February 27, 2014

I went to bed well before ten o'clock last night, and despite having to get up numerous times throughout the night to go to the bathroom because of a lot of water and a whole glass of orange juice too soon before bed, I slept really well. One of those sleeps where I wanted to stay in bed forever. But I couldn't so I got up and went to work.

I finished a storybook and got several pages into the last book. The finish line is within reach.

Today was a pretty uneventful day. So much so that there really isn't anything to write about. I had classes in the lab pretty much all day, second grade reading groups weren't really a thing because there was a sub, and yeah. Nothing. Or maybe my tired brain just isn't in the mood to reflect on my day and put it down in text.

After work I picked up Chipotle and then stopped for gas on my way home. I didn't think I was going to be able to show videos after dinner but I ended up not having a visit with the new volunteer kid. So I showed videos and hung out and talked with my mom and sister for awhile.

I texted the new volunteer kid after work but never heard back so I called his foster dad around the time I would need to leave if we were having a visit. But the kid was at work. I learned from the foster dad that the kid had lost his phone and neither of them had my number. It sounded like he lost his phone as in had it taken away but later the kid said he actually lost it. The reason I was confused was that the kid has been putting his job before school and showing up late a lot. To the point where the principal called the foster dad today about it. Some kids get a little taste of money and freedom with a first job and forget that high school is way more important than a dead-end minimum wage job. The kid ended up calling me when he got home from work and this was one of the things I kept trying to tell him. Working at the theater I have seen way too many people put work before school and it is sad.   

February 26, 2014

I was an hour late to work this morning thanks to my kidney making me feel uncomfortable again. It didn't ever progress to real pain or a big ache, but I was incredibly uncomfortable. Thankfully that feeling eventually settled itself and I was able to go to work.

I made it to the last page of the second-to-last storybook today. So much progress. The last page is going to take a bit because there is a lot of little stuff to go around, but hopefully I can finish that up tomorrow. And the last book should go pretty fast.

Second grade reading groups went pretty well today. Other than repeatedly banging my knee into the desk I was sitting at. The chairs are too high and the desks are too low. Or any other combination that doesn't accommodate my adult-size, long-legged frame. I normally wander around the group I'm working with but that involves a lot of bending over, which I want to avoid with the kidney stone. I don't want a back ache related to bending over to get confused with my kidney.

I designed Dr. Seuss bookmarks for the cook today. I did it last year too but I only vaguely remember that. She sent me the Publisher file she had but she had crammed ten onto one page, leaving no room for actually printing the thing, so I redid that with only eight per page. She also wanted a quote on the back so I looked around and found a font that looked like a Dr. Seuss book, and the actual quote. Then I arranged it to it looked more Dr. Seuss like and figured out how to print it so it would actually print on the back of each bookmark. I sent it off to her so we'll see what she thinks. The bookmarks are for Dr. Seuss' birthday, I think.

On my way home tonight I went and bought my Powerball tickets. I think the initial excitement has begun to fade so now it is settling into just another thing. Which is good. I went with a quick pick and a second one where I picked the numbers I came up with using my spreadsheet. If I ever win I hope it is with a quick pick because the odds of other people having those numbers are probably a lot less than my spreadsheet numbers, which a lot of people probably use already.

Tonight I caught up on YouTube videos and read stuff. I've been exhausted for most of the day and I couldn't bring myself to do anything else. My throat is starting to get a little sore so I am probably getting a cold. Not surprising considering the Petri dish I work in. I drank a glass of orange juice so I can pretend like I am being proactive about the Vitamin C. But now I'm going to go take something for a sore throat and go to bed.

February 25, 2014

The tech guy came to work on the two broken computers in the lab today. Turned out to be a bust and he had to take both of them with him. And I got to help him carry them out to his car. I am actually somewhat surprised at how “quickly” someone came but who knows how long it will be now before we get them back. Probably not before testing starts.

I inched every closer to finishing the storybook I am currently on. I finished two or three pages today. They got a lot faster when I just have to put some text down and erase around a few objects. I'm definitely getting there. And I need to finish it up so I can move onto other things. Soon enough testing will become an all-consuming thing. And I need to look into the yearbook website. The PTO mom I'm working with sent me a link (and stopped by to talk after school today) but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. She makes it sound like it is pretty simple so fingers crossed for that.

Both kindergarten classes were in the lab today and my like of one class over the other was confirmed, for about the millionth time. They are just so much better behaved, and when they're not the teacher actually does something about it. It could also be a small number of kids just bringing everyone down in the other class. Two in particular are just annoying as hell. Especially the one who just doesn't have any redeeming qualities. Hopefully she grows out of it but I'm pretty confident that is impossible.

I fixed one of the second grade teacher's laptops today. First by reinstalling a printer which had randomly renamed itself to something weird and was then taking ages to print. I also reset her trackpad because it was acting incredibly weird. But now she's all set. At least for today.

I was talking to the other second grade teacher when her class was in the lab this afternoon and we covered random topics. Including how nice it would be to live Amish-style, with a minimalist wardrobe and other distractions. I also learned that her older sister is apparently “the nice one.” This was an absurd statement and hard to really believe because this teacher is probably this nicest person I have ever met. She is always smiling or laughing and you can never really get to her commit to saying something bad. I made the comparison to Fred Claus, the teacher being Vince Vaughn and her sister being Paul Giamatti, and she said that was exactly right. I kind of want to meet this sister now because I'm picturing a Disney character.

Tonight I didn't do much of anything. Watched YouTube videos, messed around with my Powerball spreadsheet for a little bit, read stuff, and listened to music. I need to get back on the future train and working on doing something with my life. That would be good.

I've been looking forward to laying down in my bed all day so I'm going to go do that now. But I will leave you with a brief conversation between a kindergartner and her teacher after sitting down for some one-on-one reading.

Kindergartener: “My mom said these are baby books.”

Teacher: “Well, let's see how you do with a 'baby book'. We'll start War And Peace tomorrow.

February 23, 2014

My most recent kidney stone is still inside of me. And it has been pretty much silent all weekend. It has me wondering. My hope is that it has made it into my bladder. This generally means that the pain is over and now I just have to wait for it to come out. The end of that journey is generally accompanied by an incredible urge to pee even though most of the time I don't have to. It is one of the worst things in the world, perpetually feeling like you're on the verge of peeing your pants. Fingers crossed this happens when I'm at home and not at work.

Today was uneventful, just like my Sundays tend to be. I nearly caught up on YouTube videos so that was productive. I also spent some time in Excel figuring out Powerball ball frequency. I downloaded a list of all the drawings to date and imported it into Excel. Then I used formulas to see how often each number has been drawn over the history of the game. I didn't look to see how often the higher frequency numbers tend to be drawn together but it is still pretty interesting. According to the Powerball website, 70%-80% of people do quick picks and 70%-80% of people who won, do so with quick pick numbers. So it doesn't really seem to be in my best interest to manually pick numbers. But I'm thinking of maybe trying the numbers I came up with today along with a quick pick. At some point it would also be interesting to see if the frequency of a number being picked has changed over time. And to see how often the high frequency numbers show up in winning numbers. I am still fully aware that the odds of winning the lottery might as well be zero, but this is my new thing, for the time being. Just like learning Morse Code and Braille or how to knit and crochet. The fun will fade eventually but for now it is still holding my interest.

Tonight for dinner I made Brussels sprouts again. I'm pretty sure that is my new favorite vegetable. Not necessarily due to the taste, because there are better tasting vegetables out there, but it's got a good texture and they are still fairly new to me, so the novelty of it is still there. Just an observation.

February 22, 2014

I think I can count last night as being the first good night of sleep I have had since last Saturday night. At one point, around 3:00AM I think, I got my heating pad to lay on, but it was for a hint of an ache rather than actual pain, so I was able to go right back to sleep. And for good measure, I took a nap in the afternoon. It was partly because I was feeling tired but mostly just because I could. I find it hard to believe that the stone has completed the first phase of the process but I certainly wouldn't mind if it had. And it would be nice if phase two would happen while I'm at home, over a weekend, so I don't have to worry about it while I'm at work or in the middle of the night on a school night.

