Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Which Was Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

In the vein of esoteric and rhetorical questions like, "what is the sound of one hand clapping" or "if a tree falls on the Pope is a bear Catholic in the woods?" I'd like to propose some of my own.  I'm going to start with this one.

What day was Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

I don't mean what calendar day.  Some have speculated that it was 5 June 1985 because that is supposedly the day of the Cubs game they attended.  Some say it was 28 September 1985 since that was the day of the Von Stueben Day Parade in Chicago that year (except it was on a Saturday).  Personally I think that the June baseball game is unlikely.  All of the other filming in Chicago was after Labor Day in 1985, so why would they have brought the whole crew for an afternoon baseball game three months ahead of the regular shooting schedule and not gone to a White Sox game since John Hughes favored that team?

All of that is not at all what I was asking about.

I want to know, what day of the week was it.  I don't want to ruin the "magic" by bringing in facts and dates.  FBDO is a magical story, a fantasy story.  It captures a time and place that doesn't exist and never really did, but a place that is near and dear to all of us.  To some that place is youth, and a cleverness that they dreamed they had, an optimism that they could do anything.  To me it is that and it's Chicago writ large and celibrated.

I think it was a Thursday.

They went to school on Friday, but what's one day and then they had the weekend.  Friday they got a chance to bask in the glory, they got to make up what they missed.  Taking Thursday off effectively extends the weekend two days, because what's one day at school, just a few hours and you're feeling good all day anyway.

What day do you think it was?  Answer in the poll and tell us why in the comments here.

Go, now, go...

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Christos Anesti (Χριστος Ανεστη)!


Tsugrezo
 I hope I spelled that correctly.  I'm not a very good speller in English, let alone Greek.

Happy Easter (Orthodox that is).

I thought this was an unusually "light" year for Easter, but it looks like we took Lent pretty lightly last year.  This year with all that's going on we didn't make it to church at all.  No body fasted all Lent this year either.  We've been very bad about going to church at all lately.  I guess as our lives get busier we have more trouble doing that.

I did manage to die some eggs red and the Easter Bunny came by to hide them.  Then we had muffins and a pretty nice breakfast.  We do try to make time for each other, so if we don't make it to church at least we have quality time, when we have time.

I hope you all enjoyed your Greek Easter.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Riding to Work Again

Blackie's new hitchin' post and friend
Now that I'm in my new "home" I can, and do ride to work.  It's a bit further than last time, which is no problem.

I'm glad to be riding again, but I'm not going to be making a daily record here of it.  That didn't seem to interest anyone.

I will post if anything interesting happens.

Unfortunately this bike rack, like all I've found at work is inadequate.  It is bolted together (could be easily taken apart), weighs only about 10lbs, and isn't anchored to the ground.  At least with two bikes on it, it would be unwieldy for some one to just grab the whole thing and throw it in the back of a truck.  I go down and check on it every hour or so so make sure it's still there.

I haven't found a new place for Blackie to corral while I'm earning my keep, so I'll just have to make do with this.  I do bring my bags in for the day (this was all saddled up for the trip home yesterday).

Wednesday, April 04, 2012

1Q Goal Review




1Q2012 is in the Books.  Let's see how I did.

Commissioner Arrowhead - Good - My Spiritual Goal was to work toward my Commissioner Arrowhead.  I am one step away, and I have that scheduled.  I have to give a charter presentation, and that will happen in May.  I spoke with my ADC and he said that I would be done then.

Greek - Not so good - I was supposed to schedule time for Greek every day for my Mental Goal.  In fact I did schedule the time, but almost never did it.  Also, because of work requirements (mostly Mrs. Prop's) I had to skip the last two classes.  This last week there was no class because of Spring Break, so it's been nearly a month since I've done any of it.  I'm going to have to look into another way of getting this done, and this is going to have to take a higher priority.

Dates - Not good - I was supposed to schedule times with Mrs. Prop for my Social Goal.  We did discuss some family activities, but nothing romantic, and she had to go to Puerto Rico several times during the quarter, which made it difficult.

For Physical Goals I had Get A Mentor for my Find a New Job Goal and Find Out P90X Requirements for my Health Goal.

Job Goal - Good - I have a mentor and we've discussed my resume.  I've applied for a couple of jobs too, but I need to keep pushing this, and I've let up a bit lately.  I have to rewrite my resume next.

Health Goal - good - I went to the doctor this quarter and he said to keep doing what I'm doing.  I could work out more, but I do get some in most days and my weight is lower than it was last year (though not as low as I'd like).  I started riding my bike to work (actually 2Q since I started in April, so I'll count it again next quarter).

3/5 Good, that's not bad at all.  I did not set these correctly as I've mentioned before.  These areas are really only part of Sharpen The Saw, and don't necessarily help me in all the Roles I have, but they are a start.  Two areas I would really like to improve are Archaeology and Writing.  I may set goals for those as well, but a little later.

What's next?

My Next - Next Steps:

Commissioner Arrowhead - I should be able to finish this in 2Q.  My goal will be to give the charter presentation.

Greek - My goal will be to miss no more classes and to do all the homework

Dates - We will have a date night, even if I have to make it a surprise

Job Goal - Rewrite my resume

Health Goal - Keep riding to work and I've signed up for Exercise Across Abbott.  I will do that with an increase in the amount of exercise each week of the 4 week program.

When I get these done I will report them and I set my next steps.

Fail - Writing Plague

Anotherealm held a contest recently.  You remember them.  I used to enter a lot of their contests and have actually won a few.

The last contest was held in February and March, the topic was Plague.

I made three attempts at stories.  One was a SF one with superheroes, and one was a SF one with aliens.  The third one was a horror story that I did actually finish, but at 00:15 the morning after the contest ended and it was not very good anyway.

Just thought you might like to know.

The current contest topic is Moving.  It closes 31 May 12.  Any ideas?