Set your TiVo it's Beauty & The Geek

Tonight is another round of Beauty & the Geek. I am having a really hard time because well Nate is my fav however he is partnered with Cece and well not so much my favorite. So we will see if he can last another round.

I have been very busy as of late, not a lot of time for TiVo. Also when I am home I have been indulging in the first season of Arrested Development. I love it! E=MC2 lent me her DVD's of the first season. It stars Jason Bateman and Portia de Rossi and it's freaking hilarious. You have the father in the jail, the son trying to hold everything together and his twin sister struggling with her "never nude" husband Tobias Fünke. Fünke: say it... it's just fun: Fünke. It's Fünke Fünke Fünke. Then there is Micheal Bluth's (Jason Bateman) son George Michael Bluth who's in love with his cousin Maeby Fünke. So find the reruns and TiVo it. I know they are out there. Because I am sure you all don't have giving students who are willing to loan you their DVD's. And we all know how great TiVo is all you need to do is type in the title and it does the rest.

This picture isn't the greatest however what I am trying to show you is how cold it is here in Michigan. That is about a 3 foot Icicle hanging off my second story. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! When is spring again?

The Vomit Comet Wins the Competition

Yes, it's as gross as it sounds. Today was the local SkillsUSA competition at my St. Clair TEC. So I woke up early... so early.. on a Saturday morning to hold the TV Production contest with students from both my classes. All was going well, the students shot video around the campus of the other contests for two hours, then they came back to the room to edit, they had a 2 hour time limit to edit a 1 minute video about SkillsUSA.

So my 15 students are diligently editing, when all of a sudden, one of them is looking very weak. I ask him, who we shall call Comet at this time, "Comet, are you ok?" He said he was feeling really weak. I said, "when did you last eat." He replies, 7 pm. He was shakey. So I gave him some caramel corn and got him a Gatorade. I thought ok, he probably has low blood sugar, we all know that I am not a nurse (we shall see further proof of this later.) So he eats a little and I ask him if he is feeling better. He says no, so I call Comet's parents to come get him and well they aren't home, I leave a message. He goes and sits next to his partner E=MC2, while she edits. It was probably 30 minutes later when I heard the noise. Yes the noise. Comet had transformed into Vomit Comet. It went everywhere. He almost hit his partner. It was all over the wall, the desk, the floor and dripping onto the computer.

So needless to say I had to stop the editing clock, because I very well couldn't ask E=MC2 to sit next to a mountain of Vomit Comet's puke and continue to edit. So the poor custodian had to clean it all, but as I waited for him to get all the proper supplies, I am watching it drip onto the computer. I am worried about their project that happens to be all on the computer. So I attempt to clean off the desk to stop the dripping... that is when I realize I couldn't ever be a nurse.. because I almost threw up too.

Thank heaven for the custodian, who has a strong stomach came to our rescue and cleaned it all up. Poor Vomit Comet he felt so bad. Right after he did it he was like, I didn't get you, I hope I didn't ruin anything thing. I luckily have an awesome "TEC-riffic" T-shirt that I keep in my close, so he was able to have a clean shirt. We finished the contest thankfully with just minutes before the awards ceremony.

Bruce was my non-partial judge, thank heaven because I am not sure if I could have handled judging after that. He also was very helpful after Vomit Comet ruptured, I frankly did not know what to do. I am laughing because it was funny, well now it is funny. But Vomit Comet was a trooper and he and his partner actually despite the turmoil came in 1st place. Wow! Now that's a weekend to remember. I actually really proud of all the kids that came. They did an awesome job. It is so funny, I think I am more nervous than all of them put together. So next we have the regional contest. I hope we can all stomach that.

Update: I came home to only find cat puke all over the floor. This I had the responsibility to clean up. Overall it was a pukey day.

My Dad & Dick Purtan

When I worked at Channel 4, everyone used to say to me that my dad looked like the famous radio D.J. Dick Purtan. However, at my teaching job, no one has ever met my dad, to know what he looks like. I do have a picture from my wedding hanging up in the classroom, when I got to work on Friday morning I saw a new picture hanging up next to my Dad's picture. It was a picture of Dick Purtan. I laughed out loud. I found out through some intense investigating (posting this picture on this blog) that it was a substitute teacher that put it up, it just took me a couple weeks to notice.

The Graduate... Students

Today Bruce and I both got the word... we have been accepted to the Technology in Education: Global Program at University of Michigan-Flint. The best part of this graduate program is the the two summers spent in Geneva, Switzerland! I am really excited, well expect for now I have to fill out the FAFSA.. Free Application for Federal Student Aid. I would rather call it For Annoying Future Students of Academia... (ok the end is poor, but it was hard to think of one without the F*bomb in it.) Any former grad students out there in the blogger world that have any secret sources of funding for two future grad students... grants, loans, etc... Any advice welcome?

