Why I Love My Web Apps or The Upstairs AC is Fried Again

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Our house has two AC units: one for the main floor and one of the upstairs, which was an attic that was converted to more living space some time before we bought the house money pit.  The upstairs AC went out last year and it just went out again yesterday which means that when the AC company gets out here this week (HUGE wait list for service) we’ll probably be paying for a new unit.  In the meantime my office is a sauna so I’ve shut down my computer and am working away on my wife’s computer.  In the past this would have been problematic, but about 90% of my work is now done on web apps that I can access from any computer connected to ye internet.  Makes the sting of our dying AC unit a little easier to take.

Oh, by the way, in the span of one hour yesterday afternoon I found out that our AC wasn’t working, our microwave (three years old) died and our home phone started acting up (seems to be fixed now).  Still trying to figure out when I walked under the ladder.

Who’s Reading About Lewisville Elementary?

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Last Friday I posted a piece about the suspension of Lewisville Elementary science teacher Allan Snow.  That post has garnered more comments (by a lot) than any other post I’ve written so I thought it would be interesting to see where the folks who are reading the piece are coming from.  Thanks to Google analytics I can tell you the following:

  • 37% from Yahoo!
  • 18% from Google
  • 11% from the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system
  • 7% from the Winston-Salem Journal
  • The rest from various sources

The one that interests me the most is the school system number.  Obviously there’s a lot of interest in this story within the schools, especially Lewisville Elementary, but unfortunately all I can offer is rumor, conjecture, emotions, etc. and most of that is contained in the comments and not anything that I’ve been able to "report."  I would LOVE to be able to offer facts, findings and the like but that won’t happen unless or until the sheriff’s office and the school superintendent’s office release their findings.

I’m Touched

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My wife would tell you that I’m touched in the head, but the title of this post actually refers to this video produced by Popular Mechanics about the new Microsoft touch technology coffee table.  I’d seen the promos for the thing but figured it was just more overblown hype from Microsoft.  After seeing the video I’m left salivating over the possibilities in the computer realm in the next 5-10 years.  Really, you need to check it out.  Here’s the link again.

I Learn Something New Every Day, Winston-Salem Edition

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I’ve been inspire by Esbee to further educate myself about Winston-Salem.  I don’t get out as much as she does so I don’t have any pictures to share, but here’s some info I found on Answers.com:

  • Pam Grier was born here. She was the star of 70’s blaxploitation flick Foxy Brown and one of my favorite lesser known movies, Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.
  • Mark Grace was born here.  He was a first baseman for my Chicago Cubs back in the 80s and 90s and my kind of scrappy player.  The dude could hit too.
  • Answers.com also lists John Tesh as a famous resident of Winston-Salem, which is another one I’m gonna have to check.
  • They have a bunch of other famous residents listed, like Chris Paul, Josh Howard and Richard Childress but none that surprised me as much as those above.

Feel free to share any other interesting Winston factoids.

Now That’s a Time Machine

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Tulsaplymouth01
Keep an eye on the news on June 15, 2007.  That’s when the folks in Oklahoma will unearth a time capsule buried in 1957 as part of the state’s 50 year celebration, which makes this year a centennial celebration.  Here’s the really cool part: they buried a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe in a concrete "coffin" as part of the capsule, along with a case of Schlitz beer, the contents of a woman’s purse and a container of oil among other things. Check out the Youtube video of the car being buried.

Update 6/19/07. Below is a picture of the car after it was exhumed and here’s a link to the Flickr photo gallery of the exhumation:

Tulsaplymouth07

Since Esbee was nice enough to tell everyone to visit my blog to get their local Winston-Salem fix while she’s offline I thought I’d try and find a way to tie this to the Camel City.  Hmmm, oh yeah, I remember touring the l ocal Schlitz brewery with my grandparents when I was a kid in the late 70s.  According to this article, at the time it was built in 1970 it was the largest brewery under one roof in the US. Stroh’s took over Schlitz in 1982 and the factory was in operation until 1999. The free beer tasting at the end of the tour was the only time I ever saw my grandpa throw back some suds, and my granny wasn’t too pleased about it.

Just for kicks you can check out the satellite image of what once was the Schlitz facility here.

More on Lewisville Teacher Alan Snow

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As more and more online college degrees become available the number of online degrees that you can earn also have been diversifying. You can not only learn about medical billing at a large number of online colleges you could also get yourself an elementary education degree online if you wish.
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Lots of interesting comments on the original post about the new set of allegations against Alan Snow, Lewisville Elementary’s science teacher.  From a comment by "Concerned Parent":

I was speaking earlier on how people are repsonding to the accuser and
on the wxii website there was a person that was asking for the "names
of the accuser and he was begging so that he could contact them because
they were horrible people"…I contacted wxii and asked to have this
taken off and they did…the victim and family are now scared for their
safety by the way they have heard people respond.

