The State of the Shearers

Ok. Sorry it's been so long since our last post. Things have been busy busy busy. With the new job, Sylvan, and Lucy getting ready to walk, we haven't a spare moment. I wanted to just drop a few lines to update all those keeping score at home.
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The job is GREAT! I'm enjoying it. Lots to do, especially since this is the final year of the grant, but I love what I do. We've prepared staff development opportunities for technology, collaboratively planned technology-infused units, and just provide support to the teachers. The teachers are incredible too. Each and every one is really an advocate for technology, which is amazing to see!
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Lucy is getting around pretty well. She's walking when pushing her hippo pal and when you hold her hands. She's actually pretty speedy. She can get up both flights of stairs pretty easily, so we keep gates up at the top and bottom. Every question gets her patented, 'Dah' response. Amazing how one word can mean so much! She'll celebrate year One in a few weeks. Hard to believe! The Shearers and Flanigans will be in attendance. Fun times!
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The great state of North Carolina provided us with a generous 2% raise. Don't know where we'll spend that--probably the Dollar Store. We did FINALLY get the lottery, so hopefully that will help the schools. If the bible thumpers don't kill us all first.

Test Test

Test Test

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All I can say is I didn't vote for him...
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Chris' Blog:
http://hurricanesfan66.blogspot.com/

It's the Most Wonderful...

time of the year, for parents. Definitely not for kids or children. Teachers come back to school this week, which means students will be close behind. Another school year. But no classroom for me! Hehe! I can definitely live with that. I've been doing a lot with the webpage, and I truly believe it to be my best ever. There's a racing theme at our school this year, so that will be pretty easy for me to theme various technology projects around.
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Just came back from the 'Burgh. We had a picnic with both sides of the family. It was a lot of fun, but boy was it hot! Yes, I live in NC, but PA doesn't have the amount of central air we do. Phew! Poor Lucy was all red and flush all day. Then being passed around from one person to the other was pretty tough on her, but she definitely enjoyed her time at Nana and Pap Pap's!

Chris, Your Friendly Neighborhood Tech Facilitator

Well, by my title, I guess you can assume I've taken the position at Williford as a 12 month Tech Facilitator. I started working this week, and while awfully busy, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I also LOVE the thoughts that I won't be preparing my room, doing report cards, scheduling parent-teacher conferences, or any of that mess. Woohoo!

The school and staff I've met so far are very professional. There's a lot of work to be done, and they do it. With this being the final year of the grant, there still remains a ton of paperwork for staff development and purchasing equipment, but what a refreshing change.

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All good on the family front as well. Lucy is keeping us busy, as if we're not busy enough. She is crawling on her knees now and picks herself up on EVERYTHING. She also crawls up two stairs before tuckering out.

It's a Hockey Resurrection in Ralllllleeeeigh!

Finally, the rich and richer have come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement. Boy, as an educator in the South, wouldn't it be nice able to have a union negotiate a fair and market-value contract? Heck, I'm talking making a salary comperable to the rate of inflation, allowing me, Kerry, and Lucy to make ends meet. And both sides of this deal are arguing over multi-million dollar salaries. Anywho...

Sidney Crosby, say hello to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, after winning the rights to draft #1 (and pick the most touted player since Mario Lemieux), will surely put his skills to good use. Could it be the second coming of a savior in the 'Burgh? I know the Novaks hope so!

I'll be posting about the job I've decided to take soon. I'll be a 12 month tech facilitator at a school in the next county over. Lots of room for advancement. I'm excited!

Judge me lest ye be Judged

Ok. I try to stay neutral, but with the government the way it is these days, I can't help but lean. Come on. What is going on in Iraq anyway. Yes, I certainly understand the negatives to having a specific timeline of withdrawal. What this has done though, has shielded us from the true fact that there is no PLAN. When do we know the 'mission' is over? How to we begin bringing back the troops? It really scares me that our national security is in the hands of a man who used to run a military supply company.
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Now we also receive word that O'Connor will resign from the Supreme Court. That will probably give conservatives two choices for justices. Can you say 'Stone Age?' Yes, I agree that after so long, a fetus is technically a being that could survive outside the womb. However, who are we to deny women who have been raped from erasing the proof of that? How can you even suggest that a woman keep that child/put it up for adoption? Conservative more and more means 'lacking common sense.' Should be interesting.

Lucy and Daddy on his first Fathers' Day. 

Google's Plot to Take over the WORLD

Wow! Just downloaded Picasa2 (well, at around 9PM--it's 11:53 PM now). So what have I been doing? Totally organizing 3 years worth of digital pictures. Wow! Picasa makes it so easy to organize, move pics, print, burn, publish to Hello or Blogger Bot. My little Cool Whip head below was published through Picasa.

Do you think Google will develop an OS soon? I mean really, all this stuff totally makes sense. Their maps (maps.google.com) easily beat MapQuest, googleworld is unbelievable, and all this other stuff. In the words of a very wise man, WOOF!

I'll be posting soon about my busy past two days. To sum it quickly--I have two interviews next week and begin part-time at Home Deepot.

My Little Cool Whip Head 

Summer Plans

Just wanted to give y'all some info on our summertime plans. Starting next week I'll work at Home Dee-pot for a few hours a week. Something for just a little extra money (and that discount card!) Kerry's still working at Sylvan. Lucy still isn't working, but there's hope for her yet.

Meeting the Flanigans in Topsail the middle week in July for the annual Drink Shoe Polish Fest '05. Lucy wasn't really sure of the ocean in OC, Md a couple of weeks ago, so this time we'll ease her into it more.

