Today was really something. Yeah, it was the first day of school. That was great and everything. But, it was the VERY first AVID class for me and for AHS. During the period our counselor came in to say hi to the kids. So did our assistant principal. So did our PRINCIPAL. I had to say to the kids, "Do you think a counselor, assistant principal and THE principal have visited ANY other class today? Isn't AVID a special place?"

The freshman that I have were pretty shell shocked by the time 6th period came around. I told them all to take a deep breath and let it out. Then we talked over any problems they were having getting around our huge 5A school. It was good to see them relax a little.

My World History classes were really good. Here is my schedule this year:
1 - Planning period for AVID and Advisory/Small Learning Community
2 - World History
3 - World History
4 - World History Pre-AP
5 - Planning period (it's also lunch - never shortened! Woo Hoo)
6 - AVID
7 - World History Pre-AP

It is sweet having my two level classes in the morning when those kids can concentrate a bit more. And my "honors" or Pre-AP are in the afternoon. A nice schedule. I am in my room all day long and even have my own planning periods in my room (didn't have that last year). I think they took good care of me in the scheduling office and I am glad for that.

I made a video and showed it to my classes today of first day Rules/Procedures. I am pretty excited about it. So many teachers stand up and do the "Teacher in Charlie Brown Routine" on the first day. You know, "Whaa, whaa, whuuu, whuuuu." That constant drone about their expectations. I decided to do mine a bit differently. The kids seemed to really enjoy it. When I get it loaded up to the website I will share the link.

Looking forward to day 2. I am pretty beat tired, but it is worth it.

Just like the inaugural game... we win again! :) Way to go Texans. Looking sweeeeet.
Texans Beat the Cowboys!

Wow, this week is going to be a busy, busy one.

Norma and I are back at school for a week. The kids return for their first day on Monday of next week. But, we are lucky to have a week to prepare.

Today was really long and focused on an educational speaker in the morning and a welcome back to the faculty in the afternoon. They even marched me up into a skit as "the Teacher of the Year" -- I'll be glad when someone else is doing that next year! (Hopefully Norma!) We moved in some more boxes and have a couple of more car loads full until we are finished. What a pain. I would almost rather teach all year long than move out and back in each year. Crazy.

Tomorrow we have meetings in the morning and then I have more meetings in the afternoon. Our first ever AVID parent night is tomorrow night from 6:30-8:30. I am very excited to see some kids and meet their parents, but I am worried that not many will show up. It is hard to get the word out during summer and some are sure to be on vacation with their families and miss it.

Wednesday I will be presenting and facilitating technology training all day long. That will be a long, long day for me. Things like email, our gradebook program and our webpages will be taught.

Friday is another big day. In the morning I will be involved in two presentations to the faculty. One is regarding AVID and the other our Small Learning Communities and Advisory.

Busy, busy week.

Aidan did very well in his first day back to the sitters. It is so hard to take him and leave him there. But, we are all spoiled by our great summers together. So many families do not have what we do and we need to be thankful for it.

Summer is officially over for us. :( Sad... but I am really excited about this school year. Probably more excited than any school year I have ever been a part of before.

Saturday I drove up to Nacodoches, TX for an auction fantasy football draft. I had an awesome time. Fish fry, 8 good guys, and a super draft. It was really competitive. We had a $200 budget to fill 20 spots on our team. LT went for $105! I still can't believe that. Amazing.

Here is my team - The Duez Dragons:
QB:
Brees, D NO $27
Delhomme, J CAR $1
RB:
Alexander, S SEA $37 (which I just now realized is his jersey #)
McGahee, W BAL $23
Peterson, A MIN $17
Lewis, J CLE $7
Barber, M DAL $4
Hunt, T PHI $1
Bell, M DEN $1
WR:
Wayne, R IND $35
Houshmandzadeh, TJ CIN $23
Jackson, V SD $6
Rice, S MIN $1
Henry, C CIN $1
Muhammad, M CHI $1
TE:
Gonzalez, T KC $10
Olsen, G CHI $1
D:
Panthers, CAR $1
K:
Brown, J SEA $1
I feel like I have a pretty solid team. But, it is only an 8 man league. Maybe I am fooling myself?





