Ah Payday

As dad would say.. the eagle has dewied

I am sure that in sailor (he was a sailor in World War 2) the dewied was a different word. But here it is. May starts tomorrow. Bills are being paid as we speak.

This has been kind of a long month. we had some nice travel during Easter break. This month we spent right down to the last day.. which means it all worked out when you don't have any draw to the check guarantee fund.

So tonight we ate out at Panda. Sue just wanted the chow mein.. really not an option for dinner. So she ate my chow mein and I ate her entrees. It was good.

We got the chair repaired by the body shop in town. He had to take the seat off (a two person job). Then he spot welded the plates back in place and connected the holes with solid bolts.. Its working so much better. We now have a complete three point connection for the platform lift of the powerchair. Before we were hoping the chair would not jump off its track and we would be rolling it down the freeway. So it was mainly used for in city travel. It will be nice to have some connection to the outside word with the powerchair. My favorite body shop man put it together in 3 hours. He was reluctant to charge me the prevailing rate of 62 dollars per hour.. so he charged me 100 total. I couldn't let that happen.. so I threw in another 50 bucks. He was very pleased. He was sort of intrigued by the job. He said that he started it last night after work and was going to finish it this morning. He stayed right with it and finished it last night. He was very happy with his solution. I was happy to get the job done so quickly.

Today was my last day of babysitting a RSP classroom through the star testing program. It was a tough day because only three of the 14 students took the first test.. biology and the whole class took the US history second test. Many had not taken the US history class to do well on it. The teacher was off with the tennis team. It looks like the tennis team will be doing make ups next week.

I just got through talking with Mom. She had toe surgery today. She is doing great. They took the joint apart and put it back together again with wire. We are headed over on Saturday to support. She has ordered up my famous chicken morengo with the polenta side.

Ought to be great. In the mean time she has the classic foot boot.

We are all ready for a Friday.. No telling what shape my classroom kidderos will be.

: ) Pat

Administering the State Exam to RSP students

Imagine trying to keep a bucket of slithering snakes quiet and productive.

None of them wanted to be there... well three out of 14 did a diligent job taking the test. The others... hmmmm

I administered the State exam for English to a class of Resource 11th graders today. Three of the students wanted to sleep.. I mean down to the snore level. Our job.. keep them jollied up so they wouldn't make low riders on their answer sheets. It didn't work. The UCLA educated principal got on the horn and set the goal.. 29 in 09. Yeah. He had the requisit rah rah rally. The shop boys on the way back to shop said," This really sucks butt. I would rather go to continuation school."

I guess that would not work in the school climate section of the accreditation cycle. Realistically I think those politicians that think that this test is measuring anything should have been sitting in my class today. This is strictly an unfair measure of unrealistic goals for an unhappy population. What is better.. no one is asking. No child left behind is just like just saying no to drugs or our opulent abstinence program that blows through mucho bucks every year for do appreciable gain.

I hope that when people like my sister get in power.. working on her edu doctors program, that people will come to their senses.

There is hope. We have a lot of "helicopter parents" for our gifted population and we have a lot of kids out their in the serious trenches going nowhere fast.

Here I am emoting in the blog once more..

Pat

Once again Thinning peaches

It is time once again to thin the peaches on the little peach trees in my front yard. The nectarine tree needed it too.

It seems these little trees really try to put on a full tree's worth of fruit. I have to be merciless in thinning or taking off the extra fruit that sets on these trees.

Long ago I made the decision to plant these dwarf trees instead of the roses that used to line the front walk. These dwarf trees do not get any bigger than six feet tall. The first one, the Bonanza Peach, has gotten to be 9 feet tall. It is still manageable without a ladder.

So a pee zee peach in on the curb has moderate production every year. The pee zee nectarine has an incredible harvest every year. I am always looking for nectarine lovers to give these wonderful cling fruit. I enjoy them myself but not at that rate. They are amazingly sweet.. but they do not come off their pit very easily. It makes it harder to make jam or slice them. They do not have to be peeled however. Gowing up on peach orchards, we always peel the peaches.

