Top 10 Books of the Decade

I posted my Top 10 movies of the 2010s earlier this month, so now it's on to the Top 10 books of the 2010s.

10. Beautiful Ruins (2012), Jess Walter: I would call this one an epic. Walter expertly weaves together the lives of multiple characters over the course of a lifetime, with unrequited love always the driving force. Walter hasn't published another novel since this, so I eagerly await more from him.

9. A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010), Jennifer Egan: This is a brilliant book. Don't take my word for it, Egan won a little something called the Pulitzer Prize for this baby. Egan masterfully uses multiple characters, weaving their stories together to create a transcendent whole. I don't want to give anything away, but at one point Egan uses the power point format, and if for no other reason, you should read this book just to see how she pulled it off.

8. The Goldfinch (2013), Donna Tartt: At 784 pages, this is the longest book in my Top 10. Although critical reception was quite mixed, it did manage to win a little something called the Pulitzer Prize. I was very excited when the film adaptation came out, but unfortunately, the movie is no where near as good.

7. Unbroken (2010), Laura Hillenbrand: Nonfiction doesn't get much better than this. Louis Zamperini is a true American hero, and you will be a different person after reading his heroic story. Simply put, Hillenbrand is a nonfiction master.

6. Gone Girl (2012), Gillian Flynn: This book is just wicked fun. I like to think of it as War of the Roses.....on steroids.....or even better, meth.  Flynn's first two books are really good, but this one was a coming out party for a great writer.

5. Born to Run (2016), Bruce Springsteen: If you love The Boss, this book must forever live in your personal orbit. If you don't love The Boss, you should still read this book. It is one of the best looks into the mind of an artist I've ever come across in any medium.

4. Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017), Jesmyn Ward: This is an epic road novel about 3 generations and the ghosts that haunt them. It is also a searing portrait of a country still struggling to deal with its past. Ward is arguably the best American novelist of the decade. This is her second book, the other being Salvage the Bones in 2011, to win the National Book Award.

3. Killers of the Flower Moon (2017), David Grann: In the early 1920s, oil deposits were discovered on the land of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma. Grann masterfully details a series of murders of wealthy Osage tribal members that essentially amounts to a secret history of the American frontier. This is hands down my favorite nonfiction of the decade.

2. The Underground Railroad (2016), Colson Whitehead: In this alternate history infused with surgical doses of magical realism, the Underground Railroad is reimagined as an actual railroad. The protagonist is Cora, a runaway slave whose journey is a unique exploration of the foundational sin of America. This is the first book since The Shipping News in 1993 to win both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.

1. Station Eleven (2014), Emily St. Mandel: I wold call this a literary descendant of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. This is the book that simultaneously moved and entertained me the most this decade. I can't say that I remember specific details of the story all that well, but the memory of it hovers in my mind and still has the power to evoke the feeling of awe I had when reading.

Let me know what you think of my choices, and of course, I'd love to hear your thoughts on best books of the decade.

Top 10 Movies of the 2010s

End-of-the-decade lists are definitely making the rounds right now. Seems like the list makers are putting their decade lists out first, with the traditional end-of-the-year lists to come later this month.

I haven't done a Top 10 list since 2015 (to my great shame of course), but all this decade reflection has my list-making juices flowing again. I'm going to follow the trend and do my end-of-the-decade lists first, and then follow up with 2019 lists around the new year.

10. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): As a child of the 80s, of course I had watched all of the other Star Wars movies with my daughters. If I'm being honest, this really isn't top 10 worthy per se, but it is easily one of the best movie experiences of my life as a parent sharing movies with his kids.

9. Get Out (2017): Horror movies had a real renaissance this decade, with a number of excellent directors using the genre to disguise social commentary. No one pulled this off better than Jordan Peele with his masterful take on cultural appropriation. 

8. La La Land (2016): This is the first of two Damien Chazelle movies on my list. I love the look of this movie, and the music is awesome. I'm not really a love story kind of guy, but this one got me. Not as much as my daughters, who were literally bawling on the drive home.

