Bees are lazy cads today!

Usually I get a few things done each day and am happy, but today I am outpacing the bees. I have oiled hinges, replaced light diffusers, put down non-slip material under bath mats, run around town shopping for things to do chores with, got new parking tags for both my car and Reena's as well as putting them in, changed my voter registration address, and the list goes on. Buzz Buzz.

Recently I posted much stuff on Craig's list. Reena and I had culled this stuff from the rest for getting rid of before the move, but it came with us and sat in a room. More than half of it has already been picked up. I am ready to give anyone who shows as much of it as they want to carry off. Yay Craig's List.

The last push to organize the basement storage/work room and get stuff down there from the dining room where it has been hulking in the shadows will happen in the next few days. I will also be writing student recommendations for next schools, doing curriculum, and some of my own art. Plenty of feet up and watching movies, too.

So here I am, a year older, perhaps wiser, perhaps more foolish, and looking at fatherhood.

Oh, I posted house pictures on the other website. Very messy, but I hadn't gotten around to it, so there they are.

calendars ready

I finally got around to refreshing my calendars on Cafepress. Click on them to see the new pages.

Susan Cooper

I just returned from a round table with Susan Cooper and Gregory Maguire. While I have not read any of Maguire's books, I was teethed on Cooper's Dark is Rising series. She was an articulate and wonderful speaker. Maguire tended to dominate the discussions, but there was plenty of Cooper's voice as well.

My soul is filled once more.

First Computer

When I started teaching, I purchased a computer and printer. These stayed with me for a long time--the printer until just a few years ago. The computer was one of those old Compaq all-in-one models. Gary Garber, with whom I was living at the time, supplied the credit card as I had none.

The good and the bad

It finally came. Through much hoop jumping and frustration I was able to finally acquire my Massachusetts teaching license. Attached to it is a statement:

Congratulations on completing the
requirements for licensure.

You have worked diligently toward
this goal and should be proud of
your accomplishment.

It is people like you who help to
enhance the quality of education
in the Commonwealth. I wish you
the best in your future endeavors.

I nicely personal message printed on every license. Funny thing is that all of my diligent work for this license had nothing to do with my ability as a teacher. I studied for and took three exams, I collected letters from colleges and universities documenting my coursework, and I did other paper shuffling. Anyway, I have the document in hand that lets me be the supervising teacher for student teachers and, should I need to, teach in a public school. I have no intention of moving schools, but this gives me options.

That was the good news. On the bad, and temporary front, I have come down with the season's first cold--a nasty sore throat followed by prodigious phlegm. I took a day off on Thursday and a half day on Friday. Friday was our grandparents and special friends day, so I felt obligated to be at school, but I high tailed it out of there soon after the associated assembly (actually in the middle of the assembly).

Blue Fractal

This is a slightly changed version of the image. Can you see the difference?

new fractal

Etching and The Beginning of the School Year

The year has begun. I have a new co-teacher, a student teacher, and much new curriculum. Thus, I have been pretty absent from this blog. I thought I'd share a project I just finished with my class. We did some glass etching which will lead to both a unit on soil, air, and water quality and to a unit on algebra. Here is a picture of the student teacher's water bottle that she etched.

One Heck of a Morning

This morning started early with the new bed delivery. Yes, they said 7:00 to 11:00, and guess which end of that bracket they arrived. At least this time it fit up the stairs. The guys who delivered were nicer than the last set. Then, I called a guy who I was going to buy a drafting table from off of Craig's List. I set up a time to meet him at his storage locker and went about trying to print directions. I knew I had to put new toner in the machine, and it took a while to figure that one out as I had never done it before. The printer refused to print. New toner was not the only problem. Now, after noon has passed, I have finally troubleshot that issue, but at the time, it ate up my time until I just wrote down the directions knowing I would be a bit late after stopping at a bank to get some cash. Ooops, the ATM spat my card out informing me that it was expired. Sure enough, I hadn't gotten around to sending in my new address, and the replacement card had been sent to the old apartment. Things like that do not get forwarded. Now I was really late, so I called up, apologized and rerouted my trip to pass by home to pick up the change of address form that Reena and I had filled out and to swing by a bank to turn it in and get cash. Fortified with cash, I set off. Yup, I don't know good routes yet in the Boston metro area, and I was stuck in traffic quite a few times. I finally got there an hour and a half late, although I had kept the seller appraised of my lateness. It worked out for him in the end as he had some shopping to do in the area. I like the table (it is still in my car right now), and stopping for my new glasses and eggs on the way home put me back after midday. That was a 9:30-12:00 trip just for a table! Much has been accomplished, but I feel that it was reactive instead of proactive.

