When I started the program last February, I figured out I could finish in December if I started taking two classes at once. Imagine my surprise when I found out they do not let students take another class along with Action Research. Now I won’t finish until February. Argh! I just want to be done with online courses for now. Although it’s just another two months, I was hoping to download midi ringtones free ringtones for cricket cell phone sony music box ringtones 24 ringtones free crazy frog ringtones free real music ringtones sprint info nokia remember ringtones free us cellular audiovox ringtones free ringtones verizon real music ringtones crazy download free frog ringtones free ringtones for cricket phone download free ringtones tracfone download mosquito ringtones make your own free ringtones free ringtones for verizon wireless phone crazy frog ringtones download free mobile ringtones virgin nextel real music ringtones free verizon wireless ringtones be done by DECEMBER so I could start getting paid more. Bummer. But after talking to folks, I understand why they don’t let you take another course with Action Research.

So it begins, my third year of teaching,
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and my final few months of Walden University (which is an amazing program, by the way!). At least I have honors students this year. I can have a little less stress, hopefully, each day. And next summer I’ll either be courses for my MA in History or Ed.D in Educational Leadership. Well, that’s the plan for now. The baby could say otherwise.

Yep, they WERE $2.50, but NOW they’re 2 for $5. Get ‘em while they’re still in stock!

This is a note to my fellow man. I beseech your help! I am losing the battle for the bathroom. My wife and I have one tiny bathroom in our house, with a small sink. We purchased a little bathroom rack that goes over the toilet. We use this to store our stuff because we have no closet in the bathroom. Unfortunately, however, the rack has been overtaken.

As you can see, out of the mass of things on the shelves, a mere five objects belong to me. On the top right, I have my bottle of face wash. On the middle shelf, on the right, I have my deodorant. The bottom shelf contains three of my items: tooth paste and q-tips (which we technically share), and my razor. I have five items. Five.

Now count up her items. It’s unfair. Do I need to rally my troops and burn my boxers? What happened to male bathroom dominance? Did the Spice Girls take it away a decade ago with their whole “girl power” movement? I don’t know, but I want some space back. Or better yet, a bigger house with dual sinks!

Part of the reason I suggested Williamsburg was that their store still had fabric. Gloucester got rid of their fabric section several months ago, and I wanted to buy a bunch of fabric for some costumes for my classes. I spent several minutes picking out fabric, and after I had chosen the three types I wanted, I got in line behind this other woman. There was no one behind the booth, and she looked at me and said that she would’ve rang a bell, but there wasn’t one. I walked over to the photo lab, which was next to fabric, to have them page someone, but no one was there either. I walked back and the woman decided she would go find someone. There was an announcement over the PA. We waited. No one came. Then the woman went running after a stock-boy. (I don’t think he would’ve cut fabric, but she ran anyway.) She told me someone was coming. Ten minutes passed and no one came. The woman went away again. Time passed. FINALLY a pregnant woman carrying a bag of Chick-Fil-A shows up. She had no Wally World Vest on, but grabbed the scissors and started cutting. When it was our time she and Tara struck up a conversation about pregnancy and cravings. Fun.

After we left Wal-Mart, we strolled through the dark parking lot. We load up the Civic and look at the spot diagonal from us. A young couple was sitting in the front seat of a station wagon heavily making out. This was one of those situations like an accident. You don’t want to look, but you just have to look… So we sat there watching them for a bit laughing at the idiots. A few moments passed and the guy who owned the car in front of us arrived with bags in hand. He tossed his bags into his car, and then suddenly he caught sight of the couple. He was staring too. Then he saw us laughing and started laughing as well. Eventually we tired of these shenanigans and decided to leave and head next door to Sonic for shakes.

Tara went out to the wrong side of the parking lot, so we had to turn around. Hmmm… since we’re going back that way, we might as well check out that couple again. Yep, still going at it. Now the guy had pushed his way over to the girl’s seat. They were going at it like two snakes swirling around each other. I suggested that I should go into walmart, buy a three-pack of condoms, knock on their car window and hand them over. That would’ve been funny. The couple probably would have been pissed, but it would have been funny.

After writing this, I realize it doesn’t seem funny. However, seeing this couple making our in the Wal-Mart parking lot was freakin’ hilarious. We officially deemed the Williamsburg Wally World as ghetto as the Newport News Wal-Mart. Well, at least on our trips to the Williamsburg one, we’ve yet to have sketchy kids trying to sell us mugs out of a rubbermaid storage container to raise money for drug awareness. (Yeah, it’s true, and the kid told us he accepted checks.) I hope the Kilmarnock Wal-Mart isn’t that ghetto!

