11.19.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 3:38 pm by Meg
The worst thing about missing yesterday is that I have a pile of thoughts for posts and trying to find the time to write, didn’t happen.
And that’s not counting the clippings that have been building up on my desk of things that I’ve seen in the news that seem interesting.
Oh well, I’ll leave you teased about that - though I will mention that the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld that these plates are legal without any extra charges. A load of BS, if you ask me.
Go back and reread my previous post about how people are asked which one they want. Suggestive anyone?
Anyway, I should make this a little more “homeschool” oriented since that’s what we do here - yeah, right - and tell you that you didn’t hear about last week’s bio lab because it was on Veteran’s Day and since the ps was off, I figured on taking the day off as well. Well, we had no lab, but since Girl had been sick for a few days before that, she ended up doing some work to get back on track. We’re on break for all of next week (well, not the ps schools, so she’ll have Spanish) and she’ll have some other work to catch up on then, but we didn’t have lab.
This week’s lab - yesterday - was basically straightforward. We were looking at inheritance and so they were flipping coins with their partner to determine the facial characteristics of their theoretical offspring. (yeah, I was cute and matched them up girl-boy - until one of the boys didn’t make it and so that made a set that was boy-girl-girl.) At this point I’ve matched them every which way and I’m not sure they even pay much attention to who they are working with.
Each offspring had about a dozen things they had to determine and for each characteristic they would assume that heads was dominate and tails was recessive. Many of the characteristics were for things that had three choices - an additional one for a heterozygous result. They had fun.
I also gave them their assignments for the next lab in two weeks. That lab will be constructing karyotypes and while the first will be “normal” the next two will not be and they need to be diagnosed. Rather than assume that they all will be on top of their reading, I found 13 different syndromes that would produce an abnormal karyotype and assigned them each one. They are suppose to bring to class an image of what their karyotype would look like and then a short write up of what it is (how it happened) and what the symptoms would be.
My hope is that doing this will help them to realize that the stuff they are learning is not just “knowledge” but has a connection to the world around them. As a resource for info I did give them this link to get started.
And before I run off…I mentioned my baking for book group, so I thought I’d share.
We were discussing Twilight and since there were those of us with teenage daughters, we decided to bring them along as well. With that in mind, I made two treats.
A extremely rich chocolate cheesecake (that I’m off to have another slice of shortly)
and for those not looking to overdo the sugar, a simple cherry tea ring.
We had fun chatting, though it stayed on “topic” more than we usually do, and I was pleased with how my baking came out.
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Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 8:13 am by Meg
I missed a day.
I was trying to informally do NaBloPoMo to see if I could do it. But I didn’t count on what a weekend of cleaning out those boxes and dealing with Dater’s birthday; followed by organizing bio lab and then hosting bookgroup (including the baking for it) yesterday, would do to me.
Last night I cleaned up….and crashed.
Oh well.
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11.17.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 6:03 pm by Meg
is Dater’s birthday!
Saturday night we took her out for dinner - steak (her favorite)
Yesterday she had a handful of friends over to hang out and have pizza and cake (above)
Today we gave her our presents and had a second cake (below)
Can you guess how old she is?
The funny shape of this one is because she had a friend who can’t have chocolate because of health issues, so I made two sheet cakes - one chocolate, one fun-fettie - and cut them in half. For her friends, I put then together end to end, but for us I stacked them. They didn’t stack as well as two round cakes.
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Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 1:25 pm by Meg
I never expected to get very many votes.
Thank you to everyone! and remember that the voting continues…
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Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:15 pm by Meg
I’d have to say that dealing with those boxes definitely put me into another world with dealing with anything else (and writing anything here - probably bored most of your to tears, huh?)
Oh well, I now have a different view of my father in some ways. I just wish he was around to ask.
I did write my uncle an email asking some questions, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. I’m not sure if he’s not home/not checking email regularly or if his email didn’t recognize my email address and marked it spam (I’m not sure I’ve ever sent him an email - I have it from emails of my cousins when they have sent something out to a bunch of family) or if he’s delaying answering because of all the issues that that time period brings up. Well, I tried.
And JoVE, most of Dad’s unpublished stuff is his creative writing from a period that went from him getting his bachelor’s and then going back to get a Masters (because he couldn’t sell the stories - yes, I have the reject letters).
There are two things that date from the 80s. A manuscript for a poli. sci book that I’m guessing came after his last published work - I vaguely remember him talking about it and that he couldn’t get a publisher interested. And a long novel about “The Three Victorias” based on the English royal family - that he did self-publish through one of the early online publishing sites.
I don’t think anyone would be interested in collecting or publishing his papers at this point, though I may finally sit down and read his novel (he’d always flash it at me and then wisk it away before I could get ahold of it to read.)
OTH, his collected letters from lady friends (nearly 10) could probably be used for a humorous book. He certainly seemed to attract the ladies.
I also found an huge packet of letters from his first wife while they were separated. My opinion of her has taken a serious nose dive. The entire year they lived apart she was promising to return to Chicago and him, but then delaying for this thing or that. On top of that, she was constantly getting bored in one or another secretarial job and quitting it - and then complaining of money problems, and then my Dad would send her a few bucks.
In my opinion, she was a seriously immature twit.
Anyway, my pile is down to 6 boxes, plus another that I want to hear back from my sister’s before trashing. And two of those boxes contain pictures that I need to thin way down, but I’m waiting because Boy has indicated that he’s like a chance to see them all.
And it’s out of my livingroom - YEAH!
So, with that, I’ll be returning to the regular sort of things I talk about.
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11.16.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 2:36 am by Meg
I’ve finished my first pass through all of Dad’s stuff…
and I’ve cut it in about half. There’s still more thinning to be done, but it’s a start.
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11.15.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 10:33 am by Meg
I just was discussing my Dad’s stuff that I was going through.
I’ve been continuing to dig into the boxes, and the surprises haven’t stopped. I’m not going to drag it out now (Dater is planning a b-day party with her soccer friends - here, tomorrow - so I’m trying to finish getting the boxes dealt with so I can remove them from my livingroom. )
But I’m now found piles more pictures going back to ‘58, Dad’s ex’s Dear John letters - yes, there’s two letters. She did it twice. The Christmas cards that Mom received before her first husband died (may the year he died? I’m not sure of that date.) Dad’s discharge records from the AF….,
And piles and piles of slides and negatives that unless my sister’s have a desire to have, I’m trashing unseen. There’s too much to try to go through them and save them.
Right now I’m off to wade through his unpublished writing to try to slim it down to a single copy of any one thing…
Wish me luck!
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11.14.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 9:42 am by Meg
Have you ever used it?
I did the other day when my chorus was meeting at some church an hour away and we weren’t sure of anything but the name of the place. I wanted to see what it looked like, so it would be easier to find.
Street View was awkward to use at first, but once I felt like I got the hang of it, it was fun.
Anyway, Hubby just clipped an article about some artists using the Street View cameras to create some (performance art, I suppose) scenes for Google and I thought it was neat.
Here’s a touch of some of the scenes they set up:
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