500 Words a Day

[5hundredwordsaday]

Day 5 - Life's a garden, dig it!

Joe Dirt said that gem when I was a kid in middle school and how little did I realize then how true it would be.  Today I had an adventure both literally and figuratively associated with that statement.   I love the farmers market, and I am lucky to live within 30 minutes of a great one.  The dumb part is I have never been there.  Lucky for me, Anna wanted to go when she woke up this morning so I was in for a treat.   It was Watermelon Day at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market...just to let you know how great the day was.  We only took forty dollars with us because I knew that if we took more I was just going to blow it.  We definitely blew 40 bucks on grass fed beef, cucumbers, goat cheese, sweet corn , and a fantastic sugar baby watermelon. You see I have recently been pickling things. I got my Meemaws recipe for sweet pickles and John Currence's recipe for bread and butter pickles and they are both fantastic.  You can find the b&b recipe in his book Pickles, Pigs, and Whiskey.  I highly recommend it.   I also want to pickle the rind from the sugar baby watermelon.  I think I am going all out, but it's totally worth it.  Good food is always worth obsessing over. When we got back from the farmers market we immediately went over to our friend Lyn's house to pick up the chicken coop she is donating to Anna and I.  I suckered Anna into letting me get chickens.  More on that adventure later.  When we went to pull out of Lyn's driveway, my truck wouldn't start.  Turns out my eight year old battery had gone bad.  Who knew? After paying $130 for a new battery and unloading the chicken coop, I came home with the best intention of taming the small tropical rain forest that my small vegetable garden had become.  I saw that intention through for about two hours.  In that two hours I harvest 2 peppers, a handful of tomatoes, and some baby carrots..  I have neglected it and I was afraid I would not bare any fruit from it, but lucky me.  I cleared some vegetation that had become over grown, and my plan for tomorrow is to finish weeding around my vegetables.   Working in the garden is truly cathartic for me.  I typically have music blaring, but today, as I was working, I got to work in complete silence, and it was fantastic.  Getting to focus my mind on the singular task of clearing the weeds was peaceful. Now I am getting to watch the fittest athletes on the planet put all of their hard work on test for the world to see.  These athletes work in their own gardens of iron to reap the rewards of endless hard work, and it is like my day has come to a bountiful close. Getting to enjoy in the labors of others at the farmer's market, getting to work in my garden, and now getting to see these athletes pick from their hard work garden gives Joe Dirt's words a new meaning for me today.    Until next time.  - 535 Words

[5hundredwordsaday]

Day 4 - This ain't so bad.

The best part about teaching is having summers off. There I said it.  I love working with kids.  Creating art.  I stilling passion for something into small people.  Show students that hard work and problem solving skills lead to success.  I love all of these things, but having the summers off is just tops.  I do, however, work for most of the summer simply preparing for the fall semester, but the fact that I don't have to babysit everyday makes that work seem clerical in comparison.   We had our first student leadership team meeting today.  I brought in the team, sans a couple students at camps and one student marching DCI, and we began the collaborative planning for camp in a week.  I'm truly excited for band camp coming up.  It is the hardest two weeks of work for the school year, but it is amazing what the kids accomplish in such a short period. Now that the important stuff is handled, let's get to the meat of the matter... I love big brother.  I look forward to this show every summer.  I do not, as a general rule, enjoy reality television. I get that embarrassed feeling for some of the characters, and I don't enjoy that.  However, big brother is a true vice.  I watch every episode religiously.  I do not pay for the live feeds, but I follow big brother on twitter so I get all the updates in real time anyway.  I don't latch on to characters like some super fans.  I just enjoy the story lines.  It's just like pro wrestling...and yes I still love pro wrestling.  That is what happens when you grow up in a white trash household. Also, this weekend is the start of the 2014 Crossfit Games.  For a year and a half, I have loved Crossfit.  I found in January of 2013 and since I started, I have lost 60 lbs.  I am still 290 but I am way stronger than I was, and am still worki to get stronger and more fit, in that order.   Watching the Crossfit games, I am astounded by the athletes, of all ages.  Seeing 58 year old men and women doing burpee muscle ups absolutely blows my mind.  Knowing that my friend who is one of the fittest people I know, still can't do a muscle up...dang.  It's cool seeing their success.   And now to the real freaks.  Rich Froning overhead squatted 377 pounds last night.  That is insane.  An athlete that can be that strong and still have an ability to run faster and work harder for longer than any other man on the planet.  It's crazy.  Even if you have no clue what crossfit is, seeing these people do these crazy feats of fitness should and will blow your mind.  It also helps me realize that my road to fitness is attainable as long as I keep my head in the right place with it.   Go watch big brother or the crossfit games this weekend.  Either one, you won't be disappointed.  Until next time.  - 513 words

