Tuesday, August 24, 2010 10:40 p.m.



..... Self-Reliant Man is here!


He's keeping me up and running, even if the fan is broken inside our computer.

It isn't the CPU cooler that is broken.  Rather, it is the power supply fan, so Self-Reliant Man's answer to that was to pull the power supply out of the tower...
... and then place it close by on a little stool, with a cardboard box fitting over it.  The cardboard box allows air to flow freely in the top and out the sides.  Then, into the top of the box we fit a cheap battery operated fan from Mal-Wart.

And so, the computer continues to work, and doesn't die after all.  And then, I am able to go online again and order a new fan, that will cost us about $13 after shipping.  So when it arrives, we can mount it on the power supply, re-install everything, and button up the tower again.

The grand result of all of this, is that I am able to bring you this lovely blog post this evening.  The computer is nine years old.  Do you think we can make another nine?

Where would I be without Self-Reliant Man?

Monday, August 23, 2010 8:36 a.m.




Chips has learned to play Bach's Violin Concerto in A Minor.  Here he is, playing in sync with Isaac Stern in a Youtube video.  Lot's of fun.

Oh, and by the way, my computer may be running a fever, so it looks like we are going to have to replace the fan.  I won't be available on email or anything else for a few days until this happens.  Just so you know...

Saturday, August 21, 2010 8:00 p.m.

The family over at A Slice of America inspired us to make a banner to fit our vacation trip for next month.  We have titled our trip the Glory of God's Creation Tour, and today, during a rainy Saturday afternoon, we worked together on the banner for our trip.  Here it is:


The design was formulated inside the heads of Chips and Sweet Girl, but I helped with its preparation in order to complete the banner within their attention span.  And yes, on the shield is our dark blue van heading up into some really high mountains.  I'd say this is a sure sign that we are ready to go.  What do you think?

..... but every time I see this mess, there is a song in my heart.  Because I know why it is there.  It is the pile of non-perishable grocery items that we are collecting for the Glory of God's Creation Tour!  It is very exciting to realize that our trip is beginning in two weeks.  Rocky Mountains, here we come!

This is a test to see whether I can post to my blog during our vacation, without taking along a computer.  Looks like it worked.  In that case, we will be posting one photo a day (or more) throughout our trip, taken from my camera phone.  We decided not to bring a laptop.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 3:49 p.m.

Continued from the previous post..

When I was six, I first saw the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, The Littlest Angel.  I well remember at that age how its portrayal of heaven impressed me and influenced my spiritual life.  Years later, when I showed that movie to my own kids, my son’s comment was “If heaven is like that, I’m not interested in going there.”  I couldn’t help noting the difference between his experience of the movie and my own as a child.

Some years back, the movie The Passion of the Christ was a big hit in theatres, and the evangelical world was abuzz with excitement about the big screen portraying the suffering and death of our Lord.  In doing this, it presented a particularly vivid depiction of the cruel, brutal, gory and horrible method of execution that Christ endured.  I chose not to go see this movie, but I know many Christians who did see it.  The responses ranged from, “Well, it was the movies, and you know how the movies tend to exaggerate” to “Wow!  This movie really made me appreciate what Jesus did for us,” or “I had no idea how bad crucifixion was.  This really inspires me, now, to be the best Christian I can be.”  You see, the movie was filled with intense imagery that, regardless of how accurate it really was, would definitely make an indelible impression on the mind and heart of the viewer, for better or for worse.  Some people even allowed their children to view this R-rated movie because of its biblical subject matter.  I can only imagine how a child would have reacted to that movie.  I challenge anybody, years after this movie was seen, to say that their brains have been able to shake off the memory of some of those on-screen moments.  Now some would think if a movie can inspire us to be more fervent in our following of Jesus Christ, then more power to it.  But I wonder how helpful this is to our souls in the long term.  For example, just because the movie inspired us to live more fervently for Christ in 2004, when a Christian hits a spiritually dry spell in 2010, what will it take to refresh and inspire him then?

The events and images of our lives and memories often desensitize us to future experiences.  If our brains are stamped with images, be they gory crucifixion moments, or Veggie moments, then how will our brains respond in the future to the written or spoken Word of God?  How deeply will we be touched, or affected, by any written words that differ from, or partially overlap, the images we have already been exposed to?  As we go through our years on earth constantly exposed to the most vivid, intense, and stimulating images that the motion picture industry is able to throw at us, what does this do to our perception of ordinary life over time?  Don’t we just grow increasingly bored with it all?  Do we find we need more stimulation over time to keep us going?

And another thing: Can any video or photographic image (or great work of art) begin to encapsulate the true glory and power of Christ and of our Father in heaven?  Will it not always fall short of His glory by many, many orders of magnitude?  Will lifelong deeply impressed images that are stored in our brains support, or forever hinder, our worship of the Living God?  Needless to say, I never intend to see the Passion movie, nor will I ever recommend it to my children, for this very reason alone.  Because I know that images are potent, and I don’t need any more hindrances to my worship of the True God.

These are at least some of the things I believe that the Lord had in mind when He gave us the second commandment.  But of course, I cannot begin to probe or understand all He is or all He knows.  The truth is that He knows us, He knows how He created us, and He definitely knows what is best for us.  His Word is living and active.  It is sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.. (Hebrews 4:12).  Truly His Holy Spirit will lead us home.  But obedience to God’s Word, and His commandments, is an essential part of our sanctification.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 3:43 p.m.

Continued from the previous post...

I also think that the overuse of image-based entertainment and information delivery can rewire our brains in such a way that we become handicapped.  We become less able to effectively assimilate information through media such as books and audio recordings, and more dependent upon visual and video modes to absorb information.  This may be the reason that so many children have difficulty in learning through reading; rather, they find that they need drawings, photos, and videos in order to grasp information.  More often with time, curriculum providers are targeting this growing group of young learners.  I can’t help thinking that overexposure to stimulating images, such as modern movies and television, have seared our brains in such a way that we are hampered in our ability to concentrate and derive much satisfaction from the written word.  Unfortunately, it has become my personal experience that I am increasingly challenged in my ability to learn from what I read.  I am trying with all my heart to prevent this from occurring with my children.

It is difficult for me to exhaustively explain all of my thought about this in blog format, so I will mention some examples.

First off, Self-Reliant Man and I have been attending our adult Sunday School class at church, where one of our elders is giving a three week teaching series on the Book of Esther.  This elder is blessed with the skill of being able to use spoken and written words to bring this extraordinary narrative alive to the modern listener.  In truth, the story of Esther is an amazing example of God's providence, human sin, foibles, and failings, and extreme acts of courage.  I felt that I was newly introduced to the significance and intensity of this biblical story through his teachings.

However, I also recognized that in doing so, the teacher had to overcome a roadblock, even a handicap, within my brain.  As long as we’ve had children, even before, we have watched and enjoyed various Veggie Tales videos.  Many of these videos are “Veggie” versions of biblical narratives, like the fall of Jericho, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the prophet Daniel, etc.  Of course, we had often seen the video Esther, the Girl Who Became Queen, which is a Veggie Tales adaptation of the book of Esther.  These videos, while being entertaining, also retell important Bible stories in a humorous way that tends to trivialize, and make “cute”, the highlights and messages of the actual events.  Their adaptation of Esther, in particular, does this.  As our Sunday School teacher was talking about Mordecai, I couldn’t shake the cutesy image in my head of Grandpa Grape sitting at the gate of the Persian king’s palace.  Similarly, the movie Jonah and its portrayal of the sin of Ninevah (people slapping one another with fish) makes light of the sin that marked one of ancient history’s most heinous civilizations.  Of course there is a reason for this; after all, these are kids’ videos.  However, since they are animated images, they do make a deep imprint on our brains that tends to distort, and even overwhelm, that of our imaginations when the Bible story is read to us.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 3:36 p.m.

I didn't know that I would write so much about this topic, so as not to overwhelm you all, I am dividing it up into three posts.


Notice that I didn't entitle this post "Image Matters", but rather "Images Matter".  Images are powerful and have an effect on our brains that can easily eclipse that of the written word.  For several years I have noticed this, and this idea has remained in my brain as I have observed and analyzed bits and pieces of information that appear to corroborate my own theory on this.  We have all heard the expression about a picture being worth a thousand words.  Let's extrapolate this to:

If one picture equals one thousand words;

then, potentially, one video equals one thousand pictures, or one million words.

How many words are in the Bible?  How many videos does it take to cover them all?

Growing up Catholic, I never had cause to think much about the Lord's second commandment, but in recent years, now that I am part of a Reformed church, I have given more thought to this commandment.  The commandment is:


God gave us this commandment because He knows what is good for us, and He knows what He is talking about.  He also gave this commandment to His people long before there were such things as cameras, video cameras, cinema, television, the internet, etc.  In fact, at the time of the commandment, the only method the Lord's people would have had to create an image would have been to craft one through sculpture, painting, or architecture.

