April 1st

I used to love April Fool's Day, still do. Coming up with a prank and a good laugh and putting a smile on every one's face, what could be better?

I have had my share of great ones over the year, too many to list. But last year changed all that, it was the day I decided to put my dog down. Thirteen years to the day that she was born. Yes, she was an April Fool and always put a smile on my face and everyone that knew her. It was a conscience decision on part for picking the date. I truly miss her, even if I don't think about her everyday, there are days when I can not stop thinking about her, so I guess it all balances.

                                                             Guinevere 4/1/00 to 4/1/13

Miss you girl

St Patrick's Day and my Irish Roots.

With the high holiday approaching, I thought that I would go through my Irish roots. There are at least three major ties in my family tree that go back to Ireland.

The first being that I am a Burke from my mother's side. The Burkes originated in Galway, Ireland, and date back to the medieval times. They are of Anglo-Saxon descent and have a Germanic tie. If you visit the western part of Ireland you will still find a lot of Burkes in the area. William Burke came to America at the beginning of the Revolution. Upon arrival here, after a free ride from the British in hopes of being part of the military sent to quell the rebels, he quickly went AWOL and became a blacksmith and supplied nails and other metal works to the colonists and the revolutionary war effort.

The second is that I am a Moclair. Now the name breaks down into two parts, 'moc' meaning 'son of' and Lair, who was the first king of Ireland. I guess this would make me royalty. The Moclairs hail from County Down in North Ireland (explains my rebellious side). I still have personal connections with members of the family in Newcastle-on-Down (home of the Royal Family's private golf course, which I have played on- told you I was royalty).

Now for the Bush side, you may have heard of The Bushmills. This is a distillery that dates back to the early 1600s, and still produces fine whisky today. Now the Bush family were not the actual producers/distillers of the liquor, but owned the mill that prepared the grain for the distillation of the fine libation. That is where the name comes from 'The Bushmills'. The original mills and distillery are located, once again, in the North in County Antrim in a town called Bushmills.

Now my first name is Herbert. Not Irish you say? Really....for your information Mount Herbert is an area in the Bainsbridge section of Dublin. Herbert also means 'glory of war' in the Anglo-Saxon language, who settled that area just to the northwest of Dublin.

There are other families of Irish roots that have married into the family, Mulligans, Quinns, Kellys just to name a few. So those are my Irish roots, now kiss me.

Parenting 101

When I was younger (high school and college age really) I never thought about being a parent, never had that biological need (want) to have offspring. Skip ahead a few years, and now I have two wonderful children.

Now lets get something straight, I said I never had the "biological need", but it was at this age that I knew that at one point I wanted to adopt. Not sure why, just did. And I have achieved it. Maybe in another post I will think about the reasons (selfish as they probably are) about why I wanted to do this.

Ok, Parenting 101....

This is not going to be a post about how to make the perfect well balanced bagged lunch or what artsy craftsy thing to do with them on a Saturday morning. I am not even going to cover how to help with homework, coach a sport, or teach how to tie shoes. This is about how to have well balanced smart children that people enjoy and want to be around.

The oldest, soon to be 19, is just finishing his sophomore year at Clark in Worcester, he has just settled on a double major (for now) and a minor. He is a gifted writer, and has always been on the precocious side, reading at a very young age, with a thirst for whatever he could find in a good book. He has done well academically and has been recognized for his achievements on the a very high level (nationally). He was a late bloomer in the athletic world, but turned out to be a respectable sportsman.

The younger, is turning 8 in June, and she is in the first grade at a local STEM school. She also has a need for knowledge but in a whole different arena. She likes to see how things work, or don't work. She also does not care about grades and it is starting show (I have no idea where she gets that from). She is also the natural athlete, one of those kids that things just come naturally.

I will say that both of my kids are very coachable, and that they can understand and translate what is told of them during practice onto the field and retain it (they also demonstrate this in the classroom, too). While the little one does not like team sports and is not fond of any sport with a ball. The older one is the consummate team player, putting the whole of the team over individual achievements and accolades.

