It was stormy today in Merced.
But no rain fell upon the pavement.
The clouds were full of precipitation. You can experience that with my latest addition to the flickr stream. Its a B&W photo of the sky at 11:00. At 11:30 a funnel cloud was spotted outside of Merced and the photo sent to the local TV station.
Mostly it was cold. There has been some panic IEPs done as the Freshmen are starting to come up in masses and are in need of goals and direction toward next year. Next year both schools are headed for a BTI model of push in just for the Freshmen.
The students in the classes were anxious to see the DVD that I made of their school's speech kids. As each one took their turn upon the screen they inevidably tried to hide their faces from it and tried to my edit out their portion. They were quick to want to see the others however. There is a severe difference between the schools and the capabilty of the students between them. It is particularly evident in the video clips.
The new computer renders up the footage much faster than the old one. This may be due to a feature in the new IMovie that uses support time to redender.. so it sort of pre-renders on the fly as you put new clips in. Who would ever think that a handheld camera could take the place of a movie camera with film and other little electric motors. The only motor in this digital camera is the the telephoto lens.
Pretty amazing stuff
Pat
Monday, February 9, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Shrimps or is it Shrimp
My sister was always teasing someone about this...
My contention is that Shrimps are more than one kind of shrimp. Anyway.. we had shrimp for dinner tonight.
I made a roux and added some garlic and some milk to make it creamy.. then some lemon juice. That turned off Sue.. oh well.
I sauteed the shrimp in the sauce with fresh asparagus,and served it over rice, I thought it was great. Sue wanted to scape off the sauce.. she is not much of a sauce person.
At Starbucks I ran into Fred again. He is a counselor at the Elenentary schools. I was telling him about my "Tell me a Little about yourself" project that I taped on my little digital camera. He said that he would mail me a copy of some other openers that he had collected along the line. he said that he would be happy to have Heather job shadow him for a day.. especially if he could do the same over in the city.
I finished the tape project tonight with mulitple DVDs made with each of the classes seperated into their own DVDs. It turned out okay for a "magic DVD" production. I sure miss the older interface.. I don't miss the huge amount of time it took to digitize the final product. There just isn't the ease of control on this one. I am looking forward to getting ILife 09. I have sent away for it with all the coaborating material and my 11 bucks. It would be nice to get it next week. I am also waiting on the serial numbers for all the new abobe products I bought along with the new computer.. thanks dad.
I am sure looking forward to getting on the ship to Mexico next week. We are staying at the Holiday Inn in Long Beach the night before. There are some good rates out there. The Holiday Inn Long Beach was only 59 bucks per room per night.
Sue and I spent some time moving stuff in and out of her closet. She thinks that is helping with the blue room clutter.. i have a different opinion. But moving stuff around is a good thing..
I still have some reports to write this week. I should have done them this weekend.. but it was more fun to watch the Warriors beat Utah, work on video projects with the new computer, and cook in the fabulous kitchen.
I am one load away from all the clothes being washed.
Hope your weekend was fun!
Love Pat
My contention is that Shrimps are more than one kind of shrimp. Anyway.. we had shrimp for dinner tonight.
I made a roux and added some garlic and some milk to make it creamy.. then some lemon juice. That turned off Sue.. oh well.
I sauteed the shrimp in the sauce with fresh asparagus,and served it over rice, I thought it was great. Sue wanted to scape off the sauce.. she is not much of a sauce person.
At Starbucks I ran into Fred again. He is a counselor at the Elenentary schools. I was telling him about my "Tell me a Little about yourself" project that I taped on my little digital camera. He said that he would mail me a copy of some other openers that he had collected along the line. he said that he would be happy to have Heather job shadow him for a day.. especially if he could do the same over in the city.
I finished the tape project tonight with mulitple DVDs made with each of the classes seperated into their own DVDs. It turned out okay for a "magic DVD" production. I sure miss the older interface.. I don't miss the huge amount of time it took to digitize the final product. There just isn't the ease of control on this one. I am looking forward to getting ILife 09. I have sent away for it with all the coaborating material and my 11 bucks. It would be nice to get it next week. I am also waiting on the serial numbers for all the new abobe products I bought along with the new computer.. thanks dad.
I am sure looking forward to getting on the ship to Mexico next week. We are staying at the Holiday Inn in Long Beach the night before. There are some good rates out there. The Holiday Inn Long Beach was only 59 bucks per room per night.
Sue and I spent some time moving stuff in and out of her closet. She thinks that is helping with the blue room clutter.. i have a different opinion. But moving stuff around is a good thing..
I still have some reports to write this week. I should have done them this weekend.. but it was more fun to watch the Warriors beat Utah, work on video projects with the new computer, and cook in the fabulous kitchen.
I am one load away from all the clothes being washed.
Hope your weekend was fun!
