CNN.com links to a blog called Mental Floss.  Usually involving tidbits about pop culture in a top-10 format,  these articles can be quite entertaining.  For example, I came across a few the other day about fast food:  Who Approved That?  7 Food Promotions Gone Horrible Wrong and 10 Secret Menu Items at Fast Food Restaurants and enjoyed both of those.  Note the NY Yankees reference in the failed Pepsi promotion in the first article (sorry Jamiahsh!).

Mental Floss has featured other lists in their articles that have interested me; of note is 10 Homeschooled Celebrities (Agatha Christie, Mozart, Alexander Graham Bell, to name a few), 10 Things That Have Deflated the Macy’s Parade, and 5 Weather Events Worth Chatting About.  It’s a well-written, entertaining blog (like this one, haha) – Just thought I’d share it!

…  I’ve gotten engrossed in another video game.  And because I’m a mom of 4 and don’t have a lot of extra time, my blogging frequency is going to suffer while I divide my spare time with mindless gaming, oh well.  With the start of the NFL season and back-to-school-time, I will have more time at home for my favorite quiet activities like reading the newspaper, blogging, and playing video games while my husband watches football (Go Bears!).  I thought I’d be rolling out blog posts, but then my husband put an N64 emulator on my computer, distracting me with what is quite possibly the best video game ever made – in my opinion, anyway:  The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  It’s an adventure game, which is my favorite genre of video  game, but I’m very picky – there has to be large 3D worlds to explore, as well as a variety of puzzles peppered with the perfect combination of inventory, fighting, and weaponry.  This version of Zelda has everything, and this is actually my second time playing it through.  Currently I’m in the second dungeon (Dodongo’s Cavern) which is probably my least favorite in the entire game.  Once I get past it though, I have lots of fun ahead – there are plenty of areas left to explore; including an underwater colony and the inside of a volcano.  This game also skips ahead 7 years, and you get to see what Hyrule (the country you are defending) looks like in the future when your character has grown into a young man from a little boy.  Here is a screen shot:

…which makes me want to get back to it so I can kick some Dodongo a**!

GO BEARS!!!

Seeing that today is the one month anniversary of my last blog post about my life, that is a valid question.  The filler is interesting, but what about my two jobs, one of which was once the emphasis of this blog?  This week was actually a milestone for my new job.  For the first time my commission exceeds the $50/day they have been paying me since the start of training last June.  It’s still not much, but the job promises to pay more eventually.  And what about the camera training the owners have asked me to take charge of?  One of them has plugged me as the national camera trainer to one of the clients after they noticed my pictures are pretty good.  Great- a standard to live up to! 😛 .I still wonder how much I will be paid for this training whenever it happens.

At the moment I am subbing, or trying to, for two full days a week plus mornings five days every two weeks (every other week I go to two places on Friday so I can’t sub that day).  I am signed up in three districts this year but so far have only worked in two.  What?  Yes I did say two before, but then the third sent me a welcome note without my having signed up again so I stuck with it.  Since they were the source of some of my jobs so far, it looks like I made the right choice there.  I have subbed for one (half) day of middle school so far- the rest have been in elementary schools.  I actually took a bilingual first grade job- something I try to avoid during the main part of the year.  I also just took a job for a kindergarten morning Monday at the very school I went to for K through most of 2.  Oddly enough, while I can remember the names of all my other elementary teachers, I can’t for this school.  I wonder if I will be in the same classroom I was in for my own kindergarten?  I wonder if I will even recognize anything at the school.  I am pretty sure I took no assignments there last year.

