Category: Life

It’s been a while since my last post, so I’ve got some catching up to do…

First, the robotics team did better than ever a little over a week ago. We got the 3rd place BEST award. The BEST award is a combination of the team’s notebook, presentation, table display, spirt and sportsmanship, and the robot’s performance on the field. Unfortunately, 3rd place was not enough to go to state. Here we are on the field after we won:

I think I was looking at the wrong camera when they took that picture. There were actually three people taking our picture at the same time. I’m proud of all of those kids. I had my doubts at times, but they pulled it all together in the end and did a great job this year.

In personal news, I’ve gone over 3 weeks now without tea or Dr Pepper and I still feel great. I think I can stick with this for ever. The next thing I’m going to try to cut out is some of the red meat.

And finally, November 2 is election day. Don’t forget to go vote if you haven’t already. It seemed like lots of people voted early around here. I actually had to stand in line at the court house for about 15 minutes.

I’ve always heard if you don’t vote, you can’t complain about who gets elected. I started to ask if I could vote twice this time. I think I’ve done enough complaining for at least two people in the last year alone.

Last week was the PHS Robotics cookout. Overall, I think it was a huge success. We sold almost 100 burgers (the kids ate the rest). You can see my awsome grilling skills below:

It looks like no one is there in that picture, but actually there was quite a crowd behind me:

In other robotics news, last Saturday was “Mall Day”. The team’s performance was pretty weak at the mall, but they’ve redesigned the arm so hopefully we’ll do much better on game day.

My car is out of gas, there’s no money in my wallet, the battery is dead in my laptop, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Thank God it’s Friday.

Maybe I should start writing country music…

I’ve survived my first week without tea and Dr Pepper. The first morning without caffeine I actually felt OK, but I did get a little worried when I tried to put my left shoe on my right foot. Thankfully it didn’t fit.

Since I cut out caffeine it’s really easy to get to sleep at night. I used to sometimes stare at the ceiling for hours. Now it seems like as soon as my head hits the pillow I’m asleep. Even better when the alarm goes off I actually wake up. I don’t always get up, but at least I hear it.

Also, now that I’m not drinking so much sugar, lots of things taste different. Before I really didn’t like grapes very much, but now they taste really sweet. I like the taste of apples and bananas a lot more now, too. I had a few cookies at the robotics cook out last night and they tasted so sweet I could barely stand it.

I’m really trying to improve my health these days. I’ve been tired for a long time and I knew I had to do something about it. It seemed like no matter how much sleep I got, it was never enough. The only thing that was keeping me going was caffeine.

Paige and I started working out at Aerofit several months ago. I noticed that the more I exercised, the less tired I was. Before we started working out regularly, I would’ve said that exercise makes me tired. But now after I work out I feel energized. It’s a good feeling.

Also, I’ve completely cut out sweet tea from my diet. This is going to be a shock for some people. No more “Tone Tea”. I quit cold turkey. One day I was watching a show about sugar on the Food Network. They said that the average American used to consume 30 – 40 pounds of sugar per year, but now we’re consuming around 60 pounds a year. I did a little mental math and figured out that I was eating around 100 pounds a year just in sweet tea. That’s about 100 pounds too much.

The next thing to go after sweet tea was Dr. Pepper. Today was my first day to be Dr. Pepper free. I had a bit of a headache this morning, but it wasn’t too bad. I’ve had nothing but water to drink today. I think I can make it. If you own any stock in the Coca-Cola Company, now’s probably a good time to sell. They’re going to see a significant decrease in revenue now that I’ve cut out the Dr. Pepper.

I think the next step for me is going to be more fruits and vegetables in my diet. Nothing crazy at first, but a few more bananas and apples wouldn’t kill me. Maybe even one or two meatless days per week. We already have pasta and sauce for dinner on some nights so it shouldn’t be too hard to add a few vegetarian dishes.

I’ll keep everyone updated on how it goes, and how I feel.

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.