The Story to End all Stories

As many of you saw on Facebook last week, I had a little trouble at work this week. I figured for your reading enjoyment, and so I don't have to tell the story six million times, I will give to the story here.

The first day of school had gone pretty well, but already on Monday night I was a bit worried about Tuesday's classes. Tuesday was the day that I was going to have my choir classes, and in addition to not having a class roster, or even any idea of what period my classes were, I was a little nervous about teaching choir. When I took the job it was with the understanding that I would have small Band and Choir classes, while my General Music classes would be big. That night Beki and I stayed up really late, she was helping get my General Music lesson ready, while I worked on what I would do with the choir kids. We got to bed late, and got up early, but I was as ready I was going to get.

Second period (my first period is my prep) turned out to be General Music, and it went better than I was expecting. I had figured out that my fifth period would also be General Music, which meant that my Choir classes would be around both sides of lunch. As I went to my performance classroom (I have 2 classrooms, one with desks and one without) I was met by a large number of students lined up at my door. If you remember I said that I was told that my choir classes were going to be small, so seeing 38 students at my door was a little unnerving. While I was shepherding the students into my class the Principal walked by. I mentioned to her that this was a lot more students than I thought were going to be in choir, and that we would need to talk about how we were going to make this work. (38 students in a beginning Middle School Choir is way too many if you ask me.)

I get the kids in and seated - I don't have a class roll because I can't get into the computer system yet, so I have no way of taking roll. I started to try and get them to sing with me, but they all just sat there and stared at me for a moment before resuming their private conversations. I was really confused, and fought with them for about 20 minutes before one of them told me that they had not signed up for choir, and did not know why they were there. As it turns out, almost all of them had no desire to be in choir. My class had become the dumping ground for students who needed a class! So now, because none of them were willing to sing, I have a class full of students that have to be baby sat for the next 50 minutes.

I quickly had to scramble and go get my lesson from General Music to see if I could get some control over my students. On my way back I was stopped by a staff member who had a parent with her that she wanted me to meet. As much as I know that teachers are supposed to be all about talking to parents, I was having a total classroom meltdown, so I kind of blew them off. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was that I needed to regain control before something got destroyed.

About 20 minutes later one of the Assistant Principals came in. I was kind of happy about this, as I thought that he would help me get things under control. (The way these students work is that if they don't want to be somewhere, they will become openly defiant and hostile.) Instead he simply stood there by the door for five minutes and then left. This just annoyed me more, but eventually I got the students all on task. With about 10 minutes left in class the Assistant Principal came back in and said that the Principal wanted to see me, and that another staff member would dismiss my class to lunch.

I thought that it was strange that the Principal wouldn't wait until my lunch break to talk to me about why I had a choir full of students who did not want to be in choir, but I figured that when you are the Principal you are busy and you see teachers when you can. I was pretty ticked off when I went into her office because babysitting a bunch of students is not what I had agreed to do. To me we needed to find a way to get those students who did not want to be there out, or I would have to see if I could get my old job back.

I was totally not prepared for what happened next. "Mr. Renberg," my Principal said, "I really don't want to have this conversation, but I had another staff member come to me with a concern that you smelled like alcohol." I was completely and utterly speechless. The asked if I had taken some cough medicine or mouthwash or something that would explain it. I told them that I don't drink, to which they asked, "Well, were you drinking last night?" "I do not drink," I replied, now realizing that we were not going to be discussing my choir classes, but instead they really thought that I had been drinking!

They left me in the office while they went to call the Central Office, so I was fully expecting them to come back with someone to give me a breath test or something, but when they came back an hour later, they didn't have anyone, so I figured that I would be going back to finish my classes. Nope. They started in on me again, asking me if I was on any medication or anything, to which I again told them no. The Principal then explained how not only had one staff member voiced a concern, but that the Administrator who had come in my room had also "smelled" something and noticed that my eyes were red and I was acting irritable. At this point, seeing as they still believed that I was drunk, I got a little frustrated and tried to firmly but calmly explain that I DON'T DRINK, I DON'T SMOKE, I DON'T EVEN DRINK COFFEE...I AM A TEETOTALING MORMON!!!!!!!

