Perfect Day

I finished reading The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau. I really liked this book, but I don't know how practical it is for me. I would love to sell all my stuff and just take off to someplace in the world where I could volunteer and help people. I would love to not have to work a "normal" work day. The problem is that I have bills to pay and people to support.

After I finished the book I started thinking about what my perfect day would be. I think it would be great to start my day at eight o'clock in the morning. Wake up and drop Meg off at school. Come home and do some sort of exercise. I would prefer if I lived in the mountains on a lake. It would be great to take a kayak out on the lake every morning. A good jog or hike would also be spectacular in the morning.

After returning home and taking a shower it would then be time to get to work with whatever I would be doing. This is the part that gets a little fuzzy for me. I don't know what I am passionate about. I know that I want to do something that I love so work does not feel like work. I have thought about becoming a professional photographer, but I don't know if that is my passion. I really enjoy it when I am doing it, but I go weeks without picking up my camera. I also don't particluarly enjoy photographing people, but maybe that is because I am not good at posing people.

I would then pick Meg up from school and help her with her homework. At that point I would either do some more work or other projects that I like to do. I would exercise again in the evening after an early dinner and go to bed about midnight.

I know I have a lot of holes to fill in this perfect day, but it is a start.

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SCICON Revisited

Most people who grew up in Tulare County visited SCICON when they were in the sixth grade as I did. I remember it being a fun time, but don't remember many details. The Queen went this year for her second time as a teacher and I decided to take a day off work and visit her up there.

I looked at a map and finally remembered the cabin I stayed in when I visited the first time, Winterhaven. I have a horrible memory, especially when it comes to my childhood, but I finally remembered the name of my cabin.

When I decided to visit The Queen I really started thinking about what I was expecting to see at SCICON. I remember thinking it was a cool place when I was in sixth grade, but would it still be cool or would it be run down. After all, it is run by the office of education which is a government office. We all know that our schools can become run down, so I thought SCICON might be the same way.

When we arrived I met the principal of SCICON, Rick, and found him to be a really nice guy. I later found out that he has been the principal for twenty-three years. He works long days since the SCICON day starts around seven in the morning and goes until about nine at night. He has a house on site, so he can go home throughout the day. His wife is the nurse there which means they get to spend some time together every day.

We made our way to the cabin where the teachers stay and I surprised The Queen. She had no idea that I was coming up to visit her. It was great to see her after a few days apart.

I was really surprised that SCICON was in great shape and was still very cool. As I walked around the main area and hiked some of the trails I started to remember little bits and pieces about my trip there in 1983. I remembered the bell and the dining hall.

The Queen and I decided to take the Sky Trail hike. That is the longest hike offered at SCICON. I took the hike when I was in sixth grade, but The Queen never had. It was a great hike and half way up I remembered the spot were we stopped and had a sack lunch when I made the hike as a sixth grader. We continued all the way up to Hermit's Cabin. I found the rebuilt cabin there. When I made the trip the first time, it was just a pile of wood with some pots around it.

In the end the hike took us a little more than three hours. It was a long time, but I really enjoyed it and took a lot of pictures. I would really like to take the trip up there for the day every year that The Queen is there. I even told her that it would be great if she got her administrative credential and became the principal of SCICON when Rick retires.

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Proud to be an American?

Meg had a school performance tonight and the theme was America and a solute to our veterans. The school was divided up into four groups that each performed three songs. One of the songs was a hymn of one of the branches of the military. They finished with two songs that the entire school sang together.

With all of the patriotic songs being sung, I could not help but think about their meaning. The songs all saluted the "men who died for our freedom." There have been many heroes that have died defending this great country. But there have also been many men who have died for no reason at all. I am ashamed that we treat these men the same as the men who fought to defend our country. I am ashamed because our government sent these men into battle for misguided reasons.

Vietnam was a disaster of a war. The government fabricated reasons for us to fight that war and the public was up in arms. It was horrible for everyone. The Gulf War is another horrible situation that our government put us in. Their were fabricated reasons that justified sending our troops to that region and many men and women have sacrificed their lives for no valid reason.

Every Veteran's Day we should think about the heroes who died to give us our freedom. We should also think about the mistakes our government has made and make sure we don't repeat them. We can change the future!

