Month: November 2013 Page 1 of 2

All graduate school applications complete!

On Friday, November 29, 2013

Day 830 of 1000
Betty Blonde #14 – 08/05/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

The graduate school applications are all complete, we had a great Thanksgiving with LOTS of leftovers, Christian has one problem left on his take-home test (the computational problem, not the really hard proofs problems), and we are reconciled to the fact that there are two and a half weeks of pretty serious pain left for this semester. The big deal is that we are now in a waiting game to see which schools, if any, accept the kids. We probably will not know the whole story until March or April. At least we have that money monkey (Was that a freudian slip or what?) off our back for now. Life is good.

Thanksgiving 2013

By Dad

On Thursday, November 28, 2013

In Family

This will probably be our last Thanksgiving with both the kids living at home. The turkey is in the oven, Christian, is studying by the fire, Lorena and Kelly are cooking and the cats are relaxing.

Lorena and Kelly cooking
Kiwi sleeping
Christian studying by the fire

All fresh fruit!!!

Thanksgiving and frequentists vs. bayesians

By Dad

On Thursday, November 28, 2013

In Family

Day 829 of 1000
Betty Blonde #13 – 08/04/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

Everyone one is still in bed at 9:30 on Thanksgiving morning. Christian stayed up later than everyone to work on his Linear Algebra take-home exam. I stayed up late to give him some moral support. Lorena and Kelly stayed up to watch some wedding video of some of their friends. I woke up this morning at about 7:30 to the cat staring me in the face and yowling like crazy. So I got up to feed her, check the turkey (it has to be close to room temperature before I start cooking it–we are ready to go), have a cup of coffee, and do my morning reading.

There is a fascinating philosophical cat fight between Frequentists and Bayesians going on in the world of Statistics. A blog articles titled Statistical Zealots over at Simply Statistics is about that fight. Be sure to read through the comments. Some of these people are serious as a heart attack about this issue. Kelly and Christian have been telling me about and I meant to read up on it to figure out what it is about. I consume statistical consulting services in my work, so I am sure I will run into this in the future and it will be important to understand the issues. It might take some real work to understand all the issues. Fun stuff.

Another monster topic of great importance today is that my wife and daughter made a lemon merangue pie for us last night. My Finnish grandmother, Ida Jenkins, always made lemon merangue pie, from scratch, at Thanksgiving when I was growing up. It was very tart with a TON of merangue. We plan to make this an annual tradition. This is the first year, so the girls just followed the recipe. It looks awesome. Next year, I am going to lobby to up the tartness and up the merangue.

Update: Here is a blog post with amazingly helpful description of the philosophical issues behind the Bayesian vs Frequentist cat fight. It helped me a lot in my understanding, has some reference links, and even a pointer to “the ugliest blog in the world” which is about Statistics!

Plans for Thanksgiving

By Dad

On Wednesday, November 27, 2013

In Family

Day 828 of 1000
Betty Blonde #12 – 08/01/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

We have finished all the graduate school applications except one. Lorena and Kelly are making lemon merangue pie tonight. I am in charge of the turkey, so I will pull it out of the refrigerator later tonight so that it is room temperature when I start cooking–Igor’s tip to help us cook a moist turkey. Christian is getting hammered with his Linear Algebra take-home midterm, so he will spend most of the weekend studying–poor guy. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Video: Oregon logger makes boots

By Dad

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013

In Work

Day 827 of 1000
Betty Blonde #11 – 07/31/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

I loved this video. A guy who moved out to Oregon to log, but eventually got into boot making over in John Day, then moved to Baker City so he could get more traffic. I especially like the part where he and his dad moved from South Dakota to Oregon. They were loggers in South Dakota, but had always wanted to get out into the “big timber”. I have heard lots of people of his generation tell that story.

Dreary

By Dad

On Monday, November 25, 2013

In Education

Day 826 of 1000
Betty Blonde #10 – 07/30/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

We knew this semester would be dreary. Actually, we know that next semester will be pretty dreary, too. We have come a long way in our educational journey from the days we started homeschool in 2000. We have finished quite a few things pretty well. On some stuff, we were too lazy or ignorant to finish particularly well. We can say we gave it our best shot and it has come out pretty well so far. The hardest part in any of this is to finish well after having gone through years of effort toward a singular goal.