7. Arrival (2016): Denis Villeneuve is another director who had a great decade. Here he uses sci-fi to ask one of life's BIG questions: If you knew all the bad things that were going to happen in your life, would you still go down the same path? The Max Richter song at the end of this movie is one of the best uses of music in film history. 

6. Lady Bird (2017): I feel safe in saying that Greta Gerwig's directorial debut is the best mother/daughter movie of all time. It's also one of the better coming-of-age movies. My oldest is about the same age as LB, so this was a particularly heightened movie experience. 

5. Inside Out (2015): This is right up there in the Pixar pantheon for me. Of course, watching a movie that mostly takes place in the mind of an 11-year-old girl with your own daughters, one of whom was 11 at the time, made resistance futile. 

4. Bridesmaids (2011): This is easily the most rewatchable movie of the decade. I don't even know how many times I've rewatched it, but it still cracks me up. This is also one of the most quotable movies ever made, and let me tell ya, not many days go by that I don't quote a line from this one. 

3. Whiplash (2014): This is Damien Chazelle's directorial debut and his second film on my list. J.K. Simmons gives an iconic, Oscar-winning performance that challenges viewers to consider how far people should go to achieve greatness.

2. Frances Ha (2012): I had avoided this movie for a long time. It looked too Woody Allen-lite to be honest. But thanks to a recommendation/cinematic shaming from my oldest, this was, without a doubt, the most pleasant movie surprise of my decade. It perfectly captures the ups and downs of life in your 20s. 

1. The Social Network (2010): Not only do I believe this is the best movie of the decade, I believe it is currently the best movie of the 21st century. This is that rare movie that feels more relevant now than when it was released. Fincher and Sorkin tried to warn us people. 

Let me know what you think of my choices, and of course, I'd love to hear your thoughts on best movies of the decade.

Flash Fiction

Paragraph Planet is a cool website that publishes one 75-word paragraph every day. I've been following them on Twitter for a while, and I finally got around to submitting something this summer. 

I'm proud to say that "The Raft" is featured today on the site. This piece began as a blog post here on my blog, a long time ago now. I've always considered it one of my favorite posts, so I reworked it to meet the 75 word limit. 

If you get  chance to check it out, I'd love to hear what you think. And be sure to give Paragraph Planet a follow on all your social media.

Top Ten Books of 2015

Getting a little late for an end-of-the-year list, but what the hell. I read 43 books in 2015. The books on my list weren't necessarily published in 2015, just books I read this year.

10) Shotgun Lovesongs, Nickolas Butler: written by a fellow Badger, this is an ode to Wisconsin, to friendships, to family, to women who make men better.

9) Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee: I could easily do a whole post on this one (and probably should); regardless of its literary merits and the circumstances of its publication, this book generated a lot of discussion in the Riley household.

8) The Crossover, Kwame Alexander: a YA novel in verse; a mix of rhythm and heart; a sports story that crosses over to speak about so much more.

7) 11/22/63, Stephen King: haven't read King in a long time; thoroughly enjoyed following Jake Epping on his journey back in time to save Kennedy.

6) The Book of Unknown Americans, Christina Henriquez: the beautiful, tragic, intertwined lives of immigrants with a slow burn to a devastating ending.

5) Redeployment, Phil Klay: excellent collection of short stories about soldiers' experiences in Iraq and their return to domestic life.

4) 800 Grapes, Laura Dave: great Napa Valley setting; each member of the Ford family is at a crossroads, and I enjoyed how Dave navigated the characters through their choices.

3) The Turner House, Angela Flournoy: excellent debut novel; the struggles of the Turner family mirror the struggles of their beloved Detroit, a setting that always intrigues me.

2) All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr: don't take my word for it, this won a little something called the Pulitzer Prize.

1) Station Eleven, Emily St. John: a literary descendant of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.

Let me know what you think of my choices. I'd love to hear what other people enjoyed reading this year in the comments, might give me some ideas for 2016. Your top book, top 3, 5, 10, whatever works for you.

