My Rules for an Art Teacher

Love Kids. Love Art. Be Bold. Respect Everyone. Think Deeply. Transcend paper cuts. Open your heart. Smile more. Go the extra mile. Rest. Play. Listen to music. Don't talk too much. Life's too short. Enjoy the moment. Do your best & Hope for the best. Be compassionate. Be Patient. Be Silly. Look. Think. Create. Try again. Re-Invent yourself. Just Start it. Keep it simple. Wing It. Make the hard stuff easy. Make the easy stuff hard. Practice. Keep your sense of humor. Do No Harm. Don't let 'em see you sweat. And most importantly, Know when to stop.

Schools closing in Georgia

I got 2 words for the county, and one of them is BITE...
When other counties close their schools, nobody reports to work. Because it's a waste of time, energy, resources and money when there is no need to do that. It's just common sense.

Today we finally got to see Mister Sun, out and about after brief appearances over the last five days. CNN was reporting yesterday that some areas in Atlanta got 20 inches of rain over three days. But of course this is CNN we are talking about here.
But seriously, 9 people died during this remarkable flooding over the last few days. Schools, businesses, major highways and interstates were shut down. At one point 200 roads were closed and 17 counties in the state were declared a state of emergency. This was way worse than any snowstorm or cold weather conditions that Georgia had ever seen. Do people still believe we don't need the government in times like this?

Anyways, I had a day off from our school district closing so I went running OUTSIDE at Silver Comet Trail. It was nice, warm, sunny and dry, surprisingly there were not many people at the trail when I went around 3 PM. There was no traffic either. Ran for about 30 minutes, sweated like a pig and almost stepped on a four foot snake on the ground.

More Proper running techniques

Here's a blog by a 46 year old David O'Meara. who runs sub 5 minute mile
http://blog.onemilerunner.com/

ATL Track Club Singleton Race Report

Tucker, Georgia, Saturday 9/12/2009

My goal for this 5 miler was 9 minute mile pace. So I finished in 44:30 which was not as bad as I thought. I've been slacking in running every day the last month or so and it affected my endurance around the 4th and last mile. The first couple of miles were fine, I tried to relax and take it easy. As fatigue set in around the half way point my shoulders and feet tensed up. Felt tight the last two miles and at the finish.

I did not have time to warm up properly because it took about 35 minutes to get there and I waited in line another 15 minutes to go to a porta-pottie and had to jog to the starting line right around 7:30. There was a spectacular sunrise around 7 AM when I was pulling into the Sam's Club parking lot, next time I should remember to take a picture. I also saw and talked briefly to Herb R., a volunteer with ATC who is featured in a profile of this month's WingFoot magazine.

My 3 things to remember when I'm running:

1) Find your center

2) Concentrate on Relaxing

3) Focus on Breathing

And of course listen to your body, keep it under control and adjust accordingly. I should try to not worry about the other runners in front of me and just think: I'm racing against myself.

West Side, Yeah boyyeeeee......

A cool behind the scenes interview with the ladies of Disgrasian, a very funny blog.

...But it's art!