It takes me 30-35 minutes to drive each way to work each morning. Most of the time, I just listen to the radio, but I am looking for a better option. Books on disk are very cool, but also very expensive, so I have only listened to them on long trips. I just went to the Wake County Public Library website and found they have 4844 Audio Disk titles. Some of them are music disks, but it looks like the bulk of them are novels and non-fiction books. I check out the audio CD’s whenever we go to the Holly Springs Library, but their selection is not so hot. Today, I found that I can request them to be sent to the library of my choice online. I have to get a PIN before I can do that, so that will be at the top of my priority list. This is really great because, at this time in my life with the kids, work, and a million projects, I just do not have much time to get any reading done. The other thing for which I think this will be great is when I am doing my workout in the exercise room at work. They have a TV in there, but the two guys that get there before me always have the stationed tuned to The Price is Right. I can feel my brain cells committing suicide before they are co-opted into the Borg from watching that show, so I am hoping I can drown it out with a good audio book while I am on the treadmill.
Month: May 2009 Page 1 of 2
On the way to work yesterday morning I listened to James Dobson interview one the employees of Focus on the Family. The talked about a book the employee had written about Paul Harvey titled Good Day! The Paul Harvey Story. Paul Harvey sounds like a good guy and the book might be a good candidate for Christian, Kelly, and I to read aloud together. The thing that caught my attention, though, was comments that were made about how how Harvey had not really given a lot of time to his son as a small child. Rather, he had dedicated his time to advancing his career. I have thought about that a lot. Really, our little family has always spent a lot of time together. I go to work, come home, and virtually all the rest of the time we spend engaged with each other on some level or another. It is the “some level or another” thing that I work about. When I am not careful, the level of engagement, even when we are in the same house can be very small. Dobson told a story about a boy whose father had come home from work every night, gone into his home office, shut the door, and stayed there to work the whole evening. The boy remembers sitting on the floor in front of the closed door when he was three or four with his hand down by the crack, wiggling his fingers with the hope that his Dad would see them and say something to him. It made me truly want to be there for my entire family in body, mind, and spirit–not just the kids, but for Lorena, too.
The problem with exercise planning is that it is not exercising. The problem with exercising itself is that it is exercising. I am starting back today on a program of exercise on the treadmill in the workout room at my work. I would really like to run outside, but it is way too hot in North Carolina during the summer for the likes of me. It takes me an hour and a half to quit sweating. I have been pushed to this by the fact that I have gained a ton of weight back since my big weight drop last year. I did not gain it all back, but I can see where this is going if I stay where I am. One of my weight loss death match partners, Lyle is making huge inroads and I have to do something to get back on track. To make things worse, the kids are swimming hard every day now as they get ready for their first swim meet in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, some of this effort will result in some weight loss on the chart.
Update: Woo-hoo! My first workout is out of the way. I found I could only run five minutes after a five minute walking warm-up because my shins started tightening into a shin splints. I finished my workout with some more walking and elliptical work. I will try to build up to running the whole time without getting shin splint; something I do not know whether is possible.
Good food turns into great food when it’s been in the refrigerator for a day or two. Take mom’s grilled salmon. A delicious and nutritious fish, drizzled with lemon juice and garlic and grilled to perfection. It’s wonderful when you eat it with some rice and asparagus, but it is even MORE wonderful when eaten cold. There is nothing like cold salmon. I think it might even be my favorite food. Other good cold foods are pizza (#1 favorite breakfast food) and oatmeal. Cold oatmeal has a slimy, lumpy sort of texture, but it is one of the best cold snacks out there IMHO.
One cold food that is not very appetizing is macaroni. There’s something about cold macaroni that is very, very unappealing to me. Just made macaroni is wonderful though, especially if it’s made at convention. 🙂
Why all this food talk? Because that’s what’s been on my mind lately! Friday night, the neighbor kids came over and we made all this:
If you’re interested, Jenna, Nathan, Christian and I made Baked Mac and Cheese (Joy of Cooking book), Salad (Lettuce and Tomatoes), Salad Dressing (Taste of Home), Green beans (Frozen), Biscuits (Bisquick), Pink Lemonade (Mix), and a chocolate cake (from a box, but we sprinkled coconut on top to make it look more homemade). We had lots of fun doing that!! Then on Memorial Day, Christian and I made shish kabobs!
