Thursday, October 22, 2009

Sincerest Apologies to the Smallest of Things

This morning I hurt something and someone in a careless act and wanted to express my deepest apology, though I know it will never be heard.
This morning, while getting ready for work, I came upon a small spider in my shower.
Though it was a tiny little creature, which I would have usually enlisted the assistance of others to remove, I found myself in a predicament with no one around to assist me...
With no one to call upon, I took it upon myself to remedy the issue single handedly and found some difficulty in resolving the situation...
I attempted to capture the creature... though it had done more than it's fair share to get out of my way... clinging to the inside of the shower curtain, in a modest attempt not to be a burden or inconvenience to me...
Sadly, being short on time, I did not heed it's gesture and went out of my way to remove it...
with a soggy piece of cardboard and small glass I attempted to catch it, and in the act accidentally dismembered the creature, tearing off one of it's legs...
The silent captive writhed in what I assumed was much distress and pain, with it's severed limb clinging from under the glass, and still pulsating with the fading glimps of connection with it's former friend.
I felt bad about it all day, and thought I would do my best to apologize and explain that I wish my little intruder no ill will and that I hope the little accident will not inhibit it's long life and future scampering...

I am sorry little spider,
please forgive my haste, I should have taken the time to be kind to you, I am sorry.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Shelby

Today I was surprised to hear the phone ring at work...
On the other end was our secretary, informing that there was a call on hold from "Shelby"...
"Shelby?, Shelby who?" At this the secretary was at a loss for words...
I asked if it was a parent or if she could tell me a little more...
She said that she had no idea who was calling and that she would park it on intercom 101.

After taking a moment to think about how the screening process is laking in our school, I took the call and said hello to Shelby...
One of my ten year old students...
She said that she was having trouble installing Quicktime and playing the movie we made on her family's PC...
I had given her an install disc for the software and was really quite stunned with the ease at which this little girl was redoing all of the settings and clicking away in an attempt to get her video to work...

We figured out that she needed the latest version and got it up and running,
but it really was a trip to stand, talking to a ten year old, while the updates ran, hear her video playing in to background and her yelling "Yeah! I worked"...

I think that was the smoothest walk through talk through I have done in a while and it was with a kid that wont 'get to ride a bike without a helmet for another six years....

Go team.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Almost Highly Qualified

Of all the unfortunate pairings...

Today I opened the KEZI site to find my picture and the following headline...



The news crew came to the classroom today to show off our school's use of technology. I have no idea how I ended up under this headline. I should probably get them for slander. Way to go, team.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Storage Locker

Long ago the fiberglass doors to a time capsule, long forgotten, were closed...
Leaving it's enhabitents to wait, rust, crumble, and disintegrate...
They were waiting for a day when they would be saved and reunited with their lost companions...

This day came later than anticipated...
Three years later...

So begin Act I:
The claiming of lost things...

After numerous calls informing me, that being the last one in the continental US, I had the great honor of driving 6 hours on the freeway to the spectacular town of Talent, where a toothless man would be waiting behind the counter to greet me and demand more money...

But before that joy could take place we had a few small issues... One, Corky never told me which storage unit was hers, and left only the cryptic clue that there would be a yellow rope peeking out from under the door...
Finally she confessed that the locker number was either J 96 or A 96, helpful information...
You could imagine my surprise upon reaching the lockers and finding that ALL of the units have little yellow ropes...

Issue number two... of course we had no way of opening the locker once we got there, and thought that showing up, unanounced with bolt cutters in hand, might raise some suspicion..

But that is the way it went down...

I visited my favorite antique store and went straight for the giant bolt cutters... They were $30, but I planned on giving them to one of our fine Eugene citizens in an attempt to boost the enconomy by encouraging people to buy new bikes after theirs had been stolen...

Long story short...
My friend at the antique store let me barrow the giant bolt cutters for the day, and gave me another box of crayons to give to my students, and I ended up walking out the front door, trying not to drop anything and getting stuck half way out, with my back hitting the little bell, alerting the old lady behind the till that I was not making a smooth escape...

Six hours in the car and the worst directions ever led me to the correct establishment...
The unit was filled with mostly erotic self help books and magic cards, with the random diploma lying on top of a box.

We took one car load to a thrift store, threw the rest back in the locker, and I walked away with a type writer, and a small box of things...

Next I am going to see if I can get any cash for the magic cards and see if I can get Steve to fly me down there so I can take care of the rest of it...

End Scene

Friday, October 09, 2009

When Rats Attack

The other day I was surprised to look down at my phone, the one that never rings, and see my sister calling me, at the crack of dawn.
This in itself was a wonder, as my dear sister is not known to grace anyone with her presence until well into the afternoon.