The Bonanza peach is always has the first fruit of the season. I can pretty well count on peaches the week after school is out.. about the 14th of June and it will continue to produce tree ripe fruit until the 4th of July. The other trees have started production by then.. including the 30 year old Tilton apricot in the back. It has a bumper crop growing on it this year. It had a pretty small crop on it last year. I could only get 8 quarts of canned fruit from it. This year, I am going to have to thin out the fruit on the tree so that the branches don't break in May. It is loaded. The Alan Wilson plum has a great crop on it this year too. The pluots, an intergenitic cross of plums and apricots, of which I have two trees in the front look to have an average crop. The big yello/green one was something else last year. It was the last one to have fruit except for the lemon tree and the pomegranate. I was concern about the pomegranate tree not blooming this year.. but I checked my flickr notes and discovered that I took photos of them blooming in late May last year.. so.. not to worry yet. My students loved them last year.

The white peach that Sue hates because it is so sweet and does not have the peach acid in it, has a good crop but not a spectacular corp.

It is finally time for the last of the iris to bloom. The Beverly Sills are out in their delicate pinks. What a great flower. I think that they will do better in a different part of the front yard garden. They are slated to be dug up 6 weeks after their bloom.. About the time the school is out.. darn that sounds nice.

: ) pat

Post Overnight in the Sleep Lab

Its been way past due.

The tech asked me as he wired me up.. and I do mean wired me up. What brings you here tonight?

I told him.. My last sleep study was 8 years ago. He replied you are about 6 years late in getting this done.. yep

I reported in to the sleep center in a strip mall setting at 8:30 as requested. The tech who was working the test on me was there and allowed me to get into my pajamas.

The bed was a good firm bed. There are no windows in that room. A small (12 flat screen) TV was in the upper corner. It had all the standard channels of a cable system.. about 90. Two other patients were also at the center last night. One was doing an awakeness study,on his way home at midnight,and the other, who arrived after me was doing the same study as mine.

The tech took me into a room and attached about 8 wires to my head... 6 of which were in my scalp, a couple on my face and various sensors on down the body to a couple in my legs on each side. All wires were connected to a "block" and then I carried the "block" down to bed. He hooked me in and I watched T.V.. for an hour or so.

He came in and set me up with a couple of sleep "exercises" to calibrate the sensors.. Look up to the ceiling for 2minutes. Blink your eyes 5 times move your eyes left to right 5 times. Breathe from your mouth, breathe from your nose.... on and on. Each test measured the input for a particular sensor.

The first part of the sleep test was "diagnostic" you sleep without the cpap machine. This was between 10 and midnight. Then the tech comes in and made sure that the mask got on. He started the pressure at 4 and then watched the numbers on my sensors to find the best number for my machine to work.

It was all over at 5am. Not too far from my normal during the week get up time. He went through all the bed checks again and took of all the gear back to the set up room.

In the mean time, Sue has a hard time with me out of the house at night. She did okay last night. She said that she did an "allnighter".. but she often does that when she has a good book to read.

I didn't get all my hours with my machine.. so this morning I was a little sleep and not the most accurate in the world with this blog entry. I will recover.

Pat

Beer Rocks?

In Northern Colorado, especially Greely, there is a particular deal that they use for fund raising.

They are called Beer Rocks. Small quantities of hamburger and cabbage are fried up together and encased in appetizer sized biscuits. They bake them up and sell them by the dozen just as they sell tamales around here by the dozen.

Tonight we had the Merced version. I take a head of fresh cabbage and run it through the Cuisanart slicer. A half of onion is sauteed first in a big frying pan with olive oil. It was cut up in slivers. Then a pound of hamburger was thrown in on top of it. The whole works continues to cook until the hamburger loses its red color. The sliced cabbage is dumped on top and seasoned with lea and Pearon's Worchester sauce. The whole mixture is tossed and served on a plate when the cabbage is cooked. Top with catsup and you have a complete one pan meal.