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Brainstorming Change

The Queen works for a school in a low income area of town. Many of the parents of students are involved in gangs. Many parents are not home very much, so the kids are on their own a lot of the time. There is a church that is located in a an upper middle class area of town that supports the school with whatever they need. They have one person who is there every week.

This church inspires me. They really support the kids and families of this school in everything they do. If they kids need something, all the school needs to do is ask and the church does there best to get those items for the kids. For example, every year the church supplies many, if not all, of the students with back packs and school supplies. When one of the teachers started a Saturday academy for the kids, he asked the church for shirts and they provided them.

Last year The Queen had this girl in her fourth grade class who was behind in every subject. She could not read or write, but she tried really hard and wanted to learn. Everyone thought she might have some learning disabilities, so they tested her. It turned out that she did not have any disabilities, but was affected because her family moved a lot when she was younger. She was just always behind so she never learned the things she was supposed to. I really wanted to help her and mentioned it to The Queen a few times, but I never acted on it.

Last night we were sitting in one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants and I told her that the book "Linchpin" was really motivating me to do something. I told her that I would like to volunteer in an after school program at her school. We were talking about it for a while and she told me that she thought something involving computers would be good. I said that was fine, but I would like to make it very unstructured so that the kids could choose what we did.

I mentioned that it would be great if we could get a company like Apple to donate some laptops and maybe a company like Canon could donate some cameras. We could then have weekly assignments for the kids to look for. They could find their own solutions to problems like intersecting lines. I think it would teach them to look at their world in a different way. It would show them that beauty can even be found in their own neighborhood. I got really excited about this idea. Now all I have to do is find some way to get some laptops and cameras so I can move forward with this idea. I think this is too much to ask of the church.

I also mentioned to T-Bird that we can't rely on teachers alone to run after school activities for the kids. We need to get the community involved. We need to get local graphic artists to come in and teach the kids about art. We need to get local business people to come in and talk to them about entrepreneurship. We need to get the local college to come in and talk to them about opportunities for education. We need to try to open their eyes to the possibilities that are available to them.

Now comes the hard part.

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Reunion in Los Angeles

The Queen, Meg and I took her dad to LAX for his trip to Tzintzuntzan. Now that both of The Queen's grandparents have passed away, I expected her parents trips to Mexico to stopy. They proved me wrong and are spending the summer in Mexico again this year. I guess they are just creatures of habit.

A few weeks ago I learned that a few of my college friends who live in the bay area were heading down to Los Angeles for the Fourth of July weekend. They were planning to spend the weekend with another college friend and her family. I thought it might be nice to visit all of them for the weekend since The Queen and I had not seen them for about six years. I persuaded The Queen's dad to make his trip work with this trip.

My friend Kelly's family recently purchased a condo near downtown Los Angeles at the corner of Wilshire and Western, directly across the street from the Wiltern Theater. She offered for us to stay at her condo, but we decided to get a hotel instead. I found a pretty good rate at the Wilshire Plaza hotel. It was just down the street from her condo and the reviews were not too bad, so I booked it. When I was booking it online I got a good price, then as soon as I booked it my confirmation showed a price almost fifty dollars higher in price. I had to call them to get the rate corrected. They told me that the price was correct, but that I should send them and email. I did and a few hours later they adjusted my rate back to the correct rate.

We ended up having The Queen's dad drive to the airport in his Caddy. We just thought that he would be more comforatable in it than in my Prius. After dropping him off at the Crowne Plaza, we headed to the hotel to check in. The hotel was in a pretty good area and looked good from the outside. We we got into the lobby, I was pleasantly surprised. It look pretty nice. We checked in and headed to the elevator. The room I booked was supposed to be a "view" room, so when we got to the sixth floor I could not wait to show Meg the Hollywood hills.

The room key did not work at first. It took several times sliding the card in and out before the door finally unlocked. I opened the door and was very dissappointed. The carpet was stained and in horrible shape. I walked in and looked around and discovered that one of the access panels in the ceiling was hanging down and that the ceiling had a large water stain. I pulled back the drapes to see the view and got a view of the building next door and a slight glimpse of the Hollywood hills. I was not very happy at all, but we did not have time to complain.

