The Jedi Council Speaks – Volume IV, Episode #20: From The Outer Rim (Part 2)

Well, it was Friday and it was a day of mass chaos.  I knew it would be chaos, but it turned into an even busier day than I had initially intended anyway.  The day started out as mass chaos and ended in it’s own form of mass chaos.

I got up this morning and got the kids ready for school.  My kids were excited for school today because all three of them were having Valentine’s Day parties at school and they all couldn’t wait to get to school and get to their parties.  I couldn’t wait to get the day done and officially be on vacation for a while.  I honestly need a vacation from everything that is going on.  I may need a vacation from my vacation if this vacation ends up being busy too.  I know, it sounds odd, but I often put things off until vacation and then somehow bury myself with thing to do on my days off from school.  It seems so unfair to myself.  I may need to just take a mental health day from school soon as well.  Anyway, we all got ready for school and the babysitter showed up on time and I was off to work while the kids were on their way to school.

I got to school and finished setting things up for the concert this morning.  I then brought my first period class into the auditiorium early and I was able to help with the recruitment concert by running the sound board.  It was a nice concert and I was very impressed with the dance group.  It was a nice concert overall and I hope was worth all the work that was put into it, considering the conditions under which this concert had to take place.  We got done with the concert and I scrambled to get all the sound equipment out of the auditorium so that they could use it for lunchtime.  I got it into my room and go it put away just in time for my next class.  The next class that came in were my sixth graders and they watched Season 7 of “American Idol”.  The rest of the day went okay and I finished out my day by explaining to my students how music videos are made and how podcasts are made.  I got done with my day and Heather called me on my way out the door and explained what is going to happen with the situation with my car.  She called Citi and we worked out a deal with them and she explained to me that the bank is going to give us the money they sent away back to us directly so we can take care of the problem with Citi Financial directly so there are no more questions about how we are paying this account.  So, issue will be resolved next week.  Heather told me the plan for this evening on my way home, and we were on our way.

I got home and what I was hoping would be a relaxing night turned into mass chaos.  I got home and changed right away and we went out the door.  We decided to do the shopping we were going to do tomorrow tonight to get it out of the way.  We headed to AT&T and got ourselves our Valentine’s Day/Anniversary gift.  We got new cell phones for each other.  We got some nice Samsung phones that have a full Qwerty keyboard, which I was really looking forward to.  It’ a nice phone and I was happy, but we had a lot to do to make them accessible the way we want to.  It’s something we’ll have to continue to work on. When we got done there, we headed over to “Guitar Center” to look for a new sound board and what-not for podcasting and when I talked to the guys, they were able to point me in the direction of an Alesis sound board that had a built in USB port and with the 10% off, it made it extremely affordable.  So, I now have a new mixer for my podcast studio downstairs.  We got done there and headed to Wal Mart and did some major shopping.  I got some stuff for the podcasting room, including a new mouse and headphones to go with the studio.  Now, I forgot to mention that my wife tried to solve a problem earlier in the day.  Apparently they don’t make the hinges for my Toshiba laptop anymore and trying to find them may cost me more money than the laptop is worth.  So, Heather went to Rent A Center and got me a brand new Sony Vaio laptop.  Unfortunately, the laptop doesn’t work, so they promised Heather to try and find one before tomorrow.  So, I wa kind of in limbo today between two computers. 

We got done and headed home and on our way, we stopped at Subway and got some dinner.  We got home and unloaded the car and I headed downstairs and started to set up the podcast studio in the game room that no longer has the bar in it.  I’m excited because this studio is going to come out looking pretty cool!  I no more than finished with that until it was time for “Clone Wars” and Jame and Ian showed up and we watched the hour long “Clone Wars” episode tonight (it was actually two episodes in one) and we had a great time.  Ian and I talked a little bit and talked shop and they left.  I started working on some things to finish up for the night and then Heather and I went to bed.

