The streets were filthy. It was not uncommon to see drunk people passed out. There was one such person passed out on the walkway to the New York, New York hotel who actually had a beer can resting on his neck. One of the most obvious things we noticed was a lack of police presence. Back when Vegas was booming you would see them everywhere.

Although we did see a pair of officers rousting a guy dressed in a Lugi suit. This kind of pissed us off. The guy was out there trying to make a few bucks taking pictures with tourists and they made him move on. I couldn’t help but think, “Lugi is clearly causing more harm than the passed out drunk down the street.”

Sheri and I also discovered that our tolerance of cigarette smoke has dropped very low. It was bad enough that we did no gambling. We still had fun. We got to see Penn & Teller again (still the best show in Las Vegas). We love people watching and took two really long walks down the strip. Went to the absolutely fabulous Mob Museum. Had some great food and managed to not miss any exercise days.

Now it is off to Universal Studios where we will be meeting with more friends and family. We are happy to be out of Vegas and probably won’t go back for awhile. When we do we probably won’t be staying at the MGM which was truly an awful experience. Between the noisy early morning renovations, the noisy couple having sex next door (the walls are paper thin. Here’s hoping they fix that in their renovations) and the really uncomfortable bed I rarely got any sleep. Okay that isn’t totally true. I never sleep anyway and the couple having sex amused me. Still, you get the point.

I went to a book signing in San Francisco and I can remember wanting to ask a thousand questions. I barely got out the word, “hi”. This might have been the one and only time I can ever really remember being in awe of someone (I am sure if I ever meet David Brin again he will get a chuckle out of his celebrity status). Later that same year I met Harlan Ellison but five words out of his mouth cured me of the celebrity thing forever, “kid, you’re in my way.”

I later went onto managing a bookstore where I was able to meet many authors I greatly admired. They were all celebrities to me and they were all human. This goes for every actor, sports star, artist, musician, etc, I have ever met. They may be talented but they don’t have super powers. We forget that sometimes. There is a whole industry built up around glorifying, raising up, and then tearing down celebrities. I wish we could resist.

I was really sad this weekend when Whitney Houston died. I am not a fan of her music. It doesn’t matter. I was sad because hers was a life of constant struggle and torment. A life full of bad habits and bad people. She was human in every sense of the word. She came packed with all of the frailties of the human experience.

My sadness grew when it took no time at all for the jokes to start circulating. Cruel malicious attacks on someone who had just died. I couldn’t help but wonder, “why is this okay?” Is it because she is famous? What a load of crap. Her fame should have nothing to do with the world practicing compassion. She had a family. She had friends. She had a daughter.

I wish people would take a moment and think about what they are saying or writing. What if it had been someone in your family? How would the jokes sit with you then? Someone being famous does not put them outside of the realm of compassion. They are just human beings. The same as us. They need privacy and laughter and friends and hugs just like I do. Maybe someday we will all remeber that.

I was trying to plan a trip in April to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary when the thought popped into my head,”Why not London?” We only have a week in April but I couldn’t get away from the idea that we are always talking and never doing. Then a stoke of luck happened and an audit of our school district found a whole lot of “misplaced mone,” we haven’t had a raise in over four years and I think the district was quite embarrassed they had been sitting on a large chunk of change. They decided to pay it out as a one time bonus. Suddenly I had money I wasn’t expecting. I did what any rational person would do. I bought 2 plane tickets to London.

Then began the search for a place to stay. I scoured the hotels and wasn’t really finding anything which floated my boat. We decided to do what we always do when we go to Maui. We rented an apartment instead. Even there we had several heart breaks and close calls. We found a really nice place in central London. The owners agreed to a price we could live with and then proceeded to ignore my every question and email. This did not give me a warm fuzzy so we backed out. We settled on a nice apartment down by the Thames River in Chelsea. It was a little farther from the middle but a short walk to the Sloan underground and we will be in the thick of it. Plus, I will get to jog in Hyde Park and along the river.

Now we are well and truly into the planning. We have only a week so we want to make it count. The thing is Sheri and I like to travel a little chaoticly. So we will probably just make a list of the things we want to see and then go wherever we feel like going on a particular day. We did buy a few theater tickets. We are going to see Ghost, Matilda, and Zach Braf’s new play, All New People.

We are stoked and can’t wait to get there. I have already had several of my Twitter friends talk about meeting up with us and I can’t wait to meet them. Sheri and I love exploring cities. When I was in London last time I was just a young college kid who really didn’t have a clue. This time will be a blast. Now, we just have to watch the calendar until April 6th. It’s going to be a long two month.

