The Occasional Blog

When you think of a standard bell curve, the bulk of the area is in the middle 80% and there are equal amounts at the top and bottom 10%. Basic, right? I’m thinking you remember that from back when you were in school. Some teachers would adjust the test results to map the bell curve and often times the ones at the top would be derided for “blowing the curve.” I admit, I was usually towards the middle as I tended not to “apply myself.”

Fortunately, my kids do not act as I did in their ability and work ethic at school. They do so well, in fact, that my daughter, who is in 7th grade, has excelled for years to the point the school counselors have commented how they haven’t seen performance like this (regarding consistence performance on the standardized tests). That, alas, is where the problem lies.

“What?!” I can hear you say. “Your daughter is at the top of her class and that is a problem?” Unfortunately, yes. The problem is she struggles against the pace of teaching in the classroom. She’s ready to move on upon first presentation of a concept while the bulk of the class still needs to work to get it. This has been the case for years. We even tried years ago when she was in 3rd grade to get her to be advanced to 4th. We were talked out of it by the principal due to “social adjustment” concerns. We were encouraged by a good 4th and 5th grade teach (the same one both years) but the situation didn’t improve too much.

When she began middle school in 6th grade, things got worse. As expected, some subjects were interesting and others not so much, but they all were not enough of a challenge to keep her interested. As her parents, we want to make sure that our kids perform to the best of their ability and get every opportunity to do so. We sought options and guidance. We spoke with counselors (who made the above statement) and while we got assurances that it is important to challenge kids who excel, we learned that the unspoken bottom-line is that the modern school system is geared to focus on the “bottom 10%” and just aren’t as committed to doing anything substantial for the remaining 90% and especially not for the top students.

I don’t have any problem with ensuring underperforming students improve. Schools should do what they can to help every student learn. The ugly truth is that at the administration level, the motive is to improve the performance on the earlier mentioned standardized tests. Kids at the bottom pull down the average and that average determines how much money they will get. Kids at the top? They’re great! They help us look good. So let’s spend ALL of our effort on the ones that are hurting us. Again, I want help for the kids that are struggling. I also want help for those that are looking for more.

As a result of the ongoing saga with school administrators, we have decided that it is time to strongly consider homeschooling. We’ve thought about it for years, but generally thought we could work with (and sometimes within) the system. That just isn’t the case. If our daughter wants to learn, it’ll be up to us to help that happen.

This will require some significant adjustments, but, then again, isn’t that usually the case with parenting?

Family, Thoughts

…you might as well look back even further.

I liked my previous post comparing 1999 to 2009, but the interesting thing was while I was finishing it up, the family and I have been watching the original Star Trek season 1 via streaming from NetFlix on the PlayStation 3. New tech to watch old tech. Honestly, I was never much of a fan of the original series but they were interested due to the recent MythBusters episode where they tested the hand-made cannon that Capt. Kirk used against the Gorn (“The Arena”, s1 ep 18).

It’s fun to look back. It’s also good to give the kids some perspective on such an influence on modern science fiction.

Family, Links, Thoughts

A lot can change in ten years. Since it seems to be such the in thing, here’s my assessment of what difference ten years can make.

What	Then	Now
Computer		(my work computer)
Connection	56Kbps	20Mbps (366x faster)
Company
Position	Systems Administrator	Manager, Information Technology
Me
Becky
Kaelyn
Brian

Apple, Family, Geek, Macintosh, Work

I know this is the Occasional Blog, but posts have been too far in between (the Twitter posts don’t count). Please forgive me. I’m not dead, just busy. For the sake of an update here are some highlights of the last several weeks.

• I’m trying to find a Senior Systems Administrator at work (you’d think that Sony Playstation would have stacks of resumés)
• My daughter turned twelve and after today’s haircut, she looks ready for high school
• The pond got its spring cleaning a few weeks ago and looks abfab. Too bad the heron got all our koi and we’re left with only 4-5″ feeders
• We took a family vacation to San Francisco to coincide with spring break and a business meeting
• The MacBook Mini is working out quite well especially after adding 2G of RAM and an 8G SDHC card
• I will be going to both E3 (definite) and WWDC (very likely) so June will be busy as well

I’ll do my best to do an actual post soon, but until I can find a candidate, things will still be busy.

Apple, Family, Geek, Links, Thoughts, Tweets, Work

I just caught this commercial while sitting on the couch with the family. Too funny.

