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!