School Ends

It's finally done. I've been fighting a relapse of the crud, trying to get things finished up at school, and I really haven't felt much like blogging. Now, everything has come to a close, and I think you'll start seeing more posts from me.

I lay on couch and read most of today. The rest of the day, I was helping Dad wrestle with my ancient water heater. It went belly-up earlier this week and getting it out turned out to be more of a hassle than one might imagine. Apparently, it was installed just about the time I was born and had rusted away to almost nothing. Trying to move it caused flakes of rust to come off. To get a good grip, we just sort of punched through the side and made a handhold. Once again, only that great magic, kind force of the universe was holding all that rust together in the semblance of a water heater. By all rights, as far as I can tell, it should have disintegrated long ago.

We're still working on it...plumbing sucks. I have water all over the house again, though, and the water heater for the back of the house is still working, so we can drink and bathe. (Well, I can bathe. The cats and my dogs take care of that in other ways.)

I have started a couple of minor renovations on my main bathroom, just moving stuff around and spray painting a couple of smaller items. I am going to try to get the ancient contact paper stripped off the walls (no, I didn't put it up) and paint. I may get crazy and put down some self-stick floor tiles to try to do something with the horrid floor. It's nice to have summer to tinker with stuff. I miss my tinkering time fiercely during the school year.

I also got a new laptop. Well, I'm using a new laptop. I can't say it belongs to me. Our school system bought laptops for all their teachers to use. They're Gateway, and they're "da bomb." (Do people even say that anymore? Should people say that anymore?) It's wireless, and will command a wireless projector they're in the process of mounting to my classroom ceiling. They're also tablet PCs, so I can draw little stick men for my classes. :) Maybe this way I can get my instructions across more clearly.

In all seriousness, this is exciting for me. I finally have the tools to do some serious tech stuff in my teaching. Before, I was having to rig a bunch of stuff and pray for good results. Now it's all simply right at my fingertips. It's almost overwhelming.

Well, I'm off to play with my fantastic machine for another night. I should be sleeping, but hey, it's a tablet PC and school's out for the summer. Life is good.