I haven't blogged in awhile, so I thought I'd post a quick update.

My health is still up and down, but I have seen recent improvements. I've managed to stay out of the hospital for this whole summer, which is really good news for me.

I'm buying a house. It's scary, but definitely the right time financially.

School starts back in two weeks. As always things will be busy. Especially as I try to move at the same time.

As always, I appreciate any help with any of my guides. So feel free to submit info as you find it.

B

A lot of you may have noticed my decreased presence here at TV.com. While I'm not ready to give up my editorships, I have not been spending as much time here. 1) work's been crazy.
2)My health has been steadily decreasing, and frankly I don't have the energy to fight the system to submit certain things. I've been hospitalized 6 times since September, had 13 blood transfusions, and have undergone numerous tests. Sometimes I just want to watch TV, not analyze it.
3)A lot of the users that I enjoyed the most on this site have also decreased the amount of time here.
4)The Sports forum, where I spent a lot of my time, has been on lockdown lately. Our Yahoo fantasy league was shut down. What a dissappointment by TPTB. This was all inclusive and a lot of fun. Suddenly, we can't play anymore. *sigh*

I'm still checking my queue, but I've fallen behind on some of the regular information I used to submit. Hopefully, I'll get a second wind. Otherwise, I may retire. If retirment wasn't permanant, if I could take a medical break, I might consider it. But I have put a lot of hard work into all of my guides, and I'm not quite ready to let go yet. Still, I'm heading that way. My guess is that if I do retire, someone else will pick up my slack--that's the way of the world.

High School Football in Texas is king. and this year my high school (where I teach) was almost at the top of the heap. We competed in the State semi-finals on Saturday. Had we won, we would have been playing for the state championship at reliant Stadium in Houston. Unfortunately, we lost by 2 points, due to a score with 1:38 left in the game.

Today, students are visibly upset. Some are blaming the refs (I wasn't at the game, so I can't comment--although several papers across the state did cite examples of some missed calls--one even said that if high school had instant replay, we would have won the game). I'm sad I missed out, but I was at a speech and debate tournament. Had we won, I wouldn've been able to go to the State Championship game. Oh well.

Overall, this is the best showing we've ever had. Last year, I blogged about how happy I was with the new football coach becasue he actually made athletes responsible. This time I can blog about how successful he is and how he's earning his giant salary (the largest in the Central TX area).

If you want to know more, read this ESPN article about our team. It was written before we lost in the semi-finals.

We might have lost this Saturday, but the school still feels like it won just by how hard we played.

I haven't blogged in a while because things around here have been crazy!

I spent Halloween and the 4 days after it in the hospital. I'm apparently no longer making red blood cells, so I was extremely anemic. The doctors did a ton of tests, but still can't figure out what's going on. So I'm meeting with specialists at least once a week. I now have my own personal pathologist, hematologist, nephrologist and gastrointernalist (no clue if those are spelled correctly ).

Grades were due this week, and thanks to my little vacation in the hospital I was quite a bit behind in grading.

Add in after school practices with the debate team and the obligatory tournaments on the weekends, and I've fallen a bit behind.

I'm still visiting TV.com. I've kept up with all of my currently airing shows, but I'm not making as much progress adding info to some of my works in progress as I would like. Plus, I've found a guide for a show I really like that's in terrible condition. The editor recently retired and all the summaries appear to be direct copies. I've been holding back submitting, hoping that someone who cared for the show would take it, but that hasn't happened. I'm half way to the editorship with stuff I'd already done, but I'm not sure I want to add another currently airing show to my list. I'll have to keep thinking about it.

Well, this was just a quick note to say hi and hope that everyone out there is doing well.

While the drama here at TV.com rages on, real life continues. I could blog about the bad timing of the release or the fact that most of us knew that it would come with some huge bugs or the fact that the data has taken 2nd place to becoming a MySpace clone or...but I won't.

This weekend was the first speech and debate tournament of the year. Looking at the schedule, we compete every weekend until Thanksgiving. I'm tired just thinking about it! My co-coach and I might try to split some weekends, but logistically that's pretty hard. We had 11 kids compete at this tournament. Two rental vans cost the team about 300.00 for the weekend. A bus would've cost us just 700.00 plus. The problem? Cars need drivers, which requires both of us. I know I've mentioned it, but a speech tournament lasts from about 3pm to midnight on Friday. We are usually back up at 6am on Saturday and compete until 11:00pm on Sat. At least, you hope you are competing that late because that means your kids are doing well. Unfortunately, the older I get, the harder the long schedules are physically.

