May 30, 2013

This morning I watched Shooter. Still a great movie. Then I watched Iron Sky. Wow. The concept of the movie is that way back in 1945 the Nazis left Earth and colonized the Moon. America makes another moon landing mostly as a publicity stunt to get the President re-elected (who happens to be a Sarah Palin look-alike). To add the the publicity, one of the astronauts is actually a black male model, who is a verging-on-offense black stereotype. The Nazis then bleach him white and send him back to Earth with the next-in-line Fuhrer and a school teacher to kick off the Nazi invasion of Earth. There is also the main Nazi scientist who looks like Albert Einstein. The only funny part was in the room with all the world leaders after the invasion has started and the representative from North Korea tries to confess and take credit for the space ships, saying his divine leader designed and build them himself, and all the other leaders just laugh at him. Overall, it was a really bad movie but it had some good music, had some interesting societal commentary toward the end, and it had surprisingly high production value.

My new Nexus 7 arrived today and the back of the case creaks a tiny bit in one spot the screen is solid so I am going to keep it. The officially branded case I got is pretty much a piece of crap. I paid $20 for it and I would say at most it is worth $5. So I will be sending that back. I think instead I'll get a case just for the back of the tablet and then get a sleeve to put it in. I really like the keyboard though. It is much bigger but still compact and has a cover that can also be used as a stand. So I can probably send back the stand I got.

I also got a couple cheap screen protectors which are always a crap-shoot. The first one was a complete botch. I started in the kitchen but there was way too much random fuzz floating around that I couldn't keep the screen clean so I moved to my room. It was still a challenge but I managed to get the first screen down perfectly without anything between it and the screen. And then when I went to pull the top protective layer off, the screen protector came off with it and then fuzz got on it so I couldn't use it. I think the cheap screen protector companies know this is going to happen because they always ship with two. With a lot of work I was able to get the screen clean again and got the second protector on, almost as good as the first, and it seems to be doing the job. We'll see how it holds up.

I watched Blood: The Last Vampire, which also has an anime that I plan on watching. The main girl is a half-vampire that has been alive for a long time, killing demons, and her ultimate goal is to kill the main demon because that demon killed her father. The fight scenes were well done until the demons in demon form were brought in. They definitely didn't leave much money in their budget for that CGI. But overall it was a good movie.

My favorite movie of the day was Monsters. I can't quite remember the beginning but I think evidence of extraterrestrial life was found somewhere and we collected it but the ship carrying it burned up on entry, spreading the samples on Earth (at least in Mexico). A journalist is tasked with getting the daughter of the owner of the company he works for, safely back to the United States. Originally by ferry but they end up having to go through the infected zone. For most of the movie you only see evidence of the monsters or little glimpses here and there. And that makes the movie so much better. It builds the mystery and anticipation so they are that much cooler when you finally see them. And the movie isn't necessarily about the monsters, they are more of a backdrop. There is also some metaphor in there. I really enjoyed it. It kind of reminded me a bit of District 9 and whatever that movie was where the giant alien was attacking New York and the young people were filming it on a handheld camera.

Tonight I started a marathon, watching Mission: Impossible and MI:2. Tom Cruise looked like a baby in Mission: Impossible, he was so young. I had also forgotten that Emilio Esteves was briefly in the movie. Even though the movie is pretty old now it wasn't too bad. The mask reveal still looks very convincing. And watching movie reminded me of all the time I spent playing the N64 game with my cousin.

MI:2 has held up a bit better. The mask reveals are impeccable, as is Tom Cruise's long hair. And the action is pretty freaking good. I always remember the motorcycle stuff near the end. And the mountain climbing in the beginning. Which fits with the fact that people tend to remember the beginning and end of things much better than they remember the middle bits.

Tonight I nearly had a visit with the new volunteer kid but I was too quick to call it off. I called the foster dad but the kid wasn't home so he was going to give him a call and then call me back. In the between time it got kind of dark outside and there was a bunch of lightening and the wind picked up. I thought it was going to get worse so when the foster dad called back I told him I was going to stay home because I didn't want to get stuck out on the highway or interstate in the middle of a storm. And then less than thirty minutes later the weather completely cleared up. Great timing. So that is now two weeks in a row without a visit. I am feeling like a crappy volunteer, even though last week was the kid's decision. Definitely need to make it up next week.

I did have a good hour and a half phone conversation with my friend tonight. I was just thinking about getting ahold of him because it has been at least a couple of weeks since I had heard from him. Our conversation started with relationship stuff and then went into his expensive catfish (which came out to around $22 a pound because of all the things that broke trying to get to the fishing spot) and we ended on some of the movies I had watched today. I really need to talk to my friends more often because I miss having conversations with people. I most certainly won't get any of that at work this summer which is where I will be spending a lot of my time, so I will need to make an effort to keep in contact with people. Texting just doesn't live up to a real conversation with someone.

May 29, 2013

Today I did absolutely nothing. I was entirely lazy and I'm not proud to admit that. I know this is only the first week of summer but it already feels like forever and I have accomplished very little. At least in terms of the things I would like to accomplish this summer. I will probably feel different when I am back to working five days a week at the theater, but I don't think different will be better. I feel even more lazy when I'm at the theater.

Most of my day was spent watching YouTube videos, making up for lost time with all the Netflix watching I have been doing the past couple of days. I've been getting back into exercising. Slowly. I need to get back into the habit of it so it will be less hard to start every day. I also need to figure out a better source of cardio. That has always been one of my problems. At some point I would really like to have an elliptical but at the moment I don't have the room for it.

I switched up my Chipotle order tonight, going with white rice and the salsa that looks like pico de gallo. I took a risk with that because I find raw tomatoes repulsive, but the one time I had it, my friend's mom made it, and it was really good. This stuff was nowhere near that good but for the most part it was alright. Every now and then I would get a bite that tasted a little too much like tomato but not enough for my gag reflex to kick in. Next week I think I am going to try the mild and cross my fingers that it isn't actually hot. I don't do well with hot.

Tonight I went back to Netflix. I watched several episodes of the anime High School Of The Dead. It is about a zombie outbreak and a group of high school kids that try to survive it. It is pretty decent. I could use more comedy but that is generally the case.

Right now I am almost done watching Fire With Fire. It has Bruce Willis, Josh Duhamel, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent D'Onofrio. It came out last summer but I had never heard of it so it may have gone straight to DVD, which is weird considering the cast. It is a tad on the graphic side but that is typical these days. Maybe there was something in the news but even then they usually just bump the movie back rather than sending it straight to DVD. So who knows. Money was probably involved. The movie is good though. D'Onofrio plays evil very convincingly. Oh, and the basic premise of the movie is Duhamel is a firefighter and after witnessing a murder he goes from being in witness protection to being a vigilante.

Now I am going to go to bed. I welcome sleep.

May 28, 2013

I watched a bunch of SeaQuest today and learned two things. The first, is that I still like the show and I think it holds up after all these years. The second, is that the actor who plays Carlton Lassiter on Psych was in at least a couple episodes of SeaQuest, looking a bit like Jesus, with long hair and facial fair. It was strange.

I packed up my Nexus 7 today and mailed that back, and also order a new one, plus a keyboard and a case. I kept the case/keyboard just in case I don't like the new keyboard. I have until the end of June to return the case/keyboard and I am getting a little better at typing on it so it wouldn't hurt to have around because I do really like it as a simple case. All the new stuff should be here on Thursday and my fingers are crossed that the new tablet doesn't have the same creaky screen issue.

For awhile now I have wanted to set my printer up to print wirelessly and today I finally did that. It took forever. I couldn't find the physical install disc and everything I saw online about setting up wireless printing referenced the install disc. I downloaded a few things from the Canon website but didn't think to download the driver until much later. And that ended up being the thing I needed. I also think I may have just been able to do it on the printer itself but the tiny screen and buttons are confusing. In the end, however, I somehow got it to work, so I don't have to worry about moving my printer closer to my computer every time I want to print. Which is at least once every few months.

