Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I Can't Wait...

Busy week - end of the nine weeks on Friday.  I took a break from grading tonight and found this on one of my blogs I read regularly.  Although there are many reasons why I do not want the end of this year to fly, this is by far my top reason for wanting 2009 to hurry up and get here.



Just so you know, I may have peed a little after watching this, that's how excited I am for LOST season 5 to start.  If you don't watch the show, take the time between now and January to catch up, I have seasons 1-3 on DVD if you want them, or you can watch them online here and click the "LAUNCH" button.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Good things at the end of the week

So some great things happened on Thursday and Friday this week.

#1. The Office Season Premiere - if you missed it, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

Watch the clip...



#2. The Warrior Word

I'm teaching journalism this year, and my class of 8 students and I decided to restart the school newspaper. We had a contest to name the paper, which went over well. After we had the name, we worked for 2 weeks, and the first edition of The Warrior Word went to print on Friday. The paper was distributed to the students for free during lunch study halls, and it was a hit. I got compliments from both students and teachers on the quality of both the writing and the layout, the but all of the credit goes to the students. They worked hard, and I am very proud of them. There is both a print and an online edition, so if you'd like to see it, go check it out here. If you want to see the print edition, there is a link at the bottom of the front page that will allow you to download a PDF version. Please excuse the picture quality in the PDF; I don't know why they look like that, they were fine when it was printed.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Price Increases

So I know I haven't posted in a long time, so I'll give you a quick update on my teaching job.  I love it.  Things are going much better than last year; I don't feel like a Mac truck has plowed me over at the end of the day for starters.  I've also taken a lot from the hellacious year I had in Maysville, so my class runs much more smoothly.  I guess it's true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Anyways, moving on to the Pepsi logo to the left of the text.  I went to a convenience store today to buy a pop, and had my $1.50 ready when I pulled up to the drive-thru.  I the clerk then informed me that the price had gone up to $1.60.  Now, I'm not upset, I was just shocked because I remember  when you could get if for a dollar.  The other thing that shocked was the fact that I hadn't thought that the price had gone up to $1.50 all that long ago.  I think I was paying around $1.20 to $1.30 last spring in Maysville.  Anyways, have your dimes ready the next time you go to buy a Pepsi product.

*Sidebar - if you like Coke products, they haven't gone up -- yet

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Back to School

Well, if you've been reading Cassidy's blog, you know that we have not had internet until yesterday at our new place.  While she's been dealing with that, I've been in final preparation mode for another year of teaching, in a new school. 
I've returned home to teach at my Alma Mater.  The vast majority of the staff is the same, so it is very interesting to be on this side of the school.  Every where I go, someone is very excited to see me and talks about things I did in school.  Hopefully that will all die down by the end of the week.
I'm very excited because I get to teach English II, Journalism, Creative Writing, Speech, and Reading.  It will be crazy with all those electives, but they only last for a nine weeks.
Anyways, I have some prep left to do tonight before bed, but I will give an update tomorrow after day 1 with students.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

See Some More Pics!

As you know, I'm married to an amazing photographer (and that's not biased at all).  For those of you who read her blog, you get to see the wonderful pictures that she takes of kids, families, seniors, couples, and queens (that last one will be coming soon - you'll have to check it out).  With her being a photographer, you would assume that we have pictures of everything we do.  Well, you know the old adage about assuming, and I have to tell you that we don't have a ton of pictures, but we have some of some pretty cool things that don't always make it onto Cassidy's blog.  To solve the problem of people wanting pictures from the camping trip, graduations, and parties we took pictures at, we set up a gallery on Picasa, and the link is located in the side bar to the right.  The current hot item over there that you will want to see is pictures from the farm house we will be renting starting tomorrow.  We have been in there cleaning the past couple of days, and we are slowly going to be moving things in over the next week.  Go check out the pictures of the house and other events that have taken place recently.

In other news, I finally found out what I will be teaching in the fall - Sophomore English.  This means I will have my cousin Megan in class.  Yep, that's what I thought until Megan called me tonight to tell me that she got her schedule, and I am not listed as teaching sophomores.  Oh well, I guess I'll have to go to the school tomorrow and get the information once and for all, or until it changes again.  Either way, I'm excited to get back in the classroom.

Finally, my college roommate Seth is coming for a visit this weekend.  He arrives sometime tomorrow and will leave whenever.  I'm excited he's coming, and this means he can help us move ;).  Anyways, things seem to be shaping up for a great weekend.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

LOST Obsession












So if you don't know, Cassidy and I are extremely obsessed with the tv show LOST.  It all started back in college when my roommate Seth got me addicted during season 3, and this past winter/spring, I got Cassidy addicted during season 4. I wanted to get caught up on the previous seasons that I had missed, so I started watching the HD streaming feeds of season 1 at ABC.com, but that got difficult and tedious for both of us to watch from the laptop.  When my birthday came around in June, Cassidy's parents bought me season 1, and we have since purchased seasons 2 and 3 because we found good prices for them.  

