School was indeed cancelled today. We are even running on a two hour delay tomorrow. I am nervous because the new semester starts tomorrow that means a whole new bunch of kids. I am doing three government classes and one of the classes is quite large (27 kids). I had to go get more desks and a table for the morbidly obese kid (410 lbs at age 17). The obese kid is the assistant principal's son. In addition to the weight problem he has a number of learning disabilities and is my ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL'S SON!! No pressure there or anything. Supposedly he falls asleep sitting up all the time because that is the only time he can breathe correctly. What a shame, at this rate he won't see his 40th birthday. In situations like this I am forced to realize that some of my students need assistance that I cannot possibly provide.

I signed up for the Revelation Records email newsletter the other day and soon after received an email with the following note:

"Did you know that the Vandals just returned from playing in Iraq?It's true. They were flown around Baghdad in Blackhawk helicopters,they wore full body armor and stayed in former royal palaces. They were scheduled to stay in one of Saddam's fancy palaces on ChristmasEve, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made a surprise visitand the Vandals had to be housed elsewhere. Speaking of Rumsfeld, Vandals' guitarist Warren Fitzgerald was widely quoted in the U.S.press after riffing on him. When a reporter asked the Vandals what itwas like playing for entertainment-starved soldiers -- many of whomprobably didn't know who the Vandals were -- Warren shrugged it off:"You rock out to the band you have, not the band you wish you had," he said, mimicking Rumsfeld's response to questions about why the troopsdon't have proper equipment."

What a strange band to pick to play for the troops. Cool, but still strange.

I haven't had to work since noon last Wednesday. The winter weather is keeping me at home. Considering I like teaching and go stir crazy when I don't work-it kind of sucks. Plus after today we have to start making up the days (i.e. no President's Day etc...). It looks like some of the surrounding counties have already closed for tomorrow. Great.

My Dad is undergoing chemo and radiation therapy. He'd not getting sick, but he is extremely tired all of the time. It sucks, but hopefully it will cure the cancer. What a mess.

I bought a new (used) record player at Plan 9 the other day. A nice direct-drive vintage Sony turntable with a super nice cartridge and needle. It sounds great. This leaves me free to hook my old player up to the computer so I can burn my records onto cd. Sweet.

We had our first band practice last week. It went well though rather disorganized. Geraldo is a great drummer. He's mainly into jazz, so he definitely incorporates some cool stuff into his playing. Danny and I of course are now trying to figure out how to play metal with a jazz drummer. Should be great once we get that figured out. I told Danny we should give Geraldo a copy of a Carcass cd and tell hime to learn it. In semi-related news Kim made me turn off the Assuck cd I was listening to yesterday because it was giving her a bad headache. Wow that's cool.

Hope all is well.