Month: April 2014

Last day of class for Kelly at NCSU

On Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Day 974 of 1000

Today is Kelly’s last day of class at NCSU. Tomorrow and Friday are reading days followed by finals week next week. Christian will graduate at the same time as Kelly, but take one more class during the first summer session, finishing his time at NCSU at the end of June. Kelly turns in here last big paper of her undergraduate degree (Macroeconomics) and has only two finals left before she is done. Christian gives a speech on his Honors Mathematics research at 4:00 PM, but will have a few more days before he has to turn in the formal research report written with LaTeX. There is so much academic pressure on them right now, there is little time for melancholy, but I am sure that will come. I plan to post these final to undergraduate reports along with their homeschool reports as soon as both of them are available.

Betty Blonde #105 – 12/10/2008

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Math Honors ceremony with Dr. Paur

By Dad

On Tuesday, April 22, 2014

In Education

Day 973 of 1000

Math Honors ceremony at NCSU

Christian’s academic adviser, Dr. Sandra Paur, hosted a small ceremony yesterday to honor the graduating Mathematics Honors students at NCSU. Kelly was there and took the picture at the right when it was Christian’s turn. Dr. Paur talked a little bit about what each student had done and where they were going next. Because this was the math department, most of the students were going on to Math or Statistics degrees at an impressive array of schools. Christian was the only one going on to an Engineering degree.

We learned several interesting things from the event. First, many very big name schools value North Carolina Mathematics graduates. Several students were going on to PhD’s in Mathematics and Statistics at Stanford and Berkeley. Several of those students had been awarded NSF grants for their Mathematics research at the undergraduate level. Almost all the students who had received those awards had spent their entire four years at NCSU and were better versed in the way the system works for those kinds of things than us. Some of the other students also were able to start sequences in their first two years that were not available to Christian at the community college, so he had to scramble the whole way through to get all the material he wanted. I still believe that the kids were profoundly better served for many reasons to have attended community college for their first two year, but I can see the benefit of learning and working within the system over the entire four years.

Secondly, all the other students who were going on to graduate school were continuing to Mathematics or Statistics degrees. That is great and I think Christian was a little torn about that. He would have loved to study more Mathematics. Still, in the case of both Kelly and Christian, their Mathematics and Statistics undergraduate degrees have served them extremely well in preparation for graduate work in other areas. I am very happy they studied Mathematics and Statistics and I am even happier they are going on to graduate degrees in other areas, Engineering and Business, where the application of the skills they learned will be applied to real world problems as opposed to the development of tools to apply to other people’s problems as is generally the case in Mathematics and Statistics research.

Finally, Dr. Paur let the cat out of the bag about Christian having skipped high school. I did not understand the extent to which Christian kept this a secret. I knew that Kelly had told their fairly small circle of friends at the beginning of this year and they were all pretty shocked. Kelly was in the room when Dr. Paur made the announcement and she said many of the professors there were very surprised with the revelation. I have never met Dr. Paur. I have tried to stay completely out of the way of the kids college education because I feel it is important that the kids “own” what they do at school. So I am very gratified that Christian has had such a stellar academic adviser. Dr. Paur is not only a great teacher, but was just perfect in the way she helped and guided Christian through his degree. I hope to meet her to express my thanks at the graduation.

Betty Blonde #104 – 12/09/2008

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The route to a PhD in Business is usually a long one

By Dad

On Friday, April 18, 2014

In Education

Day 969 of 1000

We often spoke about vocation when the kids were in Jr. High and High School. Our idea was that it was important to follow a vocation for love, but if that vocation was something like Business, Psychology, Sociology, or some other social science, then it would help a lot to first get a technical Bachelors degree in something like Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry, or some such with possible a minor or second major in the field of interest. That would be followed by at least a Masters degree in the social science or business. I have already talked about this a number of times because we are so thrilled this worked so well for Kelly as she has decided she wants to go on to a Business PhD. The concept was never really tested with Christian because he was technical from the get-go.