This has been a tough year at work for me. I have a lot of mean kids in my class. They are all perfectly lovely to me but taking every opportunity to slam a shiv in their friends and classmates back. It has really taken a lot out of me, including a little of the joy I normally feel about teaching. It also has not been going particulary well at my school this year with teachers. The climate is bad and I seem to be one of those people everyone likes to tell their problems to. It has been wearing me to a nub.

Throw in my disappointing weight gain over the last two years and my life was waiting for a match to spark the inferno. I think I am through the worst of it. I have tried to avoid all adult contact at work. Which, truthfully, is the way I like it. Even as an adult I seem to not like a lot of teachers. The irony of me being a teacher has never been lost on me or Sheri. I have gone back to doing what I am best at, teaching kids. Now, if I can just find a way to un-mean some of my students. What I wouldn’t give for a nice pill (which I must admit I would slip into a few of my colleagues drinks).

As for the weight gain I have reversed the course. I am not quite back to where I was but I am in striking distance. I have to lose only 2 more inches. This week I will hit my 90th straight day of at least one hour of exercise. I am eating better than I ever have in my life and my blood pressure has clocked in at a startling 114/76.

Which leaves only one last thing to get back in order. It is time to finish editing. I have readers who are waiting for the third book and I feel bad for leaving them out there hanging. I feel good and I can tell my brain is back where it should be. So it shouldn’t take long. Plus, I have a ghost story that can’t wait to be written. The one piece of good news is that I got a lot of reading done to rejuice my brain. I have read about 25 books in December and January. It felt good to be reading like my old self. My writers hat is on and I will keep you updated weekly until everything is done. Thanks for being patient as I got my house back in order.

Tonight almost all the 49ers did enough to win. 49ers rookie Kyle Williams did not. Single handily costing them the game. Two fumbles ten points and the game is over. Williams will now get to go down in sports lore as the 49ers Bill Buckner. I feel bad for the kid, I really do. It takes a special kind of person to come back from this kind of devastation and I truly hope he can do it. It will be a long off-season for him.

In the meantime, I get to feel crappy just like the rest of the 49ers. Today could have been a glorious redemption for a team which has had a rough decade. Instead, they get to think about what might have been. It is why I love sports. I mean right now I feel terrible but tomorrow I get to bask in the glorious year the 49ers had.

And then it all starts over again. Like an endless loop of pain and passion. Sadly for me, I will get a few months off now. Pro basketball holds little interests for me these days. I will twitter my thumbs until the San Francisco Giants take the field and then it all starts over again. This is good, just not for my stress levels.

Growing up I was a 49er and Raiders fan. I know lots of people who only rooted for one or the other but I lived all over the Bay Area. I figured why limit the joy. Those were amazing days. Both teams were great (that is until the Raiders moved to LA then I had to hate them). Some of my best childhood memories involved sports. Sitting in my brother’s apartment watching the 49ers – Dallas playoff game in ’81. He had a tiny little TV sitting on his kitchen table. When Dwight Clark made that catch I think I may have died a little.

One of the best things about sports is the stories that form around big moments. When the Giants won the World Series 2 years ago their whole team was full of stories of players getting a second chance. Of people rising above any previous moments in their careers. I love how sports gives us heroes and villians. Gives us stories of redemption and joy. Allows us to have a few moments away from the world which can sometimes bog us down.

I was a huge Jim Plunket fan as a child. He captivated me. His parents’ story. His early failures and criticism he received for not living up to being a number one draft pick. I loved how the Raiders rallied around him and stole a Super Bowl away from the Eagles. I think this is why I love Alex Smith so much. Sports can be mean and Alex Smith has taken a shit load of crap over the years. People justify their nastiness with excuses about how much money he makes or where he was drafted. I have never cared about the money. I would rather the players make it then the owners. How much money you make doesn’t mean you deserve to be treated nasty.

I know Alex Smith hasn’t lived up to the expectations others had for him. He often gets compared to Aaron Rogers. If only we had taken Rogers. Well, let me tell you. I know football. Aaron Rogers would have failed in San Francisco. Football success is in a large part about the people you play with and the coaches who coach you. The 49ers have been a carasol of bad coaching decisions. Now we have gotten it right but amazingly Smith who used to receive a large part of the blame seems to get very little of the credit outside of the Bay Area.

