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Wednesday, April 2, 2025

B is For Blogger

#AtoZChallenge 2025 badge B

My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me.  Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day.  Today's letter is B so let's get right to it shall we?


B is for Blogger

When I was your age, television was called books. William Goldman - The Princess Bride

When I was in my twenties, blogs were called newsletters.  I wrote one, a semi-whenever publication called Those Living On The Cutting Edge  printed on a dot matrix printer and mailed out when postage stamps cost 22 cents.  


It was written to like minded friends and contained interviews, reviews, rants and even a feature called "If I Could Draw This Would Be A Cartoon, in which I described a scene and then said what the caption would be.  

Another early pre-blog was when I would write prayer letters when I was a short term missionary in Russia.  It's title was The Siberian Sentinel.  Each month I would write a few snippets of what was going on and send it back home to be distributed.

One summer my brother visited me there and I tasked him to write that months letter.  So, I guess he was the first guest blogger.  I  don't remember everything he wrote, but I remember when he said that he could make a lot of money by selling the Russians the recipe for ice.

Geo-Cities was a dream come true for me.  It was my pre-blog blog.  My family had multiple pages including my ultimate Comic Strip Page where I put my 30 favorite comic strips as if I published a newspaper.  I had another page where I listed the last 5 sporting events we attended.  At Geo Cities I also posted editorials/ essays some like An Open Letter to the Car Behind Me eventually made their way to this blog.  

An Open Letter to the Car Behinf Me


Dear Car Behind me 7:30 p.m September 1st 2001 exiting Elk Grove Bowl Parking lot onto Southbound Arlington Heights Road, 

 Yesterday as my wife, daughter and I were heading home from dinner at the Rose Garden restaurant in Elk Grove we were making a left out of the parking lot of The Grove Shopping Center on the corner of Arlington Heights Road and Higgins. We were joined by you on our tail. My wife, who is probably the worlds best and safest driver, was waiting for traffic on both sides to subside before making our turn. 

 This is when you, in your 2nd row mentality, decided that you could see the traffic better behind our minivan than we could ahead of you. So you blared on your horn, indicating that we really should be turning at that exact moment and make you wait no longer. Well, Superman, (A reference to your x-ray vision; being able to see past our car to the ongoing traffic) not 3 seconds after you honked, a northbound car barreled past us. 

 This means that if we took your horn blowing advice, and stuck our cars nose out in traffic, that most likely my wife, myself, and my daughter and our unborn child would be dead right now. My daughter would not have turned two today. The house in Carpentersville we moved into yesterday would have never been lived in by us, nor paid off by us, saddling our parents with grief and debt. 

 Fortunately, as disconcerting as your second row salute was, my wife did not go until the coast was actually clear. You, then had the audacity to catch up with us and give my wife a glare! Don't you realize, that if we did take your advice and got smashed up, you would have most likely been even further delayed than you were. When we both stopped at the light at Landmeier it was all I could do to not roll my window down and give you an earful. 

 This has happened to me so many times before. We live in an area of congested traffic, driving in front of people who honk the horn at us before the light turns green. If you guys are so quick on the draw, how come you generally are behind me ? 

 So car behind me, next time you are second in line behind somebody else: try to remember that it's not just a car you are behind, it is people!

 Love, 
 Dave

At some point I started reading blogs, at first I didn't know they were blog.  One time I was reading an excellent review  of a movie I never heard of called Once, . I got the movie from our library and it is now one of my top 100 films of all time.  My wife and I have also seen the musical version of the film.  That blog was one of the first blogs I put on my first blog roll. Because of that blog and many others over the years, I have read things, experiences things, and even written things like a progressive poem that I wouldn't have without blogging.  My wife's siblings and other relatives started a family blog in 2006 or so,  A lot of seminal pictures of our growing family made their way  to that blog.


 
This blog was originally started in 2009 with the title Home School Dad.  To many the moniker Home School Dad connotates a Dad whose family home schools.  The picture you get in your mind is of a Dad who works outside the home with a wife who teaches the children.  In that scenario I was a Home School Dad since 2002 or so when my wife started doing school at the kitchen table with our 3 year old daughter as our 1 year old son toddled by. 