Top Ten Movies of 2015

So yeah, it's been a while. You know, life and whatnot.

I haven't felt the urge to write anything for the blog in quite some time, but with the end of the year approaching, I've been seeing a lot of end-of-the-year lists out there. My favorite thing about the blog was always doing my end-of-the-year book and movie lists. To my eternal shame, I didn't do them last year. So with renewed vigor, here are my top ten movies of 2015.

I watched 112 movies in 2015. The first movie I watched in 2015 was Lone Survivor and the last movie I watched was The Big Short. If you're heading out to the theaters or looking for something to rent, you can't go wrong with any of these films. These movies aren't necessarily movies released in 2015, just movies I saw for the first time in 2015.

10) The Good Lie: A moving portrayal of Sudanese refugees adjusting to life in the US.

9) McFarland, USA: True story of a cross country team overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds to become a California powerhouse.

8) The Drop: James Gandolfini's last film is a worthy send-off. Tom Hardy channels Mike Tyson in this under appreciated crime film.

7) Big Hero 6: Let's put it this way. I watched this with a very tough group of 8th graders, and they were bawling, all of them.

6) Jurassic World: I didn't think you could match the scene in Jurassic Park when ol' T-rex makes his appearance, but when the new dinosaur shows up in this one, not only did I feel that same excitement, I could see it on my daughter's face as well.

5) Wild: While I would not consider myself a big fan, this is the second Reese Witherspoon movie on the list. This one was definitely overlooked by Oscar last year. Great adaptation of Cheryl Strayed's memoir.

4) Whiplash: A little movie that asks a big question: How far should we go to achieve excellence?

3) Inside Out: I'm a huge Pixar fan, and this is Pixar at its very best. And like any good Pixar movie, this one made me verklempt more than once.

2) The Big Short: Another film adaptation of a great nonfiction book. This movie tackles the complexity of the housing bubble that nearly collapsed the world economy with a wicked sense of humor. But it's smart enough to leave you pissed off.

1) Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Not many things in life surpass expectations, but this movie managed to surpass my unrealistic child-of-the-80s expectations. Starting a new chapter of this story with my girls makes it even more special.

Let me know what you think of my choices, and of course, I'd love to hear what you enjoyed watching this year in the comments, maybe some movies to watch in 2016. Your top movie, top 3, 5, 10, whatever works for you.

Z is for..........Zoo

Before I had kids I wasn't much of a zoo person. I do have a few fond childhood memories of trips to the zoo, but they're pretty faded and worn now. Way back in the recesses of my cluttered memory, I can see old Samson, the giant 650 pound gorilla from the Milwaukee Zoo.

I did work at a zoo the summer after freshman year in college. That was a wild experience, one that might make a pretty funny book one day. A coming of age story with elusive spider monkeys, wacky co-workers, raccoons on leashes, and hissing badgers. Years later I spent a memorable afternoon with Meg at said zoo. We watched in sociological awe as a family straight out of Deliverance got peed on by a lion they were harassing. Meg and I have gotten a lot of mileage out that story over the years.

We have a nice little zoo here in Tucson. You can walk the whole thing in about an hour, which makes it perfect for quick visits with the kids. When the girls were little we had a membership, and we went just about every weekend. First came the stroller years, when Meg and I could dictate the pace and enjoy some time out of the house. Then came the toddler years, when we let the girls walk on their own, herding them through all the sights. Finally, we reached the point where the girls could walk slightly ahead of us, Meg and I able to have a little adult conversation while the girls checked in with all their favorite animals.

We don't go to the zoo much anymore. I wouldn't say the girls outgrew it, but other interests have taken over. Every once in a while they'll get excited about going, maybe to feed the giraffes. I miss the days when a trip to the zoo was a major family outing. I'm sure we'll make at least one visit during summer vacation. I hope the girls will have fond memories of our trips to the zoo. I know I do.

Y is for..........YouTube.

I love YouTube. I like checking out the latest viral videos as much as the next guy, and I can't tell you how many times YouTube has bailed me out at school.

