What In Tarnation?!?!?

I will not be around for the next couple of days, so unless Anna or one of the guest bloggers posts anything there will be no new posts until after 4/4/04 (Sunday).

I will be attending Youth Lab with Pressed, Michael, Big E, et al. It will be a good time for the people most intimately involved in the Youth program to regroup and refocus in preparation for the activities in the summer. I am looking forward to it.

Have a great rest of the week. If you write any good posts, leave me a comment about it, so I don’t miss it.

Class dismissed!

PS This is not an April Fool’s joke. No, really, its not! Stop looking at me that way.

OK, so this story doesn’t have quite the same zing as the snot story. Matter of fact, nothing even remotely gross about it. But it still made me smile…
It is Mother Goose week, so our library is full of Mother Goose rhymes and books. I am reading some poems to Jessica and Bert. (No, his real name isn’t Bert, but he does have a rather old-fashioned name that will get him teased when he starts kindergarten) I come to the poem about “what are little boys made of” and “what are little girls made of.” Jessica wholeheartedly agrees and says, “That’s right–girls are so much better than boys.” Then Bert, who is a bit slower than Jessica, chimes in with, “Hey, boys aren’t made of frogs and snails and puppy dog tails!” I say,”Oh, they’re not? Well, what ARE they made of?” He ponders for a few seconds, and then says, “Pee, of course!”

It appears that this blog as well as Avoiding Evil and Spare Change have grown these huge load times. I don’t think this has to do with server issues but a script or scripts that is on the page. I have a feeling it is blogrolling.

I have gotten rid of a few scripts on WIT, the referral list at the bottom which I don’t think was working properly and the stage of the moon display have both been removed to help decrease load time. I might have to move the blogroll off the index page if it is going to slow everything down.

There was a webpage that you could input a URL and it would record how long it took each element of a webpage to load or I dreamed it up. Has anyone heard of a thing like that? Let me know in the comments.

I saw all that to say that I am actively looking into the long load times on a few blogs. Please bear with me.
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I posted perhaps the cheesiest quiz I have ever taken at Quiz-Head-O-Rama. WARNING! It really is cheesy.
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Finally I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. I purchased The Glorious Appearing today, the final book in the Left Behind Series. When I first started reading the series, it was amusing. At the time I believe the authors were planning on six books. After they really started making money they expanded it to twelve books and a ridiculous line of merchandise ties-ins that would rival a Disney cartoon. The quality of writing (though never that good) really went downhill fast. At this point I am reading it just to know I finished the silly series. Please don’t tell me how it ends. The real reason I am writing about reading the book (because normally I would keep it a secret) is just to be on IdeaJoy’s sweet new tool Who Reads What. You can see what blog4Goder is reading what. Right now it just looks for Amazon links.

Class dismissed!

Flip is feeling a little too comfortable around here. In my Friday Five where I turned the tables on you and asked you to answer a few questions. That, however, was not good enough for Flip and re-asked the questions of me. I suppose that I shall indulge the readers.

1. Why did you start WIT (WIT referring to your blog in this case)?
When I first began teaching, one thing that I heard more than once from veteran teachers was I should start a journal to document the crazy and adorable things that children do. Good idea, however, I HATE journaling. The idea of taking to write something just for the sake of writing just isn’t appealing to me. During my first year of teaching I heard about this thing called a blog. I found the idea interesting and investigated it. Not knowing a thing about installing and running applications on servers I plunged head first into installing MovableType and getting it running. Through the blog, people where able to read my stories and even better, they could comment on what I wrote about. People commenting has become one of the main reasons that I blog. WIT has become an online community where have met all kinds of people I would never have met online. WIT has grown beyond its original purpose of sharing stories but that is the heart of WIT, a place for me to share stories, good and bad.

2. What’s your favourite part of WIT?
The comments. It is the area where WIT takes on a life of its own. I really don’t watch my stats to see how many people are visiting but I do get a little depressed when people don’t comment. It’s not the hits that matter, its the comments.

3. What is the thing you keep thinking you’ll add but never get round to?
A donation link. I have toyed more than once with adding a donation link or an Amazon Wish list. All the money or items on the wish list would be for my classroom but I just don’t feel comfortable with doing it. So I guess it is not a matter of not getting around to it, it is a matter that I probably won’t do it. (I say probably just to leave that door open in the future.)

4. What can I or anyone else do to make your day better? (No money or housework included!)
You can grade papers. I will have to consider if postage will be worth it. Otherwise, leave a comment!

