval for financing (he was pre-qualified) and a house inspection. Now Mel really needs to intensify her job search and we need to start packing. I’ll be calling a moving company on Monday to see about getting our stuff moved, and possibly stored for a short time if we are not able to get possession of a new house immediately.

Gas Prices

What is going on with gas prices? Practically overnight, gas prices here in Waterloo have shot up nearly a dime to $1.959 per gallon! These escalating gas prices really make me hope that my fiancee manages to find a job in the Iowa City area so we can live there instead of Cedar Rapids. I hate to think how much money I'll be spending on gas if I end up commuting 60 miles every day.

Just Checking In

It is so good to be done writing test items for now. On Wednesday next week I should be getting back a list of revisions that I have to make, but until then I have some free time to do other things, that is when I don’t have to leave my house for it to be shown. I guess I can do other things then, but sometimes I just like to sit down and watch TV.

This evening I had to leave my house for two showings. While I was out I stopped by Target to browse and I found a new Yoda toy that I didn’t yet have. I collect Yodas so I was most pleased to make this find. What I got was the Star Wars Galactic Heroes set which includes Emperor Palpatine and Yoda! I got two so I could keep one in its package and have one which I can open up and set out on my desk at work.

Today was a pretty good day at school. My seventh period class, which I usually dread, was very well-behaved today. Even though class was short today because of the variety show, we got a lot accomplished. While watching the variety show, I began thinking that maybe I am making the wrong decision about leaving teaching. There are a lot of things that I am going to miss. I really enjoy working with many of my students, especially when a student with whom I’ve been working finally understands what it is that I’ve been trying to teach him or her. However, before the variety show performance was over, I came to realize that doing something else, at least for a while, is a really good idea. Earlier in the day, during my fourth period class, I started worrying about my blood pressure as I was getting quite upset with my class and I felt my stress level elevating.

The variety show was pretty good. As usual, there was too much jazz band. A couple of jazz band songs wouldn’t have bothered me, but it just seemed to get a bit excessive. Some of the other performances were good. I was surprised to see belly dancing; they can do it! That was a little joke for Homercles, but seriously, two girls did belly dance at the variety show. They certainly had the attention of the young man sitting next to me. There isn’t much else new with me for now. I thought I’d check in. I’ll be able to write a bit more now that I’m not writing test items.

What if There Was an Election and No One Voted?

Apparently that happened today. Most of Black Hawk county had an election today to vote on the local option sales tax. In the town of Jesup no one voted. Most of the town is in Buchanan county and therefore most of the residents were not eligible to vote. Part of the town lies in Black Hawk county though and therefore people who reside in that part of town could have voted.

On another topic, I am reconsidering the possibility of moving to North Liberty. Apparently they have a problem with naked men threatening people with their swords. Someone yelled at their neighbor who was outside without any clothes on to put something on. The guy became upset and got a sword! Actually, North Liberty remains on my list of communities to move to. It's a nice small town, conveniently located to my new job location.

Speaking of my new job, I just completed the first draft of the rest of the test items that I need to write for them. Hopefully I'll get them back for revisions by next Wednesday since I am leaving to go on vacation Saturday morning of next week.

Yet Another Monday

Well it’s Monday again, and two Mondays (and about four hours) from now my fiancée Mel and I will be starting our five-day vacation in Las Vegas! I just need to make it through these two weeks. This weekend I worked on some of the test items that I have to have finished by Wednesday and I have eight more to write. I shouldn’t have much problem getting them done, but it will take much of my free time to get it done. Then I’ll have around a week before I have to make the revisions, which I need to complete before my vacation.

Mel and I went to Cedar Rapids on Saturday to look at a few houses. The first one we looked at was great. If she had a job lined up already and if it looked like my house were about to sell, we’d seriously consider making an offer on it, but for now we’ll wait a little longer. The second house we looked at was a double-wide mobile home manufactured in 1979. In 1988 it was relocated to a permanent foundation on nearly half an acre of land. The basement of the house was very nice, but that’s about all I can say that is good about it. The walls in the upstairs were hollow! It didn’t seem to be very well constructed. Finally, we saw the house that we had wanted to see a few weeks ago, but its keys were missing. Well, we could have waited a bit longer. There was nothing special about the house and the basement was laid out really strangely.

After looking at houses, we met my friend Melissa and her fiancé Chris for dinner at Carlos O’Kelley’s. We got there a bit earlier that planned, but with a 45-minute wait for a table things worked out quite well. Melissa and Chris arrived about five minutes after we were seated.

Yesterday we went TV shopping. Mel had a three-year-old RCA TV that just quite working last week. We decided to get a new one instead of getting the old one repaired. We ended up getting a Phillips 27-inch TV. Unfortunately we neglected to measure if it would fit the space in the entertainment center; it didn’t. We made some modifications to the entertainment center to get it to fit. It is quite a nice TV.

Last night, since nothing else was on TV, we ended up watching Showgirls on VH1. If you have ever seen the uncut version of this movie, you may wonder how it could ever be made suitable for television. All it takes are cutting a few scenes, a few words, and a lot of computer generated brassieres. They do detract slightly from the film, especially since what they were covering was about the only positive aspect of seeing Showgirls. Anyway, I best be off to work. I still have to get some quizzes graded from Wednesday of last week.

Now I Know Where I'll Spend Eternity

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Moderate
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

Work, Work, Work

I feel like I've been working myself to death lately. Mainly this is because I still have 16 test items that I need to have written before I go to bed next Tuesday night. I should be able to manage this if I write two items a night until then with four items per day on Saturday and Sunday. Also, today I replied to the person who reviews my items that I'll be available to write more once this assignment is completed next month. I don't know why I said that I'd do it. I have been pretty busy with work lately, and I need to make a few minor improvements to my house to help it sell. I haven't had the time to do it since I've spent a lot of time on these test items. Also, I have to help my fiancee with wedding planning. Maybe I'll write back and say that I can't do any extra items for now. However, I don't want my future employer to think that I can't handle the work. I guess I'll figure something out. If I had a shorter assignment, it would be a lot easier. Writing 40 items in a little under a month is pretty difficult.

23 Items to Go

I've been working at getting some test items written for my future employer. After working a little this weekend, I now have 23 items left to write. Writing a test item sounds easy enough, but it can be quite difficult. I can't really go into the details due to a confidentiality agreement, but I've practically been pulling my hair out in frustration over nine more multiple-choice questions that I need to write. The items are due next Wednesday, so I have to average two or three a day to get them done on time. That would be a lot easier to do if I didn't have to leave the house every single night to let a real estate agent show it to someone. That can be really inconvenient, but I do want the house to sell.

I'm Still Alive

It's been a while since I have posted anything here. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still around. I have just been terribly busy this week. First, my fiancee and I went to Cedar Rapids on Tuesday to check out a few more houses. We only actually went into one, and it was quite promising. It was in a nice, quiet neighborhood. It had really nice built-in drawers and cupboards in the hall and in the bedroom closets. The only real drawbacks with the house was that there was a smoky smell in the living room, the color of the kitchen carpet wasn't the most appealing, and the house only had a 60-amp fuse box. The insurance company that I have requires that I have 100 amps of electrical service. I had to upgrade my current house to 100 amps from 60, and it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't so expensive as to completely rule out the house. Also, there was only one bathroom, but I think there may have been connections in the basement to allow a bathroom to be added without much difficulty. The basement of the house was completely unfinished. That isn't entirely a bad thing. There was plenty of room upstairs for now, and if I were to finish the basement, I would be able to do it how I wanted it done. This house was much better than the next one we went to. We didn't even go inside it. It looked alright from the street, but the "Danger. Black mold present," sign up in the window scared us away.

