I've put off doing this because I wasn't quite ready.

In 1996 I lost my father. He'd had multiple sclerosis for decades and we knew he was going to go, but it still hurt—more than I expected it too. I still think of things I would like to tell him, just for a moment forgetting he's gone. You've heard the cliché about not appreciating someone until they're gone. Well it's true. I miss him.

When I got the news that President Reagan had died, I realized I felt the same way as when my father died. Ronald Reagan was the first president I ever voted for. It was the primary when he ran against Gerald Ford. I met him during that campaign, across the street from John Ascuaga's Nugget in Reno, where he made a campaign stop. When he lost to Ford, I reluctantly voted for Ford. I was thrilled four years later to vote for him again against Jimmy Carter. He was a wonderful president to have for the next eight years.

I will miss him.

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I've had several interviews at various schools for next year, but as of this moment I'm still at my old school, where I definitely don't want to be next year.

When I got to school Friday, I found that I had forgotten my keys, which I needed to turn in so I could check out for the summer. I also had an interview for ten o'clock, which I scheduled at that time so I would have time to attend the faculty meeting first. Well they delayed the faculty meeting until 9:30! I told my supervisor I was going to go get my keys. I called my son, Charlie so I could get him to meet me half way, but he decided to come in to see the latest Harry Potter movie. It worked out well. By the time I was done, he'd arrived, so I was able to get my keys and check out by one PM.

Yesterday we loaded up my daughter, Valery's things and they headed back up to Idaho. Her father-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew, having come all this way, had to cope with record heat all day as they helped load.

My daughter-in-law, Jessie finally passed her last test, the math portion of the tests. Since her kids score higher in math than any other teacher's in her school, it just goes to show that's it's not content knowledge that's important, but knowing how to teach! People used to realize this. Now everything is the teacher's fault, despite that fact that the teacher is probably one of the most powerless to change the real problem, which is discipline!

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The pictures are of Space Ship 1 (SS1) It will most likely become the world's first private space ship on June 21st!

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Almost in space! 

SS1 Landing 

White Knight carrying Space Ship 1 

Just after landing SpaceShipOne on May 13 flight. Pilot Mike Melvill describes the experience while Scaled Composites chief Burt Rutan and crew chief Steve Losey listen. Note color stripes on leading edge of wing to measure aerodynamic heating on the craft's thermal protection system. Scaled Composites

 

SpaceShipOne with tail section feathered into position above 200,000 feet on May 13 flight. San Diego is at left, Santa Barbara is under the left wing and Edwards Air Force Base is at right/center. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

 

View from back seat at top of SpaceShipOne's climb, flight 14P. Pilot Mike Melvill is at controls of the private spaceship. Note bright sun cast on interior while black sky is seen out top, right and forward windows. Image Credit: Scaled Composites

 

What a day we had yesterday! Last Saturday we were walking through Sears in St. George and saw a sale on a floor model refrigerator. Since we weren't happy with the used one we had purchased from a friend, we decided to buy it, and since my wife, Jane had informed me our dryer was not working right, we bought a dryer too.

Yesterday we drove the truck up with the old refrigerator and dryer to drop them off at Deseret Industries. They told us they didn't take appliances anymore! Now we're eighty miles from home with no room in the truck for a new refrigerator and dryer. Needless to say we were not happy. We called everyone we knew, to see if anyone wanted them. No one was home. It was Memorial Day weekend so I guess everyone was vacationing. Jane's sister Carrol was the only one we could find and she didn't want them.

So we started the drive home to drop off the old junk so we could drive back and pick up the new stuff. Jane remembered that a coworker mentioned she was looking for a used refrigerator, so she called her and she had us stop in Mesquite so she could look at it. She liked it and said she wanted it, but we had to wait for her to get off work.

No one wanted the dryer so we found the Mesquite landfill. I assumed as a non-resident, they would charge us, but the man said we couldn't dump at all. I gave him our sad story and he let us in to dump the dryer.

By the time we did that and ate lunch, one of her male co-workers showed up and helped us unload, in the process the fridge whacked me on the ear and the hearing aid, being a hard object, caused my ear to bleed. It looked worse than it was.

All the way back to St. George we went, but at least it was only forty miles instead of eighty. Of course on the way home the vent I bought for the dryer blew out of the truck, so I had to pay more to replace it here in Overton.

I interviewed for a science job at MV High Wednesday. I was told I was the only applicant and that she would make her decision Friday. On Friday we had a staff development day and all the teachers who were leaving went to their new schools. I was very uncomfortable planning the next year when I didn't even know whether I was going to be there. Finally I called to see what the status of the position was, but they'd already gone home. I'd been so busy I didn't realize how late it was. So, I still don't know the results

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Here is the actual test vehicle, the Ascender. The full article is here 

Dark Sky Station 

Airships to space! This is very cool! 

Richard Biggs died yesterday morning 22 May 2004. He was Dr. Franklin on my favorite television show, Babylon 5. 

I was very pleased when I found my car had run flat tires on it. Until I realized the extreme disadvantage of run flat tires--they run flat! Since they run flat you don't realize you have a problem until you notice an annoying rumble and stop to see what is wrong. By that time your tire may be ruined. Mine was. So we had to go up to St. George to get it replaced, then we did a little shopping, then a little more shopping, and a little more. We spent way too much money, of course and blew a whole Saturday afternoon. Oh well.

