There are a couple of fun new hardware offerings that I find very interesting. The first is a $199 Linux Laptop from Asus featuring an Intel microprocessor. The second is a Linux based smart phone. Both of them would be killer low end Linux based vision systems. Hmmm….
Month: July 2007 Page 1 of 2
Lorena thinks she has found the neighborhood where she wants to live. It is in Holly Springs. Yes, that is in the town with the small, but very cool library. It is quite a ways from work, but not so bad we would not live there just because I had to drive twenty-five minutes each way. Actually, I think that would give me a great opportunity to learn some new things. I have been inspired to get some more books on tape ever since I listened to The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer on my first trip from Oregon to North Carolina in my Toyota Tundra. It was an amazingly educational book, that was well written and fun to read. I also listened to a book, How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, that I probably never would have read because of time constraints, but that has intrigued me ever since I saw it at Borders. It was also a great, educational listen. I really think I am going to order something from the Teaching Company for my current fifteen minute ride to work from our rental house.
P.S. If you did not yet guess who the guy is in the drawing in the previous post, you will get two more chances. Kelly and Christian’s efforts should both be up sometime this week.
The title of this post says it all. How much better does it get than this? The chair is a stuffed easy chair on rollers with a shelf for books below the seat and a small table for setting your coffee, taking notes, or typing on your computer. We asked the librarian where they got the chairs and she told us they got them from a company in Raleigh. They would be perfect for our bonus room for homeschooling and the like. I think there is definitely a business in this kind of chair, but with a few modifications. Bryan, are you listening. I am serious. It could start out as a business selling to homeschoolers over the internet.
I am an Oregonian. It feels a little odd, but quite a little good to have burnt our bridges. We now have no home to which we can go back in Oregon. My family and many friends are there, but we are North Carolinians now for awhile. Only God knows what he has for us next, but it feels good to be here now. We want to be in a house of our own soon, but even renting the house next to Kelly’s new, but very good little friend Kasey feels quite good. Last night we did some drawing, read aloud a little from one of next year’s homeschool books, and worked on math. I got a little more impatient than I should with some of the math and we forgot to turn on the music, but, all in all, it felt like a regular night at home–something we have not felt for quite some time. We still do not have the question of music teachers settled, but there is still time this summer to get that worked out, look for a house, and just enjoy not having to deal with unnecessary challenges from which God was gracious to remove us.
Working for a technology startup can have its challenges. There are lots of insecurities associated with the business aspects of a startup, but it is certainly invigorating to work at the edge of what is possible in your chosen professional field. I do not think I have ever enjoyed a job so much. I am senior enough in my career to be given ownership of an element of the product we are developing that is critical to its success. It is a hard problem that I cannot solve on my own, but I have access to some very smart people to help me. I think one of the things I like best about being a senior engineer in this domain is that I know when I need help from someone else and I am not too insecure in my knowledge to ask for it. Who knows how it will turn out. My technology is not the only critical element of the system. Even if I succeed beyond my wildest expectations, the product could fail. All I know is that it is pretty wonderful to be at this point in my career and to not only love my work, but to be valued by my co-workers and management.
Last night, Kelly and I made great progress on her math. We are currently two-thirds of the way through elementary algebra. We are going a little faster than would normal in a government school because of the efficiencies inherent in the homeschool process more than anything else. We have quite a few corrections left over from last year that I did not get to because of the move, but were are rapidly working through them and should pretty far ahead of the game by the time official homeschool starts in mid-August. Tomorrow night I am going to try to do the same thing with Christian. He is two-thirds of the way through pre-algebra and is in about the same position as Kelly relative to our plan. The only other thing we have to do is put the final touches on the annual research reports from last year that we were unable to finish, again, due to the move.
This morning, we are going to run down to a local bank at about 11:00 so a notary public can watch us sign away our house. We are sad to leave it because we had such good times there, but it is a big relief to have it out of the way, too. If we can get the documents overnighted back to Oregon tonight, the house is still on schedule to close tomorrow.
We have a lot of people to thank for helping us get our house in Oregon sold after our move to North Carolina. Janet and Norm, Rhonda, Mike and Spencer, Ryan and Jeannie, Jim and JoAnn, Mark P., and others. We surely have appreciated all the help and the reminder that we are part of family that is much bigger than us. Many times you don’t really know the things you will really miss about a place until you have left. Believe it or not, one of the biggies for me is the vigor with which people some people say “Amen” in Albany. I think it said something good about the place. Maybe that is just my tradition, but it is certainly one that I like. If all goes well, we should close on the house on Thursday. Lorena and I signed the last addendum this morning, the house is in escrow, and the documents should be available very soon.
