Bryan Kandel

remind me of anything

2010-05-29T15:55:00.000-04:00

Here is one of the songs I played for Random Acts of Music. More later.

while holding out for more

2010-02-23T20:59:00.005-05:00

The new cd is now available. You can listen to a few songs on the player to the left.

photos from the cd release

2010-02-09T19:04:00.003-05:00

cd release show - February 5th

2010-01-07T11:56:00.001-05:00

There will be a cd release concert on Friday, February 5th at 8:00 at Jupiter Studios. Jupiter Studios is an art and music studio in downtown Alliance, OH (map). This concert will be the official release of while holding out for more. If you don't have the cd yet, this would be a great time to get it. If you already have it, you can still come and enjoy the live versions of all the songs that have been spinning nonstop in the car cd player. Also, if you've been wanting to see a live show but weren't sure which one, this is the one. It's not just a concert but a CD Release "party". And as if you needed more reasons to come, I will be playing with a full band.

There is a cover charge of $5 at the door or $4 if you buy a presale ticket from me. But to offset the price of admission, I will be selling the cds for a reduced price - $10.

Cool venue, lots of friends, "party", full band, cheap cds, why not?

while holding out for more

2009-12-01T17:45:00.003-05:00

The new album has arrived, and it is ready for you. You can order it by selecting the music tab on the left. You can download the songs from the Bandbox or select "buy now", and someone (me) from the distribution center (my kitchen table) will send you a copy of the cd. The album will also be available at live shows.

How you can help

Besides buying a copy of the cd, there are some ways you can help me promote it. You can tell your friends about the cd. You can bring your friends to a show. Or, you can help me book shows (see the schedule tab for more info).

here we go

2009-08-09T22:17:00.003-04:00

The end is in sight. The long awaited new cd is on the horizon. You may not have been long awaitin' it, but I have. It's a cd. There are 11 songs. There are a couple songs for you to sample in the little player to the left. They are not yet completely mixed and mastered, but they're close enough to give you a taste.

What's the title of the cd?

eh . . . not sure . . . still working on that

When will it drop?

late fall . . . Octember?, Septober? . . . I'll be more specific when I know for sure. We still need to do some final mixing, mastering and mass production.

Is it good?

hope so

If the cd is not ready, what's the point of the new website and this announcement?

This announcement is to get you ready for the release. I may come up with a special offer for pre-orders. I'll let you know soon. It's also to provide booking information. If you are interested in booking, select the contact/booking link above and send me a note. I'd love to play at your venue, house or festival.

Is this site only going to be music stuff now, or will you get back to blogging more regularly?

I've spoken with many people during my nearly year long hiatus from this blog about my apprehensions of being a teacher and being a blogging machine as I once was. It still weirds me out a bit. However, the internet is pretty much a necessary tool for promoting music, especially a new cd, which believe it or not, was not free to make. So, what does all that mean? I'll do my best to keep you up to date on life. I've been all but scolded by my grandma and many others for my absence.

5 years

2008-10-05T10:59:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was our 5 year anniversary. I think 5 years is the paper anniversary. Robin got me an apple pie, and I got her a patio door. Close enough. Maybe I should get a piece of paper and write on it (in crayon) "Hey, I got you a door". And she could flip it over and on the other side write, "Thanks dude, enjoy your apple pie". Then we would be adhering to traditions.

My grandpa Crandall passed away last week. His calling hours are today and his funeral is tomorrow. Please pray for our family.

The house is coming along . . . slowly. Everything we do creates three more projects.

every year . . .

2008-09-16T08:29:00.002-04:00

. . . I make the same joke, and every year no one laughs. Today as part of my first period/homeroom, I had to pass out ballots so students could vote for members of the Homecoming Court. After I had passed them all out and students were contemplating the ballots with far more vigor than I've ever seen them attack a Spanish quiz, I said, "Remember . . . it's not a popularity contest." Nobody laughed.

You see, it is a popularity contest. That's the joke. Maybe it was too early in the day to hit them with something so intellectual.

una entrevista

2008-09-14T23:16:00.003-04:00

Where ya been, dude?
Busy. Coaching football is cool. Teaching Spanish is cool. Doing them both at the same time is a challenge. I spend about ten minutes online each day. If I owe you an email, please be patient. Things should cool down a bit soon.

How are your classes?
Good. I really like the students, but I'm a little disappointed at my teaching so far. My Spanish teaching is a bit rusty. It's true that teaching Spanish is similar to teaching English as I was doing for the past two years. But the levels are not the same. It's been awhile since I've had to teach beginner language students.

Do you own a house yet?
Nope. We weren't able to close on Friday (big surprise). The closing date has been postponed until Wednesday. Fortunately, we were able to get the major issues resolved, so we should still be able to buy the house . . . eventually.

Who did you pick up in place of Tom Brady?
Aaron Rogers. He made my proud today. I may keep him.

What did you do today?
I don't remember it very well, but I'm pretty sure I took a 4 hour nap this afternoon. 4 hours. Other than that, I went to church, went to Youth Group (Robin and I are helping again), graded quizzes and worked on school plans.

Do you still miss Costa Rica?
Yes.

ah nuts!

2008-09-08T22:00:00.002-04:00

Tom Brady was my fantasy team quarterback. Oh well, I've had to deal with fantasy adversity before. Last night I had a dream that Jeremiah fell in the toliet and went under the water. He was trying to go potty, but he didn't have his special seat, and he fell in. Then Brad and I were at a house with a bunch of midgets who weren't wearing shirts. I was downstairs watching Sportscenter in the kitchen. They were talking about Alex Rodriguez. Back to real life: We were recently blindsided by an unexpected turn of events in the home buying process. If our broker and realtor can get it straightened out, we may close on Friday. If not . . . um . . .?? Our car is fixed. You didn't even know it was broken.

my 6th first day of school

2008-09-01T21:31:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is my first day of teaching for the 6th time. Oddly, it will be my 2nd first day of this year. That's a first . . . or a second. In a way, it feels like my 1st first day because it's been awhile since I taught Spanish. You follow?

Brad and Krystal: If you're reading this, John McCain called. I was on my way out the door, so I told him you'd call him back. He was saying something about America and . . . I don't remember. Give him a call when you get a chance. It sounded important.

Dear Giant Eagle Cashier Lady,

2008-08-31T12:30:00.002-04:00

Apparently you are not a regular reader of this blog. If you were, you would have seen this post from earlier in the year, and you would know that I don't let supermarket descrepencies go by without making a fuss.

I realize that the confusion this morning may have been my own fault. I saw the sign that said:

Donuts and bagels - $.70 each or $6.99 for a dozen

. . . and I assumed that I could come up with any combination of 12 donuts and bagels and pay just $6.99. I'm still pretty sure that assumption was correct, but that's not where the problem began. My mistake was to put 5 bagels in one box and 7 donuts in another box. I then proceeded to bring the two boxes to your register. You probably remember the next part. You asked me how many donuts were in the boxes. I said I had 5 bagels and 7 donuts, and you charged me $.70 per unit, which came to a grand total of $8.40. $8.40 is roughly $1.41 more than $6.99 (the price advertised).

What I should have said was, "I have 12" and left it at that. I figured that you would see 5 and 7 as 12 and realize that 12 is a dozen and charge me $6.99. Instead, you saw 5 as 5 and 7 as 7 and charged me $.70 for each of them. I had to get the goods to Sunday School class stat, so I didn't have time to argue. But now I do. I expect a written apology and a check for $1.41 within the next week.

3,367

2008-08-29T14:11:00.003-04:00

You know how when you go back into work after a long weekend you have a bunch of emails waiting for you? Imagine that happening after a two-year long weekend. When I left East Canton two years ago, they didn't terminate my email account. I signed into it again yesterday, and it started to load all my unread emails. It didn't finish loading before I had to leave for football practice. I went back into school this morning and found 3,367 emails waiting. It's going to take awhile to get caught up.

Because of a rain out on Wednesday night, last night's Akron Aeros game was actually a double header (two 7 inning games). We made it in time to see the end of the first game and all of the second. Jeremiah had fun. We were sitting in the second row beside the Aeros' dugout. As one of the players was coming off the field between innings, he gave a baseball to Jeremiah. He was super excited. He pretty much just stared at it and smiled for the rest of the game. He's still talking about it today. As soon as I can figure out how to transfer pictures from my phone to the computer, I'll post some.

on the eve of the first day of school

2008-08-27T23:54:00.002-04:00

Well, kinda the first day of school. I won't have students until Tuesday, but we have teacher convocation and meetings tomorrow. I'm psyched. Trail mix is awesome. It was rainy and cool today. It hasn't rained much since we returned, so I didn't mind. What should I do for Spanish IV this year? Pizza bagels are equally awesome, but that's old news. We got free tickets to an Akron Aero's game tomorrow. "They say: you snooze, you loose. Well, I have snost and lost." Not much has happened lately with the house. The last thing we heard was that the selling bank hadn't signed the purchase contract yet. We nearly have enough floor samples to create a free (plus shipping and handling) mosaic of the first floor floors. I signed up for fantasy football again. It's hard being the reigning champ. I feel like I have a bullseye painted on my back. It's also hard to spell reigning. Is that right? Only 36 days, 9 hours, 49 minutes and 11 seconds until Malone College becomes Malone University. "She can't decide if I'm a king or trash. She loves me for the Johnny, but she hates me for the Cash." The ceiling of a regulation ping pong court is supposed to be at least 16 feet high. I doubt they "play it off the ceiling" in the olympics like we do in the basement. I miss pineapple. It's still Wednesday in Costa Rica. Life has felt super busy for the last month, and I haven't even been teaching yet. What's it going to be like when I am teaching four levels of Spanish and working on a house? What is the past participle of "seem"? Seemed? Semt? I should really be sleeping. Maybe I am.

drowning my sorrows in fish nuggets, burritos and ping pong

2008-08-24T01:14:00.003-04:00

Our first game was last night. We lost 41-7. Ouch.

After almost twelve hours of films, practice and game planning for next week's game, I came home today and was pretty tired and cranky. There were a few left-over fish nuggets and fries from the boys' dinner in Brad and Krystal's fridge and half of a burrito from Robin's lunch in our fridge. I attacked them both and left no evidence. Then Brad, Andy and I played ping pong for over two hours. I feel a little better now.

Why are we not more concerned . . .

2008-08-18T11:39:00.002-04:00

about this?

If they found one, there could be more of them out there . . . lurking and waiting to attack. I know they are supposedly gentle herbivores, but you know what they say: "Never, never trust a sasquatch!"

Also,

We are finished with two-a-days and into our first week of the season. Friday is game #1. Besides coaching this week, I also need to start remembering how to teach Spanish. That's coming up pretty soon too.

the ups and downs of the past few days

2008-08-13T14:41:00.003-04:00

- Today at practice as I stepped into the huddle to call a play, the quarterback looked at me and said, "Coach, where are my ovaries?" He later claimed that he was joking, but I highly doubt it.

- Robin passed her driving test. We practiced manuverability for hours the night before in the cul de sac, using homeade cones that Brad and I built out of scrap wood. I'm thinking about starting a driving school. I got the cones; what else do I need?

- The bank is playing games with us and hasn't yet officially accepted our offer. They actually tried to counter offer again, but our realtor took care of it. I don't know how, and I'm not asking questions. We're hoping that we can sign a contract tomorrow. The whole thing is making us quite irritated and nervous. There's a really good chance that our closing date will be later than September 5th.

- We got a notice from the IRS that said there was a mistake with our tax returns from 2006. We have to pay $601. This is not the best time for us to be paying $601.

- We went to an Indians game last night. Jackie, our realtor, had two extra tickets that were behind home plate and close to the field. It was a good game and a lot of fun.

- Brad and Krystal bought a ping pong table. We were up pretty late the other night ponging it up.

we win??

