What's the first exhibit you visit at the zoo?
I could watch these guys scamper about and play for hours!
I've only seen an exhibit of prairie dogs once or twice in my life, but I love observing them as well. Watching them makes me think of one of my favorite childhood/teenage memories...being the only person awake on a train that was racing across an endless, unoccupied section of Colorado. Dawn was breaking, and prairie dogs were popping out of their vast network of holes and chambers to investigate. They stood as hundreds of silent sentinels, marking our progress with their dark, intelligent eyes. It is by far one of the coolest things I have ever seen.
It's late, and I've been spending the past couple of hours catching up on bills and other misc. paperwork that I've been avoiding all month. As I've been sitting here I've been watching/listening to Fuse TV. I just discovered a series that they have that chronicles the videos of various bands, from their beginning to present day. I watched three segments: Blink 182, Linkin Park, and My Chemical Romance. These bands are very different, but I like them all. I remember listening to Blink 182 in high school and college, and I think Linkin Park came out when I was in college as well. My Chemical Romance has been around for awhile, but to be honest they just hit my radar a few months back. Actually, I played one of their songs (Dead) on Rock Band (or was it Guitar Hero?) a couple of years ago, but I didn't realize who they were.
After watching their segment, I realized that I was familiar with and liked a lot of their music, I just hadn't put it together before. I'm not much for watching videos most of the time. I used to listen to music in the car on the half hour ride to work each day, but now that I carpool with a buddy we spend the ride chit-chatting. The only time I really listen to music anymore is at the end of school when the kids are gone or sometimes at home when I am working. During these times I usually put Pandora on the comptuer, and thumbs up any songs that I really like. It turns out that I've marked a lot of songs by My Chemical Romance over the past couple of years, and I just caught on to that fact tonight!
I know people call them emo or whatever, but I don't care. I guess I like "emo" music, because 30 Seconds to Mars is one of my favorite bands. That doesn't mean I go around looking like a racoon with the dark eye makeup (just to clarify). I've never been much on labling things, so I don't really think about it.
Anyways, I'm rambling....like I said, I've been paying bills and whatnot, and it's pushing 1AM, and I'm getting pretty fried. The whole intent of this post was to include a MCR video that I really liked. I have liked the song for awhile, but never watched the video. I like it a lot. It's dark, but very well done. I can't post the video because it's disabled, but I will post a link if anyone is interested. I did find a fan video with the song and lyrics that isn't disabled, so I'll post that as well. Nighty-night!
Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCCyoocDxBA
I can't believe it's 11 AM and I'm up and around on a Saturday! Usually I sleep in until 9 or 10 and putz around in my pj's for a few hours. This morning I was up, showered, dressed, hair done, the whole shebang by 8:30. The hubby and I decided to take his younger brother (23? 24?) out to brunch this morning. He is a video game animator, and just finished working on the Marvel Superhero Alliance game that came out a few months ago. He got to animate Captain America, The Hulk, The Fantastic 4, Iron Man, etc., which I think is pretty cool. We got to tour the company that he worked at this summer (I think I wrote about it during my Maine blogs).
Now that the game is done, though, he is between jobs. He received an offer to move to Germany for a year to do animations for commercials and webpages (at least that's what I think he will be doing). We are going to miss him terribly, but we're so happy that he gets to live in Europe for a year. The hubby was giving him a hard time this morning, telling him he would have to eat blood sausages and say "Alo" all of the time. It was all in good fun, though.
The hubby and I started dating in 1994, when J. was seven or eight. The hubby has another brother, A., who is a couple of years older than J. When I think back, I realize that I've been able to watch them grow up, and I've grown right along with them. Fifteen years is a long time! I can remember many happy days spent at the grandparent's pool, football games at the family house, all of us playing basketball until the sun went down, jumping on the trampoline, playing hours and hours of Mario Kart, the list goes on and on. I rarely talk to my own sister, due to much family drama that I just don't want to deal with anymore. The hubby's family has always been so open and accepting, and I guess I've always felt like his brothers were kind of like my brothers, in a small way. I'm happy we were all able to spend so much time together over the years.
