Recently I was going out with this one woman.  We went out on a few dates and that was it.  I probably actually went out on one date too many.  The reason why I went out on that extra date was because she seems great on paper.

Let’s call this woman Jill.  Jill is pretty, goal oriented, fun, low maintenance, great at conversation, confident, and perfectly suited to be brought home to mom, but for whatever reason I did not feel any sort of romantic spark.  I enjoyed my time with Jill, and despite having chemistry and finding her attractive, I didn’t find myself attracted to her romantically.

Why is this?  I usually don’t think much of this, but when I told her how I was feeling, she said something that made me ask myself this question.  Jill thanked me for being honest and upfront with her and said “I’ve unfortunately had this conversation many times.”  This caught me off guard, how could someone like Jill have these problems?  She has also never been in a long or serious relationship, just short stints.

I’ve met women who are pretty and are fun to be with, but are just weird and/or socially awkward, but Jill isn’t like that.  She doesn’t go for the bad boys and people won’t look at her like she is weird.  She isn’t over bearing, and is not clingy, but is able to show the right amount of interest to let the man know she is interested.

So is Jill, and other people just not relationship material?  Is there some unidentifiable characteristic that makes a person desirable to have a relationship with beyond the obvious?  I don’t know, but I am starting to think there does exist some uncontrollable and unidentifiable characteristic that makes people attracted to each other on a romantic level.

There has been a lot of talk about where will Peyton Manning end up.  I need to answer two questions.
1) Will he remain in Indy?
2) Even if I think he will remain in Indy, where is he most likely to land.
1) I think Bill Polian would have gotten rid of Peyton, Bill has always said “when you listen to the fans, you sit with the fans”, so I think for the future of the team he would have gotten rid of Peyton.  I do not know what the current owner is thinking nor the future GM…if I had to guess I’d say no, he will not be back, especially give the recent success of rookie quarterbacks, not much need to sit rookie QBs.

2).  Where it makes the most sense and plausible – San Fransisco, has a strong defense (something he has never had in Indy), a good head coach and some great offensive weapons

Where I think he is most likely to land – of the teams that need a QB, I think Washington would be best.  Sure they arent loaded, but they have a solid Offensive coach who will give him a strong run attack.  Peyton has never needed a strong running attack and can turn any WR into a pro-bowler.  People talk about how he has had all these weapons in Indy, I think a lot of it is what Peyton did to them.  Had Dieon Branch stayed with Brady for a decade, people would talk about him like they do Reggie Wayne.  Not to mention the Cowboys and Giants have secondaries of swiss cheese.

Where it makes the most sense, but unlikely – The Jets…A strong defensive minded team, and solid weapons on the offensive side.  Not sure what the contract situation is with Sanchez is though, so that could make it tough as he has one of those bogus rookie contracts from before the new collective bargaining agreement.

One thing I have noticed with my last couple ex’s is that there has been a friend of theirs that I have been interested in.  And of course they are off limits, though one could technically be “possible”.

When I was with L, she had a friend A, who has a presence about her.  She carries herself with confidence and intrigue.  The first time I met her I got this feeling of, damn, I wish I met her first.  That though did go away quickly as I was completely happy with L, and no other woman caught my eye or peaked my interest.  L did end up breaking up with me, so I guess technically since I was the dumpee, I could initiate the dating of one of her friends.  Would I? If I had an opportunity I would, but the chances of her and I running into each other are slim to none and I’m not a fan of sending random facebook messages (of course I have no issue with women doing that to me).

After L, I dated J.  J had a friend C, who I had the same reaction when I met A in the previous scenario, but one thing changed this time.  Those feelings of being happy with who I was with didn’t come.  It actually kind of pained me to be around C as I had this huge crush on her.  Once I realized all this, I broke up with J.  And while I would never cheat on a significant other, or set up a relationship before ending a current one, I knew that J was not the one for me based on my interest being focused more on her friend.  Would I get with C, in a New York minute, any chances of it happening?  No.  Being the dumper I cannot initiate, just wouldn’t be right.  C would have to initiate and seek approval from J, and even if C was interested in me in the least, she isn’t the kind of friend to put her bestie in that situation.

I know it is human nature to have your eye wander once in a while, or to wonder what it would be like with someone else.  This is perfectly normal; I have felt this in pretty much every relationship at some point.  I’ve been in a relationship where I had this feeling more than once, but it always quickly went away as I realized I loved that person more than anything, that is until the relationship ran its course.  But if this lingering feeling of wanting to be with someone else (whether they are friends of your significant other or just another person you know) does not go away, it is a clear indication that the relationship should be ended.  I find it a shame that I’ll never really have a chance with C or with A because of them being friends with ex’s.

