The Sainesbury Project

Bye

2011-11-22T08:47:00.001-08:00

This blog has been indefinitely closed due to lack of stuff to write about and to Facebook, which is way more interactive. You're all there anyway.

We will be back when we move, make more big home projects, or adopt another child.

Bye!

Here We Go

2011-08-18T07:27:00.001-07:00

First day of school. I email parents asking them to please allow their students to have an email so they can edit each other's papers on Google Docs, or to let them use their emails if they don't want their kids to open one, and I get the response from the one parent who always has to make some smart-a%# remark:

We will have her use my account, since kids are not allowed emails (by law) until they are 12. I thought you may want to know.

Not the first kid I have from her. Actually, this is the third one. And although the kids are awesome, having to deal with her gives me a toothache each time I see her kids. Such a shame.

Gabe Playing the Harmonica

2011-08-01T10:17:00.001-07:00

He's dancing too, mostly tapping his foot, but for the first time playing it, it's pretty good, huh?

Jul. 2011, Gabe Update - Gabe, al día

2011-07-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

*En castellano abajo de las fotos*

Gabe's been walking for about six months, babbling and saying a few words for a little while, most in English, some in Spanish. His most recurrent words and things like that:

- Ball
- Shoes
- Agua
- Auto
- Wow
- All done
- Baba, and when I'm lucky, leche (both stand for milk. One's a made up word, one's Spanish)
- No
- Banana
- Daddy
- Doggy
- Grrrrrhhhaaaww (that's his pig noise he learned from Peppa Pig)
And ocassionally, apple, mommy, up, at (that means TV).

He can high five and give me a terrorist bump, or like liberals like to call it, a fist bump. We're trying to get him out of his binky, but as soon as he sees it, he pops it in his mouth. He likes to watch Signing Time, Yo Gabba Gabba, and when there's nothing left, Peppa Pig. Peppa Pig is OUR favorite, though, so while we laugh our heads off watching that, he is running around destroying the house.

He's usually the smallest kid in the playground, so other kids either push him around, to which he reacts getting all tense and yelling at them, or they look at him weird, as if he had leprecy or something worse when he comes and stands in front of them. He is way social, and he likes to get in the faces of other kids. He things that's a way of saying "Hey, I'm Gabe, and I would very much like to play with you for a little while. I hope you don't mind." If the other kids have food, they move it away like an angry dog protecting his lunch. If not, they just walk away. I think Gabe hasn't made the connection yet and realized that he needs a new strategy.

He loves water, and he went swimming twice this week. The first time it started thundering two minutes after we got in the water, so he was disconsolate when we pulled him out. The second time he stayed for longer, but it was a little colder, so he was happy when, forty minutes later, he was finally wrapped in his towel.

Gabe REALLY likes bread

For what I understand, Gabe's part Irish, so he can wear this all year long!

Gabriel ha estado caminando por unos seis meses, hablando en su propio idioma y diciendo algunas palabras en castellano e inglés. Sus palabras más comunes:

- Ball
- Shoes
- Agua
- Auto
- Wow
- All done
- Baba, y cuando tengo suerte, leche
- No
- Banana
- Daddy
- Doggy
- Grrrrrhhhaaaww (ese es el ruido que hacen los chanchos según con Gabe)
y a veces apple, mami, up, at (eso significa "tele").

Puede darme cinco, pero solamente levanta la mano y espera que uno se la choque. Estamos tratando de sacarle el chupete, pero en cuanto lo ve, lo agarra y se lo pone en la boca. Si encuentra dos chupetes, se pone uno en la boca, y al ratito se lo saca para ponerse el otro. Le gusta mirar Signing Time, un programa que le enseña a hablar por señas, pero hasta ahora no aprendió ninguna. Le gusta Yo Gabba Gabba, un programa que parece haber sido escrito por un grupo de adolescentes fumando marihuana, y Peppa Pig, un dibujito de una chanchita y su familia. Peppa Pig es el favorito mío y de Megan, pero no de Gabe, asi que cuando miramos eso, Megan y yo nos matamos de risa, el está por ahí destruyendo la casa.

Gabe is generalmente el más chiquito en el parque, asi que los otros chicos o lo empujan, a lo cual reacciona poniendose tenso y gritandoles, o lo miran raro, somo si tuviera lepra o algo peor cuando Gabe se les para al frente y los mira con su sonrisita. Es muy social, y se les acerca demasiado a los otros chicos, en su "espacio personal", o su "burbuja" como les dicen aca. Esa es su manera de decir, "buenas tardes. Yo me llamo Gabriel, y me gustaría mucho jugar con vos por un ratito, si no es mucha molestia". Si los chicos tienen comida, la esconden como un perro enojado al que le tratan de quitar el almuerzo, y si no tienen nada, simplemente se las toman. Me parece que Gabriel todavía no se dio cuenta que necesita una estrategia nueva.

Signing Time - Yo Gabba Gabba - Peppa Pig

Why I'm a Girl on Etsy

2011-06-27T15:28:00.000-07:00
After I bought my first e-reader for Christmas (a now already old generation Barnes and Noble Nook), I was broke, but I still wanted a cover for it. I thought it would be pretty cool to hollow out a book and use it as a cover, so I looked online how to do that, and after a few months, I think I'm close to being decent. My first hollow book was ok. The Nook fitted well and it looked nice, especially because I gutted the newest Garrison Keillor book. Sad. I'm never doing that again.

I then found some cheap hard covers at Hastings ($1.00. Not bad) so I got a bunch and made some hollow books out of that. I then found brand new books at Barnes and Noble for $2.00, so I got some of those as well. I now use whatever looks nice and it's big enough. I had seen some leather journals at Ross and TJ Maxx that I thought would make nice Nook covers, but since I was looking for a journal for myself, it took me forever to find something I could carry around without feeling self-conscious, or without having to justify my sexual orientation. I finally found a really nice brown leather journal with a flap with snap-on buttons, which I got at once and proceed to destroy.

I kind of messed it up with that coin

As I kept going back to the store to find more of those awesome looking journals, I kept finding pink, flowery, cutesy journals that I wouldn't find myself dead carrying, but I figured that other people would like to, more specifically women, you know. So, once I had more hollowed out journals that I knew what to do with, I finally opened my Etsy store. Since my hollow books ended up being quite cutesy, I decided to make an equally cutesy banner, so I decided to conceal my name from it, and the fact that I'm a guy! Hey, it's all about the money. And the fact that it's a lot of fun to make these hollow books. So yeah, I'm a girl on Etsy.

See what I mean?

By the way, the store's address: http://www.etsy.com/shop/hollowbooks. Check it out. They're cheap!

Most of my hollowed books are journals, but I will do an actual book now and then. I thought it would be fun to look for interesting words as I carved, and then I put them together in a kind of MadLibs sort of way. This is what I came up with after butchering A Summer of Butterflies:

Remordimiento literario - Literary Guilt

2011-06-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

__ ¡En Español! ________________________

Mientras más aprendo de literatura, siento que tengo que leer más y más libros. ¿El problema? Que soy un lector muy vago, y lento, y lo que es peor, acabo de comprar un libro llamado "1001 libros que debe leer antes de morir". Un bajón. Y eso que el libro ese no incluye a Shakespeare, y a la mayoría de los escritores en español que vale la pena leer, así que la lista es en realidad el doble de larga. Si consideramos que lea un libro cada dos semanas, calculo que voy a terminar de leer esos 2000 libros cuando tenga 116 años. Algunos libros van a llevarme más tiempo, así que redondeemos a 120 para estar seguros.

Ojalá pudiera convencerme de que en realidad no es necesario, que puedo ver la películal, o algo así, y que eso sería suficiente, pero después de ver todas las versiones de El Principe y el Mendigo o Wuthering Height, me alegra de que leí los libros primero, así que eso no ayuda. Hay otras peliculas como Harry Potter, o el DaVinci Code, o los libros de Stieg Larsson que si uno las ve, no le hace falta leer el libro, porque no se perdería nada, pero esos libros no están en mi lista de libros para leer, asi que eso tampoco ayuda.

Un libro que he estado de leer por años es el Ulises, de Joyce. Lo empecé tres veces. La primera vez intenté leerlo sin ninguna ayuda, pero terminé aburrido, confundido, y curioso, porque no tenía idea de lo que había acabado de leer. Después imprimí el resumen de los capítulos de Wikipedia y traté de usarlos como un "bastón" para ayudarme, pero no sirvió mucho, ya que me perdí como el 80% de las referencias en el libro. Finalmente usé las SparksNotes (libros que tienen resumenes y análisis de los capitulos generalmente usados por estudiantes vagos que no quieren leer el libro). Como es un libro finito, lo pegué atrás de una de las versiones de Ulises que tengo, y leí los resumenes y análisis antes de cada capítulo, y a pesar de que entendí la historia (más o menos), todavía no entendí las referencias. La primera página del capítulo 3 me llevó como una hora y me parece que es una historia de la creación del mundo, aunque ni Wikipedia ni SparksNotes mencionan nada de eso. Hay un podcast dedicado al libro, pero después de un año de podcast semanales, el autor cubrió solamente el primer capítulo del libro, y no quiero esperar los 18 años que el proyecto parece que va a llevar. ¿Y por qué trato tanto de terminar el libro? Porque está entre los mejores libros en todas las listas que he visto, y TENGO que saber de que se trata, o por qué es tan importante. A veces desearía que pudiera ser como mi maestra de griego en la facultad, a la que le pregunté durante un final, "¿Leyó el Ulises de Joyce?" "No", me respondió. "No tengo tiempo". Que lindo ser así.

Es cierto que hay algunos clasicos que son tan grandes que podrían parar la puerta de una catedral, y sin embargo lo más importante en esos libros es la historia y no el lenguage. Me imagino que los libros de Homero en el original griego deben de haber sido increíbles en la belleza del idioma y la poesía debe de haber sido conmovedores, pero cuando leo las versiones en inglés o español, todo eso parece haberse perdido, y todo lo que nos queda es la historia. Por supuesto que finalmente lo acepté despues de haber leído las primeras 180 páginas de las 330 de mi edición de la Ilíada. A diferencia del Ulises, que es dificilísimo de entender, la Ilíada es simplemente difícil de leer porque tiene tantos detalles que hacen que el libro sea lento y aburrido. Uno aprende los nombres de todos los soldados que todos los otros soldados matan, sus países de origen, el nombre del padre de cada soldado, y la manera en que murieron. Después de haber leído casi la mitad del libro, decidí que si leo un buen resumen de cada capítulo va a ser suficiente. Por supuesto que hay capítulos que uno tiene que leer, como la pelea entre Aquiles y Hector, o cuando Priam va a buscar el cuerpo de su hijo y tiene que negociar con Aquiles, pero los capítulos de las batallas se pueden facilmente saltear y uno no se pierde mucho.

Me imagino que esa culpa que siento por no leer más viene de algun tipo de problema mental que adquirí como consecuencia de leer demasiadas traducciones mediocres de buenos libros, o por comer tanto chinchulín de chico. Quién sabe. Lo que sí sé es que si puedo encontrar una justificación para NO LEER esos 2000 libros antes de morir, voy a tener una vida mucho más agradable. Como diría Kanye West, "Yo no leo libros. Yo hablo con la gente y escucho sus historias directamente". Perdón, ¿dije Kanye West? Ignoren eso, por favor. Después de todo, todavía me gustaría comunicarme con frases y oraciones enteras y no haciendo ruidos como cavernicola, así que creo que voy a seguir leyendo. Además, no puedo empezar a imaginarme dónde va el coso ese si quiere aprender algo de historia antigua, ya que todos sus protagonistas ya estiraron la pata. Pero realmente necesito encontrar una manera de deshacerme del constante remordimiento cada vez que veo mis "bibliotecas." Y desafortunadamente Kanye West y su logica infalible todavía no me han ayudado.

__ English, please! ____________________

The more I learn about literature, the more books I feel I NEED to read. The problem? I'm a lazy reader. And I'm slow. And to make things worse, I just bought a book called "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die." Now that's encouraging. And that book doesn't even include Shakespeare, or any of the most amazing Spanish writers, so the list is probably twice as long as that. Considering that I may read one book every two weeks, that means I'll read those 2000 books (there will be a bunch of new books I want to read. "The Psychopath Test," for example, is in my personal list and it just came out) by the time I'm 116. Of course some books take longer, and at times my Nook may run out of battery, so let's round at 120, just to be sure.

I really wish I could convince myself that that's really not necessary, that I can just watch the movie, or something, and that's be enough. But then, after watching all the versions of "Wuthering Heights," I'm really glad I also read the book, so that doesn't help. Of course you can just watch the Harry Potter movies, or the "girl" movies ("The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" and so on), or any Dan Brown or John Girshman movie and you won't miss anything, but those books don't even make the list of books I want to read, so that doesn't help either.

I really tried to read Joyce's "Ulysses." I started it about three times. The first time I tried to just read it back to back without further ado, but that just let me bored, confused, and curious, since I had to idea what I had just read. Next, I printed out the chapter summaries from Wikipedia and went at it with that help, but that didn't make much of a difference, since I still missed about 80% of all the references in the book. Finally, I tried the Sparks Notes (I actually bought them and glued them to one of my copies of the book), and it helped me understand what the plot was, but I still didn't get any of the references. I now found a 24 hour lecture on the book which will hopefully help me get through it and actually say that I got it. There's also a podcast dedicated to the book, but after a year of weekly posts, the author only covered the first chapter, and I really don't want to wait 18 years before the project is finished. And why do I go through all that trouble? Because Ulysses is at the top of every serious book list in the world, so of course I have to read it. I so wish I could be like my college Greek professor, to whom I asked during an oral final test once, "Did you read Joyce's Ulysses?" "No," she responded. "I don't have the time." Lucky.

But then, there are some classics that are so big they could stop a cathedral's door and yet are mostly about the plot. I know, I know, if you read Homer's books in the original Greek they're probably beautiful, and the poetry is probably moving, but I haven't read any translation that moves me with its very words to the level that other books in their original language have done. To me, the Iliad and the Odyssey are mostly about plot. Of course I found that out after I read the first 180 pages of the total 330 in my edition. What I did was to read the plot summary on sparksnotes.com and then read the chapter, to make sure I understood what was going on. Unlike Ulysses, which is terrible hard to understand, the Iliad is quite simple, but what makes it hard to read is the painful description of each soldier's family background. Half what I've read so far is an account of who killed whom, literally, with the names of the soldiers, the name of the country they came from, and the name of their fathers. I have decided, at this point, that after reading a few kids' versions, I can just read the Sparks Notes and I will know exactly what the book is about. So, instead of taking a month to read that, I can take 30 minutes. It took me about three weeks to figure it out (I told you I was slow), but I'm most definitely not spending another three weeks finishing it, and however long the Odyssey was going to take me. Of course there are chapters that I need to read, like the battle between Hector and Achilles (they did a beautiful reading of that chapter on Selected Shorts, which makes me think of what those old retelling of the book might have been like in the ancient Greece), and the chapter where Priam goes to get his son's body from Achilles. Other than that, you can skip all the battle scenes and read a summary instead and you'll be fine.

So there you go. I imagine that my self-inflicted book related guilt trips may be related to some kind of mental issue I've acquired while reading too many crappy translations of good books, or by eating too much cow intestines as a kid, who knows. All I know is that if I can find ways to justify NOT READING those 2000 books by the time I die, I will have a lot more time to enjoy life. Or like Kanye West would say "I don't read books. I rather talk to real people and hear their stories." Did I say Kanye West? Nevermind, I would still like to be able to communicate with actual words instead of mumbling, so I'll definitely keep reading. Besides, I can't begin to imagine who he would need to talk to if he wanted to learn something about ancient history, since, you know, they're all dead and stuff. But I really need to work on a way to get rid of the guilt! Unfortunately, Kanye's flawless logic ain't done it yet.

Some Old Books I Finished This Week

2011-04-06T18:34:00.000-07:00
The Warrior Woman, by Maxine Hong Kingston

Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey is one of my favorite books ever. The Warrior Woman is pretty amazing as well. A classic, for what I hear :) - I love how Kingston mixes up family stories with traditional Chinese legends and mythology. After all, don't we all do that, regardless what culture we belong to? If you're a story teller and like to include cultural elements in your narrative, it's pretty convenient to belong to a culture as rich and exotic as that of China. Otherwise, make stuff up, like Kingston admits to doing at times. After all, like she complains to her mom in the last chapter of the book, "I don't know what's real and what are just stories!" But then, who cares, right?

