Frenzied Daddy

Paint It Forward

2010-02-26T05:07:37Z

I strolled into the house today after a long day of slaving over a hot keyboard. I was all fired up to make stirfry wraps for dinner and then get back to work in my basement, slaving over the hot keyboard again. Until I met up with the girls.

Ms K immediately asked me what time it was. (“uhhh six.”). She panicked and started to babble. Ms B lifted her head and said “Miss K has an art show tonight at her school.” Whoa? One of the nice things about Miss K going to the neighborhood school is that it’s ..well, in the neighborhood. So I could turn to her and say “Well, what time is the show?” And I hear that it started at 5:30. I think to myself “It’d be nice to say yes more often. And how long could it take, anyway?” So I say “Let’s go!” Miss K runs to get her shoes and her jacket on. She was all fired up. Ms B says “It’s something about ‘paint mumble bumble’.. there’s a flier on the table. I don’t mumble bumble she has any mumble in the mumble.” By the time Ms B got these three sentence fragments out of her mouth, Miss K had her shoes on and was waiting expectantly by the door. Miss K said something about “we can make art.”

With no knowledge at all of what I was getting in to. But I figured I had a check if they wanted money — we could figure it out. K and I parked back around by the cafeteria where we usually go to drop her off in the mornings and she pulled me feverishly to the front entrance. We walked in, where Miss K was greeted by name. Everybody knew her and was delighted to see her. They give us pizza tickets and we go have pizza, soda, cookies and salad. Then they give her a bag of art supplies: pencils, crayons, water colors and a Strathmore notepad. Then they give her some raffle tickets with her name on them and we take them over to the gym where there’s art on the walls. Real art in frames, or not – photographs, paintings, sketches, blown glass, pottery. There was some really amazing stuff. Her instructions were to put her raffle tickets in envelopes for different pieces, or all for one, or whatever she wanted.

There was enough art for all the kids there; a raucous crazy bunch of kids.

She put all five tickets on a nice mosaic peace sign hanging, and we went back to the cafeteria where we made some more art (we did some landscapes with paper scraps).

Later, they gave Miss K the mosaic to take home – the first “official art” she picked out herself and brought home.

It was a neat evening. I’m glad I said yes. Of course, now, I feel like I should be working and not telling you about all of this; but that’s ok.

Two thousand hours or bust

2010-02-15T17:13:27Z

When I was a wee lad, I wanted, no, I needed a calculator. And my dad, in his infinite wisdom, said that he didn’t have a problem with me using a calculator.

If I didn’t need one.

So I memorized multiplication tables, played with numbers, developed a whole brain toolbox around how to play with numbers and get them right. I even developed the pattern of seeing two possible ways to get to an answer and making sure they lead to the same answer. For instance, if “x squared” is 144, I knew the multiplication table and can see 12×12 on one side of my inner vision, and on the other I knew that 12×2 was 24 and 12×10 was 120, so I could add those together and get the same numbers. Or on a multiple choice test, I could use one of those two ways to quickly get into the right range, and the test answers were usually pretty far off from one other, I could quickly narrow down the options.

Eventually I didn’t need that calculator although it was still faster, so I used it. Especially for things like adding up long sequences of numbers. And then I hit algebra and geometry and algebra 2 and even calculus. I spent hours — yes hours on pretty graphs for my solutions, finding the best answer, making hyperbole graphs, drawing sin(x)*tan(x) graphs. I probably used the most colored pencils of anyone in my high school who was not in the Art program.

You remember those days. Well, pretend that you do, ok?

Ms B had to take a statistics course for nursing. And for that, she needed a graphing calculator. You plugged in the numbers and it drew out your graph on its little LCD screen. Fascinating! A ten minute graph now took ten seconds. Well, at least she knew how to do the graphing, right? But her math wasn’t my responsibility and whoa, that little calculator was pretty neat too. She could look at the black on grey output and compare it to her paper and see that she had the right idea.

And now I’m reading The Talent Code and learning about focused practice, repetition, ironing out the errors, and myelin, and how long myelin takes to wrap around a “brain circuit,” and how that wrapping affects what we see as talent. Which is about a 10,000 foot view, sure, but you can see that I did a bunch of math practice, then people claimed I was talented at math. A direct relationship as it were between practice and talent.

