Tony and Paige.com

There’s good news and bad news… The good news is I don’t have to stay up at the school until 6:00pm every night anymore. The bad news is we didn’t do so well on game day. As a matter of fact, we didn’t even place.

We came in 8th place on the field again this year. We made it to the semi-finals thanks to our performance in the wild card match just like before. Last year we came out in 3rd place for the BEST Award, this year we got nothing.

I honestly don’t know exactly how we did, since they only announce scores for the teams that place. I’ll have to try to e-mail somebody at BEST and see if we can get our score.

We may not have won a trophy, but no one can deny that we had spirit:

Oh well, we’ll try a little harder next year…

Here’s a tip for movie theater owners: If you’re concerned about people downloading movies instead of paying to see them, why don’t you try actually showing the movies that people want to see?

Everyone I know would gladly pay to see Serenity. I would probably see it more than once. Unfortunately, that’s not an option in Paris.

Oh well, I’m sure I’ll find some way to watch it…

Here’s Matthew with his first pumpkin.

Paige bought this kit that you stick on a real pumpkin like Mr. Potato Head. It’s a lot less messy than trying to carve the pumpkin.

Not to mention I’m no artist.

In my younger days, I loved to burn things. I remember hanging out at the Foster house and trying to find anything we could set on fire. Everyone had bad hair and smelly armpits because we burned up all of the hair spray and Right Guard.

I’ll bet there are still marks on their back porch were we would make puddles of whatever we could find in the kitchen and try to set them on fire. But we were never stupid enough to fill a melon with something flamable and then try to hit it with a bat…

Fire Melon

This is one of those things that makes the Internet so great. If you’ve ever wondered – “What would happen if I set a melon on fire and hit it with a bat?” Now you know.

I thought I would at least post something here so people would know I’m still alive. Our social calendar has been pretty full lately and I’ve been working at least 50 hours a week now that robotics is going again. Hopefully I’ll find some time for a proper update about what’s been going on lately in the near future.

That last sentence is a real beauty. I obviously type much faster than I think. It kinda sounds like I’m saying “tomorrow I’ll predict the future…”

Well, we all survived the first week of school again this year. I feel like a did a month’s worth of work last week. Things didn’t go as smoothly as I would’ve liked, but at least we’re keeping the work order list below four pages. That’s a major accomplishment considering we just hired a new tech last week.

It’s strange how different my job is during the summer compared to when school is in session. Most people do pretty much the same thing year round, but for me it’s almost like having a totally different job for two months out of the year. I feel like I get so much more done during the summer than I do the rest of the school year, but it’s just never long enough to get everything ready.

My class seems to be going pretty well so far. Unfortunately, I still don’t have a textbook. One was ordered for my class this year, but it’s on backorder so who knows when I’ll get it. I guess it’s not that big of a deal since I taught the entire course last year without a book.

Robotics will be starting back up soon. I’m not sure how that’s going to work out this year considering most of the team graduated last year, but I’m know some of the younger students will step up and take charge. Kickoff is only three weeks away so we’ve got to get going soon.

There’s a lot more stuff I need to post on here, like pictures of Matthew. Hopefully things will get caught up at work this week and I’ll have more time for the fun stuff…

Back when I was a kid, I would visit my grandparents on the weekends. They lived in the coutry and had a big antenna on top of their house. Inside, on top of the TV, was a small box with a dial on it. You used that dial to turn the antenna for better reception (at least that’s how I remember it).

Anyway, with this setup they got two channels – 10 and 12. It was simple to find something to watch. See what’s on one channel, then see what’s on the other channel. Watch the one that looks most interesting.

Fast forward about 20 years – now my grandparents live in town and have cable. Even with cable they only have about 30-40 channels to pick from so they still just click through the channels until they find something to watch. Maybe not the ideal situation, but it gets the job done.

Yesterday I found myself trying to explain Dish Network to my grandmother. She picked up the remote and asked me “How do you change the channel?”

“No problem,” I said. “First you press guide then use the up and down arrows to scroll through the list of channels. The list shows the name of the show beside each channel and there’s a description of the show in the top, right corner. Once you find the one you want, press Select to watch it.”

In hindsight, I probably should’ve said “This is the only thing on right now.” It’s not that my grandmother is dumb or can’t learn new things, it’s just that her idea of “changing the channel” is very different from mine.

It is still possible to click through the channels one at a time, but there are probably hundreds on pay-per-view and sports channels that would slow you down. Not to mention, with the guide you don’t need to visit each channel to see what’s on.

This difference in thinking (I’m not going to say “paradigm shift”) applies to many other areas. It’s not always a generational difference either. Sometimes it’s simply a geek trying to explaing things to a non-geek.

I try to take note of these situations and think of interesting ways to overcome them. I’m not exactly sure why I do this. Maybe it’s the programmer in me that always wants to find solutions to the world’s problems.

For example, on our DirecTV system at home I’ve set up a favorites list called “Watchable”. These are all of the channels that we can actually watch. I could probably eliminate at least half of those channels and come up with a list of channels that we most frequently watch. With that in place, it would be possible to flip through all of the channels and see what’s on. Just like in the good old days.

I can’t wait for the day when one of my kids or (gasp!) grandkids has to explain the latest technology to me. Hopefully they’ll read this post and go easy on me…