I have heard of dyslexia of course, but this is the first time I have heard of math dyslexia.  Apparently this condition makes for a very hard time in math.  One Florida teacher is finding that he may not be allowed to teach since he can’t pass a required basic math skills test due to his disability.  Where this gets interesting is he is an art teacher.  No math involved in what he teaches.  The rules say it doesn’t matter, all teachers must pass this test.  However, he has people fighting for him.  Click the link to read the article:

 Math dyslexia imperils Orange County art teacher’s job

It was a little exhilarating to get back to the children’s drama this weekend. We had been off for over a month, partly due to Easter. So this weekend we were back with a vengeance, err- three of us were. I guess the other two were still on spring break or something. Fortunately the head director, I guess I can call him, was there with his son who plays one of the roles on Sunday morning (this is Saturday night I’m talking about), though unfortunately not one of the characters who was needed. Young as he is (4th grade!) he happily brought out a script and filled in. No, he couldn’t be expected to memorize it in a half hour. The other character was a puppet, so another drama regular easily filled in, no memorization even required for that role.

I play sort of a clumsy, bumbling, absent-minded TV scientist in the spirit (but not the intelligence) of Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown character from Back to the Future. There are two assistants played by kids, one an airhead-ish lab assistant and the other a geeky research assistant. The one tends to ask some very silly questions (to which my character has a wacky response) and the other is immersed in a computer and constantly correcting anything misspoke (usually by me). There is also a puppet I mentioned and a guest character, a recurring role played about once every other month.

The lesson was about being thankful. My character was the one who had something to learn about it, as almost usual, but comes up with the proper thankfulness in the end, attributing all power to Jesus, to whom we should be thankful. Presumably this leads into the actual lesson taught after the drama which should be on the same topic. However, I have never heard any of the lessons as I usually go directly to 4th/5th grade (drama is only for K-3) right after the drama, or head into the worship service if it is a last weekend of the month like this weekend.

I wish I could say it went perfectly, but a couple of us had some minor line trouble (nothing the kids in the audience would notice) and for some reason none of us thought of putting a microphone on our young 4th-grade fill-in so he was very hard to hear. Well, nothing can be done for it now but to move forward. I will be looking forward to the monthly rehearsal this Wednesday.

I really can’t say much about this telescope.  Most of my memories of that night were trying to look again and again at the orange-red dot that was centered in the telescopes field of view.  I was 5 or 6 years old.  My sisters were bigger than me at that time.  Why bring this up now, since it won’t be of any use for those looking to buy a telescope?  The answer is simple.  This is the scope that focused my attention on all things in the night sky.

For the record, I did find out (when I was much older) that this was a 3.5 inch Questar scope.  It was a production test scope with a brand new mirror material (called “Cervit”).  My father worked for O-I in the 60’s as part of the quality control of various telescope mirrors made with “Cervit”.  The Questar company was looking into the possibility of using this material for their scopes.   Questar telescopes have a history of being a “Quality Scope”, so I was probably looking through a good one.  I will have to check the histories to see if Questar ever put the Cervit mirrors into production.  I know that they now use a different zero-expansion material.  Might be fun trying to find one.

On to the review, from the memories of a 49 year old trying to remember something at the age of 6.

I was frustrated (mad) that I didn’t get to look through the scope as much as I wanted.  I remember being told that if I didn’t settle down, I wouldn’t be able to look again.  I think I sat as still as I ever did.  I got to look a lot.  My sisters then complained I was “hogging” it.  I didn’t care.

The color of whatever I was looking are still clear in my mind. After years of looking through other scopes the only thing that comes close is Mars or one of the red stars of similar color.  I can’t remember if it was a disk or a dot, so that is of no help  I just remember a bright red-orange object in the middle of the blackest background I ever saw.  I just was drawn to that telescope.   Unfortunately, my father took the scope back.  I had to survive, my growing fascination with space, with any books or magazines I could find.  At that time, it was hard to find them for my reading level.

I forced myself to learn to read better, because I wanted to understand all I could.  I thought if I really applied myself, my dad would bring back the telescope, or maybe get another.  That was never meant to be. Dad noticed I was interested in space, but never put a connection with that one night with a telescope. It was the middle of the space race, so the apparent assumption was that I was interested in rockets.  Those were cool to, so I didn’t complain.

Jump forward a few years…  Just after my mother died, I took my dad to the Ritter Planetarium and Brooks Observatory at the University of Toledo.  This was the closest mirror made with ‘Cervit’.  Yes, my dad was on the quality control team for that mirror.  It was too cloudy to actually look through the scope that evening, but we did get to look at it.  Dad was in center stage, explaining how the mirror was made, and all the problems they had casting “good” glass.  I also explained that evening about how much I remembered the scope that one summer evening so long ago.

