Apple & Tree

An actual quote from a parent's e-mail to me:

I do not understand what Jamie's grade is in your class. Can you please explain what 33 means? Is she failing your class?

I think we may have an answer to your question...

(The name has been changed to protect the teacher)

Updates

So last night I talked to my Dad, who sent me a CD of pictures from the vacation where the whole family - except me - flew into Rochester. I hadn't had a chance to see the CD yet and when I told him, I was appropriately admonished. When I watched it, it just made me want to get out of here all the more. So what's a grown man to do?

Call his Mommy, of course. Well, THAT sure didn't help - though what is she going to say, "No, I don't think you should come home"? So again - I'll just keep my head down and get through what I gotta get through here.

I've got a little something percolating in my head...we'll see where it goes.

What? You want to hear more about the campaign? Gosh, I thought you'd all be sick of it by now, but OK...if you want more:

Tonight was the Filipino Candidate Forum. Quick thoughts...the Dem incumbent didn't show and the moderator told the group that he "chose not to come". Ooooh, that's gotta hurt...the Republican challenger was there (who Summer will have to run against when she wins the primary). It was my first time seeing him speak. He's an idiot. Seriously, he's even an idiot for a Republican (no offense). If he were to win, which he won't, I would be afraid for him. He'd get eaten alive in Oahu...it was the Filipino Candidate Forum, so for the first 7 candidates or so, each one tried to kiss more Filipino ass than the rest. It started out like, "My gardner's a filipino." to "When I had this thing removed from my face, the only people I could remember in the hospital were my doctor and the two Filipino nurses." [One of those was actually said]

It really reminded me of that old Python sketch. Enjoy:


Let's see...Summer did OK tonight. They had so many candidates that the forum wasn't conducive to saying anything substantial, other than Filipinos' shit doesn't stink...I got to flapjack with Summer's best friend. She's an easy flapjackee. Oh, if you don't remember the term, go here. A couple of county council candidates came up to me tonight to ask for some help. One of them was having trouble with the county's voter database, which is a f-ing joke, and another just got a campaign manager (!) and wanted to know if the mgr could meet with me. It was flattering and yeah, I'll help...but considering, I don't know what I can do.

Other campaign news: a little birdie told us that every election, rich business folk do "independent" polling to see where the incumbents are, because they're already in Da Man's pocket. While I didn't get any specifics, I was told that we're only "a few points" behind Kyle. I have no idea what the questions were for the poll and I don't know what target list they used, so even if it was super stacked against us, it was great news. The secret weapon - potholders - go out this weekend. And, that's about it for now.

OK, I'm going to go work on voter reg lists for Kai then off to bed. Ciao!

Dunes Video

OK...so you saw the Kids Gone Wild picture. Here's the video:

To All My Republican Friends...

I'm totally serious here...most of the folks who are on this blog are not republicans, but you know some. Share this with them...the whole thing. And then ask them if they're going to remain part of their "party". And if they say, yep...then ask them why. I can't see why their responses would be any more coherent than the idiots interviewed here.



Now, The Daily Show has skewered Democrats as well, but for their incompetence and spinelessness. I'm hoping that - assuming - once Obama is in office, they'll go after them as well.

And your republican friends? Well, they don't have to be dems...they can just be independents...or should I say "independents".

Oh, Thank God...

There's pictures...


(click on the picture to see the amazing detail)

This is NOT going in my teaching portfolio.

Not a Resume' Day

Before I start, I thought I'd comment on the comments from last post. Where the campaign's concerned, Summer didn't really know what it takes to win a campaign. I think she still would have run, but...

She is doing better at the stuff she doesn't like to do and as she becomes more used to it, she won't give it a second thought. Now the other lazy bastards on this island, I can't speak for them.

But good, yet bizarre, news. It seems that the Republican, who isn't even opposed in the primary, has an attack ad out against Summer. I haven't heard it yet, but think about it. He's trying to make sure the incumbent wins. So whomever is advising him sees Summer as the front-runner. I also found out that the Democratic opponent, whom we go against on the 20th has basically co-opted Summer's platform on his lit. I'm going to see it on Thursday. Oh...and the Republican has basically copied Summer's website format - complete with header. Although it says absolutely nothing.

They're both going after Summer because it seems that she's the one to beat. So let's see if I can not screw this thing up.

