Fozzie Thinks

Teachers need to read more science fiction

2011-03-02T06:21:00.001-06:00

This blog entry is an expansion on a tweet I made after a conversation I had with my colleague Jack after a couple of beers. As the morning dawns and I remember the conversation, the tweet "Solution to implementing technology in the classroom: Teachers need to read more Science Fiction." seems even more true.
IT almost always drives new technology in the school district. The IT staff is primarily made up of nerds & geeks (yes, I'm proud to be in those categories). People who a passionate about gadgets & tech trends & cool stuff & and a lot of times SciFi. Hence they have a vision for the future that is shaped by those passions. So the tech staff go to conferences, see lots of cool things or they read trade journals to learn what's on the horizon and they connect what they learn to the future world or SciFi world they've read about or watched and believe this is what we need to create a classroom of the future. This senario isn't bad, its part of a school district's IT department's job to stay up on educational tech trends.
The part that is missing is the teacher. Now, don't get in an uproar, there are plenty of teachers out there that live and breath tech, but unfortunately it's not the majority. For the rest of the teachers we have to push, drag, beg to use technology. We call tech "just a tool" so we don't scare them too badly. "It's just another tool for your classroom". While that statement is true, so is a hammer just a tool to build a house, but step back and try to imagine what a house would look like if you didn't use a hammer.
This is where SciFi comes in. It's the imagined house. Science Fiction is a window into the future, it's a window into possibilities. Now not all SciFi paints a rosey picture of the future or of technology, but there is plenty that does. Classic writers like Asimov & Wells as well as Rodenberry integrate amazing technologies into the tales.
Wait! Isn't Science Fiction "fiction"? Yes, so was traveling to the moon when H.G. Wells wrote "The First Men in the Moon" in 1901 and so were cell phones and tablet computing devices when Rodenberry introduced us to Communicators, P.A.D.D.s & Tricorders in 1966.
New is scary, the future is unpredictable, technology will not always work. You may hit your thumb with the hammer or the nail may bend, but in the end you have a place to live. IT can continue to push, drag and beg and the future will arrive just the same but what would happen if WE ALL, teachers, students, administrators and techs looked to the future, to SciFi and took a trek, an "Education Trek" to built our future together.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I live here!

2011-02-11T08:54:00.002-06:00

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Heuristic Address Lookup (HAL)

2010-09-13T16:58:00.001-05:00

Today was like most Mondays, hectic. But what made today unusual was the high number of "undeliverable email message" calls I got. Now I usually hear of 1 or 2 a week, but 6 in one day. Wow! 3 of the problems were easy, our new email system automatically puts an incrementing number on the end of the user's email name (i.e. joe.doe12@mailbox.com) when there is a duplicate email address. The only problem with that is we don't know until somebody (me) checks the Active Directory to see what an email address really is for a user. I hope to find a way to query AD and populate my user database with the actual email address in the future, but for the dozen or so duplicates we have right now, I'm just handling it manually.

What was more frustrating today was the other 3 "undeliverable email" problems that came across my desk. All 3 of these were plain ol' typos. In one case a staff member was typing an extra "e" in the domain part of an email address. These types of problems are almost impossible to troubleshoot over the phone or over email. The user says, "what's wrong with email, I could send this person an email last week and now I can't". I immediately start looking at network issues, cloud issues, account issues, everything looks fine. I start to blame it on "the cloud", Microsoft, Spam filters, etc then decide to have the person send me the bounce message they received. Sure enough, glaring at me like a super nova, is this extra "e". Now the hardest part; how to tell the user what the problem was without making them sound like an idiot. I say things like "it happens to everybody, I've done that too, sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes" but they still feel stupid and I feel bad for making them feel stupid.

The last 2 issues were also mis-spellings, but I have a little less patience for them. Both were students that didn't know exactly what their teacher's email address is. One student couldn't spell his teacher's last name and the other was missing a charater in the email addresses domain (the same domain the student's email address was in). Come on students, how are you gonna get to be the teacher's pet if you can't spell his/her name?

This leads me to to my last point. One of the the things we lost when we moved from local Exchange servers to a hosted by Microsoft Exchange service is a student address book with all 500,000 public school student email addresses in it. This was supposed to be (and I fully expexted it to be) a good thing. So here's something I never thought I'd say, "I miss the student Global Email directory". Well, "miss" may be a bit strong because I believe that that people should learn the email addresses that are important to them and not just go pick them from a list. However, after today, I do understand that most people need to have some place to go to look up email addresses. I guess until we have an email system that is smart enough to say "I'm sorry Dave, I can't deliver an email to jon.doe@mailboz.com but I notice that you have a john.doe@mailbox.com contact in your address book, would you like me to send this message to him?" I'll keep getting calls about messages that can't be delivered. Come on HAL, I need you.

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(Not) Just the Facts, Ma'am.

2010-01-02T11:35:00.002-06:00

It seems this time of year, as family gathers for the holidays, that storytelling always creeps into conversations. And with the recounting of past events there is usually some friendly disagreement about the facts. "The wallpaper in that old house was green, not blue.", "He was only 12 when that happened, not 16.", "That's a picture of Aunt Flossie, not Uncle Gene", and of course the always present "I'm telling you I walked 5 miles in the snow uphill every day to school."

While these disagreements never come to blows, they do sometimes get heated. The person telling the story, usually the eldest in the group, is convinced that his or her version is correct no matter what evidence is presented to contradict his facts in the story. I've listened to these stories (and arguments) for years and always wondered why people remembered things so differently and why these small facts mattered anyway.

This year as I listened (and also told, because I'm now occasionally the eldest in the room) some of these stories, I came to realize that it's not about the facts. Don't get me wrong, facts are important and we should know and remember our family history. But these stories are not just about facts they are also about people and feelings and emotions. We all understand when our parents and/or grandparents told us they walked to school everyday in the snow that what they were really saying was they had it tougher than we did. But do we understand when an cousin remembers being only around 12 years old during a scary moment in his life when he was actually much older, that what he may be conveying, whether he realizes it or not, is that he remembers feeling like he was too young to be in that situation? Maybe when your grandfather tells you a story about owning a 57 Chevy, when it was actually a 1960 model, it not about the year, it's about the fact that he thought it was the badest-ass car he ever owned. Green or blue wallpaper? Maybe it was just ugly.

