Regarding the Departure of Larry Robertson from the District 1 Race
Press Release
The departure of Larry Robertson from the race for the District 1 seat on the Coweta County school board is unfortunate. Robertson is an active contributor to the community, and his candidacy represented an opportunity for district 1 to have a broader choice of representation this fall.
Robertson’s departure also underscores the difficulty faced by many parents in knowing which school district they’re in. As a resident of district 1 for both tax purposes and for voting in County Commission races, it ought to have been reasonable to believe that his school district was also district 1 for school board.
The realignment of districts has caused confusion for some parents, but also consternation for others. Working families should not have to drive several miles to one school when another suitable school is located near their home. Parents should have a greater say in where their child goes to school.
We would like to thank Mr Robertson for stepping up to the plate for Coweta County Voters, and wish him well.
No CommentsThose Crazy Kids Are In Love
Two of my best friends in the world were High School sweet hearts who married long after High School was over. He joined the Marines and was probably headed for Viet Nam for all anyone knew. She married another and had a family. They kept in touch, and years later circumstances would bring them back together. They've been happily married for more than two decades and are about the cutest couple you'll ever see. Maybe it's because I respect and admire them both so much that hearing stories like theirs warms the cockles of my heart*.
So here's another: Karen Wilcox and Mike Wilson met in homeroom in the 7th grade at South East Junior High in Iowa City, IA. And fell in love. Then her family moved away and she broke it off rather than have a long distance relationship. They would both go on to be married twice, and divorced twice. Forty-eight years later, they would rekindle their relationship. On August 9th, just before noon, they got married. The ceremony was held in the very classroom they shared as home room**.
*Cockles are not listed on any anatomical drawings of the human heart I've ever seen. I learned the phrase from a nice church going lady who lives up near Carolton. Near as I can tell, a Cockle is a type of bottom dwelling bivalve that can be found in the coolest, bottom most regions of brackish coastal waters. So I mean, if something warms the cockles of your heart, (a) it must be warm, and (b) you need to see a cardiologist about getting those cockles removed.
** The exact date and time was 8/9/10 11:12 am.
I do declare, it is hot ’round here
I get irritable when the thermostat in my home goes above 75°. I also get irritable when the humidity goes over 50%. As a native southerner, I'm not unfamiliar with high heat and humidity; that doesn't' mean I accept it. If air conditioning had not been invented by now, rest assured I would be the one to do it. Last year, I replaced an otherwise functional Carrier AC system with a brand new Trane because it could not keep this house cool enough. That's how serious I am about not liking high heat and humidity.
So you can imagine that my sympathies go out to students and teachers of the 9th grade at East Coweta High School...
Read More >>Quick Review: Droid Incredible, from HTC
If you read between the lines of my iOS 4.0 review, the one thing you may have heard is the word "disappointment." Simply, the iPhone 3G has been effectively crippled by the bloated iOS software. It ceases to function as a phone. The answer? Upgrade to the iPhone 4. But hold on a minute there, professor... that $200 introductory price isn't available to loyal, bill paying customers of AT&T. It's only for newbs. So here I am with a phone that doesn't really work as a phone, or anything else, and AT&T's answer is for me to pay $600 for an iPhone 4. This could easily get me into a rant about how corporations don't get the concept of "loyalty", but instead... there's a happy ending.
Read More >>Back To School Time
This is the season for school starts, and with that the Sunday editions of papers have placed considerable emphasis on school related articles. One article in the AJC Metro section caught my eye; schools in and around the metro area are teaming up with colleges and universities to implement advanced placement courses in areas such as Calculus. These programs, given via a video conference link, allow kids in rural areas to take classes in a university format over a video conference link and interact with the instructor in real time. Of course, since its AP, the students earn college credit. Leveraging programs like this is a great way to encourage excellence among high performance students without taking away resources from students needing personalized attention.
No CommentsThe Big Jiggle?
Big Bang Theory has been the predominant cosmological theory regarding the foundation of the universe for several decades. Since it was first proposed by a Roman Catholic Priest in Belgium (I kid you not here, folks), it has proven robust and has been experimentally verified in a number of ways. Unfortunately, there are a few gaping holes in the theory.
Read More >>Droid does Java. Andrew does Java. Ergo, Andrew does Droid.
Today I managed to dust off some old memories of software programming. Back in 1996, one of the hottest new technologies was a software programming language called Java. Java was supposed to be the future of the web. That got derailed, primarily by Adobe Flash, but mostly by it's own overweight memory requirements. Java applets that ran on webpages required gobs of memory, while Flash seemed to run quickly and easily. As a young budding software programmer, I had taught myself java, and quickly found it useless as a web technology.
Read More >>Microsoft, Rich Nerds and Outrageous Learning
Businessweek's front-page article is about the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to reform education. One of Gate's cohorts has something to say about education too. And then there's Dunbar's number.
Read More >>Lies, Damned Lies and Calculus
Tonight was another fun night of building electronic projects with our 101 snap kid. We did a project titled "Conductor Test". I used the opportunity to explain to my son the difference between a conductor, an insulator and also an important fact that most grown ups don't know: water (pure water at least) does not conduct electricity. Using some test leads connected to the project and suspended in distilled water, I showed this. Then, I had him slowly add salt to the water, and as he did the small lamp began to glow. The salt forms an electrolyte solution when dissolved in water, just like the flouride, calcium and chlorine in your municipal tap water makes it an electrolyte.
We're counting down now to the start of school. Brannon will be in the 3rd grade this year, which means he'll learn his multiplication tables. Actually, he learned multiplication and division last year, a concept I demonstrated geometrically with blocks. This summer I gave him a dose of algebra, teaching him variables and order of operations. My goal is to be able to teach him differential calculus by the time he's in 7th grade. But according to Dr Arthur Benjamin of Harvey Mudd College, I should probably teach him to gamble.
Read More >>Product Review: 101 Snap Kit
When I was six, my toy remote control car's batteries died. In the world of six year old logic, that meant that the toy died, was therefore trash, and I was free to do what I wanted with it. And I did then proceed to take a #2 phillips head screwdriver and utterly dismantle the device. Most of the components had functions that weren't obvious, but I did figure out that the little DC electric motor is what made the whole thing go, and that if I bridged the contacts to a 9v alkaline battery, it would spin furiously. This is how the mischief starts.
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