Thats what we had tonight.. yum

Pat

It Feels Like a Fair Night

You know the feeling. The county fair is going in town.. you go without a coat, or a jacket or even a sweater.

The warm night will keep you comfortable. We have had a couple of those nights recently. Air temperature is over 90 in the day... so lows in the high 60's and low 70's at night.

I remember a night at the Merced County Fair where Linzi and her friend got a photo next to the cardboard cut out of George "W". We got stuck with a bad alternator on the way home and had to call AAA. After a lengthy wait, the tow truck arrived and hauled us home from the shadow of the In and Out.

The citrus trees are really letting us know that Spring is hear. They take out your nose even in the middle of the night. This year they combine their smell with the delicate smell of the iris... wow.

You know that you are getting to the end of the school year when they talk about state tests. Next week is the scheducled time. We hope we do well. I am not sure that it will be good for the special ed students. They are the reason our district is a PI district. Our district is not one to play around with our populations and because of that they do not compare well with the districts that do "hide" there questionable populations.

It really works against your mainstreaming accomplishments. These students struggle all the time.

Hope all is going well for you!

Pat

Outside Cleanup

One of the things that the people in Colorado don't usually have to do this time of the year is mow their lawns.

The last snow storm last weekend delayed many spring time activities for people in the Denver area. They really needed the moisture. The one thing that they didn't need to do is mow their lawn, I mowed my lawn for the 4th time this year. I also did the roundup bit and whipped the weeds down in the front. The backyard is in serious need for that kind of work.. but it will have to wait until next weekend. We are expected to get some 96 degree temperatures this afternoon..

Its the first day back at school. That always brings interesting behavior on the part of the students. Most of the time the students are very lethargic on their first day back. They have been used to do more physical work at home such as housework or yard work or they have been at home staying up to all hours and playing their video games and now its time to pay the piper with regular school attendance. Don't get those tardies.. etc.

Overall, we have had a great week off of regular activities. We traveled around Northern California, and saw some cool sights again. I am looking forward in some weekends ahead to getting my spring museum fix.

Take care.. : ) Pat

Being a Tourist in Monterey

We drove to Monterey to see the sea lions but they were off the dock.

The wind had blown so hard that the little fishing boats were not going out to see.. so the sea lions that generally "clean up the dock" were not their too.

We had a very nice fish dinner on the dock at Radfel's. They had fish tacos the Jean wanted and had a decent clam chowder, The various restaurants now compete for business with clam chowder samples beside the door of their wharf side establishment. A person talks to the customers and passes out samples from a soup turine. The wind was cutting into their business. In fact the entire wharf had shut down for two days prior to our coming. The little fishing boats had not gone out to see. We were able to get a very nice window seat looking out on the fleet. No one was out doing anything the wind was blowing so hard.

We had a trip through the gift shops and bought the requisite fleece and headed over to the 17 mile drive. The surf was high and the only reason to get out of your car was to take a photo. We did some of that. The sea otters and seals were in pupping season so their stop was not accessible. It looks like they are doing some construction around the area too.

We stopped by mom and dad's house on the way home and mom had a wonderful lemon cake that she had made from a Cook's Illustrated recipe. She said that if there was a way to make it hard they figured it out. Dad was busy successfully printing out the photos from the Easter picnic. He also repaired one of my frames that had lost its hook eye.

We had a good trip home and prepared for the journey to Sacramento the next morning to drop off Jean at the airport to go home to Denver.

: ) Pat

Being a Tourist.. in Yosemite

Seeing the sights of California through the eyes of a Colorado Tourist is really different,

I know that we don't take our wonders for granted. But sometimes we just don't get out to them to enjoy them.

This week Jean, my wife's friend from high school days spent 5 days with us as we enjoyed 100 mile treks from our home base in Merced.