Pretty decent draft for me. I think I surprised some of the guys because I bid up on a lot of guys early and pushed their dollar figures up. That's what you have to do in a draft like this when it is an auction. You have to bluff a little and push the prices past the player's actual value so that you can get others for cheaper. It only backfired on me one time! I nominated Gonzalez and then pushed his price to $10 thinking it could go as high as $15. Well, it stopped there. :( I didn't really want him, I was saving at least $35 for Antonio Gates. But, maybe I can make a deal. I think I saved myself by getting Olsen late in the draft for a dollar because he's going to be a stud and is good protection in case the elder statesman Gonzo goes down.

It was a lot of fun. Long drive, but well worth it. Can't wait till football gets going for real.

Aidan is officially potty trained. He does not even need to wear diapers at night. He is not even 3 yet (until Oct. 27th). So I am truly impressed.

He hasn't even had any kind of an accident for a long while. He goes by himself without even telling us sometimes. It is an amazing thing to watch him grow up.

Today Norma decided that she wanted to bring him by the high school where I was recruiting students for Avid Tutors. Aidan said, "Stay home!" Then Norma explained that "pretty girls" would be there... and Aidan was ALL IN. He said, "Pwetty Ghooowls" the whole way to the school. He was a ball of energy at the school and Norma could not get over how many of the seniors, their parents and our teachers and staff knew his name. He really is rather famous!


It is remarkable to consider, too because it is not like they read this blog. Very few people that I work with even know that I have it. I am not exactly sure why I even keep it private any more. It's not like I post things that I am ashamed of or that I don't want people to read. But, we'll see.

School is about to start soon (our first day back as teachers is next Monday) and I am really, really going to miss the time with Aidan. I am going to have to save a little energy during the school day to give to him when we get home each day. That is going to have to be something I concentrate on. Sometimes I get carried away with the teaching stuff!

This summer has been longer than a normal Texas School Summer. We got out at the end of May, but we don't go back until a week from Monday. So they are starting the school year later this year than normal. But, it has been such a busy summer that it feels like we are already back at work.

Today we had "Flight School" for our Eagle Seniors to come in and get their schedules, packets, and get them signed up for clubs and organizations. It also gave us a chance to meet with kids that might want to be AVID tutors. We'll need to hire 8 of them. We have a lot to choose from - about 15. So I am really happy about that. We'll start interviewing them next week.

In the afternoon we had our first AVID district executive meeting. It was very interesting. We laid the groundwork for a lot of our decision making for the program. But, there is so much work to do. That is what I am going to start doing tonight is getting more prepared. It seems like I need a couple of extra weeks of summer just to get this stuff done, but if I had a couple extra more weeks I would just put it off, wouldn't I?

Nothing that a little more coffee and hard work won't fix!

We had a great time at the Astros game last night. Thanks to Uncle Bill and Aunt Aimee for the tickets! :)

It was so funny, we were getting out of the car downtown and I said to Aidan, "Check out all those big buildings!" He looked up and then said, "SpiderMAN!" We were cracking up. He really had fun. We bought him a new Astros hat and he looks super cute in it.

We only go to about a game a year right now. It's not easy to take him down there in traffic and fight the crowds. Last night's game was a sell out. Unfortunately the Astros dropped a heart breaker to the Brewers. It is just not our year.

Aidan was great though. I can't even imagine how much better he will be next year at this time.

Well, I am an excited guy. I love fall because of football. It is also a great time of year because it is a time of beginnings. School begins and everything is new. Football begins and even my Texans have a chance... sort of. :)

Fantasy Football drafting has begun and our family league has it's draft on Sunday. It is a great league this year. We have a couple of my friends that have played before along with new friends from work. Three of the ladies that worked with Norma and I last year at AHS are all joined up. That is going to be a lot of fun to see them duel.

My team names this year are the Duez Dragons (in my $60 auction league live draft in Nacagdoches, TX) and the Texas T-Rex. Both team names are for Aidan and his favorite animals. I even worked up a logo for the auction league:


It is going to be a lot of fun this year to play fantasy football and watch the games on our new big screen HDTV. Tonight's game with the Cowboys and Colts was just beautiful to watch. Also we began watching Hard Knocks on HBO HD. The show details the life of the NFL player in training camp. This year's team is the Kansas City Chiefs. Very interesting stuff and a lot of fun to watch in HD.

