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· By Aunt Matilda at 15:31 on 28 Feb about School violinence
· By Deborah at 17:06 on 24 Feb about Writing as expected
· By Keith's Dad at 17:58 on 21 Feb about Writing as expected
· By Dad at 20:51 on 20 Feb about Quotidian Notes
· By Dad at 20:20 on 20 Feb about Quotidian Notes
· By Dad at 20:24 on 17 Feb about Snug-bert
· By Karen at 15:52 on 14 Feb about Snug-bert
· By Dad at 21:15 on 08 Feb about Family ski
· By Mom at 09:36 on 08 Feb about Family ski
· By Karen at 11:23 on 04 Feb about The Big Four
· By Dad at 12:22 on 26 Jan about Beavering
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Movable Type 3.34
Matters
One thing we have had problems with is “finger buddies”. Corwin or Charles will start with a finger buddy and the other will respond in kind. It escalates from there with laser cannons and other advanced weaponry. Alice tends to join in at that point which makes the whole “eating” part of dinner a lower priority. We have tried banning the finger buddies but that’s been only partly successful. Not infrequently I have to invite Knuckle Evil to join us to help keep the finger buddiness down to levels that permit continued consumption.
The other night at dinner we ended up on a discussion of selling off obstreperous children. Charles immediately began considering this, announce that he wanted $300K for Alice. I noted that given Alice’s age, $5K was a more reasonable. Charles said that wasn’t worth it, not enough profit for him. Mom unfortunately noted that babies in the 6 to 12 month range got the best prices, to which Charles replied “Mom! Make some more babies so I can sell them!”. Alice objected to selling any Mom produced babies and discoursed on naming and gender. I thought about all of the junk email I am getting concerning Russian mail order brides but declined to mention this as an option for Charles with regard to Corwin. I wonder if, reading this years later, Charles will curse me to not getting him started on the road to riches.
P.S. At least we know Charles places some value on his sister.
Mom’s spent the last week or so getting ready for a big junk garage sale to benefit the group that sponsors Charles’ string band. They filled most of the church annex with stuff. Mom said the sale regulars invaded at 8 AM when it opened and started grabbing things. According to Mom they didn’t even much look at what they were buying, just grabbing anything that looked potentially valuable. Mom’s main goal was to not get in between them and merchandise.
They sold a lot of stuff, even a couple of old TVs which I thought you couldn’t give away. Mom had to buy some thing the for the kids, Charles of course getting another stuffed cetecean (Beluga whale, I think) because he’s short on those.
Last week was busy for me. It was a week-o-music. I had four different music concerts and contests. I had the solo-ensemble contest, the strings concert, the concert orchestra concert, and the concert orchestra contest.
I had to practice my solo-ensemble piece for a couple weeks, and I had to practice even harder with my accompanist. I got to practice with her four times. I was supposed to only practice with her three times, but I got an extra practice because my piece was so hard. The concert was in Bloomington. My mom drove me there along with my accompanist. We got there around noon and had lunch. I had to play my song right after lunch. After I played, I had to wait till two because we had to take my accompanist home. My song got a one.
Next, I had a string festival. This was for my school group. There were also a group of fifth graders, a high school orchestra, a group of sixth graders, and a chamber orchestra group. My group played Allegro in D and Fantasia Espanola. The concert was so big, it had to be held in the gym. The concert lasted till around 8:30.
A few days later, I had a concert orchestra concert. We played Shaker Variants, Irish Party in Third Class, and Russian Sailor’s Dance. There was also concert band and 8th grade chorus. The concert lasted till around eight. There was also a contest on friday. It was for concert orchestra. Our group only played for a little, and since I didn’t have a book, and couldn’t eat because my teeth hurt like heck, I was bored.
That was my week-o-music, and now I get to look forwaard to a week-o-ISATs. Yay?
Alice decides to authorize the presence of people wearing glasses in the basement.
Charles and I went to Cub Scouts this evening and the den mother’s older (5th grade) daughter Chelsea was there as usual. She was in a feisty mood and started messing with Charles as things were breaking up. I tried to hurry things along by going out to the car but it still took Charles about 5 minutes or so to get free. He commented when he arrived that “Chelsea hates me”. I countered with the observation that girls don’t touch people they don’t like. “She wouldn’t spend five minutes grabbing you if she didn’t like you, she’d just ignore you”. This did not cheer up Charles.
