****************
All of those paintings you see at Target and Wal-Mart and so forth that look like real paintings for $20 . . Well, they are real paintings . . .from Chinese painting factories. What they do is have 70 "artists" in a row and each one has one paint and when the painting comes down the assembly line they paint there little spot and the artwork moves on to the next guy (or girl). It's a literal painting assembly line.
SO . . . . . I decided to try this with adult paint by numbers. I ordered an image and am waiting. For instance - this is one of the paint by numbers paintings - not the one I'm doing but it gives you an idea.
YUP - paint by numbers . . .many many many numbers. 16x20 images on canvas. I think I'm turning Chinese!
Skills required:
- Ability to color inside the lines
- Ability to color outside of the lines
OH MAN - I did not read the fine print!
But honestly there are some pretty incredible looking images to paint
So I get home from the School Board meeting and want to put my face under freezing water just to wake me up. OMG, how can they suffer through that meeting.
BUT - I'm at my computer and decide to listen to a baseball game while I type. I turn on the San Diego Padre** broadcast and they seem to be just starting an inning that goes on FOREVER. 48 minutes and 68 pitches in one half of an inning.
It's never good (for the other team) when a pinch hitter comes to the plate twice in one inning and gets hits both times.
** I have 3 players on my fantasy team so . . . . .
Yea yea yea OK OK - school system. Here is my rant.
They (somebody) sends out a questionnaire to the community. I don't know if the school board green lighted it or not but this never should have gone out as a serious questionnaire. I believe I called it a "bias corporate word cabbage survey" that had nothing to do with the science or the collection of real data.
The good thing is the very first thing the survey says is that the school boards (or somebody) NUMBER 1 priority is "building needed facilities and amenities". PRIORITY #1 it is called.
Then they ask what kind of adult education should be housed in the new campus. WHAT? why not concentrate on the children first.
And when I said "word cabbage" (actually romaine lettuce more like) with a question asking "what is your favorite facility". Seriously? What is my favorite? This is a real question?
There is a question asking the community "which facility (of the 13) needs to be studied." Ummmmm ALL OF THEM! These guys are on the school board, they know better then us guys! Should they ignore "infrastructure of the High school" because everybody says ignore it?They have to explain what the following questions in Priority #2 mean and what STEAM (the newest trendy business approach) is but that is fine. I personally believe these business approaches are invented by people looking to justify their position. They come, they go. My latest one I had to learn was Six Sigma. But . . I digress.
By this time most people are bored and no longer interested in the survey which is a real problem
with poor surveys. You need to keep people interested with less words and more meaningful questions . . . . . or at least questions where people don't have to read over the questions multiple times trying to understand their true meaning.
All is good until it comes to the point where you are suppose to tell the School board (or whoever put this out) how you feel about the School District. In Priority #4 many of the questions have four positive answers and only one negative.
This is a ploy by corporations that are looking to get a certain outcome. Of the five answers teh* 2nd worst is "slightly well" which is a victory for the School system. So if you feel the School District is not COMPLETELY failing, just a little failing with Art and Design you mark "slightly well" which tells the District . . everything is OK. A positive answer.
* My dyslexia was showing through a lot in this post - bear with me if I missed something.
But the WORSE thing is that anybody can fill out the survey as many times as they want making any of the data collected completely useless. I filled it out 3 times, not to try to sway the numbers but I was amazed that I was able to fill it out on my iPad, then on my computer (thinking I would be flagged) and for giggles I could fill it out AGAIN on my computer, didn't even have to be a different device. I could have hired a Russian bot for $100 to fill it out 40 times (average price of a Russian bot is $10 an hour . . . a comrade has told me) and this issues was not caught by the nine board members? (or whoever) Unless the board never saw the survey and in that case . . . why even have a school board.
I believe our school system has a HUGE issue that is heading in the wrong direction when it comes to community support. Parents have no confidence, the communication for disseminating actual information is nill (null?) or if it is getting out there and people are getting it wrong.
The School District needs to have a listening session like City Council has done in the past with great success as parents are losing confidence. Parents believe nobody is listening to them and it's a problem.
Also - if you REALLY want a REAL survey why not do what most School Districts do and use School Perceptions for their surveys. They have questions like " Would you support a referendum to build a new Elementary School". Not once was anything even NEAR that question on our survey and THAT is the biggest issue there is!
They also have Staff Engagement Survey's that will find out why our teachers are leaving the school district.
And there is a Parent Survey with questions like "Does your child feel safe" and "A climate of openness and trust exists between school and administration and parents" from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
OH - they are not free like the one we got but you get what you pay for right?
and that is the rant.
******************
One last thing that I am finding amazing on a TOTALLY different subject - this past month has been the biggest month moving towards legalization of legal cannabis since 2012. With John Boehmer and now Mitch McConnell coming out pro medical cannabis it looks like both parties are all of a sudden seeing that this is a voting issue and neither one wants to lose votes.
Oddly conservatives are more pro cannabis then us liberals. Polls in the southern states that are red have stronger pro- cannabis numbers then in blue states.
West Virginia became the 29th state to have access to medical cannabis and Vermont became the 9th State to permit adult use this year.
The American Society for Addiction Medicine who are anti cannabis acknowledges that opioid overdoes deaths rates are 25% lower in States with legal cannabis.
The train is gaining steam (a different STEAM).
My ex-wife had osteogenesis imperfecta and in the lat 80s cannabis was the ONLY thing that took away chronic pain and we tried EVERYTHING. That is why I am on this bandwagon - it works!!
Nuff said
***********************
GUS THE WEATHER DOG says it will be a good day for fetching. Turning a little cooler after today but the weekend looks like middle to upper 50s and sunny 70s Monday and next Tuesday but very windy and daddy's first golf league will be 60s NEXT Wednesday
 |
| Gus the straight haired Golden Doodle |