I have learned this lesson well, after calling her at around 11:00 A.M. and listened to her push the phone around on the floor after answering it, in an attempt to find it in the dark, followed by my favorite sound, the one where people attempt to say hello and the sounds tremble out and inform you immediately that the person on the other end of the line wishes terrible things to befall you...

But back to the main idea... My sister, in an unprecedented event, called me at around 8 in the morning, meaning it must have been around 5 there... She sounded as though she had been crying and opened with the line, "I had a bad dream"...

She told me that she had a dream that she was being attacked by a rat, and that when she woke up, there had been a rat on her and that it bit her hand. She asked if she needed a shot for rabies or the plague and mentioned that she and the rat hadn't been getting along lately.

She had stirred up it's nest in an attempt to get the rat to leave, and laid out numerous glue traps to help it get the idea... In retaliation, the rat had decided to make Corky's life a living hell... It had established it's new post under Corky's bed (where she keeps her important papers), and taken to eating everything in sight.

It ate her entire case of Top Ramen soup, all of her mayonnaise packets, and as she was continuing on with the list she mentioned that the rat was even bringing saw dust in and putting it all over her floor... This, yes, this in particular struck me as odd, since there wouldn't be any readily available source of saw dust around... Just as I am about to ask a little more about the newest find, Corky yells, "He's eating my table!" Sawdust mystery solved...

From there she told me that recently she had been having some bad luck...

She had gotten up early the day before and in her usual fashion had began her day with an upbeat chant to help her on her way, "Shower time for Corky, time to take a shower..."

Only to find as she was about to step into the tub, that there was a giant scorpion in her bathtub again... "Scorpion! Ah...."
So off she runs to fetch the industrial strength Raid that is never in short supply. It takes some time to take effect, and one can never be too careful, so after spraying her new friend, she went for a short walk to pass the time... Upon her return she finds the scorpion has been dealt with and proceeds with her plans...
As Corky is taking her shower, trying to get back on the bright side, she notices that the water in her tub isn't going down like it usually does... She thinks the tub is just being silly, and proceeds with her shower, taking time to stomp in the newly formed puddles...
Only to immerge and find that the tub is not the only thing acting silly... The silly toilet is also acting strangely, spewing water and sewage all over her floor...

So Corky screams, throws on her clothes, and heads out the door to find all of her neighbors standing on their porches as well. Soon the Roto-Rooter truck arrives to take care of the issue, while her manager takes a moment to not so discretely inform Corky that you cannot flush paper towels down the toilet...
Ten angry neighbors all stare at poor Corky...

Moving on, attacked by giant rat, check; scorpion dead, check; flood averted, kinda, next up Corky's clan of friendly spiders decide to avenge their fallen comrade in what was surely just a misunderstanding with a book.

The bright side is, Corky just got a new apartment, and it clearly states, no pets.

The Curious Curio Cabinet

The mermaid's cave


Here is the latest find I have stumbled upon on Craig's list...
I have a wonderful tool on my phone that helps me to track these little things and the latest was not a small task to acquire...
I was scanning through all the latest images in the furniture section and saw a posting for a "Curio Cabinet". Having never heard of such a thing, I inquired to a friend as to which company produced curio...

The rest of my day was dedicated to this 400 pound solid oak creation.... which led me far out into the recesses of West Eugene off to a trailer park and into the path of a particularly lonely and strange, newly divorced woman who insisted on passing on her life story as well as that of the cabinet...

Seeing that her post had hit Craig's List at around 8:00 a.m., I decided that she must be up and moving around and chose to throw caution to the wind and call this stranger at 9 in the morning...
Actually I didn't call, I made someone else call, since I am a busy person and hate phone calls, but what I overheard made me happy to not have been the one to make contact...
Get her address, and secure the first bid on the cabinet, sounds simple enough, but from across the room I could tell this woman was not going to be an easy one to work with...
The conversation that should have taken two minutes drug on forever, with the little old woman describing each tree and shrub that would be passed along the way in her turn by turn instructions for a simple destination...

After that ordeal, we headed over to the Shady Oaks trailer park, where we found a yellow home, completely empty aside from the giant cabinet... She informed us that she was moving, since she had recently split with her husband of the last three decades... It seemed like a long time to be with someone and call it quits, but soon after meeting with this woman, we realized that her former husband had made a wise decision...

She informed us that she was moving to a smaller trailer at the other end of the park and that there would not be room for this, her most prized of posessions... She said that she had hoped it would go to a person who was fond of collections and would use it for it's intended purpose... from the image above I am sure you have no doubt that this was a good match and within minutes of securing the colosal thing in its place that I had no trouble filling it with crap from around my house, most notebly my toaster and pyrex collections...

