Weekly Kodachrome - The Summer of George

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We have people who make our lives far more surreal; these are the individuals who—when they knock on our door—that we don’t even pretend that we aren’t home. We open the door…every. single. time they knock.

I had just moved into my townhouse back 2007 and I only knew a few of my neighbors—three to be exact. I remember walking out to get the mail one night and thinking to myself, “Teachinfourth, you don’t know hardly anyone around here.” I decided then and there that the next person I saw, I’d introduce myself and make them my friend.

I met Marc.

He was heading out to his car to get something, and on my way back to my house we struck up a conversation; that was the day we became friends. I’m happy to say that Marc and I have been friends for somewhere in the vicinity of four years.

One day—not long ago—Marc and I were talking about how we didn’t know hardly anyone who lived around us; well, we decided to do something about it. We decided that we would host a block party, a Festivus for the rest of us. Fittingly, we’d christen it, “The Summer of George” and invite all of our neighbors (as well as bloggers who felt like coming).

I can’t tell you the feeling of awesomeness I had whenever someone approached out little gala and I was able to cry out—with hands in the air mind you, “The Summer of George!”

When our little afternoon celebration concluded, the world wasn’t changed, and we didn’t get to know all of our neighbors, but we did get to meet a few…and a blogger or two to boot.

Here’s to The Summer of George. Here’s to taking the time to taste the fruits, and letting the juices drip down our chins…

<center><a href="http://teachinfourth.blogspot.com/search/label/Weekly%20Kodachrome/" target="_blank"><img alt="Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0e1GL4TLj1n6H-veDNFvj6gHUt_9-X1MWA6Qo-0zyEHW2dGTMl4JeI8v_q4AdNQxb8FADxYjLPhQnxl1rEPTU9B2N1_m9vVei9Ea8PXDRASzVKotvo4jseesUFUvqazg0pxtTAN75ao/s800/Weekly%252520Kodachrome.png"/></a></center>

Did you take a photo in the past seven days that made you smile? If so, feel free to include a link to the image in the linky. (If you try to crop your photo with the linky, it won’t always show up, you might just want to let the program self-crop it). 

Willing to share the Weekly Kodachrome on your own blog? If so, feel free to grab the code for the linky here, or snag the html for the button above. 

Empty Cups and Plates

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In my own little world it hardly ever rains
I've never gone hungry and always felt safe
I got some money in my pocket shoes on my feet
In my own little world
Population me

I try to stay awake through the Sunday morning church
I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give 'til it hurts
And I turn off the news when I don't like what I see
It's easy to do when it's
population me

What if there's a bigger picture
What if I'm missing out?
What if there's a greater purpose
I could be living right now?
Outside my own little world
Stopped at the red light, looked out my window
Outside the car, saw a sign, said "Help this homeless widow"

Just above this sign was the face of a human
I thought to myself, "God, what have I been doing?"
So I rolled down my window and I looked her in the eye
Oh how many times have I just passed her by?
I gave her some money then I drove on through
In my own little world there's
Population two

Start breaking my heart for what breaks Yours
Give me open hands and open doors
Put Your light in my eyes and let me see
That my own little world is not about me

- Matthew West

Media of the Week - Move Along

Pin It There are moments in life when I need a lift.

I feel that I just can’t go forward another step.

To get up in the morning is a struggle.

I lie in bed and wonder what the day has in store for me.

I shudder.

I close my eyes and wonder if I can make it through another day.

I hit the snooze button two or three times and stare at the ceiling, waiting for it to go off the next time, being the final indicator for me to get up.

We all experience days like this from time to time. I figure that none of us has the perfect life where we leap from our beds and embrace each and every day like it were our last and live it to the fullest.

Maybe I’m wrong—perhaps you do. Maybe you are greeted by herds of unicorns dancing on your lawn each and every morning that shoot rainbow wishes from their eyes that you capture in Mason jars and conceal away in the attic for rainy days.

I don’t.

But would I love to have them...

Sometimes I don’t turn on the lights in the bathroom in the mornings. I like to believe that when I climb in the shower that it’s really raining outside, and that I’m really standing in the deluge. I feel a sense of control and power in knowing that I can change the temperature and intensity at will.

I will often fumble for my iPod on these mornings.

I keep a playlist in my arsenal; I call it, “Feel Good Music.”

It’s just that—music that makes me feel good. When the sounds embedded in that playlist tears through the speakers and rip through the fabric of morning air, I feel the world around me change—or maybe it’s simply my perception of it. The world becomes a beautiful place.

I smile at the day when I walk out of my house and breathe in the fresh morning air. I find myself in awe of the clouds hovering around Timpanogos, capturing the first rays of morning light.

The world is an adventure waiting to be had—a conquest anticipating its time.

To this playlist I add yet another song which helps me to change my attitude. Though a few years old, it is a good one nonetheless. Plus, the video’s editing is nothing short of pure, unadulterated geniusness.



