Guest Teaching Experiences

My oh my, was I as precocious as some students are these days? I have lately been a guest teacher at schools in the Eagle County School District. I wouldn't treat any guest the way they often treat me. Suffice it to say, subbing is hard! God bless the teachers who do this every day.

Continuing, because of the size of Battle Mountain High School and in turn the amount of teachers employed, it is quite frequent that they need subs. So I often go to that school. There are pluses and minuses to subbing in high school and I am contemplating subbing more in the lower grades where there is a little more respect.

At the high school level, most of the teachers have a free period as their planning period. So it's quite nice to kick back and get paid during their planning time. Generally as a high school sub you also really aren't teaching. Well, at least I hope I'm not required to teach Physics, am I? Every now and again, there will be subject matter I see the students working on which I don't remember quite well. And that is the good thing, I am not expected to teach, I'm just a warm body. All in all, I just ask them to do according to the plans and then fight them tooth and nail for them to do it.

Perspective

A little persective in life can help one see things in a different light. Many of those trying to obtain Rockies tickets yesterday were quite frustrated in the failed system (myself included). To add perspective, my good friend Anne who lives in San Diego was witnessing a completely different frustrating and life-threatening situation - the raging fires of Southern California. Makes my little woe of "I can't get tickets" a little less important. May the winds shift and nature be kinder to those in California.

World Series Tickets

Trying to get World Series Tickets can be very frustrating. I have two computers trying to access the site and neither are working. Grrrrrrrr....

Snowstorm in October

A heck of a storm came through the Rockies today. It's that time of year where you can have 60-70 degree weather one day, and the next snow. It's what makes living in Colorado enjoyable, the erratic nature of the weather. And though the Vail Ski Resort isn't open yet, there's something about snow that brings out the little kid in all of us.

I had a bit of a scare today though. I was at my friend's house hanging out while our dogs were both outside playing. I guess my dog McCarthy got bored and decided to go out on an adventure. I was keeping an eye out for him most of the time, but at one instant, I looked out and no sign of the brown dog. I searched high and low, and ran in the back of the neighbor's apartment complex and was awkwardly alarmed by a couple in a hot tub enjoying the snow falling. Excuse me, have you seen a chocolate lab? Happy to be of service and seemingly not bothered by the disruption, yeah the brown dog came this way, but I'm not sure where he went.

I kept searching on foot and then realized, it's time for the car search. After removing endless amounts of snow off my car, off I went. I stopped at the park down the road, no sign... next bit of the route was on a surface road along I-70, should I be looking on the highway for stopped vehicles, police.... I couldn't think the worst. I quickly turned into a parking lot that is really close to our house and is home to Ace Hardware, Safeway and other shops. Lo and behold, behind the front counter of Ace Hardware, my brown dog McCarthy was safe and sound, sitting behind the counter soliciting biscuits. I should have known... he's a guy, he loves hardware stores and the treats they dispense.

Before I went out on my dog search, I had rounded up some kids in the neighborhood to keep an eye out for my dog. When I returned they were happy to see the prodigal dog (should I call him that if I was the one who had to convince him to return, he would have stayed all day behind the counter eating treats). Kaleb and Zach spent the next hour tackling McCarthy, playing monkey in the middle with him, trying to shoot the ball by him as McCarthy acted like a goalie. At one time I overheard Kaleb stating, "This is the best day ever! I'm going to write about this tomorrow." A big smile was plastered over my face. I hope I can be more kid-like and enjoy each moment like Kaleb and Zach were....

Biggest Day Of The Year For The Irish

A win is a win, finally.

I work on Saturdays, in the day at the Vail Information Center and at night at Billy's Island Grill. At the restaurant, we have some tvs in the bar area so I try to keep up on college football. This particular evening, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were playing a late game against UCLA, which I thought was being broadcasted on ABC. When myself and the other football gurus flicked furiously through the channels, we realized, the game was being televised by ESPN GamePlan, to which our restaurant had not subscribed. Probably for the best, we weren't expected to win. That's the nice thing about low expectations, you get happily surprised sometimes.

I tried to keep an eye out throughout the night for the game tickers during other football games that might show the score. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw 20-6 in the 4th quarter, Notre Dame on top of UCLA. I became a raging lunatic, promptly putting together an attack plan of how I would somehow watch the closing 4th quarter. I looked up in the phone book the number for a neighboring establishment, a sports bar which I thought must have the game on. Bingo, I was in luck. Next step, pawn off my two dining customers to another waiter, and oh yeah, somehow have my boss, also the owner, allow me to just take off in this frenzy. His first response, no way... second response, yes, if you can explain it to your customers. Now I probably couldn't sell water to someone in the Sahara Desert but expressing my compelling desire to watch this game was no problem. Off I went to watch the dramatic 4th quarter in which Notre Dame proudly won its first game, and only game to date of the season!

Iam highly indebted to my co-worker who took care of my customers and to the owner Billy who kindly allowed me to watch this victory....

Colorado River Fun

Nothing like a couple of days on the Colorado River to clear your mind... Friends and I rafted a section of the Colorado River in early October. While we didn't feel compelled to swim and jump as much as we would have during the summer, we had pretty decent weather. We faced a little bit of rain on our first day, but the second day we woke to beautiful blue skies, just what we wanted for our sojourn through the rapids that could potentially soak us!

I ran the river with a well-seasoned captain, Captain Dave! I barely got a drop of water on me, except for his intentional, let's-see-how-much-I-can-drench-her antics. It was good fun and after getting off the river, I headed to Moab, one of the fond places of my travels. While I am no longer a paid traveler, it's still in my blood, getting out there and exploring and the desert in the fall sure is nice.