Kids, today we begin designing our catapults.

Blank stares.

How 'bout we check out a couple YouTube videos to get some ideas.

Happy shiny faces.

I don't subscribe to Youtube channels yet, but that may not be far off for me. It's quite possible that YouTube will be instrumental in how I access a large portion of my entertainment in the future.

I can foresee a situation where creative types have their own channels and you'll need to subscribe for new content. It's my understanding this is already happening, but I'm still pretty ignorant when it comes to YouTube.

One thing seems for sure. YouTube will be a big player in the entertainment world in the foreseeable future.

X is for..........Xenophobia and Xenophilia

To be honest, I was just going to skip X this year. But then something happened this morning. Every Monday I give my students a vocabulary packet, and when I flipped to this week's unit in my trusty vocabulary book I had to laugh. The words all include the suffixes phobia or philia. One of the words is xenophobia and that was my very first X back in 2011. In 2012, I went flip side of the coin and did xenophilia, a word that, quite frankly, was new to me at the time. So as I made my copies before school, I decided I wouldn't skip X after all.

I certainly prefer Xenophilia, an attraction to foreign peoples, cultures, or customs. The opposite of xenophobia if you will. I love learning about foreign cultures and customs, and some of my very favorite people hail from other countries. I may be making up a word here, but I would even consider myself a xenophiliac. 

As you can imagine, my students weren't particularly happy to see their weekly vocabulary homework coming at them this morning, but this little X coincidence put a smile on my face.

Hey, at least one person in the room was happy.

W is for..........Wisconsin

Arizona is a fairly transient place, not a lot of born-and-raiseds. Talk with someone long enough and the question of where you're originally from comes up.

That's always been a tough one to answer for me. My family moved around a lot, but I guess when it comes down to it, I consider myself from Wisconsin.

When I tell people I'm from Wisconsin, a cheesehead reference soon follows. Which is cool. I am a cheesehead.

But there's more to the story. I lived in four Wisconsin cities, and each one left its mark, making me the person I am.

Port Washington is a small fishing town on Lake Michigan. My childhood there was idyllic, very Tom Sawyer. I remember summer days waking up before the sun, heading down to the creek (very definitely pronounced crick) for full days of fishing.

We moved to Appleton when I was in 4th grade. Appleton is where the hormones kicked in and girls started to matter. Appleton is where I met friends that have stayed with me over miles and years.

Green Bay was only 30 miles north from Appleton, but when we moved there my sophomore year, it felt like another planet. Green Bay is where I learned to fit in again, miraculously finding people who got me, and still do. I graduated from high school in Green Bay, and I suppose one never forgets that.

Madison is a college town, and a great one at that. Madison is where I figured out who I really was, wanted to be, the place where I started to become a man.

Port Washington, Appleton, Green Bay, Madison. All these places are Wisconsin. And when I tell people I'm from Wisconsin, this is what I mean. I haven't lived in Wisconsin for a long time. Nearly twenty years now. But these places remain, they are in my blood.

V is for..........Vomit

Way back when, the girls had a sleep over. There'd been a lot of junk food earlier in the day at Quinn's end-of-the-season soccer party. We made the mistake of taking home a nearly full tub of Red Vines. Over the course of the night, the girls polished that baby off. At the time I didn't think much of it. I mean, sure, it was ridiculous for 4 girls to eat that much licorice, but not unprecedented.

Of course, every time I saw Quinn grabbing a bunch of Red Vines, I assumed she was just being the considerate young child I know her to be and sharing with the other girls. Umm, not so much. Turns out the other girls weren't that into Red Vines, so Quinn took advantage and ate the whole lot. Even when we figured out that she'd pulled one over on us, I kind of had to chuckle.

My attitude radically changed around 4:00 the next morning when those Red Vines exacted their revenge. Quinn woke us up to tell us she had to throw up. We tried to get her into our bathroom, but it wasn't to be. Quinn puked her way to the bathroom, leaving a remarkably vibrant red trail. After pretty much emptying the contents of her stomach on the carpet in our bedroom and the tile in the bathroom, Quinn informed us that she had thrown up in her room as well.