Here's hoping the rest of the day is of a different nature.

Intentional??

Here is an alcohol ad next to a "Live outside the bottle" ad.

Old Friends and Boxes

I am just arrived back home from my Midwestern road trip in which I caught up with several friends I was planning to see and a few that were pleasant surprises.

After packing all of Tuesday (including the entire night), I headed from Cambridge around 12:30 in the afternoon toward Bloomington, Indianan. It was wonderful. After a night on the road, I pulled into Bloomington in the early evening, set up my tent, joined the community for dinner, and then danced until 1:00 A.M. It was during the evening that I reconnected with Rose who used to live in Bloomington. What a sweet surprise.

A day of hunting fossils and food with some naps thrown in for good measure followed, and Saturday night was another dance. I danced late and stayed up later talking with friends. 3:00 A.M. finally saw the curtain close for me, and Sunday morning was the time to drive up to Chicago. There, I got a chance to catch up with Sarah who I have know almost all my life. Monday afternoon, I picked up Jay from the airport, and we took the train to Wrigley for a Cards/Cubs game. Cards won!

We left at the rain delay and headed to St. Louis. I stayed at my folks house in the blazing St. Louis summer heat. Downstairs is air conditioned. Upstairs reminds me of what it was like growing up in St. Louis without air conditioning. My folks and I finally sat down to look at wedding pics over a year later. All good things happen in time. That evening, Jay and I went to a Cards/Marlins game and another Cards win.

The next day, Jay and I explored the world of adwords, Google's search ads. I even went as far as to set up an account. If you read this, don't search my artwork and click through. It'll cost me each time. So far, quite a few people have clicked through to see my site. What fun.

Jay headed back to San Fran, and my dad and I went to the ballgame. Yup three games in three days, and each one was a win for the cards.

I left early the next morning to drive back to the East Coast. Thursday got me as far as Syracuse, and then Friday I pulled in to Cape Cod to catch up with Robin, a very close friend in college who I had not seen in a long time. It was a wonderful day of walking, talking and seeing the cape for the first time.

The next morning it was back to the new house and setting up wireless. Next project is setting up my desktop so I can download pictures to illustrate this story.

Sunrise in New Hampshire

I awoke after having a hard time sleeping this morning. I caught a glimpse of sunrise about to happen, so I got my camera and gorillapod and went out to catch the event. This is from Wendy's family's cabin in New Hampshire. It is on a lake. This morning, well after sunrise, we went to the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Fair. Beautiful craft items. I especially was into the wood, quilts, and stained glass this year.

And the Packing Begins!

Friday comes and it is a day of rest. Nope. The rush has begun.
My to do list:

• Packing
• Design next year's curriculum
• Finish up BWP things (extract stuff from e-anthology, write response paper)
• Prepare for road trip
• Work with my new teaching parnter
• Look at the two pages of to do list that I created at the beginning of the summer and have not reviewed since.

Yup, there are some heavy hitters on this list. I have started packing in a very random and non-effective way, but it is the only way I have been able to tackle this daunting task. I am sure I will give happier news midweek next week.

new fractal after re rendering

This fractal took a bit of doing. After rendering fractals and finding they were too small for the poster size at Cafepress, I decided to up the resolution, and it took two days to render the image. Unfortunately, in those two days something happened, so the image was useless. I rerendered it, and it worked. This is a very low res version of that image that will be put on my cafepress store.

Shakespeare

Last night I went to see the Shakespeare on the Common--an entertaining version of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Standout performances by Bottom and Helena carried the show. Puck was passable, and the techno colors and music added a fun twist.

I remember going to one St. Louis Shakespeare Festival performance. I don't remember which. I loved the pre-performance entertainment.

It is amazing how well the material still plays.

