Baltimore Diary

A Meme I Found Somewhere

I found this on The Bed and Breakfast Man, to which I'd never been previously (but I'm willing to link you to him anyway). I don't know that all of this is true, but it's pretty close.

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was insecure and in constant need of reassurance. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage as something precious. You'll treasure marriage and treat it as sacred. In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

A Moment of Irreverence

I don't know; I think I'd be pretty pissed off if I waited in line a couple of hours to see Rosa Parks in the Capitol Rotunda and all I get is a closed box. I'm just saying.

It is kind of cool that, by being the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, is still blazing trails for others to follow. Yeah, I know she wasn't strictly the first but she got to be the iconic figure, let it go now.

A Brief Yet Comprehensive Resume

Newspaper Carrier (for Newsday, the Long Island Newspaper)
Mental Health Therapy Aide at the Long Island Developmental Center, which no longer exists
Employee at Burger King in West Hempstead, NY
Student Employee at Adelphi University's Library
Computer Administrator at Adelphi's Library
Mobile DJ
Clerk at 7-Eleven in Uniondale, NY
Assistant Manager and then Manager at Record World (RIP) in several stores in Nassau County, Long Island
Associate Editor, Maritime Reporter Magazine. This was another five-week deal; it turned out that I was hired as a chair-warmer while they waited for the guy they really wanted to become available.
Child Care Worker in a residential program in Woodbury, NY and another in Sea Cliff, NY (yes, at the same time)
Teacher Aide
Certified Teacher, Ungraded Special Ed Program
Special Ed Teacher, private school (they used to have a website but I can't find it anymore)
Special Ed Teacher in a school for emotionally disturbed kids (this job lasted about five weeks)
Preschool Special Ed Teacher for Visually Handicapped children
Newspaper Reporter in Northern New Jersey
IEP Instructional Associate for Baltimore City Public Schools
Lead IA for Area One, Baltimore City Public Schools

No wonder I'm tired.

Heads Explodin' Everywhere

Coming back from Florida, I certainly hit the ground running.

I got a bunch of homework done while I was away; enough to get me only a week behind. By now I'm almost done with everything, which is just as well, since I only have one class left. I'm hoping that I can get my last brief done tonight so I can hand in my last two a couple of days early; then all I have to worry about is my presentation on Zero Tolerance policies, which I'm doing on Thursday. Then I'm done with the Legal Issues class. I really did enjoy this class but it's not something to be given over seven sessions for four hours at a time. First, it gives the topic short shrift, and second, we never met for the full four hours. I went through this when I took the Assessment course as well. It was a summer course, so we met four times for something like six hours at a pop. You don't get a good appreciation for what you're learning. Of course, when I get to the Technology course, which will teach me how to post stuff to the World Wide Web (a-hem), it'll be the Interminable Death March of Classes. Feh.

So I've got homework to finish, a presentation to complete, then two reports that are already due from work and a third that will be generated tomorrow when I do another observation, then in the afternoon I'm meeting with someone to start another training session, which means another presentation to BEGIN.

If you see a guy walking around town with a big smoky hole where his head should be? That'd be me.

Airport Musings

I'm in the terminal at Tampa Airport, waiting for boarding and taking advantage of their wireless services.

Today I spent the better part of the day cooking for my mother and stepfather. Oh, and my brother and grandmother got to eat, too.

My stepfather's been dying for me to make him Linguine with White Clam Sauce. It's not a big deal; I don't have a secret recipe or anything. But I make it with a lot of garlic and my mother just isn't dealing with it. At the last house they lived in, it was banned altogether because their stovetop hood didn't vent to the outside. But in the new place, all bets are off and LWWCS was green-lighted, as long as I made red sauce for my mom and brother, neither of whom will eat the clam sauce. Fair enough, but my sauce takes hours to cook, so I had to get an early start.

There were no big deals; the sauce was (sauces were) a success and so were my homemade croutons for the salad (another thing my stepfather insists I make because he won't eat the store-bought stuff). The visit was fun and, while I'm sure I'll have a ton of stuff waiting for me, I'm also looking forward to going back to work.

They're boarding now, but one more, unrelated thought: I love my daughter dearly but her mother's anxieties are really clouding that kid's judgment.

Florida is Not for the Impatient

This afternoon I took some time at the local library so I could do some research for school.

