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!