I said that I would try to get in one more midweek music break before the A - Z challenge starts next month. This is not what I thought I'd be writing about but I'll have to get to those after the challenge.
Today I started my last regular sub-assignment for the school year. The reason why is that I begin a long term assignment the Monday I get back from Spring Break that goes through the end of the year. I popped into Amy's first school in the district today for a 2 day music teacher position. Music classes on our elementary level are part of specials and the student gets 2 30 minute music classes each week. Today I am teach 10 1/2 hour classes and tomorrow I teach 9. At leaast 1/2 of each class the students were given a choice board. which means that on the class smart board are 10-12 choices of short music videos. Each class so far that has had a choice board has chosen this song as one of their selections:
All the grades K-5 love this song. I absolutely love this song but had forgotten all about it. Once I heard it I knew what the Mid Week Music Break would be. I have more students coming in in ten minutes so I should probably go.
Not counting the charter school there are 27 schools in the district where I substitute teach. I have subbed in 26 of them. However in the past 11 quarters I have only subbed at 2 of them This is because In the last 9 quarters I have been a building sub, meaning I go to the same school each day and sub at whatever opening is available.
Prior to that I did long term subbing for a semester at one of the schools where I would eventually become a building sub. This quarter is going to be different. I am taking a long term position at the first school I ever did long term from when school starts after Spring Break until the end of the year.
For the next few weeks I'm just going from school to school in the district and working in whatever building needs a sub that day. My last building was a middle school and I am going to be in elementary schools for the rest of the year. In the few days I've been back in elementary I've been getting used to short educational videos that are so prevalent in elementary classrooms especially in the special ed classes that I prefer to work at.
On Monday we showed this video to our students at the beginning of math. I decided to share it here.
It's not exactly School House Rock but I liked it.
I have been trying to clean out my draft staus which is where posts I start but don't finish end up or where I put you tube videos just in case I may want to put them on the blog someday.
So today when my first Idea for Team Saturdazzle seemed a little too cumbersome to finish on time. I decided to look through some of the videos that I had in draft status. When my son was in F.L.L. FIRST Lego League he participted in a scrimmage table where different robotics teams would get together to practice together at the same facility. One of the tenets of FIRST Robotics is gracious professionalism, so even though these teams would soon compete against each other in competition. This was an opportunity for them to practice and learn from each other. I took some footage of the event and put some of it on my vlog probably 10 years ago or more. I don't think this particular video made the cut but I'm glad to show it today.
One thing I specifically remember from the event that it was in a building that my Orthodontist had been in years before and that the building had one of those old fashioned elevators complete with an elevator operator.
Watching that video reminded me of a movie that is currently playing at the theatre I work at. It is called rule breakers based on a true story of Afghanistan girls competing in a FIRST Robotics competition.
I like to consider myself the king of the segue but even I wasn't sure how to go from two segments on robotics to talking about Bob Bennet Weekly Live but I'm going to try:
From FIRST to First Things First
The 5 years anniversary of Co-Vid 19 shutting down life as we knew it at least for a time kind of came and went, in my opinion, without much to do. 5 years ago on Friday, March 13th was my last day working as a substitute teacher until September of 2022, and Saturday March 14th 2020 was my last day working at the movie theatre until a year later. Two weeks later I was stocking shelves overnight at a grocery store, which I did for a year. People in many lines of work had to be flexible at this time.
Bob Bennett, one of my favorite singers began on his 65th birthday March 21st of 2020 a series of weekly on-line interactive concerts called originally enough Bob Bennett Weekly Live. Tonight he finished his 5th year of such concerts. He streams these concerts replete with a virtual tip jar each week and on both You-Tube and Facebook.
My wife and I listened in while we were playing cribbage, and gin rummy and Bob even gave Amy a shout out during the concert. Tonight's concert featured many songs mostly made by request from Bennett's first album First Things First (1979) I also made a Spotify playlist that features the songs Bennett played tonight including multiple renditions of a few of the songs.
Finally tonight I'd like to end with a clip from Saturday Night Live from 1979 with Jimmy Fallon and Jerry Seinfelld both performing as Jerry Seinfeld
Welcome to Saturdazzle. Today we have Some Superheroes that begin with B, baseball for the blind, and The best selling movies of February.
