i know this fidelity is true...

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

please go to the courage campaign web-site and add your name to the petition.

ps: second half of the 52 new things coming soon!

thirty-fourth new thing...

my love for carly smithson is well documented in this journal and in several of the new things i have already accomplished. also well documented in this year long journey, my love of concerts. for the thirty-fourth new thing, i found a way to combine these two loves (you got peanut butter in my chocolate! you got chocolate in my peanut butter!) into one awesome (slightly unrealized) new thing. so, for the most recent installment of the 52 new things, i attended my first concert meet and greet.

as the AI tour progressed, word got out that the idols were signing autographs for those waiting at the venues. with each successive city, more and more fans began lining up outside the venues waiting for the idols to arrive. the stop here at the gwinnett center was a full month and 20+ shows after my previous idol show experience in san diego. when i showed up at 9AM (yes, that's right, 9AM for a show that stared at 8PM) there were already several people milling about. so i did the most natural thing, i found the people who looked the nicest and the most like they knew what they were doing and latched on for dear life. it just so happened that they all happened to be archie fans. (go pork chop!)

we were all excited and chatty (very uncommon for me), extolling the virtues of our chosen idols with each other. i received condolences for carly's early ouster (damn straight 6th lace was too soon!) and i sang archie's praises from my previous experience in SD. and of course we all came bearing gifts. i had a lovely wrapped hardback version of rilke's "letters to a young poet" that i mentioned in my fan letter and a half gallon of the beacon's world famous iced tea. and my famous carly sign, all the way from my living room to the california coast and back again.

i enjoyed my day with the archie fans and the dreadheads and the cookies. we hung signs and as the time passed got more and more excited about the prospects of chatting with the people we had been voting for on tuesday nights less than 6 months before. one o'clock came and went. two o'clock came and went. and then, before three, we received the bad news. no signings before the show because the idols would be filming a satellite interview from the venue with larry king during that time (you bastard!). the gifts would be delivered and we could watch the interview from outside, but no meeting and no greeting.

and so ended my attempt to meet carly. but i did make some fun new friends in the process. and i had killer seats to witness, yet again, the best voice from american idol ever.

thirty-third new thing...

this new thing represents one of the more important of all the fifty-two new things. not because it took a lot of planning. or time. or money. or even effort. this new thing allowed me to return to one of my favorite eateries in one of my favorite towns for the first time in three years. and i couldn't have done it without by buddy lisa. so i start this discussion of the thirty-third new thing with a shout out to the best chaperon a girl could ever have. thanks lis for keeping me in check and keeping it in perspective. for my thirty-third new thing, i went back to the beacon in beautiful spartanburg, south carolina and had sweet tea for the first time.

ahhh, the beacon. the scene of some of my fondest memories of my times in the palmetto state. isn't it funny how sometimes you remember certain events and places in rose-tinted ways? well, that's how i remember most of my time in spartanburg. don't get me wrong, it's a lovely place, with a quaint small town college feel. through no fault of its own, it became this touch point of some things i needed to let go of but couldn't. so i new this year i needed to make some new memories, without the baggage.

enter my memories of the best double cheeseburgers a-plenty in the south. and the sweet tea. i had heard much praise around the beacon's sweet tea, but, i myself, have never been an iced tea drinker. now, hot tea and i go way back. iced tea, not so much. i remember joking with my parents back in the day that i must have been adopted because i didn't like sweet tea, john wayne or war movies. now, i have learned to love big jake, i can fake my way through a war movie (especially if you put kate beckinsale in it), but iced tea and i had yet to see eye to eye. so, i figured it was time to cross that final hurdle. and what better way than with the world-famous beacon variety.

lis and i arrived at the beacon full of excitement but with empty bellies. after a quick perusal of the menu we started the ordering process, answer the command to "caaaallllll it" before walking and talking down the line. while the hamburger was way bigger than i remembered, the onion rings were way limper than i remember, and the old man wait staff was way flirtier than i remember, the iced tea ended up being a bit of let down. but c'est la vie. at least now i know.

after a quick stop at the barnes & noble (site of the worst. parking job. ever.), lisa and i headed back towards home. but not before making a quick stop at a rising public comprehensive college in the upstate. after breaking into the football stadium to take some pictures (and almost getting locked in the football stadium as a result) we left south carolina behind. with a souvenir of a half gallon of iced tea and some new, non-baggagey memories.

