Thursday

Today marks my last day at the ALC. Usually, this is a time of great celebration and relief, but I could go all summer with this crew. Sure, the emos weigh on my patience but right now in my Accessing Information class each student is working quietly on their various projects.

Outside of a troubled apple here and there, each class is very good. Usually I have a few good students here and there and the rest are troubled apples.

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A sure sign of fall? The crops are beginning to ripen. Soon the combines will be out and we might as well start inservice.

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I’m looking forward to the fourth (or is fifth?) edition of our week long summer MNHS class. Though Mandy, Mike, and Lisa won’t be there, working with them was always a delight, it should still be great.

We are focusing on “The Guilded and the Gritty: America 1870-1912.” This is going to be much better than last summer’s focus on the Civil War.

This is the time period of “The Jungle” and the industrial revolution in America. I could study this stuff forever.

I’m particularly looking forward to reading some of the Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie.

I like this period because I think it was a time of purpose and focus in America. We were becoming a major player in the world, rivaling Britain and France for supremacy. Both of the those countries, though, would lose considerable power after WWI.

American was amassing the wealth that would lead to the roaring twenties. Of course, lavish spending and wild economic speculation and ventures would lead to the Great Depression (at least that’s what I recall from my high school history courses – most of my history minor in college focused on British history).

I often wonder what similarities exist between the Guilded and Gritty age in America and China’s recent economic overhaul.

When I looked at all that China had done to prepare for the Olympics, I couldn’t help but be reminded of all that America had accomplished in this time frame – establishing a transcontinental railroad, the subways, the major buildings, and so on.

The only worry I have is that maybe our current war will leave us declining as Britain and France had after WWI. But they’re still around and not helpless by any means. But they aren’t the dominant powers they once were either.

Maybe we are witnessing the torch being passed.

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The patio and landscaping in the back yard is 99.9% complete. Last night Kristie and I finished the edging project, which turned out quite nice. Now I just need to fill in dirt and plant some grass.

We grilled out, moved our furniture onto the patio for the first time, and had a nice fire last night. It was our first chance to relax and enjoy all of our work.

Kristie wanted to get all of the patio furniture onto the patio and get it situated just right. I just wanted to relax. However, her persistence paid off – and she was right – it was nice to get it all set up rather than just being lazy and doing it half ass.

Before sitting down to eat, though, I decided to light a fire. But since we had gotten some rain earlier in the week, getting the fire going was no small feat. As I searched for new (and dry) wood to put in – and for paper to get the blasted thing going (a process which took about 15 minutes) – Kristie could only shake her head and remind me how much I lamented setting up all the patio furniture, yet I was working twice as hard getting that fire going. Point taken.

Finally, I got it going and we could relax.

That was for long, though, as we realized that our patio is in the midst of the bats’ feeding ground and had the joy (my point of view) or horror (Kristie’s point of view) of watching the bats swoop around a mere foot or two above us.

If you ask me, we couldn’t have picked a better spot for the patio!

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More on the Brett Favre drama.

It seems that Brett was offered 20 million dollars by the Packers to STAY retired.

It’s hard to feel sorry for him. I mean he has made a spectacal out of her possible retirement for at least the past four years. Does he love the attention that much? Is it not enough that he is a sure fire first ballot Hall of Famer? Or being one of the top five quarterbacks of all-time? To be a hero to a community and league?

Apparently not.
Tact and professionalism are things that God missed handing out to Favre when he gave him extra doses of guts, arm strength, and passion for the game.

It is too bad because I think a lot of people are losing respect for him.

Has he learned nothing from the likes of Jerry Rice (Oakland and Denver), Joe Namath (Rams), Emmitt Smith (Phoenix), and OJ Simpson (49ers), who limped to the ends of their careers with lesser teams than the franchises they made winners.

What happened to retiring on top like Jim Brown, John Elway, Barry Sanders, Michael Strahan, and Tiki Barber?

Apparently, even some of the people in the state that worships Favre have lost some respect for him. Evidently, some drives to garner support for Favre in Wisconsin have been sparsely attended at best.

You can’t blame the Packers for wanting to move on with Aaron Rogers. I mean they have millions invested in him and he has ridden the bench for several years. After next year he is going to be a free agent. Quarterbacks always command big bucks to resign, so why fork over that money when you don’t know what you have? Time to play the young kid and see what you’ve got.

Plus, Favre cried on national TV and said it was over and walked away. The Packer organization faced the inevitable and moved on. Now are they just supposed to scrap all of the work they’ve done in six months and let Favre come back for one more glory year? Though, you never know. Maybe he’ll pull this stunt again after the ’08 season. I mean he has been threatening to retire for what seems like a decade now.

Had Favre done the right thing – as Elway did – and take some time to think it over before letting his emotions get the best of him – he might have decided to return and not alienated the Packers. In which case, they would have welcomed him back and prepared for him and not gotten ready to hand things over to Rogers.