No picture today

Today's This Day in History didn't put me in a particularly artistic mood, so I avoided drawing anything.

I remember hearing about the Carrolton Bus Crash when I was in middle school. It's been 24 years since the horrific collision, and I see the signs every time I drive back to New Albany.

I wish the survivors of the crash well and am thankful that improved bus safety design came about because of the tragic event.

Update: Say What Now of the Day

From this weekend's links post with the apparently nutty conservative woman ranting about the dangers of gay people and AIDS and lots of other things.

Apparently there's a little more to the story. I'll quote the TheDailyWh.at's update here:

Jane Svoboda, whose anti-gay rant at a Lincoln, NE, City Council meeting went viral last week, isn’t the crazy conservative she’s been made out to be in the media, but a schizophrenic who lives at an assisted-living facility, says her family.

Svoboda is listed as a protected person, according to court documents, and her brother, Patrick Svoboda, is her conservator because she is incompetent. He said their family has tried to get her help multiple times, but there’s little they can do unless she becomes a danger to herself or others.

He said he’s disappointed that the video was so widely shared when people didn’t know his sister’s back story.

“To me, it shows how little society really cares about people with mental health issues,” Patrick Svoboda said. “She does have a very tender heart… but anything she says is certifiably schizophrenic … she’s not some crazy conservative.”

Nonetheless, Jane Svoboda is a registered lobbyist at the Capitol, and she usually speaks twice a month during the council’s open mic sessions. She also frequents the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, where she hands out fliers and is known as the “Crazy Blue Protesting Lady.”

As always, there's more to the story than we knew.

Queens of the Bluegrass

So I was talking to my sister a while back, and it turns out that she has a little thing on the side. See, she helps out at some of the Kentucky Beauties pageants, these beauty pageants that a friend of hers runs around the Bluegrass state.

I'll admit that I'm not so clued in with the whole beauty pageant world, so when she started talking about her weekend in Dry Ridge, KY where the then-latest Kentucky Beauties pageant was held, I had a tons of questions:

• Really, there's no hurdle to entry other than the entry fee?
• What do you mean that they often crown girls champs even though there's only one entry in their category?
• Wait, they had a whole competition based only on the photos that the people hand in? And there's a photo winner in every age group? Ad everybody can submit multiple photos at $20 a pop?
• There' no talent category? No question-and-answer session with each girl? This is a straight-up beauty pageant?
• The winners in each category go on to some kind of Kentucky Beauties state-wide pageant, but even the rest of the competitors can advance if they want to and are willing to pay a fee?
• And these people run pageants twenty or so weekends a year as a full-out money making gig clearing thousands of dollars in a single day each time?
• They also rent out booths to companies and people that sell pageant stuff - dresses, photos, make-up, stuff - boosting their revenue even more?

Brilliant...

Moving on up...

Suck it, Nadal...

Anybody have any idea what the record is for most consecutive weeks in the top three of the world rankings?

I know Fed is one week behind Sampras for most weeks at #1, and he will become the record holder for most weeks in the top two when this week's rankings come out, but I'm curious about top three. It looks like Fed has a while to go to catch longest time in the top ten, though. (Fed broke into the top ten after winning the Hamburg Masters, May 2002, so it's been almost exactly ten years now.)

I'm getting new tires...

Yup...that's Saturday's big excitement.

Adulthood is awesome!

• Say What Now of the Day - Sometimes you just have to acknowledge the crazy and let it have its five minutes of time.
• You've been eating cupcakes wrong your whole life - Good lord, it's true.
• Some Saturday inspiration - Neil deGrasse Tyson strikes again
• Two rules for success - Clearly, this man is smarter than I am.
• New Argo trailer - Bennifer's been 2 for 2 in directing so far 

• Infographic of the Day - Beautiful infographic about gay rights around US broken up by region...stunning concentration in NE...drought in SE...
• Periodic Ceiling of the Elements - I've been wanting to do this for years, but his is much more professionally done.
• The frequent fliers who flew too much - Turns out AmericanAirlines's lifetime pass was a bad deal for AA and a phenomenally awesome deal for the purchasers.
• ComicsAlliance reviews Superman III - Turns out it's better than I or II.
• Carl Sagan on the chemical elements - love this man

• Common appliances, uncommon uses - brownies in the waffle iron, could be tasty
• Photo from Climate Impacts Day - Biggest issue around
• Support for Same-Sex Marriage Edges Upward - Fascinating research
• ZBoard: the Segway of skateboards - I'd be tempted if I lived a little more urban...and good weather.
• 29 Touristy Spots in America that are Actually Good - Been to three of the...Shake Shack needs to be next
• Does Noah Know How Sexy He Is? -  Noah knows the way to middle class America's heart.