A. has a wife and two kids now, and we don't get to see him as much anymore, because they live a couple of hours away. J. has been away from home for awhile, first at college in Florida, and then in New York for his last job. He's been home for a few months, which has been nice. I like that he and the hubby have been able to spend time together again, whether it's going to Penn State football games or watching games at home. It's going to be weird to have him on another contintent, but I know he is going to do great.
I had my pocket camera today, so I snapped a pic at brunch. I didn't use the flash (because I didn't want people to stare at us), so it's a little blurry. Because it's people, it's neighborhood only (like always):
What was your favorite class in high school? (And no, lunch doesn't count.)
I'm one of those weird people that actually liked high school. I got along with everyone, and tried not to cause too much trouble. I also liked most of my classes (except for any type of math class...I'm a serious math phobe!) It's hard to choose one, so I'm going to choose my two favorites.
The first choice would have to be tenth grade American Cultures. I had an amazing teacher, Mr. Tubbs. He was wild and crazy, and loved to teach. He was the type of teacher that used to literally jump up on a desk and do a dance to make a point. He was very passionate about what he taught, and he made us want to learn. He had a great sense of humor, and loved to make jokes. Another thing I remember about him was his cup....it was a white cup with a wonder woman handle. You don't forget a cup like that! That cup shows that he marched to the beat of his own drum, and didn't care what people thought of him.
There are so many things I liked about Mr. Tubbs, and I actually try to model myself after him as a teacher now. I often reflect on the teachers that I had that were terrible, and do everything within my power to not be like them. Then I think about teachers like Mr. Tubbs and all of the great qualities that they have, and do my best to incorporate those qualities into my own teaching style. The things that I remember most about him are his kindness, his humor, his interest in us as individuals, and the love that he had for his subject matter. If at the end of my career a student remembers me as fondly as I remember Mr. Tubbs, I'll know that I was successful.
My second choice for a favorite class would have to be my AP English Lit course when I was a senior. I didn't like the teacher as much as Mr. Tubbs. She was OK, but not as exciting. What I loved was the class itself. I took three AP courses my senior year (Bio, Psychology, and English Lit.) That was a pretty heavy course load on top of my regular classes, but it was good preparation for college. Bio was nearly impossible for me, but I liked Psychology a lot. English Lit was definitely the best fit for me, though (go figure....I ended up being a Reading specialist!)
A nice part of the class was the class size. There were only five of us in the class....Mike, Brandy, Wendy, Ben, and myself. It was so small that I can still remember everyone! Ben and Wendy and I were really good friends, which made the class even more fun. What I loved the most, though, were the books that we got to read. This class really introduced me to the classics, and I fell in love with them. I can remember picking apart The Crucible. We read The Glass Menangerie and compared the play to the film. We read Lord of the Flies and got to write our own concluding chapter. The book I loved the best, though, was Wuthering Heights. I found it confusing at first, since all of the characters have the same first name or last name, but once I understood the story I was hooked for life. I actually own a very old, very fragile copy of Wuthering Heights that was printed in 1936. I keep it right next to my very old copy of Edgar Allan Poe's works.
As I think back to all of the wonderful literature we read in my AP English Lit class, I am reminded of a line from one of my all-time favorite children's books. It is from the story Thank You, Mr. Falker, by Patricia Polacco. This is a story about a girl (the author as a child) who was dyslexic. She was also bullied, and had a rough time in school. This went on for a long time until a teacher took a special interest in her and helped her to adapt to her disabilities. Patricia Polacco wrote the book in honor of this wonderful teacher. I often read the book to my older classes, and have never gotten through a reading without shedding a few tears. I have seen so many students come through my room that could have been that little girl in the story. It really breaks my heart sometimes.
