We’re Back Home

Miles traveled to Florida and back: 1,800.

Dollars spent in gas: The van gets 25 mpg, gas was about 3.25, you do the math. I’m trying not to think about it.

Hours the trip took each way, including all stops: 12.

Number of stops each way: 3 (two meals, one fuel).

Miles reached on odometer somewhere over the Achafalaya River Basin: 100,000.

New windshields now needed after an unidentified object bounced out of nowhere and nearly smashed through the current one: 1.

Traffic jams: 3, all on the way to the Sunshine State.

Number of times the dog barked, whined, or made any noise whatsoever while in the van: 0.

Number of times the dog barked, whined and made noises after we arrived and she was put in our friend’s yard with Ernie, a very high energy German Short Hair Pointer: About a million.

Amount of time I spent paying attention to the Easter Mass rather than trying to keep my kids – who we could not put in the nursery because they had only one worker for about thirty kids (who could have imagined church would be crowded on Easter?) – quiet: 10 seconds.

Easter eggs found by the kids at the Easter Egg Hunt: 0.

Number given to them by their buddy Eva: 4 or 5.

Ratio of Arkansas to North Carolina fans watching last Sunday’s second round NCAA tournament game between the two schools: 4-1.

Happy fans and sad fans, respectively, after the game: 1, 4.

Amount of stairs Naomi climbed surreptitiously while six adults watched both the game and the other four sub-three year olds in the house: 15.

Low temperature on our first night at the beach: 35 degrees.

Number of times anyone went in the water: 0.

Fistfulls of sand Naomi attempted to eat: 4.

Bike rides at the beach: Only 1.

Average miles per hour on the way out during our out-and-back ride: 15.

MPH on the way back, with a tailwind: 22.

Sustained MPH while drafting behind a Lexus SUV: 32.

Time it took me to go from “Sweet, I’m drafting behind this car at thirty plus miles an hour” to “Holy crap, I’m in my thirties and am responsible for a wife and two kids and I’m drafting behind this car at thirty plus miles an hour” and back off from the car: 30 seconds.

Number of empty cases of Natural Light I observed some of the younger guests at our condos throw out before leaving: 6.

Number of wine bottles we threw out: 10-12.

Amount of hours the kids were awake during our first 24 hours home after the trip: 7.

Hours Mom and Dad slept the first night back: 10.

After getting home, unpacking, and putting the kids in bed and prior to enjoying that glorious ten hours of sleep, glasses of bourbon I drank on the front porch while enjoying my house and my neighborhood: 1.

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Buh-Bye

Tomorrow we leave for Florida for a week or so. The folks we’re visiting don’t have internets at their house (how do they live?). Hence, no posts until late next week, maybe even next weekend.

Let me leave you with pics from the first spring at our new house.

This is the only azalea in full bloom. We have several others whose blooms, I’m afraid, will peak while we’re out of town.

Here’s some of the others, which, as you can see, are not yet in bloom.

The dogwood.

Another view.

The magnolia’s not blooming, but this is even prettier.

Brother’s o.k., too.

Cutest Video Ever

Again, I’m biased, but . . .

We Likes Us Our Prisons

When it comes to education, employment, health and all other traits of well-being, us Louisianans say “Thank God for Mississippi” but when the issue is putting folks in jail, we take a back seat to no-one:

Louisiana has the nation’s highest incarceration rate, according to a new report that also shows that more than one in every 100 American adults is in jail or prison.

If you want to know why, read the comments to the story, which feature examples of clear thinking like:

We could bring that incarceration rate back down if we’d execute about half of the low-life scumbags who are in there

Here’s another:

LETS FACE FACTS THEY LIKE IT IN THERE !!!!!!!! WITH ALL THAT BUTT BUMPING GOING ON . KEEP THOSE SICK O’S IN THERE. IF THEY LET THEM OUT WE’LL HAVE TO CHANGE THE CITY’S NAME TO DODGE CITY . THEN WE’LL PUT OUR GUN’S ON OUR SIDE .

They only get better. The need to pander to that kind of arrogant ignorance is exactly why this problem will never be solved. That’s how the average citizen in this state thinks. And no politician will ever try to explain to them that they are wrong.

That’s a shame, too. We might not have to be so thankful for Mississippi if we could re-direct to more worthy ideas some of the money we waste locking up drug offenders.

The DC Guns Case

As everyone is aware by now, Scotus hears oral arguments in the case today. You can follow it here. At issue, of course, and for the first time, is whether the second amendment confers a personal right to bear arms (and if so, how strong a right) or whether it’s just concerned with militias, leaving the federal and state governments free to ban almost anything gun related.

This case irritates me. Mostly because your average second amendment nut is all about government power when it comes to limiting free speech, or civil liberties, or due process protections in courts, or rights of minorities. But when it’s their precious right at stake, well, then the tune changes. Probably the only other time people like Dick Cheney are going to support the Constitution against the government is when the issue involves state or local agencies and Christians invoking the first amendment.

Me? “I don’t even own a gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack.” Still, as always, I will be rooting for the Constitution against the government.