I decided on what TV I want to get when I get around to getting one and I wanted to see it in person. I checked at Best Buy and Target today but neither place has one on display. It was confusing with Best Buy because on the website you can order it and immediately pick it up at the store, but in-store they only have the old model on the shelf. That didn't make sense to me. And at Target, you can apparently only order it online. So I didn't get to see the TV but I feel fairly confident that it is the one I want. Until I think myself out of it. I also looked into my buying options and I kind of want to go with Target because I have two gift cards there. Those will cancel out shipping and tax so I would end up paying about two dollars less than the sale price. With Amazon, and maybe Best Buy, I would have free shipping but still have tax so it would be cheaper to go with Target. But I would get it faster with Best Buy because I could go pick it up as soon as I ordered it. Or wait two days instead of a week if I go with Amazon. And I am more familiar with returning stuff to Amazon so that would be convenient if I didn't like the TV or it arrived broken. So I don't really know. I've gotten this far with a TV before and never got around to buying it so maybe I can do the same this time around.

My new green hoodie arrived today. It fits much better than my first attempt and I still like the color. I am wearing it right now, in fact. I'm glad I won't have to return it because it feels like I have been doing a lot of that recently.

Tonight I watched the first episode of Lexx, a cheesy sci-fi show from the late '90s to early '00s. It really wasn't that good but I ended up watching the entire hour and a half episode. For some reason I think each episode in that first season is an hour and a half but I don't think I will be watching any more of it. I found it to be a tad confusing and a music was annoying. I couldn't get into it and I am tempted to watch something else to cleanse my palate but I have a headache, probably from trying to figure out why I was watching Lexx, so I am going to go to bed instead. Sleep sounds really good right now.

May 27, 2013

Yeah, so today was not productive in the least. I just watched a bunch of stuff on Netflix and messed around on my computer. I did discover that if I watch Netflix on my computer, rather than my Xbox, I can record it with my Elgato. I can't remember how I recorded sound though. In my earlier tests I was able to but after awhile of recording there was noticeable sound lag, so maybe it is for the best that I can't get the sound to work. The workaround for this is to record video with the Elgato and record sound with Audacity, then use software to sync the two files. I haven't actually tried that yet because I couldn't find the motivation to do so but I am curious to see if I can do it. So I might try that soon.

As for what I watched, I started with The Chaperone, starring Triple H and the youngest daughter from Modern Family. The basic premise is that Triple H gets out of jail and in order to get to know his daughter he becomes a chaperone for her field trip. And his old bank robbing buddies are after him throughout the whole movie. It was pretty cheesy but for a WWE movie it wasn't too bad and I was actually entertained by it.

Next I watched Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. I have wanted to see it since I first saw a trailer for it however long ago but never got around to watching it. Until today. And it was great. The idea for the movie is looking at a horror movie in the woods from the innocent hillbillies perspective. They buy a fixer-upper cabin in the woods for a vacation home and a group of college kids camping in the woods seem to be attacking them and committing suicide all around them, while the kids think the hillbillies are after them. It was hilarious and I will probably watch it again. I wonder if there are more movies out there that show the perspective of those who are typically portrayed as the bad guys but maybe it is just a misunderstanding.

After that I watched the first series of Red Dwarf, which is a sci-fi comedy on the BBC that started in 1988, and apparently ran through 2012. The setting is a space ship traveling through space. One of the crew snuck a cat on board and he is given the choice to turn the cat over to be killed or to be put in stasis for a certain period of time. He chose stasis but while he was in stasis there was an accident and all the other crew members were killed. The ship computer kept the original crew member in stasis until the radiation on the ship dissipates, which takes three million years. When he is woken up his only company is the ship computer, a holographic representation of his old bunk mate (which is just the same actor with an 'H' on his forehead) and a descendent of his cat, who has evolved to look just like a human but still retains certain cat mannerisms. I didn't know what to expect going into the show but I ended up liking it. I am curious to see how the show advances over the years. I stopped after the first series but I plan on checking out the other ones.

Next was Aziz Ansari's special Intimate Moments. I had seen a lot of it before, maybe even all of it on TV, but it was still funny. After that I changed it up with some cartoons. I started with Superman/Shazam!: The Return Of Black Adam, that included a few shorts after it involving different DC superheros. Then I watched Planet Hulk, where Hulk is expelled from Earth and ends up on another planet where he becomes the reluctant leader of a revolution. Hulk is a freaking badass. Also in my Netflix cue is Hulk Vs. which pits Hulk again Wolverine and other superheros. I think I'll watch that tomorrow. Right now I am watching Bravo Girls. An awkward anime. The main character has a girl phobia and is always accidentally walking in on naked girls and getting the crap beat out of him. And there is a girl from another planet. It has really funny moments but there is also a lot of random and unnecessary nudity. Animated nakedness is not my thing and I don't really understand it. Especially in this case because all the girls are supposed to be in their mid-teens. I don't get it.

We had a family dinner tonight and it was really good. I had fake burgers, potato salad, deviled eggs, and pasta salad that my sister made. With a peanut butter chocolate thing for dessert that my sister made.

Now I think I am going to read a little bit and then go to bed. I definitely seem to be on my summer schedule. I am staying up later and later. I don't really want to be doing that. Oh well.

May 26, 2013

Today. A whole lot of nothing. My major accomplishment for the day was watching the new season of Arrested Development. I need to watch it again. The plot for each episode, and the entire season, is interwoven like the threads of a blanket. I am hoping it is only a matter of time before someone makes a graph or infographic showing how each character's storylines cross paths. It was incredibly complex. But I liked it. I don't think I'll be able to say whether it was better or worse than the old seasons but I did enjoy it.

My other accomplishment for the day was making the oyster cracker snack recipe from the cookbook I got from a kindergartener a week or so ago. It mostly consists of ranch dressing mix along with lemon pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and dill weed. Then you put it in a bag with the crackers and some oil and mix it all together and let it sit for awhile. It is pretty good stuff. The hardest part was halving the recipe because two bags of oyster crackers would have been too much. Halving the ranch mix was kind of a pain because it has the same sort of consistency as flour. I didn't really have any way to measure it so I found a old pill bottle (because that was the smallest thing I could think of) and eventually got all the mix into it. Then I used a ruler to measure how much there was (15/8ths) and made a mark at the halfway point (15/16ths). Trying to pour out exactly half was a pain but I got close enough and it ended up working out.

Now I am watching Cabin Fever 2. The original may be my favorite horror movie of all time. It was so ridiculous. The second one has some good music and it is also pretty ridiculous. It has a bit of comedy but could use more, and it wasn't nearly as well acted as the first movie. Still decent for a straight-to-DVD movie. But it also kept going long after it should have been over. I did like the use of animation to progress the story at the beginning and end of the movie though.

I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow. Hopefully something a little productive. I might play at little FIFA 13, which I got today for eight dollars, 80% off. I also think we are having a family dinner for Memorial Day. But other than that I would actually like to do something with my day. I probably won't. But I'm going to at least think about it.

May 25, 2013

For the most part, today was just a carbon copy of yesterday. I slept in, mostly because I was up until well after three o'clock in the morning. And then I didn't really do anything with the rest of my day. I downloaded a few more games for my tablet and wasted some time with those. And watched a bunch of YouTube videos.

The tiny tablet keyboard I am currently typing on is growing on me a little bit but I still think I want to try out a keyboard I can actually type on, not just hunt-and-peck. I've got it narrowed down to two keyboards, and I'll probably go with the one that comes with a case. I am also considering a screen protector. In my experience they take away from some of the responsiveness of the screen when playing games, it becomes harder to swipe. I'm not a fan. But I'm also not a fan of scratching something that I just spent a lot of money on.

At work tonight I watched movies, read a bit, and played with my tablet. A very typical shift. And I avoided having to go down and help clean. I finally got around to watching Disturbia again, something I have been meaning to do for at least a couple years. I got on kick there where I watched it maybe once a week. I don't want to go back to that but it was as good as I remember. Next I watched Whip It. It was between that and Stick It. I was either in the mood for a movie about female athletics or a movie with a two-word title ending in "It". And I went with Whip It. Still enjoyable. Right now I am watching Step Brothers, another movie I haven't seen in a long time. I'm not sure if I will have to stay until the midnight shows get out but if I do I may start the first season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Another show I haven't watched in years.

