Aww Shucks

About 5 years ago I was finishing up the general education credits for my Turf Management degree.

Physical education was part of those GE requirements. I would need to take 2 PE classes. Each class was only 8 weeks, half a semester.

The first class I took was tennis. This would be easy for me. I was the team captain on my tennis team in high school and I played in many competitive events when I was in my twenties.

The class instructor’s name was Wendy. Wendy was more of a personal trainer than a tennis instructor, but it was a beginner class and she had done this enough times that she was able pull it off. After a couple of days she could tell this class would not be very challenging for me. I ended up helping her teach the class. She would often pick my brain for new things to do in class and then we would try them out.

One day we were talking before class,” Hey Tom, do you need to take another PE class?”
“Yeah I was thinking about golf.”
“That’s probably some other sport you already know how to play. Why don’t you be a man and take my yoga class?”
“I don’t know....”
“It is the same time as this tennis class, starting right after these 8 weeks are over. It is always full but I’ll add you anyways.”
“Yoga...”
“Come on, come to a class that I really know something about.”
“Do very many guys...”
“Hardly any guys take this class. Just good-looking women. You should love it.”
“Well...”
“Don’t be a WUSS. Are you afraid you can’t keep up with a bunch of girls?”
She finally pushed the right button.
“OK, I’m in.”
“You won’t be sorry.”

The 8 weeks following the tennis class were “challenging”. Wendy was a genuine yoga instructor. I think she was teaching a power style of yoga. You had to be flexible, but most of the poses required a lot of balance and strength. She pretty much kicked my butt for 8 weeks, and I showed up everyday for it. And I wasn’t about to complain.

About 2 weeks into the class Wendy made an announcement. She was pregnant.
This would be her third child. She said that she would still be able to teach the class, but that she might have to tone it down a bit. I’m thinking this was my lucky day. Two poses later she was standing on one leg and had the other leg behind her head.

Yoga turned out to be one of my favorite classes, and not just because Wendy didn’t lie about the good-looking women.

The last class I took in college was a nutrition class taught by Wendy. She was well into her pregnancy. I didn’t she would be there at the end of the class. She almost made it. She missed the last day, finals, to have her baby.

I never got the chance to see her again after I graduated. Until...

... Last weekend when the Pink Puppies played the Blue Angels! Wendy’s oldest was playing for the other team. I was sure that was Wendy on the other sideline. She came over after the game with her family to say hello. She laughed and told me she knew I was a coach the moment she met me, and that she had a great time just watching me with the Pink Puppies.

I noticed that her youngest was a little boy and asked, “ Is that the guy who made you miss my last day of school?”
“Why yes it is!” she smiled.
“And what’s his name?”
“Tommy.”
“Really?”
“What can I say, I’ve always liked guys named Tom.”

The Wrath of Mrs. Khan

I was whining about my daughter’s class last week.

The school has started sending the second graders in Mrs. Valasek’s class to a second grade math class. The teacher’s name is Mrs. Khan.

Mrs. Khan has a little problem with germs. On Alissa’s first day in her class she sent her home for coughing in class. She told Alissa that she didn’t want to catch her cold. I think she may have been joking, but Alissa didn’t understand and thought she was mad at her.

So she spent the rest of her school day at work with me, not a cough all day.

The principle of my daughter’s school called us yesterday. He said he had an opening for her in a second grade class if we wanted it. “Why do you say it like that?” I asked. “Its Mrs. Khan’s class,” he replied. “She is a little ...ridged.”

As you may know, we are trying to get Alissa into a different class. But this seemed a little weird. It sounded like the principle wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

We asked the school counselor what she thought about the move. We gave her the low down on Alissa and that we thought she might need a teacher with a little softer touch. She agreed, and we will just continue to wait for a different class to open up.

Feel free to ad-lib a Star Trek 2 line except it is Mrs. Khan instead of (Ricardo Montalban) Khan.

