Month: January 2010 Page 1 of 2

My diary is dead.  It was boring to write in, every entry felt really contrived and formulaic.  Instead of a diary I now keep a book of lists and plans and drawings and thoughts and ideas and stories and scribblings that I write in whenever I feel like.  It’s a lot easier to keep than a diary, and a lot more fun.  I write in it more consistently then I ever did in my run-of-the-mill diary.  Anyway, in that book of lists and things, I have a list titled in dramatic balloon text:

It’s basically a list of all the songs that we can remember growing up listening to. They’re not all that good but  most of them have some sort of story, or at least a memory to go along with them.  The entire Shrek soundtrack is in there. It reminds us of the early 2000’s and going to government school. Evil Ways by Santana is in there because Christian sang that over and over again last summer.  A LOT of Enya is in there because we’ve listened to that from the womb.  ‘Only Time’ is special because (oddly enough) it reminds me of laying on the floor and reading Tintin comic books.  Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and Do Wah Diddy are two of our favorite sing-alongs.  Matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof : my 15th birthday and my friend Jenna.  In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg : running around the house.  Lady Gaga makes us feel ‘culturally aware’ and reminds us of swimteam with the middle schoolers. Certain songs remind us of certain people. Pocketful of Sunshine, for example. I associate that with our trip to Kitty Hawk with our friends the Larsons a couple of years ago.  Complicated by Avril Lavigne. I thought I was way cool for liking that song back in the third grade.  Hello Seattle by Owl City reminds me of my east coast AND west coast friends. Wee Sing America has many many memories attached to it. The Beach Boys remind me of Dad. So do Leonard Cohen and Percy Sledge. Rod Stewart and Pandora remind me of Mom. Pavarotti reminds me of Grandpa. Tainted Love by Soft Cell. Hey There Delilah. The House of the Rising Sun (of COURSE!!!) ALL of Celtic Woman’s songs remind me of the eighth grade and moving to NC.  Ottmar Liebert (classical guitar) reminds us of living in Texas. American Pie. Clair de Lune. Led Zeppelin. Amazing Grace. Christmas music is a category unto itself.  Everything we’ve ever heard is in there! Excepting hymns.

Hymns have stories too though.  Since I was twelve I’ve associated a certain hymn with each convention that I’ve been to. Boring ’02 (an exception) was #87, Saginaw ’06 was #98, Demorest ’08 was #200, Denton ’09 was probably #102… Saginaw ’09 was definitely #409.  #108 will always be associated with going to union meeting at a certain family’s house. #117 reminds me of when I was 4. #77 reminds me of Christian. #75 reminds me of Hawaii (naturally).  #158 makes me sad. I could go on and on.

But I won’t because I need to go look out the window and watch for snow! So excited!!

A congressman will visit our office tomorrow.  We have been tasked to clean everything up so it will be spotless for the high potentate and his aides-de-camp.  The purpose of the visit is to attract money (earmarks?) to help us in the development of our new technologies.  Hmmm…  So, I get to spiff up my office and kowtow to a (relatively minor) elected official for the purpose of attracting monies that will come from the taxes I get taken out of my paycheck.  This does not really seem like a great business model, but as long as MY company gets more of that money they YOUR company, I guess I am good.  Even if it does not work, at least I have a clean office for the first time in about two years.

Every once in a while, when a girl gets a little nostalgic, her thoughts turn to the green valleys of Oregon. I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately, thus my thoughts have been close to my home state. And since I think lists are the number one best way to relieve stress, I made a couple of them concerning Oregon.

Sadly enough, I’m not an Oregon native. I actually only lived there for around 12 years. Since I left when I was 13, I don’t know Oregon culture as deeply as Oregonians like my Dad, and since I’ve been gone for two years I tend to generalize things. But I do know some basics.

Oregon, in my mind, is divided into two main camps: Loggers and hippies. I think the rest of the country thinks ‘hippie/environmentalist’ when they think Oregon, but most of the people I know are loggers. I’m told there’s also a hybrid called a logger-hippie, but you can’t be both. If you claim to be both, then you’re definitely a hippie. Each camp has many subdivisions and many traits. Here are a few examples.