The shish kabobs were the real deal this time, except for the pineapple (it was from a can). They had meat, mushrooms, pineapple chunks, tomatoes, red bell peppers, and onions on them. We served those with rice and a salad. That was also very fun!
We also went down to the history museum to check out the Knights of the Black Flag exhibit. It was very interesting. Of course the whole pirate thing is really romanticized so I was expecting a bunch of stories that would shatter my stereotypes. Well I can say that some of my illusions were shattered, but most were based in truth (if in fact the entire exhibit was not romanticized, but well researched, which I have no doubt that it was) Pirates were a dastardly, uncouth sort. They did dastardly uncouth things, and liked to wear red sashes and put up black skull and crossbones flags and other pirate-y sort of things.
We encountered a couple of pirates there, but I expect they weren’t the real thing. Their heads were much to small 🙂
We went to the North Carolina Museum of History yesterday. We parked a couple of blocks away and, as we walked down the mall between the History Museum and the Museum of Natural Sciences, we saw there was a Memorial Day celebration taking place in front of the North Carolina State Capitol Building across the street. We got there in time to watch the Marine Honor Guard march and listen to the National Anthem. It was very nice. There is a pirate exhibit at the History Museum that we wanted to see. When we went to the Outer Banks last year, we found that North Carolina was pretty much pirate central during the 1600’s and 1700’s. Blackbeard sailed his pirate ship Queen Anne’s Revenge along the Carolina coast for a good number of years. We learned lots of interesting things about how pirates lived, their insurance programs ($ for the loss of a limb or an eye), what they ate, how they came to be pirates (often because there were no legitimate sailing jobs when the world was between wars), and all kinds of other minutiae. There were lots of artifacts including what they believe was the silver plated skull of Blackbeard that was used as a drinking mug by some rich folks after his death. From one list, we saw of those sailors for which there is a record 1718 was a very bad year as many seemed to have been hanged that year.
On the way home, we decided the kids might like to make dinner for us so we stopped off at Food Lion to pick up some beef and veggies. Kelly and Christian made a whole mess of sheeshkabobs. They were awesome. After I ate myself silly and took a nap, I did some serious reading to Kelly and Christian from A Patriot’s History of the United States while they worked on their Betty Blonde comics. In the mean time, Lorena decided to reupholster an old chair we had from my college days. She got it about half torn apart and got a little discouraged with the project, but I think it could be really great. I talked to her this morning and she is back on track. I will try to take some before and after pictures of the chair as she works on it.
We went to Red Robin for lunch yesterday after Sunday morning meeting. Kelly wanted to do some research for her latest Betty Blonde story line on eating out. After that we went to the Barnes and Noble down the street to just look as some books and hang out for awhile in an air conditioned room. We will start studying Rosetta Stone French in a week or two. Rosetta Stone Spanish has served us well, but we already speak Spanish and mostly just used it as a way to work on vocabulary and to get some assured daily practice. We are not sure how well the French program will work with a wholly unknown language. At any rate, even though we plan to augment our French learning, if we can afford it, with a semester of French immersion, I thought it might be good to wander over to the French section to learn what I could learn.
When I got there, there was a middle age woman sitting smack dab in the middle of the narrow aisle right in front of the French section reading a book. I tried to look on either side of her without being too intrusive. The woman did not move. After about five minutes, she saw that I was not going away and that I really DID want to see the French language books. So she moved one leg a little and asked me, “Have you ever learned a foreign language?”
I said, “Yes, I have.”
She said, “Do you know of a program that is really good for learning a language.”
I explained that Rosetta Stone had been very good for us in our Spanish, but that we mostly already spoke the language when we started using it. We were planning to start French with Rosetta Stone with the hope that someday we would be able to spend a summer of immersion in Quebec.
She said, “Rosetta Stone is really bad for anything other than a supplement.”
I wondered why she had even asked the question, but the answer came fairly quickly. She explained to me that she homeschooled her children and they were all on their third or fourth language. She then asked me what English program we used. I told her we used Sonlight in conjunction with some supplementary materials. She told me that what we were doing was really bad and that I should use program “X” (I forget what it was). She said, “We have a friend who is a Literature professor at Johns Hopkins and he says most students coming into his Introductory Literature class do not even have the rudimentary skills to perform basic Shakespeare interpretation.”
I knew I was in for it when started railing on the evils of our local school system, stating that the schools where she came from in Maryland were monumentally better.
I said, “Well, it is a good thing you homeschool so you can teach your kids the way you want them to be taught.”