Somebody tagged all over my classroom Thursday. I really chewed out my class, and then someone pointed out that I'd had the camera on. I just finished watching the tape. I didn't fast forward because I was afraid I'd miss it. So I watched the whole hour. Of course it was right at the end of class when I spotted her. It was not someone I would have expected, so I was surprised.

My daughter, Valery is moving out with her husband and her daughters Saturday. I'm going to miss having the grandkids around. But they have to have their own life. It will be nice to have the house back, though.

I've really got to stop doing these in Word. When I publish them there is always something I've got to fix because of Word's special charactors.

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Well, I finally got my son Rick's slide show of Grandma and Grandpa Spencer's 50th anniversary video finished and I've burned ten video CD's plus ten CD's for the computer with the slide show and a screen saver. Now I'm using my daughter's portable DVD player to record onto video cassettes. It's almost the same as the one Rick did for the anniversary party except I added two pictures; one of my late cousin Tiffany, because Rick didn't have one at the time and one of Grandma and Grandpa at the end just because it seemed like the right slide to end it with.

This new slide show program is really nice. It's by Anix software and it's much improved over the last one.

I'm listening to LDS President Hinckley on BYUTV at the priesthood anniversary meeting. He's really, strongly, admonishing young men to shun tattoos and respect young ladies among other admonishments. He says his language is plain and he's speaking bluntly. Well that's what a prophet does, isn't it?

I'm stunned! After the end of the priesthood meeting they talked about Southern Virginia University. Apparently it's an LDS university. Hmmm, never heard of them before!

Mark and Valery will be moving to Idaho within two or three weeks. I am going to miss my granddaughters.

I got a hold of Sony tech support to get the final word on the double flash on my camera. There is a common misconception that the double flash is for red eye reduction, but it's not. When red eye is on, my camera has a triple flash, when off it's a double flash. Imagine my surprise when the tech support person had the same misconception! He/she was absolutely no help, none, nada!

I ordered a little cheap slave flash. I'm going to see if it works. I'm almost certain it won't, but I want to make absolutely certain. If it does I'll save a lot of money. If not, I'll have to buy the more expensive units that can be set to trigger on the second flash.

Oh, the school countdown! 15 days!


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I've been fooling around with the settings of blogger. I like the new look.

Richard's main page

Richard's main page

We were watching "Second Hand Lions" on DVD. That is probably one of my favorite movies. It's great. We watched the commentaries afterwards. That movie almost didn't get made. Why is it that studio executives always pick crummy movies and the really good ones seem to get made only with great difficulty.

I'm going to shop for some new phones. Only our cordless phones are loud enough when three or more phones are off the hook. I couldn't hear my son, who we called in
Argentina today, except on the cordless.

Nineteen more school days! I hope I can find a more convenient school for next year.

I tried to burn an album to a CDRW because Rhapsody Music Service doesn't include the track information in their burns, so what I've been doing is burning a CD then ripping it to MP3's then burning it again which includes the track information. So I decided to use a CDRW so I don't waste a disk. I used the only CDRW I had, the one that came with my first CD burner. I realize now that it's at least five years old and that may be why the first five tracks were unplayable. I ended up buying the first five tracks again. I sent a message to Rhapsody so I hope they credit my account.

It's hot! Summer has come early. I'm going to have to train myself to get up early and go to bed early to beat the heat. Better yet, I could spend my summer writing inside instead of working and spending money on the yard.

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Thursday I interviewed for a position in a brand new school and the interview went really, really...
...bad. I didn't feel good about it at all. Not one bit. They told me they'd let me know by Friday. They didn't, but so what? I know it didn't go well so the answer is no. It would have been nice if I'd been able to go right down the street from my daughter-in-law Jessie's school. I've felt bad about it ever since, until today, when Jessie got a call telling her that a position was opening up in (Joe) Bowler Elementary in Bunkerville. She also mentioned a position might be opening up in Virgin Valley High School, so perhaps there's a reason the interview didn't go well.

My son Charlie has a concert coming up and they're supposed to dress in costumes for the movie "Newsies." We picked up some clothes at Deseret Industries and he looked so good in the costume, he wore it to work last night. He even wore it without the suspenders to church today. His boss said the girls who came in to the theater really liked it.

I have a fluorescent street light I put up, but it stopped working. I assumed the bulb was out so I went and bought a couple, all the while complaining about the expense. How it's not cost effective to keep buying bulbs when they cost more than the electricity I'm saving by using the fluorescent. When I went to replace the bulb I noticed the old one was loose--yes, it was fine, it just needed to be screwed back in. Oh well, I won't have to buy bulbs for a long time.

The school countdown: 24 days!

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I started a class last week so I again have little time. I'm counting down the weeks 'till schools out, then I'll have more time, yes!

I love spring, the garden's up and we're starting to get food out of it, especially asparagus. I started a bed a few years ago and I've been adding to it every year. This year has been great! But I think it's about played out for the year. Next year though it's going to be even better!

I just purchased the Babylon 5 fifth season. It was on sale so I snapped it up. I don't have the fourth season yet, so I want to wait to watch the fifth.

I got this from jerrypournelle.com

"From a US Marine, LCpl Ryan Christiansen, asked if he was concerned that a ceasefire would allow Saddamite forces to regroup:

'I really don't care; they're all gonna die.'"