Monthly Archives: July 2007

Just an Update

It rained this morning. This has not been an unusual occurrence in Texas this summer but this morning we got a little over three inches in a very short amount of time. There was street flooding all over including the drive into the school where I was supposed to meet for a class. It didn’t make any difference that the little entry road was flooded because the power was out too.

A house just a few streets over caught fire. There had been one of those cracks of thunder that shook so hard you could feel it in your chest and it came almost simultaneously with a lightning strike and I would be willing to bet that is what caught the house on fire. We were running around looking out of the windows trying to see where it struck because we knew it was close. It blew up my answering machine.

There is more rain predicted for tomorrow….

My friend B.J. is one the road again. He has been to two of my favorite places – Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.

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Another one is Rocky Mountain National Park where the chipmunks are so used to people that they will come up and beg for food.

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He was at Mt. Rushmore and hasn’t uploaded those pics yet but I will be watching for them.

You can see more of his travel pictures and some wonderful local ones on Flickr.

I spent a lot of time today installing xampp and WordPress on my computer so I could work on an online tutorial for creating themes for WordPress. The tutorial can be found here at WPDesigner and I finally have at least the basics of a title, post titles, content, and header information. I also got a little help from Geeks Are Sexy and both sites were tremendously helpful. It never ceases to amaze me how generous people are on the internet with their knowledge. Both these websites had to have taken hours and hours of work and yet the information is shared freely and extra help is given in the comments sections.

I hope to create a new theme for this blog and maybe some more. I like doing the “pretty stuff” as far as images and colors – what I’m learning right now is the nuts and bolts of how to get everything to go where it belongs!

Goodnight B.J. and Colby somewhere in South Dakota – see you soon !

Musical Geeks and What is Up With Holly Hunter??

My new favorite TV show is Singing Bee. Contestants sing lyrics to parts of songs and are eliminated for making mistakes til only one is left. My daughter is as hooked as I am and we both sit there rushing to google lyrics if we aren’t sure or if we disagree with the powers that be on the show. We are each surprised at the songs the other knows.

It’s a vast improvement over last night’s viewing. We had been watching previews of Saving Grace and so we had the channel set for the beginning of the premier. The very first frame showed Holly Hunter and her partner completely nude in a very private moment.

At least on Singing Bee the most embarrassing thing that happens is people forget the words….

Smoking Cessation Update

It has been one month and three weeks of non-smoking.  I would never have thought I could get here and I still have moments where I crave one but I have passed some important tests.  We drove home for a family reunion this weekend and it’s a three hour drive to Minden.  This was the first long drive without smoking and we made the whole trip in one day.   We have visited smoking friends and sat outside talking and we had a fight and made up all without giving in.  These were all stumblers in the past so I think we will make it.

Now I am going to have to work on weight loss – quitting smoking meant a lot more snacking and it shows.  It’s always something isn’t it?

Computer Centers for the Classroom

In a post on a student leadership panel by David Warlick, one of the students made the statement that she was tired of going to the lab to do technology. The statement was made that we do not make employees share computers at work (which isn’t entirely true, at least in education) the students felt that all students should have a laptop. If that isn’t an option but creating some project centers in classrooms utilizing xtenda boxes is – I’m thinking about what we could include in the way of software that would give maximum use for students. The following is my list but I would be glad to here any suggestions. Most of what I have listed is opensource and I’m concentrating of budget-friendly, but if you have a software piece that your students just couldn’t do without, let me know.

  • Firefox – of course for the browser
  • VLC – media player
  • Audacity – audio editing
  • OpenOffice – office suite
  • Abiword – basic word processing
  • GimpShop – graphics editing
  • Inkscape –
  • Google Earth
  • Comic Life
  • TuxPaint (graphics for lower elementary)

I’d like to know about a video-editing program that is either opensource or at least low priced and fairly easy to use. I have been spoiled by my Mac and want somethings that are “Mac easy” for the students to create with. I have included software ideas for elementary through high school. I know there is more out there and I will add to this list if I think of some more.

Software additions!

MovieMaker

Random TV Movie Quote

I’m watching The Librarian : Return to King Solomon’s Mines on TV. I’ve seen it before but there is nothing else on and so I am reading, writing and keeping one eye and ear on the show.

The hero and the girl are traveling, walking through the sand when they stop suddenly because they see this head sticking up out of the sand with some kind of ceremonial makeup on. The head moves and startled the girl asks if he is okay. He responds with a slightly British accent, that he “has been better”.

Chuckle. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective….

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For me, the summer is winding down and while it has been a time of rest and regrouping for my family, I’m getting the itch to get back. There are still things I would have liked to get done here at home this summer but we have been spending our time trying to adjust. Everyone is home and that is a new situation. We also know that our oldest will be a senior this year and the youngest a junior so it won’t be very long before they are out of the nest. I am certain I just blinked and they grew up. And who IS that person in the mirror. She wears bifocals and has lines around her eyes and some grey hair. I’m sure I don’t know her.

Oh well, at least I’m not buried up to my neck in sand.

Are We There Yet Blogging Style!

We had our second blogging class today. I have three more classes to go this month and so far at least 6 brand new bloggers out there. I hope I am teaching them what they need to get started – but here is what they do NOT know:

The new bloggers don’t know that I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for them to post, excited about new voices in the blogosphere.

They don’t know that I will come to their school, meet them at the local coffee shop, whatever it takes to help them get comfortable with their blogs.

They don’t know how excited I am to have new friends blogging!
They don’t know how much FUN it can be!

They don’t know that if they give it time they may find themselves traveling some surprising paths because of who they “meet” and what they learn.

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Welcome to the world new bloggers! As soon as you are ready I’ll add links to your blogs to my blogroll here. In the meantime – I’ll try to be patient and not peek.

