Month: October 2008

I’m sorry Dad, for not posting and stuff.

Monterrey is wonderful!  They say October is the loveliest month weather-wise, and I think that’s true.

Today we went to the H.E.B (the local supermarket) for some ingredients to make chicken a la king.  We learned several things there:
1. You’re not allowed to take pictures of yourself in front of the produce
2. In Mexico, the yogurts have flavors like Papaya or Fig.
3. The bakery section of the Mexican grocery store OWNS the bakery section of the American grocery store.

We also learned some more things while on the road:
1. You can’t survive on Mexican highways without honking or at learning to whistle extremely loudly.
2. Seatbelts are optional
3. You can fit 2 seniors, 3 adults, 2 teenagers, and 2 small children into a 5 person car.

Yesterday we went to Allende after Sunday morning meeting (which was lovely.  It was great to see the Monterrey friends again.  Many of them were at the Spanish Georgetown convention, so we still have lots of people left to visit) to visit Great Grandpa Jose.  It was great to see him and our step-great-grandma Herlinda.  The day before yesterday our cousin/worker Marquitos took us to the park where Grandpa Lauro works.  It’s a gigantic, beautiful place right smack-dab in the center of metropolitan Monterrey.  There’s a winding river running through it with fountains, sculptures and murals all over the place.  Boats take people back and forth through the park. There’s a place for musicians and plays, lots of play structures for kids, and a nice little area with restaraunts and ‘waterfront’ tables.  While we were there, Mom got us a chocolate churro: Deep fried sweet bread rolled in sugar and filled with chocolate syrup.  Good old health food, no?

Anyway, since everyone is at work or school, we have a pretty lazy week ahead of us. That is until Dad arrives. 😉

We miss you!!!

Love,
Kelly
P.S. I have pics up on my facebook account.  I’m not sure how to get them up on the blog.  I’ll try to figure it out ASAP.

I talked to Lorena, Kelly, and Christian several times this weekend on Skype.  They went to downtown Monterrey yesterday to see the new river walk where Grandpa Lauro works with their cousin Marquitos who is in the ministry.  They said it was beautiful.  They had a huge barbecue at Tio Rigo and Tia Minita’s house with all the aunts, uncles, and cousin.  They said they had a great time and the food was super, too.  On Sunday, they went to meeting in the morning, then did the traditional Mexican dinner and marathon hang out session at Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita’s house with the entire extended family for the rest of the day.  They said it was very relaxing.  I would love to be showing you some pictures of all this.  I would love to see some of them myself.  Maybe if I work the guilt and sympathy angles, we will get some pictures, a blog post or two, and some promised comics from Kelly.  But sincerely, I think they have completely forgotten poor old Dad sitting at home with the cat sisters eating dry cereal.  With this level of attentiveness, I can tell I am going to have a mighty fullfilling retirement.  I am just that old bald guy with all the cats.  Woe is me.

September 25, 2004 – A great party. (Photos)
September 28, 2004 – Catchup day

Well, this will be one of the most worthwhile dinners I have ever bought.  60 lbs. since February.  Congrats Bryan!

I talked to Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah.  They will come to North Carolina the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and leave Tuesday the following week.  We are very excited they are coming.  Kelly and Christian are going to cook the turkey and make all the fixings with the help of Grandpa Milo.  I was sad to hear that my uncle Harlan had died.  He had been institutionalized for the last 35 years due to an industrial accident.  Harlan was the brother next older in age to Grandpa Milo.  Half the aunts and uncles are now gone.  Grandpa Milo is the oldest of the boys who is left.  The others, in order, are Uncles Ron and Richard.  Aunt Fern (Merle’s Mom and Trisha’s Grandma) and Aunt Betty up in Washington are the living aunts.  Dale, Dean, Ruth, Alma, and Harlan are the ones that have died.

Lorena and I got married 16 years ago today.  I truly believe that it is because of the grace of God that we found each other.  She is still a wonderful bride and a beautiful woman.  I am truly blessed to be married to her.

