2013 in Review

I just skimmed through my blog titled 2012: A Year in Review and saw some of my plans for 2013. Here they were:

-Atlantic City for 2 nights, 3 days during my February vacation.
-Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio in late June or Early July
-7-day cruise to Port Canaveral, Nassau, and Freeport in August
-LESS trips to Turning Stone
-More trips to the gym and hopefully less food consumed overall...
-More focus on reading, writing, and being productive at nights after work
-My grocery store book will be published sometime this year
-Pushing harder than ever to get a teaching job anywhere
-To live life without thinking about, "What if I did (such and such) differently?"

I did go to Atlantic City and had an amazing time. I did not go to Cedar Point because instead I went to North Carolina for a job fair and was unsuccessful in getting a job in that part of North Carolina. I went on my 7 day cruise and had an incredible time as always. According to my records, I went to Turning Stone 8 times in 2012 and 7 times this year. Yay, I was successful in going to Turning Stone less this year, haha. I was really good about going to the gym this year. I went three times a week very often with the exception of summer where I never went but instead I played a lot of tennis. Unfortunately, I consumed a lot of food. However, I am about 6 pounds lighter this year at this time than I was last year at this time. I published my grocery store book in February and finished writing my 3rd "The Teacher That..." book last month. I will have that out some time in 2014. I definitely pushed myself harder than ever to get a teaching job and was successful on December 11. Yes, I got that job in a completely different state than New York. Because of that, I definitely don't have to live my life thinking, What if I didn't accept that job? or What if I didn't see the Facebook post from my friend and email my resume to the principal? 2013 was a pretty good year overall. I really haven't thought about my goals for 2014. I finally have my teaching job and will start on January 21. That was always my goal since 6th grade. I have no idea if I'll stay in North Carolina or look for teaching jobs in New York for next school year. I can definitely see me loving North Carolina. I'll take each day one day at a time and see what happens with 2014. Keep shooting for your dreams and take risks. You will never know unless you try!

Frost on Inside of Car

Nothing is more annoying than getting frost on the inside of your car windows. In the cold, it's normal to get frost on the outside of the windows. It's not normal to get it on the inside. It happens to my car all of the time. It's impossible to get off. You can't scrape it off because it doesn't work very well at the awkward angle you are trying to get it off in. When you put the defroster on, it gets the ice off from the outside only. Once it gets warmer out during the day, I can see the frost from the inside of my back window melting. It turns into water inside my car. I take a towel and dry it off. I have no idea how to prevent frost from happening on the inside. Good thing the low temperature won't be -9° later this week. Oh wait... Have I mentioned I can't wait to move to North Carolina?

Last Day

Today was my last day working at the grocery store! I hope it's my last day ever. Unfortunately, I can't say that for sure though because I've seen so many people quit that store and then come back. I do not want to pull a Brett Favre or Michael Jordan and retire and come back and retire and come back. I can't tell you how good of a feeling it was to swipe my card to punch out for the last time at 12 today. Relief was the first emotion. I'm sure the reality of not working at the grocery store won't hit until next Sunday when I don't get up at 6:25AM to go to the store to work. Then it will hit again when I'm in North Carolina doing nothing on Sundays. I can't believe I worked there for 10 and a half years! It was the first job I ever had. I'm so glad it's over with!

Racino

I went to the Racino that's about 25 minutes from me for the second time ever yesterday. The first time I went was on my 18th birthday. They carded my then 20 year old brother but not me. We found that hilarious. I broke exactly even yesterday. The Racino only has slot machines. I'm not into slots at all. It's too boring for me and is 100% luck. I much prefer poker and other table games. That's why I don't go to the Racino. Naturally they are trying to get that to be a full casino now that I'm leaving the state! Oh well.

Put it on my Tab

I have a new phrase that I will probably say a lot between now and the time I move. "Put it on my tab." My credit card is going to get quite a workout. I am moving to North Carolina with absolutely nothing besides my clothes. When I get down to North Carolina, I have to buy furniture, pots and pans, silverware, food, and everything under the sun. It's going to be very expensive. I just got my credit card bill today and cried. It accounted for two separate flights to North Carolina and my round trip flight to Las Vegas that I already cancelled. I'm not getting that money back. I only have a credit to use on Southwest for a future flight. I went shopping today and bought a few things and just added it to my tab. I bought stuff yesterday and my mom used her credit card because this place wouldn't take Visa cards. How weird is that? I cringe to think about what my credit card bill is going to be next month. I gotta do what I gotta do. I'll just keep putting everything on my tab.

iPhone 5S

I have officially moved up in the world. After having my iPhone 3GS for 3 and a half years, yes you read that correctly, I am now the proud new owner of an iPhone 5S. I can finally say I have the newest piece of technology. My Macbook Pro is well over 4 years old and only running Snow Leopard. My Kindle is I think 2 years old. I don't typically care to have the latest and greatest invention. This phone will probably be obsolete in September when the iPhone 6 comes out but that's okay with me. The only reason I have the 5S now is because when I was hired to teach in North Carolina, my moms exact words were, "I'm making you get an iPhone 5S now that you have a job in North Carolina." Okay mom, twist my arm. Her logic, as always, makes no sense. Obviously she made me pay for it. Whatever. The point is that I finally have a new phone after having my old one for 3 and a half years.

Prime Rib

Every Christmas we go over to my aunts house and have dinner. Every year we have prime rib and twice baked potatoes. We typically have a ziti like pasta with sausage and meatballs dish too. I don't think I've had better prime rib than I had today. It was so flavorful! The twice baked potatoes and pasta were amazing too. To top it off, we had literally 10 different desserts to choose from. The entire meal was absolutely amazing. I think I'm going to be full until at least Friday. And by Friday, I mean tomorrow morning I'll be starving. I am definitely hitting up the gym tomorrow to work off 500 or so calories, or one bite of dessert I ate today. God I love food!

The Mighty Ducks

We broke our Christmas Eve tradition this year. We did not watch a VHS. We watched a DVD. However, we watched a very popular film from when I was a little kid, The Mighty Ducks. That is one thing we do on Christmas Eve, watch old movies from our childhood. This movie is a typical Disney sports film. It's a classic. Whenever I make references to it at school, none of the kids know what I'm talking about! It makes me very sad. I remember we watched this movie with the kids in summer camp about 7 years ago. None of the kids enjoyed it but the counselors did. I don't understand how kids now know the movie The Sandlot but not The Mighty Ducks. They are both classic sports movies from when I was a kid. I think next year we are going to watch Little Giants. This was shockingly my moms suggestion. She is someone who hates football and hates most movies. Interesting. I love our Christmas Eve tradition that's been going on for five years already.

Jury Duty

I kept saying that I've never been summoned to jury duty. That all changed today. I got a letter stating that I need to report to court on January 6, 2014. Where will I be that day? Naturally I will be in North Carolina looking for a place to live that day. Tomorrow, I have to write a letter to the court stating that I'll be out of state because I'm moving. Hopefully that will be a good enough reason to miss court that day. It's town court not county. Therefore it should be easier to get out of. We will see!

Book Three Put on Hold

Do you remember my blog post titled "Long Day Again"? I told you I'd explain why it was a long day. Now is that time. On Friday, December 6, I saw a Facebook status of one of my friends from college. He got a teaching job in North Carolina. He said there were still teaching positions open. I emailed my resume to the principal Sunday the 8th. He called me Monday the 9th and asked when I could get down for an interview. I asked him if I could interview through phone or Skype but he said no. I booked my flight that night for Wednesday the 11th. My flight was at 6:20AM. I got to the school at about 12, had my "interview", and he hired me an hour later. Then I went to Human Resources to fill out paper work, the doctors to take a drug test, and then back to the airport to catch my flight home. I got home at about 10:30. I went to North Carolina and back in one day. That's why it was a long day! On my flight home, I had 905723087 things going on in my head. I was freaking out thinking about if I was going to take this job and move my life down south. It came down to one simple question. If I don't take this teaching job, will I regret it for the rest of my life? Yes. Therefore, I accepted the job as a 1st grade teacher at an elementary school in Shannon, North Carolina. You haven't heard of Shannon? Of course you haven't because the population is about 300 people! However, it's in Robeson County, which has about 40 schools and 25,000 kids. I plan to live in or near Fayetteville, North Carolina. I will be moving down on Monday, January 20 and starting school the next day. Because of all of this, I am not worrying about editing my book for a long time. My first priority is having a successful move. My next priority is getting settled in and caught up with what I need to teach. Once everything settles down, I'll jump back into editing my book. I have no plans on when I'll publish it. I am not mad at all that my book won't be published in January like I had originally planned. Getting a teaching job is a good reason to put the project on hold. It will be published when it gets published. After 5 years of searching and searching, I am finally about to start a job in the field that I went to college for!

Cheese and Crackers

Is there a better snack than cheese and crackers? Absolutely not! The cracker doesn't matter to me. I can have Triscuits, Ritz, Saltines, whatever. The best cheese to have with cheese and crackers is extra sharp cheddar. There's no other way to do it. The rich flavor of that cheese is out of this world. I can eat this snack everyday and never get bored. Throw some peperoni in there to kick it up a notch. It's always a fan favorite. If you don't like cheese, then you are one strange person, like my mom.

Gifts From Students

As a Computer Aide, I typically don't get gifts from students around Christmas time. I might get a card or two. Sometimes I get a little bit of candy. Teachers are the ones that get a ton of gifts. This year was different. I received four gifts from kids.I know that 4 out of 450 isn't a lot. It's still nice of them though. One kid gave me chocolate covered pretzels. Another kid gave me these mini Belgian waffles which were amazing. Another kid gave me chocolates. The most unexpected and shocking gift was a $20 gift card to Panera. I cannot believe this kids parents spent $20 on me. That's a lot to spend on an aide. I wonder what they got his 4th grade teacher. The best part of that gift was the note he wrote. "I want your books from Santa this year." How awesome is that? I was overwhelmed and very thankful for the gifts I received from my students this year!