Surprise!
Well Maybe Not!

So my hubby turned the big 3-0 this weekend. I tried to give him a surprise party. It almost worked, well let's say I was less than 24 hours to surprise... when he figured it out. Yes, and anyone who has meet me knows my talent for lying. Well ok, NO TALENT for lying. You want to know what's going on with me, just ask, because I can't lie. Yes, my parents loved me as a child, because well I never got a way with anything. But back to the party.

So I started planning in early December, first I emailed his boss at Local 4, telling him, Bruce was not available on Saturday, Jan. 20th, which of course he forgot and scheduled him anyway. So the first step to throwing a surprise party was calling his boss, Tom and demanding he be taken off the schedule. Good thing Tom likes me because it was really easy, plus he promised to keep my secret. So you may think that tipped the husband off, but believe it or not its not the first time I demanded that Tom take him off the schedule, like on my birthday.

Then our friend Todd (see picture above of Todd with Olive & Angie) called to say he was coming up from the Cleveland for this weekend. I was still on the clear because Todd has been saying he would visit for a long time. Bruce wasn't sure if Todd even knew that it was his birthday weekend.

However on Friday night, well Saturday morning, it was after midnight, something caught his attention. I still don't know what it was, but whatever it was. He figured it out. I must say I was a little bummed out, I was so close.

So on Saturday night, there was no big "surprise," but we still had a great time. He seemed to have fun and enjoy his 30th birthday. It was great to be with everyone. Here are the details of the party, we had it in the cigar room of the 227 Bistro in Rochester, Michigan. How did I find 227 Bistro, well Thank You Metro Times. I was looking for a place that would be in the middle for everyone and that had a room. Well 227 Bistro had a cigar room that you could rent out, they forgot to mention that the cigar room is filled with paintings of nude women, but hey it spiced up the scenery and gave us all something to laugh about. Well ok, I was laughing. After dinner we went to Gus O'Conners, it was an Irish bar. I didn't know that Gus was an Irish name, but hey, it was still fun.

It's a Saab with 1 Million Miles... I would like to note... it's not our Saab... which I do not foresee getting close to a Million Miles. But I am willing to eat my words. For more information on my Saab Story... see Bruce's Blog.. However, I don't always share his love. But again, maybe I will be eating my words in the post... in a million miles, just 885,000 more to go.

It's Todd & Jennie. Note I did not make it on his blog.. apparently only Bruce is worthy.

Update: I made the blog... Todd's blog. You have to love him, but not his culture.

More Todd, however, I am still not on his blog.

The Inside of Amber ( my car's) 5th Cousin... the new 2007 Chrysler Sebring.

My First Snow Day
(as an adult)

My phone rings at about 5:38 AM. I am not worried, but a little shocked, because it can only be one thing, the school closing fan out sheet. St. Clair TEC, where I work, isn't a typical high school we serve nine area high schools, therefore in order for us to have a "Snow Day." All nine high schools must close, and we can always count on Algonac to be opened. But today with freezing rain even Algonac closed its doors: which means I got my first snow day as a teacher. I almost couldn't go back to bed, I was so excited. So when the phone rang this morning and I saw the number, I answered the phone with a happy voice! Now it is noon and I am still in my pj's. This day was an unexpected treat, for that I would like to thank Mother Nature.

The one bad thing is Bruce didn't have students today, they had an in-service. All the schools with students closed, but Bruce had to go. I feel bad for him, he thinks I am secretly happy because last year they had 5 snows to my 0 snow days, but really I was hoping he would have the day off too. So what's on tap for today: reading my book club book for Wednesday's meeting, if I am not careful I will have to kick myself out of the club.

Five Years of the Cat Bag

Happy Birthday Olive! With every birthday between Olive and I, since January 2002, there has been a common thread: the Cat Bag! (pictured above.) I gave Olive a birthday gift that year (which now I can't even remember what it was) in the Cat Bag. In September of 2002, I received a gift in that very same bag. And since that moment the tradition began, no matter what we give, it comes in the Cat Bag. So we celebrate Olive's birthday, five years of our friendship and five years of the cat bag.

Olive has more responsibility than me when it comes to the bag. The cat bag only lives at my house September through January. After five years, I must admit it has been kept in pristine condition. So much so, that before I gave it to Olive yesterday, it was sitting on the window sill in my house, so I would not forget to grab it, and all of a sudden I hear Daisy barking. I think she is barking at a noise from Bruce in the bathroom, however I am wrong, she is barking at the Cat Bag at the end of the hallway on the window sill. Crazy.

