Category: General Page 37 of 116

Three weeks ago we were at the local B&N and we saw a sign advertising the Giada at Home: Family Recipes from Italy and California book signing. We’re big fans.  Not like rabid fans, but big fans nonetheless because she’s pretty and she’s Italian and she cooks awesome stuff and she’s rich and she’s famous and also she’s pretty.  So today, after meeting and a leisurely lunch at Mo’s, we moseyed over to the aforementioned local B&N for the aforementioned book signing.  Mom and I got to chill out in the PINK balloon waiting area because we were in the PINK balloon group.  This made me feel happy! There wasn’t much to read in the PINK balloon waiting area though. Just a book about a girl with two daddies and another book about Herman and his truck so I went and got a copy of CLEP PreCalc, a Girl’s Life issue and a Triathlon for Women book to flip through. Guess which one was actually read. Starbucks kindly revived us with caramel frappe samples halfway through and cinnamon gum was consumed by the pack.  The totally-prepared-expensive-Nikon-camera-packing-my-daughter-loves-Giada-so-I-brought-20-of-her-books-to-sign-and-y’all-better-not-get-in-my-way lady next to us talked loudly on her phone about mermaid-themed cocktail parties and stuff. We (actually Christian) helped a sweet elderly couple turn off the flash on their camera. Bathrooms were made full use of. After two hours of waiting, they finally called on the PINK balloon waiting area group to go get our books signed.  And THEN!!!!! :

Seriously, how fun would it be to go on a book tour and smile a lot and wear big sunglasses and be doted on by adoring fans? I’m thinking extreeeemely fun.

It was so worth the wait (:

She was such a sweetheart! She was always smiling. Like ALWAYS. And she was really, really pretty 🙂  And the cookbook is amazing. It’s filled with gourmet recipes that are beggggging to be made.  I’m very tempted to put together a menu from the book and host one of those fancy schmansy themed dinner parties with a discussion topic for the guests and placecards with scrolled lettering and many courses of small servings of artistically arranged food-that-looks-like-it-came-from-another-planet on mostly empty white plates and classical music and decorative flowers and lots of Italian words. Lots and lots of Italian words.

March was another heavy month.  The kids took no tests, just worked through the daily routine every day.  The focus for the entire month was, and will continue to be test preparation.  In that way this year has been different from other years.  We believe Christian will have a similar year next year, but Kelly will be moving into a new era as she starts at the community college.  Our next tests will not be until mid May.  Kelly is scheduled for Precalculus.  Christian is to take Western Civilization I.  In the meantime, we will have to adjust our schedules because both the kids will start a three week stint working forty hours per week at Centice Corporation where I work.  I will write more about that a little later.  That should create a little bit of a challenge as we will need to keep up with test prep, Betty Blonde, musical instruments, and household chores.

Yesterday we changed direction and started reading On Writing Well aloud.  Normally, I read while Kelly draws Betty Blonde.  Christian usually draws, too, but is now the reader.  Although I have done most of the reading in the past, we went through a fairly long period when Kelly was the reader, so it is good that Christian now gets his turn.  He read the introduction and the first short chapter.  The theme of that first chapter is that there is not one right way to write.  We are all inspired now to write.  I was kind of burnt out on writing every day in my blog, but this has given me new wind.  Kelly promised she will jump in here, too.  Christian will spin back up his efforts at Nerdhow.  We want to read a little further in the book, then make a plan on how to do this most effectively.

Along that same line, my boss Andrew has been telling me about how much he enjoys Twitter.  I have been pretty skeptical, but then yesterday, Kelly told me about how she follows Adam Baldwin and Andrew Breitbart on Twitter and gets a big kick out of it.  Maybe there is more to this twitter thing than meets the eye.  I am going to have to look at it a little more closely.  Troy has a Twitter account for GaugeCam and I should be helping to posts some tweets there, too.

We are just back from a fabulous four day weekend in Dallas, Texas with our friends, the Larson family.  We did a ton of good stuff, saw a lot of old friends and ate way too much food.  Just one of the highlights of the trip was our visit to the Sixth Floor Museum of the Texas School Book Depository.  Of course, I remember where I was when I heard about the Kennedy assassination (I was a third grader on the playground at Harrison Elementary School in Cottage Grove, Oregon).  It has always been a bigger than life event.  The visit to the museum and the walk on the grassy knoll brought all that back down to earth.  The gun, the descriptions of the people, the boxes of books–everything about the whole event seemed so ordinary when viewed in this new context.  I was not expecting such a deep emotional response to the whole, especially after having lived in South Florida amongst the Cuban community who have strong feelings about the people involved.  It was interesting.  I am very glad we went there.

