For the second time in two day, Christian saves a turtle in the middle of the road.
Category: General Page 12 of 116
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 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 632 of 1000
A great time was had by all. Activities for the day included graduate school visits at UCLA, a walk down Rodeo Drive, and a Visit to the Beverly Hills Linual Institute. Tomorrow, they are headed to Northern California while Dad keeps the home fires burning.
It does not get much better than this. The 2013 California Graduate School TourTM has proceeded from San Diego to Manhattan Beach, California and Beverly Hills. Tomorrow Kelly has two interviews and Christian has one interview at UCLA. On Friday, they head north to Mountain Ranch, UC Davis, and Stanford for fellowship with friends and graduate school interviews. I am VERY sad I can not be with them, but someone needs to keep the homefires burning.
This is the phase one of summer travels. The 2013 Texas, Arizona, and Washington Graduate School TourTM will commence in early August. We are not sure whether the kids will go alone, but that is our hope. It will be VERY nice to have Lorena with me for awhile rather than driving a rental car around because the kids are still too young to do it on their own.
Actually, these are very exciting times. We are very thankful to our dear pharmacist friends as well as cousins Jim and Karin for their kindness and hospitlality.
Day 631 of 1000
Lorena and the kids are going to stay with a couple of cousins in the LA area over the next couple of days so they can visit and interview some professors about graduate school at UCLA. My cousins (a cousin on my Dad’s side of the family married a very distant cousin on my Mom’s side of the family) own a business called the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute that teaches over 20 languages. It turns out that the language school hosted Giada for the filming of one of her cooking shows. Lorena and Kelly are HUGE Giada fans ever since they met her at Barnes and Noble a while back. They cook from her books whenever they get the chance. They are going to be very envious and want to hear the whole story.
Day 630 of 1000
Yesterday, Kelly went to her first graduate school interview at SDSU. It went great. She talked to two professors, (one Math, one Statistics) and had a great time. The Statistics professor thought she would do great in their program. The thing that both she and Christian noticed when she was on campus is what a gift it is to be Math and Statistics students at NCSU. The quality of the facilities and faculty at NCSU are absolutely first tier. I think the faculty count at NCSU is higher, too. Maybe that has something to do with the supportiveness of SAS toward NCSU. One of the main reasons Kelly and Christian are at NCSU is that is the closest major research university to our house. Still, that we stumbled into something by accident does not diminish the experience one whit.
Day 629 of 1000
My boss and I spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons this past weekend working out a schedule for a critcial delivery for our company. It was quite a challenge that will require much effort–late evenings, some weekends, and plenty of stress. There will be roadblocks, hurdles, people challenges, and high emotion, but we have a legitimate shot at hitting our goals. When I get hired, one of the things I discuss with prospective employers is that I cannot work 14 hours per day, 6 days per week all the time. That does not align with my priorities nor my abilities. On the other hand, if my job does not include 6 to 12 weeks of that kind of work per year, then the job will probably not be that interesting to me. Well, I am now starting into what will be a 9 to 15 week chunk with that level of commitment. I know I am going to be fried be for I come out the other end, but I am invigorated going in.
Day 628 of 1000
I worked yesterday and then came back in this afternoon, so my blog output has not been good. I still have hope to finish up some of my series of posts in the next week or so. Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mother’s out there, especially, Grandma Sarah, Grandma Conchita, and Lorena!
Day 626 of 1000
My buddy Eric sent me a link to this article about how the State Department has shut down a website that distributes know-how and designs for printable gun. Is this a first amendment or a second amendment violation?
Day 623 of 1000
The crazy weather continues.
Day 622 of 1000
We attend a special meeting of our church today where we will see a special friend of ours visiting from Texas who is here to help with the meeting. The family will drop me off at the airport on the way home so I can fly to Arizona. Everyone in the household plans to study like crazy as the last finals will be over before the end of the week. All of this on the American pseudo-Holiday, Cinco de Mayo.
Christian found this and forwarded it to me. This kind of thing is the reason we homeschooled our children.
There is an absolutely execellent blog post over at the Sonlight blog on the importance of teaching children to fail. This is something about which we frequently speak in the Chapman household. Sarita Holzman reminded of us of one our absolute most favorite Sonlight books, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. It is a book about the life of a man who lived in Colonial America who, when he was young, did not have a lot of advantages in terms of education, but availed himself of everything within his means and perserved in educating himself to the benefit of the shipping world, even today. We also liked it a lot that he was a multilingal math guy. Part of failing successfully is not looking back, but learning from the failure going on in the best way possible under the circumstances.
The graduate school visit emails are trickling in. Part of the reason Kelly and Christian are going to California this summer is to visit possible graduate schools. Christian has interviews with professors in the UCLA and Stanford Electrical and Computer Engineering departments. Kelly has an interview with a Statistics professor at UC Davis. These are not yet interviews to determine whether or not he will attend one of those schools. Rather it is an introductory visit to see whether there might be a good match there if they apply. Kelly will see two additional schools, but does not have the visits set up yet.
I loved this post from Telic Thought. It says a lot about the current state of science and academia in the world. It is all footnoted so you can get to the references from which the statistics were taken. Read the whole thing, but here are a few to whet your appetite:
417: Number of citations for the 47 unreproducible papers.1
36%: Percentage of scientists who admit engaging in questionable research practices or fraud.2
There I fixed it. I thought I did pretty well, but I am still getting abuse. Everyone rejected the header with FOUR people in it. Well, we will try this look for awhile.