2008-08-07T16:58:00.009-04:00

It was a long, hard battle, but we came out victorious . . . more or less. I knew that buying a house wasn't easy, but I never expected a stress-filled two week tournament of bidders. Basically, here's how it went:

1. We see the house, like it and make a bid. We do so quickly because we've heard that there is some other interest.
2. The seller (a bank) makes a counter offer.
3. We make a counter counter offer.
4. We wait and hear nothing.
5. We finally hear from the bank. Our offer was not accepted, and there are now four bids on the house.
6. Two bids are eliminated, but we are still alive. We're in the finals. Oh the pressure.
7. We make one final bid.
8. We wait.
9. We finally hear that our bid was barely higher. We don't know the exact numbers, but we hear it was super close.
10. Now we have to go through the "hard" part of actually buying the house.

A little bit about the house: As you can see, it needs some work. The tarps on the roof were put on mostly as a precaution by the bank, but we will be putting on a new roof soon after closing. Most of the floors inside have been removed. That will be project #2. There is a lot of other work to be done, but that's okay with us. The needed repairs made the loan application process a bit tricky so far, and we're still nervous about problems arising before we close. Our closing date is September 5th. Jeremiah is a big fan of the blue roof. The house has three bedrooms, 2.33 bathrooms (there's a random toilet in one room), two furnaces (still not sure why), a 2 car garage, lime green carpet in the living room (one of the only floors that was not removed), about 6 porches and way more space than we have stuff.

Dance with me wuppy!

2008-08-05T17:41:00.002-04:00

What does that mean? Where does it come from?

Jeremiah has been saying it for two days now, and we have no idea where he heard it. Any information would be appreciated. It's possible that "wuppy" is really "wubby", "rubby", "Robbie" or something like that.

sneak preview

2008-08-02T18:03:00.004-04:00

I put together this little slide show/video for church tomorrow. This was my first time using Movie Maker. I almost didn't do this because I knew it would be impossible to summarize two years in one slide show. It was. There are around 4,019 other pictures I'd like to include, but I wanted to keep it short. The pictures are a bit random because I didn't mess around with any title pages or fancy transitions. Some of you may see this again tomorrow. The music is from a Costa Rican band. Parts of the song lyrics fit really well, but you probably won't pick up on that.

welcome to the 20th century

2008-07-30T14:26:00.002-04:00

Robin and I just got cell phones. They were free with our plan, so they're nothing special. But to us, they're pretty awesome. They have cameras and color screens and mp3 players. We've never had anything close to that. In Costa Rica, there was only one special feature we were interested in: signal (it was often hard to come by). Robin has been playing with hers for the past hour or so. I am still a bit too intimidated by the gadgetry. If you want my new number, you can call my home phone and ask me for it, or you can call my temporary cell phone and ask for it, or you can email me and ask for it. If you don't know my home phone number, my temporary cell number or my email address, you're probably an internet stalker and I don't want you calling me anyway.

In other news,

-football: two-a-days start tomorrow

-trying to buy a house: not an easy process

-finishing my grad courses: two weeks left. I will be a pretty happy guy when they are finished (if I pass).

16:16

2008-07-27T22:14:00.002-04:00

That was my time for the 2 mile race I ran today. I think it was the first race I've run since track and field day in 4th grade. I'm not a runner. It hurts. It's boring. I've never really understood people who run. I love being active: basketball, biking, tenis, freeze tag. But running? Nah. Robin is one of those people who likes to run. One of the things she was looking forward to when we returned was running in some local races. Today's race was part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction activities. Robin decided she wanted to participate. So did Carla, Keely, Krystal, Jen and Tim. (Kurt was going to run until he saw that there was a charge - I almost withdrew for the same reason). I decided I might as well give it a try too. My main reason was that I don't have as many chances to exercise as I did when I was playing a bunch of basketball and tennis in Costa Rica. About a week and a half ago, Robin and I began "training" for the race. Immediately, I remembered why I don't like to run. It hurts (mainly the back) and it's boring.

I felt a bit out of place when we arrived today. East Canton has always been a big running school, and I hung around the track team quite a bit when Robin and I were dating at Malone. So I somewhat understand the running culture, but I've never really been part of it. I showed up in my EC Football shorts, old tennis shoes and a white t-shirt. Most everyone else had special running shorts, high-tech ultra fit shirts, electric running shoes which I'm pretty sure are propelled by the tiny ipods connected to their arms.

Despite my fashion flubs, I actually had fun. There were 882 runners, so the beginning was a bit tight. If not for the crowds, I could have probably had a better time - maybe 16:14 or so. Things eventually spread out, and I was able to extend my gazelle-ish legs. The course was a bit easier than what Robin and I had been running in our neighborhood. I didn't have too much trouble until the last big hill to the finish line, but even that wasn't bad. My shoe came untied with about a quarter mile remaining, but I didn't make it case. I carried on.

My time was 218th overall and 12th among males between 26-30. And only one eight year-old had a better time (that's not a joke - check out #133). I was hoping they'd have a category for clumsy, former football players. I could have placed pretty well in that group. I had planned on this being my farewell race on the way to retirement, but now I don't know. Maybe I'll try running some more. Did I mention that it hurts . . . and it's boring? Robin and the gang are already planning for the next race. It's on a day when I'll have football, so I can't run. But if I could, I might.

una arriba fecha

2008-07-23T23:44:00.002-04:00

It's almost Thursday already, and I still have a lot left to do this week. I have to write a pretty lengthy paper sometime before Saturday morning. I'm not sure when that will happen.

Yesterday we left the lunch meat with a sitter and headed out to run some errands. We stopped at Kurt and Carla's house to get a few things. We don't really want to move all of our stuff out until we have a house in which to put it. Basically, we got our computer, which has some needed information, some old East Canton Football shirts for me to wear to practices, some clothes hangars and a couple guitars. The guitars weren't really necessary, but . . .

Today we looked at a house and then went to get Robin's license renewed. It expired while we were in Costa Rica. She was hoping that her valid Costa Rican license would be enough for her to easily renew her Ohio license. No such luck. She had to get a temporary permit, take a written test and sign up for a driving test. She can't take the test until August 12th. Until that time, she is not permitted to drive without another licensed adult in the vehicle. When they were giving her the temporary permit, they asked if she wanted information about driver's ed instructors. Included in her packet of information was a shiny, reflective "student driver" sticker. If her car weren't also my car (we only have one at the moment), that sticker would be proudly displayed by now. I feel bad for Robin but not bad enough to not have some fun. You should join in. Here are some suggested things to say or write to her. You can use these as starters or come up with your own. Be creative.

-Hey Robin, want to go log some hours? I'll ride along.
-Woah! Get off the roads. Robin's almost legal.
-See if you can borrow your dad's car this weekend, so we can go to Tammy Sanderson's party at the lake. I hear Ricky will be there. Cuz ya know, we're like in high school and that's the kinda stuff we like do. So, yeah . . .
-Are your parents going to buy you a car, or will you have to work at Dairy Queen to earn some money?

-Special bonus points to anyone who takes her to a high school parking lot and sets up some cones for her to practice maneuverability.

thought for food

2008-07-21T00:31:00.002-04:00

Grapes are good.

Plums are like giant grapes.

Thus, plums are like giant good.

Today while we were at Mom and Dad's house, mom gave us some lunch meat to take home. That's not really as strange as it may sound. The lunch meat where they live is much better and much cheaper than it is where we live. The drive is about 40 minutes, and we wanted to be sure to get the meat home and back in the fridge before too long. While we were driving . . .

Robin: Maybe on the way home, we can stop and get some of our stuff from Kurt and Carla's basement (where it's being stored)?
Me: That would be good . . . but we gotta get this lunch meat home.
Robin: Oh yeah.
-about 15 minutes later-
Robin: Hey, can we go to Lowe's to look at some things?
Me: We could but . . .
Robin: right . . . the lunch meat.
Me: Wow, life was so much easier before we had lunch meat.
Robin: No kidding. We could go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted.
Me: And it didn't take us so long to get loaded into the car.
Robin: Yeah. That was nice. Sometimes I see young couples who don't yet have lunch meat, and I feel a little jealous.
Me: Me too. Don't get me wrong, I love the lunch meat and I wouldn't want to be without it for even a day, but it sure keeps us busy.
Robin (looking in the back seat and smiling): Yes it does.

We continued on for awhile. We found ourselves to be pretty darn funny, but no one else was there to witness it.

one week

2008-07-19T10:31:00.002-04:00

. . . and we still don't have a house or any kids. Unacceptable.

We are starting to settle in a bit. I've had two football practices and a few other meetings. It's starting to slowly come back to me. I'm remembering the basic rules of the game, and I think I can now say "football" without habitually putting "american" in front of it. Did I mention that along with being the offensive coordinator, I am also the defensive line coach? Defensive line! For most of my life, the defensive linemen have been the guys I run away from. Now I have to teach them. It's gone pretty well so far. I just keep thinking that if I taught 7th grade Chemistry, I can do anything. Maybe I'll try cutting Robin's hair tonight.

We have walked through a few houses, but we haven't made any decisions yet. We have some more to see.

We've been having fun with Jeremiah and Isaac. They can play for hours without getting tired.

Robin's dad and Ann are coming to visit us today.

so, how does it feel?

2008-07-14T11:47:00.003-04:00

I'd kinda like to avoid that question altogether, but I owe you an answer. And now that the initial shock has worn off a bit, I can organize my thoughts a little better.

It feels . . .

good - It's exciting to be home. We've seen a lot of friends and family in the last two days, and it's been fun. The idea of not leaving them any time soon is nice. Jeremiah and Isaac seem to remember us. Jeremiah was a little shy at first, but he's been super excited to have us home. Isaac just smiles and runs around in circles.

sad - Today the teachers at La Palabra de Vida are meeting for the first time after their two week vacation. The students will be back on Wednesday. It's hard to not be there. We can't put into words how much we left behind or the fondness we feel for the people in Costa Rica.

overwhelming - We have a list of things we need/want to do. Its one of those lists that has been growing instead of shrinking. For every task that we check off, we think of two more we need to do. We are realizing just how simple life was in Costa Rica. One cheap cell phone, one '88 Carolla and some miniature furniture was more than sufficient. We were at the grocery store yesterday, and we couldn't believe how much food was there. We had to quit early because we're not in that kind of shopping shape.

1 month of cell phone in Costa Rica = $7
6 months of auto insurance in Costa Rica = $65

amazing - that it's over. After church yesterday, I was looking in our Sunday School room and I saw a letter hanging on the wall. It was titled, "On Our Way to Costa Rica". It was our last support letter before we left. We have been involved, in some form or another, with the Latin America Mission for about 6 years. It's strange to think that we are not anymore (technically we are affiliated with them until the end of September, but you know what I mean).

humbling - We've never really been able to get over this feeling. And now that we're finished, we can understand it completely. We are humbled by the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of supporters. When we were in Miami, we received our most recent financial report. I have to admit that I don't always inspect them thoroughly, but I read through this one. I was amazed by the faithful giving of so many. I talked to an older gentleman at church yesterday who said he prays for us everyday and that he has more money saved up for us if we need it. Now that we're home, I've also been thinking about how God provided for us. I'm pretty sure you would laugh if I told you our total monthly income while we were in Costa Rica. As I've said before, the math doesn't add up. We should have crashed three months in, but we didn't. In fact, financial concerns never hindered our work.

concerning/challenging - We're not missionaries anymore. What if we get caught up in the pursuit of money? As I just mentioned, there was no real danger of that happening in Costa Rica. What if we stop serving? In Costa Rica, we woke up every morning and we served, whether we felt like it or not (and we often didn't). That's not the case now. We are going to have to actively seek service opportunities.

despedida video

2008-07-11T13:55:00.003-04:00

I think I finally succeded in making this video postable. I had to cut out some parts at the end to make it less than 10 minutes. This video was made by a few of my 11th grade students. Almost all of the students you will see are 11th graders (in brown shirts) or 10th graders (in blue shirts). You will also see some videos of me telling jokes in class. Berenice, who is responsible for most of what you will see, often brought her camera to class to record the joke of the day. Unfortunately, she didn't have it on the days when I told the funniest ones. So the jokes you see will be only slightly hilarious.. Enjoy.

hm . . . that kinda snuck up on us

2008-07-10T01:54:00.004-04:00

This is our last night in Costa Rica. Really? It can't be. It doesn't seem possible, but it is. We haven't not lived in Costa Rica in a long time. In about eight hours we will get on a plane and leave. Strange. I have to go weigh suitcases. Here are some more pictures from the last couple weeks.

