I went to the doctor yesterday for some rashes that I have. One appears to be a heat rash that I get from working in the garden. It's been in the 80's here for at least the past week. And it poured one day, so my bushes and whatnot are doing really well, considering. Anyway, one's a heat rash.

The other one, the doctor was stumped by it. I was told a long time ago that it was a vitamin deficiency but my current doctor thinks that that is crap. So she gave me some steroid cream to rub on both spots. Whoo.

Then I planted the last bushes I had. Now I have to work with some edging. We got that black plastic stuff. If you leave it out in the sun, it's supposed to be relatively easy to use. I hope so.

I live near Charleston, South Carolina. The big story in Charleston right now is a local middle school where teachers are complaining that school administrators aren't listening to their complaints. The story was picked up in the upstate of South Carolina (here) and in North Carolina. There is a lot more to the story than what is portrayed in the initial news reports. The Charleston Post and Courier has been publishing follow up stories, but registration is required, so I didn't link to them. Basically, the school principal has responded that the teachers need to learn how to control these inner city children. The same thing is being said by the superintendent, that these students are difficult but that it's not their fault.

I'm torn on this one. Yes, students cannot be held responsible for their actions (although this is a middle school so these students are beginning to enter the realm of responsibility). Yes, teachers need to be responsible for the safety and operation of their classroom. However, the school administration does need to be responsive to teachers who ask for help. Office referrals should be followed up on. Teachers should be supported, not ostracized. Administration needs to be very careful to help staff, not support an uprising against "bad" teachers.

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I weighed myself and was surprised to see that I lost a couple of pounds. The graph should start to look better now that I'm keeping up with it. I wonder what will happen when we roll into May.

I'm starting a new life. Or something. I've moved this blog to Blogspot, just for the hell of it. I'm going to start recording my weightloss. I'm a fat ass, so don't be scared by this graph:


[[Killed an old image since the Weightrends website died long ago.]]


(What's a nuke block? Email me to let me know.)

I'm starting to work a little overtime since I'm done with school and I need to save a little money for my internship next year. I currently make somewhere around 30K and internships pay around 10K. That's a big jump. Plus, I can't work at this job a lot since I'll be working the internship. But, I'm going to try and work here nights and weekends.

Here is a contact center. It sounds cool but it's not. I'm pretty much constantly busy and I can't get up from my chair without my supervisor knowing about it. Plus, the headsets hurt your ears.

I'm also working on my backyard some. I'll try to take some pictures and post them here, in case anybody is interested.

I'm chronically interested in the news (I'm probably one of the few newds that actually took up Audible.com's offer to have a free year of the New York Times Daily Brief) so this will probably turn into an angry rant at some point. I'm going to try to keep it mellow, though. My wife has warned me not to comment on things like this (warning: WMV video file, requires Windows Media Player. I'm really not impressed and I'm really angry about it but I won't comment further. Really.

So, over the next few days/weeks I'll be updating this blog a little bit more. Maybe I'll throw some harmless Google Ads on here (haven't looked in to it, just thought about it) and pretty it up a bit. I know that I want to add a blog roll and trackback (I don't know if that will work for my purposes, though.. we'll see). I'm also going to add a list of sites that I read almost daily. Especially Fark, Metafilter, BoingBoing, DailyKos, and Wonkette. However, at the current moment, I am devouring My Secret Life as a Prostitute. I love it. In fact, that's what has spurred me to write about my own life. Not that my life is all that interesting. I'm a 26 year old man with two kids and a lovely wife. But I really want to get into this blogging thing. Maybe it'll just keep me entertained at my current job.

I also want to add something similar to Wil's right hand sidebar with a listen to, read, and whatnot. (Dumbass me spelled Wil's domain name with two "l's." Duh. I'll probably throw in my weight graph over there and keep it refreshing. I need to weigh myself when I get home tonight. I'm sure it'll be more than 270, though. I'm such a lard ass.

Which reminds me: I'm going to talk to my doctor about weightloss, just like I've been told to do by all those TV ads (consult your doctor before starting any exercise plan). We'll see what she has to say. I have to see her about some rashes I have. My wife thinks I may have ringworm (!!!) but I also have some sort of vitamin deficiency in one area and heat rash in the third area. None of these sites are even all that gross. I think the heat rash is on the other side of my elbow on my left hand. The vitamin deficiency (I've been told that that's what it was before by a dermatologist) in on my right side, nearly out of sight. And the ringworm (!!!) is on my right leg, on the back of my knee.

Hmm. I wonder if it was only valid yesterday. Damnitall.

I'm working on a year. Here's hoping that I can get a Gmail account. I want one so bad. Really really bad. And I'm a really good beta tester.