October 2009

There were 43 posts published in October 2009 (this is page 2 of 5).

Yet another GPS talk at Conn

Friday afternoon I did my latest talk about GPS to Mrs. Jarrett’s 5th-grade module at Conn Elementary. It rocked! The kids were so engaged I talked long after the end-of-class bell had sounded. I think it was my best talk yet!

This time I spoke with not just Mrs. Jarrett’s class but another one, too! It was so much fun to see the wheels turning in the kids’ heads as I would pose a question and wait for them to figure it out. Half the kids’ hands would shoot up every time I did that. This time around there were several kids who obviously knew their stuff which made it easier for me to make my points.

What a thrill it is to get kids engaged in learning. Makes me think that I may have made a good teacher if I only I had the patience to be a good student first!

Action-packed birthday weekend

Wow, it’s been quite a busy weekend! Travis’s birthday is today so we spent much of the weekend celebrating. Travis’s official birthday party was a pool party at Pullen Pool. There were dozens of his friends there and lots of fun had. We went home from there to clean up and then it was off to the Haunted Mordecai event at Mordecai Historic Park. The threat of rain kept things a bit low-key there but we did enjoy the “haunted” tour.

This morning we woke at 7 and got to the fairgrounds by 9 to beat the crowds. It was like a ghost town there until 10 AM when the rides officially opened. We all had fun just walking around and looking at things. After 10, we put the kids on a kiddie roller coaster and watched them have a blast. Next we played a few impossible-to-win carny games before we ordered some French fries to eat while we walked to the Ferris wheel. Travis was unsure of the Ferris wheel and took a lot of convincing before he decided to try it. Boy was he glad he did! He chattered non-stop while we were cruising around it.

We got home from the fair, ate lunch, and then puttered a bit around the house. I couldn’t pry the kids away from watching a video, so I headed out alone to Lions Park to watch the cyclocross taking place there. After only being there a few minutes I could see that this was an amazing event and called Kelly to bring the kids. We spent the next 45 minutes cheering on the racers as they rode their bikes around the challenging course. It was very exciting!

Now the kids are tucked in bed and I’m feeling like the zombies that walked downtown Raleigh last night. Hopefully I’ll be well-rested by the time I leave for work tomorrow!

Beautiful fall morning

It’s unusually mild and breezy this morning, not sunny but pleasantly overcast. The wind is gently ushering yellowing leaves off their perches. It was extremely relaxing to walk through the breezy neighborhood streets with the dog this morning, knowing we were safe from rain for now but the showers would soon begin.

A morning like this just makes me feel so alive!

French in Action

I actually had some free time last night so I decided to catch up on the TV shows I’ve been recording but haven’t watched. One of them was the PBS show French in Action, which teaches French at the college level. It’s an immersion-type series first show in 1987 which teaches the language through various scenarios. The three years of French I took in high school are as old as the TV show itself and yet I found that following the conversations was much easier than I expected!

I found the show’s way of dumping you into the dialogue and only afterward tying up the loose ends – after you’re forced to try to figure it out yourself – to be very effective in making the lessons stick. In fact, it seemed easier to pick things up using video than it did using textbooks and a French-speaking teacher in the classroom. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I could rewind the show if there was dialogue I didn’t understand.

Looks like I’ll now be brushing up on my French in the evenings. If that goes well, I may also start watching all the episodes of Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish that I’ve also been recording!

(P.S. All the episodes of French in Action can be streamed online for free as can episodes of Destinos).

I’ve fired my doctor

This morning I fired my doctor. There have been too many instances where I left a message for someone to do a simple thing such as refill a prescription and either the request has been ignored or done incorrectly. In both cases I was never notified that any action had been taken – it was up to me to follow up. Unacceptable. And I’ve heard this same thing from my friends who also were his patients.

It was also hard to actually see my doctor when I needed it. Frequently his schedule was only open weeks in advance and I would wind up seeing another doctor. Not cool. Then there’s the location: my doctor’s office is in Cary while I’m in Raleigh. I don’t want to spend more time driving to and from his office than I do actually being seen by the doctor.
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MSN now snooping anonymously

In a very strange occurrence, my website got visited from what appears to be an MSN spider that didn’t identify itself (fake user agent has been highlighted below):

65.55.231.117 – – [22/Oct/2009:10:02:07 -0400] “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” 200 24 “-” “Mozilla/4.0”
65.55.231.117 – – [22/Oct/2009:10:02:07 -0400] “GET /wp-content/uploads/2009/10/oculan-screenshot-300×230.png HTTP/1.1” 200 120896 “-” “Mozilla/4.0”
65.55.210.80 – – [22/Oct/2009:10:02:20 -0400] “GET /page/2/?q=node%2F1699 HTTP/1.1” 200 29922 “-” “msnbot/1.1 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)”
65.55.230.228 – – [22/Oct/2009:10:08:13 -0400] “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” 200 24 “-” “Mozilla/4.0”
65.55.230.228 – – [22/Oct/2009:10:08:13 -0400] “GET /2009/10/15/big-names-in-sources-of-suspicious-traffic/ HTTP/1.1” 200 10502 “-” “Mozilla/4.0”

65.55.230.228 resolves to msnbot-65-55-230-228.search.msn.com. 65.55.231.117 is a Microsoft address but doesn’t have an entry in DNS.

Just to make sure someone wasn’t spoofing the MSN namespace, I checked the whois record for these host. Sure enough, they belong to Microsoft:
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Southwest will fly to Panama City

I found out today that Southwest Airlines will begin service to my hometown, Panama City, Florida this May. I can’t begin to tell you how psyched I am about this!

Getting to Panama City is an 11-hour trip by car. One can fly there, of course, but that means you’re stuck with flying Delta Airlines and that’s it. As such, there’s little or no competition – and prices are high. Southwest moving in will definitely slash the cost of getting to Panama City, possibly making it worth flying there rather than driving.

On the other hand, the tremendous growth that this will bring the city will forever change it. I’ll miss the hometown feel of my hometown. All in all, though, I think this is a good thing for Panama City. Way to go, Southwest!

Sunset, sunrise

On my way home from the City Council meeting I saw an amazing sunset! The sun had just set below the western horizon, leaving a band of warm orange in the sky near the treetops. Above the trees was a perfect crescent moon, seemingly larger than life. Then this morning I saw a beautiful sunrise, with the same band of warm light that happens only in the cooler months. In place of the moon I saw Venus shining bright in the sky.

It’s good to stop every now and then and appreciate the beauty that’s all around us.

East CAC history lesson

Tonight’s East CAC meeting was an unforgettable one. Not only was I honored to be reelected as CAC Chair, but a group of about 15 Pakistanis were here to observe an American civic meeting. After that we had a number of members tell us about the history of our area, many of these folks having lived here for almost 40 years.

The real treat in my mind was to hear from a descendant of the original property owners who once owned the property surrounding Lions Park. The history of the land was traced back to 1851 when it was purchased from the Mordecais! Even venerable old Saint Augustine’s College wouldn’t come into existence for another 16 years.

It was fascinating! I never knew there used to be a pond right in the middle of our neighborhood, or that a stream existed at the bottom of Fenton Street, or that Pigeon House Branch creek was once clean enough to drink, or that many picnics were held at the bottom of Fenton, where a beautiful wooded ravine once stood.

The “history lesson” meeting was so much fun that we’ll have to do another one soon!