Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics is my favorite event of the year. Congrats to the sophomore class for winning this year's edition. How about the teachers taking 2nd place? YEAH! Looks like Emily W will be doing a lot of mowing for Mr. Allision this coming spring!

For pictures of the event, check out this Sun-Gazette page.

Which picture is your favorite? I like the one of Mr. German celebrating after he knocked Jonah out of musical chairs.

"Feliz Navidad!"

Last week, I participated as a vocalist in the faculty chorus at the holiday band/chorus concert. What a great event! I had a great time singing, but I was even more impressed by the talent displayed by all the students. It's nice to see such wonderful people doing such wonderful things on stage.

Keep up the great work!

Metro-Doom!

At the beginning of the year, the Minnesota Vikings were favorites to go to the Super Bowl. Now, the team is 5-7, their quarterback is injured, and their head coach has been fired. Today, following a major snow storm, the roof of their stadium, the Metrodome, deflated. This seems representative of the entire season, as both their team and their stadium has now collapsed!

Watch amazing video of the Metrodome's roof deflating.

Rattlesnake Roundup

This is a little nuts (and scary)! Don't watch if you don't like snakes.

Rattlesnake Roundup

South Students Caught on ESPN

I was watching the Little League World Series (Europe vs. Mexico) while visiting with my parents this afternoon when I spotted South's Sarah Kistner and LeAnn Paternostro on TV. They were all decked out in purple Europe garb and had their faces painted. Congrats on your 5 seconds of fame ladies!!

I Heart Boston!

This weekend my wife and I and my sister Jackie and her new fiance Jason visited my cousin Kimberly and her husband Josh in Westborough, Massachusetts, which is about 45 minutes soutwest of Boston. We spent Saturday in Boston taking in the city and many of the historic sites. The Revolutionary War started in Boston and many important events leading up to the war occurred there as well, such as the Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, and Paul Revere's midnight ride. While there we saw a Revolutionary War re-enactment in Boston Commons, caught a festival in Little Italy with some amazing cannolis, and saw a street performer who could contorted his body to fit through a squash racquet, juggled a running chainsaw, and juggled knives on a 12-foot pole. Boston is a fantastic city with a great blend of modern skyscrapers and historic brick buildings, markets, and cobblestone roads. It definitely ranks among Chicago and Washington DC one of my favorite U.S. cities. On Sunday we drove a little further to Salem, Massachusetts where the Salem witch trials occurred. In this town, 20 people were wrongfully convicted and executed for witchcraft in 1692. I found the all the witchcraft stuff to be a little cheesy, but it was still a neat seaside New England town. We ended the day by traveling to Marblehead, MA for some spectacular ocean views (see photo) and a great seafood dinner.

In other news, I was washing my wife's car Thursday night before we left for Boston. I was hurrying to finish before dark when I jammed my middle finger into the gas cap door. The next morning the bright purple color and some x-rays confirmed that my finger was broken. Thankfully I don't need a cast, but my finger has to stay in a wrapped splint for a month. This will surely slow up the summer projects I am racing to finish, not to mention my typing.

It's almost Little League time. Maybe I'll see some of you at the parade on Thursday. Sorry this was so long Christian!

First Friday

Did you know about First Friday? I just heard about it myself and my wife and I took advantage of a beautiful evening to go check it out. On the first Friday of every month, all the small businesses in downtown stay open until 9:00. There are street musicians and bands, street vendors, lots of people. My friend Karl just opened a coffee shop, called Alabaster Coffee Roaster & Tea Company, on Pine Street. He purchased the former Coffee and Tea Room. So we went downtown to check out his new shop as well as the other festivities. I had a fantastic time as my wife and I literally ran into dozens of friends and acquaintances from high school, church, work, and even South High's very own Marissa Gonzalez and family. Check out the next First Friday when it happens on September 3rd!

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Lauck!

