3/26/2009

HITTING THE WALL

I fell asleep in the middle of a kung-fu movie around 8:45 this evening. While people were hitting each other with lots of swooshy sound effects. This is Jackie Chan I'm talking about, people, and I just went out like a light.

Every year there's a point where the strains of teaching and holding more than one gig down just catches up on me, and it's usually right before spring break and Holy Week. For me, spring vacation is a chance to get 'caught up' on whatever has been lagging in the last few months.

It can't come soon enough. A week after it's over, the dreaded state tests, so in that last interval I'm going to be giving an unprecedented push to try to get my kids up to par.

(sigh)

3/24/2009

THIS JUST IN . . .

Caldwell loses. What a shocker.

I've posted about this before
when they were denied by the Court of Appeals, and now the State Supreme Court essentially allows their complaint to perish from lack of attention.

Casey Luskin, are you paying attention? I've urged you to take me to court when you complained that NCSE and others who acknowledged faith traditions accepting evolution were trammeling on the Establishment Clause. I double-dog dared you. I guess maybe I was right when I claimed back then that you and the rest of the DI's lawyers were empty suits, grandstanding by offering some 'legalese' for the faithful that you knew would never pass muster in the courts. You could've at least saved Larry Caldwell some trouble by giving him some of that free advice you dispensed so liberally in the Dover case. Hello?

Silence.

Ftk, who made a federal case of this line of reasoning, where are you on Caldwell's setback? No comments, even after I invited you or any of your fellow travelers to observe my class and see if you could catch me indocrinating anyone? I even gave out my cell phone, but no one took me up on my offer back then. Curious!

Starwind, who filled up my comments thread with lengthy sermons as to my supposed hypocrisy on this point, nothing to say? I mean, really, this is pretty much a rejection by the courts of the merits of your argument, which claimed that even an allusion to or an acknowledgement of evolution-friendly belief was somehow prejudicial.

I hear crickets.

3/22/2009

WEIRD SATURDAY

Graded papers.

Had coffee and a bagel.

Graded more papers.

Viewed a DVD of my debate with Terry Scambray which aired on local TV station KNXT-49. I'm going to have to put segments of this on-line as I am able.

Graded more papers.

Had a meeting of some of the GM's in my fantasy baseball league. A happy hour-and-a-half of discussion about which league rules to tweak, and how.

Went and watched Watchmen (an R-rated flick) with my 20-year-old son. Felt slightly awkward during a sex scene which (thankfully) was nowhere as graphic as a fellow colleague had warned me it might be. Still, I was glad that my own little demon spawn is of age and didn't need my permission to see it. Not the usual father-and-son day, but then again, he's almost able to vote, so I guess I have to deal with it.

Overall, found the film to curiously more human and hopeful than the comic book, despite a skillful adaptation that followed the original with almost worshipful slavishness. Also, gobbled entirely too much popcorn with phony butter. Not exactly a healthy diet, sigh.

Rehearsed for two hours with my church's praise band. A difficult rehearsal, with new material, no female vocalists and starting late.

Went home around 8:30. Yea! My wife was back from the coast, and couldn't wait to have me rub her feet while regaling me with tales of her baseball-playing nephew and his school's one-sided exploits at the expense of Cal State Bakersfield, which has just graduated to Division I and does not yet have lights at their own ballpark. Not exactly surprising.

Went to bed early. Like I said, a weird day.