With my day, I caught up on my DVR, watched YouTube videos, read some articles, and played a little BF4. Successfully managing to not use explosives on a no explosives server. In chat there were a lot of people complaining that smoke grenades were also banned but they don't cause any damage (unlike flashbangs) so they should be allowed. I started using smoke on Operation Locker in attempts to cover a push toward the C flag but in general my team is never on board with it. On Operation Metro I use it mostly to hide behind and shoot guys rather than to move forward. I have an infrared scope on my LSAT and that allows me to see guys through the smoke while remaining safely hidden behind it. Unless I they also have an infrared scope or I have been spotted. The best way to combat this if you don't have an infrared sight but the other guy does, is to use flares, which wash out the infrared scope. I have come across some teams that use the flares effectively, or annoyingly, but for the most part the infrared scope paired with smoke is a solid strategy.

At work tonight I switched off between the four books I am currently reading. I'm about halfway through two of them, a third of the way through another, and just started the fourth. I really need to read more. I could finish so many books if computers weren't a think. And TVs and anything else that I find myself distracted by. I could definitely see myself spending my days reading and making stuff out of yarn. But not really in this modern age.

Here is a quote about speaking from The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson:

"All of this is by way of coming around to the somewhat paradoxical observation that we speak with remarkable laxness and imprecision and yet manage to express ourselves with wondrous subtlety - and simply breathtaking speed. In normal conversation we speak at a rate of about 300 syllables a minute. To do this we force air up through the larynx - or supralaryngeal vocal tract, to be technical about it - and, by variously pursing our lips and flapping our tongue around in our mouth rather in the manner of a freshly landed fish, we shape each passing puff of air into a series of loosely differentiated plosives, fricatives, gutturals, and other minor atmospheric disturbances. These emerge as a more or less continuous blur of sound. People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolor left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener will show his delight by emitting a series of uncontrolled high-pitched noises, accompanied by sharp intakes of breath of the sort normally associated with a seizure or heart failure. And by these means we converse. Talking, when you think about it, is a very strange business indeed." (p. 89)

And a quote from Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris:

"States vote to take away my marriage rights, and even though I don't want to get married, it tends to hurt my feelings. I guess what bugs me is that it was put to a vote in the first place. If you don't want to marry a homosexual, then don't. But what gives you the right to weigh in on your neighbor's options? It's like voting on whether or not redheads should be allowed to celebrate Christmas." (p. 156)

February 21, 2014

I had the best sleep of my life last night. Until just before 4:30AM when I was rudely brought out of it by kidney pain. It last for about forty-five minutes and I did all same old tricks. Running, bouncing, dancing, contorting. All really for my own peace of mind rather than my physical health I imagine. The pain eventually subsided but never fully went away so I didn't go back to sleep. There really wasn't a point even if it had gone away.

Like every other morning this week and went through the motions of making my lunch, taking a shower, and getting dressed. Unlike every other morning this week, right after putting on my coat and picking up my things to head out the door, my kidney started hurting again. I texted the principal to let her know I was going to be late and emailed the second grade teacher who sends some of her kids down to the lab for a smelling test to let her know I wouldn't be able to do it this morning. I then commence the rubbing of my kidney in a hunched over position while pacing back and forth.

After awhile it quieted down but not to the point where I would feel comfortable going to work so I sat down at my computer with my left hand on my kidney and my right alternating between my mouse and keyboard. I wanted to be productive so I decided to get on and cancel my XM subscription because my highly discounted sixth months was up and I wasn't going to pay full price for radio when I'm really not in my car that much. I tracked down my account information, registered on the website, and as soon as I logged in I saw that my outstanding balance was over $100. Apparently the auto-renewing feature kicked in today, and it didn't just renew my account for next month, it renewed it for the next six months. Yikes.

In order to cancel I had to call a number, which I did, and began the process of canceling so I wouldn't get stuck paying all that money. I told the guy I wanted to cancel and when he asked why I told him it just wasn't worth the price considering how little time I spend in my car. And I've heard about this stuff happening, never really believing it, but after I said that, the guy said he understood and went into a big speech that eventually ended with an offer of a full year subscription for half the cost. So it would be the same price I was currently being stuck with but for a whole year. I actually sounded pretty good and I did consider it for a bit of time before deciding it still really wasn't worth it. Then he said he realized that was a lot of money so he offered half price for six months instead. That one wasn't as tempting because six months sounds really short compared to a year, and $50 is still a decent amount of money. So I said no, I still wanted to cancel, and he came back with an offer of $4 dollars a month for five months. I'm not entirely sure about the math but I think that is almost 75% off the regular price. So I bit. I still like XM but it definitely isn't a need and I was fully expecting to get rid of it today. Five extra months will be nice, and if when I call to cancel before I get a huge bill again, they offer me a big discount, I might go for it again. But if they don't, I'll survive. In the end though, a positive came out of my kidney pain. I think that's a first.

I ended up getting to work an hour late. Which isn't too bad. I'm just glad that when the pain comes with this one it has been predictably short-lived. Relatively speaking. An hour of pain is still an hour of pain but I have experienced a lot more pain for a much greater period of time. That was definitely awful but at least when it was over the stone had completed that part of the journey and it wasn't holding me captive like this one.

At work I scanned another sixth grade picture, downloaded several others, and then continued work on storybooks. I think I have finished the last incredibly involved page for the current book I'm working on so the rest should be relatively smooth sailing. Fingers crossed. I also had second grade reading groups and classes in the lab. One of those classes was first grade, and one of the first graders gave me a hug, for the first time. You get used to random hugs when you work with kids. Unfortunately, this little girl was sent home an hour later with lice. Upon hearing this I immediately felt itchy. She had put her head again the side of my jacket and I immediately started thinking about if it was enough. I washed my clothes when I got home just in case, even though I feel that effort was in vain if I actually did come in contact wit lice. Other than being mildly freaked out, I really feel sorry for the little girl because she has had lice at least once before this year. There was another girl who has moved, but she seemed to always have lice. It just seems like it would be a terrible nuisance.

On my way home from work I stopped at the gas station to get some Gatorade so I can change up my liquid intake (not that I don't enjoy plain water and water with half a lemon in it). I also bought a couple more Powerball tickets with my winnings from the last drawing. Of all the vices I could choose, gambling probably isn't the best, but I could do a lot worse. And it doesn't really feel like gambling. If that counts for anything. I don't have an addictive personality so there is no risk there, it is definitely safer than drinking or drugs or extreme sports, and it is pretty inexpensive compared to those things as well. I'm happy with my choice. And I'll keep it up for as long as I find it fun. All the potential uses for lottery winnings are endlessly entertaining.

I went to the effort of taking a sample of dark blue yarn with me to Hobby Lobby when I was looking to buy more for my blanket. But for some reason I didn't think to do that with the yellow. I checked it out tonight and it is nowhere close to the yellow currently in my blanket. It is much more pale and there is no way I can use it. Which means my blanket has once again been halted. Well, I still have part of a row left of the blue I'm working on now but then it will be halted. This is frustrating. And a really good example of why I should have planned ahead and figured out how much yarn I was going to need at the beginning. Although, to be fair to myself a little bit, I bought all the yellow yarn they had at the time I was starting my blanket, so there probably wasn't much I could do. Now I guess it is just a waiting game to see if they ever end up with a darker yellow again. It is a bit frustrating.

Tonight at work I read books. And near the end of the night I watched about a half hour of 3 Days To Kill. The last half hour. It was kind of slow. But it was better than sitting upstairs with my heating pad because I kept almost falling asleep. I imagine the first part of the movie is a little more exciting so maybe I'll watch that tomorrow night.

