Gas, Meet the Teacher, Baseball, New Phone

I had meant to write about this last time, but I forgot. I guess it gave me more time to solidify my conclusion. The week of August 10, gas here was at $3.99 all week. Well, we were out and about all week and as it typically goes, the gas gauge eventually sat just above the “E”. We had Sarah’s wedding in South Holland on Saturday, so that morning, we went to fill up, only to find that gas was now $4.09! We just assumed that the oil price had risen again, and we were on the wrong end of the totem pole. Well, the weekend came and went, and when Monday morning showed up, the gas price stood at…$3.93. We just had to laugh at our unfortunate fill-up, but honestly I think its because all the people here leave on the weekend, and they fill up before they go, so gas prices go up. So…this week we filled up for the $3.93 price on Thursday night only to see it spike at $3.99 this weekend. So…for ALL of you people who are planning on visiting, don’t fill up here on the weekend, unless you want to get a taste of big-city $4.00+ gas.

This past Friday afternoon was a time for all the students and parents to come in and meet the teachers, find their lockers, and get their schedules if they wished. I think we may have had around half of the 8^th graders stop in, so around 45-50. I saw way too many new faces, new names, and I might have remembered a few of them. There were definitely some odd connections, which I should have seen coming, even though the Dutch/Reformed background now only accounts for about 40% of the school population. One woman came up and asked if I knew Van Schepen’s from Washington, which I don’t, but now know that there’s a pastor that preached there for awhile. I told her that my dad was from NW Iowa, and she responded by saying she was from Ireton and that she remembered my dad driving the bus to school “back in the day.” (direct quote dad, sorry) Another (and possibly the craziest connection I have ever made) knew the Van Schepen name and asked who my dad was, and my grandparents, grandma’s maiden name, and my great-grandparents names. Well, we sat down and pieced together what we both knew of the family tree and she discovered that my Grandma Alice and her mother Cora were cousins…I think that’s how it went. My great-grandma Maria and her grandpa ________ were brother and sister. Honestly, they probably went to church together in the early 1700’s back in the Netherlands…if they could’ve played cards back then, I’m sure they played Dutch bingo too.

Well, school starts Monday, whether I’m ready or not. The room is pretty much done, I think my planning is done, I just need to get my final class list (which still wasn’t finalized Friday afternoon with all the adds and drops) and I need to run off some sheets for my introduction to the class.

Five-Tool Performer is competing for the last day today barring a 150-point outing. With Rollins struggling for the past few weeks, and Kinsler on the DL, I just ran out of bench players to adequately fill in. The $10k will have to wait for next year…

Twins started out 2-0 on the road trip only to drop a should/could win against the Angels on Saturday. I saw Buscher had two huge errors that cost them, and Gomez misplayed one in center that Gardy based on lack of experience. It does seem like we’ve avoided that lately…misplays due to inexperience. But 74 wins is about what I had hoped for this year based on the offseason moves, so to be there with 5 weeks left and to have a ½ game lead in the division is amazing. Just so more of those “inexperience” plays don’t start showing up.

Last note…I just got a new cell phone/number with Verizon, so all of you Alltel people can’t talk to me free whenever anymore, which might mean I have to go back to the nights & weekends calling schedule. New number is 630-470-3293…but I’ll send out an email or Facebook message soon.

Until next time…