‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 17 (Part 6)

Well, it’s Saturday and I thought I would get some time to myself, but it really didn’t work out that way too well.  I got up fairly late this morning and got myself going for the day.  I got up by 9:30 this morning and managed to go downstairs and watch the “Clone Wars” episode from last night again, while I continued to grade papers.  I felt good about myself in the fact that I had managed to get all the final exams graded by the time noon rolled around.  I got done by lunch and came upstairs and had some lunch with Heather and the kids.  I got done and went back downstairs and started to work on editing the latest episode of the podcast.  I decided to take a break for a while doing this, and played “Call of Duty” online for a while before we had to get ready to go and have a “Chicken and Biscuits” dinner with Austin’s Boy Scout troop.  So, we went over to the church and had a nice dinner while talking to some of our neighbors who had come to the dinner to support Austin as well.  We got done and came home and I set things up and Ian and I recorded one more time and we managed to finish up within about an hour tonight.  We finished recording and talked about what we wanted to do about the future of the show for about an hour or so and Ian left.  I then went to work editing the show again, and stayed up late tonight.  I realize with the Superbowl tomorrow, I’m not even going to get the first part of this show out on time.  All well!

Okay, let’s talk about Part 6 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 17 (Part 5)

Well, it’s Friday and it’s the end of the week and you would think that I would be excited about that fact.  But in reality, my whole weekend has become mass chaos, so I’m not too excited about the propsition of the weekend because I have nothing to do but work.  I got up at my usual time this morning and got the kids going for the day.  I knew I had a rough day ahead of me as it was the last day of the quarter for my students and it was the last day to give my final exams.  I knew there would be a bit of relief on their part to finish the class, but a bit of trepidation as they start a new class on Monday.  I got to school and got things ready and finished giving the final exams for my class.  It was a rough day at school and at the end of the day, we found out some “interesting” news about my school and all I’ll say is that my school is “falling apart” in it’s own way.  I got done with my school day and a staff meeting and came home and crashed for a little bit.  Once I got home, I started to grade papers and working on catching up on some work that I needed to.  I got done with that and Ian showed up just as we were about to eat dinner, so we ate dinner quick and then Ian joined me downstairs and we recorded our podcast together for a little bit.  We took a break in time to watch “Clone Wars”.  We were going to record after watching the show, but Ian had to leave.  So, I decided to take what we had recorded and I started to edit that part of the show.  I stayed up late and edited and then went to bed.  It’s going to be quite the busy weekend.  Can’t wait to get to the break coming up for school!

Okay, let’s talk about Part 5 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes……

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 17 (Part 4)

It’s Thursday and quite honestly I pretty much hit the ground running today.  I got up and got the kids ready for school.  As soon as Ruth got up, she wasn’t looking too well and she said she was sick to her stomach and was dizzy.  I immediately sent her back to bed and told Heather she was sick.  Heather said she would get home at ten from work which would only leave Ruth home alone without an adult and since she’s in Sixth Grade, I didn’t see a big issue with that.  I got the other two kids ready for school and the babysitter showed up on time and I was out the door for work and they were off to school.  I got to work and got everything together and prepared things for the final exams.  There was a LOT of work to be done.  I tested the entire day and even had to switch classes with the other teacher in order to record her students for a project we’re doing.  There wasn’t a period I did not have something going on throughout the entire day.  There were brief moments of sanity and when I got those, I was continuing on notes for the next podcast.  After school I had musical auditions.  This year, we’re doing the musical “Honk, Jr.” and it should be cool.  We had quite a few students audition and I didn’t even leave the school till quarter till five.  I got home at five o’clock and Heather told me we were ordering out for dinner, which was just fine with me!  While she did that and went out and picked up the dinner I continued to work on the show notes.  Once Heather got home, I went upstairs and had pizza and wings with her and the kids and then went back downstairs and continued to work on show notes.  I got finished by seven o’clock, so I decided to reward myself with some “Call of Duty 4″.  I couldn’t get hooked up online (not sure why) but played the game as a standalone for a while.  At eight o’clock I continued to work on other portions of the show notes while watching “American Idol”.  After that, I finished working and Heather and I watched “C.S.I.” and then we watched “Hell’s Kitchen” which we had taped.  It was a long day and I’m glad I got the show notes done.  Tomorrow I have to record with Ian, which means I’m going to have to miraculously clear some space off my laptop by tomorrow night.  Oi!