We did pretty well this weekend. The kids walked away with 4 "shinies" or trophies. And we had 3 other kids who were on the verge of getting awards. Our team is growing and still pretty young. So, all of this hardware is pretty impressive.

This is the time of year when I have to prioritize. While I still have time to moderate my queue and add an interesting tidbit here and there, for the most part real life takes precedence.

School starts tomorrow, so I'll be busy with all my new classes and getting the traveling team set up and ready.

And, at the worst possible time, I've had a bit of a health crisis lately. I was diagnosed with kidney disease and have been battling that. Friday night I received a call from my nephrologist (kidney specialist) that some lab results were iffy. So, she submitted the paperwork to the Emergency Room and I was admitted to the hospital for 48 hours. I got four units of blood to combat severe anemia and low hemaglobins. The hospital also monitored my blood pressure which was taking some wild swings.

I won't go into any more about the complications this new diagnosis brings, since it's a real downer. However, I am averaging 2-3 doctor's appointments a week, plus trying to start school. This means my TV.com time is in short supply. PLEASE keep submitting stuff. It doesn't take as long to moderate my queue as it does to investigate new episodes, etc.

I'll be around this next month, just maybe not as much. So, have patience with me if I don't get to your blogs or visit my usual forums. I'm trying.

I arrive back home at about 2:00 this morning. School starts on Thursday. In short, all 17 of us had a great time at Disney. With an age range of 4 to 70, I thought we might have more problems, but we all got along great. We stayed together for parts of the trip, and split up when necessary.

I'm constantly amazed by how Disney makes every aspect of your vacation go so smoothly.

I'll write a longer blog with pics about the trip later, I just wanted to let everyone know I was back!

I leave tomorrow at midnight for my second and last vacation of the summer--Walt Disney World. There are 16 of us traveling to the House of the Mouse. I can't wait.

The only drawback is that when we return, we all have to return to school and start teaching again.

I hope to have some pictures I can post when I return.

See you when I get back!

After 6 fun filled days in Las Vegas, I'm home.

I saw a lot of sights and shows (including Phantom of the Opera and the Titanic exhibit).

I also attended the tournament and networked with a lot of people. On Thursday, we piled into the Cox Pavilion at UNLV to watch the finals of the three acting events. As usual, a number of stars were there. The Blue Man Group performed for us and Deirdre Hall from Days of Our Lives appeared. And, of course, Michael Urie from Ugly Betty was there. He's still filming his documentary, so there was no huge shock there.

A new documentary was also debuted at Nationals. It is currently airing on HBO. Resolved follows high school debaters. I haven't caught it yet, since I was in Vegas. But, I'm scheduled to record it. As always, I'm interested to see how accurate it really is.

I'm off to check forums and see what's new here.

By the time most of you read this, I will already be on the plane flying to Sin City.

The National Speech and Debate Tournament is being held in beautiful Henderson, Nevada (which is about five minutes from the Strip). While I didn't qualify any students this year it's also a blessing, as I don't have to chaperon anyone in Sin City.

With the Disney trip looming at the end of the summer, I originally planned on NOT taking the trip to Vegas. However, since the majority of all my friends were going, I finally decided it was an opportunity I didn't want to miss.

I haven't been to Vegas in almost a year and half. That's my longest stretch of not visiting the City in 16 years. I've blogged before that ever since I was 17, my parents and I have gone to Vegas for Thanksgiving. We had this year's trip planned, booked, and my bags were packed when my Grandmother went in to intensive care. We canceled the trip. She passed away about 2 weeks after Thanksgiving, so I have to say that the extra three days we spent with her when we would have been in Vegas are priceless. Still, I've definitely been antsy to visit my favorite vacation destination (although Disney is a close number two).

While I'm there, I may see a show. I'll also be attending parts of the tournament. It's a great place to network, to get ideas for coaching, and to get a feel for what kids are doing across the nation in the different events. I also have several cheesy touristy things to do. (I always try to do at least one thing I've never done before in Vegas--because this trip is extra long--6 days--I'm aiming for 3).

