September 2006 Edition
today is


Useless Facts of the Day. Click Here to check it out. Brought to you by Barry Bolduc.

09/23/06

Got this from Danny this morning :

An old Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son & described his predicament.

Dear Vincent, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me. Love, Dad

A few days later he received this letter from his son.

Dear Dad, Don't dig up that garden. That's where I buried the BODIES. Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents & local police arrived & dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man & left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad, Go ahead & plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under the circumstances. I hope it helped. Love, Vinnie

09/20/06

Happy Anniversary Lisa & Jim!

09/18/06

Lunch at "the school formerly known as Central High".

This was found in the vending machine in the front hall at Granite Alternative. Some kid must have stuck it in there after they pulled out their sandwich, and it cost the Vice-Principal $1.50 just to pull it out and throw it away. Datsa one expensive smoke.....

From Lisa, the friend :

Okay, if you haven't already, go to www.cafepress.com and search under "polygamy." Be prepared to laugh your guts out at the selection of stuff.

My personal favorites are:

Polygamy: it's not just for Mormons anymore

Saturday at the Walmart

Keep marriage Biblical?

I've been in Purgatory.

Maybe they're funnier for people like me with a polygamist background (g-g-gramps had 5 wives and 32 kids) and a horror of the way it's still viewed in non-fundamentalist Mormondom (not legal, but otherwise acceptable.. shudder) and an intrigue in the way it was originally practiced by Joseph Smith (did you know that most of his wives were already married to other men when he married them? this seems a lot more fair to me. everybody gets more fun that way. hey, if someone's gonna play around, then everyone should get equal opportunities.)

Anyway, I'm considering the irony of buying thong underwear that says "I support polygamy." cheers, Lisa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some of the favorites I found there, with my all time favorite at the bottom.......

 

09/16/06

Well, the average age of 4-wheeled vehicle at my house has now become 29 years old. Pam's (she's the ex-teacher who is now down in Vegas becoming a pharmacist) 1973 MGB has spent the last few years out in the weather, under a worn out tarp. In a moment of pity for it's poor British Sportster soul, I offered to house it in my garage. Kind of on the "Danny's Motorcycle" plan - she's going to register it the beginning of next year and then I get to drive it whenever I want. Cool. More classics in my garage. But I'll tell ya, it was no fun driving it home in the rain. I started out with the roof down, because it wasn't raining all that bad. Unlike the LTD, which I've also had to drive in the rain, the windshield is so short that the rain was getting in my eyes. And wipers don't get your glasses either. So, I put the roof up, but don't latch it because it's a pain in the butt, I'm almost home and it's all side streets anyway, and there's water dripping in from the driver's side corner. But don't worry Pam, it didn't drench the car, it all ended up on my leg. So I get home, my left leg is so wet I might as well have been swimming, my glasses are all spotted and there's water in my eyes. Fun stuff. But I did get it there all safe and sound, no foul, no penalty.
Alex, Danny, Josh and I went out to the motorcycle races at Larry H. Millers atrocity, uh, I mean track, out in Tooele, or maybe it was Grantsville, but whatever, this evening. We had a really great time tonight, even though the races were over by the time we made it out there. Alex has some friends that rented a spot in the RV park right over the fence from the race track. Had a hell of a time finding the spot, that place is huge. We came up to the front gate and asked where the RV parking was and the guy just pointed forward and said "I'll open the gate for you". After cruising around the pit area where all the racers were parked, and even almost getting up the guts to drive Danny's Jeep right onto the race track, we found the back way to the RV park. Would have been a great view if they'd still been racing. But they brought a bunch of their own classic motorcycles. An olt Triumph, an old Norton and an old Harley Hammerhead. Danny, Alex and I got to ride the Triumph, and Josh even got to ride with us. He loved it, rode once with Danny and then every time Danny, Alex or I went out he asked to go with. It was a blast. Anyway, of you want to see the pictures, Click Here. Click on a picture and you'll get the full sized one for downloading. (Remember, if you download it and make any money off it, you owe me, they're copyrighted).
More video clips from the old site have returned. Click Here to check them out. Oh, yeah, and be sure to check out the "Tribute to Utah", it's good.

09/15/06

Tribute to Utah : A video song about towns in Utah. Personally, I think it's pretty hilarious. Click Here.
The Bathtub Test

It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started. During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

DID YOU PASS, OR DO YOU WANT THE BED NEXT TO MINE?

5 Great lessons and Top 10 Things..... Click Here

09/10/06

Happy Birthday Dylan!

Just have to say - Obladi, LMAO. That was a great story, I wish I'd been there. And a hearty "way-to-go" to Davies, Stock and Pickett. Doris, I didn't know you were Jewish, although I knew Christian was Christian, but I still don't see what religion has to do with self-starters. On the other hand, I guess you could say that Michelle is an agnostic in this case. Anyways, two thumbs up.

I know some of you are wondering what this is all about, I'd post the whole story here but I haven't gotten clearance from all the parties involved, and it's one of those teacher stories that I think most of you would go "huh?" to anyways. Sorry........