This video has been sitting in my draft status for some time now. I thought with baseball being in spring training, this would be a great time to show it.
A lot of times when you do a blog you find yourself commenting on whatever the hot topic of the day is. If you are not a posting daily, it is very possible that by the time you get to the topic, it is no longer hot.
I always thought it might be interesting to go back and look at a formerly hot topic and review it after it had long gone cold.
If we go into the way back machine to September of 2009, back when this blog was less than a year old and still called Home School Dad, we can discover a topic that was very hot at the time that has since gone cold, but still has some relevance today.
On September 8, 2009 President Obama spoke to students in Virginia and the speech was telecast to students all over the country. For some reason this created quite a stir.
I remember not understanding what the hubbub was all about and watching the speech with my students (children) at the Izola Becker Home School. Some time has passed and now the K-12 students who may have watched the event at school are all at least 2 years out of high school by now. Students who were seniors in high school will be having their 15th hisg school reunion, and my youngest daughter who was 3 at the time of the speech is now a Freshman in college.
Click here for a blog post stating why it was a conservative speech.
I was interested to see if I could find out more about Tim Spicer, the student who introduced Obama. It turns out that in addition to being involved helping students and school districts in low income communities, Spicer was a contestant on Season 46 of Survivor.
There we are, our first edition of cold topics. I was either going to call it that, or perhaps hot topics for procrastinators. Once today's news becomes yesterday's olds we may have another edition.
Hello and welcome once again to Team Saturdazzle. I have 3 or 4 random things to share this Saturday. Let's get started shall we.
Last Saturday there was a Men's breakfast at my church. As I was waiting in line I saw a friend from a church we had both previously attended. I went and sat with him and remembered that my friend was active in the same prison visitation ministry that the speaker was from. At a table of 8 people most were friends of the speaker through the prison ministry. My friend was asking me if I knew another man at our table who had also attended our previous church and was now pastoring a different church. When I heard the name, I recognized it right away and realized that this guy was a Facebook friend of mine.
The interesting thing was I don't remember ever meeting this guy before. He has been a FB friend for awhile, but I'm not sure I've ever seen him post about anything. I introduced myself to him and told him we were FB friends but he gave me no impression that we had ever known each other. Here is what I think happened, The church I used to attend had at one point 7 men at the church all named Dave, There were 4 of us whose last name ended with er. Back in the day when FB was popular it was fairly common to get beleaguered with friend request and friend recommendations. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy got a "You might also know ... " message and mixed me up with one of the other er Dave's from church. Then when I got the friend request I accepted thinking we would become better acquainted. For the past few years when I've been cleaning up my FB contacts, I have considered removing this person but hesitated thinking maybe we had a backstory I ad forgotten and we would meet someday and he would clue me in.
Well when we met there was he seemed as clueless as me in regards to our backstory. So today when I was cleaning up my FB contacts I unfriended him. Since we were basically oblivious of each other in the non digital world until last week, I think we will get over the loss rather quickly.
Earlier this week I participated in the Weekly Writer's Workshop at The Sound of One Hand Typing. Each week John Holton gives multiple prompts to choose from. This weeks were:
Write a post based on the word grudges.
Write a post in exactly 13 lines.
Write about something you learned in the month of February.
List your five favorite snack foods.
Tell us about the worst haircut you ever had.
What are the five things you enjoyed doing the most when you were in sixth grade? Do you still enjoy doing them?
I chose to combine prompt two and six. After which I used paragraphy at byrdseed.com to put the sentences in random order.
Here is my original. The number reinforces the original order. The letter shows what order paragraphy put them in. To see how it appeared originally in my blog click here,
The prompt I chose for today is to write a post using exactly 13 lines. (L)
I have adjusted that to be exactly 13 sentences. (A)
I will also try to remember back almost 50 years ago when I was in the 6th grade to think about the 5 things I enjoyed most back then and evaluate if I still like them today. (K)
I have been wanting for some years to put in a post using Paragraphy and will try to do that today. (E)
How Paragraphy works is you write a paragraph and then the sentences are randomly reordered. (I)
See if you can figure out the original order. (M)
In 1975 when I started 6th grade, I was a huge White Sox fan. (B)
Fifty years later I still am. (H)
Back then I was quite the television watcher and had the network schedule memorized. (G)
Even now when I hear about an old show, the first thing I think of is what network it was on and what day it aired. (J)
In 6th grade I was still in the school band and I played the saxophone, I liked playing but was never very good at it, so that was my last year. (C)
The other two were baseball and bicycling. (F)
They are still two passions of mine. (D)
The number reinforces the original order. The letter shows what order paragraphy put them in. To see how it appeared originally in my blog click here
The A to Z challenge is coming up next month and I am still working on my theme reveal. While I'm not quite ready to tell you what theme I am doing, I can tell you about one that I thought about doing and may do in the future.