We also went to the “hands” exhibit a the Baylor Medical Center.  I will let Kelly tell a little bit more about that and the other things we did during our visit.  We thank the Larson family and all our other friends in Dallas for their remarkable hospitality and a memorable visit.

I turned 16!!

I went to the mall and got a pretty dress. I talked with my family from Mexico and Oregon! I met the Chick-fil-a cow. I decided to have raspberry-blackberry pie instead of cake, because really, when you can have pie, why would you want cake? I also baked a dark chocolate cake (from scratch!) last night, because even though pie is better than cake, cake is still a birthday classic. The first layer kinda crumbled, but Christian and I fixed that with a LOT of dark chocolate frosting. In a few days we’re going to Texas which is awesome, because everything’s bigger in Texas and I’m assuming that includes birthdays.

Mom also made vegetarian pizza. I don’t… dislike vegetarianism quite as much as I used to. It was really, really, really good pizza.

On a related note, all that pie and cake and pizza (even vegetarian pizza) adds up to a lot of calories. But that’s OK because, other than the fact that I have a high metabolism, I’m totally motivated to start training for a triathlon now!! Dad got us a book on training for a triathlon the other day. It looks so fun! And pretty doable!! I really want to go for it 🙂

I’ve been listening to talk radio a lot lately. It’s awesome. It’s not that I haven’t listened to it before, I have. Since the womb practically. I was born in 1994, the same year as the Contract with America and just 7 years after Rush became nationally syndicated. There are old 90’s videos of a wee me saying his very fun to say name. Rush Limbaaaugh. Rolls off the tongue. The little duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun dun sound byte at the end of his show segments is dear to my ears. I could fall asleep to the sweet, sweet sound of Rush’s liberal lambasting. Yes, talk radio is very familiar to me. So are politics. I have many political memories stowed away in my head…

• 1st grade (2000-2001) Bush elected. Grandma and Grandpa from Mexico are over and Dad has the radio on all night. He yells up the stairs to us three different times, telling us whether or not Bush has won. Eventually Bush did win.
• 2nd grade (2001-2002) 9/11. Oddly enough, Grandma and Grandpa from Mexico are at the airport that morning and our cousins are in New York City (I think they were planning to eat lunch at the top of one of the towers that day) when it happens. After Dad calls Mom, I grab a granola bar and a butter knife to be prepared in case of the apocalypse. Grandma and Grandpa get to stay another week. School is different that day.
• 3rd grade (2002-2003) Iraq war starts the day of my 9th birthday party. Missiles fly and people protest. I feel like a part of history after I record it in my diary.
• 4th grade (2003-2004) Saddam Hussein captured while we’re on vacation in Cabo. We don’t believe Grandpa when he tells us. Cringeworthy radical Republican stage. While trick-or-treating in my teacher’s neighborhood I see a Kerry sign in her yard. I fight a strong urge to TP the place. Moving on…
• 5th grade (2004-2005) radical Republican stage lingers because of 2004 elections. Dartboard had pictures of Kerry on it. Kerry caricatures drawn, political cartoons and posters made and filed.
• 6th grade (2005-2006) Political blogs are confusing!!!
• 7th grade (2006-2007) I make a list of all possible 2008 presidential candidates and tape it to the pantry wall. It is soon forgotten in the move to North Carolina.
• 8th grade (2007-2008) Debates, Conventions and all the hype watched streaming online. SNL skits are pretty funny. Willow is totally my favorite Palin kid. Civil political discussions with liberal swimteam friends are awkward. Obama and Palin caricatures perfected. McCain’s jowls are super hard to draw.
• 9th grade (2008-2009) Bad time for Obama to win! Anger+hormones= much crying. But it was OK in the end!
• 10th grade (2009-2010) The world of talk radio is opened to me. I kind of understand the whole health care thing. Paul Ryan is super cute (for a 40 year old US rep.). Beck is entertaining. Mark Steyn’s accent is awesome. Willow is still my favorite Palin kid. Politics are still really confusing, but not as confusing as before. Palin and Obama caricatures are absolutely spotless. The 2012 election looms as the first time I get to vote and Rush is as diligent as ever!

