I know you’re not all on vacation, but I am, and it is sweet. Oh so sweet is the respite from crazy adolescents! Speaking of crazy Junior Highers, I rarely post about anything specific to work, but during this joyous time of vacation I shall choose a hilarious example of why I love my job. In one class I have a student who asks me the other day ,”Are you my friend?” Now maybe the hilarity of the situation won’t transfer over in a blog post, but my standard response to this question is “No, I’m your teacher.” You see, when you’ve been teaching a while, you develop these canned responses, sort of like a script. It’s like the words just flow out of me like they have countless times before. When the student inevitably replies “Why not?” I then say, “We don’t hang out. You didn’t invite me to your birthday party. We don’t text message each other. I don’t help you pass notes in class….” At this point the student usually gets it and leaves the subject alone, but not this particular student. He is in a state of denial and replies “No, I think you’re my friend.” Apparently despite proof of the opposite, he continues to press. I then reply “None of your teachers are your friends, they’re your teachers.” He says, “No, Mr. Smith is my friend.” I tell him to ask Mr. Smith later that day, and then let me know tomorrow what he said.

The next day he walks into my class and looks at me with sad eyes and says, “I asked Mr. Smith if he’s my friend, and he said no.” It was the most hilarious thing ever. Now the student tells me to say hi to my baby so my baby will be his friend. Gotta love it.

Anyways, my brother took me to the shooting range for the first time yesterday. We got to shoot a couple handguns and his new .22 pump-action rifle. I figure since he’s getting into it I should at least go and try it, and as a good conservative that believes strongly in gun rights, I should at least have shot one before. Overall it was really a lot of fun. I think there is a certain mystique that surrounds guns, and until you’ve actually held one, loaded it, and and shot it, you don’t realize how typical it really is. I’m not trying to demean the very dangerous power a gun can have, but it really reminded me of shooting a BB gun. Granted it’s much more powerful and you have to be more careful, but it’s a lot the same. Here’s my first target from shooting 12 rounds of my brother’s 357 Magnum (which I believe was .38 ammo?) It’s a bigger gun than his .22 handgun, and while the .22 is more economical and great for practicing your accuracy, there is definitely something cool about the bigger BOOM you get from the bigger ammo.

My first couple shots were off the mark, but once I got used to the action it wasn’t so bad! Thanks for taking me bro.

Otherwise we’re just gearing up for Christmas in a very low key way. Neither Stacie or I need much, and even the baby already has more than he needs, so I think appropriately this year the focus will be on family. We’re doing my sister’s in-laws on Christmas Eve, my parents and my in-laws on Christmas, and then my Grandmother/Aunt/Cousins on my Mom’s side up in Turlock the day after Christmas. This will be our first road trip with the boy, so it should be interesting. Hope everyone’s Christmas plans and gift buying are going well.

Not much going on. Only two more weeks until Christmas break!

Sadly, at the age of 27, I received my first filling on Friday. For years I have been proud of my cavity free mouth, but last week one of my wisdom teeth was the victim of evil tooth decay. The cool part is that a guy I played volleyball with in High School did the filling. Crazy! Anyone else beat 27 years without a cavity? My sister said that third molars (wisdom teeth) don’t even count though, which I’m fine with.

I’m already tired of Little Big Planet. Once you beat the game, it’s just a lot jumping…and no matter how cool the level…it’s still just a lot of jumping. I put it on Ebay, and I bought Wipeout HD for only $20!

Stacie just told me to turn off the computer and go to bed, and I said “The Department of Defense is under attack by a foregin terrorist and I have to stop it.” She said that’s not my job.

She also pointed out that I promised baby pictures in this post. In a week he’ll be nine months old.

Luke Mickey’s His Daddy

We do patty cake now, and as Uncle Paul points out, that’s all. We don’t roll anything or mark it with a B yet.

We also hold our own bottle if mom or dad won’t do it for him. If you let go and let it just sit there, then he’ll grab it. But if you hold it at all, he’s more than happy to let you do all the work.

We let cute little Romanian girls grab our ears and then we make weird faces.

On Thanksgiving we were thankful to be able to spend it with our Great-Grandpa. This is my favorite picture of the two of them.

I wants me some new Star Trek with Sylar from Heroes!

Go watch Trailer 2….now! I recommend the HD version and a subwoofer.

Luke and I were having fun today. I think I was having more fun, but he wasn’t crying, so it must not have been too bad.

Click here for HD

…is now going to be the most famous! Paloma is going to be on SURVIVOR! I was reading about one of the other players, and then I saw her picture I was like no way! So not only is this season in HD, but it also has someone I know. I used to give her rides to school in High School, and she used to live on my street. This is crazy! GO PALOMA!

New season premieres on Thursday, September 25th. It’s on at 8 pm on CBS. Do I feel a survive night get together?

Here is the link to her forum page. Register and say something nice!

This video trumps the last laughing video…by far.

See it in HD Here.

Nothing too profound to say today, just a few random things I wanted to mention.

While I wait for book edits I’m busy formatting it for printing. There are two major print on demand book publishers, and I’m trying to decide which one to use. One is called Lulu. Something neat they offer is that you can get a real ISBN number for your book and have it available for distribution. It becomes available on online bookstores like Amazon, and brick and mortar stores can order. They won’t automatically, but it can be special ordered, and some people have had success convincing a brick and mortar to order some of their books to sell. The other major printer is called CreateSpace which is owned by Amazon. When you publish here your book is basically only available via Amazon. The other big difference is cost. From the way things look right now, it would basically cost about $20 after shipping from Lulu, but only $10 at Amazon (and it’s eligible for super saver shipping). I’m hoping you’ll all want to buy and read my book no matter what, but any opinions on price? Is a $20 paperback just way too expensive? (In terms of quality they’re somewhere in between the paperbacks you see at the market for cheap, and a good hardcover.)

I’d like to make another recommendation that you should all go listen to Anarbor. They’re so awesome. I still listen to their album over and over on repeat, and for only $6 it’s a total steal.

Nothing too political on my mind, but one thing I’ve observed. If a commercial has two people of different ethnic backgrounds, and one of them is either getting made fun of or doing something stupid, it tends to follow a pattern: the white person is always the loser. Now this isn’t scientific or absolute, but I can think of two examples. Right now there is an AT&T commercial with a guy sitting in front of a window and he thinks he’s watching an HDTV, and he’s a total idiot. His friend telling him what he’s doing is a very with it and together Asian guy. I can’t picture them showing the same commercial with the roles switched. A second example are the Washinton Mutual commercials that featured the black spokesperson and the old white stuffy bankers. The black guy was intelligent and well spoken, and the bankers were the butt of the joke.

I can’t even picture them making a commercial where an ethnic minority is the butt of the joke and a white person is the intelligent one. Same goes for gender. Usually it’s the husband in a commercial that does something stupid and it’s the wife that has to correct him and be the voice of reason. Any other examples you can think of?

To be clear, I don’t particularly care. I try to watch as few commercials as possible, but I think this is an interesting commentary on race and gender in our society. Maybe this is something Obama will address?

In just the last week or two Luke has started to laugh. Usually they are really short, but mommy got him going the other day and he let out cute little squeals for a whole minute. I thought I’d join Angelo and post a video of the boy. Click here to see it in HD.