Al, Michele, Anthony, Nathan, and Olivia are all up on Mount Bachelor skiing this week. Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah, David and Gladys Christie, Ron and Donna Floyd, Luis, Susan, and Brett Rodriguez, and the Douma family who go go to meeting with Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah will all be up there for the week. We are all quite sad we could not be there, too, but we knew we had the choice of moving to Texas or not going skiing. We could not do both. We made the right decision. Who knows whether Lavan Jampa would have been able to get to meeting or Beto, Denise, and their family, either. Nevertheless, we are going to do the best we can to make sure we can go next year. In the meantime, Al Rizos has invited us to San Diego this summer for a week to got to surfing camp. We will try to do that, too. Christian made the comment that the skiing is great, but the time spent with all of their friends is be best part about being there. We all agreed with him.
Month: February 2006 Page 1 of 2
Sunday after meeting, all of us drove about an hour Northwest of Dallas through the little town of Bailey to the home of Jung (J.P.) and Lisa Paek. It is a beautiful 100+ acre ranch with cows, donkeys, goats, chickens, a bunch of watering holes, a natural spring, a fossil bed, and all kinds of other stuff. Their kids, Eliana (age 7) and Elliot (age 6) are just amazing; they are two of the sweetest and most inquisitive kids we have met in a long time. Lisa is homeschooling them in a very impressive way. The way she does her homeschooling is in some ways similar to the way we do it, but she takes it a step further than us by putting the whole program together herself rather than using a preorganized program like Sonlight. I think she is basing the program on The Well Trained Mind. Eliana is using the very same Story of the World book this year that Kelly and the Rizos boys, Nathan and Anthony are using. If they stick with the program, they will go through that same material a couple more times with more depth each time as they continue through elementary school, junior high school, and then on through high school. It is a great way to go, but requires an incredible amount of work and dedication. It really seems to be working well for them.
After a wonderful lunch of barbeque pork, rice, salad, and a marvelous dessert, the whole group of us went for a walk of the entire property. Our kids were in heaven. They got to hold newly hatched chicks, dig natural clay out of the earth, dig for fossils, pet all the animals, look at raccoon, coyote, rabbit, and other animal tracks, explore, and just play with some very bright, very well-behaved kids. Kelly and Christian talked about what a marvelous time they had the whole way home. I sincerely hope that we will be able to have them over to our place before too long.
An interesting side note was that the Paeks had a cassette tape version of Cheaper by the Dozen. Christian, Kelly, and I had been reading that book out loud over the last week or two and had gotten to the last two chapters on the ride out to the ranch. It is a wonderful book that we had enjoyed very much up to that point. Lisa told us that they had enjoyed the book very much, too, but the end of the book was a major disappointment. We finished the book on the way home and we all agreed that Lisa was right. What a lousy way to end that book. No matter what were the circumstances, surely there could have been a better way to describe the end of such a remarkable life.
Kelly got in the mood to call her Oregon relatives on the telephone last night. She called Grandma Sarah first because she missed her Then she remembered that cousins Julia, Kylee, and Charlie all had birthdays last week, so she started calling them. She got up to Charlie when it got too late so she had to get ready for bed, but she plans to call him tonight. She had great talks with all, but really long talks with Grandma Sarah and Cousin Julia. Cousin Kylee would have been willing for more, but she had to run off to practice. I am not quite sure which practice it would be. She is quite a musician (guitar) and could still be in a garage band, but she is also a champion rugby player. Who would ever imagine that I would be able to say that about my dainty little niece.
There is getting to be more and more talk about moving to North Carolina. We have found another big potential customer in that part of the world. Our chances would be helped greatly if set up an operation there to be able to serve them more rapidly for less money. Dad is in conversations right now. I do not know if I am the right person to do that, but I am the logical person to try.
Another day, some more math, a myraid mixture of grammar, cursive, history, and reading. But really, I like it. Right now I am reading Adam of the Road, a great book about medieval England, and Master Cornhill, another great book about medieval England. Tommorow is Current Events day and I’m thinking about a certain article in World Mag. Later Mom will take us to the library to return our books and get some new ones. Since I am working on my annual research report I wil need some more research books. My topic this year is “The Great Pyramids”. I have been learning a lot of interesting things in my books this year. Next year I will do some more world history and I can’t wait to read the rest of the books for this year, they all look so good. I should get back to work. More later.
