Paul’s Infrequently Updated Blog

Since I started working for Gering Public Schools, I have made it a habit every year to attend graduation. The reason I do this is because I now teach seniors and so I want to say farewell and wish them all the best as they begin their adult lives.

The weekend of graduation is always pretty busy because, here in Nebraska, it is very common for graduating seniors to invite their teachers to their graduation parties. So this past weekend, I attended about twenty five graduation parties. I do actually enjoy attending these and I have decided to attend each and everyone that I am invited to. Of course, I cannot spend very long at each one and, after a while, there is only so much food, drink, and cake you can have so at the later parties you just go and say hello and congratulations.

I do think the students appreciate  when you attend their events and, for them, the graduation party is the very last event of their high school careers. A lot of teachers don’t go to the graduation events they are invited to or only attend a few, which I think is sad. If a student invites you to their party, then you should go. They expect you to be there and it means a lot to them if they see you there.

Yesterday, I went to the Swimming Pool Operators class held at the Harms Technology Center here in Scottsbluff. The great news is that I did pass the class so, in a few weeks, I should get my license in the mail. They thing I did not like about the class is that it lasted from 6pm until almost 11pm and I got home very late. I am very much a homebody so I did not like spending Monday evening attending this class. At least now I have got it done and the license is good for two years.

As for the swimming pool itself, we finally managed to get most of it drained. When I first started work on the pump, it was a cold, wet day and I felt like that everyone in their townhouses was watching me trying to get the stupid thing to work. It took forever to get it working, but I did finally make it work. The one problem is that it spent all day Saturday pumping and got about a third of the way done when it ran out of gas (it is gas operated). We had to go to Menards to get a gas can and then fill it with gas and I had to go through all the problems of restarting the pump. I finally got it to work and got most of the water pumped out of the pool. Trouble was that the last foot or so of water would not pump out so the guy who I rented the pump from had to come out and sort the problem out.  After he came, it took less than an hour to finish the job. So the water is pumped out and now the pool is empty.

I have gone down to the bottom of the pool and removed the old drain cover. As I expected, the cover is not compliant with the new federal law, so we have ordered a new pool drain cover that meets the new federal regulations. I ordered the cover from the same store that rented me the water pump. I have to say that the pool supply store in question has been very helpful. It also helps that the people who own it are the parents of one of my 9th grade students.

The Swine Flu Panic has finally reached my school district. There have been lots of stories in the news about schools closing because one or two of their kids have caught Swine Flu. I thought that closing school for days at a time for what appears to be a pretty minor ailment to be totally excessive. The bad news is that the nonsense has now infected our school district.

This past week our schools were closed for three days because a student in the middle school may have caught Swine Flu. The big deal with this is that we now get the days added to the end of the school year and we lose the teacher breakfast that is held at the end of each school year. This is a big disappointment as I was really looking forward to the breakfast. I  just think that the dangers of Swine Flu have been overstated and the whole thing will blow over in a few months.

Today we took the tarpaulin off the swimming pool in order to start getting it ready for the summer season. This year, I have a few reservations about working on the swimming pool.

The first (and big) issue is that there is a new federal law in place that says pool drains at the bottom of the pool must be fitted with a pool drain that meets a particular standard. So, before we can start getting the pool ready, I will have to drain the pool, remove the current filter cover, and then have one ordered that complies with the new law. I have to say that this is a lot of extra work for which I am not being compensated and which is not a part of my contract.

I have had to call around and found that a local company here in Scottsbluff will rent me a pump to drain the pool. I had thought that you could just use the swimming pool pump to drain the pool, but I have found out that pool pumps are not designed to drain the water out of the pool. Sometime next week, I am supposed to get this pump and get it working so I can take care of the issue.

The other thing I am not totally happy about is that I need to have a Nebraska Swimming Pool Operator’s License. This would not normally be a big deal since the town house association where I live will pay for the class to get the license, but the issue for me is that I have to go to this class on a Monday night and stay until at least 11pm. I think having to do something like this on a school night when I will be already tired is going to make me very unhappy. I suppose that if I have to do it I will do it, but it does not mean I am very happy about it.

I have not really talked about this before, but we are going to Ireland at the end of May. I think the dates are May 27th to June 10th. Irene keeps asking me about making a list of all the places I want to visit while I am in Ireland. The problem is that I am having some trouble thinking of places I would like to go visit.

While I do like to travel, I have to admit that I have never had a desire to visit Ireland. So beyond visiting the Post Office Building in Dublin (where the Easter Uprising occurred in 1916) and visiting the Guinness Brewery there is not really much else I would like to go and see. It’s so bad that I have had to look through tourist guides to see if there is anything I might like to visit. I have never had this problem before and I am struggling to come up with a list of places to visit.

In truth, the whole point of the trip is to meet Matthew’’s parents. It has been two years now since he died and I still think of him every day. Hopefully, we will also get to see Layla and Annau.  If I get to meet/ see everyone I will be happy. There is also a chance that I might get to see my old friend Anthony. I knew him back when I was at Salford and I have not seen him since 1995. Since I last saw him, he got married and now has a family. It would be good to catch up with him too and see what he has been doing this last 14 years.