C.S. Daley's Blog, page 19

Lions & Tigers & Taxes Oh My

It has been a rough couple of years in the teaching world. In my school district we have lost 20% of our staff. Truthfully, we were lucky. There have been school districts hit far worse. Now as we head towards June, here in the state of California, we are standing right on the edge of the cliff. Peering down into the great abyss because it looks like more cuts might be heading our way. How we will manage I have no idea.

Already we have let go of all but one librarian. This will mean school libraries will only be open once a week. How we are suppose to teach reading while not actually providing reading for pleasure I don't know. My students are lucky. I have a huge classroom library (easily the biggest in the entire school district). Not only is my library big it is very current. Other classrooms will not be as lucky. The problem is we can't help to keep the libraries open because they are union jobs and there is a rule about supplanting other union jobs.

I get having the rule. They are trying to make sure school districts don't just fire people and make teachers take up the slack. Insisting that those positions are not needed anymore. It just bugs me because the students are the ones who suffer. It's a weird time to be a public union right now. There are attacks going on all over the place against them. As if teachers and our ridiculous pay are what's causing states to go bankrupt. It cracks me up because there is some much pork tied to every budget that I am fairly certain it wouldn't be too hard to come up with some extra cash just by eliminating everyone's "pet" project.

But this library thing is the type of thing people will point at and say "see those damn unions are ruining everything" forgetting to point out if we hadn't had to lay off the workers in the first place we wouldn't be having this conversation. Like I said, tricky. I definitely think there is a place for public unions. You don't need to look any farther than people saying teachers make too much money to understand why.

I love my job but I am not living high on the hog. I am an intelligent, articulate, skilled person (and a legend in my own mind). There are a lot of jobs I could be doing for more money. I choose to teach because I think it is important. I love the knowing I am giving students a chance to succeed. I love the feeling of accomplishment when I turn a non-reader into a reader. This job has intangibles that are untouchable by other careers. It doesn't change the fact that I have bills. That someday I want to retire and enjoy the end of my life with Sheri.

I knew what I was getting into when I took the job and never expected to become rich from it. My union has allowed me to keep the job and not feel like I have made a terrible mistake. This doesn't mean my union is always right. They often do wrong headed things. For instance, here in the state of California, CTA is currently pressuring the governor to extend a tax hike in order to do away with the cuts about to happen in education (you remember that cliff we are standing on).

The problem is the governor promised an election to approve any tax hikes. It is a position I completely agree with. If we want to hike the taxes in the state of California it should go before the people of California. There was going to be a June election but the bill was killed in the House. Again, I didn't disagree with that. Why hold a special million dollar election in June when you can just slap it onto the November ballot.

Schools can't wait until November. They will begin laying off people now because almost every school in the state of California was already running a bare bones budget. I refuse to believe there isn't some congressman's pork project somewhere which can be put on hold until Novemeber to make sure schools can operate. I think it makes the teachers union look really bad to ask for taxation without a vote. It sends the wrong message at a time that people are just looking for a reason to hate unions.

There has to be a better answer. If the governor doesn't find one soon though we will be laying off even more teachers. Which will lead to a new round of demanding we make even less money (the teachers in my district have taken voluntary pay cuts the last two years trying to save jobs). Which will lead to too many kids in the room. Which will lead to communities which are already stuck in poverty having even less of a quality education. The wheels are falling off this bus. I hope some of us survive the wreck.

Keepers Week 14

This will be a short update because, frankly, I have much writing to do tonight. I can't wait until summer is here so I can have just one job again, that of a writer. Too bad the pay is crap. I zipped on by my word count goal for Keepers this week. The goal was 90,000 and I am currently sitting at 97,000. This makes Keepers the longest book I have ever written. I will go over 100,000 words this next week. I might finish it. It depends on how much I push towards the finish line.

In the past when I have gotten to a novel's end I usually throw out my 1,000 word a day goal and amp up the word count until I cross the finish line. I don't think that is going to happen this time. I am almost done with my last few zombie dad stories and will be turning them over to Sheri for final edits this week. I then will be pushing hard to get the formatting done and hopefully have the zombie holiday short story collection out next week. About two weeks late but some of the stories just didn't want to be written. Rather than write a bunch of junk I have tried to be patient and let the stories come to me. This has led to a few restarts but I am happy with the output. I think the stories are still fun and if you enjoyed the earlier ones I think the new ones will be a blast.

