Month: February 2007 Page 1 of 2

Last night, Lorena and Christian went to Christian’s last Cub Scout event.  Now we are making the hard decision about when and if we will jump into Boy Scouts.  Kelly and I stayed home.  I was planning on spending more time talking with her and working on her book, but a long phone call, homeschool corrections, and work on my big program cost me that time with her.  We listened to a debate over the internet together, but it was really inexcusable not to have sat with her to work on her book.  We always have a super time, we both learn a lot, and we have something to show for it when we are through we have something to show for it, too.  I coulda, shoulda woulda is not acceptable when your kids are growing up.  So, tonight and tomorrow night, Friday, and all next week, I will rededicate myself to helping the kids with math, ordering Kelly’s book and play, etc.  It is so easy to let trivial personal priorities get in the way of what is right.

On the other hand, my weight is heading south again.

I have started back working on a vision system on the Linux computer at home.  It can currently do the basic image filters, morphology, connectivity analysis, and blobs.  I have been talking with a friend and am thinking about setting up a basic vision laboratory in our bonus room at home.  I am running today, so I cannot write a whole lot more on this, but plan to expand on it as it develops.

A couple days ago at the library, when I thought I had read all the good books there were to be read, and all that was left was a couple of picture books and some magazines, I came upon a series that I had been searching for.  Luck was with me, and I found two more series that I had heard about or been searching for.  Plus, Christian found two totally new Asterix and Obelix comix boox!  And we got the usual Tintin.  And an extra book to even things out too.  Oh, and another series that I had been searching for.  And next time I’m going to look for a couple of books that I have read about.  So our reading for this week (and maybe next week too) is enough for us to be satisfied.  And there’s also our home school books which are very good.  And all the books laying around the house.  And the Hank the Cowdog book that we forgot to turn in last time.  Why would anyone hate the public library?

Lorena’s laptop computer has been running Windows XP since we got it. I dual booted to Kubuntu for awhile, but with one thing and another, we started experiencing Blue Screens of Death (BSOD’s) when we ran XP and the wireless networking and a couple of other things were not working exactly like we wanted it in Kubuntu. It dawned on me that I really might have a resource problem, so I formatted the hard drive and installed Xubuntu. It is awesome. The wireless works better than it ever did with Windows XP or Kubuntu (I did some ad hoc download testing to figure that out), it is very snappy and does everything we want it to do.

The things we want it to do are pretty typical of a laptop. We want to be able to do the following:

• Read and write email (Thunderbird)
• Access the other computers and printers on the network (CUPS and SAMBA)
• Browse the web (Firefox with AdblockPlus plugin)
• Blogging (Performancing Firefox plugin)
• FTP (FireFTP Firefox plugin)
• Word processing (Abiword)
• Spreadsheets (Gnumeric)
• Talk to Grandma Conchita in Mexico (Skype)
• Instant messaging (GAIM)
• Webcam (Camorama and XAWTV)

In addition, I would like to be able to do some programming so I added KDevelop and a couple of other things, but that was not the main purpose of this exercise. The main purpose of the exercise was to get a piece of trash computer back into a usable state. This worked great. My buddy Lyle Waldo has an even worse computer coming along in the next few days that we are going to upgrade with Xubuntu, too. It is a computer that started out life as a Windows ME computer, but was upgraded (and I use the term upgraded quite loosely in this case) with Windows XP. It has a USB wireless dongle that we will need to make work and a few other challenges, but I think we can manage it all quite nicely.

Even though our experience was overwhelmingly positive yesterday, there was one big challenge that the normal user will not have to confront. The Automatix2 website was down all weekend, so we had to hand install Skype and the wireless stuff. I have not yet installed all the fonts and the DVD player because it was not as important as the other stuff and I know it is very easy with Automatix. I would highly recommend assuring that you can get the Automatix upgrades unless you are pretty comfortable with the linux command line and with foraging about in ubuntuforums.org.

This is a photo of my nefarious weight loss cage match competitor. Notice the fierce look in his eye. Also notice, that unlike our beautiful and delicate pets, Rubix and Kiwi, the twin tortoise shell cat sisters, Bryan’s pet is obviously an attack cat. He has to wrap both arms around the ferocious beast and hang on for dear life just to take the picture. How fitting that his cat is black. I have to win this contest for all that is good and noble in this world.

