nothing...

I've spent the last three work days doing things for other people. All my work is piling up.

I have nothing left and it is only Wednesday night.

Tomorrow I have maybe 2 hours to myself. That is a wee bit stressful.

Mindful.

I'm sitting in the car outside a random house waiting for my daughter to finish a music lesson. There is something coming up so she had hire an accompanist to help her practice. This is in addition to her usual lessons. 

Lots of waiting as a parent. Lots.

Work has been stressful. Most of my week has been helping other people. Then I go home and try to get some work done, all the other stuff I needed to do that day but could not.

And dealing with a little smugness with a sprinkle of rudeness. That is hard to take some days.

A year or so ago I started looking into the big idea of mindfulness. One strategy that I learned about was listening to sounds. Try to just concentrate on just one sound, nothing else. Just that one. Then add in a second, consciously hold both sounds simultaneously. 

Hold two sounds is really hard.

After doing that for a while everything just relaxes.

Sitting in the car now with the windows down a bit. Just holding two or three bird songs in my head. Some days it is really hard but it always helps clear my mind.

Saw this on the stairs today.

I had just wrapped up teaching some 5th graders about germs and how they spread. I was walking (kinda running) down the hall to another classroom to help with a skype issue when I saw this. 

I love this idea and fully believe in it. It is like karma, just put that kindness out there. The world does not always return it to you but that kindness will land on the person who needs it.

This idea opened me up today. This message set on a better path.

I'm sure after a while it becomes invisible to some but not me, not today.

So what is your kindness that you will set free into the world?

Love/Hate Relationship

I have tried almost everything to get it to work. Consulted people and the web. Dumped money, time and effort but the results have yielded nothing.

I am about to give up on it. Totally start over.

Today I decided to give it one last try.

If my lawn does not start turning around this year I am starting over from scratch. Ripping it out and just buying sod. Well... paying someone else to do it for me. I am starting to realize that I am not a lawn guy.

I have a magical book.

A friend of mine lent me a book the other day. She said it would only take me like a night or less to read it. So far four nights later and I'm only on page 166.

Why is this book so magical?

It never fails. I pick it up and someone starts talking to me.

Last night while the kids were at karate I was so sure I could finish the book. I'm pretty much a quiet guy, sticks to himself and doesn't say much. Two parents talked with me the whole hour. I'm not sure that ever happened before.

The family was out today. I decided to get a bit of reading in, two words later they come back home!

I am hopeful I can finish this thing tonight!

By the way I think I am the last person on earth, or maybe just this house, who has never read about the one and only Ivan.

Jar of Awesome

We all experience great things every day. I always think I will remember them forever but I forget most of the greatness I experience. I am human and I forget.

I read about the Jar of Awesome. The idea is to write down your awesome experiences on a little note and drop it into the jar.

When you have a bad day or just out of gas, reach into the jar and relive the greatness.

Here are two things I put into my jar today. Memories I never want to forget.

I put a request out on facebook for advice on how to care for a slug as I know nothing about caring for such a delicate pet. Got some really great advice from Joe the Genius. I was able to relay information to a very grateful student. We then talked about the possibility of the Wolly Monmouth being brought back to life through a little DNA science. Our concern is figuring out where it could live so it would be protected and could be studied. Maybe an island near Russia?

I was able to talk to my brother for a bit today. Every conversation I have had with him always leaves me in a better place, never fails. We talked and laughed about our adventures from years ago. Recalling those long lost days always brings us to tears, laughing so hard my stomach still hurts. Funny how some bonds are foraged and how they are unbreakable. I am always sad when we hang up and so thankful for one more chat.

Both of these notes helped put me on the right side of gratitude.

Thought I would post a great picture of my brother. Crow on the left and I'm on the right, fast asleep. This was after spending a week or so in the jungle. Okinawa 1992.

Being a parent means you will be waiting a lot.

Last night I sat outside while Sam had her private music lesson. It can be a long thirty minutes in the car.

Tomorrow we take Aidan to a drum lesson. For those thirty minutes I sit in front of a little stage. Four random kids practice week after week the same 21 Pilots song, over and over again.

Friday night from 8-9 and Saturday from 1-2 I sit in the karate studio while the kids practice. Those are some smelly hours.

Those are just some of the times I just sit and wait.