And a follow-up. I did have to stay for the midnight shows. So I finished Step Brothers, then watched the first few episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force while playing a game on my tablet. Then I read my book until the last movie finally dropped sometime after 2:30AM. Now I am going to go to bed.

May 24, 2013

I slept in until 8:00AM this morning and it was pretty great. And in the afternoon I took a nap. In between the dogs randomly barking at the same stuff they see every day. They barked all day long and it was surprisingly stressful. It is hard to relax when you have no idea when the next round of violent barking is going to begin. I am fairly certain my personal Hell will involve a lot of barking dogs.

I didn't really do much with my day. I looked at a lot of Nexus 7 stuff. Apps, tips & tricks, cases, and other stuff. I will probably sending my Nexus 7 and the keyboard back next week. The Nexus 7 creaks a little on one side which I believe is caused by the screen coming up a little bit. And I hear this is a typical issue. So I am going to exchange it and cross my fingers that the next one is better. As for the keyboard, I like it as a case but it is way too tiny for a keyboard. I could probably type a lot faster with the on-screen keyboard, which defeats a lot of the purpose of having a physical keyboard. So now I am looking into actual cases and bigger bluetooth keyboards. There are just enough options out there for the decision to be more difficult than I would like.

At work I finished season three of Arrested Development, read a little bit, played games on the Nexus 7, and watched Fast And Furious 6. That movie was ridiculous, bigger and more over the top than any of the previous movies, and I liked it. There is a save on the bridge that is so insane it left the entire audience speechless. I assume they were all saying to themselves "Did they really just do that?", because I know I was. And they have left it open for the next one. Which I immediately wanted to see. The annoying thing is that they tease that right at the beginning of the credits yet people still sit and wait like there is going to be something after the credits. Now I want to watch Transporter. And Tokyo Drift.

I also helped clean several theaters tonight. I do not miss picking up other people's trash. It is still gross and I still don't understand why people can't throw their own trash away. Over the years it has become the norm for people to be complete slobs when they go to the movies and that needs to change.

I am currently waiting for the two midnight shows to get out so I can go home and go to bed. Despite getting to sleep in and then later taking a nap, I am really tired. I'm too old to be up past two o'clock in the morning. At least when being up that late involves working. I'm tempted to say I can only open this summer but then my entire day would be shot. Anyway, I've got about twenty minutes left so I am gong to pack up and then read until the movies drop.

May 23, 2013

Today was the last day of school and it went by too fast. It didn't help that it was only a half-day. I didn't have anything to do in the morning when I got to work so I went down to the gym like I used to do in the morning at the beginning of the year. I did just about as much good at wrangling kids as I did then. The weird thing was I knew all the kids this time, as opposed to the beginning of the year when it was just a sea of faces.

After all the kids were picked up by their teachers, I again had nothing to do, so I went and hung out with the kindergarteners. Until the last assembly of the year. I usually sit in the back of the gym but today I ended up sitting at the front of the gym with the kindergarteners. It was strange being up there and I felt very exposed. The assembly covered the last character trait awards for the year, a tribute to the retiring music teacher, and a send-off for the sixth graders.

One of the fifth grade teachers has been putting in a lot of effort to get all the kids to learn a song so they could surprise the music teacher. Unfortunately her mother passed away last week I think so she was still out of the state today. We overcame this with technology. The principal was able to FaceTime her with the iPad and then held that up so the music teacher could see all the kids singing. The librarian also videotaped the assembly and is going to send that to the music teacher later.

The sixth grade send-off was pretty good but it would have been more meaningful had I known the sixth grade class better. I did get a little misty eyed when the teachers spoke about the kids. It really did feel like a funeral and not just a group of kids moving on to a different school. I don't remember my sixth grade graduation being that emotional. Although at the time I was twelve and probably fairly oblivious to everything other than being bored and not wanting to sing I Believe I Can Fly.

When the assembly was over I helped one of the resource teachers figure something out with archiving her emails. The same teacher I have been helping with emails recently. In the email program there is a cabinet where she had a bunch of folders with various emails in each one. She didn't know if she needed to do something different to archive those and I didn't want to mess anything up so I went down to the lab and messed around with it on my email because I didn't have anything important in my cabinet. I made some random folders and emailed myself a few times so I had stuff to put in the folders. I found that when I opened one of the folders in the cabinet and archived one of the emails in the folder, the folder would be recreated in the archive and the email would be placed in it. With that information, I was able to show the resource teacher how to do this, and all was fine.

Shortly after that I followed my favorite substitute teacher and her class out to recess and then stayed out there for the kickball game, staff against the sixth graders. I did not participate because my knees suck. My para friend didn't want to wear her hoodie so she asked if I could keep an eye on it for her because it was brand new and she didn't want it to disappear. I ended up holding onto it for her but I did ask her if she also had a purse I could hang onto. The game itself was pretty entertaining to watch and I believe the sixth graders ended up winning, despite the best efforts of the staff.

The day was pretty much over after that. I went back to the kindergarten room and ended up walking the two bus kids to the gym and hung out in there until the teachers arrived who usually have bus duty. Then I stopped by the office to get a yearbook and learned that I made at least one mistake. I called one of the sixth graders “Mark” instead of “Mary”. And she apparently doesn't even go by “Mary” but by her middle name. Something I would have known had the sixth graders come to the lab more often. To make it even worse, she was the one sixth graders who was actually nice to me and made the effort to talk to me. So I pretty much feel like a dick. My mom and the kindergarten teacher tried to help by saying a lot of other people looked at the book before it was printed and they missed it too, but I should have caught it. If I end up helping with the yearbook next year I am going to make up each class page and then send it to the respective teacher so they can double-check it. I really should have done that this time around.

After school the majority of the staff met up at a bar for lunch. It was a bitch trying to find a parking spot but I managed it after maybe ten minutes. Everyone else had already ordered by the time I got there and I got a water but the waitress nearly forgot to come back to get my order. But then I was one of the first people to get my order. It didn't hurt that I got a salad and fries. Not a lot of cooking required there. There were a lot of us there but they didn't do a great job of getting the food out to people. They would bring about three plates at a time, every five minutes or so. So it wasn't much of a group meal because some people were done before others had even gotten their food, but it was cool hanging out with everyone.

I was done with work for the day, and until August, but the resource teacher had more questions about backing stuff up, other than email, so I told her I would come back to the school and help her out. And I did that after lunch. She was worried that maybe something would happen to the drive where all the backup stuff was saved so we saved everything again to a thumb drive. While we were doing this my para friend was moving a shelf upstairs to her new classroom (because she is going to be a fifth grade teacher next year) and the elevator spazzed out on her. It started making this loud town and she freaked out that something bad was happening. The resource teacher was standing there and my para friend kind of shouted “Am I going to make it?” with a very concerned look on her face as the elevator doors closed. She ended up being fine.

When I had finished backing stuff up for the resource teacher I headed down to help one of the kindergarten teachers because he had a couple questions about archiving his email. And then I went across the hall to the other kindergarten teacher's room because she and my mom were packing up the room. I talked with them for awhile before heading home, stopping at the bank on the way to deposit a birthday check.

I didn't really do anything else with the rest of my afternoon. Other than taking a nap. It was a good nap though. The second half of my Chipotle burrito was better than the first. I am still considering a change next week. Maybe white rice and a different salsa. Although I am afraid the step-up from the corn salsa will be too spicy. Only one way to find out. Although it would probably be safer to get the salsa I am considering, on the side with some chips. But that would mean another week of my current configuration, and I want to try something different.

My Nexus 7 arrived tonight. I am liking it so far. I mainly got it so I will be able to write my journal entries at work when I am stuck at the theater until the middle of the night. I have also downloaded an app that allows me to send and receive text messages on the tablet which is cool. When I am at home I mostly use a program on my computer to send text messages because I don't like typing on my phone, but the size of the text on the pop-up message is small so I need to lean in closer to the screen to see it. The tablet app comes in handy if I am lounging back with my feet up and don't want to lean in to see what the text message says. This requires a Wi-Fi connection and I am wondering if I can tether the tablet to my phone so I can still use the tablet app when I'm at work or somewhere else without Wi-Fi.

