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[disnut8]

bigjerkface brought up the subject of school zones in another thread.  I go into a rant every morning with this subject.

I live in goat farm territory.  I swear some of the neighboring people have stills in their backyards.  Most of the roads I use to get to work are two lane, winding country paved ones.  I don't mind having to stop for the school buses as they pick up the darlings and get them properly educated (OK, this is Georgia so that's stretching it a little).

However - I do have a problem with using cops to direct traffic in and out of the school parking lot.  I don't mind letting the buses in and out.  That's fine.  But the cop has his car sitting in the middle of the road with his headlights glaring in every driver's face, lights going full blast.  If I'm not awake by that time, that'll do it.  But the kicker is the cop stands BEHIND all that so you can't even see him.  And when he does bother to do his job (what a job), he steps out from behind the vehicle, puts out this light saber wanna be and expects you to slam on your brakes.

And for what?  Because Soccer Mom has just dropped off her precious little Susie and Billy and needs to get out into traffic in her SUV and go back to Wisteria Lane for her daily massage and facial.  OK, that's a huge stereotype but at 7:15 AM and I still have 45 minutes of driving to get to work, it irrates the crap out of me.

Why can't Billy and Susie take the damn bus?  Where I live and on 85% of my commute, there are no sidewalks.  Therefore, no walking to school.  Therefore, buses are provided.  With our tax dollars to pay for them.  But Billy and Susie are too good to ride the damn things.  So everyone stops to allow loading and unloading of half full buses.  While the roads are jammed with parents driving their kids to school.

Here in Atlanta, we live for the summer school holidays because the traffic is almost non-existant.  Honestly.  I'll be able to use a better and quicker route once I don't have to deal with the school garbage.

And for the parents who do have their kids take the bus - what is up with driving them to the bus stop and waiting in the car to make sure they get on the bus?  I can see the concern and all but why don't you just walk them there?  Because what happens after Billy and Susie get on the bus, is the bus driver sits there with the red lights going and all traffic stopped to let Mommy out into traffic.

I'm sure elmono can tell you about me kicking him out the door to walk to the bus stop.  I waved to him as I drove by him on the way to work.  And in junior high school, we actually had to pay for him to take a school bus.

OK - I feel better now.  Of course, Monday morning when I have to wait for Ubercop and Soccer Mom, I'll be cussing again.

[elmono311]

*note to self, never move to the South.*

[Supermercado]

Why can't Billy and Susie take the damn bus?

Not to discredit your rant or anything since it does sound like Billy and Susie being driven to school in your area is simply retarded and makes no sense. If there is bus service to every area zoned for a school, there's no reason why there should be any traffic outside of buses in the morning and afternoon.

However, around here, at least in my neighborhood and at my sister's school, there is good reason for Soccer Mom. Our neighborhood is zoned for two schools and parents have the choice of where to send their kids. There's only bus service to one of the schools, though. That's not the school that my sister goes to nor do many people in the neighborhood. Too much gang-related stuff and guns and the like. The worst at my sister's school most of the time is drugs, from what I've heard. If I had a kid and we lived in this neighborhood, there's no way in hell they'd be going to the other school.

[disnut8]

That's the point, supermercado.  People here DON'T have the choice of public schools.  The only other option is private schools.  The Gwinnett County and Forsyth County schools where I deal with this are fairly good.

I can see having to choose between schools but that's not what happens here.  And the private schools, as far as I can tell, don't get the cops out in front of them.  It's only the public schools.  Where there is free bus service for everyone.

Not saying what your family goes through is "wrong".  It sounds like it's necessary.  And yes, we did drive elmono to high school until he turned 16.  Bellevue West traffic in the morning was horrible.  Did you see any cops directing traffic?  Hell no.  Elmono did walk his butt back home most of the time, though.

[RichN]

Let me tell you about this one soccer mom who lives just up the cul-de-sac from our house.  She drove (all of one block) little Billy to the corner and sat there until he got on the bus.  Now, most of them will continue on to work, or whatever they are doing.  This one made a u-turn and went home.  For one freaking block!!  Other cars that had places to go were inconvenienced, having to go around this tool.  Oh, did I mention that it was a bright, sunny morning?