Kelly
It was quite a shock for me yesterday to hear that a fellow I knew growing up in Oregon, Steve MacDonald died of a heart attack the other day. He was several years younger than I. I have been thinking about it quite a bit lately in the context of how I am living my life and what I am doing with my family. I am doing pretty much what I can for my family. I am focusing on the kid’s school, working to get my economic house in order, moving closer to Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita, trying to get a way for Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah to winter with us, and, most importantly, doing what is possible to establish a strong relationship between Jesus all of the members of our family. On the other hand, it seems like I am missing the boat with respect to my career and how I much time I have available for the family. It seems like I could find a better balance. I want to let this event motivate me to evaluate where I am in my career and find a way to do more meaningful work. We are mandated to make a living. I should make that living in the most excellent way possible. What my employer gets out of my efforts and the spirit I bring to the effort are now more critical than ever. I must have a better spirit through all of this so that people can see Christ in me and I can give the best that God has given me to give.
I got a comment from Cousin Julia today. It was great. I have decided to leave the blog open for comments for awhile to see how it goes. I will moderate them all until I can see whether I get a ton of spam. It will be nice to have a little bit of a bulletin board here. I am working lots of hours for a little while at Rudolph Technologies, so the posting will probably be a little light until we get caught up.
Now that the newness is wearing off, it is a little bit of a challenge right now to live right on top of each other in an apartment. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we are kind of up in the air with respect to where we will be living. It has been good to be relatively busy with Lavan Jampa and Beto and his family. We will probably continue to be busy for quite awhile. We will be going to see Craig Parish’s sister and her homeschooling family this weekend, special meeting is coming up, Kelly’s birthday is coming up, a group of the friends are getting together to go camping at a lake over spring break. After that, we will be getting close to the end of the school year and it might be time for Lorena and the kids to run down to Mexico to visit Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita for awhile. Hopefully, by then we will have the house sold in Oregon, so we can figure out where to live here.
We had a wonderful day yesterday with Lavan Jampa. He is going back to India on February 23, so we do not know whether we will see him again until we go over to India for convention or he comes back to Dallas for some more training. We enjoyed our time with him very much. Yesterday after meeting, he took us out to an Indian food restaurant that was the best Indian food we have ever eaten. Then we went to a Walmart to help him get some things for his family before he leaves. This morning, Lavan sent us some pictures he took with his new camera. It is quite a good camera as you will be able to see from the photos. Notice the distinguished looking lady in the second picture who is just over Lavan’s left shoulder. That is my wonderful friend, Kaleta Stevens from El Paso, Klamath Falls, and Oregon State University. I had not seen her since I was getting my Masters Degree at University of Texas at El Paso about 16 years ago. We went to her dad, Ben Layman’s meeting in Klamath Falls when I lived there as a boy. Her son Byron and future daugter-in-law are right behind her. We got to see her daughter Yvonne at Mountain Peak convention this year. It was wonderful to get a little bit of a chance to talk to her.
Lorena’s cousin Beto and his wife Denise
Christian with Beto and Denise’s daughter Dayana
We are going into a three day weekend. I think I will go ahead and have the kids continue to do their homeschool. I will try to work on a few projects around the house. It would also be nice to be able to go somewhere like a museum, but I have to get my taxes done and rework the Quality Corners website, so we will have to wait and see. We will have quite a busy weekend. Tonight, Beto and his wife, Denise, and their baby Dayana are coming over for dinner. Who knows when they will get there, but it should be very nice. Then, on Saturday, Valentine, Blanca, and Lili are going to drive up from Houston to Joel and Susana’s house, so we will meet them over there. Finally, on Sunday we will pick up Lavan Jampa to take to meeting for the last time. We are planning to go out for some Indian food after meeting then bring him back to our apartment after that. Hopefully, Monday will be a fairly lazy day. I believe the kids will still have their swimming lesson, so that should give me some time to work on my projects.
