As some of you may know already: I’m going to the TI love-fest known as Teachers Teaching with Technology in Nashville later this week. I may write about the trip; I may not. I haven’t decided the amount I’ll do, simply because I don’t exactly know what time I’ll have to write anything. If you care at all about it, go {{LINK http://education.ti.com here}} for info.
Talking about DISD and my wife’s job.
Fact: the Dallas ISD is the 8th largest in the nation, having recently been eclipsed by the Broward County, Florida, school system. Dallas ISD serves over 150,000 students.
Fact: The Dallas ISD is divided into 8 regions, each with their own superintendent.
Fact: The Dallas ISD is still operating under court-ordered integration lawsuits filed 25 years ago.
Fact: Laureen, my wife, works in Dallas ISD, and every day is not just a learning experience, it’s a challenge.
I’ll be adding some stories about Laureen and teaching here and there. Or better yet, I might convince Laureen to write her own stories. We’ll see.
Sample quote from one of her students: “Miss, I’m not racist, but I can’t be put in a group with Mexicans.”
I just LOVE this administration.
An accident experience
A few of my friends and relatives have been in some accidents lately as either a party in the accident or a person severely affected by the accident. I’ve got a story of my mother-in-law, Anita, and her property.
Anita lives in Marion, TX, at a place where a farm-to-market road that is heavily trafficked (due to it’s proximity and ease of access to I-10) makes a T with another road. This is farmland on the outskirts of suburbia for San Antonio, but still, Marion’s a small town. The FM road runs NW-SE, and the other road runs into the FM road from the SW. Anita’s homestead (house, shop, barn, shed, and aboveground propane tank) sits on the southern underside of this T. This really needs a visual, so look on mapquest for a better idea of the site.
A new family has moved down the road from Anita, and the family includes a 20 year old woman. Apparently, Thursday night around 7:00 p.m., this woman was allegedly (a word I have to use to avoid libel issues) rather intoxicated, driving her car SE down the FM road at approximately 85-95 MPH. She tries to make the turn onto the other road and loses control. By now, you can guess where that puts her. At the T, the FM road and the land around it starts dropping, so from the closest building to the corner (the shop) to the next one (the shed), there’s a five foot dropoff in elevation.
The woman somehow manages to miss the aboveground propane tank, but she goes SE through the entire back wall of the shop, knocking over oxygen and acetylene tanks used for welding. The tanks start to leak. The car continued forward and landed in the shed, where the woman was knocked unconscious. She apparently wasn’t wearing her seat belt, but the airbags saved her. Meanwhile, Anita goes out to see what’s going on and calls 911. The chemical tanks get closed somehow, so there’s no further risk.
Another thing that saved her was running into the back wall of the shed. The metal studs apparently acted as speed restrictors, slowing her down enough to only land in the shed instead of going through it with most likely more dire circumstances.
As it turns out, here are a few more alleged details:
The drinking age in Texas is 21; the woman was 20.
The husband of this woman is wanting to sue the person who sold/gave her the drinks. It was a friend, not an establishment, so there’s some question as to whether the bartender responsibility law applies.
The woman had been driving without a license for 7 months.
Anita doesn’t have property insurance on the homestead.
I don’t know whether the woman has collision insurance or not, or even if the car is properly registered. However, Anita is getting a lawyer.
The accident was the first for the shop and the third for the shed. It’s position off of a curve makes it a somewhat inviting target for uncontrolled cars.
Reportedly the first thing the woman said after regaining consciousness was, “I want a drink and a cigarette.”
Sigh…
Great quotes on actions and consequences
I’m looking for some good quotes about actions and consequences. The current favorite is “You can’t unring a bell.” (David Foster Wallace).
If you have any, post them in the comments.
On Linux Internals
This is a rather short entry. I’ve been taking a Linux internals class this week, and now, after the class is over, I am in utter awe of the amount of stuff that goes on behind the scenes in any operating system when you do something like open a folder and create a file in it.
Just thought you should know. My respect for Linus Torvalds has gone exponential on the curve fit.
RANT OF INDIGNATION: The Sonic on Centennial Blvd.
I have a lot of stuff to talk about today, so I’ll put it in separate entries. Some of it is backlog, but I have a chance to make up for lost time.
There are times, most likely Thursday nights, where the need for Sonic and the want of Sonic intersect, thus causing an almost magnetic pilgrimage toward the brown bag burger deal. This previous Thursday was no different. I had been at work, then at a doctor’s appointment that ran until 6:00 p.m. After that, I went to Fry’s.
