Dead Man Blogging

Leandra and I spent the afternoon reducing the clutter in our house. It was partially something we just wanted to do, and partially a necessity. We are selling our guest bedroom furniture, and converting the guest bedroom into a nursery. So of course we have to empty the room out.

I pulled most of the stuff out of the room, plus the contents of our computer armoire (not the computer itself, but all the other stuff of course) and piled it all on the kitchen counters and table. There were lots of school/office supplies, stacks of paperback books and other miscellaneous junk. I’d say we eliminated about 2/3rds of the stuff. What used to fit in 4 drawers, a 4-drawer desk, and an armoire now fits nicely in an armoire and 1 smaller drawer. We still have some more stuff to go through, but I think it will go well.

We found ourselves having some interesting conversations. Some of the best quotes:

While sorting through 30,000 staples and 3 staplers
Leandra: “This is the best stapler. Trust me. I was a teacher. I know these things.”
Robert: “Can’t we just keep my tiny red stapler?”
Leandra: “I don’t feel like I should have to justify myself.”

On pencil sharpeners
Leandra: “I’m very specific about the way my pencils are sharpened. I want the electric pencil sharpener. And I’m not ashamed of that.”

Deciding which of 3 calculators to keep
Robert: “But…that calculator got me through college. It’s much better than your calculator.”
Leandra: “Is yours solar?”

Discussing keeping the armoire dust-free
Leandra: I move everything off of everything. That’s what makes me great.”

Among our clutter we had 30,000 staples, 3 staplers, 3 calculators, 4 erasers, and 6 bottles of whiteout. We actually had a discussion about which of the erasers to keep. Two of them were the regular pink erasers, while two of them were the vastly superior white erasers. Leandra preferred the pink ones, I like the white ones. So we compromised and decided to keep one of each. Then Leandra pointed out how ridiculous it was to even be discussing erasers, so she just tossed out the two pink ones.

It’s amazing how silly we can get about junk.

Valedictorian case goes to federal court

This is an interesting story out of my old high school. I take a special interest because I was valedictorian there and I have some strong suspicions what is really going on in this story.

Bells does kind of a weird thing in deciding class rank. If you take certain classes, you get 10 extra points per class temporarily added to your GPA solely to determine class rank. This rewards students who take advanced Spanish, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, etc., and is intended to offset the increased difficulty of those classes.

It seems that the Jeffreys’ daughter was all set to be the valedictorian. Then another girl (the child of two Bells ISD teachers) managed to get a special advanced Spanish class set up so she would get the extra points and be the valedictorian. She was the only student in the class. It was only offered at the same time as the Jeffreys’ daughter had an Ag class, and she did not want to drop the Ag class.

Then to make matters worse, the girl in the advanced Spanish class wanted to run track, but that conflicted with her Spanish class. As athletics is extremely important at Bells, they graciously turned the Spanish class into some kind of “independent study” course that she took at 7:30 am.

I know that some of the administrators at Bells do have their favorite students. I was one of the favorites when I was there. And they are not above manipulating schedules, etc., to ensure that their favorites are taken care of. I suspect this is what’s going on here.

Our local news is reporting that the Grayson County Sheriff destroyed $15,000 worth of guns that were seized as evidence over the past 10 years.

Some local gun shop owners say the Sheriff’s office should hold a gun auction like they have done in the past–and flush money into a stagnant local economy. But the Sheriff’s office says they do not want to risk the re-circulation of the weapons. They fear that criminals might get ahold of some of the high-powered weapons.

This is warped logic. We have laws and procedures in place intended to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals. If these guns were sold to local gun shops, the buyers would be subject to the same background checks as they would if they were buying any other weapon. Or if the Sheriff’s office auctioned the guns directly to buyers, they could easily run the NICS checks right there - it’s only a phone call. How does destroying them keep guns out of the hands of criminals? There’s nothing special about these guns that would make them more likely to be used in a future crime.

I’m disapointed with Sheriff Gary’s actions. I thought he was a very conservative man. Guess I was wrong.

Rachel is getting married in Korea in May. May! That’s so soon! She is going to stay in Korea for a month or so. Then they are coming back here and having a ceremony a couple of months later since most of us won’t be able to go to Korea.