February 20, 2014

Well, I'm not $400 million richer today. To be honest, I'm not surprised. It is the lottery after all. I did win $4 though, so almost. I found out the sad news way before the sun came up today, thanks to my kidney. This morning it was around 3:30AM. The pain only lasted about a half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes, but then there was aching, and I ended up saying screw it and didn't go back to bed. It was already a weird night because after going to bed last night, I woke up feeling like I had slept for hours, but when I looked at the clock, less than an hour had passed. Ridiculous.

Also weird, was the weather today. While I was bouncing and dancing around my room, it was raining outside. Later on there was a bit of sleet and hail. Mid-morning, a whole bunch of big snowflakes that proved to be very distracting to second graders. By the time I left work it was in the 50s and there really wasn't any evidence of the rain, sleet, or snow. Kansas.

Right after getting to work my kidney started aching again so I spent maybe twenty minutes or so standing in the computer lab, leaning against a computer tower with my hand on my kidney. Thankfully it didn't escalate or stay too long. Throughout the day it got a little achy off and on but I survived the day. I continued working on storybooks, helped out in reading groups, and helped kids in the lab. A very typical day.

Chipotle day has been changed back to Thursday but I just wasn't feeling it today. Almost entirely based on my kidney. We still had a family dinner but I instead made Brussels sprouts, a fake hot dog, and finished off the homemade hummus and pitas my sister made me. All together it was too much food. Way too much. I'll probably have the opportunity to run it off in the middle of the night.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos, read things, and played a game of BF4. I played on the no explosives server and I followed the rules tonight and didn't get killed by an admin. I've got to say, it is really nice playing on a small map without the constant explosions. Just the occasionally rhythmic, but often arrhythmic, sound of gunfire.

I tried contacting the new volunteer kid again tonight but much like last week I never heard back from him. I was going to cancel because I didn't trust my kidney enough to make the trip, so I guess it worked out, but it is kind of annoying that I haven't heard from him in two weeks. I didn't actually try to call him to see if his phone still works, or his foster dad to see what is up, so in that respect I have failed. I will work on that.

Now I'm going to once again attempt to sleep through the night. I was feeling pretty good about my chances last night and that was a bust. So I'm going to try not to feel anything about tonight. The common themes are horizontal body position and several hours without drinking water. Two things that are pretty much standard for me so I am hoping those themes aren't related to my middle of the night kidney pain.

February 19, 2014

Last night was another restless one. This time I was up at 2:00AM, running and dancing and bouncing around my room. The pain eventually went away but I was woken up by the aching several more times throughout the night. Waking up this morning sucked and I still ached for at least the first hour or so of work.

While at work I had a pretty boring day. And I was glad for that because I really didn't feel like moving around too much. I scanned the sixth grade pictures I had been given and edited them. Of the four or five kids who have brought photos in, only one of them had actual photos. The rest had printed off digital photos. I imagine real photos are becoming more and more rare. Digital photos are great for the convenience but I would definitely want real, physical photos of my kids. I feel like it is a lot easier to lose digital pictures than it is physical ones. And pictures taken on film that are then developed, last longer than digital photos printed on photo paper. There are plenty of positives and negatives for both but I would want to cover my bases, just in case.

I also worked on storybooks today. I made progress but it didn't feel like it because I got held up on one particularly involved page. So much white space but it wasn't just big blank spaces, it was mixed in with the drawings. I had finished two pages before that I think but ended up spending the rest of my time getting only about halfway through that last one.

One of the fifth grade teachers decided to take a typing speed test while her kids were working on Type To Learn 4 in the lab today. I can't remember what her score was but then she had me take it. And I can't remember what my score was either. Somewhere in the 70s. I blamed the keyboard because I'm really not used to typing a lot on the squishy keyboards we have in the lab. Later in the afternoon I tried the test out using my mechanical keyboard I got up to 81wpm with zero errors. Not bad but it also didn't hurt that I was typing the same passage I had typed a few times before.

On my way home from work I stopped at Target to buy things. My kidney wasn't bothering me and I decided to take advantage of that. It was a successful trip. I also stopped at a gas station and bought some Powerball tickets. One of my New Years resolutions was to start playing the lottery. I have always wanted to win the lottery but I have also never played the lottery (not counting scratch-offs in Christmas stockings and the office pool last year). I figure it is pretty hard to win the lottery without playing it, so I wanted to change that. And I did. Turns out it is super easy to buy Powerball tickets. You just ask the cashier for Powerball tickets.

I noticed last year during the office pool that it is a lot of fun thinking and talking about all the things you would do if you won the lottery. It is the same sort of feeling I get building computers online and thinking about all the cool things I could do with them. Maybe that is part of the reason people gamble. If so, I get it. Hopefully I can keep up with the lottery thing. I figure that at the moment I don't have a lot of vices. I don't eat candy or drink alcohol or eat out very often, so dropping a few bucks a week on Powerball tickets is an okay thing.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and played some BF4. I made a bit of a mistake in my first game on the no explosives server and got insta-killed by an admin. That mistake being switching loadouts and not changing the grenades in that loadout to smoke grenades. I apparently got a kill with the first grenade I threw, which I didn't realize because I didn't hear an explosion, get a notification on my screen that I had killed someone, and I was instantly killed by an admin. And I don't know if it was a glitch or on purpose, but even though I wasn't banned, I couldn't redeploy, so I just logged off. I was annoyed because I was certain I had thrown a smoke grenade, and didn't realize my mistake until after I had left. My bad. My next game on a different server went better, even with a whole bunch of explosions.

February 18, 2014

My day started a little after 4:30AM with kidney pain. Shortly after I participated in the saddest one-man dance party in my room. It only lasted about thirty minutes but it was still a decent workout, though I would have preferred it not to be accompanied by the kidney pain. And the early hour. I kind of went back to bed but not really because I still ached so it was a very fitful rest.

Compared to my workday yesterday, I felt a lot more uncomfortable today. A kind of verging on an achy feeling. So there was more emotional distress than physical, there being a constant threat of physical pain. But I made it through the day. I spent a lot of time downloading MAP reports for resource and SPED teachers. I also worked on storybooks off and on. I kept getting sidetracked by classes in the lab or reading groups and whatever else but I managed to finish a page or two. Not great but it could have been worse.

I will probably need to start interspersing my storybook time with scanning the sixth grade pictures so I can get those back to their teachers and to the parents. I have done the barest amount of research and found out it is possible to make the slideshow using my video editing software but I'm not sure how flexible it will allow me to be. I still need to design the slideshow itself and decide how I want it to be arranged. I am assuming each kid will have more than one photo so in my head I see each kid's pictures fading in one at a time and then fading out in the same order before moving onto the next kid. It looks pretty cool but I have no idea if that is even possible. I need to start messing around with my program.

While I was at my computer today I listened to the new Bayside CD, which I downloaded this morning before work. And I am still a Bayside fan. The new CD sounds like them and it hits all the right chords, as it were. I didn't dwell too long on the lyrics but Bayside is one of the few bands where I will listen to the lyrics. I did pick up on at least a couple of the songs that would probably make good end-of-relationship songs. They already have several of those and they are so good when you just want to feel down, and feel like you're not alone in having those feelings. Off the top of my head I can't think of the song title but they have one that completely nailed my feelings near the end of my last relationship. It is pretty cool when a song can do that.

Right after work we had a meeting in the library about the upcoming state assessments. Last year I had to drive across town to one of the middle schools and it seemed like the meeting ended up taking close to an hour. So going down the hall to the library was convenient. And it only lasted thirty minutes.

When I got home I planned on having an early dinner but my kidney was starting to hurt more and food didn't seem too appealing. So instead I just waited it out until it was time for book club. I always enjoy those. I told them briefly about how my grandpa and his sister had been shipped out here on an orphan train, and only briefly because there really wasn't much else to share. I was also able to chime in on testing in schools and my opinion on the happy ending. The supervisor in charge always asks what I thought about the happiness level of the book because for the first couple of books they were just complete downers. This one had some sad and disturbing moments but it had a happy ending.