Robin's 10th graders in a tree

a farewell breakfast thrown by 10th and 11th graders
Robin with her 10th graders
the 7th grade farewell party (Hopefully Matt doesn't see this and realize how much food was consumed in the Science lab.)
some 7th grade boys
7th graders

the 9th grade farewll party
Robin with her 9th grade girls
Robin and Carolina - the social studies teacher

Kevin and I posing as raperos ganster. He is a much better rapero gangster than I am.
some 9th grade girls singing to Kristin and Robin

The idea was

2008-07-08T01:53:00.007-04:00

that I would post some pictures of our little vacation, and then while I was posting pictures, I'd post some of the others we've collected from the events of the last couple weeks. When I started looking through the pictures, I realized that there were way too many for one post. So, I'll post pictures from our beach trip today and post others later. I also have a video that some students made that I want to post, but I'm still working on making it small enough to upload. So without further Freddy Adu . . .

the pool area of our hotel

water aerobics
Robin on the second tee . . . quiet please
the beach
Robin on her horse

Hey there Roy Rogers. (Did Roy Rogers ride horses?)
Some of our students were staying at the same hotel.
The ferry. I named him Danny.

cool clouds captured from the ferry
I'll throw a few of these on too since they were taken tonight. Due to a price hike and some ongoing "negotiations" with the other gym, we've been playing Monday night basketball at our school lately. Today was my last time to play, so Robin came down and took some pictures. This is me about to dunk.
A few guys resting. The guy in the middle of the three is Vince Vaughn Kemp. It's hard to see from here, but you can sort of tell that he looks like Vince Vaughn.

And this is where the Kemp comes from.

Vince's real name is Edwin. Just past his left arm you see Sergio. For nearly every Monday night for the last year and a half, I've had the pleasure of getting pushed around by Sergio for a couple hours. I'll sure miss that. Actually I will. I'm really going to miss Monday night basketball. It's been a lot of fun, and the guys who play are great. Awhile ago I had this idea to make a bunch of posts about things I will miss and not miss about Costa Rica. I haven't had time for that, so I'll probably put them all into one post sometime in the next week or so.

I think we've all been there

2008-07-05T01:21:00.002-04:00

You know how sometimes you're trying to save a bunch of people, and they just want to eat you? Isn't that frustrating?

We just watched I am Legend with Matt and Lisa. It was pretty good. We also had dinner with them tonight. It was pretty good too.

Now, we are getting ready for our trip tomorrow. We are going to a beach for a few days. It will be one last Costa Rican adventure. Our plan to get there includes: taxi, bus, taxi, ferry, bus.

pringles + green tea = crazy delicious

2008-07-03T01:08:00.002-04:00

- Recently I've been flirting with an addiction to both of them.

- I just got done writing up a report for one of my classes and then watched it disappear into thin cyber air when I tried to post it. I think most people have experienced the "lose what you've spent hours writing" phenomenon. There is not much more frustrating than that. I held back the tears pretty well, and I didn't throw the computer.

- Yesterday we went with the mission team to the beach. We left at 4:30 am (I was up at 3:30). It was a four hour trip. On the way, we stopped for a canopy tour (zip lines). Then we beached it up for awhile and drove four hours back home. I was a bit tired by the time we got home. How tired? When we got home, there was a cockroach crawling on our bed. I gave a minimal effort to kill it before I stopped caring and just went to bed. (Robin thinks I did kill it because she saw a dead cockroach body under the bed. It had actually been there before, but I let her believe it was the one I was trying to kill so she could sleep peacefully . . . so I could sleep peacefully. ) When I woke up in the morning, I was in the exact position I had been when I went to sleep. That never happens. I'm usually a light/active sleeper.

- The number of things we have to do is starting to outnumber the number of days we have left. We are trying to plan a trip for this weekend but haven't settled on anything yet. Things are a bit more complicated now that we sold the car.

goodbye apartment, goodbye car, goodbye furniture, goodbye computer?

2008-06-30T17:38:00.002-04:00

We are out of our apartment, and all the furniture has been distributed. We moved most of it yesterday and left the big stuff for today. Remember this? We are feeling much of the same now. It was a good place, and it was owned, guarded, managed and home to good people. It's strange to not live there anymore. I bet that if I were in the bed upstairs and you put a blindfold on me, I could make my way to the fridge downstairs, take out an apple, wash it and sit on the couch to eat it without any problem. In other words, I knew the place well.

I just got back from selling the car. I haven't sold many cars in my life. I usually buy them when they're half dead and then finish the job before I call someone to come pick up the scrap. Despite all my bickering, the car was good to us. Life would have been 13 times more difficult without it. I can honestly say I will miss it.

I was working on my online courses today when my computer screen went black. In fact, I'm just kinda guessing now as I type (just teasing - this is Robin's computer). I haven't been able to get it to come back. Maybe he's upset about the car.

more later . . . I have some pictures I need to put up.

I wasn't kidding

2008-06-28T00:34:00.003-04:00

when I said I was tired yesterday. At about 5:30 (shortly after posting on here) I lay down for a short nap. I didn't get up until this morning. No dinner. No schoolwork. Just pure, unadulterated sleeping. Well, I guess it was adulterated at one point when Robin came to bed and wanted to talk. I quickly put into effect the no talking rule and went back to sleep. It was kind of awesome.

Today was our last day of school.

Tomorrow we pack.

Sunday we move out of our apartment.

Monday we sell our car. I currently have a verbal commitment with a fella named Cristián. If all goes well, we will go see a lawyer, fill out the paperwork and make the transfer.

wait a minute . . .

2008-06-26T18:01:00.003-04:00

. . . you're telling me that there are places on the internet that are not part of Indiana University's online Masters program? I've actually had a lot to write about this week but little time and less energy. Today was our last day of teaching. I should probably be reflective and emotional, but I'm just too exhausted. This week is spiritual emphasis week. A group of students from College Church in Wheaton, Illinois (where we took our students in January) is here to help with activities. As a part of each day, the students participate in different workshops. It has gone really well so far. I've been running a football workshop. I do it twice each day, once for 10th/11th graders and once for 7th/8th/9th graders. It's been fun, but it usually means three hours in the sun followed by a day of teaching. As much as I'd like to avoid it, I usually end up playing in the football games. Yesterday's activities also included chapel, and then I played basketball last night. So most of my energy today has been devoted to not falling over. Tomorrow we are taking all of the high school students to two different elementary schools for a service project.

Another frequent activity of the last week and a half has been goodbye parties. Lots of cake and sweets. I must say that I was most impressed by the 7th grade party. It included a lot of decoration, German donut cake and a bunch of cards and letters.

A few funny comments from the week:

When asked to describe her feelings about spiritual emphasis week, one student wrote, "I am sad because my ticher is living next wik." I should mention that this same student spelled "hands" g-e-a-n-s on a recent quiz and that in Spanish, "i" sounds like "ee".

On one of the letters from a few seventh graders, "If your marriage takes a wrong turn, call us".

Yesterday, Edwin (a 9th grader) said to me:

Edwin: I have a secret for you
Me: really?
Edwin: Yeah, but you can't tell anyone
Me: ok
Edwin: We are going to do something special for you tomorrow. There will be cake.
Me: um . . . I think the person to keep that secret from is me. It really wouldn't do much harm for anyone to know that . . . except me.
Edwin: You know nothing
Me: Actually, I know . . . nevermind . . . I know nothing

serratus posterior inferior

2008-06-22T14:51:00.002-04:00

As far as I can tell, that its name. Its a muscle in your back. Unless you lifted 6,000 buckets of cement yesterday, you probably don't even know it exists. I did, and I do. My serratus posterior inferior is a bit angry with me today. He's like, "Dude! What was all that about?" You see, my SPI has grown quite accustomed to a sedimentary lifestyle of stretching slightly during basketball games and leaving pretty much every other activity to the other muscles of the torso. Yesterday, he was put to use. Matt and Lisa are adding a two-story addition to their house. I helped Matt and a bunch of other people pour the floor for the second story. We did it by filling buckets, passing them up and dumping them. We worked with incredible efficiancy and had it finished by noon, even with a late-arriving cement truck (big surprise).

sunburn, ripped pants, grass-stained pants, sweaty and exausted kids on their way to Spanish class

2008-06-20T16:04:00.002-04:00

All my fault. There may be some parents and other teachers who are a bit upset with me. I guess I'll just have to lay low for awhile and then leave the country.

Because of a rain-out earlier in the week, we had the second semi-final game and the championship game today. So, one team and the teacher/all-time quarterback were in the sun for quite awhile. In the end, the Bugers pulled out a 28-27 victory over the Blue Hammerheads to become the champions. The game-winning touchdown was caught by a girl, and the game-winning extra point was kicked by a girl.

June Madness

2008-06-17T17:45:00.006-04:00

Four teams will enter. After three days of grueling competition, only one will remain. Will it be:

The perennial powerhouse

The cinderella team who has shocked the world by making it this far
The team looking to avenge last season's bitter end
or the Bugers?

(I'm not sure if they were going for burgers or boogers. Either way, they made me reconsider the "let the students create team names and logos" idea)

That's right. It's football time in 7th grade again. The 7th grade class divides nicely into four groups of seven. Barring rain, we begin play tomorrow. Coverage begins at 3:30 EST on ESPN 8 (the ocho). La Palabra de Vida promotes healthy, sportsmanlike competition and in no way condones gambling.

hurray!!!

2008-06-17T10:57:00.002-04:00

After showing this in class this morning, I can't get it out of my head.

a pretty productive day

2008-06-15T21:47:00.004-04:00

Today I . . .

- Read 49 pages about language acquisition and gave thoughtful reactions

- fixed the car alarm . . . maybe. I disconnected a sensor from the back hatch. I'm hoping it will make the clicking stop, but we'll see.

- graded tests that Kristin's students took on Friday.

- graded Science projects.

- talked to my parents and my brother.

- got a haircut.

- planned classes for the week.

- made and ate dinner.

- mopped the bathroom floor (I do this almost everyday because the shower leaks).

- sank a 12 foot birdie putt on the 18th hole of the US Open to force a playoff tomorrow (despite my bad knee).

2 weeks and 1 day

2008-06-12T23:55:00.003-04:00

until we are finished with school. It would be nice if those two weeks and that one day were going to be peaceful and relaxing, but they won't. It will be one of the busiest 15 day periods we've known in awhile. Kristin, the other English teacher, is having an operation and will need a couple weeks to recover. Starting tomorrow, Robin and I will each be teaching an additional class. Also starting tomorrow are the two courses I'm taking online for my Master's degree. I'm not sure why they start on a Friday, but they do. Also starting tomorrow (and finishing tomorrow) is a Father's Day breakfast, which includes the leading of music. Not necessarily starting tomorrow but included in the next couple weeks will be Spiritual Emphasis week and the required preparations (a team from Chicago is coming to help), the attempted sale of a bunch of stuff and the transferring of classes to the teachers who will be taking over for us.

Can I interest you in a dryer?

I think my head is bleeding

2008-06-10T18:27:00.006-04:00

I hit it on the back hatch of the car as I was unloading things when we got home today. The car was getting me back for driving it at top speed into a giant pothole earlier today. I did that to get it back for driving me nuts with the incessant click-click-click-click-click of the super secret alarm (which is currently malfunctioning and activating every 15 seconds). Oh vicious cycle!

We read the book Hatchet in 10th/11th grade. If you've read it, you know that Brian, the main character, gets attacked by a moose. When asked on his test to talk about some of Brian's struggles throughout the story, one student wrote:

One defeat was when the bullwinkle attacked him.

Its nice to have some comic relief while grading tests. Although too much comic relief can quickly become more frustrating than funny.

Here are some pictures of 7th graders with their atom projects. Each student is standing under his/her project, but its kinda hard to see.

Daniel's atom fell apart, so it's not hanging up.

Do you ever get the feeling that nobody's listening?

2008-06-08T01:15:00.004-04:00

If you're a teacher, you probably do.