I spent the past 5 days in Pittsburgh celebrating my brother-in-law Brian's wedding, which occurred on Friday, July 30th. It was a great time had by all, with the exception of a few last minute glitches (such as a photographer who didn't show up for the ceremony and a missing table at the reception), but all was well in the end. Quite frankly, I'm exhausted, but the entire weekend was a lot of fun. We're happy to have Brian's new wife, Jen, in our family. For me, that means I now have a fellow in-law to experience the Lauck family with. I've waited 5 years for this day! Finally another "outsider" is living among my in-laws.

As a funny side note, my wife's name is Jen and her brother just married a Jen. There has already been some small confusion over this matter, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. Again, welcome to the family Jen and congratuations to the bride and groom.

(p.s. My sister Jackie just got engaged too, so I get to experience this all over again next summer. Yaaaaaaaay!)

Exciting Week

What a fun week this has been! On Monday I drove to Denton, Maryland (about an hour from Ocean City, MD) to visit my old college roommate and the best man in my wedding, Brian. I haven't seen Brian in over a year and half, so this visit was long overdue. I had a wonderful time hanging out with Brian and his wife. He took me canoeing at the state park near his house and then we went to Dewey Beach in Delaware for the rest of the day.

Then, after returning home on Wednesday, Mrs. Rodgers and I traveled to New York City to celebrate our 5th Anniversary. 5 years--it sure doesn't feel like I've been married for 5 years. What were you doing 5 years ago? Think about how fast 5 years passes. While in New York City, we saw the major sites--Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, FAO Schwartz, etc. We also saw John Mayer playing in Rockefeller Center as part of the Today Show. Later on, we caught Sheryl Crow playing near Central Park for CBS's Early Show. We finished the day with a Broadway show. We saw Memphis, the story of a white radio dj who starts playing black music in 1950s Memphis. Words can't describe how good it was. It was excellent and was definitely the highlight of our trip! The Big Apple was fun, but it's sure good to be home.

(Sheryl Crow performs at Central Park. Mrs. Rodgers and I wait outside Memphis theatre.

Above: Mrs. Rodgers poses on "The Top of the Rock".)

Thunderstorm

Now THAT was a thunderstorm!!!! Wooo! Talk about lightning! I love thunderstorms, as long as no one gets hurt of course, and THAT was a good one!

I Just Had a Party In My Mouth!

Summer = Grilling. It's one of the best parts about summer really. Last year, my wife saw somebody grilling peaches on tv, so we tried it. Amazing! If you've never eaten a grilled peach before, well then you just haven't lived. This is a great summertime dessert.

It's best to use peaches that are already ripe or maybe a little over ripe. Carefully peal the skin off of the peach being sure not to bruise the fruit. Cut the peach in half and remove the pit, again be sure not to bruise the fruit. Then get that grill roaring. Bring it up to a very high temp--maybe 300-400 degrees--and then back the heat way down as low as you can so that the peach will cook slowly and thoroughly. Peaches have so much natural sugar in them that the sugar will actually carmelize when it is slowly cooked, making the peach even sweeter. Cook about 7-10 minutes per side, add some vanilla ice cream in a bowl and I promise your mouth will be partying too.

That's right, you just cooked...well, grilled, with Mr. Rodgers.

Visit from Friends Young and Old

This weekend was wonderful! My wife and I lived in Manassas, VA for the first three years we were married. While we lived there, we became very close friends with three other young couples who were near our age. They all came to stay with us this weekend. So, we had 8 adults and 2 children (ages 2 and 3) staying in our house. Thank goodness the heat wave broke! We enjoyed playing with the kids--Kailey is feeding Aaron imaginery picnic food--playing some ladder golf, which I made myself, and catching up with the people who are still some of our closest friends.

Heat Wave

Okay, I love summer. I really do--this is my favorite season. But this is heat wave is a ridiculous, crazy kind of stupid! It's 8:00 in the morning and tying my shoes just made me sweat. Yep, just sitting in my house sweating at 8:00 AM. This is going to be a great day!