The one thing that the other parental unit and I get from everyone that knows and interacts with our kids, is how polite they are and that they can carry on a conversation with adults. That they have an empathy for others and are  generally very well behaved (outside of the home). Now with the oldest one, people gravitate towards because of his demeanor and the way that he carries himself, he is a little introverted and does not like to draw attention to himself, but is very "entertaining" when he is comfortable with his audience. The younger one commands a room, now she does not do it in an ostentatious way, demanding to be seen and heard, She is just one of those people that walks into the room and goes about her business and before long everyone is stopping to take notice as if almost intoxicated with her. Both have the chance to be leaders with their individual auras.

Okay, so how do you accomplish this....first of all you speak to and treat your kids like adults, you give them a fair say in what happens in the family (not an equal vote, but an equal voice). You teach them about consequences; natural, punitive, positive and negative, and logical, and then you reinforce these consequences. Next you have to set expectations, keep them reasonable, and they are easier to obtain. T You teach them to finish what they start, no matter what. Don't OVER indulge them with possessions, activities and what not. Trust them. And the most important one of them all...LISTEN. They will tell you what they honestly need from you.

Everything else like love and attention, food, shelter, and education goes without saying.....

Instructional Time

I am seeing a lot of people complaining about standardize testing, common core and smart balance (etc...), and now the revamping of the SAT/ACTs. What is really surprising is the number of the people that are in and/or around education that are leading the charge against the initiative, you would figure they would know better.

What is wrong with holding students, parents and teachers accountable? Everything else in our life has expectations and are held accountable, from the meal we order in a restaurant, the quality build of the car we drive or the house we live in, the medical advice we seek and receive, to the just about anything else you can think of. If it is alright in everything else we have in our lives, why not our education system and students?

I am really disappointed in the people with whom we entrust with our children's education, to be so negative and anti- about this initiative. It is an educator's job to educate, I know everyone will debate that they can't teach because they are "too busy teaching to the test." Would we stand for that from a doctor who would say he was too busy taking care of patients to learn of a new procedure to better save lives...no we wouldn't. Would we put up with a mechanic that didn't check your brakes because he was too busy doing just oil changes because they were quicker and easier? No. So why our children and their education? Didn't they (the teachers) enter the profession with an altruistic view to better the lives of the young? Now they are riding rough shod over their own career choice.

Then there are the parents who are taking their kids out of the testing. Talk about helicopter parents... they are afraid that their little "geniuses" will get their psyche bent out of shape if they don't succeed and not have all good marks. This is in the same vein in that every kid that plays sports gets a trophy for showing up. Parents don't want their kid showing up for test and not getting a ribbon. All they are doing is enabling them.

Now we arrive at my last pet peeve in today's educational world. That is the mainstream inclusion of students with special needs. This probably led by the same group complaining about standard testing. I am all for getting students involved in all aspects of education at all levels. I support the rights of the special need student, but what happens when the rights of that student infringe on the learning environment of the rest of class? Where are the rights of my child to an education and a safe learning atmosphere? I was told recently she doesn't have any because she is not labeled. The educational system just has to provide a basic education for her. So she gets to lose sleep via nightmares about this student and has to be lectured that she can not respond in any form to the disruptions in her classroom because there will be consequences, talk about unfairness and not getting a trophy. (We did at least develop a paper trail to establish some kind of protection, but not sure what that really is worth in the eyes of those that claim jurisdiction of the statutes in today's academia world.) I guess the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

We are all being instructed on how to build a society of wimps.

I Don't Hash-tag

The other day my 78 year old mother asked me what "hash-tag" means. I told her it has something to do with Instagram and/or Twitter, I think I was right when I spoke this. I really don't know as I do not "hash-tag", Instagram, or Tweet. I like keeping track of others and sharing and do this via Facebook (and now this blog). I have no use for other social medias, and I already waste way too much time on the one (and now this blog).

I have seen the Instagram photos shared on Facebook (the food porn, the tinted to look like all the photos in the family photo albums, and the daily selfies), followed by the dozen or so (average for some people I know) of "hash-tags", I assume linking or labeling to those that follow similar things I guess. It appears you can "hash-tag" people, places, things, actions, issues, causes, and even products or companies. I was even told that if I "hash-tag" products/companies/services in my blog that the "hash-tagged" products/company/services would ask to place their advertising on my blog, and this would lead to more recognition for me, and them, and might even lead to compensation (getting paid to blog).

