Come on Down!

So I was watching the Price is Right early this morning... (it comes on at 9AM here...) and at the end of the Showcase Showdown I spotted an unusual sight... A "Flat Stanley" on the podium during the showcase:

Sign Spinning

So there a new trend emerging in advertising (at least here in the Valley and other major US cities) called "Sign Spinning".  The concept is relatively simple.  Give someone $10-$20 an hour to stand on a street corner and hold an arrow sign pointing to your business.  But it seems to have become much more than that.  The Spinners (as they are called) have learned elaborate dance moves and tricks with these signs to get your attention while you are sitting and watching them and not the light that just turned green in front of you.  So the moves have become more and more complex and the competition between these spinners ever-greater as those with the most attention getting moves and tricks can command the best paying positions with a potential to do it full time and earn as much as $2000 a month...  (and to think I decided to waste all those years in college!)

McDonald's has even made a series of TV commercial for Phoenix advertising their sign spinners advertising their coffee... Its advertising featuring advertising... go figure:

Here are some youtube videos of the sign spinners in action:

And here is a short documentary (6 minutes) on the sign-spinning culture in southern California (where like many things, it all began):

Cat in a blanket

So the other day I went upstairs and there was a big lump under my blankets... what could it possibly have been?   Why it was Snowy hiding under the covers taking a nap!  Naturally I had to disrupt her sleep to take some pictures...

How many folks does it take to move an 11' tree?

Apparently more than 6...  So I spent the last 3 1/2 hours this morning watching these folks trying to move one of the trees across the street where the last houses here are being built...  The poor tree is on life support after these Do-it-yourself landscaper wannabes manhandled, ripped, pulled, and shredded this poor tree to its last limbs....

After 2 hours of digging and pulling with their suv they got the tree out of the ground and onto their mini-trailer:

The tree was in the hole in front of the foundation by the white barrel:

Then they tied some sheets together to try to cover the tree up...

"The sheet don't fit.... go get me another sheet!"

Oh hey!  lets use pink hair spray to make a sign on the back of the sheet so people don't hit us...  Umm... What should it say???  "Caution" perhaps?   OK... C-A-T-... Umm how do you spell it?   Why did you write some scribbles and then "Cat?"   Isn't that how you spell it???   ::Sigh::  You're and idiot....

Uh oh... the tree is starting to fall off the trailer... go get another sheet....

Meanwhile daughter #2 has died in the back of the SUV from heat exhaustion while the other 5 try to figure out how to get the 4th bedsheet attached to the tree to hold it down...

"Dude, this is really ghetto, even for us..."

"Seriously Dad... this is the worst vacation ever..."

So after 3+ hours they drove off with bits of the tree being ripped off on the asphalt as they disappeared.... R.I.P. tree...

Little Bedroom on the Prairie

So I got the wall in my bedroom painted this weekend.  I painted it "Prairie Grass" as the folks at Sherwin-Williams call the color.  I think it is a very calm and relaxing neutral color for the bedroom.  I once again taped off the three windows over my bed and did a paint 'frame' around them to make it easier to paint around them, and that was probably the most challenging and time-consuming aspect of this room was carefully taping off around those windows to get straight lines and clean edges on the paint...  And then still going back to do touch-ups...

Here is the paint sample card next to the final color...

And here is the painted wall:

Super-Obama!

Check out this great new video from the funny folks at JibJab.com:

Another awesome Jack's commercial

Here is the Jack In The Box commercial for their awesome Mini Sirloin Burgers... they taste great and have a great song for them too... Like the Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwiches they come three to a box... Watch and enjoy!

Project Complete

Ok, well 99% complete... I have finally finished painting the living/dining room in the house (except for a few small touch-ups) The Copper Wire & Bolero Red go very nicely together and the 'framed' archways with the white paint turned out very nice... Im just happy to have all my furniture back in place so I can sit down and watch TV again!

The dining room wall:

The dining room, stairs, and entryway to the kitchen:

The wall between the kitchen & foyer (kitchen on the left, foyer on the right)

The dining room from the living room:

The living room room from the dining room:

Best Burger Dance

So today I went to Jack In The Box with Jenna before taking her to the airport and tried out Jack's new Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwich.  You get three of the mini chicken sandwiches in a box and they were super-tasty!  However, the one thing better than the food is the song that goes with them...  Jack's has this new ad campaign with a song and dance to promote this new sandwich and it is sweeping the nation (or at least the parts of the US that have Jack In The Box...)

