This is just a place holder while Christian sends me the pictures. Every one has been having a great time with the visit of Tios Jorge and Mari, Grandma Conchita, and Primos Jorgito, Valeria, and Brandon. Pictures in a bit…
Click on any picture to see a larger view.
Our family from Mexico spent the whole day shopping yesterday. I think all the women were very happy with that. I am not so sure about Tio Jorge and all the kids. It is really great to have them here. The reality is that we are pretty content just sitting around talking about life. Today, I think the plan is to take Jorgito, Valeria, and Brandon shopping. One thing that is kind of funny is that, a lot of the time, the Mexicans pronouce Valeria in the gringo pronunciation with the accent on the first “a”. Every time I hear that I think “what a waste”. To me, Valeria with the accent on the “e” in the Mexican pronunciation sounds way more exotic!
It is hard to respond to comments properly and write substantive posts when life gets very busy. That does not mean I am not going to try. I was out of town on Friday, so I appreciate the post Kelly put up during my absence. Since then, Grandma Conchita, Tio Jorge, Tia Mari, and Primos Jorgito (age 9), Valeria (age 4), and Brandon (age 18 months) arrived from Monterrey. We hope to have pictures of them up here soon. It was a non-stop weekend. I traveled all day on Friday, starting at 3:30 A.M. and getting to bed after midnight. Lorena took the kids shopping (to get ready for the cousin’s visit) and then on to their swim meet on Saturday while I worked on the GaugeCam program at home. The Guatemalans came over for lunch after Sunday morning meeting yesterday. When they left, Lorena, Grandma Conchita, and Valeria took Kelly and Christian to the end of the year swim team picnic and awards program.
One of the good parts of the arrival of our Mexican family is that Kelly has LOTS of good material for Betty Blonde. She is going to switch over to Spanish (with English translations) for a while with her cousins in town. In addition, we plan to have people over to meet them all, take some trips to museums, the zoo, a couple of swimming pools, and possibly the beach. It is going to be an eventful week!
Three cheers for Dad and Christian! The cat tower is now complete and our kitties are very satisfied with the end result. I think it looks like a nice piece of abstract art/furniture. Very functional! I would put up a picture, but we lost the memory card.
Yesterday was our last day of 2009 swim practice. We got to play water baseball and cross the ocean and all that good stuff. Unfortunately I did something weird to my arm at the meet last Saturday, so I was unable to swim with my arms for the whole week. I thought that because we were just playing games and not actually swimming yesterday, I would be OK.
Not so.
Cross the Ocean is usually a very fun game where you put two ‘sharks’ in the middle of the pool, and everyone else (minnows) at the end of the pool. When the sharks say “Cross the ocean!” the minnows must all jump in the water and swim to the other side of the ocean without being tagged by the two sharks. If you are tagged then you are a shark for the next round. Fun!!! So I got in the pool with 20 extremely energetic 6-10 year olds and all of the un-injured 11 and ups. I did really well for the first two rounds. I made it to the other end of the pool, in fact. Then the coach changed the rules around and made it so that the minnows could tag us on the tops of our heads only when our heads were above water. Heads below water generally mean actually swimming, but I managed. I was doing really really well in fact. When I was five feet away from touching the wall, this little girl who had been puppyguarding me and following me around the pool, tapped me on the top of my head as I came up for a breath. That was when I twisted around and popped my arm for the fifth time. Popping your arm hurts. It’s like it’s twisting out of your body which is a little gross, and then it hurts a lot for like 10 minutes afterwards. Anyway, I’m not going to be swimming in the championship meet. 🙁 I am comforted by the ice-cream party afterward though. 🙂 It’s Disney-themed. I’m leaning towards dressing up as the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland since my Snow-White dress was bought when I was seven and no longer fits me. But I don’t know. Any Disney-themed costume suggestions for Christian and I?
Cousins are coming tomorrow!!!!!!! YAY!! I am beyond excited!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Pictures will come soon!
Christian has a good amount of knowledge about computers. Last year, in seventh grade, he set up a computer that is currently in use at North Carolina State University for a research project in the Agricultural Engineering department. You can see the web page it serves here. The server features not only a web page, but also a blog, a Subversion Version Control System server, and ftp site, and a number of other things. He is currently working on improvements to the backup system and the addition of the Trac Software Project Management System. He will serve as our systems administrator for the duration for the project.
