Category: Blog

My husband and I share the same educational philosophy.  We believe, that for the future of our society, society needs to ensure that each citizen gets the best education we can give them. 

It’s simple in economic terms:  Every child that we can get to earn money contributes that more to society:  they can buy more, they can pay more taxes, and the contribute to the well being of everyone.

And here is what I don’t get:  why do people insist on keeping other people out?  There kids are really going to compete against I am talking about, and if there is a wider pool of employees, that’s got to be good, isn’t it?

I want to do this – http://jezebel.com/5900007/etsy-will-send-lady-programmers-to-hacker-sleepaway-camp-in-new-york but I also know I can’t physically and emotionally leave my home that long.  I think the two workshop trips I am taking this summer will be tough (for those who don’t know or forgot, we had a drunk driver drive into our house and we had to live in an apartment for about 5 weeks).

I applied for the camp and scholarship, and then after reading over everything again, I had a massive panic attack.

Haven’t talked to the organizers yet, but I’m wondering if I can’t follow along from home, and do some of it via telecommuting.

It would be more fun if I could get some other people in the Dallas area involved.   Anyone up for it?

I think it would be a good opportunity to increase programming skills.  Let me know in the comments if you are interested in joining me.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Weatherproof-Security-CCTV-Camera-420TVL-48LED-IR-D-N-/180713987951?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a13649f6f

DVR

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CCTV-16CH-H-264-1TB-Net-DVR-Stand-alone-Security-System-/220891965963?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item336e2fea0b

I recently spent some time in a classroom while teachers were teaching with a recording system.  I’m hoping the recording system changed the way they taught, but I tried not to the same.

I can’t fault one teacher, as he was in a classroom by himself, with no students to interact with.  However, he spoke too fast, faster than I can even think for the first half, but did slow down, later which helped.  He still didn’t give the audience much reflection time.

The other two teachers did have students in the classroom, but didn’t interact with their audience much at all. 

I know that the situation DID change my behavior some, as I didn’t call on students, and only took volunteers.  I think part of the reason was that I didn’t KNOW the students, so I didn’t know who to call on, and I didn’t take time to get to know them during the class.

I know if I am specifically demonstrating and recording something that is very short, I don’t take the time to interact with the class until we’re done recording.

Something to think about.

We have them at school too.

But since a drunk driver hit our house, my husband wanted to be able to see if we have property damage without leaving the comfort of his bedroom.

Think we’ve managed it.

Here’s our fence:

Which was hit once.  About two years after we bought the house.

Our front yard, not sure how it is going to be when the leaves are all the way in:

We also have a good view of the back yard from two cameras and are thinking about a third.

Best yet, is that I can see my dog room and dog run and know that the dogs are doing good.  We had some storms last week before we had completely set of cameras and being able to check now and then was great.

A former student and good friend (he’s 35 now!) found us some inexpensive cameras, a DVR, and the rest of the parts.  He installed the bulk yesterday.

I can, and have designed a complete website from scratch (http://www.kweaver.net) and have hosted it.  BUT, when I went to do something fast, without having to go through all that, I use TypePad.  I’ve got this blog on Typepad and my Visual Basic lessons there.

Why?

I ran into a bug last night and they answered it this morning with a complete workaround.  It’s probably better than the original solution.

By the way, if you want to learn how to program, see:

http://www.kweaver.us/programming_in_visual_bas/

I’ve started a little project http://www.kweaver.us/programming_in_visual_bas/ and so far it teaches you everything you need to know to write a Hello World program.

I’m doing in a blog format, so you’ll want to start at the first entry: http://www.kweaver.us/programming_in_visual_bas/2012/03/why.html

and work backwards.

Not ready for prime time yet.  Lots of websites not compatible and also lots of software, including Outlook.

I just restored my computer and it's nice to have my life back.  Yes, my computers, even this new one, are my life.

It’s a tad annoying.  I’m getting used to switching between Metro and the Desktop.  So much of what I currently do is on the desktop (Outlook, Visual Studio, etc.).

Use the Windows Key!

Also odd things are broken but better after I ran an update this morning.

It’s interesting.  I have all my old stuff, and it looks the same, but the Start Button is missing.  Don’t like that, liked the start button.

It took a while to load but part of that was taking a backup and making recovery DVDs, since I hadn’t gotten around to it.

It feels like a cross between the Windows Phone 7 and Windows 7.