In this story, the girl's grandfather puts a spoonful of honey on the cover of a book (she is quite young at this point). He then asks her to taste the honey. When he asks her how it tastes, she says, "Sweet". Then he says the following: "Yes, and so is knowldege, but knowledge is like the bee that made that honey, you have to chase it through the pages of a book!" I was more than willing to chase that knowledge through the pages of a book, and being in that class showed me that there was more out there than the teeny-bopper novels I was used to reading. It opened my eyes to a bigger world of text, and I will be forever grateful for that.
Here's a link to a reading of the book by Jane Kaczmarek. http://storylineonline.net/thankyou/fullscreen_xl.html It takes about ten minutes, but it is so worth it...every time I read the story, I know without a doubt that being a teacher is what I was meant to do.
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
Honestly, I had never really even thought of doing this until the other night. I got hooked on a marathon of that new "Surviving Disaster" show on Spike TV this weekend. It's hosted by some dude named Cade Courtly, and he's a rough-and-tough former Navy Seal. For those of you that haven't heard of it before, he basically takes normal folks through horrific scenarios that they might encounter someday. Even though it's made me a bit paranoid, I do like the show. The things he shows you how to do make sense, and it's good info to tuck away (and hopefully never need to use!)
So far I have learned how to:
- Survive an earthquake, and all of the nasty stuff that goes along with it (power lines on a car, jacking up a fallen wall, etc.)
- Survive a mall shooting (and take out a terrorist with a suitcase and a clothes bar). The most interesting fact I learned was that you should never keep your shoulder to a wall when there is shooting going on, because bullets like to travel six inches away from a wall until they encounter an object.
- Survive a home invasion (I fell asleep for part of this, and probably missed some good stuff)
- Survive a nuclear blast (that one kind of freaked me out a bit). I learned a lot about the different kinds of radiation, and that you only have about 20 minutes to escape the fallout. I also learned that any vehicle that is running during the blast will be electromagnetically fried, so they showed a crash course in hot-wiring a car. Your best bet is to see where the wind is blowing, and drive perpendicular to the scary cloud
- Survive a high-rise fire. I've always been scared to be trapped in a fire, so it was good to know that high-rise buildings have dedicated fire stairways in the middle of the building. If those get compromised, I learned how to smash holes in thin interior walls to crawl through offices. There aren't any high-rise buildings where we live, but if I ever get trapped in one, I feel like I'm better prepared!
- Survive while lost on a snowy mountain (digging a snow cave, making snow shoes out of evergreen branches, and what to do in an avalanche). They even worked a grizzly bear attack into that episode. Grizzly's have shoulder humps, and black bears don't. You don't look a grizzly in the eye, and you play dead if it catches you. You do look a black bear in the eye, and definitely don't play dead (or he will maul you for kicks). This is good info, since I came two feet from a black bear a few years ago, and couldn't remember what to do. I looked at him, which was the right thing to do (whew!)
- Survive in a hurricane (there is no real worry about dealing with that where we live, since we are surrounded by many mountain ranges. I stopped watching after somebody got attacked by an alligator)
I think that's all of them so far. I missed the airplane hiijacking episode that started the whole series. I am also halfway through being lost at sea. Then next episode is called Pandemic, and focuses on terrorists releasing a biological weapon into the population, and also what would happen during a catastrophic virus outbreak. I'm sure that one will freak me out, given that I get sneezed on, snotted on, coughed on, (and sometimes bled on) during a typical day at school!
Supernatural was pretty good this week. I really like how they spoofed a lot of popular TV shows. I wasn't sure how that was all going to go down (the chance for it being corny was definitely there), but I think they did a good job. I wasn't expecting them to tie it all together with the Apocalypse storyline at the end, which I thought was a nice touch. I also wasn't expecting the twist at the end...that caught me by surprise. Even though it was serious at the end, I absolutely loved the silly stuff. Someone was nice enough to post some of it on Youtube, so I'm going to post a couple of clips.
