There's Got to Be a Better Wake-Up Call

So, I've got to find out who it is in the school district I've offended and what I can do to make it up to them. If you notice the picture to the left, this will be my teaching style until sometime around December of this year. We (the head director and myself) decided that because of the usual large numbers of students who want to play percussion, that this year we would offer a percussion class, freeing up these students to not only play percussion, but to also play a wind instrument. What I didn't count on was an entire class of sixth graders.......at 8AM in the morning.........with 19 (NINETEEN, that's a one in front of a nine!) signed up to take the course. Did I mention it's at 8 in the morning, does anyone remember that I am primarily a night person, not a morning person? Did I also mention that these will all be students who think that percussion consists of doing just what this kid is doing in the picture: hitting things as long and as loud as you can to see how annoyed you can make anyone around you, with the ultimate goal of achieveing the pose of the listener in the picture?! How ridiculous!

In other news, Kayla and Brenna made it home safely, the house has been cleaned, I took another shower, and finished Star Wars last night before I went to bed. Life is about to return to regularly scheduled programming for the Joneses. At least, the crazy sort of schedule we keep during marching season.

Can I just take a moment, speaking of marching band, and brag on my kids just a little? These kids have been truly amazing to watch these past three weeks. They have come to the rehearsals we have had and worked their tails off to get things ready for this upcoming season. The head director stated before the first rehearsal that she wanted a marching trophy this year, and I've got to think that if they maintain this pace, they will put themselves in a very good position to attain one. There have only been a few gripes and complaints, and for the most part there has been a great deal of focus placed on completing the assigned tasks as efficiently as possible in order to earn time spent doing other things. I'm very proud of them all. That doesn't mean that they haven't already started to drive me crazy over some things, but overall I've been very pleased.

Okay, it's getting late (school-schedule), and I need to head off to bed, so I promise to keep everyone informed of the goings on during pre-planning this week and the first week of school next week. I know my Georgia teachers that read this are ready to smack me upside the head for that one, especially when they know that I get out around the same time they do at the end of the year. Just keep that in mind when you're off on Spring, Fall, Christmas, and Winter breaks, while I'm slaving away in the constant heat down here!

PS, I apologize for the scrunched-up look to this blog, I can't make it post with the divides I want it to. It's pretty annoying, but if I can endure it, you have to as well!

The Final Week of Summer (For Real)

So my last week of summer vacation was supposed to end about two weeks ago when I started band camp. Little did I know that the head band director I work with had other plans. She wrote an amazingly simple, yet effective drill for our marching band, mix it together with kids who are really willing to work as hard as they can, and you end up with the following: instead of three days working from 10 AM-8 PM, three days off with nothing to do but see how you can accomplish the least amount of productivity into such a short period of time.

Did I mention Kayla and Brenna went to Houston this week to visit her parents? We did this because I wasn't going to be home anyway, and it was a good time for them to visit before school got back into session for Kayla's mom as well. So not only am I allowed to indulge myself in my odd sleep schedule (see writing a blog post at one in the morning), but I'm also allowed to play computer games to my heart's content, as well as complete my final bit of "film research" for the summer by completing the Star Wars double trilogy.

Now I realize that some of you who read this are thinking, "Boy, if I had one more week of vacation left and I knew I wasn't going to get another break for three months, I would probably spend it preparing for the upcoming classes I had to teach to set out a syllabus, a schedule of events, and make sure I had my first few weeks of lesson plans done." To those people, I say: "When you have three days of waking up at 11 and going to bed at 4, there's plenty of time to fit it all in." Yes, I realize it's a lie, and I'll probably not even make it through half of the things I actually need to accomplish, but I have such a hard time getting motivated when I'm here by myself. Which leads me to my final point.

If I had not gotten married to a fabulous woman (See post on 8/3/08), I would almost certainly be a very lazy and unkempt man-child. I say this because in the time since my wife and daughter left town, I have logged roughly 14 hours of sleep, eaten fried food for every meal since Sunday, not shaved, bathed twice, gotten out of my pj's only to go to two days of work, and logged the remainder of my time between the computer and the television with a few breaks for the call of nature. To all the guys reading this, don't hate me because you can't have this glamour, and to all the girls, be thankful I found time to feed our pets! I love bachelorhood, but I think if I had it all the time, it would destroy me. I did get productive a little today and cleaned the house just a bit, and I do have a few work things to do tomorrow, which should insure that I put on some shorts that I don't sleep in. As far as that list that's shown above about all the things I need to do, I'll get to them at the end of the week, I'm sure. And if not, well.....

Kayla and Brenna will be home Friday!