There was so much vomit in Quinn's room, it was a small miracle that her friend was untouched. We moved the girls out to the living room and feebly attempted to clean up. I tried the stain remover we had in the house, but to no avail, those stains weren't going anywhere. Meg and I finally gave up and went back to bed. We'd been talking about replacing the carpet in the bedrooms anyway, so we figured this had to be a sign before drifting back to sleep.

We still haven't replaced the carpet, and by now we barely notice the red spots anymore. Actually, I kind of like those red stains now. They crack me up. Parenting is a funny thing. It can turn a night of prolific vomiting into one of those family stories that will stand the test of time.

U is for..........Undefeated.

Undefeated is a brilliant documentary about an inner city football team. If you're a sports fan, this a must-see. Not a sports fan, you say? My wife could care less about sports and she'll tell you, this is a helluva movie.

In the tradition of great sports movies, it's not really about sports. It's about the people. It's about the relationships.

I'm not gonna lie, this movie choked me up multiple times, and one scene in particular almost had me sobbing. I tweeted something about the movie back when I watched it for the first time, and one of the guys in the movie retweeted my comment. That was pretty cool.

I really can't recommend this movie enough.

T is for..........Teaching

It's hard to believe, but I've been teaching for 18 years now. I started out teaching at an alternative high school in Minneapolis. That was a wild three years, but it was an extremely rewarding experience, and really, nothing shocks me after all the craziness I had to deal with in that job.

Meg and I moved to Tucson in '99. My first teaching job here was a 6th grade gig at one of the more challenging middle schools in town. It was a tough job, but I would have gladly stayed. There were only bilingual positions open at the time, so I moved to a different middle school on the other side of town. I finally got to settle in at a school and I was there for 10 years. This is where I came into my own as a teacher, where I honed my style. I like to tell people my teaching style is Father Flanagan mixed with Bobby Knight.

I've been successful in my career at raising test scores and five years ago I was offered a chance to participate in a federal study to see if teachers who get positive test results in one school can replicate that success in underperforming schools. There was a bonus involved, and I made the move. That first year was probably the worst year of my teaching career. I was seriously second-guessing my decision. Fortunately, the second year was the complete opposite, reaffirming my love of teaching, perhaps making it stronger than ever. I stayed for a third year, but the commute got to be too much, so I returned to my previous school, where I currently teach 6th grade language arts.

Teaching is a demanding profession. Each day in the classroom is a microcosm of life. Every day good things happen, amazing things, profound things. But bad things happen too, and you have to be able to learn from them, bounce back from them, leave them behind.

It's not the best time to be a teacher in the United States. We don't seem to have a lot of allies out there nowadays. The one thing Democrats and Republicans seem to agree on is that schools are failing and teachers are the problem. I would say the politicians are the real problem in public education, but that's a whole other kind of post my friends.

I could go on and on, trying to distill the essence of teaching, but I probably wouldn't do a very good job. Let me leave you with a story that nicely illustrates why I love teaching.

I ran into a former student recently, a young man, now 21. He told me what he was doing with himself, and then he surprised the hell out of me. He thanked me for teaching him how to write. He said he learned to love writing in my class, and he was really happy to have the chance to thank me.

That's what teaching is all about.

S is for..........Scout

I have two daughters, Quinn and Scout. Quinn was the inspiration for my Q post the other day, which means today has to be Scout's day. It was hard to choose just one picture, but I thought this one nicely captured Scout in her adolescent glory. Can you feel the disdain?

When Meg and I found out we were having a girl, it didn't take long for us to decide on a name. We both love To Kill a Mockingbird, and when I suggested Scout, Meg was game. It's funny, Scout is very much like her namesake: adventurous, smart, inquisitive, kind, wise. Scout may be an unusual name, but it fits her perfectly. 

Scout is a talker. Ask her how her day was, and no one word answers from this kid. If you've got the time, Scout can deliver a play by play like you wouldn't believe. The cool thing is, she's also a great listener. She loves to know what other people think about things.