Still unconvinced of my soberness, they asked me how I had gotten to work that day - Beki actually had dropped me off because Owen had a dentist appointment that day - and how I was getting home. I told them that I was planning on taking the Metro to the station where the car was, and then driving home. When they heard me say the word car, they freaked out and wouldn't let me leave the school. (My Union Rep freaked out when I told him this. He wants to go after the Administration for violating my civil rights.) So I had to call Beki - fun phone call there - and have her come and get me. While I was waiting for Beki to get there, I had to be escorted by the Assistant Principal back to my room to get my stuff, but before I could go down there, they had to move all of my students out of my room, because since I was drunk I had to kept away from the children.

When Beki got there I was still sequestered in the Principal's office, so once she found me, I had to have her find the Principal to see if she could escort us out. In the end the Principal and the Assistant Principal found us - still in the office mind you - and they received the full brunt of my wife's furry. I think it was somewhere in the middle of being chewed up and down by my wife that the Principal started to realize that maybe I had been telling the truth the entire time. So while I was still sent home from work for being drunk, there was no official discipline taken, and my Principal just wants to pretend that the whole thing never happened.

Personally, as long as my choir problem gets sorted out, I will think that the whole episode is pretty funny. As my sister Karen put it, of all of my siblings, I am the first one to actually be sent home from work for being drunk!

Honey...Get My Gun!!!

Any guesses as to what we had for dinner?

Playing catch with the Boy after playing in Beki's Staff vs. Students Softball game.

(Quick story... So we did things a little differently this year, and rather than being staff vs. students, we had captains choose the teams. Before they started picking one of the students who played last year started listing the "Ringers" so that the captains would know who to pick first. Guess who was picked first??? Of course not me...I am a Renberg, but I was chosen second! My mad pitching skills are in high demand! And of course I led my team to victory for the second straight year!!)

The Boy is not allowed to have tape...this is why.

Happy Furlough Day!!!

Furlough: (Noun) A leave of absence or vacation

So this past Monday was supposed to be the first day back at school for teachers, except that because my county spends most of their money paying people not to work, the school system is hurting for funds and has instituted 4 furlough days. It is basically a pay cut, but with one added benefit...all four furlough days are on days that were set aside for teacher in-service. In other words, I am getting paid $1,200 less this year, but in return I am being spared 4 days of meetings that I really didn't want to go to. I think that I can handle that.

Having never been furloughed before, I wasn't sure what I should do. Is this the kind of thing that you have a BBQ for? Should I make a cake and write "Happy Furlough Day!" on it? I was talking about this with Beki on Sunday night, and since I was thinking about school, I decided that I should check my school email to see if my Principals had sent me information regarding our meetings on Tuesday.

BACKGROUND INFO!!! In case you don't know about my work situation, let me fill you in. I am an itinerant Elementary Band and Orchestra teacher. What does that mean you ask? Well, it means that I travel around to three schools teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th graders how to play instruments. It is basically my own personal purgatory...hence the red font. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with working with beginners - if we didn't have beginners we wouldn't have anything later on. It is just that all I have ever wanted to be is a High School Band Teacher, and after 6 years of teaching beginners I would like a change. Now back to the narrative.

I don't check my work email very often during the summer (who am I kidding, I don't check it during the year either) so I had quite a few. Most of them have nothing to do with me, but I saw one from my Instrumental Supervisor, so I decided it was worth a read:

Hi, Chris. A middle school just opened up today - it is a band and chorus position. I know you are mainly a band guy but thought that you might be interested since you have indicated that you wish to move to a secondary position. Please think about it and let me know. the school is Drew Freeman Middle School - it feeds to Suitland HS.

The thing that scared me was that it was 3 days old...what if she had gotten tired of waiting and had given it to someone else? Then I noticed that there was another email from her asking me to call her on Monday. This gave me all night to think about it. Now, there was really only going to be one answer, and that was that I was going to take the job, but when you have time to think about things, you start to think about the kids...