Well, tonight was the release of the second part of “The Jedi Council Speaks”.  So, check it out, and MAY THE FORCE BE WITH THOSE WHO LISTEN!!!:

http://www.jedicouncil.mypodcast.com

The Jedi Council Speaks – Volume IV, Episode #20: From The Outer Rim (Part 1)

Well, it was Friday and I have to say that I was relieved that it was the end of the week and that today was going to give me a reprieve for the weekend.  Although, my weekend was going to be just as busy with my parents showing up among other things, I really won’t get down time, even this weekend.

I got up this morning and was excited about my day.  I’m not sure why, I was simply excited about my Friday.  I got the kids up and got them going for the day and they were all wound up as well.  We got breakfast together and got ourselves going for the day and before I knew it, the babysitter showed up and we were on our way to school and work.

I got to school and set things up for my students showing them the music videos from the last few years of videos that have been done.  I started last season of American Idol with my sixth graders so we can compare last season’s start with this season’s start and see which one we thought was better.  And my seventh graders finished some work and we started a talk about podcasting.  It was a cool day and even my seventh graders seemed excited about their project ideas.

I got done with school and raced home to help Heather out with things around the house.  We had a lot to do to get things ready to be partially acceptable for my parents coming this weekend and we did as much of it as we could.  We barely ate any dinner simply to get a majority of the work done around the house.  When Clone Wars came on, we watched that with James, as he was the only one from “The Binghamton FanForce” that had shown up and we then watched “Madagascar 2″ that Tara had received for her birthday that we had celebrated tonight amongst the chaos.  We got done with the movie and then watched another bonus DVD that came with it and then we all went to bed together.  Tomorrow was going to be a nice day just visiting with my parents.  No worries!

Okay, so no book work tonight.  Instead, I’m going to highlight the fact that the first part of the latest episode of “The Jedi Council Speaks” has been released and can be found online here, check it out:

http://www.jedicouncilspeaks.mypodcast.com

Clone Wars XIII

Well, it’s Friday and it’s the end of the week.  This week seems to have gone on forever and it seems that I’ve had a lot of things go wrong this week.  I will be so happy for Sunday to come along to end the disaster that this week has become!  I got up this morning and got the kids going for the day today and we had a decent morning this morning.  We all got ready and the babysitter showed up and I was off to work while the kids were off to school.  I got to school and set things up for my day today.  I set up things so I could start recording our music videos and my first period class had a bunch of fun putting their videos together.  We had a little bit of a late start because of having to set things up, but it went fairly well.  My seventh graders had a great time recording their podcasts and they’re really getting into that as well.  It was a good day overall for the educational front.  I got done with school and we had a staff meeting at the end of the day.  We got told about some things going on around the school that I can’t disclose here, but I will say it’s not good information.  We got done with our day and I came home.  Heather and I had a talk for a little bit and she tried to correct the electrical problem in our bedroom to no avail.  We made dinner together and ate as a family.  The kids then cleaned up dinner and worked on laundry.  After a while, Ian showed up early and we talked shop a little bit before James showed up and we all watched “The Clone Wars” together.  After they left, Heather and I watched a little more T.V. before going to bed.  It was a long week and I hope tomorrow will be an opportunity for me to put it all behind me.  Okay, so no book tonight, but I do have our recording of our comments on the Clone Wars show as we watched it.  You can find that .ogg vorbis file here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?njijzrznngn

