Month: December 2012

Sometimes, life hands you a banjo

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It wasn’t just life, though. It was long-time friend Ken. We met for breakfast this morning and talked for hours about flame plate in fighter jets, great teachers, the colored water of the old Nashua River, adaptive learning, and Massachusetts politics. It was the kind of conversation that Ken and I have had since we were in Little League, drops of water bouncing and scattering on a hot griddle.

It wasn’t just any banjo. It was Don’s 5-string.

Not a day goes by that we don’t miss him. Not a day goes by that, knowing that we could have done better, we don’t wonder if it would have been enough to make a difference.

First steps will be tune it, learn a few chords, and plunk out a blues progression.

kh.banjo

It comes full circle. That was me, back when we were living in the garage, my grandmother looking on.

Sometimes, life hands you a banjo, again.

Crime in suburbia

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From The Landmark (subscription required):
[Ed. Note: there were 22 suspicious items this week.]
Holden
Monday, November 26
9:47 a.m. Public service, lock-down drill at school, Jamieson Rd.
1:55 p.m. Vehicle lockout, Main St.
2:29 p.m. Caller complaining about protesters in front of post office, Main St.
4:27 p.m. Person at station to have someone speak to his daughter about underage drinking, Main St.
9:55 p.m. Firewood stolen during daylight from home on Paxton Rd.
Tuesday, November
27
6:16 a.m. Dispute over shared mailbox, Main St.
10:00 a.m. Person at station regarding suspicious phone call, Main St.
10:36 a.m. Caller wants to speak with officer regarding suspicious vehicle, Stoneleigh Rd.
1:45 p.m. Police at post office for follow-up, Main St.
Wednesday, November
28
2:38 a.m. Suspicious vehicle pulled into construction site behind house, Autumn Cir.
9:12 a.m. Tire and furniture left on side of Bond Rd.
10:26 a.m. Police check on suspicious person, Stoneleigh Rd.
12:15 p.m. Red fox in backyard, Beechwood Rd.
12:42 p.m. Car seat installation, Main St.
3:43 p.m. Fox hanging around neighborhood, Nola Dr.
4:43 p.m. Suspicious vehicle parked all day, Mason Rd.
Thursday, November 29
8:24 a.m. Hydroseeding truck sucking up water from swampy area on Quinapoxet St.
8:59 a.m. Officer out with dog in road, Stoneleigh Rd.
9:55 a.m. Someone fooled with caller’s windshield wipers and mirrors while she walked on rail trail, Manning St.
1:40 p.m. Police check on fox, Nola Dr. Fox sent on its way
10:01 p.m. Two suspicious males hanging around area, Princeton St.
11:02 p.m. Car carrier unloading vehicles in driveway, Main St.
Friday, November 30
4:51 p.m. Police check on suspicious vehicle with four occupants, Parker Ave.
Saturday, December 1
12:37 a.m. Suspicious activity in area of Chapel St.
10:08 a.m. Report of hunters too close to property line, Preservation Ln.
11:13 a.m. Police investigate loose cat, Main St.
12:44 p.m. People at station regarding civil issue between two interior decorating companies, Main St.
Sunday, December 2
2:42 a.m. Suspicious vehicle, River St.
10:46 a.m. Caller concerned about illegal flea market in Jefferson Park, Quinapoxet/Princeton Sts.
1:12 p.m. Item found near entrance of rail trail, Manning St.
3:01 p.m. Assist citizen with deer, Reservoir St.
3:58 p.m. Two males in field discharging firearms, North St.
Paxton
Tuesday, November 27
6:30 a.m. Person in woods behind caller’s house, Crystal St.
Wednesday, November 28
7:14 a.m. Caller struck dog, Marshall St.
9:02 a.m. Caller reports livery van crossing center line, Pleasant St.
12:45 p.m. Caller received letter form person in jail, Old Lantern Cir.
Thursday, November 29
1:25 p.m. Assist postal inspector with investigation, Mower St.
Friday, November 30
8:19 a.m. Request for police to check vehicle that twice drove behind building, Pleasant St
2:14 p.m. Truck and trailer on side Mower St., person went into woods with chainsaw
Princeton
Monday, November 26
9:19 a.m. Suspicious vehicle, Mountain Rd.
Tuesday, November 27
8:59 a.m. Graffiti on buildings and sign, Boylston Ave.
9:03 a.m. Suspicious person, Gregory Rd.
Friday, November 30
7:57 a.m. Two suspicious white pickup trucks with campers on back acting suspiciously, Calamint Hill Rd. S
11:26 a.m. Vehicle vs. stop sign, Fitchburg Rd./Rte. 140 N
Saturday, December 1
8:37 a.m. Snow-covered vehicle parked on hill, Rte. 140
Rutland
Monday, November 26
2:04 p.m. Caller regarding hunters on private property, Irish Ln.
Wednesday, November 28
7:05 p.m. Caller reports vehicle pulled in neighbor’s yard and did a “donut,” Brooke Haven Dr.
Friday, November 30
8:17 a.m. Person at station regarding suspicious activity at her home, Bethany Dr.
2:45 p.m. Horse caught up in fence, Central Tree Rd.
4:22 p.m. Mother at station regarding daughter smoking something given at school, Summerhill Dr.
11:52 p.m. Suspicious vehicle, Main St.
Saturday, December 1
12:30 p.m. Assist person locked out of vehicle, Pleasantdale Rd.
12:59 p.m. Woman walking on Edson Ave. looks lost
Sterling
Monday, November 26
7:37 p.m. Caller reports suspicious male in dark green Army coat, Davis Ledge Rd.
Tuesday, November 27
8:58 a.m. Suspicious vehicle and male walking around, John Dee Rd./Redemption Rock Trl.
Wednesday, November 28
6:47 a.m. Black and yellow Lab missing, Redstone Pl. Dog later returned
9:36 a.m. Two loose beagle puppies almost hit by vehicle, Chocksett/Clinton Rds.
12:37 p.m. Suspicious male walking up driveway, ran when dog barked, Wilder Rd.
Thursday, November 29
3:11 p.m. Suspicious vehicle, Jill Ln.
4:08 p.m. Tan and white bulldog in area of Meetinghouse Hill/Stuart Rds.
Friday, November 30
4:40 p.m. Lost, long-haired gray cat, Redstone Pl.
9:57 p.m. Officer checks on person shining flashlight into school building, found to be custodian checking school, Boutelle Rd.
Saturday, December 1
11:55 a.m. Suspicious vehicle, Albright Rd.
Sunday, December 2
9:05 a.m. Suspicious person driving around Wiles Rd.
6:07 p.m. Female walking down road in dark clothing, Princeton Rd.
9:54 p.m. Suspicious vehicle in driveway, Village Ln.

