Where I Am Right Now In Life

Hi all! It's been awhile blogging because I have been so busy pursuing my photography, making videos, and caring for a sick cat. Let me catch you up on my life, if anyone out there is still even remotely interested.

Well, my former principal at Bartram High School, Brennan Asplen, has managed to scare the crap out of most of the faculty so they will not even talk with me. You see, he and school superintendent Joiner are afraid that I will tell some of the garbage that goes on behind the scenes in what passes for education in St. Johns county. Joiner and his minion Asplen decided that the best way to muzzle me is to cut off all communication between myself and my former coworkers. The funny thing is that I really couldn't care less what they are up to. I have too much of a full life here without picking through their dirty laundry. I guess that is how paranoid public officials act when they have a lot to hide. It is both humorous and tragic at the same time.

Our 13 1/2 year old cat Sebastian has been fighting a tremendous battle with calicivirus, a virus that attacks his gums and trachea. He developed pneumonia and spent time in a hospital in Jacksonville. He has just finished a 2 month course of antibiotics and has been going to our local vet daily for medication to help his nausea and lack of appetite. He is a tough little guy and is hanging in there.
Here is a recent photo of him.

I have been making new videos about our cat menagerie here. My favorite so far is a music video I made about Sam The Man. I think you will enjoy it!

I have also been taking lots of photographs in my second career as a wildlife/nature photographer. Here is one of a robber fly:

and here is one of a least tern:

My commercial website has these and a lot more photographs I have been taking this summer. It is Kenneth Albin Wildlife/Nature Photography. I have greeting cards, posters, and framed portraits of my best work there.

So that is pretty much what I have been accomplishing so far this season. I will try to update this blog more often but with so much going on it will probably be hit and miss. Take care and hope everyone is doing well.

Lots of work and a little more teacher stuff

We spent the morning cleaning 15 years of junk out of the utility shed. It's being cleaned in preparation for mowing stuff. I have been paying someone to keep the 2 acres of yard trimmed but with what I pay him in one year I can get all of equipment I need and do it myself now that I have the time and energy. This afternoon we purchased a riding mower, chain saw, and weed eater. Yee hah!

I know I promised to end the teaching posts but something came up that I just have to blog about. This past Sunday the local paper posted a list of all school retirees. It even had several interviews with the teachers. Guess who was the only person not listed? Yep, you got it in one guess. I emailed the Human Resource person in charge of retirees about it. She wrote me back apologizing, saying she would send me an invitation to the retirement dinner I did not get and a listing of my jobs in the county. It would have been nice to have actually attended the dinner and had the information published in the paper. It crossed my mind that the superintendent of schools has been pretty pissed off about remarks I've made in the past on my teaching blog about things happening at the school that he seemed to feel reflected badly upon him. He even had his hired law firm threaten me with legal action if I did not remove a funny video I posted concerning the pitiful ESIS grading program we were forced to use after the school system spent a huge amount of money for this program that would not even correctly average grades at times. The supposed reason for the threat was that I allegedly used a proprietary photo of their sacred ESIS program in my video parody. Would you say that he was looking for absolutely anything to use in retaliation against me for my posts telling the truth? Surely he has a better character than that so it must have just been a coincidence. Would he also be so petty as to have my name removed from the published retirement list or am I just imagining things? Hmmm... no one else I am aware of was left off of the list, so why was I the only one? I'm sure it was just an honest error. Aren't you certain as well? Of course you are. Isn't educational politics an interesting sport? Now that I am not affiliated with the school system any longer I will have more freedom to post an occasional tidbit to keep the educational system honest. I talk regularly to a number of teachers so I'm sure I will be hearing all sorts of interesting things during the upcoming school year and I will be more than happy to verify them and then pass them along on this blog as time permits. I know how much the "powers that be" at the St. Johns County, Florida school system value the truth so I look at this as a public service on their behalf, though it will certainly not be the main focus of this blog.