If you’d like to add a song that builds you up and inspires you to the playlist we started together about nine months ago, feel free to let me know and—if it’s available—I’ll add it in.

Because—after all—we each need our own form of unicorn wishes.

Oh, and don't forget that Saturday (tomorrow) is Festivus. Hope to see you there.

Moments with Joey - Marriage

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SCENE 1, INTERIOR. AFTERNOON, HALLWAY. The teacher is walking in with the class from recess; as the students stop in at the restroom, and to get drinks from the fountain, one fifth grade boy sidles up to his teacher.

JOEY: Mr. Z, are you married?

TEACHER: Joey, for the last time…stop asking me. I will NOT marry you...

[The teacher starts laughing].

JOEY: Well, if you aren’t, don’t EVER get married.

[Pause].

JOEY: All girls ever do is nag, nag, nag…

TEACHER: You’re still pretty young, Joey, how would you know this?

JOEY: My dad told me.

[Pause].

JOEY: And boy, does my mom ever…

[Fade to black].


Oh, and I did post over at Four Perspectives today.

Weekly Kodachrome - Cool is as Cool Does

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Do you remember the name of your best Friend when you were growing up? Do you remember those secret rendezvous in the hot, summer evenings when the sun had long since set, and the orchestral chime of crickets had taken over the night air?

Do you recall running through the long, grass and getting caught in the patches of stinging nettles? The wanderings through the lazy summers when you knew, knew mind you, that you were cool in your cutoff shorts and flip-flops; as you went to the lake or river with a cooler full of sandwiches and lounged on that inner tube until you battled for it with your siblings, friends, or cousins?

Do you remember finding those sunglasses? That pair in the store that you just had to have because they were so amazingly awesome? That pair you begged your parents for until they finally caved and bought them for you—or let you buy them with your hard-earned allowance?

You put them on and you knew then and there that you were cool…in fact, you were cooler than cool—and nobody had to tell you either…you just knew it.

<center><a href="http://teachinfourth.blogspot.com/search/label/Weekly%20Kodachrome/" target="_blank"><img alt="Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0e1GL4TLj1n6H-veDNFvj6gHUt_9-X1MWA6Qo-0zyEHW2dGTMl4JeI8v_q4AdNQxb8FADxYjLPhQnxl1rEPTU9B2N1_m9vVei9Ea8PXDRASzVKotvo4jseesUFUvqazg0pxtTAN75ao/s800/Weekly%252520Kodachrome.png"/></a></center>

This Post has no Title

Pin It I fought my way through the depths of Walmart on Saturday evening.

Moving through the school supply aisles was like trying to claw my way out of the seventh level of Dante’s Inferno; there were melees of carts careening in all directions. Sets of beleaguered parents consulted with school lists as their confused children blocked the walkways like the buffalo in Yellowstone National Park. The shelves around them looked like war-ravaged aftermath—or something comparable to the Los Angeles looting during the riots of 1992.

I felt relieved that I didn’t give out class supply lists, but rather furnished my students with the basic necessities they’d need for the school year: glasses of water and crusts of bread.

Of course, I know that to some parents this is a rite of passage into the new year: buying the newest morphed generation of the Trapper Keeper and the retro Casio calculator watch which is as much a sentimental journey for themselves as a supply run for their offspring.

However, who am I to stop the forward ambling of progress?

I dodged down a few deserted aisles and was able to pick up my various and sundry items—rather quickly I might add—and within the space of another 10 minutes or so, I fled the store to the safety of my vehicle. I shut the door and settled back in the driver’s seat with the feeling like I’d just escaped from drowning,

I should have waited until midnight…

Today came—and went—rather quickly I might add, bringing with it the ominous realization that tomorrow, yet another school year would begin.

School.

I’d thought I was done with the major preparations before the tidal wave of students would arrive on the morrow; however, after a slew of thought I realized that there was still so much yet to be done.

Fast-forward some 9 or so hours later to where I stumbled out of my classroom just minutes before the alarm system armed itself, with my eyes glassy and a feeling of being completely and utterly worn out.

I slumped in my car and drove toward home, the miles of road stretching before me as I listened to the silence.

It sounded nice.

Tomorrow will come. I wonder tonight if sleep will evade me; it seems that it always does this time of year. Chances are I will lie there and think about my students…I will wonder about them as they spend their last few hours either in giddy anticipation or in downcast hesitancy of the new school year and the death of their old friend, summertime.

Will they be sleeping soundly tonight? Will they awaken with that selfsame feeling of newness that the first day of school seemed to always bring for me when was a kid?

I read over an email or two, wrote this post, and then I readied to close my computer for the evening. Before shutting down I decided to check Facebook; I saw that a message had been sent to my Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living page.

It was a photograph from Megan Wade.

I stared for a few moments at the image filling my screen, all the while the neurons in my brain made their connections in regard to what it all meant…and then I started to laugh, my energy slowly returning.

