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Wake Technical Community College reunion

By Dad

On Saturday, January 25, 2014

In culture, Education

Day 886 of 1000

Kelly and Christian made good friends when they went to Wake Technical Community College. Of their three closest friends from that time, two entered five year co-op programs, so will graduate next year with a boat-load of engineering experience. The third is an Iraq war vet name Mike who is nothing short of amazing. We expect to hear very big things about him some day. I hope it is in my lifetime. He will graduate this May the same time as Kelly and Christian with a degree in Computer Science. They have all maintained very high grades since the arrived at NCSU at least partially due the stellar preparation they received at community college. I guess I never expected these kids would stay in touch. Actually, the kids from the community college seem to be significantly more mature both in their studies and in the way they live their lives than the kids that started out at NCSU as freshman. We are glad and thankful the kids started at Wake Tech.

Betty Blonde #52 – 09/26/2008

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Another reason why I love NCSU

By Dad

On Saturday, January 11, 2014

Day 873 of 1000
Betty Blonde #39 – 09/09/2008

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Read the comments.
Barak gets the respect he deserves at NCSU

NCSU and UTEP weigh in on fast food workers and the minimum wage

By Dad

On Friday, January 3, 2014

Day 865 of 1000
Betty Blonde #31 – 08/28/2008

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Carl Bialik, the Numbers Guy over at the Wall Street Journal has an insightful article on a study about fast food workers and how their low wages impact our taxes. Not surprisingly, the liberal authors of the study from Cal Berkeley and U. Illinois, interpret the data to say that low wages workers cost the taxpayers $7 billion dollars per year in benefits from four major nationwide government programs. A professor from my Alma Mater points out the obvious:

Thomas Fullerton, an economist at the University of Texas at El Paso, said his “interpretation of this evidence differs from that of the authors.” Fullerton added, “In the absence of jobs in the food service sector, the fiscal burden represented by these workers would be much worse simply because their income levels would be even lower and they would require greater amounts of public assistance in order for their families to survive.”

A professor from NCSU (Kelly’s and Christian’s school) makes the same point. It is amazing how often academics with an agenda generate some data, then make totally unsupportable conclusions about what the data says. In this case, it seems very unreasonable to conclude that taking away low wages jobs by raising the minimum wage will somehow cost the taxpayers less.

One more semester to go at NCSU

By Dad

On Friday, December 20, 2013

Day 851 of 1000
Betty Blonde #25 – 08/20/2008

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The kids both had a successful first semester of their Senior year. Kelly’s was fun and included a trip to present her first undergraduate research. Christian’s was downright ugly. He took two very hard graduate math classes in Linear Algebra and Probability and Stochastic Processes as part of a normal amount of undergraduate credits for a total of 15. In addition, he continues to perform undergraduate research at NCSU’s Optical Sciences Laboratory. I honestly believe Christian will never have another semester where the material is both as complex and voluminous as this semester.

Their grades were great. They have both made the Dean’s List for every semester for which they were eligible. They are both signed for their final semester at NCSU and the tuition is paid. Christian has a much lighter class load, but a pretty heavy research load. Kelly has 15 hours of relatively tough classes, so she might be the one to struggle this semester. One of those classes is a continuation of her undergraduate research which takes a lot of time. Graduation day is May 10 and they are still on track.

The other really good news is that I am home now through the holidays. I work on Monday and am then off until I fly back to Arizona on January 5. Hopefully, I will be able to help Christian with some of his research. Kelly’s is on a hiatus for awhile. The funny deal is that Christian’s research area is one in which I have something to contribute, while Kelly’s research area makes her more able to contribute to me than vice-versa.

Krispy Kreme Challenge – The last one for awhile

By Dad

On Sunday, December 1, 2013

Day 832 of 1000
Betty Blonde #15 – 08/06/2008

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I just signed up Lorena, Kelly, and Christian for the 10th Annual Krispy Kreme Challenge. It is a five mile fun run to raise money for charity and let the college kids get silly for a little while on what is usually a cold winter day. I think this will be the kids’ third or fourth time. Lorena wanted to get in on the fun. The kids will be moved out to the West coast by the time the next one rolls around. Lorena will be out there, too, if the house sells. This is one of those events that makes us love Raleigh and NCSU.