We are now a month away from the release of the first Dark Lands e-book. I will be finishing final edits over the next two weeks and turning it into the formatter the first week of June. If there are no formatting complications the book should be out by the second week of June. I have spent a little time getting ready to set up my author's page on Amazon. This led to a panic attack that I was about to make a fool of myself. Luckily, I am really good at ignoring the inner voices. So I shall continue to do so.

Hopefully the next Keepers update will have a definitive answer to when I will be done. It's going to be weird to finish it and put it aside for four months. I am going to write and edit the last book of my Dark Lands Trilogy before doing y keepers rewrite. This is going to lead to the weird feeling of doing back to back book edits. Although I am looking forward to seeing how I feel about the book when I come back to it. Will I bring a new perspective to it? How much rewriting will I do? I don't imagine this is the way I will ever do it again. The decision to self publish while in the middle of this book has put everything in an accelerated state. I sometimes wish now that I had written the Dark Lands books straight through. The rationale on why I didn't at the time was fitting in a look for a publisher world. Not at all in a self publishing. This wasn't as short as I thought it would be. See you next week. Hopefully with some big announcements.

When Kittens Attack: A Tail of Horror

Warning, there be cats ahead. Tomorrow is the day we officially lose the kitten status on Ginger. It is her birthday. We are not exactly sure when Troubadour's birthday is but we know it is soon (he was abandoned so the shelter took their best guess. Ginger was born at our vets, so we know exactly). These are two of the strangest kittens I have ever had. This probably explains why I like them so much.

Troubadour is at least double the size of Ginger but easily the most gentle cat I have ever known. That isn't to say he is without flaws. You see Troubadour is a big giant ball of skittish. I know that I am putting all my human feelings and emotions on it but I swear to you Ginger has figured this out. Troubadour loves to wrestle with Ginger. Often letting Ginger take the active role despite their size difference. The problem is in every wrestling match there comes a point where Troubadour needs to exert his size.

This is not usually because he is bullying Ginger (Troubadour long ago figured out that Ginger is far more fierce than him). No this is all about Troubadour's cleaning fetish. At some point in every game Troubadour stops playing and starts cleaning. This usually entails sitting on Ginger in his giant Buddha pose.

Ginger has now taken to getting revenge by scaring the snot out of Troubadour every chance she gets. Many of these incidents are quite hilarious because despite his size Troubadour is quite nimble and athletic. Ginger scaring him usually leads to some high wire aerial act as Troubadour springs straight up in the air and goes all Matrix as he tries to locate the threat. It cracks me up every time.

Well, almost every time because sometimes Ginger thinks it's funny to get Troubadour when he is nestled in a nice safe space, like my body. The worst of these incidents happened a couple of weeks ago on the night we got back from Hawaii. Troubadour was nestled up next to me warm and snug. Kitten engine purring away. Ginger sprung up from the floor. Launched herself over Sheri and landed right next to me.

This probably wouldn't have been so bad except I was petting Troubadour which was effectively keeping him trapped against my side. Troubadour did not want to be trapped against my side. Ginger had scared the snot out of him. He made like a Road Runner cartoon and started up his legs to get out of there. His legs kicked several times found something to launch himself sideways off the bed and pushed off.

Of course, the something was the side of my body. I am not joking when I tell you I have five big claw marks on my side. He wasn't messing around, he just wanted out. The marks were so ugly at first I thought I might be able to get away with calling it a shark bite. It's funny now, not so much then. I hope Troubadour grows out of it because Ginger is like Cato from the Pink Panther, she is always springing out of a hiding place. She is a deadly Ninja assassin.

We got lucky with these two felines. They are both healthy and energetic. With unique little cat personalities. As they turn one I don't think I will be able to stop calling them my kittens. I might have to give it another year. Here's hoping Ginger keeps me out of her ninja attacks.