On The February 1 Team Saturdazzle post, I wrote a little about Sesame Street and shared 3 clips from the show. Two of the clips featured guest appearances. This got me to toying with thee idea of an A-Z theme with Sesame Street guest appearances. While it didn't make the cut for this year, I may revisit it in future challenges. I am happy, though to share this gem of Andrew Garfield and Elmo talking about grief.
March Madness is not just for Basketball!
This is the third year that I am participating in a Wordle March Madness event. If you reading this post because you are a FB friend of mine look you may have seen an invitation to play along thus year. What were doing is playing wordle as usual at the NYT site each day this month and sharing our results. Like golf we are trying for low scores. I will share the top 10 each competitors each week here at Team Saturdazzle.
We've had quite the Saturdazzle! Unfrienships, mixed up memories, grief on the street, and a March to Wordle Madness. Thanks for visiting.
My Son Charlie competed in anoter Rubiks Cube event this weekend. He films all his solves and made this cool video with two solves with nearly identical times from different days of the event.
Today's Team Saturdazzle is just a quick compilation of stories, clips and jokes.
Like many days when I was a kid it starts with Sesamee Strret and it ends with a snack,
One of the things I liked about Sesamee Street from an early age was the guest appearances. One of the ealriest I remember probably since I like puns so much is when the cast of Bonanza came on the show. They were on a lot of season 2 and did segments where they counted or recited the alphabet or demonstrated math problems like the video below.
In the episode I remember they do a play on the Ernie and Bert banana in my ear sketch (original sketch below) except instead of saying banana in my ear they actually say Bonanza in my ear. Epic!
Sesamee Street has continued with their guest appearances. I just discovered this gem with Billy Joel and Marlee Matlin (CODA, West Wing, Children of a Lesser God) . I'm a big Billy Joel fan and also love writing new lyrics to old songs and Joel does this by tweaking one of his standards and adapting it to Oscar The Grouch.
Yesterday I had one of my days where I was out of the house at 6:30 and not back for good until after midnight. I was home for about 90 minutes in the afternoon. My wife and daughter were preparing for an impromptu game night, where they had invited several people a day or less before the party was slated to begin. A few people did manage to come, but when I was home the only people they had heard from were unable to attend. This gave me an idea for a wry observation which I shared on my personal FB page:
A lot of times when people can't make it to an event youv'e asked them to attend, they will respond something like that sounds great, but I'm busy that day. Just once can't they say that sounds like an awful time, but I'm not doing anything see ya at 7?
This morning, Amy and I were judging another speech tournament. This time it was at held at Lucy's old high school. When you walk in the hallowed halls of a high school there are pictures of accomplished student athletes and plaques with the names of students who received accolades, awards, accomplishments, and some words that don't start with A like scholarships. None of those halls in any of those schools contain my picture. I wasn't that kind of athlete, and I was not that kind of student. However the apple must have fallen far from the tree because my daughter class of 2024 is pictured at least twice and her name is engraved on a plaque as a recipient of a scholarship for mastery in Language Arts.
Ending the day with a snack
My college friend Angela Rumbold's birthday was earlier this week. We had many fine times over the years. When she first moved from Illinois to Georgia, I had occasion to visit her there and she introduced me to boiled peanuts. It was love at first soggy bite. years later when I lived in South Carolina for 2 years the boiled peanut became my go to snack as there was a street vendor outside our local Walmart. I generally did not go more than a fortnight without grabbing me a bag.