Let’s see what I can say about the jobs I’ve taken so far.  The first-grade bilingual class was a little rough as the plans the teacher left were not very detailed, often requiring me or one of the assistants who were in and out of the room throughout the day to find the required materials.  The kids were also not very good listeners, but whether that was because of limited English skills or other reasons I couldn’t say.  Another couple of days I was in a position where there were no plans.  These were for special-ed teachers who didn’t even have set schedules yet being the beginning of the year so I ended up helping out in different classrooms throughout the day.  I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I found out that they came in the next day and said, “I had a sub?”  I don’t think I was expected…  The junior high job was a teacher who had both 7th and 8th grade classes, and all I did was supervise as they used computers to work on projects.  I was worried when not just my classes, but others as well used the laptops throughout the morning with little time to charge them, but according to one teacher the batteries actually hold out for some six hours or so, something I have never heard of in laptops.  My own computer lasts for three or less, but with with its specs I am not surprised.

So why have I not been keeping up on my friend’s blogs even if I couldn’t be bothered to update my own?  I don’t know.  If you want refrain from posting commenting in return I will understand.

I haven’t had a chance to blog much, but a few posts ago in my “To Hellinois…  … And Back Again” blog series, I mentioned that I might be partaking in a “very exciting, awesomely fun event” to which I promised, “more on that later”.

Now that the event is definite, I am bursting with excitement, so I will share –  hubby got us tickets to see the Chicago Cubs play the White Sox LIVE!  I’ve been wanting to go to a Cubs game for awhile (since our last visit to Wrigley in 2004), but last summer was out because I had a baby and unscheduled surgery from which I had to recover.  So, June 28 at Comisky Park US Cellular Field, we will venture into Chicagoland once again to cheer on the Chicago Cubs while on the turf of the Chicago White Sox – AWESOME!  My mom was nice enough to agree to watch all 4 kids for the day (and the eldest 3 for the rest of the week, BOOLYAH!), and the tickets for the BIG GAME arrived in the mail the other day.

They accidentally got thrown away in the garbage with the junk mail, but LUCKILY hubby was heads up and asked about the whereabouts of the tickets.  That’s when I realized that I probably had thrown them away – by accident of course!  Good thing he asked when he did – the tickets were found not too near the bottom of the garbage and salvaged, thank goodness!

But anyway, I am looking forward to this event like you wouldn’t believe.  Not only is it LIVE baseball, but it’s MLB, not AAA or AA.  And it’s the Cubs I get to go watch, and they’re playing the SOX – their arch-rival (especially as far as I’m concerned – I HATE those White Sox!!!).  So I would say yeah, even though it’s not even 2 months after our last Chicago visit, this visit will be well worth it!  So watch  for us – we’ll be decked out in Cubs gear to be sure to properly invade the South Side Sox turf.  The game is at 12:05pm local time on June 28 – the last of a 3-game series between the two teams, so it promises to be that much more exciting!  It’s scheduled to be shown on WGN, so if you get that channel, check it out, you just might see Taylhis and Co.!

GO CUBS!!!!

Where have I been all week, you ask?  Ok, maybe you didn’t ask (actually Mare Mare asked in her blog, but ironically, that was after I had started this post!), so I’m going to tell you anyway.  My husband and I have embarked on our first major self-done home improvement project!  We are now almost finished, and I think it’s safe to say that it went well!

We had a spare room on the first floor that we made into a craft room.  We put a bunch of arts and crafts in there for the kids, along with a big table.  They used it a lot, almost every day, but they would never clean up after themselves.  So, it became a storage room; which really means a place to toss junk and clutter.  Complicating the problem was the fact that our elderly dog was having accidents in there, so it smelled so bad no one even wanted to go in there.  So we ripped out the carpet, got on our hands and knees to pull out the nails the carpet left behind, scrubbed the floor, primed it and painted it.  Viola!  No more stench!  It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun, and now we have a brand new room for our family!  What to do with the new room?  We began with the idea that it was going to be a playroom for the kids, but then we realized that they don’t really need a play room – all their toys fit in their bedrooms or in the living room.  Plus, after all that work, we kind of want the room to ourselves.

