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.