When I ventured back to Illinois in '97 to forsake all others and marry my best friend, I also ending up forsaking regular visits with my favorite boiled legume. This +25 year absence of a boiled peanut routine ended about 2 years ago when I discovered inside A BP in Frankfort, Illinois where my sister in law lives, a boiled peanut station. So now 4 or 5 times a year on visits to her family I get the fruits of Jimmy Carter's first job (Boiled Peanut deliverer).
Tonight was one of those nights. My Niece Gracie was in a production of Finding Nemo Jr. Which is not it turns out a quest to find Nemo's progeny but a children's adaptation of the musical Finding Nemo. I was glad to attend, but everyone in my family knew there was a boiled peanut quid pro quo in my attendance.
Well that's all the Team Saturdazzle I have for you today. We learned some math, heard some jokes, watched some videos, I shared some stories and even had a snack. It's not exactly 3 points and a poem, but it will have to do.
I found these posters for the Muppet Movie (1979) in draft status of my blog. I probably put then there in preparation for a post of the 45th anniversary. Well the 45th anniversary has come and gone, but as it is one of my 3 all time favorite films I don't think it needs a special occasion to be celebrated. The Muppet Movie is a special occasion.
All Muppet Muppet Movie Poster
Muppet Movie Poster Featuring Celebrity Cameos
I really like the cameos in the Muppet movie.
It's interesting the next clip starts with Steve Martin who we saw in the last clip.
The first New (to me) film I watched this year is the 1934 film, Silver Streak.
In each brief review, I will attempt to do the following.
I will rate each movie on a 1 (worst movie ever) to 5 (best movie I have seen) scale.
I will provide a 2-3 sentence summary of the movie.
I will share 1 theme from the movie.
I will write one thing I liked about the movie and 1 thing I disliked about the movie.
I will say who I think would make the best audience for this movie.
Silver Streak (1934) Rating 3 stars out of 5
Summary: A young train designer challenges the train industry by proposing a new streamlined diesel capable of high speed travel. When his girlfriends father, a railroad executive, doesn't approve his designs, he quite his job and convinces another manufacture to produce his train. The completed train must race against time to deliver medical equipment that can stop a polio outbreak and save the life of his girlfriends brother.
Theme: One theme of the movie is the the resistance some have to changing technology.
Likes and dislikes:I watched this film with my wife Amy a few weeks ago and we both really enjoyed it. Here is specifically why.
Me: One thing I liked about the movie is how the train that the Silver Streak is based on The Burlington Zephyr, is the real star of the film and is even given a screen credit.
Amy: The acting was first rate. You believed that the actors were the characters they were portraying.
Dave: One thing I didn't like was that the spy subplot seemed contrived.
Amy: I agree, I know they have to create conflict and tension, but the fight on the train was too much.
A Good Audience for this Film: Adventurers, Train Buffs, and Obscure Train Movie aficionados.
Sally Blane and WIlliam Farnum
By Burlington Route (railroad) This appears to have been given to those at the fair who toured the train on exhibit. - eBay itemcard frontcard back, Public Domain, Link
Now that this review is over let's look at my progress so far this year. At this point, I have watched and reviewed 1 film.
Films released from 2009 to 2024 Watched 0 Remaining 2
Films released from 1994 to 2008 Watched 0 Remaining 2
Films released from 1979 to 1993 Watched 0 Remaining 2
Films released from 1964 to 1978 Watched 0 Remaining 2
Films released from 1949 to 1963 Watched 0 Remaining 2
Films released before 1934 and up to 1948 Watched 1 Remaining 1
Amy and I watched this film on You Tube and you can too. I proudly present Silver Streak ...
Here are the prompts for this week’s Writer’s Workshop:
Write a post based on the word surprise.
Write a post in exactly 8 sentences.
Tell us about your favorite restaurant when you were a kid.
Share links to 5-10 of your favorite non-political YouTube videos from this past week.
Tell us about a time you had a really elaborate project in elementary school.
Tell us how you named one (or more) of your pets.
I love writing too much, too look for a loophole when it comes to these Workshop prompts. But if I were, prompt 4 would be right up my alley. A writing prompt that just has me sharing links? Bring it on.
Some of the videos are not from the past week but were in my you tube feed in the past week. I had already put a few You Tube links in previous posts which is why I have the minimum amount. Yet another loophole.
