Month: August 2013

Lorena’s bookcase project

On Saturday, August 24, 2013

Day 732 of 1000

Lorena paints a bookshelf Lorena is passionate about home improvement. I put this picture up previously, when she was refinishing a bookcase last month, but it is one of the ones that got lost when our service provider went out of business. It was important to put it back up. We plan to move back out west within the next year our two. Our plan is to move to an area where there is a big university. We like to live within easy driving distance to a town that has a big university. Also, we want to buy a piece of trash house on as nice a lot as we can find, specifically so Lorena can do a remodel. The amount of satisfaction Lorena gets out of this sort of thing is very great. We needed to have this picture back up. I am glad I found it.

The kids first day of their Senior year at NCSU

By Dad

On Wednesday, August 21, 2013

In Education

Day 729 of 1000

Kelly's and Christian's first day of their senior year at NCSU We all felt pretty nostalgic today. This picture is of Kelly and Christian just before they took off to NCSU for the first day of their Senior year at NCSU. Of course, Lorena had to take a picture. It was strange that they went through the same ritual as virtually every other year since they started school at age five by taking a trip to Target to buy new notebooks and writing instruments for all their classes. The main thing different this year is they have their own car so, for the most part, Lorena will not be driving them.

Last night Christian and I worked on letters to send to professors at some target graduate schools he would like to attend. We are working over his resume to go along with it. Sometime today, I will sign them both up to take the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). At all seems a little surreal, but in a good way.

Freshman level fluff classes

By Dad

On Tuesday, August 20, 2013

In Education

Day 728 of 1000

Kelly's commie writing professor Lorena’s first day of class was last Friday. Christian and Kelly’s first day of class is tomorrow. I got a timely reminder of what college is like yesterday afternoon when my buddy at work received the following text from his college Freshman son:

Philosophy is full of creepy people and the instructor is also fairly sketchy looking…

He laughed out loud when he got the message. He showed it to me and I laughed, too. It reminded me of some of the messages Kelly sent from her writing class with the commie professor. You can read about it here. This year Kelly and Christian both are scheduled for all technical classes all the time. Both of them have technical writing classes this semester, but that is as close as it gets. I am thankful the non-reality based, leftist, humanist classes are now over, but they were kind of fun while they lasted. On the other hand it is pretty maddening to pay for classes that teach nothing good and a lot of material that is objectively wrong.

Is North Carolina the healthiest state in the Union?

By Dad

On Friday, August 16, 2013

In Politics

Maybe we should stay in North Carolina. According to this article in The Examiner, people seem to age very well here:

Perhaps in an effort to promote North Carolina as one of the healthiest States in the Nation, this latest voter twist comes to us from Susan Myrick of the Civitas Institute in North Carolina–not to be confused with Rep. Sue Myrick of NC who is unrelated. In a radio interview with local WBT Anchor Tara Servatious, Susan reports that she has been keeping track of the number of votes in North Carolina of individuals over the age of 110 years and apparently we have quite a few, over 410 of the 110 year olds–to be exact– actually voted via absentee ballot on October the 28th. Yes indeed, now it would appear that good ole NC has the market cornered on the Centenarian vote.

At latest count, Susan has garnered a total Absentee Ballot vote of over 2,660 people over the age of 110. Someone contact the Guiness Book and warm up the Ford, the Fountain of Youth exists and its right here in lovely NC. It’s no wonder people are moving here in droves–maybe the use of tobacco isn’t such a bad thing after all? But, on a more serious note, with all of the irregularities going on all over the place, we can now begin to wonder about a few things.

Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah celebrate 65th high school reuninon

By Dad

On Friday, August 16, 2013

In Education

Grandpa Milo's and Grandma Sarah's 65th Cottage Grove High School reunion This picture arrived by email this morning. It is from the Cottage Grove Sentinel newspaper in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Grandma Sarah is the one on the left in the front row with the pink blouse. Grandpa Milo is two her right, behind her. The 65th Cottage Grove High School reunion took place last month. For those who do not know, Grandpa Milo was the student body president his senior year in high school.