A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle

After getting over myself and deciding that Sherlock Holmes is real literature (after reading dozens of young adults and children books, my standards have lower considerably), I started reading the Holmes cannon, starting with the first story, which is one of the four novels in the Holmes series. The rest forty or fifty something are short stories.

My first surprise was to find out how similar Doyle's and Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes are. It's true that Sherlock Holmes never fought giant French guys or was an action hero, but he was a boxer, and somewhat of an irreverent slacker. Watson was lazy too, according to his own words.

My second surprise: this book trashes Mormons like no other. It actually reminded me of a silent movie I saw a while ago in which Mormon missionaries went to other states and countries with the purpose of kidnapping women to turn them into sister wives. Doyle goes after the Danite Band, a sort of army that protected Mormon settlements against random attacks, and which, according to Mormon history, didn't even exist anymore once they moved to Salt Lake, which is where Doyle locates them. Second, he goes after Brigham Young pretty viciously, making him a grumpy, cunning dictator who forces people into joining the church and marrying as many wives as possible. One of my favorite passages of the book:

"Brother Ferrier," he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, "the true believers have been good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our protection. Is not this so?"

"It is so," answered John Ferrier.

"In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages. This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you have neglected."

"And how have I neglected it?" asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in expostulation. "Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended at the Temple? Have I not——?"

"Where are your wives?" asked Young, looking round him. "Call them in, that I may greet them."
The book is one of those historical fiction/detective (obviously) stories with a conspiracy twist. An early DaVinci Code of sorts, with as little investment on research and everyhing.

My Ghettified Google Voice Phone Mic and Speaker

2011-03-30T20:44:00.000-07:00
Last week I couldn't find my phone, and I was hoping it was at home. I tried to call Meg to see if it was there, but since I didn't have my phone, I tried using my Google Voice, but I didn't have a microphone, so I still couldn't. I then saw my fake antique phone on top of my classroom cabinets and thought "How cool would it be to have an old phone receiver as my Google Voice mic/speaker, all in one?"

If you don't know Google Voice, well, it's pretty awesome. You can make free calls and text messages from your computer, and even get an unique phone number for free. I set it up to get messages from my students. They will never know my number again. Last time I made that mistake I ended up having to call the cops.

First step: I went to eBay and found a little computer mic with a female plug at the end, where you can hook up headphones. That way, I could gut an old phone and put a mic at one end and the mic at the other.

Step two: Go to Savers and find a crappy old phone. Wash (very important after shopping at Savers) and empty it out and unscrew the lid thingies (the old phones with round lid thingies are easy to open. No idea about the newer phones with square ones).

Step three: Tape both headphones to the speaker side of the phone receiver. I used good mics to make sure I'll be able to hear! Screw back on.

Step four: Plug the headphone to the mic. Tape the mic to the inside edge of the other end of the receiver. I would have taped it to the lid, but the mic was too wide for that, and it wouldn't have closed.

Important! Stuff the inside of the phone receiver with cotton, or you will be speaking in your own ear, which is pretty annoying.

Screw lid thingy back, plug phone.

Cost:

Mic: $1.89 (including shipping)
Crappy old phone: $2.99

Total: $4.88 (not including headphones)

If you want good sound, you should get a nicer mic and maybe use a little speaker instead of headphones for the ear piece. My cheap receiver doesn't sound great, but it looks pretty cool.

The Boy's Walking

2011-03-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Books I Read...

2011-03-23T13:12:00.000-07:00
I've been posting books there in the side of the page as a way to see how many books I read in a given year. I was surprised to see how many had accumulated at the end of the year, and that helped me get motivated to read even more. The reviews I write are not about the book (you can read that on Amazon, or barnesandnoble.com), but my reaction to it. A basic, couple of lines, response. It's extremely subjective (especially if you've read some of my politics books' reviews, you know what I mean), but oh well, it's my blog! And nobody reads it anyway, so what's the big deal, right? But I've decided that if it's not a 25 page book for first grade readers, I might include the reviews in the body of the blog, otherwise I'll update this once a year, and that's pretty pathetic.

So, here's my response to the last book I've read.

Kira Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata. YA (272 pp.).

A couple of years ago, a student kept telling me that we should read this book as a class. So I was glad to have found it at overdrive.com. It's a cute book, and the historic part of it doesn't seem forced, as in Esperanza Rising, but the sister part of the narrative, well, I saw that coming from the first chapter, so it felt that the author dragged it too much. The rest of the book is a built up to that, so it didn't work for me, but I see how it might have worked for a kid.

Best Fail Blog Post Ever

2011-02-28T05:37:00.000-08:00

I lost 22 pounds!

2011-02-26T07:13:00.000-08:00
I'm following Tim Feriss' Four Hour Body diet (very similar to the Atkin's diet, for what I hear) and lost 21 pounds in 7 weeks! I would have lost more and faster, but there's this thing in the diet where you can eat anything you want one time a week, and that sets me back three days, usually, but by Saturday morning, I'm in average 2 pounds lighter than the Saturday before.

It was way hard the first few days, and for the first couple of weeks I craved sugar really, really bad, but I learned to cope with it by having gum (Extra came up with a line of "Dessert Delights" sugar free gum that is awesome!), a sip of Diet Coke or Coke Zero (I like the latter better), and some cafeine free green tea or mate with a little Splenda. After a while the craving is really not that bad anymore. Besides, the fact that I can eat all the meat and eggs I want sold me into it. I find that after my "cheat day," I look forward to going back to my diet!

I would probably also lose weight faster and more effectively if I did the exercises that the book recommends, but it's so cold outside that I don't want to go to the garage to do them, so I might make more progress in the summer. I thought 20 pounds would be the final goal, but I see now that I'm probably just half way through!

My weight loss chart from caloriecount.about.com:

By the way, in this diet, you don't need to count calories. Basically, eat all the meat, beans, eggs, and vegetables you want. Stay away from carbs (bread, tortillas, pasta) and sugar (including fruits and fruit juice) except on your one cheat day. That's it. I paid $10 to find that out. Oh well, it was cheaper than the shovel of money I thew in my gym for a 20th of the result.

1st Birthday Party

2011-02-20T11:30:00.000-08:00
Thanks, everyone! It was an awesome party!

Gabe's Almost Walking!

2011-02-17T20:39:00.000-08:00
Last 10 seconds of the video. That's when he gives his first three steps.

Constants vs. Ups and downs:

2011-01-31T19:12:00.000-08:00
My Math teacher gave me a writing prompt. How dare she, right? Anyway, I was annoyed at the beginning, but when I started writing, I actually had fun and went way beyond the one paragraph that she asked for. Albeit nerdy sounding, I kind of liked what I came up with:

Recently I’ve tried to refinance my house, because interests went down. Unfortunately, along with interests, the value of the home went down as well. It was just four years ago that home prices were soaring. Buying 10 years ago and selling five or six years later would have given us a large profit just by sitting on the house. Also, I recently learned that my employer is not paying for my retirement anymore. Some teachers say that that’s fine because the banks will go bankrupt anyway and they will lose all their investment, so why waste their money in that way? I’m not so sure about that. I believe that I will have something to account for when I retire (I have to!), and that if my investment continues to grow, I will be in good shape. I am in an aggressive plan, such that even if my investment goes down a little bit one month, it is bound to go up again. Diversity also helps, so if some of the investments go all the way down to the point of becoming worthless, I will have enough other investments that will tend to go up and make up for the loses. In theory, these aggressive plans make greater profits in the long run (I’m talking 20 or 30 years here) than more conservative ones, in which the profit goes up steadily but very slowly.

And that’s life. Things go up and then they go down. It seems that inconsistency is the one constant thing in my life. Imagine a parabola that goes from negative infinite to positive infinity waiving up and down in the way. I like it that way, though. Who wants to live a linear equation kind of life? There’s no excitement, no surprises. Of course, if I want to convert dollars to some other kind of currency, or if I want to calculate the time it will take me to go from point A to point B when driving at a specific speed, the predictability of linear equations works wonderfully, but I rather die than to know exactly what is going to happen next each day of my life. I might lose everything by being in an aggressive retirement plan, while if I’m in a conservative one I will definitely make some money, but then there’s no excitement. There’s no jumpy line going up and down from month to month that gives you the temporary hope that maybe you’ll be rich by the time you retire and you may end up sipping Piña Coladas (virgin ones, by the way!) in your private island after having worked 30 years as a teacher, even if they odds of that happening are not very encouraging! It’s not fun to be stranded at the side of the road with a stupid car that won’t work after thousands of dollars in repairs, but hey, next time I have a car that actually works, I will appreciate it even more! All the pain and heartache that came from not being able to have a child for years made me appreciate my one year old more than any of my friends appreciate the twenty children they had in the last five years (it’s mathematically possible. I calculated it. Oddly enough, it tends to happen more frequently in Provo, though. It must be the water).

Even though I tend to be over-analytic and I like to understand everything that happens to me, I wouldn’t like to reduce every aspect of our life to numbers, unless, of course, I did it in order to make sense of the ups and downs of what already happened to me than to figure out how to make my life more predictable. I could have used math to figure out the odds of my wife and me having a child when we did, or even when I’m bound to pass away, but what would be the fun on that? After all, almost everyone would agree that roller coasters are much more fun than Mary-go-rounds, right?

Engrish!!

2011-01-29T08:39:00.001-08:00
I swear I'm not making fun of these guys. After all, I wrote like this or even worse when I moved here. It's just that, as an English teacher, I find it so fascinating!

Answer to an email asking about the stats of an item I bought on eBay:

As a rule, it will take 3-5 days to arrive.
Pls wait for more time with patient.
Pls feel free to contact us if there is anything we can assist.

Happy a nice day
Sibyl

The "Sibyl" just kills me.

Math Websites

2011-01-10T08:12:00.000-08:00
I'm taking some Math classes for my future Math endorsement. That's right, 3 subjects is not good enough for me. My goal is to teach them all!! Anyway, this is a list of helpful websites I found and that I'd like to list somewhere so I have easy access to them. So, this is not for you, it's for me!

Cool graphic calculator thingy

Equation calculator

Crapload of Math utilities from USU. The grapher is pretty cool.

Free virtual graph paper

Ordered pairs "grapher"

Awesome explanation of relations vs. functions. I looked everywhere for this, and this one's the best.

Polynomials game

Adding polynomials

Circle equation plotter

More coming as I find them...

My Nook Case

2010-12-30T10:24:00.001-08:00

I made this following some tutorial I found online. I didn't want to spend $30 on a case, so I tried this, and it turned out surprisingly well. I chose Pontoon because I love how it looks, but it was sad to gut it like that, so if anyone has an extra copy, I'll take it :-)

Awesomes Christmas Ever?

2010-12-29T18:39:00.000-08:00

The fact that so many people gave me so many awesome presents makes me feel really bad because I didn't buy anything for anybody, except the kids. It's true that we're more broke than we've ever been, but I also decided that we shouldn't worry, since we drew names with Geoff, so that part of the family was taken care of (I thought), and Meg made cute aprons for all the ladies in the family, which is a better present that I could have bought anyway, because I'm the crapiest present giver ever (awkward sentence). Also, last year was so crappy when it came to presents that I didn't worry. I mean, I got like a wind up worm, and stuff like that.

But this year Gabe and I scored big time. He got toys galore, more than he understands what to do with. I got tons of books (oh yeah). Matt gave me a Barnes and Noble gift certificate that helped to pay for my new Nook, which is absolutely awesome. Jonatan giving me all his DJ lights and selling them the day after Christmas to some dude that came all the way from Idaho because he was so desperate to have them helped pay for the rest of it. Matt also gave me a bunch of drill bits, and Geoff gave me a wrench with tons of thingies to put in the tip thingy. You know. I'm a tool sensei.

Geoff and Amy also gave me a copy of Philip Roth's Zucherman Unbound, which was on my Amazon wish list for years in the hope that it would sell for less than $35.00, and I had almost lost hope. I also got a cool watch that didn't fit because my hands are so freakishly huge, but that I traded for some stuff for Meg, which gave me a bunch of brownie points, which is a shame because I don't like brownies. Pat gave Meg and me a certificate for Macaroni Grill, which I love. I think I love it so much that the last time we went there the waiter was impressed that we had cleaned our plate, so he had to say "Wow (yes, he said wow), you did a good job with that." Of course I shared it with Meg, but I don't think he knew that. He didn't get a very good tip.

More books: Chad and Heather gave me and Gabe The Dangerous Book for Boys, and my friend Alicia gave me I Am America and So Can You, by Colbert. How did everybody know what I like? I mean, I didn't get a Bill O'Reilly book not even by accident. What are the odds?

Matias and Emily gave me a cool game, which nobody wants to play with me, so we'll probably have to take it to their house one day and play it together.

We spent the morning of the 24th at Pat's, where we had tons of awesome soup. Matt, Heather, Chad and Maura were there and it was really chill. Chad gave me a lunar module model that I put together the next day. Then we went to Matias' house, where we spent the night. We were too tired to wait for midnight and do the traditional Christmas toast we do in Argentina, so I was the first to wake up the next morning and bother everyone. After that, we went home to spend the rest of Christmas with Geoff and Amy and the rest of the Burys.

Some pics (I forgot to take pictures of the first two family meetings. Sorry!!)

The picture that lil Heather drew of Gabe. Ain't it awesome?
And a random picture of Gabe just because he looks so dang cute

Books I Read on 2010

2010-12-29T12:02:00.001-08:00
I'm pretty sure I won't be finishing any more books this year, so I might as well do this now.

I made it to 46! Of course, I had more time to listen to some audio books on my way to work, so the word "read" is somewhat loosely used. Reading them on my Kindle and Nook apps on my phone made it easier as well.

If I was at TJMaxx waiting for Meg to be done, I could turn on my phone and read a few pages. I now got me a Nook and a Kindle 2, so I'm thrilled! I'll be able to read even more now. Well, that's not for sure, but at least I'll be able to read my ebooks without burning my eyes.

I read a lot of books that I loved. My most pleasant discovery this year was the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which I picked at the library because I thought the description was interesting, and I got totally hooked. I'm finishing the series this next year for sure. I read a bunch of YA books, which I'll do til the day I die, because they can be so awesome, and this year I started reading graphic novels again, which I hadn't done in years. I also started a bunch of books that I never finished (I've never able to finish a Michael Chabon book. I also really tried to read Moby Dick, but a third into it, I had to give up), so they don't count.

Unfortunately, I also read a lot of books that I hated, but by the time I realized they were crap, I was at the point of no return, so I finished them.

At the beginning of the year I wrote the names of the books without writing anything about them, because I didn't want this to be a list of book descriptions. You can read that at Amazon or at any online bookstore. I then decided that I would write my reaction to the book, and I started doing that with book 9. Some were simple descriptions, such as "nice book," and some were longer, such as the last two books I finished this year, which provoked such a strong reaction that I wrote long diatribes on them. Also, at about book 20, I decided to link the titles to Amazon, so you could read the book description there if you want to.

Anyway, here's the list as it was posted on my blog's right column:

1. The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck (Historical Fiction). 368 pp.

2. Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (Non Fiction). 436 pp.

3. An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green (Young Adult). 227 pp.

4. Animal Farm, by George Orwell. 140 pp.

5. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. 309 pp.

6. When You're Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris. 336 pp.

7. Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton. 128 pp.

8. The Tattooed Girl, by Joyce Carol Oats. 336 pp.

9. The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan (YA). 400 pp. Worst book of the year so far. American Gods did it first, better, and without the melodrama. Of course it's not for kids, but why not...

10. Jumping the Scratch, by Sarah Weeks (YA). 192 pp. Best YA book I've read this year so far.

11. Black Girl/White Girl, by Joyce Carol Oats (Novel). 304 pp. I guess I just don't get Joyce Carol Oats...

12. 12th Night, by Shakespeare. 72 pp.

13. The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain (Novel). 210 pp. I watched the movie of this book when I was a kid, and I thought it was the most boring thing. Ever since then I wasn't too excited to read the book, but I finally read it with my 6th grade class, and I absolutely loved it. It's full of subtle humor, which I had to painstakingly explain to my students, who didn't get any of it.

14. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane (Novel). 400 pp. It was a fun book, but 3/4 through it I figured out what was going to happen at the end, so it got kind of boring after that. I mean, the writing is not so beautiful that it supports the book by itself.

15. Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth (Novel). 289 pp. This is an extremely irrelevant book, and funny, and silly, and yet it has so many levels of complexity that it's a pleasure to read. What I like the best is that Roth is not pretentious at all in this book, which I kind of expected, never having read anything by him except The Ghost Writer. I guess that's my biggest problem with Joyce Carol Oats. Her stories are kind of interesting, but she can't go more than a page without lecturing about history, literature, philosophy, etc. in a quite petulant manner. Anyway, fun book. It almost felt that it could've been written by Woody Allen; it's just that neurotic, whiny, and hilarious.

16. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (Novel). 528 pp. I guess my biggest problem with Dan Brown is that he throws a lot of pretty interesting trivia at you, but the way he brings it up is so unnatural that it's hardly realistic. Some of the really interesting facts in the book are repeated verbatim in different parts of the book by different characters, and that's just lazy. Besides, most of the twists are so predictable that it gets really boring after a while.

17. Donald Duk, by Frank Chin (Novel). 173 pp. This is the third book I read by a Chinese American author, and they are all amazing! Magical realism in the form of Chinese mythology mixed with everyday America. It's not as good, I think, as Tripmaster Monkey, but it is a pretty great read anyway (I think Tripmaster Monkey might have ruined my reading of any American minority writer forever. It's just that awesome!).

18. Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not, by Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello (Novel). 224 pp. These guys are soooo weird!!

19. The Teacher's Funeral, by Richard Peck (YA). 208 pp. Richard Peck is one of my favorite people in the world, and this book is awesome, just like everything he does.

20. Ransom, by David Malouf (Novel). 219 pp. The author added tons of detail in order to humanize and make us empathize with the characters of the story, but I felt that he added a little too much. The book, although short, felt long and boring. I felt I was being fed irrelevant and uninteresting information. Strangely, the most important part of the book, the meeting between Priam and Achilles, is only a couple of pages and feels way too short. It had so much potential, and I really wanted to like this book. Oh well.

21. Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, by John Avalon (Non-fiction). 304 pp. I really liked this one. It's full of stories that illustrate the craziness of extremists on both sides. Recommended for everyone!

22,23 Percy Jackson, the Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan. A bunch of hours long; and Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. 416 pp. Read review here

24. I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak (YA). 368 pp. I actually liked this better than The Book Thief. The premise is kind of cheesy and not very original, but it's a beautifully written book. Probably the best YA book I've read so far this year.

25. Behind the Curtain, by Peter Abrahams (YA). Not the most amazing book, but it's a fun, light read. Besides, Stephen King is a fan, so it must be good...

26. Three Men on a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome (Novel). I read this book was originally meant to be a travel guide, but the author got carried away by the story. There wasn't much of a story, though, and the funny parts are really hilarious, but they're few and in between. Interesting book, though.

27 How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez (Novel). I liked the parts that relate the experience of the girls trying to adapt to American society, and then trying to adapt back once they go back to their country. The rest is just silly and not very good.

28. Omerta, by Mario Puzo. 336 pp. It's an interesting study on mafioso characters. The story is kind of weak and a little far fetched.

29. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (YA). 384 pp. I finally jumped on the bandwagon, and man, am I glad I did! This is what I talk about when I say that books are well written, and some are just not. This book's story is OK, incredibly depressing, and yet the writing is a-m-a-z-i-n-g. I won't start Catching Fire right away because last time I read a series at once, I didn't end up liking the experience so much...

30. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan (Non fiction). 480 pp. It starts kind of like a laundry list of things you shouldn't believe in unless you're ignorant: UFO's, Nostradamus, etc. But it eventually becomes more substantial and interesting. I didn't remember much of it right after reading it, so I guess it's just not that memorable and wonderful.

31. Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, (Graphic Novel). 304 pp. Yup. After a couple of decades of not reading comic books, I'm back. Anyway, for being the greatest stories about the Joker, they weren't that great, but it was interesting to read stories from as far back as the 40's. It definitely gets better as time passes: the Joker in the early days was a complete idiot. Anyway...

32. Down the Rabbit Hole, by Peter Abrahams (YA). 448 pp. (of really big text!). Fun read. Nothing out of this world, though.

33. The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth (Novel). 391 pp. (of really small text!). Second Roth this year. Pretty amazing essay on what would happen if the extremist fringe would go out of control, supported by institutional racism and hatred. A scary read in these insane days; like when I watched the Titanic scene where the ship sinks right (coundn't stand more) before taking a three day boat ride.

34. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller (Graphic Novel). Eoin Colfer recommended it, so I had to check it out. Pretty awesome story: what would happen if an old Batman, with rheumatism and everything, came out of retirement to restore sanity in Gotham. The Superman beating is classic.

35. Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane, by Amato and Neiwert (Non-Fiction). 280 pp. Is it necessary to explain why this hateful extremism we're seeing is bad for the country? In depth analysis of where this insanity came from. Spoiler alert: It has to do with Beck and Palin.

36. Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann (Novella). 160 pp. A pretty interesting little book about an old guy in Venice who falls in love with a little boy. It's all in the guy's head, and it's all very innocent, but that doesn't make it less disturbing...

37. The Beef Princess of Practical County, by Michelle Houts (YA). 240 pp. I read this to get a break from YA series, and it was pretty decent. First book by this author, and it's not that bad. A little cheesy, but it's pretty funny and it gives a not very common perspective (raising and showing cattle), although the animal-caring story is quite common (think Black Beauty).

38. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins. YA (391 pp.). I get it! I guess I'm kind of slow, but I finally figured it out: The capital is a futuristic Roman Empire: It has arenas and gladiators, food orgies, mutilated servants, most characters have Roman names... About the book, I guess it was OK. The novelty's gone, but it's a fun read.

39. AF: The Arctic Incident, by Eoin Colfer. YA (277 pp.). I don't know. It wasn't as good as the first one. I guess the idea gets old after a while...

40. Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko. YA (240 pp.). I thought it was going to be a funny book, but it ended up being a drama, with a somewhat romantic twist. Cute, but I won't be recommending it to any boys in my class.

41. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith. Novel (235 pp.). This is the most adorable book I've read in a long time. The beginning is a little slow, since it tells the story of the country (the novel is set in Botswana, Africa), but it soon picks up. The cases the detective lady, Mma Ramotswe, are somewhat predictable, but the writing is so simple and innocent, that I fell in love with the characters and I was really sorry to finish reading.

42. Tears of the Giraffe, by Alexander McCall Smith. Novel (256 pp.). Just as cute as the first one, without all the historical background, so it reads faster. I'm reading the whole series, but I'm pacing myself this time. I don't want to end up hating it, like I end up doing with every other series.

43. History of Joseph Smith by His Mother. Biography (280 pp.). This is a pretty amazing book. It's sad to read all the horrible things these people went through just because they wanted to practice their religion, and the fact that it's told by a mother makes it so much more emotional. I wouldn't consider it an actual "history" book, it's more like reading somebody's diary, so I guess it's still a historic document, but not very polished. Pretty interesting.

44. Life of Pi , by Yann Martel. Fiction (326 pp.). Read review here.

45. Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance. Non Fiction (288 pp.). Read review here.

46. Don Quixote, by Cervantes. A bunch of pages. Yay! I finally finished it! Such a cool book. The first half is actually the adventures of the crazy knight, while the second half is dedicated to other people's stories that somehow manage to get included in the book. First half, hilarious. Second half, interesting; kind of a study on the culture of the Spain of the day.

Life of Pi + Common Nonsense

2010-12-20T09:03:00.001-08:00
Life of Pi, novel by Yann Martell

I kept seeing this book in every thrift store I ever went to, so I finally got it and read it. I hated it so much I wish I hadn't even bothered. But at least it caused a strong enough impression that I felt I needed to write about it.

The book begins well enough. There are long descriptions of animals and animal life, which are actually fascinating. The author then describes his quest to find a religion at a very young age, and this part sounds quite uninformed and simplistic. If I hadn't read later that this book was the author's attempt to make sense to his life through some kind of search for spirituality, I would seriously consider that this was his attempt to demonstrate how silly and petty religions were, and, therefore, unnecessary.

The actual plot of the book doesn't start until almost midway through it, when the boat that Pi's family took to move to Canada, along with most of the animals from their Indian zoo, sinks, and the only survivors are Pi, a tiger, a hyena, and a gorilla. The hyena and the gorilla die soon, leaving him alone with the tiger for over 200 days at sea. The story then becomes a long laundry list of things he does in order to keep Richard Parker (the tiger) and himself alive. This is where my biggest problem begins, since the descriptions of the gutting of the fish and the turtles he kills to survive are so sickening that it seems that the author is enjoying himself by picturing the readers' disgusted faces. You would never think that gutting a fish could be so gory and gross.

The story reads to me almost like a very simple Gulliver's Travels: The hero finds himself cast away, washed into semi-magical worlds with monsters he needs to deal with. There are no political criticism as in Gulliver, and the magical places are limited to two: the sea and the man-eating island.

There are great parts in the book, like the already mentioned brief lectures on animals. The dialogue between Pi and Richard Parker before reaching the carnivorous island is pretty nice, if nothing more than adorable. The conversation between Pi and the officials from the Japanese maritime department in the third part of the book is also very cute.

After finishing the book I read that this is a rip off of a Brazilian book, Max and the Cats. Martell said he didn't read the book before writing Life of Pi, but only a review of it, but he even included the book in his list of acknowledgements. Both books' plots seem so similar that it's hard to believe Martell didn't simply steal the idea. Authors steal from each other all the time in the literary world, a clear example is Poe, to whom Longfellow repeatedly accused of plagiarism, or Shakespeare, who based most of his plays on stories that already existed; but when you take something that's already out there and make something that is not very good, it doesn't say much about you as an author. But that's me. The book got a bunch of awards, so I guess a lot of people liked it. And yet, the fact that you can so easily find it in every thrift store shows me that people are not that crazy about keeping it or re-reading it after they bought it.

Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance

I'm very torn about this book. It's brilliantly well researched, and the amount of juicy information is astonishing. The book basically reinforces with lots of facts what everybody knows, that Glenn Beck is a hypocritical, opportunistic, and Machiavellian showman who will do anything and take any position that he needs to in order to make a buck and to grow his own myth.

Unfortunately, the author resorts to name calling and hypothetical situations to make some of his strongest points. For example, in the first chapter, Zaitchik transcribes things that Beck was thinking! Then, in location 194*, he writes, "For Beck, August 28, 2010, has been along (sic) time coming. He has waited years for his spotlight on the National Mall." How the heck does this guy know that? Did Beck ever say it, write it, hint it? Nope. Zaitchik speculated it. He goes on, "In the winter of 2003, clear Channel's D.C. affiliate, WTNT, declined to host Beck's traveling Rally for America pro-war road show. 'We support Glen wholeheartedly,' said the station's marketing director at the time, 'but does D.C. really need another rally?' Beck marched on, eyes on the price." Again, how does he know this? I know it isn't a big deal, everybody does this kind of thing when trying to make a point, but the problem is that he uses a lot of these subtle hypothetical situations to make us believe that Beck actually said and thought those things, when there isn't proof that he did.

The church's baseless name calling also got on my nerves. I know I'm biased on this aspect, but he totally lost me here. In location 3872, Zaitchik writes, "Mormon culture is more than aggressively anti-intellectual; it is infantilizing." The citation for this leads you to a study that shows that Utahans take, in average, more anti-depressed than the average American. So, what does that have anything to do with the church being infantilizing? I had a sociology professor who argued that this was true because Mormons don't drink alcohol, smoke, or use drugs, which are anti-depressants themselves, while it's easy to rationalize that a medication you get from the doctor is OK to take. So I guess we're even with the rest of America in that sense. But why the cheap shot? A few paragraphs before, he adds: "Mainstream Mormonism is the closest thing the United States has to a Disney religion, with an orthodox culture that has replaced the tragic sensibility with a masochistic addiction to uplift." The reason for this? The church produces G-rated movies with a positive message. The nerve of those nasty, nasty Mormons! Finally, he writes "Church officials gave speeches naming feminists, intellectuals, and gays and lesbians as the three greatest enemies of the church." The source for this? Conspicuously absent.

My point is, when you get such broad conclusions from individual, anecdotal information, it's hard to take the author seriously about his other conclusions, making the tremendous effort he made in researching this book somewhat pointless. It's still interesting to read, but I'd take everything with a grain of salt. I read "Over the Cliff. How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane," and I thought that the conclusions drawn in that book were much more fair, even if they were pretty harsh as well. I heard there's another book about Beck, Tears of a Clown. I would like to check it out, but reading another whole book on Beck's life seems kind of pointless. Maybe I should have gone with that one instead.

Finally, what's with that cover? Is it supposed to be funny? "Oh, I don't agree with that guy, so let's just put tape on his mouth." And then what? I know we all like to fantasise about things that could happen to people we intensely dislike, but putting this out there doesn't help our position, it makes us look silly and petty.

* I read this on my Kindle app, which doesn't have pages but "locations." I hate it, but there's no way around it.

Lights at Temple Square

2010-12-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

Gabe Crawling / Gabriel gateando

2010-12-04T07:38:00.000-08:00
That cable is really unplugged! He just likes cables, and that seems to be the main motivation to make him crawl these days, so we have to unplug everything. I think that if he hadn't been wearing those sack looking pajamas, and if the flash hadn't been distracting, he could have done a better job :)

Ese cable esta desenchufado. Parece que los cables son la única motivación para hacerlo gatear, así que tenemos que desenchufar todo (por éso la etapa del gateo no es algo que esperaba ansiosamente). Si no hubiera estado usando ese piyama en forma de bolsa, y si el flash no lo hubiera distraído tanto, capaz que hubiera ido mas rapido. Capaz...

Letter from China

2010-12-04T07:26:00.001-08:00
Well, it's not really a letter. It's a little message from the seller that was attached to a battery I bought. I always find these things fascinating, and I guess that engrish.com shows I'm not the only one. The grammar and word choices are so unique, and yet, we understand pretty much everything they say. The last paragraph is genius, though.

David Sedaris at Sam Wellers

2010-11-28T10:30:00.000-08:00
Last night David Sedaris read part of his book at Sam Wellers and then signed books. The reading took about 45 minutes, and it was hilarious. He read portions of an unpublished story about some flies that ate vomit, and how one of them was so stuck up and pretentious because she had eaten the deputy governor's wife's puke. It was genius. He then did a Q&A, and some of the questions were so stupid that they made me cringe. Some examples were:

- How's your sister?
- How's your brother?
- If you could be a mythological animal, what would you be?
- Have you gone to the Louvre?

Painful.

He was good, though, and gave great little monologues loosely based on the questions, so he fixed the awkward moment and made it good.

The signing went really smoothly. He chatted with everyone for a few minutes and was very gracious. If I had to mention my one complaint, it would be the jokes. When he did the reading, he read some jokes that people had shared with him, and that was all good, but when he was signing people's books he started telling us jokes, and I wasn't crazy about that. It just felt very juvenile. It all felt like a desperate attempt to be funny and charming. I understand that it is hard to come up with funny stuff to say all the time, but then, he didn't have to. Just being there, saying hello and signing my book would have been perfect. But, oh well, the guy did an awesome show and that's what we went there for, and it was exciting to actually talk to him after hearing his voice on tape for so long.

Here's his answer to the question "Have you ever heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?" Sorry about the crappy audio. I'll probably add subtitles eventually.

Gabe Laughing His Head Off

2010-11-27T12:09:00.000-08:00
When Gabe was about two months old, we thought the kid might be autistic because he never laughed or smiled. Now, he won't stop doing either. He will smile at random people, and today, as we were driving back home, he randomly started laughing while looking out of the window. This are videos of Gabe laughing during Thanksgiving, from mild to uncontrolable laugh.

Gabe laughing with Maura

Gabe laughing with uncle Matias

Gabe laughing histerically with Santi, Matias's dog

Muffled Gabe

2010-11-23T08:04:00.001-08:00

Fantasy Stories

2010-11-16T21:55:00.001-08:00
My students finished their fantsy stories, and these are some of my favorite passages.

"Now this is in the year 2000, well, really right now. But because of the time period, there are pants and things like that."

"King Charles always helped people with heavy things that they couldn't pick up or carry. No wonder he had such large muscles. His hands were also muscular because of it. He was a very handsome king."

"I finally remembered that rain was held in the clouds. I rode a hot-air-balloon up to the clouds and saw little men made of clouds."

"She was in the bakery with her sister and her father one day, when all of a sudden Santa Clause came riding in on a unicorn named Penelope, then Penelope says "Get off me, you fatty!"

Pretty awesome, huh?

2010-11-14T20:10:00.000-08:00

StS' Beatles

2010-11-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

This is way too funny not to share. It didn't do very well on my Facebook, but at least I'll be able to see it in a couple of years when I revise my blog posts...

Yes, There Is Alien Life in Ogden

2010-11-08T20:30:00.000-08:00

Texas Roadhouse Refills Are Awesome!

