Winter is finally here

In both the calendar sense, and the day after day of snow storms sense, winter has finally arrived. I wonder if the late arrival of winter in Utah is going to be a recurring theme. Most of the climate data I have looked at (mostly during my culminating project in my undergrad studies) has indicated that earlier spring thaws and later fall cool-downs seem to be how global warming is manifesting in many parts of the world... I guess time will tell. For now, I suppose white christmas is a sealed deal, since it just keeps snowing.

Maybe we can make it out with the snowshoes this week.

Oh, and I have an orchid blooming...

Not everything is about bitter cold and lifeless dormancy.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Now that's a beer commercial

"Black Friday" is a stupid term for a stupid idea...

Seriously. Our society is such a bunch of stupid, stupid morons that we are so concerned with being the person to get that $10 DVD player (or whatever thing that is really only worth that much anyway) that we are willing to get up at 3:00 am to go to Walmart to wait for the stupid doors to open, only to tackle a pregnant woman and drop-kick somebody's granny to get a bargain.

A mob of bargain crazed shoppers have killed some poor guy who was working through a temp agency in a New York Walmart. What the hell is wrong with people. Is the $20 that somebody saved even worth the missed sleep? I can unequivocally say that the savings are not worth the life of the poor guy trying to make a buck working a Walmart, not to mention the injuries of the shoppers who were also injured and taken to the hospital in this incident.

Shame on retailers for pushing this kind of ridiculous shopping frenzy tactics (I'll go ahead and attach most of that shame to Walmart who appears to have been integral in pushing the "Black Friday" (god, I hate that term) phenomenon, and shame on the stupid, greedy shoppers who are so concerned with being the person to save a little more than the other person in line that they would trample and kill another person.

Stupid, greedy bastards.

The Hives and Cyndi Lauper

I feel so primitive...

Seriously, how did I live so long without the DVR? I get to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it. I can watch commercials at 40x speed... TV has become magic again. Especially with my cable company's addition of the Chiller network... I can always find something good. I will never be forced to watch anything featuring either Hulk Hogan or Brooke Hogan ever again. 

Hot damn. 

The new dog...

She doesn't have a name yet, but she is awfully cute...

Scratch that... her name is Zizzy Baluba 

So wiped out...

Seriously, I'm really tired. I need so much more sleep. Late night homework sessions, and early morning observations seem to be taking hefty tolls. I can barely type (my fingers seem to want to do their own thing. I type, type, type away, only to realize that a good third of the words are absolute gibberish.

Maybe I should go to bed...

DVR - What will it mean for me?

So, I just spent most of the day getting a DVR system installed... lots of issues, but now we're ready to record whatever the hell it is we want to watch. I won't miss my programs anymore. I will never be forced to watch awful shows that are sandwiched between shows I want to watch again. No more missing the Daily Show, the Colbert Report, or anything else I want to watch. 

...and if I want to swipe the audio from some televised band performance... (not that I would do such a reprehensible thing...) all I have to do is record it, and hook the audio cables up later...

(I wouldn't dream of it.)

It will be interesting to see how this affects my life. very exciting....

Restored faith?

So, yeah. My faith in the American public has, to a degree, been restored. Yesterday, Barack Obama was elected as the next president of the United States of America. Not only does this represent a massive step in terms of civil rights, but it also represents a shift in the Political paradigm. The use of fear to herd the stupid, sheep-like people of the country into the corral of their own stupid, rank-with-the-scent-of-fear, mindlessness seems to have reached a breaking point. People did what made sense rather than what calmed the rabid wolves at their doors.

Maybe things can be straightened out from here... Barack has a tough job ahead of him. Let's hope we can clean up this mess. huh?

Do The Evolution - Pearl Jam (Video)

I used this for a reading strategy example in a masters level class (I didn't intend to show it to high school students... I wouldn't want to field phone calls from parents who were terrified that I had given their children a glimpse of the ugly side of our society)

A note about Evolution...

It simply is. Believe it or don't. I don't suppose it matters that you believe it... it will go on regardless. 

When humans find some way to completely destroy life as we know it, some other group of organisms will rise up, mutate, experience natural selection, mutate, experience natural selection and so on, and life will go on and continue to evolve.

Long after churches, cities, and civilizations crumble, evolution will march on, producing fantastic, successful (and sometimes grotesque, brutally unsuccessful) organisms. 

So there.

Who knew it could be so exhausting?

So, the whole grad school in under a year idea seemed great a few months ago... It seems, however,  to be a little painful upon execution. Sleep deprivation leads to concentration decline, which leads to lower efficiency in homework, which leads to more time required to do homework, which leads to less sleep, which leads to more pronounced sleep deprivation... and the cycle goes on.

Sometime last night (actually I guess this morning would be more technically accurate) it all seemed a bit too much. I felt a bit like throwing in the towel. Frustration, fatigue, and a nagging sense of inadequacy won out over signs of growth and learning, and I went to bed defeated. Defeated by my own inability to see beyond the two or three pages of lesson plans in front of me, and strategies that needed to fit into those lesson plans somehow. 

I awoke, two and a half hours later, less than rested, and resigned to put my head in the guillotine that is going to class with an incomplete assignment (a rather large assignment). 

After class, which included an "I am a failure. Please put me out of my misery." session, I feel a bit better. That's not to say that unit plan in question isn't a failure as a unit plan... it is. resoundingly so, but, I have come away with the realization that I can still probably redeem myself. 

Here's to the non-traditional unit!  (It has to go better than the last one).

Cheers, 

Jeremy

Me, Joe, and Barack at the park and ride.

I would like to thank my friend Emily Matsumoto for making this photo possible. Joe, me, and Barack at the Jeremy Ranch Park and Ride.

Who would have thought that I could have a photo op with the boys only 5 days before the election? ...and in the heart of the conservative stranglehold to boot?

No, I didn't photoshop them into the photo... those are life-size cardboard cutouts.

It's nice to post something... right?

The insane/inane rantings of a lunatic

I just didn't want to go to bed with my new blog looking all lonely...