[5hundredwordsaday]

Day 3 - Challenges met, challenges conquered.

Today I am met with my first challenge to completing my  five hundred words a day.  And I know what you are thinking.  "Jerk, it is only day 3.  How can you already be unable to compete your blog dedications?"  This has been my trouble from the start.  When you have an option to do something else, espicially if it is something more fun, you can sacrifice menial tasks to the next day.  And when one task is put to the next day you can't do something that was planned for that day and it becomes a snowball that grows ever bigger.  No longer, dear reader. When does too much recreation become too much?  At what point does your amount of recreation time become less than recreation and more of your typical everyday behavior?   This is something I struggle severely with.  I have an inability to keep recreation time seperate from my work time.  Now, please do not misjudge.  I get my work done, but not in as timely a manner as I would wish.  I also have trouble going beyond points of requirement, though not all of the time.  I want to be able to do more.  When I am bored, I ask myself, "Why aren't you working on this? Or why are you not going ahead and getting that done for tomorrow?"   I always get done what is required of me.  I ALWAYS get my work finished.  But if I got my work completed more expeditiously, what else could I accomplish?  It is not uncommon for me to watch six hours of television a day.  There.  I said it.   I wonder how common this is among productive adults.  How many hours of television does the average contributing member of society watch in one 24 hour span?  I am not talking about the time spent with the television on in the back ground while you are showering or washing dishes.  Six hours "actively" watching television.  It seems like too much to me, but is it? How do I do something about this.  If I were able to work while I engage in whatever the television program is, it would be different.  I do not have trouble multi-tasking, but one can't fully immerse oneself in something and pull pieces back out to focus on something else.  And maybe that is the problem. I can't just barely put a piece of myself into the television show.  I have to focus on the program and think about it, and be present in the program.  If I am investing time in the program, I want to make it worth while. But at the same time, I tell myself that I want to be working or completing a task that will make the next days work far more easy. Is that something I need to overcome?  I get my work done, but can I get what needs to get done better?  Sure I can.  But how do I convince my inner self that this is what I want to accomplish. Breaking habits is hard, but not uncommon.   Until next time. - 516 words

[5hundredwordsaday]

Day 2 - Education changes things, but can we change education?