So now the idea is to reward ourselves by repo-ing the room (we did save ourselves over $700 by avoiding the carpet installation!), and we’re thinking we’re going to make it a theater room.  We got some theater chairs last week on clearance from  our Kmart going out of business, and my husband is going to see about getting a projector and screen.  I think we’ll also have room for a table and our storage bins so the kids can still have their place for crafts and homework.  And, the room has a huge closet – so the plan is to move our famous game closet over to that room since our game collecting addiction has outgrown its current home.  All this means more work ahead, of course, but nothing can be as bad as crawling around on our hands and knees on the cruddy old floor – everything from here on out is the fun part!  Before and after:

We went to the Toledo Zoo again last weekend (it was our second weekend to visit the zoo in a row; we visited on Feb 7 and 15).  Almost a week has passed since our last visit, but I had other blog posts lined up and ready to go, so that’s why I’m first writing about it now.

Having a zoo membership is awesome because you get to visit the zoo whenever you have free time, and you don’t have to worry about seeing EVERYTHING on EVERY visit since you know you’ll be back soon.  The last few times we’ve gone, we parked in the back parking lot and stay on that side of the zoo, which cuts the amount of walking considerably – a great option for winter months since this parking lot is free in the off-season and very close to the rear zoo entrance.  With 4 small children, this is the way that works best for us, even though it means skipping the other side of the zoo which includes the polar bears, seals, wolves, and giraffes.  No matter, we still see plenty, and now we have a whole half a zoo to see sometime if we go without the kids or are feeling extra ambitious.

Every zoo visit is different, which is one of the things I love about going.  The animals are always doing different things, and my favorite exhibits vary with each visit.  Here are the highlights from last Sunday’s visit:

Lions – The Toledo Zoo has white lions.  White lions are rare and the result of a recessive gene similar to the gene of white tigers.  The Toledo Zoo has 3 white lion brothers on loan from Siegfried and Roy, the famous Las Vegas magicians.  Normally during our zoo visits, the lions are sleeping and up on a ledge far from the viewing glass, but last Sunday they were walking around, and one of them even walked right up against the viewing glass!  I’ve seen lions up close before, but not for a long time and never the gorgeous white lion until last week.

Hippos – The hippos are in their indoor enclosure for the winter, and even though their room seems somewhat cramped, the animals don’t seem unhappy, and it’s very cool to see these HUGE animals up close.  It’s amazing to me that their small pool must get very deep very fast in order to allow the animal to be completely submerged.  As we watched, the hippo was bobbing for apples, and he caught his apple and swallowed it whole.  This hippo was so large that the apple in his mouth  looked about as big as a grape would look in the mouth of a human being.  And this provided an extreme close-up of his humongous teeth!

Gorillas – When we got to the gorilla exhibit, it was empty.  But a friendly zookeeper told us to stick around for about 10 minutes for gorilla feeding time.  We then got to watch as the keepers threw greens, fruit, and straw all around the enclosure; taking care to place some on the various ledges and hide some within crevices of the exhibit (seriously, am I too old to embark on this as a career?!?  I’m afraid so…).  Then they let the gorillas back in, and it was a frenzy.  Well, an orderly frenzy – there was no pushing nor shoving; just some excited gorillas foraging in their exhibit.  They quickly found all the hidden surprises, and we laughed as one of the females hoarded as much lettuce as she could carry and brought it up to a high ledge to enjoy it all by herself.

Elephants – The elephants were indoors, and the now 6-year-old baby Louie was using his trunk to eat jello off the floor.  I really enjoy watching elephants use their trunks; it’s fascinating to me how dexterous they are – almost like they have 2 fingers on the end.  But we’ve watched Louie grow up ever since we’ve been coming to this zoo when he was just a year or two old, and now he’s getting pretty big!  Last time we were at the zoo, he was trying to get down a step so he could get to the water, and he ended up going backwards down the step – it was so cute!

So great day, awesome fun as always!  Like I said, every visit is different, and I am never disappointed!  I am a zoo-addict!

