The Evil Spawn has finally arrived in 4th grade. 

It’s her Senior year of elementary school.

Things are about to get “very interesting” (my first and only Arte Johnson reference).

When parents think about his or her child’s class, they have a tendency to focus on the teacher (when I think they should focus on the group of kids… far more important… but that’s another blog).

Everyone wants the “right” teacher.

Some families want the nice teacher.

Some want the mean teacher.

Some want the teacher who loves technology.

Some want the teacher who puts on skits that the parents get to take off work so they can attend (ugh).

Some want the teacher older siblings had.

Me?  I always hope the Evil Spawn is promoted to the next grade so she gets a new teacher.

This year, I got lucky.

The Spawn got promoted!  I don’t mean to brag, but that’s 5 years in a row!  The streak continues!

That’s the good news.

The bad news is she has been placed in my wife’s class.

Yes, the Tech Queen and the Evil Spawn are combining forces.

This can’t be good.  For me.

It’s a lot of pressure to have your kid in your spouse’s class.

My wife is about to find out what I’ve always known.

The Evil Spawn is made up of half of me.

Not good.

Not good at all.

The quips.  The sarcasm.  The constant references to “comedy gold”.

This isn’t going to end well.

My wife is going to see what I’ve created.

It’s going to make for one long Parent-Teacher Conference.

I could be a failure as a father and a husband… all within 20 minutes (which would break my old record by 14 seconds).

I will no doubt spend the entire meeting sweating, looking at my watch, and cursing the day my daughter didn’t get held back.

As if things couldn’t get worse, my wife has her whole class blogging.  Now a bunch of 9 year olds are trying to root themselves into my line of work.  Double ugh.  Click HERE to read the future.

Comments: 8
Tags: Arte Johnson, blogging, Evil Spawn/Daughter, Tech Queen

Sad really.

The PrincipalsPage.com Blog now has over 300 email subscribers.

This means each time I post a half-thought out incoherent barely readable blog, over three hundred people receive it in their inboxes.

My assumption is 296 of them can’t hit delete fast enough.

And I’m okay with that.

When I got my first subscriber (back in the late 1960’s), I was moved to tears (not really, I’m a school administrator … we have no feelings because we are pretty much dead inside).

When the number reached 100, I assumed a rather large group of total strangers secretly got together to pull a cruel (and quite funny) practical joke on me.

At 200, I figured most of my readers were spammers and/or prison inmates (Shout Out to Cell Block 17!!!).

Now at 300, I’m starting to feel a sense of regret.

I feel like I should apologize.

Apologize for wasting everybody’s time.

Way too many people read this blog (18,315 unique visitors last month… not that I’m counting).

How many precious hours have been wasted by superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, tech people, and prisoners reading this junk?

It’s quite obvious (to me at least) that I have nothing intelligent to say.

The Evil Spawn is evil.

Buddy the Dog is lazy.

I’m not fit to be married, raise a child, run a school, or own a pet.

Old people don’t like change.

Schools need to implement more technology.

We get it.

Enough already.

Shouldn’t people have something better to do with their time than read this drivel?

Shouldn’t they be working to make education better for kids?

Shouldn’t they be selling illegal contraband to inmates in the next cell?

It’s quite possible I’m making the world a worse place in which to live because my followers are not being productive when they read this blog.

So if you are a subscriber or a visitor, thank you.

And I’m sorry.

I promise to stop.

If you promise to stop reading and get back to work.

Comments: 11
Tags: Buddy the Dog, Evil Spawn/Daughter, PrincipalsPage.com, subscribers, superintendents

My daughter is 9.

This means she thinks everything and everybody is weird (I don’t call her the Evil Spawn for nothing).

Her mom is weird (especially when she dances).

I’m weird (anytime I speak to her).

I get the feeling as parents we are in for a long decade.

She says “weird” so much, I’ve found myself doing it.

I don’t even remember what we were talking about , but I said something was weird.

She responded with “Weird like when you see your teacher at a grocery store weird?  Or like when someone you’ve know starts wearing a cowboy hat weird?”

I must admit I had to take a moment and think about this one.

Both of them are pretty weird.

When you’re a kid there is nothing weirder than seeing your teacher in public.

In a student’s mind, their teacher is always supposed to remain in their natural habitat.

The classroom.

Seeing them in any other type of situation just doesn’t seem right.

I get this same type of reaction as an administrator.

Students find it odd when they see me outside of school.

It’s even weirder for them if I’m wearing jeans.