2010-11-07T20:15:00.000-08:00

Cowboy Cooler refills. Can you notice the difference? (Hint: It's the ice.)

I Blame My Mom For This

2010-10-31T21:21:00.001-07:00
Fascinating article on this week's Week: The 'liberal gene': An instant guide.

I blame it on my mom, of course.

My favorite part of the article: "The researchers hypothesize that people more open to new ideas and more unconventional points of views already tend toward liberalism, and if they are exposed to enough different ways of living and viewing the world, their political beliefs will tend to solidify to the left of center."

Some people may not agree, I say they're a bunch of knuckleheads. Just kidding! Sheesh!

Finalizacion de la adopcion + Halloween

2010-10-31T09:20:00.001-07:00
Después de 8 meses de traerlo a casa, pudimos finalizar la adopción de Gabriel. De acuerdo con el calendario en la puerta de la corte, nuestro caso duraría 1 minuto:

Duro más de un minuto. De hecho, el juez no llegó hasta las nueve y cuarto. Nuestra trabajadora, Melissa, social estuvo ahí (tuvo que testificar que eramos buenos padres, bla, bla, bla), y justo un fotografo del diario estaba ahí sacando fotos para un artículo sobre Melissa.

El juez no parecía entender mucho la situación, porque hizo varias preguntas que me parecieron raras. Por ejemplo, cuando uno está esperando adoptar por medio de una agencia, la trabajadora social tiene que hacer una visita cada seis meses, y el juez estaba preguntando por qué nos habían hecho tantas visitas, como diciendo que capaz que eramos peligrosos o algo así. Pero al final terminó todo bien, y el juez hasta posó para un par de fotos con nosotros.

Cuando salimos de la corte y fui a buscar el auto, un hombre en una gorra y un piloto me empezó a seguir, lo que me asustó un poco, siendo que estabamos en Ogden... pero el hombre este me paró y me preguntó "¿Disculpe, es usted un abogado?" "No", respondí, a lo cual el hombre este me dijo "Uh, disculpe. Espero que no lo haya ofendido" :)

Después de la corte fuimos a desayunar, y comimos un cinnamon roll del tamaño de mi cabeza.

__________________________________

Para Halloween fuimos a la casa de nuestros amigos, los Muñoz, y nos prestaron un disfraz de pollo para Gabriel.

Gabriel con su amiga Emma Muñoz

Gabriel con el botín de esa noche

Motivational Poster Fail

2010-10-27T21:29:00.001-07:00

This poster, found at my school, was meant to help people feel good about themselves

Gabe Talking and Standing

2010-10-23T16:50:00.000-07:00
If you get bored of the first part of the video, check second 45, where Gabe stands up! Yup. Our 8 month old stands up. With the help of the chair, but still.

We Got a Court Date!!!!!!

2010-10-02T20:04:00.001-07:00
Only two months late, but here it is:

October 13, 10 am: Finalization at some court; in Ogden I assume.

October 16, 12:30: Sealing at the Bountiful Temple. The blessing will be some time that day, not sure when until we talk to the bishop on Tuesday. If we do it before the sealing, we couldn't do it after 10 am, because we have to be in the temple by 11:30 (guests need to be there by 12:00 and wait for half an hour without shoes in the wedding-waiting room). Afterwards, we will have an awesome dinner provided by the ladies in the fam and Meg's posse. By the way, this is the day after Gabe turns 8 months! So, sort of 2/3 birthday.

Come everyone, this is what we've been waiting for years, and it finally happened!!

Gabe: July Update

2010-08-03T17:50:00.000-07:00

Gabe being overly friendly with Emma...

Hanging out at Ikea

Gabe and his improvised hat at the farmers market

At Texas Roadhouse, hoping he could have some chicken critters

Taken with Camera 360, a little app for my celphone. All the photos that follow were taken with that too

Couch 3.0

2010-07-28T11:07:00.000-07:00
Meg fixed this couch before. She re-covered the pillows, which was a huge job, and it looked really nice. But that cover started tearing up, and getting dirty, and even though this is a beautiful couch, I was never crazy about the condition of the wood. So this week I finally took it outside, sanded the crap out of it and stained it black. It ended up a little shinier than I expected (the semi-gloss on the can should have tipped me, huh?), but with the new covers that Meg made, it looks awesome. The semi gloss makes the imperfections on the wood quite noticeable, but it'll do for the next few years, or forever. We've decided that after its useful indoors life, this couch will become outdoor furniture. Nobody else will inherit this! It's ours forever! Wahahahah!

Anyway, this is the couch before:

Mah sanding job:

Final thang:

Meg's is like ridiculously talented. I don't understand how we're not making bank yet!

Our Freaking Awesome Bathroom!!!

2010-07-20T20:46:00.000-07:00
Ok, this is the project I'm most proud of, not only because it looks so awesome, but because it forced me to do stuff that I didn't think I could do!

Meg has wanted to tile our bathroom floor since we moved in, and since we didn't do much in the house this summer, we decided to go ahead and do it. First, of course, we removed the old laminate floor, and we noticed that they had installed it on top of the old linoleum. Once I saw that, I was afraid to lift it because I didn't want to see what was underneath it. Sure enough, the floor had rotted and it came out in handfuls.

Once we finished lifting the old floor, I saw that the subfloor had also roted around the toilet, and that's when I freaked out. I didn't want to lift the whole thing and reinstall it, because I had no idea how to do it. I even thought of calling the bishop and assembling a group of construction expert brothers to help me out.

Once the panic passed, I went to Lowes and asked what the heck I could do. They explained that all I needed to do was to lay floor wood, which looks like plywood, but it's way stronger, and on top of that I could just lay the backer-board (which they call "hardy back") and then tile right on top of that. It really wasn't that hard. I even got the circle around the toilet flange perfect! (There in the top right, by the box of nails.)

Once we got the new subfloor down, we installed the backsplash. We started from the top with that accent-strip, so we had to tape the tile as it dried, so it wouldn't run down.

After a few rows, we nailed a 1x2 to the wall to hold the tiles in place as the mortar dried (I read this somewhere). After that, I realized that if I just put a nail under each tile as I installed them, I would get the same result and I could go much faster.

Next came the floor. The tile that we chose was beautiful, but really tricky to cut, since it is actually made up of tiny pieces of marble put together. After a couple of mess-ups I figured it out and the process went faster and cleaner. The toilet came next, as soon as the mortar dried. I mean, we didn't have a toilet for a day!! That was the worst part of the whole project. We actually had to use the church's bathroom the first morning we started working on ours, and that wasn't that much fun with a crying baby in the church as we took turns!

I really like our new sink. It's a regular pedestal sink, but it makes the bathroom look bigger and cleaner. The faucet is really nice, and it goes with our other brushed nickel fixtures, which look great and were very inexpensive (light, shower curtain rod, and switch and outlet boxes).

So... I loooove how our bathroom looks now, but I hated putting it together. It was a lot of work, it was messy, and even scary at times when I didn't know what I was going (I realized that if you go to Home Depot and tell the people at the customer service desk that you're not being help, you will get amazing service and personalized advice from an expert in a matter of seconds). But anyway, it's done, and I hope I never have to do another bathroom renovation like this again! At least not in a bathroom with a rotten floor and subfloor, that's for sure.

Painted Vinyl Siding + New Ceiling Fan!

2010-07-19T09:01:00.000-07:00
When we moved into the house, I noticed that the siding vinyl was pretty nasty in some parts. I thought it was just dirty, so I washed it, brushing like crazy, but it didn't make much difference. I then thought that maybe it was stained, but then, looking closely, I noticed that the white paint in the vinyl had actually faded. The sprinkler had been hitting the wall for years, and caused the vinyl to discolor.

I then asked around to see if vinyl siding could be painted, and it turns out that you can. You just need to use primer and then paint a lighter shade or color than was there. Since our siding was white, we just kept it like that. It turned out so good, it looks like new!

We also decided to change our bedroom light to a ceiling fan. We chose a small one (since our bedroom is rather small), and it turned out awesome!

The only problem: this unit uses a remote control, it doesn't have those little chains you turn the light and fan on and off with. That was a pretty nice surprise, the real problem was that I was supposed to fit in the remote control unit that goes on the fan into the light box that goes attached to the ceiling. Those light boxes are about four inched wide. The remote control was like 6 inches wide. I ended up having to climb onto the attic and extending the remote control unit cables so I could actually attach them to the fan. It was a pain, but it works just great. The fan looks very nice, but if I'd known what a pain it would be to install, I would have definitely picked up a different one!

Gabe's Missed

2010-07-16T21:01:00.000-07:00
My friend Ashley posted this on her Facebook:

Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?

Ashley is an amazing friend. She came to the hospital to visit when Gabe was born, and she was about to have her own baby then! She and her husband are so awesome. Too bad they had to move!!!

Printed Onsies!

2010-07-09T09:58:00.000-07:00
I did a few more attempts to print stuff, this time on some of Gabe's onesies, and even though the results are not mind blowing, they're ok; definitely better than my last ones. The actual prints are coming out better, but I'm having a hard time centering the prints where I want them on the shirts.

This Travis one came out ok, except that I didn't put enough ink the first time, so I put the screen down and tried to do it again, but it was a little off, so that guy in the right looks double.

The Killer's screen came out perfect, but I didn't put enough ink. Also, I was so excited to actually do the print, that I didn't stop to clean my hands. As a consequence, the logo is a little faded in parts, and there are ink stains all over the onesie.

For this one, I thought that I would print the big logo on the back, and then print some tiny logos on canvas, then cut one and sew it on the front of the onesie, sort of like a badge. This one is the only one that came out perfect, although I wish I had printed the big logo a little higher.

Why I Hate Percy Jackson

2010-07-09T09:08:00.000-07:00
I recently finished reading the second Percy Jackson book and the first Artemis Fowl, two young adult novels (well, more like young young novels), and although they share some elements, Artemis Fowl was pretty good, while Percy Jackson is stupidly dumb and I hate it so much that I feel like kicking it until my feel fall off.

You see, a few years ago I still felt I was too good for young adult books. I mean, I read Shakespeare and Poe for fun when I was 14! (Mostly because my parents couldn't afford kids books for me and all they had were old copies of those books that they inherited from their parents.) I never even wanted to see the cover of a young adult book, until Meg and I listened to Because of Win Dixie on a trip to Washington, and I was sold. Of course, there are amazing YA books, and there is absolute crap, like everything else. Harry Potter is no Nobel Prize in literature, but it's decent. The writing is ok and sometimes actually kind of exciting. Percy Jackson, on the other hand, is a badly written, boring, unfunny rip off of Harry Potter. And if you don't believe me, check this out:

1. A young orphan (semi-orphan in PJ's case) boy who has special powers and doesn't know about them until he goes to this school where he's taught how to use his powers. By the way, he's also the chosen one, and even though he's not super smart, he's the cat's pajamas! (Harry/Percy)

2. A girl who also has powers and who is very, very smart becomes friends with the main guy and saves his butt a million times. Even though she's very smart, she's not as special as the guy, but she's ok with that (Hermione/Annabeth)

3. A friend guy who is not as bright as the main guy or his girl friend, but he is very noble and trustworthy (Ron/Grover)

4. There's even a super evil character who the main guy has to fight (and he's the only one who can fight him!). He beats him in every book, but never badly enough to get rid of him until, I assume, the last book (Voldemort/Chronos)

There's even an invisibility cape and half bloods on both books.

But that's not my main problem with the book, it's just that it's badly written. There are so many parts that are supposed to be funny, and they are NOT; so many parts are supposed to be sad and melancholic, but they are just cheesy and ineffective. There's a part, for example, where the author might have thought "Oh yeah, I'm writing about the gods of nature, so maybe I should throw in some environmentally conscious remarks," so he did, really quick (like one sentence), and went on. It was a pathetic attempt.

You might wonder why then did I read TWO of these crappy books. Well, so many people said that the second one was much better than the first one that I gave it a try (some of those people were my 6th grade students, so that should've told me something...). Also, I just heard it on audiobook, so it wasn't so painful or such a waste of time, but I wonder what did the people who saw me yell at my iPod think.

Artemis Fowl, on the other hand, is kind of similar. A 12 year old criminal mastermind decided to steal gold from fairies in order to restore his family's fortune (he's not an orphan, but his parents are out of the picture. He also goes on the archetypal quest when he steals from the fairies, like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and every fantasy protagonist does). Sounds lame, huh? Definitely not as cool as reading about the adventures of Poseidon's son among Greek gods and demigods. But the author worked it out in such a way that the book is interesting, exciting, funny, and just plain good.

After HP, PJ, the Twilight series, and a bunch of other crappy YA fantasy books I've read, I was ready to give up on them, but AF was so good that I might at least give some of them a try in the future.

An Honest Facebook Political Argument

2010-07-01T09:31:00.000-07:00
(lazy post)

This is genius. Meg found it at http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1803025.

I find it particularly funny because somebody once sent me a bunch of links to articles that were supposed to change my mind about some particular political issue, so I read them, studied them, actually, wrote a very detailed rebuttal, and sent it to the person who had sent me the articles. She then answered by saying "Sorry, I didn't actually read the articles I sent you. I just thought the titles sounded good."

Walls-Be-Gone

2010-06-25T08:10:00.000-07:00
Meg decided that she didn't like those little wall-looking-thingies between the kitchen and the dining room. So I had to get rid of them...

First problem: The blade of the knife I was using to cut the sheetrock snapped out. Over a week later, I still have a pretty nasty scar.

We are going to replace the kitchen and dining room floors, but in the meantime, there's going to be either a hole or a not-very good looking patch there. We kind of forgot about the floor when we tackled this thing :)

House Projects - Biggest Update since like forever

2010-06-25T06:37:00.000-07:00
---Fan + Porch Light.
Since we moved into the house, the dining room's light kept blowing up every light bulb we put in it. We asked a neighbor, who is an electrician, to fix it, but he started and never finished, leaving a bunch of loose cables dangling from the ceiling from the longest time. After his "repair," the porch light quit working. I got sick of nobody helping us out, even when we were willing to pay! So I went on the internet and learned how to fix the thing; I installed a ceiling fan, and now the porch light works again. I called a city guy to check the work, since I was a little worried about some loose cables that the former owners left on the attic, and he said that once I capped those cables, everything would be fine, safe, and that it would follow the code. Awesomeness.

---Shower Tiles.
A few months ago, Meg decided to replace the tiles in the shower. We had some really ugly white and green tiles, and we replaced them with marble tiles. Matt helped us a lot. Without him, it would have taken us days.

---Water Heater + No Longer Looking Like Crap Laundry Room.
Last year, we noticed that the tiles we had installed in the laundry room were coming loose. When I checked what the problem was, I noticed that the floor under the tiles was actually wet. That's how we found out that our water heater was leaking. Awesome, huh? So, the floor was wet, and the water had reached the wall, which was getting a little moldy.

Enter new water heater.

We wanted a smaller one, since everything feels so tight in that room. We finally went for a tankless one, which is supposed to be more cost effective, as it saves on gas and energy, since it only works when you actually need hot water. Also, since it produces hot water "on demand," and it heats the water as it passes through the tank, the hot water never, ever runs out.

I also had to replace a portion of the wall, which was very wet, and we had to re-tile. The nice thing is that now we have all new appliances in that room, that we will have no more leaks, ever, and that we got a tax deduction that saved us from having to pay any taxes last year. The not so nice thing? Our water heater broke, I had to fix the wall, and re-tile the damn room.

We have so much more space in the laundry room now, that we could put in a nice piece of furniture we found at Ikea which we use for storing shoes. On top of it, Meg painted a huge chalk board.

My First Printed T-Shirt!!!

2010-06-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

After like 20 failed attempts, I finally figured out how to burn a good image on the screen printing screen, and printed my first t-shirt!!! This is the "Yo Gabe Gabe" design, rip off of Yo Gabba Gabba, of course. I liked the stenciled Gabe, and I wanted to write something other than just "Gabe" under the picture (I didn't want it to look like an obituary or something), and I came up with this, after watching my first (and only) Gabba Gabba episode at Chad's.

The result is not great. The image is crooked, there is ink where there shouldn't be, and there isn't ink where there should be, but I did it! I'm doing more tomorrow, and I'll start my video tutorial soon, so people don't have to go through the crap I had to go through when trying to learn how to do this.

So, buy your "Yo Gabe Gabe" t-shirt. They're only $50 and they go to a great cause (me).

Yeah, I Know!

2010-06-09T20:04:00.001-07:00
Me: Meg, did it rain?

Meg: Who rained?

