Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
I received an e-mail from my sister; my nephew will be at a St. Louis Cardinals game on Monday. He along with a ton of other young men and women. At the game he will be enlisted into the United States Navy.
Ricky recently was graduated from college. He has his eyes set on the SEALs. He has been preparing for this for some time. His actual date was for November, but he’s been eager to get on with it.
You have one proud uncle here in New Jersey. It is extremely noble to defend a country’s freedom. We need good people for the job. The United States has a good one coming.
Posted in Family | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 25th, 2008
LCGC
39.94625 -75.13975
39.944117 -75.132583
This hunt has been more than a year in the making. In June 2007 we headed to Philly for a day of caching. The King Tut series was in full action then and I went up there to tour the city and pick up those caches. One of the caches in the series was in Camden, NJ. The easy way would have been to have driven to it either on the way up or the way back, but the fun way was to take the ferry.
The RiverLink ferry connects Philadelphia and Camden. We boarded at Penns Landing and got off at the Waterfront in Camden. As this is primarily a sight-seeing vessel, a circuitous path was taken that took us close to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The ferry does run shuttles for the concerts held at the amphitheater too.
The caching team that day was Beetle, flowers22, Grammy, and myself. We had a blast and Beetle was quite the ham dancing about on deck of Freedom.
I uploaded the track log to EveryTrail. It can be downloaded as a GPX.
Anyhow, when I arrived home and began preparing to log this, I noted I had no photograph of me with my GPS. D’oh! Each time I have gone to Philly since has not afforded me the opportunity to stop by Penns Landing until the other day. I snapped a couple shots of me and Freedom, but obviously I was on land at that point. Mike is very considerate and told me to log this as is. flowers22 also sent me a photograph of her GPS from that same ferry ride. Thanks!
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Posted in Family, GPS Games, New Jersey, TerraCaching | 2 Comments »
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
LCUD
According to the list of holidays you linked to, today is Hand Shake Day. Well, we were more than happy to celebrate this day today.
Both Gert and I practiced shaking hands with my one-year-old boy. He was happy to oblige. Even my daughter got into the act. After all the work shaking hands, we blew noise makers and had pie. No holiday would be complete without a lemon meringue pie, now would it?
Hand Shake Day was a special day at our house today. Thank you for inspiring us on. It would be an honor to shake your hand!
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Posted in Family, GPS Games, TerraCaching | No Comments »
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
On the day Timothy McVeigh sought attention, I met Queen Goddess ‘Nado the Great. At midnight tonight, she passed away.
I was with her in the parking lot of the vet. It is very sad. Our family will miss the kitty.
Posted in Family | 2 Comments »
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
No Child Left Behind, the federal legislation that spends billions of our tax dollars is predicated upon the existence of an education gap. The mandates in the law are to close that gap . . . or else.
But ask any teacher and he will surely talk to you about the importance of the student’s family in his educational success. While it is not news, the interaction between parents and their children is one of the greatest predictors to student success. Many formulate this in how much a child is read to at home. Yes, reading to children is important. But so is talking to children. It seems common sense, I know, but my adulthood has been a lesson in that common sense is not as common as one might think.
It is easy to take a hard traditionalistic line on such matters. If parents don’t/won’t care for their children, why should I as a taxpayer be responsible? I am not hear to dispel that line of thought.
But I will relate an observation I made on Wednesday morning . . .
I dropped Beetle off at her school. I walked her into her classroom, spoke briefly with her teachers, leaned over and encourage my little girl to have a good day, and then kissed her. I turned to leave. Beetle rushed toward me and asked for a hug. I picked her up high, kissed her, and told her I loved her.
While all this was going on, one of her classmates looked on. I have learned about this girl previously. She does not come from a home like ours. Her parents did not come on the field trip last week. This little girl stood right behind Beetle and looked at us longingly.
I don’t know what was going on in her head, but it is easy to project that she had not seen a parent take this kind of interest in a child recently. That is easy for me to do for I see such children about six years later. The gap is present in fourth grade; it begins long before that.
Posted in Education, Family | No Comments »