thirty-second new thing...

ok. let's blow through a couple of these. no long winded exposition needed. for this new thing, i took advantage of a once-every-four-years event and advancements in technology. for my thirty-second new thing, i watched three new olympic sports.

the 2008 summer olympics may have been ruled by this dude, but for me, the games have always been about the obscure sports that we otherwise never get to see. so this year i decided to make a concerted effort to at least try and follow sports i had never seen before. with the time change between the east coast of the US and the east coast of the far east, that took some finessing. nothing like a handball match with no commentary on my laptop at 2AM. good times.

speaking of handball, i followed team norway through to their gold medal victory over reigning world champion russia. i'm not gonna lie, i started watching handball for these girls, but i stayed for the sport. these women are nuts! tackling each other, hurtling a hand-sized bouncy ball at a small net, flying through the air like a sugar glider. crazy. i still don't really understand the fouls, but i do understand passion. congrats gro.

next on the list was rowing, specifically the women's eight medal race. team USA pulled this one out by just over 2 seconds and there was much celebrating-- hugging and smooching included-- in response. uhmm, traditionally i don't think of rowers as hot, but i might have to reconsider my previous conclusions.

finally was one of my favorite new finds, women's sabre. and this year was a good year for the home team. the USA swept all three medals in this event. while my girl sada jacobson (woot! dunwoody!) only took home a silver, i will definitely be watching more fencing in the future. in fact, i might be taking classes. now that would be an interesting new thing. looking forward to vancouver in 2010.

thirty-first new thing...

as they say, it's beginning to look a lot like christmas. i don't know if i will be able to catch up on all my blog entries before the end of 2008 melts in to the beginning of 2009, but i figured it's time to start trying. so let's go back, way back to end of july (eeekkk! that's a long time ago) where we will find the next new thing hanging out in the bluegrass state. for my thirty-first new thing, i went on my first business trip.

as part of my job, i often assist our president and vice presidents prepare for presentations on various and sundry education topics in one of our member states. this go round, the prez was prepping a presentation on the education pipeline in kentucky for the statewide business organization. now, our fair leader has been around the

 hallowed halls of academe for some years, with much practical experience to show for it. but try to get the man to make a powerpoint and it's like he becomes the first part of an idiot savant.

as the week of prepping wore on, the guy became more concerned about his ability to run a 20 minute, 12 slide presentation alone. so at the 11th hour it was decided i would accompany him to, well, basically press a button every 2 or 3 minutes. sweet!

welcome to louisville! and the view from my comped hotel room. i arrived on a tuesday afternoon, reviewed the presentation for about 20 minutes with my boss, enjoyed a free dinner in the hotel sports bar (honestly, drinking beer and eating chicken fingers with the guy who can fire you "at will" is a little awkward...but i can't say no to chicken fingers. or beer.) and then was on my own until the next morning. so i called up my dear friend bec and met her and her fiance (now husband! my how the time flies...) for chips and salsa at the local mexican place. bec came up to the hotel room for a little bit after we dropped then-fiance, now-hubby brad off for his overnight ER rotation so we could talk about the proposal and the wedding...both super low-key, just like her. it was good times.

the next morning, i arrived down stairs in time for a bagel and coffee before sitting with the tech guys (word of advice: always make friends with the computer/tech guys if you use any type of technology for your job. if they like you, things are more likely to run smoothly) at the front of the room so that i could, well, really just press a button. behold, the clicker...

so apparently, bill gates uses the same device. and the laser pointer works from a mile away. i wonder who in the world decided to figure that out? the presentation went off without a hitch, i patroned the hotel sports bar yet again (apparently i can't say no to sliders either) before heading to the airport and then making my way back to the atl. it was a whirl wind trip and i missed the roo (shout out to curt for staying with the pup overnight on such short notice), but i got my name on a presentation and i might be asked to be a companion button pusher yet again. 

new things update...

hello there. it's been a long time and i have been a bad blogger. but i have not been a bad new thinger. even though i haven't updated you all in a few weeks (*cough* ten weeks *cough*), i have still been doing one new thing a week. and i promise to do some updating soon. i have some great things to talk about (i accomplished another of the "original" new things a couple weeks ago. i'll give you a hint, it involves some rather embarrassing fumbling.), so hang in there. there are only 5 weeks left...

