Puzzles Of A 6-Year-Old

Posted by on May 15, 2012 1 comment

So, the boy’s a smart one and a near neophyte when it comes to solving puzzles and noticing patterns. It can be easy to overlook that for me, mostly I guess, because we don’t give him enough puzzles to work through. Sure, right now with the tooth missing and the haircut, he looks something like a cuter Alfred E. Newman. But there’s some crazy hidden madness to his method.

Over the weekend he wanted to play rush hour. I didn’t want to point out that the weekend didn’t have a rush hour, and Jack was asleep so sure, go out and play in the one-car-every-90-minutes traffic.
And by that I mean the game Rush Hour. I got it out for them about a week ago because it has cars and they like cars and it was a moment where I needed them distracted so I could get something (who knows what?) done. Eddie immediately said he wanted to play it, and I said “It’s more difficult than it looks, we’ll play it later.”

If you haven’t seen the game before, you put cars and trucks down in a pattern set down on a challenge card. The goal is to get the red car out the exit ramp. It’s really rush hour in a parking lot. Here’s an online version, to give you a good idea.

He tried the first one, of 10 at the beginner level. It was 9 and he got stuck because they get more difficult from 1 to 10. But then he started another, and after getting the idea that he could ONLY slide them, he got this big surprised goofy look on his face when he saw the path clear to the exit. He did all the others randomly, skipping one because he couldn’t do it but then sailing through all those and a few in the Intermediate level.

He stuck with it a while beyond the usual 6-year-old attention span – what Jon Stewart used to (and by used to I mean early 1990s) call Short Attention Span Theater.

What, me worry?

Sometimes E-mails Help

Posted by on March 15, 2012 No comments

Like today:

Read each one carefully and think about it a second or two:

1. No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won’t make you cry.

2. Just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.

3. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.

4. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can’t have them.

5. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

6. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

7. Don’t waste your time on a man/woman, who isn’t willing to waste their time on you.

8. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.

9. Don’t cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

10. There’s always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.

11. Make yourself a better person and know who you are before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.

12. Don’t try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.

Google News disclaimer 2012

Posted by on January 11, 2012 No comments

This is at the bottom of Google News. I don’t remember seeing it there before; anyone seen it there before.

The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. The time or date displayed (including in the Timeline of Articles feature) reflects when an article was added to or updated in Google News.

Cameras – Smiling Is Easy.

Posted by on December 30, 2011 No comments

Link Fest.

Pretty much PetaPixel go tmy interest otday with some great posts and links about the history of digital photography, as well as photo tips.

So:

First Camera Phone Photograph

Light Meter – A Marble

Baggage Journey Recorded

5MB of Storage in 1956

Someday In The Not-Too-Distant Future

Polaroid Ceramic Coasters

Photos Over Aged Words

Those Starks

Posted by on December 13, 2011 No comments

Overread, Overheard:

And when it comes to Starks, I’m going to bet on good at fighting but incredibly stupid at trying to accomplish anything until proven otherwise.

New, Temporary, Look

Posted by on December 9, 2011 No comments

Tired of the old one, this one’s not going to stay, but don’t have time to look further. So just wanted to let you know don’t be scared, it’ll be better. Soon. Any change pushes further change, so here’s the any change and come back for further.

UPDATE (about 15 minutes after posting):So the last temporary look was so bad I had to move on. It did not default to creating paragraphs for fuck’s sake. This one I like, for its simplicity while looking different enough – eg. shadow on the headlines – from WP default to be appealing

The Flaw In the Takedown Soup

Posted by on December 9, 2011 No comments

Talking about President Obama as a failed economic mind and leader, a Forbes magazine columnist wrote:

“This Luddite analysis fundamentally misconceives the role of technology in a modern economy. Such advancing technology increases worker productivity, and hence wages and standards of living.”

Advancing technology increases worker productivity? Sure, in a way. But Peter, does it therefore increase wages? Obviously not. If the last 40 years are anything to go by in the United States, obviously not.