Ugly Sweaters

It's amazing how popular ugly sweaters are now. The only time people where them is around Christmas time. People have ugly sweater parties quite often. I wonder if the people who make these sweaters know they are ugly. They must. No one in their right mind would wear some of the sweaters that are out there unless they are doing it for an ugly sweater party. I do not own an ugly sweater, or any sweater for that matter. I don't plan on buying one for a party anytime soon either.

Cleaning off the Car

Cleaning off snow from the car is always fun. After a big storm, it amazes me when I see so many cars that are still covered in snow on the road. They scrape off just enough to see out the front window and maybe a little bit from the back. I don't get it! When I clean my car off, I take everything off. I even get the roof even though it's hard to reach. If I don't get all of the snow off of the roof, it will fall onto the back window and I won't be able to see. I'm a bad driver as it is. I don't need anything else blocking my view. I understand not getting the roof on the big SUV's and stuff. However, you should be able to clean off everywhere else. You people are the reason there are so many accidents! You can't see!

Trivia Championship

I have gone to trivia at Applebee's pretty much every Wednesday for over a year now. For about 14 weeks, we were in a league at our local Applebee's. The top 4 teams in that time advanced to the championship against other locations. That took place yesterday. My team got 4th in our league and we advanced. 12 teams competed yesterday. Going into the last question, we were in 10th or 11th. You can answer the last question and double your entire score if you are correct. You will lose all of your points if you are wrong. You will stay at the same score if you don't turn in an answer. 1st place yesterday was $150, 2nd was $75, and 3rd was $50. They showed a picture of someone's eyes and we were pretty sure we knew the answer because we thought we had that question before. We decided to risk it since we were so far behind. We were the only team to get it correct. We tied for 3rd. Then there was a tiebreaker. They asked what year a movie came out. We were closer than the other team so we got 2nd place and $75! Since we had seven of us, we each got $10 and threw in $5 extra for a tip. I was shocked we did so well considering we don't typically do well at our location. We will go back to our regular game tomorrow and see where we end up!

Energy Drinks

I'm not a fan of energy drinks. They typically have way too many calories and sugar. I have had the 5 hour energy drink before because it has few calories and no sugar. I feel like that stuff is psychological. I don't normally feel any different after drinking them. Today when I left the gym, they had free samples of some energy drink. I drank some when I got home. Again, I don't feel any different. The drink had a strong watermelon flavor. That's the flavor I chose. It said I should have drank some before I worked out. Oh well. I can't believe people drink that stuff all of the time. It's probably really bad for you, as is pretty much everything these days. It's definitely something I won't drink very often at all.

Stuck

We got about 11 inches of snow from yesterday into this morning. We haven't had a storm that bad in probably three years. Yes, we have had snow the last couple of years. We haven't had more than maybe 8 inches at a time though. We have been lucky. I had to work at the grocery store this morning at 7. I got up at 6 to shovel. I have a huge driveway. I knew I had to shovel my side out or I'd be stuck. I was somehow able to do it in 30 minutes and drive to work. I got to the bottom of my street and then got stuck because it wasn't plowed well. I had to call my dad to get a shovel and shovel me out. I was still somehow able to get to work on time. That's one of the many reasons that I cannot stand snow.

Organized Mess

I'm looking at my desk right now and see nothing but papers, envelopes, and books scattered all over the place. That's what the top of my dresser looks like too. However, I can find anything I need from that mess because I know exactly where everything is. There are also clothes thrown all over my floor. It's odd that I am a very organized person yet my room is such a mess. I think I'll make it a goal during my 2 weeks off from work to clean my room!

Editing

Editing is not easy. I edited the first 10 chapters of my book numerous times. Once NaNo started, I edited a few chapters after writing them, then stopped doing that altogether. I focused on the writing. Once NaNo was over, I edited all of the chapters I wrote during NaNo. Then I started editing my book from the beginning again. I am still finding grammar errors and words I typed wrong even though I edited a lot. I sent the book to my mom. She picked up mistakes that I still missed again! It's very frustrating but very obvious to me that more than my four eyes need to look at my book. Our minds are trained to read the book the way we want it to sound. After reading it many, many times, the mind won't pick up mistakes. That's why I'm happy I have sent it to a few people to edit.

Seat Belts

Putting a seat belt on when I get into a car is automatic to me. I hear all of the time that people get into crashes and get seriously injured because they didn't have their seat belts on. I hear that people refuse to put it on because it's uncomfortable. My advice to you is to get over it. Even if I am moving my car from one part of the driveway to the other, my hand automatically goes to my belt. It doesn't bother me. I've been in many accidents. I have yet to be injured. Why? Because my seat belt was on! You should really wear a seat belt when you're in the car.

Long Day Again

I know I've already written my thoughts about the phrase, "It's been a long day." You all know I don't like the phrase. However, today is the exception to the rule. It has been a tremendously long day. You will find out why at another time. Good night!

Cards With Glitter

I am not a big fan of greeting cards that have glitter all over them. When I grab a card like that, I get glitter all over my hands. That stuff never comes off. At the grocery store, I have no choice but to touch those cards so that I can scan them. I refuse to buy glittery cards for that reason. I don't want glitter on my hands and I don't want the person I'm sending the card to to have glitter on their hands. There's my random rant of the day.

Bands

I don't know how bands do what they do for as long as they do. I don't know how they perform at concerts night in and night out. How do they have their voices each night? How are they not deaf? Every concert is extremely loud. The speakers they have so everyone can hear are huge. The put a ton of effort into singing each night. Although they use microphones, they still have to sing very loudly and with lots of energy. Some bands perform hundreds of times in a year. How do they not get exhausted and/or sick? It's a grind. They work tremendously hard all of the time. I just don't understand how they can perform at that level for many, many years. It's truly amazing and I have so much admiration for them.

Licking Your Fingers

Does anyone else find it gross when you see people lick their fingers to do anything? I see it all of the time when people come to the grocery store. They lick their fingers to get a grip on their money. They lick their fingers to open a bag. I have to admit, when the bag won't open, I very lightly lick my fingers to get a grip on the bag. I barely put them in my mouth because my fingers are gross from touching all of the food and money at that point. What if you shake someone's hand after you lick your finger? I am also touching the customers produce and other raw food at times. It's gross to think about. I have wipes at my register at all times and use them often. I try to keep my hands as clean as possible before I touch someone's groceries. Between working at a grocery store and working with kids who are always coughing and sneezing, I try to keep my hands as clean as possible.

Popcorn

Everyone loves popcorn, right? I love popcorn besides the fact that it always gets stuck in my teeth. Popcorn is great to eat in the movie theaters or at a concert but nowhere else. When it gets stuck in your teeth, then you're left making that noise that sounds like your clearing your throat so that it gets out of your mouth. You always get that shell stuck in your tooth. What do you do then? If you're around people you can't just stick your hand in your mouth to pick at it, right? Then when you're trying to get it from the back of your mouth you start making faces to get it out. That's a pretty look. Popcorn tastes delicious but the aftermath is not fun!

Snow

Who likes snow? I know a lot of people like it. I'm not one of those people. The only way I like snow is if I get a snow day. I don't like shoveling it. I can't stand driving in it. I'm more worried about other drivers in the snow than I am myself. I should move to Florida where there isn't any snow. Although I know last year or the year before there was snow in I believe 48 states including Hawaii! That's crazy! I don't ski or snowboard so snow does nothing but annoy me. Tis the season!

Trans Siberian Orchestra

TSO came to town last year and my friends went. I told them I didn't want to because I didn't want to spend the money, I don't like orchestra, and I don't like Christmas music. I do like their one song they play in the commercials with the Christmas lights on the houses. Other than that, I don't know their music. They said the show was amazing and that I had to go this year. I went today even though it cost more money than last year. You don't have to like Christmas music to go to this show. It's so much more than orchestra too. It's mainly drums, piano, guitar, and bass with one or two violins thrown in there. Let me tell you something. This group can put on a show! The light show was amazing. They had fire shooting up in many songs. Their stage moved up and down. Thy were full of energy. It was one of my favorite shows ever! It was well worth the money. They played for two and a half hours straight. Bands don't typically play that long anymore. We even stayed in line at the end of the show and get their autographs. I highly recommend you go see TSO in concert!

Music vs. Talking

Whenever I do work on my computer, whether it be at home or at school, I have to have music playing in the background. I don't care if it's my iTunes, iHeart radio, or YouTube. I need something going on while I do my work. I can't have silence. It's too quiet for me. However, if there are people talking in the background, I can't focus. My mind focuses on the conversation happening. It's strange that I can focus with music happening in the background but not when people are talking. My newspaper club students like listening to music while writing (even though they blast it through their headphones and everyone can hear it). I told them I had no problem with it. However, they talk a lot too. I have no idea how they can focus while listening to music, talking, and typing. I guess everyone's different. I would not have been able to write this post if music weren't playing right now.

Arcade Games

I went to Dave and Buster's in the mall the other day with my friends. It just opened a month or two ago. It's a very large arcade/sports bar. It's just like any other arcade. You buy coins or credits to play arcade games, you play the games and collect tickets, then you redeem your tickets for lame toys. I'm not a fan of wasting money to play games to try to win some toy that will break in five minutes. I know, I know people think going to the casino as much as I do is a waste of money and at least I could get something by playing arcade games. Going to the casino is normally a waste of money. However, I could also walk home with more money than I started with. With arcade games, you are losing money and paying more for a toy you can get for much cheaper somewhere else. Everyone has their own opinions about arcade games and casinos though. One prize they had was the PS4. You had to get 105,000 tickets to get that. I bet it will take well over the $500 or so it would cost you for a PS4 to earn 105,000 tickets at the arcade. Kids don't think about that when they play. Parents just give them money so they can have fun. I understand that. It's the price of entertainment. It's just not my idea of a good way to spend money. I know, it's ironic that I'd rather blow it in a casino. I get it. That's just one man's opinion.