Independence Day

I love the 4th of July! It's definitely my favorite holiday of the year. What's not to like about it? Grilling, swimming, volleyball, warm evenings, and things that explode. I LOVE IT! I celebrated the holiday with my wife's extended family in Wellsburg, WV which is about an hour west of Pittsburgh. The fireworks weren't as good as Williamsport's but they were MUCH closer which made them really really loud, and I liked that.

Hope you all had a nice 4th of July. Keep having fun, safe summers! And stay cool in this heat!

World Cup Fever

Do you have World Cup fever? Were you jumping around your house when Landon Donovan scored the game winning goal last week? Then watch this YouTube video of America's reaction to Donovan's goal. It could have been you. The Americans were knocked out of the World Cup on Saturday, but the legacy and memory of this goal will carry on.

Some of these clips from personal homes were probably staged, but my favorite is the shot of the crowd of people watching at a TV in a store window in New York City. Great goal; great video!

(PS I promise I'll stop blogging about World Cup soon...promise.)

Proud Work

My wife and I are investing a lot of energy into home repairs/renovations. Just recently, we finished updating our downstairs bathroom. Mrs. Rodgers did most of the work on this, but I helped out by doing some plumbing work as well as tiling the floor and setting the toilet and sink in place. It looks great!

Then, last week I built a fence around the vegetable garden in our backyard. Our neighborhood is home for lots of rabbits (and when I say lots, I mean it's not unusual for there to be 3-5 rabbits in our yard at one time) who like to jump the fence and eat our vegetables as they grow. As a result, I ripped up the old fence and built this structure in its place. This fence is 3 feet high (twice as high as the old fence) and I buried the chicken wire 1/2 a foot under the ground so that rabbits will have trouble burrowing under it. Yeah, it's just a fence, but every once in awhile, when you finish a project, you can step back and very proudly say "Yeah, I built that!" It's a good feeling.

In other news, remember when we made 3-D maps of Africa and you had to identify Victoria Falls? Check out this video of "the most dangerous swimming hole on Earth" where people are swimming on the edge of the falls. This is nuts!!!

Hate the Drama, But I Love the Yanks!

Did you see the goal? Landon Donovan's rebound goal in the 91st minute that put the Yanks, as the world has nicknamed our US National Team, into the knockout stage of the World Cup. Excited? You know I am!!! I was literally sitting in my living room with my head in my hands, thinking hope had run out on the US, who had to win to advance in the World Cup. Then, out of nowhere the US converted a 4 on 2 break for a goal with only 3 minutes remaining in the game.

The drama for the US team these past 2 weeks has almost been too much. First there was the high profile matchup against world powerhouse England. Then, the US came from two goals down to tie Slovenia 2-2 (and would have won if the referee would not have made a REALLY bad call that cost the US what would have been the winning goal). Next, today's game when the US scored the winning goal with just 3 minutes left. Up next for the US--Ghana in the first round of the knockout stage. (Saturday, 2:30) Will you be watching? You know I will be!!!

(Photo credited to Matt Bonesteel, Washington Post Blog)

America's reaction to the Donovan goal!

BP Oil Spill Graphs

I just saw this graph on CNN.com and found it amazing. This is a great look at just how big and costly the Gulf Oil Spill has been. Of particular interest, check out how much money BP makes each year, as compared to how much money they have currently spent in cleaning up the oil spill. Very interesting.

Click here for CNN graphs.

Excellent Showing

I had a great time today with the Junior High Boys' Soccer Team as we watched the US World Cup game at my house today. 10 players showed up to watch the game and saw the US tie England 1-1.