You may be an Oregon ‘logger’ if:
You’re a farm kid
You’re in Portland/Eugene/Corvallis but not of it
You’re a transplant from some state in the Bible belt
You live in Klamath Falls
You live anywhere in Eastern Oregon besides Bend
You’re a rabid member of the NRA
You’ve ever cut down a tree

You maybe an Oregon ‘hippie’ if
You’re a rabid environmentalist
You’re in Portland/Eugene/Corvallis and proud of it
You’re a vegan
You’re a non-mainstream-sports junky
You’re a California transplant
You sport a gray man-ponytail or astrologically themed jewelery
You’ve ever hugged a tree

Of course this is highly stratified and generalized. I’d like to call myself a logger but I’ve never cut down a tree or shot a gun or lived in Klamath Falls (although that would be way cool). I’m a bit of a hypocrite actually. Gun rights are awesome! But I would never kill an animal for fun. In Oregon we recycled all the time. And I think I hugged a tree once. Actually our family is more of a small town family than anything. Not pure enough for either camp, we’re stuck in a muddy little purgatory.

Thank goodness we’re in North Carolina now though! I don’t have to figure out what camp we’re in here because I still don’t get it.

What are you?

When the kids got text messaging this December, Christian decided he wanted to write a C++ program on his Linux computer to send and receive messages from his cellphone.  His initial idea was to text a Linux command from his cellphone to his computer and then receive the computers response back to his cellphone as a series of text messages.  He is very close to having that working, but we have been looking for something for the computer to do that is a little more exciting the listing the files in a directory or sending out its IP address.  In my work on the KamVu and GaugeCam projects, I write programs that control a little digital/analog I/O micro-controller card called an Arduino Duemilnova from a Linux computer.   That is the card that allows our computer to control lights, motors, pumps, read switches and temperature sensors, and a plethora of other things.  We have decided it might be a cool thing to be able to send a text message to the computer that controls a few things in the house via the Arduino card.  We have not quite figured out what we want to do yet, but it might be something like turning a light on taking a picture and emailing it someplace.  Then, if we get ambitious, we could move the camera around with a motor to take pictures of the entire room via the cellphone.

Christian has already started the conversion of the BleAx (Betty Blonde Accumulator of Comix) program from Python to C++, but he wanted to hone his skills a little on another program before he did that.  We figure he should be able to publish his cellphone to Linux computer program in the next month or so on NerdHow.  He might even do a video on how he hooks up the Arduino card.  We will keep you posted.

Kelly and Christian:  Here is your homeschool economics lesson for the day.  (h.t. Hugh Hewitt)

On Saturday, Lorena mentioned that she thought Christian was getting taller.  For the last year or so we have been measuring Lorena, Kelly, and Christian against each other to see who is tallest.  For a long time it seemed like Kelly and Christian were the same with Lorena just a smidgen taller than the both of them.  Saturday, however, we found that Kelly is maybe a half an inch taller than Lorena and Christian is about a half an inch taller than Kelly.

Lorena said, “Well, I am still pretty tall.”

Of course we all agreed with her as we have learned that is the safest course of action in these types of situations.

I updated the Betty Blonde About page with a few short bios. I’m hoping to make it better and more detailed later (maybe with some illustrations?) but this’ll do for now.  Christian’s been thinking about putting up a wiki for it soon too.

About:

Betty Blonde is a Monday-Friday web comic created by my brother (Christian Chapman) and me (Kelly Chapman).  It’s pretty random because the characters were developed when we were 9 or 10,  so here’s a quick guide to help you out.

Characters:

• Betty Blonde:  Very exuberant, very blonde girl who has absolutely no problems with hair volume.
• Big Wilma: Betty Blonde’s best friend and next door neighbor.  Big Wilma is proudly Hispatalian, and has been blessed with an even disposition, comely looks and lots of pets.
• Spike the Kaktus: Spike is an anthropomorphic kaktus.  Just don’t use that word (the long one) around him.  Not much else to say here. He acts like most other kaktuses.
• Mr. Nobody: Mr. Nobody is an invisible man who lives with Betty Blonde and Spike.  No one knows much about him, but he keeps everyone in check, so they keep him around.  He enjoys reading the Daily Bleat and eating cold toast.
• Quirk: Quirk allegedly ‘came with the house’. He is the resident nerd.

Secondary Characters:

• Bart Simestinkle: Betty’s other next door neighbor.  He used to be a rich and famous rockstar back in the 80’s, but now he’s not. Famous, I mean. He’s still rich.
• Rodney Simestinkle: Bart’s obnoxious son who could probably lay off on the Doritos a little.
• Hank Dangerous: Hank is very secure in his manliness. Hank used to be in the Army, but now he travels all around the country touting gun rights.  Hank approves of the killing of delicious animals.
• Faith, Hope and Charity: They’re so nice and perfect it’s not fair.
• Betty and her friends live in Somewherest, Washington County, USA.  They do things like carve pumpkins and hate on Apple and go to cosmetology classes and get buff at the gym and participate in art contests and stuff.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, don’t hesitate to email us at bettyblonde@chapmankids.net

Christian, Kelly, and I have been thinking and talking about the Betty Blonde comic.  Kelly works hard to improve her skills.  She reads everything she can find about drawing, story, humor, and everything associated with the creative side of the strip.  She and Christian put there heads together every day to think of new ideas.  They work to refine the way the characters, background, and objects are drawn.  The try to make the humor “work”.  The think of ways to develop the characters.  It is a super creative exercise.

