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.
A to Z Challenge 2025
Sox Fam
Search Me!
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One Where I pull something from my draft status and then go from there
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.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One Where Captain Abearica goes to work.
April Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2025 SIGN-UP March 24-April 5 a-to-zchallenge.com
The A to Z Challenge blog posted yesterday for the first time since May of last year. Besides introducing the above 2025 badge. They posted the schedule for this years challenge:
I loved everything about this game. The Eagles delivered in every aspect of the game after being overlooked in all the talk about a 3peat. Not a KC hater nor an Eagle lover but this was a quality football game Jeff. I’m sorry you didn’t like it.
That's it for this week. That's my Saturdazzle and I'm sticking to it.
Wednesday, February 8, 2023
It's A Boy Sub!!!
This is my 5th school year being a substitute teacher. I started about 4 years ago near the beginning of the 2nd semester of the 2018-2019 school year. In the school district I work in there, are 3 types of substitute teaching jobs. Substitute Teacher, Long Term Sub, and Building Sub. A substitute teacher is exactly what you think it is. You come into a school and replace the teacher that is gone that day. A long-term sub replaces a teacher when they are gone for 4 weeks or longer. This is often due to maternity or paternity leave but these are not the only reasons. A building sub is assigned to a particular school and is the first line of defense when teachers call in sick the day of school or perhaps leave during the course of school. I spent my first 2 years as a regular sub, I have been working primarily as a long-term Sub since February of 2021 and last month started my new adventure as a building sub.
One advantage of being a long-term sub or a building sub over a regular sub is that the base pay is better. An advantage to being a building sub over a long-term sub is that often times a long-term sub has additional duties like grading students and preparing lessons that a building sub does not have. I really enjoy being a building sub because I get to know all of the kids in the school and my day to activities are extremely varied. The best part of my current position is that I work with my wife. She is a School Psychologist in the district and I work at her school. Most days we drive in together which is not only a great way to spend time together but also a great way to save money.
Most days I don't get my assignment for the day until I'm on my way to school. Some days I'm subbing for multiple teachers due to meetings or trainings, others I'm in for just one teacher. The latter occurred earlier this week. I went into the classroom and was sitting at the teacher's desk reviewing the plans that had been laid out for me. I heard a commotion brewing in the hallway. On this day the teacher had come to school, realized she was too sick to teach, and left before the school day started. She was not able to leave the building before being spotted by some of her students. The commotion I heard brewing was the students discussing the prospect of who their sub would be.
The kids are supposed to sit by their cubbies until the teacher lets them in their room at a certain time. Buoyed by their excitement at the prospect of a sub they kept popping up and looking through the glass window in the door to see who their sub was. One by one I heard the delighted shrieks of "It's A Boy Sub!". At that moment I knew what my next blog entry would be titled.
This is my 5th week at the school and most of the students know who I am by now. So when the comments switched from it's a boy sub, to it's Mr. Roller, I met them at the door and let them in a few minutes early.
While there are certainly more female teachers than male ones in my district, there are still quite a few men teachers. What there aren't a lot of are male subs. I've only encountered a few in the time I've been subbing. Even so, I didn't really expect that kind of reaction from my students that day. I think that one of the reasons I like being an educator, especially a building sub, is that most every day I experience the unexpected.
Love,
Dave
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Januarying
January 2023 is in the books, more proof that the calendar plays for keeps. My wife thinks that this January would never end and was glad to see the back of it (Sorry, she had Downton Abbey on , and I couldn't help myself.). For me, January ended too quickly, I hadn't finished all my Januarying.
I've always been a little bit uncertain when it comes to what I think about New Year's resolutions. On one hand, I think that they are a colossal waste of time because we should always be trying to improve ourselves and we don't need December 31st telling us what to do. On the other hand, there are definitely things I like to try to accomplish every year and January 1st seems like a good time to start accomplishing those things.
Some of these goals (I do like goals better than resolutions) vary from year to year and many of them don't get accomplished. I do spend quite a bit of time each January planning to accomplish them, which is why I call making a game plan for the goals, Januarying.
