Category: LiveJournal

Hooray for Miami County Foundation!

The Miami County Foundation (MCF) is a local (to me) agency which does everything it can to donate money/scholarships to nonprofits/students. Their nonprofit grants are awarded twice a year with grant deadlines in August and February. I had previously written (and received) two grants from them in the past.

Sadly, the last time I had received a grant, they didn’t have much money to award, so they asked if I’d be able to use even just a portion of what I requested. I said sure! I had written a grant to buy 12 electronic balances for the chemistry lab. They were able to give me funds to buy 2. Believe me, it helped. And when we kitted up the new laboratory a year later, I got 4 more electronic balances, which works rather well for us.

Well, a couple of days before the grant applications were due this time around, MCF informed us that they had had a windfall and would be able to really help nonprofits this time around. So I scurried to write up another proposal, this time for 4 new Vernier LabQuests and some probeware to go with them and to suppliment my existing equipment. Yesterday I got the good news – I got the grant (and all of it this time around)! I had the requisition written and submitted within half an hour of receiving the e-mail. 🙂

The acceptance ceremony will be in November and our superintendent wants those of us who received a grant (we had 4 groups in the school who did, including new band uniforms for the marching band – oooooh!) and I’ll be happy to attend. (And that’s saying something, knowing how much I dislike having a sub in my room. Heh.)

So THANK YOU to Miami County Foundation for looking after the nonprofits in your county! And thank you for supporting chemistry and physics education!

Quicky end of month post

Can I get this posted before midnight? Let’s try!

Today the parental units and I went to the Tipp City Mum Festival. Lots of stalls selling things, mostly autumn-themed items. Several stalls with mums and pumpkins too. And of course, the most important stalls, the food vendors!

Dad and I each got gyros (mine lamb, his chicken), mom got a corn dog, and we split an order of spiral fried potatoes (basically, home made potato chips). Good eats. Then for dessert, the folks got a peach cobbler a la mode which was tasty, and I got the deep fried sampler: cheesecake bites, Nutterbutters, and Oreos. Almost too sweet for me (almost). Thankfully, the folks ate almost half of the sampler.

This evening was cards at Aunt Becky’s – probably the last time we’ll play cards at her house as she’ll be moving to a two bedroom apartment in two weeks. And we’ll probably play cards there (as she’s moving into the same complex as another of our regular card players). I came in second during the first game, and came in first during the second – woo!

Oh, and I think Sophie Aldred spoiled tonight’s Doctor Who episode for me. Reading Twitter before you’ve watched the episode can be a bad idea…

Oooh – I think I made the time – woo!

It’s Autumn!

Ah, the Autumnal Equinox! And the promise of autumnal weather (which we’ve been having) and autumnal sights (trees are looking like the trees in model train sets) and autumnal smells (love the smell of decaying leaves). 🙂

Our Grand Adventure today was for the folks and I to go to the Aullwood Apple Festival. Unlike the Troy Strawberry Festival, the featured fruit wasn’t present in most of the booths, which was a bit of a surprise. But the various booths had interesting items and lots of food choices.

Dad and I decided to try the “fish boats” that one tent was selling. And while we waited for our food, mom held up the tent for the folks making our lunch – it was so blustery the tent kept threatening to fall over. The fish was excellent. Mom opted to try the lamb chili that another place was selling – that was tasty too. I also had a lemon shake-up, which was mighty tasty. And just because I could, I had the “hot waffle ice cream sandwich” which is just as described. Interesting.

As we were finishing our lunch, big black storm clouds crept over the festival, so we (and half of the folks there) headed to the inside bits. Thankfully, the clouds blew over without raining, so we returned outside to share an apple dumpling a la mode before heading back.

The rest of my day was spent cleaning house and listening to the latest Big Finish Sylv audio, Gods and Monsters. And halfway through that story, I got to watch the latest TV episode, “The Power of Three.” Quite enjoyable. I’m gonna miss the Ponds!

Tomorrow is laundry day. And hopefully I get a nice walk in to enjoy our lovely weather.

Last Weekend of Summer

The weather feels like autumn (finally into the mid-70s (°F) during the day) and the trees are just starting to turn, but it isn’t actually autumn until late next week. So this is our last weekend of summer for 2012. Woo!

Festival season is ramping up with the Lake Festival tonight (and the rest of the weekend). The folks and I met up at their cottage, then drove separately to the Lake Festival since we were all bringing mums home (and they had the truck which doesn’t really seat 3 people). No white mums this year, so I bought yellow mums. Mom bought some red mums and some yellow mums.

Once we had our mums purchased and returned to our vehicles, we headed to the food area. I had a brat with kraut, Sierra Mist Natural, brownie, and fries (which I split with the folks). Then I succumbed to the fried food vendors (as if the fries weren’t enough) and got a funnel cake. The folks helped a bit with that too, but I still wound up eating most of it. It was very yummy.

We finished off the Festival by walking around the vendor tents. We didn’t really find anything else to buy (except mom bought some pussy willows, which made her easier to spot in a crowd) and were back in our vehicles before it had gotten too dark.

Tomorrow is Taste of Troy, so I’ll be heading to the folks’ place in the morning. We’ll start with the farmer’s markets, then eat our way through that festival. Yum! Sunday I hope to stay home and nurse the cold I’ve developed (though I will need to get into the school at some point this weekend to get caught up on work. Whoops!)

Hope y’all have a nice final week of summer (or for you antipodeans, a nice final week of winter)!

Stress-Free? Could it be?

Perhaps I’m doing something wrong this school year (or perhaps I’m finally doing it right), but these first two weeks of school have been, to the best of my memory, the most stress-free first two weeks I’ve ever had. There’s a small part of me waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the larger part of me has decided that the shoe is a myth. 😉

Apart from my usual “ugh, it’s morning, why doesn’t it go away until after noon!” morning routine, I’m quite pleased to be up & off to teach. I’m hoping the students are having at least half as much fun as I am. Tests/quizzes next week, so that will probably let me know if I’m actually teaching them anything. Heh.

Last weekend was a pleasant Labor Day weekend with a wedding reception & card gaming (different venues to each other) on Saturday, Heritage Festival on Sunday, and just mooching about & relaxing on Monday.

We were at the Heritage Festival for longer than we’ve been in years because we sat & enjoyed the music. Blue Celtic Grass played for awhile (though only half of the guys were from that band – they had 3 others playing with them from another band whose name I don’t recall). The bluegrass got us started, then we munched on foodstuff (with very few folks in line – great for us, not as great for the vendors). I had, throughout the time there, French fries, corn on the cob, strawberry lemon shake-up, bite of sirloin sammich, chicken noodles, and deep fried peaches. I also bought my obligatory saltwater taffy (mostly vanilla with a few mint too) and giant bag o’ kettle corn.

After we’d eaten (but before we bought the kettle corn), we sat and watched Dulahan perform. We’d seen them for the first time this summer at one of the Troy Main Street concerts. It was the best concert this summer, IMO. I immediately purchased five of their albums. Heh. So it was great to hear them live again. They were as fun as they’d been in Troy.

This weekend’s plans are a bit up in the air, though I have decided the theme is “local food.” I had pizza from Indian’s Pizza tonight. Tomorrow morning is pancakes & snausage (& eggs) at the UCC just 2 blocks away. And Sunday, the firehouse is selling barbecue chicken (the folks are coming to join me for that). Yum!

The End of Summer

I know that summer doesn’t really end until September something-or-other, but Labor Day (coming on Monday) is the symbolic end of summer in our neck of the woods. So here we are at the end of summer.

We’ve now been in school a week (well, a 4 day week for the students) and I think it was a good week. Thanks to some diligent work by our new guidance counselor, most of the kids eligible to take the chemistry course for college credit are doing so. (She was still chasing kids and their parents down today – applications had to be faxed by noon.)

This is the start of my 20th year of teaching and the start of my 14th year at Newton. Woo! And I feel like this might be the most stress-free starting week in memory. (Well, I do have a crappy memory, and I know last year had mucho stress with the new chemistry curriculum.) So perhaps I’m getting the hang of this teaching lark!

I was working late today, but I really wanted to get a number of things done before the weekend so I can just enjoy the 3 days without thinking of school. And then the folks and I headed off to Troy Streets Alive to check out the Downtown. We sampled bourbon chicken from LeDoux, looked at the wares of the various artists stationed around the square, bought some olive oil from Olive Oasis, and then headed off to Kuzzinz, a bar & grill I’d not been to before. In honor of my successful first week, I had a woo woo with supper and a brownie sundae for dessert. Very yummy!

This weekend is one of my favorite festivals – the Heritage Festival in Piqua. Dunno when we’ll go other than “not tomorrow.” We’ve got a wedding reception to go to tomorrow. (The wedding was held in another state, so they’re holding a second reception here for family that couldn’t get to it.) That works for me. Wedding receptions are usually much more interesting than weddings. 🙂

And so it begins (again)…

Well, only 1 more teacher work day before the kids join us at school (their first day is Tuesday). We had Open House last night and I had a few visitors (par for the course). And I think I may be ready for school!

Just about every time I’d think I was there, I’d remember something else, but when I left today, I realized that the only thing I need to do yet is post the first week’s schedule on the white board. The stuff will clean easier if I don’t leave it up more than a week, which is why I didn’t put it up today.

Anyhoo, lesson plans are done and uploaded to my web page, notes are prepared and uploaded to my web page, first day paperwork is printed, administrative paperwork for 1st period is laid out on the desks with 1st period’s books.

Here’s hoping this well-prepared start will bode well for the rest of the year!

Accessorize Me!

You knew you hadn’t heard the last from me on my new smartphone. Nope, today I want to share with you all of the nifty accessories that I’ve picked up (ie purchased) for my phone.

One of the first things I bought was a stylus, since my old phone had one. But I’ve discovered since then that I do pretty well without it. I do use it if I have to type a lot. And it’s nifty cuz it’s purple!

Along with that was a car charger for the phone. It was cheap ($8) and simple – basically a USB charging knob with the appropriate USB cable (microUSB).

In addition to a couple more spare USB cables (since all of my other devices use the miniUSB), I ordered a 32GB microSD card to hold much of my music collection. It’s not quite large enough for the entire collection, but I’ve been reading about people having success with 64GB cards and will likely upgrade to that when the price is right. My music currently takes up 40GB (not including Xmas or any of my audio stories).

I also ordered a charging dock for by my PC. Turns out I probably wouldn’t have needed it, cuz I then discovered a nifty Android friendly speaker dock: the Philips AS351 Fideolio Android Speaker. It uses Bluetooth to accept the signal from the phone. It’s like magic.

So now, my phone is my alarm clock for bed. I plug it in at night. Run the Lightning Bug app for my ambient sounds (I bought the Forest package). And in the morning, it will wake me by playing a random song from my collection. And it’s charged!

Since I’ve taken to using MapMyRide (and MapMyWalk) for tracking my bike rides (and walks), I needed a phone dock for my new bike. My bike shop had one available and we tested to see that the phone fit. It did, so I bought it (and later discovered I could have gotten it for a LOT less. Ah well, I’m glad to support a local business.) Mom and I used it today when we rode 7.61 miles (we found out how to get onto the bike path from her place).

Then today while I was driving home (listening to MP3 CDs skipping), I thought “Surely someone’s come up with an FM receiver thingy that works with Bluetooth!” A bit of searching online and sure enough, those are made. So I’ve ordered this nifty little device for my car.

What’s best about this device is that, if it works, I won’t have to wait around for a 128GB iPod Touch to be developed. I mostly wanted the Touch so that I’d have a Harddrive-less device to play in car. But now that I can use my phone to play music in my car, I can get the 160GB iPod Classic for using in my house. (46GB of music incl. Christmas stuff, and 50GB of audio stories – eeep! That’s a lot of Sylv, though it’s not ALL Sylv (just mostly!))

BTW, back to the bike riding. I’m really glad I had the opportunity to ride Amy’s bike when I was visiting her recently. Because it REALLY helps me to appreciate my new bike. Man, I love riding it. Mom is loving her new bike too. We’re going riding again tomorrow. I just wish the helmet that I ordered for mom was in already!

Summer Winds Down

I have had a fabulous summer. Many days of sitting & reading with my kitties (Lucy’s on the chair with me right now, in fact). Time spent riding my new bike. Walking in the woods. Vacations to Chicago and Minneapolis. Plenty of family time with the folks.

Sadly, summer is now winding down. Our first day is next Thursday and the kids’ first day is two weeks from yesterday (on Grandma’s birthday). I’ve been popping into the school getting things ready, though not in earnest yet. And today I went to a meeting to start my training as a Mentor.

This will be the start of my 20th year teaching and this year I shall be a mentor to a new teacher – woo! I hope I will be a good mentor. I’ve met the new teacher and already answered some of her questions. I think she’ll be a good teacher and I hope she has a great year at Newton!

Anyhoo, I’ve got more smartphone bragging to do in a future post, including the nifty accessories I’ve gotten for it. (Going to try out a case when it finally arrives, possibly Saturday.)

Oh, and in a side note (only related because the other item in the package with the case will be the final Sylvester McCoy Doctor Who DVD), I’m quite pleased that from now until The Hobbit premiers in December, I’ll have new Sylv stuff to listen to each month thanks to Big Finish. (With The Hobbit now being split into 3 movies, I hope that Sylv’s stint as Radagast the Brown will be in the first flick still…)

Minneapolis Pix

I decided to give my phone a decent test on its camera when I visited my sister. So the following photos are some of the shots that I took. I noticed it tends toward over exposure when there’s sky around. So I’ve got a bit of playing around to work with it. It does a digital zoom, which surprised me.

Without further adieu, photos from my trip:

My nephew Curtis, working from home.
My nephew Curtis, working from home.

On the fence outside the area where the Midtown Farmer's Market is held.
On the fence outside the area where the Midtown Farmer’s Market is held.

Midtown Farmer's Market is bigger than the ones around here.
Midtown Farmer’s Market is bigger than the ones around here.

Striated eggplant from the market.
Striated eggplant from the market.

The Coop Co-op!
The Coop Co-op!

Chickens having dinner.
Chickens having dinner.

Chickens in the coop!
Chickens in the coop!

The beer place, the Four Firkins.
The beer place, the Four Firkins.

Beer!
Beer!

Our bikes, exhausted from mahoosive riding! (Well, not so much.)
Our bikes, exhausted from mahoosive riding! (Well, not so much.)

High fives! (Amy's the cute one on the left. I'm the one with the unfortunate fanny pack on the right.)
High fives! (Amy’s the cute one on the left. I’m the one with the unfortunate fanny pack on the right.)

The ice cream place we went the first time we went out biking.
The ice cream place we went the first time we went out biking.

Sea Salt, a lovely (and very busy) restaurant along our bike ride.
Sea Salt, a lovely (and very busy) restaurant along our bike ride.

Culture near Sea Salt.
Culture near Sea Salt.

The Minihaha Falls.
The Minihaha Falls.

From the top of the Minihaha Falls.
From the top of the Minihaha Falls.

That's a Nice Ride!
That’s a Nice Ride!

A view of Minneapolis from my sister's neighborhood.
A view of Minneapolis from my sister’s neighborhood.