We picked her up in Sacramento. We took her to a big family picnic in Fremont. We went to Yosemite when it looked like it was going to be too windy in the Bay Area. From all accounts it was too windy to be a tourist. In Yosemite, it was cold. BRRRRR. The high was 42 degrees and I think that was reached in the morning sun before the snow clouds came in the afternoon. It snowed very gently and none of it stayed on the ground. The European tourists knew how to travel in such weather. Most of the visitors in Yosemite during the weekdays are European and Asian tourists. it was only the American tourists that were huddled around the outdoor patio heaters for the grill restaurant.

We had a great time walking through the art Ansel Adams gallery and the art museum.

The waterfalls were wonderfully full.There were falls that I had never seen before.They won't last, so its was great to be up their when the falls were falling and not dried up.

At first the Colorado tourists wants to compare the place to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. After awhile there is no comparisons. They both represent unique parks with their own advantages.

Coming into the park, the wild red bud shrubs were in bloom. They present a wildly pink accent to the plants left pretty dormant through the winter.

The valley floor is in the middle of massive construction to repair the damage from the rock slides of a couple of years ago. Happy Isles is not even on the tourist map anymore. Coming in we had to wait a couple of minutes in the one lane section, that takes the approach road across the river and back again to avoid the huge rock slide that coves the one time two lane road that goes into the park.

We parked the truck in the day use area and walked into the grill resterant area and then on to the art galleries and visitor center. We found the trail to the base of Yosemite Falls, this year, all three tiers are visible. Then we took the tram back. A older man was on the bus that had injured his foot climbing the trail to the top of the falls. He said that it was miserably cold and wet near the top. He twisted his foot and was seeking some asprin and a wrap at the store at the base. He was headed back to his tent cabin to nurse it a little. No such injury befell us.

The park is special at all times of the year. We are so fortunate that it was preserved for all of us to enjoy.

Pat

Korean Barbequre in Sacto and Easter in the East Bay

The night before Easter we spent in Sacramento. Sue's friend friend from high school days Jean. We also had along with us Linzi's friend, Morgan. Jean had flown in to spend some of our Spring break with us. She lives in a town close to Denver. We had a great dinner of Korean Barbeque at Oz in the Sacramento area. It was cool. Each table has a mini gas barbeque with proper venting to the roof. Various meats and vegetables are brought to the table. You cook your own meal and those of your tablemates on the grill. The meat often is marinated, and there are many side dishes of spiced this and that are cold and add to the Korean flavors. Yes there was a Kim Chee. It was not as hot as the fabled ones. I was taken by the shredded Daikon in a sweet sauce.
The restaurant had a meal for 6 and we took that combination. It worked out perfectly.

We spent Easter eve at the Holiday Inn Express downtown. It worked out great for us. It has a super price through hot wire.

There was music at every street corner this Saturday night. I think that it was one of those art walk Satruday nights where the galleries are open.


The next morning, ate breakfast at the hotel and hung out at Linzis and Sean's for teh morning. I helped mash up the potatoes that we took to the Easter Party in Freemant. We met everyone of our family over at Ardenwood Farm preserve at Fremont in the East bay. It was really great to see the family. Everyone was there .except Acacia. She is studying hard at UC San Diego.

It was a great party. We ate and drank and chewed the fat. Bob, my brother in law brought the cold chicken and the surprise desert were the strawberry parfaits that Cammie made right on the spot from strawberries and crumbled pound cake, There were plenty of deviled eggs for the devotees.

We rode the little ag train. Some of the group hiked over the end of the train route and took the train back.

The Spring Smells of Good Friday

On my walk the flowers from people's gardens were noticeable.

One garden had the emergence of sweet alyssum, its tight bunched petal and habit of reseeding its self make this a wonderful spring to all summer type of flower. The purple variety with the white centers seem to have fallen out of favor or possibly not as readily reseedable in this climate.

This is the time for the start of the iris season. When there are masses of iris, there is also this faintly delicate smell. Of french perfume.