Toward a theory of technology education

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Impressive title for a blog, eh?

Well, I’m nowhere near that full theory, but I’ve got a few pieces that are starting to take shape. The ideas are based on my experiences providing technical support for many people over many years.

Smart, good people call themselves stupid because their computers and telephones block them from doing a simple task. We’ve created a culture of disrespect that’s the result of bad user interface and bad  software release practices (unannounced changes so that something that worked in one way yesterday doesn’t work today).

A generation was mocked by the flashing 12:00 on their VCR clocks because a) each VCR had a different way of setting the time and, more importantly, b) the manufacturers were too fricking cheap to include a 50¢ battery that would preserve the time setting when you unplugged the device momentarily.

It’s not likely that the industry is going to change its ways, so it’s up to us. That’s where this nascent educational theory is coming into shape. It has a few core principles that I’ll be developing over a series of blogs:

  • Language

  • Expectations

  • Community of learning

  • Context

I’ll touch on the first one, language, today.

If you don’t know how to spell a word, look it up in the dictionary.

How many of you, as nine-year-olds, stared blankly at your teacher when she told you to look up a word that you didn’t know how to spell? This moment may have been the beginning of your understanding that adults are nuts.

Second only to English language usage, English spelling rules are nonsensical and contradictory. (The phrase look it up, for example, uses the verb look in an archaic fashion as a transitive verb and sends us looking upwards. Perhaps a grammarian could help me diagram the sentence Look it up in the dictionary.)