[elmono311]

Not saying what your family goes through is "wrong".? It sounds like it's necessary.? And yes, we did drive elmono to high school until he turned 16.? Bellevue West traffic in the morning was horrible.? Did you see any cops directing traffic?? Hell no.? Elmono did walk his butt back home most of the time, though.

Well, at least you didn't have to drive me to school before they put the light up at that intersection...

[disnut8]

Well, at least you didn't have to drive me to school before they put the light up at that intersection...

And before they put in that huge freaking Super Wal Mart open 24 hours a day.  Who the hell thought of that?  I can see it now.  In a bar somewhere.  Bunch of Sam Walton wannabes.

"Bellevue, NE is expanding, there's no Wal mart there"

"OK, let's buy some land and put K Mart out of business.  What's available?"

"This huge track of land but there's a problem"

"And what's the problem?"

"It's directly across from the major entry to one of the two high schools"

"Screw the kids, Wal Mart wins again.  Think about the after school activity we'll get"

[coffeecup]

who is sam martin?

[Vengeance]

I don't know who Sam Martin is, but who is Sam Walton?

[coffeecup]

oh, well, who's sam walton, then?   *shush---you*

[Supermercado]

Sam Walton is the founder of Wal-mart.

[elmono311]

And the founder of Sam's, of course

Actually, the shopping plaza they put in there helped the traffic since the traffic light was installed there. And it was great if you needed something after school... Wal-Mart is right across the street

[Catfish]

My mother, as a teacher, and I agree with this, has made the comment that kids are entirely too coddled.  "Back in the day", parents rode to school on the bus for an hour and a half or walked to school in the snow (I know I sure as hell walked to school in the snow) and ya know what?  That was life.  That was part of growing up.  Some things just suck and you learn to adapt and deal with it.

Now, I don't mind parents wanting better for their children than they had, that's not what I'm talking about here.  I have had a number of things my parents didn't have and for that I am quite thankful.  But, I came to college and lived with a roommate and dealt with it (though I have had some very good roommates).  I've had to penny pinch.  I had to walk to school.  I had to carry my own books.  I have to drive a small car.  That's life and I'm happy with mine.

Where this is all leading is if it's a busing district, get the kids ready and put them on the damn bus (unless there's a good reason (safety, health, etc) to do otherwise).  It's time to let the kids go out and be themselves and grow up a little... it's not an overnight process, so let them take their first steps now that they're 12.  So dis, I'm with ya (btw, you'd laugh your ass off at the mom who waits by her house in her SUV with her kids only to drive them to the end of their roughly 30-yard driveway when the bus pulls up to drop them off at its door on a perfectly sunny day... I tell ya... rofl)

[Supermercado]

Oi, that's a whole new topic there, Jason. The coddling of today's youth. It makes me sick sometimes. It seems to me like parents today are too afraid to let their kids be kids. Kids are going to go out and get dirty and maybe break a bone here or there, but what harm does that really do? Nothing. So what if the kid has to stay inside for a couple of months while his arm heals after he broke it falling out of a tree he'd climbed. There's no way parents today would even let kids climb a tree. Actually, no need, really... climbing into their SUV is probably plenty of climbing for any kid

[elmono311]

Demon Child broke her leg while *gasp* actually playing outside!!!

[Supermercado]

Between both of his hands, my brother broke like 6 fingers, all while playing outside. I never had any serious injuries from playing outside, but I did get stuck in a tree once, hehe.

[elmono311]

Well, you did fall that one time in band

[Supermercado]

I'd like to clarify... that was so not my fault in any way. I can only go back as fast as the person behind me is going. When the people in front of us are coming back too fast and cutting the corner off, it makes a bottleneck so to speak, and there was nowhere for us to go. I'm sure Rolando can provide his own examples of times where problems were caused by other peoples' mistakes. That was the only time I had any problems, even flying backwards in 3 inches of mud. Heh, that was funny... when the whole band stopped in formation, everyone slid like 6 inches. It's visible on the videotape of the performance, haha.