thirtieth new thing...

there seems to be a trend throughout a lot of these new things. and that theme is art. of any kind. of different kinds. movies. music. and now, theatre. for the thirtieth of the 52 new things (ahhhhh, thirty! this is it?!? this is the last day? help me!! help me!), i attended my first shakspeare play.

and not just any production of a shakespeare play. no, that would be too easy. i went to a production of as you like it set in the turbulent 60's. yes, a story about how a girl-- disguised as a boy-- taught the object of her affection (one of my favorite movies) how to woo the object of his affection while not realizing that the boy helping him woo said girl was actually the girl he was wooing all while the turbulent protesting free-love 60s was spinning around them. i guess that is why they call it a "gender bending" comedy of eros. but really the entire event was sort of a comedy of errors.

curt and i arrived at ogelthorpe university, home of the georgia shakespeare festival about 10 minutes before show time. i had a coupon (yes, i am a spendthrift) for 20% off. little did i know that was for the $40 tickets. we elected to go with the cheap seats (for $15 there isn't a theatre big enough in the world that would put us too far away) and while ringing us up the ticket lady (who was cute and crafty...she almost got us to buy $50 worth of tickets when $30 would do) said that the showing was selling slow so we were eligible for a free upgrade (sweet!) to the lower level back row. giddy with our good fortune we headed into the theatre where we were promptly cornered by some officially looking guy with one of those radio transmitter things in his ears. he informed us that we were eligible for an upgrade (wait, another upgrade! seriously?) and we wound up in the third row. yes. the third row! seriously!

the production itself was quite enjoyable. it did take me about 15 minutes before i could follow the shakespeare-speak but by the middle of the first act i was laughing at the jokes and contemplating the right lines of the soliloquies. the actors were quite enjoyable, especially the tall drink of water that played touchstone. the one thing that was terribly distracting: the costuming. i mean, i know it is suppose to be the 60's, the summer of love, but honestly, do you think you would get any play with this on?

maybe if all the world was a stage as shakespeare suggested, there would be more love and less hate. hope you enjoyed your summer of love. it's almost over ya'll.

twenty-ninth new thing...

one thing this year-long project has done for me is allow me to be more adventurous. and, some would say, reckless. see, i'm a very responsible person. an honest days work for an honest days pay and all that. it wasn't that long ago that i was an hourly-wage veterinary technician working 72 hours a week for $10. but i have a wild streak-- sometimes. so for the twenty-ninth new thing i did something that i characterize as completely irresponsible, i went to a movie in the middle of a work day. without permission and without telling anyone where i was going.

so how would i spend this indulgent afternoon movie opportunity on opening day of one of the most anticipated comic book films of the year? why see a musical, of course. but in order to pull this off i would have to utilize some sly james-bond like moves. so at lunch, i walked out to the car with my purse and various other accoutrement, placed them in laurel and calmly walked back up to my desk. about an hour later i got up, walked out to the parking lot, got into the car and left. not a word to anyone.

though frightening as hell (we do have a little bit of a gestapo-esque hr director) i really enjoyed being a little crazy. alright, fine. it's not like i jumped out of a plane. or quit my job. or flew to an undisclosed location (though that may be coming later). but for me, it was crazy. and out of character. and completely liberating. kind of like breaking into song in the middle of my mundane workday.

twenty-eighth new thing...

i'll be the first to admit there was a bit of an emotional letdown after my amazing trip to california back in july. and that certainly led to a new thing letdown. but the year goes on, and with it so do the 52 new things. so for the twenty-eighth of my new things i decided to take it a little easy and resurrect an event from my past. i created my own turner classic movie sunday and watched an old school movie.

since i haven't had cable since the great audit of the winter of 2007, i had to improvise to make this happen. so i turned to my trusty laptop computer and began a search of the greatest website for tv and movies currently out there, hulu. seriously, if you haven't used hulu yet, drop what you are doing and get over there right now. watch a little arrested development. or discover the new series in plain sight. or prep for the next season of terminator: the sarah connor chonicles. seriously, go. i'll wait. but hurry back.