5. Other than WIT, what is your favourite internet site?
You see the list of Required Reading on the front page of the blog? (The blogroll.) I like all those. A blog does not get listed here unless I really like it. I like most of the Edublogs too. The links listed from Homestar Runner and down are the nonblog websites that I frequent regularly.

Class dismissed!

PS There are no forums at WIT. I just wanted to see if anyone could find some. If you guys didn’t find any, I guess I was right, there are no forums.

PSS Got any other questions?

Because this is the second attempt at posting this (due to my own stupidity) and the time of night, the answers will be short and not all that witty (unlike the first attempt at posting this). Sorry.

1. Are you organized or disorganized?
Disorganized.

2. How well can you swim?
I’m okay at it. Not my favorite activity.

3. How often do you fill your gas tank?
Normally twice a week. At the most, four times a week.

4. Where is your favorite vacation spot?
Colorado.

5. What is you favorite animal to have as a pet?
A rock.
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I have a post about all the bawking over this year’s LifeWay VBS theme, Rickshaw Rally over at Spare Change.
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There is a new referrer script at the bottom of the page care of WIT’s best blogging buddies, Timothy of As I Said. Now you’ll need to visit to see if it works.

Class dismissed!

No Friday Five questions this week. (I think that is happening more and more often.) I had considered posting an old set of Friday Five questions and answering the questions to see if the answers have changed. That is until I found this old entry:

Originally posted on November 15, 2002

Friday Five XII: On Vacation

Friday Five is on vacation so I am going to steal Sakamuyo’s idea. (Who has a different blog now. You can choose the skin that you want!)

Please answer the following questions in the comments.

1. How did you find this place? This place being What in Tarnation?!?!?
2. What’s your favorite part of What in Tarnation?!?!?, have you visited any other parts of the site? Have you seen the WIT forums?
3. What would you like to see here? (that isn’t here or isn’t done well enough)
4. How can I help make your day better? (as long as it doesn’t involve money.)
5. Other than What in Tarnation?!?!?, what is your favorite internet site?

Thanks!

It’s alright if you answered these questions two years ago, I have lost those comments anyway. Leave your answer to the Friday Five (On Saturday) in the comments.

Thanks!

Class dismissed!

I’m trapped in this room with 20 smelly, obnoxious, disrespectful, and annoying children and I can’t get out! (At least not for another couple of hours.) Thank goodness for AR time.

Hmmm, must be the day before Spring Break.

Class dismissed!

Update (2:13): I would like to amend my above list to add loud and distracted. I just have to survive the assembly in a few minutes.

To commemorate Leo’s last day of hosting the ScreenSavers, I have stolen parts of his privacy policy and added a commenting policy.

WIT’s Privacy Policy
I promise not to disclose your private information to any third party except if required to do so by law, or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with legal process, respond to claims, or to protect the rights, property or safety of WIT readers or the public. I take all reasonable care in handling your personal information to ensure its security both offline and online. Recent webpage referrals are tracked at the bottom of main page of the blog.

Types of Information I Collect
You are free to browse whatintarnation.net without submitting any personal information at all. Your IP address (your current Internet address) is stored in the server logs at the time of your visit, as it is on all web sites. I do not collect any personal information (such as a name, address or e-mail address) when you visit the site unless you leave a comment on the blog.

Cookies
The comments use browser cookies to keep track of your comment information so you don’t have to input it every time you comment. Cookies are small pieces of text that are stored on your hard drive between visits. These cookies do not collect, store or maintain any private, personally identifiable information. You do not have to accept these cookies to visit or use the site and you can choose to refuse the cookies, delete the cookies from your hard drive or turn off cookies at any time.

Postings in the Comments
It is important remember that when you provide personal information (e.g., last name, address, phone number) in a online posting (such as the comments on the blog) that that information is visible to anyone, and may be used by someone in a manner unintended by you. For that reason, I discourage you from posting any personal information in the comments.

First and foremost, let me stress, I love to hear feedback from you (it’s one of my main reasons for blogging) and commenting is an easy way to do that. However, commenting on my personal site is not a right. Please respect the following rules when commenting. Do not use crude or inappropriate (as deemed by me) language within the comments. Do not slander or malign anyone’s character within the comments, I prefer to keep WIT a hate free zone. I prefer your comment have something to do with the post or the comment thread, please keep OT (off-topic) commenting to a minimum. Do not leave unwanted (and all of it is unwanted) comment spam. Failure to comply with the commenting rules can result in deletion of the comment, alteration of your comment by me to make you look like an idiot, and/or IP banning. Please help keep WIT a fun place to be. By using the commenting system, you are agreeing to the above terms.

Thanks and have a nice day.

Class dismissed!