For goodness sakes, the Tim Tebow circus was crazy. Tebow has been more terrible than good and yet has become a golden boy. Every time the 49ers needed Smith to go to the air to win a game he did. He orchestrated 5 “come from behind” wins this year. He won games with clutch passes. Then there was Sunday. In what might have been the greatest end to a football game I have ever seen, Smith was brilliant. Today as I looked through papers and read about the weekend it was still all about Manning and Brady. People predicting the 49ers might win against the Giants because of their defense. In spite of Smith. One sports writer actually predicting if the 49ers made the Super Bowl they would get blown out by New England because they don’t have a great quarterback.

I love it. I love underdogs the best. I will openly say I am an Alex Smith fan. I like him as a person. I think he is an excellent leader and a great teammate. I like how his team has rallied around him. He reminds me of Jim Plunkett a lot. I don’t care if they don’t make the Super Bowl. I think we are witnessing the start of something big here. I will tell you this though. I think they are going. Not just going but winning. I am a fan what can I tell you. If they do I hope everyone remembers when it is over, Alex Smith will have as many Super Bowl titles as Aaron Rogers. Now wouldn’t that be a great story.

Teachers will not be replaced in the classroom for a long time still. However, technology used correctly needs to happen now. As someone who has worked in a school district which has wasted money on technology I understand some people’s fears. This doesn’t change the fact that our students live in a vastly different world. They understand technology and thrive in its use. We can’t keep pretending we can shove the old way of learning down their throats.

I love technology and embrace using it in my room. I am a slightly above average math teacher. My true gift is language arts, in particular getting reluctant readers to read. I have sought out math lessons in the internet when I have struggled to teach a concept to my class. If someone out there knows how to do it better than I would be doing a disservice to my students not to seek it out.

Recently, I got into an argument with someone over using the Amazon Kindle in my classroom. They bemoaned the loss of actual books. Thought it was a shame students were reading on an electronic device. To which I replied, “hogwash!” Books are the delivery of words into a student’s imagination. How they are delivered there, makes no difference. My classroom Kindle is so popular the waiting list is silly long. My students like it so much they have raised the money to buy a second one. We have also convinced the school to buy us 5 more.

When I say my students, I mean all of my students. I have never found a better way to get a reluctant reader into a book. Do you know how hard it is to get a far below grade level 6th grader to read? One of the main reasons is shame. They don’t want anyone to know they are reading a 3rd grade book. They would rather act defiant or claim a dislike of reading. This just isn’t the case with Kindle. No one knows what you are reading. I have several reluctant readers who have devoured books on the Kindle. They have both already jumped a grade level and moved into harder books. You can’t get better if you don’t practice.

When it comes to reading this has been my most successful class ever. This is really saying a lot because I really am good at putting kids into books. Kids are begging to read this year. The coolness and anoymonity of the Kindle have a lot to do with this. I am glad my school has trusted me to pilot more Kindles. I would buy a class set if I could. Technology is only as good as the way you use it. For me e-readers (in this case Kindles) have been technological gold.

For those of you who are relatively new to my blog, a brief explanation of my political views. I think there are three kinds of politicians. Those who I remain neutral towards. Those who I dislike a lot and those who I think should be assigned to the 7th level of Dante’s Inferno. To be honest the third option is where I place most of the blowhards.

I have been relatively neutral on President Obama. He hasn’t been anything special. He certainly hasn’t been the greatest thing since sliced bread, which is what the demopublicans promised he would be. He’s done some things I liked. Some I didn’t and some that made me wonder if he had taken his grouchy pills before getting out of bed. Nothing which had caused a raging mad on. I remained indifferent to his general existence.

Until last week that is. Last week he signed the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) into law after threatening to veto it. He did this while saying he had “serious reservations.” I guess this was supposed to make us think, “Gee, this guy really cares.” And by really cares I mean he is willing to look the other way like some Pontius Pilate as congress (and him) strip away personal freedoms.

The law allows the United States to detain without charges or a trial people who they deem as a threat to our national interest. And by detain I mean keep indefinately in whatever hole we want to drop them down. These people do not have to be captured in an armed conflict (which is against international law by the way). We can just pluck them right off the street. No charges or trial people. We don’t have to prove a damn thing. Which, as far as I am concerned, makes us no better than any other country we critizie for human rights violations.

Now, I know some of you are sitting around wondering why you should care. I get it. Our country has done a great job keeping you afraid. The terrorist boogeyman hiding in the closet is way spooky. How is this for scary. The law has no geographic limitations. This means they can snatch up a US citizen off of US soil and hide them away forever. No charges, no trial, no problem.