When Scout does something, she's all in. She did a family history project for her social studies class this year, and the amount of time she put into it was amazing. She was working on this thing Friday and Saturday nights for a month. During the week, we had to pull the plug at a reasonable hour or she would have kept working long after we went to bed. The final product was impressive. My mom was so moved, she took it to Kinkos to get a copy made for herself. I mean, the thing is bascially a historical document for our family now.

That's what comes to mind when I think of Scout. A kid who takes pride in her work and is willing to work incredibly hard to get results. With that kind of work ethic, the sky's the limit. I can't wait to see what this kid comes up with in the future.

R is for...........Reading

Reading keeps me sane. I mostly read fiction, but I read a good deal of nonfiction as well. Even on my busiest of days, I have to read. It may only be a few minutes, a few pages before bed, but it calms my mind and helps my body wind down.

Then there are the days when things come together perfectly. A chunk of time and a book that I can't put down.

One of the things I'm most proud of is that my daughters love to read. Meg and I are both big readers, and undoubtedly our habits rubbed off on them. They read all over the house, and I love seeing them in one of their spots completely absorbed in a book. I enjoy having the girls tell me about books they're reading, and it's even more fun to talk about books we've all read.

Those kinds of conversations will happen more and more, and they will certainly add to my love of reading.

Q is for.......... Quinn

Quinn, Quinny, Q-bird, just plain Q. It's hard to believe my little girl is 11 years old. Not so little any more. There are a million reasons why I'm crazy about my kid. I won't go on and on, just a few highlights.

Q for President!!!!

If Quinn had a theme song it would be Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life." The girl is full-on, all the time. I've had the privilege of coaching Quinn's soccer team the last 3 years, and watching her play is one of the great joys of my life. The girl gets after it people. I mean, she never stops. One of the parents told Quinn recently that he was so happy his daughter was on her team because she makes everyone a better player. I can't think of higher praise for an athlete.

Quinn is also a kid who cries hysterically whenever we see one of those help the animals commercials. I'm talking heaves, sobs. We can be flipping channels and just the slightest glimpse of one of these commercials sets her off. It's hard not to laugh sometimes, but then it's hard not to cry right along with her.

Quinn is a kid who thinks it's fun to waitress when we have people over to the house. You're never without a drink during Quinn's shift, and she takes such good care of her customers that she is always tipped well. Sure, she likes the money, but she'd do it anyway.

Quinn is a kid who throws herself into her hobbies. She is currently obsessed with Rainbow Loom, a plastic toy loom used to weave colorful rubber bands into bracelets and charms. She watches videos on her ipad to learn new and more intricate designs all the time. She post pictures on her Instagram of her favorites. Everyone who visits the Riley house leaves with a bracelet in their favorite colors. Quinn wouldn't have it any other way.

If you're still reading, thanks for putting up with the ramblings of a Dad who's head over heels for his kid. I'm sure there are a lot of great Q words I could have gone with for Q, but sometimes you just have to go with your heart.

P is for..........Parenthood

Earlier in the Challenge I wrote about Breaking Bad, what I consider the greatest TV show of all time. My favorite current TV show is Parenthood.

I'm a sucker for ensemble family dramas.

Parenthood follows the lives of the Braverman family. Zeek and Camille are the patriarch and matriarch. Their kids, Adam, Sarah, Julia, and Crosby each have their own families, and the show does an excellent job of showing how all of the characters struggle to keep balance in their lives.

I don't necessarily relate to everything that happens in the show, but there's a lot that hits home. Over the show's five season run there have been plenty of times when my interest has waned, but something always happens to keep me hooked. It's usually some kind of parenting or sibling or son moment that floors me. I'm not ashamed to admit it, the Bravermans have had me choked up quite a bit the last five years.

I read somewhere recently that the show's ratings aren't doing so hot this year, and NBC is still on the fence for a sixth season.

I hope NBC brings the Bravermans back.

