in 2 weeks when school is out, i will have a 3 day weekend and then i am going to start my next job as a systems analyst at applied research laboratories. this is actually the same place where ross works, though my job is a support position, not in one of the 5 actual research labs in the building, making it far less secretive/exciting position as the one ross has. in short, i will be working on web sites/applications.
i'm a little bit sad to walk out on teaching, but the thought of starting over for next year seems unbearable at this point. also, i've really missed the computer work i did and am looking forward to the mental challenges it provides. i do plan to return to teaching at some point. hopefully with this additional web development experience i can get a position teaching computers at a high school or junior college at some point.
at any rate, i am glad the days of scouring through craigslist and monster, and interviewing at schools and businesses are over! ross and i are looking forward to huge savings on gas from me not driving 80miles round trip every day, and also the ability to carpool. and i do hope he will take me to lunch sometimes!
one of the things i'm excited about is that i can wear jeans and flipflops to work if i so desire...welcome back college dresscode! i've missed you!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
go spurs go!
while slightly less devoted to watching every single game, ross and i still feel ties to the s.a. spurs even though we have moved away from s.a. therefore it was particularly disturbing for us to watch them fall behind 0-2 in their 2nd round playoff series with the new orleans hornets. i got an urgent email at work from ross, declaring our need to go down to s.a. to support the spurs in their game 3. so, we celebrated ross' birthday a couple weeks early with a trip down to s.a. on thursday night. mike came along for the journey and we all had a blast. we expected traffic on the way down and we were not disappointed. we had awesome seats at the game and it was a close, exciting contest that the spurs ended up winning. the arena was really hyped up and it was really nice time. the only downer of the evening was I35 being shut down for construction on the way home, and we thus found ourselves in a major traffic jam at 1.30am. friday was a long day at school for me!
other than that trip, i have just been counting down the days until school is over (17 more school days). ross has been playing a new video game and working like a madman around the house. he took a tip from my uncle and fixed our shower (thanks RJ!!!) that was put together incorrectly by the person who installed it and was leaking on the floor. he's been tackling other small things around the house and yard that are making our house even more awesome! and now he has another project because a friend brought over an inflatable pool yesterday that we are going to set up in the backyard to enjoy this summer. i will keep you posted on the progress of that.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
teacher appreciation day
so today is teacher appreciation day. you should appreciate me! i thought i would help you by posting on my blog, since i have neglected to do so. everyone appreciates it when someone posts to their blog and provides new reading material.
area chipotle restaurants were providing free meals to teachers and faculty members, which qualifies both ross and me to receive free dinner. we drove over when we got home about 6.45pm. we were both starving (in the relative sense of the word) and thus greatly dismayed to see every teacher in the area in line for free food with their families. the line swirled all the way through the restaurant and out the door. we refused to stand in this line, even for free food.
but we were so hungry and now the timeframe for preparing dinner was long past, not to mention we were somewhat disappointed. so we went to the nearby quiznos and picked up some toasty sandwiches. we came home, ross walked the dog, we chatted and checked emails, i went to the gym. but we could not pass up this free food!! so about 9pm (they are open till 10) we went back to chipotle. now there was no line. and so we got free dinner. the only trouble is we have already eaten dinner so here we are. but at least we got free food!
this weekend was super relaxing. it was BH's bday and so we met up with a group of her friends at a house on the guadalupe river, that had a huge porch and large glass windows. aaaand a shower with 6 shower heads!!!! shower heads on the opposite walls of the stall, AND 4 jet heads spraying streams from the side of the shower. it was pretty amazing. we all went tubing but it was an overcast day and thus FREEZING. two guys had decided to kayak instead of tube and we were grateful, as we all linked up and had them tow us to speed up the otherwise slow pace of the float. i had monday off in celebration of cinco de mayo and used it to get caught up with some errands and housework. i had such a good time that i convinced myself that staying home from work over the summer might not be so bad after all!
area chipotle restaurants were providing free meals to teachers and faculty members, which qualifies both ross and me to receive free dinner. we drove over when we got home about 6.45pm. we were both starving (in the relative sense of the word) and thus greatly dismayed to see every teacher in the area in line for free food with their families. the line swirled all the way through the restaurant and out the door. we refused to stand in this line, even for free food.
but we were so hungry and now the timeframe for preparing dinner was long past, not to mention we were somewhat disappointed. so we went to the nearby quiznos and picked up some toasty sandwiches. we came home, ross walked the dog, we chatted and checked emails, i went to the gym. but we could not pass up this free food!! so about 9pm (they are open till 10) we went back to chipotle. now there was no line. and so we got free dinner. the only trouble is we have already eaten dinner so here we are. but at least we got free food!
this weekend was super relaxing. it was BH's bday and so we met up with a group of her friends at a house on the guadalupe river, that had a huge porch and large glass windows. aaaand a shower with 6 shower heads!!!! shower heads on the opposite walls of the stall, AND 4 jet heads spraying streams from the side of the shower. it was pretty amazing. we all went tubing but it was an overcast day and thus FREEZING. two guys had decided to kayak instead of tube and we were grateful, as we all linked up and had them tow us to speed up the otherwise slow pace of the float. i had monday off in celebration of cinco de mayo and used it to get caught up with some errands and housework. i had such a good time that i convinced myself that staying home from work over the summer might not be so bad after all!
Saturday, April 05, 2008
reflection
i had to write this for my certification class and thought you might enjoy reading it as an insight into the past year
Where I Was
This year I taught at ******. The campus is in a rural area in east *****. There are a lot of new housing developments going in around the school, which is right next to an elementary school, and down the road from the district's high school. The building is pretty small for the number of students it is servicing, and it has about 15 portable buildings to accommodate some of these students. I taught in one of the portable buildings, along with just about all of the other 6th grade teachers. The student body at ***** is predominantly Hispanic and low-income.
What I Did
I taught four sections of 6th grade math, one section of Pre-AP 6th grade math, and one section of 6th grade math for success: a TAKS remediation class for those students who did not pass the math TAKS test last year. I met with the other 6th grade math teachers in the district last summer in an attempt to align the curriculum. We walked away with a very broad scope and sequence as well as 6 benchmark tests to be given at specified times throughout the year. Within the 6 units we came up with, it was my responsibility to set the pace and order of learning the topics. I was also responsible for coming up with lesson plans and ideas for teaching the content. We just adopted Glencoe textbooks that came with a variety of resources that I found very helpful. Our main focuses this year are fraction, percent, and decimal equivalency, along with ratios and proportional reasoning.
Challenges
This has been a very challenging year. Personally, a 30 mile (1hr) commute each way to school during my first year of marriage has been really taxing. The early mornings and late evenings have caused a lot of stress.
A very difficult situation also arose this year as it became evident that the other 6th grade math teacher was not performing her job as expected, which led to one whole team of 6th graders missing out on the first semester of 6th grade math and the re-assigning of that teacher. I was supposed to be doing my planning with this teacher, which led to some difficulties. Unfortunately, I was then put in a difficult situation as I was supposed to help this teacher with her lessons and hold her accountable, something I did not feel qualified or comfortable doing. A retired teacher was brought on to replace her and try to do some damage control before the TAKS test.
This is the first year that 6th grade has been at ***** and a lot of challenges stemmed from this. The administration was not sure how to handle a lot of issues that came up unexpectedly, and almost all of the 6th grade teachers were first year teachers. A lot of discipline problems arose from novice teachers being unsure of how to handle situations.
The other aspect of this year that I found most challenging was dealing with the apathy of students. It seems there are very few who care about their grades. Every grading cycle was a nightmare of trying to get students to complete missing assignments or projects so they could pass, something they themselves did not actually care about.
Support and the Lack Thereof
The administration failed miserably in providing support to me personally and also the entire 6th grade staff. They compounded the problem by refusing to be strict disciplinarians when classroom discipline did not contain a problem. As students caught on to this, behavior continued to decline. Aside from behavior, there were many procedures that should have been in place from movement of students to scheduling issues that should have been handled by administration and simply were ignored. Not a lot of thought was put into what it would take to have 6th grade included at the school, and it showed.
I was assigned a mentor teacher who will be paid several thousand dollars to serve as my mentor. She never came to my classroom one time the week we were in-service before school started to see my classroom or ask if I had any questions. She observed my classroom one class period in December and emailed me that she was very impressed and thought that maybe I should give her some pointers. While a kind thing to say, it was not very helpful. We met one time in March to fill out some paperwork for something she is supposed to have been doing with me all year long to analyze one of my class periods. She was supposed to meet up with me after spring break to help me analyze, but I have not heard from her again.
The math department head has been very supportive of me, however. He constantly is checking on how I am doing and how he could help me. If I have a question or just want to run an idea by him, he is always ready to listen and give his opinion. He has been very encouraging and supportive of me. Also, the new teacher they brought on to replace the poorly performing math teacher is a 30yr veteran teacher and she has been a good friend to me and very encouraging.
Progress
I know for sure that I have made a lot of progress this year. I now can fully understand why the first year of teaching is so difficult. At first I was really concerned about covering all the material, and now I'm learning to take it a little slower so the students don't seem so overwhelmed. The warm-ups used to take forever, but I was able to carve that time back to only 10minutes. Also, I used to always plan way too much for each lesson, and I'm getting better at knowing what the students will be able to handle in a given day. I'm getting a better feel for the order in which to present new information. I am learning to deal with difficult students without them getting under my skin. I have written by far the fewest referrals of any 6th grade teacher, and I feel I am learning how to discuss situations with the students rather than explode at them. There are so many things I want to get better at, but I feel like I've come a long way this year, especially with time management.
Suggestions for a New Teacher
For a new teacher, my first suggestion is make sure this is really what you want to do and commit to the entire year. A teacher quitting is really tough on the kids and on the other team members. I have wanted to quit so many times, but I told myself before I started I was going to make it through to June. You should have a similar pact with yourself.
Find some plan for grading that does not take up your whole life. During the fall I spent every Saturday morning at Starbucks grading for 4hours, and every Sunday afternoon lesson planning for 2 hours. As much as possible, try to save the weekends for yourself instead. I burned out around Thanksgiving and have yet to recover from it. This spring I have given less homework, had the students grade their own homework, taken grades on class work instead, graded while students are testing...and I've thrown a LOT of papers away without more than just glancing through them to vaguely assess them! Okay honestly, I’ve thrown away stacks of papers without even looking at them. Don't be afraid to throw things away. I'm still looking for a good plan, but I feel I am closer to it.
