Monthly Archives: August 2009

While My Guitar Gently Shrieks

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I bought a guitar from R G Music this weekend.

All the guitar enthusiasts reading this probably just said "What kind?" so I might as well tell you.

It’s black. That’s what kind it is.

It has strings, too! I think they’re made out of metal, but honestly, I’m a little afraid to touch them, so I can’t say for sure.

As you may have guessed, I don’t play the guitar. I have never played the guitar. I don’t even think I’ve ever held a guitar. The only reason I know I’ve even been in the same room with one is that I went to summer camp a lot when I was a kid and we very earnestly and very badly sang a lot of songs to guitars, both indoors and outdoors.

They don’t bite, right?

My guitar lessons start Tuesday evening, if all goes well, and that means I am about to become the worst neighbor in the world, because not only am I naturally untalented musically, I’m also a little bit tone deaf and keep strange hours. If my neighbor shoots me, no jury will convict.

I’ve always liked guitar music. It would be practically unAmerican not to like guitar music of some kind or other, given the variety and their dominance in modern music. I like the old-timey, proto-country music that formed most of the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, too, and I suppose that’s the type of music I’d be most likely to play on an acoustic guitar.

I’m very much looking forward to my first lesson on Tuesday, but I can’t help but feel a little sorry for my teacher, and anyone else within earshot, of course. I remember how awful I sounded the first time I tried to play an instrument…. or, frankly, any time I ever tried to play an instrument.

So if you hear awful sounds emanating from the West Learning Center (formerly known as "West Elementary") Tuesday, don’t worry.

It’s the sound of learning.

Moving 5th Grade to Middle School

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Last night I attended a public forum hosted by District 518 on some possible facilities changes the district is considering.

I believe I managed to hit all the major points in my article here, but because it was late and I’d already written 38 inches of copy, I thought it might be worth it to add a few details to the story here.

Superintendent Landgaard’s PowerPoint presentation was pretty thorough and I couldn’t include every single speck of information from it, or every single comment people made on the issues, either. (The meeting lasted about an hour and a half.)

- Current Capacity Percent Full
Prairie  1108  1150  96.3%
WMS  496  650  76.3%
WHS  735  950  77.4%
ALC  65  150  43.3%

Another chart he had showed the past enrollment of the district and also projected enrollment. I wasn’t able to get all the numbers, which he had for every year, but I did take down a few years in an attempt to show the trending.

Year Students
1992-1993 2700
2002-2003 2386
2008-2009 2251
2013-2014 2355

Enrollment is projected to rise for District 518.

Note that this is very unusual for rural Minnesota. Where I used to live (Clara City, which is near Willmar), the graduating class last year was about half the size of my graduating class, which had not been especially large. Enrollment is declining in most of rural Minnesota.

"Six years ago, when I came here, Prairie (enrollment) was about 850 students," Landgaard said. "I didn’t think anyone had the vision that we’d have 1100 kids right now. It’s been the last three years that we’ve seen the explosion come."

Enrollment had been predicted to decline by just about everyone, across the board.

Open Enrollment

Open enrollment trends have also been changing for the district. Four years ago, Landgaard said, 180 students open enrolled out of the district. But last year, about the same number of students open enrolled into District 518 as open enrolled out of it. The numbers are beginning to balance out, in other words.

Pre-K/K Building

One person (a parent? I’m not sure) brought up the possibility of building a pre-kindergarten and kindergarten building and separating those kids out from the rest of Prairie.

"I haven’t seen a huge interest by anybody on a pre-K/K type facility," Landgaard said.

Such a building would need an estimated 12-14 classrooms, and any time a new building is added, more facilities costs will also be added. Currently the district does not have a preschool, which are, Landgaard said, typically money-losers for a school district.

While I don’t know a single kindergarten or first-grade teacher who would not like to see every single child attend preschool, the state does not even fully fund kindergarten.

As of January 2008, the state system weights a kindergartener at slightly more than half a pupil unit, compared to 1.115 for first- through third-graders, 1.06 for fourth- through sixth-graders and 1.3 for older kids. (Please note, I’m not sure if the numbers have changed since then.)

