notes

So U2 is coming to town... They're awesome, but this part of the story scares me:

A press release promises that 85% of the tickets will be priced at less than $95, not including surcharges (expect about $18 to be added to the price of the ticket, based on Ticketmaster searches of U2 dates that are not sold out). At least 10,000 seats in the 90,000-plus capacity venue will carry an initial price of $30.

EIGHTEEN DOLLAR SURCHARGE ON TIX! What the fuck?

[we've seen them before... not sure if Lisa would want to see them in this venue... who knows... and after last night's meeting with the tax man, we can breathe a little easier on finances... hmmm, maybe Bruce is a possibility after all... if I don't spend it on a Ural motorcycle (just kidding... though the tax man loves his)]

Of course, I was thinking that this might impact UCLA football... but it doesn't; there won't be another game at the RB for two weeks after.

Ah, UCLA football... rubbing my hands together in giddy anticipation... though there was some interesting news on the QB front: Chris Forcier wants a transfer (guess he was feeling the inevitability of Crissman and Brehaut battling it out for the starting position) and Ben Olson injured his foot AGAIN just before pro scout day. Jeez.

Speaking of football, we've made Starwood (read: time-share "free") reservations in Knoxville for the Tennessee game. Pa has offered to pick up the flight tab. So we're going to one of the cathedrals of college football and we'll experience SEC football... can't wait.

On the Jack front, all is quiet. Of course, it was his b-day weekend, so there weren't many disappointments (those he did have were met with some glaring then de-escalation, and no meltdowns)... we've got an appointment with the doc set for spring break, and we're going to prep him by talking to him later this week (Thanks, Jenny).

fear

Jack had a gargantuan meltdown yesterday. The plan had been to go to the school fundraiser at Chuck E Cheese's... we was going to meet his new friend Kevin there. But as it turned out him mom took Kevin there early and had left before Lisa took Jack.

When Jack found out, he melted down big time, growing somewhat verbally abusive to Lisa, so she turned the car around and headed home. The meltdown continued for some time there. I was taking Kyle to SB water polo practice, so I was spared much of it, though I heard some over the phone when she called me.

His intensity can be, well, frightening. I've been told the same. His mood swings are pretty wild when they happen. I'm on, well, Wellbutrin. I feel like Tony Soprano, wondering what fucked up emotional legacy I've left for my kid.

Lisa and I have discussed therapy for Jack in the past... but the incidents seem to blow over and it no longer seems to be an issue.

But this is different. Lisa knows that while Jack will meltdown in my presence, his demeanor is much less abusive. She's got a little fear now, of what he could do not only to himself but also to her.

We have physicals scheduled for both boys in April during spring break (Kyle wants to talk to the doc about his clicking--formerly broken--wrist, and now we want to talk to him about Jack).

I asked Lisa if she wanted to expedite the visit, and she said no.

She recorded some of the outburst, one of a dialogue with Lisa, the other with his ongoing monologue as he tried to cope by himself upstairs.

The monologue was melodramatic and almost paranoid, with some pretty wild ramblings:

Nobody wants to talk to me
Everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone hates me... every single person in the whole world thinks that except for Ma
Did I mention that all of my names are laughed at? Jackson. Michael Jackson. Minoru. Midodo. Walthall. Waffle.
Everyone agrees with me that I'm stupid... even the teachers think that I'm weird... Nobody likes me.
They're going to send me to an orphanage and my life will be ruined... I won't have a true family
I had detention from recess all because of someone trying to get me in trouble
No one loves me because I'm weird
[after Lisa rejoined him]
I'm still talking to myself
I'm a weird kid. I should hang out with all the geeks, not with Thomas, not with all the cool people
It annoys me when they call me different names.
Sometimes I get so angry that I can't control my anger
It comes out of my body and it's so hard to control

So hard, indeed. He comes by it honestly. But is it natural?

File this one under "fear and (self-)loathing"...

randomness

Haven't been much in the mood to write since my explosive vowel movement of "Mag.Frakking.Nificent." a couple of days ago. Guess I'm having a bit of a BSG withdrawal (not the absence of it as much as the knowledge that there will be no more... and now, Caprica doesn't look like it will do it for me [though The Plan loogs OK]).