We (Angie, Andrea, Olive & I: see the picture to the left) celebrated Olive's birthday in Ann Arbor. We had a fabulous meal at Seva. Were we enjoyed a delicious vegetarian meal. Before dinner we made our way through downtown Ann Arbor, enjoying ice cream at Stuchi's, Starbucks and shopping. This picture I have posted was supposed to be taken by our waitress who managed to look very annoyed when asked and proceeded to take the worse two pictures I had ever seen in my life. So I bothered a table of what appeared to be college freshman (maybe they were still in high school) to snap a photo. Clearly this was that photo. I can't even bring myself to post the other two, though they are funny, you will just have to take my word for it. I had a great time, I hope Olive did too, well because it was her birthday.

Working the 2007 North American Auto Show Charity Preview with Guy & Rhonda.

No I didn't get into a fight and lose my teeth, it's just the fashion accessory for 2007: the headset. If you don't have one, wait no longer rush out and get yours. Who carries this high couture item high end: BSW, but common folk can find yours at Radio Shack. I am thinking about seeing if I can talk them into encrusting mine with diamonds next year.

Dexter and I looking spiffy at the Auto Show Charity Preview. This is one of my favorite times to work because everyone dresses up, everyone including the producers, stage hands, engineers, stage managers, audio guys.. you name it, they were in a tux or dress looking cute.

Which of course only leads me to embarrassment. Yes, go figure. So I am field producing with Rhonda Walker who is recovering from foot surgery on both feet. So we only have one move and I am doing my best to make sure that no one is in her way and trying to pay attention to her, which means, I am not paying attention to myself. So we are walking away from the Roles Royce cars and I am watching Rhonda make a step down when my heal gets caught and I (if there wasn't someone in my way) was on the way to do a face plant right in the floor. As stated before I was lucky because there was some unsuspecting high roller (these people shelled out $400 bucks a ticket to come to this event) in my way. I apologized to the man, who now had my make-up all over the arm of his tux, as he just looked disgusted and walked away from me as fast as he possibly could. And Rhonda and her husband both trying to catch me before I hurt myself, remember, she is recovering from surgery on her two feet.

So let's recap Rhonda +2 foot surgeries = Zero Falls. Jennie + 0 foot surgery = 1 Face Plant. Yes, I know what you are thinking, this girl is truly amazing. And I must admit sometimes I even amaze myself.

However this is one bright spot. I meet another celeb, he's a reporter on the nationally syndicated show Extra. His name is AJ Calloway. (ok I had never heard of him before Friday night, but Extra is on at 11 am and I don't TiVo it.) He was the nicest celebrity I have ever meet at one of these shows. He was cordial and better yet, I made no mention of where I live or have lived. I kept geography out of the conversation. My one memorable comment to him was, "are you sure you are on a nationally syndicated television show, you seem way too nice." And the best part, he giggled, and it wasn't a fake giggle. So two thumbs up for AJ, and one for me, by not making a total fool out of myself on Friday.

Never thought I would be so excited to get gas under Two Bucks!

Blogging Without Topic

O.k. here goes nothing. I really feel that I should blog tonight since visitors dropped nearly 50% today. Yes, I know this makes me somewhat blog obsessed. It's funny to see what people search to get to this blog. So far: weavologist, cat snots all over and catified seemed to be popular searches on google. I laugh at those searches, but tonight, on the other hand I have very little to blog about. School is back in full swing. The students aren't too excited about being back, but they are struggling through.

I am the co-coordinator of the SkillsUSA chapter at St. Clair TEC. I am also the one that came up with the bright idea to throw a Pancake Breakfast. However, I have never officially been the organizer for the pancake breakfast. The closest thing I came to it was making pancakes for my niece, Sophie, who eats them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. People have been calling me "crazy," but I think it will be fun. The new problem is convincing, the students that it will be fun. My class heard about it and the literal grown could be heard down the hall. "Another Saturday?" I have to admit, it was disappointing. But I am sure they get disappointed in me too. So here goes nothing, we shall see if this is a Pancaktastic or a bust. Maybe, I will have a new career, as an organizer of pancake breakfasts across the country. I will get a new nickname: Hotcakes. So mark your calendars: March 10th at the Marysville Legion Hall in Marysville. Hotcakes for $5 (that's the food not me.) Or better yet if you have any planning a pancake breakfast advice, I can use all the help I can get.

Do you think something is under there?

A New Must See
Must Add to the Season Pass

So one of my students E=MC2 (as she likes to go by now) told me I needed to watch "Beauty & the Geek" on "the new CW." In my head, I was reluctant, because I thought how could any show on "the new CW" be good without Tyra Banks. I mean come on people can Ashton Kutcher's "Beauty & the Geek" even compare to "America's Next Top Model."