Happy Birthday to my blog!  Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I started my blog on tangents.org!  And 381 blog posts later, here we are!  So even though I haven’t been able to blog every day, there were a few days when I got more than one post up, and so in a 366 day year (leap year in 2008), I was able to make 381 blog posts, and that averages more than one a day, surpassing my goal I had when I started this thing!  So I’d like to thank everybody who trudges through my rambling garbage – those who have read all 381 My Food Chain Gang blog posts and those who pretend to have read them 🙂

Having this blog has been a great way to vent my feelings (from pride about my kids to my frustrations with Walmart), share news stories I find interesting (from funny police happenings to interesting animal tidbits), write movie reviews, and most importantly, keep in touch with my family and friends who live far away – especially when our lives are too busy to allow us to chat on the phone when we want.  THANKS AGAIN FOR VISITING my site!

My husband, aka Admin, logged into my computer to check stats, and never logged out, so my spellbinding account of unusualhotelsoftheworld.com was posted as an admin post and is now on the front page of tangents.org!  Just wanted to let you know what happened.  Check it out here – it’s called, “I Feel Like I Already Am Sleeping In An Igloo”.

animals.  Animals are my favorite things.  If I’m bored – yeah, right, with 4 kids, when does that happen?  Ok, if I were ever bored, my activity of choice would be to visit a zoo, wildlife park, pet store, or anyplace I could see animals.  Without leaving the house, I can also research animals on the internet.  One of my favorite animal sites is the University of Michigan’s Animal Diversity Web.  It’s amazing how much they’ve changed the taxonomy (classification of animals) from when I first started doing research on the subject not more than 10 years ago, but it’s true – this field is one that’s ever-changing.

Every now and then, I think I’ll choose an animal to share on my blog.  Today’s animal is the pangolin.  What is a pangolin, you ask?  Well, it’s a mammal, and it’s not a marsupial, a group which contains some of the lesser known species.  See, in the classification of mammals, you begin by separating them into placental mammals (live birth) and marsupials (young live in the mother’s pouch – all but one type live in Australia).  Of course, there is also a third category – egg-laying mammals, but we won’t go there because I don’t want to lose people’s interest by getting too complicated.

So anyway, the pangolin is a placental mammal, yet it’s scaly.  The scales are actually made of a hair-like material, thereby preserving its status as mammal.  Check this out – does this thing look prehistoric or what?

But they’re not prehistoric; they still exist today – I wonder how come I’ve never seen one at a zoo?  I guess it’s because some animals do better in captivity than others, and I applaud the zoo community for recognizing this.

Interesting tidbits about pangolins, as stated on the Animal Diversity Web:

Pangolins are a small group (seven living species placed in one genus and one family, Manidae) of mammals that feed mostly on ants. They are found in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia.  Pangolins are conspicuous and remarkable because their backs are covered with large, overlapping scales made up of agglutinated hairs. But they are strange in other ways as well. Their tongue is extraordinarily long and muscular, arising from the pelvis and the last pair of ribs deep in the animal’s chest. As a result, the tongue and associated muscles are longer than the animal’s head and body, allowing the tongue to be extruded to an astonishing degree. Pangolins lack teeth. Instead, the the pyloric part of their stomach is thickened and muscular, with odd keratinous spines projecting into its interior. It usually contains pebbles and seems to be used for “chewing” in much the same way as a bird’s gizzard. Pangolins have the ability to close their ears and nostrils as well as eyes, presumably to keep ants out.

In short, pangolins are fascinating animals that are closer to you and me on the taxonomy tree than most people would guess – they are mammals, after all.  Yet they are a mammal that most people have not heard of, and surprisingly, there are more than a few mammalian species that have this in common – I will try to share little known facts about little known mammals in my blog.

And oh yeah, since there was a complaint in the comments of another tangents.org blog about this – the song I quoted in my title is “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.

