Archive for the 'Current Events' Category

Apr

The Weekend of 4/7

Check out this video of Lindsay Lohan over the years. I’ll let you make your own conclusion.

Beyond the obvious conclusion, I’ve learned that I spend too much time on the computer!

I heard on the news this morning of the death of Thomas Kinkade. Kinkade is a noted artist with many wonderfully paintings of serene settings. I had no idea that he was even a current artist. I always thought that he was already dead. Anyway, I got to know his paintings from putting together jigsaw puzzles of his art.
Check out some of his work below:

I always liked the snow covered scenes the best. That’s about as close to art appreciation as you’re going to get from me.

Tonight is Opening Night for the Reds. They try to make a big deal of their first night game to draw a big crowd. It has worked the past few years. I’m especially excited about seeing Mat Latos pitch for the first time with the Reds.
How about that Mets win the other day?
I watched the Yankees blow it late yesterday. One thing I took out of watching that game was that the Yankees do indeed play incredibly long games.

Fast Five is on tonight on HB0 at 8. This is the most recent Fast and the Furious film. You can see for yourself if there is a resemblance between Vin Diesel and yours truly. Ask your parents permission before watching.
I’ll be DVRing the movie. I always liked the Fast and the Furious movies.

That’s all for this weekend. I’ll be back early next week.

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,Television,The Reds,Uncategorized,baseball and have Comments (3)

Mar

Mega Millions

Easy Question for today: If you won the Mega Millions (valued at nearly $650 million) what would you do with the money?

Believe it or not, I would continue to work at Weber. I enjoy my job too much to stop. I would, however, have a lot of fun during vacations.

Either that or I’d buy $650 million dollars worth of lottery tickets!

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,Uncategorized and have Comments (6)

Mar

Monday, 3/26

On Friday, I was greeted by a former student with great news. Current 9th Grader and former Green House Student, Ethan, had a cartoon published in the Schreiber Times. I don’t recall reading the Times before this weekend. I have to say I was quite impressed by the articles and enjoyed reading about past students. I hope to see future copies of the Spartan Times, especially with articles and cartoons by former students.

This weekend the Reds were the recipients of bad news. Over the winter, the Reds signed Ryan Madson to be the team’s closer. Madson pitched quite well for the Phillies last year and was slated to be a more than suitable replacement for Fransisco Cordero. Sadly, Madson had elbow problems once Spring Training started and tests showed that he had torn the ligament right off his elbow. He’s going to need Tommy John surgery and will be out the entire season.
The excitement that I had for Opening Day is still there but I’m more worried about the season that last week. The Reds do have Sean Marshall to step in to fill the void. However, if the Reds thought Marshall was good enough to be the guy, they wouldn’t have signed Madson after trading for Marshall.
We’ll see how it plays out. There is still a slight chance that Aroldis Chapman will be moved to the closer position.

Finally, an interesting “article” from the Daily News.

Like many people who get summoned to jury duty, Jacob Clark didn’t want to go. But unlike most people, he had a legitimate excuse-he’s 9 years old…His dad called the jury commission office in Orleans District Court in Massachusetts to find out what happened. It turns out that someone apparently typed 1982 for the Yarmouth 3rd grader’s birth year instead of 2002. The mistake was quickly corrected.

Have a great day in school today.

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,School,The Reds,Uncategorized,baseball and have Comments (2)

Mar

The Weekend of 3/24

Stonybrook To Hold Classes On Religious Holidays
Click the article above. I’m curious to hear what you think about a college having classes on religious holidays. Stonybrook has decided to hold classes on days usually reserved for religious observance such as Rosh Hashanah, Passover and Good Friday.
My guess is that the backlash of this decision will lead the powers that be in Stonybrook to re-think their decision.
Do you think they are right? Justified? Making a bad decision?

Tim Tebow to the Jets
Adding a solid quaterback to the Jets could be a good move. It also could be a bad move as Mark Sanchez might be looking over his shoulder every time he fails now that a viable backup is available. What do you think?
I know for sure it is a good financial move. Tebow t-shirts and jerseys are selling like hot cakes.
By the way, do hot cakes really sell that well?

Does Joba Chamberlain think he plays for the Mets? Joba broke his ankle the other day while playing on a trampoline. Those things are dangerous. I know Chamberlain was playing with his son but given that a trampoline is such a dangerous piece of equipment and Joba is a professional athlete, perhaps he should have thought of another way to enjoy playing with his son.

This is not the greatest footage (pun intended) but check out this video of Paul O’Neill.
Paul O’Neill was a Yankee great during the 90s. However, he first made his name as a Cincinnati Red. O’Neill helped the Reds win their 1990 World Championship.
I doubt this play helped. Check out how O’Neill got the ball back into the infield. Perhaps he has a future as a punter in the NFL.

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,The Reds,Uncategorized,baseball and have Comments (4)

Mar

Recent News

Super Tuesday

Primary season continues with Super Tuesday. Super Tuesday consists of something like 10 primaries/caucuses spread across the country. The results of this day are pretty important for the candidates. There are some pretty important states where these candidates have to prove their worth (especially Ohio-a battle ground states).
I’m looking forward to hearing all about the results on the news specials tonight.

