another try

I've been playing with Geogebra.  This is really just some testing of how to get stuff working. It's pretty neat, though.

Procrastination is an art, as I view it.

You know I have something I should be doing if you see something up here. You also know you are getting older when you do something productivish when putting of the important work. I can even be caught cleaning sometimes lately.

Apparently, a bunch of stuff is happening in the world. A crazy short man is dead, troops are out of Iraq, and a few people are baling cash while the rest of us fight to make the rent. Does any of it matter during football season? Here's a lesser known fact, I have fallen asleep to almost every football game I have seen. It's really not as interesting on TV as people think it is. I had more fun watching games in high school.

I must be on now, but my prayers go to all the families hurt by the endless war. It decimated one nation, brought ours to its knees and has trampled the lives of millions. So many of our veterans will lead hollow and confused lives, as happens after every war, and the rest of us will say we feel sorry but rarely give the support. The only saving grace is that it has come to a close.

Uggh, I must get my son ready for daycare soon and take a nap and some other stuff. The next post will be less down but that's what was on my mind for the moment.

More pictures with few words.

Work starts soon so I'll dissappear into my other existence but I have been having fun with the camera this past few days. Let's see what else I can take pictures of.

I had some idea of something smart to write but I forgot what it was. The summer vacation is all but over and it is time to reembrace the rest of my life. I entered the summer with grand ideas of planning every element of the year and being the best teacher I could be. Well, I had stuff to attend to and then I got a little lazy. I'll surely be better but I sure should have used the time a little better. We work to hard to succeed but find ourselves flailing through a slow tumble past happy dreams and into the mire of mediocrity. What do the great men I read of in the books do to take over their world? I need some of that so I can make things right by my eyes. Reminds me of a great quote I heard; this is the mangled version but it went like "Education should provide you the tools to live a decent life, and if the world won't let you, the tools to change it so that you can." On that, we're gonna go on a walk.

Just like everyone else with a camera..

Feel free to give me your opinion on these. I'm gonna learn how to make good photos. The editing always feels cheap but some of it is pretty fun. The goal now is to make things a little more surreal and less bad then before.
I forgot...The ones that look like a ditch at night are, well, a creek that is in a ditch that goes next to our house. I like overgrown urban space. People who fear man will destroy the environment should pay more attention.

Some vacation shots.

I'm about to head out the door to pick up the child but figured I would start getting some pictures of our first real vacation together. Some of these have been edited a little but the badlands are really pretty gnarly any way that you see them.
My newest silly goal is write more seriously on this page...let's see how that goes.

It's time to figure out who the man is so we can finally sort the ignorance out.

Dumb people who think they are smart cause nothing but trouble. The ones who can convince people they are smart become politicians.

Waitin.

Ordering some wings from a place not cool as this sign, but what is?

Notes and a picture of water.

Nothing like a phone camera to gauge reality....Anyway, that's about a mile from the river's normal bank looking in the opposite direction. This is the spot where I usually take the exit to get under the bridges but there seems to be a raging current in the way. It's not just how high the river is but how fast and far away the water is moving. I will be curious to see how everything looks when it goes back down.

On the good news, passed my classes and got a positive review from my principal. Work is a thousand times better when you work for someone who likes what you do. I am most excited that I get to teach the same students for two years in a row. People get into teaching with the belief that they can make a difference and I have a real opportunity to help the kids appreciate a world beyond what they are used to. Much of popular culture does not embrace higher learning and the path to knowledge but my beliefs in the virtue of learning are supported, if but for a moment, when a student sees that that universe is far more complicated, beautiful, and elegantly ordered chaos than the narrow view his scope of life has given him.

Go grizzlies.

Who knows.

I'm trying to see how well I can thumb type a post. It only seems like it would work in dire circumstances, if you ask me.  I hope to do more posting on life and teaching.  Educaton is amazing, powerful, and conflicted.  The classroom as I see it is so different and the students are trully different than most people where.  They do not have blind respect for authority, I only wish they would turn this into productive and positive change.  Most notably, they are in continual communication with someone, at no point, do they encounter the self reflective portion of their day when they are all alone and can only speak with themselves.  This leads to a social mind that can be vey powerful but a bit dumb. 
That's a student I got hooked up with the museum showing off his first scroll, don't laugh at the messy work, you would do worse...

Welcome to the new.

Just ate an overpriced taco. What has the world come to? About to get back in the schoolhouse.