You hear that? That's the school bell. Take some notes.

So this song has been going through my head for a while now, but in light of the VMAs, and school just starting, I figured that the musicians who won awards could take some notes on what constitutes actual vocal talent. No autotuning, no background track to hide behind. For the lyrics, the chorus doesn't contain any "na na na na" or other nonsensical utterings that are there only because the songwriter couldn't fill the rest of the lines to keep with the rhyme or meter of the rest of the verse.

Don't stop dating

There are plenty of sources for dating advice. The magazines that are grace the check out aisle at the grocery store preach various methods of getting that dream guy/girl, or fixing a problem in your relationship. For some reason, a few of my friends come to me seeking advice. Being a friend, I don't tell them to pick up the most recent edition of Cosmo, but rather tell them to calm down and try to fix whatever issue is going on. Advice varies case to case, and I have really no idea why my friends ask me for advice. I have never had much success in the dating realm, so most of my advice consists of listening, telling my friend to calm down, and then working through some compromise.

Every Cosmo cover offers 100+ tips to improve... well so I chose this cover instead. 

Now, some of the advice you may read is "Try something new in the bedroom!" or "Explore this part of the city!" or "Try these new date ideas!"The only one that seems like a good idea that I have seen is the "Never stop dating".

This is advice from a florist shop. Definitely been there in my life...

Why do I think this is a good idea? Because the beginning part of dating is the most fun part. Figuring out who the person is, what things you share in common, trying new things, going to new places, etc. This is not a post on dating, however, but staying motivated in training.

While I have not had success in dating, I have had some success in training, and staying motivated with it. My coach, Martin Spierings, has kept things pretty entertaining, but eventually, it gets dull. So how to fix that? Start dating again. So below is a list of tips that start out as a list that you could find in a grocery check out rag, but is meant to help you get started training or push through a rough patch in your training.

This is what my log typically looks like for a week. Lots of boring without some spice. I don't think that dating comes with logs. That would make my life way easier. 

These are in no particular order.

1) Get out. Can't find something to do? Then check out the local gym/pool/track. There are bound to be other people there. Go talk to them. See if you can find a group to latch on to. The more the merrier. They will help keep you committed to whatever plan you have. And you will meet new people.

2) Go some place new. Tired of going to the same restaurant or renting movies from Blockbuster? (Do people still go to Blockbuster anymore? I recently rented movies from a nearby place that I used to go to as a kid. I forgot how fun it was). But in terms of training-try a new trail, bike path. If you are a swimmer, go to a lake/open water place. A change of scenery will do a body good.

3) Take a personal day. Need some alone time? We all do. A day off, or days off, can help you recover from a particularly strenuous string of workouts. The track/gym/road is not going anywhere, and the time off can be an opportunity to refocus your goals. Use the day to do things that have been pushed back on your to do list. Catch up on those episodes of Game of Thrones (assuming you haven't already read everyone's facebook statuses that give everything away).

4) Get cleaned up. One of the perks of dating is getting all put together to go out somewhere nice. Do that for your workout gear. Take extra time to clean up your bike, or to wash your workout equipment. Take care of the equipment that takes care of you in a workout. That includes your body. After a workout, take an extra long shower. Scrub with that fuzzy thing that has a fancy name. Soak up the heat.

This is called a loofah, which is apparently also spelled loofah. Convenient. Use it.

5) Make a playlist. Remember the first time you made your sweetheart a playlist on iTunes and then burned it on to a cd? Every song had some significance. And then after you burned it on to a cd, you wrote on it in sharpie for the track names and artists? Those were the days. For your workout, do the same. So that when your legs start telling you can't do it anymore, you have that track that will push you through whatever workout you are struggling with. Then you can take Jens Voigt's advice:

We can't all be like Jens, but we can all tell our body to shut up and push through whatever perceived threshold we have reached. And if for you it takes the latest Rihanna/David Guetta song to do it, then so be it. I personally go for something along these lines:

You generally don't want to be around me when I am doing intervals and this is going.

6) Try something new. Tired of hitting the saddle for hours, or pounding the pavement, or pumping iron? Then go to a yoga class. Or try a session of crossfit. Or maybe something crazy like aerobic dance. If you like it, incorporate it into your routine. 

There are times I should take my own advice. Some day, I will find someone looking for this:

So many memories

When I was in middle school, I would go over to a friend's house, and we would play Nintendo 64. If we weren't playing golden eye (which is one of the best first person shooters or all time), we were probably playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I don't have that much knowledge of video game soundtracks, but the music on that game was awesome. This song brought back a lot of memories:

If you want to relive the whole soundtrack, you can find a playlist here. Tons of ska and punk music to take you back to the days when N64 was the best console around. 

Open the box

Pandora, at times, is a remarkable program. Other times, it is a huge piece of junk (I am keeping it family friendly). I feel like at times, Pandora takes your recommendations (let's say you want to listen to the Beatles), and then throws it into a blender, and says "Oh you like the Beatles... let's see, Beatles, beats, Dre Beats headphones, let's play Dr. Dre!" And me, as the listener, turns off Pandora and goes back to my itunes library.

Occasionally, Pandora gets something right. I started a Macklemore station, and it has played, amazingly enough, a fair amount of Macklemore (if you haven't listened to Macklemore's album "The Heist", get out from whatever rock you are living under). But it has also played some guy named G-Eazy. Here is one of my favorite tracks: (Just FYI, some of the tracks below are not family friendly).

You should also check out Rebel, Lady Killers, and Mad. 

You have talent?

A few posts ago, I highlighted Tim Hahn, who puts out awesome short videos, and my students, who are far more artistic than I knew. This time, a shout out to Michael Kohl, a musician, and a call for help. He is a member of a band called XY Unlimited, and here is one of their songs:

Mike is in the black tank top playing guitar.

They are currently in a voting contest to try and win $10,000. You can vote once per hour. Here is the link: https://artistsignal.com/xyunlimited#_=_. You need to have a facebook account, and if you do, go give them some love.

Till I collapse

17 hours of training this week. Song of the week:

How much would you pay a babysitter?

How much are you willing to pay a babysitter? Teaching is sometimes compared to babysitting, so let’s run with this thought experiment. $7/hour? $10/hour? Let’s go with $5/hr, because there will be other kids around too. So the babysitter is going to have your kid from 8am to 3pm, but they get 30 minutes off for lunch and an hour of personal time, so the babysitter is only really watching your kid for 6.5 hours. That comes out to be… $32.50/day. Assuming that the babysitter is watching a total of 25 kids (about the average size of the class), then that number becomes $812.50/day. And the baby sitter is only going to work for 180 days of the year, so total amount of money that the babysitter would make in a year would be…$146,250. Now, since the baby sitter has had some extra training, and your kid might actually learn something while in the care of the babysitter, let’s pay the babysitter minimum wage in California, which is $8/hr. With 25 kids, working only 6.5 hours a day, and only 180 days a year, the “babysitter” is making $234,000/year! Hot damn, everyone should become a babysitter!

That number could easily be inflated using the logic espoused above. I easily work more than 6.5 hours a day, I usually have more than 25 kids in the room, and I most certainly work more than 180 days a year.

This was an argument, with slightly different numbers, that was posted by many of my teacher friends and others to Facebook, attempting to show that teachers should be paid more. I agree that teachers should be paid more, but not for the reasons they describe.

Let’s break down the argument, and then I will explain why I think teachers should be paid more.

The posting does not take into account the pay for the principal, the assistant principal, the office staff, the counselors, the security guards, the coaches, the janitors, etc. It doesn’t include the costs of maintaining the campus, the technology at the school, paying for electricity/water/waste, classroom supplies (yes, there is usually a little money stored away for these, but rarely enough). Including the pay for these individuals and upkeep of the campus takes a big chunk of that salary away.

Also rarely mentioned by these postings are the benefits that teachers receive. As a teacher, the school district will pay a certain percentage into your retirement, health and dental insurance, etc. These benefits are ridiculously good for a teacher. I won’t put out any specific numbers, but private pay insurance can cost from $100-$400+/month. I don’t pay anything close to that.

Taking into account that many other people need to be paid to support the babysitter, and that the babysitter has negotiated ridiculous benefits, that original $146,250 salary takes a big hit. How big? I will leave that to the accountants out there.

So how much should teachers be paid? Should there be incentive based pay? As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, almost everyone believes that they should get paid more.  Teachers almost always work more than the 180 days a year, more than the 8 hour days, and have more than 25 kids in the room. The real reason that teachers should be paid more is that the impact on students a good teacher can have is difficult to measure in monetary terms. Teachers influence, guide and mentor students and can impact students far beyond the classroom. You can probably remember your favorite teacher(s) and the words that they said to you that made you think and act differently. Those teachers are paid the same as all the other teachers. That begs the question about whether or not teachers should be paid differently, and what to do about bad teachers. A touchy subject that I will opine on later.

As for my pay? At the moment, to paraphrase Jack Johnson-I have everything I need, and everything I need is enough. I am grateful for my job, to be able to have an apartment (with a roommate-a good one), and not have to worry about my next meal.

Country Music

Country music is acceptable. But only if it is super cheesy like this:

Other acceptable country songs: Big Green Tractor, Tequila Makes her clothes fall off, Pray for You, Ten Rounds with Jose Cuervo

Chinese Takeout

So I earlier wrote a post about not having any idea about the talents of others. Fortunately, I have discovered that some people I know have talent. And by talented, I mean ridiculously so. Check out these two shorts.

and

Mojo Radio Gang

I recently discovered Parov Stelar. I know that I am late on the boat with it, but this stuff is pretty good in my opinion. Also check out this:

This, my friends, is real dancing.

Day before race day.

Believe.

Pump Up Songs

Continuing with the theme of pump up jams, here is one of the angry songs I use. Again, heavy on the snare.

Video of the Day

Continuing with the theme of pump up songs, this has been recently added.

Pump up

I am racing this weekend. For the videos of the day, I will be posting songs from various pump up playlists I have made. It is a mix of rap, techno, rock, and other angry music. Here is something clean to get it started. Also, if you have never seen Muse live, you should definitely check them out. Crazy light show.

The Impression that I get

If there was genre of music that I wish would come back, it would be ska. There are better songs by this band, but this is the most popular.

Mashed up Friday

In my opinion, one of the best mash-ups from Girl Talk.

MONSTARS

In my opinion, the best from the Space Jam Soundtrack.

All I wanted was a pepsi

I actually prefer Coke and Dr. Pepper, but the sentiment in this song is spot on.

Video of the day