What I meant by Home School Dad was a Dad who was the stay at home primary educator of the children.  Starting in the Fall of 2008, I was that Dad.  After an introductory semester of teaching the kids, taking them to the library, and putting my toe in the water of Home School co-operatives, I was ready to dive in to full home schooling mode.  At that time this usually included, a home school blog.  So I made the transition from blog reader to blog doer and became Home School Dad.   I participated in lots of blog hops, carnivals,  and memes (which I pronounced  as me mes) . I built  a pretty good following in the home schooling community.

The mid to late 2000's are generally considered the height of blogging.  I think the late 2000's early 2010's were the height of home school blogging.  By 2010 I had 3 active blogs.  Home School Dad started in January 2009, Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Page began in December of that year.  These were both on blogger.  I started a vlog called Dave Out Loud on Word Press and like Arthur Dent, who could never get the Hang of Thursdays, I could never get the hang of Word Press.  So in January 2012, I brought Dave Out Loud to Word Press.  2012 was also the first year I participated in the A to Z challenge at HSD.  

 I was the main home educator in our family for 5 school years between 2008 and 2013.  When I went back to working full time, I was still able to teach once a week at our home school co-op.  I also was able to continue to blog. In 2015 I came back to the A to Z challenge at this blog and also on my sports blog.  In 2016 I actually did the challenge on 3 different blogs.  That was the only year I didn't complete the challenge.

2017 and 2018 were dry years for me as far as blogging we concerned.  I participated in the 2019 A to Z challenge on a Word Press blog, dropped out for about a year and then resurfaced again in 2020 during Co-vid.  I have been back ever since.  From 2019 until now I have participated in the A to Z challenge each year.  In that time, I have consolidated my 3 blogs into one and changed the name of Home School Dad to Leap of Dave.

I still read quite a few blogs and use my blog rolls to keep up with them,  I know this is a bit of a rambling history of my life in the blogoverse. There are probably more things I could have said and some things I could have left out.  There used to be a Weekly Blog Meme called Works for Me Wednesday at the blog We Are That Family.  It was one of those mr. linky blogs and the basic idea is you would give some sort of tip that was helping you and your family.   What I'm trying to say amid the rambling, is that blogging works for me.

A to Z challenge wise, you can get back to the blog by clicking here and get to the spreadsheet by standing up, spinning around 3 times while chanting spreadsheet.  I'll wait.  Actually, it's April Fool's day as I'm writing this, so that may not work,  but still try it.  Clicking here  won't be as entertaining to those around you as my method, but it will get you to the spreadsheet.

Coming Up: C is for Christian.


Tuesday, April 1, 2025

A is for Amateur Parodist

 

#AtoZChallenge 2025 badge A

My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me.  Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day.  Today's letter is A so let's get right to it shall we?

A is for Amateur Parodist

I love parodies and I came by it honestly.  My family listened to a lot of Allan Sherman  records when we were growing up.  Allan's most famous song A Letter From Camp (Hello Madda Hello Fadda) but I grew up hearing so many more of them.  Here is one I just discovered today to the tune of Moon River it's called Chopped Liver. 






In addition to being exposed to one of the worlds greatest parodists at an early age.  My folks also wrote and published their own song parodies.  Each year they would write their annual Christmas letter to the tune of a different Christmas song.

They produces such classic lines as

Good old Wenceslaus looked out from his Window Sill (Ledge)
Then he looked all about and saw Elk Grove Village

The parodies would tell the story of my parents year and what happened to all of us during the course of it.  These parodies went on for at least 40 years and began including grandkids and Christmas songs that no one ever hear of.

My sister Kathy was the first of two girls born to my parents over the course pf 11 years. I was the first of 3 boys born to my parents over the course of 6 years.  The boys of course came in between the girls setting up this parody of Hark The Hearald Angels Sing in 1974.

Then we were not six but seven
January 27th 
On that day in early morn
Bonnie Eileen at last was born
She is Kathy's pride and joy
Specially because she's not a boy.

These influences and being exposed to Weird Al Yankovic singing gems like He's still Billy Joel to me on Dr, Demento put me on the  prestigious path to parody.  (Not the annoying, alley of alliteration.  That's all me.)

  
 


The first parody I remember writing down was a parody to the Steve Miller Band 1982 song Abra Cadabra about a guy who worked at  a morgue called average cadaver .  I kept the lyrics for awhile but soon lost them.  A few years later I saw Svengoolie singing a parody of  Abra Cadabra also about a cadaver,  That's the problem with parodies, if you can put new lyrics on somebody else's song you can't complain when someone else does.  While looking for the Svengoolie parody on you tube I found an obligatory co-vid parody of Abracadbra that has to do with pasta rather than cadavers.



.

Over the years I have had occasion to write multiple parodies.  Some I've written for people moving away.  Some just for fun.  The 3 that follow all were written for ir previously published in this blog.


When I returned to the A to Z  challenge in 2019 my first theme was the music of the Sherman Brothers.  Their music has a special place in my heart.  It's no surprise that I've tweaked their lyrics from time to time.  Like when I wrote this paean to t-shirts.  


 The most wonderful thing about t-shirts 

 Is t-shirts are quite fun to wear 

They're great to roll up your sleeves in 

They help you let down your hair 

They're cool, they're stylish, some think they're childish and while I will not bicker 

the most wonderful thing about t-shirts is they're frontwards bumper stickers! 





 
There are a few go-to songs  that I like to parody.  Hakuna Matata from Lion King and Desperado by the Eagles top that list.  If the syllables of your name scan with Hakuna Matata there is a reasonable 

I just made one up now:

Olympia Dukakis
What a wonderful dame
Olympia Dukakis
Has a star on the  Walk of Fame
She was all the rage
From her great work on stage
Olympia Dukakis

For scanning purposes O-limp-eee-ah is shortened to O-limp-ya


 2 years ago in the A to Z challenge when I spent a Month at the Movies, I wrote about my my favorite western in S is for Silverado

While posting it on my FB page I did a quick Desperado parody:


Silverado, you are in my top eleven. 
You star two great Kevin’s 
Plus one Glenn, and one Glover 
You’re a western 
But so much more than your genre 
Which is why I’m so fond a 
This joy I’ve discovered. 

In 2011 when celebrating my 500th post on this blog.  I wrote a parody to the tune of the Proclaimers I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles).  


I Just Blogged (500 Times) 

 When I wake up, yeah, you know I'm gonna blog 
I'm gonna blog about playin' puppy on the floor. 
When I go out, well you know I'm gonna blog 
I'm gonna blog about a field trip to the store. 

 If it's Christmas, yes you know I'm gonna blog
 I'm gonna blog about how much we like to bowl. 
And if it's Easter, yes you know I'm gonna blog. 
That it's not a little rabbit that makes us whole. 

 I just blogged 500 times 
And I might blog 500 more 
To blog and ask what you guys do 
With children screaming on your floor. 

 When I'm teaching, yes you know I'm gonna blog 
About something good that Bunny or Spider did. 
And when puppysims come 
I'm gonna post 'em here. She's really quite a kid. 

 When we travel. yeah, you know I'm gonna blog 
Whether close to home or Washington D.C. 
And when we get back you know 
I'm gonna blog with words, pics and videos for all to see. 

 I just blogged 500 times 
And I might post 500 more 
Just to be the guy whose 1000 posts 
Will make you laugh but never snore. 

 When I'm fed up, yeah you know 
I'm gonna blog I'm gonna blog 'bout how my family drives me mad
 But when I think straight yeah you know I'm gonna blog
 I'm gonna blog about the super times  we've had. 

 I just blogged 500 times 
And I might tweet 500 more 
Just to be the guy whose posts and tweets 
reveal the passion at his core.

That about does it for my adventures as an amateur parodist.  

I just have one more thing to add.   Allan Sherman and Al Yankovic were both at one point my favorite parodists and I was a distant third.  My daughter Lucy FKA Puppy FKA Wolfina has not only surpassed me as a parodist but I believe she could surpass  Sherman and Yankovic   in a tussle for the the top spot.  My favorite of hers is when she does the preamble to the constitution to the tune of Momma Mia. 

