LETHOLOGICA

LETHOLOGICA is the word for the feeling you get when you cannot remember a word.*

I am always in a state of LETHOLOGICA. For instance, this morning Willow, my pet LETHOLOGICA, and I went for a LETHOLOGICA, I walked 32 LETHOLOGICAs. When we returned I fed Willow and read my e- LETHOLOGICA. Now, after I finish this I am going to eat LETHOLOGICA, which will be Kellogg’s LETHOLOGICA with milk and blue LETHOLOGICAs.

Then, I will probably go to the LETHOLOGICA and shave and take a LETHOLOGICA.

*UNCLE JOHN’S BATHROOM READER Page-a-day Calendar, September 22, 2011.

The Atlanta Educators Got Caught Cheating

The Atlanta School System Test Changing Answers Scandal is just terrible. I think what they did will cause repercussions for years to come.

I’m thinking of the kids that took the exam and their answers were changed. They might have got to ease by certain academia concentrations or reviews because according to the test results they did good, so no need in wasting tax payers’ money in reviewing subjects and abilities the tests shown they were great at.

I think it is greed and ego that drove the members of the Atlanta Educational elite to do such a thing. Of course, ego, it is always good to point to figures, like the bottom line average of a test paper and compare the average years ago.

“See how the students’ tests averages have increased since I took over? It is because my guidance! I am responsible for the students’ high marks! I demand a raise!”


The number game is played in all fields, not just the teaching field. Politicians redefine subjects all the time to make themselves look better. So do police chiefs – I read that a few years ago some Police Chiefs redefined murders and holdups where crime on the streets numbers didn’t seem nearly as bad as their predecessors. I think the management at the Postal Service did the same, get creative with their volume reports to get production bonuses.

Not so honorable people proved you can get around the numbers in one way or the other. Now, the numbers don’t don't mean anything at all.


But I think the Atlanta Board is looked on as the worse because kids will suffer just to make the elitist look good.

What I am really teed off at is how come they didn’t run the Cobb County School System back when I was just getting through school by the skin of my teeth.

Top Education Dogs Get Fat Raises!

A portion of a news story from the AJC.com this morning:

"Despite budget cuts, three college presidents get salary boostShareThisPrint E-mail .By Laura Diamond


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

University of Georgia President Michael Adams and two other college presidents are getting raises at a time when the University System of Georgia is dealing with about $300 million in state budget cuts."

How will the state pay for the raises since they are going through some serious budget slashed?

No problem at all. Just add some more furlough days to regular teachers and increase tuition at colleges.

Where Were They When I Needed Them?

Memo outlined APS cheating response, strategy for Hall
By Alan Judd
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The region’s business leaders and Atlanta’s school superintendent together orchestrated the district’s investigation into alleged cheating on a state-mandated standardized test, a recently obtained memorandum indicates.
Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall discussed the district's cheating scandal on Tuesday.

Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, distributed the memo by e-mail on Feb. 26, outlining the steps the school district would take to respond to an emerging scandal about possible cheating on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT. He wrote the memo about two weeks after the state released the findings of an audit that suggested possible cheating in 58 Atlanta schools. Questions also were being raised about Hall’s response to the scandal.

-Above from the AJCONLINE.COM yesterday.

Apparently, the Atlanta School administration was more concerned with statistics and the reflection on them than the actual facts.

What I want to know is where were all these teachers and principals when I was struggling with my grades, having to go to summer school and having to study like the dickens my last week in high school, doing a whole years work in one week? It just isn’t fair!

Here is an Educational Lesson For You

The basic rule is that the elite get their cut first then secondly, we commons get to divide what is left over.

This was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday, May 24, 2010:

“At least four local superintendents earn more than the vice president of the United States and one earns nearly as much as the president.

As school districts face unprecedented budget cuts and collective layoffs of more than 1,500 teachers, superintendent compensation remains hefty, even with recent decreases.”

I wonder how many front-line teachers these school systems had to lay off to pay these top level salaries. To pay the supers more than they are worth I roughly estimate between two and three teachers per school district had to lose their jobs. Maybe something like 2.5. And that doesn’t sound like many, but multiply that by the 4 school districts and you have 10. And, ten less teachers in the Metro Atlanta System will be something like 300 more students getting absorbed in already crowded classrooms, which of course mean less individual attention, which will result in less quality education.