The yellow and orange roses were blooming again on my walk. For some reason these don't have much portable fragrance this time of year.

The strange this that happen this year is that the early iris have come out before the dutch iris. In my head I have always thought that the dutch iris were the first of the iris to come out. The dutch iris are the beautiful ultra marine blue iris with the white and yellow throats. I have one patch in the front yard that I thought was not going to bloom this year.. but alas, it looks like a bunch will bloom as three blossom structures have arisen from the center. As one of the past ministers we had in Turlock used to say... glorious!

I hope you see some beautiful flowers for your Easter parade!
Pat

Free of Pink Eye!

My eyes felt good enough to back to school today.

Several of my students were concerned about my absence. It was full bore ahead. Classes worked through a dialog day. Listening to other students comments and adding an appropriate statement to continue the conversation. These are some very important skills for communicatively challenged students at the high school level.

One of my "co teacher's" husband is a jew for Christ. He is still a practicing jew with all of the customs. She talked about the jewish traditions at this time of year.. with passover and sedar meals and passed out some matsa bread for the students to try.

At the other school, the trip to Starbucks was a bust. The other teacher got parent permissions back and everyhing was okay.. except for not getting the approval from the principal. Apparently there is a staff member that pre digests the requests and gets the appropriate signatures for such events in bulk. The co teacher did not know this procedure and tried to get the principal to sign them on her own. Didn't work that way. So.. the adventure which had such a good premise did not work. We will all try again in 11 days when we are back in school.

: ) Pat

Gotem Easter Card

Kelly and her prolific stamping has sent us a really nice Easter card. Thanks Kelly.. you brightened the day!

Had to go to school today.. shouldn't have.. red eye and going into painful.

Home school kid coming in at 11:30 and not enough time to wave him off. Sixth period another anomaly. Kid came in with mom to set up a speech screening and therapy. Private school going south. 17year old with an untouched bilateral lisp. My My.

Will do breath streams and exaggerated jaw movements to hone it down to a good s sound. We start off with a non s with channeling the s through the proper channel.

The printer is working.. got some really nice photos done in the 13x 19 size. I had some premade mats so off they went to school. Sixth period worked on the logic and the reasoning behind placements of the corn lady, the sisters on the Malecon, spuds and butter, and the Carnival ship headed into Puerto Vallarta and two photos of the cathedral of Puerto Vallarta. I still have some work to do on the series to include the market photo down in the trees. I got a pretty hialrous photo of a guy hanging off the ledge taking a photo of the sunset with a digital camera and a balloon hat that has marked on it in marking pen "Lady Killer".

We have next week off.. starting with this Fiday. Sue's friend Jean is coming to visit us for a few days during this time. It will be fun to do tourist again. Hope my eye is better. I spent an hour in line at Walgreens to get the drops and an hour in the office to get a prescription.

Love to all
Pat

For Godfrey's Mama

The first set of iris photos were shot into the sun.

That was not going to work. I could have color corrected them in photo shot and brought out the colors.. but.. considering that they are right outside of my front door. It is easy to go out and re-shoot them.

So.. check on my flikr.. side bar on the left and you will see the two best photos that I took this AM on my front yard iris garden.

Fringe Benefits are the delicate orange iris. This pastel color is supposed to be my Talasmatic color what ever that means.

The cool spuds and butter have a delicate orange throat. There is a little breeze this am so some of these iris are moving gently to the breeze.. Its palm Sunday and there are fresh strawberries in the stands.. or at least it looks that way when you drive by.

That is something that will have to be investigated today.. hard to beat strawberry shortcake.. with local red berries without white shoulders..

: ) Pat

Iris Blooming

We had a friend in Merced that used to have an commercial iris garden. It was called "Enchanted April." Each April his acres were a beautiful site to behold. I believe that he had over 150 varieties plus a few that he had developed himself and named after his daughters.

He ended up with bad knees and was forced to move his retail iris garden into a wholesale one. In one of his last years of operation, mom and dad came over with a friend from England. They bought us four different varieties.

