05.31.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 4:25 pm by Meg
It’s nearly the last week and I just can’t believe it. 10 months have gone by so quickly. Our leaving plans are not the best but are workable. Hubby is going to have to work an additional week, so the kids, animals and I will be traveling without him, he should be home in time for Father’s Day.
It will be good to get home. We were planning on leaving next Friday afternoon, but the improv class that Boy is taking next week has a performance, not during the last class as we thought, but on Friday evening. So it will be a Saturday morning departure instead. That will mean that we will either get in very late on Sunday or mid-day on Monday. Our homeschool group always has a June swimming party to mark the end of the year, and they have generously set it for that Monday so we can make it. I’m so looking forward to it.
Our last month has gone quickly. Girl had her ballet recital and it was amazing. Dancing at this studio has been a great experience for her and has polished her skills. My step-mom came out for the week that included the recital and we spent the (non-dance focused) time doing more exploring.
Albuquerque has this amazing Tramline that goes up to the top of the Sandia Mountains. I’ve wanted to go up since we got here. You get in a little bus-sized car (standing room only)
that’s hooked onto 2 wires and get pulled up to the top of the Sandia Mountains. (1 mile above Albuquerque, 2 miles above sea level). Absolutely beautiful.
We also got a chance to go up in a hot-air balloon
(one of my wishes before we leave) and spent Sunday morning floating over the river, city, and highway. 
I’d do it again at the drop of the hat. It was so peaceful. Stepmom and Girl went with me, but Boy decided to pass on it.
Lastly, we took a little roadtrip around the state that I’ve been wanting to do. We headed south and then west and stopped at the Very Large Array. If you have ever seen the movie Contact, then you know what it is. They use it to take pictures of things in space. It’s really big 
and expanded to it’s full size, wouldn’t fit inside the DC ring road. From there, we headed down the west side of the state through the Gila Wilderness Area (the first in the country) and spent the night at Silver City (birthplace of Billy the Kid) though we didn’t do any sightseeing.
The next day we headed into the Gila Wilderness on this windy road that was almost 2 lanes wide (total, and no guardrail) and makes the ‘road to Hana’ look like a highway. It dipped and climbed from 4,000 to 7,000 feet so many times that we lost count. At the end, was the Gila Cliff Dwellings from 1300 AD. We spent a wonderful couple of hours exploring the remains with a very helpful guide. 
Then we headed home. The Gila Cliff Dwellings are not the remains of the Ananzi, but another group that lived down here.
And that’s about it. Hubby and Boy are off this weekend for a martial arts seminar and the kids have already started packing up. This has been a wonderful experience and we will dearly miss some of our friends.
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Posted in Scholarships, Contests, Reading programs and the like at 2:43 pm by Meg
This came my way and I thought I’d post it in case anyone is interested.
SIEMENS COMPETITION
Math : Science : Technology
WIN UP TO $100,000 IN COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIPS!
Over $1,000,000 in scholarships and awards will be given to talented
math, science, and technology students in 2006 — you could be one
of them!
The Siemens Competition, administered in partnership with the
College Board, is looking for talented students like you to
compete in one of the most prestigious and generous scholarship
programs in the nation.
We know you are a bright, motivated student with a great future
ahead of you. We also know you have interests and talents in math
and science. That’s why we are inviting you to enter a research
project in the 2006-07 Siemens Competition.
You could win valuable college scholarships, ranging from $1,000
up to $100,000, by submitting your independent research project
in the fields of science, math, engineering, or technology.
This competition is open to high school seniors (as of the 2006-07
academic year) entering individual projects. Students in grades 9
through 12 may enter as part of a two or three person team. Students
must be citizens or permanent residents (holding a Green Card) of
the United States.
For complete research project instructions and more information
about the Siemens Competition, visit our website at:
http://www.collegeboard.com/siemens
Your project must be received by October 2, 2006, 5 p.m. Eastern
Time, so don’t delay — start your research right away!
Sincerely yours,
Janet DeCarlo
Manager
College Board/Siemens Competition
Copyright (C) 2006 The College Board. All rights reserved.
The College Board, 45 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY, 10023-6992.
College Board, SAT, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks
of the College Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of the
College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Other
products and services mentioned herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners. Visit the College Board online: http://www.collegeboard.com.
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05.30.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 1:21 pm by Meg
Okay, For what it’s worth, here’s my reasons.
- It bothers me to no end that whenever some newbie comes along and asks for advice, some well-meaning soul will send them willy-nilly to HSLDA with scary stories that they ‘need’ it’s protection. I realize that there may be localized areas that are still having troubles, but most referrals that I’ve seen (in a state with no heavy regulations) have been in the scary story category.
- I do realize that a majority of homeschoolers fall at the conservative christian end of the spectrum, but HSLDA is suppose to be about supporting our rights to homeschool our children. Instead, we are seeing them going off and using the money to promote a social agenda that has no connection to homeschooling. One that I have a pretty strong difference of opinion about, okay, but nonetheless, these are issues that have no connection to homeschooling and they are using their members’ dues to pay to promote them!
- HSLDA has a track record of coming into a state with ‘lead feet’. In my own state of Indiana in just this past year we had a state bill calling for a daytime curfew. HSLDA came in full blast at the bill’s sponsor. Yeah the bill got changed (though there was already local work going on to fix it), but the sponsor went from neutral to negative about homeschoolers. Why? Because all the HSLDA members just flooded his office with the form that HSLDA had sent out in it’s ‘call for action’. A form that had the wrong bill number on it for one thing, so it was easy to trace.
I could go on in this vane, but my problem all adds up to the fact that HSLDA tries to position itself as ‘THE’ final definition of what a homeschooler was/is/should be and I’m sorry, they aren’t.
Booboo, I’m sorry that you felt attacked on your own blog and I do appreciate that you don’t want to go following links into the unknown. As I said originally, I realize that we are coming from 2 very different backgrounds. I had hoped by sending you to Spunky’s blog you might see an argument laid out by someone that being closer to your background might do a better job of explaining the issue for you.
For you, and anyone else, that might be interested in HSLDA and it’s history, I’d recommend that you check out the Home Education Magazine’s website (it’s HEM in the sidebar.) They have some very informed people that have been monitoring HSLDA for a long time. They are very good at putting HSLDA activities into prospective.
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Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 1:21 pm by Meg
Okay, I initially pulled the last post after sleeping on it for a night. I do feel it is a little sharper than I usually try to be, but after thinking about it some more, I realized that I shoud just admit that someone pushing ‘HSLDA for everyone’ without having appeared to have studied the issues touched a nerve.
I don’t have the time now to layout my reasoning, but I will come back and do so.
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05.29.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 11:06 pm by Meg
Okay I won’t belabor the point. I’m a social liberal by most people’s standards, and so my views on HSLDA don’t have a lot of weight with conservative christians.
But Booboo isn’t sure why everyone shouldn’t be happy to support them. Rather than lay all the arguements out, I figured that sending her to Spunky will help her see why another christian isn’t happy to send them her money. But, she’s monitoring comments, so I’ll post it here instead. Hopefully, she will consider the facts and understand where we are coming from.
If anyone is interested in other reasons not to send money to these people, take a quick look here.
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