We got ready and headed over to Kelly's condo. We got there and had to call to the reception desk to get into the parking garage. We headed up to the reception desk. From there we had to be escorted to another elevator and out to the pool deck. We walked across and finally saw our friends in the function room. It was great to see them all and meet a lot of new people. Kelly and her husband were in the pool with their two daughters, so we walked out there to say hi. We talked a while and then went back in to catch up.

I found out that my college room mate is still living in Oakland and now has a son and a daughter. One of my other college friends who most people thought was gay is now married with a fifteen month old son. The other two friends I saw on the trip are still single with no marriage in sight.

We hung out and talked most of the evening and then we started playing Trivial Pursuit. I have never been good at that game. The Queen and I struggled along and Meg really started to get bored. We played a little longer before deciding to go back to our hotel.

I initially thought that my friends had all changed a lot. After thinking about it some more, I guess I am the one who has changed. They were still doing everything that we did when we used to spend a lot of time together back in college and after we graduated. I guess I just find it boring now. They are really into movies and TV shows, just like they were then. I just don't have the patience for those discussions anymore since I don't watch many movies or TV show.

I really need to give them another shot in a smaller gathering to see if we can reconnect.

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Final Track Meet

Meg had her final track meet on Friday night. We invited my parents, my sister and neices and Unk Timmers to the meet. They all made it and were very supportive of Meg. I was scheduled to help time events.

Meg did not act like she was into her event very much before the meet. She did not ask me any questions. I gave her some advice and she was not very receptive. The one thing I told her that she paid attention to was to not let the tall girl from her school pull away from her again like she did the last race. That really sunk in.

I ended up having to time her race. For some of the races each timer took a lane and for the other races we took a finishing place. For Meg's race we ended up taking a finishing place because there were so many boys and girls running. I ended up timing for the fourth place girl.

Meg got off to a pretty rough start to the race. I did not see the actual start, but by the time I looked for her she was kind of lurching back because there was such a crowd around her. She struggled for ten seconds or so and then started to run her race. She has always run her eight hundred meter race at a good pace. It shows me that she has really practiced well.

She ran a really good race and as she got to the final straight section of the tack she really picked up her pace. She finished strong and ened up passing another girl to move into fourth place. She was almost sprinting as she crossed the finish line. I ended up being the one who timed her race. I met her and gave her the time for her race and told her that she finished in fourth place. I told her that she ran a great race and told her I was proud of her.

I had to keep timing races, so I did not get to spend much time with the fam. I texted them all her results. I never heard the announcement of the results for her race. We all went out to dinner when I was done timing. At dinner the fam told me that they announced that Meg got third place. I told them that she actually got fourth, but the person timing the second place finisher did not time them. It was a real mess trying to figure everything out. We don't know what ribbon she will end up receiving. I guess we will just have to wait until tomorrow to see what she brings home.

Meg's principal was in charge of receiving all of the times for the races and recording them. He was a somewhat passive person, which really surprised me. That was the first time I had any interaction with him and he was not what I expected. I guess I am used to take charge people in the business world and maybe the leaders in the education world are just not that way. Or maybe it was his first time performing that job at a track meet and he was just a little over his head. Either way, I was surprised.

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Track Meet

Before I get started, I want to announce a change I am making. I am tired of referring to people in my life with code names, so unless there is a real reason to protect identities I am dropping them. The one exception is that I will probably continue to refer to Tina as The Queen.

Meg had her second track meet this past Friday night. On Thursday night she asked me how she could get faster. I told her that she has done everything she could possibly do at that point because she has been practicing. I told her that the only thing left was to keep telling herself that she was not tired. That she could run faster. That she could pass the girl in front of her. She said that she would try that.

On Friday night, Meg was her typical self. She was full of energy and could not sit still. When they announced her even, the 800M, her and a friend told the coach that they needed to go to the restroom. I don't even think she heard her event announced. By the time they got back the announcer had already given the second call for the runners. I rushed down to her and her friend and told the coach that I would take them to the even. We hurried down to the infield.

The school track coach was just letting the runners do whatever they wanted to do while they waited for the even to start. Meg and her friends were stretching some, doing jumping jacks, doing jump kicks and doing shoulder rolls. Not at all what I would consider the proper warm-up activities. I was just hoping that she was not going to wear herself out before her event.