It is necessary to finish elementary school well to start junior high well. It is necessary to finish junior high well to start community college college well. It is necessary to finish community college well to start “Big State U.” well. Now we have to finish Big State U, well to start (real) life well. After so many academic, nose-to-the-grindestone years, the idea of letting up a little at the end is alluring, but wrong. The schoolwork is harder than ever. It includes graduate level math and statistics classes and undergraduate research coupled with graduate school and summer internship applications, it takes up a lot of time.

We will have no break over the Thanksgiving holiday then a short reprieve over Christmas break followed by four and a half more months with our noses back to the grindstone. This is not a bad thing, but no one would call it fun. It will all be worth it if we finish well.

My favorite government school teacher responds

By Dad

On Sunday, November 24, 2013

In Education

Day 825 of 1000
Betty Blonde #9 – 07/29/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

Yesterday I wrote a post about a ridiculous event, reported by World Magazine, that happened at a government school in Indianpolis. It was suggested this event was due to problems with the Common Core standards being imposed by the (to paraphrase Wayne LaPierre of the NRA) “jack-booted government school thugs” from the Federal Department of Education. My favorite government school teacher (and cousin), Trisha, disabused me of that notion with the following commentary posted as a comment to the offending blog post.

That curriculum was a problem at the District Level not a Common Core problem. I see this over and over again. Each district implements the Common Core based on their own understanding of it and often choose terrible a terrible curriculum to implement it. I do agree there is a problem with a “one size fits all” standard. I think the lower students suffer the most in this instance because no matter what they are expected to have mastered all of the standards for that grade level by the end of the year. Sometimes students are not developmentally ready for the grade they are in or the curriculum being taught. Higher students have more options that I see. For instance I have a student from a lower grade coming to my class for math and to an upper grade for reading. If the district is asking you to put all students in a box w/o differentiating there is an issue w/ the district or the state. The curriculum is a HUGE issue though. Districts and even states don’t spend enough time doing research into finding a quality curriculum. At our school they have purchased so many different curriculum’s over the years our basement is full of them. They really didn’t do the research and wasted a lot of money. Also, if you decide upon a curriculum teachers really need to be given the time to study it so it can be taught effectively. As for Common Core, every state has always had its own standards, and they are always flawed. Read the Common Core standards before forming an opinion though… because how they are implemented is many times based on a teacher, administrator, or districts opinion of what the standards say, and sometimes that is wayyyyyy off of reality.

I called her on the phone, mostly to see if I was going to be shut out of the house at the next family get-together, but also to talk about what she wrote. Thankfully, she is in full agreement with the idea that whether the problem about which I wrote is a result of Federal involvement or government school ignorance or malfeasence, the Feds have no useful role in public education.

Update: Oops. I almost forgot. You can read Trisha’s awesome blog here.

Preparing for Finals at Hunt

By Dad

On Saturday, November 23, 2013

In Education, Family

Christian works on a take-home test.
Christian works on Linear Algebra at Hunt

The family hangs out in a group study room.
Studying with the family at NCSU Hunt Library

Common Core math just wrong

By Dad

On Saturday, November 23, 2013

In culture, Education, Homeschool

Day 824 of 1000
Betty Blonde #8 – 07/28/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

This is an excerpt from a World Magazine article about how the Common Core government education standards treats math:

Two years ago in September, Heather Crossin’s 8-year-old daughter Lucy came home from her Catholic school in Indianapolis with a math problem that seemed unusual.

“Bridge A is 407 feet long. Bridge B is 448 feet long,” the problem read. “Which bridge is longer? How do you know?”

“Bridge B is longer,” Crossin’s daughter had written. “I found this out by just looking at the number and seeing that 448 is greater than 407.”

The youngster’s answer was mostly wrong: According to her new textbook, enVisionMATH Common Core, she was supposed to compare the hundreds column, the tens column, and the ones column individually. The teacher gave her one point out of three.

Read the whole article here. The sad part is the Common Core is not only bad in its philosophical biases, but in that it will effect even those how do not buy into the governments really bad educational methods and ideas–home and private schools. Here is an excellent analysis of Common Core and its impact from people who have done their homework and have an excellent record of supporting educational methods that actually work.