After book club I came home and chugged thirty-two ounces of water. My kidney had started to radiate an achy pain and I was afraid it was going to get worse. I think the water calmed it down. My theory is that as long as there is enough water moving out of my kidney than the stone doesn't cause to much trouble. But when it dries up I start to feel it. That might explain why I have been awakened by pain in the early morning because it has been several hours since my last drink of water. I figure I'll be up all night going to the bathroom but I'm about to finish another thirty-two ounces of water and see if that will hold me through the night. Although my kidney still hurts a little beyond an ache when I don't have heat on it. And I've just read a bunch about water intoxication. These kidney stones are going to be the death of me one way or another.

I played a little bit of the new Operation Metro map in BF4 tonight. It looks amazing. It's really the same old map, with a few new features, but it looks so much better. I got into a no explosives server and I've got to say, the game is way better that way. It is nice not getting constantly bombarded with grenades and RPGs, which is definitely prone to happen on small maps like Metro. I'm going to have look for more no explosives servers.

And now I am exhausted from a lack of sleep but I really don't trust my kidney to let me sleep. I think I'm going to try and hold off a bit longer until I'm sure I can pass out as soon as I climb into bed.

February 17, 2014

Last night thanks to my kidney, I didn't sleep the greatest. I woke up several times because of the aching and eventually had to get my heating pad and sleep on that, which helped somewhat. It wasn't a terribly painful ache but it was enough to be uncomfortable. This morning I was doing better, other than a headache, and made it through the day with only a few instances where the aching was a bit pronounced. I was still terrified to move, afraid that I would get the stone moving again. I am leaning more toward the opinion that it is going to be a long and drawn out battle.

I was tying to avoid stairs today but I ended up going to the third floor two and a half times to help the gifted teacher with computer things. She kept “paying” me in small peanut butter cups. I don't have the heart to tell her I don't eat candy.

I continued working on storybooks but didn't make that much progress today. The book I'm on now is pretty much all white backgrounds which involves a lot of erasing. I glanced through the last book and it seemed to be mostly colored so that should be easier. I'm so close to being done.

I was given the first batch of kid pictures for the sixth graders today, which I am supposed to scan and then create a slideshow for the last day of school. I've never actually made a slideshow before but I said I would do my best. I've got a few months to figure it out so I'm fairly confident. I haven't looked into it but my initial thought it to use my video editing software to make it. I would imagine it would have a slideshow option. If all else fails there is always PowerPoint.

After school I thought I had a haircut and the lady who cuts my hair has moved to a new place so my first goal was to find it. I thought I knew the general area but when I got there I couldn't see it. I ended up parking and trying to call my mom but she didn't answer so I called my sister. She didn't know either but she was with my dad and grandma, and my grandma knew. She said it was where I thought but she narrowed down exactly where, and even though I still couldn't see it, I took her word for it. As soon as I got out of my car a lady walked out of the business across the way to tell me I wasn't in an actual parking spot. There were lines and I figured they were old and worn out but I guess they had been blacked out. So I got back in my car and moved. From my new spot I could see a door that I wasn't able to before and it was my new haircut place.

The lady had semi-retired because she owned the other place but decided she wanted a smaller, quieter environment that was more laid back. She had to do quite a bit to clean the place up but it is actually pretty nice now. When I walked in I found out that when my appointment was moved to today the time also changed, which I hadn't remembered. So I went home for awhile and came back about forty-five minutes later. And now my hair is shorter. Success.

Tonight I found out from my friend that Bayside has a new album coming out tomorrow. I had no idea but I immediately got on Amazon and bought it. I'll be able to download the album tomorrow and in a couple days I'll get the physical CD. I am pretty excited because I need to cancel my XM radio subscription in the next day or two and the Bayside CD will give me something to listen to.

I played a couple rounds of BF4 tonight, mainly just to get the battlepack, but I think I got it before I even played a game so that was kind of pointless. Tomorrow the new DLC comes out and I am looking forward to trying out the updated version of Operation Metro because that was my favorite map from BF3. In BF4, Operation Locker kind of reminded me of Metro but a little bigger with more ways to get around. I am interested to see if Operation Metro is still fun. I also want to try it on a 64 player server because that seems like it will be a complete mess. And make it easy as hell to rack up the points.

With the rest of my night I did laundry (because I didn't get around to it last night) and watched YouTube videos. So much fun. But now I am going to go to bed. I've been feeling the lack of sleep from last night all day and I am hoping that I can make up for it tonight. If my kidney plays along.

February 16, 2014

My kidneys can go jump off a cliff. I'm done with them. My lazy Sunday was taken over by a kidney stone. The sharp pain only lasted about an hour but the ache and discomfort was present for the rest of the day. Only an hour of pain leads me to believe this is going to be one of those that turns into a long, drawn out battle, like the one that was off and on for a month when I was painting the house. Or it could be a tiny one that only took an hour to make it to my bladder. But I doubt that.

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I watched Meet The Robinsons and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. Meet The Robinsons was the first 3D movie we got at the theater years ago and I hadn't seen it since I previewed it. I'm not good at remembering all the Disney movies I've seen and then ordering them in a list of favorites, but Meet The Robinsons has got to be up there. It is a very enjoyable movie and the T-Rex with the arm length trouble is still funny.

I never got around to watching Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs when we had it in the theater (or the second one) but I always wanted to. It was also a good movie. Not as good as Meet The Robinsons but it was good. I didn't really like the relationship between the main character and his father. He was kind of a dick to his dad for no real reason. It seems like maybe there was more to that story but maybe it was cut out of the final edit. I don't know, but it bugged me.

Today, when I wasn't dancing around my room or curled up on my bed thanks to my damn kidney, I did other things. My kidney stone hit during the middle of a game of BF4. I wanted to get at least a few games in today but I gave up on that. When my kidney calmed down to just aching and not a knife in my side, I laid on my bed with my heating pad and finished reading The Learners by Chip Kidd. It was kind of a downer of a book but I really liked the Psychology aspect of it. And after the book there was a letter to the author from the Milgrim's grad assistant that worked on the obedience study with him. That was pretty cool. I also sent a message to my old friend who gave me The Cheese Monkeys and it turns out she didn't know about The Learners, so it is kind of like me paying her back for turning me onto The Cheese Monkeys.

I also finally watched Despicable Me. I saw parts of it back when it was in the theater but never saw the whole thing. Until today. And it was just as good as I thought it would be. And now I need to see the second one. Years from now probably.

It is closing in on eleven o'clock but I'm not really that tired and my kidney is still being a bit of nuisance. I just want it to feel all better in the morning and not be a bother when I'm at work. That is my positive hope. Probably a long shot. But I've got work all week, a haircut after work tomorrow, and book club on Tuesday night. Kidney stones are rarely conveniently timed.

February 15, 2014

I ended up not getting to bed until nearly 4:00AM last night. Or this morning. Thanks to being at work until 2:30AM and then ranting a bit about hateful people, it was a long night. And I ended up waking up around ten o'clock so there wasn't a lot of sleep. And then there was a whole lot of nothing going on with my day. It happened. I did the same stuff I always do, rather than changing it up and advancing my life. Can't have that.

At work tonight I read a bit more of The Learners but I spent most of my night working on my blanket. I started and nearly finished a skein of yarn, and that involves a lot of crocheting. I did some rough math and I would say I'm about sixty hours into the blanket and I've got maybe a little over a foot more to go. I'll need to lay it out though before I decide on the final length. I've worked on it almost entirely at work, so I was on the clock, and that comes out to somewhere over $460 worth of my time has gone into the blanket. It would be cool if I could finish it up in the near future, and a foot doesn't seem like that much, but it is also about six feet wide, so that's quite a bit of crocheting. But I'm getting there.

This has turned out to be a really short entry but there just wasn't anything going on today. I would say that maybe tomorrow will be different but it Sunday, so the odds aren't great.