The rest of the week I have been revising some test questions that I have written for my new employer; the one for which I will begin working in June. I've also had to leave the house quite a bit the last couple of days, making it hard to get this work done. Thursday evening we had someone come by to view the house, so we went shopping. Yesterday someone came by shortly after I got home from work, so we made ourselves scarce. Someone else came by unexpectedly around 5:00, when we were getting ready to order some pizza. Another Realtor is coming by to show the house in about half an hour, so I better be going.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! This evening, my fiancee and I went to the Ground Round for dinner. We decided to go there because it's where we first met.

Damn It

We have removed the house strongly considering from consideration. Reading the property disclosure there was comment that the road that the house is on was going to undergo improvements to improve traffic flow. Our Realtor looked into this for us, and it turns out that the street is going to be widened from two lanes to five! I really don't want to live on such a heavily traveled street, especially if I had a family to raise there. I don't think I'd be comfortable having them play in the front yard with that kind of traffic. Well, tomorrow we are going to get the chance to see the house we wanted to see this weekend.

Walking Down Memory Lane

Yesterday my fiancee and I ended up driving back to Cedar Rapids. We wanted to go through our two top choices again since they were both having open houses. Of the two, we definitely have a favorite and we decided that the other house just wouldn't work, despite everything we liked about it. We still have one more house that we feel that we must see. Unfortunately, our Realtor was unable to acquire a key for the property. The person who is listing the property never called him back. Today he's going to call the company through which it's listed. We hope to see it tomorrow. My fiancee and I both have a really good feeling about the house. I like the neighborhood that it is in as it's located about three-tenths of a mile from the house in which I grew up.

Speaking of the house where I grew up, it's also for sale! No my fiancee had already nixed the idea of buying that house. For one, it's too small. Also, it only has one bathroom and we'd really like at least one and a half. Personally, I think she just thinks it would be a bit creepy living in the house in which I spent nearly the first 17 years of my life. Well, we drove by it, and they had an open house yesterday, so we just had to take a look. I must say that I agree with her. We will not be buying the house. It is way to tiny! I can't believe how small my bedroom was, let alone the living room and kitchen! I had not seen the inside of this house since October 1989, the month in which I turned 17. Parts of it looked very different. One of the owners since I lived there completely remodeled the basement, removing a wall and moving another one. I liked the basement, but that would not be enough to get us to buy the house. It sure didn't show well. The owner has been renting it out, and it doesn't look all that great.

I May Not Know Lyrics...

...but I know titles and artists. Following Homercles, I took this quiz on 80's song lyrics, and I did not do too well.

In my defense, my family didn't have cable TV until I was in high school, so I didn't get to watch much MTV.

Looking at Houses

Yesterday my fiancee, my mother, and I drove down to Cedar Rapids to check out some houses that are for sale. We looked at a total of five homes. The very first one we checked out was gorgeous, even though it didn't have a full basement. We almost could have stopped our search right there, but we continued. The second house we looked at was also pretty good, although I wasn't as impressed with it as with the first one. One benefit that it did have over the first house though was that it wasn't on a busy street like the first house was. However, while inside the house, I couldn't really hear the noise of passing traffic. The next house we looked at needed quite a bit of work, and thus we crossed it off our list.

We then traveled to the opposite side of town where the keys were missing from the next house we wanted to see. We are planning on returning today, if our Realtor can arrange for us to get in. We then saw two other houses. The next one was nice, but the bedrooms are too small and we have a king sized water bed that we need to fit in it. The last house we saw was very nice. After measuring the bedroom, we think the water bed would fit, but it would only leave about 15 inches on either side. The room is long enough though. So right now, we are between the first and last of the houses we looked at. The prices are within $2000. One of them is 2.5 miles further from my future job, but it's mostly interstate miles. We don't want to make a decision too quickly, but we would hate to lose out on one of these houses if we think it's the one we want.

Getting Married

It's official, I'm getting married! After dinner tonight, my now fiancee and I went shopping for a ring. I had meant to propose on Valentine's Day next week, but it came up earlier this week. So, we decided to go together to buy the ring. I wouldn't have had a clue about what to get, so it really worked out best this way. I don't have any more information yet as to the date. Maybe I can talk her into getting married when we are in Las Vegas next month. I'm sure she wants a wedding closer to home though.

Anyone Looking for a House?

As of 5:30 yesterday afternoon, my house in Waterloo is for sale. I've only lived here since September 2003, but as I have indicated earlier, I have recently been offered a job in Iowa City which I have accepted. I have no desire to rent out a house here while buying a new one in the Iowa City or Cedar Rapids areas, so it has to go. Besides, I don't think I would qualify for an additional mortgage. I was pleasantly surprised about how much my Realtor thought I should ask. It's amazing how much real estate can appreciate in under two years. Now I just hope my house sells without too much problem, but just not too fast. My new job doesn't start until mid June. Of course, if I find a house in Cedar Rapids, rather than Iowa City, I can commute to Waterloo from there until the end of the school year.

Long Wait

Yesterday morning, when I was telling students how to factor a trinomial for what had to be the thousandth time in the past three weeks, I was thinking about how I can't wait until June when I begin my new career in the test-writing industry. I am really excited about this, but I am a bit nervous too. One thing I am worried about is whether or not my girlfriend will be able to get find a job that she enjoys. She doesn't really like her current job though. I would like her to be able to get a job that she actually wants to do however.

I found out this morning that I have been approved to take the week of RAGBRAI off from work. It will take all of my personal days for the remainder of the year and my two employee designated holidays, but it's worth it. Besides, I will still have five vacation days to use, which I won't be able to use until September.

House Shopping

This morning my girlfriend and I met a few friends in Cedar Rapids for lunch. Since we were going to be there, I thought that we should check out a few open houses in the area since we are planning on moving in that general direction. As I posted a couple of days ago, I will be starting a new job in Iowa City this June. I can get quite a bit more house for my money in Cedar Rapids than I could in Iowa City, and the drive isn't too bad. Now, if my girlfriend manages to find a job in Iowa City, then we would obviously move there, but she is also looking in Cedar Rapids.

We went to five open houses this afternoon. Three of them were homes that we could see ourselves living in, but we are still planning on checking out a few more. There is one in particular that I found online tonight that we would like to check out. One things that concerns me though is that the asking price of the house is less than its assessed value. While the city assessor's web site does not give the name of the deed holder, it does give the address, which for this property ended up being in Minneapolis. Doing a reverse address search online I discovered that there is a credit union that is at the address of the deed holder, although the suite number wasn't exactly the same. Perhaps the credit union foreclosed on the home and now they are trying to get what they can out of it. Anyway, we hope to check out the house soon.

Tomorrow I am going to call a real estate agent in Waterloo to see about getting my house listed. I just hope that it doesn't sell too soon, or if it does, that the buyers can wait to take possession until June, although we could move out sooner if necessary. Well, I have to get to work writing test items. I got an assignment a couple of weeks ago from the company for which I will be working beginning this summer. It wouldn't look good if I don't get my contract work done on time considering that I'll be an employee of theirs in a few months.

Phone Service

I really take my phone service for granted which is why I found the story about a Louisiana town finally getting telephone service to be fascinating. The hamlet of Mink, Louisiana, was finally connected to telephone service this week. My favorite quote in the article has got to be, '"We started in early 1970 trying to get a phone,' Bolton said. 'We'd talk to the phone company but they'd never call back.'" Well, how could they call back? You didn't have a phone. At a cost of over $700,000 to get the town connected, the cost will be subsidized by all telephone service users in the state. Now I have to wonder how long it will be before they start getting calls from telemarketers.