Cheerleader: A Tale of Dispair

One of the things I have always felt very strongly about as a teacher is being an advocate for my students. Not all of my students over the years have come from very stable homes. Many have had no adult in their life who would stand up for them or their rights. Students for the most part are completely powerless. They are expected to follow school rules blindly and unerringly. I am here to tell you that a lot of school rules are ridiculous and have no actual merit when it comes to the one thing we are supposed to be doing, educating youth.

This is where the advocacy part of me gets to step in from time to time. I will fight for my students. I am in their corner and when they run afoul of an adult who just seems to have it in for them. I make my presence felt. One of my best memories as a teacher was a few years ago when some students came to me and told me they felt they were being unfairly targeted by our local jr. high and wondered if I would go talk to the principal. I was proud the students thought of me. I was dismayed when the principal all but told me to get lost when I tried to bring up the student grievances. I was not their parent. He didn't have to listen to me. This was his mistake,  I am not so easily ignored.

This is why I am so distraught over an article I read in the paper yesterday. A young girl (16) at a Texas High School lost her appeal before the Supreme Court over her removal from the cheerleading squad. I didn't care so much about her losing the appeal. I am not a law expert. There could be any number of reasons the Supreme Court refused to hear it. No, what dismayed me was the original story.

The young girl in question was kicked off the cheerleading squad when she refused to chant the name of a boy whom she had accused of rape. The boy Rakheem Bolton was a star football player at Silsbee High School. He was not convicted of the rape but did plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. The incident occurred at a basketball game when the boy went to the free throw line. The cheerleaders began to chant his name. The young girl in question crossed her arms and remained silent.

She was then told by the district superintendent, his assistant, and the school principal that if she refused to chant his name she would be sent home. She refused. Not only did they send her home they dismissed her from the squad. To which I have this to say, "what the fuck!" Really, you couldn't let her remain quiet. Maybe ask her to go to the other side of the court and do a cheer. Anything at all. Did you somehow forget what your job was, to educate and protect all of your students.

I don't know the case. I have no idea if the boy actually raped her and took the plea to stay out of serious trouble. I have no idea of the plea was offered because they didn't think they had enough to get him on the rape charges. Anything is possible. What I do know is that he was convicted of assaulting the girl. Do you hear me you imbeciles, convicted. You asked a young 16-year-old girl to chant the name of someone who, at a very minimum, assaulted her.

Very sensitive. Way to show what is really important in almost all schools in the United States, high school and above, sports. Way to think outside of the box and help a young girl who had a crime committed against her. This shit pisses me off. I don't care about the lawsuit. I don't care about the Supreme Court or any attempts by the parents to get damages. That is all secondary to the fact that three people who I feel have a duty to be an advocate for their students failed to do the right thing. They should be ashamed of themselves.

No Joy In Death

I know it will shock no one that I am writing about Osama bin Laden today. As you look back in life there are always moments that mark the passage of time. Some of them are wonderful and beautiful. My first date with Sheri is one of those. It was one of those dates where everything went right and 19 years later we are still together. Or yesterday, my beautiful niece and her awesome husband having their first child (we plan to be fake grandparents to that kid. We have to spoil someone).

There are also those moments marked by despair and tragedy. The death of my sister Mary Lou and best friend Curtis are two personal ones that still haunt me. I can still remember vividly the massacre at Columbine. Sitting in my classroom crying at how senseless the world was sometimes. September 11, 2001 will also be a day I will probably remember on my deathbed. It marked me that strongly.

Sheri and I sat glued to the TV set as we watched the events unfold. We had to tear ourselves away and go to work. Explaining it to my students. Watching the press coverage. Feeling numb for months after the event. Not to mention the direct change, for the worse, of our world. The personal freedoms we let that madman take away from us. I will always believe that much of our reaction was wrong headed. We did exactly what they wanted. We acted afraid. We let them terrorize us.

The summer after the 9/11 attacks Sheri and I visited New York for the first time. I can remember standing at ground zero feeling the weight of the giant hole. All the loss. All the suffering. We walked by a wall with the names of the dead scrawled on it. Messages from their family. Pictures of those who were no longer with us. We weeped openly. The horror carved into my heart forever.

Last night when President Obama announced after ten long years we had finally found Osama bin Laden and that he was killed in the ensuing fire fight I felt a sense of releif and closure. He was a violent man and he died a violent death. I will not miss him. The world is a better place without him. I will admit I had hoped to bring him in. To make him stand trial. To face justice in the system he hates so much. It is what our country likes to tell the world we stand for, justice for all. Don't get me wrong though. I don't care we killed him. I hold no sympathy for a man who long ago gave up his right to call himself a member of the human race. I would call him a cockroach but that's an insult to cockroaches.

This doesn't change the fact that I am extremely disappointed in the reaction of some people last night. I wish with all of my heart we had not taken to the street like our hometown had just won the Superbowl and celebrated. There is no joy in death, not even his. I remember vividly how angry as a country we were that members of extreme religious groups took to the streets and celebrated 9/11. I don't think what happened last night was any different. I truly wish that a simple candlelight vigil to remember the dead had been our reaction. I wish this was the image we had sent to the rest of the world. We do not glorify death, we remember the dead.

I don't feel like this because I am afraid of retaliation either. Terrorists will find a reason to attack, no matter what. I just feel a sense of sorrow at how blood- thirsty it made us look. I long for peace. I desire a world where dignity and respect are the way everyone does business. The world is always looking at us. I want them to see what quiet dignity looks like. Someone has to step up and be the example. Last night we missed a chance. Maybe in the coming days we won't. There is no joy in death. Osama bin Laden terrorized the world and now he is gone but he has left behind his hatred. Let us rise above it or his death will mean nothing.

Keepers Week 13

This is the update I was supposed to write "done" and throw a party. My word count goal was 90,000 words and I predicted I would hit it at the end of April. I am happy to say I have in fact hit my 90,000 word count goal yesterday. I am sad to say that I am not done. I am close. All the story lines have intersected. The main mystery is all but solved and we are heading into the action packed finish line. I have no idea how many more words it is going to take to get this all done. If I was a betting man I would say about 16,000 more which would mean the finish line will be in about 2 weeks.

I am not entirely stoked with this because my plan was to have all of May to do my final edit on the 2nd book of my Dark Lands trilogy. I am up against a deadline of the beginning of June to get it done because I have to turn it into my very busy formatter. Sheri is helping out right now going through it one more time but I can see my already busy writing schedule is about to go nuts.

This doesn't even take in the fact I haven't finished my zombie dad shorts which I had hoped to have done today (not going to happen). At some point (no later than middle of June) I have to start the last book of the Dark Lands Trilogy. At least when I get to that book it will be the only writing project on the table. It will almost be a relief. One month to get through the worst of this and then back to just writing one book at a time. After I finish today's novel work it will be zombie writing time (oh yeah, and at some point my wife and I are going to go have dinner to celebrate our anniversary. 17 years married, 19 years together).

I created these deadlines because I wanted to have the first Dark Lands book out in June. It will still make this deadline. I also wanted my zombie dad short story collection out before the novel. I am hoping to use it as a cheap way to sample my writing. I was trying to line up all the projects so I would eventually find myself back to just one book. It will happen but the work is crazy. I am exhausted right now. The day job is totally getting in the way.

In the meantime, I will work hard to finish the first draft of Keepers over the next two weeks. It is going to be the longest book I have written. I admit to being a little excited at crossing over the 100,000 word mark. That is a really big number. I don't know if anyone is going to buy these books when I publish them but I plan on giving them plenty of books to choose from. Soon I will get to see how delusional I am. It's kind of scary but what the hell I teach sixth graders. Nothing is scarier than that.

Holy Hack Batman!

Holy hack Batman! After blasting away at Apple earlier this week, it took exactly one day for my privacy concerns in the age of technology to blaze back onto the front page. It appears Sony has suffered one of the biggest data thefts ever. Somebody hacked their servers and stole personal information of their online users. This includes credit cards, addresses, sexual preference (okay I made that one up). Sony has no idea how many people were affected but they are not ruling out the possibility it is everyone. That means 77 million people.

The hack was so bad that Sony actually shut down their online services this week. This is a big deal. Everyday they are shut down they are bleeding money. As one of the people whose name is on that server I am thankful this time I don't have to worry about it because my credit card on file was expired. If it turns out they got to everyone's information this will be one of the biggest data thefts ever (if not the biggest).

It is a little disappointing because when you hand over your credit card number and personal information to companies you are doing so with the idea your data will be protected and private. It is a silly way to feel because hacks and data theft happens all the time. This was a big one though. Makes you wonder if anyone is safe. What happens when someone hacks into the IRS? It does make you think twice about all the information we hand over so willingly.

Speaking of handing over information. To further prove that our gadgets are completely watching us, you'll love this next one. GPS company Tom Tom collects data from the cars that use it. Part of the data it collects is how fast you are driving and where. Tom Tom looking to make a few extra dollars sold this information to police departments. The police departments (the report I read was from Norway but I am going to go out on a limb and say they were probably not the only ones) then took the speed information and set up speed traps and cameras.

Don't get me wrong I have no sympathy for people who speed. If you are pulled over for speeding you deserve the ticket. It is a law after all. However, I doubt anyone using a GPS really wants their information being turned over without their permission. It also leads you to the next question of do you really want companies knowing exactly where you are going everyday because right now many of them do.

Privacy is a thing of the past right now. I have to wonder where the tipping point is? Is there a tipping point? Maybe most people don't give a shit that their every move is being recorded. I know I am somewhere in the middle. Don't really care that Amazon tracks what I buy. Care a lot that some idiot GPS system is keeping track of my movements and selling it. Tom Tom, of course, came out today and apologized. Promising to be better behaved in the future but we shall see. The whole privacy thing is hurting my brain.

Naughty, Naughty, Apple

You ever get the strange, creeping sensation that someone is watching you? You quickly turn around and look but no one is there. The feeling lingers in the pit of your stomach leaving you paranoid and uneasy. Well, I am here to tell you that you are not crazy. Your every move is being watched by some damn piece of technology.

The latest spy master is the ever so customer friendly company of Apple. You know the Apple that cares about its image. The top rated customer service company for the last 8 billion years (at least that's what their hype wants you to believe). Turns out their iPhone, iPad, and iTouch have been tracking your location, time stamping it, and keeping it in a database which is backed up and saved in iTunes (even if you turn off location services in the system preferences).

Apple in its usual manner has addressed this problem head on by saying absolutely nothing. There have been a couple of websites who say that they have a reliable source that this is a bug and will be fixed but these same web sites had reliable sources there would be an iPad 3 this year. I wouldn't put much stock into it until Lord Jobs speaks.

Don't for a minute be fooled into thinking Apple is the only one doing this. I guarantee you Google and most other smart phones are tracking you (this is why Google and Apple were called before the Senate). It is by the way not a hard guarantee to make since there is an actual law on the books (been there since 2001. I will let you do the math on why)  requiring cell phones to track people. So don't buy the stupid Senate grand standing like they give a shit about our privacy. If they had their way we would have even less.

Where Apple may sink a little bit into the quicksand is the backing up the database. If you have opted out of applications knowing where you are, I am not sure why it is backing it up on your computer. I wish I could have a better understanding of the problem but of course Lord Jobs has super glued his workers lips shut until he can figure out the best way to spin this.

Privacy is shot in the technology world. It doesn't help that we seem to live in an opt out world where companies can do whatever they want with your data until you opt out. (Seriously, people if you have a DVR it is collecting your TV watching information unless you opt out. Nothing is private). We have a government that carves whole chunks of your freedom off without a second thought (if you haven't flown in airport with full body scanners you are in for a treat and when I say treat I mean a complete violation of your privacy).

I must admit of all the companies to get caught with their hand in our privacy cookie jar, I am the most disappointed by Apple. It has built its company on the back of their customer-friendly reputation. I am not naive. I know a lot of it is PR but a lot of it hasn't been. If this is a bug I am sure Lord Jobs will be screaming "off with their heads" soon and some unlucky executive will be falling on his sword. If it isn't a bug, well they will pretend it is and the same thing will happen. In the meantime, our government will put on a good song and dance show about how much they care and nothing will change. It's our own fault really. We opened the doors and invited big brother right in.