I met with the Principal at 4:30pm on Monday. She looked at my resume and I got an audible "Oh, wow!" (I am pretty awesome on paper!) At that moment I realized that I wasn't here to sell her on me, I was here for her to sell me on the school. Things to know about this school. It is one of, if not the lowest performing Middle School in the district. Things have been so bad that the entire administration and 85% of the teachers were fired. The band and choir teachers were not spared because they killed the programs, and now enrollment is so low, that they can only justify one music teacher. But it is a Middle School position, and my supervisor made it clear that no one moves from Elementary to High School, so it was kind of looking like now or never.

I think I know how College Football Coaches feel when they get that job offer for a better opportunity. When you have invested a couple of years in students, it is kind of hard to be selfish and do what is best for you instead of doing what is best for the students. So I do have a little bit of guilt, but I am now the Band, Choir and General Music teacher at Drew-Freeman Middle School!

It used to be a Catholic School, hence the spire and the crosses throughout the exterior. Somehow I took the camera with me twice, but forgot to take pictures of my classroom. It kind of resembles an airplane hangar, and I am sure that it was never designed to be a band room, but oh well, it is what it is. Let's see if I can make it through the first week.

On the home front, Owen earned another potty prize. He had to poop in the potty 6 times to get this one, and he finished that on Wednesday night. The only problem was that we didn't actually have his reward yet. See, he wanted a very specific set of Lightning McQueen cars. When we were in Delaware, Keegan had a set of Lightning McQueen cars that all of the kids were playing with. Since the cars were Keegan's, he obviously played with Lighting, and so he gave Owen a yellow car named Leak Less. (Remember, these are racing cars, so Leak Less is the name of the company sponsoring the car.)

Owen was insistant on having Leak Less as well as Lightning, and we had found sets that had lots of other cars, but not the right one. On Thursday Beki and the Boy came to my school for a community BBQ, and on the way home we stopped at a Target to see if they had the set we were looking for. They had sets with Lightning and Chick Hicks, and Lightning and The King, but no Leak Less. Beki was almost at her wits end over all of this, so she practically dove into the stack of cars looking, and at the very back she found...

The pack with Leak Less

Even though it was late Owen had to play with them right away!

We also found him some Lightning McQueen Decals for his door.

I took this picture to see if you can figure out what is strange about it...

Look at the order that the cars finished the race...

How many other kids do you know that would have a car other than Lightning McQueen win the race?

(Beki did point out to me that in the movie, we never actually see Lightning win a race.)

Of course there is still much bike ridding!

Looking good!

So I have noticed that I haven't had any really angry rants lately...well, except for that entire post about PEPCO, and I think I know why...I haven't been to work in a couple of months! So don't worry, I am sure that the angry rants will be making a return!

Are You (Enter your favorite Expletive Here) Kidding Me?

I was awakened early Friday morning around 7am by what I thought was someone knocking on my door. The house was quiet and dark, so I just ignored it. When Beki's phone started to ring, I started to think that something was up. When I made it to the front door and looked outside, this is what greeted me:

Exactly the sort of thing that you don't want to see out of your front door.

As you can see, we were fortunate enough that it missed the house. "But wait," you ask yourself, "what is it leaning on that is holding it up in the air like that?

Why the power lines of course!!

I know that I mentioned in a previous post that I would rant about the great power outage of '10 at the bottom of a post, like I always do, but now it gets its own post. The problems all started on Sunday the 25th. Owen's birthday party had been the day before, and had been a great success. The sun was shinning as we drove to church, in fact Beki drove around the parking lot to find some shade to park the car under.

In the 3 hour of church, while I was teaching my awesome Elder's Quorum lesson, you could hear something brewing outside, the power started to flicker, and then went out. ("REPENT FOR THE DAY IS AT HAND," I believe is what I said when this happened.) The power was out for about 42 seconds, and then we finished church without incident.

