I wish the county would decide if they are going to actually transition to standards based grading (which is what the 50% rule is trying to emulate), or if they are going to continue the farce of the percent based system.
The two systems are incongruent. Either you expect students to master a certain *percentage* of the material and standards, or you expect students to reach a particular level of mastery.
After years of this travesty, I'm convinced my county doesn't really care about accurate measurement of student achievement, and really only wants to have a measure that puts them in the best, positive light, regardless of the accuracy of the data.
I've been trying to pre-plan for the road trip (#FünfTrek) stopping points this year, mainly because I'm tired of fighting with the Sturgis attendees for a place to stop anywhere in a 500 miles radius of the rally. I also know that I struggle to get away from the house to even start the trip, ever since 2018, so I made a reservation to kickstart that as well.
In the meantime, I'll be going through my gear to make sure I'm prepared for all parts of my trip! I also figured I'd sadly review the state of my New Year's Resolutions.
1) This is the one that I have been able to maintain without fail, despite injury, weather or whatever. Most recently, it was Soldiers Delight again.
A swollen stream to traverse at Soldiers Delight
2) No, I haven't been blogging once a month. I skipped April which bled into May and June.... I'll go into the why momentarily because it relates to another resolution.
3) Eesh, no, I've fallen off the book reading wagon, and I need to change that. I think with the road trip coming up next week, it will be easier to get back into it... at least with some e-books. I don't want to bring a bunch of physical books with me.
4) This. This one frustrates me the most because breaking it wasn't due to anything I consciously (or even subconsciously) did. This one stopped on April 5. I know the exact date because that's the day that I unintentionally walked off the tailgate of Pat's truck. No, I don't know what I was doing; I was just trying to unload the storm doors I'd bought, and I apparently forgot that the tailgate was down or something. I legitimately thought I was stepping down to the bumper of the truck. You ever have that sensation of stepping down, thinking you are going to contact the next step at a certain point, and it doesn't happen when you think it will? Yeah, now, imagine that you never make contact with that step. That is what happened. I stepped down.... and my leg kept going down.... Pat said it looked like I just walked off the end of the tailgate.
I landed on my left forearm and hip, hard. I don't know how I didn't break something, though the pain was so intense, all I could do was writhe there in the driveway, crying in pain. Pat looked helpless. I hurt so bad. After over ten minutes, I staggered-crawled with Pat's help to the bathroom to try to clean up the wounds and assess the damage.
It only took minutes to bleed through the wrapping
I could move my wrist and my elbow up/down (flex/extend), but any hyperextension of the wrist, attempts to support something with my wrist extended, or twisting (pronation/supination) of the elbow resulted in extreme pain. I went to urgent care the next day, and they sent me to the radiologist for X-rays.
My elbow
Nothing showed up on the X-rays, so it was all soft-tissue damage. And it hurt. It hurt so bad. I was taking Advil like candy, and ultimately was prescribed 800mg tablets.
It still hurts.
Yeah, you read that correctly. Almost four months later, my wrist and elbow still hurt, though it's not nearly as debilitating it was the first two months. Now, kinesiology tape or a wrist brace will allow me to do things, including exercises that involve the wrist. My left hip still has a sore spot.
It took three months before I could put enough weight on my left wrist/elbow to do planks or bear crawls or anything else that involved body weight on it. I tried a few times over the course of those three months to pick up where I'd left off (I'd just restarted the Centr Sculpted program again), and while I could many of the moves, I became horribly depressed over the pain and the inability to do simple stuff, like open a door or carry stuff with my left hand/arm.
That depression was hard to overcome. I'd wanted to do so much during my spring break, and the injury derailed everything. I didn't get to camp, I couldn't exercise, I couldn't tie my shoes, I couldn't even drive. As it was, when I returned to work, I probably shouldn't have been driving those first few days. The pain was still intense, and if I had to move the steering wheel even moderately quickly, the pain took my breath away. That's why I wasn't blogging. That's why my exercising ground to a halt.
Anyway, over the last two weeks, I've been able to pick back up and recover. I lost some of my gains, but I'm back in the saddle. I was still hiking as much as I could (my first post-injury hike was at Soldiers Delight right after there was a massive wildfire there, and it hurt my hip but I had my hiking poles so I was able to push through).
