Teaching the American Revolution

"The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." - Thomas Pain in The American Crisis

Honorable Manhood

15) Two things get me choked up from Ken Burns “Civil War” – when George Pickett says, “Up men, and to your posts and remember that today you are from Old Virginia!” and sends them up Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg to the beginning of the end. And Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife before Bull Run, which simply explains it all.

Saturday Already?

- I met with N.W., and AP History expert and tried to glean what i could. I've spent time yesterday & today sorting .docs & .pdfs hoping to bring order to chaos and find tweh things that can help my students the most.
- Took Ada to the vet Thursday and Friday & finally got her spayed. She was up, but stoned out of her gourd, all night. In a week & a half she'll go outside in her own doggy hotel.
- I've worked out consistently, but have fallen behind in walking the dogs, what with everyone going to the vet & working out evening - must improve.
- We had a Christopher Guest double feature a few days back, watching Best in Show and For Your Consideration.
- Finally watched the end of Last Restaurant Standing. The jerky Royal Marine cook and his weepy wife won, but it seems that they didn't last very long once they opened the real restaurant.

Teaching: Preparing for Summer School by 'collecting' the necessary materials and making my Grand Strategy for next year.
Home Improvement: Planning on Turtle Corral Action
Writing & Reading: Will make time to revise my little story.
TV & Movies: Catching up on Battlestar Galactica and Top Chef
Internet: been checking popurls to keep up with the digital world.
Animal Kingdom: Ada is behaving better and we need more walks.
Exercising: Worked out this afternoon with Coach S. Did 14 minutes on the elliptical before lifting & finished with 14 on the treadmill.

Tuesday already.

Teaching: Grinding toward the end of Reconstruction and then our exam.
Car Improvement: Flat tire on the Sentra yesterday evening. Got a tire instead of breakfast and put it on at lunch. Massive improvement.
Writing: I've been fiddling with the end of my latest story and think I'm done. I'll start submitting it very soon.
Reading: I've been working through the Sci-Fi collection I picked up.
TV & Movies: Watched the first two episodes of Season Four of Battlestar Galactica over the weekend.
Exercising: Put off Sunday's workout 'til yesterday, and then the flat tire. Must work out. Update: Had a great workout - sore & exhausted.

Monday 5/5

Teaching: Notes from Vicksburg to The Wilderness Campaign, with a great reading of the Gettysburg Address by Sam Waterston from Ken Burns Civil War
Home Improvement: Fixed the mower by removing the deck housings and repositioning the belt. Mowed the side & front up until dark.
Writing: I've started typing my short urban fantasy story, and will try to finish that in a bit.
Reading: finished up “In the House of the Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages from The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Volume 1 (Spring 2007).
TV & Movies: Over the weekend I re-watched the first 13 episodes of Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica with Clyde Squid. The show is relentless. It rips you apart every episode, makes you cringe and makes you want to save the human race from the Cylons, all at the same time.
Internet: Mostly Civil War stuff for my notes - some cool stuff on the Unionist unit - 1st Alabama Cavalry, U.S. Volunteers
Animal Kingdom: Turtles, frogs, chameleons, snakes, dogs, cats all living the high life.
Exercising: Completed my fourth workout, did two 7-minute rides on the exercise bike and one set of eight exercises for 10 reps, but I'm nearing limit on weight and will move to two sets and then up weight and go for periodization. 175x10 on bench - easily done. Getting very close to actually working out.

Workout predicted

Teaching: Made it through Chancellorsville in lecture. Won't be long now. Little Round Top & Pickett's Charge and then Ulysses. I spent Wednesday at the 2nd of a three-meeting "Seven Habits" seminar. It's good stuff, and really how we operate around here, but it's tough to not feel cynical at the earnestness of it all.
Home Improvement: My weed spraying in the front seems to of work, so I'll expand the eradication. Mowing today, weather permitting.
Reading: reading through a summary of Cigars, Whiskey, & Winning - basically "Grant on Leadership".
TV & Movies: Got in Top Chef and Last Restaurant Standing and little else this week. There is a bit of freedom in not watching regular shows on TV, and certainly the DVR lets one pick & choose, but I do feel like I'm missing out on things sometimes. I've got another episode of Battlestar saved.
Exercising: Finally took advantage of a gym membership available because of my job. Going to workout in a bit.
Dad's back at home and doing fine.

Saturday

Dad's recovering from heart surgery.
Went to see him at the VA in Birmingham on Wednesday.
Had some legendary Cosmo's Pizza in Birmingham - not bad.
Went to the first day of 'Seven Habits' training on Thursday:
Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind.
The week at school was largely a waste, with so many activities, but we did have a test on Wednesday and watched the first episode of Ken Burn's Civil War.
I'm going back down to Birmingham with Paul today - Saturday.

Sunday Morning

- I'm doing my best to keep the house under control.
- At school, I gave notes all week: Trails West, Texas & the War with Mexico, James K. Polk, The Compromise of 1850, all the way through the 1850's to Lincoln's election & secession. Plus we watched the beginning of Ken Burns' Civil War. Gotta make ready with the test.
- Saturday went across the river with Tobermory. We delivered a snake present to Animal Trax. Met up with Paul & Ferlie, ate Chinese, visited the Booklegger (picked up a 1966 Scifi collection & the classic "The Worm Ouroboros"), & cruised the Barnes & Noble for Moleskine. Came home & watched Crazy for You, my school's spring musical.
- Today: the lawn tractor.