When an argument is based on such a stop-on-a-dime failure of statement, the rest of what you’ve written doesn’t make sense. Peter’s statement of principle about better wages and living standards came after he quoted Obama saying technology has reduced the need for workers:

Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere in the world….Steel mills that needed 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100, so that layoffs were too often permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle….If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs or the Internet.

That’s an obvious statement, though Obama has offered little to stem the tide or reverse the mortal trend. Or even prepare the country for the inevitable. Businesses should take the lead, of course, but looking after workers is often far down on the list of priorities. They’re an expense that needs to be reduced to the least – and sometimes ethically – possible.

The columnist Peter avoids this reality too, spectacularly, just to to take verbal potshots at Obama. However, shooting from the lip requires more than that if you want to be taken seriously.

Faced with such a dire problem, a country, as a whole, should come together to solve the problem of finding American workers good jobs. It now takes serious government spending to get done even a fraction of what the same amount was able to do before, when everybody felt a sense of shared purpose.

That it fractures instead, beyond the ability to achieve anything whatsoever, is what leads to broken dreams or visions of the future aborted before they can begin. It’s that failure to lead, from the president, from politicians, from business leaders, from voters choices, that really is the fundamental flaw.

UPDATE (minutes later) Adn, of course, if all these maligned 1% are job creators, they’re doing it wrong. unemployment seems to be skyrocketing. You blame Obama or the “job creators?” It’s an interesting question, what WOULD it take for companies to begin hiring again. I think that would start with eroding wages and standards of living. As it always was, as it always will be.

Hot Wheels, Secret To My Success

Posted by on July 25, 2011 No comments

Super Blitzen, 2011 HW Premiere
Megane Trophy, 2011 HW Premiere
71′ Dodge Challenger, 2011 HW Premiere
Bread Box, HW City Works
’69 Dodge Coronet Super Bee, Muscle Mania 11
Chevy Camaro 2010 Indy 500 Pace Car, Nightburnerz

These are the last six Hot Wheels cars I bought. Somewhere I have a box of 40 or so cars, I meant to give my niece and nephew years and years ago. But never did. I periodically have always bought them. I remember being interested that I found a Stutz car when I had a teacher named Schultz. In fifth grade.

And Jack and Eddie get such easy joy out of these cars, I can understand. I never turned into a car fiend, a car obsessive or even much of a mechanic.

So, it’s something that will continue. A connection across the decades, little bursts of being at the steering wheel, under control, imagined speed powered by little hands, imagination and bigger hands and nostalgia mixed with a little sense of driving your own destiny.

Crrrrooooom.

Worst First Paragraph Ever – Eye of the World

Posted by on July 18, 2011 1 comment

I’d never read any Robert Jordan until I read this:

The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of time. But it was a beginning.

That pile of void is the first paragraph of Eye of the World. I almost closed the book right there; I felt so cliched out in less than 100 words. I read that and thought of religious promise, thought of Amway and empty calories and someone valiantly trying to say something meaningful – and failing miserably.

I did not close the book. I struggled through the lingering pain of that first section. And 806 pages later I was into the story. It’s one of those stories one of those writers who uses fantasy to create amazing magic to get out of difficult situations. You know the ones, our heroes are backed into a corner, there’s no way they could ever escape, ever, ever, ever. Then boom, lead wizard or Aes Sadai, pulls out the cataclysmic rabbit out of the hat.

It’s obvious. But the writing, the characters and the mechanics of the story were easily good enough to overcome the flaws. And I’m now waiting for my purchase of the first three books in the Wheel of Time series.

Grapes of Wrath – Nearing The End

Posted by on May 31, 2011 No comments

I’m heading into the final of the Grapes of Wrath, and now I actually want to read it to see what happens. Because it’s close Because it’s going to happen no matter what happens.

Earlier on in the book, I didn’t always wanted to read, because there’s so much loss of hope; inevitable, relentless and horrible. John Steinbeck’s language is about the only thing that got me through.

It’s funny even when the weather is described as sunny, my mind always shows a cloud above the scene.

#TeaGasm – Choice Organic Rooibos Superfruit Tea

Posted by on February 7, 2011 1 comment

Today I’m falling in love with tea again; stronger than ever.