That was almost too easy, So I decide to do # 6 as well. It's how I renamed a pet.
When I was in highschool my family bought a cat. They named him Tiger. I say they because If I had been conulted in the naming process such a predictable name would not have escaped my lips. One of my best friends already had a cat named tiger, and of course every other striped cat was named tiger.
Not only did I refuse to call the cat Tiger. I unilaterally decided to change his name. So in my family of 7 people, 6 people called our new cat Tiger and I called the cat Larry. I was very aggressive and vocal with my naming preference. While no one switched over immediately I wore people down. My Dad would accidentally call him Larry, sweat under his breath and switch back to Tiger. I was always a pretty obnoxious teenager but this was me ar my most obnoxious.
in the early 80s VCRs were coming on the scene and our family got one before a lot of my other friends had them. So that summer I had a big party and we watched a number of movies. In between and even during movies people hung out I’m different places in the house and on the front porch and people came and went freely.
At some point during the party Larry/Tiger went freely but didnt come back. He probably got tired of all the name calling. We never did see Larry or Tiger again.
I found this the other day on YouTube while looking up prune videos. Not sure why it would come up there, but I am glad it did.
This video resonated in me for multiple reasons: 1. I have had multiple family members over the years who have participated in singing groups. My first trip on an airplane was because my Mom's Sweet Adeline's group was going to sing in Washington D.C. and families were allowed to come with. Both my sisters have been in Sweet Adeline's as well. I also have several family members who have been in Barber Shop Quartets. 2) I love parodies, write them myself, and love to see them performed. 3) Since the time my youngest daughter was in 4th grade started performing in speech contests, my wife and I have been volunteer judges in them. This performance is a send-up of judging rubrics, especially for judging barber shop quartets, but I found it matched up to speech judging in a most delightful way.
Extra Bonus Video: Judges by The Fabulous Bentley Brothers from Jelly Telly which was Phil Vischer's follow up to Veggie Tales. And, yes the Bentley Brothers are Rhett & Link.
I scheduled thispost to coincide with the beginning of President Carter's National Funeral Service.
Jimmy Carter gave a Eulogy at President Ford's Funeral service. It is eloquent, homespun, and humorous. In that it embodied many of the traits of both Presidents.
Welcome to the 1st 2024 Iteration of Team Sturdazzle, a hopefully weekly postpourri of random thoughts and regular segments.
Occasionally I will try to curate ideas from my FB pages and share some of the comments here. Today was supposed to be one of those occasions. On Thursday night I posted the following on both my personal FB page and the FB page for my blog:
Am approaching the 16th anniversary of my blog. On Jan 6th 2009 I published the first post there http://dave-homeschooldad.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-we-home-school.html A few years ago I changed the name from Home School Dad to Leap of Dave. I’m considering changing the name once again. Here are some ideas I have for a new name:
1. Sustainable Bedlam
2. Toaster Pastries w/o A Toaster
3. Blogging, People Still Do That?
4. A Hat, A Brooch, A Pterodactyl
Let me know which one you like, or If I should stick with Leap of Dave, or perhaps make a title suggestion of your own. I'll post results and suggestions in my next Team Saturdazzle post.
As of 11:30 Friday night I had no comments on either page. I did ask 3 members of my family the same question over a rousing game of Catopoly, which I am winning. The results were mixed: my wife Amy prefers Sustainable Bedlam, my daughter Emma is a fan of Toaster Pastries w/o a Toaster, my daughter Lucy likes Blogging, people still do that?, and I am fond of A Hat, A Brooch, A Pterodactyl. Certainly, there is no consensus on the nonsensical.
I will put this post on both my FB pages again and see if I can get more votes. If you happen to be reading this, please leave a comment with which one you prefer or a suggestion of your own.
The Mountain Dew Code Red of Trailers
On January 3rd, 2022, I published a post called The Mountain Dew Code Red of Trailers about a movie trailer for The Unbreakable Boy, which was due in theatres in March 2022. The movie, based on a book based on a true story, starred Chuck actor Zachary Levi as the father of a middle school boy who had brittle bone disease and autism.