Here is the original Jack-In-The-Box commercial:

And here are some videos made by other folks who have caught the Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwich craze:

Here's another video:

And this one proves you can do the dance in your underwear:

And here's the Spanish version of the Jack's commercial, its really bizarre to listen to:

Work in Progress...

Well I have finally settled on colors for the Kitchen and Living Room.  Thanks to the suprer helpful folks at Sherwin-Williams at 59th and Northern, I have selected Bolero Red for the Kitchen and Copper Wire for the living room.   However, the sample cans only go so far so I went back this morning to get more (much more) paint to keep on painting this weekend.  But here is what it looks like right now...  Its a complete and total mess with tape and ladders and painting stuff everywhere but it does give some idea of what the colors will look like...

Here is a picture of the Bolero red over in the kitchen (the picture is a little dark)

Here is another picture from the kitchen (this one gives a better sense of the color)

Here is the Copper Wire in the living room with my wall sconces back on the wall to see what they would look like with the color behind them:

And here is the mirror in the Foyer with the Copper Wire on the wall behind it:

And here is the kitchen and what I have painted in the living room & foyer from the sample cans, as I said, it is a work in progress...

I will continue painting tonight and tomorrow and hopefully will have these two rooms done by Sunday night and then I will try to post the finished product.

A new perspective

So I decided to check my ladder to see if it would be possible to paint the window alcove in the stairwell, and while up on the ladder I got a new perspective on my home that I had not seen before...

Here is the ladder fully extended and in position:

Then I climbed up and looked down, way down to the first floor below:

And then looked out that high window and saw the 'poop room' from the outside for the first time...

And I also saw my roof line and neighbors house... how cool is that???

Telling time

So my big IKEA clock is now hanging up above the stairwell.  It was not easy to get up there but thanks to my trusty adjustable ladder, it was done in about 20 minutes...  It is it perfect view of my desk when I am in the office loft working on some important work...

Looking up from the stairwell at the clock:

Looking at the clock and desk area from the hallway:

Color Splash

So I have finally begun painting the white walls in my house.  thanks to the helpful folks at Sherwin-Williams, I got three free quart size samples of paint to begin painting with...  I'll have to go back tomorrow to get more but I got a start on painting in the guest suite this afternoon and got a little dirty in the process:

And here is a (small) preview of my work in the guest suite...  I like the 'frame' around the window...  A little trick I borrowed from a good friend :-)

Very Cool Commercial

In the last few weeks there have been several new commercials advertising the new 2010 Toyota Prius. Yet these commercials feature the Prius driving through imaginative landscapes made up of people... People as grass, trees, clouds, the sun, and even rivers and waterfalls.... but how did they do this??? I found this "making of" featurette on YouTube that shows how they made these innovative commercials... it is about 5 minutes long... Enjoy!

Giant Jiffy Pop

So here are some pictures I took of the University of Phoenix Stadium (which is an NFL stadium with the naming rights bought by the for-profit University of Phoenix).  The Arizona Cardinals play here and the 2008 Super Bowl was held here.  This stadium is about 5 minutes north of my house.  I think it looks like a huge Jiffy pop popcorn pan when the kernels pop and inflate the foil...

The stadium as seen from the AZ 101 Loop Freeway:

Up close near entrance #3:

Entering the floor of the stadium from the "tunnel" during the 8th grade Career Day field trip in April:

Trading Spaces

So I have survived my first year of teaching and now I am making the move from 7th and 8th grades to 5th grade next year... A new grade means a new classroom so I have been hard at work moving all of my stuff down the hallway to my new room.  Just when I was ready to just put things in the cupboards for the summer I am now starting again from scratch to get my classroom ready for the next year...

Here was the front of my old room from this year:

And here was the back of my classroom from this year:

And now I am down the hall to start all over again... here are all fo the desks and chairs piled up along the north wall of my new 5th grade room:

And here is the west wall of my room (the yellow will be repainted this summer).  You can see my new teacher desk and the computers in the back of the room...

And this is the south wall of my classroom with wall to wall storage:

Once I get everything done in the classroom I will take some more pictures so keep checking back here often!