One goal I have every year is to average 10,000 steps a day for the year. 2022 is the only year so far I have met that goal. I had come close in 2021 averaging around 9,200 steps a day. It really was a tale of two halves where I averaged just 7,000 steps from January to June and then averaged close to 11,500 to close out the year. I made my goal for 2022 to be averaging at least 10,000 steps for the entire year (In 2005 White Sox parlance we call that going wire to wire). To that end I walked 26,122 steps on Jauary 1st. We had a small party at out house on New Years Eve and after our guests left, I walked our neighborhood for a little while. Most of the steps came later that day when I got the job of patrolling the movie theatre where I work which means walking up and down 12 theatres every 20 or 30 minutes to make sure the equipment and audience members are behaving appropriately.
This year I decided to approach repeating my accomplishment differently. I made a calendar in my mind and decided in advance how many steps I wanted to get on the given month. At the end of the year, If I make all my goals I will have again averaged over 10,000 steps for the year. In January, I set my goal for far lower than 10,000 but still beat the average I set for myself by more than 1,000 steps a day.
Some of my other Januarying goals have to do with or are chronicled on my blog. I will be posting more soon about my goals of watching 12 new movies (to me) and reviewing them here, and my reading goal for the year. So. Ill just table such discussion for now, except to say that I have spent quite a bit of Januarying plotting out some of the books and films I want to consume this year and going about consuming them. Each December and January I spend time redesigning my blog. I have especially enjoyed linking some new blogs to mine in a space called Blog Try Outs. One such blog is called Laws of Gravity The caretaker of Laws of Gravity is a substitute teacher like myself.
At my advanced age of 58 years, 4 months, 1 week, 4 days and 12 hours (It's actually 11 hours, but I still have to edit this post.) , I am beginning to hear more and more about finishing well. I feel like I might be a tad young for that, but Januarying has been instrumental in helping me start well.
Monday, October 24, 2022
A song about Middle School
Friday, May 27, 2022
Family Camp: These "guys" should have stuck to skits.
Monday, January 3, 2022
The Mountain Dew Code Red of Trailers
Monday, December 20, 2021
12 new to me movies for 2022
This post has been adaoted from a January 2015 post.
At the end of each year I like to reflect on the year past and prepare for the coming year. I have been thinking quite a bit about some of my goals and whether I have achieved them this year. One goal I set each year and have so far failed to achieve is to watch 12 movies I have not seen before.Let me explain the parameters I have placed upon myself. When I say new movies, I do not mean 12 2022 movies at the theater. I mean 12 movies released prior to 2022. Also, I don't only want to watch movies made in my lifetime, I want to explore through all the eras of cinema.
Here is how I am doing it: I was born in 1964 and have divided that time in 4 periods and then divided the time prior to my birth into 2 periods. These periods are:
2007 through 2021
1993 through 2006
1979 through 1993
1964 through 1978
1949 through 1963
- 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.
Saturday, October 16, 2021
I'm trying an experiment.
It's been quite a while since I've posted here. So I have set my timer for 15 minutes have put on Larry Norman radio from pandora on Alexa which is playing Rich Mullin's oddly enough. I am going to just type for 15 minutes and see if I can produce a short message.
As the school. year started this year, for about 3 weeks I was working 3 jobs. I have had a long term sub assignment as an art teacher at my favorite elementary school. I also had been working along with my wife and daughter at a minor league baseball park selling concessions. There was a section in the employee handbook that said I had to disclose to my supervisor if I wrote in a blog, but I think that was written 20 years ago when blogging was more common place. The problem was that my supervisors would change with almost every shift and the supervisors I did tell didn't know what a blog was. I also continue to work 2 nights a week at the movie theatre. I was very glad when the baseball season ended in early September and I could get back to the relative ease of working only 2 jobs.
The problem with getting back into blogging was 2 fold. The first our family has 3 birthdays in a 3 week period in September which kept us all on our toes. The 2nd is that once you get too busy to do something like blogging or reading which both came to an abrubt halt it's hard to get them back going again.
I lost 30 pounds this Summer. The trick will be not to find it again this winter. I am counting calories consistently for the first time in my life and it seems to be working okay for me. My wife and I are doing it together which is better than going it alone.
My timer just went off so I will continue this again hopefully soon with the opening sentence. I always told myself that when I got under 250 pounds I would start running again.