This Christmas was my first Christmas where I wasn’t at least talking to someone since 2003, so it has been a while.  The couple days leading up to and a day or two after I was really depressed and down, it was a sadness I had not felt in a long time.  The feeling was almost the equivalent of having your heart torn out; it felt like a break up.

I was busy, saw a lot of family and friends.  Seeing my family actually made it worse, but my friends kept my mine off of the loneliness.  Ex’s and past flings ran through my head, even the ones that I didn’t want to work out, I thought about it and thought, maybe we could work even though deep down I knew I was only thinking that because I was lonely.

I guess it is the family and togetherness that is promoted and displayed during the holidays that make it really awful being single.  I never in my wildest dreams thought I would have been that depressed being single.  During the holidays, if you’re single, remain strong and lean on those you are closest to and never settle or relapse for something you know would be for the worst.

I am just reposting this, I have seen this floating around the internet; not sure who came up with this.

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.

However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).

At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical).

This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are not talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

This means Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second – 3,000 times the speed of sound.

For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself.

On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that flying reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can’t be done with eight or even nine of them -Santa would need 360,000 of them.

This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

A mass of nearly 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.

The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reaches the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g’s.

A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim considering all the high calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he’s dead now.

..so, it’s not Santa. More than likely a rapist or something.

I want to start by saying, I love my job, I enjoy where I teach and who I teach, these are just observations of the differences from where I grew up and where my students come from.

The other week I witnessed a huge culture shock.  My students were taking a values and work ethic survey.  I decided I would take it with them as well.  One of the questions asked if you would turn your brother in for committing a crime.  Most of my students answered “no”.  Then I asked what if he committed cold blooded murder, a few changed their mind, but the majority still said “no”.  I was and I am still shocked.  It is a testament to their beliefs of family first, no matter what.  I told them I would turn my brother (and if I have a son, him too) in a heart beat.  They were just as shocked at me as I was at them.

One of the biggest differences is something I noticed last year.  Where I went to school, if a girl got pregnant, she was vilified, seen as a slut, easy, what have you.  It was very embarrassing and nobody wanted it to happen to them.  To my students though, it is a status symbol; to be pregnant or have a kid is all the rage.  I’m not saying everyone wants to have a child or is trying to have one, but it seems as if it does happen, no biggie.  I remember one day telling my students who are mostly democratic/liberal that I was for abortion and I myself was vilified.  I guess I shouldn’t be so shocked given how many of them have or are expecting a child.  I do not know why there are so many with kids or pregnant.  I’m not sure if it is lack of proper sex education or if they just don’t care if they have a child.

There are two small things that I will never understand.  Firstly, on a girl’s birthday she will wear a pink ribbon and her friends will pin money to it.  The other is students getting spray painted shirts, hoodies and chains with the pictures of a friend or family member who has passed away.  One of my friends teaches at a similar school as mine and came from a similar background and a student passed away at his school.  Though he did not have or know the student, he attended the visitation.  He told me the teachers were the only ones who were dressed in traditional funeral home attire (slacks, nice shirt, blouse, etc).  All the students and family members were wearing a spray painted shirt with the child’s picture on it.  It is interesting to see how two different cultures memorialize their loved ones.

I love where I teach and I am always learning something new about my students.  I enjoy learning about others way of life and how it compares to mine.  It helps keep me centered and balanced to know that the way I do things is not the only right way for things to be done.

For starters I HATE engagement photos.   Why do we need them?  We know what you and your soon to be spouse looks like.  If you want to show off the ring, take a picture of it and put it on facebook.  There are two things that kill me the most about engagement photos

1. There are about a bazillion and a half taken, enough so much that one copy of each picture could fill all the oceans on the world and there would still be enough to fill the rivers and lakes and my bath tub.
2. 95% of these are tacky and overly posed.  The photographer is trying to create a candid moment, which cannot be done (I will expand on this later)

I recently learned that a wedding photographer typically costs at least $2000;  that is a nice honey moon in its self.  The cost of engagement photos can’t be cheap either, maybe they’re packaged together?  I know friends who have very good cameras that cost only $600, have them take pictures.

Why do we need a million different “professional” pictures of the wedding?  This isn’t the 1950′s everyone has a camera, my bottom of the barrel phone from 2006 has a camera, my current phone has 8 mega pixels.  Pictures are now all digital, they can be easily shared and touched up on computers.

Why do we need a million pictures of things ranging from people getting dressed  to people walking in before the wedding, all the way to people inevitably dancing to the piece of garbage known as the ChaCha slide?   We don’t, but people think we do for some reason.  No one cares to see pictures of your bridesmaids trying to squeeze you into a dress.  (And I’m not making some fat joke, I’ve seen plenty of perfectly healthy and normal weight women stress about fitting into their dress and have to squeeze in and/or not eat for a day just to fit in their dress)

I understand wanting professional photos of the wedding party, so get those…photographs at Sears for a family can’t cost more than $100…so I would think a professional photographer to come to your wedding, and take 30 minutes worth of pictures cannot more than $500.  If you want candid pictures of before, during and after the wedding, that is what friends and relatives are for.