Boost Mobile TV Commercial – Pigs, Unwronged

Family, Thoughts

I’m a big fan of MythBusters and have come to always enjoy the antics of its hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. They are both very talented and quite entertaining. Adam seems especially built for it given his creativity and funloving attitude. If you’ve watched the show, you understand. What you may not understand, however, is his dark side. The obsessive and compulsive side. Watch the below presentation to see what he went through for a recent project. I can’t decide if I need to feel sorry for his family or learn his time management skills.

Family, Geek, Links

Over the summer I purchased a Drobo “storage robot” from Data Robotics for my home server/media center. It is a four-bay USB storage device that accepts any number and combination of SATA drives to build a larger virtual volume which can be used on either OS X or Windows. I intended to write about my experiences (receiving it the day before they upgraded the product, a bad first unit, some early driver bugs, etc.) but never got around to it.

In spite of some of my earliest experiences I am quite a fan of the device and have not regretted the purchase (only the timing). It is a flexible and well-performing method for keeping my pile of data safe with plenty of elbow room.

Why am I selling it you ask? The truth is, I’m not a typical user. The system it is attached to serves numerous roles. It is the server for our peay.us domain (web, mail, DNS, etc.) and also the home media server (iTunes, iPhoto, file server, and El Gato EyeTV DVR). The end result of all of this disk I/O is that when EyeTV is recording a show from the USB TV tuner and writing to the USB storage while other disk activity is going on (home directory syncing or Time Machine backup), it will often skip frames. That makes for a very annoying viewing experience. If the disk is idle and just recording there isn’t a problem and recent firmware updates for the device have helped considerably, but the fact remains I’m expecting server storage performance from a device that was not really designed or intended for such use.

As a result, I decided to purchase a gen 2 Drobo which adds a FireWire interface. Having a dedicated bus for storage will alleviate the problems I’ve been experiencing. Of course, if I had just waited a week before purchasing the original unit, I wouldn’t have had to do this.

To keep our budget in check, I am selling the original one to recoup some of the cost of upgrading it. That means you get to benefit from my bad timing. If you are interested in purchasing it (you’ll have to supply one or more of your own drives), make me an offer. I’d prefer to keep it among my “friends” and family to avoid hassling with eBay or craigslist but am motivated and will sell it one way or another.

Family, Friends, Geek, Links, Macintosh, Thoughts

Becky and I have been really getting into the concept of living within your means and getting debt free. We are currently doing the Financial Peace University program with others from our church and have been listening to Dave Ramsey for a few years now.

I ran across this YouTube video from the movie “I.O.U.S.A.” which goes into detail how our country and, more specifically, our government, has been engaged in the “spend now-save never” mentality. It does a good job avoiding party finger pointing as the problem really is a universal one and more complex than party politics.

Below is a 30 minute abridged version of the fuller movie. Watch it.

Christian, Family, Links, Thoughts

I just got email that I was accepted for the LittleBigPlanet beta. Not surprisingly, my kids are quite ecstatic. Having the opportunity to test play one of the most anticipated games prior to release is worth crowing about. I’ll be honest that this is largely due to the fact I work for the publisher, but not everyone is going to get in so it is an honor, nonetheless.

Not only is it an honor, but it really is a responsibility. Working for Sony is one of the best career opportunities I’ve ever had, but LittleBigPlanet is, honestly, one of the biggest titles ever for the Playstation 3 and it is in my best interest to make sure it meets every elevated expectation possible upon release.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to talk about the experience, but I’m sure it won’t be hard to find information and, of course, you’ll be able to find out for yourself when it is released on October 21st.

Family, Links, Thoughts, Work

My daughter Kaelyn recently started middle school as a 6th grader. It was a bit of adjustment switching from one class with one teacher to five teachers in six classes but she hit the ground running. It is a different school than she was supposed to attend so, as a result, all of her friends from last year are not in the same school. That was a bit tough for her. Fortunately, she has made friends and even had a sleep-over with a few of them this past weekend.

A parent always worries about their children’s friends and the influence they have on them. You trust that you’ve raised them well and that all the many lessons and examples sunk in. Unfortunately, sometimes no matter how much you teach your kids, they will make decisions that you disagree with.

Due to the influence of her newest friends Kaelyn has decided to use her hard-earned money to buy a Nintendo DS Lite.

What should I do? Can I love her still? Can I tolerate such deliberate rebellion in our household? I’ll do my best.

P.S. If for some reason you are confused, it will probably help to know where I work.

Family, Links, Thoughts, Work