As we move into the new school year, I have decided it is time for him to take on a “real” programming project. Christian has worked to learn C# and C++ over the last couple of years by working through several books such as C++ Primer Plus, but has had now reasonable way to apply what he has learned. Now though, there are several programming tasks of about the right size with which he could be a real help. We have identified one project in particular that we will have him use as his first formal project. I have started using QT Creator, an open source IDE (Integrated Development Environment), so that is what we will set up for him to program. We will keep you posted on his progress.
We are not trying to do something big like Troy and Youngin. All we are trying to do is finish a silly cat tower. We got most of the stuff we needed, but found we are lacking one more part, a long nut so we can connect to pieces of threaded rod so it will be long enough pass all the way through the number three tower. Towers one, two, and four are complete. The number four tower which is the tallest has the biggest platform on it is now in place so you can see what the thing will look like. Towers one, two, and three are stair steps leading to the big platform. The pathetic part is that even though the thing is almost done, the missing third step makes it impossible for the cats to get up on the top platform, so they cannot even use it yet unless we lift them up. So, today, Lorena and the kids will head over to Home Depot–Lowes did not have the right kind of nut nor the rope we need.
When we hit a brick wall on the cat tower, I spent some time working on our GaugeCam project. I made some great progress there. I struggled with a way to work with the images giving the new cross platform development environment we decided to use, but I have worked past that now and can get on with the real serious part of the project that involves the measurement of the water levels in images of lakes, streams, and that sort of thing.
I think we are going to lay out next years homeschool program this afternoon. All the family is coming from Mexico next week, most of us are leaving for Oregon shortly after that and it dawned on me that we need to start school as soon as the kids arrive back to North Carolina. That consists of digging out the books for Christian’s program–he is doing US History this year. He should finish up Geometry pretty early in the year, then move on into Precalculus. He will do Apologia Biology. The plan is for him to do the Biology, US History I, US History II, and Spanish CLEP tests this year. If we work really hard, he might get one more (Precalculus), but that might be pushing it a little. Kelly’s is going to require a little more thought. We have to decide which CLEP tests she will take next year and the order in which she will take them. She should finish up Precalculus early in the year, take the CLEP test, then move on into Calculus. She will also do Apologia Chemistry with the idea that she will study the REA CLEP Chemistry preparation book and take that test at the end of the year.
We are just about finished with the cat tower–all we need is a little bit more rope and five nuts.
To my highly esteemed and greatly treasured 97 Betty Blonde subscribers:
We have one whole year’s worth of Betty Blonde comic strips behind us! One whole year’s worth! One year of no skipped days, lots of cheesy jokes, a good chunk of character development, puffy hair, rockin’ neighbors, mysterious closet dwellers and the occasional morbid observation! One year that would never have been what it is if it weren’t for the following people:
For the very special 97 subscribers who thought Betty Blonde was cool enough to read every day in their inbox, I am starting a BETTY BLONDE T-SHIRT GIVEAWAY. Here’s what the design looks like:
If you signed up to receive Betty Blonde every day through e-mail, then you are automatically entered into a monthly drawing to win this special t-shirt! Only e-mail subscribers will be entered into the drawing. The first drawing will be held this August. Stay tuned and do tell your friends!
Or don’t. It will increase your chances of winnning. 😉
You can subscribe to Betty Blonde here. If you don’t win a t-shirt, then you can still purchase one here. Unfortunately they are a bit pricey, but it’s totally worth it to be able to sport a picture of Spike (and friends, but mostly SPIKE!) on yourself. Comments, suggestions, criticisms (of the constructive sort), and new subscribers are very welcome! You can e-mail me about Betty Blonde at bettyblonde@chapmankids.net.
Thanks to everyone for being supportive and helping me out!! Here’s to another great year of Betty Blonde! Tell your friends!
Love,
Kelly Chapman
Betty Blonde
Big Wilma
Quirk
Mr. Nobody
Spike
Wolf
We did not finish the cat tower, but we got the first two towers up. The cats were so pleased we thought we would put up a picture anyway. We are getting close, but we ran out of rope for the tall tower so we will have to wait until next week. My weekend was mostly a programming weekend. I had some stuff I need to complete from my day job and some additional infrastructure stuff for the GaugeCam project. The GaugeCam project is quite a lot of work. It is one of those kinds of projects where you do not realize how much stuff you have to do until you get there and they are revealed one at a time. The good thing about the project is that I am learning a lot about cross platform programming. The good thing is that the kids had a swim meet in Cary on Saturday where I am not particularly needed.
