Kent has been doing great at learning his letters. One of the cool tools that we have found is to use letters that you can color. Kent loves his new scissors that he got for Christmas so he cuts the letters out when he finishes coloring them. Then, we arrange the letters in different combinations and practice sounding them out.
Here is where I found all of the letters:
In going through my email, I found this link to Awana’s website. I enjoy both the Awana clubs and VeggieTales. We have watched most of VeggieTales movies, and I found Phil Vischer’s book Me, Myself, and Bob very interesting, which led me to wonder what Jelly Telly was all about.
On the other side, I have gotten into the Awana clubs at church. The organization is impressive in many ways: quality materials, contagious vision, etc. At the beginning of last year, I saw the Awana at Home program for the first time. Ever since then, I have been
I ran across this link the other day:
If you need a song, try looking here!
What I think would be cool is to use this with software like Lyricue or something like that, but that research is for another day.
On Veteran’s Day, this song came on the radio on the way to work. I did a quick Google Search and I found it here.
Or, you can just listen to it here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QklqKkegbfA]
I did a little poking around on the author’s web site, and it looked pretty interesting. He has a series called Bathroom Sessions.
While reading The AppsLab, I came across this article:
The Wall Street Journal: Does the Internet Make You Smarter?
I agree with Jake in that this was an interesting article. One of the other patterns that I saw in Clay Shirky’s examples is that the technology breaks monopolies. The printing press helped break the monopoly in the church world. Now, we have the freedom to choose the church or Denomination that we think is correct. We are not longer to restricted to only the ideas of the Catholic church.
The same is true with telephone service. When I was younger, we had only one option. For us, it was Verizon. When they would bill us for the first half of the month ahead of time and make adjustments for the next month, we had to put up with it. Then, as cellphones became more mainstream, people began to use them instead of their main telephone number at home. Next, IP phone services such as Vonage and Skype came into play. Now, we have a number of options. First, I can either choose Verizon or Brighthouse and include phone service with our Internet or Cable service. Or, I can simply use my cell phone all the time. Or, I could sign up for Internet service only and use one of the IP services to call over the Internet.
I like what Clay said about the training part. We had to train our children to read and take advantage of the books. The same is true with the Internet, telephone service, or any technology. We need to train our children to use these tools correctly. I believe the key is family. Schools, churches, and organizations can take some that training task, but the family is the most effective. We should do all we can to support families and make them effective in providing that training.
To me, the fun part is seeing what all that innovation brings. Thinking back on my grandparents’ lifetimes and the changes in technology they must have seen is amazing. I have already seen a good number of changes in my lifetime, and I am excited to see more. Maybe I will even get the opportunity to influence some of those changes.
On Moody Radio this week, they did an interview about iMom’s Operation Summer. I browsed their site quickly, and it looked like it had a lot of great resources. We signed up for the Operation Summer emails so we’ll see how it is.
Each year, it is always fun to see all of the creative jokes on the Internet. This year was fun as always. My day started off with doing searches on the Topeka search engine!
Here are some of my favorite from the past and present:
Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing Italians harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.
Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased theLiberty Bell to “reduce the country’s debt” and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” When asked about the sale, White House press secretaryMike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
from Engadget — the time traveller
A time-traveling mystery man has this morning been arrested by Swiss police. Early reports indicate he had returned from the future in order to sabotage the Large Hadron Collider, prevent the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, and avert a future world he describes as “a communist chocolate hellhole.”
from Engadget — iPhone converter
An iPhone-to-iPad converter has been unveiled, with a touchscreen magnifying glass allowing you to enjoy a bona fide jumbo iPhone experience without shelling out unnecessary cash.
from Engadget — TubTop laptop
CTRL-ALT … PUMP!
The TubeTop features instant inflation both quickly and safely with just a few key strokes. Simply press and hold the CTRL and ALT keys and then type in P-U-M-P. The integrated inner tube quickly fills with air and you’ll be surfing in no time. The best part? You won’t even need an actual pump!
Here are some links about some of the other ones that I came across:
A co-worker sent me an email with new words to the song Jesus Loves Me. When I looked them up online, I had no idea so many variations existed. I like this verse:
Jesus loves me, this I know,
Though my hair is white as snow.
Though my sight is growing dim,
Still He bids me trust in him.
You can read more here:
This article caught my attention, particularly because one of my co-workers had flown a plane like this in Alaska. He didn’t have this kind of trouble though!
Times Live: Grizzly bear eats aeroplane in Alaska
Neatorama: Bear Tore Into Your Airplane? Duct Tape to the Rescue!
Today, I saw a couple of articles on electric vehicles. These have always fascinated me; maybe one day, it will make sense for me to own one!
Engadget: Mavizen’s electric bike hits 130 MPH, ships with Linux and WiFi
The idea of any vehicle with Linux sound cool to me! I wonder if it starts automatically as I saw on this other car? The $41,000 price tag kind of limits my interest too much. I don’t see that in my driveway any time soon.
Engadget: Tesla pulls in $465 million government loan to build Model S electric sedan
The Tesla vehicles have been interesting for a long time. This Model S looks like it is closer to reality. Even if I can’t afford it, I wonder if it will shake up the market and bring new innovative features to other vehicles trying to compete.
Oh well. Maybe one day, but now, it is time to hop in my environment unfriendly vehicle and head home!
Digital Eagle 