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Utterly Uninteresting and Irrelevant Entry

2010-06-05T13:19:00.000-07:00
School is out. I have two months until I have to come back, so I'll try to take advantage of the free time! Unfortunately, we're too broke to travel. We already reserved/paid for our Vegas trip this month, but other than that, I don't see us doing much on that department. Some stuff I need to do this summer:

- Finish the garden boxes and hopefully plant something
- Sell all that crap in my garage
- Make that dirt patch under my front window look nice
- Mulch e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e
- Paint the outside of the house. Years of sprinkler abuse have definitely taken a toll on the siding
- Get rid of that damn, immortal Chinese elm growing by our garage
- Visit all our friends that had babies and that I was too busy/lazy to visit but my guilty conscience won't let me ignore anymore
- Plan my school year

Some stuff I want to do this summer:

- Learn to do screen printing, start my business doing that, and make bank off it
- Have night-long movie marathon on the projector. I already tried it, but I fell asleep 15 minutes into the first movie (I have already watch the first half of Sherlock Holmes five times)
- Teach Gabe how to play racquetball and go hang out at the Weber State gym twice a week
- Hang out at cafes and talk about how much cooler the French are with highly educated, liberal minded people that somehow I will meet this summer

That's it for now. If I can think of something else, I'll post...

PS: Yes, it should say "electrolites" instead of "electolites" up there. I'll fix it one of these day.

New Videos of Gabrielito

2010-05-23T10:58:00.001-07:00
When Gabe turned 2 (months), we learned that he should be smiling, but he wasn't. That worried us a little bit, and Meg even started fearing autism and what not. But then, about three weeks ago, he started smiling, laughing, talking (in his own language, of course), all at once. He can even stand up. Well, with some help from his dad, you know. But hey, that's good enough for me!

En español!

Cuando cumplió dos meses, edad en la que, según los libros que hemos estado leyendo histericamente, ya debería haber estado sonriendo, Gabriel era tan serio como cuando nació. Por supuesto (como buenos padres histericos que somos) que esto nos preocupó, y Megan incluso empezó a pensar que tal vez el chico era autista! Pero tres semanas atrás, Gabriel empezó a sonreir, a reirse, a hablar (en ese idioma que tiene él), todo de golpe. Incluso puede pararse. Bueno, con un poquito de ayuda del papá; pero como buen padre histerico que soy, eso es más que suficiente!

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Meg's Blog Is Back!

2010-05-13T11:51:00.001-07:00
Or at least let's hope so! Check it out, and then come and check mine out again! It gets lonely here...

http://megansaine.blogspot.com/

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On How I got Really Mad at a Poor, Nice Blind Guy

2010-05-09T08:51:00.000-07:00
Yesterday we went to have lunch with Meg and Pat to celebrate mother's day. Of course, it was Gabe's diaper changing and feeding time (it's always Gabe's feeding time). I then cavalierly volunteered to change him, hoping the bathroom would have a changing station. Well, it did, but it was inside the handicap's stall, which was occupied, but not only that, the door was wide open, and the guy inside was on the phone loudly setting up an appointment for something or another. I didn't see crutches or a wheelchair, although I didn't really look very intently (it was pretty awkward as it was), so I thought "Well, I've done this same thing enough times. After all, handicap stalls are spacious and comfortable. I'm sure that when he sees me out here waiting with a baby to be changed, he will hurry." But no luck; the guy was really taking his time.

After some five minutes of waiting, and listening to the details of the appointment setting, I decided to unroll the diaper bag's changing pad and change Gabe on the floor, all the while shaking my head and mumbling to myself how horrible and unfair the world was. By the way, the bathroom was pretty small, and I decided to locate myself in a spot where the guy in the stall could see me, but I couldn't see him (again, it was quite awkward already!). "This poor baby crying and my fervid head shaking should show him!" I said to myself. Once I was done, I huffed and puffed out of the bathroom.

A few minutes later, as I was sitting at my table telling Meg and Pat about the rudeness of this stall user, I saw a blind man walking out of the bathroom being guided by a waiter to his table.

Needless to say, I felt like a total jerk and rapidly changed the subject.

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Of How I Could Have Died Today!

2010-05-05T20:07:00.000-07:00
Today, as I was in the freeway coming back from work, I looked behind and noticed that a lady in a nice white car was approaching me at a frightening speed. I also noticed that she was on the phone, looking away from the road. I was getting a little scared and I wasn't sure what to do, but then, when she was really, really close to me, she saw me and rapidly veered to the left (I was in the far right lane). When I looked through the rear view mirror, I noticed that she was speeding towards the far left across the freeway. When I looked again, I saw the car roll over in that dirt section between the southbound-northbound freeways. It was insane; I've never seen anything like that.

I immediately pulled over and walked back where the car was. Many police cars were already there, and some ambulances were already on their way. Another guy had already pulled over, and since he was behind the white car, he saw the accident better than me. According to him, the car doors opened when the car was rolling over, and some people flew out of it, maybe kids. I tried to see if the driver and the passengers were OK, but I couldn't see anything at all.

It was strange how calm I was when this all happened. It almost felt like I was watching a movie; it was unreal. But once I started thinking more about it, I became quite shaky. I am very worried about the people in the car, and I really hope that they are OK.

I can't find any information on the accident on the internet. The accident was right before the 335 exit on I-15, northbound. It was today at about 2:45-2:50. If anyone hears anything, I'd appreciate any information.

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De nuestra relación con la mamá de Gabriel / Of our Relationship with Gabe's Birthmom (SP)

2010-04-17T06:45:00.001-07:00
Please read the entry in English here.

Antes de empezar, quiero aclarar que esto no está dirigido a nadie en particular. Es simplemente que muchas personas nos han hecho preguntas y comentarios acerca de nuestra relación con la mamá de Gabriel, y esta es mi manera de explicar cómo funciona esta relación. Me imagino que deben haber muchos de nuestros amigos y familiares que se preguntan también acerca de esto pero no se animan a decirnos. Espero que esto les ayude a entender o al menos a aceptar nuestra desición. Gracias.

________

Cuando les contamos a nuestros familiares y amigos acerca de nuestra relación con la mama de Gabriel (llamémosla "Amelia"), las reacciones son bastante constantes. El comentario típico es "¿Ustedes dejan que Amelia lo vea a Gabriel seguido?" con un gesto bastante sorprendido. La reacción es normal, y es de esperarse. Después de todo, cuando nosotros pensamos por primera vez en adoptar, yo pensé que mi bebe no tendría ninguna relación con su mamá, y que nosotros seríamos todo lo que el conocería en cuanto a padres. Mis miedos tenían que ver más que nada con inseguridad, en pensar que tal vez mi hijo o hija iba a querer un día irse a vivir con su mama o que la mama terminara acechando nuestra casa en medio de la noche para robar a su bebé. O al menos me imagino que esos deben haber sido mis miedos, porque mi opinión es tan radicalmente diferente de lo que era en ese entonces, que ya ni me acuerdo bien lo que pensaba.

Cuando nos contactamos con la agencia de adopción de la iglesia, fuimos invitados a una conferencia donde iban a hablar padres adoptivos, madres de chicos que fueron adoptados, y adultos que fueron adoptados cuando eran bebés o niños pequeños. El resultado fue que se me abrieron los ojos en lo que respecta a la relación de un niño adoptado con su madre natural. En todos los casos, desde todas las perspectivas posibles, una relación natural entre niños y madres crea una situación más saludable no solo para la madre, sino para el niño. Todas las personas que hablaron que fueron adoptados explicaron que ellos tienen un lugar muy especial en su corazón para sus madres naturales, pero que para ellos, sus verdaderos padres son sus padres adoptivos.

Todas las experiencias que escuchamos, los estudios que leímos, los videos que vimos, etc. nos probaron que las adopciones "abiertas", como se llaman, son mejores en todo sentido.

Todas estas razones nos llevaron a decidirnos por una adopción abierta.

Uno de nuestros blogs favoritos está escrito por una mujer que es muy activa en los círculos adoptivos. Ella siempre habla en todas las conferencias de adopción de las que hemos escuchado, y está sumamente informada en el tema. Ella adopto a dos niños y tiene una relación muy amistosa con las madres naturales de sus hijos, lo cual ha sido una experiencia muy positiva para ella, sus hijos, y las madres de sus hijos.

Cuando conocimos a "Amelia", ella nos conto que la razón por la que quería dar a su hijo por adopción era que, a pesar de que ella, su mamá, y sus hermanas podrían fácilmente criar a Gabriel, ella quería que él tuviera todo lo que la vida le pudiera ofrecer, no solamente una buena educación y un buen hogar, sino también una familia completa, incluyendo un padre. Además, ella nos dijo que prefería que su hijo fuera a una familia que no tuviera hijos, para que esa familia tuviera la oportunidad que otros tienen. Eso en sí, para mí, fue la respuesta a todas mis oraciones.

Amelia también nos dijo que, si fuera posible, le gustaría poder ver a Gabriel al menos una vez al año, y que de tanto en tanto le mandáramos fotos. Después de todo eso es lo mínimo que se puede pedir de una adopción abierta. Megan y yo pensamos que ese requisito no era razonable, y le dijimos que ella podría ver a Gabriel tantas veces como quisiera. Después de todo, el sacrificio que ella hizo por su hijo, e indirectamente por nosotros, la paso a convertir inmediatamente en nuestro ángel en la tierra. Otra cosa que hay que tener muy en claro es que ella no hizo esto por su propio beneficio, sino por el beneficio de Gabriel. No me imagino que algo pueda ser más duro que el sacrificio de una madre al dar su hijo para que pueda tener una vida mejor. Después de todo, como la amiga de Amelia dijo, “Ella no lo dio; sino que le dio más.”

Desde entonces, Amelia sólo nos llama una vez cada 4 o 6 semanas preguntando si sería posible ver a Gabriel. Nosotros somos los que la llamamos más seguido, o los que la vamos a visitar. Ella nunca impuso su voluntad de ver a su hijo, nunca vino a nuestra casa sin llamar primero, nunca nos pidió nada, ni si quiera durante el proceso de adopción, cuando ella tenía el derecho de pedir hasta tres mil dólares en efectivo para gastos personales, según los términos de la agencia de adopción. Sinceramente, Megan y yo no podríamos haber pedido por una mejor madre en este asunto, y ni hablar de la familia de Amelia, quienes la apoyaron y asistieron durante todo el proceso. La mañana después que Amelia dio a luz, yo le conté a su mamá mis preocupaciones con respecto a el trámite de adopción, especialmente mi miedo de que Amelia fuera a cambiar de opinión a último momento, como ya nos había pasado antés con otra posible adopción un año atrás, y ella fue la que nos aseguro que todo iba a salir bien, que nadie iba a cambiar de opinión, y la única que estuvo de nuestro lado cuando nadie más estuvo a nuestro alrededor para ayudarnos, ni siquiera la trabajadora social de la agencia. Cuando se trata de la mamá de Amelia, yo siento que le voy a estar en deuda por siempre.

Gabriel va a saber desde siempre que Amelia es su mama, pero que él es nuestro hijo, y que nunca le va a faltar el amor y la seguridad que se merece y que necesita. Yo sé que antes las cosas se hacían de una manera diferente, y que era una tema tabú saber que alguien era adoptado; pero las cosas han cambiado mucho desde entonces. Un muchachito que conozco que es adoptado, al igual que sus cuatro hermanos y hermanas (y que habla de una manera muy abierta y madura del tema), me mostró una sonrisa de oreja a oreja cuando le dije que había adoptado un bebé, y me dijo, con sincero entusiasmo "¡Estoy tan contento por usted que no le puedo ni explicar!"

Después de todo, ¿qué sería mejor para Gabriel, saber cómo su familia está compuesta desde el principio, o enterarse un día cuando es un adolescente que esa amiga que venía a visitar de vez en cuando es en realidad su mamá, y que le estuvimos mintiendo toda su vida acerca de su relación con nosotros?

Repito, yo entiendo y aprecio las preocupaciones que muchos tienen cuando se trata de nuestra relación con Amelia, pero ella es nuestra amiga, nosotros la queremos y vamos a estar en deuda con ella por el resto de nuestras vidas, porque ella nos dio una oportunidad que ni la naturaleza nos dio, y ella va a tener el derecho de ver a Gabriel tantas veces como quiera, mientras nosotros pensemos que sea apropiado, y, hasta ahora, su actitud y su comportamiento han sido más que apropiados y respetuosos de nuestra situación como los padres legales de Gabriel.

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Gabe Mosaic

2010-04-06T12:44:00.000-07:00
This is a mosaic of Gabe I made with all our pictures since we got married. You can click on it to see it full size.

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Lil Gabe

2010-04-06T09:44:00.000-07:00
It's so incredibly awesome to have Gabe at home I still can't believe it's true.

He's such a cutie. Not much to tell yet; he mostly eats, cries, burps, farts, and sleeps, and sometimes poops. He's getting chubbier, though. He was really tiny when he was born (under 5 lbs.), but now he's much bigger. He's about the size of a regular new born now.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty guilty about not writing anything about him, so here. There are plenty of pics of him on my and Meg's Facebook, so I won't fill this up with that.

More news coming... Finalization, blessing, sealing. I'm anxious for all that, but he's so cute now I don't want him to ever grow!

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Of our Relationship with Gabe's Birthmom / De nuestra relación con la mamá de Gabriel (EN)

2010-02-17T08:24:00.000-08:00
Before starting, I want to clarify that this is not directed towards anybody in particular. Many people have asked us and commented about our relationship with our birth mom, and this is my way to explain to them how that relationship works. I imagine that there might be many of our friends and relatives who also wonder about this but don’t dare to ask. I hope this helps everybody to understand or, at least, to accept our decision. Thank you.

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When we tell people about our relationship with Gabriel’s birthmother, the reactions are quite consistent. A typical reply is to say, with a surprised or concerned expression, “You let his birth mom see him often?” the reaction is normal and expected. After all, when we first thought about adopting, I didn’t want my child to have any relationship with his birth mom, and that we would be all he or she knew when it came to parents. My fears had mostly to do with my insecurities. I would think that my child one day would want to move with his birth mom, or that she would one day stalk my home while trying to steal my baby back. Or at least that’s what I think my fears were, because since then my opinion has changed so radically that I can’t really remember anymore what I used to think.

When we contacted LDS Family Services, we were invited to a conference where adoptive parents, birth moms, and adoptees would speak. The result what that my eyes were opened when it came to understanding the relationship between an adopted child and his birth mom. In each case, and from every possible angle, generally the healthiest situation for the child is when a natural and honest relationship exists between him and his birth mom. Each adoptee who spoke who happened to know his or her birth mom, said that they had a special place for them in their hearts, but they thought that their true parents were their adoptive ones (that, obviously, is only true when the adoptive parents treat their adoptive children as their own!).

From the experiences we heard, the studies we read, the videos we watched, etc., we took that open adoptions, whenever possible and agreed by both parties, are good in every way. These reasons led us to decide on one.

One of our favorite blogs is written by a lady who is very active in the adoptive circles. She speaks in every adoption conference and retreat we’ve heard about, and she is very educated on the topic. She adopted two children herself, and she has a great, friendly relationship with her birth moms, which has been nothing but good for her, her children, and the birth mothers. That is what I want for my adoptive children.

When we met Gabe’s mom, she told us that the reason why she wanted to place her son for adoption was that, even though she could have raised him herself, with the help of her mom and her sister, she wanted her child to have everything that life could offer him, including a father. Also, she told us that she wanted her son to go to a family that didn’t have children already, so they could also have the opportunity that others have. That, on itself, was the answer to all of my prayers!

Our birth mom also told us that, if possible, she would like to see Gabriel once a year and to get pictures of him once in a while. After all, that’s the minimum that can be asked of an open adoption. Both Megan and I felt that her request was not acceptable, and that she should see Gabe as much as she wanted. We think that the sacrifice she did for her son, and, indirectly, for us, made her into our personal angel on earth. Something else that needs to be made clear is that she didn’t place Gabriel for adoption for her own benefit, but for his benefit. I can’t think of a harder sacrifice than that of a mother purposely losing her child in order to give him a better life. After all, as our birth mom’s friend said, “She didn’t give him up, she gave him more.”

Since Gabriel was born, our birth mom calls us once every 4 to 6 weeks asking if it would be possible to see Gabriel. Meg and I are the ones who call her or go to her house more often. She never forced us to let her see Gabe, nor did she ever come to our house uninvited. She never asked us for anything, even though she had the right to get up to an optional $3000 in expenses, according to the terms of the adoption agency. Honestly, Meg and I couldn’t have asked for a better birth mother, not to mention her family, who supported and assisted her throughout her birth and the whole adoption process. The morning after Gabriel was born, I confessed to her mom my fears that she would change her mind regarding the adoption, and she was the one who told me not to worry, that everything was going to be alright, and was the only one to be there by our side when we needed the most help, as if we were family. I will always be grateful to her for what she did.

