Still Out of Focus

Bah!

Tonight I'm playing with the newsmaps.

http://newsmap.jp/

You can choose the topics that you want, and if you scroll over the headline, it gives you a summary of the story. This is the same as a wordle, except with headlines.

Thank me later.

News of the Weird, Kevetching About Lonely Planet, and Being Appreciated

1. News of the weird: a zombie outbreak has affected my middle school. No, I don't mean the normal designation of young teenagers as "zombies." This time, the students are literally writing a "z" on their neighbor's arm, and then saying that they are a zombie. I learned about this two days ago, when a student asked if they could put a "z" on my arm and make me a zombie. Um...no. But I am intrigued by this situation. I wonder how it started, how quickly it has spread, and whether anyone is doing any research or keeping statistics on it. In the future, I might make this an actual classroom activity. "If you have a 'z' at the top of your paper, congratulations, you are now a zombie! I am your zombie overlord. Your mission is to infect the entire school building. Each day I will give you ten z papers. Give them out to whomever you contact. Give me a full report tomorrow and receive ten more z papers." Then we see how long the experiment takes, and we graph the results. I can hear the students now: "Ugghhh! We already did this, it's so last year. And we did it ourselves and we didn't have to make a graph." Then I will claim it is a longitudinal study. Just for fun.

2. The article that I posted earlier on Facebook: "Discover Life in the Nevada Desert." When I saw the link to this Lonely Planet article in my twitter feed, I expected to see a piece on the Extraterrestrial Highway, Beatty, the entrance to Death Valley, or similar. But no, it's about Las Vegas. It talks about how Las Vegas is "an artificial playground" where "tourists outnumber visitors 20 to 1" and predicts that our entire water supply will be used up by 2021. Yeah, we already knew that.

Then it talks about the Springs Preserve. I have been a fan of the Springs Preserve for quite some time. I even posted photos of it to the dead blog on July 1, 2007. That's how long I've been a fan. I attended a teacher appreciation event there in 2011 and I haven't been back since. I highly recommend the flash flood exhibit the article mentions.

So, the article is pretty cool, except that they haven't told you the price. I consider it my civic duty to correct this oversight. Of course, the last time I went there was free because I was being appreciated. You can also see that I get a hefty discount for being outnumbered 20 to 1. This is one reason why the title of the Lonely Planet article is misleading. You cannot discover life in the Nevada desert without knowing about the hidden menu.

After they don't tell you how much you'll pay to get in, Lonely Planet goes on to close their article with a list of blatant falsehoods. It says that there are no other green spaces in Las Vegas. The LVNV Parks and Recreation park finder page lists at least 68 parks, not including the dog parks, skate parks, golf courses, or state parks, and also not including North Las Vegas or Henderson. Also not including the 50 miles of trails like the one on which I took the photo seen here, which has a hunk of the Stardust (I saw that place implode!) at the Lamb Wayside trailhead, and these markers every 1/4 mile of the trail.

Oops, it's sideways. It says, "Neon to Nature," and that's my left foot there on the bottom right. 

The very last thing that the article says about town is...ride the Monorail. This is why the people who write these articles should be residents with no vested interest in any given businesses because DO NOT RIDE THE MONORAIL! It crashes. It's also no good for getting anywhere unless the only place you plan to go is someplace between the MGM Grand and the former-Sahara. (Oh for another implosion! But no, the Sahara is being renovated. Darn the stupid tanked economy and the responsible repurposing of buildings!) The Monorail doesn't go anywhere at all near the Springs Preserve. Boo, Lonely Planet. Boo. 

I mentioned that long-ago teacher appreciation dinner at the Springs Preserve. Even now, I still recall the purple lettuce and how delicious it was. Speaking of being appreciated, I would like to share with you this year's piece de resistance, Popsicle Stick Ms. Hendrix. The beginning art student who made this masterpiece  is an anonymous 6th grader who has likely never seen me. They totally nailed it: notice the messy orangeish-red hair, the googly eyes, the shocked O of a mouth, and my favorite blue jacket! I raved about Popsicle Stick Ms. Hendrix for about 5 minutes with each of my classes. The note, if you can read it, was from one of my 8th graders. 