Make friends. School is so much more fun when you can go complain or swap stories with someone at lunch, or discuss basketball games with after school. Plus, you always need to know someone can drop by and watch your class for 2min so you can run to the restroom! Friends at school, whether they are the other teachers or the custodians, can keep you sane and employed on those tough days.
Review. It’s about TAKS time and I am mortified by how much my students have forgotten. All that fraction stuff we did during the fall seems to have vanished from their memories. I wish I had been using my warm-ups as reviews, not of the day before, but of the month before. In fact, I think this is the number one thing I would change if I had it to do over. Maybe even every Friday I would spend some portion of the class period reviewing major topics we had already covered.
Manage your classroom. There are several first year teachers at my school that cannot manage their classroom- their students walk all over them. And they are miserable. From day 1, I have let my students know I am the boss. I am a fun person, but I have no room in my class for discipline issues. The kids respond to that, they really really do. My administration has moved 15 students into my class from the other team because they were discipline problems. None of them have even been a small discipline problem for me, but continue to cause troubles in their other classes. I'm not saying I'm the only factor in this equation, but there was fear in their eyes the day they stepped into my classroom. They know Mrs. H doesn't accept any crazy stuff. Students really do live up to the expectations you have for them. I set these expectations on day 1 and I stuck by them, even when I thought they were too high. And now the kids remind each other of them, I really have to do very little work managing my classroom. Part of this is being explicitly clear with them on how you want them to act. Being consistent with these expectations is also key, because if you slack off, they will too. When these expectations are met, you can joke around with the kids and let them share things with you from their lives, and do fun activities. Many times this school year students have told me they love my class and it is fun. Many times I have also heard I am a mean teacher and that's why no one disobeys. Kids know the difference between someone who is a pushover and nice, and someone who is firm but also nice. You are the adult...be the adult or be miserable.
If something isn't working just stop doing it. There are a lot of things I have started this year that just weren't working for me so I just abruptly stop them and never mention them again. Mostly the kids just forget about them!
Switch it up. When I try to use the same instructional strategy for teaching a lesson more than 2 days in a row, they start to get rowdy. But if I will use powerpoint one day, class rotations the next, group work the next, mini-white boards the next, and a quiz on Friday...I will have no issues all week long. Keep them busy and engaged. Boredom is your worst enemy.
Keep it in perspective. Summer WILL arrive. This is only temporary. If you hate it, it will be over soon and you can move on. If you love it, you will have an opportunity to improve next year. It’s easy to be overwhelmed and overcome by despair. Keep work at work as much as possible…this is really hard as a teacher. But go home, have fun, and go back to school and really care about the kids. They are why you are there. It’s easy to forget that. So remind yourself often.
Where I Was
This year I taught at ******. The campus is in a rural area in east *****. There are a lot of new housing developments going in around the school, which is right next to an elementary school, and down the road from the district's high school. The building is pretty small for the number of students it is servicing, and it has about 15 portable buildings to accommodate some of these students. I taught in one of the portable buildings, along with just about all of the other 6th grade teachers. The student body at ***** is predominantly Hispanic and low-income.
What I Did
I taught four sections of 6th grade math, one section of Pre-AP 6th grade math, and one section of 6th grade math for success: a TAKS remediation class for those students who did not pass the math TAKS test last year. I met with the other 6th grade math teachers in the district last summer in an attempt to align the curriculum. We walked away with a very broad scope and sequence as well as 6 benchmark tests to be given at specified times throughout the year. Within the 6 units we came up with, it was my responsibility to set the pace and order of learning the topics. I was also responsible for coming up with lesson plans and ideas for teaching the content. We just adopted Glencoe textbooks that came with a variety of resources that I found very helpful. Our main focuses this year are fraction, percent, and decimal equivalency, along with ratios and proportional reasoning.
Challenges
This has been a very challenging year. Personally, a 30 mile (1hr) commute each way to school during my first year of marriage has been really taxing. The early mornings and late evenings have caused a lot of stress.
A very difficult situation also arose this year as it became evident that the other 6th grade math teacher was not performing her job as expected, which led to one whole team of 6th graders missing out on the first semester of 6th grade math and the re-assigning of that teacher. I was supposed to be doing my planning with this teacher, which led to some difficulties. Unfortunately, I was then put in a difficult situation as I was supposed to help this teacher with her lessons and hold her accountable, something I did not feel qualified or comfortable doing. A retired teacher was brought on to replace her and try to do some damage control before the TAKS test.
This is the first year that 6th grade has been at ***** and a lot of challenges stemmed from this. The administration was not sure how to handle a lot of issues that came up unexpectedly, and almost all of the 6th grade teachers were first year teachers. A lot of discipline problems arose from novice teachers being unsure of how to handle situations.
The other aspect of this year that I found most challenging was dealing with the apathy of students. It seems there are very few who care about their grades. Every grading cycle was a nightmare of trying to get students to complete missing assignments or projects so they could pass, something they themselves did not actually care about.
Support and the Lack Thereof
The administration failed miserably in providing support to me personally and also the entire 6th grade staff. They compounded the problem by refusing to be strict disciplinarians when classroom discipline did not contain a problem. As students caught on to this, behavior continued to decline. Aside from behavior, there were many procedures that should have been in place from movement of students to scheduling issues that should have been handled by administration and simply were ignored. Not a lot of thought was put into what it would take to have 6th grade included at the school, and it showed.
I was assigned a mentor teacher who will be paid several thousand dollars to serve as my mentor. She never came to my classroom one time the week we were in-service before school started to see my classroom or ask if I had any questions. She observed my classroom one class period in December and emailed me that she was very impressed and thought that maybe I should give her some pointers. While a kind thing to say, it was not very helpful. We met one time in March to fill out some paperwork for something she is supposed to have been doing with me all year long to analyze one of my class periods. She was supposed to meet up with me after spring break to help me analyze, but I have not heard from her again.
The math department head has been very supportive of me, however. He constantly is checking on how I am doing and how he could help me. If I have a question or just want to run an idea by him, he is always ready to listen and give his opinion. He has been very encouraging and supportive of me. Also, the new teacher they brought on to replace the poorly performing math teacher is a 30yr veteran teacher and she has been a good friend to me and very encouraging.
Progress
I know for sure that I have made a lot of progress this year. I now can fully understand why the first year of teaching is so difficult. At first I was really concerned about covering all the material, and now I'm learning to take it a little slower so the students don't seem so overwhelmed. The warm-ups used to take forever, but I was able to carve that time back to only 10minutes. Also, I used to always plan way too much for each lesson, and I'm getting better at knowing what the students will be able to handle in a given day. I'm getting a better feel for the order in which to present new information. I am learning to deal with difficult students without them getting under my skin. I have written by far the fewest referrals of any 6th grade teacher, and I feel I am learning how to discuss situations with the students rather than explode at them. There are so many things I want to get better at, but I feel like I've come a long way this year, especially with time management.
Suggestions for a New Teacher
For a new teacher, my first suggestion is make sure this is really what you want to do and commit to the entire year. A teacher quitting is really tough on the kids and on the other team members. I have wanted to quit so many times, but I told myself before I started I was going to make it through to June. You should have a similar pact with yourself.
Find some plan for grading that does not take up your whole life. During the fall I spent every Saturday morning at Starbucks grading for 4hours, and every Sunday afternoon lesson planning for 2 hours. As much as possible, try to save the weekends for yourself instead. I burned out around Thanksgiving and have yet to recover from it. This spring I have given less homework, had the students grade their own homework, taken grades on class work instead, graded while students are testing...and I've thrown a LOT of papers away without more than just glancing through them to vaguely assess them! Okay honestly, I’ve thrown away stacks of papers without even looking at them. Don't be afraid to throw things away. I'm still looking for a good plan, but I feel I am closer to it.
Make friends. School is so much more fun when you can go complain or swap stories with someone at lunch, or discuss basketball games with after school. Plus, you always need to know someone can drop by and watch your class for 2min so you can run to the restroom! Friends at school, whether they are the other teachers or the custodians, can keep you sane and employed on those tough days.
Review. It’s about TAKS time and I am mortified by how much my students have forgotten. All that fraction stuff we did during the fall seems to have vanished from their memories. I wish I had been using my warm-ups as reviews, not of the day before, but of the month before. In fact, I think this is the number one thing I would change if I had it to do over. Maybe even every Friday I would spend some portion of the class period reviewing major topics we had already covered.
Manage your classroom. There are several first year teachers at my school that cannot manage their classroom- their students walk all over them. And they are miserable. From day 1, I have let my students know I am the boss. I am a fun person, but I have no room in my class for discipline issues. The kids respond to that, they really really do. My administration has moved 15 students into my class from the other team because they were discipline problems. None of them have even been a small discipline problem for me, but continue to cause troubles in their other classes. I'm not saying I'm the only factor in this equation, but there was fear in their eyes the day they stepped into my classroom. They know Mrs. H doesn't accept any crazy stuff. Students really do live up to the expectations you have for them. I set these expectations on day 1 and I stuck by them, even when I thought they were too high. And now the kids remind each other of them, I really have to do very little work managing my classroom. Part of this is being explicitly clear with them on how you want them to act. Being consistent with these expectations is also key, because if you slack off, they will too. When these expectations are met, you can joke around with the kids and let them share things with you from their lives, and do fun activities. Many times this school year students have told me they love my class and it is fun. Many times I have also heard I am a mean teacher and that's why no one disobeys. Kids know the difference between someone who is a pushover and nice, and someone who is firm but also nice. You are the adult...be the adult or be miserable.
If something isn't working just stop doing it. There are a lot of things I have started this year that just weren't working for me so I just abruptly stop them and never mention them again. Mostly the kids just forget about them!
Switch it up. When I try to use the same instructional strategy for teaching a lesson more than 2 days in a row, they start to get rowdy. But if I will use powerpoint one day, class rotations the next, group work the next, mini-white boards the next, and a quiz on Friday...I will have no issues all week long. Keep them busy and engaged. Boredom is your worst enemy.