Now, we have decided we want to focus our efforts.  We plan to start with two things.  Kelly will start a weekly post on Betty Blonde that describes the history of the comic strip, how we started drawing when we knew absolutely nothing about it, the development of each of the characters, the drawing of each of the characters, books and articles that help, other comic strips and artists that influence her, the tools she uses for drawing the strip, the other kinds of drawing she does that helps her refine her skills, things that happened in our lives that gave her ideas for stories, etc., etc.

Every night while I read aloud to the kids, Christian scans the strip into one of our Linux computer, then accumulates it into a comic strip and uploads it to our web site with the Betty Blonde Accumulator of Comix (BleAx).  BleAx is a great little program written in Python that runs on both Linux and Windows computers.  It would probably run on Mac’s, too, but we do not have one to try.  After the four individual panels are scanned into the computer, Christian uses BleAx to resize the panels to exactly the right size, add a drop shadow to each of them, accumulate them into a single image, add copyright, date, title and author text, create a thumbnail image of the strip, save everything to an archive on our home computer, and upload the image to our website.  This process used to take between 20 and 30 minutes.  Now it takes about 30 seconds.

There are some small irritations with the program.  The biggest of those is that we have to run the program from the Eclipse IDE (a programming environment) because we have not taken the time to package it for general use.  That is something regular users would never do.  We have decided that Christian will rewrite the program in C++, build binary installers for Windows and Linux, and offer the program as Open Source software.  It will be a great learning exercise for both Christian and I.

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

This exam, in terms of preparation, was very similar to the U.S. History exams. During the course of our homeschool we made three passes with increasingly more thorough coverage of the material. Susan Wise Bauer’s The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor and The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 2: The Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance provided a quite good introduction. Our plan was to read her textbook, The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome and even The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, but due to timing, we were not able to get to the former and the latter, at this writing, has not yet been released (we are on the waiting list). The bulk of her study was from CLEP Western Civilization I (REA). The REA books have been very, very helpful when it comes to preparing for these CLEP tests. Surprisingly, Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, was also quite helpful in pulling some things together during the preparation. We recommend that book highly because it is so interesting, but it was nice that it helped with these tests, too.

Kelly has always made many, many note cards and a heavily annotated timeline to help her study. After she took this test yesterday, she commented that the timeline and its extensive annotations were particular helpful for this specific test. She felt like she could have done even better on the U.S. History tests if she would have done more extensive “timelining”.

Results:
Kelly took the Western Civilization I test when she was 15. According to the REA preparation book criteria, she would have gotten a grade of A in the class. She received college credit for a one semester course for her score on this test.

We had overnight guests for the last couple of nights, so Kelly has had to find herself a quiet place wherever she can to study.  Lorena and the kids will take the trek back down to Johnston Community College to get Kelly to her Western Civilization I CLEP test.  It is definitely not one of the easy tests, but she thinks she is ready.

Well, we got pretty much caught up with homeschool this weekend.  It was not a wildly exciting weekend, because we spent almost all of our time working on homeschool.  Kelly worked on math and preparation for her upcoming Western Civilization I CLEP test.  Lorena worked around the house.  I worked on my KamVu project.  Poor Christian was already caught up so he mostly played his guitar, programmed the computer, and just hung out.  We are not all completely caught up, but we are close enough that life is getting back to normal around the Chapman household.  Troy and Youngin came over for lunch yesterday after meeting so we could load KamVu onto his laptop.  Lorena made soup and sandwiches, so that was a nice break from all of the studying and work.

Lorena got lots of greetings from lots of places on her birthday yesterday.  We spent a quiet evening, but plan to celebrate a little more this weekend.  This will be a working weekend for homeschool and our some of our programming projects.  Kelly said she could get completely caught up this weekend on all of her material.  Dad has to do his correction job for Christian to get caught up, but I do not think that will be a problem.  Now there is another round of standardized testing (CLEP Western Civilization I for Kelly on January 20 and the ACT for both of the kids on February 6).  We are finally getting toward the end of our 900 page U.S. History book.  We have ordered several other books, one on writing, one on gracious argumentation, and one on ancient civilization.  Also, Deanne gave us a good recommendation, so I will try to pull out the Strunk and White writing book sometime this weekend, too.