Gabriel will always know who his birth mom is, but he will always be our son, and he will never lack the love and security that he deserves and needs. I know that things were done differently in the past, and that it was something of a taboo to talk about adoptive relatives, but that’s not the case anymore. Adoption is a beautiful thing and something to be proud of. A little boy I know who is adopted himself, as well as his four siblings (and who talks about it openly) told me, when he found out that I had adopted a baby, while clasping his hands and grinning from ear to ear “I’m so happy for you, I can’t get over it!”

After all, what would be best for Gabriel: to know from the beginning how his family is made up or to find out when he is a teenager that we’ve been lying about who we are and who that lady who came to visit once a year is?

Again, I understand and appreciate the concerns that many have when it comes to our relationship with our birth mom, but she is our friend and we love her, and we feel we will be indebted to her for the rest of our lives, because she gave us a chance that not even nature gave us, and she will have the right to see Gabriel as often as she wants, as long as we think it appropriate, and, so far, her behavior and her attitude have been nothing less than respectful of our situation as legal parents of our child.

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Books I've Read This Year

2010-01-01T11:47:00.000-08:00
I made it to 38. Most were young adult books (1st, because I took a YA class in college, 2nd, because I want to be able to recommend good books to my students, and 3rd, because the covers are so awesome!), so they were easy to read, but many of them were really awesome. I read a lot of crap (O'Reilly's book was particularly stupid. But of course I was biased before I started it. Not too crazy about hatred in print), and nothing particularly heady, although I read some complicated stuff in my college classes that I didn't list here because they were only excerpts. I also read some other books that I didn't list because they were too short or too dumb, to the point of being embarrassed to list them.

I was always curious of how many books I usually read a year, and 38 is not that great, but it's more than I though. We'll see how I do in 2010.

38. Fight Club By Chuck Palahniuk. I just read this because I had it in my iPod and didn't have anything else around. I loved the first 3/4 of the book. Then it got really silly. Although I already knew what was going to happen because I watched the movie, I don't like how the writer handled the main character's split personality issue, especially when the second personality starts telling the first one about his mental condition. Too Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, but without the beautiful verbosity.

37. Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon By Garrison Keillor. I love Garrison Keillor's novels. He has this awesome ability to describe something in just a few words, and you're there. This is a great book, although nothing much happens; it's mostly recollections by the different characters, but it feels very homey. Keillor is a master of the "light" stream of conscience also. He can take you into someone's head and make you go through their thought processes, disconnected as they usually are, and still don't feel dizzy or bored. Loved it.

36. Standing Up to the Madness By Amy and David Goodman. Really great information on how to stand up against what we see as unjustices, and great examples of people who did. Couldn't help feeling at times that the book was a huge ad for the radio show, though...

35. Smiles to Go By Jerry Spinelli. Spinelli is one of my favorite YA authors. That's why I was so excited about this book. And that's why it is so disappointing that it sucks...

34. The Stonekeeper By Kazu Kibuishi. This is a YA graphic novel that one of my students' parent bought for me, which is nice, but the book is the dumbest crap I've ever read.

34. Freakonomics By Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. So awesome!! Like the authors say, the book doesn't have a unifying theme, just a bunch of facts analyzed and put together in a very cool way.

33. Lord Loss By Darren Shan. Another YA book. Way stupid. I'm definitely not recommending this to my students... (Although my students recommended it to me!)

32. Common Sense By Glen Beck. Holy cow, this guy is a big time conspiracy theorist! It's too bad you can't see him twitching on the book, though. It would have been funier.

31. To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee. First time I read it. Such a beautiful book.

30. The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini. So sad.

29. Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future By Will Bunch. Despite its title, it's not really a negative book, it just distinguishes the myths from the facts of his presidency ("Facts are stubborn things," like John Adams would say. Or "Facts are stupid things," like Reagan would say, when quoting John Adams). Reagan was good in many instances, not so good in many others. The bottom line is, he wasn't the amazing real life movie hero that his propaganda campaign made him to be. Tough book to read though: tons of technical information and lots of information in general in each page.

28. Three Shadows By Cyril Pedrosa. I thought it was stupid. But then, it's just my opinion...

27. Paul Goes Fishing By Michel Rabagliati. I got this book because I thought looked cool, and I was amazed to find out that it talks about foster care, infertility issues, etc. all in a very realistic and moving way.

26. Watchmen By Alan Moore. I loved the movie, so I figured I'd read the book. There are a few differences, but it was great also.

25.The Host By Stephanie Mayer. Triple gag. If it wasn't because it was all I had in my iPod while I worked in my yard, and because I really wanted to know what Stephanie Mayer would do in order to make this book interesting, I would've stopped listening to this after the first chapter. I wish I had. The super duper happy ending didn't help either.

24.Death Note By Tsugumi Ohba. Holy crap, that was long. It could've been done in 5 books. After that, it just draaaaaged. Spoilers: the good guys win.

23.A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity By Bill O'Reilly. You can't say I don't try. This is probably the most irrelevant book you'll ever read. Here you will learn what you need to do if you want to be O'Reilly's friend, about the times when he mocked French club employees because of their names, about how he tortured nuns (but it was all "in good fun"), about the times he cheated his customers when he had a painting company, of the times he sabotaged his customers' ice creams when he worked at an ice cream stand, and about at least one felony he committed and of which he seems to be very proud. You'll also be surprised to learn that he likes Bush but hates Carter and Clinton. I know, I know. Shocking. Oh, and by the way, this "is not about him." How do I know, because that's the first thing he says in the book.

22.V for Vendetta By Alan Moore and David Lloyd

21.What Obama Means for Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future By Jabari Asim: See May 3's entry

20.The I Hate Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity... Reader: Edited by Clint Willis. It's funny, but since it came out four years ago, it feels pretty outdated. A new edition would be awesome.

YA Books I had to read for my class:

19.SOUE: Book 8, The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket. Ditto

18.SOUE: Book 7, The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket. This book is so dumb it's not even funny,and yet, I really need to know what's going to happen next...

17.The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yonel: Once you get past the excruciating intro, the book gets pretty good. The ending is amazing.

16.Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan: Grunt.

15.Little Brother by Cory Doctorow: Interesting book about losing your privacy in time of war and fear mongering. Pretty entertaining, and, best of all, it's free from Doctorow's website. I actually read the whole thing in my cell phone.

14.Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse: Incredibly depressing. It gets better though.

13.The Wish List by Eoin Colfer: It's kind of cute, but the religious part is just weird.

12.Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card: Gag.

11.Whirligig by Paul Fleischman: I saw the guy live, and he was pretty cool. This book, not so much.

10.Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: Very, very awesome.

9.Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes: I like the multi-voice thing, and the poems explaining what's in the kids heads. I'm not too crazy about the Hispanic stereotypes, though.

8.Catcher in the Rye: First time I read this. Very cool book, although the swearing gets a little annoying (I still can't figure out what's the purpose for the swearing, because there has to be one!).

7.Tangerine, by Edward Bloor: A sort of "Blue Velvet" for middle schoolers.

6.Nothing But the Truth, by Avi: This book made me mad as hell. So I guess it's really good.

5.American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang: Great book about accepting who one is. Not new age crap, though, but actual literature in graphic novel form

4.Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher: I absolutely loved this book. Until the last chapter...

3. Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson: Even more awesome than its name!

2. Who Ran my Underwear up the Flagpole? by Jerry Spinelli: the worst Spinelli I've read!

1. Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson: interesting

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Give Them a Couple of Days...

2009-09-19T17:35:00.000-07:00
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On Friday I was standing by my classroom and I saw two of my students, who are also boyfriend and girlfriend, playing and pushing each other like every good 9th grade couple do. The boy's little brother and the girl's little sister were standing by.

"Are you guys bored waiting for those two?" I asked them. The boy smiled and nodded vigorously, while the girl, who is a 3rd grader, nodded towards them and said, cool and with a serious face:

"Just give them a couple of days."

Productive Day in Church

2009-09-06T11:22:00.001-07:00
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I don't know what that last one means, but I thought it was funny anyway...

Fun, Fun

2009-09-06T07:18:00.000-07:00
I guess the house project season is over. Megan is really good at still watering the grass, though. But we've been watering the garden a little too much, and so our tomatoes started cracking. But they're delicious. I can't believe we even have watermelons, even though they are the size of my fist. I was worried the garden wouldn't work very well, since we've never had one before and we didn't really know what we were doing, but those boxes worked really well, and we would actually like to cover our backyard with those. It's just a huge empty space anyway.

Some fuzzy garden pics:

School is really cool. The kids are awesome and extremely smart. We had a class debate on capital punishment vs. life imprisonment after we read Chekhov's "The Bet," and I was amazed at these kids' responses. A few were silly (especially those who were in favor of capital punishment and suggested some ways to get rid of prisoners when they did very terrible things. I had to step in a couple of times there), but they were mostly really well thought and founded. These kids are so good they even turn in their homework! I know. Shocking.

Maura Barking

2009-07-17T09:58:00.001-07:00
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For some reason I decided to bark at Maura, and she just barked back at me!

New Job + Vacations

2009-07-10T10:20:00.000-07:00
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Narcissism alert: This post is all about me, and me alone.

NEW JOB: I didn't find a job at XYZ School after all (names were changed to protect the innocent, namely ME). It was a really weird situation. After a long and really nice interview (the principal and I talked for over an hour), I was told that I would be let know by the following Thursday if I got the job, that I was a very strong candidate, yada, yada, yada. Thursday came and went, and i didn't hear anything from them. The next Tuesday I called because the waiting was killing me. The principal said that she had talked to someone at my old school, and that they had told her that I was not a very good disciplinarian (that was a horrible sounding sentence, isn't it? Too many T's I think). She then proceeded to interview me for 30 more minutes on the phone. "Thank you." She said. "I feel much better after talking to you. I'll let you know by next Monday." That was like four weeks ago. She never called, emailed, or even texted me. I think it was for the better. Who wants to work for someone so unprofessional anyway? Besides, it was a 4th grade position, which would have meant going back to school for a couple of years just so I could get my elementary certification. Now, instead, I can finish the one class I need for my English endorsement, and then I can start my masters.

I found a job, though. I don't want to write the name of the school in the same post as where I wrote that stuff about XYZ. I don't want to sound all bickering and what not, although that was my precise intention.

VACATIONS: We are in California with my parents, Jonatan, Brea and Megan right now. They came to renew their passport, and we came along for the trip. Last week we had a super amazing 4th of July weekend with Brea's parents. We have tons of pictures from the parade, which I might just upload to my Facebook pretty soon. The weekend was so awesome that the jet ski collision incident doesn't even seem to have been so terrible, although it did kinda ruin half the day, especially for me because I felt so guilty for damaging Bob's nice jet ski, and for hitting Jonatan in the butt. All I got was a quarter size bruise in my leg. It doesn't seem fair!

Siding + Some Random Stuff

2009-07-05T18:50:00.000-07:00
I finished the siding in our garage. Actually, I finished like a week ago. And before that, I finished a second fence, but I keep forgetting to take a picture of it.

Anyway, before and after, blah, blah, blah:

When I finished putting up the first 6 panels, I just couldn't stand that groove on the two on the left were a little bit off from the rest, so I unscrewed them and put them back a little higher this time.

Megan painted the office and living/dinning room gray. I took a picture before she finished so both colors can be seen. She says that she wants to emasculate the house, because it feels too feminine. I like the gray. Now we need to put up some crown molding, because it looks really nice against the white door frames, so the crown molding might make a create nice effect too.

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Also, I walked by the corner of 300th and 300th street this week. You might wander what's the big deal, right? Well, they were 300th east and 300th east. Bet you don't have one of those in your neighborhood.

Shrunk Fence + Painted Garage

2009-06-21T13:10:00.001-07:00
Our fence, two weeks ago:

Our new, Washington Terrace compliant fence:

We're not cutting the rest. It's far enough from the curb, and I think it looks alright.

Also, Meg painted the garage, which hadn't been painted in yeeeeears. I made such a difference!

Next: I'm fixing the side of the garage and surrounding our patio with a fence, a very, very tall fence.

Top Ten of Being in Church During Mother's or Father's Day + What We've Learned

2009-06-21T13:02:00.000-07:00
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10. Meg's back from her relay
9. No super early morning meetings
8. When I say "Happy father's day," people start saying it back to me and suddenly stop, with a confused look in their eyes.
7. Meg still gets flowers and chocolate during mother's day
6. Brother S's daughter reminds us why we're probably better off childless
5. Barbara Bush quoted at the pulpit
4. Top 5 of Good Parents according to Bro. H's 6 year old daughter includes: "Plays video games"
3. Bro. B. (app. 70 years old) days we can be his parents
2. There's no license for being parents (unless, like us, you can't have your own children)
1. "Being parents is the best calling you can possibly have" (ouch)

100 Posts! + Fence

2009-06-05T16:43:00.000-07:00
I hit 100 posts! And it only took two years!

Anyway.

Our house's south-west side has always been notorious for its hideousness (dat a word?)

That's our house's view on Google Maps. The hedge was trimmed (It was way worse), but not yet cut.

Last summer we cut the bushes (they were very thorny, so it hurt a lot), and we lost all privacy! We decided that eventually we would put up a fence, or something. Our friend Jose helped us level the dirt that was left over, and to get rid of some stubburn roots.

This summer we finally decided to go ahead and put up the thing. As part of the preparations we had to get rid of the old chain link fence's posts. Some were easy to remove, but one of them was ridiculously hard. This is why:

Once we were ready, I dug the post holes, put up the posts, and cemented them down.

The next day I put the beams across. It took me a couple of days, because I had to make sure that they were straight (leveled), and the distance between each post was different, so I had to measure the beams and cut them individually.

Meg then helped me put the pickets, so that went pretty fast. We finished in less than a day.

My problem with the fence is that, although it looks nice (especially from inside), it looks kind of boxy and somewhat boring. Fortunately (sarcasm alert), the city inspector finally decided to drive by the house and gave us a citation telling us that the fence is not up to the city code, because if it is by the sidewalk, it can't be higher than 4 feet. If we want it to be 6 feet, we need to set it back 6 feet. But it makes sense that, living in the bussiest corner of the city, the inspector would never see the fence as we were building it, but only ONE DAY AFTER we finished it.

Of course.

So now we have to go to the city, talk to the inspector, and set the fence back, or cut it down to 4 feet.

And there goes our new found privacy.

Stuff Around the House

2009-05-30T21:48:00.000-07:00
I finished my humongous fence. I'll post pics soon.

I put up a new mailbox post (yes, another one). I sort of ran into the old one with a UHaul truck and it's never been the same since. I like the new one. It's all wooden and mighty looking.

Our little garden is bearing fruit. Even the raspberries, which we haven't really planted yet. Awesome. Those carrots are going to be microscopic.

I'm developing my fence making skills, post digging skills, drumming skills. My new den used to smell like sheetrock, not it smells like flood. Yes, it flooded.

What else? Too many bands want to make use of my drumming skills. Gosh, it's late. I have to get up really early tomorrow.

Mighty looking new mailbox post.

That weedy grass really needs to go.

Newly Frugal Guy

2009-05-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

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Living Traditions

2009-05-17T19:35:00.000-07:00
Living Traditions Festival last night! It was pretty cool. We got there after 6:00, and the featured artists started playing at 7:00. First, they had this cool brass band from Luisiana (Rebirth Brass Band). During their show, some girls started fighting right next to us. First, Curly Hair Girl grabbed Very Fat Girl's hair, and some guy grabbed Curly Hair Girl and carried her away. Very Fat Girl then stuck her tongue to the other girl and shook her hips giving her attitude. It wasn't a pretty picture. Curly Hair Girl then came with Mildly Fat Girl (went to get reinforcements, I guess) and tried to get Very Fat Girl, but the little guy who carried Curly Hair Girl before tried to carry Mildly Fat Girl, and was doing pretty well until the girl fell over him. She then started yelling at him and sput on his head. Ten minutes after that, security came.

The band was great, though, and most people were up and dancing. After them they had a hip-hop band called Lifesavas. They were awesome too. Even the old ladies in front of us were up and shaking their arms in the air.

Lifesavas. Sorry the video's crappiness doesn't give the band credit. The rappers were good, but the rest of the band was just amazing.

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Oh No! Jehovah Witnesses!

2009-05-17T19:21:00.000-07:00
We had a returned missionary speak at church today. His talk was really good, but he was pretty nervous and laughed at some really weird moments.