But I don't "hash-tag".

One of the reasons I do not "hash-tag"is, as I said earlier, I do not use Instagram. The reason I do not use Instagram is I do not have one them "smart phones". Yep that is right, as much as I love science, technology, and gadgets, I do not have an iPhone, Android, Samsung, or Google device. Never felt that they were that necessary. My phone makes and receives calls and I can text when I need to, what else do I need? I have a laptop for everything else.

Now here is the issue I face, my current "dumb phone" is getting old (3+ years) and beat up (glued and held together with tape), although I haven't wrecked or cracked the screen. It is this way because I can't find a "dumb phone" and my provider is not carrying "dumb phone" replacements. They want to sell you a "smart phone" along with the accompanying data plan. I don't want the data plan, so I am stuck with the old down trodden "dumb phone". I would take one of the new shiny "smart phones" because I guess it would make me look cool. If they would let me have one and not get the data plan that would be great, but they want me to pay for the data plan. I don't want to pay for the data plan because....

I don't "hash-tag".

[May be I should "hash-tag" all the "smart phone" companies and providers and they would place ads on my blog and then I would make money and use that money to offset the cost of the data plans needed for a "smart phone". But then they would want me to have a niche in my blog about how great their phone and data plan are, and you know I don't niche blog....]

To the Grammar Elitist of the World.

Dear Grammar Elitists (GEs)

First of all, I want to say; "Get over yourselves."

Seriously no one likes your pretentious holier-than-thou attitude of going around and correcting/editing everyone else's syntax, spelling and/or usage. Have you never heard of poetic license, author's voice, and a whole bunch of other fancy (read as crappy) styles and formats we were forced to learn and use when we wrote and we needed to stay within the contraints. Little Brown Book, MLA, blah, blah, blah.....

If the powers that be wanted to have a set of parameters, rules, theorems, and laws pertaining to the english (not capitalized on purpose) language, then they should have made it a Science. And all english majors would get a Bachelor of Science instead of a Bachelor of Art degree in the academia world. Webster and Johnson should developed laws like Newton and physically gone out and proved there existence.

They didn't, so it is an art, and hence you have the freedom to express yourself anyway you want. To deviate from the norm as you like, to stray from the path, to stretch the boundaries, to use the imagination, to express your view point as you see fit. Did we tell Picasso where to place a nose, Pollack not to use a tricycle to paint, Mozart which chord comes next, DeMille how to do a close up, or Sol LeWitt which shapes to sculpt? NO WE DIDN'T! We just enjoy.

(I know, there are some that will debate this and say that music has rules, a canvas has limitations, and the lens has boundaries, but you would be stifling their creativity. We wouldn't have new genres of music, new mediums in art, and special effects in film, if people stuck to the "rules".)

So is it 'who do you love', 'whom the bell tolls', i before e except after c, no dangling modifiers, and that the plural of box is boxes, yet the plural of ox is oxen and not oxes.

Here is something to think about:
"He told him he was allowed to go?" Grammatically incorrect. Tell me where the "that" goes.

And why are we bound to homonyms like to, too, and two, or homographs like box and box? We cold not come up with something better or varied?

I know this is just the tip of the iceberg, at least for me it is.

Sincerely,

The Rest of Us.

Enough.

As a "hardy" New Englander, and I never really minded the winters here, but I can say I have had enough of the "polar vortex". I like the snow, even like going out and shoveling it (snow-blowing now). I find it awe-inspiring in its beauty, less so when it starts to get dirty, so new snow always freshens it up and returns it to a state of pretty.

But the cold this season has actually been an annoyance, may be it is my age or that I have just grown tired of it. This winter my joints have ached, my muscles are stiff, I have had times when I can't get warm enough, and this is all before I go out to push the snowblower around or rake the roof.

Also being an altruistic environmentalist for the most part, I do not like the use of salt, as it is not good for the local flora and fauna. I also do not like the use of sand, as it tracks into the house and now I have to vacuum more often. But with the longer stretches of cold, I have had to resort to use of salt to subdue the ice, making it possible to get in and out of the house and driveway. Which by the way was so icy and couple of times that my car slide halfway down the drive from where I had parked it earlier (no harm, no foul, but still).

I know that more comfortable days are just around the corner, but I am ready today.