Should marijuana be legalized? Educational video

By Dad

On Thursday, November 21, 2013

In Politics

Day 822 of 1000
Betty Blonde #7 – 07/25/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

Steven Crowder explains some things about marijuana that many people do not know:

Lorena’s term paper–Intro to New Testament

By Dad

On Wednesday, November 20, 2013

In Education

Day 821 of 1000
Betty Blonde #6 – 07/24/2008

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

Lorena was required to take a Religion class for her college transfer associate degree at Wake Technical Community College. The kids enjoyed their New Testament class while they were at Wake Tech, so Lorena decided to take it, too. Lorena loves both the class and her professor. He is a remarried widower who is also a pastor at a local church. He is an engaging teacher both in the way he lectures and how he manages class discussions.

Today, Lorena had to turn in her term paper and give a five minute presentation on its contents. You can see the paper by clicking either here or on the image to the left. For the last month she has reasearched the life of the Apostle Paul. She took many notes and distilled them down to eight hand-written pages. Then, last weekend, she had Kelly helped her write the report and Christian helped her print it. We think she did a great job.

Lorena faithfully reads her Bible, but feels like she has learned new ways to study that will help her in the future. She feels like she now understands the flow of Paul’s life much better than before. She also has a better sense for the culture and influences around Paul during the time he lived. It makes me want to study my Bible more and better. It also makes me want to read some more history of the Ancient Near East to get a little better understanding of the big picture of that time and place.

Matt Walsh – two days in a row

By Dad

On Tuesday, November 19, 2013

In Christianity

Day 820 of 1000 – Betty Blonde #5

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

This blog post by Matt Walsh is stunningly good. This is my second post in a row about something he has written. Yesterday he wrote about consumerism vs. capitalism. That is kind of a pet peeve with me. That consumerism is bad, capitalism is good, and the two should never be conflated is something I never really articulated, but seems pretty important. Walsh nails it. Today, he writes about family leadership and a trap into which I often fall–joking about getting permission from “the boss” meaning my wife. Like most guys in our culture, I had never given this much thought. It almost seemed like an honoring thing, but Walsh is right, real men should never do it. It is dishonoring. There are a lot of people who will hate the article, but society needs men to be men and women to be women or we will continue to fall apart. The article is worth a read and will resonate with men and women who want to do the right thing for their marriage, their family, and society.

Update: Wow. I went over to Matt Walsh’s facebook page to read some of the comments about this blog post. Most of the people who commented were women and liked the post. Still, there were a lot of women who hated the article, but had obviously read their own cultural bias into it. Walsh explicit said that the husband is NOT the “boss” of the family, but the leader. He goes on to say the husband is equal to his wife not above his wife. Almost every objection was to a strawman: the husband should not be the boss or if the wife is more capable, she should be the boss. I am getting more and more convinced that progressivism causes brain damage.

Consumerism vs. Capitalism – This describes exactly how I feel on the subject

By Dad

On Monday, November 18, 2013

In Business

I have always been an ardent fan of capitalism. Nevertheless, I have some pretty serious reservations about some of its manifestations. I have always identified free entry to and exit from the marketplace as foundational to the practice of capitalism. If it is hard to compete with a large company because their products and services are great, that is one thing. If they engage in predatory trade practices with the sole aim of preventing competition, that is where I would draw the line.

I have also felt quit uncomfortable with the idea that my love for capitalism has been at odds with my disdane for consumerism and materialsim. I was very gratified to find a post on Matt Walsh‘s blog that describes better than I possibly could, the difference between consumerism and capitalism. It is OK, even a great good to embrace capitalism and not consumerism. It is worth your while to read the article.

Busy until the end of the year

By Dad

On Monday, November 18, 2013

In General

Day 819 of 1000 – Betty Blonde #4

Click here or on the image to see full size strip.

It is kind of nice the weekend is over. After three weeks away from home, I was ready for a relaxing weekend, but spent most of the weekend working on graduate school applications, work projects, and some volunteer programming. I think life will be like this until the end of the year. The kids are in their last round of midterms to be followed by finals. After that, Christian needs to work on his last undergraduate research project and paper while Kelly prepares for a very busy final semester. In the middle of all that, we need to assure that the college application process moves forward. It makes me tired just writing about it. I think I might go take a nap.

