Substitute Teacher

Well, I realize I haven't written in awhile, so I figured this might be an interesting day to write about. Judy was gone all day today, so I had all of her classes by myself...no one else all day. It was pretty cool... In 7th grade I had them do a internet scavenger hunt where I took about 15 questions from 3 different websites and wrote them out in a Word document. Then (Mac people might understand this...) I used Remote Desktop to send it to all of their computers from my Administrative computer. Then they all opened it up, did the work, saved it, and I grabbed it back from them and stuck it into a file so I could look at it later. I was thinking green. Anyways, while they did this, I was able to observe all the computers from mine. So I had a window open that had all 15 of their screens on it, so if anyone decided they were sick of it and wanted to play games, I could immediately click "chat" and I would say "what are you doing?" and they got back to work. But it sure was funny so send it and watch their face when I was staring right at them, knowing what they were doing. Anyways, in 8th grade I made a Jeopardy game for them to review with on Powerpoint...complete with sound. It was pretty cool, I think they enjoyed it. The highlight of the day had to be the Scrapbooking Explorer class that Judy teaches that I took for the day. Wow, they had no idea I was so creative... I "wowed" them....not really. Well, I've got about 30 planet posters to correct sometime this weekend, so I figure I better get started soon.

FYI...I realize its still bitter cold out in the Midwest, and about 3/4 of the town of Edgerton has the flu...but maybe you should consider jumping a ride with Linds in a week and heading out here...its supposed to be mid-upper 50's this weekend.

Better yet...just let her come by herself.

Have a great weekend everyone...

Counting down to halfway...

Well, its almost half over already...just another week and a half until my time at Highlands Ranch is done. It's to bad too, I finally learned the names of all the 7th and 8th graders, and a number of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th graders. It's so much easier to learn names when you have papers to put the face to. In P.E., you just learn the names of the ones that get in trouble because those are really the only ones you have to worry about. That and I only see them twice a week for about 30 min.

I absolutely love the Middle School science. I'm doing both vertebrates and the solar system right now. The tough part is finding a middle ground between having them learn the facts and having them think beyond the book, which is really hard. I hate giving them notes, so I'm doing some projects that hopefully make it more hands on and more practical. So far in 8th grade we've done planet Powerpoint presentations and we're currently working on creating a poster that has the planets on it in proportion to each other.

Well, Linds sent me one of the engagement pictures that we're using for the invitations. I'm going to hang it up by my desk in the room so that all those Middle School girls know what's up. I hate breaking hearts like that...;)

Today was the season opener for the NW baseball team. Some tough games to start the season, a few ranked teams, I hope the guys can hold tough if the season starts out a little rough. The Bellevue game on March 24 should be a good one if anyone is willing to brave the cold. It'll be a rematch of last year's Super Regional Matchup.

Santanaaaaaaa

Chuck Knoblauch for Brian Buchanan, Christian Guzman, Eric Milton, and Danny Mota.

Frank Viola for Kevin Tapani, Rick Aguilera, and David West.

A.J. for Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser, and Franciso Liriano.

Cy-tana for Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Deolis Guerra, and Kevin Mulvey???

The Twins front office has made so many trades that didn't seem right when they happened, but have turned out fantastic. So far what has Bill Smith done?

1) Let Hunter leave
2) Traded away our starting SS and 2004 MLB pitching prospect of the year Matt Garza
3) Signed veteran players for "bargains"--Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, Craig Monroe (Remember Tony Bautista, Bret Boone, Phil Nevin, Reuben Sierra, Sidney Ponson, Ramon Ortiz...the list goes on)
4) Now he's traded away (apparently) a 2-time Cy-Young winner for a AAA corner OF (which we have plenty of), a AAA pitcher, AA pitcher, and A pitcher.

Not bad for the first four months on the job...

Considering we still need a 5th starter, espeically now that Santana's gone...we still need a CF...and we still need a lead-off hitter because apparently we're going to wait until Alexi Castilla is 83 years old before we let him take over at 2nd base.

Oh, but since I don't know the whole story as just a normal fan...it'll probably be OK. I'm sure we'll be competing with the Tigers and Indians...and don't worry, we can't get any worse than the Royals...can we?

Alright, it was a whole lot more fun to write about all that than the day of trying to control 1st graders in P.E., avoiding two crashes on the way home from school, and trying to track down missing assignments.

Maybe I should become an assistant GM for the Twins...its so easy to spend someone else's money...

Elk Hunting

It made it up to 66 today, officially. It was awesome, but we're going back down again I guess to the 30's, which is still fine for January, and it might snow tomorrow.