Harry Potter Disappointment

I am a Harry Potter fan. There. I’ve said it. I pre-ordered the new book from Amazon and we went to see “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” this afternoon. While I enjoyed the continuation of the story of Harry this was my least favorite story and the movie was dark and depressing.

One of the things I like about Harry Potter is the sense of wonder and hope. Here is this kid who has had such a terrible time growing up and has somehow managed to not become bitter. He has a strong sense of right and wrong and knows how to be a friend even though he hasn’t had any experience with friendship. He is loyal, kind, admirable.
In this book and movie it seems like that sense of wonder is gone, the expectations are all bad, Harry spends much of his time pushing his friends away, and in general the quality of the story wasn’t up to the same standards as the others.

Every other Harry Potter book and movie left me wishing they had gone on longer. This was the first one that made me feel like it could have fit into half the time and it didn’t even seem as though the characters liked each other. The only time I saw any of the old Harry was when he was teaching the other students and the part of Ron was almost non-existent.

Sometimes there is enormous pressure on authors who write a very popular series of books to hurry up and crank out the next one. If that’s what happened here it makes me sad. I hope Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is better. If not it may be a good thing if it is the last of the series.

Flickr Goodies

I’ve seen some interesting new things on Flickr this week and decided to consolidate the links in one post. I love Flickr and they just seem to get better and better.
Alan Levine has a post on a new “toy” SlideFlickr which allows you to quickly and easily create a slideshow from a flickr set. Lawrence Lessig has an interesting article on Web 2.0 Ethics and “sharing sites” comparing Flickr which makes it easy to download images and Youtube which does NOT. He discusses some other sharing sites and made me think about the subject of sharing and which sites actually embody the concept and which ones just ride along on the bandwagon. Definite food for thought.

If you haven’t visited Flickr:Creative Commons yet you are missing out. The first page defines the type of creative commons licenses you will run up against and then you can search photos and use them for non-commercial things (like your student’s project!!) without the copyright violation issues.

The last one for today is just gorgeous. I could just sit here and click and feed myself eyecandy. It’s called ColrPickr and it’s by KrazyDad. You choose a color on the beautiful color wheel and it displays a group of Flickr photos that fit the color. Now if this was just mashed up with Flickr Creative commons (hint! hint!)

colrpickrkrazydad

You can also visit BigHugeLabs and find all kinds of toys that let you create new things with Flickr photos.

Have fun – I would love to hear from you and see what you are creating with Flickr!

Blogging Basics Today

I taught a class on blogging basics this morning. We had a few technical difficulties that I had not expected. I had planned to get to the room and check it out prior to this class and paid the price for not doing so. The data projector kept giving a message to check air flow and then going off. Because it was hanging from the ceiling it was a little difficult to see where the filter was – one of the class members climbed up and tried but the “tech guys” showed up with a ladder and it turns out that the filter is actually located on the top front of the projector which makes it even more difficult to find.

That problem fixed we moved on though time and momentum were lost. I still tend to throw too much out too quickly and will have to work on that before next week when I teach it again. It will help that I’m to be back in my own room. I’ll be a little more comfortable having the home court advantage so to speak and if I’m less nervous things will go better.

The hard part for me is teaching blogs without teaching tagging and feedreaders. I am going to have to just say NO! to those voices in my head that want to teach it all and show the connections.

I need to work on timing some as well. I hope some of the class will create blogs and that some new voices will join the conversation.

There is a short article on my school blog about it with some links to resources on my wiki.  These are specifically for WordPress and Wikimedia within our system.

An Insurance Tale

We have enjoyed this summer so much compared to last year at this time. Dale was in and out of the hospital for a large part of the summer and the rest of the year he was making the long climb back. We recently went to Dallas to have a procedure done and before we left we were presented with a bill that was from last year.

When we got home I called the insurance company to see what happened. Medicare had paid their part but our private insurance was denying the claim. They initially said that it was because the hospital didn’t precertify. Dale of course didn’t call them because he was half dead from infection and hallucinating due to the pain medication (given to him by a hospital I won’t name since they recently showed a desire to frighten anyone who publishes negative opinions about them by suing them).

Next they claimed that the hospital didn’t provide enough information to convince them that the procedures in the list of charges were necessary. I proceeded to explain exactly what the procedures were and why they were done and you can trust me when I say they were not elective. The customer service person I was speaking to said the only thing I could do would be to request the records from the hospital and send them with a letter asking for an appeal to the insurance appeal department. I had already given permission for the hospital to file an appeal on my behalf about 8 months ago. We have requested records from the hospital for ourselves over a month ago and still haven’t received them so this put us in an interesting situation.

I explained to the person on the phone that this was not going to be a workable option and that I needed to speak to someone in the appeals department. She replied that the appeals department doesn’t speak to the people who file claims. You have to communicate with them in writing. I asked to speak to someone who could help me. She told me (in a rather sarcastic tone) that I could speak to someone else in her department and they would tell me the same thing she was telling me. I asked to speak to a supervisor and was put on hold for fifteen minutes (I timed it and the elevator music wasn’t lousy) before someone answered.

This new person checked back and found that the hospital had sent records – 131 pages to be exact. The reason the claim was being denied was because the doctor’s notes were not legible. We now have three completely different reasons why the claim has been denied and I still haven’t been granted an audience with the great and powerful grand pooba of appeals. I have also patiently explained to each person I have spoken to, what was done and why.
I called the office of the admitting doctor and the person who deals with insurance there got out the notes and found she couldn’t read them either. The ball is in their court now.

I wonder if Michael Moore will be doing a sequel – “Sicko II” – I may have a story for him.