Keep it in perspective. Summer WILL arrive. This is only temporary. If you hate it, it will be over soon and you can move on. If you love it, you will have an opportunity to improve next year. It’s easy to be overwhelmed and overcome by despair. Keep work at work as much as possible…this is really hard as a teacher. But go home, have fun, and go back to school and really care about the kids. They are why you are there. It’s easy to forget that. So remind yourself often.
it's that time again
its official. i am looking for a new job. as of june 5th, i will be finished with my first year of teaching. sometime in june i will receive my standard teaching certificate for the state of texas, qualifying me to teach 4th-8th grade math. but i'm not sure i'm quite up for it next year.
since graduating college in may '05, i have spent 3 months working at the church up in oregon (quite possibly the greatest time EVER), 15 months working as a programmer/analyst in san antonio (6months of culture shock & unhappiness, followed by 9months of a pretty cool job and falling in love), 3 months of being a stay at home wife (this was not for me: i think i drove ross crazy!), 6wks of teacher training (i was just glad to have something to do, but it was pretty boring), and almost 9months of teaching 6th grade (what a ride!). you can note my apparent attention span towards work and see that it is clearly time for a new career.
i have been scouring craigslist since december, trying to get a feel for what's out there and what i might be interested in doing next. i have considered and even interviewed for teaching position next year. i have considered and even interviewed for another programming job. but something inside me is looking for something a little bit more exciting. :) i don't necessarily feel that it is discontentment, because really i like my life, but i think the bottom line is i do not want to be old and have my life boxed in to a certain path. i like dreaming and not knowing what in the world my future will hold. i want to do something cool. i just don't know what it is yet. in fact, i want to do a LOT of cool things...hopefully i will have time and the ability to accomplish them all.
ross is very supportive in me doing whatever i want, if thats staying home, going to school, going to work. "do whatever you want babe-really", thats what he tells me. after all, as i reminded him the other day "everything i have is yours (i think he wanted a dollar off the counter)...but more importantly: everything of yours is MINE!"
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." --Jeremiah 29.11
since graduating college in may '05, i have spent 3 months working at the church up in oregon (quite possibly the greatest time EVER), 15 months working as a programmer/analyst in san antonio (6months of culture shock & unhappiness, followed by 9months of a pretty cool job and falling in love), 3 months of being a stay at home wife (this was not for me: i think i drove ross crazy!), 6wks of teacher training (i was just glad to have something to do, but it was pretty boring), and almost 9months of teaching 6th grade (what a ride!). you can note my apparent attention span towards work and see that it is clearly time for a new career.
i have been scouring craigslist since december, trying to get a feel for what's out there and what i might be interested in doing next. i have considered and even interviewed for teaching position next year. i have considered and even interviewed for another programming job. but something inside me is looking for something a little bit more exciting. :) i don't necessarily feel that it is discontentment, because really i like my life, but i think the bottom line is i do not want to be old and have my life boxed in to a certain path. i like dreaming and not knowing what in the world my future will hold. i want to do something cool. i just don't know what it is yet. in fact, i want to do a LOT of cool things...hopefully i will have time and the ability to accomplish them all.
ross is very supportive in me doing whatever i want, if thats staying home, going to school, going to work. "do whatever you want babe-really", thats what he tells me. after all, as i reminded him the other day "everything i have is yours (i think he wanted a dollar off the counter)...but more importantly: everything of yours is MINE!"
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." --Jeremiah 29.11
Saturday, March 29, 2008
comedy etiquette
last wednesday ross and i traveled to san antonio for the chris rock comedy tour that i had arranged for us to attend as an anniversary gift to ross. it was a slightly stressful trip there as we dealt with both austin and san antonio traffic and trying to find an ATM machine to get cash to pay for parking. but we made it just in time. the opening guy was funny, i have forgotten his name but he is apparently one of the voices in the Bee movie. it was not seinfeld. chris rock was also funny. it was a great time, we laughed and had a good evening together.
ok. so i'm trying to remember back, but this may have been the first stand up comedy deal i've been to. not sure. but what i am sure of is, some people are really annoying. for instance, the people behind us. it was 2 guys and 1 girl. 1 guy would sort of chortle every few seconds in a real deep guttural type noise that was really disturbing. poor guy i guess. the other guy would gasp when he thought something was funny, and then repeat it to the girl (could she not understand chris rock?!!) and then they would both laugh hysterically. this was annoying enough, but when he found something extremely funny, he would clap really really loudly...right next to ross' ear. its sort of like having the c'mon fran guys behind you at the a&m football game. the event is fun, but you remember the benefits of watching things while on your couch with a blanket and a bowl of popcorn.
there was a couple sitting next to me that provided me a side of comedy to go along with chris rock. the girl NEVER laughed, not one time. but she was enjoying herself. i just don't think she can laugh? i'm not sure what the deal was. but i knew she thought it was funny. because every time she found something to be funny, rather than laughing, she would say...'wow, that is really funny.' and her boyfriend would laugh. sometimes she would change it to...'o my gosh, that is hilarious.' and her boyfriend would laugh. and me too a little bit. a girl that can't laugh!
ok. so i'm trying to remember back, but this may have been the first stand up comedy deal i've been to. not sure. but what i am sure of is, some people are really annoying. for instance, the people behind us. it was 2 guys and 1 girl. 1 guy would sort of chortle every few seconds in a real deep guttural type noise that was really disturbing. poor guy i guess. the other guy would gasp when he thought something was funny, and then repeat it to the girl (could she not understand chris rock?!!) and then they would both laugh hysterically. this was annoying enough, but when he found something extremely funny, he would clap really really loudly...right next to ross' ear. its sort of like having the c'mon fran guys behind you at the a&m football game. the event is fun, but you remember the benefits of watching things while on your couch with a blanket and a bowl of popcorn.
there was a couple sitting next to me that provided me a side of comedy to go along with chris rock. the girl NEVER laughed, not one time. but she was enjoying herself. i just don't think she can laugh? i'm not sure what the deal was. but i knew she thought it was funny. because every time she found something to be funny, rather than laughing, she would say...'wow, that is really funny.' and her boyfriend would laugh. sometimes she would change it to...'o my gosh, that is hilarious.' and her boyfriend would laugh. and me too a little bit. a girl that can't laugh!
Friday, March 14, 2008
spring breakin' it
ahh, the blessed time of year known as spring break, that i once again get to partake in since i am a teacher. mine has been awesome, i took a quick weekend trip up to portland to help with their church youth retreat and it was amazing. it was very good to worship God with such great friends, and to see some lives changed. it was a very refreshing weekend. some of my friends had just had their 2nd baby about 2wks ago, and so i got to see him as well, which was cool. he was very cute and small and fun to hold. though i was under strict orders not to come home wanting a baby. so i don't.
i came back on tuesday and have spent the greater part of the last 3 days doing absolutely nothing. it has been wonderful. peyton thinks any time that i am at home, particularly if i'm sitting at the computer, that i should be taking her for a walk. she continually tries to get me to go to the front door. i have been taking her to the park each day, on wednesday evening ross went with us, and yesterday we were there for about 2hrs eating lunch and getting some exercise. i've done a little housework and a ton of relaxing! sadly, spring break is only a week and i shall return to school monday, hopefully remembering to wear green, as i'm sure it will be very important in the middle school world. last night i had a dream that i had not prepared a lesson and was frantically trying to come up with something just before class. this is really not that far from the truth if i don't get crackin on some school stuff at some point this weekend.
i suppose that i should also mention that ross and i celebrated our first anniversary on march 3rd!!! i guess i was so overwhelmed by school that this slid through the cracks of the blog. we actually celebrated it on sunday march 2 for convenience, but felt a little better about it since due to leap year, we had actually been married for 365 days on this date. we spent the whole day together, relaxing and hanging out. we then went to eat at saltgrass, which is where our very first date was in san antonio and has been a special restaurant to us. the food and service were excellent. ross was very thoughtful and bought me a gift certificate to a really amazing spa in the lake travis area. its good for a half day of beauty there, or i can split it up and go four separate times. he thought i might need the massage right now, or he thought i might want to save it for the week i get out of school as a celebration. i'm going to try to save it till then, but i might get desperate. i was also feeling romantic and thoughtful....and bought him tickets to see chris rock in a few weeks. whatever.
my sister drops through town on her way back to college tonight and we are hoping to take her sailing if there's wind tonight. i love spring break!
i came back on tuesday and have spent the greater part of the last 3 days doing absolutely nothing. it has been wonderful. peyton thinks any time that i am at home, particularly if i'm sitting at the computer, that i should be taking her for a walk. she continually tries to get me to go to the front door. i have been taking her to the park each day, on wednesday evening ross went with us, and yesterday we were there for about 2hrs eating lunch and getting some exercise. i've done a little housework and a ton of relaxing! sadly, spring break is only a week and i shall return to school monday, hopefully remembering to wear green, as i'm sure it will be very important in the middle school world. last night i had a dream that i had not prepared a lesson and was frantically trying to come up with something just before class. this is really not that far from the truth if i don't get crackin on some school stuff at some point this weekend.
i suppose that i should also mention that ross and i celebrated our first anniversary on march 3rd!!! i guess i was so overwhelmed by school that this slid through the cracks of the blog. we actually celebrated it on sunday march 2 for convenience, but felt a little better about it since due to leap year, we had actually been married for 365 days on this date. we spent the whole day together, relaxing and hanging out. we then went to eat at saltgrass, which is where our very first date was in san antonio and has been a special restaurant to us. the food and service were excellent. ross was very thoughtful and bought me a gift certificate to a really amazing spa in the lake travis area. its good for a half day of beauty there, or i can split it up and go four separate times. he thought i might need the massage right now, or he thought i might want to save it for the week i get out of school as a celebration. i'm going to try to save it till then, but i might get desperate. i was also feeling romantic and thoughtful....and bought him tickets to see chris rock in a few weeks. whatever.
my sister drops through town on her way back to college tonight and we are hoping to take her sailing if there's wind tonight. i love spring break!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Ranting on Net Neutrality
Warning: Proselytizing rant on net neutrality ahead. There's no personal news.
Disclosure: I have always been a very hard line believer in open source, open protocols and open standards. I'm generally anti-corporation (remember I quit USAA for their behavior as a corporation). So everything I say will be biased by my personal beliefs. However, that doesn't have to mean I'm wrong ;)
I'm not typically comfortable stumping for a cause or trying to convert people b/c I try hard to leave people as they are. On the other hand, this time, I care more than usual about it so I was wondering what I could do to help people understand net neutrality and what's at stake. The answer I was consistently given was spread awareness. This is my attempt to do just that.
Net neutrality is a very simple concept - but it's also easily distorted. Let's say that I can connect to the internet at a certain speed (probably b/c I pay someone to allow me access) and you can connect to the internet at that speed or higher. Then net neutrality is the guarantee that you and I can communicate at that speed. There is no magic required to ensure this guarantee because it is the natural state of connectivity. To slow down that speed (based on what you send me - say a video for example) would have to be engineered on purpose.
First I want to try to explain "the industries" arguments. By industries I do of course sarcastically refer to companies like AT&T. I want to then try to break down what I think is wrong with them and what I think the logical consequences of their ideas are.