Evidently, they think I should never leave the office and I should wear a tie 24 hours a day (if it makes them feel any better… I feel like I never leave the office and I wear a tie 24 hours a day).

So I guess weird is just anything out of the ordinary.

But to answer my daughter’s question, I’m going to have to go with weird like when someone starts wearing a cowboy hat.

I don’t care who you are, that’s weird.

You can only wear a cowboy hat if you’ve always worn a cowboy hat.

If you haven’t worn one by the age of 8, you can never wear one (it’s the law… Google it).

It’s not a fashion accessory you can just jump into mid-life.

It’s so weird, the next time my daughter has a friend over I may be wearing a cowboy hat.

If she thinks I’m weird now, she hasn’t seen anything yet (maybe it’s her that’s in for a long decade).

My daughter’s weird comparison comes from one of her favorite shows Phineas and Ferb.  I’ve watched it a couple of times.  It’s weird.

Comments: 13
Tags: cowboy hats, Evil Spawn/Daughter

Vacation.

You are either good at it or you are me.

And as usual, that’s not a good thing.

Because I stink at vacation.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the time away from home (code:  work).

I’m just not good at it.

Vacation is everything I despise.

No structure.  No schedule.  No reason to set the alarm to get up early.  No To Do List where I can scratch off my accomplishments in the order of importance. 

Just day after day of sitting around watching time pass by.

It’s unstructured and exhausting.

On the other side of the spectrum, my wife (Tech Queen), daughter (Evil Spawn), and Buddy the Dog are great at vacation.

They have walks to take, books to read, little towns to explore, naps to take, and movies to watch (in the effort of full-disclosure… Buddy isn’t that great of a reader).

This is also exhausting.

Watching them relaxing and accomplishing nothing.

The best part of vacation for me is the anticipation of going.  After that it’s all downhill.

Once I arrive at the chosen vacation spot, my thoughts turn to when we have to leave.

When should we start packing?

What time should we leave so we beat traffic?

Will we get back early enough so I can mow the yard?

A vacation is almost more exhausting than staying home and being in my normal routine.

Actually, it’s more than exhausting.

It’s a little pathetic now that I think about it.

Question/snide remark from said “Tech Queen” – A little pathetic?

Comments: 14
Tags: Buddy the Dog, Evil Spawn/Daughter, Tech Queen, vacation

I’ve been a little lax in my blogging.  The reason… we’re on vacation.

Well, kind of.

I’m not sure if you can technically call it a vacation when you drive over 19,000 miles with the Evil Spawn and Buddy the Dog in the backseat snoring (if that isn’t bad enough, they both drool while they sleep… and neither one can figure out why the truck seat is wet).

I must admit this obnoxious snoring is better than hearing “Are we there yet?”

To get from our house to the North Shore in Minnesota took approximately 87 hours.

Or at least it seemed like 87 hours (it may have been longer because at one point I passed out).

The trip was so long that I could have sworn we were going in circles.

I kept thinking… I know I’ve seen this “Welcome to Wisconsin” sign at least a dozen times.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is I’ve been able to drop off “The Grid”.

For educators “The Grid” is a triangle.  It goes from your home to school to Wal-mart (feel free to substitute another large mega-billion shopping store of your choice).

It’s a law.  Every teacher and administrator must spend 90% of their time inside their grid (unless school is in session… then it’s 98.5%).

I think there might be some fine print in NCLB that requires us to stay inside this restricted area.

Rumor has it educators who venture outside the “Grid” too often are never heard from again.

It’s the opposite of tenure.

So it’s a fine line between leaving your grid and going insane (and not a little insane… I’m talking Jack Nicholson in The Shining insane).

Because I don’t see the need in chasing the Tech Queen with an ax, we like to go on vacation at least once a year (unfortunately these never take place during school).

This year we headed for the woods.

A cabin in northern Minnesota.

Frighteningly close to my sworn enemies… the Canadians.

People ask me what I have against the good people of Canada.

Nothing.

I just don’t trust them.

Sooner or later they are going to get sick of the cold and storm our borders with the intent of taking Florida just so they can sit on a beach.

Mark my word, it’s coming.

As I sit here and type this blog, I’m within miles of the US-Canadian border (rest easy, I will keep an eye on them and if I can’t chase them back… Buddy the Dog can… unless of course, he’s napping).

So for the next several days I’m officially off “The Grid”.

No ESPN.  No internet.  No email.  No phone calls. No meetings.

No contact with any other human beings (unless it’s on a golf course… and I do apologize for almost hitting you with my drive off #7).

I’m unreachable.

