Special Thx
Time flies!!!
I just finished lesson plans for the rest of the year…yes, YEAR. 2008 is just about over people! WOW! It is at this point of the semester that I get a little panicky. OMG, I am only on chapter 11 of 32 chapters and the state test/AP tests are in April and May. Yikes! No pressure, but the job is a year to year thing and well…If the students suck on the test then adios empleo! Fortunately, test scores do not come back until the summer. 
Actually, I am comfortable that almost all of my students will do well. Admin says they are not concerned with test scores, but want emphasis on college prep. Let’s face it, if your students fail admin is not going to be happy. The importance of test scores is simple reality.
When I looked at the calendar and started planning I was very concerned about the pace. From discussing with other history teachers I feel confident in what I have covered so far and feel like I am on track, but there are almost 200 years and some pretty major events that I need to cover before the AP exam. Unfortunately, my students are going to have to do work over winter break. Unlike many of their other teachers, I didn’t give them work over Thanksgiving. Maybe if I get it together and posted next week they can work really hard to complete it before break starts and not have to worry about it. I can create online worksheets and a test for them to take, then when they come back we will review and fight the civil war. That will subtract about 35 years for me to directly address. Sounds like a plan.
Now, off to bed and back to the daily grind.
Dogs at play
Sonny is a new addition to the family. A two year old, 60 something pound poodle he has a slight stingy problem. If our mini-dachshund Tiki has a toy, Sonny wants it. Using my phone for the video camera, here are two that I decided to share…
as much as I love mock trial…
I’m ready for the day to be over! Great team. Great kids. They are really self motivated, but ARGH! It’s Jem’s birthday and I have been at school since 8 this morning. Yes, I would like cheese with my whine…
MySql- FIXED!
Woohoo! Fixed the SQL problem by eliminating the private post plugin. This makes me happy.
Students are in a tizzy
With 27 multiple choice questions and a maximum of 9 short answer questions my students are about to riot. They are in a panic, “What if we don’t get done?!?!” Well, know the material and don’t waste time! It is a lot, but I was able to take the entire test, not skipping the optional written questions and finish with time enough to type a blog post!
It’s cold and snowy looking outside. Not going to happen, but it looks like it could.
Having blog issues. Any tech geeks who are reading please offer input. When I try to look at an individual post I get My SQL errors. I don’t know how to make it stop or where to go to edit the correct MySQL table. 
Here are the errors: Anyone? Anyone?
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'AS p WHERE p.post_date < '2008-11-22 09:39:45' AND p.post_type]
SELECT p.* FROM (wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta as pl_wp_postmeta ON (wp_posts.ID = pl_wp_postmeta.post_id)) AS p WHERE p.post_date < '2008-11-22 09:39:45' AND p.post_type = 'post' AND p. (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' OR (wp_posts.post_status = 'private')) ORDER BY p.post_date DESC LIMIT 1
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'AS p WHERE p.post_date > ’2008-11-22 09:39:45′ AND p.post_type]
SELECT p.* FROM (wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta as pl_wp_postmeta ON (wp_posts.ID = pl_wp_postmeta.post_id)) AS p WHERE p.post_date > ’2008-11-22 09:39:45′ AND p.post_type = ‘post’ AND p. (wp_posts.post_status = ‘publish’ OR (wp_posts.post_status = ‘private’)) ORDER BY p.post_date ASC LIMIT 1
Early Christmas present?
I think probably yeah. I went surfing last night for education themes that I could use on my school websites. Knowing that the search was borderline futile I searched for the theme generator that I found a year or so ago. In the search I ran across a download for theme creation. So excited I decided to give it a try. It was crap. It is called WordPress Theme Generator and it really is complete and total crap. Useless. I went to download dot com to find it so I could add my helpful review and apparently you have to have a login to review. I didn’t feel like dealing with that. However, in the search I found another program. Jackpot!!! Atisteer. There is a free trial that leaves watermarks on whatever you create, but I’m thinking it is well worth the price. One of the things I enjoyed about blogger was the ease of creating my own themes. None were too awesome, but it was a creative outlet for me and I could create something that reflected me and how I was feeling. On WP you either have to learn a slightly different coding system (I tried, but life got in the way) or you have to go with what others create. Some of my favorite themes are completely unusable because there are minor errors in the SQL database and I don’t even know where to start fixing the problem. I could probably figure it out, but it is too much like work. So here is my tech geek contribution to the WWW. Artisteer is what I want and I would like to have it as an early present.
*my current theme, watermarks and all, was created in about 15 minutes this morning.
Anything else? Well, since I’m asking. I also want a portable Tom-Tom or Garmin so that I can start geocaching with the kids. Anyone geocache? I’m open for advice on how to get started. Share and share alike!
Have a great weekend. It is absolutely beautiful here and I plan on enjoying it. Maybe, and that is a big maybe, I will do a little Christmas shopping…but I do have to come up with bday gift for Jem. Hmmm….
Just not into it
It is officially time for a break. Ready for school to be done for the semester. So ready to be visiting family. Four months is the longest we have ever gone without a visit home.
Spent this afternoon meeting my new optometrist. Celebration here, I have finally hit a plateau with my vision!!! After years of degeneration I have experienced a slight improvement. I look forward to the visit when there is no change and I can seek a more permanent fix to my vision issues.
Three dog night…
Since they are calling for a three dog night tonight we were concerned that we were going to have to make use of our three dogs in order to keep warm! Yesterday evening we were a little chilly so felt it was time to bump up the heat for the day, only it wouldn’t come on. We tried to reprogram the thermostat, reset the thermostat, and reboot the thermostat by turning it off and on. We cleaned the air-filter, checked the fuse (after we searched all around and finally found the box outside the house by the power meter), and tried everything we could think of. After an hour and several attempts to make it work we gave it up and went to bed.
By morning it was 59 degrees inside and none too comfortable. Jem spent the day with the shivers because the fix it dude couldn’t come out until late. Tonight, we have heat. Glad for it because it is on and working fine, but I still have a chill. Maybe if I invited the other two dogs in to sit on my feet I would get rid of the chill. The little one at my side just doesn’t have enough body to keep me warm.
The crack-jack
I left my phone at home today. It took every ounce of will power not to turn around to retrieve it. I don’t HAVE to have it. I really can live without it. I mean, people lived for years without cell phones.
*whimper*
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