I want to share this with my kids. And I considered putting Octave on the computers so they could see the glory of these cool graphs that equations make, but only after they build a few hundred themselves. I want them to have the practice behind the glory that is math. I tried to describe the formula of conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit as a graph line to Miss B the other day but I’m pretty sure she tuned me out. (Yeah yeah, the slope is 5/9 and it’s offset by 32 blah blah blah). (Actually what I was trying to do was show her how to answer the question from her current knowledge… 0C=32F,100C=212F so what is 80F in C?).

But, like my dad, I could filter their tools by their practice level.

And then, because of a silly post on reddit.com, I stumble across wolfram alpha. Goddamn, wolfram alpha. You want to see the graph for Celsius to Fahrenheit? Here ya go:
actually this is F to C but you see the line?

Oh, and did you want a sine wave?

Neat. How about three dimensions ?

(note: I had a hard time building an ellipse because Wolfram kept changing the X axis so my ellipse would be circular. She’ll have to watch that.)

And here I was worried about the girls searching for porn? Porn is tame compared to the damage they could do with this — why bother to learn something hard if goddamn wolfram alpha (and I think I’m going to add that adjective to it every time I say that) will just jump in and do pretty graphs for the girls.

What do you do to filter this out of their possibilities? Look — you can e’en do this on your iphone!!

(ps: here’s the link I followed to G.W.A. )

Sad Puppy Dog Eyes

2010-02-11T19:45:54Z

So, for reasons I won’t go into, I had to come clean with my daughter this morning.

“Honey, the only reason I had kids was for science fair projects. I go to Michaels’ (arts and craft supply store) and just pick up and hold the solar system model packages, and then put them back on the shelf. And I do it again with the dioramas. I just want to make science fun; and I can’t.”

Hopefully I put enough pathos into my delivery (These are real tears!!) that it sank in. I’m the guy who took three AP science courses his senior year in High School. I’ve had some fan-fricking-tastic science teachers and I loved the stuff; chemistry, biology, physics, even the geology we did for the “Natural History of Oregon” class. Ms Dexter, Mr Carlsen, Mr Sauer, I’m lookin at you. On the other hand, Mr Keupker (AP Calculus) can go jump in the Willamette.

I told her we could split up water in to H2 and O2. She thought that meant just boiling it (no). And I described how we could do it and then demonstrate that these were those specific gasses. We talked about some other science projects she could do in the two weeks she has remaining before this project is due. We talked about how to find out what her teacher is expecting, and that I wanted his rubrick to come home with her tonight.

Do you know any good science fair projects? Have any good science stories?

My favorite might be telling Peter Gunn to “hay feel this little white pellet… feel that slipperyness? (it was Sodium Hydroxide) … That’s your skin dissolving. You might want to wash that off…” … No, wait, that’s not my favorite.

Cashing in my chips?

2010-02-08T18:11:03Z

How do I tell the universe that it’s ok, I’ve learned that lesson and could we please make this less painful? Specifically finances. I keep shouting on the inside but nobody’s listening!

Cabinetry Question

2010-01-21T17:35:53Z

The kitchen cabinets in front of the sink are messed up. Basically they’re cut from one hunk of plywood. There’s a square “C” and then the center of the “C” is cut in half. Then the whole thing is turned on its side, so the two doors are part of the plywood. The main problem with this is that on both sides of the “C” the hinges have caused the wood to split, and so the cabinet is difficult to open or shut and always feels like it’s going to fall off. Basically I need to replace this front piece, I don’t think reinforcing the wood and using wood putty will do the job I need it to.

Also, the part above the doors is a separate hunk of wood; there’s a seam where it meets the side parts.

It might be easiest to replace this if I cut a new top part, new side parts and attach the side parts back to the top part with those metal brace things you can get to brace wood pieces together. That might be how they did it in the first place, although without the braces. Then re-add the cabinet doors. Although I’d be losing a bit of wood due to the saw blade turning the wood to sawdust in the cut, I think I can accomodate that. However, it wouldn’t give an easy way to keep them closed (I could add those magnetic closers at the top I suppose.

