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Thursday, October 9, 2014 – From The Bullwinkle Assessment Place

From The Bullwinkle Assessment Place

To the Parents of DRDRD

Re: How I Spent My Summer Vacation Essay – See Thursday, October 2, for Response to Prompt

Your child scored a 3 on the recently administered Kindergarten writing assessment. S/he is in the 99 percentile as compared to the other five year old children who took the test, but did not know how to write yet. This assessment is proposed by Texas Goobernatorial Candidate Greg Abbott.  The previous assessment instruments used for kindergarteners, coloring between the lines, going to the bathroom at the right time and in the right place and learning to get along with others, will no longer be used.

The following is a breakdown of scores. Please see your local education institutions for assistance and keep your voter registration card current.

Children who score 3 should be placed in classes for exceptional learners. Hopefully your school has enough funds to provide an equal and adequate education for these students.

Children who score 2 – usually become A and B students and are generally forgotten about by the educational system.

Children who score 1 – should strive to become good at sports and can slide by. However, please note recesses and other playground activities no longer exist in most schools. The time is needed to study for assessments.

Score 0 – These students are at the “bottom of the heap” or in the lowest percentile. These students must learn to speak English and then will need to retake this assessment, thus using more of the citizens’ tax payers’ dollars.

Working with your child. In an effort to assist your child, we encourage you to read and do the following together.

The vocabulary word is “confluence.” It is means “come together,” and does not refer to The Beatles song of the same name from Abby Road.

An example of using confluence in a sentence is:

In Cooper Landing, Alaska, The Kenai River and The Russian River meet at what is called “The Confluence.”

In this photograph the person fishing is standing in the darker, Russian River, but you can see the glacier-fed, turquoise, Kenai River in the foreground.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Bullwinkle Training at The Assessment Place

Good Morning,

Today, we will look at some pictures of a moose in Soldotna, Alaska. By the end of this paragraph, you should be able to describe what a moose does when he is marking his territory for the winter. You will be shown a series of five photographs taken Monday, September 29, 2014 from the confines of my sister’s truck.  You will then be asked to score, since we do not grade, students’ responses between zero and three, with zero representing the lowest possible score and three representing the highest possible score. Remember scorers, a child’s future depends on what score you give them.

STUDENT PROMPT

Look at the five pictures below and describe what the moose is doing. Please write legibly and in complete sentences.

Picture number 1 – Zero Points – The moose in looking around and hoping nobody is looking.

Picture number 2 – Score One Point – Saw a moose, saw a moose, will you do the fandango?

Picture number 3 – Score Three Points – Does a moose shit in the woods?

Picture number 4 – Score Two Points  – Let me find my girlfriend, who is just out of camera sight!

Picture number 5 – Score One Point  – Hey Baby, Que Paso? (Bilingual moose)

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

FYI – if you position your mouse over the picture and click, you can enlarge it.

Denali National Park – Crown Jewel of America’s National Parks

Mt. McKinley – North America’s Highest Peak at 20,320 ft

Remember it is over 250 miles away from where I am standing – just outside Anchorage City Limits.

The water is part of the Cook Inlet.

And for my friend Kathy, who doubted, here is Mt. McKinley with an outline.

Monday; October 6, 2014 Part Two – Monday College Football Report

Everybody win. Everybody Lose. Unless your team was Auburn, Baylor, TCU or Florida State, chances are your team lost. And Baylor, you should be thankful Texas could produce no offense. Down goes # 2 Oregon, # 3 Alabama, # 4 Oklahoma, # 6 A&M and # 7 UCLA.  It was upset season if your school’s name started with a vowel. Eleven of the top twenty-five teams were defeated. So my Monday awards go to the state where these institutions of higher education are located.

Alabama – 1 -1

Oklahoma – 1- 1

Arizona – 2-0 – Winner

California – 0 – 3

Utah – 2 – 0 – Winner

Mississippi – 2- 0 – Winner

Texas – 2 – 4

Kansas – 1- 1

To the Texas Aggies – Next time your wear those really cool looking uniforms called “ICE,” try not to get you ices whipped.

One special award – to the referee in the A&M/Miss State game who turned the wrong way to announce the first penalty and just barely got his mike turned off before he started cussing.

Monday, October 6, 2014

What are you wearing, Jake, from State Farm?

I have on:

Top: Sports bra, long underwear, Under Armor shirt, fleece pullover, wind breaker and A&M heavy sweat shirt.

Bottom: Long underwear, flannel lined pants, wind breaker pants, waders

Head: hat, earmuffs

Hands: Lined gloves

This photo is for Killer Queen, my trainer. Not only can I get my leg that high with waders on, but I am perfectly balanced.

Thank you.

You can see the cabin at Gwin’s Lodge in Cooper Landing.

The two pictures below are me and my fish.  Don’t you love the expression on my face?

Friday, September 26, 2014

I am packed and I have my sack. More about the sack down the page. Since I am not sure what Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday will hold as to postings, I will leave a few items for thought and cogitation.

Captain Hairspray and The Enterprise Fund. His granting process for millions of dollars in state funds is “show up and if you are my friend and give me lots of campaign money, I will give you this grant with lots of money. Don’t worry about actually doing any work. We are not going to check on any of the funds.” Simple as that. No application. No review. Nada.  Every state agency that had (has) a grant program knew you were not playing by the same rules and laws that you passed for us to follow regarding the dispersion of state grant funds. Oops! That’s right. I forgot “you are special.”

Texas Tech Uniforms – If Oregon shows up wearing yellow polka dot bikinis, it cannot be worse than your uniforms last evening against Oklahoma State University. It took me almost the first half to determine that, that Rorschach looking graphic on the one pants’ leg and one shoulder was the Red Raider on the horse seen from the front. But it was the helmets that moved the uniforms from bad to “the most butt ugly helmets I have seen.”  It makes the Cincinnati Bengals helmets look like a fashion statement. I tried to determine what was actually on the side of the helmets, but every time I looked, I became nauseous.  What were thinking Kingsbury? It looks as though a visually challenged five year old finger painted them.  You are this week’s Ugly Uniform, hands down.

The Sack – when I was growing up in the sawmill town of Magnolia, there was a couple named Walter and Edna Seymour. They somewhat resembled a circus couple or cartoon characters because he was tall and skinny and wore cheap black ill-fitting suits and she was short and fat and truly did not have a neck. Her head kinda set to one side as though there were a birth defect. He looked like Ichabod Crane. Edna looked like a short, fat lady in a flour sack dress, which she was. No one was sure what Robert did for employment. Even though my mother thought they were “strange”, they seemed nice and were friendly and attended our church sometimes. Actually, I think they attended all five churches in Magnolia especially if there was food. They had one child who was in high school when they lived at the sawmill.  Looking back, I feel certain he was either adopted or found on their door step. But everyone began to notice that everywhere Robert Seymour went, he carried a paper sack. He carried it to Lion’s Club, to church, to the post office and all over the place.  He was never seen without his sack.  Thus began speculation of “what does Robert carry in his sack?”  Like the purring Queen Elizabeth II and her purse, we never did determine what Walter carried.  We decided though that it was probably food. A lunch or snacks.  So the last thing my mother or father would say prior to us leaving to go someplace was “Do you have your sack?”  Well, I do have my Walter Seymour sack. He was actually way ahead of his time. Everybody carries a sack today.  They just look prettier that brown paper and are called purses and backpacks and manbags.

And last here is the chorus of a song by Phil Harris. I think The Preacher and the Bear is perfect for going to Alaska.

“Oh Lord, you delivered Daniel from lion’s den; also delivered Jonah from the belly of the whale and then, The Hebrew children from the fiery furnace so the Good Book do declare. Oh Lord if you can’t help me, for goodness sakes, don’t help that bear!”

Phil Harris Preacher and the Bear Video

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