I do remember reading your letter Lisa, I actually was interested in the subject. My nephew was married in the temple, so there was some personal involvement in it. I have to admit, though, that I didn't realize that it was yours. I have a habit of being curious about the names of the people who write things I disagree with, like the people who either thought a church ought to change it's policies for the benefit of non-members, or the people who referred to non-members as 'unworthy' and thought that if they really loved their children they would just do the right thing and join the church. For some reason I just pass over the names of the people who make rational arguments (in my opinion), don't know why I do it, but I'm kind of embarassed that I didn't notice it was you. Sorry.

P.S. Over the next few weeks, you'll notice that I've gotten six new gif's for the center picture at the top. They're from a group (Lisa, my ex-, sent me) titled "What the Mona Lisa is doing while your back is turned". After I've had them all up front, I'll put them together on a page so you can see them all at once, but I'm gonna make you wait..........

Got back from 3 days in Bloomfield, Colorado, not too far from Boulder. Went to the Nuts & Bolts conference, got a few really good ideas for the upcoming school year. Most of the Utah teachers decided it was close enough to drive, and I drove out there with Joanna Gibb, the english teacher that I'm switching from Brockbank to Granite Park with this year. When we planned the trip we were going to go in my Mustang, but since I sold it we took her Sunfire. Anyway, we went via I-80, which for those of you who don't know the area well, takes you across the bottom of Wyoming. Pretty much the whole way. Long way. Long, long way. Now, I'm not saying it was boring or anything, but by the time we got to Laramie I had made up this whole story about Buck (me) and Daisy (Joanna) living in Wyoming. I was going to get a job in construction, buy her a really nice double-wide in Laramie (she talked me into painting it mint-green for her). She even agreed to get a job at the local 7-11, inbetween birthing, which wouldn't stop until I had at least one son. Yes, we were bored. Once we left Wyoming our logic chips clicked back in and we figured it would be best to come home via I-70, which goes through Colorado and straight into Utah. Well, we get to the conference and there are teachers from every state in the country, and several foreign countries. Minnesota had the most teachers there, Utah was tied for second with some other state. There were about 12 teachers from my old school, and about the same from my new school. It was really good to see the friends from Brockbank that I wouldn't be seeing in the fall, and it was nice to be able to get to know some of the new friends from Granite Park that I'll be seeing a lot of in the fall. But I have to admit I was kind of torn between which group to spend my time with, there wasn't really a lot of time to spend outside of the conference. The first night I went to Bucca de Beppo for dinner with a bunch of the Brockbank people. We had a blast. Pienezza and I did the ordering for the group, considering we were both of Italian descent. We also ordered a couple of bottles of wine, which we were the only two that drank more than just a taste. Let's just say that we were a little bit happy. Anyways, the whole group had a really fun time. The last night I was there the conference held a dance party at the Tap Room, the bar at the hotel the conference was at, not the one we stayed at. Just for the record, Minnesota teachers can PARTY! They were drinking and dancing the whole time I was there, and looked to be going strong when I left around 12:30. I even saw quite a few of them awake at the 8 am farewell meeting. Well, I went with a bunch of the Brockbank teachers, drank a bit and danced a lot. They were just playing too many good songs. Started out with just me and Pienezza and Dimick and his wife dancing, but at one point we even had Haynes and Overson out on the floor. This one's for you Lisa (the friend not the sister) Haynes and I even danced a couple of slow dances, even had our picture taken to show Brett & Kevin (for those of you who don't know, they're her kids, one of which was a student of mine.) Wish I could be there to see Brett's face when he sees his mom's head cuddling the shoulder of his 8th grade math teacher. The last day of the conference we (Gibb, or Daisy, and I) went the farewell meeting, (which ironically came before the last two break-out sessions), and then went to a session on getting physical with our students. No, we're not taking beating them into submission, it had to do with the fact that adolescents need to move their bodies around about every 15-20 minutes, get the blood flowing, releive the growth plates and such. Got some really good ideas on how to get kids moving around during a math class (and not just saying "ok, now we're going to take a break and move around" and letting chaos reign for the next few minutes.) Went to that and then Gibb and I headed back to Salt Lake via I-70 to Green River, up to Price, Spanish Fork to I-15. You know, basically the same way as back from Moab. Overall it was a fun, and interesting, three days. Oh, and I almost forgot. The first lecture I went to they had the greatest t-shirt and I just had to get it. It says :

Crazed night at the Chevron tonight. Started with Gold Cross being called (no, Scott wasn't sent there), ended with Gold Cross being called again (no Scott this time either) and a 'boy this is one small world' experience. I'll start with the very last thing of the night, because it's one of the best stories I've had in a long time.