Three days after the injury
Soldiers Delight after the fire
So, yeah, over the past two weeks, I've gotten back into the 4+ days of at least 20min of exercise. I plan to continue this.
5) Let's not talk about this one. Depression takes a hell of a toll.
6) The WRX is currently languishing in the garage and serving as a shelf. Maybe I'll look at this before I leave next week so that I can at least get it through emissions, if not drive it to Boxerfest, which is the Sunday after I return from STEAM in the Park Voyageurs and the road trip.
In the meantime, I do have the Camaro back after the engine install. Just one bent rod, but I guess that's also because I shut it down immediately when the damage occurred.
Don't use cheap parts or mechanics. It will cost you more in the long run. Those lifters have 10K on them.
Happy Camaro
I do need to get it tuned, though that will likely not be able to happen until after I return from the road trip.
So, that's where things stand, more than seven months into 2023!
Because I'll finish up the trip at Voyageurs at the second STEAM in the Park camp that I'll do this summer!
New River was the first STEAMinthePark camp I attended, and I touched something weird
In preparation for the trip, I've been going through our gear and cleaning, replacing and adding to it as appropriate. I did an "introduction to backpacking" session at Patapsco Valley State Park last month, and learned that backpacking backpacks need to be properly sized to avoid back injury. Since I've been looking at doing an overnight backpacking trip somewhere, this was important information!
This backpack was way too long for me.
After the session, I went to REI in Columbia to get sized and to try out various backpacks. Partly due to Naturalist Sam's recommendation on how well his Osprey packs had worked, I settled on a 65L Osprey Aura AG, then came home to order it since I had my REI Coop coupons and several gift cards from last Yule.
I've also been streamlining other gear by cleaning up and listing our older Rhinowolf modular tents. We really don't use the original ones any more, since the version 2.0 is easier to set up and take down due to the center pole being outside the tent rather than inside.
Rhinowolf tents are cool because they can zip together and have integrated sleeping pads and down blankets.
Beyond all that, I've already made reservations to camp in Curecanti NRA the night before I pick up Pat from the airport in Denver. Curecanti is essentially next door to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, so I'll finally check both of those off my Passports list! I figure that will be on the way "back" from the Bonneville Salt Flats, where I won't see Speed Week this time around.
The Crosstrek looks at home on the Salt Flats
I'm getting antsy to head out. This'll be the fifth year of adventuring in the Crosstrek, so the hashtag we'll use is #FünfTrek (fünf is German for 5). Follow along if you want!
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This is the worst time of year for me. It's March. It's a march towards the worst day of my life.
Mom and Dad on that fateful day.
I can't help it.
A lot of it is because I feel so much unresolved guilt. There was so much I wanted to ask, so much I wanted to know.
I also knew how depressed my dad was at the constant hospitalizations. He was so tired.
Dad and Allison (in Jessica's arms) a few days after Alli's birth in 2014
I remember arguing with him about this. I hated hearing words out of my mouth from him. One of the last times... the last time I had this conversation with him was when I was visiting him at the hospital in January 2015. We had the Capitals game on. They lost to Montreal.
It would be the last time I got to interact with him in person, but I didn't know that then. He called me on my birthday. He wasn't at home yet, but he wasn't at that terrible place in Reisterstown that had my brother ready to fight someone for how the staff was treating him.
The next two weeks are just me going through the motions these days, as I remember the lost opportunities and the horror of the text messages I was receiving those final days.
Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel
One day, April 2 will dawn, and I won't feel the dread and sadness that I've felt since 2015, when I awoke that morning knowing that was the day Dad would die. I don't know why we chose that day. I wish we hadn't chosen that day to turn off the ventilator; it's the day my beloved Camaro rolled off the assembly line, and now the joy of that car is forever tied to the anguish of losing my dad.
So bear with me. Pat told me that day 8 years ago that the pain never goes away, that it just gets easier to manage. I guess I usually manage it okay, except for this time of year. But yeah, the pain is still there.
I can't believe it's almost the end of February. It's been two years since I was able to finally snag my first COVID vaccine and almost three years since the start of the whole disaster that is COVID-19.
Six Flags was the site of a massive vaccination line. I wanted to slalom these cones so bad.
I'm still trying to recover my mental health from the past three years, as being trapped at home and teaching remotely really brought home that a work-life balance is critical to maintaining a healthy outlook. Part of that recovery is trying to keep up with my resolutions (SMART goals). Let's see where I am.
1) Just last week, I was on the C&O Canal Towpath around Snyders Landing before stopping by mom's in Sharpsburg. And the week before, I was at Soldiers Delight NEA again so that I could do the whole Serpentine Trail, so yes, this goal is still being met.
The C&O Canal Towpath, just west of mile marker 77 near Snyders Landing
The far end of the Serpentine Trail at Soldiers Delight
With Spring Break started at the end of March, I don't see it being a problem to continue hiking at least once a month.
2) This is a blog in February, so yes, I'm still meeting this goal. I haven't been as prolific as maybe I could be, but I've met the goal.
3) I've fallen off a bit here. While I started off strong, I've stalled a bit recently while reading Karen Marie Moning's Burned.
I got into this series years ago, and it's a bit hard to remember all the previous stuff
This is the first book I've been reading on the new Kindle that Pat got for me. It's nice to have the backlit display and not try to finagle a booklight on the Kindle like I used to do. My mom also got me a book I need to read (or at least strongly peruse) for road trip reasons; this is one I requested after Stefanie Payne hosted a #ParkChat evening on Twitter.
So far, this looks like some great ideas even for Parks I've been to
4) Yep, definitely been doing this. If it's not hiking, then it's been doing the Centr Sculpted program. I've even had to buy new weights!
5) Yeah, that NBCT thing. I have applied the MSDE funding to my components. I just need to start doing the thing. I seriously have to do this now, since mid-May is the deadline for submission. I know what I want to do, so it's really a matter of documenting.
6) The brakes are still mocking me. Maybe if Pat can actually go to Abacus this coming weekend, I can bring them with me and do that while I'm waiting around. Otherwise, I'm going to be bored. Considering I won't get a tax return, it would be nice to be able to sell the car to someone who is.
7) I've started slacking on this a bit. I have my journal here next to the desktop, and I think about writing something down, especially after dreams like I had Friday and Saturday night. But then I don't do it. Same at work; I think about writing something down, but it's usually at the time where I just want to go home. I have felt better about accomplishing something each day, for the most part. For instance, today I fixed a cabinet door in the kitchen (after repeated trips to Lowe's) and yesterday I made a bunch of wands to list on Etsy, mostly because someone had requested a custom and I wanted to give them some choices. I just still need to list them!
So, this week is a "short" week because Friday is a half-day for students. It's interim prep day, and if I get all my comments and stuff in early, I can probably bolt just after noon so that we can get down to Abacus for tuning Pat's Camaro. He's been trying to get this thing tuned for the past month, but every weekend he's scheduled it, the weather's been in the low 40s (Fahrenheit) or colder. I just need to make sure I'm caught up on grading, and I need to come up with some lesson plans that don't involve collecting more work.
I can't wait to be daily driving this beauty again
In the meantime, I'm waiting for my little green terror of a Camaro to come home. The poor car is undergoing a transplant due to a collapsed and stuck lifter. I had those lifters replaced by the hack who left cigarette butts under the hood and didn't properly tighten down a bolt when installing a clutch, so... yeah. I gave that tool more chances than I should have, and it's ended up costing me a lot of money. Fortunately, Pat's former employer, Powertrain Products, worked with me to get an LT1 to Redline Performance quickly. I'm keeping the core, and we'll see if I can do something with it.
Here's hoping it's a good week!
Reflections on the Potomac River at Snyders Landing
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It's Sunday evening, three weeks into the New Year. This is apparently when most people have failed and given up on their resolutions.
Sunset at Soldier's Delight
Apparently, "three weeks" is the magic time span when things that are done routinely shift into a habit. So far, my SMART goals are going pretty well.
1) I've hiked several times already this month, including yesterday in a new-to-me place called Soldiers Delight NEA. I went kind of late in the day, so I didn't get around the entire Serpentine Trail, so I'll definitely be back. I guess the real test of this goal will come next month and the month afterwards.
2) This is my third blog post of January, so again, this will likely be tested more next month and in March.
3) I not only finished The Queen's Weapons, but I've also read Ben Raby's 100 Things Capitals Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die and finally started on Steve Glynn's This Team is Ruining My Life (But I Love Them). I've had the latter book around since August of 2019, when I went to a RMNB-sponsored book signing and met "Dangle" himself (who is pretty cool).
Pat got this for me last year.