February 14, 2014

On the front page of the News subreddit was an article about the Kansas House passing a bill allowing people and businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples. It still needs to pass the Kansas Senate but still, how completely insane is it that a political body in the United States, in 2014, can pass a bill that legalizes discrimination? So much progress has been made in recent years in terms of legalizing gay marriage and giving equal rights to same-sex couples, and here we are in Kansas, not allowing any of that stuff, and then wanting to legalize discrimination on top of that. This is such a frustrating topic and it shouldn't even be a thing. Who someone likes has very little impact on anyone else outside of that relationship. You might have to see it and it might make you uncomfortable, but so what. Grow up and move on with your life. Using religion to justify discrimination is a tale as old as time and it is crazy to me that it is still happening. And that it is considered completely acceptable. White people were uncomfortable with the existence of Native Americans in the United States, so we killed most of them off. White people were uncomfortable with the existence of black people in the United States, so we tried out segregation and discrimination and other horrible things against them. In the present day a fair number, but not enough when you think about it, agree that the destruction of the Native American's culture and way of life, and the discrimination against black people, were wrong and can't imagine that people could treat other people in that way. But then they turn around and say same-sex couples are an abomination and want to legislate the crap out of them to protect their own way of life. And it's the same goddamn thing we were doing to the Native Americans and black people. It was us and them. And now it is still us and them. Forgetting that we are all fucking people and there is no normal. Normal is more often than not based on whatever the majority is. If there are more white people than they are obviously superior and their wants and needs and ideas about life are more important than anyone else. If there are more straight people than gay people, then straight is obviously normal, especially if a fanciful book based on accounts of tales written down hundreds of years after they occurred tells us its normal. Discriminating against gay people is obviously one of those things that future generations will look back on and wonder how it could of happened, and why it went on for so long. I don't get how people can't put it all into context and see how incredibly dumb and hurtful they are being. Over the years I think I have ranted about this several times and it frustrates the hell out of me every time. It just doesn't make any sense. There are plenty of other, legitimate things the country should be worried about. A person's sexual orientation isn't even a thing. Well, it's a big thing to them because so much of a person's life is taken up with thoughts of relationships, but that is fucking life. It is of no consequence to anyone else who is in a relationship with who as long as those who's are happy. Good grief. I just don't get all the fuss.

Today I watched movies and played a little BF4. The movie watching started with Camp Takota because it was released today and I bought it a week or so ago. It has Grace Helbig (the main reason for my purchase), Mamrie Hart (who also wrote the movie), and Hannah Hart. They are all YouTube people and I believe this was their first movie. And it was good. I was particularly surprised by that but I was a little bit. It was definitely an indie movie but the only time that was really noticeable was during the night scene when it was pretty much pitch black and you couldn't see either actor. I think a lot of times night scenes are filmed during the day or with lights on, and then a filter is used to make it look like night but not pitch black. Not the case here. My favorite part of the movie was a call back. Earlier in the movie the three girls had a drunk night in a cabin and Grace woke up and discovered she had peed her pants. Later on in the movie they again have a drunk night and in the morning Grace and Mamrie are woken up by Hannah who wants to show them something. Right before they follow her out Grace quickly looks down to make sure she hadn't peed herself again. It was such a subtle thing but I thought it was hilarious. After the movie I watched the documentary for the making of the movie. It was basically like a really long YouTube video but it was interesting.

Then I watched Megamind. I had only seen bits and pieces when we had it in the theater but always wanted to see the whole thing. I don't know that it was worth a four year wait but it was still good. I'm a fan of Will Ferrell so it is hard for him to do wrong in my eyes. In the movie he pronounces certain words wrong and he does that a lot in The LEGO Movie. Just an interesting connection there. I've been on a cartoon kick lately and there are still at least a few that I want to watch so I might continue down that road this weekend.

After lunch I went and picked up the flowers I got my mom and sister. There was a bit of confusion at first because on their tables they only had one of the arrangements I ordered but when the lady I ordered from came out from the back they ended up finding it in the display case. It had accidentally been put out for sale but luckily no one bought it before I got there.

I remembered from last year that trying to drive with two vases of flowers is kind of a bitch. I put a blanket on my passenger seat with the idea of wrapping it around one of the vases to keep it upright, but other than that I really didn't have a better plan. Really I needed some sort of box or preferably, another person. Instead, I wrapped the one in the blanket, held the other next to me in the cupholder, and drove incredibly slow, occasionally switching off which one I held and making adjustments as needed. I somehow managed to make it over to my sister's house without spilling any water. My sister ended up not being home so I left it on her counter. I texted her to see if she was home and she got back to me awhile later saying that she was back. And then awhile after that she made it into the kitchen and saw the flowers and sent a thank you. I think it was the year before last that I had to leave them in the house when she wasn't there and it took her a bit to notice them then as well.

My mom also liked her flowers. I always just ask for simple arrangements, not really Valentine's themed, just whatever is fresh. My mom also got flowers from the guy she has been dating and thankfully they were bigger and more extravagant than the ones I got. So he looks good. My mom got me fruit snacks (because I'm still not eating candy and I pretend that fruit snacks aren't really candy) and a David Sedaris book. For years now I have wanted to read one of his books because I enjoy his stories on This American Life and his interviews on The Daily Show, but for some reason I never got around to buying a book. And now I have one. My sister made me a big thing of hummus and a whole bunch of pitas. She said she couldn't find regular paprika to put on the top of the hummus and had to use smoked paprika instead. I have never really thought much of paprika outside of using it to add a little color to things. It apparently has a flavor though, at least the smoked stuff does. My first interaction with it when I had some of the hummus for dinner, brought to mind summer sausage. It was very strange. Not bad, but strange. I'll have to see tomorrow if it was just a weird fluke or if my mind wasn't playing tricks on me.

Tonight at work I continued work on my blanket, watched a bit of RoboCop, and read books. I started reading Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris and continued reading The Learners by Chip Kidd, which is the sequel to The Cheese Monkeys. One of the significant characters from that book made a brief appearance tonight and then (spoilers) was killed off. That annoyed me a great deal. I'm sick of depressing stuff and I thought I was safe in my current readings but I guess not. Why even bring the character back if they were going to be immediately killed off? I guess it is better than having them around for a greater length of time, building more of a connection, and then killing them, but it still sucks. At least in the several pages afterward it seems like the story is going to involve the loss of this character, so there is a point to the death, maybe, but I would have preferred a different angle. I'm a fan of putting people into long comas that they can wake up from at the end of the book for a happily ever after ending. Not so in this case. 

 I'm going to continue reading the book and see how things turn out. So far it's not as good as the first book. It's not bad necessarily, just not as funny yet. Definitely not with the death. I'm not quite halfway through so it still has a chance to turn it around. The book takes place in 1960 (or sometime in the 60s) and the protagonist works for an ad agency and just designed a newspaper ad for Dr. Milgram, for an experiment at Yale. I can only assume this is his famous experiment on obedience where he made participants believe they were shocking people in the next room. There was mention of the experiment coming back later in the story so I am interested to see if it becomes part of the plot or is just mentioned in passing.

February 13, 2014

Not a lot going on this morning but I eventually called the insurance company to make a claim on my dented bumper. After that I headed out to the body shop to get an estimate. When he was looking in the computer to get my phone number he read off one that sounded familiar but wasn't mine. And with the advent of cellphones and their contact lists, I don't remember numbers anymore. So I got my phone out and figured out it was my sister's number. Then he mentioned another number, which I also had to look up, and it was my mom's. Kind of sad that I don't know those numbers. But now the shop has my number. I commented on how all of my family had used the shop at one point or another, including my brother, who's truck had been taken out there yesterday after his accident. Later on my dad mentioned that he had gone through the same process with them listing everyone but him. Anyway, after my deductible, it is going to cost around $350, which is a lot less than I was expecting. The plan is to go with an all new bumper because it was only $150 more than trying to fix mine, it won't take as long, and it will look as good as new. I'm putting it off for a month until Spring Break when I'll be off work and won't have to worry about getting rides places. Not that I really go places.

With the rest of my day I read in my book, did computer things, and watched movies. First I watched Push, which is a movie I don't think I ever saw all of. At least not all at one time. I could be wrong. I think I remembered all of it, which would lead me to believe my first statement on the matter is false. Whatever. It's a good movie. Not a great movie but few movies are. And I'd watch it again.