August Technology, the company for which I work just got purchased by a Rudolph Technology. They are going to move us from the rented building we currently occupy to another building they own. We August Technology Texas employees are going over to our new office this afternoon to have lunch with the Rudolph engineers and listen to the official announcement via WebEx and phone conference. From what I have heard the place is very nice. It is right across the street from UT Dallas, there are lots of restaurants around, and they have safer places to walk than where we are currently located. It is a little further from our apartment, so I will not be able to go home for lunch so easily. Maybe it will help me rethink where we will buy our house, too. I hate the thought of switching meetings.
We all ran down to Panda Express to have our Valentine’s Day dinner rather than have Lorena cook at home last night. It was really nice, but we had to work fast when we got home to catch up on our homeschool. I looked at the Math the kids are doing a little more closely and found that I was a little off, so I adjusted our chart. It looks like we will be able to slow down a little by the end of next year. The idea is that if I get the kids a year ahead of the program, then they will be able to finish first year calculus by the end of their sophomore year in high school. After that, they can take the same class again for credit at the community college their junior year in high school. They will be well prepared for the math part of the SAT their senior and can even take differential equations and linear algebra if they are so inclined.
Christian started into the second half of the fifth grade math program this week. He seems to be doing well with it. It will be interesting to see how he does when we get to some of the story problems that require logic that is not as obvious as some of the previous work he has done. At this rate, we should be through fifth grade this year. There is really a good chance that he will get started into the sixth grade math program before the year is out. Kelly will finish the entire primary math program today or tomorrow, so we will be moving into Junior High School Math toward the end of the week. I want to get them through the calculas at home and then have them take it for college credit at the community college as the will give them the advantage of having on of their harder subjects out of the way before they start into college full time. The way the program is going, we will have one more year for Kelly and two more years for Christian at our current rapid pace. After that we will slow down and take it one year at a time so we can enjoy it a little more and concentrate on really getting them a good understanding. Of course all of this planning depends on circumstances and the will of God. That being said, our current math trajectory is the following:
Christian
Grade 5: Through 6th grade – Singapore Primary Math 5B, 6A, and 6B
Grade 6: Through 7th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 1
Grade 7: Through 8th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 2
Grade 8: Through 9th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 3
Grade 9: Through 10th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 4
Grade 10:Through 11th grade – Saxon Calculus
Grade 11:Calculus at the community college
Grade 12:Differential equations and linear algebra at the community college
Kelly
Grade 7: Through 8th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 2
Grade 8: Through 9th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 3
Grade 9: Through 10th grade – Singapore New Elementary Math 4
Grade 10:Through 11th grade – Saxon Calculus
Grade 11:Calculus at the community college
Grade 12:Differential equations and linear algebra at the community college
We had a pretty quiet Friday night and Saturday, but on Sunday, we had a VERY full day. We picked up Lavan to take to meeting with us on Sunday morning. Then, we went to have lunch at David and Rebekah Larson’s house in McKinney. We had a wonderful lunch and the kids played like maniacs for three hours until gospel meeting. After gospel meeting, we took the Larson’s home, then ran down to a place called the Plano Tavern for supper with a group of about forty of the friends. It was an absolutely great time. The Hockersmiths, the Lacocks, the Sorensons, the Swansons, and a bunch of others were there.
Lorena’s sister-in-law, Rosalinda, just sent us some pictures that Grandpa Lauro had taken when he was up here visiting us. Some of the one’s we enjoyed the most were of the Larson family who invited us to dinner and then played their violins for us.
Twin violins
I have not written much on our Wednesday night bible study group. I thought I should comment on it a little today. It is an exceptional group. Last night we had a birthday party after meeting for Rene Parish. It turns out that once per month, we have a birthday party, complete with cake and presents, for everyone in the meeting who has a birthday during that month. It is a lot of fun. It is obvious that everyone in the meeting cares about each other and takes responsibility for being there. Dale Sorenson is currently working in Ft. Worth. Every Wednesday, he has to drive all the way across Dallas in the worst traffic of the day to get home, barely in time to turn around and come half way back to come to meeting. I think he has missed meeting only once since we have been here and that was for special circumstances. The meetings themselves are pretty exceptional, too. People obviously make an effort in their preparations.