Funding all-day, every-day kindergarten was done through an operating levy, which means local people voluntarily increased their taxes in order to pay for it. As far as I know, preschool would have to be paid for in the same way — through a tax increase.

Bullying

Another detail I didn’t mention in my article (because I couldn’t figure out how to fit it in) was Landgaard’s warning against cyberbullying. It was brought up in the context of the possibility of 5th graders being bullied by 8th graders.

The superintendent warned parents to watch out for cyberbullying, which has become a major problem across the United States, on Facebook, MySpace, cellphones and instant messaging services. Landgaard even mentioned the tragic case of Megan Meier (though not by name), who  killed herself over cyberbullying performed by an adult parent of one of her friends.

Though it didn’t fit in with the rest of the article, I wanted to mention Landgaard’s comments here in the hopes that parents will take them quite seriously.

No More Sound of Silence… Maybe

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Next week, if all goes well, I’m going to start taking guitar lessons.

Those of you who know me well are probably flinching on behalf of my poor hapless teacher, who will no doubt attempt to help me learn how to tune a guitar (I’m a little tone-deaf), play a guitar (I’m kinda clumsy too) and keep an accurate rhythm (rhythm is something that happens to other people, okay?). Heaven help him if he tries to get me to sing.

Why am I putting this poor guy through all that?

One, I love music. Everything from classical to folk to rock to Irish traditional, and quite a few types of music that are a little harder to categorize (Rasputina, Bjork, Fiona Apple). I do like the traditional old-timey folk music.

Two, I need another hobby. I was finally able to kick my World of Warcraft habit this summer, thanks to some friends of mine, but now I’m driving said friends crazy because I have too much time on my hands. If I have guitar practice to procrastinate on, maybe I’ll find some other stuff to do too.

Three, community education is awesome. If you’re living in the Worthington area, you should definitely check out some of their offerings. Guitar lessons happened to be the most appealing to me, but there’s lots of other stuff to do and learn too.

So, the way I figure it, if nothing else, it’ll give me something funny to write about for you folks, as I try to get my unmusical self to learn a new instrument. And who knows, maybe I’ll find a new career as a rock star.

Happened to another kid from Jackson not so very long ago…

More Strange Calls to the Police

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An incident report for Aug. 13:

  • "Reports a cookie problem. Officers talked with complainant and advised of options."

And for Aug. Aug. 21:

  • "Reports sheep out on the road. Notified MHP. Will attempt to contact the owner, not home at this time. The sheep are off the road."

I have no idea if the cookie problem was a literal cookie (perhaps there were insufficient chocolate chips?) or an internet cookie (undeletable?).

Technical Difficulties, Anyone?

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As most of you probably noticed, we had technical difficulties all day yesterday.

The folks up in Fargo who do the nuts-and-bolts coding for the site were working on it from midnight all the way through to the afternoon to get everything fixed, but for a good long time I couldn’t update the site.

On a Monday, the day I have the most updating to do and the most new material to put up, this is like torture.On Monday I go through all the news from the weekend and select some to go up on our site, catch up on two days of email and google alerts and try to blog ahead for as much as possible so I have room to do photo galleries and video and audio during the week.

I couldn’t do any of that because while the regular sites were all up, the admin sides were all down. People could mostly look at the Globe’s news site, but I couldn’t change anything on it.

Instead of being fun and hectic with many things to do, the morning was spent gnashing my teeth, organizing old e-mail, doing some minor office chores for other folks, and fretting vaguely because I couldn’t fix a minor typographical error on the front page of the website. It was like walking around with a rock in my mental shoe.

But! Rock is now gone, and so I’d like to draw your attention to the shiny things I put up on the Globe’s site yesterday.

Here’s a photo gallery from the Cottonwood County Fair, here’s a great photo gallery from Art Rocks in Luverne, and here’s a fun little garden photo gallery. Laura Grevas took photos for the first two galleries and Beth Rickers took photos from the garden.

 

Tech and Tribulations

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Contrary to popular belief, I did not grow up with computers.

