Sunday morning: Looking good and feeling tired . . .

1. Welcome to jtrumbore.

2. Someone linked me to Historical Enterprises in reference to a nice, glass drinking vessel for Pennsic.

There was this not on the site:

Order processing will be temporarily suspended until Aug 14, while we are away at a trade show. Thanks for your patience.

A trade show, eh?

3. I was looking at this picture of these two Olympic rowers, and my first reaction was "Wow, their coach looks like Arnold Schwargenegger!"

Then I read the cutline and found it it was indeed the governor of California. These two are prett-good sized guys.




Boston Globe

4. The way I figure it, today is the absolute most important day in terms of preparing for and packing for War. We're leaving Friday morning, and we both work Thursday, so we need to get a lot done today. The dishes are also not doing themselves again. ;)

5. I want to make a more complete post about yesterday, but I am blessed to have friends with whom I can go out and have a great time. There were yarn stores, a book store, a bar, a brewpub with great food, a Trader's Joe trip and a beauty supply store . We had a great time and did not get caught too badly in the two big storms that moved three.

6. Hey fellas? Is a win today too much to ask? It's all Manny's fault anyway.

7. A second photo, this one from Lady Aline. It is from a set about Ansteorran Crown Tournament . Thanks to bubbette for the link.

Teachers, students, texting and MySpace

This is another re-post of something I put up at Teachers.Net .

The discussion was about this story:

Districts regulating text, web messaging


Someone said "It's none of their $%^&$^* business."

This is my reply:

Hey, Tom!

I am going to politely disagree in some respects.

1. The main reason they are putting this rule in place is to avoid the following conversation in court after a teacher is arrested for sexually assaulting a student and the relationship is carried on in chat and Myspace.

Lawyer: "So Mr. Administrator, was it against school rules for Mr. Bonehead to text Annie and for her to test him?"

Administrator: "No, there was nothing in school rules about that."

Lawyer: "Was it against school rules for them to have conversations and communication through MySpace?"

Administrator: "No, it was not."

Lawyer: "So you encourage inappropriate contact between teachers and students that leads to sexual assault?"

OK, maybe that a little deep end. But part of this is proactive for the school district, in case a teacher gets in trouble this way.

2. To me, MySpace is just a dangerous place for a teacher. You have an account. Your students link to your account, their friends link to their accounts. In three clocks from your account, we're looking at half-naked teen-agers swilling beer. I have a social network account. Not on MySpace or FaceBook. Nothing there connects to my real name. Students have found me through my daughter's account, and I have asked them to please leave until they are 18.

3. This is personal: Texting is just too informal. It brings the student-teacher relationship to a less formal relationship.

4. My students have my home phone and a working e-mail address for me. So do their parents. That works well enough.

Note to my SCA friends: Do you see a parallel between No. 1 and the background checks?

Note: It took me six or so tries to get through the site's filter. It rejects sexual and MySpace.