Music listened to during past 15 minutes:
Larry Norman - UFO
Rich Mullins - If I Stand
Randy Stonehill - King of Hearts
Rescue Story - Zach Williams
Why Don't you look into Jesus - Larry Norman
Sunday, August 1, 2021
Saturday, June 5, 2021
A Lifelong Dream
Ever since I was a boy, I have had a dream. It is a typical boyhood dream, but nevertheless, it was my dream . I wanted to work for a baseball team, specifically for the Chicago White Sox as their starting third baseman. It turns out I was not much of a ball player. I wasn't even a starter on my little league teams. Over the years I modified that dream somewhat. I dreamed of perhaps being a broadcaster, that way if a job at 3rd base ever opened up I'd be ready to take over.
A few years ago my brother had a Confirmation party for his daughter at the party suites of a local minor league team. He shared the suite with a neighbor whose daughter had also been confirmed that day and is the operations manager at the ball park. My brother introduced me as a guy who is passionate about baseball and whose dream job would be to work at a ball park. He didn't mention the part about 3rd base probably because there's not a lot of rookies in their 50's. His friend mentioned the possibility of a job an usher. I thought that might be a good job to consider for the next summer. The next summer was 2020 and there was this little thing called Covid, maybe you heard of it, and since there was no season there was no where to ush.
Eventually things got a little bit back to normal ,and by April of this year, I was back to working my pre covid jobs as a substitute teacher and cashier/usher at a local movie theatre. Last week the school year ended and on one of my last days at school my wife called me and said she had a crazy idea. I love crazy ideas, so I was all ears.
"The Kane County Cougars need concessions worker this summer, you and I should get jobs there." she told me. I told her that was not a crazy idea at all and we both applied that day. When I was applying, I saw they were also hiring 15 year old's with a work permit. My 15 year old daughter was also looking for work. so she applied as well. In short order, we all received emails from the Cougars and were scheduled for interviews. Lucy's school year ends a week later than the district Amy and I work at so we scheduled the interview for the day after her (Lucy's) school ended. When the interviewer saw that we were all in the same family he took us all in together.
Lucy, had never been interviewed for a job before but it became obvious to Amy and I pretty early in the process that we were all going to be hired. It wasn't until we were leaving and the interviewer said very clearly that we'd all been hired that Lucy realized it. She was ecstatic and couldn't believe it was that easy to get a job. Amy and I will be working as cashiers and Lucy will be working in the picnic area. As we will only be working home games, it still gives Amy and Lucy quite a bit of vacation time this Summer and I will be able to work out my schedule at the theatre so I can work both jobs.
I have always kind of felt bad for people who work concessions at the ball park as they can't enjoy the game as they are helping others to do the same thing. As I prepare for this job, I look forward to going to the ball park every day and being part of the festivities. Even if a third base position doesn't open up sharing this job experience with my wife and daughter make it a dream job.
The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Muzak Lessons: An Apology to Gordy Jorian
Lessons learned from in-store music.
At the end of the song there is a line, "after all the violence and double talk, there's just a song in all the trouble and the strife." The song then ends with you do the walk of life.
Now for years, that is not what I was hearing. I was hearing
After all the violence down in Bogota
After all the trouble and the strife
You do the walk of life.
So for 36 years while giving Gordy a hard time for hearing a city in a song that did not appear there, most of that time I've been hearing a city in a different song that also did not exist. Gordy caught his mistake in relatively short time. Heart of Rock and Roll came out in 1983 and by the Summer of '84 Gordy had corrected his gaffe. Walk of Life came out in 1985 and for 35 years I've been hearing it wrong!
Now this seemingly benign faux pas has gotten me to thinking. Over the years, when I have seen others struggle in certain areas I have found myself thinking a little self righteously how could they have been so unwise or that could never happen to me. . Regrettably, I have spent a lot of time in judgement of others. I clearly saw the error of their ways but was blind to the similar or worse transgressions in my own life.
I can truly say that I am better in this regard than I once was, However, true humility is a life long process and my own rigteousness is still dirty rags when compared to a Holy God. That being said, I'm still in process and at least I don't have to worry about that violence down in Bogota anymore.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Status Updates
Dave |
Amy and Bunny Girl |
Amy started back at her school this week. This is the start of her 3rd year at her current school, and the 6th since she returned to her job as a school psychologist. Our hope is to get her back at home next year home schooling the kids as she did before I took over.
Bunny Girl starts school next week with the online Monarch program. She volunteered at the library this summer and quite enjoyed it. She is still a reading machine.