Days before the March 22 release date The Unbreakable Boy was pulled from its release schedule with little to no explanation. Fast forward to yesterday, January 3, 2025 when I was working at my movie theatre 3 years from the date of my original post. I was patrolling the theatre and ensuring all the movies started successfully when I saw this new trailer for The Unbreakable Boy:
Apparently, Lionsgate has a February 21st 2025 release date. I'll believe it when I see it.
25. The Fall Guy 92.9 M 24. Red One 96.81 M 23. Bob Marley, One Love 96.89 M
22. Alien Romulus 105.31 M 21. IF 111.15 M 20. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 113.38 M
19. Mufasa: The Lion King 128.14 M 18. A Quiet Place: Day One 138.93 M
17. Venom: The Last Dance 137.73M 16. The Wild Robot 143.19 M 15. It Ends With Us 148.51 M
14. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 151.56M 13. Gladiator II 164.55 M
12. Kingdom of the Planet pf the Apes 171.13 M 11. Bad Boys: Ride or Die 193.57 M
10. Kung Fu Panda 4 193.59 M 9. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 196.35 M 8. Twisters 267.76 M
7. Dune: Part Two 282.14 M 6. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 294.1 M 5. Despicable Me 4 361 M
4. Moana 2 404.02 M 3. Wicked 432.94 M 2. Deadpool & Wolverine 636.75 M
1. Inside Out 2 652.98 M (Movies I watched are in bold)
10 highest-grossing movies I watched this year by rank on Box Office Mojo
90. Here 70. Cabrini 68. Unsung Hero 53. The Forge 52. Reagan 51. The Boys in the Boat 27. Wonka and the aforementioned The Wild Robot (16), Twisters (8), and Wicked (3).
Top 10 Films December 2024
10. Interstellar 2024 Re-release
9. Kraven The Hunter
8. Red One - Down 3 from November
7. A Complete Unknown
6. Nosefartu
5. Gladiator II - Down 2 from November
4. Mufasa: The Lion King
3. Sonic The Hedgehog 3
2. Wicked Down 1 from November
1. Moana 2 - Up 1 from November
Top 5 Films for 2025
5. Wicked
4. Nosferatu
3. Moana 2
2. Sonic The Hedgehog 3
1. Mufasa The Lion King
That's all I have today, for your weekly dose of Saturdazzle. Please comment especially about changing the blog's name or anything else that struck your fancy today.
10 years ago or some I curated a list of my 100 favorite films. A few years ago, I began the process of revising the list. Recently, I found a post in draft status which had a list of 16 films that after further consideration would not be making the top 100. I have a history with each of these films, and while they may not be in my top one hundred, I recommend them highly. If you click on the film,s title, you will be able to view a trailer for the film.
This is my 100th post of the year. This marks the 8th year since this blogs inception in 2009, and the 4th consecutive year that I’ve published 100 or more post in a year.
That is of course, it will be my 100th post of the year if and when I publish it. A few years ago I wrote a post about having 100 posts in draft status. At the end of the post in the only comment, I had written that I had deleted all but 15 of the posts in draft status and hoped never to accumulate nearly as many post there again.
Well it turns out that I have been accumulating posts in draft status again. I currently have 77 posts with that distinction. The majority of these are from 2023, but I do have 14 from this year. As part of my 100th post of the year celebration,I will now list each incompleted post of 2024 by title in Chronological order.
Double Library Day
Team Saturdazzle
(Untitled)
Milwaukee Brewers Catcher William Contreras bringing major league streak to begin season
Crystal Lake Library
(Untitled)
(Untitled)
Anniversary vs. Annual
A to Z 2024 Reflections
(Untitled)
What’s most wrong about the 2024 White Sox
The Newfangled Four - A Spoonful of Sugar (Parody) [From Mary Poppins]
Former Chicago White Sox MVP , The late Dick Allen, elected to the Hall of Fame.
Not everybody needs a college degree (Writers Workshop)
That’s the 14. Some of these may see the light of day and most will be discarded. One of the drafts from last year is scheduled to post tomorrow for the next edition of Wordless Wednesday. I also hope to share the story behind that picture in a subsequent post.
Tomorrow’s post won’t be the last post of the year as I have a Michael Card Christmas Concert video scheduled to drop on 12/25. I’ll probably land somewhere between 103 and 107 2024 posts before the New Year and the whole race to 100 begins again.
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