I Skating

Today we took the kids ice skating at the Kent State Ice Arena. It was really fun, with flashbacks from college and when we used to skate at the Goggin. I hear that they're building a new ice arena at Miami ... it'll probably be awesome.

Anyways, we had a lot of fun. It was crazy trying to help the kids skate, because we basically had to lean over and hold them up while their feet barely touched the ground. But by the end, Grace and Jakob (the oldest) were standing on their own and even moving a few steps (before they fell). I only fell once ... but it was a nice, graceful fall. As graceful as falling on ice skates can be. :)

Action, Ohio

Well, I'm back in Akron again. It's been awesome! Amber decided to come back for the festivities, so I had a companion for the car ride up. And it was great ... a roving, entertaining conversation that lasted way through the few detours (almost to Cleveland?) and adventures on the way up here. She'll be staying at Sarah Sears' apartment this week.

It was also great to go back to Vesper Lake (the church where I grew up) this morning. That place is growing by leaps and bounds ... we've had a paid pastor (Steve Andrews) for the first time ever this year and he's awesome. The sermon was thought-provoking ... talking about Jesus' arrest in the garden and subsequent revelation of His deity. I may post something about this later on, because it really was powerful and profound.

But seeing the people at Vesper was awesome too. I saw Steve Kovacevic for the first time in 5 years ... and I found out that he's married with two kids (surprise!). And I also saw Jake Kroslak for the first time since he was married about a year ago. I found out that Jimmy Hrubik just got engaged this week too. Everybody's getting married ... what is this world coming to? I guess I'd better get a wife too.

I've gotta go ... I need to start looking.

Bummer.

I just ran into my first mac OS snag in a long time.

Samsung makes a wireless web connection kit that allows my cellphone to act as a wireless modem for a laptop. It would be so awesome for me, to have a wireless internet connection from my cabin all summer on my laptop (and to have it online while I'm travelling as well). It's only $30 for the kit, but unfortunately the accompanying software is only written for peecee. Bummer. That would've been nice.

At least I was able to switch plans and save $10 per month (with 50 less anytime minutes, but that's not very significant). Now I have a new 1 year contract, but in the long run it'll save me more money than if I ended up cancelling my service next schoolyear (for whatever reason). Oh, and one other drawback ... now my night & weekend minutes start at 9pm instead of 8pm ... a bummer, but it's worth $120/year.

Sprint gets a good game from me. :)

Weird Headlines

Book on Men Caring for Selves Is Blank
California Town Sells for $1.78 Million on eBay
Wal-Mart Yanks Pregnant Barbie Pal from Shelves
Canadian 'Elf' Answers Kids' Reindeer Queries

Even Hobbits Love iMacs

Second-hand Conversations

I honestly don't mind cell phones. I think it's nice that people have the ability to conveniently get and give information no matter where they are. But with normal cell phones, I don't have to hear the conversation. I can just see that someone is talking to another person and tune it out.

Thanks to Nextel Direct Connect, I now have a new pet peeve. With those cell phones that double as two-way radios, every innocious bystander is forced to listen to complete inane conversations. It's awful ... I get to listen to at least 5 direct connect conversations per shift at the mall.

Married couples are the worst. Call me crazy, but I'm just not interested in what dish the baby just coughed up or how busy the traffic outside is. I couldn't care less if some dude's wife just found the perfect pair of pink pumps or what vegetable is for dinner. But no, everyone within a 10 foot radius not only gets to hear these glorious details, but gets to hear a penetrating buzz/ring before every sentence in the pseudo-conversation.

Get the hint, Nextel. Your "service" is worse than second-hand smoke. Two-way radios are for campgrounds and event management (with headsets, whenever possible). The general public cannot handle them.

Reel to Real

Merry Christmas, everybody! It's that day of the year, with family mayhem and childish bliss. The snow is fresh outside, answering many dreams for the first time in quite a few years. It cracks me up to think of all of the weird holiday traditions that people around the country are celebrating today. Do you have any? I'm just spending December 25th in my room, in my pj's, relaxing.



I'm also working on digitizing 26 8mm reels of old family film so I can turn them into a DVD tomorrow afternoon. It's so awesome, going through these old movies, and I can't wait to hear my family's reactions (most of the films are from before I was born). But this projector stinks ... it has so much trouble spooling the film, keeps slowing down, and threatens to burn the film continually. I think it'll be worth it in the end, though.