What gets me the most is the ugly posed shots.  They ALL LOOK FAKE.  They look worse than Bobby Valentine’s fake mustache he wore to try and sneak back into the dugout after being kicked out.

I don’t get it and I never will.   And you all know what kind of pictures I am talking about, not the photos of the bride and groom, bride with groomsmen, etc.  The ugly shots where the wedding party is

• Walking away from the camera, talking to each other
• Where everyone jumps up
• Where some fake “scandalous”  picture is posed and taken
• Wedding party walking towards the camera, but talking and looking at each other, and not looking at the camera
• Wedding party has some object they throw, or hold or release into the air
• Groom looks like he is trying to run away or be dragged back to the wedding

I am sure there are some I missed, but those seem to be the big ones.  These photographs always look tacky and have no real emotion in them; they are moments where the photographer TRIES to create a candid moment, but it fails miserably.

There is absolutely no need for Engagement pictures at all, and professional wedding pictures should be limited to traditional poses and shots of the wedding party.  No need to bring in the fake candid moments.  One cannot truly recreate a candid moment, it comes out tacky and fake, and these situations are overtly obvious.  Maybe one day the world will see this subject the way I do.

I’m just a bit obsessed with this guy.  No one’s music, lyrics, or just message has spoke to me quite like this man’s and its a shame that his talent was taken away from us 30 years ago, long before he should have gone.  A top 30 was not easy as many greats were left off…some of these had input from McCartney (like A Day in the Life), but are mostly Lennon works (* denotes solo songs)

1.      Strawberry Fields Forever

2.      A Day in the Life

3.      In My Life

4.      (Just Like) Starting Over*

5.      Watching the Wheels*

6.      Jealous Guy*

7.      Don’t Let me Down

8.      Instant Karma*

9.      She Loves You

10.  Imagine*

11.  Real Love

12.  Hey Bulldog

13.  Ticket to Ride

14.  Across the Universe

15.  Dear Prudence

16.  One after the 909

17.  Day Tripper

18.  Revolution

19.  Please Please me

20.  I’m So Tired

21.  All You Need Is Love

22.  Out the Blue*

23.  It Won’t Be Long

24.  Happiness Is  A Warm Gun

25.  Nobody Told Me*

26.  What Ever Gets You Thru the Night*

27.  Mother*

28.  #9 Dream*

29.  Help

30.  Rain

Are some people just lucky and are others just unlucky?  We talk about luck, but most of us would brush it off to chance or the old saying “win some, lose some”, but what if some people almost always win while others almost always lose?

I feel like I am a very lucky person.  I’ve had a lot of bad possible situations or outcomes that seem to always work out for me.  When I’ve been pushed in my career, or had a sub-par observation, I’ve always reacted and been able to step my game up.  I was observed a few weeks ago.  I was asked what period I would like to be observed, and I said 3rd, but he actually showed up 2nd.  I was a little nervous as I wanted to teach the lesson once before the observation, but it went better the first time.

My basement decided to leak the other day after a week of countless rain, the day it started to leak I on a whim decided to change my cat’s litter box, and sure enough I was able to catch the water before it did any damage to my items.  I have seniors and at least once a month, sometimes more they are pulled for some testing, or meetings, etc where it gives me some extra planning time; being a second year teacher and already having a lot of seniors is lucky in its self.   My house hasn’t had any big issues, I never have car issues, etc.  I just seem to have a lot of good luck.

Now on the other hand I know other people who seem to be the opposite of me.  Can’t figure out a career, have all kinds of car problems, have a hard time getting into a program they want, roommates move out on them on a whim, don’t get a long with family, etc.  I see random facebook posts or hear about their bad luck and it seems to be a continuing story.  Why is this?

I was talking with this one girl a while back, and part of the reason I wasn’t interested is because it seemed like she didn’t have a lot going for her and some where her decisions, but I come to find out she is still having issues getting into a program she wants to get into.  She may not graduate college with a bachelors until 28 or 29 …I had my masters by 22, some of this is based on her life decisions, but it seems like it happens too much with her and others to be just a once in a while thing, it almost seems as if she and others are just unlucky.

So are some people lucky while others are unlucky?

I am far from great, but I’m doing a good job.  I hear good things from the students, well not good from their perspective, but good from a teacher’s perspective.   I hear things like “you’re not as cool as you use to be” or “you’re no longer my favorite teacher” or “you’ve gotten harder since last year”, etc.  They don’t like it, but if it was up to them, they’d burn the school down.  And I still have a good rapport with them.

My biggest obstacle so far this year is having 3 preps; this is my second trimester in a row with three preps and it can be draining.  At least this trimester I can say I have taught all three classes before.  One thing I continuously find myself doing is having too high of expectations.  I plan a lot and have some hard problems for them to solve.  At times that does backfire, but I am all about raising the bar and having high expectations.

Another hard thing is that I have a lot of students from last year and I had some bad habits last year that I have been battling with and so far seem to be winning at the moment.  I am continuing to work hard and I genuinely enjoy my job; it can be very hard at time, but it never deters me as I like my students and I enjoy being a positive role model for them even if we butt heads at times.

I cannot claim this thought as my own; a colleague of my own came up with it and I totally agree with it.  I do no think I’ve ever had anyone leave me because they thought the grass was greener on the other side, BUT I have left someone because of it.  It was a hard lesson learned and truly a case of you don’t know what you have until it is gone (well so I thought for a while).

With that being said, I do not regret it at all.  I have learned a lot about myself and the people I have met and dated since then have been instrumental in shaping me into who I am today.  I would not change my decision as in retrospect we were two people going in two different directions, but that is not why I left, and it took me a long time to realize that.  I look back, and I did what had to be done, but I did it for the wrong reasons.  So in that sense, I got a good picture of that yes, the grass is not always greener on the other side and I hope people do not make the same mistakes as me in this situation.

Youtube Link

Why do people use this function?  It is simply awful.  I know people who will hit the damn button for over an hour.  What the fuck?

If you want to sleep an extra hour, set your damn alarm for an hour later.  It is so stupid and I will NEVER understand this…it is more asinine than naming your car.  I hate spending the night at girlfriend’s places when they have to get up early and I dont if they like to wail on the snooze button like it was a cockroach trying to eat them alive for an damn hour.

Set your damn alarm later and stop using that stupid button, you’re waiting minutes of sleep waking up and falling back asleep.  If you use the snooze button, go bang your heard against some hard concrete and prepare to change your morning routine.

It is crazy to keep up the same old habits and expect the outcome to change when we don’t change anything ourselves.  What is it with these women?  These girls are very beautiful, and always go for the douche bag with the popped collar, hangs at preppy frat type bars and has on way too much cologne.

These girls never give a good looking nice guy a try, they need the hot bad boy instead and are still surprised when they are hurt.  If you hang around and associate with douche bag pricks, you’re going to get hurt.  Will these women ever learn?

That things called the NFL.  Christmas falls on a Sunday, and that is football day.  It is one of the last weeks of the NFL regular season and there will be some very important match ups with playoff implications.  I don’t expect many eyes to be on the NBA when important NFL games are to be had, and I know these eyes will be fixated on the NFL.

Why do people name their cars?

This is one thing (of many) that I will just NEVER understand.  I typically see both sides of the coin, but this one, there is one side of the coin that makes sense; it is stupid vs not stupid.  The stupid side is naming your car.

Your car has no soul, no personality.  It is great that it helps you get around, but that is it and it isn’t a horse.  At least those means of transportation are, um what is the word I’m looking for…oh ALIVE!

It is just stupid to name your car, and there is nothing else that needs to be said.

I love the MLB All-Star game, it is the only pro-sports one that is fun to watch, though it is losing any semblance of fun.  While I do appreciate Selig trying to making it matter and putting home field advantage for the world series at stake, it simply isn’t fair.

Texas had the better record this year, they should have been hosting and not St. Louis.  Why not make it so which ever league wins the All-Star game, the World Series is played by that league’s rule?  In other words, if the AL wins, there is always a DH no matter where the game is played and if the NL wins, the pitcher bats no matter where the game is played.

Just a thought to make the All-Star game mean “something” without potentially taking away home filed advantage for which ever team has the best record.

Every year it seems under Pitino we have a slew of injuries, most often in practice.  Some, myself include think Pitino and his intense practices are to blame, and I can see that.  The more fatigued someone is, the more likely they are to get hurt.  It doesnt seem like they get hurt during the games, but it is always at practice or when they are away from basketball all together.

Injuries do not seem to be the only thing with the Cardinals.  Almost every year there has been some recruit who could not make it or did not show up.  Add in the misses in recruiting of Rajon Rondo and Chris Lofton and it seems as if my team is truly cursed.

So does this happen at other big schools?  Does Pitino’s style of practice scare away a lot of the big talent other than the head cases or injury proned?  I am looking too much into this?  It just seems like UofL has so much bad luck in this department.

I love my city, but the whole city goes to Def-Con 1 when a quarter inch of snow is projected.  People drive a third of the speed limit and raid the stores for break, soup, milk and water.  It is nuts, this is not Miami Florida, this is Louisville Kentucky.  We get snow EVERY YEAR…you would think these people would get use to it, unless for every older person that moves to Florida, someone moves from Texas or Florida to Louisville?

I am a winner and I have been inspired.