PSoTD

When the pre-teens and the teenagers become overwhelmed with their end-of-school excitement, and a small percentage end up committing petty crimes. A couple of years ago our development had a few days of car break-ins - unlocked cars, mind you - and CDs, some electronics, and other items were stolen. We live in a relatively low-crime area, but frankly, I'm not sure there's anywhere outdoors that you should leave you car unlocked at night anymore. We learned our lesson that summer as well.

From time to time I join my wife in watching "Iron Chef". My recommendation - start having secret ingredients that are staples of everyday cooking. Hamburger. Tuna. Leftover spaghetti. Seriously - how about the special ingredient being leftovers.

The musical is playing all over the country. Is it a resurgence of the show? I don't know, but I'm interested in seeing the Philadelphia production.

Things probably would have been a whole lot different in America.

Seriously, I hope this was entirely paid for by individuals and not by government, health or insurance institutions.

It was a good run for the show. My wife and I enjoyed the series as much as we've enjoyed any network comedy over the past few years - I know, that is faint praise, but we've actually really liked the adventures of Doug and Carrie and Arthur. It was a very good ensemble, and hopefully actors such as Victor Williams will find more success in the future. Patton Oswalt actually blogs, and posts about the end of the show.

There's a lot of positive words in the blogosphere for the show today. Too many to pick from, but you can do some cherrypicking here.

Color me a skeptic, but I don't think that traditional sitcoms are heading toward extinction. I am surprised to read that "King" is the 12th longest-running sitcom in TV history, or fourth-most-syndicated comedy in television.

Remember when Quinn Martin ruled television with a zillion detective shows - Barnaby Jones, Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco, etc.? Programming cycle. The detective shows are back today - three versions of CSI, three version of Law and Order, etc. Primetime game shows are back for now too, although not your mother's Beat the Clock. The sitcom is just in a down cycle. It'll be back.

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and here's a bit of my appreciation.

My freshman year of high school I got into a lot of trouble, cut a lot of classes, earned a lot of bad grades, and ended up with about a fifth of the credits I should have completed in my first year. My sophomore year I did considerably better because the high school put together a program to sit on students like myself, and when I realized that the program I was in offered very little freedom and stuck me in a group with every fulltime stoner and many future jail inhabitants in my school, I saw the light. Went to class. Studied. Returned to getting As and Bs.

This helped me with GPA but not enough with the total number of credits I needed for graduation. So, in the summer between sophomore and junior year, I went to summer school.

I took two classes, one of which I don't even remember at this point, but the second was an American History course - with a teacher I had not had before, Mr. Bennett.

Mr. Bennett was a popular teacher at our school. It didn't take long to figure out why. We sat in a classroom which overlooked the ballfields at the high school, and some days I could see kids playing baseball. That's where I normally wanted to be, out on the field, not in class, not on a warm summer morning, but Mr. Bennett brought history to life in our classroom. He was dramatic in flair in discussing history, he pushed "repercussions", how events lead to other events which lead to historical change in our society.

Now, it doesn't hurt that I like history. But the weather and the ballfields and whatever boring class I had after Mr. Bennett's were conspiring against me from doing well. But that didn't happen, and I think Mr. Bennett's enjoyment of history was what kept that from happening.

The following semester I deliberately took another history class of Mr. Bennett's - The Civil War - primarily because he taught it. And it was great as well.

I know Mr. Bennett is doing something else now - either teaching at another school or in another profession. He was a young man then, he must be close to retirement age at this point. But I know there were lots of students at Granada High School to which he made a big difference. I was one of them.

This is Teacher Appreciation Week.

There are very, very few of us that weren't molded dramatically by some particular teacher, and yet, after we leave those formative years and find ourselves a distance from school days, we don't think again about that teacher. So here's my suggestion to bloggers: Google your favorite teachers. Find something? Why not post about it. Not find something? Then definitely post about that teacher. Maybe that teacher is still around, and will find the post. Maybe that teacher is no longer around, but his or her family could find the post most welcome. Maybe it doesn't matter if anyone else finds it - maybe thinking about how that teacher impacted your life will make you a more appreciative person of such efforts, and maybe that's reward enough.

