Month: April 2010



  • The Daily News
     
    1  On Friday this really nice girl asked me, "Mr. H, can I write <unintelligible> on your board?"

    2  I'm going full-board deaf in my left ear, so it was absolutely ridiculous trying to figure out what she was saying.

    3   Lemme explain. My room has cathedral ceilings, and AMPLE room, but it also causes deeeeefness. I couldn't really hear a word she said, but I KNEW her as an awesome kid with lotsa integrity.

    4   I also knew that she wanted to write something good on the board. She mentioned something about helping give to some cancer cause, so I said, "Sure, go ahead."

    5   I got on with the lesson, and she slipped behind me and took some of my erasable markers with her in order to make her statement.

    6   I give vocabulary tests on Fridays, and the first part of the period is devoted to allowing students a little time for study, so the girl had time to make a reasonably pretty design, using the colorful markers. 

    7   Within seconds, the class started giggling and making comments.

    8   As an wise old codger, I knew instinctively that something was up.

    9   I turned and looked at my whiteboard. She had written in tall letters of pink this:

    10  I LOVE BOOBIES!!!!

    11  Being an intellectual in all things except frisky students, I instantly turned about eight-hundred shades of red.

    12  Well, I looked back at her, with EXPO eraser marker still in her hand, and said, "Uh...could you ERASE that instantly?"

    13   At this point, the entire class was in hysterics!

    14   Was I flustered?

    15   Ah...not really. I joined the class in one of those fun laughs that happen in school.

    16   But truly.

    17   I really didn't have to coax her too much; she erased it and wrote something else about contributing to fighting cancer.

    18   Ah, fun stuff!!

    19   The things they don't teach you in college. It's funny because it was two days in a row in two different classes that the word "boobies" assailed the room, in all its glory.

    20   I informed the girl that last Saturday I had donated $100 to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society through KGO's 30th annual drive. I also had them put my donation in memory of my Mom.

    21  Here's their link if you are interested in donating:

    http://www.leukemia.org/hm_lls

    22  Glorious stuff though, really.

    23    Moving on,Part the First: I got a chance to visit with my Dad this weekend. He had had an "episode" in which he fell asleep in the afternoon, slept through dinner and his nightly insulin shot, and awakened later unable to move.

    24       He somehow managed to get up and go to bed, and all was essentially well, but I decided to visit him on Saturday and watch the Giants/Dodgers game with him.

    25   I couldn't even TELL you who the announcers were, as it was I guess nationally televised, which meant it was a 50-50 shot the announcers would be terrible. Well, they were. But they closed in on one of the guys, who was wearing a pink ribbon to support women with breast cancer.

    26   My Dad turned to me and said, "That guy just won first place!"

    27        I laughed, knowing that the little "episode" hadn't dulled his wit any. I shared the story of last year on my Mom's birthday, an almost identical situation had occurred. This was just a few weeks before she passed away, and of course we were worried about her, as she was getting a bit forgetful. I was in her room watching a Giants' game, as always,when I noticed that Tim Lincecum had this huge necklace on.

    28   It looked a little like one of those glow necklaces you see at concerts, and on the 4th of July. Looking at the screen, I asked aloud, "What does Lincecum have round his neck?" Without hesitation, my Mom looked at me and said, "Probably a picture of you."  Ah, Moms!

    29   She stayed pretty darned sharp right up 'til the end.

    30   We have her birthday, Mother's Day, and the anniversary of her passing coming up in May, so it's going to be an interesting time. It brings a lot of it back, but it also brings some of my best memories as well.

    31   That was one, and one of the best little laughs I've had in a while.

    32   Thank goodness for goodness. Thank goodness for humor. Life can get so serious so much of the time, and it's always nice when someone comes in and sets us straight, whether it is a sweet attempt at enlightening other students to the need to give to breast cancer, a quick comment about what a guy is wearing, or a humorous reply to an inane comment: thank goodness for goodness.

    33   Moving on, Part the Second: It's once again past 4 in the morning. On Friday, a parent called me on my lunch break. My first inkling was not to answer the phone at all, because we have duty-free lunch, but at the last moment, I did.  She demanded that I meet with her this morning, at 7:30. She wanted to discuss her son's grade. I KNEW this meant extra work for me, because I had to dig through his assignments and what he's been up to. I like to be really prepared in order to help the parent and the student.