More Shatner News

Invasion Iowa, the TV series in which William Shatner tricks the Iowa town of Riverside into thinking that he is going to film a movie there is set to air late March on Spike TV. I, for one, was quite excited when I learned that William Shatner would be shooting a movie in the town where I once worked. I was a teacher at the high school in Riverside (actually, it's a few miles south of town) for three years, and I thought it would be cool to see a movie set in locales with which I was familiar. Instead, I'll get to see the townspeople of Riverside, many of whom I know, be fooled by Shatner. While Spike TV says that this show won't insult the residents of Riverside or Iowans in general, I think I will reserve judgment until I see the actual program. I have seen other Spike TV "reality" shows, and they can be entertaining, but they can also be cruel to their intended targets.

Taxes Done & Shatner Sings

I got my taxes done this morning. I was pleasantly surprised by the effect that owning my own home and having a mortgage payment on the size of my refunds. Now I'll have some extra spending money for my trip to Las Vegas next month.

After doing my taxes this morning, I went out to do a little shopping and to wash my car. Unfortunately, the car wash at the service station where I can get a free wash was not working. I'll have to check back tomorrow. While I was out driving, I was listening to William Shatner's new CD, Has Been. I only listened to the first three tracks before turning to "Car Talk" on NPR, but I must say that from what I heard, the CD is pretty good. At first it was somewhat silly, hearing Shatner doing his spoken word renditions of songs, but it really started to grow on me. I was a bit apprehensive at first about buying it, but now that I have started to listen to it, I am happy that I made the purchase.

"Enterprise" Cancelled

UPN has cancelled Star Trek: Enterprise after four seasons on the network. I wasn't too impressed with it when it was first aired, but I would have liked to see it go one more season as it has been getting better recently. I like to watch it when I remember to, but Friday night at 7:00 just isn't a good time for me to sit down and watch TV. I do tape it when I'm not home, but sometimes it's hard to find the time to watch it. I still haven't seen last week's episode. After it finishes this season's run in May, there will be no new "Star Trek" episodes on TV for the first time since 1987. At least I still have the first season of the original Star Trek series on DVD, and I plan on getting the rest. Also I have DVDs of the entire run of Deep Space Nine. In my opinion, those are the best two "Star Trek" series.

Sleep

I just couldn't get a good night's sleep last night. I think that perhaps anxiety from the fact that I am going to be changing careers in a few months could be to blame. I am excited about my new job opportunity, but I am nervous about it too. For the past seven years or so I have been a math teacher. Beginning in mid-June, I will no longer be able to call myself a teacher. I will be sitting at a desk in a cubicle, working from 8:00 to 5:00. This will be the end of my getting off of work at 3:00. I guess I'll have to deal with not being able to watch "Judge Judy" every afternoon. In a way, I'll still be doing a job similar to what I do now. I'll still be helping students to learn, although not directly. By being someone who is creating the tests that students will be taking in school, I will be still be affecting their education.

Now I get to break the news to my department head. She was really hoping I'd stay. No one else in the math department where I teach particularly wants to teach the AP Calculus course. Maybe whoever they hire to replace me will want to teach it. I've enjoyed teaching calculus, although it is a lot of work. It's one class for which I have to do all of the homework assignments that I assign my students. For algebra, I don't have to do that. I could do the algebra in my sleep. In fact, I had a dream last night about factoring; seriously, I did. Yes, I know, that's sick.


I have one more comment that is completely unrelated to the rest of this post. On the news it seems that there is a story coming up about violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto. In the lead into the story at the commercial, the reporter said that many parents are getting fed up with these games, but free speech advocates say there is no legal way to keep them out of the hands of kids. Sure there is! The story is about localities passing laws prohibiting the sale of such games to kids. While that may not work, there is a way to keep them out of the hands of kids. Parents need to take the responsibility and not allow such games in their homes if they wish. I know that's easier said than done, but whoever said being a parent was easy.

Job Offer!

I got a job offer today! It's for a job in Iowa City at the company for which I worked this summer. I really think that I will be happier doing this job than I am in my current teaching job. Also, the pay is 36% more than what I currently earn teaching. Sure, I will lose my summer vacation, but if I'm not working at a summer job, summer vacation consists largely of boredom and watching TV. Now I need to call my Realtor friend in Iowa City to see about buying a house!

Comments on the State of the Union Address

I have just a few comments on the President's State of the Union Address. First of all, let me preface this by saying that I do not disagree with President Bush on every issue. I for one don't see why having private accounts for Social Security would necessarily be a bad thing. Of course it would require a lot of money to get things started, but after that, what would be the problem? I didn't agree with our reasoning for going to war in Iraq. I thought it was to remove Saddam Hussein from power because of his weapons of mass destruction which ended up not existing. However I don't think it is a bad thing that he has been captured. It's great that Iraqis got to vote earlier this week. That is great.

I do have a few problems with some positions of President Bush though. First of all, the President spoke about "protecting marriage."

Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.

Of course what he is talking about by protecting the institution of marriage is to outlaw gay marriage. I know I have spoken about this before, but I don't see how allowing to people of the same gender to make a legal commitment of love to each other jeopardizes anyone else's marriage. If he truly wants to protect marriage, wouldn't he want to ban divorce as well? That would seem to me to strengthen marriage.

My next issue with the President's speech was when he continued to talk about "impartial justice."

Because courts must always deliver impartial justice, judges have a duty to faithfully interpret the law, not legislate from the bench. As president, I have a constitutional responsibility to nominate men and women who understand the role of courts in our democracy, and are well qualified to serve on the bench -- and I have done so.

What he was talking about here was what have been referred to as activist judges. It seems to me that what the President was saying was that judges must all interpret the law the way he thinks it should be interpreted. If a judge has a different interpretation, he or she must be an activist judge.

Another topic that the President spoke about was financial responsibility:

America's prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government. I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline. So next week I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent, and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150 government programs that are not getting results, or duplicate current efforts, or do not fulfill essential priorities. The principle here is clear: a taxpayer dollar must be spent wisely, or not at all.

President Bush says that "America's prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government." I thought that is was fairly under control before George W. Bush took power in 2001. Since he became President, spending grew out of control. Yes, it's mainly due to the war on terror, part of which was justified. However, while increasing federal spending dramatically, he also cut taxes! I don't like paying taxes more than anyone else, but when you cut taxes and increase spending at the same time, it seems to me that the deficit is bound to grow. I also agree that redundant and ineffective government programs should not continue to receive taxpayer money, but I must wonder what is going to happen to the unemployment rate when the employees of those 150 government programs he mentions are discontinued.

I have no doubt that the country will manage to make its way through the next 3 years, 11 months, and 18 days. I just hope that the Democratic Party gets itself together and regains much of the support that it has lost in recent years.

Tip for Mobile Meth Lab Operators

Don't fall asleep in your car containing a methamphetamine lab, especially when you are at an intersection in front of the county jail! That's exactly what Kirk Alan Marvel did. Around 4:00 this morning, Black Hawk County sheriff's deputies noticed a car stopped at a stop light at an intersection in front of the county jail. When the car stayed in its place through multiple cycles of the stop light, they decided to check it out. Upon approaching the car they smelled ether. On further investigation, they found other elements required for making meth in his car. I guess they didn't have far to take him when they arrested him, being in front of the jail.

Incidentally, the two "Related Advertising Links" that appeared on the web page that the news story was on when I read it were for Crystal Meth Treatment and Executive Recovery Help, a drug and alcohol treatment program aimed at executives.

Gotta Get Me Some Duff Beer

If you're going to try to defraud someone on eBay, don't use your real contact information. A woman in Australia put three cases of Duff beer up for auction on eBay. The problem is that she didn't have the beer that she was trying to sell. Apparently Duff beer was produced and sold in Australia for a few years until the creators of "The Simpsons" and Twentieth Century Fox ordered stopped it as it.

Pierre Pierce, Sexual Assault?

I guess if you get away with a sexual assault once, you think you can just have your way with a woman whenever you want. It seems that besides being investigated for burglary in West Des Moines, he now possible faces sexual assault charges. He may be the Hawkeye's leading scorer, but I don't think they need him if this is the kind of behavior he is prone to. But hey, what do I know? I wasn't there. Who am I to judge?

