Ahh, back from a fantastic weekend in San Fransisco. Drove up Friday w/ roomates RD, RH, and BL and crashed at RD's girlfriend's place in San Jose. Sat. morning got up and tourned around the Bay Area, saw the houseboats in Sausalito, drove on the touristy "really windy street", almost bottomed out RH's Intrepid on the steep hills, etc., and basically killed time until the Bridge School Benefit concert Sat. night. Amazing lineup- Vanessa Carlton, Foo Fighters, Tenacious D, Ryan Adams, LeeAnn Rymes (no idea how to spell that... not a big fan of hers) Thom Yorke, James Taylor, and Neil Young. All accoustic. Highlights were Thom Yorke playing radiohead tunes from Amnesiac plus 2 new songs on Neil Young's old upright saloon piano... pretty amazing. Also, Neil and James dueting on "Heart of Gold", which I think is one of the best musical moments I'll ever have a chance to witness.

Back in the grind today, was initially reeling from a rotten Friday, where my ineptitude with the school's grading program caused all of the kids to get the incorrect grades on their report cards, which fortunately was remedied quickly by some really fantastic folks in the counseling office who saved my sorry ass. Passed out the corrected report cards today and had to give the "I didn't give you the grade, you earned it" speech about a million times in response to kids who didn't do so well because they didn't, say, turn anything in. Fortunately things went pretty well today despite not really having much planned out before about 5:39am this morning. I'm learning to use my drive-time very productively.

Today's fun moment- Stopped for the first time to get gas in the neighborhood where I work, realizing at last that it's $.20 cheaper than it is in El Segundo. Went inside to pay instead of getting hosed paying at the pump (note- many gas stations put a $50 hold on a debit or credit card you use if you pay at the pump and hold it up to a couple weeks... this has involved me needing to beg gas cards from RH to get home from Buffalo) Anyway, strolled inside and was looking around while waiting to pay, first thought about grabbing some beer, which is a thought that usually occurs to me any time I see it for sale, then noticed that they also had a very competitive price for condoms, a product not oft used in these parts, but something that generally seems way too expensive for what you're getting. A quick check of my wallet, however, lead me to scotch those plans due to lack of liquid funds. Very fortunate, because as I turned around after paying for the gas, I ran into one of my students, who was buying those damn spicy cheetos that all the kids eat. Probably would've been hard to face my class tomorrow, knowing that all of them would have certainly been throwing around stories regarding what Mr. Williams was up to with beer and condoms... very good reason not to live where you teach.