Yesterday (as Dad said) we went to our first tennis lesson. The tennis club is very cool, it has an outdoor pool, several indoor courts, several outdoor courts, and a big upstairs room for viewing the indoor courts. That is where Mom stays to study her calculus. We were a little bit shy at first, but our instructor was very nice. He introduced us to the rest of our class: Ronnie, who turned thirteen in December and is home schooled. She was very nice and always giving us tips or compliments! Sterling was in sixth grade I think and the teacher labeled him as kind of crazy. He was always bouncing a tennis ball on his racket. 🙂 David used to go to my school and he knows some of my friends, he is in the eighth grade, the teacher labeled him as always late and even more crazy. I think there are going to be some more kids coming on Tuesday.

After introductions we started practicing a little bit. The teacher let us borrow some tennis rackets and all he had us do at first was hit the ball when he threw it at us. We did that for a while, then practiced bouncing the ball on the racket with our palm up, then our knuckles up. After that we practiced serving the balls and the instructor showed us how to hold the racket, how to stand, and how to swing. Then we played a few games. I liked playing Jail. You lined up and the teacher threw you a ball. Then, if you hit it over the other side, you were safe. If you didn’t, you were in ‘jail’ on the other side. The only way you could get out of jail was catching the ball before it bounced. It was all very fun and I can’t wait until Tuesday! Mom was up above watching us the whole time, talking to Ronnie’s mom, who was very nice. Ronnie comes all the way from Salem because of the instructor. Pretty cool!

This was Christian’s idea:

The really big news of the week is that Lorena got an 89 on her calculus midterm, so she continues to make great progress on her degree. She studies hard. Kelly, Christian, and I are wildly impressed; it is not an easy class.

Yesterday Kelly and Christian went to their first tennis class. I think they are really going to enjoy it. I hope Kelly writes a post here to describe their first class, her impressions about what she learned, and the new people they met.

Today will finish my fifth complete of spending at least 30 minutes on the elliptical machine six out of seven days per week–if I get my workout done today and I plan to do that. Now that I am over fifty, I know that I have to take it a lot more slowly. I am going fast enough to get a good sweat for twenty-five or thirty minutes of the workout, but slow enough to listen while Kelly and Christian take turns reading to me while the other works on a jigsaw table in the bonus room. Eating wise, I am doing pretty well, too. Lorena is making really healthy stuff and I am working to eat the right amounts–that is the hard part.

Bryan vs. Ken Weight Loss Cage Match
Bryan: -8
Ken: -5

 

This afternoon the kids will have their first tennis lesson.  We are excited about getting them started.  Like swimming, tennis can be a lifelong sport.  If they really like it, I might just have to get a racket and take some lessons myself.  The problem is that we are rapidly arriving at that awkward age where the kids will not be getting any very stiff competition from the old man.  Maybe I should just stick with the elliptical machine and concentrate on burying poor Bryan in our weight loss cage match.

It looks like our partner, Ron, won a big (big being a relative term for our quite small business) new account for Quality Corners this week.  He and Grandpa Milo are up in Washington today to meet with the buyer and work out all the details.  The meeting is right after lunch.  We really do not know how big it will be, but we do know that they have been selling our competitor’s products to many of the “big box” stores in the Western U.S. and all of Canada for many years.  I can hardly wait to hear how it goes.  Ron has a couple more big opportunities in various stages of the sales process.  With the downturn, we are going to have to have an aggressive sales effort just to stay where we were last year in terms of sales.  Ron is making a stellar effort to assure that happens.

Christian’s Wombat Banner Concept Drawing

A couple of things happened last night that lead me to think about preparedness and its relationship to fairness.  First, Kelly and I listened to a debate last night between two scholars on the historical evidences for the resurrection of Christ.  Second, Lorena and Christian went to a meeting for which Christian had spent several days preparing.  It was not a particularly positive meeting, but it turned out to be quite educational for all of us.

There is a fellow named William Lane Craig who has Ph.D.’s in philosophy and theology from the best universities in the world.  He does not believe exactly what we believe, but as a scholar of the Ancient Near East specializing in the time and place of Jesus while he was on this earth, there is none better.  He has participated in many debates about the history of Jesus, the existence of God, Christian particularism, and other scholarly topics.  Neither his atheistic opponent nor the moderator of the debate who took the side of the atheist were prepared for Dr. Craig.  Craig won the debate and $2001 for the charity of his choice for two reasons.  Truth was on his side and he was wildly better prepared than his opponents to represent the truth through kind, gentle persuasion and firmness in the face of obfuscation.

