Meep, meep, meep, meep, meep....

While my parents are off at my cousin's wedding, we are housesitting. The dog was sent off to the puppy hotel, but the cat would have nothing to do with that. So I've been keeping her company the past couple of days. She usually wants to be petted a lot and will roll around at your feet until you pet her. Not this time though. When we try and pet her, she runs away. However, she comes back a few minutes later and will just stand there meowing. Actually she never learned how to meow so it's more of a meep sound. I really wish she'd learn more words though. I don't know if she wants something or if she's just really bored. All I do know is that for the last hour she's been staring at me, refusing to shut up.

If she's trying to sway me from being a dog person, this isn't helping her cause.

Journal 3/26/08

Went to work in the morning today. Nothing big going on there. I had to go to a training most of the morning. The speaker had had a botox treatment recently so she could barely move her mouth to talk and I never saw her eyelids move during the two hours. Trust me, I was watching. I got off work a little late and headed to my parent's house. They weren't home and I didn't have my key on me. I took in the fabulous shopping Alhambra has to offer to kill time. I almost bought a new Wii game. While I was deciding which one, I went to Big 5 and ended up getting a new pair of shoes instead. I picked up my mom at my grandparent's house. We got my dad and brother for dinner at Carl's Jr. before I dropped them off at the airport. My cousin Emily is getting married in New York on Saturday and they're going to represent the western Hutchins.

Next up: Three day weekend!

Late Night Thoughts From Vons...

-- I think that girl walking in ahead of me may be a man.

-- I've got 10 minutes? I thought this place used to be open until 1am?

-- Nice. My cereal is on sale.

-- Do I need honey-mustard if I already have yellow, spicy, and horseradish blend mustard at home? Maybe I should be visiting the Mustard Museum with Bean.

-- Hmm...looks like I'm planning on breakfast at every meal this week.

-- I probably should have used more than just one handbasket.

-- Yep, that's definitely a man. There aren't enough dresses or makeup in the world to fix that.

Blame it on the name...

I feel old.

Today I felt really old. At work I had to take a boy to the hospital. When I was filling out his paperwork, I found that he was born while I was at Biola. He's already had time to grow up and become a poor excuse for a criminal. I told him he obviously wasn't very good at it and he should look into something else to do.

The kid had a cast on his arm. I guess it started to itch, so he stuck a pencil down there and the end broke off and got lodged somewhere in the middle. They had to cut out a square of the cast and then patch him back up. Usually that hospital is packed with broken bones, but there were only 2 people in front of us, and both just had sprains. What is normally a 5-6 hour adventure turned into a little over an hour including travl time.

That little girl is so brave, dodging all the bullets like that...

I forgot a lot of obvious ones too....

57

MS Walk 2008 is only 1 month away

Thank you to everyone who has joined the team or donated so far this year. We were able to raise just over $1,000 last year and I am hoping to repeat that again. Anyone who is in the San Diego or LA area I would love for you to join us in the walk! It costs nothing to come out for a great day in support of raising awareness for this disease and help find a cure.

If you don't know why or need a reminder as to why I am doing this you can click HERE. The photo on the bottom of this post is of Keith Ulrich who was diagnosed with MS about a year and a half ago. Keith is an incredible man and has a deep faith. Even when first diagnosed he never asked why me, instead he thought why not me?

When I found out about Keith's diagnosis I had the urge to fix it and knew that I couldn't so instead I did the only thing I could think of which was to raise money and awareness for this disease. This will be my second year heading up a team for MS walk San Diego. If you would like to join the team this year please visit the site HERE. Or if you cannot make it to the event you can click HERE to donate. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or comments.

I am also currently accepting donations for a garage sale to be held in SD at my mom's. I will pick up and take anything that will fit in the 4runner. The garage sale will be either the first or second weekend in April. So even if you have nothing to donate pencil in on your calendar to come over and say hello. :)

While cleaning out my saved e-mails...

I came across one that my dad sent me while I was applying for the position I am currently in.

After being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said: "Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning, and I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits. You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise their self esteem.

You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, fair play, how to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job. I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of anti-social behavior, make sure all students pass the state exams, even those who don't come to school regularly or complete any of their assignments.