UPDATE 3:46 PM
Pierre Pierce has been permanently dismissed from the University of Iowa basketball team.

Let's Try This Again

I had an awful day yesterday in my calculus class. I began teaching the new lesson, then I just completely forgot what I was saying, so I started over from the beginning. Then when I introduced a formula, the linearization function, L(x) = f(a) + f'(a)(x - a), I wrote a minus sign instead of a plus sign in the function, completely changing what I was supposed to do. As if that weren't bad enough, I then made not one, but two simple algebraic errors which of course kept me from showing that the equation did what I told my students it would do. Oh, and at the very end of class, when giving another equation, I said that x could not equal zero when I meant to say that it had to be close to zero. Hopefully I didn't mess any of my students up too much. Wish me luck. Today I get to repair all of the damage I did yesterday.

Christmas is Finally Over

Okay, Christmas was over a month ago, but yesterday I had my final Christmas celebration of the season. My girlfriend and I went to her grandmother's house yesterday for dinner and to open presents. This was originally scheduled for January 2, but because of all of the nasty weather on New Year's Day, it was postponed until yesterday. It was a good day and now I have a gift card for Target that I have to spend. Now I just have to figure out what to buy. I thought about using it for necessities, but I really think I should buy something I'll enjoy instead, as it is a gift.

This morning I decided that I really need to get back to exercising. My pants seem a little tight. They're not too bad, but if I lost a few more pounds, I think they'd fit a lot better. I have managed get my weight back down to its pre-Christmas level. I only need to lose 11 more pounds to reach my goal of weighing under 200 pounds. It would be a lot easier if the weather outside were nice enough for me to go for a bike ride. I could always buy a trainer for my bike so I could ride it inside, but I have been trying to cut back on my spending. Well soon enough I'll be able to go out on my bike. I guess I should take advantage of this bad weather to get my bike tuned up.

RAGBRAI Route

The Des Moines Register has released the overnight towns for this year's RAGBRAI. We'll be traveling across the northern part of the state this year, starting in Le Mars, the home of Blue Bunny Ice Cream. Yum. On Sunday we'll be riding to Sheldon which has a population of just under 5000. With around 10,000 cyclists staying the night, we'll more than triple their population for the evening. Then on Monday we'll be going to Estherville. We stayed there overnight a couple of years ago. Actually, some of my fellow cyclists and I went to the house of a relative in southern Minnesota for the night, but we did stop there. Tuesday night we'll be in Algona, followed by Northwood on Wednesday, Cresco on Thursday, and West Union on Friday. We'll be ending the ride on Saturday in Guttenberg.

I really hope that I can make it on the entire ride this year, but as I've said earlier, I may not be able to if I start a new job this summer. Hopefully I'll be able to make it on the last three days however. That will make for a pretty difficult ride the last day or two as northeast Iowa is pretty hilly near the Mississippi River, and I won't have several days of 60-plus-mile rides to get ready for the hills. If I would be able to do the entire ride, it would be much easier as the first several days will be fairly flat. Well, if I can't do the whole ride this year, there's always next year.

Just a reminder everyone, the registration deadline is April 1. That's no joke!

Tax Breaks for the Young

Iowa Senate Republican Co-President Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny has proposed eliminating state income tax for Iowans younger than 30 years of age. The reason for this tax break is to keep young college graduates from leaving the state upon graduating from college, thus ending, or at least slowing, the "brain drain" that Iowa is experiencing. According to the article in today's Des Moines Register, this would save the average 20-something (or younger) about $600 in state income taxes. Would an extra $600--that's $50 a month--really keep a young person from moving out of Iowa? I think that many of the young people who leave the state do so because of opportunities or more exciting things that they can do elsewhere.

I left the state when I graduated from UNI in 1997. I moved to the Houston area to be a high school math teacher. Had I not had a really horrible experience when I was there (that's a story for another time), I would probably still be teaching in Texas. An extra $600 a year certainly would not have kept me in Iowa. I did return to Iowa, but the reason was to be back closer to my family, not for any possible monetary incentive. In fact, now that I have been back in Iowa for almost six years, I keep thinking of leaving again. I don't need to see my family all the time, although it is nice to be able to see my close friends. The job that I interviewed for, and think I will get, is to be located in Iowa City, although the job could be located in Austin, Texas. Personally, I wouldn't mind moving back to Texas, but my girlfriend doesn't really think she would want to move there. She wouldn't mind living in Las Vegas however. Now if I could only find a job that I would want to do there and that I am qualified for--something besides teaching--I'd be all for it.

RAGBRAI Time

I was talking to my dad on the phone this evening and he got his email about registering for RAGBRAI XXXIII. I can't believe that the time is approaching to get the registration sent in. The deadline is just over two months away. For those of you who are reading this and don't know about RAGBRAI, it is the Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa that takes place during the last full week of July each summer.

I have ridden my bike on the ride for the past five years, but unfortunately I may not be able to participate this year. If I get the job for which I have interviewed and hope to get an offer, I would not be able to use any of my vacation time during my first three months of work. As I wouldn't be starting the job until mid June, I wouldn't be able to use my vacation until mid September. While I won't be able to bargain for any extra vacation time, perhaps I could get them to let me take my vacation earlier than they usually do. If that fails, I will have five personal days for the remainder of the calendar year. Perhaps they would let me use a couple of those so I could spend three days on RAGBRAI this year. Well, if I don't get the job, this is all moot. I'll still be able to spend the entire week riding my bike around 500 across the state, camping each night in the sweltering heat and humidity of late July. Although I must say, the weather was quite nice last summer.

Haiku Solutions

Here are the solution's to the haiku from Sunday morning. Homercles got most of them correct.

#1 The Terminator
#2 E.T.
#3 Down with Love
#4 The Abyss
#5 Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Answers and More Movies in Other Words

Here are the answers to yesterday's Movies in Seven Words. Ana and Homercles got most of them correct.

1. Ed Wood
2. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
3. Moulin Rouge
4. Glory - which my girlfriend and I watched on DVD last night.
5. Clerks
6. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
7. Office Space
8. Amadeus
9. Free Enterprise - a movie about two sci-fi fans who produce movies. One of them falls in love. Also in this movie, William Shatner pitches to them a film idea - a musical version of "Julius Caesar." A must see for the sci-fi fan.
10. Spaceballs

Now for something somewhat different. Instead of the description of a movie in seven words, I have decided to write some haiku describing movies. Can you identify the films?

#1

The man is naked

Leather jacket, sunglasses

He's contraception

#2

Foreign botanist

Likes candy and drinking beer

Say "hello" Gredo

#3

Woman writes a book

Obi-Wan is a swinger

But they fall in love

#4

First drilling for oil

Then searching for submarine

What things lie beneath?

#5

A distant traveler

In search of his creator

Causes destruction

Movies in Seven Words

Copying Homercles, who copied someone else, I am presenting here some of my favorite movies described with seven words, no more, no less. These are probably too easy, especially if you really know me. How many of these can you name?

1. A bad director befriends a movie icon.
2. Teddy bears massacre the strong white men.
3. Spectacular musical is written for true love.
4. Black men fight former oppressors and lose.
5. Two slackers annoy people, complain all day.
6. Superman seeks vengeance for his dead wife.
7. Man does crappy job, doesn't get fired.
8. Poisoning one's nemesis leads to the asylum.
9. Love leads to exchange of action figures.
10. Man and his dog save the planet.

What Kind of 60s Person Am I?

Thanks to Kris, I found a quiz to determine what kind of "sixties person" I am. Quite frankly, I am surprised by the results. I would have thought I'd be a square. Well, at least I'm not a hippie.


You are a Folkie. Good for you.