I got the latest letter from my friend today. It has been a couple months since I sent my last one so I am going to have to get back into writing again. I need to start thinking about subject matter for my new letter. One interesting thing is that one of the questions she asked in the question portion of her letter, is similar to one I plan on asking her.

I didn't have a visit with the new volunteer kid tonight. I called him twice before getting ahold of him and then he said he had some work to do and couldn't hang out. So much for trying an orange vanilla limeade at Sonic.

It is now late, and despite my nap this afternoon, I am incredibly tired. To the point my eyelids have become increasingly heavy. So I am going to go to bed now.

May 22, 2013

I got mobbed by kindergarteners yesterday. When they were about to leave the lab the teacher told them that it would be their last time in the lab this year so they should thank me and give me a hug. They all shouted 'thank you' at once and as a team, came at me for a giant hug. I imagine that is what celebrities would feel like if they were swarmed by a very short fan-base.

When I walked into work today, with a giant bag of popcorn, I just managed to clock in before having my picture taken with Flat Stanley and then was given a last minute project by the receptionist. The project was to make the labels for the CUM folders for each kid. And that 'U' make a 'u' sound, like 'cumulative'. The receptionist was having difficulties and thankfully I had just learned all about mail merges in Word while working on my note card label project. So I knocked that out and had the labels printed in maybe fifteen minutes.

On my way to the computer lab I dropped off the giant bag of popcorn in the teacher's lounge and then sent out an email to let everyone know about the popcorn. The subject line was “Cookies and Baked Goods...” and then the first line of the email was “are delicious, but I don't know how to bake.” And it continued “Not something I am proud of but I feel I can be candid in this public forum. To compensate for my inability in one food arena, I have overcompensated in another. That arena being popcorn. There is a bag in the lounge. And it is way better for you than cookies. As long as you can get past all the stuff that makes it taste good. Tell you what, just think of it as an exercise-motivator. You're welcome.” My last good email of the year.

I spent the rest of my morning finishing up my MAP spreadsheets, listening to podcasts, archiving emails, and shredding all the sensitive documents I have accumulated throughout the year. I ended up with so many sheets of paper that had student numbers or test scores or home addresses and phone numbers. It is really fun to shred paper though.

I didn't have any classes this morning and I couldn't get ahold of the first grade teachers to ask if they were going to come this afternoon because they had gone on a field trip. So I went on a brief field trip with one of the kindergarten classes and their fourth grade book buddies, to the park, which is about a block away from the school, not counting the block or two we had to walk to get to the playground in the park. On the walk over we ran into the male para that works with the preschool kids and he was carrying two styrofoam food containers. One the the kindergarten boys in front of me turned to the guy and asked him if he just had lunch with his love bud. Instant classic.

We stayed at the park for an hour or so and when I got back I found out that the first grade classes had planned on coming to the lab. I missed the first class but I came back in the middle of the second one so I stood around and talked with the teacher and my para friend. The kids were getting to play on CoolMath so my para friend was playing a coffee shop game and, after answering some emails, the teacher started playing Snail Bob 2, which is her favorite game. She wants to be able to play it on her iPad so I sent her a link to a browser that supports Flash so hopefully that will work for her.

I didn't really have anything to do after that so I just messed around on my computer. In my email archiving I discovered a link the librarian had sent out awhile ago that I had saved but not really looked at. It turns out, Popular Science teamed up with Google and now every single issue of that magazine is now available for free on their website. I think it was something over 1,800 issues since their first issue in 1872. I read some of the stuff in that issue and then started reading the issue from my birth year and month. I learned that HP had a touchscreen computer way back then. Fun fact.

Near the end of school the gifted teacher stopped me in the hall and said she was having a problem showing a video with a projector. It would play just fine on her laptop but when she plugged it into the projector, the projected image would just show a black box where the video should be. It sounded like maybe it was similar to the issue I was having when I was trying to screencap pictures from Windows Media Player so I looked up how I fixed that just in case it was the same thing. She had time to work on it after school so I met her upstairs at four o'clock.

When I got up there I briefly had to wait for her to save what she was working on and then open her email to get to the video which was attached in an email. She mentioned that her desktop shortcut to her email had stopped working and I asked if it still worked from the Start Menu, which it did, so she won't have to use an internet browser to check her email. Then I showed her how to drag the video from the attachment place in the email, onto her desktop, so she could just click on it there when she needed it instead of having to open up the email. When we plugged the laptop into the projector it idd exactly what she was describing. I tried making the projector the primary display but that didn't work. Then the video ended up being an MP4 I think, and could only play in Quicktime, which threw me for a bit of a loop since I was thinking about Windows Media Player. But thankfully I was able to look around in the menus and find something that referenced video acceleration, which is what needs to be turned off in WMP to screencap. And after turning that off in Quicktime, the video showed up on the projected screen just fine. A lot of my job is just clicking around and hoping stuff works. And thankfully in this case it all worked out.

After school I got Chipotle and Jimmy John's and mailed my Old Navy exchange at the UPS store. The new hoodie shipped today so that should be here sometime. I hope it fits. Eventually it was time for dinner and my burrito was alright but not great. I didn't do a very good job of cutting it in half and it was already really big to begin with so I ended up not eating all of the half I cut. I think I might need to get white rice next week. It isn't as healthy as brown but it sure tastes a lot better. And maybe try a different salsa. Maybe.

I didn't do too much with the rest of my night, other than editing a picture for my mom and doing a load of laundry. I'm really tired now but I kind of don't want to go to bed because I don't want tomorrow to come. Kind of the opposite of Christmas. I like working at the school and having interactions with people and feeling productive at least every now and then. It is going to be a long boring summer without that. I am looking forward to seeing the yearbook, though, and I am really hoping I didn't forget someone or call them by the wrong name. But I should probably go to bed and let the inevitable happen. It should be a fun half-day.

May 21, 2013

Working at an elementary school is like a PIXAR movie. It's made for kids but there are a lot of adult jokes.

I forgot to mention yesterday that one of the kindergarteners brought me a cookbook. It is a church thing but it is a really well constructed book and food is food. I'll need to try some of it this summer.

Also, the power went out briefly yesterday morning. Long enough to blow a breaker so half of the computers in the lab wouldn't turn on, and long enough to mess up the air conditioning so it was off for awhile. That made things a little warm.

And my sister returned a Bayside CD that I apparently let her borrow a year or two ago. I had completely forgotten about it and apparently she did too until she accidentally stumbled across it. Despite forgetting about its existence, I do remember most of the songs. And now I'm back up to having seven Bayside CDs.

And think that is everything I forgot from yesterday.

Today I got the last scores I needed for my note card labels so I was able to add those, do some final format editing, and then print off the labels. It took me a lot less time to affix all the labels to note cards than I thought it would. And not to toot my own horn but they came out looking pretty good. Hopefully the teachers will find them useful.

When I finished with that I continued working on my MAP spreadsheets and nearly finished that. And I started to archive some emails. Mainly just the ones where I had humorous exchanges with the principal or other teachers. Tomorrow I will probably save a few that are more useful to my work next year, like MAP-related stuff.

This morning the sixth graders put on a play about ancient civilizations that was written by two of the sixth graders. They had a couple microphones on stage but only a couple kids seemed to remember that so I couldn't hear a lot of the play, but it seemed to be educational, and funny at times.

This afternoon we had a tree planting ceremony for the retiring fifth grade teacher. It was a redbud tree and the fifth grade teacher had a long explanation for why he picked that tree which was pretty interesting. I couldn't hear all of it but it was something about how the redbud symbolized the beginning of spring and the indians on the prairie would use it as a sign for when the prairie needed to be burned, which would create new growth, which would attract the bison. At least I think that is what he was saying. Regardless, it was interesting. Most of the school was there and several of the teachers spoke about their favorite memories of the retiring teacher which was really touching. And it was a perfect day outside so that just added to it.