You know what I’ve noticed? Messy buns are particularly hard to master. If I concentrate too hard while making them, I run the risk of ending up with one of three looks: ‘Neat and tidy bun that was supposed to be messy’ or ‘messy bun with too much thought put into it’ or just ‘mess’ This is why I prefer making neat and tidy buns. I like how they look and they’re much more simple to make than messy buns. Unfortunately, by wearing a neat and tidy bun every Sunday I run the risk of developing a premature signature bun. I am too young for this! Signature buns are for settled matrons and gossipy old maids. I am most certainly not at this advanced (though coveted and highly respected) stage of life.

Besides, my Sunday bun is more of a chignon than anything, and chignons do not signature buns make. No, signature buns have some sort of flair. For some women this means piling their hair on top of their heads a-la-Marge-Simpson, or poofing up the front part a-la-pompadour, or pulling it tightly back and wrapping it around their heads like a hot dog a-la-someone-I-know. Ah, the varieties!! Though I’m ashamed to admit it, I used to draw the backs of women’s heads during Gospel meeting, meticulously shading every tuck in the French rolls, every misplaced hair in the doughnuts, every twist in the sky-highs! Yes, a signature bun is the culmination of a life well lived. It tells people who you are, what you were, it screams your personality to the world. When people see your hair, they not only see your hair, they see YOU in your hair! This is why I am unprepared for one. As much as I and nearly every other girl I know long for a signature, it is unattainable as of yet.

But let’s pray it stays that way for another 40 years, OK?

Our plan was to work through this past weekend and last weekend to get caught up on homeschool.  The kids pretty much did that, but I was not there to help them.  I worked all day Saturday, then went to work yesterday after our Sunday morning meeting.  It was pretty rewarding work and I enjoyed it, but I really needed to work with the kids on their school–Kelly in planning, Christian in finalizing his geometry and C++ multi-threaded programming, and both of them in reading.  We will try that one more time next weekend.  Still, they did a great job.  We are still a little behind, but not as far behind as this time last week.

For the last half year, up until yesterday, I only had to work four and a half days per week.  It was very, very nice.  I had been working a lot more than five days per week anyway, but it was nice to get off early on Friday afternoons to go home and do things with the family.  So now that I am working full time for a living again, I am going to have to figure out some good ways to make up for what feels like lost time.  I think this might be a good excuse for a beach trip or a trip to Washington D.C. or something like that.  We have wanted to do that anyway.  Well, we are at crunch time here at work for the next couple of weeks, so I am going to have to plan for that much later in the month.

Dad’s got homeschool pretty much covered, but not the rest of our lives, so here’s our 2009 in summary!

January:
It snows a lot… everyone’s toes are cold and we make tamales and go go-karting at Pigeon Forge with friends and 25 Random Things on Facebook is big.

February:
I take the ACT. That’s it. February is always such an uneventful month.

March
Amigurumis are made, we go to Georgia to visit good friends and go to the World of Coke, and we see FIDDLER ON THE ROOF(!!!) I turn 15.

April
Aunt Julia comes to visit and we do awesome things like make bread and play card games and go to garden nurseries!

May
Swimteam starts up again, the whole family gets temporarily fired up about the garden, we all cook a lot and go to the history museum, and we go to a paintball get together in the Charlotte area.

June
Christian and I laugh it up with the swimteam buddies, Christian owns his events, I do something weird to my arm in mine, and we all enjoy summertime.

July
Tio Jorge, Tia Mary, Jorgito, Valeria and Brandon all come down for a visit, we celebrate the fourth of July with the Mathises (early fireworks!!) Dad and Christian complete the cat tower, my friend Danielle stays with us for a weekend, Betty Blonde turns 1, Betty Blonde T-shirt is released.

August
We go to OREGON!! There, we are greeted at Portland’s green-and-purple carpeted airport by awesome friends. We stay with Grandma and Grandpa, visit old friends and wonderful cousins, and best of all, go to Boring for a work day and to Saginaw for convention.  It went by too quickly! School starts up again. 8th grade for Christian, 10th grade for me.

September
Conventions continue… we go to Denton and Shelby and see our Southern friends. Christian turns 14.

October
We go to another get together in the Charlotte area (different people), carve pumpkins, play soccer with friends and sing hymns.  Christian and I have a Halloween party + ice skating.  I am the Cat in the Hat. Christian is a newspaper vending machine.