We started watching season 1 back in June before we moved and finished the season around the end of the month.  Around the first of July, we began watching season 2, and have since flown through it, finishing up last night.  The reason we have gone through them so fast is that we only have antenna reception on the tv here at Swartz Farm, so we got in the habit of watching anywhere a few episodes a night.  We have decided to cut back as we watch season 3 so that we can fully digest what is going on in the show.  We'll probably start watching the next season tomorrow because season 4 is released on DVD on October 28.

Anyways, if you like LOST, let us know-and if you have any theories, I'd like to hear them.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Camping Trip Highlights

So I know Cassidy sent you over here for from her blog promising that I would post some more information about the camping trip last weekend, but I feel like she did a great job already, so I'll just give you some of the highlights.
  1. If you own a bike and aren't happy with you seat, go to you local sports shop and buy the Lazyboy brand bike seats.  We did this before the trip, and they are amazing.  They are made wider to help distribute the pressure along your whole seat rather than creating those oh-so-uncomfortable pressure points that are associated with most standard bike seats.

    Cassidy's bike is the blue one leaning against the tree.  Notice the nice bike seat.

  2. When Whitney and Damon got married, they were presented with the problem of each of them owning a bike rack.  Since they only need one, Cassidy and I inherited Whit's, and we finally tested it out last weekend.  After some trial & error in our attempts to attach it to the car, we finally found out the straps are labeled (Whit tried to explain this to me, but I was a little dense) and got the bikes on the rack on the car, and we were off to Deer Creek State Park.

  3. The campground at Deer Creek is very nice.  It is set up in a giant circle (which is excellent for bike riding, if you haven't caught on to my bike theme yet), and has very spacious camping sites.  We had three spots right beside each other (Matt, Nathan and Dad each brought their campers) that were located very close to a "Comfort Station" - a good euphemism for latrine.  But, we had hot showers with great water pressure that we didn't have to clean within 10 yards of the camper, which was a definite plus. (If you want to visit Deer Creek but don't want to camp, check out the resort and cabins here.  I've stayed at both, and they are all great places for a get-away trip.)

  4. We also weren't that far of a small access point on the lake.  While we didn't go swimming, that didn't stop Matt and Theresa from taking their "son" Tate out for some swims and a little stick fetching to cool him off.  He would jump out after the stick and make his way back with a gurgling sound similar to that of a motor boat taking on water in the engine.

  5. The best part of the weekend for me was watching Maddie learn to ride her bike without training wheels.  Cassidy got some great shots of Nathan helping Maddie get her confidence while riding in the grass between the three campsites, and by Saturday afternoon, she was going out riding with the rest of us.  

  6. Finally, I know Cassidy talked about the chairs Mom and Dad bought at Sam's Club, but I can't resist raving about the truly amazing chairs.  They have to be some of the most comfortable lawn chairs I have ever sat in, and we've owned quite a few lawn chairs in my life.  If you can find them at your local Sam's, buy them, you will not regret the purchase.  Just make sure you watch your seat when you get up, or someone else might be occupying it when you get back.

Yes, I was asleep behind those shades, but I didn't want anyone to know.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

iPods, iMacs, & Minis - oh my!

So cassidy and I are currently sitting in the most amazing Kroger we have ever seen. Not only does it have its own stand alone Starbucks, but it also has big comfy leather chairs in the magazine aisle so that you can sit and read, watch tv, or email from you wireless device using their free wifi. Where is this wonderous grocery store , equiped with its own wine cellar and copious amonts of free samples? Well, look no further than Dublin, Ohio. We're up here getting Chelsea's Mini Cooper its regular tune up. We have a 2 hour wait, so we thought we'd hang out here.

If you've read Cassidy's blog (http://www.cassidydawn.com/) recently, you know that we have been gearing up to buy an iMac to replace our dead laptops from our college years. Well, we bit the bullet last Friday and bought it. Because we used my education discount, we also got a free iPod touch and printer. The printer and iPod arrived yesterday, and so I have am able to post this from the afor mentioned Kroger. The iMac will arrive this weekend, and then we'll be really rolling.

Well, I think we're going to move on now. Maybe we'll get more free bread before we leave - it's really good!

Sent from iPod on behalf of Justin Drummond.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

What do we have here?

As many of you know, Cassidy has her photography blog, and as very few of you know, I have a blog set up for my classroom. Between these two professional blogs, we decided that we need a personal blog to just share our random (and I mean extremely random) view of life from our piece of the sky and the pictures that document it all. We aren't making any claims to be the most entertaining blog on the web, but we'll do our best to give you a glimpse at our life. Heck, we might even make you laugh, even if it's at our own expense.

Hope you enjoy,

Justin & Cassidy