Month: August 2012

Christian just sent me a chat message telling me his Electrical Engineering professor’s wife taught the class today.  I have never heard of that, but it is WAY cool!!!  He has experienced something I have never experienced.  The closest I ever got to that was when my second grade teacher at Harrison Elementary in Cottage Grove, Oregon (Miss Rohr from North Carolina of all things–I was in love with her) had her boyfriend come to class.  He was very cool.  Still it is not the same as having a wife who can take over and teach your national research university level electrical engineering class.  Just WOW!  The even cooler part is that her name was Mrs. Molner–not Ms. Molner or some other hyphenated, politically correct nonsense.

Day 375 of 1000

For some reason Kelly’s CLEP tests did not make it into the system at NCSU, so we had to resend them.  Kelly made passing scores on 39 credits worth of material.  Many schools accept all of those credits, only 15 and maybe 18 of those credits are eligible at NCSU.  She receive four additional credits for a class that was not eligible (English Composition) because of a high ACT English score.  The courses they did not accept were Spanish (12 credits–but she has already satisfied her foreign language requirement by other means), precalculus (3 credits–she is way beyond that so it did not matter so much), and Psychology (3 credits–but they accepted Sociology which satisfied the social science credits for which Psychology would have applied).  The one that is up in the air is Biology for 3 credits–it has to be approved by the Biology department so that is in process.

We are excited because Kelly now has 82 credits and could have 85 if they give here Biology.  That means she will be an 18 year old college senior next semester.  If she would have gotten just a few more credits, she could have entered NCSU as a senior, but all of that is made kind of irrelevant because she is taking a difficult degree in Statistics that has some required classes that will keep her here this year and next.  It is really exciting to see this progress toward something on which she has worked very hard for over ten years.

Day 374 of 1000

Even with all its warts, godlessness, and liberal ways, Oregon State University is a profoundly better school than Duck U (Univ. of Oregon).  Their campus is pretty, they have engineering programs, etc., etc. We were talking about that this morning as the kids got ready for school.  They mentioned that even though it is true that NCSU is a profoundly better school than NCSU than UNC in the same way OSU is better than Duck U, NCSU has a little bit of an inferiority complex because UNC has been identified as the “flagship” university of the North Carolina system and is the oldest public university in the country.

Thinking about that made me want to check out which Oregon school was established first.  I saw that OSU (1868) was second so I assumed that Duck U was first.  But I was wrong.  Duck U was a weak THIRD (1876).  What is now called Western Oregon University was established as Monmouth University Christian College in 1856.  My Finnish grandmother studied there when it was called Oregon Normal School.  How cool is that?  A lot of my cousins went to school there and our buddy, Miles Nelson is studying there now.

Day 371 of 1000

At the last minute on Monday afternoon, my company asked me to go to Charlotte and then on to a place called Campobello, North Carolina.  It was a great week, but it involved a ton of driving and some long hours.  It is a good thing I love my job.  I met some great new people.  One of them was one of those guys with whom you hope you can stay in touch for a long time.  He got married to his bride when they were both 16 and has made a ton of excellent choices since then.  An amazing thoughtful and intelligent man.  I hope I get to meet his family someday.

In the meantime, Christian is hard at work trying to find some undergraduate research.  It looks like his has at least one great option, but has another interview tomorrow, so he will wait until he talks to the second guy to make a decision.

Day 365 of 1000

For the last several months I have been being told it will be impossible to get a room in Charlotte anytime after mid-August because of the Democrat National Convention.  My company wanted me to go to Charlotte this week, but I told them it was not possible.  They told me that another guy from the company had gotten a job earlier today.  They called and got me a room, too, so here I am.  I guess the turn out is going to be WAY less than expected.  I was even able to add a day at the last minute.  This does not seem to bode well for the convention or the party.

Christian just asked me that question in frustration with his politically correct in the most sophomoric way possible writing class at NCSU.  This is the last one he will have to take.  To bad Kelly is not there to draw caricatures of another smug English major pontificating about the importance of embracing immoral behavior.  I feel for him.

Day 364 of 1000

Our favorite Mexican restaurant here in the Raleigh area is a place called Tacos Mexico in Fuquay-Varina.  It would be just a run of the mill Mexican food place if it were not for the fact that they serve their food with hand made corn tortillas, they have a friendly, efficient wait staff, and they have very interesting signs announcing job opportunities by the front door.  The first time we noticed the signs was when they were advertising for a “chipera“.  I saw and asked Lorena what was a “chipera“?  She said she had no idea and she is a native Spanish speaker, so that was a little weird.  Kelly did not know either.  We stood there for after about a minutes scratching our heads.  I was about to stick my head in the door and ask because we were pretty curious.  Then Christian started laughing.

He said, “I know what it means!”

We all said, “What?!??”

He said, “The person that passes out the chips!”

We thought that was probably one of the best pochisms we had ever heard.

Today, we noticed that they are looking for una mesera de buena presentación.  We think that means they want to hire a good looking waitress.  Maybe Jon can explain it to us.

Day 363 of 1000

Lorena, Kelly, and Christian visited the Packapalooza event today on a closed off Hillsborough Street by the North Carolina State University campus. NCSU is celebrating the 125th year of its founding on March 7, 1887. It is a land grant, sea grant, space grant school and easily the best University in North Carolina if not the world (I am giving them my money, so I might as well drink the Kool-Aid)! Kelly bought a turkey leg and was gracious enough to give me a bite. What a great way to kick off the school year.

Day 361 of 1000

I am back after a week of frenetic activity.  Today is the kids’ first day as full time students at NCSU.  Lorena started back taking a couple of classes yesterday at Wake Tech.  I have been to Texas and all over North Carolina.  Tonight I go home and will be glad to be there for a few weeks because there are no hotel rooms available in Charlotte because of the Democrat National Convention.

Day 352 of 1000

Day 351 of 1000

I went to work today at a place in Charlotte.  A good chunk of the work they do will be outsourced to the Dominican Republic because the product they make is for use in the tobacco industry, so it gets taxed heavily here, but not in the DR.  It seems kind of crazy, but these taxes make their manufacture in the US uncompetitive.  A bunch of people here in the U.S. will lose their jobs specifically because of this tax.  It was pretty sad.

Day 350 of 1000

I have to leave the family at home while I run off to Charlotte for a couple of days.  I am going to play with my Arduino for some of those days.  I love my job.

We have a church potluck tomorrow morning.  When we were driving home from the White Oak Mall today we talked about what we should make and all agreed that Lorena should try to copy our friend Tatyana’s potato recipe.  She made it for us for dinner one evening and it was awesome.  We are sure it will not turn out as good as Tatyana’s, but we are hoping for the best.

Deroy Murdock at National Review Online explains where the idea that so called “public schools” are really government schools with every bad connotation possible.  Read the article which describes what the incomparable Milton Friedman had to say about it here.  We homeschooled and were very happy with that. Still, we never had any illusion that homeschooling was for everyone, but firmly believe that government schools are not the answer as is attested to by abysmal government school standardized test scores compared to those earned by homeschoolers.  I love the final paragraph of the article and plan to honor Milton Friedman in that way:

Americans who miss Dr. Milton Friedman can honor his memory and continue his excellent work in modernizing American education. They can abandon the term “public schools” and adopt the phrase “government schools.” While plenty more needs to be done to rescue the American classroom, each of us effortlessly can take this small step forward.