The fast and loose play-by-play, for those of you who missed it.
Weeds Lose First Round to Garden Workerbees
Despite a fierce last minute drive from the hugelmound, the Garden Workerbees pulled a narrow victory from the jaws of defeat over perennial in-state rivals the Weeds at Peralta Elementary on Saturday morning, February 11th.
The Workerbee starters paced the team with fruit tree pruning and mulching, scoring the season’s first double-double, while a slate of newer players chipped in with a mulch assist along North Street, shooting to protect the baby edibles and increase production for school lunches (the kids who eat salad, admittedly a narrow subset of the general kid population, are now eating what they grow).
The full team effort by this significantly supportive bench was too much for the Weeds, as the Workerbees dominated the Garden Workday’s tempo with their methodical divide-and-conquer offense, rebounding with a new late-blooming apple tree.
In the end, a small group of dedicated Workerbees put the game away, delighting would-be little kickers by rescuing hordes of desperate balls being held hostage by the tops of fences and roofs.
“Given this season's biblical-style rainfall, I was concerned that their (the Weeds’) effort would be too much for us,” a source said off-the-record. “They were very tenacious, but in the end, we prevailed under bright, cloudless skies, amidst a passel of happy kids running around. The parents we fielded, both new and experienced, deserve all the credit. If even more showed up, we’d be unstoppable.”
Workerbees 1; Weeds 0. The rematch: March 11th, 9am-1pm, sponsored by the second grade. All welcome.
Now look what you've done
Parent Frenzy Sparks Massive Internet Outage
If you live on the West Coast and had trouble accessing Google, Google Docs, YouTube, Waze, Nest or dammit Ramen Shop’s online ordering page last Monday evening, you were not alone.
In the wake of Peralta Elementary School’s call for volunteers for its 2017 Auction, many of your favorite websites (and some pretty freakin tasty food) were unavailable for hours. However, as of Tuesday morning, all parties under assault had finally restored their services. It was, however, a long night.
At 6:17 a.m. PT Tuesday, Google Docs updated its website to say it had resolved the large-scale distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) and service had been restored.
DDoS attacks flood servers with so many offers of support and sponsorship that they cannot respond to track them all, often crashing under the barrage. It's unclear who orchestrated the attack, though suspicions are gathering around Auction organizer Stacy Kozakavich and her band of miscreant acolytes.
“It’s a very smart attack. We start to mitigate, they react. It keeps on happening every time. We’re learning though,” said Lea Rodriguez, Google’s chief strategy officer, on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. “Revenge, blackmail, activism, or just too damn many people rushing to help out can motivate these attacks,” she added. “It’s like a dog pile.”
Gifts of Art
When Flax Art closed their San Francisco store, they gave Peralta a big donation of materials. Ellen and our students have been having a great time with them ever since. Thanks, Flax Art.
FULL CALENDAR
- Feb 11, 9am-1pm: This is the Garden Work Day you're looking for. Come for whatever time you can, especially if you're a second grade family, cause you're sponsoring this bad boy. All welcome.
- March 1: 6pm, dinner; 6:30 pm PPTG meeting. Because you can't sit in your house and eat ice cream and chips night after night.
- March 3: Get outta that car and get to school the old fashioned way — uphill in the snow, both ways. Walk & Roll to School Day. Trinkets and swag for those who do.
- March 7-8-9-10: early (1:30pm) dismissal. WTH? Almost an entire week of minimum days? Whose bright idea was this? Must be spring report card conference time or something.
- March 18: 2017 World's Fair, AKA Peralta Auction. Your tickets are not going to buy themselves.
Rihanna: the only musical artist to produce Hot 100 #1 singles from seven consecutive albums.
Find the lyrics to a line in a well-known Rihanna song cleverly hidden in this issue. Less cleverly than last issue — lesson learned. Bragging rights and a Peralta mug to the first to send the correct answer to this address. This contest unfairly favors Rihanna fans. Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.
Last issue's contest Answer: Bob Dylan lyric and song title "You're gonna make me lonesome when you go" hidden in the unsubscribe line at the very bottom of the page.
Winner: split decision. Props and Peralta mugs to Peter Stemwedel, who got it first, with a little help from P-Broad + Bonnie Lockhart, beloved Peralta music teacher, who got it first without any hints.
If you've got school or class announcements, or interesting community events that you'd like me to share with your fellow Peralta-ites in my special Peralta Broadcast-y way, contact me. I publish every two weeks or so, depending on how much progress I've made beating back my kudzu-like idleness. Kudos, complaints and your bright ideas for future posts can go to the same address.