Memphis, TN

Hey here is shocker…, Pete went to a Wedding. This one was in Memphis and I was not in it. Crazy Pete factoid #372, I have been in over twenty weddings, five of them as best man. No joke. One of Scoots (my sister Keri) friends and my coworker at the H, Emily got married. It was a nice wedding and lots of Scoot’s old friends from her IP days were in town. Some of them I had not seen for years. We had some afternoon beers on one of the many bar patios in Memphis, hit the Rendezvous for ribs, visited Ernestine and Hazel’s for a soul burger, and did some breakfast at Miss Cordelia’s grocery. All of this was facilitated by my fall break this week. For a change I stayed around Memphis for fall break and just hung around the Mempho.

The weather has finally broke in Memphis and you can actually go outside in Memphis without melting like the wicked witch of the west. Truk and some others took advantage of the weather by walking across Memphis. Yes, you read that correctly, walked across Memphis. It was Frank’s idea but his schedule would not permit him making the jaunt across the bluff city. I was supposed to go but I had.., lets just call it stomach troubles and we will leave it at that. Here is a link to Truk’s Blog about the trip with accompanying photos.

School has been a little crazy. Every year goes by faster than the previous one. That is both good and bad. Good because vacation comes more quickly, bad because it never seems like there is time to get anything done. There are only eight weeks to Christmas vacay (That’s how the kids say it these days). Oh well, my philosophy has always been process over product. Here is what I mean by that. Let’s face it my students are not going to remember anything specific about my class but they will retain learning techniques and strategies that I teach them. As a result, what specific material I actually cover is less important than teaching them to be life long learners. Or maybe that is just a cheap excuse for not getting a lot of stuff done.

This week we had a nice break in the action with the 8th grade retreat out to Victory Ranch in Bolivar, TN. They have a beautiful facility out in the country. The girls have a good time doing ropes course things like climbing walls, zip cords, and other high element activities. It is a nice way to get to know the kids outside the classroom and vice versa for getting to know the teachers in the same light. It is not exactly roughing it. In fact the cabins look like Colorado ski lodges. The food is always good and I even got to watch the Indian/Red Sox baseball game and Rutgers upset of South Florida on satellite. This is one of the few times it really works out being a male teacher at an all girls school, I can not help with bed checks and other night time duties so I sleep quite comfortably by myself. A crazy bad thunderstorm rolled through at night which provided an awesome lighting display along with a substantial amount of rain. It was over before folks went to sleep so there was little drama to speak of.