Funny clothes, birthdays, and HALO

Wow! It is only the end of the first week of October and I have had a busy few days!

Let's see now... On Monday, I substituted for the 7th grade Social Studies teacher that my son has. He was really stoked to think that I would be his teacher for two classes! I was quite happy to be doing Social Studies as that is one of my strong points and there would be no math involved! Truth is, the day was pretty much already planned out for me so it would be a breeze. But what really made it special was the excitement that many of the students had when they knew I would be a substitute! I have known most of these kids for about 10 years now and they know me by my first name or as "Julian's Dad." It was a real ego boost to see how happy they were to see me behind the desk and to hear comments like "Alright! Julian's dad!" or "Yeah! He's cool!" It also was great to hear them say good things about Julian too. And if I can somehow help his level of "Coolness" in school, all the better too! It was really great and I look forward to it again! I think it proves that you can be involved in your kid's life and school activities and not be considered the enemy. You just have to identify with them and let them be kids and show that you can be a kid too! But at the same time, they really crave attention and direction from adults.. and if you treat them with respect, they will respect you back! It was a great day!

Then later that same week... I did two demo as local schools talking about the Middle Ages. Once again, despite what many whiney liberal types might think, having weapons in schools and using them for educational purposes will always get and hold their attention more than a dusty book. As a matter of fact, I now have a rule that if a school wants me to come talk about the Middle Ages or the Revolutionary War, but does not want me to bring in the historically accurate weapons of the time, then they really don't want to talk about the history and I won't do it. Sorry, but that is just the way it is. All the knee jerk laws restricting weapons in schools sometimes gets in the way of education!

And then there was my birthday! Nothing like my 40th birthday celebration... This one was much smaller, but I think I worked just as hard! Let's see, my family and I made home meade apple cider with the help of other family members and friends, we made homemade ice cream and we had a wiener roast with more food than truly was necessary! It was alot of fun, but maybe more work than needed. Birthdays are very important to me.. everyone needs to have there one special day... whether you are famous or not! And you should take the day off from work, just like a national holiday! Why not?!?! God gave this one day to call your own and that seems like good enough reason for me! Now, truth be said, we celebrated my birhtday one day early because the next day, my actually birthday, would be dedicated almost solely to playing the greatest video game yet created.... HALO: Combat evolved.

On the 8th, my good friend Dave and I, set up and ran a Halo tournament to help raise funds for the local Share And Care Senior Center. It was a blast! 10 teams of 4 people each! Four systems linked together! It was a blast! We raised over $800 for the center and had many people ask if we were going to do it again! We had kids from 8 years old to over 40! And everyone got along great and despite some mis-steps we had a great tournament! We had lots of good help and great support from some members of the community! Many people say that violent video games are no good, and in some cases they might be, but it is my feeling that anything in too large amount can be bad. However, instead of trying to get rid of them, maybe more people should do stuff like this and use it for good! It was a blast, and normally more work than I like for my birthday, but now that I think about it, it wasn't really work, but more like play, and that is what you should do on your birthday... have fun.. play games... enjoy the day.

Later!