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Gary
7/31/12
Hey, who's enjoying the Olympics this year? I usually go into them thinking I won't watch very much, and then I get hooked and wind up watching hours and hours of it. So this time I went into it expecting to really enjoy it -- except I'm not. But it's not the fault of the Olympics; I lay the blame at NBC. First was the opening ceremony. The ceremony itself was okay, certainly not on the Beijing level, but nobody expected it would be. A little too much "inside Britain" stuff that the rest of the world wouldn't understand, but hey, they're allowed. What really brought the show down was the awful commentary by the usually-likeable Vieira and Lauer. They were working from a script that sounded like the worst Macy's parade ever. Then add to that the fact that NBC edited out one entire segment of the ceremony. Remember right in the middle when they went to Ryan Seacrest interviewing Michael Phelps? Well, while we in America were watching that, the rest of the world was watching a spectacular musical tribute to victims of terrorist attacks in Britain. Why did NBC pull the plug on that? They said, "It wasn't tailored for the U.S. audience." Whaaat? No other part of the ceremony was "tailored to the U.S. audience" either, but none of that got censored. Imagine if the Olympics were here in the U.S. and there was a segment on 9/11 -- and British TV cut it because it wasn't "tailored to the British audience." We would be all over them... Anyway, if you want to watch the segment that NBC thought you didn't need to see, click here. Oh, and also, NBC has jammed the competitions with commercials -- it's like watching an evening of commercials with brief interruptions of sports...
New subject: Remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that filming had finished on The Hobbit, and now the footage was being made into two movies? Just today director Peter Jackson announced that they're actually going to make three movies. That's right, The Hobbit is now a trilogy to be released in the next three consecutive Christmas seasons. You heard it here first! Woo-hoo!
And yes, today was my last day at the State Patrol. Don't really have anything lined up right now, right away. I'm going to play it by ear for a little bit, but I'm thinking I'll end up at Doane next May for the 1 year certification program to teach high school social sciences -- history, economics, sociology, psychology & geography. The program is just a year for people with a bachelors in a teachable category (like Electrical Engineers need not apply as that's not something taught K-12). I have a few classes I need to bulk up on in the meantime, but I'll figure that all out in the next week or two. At first I'm just going to enjoy the last 2 weeks of summer with the girls. I am in line to sub at LPS, and I think that will tell me a lot about teaching--before I start the program. If I hate subbing, then I'll know not to go back to school! I just know I was tired of state government, tired of the Patrol, tired of a lot. Rather than drudge on & be miserable, I made a change. It was bittersweet b/c I loved the people I worked with, and the work itself, but that isn't all you need in life. Criminal Justice was never the path I intended to take & when I was hired it was for the research part of my background, then the 3 years later law got changed & all the sudden my job changed, a lot.
Happy Friday!
And before all that Romney had already made several other unbelievably arrogant (almost racist) remarks while on British soil, remarks that caused a lot of British jaws to drop. Speaking of the British and himself (as opposed to Obama) he said, "We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage" -- and that "the White House doesn't fully appreciate the shared history we have." He went on to say that "traditional alliances don't mean as much" to Obama. The BBC said, "If he's here to make friends, he's got a funny way of showing it."
Next he's off to Poland and Israel. What could possibly go wrong there?? :-)
In other news, I see that Penn State's insurance company plans to back out of their coverage, on the grounds that the University failed to disclose the situation to them. With the civil lawsuits against Penn State just beginning, this could cost them some serious money. Boo-hoo.
Oops. Forgot! New page up now. Thanks for the reminder! --Gary
P.S. Watch the screen closely and you'll see that the cat is actually racking up points every time she catches the dot. :-)