Garage Sale

On Saturday Tommy and I had a garage sale to purge and make some cash for our trip. We each made a guess of how much money we would make: Tommy ($135), Morgan ($125). As you can see, we did not have high hopes.



It turns out that we made quite a bit - double our guesses! It makes me tempted to have another garage sale - although Tommy would oppose.

Some sale highlights:

• Marrionette puppet I made in 1998: $1


• Van Gogh painting I made in 2000: $1


• God Bless America hair clips: 25 cents


• Beanie Babies: 50 cents each


• The Full House Game: $1


• Dream Phone (the game): free!

As the day progressed the free pile got larger and larger - until everything was free! We set the rest of the items closer to the road (about 6 boxes) and when we came home from dinner everything was gone except for 3 dirty teddy bears. Success!

Middle School Challenge

Today I experienced the most fun five minutes I have ever had with middle school students. It was the Middle School Challenge Run, a competition between Shuksan, Whatcom, Kulshan and Fairhaven to see who can get the most participants at a 2.3 mile fun run in Whatcom Falls Park.

A little background: Shuksan always gets last place. The highest number of students we have had particpate is 55. Respectable, but not enough to compete with Whatcom or Fairhaven. Those other schools have such a higher level of parent involvement, and their students are, in general, so much more involved with school activities that it is hard to compete against them in anything. Their track teams are three times the size of ours, if that's any indicator. When Whatcom or Fairhaven wins an event like this, it is just an ordinary day. It is expected. If Shuksan could win in event that is all about participation it would be HUGE.

This year, a supermom with girls on the track team headed up the promotion, and I was led to get behind the event as well. 3 weeks ago, with about 50 kids signed up, a teacher announced that he would run laps for any student that beat him at the event. I got on the intercom and announced to the school that I would let the students shave my head if we got 75 students. A few other teachers made friendly wagers, and the student body got on board.

Today at the event, we had a lot of kids come out. The run/walk came and went. I was awarded "Most Glory-Hungry Teacher" by my colleagues for being the first adult to finish. My pride would not allow me to let a Shuksan student beat me!

An hour later, we gathered around for the announcement of which school had the most participants cross the finish line. 4th place with 90 odd students: Kulshan. 3rd place with 119: Fairhaven. This meant that we had eclipsed the Shuksan record and set a new standard simply by not being last! With a lot of buldup, they made the announcement...

"This years Challenge Run winner, setting a new city record with 166 particpants... Shuksan!"

And there was much rejoicing among the people. They called for a school administrator to come up, but I couldn't see one, and a fellow teacher started pushing me toward the stage. I pushed through the crowd of kids, grabbed the massive trophy, and hoisted it above my head. Then I faced the crowd and started screaming. The kids started freaking out too, and as the announcer continued to say things about how well Shuksan had done, I just kept screaming and shaking the trophy in the air.

Some kids standing in front of me wanted to touch the trophy, so I started walking through the crowd, yelling for all of the Shuksan students to reach out and touch the trophy. It was hilarious and awesome. Some moms yelled at me to pull all the kids aside for a photo, so I led them with the trophy and we gathered into a huge excited mass and took pictures. Then we screamed some more.

Seattle to Frankfurt

Last Monday we bought one-way tickets to Frankfurt, Germany. We depart September 1st.

This will start our 7-month trip through Eastern Europe, India, & SE Asia.

What I am most excited to see/do:

• Beaches in Croatia
• Pyramids in Egypt
• Jerusalem
• Christmas in Austria
• Camel Festival in Bikaner, India
• Kite Festival in Jaipur, India
• Biking around Angkor Wat in Cambodia
• Eating in Thailand
• Limestone Karsts in China

TB from the ER

Tommy woke up this morning with chest pains so we drove all over town looking for open walk-in clinics in an effort to avoid the ER. Our efforts failed and we spent a few hours (and probably quite a few hundred dollars) in the ER.

In the ER room next to ours (the same room with a curtain in between) was an Indian family with a sick and crying baby. After a few rounds of questioning the family about the baby's condition, they mentioned that when they were in India last month the baby had pneumonia and spent 7 days in the hospital. After thinking for a while, the doctors thought the baby might have gotten TB in the Indian hospital. They quickly transferred the family to a quarantine room and disinfected the entire area. This left us a little unnerved because there was only a sheet separating us from TB Baby and they didn't think to clean our area or move us. So watch out, we might have TB. We'll try not to breathe when you are around.