besides television, hulu also has full-length feature films-- both new and old-- available for streaming. and i found the perfect sunday night movie: voyage to the bottom of the sea. a great disaster, science fiction movie that reminds you what film was like before cgi. produced and directed by irwin allen, the so-called "master of disaster", vttbots was a movie before its time. released in 1961 it centered around the impossible to imagine (at the time) earth destroying phenomena of global warming (oh, the horror!) and involved the quintessential destruction of the day...icebergs! giant squids! a saboteur! a cute furry animal that the saboteur pets in a menacing manner!

i did my own research before we started the film so that we could have our own robert osborne moment. madison and i enjoyed a sunday evening on the couch with a couple dos equis amber (me) and some rosemary popcorn (maddie loves her gourmet snacks). i recommend that you try it out one night. cuddle with a loved one and watch an old school movie you've never seen before. it might just turn out to be pretty awesome.

twenty-seventh new thing...

i feel like i do a lot of apologizing these days when i talk about my blog. every time someone asks me how it's coming along i always feel a pang of both pride and guilt. i'm proud that so many people read and keep up with my little project. but i'm also guilty of not keeping up with it every week like i promised i would. and i hate people who don't keep their promises. so i am here to begin again. a renewed commitment. and what better way than with the official post for the new thing that was the impetus for this whole project. for my twenty-seventh new thing i traveled to california and put my toes in the pacific ocean. now, on to the rest.

i know this trip is true, the redlands chronicles...

i know some time has passed since i was in the great state of california, but i still think it is important to tie up some loose ends. the mcpeak's and i spent the fourth of july in and around redlands, as planned, but we also headed out on a little unplanned adventure, too. we started the morning in a little diner in downtown redlands where i had some of the best pancakes i'd had in a while. even though charles and i were unsuccessful at convincing the little lady that we should return to san diego for a couple of tattoos from nothing sacred, we did manage to talk her into a trip up to big bear mountain.

as you should all know, not only am i from the south but i also haven't traveled much. so, the thought of heading up a mountain to over 8,000 feet is exactly how i would want to spend the birthday of our nation. as carly and i made our way to the cooler temperatures of big bear, we did manage to stop for some pictures along the way.

like with our friend smokey here. crabs and bears don't normally get along, but, hey, it's the fourth of july. the scenery itself was gorgeous and completely foreign to me. however, the car sickness was not. i always forget that i get motion sickness since i developed it later in life until i have already agreed to do something that makes me car sick. and then i just end up sitting (or, inevitably, laying down) in the back of the car trying not to throw up my yummy pancakes.

but, boy was it worth it once we got up there. there was still snow on the top of the highest peak (which we didn't make it to, unfortch. we ran out of time. appointments and all.) and you could definitely feel a difference in the temperature. and the air quality. but oddly enough, not the altitude.

after our trip up the windy mountain (punctuated by a stop at a little restaurant where i was not able to consume anything other a carbonated beverage because of my queasy tummy, we headed back down the mountain, a much less vomit-inducing enterprise. i guess i knew the end was in sight.

a few minutes at the apartment and then we were off again, this time on our way to the football stadium on the university of redlands campus for the fun fourth of july festivities there. we found some seats in the bleachers and watched the sunset behind the san bernadino mountains. little did we know the 2 hours of pre-fireworks fun that was about to occur. the community band of redlands, headed by their very own harold hill. old school czechoslovakia jets flyover. new school dc-7 flyover. skydivers (landing on the stadium track, no less). rod stewart, cher and elvis impersonators (all the way from vegas! really?). and then fireworks. and boy were they some fireworks. it was a fabulous end to a wonderful day and a fitting end to a wonderful trip.

happy fourth of july, ya'll!

i know this trip is true, the los angeles chronicles...

hello there everybody! another sunny day in cali has begun. my internal clock is all screwed up by all the late night (for me anyway) fun we've been having. we had another late night last night (i tumbled into bed around midnight) and we didn't even make it to karaoke-- which is probably a good thing. our day yesterday consisted mostly of eating in various places and doing a lot of walking from one place to eat to another place to eat. it was surely enjoyable. see pictures here.