Speaking of Presidential elections, today and tomorrow in class we will be discussing the Electoral College. If you are interested in this topic, check out 270towin.com.
I know that a number of students are participating in a band show tomorrow afternoon. In class we are working on our Electoral College assignment. If you know you are going to be missing class and would like to work during lunch, my class will be available to you. Just make sure you get a pass if you have to go to the cafeteria for lunch.

Finally, I came across this story the other day. Check out this giant puffer fish made out of snow. A family in Minnesota used a recent storm to create this master piece.

There is also a brief video sharing the work.

What I wonder is if this would qualify as ice fishing!!!

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,School,Uncategorized and have No Comments

Mar

Monday, 3/5

Such sad stories coming out of the mid-west after they were hit with such severe storms. Communities were completely wiped out and will have to build up from scratch.
This is just salt in the wound for an area that perhaps was hit hardest by our tough economic times recently.
The story getting the most publicity lately is of the little girl who was found in an open field far away from her house. The twenty month old girl survived despite being engulfed in a twister. Her entire family (mom, dad and two siblings) died during this tragedy. Sadly, the girl was taken off life support and died also.
I hope that all of you reading this take some time to appreciate all of the good that you have. Sometimes times can be tough but in many ways we are very lucky.

Let’s move on to more lighter stories (the way I like it on the blog).

We started watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this past Friday during Laughs and Lunch. I was hoping to start Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory first but was unable to find it. This past Saturday I found it in a local Best Buy. Best of all, it was reasonably priced at $4.99. Can’t beat a bargain!!!
We’ll watch the older version once we finish Charlie. We’re also going to watch Field of Dreams in the next few weeks as well. Then we’ll get back to cartoons.
We meet on Fridays. You can join us at any time (as long as you get a pass).

One month to go until Opening Day!

Have a great day.

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,Movies,School,Uncategorized and have No Comments

Mar

Now Entering the Terrible Twos

Today is my son DJ’s 2nd birthday. Time sure does fly by. We’re having a party tomorrow with a fire truck theme. DJ loves fire trucks.

I read in the paper yesterday that they are still working on the redistricting of Congressional districts. New York is losing 2 Representatives so changes need to be made. One of the plans that was mentioned in Newsday was to blend Gary Ackerman’s district with Carolyn McCarthy’s district. That would basically mean that by next year we would have the same Representatives in the House of Representatives.

Speaking of Government, we’re covering a lot of content during this chapter and I’m trying to answer as many of your questions as possible. If at any point you have a question that is not answered in class, feel free to post a message here on the blog and I’ll do my best to answer it.

Finally, check out this half court shot:

That man is Mr. Farrell, aka The Legend aka The Ledge. He was my Physical Education teacher back when I was in Middle School. He’s now retired and 72 years old. However, according to this video, he’s still got it.

That’s all for today, have a great weekend.
Don’t forget to complete your homework assignment.

Progress reports are coming soon!

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,DJ,School,Uncategorized and have Comments (3)

Mar

An Interesting Fact

I was absolutely floored by this statistic.
According to a survey from Informa Telecoms and Media (whatever that is), the number one country when it comes to texting is………………………………..The Philippines!
Never in a million years would I have guessed that. I thought for sure it would be the United States.
This is the entire top ten list (US was number 2) of texts sent per subscriber per month:

Philippines 601
United States 301
Indonesia 284
Malaysia 264
Venezuela 224
Argentina 205
Turkey 197
Canada 197
Belgium 193
Ireland 179

It would take me nearly a year to send the average text messages sent in a month in the United States. I’m really bringing our average down and promise to do what I can to help us claim the top spot in the future.

posted by Mr. Dowling in Current Events,Uncategorized and have Comments (7)

Feb

2012=Leap Year

A leap year sounds fun and exciting until you realize that it just means an extra day before Summer Vacation!
Do you know anyone who was born on February 29? Do they have a bigger celebration because their birthday only officially comes every 4 years?
It would be pretty cool to be able to say that I’m 8 years old when I’m an adult.

Leap Years also signify a Presidential Election year. It seems that Mitt Romney is going to be the guy after winning in Michigan and Arizona last night. Newt Gingrich’s poor showings in both states makes me think that he’s going to be done after Super Tuesday (next week)…unless of course he pulls off multiple upsets.

Have you started collecting images for your collage? The due date is rapidly approaching.
I’m not so sure students are taking me seriously when I say that the Government unit requires a great deal of studying in advance. If you aren’t doing it, you’re hurting yourself. It only requires 5-10 minutes per night. It is especially easy to do when you don’t have any Social Studies homework due the following day (like tonight).

For those who have not made up the Articles of Confederation/Constitutional Convention quiz, tomorrow is your last opportunity.

Finally, I read this morning that one of the creators/authors of The Berenstain Bears has died. I remember reading those books as a youngster. Were they still popular/semi-popular when you were younger?
I think they even had cartoons on television years ago.

Did the Mavericks really lose to the Nets? What is going on?

posted by Mr. Dowling in Books,Current Events,School,Uncategorized and have Comment (1)

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