The Great Motivator

This will be short since it's way past my bedtime, but I fell asleep upstairs. I just wanted everyone who wasn't a teacher to realize that sometimes we as a group will do or say anything that motivates our students to acheive heights that they would not think of otherwise. One of these instances came up for me today. The kids had a new "thing" they were doing today that they thought was the most fun and coolest thing they've ever done before. Give them a few weeks and they will move on to something else they think is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it's just the way kids operate. Anyway, they kept asking me to join them and here's where I may have gotten myself into some trouble. I told them that if they received straight ones at their marching contest, that I would do this thing for them. What is this mysterious "thing", you ask? Well, rather than tell you, let me show you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlHLCOLSThI


Of course knowing how great I am, it will probably turn out more like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB32oCrl__0


My only hope is that they forget I made this promise when they move on to the next thing, or openly root against them to succeed when we go to marching contest. At least there is new motivation there now! I probably won't have to worry about it (famous last words). Maybe I should stop fooling myself and start thinking about my wardrobe? Ideas? Leave a comment!


Why couldn't I have gone into music performance?


PS: If the links don't work, e-mail me and I'll tell you what they were, or navigate you to the site.

I Am The Height of Fashion

I really hope that the people on "What Not to Wear" don't ever send a crew down to Karnes City, because if they do, I'm in trouble courtesy of some of my family. Let me preface what I'm about to write by saying that I love all my family and I love receiving gifts from them. I also love that they care enough for my well-being to see that I look good, or am comfortable or not about to pass out from heat stroke in the Texas heat.

Having said that, the first of the two pictures to the left of this post are the two latest pieces of clothing I have received in the past week from family. One is a pink shirt that I am assured all men wear now, and I should join the crowd. While the picture to the left is somewhat different from what is residing in my drawer right now (i.e. no collar buttoned up to the lip, no shirt sleeves that come down to my bulging forearms), it gets the point across. I now own a pink shirt that is suggested I wear to work....where I teach middle school and high school......band..... in a blue collar town. Now as I said before I am extremely grateful to have received anything at all, but I have yet to gather the courage necessary to wear my pink shirt in public. Maybe in the new year. And it won't be a problem that it's a short sleeve shirt because the average temprature here in winter is like 75 degrees!

This second picture is a creation called "cool ties." And while they do look quite distinguished from a fashion point of view, they are also practical! These little ties have beads inside of them that act like a heating pad in opposite. You put this thing in the fridge for up to an hour to soak in some cold water, take it out, wrap it around your neck, or as this picture suggests, your head, and it will keep you cool for hours at a time. I love the idea, unfortunately, on the actual "cool" scale, it ranks just above the fanny pack. Very versatile, very handy, comfy, yet it begs for the wearer to be publicly ridiculed. Let's remember where I work again. Now we begin to see the problem. I'm not saying that I won't wear mine (it came custom made with music notes!), but I will say that it will have to get pretty hot for me to bite the bullet and slap it around my neck, probably not my head, unless a Rambo type situation presents itself. And let's face it, that's entirely possible, I mean I've already done a Jack Bauer, right?

Anyways, let me close by saying that I do truly appreciate my gifts and I hope that if you gave me one of these articles of clothing, you will see that I'm just picking on you guys, and I do it because I love each of you more than words can express. Thanks for caring about me to the point that you would take time out of your day to make sure that I had clothes on my back, but let's hope that the fabled "fashion police" is just that, a fable.

A Strange, Sad Day

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge baseball and college football fan. Well, I have spent the better part of two nights now awake past my bedtime because I'm trying to get more information on a certain baseball event: the sudden passing of Skip Caray, longtime announcer and television personality for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. Now, I may not have been the biggest Skip Caray fan, in fact, I thought several times when I heard him do call-in shows that he was downright rude to the callers. However, he was one of the reasons I fell in love with baseball at a young age. He made it possible for a 7 or 8 year old to sit through a 3-hour game with little complaint because he helped you understand the game as well as made it interesting to listen to. And to those of you who heard or saw those games in the mid-80's, they were everything but entertaining and interesting! It's odd to be affected so much by a man I never even met, but I felt like I knew him through spending so many summer nights listening to him do the games. One thing he was the absolute best at was calling the game the way a fan of the team would, calling the Braves "we" and "us", and if they were doing great, giving memorable calls and praise, and if they were terrible, either making light of the situation (i.e. calling the forthcoming double play because that's how bad we were), or getting downright mad when we weren't playing up to expectations. His voice and personality will surely be missed. Thanks for the great calls, Skip!.....

Larry Munson's immortal, right?

Happy Anniversary!

To my lovely wife:

You are by far the most beautiful of God's creations. How you came to choose me over all others is something that will boggle my mind until my dying day. You are the most intriguing person I have ever met, who continues to challenge me, to make me a better person than I would be without you in my life. Your support of me through the years through good times and bad has been invaluable to my well-being. You have one of the sharpest minds and greatest senses of humor of anyone I know. I love how we can speak entire conversations without saying a word, or how we can sit in comfortable silence. Thank you for your trust in me to lead our family and to listen to God's voice. Thank you for your trust in me. I praise God each and every day that I get to wake up next to you. There is no doubt in my mind that you have been placed in my life to be a daily reminder of how good God is to me. You understand me better than anyone else I know and you accept me fully knowing more of my faults than anyone else. Thank you so much for dedicating yourself to God, to me, and to our daughter. I love you more than I will ever be able to convey in words, actions, or song. I'm so glad we were married and I look forward to each new adventure we take on together in this life and the next! I love you!

The Following Takes Place Between 9:30 AM and 10:30 AM

Previously on "24":

Pat: "I need you to see how secure my plant is, you're the only one I trust to do this, if you are caught you are on your own, your country cannot help you."

Jack (me): I accept this prestigious mission, sir.

So my friend Pat asked me last week if I wanted to help him test his factory's security procedures. He promised to pay me (for a teacher this is a helpful piece of info.) so I told him sure. What he wanted me to do was try to break into his plant any way that I could. I met with him yesterday for lunch where I received information on what they considered to be weak points of entry and also where I was to drop my package if I succeeded. What we didn't go over very well was an exit strategy. This is something I realize as I'm frantically trying to leave this place without getting into some trouble that I couldn't talk my way out of, or if I came across someone who was a shoot first, ask later kind of person. For my mother and grandparents who read this, I did have all kinds of documentation should I not be able to talk my way out that would ensure that I would be able to leave the plant without being "taken down" or arrested.

So anyway, I go in and try to hit one of their weaker points that we had discussed earlier, after around 20 minutes, I decided to give that up, so I proceed to the front desk and use the old, "I have to go to the bathroom" trick which works every time. If you are a teacher, or a student, you are very familiar with this technique, I'm sure. It goes something like this: "I have to go to the bathroom" Translation: I am fed up with being right here and want the opportunity to wander around at my leisure and see what sort of havoc I can raise without being under the watchful eyes of anyone in authority. So, I go to the bathroom, and am a little concerned because the receptionist's desk looks directly down the hallway and she can see when I leave. Fortunately, she was not at her desk when I stepped out, so I was able to continue on my way.

I make the drop, and head out to leave. If you remember, towards the beginning of this story, this is the weak part in my plans. I head out towards a gate I know is coming up in hopes of finding it magically open and I can just walk out and be on my way. I know I don't want to go back to the front because I'm pretty sure the receptionist would rip my head off before waiting to hear my explanations. So as I'm walking, I hear someone behind me who is obviously trying to get my attention, so I employ yet another technique I have learned from my students, the "unless you call me by my full name, I will pretend I do not hear you desperately trying to track me down" technique.

I make my way to the gate which is not magically open, so I head for an open door and tell the person there that I am trying to find my way back out to the front and that I got separated from my party, he kindly points me on my way, and viola (not the instrument, but the French saying), I'm back cozy at my house having completed my mission.

I must say, I did receive a call a few minutes ago from my friend Pat who let me know just how close of a call I had because they were already looking for me before I left the property. I must say though, that I am very grateful to Mr. David Baldacci, Mr. Jack Bauer, and my students (past and present) for allowing me to take on and succeed in a mission of this nature.

So TBA (Texas Bandmasters Association) convention went really well at the beginning of this week, the only downsides were the name, which I covered in the last post, and the fact that Brenna and Kayla were unable to accompany me due to potty training. It would have been fun, they had free babysitting, a game room, a barbecue night, a luncheon for spouses, clinics on finances for the spouses, and several other enjoyable things for the whole family. It was kind of a way for all the band directors and their families to come together, have some fun, and learn some new information before we began this crazy thing called the school year.

The one interesting, out of the ordinary, event that took place was when I went to get the signature of someone who worked at TBA so I could get credit for doing my professional development hours. I go down to the booth they tell you to go to and no one is there, everyone has already left for the day, or so I thought. I see this one elderly couple coming out of one of the offices off to the side of the area, and go to ask them if they know of anyone who could sign my sheet. It turns out that this couple is the one that the entire convention is honoring for their service to TBA by having a reception as well as having a piece commissioned in their honor and performed as a world premiere at the convention. I was able to talk with them some in what I hope is a memorable way in case I need to have him as a reference at some point. All in all a good trip. Now it's on to band camp in earnest next week with outside marching and everything, so I'll be sure to keep everyone posted as much as I can.

And to those of you who would worry that I might give up the life of an assistant band director for the glamorous life of a secret agent spy, don't worry, I just finished shaking!