Our idiot politicians wring their hands and say they would never do that but they already have at least once (that we know of under President Bush). You can bet your first born child if the law allows them to and they want to, they will. No question about it.

This is a shameful law and should have been vetoed in its current form. It tramples all over our personal freedoms and takes another step closer into becoming the type of government we say we hate. We have forgotten that every time we take away a personal freedom. Every time we act like a bully and a tolitarian because we are afraid of what terrorist might do. We have let them win. We have let other countries and other people (nasty and evil people) dictate who we are. We become what they have been trying to convince the world we are.

Shame on you Mr. President. You had a chance to be bold. You had a chance to stand up for all people. Instead you were just another coward. Bowing to political pressure. Proving what I always feared, you’re just another bozo in a suit. You don’t have to worry about your daughter getting snatched up because you are not another plebeian like the rest of us anymore. I want to feel safe but not at the cost of what makes our country great.

The healthy part of the equation is coming along but I need to get in gear on my novel. What I have come to realize over the last few weeks is I was completely frayed and fried because of work. My day job had been tearing me a new one this year. The sad part is it isn’t the teaching part, it’s the assistant principal part. I am going to seriously have to reevaluate doing it next year. I love teaching but the stress of helping my principal out is killing me. Especially this year where it seems I am being called upon at a phenomenal rate. I was basically in charge for two weeks straight. It doesn’t help that I am getting dollars on the day which makes the stress not feel worth it.

It has left me tired and all over the place. I really have used the last two weeks to get my brain back in the right place. I feel I have done that. Now it is time to get busy. I am not a big New Year’s resolution guy. I have goals I have set out to accomplish this year and I will get them done or face the wrath of my kittens (they have very high expectations for me).

First up is get the last Dark Lands book edited by the end of January. Next, will be the rewrite and edit of Keepers. Then, I will write my rock and roll ghost story. I have been chomping at the bit to write it (in fact, I spent a lot of the last two weeks working through the plot). I want to get my blog a little more regular over the next few months and of course I have to get back into my favorite pants and shirt (hopefully by somewhere around the end of February).

So my gentle readers tune in later this week for writing updates and a political blog which will surely get me in trouble. I have a whole new year to annoy and entertain. Follow me if you dare. Which you should by the way. I after all posted kitten pictures with this blog. Hard to look scary with kitten pictures.

Interestingly this last year as I felt myself start to spiral and watch the weight come back on I was able to stop myself before it got out of hand. I heard myself saying the same old things. My back hurts, my knees hurt, I get migraines, blah, blah, blah. It isn’t that these problems are not real and don’t get in the way but I have to overcome them. I cannot let them define me. I have a real and genuine fear of dying young. My father died young, my grandfather died young, both my uncles died young, my sister died when she was twenty-one (although through no fault of her own. Cancer is a beast. The men all lived unhealthy lives).

I am not going to say there isn’t some vanity. When I am fit I look good. I feel good. It isn’t the driving force. Health is and I must keep it at the forefront. I don’t know when I am going to die but I am not going to help it along with high blood pressure, weight problems, and unhealthy living. I stopped the slide this year with a simple thought, “I am writing two novels a year. I can find a way to exercise.”

Lately, Sheri and I have been completely hooked on the Biggest Loser. I have never gotten that big but the show has been an eye opener. These are people who have lost complete control of their weight. People who literally could drop over dead at any moment if they don’t get the weight off. It has been inspiring to watch them. The show is heart breaking sometimes and I have found myself crying on more than one occasion. I have heard several people talk about the same demons haunting their life which have haunted mine. I have watched some truly miraculous weight loss.

It has really kept me motivated. How can I make excuses when those people are going through hell. So I don’t. Today was the 54th straight day of at least an hour exercise. Yesterday, I finally fit into a pair of pants which signified my second to last goal. All I have left is the pants I wore when I was at my fittest. I have geeky shirts I bought in the size I wanted to be, not the size I was. Soon I will be in them too. I can’t tell you how awesome it was to get into the new pair of pants yesterday. I am almost there. It may take me 54 more days but I will get there. In the meantime, Sheri and I are working our way through all the seasons of The Biggest Loser (I have started doing all of my elliptical workouts when we watch. I kill myself with them during the last chance workouts). This is it for me. I will never put myself through this again. My choice is to be healthy. I have a lot of novels still to write.