Tag: thomas

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Thomas’ Teacher

Thomas is in 5th grade this year. His teacher is really frustrating Tina and me. Last week, he assigned science homework to be done the next day, but there weren’t enough books for everyone in the class. In fact, there were only 7 books for 20 students. Thomas’ teacher made it the responsibility of the students to get together with other students after school to finish the homework. Luckily, Thomas coordinated with two students who live close to us. Unfortunately, Monday night is Cub Scout night and there was really no way we could get him to the friend’s house and then to Cub Scouts. So Tina retrieved the book on the way to Cub Scouts and copied the pertinent section on the school’s copy machine. Thomas was up 2 hours past his bedtime finishing his homework.

This is not the first time we’ve had problems with this teacher. Earlier in the year he assigned math homework to Thomas but failed to copy the necessary sections of the book. Thomas was the only one in the class who didn’t have the book. We offered to purchase the book for Thomas to use, but he declined and promised he would make sure Thomas had the material he needed in the future.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 297 miles
Average speed: 11.1 mph
Weight lost: 40 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 8
Hours billed this week: 32:30 (three days)
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: The Rock Report: Decemberists Interview, Box Set by Buffalo Springfield, Back To Mine by Morecheeba, Digital Ash In A Digital Urn by Bright Eyes, Necktie Second by Pete Droge, Half Nelson by Willie Nelson
Recent viewing: Cold Case, World Series, Countdown, Larry King Live, Martha Stewart (Amy Sedaris was on)
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo, Klax
Recently accomplished: Paid bills, returned stuff to hardware store
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, rake, clean garage, clean gutters and downspouts
Cool Link: Crazy Biker Chick—An open letter to motorists who dislike cyclists.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 282 miles
Average speed: 10.6 mph
Weight lost: 39 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 9
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: De-Loused In The Comatorium by The Mars Volta, Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, Rid Of Me by PJ Harvey, Coverville, Fight Songs by Old 97s
Recent viewing: NLCS Game 7, 24, Countdown, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, My Name Is Earl, The Office, South Park, Without A Trace, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, World Series Games 1 & 2
Recent playing: Zuma, Mr. Driller, Klax
Recently accomplished: Restored old hard drive backup to new hard drive, cleaned roof, winterized back yard, turned compost
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store, clean gutters and downspouts
Cool Link: Battle of the Bands

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Fall Means Football

Yesterday I finally had the chance to attend a Saturday flag football double-header starring Thomas and Graham. The action started at around 10:30 in the morning on a perfect football day: brisk and sunny with the wind blowing very hard out of the east (as is normal for our position in The Gorge). So hard, in fact, that people’s chairs were being blown over and kids were chasing their lighter stuff all morning.

Graham’s game was first and resulted in a tie. This was the first time that they didn’t lose, so there was some improvement there. These little kids don’t understand most of the rules of football and do things like run the wrong way sometimes. Still, Graham is understanding the game much better and pulled his first three flags yesterday. He also returned the first kickoff the equivalent of about 60 yards on their shortened field. He really enjoyed himself, too, which is the important thing.

Thomas had practice almost immediately following Graham’s game and then a game after practice. Thomas is the biggest kid on his team and so gets to play on the line, in the middle on both offense and defense. I think he wishes that he could get his hands on the ball every once in awhile, so I tried to emphasize the importance of his position. At one point, the two big kids on the other team (who were both bigger than him) were double-teaming him to keep him from rushing. I explained to him how important this was but I’m not sure he understood. During the latter part of the game, though, he got two flags in a row and then took one to give the other team a big loss a short time later. He was very happy about that. And his team won big with three or four touchdowns to none over a team that had beaten them the previous week.

Here’s some oddities of flag football I found interesting:

  • There are no fumbles. Once the ball hits the ground, the play is ruled dead.
  • If the flag belt falls off the ball carrier, the game turns to tag football.
  • For the younger kids, the coach joins his team in the back field to coach them up close.
  • First downs happen at stationary points arranged every 20 yards on the field.
  • Teams must declare which action they will take on fourth down. If they choose to punt, the defense is not allowed to rush the punter.
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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 279 miles
Average speed: 10.5 mph
Weight lost: 39 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 8.5
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: The Ramones, Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coverville, DrugMusic, Science Friday, Mechanical Animals by Marilyn Manson
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, 24, Countdown, The Colbert Report
Recent playing: Zuma, Mr. Driller
Recently accomplished: Recited various incantations to revive a failed hard drive
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, get my computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: Camera Obscura: Ken Jennings constructs a mini-album cover recognition quiz. I only got half of them.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 255 miles
Weight lost: 35 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 10
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Arkansas Traveler (remaster) by Michelle Shocked,
Recent viewing: Mets at Cardinals, Austin City Limits (Ray Davies), High Stakes Poker
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo
Recently accomplished: Helped Buddy move, more work on Thomas’ computer, grocery shopping
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, get my computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: White & Nerdy: Weird Al tries his hand at Nerdcore.