So last night, I sat down with TiVo to watch the Encore season 3 premiere of the show (yes, season 3 and I am just jumping on board, I know what you are thinking.) So here is the gist of the show: it's a reality show, go figure. The basics, for those of you like me who didn't know, are they team up a "geek" i.e. Harvard, MIT: Math Science Grads. They have a myriad of hobbies like collecting 35,000 comic books, being the lead singer of the a Star Wars Tribute Band, a Trekky (no I mean Trekker, which I learned is the appropriate term) and the list goes on. The beauties are swimsuit models, beauty queens etc. and let's say they are not so smart.

So they beauty and geeks are teamed up together as partners. It's almost a blind pick. They then compete in challenges: the beauties are given intellectual challenges and the geeks get social ones. In this episode the first challenge was for the beauties to find three books in the library using the Dewey Decimal System. It was much more difficult than it sounds... well for these girls at least. Then when the got the books and gave them to their partner there were tasks in each of their books that the "geek" had to complete. 1. Get someone to rub sunscreen on your back. 2. Get a girl's number. 3. Borrow a cell phone to make a call. Well needless to say it was painfully amusing.

Then the teams got a chance to decide if they really wanted to be there or take a $20K buyout. Well no one took the buyout so they got their next assignment, which they had the night to prepare. The guys had to do a comedy routine, which I think is hard regardless if you are a geek or not. I couldn't see how the girls would do any better. The girls got to interview the author of "Freakonomics." Well some of the guys were mildly funny, while the others BOMBED. Like the little Asian guy name Piao pronounced Pi, like the number, got up and told the most foul jokes ever. You could hear a pin drop. The audience picked the winner.

Then the girls, who many were quoted saying "look at all these words" about the book prior to the interview did even worse than the stand-up. They had a horrible time with the prompter. The word enigmatic really stumped them. Well as I am sure you figured most sucked it up. Two of them did a surprisingly good job. In this one two TV journalist (ok I know what my newspaper friends from Mizzou are thinking... and stop) picked the winner.

Then two people Sinjay & Tori where voted off at the end. All and all it was freaking hilarious! I mean, I feel that my description doesn't do it justice. So get a season pass on the TiVo and watch it. Its regular time is Wednesday nights.

Next Post: You can TiVo it, but you NEED to find it and watch it! Arrested Development

12 Step Program
Needed For Addiction

So I have a problem, I guess that is the first step admitting there is a problem. That problem is called Bejeweled. As described by one website: "Ooh shiny! Link strings of gems in this puzzle game that's simple to learn but tough to master." Well I use to play it online then I managed somehow to quit. I think because summer came or something to that affect. However, Bruce got me the game for Christmas. So now I have "BEJEWELED 2" anytime I want it, and it turns out, I WANT IT ALL THE TIME. I play it while watching TiVo, I play before bed, when I get home from work, well you get the picture. I am not sure if it is the colors, the shininess of the gems or just the mind numbing addictiveness of the game, but whatever it is I am hooked. I sit down and the next thing I know two hours has disappeared. I try to tell myself, this time I will play just one or two games, but you can't. So it looks like I am going to have to give it up, cold turkey... but not until I finish this one game.

Rocks Rock
(Not Really)

So I know that all of you where admiring our newly installed pond at the end of the driveway however it was becoming a hazard for Amber (my car) and lord knows I couldn't deal with getting stuck in it. So we needed rock for our driveway. Today we had some delivered 10 yards, 27,5000 lbs, that's about 13.5 tons. Of course when they drop it off they don't spread it out for you, they drop it in a huge pile. So when I got home at approximately 4:30 pm, I got my shovel and helped Bruce start spreading the rock. We were lucky enough to have Bruce's dad come over to help for about an hour. We called it a night at 7 pm, but it's not all spread out yet.

All this manual labor reminds me of my childhood and the hours upon hours, weekends upon weekends of manual labor. We joke that the only reason my parents had children because slavery was illegal. So we were their indentured servants. We had a two acre manicured lawn with huge gardens that was mowed, raked, weeded and mulch was spread by my sister, brother and I. At best we got $1 a week for chores.

However, as I talked to my husband I realized that I was cheated. Yes cheated. My husband's allowance was $3.50 a week - no hard labor. As he got to high school he got $20 for every "A" he got, I got a report card dinner and there better be more than one "A." He also managed to get a $50 a month clothing allowance. So I called my parents tonight requesting back pay: so far they are denying it, but I think they might cave. My fight is not over, it has just begun.