I have just as much empathy for frustrated people trying to fix their computers as I do for frustrated techies trying to explain the internet and help upset people without being able to see their screens, via the phone.

People seem to assume that working with tech is easy for me because I’ve always been doing it, but I haven’t. We didn’t get a computer until I was in my last couple of years of high school. There was a UPS strike at the time, so we ended up getting it late, too.

It didn’t work, right from the very beginning, straight from the box, and for some reason, probably because I didn’t have a job and because I had slightly more patience than my dad (very, very slightly), I ended up becoming the tech support phone jockey most of the time. Occasionally I tagged my mom in to take my place, but mostly, I think, it was me.

Knowing what I know now, which can be summed up by "we spent hours and hours getting that &@#% thing to work", I would have demanded the company send us a new one. There was something wrong with it when they shipped it, and all the partitioning and unpartitioning and reinstalling every program and sacrificing a chicken to Moloch in the world wasn’t going to help.

But I was wishy-washier back then, so I sat through the phone trees again and again and again, while the techs patiently explained what a "browser" was and what an "operating system" was, and together we tried to get the computer to work.

Eventually, we got it so that it limped along pretty well, but the computer never really got completely fixed. I remember how frustrating that was.

So when a nice lady calls me on the phone with a question about the Globe’s site and I have to pretty much explain the internet, I’m okay with that. Really.

If you’re having trouble with our website (www.dglobe.com), please email me at klucin@dglobe.com, or call the Globe and ask for Kari Lucin. If I can’t help, I probably know somebody who can. That’s part of what being the online content coordinator means. Heck, I like helping.

And while I can’t promise instant results, I can say this: I will try to help you.

I didn’t grow up with computers.

I still vaguely remember staring balefully at the glassy screen and thinking: "Why can’t you just WORK?" and getting progressively more and more annoyed with the whole phone tech-support process.

I didn’t care why it wasn’t working. Hardly anyone cares why it’s not working. They just want it to work.

I didn’t grow up with computers, and I do remember what it’s like to try to decide whether you’d rather put a fist through the screen or throw the phone across the room with extreme prejudice.

My recommendation? Throw a pencil. It’s a lot cheaper, you can probably erase the mark on your wall and you won’t have as many pieces to pick up afterward. Plus, you won’t have to buy a new phone just so you can call tech support.

Again.

Weigh Me, Squeeze Me, Poke Me, Prescribe Me

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Not as thrilling as "Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me," but hey, I ain’t no Bono.

I stopped by at my parents’ house Tuesday before a meeting in Jackson, and my mom was kind enough to take my blood pressure for me, with her automagical arm-squeezing machine. In fact, she took it twice.

139/107.

Really.

And that wouldn’t be so bad if I were 52 or something, but you know, I’m 28. I don’t know what the deal is with that.

I’m exercising, eating less and have lost weight, and my blood pressure goes up? Really? Seriously? Where in the heck is the justice in that?

It’s enough to make me want to return to the more-French-fries-less-fruit diet.

So I went in to the doctor today, and he prescribed me some blood-pressure meds, since I was very straightforward about being unable to do a lot more to change my diet than I already have.

I don’t have much willpower, and the likelihood that I could summarily stop eating all the food I love is about as likely as me getting struck by lightning twice and eaten by a shark on consecutive days. And I already snip out salt whenever I can and have limited myself to one cup of coffee unless there are some sort of extenuating circumstances.

You know, like finding out your blood pressure is high.

Knee-Deep in the Brett Favre Hoopla

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So, Brett Favre has apparently, finally, really, actually, seriously and truly unretired (again) and will be playing with the Minnesota Vikings.

I’m not a football fan, and in fact, when I was a kid I got in trouble multiple times for trying to sneak books into Vikings games. I couldn’t help it. I like to play tennis and badminton and I can get into a basketball, volleyball or hockey game, but there’s just something about football that leaves me completely cold.

Unless my brother was playing, I could never really get into it.

Maybe it’s all the protective gear, which dehumanizes the players enough that if you don’t already know what they’re like, it’s tough to tell. Maybe it’s just that the players seem about ten miles away during a live football game, making it a little tougher to care. Maybe it’s just that I was in pep band long enough to learn to hate the outdoor sport that forced me to sit outdoors in October, numb hands glued to my xylophone mallets.