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

Kelly’s undergraduate research symposium at UNC Charlotte

By Dad

On Saturday, November 16, 2013

Day 817 of 1000
Betty Blonde #2

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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

Kelly’s first undergraduate research poster

By Dad

On Thursday, November 14, 2013

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.

Christian is doing the same stuff as me

By Dad

On Wednesday, November 6, 2013

In Education, Software, Technology

Day 807 of 1000

Position probability map Amazingly, Christian uses many of the same algorithms for his undergraduate research as I do for my day job. Christian created the image to the left. It is a normalized correlation response map used in the process of finding a pattern in an image. His work is very technical–some of the elements of his research requires deeper math skills than I normally use. It has been fun watching the work move forward.

Class registration for the last semester at NCSU

By Dad

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Day 799 of 1000

I only have one more tuition payment before the kids graduate. They both registered for class in the last couple of days, so it will be arriving soon. I am feeling a little nostalgic about the thing. We warned the kids that registration for their last semester was something to be very carefully considered because it is necessary to get all the advisors, administrators, and professors aligned and in agreement that the classes taken are sufficient for graduation.

Here are their final courses:

**Christian**
ECE 421	Introduction to Signal Processing
MA 426	Mathematical Analysis II
MA 513	Introduction to Complex Variables*
MA 747	Probability and Stochastic Processes II*

*Graduate classes

**Kelly**
EC 302	Intermediate Macroeconomics
ENG 332	Communication for Business and Management
ST 431	Introduction to Experimental Design
ST 432	Introduction to Survey Sampling
ST 498	Independent Studies in Statistics*
HESR 249	Tennis

*Undergraduate research

It will be very nice not have so much pain in that wallet area of my anatomy.

Corn yields in North Carolina: an exciting new statistics paper

By Dad

On Monday, October 21, 2013

Day 791 of 1000

The following is the abstract for Kelly’s undergraduate research work. It is very cool that I am actually excited about this!

Evaluating the Ability of Drought Indices as Predictors of North Carolina Corn Yields

Corn is of growing importance to North Carolina’s agricultural economy. The ability to accurately predict corn yields per year under different different climate conditions is essential. The North Carolina State Climate Office (NCSCO) maintains seven separate drought indices that contain information on precipitation dating back to 1895 for each of the eight North Carolina climate divisions. Drought index data used spans the period from March through October for each year from 1981 to 2011, reflecting the normal growing season of corn in North Carolina. This study first attempts to determine if there is a correlation between drought and North Carolina corn yields over time, using North Carolina corn yield data from the USDA. The study will then attempt to determine which of the indices are the best predictors of corn yield per year for each climate division in the case of a correlation. If any strong corn yield predictors are found, expanding the drought indices’ predictive capabilities to other important North Carolina crop yields, such as tobacco or soybeans, could prove to be useful.

The only thing that might be cooler is if she were doing statistics on pork bellies. After all, this is North Carolina.

There is something wrong with this picture

By Dad

On Saturday, October 5, 2013

In Education, Family

Day 775 of 1000

Kelly works the two big monitors on her stats project at Hunt Library NCSU This a picture Kelly snapped while at work at the fabulous new NCSU Hunt Library today. As I am stuck out in Prescott without the family working through the weekend, I got a little melancholy. Lorena, the kids and I started going down to the NCSU Hill Library (the old one) when the kids started community college three and a half years. At first it was fun because we got to watch the posturing and histrionics of the college kids while Lorena, Kelly, and Christian studied and I worked on volunteer research for NCSU.

When the kids moved on from community college to NCSU, we continued to go about every other Saturday, but now it was even more fun because the kids were part of the drama. Then, at the beginning of 2013 the best college library in the world opened over on the Centenniel campus. Now, we only have a few short months to go to the library together. I want to enjoy every chance I get to be with the kids before they go off to graduate school in the west. Fortunately, the plan is for me to be home for a couple of weeks after this trip and I plan to make the most of it. I am very thankful that they still do not mind if I tag along.

The career fair at Big State U is your friend

By Dad

On Tuesday, October 1, 2013

In Education, Work

Day 771 of 1000

Kelly went to her first job fair at NCSU last year. She was not wildly excited about the idea as she said none of the other students took it too seriously. Actually, she pretty seriously drug her feet, but in the end she dressed up very professionally, we updated and beautified her resume, and she went. When she went, she was wiped out–it really is hard work to work a big job fair. She said she was a little skeptical, but that changed to outright enthusiasm after she got four interviews and three job offers. This year, she does not need the job fair as badly as last, because she has a standing offer for internship work at the JHU-APL. Still she plans to spend some quality time there.