It turns out that school is closed today although nobody is sure why. So when I got to the library, there were more people there than usual for a Monday. Most of them were teenagers, many of which were there to read classic novels such as Moby-Dick and A Tale of Two Cities.

Ha ha! Just kidding, of course. They were there to play computer-based games. So there's a guy there, about ninety years older than god, and he's trying to coordinate all the terminals and make sure that people aren't staying overlong. He's having a hard time of it so I just give him my name and wander off to the Books For Sale cart. It's maybe 10 minutes before he calls my name and assigns me to a terminal.

So I go to the computer and I get the stuff I need printed out, which is over 60 pages, and now it's time for me to go pay for my printouts. At this particular library that gets done at the Reserves desk. There's a patron at the desk who is just rambling ON and ON and ON about opera to the guy standing there. And the Reserve clerk clearly couldn't care less, even going so far as to say--twice--that the only opera he's a fan of is "Phantom Of". Which is kind of sad in and of itself, but whatever. He tries several times to turn his attention to me but has difficulty until finally he can blow the other guy off completely.

On the way out of the library, I call my mother and suggest that I pick up lunch and bring it by. Near her house there's a Publix Supermarket, so in I go. I go to the deli counter and hey! There's only one person ahead of me. Unfortunately, this is a middle-aged woman who apparently can't decide anything without the assistance of her early-teens daughter, whose attitude about deli meat, on her best day, is probably "What. Ever." I get rescued by another deli clerk, pick up another couple of items and head for the checkout.

Look in my basket: 8 items. I'm headed for the Express Lane. The person ahead of me appears to have more than 8 but she's at the very end of the order so it's no big deal. "More than 8" turns out to be $175.00 worth of groceries. And, of course, she's paying by check. In the "10 Items or Less/No Checks" Express Lane.

You know that scene in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure where he's at the Alamo and he's just dying for the tour to get to the basement? His eyes, in one shot, roll so far back that they actually disappear. Yeah, that was me.

Finally, out of Publix. I have one more stop to make, across the street. I've been using my grandmother's car so I want to put some gas into it. I'm paying cash, so that means going into the convenience store. Of course, someone's ahead of me on line. He's buying a 12-pack of beer, and it's likely not his first of the day. They keep explaining his change to him. There's some nuance about it that keeps escaping him. It cost this much, there's that much tax, you gave us this much, that means there's this amount of change. Repeatedly. REPEATEDLY. Finally I get to shove a $10 bill at the cashier and go out to the car.

Yeah, you read that right. I put maybe three gallons of gas in my grandmother's car. Get off my ass, I drove for six miles total. She's still way ahead. Finally I arrive at my mother's and (by now it's "of course") her driveway is blocked by the guy who takes care of her yard AND the postman.

Returning to Baltimore Tuesday night after a day of cooking for my family. Fun to visit but it'll be good to get back. I'm about as close to recharged as I'm going to get.

I'm Just Saying (metapost)

This is no secret by now, but every couple of days I look into the visitor stats to see where my hits are coming from. Most of them, by far, are still people trying to figure out the grisly details of the recent death of a radio host's wife. I'm not being more detailed because I don't want them to come to this post as well. I'm glad for the attention, but jee-zus. Let it be. I don't know anything, and I think the previews that Yahoo! (it's usually from Yahoo!) gives you makes it pretty clear that I don't have details. So thanks for reading, and get a life.

But every once in awhile I'll get a search for something else. "fun things to do in Baltimore," for instance, or looking for specific restaurants. One recent search that led here was looking for shrimp burgers at McDonald's. I don't think I want to know about that.

Yesterday someone came to this site based on a keyword search for "Josh Holloway Natalee", which, of course, led them to this post.

You know, it's bad enough that I think about this sort of stuff. It's just disturbing that it occurred to other people, too. Heh.