The iris business is pretty interesting in that when you see the blossoms you really cannot get the plants you want until later in the year.. about late August or September when they can be separated and moved. The old blossomed spikes are discarded and new shoots are encouraged. My iris garden is ready for such a renewal. The dwarf peach and nectarine trees are impinging upon the light needed for the iris and the weeds are much harder to eliminate because they enter the zone of the trees and are taller than than the iris.

Currently the iris garden is displaying some beautiful fringe benefit iris (orange) and some spuds and butter (yellow fringed with white centers). Later in the season will be the deep purple black Abbey (named after his daughter) and the iris that mom likes, the Beverly Sills (pink). They are the last iris of the season.

: ) Pat

The Wind is blowing like a Banshee

Mixed bag today.

I was missing a couple of students first period. Friday's are usually game days but they got me off talking about mountains of snicker bars in the nearby warehouse distribution center for 7 11s in Northern California.. McKlane. Every day hundreds of trucks leave Merced with palates on them for 7 11 stores in Northern California. My students did not know what a palate was. So they learned about two kinds of palates.. the wooden kind and the soft palate.. back near the alveolar ridge. From there we got into lo boys and fork lifts.
The second period came in ready to play. Their favorite game is 5 second hold em. They have to hold the answer they know for 5 seconds before verbalizing the answer.

The other school had a IEP that was close to schedule. The student is a daughter of a 3rd grade teacher in town. It was nice to meet her. She was pretty happy about her daughter's progress.

Lunch time is always a riot with the boys and girls of the TOTS.. the other table.

The worm game.. a version of the milion dollar game show was on tap for the 5th period class. They had a great time with "Mr. Brown" words which are always the easiest on the board. I pinned the TAs with tough questions and saved the toughest ones for the the para. He is always up for the challenge.

Sixth period was spent working on a visual organizer for a "to do" list for this weekend for each of the students.

The student body had a multiculture day with food from all of the clubs for sale.

It was a good day but it took the starch out of me to be "on camera" most of the day.

: ) pat

Feeder Schools and Intake

The kid comes in.

He peers over his shyness to a table full of people frantically filling out forms.

His teacher is there, reluctantly telling lies about him.

Everyone smiles and the questions are asked.

What do you want for a fun elective?

You can have that fun elective if you go to summer school and pass and not miss three days.

When?

Every morning from June 10th to July 21st.

When?

It starts at 7:30. Its over at 1:00.

Sure, I will agree to do anything.. just get me out of this room.

Sign here... what am I signing?

Oh there is a translater.. yes its in Spanish.

Do you want to play sports in High School?

Yes, you are on the Jr. High team.

You want keyboarding..yes that is the same as computers.

Does your mom understand her rights?

(In his mind.. what is the principal doing here?)

And...my speech teacher...I just call her speech teacher.

And there is this other guy from the High School.. he says that he is a speech teacher too. Am I going to have speech there too?

I really don't know how to ask that question..

Whoops its over we are out of the room. Its time for the next group to come in.

Thats the way it was going today

:) Pat

April 1 and Fools among us

This is a very interesting day at school for the language impaired.

It is not too far from St Pat's day when people can go out and pinch others for not wearing green. The difficult part about this day is to get a prank pulled on another that is significant enough to say.."April Fools!" This is hard when your language is behind to begin with.

My students tried to do the uniform alert.. your zipper's down, your button is unbuttoned, you are wearing your shirt inside out.. again.. after the third one of these it just doesn't fly. They still keep trying.

Today was writing day. Wednesdays are always.. or mostly always writing day in the class. I let them choose from my career photos one career and then write a couple of paragraphs about it. I put up hints regarding the content I wanted in each of their chosen careers. One of the students who is on the A spectrum say the mail lady and called her Nacho Libre. He could not get that out of his head. So.. what does nacho libre do to deliver the mail?

Have a great day!
Pat