It was on the ride home that we started to realize that something big had moved through. The closer we got to home, the more traffic lights were out, and limbs were down. Now, we have a tree out in front of our house that is growing at a 45 degree angle. How it had not fallen down is beyond me. Not only is the tree a danger of falling, but it has grown into the power lines that go out to all the houses. As we turned onto our street I was sure that it had fallen and would be blocking our house. As you know if you have read the post about the swingset, we had a different limb fall and cause general havoc in our backyard, but the Leaning Tree of Trouble remained.

In case you are too lazy to read the other post, or don't remember the carnage, here you go!

The next day, as we were assessing the damage, one of the little neighbor girls brought it to our attention that one of our neighbor's trees had dropped a very large branch, but that it had become lodged on another branch high up in the tree. It was very obvious that when this limb finally fell it could easily kill someone who was in the wrong place, and it was going to land on our power lines.

We called the power company, and our neighbor called the power company, but we were way down the list because PEPCO was busy trying to figure out how to be a public utility company. I want you to think about the longest power outage you have ever had. I remember in High School the power went out in something like 6 states at one time, but it was back on within 24 hours.

We got out our candles and the first night was kind of fun. The next morning Beki went to work, where she was able to check online and see the mess that we were in. Over 500,000 people were without power, and PEPCO had no estimated time for when things would be fixed. The result was citywide panic. You couldn't go buy ice, because the stores had no power (Beki brought home some ice packs from the lab in a futile effort to save our food) and because no one here has food storage, people were freaking out.

As I said, Sunday wasn't too bad, Monday was ok, Tuesday was survivable, but by Wednesday we had officially entered the "What in the Hell is PEPCO doing" stage. Power had been out for nearly 4 days, and there was still no sign of them fixing the problem. We had to give our food away, it was 85 degrees in our house, and we had had enough. Luckily for us, our friends were at their beach house in Delaware, so we went and hung out with them.

In the end PEPCO managed to get the power on early in the morning on Saturday, and life seemed to be back to normal - except for the fact that we had no food in our fridge or freezer, and a broken swingset to clean up. This brings us back to the Leaning Tree of Trouble, and its new friend, The Hanging Branch of Sudden, Instant, and Immediate Death! (Movie Reference...5pts if you know where it is from!) While we were in Delaware PEPCO had sent a truck around, but for some reason, nothing had been done about the tree limb waiting to fall on my head. There had been another storm that had knocked out power to the other half of the county, so we tried to justify PEPCO's lack of action as due to the fact that since we had power, they were trying to get power back to those who didn't.

Fast forward to Thursday Morning, around 7am, when I was awakened by a huge thunderstorm. As soon as I heard it, I knew that we were going to lose power. The saying you can go by is "Is it raining in D.C? If yes, then the Renberg's don't have power." Sure enough the power went out,and while we sat around to wait, our Neighbor called PEPCO and informed them again about the tree. We were only without power for 5 hours this time, and that afternoon the Missionaries came over to help me clean up the boy's swingset. While we were out working, a PEPCO truck came rumbling down our cul-de-sac. My excitement turned to horror as I watched them pull up, get out, look at the Leaning Tree of Trouble, decided that since the power was still on, the tree must be ok, get back in their truck, and drive away! I didn't even have a chance to run out front and yell, "No you stupid bastards, not that tree! Look at the one that is going to fall and kill everyone!!!

This is when I realized how everything works out here. Until it breaks completely, they don't bother fixing it. This is why PEPCO has allowed trees to overgrow all of their power lines, the Water Company waits for lines to burst before fixing them, the government waits for the housing market to crash completely before fixing Fannie May and Freddy Mac, (WAIT, WHAT?? THEY HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO FIX THEM? BUT THEY ARE THE WHOLE REASON WE ARE IN THIS MESS....WHAT THE HELL WAS IN THAT FINANCIAL REFORM BILL? WTF???)

Well guess what PEPCO, it fell THE DAY AFTER YOU CAME AND IGNORED IT! I called PEPCO 28 hours ago, but I don't know if they will come, because we do still have power...and if it isn't broke, don't fix it!!!