Restaurant Hijinks

Last night my grandmother decided that she wanted to take everyone out to dinner. One of their current favorite restaurants (that isn't a chain) is called the Blue Dolphin, located in Hudson. When my brother heard about it, he told me that it has the typical seafood restaurant décor, including model ships, netting with natural sponges, and a waterfall with a wishing pond: "sort of like the ones you see in John Candy movies."
He wasn't lying.
But for that, it wasn't a bad place. The restaurant was crowded, more so than my family was used to. But, what the hell: they're getting into Snowbird Season around here. There are tourists everywhere, Your Humble Narrator included. We all ordered our meals; I ordered the strip steak and crab legs combo. Medium rare on the steak, please. Not that you care, but there is a reason I'm telling you this.
Before our meals arrived, we were invited to take advantage of their Soup and Salad Bar. I could use more vegetables in my life, but iceberg lettuce will do in a pinch. In my head, Iceberg Lettuce is the polyester of the vegetable kingdom. So off to the Soup and Salad Bar we go.
I get there and contemplate the soups. One is apparently New England Clam Chowder; the other appears to be a kind of pea soup but it could be the lighting. I opt for the clam chowder. I pick up the ladle and--I swear I'm not making this up--before I even have it in the soup, the guy behind me in line says "Hey, you think maybe you can save some of that for the rest of us?" I just look at him with a "pardon me, I didn't understand the point of incredibly stupid thing you said" face. He reads that as total incomprehension and actually repeats it. Now I put on my obviously phony smile and say, "Heh. That's pretty funny" in the tone that says "now get the fuck away from me." Assemble a quick salad (choices there were kind of thin, but whatever) and back to the table. It turns out that the soup is chicken, with acini di pepe pasta in it.
I guess you can figure out that I don't need new friends. The ones I have are irritating enough.
Our meals arrive and all looks good, although my steak is kind of dark looking. This isn't necessarily a big deal; sometimes "medium rare" is achieved by cooking the hell out of the outside and leaving the inside barely warm. So I cut into the steak...no such luck. It's medium-well. At BEST. But I can be a trouper and I have a couple of bites.
Until my mom asks how it is. So, fool that I am, I tell the truth. "It's kind of overdone," I say, holding up a piece. "So, send it back," she says. I'm still willing to eat it, but now her head is swivelling about, looking for our waiter. He's nowhere nearby so she actually gets up and goes to find him.
He comes back and asks what's wrong. I tell him that it's overcooked. He apologizes and asks for my fork. With it, he harpoons the offending steak and walks back into the kitchen with it on the end of the fork. We all look after him, incredulous. A minute later he returns with the fork and tells me that "they pulled the wrong one off the grill. We'll have a new one for you in a few minutes." He pats me on the shoulder and moves away. I look at my shoulder and think, "yeah, that's gonna have to come off."
To be fair, they were quick about bringing me the new steak, and it was cooked perfectly. And at least it came out on a plate rather than on the end of a fork. And everything else was very good. But I think I can safely say that that was one of my weirder restaurant experiences.