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 4 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 17 (Part 3)

Well, it’s Wednesday and it ended up being a snow day for me today.  I got up to the phone ringing at about quarter till six this morning (I think) and found out we had a snow day.  I went out and checked the TV and found out the kids had a snow day too, so I went back to bed.  It was Heather’s day off so she was home as well.  The kids were nice enough to let us sleep in and Heather and I both got up around nine o’clock or so.  We got up and watched “Dr. Phil” together and it was about couples that didn’t tell each other about their lives before they got married.  I found it interesting as Dr. Phil had made several suggestions before getting married to have a successful marriage and Heather and I didn’t do any ONE of them, but I would like to say we’ve had quite the successful marriage.  Maybe there is no one answer to a successful marriage.  We got done with that and I told Heather I was going downstairs to work on the notes for my podcast, so she decided to join me.  I worked on notes for a little bit and Heather had the kids shovel the driveway.  At about eleven o’clock or so, Heather took the kids and they left to go shovel out Marsha’s driveway and I decided to reward myself for working most of the morning and I played about a half an hour to an hour of “Call of Duty 4″ online.  I had some fun taking down the bad guys and what-not!  Around twelve-thirty I went upstairs and we all had a lunch of leftovers together as Heather had rewarded the kids for helping out by buying some food at the Giant on the way home for lunch.  We had lunch while we watched the news on Fox News Channel and my wife got disgusted at the fact that the Congress is willing to spend 200 million dollars on the National Mall and over a trillion on new “gas efficient” cars for State Officials.  Which, as my wife said, is a smoke-screen to get new vehicles.  But, just remember, we’re in an economic crisis, right?  Or are we?!  Anyway, we got done watching the news and I was just about to head back downstairs to work on my podcast notes and wrap those up to get them out to Ian tonight, when my wife made the “insane” suggestion.  She suggested we take the bar out of the game room in the basement.  When I asked here when she would like to do this, she said, “how about today?”  Oi!  She still hasn’t gotten my point about starting one project and finishing it until we move onto another project.  But, hey, she wears the pants in the family and her wish is my command.  I think she was just looking for some demo work, so she wanted to work on that today.  So, I had to clear off my work table, move everything around in the room and get it ready for her to demo.  Then, while she demoed, I worked on show notes for the next episode of “The Jedi Council Speaks”.  I didn’t get too much done before I had to go back to work on the room.  I rearranged the ENTIRE game room.  With the bar gone, I was able to move things around and give myself some space in there.  Heather and I created a space for Ian and I to have a podcast studio in that room.  That is going to be SO cool that we will be able to record in that room.  All Ian and I will need to do is run a power line up and over the concrete wall and badabing, we have a podcast studio.  But holy crap!  I can’t believe the amount of work I had to do today.  I worked on organizing the room my entire afternoon after Heather removed the bar.  She got done with that and headed to Lowes because she wanted to change out the light above the bar in the room because the light looked like total crap!  So, while she was doing that I was arranging the room.  She came back in time to make dinner.  We made dinner together and then went downstairs to work on the electrical together.  She pulled apart the electrical and I tried to tell her how to hook the electrical up (she wanted to put a socket where the light used to hang) but she didn’t want to listen to me!  She tried her stubborn way several times until finally she gave in and listened to me, and shockingly {note the sarcasm} my idea worked!  We installed a new shoplight that gives the room a TON of new light and I continued working well into the night.  I finished organizing that room by about seven o’clock and then I worked on organizing the shop while Heather talked to me about the Superbowl Party she wants to host on Sunday and what we’re going to serve.  I continued working on the shop while I watched “Knight Rider” and “Criminal Minds”.  I stopped all of my work by ten o’clock and sat down and watched “Law and Order” with Heather and then we went to bed together.

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 3 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 17 (Part 2)

Well, it was Tuesday and it was the calm before the storm, no doubt!  I got up this morning and got the kids going and ready for the day.   I knew it was going to be a busy day both at school and at home.  I know that I have limited time with my students for the rest of this quarter and I have a sneaking suspicion that we will have a snow day tomorrow, so that had a drastic impact on my expectations on what to do today.  I got the kids ready for school and our babysitter showed up on time and the kids were off to school while I was off to work.  I got to work and came up with a game plan for the day today.  I decided today I would need to do final exam prepartations.  I would normally do that tomorrow along with a music Jeopardy game, but I have a feeling there won’t be a “tomorrow” at school, so I had to do everything I could to get these kids ready for their final exams.  I got through my day today and I think my students understood what to expect if tomorrow was a snow day.  I spent most of my prep time today finshing up on paperwork and getting copies ready and the last minute grading of papers.  I did all of this while waiting to get ready for SMASH.  I then ran into some of my old students in the building and they interviewed me for a project for school asking me about Obama, the economy and America today.  They really liked my simple solution to the economic problems of our times.  I say it’s a simple solution, a Tariff on all goods coming into this country from foreign countries.  If we did a 5% Tariff, it would encourage Americans to buy American made and it may draw factories back to the states that have gone overseas a long time ago.  I got done and headed over to SMASH rehearsal and we had a good practice putting Superstition together.  We did that all rehearsal and I invited Jim and his son to my Superbowl party and he said he and Robert would be there.  I then brought Ruth home and we had pancakes for dinner and then I went downstairs and watched “American Idol” and “Fringe” while organizing my shop and then I blogged while watching “Family Guy” and then went to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 2 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 17 (Part 1)