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Hard drive blues

Thomas’ hard drive on his computer (my old Beige G3) went south quite awhile ago. I thought I had successfully copied everything from it last weekend onto another drive, but I couldn’t get his computer to boot with that drive. I thought there might be something wrong with that drive so this weekend I did some more drive swapping in order to get Thomas another drive. Here’s where things stood before I started:

  1. One 80 Gb drive in my computer is my startup drive
  2. One 80 Gb drive in my computer is a data-only (non-booting) drive
  3. One 30 Gb drive that was “laying around” that I had tried to make Thomas’ new drive but wouldn’t boot
  4. One 160 Gb new, unformatted drive

It’s really easy to swap drives in and out of my computer and it can hold up to four hard drives at a time. Because of that, I have been doing all the work there. One of the drive mounts is vertical and is held securely by a single screw. Almost every time I remove that screw, it falls between the hard drive and the mounting sled. Usually, I just turn the mounting sled upside down and the screw falls out. This time I forgot to do that and it evidently shorted out the hard drive circuit board next time I powered up. It took me a while to figure out what had happened since the only symptom was that my computer wouldn’t boot. When I realized what had happened, I switched focus back to installing Thomas’ new hard drive so that I could feel somewhat successful on the day. Alas, the same problem occurs there as the previous hard drive – the computer won’t recognize the drive as a boot drive. Failure there. After all my efforts, here’s what I had left:

  1. One 80 Gb unbootable and probably unreadable hard drive
  2. One 80 Gb drive with Thomas’ stuff on it that won’t boot in his computer
  3. One 30 Gb drive with Thomas’ stuff on it that won’t boot in his computer
  4. One 160 Gb drive presumably with my carbonite offer codes on it
  5. Two computers that won’t boot

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with the 30Gb drive so I’ll continue to work on getting that to work for Thomas. I’ve got a week-old backup that I can restore to the second 80Gb drive, but I really don’t have a drive I can boot with now. Perhaps I’ll boot with Thomas’ 30Gb in my computer until I can restore the 80.

Sometimes I really, really hate technology.

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News

Thomas became interested in something called Pictochat Animation when he found some movies on YouTube that used the technique. Soon, he started drawing his own animations, which are essentially flip book animations that use the Pictochat feature on his Nintendo DS handheld game. He’s been working on an epic inspired by Star Wars, but it’s not ready quite yet. In the meantime, he commandeered my iSight and my computer to produce this animation in iMovie.

Tomorrow Thomas has two flag football games and Graham has one. Last week Thomas was sick, so we both missed his and Graham’s first games. Tomorrow I’ll miss them again since I’m helping Uncle Buddy move into his new house. Buddy is one of the rocks we have in Portland and we’d do anything for him, so I’m not too bothered to help.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 257 miles
Weight lost: 35 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 9.2
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Pronounced Leh’-nerd Skin’-nerd by Lynryd Skynyrd, DrugMusic, NPR Story of the Day, Science Friday, Planet Waves by Bob Dylan, Lost Dogs by Pearl Jam, Second Helping by Lynryd Skynyrd
Recent viewing: Countdown, Sportscenter, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Drawn Together, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, My Name Is Earl, The Office
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo
Recently accomplished: Paid bills, trying to figure out Thomas’ hard drive
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store
Cool Link: Nintendo DS and other folding things: Thomas releases his first animated short to the world.

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Vital Statistics

Bike odometer: 243 miles
Weight lost: 32 lbs.
Hours of sleep last night: 8.5
Current reading: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, The Prince by Machiavelli
Recent listening: Glimmer by Kim Richey, Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses by Slipnot, KBOO Bike Show, John Prine
Recent viewing: Crash, Steelers at Chargers, Cowboys at Eagles, Charlie Rose (Bob Woodward), Meet the Press (Bob Woodward), Drawn Together (season premiere!), Without A Trace
Recent playing: Zuma, Halo
Recently accomplished: Fixed Thomas’ hard drive, installed new OS for Thomas, lubed and cleaned bike
Imperative To Do: Finish old blog entries, get Thomas’ computer to boot, rake, clean garage, return stuff to hardware store, pay bills
Cool Link: Blogs – and God’s Youth: Does God want you blogging?