I also think of the hundreds of dollars that we pay for this privilege. I really mean that. When I wrote the check for Sam's lessons I smiled. I felt proud that I am able to do this for her.

When I was young I dreamed of playing sports, any sport. I so wished I could take music lessons of any kind but none of this was in the cards. Some days it was luck that we had money to buy milk for breakfast.

Sometimes life is fulled of these choices. We could either be annoyed or proud, mad or happy. While it isn't easy I try to look for tiny little diamond among the coal.

Stay Alert. Stay Alive.

I can't exactly recall but I think that is what Captain Fey always said. You know Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Yeah, that is exactly who Captain Fey looked like. Not sure about Flea, but the captain always smoked Marlboro Lights and drank Diet Coke.

I was driving on the highway and saw this board. It is difficult to see in the image but the statement on it is what the captain always used to say to us, stay alert stay alive.

If I am leaving the kids home alone, that is the advice I give them. Sometimes I throw in another, keep your head on a swivel.

Both are bits of great advice. Today I really don't have to be alert for the same things the captain was warning us about. Today I use the same idea for keeping an open mind.

Too many times we see things as deep as an inch. We see things as other people tell us to see them. Sometimes I don't want to be influenced. I need to be alert. I need to keep my eyes and ear open. When I do that I start to really see new opportunities and that is worth staying alert for.

Alley. Like an alternate universe worth exploring.

I remember having an alley as a kid. I taught myself to ride a bike in an alley. My friends and I got into plenty of mischief in an alley. An alley was like a dark alternate universe that was worth exploring. Entering another alley on a different block felt as if we needed a passport. All different types of trash cans, dogs and vehicles of all kinds. What was in those cans was even different for what is in the cans on our block.

Where I live now we don't have an alley. The only place around here that I have seen alleys is in the city.

As I walked back and forth from the conference I came across this alley. It capture my imagination immediately. 

I stood gazing for a long while and as I turned around to leave I froze. At my feet was the word top. I know it was missing the s but it still hit me.

At the conference I was introduced to a really interesting idea about a makerspace for high school, which is a concept that I have really been struggling with. This sign in the alley connected me back to an article, or maybe it was a TED talk, about faking it until you make it. It connected me to the mindset books, and to me those books and the video were all about believing in yourself.

Sometimes I get full of doubt, that creeping feeling that maybe my ideas are not good enough, won't make sense or are too disconnected. This small sign reminded me to go for it, that my idea is worth pursuing. If it was left in my head it would reside there and never have the chance to blossom.

While this idea might not be the top, it will be a step to get us there. The journey is always messy. Any worthwhile adventure is never easy. The rewards along the way on the difficult journeys are always much sweeter.

Message received. Go for the top.

Wet Shoes

It was raining and I decided to still park a mile away and walk to the conference. I knew my feet would be wet but I really didn't mind.

If it ain't raining, we ain't training.
That was our motto for years. We spent days in the rain and mud. It wasn't too bad while it was warm but in the cold was a totally different experience.

We spent the night outside in the jungle during a tsunami. That was interesting.
Spent hours circling a small building in the rain without any kind of rain gear. The radio was well protected so the higher ups were happy.
I remember laying in a pool of mud while zeroing in the 60. Freezing.
One Friday we were stuck on a hill in the slow, cold rain. They forgot to pick us up.
I am well versed in misery.

Today I had a smile on my face. A few hours of wet feet makes me remember the rain that fell years ago.

Crow, Rocco and I. Sometime in 1992, NTA, Japan.

A Mile To The Conference.

I am super fortunate to be able to attend a library conference downtown St. Louis this week. I know parking can be expensive so I parked about an mile away in an old historic district. This might be the only day this week that isn't raining so it was a perfect day to walk.

I love this neighborhood and the most of these houses are very close to being 200 years old.

Looking down this street I always wonder what it was like when the main mode of transportation was horse and buggy. Some of the houses still have the large granite block to help riders dismount. I think the only thing they are used for is smashing your car doors on.

Almost into downtown. A short bridge over the tracks.

Always love this part. I used to ride the rails a bit when I was younger. Miss those lazy train trips.

Sadly I am here. Just before I entered the hotel I can see the arch and one of the court houses. 

Showing up.

Every spring there is this duck that shows up by the gym every morning. It never fails, walk out and there it is. I've never seen a nest or any other duck evidence. It is almost as if he is checking on everyone to make sure they made it to the gym OK.