    34  When I looked at his grade from last grading period, it was an F, and by a longshot. His average was like fifty per cent. I added up all his current work and got the same result. He had simply not been turning things in, like huge assignments. He had consistently skipped a couple of tests, and was clearly not doing his work. That's the usual case in these sorts of situations.

    35  I could have told her that over the phone, but some people insist on a face-to-face encounter, and it is always a little extra work. It's also what we do. As annoying as it is having to come in early, I'd rather have a parent who cares than one who doesn't. Make sense?

    36   I also have to rehearse exactly what I'm going to say, because it is difficult for the parents. In this instance, however, it looks like this guy decided that school is not happening in the Spring.

    37    So yesterday my rehearsal went something like this:

    Parent:  "Why is my son getting an F?"

    Me:  "Because I couldn't give him a G."

    38   Apple. Tree. Thought I'd share.

    39    It's Monday. I'm in early, so gotta sleep.

    40    Fly low.

    41    Peace.
     


    ~H~




















  • The Daily News

    1    I LOVE showing the Zeffirelli version of Romeo and Juliet to my students. I always inform them early that Juliet is thirteen, according to the Nurse and to Juliet's mother. Her appearance in the balcony scene tests that theory, and each time that scene comes on, freshmen giggle like crazy. You will inevitably have some boy say, "She's not thirteen!"

    2    Yesterday my best-behaving class, which is filled with girls, was more giddy than usual. I was grading papers and not really paying attention, because it was the third go-round with the film, and I could get caught up with grading.

    3   But it was one of those days where they were all talking and commenting first on Romeo lurking around the balcony, then on Juliet's first show of massive cleavage.

    4  The giggles continued, as I tried to look over my glasses and shush them, but it was so hilariously edgy that I broke into a semi-smile myself, shaking my head.

    5   Finally, one girl blurted out, "She has HUGE boobies!"

    6   The place exploded, and I just laughed myself.

    10  It's funny, because right before the scene, I gave a pretty grand lesson on how beautiful the language and poetry were, and how I once met a director who said, "I don't go to see a Shakespeare play; I go to hear a Shakespeare play." I taught them all about the heartbeat rhythm of iambic verse, as well as to listen for the beautiful imagery of stars and roses and all.

    11  Once the obvious was made more obvious by the girls outcry, it was all over for HEARING anything! Normally a brilliant, polite class of honors' kids, they had quite time laughing at every moment. They especially loved Romeo's tree-climbing and subsequent joyous dash through the forest in gleeful rhapsody.

    12  Crowning moment of the school year. These were my shy, wonderfully well-behaved kids, completely giddy and out of control.

    13   I LOVED it. I'm now WAY worried at the nightingale/lark scene, in which we see not only those high beams for a millisec, but also Leonard Whiting's buttcheeks. I used to draw a stick figure of a guy named "Mr. Censor" and would stick it on the television screen, using static electricity to make it stick. Always worked like a charm. Frisky boys would sometimes lift the bottom of the sheet, or try to peek from the sides, but it AWAYS got a laugh. We're using LCD projectors these days, so I just take my reading glasses and put it in front of the lens. Works like a charm. They inevitably giggle and laugh, but what can you do? That's the classic, and it must be seen.

    14   <sigh> Olivia Hussey/Leonard Whiting = Occupational Hazard.

    15   Moving on, Part the First: I have this idea that we should get a whole bunch of people to sit across the street from the Tea Parties and have Coffee Parties. Nothing political, mind you, just so that we could sorta goof on the movement. Maybe just sit in the sun, talk, write some poetry, and enjoy what we have.

    16   I think it would be a perfect excuse to cut work, get some Starbuck's, and chill with friends. The idea would to be perfectly apolitical, and to sit outside the world for a minute with friends and goof on some odd things.

    17   If I'm the first to suggest it, I'll toss it over to someone else to start it all and to organize it. I don't take the Tea Parties too seriously, to be honest. Maybe I should, but I'm just too busy these days to take notice. Seems the whole thing stems from frustration anyway.

    18   Random thought: It's Friday, and we have STAR testing next week, so it should be a fairly easy weekend. STAR testing is the great strain, but really, my room works nicely: it's spacious and a comfortable place to test. It's always quiet, most of the week, and once the test is over, we teach just two to three classes.