• Back to the Future business card of the day - A simple solution
• The Venn Pie-agram - A brilliant way to end today's post.

To boldly go where no man's organs have gone before

That is not a Star Trek emblem. Shut up. (Today's date may be an error.)

Things to buy...or to recreate...

Very cool stuff...I'll tell you next week how I wandered onto today's fascinating science/Etsy blog because I don't want to ruin a surprise for somebody who might find this blog.

But...it has a bunch of very cool stuff. Not all of it is stuff I want, but it's cool and geeky (science geeky), indeed.

For example...

...non-traditional locket...

...dorky biology pickup line cards...

...element wood blocks...

 ...DNA earrings...

...more geeky biology pickup line cards...

...glow-in-the-dark plutonium soap...

...geeky chemistry pick-up line artwork...

...apparently geeky bio folks buy cards...

...can the bio folks lay off the cards for once?...

And that's not a little Martian man in the middle either

"A communist train ran into a democratic train?"

The Bestfest Club: Opening... LonnieBurger Basket: Suspending

So, The Girl and I feel like we've hit a bit of a wall with the LonnieBurger Basket series. At this point, all the burgers we're trying just keep ending up in the middle of the pack.

 We feel like the best burgers have been found...

1. Terry's Turf Club
2. Cafe de Wheels
3. Senate

From those top three, there's a sizable gap down to City View Tavern, Sutffed on Vine, and all the rest of the burgers in the Cincinnati area.

We're both bored with going to bars and ordering average burgers. Yeah, some of them are a little better than others, but none are remotely close to breaking into the top three. If anybody comes up with a new, allegedly awesome burger that we just have to try, we just might dust the LonnieBurger basket rubric off and take it for another spin. Until and unless that happens, though, it looks like the LonnieBurger Basket thread will be heading into cold storage.

But what should be turn our attention to next?

I suggested hitting up the various Mexican restaurants around - and there are a bunch of them around the city. I'm all down with going with tacos - maybe a chorizo and a shredded beef and a chicken or something - or with just going for green enchiladas, but The Girl said she has her favorite Mexican place (Taqueria Mercado) and doesn't want to have to go elsewhere instead of there.

Pizza joints don't work for me. We picked up the Cincy Mag pizza issue last summer and just couldn't find any interest.

The Girl suggested a Saturday morning date with breakfast dives - Waffle House, Sugar and Spice, Hyde's in Hamilton - NOT Grand Finale, First Watch, IHOP, Denny's, Original Pancake House. And no breakfast buffets. I'm all down with that and just need to come up with a way to score things. I need a few suggestions here, folks.

My questions...

• What should I order?
• I hate fluffy pancakes, so pancakes are out because most places go big and fluffy.
• Waffles are hit or miss - small, thing or big, thick with nasty fruit. I'm thinking that's out.
• Hash browns seem like a must for me. But how to order them? Plain? Onions? Cheese? Is that cheating?
• I'm a hearty eater, so no cottage cheese, no melon, no fruit, probably.
• I don't drink coffee, but The Girl swills it like she breathes air, so she'll rate that part.
• Eggs? how many...cooked how?
• Bacon? Sausage? Are links better than patties? Should I take whichever they say is better?
• I'm not feeling like an omelet is the right way to judge a dive bar.
• Water? Orange juice? Size of glass & cost?
• Toast? If so, is it bad to get jelly in a packet at a dive bar?
• How do I rate a dive bar?
• Friendliness of regular patrons?
• Crowdedness?
• Cost? If so, what's fair for what I'm ordering?
• Speed?
• Are shredded hash browns better/worse than cubes hash browns? Do you expect spice in your hash browns?
• Where should I go looking for the best breakfasts in town?
• What do I call this thing?
• For now I've gone with The Bestfast Club, but I could be persuaded to go in a different direction?
• The Breafbest Club?
• Cereal business?
• Eggs over Lonnie? 

Leave your thoughts, as always, below.

PS: As a closing to LonnieBurger basket series, we stopped by Gordo's in Norwood this past weekend, trying to see if the original was better than the Fairfield version. 

image from getinmahbelly.blogspot.com/2009/03/gordos.html

Turns out it was.

No photographic evidence exists, but here's the scores...

• Burger - 8 - good taste, not meatloafy at all
• Toppings - 8 - I cheated and went for the Gordo burger with Boursin, roasted poblanos, bacon, mushrooms, onions, and mayo. Very tasty
• Fries - 6 - plank...fine
• Cost - 4 - burger + fries = 9...Diet Coke = 2...
• Ambiance - 8 - This place has atmosphere unlike the Fairfield one.
• Other stuff - +1 floor (awesome wood floor)...-2 burger shaped like hockey pucks, hard to eat, too thick not wide enough
• Total - 33pts   

• Terry's Turf Club - 45
• Cafe de Wheels - 44
• Senate - 43 
• City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)
• Stuffed on Vine - 38
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36 
• Roxy's - 36 
• FlipDaddy's - 35.5
• Sonny's Three Meat Burgers - 35 
• VanZandt - 34
• Gabby's - 34 
• Oakley Pub & Grill - 34 
• Gordo's (Norwood) - 33
• Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
• Troy's - 32 
• By Golly's - 32
• Wildflower Cafe - 31.25 (scaled from 26/40) 
• Sidetracks - 31 
• Zola's - 30
• Trinity Pub - 29.5
• Virgil's Cafe - 28 
• Tank's Bar & Grill - 28
• The Pub at Rookwood Mews - 28
• Smashburger - 28
• Habits Cafe - 28
• Graffiti Burger - 27
• Arthur's - 26
• Sammy's - 25 
• Skinny Legs - 25
• Gordo's (Fairfield) - 20

Donner, party of one...

"A law was passed saying black people couldn't eat babies."

I swear to all that is holy that I'm not making these up.

Read Into Thin Air

Those aren't jet packs or Camelbacks. And nobody tried to float up to space in a bubble
only to see the bubble pop, trapping them on Mt Everest. Really?

LonnieBurger Baskets: Zola Pub & Grill

Two burgers in two days here as we went from Friday night's Trinity Pub burger to Saturday's birthday burger at Zola's Pub & Grill in Covington.

Apparently in retrospect, I might've taken a few more photographs, so I'll be heading onto the web to augment what I can provide.

 image from SteakNPotatoesKindaGurl

Let's start with what Cincinnati Magazine has to offer up...

24 Zola Burger    ZOLA PUB & GRILL  $7.25 (as of publication almost two years ago now)
It’s meat overload, but the ham and bacon crowning this patty lend fat and flavor to the lean, somewhat dry beef, as do the mushrooms, onion, and American cheese. The toasted kaiser bun stands up to all that admirably. Try the Asian slaw—it’s like potluck ramen salad. Wednesday at Zola is Burger Mania and burgers are just $6. / 626 Main St., Covington, (859) 261-7510

We headed down into Covington and bopped up onto Main Strasse for a good burger. Let's see if I can reach way back into the memories and see what there is to say about Zola's burger.

Burger

• There's something to be said for a straight-up, beefy burger. Zola's isn't a plain, beefy burger. Zola's burger has a tasty bite to it, a peppery flavor that I enjoy and that I found reminiscent of the burgers at City View Tavern and the Oakley Pub & Grill. It wasn't an over-abundance of flavor drowning out the beef of the burger but rather a nice compliment to the flavor of the beef. The burger was cooked about right with just a little pink showing for my medium order, but can nobody produce a good crust on a burger? Terry's where are you? Burger - 7 

Toppings

• I like the onion straws. They're a nice touch on a burger. These were well made and added a little crispness to the burger. The cheddar was nicely melted. The pickles were...pickley...and successfully sliced right there on the bun top with the onions and tomato slices. And they threw some mayonaise under the burger with the lettuce. Apparently the bacon got missed. We'll drop that a point or two later. The toppings that I saw on this Saturday were absolutely nothing special. Meh... Toppings - 5 

Fries

• Fresh cut fries with the potato skins still on the edges and a little salt make for a fine accompaniment to a burger. These were...fries. Not much else to say there. They were well cooked and nicely crispy but not much more than just good fries. Fries - 7 

Atmosphere

•  Zola's is a nice, neighborhood bar. The bar itself is a beautiful space with gorgeous pillars and attractive woodwork crowning those columns. The mirrors make the smallish bar - which also has a second story that we didn't, admittedly, wander up to - look larger, something that is, admittedly a little needed. I'm a fan of the old standard wood pub decor. Atmosphere - 7 

Cost

• I went with the Mo Town (with barbeque sauce on the side) for $6.95 including fries...plus $2.00 for Diet Coke. That's $8.95, a point below average so...Cost - 6 

Other Stuff

• There's the huge drawback the Zola's is forty-five minutes from my house. That's a drawback, but I can't really blame them for that.
• There's also the fact that Zola's is in Northern Kentucky where smoking is still legal and fair game in a bar. With only a few folks in Zola's with us at the time, the place stunk of smoke. There are ashtrays on every table. Welcome to the tobacco capital of the United States. -2

Math and math and math...lemme type everything into the spreadsheet and see what gets spit out...

Um...carry the seven...double the burger...take the square root and integral...we get 7+5+7+7+6-1 = 30 points...

• Terry's Turf Club - 45
• Cafe de Wheels - 44
• Senate - 43 
• City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)
• Stuffed on Vine - 38
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36 
• Roxy's - 36 
• FlipDaddy's - 35.5
• Sonny's Three Meat Burgers - 35 
• VanZandt - 34
• Gabby's - 34 
• Oakley Pub & Grill - 34 
• Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
• Troy's - 32 
• By Golly's - 32
• Wildflower Cafe - 31.25 (scaled from 26/40) 
• Sidetracks - 31 
• Zola's - 30
• Trinity Pub - 29.5
• Virgil's Cafe - 28 
• Tank's Bar & Grill - 28
• The Pub at Rookwood Mews - 28
• Smashburger - 28
• Habits Cafe - 28
• Graffiti Burger - 27
• Arthur's - 26
• Sammy's - 25 
• Skinny Legs - 25
• Gordo's (Fairfield) - 20

Practicing a trip down memory lane

Happy 10th Anniversary, Answer...AI...you don't need to practice any more...



At least the man has a sense of humor...



Thanks, Calen for pointing this out...and for Jay Morrison from the Journal News for pointing it out to her...

Welcome aboard the Wonkatania

Apparently our history folks are doing a good job. The best I got was that I'd drawn the German flag wrong...which I didn't.

More pretty Lego pics

Simple little joys...taking photos of your Lego stormtroopers doing maintenance on your Macbook...

Ah...

There are other pics in the photostream like these fun Lego ones...

Oddly, though, of the forty-some pages of photos, about twenty are of what's apparently a field trip to the Tokyo airport with special attention paid to getting a photo of every plane that took off or landed during the trip.

Weirdly...

Happy prom, everybody!

• Super Creepy Kids Song of the Day - Yup, it is super creepy.
• Ashton Kutcher dating ad - That's not funny...and I'm guessing kind of offensive.
• Review: Taqueria Yolandita - Maybe after the burgers?
• 5-Minute Compilation of Superhero Movies - Yup, that's about all of them.
• Donnie & Marie Osmond do Star Wars - Just remember that in thirty years, something from today will be regarded just like you're looking at this video. 

• BCS Gets It Right -  If it starts with four teams, it'll grow to eight soon enough. I'd be happy with eight.
• Billy Hamilton is Very Fast - and this one belongs to the Reds!
• Trailer for upcoming movie Shuffle - I'd see that.
• Stephen Colbert reports on Kermit's legal troubles - As always, hilarious... 

           

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Kermit the Frog's German TV Offense - Hans Beinholtz
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

• Reddit's "What Secret Could Ruin Your Life If It Came Out" thread is a harrowing decent into the darkest reaches of the human soul - but also a fascinating one
• Yosemite Range of Light - Gorgeous
• Logo trends 2012 -  DC's logo sucks
• Space Shuttle Launch - This makes me sad that I never saw one in person.

• What if Bruce Timm designed the New 52 - It'd look better, that's what.
• Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist - It's geeky that I'm excited to get a copy of this, right?
• That's not Kobe beef you're eating - Did anybody believe it was?
• 2012 Major League Wiffle Ball - Yes, these are my students.
• Trailer for new sci-fi movie Looper - Yeah, I'd see that one, too.

• The Official Nick Offerman Aging Timeline - This along with Nick's 10 pieces of advice can make anybody a man.
• Indiana-Kentucky series ending - sadness...but I'm thinking it'll come back down the line
• Six lesser known movies with twist endings - I can roundly endorse Arlington Road, The Prestige, The Sting, History of Violence (I don't remember a twist), and Empire.
• Working at DC Comics looks like a dream job - I want all those shelves.
• 10 Quick Practical Jokes - I hate practical jokes, but these are minor and quick enough that they might be fun.

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming

We're finally on our own...

"People beat each other with shovels?"

Sadness

Very saddened to hear that Adam 'MCA' Yauch passed away today.



Looks like I won't ever get to that NYC concert.

Thanks for all that you gave us. You'll be missed.

No antennea yet

No, that's not the Empire State Building. It's also not 'that triangular building
that's supposed to fight the wind' (I'm guessing he meant the Burj Khalifa)

Guns a squishing

Yeah, it's Nerf Wars time at Princeton again, and that means Springdale, Evendale, and all the Princeton communities have seen a rash of underclothed teenagers sneaking between houses, hiding behind bushes, and bombing test. If you're not familiar with Nerf Wars, just go with what I overheard one of our principals say about the game when asked what this Nerf thing was about, "It's a game country kids play."

Clearly, though, it's a game that isn't long for this world. See, Nerf is the past.

The future is far more technological than a stupid foam dart with a suction cup tip.

If you're fighting wars with Nerf, you might as well be chucking a sharpened stick or a rock or a giant bone at your fellow hairless apes.

You need to step up to the future of friendly warfare: Max Force and Xploderz.

See, MaxForce is way more frickin' modern. It's a gun made of paper pellets that are soaked in water and then fired. See, the future is pretty much just spitballs...





Or there's the even cooler Xploderz which is pretty much the same concept as MaxForce but with the paper bullets swapped out for sodium polyacrylate (or a similar polymer).





Either way, fancy shooters for the kidz these days. I love that the companies are taking something as simple as spit balls and diaper crystals and turning them into money making opportunities - and something that they can keep the kids buying for years rather than something stupid like Nerf guns where the bullets never run out.

They also mentioned blood diamonds because the diamond was red...

The first time baseball players wore hats? 

Babe Ruth hit a grand slam?

Just a hypothesis

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Diane Keaton
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Diane Keaton is clearly on drugs.

Funny lady, hilarious interview...perhaps the first guest I've seen leave Stephen Colbert stunned and  speachless.

LonnieBurger Baskets: Trinity Pub

There are three 'Irish' pubs within quick driving distance from The Homestead: The Dingle House, The Brazenhead, and Trinity Pub. Or, as The Girl and I refer to them, West Chester Irish, Mason Irish, and Trailer Park Irish. Of the three, The Brazenhead is by far the most 'Irish', and the other two are at best a suburbaized Irish.

While it may, admittedly, not be very Irish, Trinity Pub (they're right next to a trailer park, and their initials are TP, see?) is a nice place to grab a bite or a drink after school - especially for those of us coming this way anyway, and the food that I've tried has all been pretty solid, so I thought I'd give their burger a try.  Let's see how they did.

Burger

• The Burger didn't of course, come with that big bite out of the top right portion.That was me being a little over-eager...and the blobs are just tomato bits. They look kinda like
  
  I ordered the Trinity Burger with cheddar swapped out for Gorgonzola. That meant I got bacon, cheese, and their steak sauce (some kind of creamy A-1.)
  
  The burger had a good, grilled flavor, like it had been cooked over a charcoal or wood grill. Tasty stuff. Not the nice crust that you can get from a direct, hot griddle, though. Convection versus conduction, doncha know... Good grill marks, good beef flavor. Burger - 7 

Toppings

• Bacon - pretty good...cheese - sufficiently melted but not special...lettuce, tomato, onion - all pretty standard...creamy A-1 sauce - good but pretty much bottle stuff...overall, good by not great Toppings - 6

Fries

• Good fries...nice, hot, tasty. A little pepper on them is a nice touch. Crispy but pretty much straight from bag to fryer to plate. Fries - 6.5 

 images from WestChesterBuzz

Ambiance

• It's not Irish. Let's get that out of the way first thing. This is a British/Irish pub in very little other than a few menu items. I'm okay with that, though, because it's a fun place anyway even at standard American bar. The food is a little upscale (and priced appropriately to that), and there are a fair number of televisions on the wall tuned to ESPN or whatever ballgame happens to be on (NFL draft on the night we visited this time.) As all Ohio bars/restaurants are, it is non-smoking except for the rear porch which faces a nice, wooded area. The inside is rich with deep, dark wood but still pretty airy because of the prevalent windows. On Friday and Saturday nights, though, the place does turn into some kind of old folks (40s-50s) dance club, which is a little sad for anybody who just wants a late-night drink or burger. Ambiance - 7 