Love Pat
Saturday, February 7, 2009
The Collapse of County Bank
Yssterday was the last day for the major bank in the area... County Bank
The state regulators came in and are deep into auditing the books this Saturday. The Sun Star claims that there were 160 suits that arrived at the bank yesterday to close it down. It will reopen on Monday as part of another named bank.
The local investers have lost their perverbal shirts. It is not a small bank. It had grown to branches in 16 different cities in three states. This bank started in Merced and retained its headquarters in Merced. It was established in 1977. It was the keystone to downtown development. It bought up old buildings downtown and made two story new buildings in their place. It even constructed its own two story parking facility.
But who could blame them going under? Merced has been labeled ground zero for the foreclosures of mortgages and the Feds are not really dealing with that level of problem with their financial ballouts.. at least for now. A large share of County Bank's loans were for small business development. That could mean strip malls which have lost their big box tennants or it could be small dairies that are reeling from the drop in the price that is paid for milk.
The recent news was a major topic at the local Starbucks this morning that I encountered on my morning walk. Everyone was talking about the community hit. The investors are the ones that will get it. One guy mentioned that he bought County Bank stocks when they were 4 dollars a share. He thought that it was a good buy then. Now they are worth 26 cents a share and maybe not even that. Someone else at the table mentioned that his 401K had bottomed out to zero. That was pretty incredulous to the others.. how could an investment be worth 0? It has and it is. One of the engineers at the table was talking that last year he had 6 good projects going on at one time. Now he is lucky to have one. Sign of the times.
I saw on the card that the manager of the Starbucks was also a classroom teacher for Starbucks. I asked him how the Starbucks classes are going.. rmembering the book I read that Kelly sent to be via audio about how Starbucks had saved this older guy's life by giving him worth and redefining his objectives and learning some effective people skills.. with benefits. He said that his classes were going well but their were fewer students becuase Starbucks is closing outlets all over.
We should all feel lucky that we have jobs.
: ) Pat
The state regulators came in and are deep into auditing the books this Saturday. The Sun Star claims that there were 160 suits that arrived at the bank yesterday to close it down. It will reopen on Monday as part of another named bank.
The local investers have lost their perverbal shirts. It is not a small bank. It had grown to branches in 16 different cities in three states. This bank started in Merced and retained its headquarters in Merced. It was established in 1977. It was the keystone to downtown development. It bought up old buildings downtown and made two story new buildings in their place. It even constructed its own two story parking facility.
But who could blame them going under? Merced has been labeled ground zero for the foreclosures of mortgages and the Feds are not really dealing with that level of problem with their financial ballouts.. at least for now. A large share of County Bank's loans were for small business development. That could mean strip malls which have lost their big box tennants or it could be small dairies that are reeling from the drop in the price that is paid for milk.
The recent news was a major topic at the local Starbucks this morning that I encountered on my morning walk. Everyone was talking about the community hit. The investors are the ones that will get it. One guy mentioned that he bought County Bank stocks when they were 4 dollars a share. He thought that it was a good buy then. Now they are worth 26 cents a share and maybe not even that. Someone else at the table mentioned that his 401K had bottomed out to zero. That was pretty incredulous to the others.. how could an investment be worth 0? It has and it is. One of the engineers at the table was talking that last year he had 6 good projects going on at one time. Now he is lucky to have one. Sign of the times.
I saw on the card that the manager of the Starbucks was also a classroom teacher for Starbucks. I asked him how the Starbucks classes are going.. rmembering the book I read that Kelly sent to be via audio about how Starbucks had saved this older guy's life by giving him worth and redefining his objectives and learning some effective people skills.. with benefits. He said that his classes were going well but their were fewer students becuase Starbucks is closing outlets all over.
We should all feel lucky that we have jobs.
: ) Pat
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Working the Time Machine
A new feature in leopard on the Mac is "time machine"
If you can devote a hard drive to this function it will back up all of your work and step you back a piece at a time until you fine life was wonderful. You can then restore your Mac back to that Nirvanic stage when you were not swearing at your computer. Unlike my sweet sister who names her computer, I refuse to do so for this very reason. When life gets rough you and you want to unleash an epitaph upon your computer you want want to do it to "precious." Or in my sister's case, Barry Bondi.. well maybe with recent news developing regarding steroid case.
So my new 24 inch gem of a computer has been working all night and most of the day to back up my hardives with my systems and programs so that this Time machine feature will be accessed. I bought a 1 Tb hard drive for this purpose. What really made it possible was the purchase of a 350 external hard drive for data collection. This allow the 1 TB to be erased and repurposed for the time machine. The time machine requires the sum of all the backuped hard drives and then some. When it first came out it looked like a pipe dream. Hard drive memory is so inexpensive now, it makes it possible. The 1Tb I bought at Costco for 135.