State of Sunshine

Did you know that if you Google the phrase "haven't posted in awhile" you get 25,400 results? That's why I'm not going to say anything about why I haven't posted in awhile.
I have been very, very busy of late, and the one opportunity that I did take to post, Typepad was down. Feckers. Anyway:
My new job officially started last Tuesday, but I still had (have) a bunch of loose ends to clean up, so I'm still kinda-sorta doing both of them at once. Plus, the guy who replaced me at one school is new so I'm walking him through a lot of stuff. Which, after all, is part of my job so I can't complain about that part. But it does have me running around. Plus, I've got a TON of stuff due at school and not much time to do it in. So yeah, I've been on the run a lot.
Back in August, I decided that I was definitely going down to Florida in October for my brother's birthday. And this is the week! Yeah, about a week after I start the new position. But that's not my fault; I was supposed to start this weeks ago.
For those of you who live on, or anywhere near, the East Coast, this has been a terribly rainy couple of days. Not that we couldn't use it; the five weeks prior have been very dry. But it was one more thing to contend with yesterday.
My flight was scheduled for 4:30. I had a meeting that I needed to attend on my boss' behalf at 1:00. Meetings typically run about an hour so that's not too bad. On the other hand, a BCPSS attorney and an advocate hired by the parent were scheduled to attend as well, so that's not too good: it bodes for a loooong meeting. The rest of the school team knew what was up and why I might be motivated to wrap this up quickly; who knows, we may keep it to an hour after all. I have a friend who's going to meet me at my house at 2:30; all I have to do is grab my carry-on baggage and boogie down to the airport.
The meeting actually went pretty well, although as expected it did run a little on the long side because of a couple of knucklehead questions that the advocate felt she had to ask in order to justify getting whatever stupid amounts of money she was getting. Most IEP teams are not in the business of selling your kid short; unless you know for a fact that the school is mishandling your kid's case, you're almost always getting ripped off when you hire these people. </rant> So, yeah, okay. We actually get everything done by 2:30. My phone rings: "Where are you?"
"I'm just leaving the school. I'll be there in 15 minutes."
That was a lie. Because of the rain and the traffic, I get to my place a little after 3:00. Run in the house, grab my bag and into my friend's car. And off we go to BWI Airport.
See, my concern isn't checking in, because I fly Southwest Airlines and I used their website to check in online. I also got my Boarding Pass online, so that's a done deal. What I was worried about was getting through the security checkpoint. That's the part where they make you take off your shoes, they x-ray everything that isn't attached to you, you walk through the detector, etc. etc. etc. and it can be a hell of a bottleneck. And sure enough, the Disney Lines are three deep, but they do seem to be moving steadily. This may not be too horrible.
In retrospect, I think it didn't take nearly as long as it felt like it was. When you get to the end of the Disney Lines you basically pick one of three new lines for the examination itself. I was watching the lines and chose the one that seemed to be moving at a decent rate. At which point, of course, it slowed way down. Not to mention the FOURTH line they opened up a few seconds after I got into my line. But when all was said and done, I was in the terminal area and it was only 3:40. Hey! I have time to get something to eat!
The terminal at BWI has a bunch of places to eat; nearly all of them (if not all) are chains of some kind. So I pop into a Quizno's, which appears to have not much of a line and isn't total crap food, and order a Mesquite Chicken with Bacon. It'll kill you quick, what with the bacon and cheese and ranch dressing and all, but it's pretty good. I did have to be careful not to drip ranch all over myself, though. (That was my other food consideration; keeping the mess down. I was kind of in the mood for fried chicken but then you're getting into grease all over everything and who needs that?) Finished my sandwich and headed toward my gate, which I now realize is waaaaaay down there.
No kidding, it's as far down the terminal as a person can go. I think it was about a two-mile walk. (OK, I may have exaggerated.) But it is a long walk, and as I pass a board it says that they're boarding. Boarding! Crap! I boogie down to the gate and of course it's NOT boarding, but there is a plane at the jetway. That turns out not to be our plane, as it pulls away and goes somewhere else. Then our plane does pull up, but it has to disembark other people first.
Southwest Airlines has an interesting way of boarding and seating people. There are no assigned seats; it's like festival seating for airplanes. Instead, the boarding passes are marked "A,", "B" and "C". After they take on the wheelchair passengers and the unaccompanied minors, they board all the "A" people, then the "B" people, and then the "C" group. See? Another good reason to check in online. Log in at 12:01 AM and get yourself an "A" pass, 'cos that ain't happening at the airport. The best you'll do at the airport is a "B". So anyway, people who know the ABC system are usually lining up into their respective groups long before they announce boarding. So even though they weren't boarding, the ABC lines were already forming. I got in the A line and checked the time: 4:05.
Inwardly I cursed myself for not taking the extra minute to pick up a bottle of soda or water or something on the way down to the gate. The nearest place was about 150 feet away but now I'm in line (which is now MUCH longer) and in this day of Airline Paranoia, the last thing you want to do is ask someone to watch your stuff while you go somewhere else. You'll come back to a bunch of armed guys. But luck was in my favor: they have a guy who drives around the terminal in a built-up golf cart marked "Before Ye Go". And he's selling drinks and snacks at only 2000% markup. So I buy a $2.00 bottle of water and now I'm good to go.
The flight itself was uneventful, and we even got in ten minutes early. Everyone is glad to see me and that's nice to know. We had dinner in a place called Smokey Bones, which is apparently a chain of barbecue-type food. According to the website there's a location in Bowie, MD. Who knew!  That wasn't bad food but I think I like the Ray Lewis Full Moon Bar-B-Que better. It's a tossup, really: Smokey Bones has a wider menu selection but what Ray Lewis' place does, it does incredibly well. (And they don't beat you over the head with the Ravens stuff, although if you didn't know going in that Ray Lewis plays for the Ravens, you will by the time you leave.)
So anyway, yeah. I'm in Florida and it's lovely outside and I plan on doing a whole bunch of NOT MUCH, although you know how families are. But with any luck I'll be able to return to work without wanting to blow my brains out. This is definitely a break I needed.

More Museum Fun

I dunno, I'm on a DC Museum thing lately.

Yesterday we went to the National Museum of American History. We took Wee One down this time, thinking that it would be all kinds of fun (Judy Garland's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz) and educational (nearly everything else) for her. One of the things that we were able to do is download a page of things for her to find throughout the museum. A treasure hunt! Too cool!