Now in the past, I would have thought that the second commandment had only to do with the overt worship of statues; i.e. did I worship that crucifix or that saint’s statue or not?  Of course I wouldn’t do something silly like that!  I thought that the commandment strictly meant to forbid such specific acts of worship.  But recently, I came to realize that this commandment has a much broader application.  Firstly, there is potential danger for us in portraying God, or the things of God, using images in a frivolous way.  Secondly, we need to be wise and thoughtful about exposing ourselves (and especially our children) to image-based media in general.  Not that all such images are sinful in themselves, but we need to be thoughtful about the effect that images have on our spiritual lives.

Now what does this have to do with technology?  My point is that images, and image-based forms of information delivery, make imprints upon our brains that can overwhelm, or annihilate, other impressions that our brains have previously received through the written word.  The Lord knows this because He created our brains and He knows how they work, and the effects of various life stimuli upon our brains and our hearts.  And if these effects are apparent in our adult brains and hearts, then the effects are all the more amplified with those of our children.  The Lord reveals His Truths to us through the written word, scripture, as well as through Creation.

Thursday, August 12, 2010 4:50 p.m.
Chips received back his Calvert Fifth Grade test 100, and did well.  The grades were all 1's with a 2+ in geography.  We were very pleased with his scores, but I was mostly happy with one particular composition that Chips had submitted with the test.  The teacher liked it, too.   It is, in my opinion, his best attempt at writing to date.  I have copied it here... what do you think? 


    Chirp!  Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-khhhher!  A bird and a squirrel were the only living things that I could see besides the trees.  I was walking through the woods.  The soft carpet of pine needles crunched as I walked.  It was so peaceful.
    The squirrel started looking at me for nuts.  I took some trail mix out of my pocket.  That cute squirrel looked up at me with shining black eyes.  A nut fell from my hand and then, bird to squirrel, they fought hard for that nut.  The woods were filled with chirping and angry scolding.  All living mammals and birds came out from hiding at the prospect of food.  To settle the commotion, I gave up my idea of delicious trail mix and dumped the whole bag out.  Families of animals, large and small, ran to the pile of nuts and began gobbling it up.  Timid mother deer with wobbling young fawns walked out, and father deer strutted out with dignity.  Little striped chipmunks scampered out from holes, and cardinals, chirping with anger, hopped up and down, around and around, trying to get their share.  The madhouse of animals died away with the nuts being eaten, but a few dried raisins, and some berries remained.   I turned to go, and just when I took my first step away from the berries, I saw a sparkle.  I looked closely, and saw that the sparkling was from a small head from a chickadee that was poking out from the branches of a bush.  It looked up, cocked its head, and hopped into the bush.  I sat on a log to wait.
    A few minutes later, the head appeared again, and the little bird peered around intently.  Its gaze fell upon the berries, and in a moment, it chirped, emerged from the bush, and hopped timidly over to the berries.  It chirped some more, and then more birds came from that bush.  After the berries were gone, the birds flew gracefully away.  I got up, turned, and hurried off toward home.  I needed some food, now that the animals had eaten mine.  The woods returned to peacefulness, and the pine needles crunched some more as I turned away from the scene of a natural wonder.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010 4:42 p.m.


...... when it's too hot to do anything else.

Friday, August 6, 2010 4:44 p.m.

We made an exciting purchase last week, and because of it, there is going to be more music in our home, and less time for me to be online.  But I think it will be a good trade-off.

Until now, our children have only been taking formal violin lessons, but in the back of my mind I felt that they needed some exposure to piano skills in order to lay a better music theory foundation.  All the violin teachers we have had, though well-meaning, have not been especially effective in laying this foundation.  Combine that with the fact that our kids are still officially "Suzuki students", and there has been a dearth of sight reading instruction.  Miss S, our current teacher, has attempted to close that gap with our kids, especially Sweet Girl, who is younger, but even she hasn't offered a systematic approach to teaching sight reading.  In addition, I have noticed that the most effective teachers of the violin are also skilled piano players, at least to the extent they need to be to accompany their students.  So this has been on my mind for awhile.

Recently I began to do some research on digital pianos, since we didn't want to deal with the management and upkeep of an acoustic piano, and we were aware that digital pianos have come a long way over the past twenty-five years in imitating their acoustic predecessors.  We perused the local online used piano marketplace, and quickly saw that most sellers expected to recoup too much of their initial investment on account of the piano being "lightly used", "gently used", "hardly used", or simply never used.  There is simply no market for used pianos these days.  Truth be told, the pianos have advanced so much that a new digital piano at the low end is superior to an older more expensive piano, like a Clavinova.  We tried out a few in the music store, and settled on a Yamaha.  It turns out that some of their models have just been discontinued, and the stores are just getting in the newer (year 2010-2011) models to replace them, so it made sense to try to find a discontinued model.  Rather than purchasing one through Craigslist, a new discontinued model would come with a warranty.

I am happy to say that we did find a Yamaha Arius YDP-140, at a great get- it- off- the- showroom- floor price and although it is far from "top of the line", it is definitely all that we wanted in a digital piano.  It has six voices (we felt that too many voices would simply distract our kids) and its amplifier is not all that powerful but it is still plenty loud for our house.  One of the best features is that it can be silenced simply by plugging in headphones.  This is a big benefit, since my only chance to practice might be after the children have gone to bed.

So I am picking up where I left off several years ago with the Alfred Adult Piano course books, and I am helping the children to be beginning students with the Alfred books for Late Beginners.  Sweet Girl, especially, has had much enthusiasm for sitting under my teaching.  Chips tends to be more impatient with the learning process, especially in the beginning when everything appears so simple to him.

Sweet Girl practices during Chips' violin practice, thanks to headphones.

We are happy to finally have a piano in the house, it definitely feels and sounds like many acoustic pianos I have played, and it is bringing more music into our home for certain! 

Chips looks quite sure of himself in front of the keys.

Thursday, August 5, 2010 4:29 p.m.

Those boxes don't look like much from the outside, but there are a lot of good things inside them.  We don't typically begin a new school year until January.  However, I do order the next year's curricula in July when Calvert is running their discount offers.  This summer's discount was particularly good for us, since for the first time we were able to order a re-use package for our youngest, Sweet Girl.  I think we ended up saving about $330 or so this time around.  The boxes seemed to arrive here only two days after I ordered them.  In other words, we weren't even expecting them yet, and when we returned from errands one day, UPS had come and there they were.

It is always an exciting time when our Calvert boxes arrive, even if we won't use the contents for awhile.  Sweet Girl will be in third grade come 2011.  We really enjoyed Calvert's third grade when Chips completed it, and since then they have actually added a new social studies textbook, entitled Communities.  So the course will not be exactly the same; there will be something fresh and new for us this second time around.  I remember well how Chips enjoyed reading Smiling Hill Farm toward the end of the third grade year.  What a sweet book.

This is my first chance to see the sixth grade package that Chips will be using next winter.  It is one thing seeing it in the catalog, but quite another to actually open and see the contents of the books.  In short, I am blown away by sixth grade!  I don't know if this is because I am amazed that my child has become this "big" already, or because I can't believe how much they pack into their sixth grade course.  Surely not all kids cover this much material in sixth grade??? !!! ???  I know I didn't.  Whatever, it is obvious that he will be learning a ton!  First of all, I cannot believe the amount of social studies that will be covered: two very substantial texts, one for ancient world history, and the other for eastern hemisphere geography.  I never remember learning geography to this level of detail, certainly not eastern hemisphere, and I never had a serious ancient history course until high school.  Secondly, I am amazed by the language arts book.  This will be a serious writing and grammar course for sure.  Finally, the literary selections are truly impressive to me.  The very first reading book will be the unabridged Swiss Family Robinson (which we recently completed as a family read aloud, so I am fully aware of the complexity of its language), then Anne of Green Gables, another substantial work of literature. Next up, Theras and His Town, which I suppose will mesh with the history course, then King Arthur and His Knights (which I never read) so this will be a first for me for sure.  Coming after this is a fun book that I did read as a youngster, The Phantom Tollbooth.  There are also several poetry collections, including Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost anthologies.  There is more that I could say about the sixth grade course, but you get the idea.  I know it will be a productive year!

Having said this, I am mindful of our time schedule and how I will be able to fit it all in. The suggested Calvert schedule says that I should be able to get lessons for both children accomplished between the hours of 9 a.m. and 2 p.m., give or take.  We do typically start at 9:00 anyway (I can't manage to make it happen earlier) but we have not been able to go more swiftly than the time Calvert suggests because my kids are so challenged by the material.  So I fully expect to need until 2:00 - 2:30 each day.

