This a brilliant, elegant, cheap, simple solution to a problem that everyone confronts, but few really have considered. I LOVE this. How creative can you get?
Year: 2013 Page 7 of 16
Kelly pointed me to a very cool article about the relative starting salaries of students who graduate from universities in North Carolina. Not surprisingly Duke was #1. My sense is that some of the difference there might be attributable to North Carolina natives (and many out of state students) unwillingness to leave this beautiful state while the Dukies might just be passing through to high paying jobs in high cost of living, less desireable places to live. Of course that is just my thought on the topic.
The really surprising news is that NCSU is #2. I think that might be partly due to the greater rigor in their engineering programs. Not unsurprisingly, UNC Chapel Hill was not even #3. Wake Forest, North Carolina A&T, and UNC Charlotte all provided higher paying job opportunities for their graduates then UNC Chapel Hill. Also not surprising, every school ahead of UNC Chapel Hill is a strong STEM schools with a full complement of Engineering programs.
Day 709 of 1000
Without notification, our web host went out of business and shut down our website. We lost 70-80 of the latest blog posts. I have a diminishing hope of getting any of that back, but the good news is that everything from June 4, 2013 back was preserved and we have a more frequent back-up plan in place. The other good part is that this haitus has made me think about what I am writing and what I want to do with the blog. I definitely figured out I want to keep going. I will continue to write about the culmination of the homeschool process as the kids finish college and go on to graduate school, but I have decided to try to write some more substantive posts in addition to that. The content is still little up in the air, but I have some ideas.
Day 701 of 1000
There is an article in PC magazine that asks the question: Do People Really Want to Touch Their PC Screens? I think it is a great question. Of course tablets, hybrid machines, and cellphones are going to diminish the demand for full-blown desktop and laptop PC’s, but the whole paradigm shift to PC’s that work best with screen touches seems to diminish my productivity unnecessarily.
Day 698 of 1000
Sometimes it is a challenge to have a good attitude when it does not seem like people who should know better do not have your family’s best interests at heart. Compound that with the knowledge that there is no excuse for a bad attitude nor a persecution complex, especially on the drive home from meeting. The discussion on the drive home was both animated and about an hour long based on events and history. Suffice it to say I struggled a little with all this, but believe I got the better of it by the time we home, life was much better.
Then Lorena sent Christian and I to Harris Teeter (the closest grocery store to the house) to pick up a few things. They give away free samples in the store, but it is never as good as Costco on a Saturday morning. This morning, though, they out-did themselves. I do not know whether it was on purpose or by accident. They had some awesome sourdough French bread in front of the bread section. Over by the deli section, they had sliced turkey breast. They had cheese samples over by the cheese color. You can see the result in the picture and it was really good. Christian told me to tell people that thing under my thumb is not a pat of butter, but a square of cheese.
An awesome little sandwich put it all into perspective.
Day 693 of 1000
My Finnish grandmother used to write letters to all her grandkids. She wrote with a beautiful hand about the weather, her garden, who she had seen, and all kinds of other mundane things. It was fabulous to receive one. Whenever any of us felt bad, we would write her a letter because we knew we would get one back even though she just lived across town. I wrote letters to my family when I was in college, to Lorena, when we were courting, and to many, many friends and relatives over the years.
Part of the appeal was the days and weeks wait between letters. It made one work hard at getting it right because, if you blew it, it took a pretty long time to make it right. I think people can get pretty flip with Internet communications because responses are so immediate. If you say something wrong, you can correct it in less than a minute. I think it probably coarsens discourse.
It gave me great joy to see that Kelly made postcards for her friends to send via “snail mail.” There are some things that the internet will never replace. When someone does something like this for you, you know it took some effort. You know the person was doing it for you. Specifically. I miss it. I think I need to start writing snail mail letters again
Day 690 of 1000
I am working in Arvada Colorado for a few days with one of our vendors. We are making a big push to get some stuff done, so everyone came into work this Saturday morning. I drove through McDonalds on the way in to get some breakfast. The young girl who greated me acted genuinely excited to be taking my order. I said thank you when I finished my order and she giggled. When I got to the window, she gave me a big smile, looked me in the eye, and asked me how I was doing. It surely seemed like she really wanted to know. I love that. So many times we go through the little processes of day to day life without giving it much thought. It was a reminder to me that service with a smile is important and is a huge thing when it is genuine.
Update: Lorena read this and reminded me that she worked at the very first McDonalds that opened in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. She has VERY fond memories of her time there. It was all brand new, the employees were selected very carefully, it was a happy, fun place to work, and they genuinely tried to do the best they could for their customers. How good is that.
