I can make her spin either direction at will. So they call her a dancer? Must be a mighty cold dance room!
Category: Health
I have never seen him do that!
Perhap i need to teach my children to juggle.
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Clown day update
I love teaching these first graders how to juggle.
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Clown Day
Teaching kids to juggle today with Ringling Brothers Clowns!
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American Red Cross Tornado Blog
The American Red Cross (ARC) has set up a website in response to the Tennessee tornadoes. I learned this because I follow @Redcross on Twitter as you should.
This site is for public information about the American Red Cross response to the Tennessee tornadoes of February 2008. [Source, Tennessee Tornadoes, American Red Cross] [more info]
They had a similar site for Northwest Flooding 2007. If you are looking for loved ones or have been displaced by a disaster, please use the Safe and Well List to help inform family and friends. Safe and Well is easily accessible through your phone using Twitter.
Those Jugglers Hurt Me!
My legs still burn! I have not moved so much in ages. I suppose this means I really should exercise more.
Knoxville Juggling Club relauches
I had to take a break from the tech. I don’t exercise anymore. Cannot remember the last time I stretched. I find myself wanting to sleep more.
When I used to exercise and stretch regularly, I slept less and felt more alive. So tonight, I committed myself to meeting with the Knoxville Juggler’s Club.
Jan Sanders Hall at Cokesbury United Methodist Church will be open to jugglers from 7 to 9 p.m. on the first Sunday and the third Tuesday of each month.
I am going to do my best to show up to both meetings. And I promise not to make any more naked jokes in the church… There were some very talented jugglers there tonight! Dave juggled 5 rings beautifully with ease, a feat I cannot personally replicate. He also juggled five crystal balls without a sweat. Kevin, Jimmy and Doug (not me…the other one) were doing artistic passing. My loud mouth came in and talked them into throwing lots of clubs at the floor. Noah practiced diablo and the rola bola. And we indoctrinated a bystander into 3 ball juggling. I had a blast!
What type of people attend juggling clubs? A high school math teacher, a nuclear engineer (okay..I don’t really know what he does but its got "engineer" in the title and his job is in Oak Ridge so I’m sure its top secret!), a finish carpenter who runs his own business, a middle schooler, a web application developer aka computer geek (yeah that’s me), and an IT guy (yes, that’s a computer guy too).
Why juggle? Because juggling is fun! And so much more. For me, juggling is almost spiritual! Juggling is good for the body as it is very aerobic. Juggling is better than coffee for waking you up as it gets the blood flowing and more oxygen to the brain. Juggling is a social activity. When a person juggles, be it a child or a shy person or anybody, people take notice and often converse and ask questions. Juggling will break you out of your shell! Juggling is good for the mind. You cannot juggle distracted. When you focus on juggling, your worries and the clutter in your mind slip away allowing you to find serenity. This is why corporations have seminars to teach their executives to juggle (aside from the wealth of productivity metaphors that can be thrown into the juggling lessons). In short, juggling is good for the mind, body and soul!
Who can juggle? Anybody! I’ve seen a one handed man juggle. Children can be taught at a very early age. Typically the hand eye coordination required develops around 8 to 10 years old but with patience, a 5 year old could learn. And everyone knows that as soon as I can (usually around 10 months), I teach my children to balance in my hand. I hear people say, "I am too clumsy." Well, that is a perfect reason to learn to juggle! Juggling makes you more aware of things around you and can help make someone less clumsy. Juggling teaches hand/eye coordination and teaches the mind to handle a state of chaos as well as predicting the paths of objects in motion. Jugglers are better drivers! Another excuse is "I don’t have the coordination." Yes you do! Anyone that truly wants to learn to juggle, I can teach in about 10 minutes. As Gusto’s cousin, Marso, says, "Anyone can juggle!"
From the mouths of babes
Amy: "Dad, why does my bus come so early?"
It is funny that the youngest (school age) person in the house has to be the first up.
The Internet Gives Me Gooder English
The Internet not only makes our world smaller, but it keeps our minds sharp. I enjoy videos like the one below from Deek. Deek’s video was inspired by my use of the non-sense word "obligated" rather than "obliged."
The Boy With No Brain Meets Mr Freeze
It’s cold outside. I mean I can see my breath! Since the Boy Scouts are preparing for a winter camp we are talking about frost bite, hypothermia, layering and so forth. This past Monday, one of the adults experienced in winter camping came out in full cold weather attire and explained the importance of clothing, and layering clothing,to the scouts.
