Two for One Posting

I met my friend Carl, from Sacramento, at the FTE conference last summer in Chicago. He is constantly checking Air-Fare.com for cheap flights, so he can accumulate miles to take international trips sitting in first class and not having paid for the high priced ticket itself. He invited me to join him on a quick overnight jaunt to Washington, DC to go and visit the new National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian, which is located right near Dulles Airport. He and I were going to both leave Sacramento at around 12:15PM Friday and arrive into Dulles late Friday evening. See the museum Saturday morning and then fly back to Sacramento that evening. The fact that we were flying on separate flights is key.

Side note: What I really wanted to see at the museum was the Dash-80, or what became known as the Boeing 707. It was the commercial aircraft that revolutionized air transport and ushered us into the modern aviation age. That original aircraft, pictured below is housed at the museum.

The original Boeing 360-80, aka the Dash-80, aka the Boeing 707

You could probably say that this plane is the reason I am in the place I am today. It's launch brought the Boeing Company to the fore of commercial aviation, this is the corporation that both my parents worked until their retirement. It's stock increaed in value over three decades as well as split numerous times and left me in the enviable position of leaving college with no debt, allowing me to choose teaching as a profession and not having to worry about making money in a more lucrative profession. I guess it all started with the Dash-80.

Returning to our story. I left San Francisco at 845AM, giving myself two and a half hours to get to the airport. The trip should take no more than an hour and fourty five minutes. Who would have predicted that a torrential storm would track me from SF to Sacramento and also at times include tornado warnings. The traffic was hellacious. At one point, I called Carl and left him a message telling that I might not make my flight. I roll into the airport and go to check in and my reservation had been cancelled. Apparently, Carl had thought since I wasn't going to make the flight, that he would do me the favor of canceling my reservation and therefore be able to use the money I paid towards the ticket as credit instead of just losing it. Oops. So, I hung out with Carl all afternoon and that evening returned to San Francisco and got a bonus night with S&M, the guy I'm dating. Shall we say boyfriend?

For those of you who have read this far, yes, I am officially announcing that I am dating a great guy who will for now be code named S&M, it's an inside joke between the two of us. You will find out more as time progresses as I allow myself to be more comfortable with all of this and make sure that I don't do something stupid to mess it all up. So far so good.

The quotes keep pouring in

I'm online chatting and one of my students messages me to rub it in my face that he's in Italy and I'm not. Here is a part of the exchange....

laxdude82504 (11:44:34 AM): i'm in italy and you're not
echensf (11:45:03 AM): you're also in 9th grade, have 3 years of high school, 4 years of college all ahead of you, think of all that homework
laxdude82504 (11:45:13 AM): wow, you're an ass sometimes :D

If you want to know how I treat my students (and how they treat me back), here is a classic example. And Sam M., if you are reading this, remember what everyone's homework assignment it. If you want me to tone it down when you get back, you better start grovelling, a lot. Or, something expensive from Italy will also suffice.

Understatement of the day...

"This kid is taking up more time that I thought it would."

-Brian S on 4/7/05 in reference to his
newly born daughter Cora born 12/11/04"

Spring Cleaning

Before


After


So, this was a major project I've been dreading now DONE. Thank the lord for somehow giving me the motivation to attack the clean-up and organization of my office. You see the shredder? I put her to work HARD. It's interesting how during my shredding time I would ebb and flow between "oooh, I should keep this just in case" to "shred it, shred it, you don't need it".

Five new fans of Klaus Teuber

After I purchased the Teuber games at the HRS auction, I dashed an email to the friends here in the Bay Area who I knew played the games or would be interested in playing "Settlers of Catan". The response was positive and so nine of us played two separate games of Settlers were played. Here at table #1 we have:

(l to r) Thomas, Scott, Michael and Teresa

Here at table #2 (playing at a table brought into the kitchen) the particpants were:

(l to r) Hans, Larry, Carl and Dave (who looks nothing like this picture of him though)

The winners of the games were Michael and Carl. Nonetheless, all had a great time.

For the record: Carl's presence this night was by virtue of a favor swapping between his wife, Shahana and I. Shahana's father owns an athletic club in Orinda and twice a year they host a sprint triathlon and need volunteers to man the registration table the serve as a timekeeper. Therefore Shahana asked me to be a volunteer and payment for my services this morning at 745AM (with losing an hour to daylight savings time, so essentially being in Orinda by 645AM) she had to let Carl join us for game night. We're even