Teacher Shortages In Struggling Schools

That’s the subject of this article, one that seems to appear in a new form every year about this time. The article points out that the worst schools have the hardest time finding qualified teachers.

Why? In my opinion, two big reasons.

First, principals are extremely bad about checking e-mail and returning phone calls. I know I have personally contacted (via phone and e-mail) at least one principal mentioned in the article, briefly informing him that I am a highly qualified teacher who is interested in a position at his school and asking if we could set up a time to meet about the opening. Never heard back.

Second, in general, the worse the school, the more the work for the teachers, yet the pay is the same for all teachers in the district. That is, whether you teach at Caddo Magnet (good) or Fair Park (bad) you get paid the same. But at the latter you have all the paperwork and other administrative headaches that come from being in the shadow of state takeover. Most (not all) of your students are at best totally indifferent to anything you do, and at worst hostile to you. Throw in metal detectors, constant police presence, weapons, drugs, poorly maintained resources, and all the other problems, and you get a very lousy place to work.

It should not surprise anyone, then, that the people who teach at Fair Park are the people who could not get a job anywhere else. I know, I know, teachers ought to be folks with stars in their eyes whose only goal is to save the children. Schools like Fair Park have the most kids who need saving. Thus, teachers ought to be beating down the door to work there. That sounds nice, it’s what I call “The Myth of the Super Teacher.” It is total b.s. Teachers are no different than any other professional. We’re folks who are just trying to do our job, and we are no more, nor less, likely to look out for our best interests than anyone else. So when we see two jobs that each pay the same, but one is twice the work as the other, most of us would do just what anyone else would do.

How to solve the problem? Make the pay enough to overcome the many serious disincentives to teaching in the bad schools. As long as we rely on the myth of the super teacher, these schools will not have enough qualified teachers.

Yet Another Nice Morning

I woke up on time to meet the group this morning; my cat decided he was hungry at about 5:30 and jumped up on the bed to let me know it. Normally he would have been thrown across the room, but the wife is out of town. They know it, too, and take full advantage of my more laid back style of pet discipline: Waking me up this morning, jumping on the table to eat my left overs, drinking water out of the sink, etc.

Anyway, we had a great ride. Forty five miles south of town in beautiful weather. Good group; lots of chattering, even at high speeds. And because everyone else did seventy miles yesterday, while I did only twenty five on my own, I got to feel like the stud today.

Now I’m home, having just finished enjoying the quarter muffaletta I had left over from last night, and about to lay on the couch and read until I fall asleep.

Well That Was A Pleasant Morning

I slept two hours too late to join the Saturday ride. Normally I set my alarm, but now that daylight savings is back – which means I get out of bed long before daylight during the week – I wanted to let the sun wake me up this morning. It did. It was very nice.

So I went for a solo ride. Not long, only 25 miles up through downtown, under 220 and around some big farms and then back the same way. Very nice weather; I think this was the first morning ride for which I could leave the arm warmers, long tights, and other winter clothing in the dresser and just wear shorts and a short sleeve jersey.

I rolled back into the neighborhood as the St. Patrick’s Day parade was about to start. The route goes right past the house, letting me watch it from the porch while I ate my breakfast and drank my coffee.

And the whole time I got to enjoy all the spring sights. As ubiquitous as they are, the bradford’s are still pretty when they bloom. The redbuds are going strong. My azaleas ought to open in the next day or two. Our dogwood bloomed Friday. Even the sycamores are starting to get leaves.

No doubt Shreveport is miserable in July and August, but it’s just as nice now.

The Four Stages Of Life

One: Praying you won’t get carded.

Two: Don’t care that you got carded.

Three: Thrilled (Ladies), or amused (Gents) that you got carded.

Four: Irritated that you got carded.

I think I’m in four.

Right Wing Loonies Repent

Here’s the article about how and why three big name evangelicals eschewed the movement. One quote, from Frank Schaeffer (son of Francis Schaeffer), resonated with me:

“There were three kinds of evangelical leaders: The dumb or idealistic ones who really believed. The out-and-out charlatans. And the smart ones who still believed — sort of — but knew that the evangelical world was sh*t, but who couldn’t figure out any way to earn as good a living anywhere else.”

I have no idea whether this description is accurate, I can say, though, that one of the big reasons I left a very evangelical divinity school for law school was premonitions about becoming the second type. Beginning in college and accelerating through divinity school, I lost most of my respect for the leaders and “thinkers” I had hoped to emulate in the evangelical movement. Most of the ideas also lost their prominent place in my mind. As the doubts grew, of course, so did questions about what I was going to do with a degree from an evangelical school. I could fake it and go get a job in that world, or I could say “bye-bye” and do something else. Not wanting to be a fraud – or end up like the Rev. Clarence Arthur Wilmot – I left for law school. Proving that nothing in life is beyond the Simpsons, I felt a bit like Jimbo did towards Homer at the end of “Homer the Vigilante:”

You let me down, man. Now I don’t believe in nothing no more. I’m going to law school.

I’ve since repented of that, too.