Day 689 of 1000
Kelly and I have been having a fairly interesting text conversation about how to interact with people from work and school. As the youngest person or the only female in a group, it is pretty disgusted when people use bad language and/or make off-color comments. I have a theory about that. If someone is willing to do or say something disgusting in a group setting, I think they are fair game and pretty much go for the throat on them, usually in a loud voice. Some of you might have even seen me do it.
Invariably, the response is something like, “Hey, I was just fooling around, It’s no big deal.”
Well, to some of us, it is. Why anyone would say or do things at the expense of others is beyond my understanding and there should be a price to pay as close to the time of offense as possible. I am not talking about one or two accidental innuendos either–everyone knows when this is actually going on. The sad part is that, when it happens, sometimes others try to get in on the fun. When that happens, it is time to just leave.
Day 687 of 1000
I have not been to Denver for years. I think the last time I even flew through Denver it was at the old Stapleton Airport. I will be there through the weekend. Sadly, I will be working throught the weekend (except I hope to get away Sunday morning). I am hoping to see an old friend or two there if I can get away. I will post some pictures if I do.
Day 683 of 1000
Many of you may know that I am a big Arduino fan. Most of the time I spend on airplanes these days, is with a netbook computer programming an Arduino Mega for a project Christian is doing at NCSU. We were down at RadioShack yesterday buying parts for this project. We found out that RadioShack now carries Arduinos and a ton of accessories. I think I must be the last guy that knew that. Everything you need to control just about anything you could imaginge for under $50 is available within a short drive of just about anywhere in America. Impressive.
For the second time in two day, Christian saves a turtle in the middle of the road.
Day 682 of 1000
Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah got married on July 4, 1953. On the day after they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary the day before our dear friend Bethany Joyce is marrying her Josh. I hope Bethany and Josh have as many great years as my parents. Dad and Mom went over to coast for their honeymoon and have tried to get there for their anniversary every time they got the chance. This year, the Julias (Aunt Julia and Cousin Julia) drove them over to Depoe.
They are doing very, very well enjoying life. I am especially thankful for dear friends who pick them up twice per week for meeting and other friends who take them out for dinner and even to family reunions and the like (Thanks Glad!). Especially, I am glad for my siblings who live close by and work together to make the huge effort necessary to give them a great quality of life in their advancing years.
Day 650 of 1000
Lorena, Kelly, Christian, and I took the five hour drive up to Baltimore on Saturday. We took her there so she could start her new job as a Statistical Intern at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU APL) in Laurel, Maryland. She stays with our (new/old) friends Brian and Celia’s who have an awesome house close to both the airport and train station in Baltimore. Christian drove Lorena up in the Accord while Kelly drove me up in the Fiesta. We drove from Brian and Celia’s house to the JHU APL and back so Kelly would know where it is. It is quite a good internship. Kelly is a little apprehensive, but excited. She is filling out paperwork and going through orientation this morning.
The funny and excellent deal about this job is that she got it ENTIRELY on her own. Last fall, she went to the NCSU job fair, had a brienf talk with the people at the JHU APL booth, and gave her resume to them. She did the same with a bunch of other companies, but got follow-up interviews with Target, Caterpillar, and JHU APL. She had a horrible interview with Target, but received job offers from Cat and JHU APL.Two out of three is really pretty amazing. This is her first serious job (well, babysitting might be considered pretty serious, too). She got it completely on her own. She made all the connections and got the job based on her resume and her performance at the interviews. It is really very exciting.
We are very appreciative that Christian was willing to drive all the way back home from Baltimore to Raleigh for a sum total of ten hours in the drivers seat. All good stuff.
Day 651 of 1000
When Kelly tells people she is a Statistics major, people often ask if it is possible to get a job with that degree. Beside the tactlessness of the question we are amazed that people know so little about what is driving innovation in medicine, the internet, marketing, agriculture, sociology, psychology, and just about every other field imaginable. Big money is invested to mine information from the mountains of data produced in clinical studies, internet commerce, engineering research, etc. A deep knowledge of statistics is required to do this work. Statisticians are in big demand.
What prompted this diatribe? I have written about some of the demand for statistical knowledge in the past (see here and here), but another example showed up today in an article on ZDNet today. Dell and Intel are building a “Big Data” innovation center in Singapore. Who will man the center? Statisticians!