Family visit from the weekend was nice (though the reason--GG's declining health--was less than joyous). Kinda got the subject of mortality going (even from Pa).

Kyle's water polo games from Sunday, in the sun and wind and cold, resulted in not much more than severe sunburns... the games were marginal... Kyle didn't play well, and it just seemed to be a case of biding time.

The coach sent out Hungary list, and Kyle's name was not on it. No one's hugely disappointed; we all saw it coming. And some of us are relieved (with the economy being what it is, sending him to Europe was more a burden than a joy). The only downside is that Kyle's not as enthusiastic about polo at the moment... don't know if it's a let-down or if it's his recent success in swimming that has caused its decline in the priority list. I just hope that it's temporary.

Jack received an award yesterday for excellence in English reading... that was nice... especially at the beginning of his birthday week.

It's going to be an exhausting week... water polo tonight in SB (I'm driving the carpool). Pretty tired now. Let's see what it's like at the end of the week...

Mag.Frakking.Nificent. [spoilers ahead]

All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

Last night, Battlestar Galactica ended its five-year mission to boldly go where no SF television show had gone before, to the dark side of its contemporary dark times.

It began just after 9/11... and the enemy looked like us. There was paranoia. There was war. There was occupation and freedom-fighting (both fighting for freedom and seeming fighting against it). And as that seemed to fade from memory, the focus turned to the more philosophical, and the war of ideas (the machines had one true god, the humans multiple gods; machines and humans fighting over science and religion).

And then the finale...

The show's final three-hour episode (broken into two parts for these last two weeks), written by series creator Ronald Moore, was as backward-looking as it was forward-looking, was a hopeful as the series had been dark, was as action-packed as the most recent episodes had been cerebral and philosophical... and was simply brilliant.

Spoilers will abound, so don't read if you plan to watch it in tabla rasa mode.

When it was done, as I was trying to fall asleep, with images and dialogue and concepts still crowding my mind, I said to Lisa, "That is how you end a series." Better than The Sopranos (with was pretty damn good), better than The Wire (which was nearing great), better than Buffy (which was flawed but a perfect emotional resolution, and exponentially better than just about any standard network tv series finale, this was damn near perfect.

When Baltar decides to stay with Galactica, it felt right (not just for the series, which needed his character... but for his character, as well, who needed redemption).

When Doc Cottle gives Roslin the final doses of cancer/pain(?) meds, only to be told by the former Prez, "Just light a cigarette and go and grumble..."... the Prez who would then be taught how to triage patients (a black X on the forehead means that the patient just isn't going to make it), it was just right.

When one of the Sixes led the Centurions down the long hallway in preparation for the assault on the basestar, it was jarring, knowing that these Cylons would be fighting for the humans, not against us.

The CIC with cables running to Anders.

When Hoshi, the former lover of the late mutinous Gaeta is named Admiral, and the formerly sleazebag lawyer Romo Lampkin is named President, it felt appropriately pragmatic.

And then the assault.

Oh my frakking gods. Who would have thought they'd use the Galactica as gods-damned battering ram.

Baltar meeting a Caprica Six in the hallway, waiting for the Centurion onslaught... and then they see their angels (whom we had seen before [though mostly we've seen the angelic/mental Six]... but the Six had seen the mental/angelic Baltar after her torture)... it was wonderful, in the truest sense. Full of wonder... and a precursor for more.

Boomer's "repayment" of Adama by returning Hera... and we see the flashback, and it is right.

Baltar's redemption.

The Opera House/CIC.

Cavil's hostage. Then the deal. Then Chief's revenge. Then Cavil's completely selfish, egocentric self-solution.

Then Kara's realization of Hera's notes... and the jump.

The jump: unfrakkin'believable.

Earth.

A prehistoric earth... and the finale slows to a much more contemplative pace.

The plan. The exit of the Cylons. The Emancipation of the Centurions. Bill/Husker's last exit from the Galactica. Ander's guiding of the fleet into the sun (with a hint of the original series' theme playing in the current soundtrack).

The Chief's solo trek to the "island off of one of the northern continent.. up in the highlands" (Scotland?).

The President's flashback to the beginning of her political career, and a cigarette... which would lead to her cancer and...

The President's death and the Admiral's departure, complete with a reprise of the Adama/Thrace conversation that opened the series

"What do you hear, Starbuck?"
"Nothing but the rain."
"Grab your gun and bring in the cat."

Starbuck's vanishing at the "complet(ion) of her journey"... and with her flashback, the sadness that she and Lee would never be together.

[so Starbuck was an angel this entire final season... visible to all who needed her--the human and Cylon races alike (unlike the Baltar and Six angels... who were only needed by each other)... there IS a force greater than us]

Baltar and Six's future of farming (as his father was a farmer)... after learning from their angels that their future would be "less eventful."

Helo and Athena's good-natured joking of what they would teach Hera... Athena, farming and hunting; Helo, hunting. Hera is to be a hunter-gatherer.

The Admiral's talk of the future to the ghost of Roslin.

[At first, I was disappointed that Rosin didn't appear to Bill as an angel. But I get it now... Adama doesn't need an angel... he just needed an equal.]

Cut to black. It's over.

But no... unlike The Sopranos, it's not...

Hera, alone, exploring with a walking stick, down a ravine. A glance up. To God?

The world from the eye of God... moving over land and desert and ocean and shoreline and woods to... a city, a modern city.

150,000 years later.

New York City, and the voice of the angel Six, reading from a National Geographic about the discovery of the first Human, mitochondrial Eve.

The article's title: "Mankind's First Mother."

Nice touch. The National Geographic is held by Ronald Moore, the creator of the series.

And the angels discuss how that first Human was Hera, the offspring of both Human and Cylon.

And then as the angels walk through the streets of our modern city, the kicker:

"Commercialism, decadence, technology run amok. Remind you of anything?"
"Take your pick: Kobol. Earth... the real Earth, before this one. Caprica before The Fall."
"All of this has happened before."
"But the question remains: does all of this have to happen again?"
"This time I bet no."
"You know I've never known you to be the optimist. Why the change of heart?"
"Mathematics. The law of averages. Let a complex system repeat itself long enough, eventually something suprising might occur... that, too, is in God's plan."
"You know he doesn't like that name... Silly me. Silly, silly me."

The surprise is evolution. Evolution is God's plan (though the angel Baltar says that he doesn't like that name... why?).

Science and Religion are not mutually exclusive. They belong together.

The ending is one of reconciliation, like many of Shakespeare's final plays... contemplative, cerebral, philosophical... forgiving. We have seen the enemy, and they are us, and we forgive us.

And then Jimi sings Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" and robots dance.

"None of them along the line know what any of it is worth..."

Robots dance... and we don't, won't know what we've got (unless we lose it).

The series is over, with a finale befitting its scope and brilliance. As happy an ending as we could ever hope for...

UNFRAKKINGBELIVEABLE... and wonderful and wondrous.

[and if BSG doesn't get Emmy nods for this... for writing and for gods-damnit Mary McDonnell (simply wow)... there should be hell to pay]

Yeah

Yesterday, I finally got back on the bike for 18 miles ... pretty damn sore today...

My Bruins pulled off a victory last night (to my shame, I actually picked against them in my vote-with-my-head-not-with-my-heart bracket... though I have them going to the Elite Eight on my "heart" bracket)... that was very cool.

Tonight is the season finale of Battlestar Galactica... even cooler... what a great Birthday Present for my B-Day girl, Lisa.

Last night, Bruce Springsteen appeared on the Daily Show... and Stewart's opening pretty much shows how excited he was about it...



He can barely contain himself... Like I would have been able to... riiiiiight....

I was kinda dreading the performance of Working on a Dream... I've been pretty turned off by the over-production of the entire album... but here, in a stripped-down acoustic setting, the song comes alive again...



And the substitution of the harmonica for the whistling? Fucking genius... especially at the end of the song... could it segue, maybe... just maybe... into

Thunder Road? or Promised Land? or even darkly into The River?

