You know you're getting old when...

So Sharon scored two tickets to the Metallica concert tonight at the Allstate Arena. The band donates proceeds from ticket sales and whatnot to Feeding America and she's going to meet and thank the rep from the band on behalf of her organization. I'm along for the ride since no one else in her office wanted to go. But that's not what makes me feel old.

One of my first thoughs was, "what does one wear to a Metallica concert?" How freakin' lame is that?!?! I don't know who goes to Metallica these days - I'm only vaguely familiar with their latest album but, really, do I need to worry about what I wear. But wait, it gets better.

I mentioned it to one of my colleagues and a couple of students overheard. One girl said, "YOU?!?! You're going to Metallica?!?!" Like it was the funniest thing she had heard in years.

Oh well. I'm going to have fun anyway and stay up past my bedtime rockin' with Metallica and she'll be doing homework.

So there.

Web Site Redesign

So I finally finished a project that I've been meaning to get to for a while - the redesign of my main web site. Previously, I had to edit all of the pages individually and mange everything. Today, I took the redesign live. I chose to use a package called WordPress for the new site. Rather than needing to use an HTML editor and upload individual files, this package manages all of that for me. Its a great content management system and will hopefully make things easier to update and manage.

It took a bit of programming and migrating the content from the old files to the new system but I think it is a much cleaner and easier to use system. Hopefully my kids will find it to.

New Year, New Post

Things have been busy since the last time I posted. We've had a lot of time off of late with the November intercession break and winter vacation. So far this new year has had some interesting things going on.

Two of my students got to go to Washington, DC for the inauguration. They won an essay contest of some kind and I think they'll be back today. They promised lots of pictures and full updates for the class. Most students watched the inauguration live in Keeler Hall. Reports from other teachers say that most of the kids were really into it. Apparently when someone at the inauguration asked the crowd to stand, most of the kids stood as well. Amazing.

I unfortunately missed all of that. I was listening to the speech on a car radio while driving in a funeral procession. Sharon's uncle passed away and we were in New Jersey for that. My kids keep coming in today demanding to know why I wasn't in school yesterday. I'm trying to be understanding but its getting on my nerves a little. I had promised them we would order pizza and make a party out of it. Oh well, they can learn to live with small disappointments. They're also mad because I left a ton of work for them.

In the last several weeks I have been thinking about my own time in high school. Later this year is my 20 year reunion. I have been reconnecting, mostly through Facebook, with many of my classmates. Some people I haven't spoken to since we left Morse HS. Its kind of cool to see where everyone is 20 years later. Its also nice to reconnect with long lost friends.

Anyway, new year and hopefully a new effort to keep this up. We'll see how that works out.