For the past few years we have had two and a half months of hard academic work from right after the holidays in January until Easter break in March.  It seems like we get pretty discouraged every year because of all the very hard work with little time for leisure or rest.  We usually decide we have to do something a little differently next time, forgetting that life gets really crazy starting in late March.  This year is no different.  We have worked hard this year, but over the weekend we have made plans for trips two trips to Texas and one trip to Idaho and Oregon.  It will be great to get out of North Carolina to see some friends and not think to much about school or work.  In addition to that, we found that Lorena’s folks are coming to visit us here for a couple of weeks in April.

Now that I am back in the loop (after my “day job” imposed blogging hiatus), I have started following my favorite blogs again.  Luke over at Sonlight Blog had a particularly interesting post (soon to be a series it appears) on the process of making a video.  Very, very cool!  I think this could be something Kelly, Christian, and I should be watching.  It could be a super help for some of the stuff Troy and I are doing at GaugeCam, too.  When we make a video, we just start filming.  I think that is probably just great for home movies–it works for us, but when it comes to making a video that tells a story or explains how to do something, it is abysmally deficient.  I am going to run this by the kids tonight and maybe even turn this into a spring/summer homeschool learning project.  We are looking forward to it Luke!

This year our hits for the front page were down a little, but our overall number of hits on the blog were up significantly.  I think that is probably due to the fact that many people arrived at the blog from searches on things like CLEP preparation and Amigurumi.  Only hits to the main page are counted by the hit counter.  Here is the annual hit counter screen capture:

I have something called StatPress for the blog that shows my monthly stats.  For example, in March, we averaged 41 unique visitors per day and 297 page views per day (not including spiders and RSS feeds) or about 7 page views per visitor.  None of this counts the hits we get on the Betty Blonde comic or the main page.  All in all, I think we had a great year.

This year, starting today, we have added Google Analytics so we will be able to tell how we did with a little more precision.  We started this blog back in 2004, about the same time we started our homeschool (for the second time).  We did not know is was going to be so much fun.

I have been a little slack in my blogging over the last month or so because of a very pressing work schedule.  Kelly has done a much better job at posting than I.  A lot of other stuff has fallen to the wayside, too, but I am now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  I have actively started to engage in a work on the GaugeCam project again and will be making some blog posts as well as writing some code for that project through the summer.

Note: This post is one in a series on how we prepared our homeschooled children to take various College Level Examination Program tests. The introductory post for this series explains why we take these tests, what parts of the preparation worked for us, and what parts of the preparation did not work.

This exam, in terms of preparation, was very similar to the CLEP Western Civilization I exam and the U.S. History exams. You can read more about her preparation methods at that link. She used both note cards and a heavily annotated timeline to help her study. The CLEP Western Civilization II (REA): 1648 to the Present book helped a lot, but she one thing that was a little disconcerting was that, even though she got very high scores on the REA practice tests, she got a B on the actual test. She thought this might have been due to the fact that the “theme” of the test was a little different than what was in the REA book. Still, she felt like she would have been able to get an A level score if she had a little more time. All in all, she was satisfied with both the book and her preparation.

Results: Kelly took the Western Civilization II test when she was 15. According to the REA preparation book criteria, she would have gotten a grade of a high B in the class. She received college credit for a one semester course for her score on this test.

University of Texas at Austin claims to have invented a cheap (28 cents per gal.) way to do coal gasification.  This sounds VERY interesting.  It would change everything.  Here is the article:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/texas-university-has-eureka-moment-for-coal-to-gas/article1502823/

You know those awkward silences when you’ve said something a bit out of place and no one responds? Or even worse, when you’ve said something that, as far as you know, is prefectly acceptable, but the silence is still there? I don’t know if it’s more prolific with teenagers, but I run into those kinds of situations a lot. Some people have absolutely no problem with them, but for me they’re almost like dying a thousand deaths. Not really that bad, but close. It feels as if I’ve just broken a really big unspoken rule, or like I’ve said something blindingly obvious or inappropriate. The silence makes me want to dig a deep hole and stay there. The longer the silence the deeper the hole.

Being the awkwardee is almost as bad as being the awkwarder. Maybe the awkwarder really did say something innapropriate. It’s hard to know what to do, other than shrug it off or stay quiet in those situations. But when it’s just a case of an oddball thought, a misplaced comment or a naive statement, what does it hurt to put one’s reputation at risk for a second to make the other person feel comfortable? Sometimes I stay silent just because everyone else is or because I’m afraid of what others will think if I speak up. This is wrong. Staying silent is almost always the cruellest thing to do in awkward situations.

