8th Graders, After a Three-day Weekend

"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura) 01/16/2018 at 14:59 • Filed to: None

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Nibby > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:04

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also 8th graders

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:06

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Ours was extended another day (today) due to inclement weather. They are about to extend it yet another day (tomorrow) due to inclement weather. Five days off. They must think it’s Christmas break.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:07

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The entire state of Texas is closed due to ice, so we have a four-day weekend. I desperately hope they go back to school tomorrow.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/16/2018 at 15:08

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Texas?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 15:09

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Ttyymmnn-lets climbing the walls? So much for global warming, right? Sarcasm. The POTUS does not know the difference, or pretends that he does not, between climate and weather.

PartyPooper2012 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:11

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Also everything at work after 3 day weekend.... I need one of those flame suits to deal with shit here

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > PartyPooper2012 01/16/2018 at 15:12

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Just drop your drawers and moon people.

Klaus Schmoll > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:12

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Oh man, don’t we all like how they act like they’ve never been inside a school building after every short break.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:24

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Next-door neighbor. Louisiana.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 15:31

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Hey now, west Texas isn’t closed.

PartyPooper2012 > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:33

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ugh! They might enjoy it too much...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/16/2018 at 15:41

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I was stationed at Fort Polk from ‘84-87.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:41

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You’re a mathematician. You know all about anomalies within a trend. As the climate changes, we are going to be seeing more crazy weather and catastrophic events. And the GOP will fiddle while Rome burns.

Boyos aren’t too bad. Trying to get them to do something other than sit at the computer all day. The bigger one has lots of schoolwork and practicing he could do. Finally got Xmas put away today.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 15:49

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Our school was not closed, and thank goodness. I am also looking forward to swim practice tonight. My monster has a lot of wiggles to get out.

shop-teacher > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:51

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Mine were actually pretty good today.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 15:54

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I haven’t paid a visit to Fort Polk as yet. It’s a bit out of the way.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 01/16/2018 at 16:03

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My monster has a lot of wiggles to get out.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 16:10

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Ttyymmnn types, as he looks up from writing his Oppo posts... ;o)

I had a F.A.B. weekend.

The CA reception is May 12th. Wanna come and be our photographer?

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 16:11

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We had Xmas put away on New Year’s Day.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/16/2018 at 16:12

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Scorpions and cockroaches and crazy people living in the woods and Spring lasted about a week is how I remember that place.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 16:21

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Remember, we went to Nola right after the New Year. We managed to get the tree undecorated and recycled, and the lights off the house, before we left. Then we came back and had to deal with Uncle’s Vanagon, go back to school, etc.

ttyymmnn > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 16:23

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Let me look into that. I could probably swing it by myself, though I’d rather not be responsible for taking pictures.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 16:23

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Still, 1/16 is not bad. First year in the current house, the icicle lights were up until July. I am so over that. And so over the fresh Christmas tree...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 16:26

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Thought I’d throw that out there. You could ask Jona about a Buddy Pass.

Meanwhile elsewhere on Oppo:

https://oppositelock.kinja.com/1822131602

WRXforScience > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 16:26

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I’m in DFW and the ice missed us, so we had school today. 11th graders aren’t much better than your 8th graders. At least I’m giving them a test next class so I can get some peace and quiet.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > WRXforScience 01/16/2018 at 16:28

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Chromebooks are also an effective soporific. What do you teach?

I’ve begun privately tutoring an 11th grader in math. Sharp kid, but I’m definitely done with high schoolers otherwise.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 01/16/2018 at 18:15

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That’s what I called her when she was little. She still answers to it, but prefers when I call her my “sweet girl”.

Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 01/16/2018 at 18:31

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I was about to point this out, but you beat me to it. At the same time, it’s a casual reminder that most of Texas disregards anything west of Midland/Odessa as North Mexico or South New Mexico.

(I mean, as a native New Mexican like yourself, part of me LIKES the idea, but also refuses to admit any part of Texas as a part of New Mexico. I barely want to claim Hobbs or Clovis, because they talk like Texans.)

I will readily say, though, that with this morning’s cold, I would have been more than happy to stay home and not teach...but you and I both had to know that with our (lack of) moisture levels, ice or snow was never going to happen.

Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 18:38

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I was surprised how well mine did today. Out of the the bunch, it was the 6th graders who were the antsiest, which seems like it would be EXACTLY the opposite. However, when you consider that my 8th graders are almost all in their third year under me, they know that I have no regard or respect for such excuses. A day we’re in school is a day we’re rehearsing, and I give no quarter for “holiday weekends” or “state testing” or “partial-to-full paralysis due to spinal cord damage.” Now sit up and mark that A-flat, buster.

WRXforScience > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 19:57

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I teach Physics and Astronomy at an 11th and 12th campus.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious 01/16/2018 at 20:29

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Agreed. Aside for the oil revenue, I’d give back the 10 miles of Eastern NM that Texas tried to steal for El Paso. El Paso would make a fine 2nd largest city in New Mexico, although the Santa Fe types wouldn’t go for it.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/16/2018 at 22:25

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Scorpions? Huh. I’ve never seen one here and I’m not that far southeast of there. I saw them regularly when I lived in Oklahoma. I was only stung once and it hurt like the devil. The worst sting I’ve had is some yellow wasps here in Louisiana. Those bastards HURT!