When that was over I took the camera from the librarian so I could get the pictures off of it and email them to her so she could pick out the ones she liked and send them to the retiring teacher. And then it was the end of the day. A very productive day at work.

After work I finally called Old Navy to start the exchange process on the hoodie I bought that was too long. And it was a very enjoyable phone call. It reminded me of the phone call I had when I needed to exchange my Land's End coat. All customer service experiences should be like this. Tomorrow I should be able to send back the too-long hoodie and hopefully the new one will be a good fit.

I also pulled the trigger and ordered a Nexus 7. It should be here Thursday. It'll be a little last day of school present to myself. I just hope I like it. My main goal for it is so I can write these journal entries while I'm at the theater. That is also why I got the keyboard/case to go with it. There is a chance I may come up with other uses for it, hopefully, but we'll see what's up when it gets here.

When I was done with all that stuff, I ate a couple carrots, eventually had dinner, and then did nothing of great consequence for the rest of the night. I did jump into a couple games of Battlefield 3 on PC and had my ass thoroughly handed to me. I got into a noob server, which turned out to be an ironic title because almost everyone else was a higher rank than I am on Xbox, and I have put 125 hours into my Xbox account. And both games were TDM, which I hate. I like objective games so I have a goal in mind and there is a chance at least some of the other team will be focused on the objective, which increases my chances of getting a kill. I did manage to get a handful of kills, several with a sniper rifle. I need to put some more time in to get more familiar with the controls. And probably rebind some of the keys. I kept meleeing when I wanted to throw a grenade. And the game would lag every few seconds, which lead to a death or two. But the graphics and animations looked good. So there's that.

Soon I am going to head over to the theater to get a trash bag of popcorn to take to school tomorrow. The last one of the year. I really just want to go to bed but the last movie doesn't start until 10:30PM. But soon I won't have to worry about waking up at 6:00AM every morning. So I can deal with staying up past my bedtime in order to get popcorn one more time.

May 20, 2013

Today happened. And now I am tired. So let's do this.

I am still waiting for the reading scores from one of the kindergarten teachers so I can finish my note card labels. I did play with the format for all of them today, so they will look pretty sweet when I eventually get to print them out. I also started going through and putting the finishing touches on my MAP score spreadsheets. I have all the scores but I didn't do all the changes from Winter testing, to show how far a kid went up or down. I'll be able to finish that tomorrow. And hopefully the note card labels.

And at that point I will have nothing left to do this school year. Which will make the last few days boring. Although I may have the opportunity to actually put my note card labels onto note card, which would take up at least an hour or two of my day.

We had a band concert this afternoon and that brought back a lot of elementary school band memories. I even remembered playing some of the songs they played. And nothing against the kids, but I remember those songs being tough, which they are not. On a different band topic, there were a decent number of kids in the fifth grade band but only seven or so in the sixth grade band. And the orchestra had maybe six fifth graders, but only one sixth grader. And the grades are separated so with the orchestra, the fifth graders played their selection of songs, and then the sixth grader basically gave a solo performance, accompanied by the teacher on keyboard. So that was interesting.

After the performance I helped put the chairs away. My para friend helped and came up to me after saying that she had received her first injury from putting chairs away because she pinched her hand. I joked about how we had yet to be compensated for our extra work when it comes to putting chairs away so now she had decided to go for worker's comp. instead. As we walked back to our respective places in the building we kept talking about it and decided the injury was probably going to get progressively worse, to the point she would be in a wheelchair by tomorrow. Hilarious stuff.

After work I fixed the kitchen sink, after briefly fixing it, and then full-on breaking it. The aerator (which is a thing apparently) had broken a little bit so I glued it back together. This worked fine for a few seconds but then I tightened it too far and it came apart completely. A trip to Home Depot did the trick and now everything is back to normal. It seems like it might be coming out a little slower, maybe too much aeration, but soon enough it will become normal.

After dinner I went up to the cemetery with my mom to replace the flowers on my grandparents headstone. She normally puts fake flowers into the two vases but the last time she went up she put in real flowers. So we replaced those with some nice fake ones because they last longer and they look just as good. For awhile they were disappearing or showing up on headstones nearby. I figured that maybe the wind was blowing them out because they were so light, and then either blew away or people that worked there didn't know where they went so just put them on the nearest headstones. So I came up with the idea to tie lug nuts to them to keep them weighted down in the vases. And this has ended up working. And it turns out, I still know how to tie the knot used to tie fishing hooks onto fishing line. Or at least the knot that I think I may have at one point used to tie fishing hooks onto fishing line. Either way, the knot works.

Tonight I didn't really do anything. The same old thing. YouTube videos, internet stuff, and a little DVR. And now sleep. If my throat will stop itching long enough for me to actually fall asleep. Fingers crossed.

May 19, 2013

Today was a good day. A relaxed Sunday. I didn't really get to sleep in like I wanted to, I was up by 9:30AM I think. But whatever. I did eventually take a brief nap thanks to the rocking of my chair and the sound of the rain outside. Then I spent some time thinking about how I would make an automatic rocking chair. I really want one now. I don't think it would be hard to make something that would attach to a rocking chair and make it rock by itself. There is probably already something out there. Someday.

I went over to my dad's this afternoon to hang out and finally get my birthday present. My brother and dad wrapped it. They wrapped it good. The outside was newspaper with duct tape. Then a layer of duct tape, then more newspaper with packing tape. It was insane. I used my pocketknife a little bit but then my brother gave me his machete to use. And I did. I wasn't expecting it to be so sharp but I barely had to touch the duct tape and the machete sliced right through it. And I eventually got to the present, which was a big, straight-edge clamp thing. You use it to clamp onto a work piece so you can run your saw or router along it to cut a straight line, or you can use it as a straight edge for drawing a line or something. I already have one, though I haven't used it yet, but the more the merrier. You can never have too many tools and accessories.

After I opened that, my dad and I went up to watch an episode of Woodsmith Shop where they were making a box with miter joints but they cut dovetails into the joint to make it stronger. I had never thought about that before but it makes sense and it looked pretty cool. I don't think we watched anything else after that, we just listened to music and talked about a bunch of random things.

Tonight I played a bit of Battlefield 3 singleplayer on the PC. I bought it the other day because it was super cheap on the Amazon sale. It was in a bundle with Battlefield 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the Bad Company 2 expansion, Vietnam. So Battlefield 3 was basically $5. Over the course of the game on Xbox I think I have spent $100 ($60 for the game and $40 for the expansions). So $5 is impressive, granted I don't get all the expansion packs with that. But I don't really plan on getting too into the game on the computer. I have sunk 125 hours into the Xbox version so I would rather continue plugging away at that. I got the PC one because the graphics are better so I can go through the singleplayer (which I started on tonight) and enjoy the look of the game. And then hopefully get into some of the multiplayer a bit to see if maybe I want to get Battlefield 4 on PC rather than the Xbox. I like the accuracy of mouse and keyboard controls but playing with a controller just feels good. Minus the pain.

Now I am going to go to bed because I am really tired. And I will be able to sleep better tonight because the power is on and my room won't be devoid of sound. Fingers crossed the power doesn't go out in the middle of the night.

May 18, 2013

Not a lot to write about today seeing as how I was stuck at the theater all day. I made it to the third season of Arrested Development, started reading the second book in the Ender's Game series, and crocheted a bunch of leaves for possible use in the future.

I also went through a bunch of cough drops because my throat has been killing me all day. I blame the tech guy who came to the theater last night to fix the sound in one of the theaters. He had a fever and was coughing all over the place.

My car was nearly crushed beneath half of one of the medium trees we have in the theater parking lot. We had a bit of a storm pass through earlier in the night and half the tree was knocked down. Right between my car and the car in front of me and the car next to me. Before I went on break I was parked in the spot ahead of me, and had I been parked there after my break, the tree would have come down on my car. As it was, I just had a few small branches leaning up against my car, and at least in the dark it didn't look like I even had a scratch. I was incredibly lucky.

When I got home the power was out. This was weird because usually we are on the same grid as the theater, and the power only flickered at the theater, it didn't go out. Thankfully. But it was out at home so the place was a pitch black cavern. I didn't have a flashlight on me but seeing as how I live here, I know where everything is and managed to make it to my room without running into anything. With the power being out it was also deafeningly quiet. I normally sleep with my computer on for the fan noise and I have music playing. Despite my incredible tiredness, it took me awhile to fall asleep. Which I can mention here because I am currently writing this on the day after, seeing as how the power was out last night.

May 17, 2013

Today at work went fast. It helped that it was an early release day, so we got out at 1:30 instead of 3:50, but I still think it would have gone fast regardless.

I updated my note card labels with half of the kindergarten reading scores and only need the scores from the other class. I'm still working on the formatting with the addition of these scores but after that I should be able to print out the labels. Unless the principal has something else that needs to be added.

My one random task for today was deleting everything off a few digital cameras from the library. On one of them there were a couple short videos, audio only because the lens cap was on. They were from when I was helping the librarian figure out how to get a video off of the camera earlier in the year. Well, a video off her camera, which is the same type, so we were messing with the school camera to figure things out. The audio on these short clips documents our humorous struggle.

The parent who I worked on the yearbook with brought in the test print today and I am biased, but it looked really good. So much better than it looked on the computer screen. We talked about all the minor errors that no one else will probably notice,which tends to happen every time I make something, but I was afraid to look any closer in case I found something I couldn't ignore.

After work I was going to take my DVR back to the cable company because I couldn't pull up my recorded shows a couple weeks ago. And I thought the summer would be a good time to give up my connection to a DVR. But I decided to check it one more time and it was working. So instead of taking it back, I watched a couple episodes of Psych.

And then I took a nap because naps are nice.

At the theater tonight I finished reading Ender's Game and then watched the trailer because it is on Star Trek. I liked the book. The last big thing was pretty obvious but I don't think it was supposed to be subtle. To the reader at least. But it was a good book. And I am interested to read the other books in the series now. As for the trailer, I'm not sure yet. I think the actor playing Ender looks pretty accurate, and I like Harrison Ford, but I'm not sure about the rest. Other than they went the route of the new Fast & Furious trailer and appear to be showing the entire movie in the trailer. I think I am going to stop watching trailers. There is an art to them, which has evidently been forgotten. Not that condensing a two hour movie into a one minute trailer isn't impressive. Maybe that is how we will consume movies in the future.

At the moment I am currently enjoying yet another midnight private screening, much like I did for Iron Man 3. In that case it was because we didn't seat that theater so instead of turning it off I just went in and watched the movie because I had nothing better to do. Tonight I am watching Star Trek because the theater I am in had been down all day for a sound issue and the tech fixed it tonight. So the head manager wanted me to run it along with the other midnight shows, and check on it to make sure the sound was holding up. Rather than checking on it, I decided to watch the whole thing, because once again I had nothing better to do. And in both cases, I wanted to see the movie.

As for my theater schedule this weekend, I miss the days when managers wouldn't schedule people to close at 2:45am and then come back at 9:50am to work a double. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I'm not sure what I'm going to do to fill my time.

May 16, 2013

Right before going to bed last night I had the feeling I needed to check the yearbook one more time. So I did. And thank goodness. I called one of the third grade teachers by the wrong name. Whoops. In my defense, I used the same last name for her as the last girl on the page before. So I was apparently just in the mood to use that name. But I got it changed, and read every other name on my pages, before sending it off to the parent I'm working on the book with. Now my fingers are crossed I didn't forget someone else or missed some spelling error.

I came to the realization today that the front right pocket on my jeans is like a clown car. I carry way too much crap in that pocket. I think people would feel like they were watching clowns pile out of a car if they saw me pulling everything out of my pocket.

This morning on Good Morning America, Dan Abrams finally got to take a jab at Nancy Grace. They always have the two of them on together and Nancy Grace is incredibly annoying, with a grating voice that she uses to shout with and interrupt and talk over everyone. I don't like her. And I feel sorry for Dan Abrams every time they are on because she never lets him finish and she is constantly attacking his opinion. So today, they lost her feed in the middle and at the end George Stephanopoulos apologized for losing her, but then Dan Abrams chimed in “I'm surprised we can't still hear her.” Hilarious.

This morning I printed off all the MAP reports. Two copies of each, one for the teachers and one for the office. That's a pain but I managed it. I printed off the text reports for the first class on one printer, then moved them over to the other printer to print the graph reports on the back, while printing off the text reports for the second class on the first printer. That way I had constant printing going on and it went relatively fast.

In between the printing I went and read with kindergarteners, for the last time. They aren't sending books home for the rest of the year so there won't be anything to read with them. There were also a few fifth graders down there reading with kindergarteners today because they apparently got in trouble and their teacher's punishment for them involved reading with the younger kids.

I had my second grade reading group and it went fairly well. Not productive as always. I started with having them write about what they read yesterday. They are supposed to do that every day after they read but no matter how much time I give them at the end of our time, they rarely get further than the title of the book and the date. So today I gave them fifteen minutes and that was barely enough time. The only kid who is actually able to finish the sheet in a decent amount of time, finished way before the other three so I flipped through the book and gave him random words to look up in the dictionary. When we finally did get to read, they managed to read two pages before there was a false alarm about their class going to lunch so that was the end of that. They are always worried about whether or not it is lunch time yet but their class has to walk right by us to go to lunch so there really is no worry. Second graders.

A lot of my day was spent putting in the last few scores into my note card spreadsheet. Then merging those into Microsoft Word and formatting them so they will look good on the labels, which will them be put onto note cards. I got it all finished and printed off examples for the principal to look at. She wants me to add in reading lists for kindergarten and first grade so that will give me something to do tomorrow.

Near the end of the day we had an assembly for a Physics professor who showed off a bunch of fun physics experiments. Most of them involved heating stuff up to cause change. The finale involved having the whole school go out onto the blacktop and surround a big trash can that was filled with water. The professor than filled a small soda bottle with liquid nitrogen, tightened the lid, and dropped it into the trash can. A few moments later it blew up, throwing water several feet in the air. Apparently last year the explosion was bigger and got all the kids wet, so those that remembered this were underwhelmed. It was still pretty cool though.

After school I wanted to take a nap but the dogs kept randomly barking so I didn't get around to that. After dinner I went and visited the new volunteer kid for a typical, forty-five minute visit. He said the last day of school for him was yesterday but he had to go today because he has to finish an art project. Tonight I got a cherry vanilla limeade, which I haven't gotten since my first volunteer kid. I think anyway. Next time I want to get an orange or peach vanilla limeade. In my head it will taste like a creamsicle.

The rest of my night was spent doing the same old thing. I record my yesterday and my today so I am now caught up. And now that I am done with this I am going to go to bed because I am tired and I am fairly certain I will be even more so in the morning. Luckily it is an early release day tomorrow so I should be able to take a nap before I have to go to the theater.

May 15, 2013

The yearbook is officially done. Unofficially. I got the last two pictures I needed today (a first grader and the nurse) and finished up the class pages. I also send the last of the class pictures to the parent I am working on the yearbook with. That was a bit of a task because I was originally supposed to get pictures off of a memory card but the card was broken. Instead, the first grade teacher gave me a DVD that one of the paras had made from pictures she had been taking all year. I was able to pause on the pictures that featured more than one kid, screencap Windows Media Player (thanks to Google because usually when you try to screencap Windows Media Player you just get a black screen), and then cut out the picture in Gimp. It all took awhile because I had to watch the fifteen minute video all the way through, but I got it done and it was kind of cool seeing all the kids.

The yearbook was again most of my day but I also got a start on printing out all the MAP scores and graphs for the teachers. That is kind of a pain, mostly because I need to print out stuff on the front and back of a page and with anyone able to print to the lab, I occasionally have to race other people. But I'll get it done. Possibly tomorrow.

The middle school touring band came this morning and it brought back a lot of memories. I was in the touring band in both seventh and eighth grade, which I think was somewhat rare. At least considering my skill. At least when I was in middle school, there were two different band classes, the best class each year got to tour and I somehow managed to get into the best band both years. Anyway, the same teacher is still the band leader and he is just as crazy as ever. He is actually one of the main reasons I started playing the trumpet in elementary school, thanks to his visit to my school. That and my interest in Louis Armstrong.

In letters with my friend she asked something about Disney characters (villains and heroes maybe? Or favorite movie? I can't remember and the letter is six inches beyond my grasp so I can't be bothered to check) and I think I mentioned The Hunchback Of Notre Dam because there was a song in it that I liked. And I was reminded of this with the band today because they played a medley from the movie, which I also played so many years ago when I was in middle school. I don't think the song I like from the movie is in the medley (though I don't recall the movie song) but I did really like playing that medley.

At the end of the day the parent I'm working on the yearbook with stopped by the lab to get my pages. At almost the last minute I remembered that the first grade teacher pointed out one of the fourth graders that was misnamed. I had noticed it but didn't notice it, if that makes sense, and I nearly forgot about the teacher telling me that. The problem came about when I had to shift all the kids on that page over to accommodate a new picture. I shifted the name but not the picture, or vice-versa. Either way, the picture did not match the name, so I had to go back and shift every picture and name over, insert the missing picture, and fix the names. I'm going to double-check it again after I type this just in case I missed something else because the parent is taking it to the printers in the morning.

After school I got Chipotle and Jimmy John's and then came home. After dinner I showed my mom and sister a few funny pictures and YouTube videos, and then I spent the rest of my night reading Ender's Game and watching more YouTube videos.

May 14, 2013

I've thought of a possible reason for why I stop doing thing, or take a break from them. Like not drinking caffeine or eating meat or more recently, not eating candy. I fear change and the unknown and I think by giving up little things, I am able to create a sense of change that is still low risk. It is an interesting thought.

Apparently my grandma fell off a chair yesterday and broke her leg. And I didn't have a clue until this afternoon when I got a text from my dad saying she was out of surgery and doing well. I texted my sister and she caught me up to speed. She figured I had been getting dad's texts about the whole thing but I had not. I already rarely hear from my friends, now I can't even get an update about my grandma breaking her leg. I do exist right? We can't even go with the excuse that I don't have my phone on because I have had it on every day since my birthday. It is all a little frustrating.

But moving on to the part of my day before I found out I was far out of the loop.

My day was productive and pretty much all focused on the yearbook. I finally got class pictures from the second grade teacher, which only leaves one of the first grade teachers, and she is supposed to bring in her camera tomorrow. I also went around getting pictures of kids that were missing pictures, and getting ones for the missing staff. As of now I am down to one kid and one staff member (and needing permission from a second). Hopefully I can get both tomorrow because the goal is to compile everything tomorrow afternoon.

Getting all the pictures took awhile and then I spent the majority of the rest of my day editing the pictures I took and rearranging the class page layouts to accommodate pictures I hadn't counted on, and ones I wouldn't be needing. I had two edits that I was particularly proud of. The first was the first grader who was beaten by her dad and taken my social services. I believe she came after picture day and the only picture I could find of her was taken more in landscape mode than portrait mode. So I put it in the frame for the yearbook picture, scaled it so her head was the right size, and then used the smudge tool to make the background (which was thankfully just a plain blue) go all the way to the top of the frame. And I smudged out some of her stray hair while I was at it.

The second edit was of one of the Chinese kids who moved back to China a few weeks ago. I took a picture where he was standing with his teacher, dad, and the lady who worked with him on English, and cut all of them out of it. I cropped it down so that it was the right sized but there was still his dad's hand on his shoulder and part of the language teacher because she was standing slightly behind him. So I again used the smudge tool and continued the lines of the risers that were in the background, and made the adults blend into nothing. It turned out surprisingly well.

The best picture I took was of a fourth grade girl who has a lot of problems. She is smaller than her kindergarten brother and it seems like the only real excuse for her behavior issues, and her size, is that her mom was on drugs when she was pregnant. Anyway, when her teacher told her to follow me so I could take her picture, she got this giant-eyed stare on her face as she walked to her desk to drop off a paper (staring at me the whole time, not where she was walking) and then she came out into the hall with me. It was like she was afraid I was going to abduct her or something. And then for the pictures she wouldn't smile. The first one I took (which is the best one) she still has this crazy, wide-eyed look on her face and her lips are pushed out. I couldn't really use that in the yearbook so I went with the second one, which looks like a mugshot. I gave the kindergarten teacher a copy of the first picture because he wanted to make a card out of it for the principal.

After school I drove over to the IT department to buy a copy of Microsoft Office 2010. The whole district is upgrading to that next year and teachers and faculty were able to get a copy for $25, which is way cheaper than the retail price. I got it not only because it was super cheap, but also (and more importantly) because that is what I will be working with next year. I wanted to avoid the compatibility issues I have had to deal with this year thanks to having Office 2003 at home, Office 97 on my work computer, and occasionally getting files from people that were in Office 2010. Now we'll all be on the same level. I can also spend the summer familiarizing myself with it so when I need to help students and staff next year, I'll have at least a bit of a clue as to what I should do. I ran into that last week when one of the resource teachers needed help with Excel, and I knew what needed to be done on older versions of Excel, but it took me awhile to figure it out on the 2010 version. So I see my purchase as an investment, one that should have been paid for by the school, but whatever.

Tonight I completely caught up with my Watch Later list on YouTube and then spent an hour or two reading Ender's Game. I also worked a little on my signature and I think I have found one I like. I'm going to keep messing with it though. Now I am going to go to bed because I am tired and want to sleep. The best reason ever given for wanting to go to bed.

May 13, 2013

Testing is over for the year and we are finally back to a normal lab schedule. It's not really a normal school schedule because there are still field trips and lots of assemblies, but it is as normal as it is going to get. And there is no more testing. Did I mention that? I think the teachers and myself are more excited about this fact than the kids.

This morning I read with kindergarteners and then took a few pictures for the yearbook. I am getting pictures of people who weren't here for actual yearbook pictures. I managed to get three today and that leaves me with a handful to get tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow. The goal is to have it all done by Wednesday and then compile what I have with what the parent has that I am working with. Then she can drop it at the printers on Thursday, a day early, just in case there is something we need to change. I will be happy when it is done because it is kind of stressful, even though I am only responsible for the class pages.

I continued working on my spreadsheets and note card labels. My spreadsheets have all the scores entered I just need to get the averages sorted out. For the note card labels, I have to finish the percentiles for one more class and then do the DIBELS scores for fourth and fifth grade. So I'm getting there.

I took a break from that to recreate a survey for one of the resource teachers. She had a hardcopy of a sample and she wanted that, minus the part where it said “Sample”, and she wanted one of the questions removed. I asked her if instead of removing one of the questions I could just put in my own. We thought it would be funny to see if the principal would catch it. So I typed up the real one and then I added in a question along the lines of “The school should allow the computer aide to be acting principal once a week.” The resource teacher wasn't in her room when I went to give it to her so I made sure to put a pink sticky note on the fake one, saying that it wasn't real and pointing to the fake question. So hopefully that doesn't get screwed up. The principal will appreciate the joke but probably not so much if the fake survey actually went out.

After school I took a nap, eventually had dinner, and then spent my night watching YouTube videos and working on my signature. One of my summer goals is to improve my handwriting and I figured I should start with my signature. I filled a few sheets of paper writing my first name over and over, and then trying to figure out a new capital 'R'. I think I have my first name figured out. I am going with bigger loops because currently I have gotten stuck with a very thin and sad looking letter. I am also turning the bottom loop into a line under the rest of my first name. I think it looks good. Much better than what I have been writing.

When I tired of that, I caught up on my recordings. I made one for Friday through Sunday and then made one for today. It is so easy to miss one day and then miss a bunch. The same holds true for journal writing. I need to get better at that. Not the journal writing. I still do that every day. But the recording.