I'll be heading home on Saturday for our family's Christmas in Akron. I'm excited ... the nephews and nieces are getting older and the family gatherings seem to be getting funner (is that a word?). Plus, we're going to do our annual New Year's Eve party with Serendipity and McP and company. Yee ha!

Alright ... if you have any funny Christmas stories, please share!

Eyeshadow

Will It Ever End?

So they're even renting www.santaclaus.com?

Any Guesses?

1. What do you think you're gonna get for Christmas?
2. What do you think you're gonna give for Christmas?

Two Thoughts

You know what's really kinda funny? I'm now on holiday, on Christmas break, and after a few days of twisted schedules, I have absolutely no sense of time. If there weren't a clock in the upper-righthand corner of this computer, I wouldn't know if it was morning, noon, or night. Working such twisted hours at Apple this week has got my internal clock all screwed up. In a sense, it's been really nice not being on a regular schedule. I can sleep in, do things when I want to, and live for the moment. But I think it would get old having a career like this, living in retail.

On a completely different note, I love PVM. I just had lunch a Steak 'n Shake with a few of last year's counselors (James, Kourtney, Stenger, Amber, and K's sister Krystal), and we had the best time. There's something about that place that warps us all ... our different styles of humor merge, our casualness (if that's a word) increases tenfold, and our tendency to say something in long drawn-out stories goes through the roof. I love those people, and I love spending time with them. And Kourtney and Amber have already said that they're surely coming back next year! James will inevitably be there (no matter how hard he tries to avoid it), and Stenger should join us too if the Germans don't get him first. Lifelong friendships with awesome people. So wheat.

Shoot!

Gateway recently put an ad in the latest issue of PC Magazine entitled "Shoot, Edit, or Jam." Ironically, the computer that the guy is using in the advertisement is not a Gateway, it's a Powerbook G4. Another piece of brilliant peecee marketing. Check out the entire ad here.

Chair Disaster

How tragic.

Extra Extra!

The Kenwood Apple Store is hiring a fulltime Mac Specialist/Keyholder. It's rare for a tech company to be hiring in this economy (does that say something?), and it seems that we're always accepting applications, never hiring. So if you're interested, this might be your only chance.

'Tis the Season

I just opened all of my gifts from my students ... wow, families are really generous! It's crazy ... I think I get more presents now than I ever did in my life.

• Lots and lots of candy and snackies.  I can gorge for months. And I will. There's even homemade caramel and fudge and all. Mmmbop.


• Candles are still big. 4 candles, including holders and all. Good stuff. A couple more years and I could hold a seance.


• Gift cards are also big. Panera, Blockbuster, Barnes and Noble, and Starbucks. I don't drink coffee, but I think if I did my $10 worth of gift cards might get me a large one there.


• Last year 2 students gave me soap. This year 2 students gave me cologne (the biggest bottle was from the student who gave me soap-on-a-rope last year). Are they trying to tell me something?


• Once again, I got a huge tin of popcorn. That gift saved me on many a slow day at school last year. Yee-ha!


• Oh, and the best gift of all. Two weeks off of school.

School's Out For Winter!

Yahoo!

I've finally pulled up near the front in my fantasy basketball league, the Mike Dunfee Memorial League. I'm even beating Mr. Dunf himself, an honor I will now put on my resume. Who knows how long this will last, but I'm determined to win this thing. It's so much fun ... a great mixture of reality show and computer game and sports coaching. Look out, Mr. Reardon. And bring it on, boys!

1000words.org

Here's something else I'd like to do. I'd like to start a website similar to oneword, with a twist. Here's the concept ... each day I'd post a different photograph, from faces to objects to abstract photos. Visitors to the website then have 60 seconds to type their response to that picture, in poetic fashion. Or perhaps they're to create a story based on the picture. Picture prose. Then it would immediately post their prose on the website, archiving it. Ideally, you'd also be able to look up that person's past posts (and maybe a simple profile as well).

I think I'd call it A Thousand Words A Minute. Or just 1000words.

I think it could be cool ... personally, it's something I would bookmark and return to daily just for a 60 second break in my workday, a fun little way inobtrusive . I think hundreds of people would. Maybe even thousands. Am I too ambitious?

Portapotty

Five Minute Review

Well, I returned at 4:30am this morning so impressed by The Two Towers that I'm already inspired to write a quick review of it here. I'll be careful not to give anything away.

This movie was phenominal. As can be expected from the books, the second movie is a little darker, a little more complex, and a little more psychological than the first. But it is breathtaking, utilizing amazing scenery, special effects, and sequences to really stick you in Tolkien's fantasy world. I can honestly say, after seeing that movie, that I don't think I've ever seen a better movie. And I'm a pretty harsh critic.

Some avid LOTR fans are definately going to be upset at some of the changes in the movie ... in the first movie, they simply left a few things out, but in this one they blatantly changed some pretty important details. And I'm predicting that the hardcore fans will take this personally, thinking that the director was insulting those particular characters and pushing his will on the Third Age. I wouldn't go that far, but even as a casual reader I was definately alarmed. Like that scene with Elmo ... that was completely un-called-for.

A definate must for Best Supporting Actor this year is Gollum. Folks, seeing him act in this movie is worth the price of admission alone. And they did an excellent job of portraying the reality and importance of his personality and actions. And they also did a great job with the Ents.

My five minutes are up. Bravo! Go see it!

lotrtt

Tonight I'm going to the 12:01a.m. premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with James and the Klendworths. I'll be sure to post a review whenever I get the chance (which might be this weekend, looking at how busy this week is). Sure, I might be up until 4am, but I'm sure it'll be worth every minute.

How'd They Do That?

Check out this butterfly. Kinda cool, eh?

My Lunchbox.

I want to design a lunchbox. Have any ideas for what I could put on it?

a focus? for real?

today as i enjoy the sabbath in my hobbit hole here in west chester, gorging on IBC, little debby nutty bars, and tortilla chips, i've been toying with the idea of giving this website a more specific focus.

i've had quite a few parents at school ask me advice about music and movies this year. i guess they see my relatively young age (and the hundreds of posters on my classroom walls) and figure that i'd know something that they don't. and judging from the music and movies some of these kids are into, i kinda wonder if they're right.

it's rather illuminating to reside in a computer lab where students can access anything in the world. sometimes i just let them browse the Internet, simply to see where they go. and i'm pretty sure that parents would be surprised to see the lyrics and content of some of this stuff. in fact, i'm pretty sure that many of the students would be surprised as well.

my biggest reservation is that i don't think i can do a good job. i don't think i would be able to commit enough time or energy to really put together a good website on pop culture and christian culture. but i think that i could possibly put together a collection of individuals who could, creating a community of advice and information for parents and families. it would most definitely start out slow, but it could turn out to be really fun and valuable, especially if it was interactive.

hmm ...

That's My Dad.

The Joy of Awkwardness

Yesterday I had the pleasure of chaperoning at the 8th grade Christmas Dance. After working 9 hours at Apple, I wasn't too thrilled at the opportunity to go babysit middle school students. I only went to one dance in all of middle and high school, my senior prom, and that's just because I had to organize the thing.

But I ended up having the greatest time. I absolutely love awkward moments. And middle school dances are the king of awkward moments. It was actually really neat ... at first it sorta reminded me of our dance parties at PVM (without the video screens and with bigger kids that are dressed up). And boy can these kids dress up. The guys were spiffy and shiney, and the girls had style! A couple of them were even sporting these hippy-esque and Lord-of-the-Rings-esque dresses. They rock.

The majority of the guys just stood there the whole time, awkwardly watching what was going on. It was hilarious. Especially when slow songs came on, you could see them agonizing about asking. It was even funnier to see them not dance. You could go get in their face, going nuts, urging them to move their feet, and they'd just refuse. They'd just talk. No matter how loud the song, you could always hear the drone of talking above the music.

As the night wore on, everyone started to loosen up. The DJ did a good job of mixing up the tunes, fun ones and slow ones and rapcore and punk and pop and oldies all mixed together. And the kids who started to shine, having more fun than anyone else, were the ones on the fringes. The guys and girls who aren't part of the "popular" group just stopped worrying about what other people thought of them. It was easy to see that they were having a blast, dancing it up and just going crazy. I love it, and I love those kids. And I've got to give the guys credit ... on the last two slow dances, all but 2 guys got up the guts to ask a girl to dance. If only there weren't more girls than guys.

Actually, it was interesting ... I was going through the same awkwardness. I'm a teacher, and I was there to "be an adult." But it's hard to be at a dance party and sit on the sidelines. So I gradually got over what my role was "supposed to be" and just started having fun. I still didn't let go completely, but it was fun to enjoy the time with the kids. And my sore muscles this morning can attest ... I really had fun. It cracks me up ... the awkwardness never stops. Even at 24, school dances are still hilariously awkward.

And Yet Another Redesign!

