Sigh. If there is one thing that is deficient it is the software that one of the districts I’m in uses. No teacher comments on jobs, and no way to change the school in the case of a traveling teacher. So, it is up to the teacher to contact the sub and let that sub know when a position doesn’t start where the system says it does. Needless to say, today I was that sub. Last time I took a social studies position the teacher called me to let me know where I would need to be. Not this time. While I was aware it was likely to be an itinerant position again, I just figured since no one contacted me I would be going right where the system said I would. Silly me. I went there and, you got it “Oh, she doesn’t come in until the afternoon. You have to go to this other school…” I was pretty POed when I was told this. Someone has the responsibility of letting me know, whether it be the teacher or the office. At the other school I actually ran into the teacher in question. She was doing an observation so that was why she needed the sub. I didn’t want to be rude played it calm and apologized for not being on time because the system said I was to go to the other school. Whether or not she got the hint I don’t know as all she said was it was no problem since I didn’t start teaching for another hour.

I’ll have to say she did prepare thoroughly for me with all the materials separated by class, detailed plans, and whatnot. Meaning of course that I couldn’t blame her if things went wrong. 😀 Okay, I wouldn’t anyway, and nothing did go wrong. It was a rather pleasant day. Between the two schools I had four first-grade classes, one second, and three third. The lesson plans unfortunately were not quite the same for each class of the same grade so I was kept on my toes. The one thing I really didn’t like having to do was pick one student from each class to get an award for behavior. While I would like to say I was completely objective on the selection I really couldn’t keep a constant eye on each student to determine who best earned it. It was inevitably more like picking three or four students to watch who seemed to be behaving themselves and look for reasons to disqualify them, then still winding up picking between two or three at the end, completely subjectively. Oh, well.

Yesterday I was at a local middle school as the industrial tech sub. Tomorrow I will have a half day (oh why do I take these? At least I will get to sleep in!) for IT at another school. I already know what to expect there, so I could write up a comparison of the two, but I will save it for tomorrow anyway, just because I can. 😛

I ran into a bit of news today that made me take a bit of notice. Microsoft has launched a new site Worldwide Telescope. I’m downloading the software as I write this, so I will give a more in depth look later. The software is supposed to be a virtual telescope with access to images from all over the world and from space. Terrabytes of data are supposed to be available.

For me, a one stop shop of various space images is just what I am looking for. If this even gives half of what the press release states, I will be interested.

I’ll keep you posted as I use the software.

I can’t imagine what these teens were thinking…  Teens often do stupid things, but this one is beyond stupid…  I just don’t have much to say about this; I’m dumbfounded.  I don’t understand how a person or persons would come up with such an idea – too bad they couldn’t use that “creativity” more productively!

https://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0509081corpse1.html

And check out the part in the police report where they say that one of the defendents regurgitated upon being questioned…  is that a consequence of remorse or fear of getting busted?  Is there actually a chance that he realized how disgustingly heinous his crime really was?

Ok, I know this is just asking for trouble but something strangely intriguing was brought up in David Letterman’s Monday night  Small Town News segment.  I have heard some strange town names before but this one takes the cake: Intercourse, Pennsylvania.  The weekly publication “Intercourse News” has the subtitle “about families that do things together.” Strange and twisted I know but I just had to research it further.  What prompted this post is the fact that it has ties to two Hollywood movies.  The previously mentioned film Witness was filmed in the Pennsylvania Amish community.  Secondly, the Tim Allen/Kirstie Alley starring comedy For Richer Or Poorer (?) was set, but not filmed in the Amish community. And the reason I decided to watch Dave Monday night…. Shia LaBeouf who revealed absolutely nothing about his little movie opening on May 22nd and spent most of his time talking about his arrest in a Chicago Walgreens in November.

I’m a glutton for punishment. I watched the second of the “Land of the Lost” shows, “Return to the Land of the Lost”. The same actors, with a different story. It was much better actually. I already knew that the story could not be anything like the book. After the first movie I wasn’t expecting much at all. The storyline was actually good. They writers did a much better job this time, since they didn’t have to throw anything away. It made my initial reaction to the actors in the first movie. They filled the roles well in both movies. The dinosaurs in this movie were actually worse than the first movie. There was one instant were someone hit a dinosaur and it looked like they were hitting foam rubber. Which of course they were, and they looked it. Oh well, I knew that going into.

I’ll have to get another “B” dinosaur movie, I actually enjoyed the last couple of evenings. Even if I complain a little about movie makers abandoning books. More on that in another blog, it just started getting to me again.

Well, this is my second post with the new “backend” of the tangents.org website, and I have to say, so far I like it better!  It really wasn’t that difficult to get used to the changes, and so far anyway, I’ve found everything I need.  If you’ve read my post called, “When Technology Attacks” then you know that I am reluctant to learn new ways of doing things on computers, etc. once I learn the original way to do them.  It seems right after I learn something new, it changes, leaving me right where I started – feeling dumb, frustrated, and like I’ve wasted my time.  But with the new tangents.org updates, I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised since I’ve figured out everything I’ve needed to use so far by myself without it even taking any extra time!  After that warning from O Mighty Admin, I have to say I was dreading the day when the updates would take effect, but now I see that my concerns were unfounded – for now at least!