This has the potential to get really ugly and it could tear at the fabric of this community.  I’m begging the sheriff and the school system to handle this right and as promptly as possible for the sake of everyone.

BTW, the Winston-Salem Journal’s article has comments at the bottom.  I’d like to thank the commenters here for being a little more civilized (and thoughtful) than those at the Journal.

Literate Hippies Invade the London Tubes

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Some folks in London have started a campaign to provide free second-hand books to commuters on London’s tubes.  Here’s their schtick:

The London Book Project is a free book exchange on a massive scale.
Using the London Underground as a high speed distribution network, we
aim to bring real literature to London’s commuters. Scrap the
freesheets – read a free book instead!

Over the next two weeks we’ll be distributing thousands of second
hand books across the tube and we want YOU to get involved. If you see
one of our books, please pick it up! Then read it and replace with any
book of your choice. Let’s make the tube a giant, free library!

Found via Boing Boing.

Lewisville Elementary and Mr. Snow

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The science teacher at my youngest son’s school, Mr. Snow at Lewisville Elementary, has been suspended with pay for alleged misconduct.  We got the automated call from the school at about 4:30 this afternoon and I just saw the notification in the Winston-Salem Journal’s afternoon email alert (article here).  No details were provided with the phone message other than that the school is participating with the sheriff’s office in the investigation.

This is the second time this year that Mr. Snow has been accused of misconduct.  The charges last fall were dropped after the authorities couldn’t find any support or proof of the allegations.  As I wrote here I wasn’t too pleased with the school’s initial handling of getting the word out the last time through, but I think they’ve learned their lesson because this time they seem to be getting the word out quickly and consistently.  One thing I’d like to know is when the allegations were initially made.  The last time we didn’t hear from the schools until a week after the allegations were made and the sheriff was called.  It will be interesting to see what the gap between allegation and parental notification was this time.

On the plus side the school reps went out of their way to say they are already working with the sheriff’s office so we know where they are in the process.  Unfortunately, because we’ve been through this already we know that the school system can’t tell us anything until the sheriff has investigated. Given the sheriff office’s performance in recent school cases let’s hope they get this thing investigated soon and thoroughly.

FYI, the phone’s already started ringing and the early take is that someone has it out for Mr. Snow.  I know it seems awful suspicious when any teacher is accused twice (where there’s smoke there’s fire, and all that), but let’s just say that those people familiar with the school have reason to think that there might be a reason that Mr. Snow would be accused.  As I said the last time, I don’t know Mr. Snow personally but I do know the people who are defending him and I trust their judgment. 

I just hope this somehow works out in such a way that the folks involved come out as unscathed as possible and that the truth is found.

Cream of the Crop?

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Over at Freakonomics they’ve posted an interesting item from one of their readers on the subject of military officer promotions.  Here’s an excerpt:

Officers rise through the system without relevance to merit; promotions
are based on the length of time the officer has been in the system. (Up
to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, anyway — to make Colonel you have to
have done more than serve time.) Enlisted men are subject to a
completely different rule: you see them studying for months, mastering
the contents of a book this thick (makes gesture, thumb and fingers
about three inches apart).

To be an officer you must either have been to one of the military
academies or to college. Because promotion is not based on merit, smart
officers get frustrated and leave for jobs where they can make better
money; less able officers have every reason to stay, since incompetence
is no impediment to career advancement. Since the effect of the system
is to retain the least able, it perpetuates the elimination of the
able: the norm is for smart young officers to find themselves reporting
not to superiors like themselves (the ablest left early in frustration
at the stupidity of the system), but to superiors who a) were not
frustrated by the system and b) feel threatened by clever subordinates
… And that’s how we get the leadership of our defense services.

They ask for input from other readers to see if this is in fact an accurate representation of the military system today.  My guess is that they’ll find this a somewhat simplistic portrayal of the system that is, unfortunately, closer to true than not.  Of course this problem isn’t unique to the military, as anyone who grew up in the DC area could tell you.  There’s a reason a lot of us who were the children of civil servants decided not to follow our parents into the government.  We heard way too many stories about "idiots and a-holes" who’s rise through the ranks seemed to the defy the gravity of their incompetence.  Sure the job security and benefits are great, but how many people want to work for or with a brown-nosing, sniveling incompetent?

Okay I’m a little cynical about the federal government, but I think there’s plenty of reason to be cynical and I’m willing to bet the Freakonomics boys will find as much cynicism regarding the military.