What a great showing for the US! England is one of the strongest soccer teams in the world and it shows how soccer has matured in the US that we can go toe to toe with one of the world's most storied soccer countries. People may say that the US got a lucky goal to tie it. Yes, it was a terribly lucky goal, but the US had many chances in the game, and probably had the best chance of the second half when Jozy Altidore hit the post after it was deflected by England's keeper. In that light, the US could have won. As a result of the tie, the US and England both get 1 point (team's get 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss). The two teams with the most points after 3 games advance to the second round. The US plays again Friday morning versus Slovenia. So, the fact the US tied mighty England and got a point is a victory. I know that sounds weird, but it's a good thing. The US has shown it is a force to be reckoned and that it can hold its own with on the world stage.

Summer Vacation--Day 1

It's good to finally be on summer break!

Today I sanded, stained, and painted various pieces of molding for a bathroom we are finishing at my house. I also made a huge trip to Lowe's for some supplies I need for a garden fence project.

How did you spend your Summer Vacation Day 1? I hope you all got off on the right foot.

End of the Year

I can't believe the year is almost over. It doesn't seem like it was all that long ago that we were all in the computer lab together and you were first learning how to blog.

Don't forget to study for finals! They are important.

I'll continue to blog about my summer break, so stop back every once in awhile to see what I'm up to. Then leave me a comment. I'd love to hear about your breaks as well.

Have a safe and fun summer break!

Unrest in Jamaica

"Jamaica Unrest Prompts Tourism Worries" -- We just reviewed this today in class!

Movie Under the Stars

South Williamsport Junior High School celebrated its first ever "Movie Under the Stars" event Friday night. Approximately 50 students showed up to watch Night at the Museum 2, which gathered the most votes during the previous week's survey.

Thanks to the members of Junior High Student Council for planning this event, and to Mr. German for his tireless popcorn-popping efforts.

Should we do this again next year? Give your feedback.

Wiki Survey

Please don't forget to complete the wiki survey. I am still looking for 34 more responses. It will only take a few minutes. Only complete the survey if you are in one of my current 7th grade classes. Thanks!

Click here to go to wiki survey.

Reading Project at Kindergarten

Mrs. Geise's advanced reading classes acted out children's stories for the kindergarten classes at Central Elementary. The teachers in both the 7th grade and at Central were very impressed with the students' effort and enthusiasm, as well as the ingenuity of the sets and wardrobes. Here's a quick look at the rehearsal and performance of three reading groups.

Google in China

We've talked a lot in class about how China is changing. Here is another example. Because China is a communist country, they censor much of the information that the public has access to, meaning people in China don't have access to all information. They only see what the Chinese government allows them to see. As of today at about 3:00 pm ET, Google announced that it has stopped censoring the Internet in China. Google is no longer obeying the Chinese government and people in China now have access to information that they could never see before. Who knows, they might be reading this blog right now. It will be interesting to see how the communist Chinese government responds to this event.

Read this CNN article to find out more about Google in China.

Ready -- Set -- DODGEBALL!

Let's just say it--I love the dodgeball tournament! What a great turnout of players, spectators, teachers, and parents last night. I had a great time hanging out with everybody.

Congratulations to the Smurfs, who captured the title with a come-from-behind victory over the Ronald McDonald Gang.

Here's a quick tournament summary:

First person out in tourney -- Austin B.

Last person out in tourney -- Quinn K.

Man of the Match -- Nick M., who was 1 vs. 4 in the final match but still led his team to a win

Most likely to be first person out -- Ryan D.

Most likely to be last person in -- Anthony C.

(Final three categories as voted on by...me.)

Can't wait 'til next year, but until then keep the duck, diving, and dodging alive.

Kissing Daisey Mae

Oh gosh, where do I begin? 2nd place; the silver medal! I have so many people to thank. First to my mom and dad--thanks for all the love and support you've shown me through the years. And to my loving wife--where would I be without you? I'd like to thank Mrs. Rosamilia and the Jr. High National Honor Society for making this event possible. Thanks to Sabrina and Kiersten for talking me into doing it. Thanks to Jen for calling a penalty on my first kiss (above) so that I had to do it a second time. And to Miss Horner for actually winning so that I only had to kiss Daisey on the cheek. Most of all, thanks to all my fans for voting for me!

