Oh MAN, Where Art Thou?

Long time no MAN. I just haven't felt like blogging or even visiting my blog friend's sites. I think I'll look to renew my passion for blogging after the new year. I'll leave you with a few updates.

1. My heart: Went for a consultation last Wedneday and the heart specialist's EKG confirms that I've got some quirk with my heartbeat. Could have been born that way, something could have happened along the way. I go back the 8th-9th for major tests.

2. Christmas: My church is not having a Christmas Eve service. We did something on Sunday so we do not have plans tonight. I look to allow the kids to open ONE gift tonight to play with since after we open gifts tomorrow we will head out for St. Louis. Merry Christmas.

3. St. Louis: Will be there 25th-5th. The wife is flying back on the 2nd since she has work commitments the 3rd and 4th.

4. 2008: Reduce debt, recommit to losing weight, maybe buy a Jeep(new or used), continue to look into whether or not we really want to move back to St. Louis(Minman is shaking his head right now say, "What a big tease."

Merry Christmas and have a blessed New Year!

Day Off

Actually stayed home most of the day today. Our church was doing our 2nd Saturday Outreach today, but participating would have blocked about between 6-8 hours of my day as the group was traveling about 70 miles away to help another church plant get started. I had many reasons(some might say excuses) for not going.

1. I'm just tired. Seems like since basketball season started I've had something just about every night of the week.
2. My house has been neglected. I can't even park in my own 2 car garage. It has become a dumping ground.
3. I have 2 kids. I couldn't imagine taking a 3 an 6 year old on an hour plus drive. Then while there try to entertain them. Then drive back. They'd probably fall asleep on the way back IF we didn't ride with anyone.
4. COST. If I had to drive myself there would be no way I could cough up $70 in the amount of gas that would need to be bought.
5. I have 2 kids. If I went by myself I would be away from my family a second Saturday in a row. Last weekend I worked a basketball tournament.

That said I slept in til about 8:30 this morning. My wife and I cleaned the garage and turned into a mini basketball court for my son and now both kids can play and ride their bikes in the garage. I also spent about an hour tweaking my bible lesson for tomorrow. I took an hour long nap. Dropped stuff off at the Goodwill. Worked out. I was going to try and bust the 24 minute mark for 2 miles, but quickly pooped out and just made sure I got it in under 30 minutes. I've had to heavy calorie nights in a row and I think it caught up with me.

Tonight I'll probably go and see a movie.

Impotent

Really no matter where you work you could always keep a journal of what has been said and possibly write a book. The following are things I've heard said by elementary aged kids the 10 years I've taught, or someone else reported it said.

1. While researching the planet Uranus(sounded 'yoor uh nus')
Student: "Hey, I'm looking at pictures of your anus." So it sounded.
Also on one students poster this child wrote, "Hearing the name makes people laugh..."

2. Doing the "it" word family my daughter threw in "shit".
Teacher: "not in this family....."
A few kids later someone offered "tit"
Teacher: "No, next word."
A few kids later a kid says, "Clit, my friend is named Clit."
Teacher: "I think that is Clint, let me spell it for you on the board...."C L I N T."

3. First grade doing the "ell" family:
A kid offers up "hell" and the teacher acts like it is not a word and the child says, "Yes it is, as in 'hell yeah'.

4. We researched fossil fuels this week and one student typed up the top 10 things about petroleum. This student then made a poster and only had the top 9 reasons, but the printed out research notes had a number 10 and it said, "Each year 84 million burglars are impotent." Imagine my curiosity when I only saw #10 on my printer. I thought about it and finally noticed a computer in my room was on. When I went to log it off I saw a website that said we import 84 million? or billion? barrels of petroleum each year. It SHOULD have read "Each year 84 million BARRELS are IMPORTED. Think teaching spelling isn't impotent? I mean important.

On a side note I had a personal best on the treadmill: 2 miles=24 minutes 10 seconds.

Tree Shopping

Once again I worked out a deal to get a "free" Christmas tree. Friends from my former church run a tree lot real close to my house and I happen to be his son's teacher for the 2nd year in a row. Last year we went with an 8 foot Nobler fir, which tonight I was informed was the Cadillac of trees. The have a huge one that is marked at $499. WOW! The tree last year was marked $129 and I traded out 3 auto details, one of which I still owe.

Tonight we bundled up the kids as it is a bit chilly here. My wife was wanting a taller tree since we have 12+ foot ceilings so we ended up sellecting the entry level Douglas Fir and it is near 9 feet tall and was marked $79. That will cost me 2 details.

Before we had this deal we usually bought a 6 foot cheapy tree from major home improvement stores in the area and would budget about $40. I'm told thru my current hook up that these trees are cut WAAAAY in advance and usually don't stay "fresh" as long. Maybe.

My best tree experience came in Carthage MO in 2001 when we went to a tree farm. We walked the grounds, selected and cut down our own tree. Boy was it a fatty. It took up half of our small dining room and I had to cut off branches just to get it outside after it had dried up.

Tomorrow night's task is decorating it. My wife will do that while I announce basketball!

Crank Dat Soulja boy

I announce different sporting events for a local high school team and often get my warm up music from students. One of my requirements is that I preview listen to them in advance. The main thing I look for it blatant profanity. If there is cuss words in it I won't play it. From there it becomes gray in many areas. The "clean" versions of songs have the words bleeped out, but you can clearly hear, "mother _____ er" and to me that is just as bad. Then there are a few rap songs where the "N" word is bleeped out. Also the scene in many of these songs is the about what goes on in "da club." Then my least favorite is the hidden sexual innuendos in songs.

I researched "soulja boy-crank dat" after hearing it on someone else's cd. It had a great beat to it and it sounded perfect for basketball warm ups. I copied this song and have played it at about 3 basketball games and the kids go wild. Well, yesterday I went to www.urbandictionary.com and looked up what "superman dat hoe" meant. It was extremely vulgar and nasty. I was sick to my stomach.

I also dropped a song that Trick Daddy song "Lets Go" where he samples an Ozzy Ozbourne song. I've had this one in my collection for a while. The song starts out, "There's a lot of F "N's" in the club tonight....." The real lyrics have the F and N word probably about 50 times. The song I have is edited and you can't really pick up on it. Although the song talks about drug dealing and carrying guns.

If anyone has some decent action songs they can recommend or some good warm up songs without words I'd really appreciate it.

The sad thing is I would probably get complaints if I played a Christian song. I also found out the "Crank Dat-Soulja boy" is played on Radio Disney. SICK, SICK, SICK.

Got to go old school I guess!