Guy comes in to buy some chewing tobacco, and bums a smoke off Cami (fiancee of Mike, the guy I'm working with). She goes out and has a smoke with him, they come back in and the guy goes to leave for home. Cami starts to tell this story he told her while they were smoking, something about a missing ring on the 4th of July. It doesn't hit me until she says something about this guy offering a 6 pack for a reward and being told "sure, yeah, I'm sucking down a Corona right now" by the guy who found the ring. DING, DING, DING, the bell goes off. Sounds oddly familiar to a story I heard at my barbeque on the 6th of July, from the other side of the story. So, I go running out and catch him and say something about his girlfriends lost ring and asked if a guy named Danny found it. He's like "Yeah, Danny" and before he can ask how I know I tell him the guy that found his ring was my little brother, and he was at my house when he was sucking down the Corona. Now I'm his newfound best friend, he's shaking my hand, thanking me and telling me to thank Danny too. Seems he's been going around for the last 2 weeks telling people (some he's just met) that there really are good people out there, that the human race doesn't totally suck and using Danny as the example. He told me that it wasn't that the ring was really worth a lot, just that it had sentimental value, and thanks to Danny it now has even more sentimental value. I hope he marries this girl, 'cause I can picture 40 years from now, him, the wife, the kids, grandkids having dinner and him telling the story about Grandma's ring and the 4th of July, his kids rolling their eyes thinking 'this story AGAIN?' Danny, you've weaved your way into the folklore of America. And the last thing he says to me, right after I say something about 'yeah, that's my brother', he says 'yup, you look just like him.'

The work day started with two girls escorting a third one in and asking for the bathroom, followed by several other girls. All about high school age. As they assist the girl to the bathroom, we ask them if she's allright. They're not sure, they think she has heat stroke and she needs to get to the bathroom and get some water in her. She was on some outing with a bunch of students and teachers and their bus broke down in this 103 degree weather for a couple hours, out in the middle of nowhere although I never got the details of where. When they got the bus running they went to Sugarhouse Park and were resting under the trees when she said she had to get to a bathroom, like NOW. I won't go into details, but after she made a mess of the bathroom, and herself, and they tried to get some water in her and she just threw it right up, one of the teachers said that yes, we probably should call 9-1-1. Total chaos at the Chevron, because not only did we have a bus load of high schoolers in the parking lot and store, but it was also busy. Again, in a show of how the human race really can be good, all the customers were very sympathetic and although we kept having to run off and get towels, water and whatnot to help, never complained and most of them were "Hey, no problem at all" when we apologised for the chaos. Gold Cross took her off, without the sirens so I'm sure she's going to be OK, and her friends even cleaned up the bathroom for us.

The rest of the night was just a little off, we were just a little off because of the way things started. You know how if your day starts off with a really bad encounter, the rest of the day seems bad, or if it starts with a really good thing the rest of the day just is better. Well, if it starts off with chaos it just seems to be chaotic the rest of the day. And it ended that way. As I was just starting to count down my till, two women come in escorting a third woman calling for the bathroom (this time they were 30 something). Not heat stroke this time, it was almost 10 pm at this point, but seems the woman thought the pump had stopped, pulled it out of the car and got gas all over her, and in her eyes. Well, someone is in the bathroom, they're panicking and pouring the Mt. Olympus water they just bought in her eyes to flush it out. Again we ask if we should call 9-1-1, again it's a few minutes before they decide maybe we should, again Gold Cross shows up. Twice in one night. Yeah, Jenn and Scott, you can tell all your buddies down at Gold Cross that it was your uncle that called them twice in one night. This time they didn't take her away, they just cleaned her eyes out and left.

Man, was I happy when this night was over..............

....So, I'm at the cash register and I look out the window at pump 4, 'cause part of the job is seeing what is going on and making sure everyone is planning on coming in to pay for their gas (yes, as hard as it is to believe, some people try to take off without paying). Immediatly I'm wishing I was blind. Let's just say that if you look like Bill Dauterive and you're going to get gas, you should 1) wear pants that stay up (or at least a belt) and 2) wear underwear while wearing pants that continue to fall down. Yes, it was a full moon at the Chevron. Well, of course I immediatly turn to Besha, the other guy working that day, and say "Hey, check out pump 4". Share the wealth is what I say.
....Then I'm walking across the parking lot, in a shirt that says "Chevron" on it while carrying 3 garbage bags. A truck drives up and a woman sticks her head out and asks "Do you work here?" Umm, uh, no, just can't afford regular clothes and have a fetish for carrying bags full of trash.
....Q : Why can't men get Mad Cow Disease? (answer after next story).
....Got a guy named Carlos working at Chevron. He grew up somewhere in South America and just got back from his LDS Mission. To get this next story you have to understand that he is not only very striaght-laced, but also quite niave. He is telling everyone that next week he is going to Idaho. Only problem is that he pronounces it "Eda-ho" (with a long e). Keeps saying "I'm going to Eda-ho". Mike had to explain the problem with pronouncing it that way, and what people might be thinking he is actually saying. (If you don't get this, then either I'm not explaining the pronounciation very well, or you're too young to get it).
....A : 'Cause all guys are pigs.

Hello Rossi Clan!
...We are organizing the Rossi Italian Bakery to be at the Ferragosto Festival (Italian Festival) on August 20th. We will have a team play in the Bocce Tournament and a Food booth with the yummiest biscotti this side of the Atlantic!
...Any person who is in the booth needs a food handlers permit and will need to wash their hands frequently. Also, we can have four people play on the team who will need to wear shirts at all times.
...If you are planning on being in the area on August 20th anytime from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm and would like to participate, please email Alex, Marijke or myself.
...You can find more information about the festival at http://www.italianinutah.com/Ferragosto/Ferragosto.htm
GO ITALIANS!!!!
Love Lynda ROSSI Weiler

As you probably all know by now, Wasatch Jr. High pretty much burned to the ground this week. What you may or may not know is that I have 2 nieces and 1 nephew that went to Wasatch, and that I teach in the same district. Since school starts in just around 7 weeks, the district has 2 choices as to what to do with the students that were supposed to attend there this year :

Well, here's my theories regarding the choices : If the district splits up the students and faculty, then they have no intention of rebuilding Wasatch Jr. High, they will just rewrite the boundries and eliminate Wasatch Jr. High. If they keep the school together and either choose double sessions or somewhere find an empty building (I just thought of this 3rd option), then they plan to rebuild the school.

Here's my opinion about which they should choose : Option 1, rewrite the boundries, assign the students to one of the three other schools. This may not be popular with my nieces, nephew and other people who are/were involved with Wasatch Jr. High, but financially this makes sense for the district. The 4 schools in that area have been running under capacity for several years. Churchill is currently at about 60% capacity, Wasatch was higher than that but still under 100%, as with both Evergreen and Olympus Jr. I left Churchill about 4 years ago, and even then there had been talk about closing one of the schools for several years. In my opinion, the only reason none of them had been closed before is because the District was not up to the fight the patrons in that area would give, did give when they talked about closing Olympus Jr. because it needed to be rebuilt. (The only reason Olympus wasn't closed was because of one of the school board members, who I won't name and has since been voted off the board, went to Olympus Jr, his kids went there and his grandkids went or will go there.

My prediction as to what the District will do : Close Wasatch and reallign the boundries for the other 3 schools. I went to Brockbank to pack up my room for the move to Granite Park and heard the comment "Well, I guess the decision of which school to close has been made for them" from several of the people in the office, who would have some idea of the goings on in the district. They have been talking about which school to close for years, I even entertained the idea that the fire may not have been an accident in order to lessen any fight they would have over a closure. (No, I'm not accusing anyone of arson, just simply pondering possibilities.)

In a nutshell : If they split up the faculty and students then the school will not be rebuilt. If they keep the administration, faculty and staff together then Wasatch will be rebuilt. I don't think they should rebuild and I don't think they will.

I may be right, I may be wrong, only time will tell.......

So after Gibb was wooed over to Granite Park Middle School, I heard a lot about their program there. They have their students take twice as much Math and English as the other schools, so the teachers get their students for 80 minutes every day, instead of 45 minutes every day or 80 minutes every other day. With the complete change of administration at Brockbank, it felt like the time to check into this. So I did. And today I got official confirmation from the district that I am now assigned to Granite Park. Yup, I'm changing schools, for the second time in my 12 years of teaching. But it's going to be good for me. It is a challenging school, lot of poverty and mobility, but they have programs in effect that help the kids become successful. Not that other schools, Brockbank in particular, don't, but they have enough Title 1 money ($$$ from the Federal Government to help with low income students) that they are able to do other things. This still remains to be seen, but my largest class is supposed to be 30, and since I'll have only 3, instead of the usual 6, that means I will only be responsible for 90 to 100 students, instead of the 200+ I had last year (I had a 9th grade Algebra class with 42 students in it for a while).

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the new experience. I think I'm going to enjoy the move, and it's a lot closer to home, lot less of a commute. (For those of you who know Salt Lake, Brockbank is at 8400 West and 2400 So, Granite Park is at 300 So and 200 East, I live around 2100 So and 1300 East). I will miss the people I worked with at Brockbank, they are a fantastic group of teachers, and good friends. The old cliche "We'll have to get together" hopefully won't be a cliche, they will always be welcome in my life. Oh, and by the way, Lisa (the friend) you are always welcome to call. I'll e-mail you with the funny things that happen at Granite Park if you'll e-mail me with those from Brockbank.

Scott sent me about the funniest thing I have ever seen in an e-mail today.

This is an actual auction on e-Bay, I checked it myself. As of my writing the bid is up to $305. To check out what was so funny I almost pee'd my pants,

Thank you Lisa, the sister not the friend, for the information on Norman and Ida. And thanks for reminding me about the story behind Ida's birthday, I hadn't thought about it in a while.

As for Norman, all we've got so far is that he was born Norman Lawrence Bevan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, probably in october of 1905, and died at the age of 63 in 1969 in a hospital somewhere near Lexington, Massachusetts.

So, you'd think that even after spending a year in Scotland, you'd be able to find more to do than sit at a computer and look up Jello recipes? Or maybe it's because Lisa is so anxious about getting back to Utah soon, but she found a really interesting recipe for Jello. Sounds so good that I'm going to have a welcome home dinner party for her, you're all invited, and it's what I'm going to serve. (This is an actual recipe from recipegoldmine.com)

Hope y'all'll be there for dinner, I'll post the date as soon as I hear back from Lisa (the friend, not the sister).