I’m a ghost.

I don’t exist.

At least that’s what I told everyone at school.

Do you think they will believe I pre-wrote this blog and uploaded it before I left?

I guess I’ll never know since I’m not getting their emails.

Or at least I’m not answering them.

It’s good to be off “The Grid”.

Comments: 7
Tags: "The Grid", Buddy the Dog, Canada, Canadian's, Evil Spawn/Daughter, Jack Nicholson, Minnesota, NCLB, Tech Queen, The Shining, Wal-mart, Wisconsin

Karma 1.  Me 0.

I knew it was going to happen, yet I was powerless to stop it (kind of like being a school administrator).

I just knew Las Vegas at Easter was a bad idea.

Some would call that paranoia.  I call it good common sense when you know everyone is out to get you (again, kind of like being a school administrator).

We arrived in Vegas (no one says “Las Vegas” here).  It’s overwhelming to see this much neon and advertising.

It’s like no place I’ve ever seen.  It’s rich people, poor people, tattoos, sunshine, marble, fake grass, entertainers on the downhill portion of their career all combined with the smell of cigarette smoke.

When we go on vacation, I always think about what it would be like to move there.

That streak is over.

The first morning we decided we were hungry (sinners need to eat too…).

So we went to breakfast.  And made an investment.

A bad investment (aren’t they all in this economy?).

So much for the Evil Spawn going to college on our dime.  If she wants a degree it looks like she needs a job, some scholarships, and a loan (don’t feel badly for her… it worked for her parents).

Long story short… we got hosed.

I fired up the email machine to find someplace to eat.

Low and behold The Buffet at the Wynn came highly recommended.  Lucky for us, we are staying at the Wynn.

Turns out we weren’t that lucky (is anybody in Vegas?).

As we approached the cashier, I heard her tell my wife it was $36.95.

I thought that was a little pricey for two people, but it was their Easter Brunch (3 days early… that should have been my first clue).

Plus, who knows if we will ever be back so might as well live a little.

Then she rang us up and said “That’s $79.89 with tax.”

What???

$79.89 for a breakfast buffet?

What are they serving?  Gold?

Nope.

Eggs.  And bacon.

You heard me… bacon for $79.89.

I felt violated.

And hurt.  And confused.

I’ve never been to prison, but now I know the feeling.

Well done, Karma.  Well, done.

Comments: 9
Tags: bacon, Easter Brunch, Evil Spawn/Daughter, Las Vegas, The Wynn

We are going to Las Vegas this weekend.  By “we” I don’t mean the Evil Spawn who lives in our guest room (we don’t want her to think this little arrangement is permanent).

This is Easter weekend (Happy Easter Everybody!)

A time to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection.  Also, it’s when we look for plastic eggs in the backyard and eat the ears off of hollow chocolate rabbits (I’m pretty sure this isn’t WJWD).

Evidently, it’s also the time to take our first trip to Sin City (I don’t know which Mobster came up with the idea for Vegas… but on behalf of millions of visitors each year… I would like to say, Thank You).

While this sounds like fun, I have a feeling we may have angered our old friend Karma.

A weekend in Las Vegas during Easter may not be the best idea we’ve ever had.

There is wrong and then there is WAY WRONG.

This is undoubtedly the later.

But don’t blame us.  We need to make some money because we have bills to pay (or not… time will tell).

Our lives just wouldn’t be complete without seeing Penn & Teller (magicians and one of them doesn’t talk… HILARIOUS!).

Only in America can two educators take their hard earned money (thank you taxpayers) and fly across the country to enjoy an all you can eat $2.50 buffet (now that’s a good steak).

And you wonder why I love this country?

You may have noticed I didn’t mention anything about the Evil Spawn participating in this latest trip.

She’s banned.

This is a bit of a “sore subject” at our house.

Not so much for us, but for her.

She has no tolerance for anything that involves hotels and eating out without her being included.

When we told her (by “we”, I mean my wife) about the trip, her response (after a long pause) was “You two better be kidding me.”

We weren’t.

She gets a fun-filled weekend with the grandparents (who will also be hosting their favorite grandchild… Buddy the Dog).

This is a classic win-win-win.

We get Las Vegas.

The casinos get the Evil Spawn’s college fund.

And she gets to be the one member of the family who has a better than 4 to 1 shot of getting into Heaven.

Comments: 6
Tags: Buddy the Dog, Easter, Evil Spawn/Daughter, Las Vegas, Penn & Teller

A single meeting can drag on for hours.  Days last forever.  And weeks seem like they will never end.