On another note, Quality Corners lost its bid to win some new business with Orepac in Phoenix. It really would have been nice to have a good chunk of new business from them, but it sounds like they are getting their product from a local supplier who does not pay a whole lot of attention to quality so the price is pretty low. It is not the kind of business we like, but it was still disappointing. I think we should offer one of our current distributors for the area a great price on our specially manufactured cheap base corners and try to win some of that business away from them at the end user level.
Christian and Kelly are going to their second day of swimming lessons today. It is good to have them in something where they get a little more exercise. They have not been getting much since we moved into our apartment. They put both of them in level 3/4 of a six level program. That is a little bit lower than they might have been in Oregon, but I really think it is all right. At this point, we have them in swimming more for the exercise than for the technique. I would like them to continue in swimming lessons for a year or two more so that they are very, very comfortable in the water. That is one of the best gifts Grandma Sarah gave to us kids. All of us became good swimmers and have enjoyed it all our lives. Actually, it would be a good thing for me to start swimming as evercise. I think I will check that out.
Quality Corners needs to decide whether we should put a manufacturing facility in North Carolina next to one of our larger customers. There is a very good opportunity there. The idea is that our customer would supply us with raw materials. We would machine, assemble and package them into into finished product and send them back to the customer ready to ship to large national home improvement chains. The advantages in setting up an operation that way are the lower end cost for our customer based on their ability to provide inexpensive raw materials, fast lead times and reduced inventory due to the close proximity to the customer, and a closer relationship with our customer. There also might be an opportunity to work the customer to win new business not currently available to them based on restricitions placed on them by their current customers.
The difficult part of this is that I am the logical person to go set up and run that operation. We will have to think about how to do that without uprooting the family too much again. My first thought is to get an apartment in North Carolina and keep our house in Texas. We will have to have some discussions about how we can maintain some continuity. Maybe it will work out best just to go ahead and make the move, but that would get us far away from Lorena’s family again and North Carolina gets pretty cold in the winter so it would not be that great a place for my folks to winter. God has his hand in all this. In the end, he will work it all out.
We went to the library on Saturday morning and were able to get a library card to check out books. The last time we went, we did not have a utility receipt with our apartment address, so they would not give us a card. Five books is the first time limit for check out, so we did not get as many books as ususal, but both of the kids were able to get a book they can use to start on their big research reports. Christian also got a book on plants and Kelly got a reading book. After the library, we went to a nursery in Plano. It was a nice little nursery, but not so satisfying after having lived in Oregon for so long. Christian got all the materials he needed to do some cuttings: Potting soil, root hormone, and some containers. When we got back to the apartment, he went out and took some cuttings of what I think was some kind of cedar. He planted them and we are going to see what happens.
On Sunday, we went to pick up Lavan Jampa for meeting. After meeting, we meet our workers, Marilyn Frye and Andrea Jensen and another man with whom we meet on Sunday morning named John. He is a nephew of Ulrich Eberhart and a cousin to Rob Eberhart. Ulrich is the man who came from Germany as a young man not to long after World War II and worked for my father in his sawmill in Cottage Grove. Uncle Ron sponsered him to come over.  He is married to a woman Dad knew as a little girl when he was in basic training for the Army in Alabama in around 1948.
After lunch, we went and hung out in a big mall in Frisco to watch the iceskaters and do some window shopping with Lavan until meeting started. After meeting we talked to Ron Lacock. He had invited Lavan to lunch last week and while they were having lunch, Ross Perot came by, so Lavan was able to meet him.
This post will be a bit of a departure from what we normal discuss in this blog. Ron Voorhees, my dad, and I own a small business in Oregon called Quality Corners. We manufacture specialty millwork products including rosettes, plinth blocks, round base corners and that sort of thing. We need a way to inspect all of those charts, but because we are competing directly with China, we cannot pay very much for our solution. I have to come up with an automatic inspection system to assure that the end products going to the customers are as perfect as we can possibly make them. My idea is to come up with an inexpensive, Linux based visual inspection system, possibly using a webcam to capture the images. After I finish my stock analysis program, that is what I believe I will develop next.
Last night I uploaded a picture of our friend Lavan Jampa from Bangalore. Here it is:
Lavan Jampa from Bangalore, India with Christian, Lorena, and Kelly
I also put up a couple pictures of the family and our meeting here.