Another Book Reading

My school's PTA sponsored an event at Barnes and Noble again tonight. They wanted many teachers to read at it. Last year, it wasn't advertised much at all. This year, it was very advertised in our school. There were very few people at it last year. This year, there were a ton of people. I still only read in front of about 10 kids this time as oppose to three last year. The 3rd graders sang a song just before I read and they all left after they sang. Another large group of kids were hanging out farther away from where I read. Oh well. I was happy to go there and read again and to support our PTA.

What Did the Fox Say?

If you are looking for the world's worst song and video, go to YouTube and type in What did the Fox Say? I unfortunately watched this video a few weeks ago. I have no idea what the point of it is. I don't understand why millions of people have watched this. I didn't watch it by choice. Someone showed it to me. Now I unfortunately have the song stuck in my head all of the time. I need to create a horrible song so that I can be famous on YouTube too.

New $100 Bill

A lot of people don't like change. Therefore, I'm guessing that a lot of people don't like the new $100 bill. I am not one of those people. I think the new bill looks awesome. If you haven't had the opportunity to look at the new bill, I suggest you do. It has a blue ribbon next to Ben Franklin that changes pictures from 100's to liberty bells when you tilt it back and forth. As usual, it also has the face of Ben Franklin when you hold it up to the light. The new bill is colorful and looks kind of fake. I think it looks pretty fancy. I wish I had more of them so that I could stare at a large number of new Benjamin's. I'm just not rich enough to do that yet.

Finished With NaNoWriMo!

I didn't do National Novel Writing Month the way that you are technically supposed to do it. I had already started writing a book before November 1st. Since I learned about NaNoWriMo three days before it started, I didn't really have a choice but to pick up where I left off. I had written 11 of my 33 chapter book already. I started writing at chapter 12. I finished the book about a week ago. My book is 60,000 words. However, I wrote about 41,000 in November. I still had about 9,000 words to write to officially win NaNoWriMo. I was going to start a nonfiction book, but then realized that this is novel month not nonfiction month. I started writing two more "The Teacher That..." books. Both of them are ideas for possible books where my main character would be in eighth grade. At this point, I don't like either idea and probably won't use either as a serious book. However, between the two books, I was able to write 9,000 more words before December first. I wrote about 5,000 words today to finish it off. I really didn't think I'd be able to do this. I'm so proud of myself for sticking with it. I didn't stay up crazy hours of the night to write. The only thing I did was change my lifestyle just a little bit. I focused more at night and wrote instead of watched TV. On Saturday's, I'd write instead of being lazy. That was about it. If I hadn't done this, my book would be very far from done. It's funny because right before I found out about NaNo, my mom asked me when I'd be done with my book. I told her that if I wrote two chapters a week, I'd hopefully have the book out by February break. I didn't even think I'd be able to keep up with two chapters a week. It's amazing what a competition and a little bit of motivation can do to me. I have a lot of editing to do on my book. However, I anticipate having it out to the public by early to mid January! Thank you NaNoWriMo!

Brown Thursday

Since so many stores open tonight, I guess they are calling today Brown Thursday now. Although I despise shopping, I shockingly went to JC Penny tonight at 8 to look for some dress shirts. The only reason I went was because the store is around the corner from my house and I knew it wouldn't be crowded. I refused to go to the one in the big mall we have about 15 minutes from here. I'm not risking my life. However, the store near me is closing in January. I went to the store and saw a bunch of store closing sales. I asked a worker if they were having Black Friday sales and she said no. The prices they had for store closing sales were awful. I didn't need shirts that badly so I turned around and went home. Shopping is not my thing at all. You will never, ever, ever catch me shopping in the middle of the night on Black Friday for anything.

3 Day Week

I expected this work week to drag on. I am shocked to report that this week absolutely flew by for me! Today was even topped off with a full day at school followed by 4 hours working at my dad's store. I thought for sure that it would take forever. Even though the work week flew by, I know the next three days off will fly by too. Yes, three days off. I have to work Sunday at the grocery store as usual. Since the turkey is only 12 pounds and we aren't eating until about 4, I don't have to put that bad boy in until about 11 tomorrow. I'll be sleeping in! By that, I mean my horrible body clock will probably let me sleep until 7:30 instead of 6:40. We will see.

Las Vegas

I booked a trip to Las Vegas yesterday! I'll be going from February 18-21. I got a really good price airfare and hotel. Let's just say that I've been looking for editors for my book and I can go to Vegas 5 times for the amount that some people want to charge! I've been looking on lasvegas.com for things to do. You could probably vacation in Las Vegas for a year and not get to everything in the city. There is so much to do it's unreal. I want to see a show or two even though they will cost a ton of money. As shocking as this might sound, I want to do other things besides gambling. I want to walk the strip, see the fountains, go on the roller coaster at New York, New York, and do as much site seeing as I can. I'm only going to be there for two full days. I'll be arriving at around 10:30AM Vegas time on a Tuesday and leaving at 2:40 on Friday. We will see how much fun I'll be able to pack in throughout that short period of time. I can't wait!

Catching Fire

I just saw the second Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire. The second movie was much better than the first movie. There was a lot more action. The first hour was a little slow, but they had to do that to explain what was going on. I really need to read the book right before I go see the movie from now on. I have a short term memory. I couldn't remember what happened in the book. I had to read the plot today briefly before I went to see the movie. I still think that people should read the book before seeing the movie. As always, the book has much more details. Part 1 of the 3rd movie won't be out until next November with part 2 coming out the following November. Of course they are making the final movie two parts strictly so that they can make more money just like Harry Potter and Twilight did. The movie was 2 and a half hours long. I actually got my moneys worth for once! I'd recommend you see this movie after you read the first two Hunger Games books.

Screeching

Whenever I watch a college basketball game and they are about to shoot a free throw, I always hear that one fan who screeches at the top of her lungs. I'm watching a football game right now and the same thing is happening. The cameras microphone must be very close to this one fan. The only thing I hear while watching the game is this girl screeching. I don't understand why fans feel the need to screech. I completely understand screaming because I do that too. You don't need to make it high-pitched though! My eardrums are about to explode even though I'm not sitting next to this fan.

Done!

If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know this. If you don't, then what are you waiting for? @pacelli_shane. I'd love more followers. You would already know that I just finished my 3rd book in "The Teacher That..." series! I still have to edit the last few chapters and then edit some more. I'm done with the writing part though. I wrote over 40,000 words this month to finish the book! I seriously didn't think I'd be able to do it. My illustrator has the title of my book and my idea for the cover. He is working on that. I'd love for the book to be out right at the beginning of 2014. I'll be looking for an editor but will more than likely not get one. The prices they charge are unreal! I can pay for a 7-day cruise with airfare for cheaper than I can spend for someone to edit my book! I understand that I should get it edited because it will look more professional. However, I've done very well with my 1st three books without an editor. We will see what happens.

Hash Tags

If you don't know what a hash tag is, it's a number sign. # is a hash tag. It's used on Twitter. You can put a # before a word or phrase when you tweet. If it's a popular item, people will tweet that # a lot. For example, many people did #JFK today because it has been 50 years since he was assassinated. Your tweet will show up in the #JFK search. I've been noticing commercials are putting #'s up that they want you to start. I can't imagine too many people using the odd #'s that these commercials list. I think it's getting a little bit out of hand. I use hash tags at times. I used it when watching America's Got Talent. I did a hash tag for the big horse races a few weeks ago. I do the hash tag #indiechat every Tuesday at 9 and join that discussion. There are many other times that I don't use hash tags though. It's not like too many people read my tweets anyway.

Blog Posts Similar to Dinner

I equate picking a topic to blog about to making a dinner selection. My mom is always asking me what I'm making for dinner the next day so that she knows what to take out of the freezer. I always have a hard time picking something to make. I make the same things over and over again. I make chicken, pasta, steak, pork chops, lamb chops, and that's about it. We don't have much variety. Although I believe I am making turkey next Thursday. I'm surprised I know what I'm making so far in advance. That's the way I feel sometimes about picking a topic to blog about. I always feel like I'm going to repeat myself. If I don't repeat the exact title, I'm probably blogging about something similar to what I've written before. After writing well over 500 posts, it's challenging to come up with something new.

Game Shows

I don't understand how all of the game shows like The Price is Right and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? give away so much money and prizes. The audience members get in for free. I know that the show makes money by advertisers buying commercial time during their show. Other than that, where's their money come from? How can they give away cars, vacations, furniture, money, and more? There are so many shows like these that are able to give away such amazing prizes. It just doesn't make sense to me. I want to go on one of these shows and win the showcase! Although I don't get it, I'd love to win their prizes anyway.

Wearing a Coat

I was doing bus today today after school outside. What that means is that I stand outside and make sure the students get on the correct bus safely. It was about 40° outside today. I cannot tell you how many kids did not have a coat on! I asked them all where their jackets were and they all said that they were in their bags. Really? Everyone said they weren't cold. I'm not sure if this is a macho thing or if they think they are invincible or what. I'll be interested to see how many of them come in over the next few days feeling sick. I wonder what their parents say to them when they get home from school wearing only a short sleeve shirt. I don't get it. Kids need to wear their coats when it's cold out!

NaNoWriMo Update

I am absolutely thrilled that I found out about NaNoWriMo when I did. When November started, I had 11 out of my 33 chapters written. If I wasn't participating in NaNoWriMo, I'm guessing I'd have maybe 15 chapters written if I was lucky. The reason I'd have so little written is simply because I'm lazy and unmotivated. Instead, I have written 17 chapters in 18 days! I only have 5 chapters left in my book! I have written 32,382 out of my goal of 50,000 words for the month. I will not be writing 18,000 words in the next 5 chapters. I know that. I do, however, have something else I'm going to work on once I finish writing the last five chapters of this book so that I can reach my 50,000 words. Whether I continue writing the other project and publish that one is yet to be seen. Who knows? I'm really shocked and impressed with how I've been doing during this month. It goes to show that a book actually can be written in a month. It just takes a lot of motivation and lots of creativity.

