Monday afternoon: Bright and shiny in the North Country . . .

1. Welcome to ciorstan.

2. Weather's been nice the last three days. All the way up into the 30s. ;)

3. Thank goodness I had a day off to cope with the wonder -- and insanity -- that is FaceBook. I have hooked up with several people I went to high school with (Yes, I am forever "Billy" to them), and we are looking at each other and saying, "Day-um. I am gonna be fricking 50 this year!).

4. I have run into a bunch of former students on FaceBook, and I have most of the requisite Scadians on there, too. Vels, I found Devon. She went to the event Saturday and took lots of pictures.

5. Am I off my rocker on the "Same-Sex Consort" discussion in sca? I mean, I survived "What to wear," and "Additional peerage," and the local NMS discussion (I am a voice of sanity). ;)

But this one really bothers me. First off, it's from someone whom I get annoyed at rather easily, and second, it's out of the clear, blue sky. I support from a purely "civil right" point of view it makes sense to argue for same-sex consorts, but I just don't get it. There are so many other issues that we need to tackle.

And I get very uncomfortable any time racism or sexism or homophobia comes into the discussion. I try very, very hard as a most straight white guy to be open and to understand others' points of view. I am firm in my beliefs that this would be a bad thing to discuss right now, but I still wonder.

Can anyone tell me whether they think I am earnest or crazy?

6. I will not be doing a "Betting Man's Guide" to K&Q Fencing. It's for a couple of reasons. If anyone wants to pick it up, take it.

7. And, finally, the New York Times reminds us that, well, shit happens. This is a little scary.

LONDON — Two nuclear submarines, one French and the other British, collided in mid-Atlantic earlier this month, reports in the British and French news media said on Monday, quoting sources in the two defense ministries. 

Both submarines were damaged extensively but have returned to their home ports since the collision on the night of February 3, the reports said.

The French vessel, Le Triomphant, was said to have suffered severe damage to its sonar dome, housing equipment crucial to navigation and tracking of other ships. The British craft, H.M.S. Vanguard, was towed back to its home port at Faslane in Scotland with “very visible dents and scrapes,” the BBC reported.

Another where are you from poll

There are a number of new folks here, and I just wanted to run through this one more time.

Please choose the kingdom you feel you "belong" to. Just one.

Thanks.


[Poll #1350327]

This time it's states and provinces . . .

I am further curious.

I am not going to list every state and province.

As I said before, there are a lot of new folks, and I am trying to get a feel for things again.

Please choose the state or province in which you live.

Thanks!

[Poll #1350349]

Who the heck is Billy Toscano anyway?

So, yeah, I have discovered FaceBook.

Wow, what a time sink!

Anyway, while I have connected with a lot of folks from here over there, I also have become "friends" with many folks from my past.

I wrote a "Catching Up" update, and I thought I might share it with you. No one here, other than Ernie, calls me "Billy" these days, and no one calls me "Mr. T." much at this point.

So this was written for the folks who have no clue who "Liam" is.

So, Just who is this Billy Toscano?

From my FaceBook:

OK, folks, this is going to be a rollercoaster.

I have three sets of "friends" on FaceBook -- my current friends and family, all of whom know what I have been up to and what I am up to, my students from Ledyard and Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, who lost track of me somewhere between 1995 and 2005, and all the "old people," I mean my friends from Westerly (R.I.) High School, some of whom have not seen me since 1977 or at random Thanksgiving Day games.

I am finding this really exciting, but I also know there's a lot to get caught up on.

Lemme see, the late 70s were kinda rocky, I did a year at Western New England College, during what should have been my senior year in high school, some time at in the machine shop Harris Press in Pawcatuck, Conn., then a brief attempt at URI, then some time in the yard at the Electric Boat General Dynamics shipyard in Groton, Conn.

This all convinced me that I needed to get serious about college, so I went back to URI, was a brother and ZBT and graduated in December 1980 with a degree in Journalism after almost majoring in Education instead.

[Ya'all know the got married, had great kids part]

During the 1980s, I worked at the Willimantic Chronicle, the Norwich Bulletin (twice), a small paper in Iowa -- which convinced me I needed to live on the East Coast -- and at The Day Newspaper of New London, Conn.

I covered mostly sports, including some pro stuff, but mainly high school football, basketball, wrestling and baseball. I covered a ton of auto racing and a lot more crew than your average sports writer.

I worked full-time at The Day until the second year of my Masters degree program at Connecticut College in New London. I worked part-time for the paper for the better part of 10 years.

I graduated in 1991, taught two years of middle school at Sacred Heart School in Groton, got into Ledyard High School part-time, then taught there full-time until 2002, when we moved so we could live near Boston, and I started at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, where I taught until 2007.

More teaching details and a current update to come.