He told us about a member of the ward (let's call him "Pierre") who got baptized and did the temple work for his wife who had passed away. When he went back to the area and asked for the guy, they told him that he had died, so he said "Oh, no! Haha, what happened to Pierre!"

Then he told us about this other guy who was praying to receive inspiration to be able to join a good church, and half an hour later the Jehovah Witnesses knocked on his door and he said "Oh, no! What a horrible answer to my prayers!" Luckily, the sister missionaries came half an hour after that and saved the day.

Nobody laughed, but everyone was pretty paying careful attention after that.

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Taking It Easy

2009-05-05T20:06:00.000-07:00
We've been having a little problem with our mailman: in two years we've lived here, he never closed our mailbox's door. It doesn't seem to be a big deal, but our mailbox is in the sidewalk, we have two schools less than half a block away, and hundreds of K-9 kids walk through by our house every day.

Scary.

Anyway, I called to report this issue, since I never see the guy, and leaving a note would be just as crappy. Since I reported it, the door has remained closed, but the day right after the call, we didn't get any mail, which was weird, since we get mail everyday (mostly junk, of course). I was worried that our mailman was mad at us and that he had kept our mail. I ordered a cable on eBay a while ago and have been expecting it, so I was thinking that the cable was in my mailman's garbage by then (I mean, how many people have use for an IDE to SATA HD adaptor?). I decided to doble check by e-mailing the guys who sold me the cable, and that's when I realized that they are located in Hong Kong. Nothing against Hong Kong, it just takes SO LONG to get stuff from there. Anyway, the guys were very kind and prompt in their response, and this is what they told me:
Hi,dear friend.

Many thanks for your letter.
According to our record, since we have received your payment confirmed by Paypal, and item was sent out on 2009-04-29 18:37.
And it normally takes 7-15 business days for delivery(Not include the Sat & Sun).

So please take it easy and wait with patience.

If there is any other inquiry,please feel free to contact us.And I will try my best to help you.

Good luck.

Best Regards,

Wise words if I ever heard any. I'm taking it easy now.

And I feel really bad for doubting our amazing mailman. I'm leaving some cookies for him next time.

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My Invisible Bookshelf

2009-05-04T17:21:00.001-07:00
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I finally did it!
No, I didn't attach it to the main shelf. It's actually an inch away from it.

Cool New Book

2009-05-03T18:48:00.000-07:00
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I just finished reading "What Obama Means," by Jabari Asim. And before you start rolling your eyes... well, the book is not so much about Obama as it is about the journey that African Americans had gone from the times of slavery to the present, and all the cultural and social steps that allowed a black man to be the president of the United States.

The section on black athletes, musicians, and other artists that paved the way for African Americans to be widely popular and even seen as models of what's cool is very revealing and very well done, as well as the chapter on the "Magic Negro," which explained not only what a Magic Negro is but also all that controversy with that song played in the Rush Limbaugh show.

Some random quotes I really liked:
As Maureen Dowd noted in the New York Times, "The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it." (Page 124)

As DuBois and other have put forth, casting excessive blamo on the less educated and economically disadvantaged allows successful blacks to hide their obligations to their brethren behind by-the-bootstrap myths of self-propelled ascent. In a speech delivered in 1934 on the day he resigned from the NAACP, DuBois outlined the consequences of such mythmaking in apocalyptic terms. "If the leading Negro classes cannot assume and bear the uplift of their own proletariat," he said, "they are doomed for all time." (Page 139)

This Is Just Too Much

2009-05-01T11:06:00.000-07:00
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I just got one of those massive emails from a friend who was actually commenting how messed up the email's content is. Anyway, it is in Spanish, and it says something like this: "Mexico's economy wasn't doing well, and neither did the pharmaceutical companies, so why not make up a fake disease? That way the whole world will freak out, buy the vaccine, and just like that the world's economy will improve. We hear of all these people that are sick, but we don't know any, they haven't been on tv, we haven't seen pictures of any of them, blah, blah, blah."

It's funny, because a guy at lunch yesterday said "I am amazed that they still haven't blamed this one on Bush," but conservative pundits are going crazy blaming democrats for it. "Close the borders and get those illegal immigrants away," said Glen Beck (I'm paraphrasing. I really don't feel like listening to the actual sound bite again), not stopping to think that the cases that erupted in the USA are a consequence of Americans traveling to Mexico.

Here's the text in Spanish (I don't feel like translating, but just for the record, it's full of misspellings and grammatical errors).

It's Alive!

2009-04-30T15:39:00.001-07:00

Yes, we killed our peach tree (but not before it managed to give us one tiny, fuzzy peach, which Megan proceded to eat) but the cherry trees are blooming!

Travis at the Depot, April 14, 2009

2009-04-25T16:12:00.000-07:00
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As I've mentioned before, this is probably the best concert I've ever been at. The guys were awesome, the music was incredible, and the place was so small that we were really, really close. In fact, Fran, the singer, came down and sang one song among the people, and he even danced with a girl in the audience.

This was the very last song, an acoustic, "microphoneless" version of "Flowers in the Window." My memory card was full by now, but luckily someone posted it on YouTube.

When we went to the concert, Megan and I saw a bunch of girls in tiny mini skits and high heels were heading to the Energy Solutions Arena, and we wondered who could be playing to atract such a crowd. After they finished their first set, Fran and the bass player came out and told us that the real reason why many of us were there is because we couldn't get a ticket "for the Britny Spears gig." That made sense. They then started their version of "Baby Hit Me One More Time," which was the very first Travis song I heard like ten years ago. I absolutely love Fran's "sorry" after he totally messes up (1:54).

Tape Sculptures

2009-04-24T21:32:00.001-07:00

I first saw these cool tape sculptures in Hi Fructose magazine a while ago. They were awesome. The guy made a bunch of babies out of tape and put them in random places and photographed people's reactions.
After reading a couple of tutorials, I tried my first sculpture: a clear cast of my hand. It didn't turn out very good thought. That one is my hallpass now.
I wanted to try it again, but I didn't have any clear plastic bags, which is what you tape on (otherwise I would have taped my hand, and I would still be scraping it out), so I tried with one of those white plastic bags with "thank you" in red letters, and since I didn't have any wide tape, I tried the regular thin scotch tape, and it worked great, because it gave the "sculpture" much greater detail, and the red letters gave it a creepy bloody effect.
It was pretty easy and fast to make. It took longer to write this than to make the hand.

We Are Gardeners!

2009-04-23T20:33:00.000-07:00
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We finally decided to start our garden, and since we kill everything that passes through our hands, we decided to go with the square foot garden. If we can't grow anything in it, we're joining Costco.

Grape Lady Copyrighted?

2009-04-13T12:06:00.000-07:00
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I wanted to watch the Grape Lady for the 250th time today, and in one of the links I found this message:

What? How can they do that? The Grape Lady belongs to us, the humanity!

Also, checking out the Grape Lady groups in Facebook, I found one with no administrator, so I became it and I'm the boss there now!

The Truth about Our "Almost Adoption"

2009-03-22T18:47:00.000-07:00
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This is going to be long, but I'm royally pissed, so I'll just indulge.

Last year, right around my birthday, our neighbor C. came and told us that her friend Debbie was pregnant and that she wanted to give her baby for adoption. She was 8 months along and a family from New York that was going to adopt the baby just got cold feet, so she was desperately looking for a family for her baby. C. brought Debbie home and introduced us to her, and things got rolling. We took Debbie to the agency, and after we offered to help her with anything she needed, she told us that she just needed help with the deposit for her new apartment, because she really wanted to move closer to her dad. We didn't end up helping her with that, but we said that we would help her with whatever she needed through the agency. So she finally went to LDS Family Services and filled up the paperwork.

Everything was way fast after that. One Saturday night we were told that Debbie was on labor, so we got there and the baby came pretty late at night. Debbie wanted us to be in the room, and she even asked me to cut the umbilical cord. It was awkward as heck, but I figured that we might as well humor her, since she was giving us her baby!

The morning after the baby was born we went to the hospital to finish all the paperwork, and Bobby's (the birth father) mom came and gave us the evilest look I've ever seen and closed the room's door, leaving us outside. Geoff was with us, and when we entered the room to get our bags, Geoff said to her "nice to meet you," and she replied "well, it's not nice to meet you." After that everything went down. Our neighbor C. sent us a text message that afternoon telling us that Debbie had changed her mind and that she didn't want us to hate her, that she wanted to give our presents back (which were worth over $300, and which she never did give back!).

We felt bad, we cried, cursed, felt better, and eventually got over it. We saw Debbie at Walmart once, and it was tough. We walked the other way, fast, and I felt pretty crappy for a little while. We though, "well, she's the mom, and it must be dang hard to depart with a child. If it was hard for us, imagine how hard it must have been for her."

Well, that was six months ago, and it seems that Debbie is pregnant again. Our case worker sent us an email today, and this is what it says:

Dear Manuel and Megan,

I received an interesting email from the Salt Lake agency that might hold some interest for you two. It seems that Debbie is pregnant again and going through a Salt Lake agency to place her baby for adoption. I guess she confided in her landlord that she pretends that she is going to place her baby for adoption so that she can get her rent paid and other money and she told her landlord that she has done this twice before. Her landlord then contacted the Salt Lake agency to let them know that Debbie was scamming them and another adoptive couple. The Salt Lake agency sent out an email to all of the agencies along the Wasatch front to warn them of her in case she tries to go to another agency once they confront her. I thought I'd let you know for your own piece of mind that there was nothing you could have done because it looks like she was seeking out someone she could con in order to get money and rent. I know that knowing that doesn't take the pain away, but maybe knowing what her motives were from the beginning can give you some closure.

I hope you're doing well.

In part, it did bring closure, because now I don't feel so guilty for hating her guts, and now I know that we never had a chance of having that baby. Her purpose all along was to scam us. She was good though. There were some weird things going on, but we never suspected anything. For instance, I never understood why Bobby's mom waited until after the baby was born to come and talk them out of giving away the baby. I never understood how it could be that while Debbie was in labor, and Bobby knew that she was going to give his baby away, he was just sitting all relaxed playing with his PSP. That's why she was asking for money even before we took her to the agency. Fortunately, we told her that we would give her the money through the agency, because that was the right procedure, and that saved us hundreds. Maybe the New York adopting couple never actually existed. Or if it did, she scammed them too and went on to the next suckers.

The crappiest thing about this whole deal was that, when Debbie changed her mind, she didn't even tell us, but she made her friend C. text us with the news. There was a lot of back and forth messages between the family, and this is something I compiled from my cell phone back then and that Meg never felt comfortable with me sharing, mostly because she was concerned about Debbie, even though I wasn't going to post her name. Now who cares, right? I called it "A Text Message Ordeal," after that classic "An Ordeal by Check."

.

We met Debbie through our neighbour C*. Debbie came home the same day that C* told us about it, and we had a great time talking to her. She told us that she wanted to place her baby for adoption since she learned that she was pregnant, because with a baby already, it was very hard for her to go to school and to hopefully get a job. Her boyfriend works at the air bag factory and they can't even afford to pay the rent. He has an amazing PSP collection though. She found a family in New York that was going to adopt her baby, but when they found out that her family had history of depresion, they decided that they didn't want the baby after all. One month before giving birth, she felt very stressed and almost desperate thinking what she could do with her baby. After meeting us, she told our neighbor C* that she really liked us, and that with us, the baby would have oportunities that he would never have otherwise. (In other words: she came to us and basically told us that she needed us to take her baby). Last Thursday Debbie called and said that the baby was coming two weeks early, either Thursday night or Friday morning. This is the series of messages between us, C* and our friends and family.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Debbie: The birth mother who was going to let us adopt her baby.
C*: The neighbor who introduced us to Debbie
F*: Friends
Martha, Heather, Matias, Jonatan, Cory: Family
M&M: Us
_____________________

F1: Is your baby being born? (8:30pm 9/18/18)

M&M: Any moment now.

F1: Really? :) Are you happy? (8:41pm 9/18/18)

M&M: Well Yeah!

F1: Is everything arranged with the adoption? (8:42pm 9/18/18)

M&M: Yes, everything's ready.

Heather: Got baby? (4:17am 9/19/18)

M&M: Not yet

Martha: I have the crib at home. As soon as you tell us to, we'll take it there. (4:42pm 9/19/18)

M&M: Thanks. My sister in law will loan us a bassinet for now, so we could wait a week.

Martha: Ok
______

M&M: No news yet.

Matias: Shoot! Keep me posted. (12:24pm 9/20/18)

M&M: He's coming!!!

Matias: Coming out of the belly, or coming home? (9:30pm 9/20/18)

M&M: Out of the belly

Jonatan: Really?????? Yeeeeeeeeeeeah, man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (9:31pm 9/20/18)

Matias: Way to go! Are you in the hospital now? (9:32pm 9/20/18)

M&M: Yes, the family of the girl is here as well.

Jonatan: You have to tell me when it's a good moment to call you!!! Or to go to your house to greet little Anthony!!! :) (9:34pm 9/20/18)

M&M: Sure thing

Matias: Are you going to cut the cord? Will they let you? I didn't dare! (10:11pm 9/20/18)

M&M: We are still waiting. The nurse says that he might come before 1am. About the cord, I have no idea. The girl's boyfriend is here, so it would be weird... (She eventually asked me to please cut the cord, so I did. It was awkward as heck.)

Matias: Yes, it would be weird. Well, whenever Anthony comes call me so we can talk. We are very happy for you. (11:09pm 9/20/18)
______

Manuel: He was born! He's beautiful! Like the adoptive dad! (In Spanish)

Megan: We are mommy and daddy now. He is beautiful and happy and healthy!

Martha: Congratulations! And welcome Anthony. What time was he borh? How much did he weigh? (1:59am 9/21/18)

F1: Yay! (2:08am 9/21/18)

F2: I have been praying for you all including Anthony! When do you get him? (2:09am 9/21/18)

Jonatan: I'm sure!!!!!!!! Congratulations, man, we love you a lot and you'll always be in our hearts!!! At what time was he born? (2:13am 9/21/18)

M&M: At 1:30. He weighs 1.91 kg and he's 17 inches long.

F1: Give him a good squish for me!! Haha. (3:07am 9/21/18)

M&M: Will do!

Heather: Congrats! (3:20am 9/21/18)

Matias: Congratulations. Did they confirm that you will get him? Can we go visit you today? Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but my text messages don't make a sound. (7:27am 9/21/18)

M&M: So far, the girl seems pretty set into giving the baby for adoption, but until she doesn't sign the papers I won't be able to breathe calmly... We don't get the baby until Monday, so if you want you could come Wednesday when mom and dad come. I'll call you later and I'll explain more.

Matias: Ok, I'll wait for your call. (7:32am 9/21/18)

Jonatan: Send me a picture :o) (9:42am 9/21/18)

F2: When do you get to bring him home? (10:29am 9/21/18)

M&M: Probably on Monday. He has to stay at the hospital for a couple of days.

Cory: Congratulations..! (11:15am 9/21/18)

F2: How exciting a new baby and citizenship tomorrow! (11:29am 9/21/18)

F2: I cannot believe you are a mom and dad now! CONGRATS! That little boy is the luckiest ever and I have never been happier for new parents (11:42am 9/21/18)

M&M: Thanks so much you're so sweet believe me we're both in a daze!

(We sent a cell picture of the baby to some friends and relatives.)

F1: He has a perfect little head! When does he go home with mom and dad? (1:05pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Tomorrow morning!

F1: Yay!!! (1:07pm 9/21/18)

Jonatan: You're right. He looks just like you! So you say that the best day to visit you is Wednesday? (1:09pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Yes, because the baby won't come home until tomorrow or Tuesday.

Cory: What a bundle of joy! (1:09pm 9/21/18)
______

C*: Debbie is having second thoughts. (2:54pm 9/21/18)

M&M: The boyfriend's mother's doing?

C*: Family came in and I think is pushing her to keep. I am so sorry. (2:56pm 9/21/18)

C*: I truly think so. She is in tears she is so worried about hurting you guys. She has called b* (her case worker). (2:58pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Did she just tell you that?

C*: Yes, I am here now (2:58pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Should we step back for now? I knew that woman was up to no good. We felt a horrible feeling when she showed up. (We didn't get a reply from C* for the longest time.)

M&M: The boyfriend's mother came and started putting things in her head.

Martha: Didn't the case worker visit her? (3:09pm 9/21/18)

M&M: She called her, but she can't do anything if the girl changes her mind.

Martha: What did she tell you? (3:11pm 9/21/18)

M&M: She hasn't told us anything yet. We'll try to visit her later and see what happens.