I said all that to lead up to this: Kelly skipped two years of high school to graduate with a Bachelors degree two years early from college. I repeatedly told her that is a really big deal, but it was always overshadowed somewhat by the fact that Christian skipped all four years of high school to graduate from college four years earlier than normal. So now something kind of cool is happening for Kelly. It turns out that most Business PhD students at tier one Universities got into the program by first getting an undergraduate degree in Business. Even if they knew they wanted to go on to a PhD in Business, they have to work for 4-6 years in industry so they can get accepted into a good MBA program. Only then do they start to apply for PhD programs. So typically, a student would be 22 years old when they graduate with their Bachelors degree. The five years experience takes them to 27 years old. An really good MBA program usually takes two years. So most of the people who apply are in their late twenties or early thirties.

On the other hand, Engineering PhD’s often start right out of their Masters degree at 22 or 23. Of course there are a good number of older students, but it is a lot more normal for engineering students to start their PhD in their early 20’s. Christian will start his PhD at age 18. Since Kelly is starting her PhD in Business at age 20, that means there will be a significantly greater difference in age between Kelly and her classmates than Christian and his classmates. In addition to that, their schools are 1400 miles apart. Kelly will almost certainly not have to deal with that overshadowing thing anymore!

Betty Blonde #103 – 12/08/2008

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Lorena takes a snap of one of the Google Maps Street View camera cars

By Dad

On Thursday, April 17, 2014

In culture

Day 968 of 1000

Lorena was genuinely excited this morning on the way home from dropping the kids off at NCSU. She took this picture close to the intersection of Hwy 401 and Tryon Road. She feels pretty famous now.

Betty Blonde #102 – 12/05/2008

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Our house for sale on Realtor.com

By Dad

On Wednesday, April 16, 2014

In Christianity, House and home

Day 967 of 1000

Here is the link to the house on Realtor.com. It all seems official now. Christian came up, looked at the pictures and got a little sad. We have to wait to see if it sells before we can really think about leaving, but I am headed out to Arizona to work again today and Lorena will follow me on a house hunting next week. With graduations, house selling, house buying, 3000 mile moves, and graduate school at new Universities, life is pretty much in upheaval right now. We hope the dust will settle by July or so. Our real estate agent says this house is priced right and looking at comparable houses, we might even be a little bit low. The point, though, is to get the house sold with the minimal hassle possible and we think we have a great agent. His wife came over to put up the sign and the lock box. She is a very, very sweet Southern Christian lady. Before she left, she took Lorena’s hands and prayed with her. That was very emblematic of our stay here in North Carolina as well as a very kind gesture.

Betty Blonde #101 – 12/04/2008

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Our house goes on the market on tax day

By Dad

On Tuesday, April 15, 2014

In House and home

Day 966 of 1000

Our house in North Carolina goes on the market today. We have enjoyed this one more than any other place we have lived. It was perfect for homeschool because we had a large kitchen opening into a large open area with a fireplace. It was perfect for Community College because it was literally five minutes away from Wake Techincal Community College. It was perfect for University because it was twenty minutes away from North Carolina State University on the way to CostCo and Trader Joes so Lorena could kill two birds with one stone. Lorena (of course) got her Thermador professional restaurant stove and hood and Bosch dishwasher in a granite counter top kitchen with two ovens and a great view of the forest behind the house when she was at the kitchen sink.

We loved everything about the house from the downstairs master bedroom suite, to walk-in closets in every bedroom, to the bonus room where we worked and studied every evening, to the screen porch with a gorgeous view of the acres and acres of woods behind us. We are going to miss it a lot, but it is time to go and we hope to sell it quickly.

