April 2014 Loon Newsbriefs

Pussy Riot
PHILEDELPHIA, PA. NBC News – Franz “Shoot ’em all and let God decide” Helm, a man centuries ahead of his time, drew up plans for the world’s first rocket cats some time around 1530.
In a battle manual written and illustrated by the 16th century visionary, Helm drew the schematics for attaching a rocket to kitty cats so they could be launched at enemy castles and thus set the joints on fire.
Helm, who fought in a few scraps with the Turks, and clearly took a few blows to the head, wrote that the plan was to capture an enemy cat, attach a pouch of explosives to it’s back, light the fuse, and let the innate homing instincts of a cat set on fire run back to its home where the pussy missile will explode inside the castle.
“I see no reason why this shouldn’t work,” Helm said just before a terrified cat packed with explosives strapped to its back ran up his leg.
Earlier experiments with explosive-delivery animals, including turtles, sloths, and armadillos didn’t test well and many fingers were lost.

Pork stuffed human
WICHITA, KA – The Associated Press reported on March 4th that an unidentified 51 year-old man’s attempt to shoplift a load of meat didn’t go as planned.
It was a simple plan, really: Go into a store, steal cooked pork by stuffing it all in his mouth, go home. However, the plan went off course when the pork chugger started choking on his own meat.
A few employees of the Carniceria El Guero butcher shop stopped snickering behind their hands like 12 year-old boys in a locker room long enough to save the man from gaging to death on the hot load of pork in his mouth.
The man was arrested for grand theft meat, and inciting a series of double entendre puns that can’t be printed in a community college newspaper.

Wanna hear something really annoying?
GRAND RAPIDS, MI. ABC News – The great dream of America’s founding fathers has been reinstated in Grand Rapids as the prohibition against being an infuriating irritant has been repealed.
For 38 years it’s been illegal in Grand Rapids to be annoying. The exact letter of the law stated: no person shall willfully annoy another person.
It was enacted in 1976 at a time when people were wearing lime green polyester leisure suits, blaring the Starland Vocal Band from their cars, and saying, “Up ya nose with a rubbah hose, Mr. Kotter,” so it’s understandable why the law was created.
City Attorney Catherine Mish asked for the law to be struck down saying it was unconstitutional, unenforceable, and vague in its wording. She then waved her hands an inch away from peoples faces saying, “I’m not touching you! I’m not touching you!”
With irritating becoming legal, local etiquette expert, Irene Prissypants, fears an outbreak of rudeness. “People will start singing loudly while listening to their iPods, legal adults will repeatedly say, ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ and fingers will be pulled.”
With the anti annoying law repealed, Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber have bought homes in Grand Rapids and say they are happy living in a place where they’re free to be themselves.

Hobbies, meditation help to keep busy PVCC staff sane

Teachering doesn’t end when an educator punches out at the teaching foundry at the end of the day. The work goes home with them. There’s homework to grade, term papers to read, lesson plans to lay out, tests to make, coffee to mainline. From fixing stuff around the house, to working with their zoo of chickens and snakes, a few teachers at PVCC have different ways to burn off stress when they have that rare moment of free time.

Like the introvert that astronomy teacher Jenny N. Weitz is, she likes to get herself calm and centered by being alone.
“I like filling my head with new ideas by following several blogs in the areas of astronomy, teaching, technology and pop culture,” Weitz said, “New ideas make my brain tingle. I also enjoy getting lost in science fiction.”
Reading is big with her, but she also meditates when she can find the time.
“I do yoga in the morning for 20 minutes while my baby crawls all over me,” Weitz said, “then I rush to work and meditate in my car for just the two minutes I can spare before class.”
And from there it’s a packed day of teaching the universe to eager minds. She manages to squeeze in some reading during the 3 am feeding. “I find that taking the time out actually boosts my productivity in the long run and makes me a much happier person.”

It’s non-stop thinking, explaining and teaching for geology teacher Harry Birkmann. To give his overactive gourd a rest from all that braining, he gives his hands a workout. Birkmann likes to fix things around the house, take care of the yard, and tinker with the car on the weekends.
“It is a balance to the ‘brain work’ I do all day long at school,” Birkmann said, “I save a bunch of money, and I can be sure the work is done right the first time.”
A simple repair, though, can quickly take a turn into a daylong project.
“The thing that always happens is that there is always the odd screw, bolt, or part that does not want to cooperate, and in the end this single part takes most of your time and effort to get done.”

While other teachers are meditating, or puttering around the house, statistics teacher Kevin Arps is riding a bicycle 50-100 miles at a time. Uphill. Both ways!
Arps is an avid bike rider who will, by his own free will, ride 100 miles a day during the summer. The heat doesn’t bother him because of the breeze he gets from riding a bike. He doesn’t much like riding when it’s under 90 degrees and keeps his weekend rides under 50 miles during what desert dwellers call “winter.”
“The best part of cycling for me,” Arps said, “is going up hills. Going up the hills forces me to get into an aerobic rhythm that transcends the normal feeling of existence. Going up a hill you have to find a certain breathing rhythm and a certain gear where you’re standing up on top of the peddles and just kind of dancing, and it’s amazing how it doesn’t even hurt. If you can find that sweet spot between the gearing and the rhythm it just feels like you’re floating.”
Arps doesn’t ride with a group of cyclers, he prefers to head out into the desert on his own. And for a very good reason. “They (bike groups) ride in the mornings because they’re smart, and that precludes me. I am not a morning person. I would rather ride when it’s 120 degrees than get up at 4:oo in the morning, cause that’s just too much suffering for me.”
This solo biking also has advantages other than avoiding sleep deprivation and crankiness. “It allows me to think and process and zone out and tune into nature.”
As relaxing and stress-reliving as it can be for him, there are still times when things don’t run smoothly. “One time,” Arps said, “I had seven (flat tires) in one day. That particular day was July and it was 120. So just sitting on the side of the road changing the tire I lost more calories just doing that than riding.”
Not only does he ride for his mental and physical health, he also rides to win. Arps has won many 250 to 300 mile bike marathons. Sometimes leaving his competition so far in his wake that he’s come in first over an hour before the rest of the riders clear the finish line. “I love to win,” Arps said.

Then there are the teachers who are busier away from school than when they’re teaching. Marianne Botos is a perpetual motion machine. When she’s not sitting behind home plate at Diamondback games, she’s shooting pool, raising chickens, feeding the birds in her own personal aviary, and taking care of her other pets.
“I love baseball, and my sweetheart Bob and I split season tickets to the Diamondbacks. We sit behind home plate at about 35 games a year. I like being at the games because I can pay attention to the whole game. I love the sounds and smells, that it’s expected you will break open peanuts and drop the shells at your feet.”
Botos also plays competitive 8-ball pool in an American Poolplayers Association league. And she’s quite good at it, too.
“Our team plays every Thursday night at Bullshooter’s, and we’re pretty good. We’ve taken first or second place in four or five sessions in the last few years, but we keep getting eliminated in the last match of the last round.”
On top of all that, Botos has a menagerie in her backyard. Every morning she feeds the chickens with stuff that sounds like it came from Shel Silverstein’s “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out.” Potato skins, celery tops, carrot peelings, and leftover pasta, but not rubber, blubbery macaroni.
“The finches and button quail in our walk-in aviary flutter around my head and run between my feet as I fill their feeders,” Botos said, “The diamond doves are notorious for landing on my head.When the diamonds hatched their first clutch of babies, I got to watch the growth from cracked egg to flight. The different calls of the individual finch species fill the air, and I like watching them interact.”
Then there are her three snakes, in-house cage with a finch, plus a cat, two dogs, and fish.
“A friend of my stepson wandered through the house in awe upon her first visit, saying, ‘Wow, this is better than Petsmart!'” Botos said.

May 2o14 Puma Press

 

I wrote the teasers for the front page, laid out the rest of the pages. I was bangin’ ’em out one after another. Mugging that dog and taking his ring with the power pill really paid off!

(My original teaser for the midwife story was, “She knows sumthin’ ’bout birthin’ those babies!” The newspaper advisor said no.)

March 2o14 Puma Press

 

I laid these out…

April 2o14 Puma Press

 

 

 

I laid out these pages.

I laid out the bottom half of this page. Editor-in-chief Scott Shumaker did the top half.

Puma Press pages

 

This first page was a “whattya think?’ test layout. The advisor said, nice, but no.