Summer Vacation News

I have been on my summer break since June 15th. I'm managing to keep my self busy. Or at the very least occupied. :)

Bri-Bri!
Mikey's childhood buddy, Brian, came to visit for a few days. We greatly enjoyed exposing him to our Anza lifestyle, including profanity laden comedic television, a variety of video games, and breakfast at the local hick diner. We also saw the WORST M. Night movie to date (The Happening - don't see it 'cause it's not), ate overpriced Round Table pizza (these Poway boys seem to be addicted to the stuff), and generally stayed up way too late hangin' out. It was tons of fun, and our pal Bri is welcome here any time.

It's What I Do
I was going to use this title to talk about my summer tutoring but it's really more accurate to use it to talk about what I've been reading. In the last 2 weeks I have plowed through 4 or 5 books from the In Death series by J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts), sadly leaving me no more until the publish the next title in paperback. In the meantime, I am reading a textbook for my masters class called Models of Teaching, a young adult novel by Cory Doctorow called Little Brother, and the true story of the guy who started several schools for girls in the mountains in Afghanistan called Three Cups of Tea. I'm also popping in and out of a book about families that have adopted stray dogs called Second Chances.

The Other Thing I Do
I am currently responsible for covering our Tuesday (9:00-12:30, 2:45-6:15) and Wednesday (10:15-12:30, 2:45-5:00) hours at Escuela del Sol. My youngest student is going into 1st grade and my oldest ones are going into 8th grade. All of my students are focusing on either math or language arts (summer is when the students get back to the basics in an effort to avoid retention), and every one of them is a pleasure to work with. I managed to accomplish quite a bit of paperwork and organization in between students, as well.

Actual Work
The only thing I am doing that feels like actual work these days is trying to make progress on my masters program. The book I am reading isn't so bad, but the questions I am responsible for answering are uber-stupid. I don't like writing essays anyway, and feeling that what I am writing is useless and brainless makes it even harder. I have no choice but to power through as much as possible this summer, though. There is no time during the school year.

Ch-ch-ch-changes.
Thanks to Netflix's oh-so-helpful removal of that pesky multi-queue option and their dedicated interest in the needs and desires of their customers (watch out...don't get any of that dripping sarcasm on you!) we have decided to move our video rental loyalties over to Blockbuster. I am not thrilled with the idea of supporting a chain like Blockbuster, but it prefer that to supporting those arrogant bastards over at NetFlix.

Big Money
Now that summer is here and I'm not so dependent on my vehicle, I found the time to take it in for the numerous repairs that have been piling up. There is a VW dealer that is fairly close to Temecula, but I refuse to let them touch my pretty Jetta since the last time, when they caused more harm than good. This means that I have to go all the way to Escondido to the second closest dealer when I need major work done. This time I got to pay for...
- a new front bumper
- reattachment of driver side door handle
- 1 headlamp and 1 taillight
- a sun roof control
- a temp gauge
- repair of the central arm rest
- a timing belt
- a water pump and various related parts
- other bits and pieces from the engine
- 90,000 maintenance
- the labor and time that went into all these repairs
I'm quite pleased with the work they did. I even got a 10% discount on the labor and a free inside/outside wash due to the magnitude of my bill. I sure hope we don't need to do that again any time soon, though.

Yum Yums
On the brighter side, we got to have a lunch at one of our new favorite places, the Stone Brewery. Although we aren't huge fans of beer, we are huge fans of the 100% organic, mostly vegetarian menu. Mikey got a delicious tofu stir-fry, and I got a rich and creamy wild mushroom pasta. Yum!