Matt's Blog

Ok, I'm sick of being sick. Sickness has put me behind everywhere and I guess the blogging is the lowest of my priorities. I believe I said something at the beginning of the year about blogging everyday. I don't see how people do that. Anyway, we'll see if we can't get back on track somehow.

Plain View #13 6/24/05

http://feeds.feedburner.com/searscast

I have lost our lists, but I believe it went a little something like this:

-Jesus as Lonejack
-Mare's 80's list
-Baseball, it's time to let it go
-Students making me crazy

Here are the photos from the 1989 sound seeing tour.

The discovered time capsule

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

Number 5

Number 6

Number 7

Number 8

Number 9

Number 10

Number 11

Number 12

Number 13

Number 14

Number 15

Number 16

Part 1 Acacia

Part 2 Music

Part 3 Home

Part 4 Acacia

http://feeds.feedburner.com/searscast

We're taking this week off at the Plain View for a little retooling. But I have a special feature to take the place of the regular show.

After graduating from K-State back in '89, I took off for England. There I found work at a hotel pub, the Dog and Bear.

Meanwhile, back in the states, my li'l brudder was still at school and still at the ol' fraternity house. Always ahead of his time, brother, with crappy old tape recorder in hand, led me on what is now called a "sound seeing tour" around Acacia house.

I recently stumbled upon this tape as I was cleaning out the stuff under my bed. I immediately recognized its value and transferred it to digital to make it available to the world.

I've divided this cast into four parts. Part 1 is a tour of the various sights and personalities around Acacia in the fall of 1989. Part 2 is brief musical tribute to my trip abroad. I've edited it down so as not to get sued. Part 3 is a brief trip home for dinner and a chat with an old friend. Finally, Part 4 brings us back to Acacia.

The audio quality in part one is pretty bad. Sounds like a loose mic wire or something, but parts of it are difficult to listen too. It gets better after that. I've edited out all (or most?) of the naughty words. Sorry if I missed any.

So step into the wayback machine, and experience my college years.

I'll try to get the photos up this week.

Mare and I put up our first podcast this week. You can find it at the below entry.

The first thing I have to say is that "the Croncast guys" have names, and they are Kris and Betsy. "The Bitterest Pill guy" also has a name, and it's Dan Klass. These are two casts that I enjoy a lot, and so I felt bad giving them such a generic mention in our cast.

MaryEllen gives her view of the cast on her blog.

I guess I don't have much to had to her comments. It was fun. Hopefully that will come through and people will enjoy listening.

It's spring and time to be thinking about travel. If this list doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will.

This is it baby! This is where it all started. I'm sure that when dad shelled out what, 1.7 million dollars for this thing, he had visions of me going on to become a computer programer, engineer, or some other well paid technology type. That's probably the route I should have gone, but I'm an idiot. Instead, I learned a little BASIC, wrote some adventure programs, and stayed up late at night with my brother to access computer bulletin boards all across the country. I have no idea how slow that modem pulled in the bits and bites. And I have no memory of the nonsense that we read on those boards. I do remember that some of them had really cool names like "Dragon's Lair" or "Troll's Cave" but then had a bunch of boring content that Mike and I couldn't make heads or tails of.

But please take a minute to take in all that is the glory of the Commodore64. 64K, what are you going to do with all that memory?

I hate not posting for what seems like weeks at a time. I suppose it doesn't really matter much as I know I don't have many readers. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I had a regular schedule. Blog about poker on Mondays, the kids on Tuesdays, church on Wednesdays, what I'm reading/watching on Thursdays, links on Fridays, and everything else on the weekend. That'd be nice, but I know it will never happen.

Maybe we can know the week out right here.

Monday: Poker. Haven't played much at all lately. Did drop about 70 bucks in as many minutes the other night at the Gaming Club. Classic case of my KQ or AJ running into an AQ. When I got a hand, I ran into a bigger one. Think my bonus there is done so guess I'll be going out with a whimper. 2-4 tables there are too tight I think anyway.

Tuesday: Kids. The kids are doing well. Spring asthma season has come early this year, so we got that going for us. The mp3 recorder also arrived. So look forward to some fascinating podcasts soon. Will finishes wrestling and begins practicing for the school play this week. Maly continues to dance.

Wednesday: Church. See my lent post earlier this month. So far the praying each morning is going well. Come join me.

Thursday: What I'm reading. Oh brother. A few weeks ago I found a bunch (a big bunch) of KODT magazines at the thrift store. Of course I bought them all. So I've been reading these comics about a group of rpg-ers and their adventures. What can I say, they're fun. And while they're fun and have sparked an interest in me for a little rpg myself, they're going back to the back burner. It's time for again for a real book.

Friday: Links. I already posted one link today. That should about do it.

Weekend: All else. I'll save this for a later post, maybe even this weekend. It should include a game report, possible brewing report, and something about my wife rekindling her love with the libertarian party.

My next tech project is to get my hands on an inexpensive mp3 player/recorder. One reason I want one is so that I can listen to podcasts somewhere besides school. I have tried burning them to cds to listen to at home, but my computer is such a decroded piece of crap, that it won't play them. But then I got to thinking, why not create my own pod cast. I live with three of the most inovative minds in the country. We could do a weekly or bi-weekly issues based program staring the two tikes. They have opinions on just about everything, and that's all one really needs to have a radio show. So there it is. More on this one as it develops.