Sorry to hear that Linzi is having difficulty with getting her Iphone screen repaired. You just want it done and back to you as soon as possible. My daughters are text junkies so you know how that is devasating her,
Rained today.. some.. Stay out of it
: ) Pat
If you can devote a hard drive to this function it will back up all of your work and step you back a piece at a time until you fine life was wonderful. You can then restore your Mac back to that Nirvanic stage when you were not swearing at your computer. Unlike my sweet sister who names her computer, I refuse to do so for this very reason. When life gets rough you and you want to unleash an epitaph upon your computer you want want to do it to "precious." Or in my sister's case, Barry Bondi.. well maybe with recent news developing regarding steroid case.
So my new 24 inch gem of a computer has been working all night and most of the day to back up my hardives with my systems and programs so that this Time machine feature will be accessed. I bought a 1 Tb hard drive for this purpose. What really made it possible was the purchase of a 350 external hard drive for data collection. This allow the 1 TB to be erased and repurposed for the time machine. The time machine requires the sum of all the backuped hard drives and then some. When it first came out it looked like a pipe dream. Hard drive memory is so inexpensive now, it makes it possible. The 1Tb I bought at Costco for 135.
Sorry to hear that Linzi is having difficulty with getting her Iphone screen repaired. You just want it done and back to you as soon as possible. My daughters are text junkies so you know how that is devasating her,
Rained today.. some.. Stay out of it
: ) Pat
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Speech Students: Tell me a Little about yourself!
A couple of years ago, I did a 6month study of the progress of my high school level speech students.
On one day I took a video of them answering the question so often posed in job interviews.. tell me a little about yourself. Then 6 months later I filmed or rather videoed the same students answering the same question.
I then compiled the before and after video of each student right after the first 6 month. I burned a DVD and it was a good experience.
Some students wanted a DVD of their progress which I provided. It was amazing to me their progress. They were much better orally organized. They more clear in their delivery and overall it showed that every student had some pretty significant growth. It would be easy to take all of the credit for their successs.. but kids get older and get better at doing some of these skills because of their increased maturity.
Today I took the first baseline videos with my Cannon Stylus SD79IS. It shoots 10 mega pixel stills and does a great job with short videos. The current (before ILife 09) iphoto does not allow the videos to switch from vertical to horizontal. Put it into IMovie, however.. and wohla.. The editor needs to crop appropriately and each clip needs to be handled seperately but there it is.. it actually happens.. a vertical video is recropped in horizontal. In terms of digital memory, to took 2.6 gigs. I have an 8gig chip.. so plenty of space left over.. my the digital memory size has gone up and the cost has come down.
Next time I will shoot all movies in horizontal.... : ) Pat
On one day I took a video of them answering the question so often posed in job interviews.. tell me a little about yourself. Then 6 months later I filmed or rather videoed the same students answering the same question.
I then compiled the before and after video of each student right after the first 6 month. I burned a DVD and it was a good experience.
Some students wanted a DVD of their progress which I provided. It was amazing to me their progress. They were much better orally organized. They more clear in their delivery and overall it showed that every student had some pretty significant growth. It would be easy to take all of the credit for their successs.. but kids get older and get better at doing some of these skills because of their increased maturity.
Today I took the first baseline videos with my Cannon Stylus SD79IS. It shoots 10 mega pixel stills and does a great job with short videos. The current (before ILife 09) iphoto does not allow the videos to switch from vertical to horizontal. Put it into IMovie, however.. and wohla.. The editor needs to crop appropriately and each clip needs to be handled seperately but there it is.. it actually happens.. a vertical video is recropped in horizontal. In terms of digital memory, to took 2.6 gigs. I have an 8gig chip.. so plenty of space left over.. my the digital memory size has gone up and the cost has come down.
Next time I will shoot all movies in horizontal.... : ) Pat
Monday, February 2, 2009
Segue or Segway?
Word of the Day!
segue
Writing a report on a kid that has difficulty making transitions from one bit of the conversation to another.. typical spectrum stuff.
I was looking on how to spell this skill. I got a lot on the new trippy two wheeled transport system and nothing on the concept I wanted to write about.. then one small entry on how do you spell..
and then I found that I was really really looking for Segue and not Segway.
Segue:
3 entries found.
1segue (verb imperative)
2segue (intransitive verb)
3segue (noun)
Main Entry:
1se·gue
Pronunciation:
\ˈse-(ˌ)gwā, ˈsā-\
Function:
verb imperative
Etymology:
Italian, there follows, from seguire to follow, from Latin sequi — more at sue
Date:
circa 1740
1 : proceed to what follows without pause —used as a direction in music
2 : perform the music that follows like that which has preceded —used as a direction in music
segue
Writing a report on a kid that has difficulty making transitions from one bit of the conversation to another.. typical spectrum stuff.