It's become rather famous in internet circles that a certain member of congress defined the internet as a series of tubes like your kitchen plumbing. He stated that you can't just pull up to the tubes with a dump truck and dump everything in there at once b/c you ... clog it up. He went on to portray AT&T as the savior of the internet by providing access to "highways" on which special kinds of traffic could travel - approved "premium" content. Well there is no response to this argument. There is no response to it because its a big, stupid, ignorant lie. It is obvious this particular congressman knows nothing about the technical world we live in. The internet is not a series of tubes. You can't pull a dump truck up to and throw the world into the tubes to clog it up. That's because they aren't tubes. Your connection is a copper wire and you can't "fill" it. That doesn't have a real-world meaning. The internet self-controls congestion and the basic economic principles of scarcity (i.e. unavailability due to wait times)causes humans to naturally govern their usage. This hasn't had to happen yet. The reasons why are a little technical but I'll do my best to simplify them. What AT&T has paid this representative to imply is that their capacity for transmitting data is nearing capacity and they want you to believe that the internet is in the beginning of a saturation in which no information will be able to get in or out. This so far hasn't come CLOSE to reality. There is beginning to be a limit to the number of machines that we can continue to connect, but this is already a solved problem and has nothing to do with the amount of data currently being transmitted. I want to tell you more about your connectivity and the speeds you SHOULD be getting, but that is for a later paragraph regarding who owns these "tubes" and who paid for this "tubes". Just understand from this paragraph that neutrality means someone can not artificially slow down your connection and that it is mathematically provable that capacity is not yet close to reachable. I'm not completely satisfied with this answer b/c I haven't offered you any proof. I'm asking you to trust me on this one or better yet, research it yourself while being extremely careful about the source if your information.
I read a recent article that said to ensure that certain kinds of traffic cannot be slowed down would grant special privilege to that kind of content (let's continue to assume we mean video b/c videos are large compared to text). That might superficially sound plausible until you realize the big joke is that if you artificially slow down content, it's the fast content that has had an advantage conferred upon it. In this case the truth is exactly the opposite of the claim.
Media companies like TWC and AT&T are interested in controlling content and in this sense the battle for net neutrality is very much like the war being waged against bad intellectual property rights (copyright, patents, ownership etc) concerning software. A non-neutral internet could easily become a lot like cable TV for example. You can connect by ordering specific grouping of internet content. Think of it like this: maybe you want to order the social content package from TWC. This consists of email, myspace, facebook and maybe some chat forums. To get access to technical articles or news, you would have to additionally order other kinds of content. Not only are you paying for the content, but the providers of the content have to pay to be hosted. That's a lot like writing a text message on your phone and both the sender and receiver get charged. Let's call this the managed content model.
I want to make the argument against managed content on the internet as the basis for why net neutrality is important. Historically information mediums begin as a two way process. Provider and reader are interacting. Published print and radio are fine examples of something which began as a two way medium, became commercialized and turned into managed content and then became a one way medium in which only the provider has a say in what is published. My argument is that this minimalization of feedback degrades the quality of content. It provides no safeguards or fact checking of information and it leaves the "common man" out of the information loop. The laws are setup to achieve this goal (not as a conspiracy but b/c it makes money). The FCC is the perfect example of this. They split the radio spectrum largely b/w cbs and nbc. They became responsible for 97% of the radio content. Wonder what that would be like? It becomes a propaganda outlet for the owners (think FOX News and Rupert Murdoch as an example). I'm not going to explain the details of why I think information feedback loops are critically important because I think it speaks for itself. However by means of example, without the feedback loop and two way communication, the study of science could not progress.
Another argument the big media companies love to present is that it's THEIR "tubes" and they have an inherent RIGHT to mandate it's rules. This is completely misrepresenting "the tubes". The phone and cable companies were given incredible amounts of money to make sure United States homes would be connected by fiber (incredibly fast compared to your current copper wire connection) by sometime 2 years ago. They idea is that they were allowed to drastically overcharge you (500% in some cases) and not pay taxes on this overcharge if they would agree to spend it upgrading your "tubes". Guess what? They never upgraded them. The bottom line here though is that we paid for them ourselves with what is essentially a tax bailout. They didn't deliver their end of the bargain and yet the tubes are still theirs. This falls horribly wrong for another reason. The media companies never created the content themselves. They never created any browsing software, any information, any viewing mechanism etc. What they provided was a series of wires to connect the good stuff together.
So get this...
This means that under a managed media plan, you pay, your content provider pays and then you pay again through taxes. The phone and cable companies collect all three of these payments...tax free.
There is another reason they wanted managed content. I mentioned earlier that net neutrality has a lot in common with IP law. The major push against neutrality by the media corporations is that they can contain software piracy and a lock on a market. This is a big topic by itself and would be the subject of many posts. Basically however, it means something like this: I want to download your music or video game with a popular transfer protocol called P2P. TWC might recognize it and because someone else might use it to pirate data, slow the speed down to such a degree that it would takes many months to download it where as it could have taken minutes before hand. By the way, Comcast is already doing this.
In a nutshell I am advocating net neutrality based on rejecting the media companies claim to own the data and the "tubes". I'm advocating it b/c I believe managed content models are a very serious threat to the information we can send back and forth to each other and I'm advocating it b/c of the critical importance of two way communication.
So this was long and boring I know but what can you do? I can talk more about any of the topics given though I doubt anyone wants me to ;) I just wanted to spread some awareness around and warn people not to take their cues on technology from 70 year old congressmen who still use rotary phones and think a web site is some kind of new fangled construction site.
Ross
Disclosure: I have always been a very hard line believer in open source, open protocols and open standards. I'm generally anti-corporation (remember I quit USAA for their behavior as a corporation). So everything I say will be biased by my personal beliefs. However, that doesn't have to mean I'm wrong ;)
I'm not typically comfortable stumping for a cause or trying to convert people b/c I try hard to leave people as they are. On the other hand, this time, I care more than usual about it so I was wondering what I could do to help people understand net neutrality and what's at stake. The answer I was consistently given was spread awareness. This is my attempt to do just that.
Net neutrality is a very simple concept - but it's also easily distorted. Let's say that I can connect to the internet at a certain speed (probably b/c I pay someone to allow me access) and you can connect to the internet at that speed or higher. Then net neutrality is the guarantee that you and I can communicate at that speed. There is no magic required to ensure this guarantee because it is the natural state of connectivity. To slow down that speed (based on what you send me - say a video for example) would have to be engineered on purpose.
First I want to try to explain "the industries" arguments. By industries I do of course sarcastically refer to companies like AT&T. I want to then try to break down what I think is wrong with them and what I think the logical consequences of their ideas are.
It's become rather famous in internet circles that a certain member of congress defined the internet as a series of tubes like your kitchen plumbing. He stated that you can't just pull up to the tubes with a dump truck and dump everything in there at once b/c you ... clog it up. He went on to portray AT&T as the savior of the internet by providing access to "highways" on which special kinds of traffic could travel - approved "premium" content. Well there is no response to this argument. There is no response to it because its a big, stupid, ignorant lie. It is obvious this particular congressman knows nothing about the technical world we live in. The internet is not a series of tubes. You can't pull a dump truck up to and throw the world into the tubes to clog it up. That's because they aren't tubes. Your connection is a copper wire and you can't "fill" it. That doesn't have a real-world meaning. The internet self-controls congestion and the basic economic principles of scarcity (i.e. unavailability due to wait times)causes humans to naturally govern their usage. This hasn't had to happen yet. The reasons why are a little technical but I'll do my best to simplify them. What AT&T has paid this representative to imply is that their capacity for transmitting data is nearing capacity and they want you to believe that the internet is in the beginning of a saturation in which no information will be able to get in or out. This so far hasn't come CLOSE to reality. There is beginning to be a limit to the number of machines that we can continue to connect, but this is already a solved problem and has nothing to do with the amount of data currently being transmitted. I want to tell you more about your connectivity and the speeds you SHOULD be getting, but that is for a later paragraph regarding who owns these "tubes" and who paid for this "tubes". Just understand from this paragraph that neutrality means someone can not artificially slow down your connection and that it is mathematically provable that capacity is not yet close to reachable. I'm not completely satisfied with this answer b/c I haven't offered you any proof. I'm asking you to trust me on this one or better yet, research it yourself while being extremely careful about the source if your information.
I read a recent article that said to ensure that certain kinds of traffic cannot be slowed down would grant special privilege to that kind of content (let's continue to assume we mean video b/c videos are large compared to text). That might superficially sound plausible until you realize the big joke is that if you artificially slow down content, it's the fast content that has had an advantage conferred upon it. In this case the truth is exactly the opposite of the claim.
Media companies like TWC and AT&T are interested in controlling content and in this sense the battle for net neutrality is very much like the war being waged against bad intellectual property rights (copyright, patents, ownership etc) concerning software. A non-neutral internet could easily become a lot like cable TV for example. You can connect by ordering specific grouping of internet content. Think of it like this: maybe you want to order the social content package from TWC. This consists of email, myspace, facebook and maybe some chat forums. To get access to technical articles or news, you would have to additionally order other kinds of content. Not only are you paying for the content, but the providers of the content have to pay to be hosted. That's a lot like writing a text message on your phone and both the sender and receiver get charged. Let's call this the managed content model.
I want to make the argument against managed content on the internet as the basis for why net neutrality is important. Historically information mediums begin as a two way process. Provider and reader are interacting. Published print and radio are fine examples of something which began as a two way medium, became commercialized and turned into managed content and then became a one way medium in which only the provider has a say in what is published. My argument is that this minimalization of feedback degrades the quality of content. It provides no safeguards or fact checking of information and it leaves the "common man" out of the information loop. The laws are setup to achieve this goal (not as a conspiracy but b/c it makes money). The FCC is the perfect example of this. They split the radio spectrum largely b/w cbs and nbc. They became responsible for 97% of the radio content. Wonder what that would be like? It becomes a propaganda outlet for the owners (think FOX News and Rupert Murdoch as an example). I'm not going to explain the details of why I think information feedback loops are critically important because I think it speaks for itself. However by means of example, without the feedback loop and two way communication, the study of science could not progress.
Another argument the big media companies love to present is that it's THEIR "tubes" and they have an inherent RIGHT to mandate it's rules. This is completely misrepresenting "the tubes". The phone and cable companies were given incredible amounts of money to make sure United States homes would be connected by fiber (incredibly fast compared to your current copper wire connection) by sometime 2 years ago. They idea is that they were allowed to drastically overcharge you (500% in some cases) and not pay taxes on this overcharge if they would agree to spend it upgrading your "tubes". Guess what? They never upgraded them. The bottom line here though is that we paid for them ourselves with what is essentially a tax bailout. They didn't deliver their end of the bargain and yet the tubes are still theirs. This falls horribly wrong for another reason. The media companies never created the content themselves. They never created any browsing software, any information, any viewing mechanism etc. What they provided was a series of wires to connect the good stuff together.