She had quite a long wait for her event, but the announcer finally called the runners to the starting line. Meg lined up about five runners in from the outside of the track. She got a decent start and made her way to the inside of the track. I thought she was running a great race. She held her pace pretty steady for the entire length. When she was coming around the last turn, she caught up to one of the other runners from her school. They spoke to each other briefly and then that girl picked up her pace and pulled away from Meg.

Meg finished the race in sixth place. I think she was probably the first third grader to finish the race, unfortunately the race is for both third and fourth graders. I am curious to see if she improved her time from the first track meet. It really appeared to me that she ran better this time, even though she finished two places later than her first race. She did a great job.

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Where I Belong

I was at Fresno State yesterday for their spring career fair and I must say that it is always interesting when I go there. There is just something about that campus that does not feel right to me. I just don't feel like it is a university. It has the feel of a junior college to me. I guess that is why you really need to visit any potential college you are considering before making a decision.

I made my college decision without making a visit. I did not actually visit the campus until orientation over the summer. The good thing is that I felt comfortable on campus. My only regret is that I did not get the chance to live in the dorms my freshman year. It was not by choice, but I still regret it. It is so easy to make a lot of new friends when you live in the dorms. I would encourage everyone to do it their first year of college, especially if they have left their home town and don't know anyone like I did.

College was a great time in my life. I got to escape from my home town and meet people that were very different than I was. For instance, I did not know any black kids in my hometown. When I got to college I lived just down the hall from a few. Later in college I met a few more. I also only knew a few asians in my home town, but in college I met a lot of asian guys and girls. My junior and senior years I ended up living in a house with an asian guy and four asian girls. For some reason, I just did not click with a lot of white people in college. I was definately more comfortable with minorities and I think that had to do with the fact that I was a minority while going to school in my home town.

To this day I feel extremely comfortable when I travel to different parts of Mexico. I also felt comfortable when I traveled to Puerto Rico earlier this year and to China a few years ago. The places I really start to feel uncomfortable is areas of California that are traditionally known for having wealthy populations. I just don't fit in with that whole keeping up with the Jones' mentality and you are what you wear attitudes.

My other regret is that I didn't do something more exciting and helpful when I graduated from college. As I think back, I realize that it would have been a great experience to have joined the Peace Corp and traveled around the world helping disadvantaged people. I just wish it would have happened.

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Grand Challenges of the 21st Century

The White House is asking the citizens of the United States of America to help identify goals for the twenty-first century. Some of the goals that have been mentioned in the past include early detection of dozens of diseases from a saliva sample, solar cells as cheap as paint, and educational software that is as compelling as the best video game and effective as a personal tutor. I really like the idea that the White House is asking the citizens for feedback and not just having politicians make the decision for us.

One of our biggest challenges in the twenty-first century is global climate change. There are many things that are affecting this change. Our reliance on fossil fuels is a big contributing factor to climate change and I think the one area where we can make the biggest difference. We need to make our number one goal changing our global reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. This will not be an easy task, but I believe it is a goal we can accomplish.

Many aspects of our daily lives rely on fossil fuels. We heat our homes with fossil fuels. Much of our electricity is produced by fossil fuels. Our cars run on fossil fuels. Plastic is made from fossil fuels. Almost everything around us relies on fossil fuels. While this is a big challenge facing our global community, I believe that change is happening. Their are companies that are innovating new technology that is lessening our reliance on fossil fuels.

The greatest challenge we Americans face in the twenty-first century is education. I would like to see American youths lead the world in math and science scores. We have been losing ground every year and at this point we have fallen too far behind to be satisfied with our current education system. We need to have education reform. We need to make education our number one priority.

The students of today are the inventors and leaders of tomorrow and we are letting these students down by not making education our priority. We need to set education funding and not rob from it when tax revenue falls. We cannot say that it is a real priority if we cut our education budget every chance we get. It is easy to make cuts across the board, but we don't need leaders who can make the easy decisions. We need leaders who are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure that the long-term good of the nation is being met. We need leaders who believe that education is the key to our country's future.

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Excellent Debut

Earlier this year, Cheeseball informed The Queen and I that she joined the school track team. She is in third grade this year and it is the first year they let third graders join the team. Several of her friends joined with her.

This was a big surprise to me since after our Thanksgiving 5K run she told me she didn't want to run again. I was happy she decided to give running another chance because she is pretty good at it. She tried several distances until she ultimately decided to run the eight hundred meter, which is two laps around the track.