The big event this week is the arrival of Grandma Conchita, Uncle Jorge, Aunt Mari, and Cousins Jorgito, Valeria, and Brandon for a week of vacation. We are very excited they are coming.
Note to Bryan and Lyle: I am back down under 200. Woo-hoo!
Christian participated in the Duke Talent Identification Program for students in the seventh grade. He got high enough scores on virtual every section of the test to qualify him for state honors. Here is the link I wrote right after he took the test. Good job Christian!!!
The project Troy, Christian, and I are working on at the NCSU Ag Engineering lab with Dr. François Birgand now has a blog. We will discuss the project and track its progress over there. Kelly will have an important Betty Blonde post for us here tomorrow. Also, hopefully, I will have a great new picture to post here by early afternoon of Christian with award for which all of us are quite pleased.
We did not met our goal to finish the cat tower last weekend, but we did make some good progress. We have the carpet on all the platforms,* but we have a little more finish work and quite a bit more assembly to do. We are getting close, so are excited to see it complete. I will put pictures up as soon as we are done.
Kelly has finished the drawing for the great Betty Blonde t-shirt give-away. It is a super drawing. I scanned it in for them last night and got it to Christian for addition of color and touch-up. Kelly will reveal the plan for all this on Friday.
We receive two big boxes from Sonlight yesterday. This year it was only science programs because we have all the literature, history, and math stuff we need for awhile. Still, they are magnificent science programs–Apologia Chemistry and a reload kit and new microscope for Apologia Biology; the microscope was a particularly good deal–so we are very excited to get started and we are a month and a half away!
Christian got loaded up with guitar practice for the next six weeks because he had his last lesson yesterday before his new teacher goes on tour. Kelly and her piano teacher had what appeared to be quite a good discussion about Korean soap operas. The kids music teachers have turned into one of the major blessings of our time here in North Carolina.
Vacation visits and visiting are rapidly coming up. Lorena’s brother, Jorge and his family are coming at the end of next week. The kids are excited to see their cousins Jorgito (age 7), the glamourous and talkative Valeria (age 4), and the new toddler Brandon (age 1). After that, everyone heads out to Oregon to see Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and our many other friends there. They will also be going to a convention.
Yesterday I started working out again after having pulled a muscle two weeks ago. I am up over two pounds, but am back on track.
*Note to Deanne: We ended up using both glue and staples. It all came out great, but was something that for people like us, requires practice. I am sure the next one we do will be even better!
My cousin Neil sent me some articles today. The first four images contain a description of our grandfather’s grandfather, Stephen Jenkins, who was the scout on the first wagon train that took the really rough southern route of the Oregon Trail. When he was in his 40’s, he became a Baptist minister. This describes a little of his history, his conversion experience, and how he lead his life as a preacher. The last document is a newspaper article from the June 21, 1929 issue of the Eugene Register Guard. That would have been just a couple of months before when both Neil’s father Roy and my father Grandpa Milo were born.
I spent more time with my cousin Neil, my mom’s twin sisters second boy, than any of my other cousins. We spent countless hours at our Grandma Jenkins house on Mosby Creek, not too far from Cottage Grove, Oregon. We swam and explored and just hung out together making plans for many, many fondly remembered days. I spoke to Neil for a good amount of time on Saturday. We talked about a lot of very interesting things, but one of them was about the family genealogy he is putting together. I will try to talk a little more about that as he progresses and he gets more information–he has over 800 names on the list right now, one of which I saw went all the way back to 1572 (a 10th great grandfather). One of our most interesting things we talked about was that our great, great grandfather, Steve Jenkins was involved in the establishing of the Palestine, Oregon Baptist Church in the 1850’s. I looked it up on Google Maps and found out that the center of Palestine is only 2.2 miles from our old house in Albany. Neil promised to send me some pages from an old book he has about some of the old Oregon preachers that has a chapter on Steve Jenkins. I will report anything interesting I find here. It was great to get back in touch with Neil and his family. One of his wife, Carol’s, best friends lives out here in North Carolina, so we hope to see them out here before too long!