I got to go elk hunting today with Mark DeNooy and a couple other guys. It was a ton of fun, he dropped one after less than a half hour out in an 11,000 acre ranch. It was literally just 15 min south of the school, which is still in the city, so it was really cool how fast the scenery changed. We saw a herd of over 50 file by less than 100 yards from us. I was watching through the binoculars, and it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. These elk, I guess a few hundred of them, are totally wild and have made their home on this ranch. Later in the day we saw 6 mule deer buck standing and staring back at us from about 50 yards, it was amazing, and they were huge--8 to 10 pointers. After I got back I was exhausted, the air is so much thinner here, and after walking those hills I was spent.

Went to the De Nooy's house tonight too for pizza, it was a good time and I must not have been too weird because they're letting me come back to watch the Super Bowl next week.

Well, all of this hunting and pizza left me short on time to plan lessons for tomorrow, so long!

52 and climbing...

Yes, that's right, its 52 degrees here right now, and its projected to be around 60 tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not quite sure how to make the most of it. I did spend some of the afternoon washing the Beretta, because it was a tad black and white from all the dirt and crud on the roads. I went to one of those "put quarters in and use the pressure washer" car wash places. But since it was 50 degrees out, the rest of Denver had the same idea, so the line was quite long. Since I didn't have much else to do, I just sat there and listened to the radio....because you all want to know:) I won't lie...I'd never been to one of those before...and not because I never wash my car, I just always did it in the driveway with the hose and nozzle, so if you watched me, I didn't look like I knew what I was doing. I don't like doing it that way at all, since you get all of 15 sec/quarter, so I spent like 8.75 washing my car between soap and pressure washing it 80 times to get all the dirt off. I think it would've been cheaper and easier to do the automatic one.

Well, that wasn't the only exciting thing I did today. I got to have the privilege of watching The Rivalry game between Calvin & Hope. The baseball coach at school went to Calvin and invited me to come, so I show up at this sports bar in Littleton, and walk into a room where there's already over 100 people there watching on about 8 big-screen TV's. Apparently apart from actually being at the game, this is the largest crowd watching it. It was on satellite feed on CSTV, and I guess there's people gathering together to watch all over the country. The game was great, except Hope ended up winning by 3, 79-76. I think if I'm ever living in the area, it would be a ton of fun to go and watch in person.

Well, I'm halfway done teaching at Highlands Ranch. 14 days done and 14 more to go before moving on to the high school. It's getting to the point that I wish I could stay here the whole time, the teachers are great and the middle schoolers are a ton of fun.

Weekend

Went to the Nuggets-T'Wolves game this weekend. I hadn't ever been to a NBA game before, so it was pretty cool. We were sitting in the 3rd deck, on the end, so they weren't the most spectacular seats, but it was fun anyways. The Wolves started out up 8, but it was tie at the half. We were down like 12 or so in the 3rd quarter, but came back because Carmelo had the flue or something. But, didn't matter much, AI took the game over, scored 35 points. He's quite somethin'. Somehow Antonie Walker came off the bench and almost won the game. I honestly didn't think he was going to make it up and down the court more than 3 or 4 times.

Anyways, no school today because of MLK day, which it a pretty big deal here in Denver. A parade, a march, the works. Good thing it was all of 8 degrees for a high today. I got a bunch of stuff done, lesson plans for P.E., filling out applications for schools, watched a movie...the normal day.

No Big Deal

So you can tell you're from a small town when...
...you tell kids that you didn't get a ride to elementary school, you had to walk the whole way, halfway across town...the whole 3 blocks
...you lock your keys in your car because you're used to leaving them in the ignition and unlocked
...you find out that a school psychologist is actually a profession, and kids need one because apparently a 12-year-old struggles with anxiety
...the kids complain about a basketball game on the other side of the city, because it is the longest road trip of the basketball season

...and...

...famous people are a big deal because you don't know any personally

Well, I told you about seeing Mike Timlin, but today there was a little bit more of a shock. So we had "Tailgating with Dads" for lunch where all the kids dads could come in and have chili and root beer floats for lunch. Well, towards the end of the day, the English teacher was talking about the irony of having two particular kids in the room at the same time talking about great memories. I was a little confused, so she asked me if I knew Timlin's kid, which I did, and then she asked me if I found out who this other kid's dad was. I didn't have a clue, but she told me he was Vinny Castilla's kid. Here I had been teaching him in science and P.E. for two weeks and hadn't had a clue. So anyways, back to the dads being in school today. I guess they were both here, having lunch in the cafeteria. Good thing I didn't know and was in the teacher's lounge eating when they were in the room right next to me...I might have flipped out...a little.

But yeah, I was just thinking how its no big deal for the people that live here. I guess if you see famous people all the time, its not as big of a deal. Anyways, I just thought that was an interesting story/thought.

It finally snowed again today, it was nice, about an inch or so at school, but nothing here at the house. No school on Monday because of MLK Day, so a longer weekend to make lesson plans, grade papers, write up reports. All just wonderfully fun stuff!!!!!

I might go on an adventure and find a Wendy's to get a Frosty...