They have practice twice a week and were scheduled to have three track meets this year, the last of which was supposed to me a type of championship meet. Her first track meet was rained out last month. She was both excited and nervous for that meet. When we go there she started to relax after hanging out with her friends. She was really disappointed when they announced that the track meet was cancelled. I was a little relieved since I signed up to help with the timing of some of the events.

Her second meet was this past Friday. It was a month after the first meet was rained out. She did not seem either nervous or excited for this meet so I did not know what to expect from her. Before we left her with her friends, I gave her some quick advice. I told her to keep the girls in the lead within reach. Do not try to keep up with them, but keep them close. I told her to sprint to the finish. That was all.

I watched with a nervous excitement as her group was waiting to be called to the starting line. She actually had to stand their waiting for a few 100 meter races. It was finally her turn. They called her group to the starting line and got them set. The race started and she did just what I told her to do, although she was a little farther back in the pack. She kept a great pace for the first half to three-quarters of the first lap. Then she got caught behind some slow runners and she slowed down a bit.

She was finally able to move around them and then picked up her pace again. I was excited for her because she was running a good race. She continued her pace for most of the second lap. She was in front of the pack at this point and was using another girl to pace herself. That girls started slowing down, so Cheeseball slowed down with her instead of passing her. She didn't sprint to the finish, but kept pace with the girl in front of her. I really thought she could have passed her, but I was happy with her race.

She made her way back to the stands where we were and actually ran with one of her friends. She was not as tired as I thought she would be. We waited to hear the results of her race. It was hard to hear, but she ended up finishing in fourth place. If she would have known that the girl she was using for pacing at the end was in third maybe she would have passed her instead. I was really happy for her though. She did great for her first race and she ended up with the best finish from her school in that race.

I think the race was very confusing for all of the runners. The race included third and fourth grade boys and girls. There was a big crowd at the start of the race with a lot of runners.

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National Signing Day

Today was national signing day for high school football players. It is the day that they can formally sign with the college of their choice. It is a day that I usually look forward to and start following as soon as I get to work. I usually keep an internet window open as I work and get updates from time to time.

Today was different. I did not even get a chance to browse the internet until about 10:00. By that time, a lot of letter of intents(LOI) had already been faxed into the college athletic departments. I only had the chance to get updates about three or four times throughout the day. I was just too busy at work.

I was looking forward to today because it was the first time USC alumni were going to be able to judge the new coaching staff. Lane Kiffin and company did not have very much time to try to rescue the Pete Carroll recruiting class and add to it with their own players. I was worried that they were going to lose a big chunk of the recruiting class.

I was pleasantly surprised with the job they did. They hauled in a couple of players who were not verbally committed to USC and virtually kept the entire class in tact. A few players slipped away, but that was expected with a coaching change. If I had to give them a grade on the class, I would go with a solid A.

They had a lot of excuses for not keeping the class complete. Nobody could blame them if it happened. The timing of the coaching change was just not ideal for them. They did not rest and did not accept any of the excuses and did a great job. I can't wait to see what they are able to do with spring practice.

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What Not to Buy in 2010

I came across an interesting article on Yahoo Finance today. It is titled "10 Things Not to Buy in 2010." Here is the list:

1. DVDs I think it is still safe to buy DVDs, especially Blu-ray. Internet downloads of movies just take too long and if you are looking for a high definition movie it will take even longer.

2. Home Telephone Service This one is a toss-up for me. I don't want to have a home phone, but I don't want salesmen bothering me on my cell phone. I have Google Voice, but have not really used it to its full potential. I actually have not even given out my phone number. It is a nice service because you select which of your phones you want to ring when someone calls the number. I will have to experiment with it in 2010 to see if I can eliminate my home phone.
3. External Hard Drives I strongly disagree with this one. There is still a place for an external hard drive. The online backup services are much more expensive and you are putting your cherished photos and music collection in someone Else's hands.

4. Smartphone Also-Rans Other than the Blackberry and iPhone, none of the other smartphones have really caught on. The Blackberry is still the business phone of choice. The iPhone walks the line between hipsters and wannabe hipsters. I personally really like my iPhone, but it does have limitations and annoyances.