So next time family gathers and the stories start to flow, don't get too caught up in the facts and whose right or wrong. Listen to the meaning. Ask yourself why is this person telling this story. What are they trying to teach me or pass on to me. You will come away with far more knowledge than you would ever get from just the facts. Oh, and the question about whether that's a picture of Aunt Flossie or Uncle Gene. That will be settled tomorrow with a duel at dawn.

A fine Phlog

2009-07-30T11:59:00.001-05:00

Lose weight for shoes

2009-03-05T17:39:00.001-06:00

A Note from Meagan Burton,
Health Educator,
St. Mary’s Weight Management Center

Find a partner to exercise with. It makes it more enjoyable and it holds both people at a higher level of accountability to get the workouts in.

Set small attainable goals. Even setting a goal to lose a half of a pound or a pound a week is something attainable. When you are able to attain your goals you are more likely to keep pushing to do more. Also set longer term attainable goals. When you reach those goals reward yourself with a massage or a new pair of shoes!

Don’t just diet. Make healthy eating and healthy behaviors a daily routine that you will do for the rest of your life. Commit to having at least five full cup servings of fruits and vegetables every single day. They are full of nutrients and vitamins your body needs and filling up on those is going to crowd out other high calorie foods. Make working out a part of your weekly routine. Give yourself a day of rest so you rejuvenate and not dread the next work out. Cut out fast food all together. The calories just aren’t worth it!

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To use or not to use Cat 6A

2009-01-08T16:12:00.001-06:00

10gig to the desktop seems incredible, but I've been around long enough to remember 2.5 mbps Arcnet (and even Localtalk, ugh). When we wired our buildings in 1991 with Cat 5 we thought we'd never need 100 meg to the desktop it would only be used for servers and not until way in the future. Now it's not even 20 years later, all my users have 100 meg and the power users have Gig. What will the next 20 years bring? I don't know, but you only build a school once every 50 years and technology changes much quicker than that. That means schools should always be state of the art and on the bleeding edge of technology (as long as the money holds out).

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1st Compop Christmas Luncheon

2008-12-17T19:42:00.004-06:00

We had our 1st DCPS Computer Operations Christmas luncheon today at Beef O'Bradys. It was a fun time of food and fellowship. I'm very blessed to work with a great group of smart, dedicated, fun loving techs. I wouldn't trade my job for anything.

Merry Christmas, Brian, Janet, Charlie and Donna (1st pic).
Merry Christmas, Matthew, Tim, Jason and Jeremy(2nd pic).
Merry Christmas, Terry, Joyce and Billy (3rd pic).

Merry Christmas, Tammy, Bill, Monica and Jessica (4th pic).

Merry Christmas, Rodney and Chris (not pictured).

A short treatise on Malware

2008-12-11T17:06:00.002-06:00

(Although there are subtle technical differences, for the sake of this discussion, the terms virus, malware and spyware are used interchangeably)

Malware Removal:

The place we currently find ourselves in, in regard to malware, is that these newest viruses are so smart that once you’re infected you can’t trust anything on the computer. They appear as legitimate programs, they act like they are being helpful and they can detect when something is trying to remove it and hide deep in Windows, then pretend to allow themselves to be removed. Here at the shop we saw a piece of malware throw up a fake BSOD (blue screen of death) and then pretend to reboot and present a message saying the malware had been removed. All of this, even the reboot, was fake. Amazing! I wish we could get these malware software designers to write educational software. For this reason, only a fresh version of Windows will give us the confidence that a computer infected with a virus is clean.

Malware Protection:

Nowadays virus protection software is only good as a stopgap measure. The only way to insure a computer doesn’t get a virus or other malware is to web-surf responsibly. You can’t trust any website or link. Every time you go to a webpage you have to ask yourself do I know and trust the people who run this website. You can’t just click on everything thinking your virus protection software will stop anything bad from happening, it might, but chances are it won’t. We must all stop and “think before we click”.

Let’s all say this together, “think before you click”. Let’s tell our friends and family, “think before you click”. Let’s help our co-workers and colleagues understand they MUST remember to “think before you click”. Think before you click. Think Before You Click. THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK. THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK.

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Bill Gates on Education Funding during the downturn

2008-12-06T09:28:00.001-06:00

The InfoWorld Daily Podcasts reports on a Bill Gates speech about continuing Education funding during the downturn. Here's the excerpt from the 12/5 podcast.

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Using both sides of my brain

2008-11-06T09:29:00.001-06:00

The other day I had the opportunity to visit Lenovo's Executive Briefing Center. Mixed in with all the hardware specs and future products discussions were some fun things. One thing that caught my eye was a ThinkPad that had been "merged" with a Stratocaster. I don't consider myself a real guitar player, but I do enjoy picking one up every now and then to feed my right brain since I spend most of my time using and abusing my left brain. That's just the nature of my job. Lenovo's "StratoPad" was just the thing to get my creative juices going and also fulfill my analytical needs, that is if the laptop part really worked. Oh well, one more strain of "Smoke on the Water" and then back to work.

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Pike Place

2008-10-29T19:26:00.001-05:00

We're taking a much needed break from the conference. We've walked down to the Pike Place Fish market. My iPhone camera barely caught the guys tossing fish. I can't wait to eat some FRESH seafood.

-- Post From My iPhone

Testing Blogpress for the iPhone

2008-10-29T13:37:00.001-05:00

I'm attempting to write a single post in Blogpress and post it to Drupal, Blogspot and Wordpress mu from my iPhone.

-- Post From My iPhone

New Event

2008-10-29T13:18:00.001-05:00

Posted with LifeCast

2008-10-17T13:53:00.001-05:00

Setting up for Monday's KDE webcast with David Couch. We're anxious to show off what we're doing in Daviess County.