The doctors said Tommy wasn't having a heart attack and he didn't have a collapsed lung so they sent him home. He decided to spend his day off in luxury at his parents house and I went to school.

I had called for a sub to cover the first two hours, which was WASL proctoring and that I wasn't sure when I would make it back to school. So after I dropped Tommy off at the lake, I drove out to Deming. The secretary told me to go home because the sub was counting on a full day. So I turned around and came home and enjoyed an unexpected day to myself!

One Month Later

Tommy hasn't posted since March - he has been waiting for me to post something becuase some people are calling Tommy a blog-hog. The truth is, I am blog deficient.

Here are some highlights from our lives:

- President's Day Snowshoeing with Justin & Alex.

- My dad sent us a box of citrus fruits from Arizona. I made citrus sorbet with my fantastic kitchenaid ice cream maker.

- I helped my mom clean out her attic. Many of the items were placed there circa 1980. Jessica, Andrea and I put on a fashion show. Morgan in a rouched green hippie dress. Jessica in a tailored blue striped bell-bottomed suit with red floral collar and matching red halter top. Andrea in a green flannel "lounge" outfit that my mom made (notice that it is one piece!). There was also a large box full of baby shoes.

- For Andrea's birthday gift I taught her how to make homemade pizza. Yum.

My Faithful Steed

WARNING: This post may be incredibly boring for some of you- Just look at the pictures.

My faithful steeds are being passed on. My Trek 1500, which has served me well for the last year and a half (an estimated 2,000-3,000 miles) was given to my brother on Sunday.

My single speed Apollo, which has provided many harsh commuting miles in all the weather conditions, is also soon to be retired/sold.

This is because my new custom Curtlo has finally arrived! Cody and I drove to Winthrop on Saturday to get it, an epic trip that included two snowy mountain passes, 16 hours of driving, the 2A high school basketball state championship, and several near death experiences.

While the trip itself could provide enough info for multiple blog posts, let me tell you about my new bike. It was made by Doug Curtiss of Curtlo Cycles in Winthrop, WA. I ordered from him because he is a pretty tall guy, so I figured he would have insight to building a frame specifically for a taller guy. He also had a really good price point; a much better price for the frame then most of the folks out there. His relatively local location was the final key.

The first thing Doug reccomended was that I get longer cranks then are generally available. Most cranks range between 170mm and 175mm in length. I had some 180mm cranks on my Trek that I definitely liked. Doug suggested 200mm cranks for me, he has the same length on his bike and loves them. He said this was going by the conservative crank length calculator, and while the number didn't seem very conservative to me, I decided to trust him on it.

So far, I really like the cranks. It is definitely a big change, and I can feel my knees start to strain when my cadence dips down to 60 or 70. The good thing is that I can spin at the same cadence comfortably on these cranks, but in a slightly more difficult gear.

Otherwise, it's just your general road bike with Ultegra SL, with a few adjustments:

• Extra long top tube to adapt for my giant torso
• Carbon Fork with clearance for fenders and a mount for fenders
• Long reach Ultegra breaks for fender clearance
• Mounts for a rear rack
• Mounts for 4 (yes 4!) water bottle cages
• I even added tires with reflective striping on the edges!

I've only been able to take it out a couple times, and not more than 25 miles, so Saturday's 200k is going to be a serious trial by fire! I plan to get by painfully: adjusting my seat and handlebars as I limp along getting used to the bike. In the rain.

Pwned!

"We were winning until Mr. Lingbloom started to play, and then Mr. Lingbloom pwned us!"

That is what one of my 12 year old students said in regards to the previous day's game of floor hockey. I was fortunate enough to land a sub job; an afternoon of floor hockey filling in for a P.E. teacher. So much fun! Especially when after the first 15 minutes I found the team that was getting stomped and joined them.

It was pretty hilarious to hear one of my students claiming the next day that I had "pwned" him. Not something that normally happens in my math class.

From Wikipedia: The term implies domination or humiliation of a rival, used primarily in the Internet gaming culture to taunt an opponent who has just been soundly defeated (e.g. "You just got pwned!").

My favorite part of teaching is pwning 6th graders.