Stub Hub, here I come...

Yesterday and Today

Another crazy day yesterday... met with the Superintendent again... man, between the dickheads at CTA sending out memorandum "recommending" that the bargaining units not meet with districts at this point (guys... if you don't meet with the other stakeholders: A) you can't get what you want and B) you don't have the right to bitch about what you don't get), and the entrenchment of the district (and their seeming inability to change or even look at change with more than a "but we've always done it that way" look)... man, it's just discouraging.

Maybe Randy Newman was right...



and let's see what happens.

OK, on the better things...

MARCH MADNESS begins today.

UCLA got a pretty bad draw, a sixth seed across the country. I wasn't expecting to a four-seed in the west, but jeez, we're no 17 in the nation (that would make us a 5 seed, right?), and then setting us up to play two teams in what amounts to home games for them... wow, this is going to be tough.

And granted, we haven't played consistently enough this year to realistically expect a fourth consecutive Final Four... even in the best case scenario, I'm thinking Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight. But even with all of that, the way the media is not only tearing us down (expected and, given our performance this season, understandable), but propping $UC up... well, it's just laughable. This from Plaschke over at the Trojan, er, LA Times:

The Bruins will lose early -- if Virginia Commonwealth doesn't get them, Villanova will ...

The Trojans will win early ...

When UCLA loses early, it will break a mind-boggling streak of three consecutive Final Four appearances, and maybe folks should pause from their howling to be happy with the achievement.

When USC wins early, it could lead it to the school's first Final Four appearance in 54 years, and maybe folks will pause from their indifference enough to be frustrated with the drought.

Whoa, there big fella, I think you just jumped from getting past the first weekend to putting SouthernCal in the Final Four... uh, isn't there a weekend of roundball in between? one in which the Trojies would have to play Kansas? plus Wake Forest or, uh the NUMBER ONE seed, Louisville?

Plaschke, for your health (or at least for your journalistic bona fides), put down the damn ketchup-n-mustard-colored kool-aid.

Do I expect us to make it out of the weekend? No... I hope it will happen, but I don't expect it... I could easily see us upset in the first game... but I also know we can beat anyone in the country, so I could also see us making through the weekend (I'm pretty sure that we can't string six of those "we can beat anyone" games in a row, so I'm not making plans to go to Vegas and collect on my bet on the Bruins).

Regardless, today begins the best two days in the world... tv on behind me, games on, coding while watching/listening to the best package of games of the year... man, it just doesn't get better than these two days.

Of course, Lisa's birthday is tomorrow, so that's good, too -- she said if this blog isn't about her, then who cares! well, there you go, baby... ;)

A Moment of Zen

From last night's Daily Show:

Hey, Beck, you might want to rethink that network switch when your new co-workers openly mock you.



Damn, Shep... you guys are supposed to be all on the same team (sure, some team-mates are douchebags, but still...)... play nice, boys.

Addictions

OK, so I have a new addiction (which has pretty much completely supplanted my morning Sudoku ritual): KenKen ... man, I love that stuff... after my morning cruise of the online reading and Facebook, I usually kill a solid 20min on that (rationalizing it has a way to jumpstart my brain for coding).

Still addicted, too, to Friday Night Lights, which after a great rebounding third season (after a meandering and melodramatic second season [which was still better than many shows on the air]) is getting some very interesting buzz concerning a fourth AND FIFTH season renewal... this could make the writers really stretch with new characters (hey, how about a Latino player? ... it IS Texas, after all).

But still the biggest addiction is Battlestar Galactica, which this Friday ends its five-plus year run (yeah, I know, this is technically season four... but it debuted in 08, so that's my story and I'm sticking to it). And while it's sad to see an addiction bite the dust (felt the same way about The Sopranos and The Wire), I cannot wait until Friday.

SPOILER ALERT

When Admiral Adama stopped in the hallway with his back to us after looking at the picture of Athena and Hera on the wall of the dead, I knew this was something big, and I kept saying to myself, "Do it, Adama, do it!"

So when he announced the rescue mission, I was stoked. The series is going to go out the way it came in, with some slam-bang action. This season (or rather half-season) has been mostly quiet, mainly philosophical, and completely mesmerizing... but for the show to go out correctly, it needs to come full-circle, with the BATTLE front and center in Battlestar Galactica.

Most likely a one-way mission, Adama proclaimed. In a way, I think he hopes it is, especially after Roslin joined the crew. He's tired of this world and what it's become, with its hate and distrust and politics. He's tired of watching his love Roslin ravaged by cancer, his "daughter" ravaged by doubt, and his son ravaged by inactivity (the ease with which Lee donned the uniform again was proof positive that that!). He's tired. But he's a warrior and he wants to go out like one.

There was a moment, at the end of an episode back a couple of weeks ago, where Adama and Tigh awaited the oncoming mutinous assault, and as they waited, I had this Butch and Sundance flashback. This would be the only way for these guys to go out.

END SPOILERS

And Friday, they will.

I know some folks are grumbling that these final two hours are not enough to answer all the questions out there (dissect her already, one friend has said about Hera... ouch), but I've faith in the producers... for five years now, they haven't let me down... I don't expect any difference on Friday.

Frak yes!

Tofu

No real time today (recap: Friday, jury duty with no jury... speech with no speech; Saturday, down day; Sunday, sick boys)... today crazy work stuff.

Since trying to lose weight, I've gone back to eating tofu and veggies at lunch (at least I was until I fell off the wagon [either fell off of it, or broke it due to my weight])... but I'm rethinking it now...

Fucking PETA...

Wetwork

Kyle's swim meet Tuesday was very cool... he swam for the JV's this time (there was no novice or freshman category).

His first event was the 200 Medley Relay. Kyle started off again in fourth place (swimming the breasstroke second leg, after the backstroke [just like last week's Spartan Relays]), and finished the leg in first (barely) again (just like last week... according to both Varsity coaches [who tracked Lisa and me down when we arrived to pick up Kyle], he had "the swim of the day")!... and set up the team to take second.

His second event was a leg in the 200 Freestyle Medley... he swam a good race, but we were going up against a monster team and got smoked.

His final event (and the one he'd been waiting for) was the 100 Breasstroke. In most meets, it'll be the 50 Breast, but we were going up against a team from a higher CIF division (we're in Div III and we were up against a Div II team), so the JV needed to swim the same race as the Varsity. Kyle got off the block well, but when he broke the surface, his goggles (well, not his, but a teammate's because our knucklehead forgot his at home) were around his neck. But he stayed focused, and by the first turn, he had caught up...by the second turn, a slight lead... which grew with each length... and by the end, he was three full body lengths ahead. And his time was 1:09.0! Last week, he had a practice time of 1:15... and he had said that was the fastest he had ever gone in a 100 (last week's relay time of 30.3 was for a 50)... but that was last week.

Needless to say, the JV coach was pretty thrilled... basically, the gist of his post-race debrief was: your goggles came off, your chin was up too high, your turns were marginal, and your underwater work sucked. Imagine what your time'll be when we fix those problems... Even the varsity coach patted Kyle on the back and said that he might need to make some adjustments to the varsity roster later in the season. Pretty nice.

But the coach may be on to something (not that I'm pushing... just proud is all). In the varsity race, our first place swimmer had a 1:05.5, our second place swimmer had a 106.7, and the third place swimmer from the other school had a 1:08.7. Kyle would have finished a close fourth in the varsity race.

What's really interesting is how CIF qualifying works. Each division has two time standards for each race. One is the Automatic time; any racer who beats that time gets an automatic bid to the CIF Championships. The other is the Consideration time; racers who beat that time are under consideration to be invited... CIF invites 32 swimmers in each race... and the top considered racers fill out the pool (so to speak) of 32 with the automatic qualifiers.

Why do I bring this up?

Kyle's 1:09 time is only one second from the consideration time of 1:08.

Pretty damn cool.

Over the last couple of days the paper has run varsity swim results for a couple of meets: the first place times in both were between 1:08 and 1:09. Needless to say, our team is loaded with breaststrokers...

-----------------------------------

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!!!

just got the following text message from Kyle:

Wil b swiming varsety 2day and wil go 2 beverley hills. Was jus talking 2 timons and mcnet calked him

despite the misspellings and texting abbreviations... that's pretty freaking exciting.

-----------------------------------

More updates:

They have him in 4 events: 200 medley relay (same as last week and on Tuesday), 200 free relay (same as this Tuesday), 100 breast, and 400 free relay... and he's never done the 400 free relay before today... and all in Varsity.

somebody must have gotten sick... that's the only rationale I can come up with...I could understand it if they just brought him up for the medley and the breast... but jeez, the free relays?

Quick Hits

John Doe is acting on Wizards of Waverly Place... sigh... very depressing [what I wouldn't give to: A) get John Doe better acting gigs and B) get Jack to stop watching Wizards (over and over and over... via DVR) and After the Bell]

Even as BB season is wrapping up (Pac10 tourney this weekend)... I can feel the pull of football... and things are looooooking goooooood... the OC Register had this to say about Prince (our redshirt freshman QB):

WHY HE’S ONE TO WATCH: It wasn’t simply injuries that eventually led to Prince assuming the No. 2 spot on the depth chart a year ago. UCLA was hoping he might be its next quarterback. As in now. Although Prince was not ready to lead the team in 2008, he demonstrated in practice he is probably better than the person doing so. He simply didn’t play last year because it wasn’t worth it. He will have every opportunity this year in what can be considered a fairly wide open competition.

The Bruins have depth and experience at receiver, meaning Prince’s primary responsibility will be to get them the ball, not the other team. (See Kevin Craft.) If Prince knows the playbook and can remain confident in lieu of Coach Rick Neuheisel’s constructive criticism, one of Craft’s biggest strengths, the job might be his heading into summer.

Sweet... but sweeter is this report:

the Cincinnati Bengals are interested in former UCLA quarterback Patrick Cowan and were arranging to come to Los Angeles to watch him work out.

Pat Cowan is a freaking WARRIOR... not the most skilled, but he's got that THING... hope he gets a shot.

The Facebook thing is a growing addiction... and I'm close to closing this down and going only there... but that would feel ... I don't know, showy. It's weird.

One thing I will NOT do is twitter, however.

And this sums up my vibe on that...



Of course, there's always this sinking suspicion about FB as well...

Syllabus of Pain

Not much today... heard that phrase in this weekend's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me..."

Too Funny.

As is this faux commercial from SNL...



Add this to my syllabus of pain (for which Tums may be my only cure)

Billy Crudup, Crime Fighter?

Billy Crudup is in Watchmen (opening today), playing a super-hero.

In real life, not so much...



uh, stick to guitar playing, Russell Hammond...

Nothing of Note

Go Bruins!

OK, nothing but this: tomorrow is Kyle's first swim meet, the Spartan Relays, in which everyone swims only relay races... Kyle is the Breaststroke man in the Frosh IM relay.

He swam a 1:15 100 breast the other day, to the surprise of the varsity and jv coaches (beating out one of the top JV breaststrokers and the varsity water polo goalie for next season [and a varsity breaststroker this year])... not bad for a kid who's never swam competitively or had anyone work on his stroke (he swims like a water polo player, says the JV coach... or like a Hungarian... all power, no grace...)

Here I Come

Not the hugest Jimmy Fallon fan, actually not much at all.

But the fact that the freaking ROOTS are his house band... well, that raises him up a few notches in my book...

Jeez, their speeded-up, rocked-out version of "Here I Come" as the show's theme... damn, that just fucking rocks....



damn, that's cool... I'll post Tina if my Hulu distracts me from my work...

------------

nope, not worth it... for people who worked together, they had the most uncomfortable nice interview I've seen (one note, though: "I want to go to there." is credited to Tina's daughter...)

Jimmy is NOT a good interviewer... not so hot as a stand-up, either... this show will need to change to survive...

Bruce?

Funny or Die can be a real hit-or-miss, but these hit more than miss...

"Bruce Springsteen's American Dream" from Pete Hulne

"Do Your Job" by Bruce Springsteen from Pete Hulne

I'm the Boss... get back to work!