I have heard the man a number of times.  Every time, he not only wins his debates technically, but persuades others to at least consider his way of thinking, both because of the strength of his arguments and because of his gentle, firm spirit in dealing with aggressive and even rude opponents.  I think there are two reasons that he can maintain such a spirit.  First, the truth is on his side.  Second, he is just way more prepared than his opponent.  In this debate and virtually every other debate I have heard, when the opponent sees that he is losing, he tries to change the subject.  Last night the subject was “Did the Resurrection Really Happen?”  At least two times during the debate, Dr. Brian Edwards, Craig’s opponent tried to change the subject.  The first time he tried to disprove the existence of God; This was not the topic of the debate.  The second time, he tried to debate original sin; Again, not the topic of the debate.  Both times though, Craig was ready.  He was better prepared than his opponent on those topics, too.

Christian has always been very good about getting ready for things.  The first time it really came up as a topic was when he was in the second grade.  The teacher asked each of the students to prepare an oral report for the class.  We talked about it and I showed him how to use index cards as props for his speech.  On his own, he wrote up many cards and was able to give a wonderful speech without a hitch.  As is his modus operandi, he spent several days researching and preparing materials for last night’s meeting.  He learned a lot about the subjects and was prepared to help others learn about the subjects.  He was the only one that did any preparation at all for the meeting, and with the exception of one little friend, all his preparation was ignored, disdainfully by some.

How do you explain that the preparation combined with the right spirit will almost always win if anyone is really paying attention?  How do you explain that those times when it does not win does not mean that the preparation and the maintaining of a kind, humble spirit was not worth the effort?  Unfairness happens.  It will continue to happen in the future.  We do not need to like it, but we do need to keep working and keep a right spirit, especially when it is not fair.  That is what William Lane Craig did.  More importantly and under the most extreme of all experiences, that is what Jesus did.  They both won in the end and so will Christian.

There is a story that my mother tells about a very traumatic experience she endured when her family was young.  It also involves the act that most informs and defines my understanding of what is kindness.  It is a short story.  I had a little sister named Amy Louise who died when she was six months old.  The death was attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. A crib death.  Not much was known about its cause.  It was the mid-1950’s.  At that time and place, probably because of fear and ignorance, there was a stigma attached to a mother who lost her child to SIDS, the thought being that it must have been due to some sort of negligence or abuse on the part of the mother.  Of course, my mother was devastated.  She was a medical professional, a pharmacist, and had access to the research that was available on the subject.  Still, however unreasonable it was to feel guilt and shame in such circumstances, I am certain the burden must have been unbearable.  Even now, I believe the psychology of our family was irrevocably changed with that event.  I was two.

There was a family in our area my parents knew all the time they were growing up.  They were working people.  The father was a bricklayer and mother was a housewife.  They had a young family, just like my dad and mom.  There were four children.  The two youngest were girls.  They were my age and a little younger.  The way my mom tells it, the mother showed up at our house one morning not to long after Amy’s death and asked Mom if she would be willing to watch the little girls for the day.  That is all.

For the first time in a long time, we did not do anything other than hang out at the home over the whole weekend.  It was really great.  I accomplished almost nothing other than tax preparation (about an hour), homeschool prep (about two hours), correcting homeschool working and helping with corrections (about three hours).  I was faithful in doing my exercise this weekend.  I did 34 minutes on Friday and Saturday, then 33 and change on Sunday.  I went from doing 30 minutes to doing 200 calories on the elliptical machine.  Take that Bryan–I may not be losing much weight so I must be gaining muscle (hahahahaha!).  We went to Del Taco on Friday, Wendy’s on Saturday, and Red Robin on Sunday.  I am sure that had nothing to do with the fact that I only broke even in the weight department this weekend.  On the other hand, we all stayed off the computer for most of the weekend, the kids played outside almost the entire time we were not at the library on Saturday and we got started reading The Great Brain while I did my exercise after Gospel meeting on Sunday.  I highly recommend that book.  It is hilarious.  It even makes me want to visit Utah someday and that is a first in my experience.

Homeschool note:  The government school kids have today off as President’s Day.  That puts us exactly four weeks ahead.  We plan for Kelly and Christian to take Spring Break at the same time as the neighborhood kids and the government schools will be in session two weeks less than us (and maybe more depending on whether they decide to make up their snow day(s)), so we still have two weeks we can take off while they are in session.  Hopefully, one of those weeks will be when Jorge, Mari, Jorgito, and Valeria (Lorena’s brother and family) come to visit us for their Easter break.  If not, I think we might go visit my cousin Udo and do a tour of Yellowstone National Park.

2nd homeschool note:  We received an email this weekend notifying us that the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) will be administered for homeschoolers at Santiam Christian School April 9-13 this year.  We are grateful to Santiam Christian for administering this test for the homeschoolers in the area because it is only available to schools and school districts, not individuals.  This very weekend, we read in our local newspaper, the Albany Democrat-Herald, that the state is going to lower the passing score for mathematics on the state test administered to all Oregon government school students because not enough students are passing the test.  Even before the change, the Oregon tests were not nationally normed as required for homeschools.  In addition, they are neither as rigorous nor complete as the SAT.  Ironic.

Linux note:  A new version of Blender, the program Christian uses to create animations has arrived at their newly redesigned website.  If he gets all, and I really mean ALL of his homeschool work completed, he can download and try out the new version a little before I get home.  I am sure he will remember to call me after he gets his work completed to clear it with me before he gets on the computer.

I am completely amazed.  As we are wont to do on Saturday mornings, we went to Wendy’s for an early lunch, then on to the Albany public library to turn in last weeks books and pick up a whole new bunch of books.  Kelly found The Great Brain and it looks awesome.  I like it already and I have only read three paragraphs.  I think we are going to try to read it aloud as a “go-to-bed” book.  I can hardly wait.  Well, that is not the thing about which I am amazed.  The thing about which I am amazed is the immediate connection to the library’s wireless LAN that I was able to acheive with almost no effort at all on my Kubuntu Linux laptop.  I am writing this web post sitting at a table at the library.  I love it.  Why would anyone buy a Windows computer?

Kelly and Christian’s friend and our neighbor, Hannah, spent the night with us last night.  Kelly and Hannah stayed up talking until nearly one in the morning.  I think they had a great time.  I sure this will happen more often now that they have done it once.  Hannah wants Kelly to go to her house tonight, but I think we will have her wait at least until next weekend.

We have been working hard on homeschool for 23 weeks now.  On Monday we will have been at it a full four weeks longer than the government schools.  All of us are going to be very ready for a well deserved spring break.  Lorena’s brother Jorge is planning to bring his wife, Mari, and two kids, Jorgito and Valeria to Oregon during their Easter vacation which is different than the government school spring break.  We will take both of those weeks off and should still be over three weeks ahead.  The plan is for Kelly and Christian to start their annual research reports on Fools Day, April 1.  That will give them nine or ten weeks to do the research and write the reports.  They are thinking about what they will study, but have not picked anything yet.

Our friends Al and Anthony Rizos have invited us to go to a Boy Scout camp with them in Southern California in June.  That is toward the end of the time we like to go to Mexico to avoid allergies, so what we are thinking of doing is sending Lorena and the kids to Mexico to visit Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita as soon as school is out.  On the way back, I will meet Christian at the camp with Al and Anthony.  It should be a great time.  The good part is that we could go to meeting on Sunday morning in Bakersfield, go to the camp, and the then get home in time for meeting the next week.  There are lots of logistics, but i think we can work it out.

The big weekend plans include doing the taxes and working on getting Kelly’s first two homeschool stories formated properly to put up on the web and to print out for her records.  She has made a great effort and it will be fun to help her learn how to polish up her final product for publication.

Ken -4   Bryan -7

Kelly has finished writing and illustrating her first story.  After we format it a little more, I will publish it on our main web page.  She is very close to finishing her second story, too.  We will post them with their illustrations.  You can see the progress in her writing from one story to the next.  They are really quite a fun read.

Today, I made a little bit of a mistake on my stock purchasing.  Instead of buying two stocks, I bought only one.  I bought PTEN at 23.25.  I was going to buy two stocks, but got into only one.  It looks good though, so I am going to leave it like it is for the time being.  We are doing quite well with our purchases so far.  We are well above the S&P 500, which is the goal of the whole program.  The following graph shows how we are doing after the first month (blue is S&P 500, green is our picks):

After one month

If I work out on Thursday and Friday, I will have finished my fourth week in a row of working out without missing any days.  It is a little disheartening because, when I was in California, I worked out in the hotel exercise room and ate fairly good foods in fairly reasonable quantities, yet gained three pounds over the week.  This morning I got on the scale and am finally back down to where I was before I left.   The same thing is happening in our little business.  We take three steps forward and two steps back.  We win a big account, get accustomed to a certain amount of sales, then lose an account and have to go back to where we were before.  That is disheartening, too.

Really, though, I am not where I was before I went to California.  I have a month of exercise under my belt which is establishing a base for better health and future weight loss.  I know that if I keep going, the weight line will keep heading south.  It is also true for our business.  When we return to a lower level of sales, we are really not where we were previously.  We have more industry contacts to make new sales.  We have more experience and capacity to provide a better, cheaper product.  Our capital base is bigger.  All this comes from tenacity and just continuing to push, especially during those disheartening moments.  In the end, this life is only peripherally about health and wealth anyway.  With what I have, there is never cause for despair.  We all have access to all the help we will ever need.  We just need to ask for it.

Kaktus Kids 2.2 is at long last out! Look at our main page: www.chapmankids.net to see this illustrious magazine!!!! We hope that you like it and make sure to check out page 15, which is by our friends Daniel Larson and David Larson in Dallas Texas!

Last night we were all sitting around the island in the kitchen snacking and reading.  Kelly was reading the last few pages of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.  I told her there was no way she was ever going to guess who did it and that I knew.  Kelly started going through the names of all the people and asking me if this or that one was the murderer.  I said I was not going to tell and told Christian who it was so that I could save my dignity when she finished reading the book and then told me that I really did not know; I just said I knew.  Of course, Christian started hounding Kelly that he knew and she did not.  After I put a stop to that, Kelly guessed.  And she guessed right!  She finished the book and slumped down with a very glum look on her face.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“I guessed right”.

“Well, what is wrong with that?”

“That is like guessing right about a present someone gives you.  It is fun to guess, but it is way better to be surprised.  I am afraid I am starting to figure out how Agatha Christie thinks.  If I do that, it will ruin it for me.  I better lay off her books for awhile.”

—

Kelly and Christian are getting caught back up on their homeschool work after my last trip to California.  They have generally done well with their homeschool during my absences, but the work piles up some and it takes awhile for me to get it all marked and then another little while for the kids to make the corrections.  There are some pretty big changes coming along right now.  Swimming has stopped until summer and Tennis starts next week.  Christian has graduated from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts and that starts tonight.  We have finished a whole series of old books and started the next ones in the series in grammar, writing, and math.  I can see that we will be able to start settling back into a routine again now for at least until spring break.  I do not think I will have to travel again for several months and the next big homeschool thing, the research reports, do not start until April.

—

Kelly and Christian — Send me KaktusKids so I can post it on the web today!

I am working on a program for a friend.  I wrote a program for him in Windows, but the whole setup is way too expensive because it uses some special libraries that cost a lot of money.  I have already written many of the libraries we need, I know how to write most of the rest, and what I do not know will be fun to learn.  So I spent a good chunk of Saturday getting our laptop ready to write the program for Linux.  I downloaded Kubuntu Edgy Eft and had KDevelop and everything else I needed to program up and running within a couple of hours.  I was very pleasantly surprised because the last time I tried this, I was never able to get the wireless going properly.  This time, it just worked.  I left the laptop as a dual boot machine for now, but believe I will be able to convert it completely over to Linux when Feisty Fawn comes out.  I do not think I will make the switch until after the school year because we do all of our homeschool on the computer and it would be too disruptive, but I am looking forward to the summer when I can make the change.  This all just keeps getting better and better.

I worked out every night I was in California. I ate as well as possible while at restaurants and did not eat massive amounts. Still I gained a pound. Bryan is killing me, but I am going to REALLY put it in high gear now. I am going to exercise 31 minutes per night instead of 30.

Ken -3 Bryan -7