In the end I am starting to feel like Saruman the Wise from the Lord of the Rings. If you don't remember, he was the guy who turned his house from this tree filled haven:

Into this:

I think I get where he was coming from. It wasn't that he needed the trees to fuel his creation of a giant Uruk-hai army...he was just sick of them falling on his tower! I think I need to do a landscaping makeover...I wonder if the army comes with it...

The Power of Jazz

So I am now back up to date with my blog posts. I do apologize for the month of nothing, but I suffered from 2nd degree sunburns, and was without Power for 6 days, so cut me some slack! Even if you have read through these, you should go back, as I may be adding some rantings at a later time!

The first day after the power went out wasn't too bad. The house was still cool, and Owen had just received a bunch of presents, so we had lots to do. (In case you are wondering, I will put my ranting about the power company down in the post about the swingset...)

Here is the puzzle that he got for his birthday...there are 25 jumbo sized pieces, and he did a great job of not just grabbing pieces and trying to make them fit, but looking for clues as to which piece went where.

We went on a bit of a shopping spree when we got back from Delaware. One of the other kids there had a backpack, and Owen thought that was great, so we got him one:

He wanted Buzz Lightyear. We can thank Aunt Karen and Cousin Maddy, who had the first and second movies in the car during our trip to Utah and Idaho, for helping Owen not choose something lame!

Then we went to IKEA, because honestly, who doesn't want to go to IKEA, and we found a street mat. Every child needs a street mat.

Some friends from church invited us to a Free Jazz Concert at the local Community Centers. Owen's best friend Dean was going to be there, and they hadn't seen each other in some time, so we thought that it would be fun. The music was ok (I decided that I should be a music critic, because not only can I tell you that the band had issues, I can tell you exactly what those issues are!) and the kids had lots of fun.

Owen was quite excited for the trumpet solo!

At first I thought that Owen was making his typical "I'm not listening to you while I am getting in trouble," face, but in fact he was getting into the feel of the music.

Then the dancing began with the arms...

Then there was spinning around and around...

And then he started to put flowers in Dean's mom's hair.

This last picture is a very exciting accomplishment in the boy's life. Owen has sucked at Potty Training. He knows how to use the toilet, he just couldn't be bothered to do it. We had tried so many different things, but nothing worked. Owen's friend Dean had a chart that would keep track of the number of times he went, and after a certain number of times he would get a reward. We tried that with a pair of Lightning McQueen PJ's that Owen really wanted. All he had to do was go Poop in the potty 3 times. It still wasn't happening.

So I decided to be the meanest Dad ever, and put him back in Baby Diapers. This was the worst thing that could have ever happened to Owen. "I am not a Baby!" He would shout. Beki and I would just say, "I know, but until you decide to use the toilet, you are going to have to wear baby diapers." After a day and a half of this, as I was getting him dressed, I asked him if he wanted a diaper of underpants. "A big-boy diaper," he responded. (Meaning a pull-up) I told him that we didn't have any (what a liar I am), so he chose underpants. A little while later he was playing with his cars, and suddenly looked up, said, "I need to go potty," and ran into the bathroom. Two more trips to go poo in the potty later and....

He got his pj's! He put them on immediately. It was 10am.

I wish I could say that everything has been perfect since then, but of course there have been accidents. But the fact that something is happening is a great relief to us!

!!!Warning - Snobby Music Rant!!!

I chose purple instead of red, because this really isn't angry, it is just the truth! I bet you are wondering what was wrong with the jazz band that we were listening to. Actually, I know that you don't care, but I am going to tell you anyway, and you are so bored at work right now, that you would rather read my thoughts about a jazz band you have never heard, than do your work. I am happy to oblige!

The instrumental part of the ensemble was adequate. The sax player was quite good, I had no qualms with the drummer, the bass player was turned up too loud (not his fault), the piano was an electric keyboard, and the trumpet player started rough, but got better as the night progressed. There music selection was right on for a performance like this - plenty of standards like "Take the A-Train," "Jump, Jive and Wail," "All of Me," etc...