I've been lucky enough to have a couple of favorite teachers, so I'll have to think about it a few days before posting.

Wow, this is an eye-opener. I used to live in Sacramento, in apartments just across the river from the Cal State University, Sacramento. Oh, and I lived in the dorms on year, also. Of course, that was the 1980s. But still...

Plus, officials want to pursue options that include more than just traditional dorm rooms. Only about 200 of the 1,100 students — mostly freshmen — living on campus any given year return to university housing the following year, Cockrill said.

Well, the dorms kinda sucked when I was there, so no big surprise on the return rate. Apartment living was better, so no wonder the school wants to build some of those - better money to be made:

That's where two of the new projects come in. The first is a $55 million, four-story housing complex on the northern side of campus that should be ready for students by fall 2009.

The rooms in the building will be laid out as suites, Cockrill said. Some of the suites will have two bedrooms and two baths, occupied by four people. Others would be five-bedroom, two-bath units occupied by five people.

"It's just like an apartment," Cockrill said.

There also will be plenty of retail space in the building. All told, it will house 600 students.

The college will use bond money and student fees to pay for the building. The bonds are set to be approved by the board of trustees next month, Cockrill said.

The new rooms will be more expensive than traditional on-campus housing — officials haven't yet decided how much they will cost. Rents across the campus also will go up about 10 percent a year through 2009 to pay for the new building, Cockrill said.

Sooner than that, tony offerings will be available a little down the road. University Enterprises, an auxiliary of Sacramento State, has signed a 15-year lease with a private company for an almost-finished, loft-style apartment complex next to the 65th Street light-rail station.

The lofts, which will have about 450 beds, are about the same distance to many campus buildings as on-campus residential housing.

"They are modern apartments — full kitchen, high-end appliances, granite countertops, balconies, a washer or dryer in each unit," said Matthew Altier, executive director of University Enterprises.

The new lofts will be ready for students this fall. They'll be located behind several live-work units and an 11,000-square-foot chunk of retail space.

"It will be geared toward the older students — transfer students, international students," Altier said, adding that monthly rent likely will be between $550 and $600 per student.

I know housing costs have gone up remarkably in Sacramento since I moved away in 1991. But still - that's a lot of money for a student each month.

William Mendenhall Middle School, in Livermore, California.

When did the change occur? This used to be William Mendenhall Junior High School. What makes it a middle school, rather than a junior high school?

One of the physical highlights of this school is actually the park it is next to: Max Baer Park (yes, named after the old boxer who was a resident of Livermore for a while). At the time I was growing up, the best baseball fields in Livermore were at this park.

From where we lived, we had to walk through Max Baer Park to get to Mendenhall. There were lots and lots of small trees in the park along the ballfields' fence lines, and red-winged blackbirds would nest in these trees in the spring. Blackbirds are very aggressive towards humans, particuarly during nesting season, and they would divebomb kids, swooping as if to strike, if you walked too close to the trees. You didn't have to fear that they would strike you, but they might crap on you, so you tended to either stay away from the trees or run past them.

My "good" shoes, the shoes I wear when I'm dressed up - I've had those for 12 years. They've been re-soled once. And they're still in relatively good shape although they look somewhat dated at this point.

Maybe it isn't that embarrassing, but I know some people who would never wear them at this point just due to age. But I haven't had to spend most of my time in a suit and tie and leather shoes for the past dozen years. In fact, much of my work time the past 12 years have been attired in shorts and a tee-shirt, or sweats, or lots of other very casual combinations. Such is the dress code when you work at your home computer most days.

I bet I wear my "good shoes" twice a month, at most. And even then, one of those times isn't likely for work. So... they've lasted.

Do people even look at men's shoes? I've never felt like these shoes were "inappropriate" even though they're older than my oldest child. I doubt anyone remembers my shoes - they are plainly nice, or nicely plain, and in either case not memorable.

Maybe, I paid about $60 for these shoes in 1995. I can't recall, but it's unlikely I spent much more than that. 12 years, $60. I've gotten my five bucks a year worth out of them, I reckon.