For November through mid January, I have the pleasure of receiving a steady supply of drug-like books for my enjoyment. Granted, some of them are awful, but almost nothing is as fun for me as seeing a 10 book stack of new books (that are probably pretty good) that is REPLENISHED every week. I am so glad for the day I told a friend of mine that I would LOVE to read for the Beehive Book Award long list. It is not an honor or anything; you just need to know someone on the committee to get the little voting slips.
So, as this time of year closes down, I am left to wonder what in the world can I do to fill my time?!?
Hmm...there is always home improvement projects :D
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Money Tree
I walked into the office today to sort some bills.
Lo and behold, what do I find?
Our money tree is dead.
Now, I am not a feng shui fanatic; I just like the tropical symmetrical look of this type of plant....
I am just trying to decide if I should treat it as an omen that we are about to be really poor (Brian in school, one income) or an omen that I need more practice taking care of things like plants (our poor hypothetical future kids).
On a related note: Shortly after, we put about $1300 into our car in repairs.
Lo and behold, what do I find?
Our money tree is dead.
Now, I am not a feng shui fanatic; I just like the tropical symmetrical look of this type of plant....
I am just trying to decide if I should treat it as an omen that we are about to be really poor (Brian in school, one income) or an omen that I need more practice taking care of things like plants (our poor hypothetical future kids).
On a related note: Shortly after, we put about $1300 into our car in repairs.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Oh, the power!
Someone a few years ago got the bright idea that I would be the perfect choice to run our school's new summer school program. Perhaps my scary perfectionism was just to obvious...why not give the organizational freak the job? :)
Summer school has its bright sides and "just don't kill the kids" sides.
But, oh, the power!
In my last meeting, the idea that I and a counselor came up with was approved and will revolutionize the way we enroll for summer school. No more will I be forced to make endless calls to parents to remind them that their slacker kids won't "graduate" and they need to come register. Now, we just have a meeting in January with the student and parent, tell them they need summer school, and sign them up. (They could conceivably make up the credits before June; if they do, they will be refunded.)
Let the joy and celebration ring forth!
Of course, this does mean that I don't get my "quality time" with students for 2 more weeks.
I'll live.
Summer school has its bright sides and "just don't kill the kids" sides.
But, oh, the power!
In my last meeting, the idea that I and a counselor came up with was approved and will revolutionize the way we enroll for summer school. No more will I be forced to make endless calls to parents to remind them that their slacker kids won't "graduate" and they need to come register. Now, we just have a meeting in January with the student and parent, tell them they need summer school, and sign them up. (They could conceivably make up the credits before June; if they do, they will be refunded.)
Let the joy and celebration ring forth!
Of course, this does mean that I don't get my "quality time" with students for 2 more weeks.
I'll live.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Music Monday
My older sister loves to listen to the website Pandora. If you've never heard of it, it's a free website that plays music. You sign up, you tell it what bands and songs you like, and it finds more bands and songs that are similar that you might also enjoy. You rate the songs as you go so it gets better and better at finding your style.
While she was listening to songs similar to the band Travis, she was introduced to the band Elbow. This band has even stranger videos than any band I am currently listening to. Here are two: One Day Like This and The Bones of You.
While she was listening to songs similar to the band Travis, she was introduced to the band Elbow. This band has even stranger videos than any band I am currently listening to. Here are two: One Day Like This and The Bones of You.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Joseph Smiths in my Math Class.
So, School started yesterday and I have now attended ALL of my classes once. This is a larger feat than you might think.
If you remember from last weeks posts, our car is having issues. We had it in the shop all day on Monday, and All day on Tuesday. We are nearly at 100K miles, so we decided to have it looked over. This, by definition, is different from having your car over looked. We fixed an oil leak, a faulty alternator, and a bad thermostat. Then we put the car BACK in the shop yesterday because it was STILL overheating. They just called to let me know that the thermostat they put in was bad, and the new one seems to be going just great. I hope they're right this time.
Anyway, my classes. My first class is my Intro to Digital Media. The course description can be summed up as the portfolio I made three months ago, with sound. As long as they don't think that I ripped the whole project off of someone else on account of it being well beyond what this class will teach, I'm thinking easy A. I'm taking it as DGM 1110 - Intro to That ONE Program UVU Uses That I'm Not Already Familiar With.
Then I have English. This is in the Sparks Automotive Building. Luckily it's not in the one room they also store spare car parts in, so it only smells mildly like the same place my car has been for most of the week to date.
After that I have Health. This is in lieu of a gym class that would require me to use my knees and ankles.