5. Compact Digital Cameras I made the switch several years ago and have not looked back. I think there is still a use for a compact digital camera. The size is ideal and the ease of use is what many people like. A digital SLR is more expensive and is more complicated.

6. Newspaper Subscriptions Newspapers have been dead for several years now. They need to change their business model if they are going to remain viable businesses. Our society wants news now, not in in 12 hours.

7. CDs Song downloads are fast and the quality is good. There is no reason to buy a CD in a store or online when you can get it almost immediately from iTunes.

8. New College Textbooks With ebook readers catching on and Apples tablet about to be released, there is no longer a need for printed textbooks. The transition will take some time, but I see it happening soon. Printed books are bad for the environment and are too expensive. They stretch our education budgets thin.

9. Gas-Guzzling Cars These went out with the 70s. I love my Prius and while I am not looking forward to the projected gas prices in 2010, I am also not afraid of them. My car has enough power, cargo capacity and gets great gas mileage as well. I don't think there should be any new cars sold that don't get at least 30 miles per gallon and have a hybrid drivetrain. We have the technology, we just need the car makers to embrace it.

10. Energy-Inefficient Homes and Appliances Again, we have the technology we just have to use it. Appliances have come a long way. Home building technology has as well, it is just very expensive still. Appliance prices benefit from economies of scale. Home building technology does to a certain extent as well, but prices just aren't falling fast enough for most types of items. A lot of people just don't want to pay the extra money for energy efficient items other than windows, doors and insulation.

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A Whirlwind Weekend Comes to an End

Wow! After the Seattle Seahawks fired their coach on Friday, rumors started to spread that Pete Carroll had accepted a deal to be their new coach. I took everything with a grain of salt since the media and Internet posters are all trying to break news. Their was no word from Pete or USC. The NFL has the Rooney Rule that requires all teams to interview minority candidates for jobs and at that point it appeared that rule had not been satisfied.

The one minority candidate they had targeted told them he would not waste his time to interview if a deal was in place. The Seahawks convinced him to interview on Saturday morning. On Sunday, Pete called the group who enforces the Rooney Rule and told them that he had not done anything to be out of compliance with the rule.

Monday morning it was officially announced that Pete was leaving USC. It was later made official that Pete had accepted the job with the Seattle Seahawks. I was glued to the Internet all day Monday. There were rumors about who would be the next coach at USC. There were rumors about who had been offered the job and who had turned it down. It appeared that the front runner, Jack Del Rio might make a decision on Today.

After meeting with the Jacksonville Jaguars owner earlier today, Jack told the media that he was staying put. Another mini meltdown happened on all of the USC message boards. Who was next in line? Nobody knew. I certainly didn't know.

At about 6:15 today an announcement came out of left field. Lane Kiffin was named the new head coach of the USC Trojans. Lane was a backup quarterback at Fresno State. After a few coaching stops he was hired by Pete Carroll at USC. He started as a wide receivers coach and quickly worked his way to offensive coordinator and recruiting coordinator.

Kiffin was hired as the Oakland Raiders head coach in 2007 and fired by Al Davis in 2008. Two months later he was hired by the University of Tennessee as their head football coach. He started making waves in the SEC immediately. He was calling out other coaches and just generally being mouthy. He also had some recruiting and player issues while head coach at Tennessee. He had assembled a pretty good coaching staff with his dad, Monte Kiffin, ad defensive coordinator and Ed Orgeron as recruiting coordinator, associate head coach and defensive line coach.

Kiffin is bringing both his dad and Ed Orgeron with him to USC. Ed coached at USC and was the recruiting coordinator prior to being hired as the head coach at the University of Mississippi. Kiffin was Ed's replacement as the USC recruiting coordinator. It is great to see coach Orgeron coming back to USC. He has a fiery personality and is a great recruiter.

The rumor is that USC is in negotiations to hire Norm Chow back as the offensive coordinator. That would go a long way for recruiting. He was a great quarterback coach while at USC. He has struggled in his more recent stops, but maybe he can bring that magic back with him. We will have to wait and see.

I don't know how I feel about Lane yet. I will have to wait to see how the team does before I pass judgement. I guess I am excited about change right now. Fight On!

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Great Time of Year

I look forward to this time of year for a few reasons. My favorite reason is that we get to see elementary school Christmas programs. Chachi had a memorable one that we still refer to every year. The hand gestures that went with the songs were perfect and really made the performance emotional.