I was looking on how to spell this skill. I got a lot on the new trippy two wheeled transport system and nothing on the concept I wanted to write about.. then one small entry on how do you spell..
and then I found that I was really really looking for Segue and not Segway.
Segue:
3 entries found.
1segue (verb imperative)
2segue (intransitive verb)
3segue (noun)
Main Entry:
1se·gue
Pronunciation:
\ˈse-(ˌ)gwā, ˈsā-\
Function:
verb imperative
Etymology:
Italian, there follows, from seguire to follow, from Latin sequi — more at sue
Date:
circa 1740
1 : proceed to what follows without pause —used as a direction in music
2 : perform the music that follows like that which has preceded —used as a direction in music
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Super Bowl OVER!
It was a pretty good game. Lots of drama in it. Lots of great plays.
Also there were some regrettable actions by players caught on camera. John Madden took the right stand and said that he appreciated good hard hitting football but to hit the guy when he was down was totally out of place in the NFL and certainly in the Superbowl. There were too many penalties in this game to be the best of the best.
It was great to see Kurt Warner of grocery bagger days do a really great job as a quarterback for the Cardinals.
The superbowl ads were pretty interesting. I liked the Danica Patrick add for my web host Go Daddy. The budwiser ads are always the best with their Clydesdale horses doing impossible human connected activity.
Overall we had a pretty relaxing day. I got the printer going with the new computer. This was one of the last pieces in the crossover. Heather is just about to get her new computer (my old one). She will be happy to get a computer with a reliable ethernet port.
I made scalloped potatoes again. We had left over cheese from the fancy mac and cheese from last weekend. Its that white cheddar cheese from England called Coastal. I had a ham steak to cut up in it and I chopped about 3 ribs of celery to give use some veggie content and maybe some fiber. I forgot to put in some onions so the overall flavor was a little different from the usual casserole.
I could sympathize with my San Diego U C niece that reported that she had a many loads of laundry to do. This week I was totally out of tee shirts and mom was totally out of nightgowns. This very seldom happens as we have plenty of clothes to go with laudry on a 10 day cruise without doing laundry. It all came crashing down and laundry had to be done. So our washer and dryer were working most of yesterday. It could be worse..just a year ago I was off doing laundry with group of people that didn't have access to machines. We were not quite moved back. Laundry takes on a different dimension when you have to use those public dryers. Some of them work okay, most of them are marginal in heat control and value for your quarter.
So here I am with the Sunday night imperative. What are those kidderos going to get from me to do this week?
The afternoon classes are finishing up "What's Up Doc" The morning clases are at the last scenes of this hilarious, fast moving movie. So something has to be ready for them. I have a couple to test in the morning and some write ups to do in the afternoon. I think that most Speech and Language Specialist are continually behind in what they need to do. I am no exception.
: ) Pat
Also there were some regrettable actions by players caught on camera. John Madden took the right stand and said that he appreciated good hard hitting football but to hit the guy when he was down was totally out of place in the NFL and certainly in the Superbowl. There were too many penalties in this game to be the best of the best.
It was great to see Kurt Warner of grocery bagger days do a really great job as a quarterback for the Cardinals.
The superbowl ads were pretty interesting. I liked the Danica Patrick add for my web host Go Daddy. The budwiser ads are always the best with their Clydesdale horses doing impossible human connected activity.
Overall we had a pretty relaxing day. I got the printer going with the new computer. This was one of the last pieces in the crossover. Heather is just about to get her new computer (my old one). She will be happy to get a computer with a reliable ethernet port.
I made scalloped potatoes again. We had left over cheese from the fancy mac and cheese from last weekend. Its that white cheddar cheese from England called Coastal. I had a ham steak to cut up in it and I chopped about 3 ribs of celery to give use some veggie content and maybe some fiber. I forgot to put in some onions so the overall flavor was a little different from the usual casserole.
I could sympathize with my San Diego U C niece that reported that she had a many loads of laundry to do. This week I was totally out of tee shirts and mom was totally out of nightgowns. This very seldom happens as we have plenty of clothes to go with laudry on a 10 day cruise without doing laundry. It all came crashing down and laundry had to be done. So our washer and dryer were working most of yesterday. It could be worse..just a year ago I was off doing laundry with group of people that didn't have access to machines. We were not quite moved back. Laundry takes on a different dimension when you have to use those public dryers. Some of them work okay, most of them are marginal in heat control and value for your quarter.
So here I am with the Sunday night imperative. What are those kidderos going to get from me to do this week?
The afternoon classes are finishing up "What's Up Doc" The morning clases are at the last scenes of this hilarious, fast moving movie. So something has to be ready for them. I have a couple to test in the morning and some write ups to do in the afternoon. I think that most Speech and Language Specialist are continually behind in what they need to do. I am no exception.
: ) Pat
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