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Day 20: What if Bigfoot taught math?

I realized that I haven't put gas in my car in three weeks. While it's been nice on the bank account to not have to fill up twice a week, I sure do miss the late night crew at the Kum & Go. They're the nicest bunch of guys you can meet at 3am at a gas station. Also their sausage pretzel breakfast sandwiches are the best gas station food this side of a Sheetz. You're judging right now, but you don't know.

What I'm watching today

Hellier (2019, YouTube streaming) - This documentary series throws together a bunch of ghost hunters and paranormal researchers in order to solve the 70-year-old mystery of the Kentucky goblins, an alleged UFO sighting and goblin attack in rural Kentucky in the 1950s. Along the way, the cast explores other paranormal incidents from throughout history, and they quickly settle on a theory that almost all paranormal activity, from UFOs to Bigfoot to ghosts, is connected, and the unifying thread is--drum-roll please--aliens! Anyone who knows me knows I love a good conspiracy theory, alien abduction story, Bigfoot sighting account... You get the idea. Heck, half of the podcasts I consume are about this weird fringe stuff. Now, I've never seen a shred of evidence to convince me that Bigfoot is a real thing or anything other than a dude in a gorilla suit, a mangy bear, or a mossy tree stump, but I'll sit and listen to your "proof" all day long. Though even I have my limits. I'm two episodes into Hellier, and my bullshit alarm is already going off big time. I intentionally avoided reading anything about this show before watching it to avoid spoilers, but right now I'm of the impression that it is scripted and fake. That this documentary is actually a "documentary." The production quality is pretty good whether it's fake or not, and there's just enough marginal evidence (unidentified footprints, cryptic emails from people who don't exist, blurry photos, etc) to keep pushing the narrative forward. Hopefully it's going somewhere. If it does turn out to be fake in the end, I won't be mad. That is, as long as it doesn't suck. 

What I'm doing today

Re-learning e-learning - When the 7yo's school closed and it was announced that the students would be learning remotely from home for the foreseeable future, we were excited to see what the administration had in store, because they've always been completely organized and on top of any adversity that has come their way. (That was sarcasm.) No, we were actually kind of dreading this whole e-learning thing, and the school exceeded our expectations. First, the school offers a number of communication options. As a parent you can take advantage of emails from the administrators, emails from the teacher, the school's mobile app, the school's website, and the website for the school district. And to get all the information you need, you get to consume all of these media, because nothing is ever coordinated among them. Next up is the actual educational content. Last week we received a flurry of information about various services and accounts we would need to set up. There was an account for math coursework, and account for science curricula , and account for reading/writing
exercises, and finally an account for administering the whole process. Well, then this week we got another batch of messages indicating that they were about to get serious and that this week would be the start of the students' e-learning experience. Uh, what? Apparently all that crap we set up last week was "extra" material. And now we get to go through the process all over again, setting up new services and accounts for watching videos and doing live teacher conferences. Compound that with the fact that the teacher told us through two different media that there were math lectures and worksheets to do today, even though I could not find them anywhere. So when I emailed the teacher to inquire, she informed me that all the math talk was a mistake. The math is a lie. There is no math; there is only Zuul. This is going to be a fun adventure. 

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