What kind of Sixties Person are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

VoIP

I got a mailing from Best Buy today advertising broadband telephone service. It's something that I have thought about for a while now, but switching from a technology that I have been using most of my life to something relatively new is somewhat scary. I am fairly comfortable using the telephone as I have it now. I am a bit nervous about switching to an Internet-based phone service. For one, if the power goes out or if my Internet connection goes down, I would be unable to use my phone line. Of course, I would still have my cell phone in the event of either of those two situations. This brings me to another issue, getting rid of the phone line altogether. I know several people who do not have a land-line phone. My sister is one of those people. She seems to get by just fine without a standard telephone line. Once again, I just feel more comfortable with a regular telephone. I'll probably just keep the status quo. I'm not one who lives for change. However, if anyone reading this has any experience with broadband phone service or living with a cell phone only, I'd be interested in reading what you have to say about it.

Back to School

Yesterday was the first day of the second semester of the school year. I wish I could say that the school year were half over, but that won't be true until today is over. Anyway, I enjoy the beginning of a semester. It's a fresh start for the students as far as their grade goes. However, for those students who I had first semester, they still have to live with the impression that I have of them. Now I try not to pass judgment on any student and despite what one of my students said the other day, I do not "hate" any of them. Of course as a human being there are students who get on my nerves. This semester I decided to make a change to my grading. Part, a very small part, of their grade will be for participation, which includes bringing their materials to class, especially their textbooks. I don't see what's so hard about that, but yesterday only about half of my students actually brought their books to class. So, what I am doing is giving each student 100 points, this will amount to a small percentage of the total number of points they receive. Each time they don't bring their books, I'll be deducting five points from them. I also decided that if a student is participating in class in a way which is disruptive to others, then they will also lose some points. I had one student yesterday who apparently wanted to test that and I must say that he is already missing a few of those 100 points.

Happy MLK Day

I hope everyone is having a happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Since I have the day off from work, I have been somewhat productive around the house today. I tried out my new Shop-Vac to sweep the concrete floors of my basement. I also cleaned the furnace filter and washed the shower curtain. As I didn't have to work today, I also went out to lunch. I only went to Burger King, but it was still going out, none the less. While I was in the drive through line, I thought about the poor employees who had to work at the drive through windows. With temperatures around 0 degrees, it would not be fun working in those positions. In the years that I worked at a fast food restaurant, I only worked at one with a drive through window in the summer, so I didn't have to deal with such cold weathers. Actually, I did work at such a restaurant during winter break when I was in college on winter, but it wasn't this cold.

Thinking about working in such cold makes me glad about one decision I made while I was in college. During one summer, I considered taking a semester off from school to figure out what exactly I wanted to major in. I spoke about this to the manager of the Hardee's restaurant I worked at during the summer and she talked me out of it. She told me that she had done, or rather had intended to do, the same thing. However, the semester off turned into two semesters, then three, and so on. She never went back to finish her degree.

The manager who I worked for during the school year when I was in college. Told me once that if teaching didn't work out, I would make a good restaurant manager. A couple years ago when teaching didn't seem to be working out too well for me, I even sent in my resume for a management position with a quick service restaurant. While I may have made a good restaurant manager, I don't think this is a career path that I really ever wanted to take. I noticed that the manager who I worked for while I was at UNI left the business as soon as she could. All the time that I worked there, she was going to school to do something else, which I presume she is now doing.

Darth Tater

According to the caption that accompanied this photo on Yahoo!, Hasbro is coming out with a Darth Vader version of Mr. Potato Head next month. Maybe I'll get one for Valentine's Day.

My Nerd Score

I really thought I'd be more of a nerd than Homercles, but the results are in:




If I'm only "lightly nerdy," there must be something wrong with the quiz. There really should have been some questions about Star Wars or Star Trek. I guess one item slightly touched on Star Trek.

While I was at it, I also found my Weird Quotient:




With this score, 62% of the test-takers are more weird than I am.

Things are Looking Up

Things are looking up for my job situation. I emailed my contact at the company with which I interviewed before Christmas to find out where they were at in the hiring process. I got a reply within a few hours indicating that the human resources person and the person who would be my supervisor had been talking about me the last couple of days and that they are going to begin checking into my background and checking my references. I should know more later this week or next week.

Ice Ice Baby

Here's a warning for you. I'm about to bitch about the weather again. Because of freezing rain and ice, school has been cancelled yet again! It's bad enough that this is the fourth time in two weeks that we have had to cancel classes, but to make matters worse, today was supposed to be the first day of semester exams. Yesterday, in anticipation that we may have school cancelled due to the weather, an announcement was made that if there were to be no school today, then all of the semester tests would be taken on Thursday. I asked another teacher who is a department head why we couldn't just take Wednesday's semester tests on Tuesday, the next scheduled day of school after Thursday. Apparently it's because we need grades done by that morning before school to determine athletic eligibility. Now I thought that the primary goal of school was to educate, not to train athletes. A school district that is adjacent to the one for which I work, is moving their tests from today to Tuesday. I don't know why we can't do the same. I guess that sports take precedence over students being able to perform adequately on exams. I don't know how I would have done on my final exams in high school if I had to take all six or seven of them in a single day.

Each day of school that we have missed has to be made up. I guess that this is the first time in three or so years that there have been multiple cancellations of school, so it hasn't been an issue in recent years. However, I am wondering why this school district does not make any of the days we miss for three-day weekends into days that can be used for making up missed days. I'd much rather be back in school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Good Friday, both of which we have off as vacation. This is the first school district that I have worked for that gets Martin Luther King Day off, and in the other school district for which I have worked, Good Friday has only been a vacation day if it was at the same time as spring break. Oh well, I guess that there is little point complaining about this as the school district probably won't change it's mind about these issues, especially the prospect of having school on Martin Luther King's Birthday. Now school won't get out until June 8, making my last day of work for the school year June 9.

Show Tickets

I just finished buying three tickets for a show in Las Vegas. My girlfriend and I are going there on vacation in March, and I decided that I would really like to see a decent show when we are there, so I went ahead and splurged for the good seats. The third ticket, by the way, is for a friend of mine who lives in Vegas. She promises that she'll be able to pay me for it by the time we get there.

We are going to go see Zumanity at the New York, New York Hotel & Casino. Zumanity is a Cirque du Soleil production which is billed as being "a provocative exhibition of human sensuality, arousal and eroticism." Ana, my friend in Vegas, strongly recommended the show. I think that is because she wanted to see it herself. She has seen another Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas, and it was great. What's funny is that last night she mentioned that we should go see this show, then today I read a report by Mike Straka on FOXNews.com in which he says that Zumanity is an "amazing experience." He continues to describe the show by writing, "picture the most beautiful bodies you've ever seen doing the most incredible dances, acrobatics and high-flying stunts you've ever seen." I guess in nine weeks I'll see if the show lives up to the hype. Now I only hope that there isn't a problem with us getting to Las Vegas on time.

Education Issues in Today's News

I found the following news stories that were in some way related to education that I thought I'd share with you all.

First is one about standardized tests from CNN.com. This summer I was working for a company which produces standardized tests. One of the things that we had to look out for was for test items to be fair for all those taking the test. Sometimes when I hear people speaking about biases found on standardized tests, they begin to complain about it as if it isn't something that we should really be that worried about. However may problems with tests are quite valid. The article that I linked to above is about a problem with items on the Maryland School Assessment test. The items have students match words with similar sounds. That doesn't really sound like much of a problem for most students, but it became an issue when deaf students were required to answer the questions. How is someone who can't hear supposed to know if two words have similar sounds? Furthermore, why would they even need to know that information. Now if all students are going to be required to take the same test, the items should be fair for every student.

