Announcement

This person changed everything about me. When she came into my life, I was quite unprepared to deal with a young lady. They were a mystery to me. 23 years later, that hasn't changed much. They are still an enigma. But I get a new lesson almost daily from this one.

My wife and I named her Amanda. But we have always called her Manda (and some other less flattering nick names I'll omit from this post) just because it rolls off the tongue easier. Some of my favorite memories of my children and I are summer days in the backyard. Them sitting on my lap eating popsicles and Ice Cream cones. Or eating fresh watermelon and spitting the seeds on the lawn (which actually resulted in melons growing amongst the fescue.

On one occasion we were being visited by my brother-in-law, seated at the dinning room table eating Ice Cream Cones, when Amanda announced that her ice cream smelled funny. My b-i-l looked puzzled sniffed his own cone and glanced at me. I was straight faced, sniffed at my cone and shrugged at him. She sniffed her cone again, said "It  smells really funny" and extended her arm to allow her uncle to confirm her suspicions. As he leaned forward to help determine what might be wrong, Amanda jabbed him in the nose with the ice cream. She was probably 4 or 5 at the time. And she had out witted a USMC full bird Colonel. 

My son Kyle and my daughter Amanda.

Granted that I was away on deployments most of their early years. But I do not remember even one time these two ever exchanging heated words. Kyle has a very analytical mind. math and logic come easy for him. Amanda is every bit as intelligent as her older brother. But her inclinations are more attuned towards the social sciences. 

On her 8th birthday she asked for a dog. A puppy is more what she said. "I'll take care of it. I'll fed it and clean up after it. It will be my dog. You won't have to do a thing."

I fell for it, hook line and sinker.

13 years later, ol' Shadow is still guarding the back yard from intruders. A rescue pup from the county dog pound, Shadow started out as an 8 pound bundle of high impact energy, and was a very friendly dog. But in desperate need of training. She can still run like the wind. But not for as long as she used to. After a one month, 4 session obedience class, offered by the local Pet Smart, Shadow was able to walk at the heel, come, sit, lay down and shake hands on command. And we learned how to break her from the annoying habit of jumping up on everyone who enters the yard. Yes, I said yard. Shadow, like all the dogs I have ever owned is an outside dog.

When I came home from the nursing home in 2007, completely paralyzed from the neck down, Shadow would sit right outside of my window, next to my hospital bed, during the days. And curl up there and sleep during the night.

Amanda has always had a loving heart. She genuinely cares about people. This lead here to choose psychology as her college major. 

Here is a photo I stole off of her facebook page this morning. The baby she is holding is the new born daughter of the youth pastor from a local church. Just so you know...

I AM NOT A GRANDFATHER.

But I do have an announcement to share.

My little girl 

IS A COLLEGE GRADUATE

MATH MATH MATH

Mathematics is the language of science. And it seems to be one of the hardest subjects to grasp. Have you ever sat down and tried to help a child get through algebra homework? Are you tackling college and struggling with some concepts that you either forgot since high school or, like Dr. John used to sing "I GOT STONED AND I MISSED IT." But without those basics you're not going to advance to the next step until you recover that missing information. The problem is: Where do I find that info?

Well, we CAN pretty much rule out asking our kids for help, since they may be the person who needs the help. Either they can't help. Or there's the pride issue to deal with. Not that my kids would LORD IT over me... But others might not be as blessed as I. 

Or perhaps you could hire a tutor. At $50.00-$100.00 per hour you could get a grad student to fill in the missing pieces. Or a starving college student might be willing to barter their time in exchange for a few home cooked meals, to assist you. But then you need to work around each others schedules, and then there's the problem with finding said student tutor. Or there are places that specialize in teaching math, Sylvan Learning is one That a friend told me about, that they had a lot of success with. But we're talking beaucoup bucks using these places.

How about going to Amaze-on and buying some math books? Sure, that's always possible. But which books should you buy? Is this one too basic? Does it go into enough detail? Is it too advanced? Does it start at one level past the concepts I'm missing? What if I'm one of those people who just doesn't learn well from a text book? There are studies that show that learning from a text-book is not always the most effective method of learning.

Well let me introduce you to the KHAN ACADEMY.

Choose a subject:

MATHEMATICS, PRE-ALGEBRA, ALGEBRA, GEOMETRY, TRIGONOMETRY, CALCULUS (Differential, integral and multi-variable). LINEAR CALCULUS, PROBABILITY, STATISTICS, PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, BANKING, ECONOMICS. OR EVEN WORLD HISTORY.