*****************************************************

OK... I don't know what the deal is, but we're already into the 6th week of school and I don't seem to be "firing on all cylinders." Now today was just bad luck, it wasn't anything I did, but it's just the way things are going.

Today, I took a group of kids to a local beach, where, along with other volunteers, we planted native plants to restore a coastal sand dune. Cool, right? Here's a few pictures:




The kids know that on days they're scheduled to go in the field, they're supposed to bring water bottles. Just about no one did. And it was freakin hot. So by the end, everyone's complaining that they want water. Well, across the street is Fred's, a Mexican restaurant, which apparently sells breakfast. So the other teacher and a kid went over to see if we could bum some water off of them. They came back with pitchers and plastic cups...plastic cups emblazened with the Budwiser and Bud Light logos. Not my proudest teaching moment. But after everyone was making jokes about it, one of the volunteers who also had a camera had all the kids hold up their cups as if it was a really creepy Girls Gone Wild shoot...ok...without the boobies, but you get my drift. It wasn't cool. So somewhere is a picture that looks like I'm throwing a kegger with 25 middle schoolers.

Oy.

Campaign Update

I guess I'll just go in chronological order.

Everything's cool...just a few little goofy things:

*Yesterday I went up to Olinda to meet with Summer's parents. I gave them the 411 on what we need to do the day before and of the Primary election. I had this elaborate plan laid out, with all these procedures and roles for people to play. And they looked at me as if I had 3 heads...again. I was basically met with the following response:

"Dave, in your experience, have you ever seen it when a candidate's friends refuse to help?"

Which basically was their way of telling me that there's no way in hell we can do what I want to. More on that later.

During this meeting, they also inundated me with so many questions about stuff, wanting information about things they had no involvement with, on the inside, I started to get a bit defensive. I don't know if I blogged on this, but Summer hit me with this thing where I'm supposed to run drafts of my weekly e-mail to our list through her mother first. Whatever.

I also found out that while we are working on real campaign stuff, the family is pretty much focusing on sign waving by the side of the road. While I've told them a million times that we need to be knocking on doors, only Summer does it and that's reluctantly...and with a laxative, I'm assuming. So, I'm doing a lot of door-to-dooring (d2d).

*Then I found out that I had the time wrong for an event set up this Thursday...I'm pretty sure I copied & pasted it from an e-mail from Summer, but whatever. So I was up until 2am re-doing flyers - some of which had already gone out.

*So today I did more d2d. Initially it rained off and on. That was fun. Then it just got windy. That was fun too, because your campaign literature doesn't stay where you want it to when the person's not home. Today was also the first day I was worried about dogs. Even one big dog, I'm OK with, but at this one house there were two. They were big, they were not on leashes and they were coming at me. I did all the appropriate things to chill them out short of mace and they didn't keep coming, but my clipboard wasn't going to do shit in this one.

On another note, there was this house where this little foo-foo dog wanted a piece of me. Normally I kind of laugh because I know that if the dog ever got free, it wasn't going to do anything. But this dog was pissed...apparently at me. If it could've gotten free, my ankle was toast. I actually was about to take a picture of it, but the owner came to the door and I had to put the phone away. Not a way to get a vote.

*I wrapped up the Deaf vote for Summer today. That would be because I met the only Deaf person on the whole island. We actually scared the shit out of each other. She surprised me because she was Deaf, then I surprised her because I signed.

*Another woman told me that she's voting for Summer, loves her, but at the Kula Forum, it was bad form to confront Kyle about his campaign donations. You don't do that here. Then she proceeded to contradict herself that she thought that everyone needed to know this stuff and she was glad it was out. She's coming to the meet-n-greet on Thursday to tell Summer. Oh thank god...the campaign is saved. I've already warned Summer.

*A strange, strange thing, that even Summer didn't have a good explanation for. OK...Summer is running in a Primary. When she wins that, she has to run against a Republican. I've seen lawns where there are lawn signs for both the Democratic primary opponent and the Republican opponent. I...uh...wha?

*So after thinking about it...I've scaled down are Get Out The Vote effort to finding 12 people who would be willing to phone bank. I'll be stunned if we have 5 (Me, Summer, one of her parents and two others). I know as you get to the end of campaigns, nerves get frazzled. But Dude, I'm so over this. I just want it to end.