So get this...
This means that under a managed media plan, you pay, your content provider pays and then you pay again through taxes. The phone and cable companies collect all three of these payments...tax free.
There is another reason they wanted managed content. I mentioned earlier that net neutrality has a lot in common with IP law. The major push against neutrality by the media corporations is that they can contain software piracy and a lock on a market. This is a big topic by itself and would be the subject of many posts. Basically however, it means something like this: I want to download your music or video game with a popular transfer protocol called P2P. TWC might recognize it and because someone else might use it to pirate data, slow the speed down to such a degree that it would takes many months to download it where as it could have taken minutes before hand. By the way, Comcast is already doing this.
In a nutshell I am advocating net neutrality based on rejecting the media companies claim to own the data and the "tubes". I'm advocating it b/c I believe managed content models are a very serious threat to the information we can send back and forth to each other and I'm advocating it b/c of the critical importance of two way communication.
So this was long and boring I know but what can you do? I can talk more about any of the topics given though I doubt anyone wants me to ;) I just wanted to spread some awareness around and warn people not to take their cues on technology from 70 year old congressmen who still use rotary phones and think a web site is some kind of new fangled construction site.
Ross
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
extra hairspray
i was watching office re-runs on the DVR in an attempt to de-stress from the craziness of school today. a teaser for the nightly news included a story about a power outage due to a copper thief and the meteorologist declaring today a beautiful day, and he would let us know if this would last. my interest was piqued but i of course was not about to subject myself to local newscast. so i of course went to weather.com
if you haven't been to weather.com in awhile, it is really worth it. you may know about their travel, sports, and wedding forecasts, should you be participating in these sorts of activities and want to know the weather. however, they are also now (for how long i am absolutely unsure) offering what i will call "lifestyle tips". for instance, tomorrow night is going to be very windy: 20-30mph winds. therefore, under the forecast there is a friendly message: "wind alert! use extra hairspray." well okay then. warning noted.
other messages for this week include:
"put glass hurricanes around candles." i can just picture old ladies (no offense, and obviously not too too old as they are on weather.com) saying O NO, i must put the hurricanes around the candles as it is going to be windy!
and
"have extra umbrellas for guests"
i would like to nominate weather.com for a caring award, for being (or attempting to be) so caught up in our daily lives. don't forget extra hairspray!
if you haven't been to weather.com in awhile, it is really worth it. you may know about their travel, sports, and wedding forecasts, should you be participating in these sorts of activities and want to know the weather. however, they are also now (for how long i am absolutely unsure) offering what i will call "lifestyle tips". for instance, tomorrow night is going to be very windy: 20-30mph winds. therefore, under the forecast there is a friendly message: "wind alert! use extra hairspray." well okay then. warning noted.
other messages for this week include:
"put glass hurricanes around candles." i can just picture old ladies (no offense, and obviously not too too old as they are on weather.com) saying O NO, i must put the hurricanes around the candles as it is going to be windy!
and
"have extra umbrellas for guests"
i would like to nominate weather.com for a caring award, for being (or attempting to be) so caught up in our daily lives. don't forget extra hairspray!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
can you keep your child away from me please?
as often as possible, i select to do my shopping at target as opposed to wal-mart. call me a snob if you must, but we try not to support wal-mart in our family when we can avoid it. so tonite i went to do my last minute valentines shopping for my Valentine, and for my students...at target. super target. and i went to the huge valentines section...and it was empty. really? they run out of valentines candy? i mean there was some stuff, but for the most part it was bare shelves and annoyed people on cell phones jostling for position to get whatever was left.
really i guess i haven't bought valentines candy the night before valentines before. the only time i have bought valentines candy was when it was actually my parents buying it and my mom would take me and matt and we'd each pick out one box of valentines and then painstakingly take the class list and write one for each of our classmates, least favorite ones first, up to my very best friends last, making sure to give them the best valentine and maybe even an extra piece of candy (at least thats how i did it). also if we had leftover, matt and i might write one for each other, and certainly for ourselves. but i digress. back to 2008.
anyway, i got what i needed: some kisses for my class and some chocolate for my man. and some other stuff on my list. and i went to check out, and of course the lines were long. AND THEN. a large family came up and got in line behind me. they were talking so loudly (and in a different language), and one of the kids was screaming and crying. and they kept encroaching upon my space. i ignored them at first, then when their daughter kept running into me, trying to push me out of the way, i gave them a raised eyebrow glare but no one noticed. they just kept pushing towards the cash register, even though my items had not even been checked out yet. 10min later, i thought my head was going to explode and i was sure my ears were damaged by the one that was screaming.
i think ross and i shall not be having children. at any rate we shall never take them shopping at super target. you can all post your thank yous.
really i guess i haven't bought valentines candy the night before valentines before. the only time i have bought valentines candy was when it was actually my parents buying it and my mom would take me and matt and we'd each pick out one box of valentines and then painstakingly take the class list and write one for each of our classmates, least favorite ones first, up to my very best friends last, making sure to give them the best valentine and maybe even an extra piece of candy (at least thats how i did it). also if we had leftover, matt and i might write one for each other, and certainly for ourselves. but i digress. back to 2008.
anyway, i got what i needed: some kisses for my class and some chocolate for my man. and some other stuff on my list. and i went to check out, and of course the lines were long. AND THEN. a large family came up and got in line behind me. they were talking so loudly (and in a different language), and one of the kids was screaming and crying. and they kept encroaching upon my space. i ignored them at first, then when their daughter kept running into me, trying to push me out of the way, i gave them a raised eyebrow glare but no one noticed. they just kept pushing towards the cash register, even though my items had not even been checked out yet. 10min later, i thought my head was going to explode and i was sure my ears were damaged by the one that was screaming.
i think ross and i shall not be having children. at any rate we shall never take them shopping at super target. you can all post your thank yous.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
i heart weekends
i'm always dismayed at the speed at which weekends pass, and the length of time that must pass before a weekend comes around again. already this semester is so much better than the fall because ross doesn't have class on saturday mornings. last weekend we shared with ross' parents who were in town for a visit. we hung out, and ross and fred built a worktable in ross' shed. also, we fit in a bike ride to a neighborhood park: so fun! and i snuck over to marble falls to say hey to my dad and uncles, pick up a cool gift from my mom, and eat lunch with my dad!
this weekend we had some friends over to dinner and then got out the DDR game...should that be embarrassing? i don't know, we had a good time. the weather has turned nice, after freezing some this week, so ross took a buddy out sailing yesterday, and another friend out sailing today. i got some yard work done, and we are about to watch the super bowl with our small group from church.
ross started attending class in san marcos on tuesday night. and i went along. we actually met up at a walmart on the southside of austin after work and picked up some dinner. we rode down to san marcos together and i found the bookstore and bought his textbook and then spent the remainder of the evening browsing the internet and grading papers in the library. i felt somewhat like an impostor, but it was most refreshing: it was so quiet! it made me miss college. :( it was nice being able to chat during the drive, and so i may start going with him occasionally to be good company :) and get a good working night in so i don't get so behind in my work.
i've decided to brush up on my programming and web design skills. so i picked up some books from half price bookstore and dug out the college textbooks. i have my environment all set up on the computer finally, and am enjoying getting back into it. so if you need a website for somethin....let me know!
i was somewhat saddened this morning when grading chapter tests from friday. some kids did really really well, but there were quite a few (in one class, half!) that are clearly lost. this is unfortunate as we are moving on, and complicates by job this week. oh well, i am off to savor the final hours of my weekend. hope yours is going good.
this weekend we had some friends over to dinner and then got out the DDR game...should that be embarrassing? i don't know, we had a good time. the weather has turned nice, after freezing some this week, so ross took a buddy out sailing yesterday, and another friend out sailing today. i got some yard work done, and we are about to watch the super bowl with our small group from church.
ross started attending class in san marcos on tuesday night. and i went along. we actually met up at a walmart on the southside of austin after work and picked up some dinner. we rode down to san marcos together and i found the bookstore and bought his textbook and then spent the remainder of the evening browsing the internet and grading papers in the library. i felt somewhat like an impostor, but it was most refreshing: it was so quiet! it made me miss college. :( it was nice being able to chat during the drive, and so i may start going with him occasionally to be good company :) and get a good working night in so i don't get so behind in my work.
i've decided to brush up on my programming and web design skills. so i picked up some books from half price bookstore and dug out the college textbooks. i have my environment all set up on the computer finally, and am enjoying getting back into it. so if you need a website for somethin....let me know!
i was somewhat saddened this morning when grading chapter tests from friday. some kids did really really well, but there were quite a few (in one class, half!) that are clearly lost. this is unfortunate as we are moving on, and complicates by job this week. oh well, i am off to savor the final hours of my weekend. hope yours is going good.