It says, "Thank you for making geography worth learning. It's really boring but you seem to make it a little less boring haha. -Unknown :)"

These were not the only appreciations I received this year, but they were the ones that made my day. 

Today's Valuable Safety Tip

brought to you courtesy of the company that sends posters to science teachers:

That's it. That's all I've got. However, I dare say it's enough. 

Enjoy your Tuesday night, my two loyal readers! 

Water, Water Everywhere

It's the question that's on everyone's mind, but few have the courage to ask it: how much water can a person safely drink before hyponatremia sets in? I have the answer. I got it from Scientific American. I was inspired to ask the internet this question because even though the past two days have been a perfect and cool 75 here in the Mojave, with enough rainfall to make weeding the patio easier than it normally is, I know what's coming. We got a taste of the 100-degree heat about a week ago, so I remembered this image I ripped off from Pinterest (which means WHO KNOWS where it came from), and I started making vitamin water.



Doesn't that raspberry lime one look good? I thought so, too. The pineapple mint looks disgusting if you ask me, and I like both pineapples and mint, but I won't be trying that one. What happened when I went to Fresh and Easy, however, was that raspberries were expensive and blackberries were cheap. Fresh and Easy also didn't have any sage. So I made Blackberry Lime, considering that none of the homemade vitamin water websites tell you exactly what "vitamins" you are getting from your diluted fruit water. There linked for your convenience is a list of combinations you make at home, from a blog that uses this very same platform.

I've been downing an average of 64 oz per day, and according to the aforementioned magazine, you can safely consume 1,000 ml or 32 oz per hour and not come down with hyponatremia. Now you know.

The Scientific American webpage has a tab at the top for citizen science, which you know that I'm into because science is cool and the internet makes it easy to participate in data collection projects. Current projects include a marine debris tracker app that you can download and send data when you see debris on beaches, a museum transcription project that I was hesitant to learn more about because to learn about it you had to actually do it, and even a project that involves uploading photos of roadkill to UC Davis!

I encourage participation in this kind of stuff.

It now occurs to me that this whole post is dedicated to a set of #firstworldproblems. That's ok, though, I think. Most of my 3 readers live here in the 1st world as well.

Well, unless something drastic happens, my next post is likely to be just a photo. Until then...have a great time collecting data while sipping your delicious fruited waters!

o_O

Among the Yiddish words commonly used in American English, Miss Gokey's favorite is "kevetch." We were bantering back and forth today about the fact that Carl Azuz was lookin' good for his broadcast, and this word came up again.

This post is not kevetching, it's fishing for compliments.

6 a.m. Facebook mobile app allows me to receive, but not post, messages and status updates
7 a.m. Arrival to school
7:30 a.m. Structured teacher planning meeting
8 a.m. Advisory goal-setting
9 a.m.-12:20 "Why is Africa the Way it is Today?"
12:20-12:40 Lunch
12:40-2:16 more "Why is Africa the Way it is Today?"
2:16-2:41 o_O
2:41-6:42 Promethean training (including transport)

And now it is 6:42 and that's enough kevetching.

OH, and also 23 hours ago, I had my very first ever skype call. Thank you, Amanda Otradovec.

So you can see that because I am a total beast, I have survived this very challenging day, including a few gems left unmentioned in my itinerary, such as a seemingly-endless 4-minute conversation with a certain child whose good side it pays me to stay on. That's horrible grammar, but if you have followed my career this year, you know exactly what I mean.

The purpose of this page is to bring you skills that you will need and use. Therefore I will share with you, if you care to read onward, the final crowning achievement of my day: How to Effectively Insert Containers in a Flipchart Page.

Because I am going to spend some time with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ansel Adams to reaffirm my faith in all things good, I will give you these skills via a web link you could easily find yourself if you were inclined to google the above concept. Sadly, the most useful video of the several I've reviewed so you don't have to is Australian, and proudly waves their flag to prove it.

Before pasting the link, I would like to express my displeasure with my 2nd-least-favorite word after "just," which is, "simply." I encountered the demon word "simply" several times while setting up the skype equipment.

Ok, now I'm really finished with kevetching for the day.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=how+to+insert+containers+in+a+flipchart&view=detail&mid=D9D9DB829C91CE1B7484D9D9DB829C91CE1B7484&first=0&FORM=NVPFVR&qpvt=how+to+insert+containers+in+a+flipchart

A Week and a Half Later...Or, The "Cake"

Wow! Time flies when your internet browser, where your blogging page taunts you every time you log into it, cannibalizes itself and you are no longer faced with the Blogger logo because you now use GoogleChrome. Are you with me so far?

Time also flies when you accidentally assume that you told all twelve of your readers (but now you're down to 2 readers because you deprived the readers of your brilliance for 1.5 weeks) about the "cake" already, because you told them in your mind. Then crazy (non-blog-related) things happen like you guard the cash box for the multicultural club's talent show, you learn that someone died, the cops show up, there's a windstorm, and then you have to log 4 hours of at-home Promethean lesson design, and then...

According to the French proverb, "He who makes excuses accuses himself." I also found a good Aldous Huxley quote that goes like this: "Several excuses are always less convincing than one."

This will be my last post about the sometimes-brilliant, sometimes-dingbatty Emily Thacker. It is a call to action and a cry for help. You see, when I was in college, I attempted to make a souffle. It came out of the oven more a cracker than a souffle.

In The Vinegar Book, Emily Thacker includes recipes for flavored vinegars, stuffed peppers, and one for something called, "Cherry-Pineapple Vinegar Cake," which goes a little something like this:
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon soda
3/4 lb. flour
3/4 c. butter
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp allspice
1/2 lb. candied cherries
1/2 lb. candied pineapple

Here are the directions, right?
"Stir the vinegar into the milk, add the soda and stir briskly. Cream butter, sugar, and flour together and add the fruit and allspice. Fold in the milk and beat well. Bake in well greased pan at 350 for 1 hour."

I made the mistake of following these directions in the order that they were printed.

I also made the mistake of attempting the stirring-soda-into-buttermilk (because everybody knows that milk+vinegar=homemade buttermilk) step...in a cereal bowl. Here's what happened:

*stir*stir*stir*
LARGE WHITECAP OF FROTHY FOAM PROPAGATES QUICKLY FROM CEREAL BOWL.
Me: AAAAAAARGH! [runs to the cabinet, pulls out LARGE mixing bowl, pours in fluffy goodness.]

Lalalala butter+sugar+flour *mix*mix*mix*

+fruit
+spices

Then, I look at the formerly-fluffy-frothy buttermilk mixture, and it's liquid. It was not at all fluffy or frothy anymore. I suspected that my "cake" would fail when the directions said "fold," but I no longer had anything to fold, so I poured.

Then I beat it like it was the proverbial redheaded stepchild.

I'm just not good at folding ingredients into other ingredients.

Result: cherry-pineapple-vinegar cracker.

Fail.

PLEASE try this at home. But save the whitecap step for last. And then tell me what happened. In the meantime, I will look around for some blog fodder for you for next time.

And Another Thing...

In my last post I told you about Emily Thacker's The Vinegar Book. While I was checking on the hyperlink for it, I came across another book by the same author: The Magic of Hydrogen Peroxide.

This was of interest to me due to the recent purchase at my local CVS of (drum roll) hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle! WooHoo!

I therefore had The Magic of Hydrogen Peroxide whispernetted into my Kindle (what's this? Technology? Yeah, I use it...)

Here is what I gleaned from the booklet and thought might be of interest to my readers:

We all know that H.P. is miraculous for use on cuts and scrapes, but DID YOU KNOW that it must be used in moderation or it might actually slow the healing process by reversing blood flow to the capillaries? That's right...

Ms. Thacker recommends HP for use in the dishwasher, to wash vegetables, and in a tooth-whitening paste. A soak in a mix of one cup HP added to a foot path can also apparently cure stinky feet if done a couple of times a week.

She lists the products HP can replace: bleach, tub and shower cleaner, laundry pretreater, tile and grout cleaner, oven cleaner, antibacterial treater, antimicrobal sprays, toilet bowl cleaner, and window cleaner.

Apparently HP, when diluted with water, can help tomato plants succeed, and it can fluff up droopy house plants.

However.

Peroxide is also used as an ingredient in military fuels. Therefore, one must never. Ever. Drink it.

Unless of course commanded to do so by a trusted medical professional.

There you have it. Another item for your kit. May it serve you well.