For the people who ask why I chose to be homeschooled as a teenager when I could have kept hanging out with annoying/boring “normal” people:

And for the people who think that’s an unrealistic view of the inside of a school…it must be nice, that far up De Nile, so happy paddling.

Are higher-order thinking and nonambiguously-measurable objectives inherently at odds with each other?  Or can the two be combined so that making all standards measurable for accountability’s sake doesn’t have to shortchange the kids on the most transferrable skills?

Check comments for my thoughts–I’m going to hold off on posting them for at least a week to see what other people think first.  Discuss, debate, post links to other articles, even cite Wikipedia if you have to.  Definitely invite your friends.  But as you tear each other’s arguments’ faces off, be polite.

I scraped a few hours loose from grading this morning to chase cadets at Airman’s Attic, the on-base secondhand store, where they were volunteering to straighten shelves, sort stuff coming in, mop floors, that kind of thing.  As it turned out I was basically there to remind them to take a water break–”if I need water and I’m just standing here, you definitely need water when you’re doing all that mopping”–because the building isn’t air conditioned except in a few rooms.  There’s hope for the next generation yet.

If only there were a way I could work with the kind of kids that need someone around to make sure they don’t dehydrate themselves from being so absorbed in working for free on a Saturday morning.  Instead of rival gang members trying to whiz on the most trees.

I drove to the Prescott airport and back today to knock out BCUT training.  Easiest thing ever, just sign in, take notes, and magically be one step closer to observer (which will be relevant once I get scanner).  And find out about the things we do just the confuse the heck out of the eavesdropping media.  The amount of driving has me feeling like it’s later than it actually is, though.

Also, unless I’m mistaken, this means I can get a call sign and check out an actual serious military radio for home or in the car.  That could be so many different kinds of cool, I think.  Probably I would go with the home version since my car has a history of not hanging onto radios so well.

You do not have to be a lost cause.

You have potential beyond anyone’s ability to measure.

But if you choose to behave like a lost cause,

To make problems for others instead of something of yourself,

A lost cause is what you will be.

No one can change you, except you.

No one can choose your life, except you.

Not one can get you into a mansion or a jail cell, except you.

This is your one life.  It will be what you make it.  Today.

You decide.

—

I am here to show you how to not be a lost cause.  What I teach you will help you.  But you have to choose to use this opportunity.  If you’d rather act wrong so that others have a hard time focusing, just don’t come.  But I will never understand why you choose a more difficult less productive path when you have a chance to do anything.

Yesterday morning, I was only marginally mentally functional, having gotten no more than 5 hours of sleep, broken up by 4 AM CQ (basically, sentry duty).  Somewhere in there I was out enough to not wake up when an industrial compressor started up next to me.  (In other sleep deprivation news, I was also tired enough to sleep through most of the following afternoon and early evening, in about two-hour chunks, do lesson plans until about 3 AM, then sleep until 6; mind you, this was the weekend, and usually weekends are when I catch up, not go further into sleep debt.)

Apparently people have decided that I’m going to stick around for a while, because this morning while I was half zombiefied, I finally experienced being “volun-told.”  This technical term refers to being informed of an event and that you will be volunteering for it.  Everything went straight into the phone calendar because I had no faith in my ability to remember any of it.  I think there was something in there about helping with a dog training demonstration, possibly by letting the actual trainer show how to get the dog to not bite my arm…oh well, I’m insured, but I can see why they volun-told me about that while I was sleep deprived.

I’ve heard online that food banks near Ike are already running out of food.  Although I’m not able to verify this personally, of course, I have no problem believing it: people’s sense of personal responsibility no longer tells them that they need to take care of themselves.  The government is supposed to rescue us from everything, people think (don’t start me on people still being in FEMA trailers in New Orleans).

No one wants your butt to be saved in an emergency more than you do.  Save it yourself.

Evacuations are going to be a mess in pretty much any situation, but they’re naturally going to be about a bajillion times more screwed up if you and the gazillion people nearest you stop by the same store on your way out of town to pick up supplies.  The store does not have enough for that many people at once, and you will forget stuff.