However, as much as the superintendents are paid, I doubt if their loyalty and dedication was bought; that is always available to the highest bidder. Strange, they all plead for their teachers to have loyalty and dedication in their profession. But I guess money speaks louder. It has been proven more than once if another school district, even in another state, offers them more money they are out of there as quick as they can pack.

But, that doesn’t matter, I bet each superintendent is polished and can speak very eloquently at things like the Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club luncheons. That means a lot.

That is our lesson for today kiddies.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UGA!!

On this day in history in 1785 the first US state university was chartered in Athens, Georgia. It was originally named something else, which I don’t remember, but in time it changed its name to The University of Georgia, or for short UGA.

My great-great grandfather Eugene Hargraves Tyson (1798-1868) graduated from there. I read that he was a Latin scholar. I speculate he was a student there about 1820 when the University was about 35 years old. He holds the unique position in my genealogy carts as being the first common ancestor that Anna and I both have – although, he is her great-great-great grandfather…. We did not discover this until I got into genealogy research.

Eugene Hargraves Tyson did like many UGA students do today. After he graduated he stuck around Athens. He was a tax collector. I have seen his ledger book of his collections.

Eugene married Frances Eliza Portress Herring. In 1832 or 1833 he gained land in Cherokee County, Georgia, by means of the Georgia Gold Lottery. His gold mining operation was on Kellogg Creek, just northwest of Woodstock, Georgia.

I have a son Rockwell T. Hunter, who also graduated from UGA. His middle name is Tyson. It all makes sense now doesn’t it?

The Atlanta Aquarium - Lots of Fish

Above – Piranha Fish.

Note. Click on any picture to make it overwhelming big and better (or worse).

We went to the Atlanta Aquarium Saturday. We invited my two sisters.

We heard on radio that the DOT was working on I-75 near downtown. The Atlanta Aquarium, on line, sells you tickets in time appointments. Our tickets were set for 9am. So, we normally figure an hour of driving to get to downtown Atlanta – but they were working on the highway, so we had better ad some leave earlier than planned – and also we were to drive across Marietta and pick up my sisters, so we thought we should leave even earlier.

Going down the I-75 we heard on the radio that the traffic was backed up all the way from downtown to the Moores Mill Road exit which slowed every down – you could expect to travel about two miles in twenty-five minutes.

Darn! We won’t get there on time! We better speed it up.

We approached the Moores Mill Road exit – the exit where the traffic was supposed to be back up to and the highway was clear. It was a traffic report from XM radio and I think they had things confused.

It was still fast sailing as we approached the next exit, Howell Mill Road, but decided to get off anyway and take the side streets. Anna and I both worked in the area about 40 years ago and thought we knew all the short cuts…. Which I suppose we do.

We arrived at the Atlanta Aquarium at 8:30. I them out in front and went to park. I met up with them at 8:35 and the Atlanta Aquarium was still closed. They would open at 9:00. It was 21◦.

As I said more than once we don’t know how to be late… or we don’t even know how to be not too early.

They had pity on us and let us in the first little section.

While we waited we had a nice little talk with the young lady in charge of opening the gate at 9.

She pulled back the gate-rope at 9 and let us flood in. This was Anna’s and my second visit and wasn’t as awed as we were the first time but enjoyed watching my sisters’ amazement of the huge aquatic life in the huge water tanks.

Each section has an employee or a volunteer on hand to tell you tons of information about the habits of the fish you were looking at that moment.

One room is a huge wall that is a huge window into an aquarium with huge whale-sharks, other types huge sharks and small sand sharks, and other interesting fish. Then, entering the room was about a half dozen volunteers. For a few minutes they stayed in a group studying the people around them. They reminded me of a movie I saw one time that a group of shy young men entered a ball-room at a girls school – and for a short time they stayed in a group sizing up who might need them to dance with them – or in case, who looked like they wanted to know about some sea creature in the tank.



This picture reminds me of Science Fiction Theater that used to be TV about a dozen or so years ago.






Beluga Whales – The Atlanta Aquarium has three. Actually, they own only one male – but two females are on loan from New York, a mother and daughter team. There are plans to mate the daughter with Atlanta’s male.

The male whale was in front of us mostly. He was very graceful swimming and looked very mystic - all white, almost glowing in the blue water.... show off.

The guide pointed out that the Beluga whale to swivel their heads just like humans and can twist and bend their lips just like humans – thus have facial expressions – they smile, laugh, and sing – just like humans. But when the male pointed at me and said something and all three of them laughed - well, that was just plain rude.




I have no idea what these creatures are. I think they are either Martians or mushrooms nose diving.









I took my usual high volume of pictures. But, somehow, they just didn’t come up to par. I think the main reason was I chose in most pictures not to use a flash… and my automatic camera held the shutter up too long to let a little light in, and of course I can’t stay still that long.


See the Sea Horse?
In the center -
Of course, of course.
Did you know the male sea horse carries the unborn babies around and gives birth to them while the female sea horses hang out in bars and play games, such as darts and horseshoes? Those volunteers have the most valuable information.

Afterwards, we wanted to eat at a certain grill we heard about in Decatur, which is a few miles east of Atlanta. We drove all over the area looking for and broke the Georgia law of stopping for people at cross walks a number of times because he were too busy looking for street signs.

Then, near Agnes Scott College we saw a woman walking for exercise. I lowered the window to speak to her and she came running over. I asked if she knew where the grill was we were looking for and she gave me exact directions, like she said, “Turn left at the next redlight and drive 1.9 miles and it is on your left.”

I thought that was strange- being so exact. But later, while we were eating lunch by the window, she speed walked by the plate glass window. I bet she has all the distances mapped and figured out.

Yesterday is Pending

Yesterday was an eventful day or busy day… I think it was mostly de-eventful, using the prefix of “de” as in de-boning a chicken.

First I went to my first class this season at ELM. ELM is a continuing education kind of thing operated by the First Methodist Church in Marietta. The subject I am taking is North Georgia History. The class was limited to 10, but while sitting there I counted 10 – but wait! I didn’t count myself, so there were eleven! She said a bunch of people were turned down because of the limit size of the class. But one squeezed in after the gate was going down… which one? I wondered. Since I mailed in my registration the day I received it, I don’t think it was me.

The instructor is a lady that used to write for the Dalton Daily Citizen. She moved to Dalton with her husband when he was transferred to one of the carpet mills in Dalton.. She is originally from New Jersey.

A yankee teaching about history about North Georgia – that seems strange doesn’t it?

But maybe it is not so strange. I have a theory that people on the outside looking in can tell you more about the people in, as a whole, than they can themselves…. It is sort of like you can not see the forest for the trees.

When you are on the outside you can see group eccentricities and trends clearer than members of the group – make sense? I think that is one of the reasons people with accents make excellent marketers.

Her main topic was Rome, Martha Berry, and Martha Berry, which I thought she gave a very good lecture, interacting style. Next week it will be Dalton and the Chenille (?) bedspreads and carpet manufacturing which I am sure she has some inside information.

She also went on and on about how rich Georgia’s history is between 1800 and 1900 – it has it all she said. I think she is right.

While I was gone Jason the carpenter worked on the cabinets and the counters. The plan is to replace the cabinet doors and replace the counter.

He has a huge plastic tent over the kitchen area which keeps the dust from flying, the glue smell for driving us crazy, and all…. But how does he not go crazy from sniffing the glue?

I think Jason is a contractor of big organization that we made the deal with.

I looked out the window and I saw another car in our driveway. Then, a few minutes later a black Caddy SV pulled up and a man got out that was no technician or carpenter. He was in a very well tailored suit. I thought something of up. Jason ran into a problem and contacted the company. They talked to Jason for a while… well, a long time. Then the man in the suit came out from the plastic tent to have a talk with us.

Jason ran into a problem. Which is too complex to explain here, as if I understood it enough to understand. And the options to fix it all are even more complex. It has all to do with when Jason took off the old counter top the cabinet frame underneath cannot meet the countertop that was already tailored made.

So, the man in the caddy is going back to his office and try to figure out a solution.

As I said, we got de-railed, de-boned; filleted ; our turn in the barrel…. Etc.