Last night we drove out about forty minutes to a little town called Algier to have a Spanish language bible study with three of our ministers, some folks from Panama, some folks from Mexico, and some Spanish speaking gringos. One of our ministers is an eighty year old man named Robert. He is a native North Carolinian who has been in the ministry since 1953, but is working in North Carolina for the first time. This is his second year since returning. He has an accent and a humble, kind, fun-loving attitude that the whole family just loves. Before we went, the ministers came over to our house for a dinner of shredded beef tacos with very hot salsa, black beans, and white rice. For dessert, we had Amish friendship cake for which Lorena got the recipe and a starter from Kasey’s grandmother. Food does not really get much better than that. It is why Bryan is still beating me like a drum in our weight loss competition.
All that being said, I am finally ready for a weigh-in again on Friday. Will you remember to send your lbs on Friday, Bryan?
Well, we have been having discussion after discussion about how Kelly, Christian, and I are going to do our homeschool thing while Lorena gets back into the community college. We have pretty much decided that Lorena will wait until winter term before going back. As for the homeschool schedule, we have come up with one, but it is not nearly as fun as last year. First off, I will not be able to use my very cool comparison bars for percent complete between our school and the local government school because the government schools are year round schools with odd times off. The second thing that makes it less fun is that, here in Wake County the schools are in session 180 days, just like we are so we do not have the ten day advantage over the 170 day government schools in Oregon.
At any rate, we have the school year lined up so that we can catch the two local conventions, in September, take a good two weeks off at Christmas time, take our trip to Puerto Vallarta with all the Pedrazas, along with my brother, his wife, Grandpa Milo, and Grandma Sarah. Finally, we have a week long educational spring break set up for March on the Outer Banks here in North Carolina. We will be able to go to the Wright Museum and the Lost Colony there, hang out on the beach, and generally just relax a little. It will probably be too cold to swim, but it should be a very good time. Our friends, the Larsons, are planning to join us along with Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah. We are hoping for a Sushi cooking lesson from Grandpa Milo while we are there.
Today, though, the kids are going to start doing a lesson a day to get a little bit ahead on their math. Our goal for this year is for Kelly to finish Algebra II and Christian to finish Algebra I. We are on schedule for that, but we have decided to start a little early to give us some leeway in case we get behind a little, so that we can have a fighting chance of meeting that goal. It is a good week to start because Kelly’s next door neighbor friend, Kasey is gone all week and the kids are worried about getting bored.
Man, is Ubuntu cool. This morning we went down to Holly Springs to go to the public library there. Right after I got on line with my trusty Dell Inspiron 1300 running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I cost $449 brand new. it would have cost $399 without the Windows tax. The kids checked their books in and immediately came back to where I was sitting. I had already started this post, but they had heard the newly renovated library in Apex was reopening today, so we packed up the computer and headed out. I am writing from there now. It is a very nice library, but I kind of like the Holly Springs one better because, even though it is smaller, it has a coffee bar and you can drink coffee in the library and in the little theatre there. Is that cool or what. I am liking Holly Springs more and more all the time. I am really looking forward to the next Ubuntu that is coming out in October called Gutsy Gibbon.
Over the last couple of days, we did some hard core drawing, so we are a little burnt out on that. We have a new special drawing project on which we are going to work (thanks to Trisha) that might take us awhile so please stay tuned. In the meantime, I am really starting to feel the pinch on getting ready for next years homeschool. The kids are supposed to start in on their math on Monday next, but I have done nothing yet to get ready. In addition, we have to put the finishing touches on the research reports and get them published. i am going to try to get the first week of school lined up this weekend so that I do not have it hanging over my head. All but a few items that are already on the way are on the homeschool bookshelf. We have a great new writing program for Kelly coming called Analogies and a book on logic called Fallacy Detective that I want to do with both Kelly and Christian.
Just for posterity.
Dayanita by Dad
Christian did such a great job on his Grandpa Lauro drawing yesterday, that I thought I would go ahead and put mine up today. Kelly promised she would finish hers by tonight so that we can post it tomorrow. I have mentioned this before, but these drawings are an outgrowth of our homeschool drawing program. Each summer, in the evening after I get home from work, Christian, Kelly, and I all sit around the dining room table with some classical music turned on loud enough to listen, but still talk. We work our way through a drawing course described in a book. The first two years, we used Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad. We loved that course, learned a lot, and would recommend it to anyone. Especially those with children between the ages of five and 90. This year we have moved on to a book that is teaching us how to do pencil drawn portraits. We have been a little lax this summer because of the move, but we are moving forward and getting better. Aunt Julia has identified our next book. She is taking a drawing course right now and I am not sure which book she is using, but she described a book for us that is supposed to be a classic work that teaches people how to draw. We are looking forward to it, but we want to finish this book this year and next before we get to that.
Here is Christian’s latest efforts in our class on how to draw lifelike faces. This is our fourth drawing, so we are not so good yet. Still we are making progress. See if you can guess who this is. I will post Kelly and my drawings when we finish them.
Christian’s portrait
I read Psalm 98 today. I liked it a lot. It talks about making joyful music before the Lord:
Psa 98:4 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.
Psa 98:5 Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm.
Psa 98:6 With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.
It really got me to thinking about how we pray in meeting. Many say “amen” after each and every prayer. Some say “amen” after most testimonies. We have a great meeting in our new home, but hear few amens. We miss it a lot. The angels did it:
Rev 7:11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshiped God,
Rev 7:12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.