    19   I won't bore you with the details; let's just say it makes for a fairly easy week.

    20   Moving on, Part the Second: Ya gotta love TMZ sometimes. The Merc News hasThe Star Report, which is TMZ stuff.  In a buzz about Larry King cheating with his wife's sister, it was brought up that some friend of the King's said that about a year and half back the couple were "punching each other."
           Here is the next part of the buzz, verbatim: "Larry King is 76. Who punches Larry King? A butterfly landing on him the wrong way could knock him unconscious."





    21  And then there was this series of snitches: "Mel Gibson...has parted with girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, and Melisssa Etheridge...has split from her partner, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels Etheridge. Paris Hilton also broke up with boyfriend Doug Reinhardt, but nobody cares. Not even them."

    22  Ah, ya gotta love it.

    23   Not much else coming down from the ol' DN. It's early, woke at 4:20 again, even without a bark from ol' 4:20 herself. Think I'm going to try sleeping for another hour, and then I'll launch this off to y'all.

    24   Have a great weekend. You oughta rent Romeo and Juliet; it's really a lark. Coming up shortly: The Taming of the Shrew, the classic ending to the school year.

    25   Can't wait.

    26    See ya soon!

    27    Peace.

    ~H~


    www.xanga.com/bharrington
















  •  China earthquake 2010: How to Help

    http://www.nowpublic.com/world/earthquake-china-how-can-you-help-qinghai-earthquake-victims-2605596.html

    http://www.redcross.org.cn/ywzd/

        The first link above gives a brief overview of the devastation in the Qinghai province of China, as well as several different places to donate. Locally, the Red Cross of Silicon Valley suggests donating directly to the second link for quickest response.

        As of this morning, the death toll has approached 700, and that is sure to climb as more bodies get pulled out of the rubble. Besides rescue efforts, they also will be in need of medical supplies, medical personnel, food, housing, clothing, blankets (they are experiencing freezing temperatures at night), as well as prayers and donations from different organizations. Access to the quake zone proper is tough: the closest city with an airport is Xining, which is located 530 miles away, requiring at least a twelve-hour drive. It is a poor region that is located 13,000 feet above sea level. Most of the buildings have collapsed, so relief efforts are critical.

        Any time something of this magnitude occurs, stories come in from all over, and facts can change rapidly. I included the two links above because it the Now Public article was brief, to the point, and included some key links for donations. I included the second link because the Red Cross of Silicon valley suggested donating directly to the Red Cross Society of China.

       Please help in any way you can.

    ~H~

  •  China earthquake 2010: How to Help

    The Daily News

    http://www.nowpublic.com/world/earthquake-china-how-can-you-help-qinghai-earthquake-victims-2605596.html

    http://www.redcross.org.cn/ywzd/

    1    The first link above gives a brief overview of the devastation in the Qinghai province of China, as well as several different places to donate. Locally, the Red Cross of Silicon Valley suggests donating directly to the second link for quickest response.

    2    As of this morning, the death toll has approached 700, and that is sure to climb as more bodies get pulled out of the rubble. Besides rescue efforts, they also will be in need of medical supplies, medical personnel, food, housing, clothing, blankets (they are experiencing freezing temperatures at night), as well as prayers and donations from different organizations. Access to the quake zone proper is tough: the closest city with an airport is Xining, which is located 530 miles away, requiring at least a twelve-hour drive. It is a poor region that is located 13,000 feet above sea level. Most of the buildings have collapsed, so relief efforts are critical.

    3   Any time something of this magnitude occurs, stories come in from all over, and facts can change rapidly. I included the two links above because it the Now Public article was brief, to the point, and included some key links for donations. I included the second link because the Red Cross of Silicon valley suggested donating directly to the Red Cross Society of China.

    4   Please help in any way you can.

    5   Moving on, Part One: It's interesting how something of that magnitude can put a lot of other things in their proper perspective. Still, if you are a Sharks' fan, last night HAD to hurt. Losing a game like that is always going to cause a little pain. Fear not; the bold always manage to get there, and this years' Sharks do have the experience. Let's just see how it plays. I think the Sharks should do it.