Yesterday in 7th grade class, we were reading a story about the Titanic. It was stated early on that the disaster occured in 1912. Plus, most of the kids have seen the movie and know that it happened a long time ago. After reading a part of the story that mentioned the reaction as survivors started arriving in the US, I said, "I remember watching this on TV when it happened. The whole country was shocked and amazed. We couldn't believe it."

There was not so much as a funny expression from any of the students.

He's back . . .

The walking bottle of ketchup. And this time he brought some rowdy friends. I had a sore throat on Thursday and Friday. It has now transfered to a congested cold, for which I have taken generic Nyquil, which is why my friend has decided to show up again. He thinks he's so tough. He wouldn't be if he weren't wearing shoulder pads and a bicycle helment . . . and of course if Sponge Bob weren't here to watch his back.

Here is what the cold has done to my voice. The funny thing is that it affects me more when I speak Spanish than when I speak English. I discoved that at the gas station and the store today.

I know my birthday's not until September . . .

2008-06-04T17:39:00.001-04:00

but it's never too early to start dropping hints, right?

the beginning of the end

2008-06-03T22:22:00.003-04:00

I paid the rent today for the last time. While I was doing so, I was reminded of all the steps I will miss about the process. In the U.S, we will probably pay for housing with a check or an automatic withdrawal. Boring. Here, it's a bit different.

1. Go to an ATM to get out the maximum amount of cash allowed per day. The rent must be paid in cash because US checks take a few months to process. We must pay in dollars because . . . actually I don't know why they want us to pay in dollars and not colones.

2. Drive to the office of the company that owns our building. The mail barely exists and is not an option. Even if it did, what fool would put a wad of cash in an envelope and mail it?

3. Talk to the financial dude at the office and try to figure out how much I owe. After we had lived in our place for a year, the rent went up 5%. When it did, the amount landed at an unround $X72.50. Because I can only take out 2os from the ATM, I have to pay with $X80. Because they never have $7.50 in exact change, I usually pay more one week and less the next to even it out. Since today was the last time, we had to figure out exact change. Of course, he didn't have change, so he handed me back one of the 20s, told me to break it and bring back $12.50 later on in the week. Where else does that happen in the civilized world?

Will I be able to adjust to a culture where paying rent is a regulated process, or where the amount you pay for groceries does not depend on the cashier's mental computation abilities, or where my change is not rounded because small denominations of money actually exist, or where I always pay for things with only one currency, or where I don't get charged $17 to walk into a bank and make a withdrawal?

Warning: This is probably just the first of several reflective "last time" posts.

humbled and impressed (again)

2008-06-01T22:03:00.002-04:00

I left the LAM retreat today feeling the same way I did as I left last year: humbled and impressed.

Humbled:

Robin and I often receive praise from friends and family for the "good work we are doing" and the "sacrifices we have made". That's not bad. In fact, we really appreciate the encouragement. But compared to the people we got to hang around with this weekend, we are nothing. Missionaries Lite. Please understand that I'm not criticizing our ministry. We firmly believe that we have been called to be where we have been and to be doing what we've been doing. Nor am I in the least bit implying that our time has been easy. But we've had a few advantages that sometimes don't seem fair:

-Because of our incredibly faithful supporters, we've never had to worry about money.
-We have no kids.
-We knew Spanish before coming down here.
-We are only staying for two years.
-I've known all along that there is a job (and a Tercel) waiting for me when I get back.
-We had both lived in Latin America before.
-This time away does not hurt our careers; it will probably actually help.
-We had very little money when we lived in the US, so the lifestyle change isn't that drastic.
-We are working with an established ministry that has been serving for many years. We just had to jump on board.

Few missionaries have those advantages. There are two groups that always amaze me: the older folks, who have been serving with LAM for 30, 40 or 50 years, and the young families who bring their children to a world and they knew almost nothing about. Many of them leave positions as successful professionals to spend a year feeling like high school students again in language school. And instead of praise and admiration from friends back home, they just get questions and criticism. It's awesome to see the step of faith they take and the sacrifices they make.

Impressed:

The missionaries we got to be around all weekend are remarkable. They are intelligent, experienced, hard-working, talented and, most impressive of all, genuine. Real. Humble. Missionaries, especially those who have been serving for many years, are unlike any other group of people. You don't have to be around them long to realize that most missionaries have spent their lives working, fighting, suffering, sacrificing and depending only on God and have received almost no recognition and certainly no glory. And they love it. We were at the retreat for four days. During those four days we heard about many different ministries, but we never heard a single mention of how many children had been fed, how many houses had been built, how much money had been raised, how many drug-adicts were rescued from the streets or how many souls were saved. No shadow of boasting. It wasn't that they were holding their tongues in an attempt to be modest. They honestly don't care about numbers, perception or personal satisfaction. They just want to serve. I'm getting closer to being able to answer the question. The question that we've already begun hearing, and we haven't even left yet.

What did you learn from your two years as a missionary?

I haven't yet been able to piece together all the words in my mind, but the answer is somewhere around here . . . and it comes more from listening to other missionaries than from our own experience. We've had a taste of it, but we haven't been here long enough for much more. Missionary service (and it's probably true of all service) is not about changing the world. It's about following God, surrendering your desires and getting to work.

I think week-long mission trips are great. I've been on several and hope to be a part of many more. But in some ways they skew our idea of service. We go away for a week and build a house or put on a Vacation Bible School. At the end of the week, we clearly see the results of our labor, and we feel satisfied. We've done well, and God has blessed our worked. Again, that's not a bad thing. We should see results, and God does bless those trips. But things don't always work out that way. I'm sure its not hard for you to believe that we don't come home from school every afternoon feeling satisfied. And I can tell you that none of the other missionaries we've met are perpetually satisfied. In fact, they are more often frustrated than satisfied. (I should clarify that frustrated does not mean they are always cranky. They are genuinely pleasant.) Their work is hard, and they work hard.

So if mission work isn't about changing the world, and many missionaries are often frustrated, shouldn't they stop being missionaries?

No.

How does that make sense?

Again, I haven't completely formulated the wording yet, but here's a try . . . Scattered among those many defeats are victories. And scattered among my defeats are the victories of others. And although we may not experience it ourselves, those victories change the world.

And more importantly, when God tells you to go serve, you go serve.

I am Printh Cathpian

2008-05-29T01:06:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, for the first time in my many (5) years of teaching, I took students to the mall to see a movie. A few months ago in 10th/11th grade class, we read Prince Caspian. So yesterday we took a little field trip to see the movie version. All in all, it was a good trip. The students were able to pick up on many differences between the movie and the book. There were many. Despite the several unnecessary detours from the original story, I thought the movie was pretty good.

Tomorrow we leave for the LAM retreat. We will be there until Sunday. Robin and I are helping lead music again this year. I spent much of tonight printing out lyrics and music and getting things ready. The funny thing is that I've been "preparing" music for a few months, but I still felt a bit stressed tonight trying to get it all together.

music, beef and the Monday predicament

2008-05-27T00:38:00.003-04:00

not necessarily in that order

The same thing happens every Monday night. I go play basketball at about 7:30 and don't get home until almost 10:00. When I get home, I have to eat something (I don't eat much before I go), take out the trash and take a shower before I can go to bed. When I do finally get to bed, I usually can't sleep because I haven't completely settled down from playing basketball. Adding to the predicament is the fact that we recently changed our schedule at school to try to avoid the horrible traffic that was causing so many problems (only in Costa Rica). Classes now begin at 6:45 instead of 7:30. Of course, we have to be there by 6:15 for teacher devotional, and if I have a class during the first period, which I do on Tuesdays, I usually need to go even earlier. All of this adds up to a pretty cranky Bryan on Tuesdays. Tonight is especially bad because after basketball one of the guys invited some of his fellow salespeople to talk to us about Herbal Life vitamin products. I didn't get home until 10:15. The whole time they were talking, I just kept thinking, "Please finish soon dude, so I can go home to my beef."

Which brings me to my second point. Beef. We rollin' in it. Well, not so much anymore. I've been taking care of it. Last night, I made carne asada on the grill. In order to take advantage of the hot coals and because we had some ground beef in the fridge that we didn't want to re-freeze, I also made hamburgers. We ate the carne asada last night, and saved the hamburgers for today. But we didn't eat all the carne asada, so we had both waiting for us when we got home today. Beeftastic. Am I still talking about this? Are you still reading or did you skip ahead to something, anything that is more exciting than meat.

A few new song demos: here, here, here

I am cool

2008-05-23T15:36:00.005-04:00

I wore this shirt to class today. We've been studying the periodic table in 7th grade Science. Matt found this shirt somewhere in the back of his closet and told me I should wear it. I did. You wish you had one, but you don't. The best part: You know how sometimes you're eating lunch and someone asks you the atomic mass of Cobalt, and you usually have to just kinda shrug your shoulders and guess. Well, I didn't have to guess today. I just looked down at my awesome shirt and felt pretty smart. The worst part: Robin was pointing to some of her favorite elements, and it really tickled.
Since I had the camera at school, here is a picture of Robin. She is not cool enough for a periodic table shirt, but she's still pretty.

It just so happened that today the 7th graders had to get their picture taken for the yearbook. I took my camera out to get a few shots of them. There are two absent.

Just for the record, Robin's favorite element is number 97. Look it up.

And I was worried that this post would be full of random, unrelated information

2008-05-23T00:57:00.002-04:00

The homework works itself like a hobo on Thanksgiving.

We were doing an activity with similies in 10th/11th grade class today, and that was one example that a couple of students came up with. They explained it by saying that hobos don't usually do much work anyway, so on Thanksgiving (a day off) they would do even less work. I was impressed by their creativity, so I didn't mention that the "works itself" part didn't make a lot of sense. I also showed some funny similes that I found that were actually written by high school students on essays, but most of them kinda went over the students' heads. Maybe you will understand better. Here are a few highlights:

-She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

-Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

-He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

-From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had aneerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p. m. instead of 7:30.

-Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

-John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

-It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools

We are going to listen to this song tomorrow in class. It relates to the book we've been reading. It's pretty cool.

Speaking of songs . . . do you know of any good ones to sing with students, especially 7th graders? I've been trying to add some new ones to the class repertoire lately. The 7th graders are mostly interested in rockin' songs. The nice thing is that almost any song we sing in class is new to them. For example, today I introduced them to Old Friend by the Supertones. What other songs should I do? They could be old or new. Seriously, tell me.

Many of you probably got an email from Robin today. If you didn't, please pray for the school to find new English teachers to begin in July. And if you know of anyone interested, let us know.

we're gonna cake it up a notch

2008-05-20T00:53:00.002-04:00

This is the cake I made for Robin for her birthday. It's 350 cubic inches of awesome. I also made her a dinner of empanadas and seasoned rice.

how one feels when there is a tarantula in the house . . . take 2

2008-05-18T23:48:00.003-04:00

I know a lot of people didn't get to see the video clip last time, so here it is. I found a different one. Hopefully this one doesn't disappear too.

This weekend has been good. We didn't do much Friday. Yesterday we went out to lunch for Robin's birthday (which is really tomorrow) and then went to Matt and Lisa's for dinner and some games. Today I played tennis and swam in the morning, went to church, video conferenced with the gang at Grandpa Crandall's birthday party (his birthday is actually tomorrow), watched the Cavs lose to Kevin Garnett (his birthday is actually tomorrow) and the Celtics, watched The Princess Bride starring Andre the Giant (his birthday would be tomorrow), read a biography on Malcom X (whose birhtday would also be tomorrow), listened to Pete Townsend (Birhtday . . . tomorrow . . . is he still alive?) rockin' on one of my old The Who cds and did some schoolwork.

If you doubt me/have a bunch of free time, look up all those folks and see if they were really born on May 19th. They were.

sorry little buddy

2008-05-14T10:51:00.003-04:00

Yesterday afternoon, while playing basketball, I tried to deflect a pass using only the pinky finger on my left hand. Well, I didn't "try" to deflect the ball. It was more of a natural reaction to raise my hand, and the ball hit only my pinky. Either way, ouch. I don't think it's broken, but it's definitely bruised and swollen. It's just the pinky on my left hand. Life really shouldn't be any different without the use of one little insiginficant finger, right? I'm finding out today that this is true until you . . .