She said, “Well, I don’t because I want my kids to compete in the Olympiads.”
She had really not been homeschooling for quite awhile. She had her kids in one of the local government charter schools. She felt that they had to have a record of winning in academic competitions and recognized volunteer work if her kids were going to have any hope of getting into “one of the Ivy’s.”
I told her our kids were probably not going to go to one of the Ivy’s. I thought I was gracious in not saying that they would go to one of the Ivy’s over my dead body, which is my ususal comment in these kinds of situations.
She said, “Oh”, and walked away.
I got called back into work yesterday to find a bug in a program that needs to be released today. It was very enjoyable to work friend at my desk for several hours. I have always said that if I do not have to come in for a few late night sessions on my job, it does not feel like I am making any progress. We fixed the bug, had a nice talk, and drank way too many soda. I will get off at noon today for the three day weekend. We should have a fairly leisurely weekend at home. The kids will probably go swimming on Saturday and/or Monday. We will have Troy and Youngin over to help us move the new China Cabinet into the dining room and to inaugurate the new (to us) dining room set with some grilled beef, chicken, salmon, and/or sausage. We might try to make it to the North Carolina State zoo somewhere up near Greensboro. I am sure we will have a session at Barnes and Noble. I am really looking forward to it all.
I do not know whether it is because the kids are a little older, but we seem to be accelerating our activities as we move into the summer. It always seemed like we slowed down during summer break. We had more time to go to parks, the library, the beach, and places like that just to relax. This year, though, life seems to be going faster and faster. The swim team has started, we are making plans for piano camp, a get-together in Charlotte, we will buy tickets for a trip to Oregon in August, Christian and I plan to help Troy install a server computer and camera in the Ag Engineering lab at NCSU, we have ordered Rosetta Stone French from Sonlight to start in the next couple of weeks, and on it goes. We plan to keep reading aloud through the summer as that as when the kids work on their comic strips. On top of all that, to meet our goals, Kelly and Christian both will continue with a couple of subjects each through the summer. It will be a lighter load, but still, it takes time. Christian has Geometry, Spanish, Guitar, and a little bit more History of Western Civilization while Kelly has Spanish, French, Precalculus, and Piano. They should be able to finish all that up in 60-90 minutes per day and they want to keep going, so I do not feel bad about that at all. At the same time, I want us to have some time to take a breath and get reinvigorated by doing nothing for at least a little while this summer.
Note: Kelly did great on her Sociology CLEP test. She is now a college sophomore.
Kelly enjoys drawing her Betty Blonde comic strip very much. Up until yesterday, we only owned the bettyblonde.net domain name. A couple of days ago I got an email from a guy wanting to sell me the bettyblonde.com domain name for $195. That was the second time something like that had happened. I think the previous guy only wanted $95. That got me to thinking. I went to my internet service provider and checked to see if bettyblonde.com was available. It was! The guys who had written me the letter had not gone to the expense of actually buying the domain name. They would have done that had I responded to them. So, I bought it. Now you can get to Betty Blonde through bettyblonde.com AND bettyblonde.net. Very cool. It would have made me quite sad to have to pay $195 or $95, so paying $11.95 was very cool. Some other ISP’s are a little cheaper, but mine has been so great over the years, I would never think of going anyplace else. The name of the ISP I use is echristianwebhosting.com. They have provided highly responsive service, a very flexibile and easy to use control panel, and great prices. I highly recommend them.
Kelly is scheduled to take her Introduction to Sociology CLEP test today at Johnston Community College. I will report on the results and any comments Kelly has about how she prepared tomorrow. She only has one more, Biology, for this year on June 8. Christian will probably take his Western Civilization test on June 8, too.
The kids went down to the YMCA last night for the first meeting of our local YMCA swim team. Some of the kids from last year were missing, but many of them were back. Both Kelly and Christian love just about everything about the swim team. It is a great social thing for them because they get to see a bunch of kids every day with a two or three hour chunk of time during each of the swim meets that mostly consists of hanging out with the other kids intermixed with a fifteen minute warm-up and several two or three minute races. The exercise is their favorite kind of exercise. They get to work on their tans. It is all good. It is even good for Lorena. While the kids practice, she does her workout at the Y and then sits in the sun and gossips with the other parents while they wait for the kids to finish. I am sure we will be hearing about this in Betty Blonde.