Cheeseball has not have any that have stood out as much, but I still enjoy them every year. We will suffer in the cold tonight, because Cheeseball's school holds all of its performances outside in their quad. In addition, we have to be there very early because there is always a great parent turn out.

Cheeseball has been practicing at home recently. She has been singing non-stop. She knows the songs, so I just hope she opens up some and really has some fun with it. I am excited for tonight!

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I Am An Introvert!

It is official. I am an introvert. I can hear everyone who knows me saying, "duh" right about now. I have always known that I have been shy and like to keep to myself. I have even had conversations with my wife about me potentially being able to live all alone somewhere. She cannot understand this, but I really don't need people as much as she does. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife and kids. I get a lot of joy watching my kids do things like play sports and sing in school performances. I even find myself enjoying watching them do things like enjoying a good book or laughing at a funny tv show.

I think that I can be an introvert and enjoy certain people. I have always been interested in people, but mostly from afar. I am a bit of a voyeur. I like to people watch. I like to think about what is going through people's minds. I even like to criticize the way they do things and question their reasoning. People amaze me, but I don't want to talk to them a lot of the time.

So now that I know that I am an introvert, have I missed my calling? Is there a certain job that I could really be successful at and enjoy much more than any other? I am starting a journey to find out if there is such a career. I have some ideas that will get me started. I will see where it goes from there.

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Easy Ways to Give

Who ever said that there is no free lunch was wrong. There are several easy, free ways that we can all give this holiday season. I have tried these and recommend that you do as well.

1. Give blood. With increased travel during the holidays, there will be increased need for donated blood.
2. Free Rice. Play some games and rice will be donated for each question you answer correctly.
3. The Animal Rescue Site. All you have to do is click on a link.
4. The Breast Cancer Site. Again, all you have to do is click on a link.
5. The Hunger Site. Just click on a link again.
6. Welch’s Harvest of Help. Click on the link and Welch's will donate juice through Feeding America. Their goal is 1 million glasses of juice.
7. Leapfish & Make-A-Wish. Tweet the provided message and Leapfish will make a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
8. Kraft Foods. Send a FREE holiday e-card and Kraft will donate 10 meals to Feeding America.
9. Land O’Lakes – Click where it says “You click, we donate” in the upper right corner of their website and they will donate to fight local hunger.
10. Box Tops. Found on hundreds of products like Cheerios, Chex Mix, Cottonelle, and Kleenex. Clip the Box Top symbol from the package and give it to your child’s school, or a teacher you know. Each Box Top is worth 10¢ for your school. Clipping the Box Top takes just a second and doesn’t cost you anything.

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100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know

There is a list of 100 words that every high school graduate should know. The list was compiled by the editors of the American Heritage dictionary. These are the words that they say identify if you have a superior command of the English language.

I took a look at this list and I must say that I do not have a superior command of the English language. I would bet that there are not any high school graduates in the Central San Joaquin valley who can use every word on this list correctly in a sentence.

Here is a link to the list. Let me know if you have a superior command of the English language.

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Parent-Teacher Conference

I am so proud of Meg. Last night was her parent-teacher conference and her teacher had nothing but great things to say about her. She said that Meg is a quite leader and that she is really well behaved and scholarly. Wow! I was about to tell her teacher that she acts totally different at home, but decided not to.

I told her teacher that Meg is still interested in math and that I want to help her keep progressing before she learns to hate it like most kids. I asked her how best to do that. Her answer was not what I was looking for. She mentioned a website to go to that has math games and that was about it. Meg has played those games at school and seem uninterested to do so at home.

I am going to have to really start working with her on her times tables. Then, we need to keep working on her addition and subtraction. I really want all of it to be second nature to her so she does not get frustrated and start to hate it. I wish I had worked harder when I was younger so that I was faster with my math. Helping her should also help me, so it is a win-win situation.

Meg is very strong in the language arts. She really likes to read, has great penmanship and likes to write. Her teacher said that is her strongest area, and I agree. We need to keep encouraging her to read so she loves it like Tina does. I go throug reading spurts, but I would not go as far as to say that I love it. I wish I did, but I just don't. More on the book I am currently reading in a later post.

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