NCSU wins a huge analytics grant

By Dad

On Friday, August 16, 2013

In Education, Technology, Work

Day 724 of 1000

This morning when I read the news on Free Republic, I ran into this article on a new program at NCSU. That pointed to this article in the News and Observer that describes the new “Big Data” joint venture between NCSU and the NSA. It starts out like this:

As the field of “big data” continues to grow in importance, N.C. State University has landed a big coup – a major lab for the study of data analysis, funded by the National Security Agency.

A $60.75 million grant from the NSA is the largest research grant in NCSU’s history – three times bigger than any previous award.

The Laboratory for Analytic Sciences will be launched in a Centennial Campus building that will be renovated with money from the federal agency, but details about the facility are top secret. Those who work in the lab will be required to have security clearance from the U.S. government.

NCSU officials say the endeavor is expected to bring 100 new jobs to the Triangle during the next several years. The university, already a leader in data science, won the NSA contract through a competitive process.

NCSU university already has strengths in computer science, applied mathematics and statistics and a collaborative project with the NSA on cybersecurity. The university also is in the process of hiring four faculty members for its new data-driven science cluster, adding to its expertise.

This fits very nicely with Kelly’s analytics internship at the JHU-APL. The other thing I thought was fun and interesting is the connection was not just to the Statistics department, but to the Applied Mathematics department, too. Christian is an Applied Math major. The article also talks about the Professional Masters Degree in Analytics our friend Andrew earned last year.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/15/3109412/nc-state-teams-up-with-nsa-on.html#storylink=cpy

Kelly ups her game and joins Christian for a graduate class

By Dad

On Thursday, August 15, 2013

In Education

Kelly’s internship was quite an amazing and fruitful experience for her. I described that a little bit here and a few other places. She loved the day to day statistics work given to her. Her boss was a good mentor and even a better teacher. He recommended a couple of classes for her to take that were not on her plan. Today, she decided to drop her Economics minor so she could take the classes he recommended. This semester’s class is a graduate class in Linear Algebra. There is only one session being taught and Christian is in it. That is great. Kelly and Christian have not had a class together since their last semester of community college when they took undergraduate Linear Algebra. Then, next semester, she plans to take Real Analysis, a very ugly but very necessary mathematical proofs class.

I asked her, “Do you think you can handle it?”

She said, “Sure. I have a completely different perspective now that I have seen what kind of work I will do after I get my degree. It will be hard, but I can do it. I am taking it because I know I will need it.”

There is nothing like a little bit of real-world experience doing something you love to provide some motivation to do something that is worthwhile, but hard.

Forgetting to pay tuition

By Dad

On Thursday, August 15, 2013

In Education

Day 723 of 1000

Somehow, tuition payment for Lorena’s Biology class at the community college slipped through the cracks. Class is scheduled to start tomorrow (Really??? On a Friday? Who made that decision?). When she checked her schedule on the internet we found she was registered for zero credits. Zero. How lame is it that I remembered to pay the two big tuition payments, but forgot the small one. We compared the available classes with open sections with the courses she needs to finish her degree and found a total of TWO classes that would work. Introduction to Old Testament is offered as a three hour class on Saturday mornings so that is out. Introduction to New Testament is offered on MWF from 8-8:50 so we signed her up.

I wish I could say this is the only time I have done something like this, but it is actually the third time. The fall semester of the last year of the kids community college experience “featured” a trip to Johnston Community College so Christian could take Physics I and Differential Equations. Lorena drove him, took two classes herself, and got some bonding time with Christian, but it was pretty painful.

Another homeschool story: Starting after elementary school in Texas

By Dad

On Tuesday, August 13, 2013

In Education, Family, Homeschool

Day 721 of 1000

Homeschool friends from Texas at the Hill Library (NCSU) Kelly came back from her internship at the Johns Hopkins University-Applied Physics Laboratory just in time for a visit from the Larsons. They are dear homeschooling friends from Texas. Age-wise, the twin boys fall right between Christian and Kelly. That have gotten along famously since late elementary school. We spent a great weekend with them visiting the NCSU Hill Library and the North Carolina Museum or Art, playing games, talking, playing music, going to church, and generally just hanging out together. The Larson’s are great musicians–voice, violin/fiddle, accordian, piano–really they are amazing.

At any rate, it got me to thinking about the Larson’s homeschool trajectory. It was a little different than our trajectory due to the normal reasons: differing interests (medicine, law, and business rather than engineering and math), amazing music skills, access to great Texas homeschool resources, differing teaching styles and curricula, etc. Still, the spirit of their homeschool was more similar to ours than just about any we have seen. They put worldview above other academic subjects, skipped two years of high school to put their kids into the community college, focused on hard science and math, but backfilled with music, international travel, language, hunting, and community service.

Some of the things they did much better than us include their participation in things like youth symphony, youth court (as lawyers and judges), EMT training, medical research, and I am sure there are others. It is great to see these boys prosper in ways that would not have been possible in a government or private school setting, but what we admire the most is their humility and the joy they derive from the path they have chosen as a family.

Awesome help from friends

By Dad

On Sunday, August 4, 2013

In General

Day 712 of 1000

I was pretty bummed that we lost a bunch of posts when our internet service provider went out of business and our newest backup was over a month and a half old. Fortunately, Eric, Audrey, and family had us in their RSS feed so they had a bunch of the old posts in their RSS cache. Amazing. They were kind enough to forward those to us. I do not think it will be all of them, but it is a bunch and we really appreciate it. I will be putting them up one by one over the next few days along with any photos I have that might go with them. THANKS GUYS!

Kelly gets her internship exit review

By Dad

On Friday, August 2, 2013

In General

Day 710 of 1000

Kelly is having a phenomenal summer. This is really the first time she has lived away from home. She is mostly on her own (living with some VERY good people–thank you Brian and Celia and thanks Troy for setting that up), driving to work in the kids little Ford Fiesta, going to baseball games (Go Orioles!), and just having a great time.

Today, though, was especially good. She not only got an offer for another internship next year, but was told they would very much like her to apply for a job after she gets her Masters Degree. It does not get much better than that.

A GREAT engineering solution — The Koreans do it again

By Dad

On Thursday, August 1, 2013

In Technology

This a brilliant, elegant, cheap, simple solution to a problem that everyone confronts, but few really have considered. I LOVE this. How creative can you get?

NCSU #2 in starting salaries after graduation

By Dad

On Thursday, August 1, 2013

In Education, Work

Kelly pointed me to a very cool article about the relative starting salaries of students who graduate from universities in North Carolina. Not surprisingly Duke was #1. My sense is that some of the difference there might be attributable to North Carolina natives (and many out of state students) unwillingness to leave this beautiful state while the Dukies might just be passing through to high paying jobs in high cost of living, less desireable places to live. Of course that is just my thought on the topic.

The really surprising news is that NCSU is #2. I think that might be partly due to the greater rigor in their engineering programs. Not unsurprisingly, UNC Chapel Hill was not even #3. Wake Forest, North Carolina A&T, and UNC Charlotte all provided higher paying job opportunities for their graduates then UNC Chapel Hill. Also not surprising, every school ahead of UNC Chapel Hill is a strong STEM schools with a full complement of Engineering programs.

We are back!

By Dad

On Thursday, August 1, 2013

In Blogging

Day 709 of 1000

Without notification, our web host went out of business and shut down our website. We lost 70-80 of the latest blog posts. I have a diminishing hope of getting any of that back, but the good news is that everything from June 4, 2013 back was preserved and we have a more frequent back-up plan in place. The other good part is that this haitus has made me think about what I am writing and what I want to do with the blog. I definitely figured out I want to keep going. I will continue to write about the culmination of the homeschool process as the kids finish college and go on to graduate school, but I have decided to try to write some more substantive posts in addition to that. The content is still little up in the air, but I have some ideas.