This weekend, I finished the last weekly homeschool schedules for the year. This was the last year I will have to do schedules for Kelly. Next year, my role for her scheduling will be more of a consulting role as she prepares to go to the community college full time the year after that. Her main, structured subject areas will be Math, Science (Chemistry), and French. She plans to take CLEP tests in Precalculus, Micro and Macro Economics, Chemistry, Analyzing and Interpreting Literature, History of Western Civilization I and II, and Financial Accounting. In addition to that, she will prepare for PSAT and ACT tests, do a lot of writing and, as of this weekend, a lot of piano practice. I have two years of schedules left to do for Christian, so I will not be moving cold turkey away from scheduling. Christian’s CLEP load will increase some next year, too. I think it is good practice for them to manage their own test preparation, so all I really do for that is watch over their shoulder so we can make the best effort possible to cover all the bases.
Yesterday after Sunday morning meeting, we went to Kelly’s end-of-year piano recital. There were only three non-Asians who played out of about a couple of dozen students. The last three were absolutely amazing. I had not realized how much Kelly has advanced in her piano playing (She was not one of the last three.). I am incompetent when it comes to music. Lorena is much better than I, but still not great. We were only fortunate enough to get Kelly a slot in her current teacher’s schedule because Mrs. Hickenlooper, Kelly’s teacher from Oregon, made a big effort on her behalf. She called many people in North Carolina until she found just the right teacher. Even then, I think the only reason she accepted Kelly as a student is because Kelly is homeschooled and could come to piano lessons during the day. We are glad she did. Kelly made amazing progress. We were thinking Kelly might end her lessons after next year to concentrate on only academics. That all changed yesterday. We are very much encouraging her to continue–through college, if possible.
A couple of small events prompted us to notice a very interesting phenomenon yesterday. The first was when the young Asian girl seated beside Kelly heard that Kelly is homeschooled she said, “So you have a life?” The second was, at the end of the program, the teacher said that three of her students had been accepted at the North Carolina School of Science and Math (NCSSM). NCSSM is a highly selective residential high school for gifted students with a strong work ethic. It requires public service as well as a high level of academic performance. Acceptance at that school requires an amazing level of time and commitment. Add to that the time and effort required to play the piano the way they played and there is not much time left in the day for those kids to have a life. Still, on the whole, they seemed to be very nice kids. These kids and their families form a subculture that is not unlike that of many homeschoolers. I think a significant difference might be that homeschool tends to be less regimented.
Note: I finished the Old Testament today in my read through the bible.
I am in the middle of Pilgrim’s Progress right now and I am enjoying it immensely. All the characters are named after their overarching bad habit, trait or virtue (Help, Obstinate, Mistrust, Piety etc. etc.) I got to thinking about this. Wouldn’t the world would be much simpler if everyone had one name that described them completely? Imagine the possibilities:
“How do you do Mr. Peaceandgranola?”
“I’m groovy, thanks for asking Mrs. Busybody! How’s your son, Nobelt Baggypants?”
“Oh he’s doing well enough. I’m afraid he’s gotten into a quarrel with the neighbor, Mr. Callous, though I’m sure I don’t know what Nobelt has done to upset him. And you know how Mr. Callous is! Always so insensitive and cruel! Not to gossip, but I hear he once threw a rock in Mrs. Rapscallion’s window because he was so angry at her.”
“Not cool dude! Sounds like he needs a little love.”
“I believe so! Oh dear me I’ve got to run. Say hello to your wife, Mrs. Braidsandhemp!”
Wonderful isn’t it? Imagine how convenient it would be. I could avoid all the mean and annoying people in the world just by knowing their name! I could surround myself with nice, beautiful people all day long. I wouldn’t have to go through the long and time-consuming process of getting to know them and becoming their friend and all that. Life would be easy.
It wouldn’t be very fun though. I don’t think I would actually have very many friends either. After all, no one is perfect. Everyone has their ups and downs. A more accurate name for the typical person might be Miss Usually-nice-except-in-the-mornings-when-she-hasn’t-had-breakfast-is-also-envious-sometimes-but-very-honest-unfortunately-often-slothful.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t appreciate the occasional help. For example, When I’m (relatively) old it would be very helpful in finding a nice husband. Also, some books would be a lot easier to understand if there were a Mr. Antagonist and a Mr. Cannon Fodder and a Miss Femme Fatale instead of Frank and Bob and Lucy. Since that’s usually not the case, I am greatly enjoying and appreciating Mr. Bunyan’s work.