I need to start waking Amy earlier. Her morning tantrums over the wrong clothing being out made us miss the bus for a week. I think she is enjoying the carpool lobby but she also enjoyed the bus. After taking her to school this morning, I return in time to see the high schoolers making their way to the bus stop each wearing a thin shirt and for show they have their inadequate windbreakers on but not zipped declaring they are tool cool for warmth. It bugs me but they are old enough to both know better and to suffer the consequences. Then I catch the middle schooler shortcutting between two houses with no jacket at all! He just had the course Monday night on the importance of proper winter attire! On shout later and he is bee lining it back to the house. I catch him at the house for half a Reflection (that’s Boy Scoutese for socratic questioning) and half a lecture (I’m not real good at socratic questions). Then send him, wearing coat, running to the bus stop. I bet the coat does not come home.
Giving my 2 cents about the superintendent
I’m heading to Bearden High School to give my input how the next school superintendent. I hope you’ll be there. This is important. This is our future!
We asked to be heard; tonight is our chance!
Do you care for the future of education in Knox County? We have asked that the citizens be heard in choices like rezonings and choosing a school superintendent. They are now willing to listen!
Knox County residents are invited this week to share their suggestions on what characteristics the school system’s new superintendent needs.
And the school board has been told to stay away.
[Source, Knoxnews.com, Residents’ input sought on superintendent]
I personally think the superintendent needs to come from outside of Knox County and maybe far from TN where local politics and good ol’ boy relations will not be an influence. I want someone making decisions that are right for our children and not because of politics or helping a buddy out.
Don’t forget to attend the superintendent search forums tonight (11/26) at either Austin East or Central High School auditoriums, beginning at 7:00 pm.
Additional forums will be held Tuesday, 11/27/07, at South Doyle and Bearden High School auditoriums, also at 7:00 pm.
This is very important! Make the time to voice your opinion please.
And today started off so well…Now I’m seeing stars
I have been working a project that no person in their right mind would have accepted, particularly at the pittance of the budget alloted. It is a train wreck but today, after several hours of feeling like I was trying to fill the ocean with sand from the beach, I felt the train was back on the track! The client is in a timezone 7 hours ahead of me so I have to work furiously to have this done for their opening business day. Then I had a meeting to help the boy scouts plan for a high adventure trip next summer. During the meeting, at 4:30pm on a Sunday, I get a message that another parent has called my wife to consult on the 3-D solar system project that he knows all parents have probably been working so furiously on for the whole weekend (or longer). Solar system project?! To be built to scale! And with excellent report attached.
So, a pot of coffee brews as I tear the house up looking for objects that are to scale (a trip to AC Moore for Styrofoam would have been nice!) and watch the business day in my client’s timezone come ever so much nearer. Let’s go upstairs and figure out just what the world revolves around.
Schools want emotionless zombies
First we ban tag because playing tag causes physical and emotional injury and now we are giving girls detention for hugging because it violates the school policy banning public displays of affection!
Megan’s mother, Melissa Coulter, said the embraces weren’t even real hugs — just an arm around the shoulder and slight squeeze.
…
District Superintendent Sam McGowen said that he thinks the penalty is fair…
[The student handbook] states: "Displays of affection should not occur on the school campus at any time. It is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved."
[Source, MSNBC
What kind of poor, scarred adult wrote that handbook?! I want my children to hug! I want them to hug their friends. I want the elementary school teachers to hug my children when they fall down on the playground. Touch is important for emotional development.
An example of this can be seen in early childhood development of infants who respond and attach themselves to the adults who love and are responsible for them. In the magazine American Baby it states, “What’s usually the fastest way to soothe a crying baby? Snuggle together while gently stroking him. Your touch has an amazing power to communicate love†(Wu, 2004). [Source, Debbie Cluff, Emotional Development and the Self Esteem in Children]
Touch is one of the five love languages. We need to encourage touch for healthy people and a healthy society! We need to move beyond the sensationalism we hear and read in the news and quit assuming every adult is out to assault our children. Hug frequently!
I dream solutions to my problems
At 3am, I was pounding my head on my keyboard with this bizarre problem. The PHP code I had written was reading the XML data from the XML file but for some inexplicable reason was breaking one of the nodes in half. If it was supposed to read "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" it would instead create two nodes such as "the quick brown" and "fox jumped over the lazy dog". Maddening! So I slept. And in 5 minutes this morning, I solved the problem. I still wish I could take a pill instead of sleeping.
Update: The correction to the problem was to read the whole file instead of reading it in 4096 chunks.