I took a break after the movie and played some BF4. I ended with some Conquest on Operation Locker but I started with several games of Domination on a pistols only server. That was a lot of fun but also required a lot of mouse clicking. It also pointed out how awful I am with a pistol. And the game in general.

After that I watched The Incredibles. Not really an appropriate movie for kids. There are a lot of bright colors and a lot of action but there's also a lot of dark stuff. There was a lot of talk about death, kids getting beat up, references to sex, and I lost track of how many bad guys were killed. And other stuff that I can't remember. I would like to see someone make an in-depth review of the movie and how kids probably shouldn't be watching it. Just my opinion.

February 12, 2014

This morning I crushed in the bottom corner of my rear bumper. And just like last week, it was the damn trash can's fault. The snow is still piled up on either side of the driveway and with the trash can added into the mix, it makes it difficult to reverse out at an angle and then straighten it up in time to get out. This time I was looking at the passenger mirror to make sure I was clear of the trash can and ended up going right into the snow bank on the drivers side. It didn't help that right before that I remembered my parking break and releasing it increased my speed quite a bit. The hit felt about as solid as last week but the speed did me in. When I got to work I checked and there it was, a caved-in bumper. Relative to the size of the bumper it is a fairly small bit that got damaged but they can't replace just a little bit so that sucks. I got online at work and saw estimates everywhere from $500 to over $1000. There goes my tax refund. It's also annoying that I finally decided to put a bunch of money in my Roth IRA and days later I damage my car. I think tomorrow I'll call my insurance company and then go out and get an estimate from a body shop. But I don't plan on fixing it until the snow melts because I'll be damned if I get it fixed only to back into the snow again.

There wasn't a lot going on at work today. A couple classes in the lab, second grade reading groups, other stuff. Wednesday is usually my slow day and I had one class cancel because of their Valentine's party, so I had even more free time. I spent it working on storybooks. I kind of lost track but I think I finished up the book I was working on yesterday and then finished two more books. Maybe. All I know is that I am on my second to last book. I am so close. I will be happy to say good riddance to these books.

I brought in my pipe cleaner flowers and left them in the teachers lounge with a note. I was originally only going to write three lines but then I found out it was a birthday day, where once a month people bring in food to celebrate all the birthdays in the month. And that caused me to add a couple more. I used different fonts and sizes for each line and it looked pretty cool but I'll just recreate the words here.

Happy “Valentine's Day”

Take a “flower”

And some free “quotation marks”

(Not edible, by the way)

(The “flowers”, the quotation marks are obviously inedible due to their intangibility)

After school I picked up Chipotle and when I got home I read my book until dinner. When my sister came over I learned that today was a day for car accidents because my brother had been in one, that turned out to totally trump mine. He was on an on-ramp, turned to look over his shoulder to see if anyone was coming, and when he turned around the car in front of him was completely stopped on the ramp. There wasn't any time to do anything so my brother ran right into the car going about thirty miles per hour. It completely crushed in the cars trunk and the front end of my brother's truck but he and the other driver were able to walk away. Although, speaking from experience, they are going to be really uncomfortable tomorrow. In my brother's defense, it is a horrible on-ramp. Most of the people on the road in the near lane want in the lane that the on-ramp turns into and most people on the on-ramp want anywhere else but that lane. And the on-ramp barely ends before there is a stoplight. I don't even use that on-ramp because it has always felt like an accident waiting to happen. Obviously. I'm just glad my brother wasn't hurt too bad, and hopefully won't have any long-term effects. When my sister lead off with our brother was in a car accident I immediately had that sinking feeling in my stomach. When I was in middle school my dad called to tell me one of my friends from Scouts had been in a car accident and was killed, so I don't really like leading off with the car accident thing.

Tonight I watched some YouTube videos and played a little BF4. For a few rounds of Domination I switched to a different LMG. I'm a big fan of the LSAT but I figured I should try some other guns. I've noticed that it is rough going from a gun with a 100 or 200 round magazine back to a much smaller magazine. Now when I use assault rifles I feel like my clip is empty after one click of the mouse. I do need to level up my assault class though because I still haven't unlocked the medkit yet, which is sad.

Now I am going to read for awhile and then go to bed. Reading and sleep, two of my favorite things.

February 11, 2014

Most of my day today was spent working on storybooks. I made a whole bunch of progress, almost finishing another book. I also had a couple classes in the lab and helped out with second grade reading groups. My first group had a bunch of newspapers and they were supposed to look for words with 'oi' and 'oy'. Fun fact: words using those letter combinations are not very popular in newspapers. The kids became pretty frustrated and at one point I had to take away their highlights, which they were supposed to use to highlight the words they found, because they were instead using them to highlight everything, and draw on each others newspapers. It was rough.

And that was really all I did at work today. The day flew by actually. Oh, I also got a few Valentine's, and two second graders claimed me as their father. It was weird. And then they were hanging on me like a jungle gym. Also weird.

When I got home, rather than read, I started to work on pipe cleaner flowers. I worked on them off and on throughout the night and called it good when I made it somewhere right after twenty. Whatever number that was, it felt like a good number. And my fingers and wrists were tired. I also played a little BF4 (which I'm playing a little everyday this month because you get a free battlepack every day that you play a match), caught up on my DVR, read some stuff online, and watched some YouTube videos. For dinner I made an egg sandwich, which was kind of an omelet until I put it between toast. I've never successfully made an omelet before. I'm also considering giving up eggs because I am halfway through an article about research showing how smart and empathetic chickens are. I have been eating a bunch of eggs recently but before that it had been a really long time. Maybe I could switch to local, small farm eggs.

Anyway, now it is late and I am tired. 

February 10, 2014

It felt good to be back at work again, even if it is only for three days this week. This morning I helped out with literacy centers in kindergarten and reading groups in second grade. Both were pretty uneventful.

Throughout the day I worked on an Uno game for one of the resource teachers. She found one online that she liked but she didn't want to pay for it, so she printed off the example page and asked what I could do. It probably would have looked better if she sent me the file but I didn't think about it until just now, oh well. Instead, I scanned in the page, and did a bunch of editing in Gimp and then put it all into a Publisher document. I think it came out pretty well but she wasn't around when I finished so I'll find out sometime whether it works for her or if I need to make some changes.

My afternoon was spent with a couple classes in the lab and storybooks. I finished one page and started another. Baby steps. I'll get there.

After work I went and ordered flowers for my mom and sister for Valentine's Day and then went to the grocery store. I would have liked a basket but apparently they don't have baskets, just carts and stumpy carts. I went with a stumpy cart and I just felt ridiculous. I don't like carts. And the stumpy carts have a short handle so I either had to take small steps or walk with the cart off to the side. Not a fan. But I got food and the stumpy cart provided a sufficient means to transport that food around the store.

When I got home I read some of my book, had dinner, played a little BF4, made some pipe cleaner flowers, finished watching Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, and watched The Covenant. Mortal Instruments was alright. Not great but it could have been worse. I'm mainly just disappointed with the representation of Bane, the warlock. He was my favorite character in the book and they pretty much missed the point in the movie. And then there was The Covenant. I was intrigued by the trailers but never got around to watching it. For years I had forgotten the name, only remembering that there were four guys with superpowers. On a whim I typed that exact phrase into Google and The Covenant was the first thing to pop up. Thanks to Netflix I was finally able to watch it and I can say it wasn't really worth the wait. All the rock music gave away its age and the final fight scene went on and on and on and on. It was also an incredibly obvious movie, the bad guy was a given from the first time he walked in front of the camera. But whatever, I've seen worse. And the blond girl is hot.

Now I think I'm going to go to bed. Maybe read a little first. Last night I think I went too bed prematurely and spent way too long falling asleep. I am hoping to avoid that tonight.