In all seriousness, it was a good event and I'm glad some money was raised for a good cause. I'll be sure to post what charity Miss Horner selected when I find out.

People wanted to know how it was. Well, lets just say I'll be looking forward to more of this in the future. (below)

Earth At Night

As promised to my 3rd period, here's a shot of Earth at night. It's very easy to see population density this way.

Chile Earthquake/Hawaii Tsunami

Have you been following the news of the earthquake that happened in Chile this morning? The earthquake was a magnitude of 8.8 (Haiti was a 7.0). According to ABC News, the Chile quake was 64 times more powerful than the one that hit Haiti one month ago. Click here to read more about the Chile earthquake.

To follow up this event, tsunami warnings have been posted for Hawaii, and it appears as though a tsunami (tidal wave) is definitely going to hit Hawaii within the next hour or so. I find it amazing that an event in South America could effect Hawaii. That's over 6,000 miles away! (See map below.) Even more amazing is that they are able to track and predict that a tsunami is about to hit Hawaii. They have even predicted the earliest possible minute that the tsunami could hit, which is 4:05 pm ET.

Continue to follow the events in Chile and Hawaii as they occur.

Snow Day x 2 = Long Weekend!

Hope you all enjoyed the back-to-back snow days. Enjoy them now because we just lost two days off of our Easter vacation. I'm also sorry that the Dodgeball Tournament has been postponed. Listen to announcements to see if it will be rescheduled.

Things you should know:

1. The Unit 7 Map Test will take place either Monday or Tuesday, depending on when I can schedule computer lab time to complete the oil economy project.
2. Speaking of the oil economy project, you will only have one more day in the computer lab, so make sure your graphs are finished.
3. Boys & Girls Varsity Basketball teams will play Saturday, February 27th @ Milton. The Girls Varsity Team will play Mount Carmel @ 12:00 noon, and the Boys Varsity Team will play Line Mountain @ 1:30 pm.
4. Finally, don't forget to blog, but if you're reading this then..........right.

See you Monday!

Jr. High Valentine's Day Dance

Thanks to all who came to the Valentine's Day dress-up dance on Friday. Thank you to all the chaperones who came as well.

Congrats to the 7th and 8th grade prince and princess!

Here's a look at some of the the best...and worst...from the rest of Friday night. I'll let you be the judge...

Yell Blue--Blue!

Shots from the Jr. High Pep Rally.

I never knew we had such outstanding hula-hooping talent at our school.

And whose that cool guy filling in on 1st Trumpet?

No Mo Snow!

Are you enjoying the snow? I'm thankful that we only got 3-4 inches. My sister Jackie just sent this picture from Manassas, Virginia where my wife and I used to live. Who'd have thought I'd move north and see LESS snow?! They just received over 20 inches of snow for the SECOND time this winter! That's crazy!

I blame the groundhog who saw his shadow this week. Stupid groundhog.

Too Good For Drugs

I'm too good for drugs too! I enjoyed having Mrs. Drick in my room today as we learned how to deal with stress in our lives.

What are you guys learning from the Too Good For Drugs program? Is this a program we should continue for future 7th grade classes at South?

Welcome Back!

Well, we are back, and it's time to get back into the swing of things. I hope you all enjoyed your vacations. I know I did! I got to spend time with a lot of family and friends, some of whom I have not seen in quite awhile. I also spent 3 days remodeling our downstairs bathroom, had my first Rock Band experience (I played the guitar part for Nirvana's In Bloom), and watched Dear Ole State hang on to beat LSU in the Capital One Bowl (talk about nerve racking!).

We'll pick up right where we left off with South America. We're shooting for a unit test on Tuesday, 1/12/10. The 2nd marking period ends in less than three weeks, so please get back into a schedule with homework and studying (maps!). Some of you still need to complete some blogs before the marking period ends as well. There is plenty to do!

I am excited to see you back in the classroom tomorrow! Lets get 2010 off to a good start!