Year: 2012 Page 5 of 11

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.

Day of 345 of 1000

Christian and Kelly bust my chops on my pathetic photography skills.  I am sure they are right, but I love the quote by the fat rat in Ratatoullie:

Once you muscle your way past the gag reflex, all kinds of possibilities open up.

If you have no taste in art, then there are so many more pleasing things to see.  In that spirit, I am looking for a replacement header image for this web site.  I have tried several new ones over the last few days and there ain’t nobody happy in this household with my choices of photographs.  I just want people to know that the current header (two cats lounging on the hardwood floor) is merely another placeholder until I find approval and peace returns to the household.

Day 344 of 1000

I stretched my college years out way longer than made any sense.  Actually, it was pretty irresponsible and had ramifications for the rest of my life.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am very, very happy with the trajectory of my life.  I have amazing interesting work, have travelled the world, have a family that is way better than I deserve, etc., etc.  Still, I try to tell my kids that when your in school, your whole goal is to get out and go to work.  Even if, maybe especially if you want your career to be as a professor it seems like a good move to get through the school and go to work.  Work pays MUCH better than student life.

I separate all that from the concept of life-long learning.  I think one of my biggest regret is that I did not get more than one Masters degree.  A second, third, and fourth Masters degree is about the joy of learning, not punching a ticket.  I had an acquaintance who was a high school physics and chemistry teacher who just kept going back to school to get more degrees one class at a time after work.  He always liked to research, write, and defend a thesis with his degrees, too–none of that project stuff for him. He had a great life, a LOT of knowledge, lots of friends and opportunities just kept opening up to him because of all his knowledge, learning, and ability to share what he knew. 

Day 343 of 1000

The compressed summer semester drags on.  Kelly has spent the last three days fighting the temptation to browse Facebook, Pinterest, her web comic addiction, and the plethora of blogs that she reads.  I moved my computer downstairs for the weekend because it is so hot upstairs.  Kelly babysat on Friday night, but we spent all day Saturday, and every spare minute after Sunday morning meeting studying.  I worked on my day job work and Kelly studied.  Christian did not have it as bad, but he only has one more test on Wednesday while Kelly has a mid-term on Tuesday and a final on Thursday.  How ugly is that.  Kelly did not even have time to go to the YMCA to work out and that is unusual.

The test will be very, very hard and she needs to have the material down cold for Mathematical Statistics I next semester.  The next ten months are going to be pretty brutal, but all our school, up until now, has been leading to precisely this very difficult stretch.  Both the kids will need to remain very focused to pass some very hard classes–mathematical statistics, non-linear dynamics, real analysis, advance linear algebra, modern abstract algebra, design of experiments, etc., etc.  The easy stuff, Psychology, Literature, Speech, History, and all the other liberal arts are behind them.  I do not think these mathematical topics are easy for anyone.  They certainly were not easy for me.