I'm working towards receiving my certification for web design this summer too. And redesigning my school website. So we'll be pretty busy.

The State of Education

It's really sickening that we, who educate and know the best about education, cannot publically comment on everything going on in this state right now. With the budget problems, both at the county and state levels, education in North Carolina is really going downhill.

Of course it began with "No Child Left Untested." As if one arbitrary test (and each state uses their own--how is that for validity and reliability?) can tell if a student learned in the course of a year and if the teacher taught in the course of a year. What this program does not account for are all the what ifs? Maybe the child's father passed away. Maybe she's not living with her parents. Maybe she watched the police arrest her dad. All of those things happened to people in my class this year. Ridiculous.

Anyhow, my employment is pending still. Many of the tech positions available have been converted from teacher assistant positions. The problem now is the great state of NC may reduce funding for TAs. So my dilemma is that if I accept a tech position now, and come fall the TA positions disappear, I could be stuck in kindergarten, first grade, etc. Blah!

A Real Redneck...

Yep, I'm from the North, but I've been redneckin' it the last couple weeks. We have been soooo busy! Went to a NASCAR race in Richmond with Kerry's dad (thanks for the sweet NEXTEL hospitality Luanne!). Then went to a Carolina Mudcats game where I threw out the first pitch. Kerry and Lucy went, along with Jenn, Tim, and Ashley, Robin, and family. Had a great time and definitely look to do that again! This past weekend met my folks in Ocean City, MD for the NASCAR race in Dover. Had a great time sharing the beach for the first time with Lucy Bea. She didn't eat too much sand, but seemed a little afraid of the ocean. Guess we'll try again in July when we meet Kerry's family at Topsail Island.

Still trying to finalize plans for next year. The DPI job didn't materialize as I would hope, but we have a few other possibilities. Keep us in your thoughts, and we'll keep you updated.

Job Offer

Will be interviewing for a new school on Wednesday for a technology position. I guess we've decided I'll go back to school in the fall, hopefully with this position, then work this summer at getting certified in various web design certificates. Then throughout the year I'll look for part-time web design work, and hopefully start full-time next summer. I'll keep you posted.

Jenn Kapp had her baby girl, Ashley. It was fun to hold such a little one again. She was so light! Definitely want more, although Lucy's keeping us on our toes for now! We went strawberry picking the other day. As you can guess, it was a lot of fun. I'm looking toward a fun summer with my girls!

Spread Firefox

Ok...So I am anti-Microsoft. Heck, if there was something better than Apple out there, I would switch operating systems. But there's not. Something that really annoyed me lately has been IE's total lack of common sense. Now that I'm teaching, looking for additional work, taking technology courses online, etc, my computer filled up pretty fast. I hated how IE kept all their different windows at the bottom. I would group them, but when I had a lot of different windows, I couldn't access them easily.

In walks Firefox. In reading the Washington Post over Christmas Break at K's folks, they wrote up this new browser, Firefox. It's different. It's new. It's safe. Hey, anything has to be better than Active "hecX," right? I went home and loaded Firefox. I LOVE IT! I've been using it for a few months now, and would never go back. I have the ability to have 5 things open and using tabs, go back and forth between them, easily. (See picture!) With available add on extensions (free!), I display the current weather, I can control any media player from within my browser. Awesome stuff! Hopefully they'll make an extension with a refrigerator soon. Then I'll never leave my browser!



They're really not paying me, honest!
Visit Firefox for the FREE download!

The Prunes Go In...

The prunes come out. Been feeding Lucy the prunes, and they seem to be working. Boy, how they work. We think we got too caught up in bananas and ignored veggies. Seems the pipes are back to working properly now.

The girls are at Shannon's tonight. Seems they're having a family reunion with Molly and Mabel (the goats). Daddy has the night off, although he still has to do job stuff. Dreaded job stuff! I think I'll go to Sheetz!

The backyard is taking shape. Yesterday, with my new metal rake in hand, I dug out most of the little white stones and have a level surface minus the rock and mulch. Next is to put down some soil, then reseed. Should be a great place for Lucy to play!

Lucy, Daddy, Barnaby, His Girlfriend the Vaporizer, and Bates. 

Baby Food and Constipation

Who ever knew the digustive tract of a baby could be so complex. Lucy has been having some difficulties lately as we transition to more and more 'semi-solids' such as bananas (phew!) and rice cereal. We probably overfed her the bananas, but gosh darn it, as she would say, "Pffff" which in Lucy-ese means they were so good. We've gone into oatmeal now and mix in a hearty bit of apples. Peas are also know as a constipation reliever, so we're trying those. Kerry is off to find some prunes tomorrow. Look out tummy!

Also spent the weekend fixing the backyard and hanging a shelf in the garage to put up the Christmas (yes I know Christmas was months ago) decorations. MY LIGHTS!!! We're trying to pull up all the stones, mulch, and blocks from the postage-stamp sized backyard to reseed it for more grass for Lucy Bea. We do one step at a time. Last weekend it was pulling up all the concrete edgers (which we gave away on WakeFreecycle--awesome site!) and plastic edging. This weekend I relocating the path blocks. Now I need a metal rake to rake the stone. Anyone got one to borrow?

Off to school tomorrow. Will probably stop for Sheetz.

My First Blog

by chris, 16 april 2005, 8 pm

Well, it's about time the Computer God (self-named) developed and maintained a web blog. For those of you reading it, I will begin to update and post my random thoughts, occurances, and Lucy tidbits as time allows.

Hopefully we'll get Kerry on her typing at times as well. Eventually even our littlest one, Lucy B will type some thoughts.