Spider Droid |
Wolfina |
Wolfina isn't exactly having a cow about going to public school this year, but it is definitely outside the old comfort zone. Inside the old comfort zone are howling, swimming, reading, howling, biking, writing letters, howling, drawing, cooking, and howling. She was in her first theatrical production this summer and loved dancing, singing, and howling.
Friday, July 26, 2013
The Most Important Job at the Food Bank
After we put on the requisite hair nets, aprons and rubber gloves , our supervisor Don started handing out assignments. It became readily apparent, at least to me, that I had been given the most important job.
So when he came back, I told him that I thought he had the most important job, and he quickly agreed. You see, people like to be valued. Even if they are just volunteers, they like to be valued. After he came back I got to thinking about it more. I started on concentrating on what job was most important. Was it those two tables of cereal baggers? Three of my favorite relatives helped man those tables. Without them my scooping and Nathan's tempo would just leave 16 filled tubs and a box mostly full.
But even with those 8 bagging and weighing away, the whole operation would come to a halt with out the bag sealer. Yes just as I scooped all the cereal into bins, the four people seated sealed every bag. the person standing took the sealed bags and prepared them to be distributed to the food pantries, soup kitchens, and summer feeding programs that the food bank supplies. And let's not forget about Don, who went from station to station informing and encouraging each group of workers; perhaps he had the most important job.
Sometimes the most important jobs are the ones behind the scenes. We were able to volunteer today because a friend watched our 7 year old while we were there. We volunteered with a group of employees from Capital One. I am not sure exactly what had to conspire for them to come. But I imagine that compensation and covering of duties was involved. It seems the more you break it down, the harder it becomes to determine the most important job.
So what is the most important job? To steal from City Slickers, it is one thing. It is the one thing that you were assigned to do. The most important task in a project is the task you were given. That task is your chance to shine. You have been given that task for a reason. Do the best you can at that task and the project has a better chance at success, than if you just did it 1/2 way because you wanted to be the one to scoop cereal out of a big box.
Volunteering is an important job. Feeding the hungry is an important job. If that includes digging up a ton of cereal, then I can dig that.
If you thought this post was a departure of sorts, you were right. It was a departure from writing nothing or next to nothing for months at a time. It is also a departure from my usual homeschooly things I had been writing about until I slipped out of internet existence.
As the new title suggests, I am no longer just a home school dad. I am a home schooling dad transitioning back to the business world. My most important job, to ride that horse one more time, is to land a job. This blog will reflect on my past jobs and my current search.
Next Time: My very first job.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Happy Zoo Year
3. I am also planning on getting back to some sort of blogging schedule. I am used to going week at a time without an entry so it will take me some time to get back into practice.
This entry does get me one step closer. I hope to write a quick homeschooling piece in the next day or two. I hope you all have a happy and joyous new year.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
WFMW Rubber Bands
Here are 2 ways rubber bands have worked for our family recently.
1.
I have found that at the factory job I have had for the past 6 months that overalls were the best thing for me to waer. The problem was that I only had 2 pairs of overall and one was missing the metal fastener that holds the snap up as you can see in the picture below.
So that's how the rubber band works for me. It has saved us money, time and frustration. To find out how other things (some not even elastic) work for others, click here for more WFMW at We Are That Family.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Certification
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Six Word Minimum

It's been far too long since I participated in Six Word Saturday at Showmyface.com. I talked about my new job in my last post. I didn't mention that I am earning minimum wage for the job. This fact gave me two (count them) different six word reflections . . .
Haven't made minimum wage since 1996
I make 13.75 cents a minute.
I prefer the second one because it require more math. It also puts a more positive spin on it. That's 20.625 cents a minute if I can get some overtime going.
For more six word Saturday click here.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Wow
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Status Update
This week I am working on a carnival of homeschooling at Dave Out Loud. I plan to post once or twice a week at each blog this Summer. But finding a job is the priority.
I also plan to catch up on all the posts I owe to various people before I go onto other stuff. To that end, I will be announcing the winners of the quarter give-a-way soon.
A Quote to Start Things Off
Blog Tryouts - Commenters Edition
Snow Kidding!
These "kids" now range from 19 to 25
These Blogs Are SO 2024
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List Your Way3 months ago
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On Wednesday, after the election …4 months ago
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Grief: A Brief Description6 months ago
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Treasures everywhere6 years ago