- play the guitar
- try to count higher than 9
- catch a football
- punch someone
- give a good high 5 (In CR, all high fives must be given with the left hand. Using the right hand is considered disrespectful)
- enter a pinky wrestling tournament
- fold your hands to pray
- eat a banana
- type a blog

Is it on me? I feel like it's on me.

2008-05-12T01:18:00.003-04:00

So, I was sitting here thinking that I wanted to post an update for this weekend, but I wasn't quite sure just what to write about. Then, inspiration hit me . . . sort of. I saw some cups sitting by the computer that needed to go downstairs to be washed. When I opened the door to the office, I heard Robin say that there was a tarantula in the shower.

The good news:
1. I had something to write about.
2. Tarantulas are actually easier to kill than cockroaches. A few broom wacks, and he was no more.

The bad news:
1. THERE WAS A TARANTULA IN OUR SHOWER.

How does one feel when there is a tarantula in the house? Watch the first minute of this to understand:

It may be hard to sleep tonight.

exam week, a dream and sacred doritos

2008-05-10T09:22:00.002-04:00

This week was exam week. Exam week is usually a pretty stressful week for students but a rather relaxing week for teachers. We really only have two classes each day, and we just administer tests. It's usually a time to get caught up on a bunch of work. That was not the case this week. A slew of meetings, music practices, devotionals, birthday celebrations and wrestling matches ate up most of our extra time. So now instead of being rested and caught up, I am behind on work. Instead of one of our usual Friday night activities like going to da club or vandalizing houses in our neighborhood, we stayed home last night, and I worked on plans.

I had a dream last night that I drove to the grocery store here in CR. When I got there, I saw Uncle Wally and Uncle Bob ready to tee off at a nearby golf course. They told me to come play with them. I had to run home first to get something. I don't remember what it was. I know it wasn't golf clubs because I told them I didn't have any. I remember being really excited. On the way home, I had to walk over a long wooden foot bridge.

On Wednesday while I was in a meeting, Robin and Kristen went to get lunch and brought me back a sandwich, a drink and some doritos. I ate the sandwich, but we had another meeting that day, so I saved the doritos. I planned on eating them that night at home. Maybe instead of "planned" I should say I anxiuosly awaited the sweet nachoey goodness. I was pretty excited. Somehow, I forgot about them until about 10:00, so I figured I would eat them the next day at school. The next day at school I forgot about them again . . . and so on for the next few days. I kept forgetting about them, and I haven't eaten them yet. The longer I've had them, the more my excitement has grown about them. Now when I do remember my secret stash, I'm afraid to eat them for fear of not taking full advantage of them. Unfortunately, I've put the doritos up on a figurative snack food pedastal so that that my expectations could never be met by the contents of the little red bag. Why? I just want some doritos!

Does this ever happento you?

No?

hm . . .

What do Drew Gooden, Fidel Castro, Brad and the town of Malvern have in common?

2008-05-06T20:05:00.003-04:00

They were all part of my dream last night.

There was some kind of big war going on between East Canton and Malvern. Drew Gooden and I had been captured and forced to be on the Malvern side. Fidel Castro was our fearless leader. He was also considered some kind of coach. Drew decided to try to escape. He ran away and made it as far as the river before he decided to come back. Fidel, who was surprisingly friendly and understanding, asked him a few questions about why he had left and gave him a verbal warning. I think they even hugged afterwards. Then, it was time for battle. We all were wearing Malvern t-shirts as we took off running towards East Canton. As we neared the city, we saw Brad and a bunch of other Eastcantonians. They were yelling that they weren't ready for battle yet. Then, I woke up.

in honor of cinco de mayo . . .

2008-05-06T01:13:00.005-04:00

. . . I will share with you today's joke of the day from 10th/11th grade class. Maybe by doing so, I can redeem myself from the last joke, which apparently was slightly beyond the intelect of many readers. Are you ready?

There are three boy dogs sitting around: a rottweiler, a doberman and a chihuahua. A very pretty girl collie walks up to them, and they are all stunned by her beauty.

Collie: Whichever one of you can use the words "liver" and "cheese" in a creative sentence can be my boyfriend dog (dogfriend?).

Rottweiler (proudly): I got it. I like to eat liver and cheese.

Collie: That's not very good. You lose.

Doberman: Oooh I know. I don't like to eat liver and cheese.

Collie: Really? That's worse than the Rottweiler.

Chihuahua: Hey guys, liver alone cheese mine!

man cannot live on pizza bagels alone

2008-05-04T21:52:00.002-04:00

Is that true? I'd be willing to try. After making homemade pizza on Friday night, there was some pepperoni that sobrated. I aproveched it tonight along with some spaghetti sauce and provolone sandwich cheese to make pizza bagels. I'm like the McGyver of the kitchen. The bagels were very sabrotious. I may have them again tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a big day for us: cinco de mayo. It will be a day full of fiestas, dancing, pinatas and mountains of tacos (crunchy and soft). We'll probably be up late tonight preparing our shawls and sombreros and practicing cielito lindo.

I'm tempted to leave the previous paragraph as is, but I fear many would not pick up on the sarcasm. We live in Costa Rica. Costa Rica is not Mexico. Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday (and probably more of a U.S. holiday). In fact, many of our students have never heard of cinco de mayo. Well, they've heard of cinco de mayo; its the day after cuatro de mayo . . . but not much more.

This week is exam week. We have a normal day tomorrow, and then the testing begins Tuesday. There are several 7th graders who need to do well on the Science and English tests. I esperate that they are studying now.

Here are a few recently grabated demos:

a dead battery, video game violence and the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies

2008-05-03T19:52:00.002-04:00

We went to Los Guizaros today for the first time in about three months. We would like to go more often, but its been difficult with the busyness of school and the independability (??) of an '88 Corolla. It was nice to see everyone again. There were quite a few new helpers, some who are at language school now and others who were just visiting. I was playing street soccer after lunch with some of the boys. I think I've mentioned before that the ball often goes in the ditches on the side of the road and that the water in the ditches is quite gross and that the boys all but dive in after the ball. Well today, the ball not only went into a ditch but into a culvert. Thankfully it was too small for them to go into because they probably would have tried. We followed the path of the pipe and found a man hole cover type thing. I was able to grab one of the corners and lift it up. Afterwards, I kinda wished I hadn't because the boys started jumping down in to look for the ball. After a few minutes, they got it out. I was glad to put the lid back on the sewer and be done with it.

Did you hear about this? Pretty cool. I can't say I would have done the same.

If you like free music (who doesn't), you can click on the picture below to download a 6 song EP from Arthur Alligood. He is giving away the EP to introduce people to his music. I would recommend it. I would also recommend his last full-length cd, Under the Gray. Arthur has a very distinct style and voice, and he is a great lyricist.

labor day

2008-05-01T22:40:00.001-04:00

Today is Labor Day in Costa Rica. We didn't have school, but I did labor:

- I helped Matt move two Ford Explorers full of rocks from the bottom of the hill at the end of the school property to his house.

- Matt and I then played two full sets of tennis, which would be tiring on a normal, cool day. It was quite hot today, and we had just moved a bunch of rocks.

- I swam.

- We had a very tasty lunch with the Befus family.

- I watched Charlie Wilson's War while Robin slept.

- I took Robin and Kristen to the mall to get their hair cut.

speaking of cows . . .

2008-05-01T01:22:00.002-04:00

There are two cows standing in a field. It's 1998.

Cow #1: Moo. Aren't you worried about Mad Cow disease?

Cow #2: No, I'm not worried. I'm a horse.

in class today

2008-04-29T13:50:00.003-04:00

while studying two-part verbs (turn on, turn up, put on, take off, throw away . . . etc.)

Me: Tell me something you can take out.

Student #1: a dog

Me: Good. What else?

Student #2: your homework

Me: Good

Student #3: a cat

Me: Ok, I guess you could take out a cat. Another example?

Student #4: your girlfriend

Me: Yeah, you can take your girlfriend out to dinner.

Student #5: your mom

Me: That's nice. You can take your mom out. Good. What else?

Student #6: a cow

Me: Ok good. Another examp . . . wait, did you just say a cow? How do you take a cow out?

Student 6 (makes a motion like she is grabbing a cow's leash and pulling it): Like this.

movin' on up

2008-04-26T22:01:00.002-04:00

Our apartment's score on the quality of life index has risen by a few points in the last two days. It all started yesterday. I was on my way home from taking some things to Robin for her girly sleepover at the school, and I decided to stop at a store to see if they had any fans. They had a bunch of them on sale for about $12. One of the workers spent a lot of time showing me how they worked, so I figured I should buy one. It's pretty cheap quality. I think the blades are made of construction paper. I don't know if it will last for 3 months. I was actually surprised it survived the ride home. It didn't come in a box. I just grabbed it, paid, walked out with it and threw it in the back of the car. It seems to work pretty well, but it emits a funny smell.

After the arrival of the fan, other things started improving around here. This morning, I put some bread in the toaster and pushed down the lever. It stayed down . . . by itself. I didn't have to put a jar of peanut butter on it or anything. And when I got in the car today and started it . . . it stalled . . . but only twice. Things are looking up.

7th grade math, sweaty nights and Oprah

2008-04-23T20:21:00.005-04:00

At what age does basic Math become . . . basic? I continue to be amazed by 7th graders' lack of ability to make simple calculations. Almost every quiz we have is worth 20 or 25 points. After I grade them, I don't take the time to write a percentage along with the score. When I return them to the students, I inevitably get 15 kids asking me what their percentage would be. I refuse to tell them. After the first quiz, I wasted 5 precious minutes of class time explaining the whole "relationship to 100" idea. Now, I usually go with, "If it's out of 20, multiply your score by 5. If its out of 25, multiply your score by 4." They usually respond with, "huh?" or, "yeah, but what's my percentage?"

Today I returned a test to them. It was worth 60 points. In order to avoid confusion, I wrote the percentage on each test. Not an easy task when you're using a cell phone calculator. As we were going over it, I realized that I had misnumbered some parts and that the test should have been worth 65 points. Not the end of the world. I told the students to give the test back, and I would fix them. I should have stopped right there. I didn't. I made two mistakes. The first one was to tell them that their percentages would actually be higher when I fixed the scores. Some of them were thinking their scores would jump by 15% because of 5 little points. The second mistake began with the phrase, "If you want to know what your new percentage is, you can do this . . . " I proceded to explain that they had to subtract the number of incorrect answers from 65 instead of 60 and then divide. Chaos. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get them to understand. Would I have understood in 7th grade? Would you?

On the other hand, the 7th graders must think I am a Mathmatical wizard. I often get questions like this:

Mr. Kandel, What grade do I need to get on the next test in order to raise my overall grade to 80%?

My usual response:

Really? Really? Do you realize what factors go into being able to answer that question? Your current grade (Believe it or not, I don't have them all memorized), the differing weights of assignments, the several possible scores you could get on the test, and the relationship between all that information. Just do the best that you can.

I should mention that this "expression of frustration" is not directed at any current or previous Math teachers. I'm sure they are doing fine. Nor do I think that my 7th grade students are not intelligent. Its just that telling 7th graders to find a percentage is like telling 3rd graders to sit boys on one side of the room and girls on the other . . . I'll have to recount that experience in a later post.

For now, I promised you sweaty Oprah . . . uh I mean . . .

It has been hot and sticky lately. There has been little wind or rain to cool us down. I have mentioned on a few occasions that our fan is out of service. This is the worst time of year to be without it. I haven't been sleeping well, mostly because of the heat. The other night after I came home from basketball, I took a shower. After getting out of the shower, I was still sweating. Don't you hate that? We go back and forth about buying a new fan. On one hand, it's hard to sleep without one. On the other hand, it should start raining more soon, which will cool us down. Plus we only have a couple months left, and fans are pretty expensive here. If we do buy a fan, I want one like this:

ode to steak fajitas

2008-04-21T20:14:00.002-04:00

Finally, we meet again. I thought this moment might never arrive. I've been thinking of you since that first magical encounter we shared yesterday. I dreamed of you last night. I considered enjoying you for breakfast this morning, but that would be too weird - even for me. Between classes today (ok . . . during), I couldn't get your delicious strips of grilled steak or your savory, soft peppers and onions out of my head. The four mile trip home from the doctor's office, which took about an hour in standstill traffic, was almost bearable because I knew you would be waiting at the end. And here we are. You and me. Do you hear a symphony? Do you see fireworks? I do. Yesterday you were dinner. Today you are marvelous. Now I'm going to eat you. Bye.