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Funny Ad - Lenovo ThinkPad

2008-09-25T14:09:00.002-05:00

This is hilarious ad featuring a grandma, her grandson and a Lenovo Thinkpad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcsoHzWfwRc

XO Update

2008-09-19T16:58:00.004-05:00

Back in December I wrote about the opportunity a buddy and I had to purchase an XO laptop under the "Get one, Give One" program. Our plan was to send the one we got to a friend in the Peace Corp in Niger, Africa. Well after much time and a little ingenuity we accomplished our goal.

We were a little disappointed that the XO we received didn't come with any of the cool alternative power sources we read about, hand crank, solar, foot pump, etc. Knowing the XO would be useless to our friend in Niger after the battery ran down, we decided to build our own alternative power supply. We purchased a "solar panel in a brief case". This provided the correct amount of power if given the correct amount of sunlight, but we found in full Kentucky sun it would over power the XO. Knowing the Niger sun would be even more brutal we consulted a computer tech with an electrical engineering background and he pointed us to some simple parts we could put together to regulate the solar panel's output. We now had a working solar panel for the XO. After a little showing off around Owensboro, we packed up the equipment and sent it to Niger.

It took almost 2 months for the box to arrive, but it arrived in great shape and our friend was able to immediately start using it. Almost as soon as she got it she found others in her area with XOs so they were able to share and help each other. As a bonus, we had shipped the solar panel with some miscellaneous connectors so she was able to also recharge her satellite phone.

Blogging Teachers

2008-08-08T11:25:00.001-05:00

We may have created a monster here in Daviess County, but it's one in the good spirit of "Puff the Magic Dragon" or "Cookie Monster".

Matthew has embarked on a project to get teachers to use our blog server as their teacher home page. The DCPS blog server was originally setup to document the trip to China that some staff took back in 2007 (or was it 2006?). Since then it has languished in obscurity. However, with more and more teachers wanting to communicate with their students and their students' parents via the web this was a great time to dust off the ol blog server and see how it will work for teachers.

The first brave blogging souls are the teachers at Audubon Elementary. They've been hard working and been very patient as I re-familiarized myself with the technical aspects of the WordPress Mu implementation. As I've worked through the technical issues, Matthew has been working with them on the instructional uses of this new tool. Only time will tell, but giving teachers a easy to use, yet powerful communication outlet like a blog can only lead to bigger and better things in the classroom and for our students.

Bloggers of the world, UNITE!

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IT guys cry too...

2008-06-27T12:41:00.001-05:00

If you're expecting a story about technology gone bad stop reading, this is a personal story about life. In 8 days my oldest son will get married. It's the first marriage of his generation on either side of our family, so it's a big deal. Not that all marriages in our family aren't a big deal but this being the first means lots of new experiences, feelings and emotions. That's what this post is about.

This morning, quite unexpectedly, I was overcome with emotion for the upcoming wedding. My wife and I were discussing things we thought the kids would need starting out their new life together and all I could think about was how much fun those first days, weeks and months were after my wife and I got married. Not that the following years of our marriage haven't been fun
and exciting, Becki and I still enjoy doing new things together and love spending time with each other, but for those first months of marriage everything is new.

Now our son and his new wife (our new daughter) will get to experience each new day together. Whether it's a good day, or the occasional bad day, they will have each other to go to, lean on, support and share together. And they have the added comfort of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to guide, support, laugh and cry with them.

Thank you Jesus for your blessing on their lives and on ours.

Now I better stop before my tears short ot th k3yb0r6....

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What the Flock?

2008-06-24T09:36:00.001-05:00

I heard about the Flock browser (http://www.flock.com) several years ago, I think I even tried it at one point. That was before I was really using the social web. Now with accounts on Twitter, Digg, Facebook, YouTube, Del.icio.us and many others, Flock really makes sense. I can blog directly from Flock; I can see all my friends updates; I can browse all my favorite videos and pictures right from Flock. I'll still use FF3, IE and Safari for my normal web browsing, but it's Flock all the way for my social web. Thanks Flock!

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Saul Good, Food Great, Service Great

2008-06-21T07:59:00.002-05:00

My wife, son and I ate at Saul Good's last night in Lexington, KY. It was a wonderful experience. Even though it was a Friday evening and they were hopping busy, our wait was only about 15 minutes. The host and waiter were attentive and friendly. The atmosphere was fun and lively. They had a great beer selection, my son and I each picking a different summer beer. We split the interesting Thai pizza and unique Chicken waffle for our entree. Both were excellent and not something I would have chosen if they had not been recommended to me. For dessert we had the amazing dark chocolate fondue. It came with a great selection of dippers, from pretzels to bananas. If you're looking for a fun and unusual place to dine with a group of friends, this is the place, just be sure to save room for one of their original desserts.

Podcast made in Heaven

2008-06-16T08:19:00.002-05:00

@TWiTLive is missing something, an Enterprise IT podcast. @LeoLaporte has said more than once that Enterprise IT bores him. I wish he would find a co-host with the insight and experience of Steve Gipson, Paul @Thurrott or the other TWiTs to bring an entertaining and informative Enterprise IT podcast to the TWiT network. TWiT is where I go for technology news. Enterprise IT is what I do. Leo, please put these 2 things together to create what I would consider a podcast made in Heaven.

Oops, there goes the fiber

2008-06-12T11:08:00.000-05:00

At around 12:30pm on Wednesday contractors digging a ditch behind Burns Elementary cut the fiber that connects BES to Maintenance. This fiber connects the whole district to email and the Internet. After discovering the problem I contacted Advanced Systems to repair the break. Unfortunately this is an old style underground fiber optic cable and they did not have the parts in stock. While they were arranging to get what was needed to properly repair and extend this fiber under the new ditch I began working on temporary solutions. Thanks to support from Jason and Joyce I was able to reroute most of affected traffic through some spare fiber at BMS and get almost all our services back online. Currently the only service unavailable is our VPN. This solution will be adequate until proper repairs are made to the broken fiber at BES. Advanced Systems has located the neccesary parts and had them overnighted. They will start the repairs as soon as the parts arrive and expect to finish within 24 hours after that. Internet and email will be working today and tomorrow but you should expect some periodic outages late Thursday afternoon or Friday morning when we cut back over to the repaired fiber.