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Shour, Aloof and Obnoxious 01/17/2018 at 00:34

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Get ‘em.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 00:48

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Yeah, little ones about 1-1/4" long. And cockroaches by the billions. They’d gather under the street lights in the parking lots and turn the pavement brown with their bodies. And crunch, crunch, crunch as you walked up a sidewalk. And you’d see them run along behind the glass dial on the stereo amplifier and they’d run across your face as you slept in the barracks at night. The barracks were make of concrete blocks and lightning would knock out the chillers and as the building warmed, moisture would condense and run down the inside walls of the rooms. We’d stand in formation at 0655 and the sun would just be coming up and sweat rolling down our backs. My t-shirt would get so wet I could literally wring it out. And this was before Mylar windshield reflectors became available and the gear shit knob in my car would get so hot that I literally could not touch it and I’d be thinking, is this for real?

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/17/2018 at 08:15

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Sounds like fun. I remember the days of vinyl seats that got so hot you could fry an egg on them. I used to keep a couple of towels in my truck to keep the seat and steering wheel from getting so hot you couldn’t touch them. I haven’t seen cockroaches that thick, but I’ve seen june bugs do that. Well, except for getting inside of stuff.

I lived in a dorm that used a passive cooling system. It had an open basement with gaps in the concrete walls that led to chimneys on the roof. The idea was that air would enter the basement and be cooled, then move up through the walls and out the chimneys. Some time later they added motel-style a/c units to all of the rooms. Since the rooms (and their walls) were already cold, when the air moved up through the walls, all of the moisture would condense and find its way through any gaps and get into the rooms. I flipped the wall-mounted light on one day and discovered the fixture was full of water - after the bulb inside the fixture had heated the water to boiling. It took me quite a while to figure out where the popping sound was coming from.

Sounds like you had a memorable time in Louisiana. I’m looking forward to leaving this state some day. I just don’t know when.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 12:42

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I was young; I survived. Every so often, I look at Fort Polk on Google Earth and it’s changed a lot. There were some good adventures during that time as well. Deployments to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Barstow, California. I deployed to Germany one time from there as well for a month, back when we used to pretend that the USSR might get a hair up their but and invade again. I don’t think there’s much US military presence in Germany any more.

And the crunching sidewalk at night, and the brown parking lots could have been Junebugs. But in the room, it was definitely cucarachas.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/17/2018 at 13:29

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Most of the big outdoor roaches will avoid the indoors and will avoid being stepped upon. Junebugs go anywhere and everywhere, though they never have a purpose to their movements. If you were walking and crunching, I’d bet they were junebugs.

In the rooms, I’d bet on German cockroaches. My mom used roaches to humiliate the president of the University of Oklahoma. We were living in the univer si ty apartments while she was going to school. They had a huge roach problem. Maintenance would come and spray, but the roaches would move through the walls to the next apartment. One day, my mom had an opportunity to attend an open forum with the university president. When he asked if there were any questions from the audience, she stood up and asked if the university could do something about the cockroaches in the apartments. She went on to explain how their current treatment methods were ineffective. They bombed the entire building a few weeks later. Gotta love my mom.

I happen to work for a retired Army General. He likes to wax eloquent about his days in Germany and the training exercises they held there. He loves to talk about the little German car he bought while he lived there. I’ve heard the stories many times, but I still have no idea what it was.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 14:05

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Yes, probably the German variety. The bugs I was stepping on were much larger. It’s more fun to refer to them as a class as roaches, but now I’ll have to stop doing that. You have ruined my day and I am triggered.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/17/2018 at 14:35

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I aim to please! By the way, try to avoid stepping on the really big ones. They might try to eat you .

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 15:34

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That movie was so bad that it was great. I would argue that MIB is to Will Smith what Coneheads (the movie) is to Dan Akroyd: the only movie they were ever good in.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/17/2018 at 15:40

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I have a soft spot for cheesy sci-fi flicks. It doesn’t run as deep as my cousin’s. He’s a fan of MST2K.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 16:12

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Add: Galaxy Quest

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/17/2018 at 16:25

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“ Never g ive u p. Never surrender.”

“What you fail to realize is my ship is dragging mines! ”

Yup, definitely one of our favorites.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 16:33

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Other required viewing: Nacho Libre.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/17/2018 at 16:38

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The best wardrobe for watching that film is a good pair of stretchy pants.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 01/17/2018 at 16:58

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Sometimes when you are a man, you wear stretchy pants...to cover your nucleus.

46and2aheadofme > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 01/18/2018 at 18:53

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I imagine it’s similar to a 3yo after a weekend with grandparents.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > 46and2aheadofme 01/19/2018 at 08:00

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I’m 53 and I’ve been teaching for 15 years. As I’ve come to understand the kids better, their challenges, I’ve come to enjoy them more. They are very responsive and eager to please.