Pottermania

It is great. People lining up for a book. I went to the local independent bookstore where my wife and I had a pre-ordered book waiting, and the large crowd at midnight was a sight to behold. Evidently Harvard Square was full of people in full regalia. We went to the supermarket to wait for the crowd to die down, and returned in time to waltz in and get a book with no line. Outside, I ran into two former students and one returning student. It was one of those pleasant surprises that makes an event extra special. It turned out to be the student's birthday. Wonder what she got?


Edit:
and now at 12:22, about 24 hours since we bought it, I finished the last Harry Potter.

In the midst of writing

The Boston Writing Project is great, and it is kicking my rump! I usually take a few weeks of down time in the summer, but this summer promises to not allow that. Ah well, at least I am writing again. I am starting the true revision of Bones. I will start up the emails again when I have enough to start sending out.

Red Eye!

We took the red-eye from Seattle that got in this morning. I, in fact, do have red eyes from not much sleep and a long drive previous to catching the plane. We drove from Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula to the airport via my sister's house.

Back home now. More to come in some form, but here are a few pics to keep you happy! I discovered that I love starfish.

turning point

Yesterday was a turning point.

My 6th graders graduated and students are off for the summer. This means I can work on curriculum for next year. This past academic year is, except for writing student reports, behind me. I am losing a wonderful teaching partner and hopefully gaining a new one. I am leaving a more familiar curriculum and going to one in which I have more passion. I am possibly leaving the model of co-teaching and moving to team teaching.

My scores for the last two tests I took for Massachusetts licensure arrived, and I passed. I am on my way to being certified in Mass, and I will have a student teacher next year (for the first time).

This summer, I am engaging in some powerful professional development, something that has been absent in my life for three years.

Reena and I are closing on the 20th.

So much change, and most of it is positive. Of course it means leaving some really good things, but they all have had impact on my life and will remain with me in one form or another. Nothing ever is left completely behind.

Who knows what other transitions this summer holds? Life continues to be fluid.

fireflies and black & white

I thought this experiment with black and white looked like a swarm of fireflies. I am going to post the full resolution image. Click on it to get all the texture and pattern in this fractal.

picture removed

renewed faith in people

There are instances that renew my faith in people, and on the way back from picking up lunch, one such event occurred. There was a table set up in front of a house near mine, and two girls were sitting with the eager energy of young sales people. Another youngster, a boy, was playing various tunes on his oboe. I crossed the street to see what they were selling and found that they were trying to raise money for Rosie's Place. The kids had made bracelets and oragami and were selling off some of their toys to do this fund raising. Not needing any more things around the house, I just made a donation and walked away feeling better about life.

see the details

Here is a new fractal that I have reduced much less than others that I have posted. The grain in the background and feathery details are still barely visible at this resolution; however, they are much reduced. The full scale image has far greater detail. Click on the image to see it larger.

New York and Back, and good news

Yep, back from the experience of taking 11 sixth graders to New York City. Good times, though stressful. Of note were a very enjoyable tour of the Museum of the Moving Image and a fairly rowdy Yankees/Sox game that we left early as the crowd was getting too obnoxious for 6th graders to be around.

On my return, I was able to access the first of three score reports (it came in two sections) for the MTEL

001 Communication and Literacy Skills: Reading Subtest

Status: Met the Qualifying Score
Minimum Qualifying Score: 240


001 Communication and Literacy Skills: Writing Subtest

Status: Met the Qualifying Score
Minimum Qualifying Score: 240

Yup, I passed the first section. I have to wait until June to find out about the rest.

Cookie reviews to come

On the verge of a cookie fest, I present you with this new fractal.
And the winner is: everybody who baked, ate, and enjoyed the cookies!
Molly's toasted peanut and chocolate oatmeal cookies took top rating, but all of them were good, and a good time was had by all. The cookie picture is missing all the wonderful contributions from the friends. You can see some of them in the foreground in the people picture.

spidey really big

Yep, Spidey 3 at the Imax last night. Decent movie, huge, lots of fun. Fun to see Topher Grace as a bad-ass.

better

Yes, time is the ointment for such events. I am one day removed from the lunacy. Though, the DNS that we utilize at school somehow failed to connect our IP and our domain leading to no incoming mail and an unavailable web page. I was going to try to deal with that at lunch, but it got resolved which was a good thing as I ended up having less than 30 minutes to scarf down a sandwich between parent teacher conferences (from 8:30 to 5:30 with no other break).

