Hurricane Fay

Panoramic picture taken with my cell phone.

Gandy Bridge 2 days before Hurricane Fay blows by Tampa Bay.

I went for a bike ride today over the Gandy bridge. It is hard to believe that Hurricane Fay may hit us in a day or two. But then it always looks very calm before a storm. I just hope that all the kids tomorrow are safe getting to school. Yea thats right school starts and a day later a hurricane hits. I guess it can only get better!

Twittearth

Oh! this is fun. I just found this yesterday and have become fascinated with Twittearth. According to the developers this site was made for fun. OK but I think it illustrates the power and reach of the web and social networks. Go to the site and watch the globe spin with twitts. This is all happening in real time and what you are seeing is a worldwide conversation. Wow! I showed this to a group of teachers and I think that it really opened their eyes to ways that social networks could be used in the classroom. Unfourtnatly most social networks are blocked from our schools.
(In the screen shot above each of the little figures is a twitter and the location on the earth is where it orignated)

Quilting

"Oh my god" that was my sons reaction when his Mom told him about our new project together. We are taking a quilting class. Sewing is not one of those hobbies that I ever pursued. Oh I can sew on a button and at one point in my life I was studying sail-making. But that used waxed linen thread, heavy canvas, a BIG needle, and a leather sewing palm. Very butch.
Well now Jan and I have decided to learn quilting together, we are such "empty nesters". I was hoping for drinking and partying every night but alas it was not to be. So we are quilting.
It is kinda fun and I'm not bad at it either, Ok not great but I have been able to cut and sew a straight line.
We got homework tonight from class and this should be fun trying to sew on the sewing machine we have at home. I'm looking online for a 1/4 inch slant foot fro the sewing machine. No easy task because this was my grandmothers sewing machine before she gave it to Jan when we were first married. So it has some years on it. But I've found some of the feet we need and tomorrow I'm going to call a place here in Tampa that sells Singer sewing machines and see if they have any. Didn't think I'd be doing that last week!

Frustrated

Yesterday I gave a workshop to a group of art teachers. The theme of the workshop was incorporating digital tools onto the elementary art classroom. I used a wiki to present and demonstrate various ideas I have used or plan on using.

Some teachers caught on very quickly to the concepts involved, others struggled but kept trying but a few just gave up and did not try.

I was a little frustrated with the last group because I thought that if the teachers would just by try a little harder that they would get it.

Well today I have a little more understanding of the teachers that just gave up. I was working on my “second job” which involves rolling schools in our district over to Active Directory. Part of that process is preparing for folder redirection which is how users data is stored. I have a very small part of that process which is checking that users are in the right folders.

The other part is applying the group policy for folder redirection. I watched one of the network administrators do just that and I have no idea what magic he did. I could not even begin to duplicate the process or even describe what happened on the servers and domain controllers he worked on.

So those of you that were in my workshop and left feeling that the workshop was given in Greek I feel your pain. I’m not sure how many times I would have to be shown the process of “applying a group policy” before I got it if I ever would. But I’ll keep trying. And I hope that the teachers from my workshop will also.

Thats it. Now Austin...

Thats it. Now Austin is tucked away in his dorm room, his bags unpacked, groceries on the floor, computer running. listen

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Stop and think.

I have been thinking about the 4 boys who lost their lives in the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Blencoe, Iowa. This makes me think about all the boys who wear the Scout Uniform and what it can mean.
On a personal level I have seen my son grow to a man in Scouts. During his time in Scouts Austin went from a little boy who was afraid on camp outs and had to sleep in the same tent as me. To a young man who during his Eagle project went to a foreign country to help other children there. Scouting gave him the confidence to do that.
Listen to this story from NPR and think "shouldn't more boys be involved in Scouts" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91514659

Something else to think about.

This is an interesting video by some students from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Now I'm not a big player of video games or even on-line games, except for Parking Wars on Facebook. I use to play video games in college but that was limited to PacMan and Frogger. When my son turned 16 my wife and I allowed him to get the video game Grand Theft Auto. After he got the game I sat with him and watched him play. There was a lot of shooting, stealing of cars, and other inappropriate things going on. And imagine my delight when he "earned" enough points to become a Drug Lord. But I watched the game with him and I talked to him about what was happening. I came to understand that what he saw happening on GTA was about as real to him as it was for me when I tried to hop from log to log in Forgger.
So as with any other technology or activities your children participate in the best thing that you can do to ensure that it is appropriate for them is be involved. Don't depend on anyone or anything else to protect them, likewise don't expect to place blame on anyone else.