Vacation Time!

 Yesterday was a 1/3rd day really. Had to get some signatures, close my classrooms, get things squared away for the summer. While I have plans on creating a brand new classroom out of it and get new equipment and all. It's going to be amazing! It'll be a model program by the time I'm done! 

I've never had so much time off, this is like having a part time job with full time pay and benefits. Yes, I've got a meeting scheduled for Monday morning to get enrolled into two required classes so I can get a certification. I need to stay there five years to be vested in the pension. I need to get a certification in three. So...keep the good paying part time gig that I'm kinda allowed to create on my own or do something else. 

Monday morning is my first official day of vacation until early August. By June 1st I'll have four paychecks and five by June 20th. Crazy how the pay thing works but what it gives me is a ton of freedom. Yeah, I suck at budgeting but I am still a Spark driver and I could really do pretty well with three incomes. With it being option or whenever I want to, if I want to get something, pay something off, I can drive. Accomplish that goal, go home! This is a pretty nice place to be, it's a weird feeling. 

So Summer list of things to do. Raise twenty five thousand dollars to make a new classroom, new equipment, shop stock, and teach some skills that will let the kids make some extra money or a full time career if they put in the effort.  I mean what's the point of education if you can't apply it to making a living? See? I'm being all grumbly about going back to school for two classes but I know it's for the best because it'll directly effect my earning capacity right now. 

Second, maybe start learning Spanish while I'm driving. It would come in handy at school. But I really enjoy listening to Audible books, I am actually looking forward to that part of driving. I'm listening to two U.S. Grant biographies right now. First his personal memoirs, written while battling cancer and edited by Samuel Langhorn Clemens or Mark Twain. It's a masterpiece of literature. The other is Grant by Ron Chernow.

It paints a picture of a man that struggled with many things and was really pretty average throughout most of his life. He failed in many of his endeavors which he always hoped for a financial windfall so he could afford to move his wife and children to the west coast. 

What was to be one of the best events of his life that sat all of the other events in motion to happen that made him General U.S. Grant was disguised as one of the worst. I find myself identifying with him in many ways. He likely was one of the greatest presidents ever but had faults as many men do. He was the right man at the right time in history and our country was held together because of his actions. 

Yeah, I enjoy listening to novels and stuff while driving and this time there won't be any pressure on me to make a certain amout each day anymore. I can start driving and putting into my personal classroom fund for the overhaul and earn Play Money or Pay Things Off Fast Money, whatever I want...which will probably be Living on Money by the time late September rolls around. I know me. 

Coming Around to My Way of Thinking

 I think my daughters read my blog sometimes, I'm not sure. But I want to tell every one of you out there in Readerland (I always liked that old euphemism, or the like) that this is the exact same thing I would tell them in private as here and to you. This conversation between Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson articulates very clearly what my political beliefs have evolved to and as I've documented over the past however many years this blog has gone on now. 

I mentioned a feeling of something is coming. Something big but I couldn't put my finger on it but I was going to prepare for it. I'll have the freeze dryer within about six weeks now and I'll be able to prepare myself, friends, neighbors, and anyone that'll want or need help. Here is what is coming, the event or events that will make the citizens awake to the fact that every politician is corrupt. We are the pawns of the Uniparty, their personal tax generating machines and it's actually our system. 

We don't like how they are running our system anymore. So whatever event that is that makes citizens martyrs and patriots and decides that the governed is no longer consenting, that is what is coming. I don't know what it is, it could be tomorrow or twenty years from now. But what I know and am preparing for is to insulate as many people as possible from the DC madness. Being self reliant is excellent insulation. 

The more rural the better, the more survival skills the better. Have access to fresh water and a food supply, the rest is comfort. 

Now the conversation. I agree with a lot of it. I do point out that hindsight is really easy and this conversation takes out a lot of societal shifts of that time that lead to how we currently are now. Context is always important and there were a myriad of reasons for everything but the fact remains is simply this.

Don't rely on anyone else if possible, take care of those you can, do your best for everyone else. Be authentic, that's the shift people. We are seeing through the lies you are seeing all day long and disconnecting from that will be essential someday. 

I hope nothing ever happens and I find a way to enjoy a second retirement and so do my great great great grandkids. They get the fun stable childhood I had, people around the world can enjoy the same promised freedoms as our Constitution guarantees, and we all wake up. There's no one coming to our rescue if we fall. They will only dance on our graves. Yes I know this is kind of dark and I apologize but just have a plan. Please. 

Last Week

 It seems the past few years my life has revolved around some kind of countdown. From when Thing 2 was in Japan, and then Korea. The countdown to finish college and grad school. The big one which was the big retirement countdown! Now the last day of school in which the entire school year is a countdown to one thing or another be it Fall Break, Spring Break, or the last day of school.

Yeah, I'm 90% sure I'm going to try over the next 2-3 years and get a teaching certificate. I have to take two courses then pass an OSAT test on Art of all things. Like I know art....I know some kinds of art like painting things from jets to models I print and paint. That's not the type of art they want me to know about. They are talking more about the history of art, techniques, styles, etc. 

Yeah, all the stuff I don't know and most people don't. Which is why you go to college to learn this stuff. 

Some studying and I should be able to pass it, I tend to test pretty well. 

After school is out I won't have to go back until sometime in August. However, that's not the plan. The plan is to take everything in the lab that can be moved into the hall and thrown away or sold and get good equipment for resin printing. I've been excited about introducing a logical next step to 3D printing and that's jewelry making. I want the students to be able to make their own class rings or at least teach them the skills so they can do it on their own someday and make their own side money with them. 

I'm all about empowering the kids to make a living with the skills they can learn. Right now I'm tired. The other teachers told me that you'll be worn out by the end of the year and especially the last week. I didn't believe them, it's not been a physically demanding job but it is a job and it takes patience, attention, and lots of keeping track of things.