Kelly’s experience helped Christian a lot. He is pretty fired up. Last summer, he did research, so he was not looking for an internship. This year, he wore his suit to school today, has an armful of updated resumes, and plans to spend several hours working the floor. I am looking forward to hearing how it goes.

Notes on Christian’s 18th birthday

By Dad

On Thursday, September 5, 2013

In Education, Family, Software, Technology

Day 745 of 1000

I will be in Arizona on Christian’s birthday this year so we had a birthday cake and celebrated a little early with a birthday cake and some candles after dinner last night. It was nice. I thought I would write down a few things about him to celebrate this milestone.
Christian and Dad, two days before his 18th birthday

Here are a just a few random notes:

When Christian was about 12, he had pretty sloppy handwriting, but for some reason or another, he got fascinated with the topic of fonts. He implemented anti-aliasing of fonts on RockBox (an operating system for MP3 players with screens), designed some computer fonts, then decided he wanted to design his own, fast, efficient, handwritten, serif font. He did that and it was quite amazing. For a period of about two years he took notes and wrote letters with a hand-written font that looks essential similar to courier new. When he started getting into complicated college class at age 14 or 15 he needed to write faster, so he dropped some of the serifs, but still has impressive handwriting skills.
Christian is one class short of his associate degree. He has enough credits, but needs one literature class to finish up. He loves his old community college (Wake Tech) and wants to finish the degree online after he gets out of graduate school. I hope he does that.
Christian started NCSU as a Junior when he was 16. Rather than go through normal channels to get a canned research project, he approached the professor in charge of electrical engineering graduate research to solicit a research project. The professor told him no one had previously done that, but got the word out and he was given two professors that needed some help. He is now on his third project for the professor he selected and has had a stellar research experience that has included circuit design, data gathering and analysis, PID loop tuning, C/C++, Assembly, and MatLab programming, a research paper, two research posters (and presentations), and he still has a big capstone project and paper in math and image processing to do before he graduates.
Christian started college full time at age 14, but had 15 credits from CLEP testing he started accumulating when he was 13 that were accepted by the community college.
Christian started his Senior year at NCSU at age 17. He has a 4.0 GPA. He is taking two graduate level math classes this semester and is scheduled for three more next semester. He has been on the Dean’s list every semester he has been in college.
Christian took a driver education class that is offered by the State of North Carolina when he was fifteen. He got his drivers permit just in time to spend the whole summer driving from near Fuquay-Varina with his Dad to an engineering internship in RTP.
Now that he is 18, he is old enough to go into the men’s locker room at the YMCA.
He is scheduled to do English-Spanish translation at our church convention this weekend.
He is a good son who gives us great joy.

HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY CHRISTIAN!!!

A serious 18th Birthday picture of Christian with Dad

The kids first day of their Senior year at NCSU

By Dad

On Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Day 729 of 1000

Kelly's and Christian's first day of their senior year at NCSU We all felt pretty nostalgic today. This picture is of Kelly and Christian just before they took off to NCSU for the first day of their Senior year at NCSU. Of course, Lorena had to take a picture. It was strange that they went through the same ritual as virtually every other year since they started school at age five by taking a trip to Target to buy new notebooks and writing instruments for all their classes. The main thing different this year is they have their own car so, for the most part, Lorena will not be driving them.

Last night Christian and I worked on letters to send to professors at some target graduate schools he would like to attend. We are working over his resume to go along with it. Sometime today, I will sign them both up to take the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). At all seems a little surreal, but in a good way.

NCSU wins a huge analytics grant

By Dad

On Friday, August 16, 2013

In Education, Technology, Work

Day 724 of 1000

This morning when I read the news on Free Republic, I ran into this article on a new program at NCSU. That pointed to this article in the News and Observer that describes the new “Big Data” joint venture between NCSU and the NSA. It starts out like this:

As the field of “big data” continues to grow in importance, N.C. State University has landed a big coup – a major lab for the study of data analysis, funded by the National Security Agency.