For example- “Math is a dish best served cold.”

Double WTF!!!

WTF in bold letters! WTF in italics!

Last year I was a little disappointed with Alissa’s teacher. So you can guess how happy I was when we walked over to the school last weekend to see who her new teacher was going to be and found out it was the pickle lady again. But it gets worse.

My daughter’s school has put her in a combination 1st grade/2nd grade class. There are 15 first graders and 5 second graders. I guess the first grade class was short on students and the second grade class had too many students. This was their solution.

The principal let Miss Valasic hand pick the five 2nd graders that would be in her class. We feel so lucky.

Alissa thinks this is great. The other four kids were good friends of hers last year.

I think Miss Valasic handpicked 5 little teacher’s aides.

How much attention are those kids going to get in that class?

It Better Not Be A Tumor

I don’t know how it is in other states, but in May the public schools in California do their standards testing. This is the way the government holds the school accountable for the job that it does. If you suck, you have to go to Arnold’s office and get a swat. Nobody wants a swat from The Terminator. For weeks now, the teachers at my son’s school have been preparing him for this test, in order to avoid a turbo butt blistering at the hands of Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer.

Now that the testing has started, the kids are getting the “royal treatment”. Austin says that they get extra recesses; I think an extra 2 or 3. He is not being sent home with any homework. Also, the kids are getting healthy snacks provided by the school, because tests show that an empty tummy is not good to test with. Jeez, why don’t we do that everyday?

Austin was even sent home with instructions from the school on how they would like us to manage his nights during this period of time. You know, get to bed at a reasonable hour, feed him, no porno, and no weed, all the things that got me through school, denied!

I think the school district may have it all wrong. Maybe they should be offering incentives that the kids want, or stronger deterrents that would encourage America’s future to do better in school.

Here are some of my ideas.

Incentive (For the boys)- Internet access during recess with links to Miley Cyrus scandal pictures.

Incentive (For the girls)- Internet access during recess with links to Malathionman pictures.

Deterrent- Free copy of Bleak Future.

Maybe I Should Grow Up

My son brought home a flyer from school today. Austin is in the 5th grade and the school is having the district nurse (Mrs. Suzanne Dick) give a presentation to all the boys about the changes that their bodies will be going through. I don't remember this talk taking place until junior high for me, and it came from Mr. Roden. When I read that Mrs. Dick was giving the presentation I had a hard time explaining to Austin what I thought was so funny.

I tried to scan the flyer and post it but I couldn't get it up. Maybe Mrs. Dick could help me with that too.

Let the "grown up" comments fly.

Malathionman's Yard #2

On Monday MVCC will be back open for business. It has been 5 weeks since we closed for over seeding. In those five weeks we cut 150 acres of grass down to dirt, spread 48,000 lbs. of fertilizer, dropped about 110,000 lbs. of seed, and threw about 36 million gallons of water. Since I consider this golf course my yard, it seems like a good time for another edition of Malathionman’s Yard!

In this installment of Malathionman’s Yard I would like to share with you, The Malathionman Entourage, some information about fertilizer.

When talking fertilizer, you have to know the symbols N, P, and K. N is the elemental symbol for nitrogen, P is for phosphorus, and K is for potassium. These three elements are very important for good plant growth.

Nitrogen will promote fast growth and green foliage. Phosphorus will promote blooms on flowering plants and strong root development. Potassium works on both roots and foliage. So you could say N is for the top of the plant, P is for the bottom of the plant, and K is for all the entire plant. This is a very basic interpretation of what these elements do for the plant.

Now you may ask,” What do those 3 fricking numbers on the fertilizer bag mean?” Well I’m going to tell you.

41-0-0 is the fertilizer we threw before we dropped our perennial rye seed. Remember that fertilizer, it may come up in a later post. 41-0-0 represents the percentage of the elements N, P and K that are in the bag. This bag is 41% N, 0 % P, and 0% K. If the bag weighed 100 lbs, only 41 lbs of it would be N, the other 59 lbs would be filler. If the 100 lb. bag of fertilizer had 15-15-15 on it that would mean 15% of the bag was N, 15% was P, and 15% was K. That’s 15 lbs of each element, 45 lbs of actual N, P, and K, and 55 lbs of filler.

We went with a fertilizer high in nitrogen because we were trying to grow things as fast as possible.

Now I’m only going to add one more thing to this post, not everyone finds fertilizer as exciting as I do.

FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS ON THE BAG. Some fertilizers recommend mowing before application or not mowing before application. Maybe you are supposed to water before you apply, but usually you water in. Always use the recommended application rate, more is not always better. It is amazing how well things work if you just follow the directions.

Another Brick In The Wall

Both of my kids brought this home for me to read last week. WTH !!! Can’t teachers be left alone to teach reading and arithmetic’s? It looks like they have to teach students how to behave first. Shouldn’t the students come with those skills already ingrained from home? Maybe I’m too “old school”. When I went to elementary school, you behaved yourself or you saw the principle and his paddle. It kept ME out of trouble. I didn’t want that swat from Mr. Dick (yes, that really was his name). From reading this “behavioral focus plan” you would think our kids couldn’t be aloud to be kids and that they don’t know the meaning of respect. I know my kids know the meaning of respect, but they can be pretty spastic. This just seems like they want little Stepford Kids. Can’t kids be kids without losing valuable learning time? Do we need to go to this extreme? Maybe we do. Things sure have changed, but have they for the better?

This Pickle Wasn't Sweet

It was Alissa’s first day of school. She will be in the first grade. She will also be going to school with Austin. The last two years she has gone to a private preschool and kindergarten. They were nurturing and kind to my little princess. So I guess I was expecting too much from this public school, first grade bitch, oops I mean teacher. Most of the teachers here have been fine, this one just pissed me off.

Ms. Valasick sat behind her desk and waited for her new students, and their parents, to come in. She didn’t leave her desk to great us. We walked up to her throne.

“Good morning, we are Mr. and Mrs. Malathionman, this is Alissa.”

If Ben Stein had a sister, she would sound like this, “Hello, I’m Ms. Valasick. Alissa, pick a colored stick from this jar, match it to the colored spot at one of those tables and take a seat. Here is your name tag, please put it on.”

We do as instructed.

Sherri is doing her best to get Alissa excited about class, but things are getting misty in a hurry. As I watch the tears forming in both Sherri and Alissa’s eyes, I can’t help but think this woman could get off her butt and try to make my daughter feel a little more comfortable in her classroom. It didn’t happen. I felt like shit leaving, but Sherri had to go before she really started to cry and that would make things even worse for Alissa.

I made sure I was there when she got out of school. I wanted to see how Ms. Valasick was interacting with the kids, and I wanted to give my little girl a big hug.

I watched as Ms. Valasick let each child out of the classroom. Each child got this option at the door, “High five, handshake, or hug.” Alissa chose hug. It all sounds nice, but with that Ben Stein voice and the going through the motions hug she got, I still wasn’t impressed. I wish “needle in the eye” was an option.

Who would...

... send their kid to a school that only teaches math and english? I do. I only just found this out at our last parent teacher meeting. Austin's 4th grade teacher informed us that because the school has done so poorly on state proficiency tests, they only teach math and language arts. What the hell is that! No history, no geography, no art. They also do P.E. a couple of times a week. Whoopie! I guess until those test scores go up, that's what the cirriculum will be. That bites. I may have the option of sending Austin to another school in the district, one that is doing better on the state tests, but that would invovle a lot of transportation. I just can't believe the school district could just eliminate so many subjects without parents knowing. They only inform you about the school's performance on the tests, but not how they are going to deal with it.


Over/Under
Only about 100,000 people died in the first 4 hours of 24! Jack Bauer was only resposible for 2 of them.