Mark O’Meara: the blog

Sausage Feast by danpeters

Today I did two shifts at the kinder fund-raising barbecue which sounds like a lot but a couple of people were there from eight until four which is really the long haul.

The first shift was at lunchtime and I barely looked up from my job for the whole ninety minutes. My job was to keep the onion cooked and put cooked onion and burgers into bun or pieces of bread. The sausages stay long for the bread but have to be cut in halves before they go into the buns.

Happily this allowed me to indulge my minor fascination with diner lingo. Pretty soon I had people asking “short and dressed” and so forth. I would have gone for more colourful names but it really was very busy and hard to be either creative or especially communicative.

Lesson for the day - fun is where you make it.

What is Art?! by hinius

I have been running a series of quizzes on the Red Space Rocket forum and some of the students seem to have been enjoying them. So I thought I’d play the game here in the comments.

The Rules.
I will only answer yes or no.
Each person only gets two questions answered on any given day.

So let’s begin (that is if anyone is in the slightest bit interested).

Lesson for the day - I am the blog spanner.

Indiana Jones Lego by Gary B. (Dublin, Ireland)

With babysitting and general busyness we don’t get out to the movies often. Joanna has very generously offered to babysit but we are keeping that for Prince Caspian in a couple of weeks. Happily Joanna had also offered to keep me company if I wanted to see the new Indiana Jones. Last night I figured that there was no time like the present so off we went.

I can’t claim that it is any kind of masterpiece but this film was exciting and good fun. Admittedly some of the situations were do stupid that I probably laughed out loud at points. But, all in all, it was a good romp and I’m glad I get myself out of the house to see it.

Lesson for the day - there are films you just know are going to be too much fun to watch on the telly.

Blue Sky and Clouds over Monti Lattari (Italy) by RayDS

I have known for a while know that Dar Williams didn’t write the song Better Thing although she does a cracking version of it on her album The End of Summer. However it was only this morning that I bothered to discover that the original was by the Kinks.

So this morning I blew some of my pocket money and downloaded the original and four other covers from iTunes. Andy and I listened to all of them twice this morning on the way to work. I like them all to greater and lesser degrees but it’s a terrific song so it’s hard to do a bad job of it.

Lesson for the day - perhaps you can have too much of better things but I’m prepared to take that chance.

Butternut Pumpkins by aussieguera

I thought about it for a bit and a plain pumpkin soup seemed like the best bet. It’s tasty and hard to make a complete mess of and they are both qualities I admire.

The tradition of Soup Wednesday is quite new at school and the first two soups came out of the gate fast and confident. I don’t fancy myself as any kind of cook but I also can be terribly earnest and didn’t want to look a complete fool with my soup by comparison either.

Happily this pumpkin soup was pretty well received and the boiler was sitting empty in the staffroom by the end of lunch time.

Lesson for the day - there is a reason pumpkin is such a common term of affection.

Although I am clearly someone who does Very Little Indeed nevertheless I often feel as if I am Spread Thin. Now I could and do bemoan this situation but, of course, it is better to work towards a fix than complain.

So to that end I am making a list of things I want to spend my time on. Here is my first cut.

Help to provide some Nicky time for Nicky on the weekends.
Write a new blog entry for Finn each week.
Write a new blog entry for Leila each week.
Go to Tai Chi on Wednesdays.
Keep up with my correction and class preparation.
Continue to use the blog, wiki and forum on Red Space Rocket.
Do the dishes every night.
Be social with friends.

Other things like podcasting, scrabulous, scramble, shufflepuck, musical pretensions, and twitter will just have to wait.

Lesson for the day - even those with four eyes need to focus.

8days010 by kentonlibrary

I am starting to feel how long this term is and never more than when I realised just how little of my planning I had done for the week to come.

Last week was really unsettled at work and at home and I am feeling like a toy with rapidly dying batteries. With any luck I’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight and start the week reasonably fresh.

However, for all my complaining, we have had a lovely weekend and that’s a million miles away from nothing.

Lesson for the day - a good weekend and a solid sleep is better than any medicine.

fire extinguishers near the white wall by HANS HUANG, HERE AND NOW

At one of these parties I had moments where I simply could not remember the name of some people. In most cases these were people I was never close to and haven’t seen for five or ten years. All the same I was tempted to claim that I had been caught in a freak fire extinguisher accident and Northland and had lost the ability to remember anyone I’m ever met at a party.

I’m not convinced that people would believe me but it’s certainly worth a try.

Lesson for the day - fiction might be better when you can’t remember simple facts.

first birthday! by smcgee

Today we went to two first birthday parties and I don’t know that things could have gone much better really. Finn played well with other kids, Leila has a lovely crawl around and explore and we played nicely enough with select grown up.

Now that it is eight o’clock both kids are asleep in bed and we are dead tired.

Lesson for the day - even a good day will take it out of you.

Finish [of] A.M.C. annual cross country run, 1910 by NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center

Yesterday was the cross country run at school and it was a really nice day. Personally I quite like being paid to stand around on the edge of a park and wave now and then at students as they run or walk by. This could have been a bit boring or lonely but I Andy and I had walkie talkies and just talked random nonsense now and then to pass the time.

After the events we walk down by the water and have a barbecue and some novelty events. I know it all sounds pretty simply but when the sun is shining it’s a pretty close to perfect day at school.

Lesson for the day - it’s hard to be cross about the cross country.