    6   Moving on, Part Two: This DN was written between 2 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. yesterday due to the Sharks' game (once it was over I hit the hay!) and the news coming out of China. In the middle of writing, my computer decided on its own to shut down for updates. When it resumed, the DN had disappeared. Normally I save as I tack away, but I was jumping around trying to find details about the quake, and somewhere, everything vanished.

    7   That's always a pleasure, as one can well imagine.

    8    I had some piece about the proper way to eat a banana, something brought up to me a little over a month ago by my daughter Caitlin. She informed me that monkeys open bananas not from the stem, but from the bottom. Instead of busting a banana in two, one could quite daintily open it by pinching the tip of the bottom and then peeling.

    9   It's funny because I tried it and it SEEMED better. Who'd know better than a monkey is the thinking, right?

    10  I actually reasoned that monkeys aren't any smarter than we, at least I sure HOPE they're not, and that we are MUCH neater in our dainty handling of bananas.

    11  Since I started working out, I have been bringing a banana and an orange to school each day, rather than making a huge lunch. Each time I stare at the banana, I stop, and then I open it from the bottom, this after spending a lifetime opening bananas from the stem.

    12  Interestingly, or not, the same thing happened to me when I was in high school. Someone showed me how to peel an orange all in one stroke. It seemed gentler, and somehow less painful to the orange. This was "back in the days", when fruit was considered to have had feelings. Nobody gave a fuck-all about bananas, but we were all very peaceful with oranges.

    13   AnywayZ...

    14   I think the point I was making was that I had been going off about bananas and peeling them like monkeys and all when the computer shut itself off and so I lost the first edition of this DN.

    15   Ah, vell. It's all a bit water under the proverbial bridge at this hour.

    16   With that, I think I'm going to make an attempt at going to sleep. I'm a world-class insomniac, usually awakening somewhere from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. And when I DO get back to sleep, my dog Phoebe shakes herself, clicks across the floor and barks in my ear, usually around 4:20 a.m.

    17   I often refer to her as "4:20" just because of that.

    18   It's just about 4 a.m. right now, so I won't wait for it. I'll just hope that somehow she forgets. She's around 800 in dog years.

    19   Anyway, give a thought to our human family in China, don't worry too much about the Sharks, and don't get too schizo over fruit. It's just fruit.  Open a banana any way you want. You save utterly no time opening it like a monkey, and who wants to deal with monkey business at lunch time anyway?


    20  We'll see you next time.

    21  Peace.

    a a bananas

    ~H~

    a cool guy 1

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

     

     

     

     

     



  • The Daily News
    1   Ah, ya know

    2   Is anything better than Wednesdays?

    3   OKAY, I KNOW, I KNOW!

    4    But really?

    5    Wednesdays are Wednesdays.

    6    In California, they are the official start of the weekend.

    7    Many call it affectionately "Hump Day".

    8    Well...

    9    I suppose I get that.

    10  But really, it certainly is the mid-week review.

    11  We have come SO into measuring things that we now review our lives on how well Monday and Tuesday went.

    12   My question here is simply this: at what point in life did we turn so stupid?

    13   If you are living life the way you should, then Wednesday should usually be simply the day of hope. Or, if you are a bit more facetious, you might see Wednesday as simply another day.

    14   If you are still with me, then you know that Wednesday really is a measuring stick of where we have been, and where we are headed. Not really globally, or metaphorically, but in a basically mundane way.

    15   I don't know how else to state that one.

    16   So my advice about Wednesdays is simply this: ride it as you would anything else. I never really get rockety about Wednesdays, like it is a celebration of the first two grueling days of the week, and a launch into an early weekend.

    17   I have made it famously to Wednesday, and to me, that's an accomplishment. But dude really. I won't really pop the champagne until an event that is a bit livelier.

    18   Yeesh.

    19   I KNEW Tuesday would be rough, and indeed, it was.

    20   But baby I ain't cryin'. I ain't dead either. Woke up. No tag on my toe. It's gonna be a good day. Put on my pants and walk through the day. Every day can be a smile, if you get a little Zen about things.

