Author: Tony

I finally set up a web page for the class I’m teaching. If you’re curious, it’s at http://www.parisisd.net/compsci/.

It’s still kind of a work in progress at this point. Everything will hopefully be uploaded by Friday.

I know some of you will be disappointed, but I bought the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. I realize that everyone from my generation is suppossed to be furious about the changes Lucas made to the original movies, but I just couldn’t resist. The dark side truly is stronger.

After watching all three movies (Yes I’ve watched three Star Wars movies in the last two days, that’s nothing for a geek like me.) Anyway, after watching all three movies, I have to say that the changes aren’t that bad. Yes, Greedo shoots first, but only by a fraction of a second now. And the hologram of the Emperor’s face was changed in Empire. And the original Anikin spirit from the end of Jedi was replaced with a scraggly looking Hayden Christensen.

But even with all of these changes and more, I still enjoyed the trilogy on DVD. And now, they fit even better with Episodes I – III. I know a few of my friends are crying blasphemy about now, but come over some time and witness the crisp picture and awesome 5.1 sound for yourself. I promise it’ll be enough to make you forget all about those grainy old VHS tapes in the closet…

Today was “Kickoff” for the robotics competition. We made a trip to Howe this morning to check out the field and pick up our parts. Yes, that’s right, Howe High School. The kids thought it was funny, too.

The game is going to be very different this year. In the past, the students have built a robot that drives around the field, but this year the robot is going to be in a fixed position. Basically, it’s in the bottom of a very large bowl, and the task is to pick up plastic balls and set them on shelves on the walls of the bowl. I’ll post some pictures next week that should clear this up.

Why can’t all weekends be three day weekends? I didn’t get out of bed until around 1:30pm today and I think it was a good thing. The first few weeks of school had just about done me in, but I feel like I’m finally getting caught up a little bit.

I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, teaching a class is a very new experience for me. I’ve always had a certain level of flexibility at every job I’ve held. Up until this year, I’ve been able to pretty much decide when and where I was going to work everyday, as long as everything got done in a reasonable amount of time. Now, I must be at the high school every day from noon until 1:00pm.

But I have to say it’s worth it. So far the class has been a lot of fun. I have the best group of students I could possibly ask for. I just hope I can instill in them some of my feelings about creating things with a computer. The idea of starting with a blank screen then typing in the correct incantations to create something entirely new still seems a little magical to me. Hopefully it always will.

Robotics starts next week. Once that gets going I’ll also be at the high school from 3:45pm until 6:00pm on Monday through Thursday. One nice thing about the robotics program is the condensed schedule. The entire contest happens in around 6 weeks. So just when I think I can’t take another day, it’s game day and then it’s all over. Although this year is going to be a little longer since we’re definitely going to the state competition at SMU. (I had to add that just in case any students read this.)

A strange thing happened last weekend. Somehow my old friends from around the country managed to arrive in Paris on the same day. You have to understand, growing up we had a hard time picking a time and place to eat everyday so a meet-up with one person flying back from Germany, two people flying in from L.A., and two people driving in from Austin is nothing short of miraculous.

Here’s Ben, Paula, Tony, Shannon, Jennell, and Michael hanging out in our living room.

Geoff somehow eluded me in the first shot, so Paige cornered him for a closeup. Love that smile.

Finally, here’s Michael looking dumbfounded after hearing some surprising news.

After this, we terrorized Chili’s for a while. It was great to see the guys again. Next time we’ve got to get a group picture of us standing in the lake.

Last Friday was rather eventful.

As you know, I’m teaching a class from 12:00 – 1:00 everyday, and this causes me to miss my usual lunch break. So on Friday I made plans to go eat Mexican food with Ben at 11:00.

About ten minutes till eleven, I got a phone call. The network connection to our Federal Programs office was down. I didn’t think much of it, I had called Southwestern Bell to repair the T1 line earlier, and I assumed they were still working on it. As soon as I hung up the phone I got another call. The T1 line to our kindergarten campus was down. Now things were getting strange.

I tried to ping the router at the high school from my desk without success. That meant the T1 line between the admin building (where my office is) and the high school was also down. I called the high school to see what was going on, but no one answered. It was now five minutes till eleven so I decided it could wait until after lunch.

Right after I sat down in the restaurant, my pager went off. It was the helpdesk of our ISP asking if our internet connection was down. Of course it was.

After finishing my enchiladas, I drove to the high school to investigate. In the server closet I saw something I’ve never seen before — no lights on any of our T1 lines. No warnings, no errors, nothing. The lines had been cut somewhere between the high school and the phone company office downtown.

Not only were the T1 lines down, the regular phone lines were also down. That’s why no one answered earlier.

At this point I was thinking this is one reason why we’re replacing the T1 lines with fiber from Cox. Fiber is usually more reliable than copper. As I walked down to the room where I teach my class, I looked out the door and noticed the guys from Cox digging a ditch from the building to a pole where the fiber would come in.

In class, we worked on a few simple programs, everyone groaned about next week’s test, and then it was over. As I walked out of the room, I looked out the back door again and noticed something a little different. The tractor had stopped, and everyone was looking down into the ditch. I walked outside and looked at the mangled pipe and large puddle foming in the bottom of the ditch. First no phones, and now no water.

I stopped off in a class room a few doors down from mine to work on a computer before I left. As I walked in I was grumbling about our troubles. One of the students asked “are we gonna go home?” Interesting.

About that time, the intercom switched on and the principal started making an announcement: “As you may know, the water line to the school has been cut and we don’t have water. What you might not know is that the phone lines have also been cut and we don’t have phone service in the building either. So, we are preparing to dismiss.”

It’s hard to describe the exact sound that I heard at this point. Imagine the sound a child makes on Christmas morning when they see their first bike, now multiply that by a thousand. This is sort of like the sound that echoed through the halls.

Knowing that these kids were about to be unleashed on the parking lot, I decided to make a quick exit. I fled to the relative safety of my office. I hung out there until 3:30, and then called it a day.