September 24, 2004 – Happy Birthday
September 27, 2004 – The new grammar program (Photos)

I just dropped Lorena, Kelly, and Christian off at the airport to fly to Monterrey.  We got up at 4:00 AM.  Because I work so close to the airport, I got into work a little after 5:00.  Christian was able to get onto the internet while waiting at the airport, so I am talking to them a little on twitter.  I have a week before I head to Mexico for a few days, too.  Last night we ran around like crazy to get everything completed.  Importantly, the kids were able to finish up enough Betty Blonde episodes to get us through the end of next week.  Kelly and Christian came up with the idea for Betty Blonde together several years ago.  Christian has provided ideas for story lines, gags, and art all along.  So, to spread out the load a little, Christian is going to start drawing some of the strips.  His first one will debut on Wednesday, October 15.

I will try to post some of the photos they send me here.  Kelly will be writing some posts for this blog and Christian will be posting on NerdHow, so there will be plenty of information about how they are doing with Grandpa Lauro, Grandma Conchita, and all the uncles, aunts, and cousins in Monterrey.  As per the sound advise provided by Ruthie, they took ZERO homeschool with them.  As for me, I hope to do a lot of programming on side projects to keep myself out of trouble.  I have been working on some new functionality for KamVu and continue work on both the volcano computer and the Python comic aggregation program.

September 15, 2004 – Homeschool in session
September 23, 2004 – Science experiments, the cats, and grammar

Everyone is running around like crazy to get everything complete for the big trip to Mexico. Kelly needs to draw several more comics before she goes, there are a few gifts to buy, the bags need to be packed, etc, etc. On a trip like this, we want to both complete all the homeschool and get everything we will do when we get back organized and neat. It is difficult to get started on homeschool after a weekend if things are missing and not where we expect them to be. After two weeks it is almost impossible. Tonight, when we get home from the bible study, we have to get right to bed because the plane leaves at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning. That means we will have to get up at 4:00 AM to get to the airport on time. The airport is right by where I work, so I will get a very early start tomorrow.

My buddy, John Stranzl, came over to the house last night to look at some of our work together. He met the family, played the guitar, and had a nice visit with everyone. We enjoyed having him and hope he makes it back soon.

August 10, 2004 – Working late again
August 24, 2004 – Back to blogging

Yesterday, I signed Christian up for the Duke TIP program. TIP stands for Talent Identification Program. It is a program run by Duke University to identify and “assist young people with excellent mathematical and verbal aptitude.” The 7th Grade Talent Search is a program that invites precocious 7th graders to complete either the SAT Reasoning Test (the same people who created the CLEP testing program) or the ACT Assessment college entrance examination. Then Duke TIP provides the participants with comparative information concerning their academic ability and resources for unique educational opportunities. Really, I think it is a way to identify talented kids to enter Duke, but other universities also recruit kids who have performed well and received awards from this program.

A student has to receive a score in the 95th percentile in Math/Science, English/Verbal, or the composite score of a nationally normed standardized test.  Christian is in the 7th grade, he has qualifying test scores, and the ACT Assessment test satisfies the annual homeschool test requirement for the state of North Carolina, so I signed him up to take the ACT on February 7.  I decided it would be good to give Kelly the same test, so I got onto the ACT website and found that it was possible to sign Kelly up for the same test at the same time Christian takes it.  We are excited about this opportunity for both of the kids.  The ACT and the SAT are accepted as college entrance exams by virtually all the universities that Kelly and Christian might attend so it will be great practice for them.  It is often necessary to provide scores from one of these tests when applying for scholarships.

Check out Christian’s very interesting post on the election.

August 6, 2004 – Working on the patio (Photos)
August 9, 2004 – The weekend with Lauro and Conchita

Who knew Mickey D’s was so amazing??? 

A long time ago, when play places were still accessible (to me) and Happy Meals came in little boxes, McDonald’s was the place to go. Who knows what happened. I think it was shortly after I discovered Wendy’s that I left the yellow slides and the rainbow ball pits.  Anyway, McDonald’s lunches have sort of held this bad reputation for longer than a while. 