Monday, January 14, 2008
look what my husband built
since our garage is converted to a den, we don't really have a place to store tools and bikes and lawn equipment. therefore, ross' first major project for the house was to build a shed in the backyard. we shopped around some, and decided the best deal was to purchase a pre-cut shed kit from lowes. it took about a weekend to level the ground, unpack the wood, and build the floor. then this weekend, ross and his cousin james (who unknowingly came up for a visit and was promptly put to work)put up the entire shed. it looks great, but we still need to shingle the roof and paint the shed. ross did an awesome and quick job on this project, and i'm glad he has a little (actually it turned out to be VERY large!) place to work with his tools (there's even a loft in there!) and now our bikes won't be in our closet!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
another blog
i'm certainly not abandoning this blog (at least i don't intend to), but if you'd like to read more about my teaching life, you can check out this blog of mine: http://madteacherdiary.blogspot.com. its not because i'm MAD, but because i hope to Make A Difference as i'm teaching. i shall keep all of mine and ross' adventures and happenings on this blog, but most teaching stories can be found at this new one.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
two weeks: noticed
in about 12 hrs my little students will be greeting me at my classroom for semester 2 of this inaugural year of teaching. hopefully i will be there and....be awake. i have thoroughly enjoyed my 2 week break. ross took the time off with me as well and we most enjoyed it. unfortunately for most of the time we've been up till 2 or 3am and slept in until 10 or 11am. so i will have to retrain myself to wake up at 6am.
we spent several days with my family over christmas, then came home and finished our move. we had set up shop but had left some books and other belongings at our previous residence and so we moved all that over and then cleaned up both houses. this took the better part of several days, and then it was new years day and we were joined by m&r and m&b. we all had a blast, and on the 2nd my parents and r drove down and we all went to a japanese steakhouse for lunch. m&b stayed one more night and we were so glad to get to hang out with them. ross and i then spent about 2 days working on our shed for the backyard. ross had been telling me that it would be nice to have a nail gun. after hearing him hammer for awhile, i went outside and nailed in one nail with the hammer. we then drove to lowes to buy a nail gun. so far we have studs and a floor. more on the shed to come soon.
construction halted for the weekend as ross went deep sea fishing at the coast with charles. i think this may be the first time he has gone out of town for a whole weekend with me staying at home since we got married, so i have been moping about the house unsure of what to do. on saturday a friend and i went and worked like good little teachers at my classroom to get ready for tomorrow. also, ross fixed my bike before he left so i did some exploring around the neighborhood this afternoon.
while i would enjoy even more time, i think these past 2 weeks were very needed and have been somewhat refreshing. now its back to the grind!
we spent several days with my family over christmas, then came home and finished our move. we had set up shop but had left some books and other belongings at our previous residence and so we moved all that over and then cleaned up both houses. this took the better part of several days, and then it was new years day and we were joined by m&r and m&b. we all had a blast, and on the 2nd my parents and r drove down and we all went to a japanese steakhouse for lunch. m&b stayed one more night and we were so glad to get to hang out with them. ross and i then spent about 2 days working on our shed for the backyard. ross had been telling me that it would be nice to have a nail gun. after hearing him hammer for awhile, i went outside and nailed in one nail with the hammer. we then drove to lowes to buy a nail gun. so far we have studs and a floor. more on the shed to come soon.
construction halted for the weekend as ross went deep sea fishing at the coast with charles. i think this may be the first time he has gone out of town for a whole weekend with me staying at home since we got married, so i have been moping about the house unsure of what to do. on saturday a friend and i went and worked like good little teachers at my classroom to get ready for tomorrow. also, ross fixed my bike before he left so i did some exploring around the neighborhood this afternoon.
while i would enjoy even more time, i think these past 2 weeks were very needed and have been somewhat refreshing. now its back to the grind!
Monday, December 31, 2007
2007 in review
2007 sports the second highest number of posts in the history of this blog, but just in case you didn't get enough, i thought i'd share my reflections on the highlights of 2007.
--in early january ross and i took our newly acquired mountain bikes up to austin and went biking at town lake with todd. biking is an awesome activity we got involved in this year. like most fun things, we never get to do it enough, but now that ross doesn't have class on saturdays and the weather is great, we hope to get a lot of biking done in 2008 as well.
--on march 3, 2007 ross and i got married! (duh). i was very pleased with how our wedding went and i thought it was super fun. i do wish i could go back and relax for about 2wks before our wedding so that i could have enjoyed it even more...the stress of getting everything for the wedding together, working long hours at work, looking for a new job, and moving really made the first few months of 2007 a blur. after our wedding, ross and i enjoyed a trip to montego bay, jamaica. i had a blast, but i didn't realize how awesome it was until we got back. whenever i look at pictures and remember the good times, i wish we could go back! and maybe we will? who knows what 2008 holds?
--after we moved to austin in march, we enjoyed the outdoors! we went camping at pace bend with daniel & eveyln, we bought a hobie 14 sailboat and took it out on lake travis, and tried to take it out at corpus christi but had difficulties with the weather. we went fishing on lake travis with charles and also bought patio furniture to enjoy quiet evenings outside. we then bought another sailboat and took it out often for sunsets on lake travis. our outdoor adventures were somewhat more limited than we would have liked as this summer in austin we experienced lots of rain and flooding that was kinda crazy!! we look forward to more camping and sailing in 2008. in fact, ross will spend the first weekend of 2008 deep sea fishing with charles.
--this year was also full of visits from family and friends! ross' parents were our first visitors, followed shortly by my mom and rachel. the rest of my family also made it down, along with lots of visits from friends. jared and rachel came and spent an entire week with us this august. ross and i enjoyed hosting them, playing lots of games and showing them around austin, including a visit to the capitol and a kayaking trip on town lake. we are going to enjoy new years day with m&r and m&b, and also look forward to lots of visits at our new home from friends and family in 2008.
--this summer i was a stay at home wife! for the most part i found stuff to do. i was able to take a trip up to portland and spend some time with some special friends up there. i helped out at our church's vbs. i went to two math teacher conferences, and for 6 weeks i went to teacher certification classes and taught 7th grade math at summer school. also ross and i spent a lot of time together, including the time he took me downtown to a keith urban concert and many evenings getting caught up on the television show House. as i am now a teacher, i will also enjoy having the summer of 2008 off work and i am looking forward to all that this summer will hold. also, we are hoping 2008 will include House, provided this strike ends at some point.
--this fall was filled with...school. i'm in my first year of teaching and i have been putting in some serious time trying to be as prepared as possible to teach these little people. also, ross is in the middle of getting his masters degree in computer science, and this took up his monday nights and saturdays all fall. this spring his classes will be in the evenings and i am learning how to spend less time on my preparations, so we are looking forward to more time together in 2008!
--this fall we also had tickets with my family to the a&m football games. while it wasn't the greatest football season ever, we loved going and hanging out with my family. we also saw some great football games, including a win over texas.
--near the end of 2007 we also got peyton! she is an awesome dog and we really enjoy having her around. she makes us laugh just about every day. today i was carrying blankets through the house to wash them, and she decided she needed to do the same. she ran and found her blanket and began carrying it around all through the house and then proceeded to run around and around the backyard, blanket in tow. we look forward to more fun times with peyton (and minnie!) in 2008.
--on november 12th we purchased our first house! we absolutely love it and are fully moved out of our old place, and fairly moved into our new place. tomorrow our pre-cut shed from lowes arrives, and ross (and me sorta) will have the pleasure of putting it together. we have a lot of work to do, but we are looking forward to enjoying our house in 2008.
2007 was a great year. we will obviously always remember it as the year we got married, and also the year we bought our first house. i can't wait to see the exciting memories we will have of 2008. happy new year!
--in early january ross and i took our newly acquired mountain bikes up to austin and went biking at town lake with todd. biking is an awesome activity we got involved in this year. like most fun things, we never get to do it enough, but now that ross doesn't have class on saturdays and the weather is great, we hope to get a lot of biking done in 2008 as well.
--on march 3, 2007 ross and i got married! (duh). i was very pleased with how our wedding went and i thought it was super fun. i do wish i could go back and relax for about 2wks before our wedding so that i could have enjoyed it even more...the stress of getting everything for the wedding together, working long hours at work, looking for a new job, and moving really made the first few months of 2007 a blur. after our wedding, ross and i enjoyed a trip to montego bay, jamaica. i had a blast, but i didn't realize how awesome it was until we got back. whenever i look at pictures and remember the good times, i wish we could go back! and maybe we will? who knows what 2008 holds?
--after we moved to austin in march, we enjoyed the outdoors! we went camping at pace bend with daniel & eveyln, we bought a hobie 14 sailboat and took it out on lake travis, and tried to take it out at corpus christi but had difficulties with the weather. we went fishing on lake travis with charles and also bought patio furniture to enjoy quiet evenings outside. we then bought another sailboat and took it out often for sunsets on lake travis. our outdoor adventures were somewhat more limited than we would have liked as this summer in austin we experienced lots of rain and flooding that was kinda crazy!! we look forward to more camping and sailing in 2008. in fact, ross will spend the first weekend of 2008 deep sea fishing with charles.
--this year was also full of visits from family and friends! ross' parents were our first visitors, followed shortly by my mom and rachel. the rest of my family also made it down, along with lots of visits from friends. jared and rachel came and spent an entire week with us this august. ross and i enjoyed hosting them, playing lots of games and showing them around austin, including a visit to the capitol and a kayaking trip on town lake. we are going to enjoy new years day with m&r and m&b, and also look forward to lots of visits at our new home from friends and family in 2008.
--this summer i was a stay at home wife! for the most part i found stuff to do. i was able to take a trip up to portland and spend some time with some special friends up there. i helped out at our church's vbs. i went to two math teacher conferences, and for 6 weeks i went to teacher certification classes and taught 7th grade math at summer school. also ross and i spent a lot of time together, including the time he took me downtown to a keith urban concert and many evenings getting caught up on the television show House. as i am now a teacher, i will also enjoy having the summer of 2008 off work and i am looking forward to all that this summer will hold. also, we are hoping 2008 will include House, provided this strike ends at some point.
--this fall was filled with...school. i'm in my first year of teaching and i have been putting in some serious time trying to be as prepared as possible to teach these little people. also, ross is in the middle of getting his masters degree in computer science, and this took up his monday nights and saturdays all fall. this spring his classes will be in the evenings and i am learning how to spend less time on my preparations, so we are looking forward to more time together in 2008!
--this fall we also had tickets with my family to the a&m football games. while it wasn't the greatest football season ever, we loved going and hanging out with my family. we also saw some great football games, including a win over texas.
--near the end of 2007 we also got peyton! she is an awesome dog and we really enjoy having her around. she makes us laugh just about every day. today i was carrying blankets through the house to wash them, and she decided she needed to do the same. she ran and found her blanket and began carrying it around all through the house and then proceeded to run around and around the backyard, blanket in tow. we look forward to more fun times with peyton (and minnie!) in 2008.
--on november 12th we purchased our first house! we absolutely love it and are fully moved out of our old place, and fairly moved into our new place. tomorrow our pre-cut shed from lowes arrives, and ross (and me sorta) will have the pleasure of putting it together. we have a lot of work to do, but we are looking forward to enjoying our house in 2008.
2007 was a great year. we will obviously always remember it as the year we got married, and also the year we bought our first house. i can't wait to see the exciting memories we will have of 2008. happy new year!