[Vengeance]

I always think that I'm too mean to Demon Child. I do respect her as a person and I refuse to tell her to behave or stop crying just because it's annoying to me. I actually discuss with her what's bothering her. If I can help, I do. I also keep in mind that she is a child and only wants to be loved by the adults that claim to already love them.

But, I also give her ways to help herself and if she refuses to do that I just don't deal with her. I don't know how many times I've told her that I don't have time for her self pity and that if she's upset about something she should DO something about it. I just want to make sure I raise a strong young woman and not a little girl that needs someone else to take care of her.

[LostArtofRolando]

I'm sure Rolando can provide his own examples of times where problems were caused by other peoples' mistakes. That was the only time I had any problems, even flying backwards in 3 inches of mud. Heh, that was funny... when the whole band stopped in formation, everyone slid like 6 inches. It's visible on the videotape of the performance, haha.

thats for sure.... band COULD be rough on occasion.  These things John speaks of are only during actual performances.... throw in all of the crazy practice hijinx, haha.  Good thing when you fell you didnt split yer pants or something.  Us going commando all those competitions COULD have ended bad.
    I remember that crazy mudfest, NOT COO!  slipping and sliding all over the place.  WHoever did actually fall down at that one had some issues as we wore white pants, so the mud would be quite visible for the rest of the performance.  We also had a dust fest at Districts or NSBA (It was up at Burke or Northwest), kind of a big issue when you play trombone.  You could HEAR the dust grinding in my slide while i was playing. 
     And the trombone could be an interesting experience anyways, haha.  REmember in Les Miserables, when he had that break where we were supposed to sorta dance around, waving our horns before miraculously snapping back into position and marching off into another badass riff.  Well, I forgot to lock my slide before that waving one day and as i swung my horn around, the slide went flying off a nice 30 feet downfield (concrete tarmac behind the school).  Never did slide as nice afterwards haha.
     That being said, there was nothing better than being a boner:)

[Supermercado]

I don't mean to derail the whole thread by talking about band here or anything...

Yeah, band was more of a sport than people who've never done it give it credit for. I'd like to see someone who bashes it run around nonstop for 11 minutes at a pretty brisk pace while pumping air into a horn and making it sound like more than just noise. Oh, yeah, you better be in the right spot on the field at the right time, too. It's a lot harder than people think it is and it drives me crazy when peope bash it. That's cause for me to get up on my soapbox.

Yeah, mudfest was crazy. I think that was sophomore year at Burke. I think that was the show where I ended up next to Will Guthrie and we had to backpedal like 5 yards in 3 steps or some foolishness. Had to be sophomore year cuz I don't think Will was in band after that because of basketball.

I don't really remember the dustfest show, though. Dust sounds bad for a trombone, though. Prolly had to give it a  good cleaning after that show.

That dance bit felt so stupid to actually do, but I'll give Braasch credit - it did look good on tape. The box materializes, BAM, battle scene as the box rotates into a trapezoid, and BAM, it breaks up as we separate. That was pretty slick. Haha, I don't remember your slide going flying. That's pretty funny.

And it was better to be a trumpet

[Catfish]

general and undirected: lol

[elmono311]

All I remember about band at high school was being able to hear them practice from my house. I lived right across the other side of the freeway from Bellevue West.

[LostArtofRolando]

main thing people need to know is more people went to football games to see the marching band play than to see the football team play. 
   Key moment in band history (my 4 years):  Head football coach approached one of our tuba players during marching practice and told him that he had to make a choice: band or football.  Up until then, kids were allowed to do both.  I'll never forget how red that football coach's face got as he stormed off the field after receiving the kid's reply.  Says something when a 250 pound lineman decides hed rather play tuba because he feels its more athletic and better sportsmanship than football.  Ha.  That was a good day.

[Supermercado]

That was definitely true. There were more band parents there more interested in seeing our sorry football team lose again.

Who was that, Rolando? I don't remember that happening.