Plus, I am to make sure that all of the students with handicaps get an equal education regardless of the extent of their mental or physical handicap. I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone, newsletter and report card. All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a big smile AND on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps!

You want me to do all of this and then you tell me... I CAN'T PRAY?

Journal 3/19/08

Today I went to work early. I was really tired when I woke up even though I slept good. I took a kid to the DMV to take the written test. Shockingly, we only had to wait five minutes to get him into the testing room, but then he took over an hour on 36 questions. He passed by one point, so he's happy. The rest of the day was meetings and behavior groups.

After work I had Boston Market for my early dinner. Right after I sat down, a tiny scrawny emo girl tried refilling the ice on the soda machine, slipped, dropped the bucket on her head and knocked herself out. She kicked over another cart full of lemonade tanks on her way down, so it was a huge mess. Luckily she was ok.

Photo class was short and hardly anyone was there. Since I got out early, I went to my grandparent's house to try some portrait pictures there. The lighting wasn't the best, but I think I can fix that later. Their dog hates cameras and barked until she wore herself out. I got home about 9:00pm, so we're going to watch the tape of Survivor and go to bed. Some guy from Craigslist is supposed to stop by and buy our extra computer tomorrow. If it happens, that'll be three large items gone, one to go. We're not pack rats, I swear!

Journal 3/18/08

Not much going on today. We both went to work in the morning. Since my kids are on spring break, I go in an hour later...which means I don't leave until traffic is bad. I stopped by Kaiser to get my blood drawn on the way home. The nurse did a horrible job. I actually yelled when she stuck the needle in and had sharp pains in my arm for about 5 hours afterward. She asked if I was afraid of needles. I told her "no, I've been having this done every couple weeks for the last 9 years and it has never hurt like this". She had nothing more to say. Cyndi got back from the track about the same time I got home. We had dinner, then just hung out here a bit. I'm kind of tired so going to bed earlier than normal for me.

I'll take you to the auto shop...

I had to take my car in for repairs today. It has been smoking when I start it up for a while. I figured it was an oil leak and it was. I also had a headlight burn out this week. I couldn't get the battery out to get to the light due to a bolt that had rusted. When I messed with it yesterday I just kept setting off the alarm that I was told had been disconnected a while back. It was real fun for the neighbors when there was enough of a connection to set off the alarm, but not enough for me to start the car to turn it off (this is the part where my dad is rolling his eyes and sighing). Someday maybe I'll bother to learn how to do simple repairs myself. It came out to $270. The good news was that the mechanic said my car was looking pretty good and that there's no reason I can't get it to at least 300,000 miles. I was just hoping it would hold out until 200,000 (a year and a half at my current rate).

I told the mechanic I had to get to work. He asked if they paid me well, and I told him I'd never get rich working there. He suggested I play the lottery. I laughed and said "I'm sure that will work". Then he told me how he and his in-laws won a $36 million doller jackpot a few years ago, and how he was only working because he liked his job. Sadly, he didn't like it enough to do it for free.

Gaelic Storm for St. Patrick's Day...

Johnny Jump Up by Gaelic Storm

Prayer

Mom called tonight to let me know that my Uncle Wayne is in the hospital again. A couple years ago he had pneumonia and almost passed away. The doctors had even told my mom that if any family wanted to come out that they had better make it quick. So my mom and another one of her brothers went out to be with him. He eventually recovered and was able to go home and back to work. Wayne has pneumonia again this time in his other lung. They are still running tests to see if it is a virus or bacterial infection that caused it. He is supposed to call us in a couple days to let us know how he is and what the test results say. Please pray for his body to be healed.

Around L.A.

Since we may need to be using the Metro system later this month, we thought we should probably give it a try beforehand. So today we decided to explore L.A. a bit by rail.

We caught the Green Line in Norwalk and headed out. It cost $5, but no one ever checked to see if we had a ticket. In D.C. you had to scan your ticket just to get into the stations so this was a bit odd. Most of the stations (especially on the Green and Blue Lines) were open so you could just walk onto the platform from the street. That meant a lot of homeless people riding around.