Day 647 of 1000
A few weeks ago, my friend Eric told me about a book written by Karl Oakes. Karl is a mutual friend of ours. The book he wrote is titled From Circumcision to Paul: The Prehistory of the Catholic Church. I just downloaded it to my Samsung S3 from Amazon and look forward to reading it. The preface to the book describes the premise quite nicely:
Students of early church history are confronted with an almost insurmountable problem. There are no more than a handful of authentic Christian documents from between the close of the New Testament around A.D. 70 and the emergence of the Catholic Church in the middle of the second century. The literary evidence is so sparse that it is almost impossible to chart the course of Christianity in the intervening years. Nevertheless, an indisputable fact emerges from a comparison of the writings of teh apostles with those of early Catholicism: the two do not match. The ministry has changed from the apostolic pattern, the theology is distinctly unPauline, a liturgy has developed, and the rites of baptism and the breaking of bread are viewed and observed differently; even the Scriptures do not correspond. It is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
There is a reason for the poor fit. The two bodies of literature are expressions of different Christian traditions. The Bible was written by the eye-witnesses of the Lord and their immediate followers; the apologies and letters of the Fathers are from the church which would later be called universal. The differences cannot be explained by claiming the first century church was yet primitive while the second century literature reflects a more mature state of development. The chasm is simply too great.
If the writings of early Catholicism do not represent the church of Peter and Paul, then who were Papias, Polycarp, and the other presbyters of the second century? The question takes us back into the New Testament. The most complex and controversial issue confronting the apostles concerned the Law of Moses. The disciples followed the example and teachings of Jesus in all things, but were they also expected to follow him in his observance of Torah? The apostles and elders convened at Jerusalem and unanimously agreed that Gentile Christians were not bound by the Law. However, some believeing Pharisees refused to accept the decision and mounted a campaign to convince the saints in the outlying churches. The circumcising teachers who opposed Paul formed a cohesive movement, but when the New Testament finally closes, they utterly vanish from the pages of history.
If they had continued and evolved, what would such a church look like? It would have many features of rabbinical Judaism wrapped in a Christian package. They would have retained the more important Jewish festivals, perhaps Passover. Their worship and liturgical practices would derive from synagogal precedents, and their common prayer would be patterned after the Eighteen Benedictions. We would expect to find church documents without a trace of Pauline influence and a history of the apostolic period without Paul. We would see fasting regulations, rules on marital abstinence, Hebrew baptismal customs, and a legalistic theology. It would, in short, resemble the Catholic Church as it emerged into view in the middle of the second century.
History is written by the winners.
–George OrwellHistory is written by the victors, but eventually the truth comes out.
–Former South Vietnamese Ambassador to the US
I have read a lot of Ancient Near East history, but my reading has been relegated mostly to academic works on the history of the resurrection of Christ by authors like NT Wright, JP Moreland, Ben Witherington III, and others. I am an avid fan of Rodney Stark, a sociologist who writes about the influence of Christianity, the Crusades, and the growth of the church over the centuries. I have read about the Waldensians, the Cathars, and other non-Catholic Christian movements that tried to closely follow the bibile. This will be a departure from all that. I hope to learn something and will report back as I work my way through the book.
Day 639 of 1000
Lorena and I went to Hugo’s in Prescott for lunch today. She had tacos de carne asada and I had tacos de pollo. It was absolutely excellent. I HIGHLY recommend Hugo’s if you are fan of of Northern Mexican cuisine. They had some caldo we tried that was excellent, too. I need to have that next time (the Thursday special).
Day 638 of 1000
Life is good.
Day 637 of 1000
I go to the airport tomorrow a little after lunch to pick up Lorena. You have no idea what a good deal that is. The kids will stay in California for another week, so Lorena and I will have a great chance to just hang out together. In the meantime, the first phase of th college graduate school visit portion of the the summer tour is officially over. So far, they have visited SDSU, UCLA, Stanford, and UC Davis. Surprisingly, Kelly believes UC Davis has the best campus. Of course, the believe nothing compares to NCSU, but they have had a great time visiting schools. We will see how it goes later this summer at University of Arizona, University of Texas at Dallas, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Washington.
Day 636 of 1000
Well, I thought I was going to have the chance to catch on my post series, it looks like it is not going to happen. I continue to keep the home fires burning while Kelly and Christian continue there Summer of 2013 Graduate School TourTM. Christian meet with the head of the ECE Graduate School at Stanford while Kelly got of tour of Google from a friend who has a summer internship there. Vacation of a lifetime. Tomorrow, it is on to UC Davis. Here they are, walking around the Stanford campus with Lorena.
Day 635 of 1000
Service that would make Chick-fil-A proud, really cool, retro uniforms, and great food is not enough to impress Lorena, but if they can provide chiles with the hamburgers, too, then Lorena is VERY impressed. Now Lorena is a BIG In-N-Out fan just like Christian and Kelly. I became a huge fan myself about a week and a half ago when I found out they have what they call Protein Wrap Burgers–Hamburgers wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun!