"S" Is For Stress

I was talking with one of my friends at the VFW the other night, and asked her how her granddaugthers were doing.   She said that one of her granddaughters (a fourth grader) was thrilled to death because she's a teacher's aide. She went on to say that her granddaughter went through an interview process for the position.  She even had to wear a dress (compolete with dress shoes) and was interviewed by the teacher. I should have asked my friend if her granddaughter had to fill out an application or turn in a resume.  I wonder how the kid found out about the position?  Did she read about it at Careerbuilder.com or maybe at Monster.com?

I told this story to a co-worker, and lo and behold, she was able to one-up my story. Her grandson, who just started the first grade, is running for student council.  My co-worker said "He couldn't spell 'student council', much less know what one is."  This raises some questions.  What will the first grade student council election be like?  MOst of the first graders won't be able to read the election ballot because they can't read.  The candidates won't be able to make campaign signs or put together speeches because they can't write.  And once elected, what exactly will the first grade student council do?  I don't have a clue.

It's no wonder kids are more stressed out than ever before.  They have to worry about things like student council elections and about how to dress for an interview. And heaven forbid they lose the election or don't get the position they wanted - they'll have to deal with feelings of rejection.  That's way too much pressure for elementary school kids.  Let them be elementary school kids, and leave the elections and interviews and rejection to us adults. 

File Under: WTF?

Driver gets 70 speeding tickets in 5 months

PHOENIX, Arizona (Reuters) - As a mortgage broker in Arizona, Francesca Cisneros is used to working with big numbers. It's the double-digit speed limits she has trouble with.

Cisneros racked up 70 speeding tickets in the last five months, a record for the Scottsdale Police Department, police said on Friday.

Speeding cameras in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix, snapped pictures of the 32-year-old woman as she tore through the sun-baked city in her Honda Civic between March 2 and July 31.

"She told arresting officers she was speeding because she seemed to be late for client meetings all the time," Scottsdale Police Department spokesman Mark Clark told Reuters. "I guess she's got some time management issues."

The second-worst offender in the department's history accumulated a mere 25 tickets, Clark said.

Police said Cisneros said she threw her speeding tickets away because she thought nothing could happen to her if she didn't pay them.

Clark said Cisneros faces some $11,000 in fines and could have her license suspended.

Maybe I'm looking at this differently, but somehow I don't think I would choose a lady that just throws away speeding tickets instead of paying them to be my real estate broker.  That might be some indication of the way she does business, or how much she pays attention to details.  If she just throws away 70 speeding tickets that she's received in just five months, do you think she just might throw away papers that need to be filed with the bank or mortgage company, too? 

And what's up with her speeding in a Honda Civic, too?  She's driving one of those little wind up cars.  If the article had said she drove a Corvette, or any car that has more than four cylinders, it would be easier to digest.

Women, Stay Out Of The Junior Department

I've noticed a disturbing trend over the past months:  older women (late 30's and up) wearing teenage clothes.  Perhaps you've noticed it, too.  It's been more noticable this spring and summer, with older women wearing the popular baby doll tops, which leave the midriff exposed.  The majority of the women wearing these tops have no business wearing them.  I asked a dear, dear friend her opinion on this and she concurred.  She's like most of us - we don't want to see a midriff unless it looks like it belongs on Shania Twain or Demi Moore's body.   Unfortunately, the majority of the older women wearing these midriff-bearing tops don't, although they probably think they do. I guess when they look in the mirror, they think they look like Demi Moore or Shania Twain.  If you are an older woman, and happen to have a firm, flat stomach, well , you go girl.  But please keep it covered and don't wear a top that your 12 year-old granddaughter would wear. 

Before people get their panties in a wad, let me explain - I'm not saying women need to wear house dresses that our 85 year old grannies wore; I'm 43 years old, and I wear trendy clothes but I don't go shopping for clothes that teenagers wear; teenage clothes are for teenagers.  I might be deemed a hardass, but let me go on record and say that I don't think they should be allowed to shop for themselves in the Junior Departments of clothing stores.  I think the Junior Department clerks should ask to see an ID when the older women attempt to buy teenage clothes.  While they're at it, let's just nip this in the bud and have them not sell any teenage clothes to any women over 30.  Maybe the stores could install a security monitoring system, similar to those already in the stores - you know the kind - the alarm goes off when someone walks out of the store with that big plastic tag still on the clothes.  On the new alarm, it could be set to go off whenever an older woman takes clothes from the junior department into a dressing room to try on.

You might think I'm harsh, because I would be banning any woman from going to the junior department - they might be going there to buy clothes for their daughter.  This is pretty much non-issue, because we all know that teenage daughters shop with their teenage friends; they would rather have their eyes gouged out then to have their mother out shopping for them. I'm sure I'll get some flack on this, but as I've said before, this is my blog and I can say what I want.  The older women that wear the teenage clothes don't have to look at themselves like we do.  Give us a break and leave the teenage clothes to the teenagers.

Top Ten School Supplies From Elementary School

1.   clipboard
2.   denim Trapper Keeper
3.   Elmers paste
4.   blue Bic pen
5.   protracter
6.   half-red, half-blue pencil
7.   pink Magic Rub eraser
8.   64-count Crayon box w/built-in sharpener
9.   red and black plaid book satchel
10. red and black plaid lunch box

Link Of The Week

I'm not proud to admit this, but the internet has made me lazy.  Many a time I'll get online just to look up a phone number or address in the "white pages" or "yellow pages".  Sure, it might be easier to get up and walk to find the old school white pages or yellow pages directories, but in my mind it's faster to just look online.  A friend gave me a link to a great new white pages search engine. It gives quite a bit more information than the white pages on AOL or MSN or Google.  I've heard from a few people that put their name in the search engine, and they say it gives a bit too much information.  But I'll let you be the judge.  Check out http://www.zabasearch.com and try it out. 

Fair Days

If you live here in the 'Ville, then you knew that the state fair was going on this past week.  In the past two summers that TWIT has been around, I've posted the top ten interesting things seen during my trips to the fair.  I'm sorry to say you won't be getting a top ten list this time. I made it to the fair twice this week to attend free concerts, and it wore me out so much I wasn't able to go back and just walk around and look at everything.  I guess I just can't hang like I used to.

I went Tuesday night to see Dwight Yoakum (one of the best concerts I've ever attended, by the way) and Wednesday night to see Gary Puckett and B.J. Thomas.  Each night, I met some friends right after work and we headed over to the fairgrounds and got in line so we could get good seats when they opened the gates.  Each night, we got there at about 5:15, and stood there in the hot afternoon sun until they opened the gates at about 6:30.  Then we all ran in like we were in the Olympics, running up the ramps and down the steps to try and claim seats in the first few rows.  We lucked out - Tuesday night we were on the 3rd row center stage, and Wednesday night we were on the 2nd row center stage.  Not too bad for free.  We brought sandwiches and soft drinks in with us, so we wouldn't have to peel for the $$$ priced food, and then we sat there each night until the shows started at 8:00.  Then we sat some more, until the concerts ended at about 11:00 or so.  I'm not ashamed to say it wore all of us out.  For six hours, we either stood, ran or sat.  One of my even friends had to take the day off on Thursday so he could get rested.  We all decided that next year we would take a few vacation days during that week, so we could get rested up enough to go back again.  We'll see.

Farwell, Pluto

After much discussion, astronomers announced yesterday that Pluto is no longer classified as a planet.  In a time where it's common to hear of companies downsizing, it's surprising to hear that our solar system has been downsized.  What will be next?  Will geographers come with facts and figures and declare that Antarctica is no longer classified as a continent? 

Pluto has been a planet since it was discovered in 1930.  The International Astronomical Union voted yesterday to downsize the solar system to eight planets.  Now all textbooks, encyclopedias, charts, and films will be to be revised.  Teachers this fall will have to even revise their lesson plans for astronomy homework - they'll now have to tell the students to put only eight planets in their solar system models.

It seems like yesterday I was at the kitchen table trying to put my solar system model together using the suggested styrofoam balls, toothpicks and modeling clay.   I can't remember if it was fourth or fifth grade, but I had to make a model of the solar system.  I was disappointed that I couldn't make an erupting volcano out of clay and paper mache, but I decided to make the best looking solar system model that I could.  I decided that I would have Grandpa spray paint the styrofoam balls different colors.  Putting a can of spray paint in the hands of a fourth grader was not a good idea - even as I kid I knew that. One thing we didn't know was the fact that spray paint, if sprayed on too heavily, would eat up the styrofoam balls.  After looking at a couple of the styrofoam planets, they had eroded and had craters.  At first I wanted to just throw them away and paint new ones.  But Grandpa and Dad told me that the erosion spots would make the "planets" look realistic - my planets would have craters.  Sounded good to me. 

I remember looking at the other kids' models - some put their models inside of a cardboard box or even a smaller shoe box, and had their planets hanging by string.  We decided that the toothpicks were too small and too short, so Grandpa got a hand full of the long fireplace matches and we used those instead of toothpicks. I walked down to the little store two houses down the street from us, and asked Mr. Nelson the owner for a thick cardboard box.  I wasthe only kid in the class that had used a Sterling beer box for their solar system.  We turned the box on its side, and put little mounds of modeling clay on the inside of the box.  In case you're not following this,  I stuck the long matches into the stryofoam balls, and then stuck the other end of the matches into modeling clay that was on the cardboard.  And there you have it: fourth grade Puddin's model of the nine-planet solar system.