We are now almost on work eve, the day before we return to work after spring break.

I was thinking about my buddy the duck, how will I show up the first day after break?

Will I...

• be ready for what faces me the rest of the school year?
• bring my full self and not some tired shell of a person?

We are in the last few months of school. We have to endure the test and look forward to the sunshine of May.

I think that I will create something that I just read about, the Jar of Awesome. There are so many good things that happen each day but those usually fade quickly. We usually just remember the bad. I think the jar will help me show up each day and look for the good. When something good happens you write it down on a little slip of paper and place it into the jar. Not having a good day? Just reach in and relive the memory.

Now all I need is a jar and Monday to hurry up and get here.

Sometimes it is hard to convince someone to learn.

Today was pretty much our last day of spring break. Tomorrow is just a regular Saturday filled with all the things that make a weekend busy, most of them are kid related.

We went to the art museum to check out an exhibit that will soon be on the CBS Sunday Morning TV show. I thought it would be pretty interesting to see it in person and then watch it from another point of view in a week or so.

Normally the tickets are $15 a person but on Friday they give them away for free. The only catch was we would have to wait almost two hours before we could see the exhibit. After about an hour Aidan, the 11 year old in the picture above, was done. I'm sure you have seen this in your own children or those you work with.

We found a very quiet exhibit that was all drawing created by a famous artist. No one else was in this part so Aidan was trying to stack up all the handheld lenses to see if he could get a super detailed look, really I think he was just trying to amuse himself.

I can't recall who said it or the exact conversation around it but we came to the conclusion that to fill your head with greatness, you must be exposed to greatness.

It seemed super profound at the time. Now that I write it I start to think about my own kids, have we done enough to expose them to the greatness this world has to offer? Sometimes the news, peers, etc do not always reflect the great opportunities that are just outside our door.

With the statement of greatness in my mind I am sitting here plotting our next steps to see the world for what it really is.

Looking back at the other images that I had taken and this one hits me. Greatness before my eyes. In the exhibit Aidan found a great old classic and read it out loud to Sam. Totally spontaneous. Amazing things are happening all the time, sometimes right before our eyes.

Hidden Figures

Saw the movie today.

So many ideas and thoughts.

One of the biggest was some of their problem solving techniques.

Have ideas...

Love the idea of looking beyond the problem to the math that doesn't exist yet.

Does it always need to mean something?

Had a conversation with another teacher at Panara yesterday. I was left wondering if what we did in the classroom always had to mean something. We tie everything to a standard, a learning target/goal and keep many of our lessons within those boundaries, but are we artificially limiting ourselves?  Do we steal the wonder due to the time limits we feel pressured to keep?

After the meeting the kids and I went to a local sculpture park. We found this on one edge, a series of what looked like four foot high metal buoys. Maybe they were to symbolize something, maybe placed here for kids to climb on or people to scratch initials into. I wondered if it really mattered, maybe it was just to allow you to make sense of it your own way.

We couldn't find any description of what the sculpture was all about. I wondered if we let kids climb over it, struggle to read the carvings, pounded on them to hear and feel to make sense of it. Then we come in and add the artists intended meaning if we would have walked away with more.

I wonder if we would have read the plaque if the kids would have just shrugged after hearing the information and moved on. Do we sometimes kill the wonder?

The Yellow Footprints

It had been nearly twenty-four hours since we woke up and our final destination was at last outside the windows of a well worn white bus. I had never been on a bus ride that was dead silent, packed to the gills but no one said a word.

The door suddenly opened and a thin, foul mouthed man jumped onto the bus and just started yelling. I'm not sure what he said but he was angry. After adjusting to his speed and pitch all he really wanted us to do is call him sir and move like lighting. He wanted us to move and stand on some yellow footprints outside the bus in the dimly lit area next to a building.

The stress began to mount as he had us stand and then sit over and over again. We did not move fast enough. We did not yell loud enough. No matter what we did it just wasn't good enough.

Once outside and on the footprints we faced a sign that held a number of new laws we were subjected to. I really had no clue what it really meant other than I would be held accountable in some unseen and unfamiliar court if I violated some obscure law. 

I had a vague understanding of the pain and suffering that would soon follow. I could tell some deeply regretted the choice they made to land them here. I just had one small movie clip running through my head, over and over again. There was one scene from An Officer and a Gentleman where Gunny Foley was trying to run Mayo out of the military. Mayo stated that he had no where else to go. 