But I am feeling better. More later. Thanks em and jim. love ya.

silver lining

Today sucked! I feel that I let down every component of my community in one way or another, I taught poorly, I reacted to stress in non-constructive ways, and I really upset my wife.

On the bright side, I was admitted to the U Mass writing project for this summer. Too bad the rest of the day was so bad that it really tarnished my joy in this.

fractals to cell-ebrate

Cell-mitosis-that is what made me think of this fractal design. Even the bubbles trapped by the slide cover are symmetrical. This is what mitosis in every cell of a fractal beast would look like under magnification.
With all the spring flowers out there, my eyes are a bit itchy, but I am doing much better this year than in years past. My nose seems to have benefited from being drilled out this past winter. I love spring flowers, and there is something beautiful about the combination of purple and green. Lilacs are in full along with wisteria and other purple flowering plants. This fractal is homage to these signs of spring in full stride.

tests finished

I have just finished my MTELs! I hope I passed because I never want to do that again!

nighttime render

I rendered this fractal over night. The low res doesn't have as much detail as the high res, but you get the picture.

It goes to 14!

With all my complaining, I now have all 14 promised channels of baseball. I don't think it had to do with my complaint in particular, but I think Comcast was flooded with emails and realized they couldn't make people pay the same rate nationwide for different service in different regions. Actually, I think that is just what they wanted to do; people rallied around this cause and forced change.

If only real change were so easy.

I am loving the hand-me-down iPod mini that Reena gave me. Have the fm transmitter for the car, new headphones, etc. My own music, no commercials. Life is good.

Saturday is the test day!

Slogging through the minefields

This book, along with the Foundations in Reading, are guiding my study for licensure testing on May 12th. I find it truly dumbfounding that these books are littered with spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. As I read, it feels as if I am walking through minefields of grammar. Most of it is safe, but there are regular, and still surprising, explosions that distract from the content and course of study.

can't stay away from fractals

I've been cooking a few of these for a while, and here is one that I finally rendered. I have more work I could do with it, but it is interesting as it is right now. I see this one as a swirly creature from a liquid universe breaking through into our own.

and he played with water

An almost surprise visit by J and H with sons R and L was a treat. Found out about this visit while in Seattle, and it was a perfect way to get ready for tomorrow's impending MTEL 4 hour long test for which reporting time is 7:45.Additional: Craig's List is great. I was looking for test prep materials for the next two sections of the MTEL, and there they were sitting on the list for substantially less than new or used prices. Makes me smile. Just got an email from the person and will be arranging to pick up the books. With studying, I may pass these tests. Tomorrow, with no studying, I may or may not. We shall see.

Back from Seattle

Hey all,
I am gone to Seattle and back. Had time to be with sisters and bro-in-laws. Good fun. Here are some images from the camera phone. On a walk around my older sister's condo, I saw many flowers and much green. Heather, tulips, and other late spring blooms were everywhere. The trees had blossoms, and there were many magnolias just past full glory.On a hill near her house, you could look across to downtown Seattle. The lump of buildings in the center-left of the image is downtown.
From the highway on the way back from one sister to the other, we passed the Space Needle. Camera phones are not really good for capturing detail, but they give the impression of the place.

very busy

I have been very busy recently. My students have turned personal narratives into picture books. I scanned the artwork, and today most of the students were able to hand bind their own stories. Here is an example of the art they produced:

recycled flamingos

Pastel diversion

Here is my pastel diversion from the browns and bronzes with which I have been consumed. The Easter Bunny on LSD?

just can't stop!

Here is my latest endeavor. I will be exploring other color sets, but right now I am really enjoying the browns.

Sepia Fractal

This new fractal reminds of old sepia toned photos. I decided to try something new in colors. I think this one has about 12 layers. Enjoy.

some new fractals

Well, can't keep an old habit down. Some fractals have leaked out of the system over the last week. Here are some smaller res versions of them.

P.S. I love to hear from anyone who is reading this blog. Please feel free to post comments. It helps keep me posting.

Pinholes part trois

I took picts of the pinhole setup with my camera phone. Here is the cart with the cameras. Each one is a Quaker Oats container taped to an L shaped piece of wood.
Next, you see the developing area with safe lights and chemicals. I had already put away trays.




Here is the drying room with all the student's pictures hanging up. The last day of shooting produced quite a few pictures in the three hours the kids worked. To the right is the paper loading and enlarger station. If we had time, we would have used the enlarger to make positives from the negative prints.



This sideways picture shows a camera close up. The lid was created from a disk of cardboard with a rim taped to it with lightproof tape. A thick foil was punctured with a pin to create the aperture, and the inside of the can was painted black with tempera paint. The L shaped block made it easy to orient pictures vertically or horizontally.

House and more Pinholes

Well, we finally found a house we like. We put an offer in and received a counter. Tonight we put in a counter-counter offer. We'll see how that goes.

Yesterday, my students (and I) used their pinhole cameras with quarter sheets of paper to create bigger images. There was snow on the ground and a great deal of light in the air. Here are a couple of the positive images I created on the computer from the negatives from my own pinhole camera.

A Plane to L.A.

Reena and I were going to fly out to L.A. for a friend of Reena's wedding. We would arrive Friday night, do some wedding related things Saturday, and then I was going to hang with my cousin for the evening. Wedding on Sunday was to be followed by some hanging out and chill time in the balmy weather. Returning on Monday gave me a day off from school.

Mother Nature, however, had other plans. We checked flight info Friday before leaving the house. The snow had already started, but the flights looked to all be running on time. Heh heh. Never trust the internet flight info! When we arrived after driving down the street to be closer to the T and taking the subway to a bus, the flight was indeed canceled.

After finding out that we were rescheduled on a flight through Chicago on Saturday that would get us to LA in the evening, I decided to stay behind to continue resting and fighting off this cold. We got Reena to the airport this morning, and she gave me the thumbs up that the flight was on. I haven't heard from her since, and I assume she is in the air between here and Chicago.

Before getting Reena to the airport, I shoveled the walk because the 80 year-old woman on the first floor would have done so if I let her. As it was she shoveled the porch and stairs. The snow was heavy with water, and I managed to pull something on the right side of my ribcage. It is the kind of pain that is constant, but it is also the pain that reminds me that I can still move and live.

I stopped by school and installed a new 24 port hub. I should have gotten a switch, but what can you do. Ebay is limited. It can handle what is coming at it, I think, and we should have so many less network failures because it replaces a tangled web of mini hubs that had been taking the slack for quite a while. I also picked up the kids' pinhole camera test pictures to scan this weekend. I will add some to this post when I have scanned them.

Shifty Eyes

Jeff Goldblum was a favorite actor of an ex of mine and is one of the only positive things to come out of that relationship. His earlier and more entertaining stuff such as Buckaroo Banzai, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Tall Guy, and The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish make for entertaining viewing. The thing that grabbed me is that he shifts his eyes back and forth when perplexed, and as his roles are often that of a scientist or other smart guy trying to solve a problem, we get to see many signature Goldblum eye actions.

While at the concert last night in which Reena rocked the house in the opening number, I happened to see some graffiti in the men's room (not while Reena was singing.) I had to snap it with my phone-cam. Upon completing some internet research, it seems that this is a phenomenon that has been going on for some time and there are whole sites devoted to it. How strange, and how like Jeff Goldblum in a strange way.

Box of Memories

My mom uncovered some work of mine when she was cleaning out a closet. I thought I had taken all of my old material quite a while ago, so it came as a surprise that there was more to see. A box arrived a few days ago, and I finally got around to opening it. It was an amazing glimpse into my life from early (at least 1st grade) to the end of high school.

Here is a book titled, All About Me.
Some description and a self portrait
My family. It looks like Gwen is dripping water or crying and Dad is wearing swimming trunks?? The house is red brick with red clay tiles. Evidently there was a green vase or bottle that I cared about. We often went to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina for vacation.
This must be Danny Koranyi. I think he was the only close white friend at that time who had brown hair, brown eyes, and glasses. I am surprised that I didn't have a picture of Sarah in here, but I really can't be held accountable for what I drew in K or 1st at this point in time.

In another piece of work, I drew this image. Some things do not change!










To the left is a story I wrote in first grade that was typed probably by my mom who volunteered many hours at Delmar-Harvard. To the right is an example from the many binders of physics, calculus and other subjects that represented the high school years. The problem on the bottom must be one of those two cars are traveling...who gets there first types of problems.