The second news story that I saw this afternoon is just ridiculous. Apparently, the Buena Regional School District was going to allow Fox to film The Simple Life at a middle school. They were going to have Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie serve as substitute teachers and cafeteria monitors at the middle school. Who in their right mind would think that this was remotely appropriate, especially for her to work with middle school students? Paris Hilton is hardly known for being of high moral character, not that teachers should be held to a higher standard than anyone else, but I can bet that if I were in a well-publicized sex video, I would be relieved of my position. According to the article, of the 374 parents who returned the permission slips for the program, only 34 objected to it. I would have thought that more would have objected. Anyway, the school board decided not to allow the show to take place at their school because the production company needed a commitment right away, and they weren't prepared to do that.

Busy Weekend

I had a pretty busy weekend, which is why I haven't blogged since Thursday. Friday after school I went to Iowa City for another job interview. I had actually interviewed with this company last spring, but I didn't get the job. The job sounds alright, but I don't know if the pay is going to be enough for me to leave my current position. It pays more than my teaching job, but not much more. At least I don't have to worry about that decision unless I am offered the position.

On Saturday I helped out at the wrestling tournament at the school that I used to teach at near Iowa City. I really enjoy helping out there. It's nice to see my former students, although I don't always recognize them right away as this is the third year I have been teaching somewhere other than there. It's especially tough to put a name with a face when it comes to the students I had my last year there when they were in seventh or eighth grade. Some of them look so different now.

Yesterday my girlfriend and I went to see Ocean's Twelve. It wasn't an awful movie, but there were moments when I was wondering if anything was going to happen. It just seemed so slow at some points. I enjoyed it for the most part, but I don't think it's a movie that I'll be adding to my movie collection. It was nowhere as good as Ocean's Eleven.

Oh Great, Another Day Off

As much as I love having a snow day and getting to stay home, I would much rather be at work today, especially as this is the third day that school was cancelled this week and final exams are Wednesday and Thursday of next week. I would have been fine with my schedule for reviewing for the final exam if we had been at school today, but now I'll have to figure something else out. Besides, I'd much rather have the days off in June, when it's nice outside, then in January. Hopefully the weather and road conditions are fine tomorrow afternoon so I can make it to my job interview in Iowa City.

Snow!

For the second time this week, school has been cancelled due to the weather. We have a lot of snow outside. Due to both of these cancellations, the last day of class for my school district is going to be pushed back to Monday, June 6, which makes my last day of work Tuesday, June 7. Hopefully these cancellations don't keep happening because if they do, it will push back even further the date at which I can start a new job, if I should get one. On that note, I have a job interview after work on Friday for a job which would be similar to the one which I interviewed for two weeks ago.

I suppose I should get started on clearing the snow. Unfortunately my snow blower is not working! Damn.

School Delay!

I could have slept in a couple of extra hours if only I had checked out the school delays when my alarm clock went off this morning, but I didn't think to look until after I took my shower and got dressed. It was then that I learned that I have a two hour delay this morning. I guess it is a little foggy, and that causes the roads to be a bit icy at these temperatures. Well now I have some extra time to get work done before school.

A Snow Day Without the Bad Weather

I know some others in Iowa were less fortunate that I was, but the ice completely missed us today in Waterloo. However, in anticipation of the bad weather that never arrived, the Waterloo School District cancelled school today. This kind of worked out well for me. I had been sick with a cold the past couple of days, and I still wasn't feeling all that great this morning. Had I called in sick to work, I would have needed to go to the doctor to get a note, since this was to be the first day back at school after vacation and my school district doesn't trust its employees to only call in sick when they truly are sick, especially at the beginning or end of a vacation. It looks like we'll be getting some bad weather tomorrow night, with four to six inches of snow projected. But who knows, these winter weather systems can change so much from what is predicted. Just look at what we got today. Nothing!

My Dead Pool Picks

As promised, here's the list of people who I entered into the Dead Pool. The number in parentheses is the total number of participants, including myself, who picked that person.

1. Pope John Paul II (88)
2. Dick Clark (36)
3. Walter Cronkite (25)
4. Rosa Parks (24)
5. Dick Cheney (18)
6. James Doohan (16)
7. Michael Moore (14)
8. Queen Elizabeth II (10)
9. Muhammad Ali (8)
10. Andy Dick (4)
11. Ray Bradbury (2)
12. Dennis Rodman (2)
13. Ghazi al-Yawer (2)
14. David Prowse (1)
15. Willard Scott (1)

I have no idea how these picks will do for me. Only time will tell.

Let It Snow

When my girlfriend and I left the Mall of America last night, the weather outside was frightful. A mix of snow and sleet was coming down, making the drive back to my sister's house in Woodbury a bit more difficult. It took longer to get back than it did to get to the mall, but we made it to her house safely. The three of us then had dinner at Don Pablo's, a Mexican restaurant. ¡Su alimento era excelente! Their food was excelent!

We returned to my sister's house where we played a board game that she had bought when she was in London a few weeks ago, The Great Game of Britain. It was quite fun. Once her boyfriend showed up, we also played a game of Simpson's Clue and Trivial Pursuit.

Our plans for today however have changed. Originally we were going to go to my girlfriend's grandmother's house to finish our Christmas celebrations, however with the roads as bad as they were last night, we are going to postpone that. Instead, we are going to go to my aunt and uncle's house in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, for breakfast and to see my uncle from North Carolina before we proceed home.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is feeling well this morning. I probably drank a little too much, but since I wasn't driving anywhere, I didn't see a problem with that. Right now I am at my sister's house in Woodbury, Minnesota, a suburb of Saint Paul. I'm glad that we came up here. It gave me a chance to see, not only my sister, but a cousin of mine and her husband whom I don't see too often. Later today my girlfriend and I are going to visit some other relatives, including my uncle who lives in North Carolina who is here visiting over the holiday weekend. Before that however, we are going to go to the Mall of America.

Chicken On The Stick

I had a wonderful lunch with Homercles yesterday. He even treated. Thanks again H. I'm finding that I don't eat nearly as much as I used to be able to when I go to buffets. Maybe my dieting this summer reduced the amount of food that I am used to eating at any given meal. Or, perhaps it's now that I am older, and make more money than I used to years ago, that I don't feel the need to get the most food that I possibly can for my dining dollar. It's nice to be able to leave a buffet now being full, perhaps a bit too full, but not to the extent that I feel like I am going to be sick.

Dead Pool

After reading Greenman's posting about submitting a list of names for The Dead Pool, I decided to join in as well. I will be sharing with everyone the list of names of 15 celebrities whom I expect to die in 2005. Writing that last sentence really gave me a remorseful feeling, but what the heck, it's all in good fun.

I've Been Sick

I have been sick for the past few days. It all began after going out to dinner on Monday night. At first I thought it was food poisoning, but that probably wouldn't have lasted this long. I had to push back my lunch with a friend until tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be feeling better for that.

I did get an encouraging phone call. While I am waiting to hear back from the interview I had last week, I got a call from another company that does similar work about a job. I interviewed for a job with this company last spring, but I did not get the job. They have another opening now, and they would like to interview me again. It would be really nice to have two job offers to choose between.

Enjoying Vacation

I am really enjoying my vacation. It's giving me a change to catch up on my TV court shows. As I am writing this, I am watching Judge Hatchet. My girlfriend is upstairs with a friend of hers from college who is visiting for a couple of days. She, my girlfriend that is, thinks my interest in court shows is odd, but I really enjoy them. I'd watch a DVD, except Jeopardy! starts in just 15 minutes.

Yesterday we braved the mall and some other stores to do some shopping and to return some gifts. I had to return one of the three copies of the Clue DVD that I received to Best Buy. I now have a credit there of a little over $10. At Target, I returned one of the two copies of Ed Wood that I received. I have a credit of a little over $20 there. I was going to buy the first season of Home Movies on DVD, but they were out. I'll probably check Target in Cedar Rapids when I'm there on Wednesday. The lines for returns were not bad at all. I was expecting them to be a lot worse.

I did buy a few things while we were out. I got a pair of Dockers at JCPenney. I got a couple for Christmas, but I needed one more. I'm getting rid of most of my older pairs of pants since during this summer I went from a size 40 down to a size 36. The 40s are way too big! If I loosen my belt, they drop to the floor. I'll be taking those to Goodwill some time this week. I also bought a few calendars on sale.

Speaking of weight loss, Christmas was not good to me. Last Sunday when I weighed myself, I weighed 210 pounds. Yesterday morning when I weighed in, I weighed 217 pounds. I really should not be going to a buffet with Homercles on Wednesday, but oh it's so good. Besides, it's not like we go there all the time. After Wednesday, I'll have to resume watching what I eat. I'd really like to drop another 10 pounds.

Happy Festivus

Homercles beat me to the punch on this one, but I too would like to wish a happy Festivus to everyone. In the spirit of Festivus, someone put up a sign next to a Nativity scene located on public property in Bartow, Florida, to commemorate Festivus. The town said, that when they approved a Nativity scene on public property, they'd have to allow similar other religious, and non-religious, displays.

Public Education

In a letter in yesterday's Des Moines Register, Edward Moses of Knoxville states is writing about the problem of too many sources of funding for public schools in Iowa, with money coming from the federal government, state government, property taxes, state income tax surcharges, and local option sales taxes, the last two of which only apply to some school districts in the state, not all of them, although he neglects to mention that. Anyway, in part of his rant, he criticizes teachers for wanting to make a decent salary. He writes:

The "greatest generation" was usually taught in one-room schoolhouses, and generally by a high school graduate or even an eighth-grade graduate. How did they accomplish so much with so little? The teachers used to put the students first instead of crying where they rank in salaries around the country. And nowadays it would appear that home-schoolers are outshining the public school students.

Mr. Moses asks how members of the "greatest generation" could accomplish so much when being taught by teachers who were merely high school graduates. I admit that I was not educated at that time, so I have no firsthand experience of what went on in schools then, but at that time, not as much education was necessary to get by in the world. Students in these one-room schoolhouses were not taking classes as advanced as many that students today have the option of taking. Were high school students better educated back in the 1920s than they are today? According to the National Association of School Boards, since 1920, literacy rates, graduation rates, and college attendance rates have all increased greatly.

Next, Mr. Moses implies that today's teachers are complaining about where their pay ranks nationally instead of putting students' education first. Now most teachers who I know personally do but their students first. Many of these teachers are spending some of their own money to make sure they have the supplies that they need to teach. They also work longer hours than required by their contract to ensure that students have every opportunity. One of my coworkers is regularly at school before 7:00 although we don't have to be there until 7:30, she, as well as many others, is there routinely past 3:00, when out contract time is over. Just because public school teachers perform a service that is intended to help people doesn't mean that they have to sit silently when their salaries start to decline in comparison to teachers in other states. Teachers deserve to make a decent living too.

Finally, Mr. Moses ends the paragraph quoted above by stating that home-schoolers appear to be "outshining public school students." I don't know if home schooled students are doing that much better than public school students as a whole. Certainly there is a large part of the home-schooled population that does do better than a great number of their public-schooled counterparts. News reports often show home-schooled students winning spelling bees, geography bees, and other academic competitions. Some of these students spend a significant amount of their time preparing for these competitions. Also, I'd be willing to bet that most of my students could do a lot better if I had the opportunity to work with them in groups of four or fewer instead of teaching 20 to 30 of them at a time.

I was going to just let this letter go without comment, but I am just tired of people unfairly criticizing public school teachers. Now I know that the author of the letter most likely won't see this, I could write a letter to the paper instead, but I'd have to edit it down some as I'm sure it's too long. Besides, my main point in writing this was just to blow off some steam from frequently reading letters in which my profession is criticized.

The Interview

I hope I didn't get my hopes up too high regarding the job I interviewed for today. Overall I think the interview went pretty well. I think I came off well to at least the first three of the people with whom I interviewed, one of them being the person who has the final decision in the matter. I think I did alright with the fourth person who interviewed me, although I could have done a little better. The part of the whole process where I think that I maybe didn't perform up to par would be in providing a work sample. I had one hour to complete a writing assignment for them, and was told that I may not complete it, and that it was alright if I didn't. I didn't quite get done, and I think I could have done better. Maybe that's just my quality of never thinking that I did my best that's coming through. I've felt that way before after completing reports or presentations in my graduate classes, but except for one A- that I received, I've gotten an A in each graduate course that I have taken. Alright, that's out of a total of four classes, but still, that's not too bad. Now I just have to wait, oh, and fill out and mail in the application form. I'll be working on that tomorrow.

That Darn Cat

It looks like my girlfriend and I have a problem with one of the cats. Monday, my girlfriend caught one of the cats pissing on the carpet at the edge of the living room. She had previously had this problem with the cat when she still lived in her apartment. I don't want to get rid of this cat--it's my favorite of the two cats--but we may have to if we can't stop this. She solved the problem before by putting a box for the cat in the area where he was peeing. We don't really want to do that now however. Besides just not wanting a litter box in the living room, if I get the job in Iowa City for which I am interviewing today, I don't think having a litter box in the living room will be all that helpful when it comes to selling the house. Hopefully we can figure out something.

Violent Games Can Be Good

Whoever said that violent video games were bad. From FOXNews.com, here's an article about some armed robbers who were scared away from a house by the video game Grand Theft Auto. Apparently, after they broke into the house, they heard a loud voice saying "This is the police! You're surrounded!" They fled, thinking it was really the police, but instead, the voice came from the video game.

The Christmas Celebration Begins

This weekend, my Christmas gatherings began at my girlfriend's parents' house. I had a good weekend. We had some good food, and I got some decent presents already. Although, I did get two copies of the same DVD, Clue, and I found out from my mother that I'm going to be getting another copy of it this weekend. I guess I'll be taking two of them back. I also got DVDs of Ed Wood, Amadeus, and ALF Season 1. Now I just need to get through one more day of school and a job interview on Wednesday, then it's time for my vacation to begin.

A Long Night

I had a long evening last night at work. The school district I work for requires each of its teachers to work three extra duties outside of the normal school day during the school year. This does not include conferences that are held in the evening as on those days, we don't have to go into work as early, so the total number of hours we work in the building that day are the same as any other day. These extra duties are without any extra pay. This is one area in which our association, or union, as some may refer to it, could negotiate with the school district. It would be nice if I could get a little extra compensation for spending an extra four hours at school for announcing at a wrestling meet. It's not like I was actually doing something that is related to my job, teaching! Any schmo of the street, well maybe not anyone, but most anyone could speak the names of those who are wrestling and name the winners into a microphone. Now I have been told that I am quite good at this. I guess I have an excellent voice for it, and I do try to do it with some flair, but if I had my way, I would not have spent practically my entire day at work. Anyway, I got someone to work the wrestling meet I was assigned to work this Saturday since that's when we are doing Christmas at my girlfriend's parents' house. My other extra work duty isn't until April, when I get to take tickets at a soccer game. That shouldn't as long, especially since they usually let the ticket-taker leave when the game is a little over half over.

The New Computer's Here!

My new computer arrived today! But, before I write about that, let me say that my phone interview went quite well. The interviewer, who I actually had met before, told me that I met all of the qualifications for the job, and my previous experience in test item writing really helped to make me an ideal candidate for the job. Also, the fact that I have taught science, as well as math, helps some as well. I'm sure my interviews next Wednesday will go just as well.