The other day, a Mac user tried to explain her problem, that the thing with the pointer was missing from her desktop.

“I use it to navigate,” she said.

I asked about the mouse pointer, which seemed to be ok.

“I click on it to read the New York Times,” she said.

The icon for Safari was missing from her Dock.

If you saw the Safari icon in the wild, how would you describe it? A compass, right? How does that correlate with web browsing?

Once you make the association between an icon and the idea or activity, you’re most likely just to forget that you even know it. Trouble surfaces, however, when the icon disappears. Is the program gone? Probably not.

Recommendations

  • An icon dictionary that explains what each icon represents – what program it runs and what you do with the program. In the previous example, describing that icon as Safari wouldn’t have helped much.

  • People who work on the computer must document what they’ve done and why. The reason that the Safari icon was gone was that the Mac owner’s son preferred Firefox and wanted to make it the default browser for his mother. He didn’t tell her nor did he set it up so that she could get to the New York Times website as she’s previously done.

Google Drive nixed

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It took Google a long time to release its Google Drive product. People had come up with work-arounds involving storing files as attachments to Gmail messages. When it was finally released earlier this year, it was almost too late. Products such as Dropbox, Box, and Microsoft’s SkyDrive (variously named Live and other monickers) had filled the file-sharing, synchronization, cloud storage void.

Google Drive is an evolution of Google Docs, an online authoring environment for documents, spreadsheets, and presentation. Spreadsheets can have a form-based front end. Recently, I used this form/spreadsheet interface to build an online survey used by a couple hundred folks.

By allowing any type of file to be stored in then-Google Docs, Google’s online file service became a handy way to store and share files among teams. You can share individual files or an array of folders, sub-folders, and files with one person, many, or the world. You can even use it to host your web server content.

In parallel, I decided to move back to Linux. There are some tools that I need to use and, I hope, develop, work that is more easily done on Linux.

To my surprise and disappointment, I discovered that I can’t access non-document files that are stored on Google Drive when I’m using a browser running on Linux. In this case, I had stored some executable files in a tools folder on Google Drive. I wanted to download them to my Linux installation.

No joy.

In order to download non-document files, you need to have an application running on your system. Google makes its drive application for Windows, Mac, and various portable devices, but not Linux. Note that the error message is so broken that the link to the image is missing.

For today, I’ll need to switch back to Windows. Longer term, I will have to move many of my files to Dropbox, which does make a Linux client.

 

How to get a window seat on the bus

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I’ll be seeing some friends from high school this week. As we swap stories, sometimes we forget if events happened to us or someone else. It’s a bit like the bats in the Pogo comic strip, Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred, who often forgot who was whom.

Anyway, …

Our junior high science teacher wanted us to study nature. For our spring project, we were to collect 25 different types of bugs. A couple of boys asked if we could go fishing, instead. She agreed. One fish would equal five bugs.

I caught a couple of fish, probably a kivver and a perch, because those were the most easily caught at the camp. Matched up with the 15 bugs, I turned in my specimens and left them in the science project room.

We hadn’t thought this all the way through.. Within a day, the science project room equaled the gym locker room for odor and on the second day it won.

I tried throwing away the shoe box containing my project, but the janitor made me take it out of the trash bin and bring it home.

It was a 45-minute ride on the school bus. I had no trouble getting a seat for myself by a window.

The first of December …

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20121201-071607.jpgWe are well on our way to a repaired home.

You may remember that the hurricane knocked down a tree that knocked down our chimney that broke the ceiling where Sandra sat. The chimney is fixed. A new roof is on. The ceiling will be replaced early next week.

We are, for the time being, nomads in our own home. The living room furniture is scattered to other rooms. We’re quite ok, though.

A thin layer of fresh snow may delay some additional repairs on another part of the roof that are planned for today. More snow and ice is in the forecast for the overnight and then a warm-up.

Happy 99th Birthday, Huck.

And, for people of a certain age, here’s that song that’s in your head today.