The best solution is to gather supplies ahead of time.  It’s called a 3-day kit because that’s how much food and water you’re supposed to put into it.  Obviously there’s nothing wrong with having more than that; no one in New Orleans died from having an extra granola bar on hand.

Check out a recommended supply list, add a few things at a time to your next several shopping lists, and throw it all in a box somewhere where you’ll be able to get to it if you need it.  What’s hard about that?  So go do it.  Now.

As you start collecting supplies, you’ll need to choose a place to keep them.  Most people spend most of their time in either their home, workplace, or car.  Most workplaces already have a lot of things, like first aid supplies, but unless you work in a grocery store you’ll probably need to supply your own emergency food in a shelter-in-place situation.  (For shelter-in-place, a store is probably the ideal location; for any situation where people are mobile, on the other hand, a store is the last place you want to be because it will be swarmed.)

Consider keeping one kit at home and another in your car–if you meet some definition of normal for this society, 99% of the time either you’re home or your car is with you.  If you’re Amish, that would be your buggy instead, and get off the internet.

Obvious stuff: Choose food that won’t go bad–dried fruit, granola bars, canned stuff, trail mix, etc.  Don’t make it all the same thing–while you can live for three days on a Costco box of granola bars, it’s better for your morale to be able to mix things up (this is why there’s more than one kind of MRE).  Include some chocolate if you’re a chocoholic.  Include something with caffeine in it if you’re a caffeine addict, since there is no emergency that can be improved by a caffeine withdrawal migraine; Excedrin is a good bet since it works on other headaches too.

Less obvious: They aren’t kidding about having something low-tech to do–you’ll be bored out of your skull by the time it’s over if you depend on TV or your computer to amuse you and the power’s out.  I know this from a snowstorm in fifth grade, and at least in that one we could go outside.  We didn’t have emergency rations for that one, but the shelves were at least stocked ahead of time.

Speaking of stories…oh readers…have any of you ever gotten into a 3-day kit?  Or wished you had one?  Comment plzkthx.

Or, reason 524 why political discussions bug me.

Everyone says that whatever they’re against is unconstitutional.  This is without any regard, mind you, for the contents of the Constitution.  Either they don’t know what’s in the nation’s most important legal document (in which case they shouldn’t be allowed to talk about it), or they’re deliberately misrepresenting it (in which case I see no reason why we should let them talk about it).

It’s reached the point where I’ve developed the following standard rant, which I paste into the end of a post whenever I say “Technically, the Constitution covers”:

“Technically, the Constitution covers” is Avrilacode for “Don’t give me this ‘living document’ stuff. Is means is. The Constitution means what its words say. If people don’t like it they can get it amended but it does not mean ‘whatever you want it to mean’ and, contrary to what every special interest group out there seems to think, ‘unconstitutional’ is not a synonym for ‘I don’t like it.’ “

I was actually nicer in this rant than I originally meant to be.  An early version of the last half of the last sentence appeared while I was running my mouth as a teenager, as “I hate these stupid special interest groups that think ‘unconstitutional’ is just an idiot word for ‘I don’t like it.’ ”

There’s no excuse.  If you can’t show me where in the Constitution something isn’t allowed, find a word that doesn’t make you look like an idiot.

I just saw an ad for a web site about how natural and healthy high fructose corn syrup is.  By the “Corn Refiners Association,” the apparent leaders of the cornspiracy.

All I have to say is this: I don’t mind sugar-type stuff in places where sugar belong.  Soda, candy, cake, that kind of thing.  However, high fructose corn syrup does not belong in lots of other foods, like tomato sauce.  I would equally object to honey in those things.

The only reason that corn syrup bothers me more than any other given sweetener is that our government is paying for so much corn that we have to use it to stick calories and tooth-rotting potential into places where it otherwise would not be.  This, well, sucks.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

–United States Constitution [emphasis added]

All the qualifications for President apply only to people.  There’s nothing in there saying that only a person can be President, and nothing specifically ruling out any species, including felis domesticus…so…ladies, gentlemen, and Martians, I would like to nominate, running for the Kibble Cruncher Party and holding firm positions on animal rights, hunting, libraries, and free veterinary care, and promising to visit a vet regularly to keep from being corrupted by the poly ticks, the next President of the United States…Chilsa!