A $60.75 million grant from the NSA is the largest research grant in NCSU’s history – three times bigger than any previous award.

The Laboratory for Analytic Sciences will be launched in a Centennial Campus building that will be renovated with money from the federal agency, but details about the facility are top secret. Those who work in the lab will be required to have security clearance from the U.S. government.

NCSU officials say the endeavor is expected to bring 100 new jobs to the Triangle during the next several years. The university, already a leader in data science, won the NSA contract through a competitive process.

NCSU university already has strengths in computer science, applied mathematics and statistics and a collaborative project with the NSA on cybersecurity. The university also is in the process of hiring four faculty members for its new data-driven science cluster, adding to its expertise.

This fits very nicely with Kelly’s analytics internship at the JHU-APL. The other thing I thought was fun and interesting is the connection was not just to the Statistics department, but to the Applied Mathematics department, too. Christian is an Applied Math major. The article also talks about the Professional Masters Degree in Analytics our friend Andrew earned last year.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/08/15/3109412/nc-state-teams-up-with-nsa-on.html#storylink=cpy

Kelly ups her game and joins Christian for a graduate class

By Dad

On Thursday, August 15, 2013

Kelly’s internship was quite an amazing and fruitful experience for her. I described that a little bit here and a few other places. She loved the day to day statistics work given to her. Her boss was a good mentor and even a better teacher. He recommended a couple of classes for her to take that were not on her plan. Today, she decided to drop her Economics minor so she could take the classes he recommended. This semester’s class is a graduate class in Linear Algebra. There is only one session being taught and Christian is in it. That is great. Kelly and Christian have not had a class together since their last semester of community college when they took undergraduate Linear Algebra. Then, next semester, she plans to take Real Analysis, a very ugly but very necessary mathematical proofs class.

I asked her, “Do you think you can handle it?”

She said, “Sure. I have a completely different perspective now that I have seen what kind of work I will do after I get my degree. It will be hard, but I can do it. I am taking it because I know I will need it.”

There is nothing like a little bit of real-world experience doing something you love to provide some motivation to do something that is worthwhile, but hard.

Another homeschool story: Starting after elementary school in Texas

By Dad

On Tuesday, August 13, 2013

In Education, Family, Homeschool

Day 721 of 1000

Homeschool friends from Texas at the Hill Library (NCSU) Kelly came back from her internship at the Johns Hopkins University-Applied Physics Laboratory just in time for a visit from the Larsons. They are dear homeschooling friends from Texas. Age-wise, the twin boys fall right between Christian and Kelly. That have gotten along famously since late elementary school. We spent a great weekend with them visiting the NCSU Hill Library and the North Carolina Museum or Art, playing games, talking, playing music, going to church, and generally just hanging out together. The Larson’s are great musicians–voice, violin/fiddle, accordian, piano–really they are amazing.

At any rate, it got me to thinking about the Larson’s homeschool trajectory. It was a little different than our trajectory due to the normal reasons: differing interests (medicine, law, and business rather than engineering and math), amazing music skills, access to great Texas homeschool resources, differing teaching styles and curricula, etc. Still, the spirit of their homeschool was more similar to ours than just about any we have seen. They put worldview above other academic subjects, skipped two years of high school to put their kids into the community college, focused on hard science and math, but backfilled with music, international travel, language, hunting, and community service.

Some of the things they did much better than us include their participation in things like youth symphony, youth court (as lawyers and judges), EMT training, medical research, and I am sure there are others. It is great to see these boys prosper in ways that would not have been possible in a government or private school setting, but what we admire the most is their humility and the joy they derive from the path they have chosen as a family.

NCSU #2 in starting salaries after graduation

By Dad

On Thursday, August 1, 2013

In Education, Work

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.

Senioritis!

By Dad

On Thursday, May 9, 2013

Day 625 of 1000

Today was the last day of finals for both Kelly (Intermediate Macroeconomics) and Christian (Java). They are now both officially on summer vacation and official Seniors in college! Congratulations to the both of them on a great year. This was probably the most difficult semester Kelly will ever have to face and Christian’s toughest one so far. He will have at least one more really ugly one next year. Everyone will take about a month off then Christian will start work full time on his undergraduate research project for the summer and Kelly will head up to Maryland for her summer internship as a statistician at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

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