Some Blog Site

I was just minding my own business on the web, checking my credit card statement, when along popped a survey plea. Normally I just decline offers to participate in surveys, but tonight I felt generous.

Okay, maybe not generous. There is a glaring omission to the website that I wish they would fix, so I volunteered for the survey in the hopes that there would be a question about said glaring omission.

And I was not disappointed.

But there were lots of other questions too. I answered them to the best of my abilities. Those of you who know me know that one of my better abilities is the ability to take things literally. It comes in handy in the engineering profession, but it tends to annoy ordinary civilians.

I did not want to skew their survey results, but I am obligated, nay compelled, to answer the question as written. It’s a two part question, so be sure to read 19.2 and then 19.2.1 and then go back and read 19.2 before reading my answer to 19.2.1 (you can ignore 20).

(click on the image for the full-size version, which is only slightly larger)

As usual, the credit card company name has been obscured in order to protect the innocent.

The question asked if I would recommend viewing my statement online to other people. But I don’t want other people to see my statement, so of course I wouldn’t recommend it.

I think they meant to ask “How likely are you to recommend [credit card company]’s online statement feature to a friend or colleague?” or “How likely are you to recommend the online viewing of statements at [credit card company] to a friend or colleague?”

In case you are wondering: yes, I did leave that text there and submit the form. What you see is how I actually answered the survey. I don’t know if the survey people will appreciate it, but I had fun typing it.

One night during the Easter break, I spent about 2 hours on the Cheezburger Network, just flipping through the various sites and discovering interesting things and reading captioned photos.

And reading captioned photos.

And reading captioned photos.

They kind of blend together after a while, but I couldn’t stop clicking on the “Next” button.

After a couple of hours, I snapped out of it. Where had the time gone? What had I done with my life tonight? What else could I have accomplished with those two hours? I could have cleaned off the tops of my dresser and nightstand. I could have finally attached the trim around the closet in the bathroom. I could have done a number of useful things.

The Cheezburger Network is not useful.

I want a refund.

Srsly, can I get those two hours back?

I suppose it was no worse than a bad movie, so I’ll just consider it that. Yeah, like a choose-your-own-adventure movie because I was clicking on links to determine the plot content.

No, wait…that makes it worse. I am complaining about a bad movie that I directed. At least it was free.

Oh well, I suppose that’s what the internet is for.

Alpha attends the local public school. He was able to read before starting kindergarten, but not all of his classmates are at that level so the teacher teaches to the lowest common denominator. That means the public school is causing my child to regress. His spelling is getting worse by going to school. (that’s his going to school, not his spelling that attends . . . oh never mind).

The teacher has a lesson, and it seems that all students are to follow the lesson. The problem is that the lesson is about letter sounds and spelling words as they sound, not how they are spelled.

Here is an example. Alpha brought his schoolwork home, as he does just about every day. We saw this:

My wife noticed how he spelled the words and just asked him “Alpha, how do you spell ‘mouse’?”

And he replied “M-O-U-S-E“.

“Why did you spell it ‘M-O-W-S?”
“That’s how everyone else spelled it.”

Then she asked “And how do you spell ‘monkey’?”
“M-O-N-K-E-Y”
“And why did you spell it M-U-K-E?”
“That’s how the teacher told us to spell it.”

My wife and I were taken by surprise at this. The teacher had warned us at the beginning of the school year that we were not to correct our child’s spelling, so that she (the teacher) could see the child’s progress throughout the year. In theory, the teacher would see that the child was spelling poorly as he was just learning letter-sound concepts and then, at the end of the year, the child’s spelling would be better as he has learned word concepts.

“In theory” is the critical part of that paragraph.

What happens when a child already knows how to spell the required words? How does the teacher measure progress then?

Now, lest you think we made too much fuss over one piece of paper, let me describe to you some more of the story.

We had discussed our concern with ourselves, and we explained to Alpha that he should still do the right thing even though his classmates were not. “Some of them haven’t learned how to spell words yet, so the teacher is trying to help them. If you do know how to spell a word, you should write it correctly.” And we all were satisfied with this plan.

Then Alpha brought home his next paper.

He spelled “orange” as “ornje”.

“Alpha, why did you spell orange like this? It looks like you had it right with the G there.”
“The teacher made me change it.”

That’s right, he spelled orange with the proper letter and the teacher had him erase it and put the wrong letter in there (click on the picture for a larger view). He already knows that G can have a hard or soft sound. And he knows that orange is spelled with a G, not a J.

To be fair . . . he had a substitute teacher that day. But why would the sub do that? Either she had strict orders from the teacher or she went through the same spelling curriculum training as the teacher. Either way, she had to have been told by someone that kindergartners cannot know how to spell and she must enforce illiteracy. And either way, we are not impressed with what we’re getting for our tax dollars.

Just for fun, to torment the kids who can spell, they made almost enough boxes for the letters. They left off one or two boxes for each word.

It’s like musical chairs for spelling. There are 4 letters but only 3 spots. Which letters can find their places first? Which letter will be left standing? Oh, too bad. Letter N is out.

If only they made the spelling sheets with an area for writing the word instead of letter boxes. Then the children could spell the words the way they wanted, including the right way.

I don’t know why they did that for one letter sheet but not the others. Most of the letter sheets had the wrong number of boxes for correctly spelling the words.

Unfortunately, Harrison Bergeron is applicable once again. You would think a teacher would encourage excellence and high standards and good stuff.

If it’s kindergarten and we’re already having conflicts about what the school is teaching versus what we the parents think is right, I am not optimistic about junior high or high school. And the conflict is over the rather innocuous subject of spelling.