Yesterday the Bowdacious String Band (featuring Charles!) played at a retirement home as a public outreach. Charles went grumpily along but Mom says he actively played while the band was performing.
Tonight, Corwin had another concert this evening at the middle school. It was a large combined string concert with groups from 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th and 8th^ grade (featuring Corwin!) and two high school groups. I felt somewhat sorry for the kids, having to sit around most of the time while other groups played. Corwin did well, as best as I could see and hear. I had Charles and Alice with me and they spent the time drawing in books. I tried to get Charles interested while a cello solo was being performed but was most unsuccessful.
It’s just the busy season.
The last few weeks have been quite a trial for Charles, banished back to a more primitive age.
It all started with Mom’s efforts in advanced audio visual technology which caused me to think about optimal resource allocation in our local computation matrix. It seemed to me that the computer attached to the TV was rather over powered and would do better as a computer for one of the boys.
At the same time Mom had been doing her work I had been restructuring my home office, a tale I need to write up at some point, but the relevant result was that I demoted one of my computers to replace Alice’s old computer, which was Corwin’s old computer, so it was somethign of a relic. With Alice upgraded to semi-modernity it just made sense to start bringing the boys forward on the technology curve. Neither, however, seemed enthused at the prospect so I picked Charles as the victim beneficiary.
Unfortunately, Charles’ old computer proved resistant to being upgraded to something useful for being a media server. It was weeks before I finally got it to be sufficiently stable, during which time Charles was basically reduced to experience reality or using Alice’s computer. He did not bear this indignity well.
Eventually I was able to move Charles’ old box (an SN21G5) upstairs as the media box (named “VIDIOT”) and upgrade the previous media box (an SH78H7) and put it downstairs for Charles with the name “SPARKTOPOLIS” today. Charles was, well, not exactly happy, but willing to un-grump a bit. I tried to make it up to him by
- Setting his logon image to a picture of Dogbert on SPARKTOPOLIS, VIDIOT, and PONY (Alice’s SX38P2 computer).
- Loading Spore on VIDIOT so he could play it on the big screen.
- Pointing out that Corwin now had the slowest computer of anyone in the family.
The one long term negative is that I don’t Corwin will ever let me upgrade his computer, although Mom thinks that is a feature.
Corwin and Mom went off today to the IMEA auditions where Corwin was to play a violin solo with a piano accompaniment. Corwin has been struggling with this piece for quite a while and apparently the piano part is very challenging even for a professional accompanist. She had to send over a tape to play for Corwin so he could practice with the piano as Mom didn’t have the hours needed to play the actual piece. The accompanist had to loan us her tape player as well because we gave away our nice cassette tape player 5 or 6 years ago and this is the first time since then we could have used it.
I stayed home with Charles and Alice and was told afterwards that it went well, with Corwin getting a first rank (an absolute, not relative, award).
This evening we went to the annual Cub Scout Blue & Gold dinner. Charles has now advanced to be a Webelos which means he’s old enough to be sent out camping without other family members. Mom is determined to make him give it a try this summer. I know we did that with Corwin but Charles seems so much younger, although perhaps his budding cynicism will help.
Other than that it was a good evening. There was a lock in afterwards but Charles was very not interested. Now I just have to get working on his Pinewood Derby car.
Today we had parent / teacher conferences for Alice and Charles. At the middle school they have so many kids that students who aren’t having problems are discouraged from having conferences. Both Alice and Charles are doing well, although we need to work on Alice’s reading skills a bit more. Charles’ teacher thinks Charles is doing fine although we noted that Charles had missed some questions on one of his math quizzes. I told Charles that had better not happen again. We discussed Charles’ use of sarcasm which the teacher gets, noting that he can tell if something was written by Charles just by the authorial voice. Social Charles is doing OK, apparently stunning the other boys in the class during kickball with his superior kicking power. It seems that they expected much less from someone as normally geeky as Charles. I have to assume that none of them play on the soccer teams or it wouldn’t have been a surprise.
Charles is already learning to fake sincerity. I suspect his teacher realizes that Charles is messing with him. I asked Charles about it and he just smiled his “I am being clever” smile.
I wish that there was no war, no guns, and that everyone is safe. There will not be any assassinations or dead. I wish that everyone is happy and healthy and enough money. I wish that everyone will be eco friendly, no fossil fuels and litter. I wish that we won’t kill any animals. And the world won’t be a wasteland. I wish school was only 5 seconds long. I wish earth wasn’t the only habbital [sic] planet.