Last week I drank some Apple tea from some name everyone’s heard of it. It smelled great, it tasted, well, bleh.

Today I’m on my second big mug of a Rooibos tea; the experience of which started with opening the box. Rich, deep, earthy. Eye-close worthy. Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Can we have air-fresheners like this please? Why wouldn’t those sell, instead of the smells, obviously manufactured, and sweet enough to leave sugar crystals on your nostrils.

It all reminded me of a forest floor at the edge of spring and summer; a hot day that excites scents. Drinking the rooibos (pronounced Roy-Boas) tea made me feel connected to the very essence of nature, without the stumbling blocks of man-made artificiality. I had poured myself some machine-made hot chocolate to deliberately compare. I’m not exaggerating when I say the drink of choice I’d had before, now tasted foul in my mouth and I threw half of it away.

Choice Organic Teas, a Seattle company (go Seattle!), put together this tea. It’s organic and it’s Fair Trade certified. They describe it this way:

Thrill your tastebuds with this full-bodied blend of earthy Rooibos and tangy fruit. Grown in South Africa’s Cederberg Mountains, Rooibos has long been prized for its restorative qualities. Paired with fruit, this jewel-toned red tea is slightly sweet, full of flavor and sure to refresh any time of day. [caffeine free]

The ingredients: Organic FTC Rooibos, Orgnaic Apple, Organic Hibiscus, Organic Rosehips, Organic Orange Peal, Organic Schizandra Berry, Organic Orange Oil.

It’s this color:

What’s Wrong

Posted by on January 28, 2011 No comments

This:

Even though a California city will be allowing a local Muslim community to build a mosque — despite protests from concerned citizens — a local pastor is holding out hope it won’t be built next to his church.

Aw, poor protestors aren’t allowed to be racist. Or infringe on the direct rights of other American citizens. A damn change. Damn. And a pastor brings out the best about his religion, the common good, tolerance and loving fellow human beings. That’s what pastors are for – to be the exemplars of all that’s holy here on earth. Or letting god decide all. Pastors who get political need to burn in hell; they’ve obviously already succumbed to demons, already. It doesn’t matter What Jesus Would Do – you aren’t Jesus and your failings are many, so don’t pretend. Sure feeding the poor CAN get political, but that’s what’s wrong.

Oh, and your hope is better directed toward people who need it, not fueling your misguided hatred and disgust at other creations of god. Anything you try to do is weighted with so much judgment, and disgust, it fails the humanity test.

The quote is the lead-in graf from this article. But hypocrisy and plain – no, extraordinary – not-smartity in the face of bigotry are what’s wrong with many who purport to follow any damn god out there.

And while we’re here, the last graf posits a false choice, as well:

The mosque, which would serve approximately 150 Muslim families in the area, has been at the center of a heated debate between those who fear the center will promote radical Islam and attract Muslims from all over the region who have a political agenda – and those who contend that the mosque will not encourage terrorism [are sane and righteous].

Religion is made in man’s image. This guy is ugly.

So What Don’t I Know About Groupon?

Posted by on December 1, 2010 No comments

And what should I know about Twitter?

I’m cringing inside at the idea of Google buying something else – growing beyond its means, thigh deep in a culture that … anyway, I’m thinking Groupon? Sure, they get some $$$ from companies to highlight them, but how the unholy hell are they worth, first $4 billion and then – the latest figure I heard today – $6 billion?

Their scope is global, to a point. Coupons are a big deal to many people. But money that big usually doesn’t just involve networks. There’s usually a heavy weight of physical assets.

So, obviously Google could integrate Groupon into its Maps and its advertising. They can upsell in a big way. Compared to most of their latest efforts and acquisitions, it makes sense. And – I guess – they have to stay in stride with Facebook’s Deals and Places, though unless they kick it in gear Facebook’s design and lack of ease, will be its downfall.

But $5.3 or $6 billion is truly, really, a crazy figure for what is still referred to as a start-up. And there’s some doubt as to why.

And then I hear today, that the latest “bidding war” has Twitter valued at “just” $4 billion. The direction of this company is skyrocketing. They’re developing into a portal – albeit one that’s vastly different from the dinosaurs of the recent past. It’s core demographic is laden with cash that it likes to spend on shiny things. It’s a solid deal. It’s the real deal.