we did go to the walt disney concert hall which is quickly beginning to rival the chrysler building as my favorite piece of architecture. i think the WDCH may have an unfair advantage because i could actually touch it. we also went to the arclight- next to the old cinerama dome theatre- and saw "wanted". it was...interesting. i don't know if i would suggest it to the common folk, but if you think angelina jolie is hot, that you would see her in any movie and you are able to suspend disbelief the moment the lights go down, this film is for you. it was the most clear picture quality i have ever seen in a theatre. they didn't have any caramel corn, but other than that it was a pure enjoyable experience.

we ended the day at PINK'S, and i had one of the best chili cheese dogs ever. still, nothing beats noshville's fran cheesey. i miss you music city. i'll be home soon....

today we are hanging around redlands for a fun fourth of july festivity. there will be fireworks, hot dogs, beer and cher impersonators. you know, the usual. i leave tomorrow to head back to atlanta. it's been a fun trip. i hope to be back soon. happy fourth of july everybody.

i know this trip is true, the san diego chronicles...

well, it's a little late, but it's here. the first entry for my california trip. pictures from day one are up at picasa in the california dreamin' web album. we are heading out to LA this morning, but i wanted to touch base quickly and give a couple brief highlights from the day yesterday and explain some of the photos.

i decided to chronicle the trip from the perspective of carly the crab, one of madison's squeaky toys and also a good surrogate for the american idol singer that brought me out to san diego in the first place. so you might see a picture of carly enjoying television on the plane or a burger at the field in san diego (the restaurant her namesake worked at before joining the show). just humor me, ok.

as far as highlights so far:
* putting my toes in the pacific ocean (it was just as cold as i thought it would be)
* eating at the field and enjoying (yes, enjoying) my first guinness
* walking through hillcrest, the gayborhood in san diego, and buying fun vintage t-shirts
* seeing carly smithson perform in her hometown!
* getting the most random sunburn on my chest that i have ever had
* staying awake for 22 straight hours (didn't get to bed here until 1AM local time...)

today we are doing the sightsee-y things in LA and going to the arclight to see the new angelina jolie movie. thanks for checking in. come back tomorrow. more photos. and maybe some captions to explain it all. in the meantime...

carly singing "bring me to life"

i know this trip is true...

well, here we are. the big day has arrived. when the thought of this project first crossed my mind back at the end of 2007, i put three things on my original list. go on at least one date before the end of the year (baby steps, people. baby steps.), attend the macy's thanksgiving day parade (still on the agenda...sorry mom.) and put my toes in the pacific ocean. and tomorrow, i will step off a plane in sunny san diego to do just that.

this is a big milestone for little ole me. for the girl who never left the confines of the south until she was well into her twenties. for the girl who is rapidly approaching thirty and still hasn't been further west than little rock. and for the girl who has dreams bigger than the words she knows to express them. this trip means the world to me and i am gonna love every minute of it.

and i want you to join me in loving every minute of it. so i am going to try and pseudo live blog this trip, doing nightly updates here and uploading pictures to my picasa site, which you can find at: california dreamin' web album. i can't promise coherent blogs as i will probably be penning these entries between 2AM and 5AM eastern time, but i promise to try.

well, i'm off. just another girl chasing a dream out west.

california dreamin'.

twenty-sixth new thing...

congratulations! you have made it to the halfway point in this year-long endeavor of 52 new things. thanks for hanging around. this week, as in week's passed, i actually did more than one new thing. i am choosing simply to focus on the positive and not the negative (to find out the dumb new thing that i did this week, you'll have to ask me. one thing's for sure, i don't want it in the book.) for this, the twenty-sixth new thing. this week my friend lisa and i cooked dinner using nothing but grocery-store brand ingredients.

now this isn't just any grocery store. anyone who knows me, knows my love-- nee fascination-- with all things publix. i am a loyal customer and have been my entire life. this store is in my blood (i think my mom might have worked for them back in high school). i also graduated from george w. jenkins senior high school, named after-- you guessed it-- george jenkins, the founder of publix. when i moved to nashville the first time there was not a publix in the state of tennessee yet. and i cried the first time i had to step foot into a kroger. it's just not the same. the bakery. the meat department. the friendly staff. ok, i gotta stop, i could go on forever and ever. no more propoganda, i promise.