I've got Parenthood, what's your favorite TV show these days?

O is for..........Owls.

I've always been fascinated by owls. I lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota for most of my life, and while I'm sure they were all around me, I never actually saw one in the wild until I moved to the desert. Now I see them all the time.

Our first house in Tucson was in the middle of town, so I didn't see any there. Our current house is on the outskirts of town, near a National Park. All the lots in our neighborhood are fairly large, with natural desert yards. We get a lot of owls out here.

I saw my first owl about a month after we moved in. I was turning off the lights outside when I noticed this little guy. He just sat there staring at me. I'm sure the poor guy was paralyzed with fear. I had plenty of time to get Meg and the camera. That was eight years ago now, but my eyes still go to that spot every night when I close up, hoping for a return visit.

We see Great Horned Owls quite frequently. I don't have any pictures to share, but man, they are so cool. Our neighbors had this dead tree in their yard, and the Great Horneds loved to perch at the top, surveying the land for prey. They would just sit up there, hooting away. The neighbors took the tree down a while back, and unfortunately we don't see as many Great Horneds these days. 

I remember lying in bed one night and the hooting was particularly loud, it was like the owl was in the room with us. It sounded so close, we went outside to look for it. A giant Great Horned Owl was right on the old TV antenna directly over our bedroom. It was so cool we got the girls out of bed to check it out. 

This little guy is around so much we had to give him a name. We named him Horatio, but at some point the girls decided we should add Papa to his name in honor of my dad. So now our little friend is Papa Horatio. I believe Papa Horatio is a Western Screech Owl. There's a hole in the brick he's on, and there are normally birds nesting there. Papa Horatio shows up every so often for a feast, hangs out for a while, and then he's gone. This owl spends so much time at our house, I've actually toyed with the idea of getting a falconer's glove and trying to train it. I told the girls I was thinking about training Papa Horatio one time and they nearly lost their minds laughing. Yeah, guess I'll just settle for taking pictures.    

N is for..........No.

I wouldn't say I have a hard time saying "No," but I do like to do whatever I can, personally and professionally, to help people out.

I've gotten myself spread pretty thin over the last couple years. It's not a situation where I'm doing things I don't want to do. Everything I've said "Yes" to is something I wanted to do and have enjoyed doing. It's just that I'm starting to feel like I'm doing a lot of things, but none of them as well as I would like. So I'm feeling more stress, and that's got to change.

Time to start saying "No."

How 'bout you? Have a hard time saying "No?"

M is for..........Movies

I came across a cool video at one of my favorite blogs, /Film, that chronicles the history of movies. Scott Ewing put it together and had this to say about his work:

"This montage began as a labor of love and quickly became an obsession of mine. Many days and hours were spent researching clips, downloading and editing. The following montage chronicles the evolution of film from its conception in 1878 by Edward J. Muybridge to the Lumiere brothers in 1895. Georges Melies a trip to the moon in 1902 was a total game changer and from there we go to the first theatrical releases starting in 1920-2014 … this portion of the montage is chronological."

I'm always interested to see which movies and which scenes people include in movie montages. I think Ewing did an excellent job. A list of all the movies Ewing used is under the video.