Today I had my first Math class, MATH0990. This one has me nervous, I admit. I opened the book in the first couple of minutes of class, and panicked because I had never seen such an amalgamation of numbers and symbols before in my life as the one I was suddenly confronted with. I began to wonder if I needed MATH950 instead. Then I realized that I was in the introduction and they were talking about something else. Then we got into chapter one and started defining things like; sum, difference, product and quotient. I felt on more familiar ground here. Then she had us go up to the white boards, divide into groups, and in those groups do the chapter one test. I got lost all over again. Still feeling overwhelmed. I'm going to have to go through the whole first chapter sentence by sentence just to jog the last couple of math neurons I have left.
Oh yeah. So the guy who played the 14 year old Joseph Smith in one of the recent church movies is in my math class. I can't remember if it's the one on DVD titled The Restoration or if it's the one at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Theater. For that matter, it's been long enough since seeing the latter that it might be both. His hair color is different, but one of the girls in the class recognized him and called him on it after class. It was cool, he said he really enjoyed the experience. I don't envy him if he's taking any institute classes. "Hey, you should know the answer to this one, your Joseph Smith and all that." I bet he gets that a lot.
If you remember from last weeks posts, our car is having issues. We had it in the shop all day on Monday, and All day on Tuesday. We are nearly at 100K miles, so we decided to have it looked over. This, by definition, is different from having your car over looked. We fixed an oil leak, a faulty alternator, and a bad thermostat. Then we put the car BACK in the shop yesterday because it was STILL overheating. They just called to let me know that the thermostat they put in was bad, and the new one seems to be going just great. I hope they're right this time.
Anyway, my classes. My first class is my Intro to Digital Media. The course description can be summed up as the portfolio I made three months ago, with sound. As long as they don't think that I ripped the whole project off of someone else on account of it being well beyond what this class will teach, I'm thinking easy A. I'm taking it as DGM 1110 - Intro to That ONE Program UVU Uses That I'm Not Already Familiar With.
Then I have English. This is in the Sparks Automotive Building. Luckily it's not in the one room they also store spare car parts in, so it only smells mildly like the same place my car has been for most of the week to date.
After that I have Health. This is in lieu of a gym class that would require me to use my knees and ankles.
Today I had my first Math class, MATH0990. This one has me nervous, I admit. I opened the book in the first couple of minutes of class, and panicked because I had never seen such an amalgamation of numbers and symbols before in my life as the one I was suddenly confronted with. I began to wonder if I needed MATH950 instead. Then I realized that I was in the introduction and they were talking about something else. Then we got into chapter one and started defining things like; sum, difference, product and quotient. I felt on more familiar ground here. Then she had us go up to the white boards, divide into groups, and in those groups do the chapter one test. I got lost all over again. Still feeling overwhelmed. I'm going to have to go through the whole first chapter sentence by sentence just to jog the last couple of math neurons I have left.
Oh yeah. So the guy who played the 14 year old Joseph Smith in one of the recent church movies is in my math class. I can't remember if it's the one on DVD titled The Restoration or if it's the one at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building Theater. For that matter, it's been long enough since seeing the latter that it might be both. His hair color is different, but one of the girls in the class recognized him and called him on it after class. It was cool, he said he really enjoyed the experience. I don't envy him if he's taking any institute classes. "Hey, you should know the answer to this one, your Joseph Smith and all that." I bet he gets that a lot.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Music Monday
Thursday, January 1, 2009
I'll be home for New Years? - Part 2
Needless to say, we didn't make it to Idaho Falls for those night pictures.
So after a night of lousy sleeplessness, we greeted the new day with a new tire from the store across the street from our hotel. Yeah, a whole new tire. The car was riding on the donut rim, and we no longer had a jack, so they were nice enough to bring it to us to put it on. This allowed us to drive across the street to get the OTHER front tire replaced. Since the car is a 2000, it requires both front tires to have relatively even wear in order for certain steering and braking functions to work properly. So we spent our entire trip budget in one location.
Day two, we decided would consist of traveling to Twin Falls for day shots, then Boise for a similar run as the day before: Day pictures, dinner, night pictures, then double back to Twin Falls for night shots. To this plan we added a drive back to Idaho Falls for those elusive night shots. We would then spend the night in Idaho Falls and head home in the morning.
So just after noon we reached Twin Falls. We liked it. It's a nice little temple, but as you will see in just a moment, It's much more impressive at night.
Then we tripped off to Boise for our pictures there. We made it in time for "daylight". (Every time I go to Boise in the day it's overcast). Then we got some incredible sunset pictures.