The conversation on this blog and in our household right after Luke wrote about the Marketplace of Ideas (and Eric added his comments on his blog) has been stellar. While all that was happening, Michael Egnor wrote an absolutely amazing and serious blog post about the evil of eugenics and and the intolerance toward “opinions on ethical issues that derive from religious traditions” amongst those who hold to “a narrow leftist-atheist ideology”. That was followed by another amazing and absolutely hilarious blog post by Richard Sternberg on the myth of the commonality between chimpanzee and human DNA. Both of these men have a gift. They are obviously very bright men who worked very hard to know what they know. They appear to be very passionate about what they do. The thing that sets them apart is that they are both gifted writers. I literally cried at Egnor’s piece and I laughed out loud at Sternberg’s piece. I was so irritated that comments are turned off on the Evolution News and Views blog, that I sent them an email.
It said, “If Richard Sternberg remains “Expelled”, he could easily make his living as a writer. Even some of Mark Steyn’s pieces are not as Steynesque as the chimapanzee post. That is the best praise I know to give. Kudos Dr. Sternberg!!!”
Kelly and I talk about how to prepare to take part in the public discourse. We want that to be a part of our homeschool. Of course Kelly writes her daily comic strip, writes letters to the editor (and to World Magazine), and posts on this blog. Christian keeps his own blog. That is all good and well, but those are just mechanisms to practice in their media of interest. We think it is great to be able to write well, but not that helpful until one has enough knowledge to know about what to write. Even if there is something about which to write and even if that something is very important, it seems futile unless the writer has a passion for and knowledge of the subject. Maybe too many writers have a passion for writing more than a passion about an important subject.
That is why I loved these two articles so much. The writers hold profound knowledge and have great passion for the things about which they wrote. The profound knowledge, I think, comes from intelligence and hard work, probably with more of an emphasis on hard work than on intelligence (not to suggest that these men are not off the charts in terms of intelligence–it is just a lot of hard work to get to where they are in life). I think probably the passion comes from what one choses to love. That and the hard work required to learn to write well puts this into the realm of the doable for many people. It is possible for young homeschoolers to work on all of these things.
As we arrive at the end of the school year–we will be done for the year by the end of the month–we always have a ton of stuff to do. This year Kelly is especially loaded up. When we started homeschooling, we thought life would be somewhat more controlled, but then we did not really know what we were doing or what it would be like. We found that in a government school setting, everything is generally concentrated around the school. Now, WE are the institution around which all activity is concentrated. Because we do not have all the resources that the bloated government school budgets provide, we end up distributing a lot of the activity. There are piano, guitar, art, subject matter, cooking, and every other imaginable kind of lesson. There are test taking trips, museum trips, book trips, office supply buying trips, park trips, play trips, concert trips, and trips to every other imaginable kind of location. Now at the end of the year, summer swimming, a CLEP test, a piano recital, a piano adjudication, a regular guitar lesson, and workout time at the YMCA all happen in a three day period. I will only be able to make it to one of those activities (the piano recital). I am going to hide the rolling pin from Lorena. She truly is a champion in her work to make sure the kids study hard, eat right, and get where they need to go. Lorena says she is the lunchroom lady and bus driver lady of our homeshcool because I manage all the planning and academic elements of the program, but really she is the heart and center of our school. There is no way we could do this with out her.
Weight loss note: Lyle is the champion these days. I have stemmed the weight gain and believe I have started back down. Bryan! Where are you???
Note to Eric: Here is a note from Luke’s Dad’s blog. (H.T. Luke) that talks about the pride thing. I LOVED this. I think it might have been a quote from a talk given by a guy named Kevin Swanson.
He says if you dare practice rhetoric; if you dare stand up and give an answer; if you dare to get involved in the activity of the exchange of information and knowledge–he says, whatever you do, make sure you don’t forget to do it in the fear of God, and in humility before man. I’ll tell you, guys, the No. 1 sin that seems to be rampant in our society today, among educated people–and I’m talking about pastors, I’m talking about classical educators, I’m talking about kids that are out there blogging, I’m talking about pseudo-smart people who are trying to argue their point on the blogosphere–I’ll tell you, the No. 1 problem I see is the problem of pride. It’s everywhere. It’s insidious, and it’s ripping apart relationships in churches. It rips apart relationships in this movement.
Luke Holzmann over at the Sonlight blog wrote about the Marketplace of Ideas today.
I think he is exactly right when he said, “Shocked, I realized that was my experience as well. The ‘marketplace of ideas’ is oddly empty.”
This is something Kelly and I have spoken about at length. How to participate in the “public discourse” is an interesting question for us. We are big fans of people like Marvin Olasky and the rest of the crew at World Magazine, David Berlinski, the “public intellectual” who lives in France and seems to be much smarter than almost everone else, Rodney Stark the emminent sociologist and author from Baylor University, and other people of their ilk. They have obviously worked hard to learn what they know and have honed their knowledge by engaging in discourse with those who have knowledge of their areas of interest. It seems to us that those types of people are few and far between. It does not appear that there are very many people who have the time, energy, and especially the will to participate in the Marketplace of Ideas. We do not think we are particularly well equipped or gifted to do so ourselves, but it certainly interests us and we try to make some level of investment in that.
Luke points to a blog post here that addresses a part of one of the questions with which, we are confronted daily. How does one go about preparing ones children to participate in the Marketplace of Ideas? It is a hard question to which I have no satisfying answer.
*Special note: This article on who should have a voice in the public square appeared at Evolutions News and Views shortly after this article was posted. It has something quite important to say by Michael Egnor. He is another of those to whom we pay a lot of attention because of their stellar record of participation in the Marketplace of Ideas. It comes from the Discovery Institute‘s Evolution News & Views blog. We read it every day and highly recommend it.
We got invited to a Cinco de Mayo get-together at the neighbors last week. It was a great excuse to wear the straw hat my brother-in-law, Lauro bought for me while he was in Columbia. I know a Columbian hat is not the optimal thing to wear when one is celebrating a Mexican holiday, but then Cinco de Mayo is not wildly by any Mexicans I know outside of the United States. Before I started going down to Mexico a bunch about twenty five years ago, I though Cinco de Mayo was Mexican Independence day. A friend disabused me of that notion explaining that the Cinco de Mayo celebration is about the Battle of Puebla when the Mexicans routed the French in 1862. Mexican Independence Day is celebrated with “El Grito de Independencia” on September 16. Notice the very cool guayaberra shirt my mother-in-law gave to me as a gift specifically for such occasions. She also gave me a pair of muslin peasant pants to go with it. I think Kelly looks quite pretty with the bright flower in her hair.
Christian wore a Mexican sombrero to make up for my Columbian hat.
The other picture is of Christian sitting by the computer and camera system we put together for our big project with Troy at North Carolina State University. Christian did the bulk of the work. Everything is pretty much ready to install in the Ag Engineering lab now. We are just waiting for Troy and Youngin to get back from vacation. The camera is VERY cool. It is a weather-proof, wireless IP camera with infrared LED’s that come on when it starts getting dark. We will be talking about this more as the project moves along.
Christian and I found enough pieces to put together to make an internet server this weekend. We put a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) on it, go ourselves a NO-IP address, and put it up on the internet. This is the computer we will use in the research project Christian, Troy, and I are doing with North Carolina State University. After we get the camera hooked up and assure that it works, we will tear the whole setup down, take it over to the NCSU Ag Engineering lab, and set it up again. I say “we” did that, but really, Christian did all the heavy lifting in figuring out how to make it all work. It is pretty cool that it is possible to do that in only a day with time left over to go to the bookstore for a few hours, go out to breakfast and lunch, play with the neighbor kids. Also, for Mothers Day, we hung the big mirror over the fireplace, a candle/plant/flower vase thingy by the back porch, and a painting in the kitchen. It all came out quite nicely.
Lorena wanted to go to Boston Chicken for Mothers Day on Sunday so that is what we did. We called Grandma Conchita and Grandma Sarah, too. Of course, my entire family except us, was together at Aunt Julia’s house in Oregon for a Mothers Day dinner and Lorena’s entire family, except us, was at Grandma Conchita’s house in Monterrey eating carne asada, so we were feeling a little sorry for ourselves.
Kelly and Christian had a great time last year on their swim team at the local YMCA. We just got an email that the practice is going to start back up again in about a week and a half. The kids are very excited about it. The swim team was good for them, not only because it was good exercise, but because they got to hang out for an hour or two per day with a great bunch of kids. They loved the swim meets because it was not only about the competition, but about the camaraderie that developed while everyone sat around and played games while they waited for their next race.