November
MEXICO!  We go to Thanksgiving dinner, my quincenera, a wedding, and lots of carne asadas!  We get to see all our beautiful little cousins and all our beautiful older cousins.  We are lucky to have seen both sets of cousins in one year!

December
We start the annual Christmas puzzle, Jenna and I do a lot of baking, Dad works hard, Mom works hard, we have a lovely Christmas, and we ring in the New Year with our now traditional call to the Joyces.

I have already written about the fact that we are a little bit behind in our homeschool right now and that we made a major overhaul of our homeschool schedule last week.  That major overhaul was not just about getting caught up.  The big change for Kelly is that she now makes her own weekly work schedule.  We lined out her goals for the rest of the year with milestones along the way.  Last Sunday afternoon we sat down together and made this weeks schedule.  The plan is that she will work together to make her schedule each weekend until she gets the hang of it, then I will go over it with her to assure she will meet the goals on which we have agreed.

I still continue to make Christian’s schedule this year, but have decided on a change of emphasis in his reading.  In that upgrade, we have scheduled his first book, The Intellectuals by Paul Johnson.  After that he will read Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason.  He has started into Johnson book already.  It is much more difficult reading, but he enjoys it.  We are just about finished with our read through a A Patriot’s History of the United States.  We will move next to Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl.  Then we will move on to read The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer.  We have pre-ordered her The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, too.

There is only one CLEP test this month.  Kelly will take the Western Civilization I test.  Then, in February, there will be no CLEP tests but both of the kids will take the ACT with essay.  To help with that, I have ordered a well known book titled On Writing Well by William Zinsser.  I have been told it is somewhat of a classic.  When it gets here, we will decide whether to read it aloud or have each of the kids read it on their own.

It is hard to catch up when you get behind.  We are in the middle of that right now.  After all the traveling and the holiday break we have found ourselves about a week behind in several of our homeschool materials.  That manifested itself very clearly in our recent homeschool planning.  It is a little bit frustrating, but once we had identified all the issues and made a plan, it seemed a whole lot more tractable.  We are in the midst of a two week period where all of us will have to work late every night, then work through a couple of weekends to get to the point where life is sane again.  The funny deal is that it is invigorating for all of us to have a high goal and an aggressive plan to get there.

There will be setbacks in the completion of the plan.  Some of it involves math which is something that requires firm understanding of complex things.  It cannot be rushed.  So, while we plan for a hard two week push, it might turn into a hard three week push.  All of this will be worth it when we meet our goal.  Just about the time Kelly takes her next CLEP test, we should be caught up.  By then, we should be ready for a new read aloud book.  We are nearing the end of your 900 pages US History text (awesome) and plan to read something on the art of gracious argument before going on to a 900 page Ancient History text.  First, though, we have to get caught up.

Today is BUSY and I’m a little lazy, so I’m just gonna put up some overdue Christmas photos and catch up on the blog later. 🙂

Sugar cookies that Jenna and I made

Tons of chocolate covered pretzels and a cookie bag. Please ignore the mayonnaise and artichoke hearts.

Jenna and I before going Christmas shopping. If you can’t tell, Jenna’s the fashionable one, and I’m the candy cane. You should have seen my knee socks… o_O

We are back into testing season.  Kelly is the only one taking a CLEP test (Western Civilization I) on the next (January 20) test date.  Then, neither Kelly nor Christian will be ready for their next CLEP test until March.  I was going to wait until closer to the end of the year to take our State of North Carolina required nationally normed standardized test, but since February is a test free month I decided to go ahead and get it out of the way for the year.  So, I signed them both up to take the ACT (with essay) on February 6.  We had a great time when they took that test last year.  The kids are tied up for 3-4 hours so Lorena and I have the chance to go out and have lunch, walk around the mall, and talk.

It is nice to work on some new stuff in our homeschool this winter.  Kelly will work on her essay preparation over the next month, maybe even posting some of her stuff here on the blog.  Christian will work on his stuff, too, but wants to practice a little more before he puts anything up on the blog.  Beside that Christian dived into his first big programming project.  I broke down over the holidays and bought text messaging for out telephones.  Kelly, the social one, uses it a lot to talk to her friends.  Just like the government schools, text messaging during school is out of bounds in the Chapman family homeschool.  Christian texts his friends a little, but decided he wants to write a program that accepts text messages from the telephone, executes them on his (Linux netbook) computer, then sends results back to his telephone as a series of text messages.  The plan is to use the Twitter libraries to get the messages from his phone to the computer, then use a C++ email library to send the results back through one of the SMS email services (maybe gmail) to his phone.  He is making great progress.

We want to build one of these: