"Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

My apologies to Dr. Martin Luther King but I am done entering grades electronically for my students thereby finishing my accountability piece for my lovely district and going on holidaze for two weeks! His statement (R.I.P) is what I cathartically felt once my boy Billy and I went to lunch. What to do, what to do? I'll tell you what I did: Firstly, I bought the new Arcade Fire's The Suburbs. I purchased this fine piece of music from a generous gift card one of my students gave me as a present. How grateful and cool is that? There are 2010 top whatever (pick an integer) lists from reputable journalistic organizations that I take with more than just a grain of salt (I have no time to listen to all this good stuff) and by looking at different lists I try to choose the ones that have overlap. The aforementioned CD was just that. It made the top 10 in different lists. Not quite the wall of sound of Neon Bible packed with their orchestral instrumentation nor as sparse as Funeral (I like this better than Neon Bible actually), but still sonically righteous with some well crafted songs. That's how I'm going to start my celebratory two weeks work-free (committing some luxuriating, mental time to absorb some music audiovisually)! I'm also committed to finish reading The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. Usually don't read fiction but sweet Melissa loved this book so much I gave it a try and was hooked as well. Seems if I don't finish reading a book/novel on a long-ish break, I feel as if I didn't accomplish it properly and without quality.

Started Friday morning witnessing our stove piping, coming undone, and laying against our living room wall. I only noticed it after I started a fire (we have a very long stove pipe that goes into the ceiling, that's why I thought everything was normal visually) and the smoke started diffusing slowly into the room. Stopped everything put it in arrested development and went down the hill to finish entering grades. Melissa researched where I could purchase some 6" diameter, 24 gauge steel, black stove pipe and told me where to purchase it on our way home. The representative at Ace Hardware was helpful and said I probably saved three to four hundred dollars by getting it done by myself as opposed to the shysters (fireplace repair businesses, meant that in a non-denominational sort-of-way) that work locally here. It was fairly easy just some drilling, screwing, malleting, cutting of metal and eye-balling a straight line (well, four out five ain't bad).

Now, I'm figuring out how to get some riding in in weather above freezing temps. In the meantime, I'm putting in quality treadmill time preparing for a half-marathon that I'm tentatively going to attempt come June in Steamboat Springs; and, trying to figure when the first ski-action of the season's going down. Not bad options actually for the holiday minded. Oh yeauh!!!!

I'm tapping this out listening to Noah And The Whale's The First Days Of Spring-another excellent CD (a burned CD from a colleague-thanks James!). Contemplative stuff, kinda spatially-dark sounding too. The guy's baritoney, amateur-sounding voice adds to the darky aura of the music.

Give these two a listening to. I wouldn't steer y'all wrong.

Ite den y'all I'm off to:
-ride.
-read.
-ski.
-listen.
-converse.
-nap.
-eat.
-hangout with familia.
-fight the battle of the bulge (am I missing anything? probably).