We transfered to the Blue line and went up through the worst parts of L.A., right through the projects. On that train, there was a lady with a stuffed iguana on her hat and a homemade sign demanding the release of an Al-Jazeera cameraman from Guantanamo. The guy sitting next to her started to debate with her about what a bad idea that was. She didn't seem too informed and saw Al-Jazeera as being "fair and balanced". Scary.

We transfered to the Red Line (much nicer) and got off at Hollywood and Vine. Our only issue on that train was the guy who started yelling about Jesus and Allah and "we are protected so this train will not be harmed by bombs". A bunch of us decided if he didn't get off at the next stop, we all would. In Hollywood, Cyndi got Wicked tickets for her mom at Pantages across the street. We noticed there were quite a few police sitting around there, and then saw that the street was blocked off a block down. It turned out to be a big anti-war protest. More on that and pictures in another blog. We heard they were going down to Hollywood and Highland so we killed those plans. Instead we got back on the Red Line and went to Universal Citywalk.

At Citywalk we had lunch at Subway and walked around some. When it started to rain a little, we figured we should head back in case it got worse. On the way out we passed the iFly booth. It's the giant wind tube that lets you float like you're skydiving. We may have to try that some time.

We took the Red Line to Union Station and then walked around Olvera Street for a few minutes. We almost bought Bradley a "Los Dogers" shirt, but they only seemed to have women's shirts there. After that we headed back home. On the Blue Line there was a freaky guy in clown makeup who made balloon flowers for all the kids.

Overall it wasn't that bad. It saved us money, the time was probably about the same (less if there was car traffic), and we got to see a lot of odd people. We might use it more if it actually went all over, but I think L.A. is too spread out for that.

A minute of your time

If you are a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, neighbor or friend of a school-age child in the state of California, please go to the link below and fill out the petition to keep Proposition 98 in place. Proposition 98 guarantees minimum funding to our public schools. Governor Schwarzenegger has asked that Proposition 98 be suspended so that he can cut 4.8 billion dollars in education funding to our schools.

California is currently ranked 46th in the nation in per-child education expenditures. The proposed cuts would move California into 50th place in the nation. The Governor's proposed cuts to education are unacceptable and he needs to be told to find another way to balance the huge deficit that our state currently faces. It should not be done at the expense of our children's futures.

Click here to sign the petition

Who are you rooting for?

click for full size

Soon

I will be done with Parent Teacher conferences

I am going to need to have my wedding ring sized

I will be on Spring Break

I get to hang out with my Bubba

I will be asleep

Photo week 4

I was right about the portraits section being a multiple week assignment. He actually wants us to cover it in next week's class too. The week after that is spring break, so the final picture won't be turned in until the end of class on April 2. It's a good thing too, because I didn't like how most of my shots turned out. This will give me lots of time to tweak things a bit and shoot more / re-shoot others that were close. I'm not going to post any of what I have so far. I'd hate for those people to refuse me in the following weeks.

We had to get up and discuss the pictures we turned in last week. The teacher passed around all three of my pictures for people to see up close. Only one other picture from the rest of the class got that treatment! I'm the winner! There's one other guy in the class that I think takes amazing shots, but he was a bit off this week. I still have 110% in the class. I'm hoping that will help balance out some other less than spectacular grades from my college career.

P/T Conference

This week is minimum day schedule because we are having parent teacher conferences, everyone execpt me that is. I have to continue to teach my full day and then do my conferences afterwards. This makes for very long days and an even longer week. SO... I am going to bed and hope that as my head hits the pillow I will be asleep.

From the Clinton camp...

[S]uperdelegates were not selected by the national party to be either potted plants or rubber stamps. We were selected because under party rules that have been in place for a generation, our party concluded that we had demonstrated the ability to act as stewards of the national party--and of the national interest. By dint of our experience in the community and our public service, we were adjudged fit to fulfill a moral responsibility to act in the best interest of the country as we saw it--and to be strong enough to withstand the criticisms of those who might object to the political impact of the independent conclusions we reached.

Hmm....why do people even need to vote when you can just appoint a few wise people to choose our leaders for us? But don't worry...she's not a socialist. Nope. Never that.

PDT

I love that we get an extra month of daylight saving time. I feel like the day is wasted when it gets dark so early. It feels so relaxing this way. You can eat dinner, then go for a walk or hang out a bit. When it gets dark early, it just makes me want to go inside.