I have been looking forward to this weekend for about three weeks because we have no parties, picnics, swim meets, concerts, or any other planned event on the schedule. We surely have a lot to do during this “free” weekend. My main goal for the weekend is to finish the cat tower. I think we have everything we need so, with any luck at all, we should have some pictures to show on Monday. We plan to go to the library on Saturday morning because Kelly has identified three new books from three new authors she really wants to read. We want to go see Christian’s guitar teacher to look at and talk about classical guitars. Christian has a nice steel string Takamine, but he really needs a better, nylon string guitar to continue his studies. We hope to finish the design of the t-shirt for the first annual Betty Blonde t-shirt give-away. Betty Blonde’s first anniversary is coming up on July 17.
Christian and I continue to work with Troy on the GaugeCam project at NCSU. Christian is the system administrator, but he has the server up and running with only a few more small items left to complete and then continued maintenance on that part of the project. He will switch over to develop one of the program module for the image processing and control program. I will continue to work on the actual machine vision algorithms for the program while Christian will program the image management and display part of the program. We use QT Creator IDE for cross platform (Windows and Linux) development of the program in C++. We have the environment set up and the program development started. We hope to put a plan together for Christian’s part of the development this weekend.
We will always be grateful to XXXXXX XXXXXX*, one of the teachers at Kelly’s last government school. She and the principal of the school, XXXX XXXXXXXX* (recently retired), are the ones who finally convinced us that it would be good for us to homeschool our children. I have a couple of links to the teacher that are enlightening.*
*I got rid of the names and links because, after I read the post again, I recognized that I would not like someone to do this to me, even if it WERE true. Indeed, we really ARE thankful that we were motivated, no matter how difficult the circumstances, to homeschool our children. Beside that, with the links, this was a very snarky post and I do not like snarky.
I sent in our order to Sonlight for next years curricula this morning. I fell a little nostalgic because this is our seventh year and the first when I did not have to buy a core curriculum. The cores are great because they include a pile of novels and biographies that all of us just love to read. I had to make a hard and fast rule that the kids could not even touch the books until is was time to read them during the year. I always weakened a little though and let them read the back cover just so long as they did not open the books. This year, we bought the Apologia Chemistry program for Kelly, some consumable supplies, and a microscope for Christian’s Apologia Biology. We will have both Kelly and Christian do the microscope work this year because we really had a pretty lousy microscope last year. I will buy the REA Analyzing and Interpreting Literature CLEP study book today. A little later this year we will have to buy Thinkwell Calculus for Kelly and another seat of Thinkwell Precalculus for Christian and a few more CLEP study materials, but that will be it. I think the only thing we will have to buy this time next year will be some consumable science materials for Christian and an online subscription or two for math and CLEP study. The plan is for Kelly to start at the community college at that time. Boy does time fly.
Our Fourth of July weekend was wonderful. We went to the Mathias home for a swimming party and barbecue and then to the fireworks at Lake Benson afterward. The event there was amazing; not just because of the fireworks, but also because the North Carolina Symphony was there. Christian took some pretty amazing fireworks pictures and we had a very nice time sitting around talking while the crowd dispersed a little before we left. The Thursday before, Kelly’s friend Danielle came to Raleigh from Statesville (her dad came for an appointment here), so she spent the weekend with us. Danielle’s mom, Terrie, brought two skirts she had made for the girls out of Goodwill ties when we meet so they could pick her up in 
Greensboro at a beautiful park there. The skirt went perfect with the Fourth of July blouse Kelly stitched for hereself. Of course, the kids all have a good time when they get together. Finally, we had our monthly potluck after our meeting on Sunday at the Steppes. All in all, it was a great weekend.
That being said, I spent way too much time working on computers over the weekend. I dragged an old computer downstairs to use in place of the USGS computer. I bought a gig of memory to get that going at a reasonable pace, loaded 
(almost) all of the software I need on it and then, after reading the series of comments from last week about backing my stuff up and getting scared that I was going to lose stuff again! I went ahead, bit the bullet, and bought three years of Carbonite, the online backup service. I have decided to do a hybrid version of Troy’s backup plan. His plan is to buy SD cards for his camera, then never erase them, just keep adding images to them. He puts them on his computer in addition to keeping them on his SD card. He only erases the pictures he does not want on the SD card and, when it gets full, he just stores it away as his backup. I am going to do that, then store them on Carbonite and a terabyte hard drive, too. At any rate, I am almost back to where I was when the computer broke a few days back.
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