I should have Internet access while there, so I will log in and check on my queue. I posted on the Editor's thread, just in case, but I figure, I'll be around a bit.

Wish me luck!

Yesterday, I got sucked into a marathon on the TLC network of the show Jon & Kate Plus 8.

I had never watched the show, but the family had recently taken a trip to Disney World, and another forum I'm a part of recommended watching the episode to see Disney sights. Sunday night, a friend of mine, cued the episode up on her DVR and we atched it. On Monday, when I discovered a marathon of the show I was hooked.

This high class documentary show (I guess technically it would be a reality show, but I think reality has a connotation to it) is about a family. But this isn't an ordinary family, a mom, a dad, 6 year old twins and 3 year old sextuplets. That's right 6 three year olds. Mayhem and chaos reigns.

The longer I watched the show, the more I enjoyed it. This is a family struggling to be normal under abnormal circumstances. The dad is laid back, the mom is super-organized and at-times up tight. The key, however, is that they are both really likable. Even when they do unlikable things due to stress, you know it's out of love for their kids.

I've already set my DVR to record new episodes as they come one. I guess I've added another show to my list of faves!



The countdown has begun.

7 days (including today) until school is out!
18 days until VEGAS (the National Speech and debate tournament)!
71 days until Disney World!

I was glancing at my list of people guides and was struck by how many of them were authors. Specifically, how many of them I had read their books before realizing their TV connection.

To start, it's important to note that I'm a voracious reader. Everything from historical non-fiction to trashy romance novels. I love to read. While packing up my house, of the 100 boxes the movers had to cart out, 70 of them were books. I read and I read a lot.

So, it should come as no surprise that a lot of the celebrities I actively pursued just happen to also be authors. Of my 31 people guides, 8 also have books that I've read. Of those 8, 5 were people I read the books before I actually knew of their TV ties. One of those five is Julia Sweeney (while I knew she was on SNL, I couldn't have named her until I read the book God, Said Ha!).

The 8 (alpabetically by 1st name--the asterisks indicate the authors I read before I saw):

Amy Sedaris
Anthony Bourdain
Christopher Durang **
David Sedaris **
Evan Handler **
Fannie Flagg **
Julia Sweeney **
Marilu Henner

So, of those who are my favorites? Tough question. I truly enjoyed Evan Handler's Time on Fire about his struggle with cancer. Sweeney's God Said Ha! is funny and sad as she deals with her brother's death. Fannie Flagg's Baby Girl and others are brilliant recreations of the South. And, David Sedaris releases collections of essays that actually make me laugh out loud (The Santaland Diaries is brilliant!). However, my current favorite author/guide isn't even someone I edit (Sarah Vowell and her book Assassination Vacation--She tours historical sites linked to Lincoln's, Garfield's and McKinley's assassinations--I don't, however, reccomend it to any of my Republican friends).

For every hour I spend at TV.com, I probably spend double that reading. I currently have no less than 4 books I'm in the middle of (1 of which I have read before). And, I have a stack, probably 30 deep, of books to tackle once summer begins (I can't wait for June).

For many the baseball season has already started. With games played in Japan and the first official games yesterday, many have already started the 162 game season. For me, baseball started today with the Cubs first game. I was at work for the first pitch, but I will admit to having the game streaming through MLB's Gameday site on my computer. Because of rain delays, the game is still on right now, so I'm able to see at least part of it. It's tied. So this isn't a blog about who wins or loses. Instead, I'm just thrilled to have baseball back.

Despite steroid scandals, despite the aborted 1994 season, and despite the fact that my team hasn't won a World Series in a century; I'm still a Cubs fan and, even more importantly, a baseball fan. I enjoy all sports, but can certainly discuss baseball more competently than any of the others. I always amaze some cocky boy in one of my classes when they start talking about a game. I add my two cents, they try to catch me, and I end up knowing more about the game than they do. Jaws drop. It's great.

Our local newspaper recently ran an article (from the AP) about the history of the famous song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." A few facts, you might not have known.

1) The song we all sing is actually the chorus to a much longer song about a girl named Katie who's obsessed with baseball. She's singing to her boyfriend about where to take her on a date--"Take me out to a ballgame." Katie, I can relate.