4) This one is about to get easier, as Centr is about to start a new six week program called "Sculpted" which is 4 days of 30 minute workouts. At this point, I've been mixing it up with Centr workouts and hiking, but I have met the goal each week.
5) This one, not so good right now. I've thought really hard about the students I plan to track, and I still need to get some information down on "paper" (pixel). With only four days of "instruction" this week, since it's the end of the marking period, I should have some time to work on this more formally soon.
6) I have put the intention out there, in multiple places. People know. I need to buckle down and get the brakes done now, so that it's ready to sell during tax return season.
7) For the most part, I've been doing okay on this last goal. Sometimes I record it in my journal at home, and sometimes I do it in my plus/delta book at work. Sometimes both. When I'm having a mentally tough day, it's tougher to get something on paper, even if I do recognize that I've accomplished something.
This week is going to feel so long, I really do want to go back to Soldiers Delight and finish hiking the Serpentine Trail. The site is a fairly unique ecosystem (serpentine barren and oak savanna), which has a very magnesium rich soil. This results in some plants that aren't found anywhere else in Maryland. I'm thinking of seeing if I can maybe incorporate the area into some evolution/adaptation lessons, especially with my magnet biology students.
The serpentine grassland in late January
I also need to start thinking about doing taxes and I'm hoping that I get a refund this year. With Pat's new job, maybe his withholding is correct. I haven't played hockey in a year because the refund money that helps pay for that didn't happen last year. Plus, the green terror has some significant engine issues, and I might need the refund to pay for that.
It's almost 8PM, and Sunday sadness over going to work tomorrow is in full swing. The rain today also didn't help. Here's to hoping that this is a good week.
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Two days into the new year, and two hikes under my belt. That's making some good progress on my resolutions!
Yesterday, I did an obligatory First Day Hike in Patapsco Valley State Park, starting at the ambiguously defined Pickall Area by the CSX train tracks, then trying to meet up with the Ole Ranger Trail. The trail is very poorly marked, and I didn't find the cut-over to the trail, but I did eventually meet up with the Union Dam Trail. It was a shorter hike than I thought it would be, which is good to know for future reference. I might start at Hollofield next time so that I can take the Ole Ranger Trail to see where I'm supposed to go from Pickall.
Maryland State Parks gave out these First Day Hike stickers
A Pontiac center cap in the mud
The CSX tracks curving to match the river's bends
A train tunnel underneath US40.
The link to the Union Dam Trail
Cold, clear river water where the Union Dam once stood
A thriving community once stood here, until repeated floods in the mid-1800s kept destroying the dams, mills and homes of those who tried to use the river for their living
I texted Pat that I was at the entrance to Hollofield, and chatted with the ranger on duty there until he arrived. Turned out that someone's car had been broken into -- rear window smashed and stuff taken -- so I was watching the response to that. The thieves were quite brazen, as the vehicle in question was easily visible from the entrance gate.
For today -- the Federal holiday version of January 1 -- I decided to go to my other standby, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath. I needed to stop by my mom's anyway, and I initially thought to go to Ferry Hill and from there, maybe up to Snyders Landing. Then I thought, maybe I should go to Catoctin Aqueduct? Finally, I settled on parking at Point of Rocks and heading downstream, a section I don't think I've been on before.
Point of Rocks is at MM48.2
The last time I'd been to Point of Rocks was just over a year ago, when my friend Andy Howe was in town. Being an engineer who designs bridges and the like, I think he wanted to see the aqueducts and locks of his 19th century counterparts. Sadly, there are no locks or aqueducts east of Point of Rocks, at least not until past Noland's Ferry. There are culverts though.
A culvert right at Point of Rocks
Seek says these are "stinking orange oysters". The area smelled like garbage, so, yeah.
I hiked down to mile marked 46 before turning back around. I was going to be cutting it close to get back to the Crosstrek by sunset.
As far as I went today.
Like yesterday, the drab Winter colors in the forest made nothing stand out. That's probably why I noticed the orange oysters. The sunset was pretty, reflecting off the river, but other than that, there wasn't too much else to see.
A larger culvert east of MM48
The sun's getting real low
One of the reasons I was really hankering to get out on a trail was because one of my holiday gifts from Pat was a new and nice pair of Merrell Moab hiking boots. They are super light compared to my old boots, and I wanted to see how well they handled muddy conditions.
So far, so good with the boots! I know I'll be testing their waterproof-ness and more in the coming months.
After a short stop at Mom's in Sharpsburg, it was back home to wrap up Winter break and prepare for the end of the semester.... and to think about camping and hiking and where to go next.
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It's 2023. Yay. No, I'm not particularly excited about it. The last few years of societal collapse around a maniac as President and the subsequent pandemic and just decreasing lack of civility and compassion has worn me down.
Still, I wanted to think about things I wanted to do better for this year. I mean, I make "new years resolutions" at every "new year" chapter, whether it's the start of the school year, the start of the summer or whatever, so it's really just an exercise in putting the thoughts out there, and then trying to make them manifest.
Instead of just vague objectives though, I'm going to take a page out of my teaching book and try to make them "SMART goals" with time sensitive, measurable and attainable attributes.
1) Hike at least once per month. This one should be easy. If I can do more than once per month, that will be even better, and I want it to be a real "once per month" not an average over the year. This might work well if Pat has a resolution to fish at least once per month. If I can bundle this with camping, it would also likely help my mental health a thousand-fold.
The C&O Towpath is one of my go-to places for hiking
2) Blog here at least once per month. Yeah, that seems like a low hanging goal, but considering "blogging more" hasn't worked out too well, making this something measurable, time sensitive and attainable seems more realistic. Maybe I'll even finish the "writeup" from last year's road trip before this year's.
3) Read at least one chapter in a book at least five times per week. Seems weirdly specific, I know. I'm very disappointed in how much I've read the last few years. So, again, I'm trying to make it measurable (one chapter) and attainable (5+ times per week). Will I read more than one chapter and more than five times per week? Maybe. Hopefully. I'm still working on The Queen's Weapons, which I bought in March of last year, and finally started just before Yule.
4) Exercise at least 20 minutes at least four times per week. Again, it may seem like an odd goal, and why not the recommended "30 minutes"? Because I am still subscribed to Centr, and some of the sessions there are 25 minutes, and not a full 30. Like the previous resolutions, I would like to do more than four times per week when I can. Hopefully, sickness doesn't derail this particular goal, as it often does; the most recent bout with COVID-19 over Thanksgiving break derailed a good run started after my "second marking period resolutions". Of course, hiking any particular day would tick off this box as well as the first one.
And now for a few more difficult ones to attain....
5) Make strides towards National Board Certification every week. This can take different forms, depending on which component I am working on, but I do need to do this, since I really dropped the ball last year and it turns out that you can't last minute this like you can a fifteen page term paper in college. I will start this right away this week when I go back on Tuesday.
6) Sell the WRX and get a reliable new(er) car. This breaks my heart to write out, but if I don't commit to it, I don't think I will ever go through with it. I haven't driven it since April of last year because the brakes need to be redone, and while I have all the parts to rebuild the front calipers (and my brother did the work of removing the seized pistons from the calipers I have for rebuild), I just haven't sat down to do it. Part of it is fear of doing it wrong, I know, and part of it is also knowing it's a PITA to swap a caliper much less two of them. I did a caliper on the black Camaro years ago, plus I did the front calipers on the green Camaro when I upgraded to LS1 brakes after finding a pair up for grabs at the pull-a-part junkyard. Anyway, once I get the brakes done -- let's set a timeframe of "by Spring" for that -- then the car is going to be officially for sale so that I can use whatever I get for it for a down payment on a new(er) car that has a warranty and all that.
No more road trips to the Salt Flats in this car
7) Feel like I've done something worthwhile everyday and making note of it. I don't know how else to phrase this one. Those who know me know that I suffer from depression, and a lot of that revolves around constant feelings of worthlessness. So, making strides to feel like I've accomplished something, no matter how small, and acknowledging that accomplishment in some away will be tough. I have a little journal at work that I have used off and on since autumn 2019 where I try to do this. I try to write at least one positive thing about the day, no matter how minor, and then one thing I wish I could change and how I could change it (a "delta"). The framing is important -- it's just not something bad, but something I wish had gone better and (this is the important framing part), how I might have done things differently or what I could do to change the outcome.
I think with this last goal, it's about the negativity that permeates everything these days, and I just need to try to find the positive out there, somewhere. Oh, hey, I put together this coat rack today! Check it out, I mowed the lawn! I got out of bed and took a shower! I read that chapter in a book and hiked today!
It's 2023.
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