The problem happened anytime the piano player or her husband opened their mouths to sing. When people think of Jazz Singing they think that there is a lot of added extra ornamentation and stuff. That is ok, but there must still be a tonal center. All of the singing was always dancing around being in tune, but never got there. It was painful. Not as painful as the time there was a musical number at church that included piano, organ, and flute, but none of them was in tune with one another, but it bugged me all night.

And since I was being annoyed, I really started to pick apart their swing, which apart from the sax player, really wasn't swinging. It was about this time that I realized that I was analyzing everything, and that I needed to stop - plus it was getting late, so we went home. /end rant

Delaware!

So we have some good friends who have a family beach house in Delaware. They travel out here from Oregon every year or two, and they invited us down to the beach to have some fun! Owen had a great time, there were lots of other kids to play with, lots of sand to dig in, lots of food to eat, and lots of water to play with.

The greatest part of the trip was Jayme's Niece Morgan, she would play with the kids all of the time, allowing the rest of us some sanity time!

The air conditioner in the sun room died, which is a very unacceptable thing to have happen. Jayme found one online from Amazon, and because he is an Amazon Prime member, he was able to get it shipped overnight for $4, instead of $200. The new air conditioner arrived less than 24 hours later!

We have taken Owen to the beach quite a few times in his life, and he has never been very comfortable with the ocean. He was a little unsure at first...

Mommy tried to help make it fun...

Still not to sure about this...

If you were wondering where I was during all of this, I am the one in yellow being pulled out to see... Owen is waving to me with his shovel.

Once Owen saw Keegan (Jayme's 6 year old Nephew) playing in the water, he suddenly decided that it must be ok, and he had no problems with it the rest of the trip!

He thought it would be fun to dump water on my feet. Notice how red my knee is...it, along with the tops of my feet, were the two places I forgot to put sunscreen...Brilliant!

You can pretty much guess what is happening here...

You can't have a trip to the beach without a sand castle

The Ocean wasn't coming in fast enough, so we built another line of towers closer, so we could watch them get destroyed.

One morning Jayme and I dug a big hole in the sand for the kids to play in...

We were waiting for the Ocean to come and get us, but again, it was taking a long time, and we are not very patient.

So we went and played in the surf!

On Sunday Jayme's dad did a little Sunday School lesson about the Pioneers for the kids. They got to draw pictures, go on a journey around the house, deal with rainstorms from the kitchen sink sprayer, and have a fun time!

No trip to the Glasmann beach house would be complete without a trip to play mini-golf!

Owen got pretty good at getting the ball in the hole....by any means necessary!

Looking cool!

The Pirate Theme was a big hit!

After a fun few days in Delaware, we returned home, bringing Jayme, Virginia, and their daughter Katarina back with us. We took them down to D.C. to have a look around and to see some museums.

Another day on the train, always a good day in Owen's book!

We went up in the Old Post Office tower, it has a glass elevator!

Checking out D.C. from above!

Owen and Katarina checking out the viewa.

We went to the Smithsonian, and in the Natural History Museum they have a big exhibit all about insects...

They had this guy in a lab coat walking around telling you about everything, and then, oh by the way, he pulled a giant grasshopper out of his pocket!!

Owen was fine from a distance, but he did not want to touch it! (He gets that from his father...)

Beki, on the other hand, is apparently ok with gigantic cockroaches crawling all over her.

We didn't pay to go in with the butterfly's, but you can see them through the window!

After a morning full of looking at bugs, it was time for some lunch.

Owen wanted to be tall like a giraffe!

There were lots of animals trying to get a drink from the water...

There are a lot of child friendly exhibits, Owen could have just played with these all day.

This porcupine was particularly impressive.

There is a Discovery Room, where everything is not only kid friendly, but designed for kids to play with them.

Owen remembered these pinwheels from a previous trip...he had to play with them again!

Mommy, can't you see I'm playing here?

On the train ride home Owen had to show off by standing up while the train was moving.

Owen and his new friend Katarina!

Eventually it was time for our Friends to go home...come back again!