Now I don’t often have the problem of being the awkwardee, because since I talk a lot, I’m generally on the awkwarder side. I tend to fill the silences with more talk to try and fix things, but it always makes things more awkward because the more I talk, the more prone I am to saying weird things. Having a lot to say is not really an all-the-time great policy.

Fortunately, there are a few gracious people out there who can make the awkwardness magically disappear with something as simple as a laugh or a few encouraging words. These awkward wizards are generally wonderful people as well as being wonderfully socially capable. From my short experience, they’ve tended to be effortlessly kinder, not quite as sarcastic and more interesting than most. They’re very convenient for we Chapmans to have around, doing double time as friends and foils. I’d love to get to that point someday.

Anyway, I passed my CLEP Western Civ II test! It’s a load off my shoulders, believe me. I feel like a free girl. Now on to Precalc. and Chemistry CLEPs. Oh, and I didn’t get pinched at all yesterday! So it was a pretty awesome day, all in all.

“Veganism is a diet and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.”

Animals are great. I love my cats, and as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t go hunting if my life depended on it. BUT I do have this little problem with ethical vegans. Vegan and vegetarian lifestyles don’t bother me at all if health is the only incentive. But ethical veganism… ger! Ethical veganism can carry all sorts of annoying baggage with it, like fluorescent light bulbs, Obama posters, and PETA membership cards. This anti-veg feeling started in earnest a couple of months ago. Before this experience, I had been fairly apathetic towards veggie-only types. It all started right after I had finished my workout at the Y. I had finished earlier than usual and was waiting on Mom and Christian in the lobby. The Y has tons of magazines in their lobby. They usually have something interesting to read, but on this particular day they had a golfing magazine, a hunting magazine, a Family Circle and a certain vegan lifestyle magazine. Golfing magazine had a golfing green on it’s cover. Hunting magazine had guns and dead animals on it’s cover. Family Circle had a bunch of articles on, I don’t know, losing baby fat and the psychology of your three year old. Vegan magazine had colorful cupcakes on it’s cover. It was very attractive. I opened it. It was pretty inside, too! Until I actually started reading it. Creepy tattoos and vegan punk bands dotted it’s faux-cheerful pages. One article likened eating eggs to stealing money from a rich, sick old man. ‘He won’t know the money’s gone, but it would still be wrong’. Likewise the chicken wouldn’t know the egg was gone but it would still be wrong to ‘steal’ and eat the egg.

I believe the chicken was made for two purposes. To make delicious eggs for my Saturday morning omelet and/or to become an 8-piece bucket at KFC.

It got worse. I found out one of the regular columnists was one of my favorite cartoonists. Their article on vegan weddings made me hope I would never, ever meet anyone special from downtown Portland. The ‘hearty’ recipes had absolutely NO animal byproducts in them. No pork! No beef! No snakeskin or leather or cow’s hooves or CHEESE! The worst part was the magazine’s air of condemnation. Call it guilt if you like, but the entire time I was reading the issue, I felt as if a thousand soybean stained fingers were pointed at me. Thankfully the Y always has a selection. I picked up the hunting magazine.

February was somewhat of a grind this year because both Kelly and Christian have been preparing for upcoming tests.  We really did not have much in the way of external events to break up the homeschool a little.  We are going to try to do a little better in that regard this month by maybe taking some time off to visit a historical site, maybe even Washington D.C.  On the other hand, it might be nice to visit the Biltmore or even run down to Texas for a long weekend.  In the meantime, March should be a little less of a grind in terms of school.  Kelly has some piano recitals to break things up and the weather is starting to get nicer, too.

My cousin Neil Duerst is at it again.  He ran over to Lakeside, Oregon and found our Finnish great grandfather, Oscar Raia Maki’s grave stone.  Then he found an article about him that was written in 1912.  We were especially happy to note that Grandpa Maki was a Republican!

Here is the article.  I am not sure what newspaper it is from.

OSCAR RAIAMAKI has been in Coos county for over twenty-three years and has been identified with various activities in this district during that time. He is the owner of three hundred and twenty acres of land and is carrying on its cultivation in an intelligent and scientific way. He was born in Finland in 1861 and is one of four children born to his parents, the others being: Henry, who is married and lives with his family in Finland; Andrew, who is also married and lives in Minnesota; and Gustus, who resides with his wife and family in the same state. 