Football is back! Woo Hoo!

Me after being "Simpsonized" @ Simsponized.com:


Norma after being "Simpsonized":


Pretty cool how it works. The site is usually swamped, but I had them email the photo rendering when finished and that helped. Pretty funny! But, also accurate. We realized that we would have to teach at the Springfield Elementary School though, because there is no high school in Springfield (as far as I have ever seen!). :)

Last night I finally made my purchase of the 'dream machine' tv. Circuit City: Samsung 56" DLP HDTV HL-T5687 S LED Light Engine No interest for 36 months. I even played hard ball on the warranty and would not budge off 2 years... so they took $200 off the price for me to have a 4 year warranty. I was really excited that I didn't just roll over when the dude says, "Would you like a 4 year warranty, it's a great deal!" the first 3 times. Finally he caved and took $200 off. I didn't expect that!

So this morning began the odyssey of getting the TV home. To my dismay Circuit City did not have delivery on this item. (Which I don't understand for the life of me) This was one of the longest days I have had in a long, long time. This morning I woke up ready to rent a truck and drive to the Circuit City in North Shore to pick up my new tv. And the adventure began...

I had ordered it online and it was all set for pickup. Since I do not have a truck I decided to call UHaul and get a van. No dice. They don't have any this side of Houston. So I search around for rental SUVs or Trucks. No place near here has any trucks. Then I remembered the airport would have some. But, that was an adventure. Not having ever rented a car in my hometown, I learned a thing or two.

First, we have the Taj Mahal of rental car places. It is about 5 miles south of the airport and if you were flying in you would have to take a shuttle. It is really sparkly and knew in the joint. I went with Enterprise, because I have always had good service with them. As we drove up to the place a downpour erupted. I should have realized that that point, I was in trouble on this day.

But, when I got to the lot to get my vehicle the attendant was real chummy. I explained that I was picking up a big screen tv today. "Oh wow, I just got a 56" Samsung DLP the other day," he said. I looked at him with real wide eyes like, yeah... this is my day. He understands me. I was on my way to get the very same tv. So he leads me to the car and we pass a Toyota Rav-4 he looks in the back and says, "This should be perfect." Then looks at the paperwork and realizes I had reserved a bigger vehicle. So down the row we went to a Tundra. Look in the back and there they were... fold up chairs. :( Still though the dude said, "It'll fit."

So off to North Shore I drive. Very excited. I also purchase a stand for the TV that I would have to assemble, but we needed one. I pull the truck up, they wheel out the tv and stand. No dice. There is no way it would have fit. The fold up chairs took up at least 2 feet of the width of the back of the truck. A few curse words later and I am back down the road to IAH and Enterprise to exchange this thing for that Rav-4 that would have been perfect all along!

Luckily (and to their credit) the people at Enterprise were great and let me exchange. So off I went to Circuit City. The entire way I was sweating bullets... "Will it fit?"

Here's how tight it was:

You talk about a happy camper! I was so pumped. Now it was off to pick up Chinese for lunch and then the HD PVR cable box from our cable company. As soon as we ate we ran the rental car back. Aidan was sound asleep by the time we got home - around 2:30. It was then I realized, I just spent about 5 hours getting this damn thing home!

It took a good hour and a 1/2 for me to assemble the stand. It is not big. But, so many screws. I love the look of it and it came together pretty well. So I tested out all the components and I am super glad that I can still use my Onkoyo receiver with the system. I have it hooked up like this right now:

HD PVR Cable Box --> Video Out through HDMI to TV, Sound Out through Optical to the receiver.
DVD --> Composite Video Cables to the TV, Sound Out through R/L analog video cables.

My plan is to purchase an upconverting DVD so that the regular DVDs we have will be close to 1080P resolution. When I do that I will use Optical Out for the sound to the receiver and HDMI out to the TV for the video. That will be sweet.

This has been a real education for me. I have burned my brain in ever spare moment on it over the past month or so. It has all worked out perfectly and I am super happy at this point. Now it is time to finally enjoy 300 with Norma. Better make some coffee first, it was a LONG day!

The finished product!