Novel Ideas #7

Well, I had one main goal today and there was a moment there when I wasn’t even sure I was going to get that main goal done!  I will admit that Heather and I slept in today.  Only because I was up until almost midnight last night editing my podcast and helping Heather move our bedroom furniture.  I got up this morning and came downstairs and found out that my laptop had finally finished processing “Novel Ideas #7″.  Now I had to take care of the tedious task of splitting the show up into two parts.  So, it took a long time for Audacity to open up the full .mp3 file and once it opened up the file, it took it even longer to process the information.  I split the podcast so the first half had an hour and fifty-nine minutes while the other half had one hour and forty-five minutes or so.  It took a while for the laptop to process the information.  While it worked, I got a chance to talk to Heather and the kids for a while and I talked to Heather about changing out one of the breakers on our electrical panel (the one for the basement) so we could run the heater in the room because it was getting really cold in the basement home theather room.  After some talking, I finally convinced her to let me do it.  So, I took down the information and headed off for Lowes.  I found the breaker and came home.  Once I got home, we ate some lunch together and then Austin helped me put in the new breaker.  It wasn’t difficult at all and I got it done in about ten to fifteen minutes or so.  We did try turning everything on, but have found out that we can’t have two heaters on in the room.  Not bad though, because if Ian and I split the rooms like we intend to for the future, then we’ll have plenty of amps to do it later.  Anyway, I got done with that and then had the laptop process the second half of the podcast.  It took about an hour or so.  While I was waiting for that, a lady called me and cancelled our birthday party tonight for the Binghamton FanForce.  So, Heather and I called everyone in the group and let them know the party was cancelled.  We got done with that and I came back downstairs and started the process of trying to upload the podcast.  I tried, and tried, and tried and started to become very frustrated when after two hours I still wasn’t able to get the podcast online!  I then found out that mypodcast.com was having problems.  They never let anyone know, they just had problems and tried to hide them.  So, I tried repeatedly to solve the problem and nothing was working.  It was then dinner time, so I headed upstairs and had sloppy joes and mac and cheese with the kids.  Then I came back downstairs and tried a theory I had an it worked.  Evidently, I made the first half of the show just a little too long.  So, I had to resplit the podcast.  So, I took the entire evening re-editing the podcast and between Internet crashes and laptop crashes, I didn’t get the show online till one in the morning and then went to bed.

Okay, so PLEASE check out “Novel Ideas #7″.  It took me a while to get it online, but it’s now there and you can find it here: 

http://www.jedicouncilspeaks.mypodcast.com

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH THOSE WHO LISTEN!!

Clone Wars XII

Well, it’s Friday and it’s the end of the week and even though the week has been broken up with a snow day, it feels like it’s been a LONG week!  I got up this morning and in many ways I was glad that it was the end of the week because that would mean that I actually got a chance to get some rest and get caught up with things I needed to do in my life this weekend.  I got up this morning and got the kids ready for school.  We were all a little groggy this morning but got moving anyway.  Our babysitter showed up on time and I was on my way to work and the kids were off to school.  I got to school and got things set up and went about teaching my students for the day.  It wasn’t a bad day at all, and I was even more excited to wear the Marc Ecko shirt that the librarian gave to me earlier this week for doing all the technical work I do for her and helping with the technology in the library.  Several students commented on the shirt commenting about how they liked it.  I got through my day and had some nice conversations with friends.  We had lunch together at “New York Chef’s” and some of the retired teachers from last year joined us and I have to say it was nice to see Nancy and Sue again.  It’s good to have friends surprise you and meet you for lunch.  It feels so cool!  I had a pretty good day and came home.  I immediately went into the basement and recorded a little more and edited, edited, edited.  I stopped long enough to eat a dinner of beef straganoff with the family and then I went back downstairs and got to editing.  Heather took the kids over to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” (or as my dad calls it, “The Star Sprinkled Bananna”) and while they were gone, Ian showed up early and we got caught up on things and I showed him what I did with my Mando blaster and my plans for the new tactical belt.  Not too long after, James showed up and we all watched “The Clone Wars” together.  We recorded our viewing like I’ve done in times past.  We got done and hung out a little bit and then Ian and James left.  Heather then started to move our bedroom into Austin’s room and before the end of the night, she had our bed and end tables moved into his room, so we slept there tonight.  I finished my editing of “Novel Ideas #7″ and need to simply split the podcast tomorrow and post it.  It’s an easy enough task, so I should be able to get to other things.