On the bright side of things – at least that’s the only problem we’ve had with the school. We’ll just be sure to keep our children supplied with real books that use real English words. That way, they will learn literacy at home and can be prepared for life.

This was going to be something like a Wordless Wednesday, but I knew I would have to add commentary so it couldn’t qualify as wordless. So I am making it a Winter Wednesday.

Exactly two weeks ago, I wrote how our church program was cancelled (am I the only one who wants to spell “cancelled” with two Ls and wonders why the spell checker won’t recognize it? It wants me to write “canceled” but not “cancelation”. “Cancelled” and “cancellation” or “canceled” and “cancelation” – make up your mind, spell checker) due to a snow day.

Now, exactly two weeks later, it is Wednesday again. And it is snowing again. And church is cancelled again.

Here is the snowfall from last time.

And here is the snowfall from this time.

The boys had fun playing in the snow and building a fort and throwing snowballs. I took Gamma on a walk down the driveway (about as long as a football field, so it counts) because it was scenic. While I was there, I took some pictures of the road because it was scenic.

Here is looking right.

And here is left.

I think that the church leader who prayed for a lot of snow three weeks ago (read the post if you want to know) should remember to pray for no more snow. It seems his last prayer is still in effect and he needs to cancell it.

I have seen a few articles that noted the trend of criminals who steal cars and use the GPS to drive to the victim’s house, knowing that the victim is not at home. The garage door opener left in the car provides the means for the thieves to enter the residence for the robbery.

Since we don’t have a GPS or a garage door opener, I can consider this situation somewhat objectively. The recommendations of the various writers was to leave the “Home” button of the GPS unprogrammed or to set it to a nearby intersection or local business but not your actual home address.

That’s no fun.

I say set your GPS Home location to the closest police station.

You leave your event (football game, concert, etc.) and get that sinking feeling as you begin to think your car is stolen. Simply call the police station (you do have the police station’s number in your cell phone, don’t you? And no, 911 is not their number.) and ask if they see a such-and-such car in their parking lot. No, you don’t say “such-and-such” – you need to replace that phrase with the make and model and color of your vehicle.

Of course, the savvy burglar might realize what is happening and figure you swapped your Home and Police Station entries. So don’t make it too easy and enter your home address under the title of “Police Station”. Make it “Church” or “Doberman Breeder” or something else.

In cooperation with LaanyKidsMom, here is my entry for this week.

Where did I find joy this week?

Kindergarten Valentine’s Day parties
I got to attend my son’s class party, the type where everyone gives harmless cards to everyone else and they’re happy because they got some candy. And they make crafts with glue and stickers and stuff.

Pick six! PICK SIX!!
No, I am not talking about the local lottery numbers. The 4th quarter of the Super Bowl brought me joy this week. It was fun to watch, although my favorite Super Bowl play is still Mike Jones’ tackle to keep the Titans from beating the Rams.

One More
The last thing that brought me joy this week (there were many more things that brought me joy, so this isn’t really the last thing that brought me joy, it’s just the last item I’m going to mention in this blog post) was my nephew was born. It was a few days early, which was odd because the C-section had been scheduled for next week.

New nephews and nieces are always nice to have, but my favorite part was his name. No, for the sake of his privacy I am not going to list his name here. Plus most of you readers are family so you already know the name. Non-family readers may email me if they are curious.

The row in front of us was empty at church last Sunday. We attend a small church, where news travels fast, so we knew exactly who was missing and why they were missing.

At our church, most people have their own spots. This seating chart is unwritten, of course, but well-known and followed. Our spot is behind a family. The mom and dad, in their fifties, along with their daughter, who is our boys’ Sunday School teacher, sit in front of us. Their son used to sit in that row too, before he went away to college. Their other daughter used to sit with them, before she got married two summers ago; our boys were the ring bearers at that wedding. And her parents used to sit there too, before they finished their days on this earth.

But they weren’t in church last Sunday. The marriage which started two summers ago had resulted in the birth of a granddaughter – the first grandchild in the family. That happened just before midnight on Saturday, and the family was awake into the wee hours of Sunday morning. The birth announcement was made from the pulpit, though by that time everyone knew.

She had been ready for grandchildren for a while. She was glad when it was her turn for nursery duty. The church nursery for the last several years has involved our children, and she would let us know after church how much she enjoyed watching or holding our child and how good that child was. She was an elementary school teacher, and kids were a joy to her. Even the troublesome ones received kind words from her. It would have been nice to congratulate them on the birth of their grandchild. “No matter,” we thought that Sunday morning, “we will see them next week and ask about the baby then.”

Later on Sunday, she said she didn’t feel good, and complaints were one thing you did not hear from her. She went back, as a patient this time, to the same hospital in which her daughter was recovering and her granddaughter was sleeping. She got to be a grandmother for about twenty-five hours.

Tonight was the visitation; the funeral is tomorrow. I have been to funerals before, but this is different from any of those. All the others were at least expected – advanced age, prolonged illness, etc. This came out of nowhere and was over before most people even knew it happened.

I was glad the casket was closed during the visitation. I am not a fan of open caskets. I would rather have my memory of a person be that person’s doing something other than lying in a casket. In this case, my mind pictures the photograph that was displayed at the funeral home – she is sitting next to her husband and holding her grandchild.

God has spared me from major sorrow in my life so far, and for that I am grateful. It will be rough for me to see them in church again – just the dad and the daughter now. The spot where she always sat will be right in front of me. It might be empty on Sunday, or maybe someone else will sit there. But it won’t be right.