While we were sitting there, we caught a story on tv. Apparently there was a woman who feels she has been discriminated against by McDonald’s. Bottom line is that she has a condition in which she has tiny arms, so she uses her feet to do things instead. When she drove up to the McDonald’s drive through and stuck her foot out of the window to get her food, the employee refused. (Mind you, they had no problem taking her money in the 1st window!) That sucks, although, knowing McDonald’s, I’m sure they would’ve screwed up her order anyway. You can read more about this here.

Hearing this reminded me of one of my own prior ordeals with the fast food giant. Check out my post entitled “No Phantom, No Shakes”.

Tara and I recently returned from our trip to the 2007 lia sophia conference in Milwaukee. It should be noted that during the conference, Milwaukee experienced a temperature spike. This was most likely attributed to the numerous hot flashes the 3000 female conference attendees experienced. Apparently, in the few days of this conference, the high rate of concentrated hot flashes destroyed more of the ozone layer than all the cow farts in New Zealand.

In a related story, Men were outraged when their beloved restrooms were converted to Women’s restrooms to accommodate the vast increase in the female population. Unfortunately, however, there was an injury in one instance in which an elderly lady attempted to use a urinal. Her rump was lodged in the urinal, and because the bathrooms had been upgraded to a touch free flush system, the urinal continued to flush when she moved, struggling to free herself, thereby flooding the restroom and alerting staff of the problem. Upon being unstuck, she slipped on the wet floor and broke her hip. She was ready to state “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” but conference staff quickly called 911.

On a positive note, the new jewelry looks really good. Oh, and this crap was completely made up. I know most people would know that anyway, but I figured I’d stick in a disclaimer.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So, without further ado…

Tara is approximately 8 weeks pregnant. The due date is estimated at January 30th, 2008.

I will have to say, we’ve known for a while, and so have selective people. Just the other day we watched the movie “Knocked Up.” Boy, that’s something to look forward to. And, as you can see in the picture, it’s not twins.

I keep bugging Tara to start a baby blog. Right now she’d pretty much just write “I feel like crap” everyday. But we’ll see. If she decides to go for it, I’ll post a link.

After receiving a cordial “How’s it going?” email this morning from the one and only Catt, I realized I had been neglecting my blog. What could I write about? And then it hit me this morning when I looked out across the road at my neighbors house…

We’ve been living here for about about a year and a half, and we’ve only really met two of our neighbors. The first lives next door. He loves fishing, and as of this past December, he apparently went away on a never ending fishing trip or something. He’s disappeared. One of his boats is still at his house, and his fish mouth mailbox is still there. The only change are the residents of the house, which is a youngish couple with a little toddler. We have no idea where the guy went, and the new folks, whom we assume are related to him somehow, are less than friendly. Not too bad, though. They’re not ex-felons or sex offenders (yes, I checked).

It’s our other neighbor who is the most intriguing. A year ago, Tara and I were cleaning out our gutters when the neighbor from across the road rolled over in his go-go-gadget wheelchair. This was puzzling altogether, because we had seen the guy walking. He introduced himself, and after a brief chit chat, I found out he is the brother of a woman who attended the same church I went to as a kid. Small world. He kept talking. We were really trying to get the point across that we had to finish the gutters, but he seemed oblivious. After 20-30 minutes, he finally left, giving us his card. Apparently he’s an interior designer. (More on this, later.)

We finished the gutters and went inside where Mom and Nanny were cleaning up. They asked about the guy, and I told him that he was related to the woman from church. A few days later, my mom called to tell me she had talked to some people and they all told her the guy was weird. Coincidentally, I mentioned to his nephew, who was a senior at LHS, that he was my neighbor, and the kid said the same thing. So we had several sources concerning the overall weirdness of the neighbor. Now, however, we had the opportunity to witness things first hand.

One night, Tara and I were driving home, as we pulled into our lane, something caught my eye at the neighbor’s house. Mind you, he has NO curtains. “Holy crap! He has Destiny’s Child in his living room!” After we parked the car, I grabbed Tara by the arm and yanked her to the end of the drive way to show her. Indeed, he had a cardboard cut out of what appeared to be Beyonce and the gals. I guess the creepy old white guy has a thing for successful, musical, black chicks.

What’s more interesting about this guy is that he is apparently very religious. He indicated this from our first conversation when he told us he couldn’t teach in public schools because his degree was in Christian Education. Of course, we never really knew what type of Christian that was. I assumed Episcopalian since that’s what the church was his sister went too, but then he started having these Jehovah’s Witnesses over. They were at his house almost every day. One day, we swear they had a lemonade stand. Creepy. I think of the sketchy old man from comedy bits saying “Hey little boy, want some caaaandy?”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses were coming and coming and coming. They painted his house. They raked his yard. They mowed his grass. Of course, while they did all of this, they wore dress shirts, ties, and slacks. Why anyone would do all of this so well dressed is beyond me. It’s just odd. All the while, the neighbor will walk around outside shirtless around his guests. So much for clothes, so much for the wheelchair.