Okay, well, since we recorded our ramblings during “The Clone Wars” tonight, you can download the .ogg vorbis file and it can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?omm0mmozzmg

Have a good day and  “May The Force Be With Those Who Listen!”

Clone Wars IX

Well, it’s Friday, it’s the day before a fairly free weekend, and it’s pay day.   How much better can life get?  Well, Iguess being a millionaire would help, LOL!  Well, I got up this morning and attacked this day like I would any other day.  I got going this morning and got the kids up and got them going for the day.  There was a little excitement all around only because we all had big plans for the weekend and I think everyone wanted to get a LOT of things done this weekend!  I got going for the day and the babysitter showed up on time and I was out the door for work and the kids were out the door for school.  I got to work and set things up for the day.  It was an interesting day with my students.  We were doing research in the library for our music video and podcasting projects.  My sixth graders watched Season 7 of “American Idol” and it was a rough day for them as far as behavior was concerned.  I got through my day and even a full lunch hour playing with the band getting ready for the concert next week.  I have everything set up in the auditorium as of today, so everything is taped down and ready to go.  I just hope that everything will be set for next week.  I got done with school and came home and got to work on a whole bunch of little projects.  The main project was moving the VCR upstairs and moving some information on VCR tapes from video to DVD.  I have decided we need to go completely digitial in my house, so I’m moving everything over.  It’s going to take some serious time, but I should get a significant amount of it done this weekend.  Then Heather decided she wanted to go out to eat and go shopping.  So, we went to Wendy’s and ate dinner and then headed to Aldi’s and shopped for food for the house.  We also had Austin do some of his own shopping for a Boy Scout project.  We got done and came home and I moved the VCR back downstairs and watched “Clone Wars” with the kids and did some recording and then it was back to working on moving the analog signal back.  While I did that, we decided to watch “Fred Claus” and then went to bed around midnight on Saturday morning.

Okay, so no books tonight, but you can find our comentary on the Clone Wars Episode 9 from here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?jyjmktyo1qt.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH THOSE WHO LISTEN!!

‘The Jedi Council Speaks’ – Volume IV, Episode #19 – Just Cloning Around!

Okay, well, it’s Monday and it was back to the grind of work and school today.  I will whole-heartedly admit that I was exhausted waking up this morning.  Of course, that may have had something to do with the fact that I as up until about quarter till one this morning trying to get my podcast post-processed and out.  Now, although my podcast is post-processed, it was not released at midnight like I always like to do.  But, time constraints played a significant role in that.  I got up this morning and got the kids going and I’ll admit that all of us were dragging this morning.  We got ourselves going and had a very bland morning this morning.  The babysitter arrived on time and the kids were off to school while I was off to work.  I got to work and got things ready for my day today.  I remembered on my drive in today, that I have a half day tomorrow, which is good because it will give me some time to set up the sound system in the auditorium instead of trying to do it on lunch hours and free periods.  That meant that today I could actually focus on my classroom.  It took me a little longer to get going for the day today because I had to unlock all the things I would normally leave locked up for breaks.  But, I got my day going and things went well, except for that one sixth grade class.  They are really trying to test me and see how far I will go, but I removed someone from class again today.  I think it’s going to take some time for them to understand that I’m not going to put up with bad behavior.  I made it through my work day and was exhausted, but finished.  I got home and I’ll admit, I took a bit of a snooze in between uploading my podcast episodes.  I got both shows online by about five o’clock this evening.  I went upstairs and ate dinner and came back downstairs and sent some emails out about the podcast and made some posts and then I went to work on my son’s helmet (doing a dented variant) and while I did that I watched “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” and “Heroes” on T.V.  Heather came over and we talked about our week a little bit and realized this is a jam packed week.  I’ve got something going on every night yet again.  We got done talking and it was eleven o’clock, so we decided to go to bed.

