Warren's Last Day of Teaching at Dayton High School

Last Friday DHS had an assembly to say goodbye to the senior class, present awards, and show some highlights of the year. Warren asked me Thursday to find some clothes for him for a dance some of the teachers volunteered to perform...some black jeans and a bright coat.

My friends/coworkers at the Ron Wood Family Resource Center gave me some great advice on which second-hand stores were the best, and what to look for.....so here you have it, some stills and a must-see video.

AND Warren received the award for outstanding teacher - the one that the students pick - the administration looks at what the students write about the teacher and note that on the plaque.  It meant a lot to Warren because the award recipient is chosen by the students' votes; it's always hard to tell if you've made a difference.

I didn't know about it ahead of time (and neither did anyone else but admin.) so I'm so glad that I was present to film the dance; the battery was dead by the time he got the award, but at least I was there, and here's a photo of the plaque.  Check it out!

 

 

 

So, here are some images from the dance part - it was a real hoot!

 

 



AND HERE'S THE VIDEO, A MUST-SEE!

 

CUT & PASTE:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1BtA7OkukQ&feature=youtu.be 

Getting Ready for the Next Big Adventure

Warren only has about 2 days left of teaching, and then one week of proctoring finals.  We have someone to lease our house (complete with cat) starting in July.  Most of the furniture has been promised to friends, and the amount of STUFF has decreased impressively.

NOW, WHERE are we going!?  We don't know yet.  We are planning to head out in July to visit friends and family in Washington/Oregon/California, and we hope to get an invitation from Peace Corps before that, which will tell us where, when, what.

BUT it's not guaranteed that we'll get an invite....we have alternative plans, although they are a bit imprecise until we know whether or not we're doing Peace Corps soon.  If PC doesn't happen, we plan to go to someplace in Latin America, probably Guatemala or Ecuador....maybe Peru.

Some of the STUFF I got rid of is lots of camera gear, mostly my Nikkon stuff.  With the lenses it was a bit heavy and bulky, and I decided to buy a super-zoom.  Not the same quality as the dslr, but there are always tradeoffs, and for now portability is primary.   VERY small and lightweight, with a 42x optical zoom, GPS, and a swivel screen (important for us short folks, especially) - 3 inch screen plus an EVF.   Also can do manual focus, and has Aperture and Shutter priority settings, various focus and exposure options (including spot, which is my favorite for far-off critters).  No RAW, but the features I looked for were the GPS (for documenting critters), decent image quality, size, zoom, and I like having both a screen and a viewfinder.

Here are some photos showing the zoom capability:

In the top one, the cup is pretty much in the center of the photo - the lower one is zoomed in (cloudy cup because it's iced).

Should be great for critters in trees, etc., and lots of other stuff.

More later - I'm getting to know about the MANY various functions.

I will post here when we know where we're going.