We do a lot of collaborating and were having fun last week when she was home on Spring Break just making parodies of songs based on my maintenance medications.  They were just a line here, a line there like singing Triamtene to hail to the Chief.  

When we were done, I kept on reimagining one until I was telling the story of a man who was singing the praises of his blood pressure medicine but kept on obsessing instead about the Trump Presidency.

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you

Amlodipine 
sung to the tune of Yesterday

Amlodipine, My BP's as low as it's ever been
Trump's not nice, He's kind of mean
Oh I digress Amlodipine
My BP fluctuates by White House residency
And Now a new Trump Presidency 
Amlodipine I'm needing thee

Why'd he run again
That is not what felons do
Then he won again
I cannot believe it's true ooh ooh ooh

Amlodipine
There's more pressure than I've ever seen
So until he gets impeached again
I will need Amlodipine

Amlodipine
I don't want to start a scene
I'm as blue as Elon's cars are green
I'm going to need amlodipine
Can't even read a MAGAzine
I will need amlodipine. 





 
To get back tot he A to Z challenge click here.

Comping Up: B is for Blogger

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The One Where We Talk About Bruno

Team Saturdazzle time again and the last Team Saturdazzle post that won't be a A to Z Challenge post in disguise until the beginning of May. More about that later ...

I had a great week at work .  I was at 3 schools in advance of Spring Break and then a 6 week Long Term Assignment that will end out the school year fs or me.  Then the weekend began and I started having some 21st century problems that could have put a wrench on the beginning of Spring Break.  

Spent more time trying to resolve these issues  than I would want to and while they are no where near resolved they are in a nice holding pattern that will let me move on with my Spring Break with only a modicum of inconvenience.  

If that seems a  tad vague it is because the aforementioned problems are a tad Brunoesque in the we don't talk about Bruno sense of the word.  But as you can see by today's title we will talk about Bruno, so let's get to it shall we .  

As mentioned in my last post, I subbed the past 2 days in an elementary music classroom.  19 classess in 2 days!  It was amazing!  The students had choices as to what to watch on the smart board.  The most popular selection was Baby Yoda, but videos from Encanto were a close 2nd.  Pressure got played 3 or 4 times,  and we don't talk about Bruno at least twice that.  

     

I kept on meaning to ask the students what the hidden joke in We Don't Talk About Bruno is, but each time the video ended, between my ADHD and their eagerness to pick the next song, I never got to it. I'll have to settle for telling you now.  We don't talk about Bruno is a song dedicated to talking about Bruno!!  That joke may be a little too sophisticated for  the average audience of Encanto, but I love it!

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My 3 Anniversaries Part I

My wife and I were married on April 11th 1998.  In order to go on a honeymoon we scheduled the wedding for the Saturday after her school took off for Spring Break.  This was also the Saturday before Easter that year.  So since 27 years later she still works at a school, and Easter is still a thing, we actually have as many as 3 days a year that we can celebrate our wedding anniversary. Today was the first of those this year.

We went out for breakfast at a place we hadn't gone too before and had a really nice conversation.  We spent some of the day doing the Brunoesque things I didn't talk about earlier and then we went to a matinee of a play that a friend's daughter was directing.  We found out when we got there that a former home school co-op student of mine was also in the play.  This was the 2nd time in less than 4 years that we went to see someone else in a play and this young man was in it as well.

The name of the play is  Radium Girls and is very similar in nature to a play that my daughter acted in as a radio play during her Freshman year in high-school because of Co-vid restrictions and directed part of in her Senior One Act presentation last year.

Both plays tell the true stories of women from Orange , New Jersey and Ottawa Illinois who painted watch dials and died  of the exposure to the radium in the paint.  

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Well there's more I could say but it's 11:45 p.m. and I'm running out of Satur to dazzle you with so I'll call it a night!

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Baby Yoda and The Music Sub

 Midweek Music Break

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.  

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Equal Groups Multiplication Song | Repeated Addition Using Arrays

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.  

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Team Saturdazzle: The One Where I pull something from my draft status and then go from there

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

 

A Quote to Start Things Off

If we ever think well it should be when we think of God. - A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

Snow Kidding!

Snow Kidding!
These "kids" now range from 19 to 25