300

2008-04-20T22:18:00.002-04:00

- a perfect score in bowling

- an "epic" warrior movie that I have yet to see

- the lowest possible credit score

- the minumum batting average for a hitter to be considered good (unless he hits 35 homeruns)

- a Chrysler and a Nissan

- the number of posts on this blog

I can feel it

2008-04-18T10:27:00.003-04:00

. . . deep down in my throat. I wouldn't call it "sore" yet, but it wants to be. Its more of a hoarseness that shows up faintly when I talk or sing. I recognize it. I've felt it before. Its kind of like seeing dark clouds off in the distance. Maybe the wind will change, and they'll pass by to the south . . . or maybe not. I'm not a big fan of losing my voice.

So, what do I do? How do I avoid the storm?

-orange juice?
-cough drops?
-herbal tea?
-chocolate chip cookies?

things that are awesome

2008-04-17T00:01:00.003-04:00

1. Science: We did a lab yesterday with magnets and fire. I was a bit nervous beforehand, but it went very well. I never get to use magnets and fire in English or Spanish class (unless its for disciplinary purposes). Maybe I should consider a career change.

2. The book of John: We recently began reading it in one of my classes. Lots of good stuff.

3. The fact that Thursday is finally over: Actually that one goes in the "things that would be awesome" category. Wednesday, which was abnormally stressing today, is finally over. Thursday is still looming.

4. New music: Thank you emusic promotion. See here, here, here, here, here, here, . . .

5. Pizza and green tea: not mixed together

6. The Indians' bullpen: Come on Bryan. This post is supposed to be all positive. Check your sarcasm at the e-door.

7. Every last regard: Ok, awesome is probably an overstatement, but I didn't feel like creating another post entitled "Things that were good enough to sell to friends and family". Every last regard is a cd that Tony and Andy Wolfe and I recorded two years ago. I did all the writin' and most of the playin'. Andy did all the producin', and Tony did all the singin'. We ordered 100 copies of the record and sold them to help raise funds for our time here in Costa Rica. We sold out of them pretty quickly. Recently it has come to my attention that there are some people who didn't get one of those copies (the population of the world minus 100) but would like one. Good news. The cd is now available for digital download. It only took me two years to figure out how to do it. There is a picture/link to the right. You can go there to listen to samples and download the songs or the entire album. The name of the artist should be Wolfe and Kandel . . . not just me. But that website is set up in my name.

how to kill a big cockroach

2008-04-14T13:37:00.003-04:00

(if you don't have a can of Raid)

It's simple really, but you will need two people. We'll call them person A and person B.

1. Person A sees the cockroach, screams and jumps up on the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. She should remain there for most of the rest of the process. Her strategic position will allow her to yell instructions to person B. At first, those instructions will be a bit dramatic/irrational/obvious ("kill it! kill it!", "Ew!!", "Make it go away!"). But as person A calms down, she will be able to offer important advice.

2. Person B, who is downstairs minding his own business, hears the screams, sees the front door and contemplates leaving in the hope that the situation will just resolve itself before he returns in a couple hours.

3. Considering his relationship to person A, person B decides to stay. He puts on shoes, grabs a sandal (for whacking) and a bottle of Lysol kitchen spray and carefully heads upstairs. It is essential that he maintain constant communication with person A.

4. Visual contact is made by both participants. Person B realizes that the current intruder is not quite as large as the last one but still way bigger than most. He realizes he is not adequately prepared and heads back downstairs for a broom. As he passes the front door, the temptations to flee return. Must resist. His future dinners and laundry depend on it.

5. While person B is downstairs, the cockroach runs into the spare bedroom.

6. After a curiously long amount of time, person B resurfaces upstairs with broom and Lysol in hand. The cockroach is currently in the spare room, but visual contact has been lost. All must stand and watch patiently. The ball is in the monster's court.

7. Action. The roach walks past the door. Person B opens fire. His enthusiastic and forceful spraying causes the cap to shoot off the Lysol bottle. The cap hits the cockroach and sends him running into the closet. Crap!

8. Despite her curiosity, person A must remain on the toilet.

9. Person B must never be without his broom or Lysol. His next step is to enter the spare room and start spraying under the suitcases to try to force the roach out.

10. After many minutes of spraying and moving suitcases with the broom, B realizes that the bug is not on that side of the closet. Where is it? Whats that? He hears something coming from the boxes on the other side of the closet.

11. This step is probably the most difficult of the process. Person B needs to lure the cockroach into the box that contains the Christmas tree. He should then use the broom to flip the box over so the bug can be seen or heard scampering on the cardboard at all times.

12. B sprays Lysol into the box liberally. Maybe the fumes will kill the bug or at least slow him down.

13. Using the broom, B slides the box to the top of the stairs. Next, he goes downstairs to open the front door.

14. Being careful not to spill it, B pulls the box down the two flights of stairs and out the door. He then takes the box to the little yard part of the apartment and tips it over.

15. The cockroach will make a run for freedom. At this point, B tries to chop him to death with the broom as if the bug were a piece of firewood and the broom an ax. He gets a few good hits in, but the little bugger keeps running.

16. All the excitement should attract the nighttime guard. He will come over to ask B if he is trying to kill a snake.

17. B, feeling a bit embarrased that it's just a cockroach, finally does what he should have done hours ago and steps on the cockroach, leaving his body on the sidewalk.

18. Person A may now leave her post atop the toilet. Well done.

and . . . we're back

2008-04-13T21:46:00.009-04:00

back from a retreat and back from the beach.

I was at the 7th, 8th and 9th grade retreat on Wednesday and Thursday. It went really well. 11 7th grade boys and I slept in a cabin with 10 beds. I should have pictures later.

Yesterday, we went to the beach. Josh and Christy Meyer, who are getting ready to begin at language school and will be teaching at LPDV next year, had been staying at a hotel at the beach for the last week. They needed to come back a day early to take care of some things, so they offered us their room (and the all-inclusive meals) for the last night. It didn't take much to convince us. We were happy to help out. We had a very nice time swimming, sunning, eating, resting and eating.

I got some good Hat Stanley pictures over the last few days.

This is me getting ready to drive the bus to the retreat.

Me, preparing lunch for the students on Thursday
They were in need of some entertainment on Wednesday night, so I offered my magician services

I also sat in with the band (somewhere in Utah????)

This is me bungee jumping at camp. Weeee!!!

This is me surfing at the beach yesterday. Dude!

Ok, the truth is that I forgot to take Hat Stanley to the retreat. I remembered to take him to the beach, but I forgot the camera. I hope the EC baseball team can forgive me.

it's that time again . . . again

2008-04-10T00:11:00.002-04:00

Another retreat. Tomorrow is the 7th, 8th and 9th grade retreat (aka the get wet and muddy retreat). I am going, but Robin is not. Its only two days. We should be back Friday afternoon. Before leaving for the last retreat, I had to finish off the watermelon. Today it was lasagna. I didn't really need to eat it all. Robin will be here, and it would probably still be good when I get back. But that didn't stop me. I ate a LOT of lasagna.

where's the calculator?

2008-04-08T23:50:00.003-04:00

The calculator function on this computer has disappeared. I've looked everywhere, and I can't find it. How does something like that just disappear?

Maybe you can help; what's 39 divided by 60?

Here's another question for you: Should I do the dishes?

Reason's I should

1. Its kinda my thing
2. Robin asked me to, and she made me yummy lasagna tonight
3. If I don't, ants will descend upon our kitchen
4. Jesus would

Reasons I shouldn't

1. It's almost 10:00, and I'm physically tired and mentally exhausted from grading tests
2. I still have to take a shower (I played basketball after school today)
3. If I leave them, Robin will probably do them tomorrow.
4. We can eat off of paper towels for a couple more days.

for sale

2008-04-06T14:24:00.002-04:00

1 toaster - the lever stays down if you put a frying pan on it, allowing you to continue with your morning activities

1 fan - when you turn it on, the blades don't necessarily spin, but the fan does get really hot. So, I guess its more of a heater.

1 '88 toyota carolla - it only needs a new clutch and/or carburator every few months

1 office chair - 4 of the five wheels are not broken. If you lean the right way, you won't fall.

I'll entertain offers for any or all of it. If you live outside of Costa Rica, add $500 in shipping and don't expect the merchandise to ever arrive.

vengeance is mine, sayeth the English teacher

2008-04-04T20:35:00.008-04:00

I got them back. I gave them this quiz today.

If you've read Prince Caspian, you know that most of the questions in part A are either bogus or about insignificant details. Likewise, most of the sentences in part B are "all whack". I had to throw in a few legitimate questions, so it wasn't too obvious. Part C was my personal favorite. It was about a section of the text book that we read in class yesterday. I didn't tell them it would be on the quiz. And as you can see, I didn't give them any choices.

The whole event couldn't have gone better. I passed out the quiz and could hear them sweating as they struggled to find any questions they could even try to answer. One girl informed me that part C was not in the list of themes that I had given them yesterday. I felt kind of bad as I straight-faced lied to her, "Yes I did. Don't you remember I told you at the end of class that it would be part of the quiz." A few others asked about some of the sentences in part B that didn't make sense. I just gave vague answers like, "Are you sure there's no verb in that sentence?" or "That's one of the exceptions we talked about. Don't you remember?" or "I can't tell you that without giving away the answer".

Mom bought me a one-a-day puzzle calendar for Christmas. I usually use one of them as extra credit for quizzes. I made up my own for today. It was a complex code that corresponded numbers to letters on the first page of the quiz. The message it revealed was:

YOUR APRIL FOOLS PRANK WAS GOOD, BUT MINE IS BETTER

Many students figured out the message but didn't realize that the entire quiz was a joke. When I finally told them, they let out a collective sigh of relief and anger.

pictures and a video of the retreat

2008-04-02T21:45:00.007-04:00

Check out the slide show thingy to see a bunch of pictures, but I wanted to point out a few special ones.

This little guy was in our room the first night. Yes, it was real. Yes, it was alive. Yes, one of the guys killed it with a flashlight.

This was one of the scariest parts of the weekend. The guitar in Ricardo's hands is mine. He is not really playing it. They are performing a skit, and he is pretending that the guitar is a "Guitar Hero" game. In the heat of the acting moment, he picked it up on the stage. During the course of the skit, he banged it on a bench and the ground. I cringed and cried, but the guitar survived.
This was my group. I bet you're wondering why I'm not in the picture. I was about 45 feet in the air waiting to jump off a platform and swing on a cable. But I couldn't jump because my group, who was taking this picture, would not get out of the way at the bottom. I don't know if you've ever jumped off a 45 foot high tree house, but I can tell you that the last thing you want to do is sit there for a long time and think about it.

When they finally moved, I did this.

revenge

2008-04-02T00:02:00.003-04:00

Our 10th and 11th grade students think they're pretty funny. They attempted to pull a sweet April Fool's Day trick on us today. At a certain time, they all got up and left our (mine, Robin's and Kristen's) classes. I was impressed by their organization, but their overall acting left a lot to be desired. It took me about seven seconds to realize what was going on. They had mentioned April Fool's Day a few times earlier in the class, so I knew it was on their minds. Plus, they all got up and left quickly without a word. Robin's students did better. They pretended to all be angry and storm out. Anyway, I promised them that I would get them back. Given the levity of their clever prank, payback is not really necessary. But hey - if you have a reason to mess with students, why not go for it?

So . . . how should I repay them?

Here are my ideas so far:

1. They have a quiz on Friday. I could make it super difficult by including off-the-wall questions.

2. I could give them a normal quiz. Then when I return the quiz on Monday, I could mark them all up, give them all failing grades and scold the students harshly.

3. I could send home angry notes to parents.

4. I could make up a fake bulletin to be passed out at the end of the day (a typical means of communication to parents) which states that the school will be closing next year and that the students need to start looking for new schools.

5. I could get really angry/upset/disappointed one day during class, start crying and see how they react.

I'll keep thinking. If you have any ideas, let me know.

good to be home

2008-03-30T22:42:00.002-04:00

We're back from the retreat. We survived. As usuall, I'll post pictures and tell some stories in a few days when I get the photos from Matt.

Its nice to get back to . . .

. . . warmer weather. It was cold again up on the mountain.

. . . my bed.

. . . a nice hot shower.

. . . a quiet bedroom that doesn't contain 23 loud high school boys.

. . . Robin. She was there too, but we didn't get to spend much time together.

. . . my guitar. Again, it was there and I played it some (actually a few different guitars), but I didn't get to really play it. You know?

Ok, I suppose I have time for one story, but the punchline is probably not worth the setup. I'll give it a whirl anyway. During the retreat, they were playing a game (kinda like Mafia) in which there were a few students secretly designated as killers. The killers could "kill" anyone who was not accompanied by another person during the course of the day. One of the main goals of the game was to promote unity. Well on Friday afternoon I was up in the boys room, and I saw one of the students by himself . . . we'll call him Esteban (because that's his name). Esteban was not feeling well. I talked to him for a few minutes about how he felt and told him to lie down and rest. As I was about to leave he asked, "Can someone kill me now?" He, of course, was referring to the game because he was all alone in the room. I didn't put it all together in my head quick enough.

My reply: Aw. Do you really feel that bad?

its that time again

2008-03-28T00:02:00.003-04:00

You know it. That "we're going away for a few days, and I don't think all this watermelon will still be good on Monday, so I better eat it all tonight" time. I took one for the team and gobbled it all down. Is it bad when eating makes you sweat?

Tomorrow morning we leave for the 10th and 11th grade retreat (aka the jump off stuff retreat). We'll be there until Sunday evening.

We finally have a nickname for one of the guards of our building who had been nicknameless for quite some time. You may recall that we had names for some of the others: Baldy Balderson, Mumbles, My Cousin Vinny. But the guy who has been the most consistent daytime guard for the last six months or so didn't have one . . . until now. We shall call him Wally Armour (or maybe the used car salesman) . Because of him, three different people have come to look at our car and are interested in buying it. One was his nephew, one was a friend, and one is a construction worker who is building a house in our neighborhood. There have been two in the last two days. Of course when we actually are ready to sell the car in June, those guys will probably not be interested anymore.

I'm going to go do two things that I won't do much of in the next few days: shower and sleep.

Why does the ball roll?

2008-03-25T23:32:00.005-04:00

Because it was dirty.

That's another joke that doesn't translate real well into English but is pretty funny in Spanish.

Speaking of jokes . . .

Yesterday, I told one of my classes the old joke about the dog with a bandaged foot who walks into a bar looking for the guy who shot his paw. A long, uncomfortable silence followed and was finally interrupted by the bell.

Speaking of that joke . . .

As I just typed that, I was looking for some kind of cool link, and I came across these. I found them pretty hilarious. You've probably already heard them all, but I hadn't. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit behind the times; I was home schooled.

A guy walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Do you want to play a game? See those two rib-eyes nailed to the ceiling? You get to throw one dart. If you hit one, you get to take them home and I'll give you a free drink." The man says, "No thanks, the steaks are too high."

A guy walks into a bar. He says to the bartender, "Can I have a bag of helicopter flavor chips?" The barkeep says, "Sorry, we only have plain."

A guy walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder. "What do you call that?", asks the bartender. "I call him Tiny because he's my newt!"

A soccer ball walks into a bar. The bartender kicks him out.

Charles Dickens walks into a bar and orders a martini. The bartender asks, "Olive or twist?"

A leprechaun walks into a bar. The bartender serves him and says, "That'll be $2.50." The leprechaun puts two dollar bills on the bar and starts walking away. The barkeep shouts, "You're a little short!"

A mushroom walks into a bar and the bartender says "We don't serve your kind here." and the mushroom says - "Why not? I'm a fungi."

Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "Would you like a beer?" Descartes replies, "I think not", then disappears.

A penguin walks into a bar, goes to the counter, and asks the bartender, "Have you seen my brother?" The bartender asks, "I don't know . . . what does he look like?"

A man walks into a bar and sits down next to a lady and a dog. The man asks, "Does your dog bite?". The lady answers, "Never!" The man reaches out to pet the dog and the dog bites him. The man says, "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!" The woman replies, "He doesn't. This isn't my dog."

A little guy walks into a bar and slips on a spilled drink. Minutes later a tough guy walks into the bar and slips on the spilled drink as well. The little guy says, "I just did that." The big guy then beats the little guy up.

A guy walks into a bar, sits down and hears a small voice say, "You look nice today." A few minutes later he again hears a small voice, "That's a nice shirt." The guy asks the bartender, "Who is that?" The bartender says, "Those are the peanuts. They're complimentary!"

a dinner disaster and back to school blues

2008-03-23T23:50:00.003-04:00

It has been said that you can make pizza on the grill and that pizza made on the grill is quite good. What hasn't been said (at least to my knowledge) is how to make pizza on the grill without burning the crust before the cheese melts. Black. Charcoal. Oh well, I had fun scraping pizza off the crust as if I were cutting corn off the cob. I had to be creative. Just put it in the oven you doof.

We go back to school tomorrow. I'm sure it will take a few days to get back into the routine. The idea of being back in class doesn't bother me. I would never use the word bored, but the last week has been rather inactive and some activity will be welcomed. We're jumping back into plenty of action. This weekend we go to the 10th and 11th grade retreat, which runs nonstop from Friday morning until Sunday evening. Basically, the next two weeks blur into one giant week.

Happy Easter

a good friday

2008-03-21T14:00:00.005-04:00

It was too cloudy again for us to go to the volcano that we've been wanting to see. We actually drove up there this morning and made it all the way to the park entrance, but the man at the gate told us that we wouldn't able to see anything.

However, the trip up the mountain was not wasted. We went to a nearby park and gardens that had trails, animals and waterfalls. It was rainy and a bit cold, but we had fun.

HAT STANLEY STRIKES AGAIN!

today is . . .

2008-03-20T22:04:00.003-04:00

- Holy (Maundy) Thursday

- the first day of spring: Well, its the first day of spring for most of you. Its like the 575th day of spring for us.

- the first day of the NCAA Basketball tournament: Can you name 5 teams that are playing? I can't.

- windy

- the two year anniversary of my church acting debut: I gave a memorable performance as the bushy-eyebrowed Jesus.

- already tomorrow in Australia

- too cloudy to go see the volcano we wanted to see: Maybe we'll go tomorrow.

- the birthday of Spike Lee and Mr. Rogers: I wonder what it would be like if Spike Lee directed an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

- world storytelling day: Know any good stories?

- almost over: See you tomorrow.

greatest hits

2008-03-18T00:09:00.007-04:00

I'm stealing this idea from Tim. He pretty much suggested it, so I don't feel bad. Here is a list of my personal greatest hits (memorable moments). Like Tim, I will not list the obvious (wedding, birth of my children, the first race of every NASCAR season since 1981). Also like Tim, I will probably think of a bunch more later, so I may have to post a volume 2.

In no particular order:

-holding Robin's hand while watching 10 things I hate about you. Its funny how memorable events can make otherwise cheesy teen movies special.

-starting my first college game at QB as a freshman . . . and winning. I think we still hold the record for offensive plays run in a game with 88 (is that right?). We literally moved three yards a play for the entire game. I'll never forget practicing option pitches in the Urbana University theatre before the game. We were hiding our offensive strategy. I should have retired after that game.

-playing the Camp Wanake year-end staff party in 2002. It was one of the rockinest concerts we ever played.

-my first drive to Erie, PA in 2001.

- interviewing Miguel DeJesus for a Spanish project. Miguel was the bass player for Smalltown Poets. They played at Malone on a Sunday night. The following Monday, I had a project due in Spanish class in which I had to interview someone from Latin America. Sunday arrived, and I hadn't finished (or begun) the project yet, but I wasn't going to miss the concert. After the concert, I walked up to the stage and asked Miguel where he was from. Puerto Rico. He graciously agreed to an interview. Awesome.

- Marietta 35 Parkersburg South 32. The last game of my first year as a football coach and one of the best football games I've ever been a part of. Parkersburg South entered the game 8-0. We (Marietta) were 2-7. If there were betting on high school football, we would have been 40 point underdogs. They had more than 100 players; we had about 40. I've already given away the ending. We won 35-32 . . . on a last second field goal by a freshman. For some reason, the game was televised. I'd love to show you the game some time if you come visit. South went on to win the West Virginia AAA (the biggest division) state championship with a record of 13-1. We were the 1.

-the first time Jeremiah said Uncle Bryan. It was probably another year before he said Aunt Robin and two years before he said Grandma.

- going to see the Indians at Spring training in Florida. (George Brett wasn't there, but it was still cool.)

-seeing R.V. Brown (chaplain for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) speak at an FCA camp in North Carolina and seeing hundreds of previously stubborn tough guys in tears. I also saw Tony Dungy and Bobby Bowden speak at that camp.

-playing in a summer league state championship baseball game in 1998. I'm not going into much detail about this because it still hurts to talk about it.

-seeing Andrew Peterson, Andy Gullahorn, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken and Jill Phillips in concert in Pittsburgh a few years ago.

-watching Ohio State win the National Championship in 2003.

-the trip that Robin and I took to Put-in Bay for our second anniversary.

-winning the first place trophy for the Geometry and Measurment division of the Stark County Math Tournament in 5th grade.

-catching a bunch of walleye on Grandpa's pontoon on a rainy morning many years ago.

-climbing Pacaya Volcano in Guatemala.

-the night that Tony, Kurt and I stayed up real late playing cards with Hawk and Lonnie (two of the trip coordinators) during the Stuebenville mission trip. Who else was there? Our brothers? Roy?

a well-deserved week off

2008-03-17T01:35:00.004-04:00

I'm being sarcastic.

We've been teaching for 5 weeks. We don't deserve a week off . . . but we'll take it. It will be about 300 years before Easter comes this early again, and I'll probably be retired by then. Not having school to plan for tomorrow has made today pretty relaxing.

Really? What did you do today?

Well, I played tennis this morning. I changed my blog a bit. Robin and I went for a walk. I watched some pretty exciting golf (I'm actually not being sarcastic now . . . it was exciting). We went to the evening service at church. We ate meatloaf for dinner, and I redeemed myself from a disappointing Skip-Bo loss last night with a convincing victory tonight. Many of those activities would not have been possible if today were a normal Sunday.

whoa . . . they're like all spinny

2008-03-14T18:00:00.002-04:00

For best results, click on this to open it bigger.

fun food facts

2008-03-12T20:50:00.002-04:00

If you put bananas in a plastic bag and then put them in a refridgerator, they will be black within two days.

A bowl of chocolate ice cream in the afternoon can erase all your troubles.

I've been in a cereal mood. I go through phases. I'll go weeks without eating breakfast and then eat toast with pineapple jelly every morning for a week straight. Lately, its been Rice Crispies. I'm kind of rediscovering how good they are. When I go to bed at night, I count down the hours until Rice Crispy time. I'm sure it will pass. In case you're wondering, I still can't eat cereal in front of others . . . or watch them eat it.

On part of a recent test in which the students had to change fragments into correct sentences, the following appeared:

Behind the bank.

One student wrote: I ate a hot dog behind the bank. I guess that works. It doesn't seem as funny now as it did a few nights ago when I was up late grading tests. It would also be funnier if you knew the kid. He's the one who tried to carry a backpack full of liquids onto an airplane as we were leaving Chicago. That wasn't so funny.