Officially applied to graduate school (first two): Christian

By Dad

On Sunday, November 17, 2013

In General

Day 818 of 1000 – Betty Blonde #3

Click here to see full size strip.

We filled out and submitted Christian’s first two graduate school applications yesterday. It feels a little bit like the first step on a rite of passage. It is really rough to get into either of the schools to which he applied so who knows whether he will get accepted. There are two are two more schools to go for Christian and six for Kelly. Still, to have paid the application fee and put the decision into the hands of others feels pretty good. Christian has one more semester after this one, but there is nothing more he can do to improve his chances. We did all we could and we will see if it is enough.

Kelly’s undergraduate research symposium at UNC Charlotte

By Dad

On Saturday, November 16, 2013

In Education

Day 817 of 1000
Betty Blonde #2

Click here to see full size strip.

Lorena drove Kelly to UNC Charlotte for an undergraduate research symposium this morning. Several teams from NCSU went there yesterday. Kelly stayed behind to print out all the posters for the three Statistics teams, so she was kind of the hero when she got there this morning. Here she is with one of her teammates by their poster.

Kelly at the undergraduate research symposium

Betty Blonde redux

By Dad

On Friday, November 15, 2013

In Art, Homeschool

Day 816 of 1000
Betty Blonde #1

Click here to see full size strip.

Kelly drew a daily comic strip for two years from when she was fourteen until when she was sixteen. I thought it might be fun to start posting these strips again, one at a time until they are all again available for public consumption. My recent start on an index to all our homeschool art program posts got me to thinking about it. The drawing of the strip was not bad when she started because she and Christian had practiced quite a lot on comic strip art before she started the daily strip. Christian actually drew a graphic novella that I will eventually put up here, too. We had all her comic strips up on the internet until a couple of years ago. I hope to create an index for them as I have time.

Kelly’s first undergraduate research poster

By Dad

On Thursday, November 14, 2013

In Education

Day 815 of 1000

This is Kelly’s first undergraduate research poster she will present at a symposium in Charlotte this weekend. Click on the poster to see or download the poster as a PDF.

The BEST statistics class

By Dad

On Wednesday, November 13, 2013

In Education, Work

Day 814 of 1000

Quality control brownies My professor for Statistical Quality Control at the University of Texas at El Paso was Dr. Thomas McLean. He was the head of the department, a classmate of Ross Perot at the Naval Academy, and a great guy. I was there to run the Machine Vision Applications Laboratory which was started by Dr. Carroll Johnson and I, but they talked me into getting a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering at the same time. I had to take a few undergraduate leveling classes to get started and the SQC class was one of them.

I loved the class. It was not so much that the material was so complex or innovative, but that I had worked in the manufacturing sector for ten years before I arrived at UTEP and I understood its importance. SQC is a tool that is frequently used in conjunction with Machine Vision. Machine Vision has been the main focus of my career, so it was great to take that class with an excellent instructor. I used what I learned in that class for part of my thesis and frequently ever since.

I told Kelly about the class. I am sure she was a little skeptical, but she was required to take it as part of her Statistics degree. She has enjoyed it a lot. Yesterday, she had to make brownies that were used as part of a project for the class where the quality of a process was measured and evaluated. What an awesome way to make this material come to life.

Kelly’s and Christian’s homeschool art program

By Dad

On Tuesday, November 12, 2013

In Art, Homeschool

Day 813 of 1000

Chrsitan draws Grandpa Lauro Kelly's water color of Celia Dad draws Grandpa Lauro Kelly’s watercolor of our friend Celia (middle left) got me to thinking about the art classes we all did during our homeschool years. We all learned how to do pencil portraits during those classes. You can see Christian’s effort at drawing Grandpa Lauro at the top left. Mine is at the bottom left. We sat down every day to do art together for a period of five or six years. We still like to do it when we get the chance. We started with something titled Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad. This post will serve as an index to posts we made on our art training. I say our art training because I got trained at the same time as the kids. The astersiks are posts that include drawings.