This may be the perfect student device...

2008-05-24T03:39:00.000-05:00

laptop,eLearning,education

I've dreamed of a device like this for over a year. Part laptop, part PDA, part eBook reader, part mobile access device. The size of the display is a little small for these old eyes, but for the average student's sight it would be fine. Hopefully this design will take off and we'll eventually see 12" models and even 14". I can always hope.

Quoted from http://blog.laptopmag.com/first-look-olpc-xo-generation-20:

First Look: OLPC XO-2

“The next generation laptop should be a book,” Negroponte said.

The XO-2 will employ the dual indoor-and-sunlight displays, which was pioneered by former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen. The design will provide a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and a flat, two-screen continuous surface for use in tablet mode. “Younger children will be able to use simple keyboards

Biofuels and food prices: Running the numbers | Green Tech - CNET News.com

2008-05-23T11:26:00.001-05:00

Quoted from http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9951108-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&t=1211559569982:

Biofuels and food prices: Running the numbers | Green Tech - CNET News.com

Biofuels and food prices: Running the numbers

Posted by Martin LaMonica 3 comments
Clean-energy research firm New Energy Finance has waded into the "food versus fuel" debate and finds that

Stark -- Burton Wedding

2008-05-18T07:07:00.001-05:00

Messenger-Inquirer: "Stark -- Burton"

5/18/2008
Engagement

Amanda Kara Stark and Christopher Stephen Burton are engaged to be married at 4:30 p.m. July 5 at First United Methodist Church, Frankfort.

Ms. Stark is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn W. Stark of Frankfort. She is a graduate of Western Hills High School in Frankfort and the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy, where she received her doctor of pharmacy degree. She is employed by Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center, Danville.

Burton is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen T. Burton, Owensboro. He is a graduate of Apollo High School and UK, where he received degrees in biology and agricultural biotechnology. He is employed by ECM Biosciences, Versailles."

The Desk

2008-05-08T14:10:00.001-05:00

THE DESK

DON'T LEAVE IT ON THE DESK

There was a certain Professor of Religion named Dr. Christianson, a studious man who taught at a small college in the western United States. Dr. Christianson taught the required survey course in Christianity at this particular institution. Every student was required to take this course his freshman year, regardless of his or her major. Although Dr. Christianson tried hard to communicate the essence of the gospel in his class, he found that most of his students looked upon the course as nothing but required drudgery. Despite his best efforts, most students refused to take Christianity seriously.

This year, Dr. Christianson had a special student named Steve. Steve was only a freshman, but was studying with the intent of going on to seminary for the ministry. Steve was popular, he was well liked, and he was an imposing physical specimen. He was now the starting center on the school football team, and was the best student in the professor's class..

One day, Dr. Christianson asked Steve to stay after class so he could talk with him.

"How many push-ups can you do?"
Steve said, "I do about 200 every night." "200?
That's pretty good, Steve, " Dr. Christianson said. "Do you think you could do 300?"
Steve replied, "I don't know.... I've never done 300 at a time."
"Do you think you could?" again asked Dr. Christianson.
"Well, I can try," said Steve.
"Can you do 300 in sets of 10? I have a class project in mind and I need you to do about 300 push-ups in sets of ten for this to work. Can you do it? I need you to tell me you can do it," said the professor.
Steve said, "Well... I think I can...yeah, I can do it."
Dr. Christianson said, "Good! I need you to do this on Friday. Let me explain what I have in mind."

Friday came and Steve got to class early and sat in the front of the room. When class started, the professor pulled out a big box of donuts. No, these weren't the normal kinds of donuts, they were the extra fancy BIG kind, with cream centers and frosting swirls. Everyone was pretty excited it was Friday, the last class of the day, and they were going to get an early start on the weekend with a party in Dr. Christianson's class.

Dr. Christianson went to the first girl in the first row and asked, "Cynthia, do you want to have one of these donuts?"
Cynthia said, "Yes."
Dr. Christianson then turned to Steve and asked, "Steve, would you do ten push-ups so that Cynthia can have a donut?"
"Sure!" Steve jumped down from his desk to do a quick ten. Then Steve again sat in his desk. Dr. Christianson put a donut on Cynthia's desk.
Dr. Christianson then went to Joe, the next person, and asked, "Joe, do you want a donut?"
Joe said, "Yes."
Dr. Christianson asked, "Steve would you do ten push-ups so Joe can have a donut?"

Steve did ten push-ups, Joe got a donut. And so it went, down the first aisle, Steve did ten push-ups for every person before they got their donut. Walking down the second aisle, Dr. Christianson came to Scott. Scott was on the basketball team, and in as good condition as Steve. He was very popular and never lacking for female companionship.

When the professor asked, "Scott do you want a donut?"
Scott's reply was, "Well, can I do my own push-ups?"
Dr. Christianson said, "No, Steve has to do them."
Then Scott said, "Well, I don't want one then."
Dr. Christianson shrugged and then turned to Steve and asked, "Steve, would you do ten push-ups so Scott can have a donut he doesn't want?"

With perfect obedience Steve started to do ten push-ups.

Scott said, "HEY! I said I didn't want one!"
Dr. Christianson said, "Look!, this is my classroom, my class, my desks, and these are my donuts. Just leave it on the desk if you don't want it." And he put a donut on Scott's desk.

Now by this time, Steve had begun to slow d own a little. He just stayed on the floor between sets because it took too much effort to be getting up and down. You could start to see a little perspiration coming out around his brow Dr. Christianson started down the third row. Now the students were beginning to get a little angry.

Dr. Christianson asked Jenny, "Jenny, do you want a donut?"
Sternly, Jenny said, "No."
Then Dr. Christianson asked Steve, "Steve, would you do ten more push-ups so Jenny can have a donut that she doesn't want?"

Steve did ten....Jenny got a donut.