    21   Love it, and then make Thursday even better; that's my advice.

    22  Yeesh.

    23  My life is moving along at a peaceful, wonderful pace.

    24  So I have little to worry about.

    25  Meanwhile, let us all just chill for a day.

    26  Tomorrow always works.

    27   Slow news day?

    28   Never a bad thing.

    29   Keeping it short today.

    30   Reached the Island of Sanity, so I'm just gonna kick it right here, like those lovely Corona commercials.

    31   The waves come in, and then they subside.

    32   That's today.

    33    Peace.

    ~H~

  •  


    The Daily News
    1   Ah, so 'tis TUESDAY that is the true test!

    2   It always comes back to Tuesday, doesn't it?

    3   Dude, I SAILED through Monday yesterday. I had planned, run things, and studied everything I needed so that I could deliver expert lessons a'Mondee.

    4   What worried me was TUESDAY.

    5   Don't get me goin'.

    6   I ALWAYS have issues with Tuesdays, to be honest with you.

    7   Like I knew yesterday would work, because I had completely planned for it. I always do that after a break, especially the benevolent Spring Break.

    8   But TUESDAYS...if you are REALLY smart, you should realize the rattlesnakesque tenor of Tuesdays. They lie in the weeds, and on a beautiful Spring day, when you feel that you've nothing left to do in April except to plan for May Day, they strike.

    9   Whatever you THOUGHT you had together unravels. Your tongue begins to turn a strange sort of blue. Assholes come out of the woodwork and demand the results of things you told them you'd take care of three Mondays ago. They storm in, and tap their feet.

    10  An eight-hour day becomes an effort in chains and whips. You find yourself in the sixteenth round of a hard punch that knocked you out in the fifteenth.

    11  Yeah. Whew. Calming down now. A penguin with a crooked smile is waving a towel in my face, giving me air.

    12   He speaks.

    13   "Why don'tcha beat this day like ya done BEFAWH?"

    14    I don't know.

    15    For the life of me; I don't know.

    16    I mean, I THINK I'm ready for it, but then I always THINK I'm ready for it. Before the break, my Bose sound system failed right when I was working with a CD of both Shakespeare plays. A BOSE fergawdsakes!

    17   Yesterday morning I remembered that, and rigged up my computer to a guitar amp, so that the CD played nicely for the classes. It was only fifteen minutes, but it was enough to bridge the loss of memory that occurs in students each time they get a week off. It worked famously!

    18   But fate always steps in. A student from last year came in and asked if her teacher could borrow my speakers because HERS was on the blink.

    19   She forgot to take care of that over the vacation, so I said it would be okay, because I'm not using it today. I also told them that I used a guitar chord and amp to go out of the headphone jack using an adapter.

    20  The student looked a little confused, but understood the technology.

    21   She's coming in this morning to borrow that stuff.

    22   Yep.

    23   On a Tuesday.

    24    Am I nervous?

    25    No good deed goes unpunished.

    26    Moving on, Part the First: The good news is that I'm pretty well prepared for this week, having graded nearly everything, having spent Sunday reviewing and refreshing what I'm going to do, and being inspired by the penguin.

    27   I SEEM to have everything I need, but these things have a way of sneaking up. For example, I put my DVD's of Romeo and Juliet SOMEWHERE. We are working on the two most famous scenes from R & J AND Julius Caesar, the famous balcony scene, and the murder of Caesar respectively. I checked and found JC, but not R & J.

    28   I put it  somewhere where I wouldn't lose it.



    29   Moving on, Part the Second: I no sooner finished uploading the picture above when the fonts on today's DN kept defaulting to a different, smaller font.

    30   It isn't the end of the world but I have to butt each word right next to the previous word instead of just typing.

    31   If that's the worst of my worries I have no worries.

    32   Still...just a little annoyance.

    33   Moving on, Part the Third:  Found them. The Romeo and Juliet DVD's. Turns out I had never brought them to school. I forgot to bring them and had borrowed another teacher's two centuries ago when we were last in school.

    34   I LOVE Spring Break, but it does tend to cause senility, or really, to augment senility. I saw a teacher yesterday standing next to her door, while the janitor fiddled with his keys. She had forgotten her school keys after Spring Break.

    35   I'd LOVE to say that's never happened to me, but it did earlier this year, right after Thanksgiving.

    36   THAT was on a Monday. I've gotten pretty good at Mondays.

    37    Moving on, Part the Fourth: I went out and got this morning's edition of The Merc News and it had a picture of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, the one I have used over the years in the DN. The headline: Lighhouse's glory starts to dim. I always liked using pictures of that particular lighthouse because of it's  strength and the feeling that it is protecting everything. Evidently it is in tremendous financial straits, and needs a lot of work, but there is no funding.