But this Favre business, this is a big deal to football fans and even gets the attention of people like me, who’d rather not watch a football game but enjoy hearing the good-parts (highlight reels) about the games.

Brett Favre reminds me of something my sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Donner, told me in my Minnesota history class when I was a kid. She said that with wild rice, people love it or hate it, and there’s not usually a lot in between. I’m one of the haters.

I’ve noticed that with Brett Favre, too, people either love the idea of him coming to play for the Vikes, or they hate it. Sometimes they also hate the Packers, Packers fans, Wisconsin, anyone who’s ever said the word "Wisconsin" and cheese.

But with Favre, I’m just ignorant enough of football to not know quite what to think, other than "at least he stopped waffling back and forth."

To me, Favre is like the countless other celebrities who "retire" and then come back the next year, often more than once and often, past their expiration dates.

To sum it all up, then:

Meh.

Covering the Plane Crash and the Nobles County Fair

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I was at dinner with my dad and brother last night when a plane went down at the Nobles County Airport.

The newsroom called me on my cellphone and I went out to take a picture, ending up walking from the terminal to the end of the runway in my high-heeled sandals. It was a long walk, which took me through a field of eight-inch grass (I didn’t want to walk on the runway in case there were planes) and a construction area (mud, mud, mud) and by the time I got to the crash site, I was pretty winded.

The law enforcement folks were, as always, very helpful and kind, as were the airport folks. They explained to me what appeared to have happened to the plane and pointed out the pilot, who was busy talking on his cellphone. I waited a while to talk to the pilot, but eventually I just got his name from one of the flyers, who was kind enough to spell it for me and everything.

Then it was time to go back to the terminal. I looked back at the vast expanse of space between me and it, asked if anyone was heading back to the terminal who could give me a ride, and when no one said anything, started walking.

I didn’t get more than half a block when one of the airport guys (I forget his name, unfortunately, but if anyone happens to know, please email me!) drove up in an SUV and offered to drive me back to the terminal, so that I wouldn’t have to walk all the way back in my silly shoes.

People like that are so awesome, and they make my job so much easier.

Another person who made my job easier this week is Andy Hoffman, a 4-H’er who graduated from Worthington High School this year.

Saturday night at the Nobles County Fair, Julie Buntjer and I were taking photos of all the general exhibit winners for the Globe’s fair tab. Well, okay, Julie was taking all the pictures. I was just wandering around with a clipboard trying to figure out whose pictures we hadn’t got yet.

That’s where Andy came in. Julie would call out the names of kids so fast I couldn’t quite keep up with crossing them all off, so Andy would tell me their names and make sure I had everything correct on the list.

If it hadn’t been for him, in other words, you’d probably have 17 photos with the caption of "?" in there, or maybe apologetic notes stating "Due to circumstances beyond our control (an employee who can’t turn pages fast enough, can you believe that), we have no pictures of Susie-Lou Jorkins or Benny Lee Blimppett, who won grand champion in the Things You Do With Scissors project category this year."

So three cheers for the wonderful airport man, and the wonderful 4-H student, both of whom helped me immeasurably this weekend. You guys were awesome.

When Good Houses Go Bad

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Julie Buntjer was kind enough to post just a few of her gorgeous photos of defunct Minnesota farm houses, each one a dilapidated, deserted work of art.

Not long after that, I found this gallery, entitled Feral Houses. Some have trees and vegetation strangling them, and others are simply falling apart of their own accord. All of them are deserted and like Julie’s photos, many of them have the air of a fairy tale about them.

You could believe Sleeping Beauty was on the second floor of some of them, dreaming about a house that wasn’t about to fall on her head, waiting for Prince Charming to fight through the forest of brambles.

Both galleries reminded me of another place, long deserted and reclaimed by the wildnerness. But unlike the farmhouses or single home, this place was a city, full of apartment buildings, houses, a pool, and even an amusement park.

In the end, nature wins.