I just can't stop! Something about that last design was really irking me, so I took the opportunity to sit down and redo this whole thing. Hopefully I'm done for a while now. It's kinda sick ... I really have a lot of fun playing around with this sort of web design. There could be a million things I should be doing instead, but I'm content to sit here and plug away at coding this simple little site. Yee ha!

So how is this design showing up on your system? Do you like it?

How Cute!

God bless parents who dress their little kids in overalls.

Nevermind How Much Isn't in the Glass

In the past couple of weeks, I've tended to post something here when I'm irritated, disillusioned, or upset about something. Whether it be car insurance, Microsoft, or life in general, I think it's unfair (and rather uncharacteristic for me) to be so pessimistic. So let me drop a couple things I'm thankful for.

I love Sam's Club. Sure, I've never spent $87 on one grocery/toiletry load, but it sure beats spending $30 four times. My $7.50 membership runs out on January 6th, but after one more trip I should be set for months on food and . Oh, and I just filled up my gas tank for $1.11/gallon. Nice.

I'm also so thankful for health insurance. Sure, I spend a lot for it, but I know plenty of people that struggle to get it. I just got the bill for my hospital visit a couple of weeks ago ... and I only have to pay $75 of the $800 bill.

Finally, I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that I love the Internet. It's so much fun, so useful, such an incredible medium. That's all.

Are We A Tyrrany?

So when do you think we'll start dropping bombs?

Google is Fascinating

I'm currently reading an article in Wired about Google, the world's most popular search term. The article deals with their increasingly difficult dealings with ethics and "not being evil." It's amazing how many interesting things you can find about Google. Let me list a few here ...

Google actually finds results by calculating something called a PageRank. When many websites link to one website, it earns a higher PageRank. Similarly, when many websites with high PageRanks link to one website, it earns an even higher PageRank. The system works itself out to democratically rank billions of individual pages through the ratings that other sites have inherantly given them (their links to those sites). You can see their own explaination of the technology here.

If you go onto Google and search for "http", it will give you the list of the 100 websites that are linked to the most. It's kind of interesting to see. Here it is.

Here's another interesting one ... a list of the results of what you get when you search for the 26 letters of the alphabet, one at a time, on Google. Check it out!

This is the Title

Time to release a little, to get some stuff out there on the web. Sometimes it seems to be a hassle to put things here, sometimes it's a release. It's all good.

This morning was interesting. It's that day of the year when the 8th grade travels up to the high school to visit, getting a taste of what life will be like next year. My first two classes on Monday are both 8th grade classes, so I figured that I had a good two hours to prepare for third bell (because the eighth graders would be gone). I felt kinda sick when I woke up, so I took a little longer shower than usual, making myself a little late. When I got to school near 8am, however, I found that the eighth graders were going to the high school at 12:30pm. So I had about 10 minutes to throw together a lesson plan. It went fairly well, as well as you could expect, but that's not saying too much. We looked at Jo Cool or Jo Fool, a site about media awareness.

Sorry to those of you who don't like the new website design. I realize that it's pretty slow and cumbersome ... there's a lot of Javascript and rendering involved with a floating layer that that big W. I'll find a compromise eventually, something original and unique yet tolerably fast and slimmed down. That's the thing about personal websites ... in a sense, this is a living experiment. I've learned a lot about what works, what standards to support, how much to appeal to people and how much to indulge my own creative pursuits. Thanks for being my guinea pigs.

[insert hideous cackle]

This weekend I went up to IWU to visit Steph and Esther and see Dunf ... it was a fun jaunt, lasting less than 24 hours but providing a lifetime of memories. Ok, maybe it wasn't that good, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. I got to hear the Parable of the Missing Parable and see a new coffeeshop that inspired the architect locked up inside me. Oh, and Mike and I think we might have slept in the wrong apartment ... Steph took us over to her friends' apartment at 2:30am, where we walked in and camped out in the living room, only to find out on the phone in the morning that we "never showed up" to the right place. Kinda interesting ...

Yesterday I did some laundry, washed Louie, listened to the Browns and their miracle, and finished up the design on the PVM Staff Recruiting website. Oh, and I started a new project, taking a whole bunch of old family films on 8mm (the old reels) and videotaping them. I'll eventually be burning DVD's for Christmas presents ... don't tell my family (it's a secret).

sidenote: You know it's sad when you can post secrets on the Internet and your parents will never see them.

Ok, time to indulge in my $3 school cafeteria lunch.

What's Up With This?

Inspired by Kmax

I just spent all day on this redesign. Just one of those fits of creative passion. And for once, I'm leaving it unfinished [for now]. It may be a bit much ... it still doesn't display well in a lot of browsers, and I'm unhappy with the loading time on IE. Oh, and it doesn't seem to show up on macs yet. So there are a few bugs to work out. And a few things to add as well (like comments).