09/09/06

Oops. Good concept, bad delivery. We were at faculty meeting doing the question & answer thing and one of the teachers asked what was up with the "Hell Assembly". Someone explained that we were having the "Hello" assembly and then there was discussion about when it was and especially where it was going to be since a lot of the school is closed down, like the building the auditorium is in. I'd forgotten about the little Hell v. Hello mistake until I was heading up the stairs to my room, saw this poster the kids had made and all of a sudden realized what and how the mistake was made. Funny stuff. Reminded me of the time at Brockbank when the kids were collecting pennies for the 9-11 relief and made a sign that said they were collecting "Pennis for 9-11".

09/06/06

Happy Birthday Julia!

09/05/06

How to know tell your neighbor hates you & Relativity.

09/04/06

Spent the morning cleaning up the back yard. Put a new cover on the car-tent next tot eh garage (thanks to Alex, took it from over his old truck). Disassembled everything back there so I could get some more pictures of it for e-Bay. (Alex, click here to see the pictures, hopefully these are better than the ones with it under the tent). Only problem is that now I have to take another trip to the dump with the old dryer, water heater and all the metal poles from the tent. Fun stuff.
Just re-added 2 videos : Bad Santa and More Men.
Sugarhood. Right across the street from my house they set up their living room out on the curb. Amy from Chevron was over and we were going to get a couple of 2x4's and mount the picture on them right behind the couch, but somebody came and got it and the chair (leaving the couch) before we could actually decide we were really going to do it. But you have to admit it woulda been funny.......

09/03/06

The picture I just put as the background is of the mountains on the east side of the city, and it was taken in the latter part of August. Those of you who know Salt Lake can see from them how wet a summer we've had. Usually long before this time of year all the green is gone, and all there is are shades of brown. I tried to find a comparison picture, but I couldn't. So you'll just have to take my word for it. Or not.

What a week. My second week as STS, first week as a High School teacher. Although it was incredibly tiring, it was a lot of fun. I really like the tech side of things, I've learned an incredible amount about networking, imaging computers and (the least fun part) inventory. Larry down at the district had me going through the school again looking at computers. He had a list of specific computers, all the same model fortunately, that I was looking for, serial #'s and all. Stan, another teacher, helped me this time, and we made it out into the other buildings this time. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things you can find hidden in little corners in a 100 year old building. We found an old Atari game station, the kind that looks like it takes video tapes for the games. We still need to find the paddles and a game or two, but when we do it'll be e-Bay heaven. There were of course old vinyl turntables and typewriters (one was a green IBM Selectric, like mom's except without the automatic erase button) and even a Macintosh LC or 2.

Anyway, back to the tech thing. It's amazing how quickly teachers will send in a work order, without even checking simple things. I've had computers that wouldn't work (power cord wasn't plugged in all the way), computer that worked, but wouldn't get the network (network cord was plugged into the computer and network cord was plugged into the wall, they just weren't the same cord) and various other simple problems. The beauty of it is I go in there, fiddle around with it for a couple of minutes and leave them happy and with the impression I'm a genius. Of course I don't tell them that it was a simple problem they could have fixed themselves, gotta keep up the techie mystique. And so far, nobody's asked anyway.

I think I've come to the conclusion that High School kids aren't all that different from Junior High kids. Except for a couple of things. The kids that really don't want to be there, aren't. The kids that are there want to get their diploma, for whatever reason, and understand that they have to play the game to get it. And their humor is immature in a more mature way, they get sarcasm. One kid had only two lines of notes on his paper and when I came over and said "Don't hurt yourself taking notes there", instead of going "what?", he simply flipped backwards through his notebook and showed me that he really was taking notes. End of story. And when I had to take 15 minutes to get some kids onto the network that weren't on the list, the rest of the class worked on what I gave them and then just sat around and talked. I didn't have to stop what I was doing to tell anyone to quit running around the room, don't bang the mouse on the table, pick up all the paper you shredded and threw on the floor and pull that pencil out of your neighbor's arm. They also make connections, although they aren't always right. We were talking about computer chips, how the circuits are surrounded by silicon, hence the name silicon chips. It mentioned that silicon is made out of melted sand and I asked what else they knew of that was made out of melted sand. Confusing silicon with silicone, one girl blurts out "fake boobs". (The correct answer was glass). There's the immaturity. The maturity was that everyone laughed for a minute and then we continued, leaving it behind. It didn't take 15 minutes to get the class back to the lecture. But other than those few things, which do make a big difference, I ran my classroom pretty much the same as I did in Jr. High, and the kids responded pretty much the same.

Now it's time to go get Danny's compressor so I can switch the tires on the trucks...........

08/30/06

Got this in an e-Mail from my Granite Park Work-wife and thought it was pretty funny,

Once upon a time, a girl asked a guy, "Will you marry me?" The guy said "No" and the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, stayed skinny, and was never farted on.

The end.

08/29/06

From Danny : Black & Gus or Obviously not a Texan, the video. Click Here