So the other day I was waiting outside Walmart for my husband to get our Wii-fund…  I know, I said I wasn’t going to wait in the car with the kids anymore, but I dropped him off and went home to get some forgotten items for our Mother’s Day excursion, so I wasn’t sitting there the entire time.  Good thing too, because I went home, bumbled around the house for a bit, came back and still spent a good 10 minutes waiting for him to make his return.  But I turned the car off right away this time, and I was fully expecting it to take awhile because he was making a return at Walmart on a Saturday after all.  I even made the joke, see ya tomorrow…

But while I was waiting, I heard the cargo door of our minivan open up, and I thought, that’s strange, I didn’t know he was going to be buying anything he’d have to put back there…  so I look in my rearview mirror, and there’s a strange lady standing there with a confused look on her face.  “Sally?”  she said.  “Um, no, I think you have the wrong car…”  I replied as my 2 little girls turned around in the back seat and stared at her.  The van she was waiting for then pulled up beside us, with the driver – Sally, I assume – laughing hysterically while her friend loaded her items into the correct van this time and hopped in the passenger side.  She rolled down her window and tried to justify her mistake, “See they look alike; I’m not crazy!”  Well, her friends’ minivan was a Chrysler Pacifica, whereas ours is a Chevy Uplander, and her friends was 2-tone with gray on the undercarriage, but I guess they were similiar in color…  but still, it was a funny experience and probably really embarrassing for Sally’s friend – just a testament to what a circus Walmart can be on a Saturday no matter where you live…  Sunday I have to go there just to pick up my daughter’s birthday cake, ugh.  Maybe I’ll send my husband instead…  no wait, I’d better not – I’d like him to make it back in time for the birthday party!

It is official.  Wii wiiturned the Wii for a Wiifund.

Although I had some fun playing it, I deifnately did not see the long term value and did not see it working well for a workout.  Not better than the lower cost Xavix anyhow.  So, it is now history but…  Funny story!

When I entered the WalMart someone started to follow me from a distance.  It was obvious he was following me so I assumed it was security.  As I approched the customer service desk to Wiiturn the Wii he asked me “does that Wii work or is it defective”.  I told him it works fine and I just didn’t like it.

I then proceeded to return the Wii.  It took forever and right when I finished, that guy stepped up to the customer service counter and asked if he could buy it!

I left before I saw the result, but I assume he is the new owner of the Wiitarded video game system.

BTW — Once I tried Madden ’08 on the Wii that is when I knew it was going bye-bye.  The graphics were below that of my Xbox (not Xbox 360, just plain old Xbox) and the gameplay was just lame.

Goodbye Wii.  Wii will not miss you!

While serving on the board of a local community agency, a certain personality type came to my attention: teacher’s pet.  Yes, these people are alive and well and living as adults.  Surprisingly it’s not something one grows out of when he or she leaves school; rather, the behavior seems to evolve and follow the person into adulthood.  I use the term “teacher’s pet” loosely here because I don’t know how else to describe it, so I will try my best to give examples.  Back to this person on the board – it starts when the person stops the flow of the meeting to contribute to every item on the agenda.  I think it’s good when people participate and share their ideas, but there is a fine line when their comments and “helpful” suggestions cross the line into being disruptive.  Case in point – at a meeting recently, an item on the agenda involved discussing traveling to Chicago for a board training seminar.  The teacher’s pet of the group spoke up and went into great detail about how the board of this organization should actually be taking more than one vehicle on trips like these in case something happens to the vehicle.  He explained that if the vehicle carrying the entire board of the organization were to crash or something else horrible were to happen, we would no longer have a board if the President, Vice President, etc. were all riding together.  Good point, but a little extreme, I would say…  This board is not in charge of running a country or anything close to that scale.  I’m not saying that it’s not important or that steps should not be taken to safegaurd the staff involved, however, I don’t think dividing up into 2 vehicles has anything to do with preventative safety and actually seems like it might put a strain on the budget (insert another gas prices gripe here).  It’s a good idea for the President and Vice President of the United States and other heads of government to travel separately but when talking about this particular group it just doesn’t seem like a logical idea, especially not an idea that should have taken 20 minutes or longer to discuss.

A second example of adult teacher’s pet behavior happens often in community theater.  My husband and I are active in our local theater group, and while directing a few plays together, we’ve come across at least one individual who was a bit over eager to please the directors.  Again, don’t get me wrong, enthusiasm, especially for community theater, is a great thing.  But when you interrupt the process of producing a play in order to offer “helpful” suggestions that aren’t really helpful at all and just keep the entire group waiting for you to finish talking, then it’s probably better if you just let the director do what he or she needs to do.  It’s also especially annoying when people offer things to help with the show; be it labor, props, etc. only to not follow through and actually deliver the work and/or goods.  Makes me think they were just sucking up to the directors! 

So when I say ‘teacher’s pet’, I guess I just mean those people who are so overzealous about showing and proving to others that they are participating in the group that they come forth with ideas that aren’t always well thought out.  Like I said, it’s not that I discourage contribution, and by no means should people be made to feel that their ideas are stupid, however, they should use discretion in bringing up topics that are relevant to the conversations at hand and also make sure that they are going to follow through with what they say they will contribute.

POST DISCLAIMER:  None of the above comments have anything to do with anyone who is a regular reader of my blog!!!  🙂

I have a 1992 version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World”. I tend to like movies about dinosaurs, especially campy ones. Rubber dinosaurs, stop action clay dinosaurs, lizards with frills attached are all good fun. Newer movies with good CGI effects are also fun for me. The movie I have is more of the rubber dinosaur type. If you now of the book, John Rhys Davies is Professor Challenger. I’ve like most of the movies with Mr Davies, and so far this is no exception. He is as bombastic and egotistical as the book. I don’t remember the story having a kid along, but he hasn’t got on my nerves too much yet. My biggest problem with the story so far is that they moved the location of lost world from the Amazon to the heart of Africa. I’m still curious as to why that was changed, but I guess it doesn’t make much difference. More on this after I finish watching.