I'm going home to enjoy a hot bath and a movie (Ali). Bring that on.

Mmm.

Me gusta chalupas.

M$

Now this is rather interesting. Apparantly Microsoft tried to rig a "grassroots" movement of people to convince Congress to go easy on them in the anti-trust lawsuit. Not only was this obviously engineered by Microsloth ... there weren't any phone calls or faxes, just letters that all looked very similar ... but they accidentally had letters sent from dead people.

That's right, dead people. Read the article, it's rather eye-opening.

This sounds similar to M$ secretly paying for advertisements that were supposedly done by an "Independant Institute" to also support their cause as the Monopoly. Or the fact that they recently dissuaded every state in the Union except for Massachusetts to drop all charges, simply because the states ran out of money. Or the instance that I reported on October 28th where they intentionally broke the law by posting stickers all over New York City for MSN 8.0.

This is sick. Utterly sick. How do we allow people, people like you and me, to break the law so blatantly and walk away scott free? I don't understand.

Ghetto Basketball

Use A Paci Fire, eh?

In most of my classes the students have been working on Powerpoint presentations. The fifth and sixth graders are working on creating an instructional manual about something ... explaining how to do a process or acheive a goal. In my last class, a couple of the students presented a rather interesting one. I thought you might enjoy it:

How To Avoid Being Eaten By A Baby

There's some obvious potential there!

Congratulations, Progressive!

Let's celebrate, with confetti and balloons and clowns and everything. Party at my place, I get to pay grossly inflated prices for someone else to take a risk on my skills and decisions while behind the wheel. Whomever made that insulting and mocking graphic just cost Progressive Insurance thousands of dollars and all of my business. I can't believe they sent it to me.

I talked to an old friend last week, Matt McElheny, who told me that car insurance is the only type of insurance out there that's actually profitable (he works for an insurance company now). That means that these insurance companies sell house, life, fire, flood ... all of it, just to get your car insurance. You'd think that they'd be a little more sensitive to their consumers, especially when there is so much competing business all around us.

They're gonna flip when they see the graphic I send them in return.

Did the Pink Slip Fall Out?

Ok, I just received three pamphlets for "intensive two-day workshops" in my mailbox at school today. Here are the titles:

Building Security
Unacceptable Behavior & Other Tough Employee Performance Problems
Communicating with Diplomacy & Tact

Is someone trying to tell me something?

Too Much?

I just spent the afternoon designing a website for recruiting staff for next summer at Pleasant Vineyard. I'm really pleased ... I learned a lot in the process, especially about style sheets and some new Javascript. Here's a sample of what I've got going so far. Hopefully it'll be done by next weekend!

Be Somebody's Superhero

What do you think? Any suggestions?

Driving Myself Crazy

Yesterday I got a nice big envelope in the mail from Progressive with "Important Documents Enclosed." As I get older and whyser, I'm learning to take joy in the little things. Bills, of course, aren't one of them.

Sure, the fact that my auto insurance bill rivals my rent this year is disturbing enough (note: you may want to avoid becoming a young single male driver with a new car) ... I will definitely be calling the other insurance companies for quotes ... but there was something even more disturbing on my bill. Under the section entitled "Driving history", I discovered that I have had three (yes, 3) speeding violations this year.

What?!

Now that I think back, I can remember two of them (both on I-27 to Oxford ... good riddance). But when was the third? I have no clue. But have I really been stopped by the police three times? That's awful. I actually think I'm a pretty good driver (I won't get into the excuses for my tickets), but that seems a little irrelevant if I'm getting pulled over by the cops.

Nevermind the fact that Steph recently inducted both Mike Dunfee and I into the Crazy Driver Club. Yes, the sticker's in my rear passenger window.

So I decided to start an interesting experiment today. For the entire month of December I'm going to simply drive the speed limit. 20, 35, 40, whatever the sign says. We all know that the posted limits are usually ludicrous, but they are the law. So I'm gonna start complying (they're my initials, after all).

It was hilarious this morning ... I had to depend on cruise control to stay the right speeds. The whole time it felt like I had to pee but was stuck in a slow elevator. I had three people honk at me, one actually yelling indecipherable words at his windshield (at least that's what I think he was yelling at). And it actually forced me to slow down and look at the houses, trees, and people all around me.

I'm gonna be late a lot this month, but I'm gonna have a lot of fun.