Oscar Raiamaki received his early education in the public schools of Finland and pursued his studies until he was thirteen years of age, when he left home and started to earn a livelihood for himself. He worked at farming, in the employ of others, until 1886, when he crossed the Atlantic and settled in Michigan, where he worked in the timber business for two years. At the end of that time he came to Coos bay and worked in the coal mines of Libby for five years, or from 1888 to 1893. In the latter year he took up a homestead claim of one hundred and sixty acres on North lake, cleared some of the land of its timber and built his home in which he is now residing. He is engaged in  general farming but makes a, specialty of dairying and through the cleanliness and modern equipment which he maintains is well known throughout Coos county. 

On March 12, 1888, in Coos county, Mr. Raiamaki was united in marriage to Miss Hilda Ruakay, a native of Finland, who made the journey to America alone. She was one of two children.  Her brother, Frank, is living with his family in Finland. To Mr. and Mrs. Raiamaki were born four children: Emiel, whose birth occurred October 1, 1900, and who is attending school in Cops Bay, fitting himself for mechanical activities; Fred, born September 16, 1908; Ida, whose birth occurred on the 7th of February, 1899, and who is attending school in Coos county; and Olga, born July 20, 1902, who is pursuing her education. Oscar Raiamaki gives his allegiance to the republican party and takes an active interest in educational affairs. He has served as director of school district No. 2 for fourteen years and has done capable and efficient work along that line. The old country of Finland has given to the new world many upright and honorable men like Mr. Raiamaki who have brought with them to the state of Oregon, a steady determination and an energetic ambition which are bases of excellent citizenship.

It is snowing hard here in Raleigh this morning.  The weather is too warm for it to stick, but it surely is beautiful out there this morning.

It was an amazing day yesterday.  My boss announced to our group that he and his wife were going to have a baby in October.  Shortly after that, we got a note from Tia Minita that she and Tio Rigo were expecting a baby, also to arrive in October.  Then, cousin Trisha sent a phone message with a photo of our cousin Mark’s new baby girl that arrived yesterday afternoon.  They come in waves!  I get so buried in school and work I often forget there are bigger and more important things going on in other places.  We are looking forward to meeting all these new kids and I am revving up to take a run at that “favorite uncle” title again.

Kelly and Christian both took the ACT college entrance exam in early February.  The results to the multiple choice portion of the test were posted yesterday.  Both of them did great.  We are learning more and more about these tests.  This year Kelly came up a little in the categories of Reading and English.  There was not a whole lot that she could do to improve as she was pretty high last year in those categories.  She still has a little bit of room to improve, but I think improvements will come as a result of learning how to take the test more than new knowledge.  She also improved a little in Science.  She is well above average, but has more room to improve there as she has not yet studied all the material on the test.  She had a dramatic jump in Math this year.  She still has not covered everything that is on the test in math but she is a lot further along this year than she was last year.  Her scores are good enough now that we believe she could get into just about any school she wants, most of them with a good scholarship.  By this time next year, though, if Kelly is not already in college, she should be able to further improve her scholarship chances.

Christian made a good sized jump in his scores, too.  He got good enough scores to get into many schools, but, as he is two grades behind Kelly, has not yet covered much of the material on the tests.  He really did get great scores for an eighth grader.  By the time he takes the test again next year, he will have covered a lot more math and science that is on the test.  In addition, we are going to continue doing a lot of reading and English work.  Our expectation is that he should be well positioned to make quite an improvement next year.

Betty Blonde is so much fun. I can do whatever I want with it. If I’m feeling a little 80’s, I’ll indulge an 80’s rock star. If I feel that Betty Blonde (the character) has been a little clichéd lately, I can make her repaint speed limit signs. If I feel like drawing buff guys (and I often do. They’re my favorite to draw. Scandalous!) I’ll bring in the Hankster. Betty Blonde is a limitless creative playground for me. But for a limitless playground, it’s really hard to break the limits. Christian and I often argue over whether or not to break the unwritten rules of Betty Blonde’s world. Christian’s world of Betty Blonde has a different set of rules than mine. Characters can do crazier things. While my Betty Blonde will do crazy things, she does crazy things within the laws of physics. For example, in Christian’s graphic novel, Betty Blonde and co. build a gigantic mountain and jump off it to get to China, all while citing pseudo-physics that totally apply to Christian’s Betty Blonde’s world. The same thing might look kind of off in my strip. At the same time, nearly all of my Betty Blonde’s punch lines would never dream of entering Christian’s Betty Blonde world. We’re going to try to achieve the best of both worlds in the strip soon though, because Christian has tons of great ideas.

Right now however, I’m feeling very warm towards men’s and pair’s Olympic figure skating. We’ll see where that goes!