News Anchors Salaries

People think that local news reporters make a lot of money just because they are on TV. I believe they only make about $30,000-50,000 a year. That's not a terrible salary. It certainly doesn't make them rich though. They put in countless hours of research and reporting besides the hour a day you see them on TV. For people like Diane Sawyer and the other national news reporters, they make the big bucks. I wonder how much ESPN reporters make. They also work many, many hours doing research of every sport. The guys I watch on ESPN always complain that they don't make much. My guess is that they make in the hundreds of thousands each year. With the 24 hour a day research, analyzing, studying film, and lots of travel, they definitely earn their pay. You always hear about athletes making $10-15 million a year. I'm just curious to see how much the people who bring us the sports news and the local news make.

Cookie Cake

What dessert is better than a large cookie cake? Actually, there are plenty of desserts that taste better. However, the cookie cake is unbelievably delicious. We have a new place in the mall called Great American Cookies. My friends and I went there and got some cookies one time. They were amazing. I told a friend I'd buy her a cookie cake from there for her birthday. I looked up the prices of their cakes and changed my mind. They were $30! I'm not paying $30 for a giant cookie with some frosting on it when I can make one myself for under $10. I bought a cake that served 20-25 people for my parents anniversary at a place that is said to have expensive cakes for cheaper than that. I decided to make my own cookie cake today. You make the cake the same way you would make regular cookies. Instead of putting out spoonfuls of batter onto a cookie sheet you just take the entire batter and spread it out. The recipe called for a 14 inch pizza pan. My pizza pan was 13 inches. When I spread the batter out on the pan, I had a feeling it would overflow once cooked. It did! The oven is a mess right now. Lots of cookie batter leaked over the pan and into the oven. I'm waiting for the oven to cool off before I clean it. Besides that, the cookie cake itself looks really good. When it's cooled off, I'm putting some frosting on it with a happy birthday message and bringing it to my friends house. I'm excited to see how it tastes. Then again, I always get excited about food.

Cold Pizza

Two days ago, a fellow staff member offered me a piece of pizza because she didn't want it. Even though I already had a sandwich and pretzels, of course I didn't turn it down. I started eating it cold. There were about 6-8 other teachers in the room. One of them commented that eating pizza cold is disgusting. I was the only person in the room who loves cold pizza. Everyone else would have heated it up. I always thought people liked cold pizza. I can only eat pizza when it's hot if it's fresh. If it's left over the next day, I don't want to heat it up. It doesn't taste as good. I have to eat it cold. If we leave it out on the counter and it's room temperature, it's even more disgusting. For me, it needs to be fresh out of the oven hot or out of the refrigerator cold. Does anyone else out there like their pizza cold? Or am I the oddball as usual?

Fashion Trends

Since I work in a school, I always see the most current fashion trends that are happening. It makes me laugh to see everyone wearing the same things or becoming obsessed with a certain object. When I substitute taught I think 4 years ago, everyone loved Silly Bandz. Silly Bandz were basically colored rubber bands that were created in many different shapes. These shapes ranged from animals, to objects, to numbers, and letters. I would see almost everyone in the schools wearing many of them on their wrists. Some kids would wear up to 20 or more on one hand! It would cut off the circulation of some kids' hands. Everyone would trade them and always get more over the weekend. I'd always ask kids, "Do you have enough?" sarcastically. Since kids under grade 5 don't understand sarcasm, their response was always, "No, I'm getting more this weekend." Needless to say, that faze ended in a few months. The newest trend is very similar to Silly Bandz. These colorful rubber bands are called Cra-z Loom. The difference between this and Silly Banz is that with Cra-z Loom or Rainbow Loom, you get to create your own bracelets by weaving different colors together using the plastic bracelet maker that's provided when you buy this product. I see all of the kids wearing these bracelets and necklaces. I see them carrying the bracelet making kit around with them to and from school. Again, I laugh at how popular it has become literally overnight. I'm expecting this trend to last until February at the latest. Then something else will win over the short attention span of children all over the world. I wish I could invent something that costs 3 cents to make and then charge $10 for millions of kids to buy it so that I can become a billionaire over night!

Parking Spot

I don't know if you're like me. If you are, I'm sorry! If you're like me, then you like to park in the same exact spot everyday when you go to work. If you work in retail, they make you park in the back so that customers can park up front. I always park in the same spot when I work at the grocery store. When I go to get my check, I park wherever I can find a spot. When I go to work at school, I park in the back since I'm still fairly new. I like to give the closer spots to people who have been there a while. I get to work pretty early. I normally get there about 45 minutes before the kids do. Lately, someone has been parking either in my spot, or right next to it. I have no idea who it is. I'm guessing it's a worker from the before school program we have. If someone takes my spot, it throws off my whole day. My whole routine is messed up. At that point, I might as well turn around and go home. Of course I'm exaggerating. It's funny though that I do park in the same spot every single day and if someone takes it I'm quite mad. Again, I'm kidding. I get over it...by the end of the day.

30 Years

My parents have been married for 30 years as of today. 30 years! That's amazing! I know how lucky I am to have parents that are together. The fact that they have been happily married for 30 years is an added bonus. I could not be a luckier person. My parents have been there for me throughout everything in my life. They have supported all of the decisions I've made. They have been there to yell at me when I mess up, motivate me when I needed a wake up call, and they have guided me to make the right choices. They are 100% the reason I am the person I am today. They have driven their hard work ethic into me. I cannot thank them enough for everything they have done for me and that I know they will continue to do in the future. Without my parents, I'd be nobody. Congratulations, mom and dad on 30 years of marriage! I look forward to watching your relationship continue to blossom for the next 30+ years!

Deer Next 2 Miles

I love the deer signs I see on the thruway. Some of them say deer could be seen over the next 1 mile, 2 miles, 5 miles, etc. I feel like whoever is in charge of the signs is just setting themselves up for a lawsuit. Can the deer read those signs? Do they know that they can only be roaming within a 2 mile stretch. Since Americans sue over the most ridiculous things, I could totally see someone hitting a deer just outside of the mile marker that the sign said deer would be at and suing someone because of it. "The sign said deer would be hanging out within the next 2 miles. I hit this deer exactly 2.5 miles after the sign. I'm suing you because the sign was wrong. You didn't say deer would be out this far." I don't know. Those signs just crack me up. My mind always wanders off while driving an hour and 40 minutes on the thruway.

Sitting as a Cashier

While on register this morning, I remembered the time I was in Germany. I went to the grocery store and was in shock when I saw all of the cashiers sitting on stools while scanning groceries! I was very jealous. I wish I could do that. Today my knees were hurting me from standing for so long and not moving. I must be old. Then I got thinking. It'd probably be hard to scan the groceries while sitting down. I would have to lean over to reach the groceries. Then my back would hurt. I also feel like sitting down is the lazy way out. When I was 17, of course seeing cashiers sitting down on the job was awesome. Now that I'm 26, I think I have changed my mind. Maybe sitting down on the job isn't the best thing at all.

MB or GB of Data

I still have the iPhone 3GS. It's so old that I can't even get IOS 7. I have no desire to get a new phone anytime soon because the one I have now works fine. I was looking at how much data I have used today. For whatever reason, I reset it on October 15, 2012. Since then, I have only used 1.4 GB of data. It seems like most people use more than that much data in a month. My data plan is 200MB a month. I have never gone over in the three plus years that I've had the phone. I've been close I think two times. I go on Facebook and the Internet often. Apparently not as often as most other people do. Whenever I go somewhere, I always log into whatever Wifi I can so that I don't use data. The amount of data that kids use boggles my mind. One 6th grader said she used 1.7GB just in text messages in a month. I don't even understand how that's possible. She must send a lot of pictures and videos or something. The bottom line is that people use their phones way too often.

Bad Review

I received my first bad review on either "The Teacher That..." book two days ago. It was a 2-star review on The Teacher That Taught Too Much. Before that, I had nothing lower than a 4-star review in 14 combined reviews in the United States. I have a 3-star review in the UK on The Teacher That Taught Too Much. The person who left the review was frustrated because it was a hard read for his daughter because wordswereblendedtogetherlikethis. I was unaware of this issue. I went back to the file that I uploaded and saw that many words throughout the book had no spaces in between. There were never more than two words blended together. I have no idea how that happened. Clearly I didn't re-edit my book about a month ago and start deleting spaces. It must have saved funky. That really upset me to get a bad review about formatting. I was not upset with the person who left it. I was upset that my file saved funny. I checked both books and they were both a mess. I spent the last two days fixing it and uploading the most current files. I'm so glad that person left the review. Otherwise I would not have known about this horrific mistake. Hopefully there will be no more mistakes!

The League

Are you looking for an awful show to watch on Netflix? I've got just the one for you. The TV show The League, is about fantasy football. Well, it talks a little bit about fantasy football during the episodes. It's an incredibly stupid show based around a fantasy football league. Anybody who plays in fantasy football would understand and appreciate the banter between the members of the league on the TV show. They do all sorts of stupid things to one another. The show is absolutely hilarious, yet horribly stupid. That seems to be the way with many shows these days. They are currently in season 5. Thanks to Netflix, I finally caught up with all of the episodes. If you have a good sense of humor and know a lot about football, you will definitely get a good laugh if you decide to watch The League.

Business Card

When I knew I was going to the author book fair, I immediately wanted to have a business card. My mom makes business cards for my dad. She was going to make one for me too. I outlined what I wanted. She created one that I really liked. Then she told me about a deal Vistaprint was having. I could buy 250 cards for $10, free shipping. I decided to do that because then I'd get a professional looking card for cheap. If my mom made them, they'd look good, but probably cost even more than $10 after buying special paper and ink. Several months ago, they were having a deal where you got 250 cards and you just paid $4.95 shipping. I created a card, then decided I didn't feel like spending even the shipping money. This time, I knew I wanted a card. I looked at the education templates. Many of them were way too kiddie looking for me. I finally found one I liked and created my business card using that template. I put really simple information on it. I just put my name, email, Twitter handle, "Check out my work at Amazon.com", and "Thank you for your business." It's short, sweet, and to the point. They came out really well! I have given away several to people I know. I also gave out between 10-20 during the author book fair. I have a lot more to give away though. At least I know they won't go bad! If you want my official business card, let me know.

Proposition One

I normally don't vote on election day unless it's a governor or a president race. I don't pay enough attention to local politics to have an opinion. I voted today for one reason and one reason only. Although I cast my vote for that one reason, I also voted for other stuff just because I was there. I voted yes for proposition one. If enough people vote yes for this, there will be a casino in the area. It's a law allowing I think seven casinos to be built in NYS. I know it will take a number of years to create this casino if the law passes. Who knows if I'll be in the area by the time it's built? I don't care. I can see myself being a lifer in the area I'm in now. That doesn't mean I will be though. The closest casino to me right now is an hour and 40 minutes. I'd absolutely love for a casino to be twenty minutes from me. My wallet wouldn't appreciate it though. It'd be cool to be a regular at the casino. My mom would hate it because she despises gambling (even though she plays the slots when she goes on cruises, which she is only going on her 11th one in January). That's why she voted no. One of our poker players also voted no. He doesn't want more people to be in debt. Oh well. We will see how everyone else voted tomorrow.

Grammar

Writing good English is hard. Do you see what I did there? haha. I'm so puny, I know. Anyway...everyone knows the difference between here and hear, there, their, and they're, to, too, and two, and other words like that. I was working on my book today and wrote "who". The good ole green line on Microsoft Word showed up and said the word should have been "whom". I don't think whom sounded correct. I kept it as who. I have had several other issues like that. I sometimes struggle with where the apostrophe goes. Sometimes a word doesn't need the '. Other times it's before the S. Sometimes it's after the s. No matter how many times I read the rule about that, I still struggle with getting it right. Writing is incredibly hard work as it is. Making sure your grammar is all correct is yet another challenge in the writing process.

Holding the Door

When you walk into a building, when is it appropriate to hold the door for someone? Of course if the person is directly behind you, you hold the door for them. How far away do they have to be before you decide to just close the door? 10 feet? 20 feet? I don't know what the right answer is. What if you are far behind and you realize someone is holding the door for you? Do you keep walking at the same pace? Do you run a little bit to keep them from waiting? It's crazy how much thought goes into such a silly topic like this. You have to make a split second decision too. It's not like you can hold the door for a little bit and then decide they are too far back and let go. You have already committed yourself. Think about that the next time you hold the door for someone.

Fall Back

Tonight we fall back an hour. That gives us an hour more of sleep. Yay. I never understood the point of falling back an hour and springing ahead an hour. I know it has something to do with the farmers. That's all I know. I will enjoy that it will be light out when I go to work tomorrow morning. I know that won't last long. I won't like getting home from work everyday in the dark. I also won't like that when I go to work tomorrow at 7, it "should be" 8. When we were kids, my brothers and I would always say, "It should be such and such a time instead of this time." We would drive our parents nuts. It doesn't matter what time it is. The older I get, the more the days fly.

No Shave November

I know a lot of guys who participate in "no shave November". It is exactly what is sounds like. You don't shave for the entire month. I'm not sure how, when, or why it all started. Many men seem to know about it too. I've always said I wanted to participate in no shave November. I haven't because I work in a school. I also don't want to because my hair grows in awkwardly. It comes in all patchy. I get horrible neck hair and it's gross. It itches really badly too. If I were ever to do no shave November, I think I'd shave my neck and leave the other stuff. I don't think I'll participate because I don't want to look like a homeless man while working in a school. As it is, I should shave every day, but shave once or twice a week because I'm lazy. Now since NaNoWriMo started today, that's going to be my main focus. I started writing at 9 tonight and wrote 2,592 words in two hours! I'm quite happy with that start. We will see how tomorrow goes.

Halloween

When is an appropriate age to stop trick-or-treating? I cannot remember when I stopped trick-or-treating and dressing up. I know that as an adult, it's cool to dress up again. It'd be kind of awkward to trick-or-treat though. I remember going trick-or-treating as a senior in high school. I think I must have stopped going as an 8th or 9th grader. I then trick-or-treated as a senior because a few friends wanted to. I think an appropriate age to stop would be once you enter 9th grade. I'm guessing the thrill wears off once you enter junior high school. I cannot remember at all when the thrill wore off for me. Did I decide I didn't want to get candy on Halloween anymore one year? Did my mom tell me it'd be ridiculous for me to go out? Who knows? All I know is that I wouldn't mind getting free candy again! I don't want to go trick-or-treating for it though.

NaNoWriMo

For those of you who aren't writers, you're looking at the title and saying, "What the heck is that?" NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. I have heard of it before. I didn't understand what it was until yesterday. November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words in November. I have written 11 chapters out of a planned 33 in my 3rd "The Teacher That" book. That is about 20,000 words so far. On that pace, my book should be roughly 60,000 words. That means if I do this, I'll have my book finished at the end of November. Then I need to edit, edit, edit, edit, and edit some more. I can never get motivated to write. Maybe this will be the kick in the butt I need. It's a competition with yourself to see if you can be motivated to write more often in the month. They have prizes available to those who submit 50,000 words. I'm not changing any plans I make with friends or other obligations to do this. I'm just going to focus more at night and on days off and write instead of watching TV and avoiding it. We will see how it goes!

November 1

I can't tell you how many people I've heard say that November 1st is the first day that they will turn on the heat in the house. That must have been what their parents have done and they like to stick to tradition. We broke that rule in this house this year. My dad turned on the heat last week. It was also turned on again today. I can't stand the smell when the heat turns on for the first time in the year. It's a musty smell. Don't turn on your heat until November 1st. You only have two more days to wait! Tomorrow, I have something more important to write about that starts on November 1st. Stay tuned!

Surprise!

My parents 30th anniversary is November 12 this year. Actually, there anniversary falls on November 12 every year. I digress. I have been planning a surprise dinner for a couple of months now. My mom is impossible. Her birthday was October 6 and my dads is tomorrow. My grandparents always take them out around this time of year for their birthdays and anniversary. I told my grandpa to do that again. He told my mom this and she didn't want to go. Then she decided to go, but wanted a go to a restaurant that I didn't pick for the surprise dinner. Then she didn't want to go the night I told my grandpa to tell her. I made reservations for November 7. She has something else she does on Thursday nights. Then I had to change it to tonight. I had 13 people at this restaurant at 5:30 waiting for my grandparents and parents to get here. My grandparents can't drive so my parents had to drive them. Then my uncle said he saw my parents sitting down at another table. My mom knew something was going on when my grandpa said he'd be right back. She knew he was looking for me. My grandma also said, "Small crowd tonight" as she looked all over the place. My mom is far from stupid and had her suspicions. She didn't expect that many people to be there tonight though. I must say, it's quite stressful setting up a surprise dinner. It went much better than I expected and I'm glad it's over with. My parents deserved nothing but the best for this anniversary and deserve nothing but the best for many, many years to come!

Candy Corn M&M's

I went to a Halloween party yesterday and there was candy corn flavored M&M's at it. I had never heard of such a thing. They looked like regular M&M's, but they were white chocolate instead of regular chocolate. Several people didn't like it. I'm not one of those people. Oh my God, it was amazing! I love white chocolate. Now I got to each white chocolate candy corn flavored M&M's. How could that possibly get any better? I highly recommend you go get some of those M&M's immediately. Everyone liked my blind ref costume too. I'm not sure if I'm going to wear it to school on Halloween this Thursday. We will see.

Nutella

Have you ever had Nutella? Wait, you haven't? Seriously? What are you waiting for? Go buy some right now! Nutella is an amazingly delicious chocolate cream that you can spread on bread, crackers, dip pretzels in it, dip apples in it, and much more. It's made of hazelnuts and cocoa. It is pretty expensive to buy at the store. It's totally worth it though. The first time I ever had nutella was in Germany. I think it's a pretty popular food there. I had one bite in Germany and fell in love. Someone brought in nutella to the breakfast the other day and I was very excited. Yes, I am very easily excited by food. I never have nutella at home because I'm too lazy to buy it, I don't feel like spending a lot of money to buy it, and I'd eat it all in one serving. It's that delicious and addicting. If you haven't had nutella, you're missing out!

Breakfast

About every other month, our staff has a breakfast in the faculty room. Normally about 10 people are in charge of bringing in the food. We obviously rotate so that everyone gets an opportunity to contribute something. This is no ordinary breakfast. People typically bring in bagels, doughnuts, muffins, danishes, cakes, egg dishes, and potato dishes. Besides the few actual breakfast foods, it's basically dessert at 7:30AM. I can't complain. Yes, someone typically brings a fruit platter. I go to town during these breakfasts. We had one yesterday. I normally eat one of everything just so that I don't offend anyone who brought something in to share. I eat so much that I don't even bring a lunch on these days. Shocking, I know. It's a good thing we don't have these breakfasts all the time or I'd probably be 300 pounds and everyone would be broke.

500

I have officially reached my 500th blog post! That's right. I have written on this website half a grand times. To celebrate the moment, I'm going to briefly summarize each of my 499 previous posts by writing one to two sentences for each. I'm just kidding! I don't want to be here for the rest of the year doing that! Seriously though. I can't believe I've written 500 posts. I feel like I just started writing everyday in this yesterday. It has gone by very fast. Who knows how many more posts I will write. Will I hit 1,000, 2,000, 5,000? Who knows? I'm hoping to hit 1,000 books sold before I hit 1,000 blog posts. Not counting books that I have given away for free on kindle or books people have borrowed through Amazon Prime, I have sold over 600 books! That's amazing. I'm hoping to hit the G mark sometime next year. We will see what happens!