Ok, so before I added the link to the fake Choose Your Own Adventure books to my weekly links, I didn't look at them all. I looked at a few, thought they were politically incorrect, a bit crass, but funny, mostly because I used to read those books. (Can nostalgia make something more funny?) Anyway, apparently there are some there that are pretty bad, bad in that they use dirty words, you know, the really dirty words. And it bothered me some that people might be offended.

So I thought, well, maybe I'd better add a warning or something (warning, you'll see dirty words if you click that link). Then I thought, or just remove the link. But that bugged me a bit. I mean, what are we talking about here, naughty talk. Not hurtful or mean or dangerous talk, just socially unacceptable talk. I can bump my knee and say, "oh bother" anywhere, "oh crap" in most public places, "oh damn" among most friends and family, but "oh s--- (or oh f---)" don't play as well most places I spend my time. But "oh s---" means the same thing as "oh bother". And I can tell my son, or he can tell me, "look out for that dog poop." But if he (or I) say, "look out for that dog s---," somehow our morality is corrupted. So it's clearly not that talking about crap is bad, just using the wrong word for crap is bad.

Right now the words that Mare and I battle in our home, are not "dirty" words, but mean words-- stupid, dummy, baby, bug off (sounds just as ugly as the other off-combination the way the little girl says it). I know why we don't allow these words. They really aren't nice. They hurt people. In a year or two, when we are battling other words (and the kids begin questioning why, why, why) I may be at a bit more of a loss as to why these words "aren't nice." Although I suppose, "You're grandmother will kill you if she hears you say that," is a pretty good reason to clean it up.

My rant here has no real direction, obviously. If anyone can lend any clarity to the issue, or wants to muddy the waters, feel free to comment. But please, keep it clean.

Hey, my sweet baboo has her own blog now. God knows what she'll write about me. Here it is.

I'd love to meet the blogger/writer/journaler with enough self restrait to avoid doing some kind of end-of-year/new-year summary/resolutions type entry. Anyway, here's mine.

Last year is a blurr so I don't have any lists of top best books, films or experiences. Maybe all together they would be (in no particualr order):

1. Saved
2. Generous Orthodoxy
3. Emerging Church
4. Blogging
5. MaryEllen, Will, Maly

As far as the future goes, I have a few goals (again, inpo).

1. God - keep praying semi-regularly in the mornings, figure out some way to get into the scriptures more days than I don't

2. Blog - write more about my family, especially my kids (MaryEllen still says and does cute things, but not as often as the wee ones)

3. School - stay involved, keep things as fresh as time will allow, focus on the kids

4. Home - spend more time playing with/working with/reading to my kids, there will be time to play poker and work on the blog when I'm old (and dead)

5. Poker - follow my rules about time spent playing, play my best game all the time, keep learning

6. Neighbors - have them over for soup more often, try to build even more of a community in the neighborhood that is Plainveiw Ave.

7. Church - stay active, look for opportunies to serve, don't spread myself too thin

That seems like a pretty good list. Probably not as measureable as Franklin/Covey would like, but hey . . .

Happy New Year everyone.

So I'm doing a Google search for a couple old friends, and having no luck. I'm looking for Mike and Marshall Skidmore, two friends from high school. (Dudes, where are you?) I'm finding lots of Mike and Marshall Skidmores, but not the right ones (or so I think).

Then, just for fun, I google my name. At first I find links like this one, saying, "Still, it was beaut to hear young Matt Sears admit that even at his somewhat tender age he was addicted to rum and coke." Not me. Really, I don't like Coke.

But then I find one that is me, from my board game geek/reviewing/designing days. (I remember "donating" the links, but didn't know his site ever went up.) Then I find another (the link is at the bottom of the page, and doesn't work), and another, and another.

I even found a current one. Technology committee? Uh, oh, yeah, that. I put a lot of hours in on that baby.

Anyway, my day is made. Google thinks I am somebody!

Well, I've been sitting on half a dozen g-mail invites for some time now. Noone in my family wants them, so let me know if you do.

A number or people have been checking with me in regard to the student newspaper (of which I am the sponsor) being shut down by the administration.

I'm to the point now where I have taken myself out of the loop. I talked to my students about this this week and they seemed to understand that while they have my support, I'm also under obligation to do some educating, and that it's not really me that has been injured, but them. I think they appriciate the support they have recieved from a number of teachers, the student body, and the community. On my end I have oppened up communication with the administration. I've encouraged the journalism students to do what they need to do, but in the most intelligent and mature way they can. I've really been impressed with them in this regard. Anyway, I'll probably attend the next board meeting as an observer and not totally uninterested party (and I hate school board meetings). I think that some stuco representatives will be there, maybe some past staff members, and not sure who else. Hope it doesn't turn into a circus.

This is one of those learning situations that I believe will work out in the end, and those involved will be better people as a result. However, right now it's kind of an uncomfortable and icky place to be (for me at least).

