The Pantry

So, we are quickly approaching the three year anniversary of my purchase of the house. In that time I have made a few modest upgrades and gotten the place looking nice enough that I wasn't completely embarrassed to have Danielle move in.

One of the nagging issues however has been the pantry. It is in the hallway that leads from the entry way of the house into the kitchen, so anyone who walks in, sees what's there.

When I first bought the house, there was cheap folding doors there, which I hated and promptly removed. In the ensuing two years, the "pantry" has been little more than an open closet space with white metal wire shelves, which looked, frankly, terrible.

Danielle and I have been talking about upgrading the pantry for a while, and the time finally came this weekend.

With some borrowed antique doors from Jaquie, we got started.

In the above picture you can see what the space looked like without the wire shelves. This is me installing the door frame.

Because there were to studs in the wall here, we had to make good use of about three tubes of liquid nails.



We have to screw in the shelves, caulk and paint. Aside from that, we have a really nice looking pantry.



We have yet to decide what we want to do with the color on the doors. There is cracked and chipping white paint on them now, which as far as I am concerned looks great, the problem is, will the next buyers of the house think it looks so "rustic".




The garbage can and recycling bin go under the newly built cabinet, and I am planning on building a roll-out drawer for them to fit into. This won't be done this weekend however.

All in all, for less than $100, we ended up with a really nice upgrade and something the two of us are proud of.

Is That All?

We took Avi and Lilah to the zoo Sunday to see the new polar bear, Zero. Although he was awesome, and HUGE (Compared to Aurora)they did not fight like this. Which was of course, unfortunate.

The Health Care Debate

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Danielle worked at New York Presbyterian, on the floor where Mr. Olbermann's father is receiving treatment. Living with a a health care professional, I know how hard the people with their boots on the ground in this fight are working.

My frustration with the politics of Changing this system has boiled over. I am guessing I feel a lot like this guy:



That is Congressmen Anthony Weiner of NY. And at 6:19 this morning I am at least reassured that someone out there is saying something that I agree with.

I think I may show this clip to my 11th grade U.S. History class this morning, we are starting to cover the Constitution today. How do I honestly teach about how our Government is supposed to work, when it has shown an utter inability to do anything for months.

We are no closer today to comprehensive healthcare reform than we were in the fall when I was frustrated. Mr. Obama, you are losing me. There are precious few issues that will get me angry enough to vote against you or not vote at all in 2012. Health Care, equal rights for all citizens regardless of sexual orientation, education, that's pretty much it. In over a year, you and your administration have done shockingly little on each front.

The Snow Leopard

This is Awesome

Seeing as I live with a woman of Ghanaian decent, I find this to be very compelling.

I am not an Olympic freak, but I do enjoy the games, particularly the Snow Board half-pipe, where Shawn White proved that he is head and shoulders the best athlete in his sport in the world.

Crappy Historical Movies, Good Historical Movies

It has been a weird weekend for movies on TV. I have spent most of the weekend inside, playing with Avi and preparing for next week, which means I have found my butt firnly planted on the couch.

I watched "Revolution", which was an excellent historical film, followed by "The Patriot" which is a terrible historical film.

Then today, I turned on the Disney channel while Avi ate her lunch after an awesome sledding trip, only to find the most awful of awful historical films, "Pocahantas" on. In an amazing turn of events, there is an awesome historical film that deals with the same subject matter on right now, I love "Dances with Wolves" and am even able to forgive the historical inaccuracies and perpetuation of the "Nobel Savage" myth.


I just thought it was interesting.

Is it just me, or does Disney's Pochahantas look strikingly like Kim Kardashian?

What I Am Reading

Last week I finished the Mistborn Trilogy for the second time.

I am very boring in that I continue to read and re-read the same books over and over when I find something I like, I think this must be genetic.

Anyways, I loved this series even more this time. I have Drew to thank, again, for getting me to read this. I am dedicating myself to reading all 12 books in The Wheel of Time series. I have finally come to grips with the fact that Drew knows what he is talking about when it comes to fantasy books.

Having just watched the utter crap-fest that was Percy Jackson and the Olympians I have little faith in Books to Movies adaptations right now, but the talk of a potential "Mistborn" movie gets me very excited. The way the action in this series is written would translate beautifully to film, it is sort of Harry Potter, meets LORT, meets the Matrix meets Awesome.

One of my favorite things about reading fantasy books is checking out other people's interpretations of the characters in Fan Art sites. My favorite Harry Potter site is Acciobrain!

Some of the best stuff I have ever drawn/painted has been the Wheel of Time stuff I did for Drew (which I should have him take pictures of so I can post it...Drew, are you reading this?)

The Mistborn artwork that is out there is limited at this point. I have sketched out some Inquisitors, but haven't had the time to really work on them. I will post a few of my favorites that Google Images was able to pull up.







Sweet Koloss transition




















Vin doing her Misborn thing





















And finally, my favorite of Vin, hauling around a way-too-big-but-still-bad-ass Koloss sword.