Idea

My job title is called Computer Aide.What that means is that I am in charge of the computer lab at my school. I have 30 laptops in my room and a laptop cart with 18 laptops that travel around the school when teachers need them for projects or essays. I help students when classes come in to do work. I fix any technology issues that occur in the school or my room. I help teachers set up projectors if they have issues with that. I don't really teach students how to do too much on the computers. I show them a little bit, but they don't get a grade in my class. I think that needs to change. I plan on setting up a "curriculum" for each grade. I will add things that I'd like to teach the kids how to use. I'll try to figure out what I think they should know how to do at each grade level. I will also ask teachers for help with ideas when they bring their kids to the lab. I know that my position will never be upgraded to a computer teacher. I know this isn't going to help me get any more money than I get now. I'm doing this because in the present time, kids need to know how to do more and more on the computer. They need to know how to use Microsoft Word. They need to know Internet safety. I am also doing this so that I feel more productive. I don't like just walking around the room making sure everything is going well. I want to be more involved. We will see how this goes!

Audio Books

I didn't plan on attending tonight's #indiechat about audio books. I didn't think I'd be interested in ever making my book an audio book. I jokingly told my grandpa who can't see very well that I'd make an audio book for him. He bought my books anyway and read them with his extremely strong magnifying glass. I bet he still has a pain in his neck and back from leaning over to read my books. It was worth it though because my books are that good. Back on topic... I'm glad I joined the Twitter conversation tonight. It seems like doing an audio book would totally be worth it. I think I'd narrate my book myself in order to save money. If I had someone else narrate it, I'd either have to pay a fairly large fee, or split royalties for I think 7 years. However, I probably need better equipment and sound proofing things in my room to create my audio book. I would also need to talk slowly and clearly for a very long time. It would take several hours to read my 140 page book. It's something I'm going to have to look more into in the future. I'm trying to focus on writing book 3 first.

Handshake

I've always been taught to give a firm handshake. But how firm is too firm? Whenever I'm about to shake someone's hand, many questions enter my mind in the few seconds before the actual handshake. This is a kid, do I give as firm of a handshake? This is a big guy, should I give him a bone crushing handshake? This is a woman, how firm will her handshake be? Some guys like to give bone crushing handshakes because they think they are so powerful by doing so. I always tend to go lighter when I shake a woman's hand. I really shouldn't do that. Some woman have very firm handshakes. If I weaken my shake for a woman, they may think I'm trying to be too gentle with them. If I give them a bone crushing handshake, they will be mad at me. The worst kind of handshake is the dead fish handshake. No one wants to give anyone one of those. It's the most awkward shake in the world. Then of course there's the "bro" handshake. That's when you shake the guys hand with your right hand and reach around and pat them on the back in a "bro hug" way with your left hand. That seems to be happening more and more these days. I never used to do that with other guys. Now I find myself doing that more and more, especially with people I don't see as often. It's amazing how much goes into one simple handshake. Yes, I have a very odd mind and these are the strange thoughts that enter them before every handshake with someone.

Washer Dryer

Have you ever left something in your pockets and thrown it in the washer and dryer? It never ends well. A few years ago after just buying some brand new clothes, I left chapstick in my pants pocket. I didn't discover this until after I took the clothes out of the dryer. There were pink spots all over my new clothes that would not come out. Now when I wear those clothes, I wear a vest over those shirts to cover up the pink marks. Today I saw some crumpled paper in my laundry. Two weeks ago we won trivia. They gave us 2 $10 gift certificates for winning. I was the keeper of the certificates. I uncrumpled the sheets I saw in my laundry and discovered that I washed both of the certificates. I just washed away $20 of free food and drinks. I saved the wrinkled mess and will show it to my server this Wednesday. My friends keep saying that they think the server will give me a new certificate. I hope so. Either way, I need to make sure I empty my pockets before I throw my clothes in the dryer! I don't get it. The sheets were in the same pocket as my wallet. I have no idea how I took my wallet out without feeling the sheets. Oh well. Yet another epic fail on my part...

Author Book Fair

I attended the local author book fair today at a library from 1-4. They had a NY times best selling author answer questions about his recent book for half an hour. After that, there were about 25-30 local authors selling their books from 2-4. The beginning crowd was much older since the author that spoke has books about FDR. Eventually more people showed up. I brought 20 books not knowing how many would sell. I ended up selling 6. Many people came to my table, took my business card, and listened to me talk about my book and then left. Maybe they will buy it later. I said the other day I would go into the event with no expectations. I have to admit though, I was obviously hoping to sell more. It cost me more to purchase the 20 books and business cards than I made today. Now I have 14 books sitting in a box waiting to be sold. Does anyone want book 1? I'm selling it for only $6. That's cheaper than on Amazon. You don't even have to pay tax, shipping, or handling. We will see if this event will spark anymore local interest in my books.

50/50 Raffle

I went to a high school football game tonight for the first time since I was in high school. Naturally when I was in high school, my team was awful. Last year they lost in the state semi finals. This year they only have one loss and they just clinched first place in their division tonight. I played the 50/50 raffle today like I always do. It was for $451! Needless to say, I didn't win. It did remind me of the time I hit the 50/50 at a football game. I played the national anthem on the saxophone before a game my senior year. I stayed to watch the game of course. I debated about buying 50/50 but eventually did. I won $197! That was the one and only time I've won on 50/50. I have of course played it many times since then and have come up empty. Maybe next time!

Promotion

I'm all of a sudden starting to crank up the promotion of my books once again. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted something on my Facebook wall that has renewed my motivation. There is a local author event at a local library this Saturday. My friend told me about it. If he hadn't, I would not have known. At the event, a NY times best selling author will be talking from 1-2. Local authors will be at tables selling their books from 2-4. I'll be there doing my best to sell books. I bought 20 book ones to sell. I figured that I shouldn't offer book 2 because who would want to buy it without reading book 1. I have a business card now. They can refer to that and purchase book 2 on Amazon if they like book 1. I have no idea what to expect. I would love to sell all 20 books but have zero expectations going into the event. I am offering book 1 for free for 2 days on kindle in the very near future. I haven't offered a book for free since February. My book sales have been very low the last 2 months. I'm hoping this free promotion will get the word out again and spark some interest. I'm hoping that the book event this Saturday will do the same. We will find out soon! Wish me luck!

Taking up 2 Spots

My mom, dad, and I went to a wine and liquor tasting last night. This event had hundreds of people at it. It took us over 10 minutes to find a parking spot. It was so annoying. They had about 20 spots coned off for whatever reason. We also noticed at least 3-5 cars that parked in the middle of two spots. It's incredibly rude to take up more than one parking spot in the parking lot even if the parking lot is empty. If there's a huge event going on, you better not take up more than one parking spot. Eventually workers moved the cones and we were able to park. That's not the point. The point is that people need to be more courteous when parking because someone will definitely need to park next to you at some point or another.

Guest Speaker

I had a guest speaker come in to talk to my newspaper club students today. I had a worker from a local newspaper come. I was hoping he would talk about what goes in to writing a newspaper. He only covered that briefly. He talked about who the audience of a newspaper is. He also talked about how important it was for the kids to target that audience with the articles they choose to write. Another thing he did was he had the kids brainstorm general topics they could write about. That was an excellent thing for him to do. I can't tell you how many times I have kids come up to me and tell me they have no idea what to write about. Now I will point them towards this very large list of topics we created. Overall I thought the speaker was good and it was definitely a great opportunity for the kids.

Chinese Food

I used to love Chinese food when I was younger. I wanted to eat it all of the time. I would love to get Chinese take out. I'd love eating at a Chinese buffet even more. I'll never forget when our swim team ate at a Chinese buffet during winter vacation right before our swim meet. That's the restaurant our coach picked for us to eat at. Really? You want us to eat at a Chinese buffet and then swim races? That didn't end well. A couple of years ago I stopped having strong urges to eat Chinese. Now whenever my mom wants to eat Chinese I typically don't want to, but eat some anyway because it's there. Today my grandparents took me to a Chinese buffet. They aren't as good as they used to be. This one maybe had 10-15 items to choose from. That's practically nothing for a buffet. Most of the food was pretty cold too. Of course I still managed to chow down on 2 overflowing plates and some wonton soup. My taste buds have changed because I don't have much desire to eat Chinese food anymore.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

I was watching a show on the Travel Channel when a commercial came on about a movie called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. They said it was available for free online. I decided to watch it. It's about this Australian guy who was over 300 pounds. He decided to drink nothing but juice for 60 days. He had to get it cleared with doctors first. He bought a juicer and bought lots of fruits and vegetables. Each meal he would take fresh fruits and vegetables and grind them up with the juicer. He could only drink that and water everyday for 60 days. After a few days, his energy level was way up. He lost over 90 pounds after 60 days. Once the 60 days was over, he added nuts and beans to his diet. He is keeping a similar diet and hopes to never go back to his bad eating habits. He ran into a guy who was 428 pounds. He was able to get this man to try the juice diet. He lost 202 pounds! I cannot imagine drinking nothing but fruit and vegetable juice for 60 days. He has gotten people to do it for a few days. He said that every little bit can help. He interviewed many overweight people and they all said the same thing. They have no willpower when it comes to food. That's why they eat so much. They all said they could never do this diet. I agree with them. No way would I be able to drink nothing but vegetables.

5K Run

I did a 5K run again today like I did last year. The money raised goes towards a scholarship in the name of a community member who took his life a few years ago. This was the third year of the run. I didn't do it the first year for whatever reason. Last year, if you remember in the post "Epic Fail", I did the 5K run twice because I took a wrong turn. That almost happened again today. There is a spot where the path forks and there were no arrows. I was all alone. Luckily there was someone a little ways back who told me to take a left. I did that and made it back to the finish line. The person who was in first and would have won easily took the wrong turn. Many people complained this year about the lack of signs and people telling us which way to go. I'm expecting there to be better directions next year. I ended up getting 6th place out of 73 runners! My time was 23:55 or a pace of 7:42 a mile. My goal was 25 minutes so I beat it easily. My age group was males ages 20-29. I got 1st in my age group! That's strange because the overall winner was in my age group. Since he got a trophy for first place, they considered me the 1st place finisher in that age group. I consider me the 3rd place finisher in my group because the winner was in my age group and the guy who ran it twice and should have won was in my age group. Either way, I definitely exceeded my expectations.

The Bucket List

I just finished watching  The Bucket List  with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Yes, I've seen the movie a few times before. I just spontaneously wanted to watch it again. If you were given the choice to know when you are going to die or not to know, what would you choose? According to the movie, 96% of people would not want to know. I definitely fall in that 96%. I think I would want to know how much time-ish I have left if I have a terminal illness. This movie is about two guys in a hospital creating a bucket list and doing as many things on that list as they can. Besides Hawaii and Italy, I have no idea what I'd have on my bucket list. I should make one now and work on achieving everything because you never know when life could be over. Have you ever wondered what happens to you if you get scared half to death twice? I certainly don't want to find out. Set some goals, have dreams, be ambitious, and go out there and experience life!

Gravity

I just got back from seeing the movie Gravity. I saw previews for it and thought it wasn't going to be that good. I decided to see it because I kept hearing everyone tell me I had to go see it. After all of the hype, I'm pretty disappointed. It wasn't awful. It definitely wasn't amazing to me either. The entire movie takes place in outer space. It basically has two characters. There were a lot of dull moments in it. It was only an hour and a half. Many movies now are getting close to two hours again. I don't think this movie could have gone much longer than the hour and a half that it was. Movies go through phases. They used to be long, then they got short, now they are longer again. I wasn't overly impressed with Gravity.

Hump Day

Everyone knows that Wednesday is hump day. No one started acknowledging it until Geico came out with the commercial with the camel. Geico has far too many commercials. I cannot stand any Geico commercial...besides the hump day commercial. I find it absolutely hilarious. It has kids saying it at school all of the time. I heard that one district has banned anyone from saying hump day. Seriously. I think they made the rule because kids were saying it all of the time and it became a distraction. That's a bit ridiculous to me. It's also hilarious that a district has to ban simple words that are not offensive. I hope everyone enjoyed their hump daaaaaaaaayyyyy!

Light Up Shoes

I remember when I was a kid. I wanted a pair of light up shoes so badly. Those were the shoes that would light up every single time you took a step. It seemed like everyone had them. I don't remember if I ever begged my mom for them or not. Either way I never got them. I figured that fashion trend would have died out by now. Nope. Yesterday I saw a student with those light up shoes. At my age now, I don't see the big thrill in them. I understand kids wanting them because they love things that light up. I'm on to bigger and better things. The only lights I want to see now are the lights in Las Vegas!

Fire Prevention Week

In honor of fire prevention week, our school had a member from the fire department come and talk to the kids about ways to prevent fire. While watching the presentation, it reminded me of the time I saved my house. I can't remember how old I was. I had to have been between 9-12 I'd say. It was a Saturday morning. My two brothers and I got up and went downstairs fairly early. My mom eventually called us upstairs. My older brother had put a waffle in the toaster and forgot about it. At that time, our toaster wasn't working. You had to take the waffle out when you thought it was done, otherwise it would keep cooking. While we were upstairs not falling back asleep, I smelled something burning. I went downstairs and saw the waffle on fire in the toaster. I immediately turned off the toaster and eventually the fire died down. If I hadn't gone downstairs and turned off the toaster, our house would have been toast. Although my mom can't stand our house because of all of the money she and my dad have spent on it this year because it's so old, I'm sure she is happy I saved the house and probably saved my parents hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I am all for people donating to an excellent cause like finding a cure for cancer, especially breast cancer. Cancer affects pretty much every single person in one way or another. Unfortunately everyone knows someone or is a person who has had cancer. However, I think all of the advertising and events that take place every October is a little extreme. In the NFL, everyone is wearing pink. The penalty flags are pink, the players shoes are pink, their towels are pink, and pretty much everything is pink. Everywhere you turn anywhere you go is pink. People should donate money when they want to. I'm not sure why October is the specified month for breast cancer awareness. People should donate to that cause or whatever cause when they please. I know people still do that. I personally feel like the excessive advertisement about cancer can sometimes cause more problems.

Texas Roadhouse

I went to a Texas Roadhouse for the first time last night. It came to my town a few weeks ago. There is nothing like good barbecue. This place was delicious. I had a pulled pork and ribs combo. It didn't look big at first, but it was plenty big! It didn't have a lot of BBQ sauce on it so I got more. That was one downfall. This isn't an ordinary restaurant either. The servers would randomly stop what they were doing and start dancing. They had raw steaks on display to show us they are made fresh everyday. They have a butcher out back whose only job is to cut up steak. It's quite a unique place. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves BBQ.

Pumpkin Pie Doughnut

I saw a commercial yesterday for a Pumpkin Pie Doughnut at Dunkin Donuts. Clearly I had to get this. I also heard a commercial for Pumpkin White Chocolate coffee. I love pumpkin and white chocolate, but do not like coffee. I won't be getting that drink. I didn't waste any time. I got the doughnut this morning. It wasn't quite as good as I expected. It was still pretty good though. I could feel my arteries clogging while eating it. I am quite surprised I am here to tell you about it. It's a doughnut with pumpkin filled inside of it and some white frosting and something crumbled on top. If you love pumpkin, I'd recommend you get this doughnut.

Energy

My principal put it very well today. I am tired 24/7. I don't seem to have much energy most of the time. The music room is two doors down from my computer lab. The teacher had the kids playing on the bongos today. I left the room to go somewhere and I see my principal dancing to the music as she is walking to where she needs to be. The kids see her and laugh. She sees me and says, "The kids give me this energy. Whenever I'm in a bad mood, I walk into the kindergarten room and a huge smile comes on my face." I responded, "The kids give me my energy too." She couldn't have put it any better. Any adult that works with children is typically in the profession for one reason, the kids. I have a different energy when I work with kids. I don't know how to describe it. Fun, unpredictable, stressful, overwhelming, rewarding. I could go on and on. I realize two sentences ago wasn't actually a sentence. Forgive me. People continuous tell me I should work for the state since teaching is a tough job to get right now. My response is always the same. I want to teach because I absolutely love working with kids. I match the kids energy stride for stride and that's what it's all about.

No More Cruises

Those of you who know me are shocked by this title. What I mean by no more cruises is that I don't want my next big vacation to be a cruise. I definitely plan on going on more cruises in the future. I am interested in doing something different next vacation though. I have three dream vacation spots. Two of them are not in my budget right now and the other is where I hope to go next. I have always wanted to go to Hawaii and Italy. I cannot tell you why because I have no idea why I want to go. I've heard nothing but good things about both places. The other place I've wanted to go for a long time is Las Vegas. I know that that is also going to be very expensive. I want to see some sort of show while there. I know that most tickets are over $100. I want to go there for 3-4 days. I have three breaks coming up. I'm looking to go either in the beginning of January, during my February break, or my April break. Obviously that's when they jack up the airfare because they know families take vacations at that time. I'll see what I can do and who wants to come. You are all invited! If you want to come, let me know!

Customer Service

People never like calling customer service because you almost always talk to a computer. If you have to call someone from Amazon, you don't get a computer. You find the contact button on Amazon.com, you type in your phone number, and then you have 2 options. They can call you now or in five minutes. If you click, "call now" they will call you right away! Yes, at first a computer will talk to you while you are on hold. You are normally only on hold for less than a minute. Then a human being, not from India, will talk to you. I find that absolutely amazing. Every single time I've had to have someone from Amazon call me, they have been able to fix my issue. I wish more places had a system like this. It would make life so much easier!

NFL Red Zone

I went to my bothers apartment to watch football yesterday. I did this two weeks ago two. He has the NFL Red Zone package in his place and we don't. What that means is that whenever theirs a game that's 20 yards away from the end zone, they will turn it on to that game. They will also show parts of most games if there are no games in the red zone. If there are multiple games in the red zone, they will do split screen so that you can see them both. There are no commercials on this station! It's so awesome because you get to see all scoring opportunities in every game live. When there are 9 games on at one o'clock, this station is a must have! The only problem is that it's $10 a month. I believe that's $10 a month for the entire year. It's only worth it for a few months a year. You would only watch that station one day a week. I believe you get a few other stations with that package, too. I'm not sure what they are though. If you are a huge NFL fan, you should get this station. I guess I'm not a huge NFL fan because I will not be getting this station. Although it's a great station, it's not worth $10 a month for a year when I will watch the station one day a week for 8 hours. It'll be hard watching only one or two games at one o'clock next week on my regular TV.

Fall Foliage

I heard that people travel from the midwest and all over the United States all the way to the northeast just to see some fall foliage. Why? I don't understand why seeing leaves change colors is so beautiful. People drive hours to other places because those places have reached full foliage. I just don't get it. I'm sure I don't like it because I've lived here for 26 years. I know that once leaves change colors, they fall on the ground. Once they hit the ground, I have to rake. I cannot stand raking. I wouldn't mind if those people obsessed with seeing foliage would like to come over to my house and rake for me. Then they can really experience the great northeast falls. Everyone also loves the cool weather. Not me! The only good things about fall are apple cider and pumpkin pie. Leaves changing colors does absolutely nothing for me.

People Watching

I went to Saratoga today to walk around the town and check out the souvenir shops that no one buys anything from. I had my fun with people watching. There were two young guys playing a guitar and some other instrument on the street. One had extremely long hair. They had a sign that said broke and sexy. The one guy had an awful voice. The other guy was very annoying with his odd sounding instrument. We also heard some very strange conversations out of a number of people. I think half of the fun of being in a crowded place is watching the people. People do and say some odd things.

Counting Steps

Have you ever counted how many steps you have taken in one day? Of course you haven't. That would be ridiculous. I did it today though while at work. Okay, I didn't literally count my steps. I put on this small device that my dad has that counts the steps for me. He said that he does about 15,000 steps a day at work. I know that at times I walk a lot around the school. I wondered how many steps I would take. I took 5,641 today from 7:30-3:30ish. That's equivalent to 2.5 miles. I supposedly burned 1,900 calories. I find that extremely hard to believe. When I ran on the treadmill today, without the step counting device, I ran 3 miles and burned over 500 calories. How can I burn 1,900 calories  by walking 2.5 miles and only burn 500 calories by running 3? A little device like that costs $60! I wouldn't pay that for it at all. It was interesting to have it on for one day and see how many steps I took.