February 9, 2014

Yeah, I really don't have anything for today. I did a whole lot of nothing. YouTube, Netflix, BF4, pipe cleaner flowers, laundry, Brussels sprouts. Very exciting day. Doing laundry, I washed another goddamn pack of gum. That makes three or four. I've lost count. Which is ridiculous. I've been doing laundry most of my life and can't remember the last time I washed something in my pockets, before the last couple of months. It's getting out of hand. And this tie I didn't catch it until after the dryer, so I had the fun experience of scraping piece of gum off the walls of the dryer. I'm not sure how many pieces of gum I started with but I hope I got all of them and don't end up finding random bits in my clothes.

On Netflix, courtesy of Brazil, I watched The Book Of Eli. I have never seen the whole movie straight through but I think I have seen all of it in bits and pieces when we had it at the theater. And it was exactly as I remember it, except for the very end. I still like it though, even more now that I know Braille.

I also started watching The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones. My friend had me read the series and it was alright. Not really my cup of tea. If I remember right, and I have no idea if I do, the two main characters are half siblings but they spend most of their time flirting with each other because they don't know they're half siblings. Gross. But I could be wrong. Also, my favorite character from the books was the warlock, Bane, and I have been very disappointed with that casting. I was expecting someone much more extravagant and funny. And, I just checked on the siblings thing and it turns out they aren't, even though they thought they were for the majority of the series. So still pretty gross. The tattoos also look not that great. Just saying.

I'm only about halfway through the movie but I'm going to pause it and go to bed. Another long ahead of me. All three days of it.

February 7, 2014

Another day off from school and another day of not a lot going on. I played a little BF4, watched stuff, read stuff, and made a couple pipe cleaner flowers. Last year I made a bunch of crocheted hearts and put them in the teacher's lounge at school for Valentine's Day. This year I thought I'd make pipe cleaner flowers. I'm fairly certain we don't have school on Valentine's Day, or the day before, so we'll see how many I can make by Wednesday.

At work tonight I worked on my crocheted blanket and read more Cheese Monkeys. I finished up the last couple of rows for one skein of yarn and started on one of the dark blue skeins I bought yesterday. It is slightly different than the old dark blue I was using but I don't think it will be too noticeable when all is said and done. I also left it at the theater because I open tomorrow and it is getting big enough that it is annoying to pack it away. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do when it gets closer to being complete. I'd say only work on it at home but most of the work has been done at the theater, mostly because I can lay it all out on the desk. Working on it at home is kind of a pain because I don't have the same kind of room.

And I will end with some of my favorite quotes from Cheese Monkeys tonight:

“Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores: if the one you're with isn't doing the job, there's always, always, always another.” (p. 144)

“Instead I sat in the Belly that night and toured the brothel of my head for the right approach to show me some leg...” (p. 146)

“But beware: You can be crippled by too many choices, especially if you don't know what your goals are.” (p. 159)

February 6, 2014

There was a very small opening between piles of snow to get out of my driveway this morning. And then there was a trash can making that opening even smaller. And I'm not coming at it straight on because I'm parked off to the side of the driveway. Needless to say, I backed into a pile of snow and had to pull forward and come at it again. It didn't help that my back window seemed to immediately freeze over as soon as I started to reverse. But I did manage to get out of the driveway, no thanks to the trash can.

In my car the temperature is displayed next to the clock. This morning it said -2 when I got in my car, and dipped down to -4 during part of my drive to work. I didn't even know it could display negative numbers. I would have been fine never finding this out.

Because of all the snow, all the streets surrounding the school were much narrower today. There was a bunch of snow where I usually park, and I could have pulled it off if I drove a truck, but I drive a car that is very near the ground, so I drove around the block. One of the streets on the other side of the school is narrow to begin with but this morning there were cars parked over a foot away from the curb on both sides. I barely fit. I ended up parking on the corner adjacent to the open I usually do. So I was parallel to the side of the building rather than being parallel to the front of the building. Not that it really matters.

Work was pretty much the same old thing. I finished working on my MAP spreadsheets, completely updating them with the data from the Winter round of testing. Now I can focus on other stuff, most importantly the storybooks. I didn't actually work on those today but I plan on doing that in the near future.

I helped out with literacy centers in kindergarten this morning and their room was freezing because the AC was messing up. It was a drastic change from the lab which was also broken but in the opposite direction, turning it into a sauna. I had the listening center but the space heater popped a fuse or breaker or something, killing the CD player, so I ended up reading the book to my group before we went over to the tables to work on their favorite toy drawings.

I also had second grade reading groups but it was sort of a catch-all day due to it being a two day week, so I just kind of wandered around the room, talking with the kids, getting them to kind of halfway stay focused. It was a lot better than trying to get a group of them to listen to a story two or three times in a row. And having to hear the same story two or three times in a row.

There was a middle school choir assembly today, that I learned about when there was an intercom announcement saying it was going to be slightly delayed. I had already logged in the first kindergarten class to Odyssey in case the assembly ended early enough. Thanks to being delayed, it didn't, but I left right after the last song so I could log in the second kindergarten class. And then they didn't show up because apparently right after the choir assembly there was a fundraising assembly. I think all this was mentioned in an email at some point but I obviously forgot about it. So I logged into twenty-two computers, and then logged forty-three kids into Odyssey, all for nothing. I certainly don't need the practice.

After school I went to Hobby Lobby to get pipe cleaners for a possible craft project. I also had my dark blue yarn with me to check on the color match with the dark blue yarn in stock. And I got really lucky because it was a decent match. Way better than the last time I checked. So maybe at the theater this weekend I can work on my crocheted blanket.

From Hobby Lobby I went to Chipotle and then stopped by one of my bankets to get a blank check so I could get the information I needed to add that account to my Roth IRA account. Now I can withraw money directly from that account, rather than writing a check to myself and depositing it into my other account. When I got home I added it and made another payment into my Roth IRA. It is kind of scary putting so much money into what is essentially one big gamble. I just need to remember to check my next bank statement because to verify my account, the IRA company is going to make two small deposits and then withdrawal it, and I will have to tell them the amounts. I could check my account online but the last time I tried setting that up it was pretty much a fail. So I'll just wait for my paper statement, whenever that shows up.

I didn't have a visit with the new volunteer kid tonight because I didn't want to trust the roads. I'm sure the highway and interstate would have been decent but maybe not, and all the roads leading to the main roads would probably suck. I didn't want to risk it. So instead we texted. Turns out he had three snow days so there wasn't a lot of education happening on his end this week. I asked him if he did anything productive with his free time and he said that he slept a lot, so productively conserved energy. I thought that was pretty good.

With the rest of my night I played a bit of BF4 and watched YouTube videos. My first game in BF4 sucked because when I joined my team was already pinned down to one flag (out of five) and there was no getting out of it. I kept trying to push but it needs to be a group effort, overwhelming the enemy and pushing them back, and none of my group was pushing. That seems to be a big problem in the large, close-quarters matches, trying to get everyone to push at once. They tend to just find a corner and hunker down. This is all well and good when you are on the team doing the pinning but when you are against a wall you need to push, or get crushed against the wall and wait for the match to end. In the second game, I was on the team doing the crushing. For most of the game we only held three of the flags, which makes the game more interesting for both sides because everyone has more options in terms of how they get around the map. At the very end we ended up pushing forward and captured four flags but up until then it was pretty fun. Still one-sided though, which isn't as fun as when the teams are evenly matched and the whole game is a back and forth struggle. The best part of the game though was that I managed to beat out the other sixty-three players and ended with the highest score. My K/D ended up being positive but I didn't have that many kills, and over half of my points came from dropping ammo boxes and getting resupply points. Thousands upon thousands of resupply points. I ended up with 63 resupply medals, which is insane. And cool as hell because I finally came out on top, which far removed from my usually spot somewhere in the bottom half. It'll probably never happen again so I made sure to save the report for the game. The only thing cooler was in BF3 when I one a game of Gun Master. Unfortunately that happened before I could record gameplay so I have no proof of it. Just the memories.