If you haven’t been to Fry’s, especially the one in Dallas, it’s a head trip. An electronic goods store decorated with faux cows–I don’t know if they’ve turned off the artificial mooing in the parking lot. When I went to Fry’s, I learned one important thing: their ads that start on Friday run to Wednesday. So if someone (like me) decides to go in there Thursday and get a great deal on battery chargers for the stand lights for the church contemporary band at $13 for charger plus four batteries, that person is SOL. Sigh. If it isn’t on sale, Fry’s is not the cheapest place to find stuff. So, off I went toward the abovementioned band’s rehearsal.
The call of Sonic’s brown bag deal is what drove me there. There are several sonics in the area, but the one closest to my church is on Centennial Blvd. So on the way to the church, I hit the Sonic.
I place my order; the food comes out. My total: $7.57. I think, “gee, I have seven cents and eight dollars. Let’s give the guy that to make my change two coins instead of six.” Yes, the amount of coinage I carry in my pockets or wallet is a major consideration for me. I hand over the $8.07. The carhop, a teenage Hispanic-heritaged youth, says “Thank You” and starts to walk away.
I have to call after the guy for him to come back and give me my change. He smiles and gives me my two quarters, and the transaction is completed.
The sad thing is that this wasn’t the first time or the first carhop at this particular Sonic that has tried that. It’s happened on other occasions, and it’s finally got me mad enough to complain to the store manager about it.
I don’t know if they’re being trained or paid waiter/ress wages (where tips are integral) to take change from customers, but from my point of view, it’s theft. Petty theft, maybe, but it’s theft.
“So, Kev, why get so upset over fifty cents?”
Two points:
(a) if that carhop serves 10 cars/hour and has an average of 25 cents of change per car, over a four hour shift that person has picked up $10. This is a strawman set of numbers, but the point is still the same: each bit of change adds up.
(b) It’s the principle of the thing. You don’t ever assume that you’re entitled to someone else’s money.
I’ll be speaking with the manager, with Sonic’s corporate office, and with the Richardson police if everything else fails.
Why my life is complete
Sunday : went to see Alegria. Wow.
Tuesday : built my own Linux kernel. Not quite Wow; more like whoa.
Wednesday : attempt to conquer the universe through acrobatic Linux builds.
Note: Barbie computers have 31 Meg of ram. Insert joke here about blondes and memory.
If anyone knows the next time Bravo TV will run Cirque’s actual shows, let me know. I’m hacked that I didn’t tape them when I had the chance.
A note and a thought for today
NOTE: While some weblogs may update daily, I’m going to limit it to at least twice a week. This is because quality matters to me, and I’d rather write decent stuff than mindless filler (note: some people would say the entire thing is mindless filler, YMMV).
Today is Valentine’s day. It also marks the 9.5 year anniversary for Laureen and me. Believe it or not, our wedding date was chosen for two reasons:
1. It was inbetween our birthdays, so we would technically be the same age when we married.
2. It had a cool half-anniversary.
Our relationship isn’t perfect–no relationship is. But it’s the only one I’d choose to be in, no matter what has happened or is yet to happen. We’ve been through all sorts of drama — health issues, mental health issues, moving into a house, losing jobs, finding new ones…. About the only goal that is left is to have kids, and I’m just not quite yet sure when that will happen. We get told a lot that we would be great parents, but I don’t know. I have the typical pre-parental attitude toward children I see (and tell me if you didn’t say this once or twice before you had kids): “My child isn’t going to behave like that.” “We’ll do that better.” “We’ll just chain them to the bed and things will be okay.”
Well, maybe not that last one.
(Time period of 2.5 hours elapses as Kevin struggles to get “real work” done.)
Thought: do most women plan on wearing something red on Valentine’s day? Or is it a wake-up morning realization that “oh, red would fit the day.” The interesting argument that I was involved in revolved around that women may indeed be wearing red clothing, but it’s just not a visible layer…
Sigh.
The question of war with Iraq
This entry is primarily to get responses from people, so please use the comments link. I’m somewhat troubled by our rationale for going to war with Iraq. Perhaps it’s just that I don’t understand it. Are we fighting because they’ve violated U.N. security council resolutions? Are we fighting because they’re clever enough to be able to move any suspected weapons far enough underground or on vehicles such that U.N. weapons inspectors won’t find them?
I don’t understand why, since America has been reluctant to be the world’s policeman in such places like Kosovo and sub-Saharan Africa, we should be gung-ho to go to war with someone we know we could easily beat. “He may be developing chemical weapons.” Okay, he may well be, but most countries around the world have the knowledge and ability to produce the stuff, even the United States. I want to look past rhetoric and find real reasons for this war before I’ll support it.
A funny album: Spoofernatural by Apologetix. Worth a listen.