If you'd like to read more about this from the perspective of one of the community and past staffers, you can do that at Danny's Blog Cabin.

Well, I finally did it. Part of me is suprised it took this long. But I finally killed the Drumbeats. I figured it would probably happen during my first year when I had the class from hell and no idea what I was doing. Goodness knows we've tried since then. Chris in the old days, and Matt now, going after God. Paul calling for the legalization of drugs. Or Isaac telling the cops to lay off the poor oppressed teenage drivers. But the closest we ever came was when Mike went after the cheerleaders. (You can mess with God or the police, but heaven help the man that picks a fight with Adrian's peppiest.) But as of this Monday, the plug has been pulled on Adrian's second most widely distributed newspaper (if you don't count the shoppers). I haven't been given a real clear reason as to why this occured. I have my suspicions (probably more than suspicions) but until I talk to the top boss man, I won't go into those.

The support that I have already recieved from some of my fellow teachers, students, past staff members, and members of the community, has been very nice. The Drumbeats staff has begun to take actions of their own to remedy this situation. I'm not really sure how to best handle this situation, but I am in contact with some people who may have a little more know-how than I.

It's fortunate, I think, that Brendoman's site was off line for a while. This morning I was more in the mood to post angry, and probably would have used terms like "harebrained" and "ridiculous." I feel better about things now, for no other reasons than the time I have had to settle and the support I mentinoed above.

I know something like this can bring out the righteous anger in some of us. So I should probably mention that a couple hours prior to being informed that there would be no more Drumbeats, I did send my principal an invitation to join me in my Advent experiment. So it's possible that he's reading any comments that may be posted. Know that before you post. (But I won't be censoring any posts.)

So I spent, I don't know, 3 days, typing up an entry summarizing the last few days that I haven't posted. I post it. Then I post the Snow Day post and it apparently goes right over the top of it. Arrg!

So, I can't let the internets beat me. They won't win. Here is a brief summary of the post that it took me 3 days to type up this morning.

1) I hate the internets.

2) I had a good time at Danny's LAN party. I think LAN stands for Lots-A-Nerds. Played Counter Strike, shooting at and mostly being shot. Quote from one of my students the next day at school: "I've never cussed more than when I play that game!"

3) Meeting between Adrian Christian Church and Cornerstone Christian Chruch leadership leads lots of opportunities open for future work together. I'm kind of excited about that.

4) Sunday I mostly graded papers and played poker. I talked some about my poker monkey, but I'll have to go into that more another time.

5) Monday was not so good because of something at work that I shouldn't go into in a public forum. But it made me grumpy most of the day. But the day ended with me working a concession stand with some of my high school students. They worked hard, had fun, and it was nice spending time with them.

That's it in a nutshell.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

This is probably a better Mother's Day post than a Happy-Birthday-to-me post, but my mom set to to me on my birthday this year and I thought it was pretty nice.

What a wonderful day this is as it is your birthday. It doesn't seem possible that it was 38 years ago. Your dad and I riding around in the car waiting for midnight to come so we wouldn't be charged for an extra day. I think I stayed 7 or 8 days in the hospital after you were born. The doctor cost 150dollars and the hospital was the same. You seemed so tiny and yet you weighed 8lbs and 5 oz. I'm not sure you liked me when you first came to me as I didn't know what I was doing and I think you knew that have always known that. But we got to be great buds as time went on. I was so over protective that it a wonder you ever got outside. I took my responsiblities very seriously. I loved you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone. You were beautiful. I finally figured out some of it and it just kept getting better and better. I thought about the time I got after you because you couldn't tell me what time it was only to find out you knew how to tell time, you just couldn't see. I am so glad you are such a forgiving guy.

Now that you have children of your own, I'm sure you understand this more. You'll have your kids for another 12 years or more and then they will leave. You will be happy for them to get on with their life just as I was happy for you. But every once in a while you will have an ache that says "I want them back for just a few minutes to tell them how proud I am of them and how much I love them and how they have made my life so complete" I do that sometimes. Thanks for being such a great guy. I hope you have a wonderful day and remember that your mom thinks you are the best.

Love Mom

Ok, Danny set this thing up for me about a week ago and even though I'm having a busy week, I should probably get this started. I'm not exactly sure what this will become.

Maybe just deep musings on whatever I'm thinking about, which at my age is darn little. This is why young people are blogging so much. They have these ideas constantly flowing out of them. I'm pretty much to the eat-work-play-sleep stage of my life. Not a lot of room there for thinking.

It's likely that it will have aspects of a daily or weekly journal of the goings-ons of my family and our household. Something that distant family members can read and enjoy.

Or it may slip from that to my own personal ravings about things that I am interested in that are of little or no interest to those around me--brewing, poker, board games, the emerging church.

And occasionally, if I can figure out the technology, I will put up a cute picture of my kids for the edification of all.

I was going to write a bit about the book I'm reading (A Generous Orthodoxy) which I got for my birthday (yesterday). But I guess I'll save that so I have something to talk about next time. I also had a bit of a discussion with my principal this morning about free speech regarding the school newspaper. Stay tuned for that exciting episode.

Peace

Read more »