Monday and what a busy, busy, busy day it was.  But I got a lot done!  I got up this morning feeling a little more refreshed from the weekend.  I definetly felt better today than I did yesterday.  I got up and got the kids going for their day today.  We got up and watched the “Today” show like we always do and discovered that there is a storm heading this direction and is supposed to hit the area sometime Tuesday night going into Wednesday.  Ruth is not happy about this because the “Bridging Ceremony” for her Girl Scout troop has already been delayed once, and if it snows on Wednesday and we have a snow day from school, it will get delayed again.  I was in a little bit of a state of panic as I had planned on doing my final exam review Jeopardy on Wednesday and it looks like that may not even happen at all!  Well, it’s time to retool the teaching for the last week of the quarter!  Our babysitter showed up on time and the kids were off to school while I was off to work.  I got to school and got myself ready for the day.  We finished up recording the music videos for my eighth graders, finished up podcasts for my seventh graders, and my one sixth grade music class caught up on music history while the other had a second recorder test.  I spent the day grading papers on my prep periods and I was then filling out Two-Week Reports so they can be handed out tomorrow and due on Thursday.  I continued working on those till the end of the school day.  I got done with school and came home and continued working on Two-Week Reports.  Then the mail came and I got my red dog-tag silencers for my Mercs tags, so I put those on (and I have to say they look pretty sweet!) and then got changed.  We ate dinner together and had quesedillas and all sorts of mexican food for dinner.  We got done with dinner and I went downstairs and finished up filling in Two-Week Reports and then started working on cleaning up my shop.  Heather apparently wants to move the refrigerator from where it is to closer to her sewing room.  I have no problem with that as it will take the fridge off of my circuit breaker, but tonight wasn’t exactly the night to do it.  I worked on that for a while and then tested the online connection for my PS3.  I tried playing COD4 yesterday, but it wasn’t working well.  Tonight I had no problems and played the game for about twenty minutes.  I then finished up on some notes for the Binghamton FanForce and then went and picked Austin up from Scouts (Heather had dropped him off earlier) and came home.  He was excited as we talked about his Pine Wood Derby Car and Scout Sunday which was coming up.  Shortly after that, I stopped what I was doing to watch “24″ and then Heather and I watched “Diary of a Call Girl” and she watched “Sex in the City” while I blogged and we went to bed.  All in all, not a bad day as I got caught up on things I needed to get caught up on.

Okay so let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 17 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 16 (Part 3)

Well, Sunday.  We really had every intention of going to church this morning.  That was until we didn’t wake up until almost eleven o’clock.  Let’s just say that Charles’ burboun was REALLY good last night!  Jeff stayed over and Ian had been driven home by my wife.  By the time we all got up, Jeff’s wife had already called and asked him to come home.  So, Jeff left fairly early.  I found Charles downstairs playing “Knifee, Knifee” with the kids on the PS3 on Call of Duty 4.  I then got on and Charles and I played for a little bit and had some fun.  My wife made us a nice breakfast that we ate at about noon.  We watched a little bit of “The Clone Wars” as Charles had not seen it at all.  After that, Charles helped me with the electronics on my helmet.  He helped me put together a servo that is going to make the antenna on my helmet go up and down.  On it’s own!  It’s looking so cool to be able to move the antenna up and down at the drop of a switch.  I know people are going to think that’s cool.  We had to make a few trips to Radio Shack to get it to work, but we finally got it going.  All I can say is THANK YOU CHARLES – YOU ARE THE MOST AWESOME FRIEND A GUY COULD HAVE!!!  Charles ended up leaving shortly before dinner time and I went back downstairs and installed the servo.  It took some time, but by the end of the night it was finally in and it looks so awesome!  I am so pumped to be able to use it and my kids just think it is so cool!  I got that done and Heather and I watched “Cold Case”, “Big Love” and a tape of “The Simpson” before we went to bed.