How is it that a decade can fly by so quickly?

By my estimation decades are about 10 years long (feel free to double-check my math).  That means the last ten years accounts for approximately 1/8 of my life (if all goes well).

I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m living on borrowed time (my life is half over… I hope it wasn’t the good half).

Before the inevitable happens (I’m crossing my fingers that my Evil Spawn doesn’t put me in a nursing home… or a crate), I want to acknowledge how things have changed for me since the good old days (the year 2000).

Back then:

I was a punk teacher who thought I had all the answers.  Now I’m a punk school administrator who realizes that I don’t have any answers (and barely know all of the questions).

I coached a high school varsity boys basketball team.  Now, I coach 3rd and 4th grade girls.

In 2000, I didn’t own my house, truck, a suit, or have any investments.

I believed athletes were honest (steroids), hard-working, and good people (sorry Tiger, but I’m still heart broken).

I trusted politicians.

Buddy the Dog didn’t rule my house (that I didn’t own).

I was a year away from meeting the Evil Spawn.

And hearing my wife curse like a sailor during childbirth.

I didn’t have a Master’s or Specialist’s Degree.

I had never been to Florida, Texas, California, Colorado or basically anywhere.  Mainly because I had never been on an airplane, in a cab, or on a train.

I didn’t have a passport.

Or a cell phone.

We had a computer (that was huge), but it was slower than the phone I now carry around in my pocket.

I used to read the newspaper and look forward to the mail arriving.

Google, Twitter, Posterous, and thousands of other technology things were yet to be discovered.

I was newly-married (and yet my wife hasn’t aged a day in the last 10 years… yes, she reads the blog).

I hadn’t written a blog, read a blog, or heard of a blog.

My big concern back then was Y2K, not the Swine Flu.

Gas was cheap, but I never thought about it.

I spent my evenings watching TV, not working on a laptop.

I had a credit card, but no money to pay it off (because every cent went to student loans).

Any maybe the biggest thing… in 2000 I had absolutely no concept of time.  I didn’t think about the future.  I didn’t think about anything. 

Oh, how life has changed.  So quickly, in such a short time.

It makes me wonder what I’m about to face in the next decade.  What we are all going to face.

In the world.  At school.  In our personal lives.

For me, the next 10 years means I will celebrate my 50th birthday (how is that possible?), my 25th anniversary (what was she thinking?), and my daughter’s high school graduation.

My biggest hope for the next decade is it goes a little slower than the last one.

And I don’t end it in a crate.

Note from wife… Newly married?  We got married in 1995.  A half a decade prior to 2000.  Does that still qualify as “newly married”?

Comments: 3
Tags: basketball, decade, Evil Spawn/Daughter, Google, Posterous, swine flu, Travel, Twitter, Y2K

It’s December.  Which means we are in the middle of another jam-packed holiday season.

This sounds like a good thing.

It’s not.

I’m not saying the holidays are bad, just busy.  Way too busy.

When I was a kid, Thanksgiving and Christmas constituted the most exciting time of the year.

The anticipation.  The gifts (even the socks and underwear).  Snow.  Time off from school.

It was great.

It was a nice change of pace from the rest of the hectic year.

Today, holidays mean a lack of sleep and not enough room on my Google calendar (I don’t really have a Google calendar but I’m trying to make a point and promote technology use in schools all at the same time).

Each year, around the 20th of November I know my time is no longer my time.

It is merely a block of minutes in which I’m required to be somewhere doing something with some people.

These people come in all shapes and sizes.  Friends, co-workers, relatives, and acquaintances.

And other people you may want to rain blows down upon (everyone who emails me an explanation of this line wins… nothing).

Now before you email me about my Bah, Humbug spirit (with the word Scrooge in the subject line), hear me out.

The time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day is filled with the following:
 

Thanksgiving dinners (2)

Christmas Parties (1… I’m really not that popular)

Christmas Parade

Winter Concerts (2)

Christmas Program at church (2)

Christmas Gift Openings (3)

Christmas dinner

Girl Scouts (2)

Requests for Fundraising Donations (1 gazillion)

School board meeting

Basketball practice (2)

Basketball games (5 or more)

Wife’s workshops (5)

Vacation to Disneyland or world (thankfully only 1… I just don’t know which one we are visiting)

A 5k

Piano Lessons (7)

Dog walks (75… Buddy drinks way too much water)

Presentations (4)

Meetings (more than I can count)

Interviews (1 … again, not that popular)

Blogs (10 at least)

Naps (0… or 1 if I’m lucky)

Holiday lunches at school (2)

Emails (over 1,000… really)

Shopping (actually I don’t shop, so scratch this one)

These are just the things I could remember without looking at my non-Google calendar.  I didn’t even mention the getting fat from too much food and too little exercise.