Friday, December 21, 2007
thats what she said
whoop! i'm now officially on christmas break, as of 2pm today. unfortunately i'll be up taking a certification exam by 7:30am in the morning. ross is also off for the next 2 weeks with me, so we hope to get some good quality time in. this afternoon we took the dog and walked down to one of our neighborhood parks to shoot some hoops. there were lots of people there and everyone wanted to pet peyton and some kiddos asked us to play knockout with them. now ross and his friend mike are out buying christmas presents for their wives, as good husbands should do on dec 21st. i hope they are not too overwhelmed by the mall. i'm really bad about keeping secrets from ross, but i think so far i have him bewildered as to what i got him for christmas, and i'm trying to make it through the next few days without him discovering or guessing it.
several of my students brought me teacher christmas presents and cards. 3 girls went in together to buy me a tin of cookies, which was super sweet, but the "best teacher" bear was probably my favorite. yesterday i gave my students a 20 question survey to see how the semester went. i was relieved to see most of my kids say that i was "really nice" and "fair". when asked what one thing they would change for next semester, i was surprised to see about half the kids put either the desks or new decorations. i told them today that i would consider these changes- they are not too hard to change! their least favorite thing about my class was overwhelmingly not enough chances to talk, homework, and too much work. with the exception of possibly a little more talking, i don't think these are going anywhere!
here's some of MY faves:
What do you like the most about this math class?
mrs. hytnen
nothing
well, the teacher is cool
sometimes she doesnt give us homework
the group activities and of course ms. hytnen
the activities we do
projects
how she helps us understand
i like most is my teacher
it is so fun
everything
its my last class almost
we learn new things
it helps your brain
What do you like the most about Mrs. Hytnen?
she gets mean and she's nice when she's nice
her personality
she's kinda nice
she is cool!!!
she's kinda fun
very nice
she helps me get good grades
everything
she's cool (sort of)
she's happy
she is nice and she know what she's talking about when she teaches us
she understands when i have a problem
her happy attitude
that she is a fun teacher that can crack jokes! (2 stars)
she's thoughtfull and generouse
how she's patient with the class and hardly ever yells
she is a good teacher
she's fun to talk with
her jokes
she's nice...sort of :)
she is funny
she is nice, cool, helpful, and i guess fair
she likes football and gives good explanation
nice you are ok
thumbs up and when we talk about our weekends
everything
that she is smart
i think she my favorite
she talks about her family
that she respects me
that she is nice and she teach so so good
well, i know one thing, she is better than ms. (other teacher's name)
What would you like to see Mrs. Hytnen do differently next semester?
i don't know
nothing
wher her contacts more
be cooler with us
change lesson to fun
nothin much
not as much work
more group activities and less presure
give us really challenging work
i think she needs to do the same next semestre
get a little nicer
be more specific
i like to see more math games
go outside to see math problems
be more strick, give more work
yes a little
i don't know what do you think?
make hard, but not to hard problems
more projects
teach a little bit hearder stuff
i would like her to give us candy when we make an A
the way she teaches
teach us new stuff like algebra
funner stuff
more chalengly stuff
i will like her to teach us more
and so i shall. teach them more. but i will enjoy these 2 weeks first!
several of my students brought me teacher christmas presents and cards. 3 girls went in together to buy me a tin of cookies, which was super sweet, but the "best teacher" bear was probably my favorite. yesterday i gave my students a 20 question survey to see how the semester went. i was relieved to see most of my kids say that i was "really nice" and "fair". when asked what one thing they would change for next semester, i was surprised to see about half the kids put either the desks or new decorations. i told them today that i would consider these changes- they are not too hard to change! their least favorite thing about my class was overwhelmingly not enough chances to talk, homework, and too much work. with the exception of possibly a little more talking, i don't think these are going anywhere!
here's some of MY faves:
What do you like the most about this math class?
mrs. hytnen
nothing
well, the teacher is cool
sometimes she doesnt give us homework
the group activities and of course ms. hytnen
the activities we do
projects
how she helps us understand
i like most is my teacher
it is so fun
everything
its my last class almost
we learn new things
it helps your brain
What do you like the most about Mrs. Hytnen?
she gets mean and she's nice when she's nice
her personality
she's kinda nice
she is cool!!!
she's kinda fun
very nice
she helps me get good grades
everything
she's cool (sort of)
she's happy
she is nice and she know what she's talking about when she teaches us
she understands when i have a problem
her happy attitude
that she is a fun teacher that can crack jokes! (2 stars)
she's thoughtfull and generouse
how she's patient with the class and hardly ever yells
she is a good teacher
she's fun to talk with
her jokes
she's nice...sort of :)
she is funny
she is nice, cool, helpful, and i guess fair
she likes football and gives good explanation
nice you are ok
thumbs up and when we talk about our weekends
everything
that she is smart
i think she my favorite
she talks about her family
that she respects me
that she is nice and she teach so so good
well, i know one thing, she is better than ms. (other teacher's name)
What would you like to see Mrs. Hytnen do differently next semester?
i don't know
nothing
wher her contacts more
be cooler with us
change lesson to fun
nothin much
not as much work
more group activities and less presure
give us really challenging work
i think she needs to do the same next semestre
get a little nicer
be more specific
i like to see more math games
go outside to see math problems
be more strick, give more work
yes a little
i don't know what do you think?
make hard, but not to hard problems
more projects
teach a little bit hearder stuff
i would like her to give us candy when we make an A
the way she teaches
teach us new stuff like algebra
funner stuff
more chalengly stuff
i will like her to teach us more
and so i shall. teach them more. but i will enjoy these 2 weeks first!
Monday, December 10, 2007
its about time
on saturday, ross took his final final of this semester of grad school, and we are both elated! he has been going to class on saturdays from 9am-2pm and also on monday nights. and we missed our weekends. now we can actually do things we enjoy such as sailing, biking, sleeping in, playing playstation, etc. sadly i have a UIL competition all day this saturday, beginning at 6.30am (go math team!!), and a certification test the following saturday beginning at 7.30am. But seriously, we will soon be enjoying unhindered weekends.
unhindered weekends like this one. ross had a good friend over friday night and grilled out fajitas. they watched the spurs and played video games and we put up our christmas tree. saturday ross and i got more of our stuff moved into the house, and then some friends of his came into town from seattle. ross and carlos played chess practically non-stop all weekend, and we all enjoyed a most relaxing time. and so we had our first overnight guests. tomorrow night we are hosting our first party in the new home, and more overnight guests are due shortly.
and finally, what you've all been dying to see: pictures of our new house! we still have a lot of work to do, but here's a peek.
you can see pics here as well:
unhindered weekends like this one. ross had a good friend over friday night and grilled out fajitas. they watched the spurs and played video games and we put up our christmas tree. saturday ross and i got more of our stuff moved into the house, and then some friends of his came into town from seattle. ross and carlos played chess practically non-stop all weekend, and we all enjoyed a most relaxing time. and so we had our first overnight guests. tomorrow night we are hosting our first party in the new home, and more overnight guests are due shortly.
and finally, what you've all been dying to see: pictures of our new house! we still have a lot of work to do, but here's a peek.
you can see pics here as well:
Friday, November 30, 2007
Cleaning up your rusty ol' PC
Lately a lot of people have been asking for advice on fixing this problem or that on their machine. It runs too slow or the firewalls confuses them or they have a lot of pop-ups etc. Turns out there is an easy solution to all of these things - don't use MS Windows!! No just kidding ( though not really ) - but regular maintenance of your computer will do wonders for fixing and preventing those problems. So I thought I would give you a list of things you can do to help keep your computer running lean.
There are 5 basic types of applications you just have to have to keep a Windows machines running safely. My philosophy on software is simple: Do one thing, do it well, do it fast and do it free.
Ok I want to give you a few more tips for safe / useful computing. There are probably another half dozen programs I'm going to strongly recommend to you but before I do that I want to try to convince you of something. You should never ever use Internet Explorer. Warning: I'm about to rant about why I think you should not use Microsoft products. If you want to skip the rant then take these two bullet points from it and then skip the next paragraph.
Ok so what should you use? For most people Firefox is perfect. What's fantastic about this app is the ability to extend the functionality in exactly the way you choose. For example, I have configured my Firefox to never ever show me an online advertisement. You can question the ethics of that decision - it's a pretty big debate frankly - but the real point is, Firefox will allow me to do such things. It also have it set to put the weather and tempature on the bottom of my browser, not run any javascript until I ok it, give me definitions by clicking on the word and so forth. Firefox is far more secure, far more flexible and free. Guess what - you're not going to get toolbar hijacked using Firefox the way you do with Internet Explorer either. Trust me on this - make the switch.
My friend Todd suggested I recommend some faster, leaner browsers to you besides Firefox. You may check out Opera or IceWeasel.
Ok, now I want to just recommend some very useful tools to you.
Process Explorer: Do you want to know what all those processes are that run on your PC? You'll love this application for doing just that. Mark Russonovich - the author of this program - was so awesome and had such a deep understanding of how Windows works that Microsoft hired him to teach them about how Windows works. Now that is freaking cool. He's a Tech Fellow at MS now.
EndItAll: This sweet little utility will force shut down any of those pesky applications who just won't do it themselves. Sometimes an app just won't respond or has received protected status from Windows to prevent shutdowns (you know like spyware?). EndItAll doesn't care about such sillyness and will put those processes in the grave where they belong until you are ready to run them again.
KeyPass: This program is a pretty decent password safe. You have one password to enter this program and then it maintains all your other passwords. It'll randomly generate them for you, tell you they're out of date and in some cases will automatically log you into websites. You never actually have to know any of your passwords if this is the only machine you use because you can just copy and paste them. If you ever have logged back onto a site you haven't used in 2 years and wondered what your login info was then you will understand the use of this application.
FoxItReader: Todd also suggested I recommend this one to you. You know how Adobe Reader is super slow and adobe in general is a lot like Microsoft in terms of how much they loooove their customers? Well this is a very fast and free replacement for Adobe Reader - use it to check out PDFs.
Well I have a lot more to recommend but the more I recommend the less you will use - information overload maybe? If anyone is interested I can also make good recommendations for data backup automation, cryptography, safe hard drive wipes or really just anything.
So in conclusion, install at least the first list of programs and use them. Please install Firefox and at least test it out. Try the next few applications if they suit you. Also, here is a bullet list of tips to remember.
There are 5 basic types of applications you just have to have to keep a Windows machines running safely. My philosophy on software is simple: Do one thing, do it well, do it fast and do it free.
- Anti-virus: http://www.free-av.com/ . Let me just say this to you - do NOT use norton, do NOT use McAfee. The truth is that ALL virus scanning programs subscribe to the same list of virus definitions provided by CERT. Norton and McAfee are just a lot of slow bloated, unmanageable junk sitting on what should be a lean clean inoculating machine.
- Malware protection: Spybot S&D and HijackThis. Spybot is a first rate malware remover. Hijack this is particularly strong against a kind of software known as a root kit. In SpyBot, you can detect spyware, innoculate against a lot of infections and you can even use it lock your registry so unknown programs won't be able to make modifications without your knowledge. If you use Internet Explorer (and believe me you really, really should NOT be using internet explorer), it also has a toolbar protector.