By now, a growing sense of uneasiness filled the room. The students were beginning to say, "No!" and there were all these uneaten donuts on the desks. Steve also had to really put forth a lot of extra effort to get these push-ups done for each donut. There began to be a small pool of sweat on the floor beneath his face, his arms and brow were beginning to get red because of the physical effort involved.

Dr. Christianson asked Robert, who was the most vocal unbeliever in the class, to watch Steve do each push up to make sure he did the full ten push-ups in a set because he couldn't bear to watch all of Steve's work for all of those uneaten donuts. He sent Robert over to where Steve was so Robert could count the set and watch Steve closely.

Dr. Christianson started down the fourth row. During his class, however, some students from other classes had wandered in and sat down on the steps along the radiators that ran down the sides of the room. When the professor realized this, he did a quick count and saw that now there were 34 students in the room. He started to worry if Steve would be able to make it.

Dr. Christianson went on to the next person and the next and the next. Near the end of that row, Steve was really having a rough time. He was taking a lot more time to complete each set.

Steve asked Dr.. Christianson, "Do I have to make my nose touch on each one?"
Dr. Christianson thought for a moment, "Well, they're your pushups. You are in charge now. You can do them any way that you want." And Dr. Christianson went on.

A few moments later, Jason, a recent transfer student, came to the room and was about to come in when all the students yelled in one voice, "NO! Don't come in! Stay out!" Jason didn't know what was going on.

Steve picked up his head and said, "No, let him come." Professor ; Christianson said, "You realize that if Jason comes in you will have to do ten push-ups for him?"
Steve said, "Yes, let him come in. Give him a donut."
Dr. Christianson said, "Okay, Steve, I'll let you get Jason's out of the way right now. Jason, do you want a donut?"
Jason, new to the room, hardly knew what was going on. "Yes," he said, "give me a donut."
"Steve, will you do ten push-ups so that Jason can have a donut?"

Steve did ten push-ups very slowly and with great effort. Jason, bewildered, was handed a donut and sat down.

Dr. Christianson finished the fourth row, and then started on those visitors seat ed by the heaters. Steve's arms were now shaking with each push-up in a struggle to lift himself against the force of gravity. By this time sweat was profusely dropping off of his face, there was no sound except his heavy breathing; there was not a dry eye in the room.

The very last two students in the room were two young women, both cheerleaders, and very popular.

Dr. Christianson went to Linda, the second to last, and asked, "Linda, do you want a donut?"
Linda said, very sadly, "No, thank you."
Professor Christianson quietly asked, "Steve, would you do ten push-ups so that Linda can have a donut she doesn't want?"

Grunting from the effort, Steve did ten very slow push-ups for Linda.

Then Dr. Christianson turned to the last girl, Susan. "Susan, do you want a donut?"
Susan, with tears flowing down her face, began to cry. "Dr. Christianson, why can't I help him?"

Dr. Christianson, with tears of his own, said, "No, Steve has to do it alone; I have given him this task and he is in charge of seeing that everyone has an opportunity for a donut whether they want it or not. When I decided to have a party this last day of class, I looked at my grade book. Steve here is the only student with a perfect grade. Everyone else has failed a test, skipped class, or offered me inferior work. Steve told me that in football practice, when a player messes up he must do push-ups.. I told Steve that none of you could come to my party unless he paid the price by doing your push-ups. He and I made a deal for your sakes."

"Steve, would you do ten push-ups so Susan can have a donut?"

As Steve very slowly finished his last push-up, with the understanding that he had accomplished all that was required of him, having done 350 push-ups, his arms buckled beneath him and he fell to the floor. Dr. Christianson turned to the room and said, "And so it was, that our Savior, Jesus Christ, on the cross, plead to the Father, 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit.' With the understanding that He had done everything that was required of Him, He yielded up His life. And like some of those in this room, many of us leave the gift on the desk, uneaten."

Two students helped Steve up off the floor and to a seat, physically exhausted, but wearing a thin smile.

"Well done, good and faithful servant," said the professor, adding, "Not all sermons are preached in words."

Turning to his class, the professor said, "My wish is that you might understand and fully comprehend all the riches of grace and mercy that have been given to you through the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He spared not His only Begotten Son, but gave Him up for us all, for the whole Church, now and forever. Whether or not we choose to accept His gift to us, the price has been paid.

"Wouldn't you be foolish and ungrateful to leave it lying on the desk?

Twitter is Tweet

2008-05-02T08:08:00.000-05:00

I've starting using a new Web 2.0 service. Twitter.com is a micro-blog. Limited to 140 characters that can be written on the website, through several standalone apps (like Twhirl) or delivered through an SMS message, Twitter allows you to blog the mundane parts of your life. You can also follow other twitterers, personal friends, local people or celebrities. Barak uses Twitter, Leo Laporte uses Twitter and Matthew Constant uses Twitter. I follow Leo and Matthew among others. I get to know about the less public parts of their lives. Leo's last twitter was to let his "followers" know that he was stuck at a car dealership waiting for a repair because someone stuck screws in the cigarette lighter socket. Ready to try Twitter, go to http://www.twitter.com and setup an account. Still don't understand it's purpose, check out this video (http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter). It may help but until you use it you won't really "get it".

New Hampshire Primary

2008-01-08T21:22:00.001-06:00

Election,McCain,YouTube

Well, a weird set of circumstances came together tonight. I’ve been teasing everyone that I was headed to New Hampshire to campaign for Hillary (fat chance). It turns out that the company I’m here training with had planned a reception tonight at the same hotel where John McCain was holding his post primary party. After an hour or so talking “tech” at the reception, the company CEO, COO, myself and Jason Cunningham walked over to the McCain party. We walked right in and got a spot just to the left of all the cameras (right in front of the confetti machine L). Right after we got there one of the news shows declared McCain the republican winner. After about another hour of standing around shoulder to shoulder with supporters hugging and congratulating each other Senator McCain came out and gave his speech. I only had my cell phone camera with me, but I posted a short video clip on Youtube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=SAg342xn6Ww)

XO coming to Owensboro, Going to Niger

2007-12-03T14:40:00.001-06:00

OLPC,Peace Corp,Niger

Well, I (well, some friends and I) purchased 2 OLPCs today. One is going to a needy third world child and one is coming to Owensboro, KY to be autographed by us and sent to our friend's daughter who is in the Peace Corp in Niger, Africa. Our hope is she will be able to use it to document her work and teach the locals. When her tour of duty is over she can leave it with the people if she thinks they can use it. http://laptopgiving.org/en/explore.php:

Explore the XO

A real world laptop for real world change. The XO laptop.