I was never able to get back out the the observatory when they had open view with the ‘Cervit’ scope when Dad was alive, but I did go again shortly after he died.  Do you know the object we looked at was the planet Mars.  It was red-orange in the middle of a deep black sky. Oh how the memories just came flooding back.  A wonderful evening.

Later a review or two of scopes I actually use…

As promised here are a few of the pictures from the Toledo Zoo. Just click on them for a larger image. It took me longer than I thought since I had to transfer the pictures one at a time (about 60 pictures!) from the phone memory to the card memory, so I could then take the card out of the phone and put it in my computer’s card reader. Then I had to select some pictures and edit them in a paint program to make them uniform in size and more web-friendly. Enjoy!

When choosing a best man for a wedding, a future groom generally would believe that the person asked to stand with him on his wedding day would actually show up.  Tuesday night, my cousin’s fiance found out that his best man had to work Saturday, the day of the wedding.  DUHHHHHHH!!! How long in advance was the ceremony scheduled?  I knew last May on which date the ceremony was going to be.  One has to wonder where this “best man’s” priorities lied.

Never fear, there were back ups in place.  Hopefully, one who fit the tux.  One was the groom’s brother Eric who was arriving from Pennsylvania with his boyfriend, Jamie on Tuesday.  Eric was already serving as an usher.

The other was a former schoolmate and friend of the groom.  In the end, the schoolmate was chosen.

So when choosing your best man, maid (matron) of honor, be sure that they will actually be able to schedule your ceremony around their busy life.

Well, it has been awhile since my last post, so I will have to pick up the pace.  I had some insane idea that I would be able to post from my friend’s house when I was in Ohio for the last few days.  Of course the opportunity to ask really never presented itself.  If I was making more money I could have had a laptop with me, but as a poor substitute (no pun intended…) I am still trying to afford a new desktop to replace my old 1.1GHz one that stopped working last year.  Yes, I use another’s computer to do my blogging and other stuff.

Well, Ohio was entertaining, at least when we could decide on something to do.  On Thursday I was able to get some use out of my new phone with the camera feature.  I have yet to see if any of the pictures actually look any good full scale.  Once I transfer them to the computer I will show a couple of them.  Anyway, we were at the Toledo Zoo even though it was an overcast, somewhat rainy day (especially in the late afternoon- we got soaked!).  We were one of maybe a dozen families there enjoying the day.  Many attractions were closed but for some reason it still cost me the same $10 it would cost to enter on a bustling summer day.  Not all were closed, so we still saw a large number of animals.  Again, pictures will follow.  At night we watched some Office episodes and split up to go to bed.

The following day was the day of indecision.  We went to Defiance (yes, as in The Prizewinner from…) for the day and besides eating and playing some Highway 66 mini-bowling we did some shopping of all things.  The bowling was definitely different than the full-scale version, but I was just as bad at it. If nothing else, the shopping was good social time.  Speaking of social time, once we got back their friends started arriving shortly after (they were invited- they weren’t those sort of friends…) and we played a couple of games while the kids watched TV.  Finally, after bearing our souls in one of the social games I left for home (about an hour and a half after I wanted to, yes the game was fun) and didn’t get home until after 1AM.

At least the traffic was good, even through the city, until I encountered a bottleneck where the expressway was bottled to just one lane.  I have no idea what was going on- there were many trucks lined up on the other side of the highway but the side I was on was recently finished road work and so looked excellent.  Were they doing a late night inspection to see if the job was done right?  Anyway, that only lasted for a couple of miles so after that there were no problems.  I quickly got some things unpacked then I got ready for bed, so again, no post.

Today I was busy for much of the day so I am only now finally getting to the blog.  Well, time to end this post so hopefully you will get in some happy reading!

No… not for my own wedding. My cousin and her boyfriend were married today and my brother and I were the vocalists. Last night, he went to a karaoke bar and went home with no voice….GREAT!!! Thankfully, he was better today and at least made it through his song and the two songs we sang as duets. For some unknown reason, I seem to get nervous singing at functions like weddings and I do not know why. I stand in the choir loft high above the congregation whose backs are to me. So it is not as if I could be seen. Maybe that is it. I need to be seen. However, I am sure it sounded fine (no one ran from the building covering their ears).

Moments of the ceremony were hilarious. My 3 year old nephew served as ring bearer and the groom’s young niece was the flower girl. When the time came for the pair to process down the aisle, they were nowhere to be seen and the organist was getting near the end of the piece. All of a sudden like a shot, two little people come running down the aisle arm in arm. Honestly, the other attendants could have learned a thing or two about how to walk down the aisle.

During the ceremony, the little ones were all over the place. Noah kept dropping the pillow he carried up… luckily the rings were not on it. Then, they were constantly wandering around smelling flowers having a fun time. I think the priest was just as amused.