Okay, let’s talk about Part 3 of Chapter 16 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 16 (Part 2)

What a day!  There was so much that went on here, it’s almost hard to reflect on all that happened.  We got a phone call around nine o’clock or so from someone that I’m not allowed to talk about on here.  Those people were coming by to help me work on the electrical on our house and fix our bedroom, Tara’s room, the outlet in the bathroom, and the switch in our kitchen.  Our guests arrived and we got right to work.  We discovered that there was a bad switch leg up in the ceiling of our bedroom and the person who decided to put a fan in the ceiling put the fan in wrong and wired it all wrong, causing a short in the switch and they solved the problem by using the ground as the power and touching that wire to the back of the switch powering the entire switch.  Basically, it was a mess!  We went to Lowes and got some things to fix it with and were able to take care of the problem.  Once we fixed our room, it helped to fix Tara’s room and then the hall lights and the bathroom came back as well.  While we were working on this, Heather took off with another one of our guests and picked up Austin.  He came home and we finished up all the electrical and even fixed the power outlet and the switch in the kitchen and our guests were on their way.  I then scrambled to get things together for the B Sens game tonight and got the car loaded up.  We got to the game and found out we had no table, but the Senators and the 501st were very accomidating (thank you Garrison Excelsior!) and helped us work out a solution.  We set up the table and did the event and did very well.  We got through with the event and things on the family front fell apart.  First, Tara lost her Master Replica’s lightsaber and she’s lucky no one stole it.  Then she decided to take off on her own and we lost Tara!  My wife was not happy by this point.  We got home and invited the guys over and Ian, Charles, and Jeff decided to come over.  We sat around and drank some beers and had a blast talking till about two in the morning.  We just had some good old fashioned laughing till we had to pee fun!  It was a great stress relief for this stressful day.

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 2 of Chapter 16 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 16 (Part 1)

Well, it’s Friday and you would think I would be happy about that, but somehow I’m not!  I got up this morning knowing that somehow my day was going to seem like a very long day today.  I got up and got the kids going for the day today.  The morning went alright for all of us and our babysitter showed up on time.  I got off to work and the kids got off to school.  I got to work and found out that the kids I would be watching this morning weren’t going to be in my room, but upstairs with their bloc.  I appreciated this time as it gave me some time to get the grading done that I’ve fallen desperately behind on.  So, all morning long (at least until fifth period) I spent updating my grade book and attendance book.  I was able to file away paperwork which I haven’t done in almost a month and I was able to clear some things off of my desk that I didn’t think was going to happen for at least another month.  I don’t know how I’ve gotten so busy at work, but somehow I have.  I finished with all of this and the bells rang and it was time for fifth period.  My sixth graders watched Season 7 of American Idol and my Eighth Graders recorded their music videos.  I got done with all of that work and then I started working on the show notes for the next episode of “The Jedi Council Speaks”.  I worked on that for about a half an hour till the end of the work day and came home.  Once I got home, I started working on clearing up space on my laptop so I could continue working on music videos and podcasts.  While I worked on that, I started to try and put things together for tommorrow night’s B Sens hockey game.  As I did, I realized that Ruth’s lightsaber is no longer working correctly.  After about an hour of playing around, I found a few bad solder joints and pulled the entire electronics apart on the lightsaber, but while I was in the process of resoldering some joints, my soldering gun broke.  So after Heather brought dinner home, we had to go to Lowes and get a new soldering gun.  I finished fixing the lightsaber and put it back together and it works fine now.  Let’s hope the soldering job I did was good enough.  I then took the Master Replica’s saber that we got for Tara and made it look as much like Aayla Securs’ as I could.  I just about finished that and it was time for “Clone Wars”.  We watched tonight’s episode without Austin as he was camping (Heather dropped him off while getting dinner), so it was a little awkward without him.  It just didn’t seem the same.  After “Clone Wars” I finally finished up catching up on grading and then went to bed a little late tonight.  Tomorrow was going to be a big day!

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 1 of Chapter 16 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..

‘Star Wars: The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel’ – Chapter 15 (Part 3)

Thursday and I am EXHAUSTED!  I’m not sure why other than to say that this short school week seems so long.  It’s odd how that happens that way.  I got up this morning and actually hit the snooze button for the first time all year long on my alarm clock.  I snoozed the alarm and got up about ten minutes later.  I got the kids up and we all worked together and got ourselves ready for school.  We talked about the rest of the week and the weekend until the babysitter showed up and I was off to work while the kids were off to school.  I got to work and got ready for more ELA testing this morning.  I had to police the kids a little more today than I did yesterday, which I knew would happen as they are tired of getting tested already.  We all watched “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and then played board games until it was time to change classes.  It was a busy day for me because we ran a backwards schedule.  So my prep periods were lost to testing and I taught all afternoon long.  I got done with my day and had a staff meeting at school.  Not much new happened there and came home.  I was so tired when I came home, I ate dinner and went downstairs and actually took a little bit of a nap.  I got up and watched T.V. while I worked on some other projects like finishing up some things for emails and what-not and doing some surfing on the Net and then worked on my blog and watched some T.V. with Heather.  We watched two episodes of “C.S.I.” and then watched our tape of “Law and Order” and then we went to bed.  Tomorrow was Friday.  End of the week, than God!

Okay, so let’s talk about Part 3 of Chapter 15 of “Star Wars:  The Cestus Deception, A Clone Wars Novel” by Steven Barnes…..