Many years and an infinite amount of sweat equity went into the creation of the XO laptop. Designed collaboratively by experts from academia and industry, the XO is the product of the very best thinking about technology and learning. It was designed with the real world in mind, considering everything from extreme environmental conditions such as high heat and humidity, to technological issues such as local-language support. As a result, the XO laptop is extremely durable, brilliantly functional, energy-efficient, responsive, and fun. Come take a look.

Why I do what I do...

2007-08-06T07:40:00.001-05:00

Brinke Equipment Company, Equipment Appraisals and Brokerage

2006-12-12T14:27:00.000-06:00

Dick Brinke is a great resource for your used heavy equipment needs.

Acoustic sensors make surfaces interactive - tech - 28 November 2006 - New Scientist Tech

2006-11-29T05:57:00.000-06:00

This would be a great replacment for electronic whiteboards.

10 dumb things IT pros do that can mess up their networks

2006-09-07T08:39:00.000-05:00

Ouch! The truth hurts. There's no new information here, just stuff that's too obvious for most people, including me to see. I can identify with way too many of these points. I think I'll print this out and post it over my desk.

So we don't forget...

2006-06-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

Last night I ventured “into the city” to go to Ground Zero. It was a more moving experience than I expected. As we were walking around the site, just past the Pronto Pizza place was “Ten House”, the home of NYDC Engine 10 and Ladder 10. There were a group of people on the side of the building. We stopped and watched for a few moments as some workers, artistians and officials were finishing up the installation of a bas-relief sculpture on the side of the firehouse to commemorate and remember their fallen comrades.

Routing issues?...

2006-05-30T13:00:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while since I’ve ranted about the “state network” so I figure it’s time to let off some steam. It seems there are some “router issues” between blogger.com and the state network. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that I could post or read my blog while I was at work. It wasn’t a big deal so I let the problem simmer for a while. It’s amazing how many tech problems go away with a little simmering. Well this one didn’t, so I broke down and submitted a help desk ticket. A few minutes ago I got a call from the help desk telling me that I could now get to my blog. When I asked what the problem turned out to be, the answer was “routing issues”, well at least they didn’t tell me to reboot to fix the problem.
I’ve also learned through the grapevine that when the state has a network problem and I tell my staff that there’s nothing we can do because it’s a state problem, a teacher in the district contacts her son who works with the state network and he tells his mother that it’s not a state problem it’s a problem I’ve caused inside the district. So, as with all things technical in the district, “The Buck Stops Here!”.
These comments may all be for nothing in a few days. Alltel is in the district to connect us to the KPEN network. We’ll have tons more bandwidth, a VPN connection to Internet 2 and best of all we’ll be outside the state’s firewall. Woo! Hoo!

Lenovo ThinkPad R60 reviewed - Engadget

2006-05-29T07:51:00.000-05:00

It's cool to know that even 2 full years after we picked the ThinkPad R series as our student computer, it's still getting top ratings.

Apple patents music that affects mood

2006-05-29T06:52:00.000-05:00

My daughter is a big exercise person. She already preordered the new Nike/iPod interface to measure her exercise on her Nano. She commented that wouldn't it be cool if the speed of the music you're listening to matched your workout speed. Looks like Apple thinks so too.

The end of the school year

2006-05-04T18:35:00.000-05:00

Just a few more days until the end of the school year. Things have really slowed down around the tech department. I've been working on a summer project list, no big projects this summer, but plenty of small ones. I saw an amazing demo of an Epson LCD projector today. You'd think projectors would be pretty much all the same, but this one had some cool features. Networked content and management, auto keystoning (both vertical and horizontal!), it would even detect the screen and auto-size the picture to fit.

drupal.org | Community plumbing

2006-05-04T18:28:00.000-05:00

Drupal is the greatest thing since sliced bread! I can't believe how I've been able to turn my drab family website into a cool interactive website in just a couple of days. Combined with Gallery2 I will shortly have a great family website with places for the kids to post, places to keep family pictures and places for the other people to see what a cool family we have. The only thing missing is a family tree. I've heard there are some Drupal compatible family tree systems, but I need to do so more research.

Visionary Solutions, Inc. - The Cost-Performance Leader in Professional IPTV

2006-04-25T15:22:00.000-05:00

Another cool IPTV product. This could be just the thing we've been searching for to bring video to the desktop in our schools. I wish the price was a little lower because at $2200 per channel it could add up fast. I'll keep looking maybe there's something even better out there. If I could find a device cheap enough it would be great for home too.

Podcasts, vlans & sons

2006-04-24T16:16:00.000-05:00

Podcasts…
Podcasting continues to be my primary source for tech news.  It’s amazing how information is available in Podcast.  I try to catch every Information Week Daily (http://www.informationweek.com/newscasts) and InfoWorld Daily (http://www.infoworld.com/news/) as well as TWIT, Security Now and Inside the Net (http://twit.tv).  I’ve just discovered Novell Open Audio.  As a person who got their CNE (Certified Netware Engineer) in 1990 I love Novell’s Podcast (http://www.novell.com/openaudio).  It’s amazing how far we, Novell and I, have come in 16 years.

Vlans…
Vlans continue to haunt me.  We’ve setup a vlan to extend our central office network over to the maintenance shop where I’ve built a “real” server room.  It’s seems to be working well, but occasionally we have a hiccup and I don’t have the understanding necessary to troubleshoot the problem.  I don’t like being in that position.  I’ll eventually get a working knowledge of vlans but until then they just seem like magic to me.