2) In 1969, MLB commissioned a new song to be written that they hoped would replace "Take Me Out." That song? "Baseball is More than A Game." Had you heard of it? I hadn't.

3) Originally, "Take me out" was sung during reel changes at movie theaters.

4) The song was played intermittently at some major league parks. Sometimes, before games, sometimes after. It wasn't until announcing legend, Harry Carey gained a national audience on WGN that the song spread to almost every MLB park during the 7th inning. Carey had sung the song for years (while working for the White Sox), so it was already known in Chicago. But, when he joined the Cubs' organization, WGN carried his famous performance across the country.

For those interested, you could substitute my name into the lyrics below:

"Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou1
Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said "No,
I'll tell you what you can do:"

[Chorus] Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out on to the crowds;
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names.
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along,
Good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

Repeat Chorus."

GO CUBS!!!!

With Easter upon us, I thought I would share an Easter tradition. This isn't one exclusive to my family, but is specific to Texans. My family isn't religious, so Easter was always more about spending time with extended family and friends, rather than worship.

The Texas state flower is the bluebonnet.

About this time, every year, the bluebonnets bloom in fields across Central Texas. Specifically, along the major highways through town, the embankments are filled with thousands of these flowers. They only last a week, maybe two. Traditionally, these flowers debut right around Easter.

So, when you are traveling 65 miles an hour down I-35, you can often see rows of cars pulled off on the shoulder. Family after family plop their small children into the middle to take their Easter pictures among the bright blue flowers. My family was no exception.

Every Easter as a child, my best friend and I were plopped down on a steep incline for pictures. Invariably, she looks beautiful and I look horrible. She would sit gracefully down, I would sit in fire ants. She would smile prettily, and I would be caught on camera sneezing because I'm allergic to wildflowers.

I have a picture of me in the bluebonnets from the age of 1 through 17. 11 of those, I'm sitting next to my best friend from childhood. There was no getting out of this picture, no matter how much I begged. There was no Easter Egg hunt, no chocolate bunny, no Easter ham; until the camera had flashed.

I still see families forcing their little darlings into the wildflowers and I still, involuntarily, wince. I've even been known to mutter "stupid bluebonnets" (Texan blasphemy). The saddest moment, for me, is always on Monday or Tuesday, when you can see the bald patches where family after family have trampled the fragile flowers. Still, I have no children of my own, but I have a feeling that if I do have kids, I too will force them into the fields by the side of the road. There are pictures of my mom in the bluebonnets, there are pictures of me in the bluebonnets. Who am I to argue too much with tradition?

Happy Easter.

I have had a love/hate relationship with St. Patrick's Day all my life. You see, March 17th is also my birthday.

I'll admit, I am not growing old gracefully. I am being dragged kicking and screaming through each birthday. It's not nice or honorable, but it is true.

I am not unlucky enough to have my birthday on one of the major holidays, but St. Pat's day provides its own challenges. Restaurants are always crowded. The majority of my presents have a shamrock on them. Driving means taking your life in your hands when the roads are filled with drunks.

I am of Irish decent. I had two great-grandparents who were full-blooded Irish immigrants. So, I always thought it was appropriate that my B-day fell on the day it did.

Overall, I usually just shut my eyes and hope the day passes quickly. I've had terrible luck on my birthday in the past (including getting fired, falling down a set of stairs, car break downs, relationship break ups and last year an uncle died). But, I'm honest enough to know that most of those were coincidences or self-fullfilling prophesies. I believed the day would end horribly and invariably it did. So, this year, I've vowed to be calmer and more accepting.

I'm officially 32 years old today and will remain gracious every time someone says happy birthday. Most of my close friends have already called to wish me a "Happy Monday," as most of them know my aversion to the B word. But, a few have slipped and wished me a Happy Birthday, and true to my new vow, I hardly winced at all.

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone

I'm back. My kiddo did excellent at state, making it to the quarterfinal round of Humorous Interpretation. HI is an acting event, where the performer plays multiple characters and attempts to make the judge and audience laugh. You'll notice i say attempt. I have a hard time judging this event because the things that a teenager finds funny, often don't match an adult's sense of humor. Making a competitor understand that just because the audience of fourteen year olds is laughing hysterically, doesn't mean the adult judge will think the performance was any good, is a daunting task. My student, however, isn't hindered by that problem this year. (I have some concerns about next year, but that's a completely different blog topic). I was thrilled by how well he did.

Michael Urie's film crew was everywhere. There was only one film crew around, but they seemed to be everywhere at once. While I was never directly interviewed, editing might see me in the finished product for a brief moment. The final round of Duo Interpretation was filmed for the documentary. I was one of the five judges in that round. The crew didn't directly interview me, but each judge was introduced before the round began. So, depending on editing, my name (at the least) might be a sound bite.

We have another tournament at the end of this week, then it's my birthday and a quick trip out of town. We now have a minimum of 3 more tournaments to go, with the possibility of an additional three more (one of those being Nationals in June @ Las Vegas).



In TV.com news, I was glad to see that Spam blogs have been banned.

I'm also closely following the discussion in the ideas forum about making voluntary retirement from a guide not permanent. There have been a lot of good points made about the logistics of this suggestion; however, from a purely selfish stand point, I wish they would institute this. I have several guides that I've taken as far they can go and that I have no real attachment to them. However, I'm hesitant to give them up. I've put a lot of work into them. If new information becomes available, I want to be able to add it quickly and efficiently. With retirement being permanent, I don't want buyer's remorse. I don't want to surrender the guide (most of which have very few other contributors--if any), and then decide later I made the wrong decision.

I'll be the first to say that I don't watch Ugly Betty; however, my real life job is about to collide with the television show.

As I've stated many times, I coach high school speech and debate. Tomorrow after school, I leave for the Texas State Tournament. This is a four day, intensive competition. I only have one student qualified this year. It's a tough tournament, so I don't know how things will go. How does this relate to Ugly Betty?

Michael Urie, star of the ABC sitcom, was a former speech and debate competitor from Plano, TX. (He was a national champion in Dramatic Interp). This year, he's returning to his home state for the State tournament. And, he's bringing a film crew. That's right, he's making his own documentary about the speech and debate world. We've all had to sign release forms, just in case we end up in the film.

Speech is an incredibly complex world. We compete in four different organizations, have multiple "State" tournaments, and qualify for Nationals from a district tournament that has nothing to do with any of the above mentioned state tournaments. Still, each tournament is special and presents its own set of challenges.

Amazingly, most of the kids are more excited about being at the TFA State tournament, than the possability of appearing in the documentary. I'll be chacking in when I get the chance, I should have internet access. But, time may be an issue. Still, I thought this was an interesting intersection of my TV.com world and my real life.

A quick note: other high school speech and debate celebrities include (in no particular order):

Jared Padalecki (Supernatural -- National Champ)
Oprah Winfrey (Talk Show Mogul)
Lyndon Johnson (President -- I can't believe I have to type that)
Brad Pitt (Yes really)
Ted Turner (Owner of TBS, CNN, the Braves)
Shelley Long (Cheers -- National Champ)
and tons more!

The past couple of days I've been doing research to continue to add notes and trivia to my Austin City Limits guide. I've been reading tons of newspaper articles nad interviews with producers about the show.

I was fascinated to learn that:

1)It's the longest continuously running music show on TV.

2) All musicians are paid scale for their appearance (somewhere between $400-500). No artist makes any more or any less. If they demand more, the producers move on to someone else. In the beginning this could be a problem, but now, the show has more people who want to perform than it does slots.

3)The show almost went off the air several times due to budget constraints. But, corporate sponsors helped save it.

4)This one I already knew from living in Austin. The new ACL studio is scheduled to open in 2010. Pretty much guaranteeing the show will be on PBS at least that long or longer. Recently, some networks have made inquiries about some ACL specials in Primetime. Producers are hestiant because that would mean commercials that would break up the performances.

Just a few quick notes about my pet guide...

For a lot of reasons, I feel like I'm moving back in time. The level system is broke, editorships aren't kicking in, and the forums are full of the same posts we saw months ago.

In my real life, a close friend from college got back in touch, reminding me of days gone by. I'm living rent free with my parents until my house sells. And, Knight Rider and the Bionic woman are back on TV.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about where I was 10 years ago versus where I am now. Are you where you thought you would be? Or has life taken some surprising turns? I hope it has. How boring would our lives be, if everything went as planned. Of course, there are few twists that I'd didn't see coming and wish I could have avoided .