anyway, this is one of the few grocers in the country with high quality store brand products. anything you can do- smuckers or jif or peppridge farm- my publix can do better. so when it came time to make a quicky lasagna and sauteed zuccinni for dinner, lis and i headed to the hottie publix (name courtesy of curt) and picked up all our necessary ingredients, hurrying home to cook up our scrumptious publix-brand dinner before the beginning of so you think you can dance. the show was amazing (how i heart chelsie and mark) and dinner was damn good, too.

twenty-fifth new thing...

this week actually presented itself with many, many new things, most of which i cannot or will not blog about right now as part of the 52 new things. i don't want to tempt fate, or the fates, or whomever might want to smite me in my uncharacteristic hopefulness and generally sunshiney nature. but i've said too much already. so let's move on. what i can blog about, however, is the fun time i had in nashville on friday night. for my twenty-fifth new thing, i attended my first bluegrass pickin' party.

nashville has a great community of green spaces throughout the city. seriously, they are major selling points for this athens of the south. i always loved driving about 10 minutes from downtown to radnor lake or percy warner or the trace (though that one is more than 10 minutes, but so worth the drive) and feeling like i was in the woods, a million miles away from whatever pressures you faced at the office or in a classroom earlier in the day. as a way to preserve and protect the warner parks (percy and edwin), the friends of warner park have fundraising events (as every good advancement officer knows you should...) including a summer tradition every third friday of the month starting in may and going through september, the full moon pickin' party.

how i managed to live in nashville for 6 years and never attend one of these i'll never know. for the low, low price of $20 each attendee is treated to 4 hours of amazing homegrown bluegrass music and 4 (yes, i said 4) complimentary beers in your commemorative plastic cup. and we aren't talking cheap beer here. no sir. that certainly won't do. we do it up in nash vegas. only the best...and appropriately named...beer will do. you also get that warm and fuzzy feeling (no, not from the beer) from knowing that you are helping preserve a great natural treasure. score.

we were able to procure a prime spot for our blankets and-- aside from the barefoot (though rather cute) hippie chick asking all of us to "dance" to music that only should be knee-slapped or square-danced to-- a great time was had by all. the usual suspects (me, kendra and brian) hung out with some stellar new friends (anna, evan and maya!) and some familiar faces (art and doug!) and ate true kettle corn, drank cold beer, and watched the lightning bugs while some of nashville's finest undiscovered talents played the banjo, standing bass, guitar and-- my personal favorite-- the mandolin. we ended the evening over some fresh baked apple pie (courtesy of the masked baker) and random youtube perusal. i think we all benefited from our lives being "grassed-up" that night. i know mine did.

twenty-fourth new thing...

hello friends. time for another installment of the year-long adventure of 52 new things. This week found me indulging-- yet again-- in one of my obsessions (healthy obsession. healthy, i tell you!) while combining it with another one of my fascinations. for my twenty-fourth of the fifty-two new things i designed and ordered my own personalized t-shirt.

i have always found these t-shirt designing web-sites to be oddly interesting, in a "you need to get a hold of your life" kind of way. i mean, what type of person sits at home creating all manner of designs for everything from t-shirts to board shorts to hats to underwear-- yes, i said underwear-- and uploads them to web-sites so that a complete stranger in peoria, illinois can walk around town with a shirt like this gem...

i mean, honestly. i'm sure someone thought they were being pretty witty when they put this bad boy up for sale. i think if i saw some guy walking down 21st avenue with this shirt on, i would walk up to him, pants him and then mock him mercilessly. actually, that could be my new thing for that week. but i digress. i do find it amusing that people invest so much time into these little art projects, so i decided to spend some time of my own one sunday afternoon and design my own carly smithson t-shirt.

unfortunately, i don't have a picture of the shirt just yet. it is taking exceptionally long to arrive. i had hoped to have it in my hot little hands before my trip to california (three short days!) because i wanted to wear it to the concert on wednesday night. but, alas, the postal service has foiled my grand plans again. but, in the meantime, this is one of the back up designs. it will give you an idea of how i found that i might just fit-- exactly like a long lost puzzle piece-- with all the other crazies...

twenty-third new thing...

so while i was home celebrating my baby sister's high school graduation (AAAHHHHHHH! i am so old! *pant. pant.* ok. i feel a little better.) i asked my other sister if i could do something with her as one of my 52 new things. she suggested i try and do her job for the day. it was more like a dare. so i said, fine, i'll take that bet. so for the twenty-third of my 52 new things, i "taught" a high school math class.

now, i use the word "taught" loosely here. what i mean is i got up early, made myself look presentable, made a cup of coffee and rode with my sister to the high school i graduated from eleven years ago (ohmigod. ohmigod. ohmigod.), that my sister graduated from six years ago and that our baby sister would be graduating from later that night in order to administer a final to a class of FCAT flunk-ys who were in intensive math strictly to pass the high school graduation requirement.

now, working in education policy at the state level-- a 30,000 foot view, if you will-- often clouds my perception of what is really going on in our classrooms. and then i found myself in a classroom administering a test to juniors and seniors that i could have passed as an eighth-grader (and, trust me, i am no math whiz.) and grading homework assignments strictly for completion and still giving out 50s. i worry for our country. i worry that education has not only lost its bite but also its bit. it isn't hard anymore. and no one seems to want to work for it.

after the hellions finished with their test and the "bell" rang (not that we could hear it out in the faculty parking lot in one of the 20 portables), we headed on in to the main office and then to the math department hideaway. i heard teacher after teacher complain of students not caring anymore, of teachers unable to care anymore, of being forced to pass students even if they were beyond failing simply because they had been in the country less than 5 years (the wonderful bush administration-- either jeb or george, take your pick-- at work), of forced retirements (due to budget woes) and of general disdain for what high school had become.

and this was at my high school. the place that prepared me for great things. the school that had produced 6 national merit scholars in its first 6 years. that had a valedictorian with an almost 5.0 GPA (that's all AP courses and dual college credits for you laymen). that sent students to the university of michigan and harvard and emory and vanderbilt. that created doctors and lawyers and, yes, even education policy research associates.

and now all we are producing is useless graduates who need remedial classes their first year of college. who don't know what it means to study. who don't know what it means to work hard, fail, get up the next day and do it again until you earn your success. high school use to mean something. now, it seems, all high school means is that you managed to outwit, outplay, or simply outlast the system. so much for the screamin' eagles...

twenty-second new thing...

and we're back! the last couple of weeks have been crazy hectic and have kept me from blogging. not that i am making excuses. i don't believe in excuses. no siree, not me. i say, if you screw up, bend over, take your punishment and (if you like it) ask for more. but i digress. anywho. the reason you are really here, the next foray into the exciting world of my 52 new things. alas, this week, not so exciting. but still new. for the double duece of my 52 new things, i purchased my first pair of chucks! (see what i did there with the fact that twenty-two is two twos and then shoes also come in twos? high-larious!)

this year marked the 100th anniversary of converse making shoes, most famously-- the all star.

in 1918 a high school basketball star named chuck taylor started wearing the fledgling companies canvas sneaker. three years later, converse hired taylor and he became an ace salesman. the iconic "chuck taylor" converse all-stars have a style that has remained virtually unchanged since the first sneaker was produced in 1912. i first remember chucks in the 1978 nostalgia soaked movie grease. bit o' trivia for you: the jock who took sandy out on a date after danny had been such a jerk was none other than lorenzo lamas. yes, that lorenzo lamas.

these shoes have been worn by the ultra cool (james dean apparently loved his chucks) and those trying to be cool (hilary duff? really?) but never by me. so i got a pair. and wouldn't you know it, they gave me a blister. and even though it seems like every pair of shoes i own is brown, i still got these.

ps: just some eye candy for the ladies (and 10% of you men), a little gyllenhaal converse love...

twenty-first new thing...

and here we are. finally. this will be short and sweet and to the point. for this installment of the 52 new things, i gave up my memorial day holiday and sat bleary-eyed in front of the cathode-rayed light emitting from the screen of my laptop for 7 and a half hours and did nothing but write. write until my fingers bled. write until i could write no more. researching blog posts. finding the most insightful link. racking my brain for something funny to say. cursing my own laziness for letting it get this out of hand. and praying every moment for it to be over. and here we are. so, enjoy.

for my twenty-first new thing, i caught up on all my blogging for this grand adventure. i wrote ten blog posts in one day. happy now, kevin?

and now i have to figure out what to do next. dammit!