Cost

• Burger with fries $10 + Diet Coke $2 = $12 before tip. That's a little dire for a not-too-special-just-solidly-good burger. Cost - 3  

Other stuff

• The waitress pointed out that I could get the same burger as a build-your-own which comes with cheese and one topping (bacon). She saved me a buck. +1
• The waitress came back and said that because of the steak sauce, she had to ring things up as the Trinity Burger which was back to the original $10. Seriously, the pour of sauce was worth a buck? -1 
• Not much else special here. Good beer selection at reasonable prices, but it's nothing that bunch of other bars don't have.

The math...+1-1+3+7+6+6.5+7 = 29.5...middle of the pack for Trailer Park Irish.

• Terry's Turf Club - 45
• Cafe de Wheels - 44
• Senate - 43 
• City View Tavern - 40 (scaled from 32/40)
• Stuffed on Vine - 38
• Five Guys Burgers and Fries - 36 
• Roxy's - 36 
• FlipDaddy's - 35.5
• Sonny's Three Meat Burgers - 35 
• VanZandt - 34
• Gabby's - 34 
• Oakley Pub & Grill - 34 
• Quatman's - 32 / 34.5
• Troy's - 32 
• By Golly's - 32
• Wildflower Cafe - 31.25 (scaled from 26/40) 
• Sidetracks - 31 
• Trinity Pub - 29.5
• Virgil's Cafe - 28 
• Tank's Bar & Grill - 28
• The Pub at Rookwood Mews - 28
• Smashburger - 28
• Habits Cafe - 28
• Graffiti Burger - 27
• Arthur's - 26
• Sammy's - 25 
• Skinny Legs - 25
• Gordo's (Fairfield) - 20

New trailer

Oh, golly...this is a far different storyline than we've seen before.

I do believe I have a chill...

A life worthwhile

There are a lot of moments when my job stinks.

There's the grading, the long hours, the lack of windows, the bosses, the students, the pay, the whatever. Teaching is a job that doesn't run seven to three, so there are a lot of late nights and long weekends.

The flip side, however, is that I get to teach some pretty amazing young people who make my job absolutely worth doing day in and day out.

Whenever I'm feeling down about my job, whenever I'm at my wit's end thinking that I'm accomplishing absolutely nothing as I see a half dozen students go through the motions of coming to class and failing their fourth consecutive quarter of honors chemistry, I think back to some of the meaningful moments that I've shared with my students that have kept me going...

...Robert Samaniego (2011 grad) stopping by school last week to thank me for writing a recommendation that helped him get a scholarship for this, his freshman year...

...Kelly Tsai bringing in a birthday cake for me while she and her fellow students took a practice AP test on a Saturday morning...

...Lizzie Kowal complimenting me for always getting their tests back quickly, far more quickly than her other teachers...

...my rec basketball team giving me a card and a gift card as thanks for 'coaching' them this year...each girl having written a note about how much fun they had this year and asking me to come back next year...

...Kate Hagen writing me the most wonderful thank you letter upon her graduation telling me that she knew she'd found home when she heard Meryn Cadel's 'The Sweater' on her first visit to my classroom...

...CJ (I don't even remember CJ's last name, I'm embarrassed to say) hugging the heck out of me just before he stepped on stage to receive his hard-earned diploma...

...Grace, Kate, Kevin, Joey, Matt, Nick, and the rest of the gang occasionally joining me and Calen at The Pub for trivia Mondays...

...Dan Finger telling The Girl that I really did a lot of great stuff for Princeton when she introduced herself to him...not that I was a great teacher but that I did a lot of great stuff for Princeton...

...countless students emailing me over the years thanking me for what and how I taught them because their college chemistry prof wasn't doing half as good a job...

...countless more emailing and asking me where that reference sheet was on my website because they remembered it from two years before...

...Ben Young smiling at me every time I see him - at Cornhole 4A Cause, at a Reds game, anywhere...

From time to time, teachers make jokes about how much easier our job would be if it weren't for those pesky kids, if we just had a little more free time to clean our desks or catch up on the grading, if they would just stop asking questions, if their parents would just stop pestering us all the time.

It's not true.

If it weren't for the students, this job would be unthinkably horrible.

They make the job worth doing.

Thanks, folks...I don't say it often enough.