This is when things AGAIN began to be problematic. When we hit the freeway, the heat gauge suddenly started climbing. It spiked into the read zone in a matter of seconds. When we got back off the freeway and into stop and go traffic the needle came back down to three quarters. Getting on the freeway again it spiked. As we drove around looking for someplace that might actually be open (we find an auto parts store that gave us directions to somewhere else) the needle continued to bounce up and down, with little or no relation to speed or engine rpms. We were able to find a Sears Auto Center that was still open at 7 o'clock.
They could not find a problem and decided that the thermostat was the cheapest place to begin. Unfortunately, it was determined that the part would not be in that night, and that no one would have the skill level to do it the following day. So to get it replaced would have required us to go somewhere else the following morning.
The tech suggested we risk it. He felt confident that a spray bottle with water across the radiator every time it got to hot should keep it under control. At that point, I'd had enough. We risked it.
With a rather fervant prayer, we headed to the freeway. The stop and go traffic that led past the temple to the freeway actually brought some predictable behavior to the car. For the first time that night, we found moving through the cold night air above 30 mph brought the guage down, idling pushed it slowley up. the fans, we could hear would kick on at the halfway mark, and it would cool back down. This was still disconcerting, since in five years I've never seen the guage above a third.
We found that as long as we stayed at speeds slightly in excess of the legal limit, and I do mean slightly, the gauge stayed just under half. as soon as we got under that speed, the needle went up again.
We made it to Twin Falls. It was 10 o'clock. We had planned on 8. We had to stop for gas, so I decided to stop for pictures.
As I said. Much more striking at night.
It was decided that risking daytime travel would be a bad idea. the colder it got, the better behaved the engine was. Plans changed again. We headed home. We drove all night, or at least it felt that way. We got home at 2 am. As soon as we stopped, the engine heat spiked again.
We are going to be using Paige's car for a while. The thermostat on this engine apparently requires removal of a good chunk of the engine itself.
And I still have no night pictures of Idaho Falls.
So after a night of lousy sleeplessness, we greeted the new day with a new tire from the store across the street from our hotel. Yeah, a whole new tire. The car was riding on the donut rim, and we no longer had a jack, so they were nice enough to bring it to us to put it on. This allowed us to drive across the street to get the OTHER front tire replaced. Since the car is a 2000, it requires both front tires to have relatively even wear in order for certain steering and braking functions to work properly. So we spent our entire trip budget in one location.
Day two, we decided would consist of traveling to Twin Falls for day shots, then Boise for a similar run as the day before: Day pictures, dinner, night pictures, then double back to Twin Falls for night shots. To this plan we added a drive back to Idaho Falls for those elusive night shots. We would then spend the night in Idaho Falls and head home in the morning.
So just after noon we reached Twin Falls. We liked it. It's a nice little temple, but as you will see in just a moment, It's much more impressive at night.
Then we tripped off to Boise for our pictures there. We made it in time for "daylight". (Every time I go to Boise in the day it's overcast). Then we got some incredible sunset pictures.
They could not find a problem and decided that the thermostat was the cheapest place to begin. Unfortunately, it was determined that the part would not be in that night, and that no one would have the skill level to do it the following day. So to get it replaced would have required us to go somewhere else the following morning.
The tech suggested we risk it. He felt confident that a spray bottle with water across the radiator every time it got to hot should keep it under control. At that point, I'd had enough. We risked it.
With a rather fervant prayer, we headed to the freeway. The stop and go traffic that led past the temple to the freeway actually brought some predictable behavior to the car. For the first time that night, we found moving through the cold night air above 30 mph brought the guage down, idling pushed it slowley up. the fans, we could hear would kick on at the halfway mark, and it would cool back down. This was still disconcerting, since in five years I've never seen the guage above a third.
We found that as long as we stayed at speeds slightly in excess of the legal limit, and I do mean slightly, the gauge stayed just under half. as soon as we got under that speed, the needle went up again.
We made it to Twin Falls. It was 10 o'clock. We had planned on 8. We had to stop for gas, so I decided to stop for pictures.
As I said. Much more striking at night.
It was decided that risking daytime travel would be a bad idea. the colder it got, the better behaved the engine was. Plans changed again. We headed home. We drove all night, or at least it felt that way. We got home at 2 am. As soon as we stopped, the engine heat spiked again.
We are going to be using Paige's car for a while. The thermostat on this engine apparently requires removal of a good chunk of the engine itself.
And I still have no night pictures of Idaho Falls.
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