1878 – Eadweard J. Muybridge – Pioneer of Motion Photography
1895 – Auguste & Louis Lumière- Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon
1902 – A Trip to the Moon – Viaje a la Luna – Le Voyage dans la lune – Georges Méliès
1920 -The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
1921 – ‘The Kid’ – Charlie Chaplin
1922 – NOSFERATU
1923 – Harold Lloyd’s SAFETY LAST!
1924 – Sherlock Junior
1925 – Gold Rush
1926 – The General
1927 – The Jazz Singer
1928 – Steamboat Bill. Jr
1929 – The Broadway Melody
1930 – All Quiet on the Western Front
1931 – Frankenstein
1932 – Horse Feathers
1933 – Duck Soup
1934 – The Man Who Knew Too Much
1935 – Bride of Frankenstein
1936 – Modern Times
1937 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
1938 – The Adventures of Robin Hood
1939 – The Wizard of Oz
1940 – The Great Dictator
1941 – Citizen Kane
1942 – Casablanca
1943 – Phantom of the Opera
1944 – National Velvet
1945 – The Lost Weekend
1946 – The Best Years of Our Lives
1947 – Out of the Past
1948 – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1949 – The Third Man
1950 – Cinderella
1951 – A Streetcar Named Desire
1952 – Singing in the Rain
1953 – Roman Holiday
1954 – Seven Samurai
1955 – Rebel Without a Cause
1956 – The Searchers
1957 – The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958 – Vertigo
1959 – North by Northwest
1960 – The Apartment
1961 – West Side Story
1962 – The Man who shot Liberty Valance
1963 – The Great Escape
1964 – Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
1965 – Thunderball
1966 – The Wild Bunch
1967 – The Graduate
1968 – 2001 A Space Odyssey
1969 – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
1970 – The Aristocats
1971 – The French Connection
1972 – Deliverance
1973 – The Exorcist
1974 – Chinatown
1975 – Jaws
1976 – Rocky
1977 – Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1978 – Superman
1979 – Apocalypse Now
1980 – Airplane
1981 – Raiders of the Lost Arc
1982 – E.T: The Extra Terrestrial
1983 – The Right Stuff
1984 – The Karate Kid
1985 – The Goonies
1986 – Top Gun
1987 – The Princess Bride
1988 – Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989 – Hoosiers
1990 – Misery
1991 – The Silence of the Lambs
1992 – Reservoir Dogs
1993 – Jurassic Park
1994 – Speed
1995 – Apollo 13
1996 – Mission Impossible
1997 – The Fifth Element
1998 – The Big Lebowski
1999 – The Iron Giant
2000 – Cast Away
2001 – Ameile
2002 – Minority Report
2003 – Kill Bill
2004 – The Incredibles
2005 – Batman Begins
2006 – Children of Men
2007 – No Country For Old Men
2008 – Tropic Thunder
2009 – 500 Days of Summer
2010 – The Social Network
2011 – The Artist
2012 – Skyfall
2013 – Gravity
2014
The Amazing Spiderman 2
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Neighbors
Edge of Tomorrow
Transcendence
Captain America – The Winter Soldier
X-Men: Days of Future Past
22 Jump Street
Godzilla
The Lego Movie
Bad Words
Intersteller
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Maze Runner
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Muppets Most Wanted
Transformers – Age of Extinction

L is for..........Language Arts

I teach 6th grade Language Arts. We don't call it English in middle school, it's Language Arts nowadays. Not sure why, but hey, I'm just a humble public servant. The powers that be can call my class whatever they want. Like my main man Will once said, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Or something like that.

My job is to teach 11 and 12 year olds how to read and write better. This may come as a surprise to some, but a good majority of today's youth are not particularly excited about reading and writing. As if the gig isn't hard enough, many of my students come in working below grade level. I've got kids who read and write at a second grade level, 4th grade level, 6th grade level, even a 9th grade level, all in the same class. I have 140 students this year, and my challenge is to help them all improve. All this is to say, teaching kids to read and write is a daunting task.

There are days when it feels like it's all a big waste of time, like nothing I do makes a difference. My students are at a critical juncture. If they can't read and write, what chance do they have in this world? I try to have the kids read and write as much as I can, but I only have them for 50 minutes a day, a little more than 4 hours a week. Factor in all the absences and wasted time dealing with disruptive kids, and it's just not enough. Sometimes I feel like my job is impossible.

I can't give up though. It's just not in my makeup. I may have chosen a quixotic profession, but I love it. I love when a kid figures out how to correctly combine two sentences into one. I love when a kid volunteers to read out loud because he's finally confident he can do it. I love when a kid writes an essay with an obvious thesis statement and ideas to back it up. I love when a kid tells me the book we're reading in class is the best book she's ever read (thank you Watsons go to Birmingham). I love when a kid who would make you cross the street writes a poem that can break your heart. These are the little victories that keep me going.