Teaching

Teaching
I was at school on Friday for my evening class. I had a chance to talk to my department chair about my tentative teaching schedule for next quarter. One has to remember that teaching schedules at time have all of the permanence of sandcastles that are built at low tide on the damp sand section of the beach.

So far, I like my schedule. I am scheduled to teach three classes so far. I get to teach Economics and Change, an introductory economics course, Microeconomics on Friday night, and Research Methods, a writing class on Saturday afternoon.

I will be honest and say that I am not happy with the Friday night and Saturday afternoon classes. But, on the plus side, there are very few instructors who would want to teach those classes on those times.

Hopefully, I will have my final schedule before the end of the term, for me, on November 20th.

I had to go out to school on Saturday to prepare a lesson plan setup for my substitute teacher for this Friday night. Since I am going to have my colonoscopy with full anesthesia, I don’t know if I will be able to drive to school to teach. Thus, I have a substitute teacher. She was excited to get a fully prepared lesson plan.

While I was at school, I had a chance to speak to the Criminal Justice department chair. We got to talking about having me teach some courses in the school’s new Paralegal Studies degree program. I can easily teach in that program because of my law degree. He was thinking about a morning class for the term beginning in March 2010 which will be fine with me.

University of Utah Football and other football games
It was a good football weekend for us; us being the Princes, my Brother and me.

Our Utes won another game and moved up a space in the BCS rankings to No.16 while BYU fell out of all of the rankings after a crushing loss to Texas Christian University. Utah has two more home games against Wyoming and Nevada Las Vegas before heading out on the road for games against TCU and BYU. The last two games of the season will be the most challenging for our Utes. Although, if they are able to win out. Out Utes will have a good chance to play in a very nice post season bowl game.

My Brother was happy because his University of Southern California put together a solid win at home. Next week, the Trojans will play Oregon in a Halloween game in Eugene Oregon.

The Princess was happy because the original USC, the University of South Carolina, won its game. The Gamecocks are raked at No. 23 in the BCS standings.

Lastly, my Brother and I are very happy that San Marino High School where we both played on the football team crushed its cross town rival, South Pasadena, 41 to 14.

As the Princess might say, “What lovely scores Daddy; winning is always so very nice.”


Utah Wins OT Thriller Against Air Force 23-16
A big defensive stop in overtime preserves Utah's victory.
Oct. 24, 2009
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)--Stevenson Sylvester stuffed Connor Dietz on a fourth-down quarterback keeper to preserve No. 19 Utah's 23-16 overtime victory over Air Force on Saturday.

On fourth-and-2 at the 7, Dietz pulled the ball from the fullback and tried the same play that had worked all game long. This time, Sylvester appeared in the running lane and brought Dietz down for no gain.

Dietz rolled on the ground in misery as the Utah players flooded the field from the sideline to celebrate the Utes' fourth straight win.

Dietz rushed 28 times for 98 yards, but the Falcons (4-5, 3-3 Mountain West) lost for the sixth time in seven games in the hard-fought series against Utah (7-1, 4-0), with many games coming down to the last play.

On the first possession of overtime, Eddie Wide, who had 121 yards, scored on a 1-yard plunge that was the eighth play of the 25-yard drive. Joe Phillips' kick made it 23-16.

The Falcons' methodical drives kept the clock running and wore down the Utes' defense. Air Force had almost double Utah's time of possession and outgained Utah 300-242 yards in regulation. Erik Soderberg kicked a 22-yard field goal at the end of the third quarter and a 48-yard boot with 6:29 remaining to knot the game at 16.

David Reed, who had seven receptions for 149 yards, took a slant pass, broke two tackles and then sprinted 90 yards for a touchdown with 9:39 left in the third quarter. Reed's catch-and-run marked the second-longest pass play in Utah history and gave his team a 13-10 lead.

Boo Anderson's big hit on the ensuing kickoff caused Reggie Rembert to fumble and Elijah Wesson recovered for Utah. Rembert stayed on the ground for five minutes but walked off the field without assistance. The play led to a 31-yard field goal by Phillips for a 16-10 Utah advantage.

The Utes scored on their first possession when Terrance Cain fumbled on a keeper and Wide, who was trailing the play, picked up the ball and ran 44 yards for a touchdown. Phillips pushed the extra point attempt wide right. That was all for the Ute offense in the half as the Falcons held the Utes to just 107 yards of total offense.

Underneath cloudy skies and intermittent rain, Cain was harassed all day by a blitzing Falcon defense and passed for a season-low 167 yards. Utah only managed eight first downs and fumbled five times.

In the first half, Wide was tackled and bent backward while his legs were pinned. He had to be helped to the locker room for X-rays midway through the second quarter. He returned in the second half to notch his fourth 100-yard rushing game since taking over for Matt Asiata, who was lost for the season with a knee injury.

Air Force has lost 13 consecutive games against ranked teams. The Falcons' last top-25 upset was at No. 23 California, 23-21 in 2002.

Nokia cell phone charger
I tested the Nokia cell phone charger and my solar powered radio. It appears that they will work together but the charging rate for the phone is too slow for me. I think I will take a look at a straight solar panels that can be dedicated to charging the cell phone only. If nothing else, this will give me something to do on the weekend.

Visitors
The blog is still getting visitors. We had 133 visitors who viewed 175 unique pages last week.

As with the last few weeks, we had some more visitors from Iran again. They were looking at a page that had a number of photos of young women in skimpy bikinis and that led to other similar pages. I do worry about their souls since a good Muslim would never want to look at a young Western or Asian woman in a skimpy bikini.

I would look and so would a lot of young and not so young men that I know look and that is why one of those pages draws around 70% of all blog traffic.

I wonder what the mullahs would say if they knew about this decedent, morally depraved activity.

That kind of makes me feel very good all over.


Be well an stay happy.