Lincoln, of course, said it best:

On a country run by Nativist Know-Nothings:
"When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic]."
Abraham Lincoln - August 24, 1855 - Letter to Joshua Speed

Positive Atheism's Big List of Quotations by and about Abraham Lincoln

Spring Break Woo-Hoo!

Teaching: see post title
Home Improvement: Maintained our gains in the front room, hall bedroom & kitchen. Washed several sheets & changed & freshened the bedclothes.
Pets: Everybody was on schedule & I think Tarquin (the frog) actually ate a cricket.
Writing & Reading: Nothing today
Movies & TV:: Watched the first & second episodes of John Adams with Bromide this morning. It's good work. Not overwhelming, but workmanlike.
Internet: Ironically spent time looking at productivity blogs this evening.
Exercising: Slacked off today

No Country for Old Men

TV: Bromide came to visit and we watched the preview episode (ep.2) of John Adams. It appealed to my history geekdom, especially emo-Jefferson - about the Declaration, as it's being edited, "Well, that's what I think."
Movies: No Country for Old Men - watched it the last two nights - it's damn good.
The House: Got the hall bedroom setup for Bromide, front room is orderly chaos, and the kitchen is chaotic neutral. Beware the Den.
Exercising: Walked a mile this morning.

A Lost Tuesday

Teaching: Jackson, Clay, Van Buren, formation of the Whigs; AP Essay & Test research & a jacksonian test review
Home Improvement: Garbage Morn, Pet Maintenance
Exercising: A mile this morning with Thisbe
Destroyed the Jeopardy internet category at lunch.
There was a nap and lost time in there somewhere.

Friday

Teaching: Let my guys know the plan for a short pre-holiday week: Andrew Jackson.
Home Improvement: Big floor & garbage clean-up
Internet: Article: Strategy Game Pits Players Against Desktop Invasion - Game: Desktop Tower Defense
TV: A little South Park on Clyde's visit

Early Week Blur

Ada has settled in with Thisbe pretty well. Sleep has been a little difficult, but that will settle down soon. Tobermory heads to B'ham in couple weeks for PetSmart manager training & we will all be lost.

Teaching: Taught about Monroe & the "Era of Good Feelings", up late making up the quiz and gave it on Wednesday - otherwise my efforts have all been in preparation for Friday's Social Studies grad exam (testing 10th graders on 11th grade material...)
Home Improvement: The hall bedroom is very close, just another couple of hours at most and there will be a bed in there.
Movies: No time.
Internet: I've surfed very little, but what I noted I listed over in the right column ->
TV: Tony Bourdain and Holmes on Homes this week,
Exercising: 1/2 miles Mon & Tues am

Friday, again already

Tikka Masala: Tobermory, Paul & I went to the Sitar Indian Restaurant in Huntsville (inspired by last night's show with Gordon Ramsay fixing a curry shop). Food was great!
Teaching: More work on the Era of Good Feelings
Home Improvement: Ripped up carpet in the hall bedroom!
Exercising: 1 mile this morning

Any excuse for a little Firefly

Teaching: Students using multiple books to cover from the Hartford Convention to the Monroe Doctrine
Home Improvement: More cleaning of the hallway bedroom
Movies: At "school" I had to sit with freshmen during the Sophomore Writing Assessment - so I showed then the pilot of Firefly and, to my surprise, it went over very well.
Internet: When Wikipedia Won't Cut It: 25 Online Sources for Reliable, Researched Facts
TV: This evening it was this week's Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare
Exercising: 1/2 mile in the morning

Friday, at least

Internet: Historically inaccurate, but damn funny and a good list - The 5 Most Badass Presidents of All-Time
TV: Watched a little Gordon Ramsay in the afternoon and then Reno 911 and South Park in the late night.
Teaching: Tons of make-up tests early a.m. & gave test on Jefferson/Madison, graded & recorded.
Announcing: Sub-Regional(?) basketball game - Austin defeated Buckhorn by 25+. We didn't get on 'til almost half because our "engineer" forgot to show up. Bruce Hamilton, my partner from last year, announced with me. He's got great basketball knowledge & he's funny as hell.
Exercising: 1/2 mile in the morning

Contrived Holiday Day

Took Tobermory to Panera Bread and had a fine time. I've enjoyed getting an executive summary of The Closing of the Western Mind

Teaching: Africans in America and A Midwife's Tale
Internet: My kind of list - Top 50 Dystopian Movies
TV: The new Gordon Ramsay.

A little more sick today. Got some faux Nyquil tablets and I'm about done in. More tomorrow.

Three Times is a Habit.

Favorite link today: 50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily
Teaching: Showed PBS's A Midwife's Tale to my AP and A&E's Lewis & Clark bio to my Honors classes.
Home Improvement: Shuffling the deckchairs in my desk area
Writing: Great post on short story writing at Write to Done
Internet: Fooled around a good bit and I managed to set up a feed of my delicious bookmarks (over & down) and I checked out a place to possibly have my students make a wiki - wetpaint.com and also made the feed from this blog show up on twitter. Gotta stay on top of geek stuff.
TV: Watched Tony Bourdain's latest No Reservations on DVR. How did we ever watch anything before?
Exercising:1/2 mile this morning (damn cold) + 1/2 mile this evening (even colder)