I am going to keep doing it. I want my kids to know to do it.
The 2007/2008 school year will be our fifth year of homeschool and our fourth year in a row. It is still very exciting to get ready for the year even though we know the routine. Kelly’s eighth grade history, literature, and science texts have arrived from Sonlight. Christian has all his sixth grade books out of their box and on the shelf. The kids are scheduled to do a thorough cleaning and organizing of the bonus room today so that I can make a final purchase list. Today, I will try to go through and make the final purchase list to start the year. It is never the real final purchase list because I always end up buying a ton of stuff after the fact, but we are getting better.
We really like to follow the calendar and schedule of the local government schools so the Kelly and Christian can be out of school the same time as the other kids in the neighborhood. It facilitates playing while minimizing whining to do it that way. The problem here in the county to which we moved is that, this very year, the schools are switching from a typical nine month academic calendar to four or five differing year-round calendars so that government school kids in the same neighborhood do not even have the same school year. The parents are hopping mad. Enough parents pulled their kids out to homeschool or send them to private school that now there is way less budget than was expected for the government schools which has made the bureaucrats hopping mad. It is a real mess.
I looked at the statistics for the schools here at the School Matters website. They are better by just about every measure than the schools in Salem, Albany, and Corvallis. That includes reading and math proficiency as well as students per teacher. Still, it would be very difficult to put our children in these schools. At least here in North Carolina the people seem to understand that the government schools are a big problem. In Oregon, even though the best of the schools operate at a lower level than here, the people seemed to be satisfied with what their children are getting.
What we have decided to do for our school calendar is to start next week on math, then start the regular school year the third week in August. That way, we will be close to being in sync with the little neighbor girl (Kasey) who goes to a Christian school with a classical focus (grammar-logic-rhetoric). We will have to do some shuffling to make things work out, but I think we can make it work. The reason we are starting a little early on math is so that we have a good chance for Kelly to finish Algebra II and Christian to finish Algebra I by the end of the year. We are on schedule for that, but just barely, so we want to give ourselves a little buffer. We swap Algebra II with Geometry relative to the way that the subjects are traditionally taught, but it makes sense to us to do it that way for our kids and is in alignment with the program we use.
On top of all this, I read a new article from HSLDA that touches on the subject of homeschool socialization and citizenship. It deals with some common misconceptions on the subject.
Now that we are settling into our new house, I have no excuse but to go back to work on my diet. I am quite sad to have to admit that I am now down only five pounds to Bryan’s twelve. My plan is to start working out tonight and have Lorena tie me to the bedpost tonight so that when I hear Biscuitville calling me tomorrow, I cannot go. It will be like Jason and the Argonauts passing the Sirens at Sirenum scopuli.
Today, Kelly and Christian are going to have their first tennis lesson here as the first one got rained out. Tomorrow, we have our work cut out for us in that we need to buy a new mattress and box springs for our bed, start our homeschool planning, make some new stock picks for our investment program, and, hopefully, work out.
Oh, if you want to hear the song Kelly sings to which Bryan referred in a previous post, click here.
The title just about says it all. Kelly and here friend Kasey (with some help from Mom and Christian) made puff pastries with blueberries and strawberries for our company picnic today. In addition to that, Kelly has her first piano lesson with her new piano teacher, Morgan, at 11:30 this morning. The kids first tennis lesson is tomorrow. The only thing we are really missing right now is a guitar teacher for Christian. We even got the homeschool books in yesterday. Hopefully, I will be able to start getting the plan for next year put together this weekend along with some investment planning, house hunting, and a couple of hours of work on Saturday. What a week.
Christian: Check out this VERY cool smartphone.
Well, we are getting very close to selling the house! We have accepted an offer that includes a July 26 close date. We are very thankful that we can start looking for a house of our own now. I hope there is no glitch! We are going to start looking at neighborhoods and properties on Saturday with the idea that we will likely build (unless I can talk Lorena out of it!). The great part is that our real estate agent who got connected to meeting through Steve (the fireman) and Audrey from the Spokane area, has a daughter named Sarah who is a year older than Kelly and at about the same level in piano. We got connected up with her and will start piano lessons on Thursday. She gave us a clues on how to find a guitar teacher for Christian, too.
It rained like crazy yesterday which, every says means that it will be really humid for awhile. The kids first tennis lesson got canceled due to the rain. When the tennis instructor called, Lorena mentioned that Christian and Kelly are homeschooled so they set up the lessons for Fridays in the morning rather than Tuesdays at 6:00 at night. That will be better for all of us. The piano teacher was quite happy with a morning schedule, too.
Well it looks like we have a good offer on the house. If everything goes well, we should have the sale completed by the end of the month. Now our only (non-meeting) connection to the area will be one or two more visits to the orthodontist–really just an excuse to go and visit Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah and our friends in Albany. We loved our house and our time there, but it will be good to be able to get on with life here.