- Firewall: Comodo. Let me tell you a secret - the MS Windows firewall is incredibly weak and really is the lowest quality firewall you can use and still have it work. Now to be honest I don't use Comodo much because my router has a firewall built in. I suspect most of you have a router so hopefully this will be a moot point.
- Junk removal/Integrity Checking: CCleaner. This program keeps your system free of cruft and ensures your registry integrity. Basically your registry is a huge hierarchal database of things your programs want to know about (and thing your programs want to hide from you). The bigger it is and the more useless junk that is in it, the longer it takes to search for information and so the longer it takes to load applications. CCleaner also comes with a program uninstaller.
- Startup Control: StartupCPL. There are at least 6 different places programs can stick information to ensure they start when you log into windows - it's not just your startup folder in your start menu. StartupCPL will place a new icon called startup in your control panel which gives you the ability to easily turn on and off any applications that are trying to start themselves. You know that little set of icons on the bottom right of your screen near the time? Those are things that probably started themselves when you logged in. Your office applications, your antivirus, your printer, your audio rack...a lot of things you don't necessarily need to have running. The more of them there are the slower your computer will run. Look you just don't need to have a quick open for Microsoft office on all the time unless you're working in an office incessantly opening documents. Turn them off!
Ok I want to give you a few more tips for safe / useful computing. There are probably another half dozen programs I'm going to strongly recommend to you but before I do that I want to try to convince you of something. You should never ever use Internet Explorer. Warning: I'm about to rant about why I think you should not use Microsoft products. If you want to skip the rant then take these two bullet points from it and then skip the next paragraph.
- Internet Explorer is deeply insecure
- MS Products are not meant for usability as much as for claiming market share and so they aren't very user friendly.
Ok so what should you use? For most people Firefox is perfect. What's fantastic about this app is the ability to extend the functionality in exactly the way you choose. For example, I have configured my Firefox to never ever show me an online advertisement. You can question the ethics of that decision - it's a pretty big debate frankly - but the real point is, Firefox will allow me to do such things. It also have it set to put the weather and tempature on the bottom of my browser, not run any javascript until I ok it, give me definitions by clicking on the word and so forth. Firefox is far more secure, far more flexible and free. Guess what - you're not going to get toolbar hijacked using Firefox the way you do with Internet Explorer either. Trust me on this - make the switch.
My friend Todd suggested I recommend some faster, leaner browsers to you besides Firefox. You may check out Opera or IceWeasel.
Ok, now I want to just recommend some very useful tools to you.
Process Explorer: Do you want to know what all those processes are that run on your PC? You'll love this application for doing just that. Mark Russonovich - the author of this program - was so awesome and had such a deep understanding of how Windows works that Microsoft hired him to teach them about how Windows works. Now that is freaking cool. He's a Tech Fellow at MS now.
EndItAll: This sweet little utility will force shut down any of those pesky applications who just won't do it themselves. Sometimes an app just won't respond or has received protected status from Windows to prevent shutdowns (you know like spyware?). EndItAll doesn't care about such sillyness and will put those processes in the grave where they belong until you are ready to run them again.
KeyPass: This program is a pretty decent password safe. You have one password to enter this program and then it maintains all your other passwords. It'll randomly generate them for you, tell you they're out of date and in some cases will automatically log you into websites. You never actually have to know any of your passwords if this is the only machine you use because you can just copy and paste them. If you ever have logged back onto a site you haven't used in 2 years and wondered what your login info was then you will understand the use of this application.
FoxItReader: Todd also suggested I recommend this one to you. You know how Adobe Reader is super slow and adobe in general is a lot like Microsoft in terms of how much they loooove their customers? Well this is a very fast and free replacement for Adobe Reader - use it to check out PDFs.
Well I have a lot more to recommend but the more I recommend the less you will use - information overload maybe? If anyone is interested I can also make good recommendations for data backup automation, cryptography, safe hard drive wipes or really just anything.
So in conclusion, install at least the first list of programs and use them. Please install Firefox and at least test it out. Try the next few applications if they suit you. Also, here is a bullet list of tips to remember.
- Do not run 50 programs on startup or keep them in your system tray. You probably do not actually need Microsoft Office or your Print Manager to run 24/7 in the background. Do you really print 24/7?
- Do maintain and hopefully lock your registry.
- Do not pay for commercial versions of these products because they are generally inferior.
- Do not use Norton or McAfee - they are horrrrrriiibbbbleeee.
- Care about what is actually running on your machine - it's not as hard as you think to learn about the basic feeding and care of your computer. Think of it more like learning how to change your own oil in the car. No one says you gotta do it - but it's useful to know.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
thankful
well thanksgiving 2007 is in the books. i have much to be thankful for this year-->
--Jesus! because without Him and the hope He provides, we would be nothing. and seriously, He is pretty awesome.
--my husband ross! this year (well, 9 months of it so far) has been our first and its been amazing. we have endured a lot of changes and enjoyed a lot of activities together. i love living with my best friend. and he can do all the hard chores!
--my fam, the Jo's. and the no-Jo's. thursday afternoon marked what i believe is the 4th(?) turkey bowl featuring the Jo's vs. the no-Jo's. since my name is now officially sharon j h, i was transferred to the no-Jo team. this was especially sad for me because the Jo's made official turkey bowl t-shirts for this year's game and i wanted one. but on the other hand, the no-Jo's were victorious, so give and take i suppose. this year again m&r&l&p threw a huge party and it was a tremendous blast, eating a lot and playing games and watching football with the fam. and i must not neglect to mention that an AGGIE victory over longhorns always makes thanksgiving that much better. two in a row...whoop.
--my new house! ross and i were very blessed to move into our first house this month. i know you are probably anxious for pictures, which we hope to post very soon. we are still in the process of moving in and getting everything where it should be. i come home every day and think, wow, i have a super awesome house. ross and i have definitely enjoyed this long weekend. last night i cooked dinner and ross lit a fire in the fireplace as it was quite chilly outside! this afternoon ross and i put our huge kitchen to good use as we worked together to make some chili to enjoy later for dinner.
--my job. i must say that i wish i had a few more days off before returning to school, but i feel blessed to have a decent job that i am enjoying. the principal and other teachers are nice, the students are great. it has been a lifelong dream of mine to be a teacher, and i am very excited to get this opportunity to try it out and see where i would like to go from there. also, i am thankful for the safe journeys i have had to and from work so far this year.
--my church. ross and i have been attending services at austin christian fellowship since this summer and we have enjoyed being a part. we have also been going to a small group during the week for about the same length of time. we are also doing a little bit of volunteering there, and hope to continue to be involved at this church.
--my pets! i have never really had a real pet before, and now i have a frog, a cat, and a dog! they do present their challenges, but they are fun to play with, and i have really enjoyed taking peyton for walks in the evening and having her follow me around all the time. peyton and minnie are always good for a laugh!
--my car! it has served me well the past 2 years. and it belongs to us, not the bank. and it has a sunroof.
--did i mention the aggies beat the longhorns?
--there are more. but i must now ponder how i am to teach little children about ratios and proportions this week.
--Jesus! because without Him and the hope He provides, we would be nothing. and seriously, He is pretty awesome.
--my husband ross! this year (well, 9 months of it so far) has been our first and its been amazing. we have endured a lot of changes and enjoyed a lot of activities together. i love living with my best friend. and he can do all the hard chores!
--my fam, the Jo's. and the no-Jo's. thursday afternoon marked what i believe is the 4th(?) turkey bowl featuring the Jo's vs. the no-Jo's. since my name is now officially sharon j h, i was transferred to the no-Jo team. this was especially sad for me because the Jo's made official turkey bowl t-shirts for this year's game and i wanted one. but on the other hand, the no-Jo's were victorious, so give and take i suppose. this year again m&r&l&p threw a huge party and it was a tremendous blast, eating a lot and playing games and watching football with the fam. and i must not neglect to mention that an AGGIE victory over longhorns always makes thanksgiving that much better. two in a row...whoop.
--my new house! ross and i were very blessed to move into our first house this month. i know you are probably anxious for pictures, which we hope to post very soon. we are still in the process of moving in and getting everything where it should be. i come home every day and think, wow, i have a super awesome house. ross and i have definitely enjoyed this long weekend. last night i cooked dinner and ross lit a fire in the fireplace as it was quite chilly outside! this afternoon ross and i put our huge kitchen to good use as we worked together to make some chili to enjoy later for dinner.
--my job. i must say that i wish i had a few more days off before returning to school, but i feel blessed to have a decent job that i am enjoying. the principal and other teachers are nice, the students are great. it has been a lifelong dream of mine to be a teacher, and i am very excited to get this opportunity to try it out and see where i would like to go from there. also, i am thankful for the safe journeys i have had to and from work so far this year.
--my church. ross and i have been attending services at austin christian fellowship since this summer and we have enjoyed being a part. we have also been going to a small group during the week for about the same length of time. we are also doing a little bit of volunteering there, and hope to continue to be involved at this church.
--my pets! i have never really had a real pet before, and now i have a frog, a cat, and a dog! they do present their challenges, but they are fun to play with, and i have really enjoyed taking peyton for walks in the evening and having her follow me around all the time. peyton and minnie are always good for a laugh!
--my car! it has served me well the past 2 years. and it belongs to us, not the bank. and it has a sunroof.
--did i mention the aggies beat the longhorns?
--there are more. but i must now ponder how i am to teach little children about ratios and proportions this week.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
And so now the hard part begins...
You probably all know by now that Sharon and I closed on the house Tuesday and even got our earnest money back from the title company. I am thankful we had a good agent and were working with USAA. We went through two other agents before settling on John and it was well worth switching to him I believe. USAA made things extremely quick and easy for us as well. Unfortunately, our sellers are not very honest people and have done everything possible to annoy me from refusing to pay my agent to stealing the fridge out of the kitchen the day of closing. Good riddance - it was filthy anyway. Also, while I'm complaining, during closing they promised they had installed the new drains in our tubs. That was a complete face to face lie. I suspected as much what with the lack of eye contact and barely acknowledging my presence and so forth. I removed the tub stopper upon getting back to the house and saw the drain was fully of ... pennies. Also, they installed a stand up shower but forgot the rubber strip at the bottom of the door...that one that prevents the water from pouring out on to your floor. Oh well. Despite the trouble with them, we are still excited about the house! All the stuff to do around the house are relatively easy and my agent said he'd bring his tools by and help out. Go figure. Moving in is going slow but we expect to be done no later than the weekend. I suppose you want pictures - well...I have none! Here's one of the pets to tide you over.
Aww.....
Ross Hytnen
Aww.....
Ross Hytnen
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