Music Teacher

I ran into my old high school music teacher last night at Applebee's. He has been retired for 4 years now. A little over a year ago, he opened his dream place. It's a music studio that offers lessons, aerobics, Zumba, and much more. I had an old saxophone I tried to sell a few months ago with another store. That didn't work out at all. I gave my old band teacher my saxophone tonight and he's going to try to sell it for me. He also told me he's trying to have tutoring happen in his building. I told him I'd be happy to help. Who knows? Maybe I'll be working for him one day. It's great to see such a great man continue to achieve his dreams after he retired from being a huge influence on the district I have grown up in and how it operates the music department.

Visiting my Old College

I'd love to visit SUNY Potsdam again one day. There are a few reasons I won't do that anytime soon. I don't know anyone who goes there anymore. I graduated from Potsdam over 4 years ago already. That means everyone who I knew there should be gone. It's also a 3.5 hour drive. I'm not driving 3.5 hours just to see the college. However, they went through some major renovations since I've been gone. My entire dorm building has been upgraded. They added a brand new building to the music school. They are renovating the ice arena. That will open on November 2. They used to have bleachers, now they will have actual comfy chairs. I'll be able to see pictures. It's not the same as seeing it in person though. I love how they made all of these huge changes after I left. It makes me feel old. It would be cool to visit the old college but it's just not worth it.

Halloween Costume

Two years ago, I was a doctor for Halloween. I bought like a $20 costume. I don't see the point in spending $50 or more for something I'm going to wear for a couple of hours. I dressed up as a doctor at school and handed out candy to the kids, how ironic, I know. I also went to a Halloween party that year. Last year, I didn't wear anything for Halloween. I just went shopping today for my outfit. I know, crazy. It's very unlike me to buy something a month in advance. I bought a blind referee outfit. For those of you that aren't sports fans, you won't understand how awesome this outfit is. The store I went to was absolutely huge! This store only opens for a few months a year. It's crazy how much useless junk they have for only a couple months a year. I wonder what they do with it in the off season. I wonder what they do with the building when it's not Halloween. There are two stores near each other. One was in the mall. I know Christmas stuff goes into that store after Halloween. I'm not sure what happens to the larger store across the street. It's amazing how many people go all out for a silly holiday.

2 Year Anniversary

On this date two years ago, two very important things happened. One event doesn't has had and will continue to have no affect on me at all. The other event has had a huge affect on me. My cousin got married on this date two years ago. Besides the fact that I went to the wedding, clearly this doesn't mean anything for my daily life at all. The other important event that happened two years ago on this date was that I got a phone call telling me that I was hired for the position I have now, computer aide. This is already the start of my 3rd year on the job. This is my 5th year working in this district. Since I went to school in this district, I've pretty much been there for life. I had nothing to do with district my first 5 years on Earth and the fours years I was in college. Other than that, the other 18 years of my life have been spent as a student or as an employee of this district. I think that's pretty crazy. As always, I'm happy to have the job I have, but unbelievably desperate for something better!

Prisoners

I just got back from seeing the movie Prisoners. This was a wonderfully written film. It's a suspense movie about two very young girls being kidnapped on Thanksgiving morning. The rest of the movie deals with trying to find out where these girls are and who took them. There are definitely some gory scenes in the movie. It's probably not as gory as you would think though. I will obviously not give out the ending. I will say that I didn't expect what happened and was disappointed with the very end of the movie. Other than that, I thought it was a great movie. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to pay close attention and do some thinking while watching a movie. It's also two and a half hours. It's very rare for a movie to be that long these days. It's actually worth the money for once.

iHeart Radio Music Festival

That's the only thing the radio station I listen to has been talking about for the past few months. That event is finally here. It happened yesterday and is going on again tonight. After it's over, I'm sure I'll hear about the next iHeart festival next year. I'm surprised they are streaming this event live. Since they hyped it up so much, talking about how it sold out in like 30 seconds, I'm surprised they would offer it for free. Don't ask me why, but I actually watched some of it yesterday. I watched Fun, which is one of the few current groups that I like. It's strange to see a music event have performers ranging from Katy Perry, to Fun, to Elton John, and to Paul McCartney. There's such a wide range of performers, both older and current. I can't imagine how much tickets cost for this event. I won't be watching tonight because I'll be out. They are also showing this event on TV in a few weeks. I still think the music event they had on 12.12.12 was a much better event than the iHeart Radio Music Festival.

Thinking

Is it weird that I spend a large portion of some days thinking about what I'm going to blog about? Whenever I don't have a planned topic, I tend to think a lot about what I'm going to write. After writing over 450 blog posts, I am running out of ideas! I still have a few topics written down on my phone to write about. They are pretty lame, so I don't know if I'll write about them. One topic I have had for months is the one word to describe my life until this point. I still haven't come up with one word yet. That's a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. I'm sure inspiration will come soon and I'll have a new wealth of topics to blog about.

Nurses/Doctors Smoking

On our way into the hospital yesterday, we walked by a group of nurses all smoking. Seriously? You're a nurse or doctor in a hospital and you smoke? Really? What do you tell your patients with lung cancer? "Stop smoking even though I do so myself." My favorite is when I see an extremely obese person smoking. Are they digging their grave yet because they might as well do so. I've seen very heavy health teachers too. How can someone who is very over weight be a credible person to teach me about health. Oh the strange oxymorons in life...

Babies Age

I just went and visited my cousins newborn baby. She was born at 3:31AM this morning. On the ride to the hospital, I asked my parents how old a baby has to be before you start saying the age in years instead of months. For example, I say that once they hit 1 year, you should start saying the baby is one year and 3 months, not 15 months. You can say 6 months, 8 months, and 10 months. After a year, say one year and blank months. My parents say it should be two years. I think it's just weird to say, "My baby is 22 months." No, he is 1 year and 10 months. As long as you don't go past two years. "My baby is 36 months." Really? No, actually, he's three years old. What do you think?

Rain

Have you ever noticed how awful it smells outside after it rains? A lot of people say they love the smell of rain while it's happening. Not me! I don't like the smell of rain before, during, or after. After it rains, it smells kind of like a sewer outside. I don't actually have too much experience of smelling sewers. I imagine that's what a sewer smells like though. I also can't stand all of the worms all over the ground after it rains. I think I need to move to a desert where it doesn't rain too often.

Road Kill

While driving to Turning Stone two days ago, I noticed so many dead animals on the thruway. When I say these animals were dead, I'm putting it lightly. Some of the animals were absolutely obliterated. All you saw was blood and guts. You had no idea what animal it used to be. Some spots on the road were stained and the animal had disappeared probably because authorities scooped it up. Luckily I didn't pass any skunks. Naturally when you pass dead skunks, they smell just as wonderful as live skunks. I'm pretty sure I've never run over a live animal. I think I ran over a dead skunk once. My tires stunk forever. It really surprised me to see so many dead animals on the road. There had to have been 10-15 dead animals on the 220 miles to and from Turning Stone. I'm not really sure why I'm writing about this. I'm probably doing so because it's a bit of a different topic. Let's keep our roads clean! Haha.

Mariano Rivera

This Yankee relief pitcher is the last man to wear jersey #42. After Jackie Robinson wore it, they retired that number. At the time they retired the number, Mariano Rivera was already wearing 42 so they let him continue to do so. Rivera is retiring at the end of the year with the most saves ever. I don't think anyone will get close to his total saves. He currently has 651 saves. In almost every ballpark he goes to this year, the away team has a ceremony for him. I have never seen that happen for any player in any sport. He is respected by everyone. Even the Boston Red Sox had a ceremony for him tonight and gave him gifts. They also made fun of him and thanked him for blowing the save in the game 4 ALCS in 2004. Rivera was a great sport in 2005 when he was introduced in Fenway and they cheered him because he is part of the reason the Red Sox finally won a world series in 2004. It's great to see arch rivals paying tribute to one of the greatest baseball players and class acts of all time. Hopefully Rivera doesn't come back from retirement like everyone seems to do. Teams shouldn't have to give him another ceremony. I'm pretty sure he won't unretire. The Yankees will definitely miss Mariano Rivera once the season ends this year.

Wearing your Favorite Sports Teams' Clothes

On the cruise, I wore my Dallas Cowboys hat all of the time. I can't tell you how many people commented on it. Some people said I couldn't come into the pool unless I took the hat off. Other people said they love the Cowboys. The very first day, I talked to a guy about fantasy football for about 45 minutes just because he saw my hat. Normally you see the same people often on the ship since it's not insanely big. I never saw this guy again. Today at Turning Stone, I wore a Cowboys shirt. Another guy wearing Cowboys stuff acknowledged me. Other guys made comments about my team, both good and bad. It seems like wearing a sports teams clothes is the easiest conversation starter, especially when you are among sports fans. I hear people all of the time say they wear a teams logo because they like the colors. You can't do that! You have to like the team. I'm not wearing any sports team shirts because I like the colors. I wear other clothes because I like the colors. Hearing people hate or love my clothes because they hate or love the team adds some fun and conversations to your life.

Perspective

My mom was looking through a bunch of old pictures today. She showed me one picture of my younger brother and me 12 years ago. There's no beating around the bush here. I was fat! I mean my jiggles had jiggles and my chins had chins. It was literally gross to look at. 12 years later, I'm pretty much the same height. Luckily I don't look anywhere near as fat as I did in that picture. I can't imagine how much I'd weigh if I didn't swim. I seriously think that if I never swam all year round I'd be 300+ pounds. That's a scary thought. Looking at the picture today put my situation into perspective. Yes I'm not at my ideal weight. However, I look a lot better than I did in that picture. With that said, I still want to lose weight so that I look better than I do now. I figure if I have one bad eating day a week, it won't hurt me. I don't mean I'm going to have the Michael Phelps 12,000 calorie diet one day a week. But I think a little bit of extra food won't hurt me. The more I talk and obsess about eating "healthier", the better chance I have of eating better, in my mind at least.