I had no where else to go. I really had no options, no future, nothing. If this didn't work out there was no where to really even send me home to.

Backed into a corner like that powers you to move forward or cower in the corner. I chose to move forward.

Little did I know then these footprints were the first steps to living life and not just surviving it.

Epic Spring Break

Today was an epic spring break day. We decided to pack a lot in as this would be the best weather day of the week.

Our first stop was at the history museum. I really liked how the exhibits are easy to engage with at various levels. The kids are watching a video about a historic home ownership case that started in St. Louis. If you didn't want to watch the video you could have read one of two posters. One was for kids, pretty much summed up what you were looking at in two sentences. The other poster was larger but still easy to read within a minute. 

We were all shocked at how much of what we read and watched was very recent history. 

The other exhibit we saw was about route 66. I loved this old juke box. Only about 22 total songs on this thing. I'm pretty sure I have access to at least 22 million on my phone so why can't I find anything to listen to?

We stopped by the loop for lunch and happened by the Chuck Berry statute.

Lunch at Mission Taco.

I count spring break, even when we don't go anywhere, as vacation. So I splurged a bit and bought myself some nitrogen infused coffee. I'm not even sure how to explain the flavor but it was worth every penny!

We can't make it out of the loop without stopping by the book store. We only purchased one book today, The Wicked Will Rise. I really like this place as it is one of the very few independent bookstores left.

We stopped by the new Korean ice cream place. It was the most interesting thing I have seen in some time. They pour the liquid onto what looks like a super chilled pizza plate. Then they start working it.

After maybe 5 minutes the ice cream is spread out into a flat rectangle.

The final step is to scrape and curl the ice cream.

It was delicious but expensive.

We stopped by Micro Center to pick up a Raspberry Pi camera and I impulsively picked up the new Zero. I don't really have a project in mind but I thought I should have it anyway.

Back at home I decided to mount a few pictures I took awhile ago. I don't like frames so I had some floating shelves made. I now just mount my pictures to foam board. Makes it much easier to decorate with new images. Today I started mounting them without my wife's input. We shall see how this goes!

While I worked Sam read her new book.

You can't do it alone.

Just saw the Lego Batman movie today. The big message was the same as last time, you can't do it alone.

Sometimes I think people want the glory, maybe it is a trust issue but I struggle to see why people insist to go it alone when there is a team ready to help.

I'm thankful for...

I downloaded a new app to monitor my data usage on my phone. It appears I have used over 20 gigs on Spotify? While I'm not sure that is entirely accurate I do listen to a lot of Spotify.

I'm on an unlimited data plan so I'm not really concerned with how much I've used. 

 There was a movie years ago about that Apollo spacecraft that ran into trouble. The engineers on Earth had to solve the carbon monoxide issue with just a few random parts. I'm sure you know they were successful. 

I have heard that it is easier to innovate when you have a limited set of resources. 

Sometimes when you have little you can start to think about all the other possibilities that are available once you start opening up your mind.

Just thinking about some new ideas on how to help teachers. 

Everyone has a story to tell.

I am not stationed in a school building which makes it difficult to connect with other teachers outside of professional development sessions. Some days I really struggle to make an actual meaningful connection.

I was reading about a method a sales person uses to grow their business. So I modified it to fit me and it has really made a difference.

I used two simple cups and five paperclips. When I make a contact with a teacher I move a paperclip from the start of the day cup to the end of the day cup. My only rule is that the contact has to be face to face, electronic does not count. I already have plenty of virtual connections, I wanted to increase my human contacts.

This physical cups are right by my coffee reminding me to get out and find people.

I sometimes just go to a building and walk around. These walkabouts have made new connections that I would not have had otherwise.

I think if I was back in the classroom I would do something similar but each paperclip (or stick) would have a student name on it. I would strive to make a contact with each student once a week. My goal would be to talk about things that were not classroom related. The best conversations I remember about my classroom were things that were not directly related to any standard or lesson. I'm positive that is what my kids also remember.

Side note. I do get hassled about my messy desk. Below is a wide shot of what it looks like right now. Below, on and above my desk is full of stuff. There is that saying about a messy desk and a messy mind. Totally get that. So what does that mean if you have an empty desk?