Okay, so no book tonight!  Instead, head on over and check out my podcast at my podcast.com.  Here’s the link:

http://www.jedicouncilspeaks.mypodcast.com

It’s a great show with lots of new stuff on there.  OH, and we have a contest give away with free Star Wars books involved.  Listen in and check it out!

Clone Wars VIII

Well, it’s Friday and it’s payday and I should be excited about this, and I am a little bit.  In all honesty I’m just too tired to be excited about anything right now.  My alarm rang this morning and I couldn’t believe it was time to get up.  I got up and got the kids going for the day and overall we had a decent morning this morning.  I was a little foggy, but managed to make myself through the morning.  I got to school and got things ready for the day.  I prepared to have my students go to the library to do research for their music video and podcast projects and I have to say that they did pretty well in the library.  They had to be reminded to settle down a few times, but overall they weren’t bad.  My sixth graders gave me an interesting time and I have to say that I stood my ground with my one class and actually removed someone from class today.  I believe that is only the beginning of the problems that are going to persist with this particular class.  We’ll have to wait and see.  We went to “New York Chef’s” for lunch and Heather met me there.  We had a good lunch together and Heather mentioned wanting to go out and get her shopping done tonight and not tomorrow so she could focus on the house tomorrow.  So, I told her that sounded fine and that I would make sure I got home in time to do this.  So, as soon as wok was done, I raced home and got changed out my clothes and we went right to shopping.  We had to do this in order to get back for tonight.  We went right to Penney’s and got Heather the drapes she’s been begging me for, for the sliding glass door and the window of our kitchen.  We then stopped in to “Guitar Center” just to see what they had and I hate to admit it, but I was kind of in seventh heaven there with the electronic recording and lighting equipment.  Then we went to the Christmas Tree Shop and found LOTS of nice things there.  Probably too many, but as I said to Heather they were all good things for the house, includig some nice snowmen solar powered lights for our walkway that I promised Heather I would install tomorrow.  We got done over in Johnson City and stopped by Burger King on Front Street and got some dinner and then we stopped by Lowes, ran into Ian and got an electric heater for the basement along with some extension wire to run along the basement to hook it up.  We got done there and raced home.  I got the heater hooked up and Heather put away some of the things just in time for us to watch “Clone Wars” with Ian and then we got done watching that and headed right to bed.  Speaking of “Clone Wars”, catch our latest commentary on the latest episode here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?nnxmmrznuzx

Clone Wars VI

Well, it was Friday and it was going to be quite the day and I now know that I am going to have quite the weekend ahead of me!  I just hope I can get everything done that I need to get done in a timely manner.  Is it sad that I’m really looking forward to my first day off from work in quite some time?  I just feel like the month of October dragged on and on and on.  I got up this morning and I have to say I hit the ground running from the start.  The kids got themselves up and we all assisted each other in helping to get the morning running smoothly.  In all reality, I was glad they were able to help me as it got my day off to a start on the right foot.  I got myself off to work on time and the kids got off to school on time.  Of course, they were excited as they only had a half day at school today!