Sons…
We’ll it’s been an interesting couple of days as far as my boys go.  I got a call from my youngest (18) yesterday morning.  He needed me to come home and help him remove a tick from uhh… his… uhhh… let’s just say, privates.  Luckily he took care of it before I got there.  My oldest (25) called me this afternoon, wanting to talk “girls”, or more specifically how to make life changing decisions when there is more than himself to think about.  I have this whole spiel in my head of things I want to tell him when he’s ready to get married, but I don’t want to do it over the phone and he’s not there…yet.  I gave him the quick version, always put your significant other first.  It’s nice to be needed :-)

BibleGateway.com - Colossians 1:25 - 27

2006-04-18T08:14:00.000-05:00

God, I pray that you would give me an insatiable passion for Your presence. Your dimensions never end, and I want to experience everything You are. Help me out of the pit of complacency and into the depths of Your heart. Speak to me, show me Your mysteries, and I will listen. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

Edubuntu - Linux for Young Human Beings

2006-04-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

One of the problems with our 1-1 student laptop project is that Windows becomes so easily corrupt. Could a version of Linux like Ubuntu or it's educational version, Edubuntu. I've installed it on an IBM Laptop and an iBook. Both installations appear to look and operate identically. There are a lot of obstacles to making the move from Windows to Linux, but it's worth exploring. I believe the students would quickly adapt to the new OS, but could we provide the same quality of applications? Would our teachers be able to adapt? Would the teachers need to run the same OS as the students? Could our technical support team provide the same level of support as they do with Microsoft products.

Randy Cutlip

2006-03-14T10:26:00.000-06:00

RANDY CUTLIP - Sheffield, Alabama

Founding member of the World Wide Bread Casting Co. Through this organization he spread his anti-drug ministries through the United States, talking to and performing for over one million kids in our nation's schools, churches and prisons throughout the United States.

He recorded gospel music on the W.W.B.C. label and was president of Embassy Music Production.

In addition to Three Dog Night, Cutlip also worked with groups ranging from the Grass Roots to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Date of Birth – 1943

Place of Birth – WV

Date of Death 9/17/2000

Instrument – Keyboards

Randy was an important influence in my teenage life, pulling me toward my life with Christ. I don’t know who owns the copyrights to his Christian music, but I have digitized 2 of his albums and I’d be glad to share the MP3s with anyone who would like to keep his music alive.

InDigital - Your Life In Gear - Home

2006-02-07T16:44:00.000-06:00

This is what IPTV should be. Great quality and information in a compact video download. Thanks guys for doing it right!

Vacation's over

2006-02-06T17:26:00.000-06:00

Vacation's over…
That’s probably the best way to start out, but it doesn’t say it all. A lot has gone on since I last posted. We got our student email up and going. It was a little painful, but in the long run I know it’s for the best. We upgraded our core router. Wow, was that ever painful. We collapsed 12 building based edge routers into 1 huge core router. The new router is big and fast and flexible, but getting it configured and the old routers un-configured was not easy. It seems our old routers, which are switches too, didn’t want to stop being routers. On top of that we had to do something called “tagging” on the new router to get some packets going to the right VLAN and our old routers didn’t take to “tagging” very well. I need to learn more about “tagging” it sounds very cool and very complicated. Everything is running solid now and we’re already looking to the next big upgrade, a Gigabit backbone

On the personal side, my wife and I got to meet our oldest son’s girlfriend. I had met her once before, but this it the first time we got to spend some time with her. She is a wonderful girl, smart, pretty, well rounded and seems very in love with our son. She’s still got 2 and a half years of her 6 year degree left and she seems very focused on finishing. This is a good thing, our oldest is been having a hard time deciding what to do with his life, working on his 6th year of a 4 year degree. I think she’ll help him get focused if she’ll stick around a while.

Loving Family

2006-01-30T17:01:00.000-06:00

Today was Monday, and I mean MONDAY! One of those non-stop Monday’s where you don’t have time to take lunch and barely have time to take a breath. You never get to hang up the phone, you just go from one call to another. With all of that said, it’s still a vacation day :-) I thought our Exchange migration woes were winding down ‘till I found out the state pulled a fast one on us by changing the format of our student email addresses. Luckily ADModify came to the rescue again and I had us up and running in an hour or so.

We made contact with a couple of more organizations that may be able to provide additional bandwidth for us. Both sound promising, we meet with them later in the week. The cable company sounds like they could provide us with cheap bandwidth, but I’m skeptical that their 6mbit cable modem is really faster than our current 4.5mbit T-1s.

On a personal note, my wife was in an especially good mood this weekend. It probably had something to do with our daughter being home. Whenever the kids are in she really perks up. But it’s more than that; I can tell she’s making an honest effort not to be so nagging. I love her so much! One of my techs is going through a divorce. Man is it ugly. I suppose most are, but it really bothers me to see how he talks about his wife in front of his kids. He needs to realize they are hurting and his actions aren’t making it easier for them. I’d really like to talk to him about it, but I’m not comfortable getting into his personal life. Thank you Jesus for a loving family and their patience with me when I’m unbearable and for my patience with each of them when they don’t do what’s right.

Success with the Maker

2006-01-27T16:32:00.000-06:00

Today was another vacation day

My day started off great, because my daughter got up and worked out with me at 5am. She is growing into such a special woman, I hope her boyfriend can appreciate how special she is. When I got back from working out, I weighed myself, like I do every morning. I'm down to 204. That's 15.5 lbs since Jan. 1. Boy do I feel good. My goal is 180, I think I might just make it.

On top of all of that, it was a pretty good day because we learned something and "It's always a good day when you learn something". First we learned about SuccessMaker, how to make it run faster, how to troubleshoot it better and that all it's problems aren't network related like the tech support says. Second, we learned about our Netware network. SLP is much more robust than we realized, we don't need 30 SLP servers, 4 is plenty. With some tweaking, tuning and streamlining, we should have Netware humming in a few days.