Now to the fun news. As I have already stated, my new computer arrived today! While at work, I checked online and was disappointed that FedEx had stopped by around 2:00, before I got home from work. So, I planned on going to their location in town to pick up my new computer after 5:00, when the note they left indicated it would be back. Just as I was about to leave, the FedEx truck pulled up in the driveway and off came my computer! UPS attempted to deliver the new printer today, but I'll worry about getting that tomorrow. Anyway, I'd write more now, but I need to get back to installing software and transferring my documents to my new computer.

More Interviewing

Tomorrow my job interview continues. I am going to have another phone interview with the test writing company with which I am seeking a job. This time I will be speaking with someone involved in the position that I would be working in. The remainder of my interview is going to be at their facility next Wednesday. I think I will feel fairly comfortable at that interview as I have worked with, or at least met, most of the people with whom I'll be interviewing then. I hate to say it, but I believe that I may be setting myself up for a big disappointment by getting my hopes up so high about this job. At least if I don't get the job, I still have my teaching job. For the most part it's not all that bad. It would be better though if I didn't have to teach four sections of Algebra 1. I wouldn't mind having two sections of that and maybe two sections of Algebra 2, or possibly Pre-Calculus. Those classes, along with the AP Calculus and Computer Programming that I currently teach, would make for a pretty good schedule.

Tomorrow is also the day that my new computer is supposed to arrive. According to the tracking information online, the three boxes containing the CPU, the monitor, and the speakers, should all arrive by 4:30 tomorrow. As I'll be at work with my phone interview until around 3:30, I'll probably end up having to pick it up at FedEx. The printer, which I don't really need, but it was free so I took it anyway, was shipped today. I'll figure out something to do with it. I'll either give it to my parents, whose ink jet printer isn't working well, or I'll give it to a friend of mine who could use a printer.

Movie Weekend

My girlfriend and I saw three movies this weekend. Last night we went to a sneak preview of Spanglish, the new Adam Sandler movie, which was followed by Christmas with the Kranks. Spanglish was alright, not necessarily a movie I would buy, but it was good, although it was a bit long and it kind of dragged on at points. Christmas with the Kranks was funny. Once again, I don't think it's a movie I'll rush out to buy when it comes out on DVD, but it was good. This afternoon, we rented Badder Santa, the unrated version of Bad Santa. It was quite funny. I am wondering what was in it that was not in the R rated version. There were quite a few uses of the F word, so maybe that was reduced.

No Big Surprise Here

I just took an quiz to determine what my dominant intelligence is and the result was no surprise.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

How Libra Am I?

Thanks to Matt, I found a quiz to see how much I match my zodiac sign. It looks like I'm a bit out of balance with my fellow Libras.

You are 53% Libra

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

Dude, I'm Getting a Dell

My computer problem is solved, or at least it will be within a week or so when my new computer arrives. I've been looking at getting a new computer for a while now. My old computer had been acting up quite a bit. And quite frankly, I was looking for an excuse to buy a new computer. The problem with ordering one online is the wait for it to arrive. Plus, I have to be home when it comes to sign for it, or else I'll have to go pick it up from UPS. Now I'll have to figure out what to do with the free printer that they are including. I meant to select "no printer," but I forgot to do so. Well, it's free, and so is the shipping, so at least it isn't costing me anything.

My Computer's Dead

I think it is anyway. Earlier this week, I started up my computer when I got home from work and it started making a strange whirring sound. It did that a couple of times, so I opened up the machine and blew out the dust using a can of compressed air. After that, it sounded just fine, however, the computer suggested that I start it up in safe mode. When it did that, it ran some diagnostic which said that I'd have to reinstall Windows. Well, instead I shut it down and restarted it without reinstalling Windows, and it seemed to work. Not being a complete fool, I decided that I had better back up all of the files on the computer that would be impossible to replace. I spoke with my girlfriend's brother, who works with computers for his job, about what my computer was doing. He said that it could possibly be the hard drive going out, especially since the machine is almost four years old.

Anyway, it worked fine the next day, but yesterday morning when I went to start up the computer, it told me that there was a registry/configuration error and that I would need to run SCANREG to correct it. Well, safe mode of Windows Me wouldn't start up, and when I put in the emergency recovery CD, it didn't run. It started running the CD, but the restore program did not run. I think I may try a few more things before I give up entirely, although I would really like to get a new computer. The only thing is that I really don't want any extra debt showing up on my credit report, since I may be looking at buying a new house in the next few months.

House Hunting

I know it's a little too early to start looking for a new house in the Cedar Rapids/Iowa City area, as only today did I hear from the company with which I had a phone interview that they wanted to see me for an interview in person. However, last night I was looking at houses on Realtor.com just to see what is out there, and what should appear but the house in which I lived for almost the first 17 years of my life until my family moved to another house in the same city. While I have considered the possibility of moving back into the house when I've seen it up for sale in the past, I don't think I'd want to live there. The neighborhood's nice and all, but it would be a little strange living there again. Besides, the house is a little small; it's about a hundred square feet smaller than my current house. Also, there is only one bathroom, and I'd like to have at least one and a half. Although I wouldn't want to buy the place, it would be fun to take a look inside if there should be an open house there.

Brrr

At just 43 degrees, it was a little cold outside, but I decided to go for a bike ride anyway. This was the first time I was out on my bike since August 23. It was a pretty good ride, although a bit of the trail I rode on was pretty rough. As I did earlier, and copying Homercles, I am including the data from my bike ride here:

December 4
Distance: 6.81 mi
Time: 0:31:08
Average Speed: 12.9 mi/h
Maximum Speed: 21.5 mi/h

Totals for 2004
Distance: 829.78 mi
Time: 62:02:26

Strange Dream

I had a somewhat bizarre dream last night. It wasn't so much that the dream itself was strange, but it took place somewhere that I haven't dreamt about for quite some time. I was dreaming that I was working at the drive-thru window at the Hardee's restaurant that I used to work at in Cedar Rapids. The funny thing is that I haven't worked at that Hardee's restaurant since the summer of 1995. I had worked at that particular location during the summers of 1990 through 1995. While I was in college, I worked as a shift leader of the Hardee's located in the Maucker Union on the University of Northern Iowa campus. I worked there from 1992 through 1997, when I left campus to student teach. I then worked there during the summers of 1998 and 1999 when I was between teaching jobs and staying at my parents' house for the summer.

When I worked at Hardee's I occasionally had nightmares about work. Usually it was about a continuous onslaught of customers. They just kept coming and wouldn't stop! Even after closing the restaurant, they just kept coming in! Since I've began teaching, I've had scary dreams about students who just wouldn't leave at the end of the school day. I wanted to go home, but they just wouldn't leave! Anyway, this dream, which included the manager I worked with in Cedar Rapids until 1994 when she moved to Hawaii and a few of my current students who were, in the dream, fellow employees, simply involved me taking orders at the drive-thru and dealing with a couple of complaining customers. I wonder if this dream has any deep meaning to it. Oh by the way, the Hardee's I was working at in the dream had the old menu, not the new Thickburgers.

Back to Working Out

I've started working out again on the Bowflex. I had intended to start working out a month or so ago, but I got really busy the rest of the week, and I didn't continue. Right now I am planning on using the Bowflex every other day. I hope to get some type of aerobic exercise on the alternate days. Tomorrow I am hoping to get out on my bike. I haven't ridden it since August, I think. It should be warm enough. I think the temperatures are supposed to be in the 40s.

An Excellent Interview

This afternoon I had a telephone interview with the company I worked for this past summer in Iowa City. I think that the interview went quite well. The interviewer said that she would like to meet me for an in-person interview some time. She has to set it up however with the person in charge of the department for which I would be working. I am really excited about this career possibility. If you have read my blog, you would know that I have been frustrated with my current career quite a bit recently. I really think that a major change like this may be just what I need. Well, I don't have the job yet, but that won't stop me from being optimistic, and it hasn't stopped me from starting to look at houses for sale in the Iowa City and Cedar Rapids areas.