I am getting ready to start band camp.  I am a high school band director and I have the best job on the planet. I get to teach students who want to take my class.  Unlike my peers who have to force feed Algebra down the gullets of the prisoners in their cell of a classroom.   That metaphor is not factual of all of the classrooms in my school.  Let me explain...  I have recently fallen in love with education.  I have always loved teaching, but something clicked this summer.  If I was going to an educators conference, if they didn't offer sessions directly related to my field, I would not be interested.  I would scoff and respond with, "Why don't they have any music sessions."   Don't get me wrong, I am not a snob.  I don't think that I believe I am "holier than thou" when it comes to my job.  I am stubborn, however.  I do think my methods work, but at the same time, I am willing to modify my methods in the event that my way does not work.  If it ain't baroque, don't fix it...get it? What struck me was I was invited to participate in the ISTE 2014 conference in Atlanta, GA this summer.  This conference brings together the tech nerds in education, from all around the world, throws them in a conference center, and says "Check out all of this cool shit."  Sounds like a hoot, right?   It was. Very cool week.  But the sessions that hit me hardest were not the ones that introduced new tech into my teaching methods.  It was the sessions that had fantastic teachers, pedagogs, learning leaders, and Lavar Burton (yes...him) talking about how to make education work for students, not the students working for education...and oh yeah, this cool piece of tech has helped me through this process.  More about ISTE will come soon. Now, my school also got to send 7 other fantastic teachers and our principal, leigh jones.   It seems that the teachers that went to ISTE got as much out of it as I did and this school year will be far different than those of my past five years as a teacher.    The hand full of teachers that went to ISTE want to come back and get all of the other teachers in our school on the same page.  They want to get the teachers who are reluctant to change their ancient, unproductive, unengaging, and ineffective ways to see the error of I their ways and join in the new era of education.  How do you change 25 years of teaching the same material, in the same method, getting the same results, and getting the same pay checks?  How do you motivate people to be willing to change their ways to improve upon a process that already, for the most part, works?   Alan November, the educational pedagog and a new hero on my Mount Olympus, tells us it starts in the first five days of school.  If you can create an environment in which the students are truly willfully engaged with problems that they care about, then that change in the student will stimulate the teacher to such an extent that they will want to modify their practices to keep the level of that environment for the rest of the school year. The cynic in me is calling shenanigans.  The teacher in me prays that it works.  The future teacher-leader in my wants this for the students.  This could be a great year.  This should be a great school year.  Not for the teachers, but for the students. Until next time. 

[5hundredwordsaday]

I heard a wiser man than I say something profound, albeit in a drunken stupor. ”Create something worth sharing everyday.” I have admired Chris Moore from the Barbell Shrugged and Barbell Buddha notoriety ever since I stumbled across those two podcasts upon my entry into the world of crossfit....

[5hundredwordsaday]

500 Words a Day

 I heard a wiser man than I say something profound, albeit in a drunken stupor.  "Create something worth sharing everyday."  I have admired Chris Moore from the Barbell Shrugged and Barbell Buddha notoriety ever since I stumbled across those two podcasts upon my entry into the world of crossfit. (Side note: I have never done much typin on my ipad before this passage and I had to turn of the damned keyboard clicks for fear my ears would jump off of my head. Now back to your program already in progress.)   Chris and the guys of BS are to be admired for their, what seems like, fearlessness to commit to projects that they care about without reservation.  I admire this because, where I have no trouble starting new endeavors or trying new things, I have an inate  inability to commit fully and complete new projects.  And so as of today I am committing myself to a new endeavor...  500 words a day.  Typed right here for the world to see.  For the next year. I know right now that five hundred words will not always come easy and I may have to struggle to find my muse at times, but I want to put myself on the alter of new adventures and sacrifice myself in the name of completing things I start.    Dear reader, I will use this time to talk about my life, my family, my career, and my passions.  All of which drive me, to one extent or another, to be the man I am today.  I want this to be the start of something new for me and a means to hold myself accountable for my actions, or lack there of.  I want the public posting of this declaration of commitment to spurn something great from me.  I know I have an ability to be great and I have been damn good at a lot of things in my brief time on this planet, but I have yet to be great and that is something that plagues me. I look not to fame or fortune to put wind in my sails.  I merely want to show myself that I am truly capable of stepping outside of my comfort zone and accomplishing something that is slightly uncomfortable.  Knowing that over the course of the next year, I am going to compose over 180,000 words is huge, and, to be honest, daunting.   These five hundred words a day will be a refuge for my thoughts and I hope, friend, that you will be able to be here with me.  Accompanying me on this journey through my trials as a teacher, a husband, a friend, a food lover/addict, an aspiring barbell athlete, a humorist, and a man.  I hope that I can keep my promise to you.  To be here with you, every day.  For the next 364. I will be busy...but that is the excuse that has gotten me into so many situations prior to this and I will not let that be the excuse further.  If I have time to watch 8 hours of television today, I have time to do pretty much whatever I wish, and I wish to complete a goal.  And with that I sign off for now.  I will write again tomorrow, rest assured.  For now, let the journey commence.  - 559 words