2.24.2004

I just placed an order over at angryyoungandpoor.com. In a strange coincidence I emailed them earlier today to inquire about this Dawn of the Dead shirt they generally stock but were out of. They emailed right back, and had apparently received some this morning. I ordered that, a David Bowie patch, and 3 pins including a Pinhead from Hellraiser pin. All for $23.50 including shipping. It was really hard not to blow $50 on pins and patches. **NOTE-They have some very cool anti-Georg W. pins.

I generally don't say stuff like this, because I trust that my readers are plenty capable of making up their own minds but you should support them. Even if you're not into punk rock they have a ton of horror and political merchandise for extremely resonable prices. They are based in Lancaster, PA and I cannot think of much cooler than buying punk rock stuff from the Amish heartland.

2.22.2004

Man, packing that bike up was a big pain in the ass. I had to re-pack it after an embarrassing email exchange with the buyer. I was such an idiot that by repacking I took the dimensions of the package down considerably, as in took a few square feet off the package size. Not that it will probably ever happen, but I am never going to sell a bike on ebay again. A moron like me has no way of knowing how to pack a bike. Of the 10 items for sale, 7 sold. I was selling this Nausea CD that I guess was out of print-it went for $15. The bike went for $86. Not bad at all.

I will use the money to continue upgrading my computer until it can make all my decisions for me.

2.18.2004

I am currently selling some stuff on ebay and soon I will be selling a bunch more. The main thing I was trying to get rid of got its first bid last night. 4 days plus left and its at $75 for a mint Specialized mountain bike. Hopefully, the bidding will go up, but I mainly just want to get rid of it. The bike is 4 model years old, and doesn't even have front suspension. That thing is too big for me and has been taking up space for too long.

I just researched it and next, I will be selling at least one of my old R/C cars. They are going for crazy cash, about 2/3 of what they cost new 12 years ago. I am stoked. I figure that I can use the cash from the stuff I am selling that I don't use anymore to buy computer parts and a 4 track.

2.17.2004

What the hell is wrong with the City of Richmond. I put in a work order to fix the computers in my room 2 1/2 weeks ago. Half of my machines are down, and they're macs so I can't even go to a friend for advice and/or assistance. Old Mac G3's. Boy these machines suck. I bet they'll replace these with some Commodore 64s hooked up with black and white TVs for monitors.

There's a new post over at the livejournal.

2.14.2004

I got an email from another webmaster yesterday. This guy runs a French website devoted to horror films. He asked about a link exchenge, and I said definitely. The site is Oh My Gore, and is definitely worth checking out. Its over in the other section.

2.13.2004

I just composed this email about the new hard drive I bought, the new Probot album, and the cheat codes for Tony Hawk 3. Side Note-we just had a fire drill. It was pretty cold out there. I meant to send the email to my friend Thomas, but instead I pulled the wrong name out of my contacts and sent the email to my boss who has the last name of Thomas. Highly embarrassing considering it contained a few profanities. Needless to say I had to send an email apologizing. Thanfully she's young and seems fairly cool, so it probbaly won't be a big deal.

2.11.2004

The problem with locking file cabinets is that the key is inevitably lost. I have a file cabinet in my classroom. The top two drawers are locked but there's no key. When I was a kid I saw a movie in which a character picks a lock using a nail file. I practiced this skill on the garage door, and became quite good at it. I apparently never lost the skill, because now I use the nail file from the nail clippers on my keychain to open my file cabinet. When you work in public education it is important to bring all your skills with you. Now all I need to do is figure out a way to put my ability to stick quarters completely up my nose to good use.

2.09.2004

I finally dwonloaded some software to remove spyware/adware. It is embarrassing how much crap it found. 301 objects. Unbelievable. Its really no wonder my computer has been running like crap. At least it appears to have hepled significantly, the computer actually works pretty well again.

2.05.2004

I just got an interesting email asking if I wanted to be listed in the links on the following site: the-Insight.com in the spirituality/occult
section. It looked cool, so I went for it. Finally a little recognition for my supernatural section of links.

2.03.2004

Today started off good and got bad pretty friggin' quickly. Before relaying today's events, I want to state that I have not received a response to my email that I posted yesterday. Here's how to have a crappy day in just a few easy steps:

1. A student told me she didn't "give a f^ck" when I asked her if she cared about truancy. This of course was after she had told me that she did not come to school on odd numbered days.

2. 10 minutes after step 1, a girl left my class after I told her she wasn't on my role, I told her to tell her teacher that she wasn't on my role. She told me I should tell him myself. Then in the ensuing couple of minutes she managed to call me a "little white-boy," a "white bitch," and tell me she was going to kick my ass.

Both of these girls were in 8th grade.

3. A gang fight in the cafeteria during lunch kept us on code red status the rest of the day. That means no one leaves the classroom. I got bitched at for escorting, that's right I was with them, to the restroom since they needed to go.

4. 2 of my students did not return on-time from lunch. After 25 minutes I went and tracked them down. No problems after that, though this in chronological order happened before number 3.

I should have been a lawyer, or a doctor, or a musician, or a painter, or a recording engineer, or... The best part is that other than number 2 none of this stuff bothered me. I've been desensitized.

Ryan
, I know what your talking about with the suspensions you refer to, but when you deal with stuff like this on a daily basis, you tend to over-react sometimes. Its not right, but fear does funny things to you. That's not to say I agree with the cases you mention, but I'm just offering a bit of an explanation as to why some of those decisions probably got made. Public education can be a very scary work environment, and fear often leads to poor decisions.

2.02.2004

I love words. They have been my weapon of choice for almost 2 decades. I am great with them. I have the ability to express myself in a clear and concise manner, with attone that nearly always ensures I will prove my point. I have been great with spoken words for years, but I have recently acquired the ability to excel with the written word. I am not talking about what I write hear but rather what I write when dealing at work. I received an email from my company today that really made me mad. Here it is:

"Scott,

I noticed today that you have submitted session summaries for Clark Springs from December. I honestly am disappointed in the session summaries. We use these to do reports for the school systems and with session summaries such as these, we are not able to submit a complete report with details that they need. I am still waiting for an email from you that tells me when you were tutoring at Cl@rk Spr*ngs to find you a replacement. Obviously, you are not there any more and I need to bring in a replacement ASAP, so please get me that information right away.

Thank you,
T$$$$$"


Did I mess-up? Apparently. But did I deserve an email with that "Obviously" line? I think not. So I responded. The choice lines are in bold. As you shall see I should never have received the main part of this email in the first place.

"T$$$$,
I sincerely apologize for the unacceptability of the session summaries for Clark Springs. I will be more than happy to resubmit them with more detailed information, but regretfully I never accomplished very much during my time at Clark Springs. I tended to do a lot of photocopying and correcting papers. I figured that writing more general information about the summaries would be better than writing: "corrected papers for Mr. Sch@effer or made copies for Miss H@wkins," as neither is my duty but that seems to be much of what the faculty of Clark Springs expects from their instructors. Please let me know what you would like me to do with the summaries, however I would like to mention that my summaries have been similar in the past and I had never heard anything negative about them, thus I did not take corrective action.

With regard to my hours at Cl&rk Spr!ngs they are as follows:
Tuesday $$$$-$$$$
Thursday $$$$$-$$$$$

I recommend discussing future placement of an instructor with Miss S!mms the assistant principal at Cl@rk Spr!ngs, as my particular assignment was not very productive and you might be able to avoid future unproductiveness. The full details were discussed in your office last time we spoke a few weeks ago. Unfortunately I didn't send an email with my hours for Clark Springs because we had discussed the matter in your office, which I assumed would suffice. Sorry.

Lastly, I was wondering if you had a chance to read my email regading my interest in the NCLB program.

Again, I apologize for the summaries and please provide me with detailed instructions of what you would like me to enter. As stated previously I assumed that generalities might fare better than the truth, and considering little was accomplished I am sure that you can recognize the lack of specifics in the summaries.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Scott @ @@@@."


I also need to mention the following. I CCed the owner of the company on the email. He and I have worked closely in the past and I felt obligated to let him see that I did not drop the ball, she did. One last note; the hours I worked at the school were on the reports she is complaining about. Victory tastes sweet.