THE KHAN ACADEMY has a lesson plan for each and every one of those topics. They are self paced. Easy to follow. Use plain English (Other translations are available) to explain the concepts. and best of all

THE LESSONS ARE FREE, ONLINE AND AVAILABLE 24/7/365 AT:

WWW.KHANACADEMY.ORG

Here is a little more info:

 

 

Where was this guy when I was dredging through Calculus?

ANOTHER DAY

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2011

The South entrance to the VA Hospital, La Jolla, California

Same entrance, closer

The Southern view from the entrance pictured above.

Note the gray skies, very uncharacteristic for SoCal. even in the dead of winter.

My current project. A Keepsake box. On Fridays I work on projects to build the fine motor skills. On the other days I work my hands using Resistance Putty and Thera-bands. (photos to appear later).

Felicia, A UCSD Student Volunteer, who helps in my therapy sessions, along with Elaine and Eddie.

After the VA transport van dropped me off at home, I took some pictures to share with you...

This is my front door. My house faces due west. So this is looking towards the east, with the rocky hills that make up my backdoor view.

Even in WINTER

Everywhere I look

I am constantly reminded

Of why I choose to live in SoCal.

This was the Southern view on Friday 25 February. On Saturday 26 February, those clouds turned into a frog strangling downpour. And in the East County snow fell at 2800 ft. In a few days you nice people on the east coast will be getting a taste of this storm system.

But by Sunday 27, February, the skies over SoCal looked like this again.

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Roba Dolce Redux

______________________

If you're a regular reader, you may recall my original post concerning the FREE SAMPLES of Sorbetto and Gelatto I received from the kind people at Roba Dolce, just for putting their logo in my side bar. In that post I wrote about my impression with their product. I raved about the Raspberry Almond Fudge, The Lemon and the Blood Orange. But I was less than cordial about their Mango Sorbetto.

Let me state that the product review was based on my taste impressions from eating the 6.6 oz single serving containers. And since then we, discussed the date of manufacture on the mango. Apparently the single serving container of mango was from an older recipe. But the large container, which was also in the original post, was from a newer recipe. And in the spirit of fairness, I must say;

The new Mango is superb. It is tangy, tart exquisitely sweet and it has that distinct mango after taste that revisits the pallet for a few breaths after swallowing. In actuality, the only element missing from a true mango experience is the hair-like fibrils stuck in your teeth.

Also in the package was a large carton of Pistachio Sorbetto. 

The problem with most frozen concoctions containing nuts is that the nuts are usually mushy and tasteless and are in short supply. 

The Roba Dolce Pistachio Sorbetto does not have any of these problems.

I liked it.

HAVE A GREAT AND BLESSED WEEK.

A DAY.

11//2/11

5:55 am. Looking out my backdoor. 

Facing due East. The mountains in the distance are known as the Cuyamacas. 

The Cuyamaca Mountains are a mountain range in San Diego County, California. The mountains run roughly northwest to southeast. The highest elevations are Cuyamaca Peak at 6,512 feet  and Stonewall Peak at 5,700 feet. The San Diego River and the Sweetwater River both rise in the Cuyamacas.

I spent a major portion of my day at the VA, doing Physical Therapy (PT). And Occupational Therapy (OT). Here are some photos from my OT sessions.

This is Elaine. My primary OT

This is Eddie. My secondary OT. 

The bird catcher is one of the projects I'm working on, to build my manual dexterity and reestablish my fine motor skills. The parts are all precut. But require sanding, aligning, gluing, clamping and finishing. The Bird Catcher is ready for painting.

This is my first project.  My little red birdhouse. Not much to look at. But a major milestone accomplishment for me. Considering that just over a year ago, I couldn't open my hands.

My current project. A Flower Basket.

Made by  aligning and gluing 76 identical pieces of softwood, into 2 sides (shown here).

And this is what it looks like assembled.

I'm going to leave this unpainted. And get some really manly biker type flowers to dress it up.

These photos were taken with my iPhone.

After I got home, I took my Nikon COOLPIC S570 outback. I will post those photos later.

ALL OF THIS TOOK PLACE IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. ON THE SAME DAY THAT THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT SUCCESSFULLY CAST OFF THE SHACKLES OF AN OPPRESSIVE GOVERNMENT.

LET FREEDOM RING...

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY a day late