What a sweep!

Hello from o'hare

TGIFridays in dallas is all about the country music

I've been pretty absent, but I haven't had much to talk about. Here are the three main things happening in the week since I've posted:

1. Nursing school

My application for the program I reeeeaaaaalllllly want is due 11/1. I really don't think I'll get in, but I guess I have to try. My big hold ups are the essay (working on it) and prereqs (ohgodbiochema&p)

2. Rock'n'Roll

Eric was awesome and emailed me Monday to offer his extra ticket to The Hold Steady at The Roxy. I didn't have to think twice. He does this stuff for a living so here's his write up. It was an exhilarating musical experience that I would not have missed for the world. I hadn't heard much of Art Brut, the opener, but I will be finding more and more. I am rather well-versed in The Hold Steady's work but it was something else to be in the crowd watching lead singer Craig Finn just go completely insane.

3. Baseball

Does this need any further explanation? Wow. Twice in 3 years! Incredible to watch, though tonight's game was just pretty sad.

Also, Blogger's post page is incredibly slow. I have such a lag on my typing that I will type an entire paragraph and then wait 30 seconds to a minute for all of the text to actually appear. Anyonme else have this issue? Forget about making any typos. It'll be too late by the time they appear.

Labels: baseball, boston, daily report, music, nursing school, other bloggers

I think my blogwell has run dry. Thus, a meme.

- Bold all of the following TV shows of which you've seen 3 or more episodes.
- Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode.
- Asterisk if you have at least one full season on tape or DVD
- If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

21 Jumpstreet
Alf
America’s Next Top Model
American Dragon: Jake Long
Angel
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Are You Being Served?
Arrested Development*
Avatar: the Last Airbender
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beauty and the Beast
Ben 10
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Blackadder
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boston Public
Boy Meets World
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Caitlin’s Way
Care Bears
Chappelle’s Show
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Clarissa Explains It All
Colbert Report
Cold Case
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dallas
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadwood
Degrassi (the original)
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Dinosaurs
Different Strokes
Dirty Jobs
Doctor Who (1963)
Doctor Who (2005)
Doctor Who (2006)
Dragnet
Due South
Earth 2
Elfen Lied
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Facts of Life
Fairly Odd Parents
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape
Father Ted
Fawlty Towers
Felicity
Firefly
Flash Forward
Forever Knight
Fraggle Rock
Frasier
Freaks and Geeks
Friday Night Lights
Friends*
Futurama*
Get Smart
Ghostwriter
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls*
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Greek
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy*
Growing Pains
Gummi Bears
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hardcastle & McCormick
Heroes
Highlander
Highlander: The Raven
Hogan’s Heroes
Hillstreet Blues
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
Hunter
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Instant Star
Inuyasha
Invader Zim
Invasion
JAG
Jackass
Jeeves and Wooster
Joey
John Doe
Just Shoot Me
Keen Eddie
Kappa Mikey
Kim Possible
Knight Rider
LA Law
Law & Order (original)
Law & Order: CI
Law & Order: SVU
Land of the Lost
Laverne and Shirley
Lexx
Life on Mars
Life With Derek
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost*
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Mad About You
Magnum PI
Malcolm in the Middle*
Mama’s Family
The Man from U.N.C.L.E
Married... With Children
Melrose Place
MI:5
Miami Vice
Millennium
Miracles
Mission: Impossible
Monk
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown*
My Life as a Dog
My Little Pony
My Name is Earl
My So-Called Life
My Super Sweet 16
My Three Sons
My Two Dads
Naruto
News Radio*
NCIS
Nip/Tuck*
Northern Exposure
North Shore
Numb3rs
October Road
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Phil of the Future
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psych
QI
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (UK)
Red Dwarf
ReGenesis
Relic Hunter
Remington Steele
Rocco’s Modern Life
Rescue Me
Road Rules
Robotech
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Salute Your Shorts
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Scrubs*
SeaQuest
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under*
Skins
Sliders
Slings and Arrows
Smallville*
So Weird
South Park
Spaced
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night*
Standoff
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation*
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Superman
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show*
That’s So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius
The Adventures of Pete and Pete
The Andy Griffith Show
The Apprentice
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Bionic Woman (the old one)
The Bionic Woman (the new one)
The Brady Bunch
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Dresden Files
The Famous Jett Jackson
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls
The Honeymooners
The Inside
The Invisible Man
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Lucille Ball Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters
The Muppet Show
The Mythbusters
The Nanny
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)*
The Pretender
The Real World
The Sentinel
The Shield
The Simpsons*
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Wonder Years
The X-Files*
3rd Rock from the Sun
Third Watch
Three’s Company
Top Gear
Torchwood
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Two and A Half Men
Ugly Betty
Under the Umbrella Tree
Veronica Mars
The Vicar of Dibley
The Waltons
The West Wing*
Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
Will and Grace
Wings
Wiseguy
Without a Trace
WKRP in Cincinnati
Wonder Woman
Xena: Warrior Princess
X-Men: Evolution
Yu-gi-oh!