What do you think? Do I need a new tool to fix this?

Lost Her Tooth

2010-01-15T04:25:41Z

Those of you who see me on Facebook have already read about this.

Miss K lost her tooth yesterday. This was not a surprise. Not to me, not to her mother, anyway. It came as a total shock to the kiddo herself though. Back when the girls had a dentist appointment, the dentist said she had a couple of loose teeth and that she could, if she worked at it, lose her teeth before Christmas. That was more than two weeks ago.

Last night, she asked for an apple, but had to stop because it hurt to chew. Then she put her fingers in her mouth … and withdrew a tooth! One of the two in the front, on the bottom. There was a little blood and a little pain, but she wasn’t really upset about that– she was upset that her tooth had come out of her body! Miss K had always expected her teeth to be there for her, and now this one rebel was going to let her down.

Soon though, she was happy. We’ve all lost teeth, even the neighbor kids (K, H, and E). We got through those and we’ll get through this. And it shows she’s growing up. And, I bet her teacher will be so pleased for her. Eventually, her mother got her mood turned around, and the sun came out from behind the clouds of toothlessness. It turns out her bus driver was happy for her too!

The good news is that the tooth fairy came by and left a gold dollar coin for her tooth. The bad news is that she’s already stuck her tongue in the tooth hole, so the tooth will not be growing in gold.

A funny thing happened on the way to the new year

2010-01-07T23:54:07Z

My favorite joke this year has to be “yeah well in 10 years we’ll be looking back with 2020 hindsight.”

With Miss B turning 13 this year, gifts from relatives have changed dramatically. People have stopped asking me what she wants, have stopped shopping from her Amazon wish list, and have started giving her cash. I’m not sure what I think of this new trend. On one hand, it’s great for the giver and for the thirteen year old. But on the other, it’s annoying to hear “please drive me to Barnes and Noble” when I can barely consider getting myself a haircut. Is that why the cliche for parents is to resent the incessant requests for driving your teenager somewhere? Because the parents are jealous of having some money to spend on yourself? Hmm, maybe more research is required

I’ve also been considering a few things. As Ms B gave me her old iPod when hers got upgraded, I’m listening to more music and even some neat podcasts. I could totally do a podcast — maybe I should give it a shot. But I’m sure it’d be difficult coming up with interesting content for it. On the otherhand, maybe I should read kid’s books and podcast those (hey Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel would be a fun little book to read), for .. uh, kids to read along with. Yeah, I know it’s a dumb idea. I’m just not sure where to take it… ESL, maybe?

Advice on Women

2009-12-18T23:24:18Z

Sometimes when I walk from the car to the office, I go past a huge child care place, down on first and oak (and second and oak, it takes up most of the first floor of this particular building). I like to watch the kids playing in there. One day, as I marched past, head down so I didn’t get rain in my eyes, I noticed something strange. There was one boy and two girls away from the rest of the kids, kind of tucked around behind a wooden play set. The girls were facing the boy and he was facing them. Behind them was the window past which I was walking purposefully, behind him was the wooden play thing. Kitchen? Yeah maybe a play kitchen. The teachers were on the other side of the room doing something with the rest of the kids and hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

The look on the boy’s face sent me back; way back to when I was cross country skiing* in Anchorage…

I went past a friend’s house. Her name was Katrina. We were freshmen in High School together. She was cute and I liked to pass notes back and forth with her in Social Studies. And, uh, math. Maybe some in english too. Bah, I liked flirting with her, and she never said “get lost.” The main problem was that I had a girlfriend at the time, Stacy. Stacy was pretty much my first “real girlfriend.” The first girl I kissed, and meant it. She went to a different school though, and Katrina was closer to home. As I passed her house, Katrina came out and waved me to a stop. She invited me into her garage where we could “talk” without her parents butting into our conversation. I took off the skiis, put them and the poles up against the wall (leaving would be more of a production now than just running off). And I went into the dark garage with Katrina, not knowing what to expect, but thinking it couldn’t be too bad.