May 12, 2013

Another lazy Sunday. Nothing wrong with that. I haven't recorded my day since Thursday and I planned on doing that today but I didn't actually remember that plan until it was too late to actually put in the effort to catch up on the past three days. So maybe tomorrow. A large portion of my day was spent leaning back in my chair, with my legs up on the TV tray that I usually have my keyboard and mouse on, reading Ender's Game. I made it to chapter ten, which is apparently about 47% through the book. Not bad for a couple days of reading. I am enjoying the book so far and I am looking forward to watching the trailer for the movie after I finish the book. I don't want it to taint the vision of the story I have going in my head right now.

I looked up a video for crochet leaves and added several of those to the flower I crocheted for my mom. It looks a lot better with the leaves. I really want to make a bunch of them and make an artichoke-looking thing. Or use several different colors to make it look like a petal-y flower. It looks cool in my head.

Tonight we had a Mother's Day dinner of Freddy's and barbecue. I had Freddy's because their veggie burgers are good. Probably because they are cooked on the same griddle as the real burgers, but I am pretending that isn't the case. After dinner we gave my mom her presents. She just finished her last gift card yesterday so the one I got her today was good timing. And she liked the flower I made. My sister made her a shadowbox thing with a big letter 'L' and some knick-knack things and it looks very rustic and cool. After that we sat around and talked and watched a few episodes of Duck Dynasty, which I think is the only reality TV show I actually like. It is a great source of comedy.

I didn't get around to starting my laundry until after nine o'clock so I am waiting on my whites to finish in the washer so I can throw them in the dryer and go to bed. I'm not necessarily that tired but I am looking forward to cuddling up in my bed and just chilling out.

This coming week my most important goal is to go around and get pictures for the yearbook of the kids who missed picture day. All the pages need to be to the printer by Friday, so that deadline is fast approaching. I also need to finish up the labels for the note cards that will have all the kids' test scores. These will be given to their teachers next year so they know what their class is looking like. That should keep me fairly busy this week. I like busy.

May 11, 2013

I forgot to mention that when I got home for the party last night I played a little Black Ops 2 on the PC. Steam is doing a free multiplayer weekend and I decided to check it out. I was not impressed. I liked the keyboard and mouse control and I was able to move around a lot better, but in the two games I played the lag was super bad and that took all the fun out of it. The majority of my deaths happened when my screen was frozen for a second or three. It could have just been a bad host both times but I didn't want to try it further. The lag seems to be so much more of an issue in Black Ops 2 than I remember in previous CoD games.

This morning I got to sleep in and it was great. And then I took a nap in the afternoon. It was also great. The rest of my time before work was spent in a fairly normal, lazy weekend fashion. I watched YouTube videos, including one on how to make a crochet flower. My plan for Mother's Day other than the gift card I got, was to make a crochet flower.

At work I made a few flowers but I don't know how I feel about them. I might look for a crochet leaf video tomorrow and attempt a last minute leaf to see if that helps. I also watched a few episodes of Arrested Development before the battery died on my DVD player. I couldn't find my power cord and I am assuming it fell out of my backpack in my room. I haven't looked yet. I hope it is in my room because if it isn't, it is lost forever.

The best part of the evening was hearing from one of my oldest friends. We ended up having a long, random text conversation, just like we used to do. I haven't heard from her that often as of late, even less often than my other friends, which is saying something. Hopefully that will change. She is hilarious and smart and I miss hearing from her. I only have a small number of friends and I am friends with them because I like them and I find them interesting. I need more of all of them in my life. It is too much work making new ones.

May 10, 2013

Today was the last day of MAP testing. Good riddance. It was another back-to-back morning with fifth grade finishing up their Math tests and then fourth grade coming in to take their Reading test. Immediately after that, third grade came in for typing practice. And just like that, my morning was over.

After lunch I had a fifth grader come in to retake his Reading test because his teacher thought he could do better but was probably too distracted during the first test. I think the teacher was thinking, and I was with him, that the kid would test with a para in the resource room, but the resource teacher wasn't very helpful and the principal decided he should just take it in the lab with me sitting with him. I was supposed to encourage him to read out loud, and he did for a few questions but then he decided he didn't want to. He got about halfway done before I had to kick him out for the first grade class coming in.

In the first grade class I was able to give the teacher the potholders I made her and the note I wrote. I was messing with the printer while she was reading the note but she mentioned and my para friend verified, that she laughed, then cried a little, and then laughed again. So job well done. I started with a joke about Teacher Appreciation Week, then thanked her for helping me discover a love for reading years ago (because she was my reading tutor when I was a kid), and then I ended with a joke about a pile of books collapsing on me. I like to sprinkle in jokes with my sentiment. Jokes make everything better.

Sometime after the first graders left, the fifth grader came back to finish his test. I gave him a piece of scratch paper and a pencil and he said he didn't need it but I said maybe he would come across his favorite new word and want to write it done for later. He asked me if that had happened to anyone before and I said no but that he could be the first. The rest of the test itself went well and his score went up several points, enough to almost double his percentile rank, so his teacher made a good call. When he was done I asked him if he had a favorite new word, like “and” or “is”. He went with “a”. Kids that get sarcasm are cool in my book.

He finished up his test in time to catch the last few songs of the choir assembly so we headed down to the gym. After the assembly I only got to put one chair away. I started with two but a kid took one of them from me. Then I went and got another two but a second grader wanted to take those and I didn't put up a fight. Definitely my weakest showing.

After the assembly I had two more classes in the lab and then I had about thirty minutes to myself to make a little progress on my spreadsheets. The day went by really fast and it didn't seem like I had much time to be productive on my side projects. In the in-between times in the lab it was kind of nice because neither of the math enrichment teachers or their subs were there today so I had the place to myself. I like the quiet. Not that the math enrichment teachers are loud, I just like my quiet, alone time.

I remembered to stop by the UPS store on the way home to finally return the AverMedia LGP. I nearly forgot. Now I need to call and start the exchange process for my green hoodie. Maybe next week.

Tonight was the end of the year party at the house of one of the kindergarten teachers. He has a really nice backyard. Anyway, my mom and I got there after six o'clock, about thirty minutes after it was supposed to start, and there were only two other people there. For a brief while I was afraid it was going to be a small, awkward party, but then other people started showing up and eventually there was a decent turnout. I spent most of the time sitting at one of the tables, talking with my mom, one of the kindergarten teachers, my para friend, and her boyfriend, who is a new para in one of the kindergarten rooms.

When he discovered that I had been at the theater for twelve years he asked me if I knew his cousin who had worked there seven or so years ago. And I did. Pretty well actually because that was back when a lot of us would hang out outside of work. And after discovering this, this para looked a lot more familiar. There was always something that seemed vaguely familiar in his appearance but it was way inside my head, just below my ability to even acknowledge its existence. But finding out he was the cousin of this dude I used to work with, and that he lived in the house that I hung out at several times, awakened that familiarity. The odds are really good that I saw him on more than one occasion years ago. It is kind of like when you see a movie a bunch of times and then someone from it does something and becomes famous and you go back and watch that old movie and there they are, and you had no clue they were even in it. It is just really strange when it happens in real life.

Now I am kind of sort of remembering a Halloween party where I was standing out on the driveway talking to my friend, I think we were both leaving the party, and one of the roommates wanted us to come inside so the cops wouldn't be called. So my friend and I stepped out into the street so we weren't on their property and they wouldn't have to worry (and to be dicks, really). The roommate was a bit of a hot-head and I think wanted to fight my friend over it because he was drunk (and my friend was not and probably could have easily kicked the guy's butt). And I think maybe my para friend's boyfriend was wearing a ridiculous costume and trying to calm the hot-headed roommate down. I'm going to have to ask him about it.

But yeah, the party was pretty good. The weather and scenery were nice, I had some good conversations despite the fact that I wasn't overly social because I'm not good at initiating interactions of any sort, and I had some good food, even though that food was mostly just some fruit and vegetables, along with more homemade hummus and pitas that my sister made.

And now I am going to go to bed because it is freaking late and I want to sleep. And I want to sleep in late. The main thing I am looking forward to about summer is the fact that I won't have to wake up at six o'clock every morning. Beds are always so much more comfortable in the morning and that is just cruel. So I am going to go to bed now so I can enjoy that comfortable morning bed without the annoyance of an alarm.