More hilarity continued at the reception during the cake cutting ceremony. Rich smeared a whole slice all over Charnel’s face (WTG…. welcome to the family). All Charnel managed was a little dab of frosting on Rich’s nose, forehead, and chin. Probably because she could not see him to get him any better.

So, anyway, another relation sent on her way to married life. I am starting to feel the pressure here.

UPDATE: To read more about the pre-wedding adventures follow the link here 

WHEW!  I didn’t mean to take a weeklong blog hiatus, but due to the kids being on spring break, that’s what happened!  We were SO busy, I haven’t really been in front of my computer…  I hope this isn’t what summer break is going to be like!  It was fun and all, but SO busy!  During the week, we did have LOTS of fun, and we got to spend lots of family time together, which gave me time to put together the following translation list of Toddler Talk.  Our youngest (until July, anyway!) is currently at one of the cutest ages there is: 17 months.  She walks around (finally!) babbling about all kinds of stuff, and she answers almost every question with a definitive “no”.  Sometimes she means it, sometimes she doesn’t.  Here is a guide to help you communicate better with Disney or any 17 month old: 

oove = move, you’re in MY way!

down = means up or down, just depends on where she is at the moment. 

yum-yum-yum-yum = can sound like mom, mom, mom, mom – is usually used very loudly to “ask” for a food she wants.

no = self-explanatory.  At this age, it’s used constantly.

DOP = STOP.  Because she has 2 older sisters, this was one of her first words.

oovie = movie.  Usually used to request a dvd in the car.

mama = actually means Grandma.  She calls Mommy “Mom”.

gink = drink.  I’m thirsty!

baa = bottle.  I know, she should not be using these anymore…  But it’s so hard to take them away when she loves them so much!

cookie? = give me a cookie or I will cry.

candy = see above.  She learned this word around the Easter holiday.

 cake you = thank you.  She says this almost every time you give her something – it’s SO cute!  I hope it doesn’t lead to her being spoiled…

ack = snack

ankey = blankie

mere = come here.  She uses this to call the dogs, or she holds out her arms and says it when she wants to be picked up.  A favorite sentence is “Mom mere.”

She says lots of things, and her vocabulary grows every day!  These are just some of the cutest things right now…  I love this age; the calm before the storm of the terrible two’s!

It’s maple syrup time in our area. While we don’t have the size and number of stands (sugar shacks) as Vermont, we have a few. Our local groups (family run businesses) have an annual pancake and sausage breakfast (with real maple syrup, of course). Today was that day.

My family (daughters, grandparents, son-in-law, boyfriend, other friends) all went today. We road the wagon out to the sugar camp and watched them boil down the sap. We road a horse drawn wagon. We ate syrup, pancakes, and sausage.

You should be told that my daughters are all older. The youngest is 16 and the oldest 26. We’ve been doing this almost every year for about 9 years. This day just keeps getting bigger and bigger. My wife and I started going when we wanted something close, easy and different for the girls to do. I now have enough knowledge of the maple sap gathering and boiling that I could make syrup if I had the trees and inclination. I haven’t learned anything new for the past few years, but I will go again next year, and the year after that and so on. It is a wonderful day for family and now friends. Of course the syrup, candy, pancakes and sausage aren’t bad either.

So maple syrup producers, I will see you next year when the sap runs.

It is so funny how a simple fun evening with a group of friends can inspire thoughts to re-emerge in your head. I have gotten almost totally out of touch with Star Trek. Tonight, I was reminded that Academy Award winning actress Whoopi Goldberg was indeed a member of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation beginning in the series’ second season. Although she did not receive a screen credit, she also appeared in the movies Generations, First Contact, and Nemesis. Whoopi played the enigmatic hostess of the Enterprise’s lounge Ten Forward. Perhaps more than any other person to have a role on the phenomenon, her history goes back to the original series.

In 1967 following the premiere season of Star Trek, Nichelle Nichols opted not to return to the show. Her character of communications officer Lt. Uhura was not being developed to its full potential. Upon learning of her departure, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. approached Nichelle and told her that she must not leave the show. The role of Uhura was not only one of the rare good female characters on television but also one of the first important roles for a woman of color. During the shows three year run, Nichelle had the distinction of sharing the first interacial kiss on television. This was shared with William Shatner in the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.”

Twenty years later, Whoopi approached Trek creator Gene Roddenberry about being on the new television series. She cited the incident between Ms. Nichols and Dr. King as the inspiration behind her fascination with the franchise.

The character of Guinan has always been clouded in mystery. Like any good bartender, she is a good listener. She is extremely long-lived and very little is known about her alien race, the El Aurian. However, Guinan does share some history with Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) that has never been fully explained. Not even during the two-part episode in which members of the Enterprise crew travel back in time to the 19th century where they meet Mark Twain.