Tomorrow will come, and I’m so ready to meet you, Joey. I’m excited to start our educational journey, and to begin our plethora of adventures together…

Going Viral

Pin It Did you ever watch Diary of a Wimpy Kid II – Rodrick Rules?

I did.

Now, before you go off and start judging me, remember that I teach 5th grade; I have to keep up on the current slapstick media of the day or I find myself behind the times and can’t drop current pop culture references like the rain in classroom lessons.

Plus the first movie was pretty darn funny.

Remember that particular scene where Greg decides he wants a YouTube video that will go completely viral? He is convinced that if he gets his friend, Rowley, to be a complete dork lip-synching to Ke$a’s TiK-ToK, it will be an Internet sensation—as popular as the falling granny—and make them famous. He also believes that Rowley’s fake fall at the end (and the underwear on his head) will really be the clinchers to fame.



Well, I was thinking to myself the other day…just what is it that makes something go viral? I mean, what is it that causes media to hit society like a shockwave and rise like nothing else?

Well, in doing a little research I learned that going viral it is usually the result of something hilarious, cool, amazing, or completely stupid that is rapidly passed on by a lot of people. Now in the old school days it was usually done by word of mouth; you would tell a neighbor, friend, or family member...or perhaps something would be printed in the paper, or it would show up on the news or was heard on the radio.

Today going viral appears to happen when something is broadcast (perhaps in the same ways as before) but it seems to travel much further and faster through the mediums of social networking…you know, Facebook, twitter, Blogs, email, and that new-fangled Google+ (that new network that we’ve all heard about, probably been invited to, but perhaps haven’t plunged into just yet).

Rebecca Black’s “Friday” is an example of something that went viral. It was a relatively unknown video that showed up on YouTube and then—before anyone really knew what was gong on—it became an Internet sensation. All because of social networking.



Yeah, I hated the song at first, too…but now? Yeah, just like you…I can’t get enough of it—it’s like my own, personal version of crack cocaine; besides, because of it I now know all the days of the week.

Speaking of Friday...I couldn’t sleep this morning, and when I woke up I was struck with the idea that I wanted to go viral.

Well, not really me, myself…but a few of those people I have tucked way in Google Reader.

So here’s what I’m asking.

I know that I don’t have nearly enough cyberspacular clout to try to get any of these folks enough exposure for their blogs, but if there was a post amongst these 8 that struck you, would you be willing to pass it onward? You know, share the love? Send it on to somebody else with the same petition: to send it on to someone else as well?

What I would love is to see each and every one of these people to go viral with their post.

I also just know that revisiting dozens of each of your posts via your blogs in the early of this morning was wonderful.

I was able to reacquaint myself with your lives for several hours via archived posts in Reader and found myself smiling at the reminders of things in your lives; the events that brought you to today, even those events I reread over the months that were sad. I won’t lie about this; some of the hardships you are/were enduring in your lives brought me to the realization that we are all living such varied, exciting, and difficult lives.

Now, please also don’t think anything like, “Man, Teachinfourth didn’t choose anything from my blog, that must mean that he doesn’t like ME.” Far from it. Believe it or not, I read through close to 500 posts this morning all to choose between 5-8 that stood out to me. There were a few others that did as well, and then it came down to narrowing the field.

It was hard.

Your lives are so amazingly awesome.

Please don’t be offended if yours isn’t in this particular grouping; after all, if I could give out medals and awards at the Olympics, everyone would get the gold. However, I guess that would kind of defeat the purpose now, wouldn’t it?

I guess that's why I teach 5th grade...

But, if one of these posts rings a chord with you, would you do a bit to try to help it to go viral?

So, just how could you help it out?

Tweet it
Blog it
Email it
Google+ it
Facebook it
Del.icio.us it
Digg This it
Buzz it
Stumble it
Forum it
Blogher it
Bloghim it
Blogfrog it

I just know that I can’t get something to go viral all on my own, I simply don’t have the power. Also, just know that there was something particular in each of these posts which jumped out to me, but if there was somebody/something else you liked, would you do the same for them instead if you’d rather?

Great, now let’s go viral...and thanks, in advance.

Think Stew - I Had No Idea. A few thoughts on what it's like being a dad.

Abe - What Parents Say, What Kids Hear. Yeah, the title pretty much sums it all up...

Gerb - I So Totally Rock, Dude! As an adult - and after having a family of a few kids - Gerb decided to finally learn to swim.

Natalie - Where Sasquatch Really Comes From. What happens after a baby shower, a long ride home, and a discussion with a kid not even in the second grade yet? Yep, it's pretty much all about the hair.

Karen - Shuffled. A an argument on a long drive with an uncooperative iPod.

Kelly - Stages. We all experience moments along the roadway known as life. We all have bumps and - at times - we see the turmoil and wish to pass by it. Maybe we should just hang on to these moments and enjoy them.

Mindee - All You Have to do is Ask. Just why do parents name their kids what they do? She gives some helpful advice in this one.

Wendy - One Dream. Would we really trade the dream for the reality we have?