I have been doing a lot of catching up on TV shows lately.  This has eaten into my available time to write in this blog.  That, and my interest is sort of lagging right now.  I now have several DVDs I checked out of the library in addition to several hours of TV shows I still haven’t watched.  I also checked out Mario Kart DD for my Gamecube.  With all of this expect my posting to continue to be like this for a while.

As for work, my week had some interesting moments.  I subbed for 7th grade science on Monday.  Not a lot going on there.  Six classes of handing out books then letting them do an assignment out of them.  Mostly good classes.  Tuesday I subbed for 6th grade math, staying on the analytical/logical side of the brain.  This teacher had math classes at three different levels, two classes of each.  All were similar in going over homework, my answering questions, and the starting the next section.  Some actual teaching!  I will have two days of 6th grade math at another school at the end of next week.  I saw a former student from 4th/5th grade ministry on Monday at science, and I hope to see one next week who just started this year at the school I will be at.

Wednesday I found myself in the elementary school right next to the middle school I will be doing math at next week.  The level was third grade.  The day started out with the smell of electrical fire near the classroom, though there was no fire as far as I could tell.  This turned out to be sort of an interesting day.  This is the only school I know to have a vocabulary special- a teacher comes in to teach vocabulary- and they had that in the morning.  Now, music, gym, and art are standards, and I’ve also subbed for an elementary social studies teacher.  There was a Japanese special at another school, but this is the first school where I’ve encountered a vocabulary special, though not the first classroom I subbed in where they had this special.  A couple of months ago I had five days in second grade at this school, and some of those classes had vocabulary as well.  Moving on, they had MAP testing, so that killed another 45 minutes or so.  It ended early so we played Sparkle using their spelling lists before finishing the morning with a language arts lesson.  After lunch they had a “holiday store.”  This is similar to a book fair, but instead of books the students could buy cheap gifts.  The rest of the day was typical with reading groups, math, and science.  Nothing interesting like labs, just book-work for the most part.

Thursday and Friday were both music days.  Friday I subbed for an elementary music teacher.  These are always potluck days as to which grades I will get.  It turned out I would get two classes each of kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 5th grades.  Almost all with different lessons of course.  1st and 2nd played music insrument bingo, 5th did a science tie-in lesson about bones using an old black spiritual song about Ezekiel and the dry bones, which turned out to be a review lesson since they had already done it before.  Oops?  We just made a little competition of it.  Kindergarten had the only real new lesson.  They learned about the difference between a lullaby and a march- fast vs. slow, loud vs. soft.

My other music day, Thursday, was actually a very odd class for middle school.  There are schools that have divided up the year for certain classes into quarters, fifths, and sixths.  This school has the year divided for a set of classes into, get this, eighths.  That’s right- each class is just four weeks long, and for 7th grade at least (8th grade actually has this class for a full quarter) this was one of those classes.  That’s not the most unusual aspect of this class.  That would go to the focus of the class- African drumming.  I have not heard before of this sort of specialization in middle school.  College, maybe high school, but not middle school.  Anyway, the classroom of course was filled with drums, mostly more modern renditions of African drums, but also a few more traditional models.  Also, bells and rattles.  These three instruments make up African music (at least Ghana, the country in Africa the video focused on) I learned from the video.  Yes, with this sort of specialization comes the usually correct assumption that the sub will have no idea how to teach it, so the video is the standard staple of the sub for this sort of class.  Unfortunately the video was only 20 minutes, leaving me to fill in the rest of the time.  So, we went of the sheet they filled out and then I let them play silent ball for the rest of the time.

Well, that’s my week in review.  We will see what the future of this blog holds.  I am toying with the idea of starting another blog at some point where I will attempt to write a story a little bit at a time.  Maybe write a choose-your-own-adventure like I brought up in Taylhis’s blog 🙂 .  For now, just an idea.  We’ll see if it goes anywhere.