Most Saturday mornings, the Chapmans head down to the Golden Arches for a high-cal breakfast and a chat with Lupita, the reliable Mexican cashier. McDonald’s breakfasts are pretty good. I usually order a country ham biscuit (eaten separately: top biscuit first, then ham, then bottom biscuit.  It’s a tradition), some apple dippers and a small orange juice. The breakfasts are enjoyable, if not a bit greasy.  But lunches?

😛

By a cruel twist of fate, we went to McDonald’s for lunch Saturday afternoon.  So I ordered a Mighty Kids chicken McNuggets meal.  Fitting, no?  I opened my faded paper bag and pulled out:

A LITTLE POLLY POCKET DOLL!

How AMAZING is that?!!?? I LOVE McDonalds now!!!

Oh, and I have a question.  What exactly are chicken McNuggets made out of? Definitely not chicken.

This weekend was a fun weekend. I was going to say we did not get much done, but when I thought about what to write today, I realized that we did quite a bit. We just hung out on Friday, but got up pretty early on Saturday so we could buy Christian a suit.  We found one at J.C. Penneys in the mall at Crossroads.  It is perfect.  After that, Kelly, Christian, and I had a banana/chocolate milkshake, a hot chocolate, and a coffee (respectively) at the Barnes and Noble so Lorena could shop for her dress.  Kelly read while Christian and I used the wireless internet there to work on our computers. Lorena found a great dress!  It is perfect for her coloring and will be fun to wear at the wedding in Mexico in a couple of weeks.  We will put pictures of the event up after it is over.

On Sunday, we went about an hour east of Raleigh to a meeting that included two of regular meetings.  Afterward, we had a potluck.  It was nice because we got to get a little better acquainted with some people we had previously just met in passing.  Lorena made deviled eggs and a pasta/sausuage dish.  We also took a pie.  Of course, we stopped for an ice cream cone on the way home, then I spent a bunch of the afternoon catching up on homeschool corrections.  We are in the big push leading up to the Mexico trip.  Instead of giving them work to do while they are on vacation, based on some nudges from others and guilt feelings of my own, I have decided they should not take any homeschool to Mexico with them.  Still, we are going to push hard before they go and then for a week or so after they return to be in a good place by Thanksgiving.

Kelly and Christian talked to their very good friend Hannah who was our neighbor in Albany for a long time yesterday.  We all miss her a lot.

I made great progress on my Betty Blonde comic automation program. It is a program I am writing to help me process Kelly’s comics for publication on the web.  I had already written the part that takes the individual scanned frames, adds drop shadows and titles, and accumulates them into a single comic and and accompanying thumbnail.  This weekend I added the ability to upload the comic and the thumbnail to the appropriate directories on our website.  I think I will just add a rudimentary GUI to that part of the program and call it complete.  Before I wrote the program, it took me about five minutes to scan in the panels, then another fifteen minutes to make the strip and put it up on our server.  It still takes me five minutes to scan in the panels, but I can build and upload the strip in about thirty seconds now.  That helps a lot.  The next step will be to write a program to automate some of the daily posting.  It currently takes me about ten minutes to do the daily posting.  I hope to reduce that by at least half, if not more.

July 31, 2004 – La boda de Tony y Martha (Photos)
August 5, 2004 – The patio is poured

I do not know where this originated, but my mother forwarded it to (as technologically savvy grandmothers are wont to do).

This is for anyone looking for more insight to how to handle the current economy.

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago you would now have $49.00 left. With Enron, you would have had $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have had less than $5.00 left.

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214.00 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle. It’s called the 401-Keg

A recent study found the average American walks about 900 miles a year.

Another study found Americans drink, on the average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon.

Makes You Proud To Be An American

Lorena is going to buy a new dress tomorrow to wear to the wedding. Christian, possibly Kelly (depending on her frame of mind at the moment–she might go with Mom), and I will probably sit in the book store while she goes to the 247 stores required to make exactly the right choice. The main thing we will do for the rest of the weekend is prepare for the trip next week. I am not that motivated to try to write anything too profound this morning. I think I am better at trying to write something interesting than actually doing, but I figure I ought to practice my homeschool preaching and go with the belief that if I keep practicing I will improve. At any rate, rather than make that effort this fine Friday (80 degrees are forecast for the whole weekend), I will put up this picture because I like it and I do not have to think too much while I do it.