These Folks Are Real

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As usual, Rachel uses her witty, sarcastic style to disarm even the craziest of crazies. What she said at the end is what is so telling to me, "These folks are real"

Family Guy

I am a huge "Family Guy" fan, but when D and I watched this clip the other day we both looked at each other and said: "Really?".

I couldn't get through the whole Fox News clip, because the vortex of stupid that was created when these two were placed side by side was too much for my tiny brain to handle.

But point being, I came away thinking, "Wholly a Molley" (an Avi-ism) I cannot believe I just agreed with The Palin.

Then I came across This...

And I was reminded that it was this same woman who defended Rush Limbaugh calling someone "an effing retard" in the name of Satire.

It took a young woman with Down's Syndrome to remind me, even people with special needs have senses of humor.

Screw you Sarah.

and this was the rest of the clip:

On The Rocks

When. Danielle is mad at me, either truthfully, or not, she declares that our relationship is "on the rocks", Avi has picked this up.

Went to the strong museum of play today. Avi loved it.

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Ichiro

It is no secret that I have a tiny Man-Crush on Ichiro Suzuki.

Aside from being the source of the best quotes in baseball, he clearly has impecable taste in fashion.

Currently watching Project Runway with D, and I don't think even Tim Gunn could make this work.

Thank the gods Baseball season is right around the corner.

Poopin on the Potty

And we have officially moved into the next stage. Avi has pooped 4 times in the Potty and counting.

This is like the Super Bowl of child raising.

Location : 1161 West Ave, Hilton, NY 14468,

Reading Simba to Simba

Avi reading "The Lion King" to Simba this morning. And yes, she has already used the Potty this morning.

This kid is too cool.

Location : 1161 West Ave, Hilton, NY 14468,

Sarah Palin is an F-ing Retard

Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter

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Classic, classic, classic.

This woman literally makes my stomach turn.

The acrobatics that she is able to accomplish with logic are simply mind-blowing.

There is nothing for me to add, because nothing funny or witty that I say can possibly reach the level of hilarity that she is able to accomplish on accident.

Something Something Something Darkside

Watched Family Guy's Empire Strikes Back spoof last night with The D. Made the mistake of letting Avi watch the first 25 minutes or so, as she was winding down for bedtime and was being totally adorable.

She laughed through most of what she watched, mostly because Danielle and I were laughing so hard. But I think she was confused about this scene. I could tell she was confused when she kept asking me: "Daddy, where Cookie Monster's arm go?"

Needless to say, I will be a bit more discerning in the future with what she watches. She gets very upset when people get hurt in movies or on TV. So imagine her outrage when Cookie Monster's arm was chopped off.

I think the genius of the Family Guy Star Wars spoofs is that they do such an incredible job with the visuals. The shots are perfect. Someone clearly took a lot of time making sure they did a good job with it visually.

Although, you could make the argument that the Robot Chicken version is better:

Space Man

I bought DMB Europe (2009) this week, and have not stopped listening to it yet.

It's funny how a song I wasn't crazy about at first can grow on me.

One Week Down

So I am sitting at my (Mr. Savino's) desk having just finished my first week.

I have taught every class, beginning first thing Monday morning. I didn't really have a chance to be nervous, as I have taken over right from the beginning.

I have slowly been taking over additional responsibilities such as recording attendance, handling behavior issues and calling parents. So far, I guess so good.

We have, in one week gone from the basics of Geography up to the French and Indian War ("Mr. Gilmore, why do they call it the French and Indian War if the French were not fighting the Indians", Me-"good friggen question")

I think we have done a good job hitting on the key historical points. I have also been sure to include those historical tidbits that I think are interesting, such as the Southern accent deriving from a Scotch-Irish dialect.

I am in no way a Master Teacher (like Yoda) at this point. But I think I do have a talent for this stuff.

And I included the picture from "The Patriod", because as much as I love showing film clips in class (Amistad, Last of the Mohicans, and School House Rocks already this week) I refuse to show anything as blatantly historically inaccurate as that festering pile of crap.

Student Teaching-Day 1

First day of student teaching. All in all it went well. There are things I would do differently, things I wouldn't do at all, and things I would do the same. It was not ground-breaking, Earth shattering teaching in anyway. But no one died, and I am heading back tomorrow, so I think those are all positives.

We did introductions and Geography basics. Not the most interesting topic, but I think the kids got something out of it. I am teaching two blocks, one with 10-12 10th graders who I know, and one with 30 9th graders where I know about half of them.

1st block is going to be nice in preperation for 2nd.

At the end of class I showed a quick clip from "Last of the Mohicans" because we are going to be starting pre-colonial American stuff later this week. This is one of my favorite scenes ever:



Which got me thinking about this:



Which has to go down as one of the best Nike commercials of all time.

I love that they borrowed the music from this, the first time I saw this commercial I went nuts.