So why “only” $4 billion compared to Groupon’s $6 billion. Are Google owners just flashing cash like Saturday Night Live’s Roxbury boys?

FFFFFFFF reezing

Posted by on November 29, 2010 No comments

Fuck fuck fucker fuck fuck fuckity fucked fuck fuck fuuck, it’s cold out there today.

Miserable, my hands, so cold waiting for the bus. The first time I remember being that cold – and that includes being waist deep in snow in Payson.

Soooo, cold.

Powerful Voice, Mariners’ Announcer Dave Niehaus Dies

Posted by on November 11, 2010 No comments

Wow, I’m sitting here at work fighting back tears, successfully so far, though the sniffles are loud.

Found out a few minutes ago that Dave Niehaus died yesterday of a heart attack.

Wednesday night, a photo of Niehaus could be seen on the big screen from outside an empty Safeco Field. It read, “Dave Niehaus, 1935-2010.” His empty chair and headphones sat in the broadcast booth.

Seriously, that quote from the article about his … um, the tear is there coming out of my right eye, now wiped away. … death set it off. Why does all that seem so poignant, so damn perfect a tribute?

Dave Niehaus was a stand-up, good-hearted, trustworthy, smart person with a great awareness of the flair it takes to call a game He shared a passion with everyone hearing his voice and it came across with clarity.

I’m sure I heard him somehow when I went to my first game in 1978 or 1979, but I don’t remember. At college I heard him on the radio – must have been broadcasting the TV over radio? – in Eastern Washington.

Everything about the man’s professionalism and how he treated everyone around him is worth celebrating. One of the good people whose life lessons, whose career will remain a legacy.

I’ll read more later. There’s no crying in baseball. Right?

Foursquare Elections

Posted by on November 2, 2010 1 comment

I can’t quite figure out the utility of this map – except to show how small Foursquare really is in the world? Oh and 300th post y’all.

These WP Themes, Too

Posted by on October 16, 2010 1 comment

(Not for this Templestark.com blog, but for Soundlust.com

(And yes I want to get and even pay more for a custom design – just need to make the money at Sound Lust to cover it.)

http://osc.template-help.com/wordpress_26647

http://theunstandard.5thirtyone.com

http://demo.woothemes.com/?name=backstage

http://www.nice-layouts.com/preview.php?p=24316

http://www.obox-design.com/demo-theme.cfm?theme=selecta

http://www.wpzoom.com/demo/yamidoo-pro/

http://www.wpzoom.com/demo/technologic/

http://organicthemes.com/demo/bold/#blank

Eddie, 5, Read Red Tractor

Posted by on October 14, 2010 1 comment

On October 12th, Eddie G. took about 12 minutes to read, Gold Stars – Red Tractor by Sue Graves. Carrie and Temple were on hand to guide him through some of the words; just hinting at sounds and so forth. He got a little frustrated when some words were introduced but also sailed through words we thought would be tough. But he did not give up.

It was the first book he read, having progressed at the beginning of his kindergarten year just over two months ago (started Aug. 10) from “readers” which were stories he could tell us with just pictures.

With emphasis on the first syllable this evening was – AWEsome!

This is what Eddie read:

Pg. 1
This is Red Tractor.

Pg. 2
Red Tractor helps the farmer on the farm.

Red Tractor can pull heavy loads in a wagon.

It can pull heavy things behind it.

One day the cow got stuck.

She got stuck in the mud.

Red Tractor pulled her out.

It pulled her out of the mud.

One day the horse got stuck.

He got stuck in the mud.

Red tractor pulled him out.

It pulled him out of the mud.

One day, the farmer got stuck.

He got stuck in the mud.

Red Tractor pulled him out.

It pulled him out of the mud.

But one day, Red Tractor got stuck.

It got stuck in the mud.

The farmer and the horse pulled red tractor.

They pulled Red Tractor out of the mud!

——-
TASKS: Look back in the book. Can you find these words: Red Tractor, farmer, mud, horse, cow