The things kids say

This is completely off topic, but since things have slowed on the house (ground to a halt might be a better way of saying it) I figured I might as well write this here - I needed to write it somewhere!

Today I explained to my nephew Elijah what nebulae are as I showed him this picture from the Astronomy Picture of the Day website.


Source: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071228.html

I explained that nebulae are formed by many cosmic phenomenon, but this one was most likely from a dying star that was spraying massive amounts of gas into space.

Elijah quickly replied, "That nebula is a lot like you last night when you passed gas."

I can honestly say that, as far as I know, neither me nor my flatulence have never been compared to a nebula before!

Listening to: "Patty Lee" by Les Savy Fav

Exit 5652

The ramp for my house to travel up the hill is finally complete. Tommy and Mike Lequire spent many days packing in the base for the ramp making the grade perfect. Now that it is done, it looks like an interstate exit ramp up the side of the hill. Fortunately, the ramp doesn't have to be as wide as we had originally expected and only wound up about thirty feet wide in most places.

In addition to building the ramp up the hill, Tommy and Mike also moved my driveway to make the entrance safer and the grade less steep. The result is a beautiful curving drive with a gentle grade.

Right now I'm listening to The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter by Josh Ritter. Josh Ritter is an amazing folk artist with unique lyrical and rythmic talents that will remind many of Dylan. His song "Right Moves" caused my recent fender bender which cracked the bumper on my car. Give it a listen on his Myspace Page. "...the crickets all leapt up and met the moon with a standing ovation."

Here's the video to "To the dogs or whoever"

Excuses

Okay, so it has been almost a month since I have posted and I could give a multitude of reasons for why it has taken so long. Instead, I will only give two.

Firstly, the end of the semester is a busy time for teachers. As a student I never really thought about how much teachers have to do at the end of the semester. I realized that they must have a lot of work to do, but I was always more concerned with how much studying I was having to do. I don't mean to complain, I know that my life as a teacher is a good one, I'm just making an excuse for why I haven't made any posts recently.

Secondly, and more importantly, I have had a horrible time uploading pictures on my internet connection recently. This was such a big problem that I considered entitling this post "A picture is worth a thousand words." Clearly I didn't name it that, and so partially avoided the cliche. I have never been the best at organizing my thoughts, and so just writing words here is not the easiest thing to do. Instead, I rely on pictures as crutches for my posts.

What am I listening to right now? Paper Planes by M.I.A.
This is a fantastic song (I'm sure many of you wouldn't agree) which samples the song Straight to Hell by The Clash and has a beautiful play on Rump Shaker by Wreckx-n-Effect. M.I.A. is one of my favorite artists of the year, highlighting the plight of citizens of Third World countries as well as legal and illegal immigrants to developed countries through intelligent and catch hip-hop rhythms. This song in particular challenges two common conceptions about immigrants.