Spelling @ MindSay

Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty August 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park's Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.

Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them "a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation."

An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League.

The misspelled word "emense" was not fixed, Deck wrote, because "I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further. ... Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight."

Over at one of my local TV stations is a story that starts like this:

A new survey has it all spelled out: Most adults can't spell everyday words, and they blame their cell phones and other technology.

Clicking on the everyday words link will take you to a source of often misspelled words and the homonyms they are frequently confused with.

Check it out everyone! I made another appearance in Meg's blog. This time it was for my prowess at spelling. She asked me how to spell ne'er-do-well, not a very commonly used word. She was a bit surprised that I spelled it perfectly to her, including the dashes and the apostrophe. I told her that it may not be common, but they sure do use it alot in romance novels. Often, the heroes are reformed ne'er-do-wells. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the word, see the definition here.

 

All I have to say is that I wasn't the Parkway Elementary 5th grade spelling champ for nothing.

Wow!  Can you all believe that we are heading into the start of our 2nd full week of school, our 3rd actual week of school here in the Uncanny Land of the Fanatical Freaks!

 

An update is called for!!!  I will start with my beautiful budding blossom of a daughter! 

 

DeLaney is currently loving Third Grade!  Who would have thought!?!  This from my daughter who struggled with reading and spelling!  If it wasn't for our lovely buggy invasion last week she was to read at Mass.  Since I refused to let her go back to school with a red, sore head and missed reading at Mass, she gets to read next month during the 3rd grade and I think 8th grade Mass!  We marked something very important on the calandar as a high point in Mz Drama Queen's life last Friday.  DeLaney recieved her very first 100% on a spelling test!  She was so proud of herself!  She even convienced Donnie into calling me at home to inform me of her wonderful achievement!  (Donnie B. is the school adminstrator/Superentendent/Principal)  DeLaney's goal is to keep at least an A/B average in spelling and attempt to compete in the Winnebago (both Public and Mission) Schools Spelling Bee this year! Not to mention DeLaney is joining the Chess Club!  It meets in the mornings before their weekly Mass and once the school year progresses it will start meeting in the mornings from 7:30am to start of school at 8 am.  (Kids are at the Church basement getting breakfast at 7:30 anyway) Something happened this year that amazed DeLaney!  She started a new school and right off the bat both the girls and the boys made her feel welcomed!  No words as:  "Go back from where you came from.  White Bitch.  Cracker Jacker.  Your not indian get away from me.  Your not hispanic get away from me.  White Whore."  You name it my lovely sensitive daughter has been called it from TX and OK to this shit ass school district where we live at and I graduated from no less!  I am so glad I decieded to put them up at the Indian Mission Catholic School!  Plus unlike the Catholic School in the city we were going to send the kids, the Priests here totaly accept that I am a Celtic Spiritualist studying to become a Druid and I am teaching my kids both my ways and my mother's which is a hodge podge of Catholic!  The nuns are pretty kewl with it also!  The youngest and newest one (I think Asian Culture but I am not sure) loves my ink and flipped up her head thingy and showed me the ink she got before she made the decision to join the nunnery!  How kick ass is that!

 

Now on to my lanky lean machine of son!

 

Coltin is really enjoying Second Grade this year!  So much to the point he is putting his school uniforms on after he goes to bed so he is ready to go first thing in the mornings!  I have never had to worry about Coltin's grades, he sucks information in like he is dying of thirst!  Sometimes I worry for him because there is going to be a time he is going to get bored and nothing the school or I are going to keep him occupied!  Coltin's teacher is in an electric wheel chair and uses a microphone to project her voice and she gets the biggest kick out of Coltin; because her chair locks up on occasion and instead of running down the halls like so many of the other kids do, Coltin tries to fix it for her!  She found out the hard way, do NOT keep tools in your room around Coltin!  He will attempt to take anything and everything apart to try and understand how it works!  He managed to get her battery pack case unscrewed with out her even knowing about it today!  She was laughing so hard when I picked the kids up from school I thought she was going to laugh herself right out of her chair!  Again Coltin experienced nothing but positive and friendly kids at this school.  This past year finishing up in my old school which is now a ghetto school was hell on my poor boy.  Every time he turned around he was getting beat up or harassed and when I finally told him to start hitting back, the Principal was to scared to disicple the other kids but went after my boy.  Her white ass needs to go back to a primarily white school district if she can't handle non indian kids the same way she handles the indian kids!  If my kids stayed in that school district I would have been one very rich MILF!  Coltin has always made friends with upper classmen and this year he is exstatic to have made friends with the majority of the kids in his and his sister's classes!  Coltin has also signed up for the Chess Club and can't wait to take on Daddy, Papo, Grandpa Bear (step grandpa's name is Burdell but he looks like a Bear), Uncles Tracy and Will and if I talk him into it........mayhap Uncle Na Na if we ever get out to NY!  And my boy is reading the second reading in tomorrow's Mass.  Thankfully both my kids know better to ask Mamma to come to church more than maybe 1 time a month!  The sixth grade teacher (I went to diabetic classes with her and her daughter) is a lil put out that I won't go to the School's Mass but I don't care!  My Pagany Heathen ass is NOT going and Coltin completely understands this because in truth he is chafing under the fact he has to even go let alone read!

 

This is the update of school ...........for now!  I am so happy my kids are enjoying school this year!  Now if only I could get them to enjoy picking up their rooms with out a battle or negoitating!

 

Ok, it's been a really, really long time now.

I've been on a dyslexia information trip. I'm now a Dyslexia Testing Specialist and will very soon have my certification.

I know what dyslexia looks like, can test for it and write up a report that can be used to get accomidations at a school.

I know the ins and outs of a IEP vs accommodations.

Will's moving right along. He is in level 4 of the Reading and Spelling System. The only "gotcha" is that this makes him harder to test for dyslexia because he is learning coping methods that will mess up the test results.

I also learned why some of his teachers were so negative. They don't know about dyslexia and lack of knowledge can lead some people to being very negative. So it's my job to do some education.

That's it for now.

Ken