And then it's Friday, although I do have to present tomorrow to the state school board association, I'll still have some quiet time on the road to reflect and catch up on my podcasts. Sunday, I'll be in my favorite seat, directing the multimedia for our church service. Where else should you be on Sunday, because the only true success is with The Maker. Psalm 115:15

State continues it's heavyhandedness

2006-01-27T08:27:00.000-06:00

Another vacation day :-)

Well, despite a late afternoon email from my favorite state Exchange flunky informing me they wouldn't help us with a little AD cleanup, it turned out to be pretty good day. We got our new Enterasys N-3 router in this morning. Man is it sweet. I can't wait to get it up and running. Then I had a meeting I was dreading with our new BellSouth rep. That turned into a pretty good meeting. She's going to get me pricing on a faster Internet connection, up to as much as 45mbits. That will handle our needs for a while. Then after I got the news that I wasn't getting any help from the state on my AD problem, I went looking for a solution. Boy! did I find one. ADModify.NET allowed me to dynamically rebuild all the display names for my student accounts in an quick and easy GUI interface. I renamed 7000+ accounts in less than an hour and that included going back over them 1 school at a time and assign school specific info.

Check out ADModify.NET at www.gotdotnet.com/works...

eLearning Discipline & Vacation time

2006-01-25T15:53:00.000-06:00

Today was the first day of my vacation, I got so much work done. Some people call vacation days, days when they don't go into work. I define vacation days the same way, but I also have another definition for them and today (and the next 2 weeks) fall under the second definition. Basically they are days when one of the people I work with doesn't come to work.

Our discipline meeting started a little slow, but finally picked up. Our parent rep is the parent of one of our freshman and they acutally turned the laptop back-in because her child was obsessed with it. I can't believe a parent is that closed-minded. Our student rep (a senior that isn't in the laptop project) came armed with lots of info including a survey he conducted among students about what kind of discipline was appropriate for several different types of infractions. The meeting ended with the 2 assistant principals charged with developing a common list of infractions and recommended desciplines. One cool moment in the meeting came when one of the principals, whose was absent, joined the meeting via Skype.

Seed of Chucky

2006-01-24T20:09:00.000-06:00

I've found the real Seed of Chucky. The Exchange 2003 migration project manager. He spouts a long list of meaningless words like "processes", "deployment methodologies" and "supportability constraints". He doesn't know words like service, customer centric, or "It's About Kids". He thinks he invented email. Our district has been doing email for over 15 years, before any other district in the state, even before we had Internet access. We didn't ask for your help and we don't need it. "Chucky" put your maladroit ways and let us do what we know how to do.

http://www.seed-of-chucky.com/home.html

Monday, Monday

2006-01-23T17:38:00.000-06:00

Every other day, every other day Every other day of the week is fine, yeah But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes A-you can find me cryin' all of the time Monday, Monday, can't trust that day Monday, Monday, it just turns out that way Oh Monday, Monday, won't go away Monday, Monday, it's here to stay Oh Monday, Monday

Wow! This was a nonstop day. Still picking up the pieces from our Exchange "upgrade". If you can call having a government agency take over managment our your mail server an upgrade. Although I have to admit I never get tired of saying "It's the state's fault. Then their are my techs. Sometimes you think their job is to argue with me and bad mouth the district. One tech spends more time emailing his girlfriend than he does fixing computers, another one's mood changes like the wind. One moment he's your most supportive employee, the next moment the district is just a bunch idiots. Is ther such a thing as an employee that sees and appreciates the big picture and is willing to do the dirty detail work. I'd hire them in a minute if I could one.

Brent’s Thoughts » Linksys WPG54G

2006-01-19T15:35:00.000-06:00

Why didn't I think of this! We have more and more teachers wanting Smartboards or their counterparts. I just not convinced Smartboards are th best solution. Maybe this Linksys product will give us a better more flexible way to teach and finally provide a practical use for TabletPCs in the district.

Snow Day!

2006-01-18T20:05:00.000-06:00

Well today was a snow day. Snow days are always a time to catch up on things and today was no exception. I cleared a lot of things off my desk. Our mail server upgrade is winding down, only a few items left to finish. I figured out how to sync my Axim with our Exchange 2003 server directly and across the Internet. This is very cool and will be very helpful to many people in our organization. I need to document how to do this on our WIKI.On the bad side, the car problems are going to cost $700+. $225 to replace the water pump and flush the system and the rest to fix a long standing water leak in the intake manifold. It will be nice to not to have to add water every few weeks.

How do you change a water pump on a 1998 buick 3.1 engine?

2006-01-17T20:39:00.000-06:00

Not exactly what I wanted to find. It looks like I'll be taking the old Buick to the shop. Just spent 2 hours on the road in blowing snow trying to go 70 miles to get home. No heat, belt slipping so bad that the alternator wouldn't charge. It was a long night. But it was worth it, Meggie was sick and her mom and I had to check on her. Like the Paul says "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." NLT Romans 8:28

www.faqfarm.com/Q/How_d...

CWS

2006-01-16T19:57:00.000-06:00

This was a relaxing day. I still got up early and worked out, and then went to the office for a couple of hours. After that I spent the day the way I wanted. I saw my daughter off to school, I went down to church today to determine why the DVD player wouldn't load DVDs. It's apparently bad. I ordered a replacement along with a replacement video switch and an upgrade to Garageband. I setup Himachi on a couple that's on a network that allows bittorrent.

Paying for the Messenger-Inquirer Web

2006-01-15T17:15:00.000-06:00

With all the good free news on the net, I can't believe the Messenger-Inquirer has gone to being a paid site. I wonder if their advertisers know that people have to pay to see the ads they've paid so much for.

My first post

2006-01-15T16:10:00.000-06:00

After fretting over blogging for months, I've decided to take the plunge. This blog is more a place to allow me to vent than a place for others to read, but I will occasionally try to contribute something that other people might find useful.

I started taking 1/2 tsp of cinnamon a day this week in an effort to reduce my cholestrol without chemicals. This on top of my 5 day a week early morning workouts should improve my health over the next few months.

On January 1, 2006 I weighed 219 pounds. Today, Jan. 15 I'm down to 210!