Lunch=>

We started homeschool in mid-August so we could take a couple of weeks off to go to a wedding in Mexico in October. Kelly’s three goals for the first half of the year (by late January or early February) are to perform well on the U.S. History II and Spanish CLEP tests, finish three-quarters of Teaching Textbooks Geometry, and concentrate heavily on Apologia Biology. Christian’s three goals for the first half of the year are to perform well on the Freshman English Composition and the Western Civilization CLEP tests, finish two-thirds of Teaching Text Books Algebra II, and concentrate heavily on Apologia Physical Science.  We made good progress on all those goals although we are certainly not ahead of the schedule.  Of course, we continue with the excellent Sonlight literature, our read alouds, Rosetta Stone Spanish II, music, exercise, current events, writing, bible reading and memorization, etc, but those are subjects that are part of the daily homeschool routine now that we have done for over four years.

We have still not decided what material we will take to Mexico.  This is vacation time, but most of the Mexican cousins will be in school during the day, so I want the kids to make some progress on their goals, as much to keep them from saying “I’m bored” as anything.  Still, we are operating right on the edge with the math progress so I will probably have them take their math materials with them to do three lessons per week.  That does not sound too onerous to me, but then I am their goal driven ogre of a teacher.  I will discuss this with both the kids and the vice principal (Lorena).

Christian got a replacement guitar back from the music shop where we bought it.  We are not sure how good it is, but we are having my work buddy, John S. check it out for us.  The music shop wanted to replace the Takamine Jasmine ES45C which had a manufacturing defect with a Mitchell MD-100SCE.  If anyone has any opinions on that, please let us know.

July 30, 2004 – Losing more weight
August 2, 2004 – Grandpa Milo’s birthday

Update: She seems to be more like us all the time.

In a little more than a week, Mom, Christian and I will be going to Mexico for a wedding of one of my mom’s cousins!  I can hardly wait!!!  I haven’t been to Monterrey in years, so I’m excited to see how all my cousins are and to go to all the new places that I’ve only heard about.  My uncle is building a new house, my grandma got a gigantic new refrigerator, my other uncle got a piano, and grandma tells me that there are a bunch of professing girls around my age in the area (not including my many cousins) so I’m also looking forward to meeting them.

Oh!  I also have several cousins who I haven’t even met yet, or who I only got to see when they were little babies. That’s kind of sad, but fortunately I’ll be seeing them soon.

And then there’s the food.  Carne asadas (basically Mexican barbecues.) and mango and strawberry cakes and tamales and TAMARIND FLAVORED CANDY!  I don’t even know why mom is bringing her ‘American recipes’ with her to Mexico when there’s already so much good food there, but I guess she wants to give Grandma a taste of her foreign culinary talent. 😛

Sorry this is so short… will write more later!

We read a textbook titled Understanding the Times by David Noebel over the last two or three months. Every night when I returned home from work, I spoke with Lorena for a half an hour or so over the Greek salad she always has waiting for me. Then, we made some popcorn and I read to Kelly and Christian while they worked on their comics. One time, about half way through the book, Christian picked out Home Style popcorn rather than the regular stuff we normal get. We were pretty disgusted with him until we had some, realized we like it better, and gave it our official, reading-aloud-with-the-Chapmans seal of approval. Now that is the only kind we ever get.  We finished reading a Sonlight curriculum book, The Gammage Cup, just a few days before we finished Understanding the Times.

The book was very good.  At places, the reading got a little tedious, but each of the worldviews we studied was covered well.  It was not all tedium, but what there was, was a result of material that was repeated both for clarity and as a way for it to stick with the reader.  We notice now that we can often identify the worldview of writers and speakers on the radio, magazines, and the internet.  It was something we did not much consider before we read this book.  When we can identify a person’s worldview, it makes it easier to understand and respond to them in appropriate ways.  It has been particularly useful to help us interpret what the politicians say during the current presidential election season.

Between now and when Lorena and the kids leave for Mexico for the wedding, we will read a book about evolution that I will talk about in a little more detail later.  We have decided not to start another Sonlight novel until we are all back home in North Carolina after the wedding in Mexico.