Upturn

Never mind $1.79⁹. 24 hours ago, a gallon of gas at the Mobil on Odana and Whitney Way cost $2.66⁹. On my way home, it had jumped up to $2.85⁹. On my way in this morning, it was up again to $2.99⁹. At this rate, by Monday, it'll be nearly $5 a gallon!

This is mostly due to Hurricane Katrina, but I like to think it's more our idiot president's fault. Our idiot president who cut his vacation short because of this tragedy. This tragedy has him cutting his vacation short. Nice. Asshole.

Oh, and speaking of assholes, some Utah-livin'-in anti-genius had this to say when a dead dog stuck in a sewer pipe caused an unpleasant backup: "We're like the hurricane victims."

Yeah. You really are.

Oh, Yeah...

Preseason
Packers 3 - Patriots 27

Um... we lost. I was in Michigan, where the game was not carried on XM Radio but on Sirius, to which I had no access. I dialed up with a 56K connection and tried to keep up via NFL.com's Game Tracker.

Fun night.

School in the New Millennium

People sometimes ask me if I miss teaching. Generally speaking, no. I loved teaching. I loved the kids. I learned, though, that education isn't about them. It's all politics and red tape, with a little too little respect and -- don't know if you've heard -- not enough money. And it's not just me; many of the people I graduated with and who shared my major have left teaching. It's incredibly disheartening to me... and yes, I recognize how hypocritical that sounds. After all, if I cared that much, why did I leave? Look: I'm not about to lead any crusades. I bitch about a lot of stuff, and maybe I can change some of the stuff that pisses me off -- if it's easy. I tried lots of ways to fix this problem. Some were small successes. Everything else was a miserable failure. Experience enough failure and it'll make you quit trying after a while.

Now I'm a parent with a kid who is a couple weeks away from starting preschool. I'm going to become the agent of change again, but from a different side of the table. So look for me to start jumping on bandwagons like this one soon.

Oh, and BTW, where the fuck was this when I was teaching?!

Terror

I just finished watching the National Geographics Channel's "Inside 9/11." Tonight was the second of two parts, and it mostly covered the events of September 11th, 2001, in a minute-by-minute timeline. I spent most of the time watching it with a horrified look on my face -- like slackjawed, cringing and squinting -- and my head in my hands. It's still really difficult to watch. I had an especially visceral reaction to the faces of the hijackers (shown incessantly), which are still being presented via the same grainy photos that we've seen since we first identified who they were. How is it that we can learn all of this intelligence about exactly what happened on these aircraft that crashed with no survivors, yet we can't seem to find one more picture of Mohammed Atta?

Revisiting that whole time surrounding September 11th just generally makes me uneasy. We were living in Monroe (shudder), I was working with assholes, the country was still newly under the rule of an idiot... just really not the highlight of my years. Of course, on the other hand, Brett was on the way so our lives were going to be changed forever eventually anyway.

Observation: This documentary, the televised 9/11 documentary that was aired on CBS on the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, and Fahrenheit 9/11 -- all excellent -- all use that damned abbreviated convention that I wish had never permeated the lexicon. Oh, well.

"Special," Indeed

Preseason
Packers 7 - Bills 27

Well, at least Brett Favre continues to look good. I just don't want to have to rely on him to be the Packers again this year. (Notice I didn't say I don't think he could do it.)

So, from books I've read, I understand that a football team is made up of an offense, a defense, and something called "special teams." While I've also heard that two out of three ain't bad, all evidence suggests that missing any of these three can royally screw with a football team's chances of succeeding.

Our special teams sucked on Saturday night, and we lost. Not that the offense fared much better without Brett at the helm. And the defense allowed 27 straight points to be scored against them. Let's not just assume that the other team's kicker will always miss every field goal try, hm?

So, accentuating the positive, Favre's numbers so far: 13-of-16 for 132 yards and a TD pass in each of the first two preseason games.

This Friday night's opponent: The World Champion New England Patriots. I'll be sitting in Dad's Ridgeline in the driveway of the cottage next door to ours in Michigan, listening to it -- alone, no doubt -- on XM Radio.

No, I don't think I have a problem... why do you ask?

Breaking News from CNN

Hurricane Hits WI
Nice work from "The Most Trusted Name in News."

Finally!

Well, it took this long, but I finally saw my first tornado live and in person... and -- like I learned to do in hilljack class -- I caught it on tape from our back yard as it roared away about two miles northeast of our house.

Those Nutty Founding Fathers and Their Crazy Laws

Things about New York that must deliberately have been kept from the general public: "it's legal for women to go topless in public."

Stuff I Haven't Had Time to Blog

• Lisa/Nate and Rogue rock.
• "Rescue Me" on Fx is a pretty damned good show. The cast shares a lot of the talent from Leary's much-missed ABC vehicle "The Job."
• Summer is my favorite season. If I didn't live here and have the benefit of three other seasons with which to compare it, I doubt I'd feel that way.
  
• A classmate of the younger sister of a former 8th grade student of mine is pregnant. Okay, yes, this makes me feel old, but that's not why it depresses me.
• Ads SUCK. I could probably create a separate blog just to detail all of the television and radio advertisements that make me want to shoot someone in the face. (Luckily, I obviously don't have that kind of time.)
  
• Folding those last two together, the roommate of a college girlfriend of mine is the new face of American. Her name is Angela Manella, if you're interested. In college, she drank about six Diet Cokes a day. Her pep in those ads leads me to believe that hasn't changed.
  
• There's no such word as "nother" as in "whole nother." Even if you mean it as "'nother" -- the colloquial-contracted form of "another" -- it makes absolutely no sense to say "whole another," so knock it the fuck off.
• In order to get my son used to the idea that drinking milk is a good idea, I've hooked him on flavored milk... but not the flavor you might expect. When I was a kid, chocolate milk was the way to go. Now, don't get me wrong. My sister and I drank plenty of white milk without complaining, but a bit of chocolate every once in a while certainly didn't hurt. I don't remember when I discovered strawberry-flavored milk, but it certainly left an impression. A couple of years ago, I bought Brett some strawberry Nesquik, and the rest is history. Lately, we've been doing our best to wean him off of strawberry milk after 5:00, and it's been a tough sell. I've created a monster. However, I draw the line somewhere. This is simply going too far.

Gearing Up

Preseason
Packers 10 - Chargers 7

Last Friday night, 62,492 people crammed into Lambeau to watch the Packers play a scrimmage against the Bills. The tickets for that game sold out in just three hours. The NFL Network was there to document what a real football team with real football fans is like. Name another team that would've packed 'em in like that even before the Preseason.

Tonight, the Preseason began in earnest. One would've expected Brett to play just one or two series, but he played nearly two full quarters instead. He bowed out after a very Favre-like 23-yard rainbow TD pass to Double-D, capping an 80-yard drive. He was a near-perfect 9 for 10 for a total of 91 yards tonight. Then Aaron, Craig, and J.T. came in and played for a while. (Watching O'Sullivan is still kinda' freaky; I still can't quite get used to someone standing behind Center with a big number 7 on his jersey again.)

Maybe best of all, Chargers Kicker Nate Kaeding (remember him?) missed a 43-yard field goal, a 44-yard field goal, and a 45-yard field goal... only to see Ryan Longwell kick the winner from 53 yards out with 33 seconds left in the game!

In other "news," Terrell Owens is a total prick. I, of course knew that back in 1999.

Yes, I know, it's only the Preseason. Imagine what I'll be like once the regular season kicks off.