Matias: Didn't she sign yet? What happens if she changes her mind? (3:29pm 9/21/18)

M&M: If she does we have to find another baby and start all over again.

M&M (To everybody): Just a heads up. Debbie is having second thoughts.

C*: Debbie wants me to bring the gift basket back to you. She is so sick to her stomach. And so afraid you will hate her. (3:46pm 9/21/18)

M&M: I don't care about the gifts and we don't hate her. Does this mean that she changed her mind for sure?

C*: Yes she has and her family is now rushing around to find her stuff for the baby. (2:55pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Ok

C*: I am so sorry. (3:57pm 9/21/18)

Megan: This is really their decision to make and although we are heartbroken we trust in what is meant to be.

C*: I feel the same. (4:01pm 9/21/18)

C*: Part of the decision came from her seeing how hard boyfriend was trying to be brave. He was only giving up the baby because that is what he thought she wanted. (4:04pm 9/21/18)

Megan: We could definitely tell how hard it was for him and admire how brave he was.
____

M&M: Debbie changed her mind but we feel okay about it.

F1: What? (4:13pm 9/21/18)

F1: She is keeping the baby? (4:15pm 9/21/18)

M&M: She is. Can you believe it? That's ok though. Nothing we can do about it. We're hurt but we'll survive :). Thanks for all you've done. You're so awesome!

F1: I am so sorry. Your baby will come soon! (4:35pm 9/21/18)

Manuel: The girl changed her mind and she will keep the baby. It seems that in half an hour she realized of a lot of things that she didn't in ninth months of pregnancy... We're ok. Just a little mad, but we'll be ok.

Martha: God knows why... (4:38pm 9/21/18)

F1: Maybe u could talk to her. she seemed set on the idea. (4:48pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Yes, the agency is still dealing with her, but there's not much hope. She's pretty set on keeping him.

F2: Oh wow I do not know what to say. I am praying for you and Megan. What is meant to be will always find its way. All my love is with you both. (5:56pm 9/21/18)

F2: We are here for you and I know heavenly father will bless you both. I love you both so very much. We will come to Ogden this weekend and celebrate Megan's birthday and your citizenship! Xoxo hugs and kisses! (6:42pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Thank u, we really believe that too but what can i say. This really sucks. It's been a roller coaster experience, we just hope we can gain the faith to try it again sometime. This whole thing was just so rushed and it felt weird too. We are forever grateful for your support.

Jonatan: I love you both. I'm so sorry for what happened! I guess our Lord has plans for each one of us. He loves you so much that He probably has something better for you. I love you and you're in my prayers. (6:48pm 9/21/18)

M&M: True. Someday it will happen for us...

F4: I'm so sorry. Is there something I can do? (6:57pm 9/21/18)

F4: Sure thing. Hang in there we love you! (7:31pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Thanks. We are incredibly disappointed but this is God's will for us now. Just pray for us. Thanks.

F1: How is your night going? Do u need anything? (7:35pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Thank you. We're ok, thanks for thinking of us. We have an outpouring of support and we really believe that things will eventually work out

Martha: My heart aches because I can't calm this pain. But know that we are praying as a family for you. May God give you the consolation and the strength. We love you. (7:59pm 9/21/18)

M&M: Thank you. After crying for a couple of hours we feel better. We have options, and I know that things will be ok eventually, but this was a huge pain. Thanks for being with us and for worrying so much. We love you too.

C*: How are you doing? (9:50pm 9/22/18)

Megan: We are ok, really. Our only concern is for Debbie and the baby. We hope both are okay, but we hope we never have to go through anything like that again. But really, we will be fine, and we're going to keep trying

C*: Ok. Debbie is doing better and the baby is fine. I hope you never go though it either. I kinds feel responsible. I am so sorry. (10:06pm 9/22/18)

Manuel: C*, this is Manuel. I'm glad Debbie is fine and the baby too, but I really don't want to hear anymore about this. I feel that what we've been through was extremely cruel, and I don't blame anybody, it just had to happen I guess, and we were supposed to learn something from this, but right now I'm trying not to think about it anymore. Thanks for your concern though, you've been nothing but supportive and I appreciate and will never forget that.

C*: K

My Office Is Done!!

2009-03-20T18:42:00.000-07:00
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It took forever. Most of the work was done in the winter, which is not a cool time to do work outside. But I finished. Not it smells like sheetrock, which is not as pleasant as you may thing.

This is a before and after video. I had tons of before pictures and even a couple of videos, but I can't find them anywhere!

Back from Phoenix

2009-03-08T13:34:00.000-07:00
Last week my principal took me to a best teaching practices conference in Phoenix, along with all the new Language Arts teachers, which consist of a bunch of ladies, and me.

Anyway, Phonenix was awesome. We actually stayed in a town called Scottsdale, and the hotel was some 8 miles from the airport, which didn't stop the taxi drivers from charging us $50 for the ride!!! At least the taxi drivers who robbed me in Buenos Aires before coming to the States were honest about their intentions! Scottsdale is a really neat town, very ritzy and touristy. But the best part was that the weather never went below 80 degrees during the day!

We were there Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning. Some of the presentations were awesome, but it was hit and miss: some were way crappy and boring. Some guys from a school district came and told us their story of how their schools improved, and it was so boring that their sessions finished with less than half the people they started with. I felt bad because you could tell they put a lot of effort on it, but it was just soooo boring.

The hotel was pretty cool: it was more like a fancy appartment complex than a hotel, and I got my own room. There were four guys, so they could have placed two in each room, but the other three decided to bunk together, because "I didn't know one of them so it would have been awkward for me to put him in my room." It didn't matter that I knew the other two perfectly well, so they could have come to my room. Oh well. Being unpopular has its benefits: having a doble room all for yourself is just awesome!

I know this has nothing to do, but one night, while hanging out with my principal, he told me that a huge percentage of our ninth graders are on probation. And I mean, real probation. I had a student who was a felon, and midway through the first semester I never saw him again. According to him, next year we won't have nearly as many, which probably won't make any difference, but it's nice to think about...

So, I heard that if you drive to Phoenix, you'll hate it. We flew, which was quick, but scarier than any Lagoon ride with the crazy winds we've been having. I thought that the flight was rough, but I didn't want to say anything about it for fear of souding like a wimp, but when everyone else said that it had been their roughest flight ever I didn't feel as bad. The BYU softball team was there, so we were discussing who should play our roles if we fell and they were to make a movie about it. I know it's been years since anybody told me that I looked like Enrique Iglesias, but I insisted that he should play me! People don't have to remember me fat and balding, right?

This is the only picture anyone took where I look sort of decent:

What can I say? I just don't photograph well!

Gratuitous Insult to Teachers

2009-02-26T14:36:00.001-08:00
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I love my job. I work my butt off, but I do get abused by students at a daily rate, I'm overworked, and viewed basically as their employee by my students. But that's not enough, though, so Ann Coulter decided to go a little further in her insults. In her latest article she wrote:
(Obama) was suspiciously verbose about saving the jobs of public schoolteachers. Because nothing says "economic stimulus" better than saving the jobs of lethargic incompetents who kick off at 2 p.m. every day and get summers off. Actually, that's not fair: Some teachers spend long hours after school having sex with their students.
It is true that teachers do have the summer off, but we don't get paid for it, so we usually have to end up getting a summer job to make ends meet. Besides, I have to stay in school until 3:15, by contract, each day. That's an 8 hour shift, but I stay long after 4:00 every day, and we don't get paid overtime, so that's hours we put in for free. I get 30 paid prep. minutes a day, but there's no way I can grade papers and tests, prepare my next day lesson, tutor kids who need help, and fill up all the paperwork that stupid programs like the Queen B.'s dear Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind imposed on us. But what does she care? She writes two pages a week and rambles about stuff she's not even prepared to talk about in public forums (fora?), and she thinks she has the moral authority to say anything about teachers?

What a bastard.

But then, I guess that when you're a sore loser you tend to get nasty like that.

Not Very Productive Blogging Year...

2009-02-22T13:34:00.000-08:00
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This doesn't seem to be a very productive year for my blogging enterprises. I think that mostly has to do with Facebook: I just write whatever's in my head there, just as well and in fewer words. I even get more comments anyway.

Second, it seems that nothing happens. But then, that's what you feel when you're so busy that you don't even realize that things are just crazy: I'm not just working in my lesson plans and grading, I'm also preparing to take my Praxis test (well, at least I'm going to the review classes once a month...), I'm teaching a class once a week with Megan, I'm taking a class once a week (which is requiring me like I've never read before!), I'm scheduling appointments for the bishop, and, even I'm not working on it yet, I'm stressing out about the extra crap that goes on in school (on Friday our vice principal told me that I have to give my Language Arts students this huge test by the end of this week), and about finishing my portfolio for my EYE (Entry Year Enhancement) thingy, some stupid requirement for new teachers who apparently don't have enough hoops to jump through.

So, nothing's going on. What I guess it happens is that nothing interesting to the general public happens. I mean, I haven't climbed some impressive mountain, I didn't go to some cool place worth mentioning, and nothing particularly funny happened to me. So, nothing's going on.

In conclusion: sorry about that.

I can't complain, really, but sometimes I wish I could...

2009-02-17T17:48:00.000-08:00
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This semester I have to read 20 books for my Young Adult literature class. I read 10 already, and each time I finished a book, I wrote a report, so I wouldn't have to worry about it at the end of the semester. I opened the file I have on my flash drive with my reports today at school, and Word gave me some weird error. I closed the file, and when I opened it again, instead of my reports, I had 115 pages of little squares.

After that we go to Auto Zone to get a windshield wiper, and my new phone falls in a puddle of water. Fortunately, before I do, I get to take this picture:

So it wasn't all bad.

By the way, this new phone was meant to replace some of the things I could do with my iPod Touch, which was like the nicest thing I owned, and which was stolen from my last week, the same day that I got a fever.

Again, I really can't complain, but sometimes I wish I could...

Selling on Craigslist

2009-02-02T06:41:00.000-08:00
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This week I wanted to get rid of a phone I had, and to make sure that it would sell, I posted it on eBay, Craigslist, and KSL, and I have to tell you, KSL is the bomb! Not only because more people check it out, but because you don't have as many scammers as in Craigslist.

For example, this is the email that someone sent me about the phone, from Craigslist:
"Is your item for sale???"

This kind of threw me off. What did she mean if it was for sale? What would it be, for rent? Of course it was for sale! And what's up with the three quotation marks??? But I didn't want to be fecicious to a potential buyer, so I replied with a neutral "yes, it is." She then replied:

"Thanks for your respond to my mail.........and i will have love to pick up the item myself....but due to some reasons..........let me know the postage to my brother in West Africa(Nigeria)who is in need of this item for a project in a couple of days time........and i want it send to him through Parcel force or royal mail international signed for,as a gift to him........please get back to me with the total cost,your pay pal email and name for the payment to me made as soon as possible."

That was just too good to be true. Now I have golden material for my blog, and I could be fecicious! My reply:
"Nigeria? Sure thing! I'll also send him a few hundred bucks, just because I'm stupid like that!"

I haven't received a reply to that yet.

Website

2009-01-09T22:11:00.000-08:00
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Got a new design for the website: http://sainesburyproject.com. It's not that great, but it's different, so........ (I absolutely hate when people finish their sentences with "so." It doesn't make any sense!!) That's an idea for a Facebook group, I guess.

Blogger Hates Me

2009-01-06T20:54:00.000-08:00
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I don't know why, but Blogger hates me. Just look at those pictures from my last entry. Why? Oh why? I tried everything, hitting enter between pictures, and I even tried re uploading the pictures, and nothing. I'm sad.

Anyway, this last weekend we went to Jonatan's wedding, which was like the fanciest wedding I've been to. I had to wear a tux! First time in my life. I felt like a Batman character. The pictures are awesome, though. Here's one I stole from my mom's facebook.

Jonatan was very gracious and said very nice things about me and Matias, and about his friend Said, who was grabbing his head with a suffering face while Jonatan spoke. Said is cool though. Brea was totally in control. I mean, she knew what she was doing! Even Megan had a part: she played the piano at the beginning and during the sand ceremony. She was going to play Ave Maria with some girl doing a singing solo, but the girl never came, so that part was inconspicuously rubbed off the program.

Nothing New + Awesome Video of Maura

2008-12-27T12:09:00.000-08:00
What can be new on Christmas in Utah? Definitely not the snow. It snowed so much that if you don't shovel within a couple of hours, you'll be stuck for the rest of the winter. Fortunately, somebody came and shoveled our snow. No idea who did it, but it was awesome. This is how it's looking outside.

We spent Christmas night at home, and Chad and Heather were there, along with Geoff, Amy, Cory, and Lil Heather. Maura had an awesome time, and provided plenty of entertainment for absolutely free!

Adoption

2008-12-25T09:46:00.000-08:00
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We are trying to adopt a baby! We've created an adoption blog, so you're able to see all the information on it.

What the...?

2008-12-17T18:24:00.000-08:00
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The T and the K are not that close in the keyboard. So what is this about? New market strategy?

What You Can Do to Help Us Adopt

2008-12-14T19:33:00.000-08:00
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Please check this entry we've prepared to see what you can do to help us achieve our dream of being parents.

Thank you for your support!

I Suck at Photoshop

2008-12-07T19:39:00.000-08:00
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But not so much as you. So that makes me feel better.

So, I was watching that awesome YouTube series "You Suck at Photoshop" and I learned how to use the mask tool. It's awesome. I've never used it before, and it's cool what you can do with it. Well, not so much, but I tried it in my face (and then in Meg's), and this is what I came up with:

I guess I will not replace our adoption blog's header with this. For now. I might use it to inspire some pitty if I get desperate, though.

Meg went crazy updating her blog, and she posted a really cute video of Maura doing a 180 turn of her head to watch me. It's really touching, considering that she wouldn't look at me for like a solid month. I guess that I take some getting used to.

Adoption Blog

2008-12-04T10:42:00.000-08:00
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Well, we've finally decided to get to work and make our adoption profile + adoption everything we could come up with. So we have our agency profile done, an adoption website, and even an adoption MySpace. We're also trying to get into adoption.com, but I always remember when I'm in school, and for some reason the website is blocked here (when here's where we need it most!!), so I can't get their phone number to contact them.

Anyway, check them out and tell us what you think. We accept suggestions.

Here's a little slideshow from the adoption website:

Raised Hand - Clipart

2008-11-22T16:30:00.001-08:00
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I was looking for a raised hand clipart for a poster for my classroom, and I couldn't find one that I liked, so I made my own. Feel free to use it and share it as you see fit.

New Furnace

2008-11-15T14:09:00.000-08:00
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Last week we called a technician to check our furnace. It looked so old that we were worried there might be something wrong with it. And because during the whole winter I could smell gas in our laundry room, where the furnace is in.

When the guy came, he noticed a few problems right away:

The thing had huge holes, which were letting the gas out into the house. In other words, we were being slowly poisoned. Everything makes sense now...

The inspector guy thought that the furnace was so unsafe that he decided to red tag it.

After coughing up all our baby savings, we got a new furnace. At least our house is warm for the first time (during the winter) since we moved here!

Dolls

2008-11-09T20:12:00.001-08:00
As a way to cope with my students' loveliness, I've had to figure out ways to relief stress. One of them is making dolls. I know, kind of fruty, huh? Oh well. Here's some of them.

This is my second "sympathy doll." The first one is somewhere in a dump.

My first sock doll. I like: I made it as I went. I had no idea what it was going to be. I came up with the cow idea mid way through finishing it. Besides, it doesn't look as terrible. I hate: since I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't plan. Therefore, the stitches are terrible. Also, the sock was old, so the overall quality is very poor.

My favorite one so far. It just looks clean overall, although it has some crappy stitches here and there.

Very, Very Late Halloween Party Entry

2008-11-09T18:11:00.000-08:00
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We had a Halloween party at home. It was fun, and everyone dressed up (that's the spirit! And since it's Halloween, it's an evil spirit I guess).

We didn't carve this year. My finger still hurts from the last time.

Meg was an 80's girl, and I was... El Zorro! (Somewhat nerdy, now that I think). I didn't take a picture, so this one's from Heather's Facebook

Heather was a Medusa, Chad was a zombie, and Maura was a ballerina. These pics are linked from Heather's Facebook

Kemp was John McCain, and Rochelle was Sarah Palin (I'm linking this from their blog, I hope you guys don't mind!!!)

Their kids costumes were also way awesome, but I feel bad stealing more pics, so go check their blog!

Matias and Emily were gangsters, and Nico was a dinosaur. I'm uploading their pics as well as Alicia and Alejandro's as soon as I find my camera!