If I get a free second and I sit down to watch TV, all I see are commercials where beautiful people are giving each other gifts that I know they can’t afford in real life.

My point is the holidays aren’t really holidays.

At least they aren’t as peaceful and restful as I think they should be.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but there has to be a better way.

**Note from “the wife”…  I DO have a Google calendar and promote technology use in the schools.  I am what you call the real deal… and according to that aforementioned calendar, I too am overbooked!

Comments: 4
Tags: Christmas, Disneyland, Girl Scouts, Google calenda, holiday stress, Holidays, New Year's Day, thanksgiving

My Evil Spawn missed 3 days of school this week.

Much to our surprise she wasn’t suspended.  Just sick. 

Maybe the suspension will come later.  Or maybe she will just be incredibly sneaky and not get caught.  Either way, any chance of her having perfect attendance is gone.

Someone will undoubtedly email me to let me know that I’m way too negative when I blog about my Evil Spawn/daughter (odds are the email will be long, angry, hate-filled, use abusive language, and question my ability to parent… and it’s 50/50 that it will be from her mother).

I’m not negative.  I’m a realist.

While she is a very good little girl (even though she thinks she’s 37 and my boss), there is no doubt in my mind that she will have some ups and downs as she makes her way through what will no doubt be several school systems (some she may leave… some she may be asked to leave…).

I’m the exact opposite of those parents who think their kids will never do anything wrong.

My job is not to make excuses for her.  It’s to help prepare her to deal with the mistakes (and trust me, they are coming… between the ages of 12-18… in bunches).

At least for this week, no suspension.  Just sick.

Much to our surprise she didn’t have the Swine Flu.  Not that we would know because we are way too cheap to shell out the cash to have her tested for H1N1.

So we just decided it wasn’t the Pig Disease (really no different than people deciding they have it…).

She had a sore throat, headache, high temperature, and was really lazy.  Although it’s hard to tell if the lazy thing was part of the illness or just regular behavior.

Since she didn’t feel well, it meant one of us had to stay with her.  Evidently, the government has some sort of rule that says little girls can’t stay at home by themselves and watch 72 straight hours of Nickelodeon unless they are accompanied by an adult.

This makes no sense to me, but neither did all of the financial bailouts.

We have a system at our house in which we take turns staying home on the spawn’s sick days.

Since I lost the coin flip, I got days 1 and 3.  My wife got day 2.

I learned a lot during my 48 hour stretch in sick prison.

One Regis Philbin has dyed his hair a disturbing color of dark brown.  This would have been appropriate about 60 years ago (when he was 18).

Secondly, thermometers have come a long way.  I had no idea the ones with batteries were so easy to us.

When I was a kid, my mom stuck a cold glass tube that was filled with mercury in my mouth.  I then had to hold it under my tongue (while gagging) for 37 straight minutes.

That’s if I was lucky.

If I wasn’t lucky she stuck it someplace besides my mouth.

I would blog about these incidents, but I’ve done my best to suppress most of those memories.

In today’s world of technology, kids can take their own temperature.  Which mine did about every 8 minutes (during each and every commercial break).

While her temperature went up and down, she wasn’t sick sick.  I was very thankful for that.

I want to be a good dad, but I’m not overly interested in the throwing up process.

Evil Spawn calls this “spilling”.

The very first time she got sick (at the age of 2… or 7… if you need to know the exact time line you will have to ask her mom… I’m just the dad), she was so apologetic for “spilling” and making a mess on the floor.

And on her pajamas.

And the couch.

And the windows.

And the ceiling.

You have probably figured out why I’m not a big fan of the “sick” sick.

The third and last thing I learned was even when you aren’t at work, you are still at work.

While technology has made thermometers better, it hasn’t improved some other parts of my life.  Like making things simpler.  I thought the ability to access information, email, and be in constant contact was supposed to help.

It doesn’t.

A sick day used to mean I was totally cut off from the world for a day (or in this case, two days).

There was something peaceful about that.  It made you slow down.  And rest. 

And enjoy the Price is Right uninterrupted.

It today’s world, you just keep going.

And going.

And going.

It’s almost like there isn’t time to be sick.

Comments: 4
Tags: Evil Spawn/Daughter, Nickelodeon, price is right, Regis Philbin, Technology, thermometers