It's about time he admitted it!

Random sports stuff...

When the Rams released 63 year old wide receiver Isaac Bruce last week, I joked to my Ram fan friend Pablo that the 49ers would probably sign him and pair him with Darrell Jackson to form the NFL's first geriatric receiving corp. Looks like the jokes on me. It actually happened 2 days later. I weep for my team. I actually thought they were pulling it together before last season.

Golfer Tripp Isenhour is in trouble with the law for hitting a protected hawk with a golf ball and trying to cover it up. Luckily for me, I don't think the duck I shot down back in high school was endangered. Isenhour also took several shots to hit his bird, so I guess we all know who the better golfer is.

Usually it takes me a while to get in the mood for the baseball season to start, but I was very happy when I happened to find the first Dodgers spring training game on the radio last week. I have no idea how they'll do this year. I hope Joe Torre plays the young guys more than Grady Little did last year. They've got a lot of talent there, but they need the experience of playing every day.

Shockingly, the worst Red Sox move this year is actually working out. Here's hoping Bartolo Colon makes the roster and takes a game against the Angels. I can hear Nick screaming already. =)

It's getting close to the time of year when I actually pay attention to basketball. The tournament brackets should be out this week and the NBA is close to the playoffs. I don't like most of the Lakers, but since I don't have favorite team, I just root for the hometown.

Introducing...

Everett Noah Cole Henning

Born 3.3.08 Weighing 8 lbs 9 oz & Measuring 21 3/4 inches

The proud mommy and daddy

I need help!

...in more ways than one.

My assignment for this week is portraits. I can't just volunteer Cyndi, because I have to have a bunch of different people. They all have to be teenage and up...no kids or babies allowed.

This is where you (yes, YOU) come in. I know most people are self conscious and don't want to be the focus of pictures like this, but I'll make it as painless as possible. I'll even give you veto power in case there are any you really hate. If they turn out good, I can make you some copies to keep. All of this has to be done before next Wednesday.

Ok, so who's in?

Photo week 3

I'm back in class. Our topic of the week was landscapes, which the teacher explained didn't have to just be shots of the mountains, but could include close-ups as well. We are showing our pics to the class right now. There are a couple of people with much better pics, but most of the class has no idea what they're doing. Here are a few of mine that I turned in. The first two are the ones I printed out this week.

(click to make bigger)

Momma Ratted You Out

There is a CRAZY police pursuit going on right now. He has been all over East LA. The 710 and 5 freeways, Whittier Blvd., Pico, Atlantic etc. At one point this white Escalade spun out and was going backward on the freeway, then spun back around and was disabled for a minute. He got the car started again and took off at a high speed. This guy has also done something I havent seen before which is driving on some train tracks and busting through a couple of barriers. I am not sure how long this chase was going on but the 2 o'clock news started with this story and that was 40 minutes ago. Officers just said that this gentleman was recently released from prision for weapons charges. How did these officers find this out.... well they talked to his momma. I will update later with how this thing ends.

edits: Okay he just drove into a parking lot that is in between a park and a school and went up on to the grass area and started doing doughnuts, once around a cop car because he was out of control. He regained control and continued through the park and onto a sidewalk that led out the opposite side. He then continued up the street.

edits again: Police laid down a spike strip and are taking him into custody. He is on Record St. just south of Whittier. That has got to be one of the most insane pursuits I have ever seen.

Am I wrong?

Any time one of my boys tells me that his mom is having another baby (such as today), the first thought I have is....ooh, I'll still have a job 13 years from now.

I can't stop it.

Weekend fun

Funny photo time at the Indian Casino brought to you by

The Morg and Cee

belated valentine photos

As Paul mentioned we didn't see each other on the 14th but we did have P&C's day of fun on the 15th. We had a great Linner at Roadhouse Grill. Then challenged each other to some mini golf and arcade fun. We walked around, enjoyed each others company. Stopped by the video store to see what new movies they had out & finished the day up with some frozen yogurt.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

For Robbie and Amy

For TK because its so very pink

For Mom the coolest bug Ive ever seen

For Morgan haha just kidding

For Charlie so she can blend in, that car is growing grass

For Jeri only because we used to do that rollerskate night

For myself the coolest truck ever

and just because they look cool...