Can I have Credit For That?

What is it with credit card companies?

I mean, how many credit cards does any one person need?

Last month I received at least twenty credit card offers in the mail. These ranged from department stores, gas cards, and the all purpose cards. They came in my name, my wife's name, my daughter's name, and the occasional offer in the business name. If I responded to each offer I would have to get a larger wallet and a second or third job. Or maybe start asking for handouts here on the blog.

I have recently been getting a lot of solicitations for oil company cards. I suppose they realize that their gas too expensive and short of taking out a loan most people need to use their cards more. I am certain that if the oil companies lowered their prices and then only sold gas by credit card they would reap billions of dollars by charging interest on the charges. After all, if someone ran up $1000.00 in gas charges and the companies charged say, 14%, that would be....let's see. Yeah! A lot. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of customers and you're talking maybe, hundreds of thousands of "a lot". And that's a lot.

Oh wait. My theory just went south. Most of the gas cards are offered by companies like Citi, GE Money Bank, and the like. Oh well! I guess I'll just keep that shredder going.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Picture Monday, September 8, 2008

I know this is not my normal Picture Monday post. This is the kind of post that happens when you're trying to get into the swing of things again and there are some really fun things going on in the news.

Recently the Waco ISD school board voted to close G.L.Wiley Middle School due to receiving an Unacceptable Rating from the Texas Education Administration (TEA) for 5 years in a row.

State To Waco ISD

School Board Meets

Board Votes to Close

Restraining Order

Board Votes Again

Judge Closes Wiley

It seems that the moment the school board voted to close the school a group brought suit against the district. If not at that moment, it was pretty close. Long story short, the district had to delay the closing for a week and then the court gave the green light to go ahead with the closure. Now to the Picture Monday part.

Below is a picture of the school that I took last spring in front of G.L. Wiley. Maybe it was a good thing the school was closed.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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On Track with Baylor Football

Had a great Saturday night.

I took my son, Scott, to the Baylor football game last night. Baylor played Northwestern State University. The outcome was decidedly different from Baylor's encounter with Wake Forest on Thursday night, August 28. Baylor played the Demon Deacons on that warm Thursday night in August and were soundly trounced in Coach Art Briles debut.Last night, Baylor soundly trounced the Demons from NSU. Looks like the Bears are 1-1 against the Demons.

Let's hope there no other "demons" lurking about and Baylor will be on their way to a successful season.

Oh, Baylor lost to Wake Forest 41-13 and then turned around and walloped NSU 51-6. Next week, Washington State in Waco. Kick-off is at 11:30 AM Central and will be broadcast on FSN-TV. See you there.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Can It Be True? I'm Back?

Can it be?

I have found my way back to the computer?

I feel like I have been in the big city and got stuck on the HOV lane and zoomed right past my destination and had no way of getting back to it.

Welcome to the first few weeks of a new school year. Yes the insanity has started I am in the drivers seat for a new school year. As you might guess, I became preoccupied with preparing for the year around the time of my last blog entry. (August 11 I think.) At that time I began going to school and preparing the classroom and getting things together. In elementary school this can take a while.

Teachers contract start date is one week prior to the first day of school for students. But when there are mandatory meetings, trainings, and open house, there is precious little time left to work in your room. y the time you are at the first day you quickly find out that you will have a "First Day" for the next 5-10 school days. This is because all of your students do not come on the first day. They will straggle in and then when it appears that you have them all, the district begins to send transfers to our campus. Our campus often receives transfers from campuses that have too large of an enrollment. Because of this the teachers often have to rearrange and change because their numbers increase.

Add to all of this the two weeks of Olympic coverage and then two weeks of political conventions and the start of the football season; and quite frankly, I was pooped.

Speaking of the Olympics and the conventions, "How about the great performance by Micheal Phelps and the great speech by Sarah Palin?" Awesome job by both!

But now I'm back with a vengeance. Maybe not actual vengeance, but I'm back and it's great.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Picture Monday, August 11, 2008

I have sad news to report today. Sunday afternoon the small kitten which Jess found in our driveway, and which Julie had undertaken the task of nurturing passed away yesterday. Julie had reported late yesterday morning that she had noticed that the kitten was having labored breathing and did not appear to be interested in the formula. It was a very sad time around the house when the little one died and it hit Julie very hard because she had devoted the the most part of the last four days to its care. I know that it is no consolation to Julie now, but I was very proud of her for the love and care that she gave the kitten. I know that even though the kitten died, its death was much easier than if it had been left to the heat and other dangers.

In honor of this little one, I have posted a few pictures of some of our other beloved pets that we have "lost".

The two pictures above were of Snowy. He was our Maine Coon Cat that Julie got when she was in the first grade. He died 3 years ago.

The two pictures above are of the three ducks that we got several years ago at Easter time. The two darker ducks died after several months. The yellow duckling was Ferdy. She grew up to become a beautiful white duck. Ferdy lived for more than a year but died shortly after we moved to Waco.

This picture was Molly, my Black Lab. We got her as a pup in Dickinson. She saw many moves and was a trooper. She passed away after 14 years.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Here We Go Again

Well, you can tell that school is getting ready to start. At least I can tell! Even though my contract start date is August 18th, I have been to school several times in order to get my classroom ready. Because of this I have recently had less time to blog.

At the end of school teachers generally have to "disassemble" their classrooms and put things away. One never can tell what might happen to things, especially if your room ends up being used for summer school or workshops.

This week I had to rearrange the tables in my room because they were used for training in another room. The tables that were returned to my room were not mine. They were the wrong size and had to be adjusted for my little ones. It actually worked out for the best though. I now have tables that are a uniform size and allows me more flexibility in arrangement. I also got an extra table and ended up making a listening center.

In addition to the extra time at school I have been having to get my materials ready. And yes, for a kindergarten teacher that means a lot of coloring, cutting, and laminating; and then more cutting. After all of this then I have to go back to school and put away, arrange some more, decorate the room, and generally try to get as much done as possible.....Because, Meet the Teacher Night is on August 19th. That's right, the second day back. So that means that I will need to get my roster as quick as I can (normally the Thursday or Friday before we report for work) so that I can prepare for the parent's.

And so begins another race that lasts for 36 weeks; some long some short, but all of them fulfilling.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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