We have really had a pretty good physical education year this year. Kelly made great progress on getting the amount of calories she consumed up on the elliptical machine. She learned a lot about diet by studying several books and worked on eating the right kinds of foods in the right amounts at the right times. Christian would have liked to swim all year long, but there was no program close enough to us with the right time schedule for us to do that. So, he has worked on running. I think he just passed the four mile mark for his four day per week 35 minute run. I think he could hit six miles next year. Christian, Kelly, and I want to run a 10K together. We might even be able to talk Lorena into joining us. I think we might start training for that after we get back from our summer travels in early September.
The other big thing Christian has been working on is his push-ups. His goal is to do a hundred in a row. It took quite awhile to get to the point where he could do 100 push-ups in two sets of fifty each. Now he has been able to improve that to 60 on the first set and 40 on the second. I am going to encourage him to keep working on that even during swimming season.
I have come to the conclusion that no one, and I mean no one, can ink Betty Blonde except for me. You see, the rough drafts of Betty Blonde have little lines going everywhere, not perfect, straight lines for a guide. A lot of the inking if also very ad libbed, especially places like Mr. Nobody’s hat or Spike’s spikes. It’s pretty confusing. That’s why I like to do it myself. Also, I think inking is just as crucial to the cartooning process as drawing or jokes are. Maybe even more so. I believe the way you ink really influences people’s first impressions of your comic strip. For example, I find FoxTrot a lot more visually appealing than Calvin and Hobbes even though Calvin and Hobbes is a lot funnier. There’s something about the chunky lines and constant cartoony style of FoxTrot that draws me in. Sure Calvin and Hobbes is more artistic, but at first glance it doesn’t grab my attention. Calvin and Hobbes is an acquired taste (I’m just speaking for myself.)
I lied actually. ‘No one and I mean no one’ is not true. Christian is my back up inker in case of emergencies. He knows my style better than I do. Also, if I happen to have a favorite aunt or uncle or cousin or devoted Betty Blonde fan (of which there are many 😉 ) or friend or worker or grandparent or interested onlooker in the house, and they feel like inking, then I will relinquish the pen. (generally a Bic z4, with a 0.5 point. Works wonders.) I’m even more willing to give up the pen if the volunteer is stressed. Inking is wonderfully therapeutic, sort of like coloring, especially if you have a Dad that’s willing to share his homemade popcorn and read aloud a history book to you. I recommend taking it up sometime
Drop on by around 5:30 PM sometime… I’d be happy to hand over the z4. 🙂
On a different but related note: I’ve heard tell that professional cartoonists use brushes or fancy fountain pens with India ink. India ink. Isn’t that fantastic? I don’t know if it’s actually from India, but it sounds awesome, and that’s good enough for me. You know how some people dream of Ferraris, yachts, and high social status ? I dream of India Ink, an NCS membership, and (just maybe) a Reuben Award. 😛
Kelly’s big accomplishments for April included a couple of piano competitions and her CLEP US History II test. After a month or so of work on the Thinkwell Precalculus program we have adjusted her schedule for completion a little to mid-year next year. She likes the program a lot because it is giving her a good review of Algebra II from a different perspective and with some new and different techniques from the Teaching Textbooks Algebra II program we liked so much. After Aunt Julia came to visit, she called us to encourage us to start into some volunteering. Cousins Amy and Charlie have both been great at that and have both received and given great benefit by their participation. One of our neighbor lady’s children attend the local, government elementary school. She says there are some hispanic children who go to school there. The lady has been kind enough to offer to see whether they would allow Kelly to volunteer there to help Spanish speaking children learn how to speak English. We do not know whether it will work out, but we are excited about the prospect.
Christian is well into his Teaching Textbooks Geometry now. It is hard to get the concept of proofs, but he is moving up the learning curve. He is studying for his CLEP Western Civilization I test, but we have not decided yet whether he will take the test in May or June. We will decide after he takes the practice tests from the REA study book a couple of times. His plan is to work hard to get through Chapter 12 of C++ Primer Plus before the end of the school year. That is because his volunteer work will be to work with Troy and I on our research project with the Agricultural Engineering Department at NCSU. We need a server to act as an FTP site and a web server. Christian will set up and manage that first. After that, he will use his C++ programming skills to program a computer to control some servo motors, lighting, and pumps for the experiment we are tasked to perform.
Special note for Christian: Imagine the incredible investigative skills required to crack this case.