For those of you readers who don't homeschool, yes, the hours between 9 and 3 are full of work, but then there is no homework to worry about, and no work to do on the weekends!  Now that alone is worth a million bucks.

I know I posted a month or so back about my scheduling approach to teaching two children with Calvert, especially since I do consider Calvert rather teacher/parent intensive (to do it well).  Well, I have had to change our approach recently to keep things efficient, and I hope to post more about that shortly.  For now, we carry on through the summer.... Chips on lesson 106 and Sweet Girl on lesson 117.  Might as well.  It is truly hot, hot, HOT outside!

... and I can hardly wait!


Wednesday, August 4, 2010 9:11 p.m.

I see I have a new reader from Rapid City, and another reader from Nebraska,  so this encourages me to report on our upcoming camping vacation trip out west.  I mentioned this several months ago, and the entire idea seemed very surreal at the time, but as it gets closer, I am beginning to believe that it is actually going to happen!

But, not in a covered wagon.  Rather, in our homemade Sprinter van conversion! 

We are planning our departure in early September, traveling and camping all the way in our van.  A couple of years ago, Self-Reliant Man designed a rough conversion of our Freightliner / Mercedes Benz Sprinter van to enable us to camp inside it, and I must say it is very comfortable.  It sleeps all four of us comfortably, and over the time we have improved upon the original design by creating a raised sleeper / storage unit for Sweet Girl (who actually slept on the van floor in the earlier days).  You can read more about our conversion in this post from September 2008.

Anyway, we are getting pretty excited about this trip.  I have to say that while my mind has been all over the place, Self-Reliant Man has been extremely focused on preparing for a smooth trip in all the details.  Meanwhile, I have made all the campground reservations and printed out various maps and documents from the Web about the places we are going to see.  And now, here is the list of the places we are going to see!

Day 1: Drive north to Forsyth, Georgia and camp.
 
Day 2: Drive to Mammoth Cave area and camp (in Kentucky).

 Day 3: Visit Mammoth Cave and relax some.
 
Day 4: Drive on to Montgomery City, Missouri, and camp.


Day 5: Drive on to Onawa, Iowa, and camp.

 Day 6: Drive on to Badlands National Park area and camp (in South Dakota)

Day 7: Visit Badlands and drive to Rapid City and camp.

Day 8: Visit Black Hills, Needles Pkwy, Iron Mountain Rd, Crazy Horse Monument, Mt Rushmore and then drive to Devils Tower area and camp.

 Day 9: Visit Devils Tower and then drive on to Billings, Montana and camp.

Day 10: Drive Beartooth Hghwy to Yellowstone National Park northeast entrance.  Visit park and drive on to West Yellowstone and camp.

Days 11 - 14: visit Yellowstone National Park.

Day 15: depart Yellowstone, drive to Grand Tetons National Park, visit and stay in Dubois, Wyoming.

Day 16: Drive on to Cheyenne, Wyoming and camp.

Day 17: Drive on to Estes Park, Colorado.  Visit Rocky Mountain National Park and camp.

Day 18: Visit Rocky Mountain National Park.

Day 19: Depart Rocky Mountain and drive on to Oakley, Kansas and camp.

Day 20: Drive on to Kansas City, Missouri and camp.

Day 21: Drive on and visit St. Louis Gateway Arch.  Drive on to Marion, Illinois and camp.

Day 22: Drive on to Chattanooga, Tennessee and camp.

Day 23: Drive on to White Springs, Florida and camp.

Day 24:Drive home.

Our own peaceful pasture.

Whew!  What an itinerary.  Self-Reliant Man has been planning all the details for vehicle maintenance, meal ideas, car games for the children, establishing camp set up and tear down duties for everyone, and creating a routine within the trip.  I have been in charge of creating a three ring reference binder for the entire trip and making all the reservations.  In addition, I have documented all the Cracker Barrel restaurants that we will pass along the way.  There are hardly any after we get past Missouri!  We also have several simple camp meals planned for breakfast and supper.  Only weeks left, and we are ready to hit the road!!  Hooray!

p.s. Guess I don't need to pack our camera.  We've already got photos of every place, right?

p.p.s. We are going to call it the Glory of God's Creation Tour, and the children are documenting everything for their homeschool end of year oral presentation project.