She informed us numerous times that this cabinate could not be moved by mere mortals and would require the presence of at least four strong me, if not the entire U of O football team, if they were available...

Feeling sorry for this newly displaced, former housewife, I decided to appease her and help set her at ease by getting an entire U-haul to move this one solitary item... That in combination with the lack of large trucks at my disposal...

So off I went to secure a truck and get this thing were it belonged... I called the local truck depot and was greeted by what must have been a retired auctionier, since she had me on and off the phone in the dizzying span of 30 seconds...
"I need a truck"
"One way or in town?"
"In town."
"How many rooms are you moving?"
"One cabinet."
"That'll be a 24 footer at 4:30" (Click)
"What? 24 footer, but it's just a..."

The U-Haul rental station smelled like a backed up sewage line, and the truck wasn't much better, with it's ashtray like ambiance...
And then there was the "Four strong men" that I needed...
I don't know enough people to play Monopoly, let alone know anyone who can lift over a 10 lbs. bag of potatoes...
But as always, I made due with what I had, piling two tech support specialists into the truck and making the best of things...

Upon arriving with the truck and surprising the old lady with what I considered a more than adequate moving team for the task at hand, she crossed her arms and sternly informed us that we would not be up to the task...

In as polite of a fashion as I could muster, I tried to make it clear that I had purchased the cabinate and if I wanted to have the Geek Squad throw it down her stairs and dash it into pieces, that was up to me...

But all the while she kept saying, "Oh no, I wouldn't do that... No..."
So on it went, the boys taking out the shelves, and arduously lifting the 400 lbs. cabinate out the door with the old lady and her constant cemmentary on their eminent failure and how much she loved that thing...

Finally we were able to get the thing in the truck and secure it with bits of shoe laces that I had in my pocket... a fine job for sure... Being that the thing weighed more than a baby elephant, I wasn't too worried about it shifting around...

Now for the precious glass shelves... She surrendered them with more than hesitation, passing each one over and reminding me that they needed the utmost of care and to wrap them separately in blankets to prevent damage...
"Do you have blankets with you?"
"Of course... they are... uh, in the truck. Yeah, in the front seat..."
She of course bounds out of the house to see the "blankets", of which there are none...
I could care less at this point and just want to get out of here...
So I grab one of the shelves out of her hands, pass it of to the closest nerd I see and discreatly whisper, "Cut her off, she's going for the truck, cut her off"
So we quickly take all of the shelves and pretend to wrap them in imaginary blankets out of the view of the crazy old lady, and then pile into the truck, only to find about 30 lbs of glass preventing our escape...
We precariosly balance the sheets of glass across our laps, slam down the gate, and throw it into drive...
I can't help but shout as we are headed out the gate that I can't believe that woman is divorced and go speeding off the sidewalk with a thump.

Upon arriving at the house I quickly pile all the crap from my previous cabinate over every available surface, and promise our helper that he has done his part, earned his drink and that he won't have to lift the thing ever again, which is of course a lie...

No sooner than he has settled down on the couch and began to enjoy the first few sips of victory, I announce that I have cleared the needed space and am ready for the next task...

Long story longer, I made them move the whole thing again, tettering it on it's side and shimmying it left and right as they make their way across the living room, then demanding that it be moved again just a few more inches so it will free up the only available electric outlet in the wall...

Now it's all set and my toasters are reveling in the light that reflects off their chrome sides and brightens up the whole room.

The only thing left for me to do now is find more toasters.
All in all I feel it was a fair exchange, though I could have done without her commentary...

I will mention all this and more in the morning...

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Sorry for my Absence...

I think I have been out of the routine of communicating regularly on account of my new setup at home and my recent habit of leaving my laptop at school... Having it stay in the classroom saves me time in setting up my classes and also ensures that I will not inadvertently leave it behind and be unprepared...
Everything I do with my students is on it, and due to my new early schedule I save time by leaving it be...
I have no shortage of equipment at home, by any means, it is just that having the main computer in the living room does not lend itself to the quiet contemplative surrounding that is required for uninterrupted thoughts and sharing ideas...
I have had many ideas that I wanted to share lately, but I seem to have been torn away each time with my ongoing activities...

As of late the updates are as follows...
Everyone is falling prey to the plague... Teachers are undergoing the scientific transformation that is the fall season, and with it are catching the flu and what ever else their children decide to share with them...
We have at least five staff members out of the building and may see more soon...

Remind me to go into more detail on: When Rats Attack, the bat whisperer, karaoke parties, the apple visit, and walk and bike to school day with the mayor...