I gotta go play apples to apples with Matt, Lisa, Kristin, Billy and Elizabeth.

a dream, Hat Stanley, an agressive plant and some music

2008-03-10T00:29:00.006-04:00

There was a big football game on Friday night. East Canton was playing against Louisville. I guess I was in High School because I was playing . . . well, I was supposed to be playing. I kinda missed the game. I was at some convenience store in Sugarcreek, buying a slushie when I realized that the game was about to start. Uncle Mike and some other guy came in and told me. I was confused as to why they weren't at the game, but I imagine they were more confused about my absence. The next day, I read the paper and saw that Lousiville won by 6 points. East Canton had a chance to score at the end but didn't get into the endzone. I don't know the name of the guy who played QB for me, but I read that he threw for 137 yards. Not bad. Dreams about being back in high school and missing a game (football or baseball) are not uncommon for me. In fact, they probably rank second in total frquency. But they're still far behind the champ - dreams about tornados.

Yesterday, we climbed pico blanco again (the mountain I climbed in December). Robin went this time too. Matt took a bunch of pictures. I'll try to post some of them later. As for now, here are a couple that we took. These are specifically for Jason, Andy and Chad.

On our way down, we saw a bunch of giant plants that looked kinda like this.

As I was walking past one . . . It did this to me . . .

It went right in my ear with pretty good force. I had no idea it was even close. It was quite a shock . . . and a pain. It's still sore today.

Here is a link to a bit of a songwriting project I did during february.

come and go with me

2008-03-06T23:38:00.003-05:00

Ah! I can't get it out of my head. Last week in my Thursday elementary classes, we were talking about vocabulary for rooms of the house, so we listened to the song Big House (audio adrenaline). Today I took my guitar in with me, and we sang it. Well, I sang the verses and they joined me quite loudly on the chorus. I was amazed at how well they remembered the song after a week. Anyway, the dumb song is now lodged in my brain and will not come out. The worst part is that it just keeps sneaking up at random times. The even worster part is that eveything I see/hear/smell gets turned into that song.

Come and go with me to the kitchen sink.

I don't know if you got a cup in which you can put green tea.

She's a big, big wife . . . (that one almost got me punched on a few occasions)

Its a small, small apartment with only three bedrooms . . . a small, small refrigerator with hardly any food . . . a decent sized yard, which is actually a parking lot

Maybe this will get it out of my head. Is it worth it?

Peanut butter is not flamable. I tested it tonight. It melted but did not catch fire.

Due to tonight's election results . . .

2008-03-05T00:05:00.004-05:00

. . . I am officially withdrawing from the 2008 presidential race. I thank all of those who supported me. Your support was not in vain. America hasn't heard the last of me. I have every intention of running again in 2010.

For now, I have to figure out what to do with all these:

weekend tidbits

2008-03-02T23:07:00.003-05:00

Would you eat a peanut butter sandwich on wheat bread?
Robin and I have been discussing this point for probably over a year. She seems to think its perfectly normal. I disagree. I just finished my first ever PB on wheat (we have no white bread). I guess it wasn't disastrous, but it still didn't seem right.

From class on Friday: The 10th and 11th graders were playing catchphrase. The word was "colorvision":

Girl who had the beepy thing: The box you have at your house that you watch
The mob: TV!!
Girl: ok . . . the second word
The mob: "V"!!

I walked past the desk of a 4th grader on Thursday and noticed she had a big colorful picture of the cast from High School Musical. The saddest part is that the picture didn't say "High School Musical" anywhere. I just recognized the characters.

Matt and Lisa got a new dog. It's an older dog that another family had to get rid of. He's pretty well trained in being a family dog. The previous owners said that he was very intelligent. Yesterday he tried to walk onto the pool cover and fell into the pool.

are you not entertained?

2008-02-29T07:10:00.003-05:00

not a good start to the morning

2008-02-25T18:07:00.005-05:00

Let me set the stage a bit. The fan in our bedroom stopped working awhile ago, so I took it apart, jiggled some wires and got it to work - most of the time. My lack of confidence in its abilities has kept me from putting it all back together yet, so it looks like this.

Ok. Here we go. Its about 5:15. I just got out of the shower and have come up to our bedroom. I'm still a bit wet (a key fact). Because my actual attire (just a towel) would be inappropriate, I have replaced myself in the following shots with pictures of a man who is fully dressed and carrying fire wood.

The result. It was actually pretty swollen and much worse earlier today.

The moral: If you shock yourself and then bang your knee really hard on a metal bed post first thing in the morning, things can only get better for the rest of the day.

Don't let this happen to you!

2008-02-23T18:28:00.002-05:00

Here is a summary of what Robin and I did last night. Its not 100% accurate, but its close enough.

Get this widget

Track details

eSnips Social DNA

Actually,

-I didn't really watch the movie. I saw about 5 minutes of it before I had enough.
-It wasn't the only movie we rented. We also rented a football movie. Football- yeah!
-They didn't really kiss. I didn't find this out until after I recorded the song, and Robin corrected me. How the heck did they not kiss? Robin says its because it was a Disney Movie.
-Robin didn't fall asleep on me, but that has happened many times before.
-We had a nice evening together.

thursday

2008-02-22T08:54:00.002-05:00

7:00 - Teacher devotional

7:30 - I was supposed to have class, but there had been a change in the schedule. The good news was that I had some time to prepare for a busy day. The bad news was that the rescheduling had put my 10th/11th grade class at the same time as my 4th grade class. We came up with a temporary solution to get us through the day.

8:15 - 7th grade English.

9:00 - 4th grade spelling test and spelling activities.

10:05 - 10th/11th grade English

10:50 - 3rd grade English

12:00 - 3rd grade English (the other 3rd grade class)

12:55 - 7th grade Science (two lessons)

2:25 - Teacher devotional - Every other Thursday the students leave one period early, and the teachers spend the last class period in a devotional lesson. It takes a lot of effort to listen attentively after a long day.

3:10 - Guitar lessons. I am going to be leading some guitar classes after school on Thursdays. I thought the lessons were going to start in a week or two. A couple kids found me after school and said they had their guitars ready. It was a bit of an unorganized lesson, but it worked out. It will probably take three or four lessons before they are better than me.

4:30 - Take Robin home and pick up shoes.

5:15 - Basketball. It was the first time we've played Thursday night basketball since I got back. There was a guy playing with a prosthetic leg.

7:30 - Spaghetti. I made half a box and ate almost all of it. Actually, I could have eaten all of it. There were about four or five bites left, but I put it in a container and fridged it. I just didn't want to be the guy who makes a pot of spaghetti and eats it all.

never count your Corollas before they're registered

2008-02-20T10:30:00.004-05:00

We're still working on making the car legal. Every day we take to the streets, we risk certain fines, loss of license plates, deportation and even imprisonment. I think the current sentence for driving without an updated regisrtration is 15 years to life. The registration should be all paid for and finished by this afternoon, but I won't believe it until I have the document in my hand and the sticker on my windshield.

We are plugging along in our second week of school. Wednesdays are funny for me. I don't have my first class until 10:50, but I have to come at 7:00 to lead music for teacher devotional. You would think that the time between 7:15 and 10:50 would be relaxing and maybe even boring, but its not. I actually feel a bit stressed to get things done.

I better get going.

a good week

2008-02-17T00:16:00.004-05:00

The first week of school went pretty well. I hesitate to get too excited yet, but the 7th graders seem like a good class. They behave well, they do their work, and they seem to almost enjoy classes. I say I hesitate to get excited because I've heard that often 7th graders begin the year pretty scared (7th grade starts High School in CR). Then as they get more comfortable, they get lazier, rowdier and grumpier. We'll see how it goes, but I'm very optimistic. I had three more of them join class late, which brings the total to a whopping 27. That's a heap of 12/13 year olds. The 10th and 11th graders have also been good so far. My first day of elementary class was an adventure. There was a bit of a schedule confusion, and I had to teach two lessons to a third grade class when I was only expecting to teach one. "Um . . . so you guys know any jokes?" It was ok, and the confusion should be all worked out now.

Our car is one step closer to being legal. The third time was the charm for passing revision tecnica. It failed the second time because of a water-filled brake light. It passed on Friday morning. All thats left is to pay the registration fees and get some insurance, which expired while we were in the US.

Robin and I watched Once tonight. I had been wanting to see it, but I didn't think it would be available here yet. Matt and Lisa watched it last night. Today Matt asked me if I would drop it off at the video store on my way home from their house. As it turned out, our house was on the way to the video store. I brought it home, and Robin and I watched it. I really liked it, but it was another one of those movies that I was supposed to like. Robin seemed to like it too. Good music.

some unique experiences

2008-02-13T19:07:00.002-05:00

I bet these didn't happen to you today.

1. I put some bread in the toaster, set the dial between 1 and 2 and walked away. When I returned, the bread had not yet toastified and popped up. "Ah nuts!" I thought. Sure enough the toast was black. I wonder if 1 is the highest heat and 10 is the lowest. That doesn't seem right, but I'll experiment with it and get back to you. By the way, we've had the toaster for a year and a half.

2. As we were on our way out this morning and in a bit of a hurry, the guard stopped us. He asked me to tie his tie for him. Apparently they all have to wear ties now, and he has no idea how to tie his. Tying a tie for someone else is never easy - especially when he is short and you don't have a mirror.

3. I was informed that there have been some additions made to my teaching schedule. Starting tomorrow, I will be teaching some elementary classes - two 3rd grade classes and a double 4th grade class. This wasn't really new information. I had been warned earlier that I might be asked to fill in some gaps. It will only be one day a week, so I should survive. If anyone knows how to teach 3rd and 4th grade, please let me know.

8:13

2008-02-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

That's what time I finished my plans/work on the first Sunday of the school year. Not bad.

Not much else to blog about now, but classes start tomorrow. I'm tapping my fingers together and smirking like an evil genious while I anticipate the things students will say. Today, Robin and I were reminiscing about some of the highlights from last year. I think my favorites were:

Sometimes my grandma is cheese.

and

After they open the gifts, the bride and groom pass out the mashed potatoes.

And of course, I'm looking forward to being a role model to young people . . . and stuff like that. Did I mention that I'm teaching science? I am. 7th grade science. I'm also teaching 7th grade English. On some days, they'll be with me for 4 lessons. Let's hope we get along. I know its all a punishment for some of the comments I made about Junior High school kids when we were visiting churches back home in December.

Other than that, its been a pretty relaxing weekend. Church, lunch and a bit of grocery shopping today. Tennis, washing the car and . . .um . . . uh . . . not much else yesterday. Robin and I did watch this video:

retreat!

2008-02-07T19:13:00.000-05:00

I think I'll start with a joke

2008-02-05T16:38:00.000-05:00

What goes, "wee-oo0, wee-oo0, wee-oo0 . . . grrr . . . wee-oo0 . . . shut up you piece of . . . wee-oo0 . . . smack . . . wee-oo0 . . . shuffle-shuffle (of feet) . . . wee-oo0 . . . pop . . . snip snip . . . aah (sigh of relief)?

Give up? Its a 1988 Toyota who's alarm won't stop going off on a Monday morning, some cursing by the owner, the sound of the owner throwing the keys at the car (which surprisingly didn't help), the owner running into the house, returning with a pair of needle nose plyers, opening the hood, cutting the wires to the alarm and finally being able to think straight.

So, our car no longer has an alarm. Actually it still has an alarm, but there's no siren to let us know when its activated. The lights still flash, and the car will still turn off if I don't press the secret button after ignition. I might try to reconnect the sirens, or I might not.

How about another joke . . .

Why did the motorcycle rider crash?

He was driving his motorcycle uphill on a busy road while typing a text message on his cell phone.

I just witnessed this a few minutes ago while I was driving home. I didn't actually see him crash, but I imagine he did at some point. I almost crashed from disbelief when I was passing him, and I realized why he had been driving so slow and swervy.

In other news . . .

We spent the last two days at a teacher retreat. My stomach had a rough day today. Either I wasn't completely over the flu, or its another parasite. I'm feeling better now. I have my first day with students on Thursday.

it does exist

2008-02-02T17:03:00.000-05:00

You may remember this post from last April. We went to Arenal volcano, but we didn't really see it. We went again with Mom, Dad and Denny on Thursday, and we did really see it. Proof:
Here's what it looked like from our hotel room.
We also went to see a cool waterfall.

Robin had been standing on this rock with me, but she fell off.

New Spanish word of the day: destupidor