The opening credits were great (considering they never have an "official" beginning to the show, just a recap each week). Their characters are supposed to be these tough dudes that go around saving the world from demons and monsters. To watch them riding a tandem bike or playing football was so funny! I especially like the "ghost" in the closet:
The commercial Sam had to act in was pretty funny, in an uncomfortable (no pun intended) sort of way:
And the CSI:Miami parody....Jackpot!
What are the can’t–live–without things on your web homepage?
I can't believe I'm actually answering a lame commercial question, but I'm avoiding house chores right now, and any distraction is welcome ;) I could live without all of these items, but I do like having a custom homepage...it makes life easier! I use the igoogle page, and here is what I have on it (in no particular order):
- Gmail link (It's nice to see new messages as they pop up, instead of having to go into the program. Basically this means I'm more likely to return messages, because I can always see them)
- An animated hamster pet (I love real ones, but our house is already a zoo!)
- Icanhascheezburger rotating pictures (always good for a chuckle)
- My "horror" scope (not that I really believe in that stuff, but it's fun to read)
- IWatchStuff link (updates movie news)
- TheSuperficial link (updates the ridiculous things celebrities do)
- PassiveAgressiveNotes.com link (updates the stupid things people write to each other)
- Hangman game (I'm not very good)
- Supernatural Quote of the Day (It rotates the funny things my boys say. Is anyone really surprised that I'd have this on my hompage?)
I know there are many more interesting apps out there, but this is all I can fit on my screen. Back to "un"decorating I go....the house looks so empty without all of our cool Halloween decorations!
I'm sorry if I've overwhelmed your neighborhood pages with my pics! Most of you know how terrible I am at actually posting the pictures I take, so I figure I'm making up for it today. Knowing me, it'll probably be another five or six months before I post pics again!
Here are some pics from the kitchen. I actually cooked for this party, which was scary, because I NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER cook! I hate cooking almost as much as I hate grocery shopping and dusting (which is a lot). I made everything for the party, and was quite proud of myself. Nothing looked like it did in my cookbook, but I was pretty happy with how it all turned out. No one got sick, (as far as I know), which means I did an ok job!
This is how much of a non-cook I am/was.....last weekend was the first time I had ever baked cupcakes, or even frosted anything. I'm serious. I made some cupcakes, a trifle, a cheesecake, a broccoli casserole (that's the only thing I ever cook on a regular basis), some hotdog mummies, and I also cooked up some chex mix with m &m's. This was before I knew that you can buy it in the store, but I digress......;) I was especially proud of the mummy man cheese spread I made. It was a sticky mess as I was creating it, but I think he turned out pretty cute.
I'll post the pics of the treats, as well as a couple of party pics. Those will be neighborhood only, as all of my people-related pics are.
Here's the last batch:
Here are some random shots of the rest of the decorations, in no particular order:
Here are some pics from our Halloween party last weekend. I really went all out with the decorating this year, and I had a blast doing it. The best compliment was when some people wouldn't even go into the parlor, because it was so spooky! The hubby built a wooden frame for three skeletons, and my dad built me a coffin. The hubby wired the bones together (it's much cheaper to buy a bag of random bones than it is to buy a whole skeleton), and we attached them to the framework. One shopping spree to the Salvation Army later, and we had our creepy bridal funeral party!
I didn't have a definite plan for what the skeletons were going to wear, but when I found the Victorian wedding dress, I knew that was going to be my centerpiece. Then I tried to find older-looking dresses to keep with the theme of our parlor. The "groom" was easy...just a suit coat, shirt, and a top hat. I cut down the fading flowers in our garden prior to decorating the parlor, and gave the ladies dried flowers as a finishing touch. As our guests came in, they passed by the parlor to get to the dining room. I had spooky piano music playing, and a white ghostly spectre doll "playing" the piano. It was very creepy! Tonight I plan on tearing them apart to store for next year, and I'll admit, it's going to be a little strange. I don't really like being alone in the room with them......they are really spooky! I know it's dumb, but I have trouble turning my back on them. Too many scary movies as a kid, I suppose. Anyways, here are some of the pics from the parlor (it was much spookier at night, but hard to get a clear shot):
