R.I.P Winter 2016/2017

Today, when I left Atascadero High School after classes ended for the day, I walked across campus to my car. During that walk I experienced an epiphany. I realized that deep winter is done here and we have transitioned to late winter/early spring from a local climatological standpoint. I can't well-explain the feeling and ideation occurring at that time, but it was very instinctual. The shortest days and longest nights and lowest average seasonal temperatures are now past although there will be more cold nights and stormy weather to come in the next two months or so. Already in recent days and weeks I have observed the ever-lengthening days and shortening nights and higher-angle sunlight. As you might have guessed by now, I'm rather quite light sensitive. So, today when I realized this thing, I felt incredibly happy and a sense of relief swept over me in light of the fact I do suffer annually from mild S.A.D. I so look forward to the first warm day and the blossoms that will soon bud as they do every February here.

Santa Margarita Lake Is Back

Today I headed out to the east side of Santa Margarita Lake (a.k.a. Salinas Reservoir) with Mike, my brother by another mother. We both hadn't hiked in too long and needed to get out and start a pattern of weekly hiking. I needed it as part of my decompressing from last week's big teaching experience and to recharge my mental-emotional batteries. Mission accomplished! It was especially satisfying to see how much water was everywhere including all types of watercourses and water catchments. Even parts of the trail we hiked (Blinn Ranch Trail which follows sections of the old road before the dam was filled) were covered in water or showed signs of water recently running over them. There were also washouts and minor landslides/rockfalls. The Salinas River was flowing strong into the back of the lake which is rapidly filling and nearly full. Areas of the back of the lake which had been bone dry for years and looking rather desolate were back under water or water was nearby.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

A-Town Area Post-Storm Water Effects

Today I took a short drive with mom to the south side of Atascadero to go see Grandpa's Pond and Halcon Road after the recent storms. We were not disappointed.

From the wet pavement on Los Palos Road it appears plenty of people are driving through the water.

For most winters this decade this road has not been covered like this.

Prior to the start of the now-ending epic drought, Halcon Road, connecting Rocky Canyon Quarry with Highway 101 on the south margin of Atascadero State Hospital property, would wash out like this every winter as the road was designed to do.

This view is looking east.

Note my little monster "Tequila" checking out the breach in the road.

Note the corrugated steel pipes which had been under the roadbed of Halcon Road but were washed down-stream a short distance.

View looking upstream.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

I Have Become A Teacher!

This week was a transformative period in time for me. I entered it feeling like a "student teacher" and exited it feeling like a real teacher, a professional educator. In fact, had I had my act together and my "sub papers" completed with the Atascadero Unified School District I would have been literally a professional educator as I would have been paid $121 per day for all five days of this work week as my master teacher was out of town dealing with a family health matter. I've had many things on my plate to divert my attention from doing that, plus my own procrastination combined with mistakenly believing it was more trouble than it actually is. I will fix this next week so I get paid for subbing in the future. Anywho, I digress.

This week I created all my own lesson plans which I actually taught all six periods of tenth grade world history in 85-minute block periods. I employed many of the pedagogical techniques I have been trained at Cal Poly to use in my classroom and I allowed my God-given talents and God-shaped personality to blend with that training to create a classroom environment that engaged, challenged, and taught students important details about World War One and how they relate to these very students in their lives today. From some of the formative assessments I conducted this week I know that as a group each class "got it" and in the process we bonded. Tonight I am exhausted but feel wonderful.

The Great Martian War (1913-1917)

Yesterday and today, I executed my second consecutive and second-ever fully original lesson plan created by me for all six 85-minute block periods of standard tenth grade world history that I and my co-operating teacher split this quarter. He is gone this week due to a family health emergency so instead of doing what I did the first two weeks of the quarter and of my student teaching career which was follow the general game plan of my co-teacher with my own spin on it, this week I created wholly original and organic lesson plans. In the just-ending today lesson plan, I used THIS World War One - War of the Worlds mash-up video as an anticipatory set in our current World War One unit. You might notice I posted that blog piece back in 2014. While researching it, I found this longer clip (below) from whence its footage was derived which is a faux preview of a full-length "mockumentary" for which I have heard conflicting reports as to if its existence is fictional or real, such as that would be.

Graphic of the Day - Other Brexits

My buddy Blake shared this on his Facebook the other day and now I'm sharing it with you. For those of you not hip about to what this refers, that would be Brexit, the British exit from the European Union. Map by Bezzleford (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - Here GOES-16

Last November 19th, NASA launched the Next-Big-Thing in weather satellitery called GOES-16 (I'm such a weather geek I watched it launch live). Yesterday, NASA released the first images captured by the orbiting probe. Regarding this image NASA states: "This composite color full-disk visible image is from 1:07 p.m. EDT on Jan. 15, 2017, and was created using several of the 16 spectral channels available on the GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument." For for information read article HERE. Click on image to see enlarged view. Image courtesy of NASA (all rights reserved).