Labels: meme, tv

Someone linked me to this blog saga about a new mom who is being investigated for child abuse. Start with the post I linked and work your way forward chronologically.

Essentially her baby has been having GI issues so they've brought him to doctors and the ER. The ER did an x-ray that picked up some old rib fractures that the hospital attributed to child abuse and brought in DCFS.

It's one-sided, obviously, but my gut believes the mom in this case. It sounds like a lot of incompetence and judgment on the part of the CPS doctor.

The biggest piece that puts me on her side is the orthopedist saying that the fractures were from one event and that the baby had a traumatic birth that easily could have cracked some ribs.

If I ever met Dr. K I'd want to punch her. She makes me that angry.

Labels: news, other bloggers

family portrait

We're watching the Yankee game. I know, I know.

Anyway, Ronan Tynan came out to sing God Bless America. It was lovely, but I was distracted by two things:

1. The angle that highlighted the Adidas flag and made it look like it was flying above the American flag.
2. Derek Jeter repeatedly wiping his nose. Ew.

Labels: funny, tv

Who has two thumbs and got to see Zach Braff today? This girl.

Yes! Next question!

... Until they forget one of your items and you have to drive back to get it.

I don't know what's taken me so long to post this historical video all about the life of our first president George Washington. Laurel posted it a few months ago and I've watched it at least once a week since. I even catch myself humming it under my breath as I wait at stoplights and in the shower, then laugh like a loon.



I defy you not to do the same.

Labels: funny, other bloggers

This greeted me this morning. SLOW DOWN!

Donors Choose is a non-profit that allows public school teachers to submit proposals for projects they'd like their students to do or for improvement in their classrooms. Proposals are for special supplies like microscopes, for field trips, for guest speakers, even for rugs, books, and shelves to set up a library and tennis balls to put on the bottom of chair legs to preserve a new floor.

Then, as a donor, you search through the proposals using a number of different options-- a specific type of proposal, a keyword, a specific region or school, a hurricane-affected school, anything. You choose the proposal(s) you'd like to fund and either make a contribution toward it or pick up the tab completely.

The Blogger Challenge comes in with bloggers all over setting up challenge pages where they challenge their readers to meet certain monetary goals for their selected proposals. There is also currently a contest going on for the month of October where the bloggers who make the most impact in a few areas (amount raised, number of students impacted, number of readers engaged, and most creative incentive to donate.) For the last one, Sars of Tomato Nation apparently shaved her head (video is on YouTube somewhere) after challenging her readers to raise $30k. Now she's upped the stakes with prizes and a pledge to wear a tomato costume for a day if readers fund $40,000 more.

I don't stand a chance against such awesomeness, but I'd still love it if my few readers would get involved in some way-- either by donating to my challenge, starting your own, or just talking up Donors Choose.

I have 8 proposals on my page so far. I'm picking proposals that speak to what was important to me and I can't imagine having gone without when I was in school. Things like a fully-stocked library, the freedom and tools to explore my writing, and the excitement of having a hand in a real TV broadcast.

I also included one from a teacher who wants to bring a Media Literacy program to her students.

There's one really awesome one that I'm waiting to go live. Below is the teacher's description of his project. I almost wish I was still in school so I could participate.

I have a student who has some serious problems with reading. At the end of last year I made a deal with her that if she would read them with me I would buy her a copy of each Harry Potter book, and that we would try to read all seven by the end of the year. At the start of this year I thought what was an even better idea was to get a small group together, all classmates and friends, some strong readers and some with weaknesses, and we'd read it as a circle.

Despite quietly asking around who might be interested, word got out and now many, many students want in. Worse yet, there are three other teachers who want to be involved.

And this afternoon, the worst thing of all happened.

I was talking to the tenth grade English teacher (the one I was supposed to be working with this year) and somewhere in this utterly insane conversation we realized that with four teachers involved we could split the kids into four groups.

And since there are four houses at Hogwarts...

That's right, folks, we're going to sort the students and have four "houses" in competition to see who can read furthest into the series by the end of the year. I think we'll also find a way to discuss the books with the groups based on the philosophies of the houses.

I need to stop having these ideas.

The big push is for the month of October, but many of these will remain open long past that so keep DonorsChoose in the back of your mind when deciding where to spread a little extra cash.

THANKS!

Labels: blog business, donorschoose, media literacy, other bloggers

I'm pretty sure I saw this guy being confronted by Chris Hansen recently.



(Yep, that heavy-lidded little tyke is me!)

Labels: funny, holidays, pictures