Jun 292007
 

A little while ago I went into my son’s room to ask him about something, and noticed a Tootsie Roll wrapper on the floor.

I bent down and picked it up…

“I know,” he said, “I forgot to throw it in the trash.”

…I stepped over to the trash can…

“I know, I’ll remember next time.”

…I carefully lowered the wrapper into the trash can, maintaining eye contact with my son the entire time.

“I know! I know!”

I think it’s a sign of good parenting when you can practically make your kid’s head explode without saying a word.

Test Anxiety

 Geek Wannabe, General  Comments Off
Jun 282007
 

Yesterday I took an online quiz, for my online Managerial Accounting class.

I’d done the online assignments. I’d done the homework, and all the “extra problems” assigned to give us more practice if we needed it. I’d felt like I understood how to do the homework problems pretty well.

Then I got into the quiz, and none of the problems in the quiz looked anything like the problems in the homework.

I was sure I was flunking it. Each quiz is ten questions, and with each question I was more and more certain I was going to be lucky to get half of them right. I worried whether I would be able to pass the course at all. I wondered if I shouldn’t withdraw from the class now, while I can still do so without affecting my grade point average.

I slugged gamely through the quiz, giving each question my best shot, then braced myself and submitted it for grading. (One nice thing about online tests—instant grade.)

I got 9 out of 10 right.

Whew.

Jun 262007
 

Last spring, Wake Tech hosted a small exhibit by Bryant Holsenbeck. She came onto the campus and created a sculpture out of recycled items such as prescription bottles, bottle caps, and Altoids tins.

Bryant Holsenbeck's exhibit at Wake Tech

Bryant Holsenbeck’s exhibit at Wake Tech

I took the boys to see it, as it’s the kind of thing they’d like. My eldest likes to make art of this type himself, so he was very interested to see someone else’s work.

I took a few pictures, but they really don’t do it justice.


Bryant Holsenbeck's exhibit at Wake Tech

This is mostly bottle caps, can lids, and buttons.

I’ve been adding a little content to the sidebar on my blog page, just so it wouldn’t look so empty over there. Mostly links to other people’s blogs, and a countdown to the next Harry Potter book (one of these days I really should read The Half-Blood Prince). It’s still a bit drab—I need to whip up some graphics or something for it—but it’s a little nicer.

And of course Internet Explorer doesn’t display any of it correctly, so today I’ll have to go apply some hacks. Not than anyone other than my mom will see it. Still, considering that Microsoft helped develop the web standards, it sure would be nice if their software would actually support them. But I’ve seen IE do far worse things to my nicely-laid out styles; this should be relatively painless to fix.

Bryant Holsenbeck's exhibit at Wake Tech

It wrapped all the way around the base of the stairs.

Of course, what I should be doing is studying. But damn, that gets old after a while. For some reason I had the idea that I would have more free time over the summer, not less.

Bryant Holsenbeck's exhibit at Wake Tech

Attempted close-up of one of the features.

Fortunately, classes end the day before we leave on our cruise. Talk about good timing. I should be completely ready for a week of doing nothing by then. My mate will have the kids to drag off on tours with him, so I’ll be free to lounge on the deck of the ship getting fat and sunburned. I’m not a big fan of tours; I like to see places at my own pace, stop and dawdle over the things that catch my fancy, wander back and forth as it suits me. Tours are wasted on me—after the first five or ten minutes my buffer gets full and I don’t take in any more information anyway.

So they can go off and do the tour thing, and I’ll probably just wander around the ports looking at the touristy crap and attempting to talk to the people in bad Spanish.

Bryant Holsenbeck's exhibit at Wake Tech

Another piece set up in one of the windows.

Jun 252007
 

Okay people, time to show a little support for our boys in the military. You don’t even have to lick a stamp, just send ‘em an e-mail to let them know the folks back home are supporting their efforts. Colonel Simcock tells us his marines would appreciate the moral support. Even marines need love!

Drop an e-mail to RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil and let them know you’re thinking of ‘em. And spread the word around the blogosphere. Let’s have us a big ol’ dot-mil e-mail love-in.

 

I’m taking some online classes over the summer term. I have learned two things:

  1. Online classes are actually more difficult than classroom ones.
  2. Although summer term is shorter (10 weeks) than fall term (16 weeks), the courses still contain the same amount of material.

a + b = yikes!

I decided to drop the XML class. One of these days I’d like to learn XML, just because it’s really cool and interesting, but for the moment Managerial Accounting is kicking my ass and I need to devote more time to the courses that are actually required for my major.

Meanwhile, my eldest son is attending his favorite camp again. Last week we sat down together and looked at his summer schedule; he’s only got three weeks when he hasn’t got something planned. At one point my mom remarked how busy his summer is this year; he answered, “It will be even busier next year.”

“What’s next year?”

“Summer job.”

It’s amazing how kids can grow in completely unexpected ways. When they were small, we expected the eldest would prefer staying home in familiar surroundings—it’s just what you’d expect from the typical autist. Instead, he wants to go out every day, explore new places, try new things. His little brother, the social butterfly, is the one who’s just as happy to stay home and read a book or program on the computer. Go figure.

Jun 072007
 

ScaryBaldGuy posted this news story about a neglected dog that was dumped off and left to die. While horrible, this sort of thing is sadly quite common.

It made me think of an afternoon drive I took with my youngest, when he was still a wee toddler. We were bored and exploring some roads we’d never been down, and discovered an animal shelter tucked back among some farms.

Further along the road, we saw a smallish white dog by the side of the road. He was watching all the cars as they approached, following them a little way, then turning hopefully to the next one. A couple of vehicles had to slow down and swerve into the other lane to avoid hitting him.

I pulled my car off the road, got out, and tried to coax the dog to come to me. I couldn’t keep him, but I could at least take him down to the shelter where he would be safe and cared for. But he wanted nothing to do with me. I wasn’t his people. He checked me out from a distance and then returned to his inspection of the passing cars. One of them had to be his people coming back for him.

Shortly after I pulled off, an animal control truck pulled in behind me. The man got out, carrying a catch pole. “Somebody drop him off?” He sounded mildly disgusted. I nodded. He approached the dog calmly, deftly snared him before he could sidle out of reach, and put him into a cage in the back of the truck. He drove off without another word.

At the time I worried that he must think I had tried to dump the dog. Later I realized that his disgust was not aimed at me. He’d probably seen this scene a hundred times, and already knew what eventually occurred to me—if I’d dumped the dog off, I wouldn’t have been there trying to get him out of the road. He was disgusted at the person who had gotten the dog all the way down to the shelter, and then just dropped him off in the vicinity rather than take him in safely.

I guess that dog was lucky. At least he was left near the shelter, in reasonably good shape. Other dogs, like the one in the article, get used up and dumped for dead like garbage.

Living Art!

 Geek Wannabe, General, Videos  Comments Off
Jun 062007
 

This is just so cool.





Get Adobe Flash player




Anchors Aweigh

 Geek Wannabe, General  Comments Off
Jun 022007
 

My eldest turns sixteen in a couple of months. We wanted to do something special for this birthday.

My spousal unit has also been wanting a big family vacation for a while.

A confluence of financial solvency and vacation availability has led us to book a week-long Caribbean cruise for the end of July. The whole lot of us. Together on a boat. For a week. God help us.

I plan to stuff myself every day, get snockered every night, and gain approximately thirty pounds. I’m told in Mexico they aren’t obssessed with anorexia thinness as they are here. I totally need to move to Mexico.

© 2011 BerthaBlog Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha
Bear