Here's where I get to whine. I'm so good at it.

I have two suggestions: first, put the stuff in a reasonable order. The list is written specifically for kids aged 6 through 9 (there's another one for 10-13 year olds); their heads explode, or at least start cracking at the sides, if they don't find Item #1 first. And they don't, because (here's my second complaint) Item #1 is nowhere to be found. We even took the time to ask a passing docent where the thing was, and they didn't even know. So, Feh. Pfui.

The Smithsonian has a bazillion items in its collection; so many that they have no choice but to rotate stuff in and out. Which is fine, but update the fricken list from time to time.

There are a few sections that everyone enjoys, such as the Pop Culture section, which is (in my opinion) woefully small. There are two cases that never seem to change. In there you see the chairs used by Archie and Edith Bunker on All in the Family, you see Howdy Doody and Charlie McCarthy, there's Fonzie's jacket and Mister Rogers' sweater (I totally miss Fred Rogers), and a few other odds and ends from television.

Across from that, in what could be described as a large alcove, there are a few other cases whose contents change from time to time. The ruby slippers are there (they don't ever change), plus nowadays there's a uniform and sneakers from Rebecca Lobo (go look her up if you don't know who she is), Kermit the Frog is in one case, and there are some sports memorabilia, such as Stan Musial's bat. Missing this time around (but there on a recent visit) were a uniform and assorted props from Star Trek and some other stuff from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

One of the things I noticed about this stuff is that the overall quality of TV props has increased dramatically over the years. The Star Trek props and uniform insignia look pretty poor when you see them in the case, even though they look good on the screen. In one case you can see the blazer worn by Ted Knight on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and there's barely enough detail for the camera to pick up the channel number and call letters. In another section of the museum there's a windbreaker worn by Martin Sheen on The West Wing and the detail on the Presidential Seal is impressive. Why the improvement? I have to guess that it's the advent of High-Definition TV. If it looks crappy in real life, it's going to look crappy on the screen as well. You can't count on the camera to disguise much in HDTV.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. They have a metric boatload of pop culture stuff. Hey, they took Julia Child's entire kitchen out of Boston and moved it to DC. I totally want that kitchen, by the way. Extra-high counters and workspace everywhere. They've got a small exhibition dedicated to the first 50 years of Disneyland. They have a section dedicated to the President of the United States as a fictional character. There's a 12x12-foot area dedicated to Ella Fitzgerald. It seems that it might actually be time to dedicate an entire building to popular culture, or at least a wing of another building. But that, like so much other stuff here, is my lame-ass opinion.

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Other stuff that I liked that didn't fit into the section above:

A GREAT exhibit about Brown v. Board of Education. Brown was the Supreme Court case that originated in Topeka, Kansas that determined that separate does not mean "equal". It overturned Plessey v. Ferguson from 1896. (Yeah, someone's been doing the readings in class.)

"Whatever Happened to Polio?" This was a pretty cool exhibit about what it is and how it affected people in the early part of the last century. The only argument I'd have is that it didn't really convey the absolute fear that even the concept of polio struck into people's hearts.

"Engines of Change" is an exhibit about the Industrial Revolution. Cool stuff there.

There's also a pretty neat exhibit about the Information Age, but part of it is blocked off for renovation. Ditto the Musical Instruments exhibit.

"On Time" is about our concepts of time and time-keeping devices. And, best of all (I don't know why it's in this section but what the hell), they have the 1927 cartoon Steamboat Willie (the first appearance of Mickey Mouse) running all the way in the back. The cool thing about this is that they're running it with the synchronized audio. You can go to Walt Disney World and see Steamboat Willie, but it's without audio. It's hard to explain why, so just accept it.

Ooh! I almost forgot. This museum also holds the original Star-Spangled Banner. The flag that flew over Fort McHenry, surviving a fierce battle, and inspired Francis Scott Key to write "This Land is Your Land". Or whatever. But the flag itself, which dates back to 1814 and was in pretty poor condition, has finally been restored. It's still visible in the restoration lab, behind glass, while they're getting a display zone ready. They used to hang the flag in the main atrium but that's not considered a good idea anymore (it'd fall apart if you hung it like that now). So in that same place they're now hanging the Pentagon Flag, the one that hung from that building shortly after September 11, 2001's events. Go see the Star-Spangled Banner and see if you don't get a swell of patriotism inside.