I’m sure everyone has creepy or weird neighbors, but this guy is just different. We try to avoid him. However, it’s hard when you get home and he tries walking over. We try to run into the house, pretending we didn’t see him attempting to wave or walk over. Rude, yes, but cautious. I’ve seen waaaay to many episodes of Desperate Housewives to know that everyone has skeletons in their closets, sometimes literally, and I don’t want to find out about this guy.

Tara and I have been married for over a month now. So far we’re still running head to head with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, though I think we’ll ultimately win the race to stay married the longest. Granted it’s been a while since we got back from the honeymoon, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the Disney experience.

1) Freaky Camera People
Growing up in Lancaster, I wasn’t very aware of diversity. We had whites and blacks, and a handful of other groups of people. Despite this, I still heard all the various stereotypes about everybody, one of which was the stereotype of the japanese tourist with the camera. I know stereotypes are based on overgeneralizations, but I think this one may be slightly true. While in Disney, Tara and I sought characters to take pictures with. (Apparently so did everyone else!) We’d wait in line, and yes, some families would take a few pictures (one with just the kids, one with the whole family…) but it seemed like there were lots of Japanese tourists with cameras taking various pictures. We were in line directly behind one couple who literally took 15 shots with Christmas Mickey & Minnie. UNnessecary! It seemed like this happened with every character we found.

2) Freaky Camera People #2
Apparently in Disney it is perfectly acceptable to take pictures of the characters with other kids. Once again we’d be in line and little Suzie would be taking her picture with Pooh or Mickey or whoever, and random strangers would also be taking pictures of her. This also happened with every character we saw, and this was not, by the way, limited to Japanese people. So many people did this, I was quite freaked out. I wouldn’t want random strangers taking pictures of my kids, so why would I take pictures of someone else’s kids. Perhaps they’ll photoshop the kid out when they get home.

3) Revolutionary War Re-enactments?
Were we to continue fighting the Revolutionary War today in Disney, we’d lose. America would not exist. Why, you ask? Simple. The British had far greater numbers in Disney than we did. Seriously, folks! Many times I read about people complaining about foreigners who don’t speak English coming into the U.S. Not this time. Everwhere we turned there was someone with a British accent. I think the British not only outnumbered Americans, they outnumbered everyone else as well. There would have been some hope, though. We did run into quite a number of French folks. I’m sure they would’ve helped us again… well, maybe not.

4) Lines exist
Since the dawn of creation, lines have existed. Granted they may not have formed for the one celled organisms to get onto Space Mountain, but I’m sure they existed. You can’t get around this fact. Lines exist! So why then do so many people seem oblivious to lines in Disney? There are lines for rides, pictures, shows, cash registers… you name it! Look around you people, there are lines, so wait in them! Don’t try to cut the line, stupid bastards!

5) Disney has great business strategy
We all know they target kids. Duh. But when Florida experiences record lows, and most visitors have only packed warm clothes, leave it to Disney to seize the opportunity for a buck. Most stores in the park wheeled out a cart of sweatshirts and warmer apparel for visitors to buy. We were suckered in. Well, I guess not suckered, because we did need something warm. Damn, we were suckered after all! Score another one for you, Walt!

6) Make reservations
Not only do lines exist, so do reservations. We made them… for some meals. For others we had to wait… in a line. On one occassion we were dining at the Rainforest cafe. We had a reservation. We were seated. We were greeted. All was well. Then suddenly this older couple walks right into the chaos of the restaurant and plops right down at the table beside us. No one seated them. No one greeted them. And yet they looked around wondering where their server was. They had bypassed the big pink elephant where you put in your name, and the massive line of people whose names had been called, but were waiting to be seating, and plopped themselves down. How oblivious. Wake up people. There are methods you must follow to live in the modern world. Pay attention. If the hostess and the line had been snakes, you would’ve been bit. Several times. And then the people you broke in front of would have been you some more.

We recently started Rome. Guess what that means! Julius Caesar made an appearance in room 114 the other day. (And yes, the students, and some of the teachers, chanted “Toga! Toga! Toga!” as I walked past.) I spent the first 5 or so minutes greeting them in Latin, and continuing in Latin an explanation of who I was and what I was doing. Surprisingly, although they had never taken a Latin course in their lives, most of the students could tell what I was talking about. I guess my old communication professors were correct. Communication is predominantly non-verbal. Regardless, the kids had a good time. I even dressed up a few of them in the Toga and explained its significance. They were disappointed, however, that my legs weren’t showing this time.

Don’t mind the stupid expression on my face. I have no idea what I was thinking. Maybe I was worried a Brutus-esque student was hanging around or something…