Back to the city that DOES sleep

I'm back, did ya miss me?

My gf and I took a week's vacation up to the northeastern part of this grand country of ours. Boston and New York, to be more specific. I had been to Boston before; back when I was an engineer, my clients were based around Boston. But I had never been to visit or tour or sight see. And I had never been to Manhattan.

It was all freakin' awesome (wicked awesome, even).

Though I am INCREDIBLY tired and sore. It was not a relaxing vacation where we just laid around and dozed by any means. No, we aggressively toured each site, packing just about everything humanly possible into those few days. We walked miles and miles, took bus tours, trolley tours, subway tours, ferry tours. We walked the entire Freedom Trail in Boston and traversed Central Park several times. Saw the view from the Empire State Building and saw the Statue of Liberty from Liberty Island. I took like 600 some pictures (I'll only post 2 or 3 here). We saw the Letterman show (the one that will air tomorrow night with Tom Arnold), and I shook Rupert Jhee's hand in the Hello Deli.

I brought a copy of Learn Me Good for Dave, on the infinitesimal chance that we might be in the front row AND that he might come out into the audience, AND that I might be able to hand it to him. That of course did not happen, so I did the next best thing -- I walked between the lions and donated that copy to the New York Public Library. Now whenever I watch the beginning of Ghostbusters, I will know that I have a book in those hallowed halls.

Flew home yesterday, visited the chiropractor, and then got up early this morning to begin my 3-day dual-language training institute.

Oh joy.

Good to be back. But I just want to sleep...

Back and tired!

Home, home at last! Did anybody miss me?

Yes, I've been on vacation since Sunday; my family and I went to lovely Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. As you might expect, we had a complete blast, but getting up every morning at 7 and being in the parks from 9 to almost midnight makes me need a vacation from my vacation!!

Thankfully, I only had to come back and go to school two more days (tomorrow being the second) before a nice long two week break!!! YEAH!!!

This week's Mr. Teacher column on education.com is titled, "Happy Holidays! Keep Studying!" It is a few tips for parents to keep their kids' brains from leaking information over the break. Check it out!!

Storm troopers tattling on Spiderman?

Hey everyone,

I am finally back in Texas after my whirlwind tour of both coasts. I can't say that the 100 plus degree weather is exactly a welcome thing.

First off, let me direct everyone's attention toward this week's Mr. Teacher column on education.com, which was written with the help a lot of other teachers. Thank you to everyone who responded to my post from a couple of weeks ago asking about how you handled tattling. The column this week is a nice mash up of everyone's strategies and techniques. Definitely some things to try there.

Now let's get to the good stuff! I had a BLAST in San Diego at this year's Comic-Con! My buddy and I got up real early on Wednesday morning to get to the airport for our flight. The good folks at the security terminal saw fit to confiscate a couple of the items from my toiletries kit, and that put me in a bit of a foul mood. The containers that my shaving gel and hair gel were in were too large to be allowed through the terminal, so I had to relinquish them. When I asked why, the girl said, "It could be a bomb."

I had to bite back a few replies to that one. The first was, "You mean DA BOMB! As in, that hair gel makes me DA BOMB all up in here!"

My second unstated reply was to question why they think that terrorists are incapable of bringing liquids through in tiny containers and mixing them together.

We landed in San Diego, and the weather was fantastic. When we left Dallas, the temperature was 102°. In California, we stepped out to 71°. Ask any of my kids, and they would tell you that was a temperature difference of 173°!

Wednesday night was the "preview night" for the Comic-Con, so we got to check out the exhibit floor a little earlier than some people. It was just my buddy and me and about 20,000 of our closest friends.

We walked the exhibit floor and saw hundreds and hundreds of booths and displays. There were comic books, there were movies, there were spaceships, there were people in costume. It was fantastic.

I got to meet the Black Cat.

I got to see a Cylon!

I got to meet The Cheerleader (well sort of, anyway).

Tomorrow, I'll write about Day 2!

Between vacations post

Hey everyone, did you miss me?

I just got back home from a week in Destin, Florida, and I am roughly the color of a penny. A penny that someone has scribbled on with a red magic marker, that is. Don't worry, I used 15 tubes of SPF 50 sunscreen, so I'm really not burned. Too badly.

We had a blast. I went with my family, which means my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister-in-law, and their two kids, aged 1 and 3. We drove both ways in a large rented van, and it took us about 15 hours each way. That part was not so great. Not that anything was miserable or anything, it just really takes a toll on us old people with bad backs.

When we got to the condo that we were going to be staying at late on Saturday night, it didn't quite live up to our expectations, to say the least. What had been billed as a luxurious, three level beach house turned out to be unfinished, to put it nicely. From the parking lot, the entrance level and the bedrooms upstairs were decent, though there were a couple of holes in the dry wall, exposing pipes. What was really odd though was that the lower level could only be accessed by exiting through the beach-side door of the entrance level, going down some unlit stairs, and unlocking the outside door. Having done that, the lower-level turned out to be more of a bunker with beds than anything. Unfinished concrete walls, no blinds over the windows, no television set, and one lightswitch on the opposite side of the room from the doorway. Plus, did I mention that there was no connecting stairs on the inside of the condo between the entrance level and the lower level ?? Bizarre!!!

My mom decided to call and complain, seeing as this is not at all what she had signed up for, and due to her efforts, we were majorly upgraded. The place we wound up staying at looked like a posh New York penthouse apartment. I even had my own loft with bed and bathroom. It was SWEEEEEET!

We spent a lot of time down the beach in the Florida sun, working on our tans. Except for the one-year-old, who has red hair, blue eyes, and makes my pale skin look positively swarthy. My three-year-old nephew, on the other hand, found several kids to play with throughout the week, and he regaled them with his knowledge of Star Wars. On that topic, he also went on several "Wookiee hunts." The Destin surf was loaded with algae, and on some days, being out in the water was like swimming through extra-pupy orange juice. We told Ethan that the large pieces of algae were clumps of Wookie hair, and he went out and grabbed several as they came close to the shore. Also, the first day I shaved (OK, the ONLY day I shaved), I noticed that my upstairs sink was clogged up, so I cleaned it out and discovered several very large clumps of hair. I disposed of them immediately, but later, I told my nephew that I had found Wookie hair upstairs, and every day thereafter, Ethan would ask me if we could go look for Wookies upstairs.

As a red-blooded American male, I certainly enjoyed being in a locale where almost all of the women walked around in bikinis. The unfortunate part of this was that most of them were below the age of 18, and the feeling of being a leering old man heavily tempered the frequent head turns and eye pops. Oh, there were also several incredibly good-looking moms there. Of course, there didn't seem to be too many single girls my age, and of the handful that I saw, they weren't really my type. Oh well, I was never really one for the Grease-promoted summer romance, anyway.

All in all, it was one heck of a vacation. Now I get to relax for a couple of days, and then turn right around on Wednesday morning and hop a plane for San Diego, California. Comic-Con awaits!!!

Back in Black

Hello, kiddies!

It is I, Mister Teacher, back from my vacation to Washington, DC! It was a great trip. I got to see several friends, and I stayed for most of the week with my old college roommate, Dr. McCheesy.

We saw several really good movies:

Live Free or Die Hard: Fantastic!

Transformers: Awesome!

Knocked up: Hilarious!

Also, as is our tradition, we had a night of “tasty beverages” and terrible movies. Crank, Breeders, Life Force. All of them atrocious, but at least Life Force had the added benefit of a hot chick who walked around naked for most of the movie.

While in DC, I got some walking in, played some hoops, watched a youth rugby game, had a very fun games night, and got snookered into paying almost 20 bucks for a salad. Needless to say, I shall not ever be eating at Whole Foods again, what with their cleverly obfuscated $9 per pound pricing policy.

Great trip, but it's good to be home. And in just a couple weeks, I get to experience the joy that is staff development continuing education!!

WOOHOO!!!!

In other news, Learn Me Good seems to have hit a wall in the Blogger's Choice Awards. It has sat at 15 votes for about 3 weeks now. Seeing as how the top vote getter in the Education category has 145 votes, I certainly have my work cut out for me.

If you have not yet cast your vote, please do so here! And thanks to everyone who has already voted!