This is where I learned that Katrina and Stacy knew each other. A sinking feeling, then some fifteen or thirty minutes of “discussion,” after which I was supposed to “choose.” And then, of course, both of them telling me to go away and not talk to either of them any more. I knew it was a foregone conclusion when I found Stacy at Katrinas. The Jig, as they say, was up.

The look on this poor kid’s face looked just like I imagine mine did when I was cornered like a dirty, lying, dog-faced, two-timing rat.

So, some advice for you, kid. Hang tough. Apologize to the women and hold your head high. Don’t make unnecessary choices. It’s not really “either x or y” — it’s more likely “neither” than “both.”

* Don’t mistake me. We didn’t get to ski a lot in Anchorage. I just happened to be tooling around on my skis.

Stuff in the Road

2009-12-17T17:29:21Z

I hate stuff in the road.

I don’t know where it comes from, probably my socialist side, but I hate that when there’s a big thing in the road (bag of trash, et cetera), people just swerve into the other lanes and cause traffic problems rather than just move it. I don’t think you should put it in your car, or whatever, just get it out of the way. And I remember seeing things along the freeways as a kid, wondering where they came from and what their stories were.

Maybe it was the crowbar that came flying at me and stuck in my car so long ago. I don’t really know.

Last year it was a big five gallon tank that looked like it fell off a jeep or something. I was surprised how heavy it was as I dragged it off the highway. Last week, I pulled a big bag of trash out of one lane on Columbia. And today, there was a road sign (“steel plate in roadway”) that had fallen over and the sticklike supports were in the road just ready to be jammed into someone’s wheels or under their suspension. So when I pulled around at 42nd at the construction, I went up the hill a little way (it doubles back) and pulled over.

I thought I successfully navigated down the hill and to the sign but, alas, a sneaky (and thick!) blackberry runner caught me around the ankle and I fell down the rest of the hill, landing on my knees and hands in the muddy gravel. Not an image I like to present. But I dragged it out of the road and stuck it in the construction area anyway. Bah. Maybe I saved someone’s wheel. Maybe not. Just wonder where this hatred comes from.

Lights, Camera, Action!

2009-12-07T15:22:22Z

This is the most lights I’ve put on the house in … Well, ever. There’s a strand along the roof, one in the window, one on the Japanese Maple and even a little net of lights on the Rhody in front. Not to mention the tree.

Oh, Krampus, the tree. We went up to our new favorite lot; ($20 per tree, u-cut) SkyLine Tree Farm. It was surprisingly muddy; I should have worn shoes with better traction. I slipped and … “got mud on my butt” is an understatement. It was still wet an hour later and when I got into the car I sat on my coat. I fell on my hand and after the mud treatment my palm is nice and soft.

finally we settled on a tree. It was cute, and about 8 feet tall. Nice and bushy Noble Fir, with places for bigger ornaments. A great little tree. I crawled under the branches and got to work with the tree saw. And worked, and worked. The wii fit wasn’t much help. I was laying down to get to the trunk, so my angle of attack wasn’t so great and my shoulder still hurts (two days later) from having to hold the saw up. The tree was very wide down at the base and after forty five minutes of sawing I realized the cut was all twisted and wouldn’t match up anyway.

Ms B gave me permission to start again; so I went up a foot and cut it again. It only took about 15 minutes after starting that cut. Tied our kill to the roof of the Ford and drove home.

When we got it home, we realized a flaw in our plan. The base wasn’t long enough to touch the bottom of the stand while the branches sat on the ring at the top of the stand. After trying to “just screw it in” (the cats knocked it over) and then trying some blocks under the tree to hold it up (Ima gonna put this tree up on blocks in my yard and fix it right up) (the cats knocked it over again), Ms B decided that a straight, shorter tree with fewer branches was better than a taller tree tilted at at 45 degree angle. Honest, I thought the angle tree was nice. But I pulled it out and lopped off the ring of bottom branches with the circular saw.

Now, it’s about 6 feet tall and actually kind of cute, in a “why did we buy a 4 foot tree” sort of way.

The kittens adore it, but most importantly, the girls love it. With the lights on the house, it’s been pretty fantastic. Now I’m ready for hibernation- I’m tired and sore and my knuckles are all scratched up.