Letter to the Editor

A couple of weeks back, a mountain lion cub was killed by police in a local town. The paper has been ablaze with outraged letters to the editor over the incident. Lisa shook her head in wonder about the lack of letters regarding the layoffs... she said I should write one... so I did:

A society is judged by the priorities it sets.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I've read what seems to have been dozens of letters written by people outraged by the killing of the mountain lion cub in Santa Paula. And yet, with potentially 700 pink slips ready go out to Ventura County teachers, the number of letters I've read on this loss can be counted on one hand (if that one hand was Mickey Mouse's three-fingered paw).

Where's the outage?

While I do deplore the loss of life of this innocent and cute fifteen pounder--a cub with so much to live for, so much to look forward to in his feline life--and my sympathy goes out the family of the bereaved, who I'm sure would be lighting vigil candles (if they knew what a vigil was or had opposable thumbs), I deplore the loss of our county's teachers more.

Seven hundred teachers. Think about that.

I am a former teacher. I taught English for 10 years at Oxnard and Hueneme High Schools. Twelve years ago, I took a one-year leave of absence to "recharge my batteries." Within six months, I was making more doing web development than I did after a decade of teaching.

I missed the kids. I missed the classroom. I missed TEACHING. But I was also a parent with fiscal responsibilities. I was seduced by the almighty dollar. And I have not taught since.

I'm an old guy now, with a son at Bard School, and recently I've attended two meetings of the Hueneme School District's governing board, meetings that have focused on the upcoming layoffs. I looked out over the standing room only crowds on those evenings, and I saw many young faces, faces of bright and dynamic and qualified teachers who will be out of a job as early as June. Old guys like me aren't getting the layoff notices; it's the young ones, the ones with truly so much to give.

My fear is that even if we get budget funds reinstated in the future (a dubious proposition at best), we will lose these teachers forever. The average career of a new teacher is between five and seven years. If we lose these young teachers, it will be effectively losing out on an entire generation of educators. To lose these teachers would be to lose an irreplaceable resource.

At a time when we need teachers more than ever--a time when our children need to be taught subject matter concepts, NOT how to take a standardized test so that the schools and districts can avoid federal and state sanctions (but that's another letter, another time)--at this moment in time, you can think of this loss of teachers as the paving of the road to ruin--our students' ruin, our county's ruin, our country's ruin.

The people of Ventura County SHOULD be outraged about the loss they see. But they should be outraged at the loss of seven hundred teachers, not a single mountain lion cub.

Yes, a society is judged by the priorities it sets. Take a look in the mirror, judge yourself, then do what's right, people.

Not sure if it will be published... but at least someone wrote one.

[not a bad piece of writing if I do say so myself... not bad for 45 minutes (though I did cannibalize part of my not-given speech to the Board from last week)]

Crazy Day

of work. No time to write.

Crazy weekend... one begins to question one's sanity in regard to youth sports... but more on that tomorrow, if time permits.

For now... another Jersey punk band, named for a bloody Shakespearean tragedy

Titus Andronicus

the song is "My Time Spent Outside the Womb"

The first thing you see is the light.
Then, you focus on a man in a mask with a knife
as he cuts you away from everything you thought you knew about life.
Now you're in your mother's arms, wrinkled and wet.
You'll spend the rest of your life trying to hard to forget
that you met the world naked and screaming
and that's how you'll leave it.

In Riverside Hospital, on a July morning,
with a push and a pull - this is how I found out
I wasn't quite so invulnerable.
It put the fear of God in me when I heard my daddy say, "one mistake is all that it takes."

I ended up at Central School, 1993,
and met a certain kid named Sarim at the library.
He said, "they're ain't nothing about this place that's elementary."
I learned to play the guitar in the seventh grade
in order to convince everyone I was a renegade.
That's when I learned, in Glen Rock,
everybody calls a spade a spade.
I couldn't fool anyone.
I couldn't even fool myself.
I was just another book on the shelf, nothing else.

Yes, the ending is abrupt... but the narrator is young, his life is not over... but the song is.

Not bad for a guy less than half my age (which grows by the day)...