February 5, 2014

Snow Day: Day Two. Just as boring as the first. Not productive in the least. So basically a waste of two days off. And I'll probably do the same thing Friday until I have to go to work at the theater. Unlike yesterday, I did leave the house, long enough to dig my car out. The guys came and cleared off the porch and driveway, and they came after the city so they were able to clear out the bottom of the driveway where the city guys had left a mound across it. Even with the driveway clear, I still had a massive amount of snow on my car as well as all around it. I started my using a broom to push and brush the snow off my car, and then used a shovel to dig out around it. Slowly working my way around the car. I think it ended up taking about an hour. And I know I'm going to be feeling it in the morning. As well as the bit of exercising I decided to engage in before going outside.

With the rest of my day I played a little BF4, read part of one of the books I'm reading now, watched YouTube videos, and read news articles online. Such an uneventful day. A day that really felt like a Sunday. And then tomorrow we go back to school for one day before having a three day weekend. Although I'll be at the theater for two of those days. And by the looks of the schedule I will be closing on Friday and opening on Saturday. That sucks big balls. Sort of. Depending on how long I'm there Friday night and how early I have to be there on Saturday morning. It is kind of nice not closing on Saturday because I can get to bed at a better hour. And Friday will be a little better because I won't have to wake up at six o'clock to go to school. So really, this weekend won't actually be that bad. But I still hate the place, despite giving me an excuse to catch up on my book reading, so it still sucks big balls.

February 4, 2014

Snow Day: Day One. Today kind of felt like a weekend, with a lot of snow outside. Throughout the day I monitored the snowfall outside my window, gauging it by the amount piling up on the front porch rails. When I woke up there was about two inches and at the time of writing this, there looks to be about six inches. This is not surprising because the snow was non-stop all day. Most of the time it looked like powder sugar coming down but occasionally the snowflakes got a bit bigger and came down with a bit for vigor.

On this side of my window, I didn't really do much. Treating my day like a typical Sunday. I played some BF4, watched some YouTube videos, watched some TV, and other things. Kind of disappointing really. Such is life.

I bought eggs yesterday because I wanted to start adding those into my salads. And today I hard boiled eggs for the first time ever. I have eaten quite a few in my day but have never had the opportunity, or need, to actually make them. Until now. And I totally nailed it. At least one of them anyway, the other five are still shelled. I left them out for a little bit on the counter before putting them in a pot with what I wanted to be cold water but it was apparently my first time using the sink because I couldn't remember which way was cold and ended up with some hot water, and then cold, so it was average water coming about an inch over the top of the eggs. I covered the pot, brought it to a reasonable boil, removed it from the heat, and left it covered for about thirteen minutes, before digging the eggs out and putting them in a bowl of ice water. Hours later when it was time for dinner, and the salad I was having with it, I peeled one of the eggs, relatively successfully, and when I cut into it, the yolk was a bright yellow and perfect. Kind of makes me wish I made more than six because I'll probably screw it up the next time.

While I was waiting for the eggs to come to a boil I also rinsed off some Brussels sprouts. The first time I made them they were good but a bit soggy, and I figured they were either cooked too long or maybe still a little wet from being rinsed off. So I got an early start to give them plenty of time to dry, as well as patting them dry with a paper towel. When it came time to cook them I mixed everything together in a bowl, making sure to use less seasoning than the first time when I used way too much, and I roasted them for a shorter period of time. They turned out better this time around. I think I could still cook them for a bit less time but they were pretty delicious.

Tonight, amongst other things, I watched a live debate between Bill Nye and a leading Creationist. It made me glad to believe in science. I have nothing against religion, when it isn't used as an excuse to hate and oppress and kill people, but there is something about Creationism that I find scary. It was just so strange seeing this guy debate his view that seems to be so contrary to common sense. He basically took the view of Occam's razor, that the simplest answer must be the only answer. Rather than try to figure out why stuff exists and how it came to be, just say God made it and move on. That just seems sad. Life and existence is so much more interesting than that explanation. And it is strange seeing someone so convinced that the Earth is so young. Honestly, I can't comprehend a 10,000 year old Earth any better than I can one that is billions of years old, but 10,000 years is way too short a timespan for all the things that have happened in our history. That and all the other things the only make sense if you ignore all the artifacts and other things discovered by science. In the end I could find out that I'm wrong about everything and religion is the answer, but for the time being, my common sense leans toward tangible evidence, not a book compiled a long time ago using passed down stories.

Tomorrow will be Snow Day: Day Two. And hopefully, for the sake of my paycheck, it won't become a trilogy. At some point I will need to go out and unbury my car. My forearms still kind of hurt from all the sweeping I did the other day to unbury my car so I'm not looking forward to that. Today I think one of the neighbors came and shoveled a path on our front porch to the door. It was very random, and in the end it was also pointless because a few hours later there was no evidence that it had even occurred. And maybe it didn't actually happened and it was all a figment of my imagination? 

February 3, 2014

Today went by incredibly fast. And it wasn't particularly action packed, it just sort of happened. The first part of my day was spent downloading all the MAP reports and printing them off for the teachers. That took awhile because it involved not only the class reports but individual student reports. So much printing. But I got it all done fairly quickly.

I only had two classes in the lab today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. And I had second grade reading groups this morning but that was fairly uneventful. Which was nice. I had the listening center and they were listening to a story about George Washington Carver. Before they read the story they had to write down what they already knew about him and questions they wanted answered. One kid thought he was a president and another wanted to know which president he was, in terms of number. So close yet not really. The most surprising thing was that they actually sat through listening to the story. That is unheard of. And from the story I learned that he added his middle name of Washington when he went to college (I think) and there was someone else named George Carver, he came up with over 300 uses for peanuts and over 100 uses for sweet potatoes in order to prove their value to farmers, to get them to start rotating their crops which would improve the soil.

This afternoon a tech guy came to fix the broken computer. It has been broken for weeks, at least a week or two before MAP testing started. He replaced the hard drive and checked that it would boot up, which is did, and he called it good. Later on I went to check it and when I turned it on I immediately got a blue screen of death. After that, every time I turned it on I would have to choose to start Windows normally. When I got to the unlock screen it took at least three seconds for the computer to recognize my key presses and switch to the log-in screen. Then when I attempted to log in, I would get the Welcome screen with the spinning icon but it would never make it to the desktop. It would either spin forever or sometimes go back to the lock screen. So who knows. I need to submit another trouble ticket.

After school I went to the pet store to get dog food, the gas station to get gas, and Target to get foodstuffs. I really only intended to get trail mix but ended up with a lot more. Including Brussels sprouts because I want to make those again.

Tonight I played BF4 and had a lot of fun. I found a 64-man Conquest server that was 24/7 Operation Locker with a whole bunch of tickets. The first two games were pretty bad and we got beat with the other team still having over 1000 tickets left. But then there was some balancing and every game after that was a pretty close battle up until the end. It was a bit of a cluster at times but even when my team was getting completely dominated the first two games it was still fun. With fewer players it is easier to get completely pinned down and picked off before you can get a shot off. With 32 players on each team, it can be a lot easier for one side to cut off all the paths, but there are so many players that you at least get to kill a bunch while you're stuck in your spawn. I also learned the choke points are an easy way to get resupply ribbons by dropping ammo boxes where everyone is stuck. Thanks in part to that, and using some XP boosts I have gotten in battlepacks, I went from level 17 to level 23 tonight. That is pretty ridiculous. I feel I got somewhat lucky with the evenly matched teams but I added the server to my favorites so I can try it out again.

This afternoon the preemptively announced a snow day for tomorrow. The snow is supposed to roll in sometime tonight and continue through tomorrow, with up to ten inches of snow. So just in case that happens, school was canceled. And if we get all that snow, on top of the incredibly cold temperatures we are expected to have on Wednesday, school may be canceled that day too. That would kind of suck because it is an early release day and I'm supposed to go to a meeting after school and help a teacher with his iPad. But if Wednesday is also a snow day, then this will only be a two day week because we already have Friday off. I've got stuff I could be doing at work, and I like getting paid, so I would prefer not to miss anymore than I have to. I won't mind sleeping in tomorrow though. Especially because I am currently up way past my bedtime.