House goes on sale today

Betty Blonde #100 – 12/03/2008

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Switching to Opera

By Dad

On Wednesday, April 9, 2014

In culture, Politics, Software

Day 960 of 1000

Due to Mozilla’s unconscionable and extreme treatment of their former CEO, Brendan Eich, I have decided to kick Firefox to the curb. Daniel Greenfield explains the issue quite well in his blog post at Frontpage Mag. He also makes a great case for why Chrome is a bad choice for a replacement. I thought I would try Opera first because I have heard so many good things about it. I am writing this post from the ScribeFire extension that I used previously in Firefox. I have been able to import all my bookmarks and am blocking ads with AdBlock Plus. The browsers is noticeably faster. I will have to retrain myself to use the Opera layout, but that does not look to be too onerous. So far, admittedly only one day, I am quite happy with the change. I will leave Firefox installed for a few more days to easy the transition, but will put up a post when I am Firefox free.

Betty Blonde #99 – 12/02/2008

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Christian finally pulls the PhD trigger

By Dad

On Monday, April 7, 2014

In Education

Day 958 of 1000

Lorena wrote just about all that needs to be said on her facebook wall yesterday:

Congratulations to Christian! It was a hard choice, but he accepted the selective Dean’s Fellowship from the Fulton School of Engineering for a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University. The award includes a full scholarship for his degree coupled with a first year research grant. Christian will will receive sponsorship by MIT Lincoln Labs for his research and will work there during the summers while he is getting his degree. Ken and I think it was easily the best choice.

Betty Blonde #98 – 12/01/2008

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Interesting people on the airplane

By Dad

On Friday, April 4, 2014

In culture

Day 955 of 1000

This is the second time in a row I sat by a semi-almost-famous person on the flight from Charlotte to Phoenix. On the last trip I sat by an old English guy who had a career as a professional ballroom dancer. He spent most of his time traveling around teaching people how to dance and judging dance competitions. I did not know whether to believe him or not, but then he pulled out his iPad and showed me a bunch of pictures of himself with famous people. It turns out he trained some of the Dancing with the Stars dancers–not the celebrities, the dancers that danced with the celebrities. He was a very nice guy and we had a nice chat most of the way to Phoenix.

Yesterday I sat by a guy whose day job is a high school art teacher. He was a very nice guy. When I asked him where he was going, he told me that he was traveling to Reno, Nevada to be some kind of a monitor for the Nevada Gaming Commission of a Mixed Martial Arts fight. It turns out that he does that one or two times per month. He broke out his iPad and showed me some pretty amazing pictures of events he had worked for different gaming commissions monitoring fights for the UFC and other organizations. He sits in the front row about three feet from the cage and monitors whether the fight is being judged fairly.

One of his pictures was of the front row of people watching a fight in St. Petersburg, Florida. It include Vladamir Putin, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and several other famous people. Another was of himself with a guy name Calvin Ayre of Bodog notoriety at the after-party. He was a nice guy and I had a nice chat with him, most of the way to Phoenix, too.

Betty Blonde #97 – 11/28/2008

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How to be a REAL rebel on campus — revisiting the Commie Professor

By Dad

On Thursday, April 3, 2014

In culture, Education

Day 954 of 1000

The commie professor comes up in conversation I like to read the Thinking Christian blog. There are some blog posts there about a recent movie that featured a college Philosophy professor who asked all his students to state their unbelief in God. Some contrary commenters to those poses objected to this portrayal as, in a rough paraphrase, an unfair stereotype. The blog author rightly stated that the movie is a work of fiction and so what.

I agree with that assessment, but at the same time, it reminded me of the blog posts I put up here about Kelly’s and Christian’s “commie professor” for Freshman Composition. I think they were the only ones in their class who consistently argued against this professors laughable logic. There were a few who agreed with them but did not say anything. There were others that agreed with the professor most of the time, but with Kelly and Christian on a few things.

This professor was anti-God, anti-gun, pro-abortion, anti-traditional marriage, pro-drug legalization, etc., etc. It does not take much effort on most college campuses to take those positions. All you have to do is go along with the zeitgeist. If you want to be a rebel, you need to stand with the opposite of all those positions. I went to college in the mid-1970’s. Not much has really changed. The people who think they are free-thinking, inclusivist rebels aren’t.

Betty Blonde #96 – 11/27/2008

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