    38    There was a beacon of hope in the article, so we'll see, but it was a sad article, to be sure, but ended with some hope.

    39    Signs of the times.

    40    Tuesday.

    41     I'm feeling amazingly hopeful today. I've found the DVD's. The fonts suddenly started working properly again. The Giants and A's are a combined 12-3. The Sharks are in the playoffs and should kick some butt. And I'm just about organized and ready to get out of here and greet the Tuesday with strength and vision.

    42     I do believe I owe it all to the penguin.

    43     Have an amazing day.

    44     Peace.

    ~H~



    www.xanga.com/bharrington

























  •
      

    The Daily News

    1   A four-hour and nine-minute rain delay.

    2   That's how long the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves had to wait just to begin a game that ended with the sky opening and throwing a flood upon the remaining people. It began pouring the very second that Giants' reliever Jeremy Affeldt struck out Matt Diaz of the Braves.

    3   That weather report comes to you from the kind hand of Andrew Baggarly of the Merc News. He likened yesterday's ending as "biblical". The Giants won the game, 6-3, with our young Mr. Lincecum striking out ten, and Pablo Sandoval almost hitting for the cycle.

    4   I didn't even know there was a game. I had listened to the rain delay for around three hours and finally gave up.

    5   The rain poured everywhere yesterday, plipping and plopping and floodingthe town.

    6   What a week. One day the sun shone so beautifully that my daughter Nicole and I drove into the hills and took pictures of the snow.

    7   The next two days I was sitting in 80-degree sunshine watching the waves at the beach. Somewhere in there baseball started.

    8   And yesterday, the Spring kept wanting to come back, but with little help from the heavens.

    9   I loved it.

    10  I wound up sitting around watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of the greatest contributors to rainy days since the Lord God.

    11  It was a spoof of this horrid 1975 film called Mitchell.

    12  I haven't laughed so hard in years.

    13   Here's a little taste, if you have around ten minutes. All the MST 3000 shows were pretty similar, so if you've never had the pleasure, please allow me to give you a sampler:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InHgWFrQRbI

    14  Yeah, a little dated, but still hilarious.

    15  Whoops!

    16  This may be the first PG-13 DN ever!

    17   Ah, vell. Sign of the times.

    18   Sometimes I just think the world is going to Hell in the proverbial handbasket.

    19   But at least I'm enjoying the ride.

    20   Moving on, Part the First: The irony is that I actually wrote another DN last night, but felt it was inappropriate, and so I lifted it. It was a sort of Celebrities Who Have Let Themselves Go sort of hit-piece, but I think just one Joe Don Baker film counters all the offensiveness that I had clicked out last eve.

    21   So I thought I'd take high road and just share a rainy day with you.

    22   Quite a week, overall. If I had to look back on it, it was pretty productive. While at the beach, I graded an entire set of papers, and believe it or not, I did so with a clearer head than had I sat at home with all the distractions. Getting hit in the head with an occasional beach ball does not constitute a distraction.

    23   It rather puts me in the mood for summer!

    24   Anyway, the rain is always a bit poetic, so I let it plip and plop and tickle the roof of my sunroom.

    25   Smiles all around.

    26   And I prepared enough for my classes, got a good night's sleep, and even had time to tack out this edition of the DN.

    27   Life's good.

    28   I don't mind rainy Mondays. They have a tendency to be a little laid back.

    29   So go out and enjoy the day; it feels good to be alive and refreshed.

    30   Hope you all have a cleansing and hopeful day.

    31   Awaken and enjoy it!

    32   Peace.

    ~H~




    www.xanga.com/bharrington

  •   The Frabjous History of the Daily News, and all that entails!!! SPECIAL FEATURE: the first online DN ever posted!
    Are you excited? You shouldn't be LOLZ!




    The Daily News


    1   Well, this is the last DN 'til WAY after Easter.

    2   Yesterday I realized that the DN has been going strong since 1996, when we did Guys and Dolls at YB. As the director, I wasn't quite sure as to how to communicate with the kids in Choir, Band, AND Drama all at the same time.

    3   So I invented the Daily News, based on the song Guys and Dolls from the musical of the same name. What's in the Daily News? I'll tellya what's in the Daily News...

    4   If you are familiar with the Show, you know what I'm talking about. If you were IN the Show, holla back!

    5   So the history:  I wrote hard copies of the DN every single day that Spring, posting them in the hallway in the Performing Arts building. I would stack the new one on top of the old one so people could get a sense of continuity. These were the days when people talked with one another. No blogs, Facebooks, texts, tweets, etc. Human contact, and laughs galore!

    6   Each morning, kids would flock to the really dumb meanderings of my frabjous mind, and separate the important notifications from my own ridiculous insights into life, love, and the current Show.

    7   It became something of a lark, as it is now, only it served a purpose as well. I always remember coming in with the DN, opening the door to the PA building, and smelling strong coffee bubbling on Ponch's brewer. He'd come over and talk like a drug traffiker:  "Dude. This sh#t's GOOD." I'd take a sip, and he'd nod like a guy who just gave you a taste of the best bud in Maui. I would then point to the DN and give a look back in kind.

    8   I used to LOVE posting it on the wall, and then going in to the office awaiting feedback. I got lots, and it was usually fun stuff, with the students crowding around and asking what I meant by item A, and item B. There were always LOTS of laughs, the first LOLZ!

    9   Well, time passed, as is its wont, and after a few years flew by, I attempted making a website, and then posting all my DN's there.

    10  It was the eventually useless geocities.com, but really, it was not user friendly.

    11  Still, I enjoyed putting it together and keeping up with the times.

    12  At the time, I had NO idea that I had invented blogging. Once I went online with the DN, blogs were around, but the DN was essentially a blog without the web in 1996. Perhaps it could be categorized as the world's first un-blog, but it still had the general idea and concept. But it certainly pre-dated blogs, that's fo sho!

    13   At that time, there was no such thing as a blog, a Twitter, a Facebook, a Tumblr, nor any other means of sharing info, commenting on life, or using the internet for simple sharing. There were "chat" rooms, but that was chatting, not blogging.

    14  Somewhere around 2001, I had decided that in order to keep up with technology, that I needed to create a website.

    15   Back then, MAYBE 3% of teachers had anything remotely resembling a website.

    16   But geocities was clunky, and I knew that if I could only master HTML, I would have it.  I did manage to put together a pretty fun website called ybdrama.com, which still sits in the weeds awaiting further attention to this day.

    17   It was in the summer of 2002. I painstakingly fought through the jungled mess that was geocities and built a website that still stands to this day. Although I stopped bothering with it in 2006, it rests as a sloppy museum piece. Links that were once lined up beautifully are now crooked, like an old scrapbook that has things slipping and repositioning. But if you do go there, navigate with the arrows; the homepage link to the  DN Archives is no longer active. Just poke a few right arrows, and you can get to a live link to them. Or just return here. Here is the link to the DN Archives:


    On July 24, 2002, I launched the first DN online. Here it is, in its entirety:

    The DailyNews
    7/24/02

      1   Yeesh.

      2   I just love that word.

      3   Yeesh.

      4   Ever try to do a website? It's about the most
          frustrating thing in the world, aside from teaching.

      5   Especially in midsummer.

      6   But yeah, it is coming along nicely, I think.

      7   The Chaplin stuff came in a moment of absolute
           anguish.  I was ready to tear my hair out, when
           I reached up and realized I had none.

      8   Well, the big news is that Mr. Ken Ponticelli
           is now the Band Director extraordinaire at
           Indy. Isn't that swell?

      9   Well, I take off for Jupiter in about four days,
           so enjoy this, if you actually get here. I will
           definitely be attempting to archive the DN's
           from here, as well as adding other fun stuff
           to this site.

      10 I began this entire process by trying to learn
           this ancient Egyption language called HTML.
           HTML is really simple, if you like trying to
           memorize the Koran. I learned a little, but
           did an end around, and, well, here we are:
           The very first Daily News online! Yippee!

      11  Well, gottago. Jupiter awaits. Peace.

    18   Haha. It wasn't much, but an interesting thing. I found it funny that I originally told people that I went to Jupiter each summer and couldn't be reached. That changed swiftly to Mars, since I am an Aries, and always had a connection to Mars. To this day, when I leave for my actual vacation spot in Tahoe, I'm officially on Mars.

    19   Here's the link to that page so you could see the graphics:

    20   I  had met the immortal Maggie Pham earlier in the school year, and she not only knew grammar, but also knew all things about creating websites. She steered me to some HTML sites, all of which got lost on me, but to this day, I thank her for her support and goodly manners. I eventually asked her if there was an easy-to-create website, and she looked at me like I had twelve heads. She finally said, "Do you mean like, a Xanga?"

    21   At that point, I was on the way. I began loving Xanga, because it was SO easy, and I quickly created a website for my English classes, so they could easily go to it to see homework, stuff we did in class that day, and a comment area for them to ask questions about classwork.

    22  Few used it, but that was also arguably the first School Loop. I still looked, and amazingly few teachers had anything remotely close.

    23  After many bouts with geocities' incompetence, I finally launched the first DN Xanga on May 16, 2004. I had the DN going in the hallway all that time, but it wasn't quite as interesting to the students as it had been in the golden age of the late 90's.

    24   I finally started writing the DN for alumni, and at the end of each school year, students who had worked closely with me began receiving DN's from my aol account. Within no time, I had an entire group that I cherished, and to whom I sent all things DN. I admit now that the choices of who got them was a bit arbitrary, but were people who always gave a lot to the department. I had already been mailing people the DN, but once it went Xanga, it took on a life of its own.

    25   I soon gave up on Xanga as a fancy means of communicating with the entire school, and began focusing solely on using it in its present state, which is still pretty much the same style as always.

    26   After that, I tried moving it so that it not only informed, but kept people entertained, on almost a daily basis. Well, attempted to keep people entertained.

    27   I'm glad I did, and just this year, I decided to get a Facebook, and to send the DN out to a much larger audience.

    28   I might have lost a step or two in humor and outrageousness, but the final product is what you all receive on a mostly daily basis. Yes, I always did stop it during school breaks and holidays, as well as for the entire summer, but it has now entered its fourteenth year, and is going stronger than ever.

    29   As we move to the Easter break, it's fun to think that the DN will be gone for a little over a week, but it is also a time for me to relax, to have a few icy lemonades, for me to enjoy the upcoming baseball season with my Dad, and all the rest.

    30   So yeah. That's as brief a history of the DN as I could cram into a lazy Wednesday night. I have a box of classic DN's in storage at my school. I think the oldest I have is from 1997. Posting them and sharing them would be a monumental task, and right now, I have little time even to breathe. I may cruise through them this week though.

    31   One thing I LOVE is that the DN pre-dated Facebook, and many of my readers also pre-date Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. and all the rest. Of that I am proud.

    32   The old geocities link still works, although I can't even remember how to access it, nor to work with it. I had paid for an upgrade a few years back, and they still made it impossible to work on the thing. I once tried to copy/paste the Heidi Chronicles onto a Xanga, and it took over the entire Xanga, rendering it impossible to do anything, so that website needs to be visited, but don't copy and paste stuff: it might grow! It is sort of fun to go look at it, but the very fact that I can't fix it up is bothersome.

    33   And the message board got taken over by imbeciles, of course. I don't have the patience to figure out how to go through that thing and clear it out. It did work as a sort of clunky Facebook a few years ago, and alumni did get to it, but the whole thing was like putting together an online scrapbook. It was really hard, and I simply slipped into the very awesome Xanga.

    34  Ironically, as of today, April 1, 2010, this particular Xanga has notified me of these three things:

    You have no subscriptions!

    You have no friends!

    You have no blogrings!

    35   Fine time to tell me, right in the middle of the night! Well, I say they're wrong! LOLZ.  <----------laughing out loudz.

    36   So that's a Wednesday night/Thursday morning quick history of the DN. Someday I'll try to give a more precise go of it, but meanwhile, that's about it. Here is the link to the YB Drama Workshop website, now rusting in the weeds. It's an open book, I imagine, but it might be a fun thing for y'all to goof on at work, or when you should be otherwise studying:


    37  Thanks to all of you for enjoying the DN over the years. It's the real deal, and I will be back after our Spring break, which is all next week. I hope to bump into a few of you during that time.

    38   'Til then...

    39    Live life.

    40    Love life.

    41    Peace.

    ~H~

     
    www.xanga.com/bharrington









bharrington

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories