Unique F.O.C.I.S.

Break is about over. In fact, tomorrow morning it’s back to the classroom and everything that goes with it. The NISCA clinic and convention was, for me, of mixed success. It was considerably less attended than what I had envisioned in my head with what I’d estimate as maybe 125 people. A lot of the conference seemed to revolve around a swim meet or trials or something that was going on here as well. For those who had purchased tickets, there were two trips to the meet each day. I hadn’t purchased tickets because I didn’t really have any interest in the meet. I can watch fast swimmers during the Olympics on TV this summer. While I did hear some things that got the wheels turning for next year’s season, the clinic portions of the conference we almost worthless. I met some neat people and, through conversation, learned some things that I can try next year. There was no evaluation form to fill out so I plan to send a letter to someone to let them know what would have made it better.

The trip, however, was not a waste of time. I got to see one of my oldest friends from college, Darren Smith. I skipped out on the awards dinner part of the conference at the end to go spend time with him. He’s pretty busy with the work he does and I knew it would be much more rewarding to spend time with him than to watch people I didn’t know receive awards.

He took me down to the Pike Place Market and since he did the driving, I bought lunch. The weather, which had been weird for the past couple of days (including snow, sleet, rain and sunshine) was very cooperative for the tour. We had an incredible lunch at a place called Maxamilian’s then walked around to check things out.

I really like this picture I took because of the contast of the grays in the sky with the dark colors just barely visible on the sign. Apart from the attraction of the flying fish that eveyone is so familiar with, the place was your standard street market with equal amounts of fresh food and worthless junk for sale. We picked up a little dessert at a place called Peroshky Peroshky. They were apparently famous for their meat pies and dessert type pastries. There was a line of people waiting to make a purchase the entire time we were in the market. My chocolate and cinnamon roll was fantastic. We were nealy caught in the middle of a Happening while at the market. Right after we’d made our way through an unusually large and suspicious group of people, a whistle blew and about 50 people started a pillow fight. You can see photos and a video of the fun HERE.

From the market we headed to the Olympic Sculpture Garden. Two of the works I really liked were one my artist, Richard Serra, called Wake. It’s a giant installation made of cor-ten steel ‘waves’ that create a really interesting space when one walks among them. I have never seen any of Serra’s work in person before now and as I suspected, photographs don’t do the work justice.

The other work was Louise Nevelson’s, Eye Benches. There were three sets of benches, one of which is pictured below, are all carved from black Zimbawian granite. The backside of each eye looked very much like a bench.

By the time we’d finished the park, it had started to rain so we headed back to my hotel so the Darren could get back home at a decent hour. My hotel was in a pretty raggedy part of Tacoma by my standards. It was very industrial and somewhat rundown. There were no identifiable food joints within any reasonable distance and on my walks to the bus stop, I heard people talking to themselves in a crazy sort of way. That evening I played with the multiple exposure function on my camera and took this mysterious self portrait called ‘Dreams.’ I had fun with it and will certainly be playing with it again at some point.

I am at the Seatac airport now and because there are visibility problems there, they have slowed all incoming fights. My 12:25 departure is now looking like 2:00. I had about a 2 hour layover in Chicago anyway so hopefully I can still make my connection to RDU.

For the first time in probably 15 years, I am officially revolving debt free. I now have only a school loan and a mortgage. I anticipate being able to pay off the school loan by mid-summer. It’s a unique and wonderful feeling.

Spring break started on Friday of last week. It has been good to live with an open schedule. I’ve gotten some yard work done and finally cut down a dead tree that has been waiting for me to do so since I moved in almost 3 years ago.

I head to Seattle on Thursday for a swimming conference and clinic. I initially thought I was going to have to spend around $70 on ground transportation getting to the hotel and back to the airport. The hotel is in Tacoma. But a little extra research and I found that I could take the bus for all of $5 round trip. If I’m lucky it will be a nice sunny day and I’ll be able to see part of the city and enjoy the ride.

Now I’ve stepped in it. I’m giving TeacherTube and my video making and editing skills a try. Since YouTube videos are generally blocked by school systems, TeacherTube allows educators to upload instructional videos. Below is my first video, one that shows my online students how to create a sphere using colored pencil. There is background information that they already have so I didn’t add any narration. It’s not very exciting but for students who need to SEE a process, it could be just the thing.

My high school team had a perfomance on Tuesday that went very well. So much better than the beginning of the year. We played a game where I had an audience volunteer come up on stage and perform with the team. His name was Roland and he’s the 8 year old son of one of the faculty here at school. He did a great job and loved the experience, so much so that he sent me a thank you note. It was in my box this morning. Below is a drawing he did.

This is his view of another game we played called We Need Gas. If you’ve played or seen the game, you may recognize the people in the car and the others off to the side, one of which is saying, “Oh no!, Fish Hunting Dorks are stealing our car.” Hilarious.