I got to work and it was quite the day!  It was the last day of the quarter and the last day for final exams!  It was mass chaos!  I couldn’t believe how much I had to get done with the students today to finish out the quarter and quite honestly, as soon as I got to school, I hit the ground running and I was into final exams.  To make the situation even more interesting, my principal decided to observe me second period today.  I thought it was a little unfair to use this day as my official observation, but I’ll have to reserve my judgement for what he writes down on the observation form.  All my students were doing was taking the written portion of their final while others finished their keyboard portion while playing for me.  He seemed shocked that I demanded an ESL skill from my students in writing an essay as a part of their exam.  I’m not sure why he was shocked, I’ve been doing that for over six years now.  I made it through my day, but not without many controversies, including getting a bunch of seventh grade teachers mad at me for giving a student extended time on his/her test even though their IEP says they get extended time, but they said it was unfair to them. I didn’t say it, and should have, but they have that student all year long and I only get that student for ten weeks.  Gee, who should let him have extended time today?!  I was completely stressed by the end of the day and Heather was telling me about how stressful her day was as a last day at Wendy’s and I think we were both just ready to cry by the end of the day.  I got done with my day and came home and quite honestly crashed.  Heather let me know that tonight was going to be rough as we had about twelve different things going on!  First, she had a framing party that started at six o’clock and I had to take Ruth to Endicott for Girl Scouts for an event at the YMCA in Endicott.  Her friend met us at the house after we had dinner, I ran them over, came home to a house of a framing party going on.  Then, I had a friend come over and we watched “Clone Wars” together and then Ruth’s friend came over and we had her for a sleepover for the night.  I watched the “Clone Wars” episode twice tonight before I went to bed.  Tomorrow was going to be just as busy.   I had planned on grading finals tonight, but it just never happened.  So, the girls stayed up a little later to watch “High School Musical” while Heather and I went to bed. 

Okay, so no book talk tonight, but check out our latest commentary on the “Clone Wars” TV show with Clone Wars VI, which can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?qunmyxi2t2m

Hovering Rocks #4

Well, today was quite the day!  I had low expectations at the beginning of the day and the time just seemed to fly by, by the end of the day.  The good news is that I feel very prepared for the Syracuse Heroes Expo tomorrow.  I got up late this morning.  I ended up not getting up until almost ten o’clock this morning and that was simply because I was out till one-thirty this morning trying to win the costume contest at Flahsbacks.  I came home and literally fell into bed and crashed.  Heather and I got up this morning and it was almost “go” time from the time we got up.  It was ten o’clock and the kids got breakfast already, so we got breakfast and then got things going for our day.  Heather had to work at J.C. Penny’s today to continue her orientation, so she was off to work at noon and I told her I wanted to do some shopping for the Syracuse Heroes Expo tomorrow and see if I can find some things on the dirt cheap.  So, she got set and we all left the house at the same time.  Heather went to work and the kids and I went to “Party City”.  There weren’t any great deals there or anything, but we did manage to find some things we were looking for.  First, we found Tara some gloves for Obi-Wan Kenobi for the Clone Wars series and I said they would work great for Aayla Secura, so we got them.  We also found a “Holy Grail” item and ran acrossed a blow up Boba Fett backpack for Austin, and I couldn’t help but get that for my buddy.  I told Heather to just take it out of my money for the Heroes Expo.  We got done and headed straight home as I had a lot of work to get done.  When we got home, the kids ate lunch and got to folding the laundry while I worked on creating a new piece of knee armor out of Sintra.  By one o’clock I was onto the painting/priming stage and was surprised I got the project done by the end of the day.  But amongst the other things I did, I did manage to get it done.  I also worked on organizing things for the Heroes Expo and packed them up and got it all upstairs.  I was shocked at how much stuff I was going to have to cram into the car.  It’s a good thing Heather decided not to come along as I would have had to have strapped her to the roof!  By the time I got all of this done, Heather had gotten home and it was five o’clock.  We stopped quick and ate dinner with Heather.  Once dinner was over, it was time to pack the car.  I could not believe how much we had to pack.  Three full totes, an RPG, two bags, two tool kits (one is being utilized as a make-up kit), a tackle box full of minis, a backplate, and “a partridge in a pear tree!!”  I managed to pack up the car and then came inside and joined Heather in the basement to watch the movie “Definetly, Maybe”, while I downloaded some tunes for a CD for our car ride up to Syracuse tomorrow.  I burned the CD and we went to bed around midnight.  Thank goodness for the time change as I got an hour back tonight and tomorrow is going to be a long day!!

Okay, so let’s take a break from the book for a night, and let’s focus on “Hovering Rocks #4″, which can be found here:

http://www.jedicouncilspeaks.mypodcast.com.  THANKS!  AND MAY THE FORCE BE WITH THOSE WHO LISTEN!!!!!